Discord and Tartarus · 12:20am Jan 31st, 2013
Here's a bit of Fridge Logic that kinda comes from me writing stories about Tartarus.
If you remember the episode It's About Time, Twilight Sparkle mentions that the Gates of Tartarus which Cerberus guards holds a host of evil creatures that would cause havoc across Equestria if they broke free. Everyone has their own interpretation of what exactly those creatures are (including myself), but despite all that, there is one question:
Why wasn't Discord in Tartarus?
Now, I understand that Discord's debut was long before It's About Time, so perhaps the writers didn't come up with the concept of Tartarus yet. But, with my mind being the way it is, I have to wonder from a writing standpoint how this makes sense. From there, there's only one explanation I can think of: Discord was too powerful for Tartarus to contain, and thus he had to be petrified with the Elements of Harmony. Yes, it's a bit of a cop-out to be sure, but considering that this is Discord we're talking about, it's not a big stretch of the imagination.
If anyone else has their own theory or thoughts on the matter, I certainly wouldn't mind hearing them.
Well, Tartarus is its own land, right. Not a jail for Celestia to banish things to. Presumably, Tartarus has its own inhabitants and they probably wouldn't take all that kindly to having more and more evil dumped their way. Limited resources, competition for upward evil mobility, minion turn-over. All of these problems grow bigger and bigger with each Nightmare Moon or Discord that is thrown in there. At some point, people are going to come after Celestia for that kind of behavior. It looks like she spread her enemies out. Luna was sent to the moon (presumably uninhabited?), Discord was turned into stone, Chrysalis was bounced out of Equestria (not that Celestia had anything to do with it).
It might also be that you give the Elements of Harmony general directions, like DEFEAT DISCORD, and they kinda do their own thing. We don't really know that much about the Elements of Harmony, so who knows how they work. In fact, I'm actually writing a fic about that right now!
775327 Actually, I don't think that's the case. Twilight specifically said: "I got Cerberus back before any of the evil creatures could escape." If Tartarus was its own land, why would any of the evil creatures want to escape? If anything, they'd organize an invasion and try to expand their territory.
Although the "spreading evil around so Tartarus doesn't get overpopulated" idea does have some merit.
Maybe escaping is expanding there territory. Just because you guard a door doesn't mean you made what is on the other side. The ponies might see it as escaping, but it isn't actually a prison. I think the evil creatures would want to get out to inflict evil where it is most effective. Being mean to nice people is probably a lot more fun than to each other.
Note that I'm just making crap up here. I have no idea really. Tartarus is a version of Hell usually, and Hell is basically a prison.
Well, assuming that Tartarus is essentially a prison for all sorts of evil. It might of been a case of putting Discord in Tartarus would have been the stupidest thing you could have possibly done.
I mean Tartarus holds evil right? It wouldn't surprise me if some of the prisoners were placed in there were for causing chaos (you know mass death and destruction, the "generic" kind of chaos), heck some of them might of worked for Discord before he was "stoned" the first time. Putting Discord in Tartarus might've placed him close persons who simply being near would cause the chaos spark that could set him free (or worse, devoted followers that would do that anyway).
I do agree with your idea that Discord is too powerful for Tartarus to contain, so keeping that in mind with what I've said so far Discord could theoretically walk out with all of Tartarus' inmates willing to cause chaos for him. Let's assume that each of the 'evil's' that were locked in Tartarus took Celestia, an army or Celestia and an army to subdue the first time, now multiply that 1evil by 100 then
squarecube that by Discord. Yeah, no matter how good Equestria's army is, no matter how efficiently Celestia manages things, there will just be too much going on to handle it all properly.Long story short; putting Discord in Tartarus would just cause him rise up stronger that ever.