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For the Element of Harmony, see the appropriate section of the Elements of Harmony article.

My Little Pony Friendship is Magic possesses many fantasy elements, a prominent one being the use of magic by the ponies and by other creatures.

Earth poniesEdit

Throughout the show, Earth ponies tend to crops and care for plants and animals, particularly in Winter Wrap Up, Fall Weather Friends and Hearth's Warming Eve. Lauren Faust, the show's creator, explained online that Earth ponies have a "magically ingrained connection to the Earth" and its plants and animals.^[1] Fluttershy, a Pegasus whose special talent is working with animals, is something of an exception to the rule in this regard.

Pegasus poniesEdit

Pegasus ponies frequently alter the weather, notably in the first episode and Winter Wrap Up where Pegasus ponies clear the clouds from the sky, and in Look Before You Sleep where they build up clouds to arrange a storm. Snowflakes and rainbows are made in a Pegasus-run weather factory in Cloudsdale that the main characters visit in the episode Sonic Rainboom. Related to their weather-manipulation abilities is their ability to walk on clouds. Other ponies require a magic spell to be able to walk on clouds, as Twilight Sparkle explains, while Pegasus ponies possess this ability naturally. Gilda, a griffon, has no trouble walking on clouds in Griffon the Brush Off. In May the Best Pet Win!, other winged creatures walk on clouds, too. There are some instances of non-Pegasus background ponies walking on clouds during The Cutie Mark Chronicles and Sonic Rainboom, which are explained as animation errors by one of the show's layout artists.^{[citation needed]}

Some Pegasus ponies create weather-related wakes when they perform aerial acrobatics. Rainbow Dash creates rainbows several times during her acrobatic flights, and creates a special burst called sonic rainboom on three occasions in the episodes Sonic Rainboom, The Cutie Mark Chronicles and A Canterlot Wedding - Part 2. In Lesson Zero, she created an explosion so powerful it left a rainbow-colored mushroom cloud. Lightning Dust, who appears in the episode Wonderbolts Academy, creates a green streak with a yellow, zig-zagging lightning bolt in the middle when she is flying fast. Other Pegasus ponies, like The Wonderbolts, leave smoke with lightning in their wake.

Unicorn poniesEdit

Lauren Faust has stated that the earth and Pegasus pony races possess subtler types of magic, which allows pegasi to walk on clouds for example, but unicorns are unique in their ability to actively perform magic.^[1] Throughout the show, unicorn ponies use their horns to perform various magical acts. Most commonly, they are shown manipulating objects through telekinesis. Additionally, in Hearth's Warming Eve, it is stated that the normal unicorns used to control the sun and moon before the rule of Celestia and Luna.

The colors of magic aurasEdit

The color of the glow surrounding objects affected by unicorn magic is inconsistent within the series. Rarity's glow is light blue, respectively, which sort of matches the color of her eyes. However, Rarity's glow in the first season also appears purple on certain occasions. Also, Trixie's glow is light pink tinted purple, which looks okay with her light purple eyes.^[specify] The Flim Flam brothers's magical glow, featured in The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000, is colored green like their eyes. The color of the glow of incidental characters' magic is not consistent in this way and frequently differs from their eye color, which is the case with the exam supervisors and the waiters in The Cutie Mark Chronicles, for example.

This relationship between eye color and magic color doesn't hold for Twilight Sparkle and Princess Celestia's magical glow either. The color of Twilight's glow is inconsistent in the first season and more consistent in the second, turning magenta like the color of her cutie mark. Similarly, whereas the color of Celestia's magical glow varies throughout season one, this glow is consistently yellow in Lesson Zero and A Canterlot Wedding - Part 2, like her cutie mark. The addition of a yellow glow to Celestia's magic is one of the changes to the new opening sequence.

Chrysalis, while disguised as Cadance, uses magic that glows green, whereas the real Cadance's magic glows light blue, consistently. Shining Armor has magenta colored magic, where his eyes are blue. In both cases, the magic glow resembles the most prominent color in their cutie marks.

Baby unicorn magicEdit

The episode Baby Cakes features a little baby unicorn, Pumpkin Cake, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Cake, who uses her magic unexpectedly when Pinkie Pie babysits her and her Pegasus twin brother, Pound Cake. Rarity cautions the other ponies at the beginning of the episode that "baby unicorns get strange magic surges that come and go", and Pumpkin Cake experiences these surges when she's able to use her magic to teleport, walk through solid objects, levitate herself and other objects, and break the locks and chains that Pinkie Pie put around the toy chest.

RarityEdit

Rarity possesses a gem-finding spell in addition to the standard telekinesis, which occurs for the first time out of her control in a flashback in The Cutie Mark Chronicles. She's adept enough with telekinesis to manipulate many objects at once when making dresses, and uses a spell to turn regular canopy into topiary in Look Before You Sleep. She creates a colorful light show and intricate backdrops for her second fashion show in Suited for Success.

Twilight SparkleEdit

"When those elements are united by the... the spark, that resides in the heart of us all, it creates the sixth element, the element of magic!"

— Twilight Sparkle, Friendship is Magic, part 2

Twilight Sparkle is exceptional in regard to magic, having dedicated herself to studying the art. Spike mentions in Boast Busters that Twilight's magical ability is exemplary, and Princess Celestia comments about Twilight's enormous raw magical power in The Cutie Mark Chronicles. Unicorn magic requires concentration and effort, as Twilight explains to Spike at the beginning of Feeling Pinkie Keen and to Apple Bloom in Call of the Cutie, and in Lesson Zero she says she needs a line of sight with an object to undo the spell she cast on it. When Twilight levitates the ursa minor in Boast Busters, she is visibly exerting herself, gritting her teeth and tensing her muscles. However, she effortlessly harvests an entire apple orchard at once in Applebuck Season, and repairs a breached hydroelectric dam in The Mysterious Mare Do Well by levitating scores of rocks and boulders.

The theme of Twilight developing her magic skills continues throughout the series. In The Cutie Mark Chronicles Twilight tells the Cutie Mark Crusaders how she first started learning magic: during a flashback, Twilight is seen studying all the books she has, and initially, with some difficulty, uses her magic to turn a page of a book; (Snails, similarly, shows some difficulty performing a horn-light magic in Boast Busters) The flashback depicts Twilight progressing in her studies and eventually she enrolls in Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. The magic-learning theme continues in various episodes: in Feeling Pinkie Keen, Twilight practices turning rocks into formal attire; in Boast Busters she practices a mustache-growing spell on Spike; in Sonic Rainboom, she uses a spell that allows non-Pegasus ponies to walk on clouds and possess temporary wings, which she learns from a book; in A Dog and Pony Show, she senses gems by "copying" Rarity's spell; in It's About Time, she learns a spell from a book in the Star Swirl the Bearded wing, and travels back in time; in Too Many Pinkie Pies, she tries transforming an apple into an orange twice, but Pinkie Pie makes her miss both times, and the magical beams hit a bird and a frog, who turn part-orange from the spell. She learns how she can get rid of the Pinkie Pie clones from a book about the Legend of the mirror pool in the episode Too Many Pinkie Pies. This spell collapses the clones into magic which is sent back into the pool, but will also have this effect on actual ponies that aren't clones.

In The Crystal Empire - Part 1, Twilight witnesses Celestia use some magic that surrounds her horn with black fog and makes her irises glow red and her eyes glow green and emit a purple trail, much like King Sombra's usual appearance. The magic causes black crystals to grow from the ground, again in the same fashion as King Sombra's magic. When Twilight uses this magic in Part 2, she mentions to Spike that she learned it from Celestia, implying that she is able to learn spells simply by watching others perform them. She uses this spell twice in order to unlock passageways that only appear in "King Sombra's palace" as she puts it. Twilight winces when she uses this spell. In this same episode, Twilight manages to levitate herself to keep from hitting the floor after a fall and also uses a "gravity spell" to slide up on the underside of a stairwell to the top of the palace's tower; she mentions that she studied this spell in anticipation of the test that Celestia mentioned.

Twilight performs various other spells and tricks throughout the series. In Boast Busters, she uses two spells: "Number 16", used to make the wind blow through river reeds, and "Number 25", which enables the growth of facial hair, which she performs on Spike, Snips, and Snails. In Winter Wrap Up, she uses a "Come to life spell" to move her plow. In Call of the Cutie, she fleetingly attempts to make cutie marks appear on Apple Bloom's flank. In The Cutie Mark Chronicles, she hatches a dragon from its egg. In The Best Night Ever, she changes an apple into a cart and mice into horses. She uses a "memory spell" that returns her friends to normal after being corrupted by Discord in The Return of Harmony Part 2. She also uses a "Want it, need it" spell that makes an object wanted by anyone who lays eyes on it in Lesson Zero. In Ponyville Confidential, she surrounds the library with a force field. The same force field, but smaller, is used in MMMystery on the Friendship Express to protect the cake. In A Canterlot Wedding - Part 2, she shoots concussive blasts from her horn and uses a spell that undoes a changeling's disguise spell.

In Magical Mystery Cure, Twilight makes her own spell after reading Star Swirl the Bearded's notes accidentally changes the cutie marks and jobs of the other ponies. She then makes a spell to fix this, thus becoming an Alicorn.

As talented as she is, her spells occasionally misfire or fail. When she casts a spell on the parasprites in Swarm of the Century so they won't eat food, they begin to consume items which aren't food, and subsequently destroy Ponyville. When she tries to assist with Winter Wrap Up by making a plow run itself with a "come-to-life" spell, she ends up losing control of the plow and sending Applejack hurtling in a ball of snow into the side of a hill, and the impact covers the recently-plowed field with snow once again. In The Return of Harmony Part 1, she tries to reverse Discord's strange effects with a "fail-safe spell" which Twilight says will "fix everything"... but it fails. A "want it, need it" spell on her dingy, old doll Smarty Pants in Lesson Zero works a little too well, as it affects more than her intended targets and she is unable to undo her mistake due to the ensuing chaos. In Too Many Pinkie Pies, she misfires twice because of Pinkie Pie's crashing into her. The first time, she accidentally hit a blue jay, creating a flying orange with wings and a tail, and the second time she hit a frog, creating a croaking orange with a mouth and frog legs. In Magic Duel she has difficulty performing an age spell, which she herself claims is only for "the highest level unicorns".

TeleportationEdit

Twilight possesses the ability to teleport, which was also common among previous-generation My Little Pony unicorn characters. She first teleports on the show in Friendship is Magic, part 2 when she charges Nightmare Moon and disappears only to reappear behind her and next to the Elements of Harmony. She teleports short distances in Applebuck Season to get ahead of Applejack, trying to confront her about her over-exertion, and she unintentionally teleports with Spike from the thoroughfare into her library in The Ticket Master, which leaves Spike slightly singed. She teleports multiple times in Lesson Zero, and in The Crystal Empire - Part 1 during The Failure Song, seemingly without effort. In Secret of My Excess, Twilight teleports Spike several times while trying to clean a lipstick mark off his cheek, ending with her somehow accidentally teleporting Pinkie Pie from an unknown location to Golden Oaks Library while already in the process of teleporting Spike. In Dragon Quest, Twilight teleports herself and three other characters a considerable distance to safety, with great effort.

Color of magic auraEdit

In the first season, Twilight's horn usually glows white or a faint shade of purple, and objects assume a glow of white, purple, or magenta; when she affects multiple objects as once, several other colors are used as well, for example in the gem finding scene in A Dog and Pony Show. Starting with the second season's third episode, Twilight's magic is uniformly depicted using a bright magenta glow.

TrixieEdit

Trixie performs various parlor tricks in Boast Busters: manipulating rope, creating fireworks and light displays, turning Rarity's hair green, and making a cloud strike Rainbow Dash with lightning.

Princess Celestia and Princess LunaEdit

The princesses are called "unicorns" in the prologue of the show's first episode. They possess wings and the ability to raise the sun and the moon, a trait mentioned to be shared by the unicorn tribe in Hearth's Warming Eve. In The Cutie Mark Chronicles, Twilight witnesses the Summer Sun Celebration with Princess Celestia raising the sun; the narration in the prologue of Friendship is Magic, part 1 states that Celestia banished Luna in the moon and took her place, raising both the sun and the moon and maintaining harmony.

When the ponies are summoned by Princess Celestia in The Return of Harmony Part 1, she tells them that she and her sister once used the Elements of Harmony to turn Discord into stone, and since the princesses are "no longer connected to the Elements", Discord has managed to escape. She continues, saying the Elements of Harmony are stored in a magically sealed room that only she can open. However, they turn up missing, and Discord appears telling the ponies a riddle which discloses the Elements' location.

Princess Celestia undoes Twilight Sparkle's magic twice in the series: once in The Cutie Mark Chronicles, where she calms Twilight, making her out-of-control magic revert to normal; and again in Lesson Zero, where Celestia directly uses her magic to undo the "want it need it" spell cast by Twilight.

MachineryEdit

The Flim Flam brothers use their magic to power their cider-making machine in The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000. Unlike Twilight Sparkle's "come-to-life spell" that she casts on a plow in Winter Wrap Up or Tank's helicopter-like contraption that has a magic glow around its axis in May the Best Pet Win!, the Flim Flam brothers' magic is used to "power" their machine, and it doesn't glow with their magic. Lauren Faust had previously suggested that appliances and vehicles on the show are imbued with unicorn magic.^[2]

Shining ArmorEdit

Shining Armor, Twilight Sparkle's older brother, uses his magical prowess to bring forth a barrier that encompasses all of Canterlot to repel an outside threat, which is later found to be the changelings. Twilight says it is a spell only he can perform. He and Cadance use their combined strength and love to summon the barrier anew and drive away the changelings out of Canterlot.

Princess CadanceEdit

The Alicorn niece to Princess Celestia, Princess Cadance possesses the flight capabilities of a Pegasus and the active control over magic that Unicorns are known for. She is known primarily for her spell of love, which brings out the love ponies have for each other. This spell is used two times: during Twilight's recollections of Cadance as her foal-sitter in A Canterlot Wedding - Part 1, and to break Shining Armor's trance during the Changeling raid in A Canterlot Wedding - Part 2. In the same episode, she lends her love to allow her and Shining Armor to cast a new barrier and banish Chrysalis and the Changelings from Canterlot. In The Crystal Empire - Part 1 and 2, Princess Cadance uses a love spell to keep King Sombra away from the Crystal Empire. However, she is badly exhausted by this spell and the fact she must cast it constantly.

DiscordEdit

Main article: Discord

Celestia tells the ponies that before she and her sister usurped Discord, he made ponies miserable by causing chaos everywhere. Once he is freed, strange things happen, such as cotton-candy clouds raining chocolate milk or cola (as mentioned by Rainbow Dash), roads turning into soapy water, giant pepper shakers float in the air, bunnies grow long, lanky limbs, and more. Discord apparently steals the Elements of Harmony from Celestia's magical safe, which she believes only she can open. He makes the ponies behave the opposite of how they normally would, a spell which Twilight Sparkle breaks by using a "memory" spell to restore the ponies' friendship. Eventually he is encased in stone again through the power of the Elements of Harmony although later in the Season 3 episode, Keep Calm and Flutter On, he is released so Twilight Sparkle and her friends can rehabilitate him.

Queen Chrysalis and the changelingsEdit

Main article: Queen Chrysalis

Changelings are first featured in the A Canterlot Wedding episodes, where they infiltrate Canterlot during the wedding of Shining Armor and Princess Cadance. Their queen, Chrysalis, mimics Princess Cadance and uses this disguise to take control of Shining Armor and enfeeble the magical barrier over Canterlot that he creates to protect the city. His love strengthens her enough to even overpower Celestia's magic with a magical beam from her horn that stuns Celestia and singes her horn. The other changelings mimic other ponies, including all of the six main characters. In the end, Chrysalis and the changelings are magically cast out of Canterlot through the magic of Shining Armor and Cadance's love.

The Crystal HeartEdit

The Crystal Heart is a magical artifact used in The Crystal Empire - Part 2. The Crystal Ponies use it to protect the Crystal Empire and repel King Sombra thousands of years ago. Before he cursed the empire, Sombra hid the heart so it couldn't be used against him, concealing it with dark magic that forces anyone who stares or enters it to meet their worst fears. Twilight Sparkle fashions a replacement Crystal Heart when she can't find the original, but the Crystal Ponies recognize that it's not the genuine article. Twilight then ventures to find the real Crystal Heart, using dark magic to locate it. Unfortunately she is trapped by King Sombra just as she finds the Heart, and has to ask Spike to deliver the Heart to the Crystal Ponies. Spike starts to climb down from the spire where he and Twilight found the heart, but falls and plummets through the air. Princess Cadance, with the help of Shining Armor who throws her into the air, intercepts the Heart right as King Sombra is about to snatch it, then tells the Crystal Ponies to "use the light and love within [them]" to repel King Sombra. The magic of the Crystal Ponies and the Crystal Heart transforms the Crystal Empire, repels King Sombra, temporarily transforms Twilight and her friends in to Crystal Ponies, and even gives Spike a similar twinkling appearance.

Dark magicEdit

Main article: King Sombra

Princess Celestia describes dark magic in The Crystal Empire - Part 1: she demonstrates it to Twilight Sparkle by firing a beam at a crystal, which causes black crystals to sprout from the ground. When Celestia uses the dark magic, her horn is engulfed in a purple haze and her eyes glow green and have purple mist flowing from them. Twilight utilizes this same magic later in the episode, explaining to Spike that she picked up the trick from Celestia. She attributes the magical door she finds at the bottom of a stairwell to King Sombra's dark magic.

The Elements of HarmonyEdit

Main article: Elements of Harmony

The Elements of Harmony are said to be the strongest magic known to ponydom in the series' first episode's prologue. They are introduced in the first episode when Twilight reads about them in her book. It's told that they were used by Princess Celestia to banish Night Mare Moon to the moon to prevent her from plunging Equestria into eternal night. They are later used by Twilight and her friends to turn Night Mare Moon back into Princess Luna, and again to encase Discord in stone. Initially simple spheres, the elements later become pieces of jewellery that match each of the main six ponies' cutie marks after they are used on Nightmare Moon.

The Fire of FriendshipEdit

Main article: Hearth's Warming Eve#The Fire of Friendship

The Fire of Friendship is a magical pink heart-shaped flame, introduced in the episode Hearth's Warming Eve. The magic was created by Clover the Clever, depicted by Twilight Sparkle in a holiday pageant, who produced the flame through the magic of friendship. The flame dispersed the ice and snow created by the windigos and led to the unification of the three pony tribes and the founding of Equestria.

The Mirror PondEdit

Main article: Too Many Pinkie Pies

The Mirror Pond is a enchanted pool with the power to duplicate whoever stands in front of it that Pinkie Pie uses to double herself in the episode Too Many Pinkie Pies. Pinkie recalls that "Nana Pinkie" used to tell her The Legend of the Mirror Pond, which includes these rhymes: "Where the brambles are thickest / There you will find / A pond beyond the most twisted of vines!" "And into her own reflection she stared / Yearning for one whose reflection she shared / And solemnly sweared not to be scared / At the prospect of being doubly mared!" Pinkie Pie stumbles through some brambles and vines and finds herself in an underground cavern where the Mirror Pond resides. By reciting the second rhyme, the magic of the pool is activated and turns the speaker's own reflection into a clone of themselves that then climbs out of the water.

The pool first spawns one double of Pinkie Pie, but she returns with her double to spawn two more Pinkie Pies, and the three clones spawn even more clones. The first clone has trouble remembering Applejack's name, so Pinkie Pie teaches it and the rest of the clones the names of Applejack, Fluttershy, and herself. The clones cause mayhem in Ponyville and chant "fun" repeatedly. They are eventually sent back to the pool by Twilight Sparkle, who assigns a test for them: they must watch paint dry. Whenever a Pinkie Pie clone's attention wanders, Twilight fires a magic beam at it, which makes it swell up and float in the air, then turn into a trail of light that flies back into the Mirror Pond. Twilight's horn smoulders after her rapid-fire elimination, and finally only one Pinkie Pie is left, who says she managed to pass the test because she cared so much for her friends. In the episode's epilogue, Pinkie leads Twilight and Big McIntosh, who is carting a boulder for Twilight, back to the entrance to the cavern of the Mirror Pool, and Twilight blocks it off with the boulder.

The Alicorn AmuletEdit

Main article: Alicorn Amulet

The Alicorn Amulet is a mysterious and powerful dark magic charm used by Trixie in the episode Magic Duel. The amulet blesses the bearer with "untold powers". However, the more the amulet is used, the more it "corrupts" the user. It has a built-in magical lock that prevents any pony other than the bearer from taking it off.

The Alicorn Amulet changes Trixie's aura color from pale magenta to red. She uses the amulet to get revenge on Twilight, banish her from Ponyville, and make it into her own image. However, it apparently has its limits, as Trixie could not use it to perform certain spells such as duplication or gender swapping, which is how Twilight defeated her in the second duel. Twilight tricked Trixie with a fake amulet to get her to take it off. It was given to Zecora to put it back into hiding where it belonged.

Magical plantsEdit

Zecora practices a magic using plants in various episodes. She cures the effects of the poison joke with a herbal bath in Bridle Gossip, and cures Apple Bloom's Heart's Desire-induced cutie pox with the Seeds of Truth in the episode The Cutie Pox. In the same episode, she cures Apple Bloom's chipped tooth, and mentions curing a rooster who's lost his crow.

Granny Smith explains in Family Appreciation Day that Zap Apple trees are different because they are magical.

Magical creaturesEdit

A cockatrice turns Twilight Sparkle and a chicken into stone in Stare Master. Fluttershy tells the Cutie Mark Crusaders, whom she is babysitting, that the cockatrice can turn living creatures into stone by staring into their eyes. Thanks to her overpowering stare, Fluttershy cows the cockatrice into turning her chicken and her friend back to normal, even while it tries to turn her to stone.
Princess Celestia's pet phoenix, Philomena, bursts into flames and renews itself in A Bird in the Hoof.
Throughout the series, Spike teleports scrolls, letters, and other objects using his fire breath.
Gilda and other winged creatures can walk on clouds, as seen in Griffon the Brush-Off, and May the Best Pet Win!.
Timberwolves consist of wooden logs and branches and can use magic to regenerate themselves after falling apart. The color of their magic is lime green. In Spike at Your Service, after being destroyed, multiple Timberwolves set together a larger Timberwolf using additional wood from the Everfree Forest, including entire trees. Hereby, it is not clear whether the pieces of wood are magical or the Timberwolves materialize using ordinary wood.
In the comic series the Dark Forces creatures that live in the Nightmare Dreamscape are able to make nightmares and corrupt ponies.

In other mediaEdit

In the German magazine comic Der Stern der Winterträume, Twilight Sparkle and her friends look for a magical element called the Stern der Winterträume, which translates to Star of Winterdreams. After a snowball fight, they find it. They test it, but nothing happens, so they go back to the Golden Oaks Library. At the library, it plays beautiful music, which gives them all good dreams.

ReferencesEdit

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 Lauren Faust (2011-04-16). The magical traits of each pony kind. “Unicorns are the only ones that can control [magic] willingly. Pegasi have involuntary magic that allows them to do things like walk on clouds, and Earth Ponies have a magically ingrained connection to the Earth that makes them better at working with plants and animals.”
↑ Exclusive Season 1 Retrospective Interview with Lauren Faust. Equestria Daily (2011-09-16). Retrieved on 2012 September 24. Archived locally

[FaustMagic-0] 1.0 ^1.1 Lauren Faust (2011-04-16). The magical traits of each pony kind. “Unicorns are the only ones that can control [magic] willingly. Pegasi have involuntary magic that allows them to do things like walk on clouds, and Earth Ponies have a magically ingrained connection to the Earth that makes them better at working with plants and animals.”

[1] Exclusive Season 1 Retrospective Interview with Lauren Faust. Equestria Daily (2011-09-16). Retrieved on 2012 September 24. Archived locally

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