Princess Luna

**Princess Luna**, known as **Nightmare Moon** or **Night Mare Moon** when transformed or under certain other circumstances, is an Alicorn pony, the younger sister of Princess Celestia, and the main antagonist of the season one premiere of *My Little Pony Friendship is Magic* as Nightmare Moon. She is also the adoptive aunt of Princess Cadance. Eventually, the Elements of Harmony restore Luna to her former self and she returns to rule over Equestria alongside her older sister. Princess Luna/Nightmare Moon is called by her respective early names**Princess Selena**/**Night Mare** in another depiction.

Princess Luna
[1]
 **Residence** | Canterlot
Moon (while banished for a thousand years, ending inFriendship is Magic, part 1)
 **Occupation** | Co-ruler of Equestria
 **Other links** | * Princess Luna image gallery
* Speculation forum

##### Manipulation

[2]

Nightmare Moon making the cliff tumble down.

Nightmare Moon uses her magic to set obstacles in Twilight and her friends' path to the Elements of Harmony indirectly, making creatures unwittingly assist her. These include the manticore, whose paw she embeds with a thorn so he'd attack the ponies, or Steven Magnet, whose mustache she cuts off so he'd make the river impassible. She further indirectly attacks the ponies by causing a cliff side to collapse underneath the ponies' hooves and by making trees appear as monsters. As the Shadowbolts, she tries to persuade Rainbow Dashto abandon her friends so they won't be able to cross a fallen bridge and reach the Elements of Harmony.

Despite her indirect approach, when she is attacked by the royal guards, she quickly repels them with lightning, then turns into mist and floats away. She also confronts Twilight Sparkle directly when the two charge at each other, right before shattering the Elements of Harmony.

#### As Princess Luna[3]

##### Remorse

[4]

Luna accepting Celestia's friendship.

Once transformed back to her former self, Princess Luna is remorseful and tearful upon seeing her older sister. She runs to Celestia's side, apologizing for what she had done. The two sisters later join the celebration in Ponyville, where Luna receives a welcome wreath in wonderment, and gazes up with an anxious smile at her older sister. However, as stated in Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?, Luna's sense of guilt causes her to create the Tantabus in order to give herself nightmares every night as punishment for the suffering she caused as Nightmare Moon.
 =====Excessive decorum=====

[5]

Princess Luna's return.

Princess Luna returned to the show exactly one year after the broadcast date of Friendship is Magic, part 2, in the episode Luna Eclipsed. The episode takes place in Ponyville during Nightmare Night. Despite wanting to win over the citizens of Ponyville, the townspeople are frightened of her booming voice and assertive manner. Twilight Sparkle tells Spike that Luna must be having trouble adjusting after being gone for a thousand years.

When Luna tries to express her happiness with being purged of her dark powers, Twilight tells her that she sounds like she's yelling, and Luna explains that she's using the "traditional Canterlot voice," the royal we, and high volume in order to properly address her subjects. She uses archaic terms like "hath," "thy," "nay," and "thou," as well as other constructs.

Twilight encourages Luna to lower the volume of her voice, but Luna is hesitant. Twilight Sparkle recruits Fluttershy's help in teaching Luna to speak in a softer voice, and later takes her to Ponyville so Applejack can show her how to be likable. For a short while, Luna manages to mingle with the villagers of Ponyville and have fun with them, by playing games where she throws toy spiders or pumpkins onto a target. In Sleepless in Ponyville she seems to show less of her former decorum, dispensing with the royal we, and speaking in a far less harsh manner.

##### Temper

[6]

Saving Pipsqueak.

Princess Luna reverts to her intimidating self after Pinkie Pie accuses her of eating Pipsqueak, while she was actually saving him from drowning in the apple bob. She attempts to endear herself to the villagers by turning toy spiders into real spiders, trying to elicit "fun" by making them crawl on their own to the bulls-eye, but the spiders only frighten everyone. The villagers panic and flee, and after a few seconds of indecision, Luna stops the commotion by shouting "*Be still!*" in her royal Canterlot voice, to the accompaniment of a crack of thunder. She then decrees in anger that since the ponies dishonor and insult her with the celebration, Nightmare Night is canceled forever.

##### Playfulness

[7]

Luna scaring ponies for fun.

Thanks to Pinkie Pie's insight, Twilight Sparkle realizes that because of the holiday, Pinkie Pie and her entourage actually want to be frightened, so she arranges for Luna to purposefully scare them. Luna appears as Nightmare Moon, scares the ponies, and bares fangs. After the ponies run away in fright, she changes back to her usual appearance and spits out the false fangs she was wearing, confused as to why Twilight wanted her to do that. Then Pipsqueak approaches Luna on behalf of the children and asks her to come back and scare them again next year, even though she canceled Nightmare Night. Luna begins to understand and reinstates Nightmare Night, at which point Pipsqueak declares her his "favorite princess ever" and hugs her leg.

The princess manages to relinquish the use of her royal Canterlot voice, and in the epilogue she plays a variety of games with the villagers, accepts the foals' candy, and frightens Rainbow Dash by firing a bolt of lightning behind her, a trick that Rainbow Dash had been playing on other ponies over the course of the night.

##### Kindness and wisdom

[8]

Princess Luna giving advice to Scootaloo.

In the episode Sleepless in Ponyville, she displays kindness and offers wise advice to Scootaloo when she tells her to face her fears. At the end of the episode she gives Scootaloo a wink and a smile, as she knows that Scootaloo has faced her fears and she also knows that she has Rainbow Dash to help her overcome them. In For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils, Luna once again appears in a nightmare; this time, in Sweetie Belle's nightmare. She gives advice to Sweetie Belle and tells her that she as well has a sister that often "shines more brightly" than her and that she struggles with it. She then takes Sweetie Belle into the past at her fifth birthday party and shows her that Rarity did not want to take over the party, just simply save it. Later, Luna tells Sweetie to go inside a door of what the future might hold if she does not fix her sabotage of the headpiece Rarity had designed for Sapphire Shores. Later in the episode, Luna appears again in Canterlot in order to help Sweetie Belle undo the damage she did to the headpiece.
 ===Magic[9]===

#### Raising the moon[10]

[11]

Raising the moon.

As mentioned above, Luna's chief duty is raising the moon at night when Celestia lowers the sun. Following her banishment to the moon, Luna resumes this responsibility, as shown in Princess Twilight Sparkle - Part 1.

In the episode Hearth's Warming Eve, Spike narrates that this magic is not exclusive to Luna and Celestia, but is or was performable by unicorns collectively. In Twilight's Kingdom - Part 2, Luna temporarily transfers her ability to control the moon, along with all of her magic, to Twilight Sparkle.

#### Transformation[12]

On multiple occasions, Nightmare Moon turns her entire form into mist. She appears in this manner inPonyville's pavilion where the Summer Sun Celebration is being held, and she follows the Mane Six on their journey for the Elements this way. While in this form, Nightmare Moon manipulates creatures and environments; she transforms into a thorn to hurt a manticore, prompting it to attack the Mane Six, and she transforms into the Shadowbolts at one point.

In Luna Eclipsed, Luna transforms into her Nightmare Moon form with a set of false fangs to playfully frighten some foals on Nightmare Night. In the same episode, she transforms toy spiders into living spiders.

#### Weather manipulation[13]

[14]

"Nightmare Night is canceled....FOREVER!!!!!"

Nightmare Moon uses lightning to repel the royal guards in Friendship is Magic, part 2 and thickens the mist over the fallen bridge later in the episode to prevent Rainbow Dash from hearing Twilight Sparkle calling out to her.

In Luna Eclipsed, Princess Luna makes clouds swirl above her in the sky when she decrees that Nightmare Night is canceled, and she produces lightning from a cloud to playfully frighten Rainbow Dash.

#### Dream duty[15]

In Sleepless in Ponyville, Luna appears in Scootaloo's dreams, stating that as the princess of the night, it is "[her] duty to come into [ponies'] dreams," and offers Scootaloo guidance in facing her fears.

[16]

Luna's face on the moon in Scootaloo's nightmare.

Luna makes a similar appearance in Sweetie Belle's dreams in For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils and shows Sweetie Belle visions of her past, the present, and Rarity's future.

In Bloom & Gloom, Luna visits Apple Bloom's nightmare to comfort her cutie mark anxieties, and also brings Sweetie and Scootaloo into the dream.

In Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?, Princess Luna hunts down the Tantabus, a nightmare creature she created that haunts the Mane Six's dreams. She jumps from dream to dream and also creates a dream that everyone in Ponyville shares.

### Royal guards[17]

Princess Luna's royal guards look quite different from Princess Celestia's guards. They wear black and purple armor reminiscent of Nightmare Moon's armor. And most significantly, they have purple dragon or bat-like wings instead of the standard feathered Pegasus wings. They are grey-brown and have yellow eyes with pupils in the form of slits. Their ears appear to be furrier than normal. The carriage they pull is aggressive and Gothic, with streamlined shapes evoking bat or dragon-wings as well as arrow-like or spear-like accents. It is built with a low center of gravity, and Luna's royal guards pull it via heavy chains.

## Depiction in filmsEdit

### *My Little Pony Equestria Girls*[18]

[19]

Luna in Equestria Girls.

In Equestria, Luna tells Twilight that she only has three days before she'll be stuck in the alternate world for thirty moons, and that she must get back before the third moon reaches its peak. In the alternate world featured in My Little Pony Equestria Girls, the human Luna is the vice principal of Canterlot High School and her sister Celestia is the principal. The human Fluttershy brings Twilight's crown to her after it falls through the portal. She is later fooled bySunset Shimmer into thinking Twilight destroyed the decorations for the Princess of the Fall Formal dance, until Flash Sentry provides evidence to the contrary. She holds the ballot box after the students finish fixing up the hall for the Fall Formal. At the dance, she carries both the envelope and the crown in a box to Celestia after Flash's band stops playing. She then hands the envelope to her sister to read who the Fall Formal Princess is. She is next seen being awoken from Sunset Shimmer's hypnosis alongside the students and Celestia. Lastly, she is seen handing a trowel to the repentant Sunset Shimmer so she can repair the damage she caused to the school with Snips and Snails.

​

## Depiction in comicsEdit

[20]

One of the variant covers featuring Luna

Princess Luna appeared in one of the standard variant covers of the first issue, despite the fact that she makes no appearance in the story proper.In the series' second four-part story arc, Nightmare Moon is shown to be a completely separate entity from Princess Luna. It is revealed that Nightmare Moon is a creature of darkness born on the moon whose very presence corrupts the denizens of the moon. Through her power over nightmares, Nightmare Moon was able to feed off Luna's insecurities of living in her sister's shadow, thus allowing her to take over Luna's mind, which ultimately lead to her being banished to the moon for a thousand years. Although the Elements of Harmony were able to restore Luna back to her original form, Nightmare Moon herself continued to live on. Eventually, she hatched a plot to take on physical form by using one of the Element bearers, thus making the other five Elements of Harmony useless.

Just as she did with Luna, she begins invading the Element bearers' dreams until she is able to find a suitable candidate in Rarity, whom she abducts and takes to the moon. Princess Luna joins the other five Element bearers and Spike on a mission to retrieve Rarity before Nightmare Moon takes her over completely. However, Nightmare Moon's return seems to have weakened Luna as she is once again reverted to her "depowered" form (as seen at the end of Friendship is Magic, part 2). Upon arriving to the moon, they find that they are too late. Nightmare Moon has already taken over Rarity, and Luna is powerless to stop her in her weakened state, which forces her to retreat back to Equestria, leaving Spike and the remaining Element bearers behind. Back in Equestria, Luna helps Celestia and the residents of Ponyville defend themselves against the invasion Nightmare Moon and her minions.

Initially, Luna's magic proves to be just as ineffective as before, but through the love and support shown from her subjects she is able to regain her proper form and, with the help of the power of the other Element bearers' friendship, is able to best Nightmare Moon, save Rarity, and restore the denizens of the moon back to their original forms.

[21]

Luna kisses Big Mac on the Ferris wheel.

Princess Luna appears on page 7 of *My Little Pony Micro-Series* Issue #3 in Rarity's dream along with part of Hush Now Lullaby. She appears again in *My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic* Issue #9, participating in several Summer Wrap-Up Festival games with (an unwilling) Big McIntosh. In *My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic* Issue #10, towards the end of the festival, she is shown kissing Big Mac on the cheek as they ride the Ferris wheel. In *The Fall of Sunset Shimmer*, a book titled *Secrets of Nightmare Moon* appears on page 5, and a portrait of Nightmare Moon appears on page 6. Of *My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic* Issue #12, Luna appears in *PTV* and is featured on a comic book in 1 million cover A.In *My Little Pony Micro-Series* Issue #10 Luna thinks Celestia's job is much easier and takes over Celestia's work for a day. Luna realizes that her sister does do a lot of work and decides to go back to working solely during the night. Part of her nightly duties appears to be hunting and defeating monstrous beasts. In the issue, Luna also gets a pet opossum, which she names Tiberius.

*My Little Pony: FIENDship is Magic* Issue #4 "explores the secret origins of" Nightmare Moon.

## AppearancesEdit

*See also: Character appearances*

Season three