Some story and Non-Story related questions · 3:18am Jan 24th, 2015
So the second chapter is up, and I'm glad to see it's been met with some good responses. But now for some questions that you guys can help me with. First of all, when I update a blog, do you guys get notified? I ask because of the Tropes blog I made (which I just updated, BTW) and also the races blog, which I intend to update soon.
Second, a few questions on your guy's opinions on something. Namely, what is the extent of Discord's power? Now it's obvious he doesn't use it his true potential, preferring to play games with his opponents, but just how far does his reality warping power extend? Could he just instantly win if he wanted to, or is there a limit to what he affect? I think the later myself, otherwise how could Tirek absorb his powers after absorbing the magic of every Equestrian, minus the Princesses? I mean, he clearly doesn't need to snap to use his powers, he just does that for drama's sake. So, what do you guys think?
Yea, he has a limit like everyone else.
And yeah, I recall an episode of him teleporting without snapping his finger.s.s.
Who knows, maybe he limits himself... Maybe a Discord from a reality is more powerfull that the one from another reality... The power of the Discord of each reality is up to the author
I believe the power level discord has is limited, but he is very creative to make up for that. He has to go with the flow, for he cannot truly control his powers, only influence them.
Discord is, by his very nature, incapable of using his true power. He COULD snap his fingers and win instantly, but trying to do that would weaken him to the point where he couldn't. He is the spirit of Chaos and Disharmony, but most people only really focus on the Disharmony part. He has two Aspects. That is a constant about him. Constants, things of Order, bind his powers of Chaos. His name, any memories ponies have of him, anything that exists about him binds his otherwise limitless powers while he allows them to bind him. To gain more power, he would have to lose constants, but trying to create a fact (a constant) in the form of 'I have won this encounter' would make it so that he could only utilize his powers of Disharmony to make it happen, which is directly proportional to the amount of, well, Disharmony there is in his Domain, which is to say his home dimension. Thus, for the purposes of conflict, while he can instigate and aggravate them, attempting to take part in one would make him beatable.
Oh, and attempting to take or otherwise quantify his Chaos powers negates them until they are once again not being observed, meaning Tirek, in show, only really absorbed his Powers over Disharmony, which he was generating plenty of. I love Magical Theory, especially when people invite it.
What's scary about Discord isn't his power level, it's his power type. His powers are all about breaking the laws of the universe. Think about it, have we ever seen him use his powers for anything else? Now we know that he isn't too terribly powerful. Celestia and Luna together couldn't stand against him without the Elements of Harmony. Cadence isn't powerful enough to even stand against Chrysalis, and Twilight is still new at alicorn magic. Combined into Twilight, their powers still wouldn't be enough to beat Discord. However, Twilight was able to fight Tirek to a stand-still after he'd gained Discord's power. We see that Tirek gains power, but not abilities, so he only gained power levels from Discord. Thus we see that it isn't Discord's power level that makes him dangerous, but his type of magic.
Now, think for a moment about what his power really is: Chaos. Now, how is he to be chaotic if he simply snaps his fingers to win? It has to be a game. While his chaotic nature makes him see omnipotent, it also limits him. I personally don't think that Discord can perform simple spells such as light or telekinesis. He can summon a lamp shaped like him (sort of) and he can pick heavy things up with ease, but anything that isn't chaotic in nature is beyond him.
At least, that's what makes sense to me.
I didn't get an update when the blogs updated. Up to you what to do about that, maybe make them a story of their own, maybe make them a series of posts, maybe post new posts when it's updated, maybe just trust interested people to check back now and again. But, no one else was telling you, so I figured I should.
As for Discord... Yeah, he's definitely limited, but he's still got PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER... he just doesn't care about winning. Like, at all. He just wants fun and delicious chaos.
Hmm... Discord may have, as ZeroInfinity noted, Phenomenal Cosmic Power -- but one thing I noticed is the snapback effect when the Elements hit him. This may be due to the Elements, but I like to think that reality reasserts itself, and that all his changes are purely temporary, especially in a highly orderly universe such as Equestria.
Curiously, Discord might not be using chaos at all, instead a sort of twisted order to impose his will upon his surroundings. You might say that he's inspiring chaos (as ponies tend to react chaotically to that sort of thing) as opposed to invoking it. I wouldn't say that to his face, though - you might get lazer'd.
If Discord is using chaos, in the elemental sense, however, he would do well to remember what I might well call the Paradox of Balance: the more order or chaos you force into a social system, the more chaotic or orderly the social system becomes in response, respectively.
But where was I... ah, yes. Power limitations. Because the Void is a peculiar substrate, I would not be surprised if Discord could not survive there, or had his power incredibly limited there; however, because the Void's substance also becomes powered by belief and will ('I don't remember it being so... fantastic'), he might be even more potent there. Coin flip as to how powerful he'd be, I guess. I would hypothesize that time travel would be completely impossible for him, owing to the fundamentally orderly nature of time itself within these universes: certainly, it might be a gigantic timey-wimey ball, but it is self-consistent to a fault. (I'd have liked to see Time Turner's face when he realized that Sparkle created a stable time loop. He'd probably giggle all the way to the bank.)
Mind manipulation may be Discord's modus operandi, but one thing he didn't do is manipulate Celestia's and Luna's, at least not notably. It may be that instead of actually forcing a personality swap, he simply took advantage of the chaos in their own minds to induce those effects - that is to say, the stress at being those elements 24/7 and avoiding their opposition, and the rush of freedom in being released from those obligations. This is all thoughts, though.
Ultimately, though, as noted above, Discord's truest weakness is in his own mind. He's a trickster, a prankster, a joker, a smoker, a midnight toker - but he doesn't have the world's greatest imagination. He'll seize on an opportunity when he sees it, but he's not great at actually creating them for himself. Ambitious, but with no ambitions of his own. This is a crippling weakpoint, something that can be exploited by anyone with half a mind, as Tirek obviously did.
I suppose the question is how our favourite samurai will be exploiting it...
p.s. the use of the steel samurai theme was inspired. and yay, a fistful of nickels!
I figured that most limits he has are psychological; he's immortal, he's chaotic, and life isn't very fun if you know all of the outcomes. He could have "won" in his debut eppisode quite easily, but he still gave the girls a chance by NOT teleporting the Elements halfway across the world, even if it was just to taunt Twilight when she found out that her brainwashed friends couldn't use them.
He might not even be a spirit as such, merely someone that derives strenght from chaos... after all, if Equestria is already Wonderland, conjuring additional cotton-candy clouds is going to be much easier than at the very start.
It's obvious that he doesn't EMBODY either thing, as he can understand their opposites by more than their absence. He knows that ponies don't like what he does; he just doesn't care. Well, some other types of 'embodiment' do know that, but I'm working off the usual 'alien/eldritch being has alien/eldritch way of thinking'.
He is obviously powerful enough that Celestia won't risk fighting him, quite possibly because the collateral would be immense, or because she's simply overpowered. Maybe even if you counted Luna in the fight. She knew that Dissy wasn't like that, though, and he wouldn't actually attack the girls; he's a trickster, with the mind of one, and for all of his power he can still be outsmarted. In my opinion, she kept out because it was the safest option.
Still, he might be one of those types that can't just hit an instant win button - or let others do so. He HAS to make things a little more complicated in the same way The Riddler simply has to leave a riddle. It might very well be pathological.