Twilight Sparkle

Twilight Sparkle is a unicorn pony and the main protagonist of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, who turns into an Alicorn in season three's finale. After the events of the two-part series premiere, she moves from Canterlot to Ponyville in order to continue the study of friendship under Princess Celestia's guidance, and regularly maintains correspondence with the Princess. She lives at the Golden Oaks Library along with her assistant, Spike, and her pet owl, Owlowiscious. She has an older brother, Shining Armor, who is introduced in the two-part finale of season two. Shining Armor marries Twilight Sparkle's former foalsitter Princess Cadance, which inducts Twilight into royalty; she was listed as royalty on trading cards of Cadance and Shining Armor even before the finale of season three. Twilight is transformed into an Alicorn in the third season's final episode thanks to her completion of a new magic spell. She represents the element of magic.

Development
Lauren Faust's of Twilight shared a similar color scheme and cutie mark to the G1 pony Twilight, who appeared in the pilot episode Rescue at Midnight Castle. Twilight Sparkle's color scheme was later changed to that of the G3 Earth pony Twilight Twinkle, with a slightly different mane and tail, but Lauren Faust said that Twilight originally had dark blue hair with a light blue stripe ; Twilight Sparkle was called "Twilight Twinkle" in early scripts for the show. G1 Twilight teleports by wishing, and Twilight Twinkle likes to watch fireflies; Twilight Sparkle shares aspects from both of these ponies, with her ability to teleport and her occasional stargazing. Though she is much more studious and possesses more powerful magical abilities, she also shares a number of personality traits with the G1 Pegasus Wind Whistler, such as her tendency to rely on logic rather than instincts and her habit of using more advanced and technical terms.

In a 2008 sketch for the series bible, Twilight's cutie mark resembles that of the character Moondancer from earlier My Little Pony generations.

Lauren Faust had planned for Twilight to acquire the power of self-levitation "at some point." Following Faust's departure from the show, Twilight has used this power in the season three episodes The Crystal Empire - Part 2 and Magical Mystery Cure.

Sociability
Twilight is first introduced in Friendship is Magic, part 1 as being asocial, for she considers the pursuit of knowledge important and sees no point in making friends. She deliberately avoids contact with other ponies who ask her to a party, as Twilight states that she "doesn't have time for that sort of thing", and that Nightmare Moon's return is a much more important business to attend to. In other episodes, she also often strays away from other ponies and is more interested in her studies.

When she is ordered by Princess Celestia to see to the arrangements of the Summer Sun Celebration in Ponyville and to try and make friends, she still tries to avoid the latter request and focuses more on her studies. When Nightmare Moon appears, she tells her new friends that she is going to face her alone, but despite this they all insist on helping her with the task. After seeing how much her new friends would do for her, she begins to open up and realize that she needs her friends to defeat Night Mare Moon, and together they save Equestria from eternal night. Twilight expresses her desire to stay with her new friends in Ponyville to Princess Celestia, and the princess tasks her with studying the "magic of friendship" with her friends in Ponyville, and send regular friendship reports detailing her findings.

Although she remains exceedingly loyal and true to her friends throughout the series, Twilight briefly loses faith in her friends in The Return of Harmony Part 1 and Part 2. In the episode, Princess Celestia calls the ponies to her castle to once again wield the Elements of Harmony, where they encounter Discord. After luring them into the castle's labyrinth with a riddle, Discord magically makes all of Twilight's friends behave in ways exactly opposite to their element. Over the course of the two episodes their attitudes get to Twilight too, until she nearly abandons her friends and Ponyville. However, when she finds all the friendship reports that Princess Celestia has been sending back to her, she reads through them and regains the faith she had in her friends, venturing out to restore them to their regular selves with a "memory spell", which shows the all the times they represented their elements. Once they all return to normal, they use the Elements of Harmony to defeat Discord and turn him back into stone.

Temperament and anxiety
Twilight is generally the "straight man" of the series, being the most calm, rational  and even-tempered pony. That said, there have been many instances where her patience (and sanity) have been challenged and even overwhelmed. Twilight ignites into flames both in Friendship is Magic, part 1 and Feeling Pinkie Keen, though these instances are more likely cartoon stylization; in the first instance, she was overwhelmed by hot sauce, and in the second she boils over after Pinkie Pie tells her there's something even "doozier" to come after the life-threatening hydra attack.

When things don't go her way in Swarm of the Century and it seems Princess Celestia will imminently come to a ruined Ponyville, Twilight breaks down and nonsensically suggests building an exact replica of Ponyville in the seconds before the princess arrives. Similarly, she gets nervous at the thought of disappointing Princess Celestia in A Bird in the Hoof when she finds out Fluttershy took the princess's pet bird Philomena without permission. She imagines the Princess would be so displeased that she'll banish or imprison both Fluttershy and herself, yet when Princess Celestia actually finds out that her bird has been taken by Fluttershy, she doesn't seem bothered at all, and chuckles at her bird's mischievous behavior.

As friends, Twilight and the main six often confide in each other, as seen when Twilight, under the watchful eye of Pinkie Pie, keeps both Rarity and Fluttershy's secrets in Green Isn't Your Color. In the episode, both ponies want an end to Fluttershy's modeling career, but both of them ask Twilight not to tell this to the other pony. Twilight feels revealing their secret would solve the conflict, but she is bound to her word. Her tension worsens from being under Pinkie Pie's surveillance, who constantly pops up from unexpected places (such as in an apple crate and behind a mirror), startling Twilight. Eventually Twilight is so stressed and on edge that she has to physically stop herself from revealing the secret. Near the end of the episode, Rarity and Fluttershy share their feelings and find they both want Fluttershy to stop her modeling career. After that, Photo Finish comes to tell Fluttershy that they need to go to someplace, but Fluttershy says she can't make any of her appointments, after which she and Rarity presumably go to the spa. At this time, Twilight Sparkle has her head in a potted plant. But when she is alone with Photo Finish, she yells out "Spike has a crush on Rarity!" Pinkie Pie appears on the reflection-side of a mirror and expresses her disapproval of Twilight.

During Lesson Zero, Twilight becomes extremely anxious, trying desperately to find something to report about friendship in her letter to Princess Celestia so that she isn't tardy with her weekly reports. At one point in the episode, she becomes so stressed about her report that she attempts to create a friendship problem, enchanting her old doll Smarty Pants with a "Want It Need It" spell and accidentally making the whole of Ponyville obsessed with the toy. In her "insane" state, Twilight gains a frizzled mane, has wide crazy eyes, and speaks fast.

During the episode It's About Time, Twilight receives a warning from an injured future Twilight (though she states she is merely from next Tuesday morning). The future Twilight apparently traveled back in time to warn Twilight of something that will happen in the future, but isn't able to finish explaining what it is. This causes Twilight to panic, believing a horrible disaster would happen in the near future. She starts to get extremely anxious trying to find out what this disaster would be,and also unintentionally injures herself a lot of times, that make herself look more like future Twilight. Eventually, she infiltrates the archives in Canterlot in an attempt to find a spell to stop time, but is unable to find it before Tuesday morning. As the sun rises, Twilight finally realizes that there was no disaster, and uses a spell of time travel to warn past Twilight not to worry. Unfortunately, she was unable to explain this to past Twilight, which repeats the cycle and drives past Twilight into the same nervous breakdown.

In The Crystal Empire, Part 1, Twilight becomes incredibly anxious over an upcoming test from Princess Celestia, gathering every study item she can possibly think of, and exploding when Spike tells her it's "just a test."

During Games Ponies Play, Princess Cadance, anticipating another bout of anxiety, teaches Twilight a breathing technique for dealing with stress. This technique worked, as Twilight remained calm through the whole episode, even surprising herself.

At other times, Twilight shows considerable empathy and patience that stand in stark contrast to the many examples of her overreacting to a situation and often to other people around her. In Luna Eclipsed, when Princess Luna shows up at the Ponyville Nightmare Night celebration, Twilight is undaunted— and in fact, genuinely excited by her presence, seeking out the princess to welcome her personally when her dramatic entrance backfired. Correctly identifying that the root causes of social awkwardness in the princess were much the same as her own upon arriving in Ponyville, Twilight spent much of the night guiding and lecturing her friends, the town's population, and even the princess herself until she succeeded in ensuring Luna had become a welcomed guest to the celebration and come to understand that the children and Pinkie Pie were not actually scared of her, but simply enjoyed being frightened on Nightmare Night.

Studiousness
As noted above, Twilight is heavily invested in her studies even before coming to Ponyville. Throughout the series, Twilight constantly has her nose in a book, usually for the purpose of further studying magic. It is her studiousness that leads her to discover the imminent return of Nightmare Moon, and helps her in many more instances throughout the series. At the beginning of Griffon the Brush Off, Twilight is preoccupied with reading a book while Pinkie Pie goes on about Rainbow Dash's aerial acrobatics; Twilight pretends to follow everything Pinkie Pie says by replying "uh-huh" in a deadpan tone, but keeps reading her book. Similarly, in The Best Night Ever, Pinkie Pie talks to Twilight enthusiastically while Twilight tries to concentrate on learning a new spell.

Twilight demonstrates her reliance on books in her first ever slumber party that she holds with Rarity and Applejack. During the slumber party, she employs an instructional book, "Slumber 101: All You've Ever Wanted to Know About Slumber Parties But Were Afraid to Ask", and consults it throughout the night. When the storm outside topples a tree through her bedroom window, she is at a loss for handling the situation, and keeps searching her book for answers.

On the other hand, her reliance on books often is very helpful, such as when she participates in the Running of the Leaves. Though Applejack and Rainbow Dash mock her for having only ever read about the sport, she manages to beat both of them in the race and come in fifth place by practicing the advice in the book of going slow and steady and then, when all the other participants are tired, sprinting to the finish line.

Occasionally, Twilight's studiousness is more than her assistant, Spike, can keep up with. He complains about her excessive devotion to her studies in Friendship is Magic, part 1, and falls asleep while still in session in Owl's Well That Ends Well. In the latter episode, Twilight adopts a pet horned owl, Owlowiscious, who also assists her with her studies by fetching books and keeping her company, however Spike remains her only assistant in all other episodes.

Skepticism
Twilight is highly dismissive of events she considers mere superstition. For example, while her friends are convinced that Zecora is "an evil enchantress" at the beginning of Bridle Gossip, Twilight and Apple Bloom simply wish to understand her. Later, when the "evidence" shows Zecora is going to eat Apple Bloom, Twilight begins to share their beliefs briefly, though soon Zecora and Apple Bloom set the misunderstanding straight. Incidentally, the very same dismissiveness of superstition that led her to doubt Zecora is evil also led her to miss the true cause of the ponies' various afflictions, as she skipped over a book titled "Super Naturals" because she mistook it for a book about the supernatural. Twilight and the other ponies apologize to Zecora and become friends with her, and Twilight ventures to the Everfree Forest to visit Zecora again later in the series.

Even when faced with apparent evidence, Twilight remains dismissive, sarcastic, and skeptical until she knows without a fact that something is true. For example, in Feeling Pinkie Keen, she is highly objective towards Pinkie Pie's Pinkie Sense. She continually claims that Pinkie Pie's fulfilled predictions are coincidences, despite many of them causing her numerous physical injuries, and tries to find contradictions and faults in Pinkie's premonitions. However, by the end of the episode, she admits her inability to understand how the Pinkie Sense works and simply accepts it.

Accidents and mishaps
Twilight is the butt of a "things couldn't get any worse" gag in Look Before You Sleep when the tree crashes through the library window, and in The Best Night Ever when Fluttershy sends the animals fleeing through the Gala hall. She suffers bodily harm throughout Feeling Pinkie Keen as the victim of the prophecies of Pinkie Pie's "Pinkie Sense", and in Stare Master, Fluttershy stumbles upon her petrified into a stone form by a cockatrice. Twilight herself inflicts accidents and mishaps on others as well, including the time she turned her parents into potted plants as recalled during The Cutie Mark Chronicles and when she sends many of the ponies of Ponyville into a frenzy over her doll she had cast a want it-need it spell over during Lesson Zero. On one occasion she inadvertently and quite ironically even forces an entire week of misery and turmoil upon herself by trying to go back in time to tell her past self to avoid ultimately doing so. She also mixes up Star Swirl the Bearded's spell in Magical Mystery Cure, which causes her friends destiny to be mixed. After fixing this spell, she transforms into an alicorn.

Magic

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Organization
Besides magic, Twilight specializes in organizational skills, though she occasionally overdoes it. In Winter Wrap Up, Twilight is able to coordinate the actions of several different teams and make them more efficient as a whole, allowing them to finish the Winter Wrap Up on schedule for the first time in years. The mayor of Ponyville is so impressed with her, she makes Twilight the official organizer of the pony teams for all future Winter Wrap Ups, and Twilight receives a special team coat, comprising of all the team colors. In the same episode, she starts the morning with a checklist and makes another, longer checklist at the beginning of "Lesson Zero," which exasperates Spike with its length and minute details, which even go so far as to make sure every cupcake in a box she was given are perfectly matched and that the icing on each isn't touching another cupcake's icing.

When smoke threatens to envelop Equestria in Dragonshy, Twilight informs the ponies in Ponyville of the danger and organizes a task-force comprised of her friends to deal with the problem.

While she is extremely quick at organizing the raw materials for the bird's nests in Winter Wrap Up into neat little piles, her craftsmanship skills are lacking. The nest she makes is so terrible that Spike sarcastically quips it should be condemned as an outhouse for the birds, and Rarity spends most of the day trying to fix it.

In A Canterlot Wedding - Part 1, Twilight is asked by Princess Celestia to organize the wedding between Princess Cadance and Shining Armor. Once again, her various checklists were near omnipresent as she organized both the aborted wedding of her brother to the Changeling imposter, and again when the real Princess Cadance had returned and the wedding needed to be hurriedly re-organized.

However, despite all this, Twilight apparently has difficulty finding books in her library, even when they are well organized. This is a running gag in the series.

Princess Cadance
Twilight describes Princess Cadance in a flashback in A Canterlot Wedding - Part 1 as her beloved foalsitter. The two shared a very close bond and Twilight looked back at her as "...the greatest foalsitter in all the history of foalsitters!" The two shared a special song-and-dance, which Cadance's impostor, Queen Chrysalis, was unable to repeat, which quickly raised Twilight's suspicions. The real Cadance, who was trapped in an underground cave that used to be home to greedy unicorns, was able to repeat it. She tells Twilight that she could never have forgotten "...the filly I loved to sit for the most."

"Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake! Clap your hooves and do a little shake!"

- Filly Twilight Sparkle and Princess Cadance in A Canterlot Wedding

Cutie mark
Twilight Sparkle 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, which inspired her to learn everything she could about magic. At first she finds it difficult to magically turn a page in her book, but she quickly achieves her goal. In a time-lapse sequence, she reads through two big piles of books, and her parents enroll her in Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, which shares a similar name with Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters from the X-Men comic book series.

However, Twilight is dismayed when she discovers she has to pass an entrance exam before being allowed to join. Under the supervision of four examiner ponies, she is required to use her magic to hatch a dragon's egg. Despite her best efforts, the egg does not hatch, and Twilight apologizes for wasting the examiners' time. Then suddenly, Rainbow Dash's sonic rainboom startles her, and causes her enormous magical power to manifest completely out of her control, hatching the infant Spike.

With her eyes now glowing white and a purple aura around her, Twilight fires off a flurry of spells: she makes the examiners float in the air, turns her parents into potted plants and transforms Spike into a giant dragon, with his head breaking through the roof. Princess Celestia takes quick notice of the latter while walking by outside and quickly intervenes to control Twilight's magic and return everything back to normal. Twilight apologizes, but Princess Celestia is not upset, instead she recognizes Twilight's raw power and recommends that she learn to tame her abilities through focused study. She then offers to take Twilight Sparkle as her own personal protégé at the school. Twilight excitedly accepted the offer, and at that moment, her cutie mark appeared, much to her joy.

Canterlot
Twilight is first introduced in the series in Canterlot, where she learns about the impending return of Nightmare Moon. She resides in a literal ivory tower, and boasts to Spike about being Princess Celestia's "most faithful student", which is how the princess addresses her in letters throughout the series. She is invited to a party, but she refuses, choosing to study about Night Mare Moon's imminent return instead. She is soon sent to Ponyville by Princess Celestia under the pretense of seeing to the arrangements of the Summer Sun Celebration.

Ponyville
Twilight enters Ponyville in the first episode, where she befriends Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Fluttershy. She quickly learns of the skills of her friends: she admires Rainbow Dash's ability to clear the skies, Rarity's beautiful decoration work, and Fluttershy's bird choir's melodious music. She is less impressed with Applejack's over-abundance of hospitality, Pinkie Pie's surprise party and rapid-fire one-sided conversation, and even runs away from Rarity when she practically forces her to get a makeover.

She shares many adventures with her friends throughout the course of the series. At the end of Magical Mystery Cure she is transformed into an Alicorn, and crowned a Princess. At the concluding shot, she flies away towards the camera.

Hot air balloon
Twilight rides a purple hot-air balloon in the title sequence, and uses the same balloon to fly with her friends to Cloudsdale for Rainbow Dash's competition in Sonic Rainboom. In The Return of Harmony Part 2, the ponies use it to fly with Fluttershy in order to capture the brainwashed Rainbow Dash. The balloon is used by other ponies on other occasions.

Parents
Twilight Sparkle's parents first appear in The Cutie Mark Chronicles. They support Twilight Sparkle's aspirations for magic by enrolling her to Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns and encouraging her to take the offer to become an apprentice to the princess. They appear again in A Canterlot Wedding - Part 2, where they attend the wedding of their eldest son Shining Armor, crying tears of joy. They appear once again in Magical Mystery Cure, witnessing Twilight Sparkle's Princess Coronation. Twilight Sparkle's mother resembles the notable G1 pony Twilight, also known as Galaxy as per the original My Little Pony television series. Twilight Sparkle's father resembles the G1 pony named Nightlight, but gender-swapped.

Shining Armor
Shining Armor is Twilight's older brother who is first mentioned and subsequently introduced in A Canterlot Wedding - Part 1, as the captain of the Royal Guard. Twilight says Shining Armor is the only pony she truly accepted as a friend before moving to Ponyville, and she performs a musical sequence about him and sings about how they did everything together. She voices her disappointment in the fact that Shining Armor was unable to tell her personally of his upcoming wedding, and once she reaches Canterlot, she tries to protect Shining Armor, and the rest of Equestria, from Queen Chrysalis.

Depiction in comics
In IDW's My Little Pony comics, as of the WonderCon panel "IDW: Behind the Hasbro Titles" on March 31, 2013, "Twilight Sparkle is still a unicorn without wings. It'll shift in future arcs to line up better. Once Season 4 starts, that's when comics can give Twilight her wings." On May 27, 2013, IDW editor Bobby Curnow wrote "As of right now, I have the same knowledge about Princess Twilight as any of you guys. So it's not something I would want to touch in the comics until after I better see how Season 4 handles it. And as the [sic] it takes several months to put a comic together, I reckon most of season 4 would be over by the time we really figure out how to properly incorporate it. If we incorporate it at all. ... In the short term, we'll continue to have a season 3-esque Twilight. Beyond that, we'll just have to see what season 4 holds." Twilight is depicted as an Alicorn in the preview of Little Brown's chapter book Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell included in both Friendship is Magic Issue #6 and Micro-Series Issue #3, and is also depicted as an Alicorn on covers of the upcoming trade paperback books The Magic Begins and Micro-Series Volume 1.

Hasbro.com description
''Dutiful and intelligent, Twilight Sparkle is obsessed with one thing: studying magic! She once studied so much, she made no time for anypony else. That is until her mentor, Princess Celestia charged her with a special kind of magic--- friendship! Newly converted to the joys of friends, she uses her knowledge and unusually powerful gift for magical spells to help her companions in Ponyville. Though sometimes she gets on her "high horse" about what's right or wrong, her eagerness to learn and lend a helpful hoof endear her to her new friends in Ponyville, and when the going gets tough, her big brain and love for her friends transform into a natural born leader!''

Hubworld description
''For a unicorn who's new to the magic of friendship, Twilight Sparkle gets an "A+." She uses her magical powers to help her friends, and she's always ready to lend a helping hoof. Sometimes she gets on her high horse, but her love for her pals makes her a natural leader.''

"Get your muzzle out of those books and make some friends!" That's what Princess Celestia tells Twilight Sparkle. She may be the smartest unicorn in Equestria, but Twilight Sparkle gets an "incomplete" in friendship. There's more to life than learning magic, after all—so she goes to Ponyville on a mission to make friends. There she meets five special ponies who take her on exciting adventures and teach her the most powerful magic of all ... the magic of friendship!

Teacher For a Day description
''Meet Twilight Sparkle! She loves to read and study. The Royal Princess Celestia of Equestria has charged Twilight with learning something new: the meaning of friendship! She has a powerful gift for magical spells and uses it to lead her new friends through adventures in Ponyville.''

There's no problem Twilight Sparkle can't solve, especially with the help of other ponies, a little bit of magic and guidance from Princess Celestia.

My Little Pony mobile game description
Princess Celestia's most faithful student, Twilight Sparkle loves to study and wants to learn everything about the Magic of Friendship.

My Little Pony magazine description

 * Intelligent
 * Artistic
 * Friendly
 * Worrywart
 * Caring

''Raised in the Queen's court in Canterlot, Twilight Sparkle is a born leader. She loves to study and wants to learn everything about the Magic of Friendship.''

Promotional material
A Hasbro stand displayed at Brand Licensing Europe 2012 included a poster depicting Twilight Sparkle as an Alicorn. Jayson Thiessen was not involved with the creation of the poster.

The Hub announced on January 29 and 30, 2013, in an EW.com article, Twitter and Facebook posts, and a press release, Twilight Sparkle's coronation as a princess in the final episode of season three Magical Mystery Cure, on February 16, 2013. The article and both posts are accompanied by pictures of her with both wings and horn, a dress, princess-esque shoes, and a tiara resembling the element of magic. The Twitter post and the picture accompanying both posts each include the hashtag "#PonyPrincess".

Quotes
"All the ponies in this town are crazy!"

- Friendship is Magic, part 1

"You think you can destroy The Elements of Harmony just like that? Well, you're wrong, because the spirits of The Elements of Harmony are right here."

- Friendship is Magic, part 2

"I felt it the very moment I realized how happy I was to hear you, to see you, how much I cared about you. The spark ignited inside me when I realized that you all -- are my friends. You see, Night Mare Moon, when those Elements are ignited by the... the spark, that resides in the heart of us all, it creates the sixth element: the element of... magic."

- Friendship is Magic, part 2

"I'm doing scientific research. I'm observing Pinkie Pie, scientific name: Pinkius Piecus, in its natural habitat."

- Feeling Pinkie Keen

"This is my book. And I'm gonna read it!"

- The Return of Harmony Part 2

"We've learned that friendship isn't always easy. But there's no doubt it's worth fighting for."

- The Return of Harmony Part 2

"If I don't send her a letter by sundown, I'll be... tardy!"

- Lesson Zero

"Cutie pox. This puzzling pony plague afflicted a population of ponies back in the paleopony period."

- The Cutie Pox

"I have to finish this report to the princess summarizing all my other reports to the princess."

- Baby Cakes

"Who are you? I mean, you're me, but I'm me too. How can there be two 'me's? It's not scientifically possible. You are not scientifically possible!"

- It's About Time

"Why isn't anypony surprised to see me sneaking around in here?! Is it possible there never was a disaster? That I've just been making myself frantic over nothing?!"

- It's About Time

"Thank you for inviting us all to go with you to Canterlot for the National Dessert Competition."

- MMMystery on the Friendship Express

"Maybe I was being overprotective. I could've gained a sister. But instead... I just lost a brother."

- A Canterlot Wedding - Part 1

"Now this, was a great wedding."

- A Canterlot Wedding - Part 2

"A little while ago, my teacher and mentor Princess Celestia sent me to live in Ponyville. She sent me to study friendship, which is something I didn't really care much about. But now, on a day like today, I can honestly say I wouldn't be standing here if it weren't for the friendships I've made with all of you. Each one of you taught me something about friendship, and for that, I will always be grateful. Today, I consider myself the luckiest pony in Equestria. Thank you, friends. Thank you, everypony!"

- Magical Mystery Cure