Magic

My Little Pony Friendship is Magic possesses many fantasy elements, a prominent one being the use of magic by the ponies and by other creatures.

Earth ponies
Throughout the show, earth ponies are seen growing crops and caring to plants and animals, particularly in Winter Wrap Up and Fall Weather Friends. The show's creator explained online that earth ponies have a special connection to the earth, and its plants and animals. Fluttershy, a pegasus whose special talent is working with animals, is something of an exception to the rule in this regard.

Pegasus ponies
Pegasus ponies frequently alter the weather, notably in the first episode and Winter Wrap Up where pegasus ponies clear the clouds from the sky, and in Look Before You Sleep where they build up clouds to arrange a storm. Snowflakes and rainbows are made in a pegasus-run weather factory in Cloudsdale that the main characters visit in the episode Sonic Rainboom. Related to their weather-manipulation abilities is their ability to walk on clouds. Other ponies require a magic spell to be able to walk on clouds, as Twilight explains in the episode Sonic Rainboom, while pegasus ponies possess this ability naturally. Gilda, a griffon, has no trouble walking on clouds in Griffon the Brush Off. There are some instances of non-pegasus background ponies walking on clouds during The Cutie Mark Chronicles and Sonic Rainboom.

Some pegasus ponies create weather-related wakes when they perform aerial acrobatics. Rainbow Dash creates rainbows several times during her acrobatic flights, and creates a special burst called sonic rainboom on two occasions in the episodes Sonic Rainboom and The Cutie Mark Chronicles. Other pegasus ponies, like The Wonderbolts, leave wakes of clouds or smoke.

Unicorn ponies
 Lauren Faust has stated that the earth and pegasus pony races possess subtler types of magic, which allows pegasi to walk on clouds for example, but unicorns are unique in their ability to actively perform magic. Throughout the show, unicorn ponies use their horns to perfom various magical acts. Most commonly, they are shown levitating and moving objects through telekinesis. When Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, and Trixie use their magic, their horns usually glow the same color as their eyes, with the exception of Lesson Zero, where Twilight's horn glows the same color as her cutie mark. Other unicorns' horns glow a different color from their eye color, for example the exam supervisors and the waiters in The Cutie Mark Chronicles.

Rarity
Rarity possesses a gem-finding spell in addition to the standard telekinesis, which occurs for the first time out of her control in a flashback in The Cutie Mark Chronicles. She's adept enough with telekinesis to manipulate many objects at once when making dresses, and uses a spell to turn regular canopy into topiary in Look Before You Sleep. She creates a colorful light show and intricate backdrops for her second fashion show in Suited for Success.

Twilight Sparkle
 Twilight is exceptional in regard to magic, having dedicated herself to studying the art. Spike mentions in Boast Busters that Twilight's magical ability is exemplary, and Princess Celestia comments about Twilight's enormous raw magical power in The Cutie Mark Chronicles. Unicorn magic requires concentration and effort, as Twilight explains to Spike at the beginning of Feeling Pinkie Keen and to the Cutie Mark Crusaders in Call of the Cutie. When Twilight levitates the ursa minor in Boast Busters, she is visibly exerting herself, gritting her teeth and tensing her muscles, however she effortlessly harvests an entire apple orchard at once in Applebuck Season. Twilight is shown developing her skills in a flashback in The Cutie Mark Chronicles, where she has some difficulty using magic to turn a page in her book; the scene shows her progressing in her studies, a theme which continues throughout the series. Snails, similarly, shows some difficulty performing a horn-light magic in Boast Busters, and doesn't demonstrate Twilight's developed magic ability.

As talented as she is, her spells occasionally misfire or fail. When she casts a spell on the parasprites in Swarm of the Century so they won't eat food, they begin to consume items which aren't food, and subsequently destroy Ponyville. When she tries to assist with Winter Wrap Up by making a plow run itself with a "come-to-life" spell, she ends up losing control of the plow and sending Applejack hurtling in a ball of snow into the side of a hill, and the impact covers the recently-plowed field with snow once again. She tries to reverse Discord's strange effects with a "failsafe spell" which Twilight says will "fix everything"... but it fails.

Twilight possesses the ability to teleport, which was also common among previous-generation My Little Pony unicorn characters. The ability is first shown in Friendship is Magic, part 2 when she charges Night Mare Moon, and disappears only to reappear behind Night Mare and next to the Elements of Harmony. She teleports short distances in Applebuck Season to get ahead of Applejack trying to confront her about her over-exertion, and she unintentionally teleports with Spike from the thoroughfare into her library in The Ticket Master, which leaves Spike slightly singed. She teleports multiple times in Lesson Zero, and the visual effect is slightly different from previous episodes, having a red glow instead of purple.

Twilight uses various other spells; among them:


 * Turning rocks into formal attire in Feeling Pinkie Keen.
 * Sensing gems in A Dog and Pony Show by "copying" Rarity's spell.
 * Allowing non-pegasus ponies to walk on clouds and possess temporary wings in Sonic Rainboom.
 * Hatch a dragon from its egg in The Cutie Mark Chronicles.
 * Fleetingly making cutie marks appear on Apple Bloom's flank in Call of the Cutie.
 * "Number 16", which Twilight uses in Boast Busters to make the wind blow through river reeds.
 * Growing facial hair on Spike, Snips, and Snails in Boast Busters.
 * Making ponies desire her doll Smarty Pants with a "want it need it" spell in Lesson Zero.

Trixie
Trixie performs various parlor tricks in Boast Busters: manipulating rope, creating fireworks and light displays, turning Rarity's hair green, and making a cloud strike Rainbow Dash with lightning.

Princess Celestia and Princess Luna
The princesses are called "unicorns" in the show's first episode's prologue. Unlike regular unicorns, they possess wings and the ability to raise the sun and the moon; in The Cutie Mark Chronicles, Twilight witnesses the Summer Sun Celebration with Princess Celestia raising the sun. When the ponies are summoned by Princess Celestia in The Return of Harmony Part 1, she tells them that she and her sister once used the Elements of Harmony to turn Discord into stone, and since the princesses are "no longer connected to the Elements", Discord has managed to escape. She continues, saying the Elements of Harmony are stored in a magically sealed room that only she can open–however, they turn up missing, and Discord appears, telling the ponies a riddle which discloses the Elements' location. 

Discord
Celestia tells the ponies that before she and her sister usurped Discord, he made ponies miserable by causing chaos everywhere. Once he is freed, strange things happen, such as cotton-candy clouds raining chocolate milk, roads turning into soapy water, giant pepper shakers float in the air, bunnies grow long, lanky limbs, and more. Discord apparently steals the Elements of Harmony from Celestia's magical safe, which she believes only she can open. He makes the ponies behave the opposite of how they normally would, a spell which Twilight breaks by using a "memory" spell to restore the ponies' friendship. Eventually he is encased in stone again through the power of the Elements of Harmony.

The Elements of Harmony
The Elements of Harmony are introduced in the first episode when Twilight reads about them in her book. It's told that they were used by Princess Celestia to banish her sister to the moon to prevent her from plunging Equestria into eternal night. They are later used by Twilight and her friends to turn Night Mare Moon back into Princess Luna, and again to encase Discord in stone. The elements themselves are pieces of jewelery that match each of the main six ponies' cutie marks.

Other creatures

 * A cockatrice can turn living creatures into stone by staring at it.


 * Princess Celestia's pet Philomena, as a phoenix, can rise from its dead ashes, which it promptly does during A Bird in the Hoof.
 * It is observed that Spike is able to teleport scrolls, letters, and other certain things with his fire to Princess Celestia. It is not known if he is able to control where to displace such scrolls or if it is intended by Princess Celestia that anything that he burns will go to her directly. Currently, it is unknown if he can be capable to do more or is forever limited to teleporting only scrolls.
 * Griffons, like pegasus ponies, can also walk on clouds as well as fly, as observed in Griffon the Brush-Off.
 * The poison joke plant can play little "pranks" on whoever moves around in it, as Zecora explains during Bridle Gossip.