Nightmare Moon is a major antagonist from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. She serves as a minor antagonist of the Character What franchise, as she is the main antagonists in episodes such My Little Pony I and The Return of Nightmare Moon. She is also a member of The Forces of Evil.
Nightmare Moon is known to be a corrupted form of Princess Luna, who is the younger sister of Princess Celestia who was driven by jealousy toward her older sister. As Nightmare Moon, she serves as Celestia's archenemy until she was restored back to her normal form by the Mane Six and Shadow Joe. Though when transform back into Nightmare Moon by Shadow Aaron, she serves as one of his minions.
It is revealed in the Character What series that Nightmare Moon is an alternate personality of Princess Luna, not an entity possessing her.
Backgrounds[]
Centuries ago, Luna and Celestia were born and became rulers of Equestria, which a land inhabited by three different pony tribes: unicorns, pegasi and Earth ponies. During every morning, Celestia raises the sun, and Luna raises the moon every evening. With their duties, they kept perfect balance in Equestria. However, soon as time went on, Luna grew jealous of Celestia getting love, admired and appreciated by ponies for her work to enjoy the day since to the ponies awake during the daytime while Luna's night is always "shun", due to sleeping it during those times.
One day, Luna grew tired with Celestia's success. Not only Luna refuse to lower the moon to make way for the dawn but choose to challenge Celestia for the sole ruler of Equestria. During that moment, the bitterness and jealously within Luna's heart consume her and transform her into Nightmare Moon, a black mare embodiment of darkness. Celestia didn't wish to fight Nightmare Moon and begged her to lower the moon so she could make way for the dawn, but Nightmare Moon proclaim that her only duty is to bring eternal nighttime to Equestria, and destroy Celestia. Meanwhile, Shadow Aaron came to help Celestia dealt with Nightmare Moon, and with no other choice, Celestia uses the Elements of Harmony to banish Nightmare Moon into the moon. Celesia was remorseful for banishing her sister, though Shadow Aaron comfort her.
Following Nightmare Moon's defeat, Celestia takes full responsibility of both sun and moon to maintain harmony in Equestria, and create a holiday called the Summer Sun Celebration to celebrate his victory over Nightmare Moon. However, Celestia still felt remorse for banishing her sister and loneliness for having no sibling in her company.
When Shadow Aaron became evil, he created three stars that would free Nightmare Moon from her prison set in the longest day of the year.
Character What: The Adventures[]
Nightmare Moon's first appearance was in My Little Pony I, which is based on the two-part episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Upon reading the prophecy of Nightmare Moon's return, Twilight Sparkle reports this information onto her mentor Princess Celestia, however, she encouraged Twilight to make friends for herself instead of worrying about the supposed "old pony's tale". Unfortunately, Twilight's deception of Nightmare Moon's return proven to be true, and Nightmare Moon attend the Summer Sun Celebration. Shadow Joe transported herself along with Twilight and her soon-to-be friends to the forbidden Everfree Forest to locate Nightmare Moon and end her reign of darkness. After facing many obstacles caused by Nightmare Moon in her path, they found the ancient artifacts known as the Elements of Harmony and used their power to transform Nightmare Moon back into Princess Luna. Celestia arrived to congratulated Shadow Joe, Twilight and her newfound friends for defeating Nightmare Moon, Celestia walked over to Luna, who remorsefully apologized for her wrongdoings, and tearfully admits that she misses Celestia so more, which Celestia forgive her and admitting that she misses Luna as well. Later at the celebration (herd by Pinkie Pie), the other ponies give Luna a flower necklace as a way to shown that they forgive her.