My TOP 10 Favorite MLP:FiM Characters: Season 2 Edition

So season 2 of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is over and now we enter into the drought of the summer. That time that we all look forward to because we are given the keys to the kingdom of Equestria so we can build our little fan theories, our head-canons and a bunch of fan content that might very well be demolished by the time season 3 clocks in.

But let's not think about it now and let's have a retrospective look into this season that just ended. What a great season, don't you guys and girls think? It was filled with a lot of great moments and even greater characters, but what characters do I consider to be the best? Now, this is a totally opinionated article, unlike my episode reviews and so there is a lot of personal choice involved in here. I will give my set of rules that I followed to custom this list but of course, that's after the break.



So here are the rules that I followed to make this list.

Rule 1 - No alternate versions of characters: This includes characters like "Future Twilight Sparkle", "Flutter-bully" or "Young Granny Smith".

Rule 2 - No characters from Season 1: This is called "Season 2 Edition" for a reason. If I like a character from season 1 that appeared again in season 2 then that character doesn't count. For example, I never liked Diamond Tiara in season 1, but in season 2 I really liked her! Even with that, she won't be on the list; or Doughnut Joe, who in season 1 was just Pony Joe, but guys he is the same character, so it does count.

Rule 3 - No Mane Six characters: I already stated that this list won't include characters from season 1, but I want to clarify that also applies to the Mane cast. I like them all, and they get a lot of the spotlight as it's meant to be, but I am more for the dark horses *rim shot*.

Rule 4 - No character from my previous list: If you missed it, check it out over here.

Rule 5 - Not just Ponies: Monsters, villains and pets are also included of course. I'm not going to shun anyone, My Little Pony is not just about the ponies; just mostly.

Rule 6 - One character per episode, which is a hard rule to follow since this season had great characters by the pairs in every episode. No, seriously, every episode, go look that up.

So without further ado, let's dive right into the list!

10. Iron Will.

This season gave us a lot of really interesting villains and antagonists, but if it gave us a character that defied both definitions that is Iron Will. I find him really interesting because he is not a villain and he is not an antagonist. He is a motivational speaker who is just doing his job, and he does it really well. I love his voice, I love his one liners, his macho-man attitude, and the fact that he is like a mix between Terry Crews and Mr. T. He is freaking hilarious. There is something about a minotaur carrying a shopping list and a tiny basket that I find genuinely funny.

9. Pipsqueak.

There were many people worried about Pipsqueak's presence in "Luna Eclipsed", and not for the reasons you would expect. The previous presented him as such a likeable, such a cute and such an endearing British colt that many thought he was going to out stage Princess Luna. In the end he didn't out stage The Queen of the Royal Caps-Lock, but he came very close to it. His design is adorable, his voice is adorable, and his attitude is really on-par with that of a real child. Seeing his scenes again for this list makes me realise how much of a real kid he sounds and looks compared to other fillies and colts in the show. If they'd given him more of a spotlight during the season he would've end up being better developed than the Cutie Mark Crusaders. That might sound like exaggerating, but think about it. You know it's true.

8. Snowflake.

This guy.

Just...Just this guy. I mean, goddammit, look at him! That's how Reb Brown would look if he was a pony! This guy is awesome! I don't need to explain anything just...Just this guy. Absolutely great.

7. Tank.

There wasn't much going on about pets during season 2, which is funny because we had an entire episode dedicated to them. I guess that was the weak point, the fact that having an entire episode dedicated to pets pretty much rendered the rest of the pets to not show ever again, or at least not frequent enough. We saw Opalescence show up a couple more times, and Winona made a couple of appearances too, but if there was one pet that stole the spotlight from every other pet during this season that was Tank. I love this little guy. I love him because he represents an aspect that I admire a lot in people: Endurance. This guy reminds us of something we should never do which is giving up. Nothing can stop him, not even gravity. Rainbow Dash is a pegasus, and he can't stay on clouds because he's a tortoise? No problem! Lets put him some goggles and a propeller. Tank, he definitely gives a new meaning to the expression "Tank it".

6. Daring Do.

I'm including her in this list because, as much as people call "re-colour" on her, she is a totally different character from Rainbow Dash. For starters, she does stop to think before acting and has an analytical mind. She is also more agile without her wings, which makes me wonder how much she can get away with when she is all healed up. Also, she is an archaeologist, an action archaeologist to be exact, so yeah she is pretty much a complete character on her own right. And boy, what a character she is. Daring Do is basically the character I point to people who keep claiming this show is just for little girls. She's brave, she's cool, she dodges alligators coming from the ceiling and escapes impossibly put together traps with her hat. Like Twilight said, she's undeniably, unquestionably, unstoppable. It's the closest this show has had to have a pulp character in it, and it works real well. If Hasbro feels like milking the MLP cow a bit more and wants to make spin offs, I say make one of Daring Do. There is just too much potential for stories to let it go to waste.

5. Discord.

Who am I surprising here? Anybody, I hope. I mean, honestly, you see it right there in my profile. It says Trekkie. How am I not going to put John de Lancie in this list? I don't put him in number one because the character had a few things going for him that didn't really rub me the right way. I didn't like how over-confident he grows by the end, or how passive his attack on the Mane Six really are. I mean, yeah, he psychologically breaks them apart and destroys their souls, but it's not until the end where we see him kind of using his magic powers. But regardless of that, I like him so much for the combination between voice actor and character. He is one of those odd occasions were you don't see the voice actor playing the role in a studio. You see him right there. John de Lancie is Discord, because Discord is Q, and there's nobody else who could be Q better than John de Lancie himself. I think I'm not the only one who can't wait to see what he did for season 3.

4. Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake.

My Little Pony has quite an infamous, long and painful story with babies and, I'm not going to lie here, I do too. Many times one of the reasons why I end up quiting a show or stopped liking a show is because they introduced baby characters. The Flinstones did it with Pebbles and Bang Bang, and I hated them. I absolutely hated them. Which is kind of ironic because Pebbles and Bang Bang are the direct inspiration of Pumpkin and Pound Cake, probably my favourite baby characters since Maggie Simpson. I was shocked by how quickly these characters become likeable, and how much fun they actually are. As much as they make Pinkie Pie suffer they redeem at the end, and when we see them again they still have all their wit and all those hilarious faces. For two characters who's only lines are mumbles, baby talk, and "Pinkie Pie" (tear, cry, cry, sniff) they say a lot with just their expressions. Definitely looking forward to these two in season 3.

3. Cranky Doodle Donkey.

Like I previously said, this show does a great job to make you like characters you've never seen before in a couple of episodes. There are cases where a character connects with you even before the episode has ended. Cranky Doodle Donkey is the only character who, even before he ended his first line, I already loved. I saw him go and I said: "A sarcastic character? Oh my God, yes! This is awesome! I love you Cranky!". As the episode kept moving forward he just kept getting better. He proved to be a very bitter character but who's also capable of humility and who can even be nice and thankful to others. And when we learn what happened to him in the past it just gets to me way too much. I saw some people comparing him to Carl Friedricksen from "Up", if he hadn't had such a tragic story, and I can totally see that. Cranky feels like a Pixar character, but if Pixar only had twenty minutes to develop it. The fact that they pulled that off in My Little Pony is just wonderful. Also, you have to admire with how much dignity and style he wears that Steve Magnet toupee.

2. Fancypants.

Season 1 had its share of male characters, and while some of them were nice (like Big Mac or Braeburn) the others were complete and utter jerks (the pegasus bullies, Prince Blueblood). So I was really looking forward to what season 2 could offer, if we could have some male characters that were not complete jerks. It satisfied me beyond imagination. There were a lot of nice male characters in this season, or at least male characters that I really liked, but if I had to go with which one is my favourite that would have to be none other than Fancypants. Fancypants is everything Blueblood wasn't. He is kind, he is open, he is polite, he has style, he is gentle, and overall he is intelligent. He is the type of rich person-I mean pony, that makes me still have hope in the existence of nice people-ahem, ponies, in high society. He didn't let the luxury and grandiosity of the rich life to get to his attitude and remained a very level headed, natural individual. And that's the keyword here: Natural. It feels real. It doesn't feel like a character from a cartoon, it feels like we are about to be interrupted with narration from a BBC documentary about rich people-darnit, ponies! But anyways, Fancypants is a great character, really well written and even better acted. He's a delight.

Now I know what you're thinking. What's better than the best male character in season 2? Well, why not the best female character in season 2, because that can only be...

1. Chrysalis, Queen of the Changelings.

Yes, I know what you're thinking and I have no shame. As soon as the transformation scene started I was already hooked wondering what this thing would be. The pay off was more than worth it, mostly because I had no idea what she was or how would she look like until we had a general shot of her. I always say it's all about first impressions, that first impressions are very important. Chrysalis' first impression is probably the best one I have had in the entire show. She's evil looking, she's evil motivated, and she's evil driven. From the tip of her twisted horn to the bottom of her holed-up hooves, she is just pure evil. She is like a villain from G1 got teleported to G4, that's how evil she is, and what makes her so evil is that her motivations are actually kind of understandable! You can argue a point here and even side with the bad guy. All she wants is to feed her kind. Okay, she's doing it by destroying everything in Equestria but just imagine what she have had to go through during all these years. She doesn't look that thin and decayed because she's doing the Jane Fonda diet, you know? But if you don't take into account what moves her, she is still one great character from a design point of view. First of all, she acts like a Succubus, feeding on the love of others, and she loves every single drop of it. She looks like a decomposed corpse, with those holed up limbs, and that hair that looks like rotten sea-weed. She has translucent bug wings, and a carapace on her rump. But what does get me is the voice. That voice is made out of nightmares. How can something from a children's cartoon can sound so intimidating but yet makes me feel so fuzzy?

It like if every single awesome thing decided to converge in one point in the universe of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and the end result would be Queen Chrysalis. She's evil, she's terrifying, she looks great, and I think we are pretty much over the fact that many bronies do have a crush on her. No, seriously, I even heard a certain brony has such a crush that he went and changed his entire website for her.

I think it must be the fact that Trixie's voice actress voiced her.

Or maybe it's the endless shots with her giving bedroom eyes.

Or maybe it's the hair falling over her face.

Or maybe it's the entire concept of absorbing love that powers her up.

Or...

Uhm...

Huh...

It's...

There are no words.

Whatever it is, I can tell you, she is awesome, and without a doubt my number 1 favourite character from season 2.

Now, this show had a lot of other characters that I didn't include for one reason or another: The Flim Flam Brothers, Cherry Jubilee, Ahuizotl, Filthy Rich, Truffle Shuffle, The Big Lebowski Ponies, Pee-Wee, Garble, Strike, Alleyway, Shining Armour, Princess Cadance, Mulia Miles, etc. I didn't include them for many reasons, and because my list was limited by my own set of rules, so if yours wasn't in the list, or if yours is on the list and you felt it should be higher, by all means, tell me about it on the comments.

Thanks a lot for checking this out, and I'll see you all later!