Ten Days of Pony! 3: Discord · 10:01pm Dec 22nd, 2017
"I'd hate to rain on your parade!"
Top three, baby!
Winding down the list is another crowd favorite. You know him, you love him, life is a lot more miserable when he's around, the Spirit of Disharmony, Discord!
The reality warping draconequus has so many things going for him, starting with one of the most interesting design for a cartoon villain. A hodgepodge of a selection of creatures, it truly represents his chaotic nature.
"You're all just puppets... tangled in strings."
Sometime after the windigos, Discord appeared and ruled over Equestria, making life a chaotic wonderland for himself until the princesses came along and zapped him with the elements. Thanks to the Crusaders, he's finally released from his stone prison.
Will probably make Celestia rethink having one of the most dangerous villains in the garden is a good idea.
Breaking free, Discord gets straight to business: making stuff weird.
Don't ever hire him as an interior decorator.
His plan is simple, but effective. Take the elements of harmony, stash them somewhere, and make the mane 6 find them in a twisted game of hide and seek.
Discord picks them off one by one, stripping them away of the virtues that connected the to their elements via trickery, illusions, and outright hypnotism.
"You may have those bronies fooled, but you can't trick me, cute one!"
Just remember that they're going to become best friends a season later! It's hilarious in hindsight.
Discord didn't even have to touch Twilight. He broke her spirit in the worst way possible: getting her to stop believing in the magic of friendship.
While several villains have come close to killing our heroes, Discord broke them. He hit them where it hurt the most and disabled the only thing that could put him down.
That's power I can respect and admire.
"No hard feelings, right? How about some candy?"
Unlike Chrysalis, when Discord gloats, it's earned and deserved. Even then, it's not 'Mwhahaha! Look at how evil I am and how badly you've lost!' It's 'Lol, Twilight, look at what I did!'
Which brings me to my next point. Discord is certainly chaotic evil, but he leans a lot more toward the chaotic side. Above all, what Discord wants is to have fun, whatever he deems that is. He's a mischievous, selfish dick, but he's never outright malevolent. If his fun involves turning your house into a pineapple, then it's an 'oh well, sucks to be you' situation.
He's only evil to the mane 6 who have the only means of putting him away and ending his fun. Yeah, he makes a twisted game out of it, and we can argue how much that's gonna haunt their psyche, but you can chalk that up to revenge for being stoned for millennia.
Definitely a sinister throne though.
He's a class clown and a bully who was given way too much power. Equestria is his playground and the ponies his toys. He's here to have a laugh, and if you're not laughing with him, well, he'll keep trying until someone does.
He's chaos incarnate. He doesn't have to be evil, he just has to oppose order. And while he may be a 'good guy' now, you still don't want to cross him.
Praise be to the lord of chaos!
"Yes, yes, feel free to build statues in my glorious image."
"This isn't what I had in mind."
There's that hubris again...
I'd have to say he was pretty evil to Big Mac when he regressed his mind to that of a dog. Or when he helped Tirek steal the magic/chunk of everyone's souls.
Well this is a surprise, I gotta say there is no way I could ever rank Tirek above Discord. Sure Tirek is one of the best villains on the show but that has more to do with what he does rather than who he is. I grew up with Disney villains so for me one of the most important aspects of any villain is how entertaining they are and no villain is as entertaining as Discord. It's why I like villains like The Storm King more than Tempest, I like Tempest alot but if The Storm King had more screen time I would have easily ranked him above her.
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To be fair about the Tirek incident, the Mane 5(I'm excluding Fluttershy) haven't exactly been giving him the benefit of the doubt and given him a reason to stay loyal to them.
All good qualities and Discord does them all well and fun. He's almost always a laugh when around and has shown himself capable of great development over the series. his relationships moving even beyond Fluttershy.
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They were the victims of his depredations before. Don't blame the victims for not insta-forgiving him. And it doesn't excuse him doing it to the rest of Equestria.
Discord is a favorite of mine when it comes to villains. Great voice, great premise and motivations, and great payoff.
Lot of people are assuming Tirek and Sombra are the top two, but I think you've got a curveball waiting for us next post. We shall see.
Discord may be the best villain for the reasons you listed. He doesn't really have a grand scheme -- he just does things. Plus, they picked the absolute best VA to play him. If Q ever came to Equestria, he most certainly would be Discord.
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What are you talking about? Discord IS Q! Just many years down the line.
Well, I have to say. I didn't expect Discord to be lower than the top 2. I'm eager to see what you say about the next two.
The funniest villain in the series.
Not sure about that - all of M6 became darker when they approached the library. It's likely that some magic trap was set there, which might have affected Twilight as well.
I'm a little disappointed by the lack of commenting about his character post-'reform', but I guess this is a villains list...
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Yeah I don't see Sombra getting a spot unless the Evil Alternate Empire War Timeline earns him more points than Chrysalis' Invasion AU
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I get the feeling that will happen when another villain is talked about, assuming he's on the list.