I had an interesting thought that should provoke some interesting discussions. With the growing backlash against wokeness in all its forms, can Rainbow Dash's name and design be reused in a future show, or will she need a reskin (not necessarily a personality change) like Faust did when she turned Firefly into Rainbow Dash due to IP shenanigans? On the one hand I can definitely see very strong reasons to avoid potential political backlash by swapping her name and design, but on the other she is in a lot of ways the face of the brand so removing her could impact recognizably.

The second part of this is how you'd go about the swap. Would you commandeer an existing design, or do you have an idea for a new name and visual design you think would work? Note that the pony in question doesn't have to be even remotely similar to Rainbow Dash (remember "Rainbow Dash always dresses in style" ), so you could overhaul Roseluck or gender bend Thunderlane just as easily as promoting Spitfire or Lightning Dust.

For myself, I think the rainbow has become too politically toxic to reuse in such a visible way, and I'd repurpose Trixie since she looks great and was always popular within the fandom. Just swap her horn for wings, change the cutie mark to something flight related like a shooting star, and Trixie can adopt Rainbow Dash's personality and role no problem.

Given the meaning of Woke (to be aware of social issues) Rainbow Dash would be a figurehead/icon for the movement

She's a confidant lesbian secure in herself and her abilities, and isn't afraid to stand up and speak for herself and her friends

Probably the most terrifying thing to a conservative :v

7861053
MLP has kinda already done that, in the form of this character:

Zipp has many traits that are similar to Rainbow Dash, but at the same time combines it with a strong academic leaning.

7861062
G5 doesn't really count since they went with an entirely new cast (and I suspect it'll end soon due to the writer's strike). I'm talking about the future because I'm expecting them to bring the G4 characters back in the future due to its success.

Something to keep in mind is that Rainbow Dash started as a G3 earth pony and was basically that gen’s Rarity. Wokeness had nothing to do with her rainbow colors at the time. She only became an ironic LGBTQ symbol in some circles because some bronies co-opted her for their own ends.

7861107
That's exactly where this question came from. Considering how she's been politically co-opted and how the cultural meaning of the rainbow has shifted in recent years, does she need a reskin to be palatable to a sane company that wants to sell to everyone?

7861117
Personally, I wouldn’t risk it. Woke culture has become too volatile and full of insincerity in recent years that I would not want to utilize something that is a symbol for it.

7861132
Yeah, that was my thinking as well. The followup question is what to do about it because Rainbow was a fantastic character and an integral part of G4, so you can't fully discard her if you're trying to recapture the success of G4. The obvious answer is to give the character a new name and appearance without changing the fundamentals, which in turn leads to the followup question of how best to go about doing that. My thought is to commandeer Trixie, but there are lots of options so I'm wondering how you'd go about rebranding Rainbow's character to escape that political stink.

7861167
I would say orchestrate the return of Firefly as her next Gen successor. I watched the G1 pilot earlier this year and I quickly saw the parallels between her and Dash.

7861177
Yeah, that's the obvious choice since Firefly is where Rainbow Dash came from, but I'm fairly certain there was some kind of IP issue which prevented Hasbro from using her in G4 (Applejack is the only G1 pony who made the jump).

Now this is a problem that never occurred to me before. The easy way out would just be to ignore her, but that's boring. What else could be done?

Well, one option would be to just not have the rainbow mane or name be unique. If 5% of background ponies have a rainbow mane, and maybe a recurring character or two (especially if it's equally common among both male and female ponies), then the dilution makes it harder to attach symbolism. You could have rainbow manes be the pony equivalent of red hair in humans. Rare, but hardly unique.

There's the already-covered matter of personality shuffles. If G6 Rainbow Dash had a personality like Rarity or Fluttershy, would any of the political nuts make a fuss? Maybe not. Hell, swap RD and Flutters and have two friends with ironic names that go entirely against their personalities. Maybe it was even a factor in them becoming friends?

Or maybe the way to handle it would be to play directly against expectations? Keep the personality similar, but twist the circumstances and send her down a dark path. Have her as a foreign dictator who regularly appears on TV (if it's been invented in this setting) as her country is a rival to the main characters' one. After all, she did work pretty well as Commander Hurricane in the play in Hearth's Warming Eve, and authoritarians do tend to be big on loyalty, after all. A dictator who demands absolute loyalty does seem like the sort of thing you could get if someone who valued loyalty went down the wrong path.