Twilight Sparkle (Friendship is Magic)

Queen Twilight Sparkle was the Element of Magic and last known monarch of Equestria, serving as the queen after the Retirement of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. Before her reign as the matriarch of the country, she worked as the Princess of Friendship, and before that, she was a humble librarian at Golden Oak Library. Born in the capital city of Canterlot, Twilight was the youngest child and only daughter. Early in her life, she enrolled at Princess Celestia's School For Gifted Unicorns where she was taught as Celestia's own pupil.

Foalhood
Twilight Sparkle was born in Canterlot and grew up in a household with her parents, and her older brother,. After the Summer Sun Celebration, Twilight grew enamored with and studied hard to become a student at Princess Celestia's School For Gifted Unicorns. Though she didn't initially past, due to the boost by the Sonic Rainboom, she managed to gain a surge of magic and hatched from his egg and became the official protege of Princess Celestia at the school.

Spike eventually went to live with Twilight at her house and would often join her and Shining Armor as they compete for the title of "Sibling Supreme", which Shining Armor ultimately won from them. She was often babysat by and the two grew to love each other like family and did many activities together like making macaroni art pieces, which Spike apparently never appreciated.

Teenage and young adult life
Twilight spent her days at Princess Celestia's School For Gifted Unicorns, often studying and sometimes hanging out with others. Although characterized as the girl who thought studying was more important than friendship, she actually did manage to accumulate a decent amount of good and caring friends in her life. At her school, she became great friends with, and  and to some extent knew , although they were sometimes annoyed by her constantly studying attitude, they accepted it as a part of who she was. Another friend Twilight had during this time was the kindly old librarian Dusty Pages, who invited Twilight over for tea from time to time.

On the day Twilight left for Ponyville, she forgot to return her copy of Perfection: The Impossible Pursuit, which eventually caused Dusty Pages to retire from her life as a librarian and become a musician instead at Silver Stable Community, something Twilight would later greatly regret, believing she got her fired. during the same day, she forgot to visit 's party, which caused the already insecure unicorn to become a shut in, rarely leaving her house.

Librarian of Ponyville
After moving to Ponyville, Twilight became the librarian of Golden Oak Library, along with her ever-faithful little brother, Spike. Together with her friends, Twilight participated in many events within Ponyville, such as the Running of the Leaves, Iron Pony Competition, and Nightmare Night while also helping as an organizer for community events such as a talent show and the Winter Wrap Up.

Twilight quickly and naturally established herself was an important figure of Ponyville society, working as a public speaker to give important speeches in town square, organizing town meetings to warn her citizens of dangers encroaching the town, or organizing local festivals and events, such as the Welcome Princess Celestia celebration. Twilight in these situations either went at a perfectly slow, yet methodical and happy pace, or desperately tried to do something as well as possible, often failing at it in the process, but also striving to improve upon herself and her abilities.

Twilight developed many meaningful relationships during this period of her life. Her first unusual friend not among the friends she made in her first adventure was arguably the kind and mature zebra,. Though Twilight initially believed Zecora to be an evil-doer who cursed her and her friends and kidnapped, she quickly learned that Zecora was a friendly and compassionate, if slightly odd, individual who quickly forgave her for her wrong-doings and the two developed a minor student-teacher relationship, with Twilight admiring Zecora and her abilities.

Another notable relationship was fellow unicorn, a deeply insecure and vain unicorn who performed at live magic shows displaying her impressive magic abilities, wowing audiences and scoring fans. Twilight and the rest of the Mane Six saw through her act almost instantly, but Twilight refused to act, fearing her friends who grow to dislike her as they disliked Trixie, but after Twilight saved Ponyville from an Ursa Minor, something Trixie actively fled from trying, her fears were shown to be unfounded and her friends loved her even more.

Twilight's next, and final antagonistic, confrontation with Trixie happened about a year later when the unicorn, now empowered by the Alicorn Amulet, came back to Ponyville to enact her revenge and banished Twilight from the town. Devastated, but eager to save the day, Twilight trained with Zecora in the Everfree Forest to defeat her with guile. Twilight managed to defeat Trixie for a second time and this time, Trixie saw the error of her ways and the two became friends.

Twilight would also become a close figure to members of the Apple family and Belle family, becoming a mentor and big-sister figure to the Cutie Mark Crusaders and a close friend of. Despite her many friendships however, she more-or-less only truly spent time with her fellow Elements of Harmony, her own family, and the Crusaders.

Unarguably, the biggest and most important adventures Twilight went on during this period of her life were stopping and  from taking over Canterlot and the Crystal Empire respectively. With the help of her good friends and her siblings, and, she managed to beat back both villains and restore peace in the locations they attacked and more importantly, stopped them from spreading their evil presence to the rest of Equestria.

Queen of Equestria
Twilight's final day in Ponyville was a day of great sadness for her. The fear of moving away from her friends and anxiety of losing them in the process made an already difficult situation for Twilight much harder as she prepared for her coronation and packed up to move to Canterlot. However, with the aid of her friends, she managed to overcome her fears and performed the coronation, officially becoming the Queen of Equestria.

Much of Twilight's life after her second and final coronation was unclear, but she ruled Equestria as a graceful, majestic and kind ruler. Much like Celestia did prior, Twilight took up charge as the headmare of Princess Celestia's School For Gifted Unicorns and took a student under her wing named Luster Dawn, who may have been the daughter of Starlight Glimmer and Sunburst.

Twilight kept in contact with her five friends from Ponyville, and presumably the other friends she made along the way, and founded the Friendship Council, an organization made up of her, Spike, the others and possibly Discord as they caught up on each others lives, discussed matters of Equestria and ruled the land together.

Using her continued friendship with the others as an example, Twilight taught Luster Dawn that friendship isn't something that fades, but stays forever if true and genuine.

Personality
Twilight is pure of heart - she's as good natured as it gets, kind, gentle, caring, heroic and incredibly selfless. Righteous and brave, Twilight has proven herself to be among the greatest heroes to ever grace Equestria. Aside from her courageous, lion-hearted nature, Twilight's two most recognizable traits is her sheer intelligence and her easily stressed nature. Her intelligence and generally nerdy and dorky personality has caused her to study many different disciplines, such as engineering, astronomy and magic.

Intellect and skills
Twilight had many skills across the board, but her most apparent trait was her intellect. Twilight had a mastery over a wide spread of academic concepts, from history, to engineering to various forms of sciences. In particular, Twilight had an affinity towards astronomy and loved to stargaze. Next to her intellectual abilities, Twilight was an incredibly talented musician, primarily a singer and worked as the lead singer for The Rainbooms. Twilight didn't display much talent with other musical instruments, but was a talented pianists.

As a byproduct of her intellect, Twilight was a natural born leader. Not only was she courageous and compassionate, but also was able to make tough decisions, organize creatures and know what was best for others.

Although Twilight's athletic abilities were often mocked by her friends, Twilight did display a number of abilities in this regard. Firstly, her flying skills, though not nearly as good as Dash's, was shown to be quite good by the time she got the hang of them, and was shown to be able to fly across Equestria in, at most, hours, going from Canterlot to Silver Shores in no time. However, her showings in other fields were lackluster. Her soccer game against Rainbow Dash was incredibly one-sided and she was among the last ponies to finish the Running of the Leaves, but she has shown great stamina and an unwillingness to give up during her attempts at these endeavors.

Magic and powers
Twilight was considered the greatest unicorn in Ponyville in terms of magical powers and was able to lift even an Ursa Minor with her abilities. Twilight's most often used ability was probably her teleportation spell, which allowed her and others to teleport a great distance, though the extent of said distance was never revealed. Aside from teleportation, Twilight tended to use forcefields to both protect and trap herself, her friends and her enemies. Although a pacifist by nature, Twilight still used offensive magic when necessary, such as when she used magical blasts to combat Tirek and other fiends.

Twilight in addition had spells that allowed her to enter books, create sound-proof silence, transmute living beings into objects and grow hair.

Portrayal
Due to being the lead character in both Friendship is Magic and the first two Equestria Girls films, Twilight has appeared in several pieces of media and thus, has had a number of actresses to portray her. In all English-animated media, Twilight was voiced by Tara Strong, though was portrayed by Kira Buckland in My Little Pony: Power Ponies. In the Japanese-original series, Little Pony TV Twilight was portrayed by Miyuki Sawashiro, a Japanese singer and member of Milky Holmes.

Twilight Sparkle has had a few forays into the realm of live-action, unfortunately many of her actresses in these roles are currently unidentified. These include an unidentified actress in the Taiwanese opening and an actress who portrayed her in the music video Magic of Friendship. At least one of her actresses has been identified however, which is Chloe MacGregor, who portrayed her in My Little Pony Musical, a theatrical adaptation of Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks.

In-universe, Twilight Sparkle has been played by a few actresses, mostly as meta-jokes involving the release of My Little Pony: The Movie. In, an unnamed actress portrayed her in various films and in the covers to My Little Pony: The Movie Prequel, Twilight was depicted as being a movie star, appearing at a theater in Applewood for her own film.

Age
Like with every character in the show, their is confusion regarding the actual age of Twilight, which fans generally assuming late teens to mid 20s as the general range. Using secondary canon sources such as the IDW Publishing comic books, a decent amount of chronology involving Twilight's age can be gleamed. Most notably, promotional material for My Little Pony: 20/20 described the story taking place twenty-years in the past, which took place during the Sonic Rainboom period, meaning the Sonic Rainboom that connected the Mane Six happened twenty years prior to the events of the comic, which were set sometime after My Little Pony: The Movie. Some fans however do not take this as canon as the actual contents of the book give vague descriptions of the chronology.

Twilight is around the same age as Lyra, as the two went to school together in the same classes, and Lyra has been shown to be old enough to join S.M.I.L.E. and get married, implying they're all adults.

Marketability
Twilight often contends with Pinkie Pie as being the face of the My Little Pony brand. Twilight has appeared on countless trading cards and has hundreds of unique toys modeled in her likeness and was among the first three toys in the Bishoujo toyline. As of 2020, Twilight remains much of the face as she appears front and center in the packaging for Reveal the Magic toys.

Twilight Twinkle
As depicted in the bible, My Little Pony Adventures, Twilight was previously named "Twilight Twinkle". While her characterization was mostly the same, being described as clever, intelligent, somewhat insensitive and rude but kind-hearted, morally sound, brave with a strong sense of right and wrong, as well as both a natural leader and insecure, her history was slightly different. Being the Unicorn of Ponyville, a concept dropped in the final show, Twilight Twinkle was a courtly individual who would receive missions from Queen Celestia, an inverse of the concept in the show.

Twilight Twinkle was to have strong relationships with Cheerilee and Shaman (who later turned into Zecora). With Cheerilee, Twilght and her were to have a very close relationship, being both studious ponies with passions for lore and histories. This relationship was almost dropped entirely from the show, but the two nonetheless appear to be good friends. With Shaman, Twilight was to have a mentor-student relationship with her with Shaman being her mentor. This relationship was brought up to an extent in "Magic Duel" where Zecora mentored Twilight to defeat Trixie.

Though unclear, Twilight had some relationship to the city of "Canterbury".

Twilight presumably was set to appear in two unproduced episodes. "Fancy Meeting You Deer" and "Nothing More to Sea". In the former, she was to convince an adoptive pony boy who was adopted by Deer who were described like stereotypical North-Eastern Native Americans (presumably inspired by the Iroquois or Algonquian peoples) to come back to Fillydelphia and in the latter, she was to travel a city at the beach only to discover it was dry and quickly becoming a ghost town. Eventually, she was to confront the Kraken in the Sea Pony Kingdom.

In spin-offs
Twilight was the main character of the first Equestria Girls film, My Little Pony: Equestria Girls and a major character in its sequel, Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks. In the Japanese exclusive TV show, Little Pony TV, Twilight was one of the two main characters, the other being her co-host Mimorin as they discussed aspects of Equestria and taught the audience at home English.

Appearances in other Hasbro media
Twilight appeared as a minor throughout other pieces of Hasbro media. She was a major character in the comic "When Worlds Collide", where she helped Optimus Prime and the Autobots fight off Megatron and was set to appear in the canceled Transformers x My Little Pony. Twilight appeared in pieces of artwork throughout Synergy: A Hasbro Creators Showcase and was shown to interact with members of The Holograms. Additionally, merchandise depicting Twilight as Dungeons & Dragons has been released.

IDW


Twilight Sparkle is a central character in many of the IDW storylines and one-shots. Her backstory was greatly expanded upon in the comics and showcased her earliest days raising, how she went from hating the dragon to loving him as family. The comics also implied that Twilight may be a more than just a pony, with iconography of her cutie mark being associated with ancient heroes such as Baast.

Twilight's characterization in the comics vary greatly from writer to writer. Earlier arcs tended to play up her sweet, kind but slightly mischievous side, while later arcs and one-shots played with her more zany and sometimes rude personality. Though still a generally heroic figure, Twilight has many downright villainous moments in the comics.

Egmont
Twilight appears throughout the Egmont comics.

Pucchihumi manga
Twilight is far more animated here than her animated counterpart, being prone to give off highly exaggerated expressions when good or bad things happen. Examples of this can be found when she forgot to raise up her hoof on time; a sin that she claimed she could not forgive herself for, and when she was given a cupcake by Pinkie Pie. Twilight is shown to have a somewhat sarcastic sense of humor, giving a sour expression when she found out that Rainbow Dash's and Discords duel was just a "silly face contest". She also has a fiery temper and disbanded her friendship with Applejack over a petty fight, though soon forgave her.

Twilight was extremely brave and loving, she obviously cared for her friends extremely deeply and did not hesitate to come to Dash's aid when she was losing in a fight against Discord. Her best friend is Spike, though she was disgusted at the prospect of marrying him. Her ideal husband was shown to be a silohette of her brother, which...lets just ignore that.

She was very compassionate to others and awoken her library so Mr. Titter Tree could find love.

Phase 6 manga
As very little information on the Phase 6 manga currently exists, much less in English, all that can be gleamed thus far is Twilight Sparkle appears within it.

Seven Seas manga
Twilight in this manga incarnation is a bit more zany than her cartoon counterpart, but not as much as her other manga counterpart. A brave and compassionate ruler, Twilight was a major character in the first first volume, but was far more minor of a character in its second volume.

Twilight-san
Twilight-san was a student at Ponyville-cho High School.

Gameloft game
After Nightmare Moon came returned, she destroyed Ponyville and so Twilight Sparkle and the player unite to attempt to rebuild the city and bring back harmony to Equestria. In doing this, they buy a Windmill and later welcomed Bon Bon to the town. As they progressed, Twilight was grateful she could take her mind off Nightmare Moon, at least for the time being. Later, Twilight attempted to let Pinkie Pie know it was safe to return and so she threw a party with a Balloon Stand.

Later, Twilight read Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide and forgot to eat. Due to this, she got the player to pick some apples so they could feed themselves.

Tails of Equestria
Twilight is a figure in a few RPG stories, such as Tails of Equestria: Curse of the Statuettes and Tails of Equestria: A Dragon's Bounty. In the former, she was turned into stone by Moonbeam - who the story tells is basically a stand in for Twilight - and in the later, she visited Vanhoover to stop Razer from destroying the city. She, of course, didn't do squat and instead three foals, Strong Oak, Thrilly Filly and Firebrand instead saved the day.