Gilda

Gildais a character in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. She only appears so far in the fifth episode, Griffon the Brush-Off. She is the main antagonist of the episode and a minor antagonist in the series. She is a griffon (or griffin/gryphon) who is a grumpy, selfish bully who thinks that she's cooler than everyone else. She's also a former friend of Rainbow Dash. Gilda is voiced by Maryke Hendrikse.

Appearance[]

As a griffon, Gilda has the head, wings and feet of an eagle and the body and tail of a lion. Her head feathers form a fringe that hangs ahead of her face.

Personality[]

Gilda thinks that she's cooler than everyone else and is not afraid to show it. She regards others as 'lame' compared to her and can be quite vocal about it when not in the company of her friend Rainbow Dash. She seems playful and competitive around Dash but actually she's very rude, violent, bad-tempered, mean-spirited and arrogant with an inflated ego. She doesn't seem to care about others feelings. When she's calm her voice sounds apathetic and bored...vaguely annoyed with lack of emotion. She's also a liar, hiding her true colors by forcing herself to acting friendly towards Rainbow Dash. She seems to dislike ponies and considers them "lame" and annoying.

Gilda also seems to like mean pranks. Unlike Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie she does pranks on others only for her own joy, without caring about the victims. But she can't take the pranks when she is the victim. She doesn't mind stealing things without pay or destroying others objects (like Pinkie's contraption).

Gilda is also insecure - as can be seen by her intense jealousy of Pinkie Pie, wanting Rainbow Dash to be her friend and keep her to herself - to the point she can be quite aggressive about it (such as threatening Pinkie several times).

Gilda's insecurity is also shown in the final confrontation where she and Rainbow Dash argue - where she becomes upset at first about the idea of losing Rainbow Dash's friendship but lashes out at her in the end due to personal pride.

History[]

Gilda is a long-time friend of Rainbow Dash, one of the major protagonists of Friendship Is Magic. They were best friends from their days at Junior Speedster flight camp. The two of them attended flight school together and were close friends. In the episode Griffon The Brush-Off, Gilda visits Ponyville to hang out with Rainbow Dash. Pinkie Pie tries to join them but Gilda wants nothing to do with her and keeps brushing her off in rude and menacing ways, going as far as theratening her and telling her to get lost (out of Rainbow Dash's earshot). Afterwards, Gilda is strolling through Ponyville and Pinkie Pie is watching her from a distance since she's concerned that she might just be overly judgmental of the griffon. Pinkie sees Gilda play a prank on Granny Smith, stealing an apple from a fruit cart and bullying Fluttershy until she roars loudly on her face, scaring also a family of ducks that Fluttershy was trying to guide and reducing her to tears since the pegasus is very sensitive and shy. Pinkie Pie realises she didn't misjudge Gilda at all and that the griffon really is a "mean meany-pants". Pinkie Pie then decides to try and do something about Gilda's bad attitude with the hope of improve it and make her smile by throwing her a welcoming party and inviting everyone in Ponyville. Gilda is not very happy about it and acts very annoyed and arrogant. During the party, Gilda fell for a number of pranks such as a joy-buzzer, relighting birthday candles, and various others. This definitely don't help to improve her attitude, as she try to suppress her rage. During this time, Gilda suspects Pinkie Pie to be one setting up the party pranks that were set up for the griffon. After falling for so many of these practical jokes, Gilda went into a rage and lashed out at everyone, insulting every pony at the party and accused Pinkie Pie of being responsible for all the pranks. She is still think she don't lose her cool (probably implying when she's angry she's worse than this) As it turned out, most of the pranks were Rainbow Dash's idea and that they weren't all intended for Gilda, but the griffon managed to fall for all of them out of sheer dumb luck. Gilda had exposed her true colours to Rainbow Dash, who felt that the griffon only cares about herself and being a fake friend, decided to end their friendship right then and there. Gilda could have done something to not lose her old friend but she decide that Rainbow Dash had become 'lame' after hanging around all these ponies and left Ponyville in a huff.

Gilda briefly appears in one of Rainbow Dash's flashbacks during Magical Mystery Cure, in season 3.

Gilda also briefly appears in Equestria Games in the audience as Spike attempts to light the torch.

In The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone, Gilda is mentioned early in the episode by Rainbow Dash, who continues to harbor resentment toward her.When Rainbow and Pinkie are sent to the kingdom of Griffonstone, they are greeted by Gilda, who also still holds a grudge. In the episode, Gilda makes a living selling griffon scones so she can save up enough bits to leave the kingdom. With the help of Pinkie Pie, Gilda learns to bake better tasting scones.

Rainbow Dash believes that she and Pinkie Pie were sent to find a long lost griffon idol, but Gilda doesn't believe that the idol exists. When Rainbow's search for the idol puts her in danger, Pinkie Pie convinces Gilda to remember the times when she and Rainbow were friends and help to rescue her. She is later given a choice between saving Pinkie and Rainbow and recovering the lost idol, and she chooses to save the ponies' lives. Learning to embrace friendship, Gilda reconciles with the ponies and makes new friends in Griffonstone.