VV: Twilight Sparkle Analysis

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“I would rather walk with a friend in the dark than walk alone in the light.” – Helen Keller


Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony’s Princess of Friendship.


The magic of friendship is a power that every person knows, and this legendary princess will go to any lengths to bring it to anyone she can. Aligning alongside her six friends, her magic has brought harmony across all of Equestria, and she’s willing to fight for the hope of all things– not just everypony.


However, while friendship is a mystical power, an appearance on DEATH BATTLE clearly isn’t something she’s incapable of. So… how well does Twilight Sparkle stand on her own two hooves? We’ll figure that out today on Valve’s Versus!

Before We Begin…

Canon as a whole for My Little Pony is a bit awkward thanks to its fair share of retcons or conflicting information between stories, but we’ve decided to look at My Little Pony as a whole– including the series, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, as well as the IDW comics (which are canon!) and storybooks/novels. We’ll additionally be referencing external media through both video and web games, the official role-playing game, and the card games / collectibles as well. These generally build upon canon information and act as branched media from the main series, so they have enough grounds to connect to the main show. In tandem with this, we’ll also draw from the Gameloft video games, as they are similar extended media that build upon the whole series with more contextualization despite being a different sort of canon. 


Beyond the media used, we’ll be referencing Twilight overall– not just her best or what’s standard, but every bit of her magic (though this will be noted). We’ll try to do similar stuff for her arsenal, but her extensive one-off items she’ll summon sometimes doesn’t really seem reasonable to add individually, so they’ll be overlooked. This is just to ensure the best coverage is done here, and to bring up every last inch of her magic prowess that we can without inflating the blog with one-off items. That should be about it, though, so enjoy the blog!

Background

“So, try again! Make new friends! And if something that you can't control happens that changes things, work through it together. That's what friendship is. And it's not just my friendships that are important to Equestria, everypony's are. When yours ended, it lead us here, but just imagine all the others that are out there waiting for you if you just give them a chance.”


  • Name: Princess Twilight Sparkle

  • Age: Uh… about more than three years old.

  • Height: 131 cm / 4’3”

  • Weight: N/A

  • Princess of Friendship

  • Represents the Element of Magic

  • Likes: Reading, her friends, history, unity and order, stargazing.

  • Dislikes: Disorder, quesadillas, ladybugs, snakes, and deception!


Twilight Sparkle was once a young filly growing up in Canterlot, with an expertise in magic. She always stuck to her studies, even at the expense of going with her friends, just to make sure she could become as great as her idols like Starswirl the Bearded. She would have to raise a baby dragon– Spike– who she might have not gotten along with at first, but soon understood the love of family. As she grew, she was directly approached by Princess Celestia for a lesson in friendship: she would have to move to Ponyville and befriend five other ponies.


From then on, Twilight found these five acquaintances as her friends, and they began to solve many of the problems stemming across Equestria. She was looked upon highly by Princess Celestia, and soon was bestowed magic to become an Alicorn princess, moving back to her Canterlot roots. She won’t stop pushing towards making sure that others can understand the friendship that changed her, and she’ll always try her best to ensure that those who want to change can do so for the better. Eventually, as time went on, Twilight became the Princess of Equestria herself, ensuring equality across all ponies prior to the events of Generation 5. 

Intelligence

Twilight is an obviously great leader, as not only is she the main Element of Harmony with the Magic of Friendship, but has developed into a princess who leads all of Equestria in an excellent future. In Winter Wrap Up, she applied her leadership and organization skills to complete it without bringing conflict between everypony, and was bestowed a new all-team organizer vest thanks to it. On her own, Twilight was able to create a portal that could travel between the Human and Pony worlds on her own without a necessary time limit because of her ability to draw magic from the notebook she gave Sunset, as well as being greater in classes of magic like… friendship… than Starswirl the Bearded. When she was amplified by dark magic that twisted the Mane 6’s traits backwards, she was unable to read her library fast enough and thus created a device which would increase her intelligence. As a result, she was able to predict and plan out against the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Luna, and the rest of the Mane 6 without them knowing– although Pinkie was able to cure her because her comedy was unexpected. She was able to decipher the case of the missing turtle Silver Blaze as a friendship problem, which plagued his hometown for a week. She was able to deceive the Umbrums with her knowledge of revolutions into making them petrify her and Cadence in a public place, which set up the rebellion against them that gave a small counterpush. 


She is stated to be an encyclopedia on magic and demonstrably can perform any magic spell in the Tabletop RPG, which includes spells that require immense skill to learn let alone research into mastery. This isn’t even out of the question for Twilight normally, as she can instantly memorize information like spell sheets when a mission calls for it. She’s also pretty good at just memorization in general, like reciting square roots off the top of her head! With her friends and Zecora’s help, she deceived Trixie into believing that she held a magic more powerful than the all-powerful Alicorn Amulet through her friends help into creating fake effects like a de-aging spell

Abilities

Pony Physiology

As you might expect from the title character of My Little Pony, Twilight is a… pony. Each and every pony is unique, all exhibiting different sorts of characteristics all across Equestria. Everypony even contains magic inside of themselves, and gives them the ability to potentially learn spellcasting. The magic of a pony exists in three forms, depending upon the group they were born in. 


  • Earth Pony: Strength-based and nature-based magic, maintaining a powerful willpower and heart thanks to this connection to the land. They are often the most honest and down-to-earth ponies you’ll spot in Equestria… obviously.

  • Pegasi: Flight-based magic (i.e physical cloud interaction and manipulation) which allows them to alter the skies and live within them. They often change weather patterns and guard the air, although in turn bringing a competitiveness to their kind.

  • Unicorn: General magic applications, all measured by the willingness of one’s application. Unicorns who apply themselves highly to the craft will become more powerful magicians, bringing a variety of different applications.


As a result of these innate powers, everypony brings their own unique set of magic and intellect to the table. However, Twilight is set apart from these groups for a key reason: she’s an Alicorn!

Alicorn Physiology

As an Alicorn, Twilight is bestowed with several key physical abilities that bring together the magical powers of a Unicorn, the flight abilities of the Pegasi, and the strength of an Earth Pony’s noble heart, giving her access to all three sets of magic in everypony else. For starters, Twilight ages much slower as a result of her becoming an Alicorn, which gives her a longevity that could last thousands of years. Unlike unicorns who can lose their magic from overexertion, including even the most powerful of magic users, Alicorns have unlimited magic supply alongside inherently greater magic prowess. This vastly increases their capabilities, to where someone like Twilight became responsible for manipulating both the Sun and Moon as she began to mature into a fully-grown Alicorn. As a magic-using Alicorn, Twilight has the mean to read magic signatures beyond what others can

Flight

When she became an Alicorn, Twilight would learn the ability to fly, and eventually became much more skilled in it. Flight doesn’t just mean Twilight can fly, though, as she should (like other Pegasi) be able to manipulate clouds to produce lightning, land on them as if they’re solid ground, and create strong winds– even twisters and storms– with her magic. Even as a unicorn, Twilight has demonstrated the ability to leap forward mid-air akin to flight, showcasing much more agility than you would expect from a unicorn.

Magic

Magic is a driving energy that Twilight can use to perform any variety of spells, and in its most basic applications she can use it to exude light so that Twilight can see in the dark or project basic energy beams. These spells that come from Twilight’s horn often source from her deep knowledge in magic, as she learns a majority of them, although certain uses of magic come naturally to a pony in their youth. However, magic isn’t just one’s inner power, as Cutie Marks themselves also connect a pony to the magical energies of the universe and destiny and empower one within their special talent. 


Magic is a part of one’s life force, like a muscle for unicorns, requiring extensive practice for one to master it. Certain uses of magic come from one’s lifeforce, and general overexertion can not only lead to physical damage but even lead to eventual inability to access it. Even the strongest of unicorns like King Sombra have often run out of magic in these situations, with disastrous permanent effects coming to those who strain it hard enough. Twilight is thankfully a master of magic, and her alicorn body allows her to perform most spells without any physical issue! As a near-fully grown Alicorn by the end of her series, she should likely be able to exert any amount needed, just like how Celestia can. In this section, we’ll be covering every spell, so there will be some lengthy sections due to many examples aligning with one another or fitting into a single class of spells. 

Teleportation

A rather general ability that Twilight is able to use as a Unicorn, and grew even greater with as an Alicorn, teleportation is a technique that allows her to simply disappear and reappear in another location at will. She can teleport herself wherever she needs to go, and hasn’t necessarily showcased an upper limit on range beyond a vague “around Equestria” limit. With her applications of teleportation, she’s even showcased being able to teleport others… or just teleport something away. Twilight has demonstrated masterful skill with her teleportation, such as using it to allow her to protect her friends in an anti-magic bubble or to teleport her friends out of danger alongside herself. She can even teleport inside of objects, allowing her to just pop up out of anywhere. She once memorized a spell from Princess Celestia which would allow her to teleport out of alternate dimensions, should she get trapped in one. Many cases of her summoning magic often source from her teleportation which displays its immense range very well, even if Twilight does not perform it directly. Similarly skilled magic users like Starlight have even demonstrated being able to teleport out of the kingdom of Equestria with others.

Telekinesis

A simple magical ability all Unicorns learn since their youth, Telekinesis allows Twilight to lift an object up with her magic and control it with her horn with immense proficiency. She can use this almost like a hand, as all unicorns do. Twilight is incredibly creative in using her telekinesis, using it for a variety of special purposes such as shifting winds to create soothing music, disarming others or grabbing them, lifting up impeding obstacles like the expansion of Discord’s dimension, freeze ponies and objects en masse with an all-encompassing telekinesis blast that can even extend all across Ponyville to completely stop them from physically moving, reconstruct objects like a broken dam into perfect condition or a destroyed broken barn into a jail cell for the bull that shattered it, or use her telekinesis to create bridges of trees in the Everfree Forest to cross gaps. These creative applications are notable because the strength of one’s telekinesis is based on their magic prowess and intelligence, thus showcasing a powerful connection to her magic. Using her telekinesis, she can even “manipulate” elements, such as water or the earth. When Cosmos was using her magic, she was able to use Twilight’s magic to create a fist made out of sand in order to trap Applejack. Twilight could use her magic to open a hole in the fourth wall to restore Pinkie Pie’s mouth.

Beam Magic

With her basic magic, she’s showcased the ability to project physical energy as an attack like lasers several times. This is regarded as magic in its rawest form, making it a pretty potent attack. She can use specific iterations to improve her pushing capabilities with beams, but even better, she can even use her beam as a physical rope to grab onto things. She’s also showcased being able to encase beings in her beam’s energy, as opposed to shooting into them, which can deal damage too. She can even use her beam like an axe, which she demonstrated when cutting down trees against the Everfree Forest’s creatures in order to create a barrier. She can also use her beams to deconstruct objects into sparkles, making it a powerful tool. If she wants, she can also project her beams in the area of effect to break apart whatever is near her.


In the tabletop role-playing game, Twilight’s beam is able to target the mind, allowing her to affect one’s emotions and perception. She can prevent a target from fighting for the length of the spell, but breaks if they are harmed. She can confuse a target which causes them to forget about the fight, instead moving around erratically but never in a way that brings them in harm's way. She can frighten a target which causes them to stop fighting and run away from her while she’s in line of sight. She can impair a target which makes them lesser in any skill check, including smarts, strength, and speed. She can stun a target which freezes them in place with the inability to take action, although they can perceive their surroundings. Have A Blast can similarly induce a Fire, Cold or Electric damage effect onto a target of her choosing, showcasing her variety of different beam types. She can also project a thick smoke as her beam, usable as a distraction to blind enemies. 

Summoning & Utility Spells

In a trivia game, Twilight was able to summon a Daring Do book in order to fact-check an answer of hers. In the Transformers crossover comic, she summoned an orange cap to cover Megatron’s gun. In Guardians of Harmony (yes, the game), Twilight can summon Giant Spike upon gathering enough diamonds. Hitch a Ride gives the option to summon nearly anything that can be used as a vehicle, including dragons, flying dolphins, hot air balloons, etcetera. Automate brings objects to life to work for Twilight. Take Record allows Twilight to record the events of something into any presentable medium to summon at a later point, such as an illusion, a book’s writing, or a painting. With Extra Sensory Projection, Twilight can project herself out of her body into any area she is familiar with and create a spiritual form that acts simultaneously alongside herself, giving her the means to interact with others outside of range. Lightning Speed can amplify the speed of a given target. Get To Know digs up information contextually for a target, such as information about themselves, a given topic they’re knowledgeable on to contest their knowledge, or learn skills of the target’s know-how. True Sight can allow Twilight to see invisible objects, objects masked by magic, disguised changelings, and comprehend the “true nature” of things. Using a spell of Rarity’s expertise, Twilight can look inside of dirt and rock to find gemstones. After a confusing bit of research, Twilight and Pinkie were able to find a “time-stopping spell” from Starswirl the Bearded, which actually allowed Twilight to go back in time for a bit. 

Amplification & Aid Spells

Twilight is able to absorb magic and put it into other beings. With Fluttery Wings, she can give others butterfly wings to fly. Healing Bandage can instantly heal anyone Twilight touches. Summon Shield… uh… I don’t know what it does man. Summon Armor encases a target in a defensive forcefield. Harmony Unleashed gives her the ability to “unleash one’s inner element of harmony”, projecting the target’s best internal perception of themselves with amplified powers which gives them to means to act out the talents of their Cutie Mark without any exhaustion. This sort of self-projection can be used to transform others into a form they’ve been in prior, such as when she used her magic to bring out Fluttershy’s dormant fruitbat self. One of Starswirl the Bearded’s spells could rearrange the Cutie Marks of the rest of the Mane 6, shifting what they pursued and swapping around the Elements of Harmony, similarly altering their “true selves”.  Panacea restores a target of any ailments or conditions including defeat and heals them entirely, including mental and physical attacks. Disguise gives the ability to transform oneself into a creature, which specifically gives bonus deception on other races not of the user. Twilight transformed an apple into a carriage and mice into horses. Twilight has demonstrated the ability to create forcefields on the fly as a form of great utility. Twilight can use gravity spells to flip around her own gravity, and others as well. When practicing a transmutation spell that Pinkie Pie knocked her out of, she accidentally turned a blue jay into an orange hybrid. Twilight was able to give Pinkie Pie her mouth back after Trixie removed it. 

Imbuement & Enchantment Spells

Twilight can put moustaches on others and demonstrated reversal of this spell. Twilight was able to use a spell to turn the Mane 6 into Breezies, and could alter this spell on-the-fly to transform themselves into Vampire Ponies. Twilight can specifically “apple-ize” others as a form of disguise when apples invaded and took over Ponyville. She used a spell that can transform an Earth pony into a Pegasus for three days as well as a spell that allowed her and the rest of her friends to walk on clouds. The Want It, Need It spell allows Twilight to cast her magic onto objects which causes anyone who gazes upon said object to become immensely infatuated with it to the point of inciting combat, although it can be interrupted by preventing someone from locking eyes with it before they fully turn. Adapt gives those it is casted upon to have the ability to survive in the environment they’re in by being given what is needed, such as giving gills to someone underwater. Common Ground allows Twilight and the affected to speak each other's language. Enchant improves the intelligence of those affected for a given task. Bestow Expertise similarly imbues the target with immense wisdom and knowledge. The Don’t-Notice-Me-Field increases the stealthiness of a target, although it cannot harm others and can be seen through by those of stronger magic. Ponymorph allows Twilight to transform a target into any other species, bestowing them only physical abilities but disallows them from accessing specific forms of magic. Twilight can use a more basic form of shape-shifting which only allows her to copy the physicality of those her size at a limited time length. On the other hand, Revolutionary Shape Shifting grants the ability to transform and maintain the natural abilities of the species one transforms into. Twilight demonstrates casual use of this, turning the Mane 6 into Breezies. Self Improvement improves a specific skill or part of being.  

Purification & Counter Spells

She could use a spell to reverse Discord’s magic effects on her friends by reversing the mental effect, which turned them into the complete opposite of their personalities. Well, well, well. Twilight must’ve prepared this one pretty well,  Oh ho ho, and she did in fact! Just look at it go. She also demonstrated the ability to enter Big Mac’s mind through an ancient spell she analyzed in a moment's notice with ease. Twilight was able to use a spell to remove a Changeling’s disguise and in turn knock them unconscious. Even regular unicorns have shown the ability to fortify their minds, giving them the means to increase their willpower. Twilight could be seen as similar to Celestia, especially by the end of the series, who used her magic to clean up the minds of ponies thanks to misinformation spread in the nightmare of one pony that led to mass hysteria. Twilight was able to clean up all of Trixie’s damages in A Horse Shoe In which left the classroom in ruins. Her telekinesis, in reconstruction, also displays restorative properties to materials. Twilight was also able to give Pinkie Pie her mouth back after Trixie removed it. 


Twilight has the ability to dispel opposing spells, giving her the means to nullify a target’s attack if she’s capable enough. However, it can drain her if she isn’t able to pull it off, giving her target an advantage as a result. Twilight was able to use her magic to dispel the Nightmare Forces’ power on her, which was going to trap her in a never-ending nightmare alongside her friends, with others similarly dispersing them with willpower and might in a similar regard. She can also use it on magical beings, such as dispelling the Pinkie Pie clones into their primal magic. Magic users like Discord or Starlight can dispel the forms of beings in similar regards, particularly those who have also displayed regeneration capabilities, showcasing that this dispellment works on a variety of different forms of magic. Spells can also be overridden instead of dispelled, as Rarity was able to override Fancy Pants’ telekinesis, or they can be imbued/enchanted with magic to counter them, such as when Discord used his magic to override Sombra’s dark magic. 


Not all magic needs to be dispelled for their effects to become docile to Twilight, however. For example, past time magic is relatively useless in-universe because the past can’t change for oneself unless they “bring their present” in that time period so to speak. Thus, it does not need to be outright dispelled because its effects will naturally clear themselves up. In other examples, characters like Princess Celestia can resist the corruption from Changeling magic specifically because she is strong enough to do so, which can translate to Twilight’s natural magic resistance, too. In other ways, most ponies can oftentimes outlast the effects of certain spells that naturally dispel in due time, although this is far less reliable than just dispelling them directly. 

Magic Item Creation

In the RPG Tabletop game, any spellcaster can create a variety of different magic items which imbue a specific spell type into itself. This varies from potions to charms to talisman to generic objects, bestowing a variety of potential applications. Objects can also be bestowed effects from its users by being in the range of their magic, as demonstrated with the Pillars of Equestria, or can be enchanted directly. 


In the continuity of Generation 5, Twilight gathered all of the magic in Equestria and placed it into three crystals, with this crystal containing literally all of the magic. She kept it together during her ruling, although it could be taken apart and prevent magic from maintaining its form across the three groups of ponykind. Discord himself intended on destroying the crystal to destroy magic across Equestria so that everypony could be equal because of the pain he saw his dear Fluttershy go through, but Sunny Starscout and her friends were able to save the day and save magic before he could destroy the crystal. As a result, it’s demonstrated that the crystals are very integral to magic’s existence, and destroying them can bring about an age of no magic due to them containing quite literally all of it. 

Magic of Friendship

Although the Elements of Harmony act as the main artifact that gives Twilight the means to access this power thanks to the Element of Magic, since their destruction, Twilight was able to discover the magic inside of her alongside her friends which they wielded to defeat King Sombra. This is all thanks to the fact that she herself embodies the spirit of magic, the fundamental power that links all of the Elements of Harmony together, and can become active whenever Twilight feels strongly about her friends. This power has been regarded as greater than anypony in Equestria several times. This extends far beyond just Twilight, though, as the united feelings of ponies across Equestria and other species had given her a way to look upon herself– uniting with her friends of her generation, the founders of an older generation, and the friends of a newer generation in order to access a power beyond that of just the Mane Six’s magical friendship alone and defeat the Mean Three. While it is questionable whether or not Twilight could access this power in the middle of a fight without her friends (See Notes), she is nonetheless displayed immense skill with the Magic of Friendship beyond any other user in the series, as similar users like the Pillars do explicitly require their own artifacts to access higher magic below the Elements alone (even down the line) and Starlight himself admits he wasn’t familiar with the Friendship of Magic that Twilight embodies. It has showcased the ability to reach all across Equestria, allowing them to, for example, return any stolen magic to its original pony. This power’s main limit is that it cannot solve every friendship problem, it is reserved by Twilight and only applicable to those evil or chaotic enough against Equestria.


On its own, the Magic of Friendship was able to grant the Equestria Girl’s cast the ability to be immune to the Dazzling’s singing which could mind control people into becoming destructive and conflictive, as well as causing others to be more aligned with them. This is displayed further with how the Elements of Harmony allowed Twilight and her friends to break out of Sombra’s mind control specifically because the Elements were stronger than Sombra and thus can undo his magic. The magic of friendship can even allow Twilight to break out of Sombra’s dark magic, corrupting her horn and preventing her from using magic (even clearing her out of her exhaustion), giving her a powerful counter against it. The magic of friendship similarly allowed her to reflect on her relationships and break away from the disharmony Discord was spreading into the Mane 6. 

Rainbow Power

Rainbow Power is a source of magic formed by the Tree of Harmony from Twilight and her Friends’ magic. Twilight and her friends would have needed to slowly unlock its power by taking lessons about friendship and developing themselves, which created keys out of the remaining crowns of the Elements. By putting them together with the last key of Twilight’s lesson from the Tree of Harmony– redeeming Discord wholly again– allowed them to unlock Rainbow Power. This magic was used to defeat Lord Tirek and reorganize his absorbed magic all across Equestria. Rainbow Power is quite incredible, but only existed as a one-time use with the creation of Twilight’s Kingdom. It was intended to be used together, like the Elements of Harmony and Magic of Friendship, but did not reappear again in the series due to writing conflicts. Like the Elements, its source of power was destroyed along with the Tree of Harmony. However, with her friends, Twilight found that the Magic of Friendship was all inside of them, and they didn’t need to use the Elements: all they needed was each other.

Equipment

Starswirl the Bearded Costume

Although you might confuse it with someone’s grandpa, a weird clown, a country music singer, or a Sitcom pony, this is a costume of one of the most legendary (and admittedly obscure) magicians in Equestria history!  

Twinkling Balloon

A unique hot air balloon which Twilight owns, although rarely gets usage out of. She used this in a chase against Rainbow Dash thanks to the help of the rest of her friends, notably Fluttershy. She can also use it to cross Equestria in the Gameloft game, or pick up lost ponies.

Elements of Harmony 

These six powerful artifacts bring harmony across Equestria, with Twilight representing the strongest Element of all; Magic! … the Magic of Friendship, more specifically. Although this power source is one only she and the Mane 6 can use, they’ve been able to bring together the power of friendship time and time again to take down threats to all of Equestria. By bringing together her friends as bearers of the Elements, Twilight Sparkle can arm the power of Elements of Harmony into a powerful game-changing attack! Oftentimes, this ability has been used to reform or outright take down villains, and in more powerful instances can be used to reverse magic and depower users of it. As demonstrated in the series, while these artifacts are indeed powerful, they require Twilight and her friends to activate its power. Otherwise, the Elements will not work, and grant no notable set of abilities to the user unless they lack magic. They were placed into the Tree of Harmony, unlocking the Rainbow Power’s chest, but causing the Elements of Harmony to become unusable in their crown forms for a time. Twilight has since lost access to the Elements as a result of King Sombra’s destruction of the Tree of Harmony where the cast had left them. However, she has in turn demonstrated the ability to tap into the power of friendship thanks to her friends (duh), allowing her to access the magic with them without needing the Elements present. 

Starswirl’s Enchanted Flower 

This enchanted flower is a gift from Starswirl to Twilight, which can grant wishes to those nearby it, which sheds its leaves. It’s unknown if Twilight ever earned another enchanted flower from Starswirl, so it’s unlikely she can pull it out at any time, but she demonstrated keeping it on herself in the episode when she found the Cutie Mark Crusaders. 

The Armor of Friendship

A special armor wielded to snag evil Changelings, allowing her to take down infesting targets in Equestria. 

Potions

Twilight is able to create potions and imbue magic into it, as with several varieties of objects. She has only demonstrated access to a specific amount of potions in her lifetime, however, so it’s unknown if she has any back-up potions of any spell. 

Forms

This section will be covering all of Twilight’s forms across the series, both standard and inapplicable, to give the best coverage for her series and herself as a whole.

Unicorn

Twilight is a born and raised Unicorn, and as a result she’s grown quite masterful of the magic present as one. While she’s far from her best at this state, she’s more familiar with the talents of being a unicorn and impressed Celestia in her youth.

Alicorn

Thanks to Celestia’s belief in her and Twilight’s ability to grow into a loving pony, she was bestowed the transformation into an Alicorn princess. While she might just have visually gained wings, Twilight actually gained the magic of all three classes of ponies, as mentioned in the beginning. She had to learn a lot to get here, and intended on learning even more in the future to ensure she could be the best princess, not just for friendship, but for all of Equestria.

Fully-Grown Alicorn

In the final episode of the show and Generation 5 media, Twilight would grow into her prime Alicorn. She might have grown more powerful, and brought forward a new era of Equestria, though with the nature of the timeskip the information on her capabilities are fairly unknown. 

Human World

A transformation exclusive to Twilight entering the human world, she’s effectively a regular human (as implied). She doesn’t really showcase a lot of skills or notable abilities in this form as a result, especially as she had to adapt to her human stature, although she can dance and sing! 

Pony-Up Transformation

As a result of Twilight coming to the Human World and the energy of the Element of Magic (...of Friendship), Twilight and her friends were able to be given power similar to that of the Elements of Harmony thanks to the magic of friendship alone. Although they lost the magic seemingly afterwards, they could access it through their music because the energy was leftover in their first usage. Thanks to Twilight coming back at the time, they would be able to access the full power of the magic of friendship because she was the puzzle piece for completing the group, although down the line the Geodes and Sci-Twi became more relevant means to access it. In this form, she gains pony-like characteristics including the ears and wings (flight included!). In Rainbow Rocks, she was demonstrated to be able to use her music as attacks, such as her singing. Although this form has been overpowered, it was able to advance to a greater potential thanks to Sunset Shimmer: the Element of Redemption. Alongside her friends, they were able to create a magical alicorn projection to strike down the Dazzlings and create a magical attack that would take in the power of the Element of Magic as well as purify those corrupted by the misuse of it. The cast of Equestria Girls was able to individually tap into this power and replicate powers on the level of their pony-selves. As demonstrated with Sunset, like the normal Elements of Harmony, the spirits of Harmony and their magic actually dwell inside of each and every one. Like the Elements of Harmony, the full power does require Twilight’s friends to be close and in her heart, but explicitly strengthens Twilight herself even on its own. 

Weaknesses

Twilight is a huge neat freak, and an even bigger control freak at times. One of her most prevalent faults is her compulsion to fix and order things around in her own personal system, aligning charts for every event she can and always making sure to organize things in color order. This has demonstrably made it difficult for Twilight to deal with situations misaligned in her eyes, and such examples become highly prevalent in episodes like A Trivial Pursuit or Lesson Zero where she goes practically insane over not being able to complete things at her best. As mentioned in prior sections, another weakness is her magic system, as overexertion can still cause her trouble especially in actions like overpowering stronger magic. Over time, she has indeed overcome these character flaws and more than likely holds a strong enough magic supply to maintain herself in duels as a fully matured alicorn, making these weaknesses sort of a short-term when looking at her greatest. Twilight can oftentimes be clumsy or disregard a threat, especially if she forgets she can use magic in situations, making her a bit of a silly goose at times. Don’t just look over her for that reason though, because she’s still a very powerful alicorn princess willing to fight for harmony and her friends no matter the stakes.

Feats 

Overall

  • Great enough to inspire Starswirl the Bearded and Princess Celestia, and brought hope into all of Equestria at times of need.

  • Defeated several villains and allowed many to redeem themselves into better people.

  • One of the first known graduated Alicorns, and became the Princess of Friendship.

  • Took over the role of Celestia and Luna in the future, as though she could not individually perform their magic, brought towards a better future.

  • Redeemed Starlight Glimmer, Stygian, and Shadow Lock among many other villains on her own.

  • Brought friendship into the hearts of many, uniting entire species and warring groups to give up fighting for the sake of understanding each other. 

  • Cracked magic problems that those before her simply couldn't comprehend.

  • Princess Luna notes that, if the Mane 6 were truly evil and that friendship had not been in their way, they would be unstoppable in taking over Equestria.

Power


Speed

Durability

Scaling

Mane Characters

Brought together by harmony, friendship, and seemingly fate itself, six (Seven!) friends from Ponyville have banded together to save it from threats. Twilight herself is obviously comparable to her friends and has often exceeded them at times, so she’d absolutely match in strength or speed.

Alicorn Princesses

Princesses of the Sun and Moon, Celestia and Luna are the rulers of Equestria. Even though they ultimately passed down their role to Twilight, they are still some of the strongest magic users in history and Twilight undoubtedly exceeded the expectations of a ruler who had to stand up to the image of the princesses. Given that Twilight and her friends similarly scale to characters that have been able to harm the princesses, such as Chrysalis, it’s not unlikely to say they would scale even before Twilight became a matured Alicorn. Introduced later on in the series, Cadence is one of the three (and later four) other Alicorn Princesses alongside Twilight Sparkle, representing the Element of Love. She’s similarly comparable to Twilight, and is one of the greatest users of magic presented by the Alicorns second to only Twilight herself… and maybe Celestia, her prowess flip-flops all the time.  

Equestria’s Evils

Many of Equestria’s evils who constantly threaten the safety and light of the world. From fillies who attempt to usurp and destroy all magic to legendary queens of shapeshifting races, there’s always some sort of antagonist trying to spread their influence in Equestria. Never fear, though, as Twilight has defeated a variety of these villains, and alongside her friends she’s often taken them out with just the power of friendship! 

Discord!

Although the general scaling is questionable for Twilight on her own (Notes), she’s not necessarily unable to match Discord on the occasion he wants to play around. She should (at the very least) scale to Discord pretty casually, although she’d obviously not scale to the full extent of his chaos magic’s reality warping. 

Miscellaneous Characters

A general list of feats performed by those who don’t really fit into any of the previous categories, such as general races or characters who aren’t specifically main characters/antagonists. Just as an alicorn alone, Twilight would scale much higher than most and as a result should be above the ranges present. 

Notes


My favorite!

Dreams → Infinite Doors → …Strength?

So, the Dreamscape got a really minor mention in the feats section, despite being a commonly argued Multiversal feat. However, feats for scaling to the Dreamscape… don’t actually exist. But we’ll have to start a lot more simply before getting into that, because dreams are a doozy to talk about, and have definitely garnered more reputation as of Discord’s appearance on DEATH BATTLE!. 


The Dreamscape is a land that contains every dream, which is portrayed as its own pocket dimension and every nightmare is not “real” and that characters need to explicitly travel into and across this Dreamscape in order to interact with them, including Luna herself who brought several dreams of Ponyville into the Dreamscape that seemed to encompass Ponyville as a result. Even though these dreams have showcased physical damage to the characters, these are as a result of their immersion into the world and never actually translate to them being real, as general immersion magic usage physically draws others into non-physical mediums and also similarly will cause ponies to take physical damage within them so it’s very unfounded to assume dreams are specifically physical structures when the pages of books also share these properties. Examples like Daybreaker explicitly were overcome because it was Celestia’s emotions or the Tantabus which was overcome by Luna’s emotions before it wormed into the real world and would only become an actual threat to Equestria if it broke out. The Tantabus specifically wormed into other dreams but could only enter the real world if it grew strong enough from infecting dreams in tandem with Luna’s guilt, demonstrating that the Tantabus needed to literally grow into a physical form in order to enter the real world via Luna’s own immersion magic. Even if we did take them real world structures, they can only be entered through immersion via the actual Dreamscape, and examples like Luna bringing together dreams does not equate to altering realities. In this instance, we’ve seen that immersion like into books (similar thoughtforms to dreams that can also be altered through a physical medium which have been confused before by ponies who have dreams) holds the same rules of altering it via imagination including “world creation” that simply shouldn’t equate to real universe creation. It helps that we see this same effect within dreams where outside effects alter them, and rules such as the idea of magical immersion do apply. Within these worlds, we are showcased that immersion is a concept that applies, more specifically in that a real world being has to enter these mediums in a different form (in the case of storybooks, becoming a part of the fictional world) and specific magic in turn that brings these fictions to life transforms them into a 3-dimensional creation. Similar to dream magic and how the events happen to those within them, the storybook’s information enact literally upon reality and vice-versa, showcasing that these do not need to be literal realms if they are also thoughtforms just because one can exist in it, especially via magic travel. There are many claims for dreams having physical size, such as how teleportation can be used to enter it or how Twilight seemingly physically left it, but demonstrably comes in consistent forms of Immersion into non-physical mediums like that of the storybook which will ultimately transfer beings brought into it, regardless of teleportation or physical entrance, to match the medium. We’ve explicitly seen that characters fade into nothing with their physical forms upon entrance into a dream/mind, showcasing that dreams are not actively physical places too even when disregarding the storybook comparison. We can extend this to points like the Nyx, who explicitly conjure up dreams in a physical medium that imbues magic into a pony’s mind, which specifically targets the mind and alters it. This is an innately physical medium, and demonstrates that the mind simply is not a physical realm that gets altered by the Nyx either, rather changed via magic that physically enters into the pony’s mind. Unless we assume that every pony is physically infinite multiversal because they can contain their own minds, the general argument falls flat because thoughtforms are not an actual reality or physical dimension and just entering one does not require those to be 3-dimensional. 


Just as a whole, though, it’s very unlikely anypony actually scales to the actual Dreamscape in scope as no character has outright displayed power equivalent to that of even individual dreams. It is explicitly demonstrated that just by opening connections between dreams, it was heavily straining her, and she has more specific tuning to the entrance of and support within dreams than actually modifying them. Within the series, she’s specifically demonstrated drawing connections between dreams, which brings forward a more sensical premise that Luna can bring forward entrances between dreams without altering their whole structures. Even more notably, the Nyx themselves were the only way that Nightmare Moon/Princess Luna could alter the minds of ponies, and even then the Nyx could only do this to individual ponies instead of the whole Dreamscape. Celestia herself demonstrates that the access to dreams is very specifically singular, too. Luna has never actively altered whole dreams regardless, as Discord’s mind (what you might recognize for the infinite doorways statement) had Luna enter together with Discord in order for them to discover what the underlying fault was in there, something she wouldn’t need to deal with if she truly displayed control over whole dreams as most arguments imply. The Tantabus is similarly damning evidence, as while Luna could bring a connection into dreams and traverse several at once, she explicitly could not ward out its corruption of dreams without straining herself to draw a greater connection, and itself had not demonstrated any whole manipulation of the structures either despite acting as a threat that could transcend them. The Tantabus was targeting the ponies specifically with nightmares that alter what is already present, which are shown to exist distinctly from thoughts of ponies. This would inherently prove the Tantabus is not impacting nightmares as a structure, either, but spreading its corruption within them as an infection (which fits how it is described) that could grow powerful enough to use Luna’s own immersion capabilities to exit the Dreamscape. This is a more sensical argument to make, as (like mentioned). The main argument that is most commonly referenced otherwise is Celestia supposedly reversing nightmares, however the feat comes from a panel where Celestia undid a chain reaction of Nightmare Moon’s singular nightmare via the Nyx that led to mass chaos because ponies were in turn scared of Celestia thanks to the original pony who had the nightmare spreading what happened in her dream. Not only did she not actually reverse any nightmares, but this is evidently restorative magic that Celestia has displayed which should obviously not apply to raw strength. The only single example we have of altering the mind to alter the whole structure, and one that is still questionable in itself, is Discord transforming into Accord. Turning into Accord caused Discord’s entire mind to shift because Accord seemingly became a new being, shifting his whole mind in form. This is obviously problematic because not only did Discord verbatim become a new person, but it was a change of being that not even he could fully reverse in his mind. It is blatantly not something that was done through physical power or directly manipulating his “mental structure”, but through changing himself and becoming a new person as a whole, making it inapplicable to strength even if it altered his mind. 


All in all, most arguments inherently fall flat when applying dreams to any medium or size of cosmology, and fall even further down the tree when looking into supposed examples of dream manipulation. 

“Multiversal” Shadows

Another argument that was notably featured on DEATH BATTLE! and led to a lot more discussion about stats for the verse, this time from the Pony of Shadows (and by extension Luna and Celestia or whatever). This was another feat similarly left out because it’s not really anything applicable to stats, but we still wanted to talk about every inch of this argument. That’s why this is longer than my personal essay for college! 🙏


In an alternate world, the Pony of Shadows is a threat who intended on using the Princesses of his world after finding out their mystical powers from Starswirl’s journals for the goal of spreading his shadows across Equestria and extend to other worlds, although his plans failed and in turn had to resort to using other princesses for this goal so that he would extend to every reality. The princesses were not inherently required in order to overrun realities, but were brought to be successors so that his rule could stay across the worlds in case he was destroyed. He did succeed, acting as a dictator over his world that– after his defeat by her hands– Eris transformed into her own, maintaining the intention for her power to extend to other realities. The wording for these statements is often extrapolated to argue for the Pony of Shadows scaling to the cosmology thanks to planning to “overrunning every reality”, but it is not a statement that translates to strength nor speed for either the Pony of Shadows or any of the princesses.


A big problem with this argument is that it relies heavily on the idea that Stygian / the Shadows were actively going to destroy the multiverse or in a way that actively impacts the structure when he talks about overrunning realities with destructive forces (the princesses). While we do see in the main universe that Stygian was able to draw light from the night sky in a visualization (though this is inherently faulty due to coming from a singular instance of a hologram and being inconsistent with his approach, I’ll explain in a bit), he explicitly did not do this in his arrival to modern Equestria (instead casting clouds) and needed to withdraw energy from the darkness instead while casting the world into eternal night, which would contradict against this showing given his power comes from absorbing darkness and not light as the hologram shows. Even when the Pony of Shadows was draining power from the land and bringing his darkness forward, the stars and moonlight remain unaffected, displaying that it’s very unlikely he literally pulled this off because his power has nothing to do with drawing light but rather drawing in (and expanding) darkness. Even with the idea that he was “highly weakened” and needed to do this for some reason, other universes demonstrate that he was merely spreading his darkness across the world at a similar state of power where he immediately killed Starswirl in a failed sealing attempt. This showcases that the darkness overtaking the light is more so an expansion of its form and in turn its rule / corruption instead of him impacting the stars. This is explicitly referenced by the corrupted Celestia in his universe, who would “spread the rule of shadows to other worlds”, supporting the idea that her “infinite power for destruction” was merely to destroy those that stood in the Pony of Shadow’s way rather than for them to drain the light of stars as calculations for the feat argue, which (thanks to an endless and powerful magic supply as immortal alicorns) would absolutely give him the support he needs to conquer entire worlds with ease. Even the “infinite power for destruction” premise isn’t safe, as it’s specifically demonstrated from Starswirl’s backstory that Celestia is regarded by him as being far beyond others due to it not being drained when performing high-scale magic and that Daybreaker was intentionally going to be limited by the Pony of Shadows with Eris’ magic to only use her powerful and highly destructive fire magic. Daybreaker herself doesn’t maintain infinite strength, meaning the statement refers to Celestia’s magic amount in general, as she’s inherently a stronger version of Celestia yet is a finite amp on top of it as Celestia could protect herself from harm’s way when appearing in Starlight’s dreams with both believing Daybreaker was that much stronger, eventually exceeding her with enough willpower. Even if we take the statement at face value, it is pretty clear that the “infinite power” isn’t something that should be taken at literal to argue universal strength, but rather specifically references that Celestia and Luna have greater innate magical power than other ponies as a result of their infinite magic supply, as all Alicorns do. These are statements also generally based around Starswirl’s studies (that we have no verbatim references of), but likely did not take “infinite” as a literal term of power and rather as a supply. This is much more sensible when the short bits we know of Starswirl’s studies (taking in Celestia and Luna) were because of their Alicorn nature granting them enough magical power to not be drained by magic overuse, showcasing the infinite power idea does not reference anything more than how much magic they can draw out and matches the idea that the Pony of Shadows sought after those he could use to exert endless reign over his worlds.

On another hand, there is also the fault of actual world destruction being taken literally in the first place, or really any cosmic damage. As mentioned before, it’s constantly referenced that the Pony of Shadows wasn’t actively destroying worlds or any part of their structure, rather targeting “pillars of light” within them and having all ponies feel the pain he had. This is a goal which is shared by his main universe counterpart and alternate self, given the main differences were that the Pony of Shadows won and the two were similar enough to where beings corrupted by the Pony of Shadows in this alternate universe could be controlled by the main universe’s Stygian. Starswirl the Bearded explicitly uses this wording of ”extinguishing the Pillar’s light” in the context of them dying, or referencing how the Elements were designed to protect the “light of the world” when they were fighting against the Pony of Shadows and the Elements located him. Even in statements of direct destruction, he’s also referenced it as destroying “all that is good in the world”, and the Pony of Shadows directly uses “light and hope” as targets for his plan, demonstrating that this showcase is very much not literal destruction of light but a metaphorical conquering over Equestria destroying the “light of hope” and descending it into the corruption of darkness he was left in. Stygian himself even mentions that his plan was to descend the world into darkness and corruption, furthering this idea that it was far less than him actually destroying worlds physically. In the other regard, even the alternate universe Pony of Shadows had wanted to use them as weapons of destruction specifically to spread the same influence of “shadow and destruction” and Stygian exclaims that this was a world where he won and “destroyed everything”... but that world was specifically overrun by his power, empty, and corrupt from him taking the life of everyone who could challenge him. Not even in regards to a destroyed/destabilized universe, but instead the fact that anypony who could challenge him was gone/dead and thus he ruled over everything. Even if you took these statements at face value if he actually was going to perform it, characters like Daybreaker know his words were not entirely truthful and Eris supports this given he had a very evident ego at the time, showcasing that the Pony of Shadows likely did not even measure the task at hand. Given he only read off of Starswirl’s readings and thereafter only succeeded in overtaking one single reality– his own– there’s not really any reason to assume he knew he could destroy the rest of the universe, but instead planned on dominating them and not knowing the full extent of the multiverse outside of what Starswirl wrote in his studies. Overrunning every other reality is an obviously daunting task, so the fact that he never even succeeds in doing it and only went as far as wiping out anyone who challenged him in his own world showcases a very evident fault in the idea that he was actually going to destroy any realities. Even if he had extended beyond his home reality, there’s also a minor issue in the fact that the Pony of Shadows could not access all of reality anyways. While there are indeed statements of “supposed infinite realities”, it is also explicitly stated by Starswirl that these worlds need specific conditions to be located and that he created mirrors for such cases… but they were all destroyed by the Pony of Shadows. At most, this would only extend to a single reality in the main world, and given Stygian explicitly could not replicate Starswirl’s magic, it’s very unlikely he could just recreate portals to enter other universes. Even more notable in the idea that the Pony of Shadows could extend beyond his universe or across it, Eris (who was going to be used to traverse realities) only interacts with other realities through portals and the Pony of Shadows himself had only used parts of the shadows to infiltrate through portals to other realities as well since he can’t do it on his own. He explicitly needed power from Eris to search across his own universe in order to locate Celestia and Luna, so in both cases we know he doesn’t even have provable cross-universal range or range alone across Equestria. Thus, while the Pony of Shadows could have had the intention to overrun realities, this is not something he could actually do alone without Eris’ specific magic allowing her to travel between realities, and otherwise it requires taking a statement the uninformed Stygian could not fact check at a face value to argue it as a physical feat. 


Though not much of a different argument but still something that should be talked about, note that the idea of world destruction (when talking about realities) in this context doesn’t even reference any aspect of universal destruction, but pretty clearly references a vague overlooking power over the ponies in their universe instead. This is present in Eris within Nightmare Knights, who would go on a similar route to her universe’s Pony of Shadows of bringing influence to other worlds. She tells Luna that the power she stole from her (which she was going to auction off to a random villain that could have unimaginable magic prowess as a result) would destroy one’s world. This is pretty clear evidence that this term, like its many examples in this arc, regards the idea of conquering and overtaking the planet with power rather than destroying the structure of the universe. These inherently don’t have merit as standalone statements as they play off of the factors of the Alicorn princesses having powers that control the Sun and Moon, or being able to provoke endless nightmares, similarly showcasing that they aren’t destroying worlds in the context of destroying universes but rather in reference to threats to Equestria and overtaking it. If you didn’t buy the fact that the Pony of Shadows never performed it or could do it on his own meaning it can’t work as a feat, it doesn’t even probably extend past Equestria. It is a statement that is specifically about the Pony of Shadows ruling over worlds as a dictator rather than destroying them (hence him taking in the Alicorn princesses as his successors), travelling between worlds through the usage of portals rather than any actual travel or ranged magic, and as mentioned ultimately never succeeded with his plan to actually make it to any other reality beyond his own, which Eris immediately overtook with her Equestria-wide casino that gets described as her, like the Pony of Shadows, making her own world. 


All in all, this is a huge in-depth section and for good reason. There are tons of issues with this feat that simply have been overlooked, and even if one were to try ignoring a faulty aspect of it, you’ll still run into several issues with their application. We know that the Pony of Shadows could have only conquered one extra reality at best even if he intended on doing so much more by virtue of how many portals exist, and his statements of “overrunning every reality” specifically come from the context of overtaking worlds by destroying those in power and the hope of Equestria rather than destruction. Premises like “infinite power Celestia” or “verbatim destruction” similarly fall apart within the context of not being literal statements of strength. Even if you overlooked all of these faults, it requires taking statements literally from an unreliable egotist going off of Starswirl’s notice of the Alicorn’s endless magic supply instead of literal measurements of strength, and outright fails at conquering any dimension outside of his own due to his lack of personal cross-universal influence. 

Alternate Sombra and Midnight Sparkle

You might have noticed these two feats had (Inapplicable) next to them, and they’re pretty easy arguments for the Elements of Harmony so… what’s the deal? These two were the main feats argued for the Elements of Harmony scaling to Universal in the past (especially on VS Battles Wiki) if you looked past any other cosmic arguments for the base cast. While these are technically fine if you take them out of context, once you look into them, they’re a bit difficult to argue for scaling if not outright wrong.


King Sombra and Reflections: In the storyline of Reflections, the nature of cross-dimensional travel is noted to threaten the fabric of reality itself. Due to Princess Celestia falling in love with King Sombra from another dimension, it led to her constantly entering the dimension. However, this would create a paradox that first came with effects matching up in both realities for certain causes and effects. This led to the destabilization of the border between worlds and a merge as a result, where effects would parallel in both worlds such as damage the princesses took. However, it was then believed that the only way to rebuild the barrier was to bring balance– which the alternate universe’s Sombra sacrifices himself by taking the dark magic of the world’s Celestia and Luna to bring a balance of good and evil via the Elements of Harmony. This led to the barrier between worlds reforming, and the separation of both realities. This is an evident chain reaction that does not equate to the power of the Elements of Harmony, as their power was not required to equalize the balance of the two worlds and fix it, but was instead used as a way to ensure that balance via dark magic manipulation when draining it from Celestia & Luna. 


Midnight Sparkle: In Equestria Girls: Friendship Games, Sci-Twi drains the power of all of the Pony-Up transformations. By “unleashing the magic”, she’s then absorbed by it, which corrupts her into Midnight Sparkle. She begins to create rifts on the schoolgrounds, which was stated to “almost destroy” the two worlds (the Pony and Human world). However, it’s unlikely this is outright thanks to physical strength, nor does it mean she would even reach a full-on universal scale in hax. Sci-Twi specifically absorbed the power from the portal during the climax and her sheer presence was creating these cracks between the walls of the Human and Pony World as a result, with Sunset then easily dispatching these rifts when she transforms despite Midnight Sparkle being just as strong as if not greater than Sunset, only losing the beam struggle because of Sci-Twi’s emotions. It is inherently much more likely to be based on hax than sheer physical prowess, given that comparison of equal physical power but easily powering through her passive tears in reality. This feat is also very likely a chain reaction, as Midnight Sparkle’s destruction was very minute in comparison, slowly cracking overtime. Given it was causing the barrier between dimensions to crack just by virtue of her being present, in a similar regard to how Starswirl’s portals and interdimensional magic can cause the same effect, it very likely was not going to be done all at once.


Both of these feats display key counterpoints that make it very difficult to argue that they actually scale to the Elements of Harmony. Both feats specifically suffer from the fact that they’re cosmic feats where the characters in question don’t actively perform the destruction/reconstruction themselves, but come down to a specific caveat of the abilities or cosmology that would only be known in the context of their media. At face value, these statements can be seen as completely fine, but they have key context points that are often left out in discussions which have huge weight against their application. 

My Little Pony Friendless%

Just a stipulation that I’ve wanted to clear up for the series after a rewatch, since the idea has been spread around a ton in the community ever since the dawn of time lol. While the cast of My Little Pony does have an uber-powerful tool with the Elements of Harmony, it isn’t really accessible to anyone without the magic of friendship, something that obviously needs friendship to access. While it has been demonstrated that the Elements and similar powers can be tapped into without whole acceptance of their power or friends, namely within examples like Sunset Shimmer being wiped of her memories who was unaware of the magic and the HuMane 6 were able to tap into it by just their own feelings and accepting Sunset as a friend, how Rarity, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash were going to use the power on Discord until Fluttershy intervened (which depowered as a result, but they were already activated so this likely inapplicable as an example), or that the main cast could access the magic in order to free Rarity from the Nightmare Forces, there are still zero examples of any of the cast using these powers individually, making the push very questionable to me. Even in examples of where the cast could use this power supposedly on their own, such as in Rainbow Runners and the Rainbow Power, we are both told that it’s the magic of friendship with them altogether and demonstrated that the power they access in gameplay is something they have activated altogether the whole time coming from friendship. Regardless, this transformation only comes in the form of gameplay where you can only access them with magic orbs containing the special ability of the pony you’re playing as in the level, making it inapplicable in a fight anyways even if Rainbow Runners were canon. This idea of the Rainbow Power only being usable altogether aligns pretty well with the canon, as Luna’s dream with the Tantabus showcase they access Rainbow Power only altogether and the show demonstrates that they needed to be altogether in order to ever use it because each key was needed to open the Chest of Harmony via lessons each character personally learns at different points in time. Even so, the Rainbow Power was then sealed away, which was used to create the Castle of Friendship, and lacks any elaboration on if they can use it even by writers, making it very questionable as to whether or not the Mane 6 should have the ability to access the power in general afterwards let alone solo. The only closest examples we’ve had to the Rainbow Power coming back was specifically through the Castle of Friendship tapping into the Tree of Harmony to empower the Young Six, all thanks to their friendship but was specifically because they were present there. Even if they can supposedly access the power on their own or by those not connected to the tree, it has been verbatim noted the Elements are not as effective without Twilight, making it very questionable in those scenarios if the power would actually hold up to the full extent that they do for the Element of Magic. 


Even though there are arguments made for them still being able to use it, most generally still fall flat on their face as they rely on assumptions that can evidently be disproven. For example, one of the main examples used to prove that they can access it is that Pinkie Pie was able to have the hairstyle of the Rainbow Power for a second when referencing to a reverse-Twilight about the event despite the fact that she never actually showcases the aura or magic that comes with both the transformation and detransformation even in fictional examples. And, like, it’s Pinkie Pie. She does this type of stuff all the time lol. While the Elements of Harmony like the Element of Magic can be used alone, Sunset Shimmer using it only infused her with dark magic which did not give her anything more than the basic powers of that class of magic rather than amplifying her to some degree of Elements of Harmony level. The actual magic explicitly did not work with Sunset, and it only actually drew out its own internal magic because of the friendship that Twilight had with her friends, demonstrating that the power is simply meaningless as an amplification without friendship. This is less inherently applicable to Twilight, as she is the source for the connection between the Elements so that they can access the power and is the strongest Element, but she still needs her friends or bearers in order for the magic to work. While Celestia (and by extension Luna) could use the Elements themselves, they explicitly showcase a connection to the Tree of Harmony and Celestia has been specifically regarded as the original keeper of the Elements, which is why she was able to use them herself alongside Luna. However, because Twilight and her friends showcased a full usage of the Elements, Celestia and Luna lack the connection to be able to use them, a point further demonstrated within the series as connections are required to access the Magic of Friendship in the first place. As demonstrated in the series, Twilight grew a direct connection towards the Tree of Harmony and the spirits of the Elements which gave her access to only specifically the Element of Magic. In fact, it was specifically demonstrated in The Return of Harmony that Twilight could not access the power of friendship that’s responsible for doing any of the magic because of the lack of Rainbow Dash, and had to reflect on her friendships as well as fix the others in order for them to work individually. This is supported in the comics, too, as without Rarity, the Elements could be solely activated by the ties of their friendship thanks to Twilight, showing her connection to them. This is also demonstrated in Equestria Girls, as the whole story has the cast’s Pony-Up magic drained from them and they were only able to access the magic of friendship without the Element of Magic’s power thanks to Sunset’s Element of Redemption. All examples of her accessing magic without the Elements (which she has since lost) also relied on her friendship, making it inapplicable in a fight without them. It is also showcased with Zecora’s friends, in that the magic of friendship can only be accessed by turning to her friends, further progressing the fact that the magic can only be used with friends. 


Overall, it’s just not likely that the users of the Elements of Harmony can access it on their own. Even without all this talk about specifics and stipulations, it doesn’t make sense to argue that the Elements can be used individually (unless you disregard that with the rule of cool) as a huge staple of it is that it’s powered up by the magic of friendship via… well, your friends. Using the magic of friendship without your friends is just kind of silly, personally speaking. Even if one were to wield all of the Elements in a hypothetical, we’ve only seen one example of a character actively having access to them all at once with Princess Celestia who has a specific connection to the Elements of Harmony, and even then she and Luna lost the connection to its Elements outright as former bearers to where she’s literally never used it individually. Twilight herself, even as the source of the magic and the verbatim most powerful Element, can’t access it without all of her friends either. This generally makes it inapplicable without the whole or majority of the Mane 6, or the aforementioned Rule of Cool like having Sunset Shimmer or Twilight Sparkle (the only ones who’ve showcased being the center of the Elements) being cheered upon by or given belief by her friends to access it, given we’ve seen this sort of thing accomplished canonically. With the fact that the Elements were also canonically destroyed, I personally don’t think that you can give them to Celestia or anypony else really, but obviously some people will disregard that as “the strongest iteration like DB said!” despite that not being the issue.

Discordant Disharmony

One point that I think should be clarified before I continue is that it’s very unlikely Twilight actively scales to Discord’s peak, so a lot of examples of physical feats are pretty vague for Twilight to scale to, especially in regards to stuff like Discord’s reality warping. Discord’s power is a variable based on skill and intention, and people like Cozy Glow explicitly cannot control his powers as his powers vary based on how much he wants– he can extend all the way up to controlling reality, but always plays off his magic for comedy, thus he won’t always be busting the universe against Twilight. Discord has always required the Elements to be defeated because they’re in similar but opposing groups of magic, with the Elements being an anti-thesis to Discord’s magic. When Accord was hit by the weakened Elements, he was entirely unfazed by virtue of him being orderly and thus being a parallel to the form of magic the Elements use, which is what allowed him to manipulate their very capability. This is noteworthy because it should be acknowledged that Discord cannot fight against the Elements because it is a weakness, like Superman’s kryptonite or Green Lantern with the color yellow, meaning he himself would be comparable to the Elements in some regard if he’s not bound by its weakness. In comparison, the Elements are perceived as stronger than the main cast consistently, both by heroes and villains alike, so it’s very hard to reason that Twilight would scale to the full extent of chaos magic personally. In this scenario, you can’t really justify Twilight scaling to a full-fledged “universal Discord”, especially in instances of direct clashes Twilight struggled to even contain Discord’s dimension thus it’s unreasonable for her to scale to like… a full power Discord. That would include stuff like “turning the cosmos into icing” for Pinkie Pie, for example, as this is just another example of Discord’s powers being uncontrollable and (at least, presumably) applied to Discord’s sheer hax than some form of physical strength. 


One of the more notable things for this is that Discord also has an upper limit to talk about, that being (ironically) the vast amount of spaceflights he and other Chaos users perform. Cosmos can traverse across the stars, but can’t control her movement nor trajectory after the initial launch, so she accidentally landed in Discord’s chaos dimension. Discord used a special property of the Anachronistic crystals and Horsehead Nebula’s velocity to travel through time, but could not control it while hibernating and ended up flying too fast in time… See where it’s going with this? These are some of the fastest feats in the series, traversing across time and between dimensions, but are feats not even the characters themselves can perform casually. The fact that they’re seen as so much more powerful in general than the cast makes it pretty hard to reason that Twilight or company could scale to anything like Discord moving through time despite racing with the guy in some cases, since even in that instance Discord was in hibernation and needed magic outside of his control to perform.

Multipliers My Beloved

This is just a side note for values.


Twilight at her peak with all of the powers of the Alicorn princesses was ultimately a match for Tirek, and both were pretty physically tied without taking any real damage across the fight. Reasonably, you could multiply Tirek and (obviously) Twilight’s strengths in these forms by four, by virtue of Twilight being amplified by Luna, Celestia, and Cadence. At her physical best, she would scale to about 16.42 KiloFOE, although there’s not enough evidence for this to reasonably apply to speed, and Tirek could additionally stack upon his own about a two times multiplier, or 32.64 KiloFOE. This would be the values that Rainbow Power scales to as well, though I’m not sure what you could use to justify for the basic Elements beyond vague comparisons. I don’t have a personal issue with these multipliers, as long as they stick to realistic values, hence my acceptance here on these ends in particular. 

Conclusion

This is a blog that I’ve been putting a ton of work into, and I’m very glad to be able to finally release it. My Little Pony is a series I’ve loved ever since I was maybe five or six, so I’ve always been tied to it and by extension its versus community since those interests developed at similar times. I personally used to be a big pusher for a lot of stuff in the series, but my main intention at least with this blog was to recompile my thoughts on the series with an overall rewatch. 


With all that in mind, I hope you all enjoyed the blog here. It has been a huge passion project for the good part of a few months, and I hope everypony enjoys the work I put into this blog. There’s a special section I made just below that I intend on having in my next few character blogs, as I mentioned in my last Peacemaker blog. 

Bonus Thoughts

I felt like with the length of this blog, I definitely want to talk more than stats and powers! I wanted to share my general thoughts on potential matchups for My Little Pony disregarding those that have happened. This isn’t an objective stance on these or anything, just my personal thoughts regarding both popular matchups for the series and less popular picks I really enjoy. 

Moro vs Tirek

 

This pick is definitely one of my favorite ideas for My Little Pony, certainly popularized by Fan Battle’s episode too. It’s a really simple matchup you’d get just at a glance of both characters– being the manipulative, power-eating goat villains who steal magic and Ki to strengthen themselves. There’s obviously not much I can say for a matchup as simple as this, but I think it has a ton of merit for a My Little Pony episode. It’s definitely a lot closer than one might think, as while Moro is definitely much greater in strength and speed, Tirek’s growth and power absorption gives him a ton of merit because it can give him the means to regress Moro’s ability to drain power until the climax. It makes a super unique debate that hasn’t been tackled before in an episode despite Moro’s clear-cut advantages, in that both parties rely more on these abilities before crushing the other in strength. Not much more I can bring to the table, but I think it is a hilarious matchup at a glance and brings two villains from arcs of the two series that I really liked. This is probably the one matchup for My Little Pony I’ll push a lot more for an episode, but I will admit it’s not necessarily my favorite matchup in general, or at least compared to others. 

Sonic the Hedgehog vs Rainbow Dash

… On the other side of the spectrum is a matchup I certainly don’t like that is one of the series most popular picks. Disregarding the obvious popularity of a legacy between the two (and it makes sense, both communities are just close-knit) and some obvious parallels, it’s one of those matchups where I think the inherent flaw comes down to one side having way more than the other rather than the flaws of thematics or connections. As a pegasus, Rainbow Dash’s main abilities centralize around flight and cloud magic, which unfortunately don’t bring much in a fight against Sonic. While you could certainly sell off the base dynamic even so, Dash in-turn lacks anything in her kit that actively brings a form progression to match… any form or abilities Sonic has beyond a base kit of speed and dashes. Rainbow Dash herself has never used the Elements of Harmony nor Rainbow Power solo in any instance, nor can she actively access the powers from it without her friends (outside help, not non-standard equipment), so bringing it up in comparison to Super Sonic rings the obvious issue as it is standard. Disregarding that, it’s just not an interesting debate because of the stat gap presented, which makes it really difficult to sell it off as an episode on the show or a general matchup just because Rainbow Dash doesn’t have enough to bring to the table for a fight. With all of those factors in mind, I think this is a less-than-ideal My Little Pony matchup since it relies on abilities Rainbow Dash never uses on her own for a blatantly standard form with Sonic that every other matchup he has can play around, and otherwise doesn’t really bring to the table an interesting base vs. base fight dynamic due to Sonic’s much more extensive kit of powers he’s gotten compared to Rainbow Dash’s cloud magic. 

Discord vs Beetlejuice

This is one of my favorite My Little Pony matchups. I don’t think it needs too much to explain, but the idea of overly-chaotic inhuman reality warpers locked down by their friendship is really cool. It’s not necessarily my favorite Discord matchup (huge fan of Batmite vs Discord too...) but I think it has a really awesome vibe, and the debate especially sounds cool to me. Not much more to say just because I don’t want to start digging into it, mainly because this blog might exceed a million words if I do lol, and I’m sure that a lot of people have heard enough about Discord in this community to think about potential.

Sunset Shimmer vs Jack Atlas

Another favorite of mine, especially recently in the writing of this blog. Rewatching Equestria Girls and a prior fixation of 5Ds really brought my enjoyment for this back, especially because these are some of my favorite characters from either show disregarding the main protagonist. It’s a really simple theme within itself, the whole idea of “fire-themed rivals who steal an important item from the protagonist because of their power-hungry nature from but get redeemed from their defeat into a greater person who help to redeem others thanks to the protagonist’s personality and constantly grow from their arrogance as they fight against villains” is super cool, and the inherent nature of the Signers and the Elements of Harmony as a parallel brings a lot of interesting narrative comparisons. It brings up really cool pacing between Jack and Sunset’s average human stuff in their motorbikes and such, Sunset’s basic Pony-up kit and Jack’s weak Synchro monsters, and then the climax of Daydream Sunset vs. Red Dragon Archfiend or the Element of Friendship’s alicorn vs. the Crimson Dragon if you decide to draw in all of their friends cheering them on and activating their mystical powers as a result to draw in their group’s strongest forms. It’s probably debatable too, and Daydream Sunset brings a lot to the table that other My Little Pony characters can’t really do which makes it way more interesting to look into her specific powerset. Plus, it’s a matchup for My Little Pony that would draw heavily on the sideseries for Equestria Girls, and in turn it’s a matchup for Yu-Gi-Oh that tackles a part of the series which isn’t necessarily popularized in this community. Both of these are my favorite parts of the series, as well, so I’m definitely sold on the idea. 

Twilight Sparkle vs Sailor Moon

And to close this out is a matchup for Twilight herself, and certainly my favorite matchup for her among others. I’ve been really interested in this as a whole, and although I’m not the biggest Sailor Moon fan ever I really wanted to talk about this one. It sounds super fun and seems to have a ton of potential for both an episode and as a general animation, especially between Twilight’s versatility of magic and the conflicting personalities. Not much more to say about it, like with Discord vs Beetlejuice, solely because I’m not the most familiar with Sailor Moon’s stuff in comparison to Twilight’s extensive material.  

Comments

  1. DuchessSponge5000September 28, 2025 at 5:09 PM

    Would this effect Twilight vs Meggy (I'm planning to write a blog about it so)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. MacedaaceSeptember 29, 2025 at 9:32 AM

      I recommend this and the Timmy Vs. Twilight blog done by The Gauntlet for research on her. Moro vs. Tierk by G^2 blogs and Discord vs. Bill by G1 Blogs are also good research sources.

      Delete

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