Why I think Discord is Q

Everyone makes jokes about Discord being Q, but most fanfic writers don't actually go with it. I've also seen arguments made that they cannot be the same character, for various reasons. So I wanted to explain why I believe most of these reasons aren't particularly good, and why I see the characters as the same being in different contexts.

First let me explain my position. I am the biggest Q fangirl on the Internet. This is scientifically provable by the fact that I am the only person who was writing Q fanfic 20 years ago who still is. Yes, I have no life, but I know my Q. And I do not believe either that Q is a malevolent force of chaos and evil (which, believe it or not, used to be a favored position in fandom) or that Q is a nice, sympathetic woobie who never did any bad things, he's just misunderstood.

I don't believe either of these are true of Discord, either. So when I argue that Discord is no more malevolent than Q, it is not because I'm whitewashing Discord or darkwashing Q. I favor complex interpretations of both characters that actually look at *canon*, not what you think in your head the character ought to behave like.

Argument 1: Q is not as malevolent as Discord.

I have never understood this argument. It feels a lot like folks read a lot of Fanfic Totally Evil Mad God Discord and projected that onto the jerk we see on the TV screen. But let me break it down for you.

In Encounter at Farpoint, Q freezes a man solid for pointing a phaser at him when we know he's not vulnerable to phaser fire. In Hide and Q, he sets things in motion such that Wesley gets stabbed through the gut with a bayonet (and regardless of your opinion of Wesley, he's a teenage boy and Q put him in danger.) In Q Who, he throws the ship to the Borg because he's mad that Picard rejected him, and stands there and gloats while 18 crewmembers are killed.

Discord makes it rain chocolate out of cotton candy clouds, turns roads to soap, and engages in extreme mindfuckery against the only beings who have the power to harm him, for the purpose of preventing them from being able to harm him.

I... am not seeing how Discord is the more malevolent one here.

Yes, Discord ruled Equestria and terrorized the ponies before he was sealed in stone. We know nothing about this but what Celestia says. I'm not saying he didn't have it coming. But if Picard had been given a "turn Q to stone ray" prior to Q Who, he would totally have used it when Q kidnapped him, blackmailed him, and then got pissy and threw his ship to the Borg. You cannot necessarily trust that an avatar of Order who is strongwilled, proud and does not appreciate being toyed with is really describing Ultimate Evil when he or she says that an avatar of Chaos tormented his or her crew/ponies. Discord could have done nothing worse than we saw him do on screen, and if he did it or similar things for several years, every day, all over Equestria, without respite, Celestia would have had to stone him. It doesn't mean he was raping or dismembering ponies, it means it was impossible for ponies to live ordinary lives while he was in control. Ask how well the TNG crew can manage to go about their daily business when Q is interfering and then tell me you have *evidence* that Discord is worse than Q.

There's one step farther Discord takes that Q generally does not. Discord uses his powers to directly screw with ponies' personalities, preferentially by making them break under the stress of illusions, but when they don't he'll resort to mind control. Q never does this.

However, in Hide and Q, Q's bet with Picard, which he loses, obligates him to stay out of the path of humanity forever. In Q Who, Picard seems to remember it as Q promising to stay away from Picard's ship and crew. The loophole that Q exploits to get to see Picard and make his case doesn't *exist* if he's obligated to stay away from humanity forever. Obviously a scriptwriter's continuity glitch, but within story, the only explanation is that Q altered Picard's memories so that the terms of the bet were something Q *could* find a loophole in.

In other words, Discord mind-controls enemies who wield the only weapon that could possibly defeat him, into a state where they cannot defeat him, without causing them physical harm. Q mind-alters interesting objects of his current obsession so they don't realize he's cheating on a bet he made with them. Again, not seeing how Discord is the more malevolent one here. Discord's actions aren't excusable, but they're in self defense. Q's actions are less serious... but have *no* good justification except Q's pride.

Argument 2: Q has a purpose to his nonsense. Discord doesn't.

I don't dispute that Q has a purpose to his nonsense. But at least part of his purpose is motivated by his emotional desires. He obviously likes to torment lesser beings; not only does he conduct his tests in Farpoint and Hide and Q by terrorizing the Enterprise crew, but we learn in Deja Q that the Continuum stripped him of his powers for "spreading chaos throughout the universe" and that there are many species Q tormented. Obviously, the Continuum think that at least some of what Q's done either had no point to it or was going too far.

As for Discord... this is a planet where the sun doesn't move unless somepony moves it. There's no weather except what's brought by the weather ponies. The government has not only been the same for a thousand years, it has the same *leader*. Can you really be sure that the avatar of Chaos didn't have a *very* good purpose for trying to shake everything up? And when Discord gets out of the stone in Return of Harmony, sure his chaos is completely pointless... but he's been locked in stone for a thousand years. It's unreasonable to imagine that his motivation for unleashing chaos everywhere isn't at least partly revenge. The cruel things he does to the Elements of Harmony have a point; he's trying to disable them as weapons. The fact that he can easily take their wings and horns, and easily teleport them, means he could easily kill them or banish them, but he doesn't. He screws with their heads instead. That's not pointless at all, that's self defense. It's a lot nastier than it needs to be (he could have just permanently hidden the Elements), but I didn't say he wasn't an asshole, I said his assholery has a purpose.

Also, force a kid with severe ADHD to sit absolutely still for three hours and then let him out in a china shop, see what you get. We never see Q's reaction to being completely and totally immobilized. We do, however, see that his reaction to getting his powers back is first, personal comfort and style; second, attempted revenge (which is only shut down by his parole officer); third, completely disrupting the bridge on the Enterprise by trying to throw a party to celebrate his return to the Continuum. None of this has any better reason than any of the things Discord has done; Q does them for purely emotional reasons, just like Discord.

Argument 3: Discord is just a manipulative bully.

Agreed that Discord is a manipulative bully, but where is the part where that is not like Q? See, oh, well, everything I've said above about the stuff Q's done. I love Q, but he is totally a manipulative bully.

Argument 4: Discord is not as smart as Q.

Discord makes some supremely dumbassed mistakes. So does Q. Discord also does some things that are cruelly clever. As does Q. Discord doesn't go around talking about how superintelligent he is, and Q doesn't say "chaos" every other sentence, but we know that Q takes different roles with different species (they call him the God of Lies on Brax). Discord's presenting himself to a different audience.

Argument 5: Discord is sillier than Q.

It's a children's show about magical ponies. Aside from that, yeah, that one actually needs some handwaving but doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility. It's also explainable as different audiences; just as we might be somewhat differently behaved with different groups of friends, Q/Discord might behave differently with different groups of enemies. :-)

Argument 6; Discord drinks chocolate milk. Q doesn't even know what chocolate is in Deja Q.

OK, that one, I'll give you, needs a handwave. :-) I've got a cool explanation for it though.

So. I see no need why people who don't want Discord to be Q have to write him that way; hell, I have a story idea that will work better if he's not Q because it's based on a concept that I'm also doing with Q, in a different way, and I don't want to repeat myself that egregiously. But I see very little difficulty in writing them as the same character, either.