Should FiM have had a Faustian Bargain moment?

[Denim&Venöm 16,522]

No, nothing to do with Lauren this time. 

For those not in the know, a Faustian bargain is the trope of a character getting their desires granted but for a personal price. Deals with the devil type of thing. See: Spawn, Ghost Rider, Portrait of Dorian Gray, Death Note, Magical Girl Madoka, etc. 

And looking at MLP, we never really got that. We didn't have a situation where a tragic hero or corrupt villain made a deal for power or to have a wish granted. No villains offered the manes or the princesses their wishes for a price. No bigger bad was responsible for granting a villain their twisted wish.  No example of a character outsmarting the one offering the lopsided deal in a Dr. Strange type of deal either. 

There were plenty of examples of characters being corrupted and going mad with power. NMM, Sunset, Sci-Twi, Stygian, etc. All snapped out of it through being purified with Rainbow lasers or a friendship speech. But should MLP have had one of their redeemed or irredeemable villains get their dark powers granted through a Faustian bargain? Which one would have been best? Or would an even more mundane example have been better? A pony asking for something more innocuous and reaping the rewards, but then needing to pay off that steep price or find a way out of it? Or would deals with devils have been too hard to work a moral of friendship around?   

[Metemponychosis 1,236]

Uh, second episode? Rainbow Dash refused to join the whatevers when Nightmare Moon tried to fool her into betraying her friends.

[Trot Shuffle 3,597]

1 hour ago, Metemponychosis said:

Uh, second episode? Rainbow Dash refused to join the whatevers when Nightmare Moon tried to fool her into betraying her friends.

Though RD did refuse the offer, this one would count wouldn't it? Or are we just looking for deals that were granted AND are relatively long (as in, longer than 2 episodes)?

The only others off the top of my head that are the closest are:

• Stygian/Pony of Shadows/"The Darkness"
• CMC when they wished to be older and had it granted to them, but naivety ensues
• Discord and Tirek's "deal"
• Maybe Starlight with the other townsfolk before the Mane 6 came? Then again she probably tricked and assimilated them the same way even with the first few she got.

I would've loved to see Chrysalis fall for something like this. Throw it towards Cozy Glow too, maybe Tirek as well but I feel like he would've been the one to offer that kind of deal to both of them to gain more power in some alternative timeline.

Oh and Twilight too would be interesting. Now I wonder why they never did this with Twilight. They did almost everything else but never had someone test her with a bad deal. Starlight and Discord are the only two who appear to have had opportunities where they could've done that but never did.

[Denim&Venöm 16,522]

2 hours ago, Metemponychosis said:

Uh, second episode? Rainbow Dash refused to join the whatevers when Nightmare Moon tried to fool her into betraying her friends.

I wouldn't count that, since NMM didn't list a personal price for joining the Shadow Bolts. Betrayal isn't the same as a bargain. Dash isn't losing anything in that deal. Her friends are. 

[Sparklefan1234 161,885]

15 hours ago, Denim&Venöm said:

For those not in the know, a Faustian bargain is the trope of a character getting their desires granted but for a personal price. Deals with the devil type of thing. See: Spawn, Ghost Rider, Portrait of Dorian Gray, Death Note, Magical Girl Madoka, etc. 

 

Like, Ariel getting a pair of legs in exchange for her voice?