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Rainbow Dash
Fictional character from My Little Pony From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Rainbow Dash is a fictional character who appears in the fourth incarnation of Hasbro's My Little Pony toyline and media franchise, beginning with My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (2010–2019). She is a close friend of Twilight Sparkle, serving as a core member of the group of main characters collectively known as the Mane Six. She is voiced by Ashleigh Ball, who also voices Applejack in the series.[1]
Rainbow Dash is depicted as an athletic, confident, and brash anthropomorphic pegasus with a love for speed and adventure.[2][3] She works as Ponyville's weather manager and dreams of joining an elite aerial aerobatics team called the Wonderbolts.[4] Rainbow Dash represents the Element of Loyalty in the Elements of Harmony.[5] She lives in a cloud house above Ponyville with her pet tortoise, Tank.[3][6]
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Appearances
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Fourth My Little Pony incarnation (2010–2021)
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
Rainbow Dash is introduced in the series premiere as a boastful and athletic pegasus who assists in maintaining the weather and clearing the skies in Ponyville, while aspiring to join an elite aerial acrobatics team called the Wonderbolts. Throughout the series, Rainbow Dash helps defeat various villains and encounters challenges that test her loyalty to her friends.
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In the episode "Sonic Rainboom", Rainbow Dash performs a Sonic Rainboom, a move that allows her to create a rainbow-colored sonic boom. In "The Cutie Mark Chronicles", it is revealed that Rainbow Dash's performance of this move as a filly simultaneously helped her friends discover their special talents.
Although she displays an antipathy towards reading and intellectual endeavours, she becomes an avid reader of novels starring Daring Do, an Indiana Jones-esque pegasus treasure hunter. She meets the real Daring Do in the episode "Daring Don't" and occasionally participates in her adventures in later seasons.
Rainbow Dash also becomes a surrogate big sister to Scootaloo, a pegasus filly and member of the Cutie Mark Crusaders who idolizes her.
In later seasons, Rainbow Dash continues to pursue her dream of joining the Wonderbolts. She is accepted into the Wonderbolts Academy in season three, gets accepted into the Wonderbolts Reserves in season four and eventually becomes a full-time member in season six. By the series finale, she becomes the captain of the Wonderbolts.
My Little Pony: The Movie
Rainbow Dash helps Twilight Sparkle prepare for the Friendship Festival in Canterlot before the city is attacked by the Storm King's forces. She journeys with her friends beyond Equestria, using her speed and aerial abilities to help overcome obstacles and enemies they encounter along the way, and notably helps convince Captain Celeano and her pirate crew to defect from the Storm King become their allies.
My Little Pony: Pony Life
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Rainbow Dash appears as a main character in the spin-off reboot series My Little Pony: Pony Life.
Equestria Girls alternate version
Rainbow Dash's human counterpart appears in the Equestria Girls spin-off franchise as an athletic student of Canterlot High School. In the first film, Pinkie Pie states that she is the captain of every sports team at the school. Rainbow Dash is also the founder, lead vocalist, electric guitarist and songwriter of her friends' band The Rainbooms, introduced in the second film, and obtains superhuman speed as her geode power in the fourth film.
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Development
Rainbow Dash is an impetuous Pegasus pony who doesn't think things through in the same way as Twilight Sparkle. She's more of an "act first and ask questions later" type. She's confident most of the time, acting without questioning herself. You don't see much of Rainbow Dash's house, because she doesn't stay still for very long... I think that it's a testament to the clearly defined characters that Lauren established that helps inform all of this stuff moving forward. Because they are so uniquely defined, those choices become a lot more obvious.
Jim Miller, My Little Pony: The Art of Equestria[7]
Faust struggled to find a suitable aspect for Rainbow Dash's Element of Harmony, seeing the character as "self-absorbed and rather irresponsible". She eventually settled on the Element of Loyalty because it "brought out [Rainbow Dash's] positive traits".[8]
According to author Mary Jane Begin, "Rainbow Dash's expressions are all about body movement and gesture. Although her face clearly demonstrates her state of mind, her body is in constant expressive motion."[9]
Reception and analysis
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Rainbow Dash has been praised for breaking gender stereotypes by being competitive, athletic, and ambitious while still maintaining friendships.[10] Critics have noted that her character provides a positive role model for young girls by showing that they can be both athletic and feminine.[11] During the early development of the series, there were concerns among the creative team that Rainbow Dash's tomboy characteristics might be "too boyish" for the target audience to relate to her.[12] Faust struggled to find a suitable aspect for Rainbow Dash's Element of Harmony, seeing the character as "self-absorbed and rather irresponsible". She eventually settled on the Element of Loyalty because it "brought out [Rainbow Dash's] positive traits".[8]
Rainbow Dash's tomboyish character traits and distinctive rainbow-colored appearance resonated with many LGBTQ+ fans and allies during the show's early seasons, inadvertently establishing her as a symbol within certain communities while also drawing criticism from some conservative groups.[13]
Rainbow Dash's character has been documented to resonate strongly with children on the autism spectrum, providing a point of connection and communication for therapists working with these children.[14] Rainbow Dash has also been the subject of academic analysis regarding gender and sexuality representation, with some authors noting how fans debate her sexuality based on her "butch" coding and rainbow-colored appearance while challenging heteronormative assumptions about children's media.[15]
In March 2014, a 9-year-old boy was bullied for wearing a Rainbow Dash backpack to school, including being physically assaulted by classmates. The school initially asked the boy to leave the backpack at home, calling it a "trigger for bullying," but reversed this decision after public outcry and media coverage. Commentators noted that the backpack primarily featured Rainbow Dash's face and mane in blue (traditionally associated with boys), rather than featuring overtly feminine design elements.[13] The brony fandom, along with voice actors and celebrities, defended the boy's actions, and the school ultimately reversed its decision.[16][13]
Critics have pointed out that Rainbow Dash's character evolves noticeably throughout the series across seasons. In "Read It and Weep", she discovers a love for reading adventure novels despite her initial mockery of Twilight's bookishness. During "Wonderbolts Academy", her encounter with the reckless Lightning Dust teaches her an important lesson—that being technically skilled means nothing if you put others at risk. These episodes highlight Rainbow's journey from a somewhat one-dimensional athlete to a character with greater depth and maturity.[17]
In 2021, researchers from Trisakti University examining visual character design in My Little Pony: The Movie found that visual elements such as color choice directly correspond to character traits. Their analysis claims that Rainbow Dash's predominantly blue coloration symbolizes clear thinking, professionalism, and trustworthiness, directly reflecting her element of loyalty within the story. Meanwhile, her rainbow-colored mane visually reinforces her cheerful disposition and energetic personality. The researchers noted that these design choices, combined with her pegasus physiology enabling flight, create a cohesive visual representation of her brave, assertive, and tomboy character traits that helps younger viewers immediately understand her role within the friendship group.[18]
In popular culture
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Rainbow Dash's catchphrase from the episode "Suited for Success", "20% cooler", became an Internet meme. This phrase has transcended the show itself, appearing in fan works like the song "20 Percent Cooler" by Ken Ashcorp[19] and appearing in shirts sold at Hot Topic.[13] Rainbow Dash is a popular character in merchandise and collectibles, with items like the Kotobukiya Bishoujo statue series featuring humanized versions of her character.[20] In September 2023, she was one of the four Friendship Is Magic characters included in the Magic: The Gathering charity Secret Lair collection "Ponies: The Galloping 2", alongside Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack. This special card collection benefited the Extra Life charity program, with half of the proceeds going to the Seattle Children's Autism Center.[21]
In 2014, an infamous incident known as the "Rainbow Dash Cum Jar" gained notoriety when images of a Rainbow Dash figurine submerged in semen left to boil near a radiator were shared on 4chan. The images spread across various social media platforms and became an Internet meme.[22]
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According to a July 2015 report in Bustle magazine, the most popular character in clop on Pornhub was Rainbow Dash, followed by Rarity and Pinkie Pie.[23]
In 2020, researchers from Google, UC Berkeley, and Georgia Institute of Technology named a four-legged robot "Rainbow Dash" that successfully taught itself to walk using deep reinforcement learning. The robot demonstrated the ability to learn to walk backward, forward, and turn on various surfaces without human instruction or labeled training data.[24][25]
Rainbow Dash was among the first character voices implemented in 15.ai, a generative artificial intelligence text-to-speech web application that allowed users to generate speech of fictional characters. In 2022, it was revealed that the company Voiceverse had generated a Rainbow Dash voice clip using 15.ai, pitched it up to sound recognizable, and sold it as an NFT.[26]
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Rainbow Dash is a main character in an infamous My Little Pony fanfiction titled Cupcakes, in which she is murdered by a serial killer Pinkie Pie. Offering someone a cupcake has become an inside joke within the fandom; the story begins with Rainbow Dash eating a drugged cupcake offered by Pinkie Pie.[27] She is also a main character in the fanfiction Rainbow Factory, where she manages a secret facility where pegasi are harvested for their "spectrum" to manufacture rainbows.[28][29] She is also the protagonist of Austraeoh, a 212,744-word long adventure fan fiction.[30]
See also
References
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