20 headcanons · 9:12am Aug 20th, 2015
So after reading a Discord headcanon list by taterforlife, I decided to make my own.
Note: I assume everyone is familiar with the concept of the headcanon, but just in case, I'm not stating these as facts (I do use some of the comics and tv series to back up WHY I think it works, but I'm not saying it's canon.)- I'm just saying I use them in my fics.
1.)Discord is literally eons old. I take this from the comics where he knew Hubert around the time dinosaurs walked the earth. However, that doesn't make him mature. Having eons of experience means nothing if you have near omnipotence and no one is guiding you or telling you what to do. Which brings me to my second point...
2.) Discord's mother is Nature. She's...not a mother in a traditional sense. Rather than guiding Discord completely, she'd rather he worked things out on his own. In some ways this is good, and in some ways it results in an extremely difficult/painful colthood for him. She saved his life because she found him amusing/intelligent as a colt and therefore worthy of being there to pass on genes (ironically, Discord refuses to have children). In order to save him she placed some of her power within him, and he's now immortal as long as she is. He sort of works as a roguish assistant for her when it comes to biological diversity, though he'd rather do his own thing. He definitely worked on the beetles though:
3.) He's pansexual. I really can't think of a Spirit of Chaos (the embodiment of impulsiveness, randomness and rebelliousness towards tradition in society) as any other way. It would almost feel like a disservice to the character to me if I wrote him any other way. It doesn't matter what species or sex someone is (as long as they're sapient)- if he finds them attractive he certainly won't hold back if someone wants him.
4.) He thinks he's more attractive than he actually is. This is contrary to many other people's headcanons, in which Discord thinks he's ugly and misshapen and secretly wants to look like a pony. I've seen no evidence of this anywhere- he seems to love being himself, and why would the Spirit of Chaos want to look "normal" anyway? He thinks he's the greatest thing ever, which of course makes him super arrogant. However, while he's not ugly, he's not an adonis either, therefore he's one of those guys who thinks he's handsomer than he actually is. He's also arrogant about his intelligence. This one is probably even more infuriating, because there's truth in it- he is a genius. He just doesn't have a lot of common sense.
5.) He's in love with Fluttershy. Yeah, I know I'm a Fluttercord shipper but the show and the comics ship tease them more than any other Discord ship, so its what I work with. However, while Fluttershy enjoys his company, I'm not sure the feelings are returned. Discord acts like an excited puppy dog (Make New Friends Keep Discord/Twilight's Kingdom) or rather bashful (when talking about her with Baast) with regards to Fluttershy, whereas Fluttershy seems to treat him like her other friends. I know that at least canonically he is somewhat obsessed with her. She likes him, and he's surprised and excited by the notion. I think he's a bit flirty with Twilight too, but Fluttershy captivates him.
6.)Any self-hatred he does have is well hidden (usually by dark humour) and has nothing to do with looks but rather, behaviour. He feels guilt for betraying Fluttershy, he feels guilt for sometimes screwing things up and having her disappointed with him. There's a lot about his past he doesn't want her knowing. Of course, Fluttershy doesn't want Discord to hate himself or be eaten away by guilt, but try telling HIM that when he sees her tears.
7.) Yeah, Discord had a thing with that cat, and you cannot convince me otherwise.
8.)Depending on what timeline I'm writing he also had a thing with Celestia. If it's the timeline I use in Taxonomy they were once in love but things went sour. If it's the timeline I use in Wanderlust I sidestep that entirely and Discord simply brags that he would have slept with her if she had asked him. (Which isn't much of a brag.) This is because part of the latter timeline's plot is about whether or not Discord can actually be loved back, therefore having him and Celestia be lovers in that timeline would mess up the story.
9.) Though Discord has Mother Nature's power, he still self-taught himself magic. His form of magic is of course, chaos magic and it's rawer than the practiced magic that ponies study. Most of the things he taught himself didn't even come from books. He sneers at academics that are booksmart partly because he feels things like pieces of paper (degrees, PhDs, or whatever the equivalent form in magic is) are things ponies need to prove their self worth and he feels he doesn't need a piece of paper. He's right, he doesn't- but that doesn't make other mage's contributions and study worthless.
10.) Despite his sneering at academics, he reads a lot. He likes absorbing knowledge (or in the case of Keep Calm and Flutter On, eating it). He is, pretty much a genius, but an infuriating, scatterbrained one that is near impossible to work with. He infuriates Twilight precisely because she knows he is smart but doesn't apply that intelligence properly and yet still brags horribly about it.
11.) Needy, needy, needy. He needs to be needed. That's why he threw his best friend and probable love interest under the bus for Tirek. He will abandon all intelligence in favour of feelings if he thinks someone genuinely likes him. There's also a bit of low self worth there because he doesn't believe Fluttershy genuinely likes him for who he is at first, and Tirek clearly does! Except...not.
So Discord has actually been used by people multiple times in his long life because of this need, and this probably partly explains his EXTREME jealousy as well.
12.) Jealous, jealous, jealous. I had this headcanon that he was a super jealous being even before Make New Friends but Keep Discord. It seems logical that someone who is as big an attention whore as Discord would get catty if he wasn't the centre of attention, especially if its someone he LIKES' attention.
13.) His emotions are near uncontrollable because of the Chaos. He's still horribly immature and needs to at least make the effort to control them, but it is genuinely harder for him to do so. He doesn't tell anyone this, because...weakness!
14.) He was never a tyrant. At least not in the classical sense. Don't get me wrong, Discord did some bad shit, and it's precisely because he wanted the idea of ultimate freedom for everyone. Of course ultimate freedom means no law and order, and no law means no protection from criminals and no system of society that actually works. So ponies did die and get hurt under his "reign." However, I can't get behind the idea some people have that Discord is a supremely dark and evil being that rapes, kills and enslaves ponies. I also hate the idea that because he hypnotized the Mane Six (to get them out of the way, I might add) that means to some people he's a rapist. He seemed annoyed when they turned up again and interrupted him ("I'm missing some excellent Chaos here") after he hypnotized them so how does that mean he'd like to enslave them? Ick. Just no. Just people inserting their (unfortunately) wishful sexual ideas onto him.
15.) He's a trickster god. Much has been written about tricksters in mythology. One of the main hallmarks is that they are boundary crossers, both in society and in the spiritual realm. Discord clearly embodies both. The trickster is there to blur the lines between good and evil, acceptable and non-acceptable and quite often to show the hero a lesson (whether intentional or not.) He's done this multiple times with Twilight. Having Discord be completely good or completely evil destroys his status as a Trickster.
16.) He suffered horribly in that statue and is still mentally messed up from it. The Princesses turned him to stone because they felt they had no other alternative. I'm of the opinion that Celestia didn't know how torturous it would be for the Spirit of Chaos to be turned to stone because she's not a cruel person. When he escaped again and was turned to stone a second time she freed him because she felt his magic could be used for good, but she also did it because she took pity on him. Fluttershy helps Discord through his periods of dissassociation once she starts to gain his trust. This is one of the reasons he can't help loving her--no one has ever been so kind to him.
17.) He knew Starswirl and they shared knowledge about spells/chaos magic. (In fact, I may write a one-shot based around this idea at some point). However, Discord grew up alone and he therefore keeps Starswirl at arm's length emotionally at all times. Or at least, tries to. In Taxonomy, it's pretty clear that Starswirl telling him to go away hurt him badly.
18.)Hayscarte's method is a form of Chaos magic, one Discord can perform with ease (and which he uses in the stained glass window scene in Return of Harmony) but which other magic wielders have to spend years or in some cases decades learning to master. Twilight picked it up quicker than most.
19.) He loves strong-tasting food like garlic, etc because strong tastes remind him that he is out of the statue. He enjoys the sensations of touch, smell and taste more than anything because of this, therefore sex, food and love are all things that would feel like an escapist drug to him.
20.) Discord's scared of Pinkie because he knows she's a chaos user, but he doesn't know HOW.
Interesting stuff. One query though:
Do you think Luna knew?
Deep thoughts.
And #20 deserves a fic of its own.
I love 7 and totally agree with
3333798 about 20.
I can't say I don't share your headcanon, this pretty much is how I feel about him.
Though I always imagine a nice cathartic streak where he gets to vent his frustrations or demonstrate that while reformed he is still a bad ass. Like maybe how people keep forgetting he can manipulate the heavens with much more ease than any of the point counterparts have displayed yet, and just see him as the funny clouds and chocolate rain guy.
That's just a power trip fantasy of mine though, certainly not part of the headcanon, but not excluded by it either.
Wow! All very intresting things here! I pretty much agree with them all!
*slides you a 20* So... Maybe after you clean up your incomplete story list, this Starswirl fix can be a thing eh? No pressure just * slides a 5* please.
3333784
No, I don't think she knew either, even though she's an angrier person than her sister.
3333798
By Jack Handy
3333926
Oh yes, he is definitely a badass when it comes to magic wielding. Scriptum's lucky he doesn't have his powers at this point in Taxonomy. Discord's biggest weaknesses are his hubris, self doubt and neediness.
3334030
Oh, it's definitely going to happen, just yeah....need to finish up other things first! *pockets money*
Since I have read all your stuff, I recognized pretty much all of these except that very last one on Pinkie, but I like it! It makes sense.
And you know I LOVE the Mother Nature Mom one. Love love LOVE it. It's just a cool and original idea and their relationship is sweet yet kinda funny (like when he first metn her) and it gives him yet another reason to be close with Fluttershy, since she appreciates nature probably the most out of all the six.
3334759
Nature=chaos, so it's just one more reason he's smitten with Fluttershy; she appreciates it.
I... um... might have come up with an idea for #20. That I might write. If that's OK.
3335133
Sure! I'm not gonna write it, so go ahead. :)
3334287 Also meant to say "pony" counterparts, not "point". My bad. But yeah, his hubris is his own downfall.
"Oh hey, the one possible force that *might* be able to stop me? Let me just sit here" BOOM
Yeah, definitely his biggest weakness.
Also, still have not read Taxonomy yet. though I'm probably obligated to at this point.
20 is actually going to be a thing in my story "No Escape From Yourself." In my headcanon it's not precisely the fact that she's a chaos user and he doesn't know how -- he does know how, and for quite some time in my headcanon, he was on-and-off friendly to her as a result -- any issues were mostly caused by the fact that she was always quick to accuse him when she was part of her group of friends and they confronted him (usually because there was good evidence he might be doing something bad, but from Discord's POV, it looked like Pinkie was friendly in private and hostile in public, which seemed like hypocrisy.) But it turns out she's much more powerful than he thinks, and much less predictable than he thinks, and in a way that scares the crap out of him.
You know I'm on board with most of these headcanons myself. My Discord is younger than yours (well, except for the one who's Q), and a bit less willing to admit to himself that he's in love with Fluttershy because he wants so badly to be wanted that he's very, very reluctant to admit to himself that he wants someone who might not want him back, so he pretends that his feelings for Fluttershy are pure friendship (and wouldn't admit to himself that he was attracted to Twilight until Cadance confronted him with it.) And his origin story is different. But all the rest of it fits my take on the character as well.
3336157
Aggh. *Bites nails* I wanna know what it is! That and The Last Draconequus are the ones I'm dying for.
Ah, I did wonder if there was a reason he said to himself in EOO that Fluttershy was merely his friend, but then says "I love you" to Fluttercruel while thinking of the real Fluttershy. He was in denial!