Zecora

Zecora
My Little Pony character
Zecora as she appears in "The Cutie Pox"
First appearance	"Bridle Gossip" (2010)
Created by	Amy Keating Rogers Lauren Faust
Voiced by	Brenda Crichlow
In-universe information
Species	Zebra
Occupation	Herbalist Potion maker Shaman
Affiliation	Everfree Forest

Zecora is a fictional character who appears in the fourth incarnation of Hasbro's My Little Pony toyline and media franchise, beginning with My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (2010–2019). She is a recurring character throughout the series who serves as a wise mentor and ally to the Mane Six. She is voiced by Brenda Crichlow.

Zecora is depicted as a mysterious and sagacious anthropomorphic zebra who lives alone in the Everfree Forest. She is a skilled herbalist and potion maker who possesses extensive knowledge of magic, herbal medicine, and mysticism. Zecora is characterized by her distinctive habit of speaking exclusively in rhyming couplets, her tribal-inspired jewelry and decorations, and her initially frightening but ultimately benevolent nature.

Zecora's character and debut episode have been the subject of academic analysis regarding racial representation in children's media. Some authors interpreted the character positively, arguing that Zecora's debut episode "Bridle Gossip" serves as commentary against racism and xenophobia by demonstrating the problems with prejudice through the ponies' initial unfounded fears. However, other scholars have offered more critical assessments, with one describing the episode's approach as problematic due to what they characterized as stereotypical tokenism and a "hodgepodge" combination of disparate African cultural elements, arguing that Zecora falls into the "noble savage" stereotype despite apparent good intentions.

Appearances

Fourth My Little Pony incarnation (2010–2021)

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

Main articles: Friendship Is Magic season 1, Season 2, Season 3, Season 4, Season 5, Season 6, Season 7, Season 8, and Season 9

Zecora first appears in the Season 1 episode "Bridle Gossip" where she is initially portrayed as a mysterious and potentially dangerous figure who ventures into Ponyville to gather supplies. The townsponies' fear and superstition about her, fueled by old ponies' tales about "evil enchantresses," leads to widespread panic and the spreading of rumors. When Twilight Sparkle and her friends venture into the Everfree Forest to confront her, they discover that Zecora is actually kind and helpful, living peacefully in her hut surrounded by various herbs and magical plants. She helps cure the ponies after they are afflicted by "poison joke", a magical plant that causes humorous but harmless transformations.

Throughout the series, Zecora serves as a recurring mentor figure, particularly for Apple Bloom and the Cutie Mark Crusaders. She provides wisdom, magical assistance, and guidance to the main characters when they face various challenges and mysteries. Her hut in the Everfree Forest becomes a frequent destination for ponies seeking her expertise in herbalism and magic.

Development

Her appearance and mannerisms are influenced by African tribal cultures. She speaks in an African-esque accent; show creator Lauren Faust has stated on her DeviantArt page that Zecora's accent is meant to resemble that of Swahili speakers. The show's staff did not have time or resources to have authentic Swahili, so they asked Crichlow—Zecora's voice actor—to improvise.

According to a September 2011 interview with Faust, Zecora was originally designed to have a more prominent role in the series as "a sage and mentor to whom the ponies could go for information about their quests." She was intended to serve as "a second mentor" to Twilight Sparkle complementing Princess Celestia's guidance. However, this expanded role failed to come to fruition in the first season due to the show's shift away from adventure-focused episodes toward more relationship-based storylines. Faust indicated that if the series had included more adventure episodes as originally planned, audiences would possibly have seen more of both Zecora and Princess Luna in Season 1.

Zecora shares the standard pony body type but features unique markings that distinguish her from other ponies.

Reception and analysis

Academic scholars have analyzed Zecora's character and her debut episode "Bridle Gossip" as a commentary on racism, xenophobia, and prejudice. In her 2023 essay Jem, She-Ra, and My Little Pony, English professor and media scholar Melanie Hurley examined how the episode uses Zecora to illustrate the problems with racial prejudice. Hurley observed that the episode codes Zecora as Black through multiple visual and cultural signifiers: her species as a zebra, her accent, her golden neck rings, and the African-inspired masks that decorate her home. Hurley's analysis focused on how the episode depicts the Mane Six's initial reaction to Zecora: despite being unable to provide any evidence, all five of Twilight Sparkle's friends fear Zecora and tell Twilight that she is evil. According to Hurley, the ponies appear to fear Zecora simply because she is different from them. Hurley observed that even Twilight, who initially dismisses the concerns as "gossip and rumors," becomes caught up in their beliefs after the group is affected by poison joke. Hurley concluded that, by the episode's resolution—where the ponies discover that Zecora is actually helpful and knowledgeable rather than threatening—the show "unequivocally shows that fearing or hating someone because of their appearance, race, or other difference is illogical and causes problems for everyone involved." She argued that through its specific cultural coding, the episode "issues a particularly strong statement against anti-Black racism."

In contrast to Hurley's interpretation, other scholars have been more critical of the episode's approach to racial representation. In a collection of essays on Friendship Is Magic, author Jen A. Blue described the episode as "racist", though they clarified this was due to "lazily and uncritically repeating stereotypes, not active malice." Blue argued that Zecora's characterization suffers from problematic tokenism, where she becomes the sole representative of non-Western cultures in the show, meaning "any trait she possesses is possessed by all characters who signify black people." Furthermore, Blue criticized how Zecora combines cultural elements from vastly different African regions—being "named 'zebra' in an East African language, wearing Southern African neck rings, and with a hut decorated in West African masks"—creating what they called a "hodgepodge of cultural indicators." Blue contrasted this treatment with the show's careful distinction between European-derived pony cultures, arguing it demonstrated "simple, old-fashioned Eurocentrism" where "everything from the entire continent of Africa goes into a pot labeled 'African,' while more familiar European cultures are seen as distinct." She also criticized Zecora's speech patterns, noting her rhyming places her within "the long list of black-coded cartoon characters who speak in rhyme," and described her overall portrayal as falling into the "noble savage" stereotype despite the episode's apparent good intentions.

In popular culture

See also: /mlp/ § Controversies

During the height of the George Floyd protests in June 2020, some members of the brony fandom, particularly from /mlp/—4chan's dedicated My Little Pony board—created controversial fan art that exploited the racial coding of zebra characters. Kaitlyn Tiffany, writing for The Atlantic, described the racial coding of zebras like Zecora as Africans as "awkward". On /mlp/, zebras are commonly referred to as ziggers—a portmanteau of zebra and nigger.

See also

• List of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic characters
• Princess Luna
• Princess Celestia
• Twilight Sparkle
• Cutie Mark Crusaders
• Derpy Hooves

References

Bibliography

• Begin, Mary Jane (2015). My Little Pony: The Art of Equestria. New York: Abrams. ISBN 978-1-4197-1577-8.
• Snider, Brandon T. (2013). The Elements of Harmony: My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: The Official Guidebook. New York: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 978-0-316-24754-2.