The Hypothesis: chaos and harmony must always stay balanced. Since Celestia has gone to such efforts to expell it completely, problems will arise for ponydom in the near future. This is based on the fact that life would have no meaning if there wasn't the occasional bit of chaos to spice things up.
Another idea is that it was the old gods , whoever those may be, that released discord to even things out, not expecting him to have grown so powerful rather than the CMC getting stirred up.

1614733
Or perhaps despite what most thing Harmony is the balance of Order and Chaos, and remember Luna had as much to do with how Equestria works so it's not just Celestia.

1614733 Eeyup. That's the entire basis of my story universe, that the followers of harmony and the followers of chaos are in constant struggle with one another, but neither side can ever overcome. For it was chaos that created the universe in it's infant moments, yet it was harmony that gave it shape.

The one real villain in my story universe realizes this, and constantly condemns the alicorns and the other gods of harmony for trying to upset the balance.

Dude, this is brilliant.

Very succinct, too. Celly and Woona must think that "KAOS R BAD", because Discord was Discord.

Technically, if they were in a universe that had the Big Bang, wouldn't that mean that they came from chaos?

1614733

There was a series of fics called Tarnished Silver (I read it so you don't have to) that used that theory.

There must still be chaos in the world if Equestria had been relatively peaceful between Discord's stints of freedom. Corona from the Lunaverse would probably go to insane lengths to stamp it out, but Celestia wouldn't

So I think Equestria's in good shape.

Reminds me of a similiar line of thinking I've had.

Changelings and Windigoes - respectively feeding on Love and Hate. Sister races? Are they derivatives of ponies, a race that's already shown to diverge into at least four forms? If not, are they connected to ponies, or to one another, in some other fashion?

1614778
K, I'l buy it.

This leads me back to when I was thinking about doing some sort of Eternal Champion story. In that series, it follows the lives of a Champion who fights to keep balance between good and evil, chaos and harmony throughout the universe. He doesn't always fight for the same time, but whatever higher power there is sets him into a new life fighting for either the side of harmony or the side of chaos, whichever side he is protecting is chosen because of the need for balance in the universe. If Harmony is too powerful, he must fight for Chaos and vice versa. Over the years the whole Eternal Champion idea has been used thousands of times, with a hero who is reborn every hundred years or so.

Overall I discarded the idea of writing something like that due to how long it would actually take to make a story of it and the lack of free time to write it. This whole post is just saying that your theory has been used many times over the years.

1614811
And it makes sense that it's a common theory. Also I feel as though my secondary theory was a combination of Eternal Champion and Mad With Power.

1614733

That's not a theory, it's a hypothesis.

1614990 let me make a quick edit.

1614733

Mind explain why life would have no meaning if everyone lived in harmony?

1615038
Not Harmony, but if there was too much order.
Then nothing would change, all possibilities are the same. Like dice always rolling 4, and weather always being sunny (which may imply that the lack of chaos in Equis/Equestria requires ponies to help animals, weather, and what not along.)

1615038
I'm guessing he means that without some kind of chaos that life would not evolve... or he means that with out chaos that life would be boring (and ignoring all the bad things that would happen due to lack of order)

I made a story called 'Chaos Cooldown' where the entire idea was that Celestia and Luna exist to balance Discord. Discord would make the world go incredibly chaotic, and then Celestia and Luna would encase him in stone and help the ponies adapt to the new 'chaotic' world. Eventually the 'chaotic' world is accepted as the new normality and Discord will escape again to mess things up. It's only because Twilight figured out how to make things change back that they didn't have adapt this time around. In that story the entire world was like the Everfree, and Discord's 'chaos' was transforming the world into the one that the ponies live in now.

1614777 That's not how my Equestria works when it comes to the beginning of existence.

1614777

The exact opposite, actually. The hypothetical Big Bang singularity would have been a place of absolute order. No divisions between matter and energy, space or time, or the fundamental forces, the universe at its highest possible energy state (and thus the lowest possible level of entropy), and perfectly symmetrical in every way. The universe at Heat Death would be a universe of absolute chaos, with entropy at the highest possible state and meaningful order no longer existing.

It makes sense to me that Celestia and Discord are ponyfications of order and chaos respectively, but I'd reckon that ever since manifesting in a corporeal form Celestia has been able to develop a true personality allowing Her to discover that a little bit of chaos can do a world of good, so it's no longer order vs. chaos but is in fact stability with a little fun now and again vs. total unmitigated chaos.

1616874

Part of the problem I have with discussions like this is that the definitions seem slippery. Chaos in the colloquial sense of anarchy and randomness are different from the scientific concept of entropy, and both are different again from the notion of chaos in chaos theory, which is about unpredictable yet ordered complex systems.

Personally, I just view Discord as metaphorically embodying chaos in the colloquial sense. In the show, he's simply a very powerful and selfish magical creature who does what the heck he wants and has a good time doing it.

1618009
Add in what exactly Discord is (god, spirit, mortal?) things get a bit more slippery.

1618030

Didn't Celestia describe his as a spirit in his debut episode? That implies he's not bound by any physical body, and this combined with his magical powers suggests he probably isn't mortal. Any interpretation of him as a god seems to be pure fanon to me.

1618041 A "god" is a rather broad category of things. The pre-christian gods of Europe had far less power than displayed by Discord. In fact most gods have very little power ascribed to them and were capable of only a few very restricted abilities. They were essentially trickster spirits and prototypical superheroes, and often mortal as well, or at least capable of being slain by mortals, though they could otherwise live forever.

By that measure Discord fulfils all the criteria of godhood with ease. He is apparently invulnerable and very nearly omnipotent based on his displayed abilities. Whether he's immortal is up for debate, but as a "spirit" it seems fair to assume he is at least very long-lived. He's Loki and Pan turned up to 11.

1618041
I believe she did. But I think Discord is in a similar situation as the Sisters, we don't really know where they fit on the mortal-god scale.

I have Discord as an artificial construct created by the ancient inhabitants of the continent Equestria is on, he pretty much wiped out the ancients.

1618061

Granted, under such a loose definition, he applies for godhood, but at the cost of effectively reducing the notion of godhood to simply being really magically powerful, essentially making him a levelled up wizard. Moreover, the notion of "gods" comes with a lot of historic, mythic, and emotional baggage that doesn't really seem to fit what is essentially a goofy chimaera with superpowers. I think it's just simpler to go with "spirit" and drop the semantic baggage at the door.

1618068

I think it would be better to consider it as simply a matter of power levels. Celestia, Luna, Nightmare Moon, Queen Chrysalis, King Sombra, and anyone with an Alicorn Amulet fit on the scale, but it's never clear what the rankings are besides Friendship/Love/Inner Crystal Pony Light trumps all, and Celestia and Luna get trumped by all the villains.

1614733
I don't by it. Celestia isn't some epitome of harmony and order. Equestria seems to be a fairly utopian society. And while that implies a level of harmony and order, it also implies a level of caos.

Ponies seem to be free to live life the way they want to, and Equestrian society as a whole may be pretty lax.

Consider RD. She is responsible for maintaining weather in Ponyville. While she seems to be competent at her job, she probably is a bit more lax in her duties than most would like. In the opening scene of the episode where they introduce Zecora, Twi comments on how nice the weather is that morning, and Spike remarks that RD must have gotten up early and cleaned up the sky for a change.

Another important aspect is that Equestria is a capitalist society. They have currency and some people have more of it than others. Filthy Rich seems to be a wealthy business man who earned is fortune with good business practices, like selling zap apple jam. AJ seems to be largely motivated by economical concerns, being the whole reason why she wanted to attend the grand galloping galla. And what is capitalism other than controlled caos?

And lets not forget the fact that Discord, spirit of disharmony and caos is now on the same side as Celestia. How is that possible if they truly are opposite forces? The whole point of that episode is that, despite all of their differences, the ponies were able to find common ground with Discord, which allowed them to establish a bond of friendship.

The clear implication is that in the end, while Celestia favours order and Discord favours caos, none of them are the physical representation of either. Celestia has a bit of caos in her, Discord has a bit of harmony in him.

I never thought this would become such a debated hypothesis.

1616874

Well, education has failed me once again. Time to pack up and become a creationist.

Joking aside, if that were true of the MLP-verse, and assuming Celestia, Luna, and Discord are unkillable in every sense of the word, wouldn't Discord get more powerful over the years, while Celestia and Luna become weaker?

Someone write a fic about that.

1621375

*shrugs* Who knows if the Second Law of Thermodynamics applies to Equestria?

1621541

Considering the amount of cartoon physics and the "mehgickz" that would make really anyone claw at their head, it's probably not enforced very well.

Back on track, it's quite possible that Discord is the [insert thing describing title] of Chaos/Disharmony in the sense that it's not entropy or mobs rioting in the streets, but surreal/dada/post-modernism/American Political System style chaos.

People/Ponies don't know what exactly it/Discord is, and they scratch their heads trying to figure it/Discord out while the artists/John de Lancie laughs at them behind their back while stealing their money.

1622324

See, I just think of Discord as being exactly what his name is. Discord. Not chaos, not entropy, just discord. As Cheerilee says, "a lack of harmony between ponies". He's a little god that concerns himself with disrupting the lives of ponies and making them not love each other and be happy, not some grand overarching embodiment of chaos that governs a universal force.

1622351

Hmmm. Still, he's pretty powerful for a little god. It took Celestia and Luna with the Elements of Harmony to seal him up. Maybe he's between "trickster spirit" and "AH AM TEH LAWD O KAOS! BLOOD FOR ME, SKULLS FO MA SKULL THROHN, CORN FO MA CORN FLECKS!"

1622436

He's a "little god" in the sense of his domain, not his power. After all, nothing suggests that Discord ever expanded his influence beyond Equestria to bother griffons, or dragons, or zebras, or Saddle Arabians, or Changelings. If Discord had really been ruling over all those races (with his power, it should have been easy), then Celestia ought to get a lot more respect for sealing him away.

1622324
The word you're looking for is epitome.