King Sombra

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**King Sombra** is one of the secondary antagonists of *LEGO Ninjago & My Little Pony: Masters of Friendship*, appearing as the main antagonist of *The Core of the Crystal Empire* in Rebooted and *The Beginning of the End* in March of the Oni.

## Depictions in the Series

### Rebooted

King Sombra first appears in The Core of the Crystal Empire. Princess Celestia describes him at the beginning of the episode as "a unicorn whose heart was black as night" and took over the Crystal Empire. In a flashback, Sombra looks down gleefully from his castle at a chain-gang of Crystal Ponies, when two silhouettes of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna shoot a beam at him that turns him to "shadow" and banishes him to "the ice of the arctic north." Celestia says he was able to put a curse on the empire as he was imprisoned, which caused it to "vanish into thin air". Celestia demonstrates that if the empire is filled with hope and love, then those emotions will be reflected across all of Equestria, but if hatred and fear take over the Crystal Empire, black crystals sprout from the ground. When Celestia creates the crystals, her horn is engulfed in black mist and her eyes glow green and emanate the purple smoky trail the same way Sombra's eyes do, implying that she may have knowledge of his magic.

Twilight Sparkle and her friends travel to the Crystal Empire to defend it under the order of Princess Celestia. When they arrive in the frozen north of Equestria, they meet with Shining Armor on the outskirts of the Crystal Empire. Sombra rises as a cloud of black smoke behind them and pursues them through the snow. Shining Armor confronts Sombra and shoots a beam at him, which Sombra evades and lets the beam pass through the black cloud. Sombra then charges at Shining Armor, and the scene cuts right before they clash. Twilight and her friends pass safely through the barrier and arrive in the Crystal Empire, soon followed by Shining Armor, whose horn is now encrusted with black crystals which prevent him from using magic. When they meet Princess Cadance, Shining Armor explains that Cadance is using her magic to "spread love and light" to protect the Crystal Empire and that King Sombra countered Shining Armor's protection spell.

Later in the episode, Twilight and her friends interview some Crystal Ponies. One pony whom Twilight interviews tells her that she can't seem to remember anything before King Sombra came to power and flinches while a superimposed image of King Sombra's eyes flashes over her. She then says she doesn't want to remember anything about his rule.

When Cadance's magical barrier starts to fade, Sombra approaches the barrier, but his horn is sheared off as the barrier rises again. It falls to the ground and transforms into a black crystal which embeds itself in the ground and begins spreading to the crystal gates of the Empire.

Twilight performs "a little trick Celestia taught [her]", which gives her the same green glowing eyes and horn engulfed in black mist as Celestia did at the beginning of the story. She turns the throne black with this spell, and slowly makes the throne room look the way it did when King Sombra ruled. She finds a hidden staircase, and at its bottom is "a doorway that leads to your worst fear", created by "King Sombra's dark magic". When Twilight is under the spell, she has the same green eyes as Sombra; Spike wakes her from this state, but then he falls into it himself and his eyes change the same way, and Twilight wakes him in turn.

Eventually, Twilight and Spike find the Crystal Heart, but Sombra, able to invade once Cadance is no longer able to perform her spell, traps Twilight in a ring of black crystals to prevent her from using the heart. Twilight tells Spike to take the Crystal Heart to Cadance. At first Sombra advances as a pillar of black smoke, and he materializes as his unicorn self at the end of it. Right as he's about to take the Crystal Heart from Spike while standing upon a growing, menacing shard of his own crystals, Cadance, propelled by Shining Armor, snatches Spike and the Crystal Heart before he can reach them. With the return of the Crystal Heart and Cadance saying "Use the light and love within you to ensure that King Sombra does not [return]", the Crystal Empire is restored to its former glory and Sombra, much to his horror, shatters to pieces in a flash of light, along with his crystals, and his remaining smoke dissipates.

### Marks of Possession

In Curseworld, due to Starlight Glimmer altering history, she inadvertently creates an alternate future where Sombra—unopposed by the Mane Six and Spike—has successfully reclaimed the Crystal Empire and conquered half of Equestria. He is seen commanding an army of Crystal Ponies under his control in a war against Princess Celestia.

### The Changing Effect

In "Crystal to Fame", Spike mentions King Sombra while telling the Crystal Ponies about how he was defeated. Later, Twilight Sparkle mentions that the reason King Sombra merely hid the Crystal Heart rather than getting rid of it was to stop the Frozen North's weather from breaching the empire.

### The Pillars of Time

King Sombra is mentioned in To Turn Back Into Time.

### Hunted

#### What Lies Beneath

King Sombra appears as Cadance's fear illusion. ????

### March of the Oni

A painting of King Sombra appears in the third season mural at the Monastery of Spinjitzu.

In the season ten premiere The Beginning of the End, King Sombra is restored by Grogar to join him in an alliance with Queen Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow to take over Equestria. Uninterested in allying with his fellow villains, Sombra sets out on his own to retake the Crystal Empire by himself. He is successful in single-handedly storming the city, enslaving its citizens, and imprisoning the royal family, but the Mane Six defeat him with the Elements of Harmony just as quickly, seemingly vaporizing Sombra. As the Mane Six return the Elements to the Tree of Harmony, however, Sombra reappears and destroys the tree along with the Elements, having faked his earlier defeat to remove the source of the Mane Six's power.

Sombra proceeds to attack Ponyville, brainwashing its citizens into helping him lay siege to Canterlot Castle, which he easily seizes control of upon finding it unattended by Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. He later destroys the Temple of Resurrection after the resurrection of Lord Garmadon. However, he is opposed yet again by the Mane Six alongside Discord, who pretends to be injured by Sombra's magic to spur his friends into action. Realizing that they still embody the spirit of the Elements without wielding the artifacts, the Mane Six combine their magic and destroy Sombra a second time. Observing this from his crystal ball, Grogar shows Sombra's demise to the other villains as a warning of what could happen to them if they do not unite against the Mane Six.

King Sombra is mentioned in Uprooted, Lloyd's Seven, She's All Yak!, and The Last Crusade. In The Ending of the End, it is revealed that Grogar was Discord in disguise all along and restored Sombra in an attempt to boost Twilight's self-confidence as Equestria's future ruler. Twilight has a picture of Sombra pinned on a thought chart along with photos of the other villains.

## Magic

Twilight Sparkle says that King Sombra uses Dark magic. He can generate black crystals that function as weapons and neutralize magic, and he can turn his body to shadow to dodge attacks and travel large distances. He is also powerful enough to cast a curse to make the Crystal Empire disappear.

In The Beginning of the End, Sombra demonstrates the ability to subjugate ponies into doing his bidding with his gaze, as well as show ponies their greatest fear. He can also conjure helmets (which serve the same function as his mind-controlling gaze) from out of thin air.

## Personality

King Sombra is described by Princess Celestia as a unicorn whose heart is "black as night". In terms of personality, King Sombra is sadistic, fierce, and cruel, as evidenced by his referring to the Crystal Ponies as his "crystal slaves" and appearing to take delight in seeing them suffer. Though rarely speaking, he appears desperate to retake the Crystal Empire, as he chases Shining Armor and the Mane Six during their first encounter and curses Shining Armor, causing black crystals to grow on his horn and nullify his magic, and when rushing toward Spike in an attempt to regain the Crystal Heart.

Sombra is much more talkative in The Beginning of the End, in which he is pompous, self-centered, and arrogant, believing with full confidence that he alone is capable of conquering Equestria on his own and rejecting any notion of allying with others. As such, he is dangerously overconfident, believing that the Mane Six can't be a threat to him without the Elements of Harmony (which drives him to pass up a perfect opportunity to brainwash them), that Celestia and Luna would rather flee than face him, and that he can even defeat Discord himself. When the Mane Six use the magic of friendship to overpower him, his arrogance shatters, causing him to break down and desperately deny his impending defeat.

## Appearances

### *LEGO Ninjago & My Little Pony: Masters of Friendship*

#### Season 3: Rebooted

* 47. "The Core of the Crystal Empire - Part 1"
* 48. "The Core of the Crystal Empire - Part 2"
* 49. "Magical Mystery Cure" (mentioned)

#### Season 6: The Changing Effect

* 82. "Crystal to Fame - Part I" (mentioned)
* 83. "Crystal to Fame - Part II" (mentioned)

#### Season 7: The Pillars of Time

* 114. "To Turn Back Into Time - Part II" (mentioned)

#### Tales from the Monastery of Spinjitzu

* 1. "Master Class" (painting)
* 2. "Green and Gold" (painting)
* 3. "The Weekend Drill" (painting)
* 4. "Elemental Rider" (painting)
* 5. "Blue Lightning" (painting)
* 6. "Samurai X-Treme" (painting)

#### Season 10: March of the Oni

* 140. "The Beginning of the End: The Darkness Comes"
* 141. "The Beginning of the End: Into the Breach"
* 142. "Uprooted" (mentioned)
* 143. "Lloyd's Seven" (mentioned)
* 146. "She's All Yak!" (mentioned)
* 151. "The Last Crusade" (mentioned)
* 163. "The Ending of the End: The Fall" (mentioned)
* 164. "The Ending of the End: Endings" (photo)

## Trivia

* The only villain he was willing to work with was the Overlord.
* King Sombra is one of the secondary antagonists of the series, the other three being Nightmare Moon, Starlight Glimmer (before her redemption), and the Pony of Shadows.

## Gallery

King Sombra (Shadow form)King Sombra (Equestria Girls Counterpart)