Chaff in my Head Cannon: Discord

So.

He's got a lot of interesting depth to him. Nothing new in this opening bit, but I want to lay a bit of groundwork for my own benefit as much as anyone reading this.

We've got the living embodiment of chaos living in an enchanted land of magic and fantastical creatures. He seems to revel in not merely chaos for chaos' sake, but in watching those who like order having to deal with the chaos he's created. We know that he's been around for a very long time (was ruling Equestria before Celestia and Luna showed up), we know that his powers allow him to bend reality (removal of Celestia's tail, cotton candy chocolate rain clouds, roads turned to soap, etc...), we know that he could still hear and see what was going on while he was turned to stone (he tells us so), and we know that friends are something he'd never really given any thought nor respect to until Fluttershy changed his perspective.

This is a seriously powerful being. But it's also clear that he's not quite all-powerful. Celestia, once she knows what she's dealing with, is able to magically protect the Elements of Harmony from being stolen. And the Elements can pretty much trump him without even the slightest struggle as seen in the two separate times he was turned to stone.

But there's been something niggling at the back of my mind about him. In Princess Twilight parts 1&2 Twilight uses Zecora's potion to see major events in the past including Discord's original defeat. The thing that's been tickling my brain is that after Twilight has returned the Elements of Harmony to the Tree of Harmony and all the evil vines have been destroyed, Discord admits that it was something he'd done ages ago and then shows Twilight how he'd done it.

The thing is, from what we're shown, he didn't see what she saw, yet he still tells her to remember it. And then he proceeds to narrate after he's given her more of the potion.

All of this has been tumbling around in my head, and the end result is that I get the impression that Discord is kind of omniscient. Now, I know... I know - how do you only kind of know everything?

Well, being a being of chaos, I think Discord only knows about something when he wants to. And when he doesn't want to, he doesn't.

It's little things, like how antagonistic he is despite his change from bad to good. It's in forgetting Fluttershy's name in the first episode of season 4 and being easily shamed into helping clean up the aftermath in the second episode of the season - by Fluttershy reminding him about their friendship.

So, my little bit of head canon for Discord - beyond what I wrote in my last blog post - is that he's all-knowing except for when he chooses not to be, which is often. Forgetting Fluttershy's name probably struck him as a fun thing to do, so he did it. He didn't pretend, he consciously chose to not know. And when the joke was done, he knew again and she had full sway like she did when he was first reformed.

Where this gets fun is if you consider that all-knowing means not just knowing everything, everywhere, but everywhen as well.

Discord is probably the most powerful of all the villains that the mane six have faced, yet he's definitely not the most deadly. For all the talk of impotence people label him with, Sombra is the most likely to kill. Yet, it's Discord who could actually, and probably quite efficiently, pull it off.

But he doesn't seem to have the slightest inclination to do so.

Well, if he already knows what's going to happen, when he cares to look anyway, it's easy to see why he'd never even consider trying to kill his enemies - he wants what's coming next.

In a way, it's like he always knew he would end up on the good guys' side, but viewed it as just something that hadn't happened yet, so he still got to be the villain. He knew Celestia and Luna were coming to deal with him, hence the seeds, but the thing is - the seeds wouldn't have freed him. They just would have imprisoned his enemies and that's it. Not exactly the kind of plan (and it was a real plan, with forethought and logical steps and strategy) someone who could just make the Elements disappear should feel safe behind.

And that's another thing that shows he pretty much knows what's going to happen but is fine with it - he'd stolen the Elements of Harmony and had hidden them from Twilight et al, but instead of just keeping them hidden and not saying a thing, he gives the good guys a way to fix everything, he even helps them do it, and when he's met with the return of their power, rather than run, he stays and pretty much lets himself get turned to stone again.

He's kind of a brilliant jerk. The lesson gets learned, the message gets through, and he's laughing at you the whole time you're trying to figure it out.

So, yeah, a jerk. He's a lovable, awesome, cool jerk, but still a jerk. Definitely one of my favorite characters.