Twilight Sparkle

Twilight Sparkle is the primary main character of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. She is a female unicorn pony who transforms into an Alicorn and becomes a princess in Magical Mystery Cure. She is also the younger sister ofShining Armor and sister-in-law to Princess Cadance.

At the beginning of the series, she and Spike, her best friend and assistant, move from Canterlot to Golden Oak Library in Ponyville to study the magic of friendship, and inTwilight's Kingdom - Part 2, she gains her own castle—the Castle of Friendship—and gains the title "Princess of Friendship". Twilight Sparkle represents the element of magic.

Before becoming a princess, she regularly sends friendship reports to Princess Celestia. In Owl's Well That Ends Well, Twilight adopts a pet owl named Owlowiscious.

Twilight's human counterpart, Sci-Twi, briefly serves as an antagonist in My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Friendship Games.

Sociability and friendship
Twilight is first introduced in the series as being asocial. She politely refuses an invitation to Moon Dancer's get-together and later states that she and Spike "don't have time for that sort of thing." WhenPrincess Celestia tells to oversee the arrangements of the Summer Sun Celebration in Ponyville and to try and make friends, Twilight is indifferent to the latter request. Over the course of the series premiere, however, Twilight comes to accept her new friendships and expresses a desire to stay with her new friends in Ponyville.

In Amending Fences, Twilight returns to Canterlot in an attempt to apologize to her former friends for her past actions. She succeeds with Twinkleshine, Lemon Hearts, and Minuette, but Moon Dancer coldly rebuffs the four mares. Minuette and Twilight compare Moon Dancer's behavior to the way Twilight used to act.

Love of books and knowledge
In Friendship is Magic, part 1, Twinkleshine says Twilight is more interested in books than friends. Even after Twilight becomes good friends with the rest of the main characters, she continues to read and consult books. For example, she confidently joins a marathon after reading several books about running in Fall Weather Friends. She is also very knowledgeable about Equestria's history, as seen in such episodes as Luna Eclipsed and Testing Testing 1, 2, 3.

Rationality
Twilight tries to be rational in unfamiliar situations. During the investigation in MMMystery on the Friendship Express, Twilight tellsPinkie Pie to stop making wild accusations, and they work together to find clues and solve the mystery.

However, Twilight can lose her cool under stress. In Swarm of the Century, she hysterically suggests building a replica of Ponyville in less than a minute before Princess Celestia can see the damage done by the parasprite infestation. In Lesson Zero, Twilight goes crazy in her attempt to write to Celestia about a friendship problem, to the point of deciding to create a problem herself. In The Crystal Empire - Part 1, she shows a desperate desire to pass a test that Celestia gives her.

Twilight tends to be skeptical of unproven claims, such as her friends' belief that Zecora is an evil enchantress in Bridle Gossip, and Pinkie's "Pinkie Sense" in Feeling Pinkie Keen.

In Party Pooped, Twilight displays an irrational fear of quesadillas.

Organization
Twilight shows her knack for organization in Winter Wrap Up. When the Winter Wrap Up becomes inefficient and uncoordinated, she organizes the teams and ensures that winter is wrapped up on time. Mayor Maregives Twilight the official title of "All-Team Organizer." Twilight also uses her organization skills in the episodes Lesson Zero, Secret of My Excess, and It's About Time. In the book The Art of Equestria, then-supervising director Jayson Thiessen suggests that Twilight has "a touch of OCD".

Teaching
In the episode Twilight Time, Twilight takes time each week to teach the Cutie Mark Crusaders various skills. She attempts to teach Sweetie Belleto use the telekinetic component of her magic, Apple Bloom how to make botanic growth potions, and Scootaloo how to strip and reassemble various types of scooter and cycle. Twilight is overjoyed when she thinks the other classmates also want to learn new things, but she is disappointed when she finds out that they merely want to spend time with a local celebrity.

Twilight's ability as a teacher is proven in that she succeeds in teaching all three Crusaders the skills she intended to teach them. They all demonstrate a high degree of aptitude at the end of their lessons.

Twilight attempts to teach Rainbow Dash the history of the Wonderbolts, but her methods of study prove futile when Rainbow Dash acts as a class clown in Testing Testing 1, 2, 3.

Magic
Twilight Sparkle  is exceptionally talented at magic. In a flashback in The Cutie Mark Chronicles, Princess Celestia tells Twilight that she has never seen a unicorn with so much raw ability. As talented as Twilight is, her spells occasionally misfire or fail. In the first season, Twilight's horn usually glows white or the same hue as her coat, and the objects she is manipulating glow white, lavender, or pink. When she manipulates multiple objects at 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 pink glow.
 * In Sonic Rainboom, she casts a spell that allows non-Pegasus ponies to walk on clouds, an ability that only Pegasus ponies naturally possess. She also casts a spell that gives Rarity butterfly-like wings made of “gossamer and morning dew."
 * In Lesson Zero, she uses a "Want it, need it" spell to make a raggedy old doll desired by anyone who lays eyes on it.
 * In It's About Time, Twilight goes back in time to talk to her past self.
 * In A Canterlot Wedding - Part 2, she shoots concussive blasts with her horn and uses a spell that returns a changeling to its original form.
 * In Too Many Pinkie Pies, she accidentally turns a bird and a frog into half-animal, half-orange hybrids while attempting to turn an apple into an orange. In the same episode, she uses her magic to return Pinkie Pie's duplicates to the mirror pool.
 * In The Crystal Empire - Part 2, she replicates King Sombra’s dark magic to reveal hidden passageways in the Crystal Empire castle.
 * She uses protective magic shields in The Return of Harmony Part 2, Ponyville Confidential,MMMystery on the Friendship Express, and The Cutie Map - Part 2
 * Twilight first teleports herself in Friendship is Magic, part 2. In Secret of My Excess, Twilight teleports Spike several times while trying to clean a lipstick mark off his cheek, and accidentally teleports Pinkie Pie from an unknown location to Golden Oak Library while teleporting Spike. InDragon Quest, Twilight teleports herself and three other characters a considerable distance with great effort.
 * In Magical Mystery Cure, she completes an unfinished spell by Star Swirl the Bearded with her knowledge of the magic of friendship, leading to her transformation into an Alicorn and a princess.
 * In Castle Mane-ia, Twilight uses a spell to freeze the movement of her four terrified friends running around in a large throne room, without stopping their eyes or mouths from moving. The spell also keeps them aloft in their location, be it in mid-air or in the middle of a movement, effectively preventing their fall. She uses this spell again in The Hooffields and McColts on the titular families.
 * In It Ain't Easy Being Breezies, Twilight uses a spell to turn herself and her friends into Breezies to help the Breezies get home.
 * In Amending Fences, Twilight uses a spell to transform herself into a book illustration to try to talk to Moon Dancer.
 * In The Hooffields and McColts, Twilight uses a spell to amplify her voice to get the attention of both the Hooffields and the McColts.
 * In The Mane Attraction, Twilight uses her horn like a video recorder in order to bust Svengallop.
 * 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 animating a plow with a "come-to-life" spell, she loses control of it and makes a mess.
 * In The Return of Harmony Part 1, she tries to reverse Discord's strange effects with a "fail-safe spell," but it fails.
 * In the episode Magic Duel, she has difficulty performing an age spell, which she says is only for "the highest level unicorns."
 * In Make New Friends but Keep Discord, Twilight fails to stop the Smooze with her magic.
 * In The Cutie Re-Mark - Part 1, Twilight tries to stop Starlight Glimmer from casting a time-travel spell, but the spell she casts bounces off.
 * In The Cutie Re-Mark - Part 2, Twilight attempts to cast a spell in self-defense against the timberwolves, but it doesn't work.

Crowns, etc.
For the first three seasons of the show, Twilight possesses a crown containing the element of magic. She receives it in Friendship is Magic, part 2 when she defeats Nightmare Moon. The crown is studded with sapphires and a magenta star-shaped gem shaped like like Twilight's cutie mark.

After Twilight becomes a princess in Magical Mystery Cure, she wears a different crown with the element of magic embedded in it. It is a lighter shade of gold, no longer has sapphires, and rests horizontally, not vertically, on Twilight's head.

Twilight relinquishes her crown when she and her friends restore the Elements of Harmony to the Tree of Harmony in Princess Twilight Sparkle - Part 2. At the Summer Sun Celebration, she wears a new crown, which has the same shade of gold just like and looks completely different from her element of magic crown. It has more of a "classic" crown shape, with each point studded with a small magenta jewel. It becomes her regular crown for the rest of the season, as seen in Trade Ya!, Equestria Games, Twilight's Kingdom - Part 1, and Princess Spike.

The Twilicane, unnamed in the show but named in Enterplay's collectible card game, is given by Discord to Twilight in Princess Twilight Sparkle - Part 2 as a way of mocking her "Princess" status, and is later dropped by Lemon Hearts in Slice of Life.