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| “ | Make sense? Oh, what fun is there in making sense? | „ |
| ~ Discord |
Discord, also known as the Spirit of Disharmony, is a former antagonist turned supporting protagonist in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. He is an omnipotent being of chaos and disorder who desired to turn all of Equestria into a chaotic wasteland before realizing the value of friendship and redeeming himself. He appears as the main antagonist in the two-part Season 2 premiere "Return Of Harmony", the Season 3 episode "Keep Calm and Flutter On", and the secondary antagonist of the Season 4 finale "Twilight's Kingdom" before his true redemption.
He was voiced by John de Lancie, who also played Q in Star Trek: The Next Generation, who was Discord's main inspiration, as well as Sinestro in Duck Dodgers, and Brainiac in Justice League Action.
Personality
As the incarnation of chaos and disharmony, Discord professes great inclination to these two subjects. Every movement he performs is related someway with this. Discord possesses a very questionnaire sense of humor, many times grazing the madness, which is strengthened by his powers of reality bending.
He specifically enjoys dressing up with different outfits, (some of them referencing to human topics, what raises the opportunity of him traveling to other worlds, such as our very world). As a semi-omnipotent deity, Discord considers himself above all the rest, diminish magnitude to every setback presented before him, including those which suppose a threat to him. It could be said that Discord suffers of an superiority complex, something that has lead him to find himself trapped in a rocky prison twice.
However, after every defeat he learned from his mistakes. After his first escape he did exaggerate the Elements' power and tried to get rid of them, however, his overconfidence implied his failure once more when after corrupting the mane six he thought they were not a menace anymore.
After he was released under Princess Celestia's supervision, he tried to find a supernumerary way to counter the Elements power by manipulating Fluttershy for his own desires behind the trick of a false friendship, which eventually resulted counterproductive since he especially developed strong feelings for her. This leads to two prominent attributes in Discord's character. He is highly duplicitous, manipulative, uncompromising, and unscrupulous, showing no hesitation in lying, tricking, playing filthy and diverse mendacious methods in order to achieve his goals. He also seems to have a rather sadistic and cold-blooded side to him, such as when he was gleefully lying back and watching Cherry Berry and Comet Tail struggling to get untangled from the Plunderseeds, and due to the fact that he constantly laughs at other's dismays.
In Keep Calm and Flutter On, he is seen wearing dead bunny slippers and chuckling at the ponies misfortunes at the dinner party. In fact, he is a supporter of physiological torture, as he enjoyed Twilight's despair once she found herself abandoned by her friends. However, if he can't obtain the expected results with his charming skills, he doesn't doubt in using the force to brainwash his victims. However, there is still some good inside him.
In the moment, Fluttershy declared to consider him a friend Discord showed to be really affected by this statement, as he mentioned that he had never had friends before. Many fans consider this fact as the motivation that drove Discord the way he is. Until the moment, Fluttershy had shown to see Discord as more than a monster but as a true "sweetheart" he hadn't realized of how alone he was. If fact, he hated his loneliness that much that just for not being on his own again he renounced to domain the world as he had ever desired. However, since then, it seems that he still remains his mostly naughty and disobedient self.
In "Twilight's Kingdom", it shows that Discord has begun to truly understand friendship with all of the ponies and fell guilty when he has allowed Tirek to drain their magical powers. He then asked Twilight for merciful forgiveness and thanks her for saving him. At the end of the second episode, it shows that Discord made friends even from Celestia and Luna - his formal nemeses. Twilight even included him into her kingdom "court" as one of her closest, dearest, and most loyal friends.
However, despite this, come "Make New Friends but Keep Discord", Discord still apparently struggles with understanding the concept of friendship, and still shows his mischievous, problematic, and self-centered traits, feeling that he was replaced by Fluttershy's new friend Tree Hugger and that Fluttershy no longer cared for him just because she had chosen to bring Tree Hugger over him. As well, he brings the Smooze as his friend to the Gala, knowing about the Smooze's benevolent, but rather obstreperous, troublesome, disruptive, truculent, uncaring, and dangerous nature, intentionally trying to cause mischief just to make his point to Fluttershy.
Appearance
Discord is one of the species called a draconequus, as explained by Cheerilee from the beginning of the episode. Discord is a combination of many body parts from different creatures which also makes him a chimera. He has the body of a brown horse, the head of a gray pony, with an ivory deer antler on the right, a turquoise goat horn of the left, one long fang, yellow eyes with red pupils, an orange snake tongue, a black donkey mane, and a white goat beard. The rest of his body consists of the right paw of a pale yellow lion, the left yellow talon of a brown eagle, the right leg of a green lizard, the left leg with a sepia hoof of a chestnut deer, the right wing of a purple bat, the left wing of a blue bird, and a red dragon tail with a white tuft at the end.
Fan depictions
PONY.MOV
A heavily modified version of Discord is also the main antagonist of Hotdiggedydemon's .MOV series. For more details on that incarnation.
Others
Fans have picked up on the Satanic elements present in Discord's character, notably him being a semi-omnipotent, malevolent trickster and tempter who stands opposed to Order and Harmony itself. Many depictions of Discord thus cast him as the Ultimate Evil present in Equestria. In many fanworks, he has been portrayed as Pure Evil in stark contrast to his portrayal on the show.
Some other depictions cast him and Chaos as a necessary force that balances Order. Occasionally, fans may straight-up portray him as a good-natured and fun-loving guy (this is often accompanied by depicting Princess Celestia as an oppressive tyrant).
Powers and Abilities
As an embodiment of Chaos, Discord appears to be borderline omnipotent. He has manifested a great number of abilities and skills over the course of G4 MLP - abilities that he has shown so far include:
- Hybrid Physiology: Discord has a body made of different parts of creatures and animals.
- Nigh Omnipotence: The source of his reality manipulating abilities and among other powers, is the power to be near the pinnacle of Omnipotence, which makes him the most powerful character to be seen in the show. He would may also flawlessly restore anything to its original state, possess a complete, or almost complete and utter collection of powers, heal or fix anything without fail, or even manipulate space-time, or cosmic elements at will if given the proposition.
- Chaos Magic: Discord is capable of alter reality into many ways and manipulate the laws of nature and the physics of the world via his chaos magic. It can also erase the magic of others that of Starlight Glimmer.
- Reality Restoration: As of been shown in a couple of episodes (namely Keep Calm and Flutter On, and To Where and Back Again Part 1) he is also capable of restoring reality back into it's original state. Whichever is more efficient, this can count as a power to balance his reality affecting chaos magic or a counteractive ability to use against other reality warpers.
- Size-Shifting: Discord has varied in size from very large to being small enough to fit in a pony's ear.
- Shapeshifting: Discord has taken many odd forms, some of which defy physics or parody characters.
- Gesturify: Sometimes he has to require the use of snapping his fingers whenever it comes to most of the reality distorting powers he owns by far, otherwise they wouldn't function correctly as he expects them too. This is a subpower that comes with his chaos magic in general.
- Probability Alteration/Logic Manipulation: Discord can cause extremely unlikely events to occur within his vicinity and alter the laws of logic to his whim.
- Telekinesis: Discord has shown enough telekinetic skill to lift the entire Mane Six up magically, such as when he angrily "grabbed" them by the collars.
- Hypnotic Magic: Discord has shown the ability to corrupt others and is skilled at hypnotic magic - he can even outright take control of someone's mind, though he prefers not to.
- Telepathy/Vast Knowledge: Discord was able to know all the strengths and weaknesses of the Mane Six as well as their names, without ever having met them before, He also knew about Twilight Sparkle's princess coronation and the "Winter Wrap Up Song", despite not being there, and he knew how Twilight Sparkle felt about her role as princess. However, he was unable to predict that Tirek would betray him, so he is not omniscient, nor even semi omniscient.
- Fourth Wall Awareness: Discord appears to be aware he is in a cartoon, even though he doesn't explain that he does.
- Teleportation: Discord is able to teleport from one place to another - He can also teleport an object or a creature to him as well - He is also able to make objects disappear out of thin air - He can also use this ability to teleport across alternate dimensions such as the real-world of "Ogres and Oubliettes" and his our personal dimension.
- Creation: Discord is shown to be skilled with creation magic - he is able to create objects, creatures and plants at will, including powerful magical creations like the Plunderseeds.
- Levitation: Discord is able to float in the air.
- Flight: Discord can fly using his wings - He was also able to achieve a supersonic flight similar to Rainbow Dash's.
- Replication: Discord can create copies of himself - He also display this ability to create a replicate of Trixie out of Trixie's hat.
- Animation: Discord can bring any inanimate object to life.
- Appendage Generation: Discord can grow extra body parts.
- Anatomical Liberation: Discord can make parts of his body come apart, and is able to move them while detached so - He is also shown using this ability to remove Princess Celestria's tail without her noticing though he did part her tail back on afterwards.
- Object Possession: Discord was able to use his head to possess a balloon, he can also appear magically in various objects, such as gems and stained glass windows.
- Transmogrification: Discord can alter the appearance of objects and creatures, such as: giving bunny rabbits deer legs, making a squirrel and a bunny rabbit large and hulking, and turning apples into oranges and oranges into apples.
- Matter Ingestion: Discord is able to consume matter such as glass, a painting, and a tea cup.
- Portal Creation: Discord can open portals to different dimensions by using his eagle claw to cut through the fabric of reality.
- Disease Generation: Discord can inflict ponies with any kind of diseases and illnesses.
- Blue Flame Generation: Discord is able to generate blue flames, as shown in Three's A Crowd.
- Smoke Generation: Discord display creating amount of smoke to cover a background as shown in Ogres and Oubliettes.
- Color Alteration: Discord was able to fade Twilight's friends' colors, he also changed his color to blue to make it look like he had the "blu flu" and turned a tablecloth from white to red by touching it.
- Thought Manifestation: Discord is able to show his thoughts to others by using clouds of smoke, such as when showing Twilight Sparkle and Princess Cadence a flower that would cure the "blu flu".
- Enhanced Strength: Discord is deceptively strong, enough so to take a tree out of the ground and taking a big rock out of the ground with just one arm.
- Enhanced Hearing: Discord was able to hear Applejack from far away.
- Weather Magic: Discord is able manipulate the weather by making rain clouds go crazy, causing thunderstorms or creating cotton candy chocolate rain clouds.
- Animal Manipulation: Discord is able to manipulate the animals' behavior by making them go wild unnaturally.
- Daytime Manipulation: Discord is able to manipulate celestial objects at will to bring about daytime or nighttime.
- Gravity Manipulation: Discord is able to make things float into the air, and making objects lighter or heavier.
- Time Travel: Discord is able to project himself and others into events that have happened in the past.
- Bubble Imprisonment: Discord is able to imprison ponies in magic bubbles which is a similar trait to Tirek.
- Prehensile Tail: Discord can use his tail to hold things, and can make his tail tuft into a hand.
- Cartoon Physics: Like Pinkie Pie, he is able to use cartoon physics by stretching his limbs, deflate like a balloon, moving very fast, turning his mouth upside down and appearing out of unexpected places.
- Magic Imbalance Detection: Discord has the natural ability to sense major disturbances in magic, such as magic being stolen, or transferred into others.
- Immortality: Discord seems to be immortal, as he has stayed in his stone prison for thousands of years without dying. He is also presumably just as old as, if not older than Celestia and Luna.
- Master Trickster and Manipulator: Discord is good at deceiving ponies and making them do his bidding without even realizing it.
- Old Prime: Despite his age, Discord is shown to be skilled at water skating as well as ice skating.
Weaknesses
Discord's strengths are many, while his weaknesses are extremely few. Attacking him head-on is usually doomed to fail, as he can easily thwart any assault through his reality-warping power. However, he is vulnerable to the Elements of Harmony, which have successfully turned him to stone twice. Using the Elements also dispels all of his chaotic magic, returning things to their rightful shapes and places.
He has also been shown to be vulnerable to other entities of immense power, such as a sufficiently empowered Lord Tirek. Discord was not able to escape Tirek's telekinetic grasp, nor stop the villain from draining all of his chaotic magic. This may be due to Tirek's anti-magic properties shutting down Discord's magic when sufficiently empowered. Similarly, a sneeze from the Tatzlwurm was able to infect him with a severe illness he was not able to cure himself of.
One important weakness of Discord is himself. He tends to be very overconfident and so assured of his own invincibility that he will not go all-out against enemies. In addition, his tendency to underestimate opponents means that he can be taken by surprise and defeated before having the chance to react. While intelligent, he is also not immune to being manipulated and fell for Tirek's proposition to become allies, not suspecting that Tirek would betray him in the end. Also, prior to his redemption, he secretly wanted a friend, which allowed Fluttershy to sway him towards the side of good.
As shown in Discordant Harmony, If Discord exhibits as normal behavior more than his chaotic persona, He will slowly fade from existence showing not being chaotic in nature will up destroyed. But luckily, Fluttershy manage to make Discord to snap out of it and was returned to his natural chaotic behavior, thus saving his life. This is why he shouldn't avoid his position of what he represents.
Gallery
Trivia
- He is the second major antagonist on the show to have been presumably redeemed (the first being Nightmare Moon) and the first major antagonist to have been redeemed via non-magical means (without the use of the Elements of Harmony).
- He is also the only being in the series so far who has been proven to be completely immune to Fluttershy's stare. Given that The Stare has in the past reduced a full-grown dragon into submission and overpowered the magical stone gaze of a Cockatrice, Discord shrugging it off like it was nothing is a testament to his incredible power.
- Discord made a cameo appearance in the first ever fan-made My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic episode called Double Rainboom as a front cover of the book that Blossom was reading in the ending credits.
- Discord can also be seen in the intro of Seasons 4 and above, in Fluttershy's house.
- Discord is one of the most powerful characters in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, the others are; Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna/Nightmare Moon, King Sombra, Tirek and Starlight Glimmer.
- Although Discord has been reformed, he still performs acts of questionable ethical integrity, for example, not saving ponies in danger by the Plunderseeds (and appearing to take joy in their suffering), manipulating Twilight to venture into the Everfree Forest, or not telling the Plunderseed´s origin until the problem was completely solved. He also considered the possibility of going back to his old ways in the moment he was notified of the disappearance of the Elements, only to be stopped by Fluttershy. It is perhaps on this that Spike tells Twilight that Discord is "reformed, but not that reformed". This is all before the fight with Tirek which presumably sees him fully reformed.
- It is implied Discord was much more evil in the past; one stained glass shows him dangling screaming ponies over fire.
- Discord is the only major antagonist who is confirmed to be behind another major antagonist. Nightmare Moon, Discord, Chrysalis, Sombra, Sunset Shimmer, and Tirek were acting on their own motives but the Plunderseeds were created by Discord.
- According to the Elements of Harmony book, Discord's redemption was done so new stories could be told with his character and to turn him from the known enemy into the "not-always reliable ally".
- He is the third most recurring antagonist in the show, the other being Diamond Tiara, and Silver Spoon (not counting Nightmare Moon). However, Queen Chrysalis had returned in season six and seven making her the fourth most recurring antagonist. Also Starlight Glimmer and Trixie Lulamoon make more appearances in the show but they both reformed during their second non-background appearances.
- Discord is currently the only villain who successfully defeated the Mane 6, even if it was for a brief amount of time.
- Discord is the first male major antagonist in the show.
- He is also the first major antagonist who is not a pony.
- Discord lives in a chaotic dimension as it was revealed in the episode, Make New Friends But Keep Discord.
- His alternate timeline in "The Cutie Re-Mark", despite being heavily implied to be one of the worst possible fates for Equestria, is arguably the most lighthearted, as he merely resorts to juvenile hazing toward Celestia and Luna instead of being a destructive conqueror like the other villains. This is most likely due to his anti-villain status.
- Discord is the only main antagonist to be a threat more than twice in the show. Nightmare Moon, Sombra, and Tirek were imprisoned a thousand years ago, returned, and were reformed, destroyed, and permanently reimprisoned, respectively, by the end of their episodes, while Starlight Glimmer was the main villain of both the Season 5 premiere and finale, reforming in the latter, and Chrysalis has so far appeared three times. Discord was a threat four times: Before being turned to stone a thousand years ago, in the Season 2 premiere, in Season 3 before Fluttershy reformed him, and in Season 4 when Tirek convinced him to turn evil again.
