Frenemies Talk, Chapter XXI feat. The Sexy Assistant and Wolfcape

Frenemies Talk, Chapter XXI: What About Discord

Yes, what about Discord? Well, he is an incredible creature, made out of particles of sheer Chaos, taking a form we call "draconequus", a large abomination of Chaotic Neutral alignment, AC of at least 25, although it seems modifiable via his supernatural ability called—

Ehm, pardon me, my Dungeons & Dragons experience is showing.

Anyway, for this week's episode we decided that we need to spice things up a bit. Of course, we ourselves are pretty good-looking and suave in our own right, but we needed someone really, really eye-catching. So we grabbed ourselves The Sexy Assistant! And then we grabbed Wolfcape, because, let's face it, we like friends to share in the fun.

Spoilers wait for you below! Roll for initiative!

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"I found out that Harmony cannot be sustained without Chaos evening it out. Therefore, we welcome Discord to our new Elements of Life team!"

Prane: Good heavens, how long has it been since we had a Book Horse episode? I guess that would be Amending Fences about four months ago? Far too long, I’d say, but the Princess of Friendship (in training) is back with her usual choice of antics: books, scientific approach, and getting obsessed with something she doesn’t understand. Lesson Zero much? Fortunately not. She didn’t act as crazy as she could have given the circumstances, she didn’t suffer any breakdown, and she didn’t even need Princess Celestia’s intervention to realize what was going on. Good for her! It was definitely interesting to see that once again, whenever she can’t tackle the issue she’s facing, she goes to Zecora (whose big, tasty stew turned out to be a fancy heater for her hut – brilliant!), though I feel that reducing Spike to meaningful stares thrown out throughout the episode was yet another missed opportunity to polish his character.

And there’s Discord. I’m sure at some point of the review we’ll be covering him in detail, so I’ll just mention that I enjoyed his characterization up to the last couple of minutes. For a moment it felt like he intentionally orchestrated the whole situation to teach Twilight a lesson she needed, not out of spite, but because he, being a good friend, wanted to help her grow. As questionable as his methods were, I know I’d repeat after the ponies that he had a point. Too bad it was reduced to him having fun at Twilight’s expense!

So, what did you guys think about the episode? Did you miss Twilight, and if so, did showing her eccentric behavior work out well for you?

The Sexy Assistant: I think it’s great that a Twilight episode has arrived, it’s interesting to look back at previous episodes and see her aggravation at not being selected by the map and I feel this is probably what lead to the three day book sorting marathon. Regardless, this wasn’t quite her map episode yet but it certainly presented a side to her character that we are seeing less and less.

On the point of Spike I feel that although this episode wasn’t giving him much development, there was certainly subtext presented through the animation. I believe that Spike and Twilight don’t talk much partially because he’s her assistant and also because he’s only a child. That makes judging their relationship so difficult and why their reactions encompass their relationship.

Gulheru: A Twilight episode usually equals a good episode and this one, well, it was decent. It showed enough of that wonderful “weirdness” of our favorite Princess of Friendship, it’s good she did not lose her eccentricity. She needs to remain that slightly awkward personality to be believable, in my honest opinion. And it was, indeed, refreshing to have her back as a main hero of an episode.

Spike… I usually don’t care for Spike. He is rarely showcased as more than a nuisance, or a comic relief. And, as much as I would love to see him develop, I do not think we can expect too much from the producers. They’ve had their chances. And nothing. At least I think so. Perhaps there are people who could point out that he has grown as a character, but you might want to show it to me, because I have my doubts.

And there comes Discord, one of my favorite characters who, in this episode was… hurt. Not in the physical or mental sense, I mean, mentally he is gone and that’s a good thing. But… there was an opportunity to show that he is really trying to, in his twisted way, help out with the Friendship business. By being mischievous, that’s for sure. But then that last scene from the episode did leave a sour taste in my mouth. Discord got bashed in the head.

Remember kids, endings are important. It’s not enough to grant us choice of three colours of the final explosion...

Wolfcape: I did miss Twilight! Not that I didn’t enjoy exploring the other’s, but the lack of Twilight significant enough to notice. Twilight here was near the breaking point, like Lesson Zero, just not so extreme. It was nice to see Zecora again, it has been awhile too. About her fancy stew, I do like how it’s just for show; all zebra shamans must keep appearances after all! If I must say, as appreciative as I am to see Twilight again, I did not enjoy this episode too much. It caught my interest, probably because of the several conspiracy theories I managed to cook up over the whole debacle, but I’m afraid it felt flawed, especially at the end of it all. (I shall explain later)

I have no hate against Spike, but what I do not like is that apart from Inspiration Manifestation (Season 4, Episode 23) I cannot recall any recent decent Spike episodes. If they try flesh out Spike, I hope they do it right. Given the track record, I think it might be a safe choice to keep this mostly on Twilight, since perhaps adding Spike development may leave a mild sour taste. However, this is rather biased and perhaps a little bitter about how some Spike-centric episodes turned out.

A bit more about Twilight’s eccentric behavior: I’m not too upset about how she went about it. She did jump to conclusions, but given Discord and his recent antics, I wouldn’t blame her for being suspicious about the situation. Lesson Zero is actually pretty far fetched for me, but since that scenario is actually possible, I do feel Twilight did it right this time. More calm, organised, and actually scientific. I’m happy for her.

"Check out this friendship beverage, girls! It burns your throat and affects your vision, but it makes you more talkative! And gosh, I can dance!"

The Sexy Assistant: One scene I noticed more so upon rewatching the episode was the scene where Twilight encouraged her friends to drink the potion. For a start it was humorously condescending and I enjoyed that, it was a real 180 for her to be doing the gloating after the tormenting hints from her friends about their unforgettable weekend.

What disappointed me however was how her friends reacted. I feel like the six of them scoffing at the thought of being under a spell was a tad bovine. In most circumstances it would be second nature for her friends to take Twilight’s word for it on magical matters, but they disagree, and I feel this was a forced reaction by the writer. Rainbow Dash being the bluntest in showing her indignation wasn’t out of the ordinary but would they really know if they were under a spell? It just seems peculiar that they’d feel so certain Discord hadn’t put a spell on them. I feel it would only be Fluttershy who would disagree as much and after all it isn’t as if their pride would be damaged if they drank the potion and it turned out they had been under a spell. Disregarding that, it isn’t like the potion tasted foul as Pinkie implied. The simple fact deduced no magic was involved on their own seems out of character. What does everyone else think?

Gulheru: This episode did suffer from a number of simplifications, especially when it comes to the main characters. The premise was intriguing, the execution lacking.

I can agree with your argumentation. Twilight is, undisputably, an authority on magic. Her expertise is really astonishing. The problem that I have with her approach in the episode is something that was already a topic of Bridle Gossip. She was too quick to judge and she did so in a very interesting way, not to say “classic”.

“I don’t know what this is. I can’t understand it. I refuse to admit it’s normal. Ergo… magic!”

Grab the pitchforks and torches, we have a witch in town! Good old times, no? Solving problems was so much easier when you did not have to be politically correct.

But, back on track, I think that when Twilight Sparkle (despite her mistrustful intention) does remark about foul magic being at play, you listen carefully. She might be wrong on occasion, but that does not mean she does not have a point...

Wolfcape: In this particular episode I do not really support how Twilight’s friends reacted to everything. This included, apparently. For the Elements of Harmony and harbingers of Friendship they’re pretty clueless on how they make Twilight feel.

This particular episode really had me going on how everything was orchestrated by Discord to make Twilight understand jealousy and show her she has a right to feel it. If it were the case, then I suppose the reactions would be justified since it’s probably a likely Discord would have informed them about this plan and Twilight thinking they’re under a spell would deserve a facehoof, given they had some inside knowledge.

However, this wasn’t the case. Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship and Element of Magic, had a theory in her area of expertise, and it was completely disregarded by her best friends. Now that would be reason to think they’re really under a spell…Which made Twilight go on, I suppose!

To conclude my roundabout method of getting to the point, I agree with you. They’re reactions are not realistic given they weren’t in a conspiracy (that never existed) to enforce jealousy upon Twilight. Hey, they were all under Discord’s spell once.

Prane: You didn’t know that you fell / Now that you’re under our spell

The ponies have known Twilight for over a year already, if annual holidays like Summer Sun Celebration or Nightmare Night are any indication. During that time, they witnessed her bear one of the Elements (of Magic, to be precise), defeating adversaries (with magic), solving problems (with magic), and creating new magic (with spoken words—bet you thought I’d say magic, eh?). Twilight was also the one postulating that something was off about Cadance, so if there’s a single pony that would know about some kind of magical deception influencing her friends, that would be Princess Twilight Sparkle. You’re right in saying that it’s weird nopony stopped and thought that maybe she was right, and I think the reason for that (apart from the writer’s intent) is that she wasn’t able to provide any definite proof to support her claims. She only had her gut feeling, but from her friends’, however best, point of view she was only acting strange. If she had pulled out a ‘do you trust me?’ card, I bet everypony would drink that potion. Of course she wouldn’t be able to play it again for some time, because her assumptions were plain wrong, but it was either the risk of being wrong and losing their trust (through action), or the risk of losing them to Discord’s machinations (through inaction).

Why didn’t she choose a more firm course? Probably because she once learned that losing a friend’s trust is the fastest way to lose a friend… forever.

"Look around. Look at what we have. Beauty is everywhere—you only have to look to see it."

Gulheru: Now then, Discord!

While I have, as the Advocate of Antagonists, honorably discharged him from the Friendship is Magic Rogues’ Gallery, I am quite fond of him (The Spirit of Chaos did get me into watching the show, actually. Came for Discord, stayed for Luna). He is still merry and cheerful in his vexatious ways, he is ridiculous when needed and scheming while he can… which usually spawns that high-pitched cue in the soundtrack that I am now keeping my ear out for. And John de Lancie never fails to deliver a perfect line and tone. This man is a wonder.

But!

I have to emphasize again that I have found the ending lacking the certain polish. Discord had a plan, an idea, a pretty nice one considering he “makes mistakes” still, as Fluttershy would put it. And yet, for me, his quasi-noble intentions were completely leveled to the ground by our heroines’ reactions and laughter. Discord was left “shrunk” for a while. It was equally proportional to my satisfaction with the episode.

Is it but me feeling that his character needed more justice? He tried to do some good, in his own way, then was ridiculed. Yes, yes, they all hugged it out at the end, but that’s not a “go to” solution to make an episode feel complete and well-written.

Or am I being too censorious?

Wolfcape: Talking about Discord, I have to first agree that he’s still Discord. He’s still that conscientious reformed and struggling demigod of chaos that does his thing, though perhaps for the “greater good” now. I do question though, Discord before his reformation was an antagonist; now he’s helping Princesses with friendship lessons? Hm. I have to wonder why...

On his actions, I personally would feel bad for being manipulated for another’s cause. However, everypony learnt their little friendship lesson and thus his mission was accomplished, despite whatever dispute there may be about his methods. I’m not very sure what was in it for him, but “revenge” by The Mane 6 (& Spike) probably wasn’t anywhere high on his expectations. If you think about it, he got a double-blow. First, what he worked on to make hilarious to Twilight’s friends in the timespan of three days completely evaporated in the span of the little explanation behind Discord’s actions. Next, they decided to pull the exact same thing on him.

Justice for Discord? Yes...I definitely don’t believe that ridiculing Discord is the right way to go about it. I would like to believe that why they did that was perhaps to show what he did isn’t the right way to go about teaching lessons in friendship.I don’t think he really deserved being put down, but I think that the theorized reasoning behind doing this is okay if I’m correct, though poorly executed. After all, this show can’t really put out there that “Manipulating ponies to make their friends feel jealous” is totally okay and without consequence.

However, this is from a different angle altogether. Perhaps I’m thinking too hard to justify this reaction, since I feel particularly bad about it. Discord is showing his reformation (again, after Tirek?) isn’t just something he said. He’s trying to do something to prove it too. He got the blunt end of the stick for that too.

If I were Discord, I’d be pretty upset. “I tried to do good! I’m teaching the budding Princess of Friendship lessons that would help her become a better pony overall, and what I get for it is this?!” Oh, I’d definitely be upset and wouldn’t be making the same “mistake” again...but here, let’s hug and move on with our lives. Just don’t count on me to be helping you out anymore…

Prane: The problem with Discord is that we don’t really know him and we can’t predict his behavior. Just because he’s the Spirit of Chaos, a pretty much unpredictable force in the universe, that doesn’t mean he can be written to serve the plot. Let’s take a look at his career, shall we? First he was that crazy bad guy who wanted to take over Equestria. Then he got reformed during Keep Calm and Flutter On (remember when he gave flowers to Celestia? One of us! One of us!). By then it was clear that he wouldn’t be our typical good guy from then on, but we’re willing to take what we had, because we wanted to believe he’ll be using his powers for good. In Princess Twilight Sparkle he lied about the plunderseeds BUT he claimed it was all so that Twilight could learn her lesson in leadership. Alright, that qualified as “doing good to the best of his abilities, with a touch of twisted logic,” but it worked out. Three’s A Crowd added to it, as he still wanted to understand the value of friendship by going for, shall we say, unconventional means.

His betrayal in Twilight’s Kingdom ruined him for me. One could argue that he fell for Tirek’s deception because he couldn’t tell his true friends from those who claim to be them (which is a valuable lesson), but instead of earning his “hero falls, hero rises” moment he just screwed up royally. So he went from bad, to supposedly reformed, to being an adept of friendship, to not feeling it right, to being bad again, to having fun at someone’s expense, to being bad… again. To quote Face from the last A-Team movie, “Who is this guy?!”

He’s a fellow living in his own pocket universe filled with randomness, as Make New Friends But Keep Discord showed us. Much like with his blue flu deception, he still doesn’t know a thing about friends and friendship, but he tries his best. That’s the Discord I think the series should be paying attention to. He’s someone who has only begun learning about friendship, so it’s only natural that he’ll be making mistakes (opening that puppet dimension counts as a mistake), but at no point should he be planning or even thinking of anything sinister. If the writers want him to be the obstacle for the heroes, they should have never redeemed him in the first place.

To do his character justice, he needs to be a character, but this time he felt like a plot device.

The Sexy Assistant: I certainly feel inadequate amongst these wall of text, but I think it’s acceptable that his characterisation is falling to pieces a bit. I’m not trying to defend the writers in fact I’ve always favoured the mischievous character he was but since he’s no longer a villain there’s no contingency, in a way he’s losing his identity. It brings me to the conclusion that this episode is filler. So much is unresolved with how Discord character is developing, I couldn’t tell you if he was going to become more reclusive or become a rudimentary plot device for future episodes like Zecora for example, as Prane mentioned.

The Bob Ross reference sold it for me though. It always pleases me to see pop culture references integrated in an unforced way and who better to do so with than Discord!

Zecora's place as seen in Bridle Gossip (1x09, left) and What About Discord (5x22, right). Compare these two at a higher resolution: [1] [2]

Wolfcape: I want to throw out a little word or two about Twilight’s friends and their reactions. The reason why I jumped to my own conclusions about how the episode went is because of their reaction. They all were really great at laughing along with Discord for a considerable period, repeatedly, and the jokes in my opinion weren’t actually that great. (A prankster like Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie probably shouldn’t be so taken by a few puns.) However, everypony but Twilight went ecstatic about Discord’s jokes and antics...until the final moments where Discord eventually got Twilight to admit she was jealous.

Okay, so the main point I’m trying to show is that the Mane 6 (sans Twilight) gave reactions that really seems unrealistic, even forced. This lead me to believe that they were setting Twilight up for this lesson in particular! With that, I actually would be quite okay to accept the ending at that point, until it is revealed this is all Discord trying to teach Twilight yet another friendship-princess lesson alone. Twilight’s friend’s reactions are completely in line with what I would expect from a scheme created by Discord to make Twilight Sparkle feel jealous. It’s just not that I felt disappointed about that not being the case, but the fact that Discord was acting alone and all of Twilight’s friends just fell neatly in place to enhance this jealous feeling even further.

Straight after this was revealed, all of Twilight’s friends immediately found what has been putting them into hysterics for the whole day was just not funny anymore. Sure I’d probably feel a little bitter about being manipulated by a trickster trying to do the greater good, but apparently that reaction to me is still a little false. After all, what’s better to shatter ice than a good joke? Which somehow fell to pieces instantaneously among everypony?

Given this mindset, what are your opinions? Are Twilight’s friends’ reactions totally plausible in your mind? Was this executed well for you, and would you react the same way?

Prane: Let me approach it from a different angle. The purpose of Twilight’s friends laughing to no end was obviously to confuse the heck out of Twilight. Only after soaking enough weirdness she can activate her crazy researcher mode, so obviously every encounter she had in the episode had to contribute towards it. The problem I see is that they were all the same situation: Twilight comes by, she sees Discord and her friend/friends laughing at something she doesn’t get, it gets awkward, her friends are supportive, and there’s an obligatory hint at Discord being up to no good. Every time we got, in essence, the exact same scene. That’s probably why the gang’s reactions may seem forced. They were simply too repetitive.

Would there be a way to fix it? Possibly. How about Twilight witnessing Discord and one of her friends together, but from the distance? Let’s say that Discord was helping Rainbow Dash with the clouds (a typical duty of the Ponyville Weather Patrol, I suppose). What’s that? It seems they’re laughing together! But the way Discord organizes the sky is, however correct, utterly conspicuous! See, Rainbow Dash is approving that! She would never let him do something for her, and since he’s not usually helpful, he must be plotting something. Get me my tinfoil tiara, Spike!

A silly example, I know, but I feel it illustrates the issue. I hate to go into clichés here, but there was too much “telling” in this whole conspiracy build-up, and not enough “showing”. A little added diversity wouldn’t hurt, and could justify Twilight’s friends positive attitude towards Discord in a different way than just remembering the weekend all over again.

The Sexy Assistant: I think the most difficult thing for me to comprehend was the relationship between discord and the other members of the mane six. Later on they seem so quick to turn on Twilight for picking their inside jokes apart. I’m sure it’s justifiable that they are making her feel bad because she tends to be good at everything. Still I do feel that there will be a future episode to confirm whether this is a legitimate alteration to the mane six’s relationship with Discord.

I think it’s quite possible that this isn’t the case as we saw in Make New Friends But Keep Discord. Discord appeared to be friends with them at the end of season 4 but there is still clear tension between Discord and the Mane six in season 5. I almost feel as if there’s not much to criticise with this episode.

Gulheru: For a long while I was expecting this whole “we’ve had a great time with Discord” scenario to be a ploy as well! The timing was slightly too good to believe that in three days everypony bonded so strongly with the Master of Chaos. Yes, I know he is reformed, but “reformed” does not mean “defanged”.

Unfortunately, very often does a writer end up in the “need” of supporting the plot by simplifying the characters involved. Only that, when personalities so recognizable as our heroines become “tools” for the sake of plot, something feels fishy.

And, as I have mentioned before, that ending really did not help. So what if we bonded, those jokes are done now. Sheesh, jesting is not like fashion, a good joke does not become obsolete after five minutes! Especially an inside one. My friends and I, we have a metric tonne of those little sayings and jokes, like, for example…

… nah, you would have to be there to understand.

Anyway, aside from Twilight, the rest of the gang felt like “supporting” characters for the main plot. Not a very grand choice in my honest opinion. One should never sacrifice a hero’s personality for a plan and concept. Your best stories are those in which your characters sometimes foil your own schemes.

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The fight is over, grab the loot!

We thank The Sexy Assistant and Wolfcape who gladly participated in our quest! They get a tonne of experience as a reward! Meanwhile, Prane shall grab himself that wand and, well, yours truly will loot the corpses of Spoilers for some jewelry. It's of no use to them now.

Tune in next week for another adventure! And, while we wait, let's get ourselves some mead from the nearest inn!

~Gulheru