Cozy Glow

"I'm Cozy Glow. It's very nice to meet you, but I don't know if I'll stay long. I'll probably flunk out. I'm having so much trouble with my friendship lessons."

- Cozy Glow introducing herself to the CMC. "You know, you ponies got it all wrong. Friendship isn't magic. Friendship is power! With Twilight and her lackeys out of my way, all of Equestria will bow to me: The future… Empress of Friendship!"

- Cozy Glow revealing her true tyrannical nature.

Cozy Glow is the main antagonist of the 8th season in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. She first appears as a supporting character and protagonist in the episode "Marks for Effort" and the first half of season 8 and appears as the main antagonist of its two-part finale "School Raze". She is Twilight's former assistant and top student, former friend of the CMC and Young Six, and Tirek's protégé, as well as his cellmate. Despite her seemingly cute, happy, cheerful and friendly personality and being a good friend to everypony in the School of Friendship and Ponyville, she had a much more mysterious agenda before the season finale.

She was voiced by Sunni Westbrook.

Biography
Cozy Glow first appeared in "Marks for Effort" where she was crying outside the Cutie Mark Crusaders' clubhouse. The Crusaders approached her and asked what's wrong. Cozy answers that she is having difficulty with her lessons at the School of Friendship and fears flunking out. The Crusaders, wanting to attend the School of Friendship too, decide to help Cozy with doing her homework and assignments.

The Crusaders teach Cozy how to be friendly while doing nice deeds for Sweetie Drops, Mrs. Cake, and Big Macintosh. After Cozy gets an "A" on her assignment, the Crusaders assist her further by helping her study for an upcoming friendship exam, during which she learns about the values of friendship represented by the Elements of Harmony. However, Cozy fails the test and runs away, which causes Twilight to accuse them for intentionally bad tutoring out of spite for not being allowed into the School of Friendship themselves.

After Cozy saw what she did to the Crusaders, she decides to go to the school's guidance counselor and confesses that she failed the exam on purpose so that the Crusaders would be allowed to enroll at the School of Friendship. When the truth was revealed, Cozy finally apologized to the Crusaders for what she did to them. Finally, the Crusaders were accepted at the School of Friendship as tutors. Cozy is last seen leaving with her new friends as they set out to tutor more students.

Cozy Glow makes a few background appearances in "A Matter of Principals" and one in "The Hearth's Warming Club" just as Twilight dismisses the students for the holiday break. She appears again in "Friendship University", giving Twilight the flyers that inform her about Friendship U, and later appears after Rarity questions how Flim and Flam could have gotten a hold of the School of Friendship's lesson plans. Cozy also appears waiting in line for Starlight's counseling in Road to Friendship.

In "What Lies Beneath", Cozy stays behind to help Twilight organize the library, when she notices the Young Six having a difficult time studying for a friendship test. She manipulates them into doubting their confidence in their friendships. She offers them her study notes for help. At the end of the episode, the Young Six meet Cozy upon their journey underneath the school, where she learns about the Tree of Harmony's test on their friendship skills. As the Young Six drift off to sleep in exhaustion, Cozy ominously looks at the vent where the Tree of Harmony is hidden.

By the season finale episode School Raze, Cozy's villainous nature is revealed as she manipulates everyone. In Part 1, she tricks the Mane Six into going to Tartarus, captures Starlight Glimmer, and, with the help of co-conspirator Lord Tirek, steals the school's artifacts to harness their magic and take over Equestria. In Part 2, after Chancellor Neighsay assumes control of the school, Cozy orchestrates a student uprising to take back her position as school headmare. She also locks the Cutie Mark Crusaders in a hall closet when they try to distract her, only that she was already aware of their plan, and she tricks the students into believing the Young Six are trying to destroy the school. However, they soon begin to have doubts when they try to convince them they were trying saving Starlight and each other.

Cozy's plans are eventually foiled by the intervention of the Tree of Harmony, causing the magic she stole to return to its rightful owners. Caught between the Young Six, the Mane Six, the school students, the princesses, and the royal guards, Cozy Glow was unable to escape and is finally defeated. When Cozy's plan in vain, the school was place under Twilight's rule again.

Later at the end of the episode, Luna and some guard arrived at Tartarus with Cozy Glow. For her crimes and actions and figuring she too dangerous to wonder other places, not only was she expelled from the school but also sentenced to imprisonment within Tartarus, where she tries to make friends with Tirek as she smiles evilly.

Appearance
Cozy is a Pegasus filly with a pink coat, auburn eyes, a cyan mane and tail that are both decorated with a white bow, white freckles on either cheek, and a brown rook for a cutie mark.

Personality
When she first appeared, Cozy appears to act rather sweet, cute, innocent, kindhearted and naïve. But it is implied that this is actually a front for a mysterious agenda, which is confirmed in the finale of the eighth season. She constantly displays a supposed fear of failing the class.

In truth, however, this was actually a facade to hide her true nature: a selfish, manipulative, tyrannical and sociopathic brat who would do anything to get what she wants by any means necessary. She manipulated the staff of the School of Friendship and the CMC to get them to unwittingly play into her hooves, and wanted to take over the School of Friendship, and eventually, Equestria itself with the help of Tirek. She is also a skilled liar and faker, having successfully convinced the CMC that she needed help with her exam, when in fact she had failed it on purpose, and faking remorse when she confesses to having done so.

Unlike all of the other villains in the series, who all believed friendship to be a weakness or meaningless, Cozy Glow knows full-well the power of friendship from learning in Twilight's School of Friendship. Unfortunately, she was far too obsessed in the "power" aspect to understand or even care about how true friendship worked. Because of this, she believed that the more friends she possessed, the more "powerful" she was. To this end, she was willing to lie to, betray, hurt, steal from, and/or imprison anypony, even those who were her friends, to become headmare of Twilight's school, as she believed doing so will allow her to gather even more friends, and thus become even more "powerful". Also, she had a low opinion of Twilight and her friends, and even scoffed at the values of honesty, loyalty, generosity, etc., believing she can make more friends without any of them. Even after failing to take over Twilight's school, she continued her insane quest to gain power through "friendship", starting with her new cell-mate: Lord Tirek.

Season 8

 * Marks for Effort
 * A Matter of Principles (cameo)
 * The Hearth's Warming Club (cameo)
 * Friendship University
 * Road to Friendship (cameo)
 * A Rockhoof and a Hard Place (cameo)
 * What Lies Beneath
 * School Raze - Part 1
 * School Raze - Part 2

Quotes
"I'm Cozy Glow. It's very nice to meet you, but I don't know if I'll stay long. I'll probably flunk out. I'm having so much trouble with my friendship lessons."

- Cozy Glow to Cutie Mark Crusaders.

"Golly!"

- Cozy Glow

"I never could have done it without your help!"

- Cozy Glow

"I guess I still have a lot to learn about friendship."

- Cozy Glow

"You get some rest. Don't give any of this another thought. Just let Cozy take care of everything."

- Cozy Glow

"You know, you ponies got it all wrong. Friendship isn't magic. Friendship is power! With Twilight and her lackeys out of my way, all of Equestria will bow to me! The future Empress of Friendship!"

- Cozy Glow

"You see, if there's one thing I've learned here, it's that friendship is the most powerful thing there is. And as headmare of the School of Friendship, nopony will have more friends than me! Making me the most powerful pony in Equestria!"

- Cozy Glow

"Hey, neighbor. Wanna be friends?"

- Cozy Glow to Tirek.

"It’s always fun in Pinkie Pie’s class at the School of Friendship! Can you find all the little pictures in the big picture?"

- Cozy Glow in the signature My Little Pony magazine issue 95's What can you spot?.

Trivia

 * Cozy Glow is the fourth filly in the series to be an antagonist after Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, and Babs Seed. Out of those fillies however, she is more evil and badly influenced.
 * Though not explained or shown, Cozy Glow gave the Flim Flam Brothers a copy of Twilight's book.
 * Despite being the season's main antagonist, she didn't show much villainy until the season finale.
 * Cozy Glow is one of the few villains in the series to be a pony.
 * Cozy Glow is the third antagonist to be a Pegasus, the first being Lightning Dust and the second being Wind Rider. However, Cozy is much more evil, more dangerous and had bigger plans than them. Furthermore, of those three, only she served as the main villain of a two-part episode.
 * Cozy Glow is the first major antagonist to appear in more than one episode.
 * In the first half of the season, she serves as the supporting character and a behind-the scenes antagonist before the finale.
 * It was believed that Chancellor Neighsay would be the main antagonist of the season, but he was only antagonistic because of his belief that only ponies should have friendship while Cozy Glow had her own agenda about friendship.
 * It was never explained if Cozy Glow is an orphan or if she has parents.
 * There were hints of Cozy Glow's true nature before it was fully revealed.
 * When the Cutie Mark Crusaders offer to help her with her exam in Marks for Effort, she asks them why they would do so if there is nothing in it for them, an early hint that she does not truly understand the concept of altruism.
 * In the same episode, when the CMC tell her what the Elements of Harmony are, she shows an evil smile for a brief moment. Also, she guesses that one of the Elements of Harmony is "control", which foreshadows her tyrannical nature.
 * Her "cute and sweet" personality is played up to an unrealistic extent, which may clue viewers in that it's a front.
 * Starlight Glimmer, who herself used to be a manipulative villain, admits that she finds Cozy's talent for manipulation and planning impressive.
 * At the end of What Lies Beneath, she looks ominously at the vent that leads to the Tree of Harmony.
 * Her cutie mark seems to represent chess, like how she manipulated everyone else like pieces on a board.
 * Cozy has proven to be one of the most destructive villains in the series, as she not only nearly ruined Equestria; she also nearly ruined the very concept of friendship.
 * Despite her imprisonment, it's possible that Cozy Glow is set to return in Season 9 and escape from prison with the help of Tirek.
 * Cozy Glow is the second student who betrays her own teacher and become obsessed with power like Sunset Shimmer, who betrays Princess Celestia and become obsessed with the Element of Magic crown. However, while Sunset reformed and reconciled with Celestia, Cozy chose to refuse forgiveness and shows no empathy or remorse.