In My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic the villain has a slightly different story. Here an equine princess named Nightmare Moon tried to cause eternal night. That difference here was that Nightmare Moon has a more sympathetic reason compared to Tirek. In Friendship is Magic's canon Nightmare Moon has a Sister named Celestia, who controlled the cycle of the Sun while she controlled the cycle of the Moon.Unfortunately most ponies were asleep when Nightmare Moon did her duties so she was not as revered as Celestia's when she did hers so this caused some jealousy in her. This eventually lead to a fight and Nightmare Moon's banishment and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic's pilot episode begins with Nightmare Moon attempting to get her revenge by causing eternal night. Of course Nightmare Moon gets defeated, but rather than get destroyed, she gets reverted to a more docile Princess Luna.

One of the more interesting aspects about reboots is that new material does not have to follow the exact same plots as original material. With the recent trend of portraying antagonists as somewhat sympathetic, rather than destroy Princess Luna and labeling her a complete villain, Hasbro introduces a more tragic villain to their new cast of characters with an arguably more interesting background. This also allows Princess Luna to seek redemption, which she does.