Windigos



The Windigoes are malevolent "winter spirits that feed off fighting and hatred; the more hate the spirit feels, the colder things become", according to the character Twilight Sparkle plays in the Hearth's Warming Eve play, Clover the Clever.

The three windigoes feature three times throughout the episode: at the conclusion of the grand summit, after the pony leaders' snowball fight, and at the cave that the ponies took as shelter. The Windigoes look like ghostly and slightly translucent horses.

In their first appearance the three windigoes only look down onto the grand summit from a passage in the clouds with glowing blue eyes, but in their second and third appearances they wail and fly in a circle of clouds. They are defeated by "the fire of friendship", a pink flame that takes the shape of a heart which was created in the play when Clover, Smart Cookie, and Pansy become friends. However, it is implied that they, or other members of their race, are still around in modern Equestria when one of their distinctive howls is heard through an open window when Rainbow Dash and Applejack start arguing about who has the responsibility of closing it.

They are all based on the Wendigo, a malevolent cannibalistic Algonquian spirit strongly associated with the winter, the North, and coldness, as well as with famine and starvation.