So, I've made a few posts here pointing out all the issues and moral problems with Discord's plan in Season 9. I've about run out of stuff to talk about on him, but I've got one more thing I want to address, so why not just get it out of the way? So, here's the thing about Discord's plan...

Why did he need the villains at all?

Discord can warp reality. He is by far the most naturally powerful character in the entire show. In "Dungeons and Discords" he was able to basically create an entire pocket dimension running off of D&D logic, and was able to create the Squizard and his army. They could talk and act just like real creatures and the Squizard even used magic. They might have looked like cardboard cutouts, but that was just to fit with the aesthetic. In "Big Mac Question" his magic was able to bring those apples to life and then later on fuse them all into some giant apple monstrosity too. He is entirely capable of snapping up some completely fake villains using his own power, ones who would be entirely under his control. Plus, since they would use his magic, he could certainly make them appear to be genuinely powerful, dangerous threats without actually being dangerous if he didn't want them to be.

There's no reason for him to involve actual villains in the plan at all. Maybe he did it so his friends could deal with all the actually dangerous threats? But that doesn't work, because Chrysalis was the only one who was a threat at the moment, Tirek and Cozy were already locked up with no signs of having any plan to escape and Sombra was pushing up daisies. To make it more convincing? I think he could do that just fine with fake villains, I mean he was able to play a convincing Grogar for most of the season after all, and the Squizard was only not convincingly real because Discord wasn't trying to make him that real.

Involving the actual villains is literally just pointless cruelty on his part. I've had people try to argue that it wasn't, that he wasn't thinking about being cruel to these villains, just trying to help Twilight. But that doesn't make any sense, because if he just wants to help Twilight why include the real villains? They aren't necessary at all. He kidnaps them, threatens them, let's one of them get killed, manipulates them and encourages their evil and all for no reason because his plan would work perfectly fine without them.

I know some people will answer the "What was the point of using real villains" with the "Maybe he was trying to reform them!" thing, but no that doesn't work. I see where those people are coming from, it's a better motivation for him, and one that does give him a real reason to include the actual bad guys. But that's not his canonical motivation, he never talks about doing that and the only reason he ever gives is the "I wanted to boost Twilight's confidence" bull. The only argument anyone has for it is "He was trying to teach them teamwork!" but that doesn't work when everything else about his treatment of them indicates apathy and cruelty, not some flawed attempt at compassion. The whole teamwork thing seems to have been more about just distracting them and trying to keep them from killing each other before his plan was complete.

Also, of course, this applies to Grogar's Bell too. There's no reason for him to send them after a real magical weapon when he could just snap up a fake one. He's a colossal idiot.

Of course, the real reason for all of this is likely just "The writer's didn't think about it". They put even less thought into Discord's plan than the Lord of Chaos himself did, all for a cheap twist that has no real reason to exist. If they wanted the trio to be the final villains they could have just written them all coming together on their own without any fake "Grogar" or whatever. It would have made the villains feel more genuinely threatening and not gotten people's expectations up for nothing.

So, there's my final thread on Discord. Probably. Unless he shows up again in G5 yet again and does something else unbelievably stupid or horrible. I'm hoping he doesn't.

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So, there's my final thread on Discord. Probably. Unless he shows up again in G5 and does something unbelievably stupid or horrible. I'm hoping he doesn't.

I hate to burst your bubble, but he did. He appears in the G5 comics and does something both stupid and horrible.

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No, I'm aware of that. I was even the first person to post about him appearing in the G5 comics here. When I said "Again" I meant if he appears in G5 again and does something else awful.

I'll edit the post to make it a little more clear.

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Ah. Well, I sincerely hope that Discord doesn't appear again. As a character he never really worked IMO; the writers should have used him as little as possible as his status as a reality warper can easily break plots.

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Honestly, the only reason I'd want to see Discord return again would be if they were to properly address his horrible actions in Season 9. But they won't, and I can't blame them because that's a can of worms the G5 writers probably don't want to touch with a 50-foot pole.

I always wanted to know what his endgame was if he succeeded and managed to get Grogar's bell. Something tells me he can cause a lot of chaos if got it knowing his nature. Then again, I never did believe that Discord really changed and only acts good when he needs to. In a way, I always felt that he had a get out of jail free card in that he can act however he wants to whenever he wants to with little to no consequences. If I was Celestia, I would have him turned back into a statue for placing Equestria into harm's way when that could have been avoided had he not done that in the first place.

7833793 I have to agree on a lot of these points.

And putting all that aside, why did he feel the need to enact his plan anyway? Hasn't he made exactly this sort of mistake before: Thinking that Twilight needs to learn a lesson and that the only way to do that is by completely disrupting her life on a whim, without asking her, just assuming that she needs to learn? And hasn't it backfired on him, such as when he tried to teach her a lesson about not taking his friendship for granted because of her status, or when he tried to teach her about jealousy?

Even assuming Twilight did need to learn and be tested this time, he could see for himself that Twilight was gaining the confidence to be a leader and a ruler all on her own, he didn't have to do anything. So why continue to go through with the plan when it wasn't needed? Just to boost her confidence by making her fight against villains she'd already defeated (or others had defeated)? Wouldn't it have crossed his mind that revealing such a thing to Twilight after the fact might actually undermine her confidence (which is what he ended up doing because he went through with his plan)? And for that matter, what about everyone else he needlessly endangered for the sake of his plan? Were they all just disposable pawns like the villains, whose individual wants and needs didn't matter as long as his end goal was achieved?

All this twist did was destroy Discord's character, making it look as if he had learned nothing about friendship in all the time he'd been "reformed" if this was his idea of helping. It's a twist that didn't need to exisit. If the trio of old villains were supposed to be the endgame, why go through all these unnecessary extra steps of using someone else to unite them and force them to work together? Just because the villains wouldn't work together on their own? If that was the case, they should've reconsidered using those villains again if they couldn't think of a compelling and convincing way to bring them together.

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Wouldn't it have crossed his mind that revealing such a thing to Twilight after the fact might actually undermine her confidence (which is what he ended up doing because he went through with his plan)? And for that matter, what about everyone else he needlessly endangered for the sake of his plan? Were they all just disposable pawns like the villains, whose individual wants and needs didn't matter as long as his end goal was achieved?

On the point about undermining Twilight's confidence, I've seen some people theorize that he would just not have revealed himself at all. But that doesn't really seem like Discord's schtick, after it's all said and done I'd kind of expect him to reveal himself so he can get pat on the back for his "Genius" idea. Plus, even if he didn't reveal himself...well then what? He just let's the Trio take the fall for crimes he forced them to commit? What if they got even harsher punishments than Tartarus, would he have just stood by and let that happen, just like he did when Sombra got killed?

Plus, like you point out, there's everyone else he endangered. It's why the excuse of "Good intentions" is so meaningless to me, because even if it's true and he really did think this plan was going to help Twilight, it still basically means his thought process was along the lines of "I want to help Twilight and I don't care who else has to get hurt as long as I do that." He only views his friends as people, and everyone else is just a toy to him. His good intentions are so meager in comparison to the harm he was willing to cause for them.

It's a twist that didn't need to exisit. If the trio of old villains were supposed to be the endgame, why go through all these unnecessary extra steps of using someone else to unite them and force them to work together? Just because the villains wouldn't work together on their own? If that was the case, they should've reconsidered using those villains again if they couldn't think of a compelling and convincing way to bring them together.

The most annoying thing is that I actually think it's perfectly possible to justify the trio working together on their own. Cozy was already all about the "Power of Friendship" and I could see her being perfectly fine with a villain team-up, we already know Tirek was at least willing to temporarily ally with people for the sake of his goals since he did so with Discord, and Queen Chrysalis's characterization in Season 9 of going crazy from loneliness gives her a fine excuse to agree to teaming up. Sure, I'd imagine there'd be some conflict and they wouldn't get along perfectly at first, but that's why you have them develop and learn to work together like they did in canon, just without being forced into it, which would make them look much more competent and threatening.

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The reason for so much hatred for Discord in the first place is that there is literally nothing that can actually bring him to heel in any meaningful way and that because he is top tier even above the likes of the Royal Sisters who barely did any sort of fighting or organizing any meaningful defenses outside of mindlessly chucking Twilight Sparkle at the problem and see what works. What I feel is missing is a sense of higher or equal powers that could be comparable to that of Discord; a Pantheon of sorts that tells us while he is indeed as powerful as we see of him, he is nothing more than an impulsive annoyance to other powers that have the ability to keep Discord in-check whenever they feel like it. And that by simply saying the name of one of these Deities around Discord would make him wholly nervous should the threat be carried through.

Or a character similar to The Bloody Baron who is the House Ghost of Slytherin from Harry Potter: who is seen as an existential danger to Peeves the Poltergeist that Harry claimed to be him when he was passing through the Halls at night and accidentally bumping into Peeves. Or like Fitoria the Filolial Queen from The Rising of The Shield Hero: who cares deeply about protecting the world from danger but at the same time cares little for the petty and largely trivial grievances of Mortal races that only seek out power for strictly self-serving reasons, and that despite her being firmly on the side of good, she is fully willing and capable of instantly killing Naofumi along with the other three Heroes in order for a new set to be summoned in to replace the current ones; should the four of them prove to be too incompetent and unwilling to even cooperate with one-another for the task of defeating The Waves ahead.

Wouldn't it have crossed his mind

To put it as succinctly as possible: no.

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I say mostly to remove every possible threat to Equestria. I mean Tirek, Chrysalis and Cozy Glow separately conquered Equestria. Also Discord must of heard Celestia and Luna's plan to retired and knew Twilight wouldn't handle the throne, so he decided to boost her confidence by using real villains instead of fakes. If DIscord did you fake villains, Twilight and the others magic of friendship might backlash on Discord. If you don't understand what I'm saying, take Samurai Jack as an example; when Jack defeated those Ultra-Bots, he saw a piece of Aku was escaping but Jack destroyed it as Aku felt the pain. So instead of using Fake Villains that could lead Twilight to Discord as the mastermind, he used Sombra, Chrysalis, TIrek and Cozy Glow so when Twilight and her friends defeat them, it won't lead to Discord. In my view, Discord used them so he never get caught if his plan didn't fail.

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I say mostly to remove every possible threat to Equestria. I mean Tirek, Chrysalis and Cozy Glow separately conquered Equestria

Tirek and Cozy Glow were already locked up in Tartarus, they already weren't threats anymore. Tirek had only escaped once after a thousand years, which isn't that different than what Discord did, and Cozy Glow is a little filly who could be held in a broom closet. Chrysalis was the only one who at the time still posed some level of threat. Plus, if he was trying to eliminate them as threats...then what? He decided Tartarus wasn't good enough, so he'd kidnap them and force them into an evil plan so he could try and trick his friends into killing them off or stoning them like they did in the finale? Cause, that's insanely evil.

Also, Sombra was dead. Who was he a threat to? Ghosts?

If DIscord did you fake villains, Twilight and the others magic of friendship might backlash on Discord. If you don't understand what I'm saying, take Samurai Jack as an example; when Jack defeated those Ultra-Bots, he saw a piece of Aku was escaping but Jack destroyed it as Aku felt the pain. So instead of using Fake Villains that could lead Twilight to Discord as the mastermind, he used Sombra, Chrysalis, TIrek and Cozy Glow so when Twilight and her friends defeat them, it won't lead to Discord.In my view, Discord used them so he never get caught if his plan didn't fail.

The problem with this though is that he was seemingly going to be part of the plan anyway, as Grogar. Him outright appearing and being part of the conflict as Grogar sounds even more risky than him just sending some fake creations of his at the Mane Six, that runs the risk of him being revealed or hit directly with some magical rainbows too.

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Except that Discord still planned on personally getting involved as Grogar. Also this careful assessment of risks doesn’t square with how negligent he was with the Trio, to the point of directing them to seize an actual weapon and not keeping an eye on them. Where was this excess of caution where it would have actually been useful?

As for the three of them having all previously tried to conquer Equestria: yes; and two of them were already being punished for that. He interrupted their sentence just so that he could egg them on into committing crimes again.

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If I had to guess, he really wanted to make use of the villain's special abilities to make the prank even more convincing. Very irresponsible, but Discord in general is just that. I guess another alternative would be that maybe creating a lifelike villain may put some sort of magical time limit on said villain, but I have nothing to prove that. My third guess is that he just wanted to be malicious, which I wouldn't put past him.

Honestly, the whole thing was just bad writing and Discord being Dickcord.

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I think he did this for himself. When the sisters are announcing they are retiring, he basically begs them to make him their heir, & gets all grumpy when Twilight Sparkle is the 1 instead. He hates it when he is not the center of attention & this was his attempt at changing that.

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If I had to guess, he really wanted to make use of the villain's special abilities to make the prank even more convincing. Very irresponsible, but Discord in general is just that.

Yeah, but if he made up some villains he could give them whatever special abilities he wants. He doesn't seem to have very many limits.

Though, guess we should be glad he didn't think of that. Not sure how well Twilight's heart would have handled it if Grogar showed up at the castle with the terrifying "Quesadilla Queen" and the dreaded "Ladybug of a thousand eyes".

Honestly, the whole thing was just bad writing and Discord being Dickcord.

The correct answer.

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Yeah, Season 9 was a bit of a mess, put simply. And I applaud the G5 team for focusing so far on the new world (though I'm more than willing to bet stuff between G4 and G5 will get brought up eventually).

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And this would also explain his actions in the G5 comic. What if the entire plan was just a massive attention-seeking ploy?

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Discord was never going to replace Celestia as an heir, and she pretty much wanted Twilight from the start.

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It wouldn't squander Grogar's potential at least.

It comes down to two things.
First, Discord is an idiot that thinks he is smart.
Second, bad writing from people that were running on empty by that point.