The Bridge: Reader Question about King Sombra · 1:14am Jan 14th, 2015
Now bear in mind this mostly focusing on the Main universe Sombra and not his Mirror world counterpart, but I will bring up the latter party soon as it's important. First and foremost I would say its quite odd that a character who's back story was so deeply tied to an entire nation really never got much of a back story to begin with. Yah I know, show for kids but characters with similar historical importance least had some origin or history (Nightmare Moon, Tirek, Discord, etc.). All we know is he wasn't the original ruler of the Crystal Empire (that being Princess Amore), was pretty much a tyrant; and wrecked the place before Celestia and Luna hit him with the universal ban hammer.
Now first thing we'd notice about Sombra is that he is effectively the first major arc villain who seems to be a more or less normal pony species. He's not an alicorn, draconequis, or changeling; but some odd type of unicorn. Some might take this as him being an odd subspecies, but given Celestia's dialogue of addressing him as a unicorn I'd be inclined to say he was indeed an Equestrian unicorn. And sure enough, looking into the Mirror world we get a King Sombra that looks pretty normal by all accounts. However, by the end he absorbs a massive amount of 'evil energy' and mutates into something that looks like a purple palette swap of the show's Sombra.
This along with the show's dialogue about Sombra having a 'black heart', seems to mean that having a massive amount of evil energy within you causes the changes (fangs, curved blood red horn, etc.).
Now this does leave an interesting plot point for the Main universe's Sombra. He's clearly evil and likely has been for quite awhile given his mirror counterpart being selfless and charming enough to make a younger Celestia act like an awkward, crushing school filly (spoilers: It was adorable). However for his Mirror counterpart to be at about the same level our Sombra is right now, the cause of the main universe Sombra's mutation is still a mystery. It took absorbing the combine evil to purify a vile Mirror!Celestia and Mirror!Luna to mutate Mirror!Sombra, so what the hell did Main!Sombra do to reach the state he is in?
Did he absorb some dark force all at once, or build it up over time? Where did he get this power from? What was he before he became a tyrant?
I and Key Ring have a theory about how the first part happened, but I'm curious what you all think. How did the Crystal King become the monster he is now?
Could've had something or somepony that he held dear, only to lose it through some traumatic experience and crave revenge, therefore allowing his darkest emotions to be brought to light and amplified through contact with an evil force.
Some kind of cataclysm? I mean it could be the thing that makes you think "I need more power, screw long-term effects, I just need it". Sadly it messed up with his mind transforming him with some time in the monster he is.
I personally follow the rather popular fanon hypothesis that Sombra was somehow tutored in the Dark Arts by none other than Grogar the Necromancer (a villainous goat/ ram from the G1 "My Little Pony" cartoon that gained his dark powers from a magical bell that he wore around his neck). This theory is pretty popular mainly due to the parallels that one can draw between the Crystal Empire of G4 (disappeared for about a thousand plus years only reappear out of freakin' nowhere and has a known history of slavery) and Grogar's dark city of Tambelon in G1 (which vanished into some kind of shadow realm a super-long time ago and reappears every 500 years to kidnapped unicorns in mid-teleport & use them as slaves).
Well, I don't think it happened all at once. Look at Hitler, he started out as a disgruntled soldier who went into politics and turned to drug using. All the while spinning into the worlds living breathing antichrist.
Unicorns have a deep sense of superiority, so Sombra as a foul grew up listening to elitist unicorn propaganda, probably from his parents. Its possible that his parents were nobles in the crystal empire and something happened, something that left Sombra with nothing. He then spent a lot of time with the caretackers of the catacombs, the place where his parents were buried. They taught the young Sombra about the myths and legends of the place.
Being curious Sombra took his studies more seriously then the other fouls probably getting top marks in class, overachieving in order to make up for everything he had lost. During this time he began his studies into the more real parts of the myths and legends of the empire. At one point Sombra enlisted with the Crystal Guard beginning his training as a battle mage, learning how to fight.
His partially lonely and self seen loveless exsistence is probably what really drove him into dark magic. Having to watch all the fouls at school going home to their parents and later having to watch self entitled nobles, ponys that he used to be apart of snub him, drove him to hate.
But his drove to succeed, to be better than anyone else is what really put it all together. Sombra became the Captain of the Crystal Guard and with nothing further to strive for, well the only pony still above him was the princess. And with his studies into the forbidden arts progressing, well she trusted him above all else, it would be so so easy to assassinate her and take the throne.
I also think Grogar was involved but not directly it would be more like that Sombra found the ruins of Tambelon while seeking for more power either somewhere in Equestria or in whatever Shadow realm they where stranded in by chance and managed to acquire the source of Grogars power for himself, namely the bell, and since he was a unicorn it was much easier for him to absorb that power and wield it independent of the bell. He was always a power hungry dick but all that black magic drove him over the edge into pure evil territory.
My knowledge of MLP:FiM is based off the TV series only, I haven't read any of the comics, so if what I theorize here was already covered, let me know.
I like to think that the dark power that transformed Sombra into what he is now, is the same (or similar) to the dark magic that transformed Luna into Nightmare Moon. I think that it's alive, in a way, and it's able to sense the darkness in one's heart -- bitterness, jealousy, thirst for power, etc. -- but it simply can't just latch on to whoever it senses it from. It needs to manipulate the person (or pony), corrupt them enough to get them to act on their desires, and embrace the darkness. Once the magic joins with the host, it becomes apart of them, twisting their personality till they become the monsters they are known for.
Where it comes from, I'm guessing some pocket dimension or something. In the Princess Twilight episode, when Luna raised the Moon and created the eclipse, the dark magic was released and immediately surrounded Luna, transforming her into Nightmare Moon. Now, the magic that changed Sombra could have come from the same source, but just from a different location. (Seeing as how Sombra can't control the Moon to make an eclipse... as far as I know.)
As to who Sombra was before, I'm guessing that he was originally a unicorn, possibly a citizen of the Crystal Empire and subject of the original Crystal Princess. Perhaps he wanted the love and praise that the other crystal ponies gave the princess. He more or less accepted the dark magic into his heart, became a monster, killed the princess and enslaved the ponies. The rest is history.
i thought he was some type of vampire? i mean, the fangs, and the horn with what looks to be dried blood on it...
I would say that perhaps Sombra was perhaps a court wizard, or head researcher for the Crystal King. Upon researching what shouldn't have been researched, a malevolent entity from beyond the veil took interest in the powerful unicorn, and offered Sombra a deal. Secret for secret, knowledge for knowledge. Of course, Sombra couldn't have possibly known anything that this entity (let's call it, oh, Fateweaver or somesuch) didn't know, and upon breaking the deal, was forced to carry a shard of the Fateweaver inside him. The conflicting energies, a nasty cocktail of ambient Crystal magics, unicorn High Magicks, and malevolent Chaos magics drove Sombra to madness and hate, and thus began a downward turn that began with a betrayal and ended with a righteous purging.
I don't know anything outside the show either, but I'm interested in what you come up with about his need for crystals. He seems uniquely dependent on them for a dark mage. It might even be a handicap.
I too like to think Sombra was tutored in the Dark Arts by Grogar, which I do plan to tie into my own stories that feature him.