Rainbow Dash

Rainbow Dash is a Pegasus pony and a main character in My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. She is responsible for maintaining and clearing the skies in Ponyville. She is also a huge admirer of The Wonderbolts and dreams of joining their flying group. She represents the element of loyalty. She also has a pet tortoise named Tank which is introduced in May the Best Pet Win!.

Development and character design
Rainbow Dash shares her name and color scheme with a fashionista Earth pony from G3 and G3.5. However, Lauren Faust gave her the personality of her favorite G1 pony, Firefly. Through the development stages, Rainbow Dash's cutie mark was changed from two blue lightning bolts like Firefly's, to a single wide three-colored lightning bolt, to the current cutie mark design. She is the only pony out of the six leading characters who has completely straight eyelashes, and the only pony to leave a rainbow-colored trail or dry-brush smear behind her when speeding off.

Loyalty
Rainbow Dash first appears in Friendship is Magic, part 1, where she accidentally crashes into Twilight Sparkle, sending her into a mud puddle. They briefly get to know each other, Rainbow Dash tells Twilight about her adoration for The Wonderbolts, and Rainbow Dash later joins Twilight and the other ponies in Friendship is Magic, part 2 on their quest for the Elements of Harmony. Just as the ponies are about to reach the castle where the Elements are located, Nightmare Moon takes the form of The Shadowbolts, doppelgangers of Rainbow Dash's personal heroes, The Wonderbolts. They solicit Rainbow Dash into joining their ranks and abandoning her companions, but Rainbow Dash remains loyal to her friends and declines their offer, which earns her the element of loyalty.

Dash's loyalty is put to the test in The Return of Harmony Part 1 and Part 2. She and her friends have to solve Discord's riddle and play by his rules to regain the Elements. During their mission, Dash falls victim to Discord's manipulation after he tells her that her home will crumble without her, and shows her a vision of Cloudsdale crumbling. Under Discord's influence, she abandons her friends to "save" a cloud she believes to be Cloudsdale. Right before Applejack spots Dash flying away, Twilight Sparkle reassures herself by saying Dash won't let them down, but then watches in disbelief as Dash speeds off. Discord reveals himself and informs other ponies that they have been disqualified, as one of his rules stated that if one of the ponies leaves, the game is over.

The following episode, when Twilight sets about finding her friends to undo what Discord had done to them with a "memory spell", Rainbow Dash dismisses Twilight's plight with "loyalty shmoyalty". Since she won't come close enough to Twilight for the spell to be performed, the ponies must combine their efforts to catch her and bring her to the ground. Her first words after her corruption is undone is "How's Ponyville? Where are the Elements? Did we stop Discord?" With Dash by their side again, the ponies wield the Elements of Harmony and defeat Discord with their magic.

Brashness and apparent laziness
Rainbow Dash is very confident in her abilities, which is often construed by others as laziness. When Twilight Sparkle first meets Rainbow Dash, she has none of her cloud cleanup work done, and lies idly on a cloud, and puts off her work. Despite her apparent laziness, she performed her duty in "ten seconds flat", leaving Twilight wide-eyed at the sight. She languishes about in Griffon the Brush Off, The Cutie Pox, and Swarm of the Century, but springs into action in the last when she's needed to help deal with the parasprite infestation, and leaves off for duty when she's needed in the first. She is the leader of the weather team in Winter Wrap Up and she volunteers to go on important missions with her friends, so despite her apparent laziness she is a hard-working, contributing pony.

She proudly says in Boast Busters that she's better than the rest of the ponies, but boos Trixie when Applejack gives her a scornful look. She and Applejack deride Twilight Sparkle in Fall Weather Friends for being an "egghead" and not having any experience with running outside of what she read in her book. However, both of them admire her magic in Boast Busters and tell her they're proud of her.

Rainbow Dash doesn't hide her annoyance at her friends' behavior. On the ponies' expedition in Dragonshy, Rainbow Dash is short with Fluttershy throughout their journey, and in Sonic Rainboom she becomes so frustrated with Fluttershy's meek cheering that she does a pratfall. It is worth noting that despite her rude attitude towards Fluttershy, she doesn't apologize to her in the end. She begrudgingly lets Rarity give her a makeover in Swarm of the Century, and keeps an annoyed frown on her face in the process. When Twilight Sparkle tries to convince Rarity in Suited For Success that she's not a laughing stock, Rainbow Dash rudely quips "she kind-of is". Like the other ponies' dresses, the dress she asked Rarity to make her is over the top, and it even includes a helmet styled much like the one worn by The Rocketeer. However, she wears the dress Rarity originally designed for her with a smile on her face when Rarity is given a second chance to redeem herself.

"It needs to be about 20% cooler."

- Rainbow Dash, referring to her dress for the Gala

Competitiveness and athleticism
Dash describes her passion for winning in a flashback in The Cutie Mark Chronicles, and challenges other characters to competitions throughout the show. She races several times with her old friend from Junior Speedster flight camp, Gilda, in Griffon the Brush Off, and challenges Applejack in a series of athletic competitions in Fall Weather Friends.

Despite Rainbow Dash's competitiveness and confidence, she reacts poorly to failure, or even the possibility of failure. She gets upset over losing a simple game of horseshoes to Applejack, stating that she "hates losing". During the Iron Pony Competition, she resorts to using her wings in many of the contests, which Applejack regards as cheating since she does not have wings herself. During the ensuing Running of the Leaves, she continues using underhanded tactics with her wings tied behind her back, and Applejack, fed up with what she considers to be foul play, returns it in kind. By the end of the episode, the duo's brawl ends up landing them in last place, leading them to apologize to each other.

Rainbow Dash initially displays overwhelming bravado about her performance in the Best Young Flyer competition in Sonic Rainboom; however, when a winged Rarity arrives to redirect everypony's attention to herself, Rainbow reveals she's terrified of making a fool of herself as she loses her cool, almost refuses to perform and messes up several of her routines.

She stages a competition for her potential pets in May the Best Pet Win!, which consists of tests of speed, agility, "guts", "coolness", "awesomeness", "radicalness", and a final race against her.

Mischievousness
Rainbow Dash tries to spook her friends when they venture into the Everfree Forest for the first time, claiming that no pony has ever made it back out of the forest. Her reputation as a prankster is established in Griffon the Brush Off, where she and Pinkie Pie prank various ponies, and is further enforced in A Bird in the Hoof, when she tries to make the royal guards laugh.

She plays several pranks on her friend Gilda in Griffon the Brush Off, which were set up for Gilda's party, but are not specifically aimed at her. For the majority of the time when Gilda is visiting Ponyville, Rainbow Dash is unaware that the griffon is being callous and rude to the other ponies, but the pranks at the party get the best of Gilda, and she loses her temper in front of Rainbow Dash. After witnessing this side of her personality, she calls her out on her behavior and sends her on her way. Dash uses a cloud to create thunder and lightning to scare Spike in Griffon the Brush Off, as a prank. She does the same to Pinkie Pie and various other ponies in Luna Eclipsed while dressed as a Shadowbolt, laughing at the ponies she frightens. She tells Twilight Sparkle that "this is the best night of the year for pranks" and that "it's all in good fun". She then hurries off to scare another group of ponies, which she continues doing until Princess Luna decides to declare payback for all of the trouble she'd caused that night.

Love of reading
Rainbow Dash discovers she loves reading in the episode Read It and Weep. When Twilight first offers her a book to read through her stay at the hospital, she rejects it and testily tosses away the book, saying "I'm a world-class athlete; reading's for eggheads like you, Twilight." After a short boredom montage, she picks up the book and discovers she loves reading, much to her chagrin. She spends much of the episode trying to hide the fact that she loves reading from her friends, and when she's discharged from the hospital she tries to get re-admitted so she could finish reading the book. The doctor recognizes that she's only feigning being ill and accuses her of laziness. Dash then tries to steal the book from the hospital, but gets caught red-handed and drops it while making her escape. She is pursued and eventually caught, and she admits she was after the book and that she loves reading. The episode concludes with Dash finishing the book and excitedly picking up another one, entitled 'Daring Do and the Griffin's Goblet'. She can also be seen reading another Daring Do book in A Friend in Deed.

Flying and weather manipulation
Rainbow Dash is a very accomplished flier, being fast and agile in the air. She speaks of her impressive and flashy aerial acrobatic maneuvers in The Ticket Master, which include: the "rainblow dry", which she uses to clean up Twilight Sparkle in the first episode; the "super speed strut"; the "fantastic filly flash"; and the"buccaneer blaze", which involve strutting while flying, a nose-dive and recovery that create a flash, and the creation of multiple bolts of lightning, respectively.

She uses her flying skills and physical strength to help Applejack demolish a barn in Lesson Zero. She tears through the structure from all directions, and eventually dives into it from a great height, creating a colorful mushroom cloud and a shock-wave greatly resembling the sonic rainboom that sends the rubble of the former barn flying onto Twilight and Applejack. This is the first stage of Twilight's mane getting messed up. Dash wears goggles throughout the destruction.

She demonstrates her flight skills in May the Best Pet Win! to her potential pets: she zips straight up into the sky; flies to a far-away hill leaving a trail of rainbow-colored flames behind her; maneuvers in quick 90-degree turns between the pets while leaving a vertical rainbow-colored wake behind her; and swirls around a cloud to create a pony cloud sculpture. Later in the episode she holds a final race to decide which pet she'll choose, and performs dangerous stunts like flying through giant bramble patches and dodging the bites of gigantic quarray eels.

Rainbow Dash uses her weather-manipulation abilities several times. She clears the skies of Ponyville "in ten seconds flat" in the first episode, dispersing the clouds by kicking them. She leads water droplets out of a cloud in Boast Busters, and creates a rainbow above her when the droplets splash against her. She teams up with other Pegasus ponies in Winter Wrap Up to create a whirlwind that sucks away clouds and snow from Ponyville, and she creates a tornado to vacuum the parasprites in Swarm of the Century.

Rainbow Dash's most venerated move is the sonic rainboom, first depicted in the aptly-titled episode Sonic Rainboom. This is the second time in her life that she has performed the trick, the first being depicted in a later episode, The Cutie Mark Chronicles. Even though several ponies witness the sonic rainboom in The Cutie Mark Chronicles, the very same ponies consider the maneuver a myth in Sonic Rainboom. Near the end, Princess Celestia praises Rainbow Dash as the best flier in Equestria.

Cutie mark
Rainbow Dash loves flying but the thing she loves more is winning. She mentions in Call of the Cutie that she was the first in her class to get her cutie mark. She tells the Cutie Mark Crusaders in The Cutie Mark Chronicles the story of how she earned her cutie mark. Her story is set in summer flight camp, where she defends Fluttershy from a pair of bullies, who refer to Rainbow Dash as "Rainbow Crash". One of the bullies already have their cutie marks, where Dash and Fluttershy do not. Dash challenges the two bullies to a flying Pegasus race, and in the ensuing contest she discovers her passion for speed and for "winning", in her words. Going through the race course, she performs her very first sonic rainboom, not only gaining her own cutie mark, but also inadvertently setting in motion the events that would cause Fluttershy and her future Ponyville friends to gain their own cutie marks.

Sonic rainboom
Rainbow Dash tries to perform a sonic rainboom in the episode Sonic Rainboom, in an effort to win the Best Young Fliers Competition. Fluttershy confides to her friends that Rainbow Dash was unable to perform the move in her many practice trials. Nonetheless, Rainbow Dash heads to Cloudsdale to participate in the competition, accompanied by Fluttershy as moral support.

Much to their surprise, their wingless friends have decided to follow them with the aid of Twilight's cloud-walking spell, easing Rainbow's fears. However, Twilight had also given Rarity beautiful wings, which led her to steal the spotlight. As a result, Rainbow Dash loses her nerve and tries to delay her performance. As the competition draws to a close, however, she decides that she must perform anyway.

Dash messes up the fist two rounds of her performance, hitting an obstacle and accidentally sends a cloud hurtling in the direction of Princess Celestia. Due to time constraints, Rarity performs alongside Rainbow Dash, and delivers her grand finale, which involves flying up to the the sun and beaming her wings. However, her fragile wings, made of "gossamer and morning dew", burst into flames, sending her plummeting towards the Earth. The Wonderbolts try to save her, but Rarity kicks them on accident due to her falling down, and they are knocked out. Rainbow Dash finally notices the goings-on and accelerates towards the plummeting ponies, saving both Rarity and the Wonderbolts and performing a sonic rainboom in the process. Both this sonic rainboom and the one in The Cutie Mark Chronicles are performed when Rainbow Dash is leading with both front legs forward, while in her failed practice attempts she is leading with a single leg.

Rarity is incredibly grateful that Dash saved her life, and apologizes to her friend not minding her anxiety. Rainbow Dash is crowned the winner of the competition and leaves off to spend the day with her heroes, The Wonderbolts.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders
Despite earning her cutie mark in an endeavor that came naturally to her, Rainbow Dash advises Apple Bloom to try out many different activities to gain her cutie mark in Call of the Cutie, leading the filly and her friends to pursue their cutie marks in the wrong avenues. When coaching Apple Bloom in Call of the Cutie, Rainbow Dash dons a sports headband, a whistle, and later a martial arts uniform with a black belt when Apple Bloom tries karate.

Scootaloo, the Pegasus pony of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, idolizes Rainbow Dash. While Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle are the younger sisters of two ponies from the main cast, Applejack and Rarity, respectively, Scootaloo is not related to Rainbow Dash, and "Rainbow Dash isn't the kind of character who would treat a younger sibling as well as younger siblings are expected to be treated in MLP". Rainbow Dash affectionately calls Scootaloo "squirt" in Owl's Well That Ends Well and The Mysterious Mare Do Well, and appears alongside Rarity and Applejack to congratulate the Cutie Mark Crusaders for their performance during The Show Stoppers.

Ponyville
Rainbow Dash manages the weather in Ponyville. She keeps the skies free of clouds for the Summer Sun Celebration, and apparently, unless the weekly rainfall is scheduled for that day of course, makes sure that Ponyville has nice weather, although in the opening of Bridle Gossip, Spike states that she rarely gets up early in the morning to get a start on it. She lives in a cloud-house near Ponyville, which has the same design elements as her hometown.

Rainbow Dash is one of several ponies badgering Twilight for the extra ticket to the Grand Galloping Gala, in The Ticket Master. Her reason is a chance to audition for The Wonderbolts who would presumably perform there. She persists, even when Twilight calls her out on it, and when all her other friends say they don't need the ticket. The Wonderbolts do appear at the Gala in The Best Night Ever, although their performance is not shown, and they are only seen mingling with the guests in a VIP section.

Tank the tortoise
Rainbow Dash is the last of the main ponies to have a pet introduced in the series, only gaining her pet, Tank the tortoise, in the episode May the Best Pet Win! in the second season. While at first Dash looks down on Tank for not being as fast, agile, or "awesome" as her other prospective pets, she eventually picks him over the others for his loyalty: while all the other prospective pets hurried to the finish line and ignored Dash's calls for help, Tank rescues her by releasing her trapped wing from under a boulder. He carries her all the way to the finish line, and secures his place as her pet for being the only competitor that crossed the finish line with her, as she specified before the race.

Residence
Rainbow Dash's home is shown in Griffon the Brush Off. She lives in a white cloud-house hanging low to the ground somewhere near Ponyville. It features classical columns and rainbow-colored streams and waterfalls. In Dragonshy, Rainbow Dash uses one of these streams to make rainbow-colored facepaint. Her home is shown again in Party of One, with a slightly different design from the first appearance. The house is the same but the background scenery changed to what is reused in Party of One. The interior is shown in Swarm of the Century, and her bedroom is shown at the end of Read It and Weep.

Hasbro.com description
''Capable and athletic, Rainbow Dash lives for adventure! When any problem should arise that involves traveling to distant lands or dealing with a magical, mysterious beast, Rainbow is the first to volunteer! Brave and bold, anypony who has ever seen this rainbow-haired Pegasus in the air has been left in jaw-dropped awe of her speed, agility, and, well, her confidence. She's quite positive she's the fastest Pegasus pony alive, and truth be told, she probably is. Yes, she's a bit proud, and a bit mischievous, and often lazy for somepony obsessed with speed, but when the chips are down, and danger is a-brewing, Rainbow Dash always, always comes through, proving time and time again that she is a true hero!''

Hubworld description
''Rainbow Dash lives for adventure! Whenever there's a problem that involves danger, distant lands, and mysterious beasts, she's the first to help. She's bold. She's brave. She's also a bit proud and mischievous -- but wouldn't you be too if you were the fastest Pegasus around?''

Teacher for a Day description
''Rainbow Dash is her name and adventure is her game! A true hero, this rainbow-haired Pegasus pony is as fast as they come, flying through the air with jaw-dropping speed! Athletic, brave and confident, she is also a bit mischievous - and always first on the scene wherever danger is at hand. Whether traveling to distant lands or taking on mystery and magic, this pretty pony is ready to fasten her seatbelt for the adventure of a lifetime!''

My Little Pony magazine description

 * Sporty
 * Athletic
 * Adventurous

''This little pony lives for adventure! Rainbow Dash is the first to volunteer for a dangerous task, the fastest pony in Ponyville and a true pony hero!''

Appearances

 * See also character appearances

Rainbow Dash appears in all season one episodes except episodes Look Before You Sleep, Feeling Pinkie Keen, and Stare Master, and only has a background appearance in episodes The Show Stoppers and Green Isn't Your Color. She has appeared in all season two episodes except for episodes Sisterhooves Social, Family Appreciation Day, and Hearts and Hooves Day so far, along with a speaking cameo in A Friend in Deed.

Quotes
"Hey. I could clear this sky in ten seconds flat."

- Friendship is Magic, part 1

"And just what are the Elements of Harmony? And how did you know about Night Mare Moon, huh? Are you a spy?'"

- Friendship is Magic, part 2

"Aw, yeah!"

- When receiving her necklace

"Nopony knows! You know why? Because everypony who's ever come in...has never...come...OUT!"

- On the Everfree Forest

"You...thank you for the offer, I mean. But I'm afraid I have to say no."

- Refusing the Shadowbolts' offer

"Did you see Applejack's slick moves out there? What an athlete. This week she's gonna help me with my new flying trick, and I know it's gonna be so awesome."

- Applebuck Season

"See? I'd never leave my friends hanging!"

- To Twilight Sparkle

"I hate losing..."

- Fall Weather Friends

"It needs to be about 20% cooler."

- Suited for Success

"Gesundheit."

- Multiple times, May the Best Pet Win!

"Hey, now wait a minute! Just because I don't have a pet now doesn't mean I never want a pet!"

- Talking to her friends in May the Best Pet Win!

"Wishing you a happy birthday Hub; from the bottom of my heart!"

- A Hub promo celebrating the channel's first anniversary of being on

Gallery

 * Rainbow Dash image gallery