Trotting Towards Nightmare Night: Villains Profile: Cozy Glow

 

It’s interesting to think that that one of the evilest villains in MLP G4 is a child.  Evil children are nothing new and even less so in animation.   Consider the likes of L’il Gideon or a better comparison would be Darla Dimple.

 

Cozy Glow is one villain that comes closest to achieving her goals. Now, while Cozy did appear in seasons 8 & 9, I’m only going to look at her season eight appearance because you kinda need to look at her as part of a group in season nine. (and partially because season nine isn’t on Netflix).

Voice Actor

 

Sunni Westbrook

 

 

 

I’ll admit that this is the only role of Westbrook’s I’m familiar with.  But she is quite good in the role and slathers on the fakeness of Cozy so well. I’ll explain when I talk about her personality and first appearance.

 

 

First Appearance

 

 

Cozy Glow’s first appearance is meant to dupe both the audience and the characters.  We meet her in a CMC-centric episode as Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom are trying to get their way into Twilight’s School of Friendship but they don’t need it.  They come across a crying Cozy Glow and they go to see what’s wrong she’s failing her friendship lessons.  The CMC agrees to tutor her and she aces her homework. But fails a test after they help them and she does this on purpose so the girls can attend (or so she says).  Everything about this episode in retrospect highlights one of Cozy’s most powerful aspects in how she can manipulate others to do her bidding.

 

Personality

 

As discussed her personality, when she’s first introduced is a facade.  Imagine someone acting like Shirley Temple in the modern-day constantly crying and using words like golly.  However, this is a front to hide her true nature as something of a psychopath that is obsessed with power.  She is also a little bit teensy racist as she tries to create a division between The Young Six by pointing out that they are all different species and how hard it must be for them to get along.  Her fake personality can be a little grating but when you know it’s a front, it makes sense.  And turn to evil fits with the theme of the season as she is something of a hidden villain as the supposed villain, Chancellor Neighsay believes non-pony kind will use friendship lessons against ponies to endanger them when in reality, it’s Cozy a pony that does that.

 

 

Her being super chipper and friendly continues into the start of the season eight finale, School Raze.  I believe that was meant to once again take the audience by surprise even though there had been some hints to her true nature similar to the reveal with Marcy in Amphibia. 

 

 

 

 

 

Grand Desire

 

Cozy’s grand desire is quite interesting as it goes against the core nature of so many other villains.  Typically villains in MLP such as Tempest Shadow view friendship as weakness or something that needs to be overcome.  However, Cozy understands the power of friendship and wants to use it for her benefit.  And wants to use friendship to become an Empress and seemingly take over Equestria.

 

 

The thing of it is, she almost succeeds as she can get the Mane Six out of the way and take over the School of Friendship while Twilight and the girls go to check on Lord Tierk.   It’s crazy how good she is at taking control of things.  Of course, all of this makes sense when you learn that she was mentored by Lord Tierk.  This is important as where Cozy sends the Mane Six is down to Tartarus to see Tierk as magic starts to appear and that is when Tierk reveals Cozy Glow was his protege.

She wanted to drain the world of magic to trap the Mane Six.

 

Most Evil Deed

 

Cozy’s most evil deed once again shows to how much of a master maniuplator she is.  Sure,  I go with how she used ancient Equestiran artifacts to trap Starlight Glimmer but rather I’d have to go with how she is able to turn the entire School of Friendship against the Young Six. That goe shows to how much power her words have and how much influence she can have.

 

Demise

 

She ends up being sent to Taratrus alongside Tierk and that is where she remains until the start of the next season.

 

 

Now, I have read that some took issue with her punishment as she is only a child and we have no idea who or where her parents are.  I get that and while MLP is known for redeeming villains as people expected that because that is what MLP is known for, it’s actually a little nice to have a villain that isn’t reformed and a lot of evil children before Cozy Glow were never redeemed and that’s totally fine.

 

 

Is Cozy Glow A Good Villain?

 

She’s effective, she comes close to achieving her goal and is able to manipulate others without relying on magic.  She just uses Twilight’s lessons and twists them to work in her favor.  Which makes her all the more memorable in my opinion and the fact that she was hidden villain makes her all the more interesting in my opinion. Shame she was introduced so late as she never got a chance to appear in any outside material like chapter books or the IDW comics.  The closest is the mobile game but that really doesn’t mean anything.  Still, she’s great and a villain that I enjoyed looking at for this time of year.