What would make a good earth pony villain?

[Valeska 184]

I am thinking of writing my first MLP fanfic with a unique pony version of Beauty and the Beast fairytale. The "Beast" would be played by a male earth pony and the "Beauty" would be played by a pegasus. I was thinking there could be some magic in the story but none that either characters really understood or had complete control of.

 

Anyway, my main question is what would make a good earth pony villain? As the fandom has shown most of the evil characters have been unicorns, hence why I want to make the villain unique. With the lack of magic what can I use to make the "Beast" character fresh and new. One of the ideas I have for him is make him cursed, so his appearance changes a little. I thought maybe he could have the front legs of a lion or big cat. 

 

Shoot me some ideas either here, or PM me! Thanks for reading.

Edited September 5, 2016 by .Alicorn

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 41,895]

I thought of an idea for this a long time ago, I think a perfect Earth Pony villain would be one that is all about control. Not with magic or mind control, but simply manipulation, to make others do his/her bidding and nearly amass an army to fight by their side. Someone like that would be insanely powerful, especially if they can turn friend against friend and also disrupt the balance of Equestria. Sure, Sombra and Tirek have immense magical power within their grasp, but someone that can slowly rise above all else through sheer control and molding the system in his favor, that would be dastardly.

[Steel Accord 6,660]

Actually almost adding to the above Red Eye of Fallout Equestria is one of the better fanfic villains and he's an earth pony who has amassed a massive amount of influence through slavery, mercenaries, and actually building an infrastructure in the post-apocalypse but he has even greater ambitions. He's a cyborg but none of his implants are used for combat or make him that exceptionally better than any other earth pony. He's also suave, charismatic, and actually quite compelling. He's one of the only villains who has ever made the "we can rule together" argument and I believe actually meant it and thus far the only villain I've ever read who tried to make the case that he should win, and I actually was kind of buying it.

 

So all in all, great example.

 

But if you want my advice, you're asking the wrong question or rather the right question but backwards. You shouldn't be asking "how do I make an earth pony a great villain?" You should be asking "how do I make my great villain accomplish his goals if he is an earth pony?" First define your villain, give him a goal, motivations, etc. Define the more broad aspects about him. THEN you can start filling in the blanks with his particular nature as an earth pony.

[Vlazamal 338]

Red and black earth pony OC.

 

All joking aside, any Earth Pony who uses the word of tounge to amass themself as a threat would be great. Wether that be a bully or a tyrant or warmongerer.

[Steel Accord 6,660]

While not a world ending threat, there has been one canon earth pony antagonist, and a reoccurring one at that.

 

 

Again, it seems earth ponies being quite guileful is somewhat supported by canon.