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 until Nightmare Moon appears. Twilight thought she could handle Nightmare Moon alone until her friends insisted on aiding her with the task. After seeing the lengths the others would go for her, she began to open up and realize that she couldn't defeat Nightmare Moon alone since, without her newly found friends, she would never have been able to survive the Everfree Forest let alone take on the fallen princess by herself. This realisation helped her to garner trust in her companions and, in turn, unlock the Elements of Harmony needed to save Equestria from eternal night.

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 such topic. When a tree toppled through her bedroom window, she was at a loss for ideas because this detail was not in her book. On the other hand, she took part in her first long-distance running event after having only read about the sport, and used the results of her studies to come in fifth place out of a large field of competitors.

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 preparations of different events in Ponyville.

History
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 exceptionally 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 proven herself to be a very powerful magician. She appears to have shown mastery at telekinesis, being able to simultaneously move dozens of apples at in Applebuck Season, and hold an Ursa Minor while moving a water tower in Boast Busters. She can also cast 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. This indicates Twilight's control over her magic is not yet perfected and she is more likely to lose control when she's under stress.

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 and notes that she can do at least 25 different kinds of magic. Later in the episode in which this is stated, she learns another one while attempting to tame the Ursa Major that was really a Minor.

Her organizational skills are quite impressive as well; in Winter Wrap Up, she is able to coordinate the actions of several different pony groups 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 Sparkle the official organizer of the pony teams for all future Winter Wrap Ups.

Despite all this, while she was shown to be extremely quick at organizing the raw materials for the bird's nests in Winter Wrap Up into neat little piles, the result of her work was shown to be so inept that Rarity went into despair over her attempts to fix it. The same episode depicts her lacks in physical strength, with her being unable to even move the snowploughs that many stallions had pulled the entire day, partially uphill. In Fall Weather Friends, it is shown that even her close friends place no confidence whatsoever in her athletic abilities, and despite being likely the only one properly educated in long distance running strategy she still only placed fifth in the race.

On the other hand, her ability to research quickly and efficiently and remember pieces of knowledge she has picked up "just in case" is uncanny enough to be listed as a skill of its own.

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. She is afraid to be embarrassed in front her and she's afraid to get her angry, even though the Princess has not yet been shown to retaliate for any of her or her friends' mischief.

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. Twilight admires Rarity for her generosity and Rarity in turn admires Twilight's intellect and skills; both being unicorns, they have shared their magical skills with one another, as shown in the events of A Dog and Pony Show.

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. The two have few things in common like hard work and being stubborn.

Pinkie Pie – Twilight seems to enjoy being around Pinkie Pie most of the time, but is quick to show her disinterest in Pinkie's antics when focused on studying. At the beginning of Griffon the Brush Off she reads a book and pretends to agree with everything Pinkie Pie says in a deadpan tone; similarly in The Best Night Ever, Pinkie talks to Twilight enthusiastically while Twilight tries to concentrate on her studying. Twilight occasionally gets frustrated with Pinkie's randomness when she does stuff Twilight can't figure out, but Pinkie Pie takes her outbursts when that happens in stride.

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. Although Twilight tends to not show gratitude to Spike on several occasions, she seems to be genuinely appreciative of Spike as both an assistant and friend. 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.

Zecora – When everyone in Ponyville try to convince her that Zecora is evil, she and Apple Bloom wanted to understand her. Later, when she thought Zecora was going to eat Apple Bloom, Twilight thought Zecora was evil until Zecora and Apple Bloom set things straight. Twilight and the other ponies apologizes to her and help her become a repectable vistor in Ponyville. Twilight visits Zecora every now and then.

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
Twilight has appeared in every episode so far. She is the only character to hold this distinction.

Gallery



 * Complete image gallery for Twilight Sparkle.

Trivia

 * Twilight Sparkle is both based on the Generation 1 Unicorn Pony named Twilight, who appeared in the pilot episode Rescue at Midnight Castle with the colors appearance of the Generation 3 Earth Pony named Twilight Twinkle, except for the mane and tail. While Twilight is known to have magic to Teleport by wishing and Twilight Twinkle likes to watch the fireflies, Twilight Sparkle shares both aspects of both of these ponies, but being more of a knowledgeable but powerful magician.
 * Her name is a combination of Twilight, a term for the time of day before sunrise or after sunset and Sparkle, a little/tiny spark of light.
 * Some people find her name humorous because of the book series Twilight. (The vampires in the series have been reknowned to sparkle in the sunlight)
 * 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.
 * When Twilight became enraged in Feeling Pinkie Keen and when she drank hot sauce in Friendship is Magic, part 1, her appearance became similar to that of the Pokémon Rapidash.
 * Interestingly, the voice actresses of Twilight and Pinkie Pie/Fluttershy have both voiced Marvel Comic's character, X-23.