[SPOILERS] Season 9 Trailer Analysis: The Evil Sombra Mystery and why it doesn't contradict the Official Comics: Two Possible Theories/Predictions

This analysis is pretty outdated now, if you want to read a better and more profound, in-depth analysis about Sombra's role in the Season 9 Opener, click here.

Let me get this out real quick, before the Opener of Season 9 is hitting the TV screens. I'm very late with this because of catching up with my fic writing and not many will be able to read this anymore before they see the season premiere, but I'm putting this here mostly so I can later verify that I had certain predictions about Season 9 before the respective episodes aired.
Each of these two theories/predictions have been made with the knowledge from the Season 9 Teaser and the Season 9 Trailer that were released in mid-February, the thirteen screenshots from here and the several synopses for the Season 9 Opener that float around.
I haven't watched any of the six animatics of the Season 9 Opener that were released by Discovery Family to avoid getting too many spoilers, so these animatics don't factor into this analysis.

I saw the Season 9 trailer already one and a half months ago, when it came out, but after watching this heartbreaking trailer, I felt not ready to dissect and analyze it. It was still hard to do this today, but I managed now.
The first thing that jumped into my eyes was, unsurprisingly, Sombra. More precisely, the appearance of an evil Sombra. It caught me by complete surprise when I saw how he tried to kidnap Flurry Heart. And while I'm sure that the always-present comic canon deniers in our fandom patted their shoulders over this and opened champagne bottles, I instead sat down and pondered how that is possible despite the fact that the show and official comics, save for a tiny number of three issues in total, have never contradicted each other. And I am afraid I have to ruin the party.
Right from the very beginning when I saw the trailer for the first time in February, I knew it would come down to two possibilities:

1. Sombra becomes evil again somehow.

2. It's not Sombra and just someone who pretends to be him, either Chrysalis or the new villain we got confirmed.

I had no clue which of these possibilities is more likely in February, but now that I have examined the trailer very closely, I can tell that it is the first one.
Already in the short, 30 seconds teaser that came out before the trailer, we could see something very significant that already delivers us what we need to solve this mystery:

Ponies of Equestria with eerie, green glows coming from their eyes. As we have seen in the show a few times in the past, for example when Spike found the Inspiration Manifestation spellbook during Season 4 or when Chrysalis cloned the Mane Six, such a green glow never means anything good. Green is basically the color of evil in Equestria.
Taking into context that, additionally, these ponies look very lethargic and brainwashed, some even sad, like their minds are trying to fight whatever controls them, and it's safe to say that something turned them all evil.
In this same moment of the teaser, we see a wave of magic wash over these ponies, after which the green glow disappears and they become normal again. Said magic was somehow created by Twilight and her friends and it managed to overturn the effect the villain's spell had on these ponies, which means, it's not a kind of magic that destroys or kills, just magic that frees one from mindcontrol.
And this gives us the answer for why we see Sombra being evil in the trailer: He is under the same mindcontrolling spell like all the other ponies and got turned evil again by it.
We also saw him for a short moment with the same green glow in his eyes in a short clip of the S9 Opener that is part of a promotion video for Discovery Family's Ponypalooza event, which confirms that he is under the villain's control, as well:

Right before the ponies above get freed from the mindcontrol, we see Twilight and her friends unleashing this magic on Sombra:

These two moments are seen right after another in the teaser, which indicates that they will also happen in this order during the actual events.
What we see happening there is Twilight and her friends using a, for us, still unknown kind of magic to turn all the ponies, including Sombra, who got affected by the villain's spell good again.
This gets further support by some promo art for Season 9 that Discovery Family released that shows Flurry Heart and Spike as evil:

Seeing Flurry Heart and Spike portrayed as evil on official promo art for the Season 9 Opener, this is a pretty good indicator for it that, likely, all ponies in Equestria get turned evil by the villain to serve him in his plan.
And since this apparently affects all ponies who live in Equestria, it goes without saying that Sombra is affected by it, as well.
Without this evidence that Equestria's population gets turned evil by an ancient, powerful villain, it would be pretty easy to succumb and say that the show finally contradicted the official comics. But with this evidence, we can see that this is not the case and that the events we see in the show are still in perfect, harmonious alignment with the events we see in the official comics.
And maybe even more than that. Since Sombra plays a role in the Season 9 Opener, I have high hopes for it that we will finally see Radiant Hope in the show now.
If a character from the official comics makes their debut in the show, this would truly be a very nice way to make the last season of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic something special. I, for one, can't wait to find out if we will see Radiant Hope in the Season 9 Opener.

Update from April 6th, 07:21 AM EDT (see my response to Shimmer_Bolt below for timestamp proof):

I just responded to a commenter on this analysis, which made me look into the Season 3 Opener and I realized that I forgot to add a theory here that serves as another, possible explanation for the evil King Sombra we see here, so I will add this quickly:

Who we see in the Season 9 Opener is indeed King Sombra and he is indeed still evil, rather than just evil again. But it's not the King Sombra from the universe that we see in the show primarily.
If you compare the Season 3 Opener and the Season 5 Finale, you will realize that we have only seen King Sombra using these helmets to control his soldiers in the Crystal War Timeline that Starlight Glimmer has created by manipulating the past:

We haven't seen these helmets anywhere else, neither in the Season 3 Opener nor in the official comics when we got presented with Sombra's past and his origins. It's only in the Crystal War Timeline that we see King Sombra using these helmets, so this indicates that Sombra only developed them in the timeline that Starlight has created. Perhaps, he was stopped too early in the reality where the Sonic Rainboom happened, before he could develop these mind-controlling helmets.
The King Sombra of the Crystal War Timeline always remained evil because the Mane Six weren't there to stop him. But he lived in a different reality.
Right now, we don't have any indications of the powers of this new villain yet, other than possibly turning ponies evil. Which is an ability he might not even have if the theory I'm building up here right now is true. We also know his name, Grogar. I didn't add this up there because his name was not mentioned in the teaser and the trailer that I'm basing this analysis on and because I didn't want to spoiler too much, but one of the episode synopses floating around have revealed this name as the name of the villain in the Opener.
A power Grogar might have, since we know next to nothing about him so far, is the power to pull creatures and living beings from other realities or universes into the one he is active in or lives in. And, assuming that the Crystal War Timeline still exists somewhere and that it somehow wasn't nullified when Starlight Glimmer stopped messing with the past, it is possible that Grogar brought the King Sombra from the Crystal War Timeline/Reality over into the universe where the Sonic Rainboom happened and has united the Mane Six as Equestria's saviors.
I am also thinking of the scroll with Starswirl's spell that Starlight Glimmer used to manipulate the past now:

At the end of the Season 5 Finale, we have seen it getting swallowed up by the time portal before it closed and we haven't seen it or heard about it ever since. This could give a potential explanation for how it could be possible that the timelines Starlight created still exist somewhere. There is maybe a connection there and, maybe, we will even hear about the scroll again in the Season 9 Opener.
That's mostly speculation, as I said, but this theory gets a bit of fuel by what we heard in "A Flurry of Emotions". This episode already had a mention of Grogar in it, but as a fictional character in a book. However, we've seen in the past that "fiction" is a matter of perspective in Equestria. When Twilight and her friends alongside Spike got pulled into Spike's comic book, the Mane-iac and the world in the comic book appeared as very real. Pinkie was even able to bring cupcakes out of the book and into their reality, suggesting that the comic book's world actually exists as more than just drawings and words or a magical illusion.
If the world in the book Twilight was reading from to the foals in the Ponyville Hospital while foalsitting Flurry Heart is real, too, it means that Grogar is, as well. And the ability to travel between universes and realities would explain how he got out of the book and into their reality. If he is able to travel between realities and comes out of the book's world, then it will be just as easy for him to pull other living beings into another reality, as it is to do that with himself.

This is the other explanation I have for the appearance of an evil Sombra in the Season 9 Opener. I already had this theory in February, but forgot it over the past few weeks and with the hecticness to get this finished yesterday, I didn't write it down here immediately.
If there is something regarding the mind-controlled ponies the teaser and trailer haven't let us in on and, therefore, my observations from yesterday have led me to the wrong conclusion, then there's still one other possibility that makes all of this aligned with what was seen in the official comics.
If you read this analysis before 11:30 AM EDT, mark my words and remember them while you watch the Season 9 Opener. One of these predictions/theories will become true, we will either see Sombra getting corrupted by Grogar and turned evil again, or, we will find out that Grogar is a multidimensional being able to travel between realities and universes and to drag living beings from any reality along with him.

Comments

[Shimmer_Bolt]

Um... Sombra's eyes have been green before, despite him not being a changeling. I'm guessing he can control other ponies.

[Fluttercheer]

5039016

I didn't say that Sombra is a changeling.

We have seen him with green eyes before, but in each instance, his red pupils could still be seen. But here his eyeballs are completely covered by this green glow, just like those of the other ponies. And the only other time his eyes were glowing completely, they were glowing white and not green.
And going by what we've seen in the Season 5 Finale in the Crystal War Timeline, Sombra uses special helmets to mindcontrol ponies and make them his soldiers. This only works if they are wearing these helmets, yet we don't see any of the ponies in the trailer wear such helmets.

Most importantly, though, the fact that we have another, unknown villain on the lose who turns the ponies of Equestria evil, something Sombra is not capable of in that capacity, is what makes it apparent that Sombra only turns evil again by the actions of that villain.

I can already see the dots that connect this together, so, as much as the deniers of comic canon would like for this to happen, we will not see a contradiction of the official comics here.

[Fluttercheer]

5039016

But, if you want to hear another possibility, one that is more speculative, but still works, there's also this:

What we saw here is indeed King Sombra and he is indeed still evil, not just evil again. But it's not the King Sombra from the universe that we see in the show primarily.
If you compare the Season 3 Opener and the Season 5 Finale, you will realize that we have only seen King Sombra using these helmets to control his soldiers in the Crystal War Timeline that Starlight Glimmer has created by manipulating the past. This King Sombra was always evil, but he lived in a different reality. And the King Sombra we've seen in the Season 3 Opener has never used such helmets to control his subjects. Not even the official comics have shown King Sombra using these helmets anywhere, despite that we have seen a fair amount of his past in them.
Right now, we don't have any indications of the powers of this new villain yet, other than turning ponies evil And we know his name, Grogar.
If Grogar has the power to pull creatures and living beings from other realities or universes into the one he is active in or lives in and assuming that the Crystal War Timeline still exists somewhere and that it somehow wasn't nullified when Starlight Glimmer stopped messing with the past, then it is possible that Grogar brought the King Sombra from the Crystal War Timeline/Reality over into the universe where the Sonic Rainboom happened and united the Mane Six as Equestria's saviors.
I am also thinking of the scroll with Starswirl's spell that Starlight Glimmer used to manipulate the past now. At the end of the Season 5 Opener, we have seen it getting swallowed up by the portal before it closed and we haven't seen it or heard about it ever since. This could give a potential explanation for how it could be possible that the timelines Starlight created still exist somewhere. There is maybe a connection there.
That's mostly speculation, as I said, but this theory gets a bit of fuel by what we heard in "A Flurry of Emotions". This episode already had a mention of Grogar in it, but as a fictional character in a book. However, we've seen in the past that "fiction" is a matter of perspective in Equestria. When Twilight and her friends alongside Spike got pulled into Spike's comic book, the Mane-iac and the world in the comic book appeared as very real. Pinkie was even able to bring cupcakes out of the book and into their reality, suggesting that the comic book's world actually exists as more than just drawings and words or as a magical illusion.
If the world in the book Twilight was reading from to the foals in the Ponyville Hospital while foalsitting Flurry Heart is real, too, it means that Grogar is, as well. And the ability to travel between universes and realities would explain how he got out of the book and into their reality. If he is able to travel between realities and comes out of the book's world, then it will be just as easy for him to pull other living beings into another reality, as it is to do that with himself.

This is the other explanation I have for the appearance of an evil Sombra in the Season 9 Opener. I already had this theory in February, but forgot it over the past few weeks and with the hectic to get this finished yesterday, I didn't write it down in the blog entry.
If there is something regarding the mindcontrolled ponies the teaser and trailer haven't let us in on and, therefore, my observations up there have led me to the wrong conclusion, then there's still one other possibility that makes all of this aligned with what was seen in the official comics.
One of these predictions/theories will become true.