King Sombra

"My Crystal Slaves..."

- King Sombra

King Sombra is a unicorn, who appears as the main antagonist in My Little Pony Friendship is Magic third season's premiere The Crystal Empire.

Prior to the actual episode
King Sombra first appeared on Hasbro's Pony Wedding microsite, which has been accessible since July 2012, before any information about the character was released publically. The quiz does not refer to him by name. In the microsite's Wedding Quiz section, the quiz "Your dream wedding location!" includes the question "Who should be the MC?", with Sombra as the choice that steers the quiz's result to the Crystal Empire.

Writer M.A. Larson wrote on Twitter regarding the quiz's image of King Sombra that was presented to him: "Interesting. I read about that in a script but never seen it before.

King Sombra is mentioned by one of the Crystal Ponies and Twilight Sparkle in the promotional clip for The Crystal Empire shown at Hasbro's My Little Pony panel at the New York Comic Con 2012 and later uploaded to Hasbro's My Little Pony Facebook page. His distinct eyes briefly flash over the Crystal Pony who mentions his name.

Depiction in the series
King Sombra is a unicorn whose heart is said to be as black as night. He took over the Crystal Empire and enslaved the Crystal Ponies, before Celestia and Luna overthrew him, turning him to shadow and banishing him to the Arctic North, disappearing into a crevice of ice which closed up, but not before he put a curse on the Crystal Kingdom that caused it to disappear for a thousand years.

Eventually the Crystal Empire reappeared, but the Crystal Ponies had no memory of their kingdom before Sombra took over, and the mere memory of him causes them pain. Sombra returned along with the Crystal Empire, and tried to attack it again. Princess Cadance cast a protection spell around the Crystal Empire.

When Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Spike came to the Crystal Empire to protect it, Sombra chased after them in shadow form, but they got through the barrier, although he attacked Shining Armor he survived, but his horn was cursed so that he could not use magic.

When Cadance began to run out of power to perform the spell, the barrier briefly deactivated. Sombra's horn was broken off as the barrier reactivated, and he transformed it into a dark crystal which began to create more dark crystals in the Crystal Empire.

Twilight and Spike searched for the Crystal Heart, the key to protecting the empire, inside the castle, where nopony would dare to look. They ran into a door enchanted by Sombra to confront them with their worst fears. In Twilight's case, she thought Celestia told her that she failed her test and wouldn't continue her studies. After snapping her out of this, Spike thought Twilight was sending him away, but Twilight realized what Sombra was doing.

Eventually they reached the Crystal Heart, but Sombra, able to invade once Cadance was no longer able to perform her spell, trapped Twilight in a wall of dark crystals, keeping her from the Crystal Heart. Twilight told Spike to take the Crystal Heart to Cadance. Returning to his physical form, Sombra tried to spear Spike with a dark crystal, but Cadance saved him from the attack. She then returned the Crystal Heart, and together with the crystal ponies used its power to unleash a wave of magic that restored the Crystal Empire and destroyed Sombra, turning to crystal and shattering to pieces.

Personality
Compared to other villains on the show, King Sombra's personality is not too elaborated on. Instead, he is little more than a dark, looming menace for most of the episode. He has very few speaking lines, some of then half-incoherent, and is a very mysterious character, whose backstory is limited to the fact that he enslaved the Crystal Ponies. The source of his dark power and his motivations remain an enigma. He is however shown to be extremely cruel and sadistic, viewing crystal ponies as nothing more than his slaves, using fear on them and other characters, and licking his lips as the prospect of possibly killing Spike (although he may have primarily been after the Crystal Heart).

Since he has no known motivation for acts of unspeakable cruelty, he is by far the darkest and most evil villain in Friendship Is Magic, and fittingly enough the first villain who is apparently killed.

Powers
King Sombra appears in the show as a being of pure darkness. Due to this, he appears to be virtually impossible to damage, easily dodging Shining Armor's magic beam. His dark form can spread to immense distances, to the point that he can surround the Crystal Empire all by himself. He can also sink the ground and travel this way, leaving a trail of sharp crystals in his path.

Celestia states that she and Luna were the ones responsible for turning Sombra into shadow. This may imply that, albeit formidable in his present state, he could be even more powerful in his true pony form.

King Sombra's main power seems to be creating dark, jagged crystals. Those can serve as sharp weapons or imprison his enemies. If he engulfs a unicorn pony in his darkness, he can cover their horn with crystal, blocking off their magical abilities.

King Sombra's unicorn magic is unlike any other previously seen on the show. It is inferred by Celestia to be dark magic, powered by hatred and fear. The glow associated with it is a toxic purple bubbling. Though it can be cast by others, Sombra seems to be the main practitioner of it. It is affiliated with corruption, able to taint the Crystal Empire in a matter of minutes. In addition to creating dark crystals, this magic can also be used to show one an illusion of one's greatest fear, or even counter teleportation magic.

Weaknesses
As a villain affiliated with hatred, fear, and despair, his greatest weakness appears to be love, joy, and other such positive emotions. He is thus unable to penetrate Princess Cadance's magical love barrier without getting harmed by it, and is destroyed by the Crystal Heart, an artifact powered by positive emotions.

Similarities and possible inspirations

 * Sombra is similar to Sauron from Lord of the Rings. Both have a similar appearance, neither has a lot of screentime or dialogue, both lost their physical form in the past (though Sombra is able to regain his form), and both are pure evil.
 * Sombra's theme sounds similar to that of Sauron and Mordor in Lord of the Rings.
 * The Crystal Empire under Sombra's control also looks similar to Mordor.
 * The way he dies looks similar to Sauron's first defeat, and the way the dark crystal that he is standing on shatters looks similar to Barad-dûr's destruction during Sauron's actual death scene.
 * Meghan McCarthy confirmed in an interview that Sombra was inspired by Sauron, and was only meant to be a dark presence that brings fear to the crystal ponies.
 * Sombra resembles many other shadowy villains as well. His first defeat leaving him as a disembodied shadow also gives him a similarity to Myotismon, who also uses fear while in his Omega form. His shadow form also looks similar to that of Makuta. When he appears before the crystal ponies after the barrier disappears, he looks slightly similar to Shendu's ghost on Jackie Chan Adventures. He also looks similar to Aku, and his curse, which essentially sends the Crystal Empire further in time, has been compared to what Aku does to Samurai Jack.
 * Elements of darkness and shadow have occured in several other previous MLP villains - most notably Nightmare Moon and Tirek. Interestingly enough, both Tirek and Sombra (though the former comes from a different generation of My Little Pony) have tried to kill Spike and are the darkest antagonists in their respective generations. Both are also ultimately destroyed.
 * Sombra also shares some similarities to the Shadow Queen from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. Both are one of the darkest antagonists in their respective series, are reduced to an invincible shadowy spirit form and then imprisoned, but not before casting an evil curse, and return a thousand years later before they are destroyed the second time around. The Crystal Heart, which was used to defeat Sombra, could act as a counterpart to the Crystal Stars, which negated the Shadow Queen's invincibility. Interestingly enough, the Pure Hearts in Super Paper Mario play a similar role during the final battle.

Criticism about King Sombra
Sombra was not as well received as most of the other Friendship is Magic villains, as many viewers were disappointed that not much was revealed about his character and that he didn't appear or speak as often as other villains. This has been countered by saying it adds to how malevolent and intimidating he is, and that it highlights his resemblance to Sauron.

King Sombra's design has also been criticised by some fans, many calling it uninspired.

Memes

 * Before the actual episode, King Sombra's appearance has been likened by fans to bad original characters. Due to this he was occasionally called "Lord Donut Steel" (a play on "Do not steal", a joke sentence referring to badly made original characters).
 * After his name was revealed, many fans have taken to calling him "King Sombrero" (a play on Sombra).
 * King Sombra's castle has not one but two unbelievably long sets of stairs on the way to the Crystal Heart. A common joke about him is to make him obsessed with stairs. There is a joke that his Cutie Mark is a staircase.
 * King Sombra has become memetically associated with a toy named "Gak", because commercials for said toy were aired many times during the live airing of the episodes. Sub-branches of this joke include things like "Gak got more screentime than King Sombra" and even "King Sombra is actually made of Gak".

Trivia

 * Sombra has a few distinctions as being the first major antagonist in the fourth generation who is
 * A male character associated with darkness (Discord is more associated with chaos and based off Q)
 * A pony who isn't an alicorn (Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, Trixie, and the Flim Flam brothers were minor antagonists)
 * Inspired by a Lord of the Rings villain (The Diamond Dogs were minor antagonists)
 * The first character in My little Pony Friendship is Magic to die. (not counting the Windigoes)
 * The first villain not to yell "NOOOOOO!" upon defeat, although he does say it in a quieter voice moments earlier, similar to Nightmare Moon.
 * Sombra appears to be a blank flank, as he has no visible cutie mark during the scene when he is turned to shadow.
 * Prior to the episode "Magic Duel", many fans believed Trixie's Alicorn Amulet to have a connection to him.
 * "Sombra" is a Spanish, Portuguese, and Galician word for "shadow", which comes from the Latin umbra.
 * A differently-shaded version of the armor around King Sombra's neck is used for the 2012 Design a My Little Pony Finalists poster, as part of Steel Masquerade's armor.