Twilight Sparkle

Twilight Sparkle is a unicorn pony and the lead character of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Her hometown is Canterlot, where she used to study under Princess Celestia. She holds the element of magic.

Personality
After being sent by Celestia to see to the arrangements of the Summer Sun celebration, Twilight is averse to making friends in Ponyville. Priding herself on being Princess Celestia's dearest pupil, she devoted all of her time to studying and none to making friends. After seeing the lengths the others would go for her, she began to open up. While Twilight possesses a wealth of book-knowledge, she has a relative dearth of social skills, and can appear simultaneously worldly and naive because of this, as demonstrated by her first slumber party, during which she employed an instructional book on slumber parties.

Twilight is the most educated of all her friends by far, and tends to take a practical approach to solving problems. She is straightforward and honest, but is prone to sarcasm when her friends are being unreasonable. Though she is highly intelligent and has incredible magical powers, she remains very humble and modest, not wanting to outshine her friends or make a big deal out of her talents. Despite her initial aversion to the concept of friendship, she treasures her friends more than anything, and always does her best to be a good friend in return.

She is also very tidy and organized. She is seen on many occasions cleaning up her house, sorting her library, and helping with the cleaning and preperations of different events in Ponyville.

Childhood
Twilight tells the Cutie Mark Crusaders in The Cutie Mark Chronicles how, as a young filly in Canterlot, she always wanted to go to the Summer Sun Celebration. There, she witnessed Princess Celestia raising the sun, and it inspired her to read a great deal and learn everything she could about magic. Her parents decided to enroll her in Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, but there was one catch: she had to pass an entrance exam. Under the supervision of four teacher ponies, she had to use her magic to hatch a dragon's egg. Despite her best initial efforts, the egg did not hatch, and it looked unlikely that she would be accepted into the school. Just then, Rainbow Dash's sonic rainboom startled her and caused her horn to fire off a powerful beam, hatching the egg into the infant Spike.

Twilight was unable to control her raw magical power, causing it to overload and fire off a flurry of troublesome, random spells. Princess Celestia took notice of this and quickly arrived to quell Twilight's magic. Twilight apologized, but Celestia was not upset; instead, she recognized Twilight's power. She recommended that Twilight learn to tame her abilities through focused study, and offered to take Twilight as her own personal protege at the school, which explains Celestia's particularly affectionate attitude towards her. Ecstatically, Twilight accepted the offer, and at that moment, her cutie mark appeared.

Skills
Twilight, being a unicorn, has shown to be quite skilled with her magic. Unicorns normally tend to only possess a little magic that suits whatever talent they have, but Twilight, being the wielder of the element of magic, has shown herself to be a very powerful magician. She seems to be very skilled with her telekinetic powers, able to simultaneously move dozens of apples in Applebuck Season and hold an Ursa Minor while moving a water tower in Boast Busters. She can also cast magic spells that control animals' behavior as in Swarm of the Century, and she ignites into flames both in Friendship is Magic, part 1 and Feeling Pinkie Keen, though these instances are more likely cartoon stylization.

It was confirmed that Twilight's ability is unusual in The Cutie Mark Chronicles, where Celestia states that she's never seen her level of raw ability in a unicorn before. When it first emerged however, it occasionally leads her to lose control, as seen in Winter Wrap Up and Swarm of the Century.

Twilight can also teleport, or "wink out", and is shown doing this several times in Applebuck Season. She does so again in The Ticket Master without intending it to happen. She can also create or transform things such as mustaches on others' faces and change rocks into formal attire. Spike boasts about Twilight's magical powers several times.

Relationships
Princess Celestia - Twilight is the student of Celestia, who is responsible for her relocation to Ponyville. They seem to share a familial bond, and Twilight has great respect for the Princess.

Rarity - Twilight has been on the receiving end of Rarity's makeovers multiple times. Rarity is one of three participants in Twilight's first sleepover.

Fluttershy - Twilight is extremely confident in Fluttershy's natural empathy with animals, even more so than Fluttershy herself.

Rainbow Dash - Twilight has been shown to be impressed by Rainbow Dash's cloud-clearing abilities. She considers Rainbow to be a brave pony.

Applejack - Twilight has been seen to appreciate Applejack's hard work, offering to help her with her farm on more than one occasion.

Pinkie Pie - Twilight enjoys the presence of (or at least humors) Pinkie Pie, but is usually shown not to have nearly the requisite energy to deal with her on a regular basis. At one point she is seen reading a book and pretending to agree with everything Pinkie Pie says in a deadpan tone.

Spike - Spike is Twilight's assistant and closest friend, having been hatched when Twilight was young as her test to get into the school for gifted unicorns. They share a lot of friendly banter and spend a lot of their time together, usually with Spike riding on Twilight's back. Spike also serves as a channel of communication between Twilight and Princess Celestia via scrolls, which he often reads as well.

Twilight's Parents - Twilight Sparkle's parents approved of her magical abilities and decided to enroll her into a school for gifted unicorns. Her father was seen nodding very intently when Celestia offered to make Twilight her personal student, obviously keen for his daughter to take such a rare opportunity.

Appearances

 * See also: appearances

Twilight appears in every episode so far.

Trivia

 * Twilight Sparkle's colors are almost the same as the G3 earth pony named Twilight Twinkle, except for the mane and tail.
 * Twilight runs away from bats and snakes in Winter Wrap Up, and gets startled by an alligator in Feeling Pinkie Keen.
 * Twilight is the only character who appears in every episode of the series.
 * Twilight's angry take from Feeling Pinkie Keen is similar to the appearance of the Pokémon Rapidash. It is unknown if this is a reference or not.
 * Twilight is the only pony of the primary characters to have four syllables in her name, while the rest have three.
 * Twilight Sparkle's voice actress is very notable for voicing many cartoon characters in television and movies. Her notable roles were voicing Heather in Gadget Boy and Heather and Gadget Boy's Adventures in History, Dawn Swatworthy in The Buzz on Maggie, Bubbles in The Powerpuff Girls, Toot Brauenstein in Drawn Together, Ingrid Third in Fillmore!, Dylan (Dil) Pickles in Rugrats and Rugrats: All Grown Up!, Joss Possible in Kim Possible, Bebe and Cece Proud in The Proud Family, Timmy Turner in Fairly-Odd Parents, Amber in Camp Lazlo, Raven in Teen Titans and Ben Tennyson of Ben 10, as well as additional voices in Totally Spies, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends and Sonic Underground.
 * In Bridle Gossip the Poison Joke seemed to target the ability they value the most, suggesting that for Twilight it is her magic.