Marigold Heavenly Nostrils

**Marigold** **Heavenly Nostrils** is one of the main characters of the book series *Phoebe and Her Unicorn*. She is rather vain though. She is a female unicorn who is best friends with the other protagonist, Phoebe. When she sees her own reflection she gets stuck staring. This is due to her parents genetics, as shown in book fifteen. Phoebe saves her though, useful to have a human best friend to her.

Marigold's name means, "Resplendent Mary," from Mary and gold. She is named after the Marigold, a type of daisy. The meaning of her name most likely resembles her beauty and, ironically, cannot even stop staring at her reflection unless Phoebe saves her.

## Appearance

Marigold is slender, has white fur only, and apparently is sleek. She has a long tail with a tuft of fur on the end. Her mane is well groomed, long and wavy and she has pointy, upright ears, as well as a single long horn on her head. She has tufts of fur on her cloven (two pointed) hooves called fetlocks.

She sometimes wears Hoof Polish.

## Family

Marigold says she has no memories of her parents, or family for that matter due to her "distracting beauty", except a sister called Florence Unfortunate Nostrils, a unicorn with a curly pink mane and glasses who unfortunately sneezes spiders giving her the name Florence Unfortunate Nostrils.

She later mentions having a great aunt Rainbow Buttercup.

Her father's name is Rutherford B. Hayes, and he says that the president Rutherford B. Hayes "stole" that name from him.

Marigold also has a small brown unicorn cousin named Infernus, the Unicorn of Death, or Ferny for short who identifies as a non-binary gender unicorn.

In the June 7th 2022 book release of Unicorn Selfies, Marigold's and Florence's parents are revealed for the first time with Marigold's mother having a white body with a fine pink mane similar to Marigold's and their father having a curly yellow mane.

## Relationships

### Phoebe

Phoebe is Marigold's best friend. Marigold treats Phoebe kindly and does everything with her. Although Marigold really likes Phoebe she sometimes teases her, calling her a 'hairless pink thing' or a 'repulsive, annoying little creature'.

Phoebe first found out about Marigold when she was mad at Dakota. She went to visit a pond where she always went when she was angry. She threw a rock at the water and it accidentally hit Marigold in her face. Marigold offered to grant her one wish for rescuing her from her reflection. Phoebe's wish was for Marigold to be her best friend. Since then, they have been best friends as Phoebe wished.

### **Dakota**

Unlike Phoebe, Marigold doesn't really mind Dakota and gets along pretty well with her. Marigold even let Dakota ride on her into her party. Marigold is friendly towards Dakota but has said she very much prefers Phoebe. Marigold has shown to have some grudge towards her. As shown in the survey Phoebe (feebee) took, she had thought Dakota was a booger brain, or a bad person. On the same note, Marigold even removed Dakota's hair because of her taking Phoebe's pencil topper. She acted both kind and badly, so she has mixed feelings. She is nice on the outside to her, coming to her defense when Phoebe makes a terrible jump rope chant about Dakota, but still as stated in the beginning, prefers Phoebe.

### Phoebe's parents

Marigold doesn't really communicate that much with Phoebe's parents but she is friendly with them and had even started lowering the Shield of Boringness for them. Phoebe's parents don't mind Marigold and accept her friendship with Phoebe. Phoebe's dad often talks to Marigold, like when he asks her to eat the grass more evenly. Phoebe’s mom also enjoys to paint pictures of Marigold, and once used her for bird watching due to the shield of boringness having a bird only frequency.

### Max

Marigold knows Max but doesn't really seem to communicate with him. She has met him on Halloween once and didn't talk to very much.

### Other Unicorns

Marigold says she has other unicorn friends but she obviously doesn't spend much time with them, as she's always with Phoebe and originally just gazing into crystal pools. Some mentioned unicorns are:

* Nightshade Lovelycoat
* Florence Unfortunate Nostrils
* Lord Splendid Humility
* The Advanced Sparkling teacher
* Infernus, the Unicorn of Death

Although she did have a crush on Lord Splendid Humility. She also has other friends like Phoenixes and dragons, for example Todd the Candy Dragon.

## Abilities

### **Magic**

Marigold has demonstrated the ability to cast a wide variety of spells, which is called "spellcraft". Her most frequently-used spell is *The Shield of Boringness*, which allows Unicorns to interact with non-magical creatures without them considering the Unicorn's presence as being out of the ordinary. She is always wearing the *Shield of Boringness,* however, Marigold has stated that does not use it on Phoebe anymore.

Marigold sometimes casts spells that require magic words to be recited in order for the spell to work, but mostly just uses her horn or says the words/song for flourish. She has telekinesis, creation (summons objects in midair) can control the weather, bring inanimate objects to life, and more. Once she even summoned waffles when Pheobe was hungry. She can also understand what other magical creatures are saying (such as the goblins), and she can communicate with them and speak their language. She can also sense a "magical signature" (usually means another magical being is nearby).

Other notable spells include the Shield of Warmingness, the Shield of Coldness and the Shield of Dryness, which allow her to remain comfortable and dry year-round, and spells that allow her horn to act as a Wi-fi hotspot and to receive text messages through it, therefore she is able to use her own horn as an item of technology. She can download "Unicorn apps" and videos/movies on it. Marigold can even project these pictures and videos/movies as holograms onto a flat surface to watch so other people can see them. She also has a unnamed shield to protect from mud, although she can use it selectively to leave mud in some places.

### **Physical Abilities**

Marigold has good physical prowess. She has incredible speed, as demonstrated when she runs quickly, even while carrying Phoebe on her back. She has been seen to reach very high speeds and even states herself to be 'faster than a car that is faster than a unicorn'. She can also roller skate and ride bicycles. She has a very flexible tail. It can be used to play the piano and hang from branches. She has also been shown to have incredible strength, as seen in a book where she was running while carrying Phoebe on her back and she does not weigh her down at all. However, when Phoebe tugged her mane, it hurt for her.

### **Horn**

Marigold's horn is not just good for magic, she can also stab thing with it or impale things on it, e.g. a dodgeball. It can also get in the way of wearing a hat so she stabs her horn through the hat.

## Inspiration

The name Marigold Heavenly Nostrils came about when Dana Simpson typed her full name into a unicorn name generator and it returned "Marigold Celestial Nostrils". The middle name was changed to "Heavenly" to avoid confusion with Princess Celestia of *My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic*.

Some of Marigold's personality was drawn from the description of unicorns in *The Last Unicorn* by Peter S. Beagle. As stated by Dana, "The way that the unicorn’s described in the first scene, where she lives near a crystal pool so she can stare at her reflection, I sort of took that idea and cranked it up to 11. When Phoebe finds Marigold, she’s just staring at her reflection in a pool, and I try to suggest that this is the sort of thing that happens to her a lot. She just sort of walks around in contemplation of her own beauty all the time."

## Trivia

* Marigold uses reading glasses.
* Marigold has an allergy to different flowers in Spring.
* Marigold is not dating Lord Splendid Humility, because her sister, Florence Unfortunate Nostrils, is dating him (although Marigold is shown in some earlier strips to have a crush on him).
* When she drinks coffee, she over-sparkles (gets millions of sparkles around her). This is similar to how humans go hyper whenever they drink coffee.
* Marigold's body language came from Dana watching her cat, Gladys. Gladys passed away in January 2015 and in some later books, Phoebe has a cat named Gladys after Dana's.
* Marigold also is shown to have a crush on the camp lake monster, Ringo. She even admits to this in Razzle Dazzle Unicorn, despite having denied Phoebe’s teasing.

## References

1. ↑ http://www.gocomics.com/phoebe-and-her-unicorn/2014/07/14
2. ↑ https://www.gocomics.com/phoebe-and-her-unicorn/2019/01/28
3. ↑ https://www.gocomics.com/phoebe-and-her-unicorn/2019/01/30
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 'Unicorns are everywhere': Cartoonist Dana Simpson shares lessons on friendship in comic strip 'Phoebe and Her Unicorn', *Deseret News*, March 28, 2015