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Is Twilight's surname a reference to Twilight?


Leon K Fox

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This may seem like a dumb concept for a thread, but dammit I'm a curious son of a ***** and this has crossed my mind since I heard Twilight's full name for the first time.

Now I'm fully aware that one of the previous generations had a character named Twilight, but as far as I'm aware she didn't have the "Sparkle" surname. (I don't know a great deal as I can't stand My Little Pony prior to Friendship is Magic, but correct me if I'm wrong about any of this) and as we all know in recent years a terrible book/movie franchise by the name of "Twilight" has come to (much undeserved) recognition and fame in recent years.

The series is infamous for a number of different reasons, but one of the most prominent is the fact that the vampires sparkle (for some reason) so jump forward several years and a new character named Twilight debuts in a new My Little Pony show, but she has the surname Sparkle?

Is this just a coincidence or do you guys think Lauren Faust intentionally referenced the Twilight series when naming this show's protagonist? I'm curious to see what you all think :)

(Also on an unrelated note, typed all of this on my BlackBerry Curve, does the fact I typed a fairly lengthy MLP thread in the middle of town say something about me? =p)

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I gotta be honest, I think it's a bit TOO good of a coincidence to be one, it would be impossible for Lauren Faust to have not heard of Twilight and the fact the vampires in it sparkle, even if she'd never read or watched a single book or film from the franchise even once.

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I gotta be honest, I think it's a bit TOO good of a coincidence to be one, it would be impossible for Lauren Faust to have not heard of Twilight and the fact the vampires in it sparkle, even if she'd never read or watched a single book or film from the franchise even once.

i think that with the amount of time it probably takes to get the legal department to commit to a toy copyright and/or trademark...it was probably well before LF's appointment as creative steward when the name was copyrighted. Now, purposely USED by her for the main character... that's another story.

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I would guess the similarity is in the same vain as Applejack and Big Macintosh.

I think the "Sparkle" is a reference to her cutie mark, which are stars and sort of twinkle. The cutiemark itself is a/the symbol for the elements of harmony and those tend to sparkle as well. Or deeper, one could see the first starts twinkle in the twilight. I mean, the coincidence is there, but the two words are already linked and even somewhat generic paired together.

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Nevermind that the two things are completely unrelated. One is a character, the other is a book title. As far as I know, Copyright Law doesn't extend to that sort of thing. Last I remember, the reason that she was named 'Twilight Sparkle' instead of 'Twilight' was because there was a G1 character named Twilight, but because of their loss of copyright of many of the characters due to time and such, they couldn't just directly port them over and bring them back, so to avoid any problems with that, they got a reboot and 'Twilight' became 'Twilight Sparkle'.

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I gotta be honest, I think it's a bit TOO good of a coincidence to be one, it would be impossible for Lauren Faust to have not heard of Twilight and the fact the vampires in it sparkle, even if she'd never read or watched a single book or film from the franchise even once.

It may have been one of those deals where you come up with something without realizing that you're subconsciously basing it off something you've seen or heard before, if that makes any sense.

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I know several of the ponies in Friendship is Magic are based on ponies from priot shows (though they're better characters in FiM, but that goes without saying XD) but Twilight never had the surname "Sparkle" until FiM, and this was after Twi****e became popular, that was my point when making this thread.

Gotta love FiM for saving the word Twilight though XD (as Ginger Mint mentioned)

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

ah, this doesn't really have anything to do with this, aside from the fact that the word twilight is used...

just a little factoid here:

the transition area in a cave between the entrance (where animals like bears and racoons and stuff live) and the far depths of the cave (where animals that never see the sun live, like faceless salamanders) is called the twilight zone :o

yay, first post outside of introductions

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