King Sombra

King Sombra (or simply known as Sombra) is one of the secondary antagonists of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. He is a tyrannical unicorn and the former ruler of the Crystal Empire who is bent on reconquering the empire and later taking over all of Equestria. In the IDW comics, it is stated that Sombra is actually an Umbrum created to destroy the Crystal Heart and release the Umbrum army trapped underneath the Crystal Empire; although this is considered non-canonical to the series.

He was voiced by Jim Miller in Season 3, and was voiced by Alvin Sanders in Season 9.

## Character

### appearance

King Sombra is a Unicorn with a gray coat, red eyes, a black mane and tail as well as having black on his muzzle with gray lines and sideburns, a red sharp horn and sharp teeth. He wears armor, a red cape and a crown. While using his power to make everypony see their fears, his eyes turn green with purple smoke coming out. By Season 9, the grey lines on the black part of his muzzle are gone.

### Personality

Compared to other villains on the show, King Sombra's personality isn't too elaborated on. Instead, he is little more than a dark, looming menace for most of the episode. He has very few speaking lines, some of then half-incoherent, and is a very mysterious character, whose backstory is limited to the fact that he enslaved the crystal ponies. The source of his dark powers and his motivations remain an enigma. However, he is shown to be extremely cruel, fierce, brutal, sadistic, heartless, destructive, merciless, and wicked, viewing crystal ponies as nothing more than his slaves, using fear on them and other characters, and licking his lips as the prospect of possibly killing Spike (although he may have primarily been after the Crystal Heart). He is also shown to be tyrannical, manipulative and power-hungry, as in the altered future he tried to take over the rest of Equestria once retaking the Crystal Empire, creating a dark future of war. He is believed to be one of the evilest villains in the show.

Sombra appears to be very satisfied, thoughtful, intelligent, appreciative and perspicacious, as he seemingly thought ahead of his enemies and placed a curse upon the empire to disappear if he gets defeated, and he cleverly booby-trapped the way to the Crystal Heart. He ended up outsmarting Twilight as she fell for every one of the traps, more than one of which would have defeated Twilight Sparkle if not for the presence of Spike.

In Season 9, though he still comes close to conquering Equestria and displays intelligence by tricking the Mane 6 into revealing their source of power, he is also shown to be pompous, arrogant, and overconfident, preferring to not work with Grogar's evil alliance in favor of taking Equestria for himself, and disregarding his warnings about working together, which ultimately proved to be his downfall. He is too overconfident in fact, that he left the Mane Six to be trapped in his crystal cage instead of controlling their minds, saying there is no point, thinking that without the Elements, they are powerless to stop him and his army of slaves. Also, when he reached the throne room of Canterlot Castle and saw that Princesses Celestia and Luna weren't there, he immediately assumed it was because they were too scared to face him, when in fact they were responding to the threat of the Everfree Forest's overgrowth. When he was overpowered by the Mane Six's magic, he is seen cringing in disbelief and despair at his own defeat.

In the comics, Sombra's personality is quite different from the show, depicting him as more sympathetic. Before he turned evil he didn't want to, and in contrast to the show where he was about to murder Spike for being in his way, he is unable to bring himself to kill Amore (which he is implied to have done in the show given her absence) so he turns her to crystal and non-fatally shatters her instead, also turning Celestia and Luna to stone instead of killing them and threatening the same to Chrysalis if she betrayed him. He also still seems to care for Radiant Hope, which led to his redemption.