Chrysalis is one of the main antagonists of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
She is former leader of the Changelings, pony-shaped bug creatures that can shapeshift into those you love. She is also the arch-nemesis of Twilight Sparkle, Princess Cadance and Starlight Glimmer.
Background[]
Appearance[]
Queen Chrysalis is a changeling and thus a shapeshifter who is capable of taking many forms. In her true changeling form has black chitin, sharp fangs, a pair of insectoid wings, holes in her legs, and no visible cutie-mark at all (like any changeling). Unlike the rest of her kind, however, she is much taller and also has dark green eyes with vertical slit pupils, a twisted and gnarled unicorn horn, a teal mane and a tail, a greenish saddle, bluish-green rib plate, and a small, black crown tipped with blue beads. Interestingly, her eyes have a double pupil: a vertical slit one within a normal round one. Her voice has a layered quality as if two people were speaking in sync. Her limbs and her torso are extremely skinny. In the distant past, her horn wasn't gnarled and her mane, wings, and legs didn't have holes in them until Princess Celestia defeated her in battle, giving her her current appearance.
While disguised as Crackle Cosette, she appears as a regular unicorn with an olive coat, red mane, green eyes, and green magic. She has a cutie-mark in the form of a ladybug standing above three leaves and is usually seen sporting a camera.
After enhancing herself with the Bewitching Bell, the sclera in her eyes become yellowish-green, the tip of her horn constantly glows, her crown becomes a tiara that stretches down to her chin with the black part turning green and two extra beads, her wings grow larger, and she gains green horseshoes and a chest plate.
Personality[]
Chrysalis is known for being manipulative, sadistic, cruel, and merciless. Being the Changeling Queen, she is easily the most skilled member of her race when it comes to using her powers to manipulate others, convincing everyone except Twilight of her Cadance disguise, despite not even bothering to act like the real one, also using said disguise to turn everyone against Twilight. She enjoys the suffering and misery her actions tend to cause others as well, taking satisfaction in shaming Twilight for being suspicious of her actions and telling her that no one will bother looking for her after trapping her, as well as taunting her friends for ignoring her suspicions until it was too late. However, when she is in a position of strength or has an advantage over her enemies, she will immediately take the opportunity to egotistically boast about herself and her success, which tends to result in her defeat.
While her goals are driven by a desire for absolute power and control, she justifies her actions with a more "selfless" desire to provide sustenance for her subjects, who would wither without being nourished by the love of others. However, she is rather small-minded in helping her subjects, wanting them to see her as the only thing capable of sustaining them while completely ignoring alternate methods, like sharing love, that would ensure them better. As such, she openly despises any attempt to convince her minions otherwise, utterly banishing and shaming Thorax for wanting to become friends with ponies. She is ultimately stubborn enough to outright reject the idea of friendship and Starlight's offer to change her ways, meaning that enjoys being evil and hates redemption, and instead swears vengeance upon her for overthrowing her.
In the season 8 episode "Mean Six", Chrysalis starts to show signs of insanity, such as bragging about her plans to lifeless pictures of the Mane Six, possibly due to the loneliness she's endured since her hive's uprising. Her madness is more evident in "The Beginning of the End", where she cackles maniacally while carving Changelings' faces into stumps to talk to. She also showed fear when she is awed and intimidated by "Grogar", having heard stories of the villain's reign of terror, although at one point became amused by his defeat at the hooves of Gusty the Great. However, she does still held her grudge against ponies, as she angrily refused to say something nice about them. At the end of the episode, her laughter, along with that of Cozy Glow and Tirek, is less maniacal and more reluctant.
Chrysalis then shows her sadism and brutality more than any other villain in FiM, She also never cared about the problem with Windigoes, even liking the idea where Equestria will be frozen into a wasteland, believing it was the only way that ponies will submit to her. Unlike Tirek and Cozy who remained fearful, Chrysalis remained defiant after being de-powered, believing that friendship cannot defeat them until she tried to attack the heroes in rage when she was petrified for good. However, she does some brief moments of compassion. This is shown when she catches Cozy, so she wouldn't get injured. That said, it's unknown whether she does care about her allies or she only expressed concern for pragmatic reasons.
In the comics, Chrysalis' personality is most similar to her depiction in the series, only she is typically seen as being more comedic. She has a tendency to implement cynical humor into her activities, and openly mocks her enemies to comical effect. Her temper is noticeably shortened as well, being unable to remain composure when annoyed by the Cutie Mark Crusaders for several hours.
Despite this, she is shown to be even more cruel and sadistic than in the show. Her Fiendship is Magic issue shows her ransacking cities and draining people of love while taunting a king (whose bride she had impersonated) that she never loved him. She completely crossed the line by seemingly outright murdering one of the citizens of Wuvey-Dovey Smoochy Land in front of the Cutie Mark Crusaders and later threatening to dispose of them, due to having no use for them once the Mane 6 were in the Changeling Kingdom. She also revealed that she planned to brainwash Twilight into serving her before making her drain all of her own friends of their love, with it being heavily implied that she would also have her kill them afterward. She was also the only one who was aware of Radiant Hope's true plan to bring back Sombra and was the only villain she recruited who showed no remorse for her actions, with her only issue with the Umbrums' return being that they would destroy Equestria and there would be nothing left for her and her minions to feed on. She is also vain enough to be offended and outraged when Twilight calls her "old".
Trivia[]
- Queen Chrysalis became Thomas' enemy in Thomas' Adventures of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic - A Canterlot Wedding (Full Movie).
- Queen Chrysalis will become the FT Squad's enemy in the season 2 finale of The FT Squad's Adventures in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
- Queen Chrysalis along with Diesel 10 tried to get he revenge on Thomas and his friends in Thomas the Tank Engine Goes to FernGully: The Last Rainforest but failed.
- Queen Chrysalis along with King Sombra are best friends with Diesel 10.
- Queen Chrysalis is also the mother of Princess Chaos and Discsalis
- She shares some similarities with a few Disney villains:
- Ursula: Both hypnotized the male protagonist (Prince Eric for Ursula and Shining Armor for Chrysalis) and impersonated someone they love (Vanessa for Ursula and Princess Cadance for Chrysalis) so they could take over a certain location and usurp their rulers (The oceans ruled by King Neptune for Ursula and Equestria ruled by Princess Celestia for Chrysalis).
- Maleficent: Both have similar transformation sequences (When Chrysalis is revealing her true form in front of everybody at the wedding and when Maleficent transforms into a dragon). Also, they're both associated with green fire magic.
- Prince Hans: Both seem good at first, but are later to reveal that they are the main antagonists; while later, she also confesses that she never loved Shining Armor, just as Hans never loved Anna.
- Constantine: Both imprison a protagonist, and take their place (Constatine imprisons Kermit; Chrysalis imprisons Cadance) and fool everyone until the end.
- Zira: Both hate a certain group, they both have control over an army, and they both have dark villain songs. Also, both Chrysalis and Zira fell from large heights and have been presumed dead, but not fully confirmed.
- King Candy/Turbo: Both appear harmless with candy colored aesthetics at first, but are later revealed to be sadistic evil monarchs wanting to take over the places they both come from (Game Central Station for King Candy and Equestria for Chrysalis). Also, both have control over an army (Cy-bugs for King Candy and the Changelings for Chrysalis) and turn into insects.
- Chrysalis is regarded (along with King Sombra, Tirek, the Storm King and Cozy Glow) as one of the most evilest and cruellest My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic villains.
- Queen Chrysalis and the Changelings may be based off of Sinisteeds, dark, horse-like creatures who thrive on feeding off of love and emotion in the novel Gossamer by Lois Lowry.
- Chrysalis is slightly similar to the Harry Potter antagonist, Lord Voldemort, whose final duel with Harry Potter inspired that of Chrysalis and Celestia. Voldemort's inability to love may be mirrored by Chrysalis's line about "not having any room for love in her heart".
- Chrysalis's defeat by an energy explosion caused by the power of love mirrors the defeat of Wiseman fromSailor Moon and Lamia from Stardust, although unlike them she is not disintegrated but sent flying into the distance in a similar style to Team Rocket.
- The fiery dome she creates around Twilight looks similar to the one created by Zelda from The Swan Princess 3.
- Like Ogron, Anagan, and Gantlos, Chrysalis comes from a series with a set of six female protagonists, deceives the main characters, and most likely falls to her death while many believe she survived. Their partner, Duman, is also a shapeshifter like Chrysalis.
- Also, the way fans prefer to believe that Chrysalis and Sombra survived (though Sombra's death was confirmed) is similar to Winx fans being disappointed that Lord Darkar (who was based off Sauron like Sombra was) and the above mentioned Duman were killed off, although they are at least willing to accept Darkar and Duman's deaths.
- Not only do the above mentioned Voldemort and Lamia possess similar green magic and other slight similarities to Chrysalis, but both have also killed a unicorn in their respective series. Chrysalis nearly kills Twilight by trapping her in the forgotten caves, and manipulates Twilight's brother, although in a role reversal, he is one of the two who defeats her, and in the comics she is defeated by Twilight.
- One of her voice actors, Kathleen Barr, also voices another character from Friendship is Magic, Trixie. She also voiced the minor antagonist Hoops, when he's an adult.
- She also does the voice of Roodaka from Bionicle, who is often compared to Chrysalis as the sinister queen of an insectoid race. Her voice is nearly the same.
- It has been revealed that Chrysalis will appear in Friendship is Magic: Journey of the Spark (the fan-made movie of the series).
- Chrysalis is the second villain to be the main antagonist of two 44 min episodes, the other being Starlight Glimmer.
- Queen Chrysalis became Connor Lacey's enemy in The Irelanders' Adventures of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: A Canterlot Wedding.
- In The Irelanders' Adventures Series, Queen Chrysalis is now Connor Lacey's most hated enemy ever since she kidnapped Twilight Sparkle, her friends, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, Princess Cadance, Flurry Heart and some of his Irelander team in The Irelanders' Adventures of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - To Where and Back Again. The reason why is because Connor loves Twilight.
- In Ryan F-Freeman's Adventures, she is one of Ryan F-Freeman's very hated villains because she plans to make Thorax know what happens to those who betray the hive. She is also one of the villains that Ryan never reform.
- She will become the Bubble Guppies' enemy in Bubble Guppies' Adventures of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: A Canterlot Wedding.
- Chrysalis and the Changelings were designed by Rebecca Dart, the main character designer for Season Two. Rebecca was inspired by the work of manga artists Junko Mizuno and Hideshi Hino after reading the name "Chrysalis", and "figured she should be insect-like."
- After her first appearance, Chrysalis lost the insectoid clicking effect on her voice. According to supervising director Jim Miller, this was because the staff were worried that it would make her lines incomprehensible.
- At the end of comic issue #102, Chrysalis's statue begins to crack, implying that she (and possibly Tirek and Cozy Glow) may escape imprisonment one day. It is currently unknown if any Generation 5 material or official statements will follow up on this. This may not be canon to the show, however.
- Jim Miller said in an interview that, despite preferring to think that no one is immortal (referring to the alicorns and saying they are extremely long-lived), and saying that normal changelings are not, Chrysalis might be immortal. This is evident by the fact that she knows of many ancient villains such as Grogar, Sombra and Tirek.
- One hint that foreshadows Chrysalis posing as Cadence is that whenever she uses her magic her aura is green, but in Twilight's flashbacks Cadance's magic aura is aqua blue.
- Chrysalis is the first villain to debut in a season finale. Conversely, she is the only female villain to debut in a season finale, as Starlight Glimmer was the main antagonist of all season five and Cozy Glow debuted in episode 181.
- Chrysalis is also the first villain to not have the Elements of Harmony used against her and to not be directly fought by The Mane Six. However, The Mane Six were going to use the Elements against her if it wasn't for her Changeling army.
- Chrysalis is an obvious darker reflection of Starlight Glimmer. Both of them were the leaders of different locations. (Starlight's village to Starlight, the Changeling Kingdom to Chrysalis.) Both also ruled their lands with an iron fist. However, while Starlight had a tragic and sympathetic past that led to her villainy, (Her best friend Sunburst left her after receiving his Cutie Mark) Chrysalis is far more despicable, as she just wants to steal love from others for her hive while also not having a tragic backstory. They both also sought revenge after they were defeated. (Starlight seeking revenge against Twilight, Chrysalis seeking revenge against Starlight herself) But while Starlight let go of her revenge and would later become friends with the Mane Six, Chrysalis refused redemption and continued her revenge against Starlight and ultimately she (along with Lord Tirek and Cozy Glow) would be turned to stone for her crimes against Equestria. Thus, if Starlight had not let go of her revenge and still allowed it to consume her, she would've ended up like Chrysalis.
- Chrysalis is the first villain in the franchise to not be defeated a thousand years ago or more.
- Chrysalis is also the first villain to have a villain song.
- In Frenemies, it is heavily implied that she was going to eat her prisoners that she captured.
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