Rainbow Dash

Rainbow Dash is a pegasus pony and one of the main characters of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. She is responsible for keeping the skies clear in Ponyville. She is also a huge admirer of The Wonderbolts and dreams of joining their flying group. She possesses the element of loyalty.

Personality
Rainbow Dash is shown to have a very boisterous attitude and often brags about her abilities. Other than that, she is loyal to her friends, which earned her the element of loyalty. She is incredibly enthusiastic and athletic, but is surprisingly lazy, often shown or mentioned to be sleeping in, napping, or slacking off. While she is often somewhat caustic and impatient with her friends, Rainbow Dash enthusiastically boasts about her friends' unique talents.

Despite her confidence, she reacts poorly to failure, or even the possibility of failure. In Fall Weather Friends, Rainbow Dash got extremely upset over losing a simple game of horse shoes to Applejack, stating that she 'hates losing'. Later on during the Iron Pony Competition, she eventually resorted to cheating when she felt she was about to lose. In Sonic Rainboom, she initially put on a face of overwhelming bravado about the Best Young Flyer's Competition but soon revealed she was absolutely terrified of making a fool of herself, to the point where she almost refused to perform and messed up several of her routines.

Skills
Rainbow Dash is shown to be a very accomplished flier, being both agile and fast in the air. She can clear the skies of Ponyville "in ten seconds flat" (now a popular meme). She has also spent much time honing impressive and flashy aerial acrobatic maneuvers, including the Rainblow Dry (a mini-tornado that sucks away moisture), Super Speed Strut (in which she pantomimes running on the ground while flying at high speeds), the Fantastic Filly Flash (an impressive nose-dive followed by a swift recovery) and the Buccaneer Blaze (which is apparently far too amazing to show onscreen, and produces an incredible explosion of light somehow).

She can fly fast enough to conjure up small tornadoes and rip water droplets from their clouds. She uses this ability for another feat by flying through clouds and using the rain to create a rainbow against herself on landing, although this trick has no known name.

Her signature move is the Sonic Rainboom, depicted in the aptly-titled episode Sonic Rainboom. This is technically the second time she has performed this (the first was in The Cutie Mark Chronicles, which deals with the main characters' past), but is the first time it is shown. In-setting, before Dash did it, the maneuver was considered only theoretical. Her ability to create the move most likely indicates she can fly at over Mach 1, as the Sonic Rainboom is obviously inspired by the Sonic Boom phenomenon.

Call of the Cutie shows her with a black belt in karate, although she does not appear to actively display martial arts skills of an appropriate level throughout the series. It is plausible that she had donned the belt in order to provide the appearance of being an appropriate coach despite not actually possessing the relevant skill.

History
When she was younger, Rainbow Dash attended the Junior Speedster flight camp. As recalled in The Cutie Mark Chronicles, Rainbow Dash defended Fluttershy from a pair of bullies (who had previously given Rainbow the derogatory nickname "Rainbow Crash") by challenging the two to a race. In the ensuing contest, Rainbow Dash performed her first Sonic Rainboom, not only gaining her cutie mark, but setting in motion the events that would cause Fluttershy and their future friends to gain their cutie marks.

Rainbow Dash first appeared in Friendship is Magic, part 1, accidentally crashing into Twilight Sparkle. She then joined Twilight and the other ponies in Friendship is Magic, part 2, on the quest for the Elements of Harmony. On the way, Nightmare Moon took on the form of The Shadowbolts, a dark copy of her personal heroes, The Wonderbolts, and solicited Dash into joining them and abandon her friends. Rainbow Dash declined the offer in order to help her friends, which earned her the element of loyalty.

In The Ticket Master, she was one of several ponies pestering Twilight for the extra ticket to the Grand Galloping Gala, Dash's reason being a chance to audition for The Wonderbolts who would presumably perform there.

She and Pinkie Pie decided to play pranks on others in Griffon the Brush Off. An old friend of Dash comes for a visit, a griffon named Gilda, who has known her since her days in the Junior Speedsters flight team. At the time when Gilda is visiting Ponyville, Dash was unaware that the griffon was being mean and rude to the other ponies behind her back. After seeing how the griffon acted towards her new friends at Pinkie Pie's party in Gilda's honor, Rainbow Dash realized that Gilda isn't her true friend, and broke off their friendship.

Relationships
Twilight Sparkle - As someone who admires physical skill, Rainbow Dash doesn't have a lot of respect for Twilight's more intellectual skills and is quite openly mocking on occasions, however Twilight takes this with grace and Rainbow Dash has admitted that Twilight’s magical skills are very impressive, as well as finding her fun to be around when her nose isn't buried in a book.

Fluttershy – Despite both being pegasi, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy couldn’t be more different and Rainbow Dash can often be short tempered with Fluttershy’s meekness and cowardice. Despite this, the two are good friends, and Rainbow Dash obviously appreciates Fluttershy’s patience and support and in return she tries to teach Fluttershy to be more assertive and looks after her. They have known each other since they were young fillies, having both hailed from Cloudsdale.

Applejack - Applejack and Rainbow Dash are fierce rivals and firm friends, who are often seen together and even more often seen fighting and bickering. They enjoy a lot of friendly competition and their feuding can get quite intense, both have engaged in trash talk, cheating and outright brawls but always end up laughing it off when the dust settles. The two both act very tomboyish, and typically have a disregard for what might be considered more feminine traits and tendencies.

Pinkie Pie – Rainbow Dash is the most open of the ponies in not understanding Pinkie Pie at all, and indeed in Griffon the Brush Off, she went to extreme lengths to avoid spending time with Pinkie. However, the two eventually discovered a mutual love of practical jokes, and Rainbow Dash has ended up enjoying Pinkie’s odd personality and sense of humor, even if her hyperactivity and weirdness often irritates her. Like most other ponies, she also is a big fan of Pinkie's frequent parties.

Rarity - Rarity and Rainbow Dash are very different in some respects; whereas Rainbow Dash is very athletic and always on the move, and doesn't mind getting dirty, Rarity tends to prefer more collected activities, not being nearly as rough and tumble as Dash. Despite this the two hold a strong respect for each other and don't let each other's differences get in the way of being friends or cause arguments, unlike Rarity's and Applejack's more adversarial relationship. Dash doesn't mind Rarity's skills with girly stuff and has been seen going to Rarity's for the odd makeover, though generally accompanied by expressions of annoyance at the 'standing around' part of the process. In Sonic Rainboom when the two participated in the Young Flyers' Competition (With Rarity having acquired temporary wings thanks to Twilight), Rainbow saved Rarity's life when the latter ruined her wings in the sun above Cloudsdale where she otherwise couldn't walk on the clouds; Rarity declared Rainbow the best flier, with Rainbow quickly forgiving Rarity for upstaging her in return.

Scootaloo - Scootaloo, the pegasus pony of the Cutie Mark Crusaders absolutely idolizes Rainbow Dash. While Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle are related to their respective pony types from the main cast, Applejack and Rarity, it was thought Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash were related, but the show's creator confirmed they are not. On occassion, Dash has acted like a big sister figure toward Scootaloo, at one point affectionately refering to her as "squirt".

In The Cutie Mark Chronicles, it's revealed that Rainbow Dash's first sonic rainboom ever attempted allowed all the other main character ponies to gain their own cutie marks, symbolizing that Rainbow Dash and the others had a magical bond before they even met.

Appearances
Rainbow Dash appears in all episodes so far except episodes eight, fifteen, and seventeen, with only a background appearance in episodes eighteen and twenty.

Trivia

 * Rainbow Dash is based on the earth pony of the same name. She is a fashionista once in Generation 3 and 3.5, however this was changed in Friendship is Magic, with her personality now resembles more of Firefly, an adventurous but stubborn pegasus pony from the Generation 1 line. Her name is a combination of Rainbow, an optical and meteorological phenomenon that causes a spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines on to droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere and Dash, a term for being fast or agile.


 * 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 not only a clearly defined door and cloud columns in a classical style but rainbow-colored curves and a "stream". In Dragonshy, Dash is able to use this stream to make rainbow-colored facepaint. Her home is shown again in Party of One, with a different design.
 * Rainbow Dash states that she was the first pony in her class to gain her cutie mark in Call of the Cutie.
 * As shown in Call of the Cutie, Rainbow Dash has a black belt in Karate.
 * In Sonic Rainboom, Rainbow Dash's hometown is revealed to be Cloudsdale.
 * As of Season One, Rainbow Dash seems to be the only pony of the main cast that does not yet have a pet. (Applejack's Winona, Pinkie Pie's Gummy, Rarity's Opalescence, Twilight Sparkle's Owlowiscious, and Fluttershy's Angel (as well as many others)).