Characters / Friendship Is Magic: Discord

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Main Index The Main Cast: Twilight Sparkle, Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Spike, Starlight Glimmer, the Cutie Mark Crusaders Supporting Cast: The Princesses (Princess Celestia, Princess Luna), Mane Family Members, the School of Friendship, Ponyville, Other Locations, Animal Companions Antagonists: Major Villains (Queen Chrysalis, King Sombra, Lord Tirek, Cozy Glow), Dangerous Creatures, Jerks and Bullies, Redeemed Antagonists (Discord) World of Equestria: Races, Historical Figures, The 2017 Movie, Expanded Universe, Toyline Exclusive, Miscellaneous Minor Characters: One-Shots, Other Characters, Background Ponies (Common Background Ponies, Special Background Ponies, Other Background Ponies) Equestria Girls: Heroines (Sunset Shimmer), Villains, Supporting Cast

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"Priceless!"

"'Make sense'? Oh, what fun is there in making sense?"

Debut: "The Return of Harmony – Part 1"

Voiced by: John de Lancie^{Foreign VAs}Enrique Cervantes (Latin American Spanish); Shigeru Chiba (Japanese)

This dopey-looking, but intelligently sneaky and mischievous, draconequus is the spirit of chaos and disharmony. He once wreaked chaos on Equestria until Celestia and Luna discovered the Elements of Harmony and turned him into stone. After 1,000 years, he breaks free and sets out to tear the bonds of friendship, only to underestimate it and is re-imprisoned into stone. He is later freed and learns to change for the better by the Mane Cast (namely Fluttershy) after Princess Celestia finds a more constructive use for his powers, as well as the fact that Discord never had a friend before (which may have been the reason for his previously naughty behavior). Despite this, Discord is still more than willing to play tricks on others while trying to be a good friend.

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Tropes # to C

• Accidental Hero: Zig-zagged; in season 9 he pretends to be Grogar and gathers other villains to work together with the intent of having Twilight defeat them and boost her confidence. While trying to force them to work together, he sends Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy on a mission to retrieve the Bewitching Bell for him. While on the mission the three villains bond and slowly discover that Good Feels Good, meaning Discord almost reformed three major villains without even trying to. Ends up inverted when the villains not only refuse to become friends with each other, they plot to betray "Grogar" and eventually succeed, thus making Discord an "accidental villain" for giving the three of them everything they need to endanger Equestria for real.
• Achilles' Heel:
  • Normally only the Elements of Harmony are powerful enough to match or contain him long term. In addition, his pride can get the better of his judgment — Discord is always convinced he's in complete control of a situation. For the most part he is, but on the rare occasions when the situation proves him wrong, he's pretty easily toppled.
  • Even without the Elements (or Rainbow Power), it's still possible to affect him on a smaller scale. Twilight proves this with her Anti-Magic barrier near the end of "The Return of Harmony", Celestia proves this with her protective spell on the Elements in "Keep Calm and Flutter On", Cadance proves this with her health-preserving barrier in "Three's a Crowd" (though he might just have played along), the Tatzlwurm proves this with its seemingly magic-hampering infection in the same episode, Zecora proves this by brewing a potion that can break his presumed spell on Twilight's friends in "What About Discord?", and Starlight Glimmer proves this in "A Matter of Principals" by using a spell to physically banish him from the School of Friendship (though his spirit is still able to affect things there).
  • His magic may be on a power scale that distorts reality itself, but it's still magic. A fact which a powerful enough magic drainer could take advantage of, or that makes it vulnerable to an Anti-Magic field...
  • "Discordant Harmony" heavily implies he and his Pocket Dimension are linked Fisher King/Fisher Kingdom-style. And giving the place too much Order can cause him to be erased.
  • In Friendship Is Magic #57, Pinkie Pie stumbles into Discord's realm by accident, and over time, manages to gain control over it. This causes Discord to lose most of his powers. He is incapable of returning to his home on his own, and even remarks that it's like someone has "changed the locks".
• Actually Pretty Funny: While his gags are usually seen as annoying or hurtful by the other characters, he still gets the odd chuckle every now and then. In "What About Discord?", Twilight is left dumbfounded when the other ponies are in hysterics over his antics.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: In the comics, Discord tends to display his nobler side a lot more often. He's still every bit the chaotic prankster, but his Pet the Dog moments are more frequent, and he's more likely to at least attempt to do nice things for others, unprompted and without any hidden agendas. He doesn't always do the best job of it, mostly because he's bad at relating to other people and doesn't always get that what's amusing to him is annoying or downright terrifying to them... but his motivations do seem to be sincere.
• Aesop Amnesia:
  • In "Dungeons & Discord", he forgets the lesson he learned when he first became Fluttershy's friend — namely, that friendship requires compromise. He spends most of the episode trying to have fun at Spike and Big Macintosh's "guys' night" his way, and lashes out when they refuse to play along (although this is slightly justified by the fact that he considered himself above "sidekicks" like them).
  • In Season 9 he forgets his lesson from the Season 4 finale that Evil Is Not a Toy. Impersonating Grogar he gathers villains into a Legion of Doom to test Twilight Sparkle; including Tirek who was the evil who backstabbed him in said Season 4 finale, Queen Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow, the three biggest delivers and manipulators in the series. Discord then fails to keep tabs on them and takes their lies at face while handing them means and opportunity to become a genuine threat he's left powerless against once they backstab him.
• The Ageless: He states he's several eons old.
• All for Nothing: He certainly feels this way in "The Beginning of the End - Part 2", after all his attempts to get Twilight to realize she is ready to lead Equestria have been disrupted by Celestia deciding to delay transferring the reins of power to her for a little while longer.
• All-Powerful Bystander:
  • In Siege of the Crystal Empire, he admits to feeling too lazy to fight the Umbrum directly. So he just makes Fluttershy's animals gigantic enough to fight in his stead, then goes on his merry way.
  • In "The Summer Sun Setback", he declines to fix all the unexpected chaos at the last Summer Sun Celebration, suggesting that the "miracle" of friendship is more than enough (although he does end up helping a little later on).
• And I Must Scream: According to him, he was fully aware of being a statue during his imprisonment. This happens to him again after being beaten and resealed. Despite this, he awakens only mildly annoyed from the ordeal in both cases.
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: The mane cast are given a big party in Canterlot celebrating his defeat, complete with a stained glass window depicting it. Discord and the Princesses putting a forever stop to the villains is met with much rejoicing as well.
• Annoying Patient:
  • During most of "Three's a Crowd". When he actually does become sick at the end he seems to be a bit less demanding, but that could either be because we don't see him that long, because he was intentionally being annoying as possible when faking it, or because Fluttershy is taking care of him now and he likes her enough that he doesn't want to drive her round the bend with unreasonable requests.
  • Dowplayed in "The Beginning of the End - Part 2". While still pretending to be wounded by Sombra's attack, he requests a lot of things from Fluttershy.
• Anthropomorphic Personification: Discord is the spirit of chaos and disharmony, something he visually represents by being composed of bits and pieces from a lot of different creatures. It's actually implied that he doesn't just represent chaos, but that on some level he is made of chaos — if nothing else, if he stops being chaotic he will quite literally stop existing (although he can be restored by introducing even small amounts of chaos to his vicinity).
• Anti-Hero: Has become this following his Heel–Face Turn. Most notably in the season four premiere, where he knows exactly what's going on but doesn't tell our heroes anything or help them. Then again, he doesn't hurt them, he points them in the right direction, and teaches Twilight a lesson about princesses and friendship, but he does it in the most offensive way possible. In short, while he has since toned down his chaos, he is still mischievously naughty. After his debut, whenever he antagonizes somepony, he is no longer mean about it and / or now has some friendship-based motive. And even his relapse in "Twilight's Kingdom" ends in him seeing his error.
• Anti-Villain: After his debut, whenever he antagonizes somepony, he's no longer malicious about it and/or now has some friendship-based motive. And even his relapse in "Twilight's Kingdom" ends in him seeing his error.
• Apology Gift:
  • When Twilight saves him from Tirek even after he betrayed them, Discord gives her the pendant Tirek tricked him with, but as a real sign of friendship this time. Him giving Princess Celestia flowers later on could also be this (and/or Flowers of Romance for shippers).
  • In "Make New Friends but Keep Discord", he tries to give Fluttershy a flower after she implies he should apologize. However, she hits the flower out of his paw because she meant for his apology to be directed at Tree Hugger instead.
• Arch-Enemy: Of all the villains, it's clear the one Discord hates the most is Tirek. Which is understandable as Tirek tricked him into betraying his friends before betraying him. It is fitting that Discord was the one who sealed Tirek's ultimate fate of being turned into stone.
• Arc Villain: Of "The Return of Harmony" two-parter and, to a lesser extent, the "Princess Twilight Sparkle" two-parter. In "Twilight's Kingdom" he's Demoted to Dragon by Lord Tirek.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  • He enjoys causing chaos in Equestria, playing mind games with the Mane Cast, and bringing chocolate rain to Ponyville.
  • Brought up again in "Keep Calm and Flutter On" as the Mane Cast cite reasons to Celestia why they don't relish the idea of working with Discord, "Turning them into the opposite of their true nature", "Turning Ponyville into Chaos Central" and "Had Chocolate Rain with not a dollop of whipped cream to be found."
• Artifact Title: His name has become somewhat an artifact after his reformation, since he is no longer evil nor causing disharmony among ponies (not too much, anyways), but he is still called Discord.
• The Atoner: In "The Ending of the End". After his plan to trick the villains blows up in his face (earning him the anger of his friends), Discord becomes determined to make up for his mistake.
• Ax-Crazy: He's a dangerously chaotic figure who is as unpredictable as The Joker and has moments of being emotionally unstable even when he's a reformed character.
• Badass Finger Snap: Much like de Lancie's old role as Q, he frequently snaps his fingers to appear nonchalant while warping reality.
• Bad Future: In "The Cutie Re-Mark – Part 2", he is briefly shown ruling over a World Gone Mad version of Equestria as the Mane Six/Elements of Harmony were not there to seal him, having even turned Princesses Celestia and Luna into his personal clowns to torment for eternity as payback for his original defeat by them centuries prior.
• Batman Gambit:
  • In the My Little Pony: Best Gift Ever special, he sets up Rainbow Dash to bring a winterchilla (an animal that turns into the giant, savage winterzilla when night falls) to Ponyville, so Fluttershy can be the hero of the day by taming it.
  • In "The Beginning of the End - Part 2", he mentions his affection for Fluttershy to get Sombra to attack her, so he can pull a Taking the Bullet for his Wounded Gazelle Gambit.
  • His biggest one was when he attempted to use the remaining major villains as pawns by assuming the identity of the Ancient Evil Grogar in order to teach them to work together as a team and attack Twilight's coronation, assuming that she and her friends would be able to defeat them. Which would prepare Twilight for the throne and give the confidence needed to rule Equestria in the process. He gets them working together as a team, all right.
  • He pulls off a more successful one when he makes Tirek angry, deflecting the ensuing magic blast with a piece of Chrysalis's throne and freeing Starlight, allowing Spike and the Mane Five to escape.
• Beast and Beauty: The Beast to Fluttershy's Beauty — Fluttershy is a small, adorable pony, while the easiest way to describe Discord is "Dragon-Equine Chaos Spirit with a twisted sense of humor."
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: He uses each of the Mane Cast's specific Element of Harmony against them: he tells Applejack the truth about them splitting up, but not how it happens; he laughs, first with, then at Pinkie Pie; he "generously" gives Rarity a giant (fake) diamond; he tries being overly kind to Fluttershy (but she's too nice — he has to resort to Mind Control); he tests Rainbow Dash's loyalty between home and the world; and, finally, breaks Twilight through her friends. However, both of his defeats are the result of being beaten using one of his own tactics (Flaw Exploitation in the first, manipulation in his second).
• Because You Were Nice to Me: The reason Discord became Fluttershy's friend and values her friendship above all others; Fluttershy was the first being to ever call him a friend and treat him as such.
• Becoming the Mask:
  • Pretends to behave in front of Fluttershy to trick her, but after discovering she really does care about him, he ultimately cannot bring himself to do something that would destroy their friendship.
  • He eventually is completely genuine in acting as a Trickster Mentor for the sake of Twilight's growth.
• Berserk Button:
  • Winning against his mind games. In which case he will promptly cheat to win.
  • Things not going as he planned in general. Every time there's been a hiccup in his plans, he's responded by throwing what amounts to a tantrum. Even after his Heel–Face Turn, Discord STILL shows signs of this, as his plan to ruin Twilight and Cadance's day not going as planned resulted in his grumbling like an annoyed child.
  • Being an Attention Whore, he seems to get exceptionally riled up by being ignored or rejected. This is only elevated with his Heel–Face Turn, since he now understands friendship and has no intention of losing it.
  • Being laughed at also gets him riled up; In "Make New Friends but Keep Discord", the Grand Galloping Gala attendees laugh at him after Maud Pie pulls a No, You on his comedy act, angering him. And in "Dungeons & Discord", Big Macintosh laughing at him when his roleplay character "Captain Wuzz" accidentally turns his fingers into parsnips drives Discord to trap Big Mac in a bubble.
  • After his Heel–Face Turn, doing anything to harm Fluttershy. When he heard that the changlings kidnapped Fluttershy he went from goofy to Tranquil Fury in a heartbeat.
• Beware the Silly Ones:
  • Discord might have a silly personality and appearance, but he's an extremely skilled trickster with reality-warping powers and is a lot more than his personality and appearance would imply. By the end of his first episode, he has done more damage than any other character combined.
  • The Season 4 finale gives us a small glimpse of how he would handle a straight-up, (relatively) no-nonsense fight. He has Tirek chained up in less than five seconds and would have solved the entire conflict had Tirek not been deceptive enough to (temporarily) persuade him to assist him for freedom.
  • As the Season 6 finale shows, any chance of Fluttershy being potentially hurt infuriates him. He is bored when he hears of the changelings having captured most of the powerful ponies... then he learns that includes the Mane Six, particularly Fluttershy. He drops the silliness and quietly asks Starlight where they have taken her.
• Big "NO!": He does this after getting blasted with the Elements of Harmony.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Part of his silly appearance.
• Big "WHAT?!": He invokes this in "Dungeons & Discord" after finding out he was only invited to "Guys' Night" because Spike and Big Mac felt sorry for him.
• Big "YES!": He does this in "The Return of Harmony" after confirming that he's pushed Twilight past the Despair Event Horizon.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality:
  • What "makes sense" to him doesn't make sense, which does make sense. Confused yet?
  • He honestly doesn't get the whole friendship thing until Fluttershy makes the Last-Second Chance work.
  • He attempts to claim some moral high ground by saying that for all the terrible things he did, at least he never turned ponies to stone. This may sound hypocritical until you realize that for an embodiment of chaos, being denied the freedom to move and act, and being completely under someone else's control, would be the most terrible fate imaginable. Whatever he did to any pony, at least they were able to act on it.
  • In "Dungeons & Discord", He is confused as to why Spike and Big Mac don't think he's cool for ruining their night. Why wouldn't someone think he's cool for making things hectic a.k.a. causing chaos?
  • In "A Matter of Principals", Spike points out that Discord can care about others but still play tricks on them — usually in the name of "testing" them. Applejack lampshades this in "The Beginning of the End - Part 2", noting that he has a weird way of being supportive.
• Bond One-Liner: "Together forever. I can't think of anything they would want less."
• Breakout Character: Discord first appeared in the two-parter "Return of Harmony" as essentially a chimeric version of Q, and was so awesome that many fans couldn't help but fall in love with him. Although Taken for Granite at the end of his debut, he was revived in season 3 to successfully improve his behavior (of sorts) by Fluttershy and was promoted to recurring character in season 4.
• Break the Haughty: The "Twilight's Kingdom" 2-parter hits him with this. After betraying the Mane Six to Tirek and thinking he's found a new friend and gained the freedom to cause chaos, Tirek reveals that he was just using him and promptly drains his magic. He then twists the knife further in by telling him that the medallion he gave him was his brother's and it was worthless. The perpetually snarky and seemingly unflappable Discord is so thoroughly broken that he can't bring himself to even look at the gang, knowing full well that he royally screwed up.
• Break Them by Talking: Combines this and Hypnotic Eyes to brainwash the Mane Six in his debut episode. It is worth noting that he does not have to do this since his supernatural mind control works just as well without it; he just gets a kick out of it.
• Breath Weapon: In The Hub's Web Game Adventure Ponies!. Confirmed to be able to breathe fire in canon as of "Three's a Crowd".
• Brought Down to Badass: Zigzagged in "The Ending of the End", he proves to be a effective Guile Hero who tricks all three powered up villains to free Starlight and he also... can't really do much else to help in the fight but throw rocks.
• Brought Down to Normal:
  • Suffers from this temporarily after Tirek double-crosses him and steals his powers in "Twilight's Kingdom". As a defining stage in his Character Development, he surprisingly is far less sorrowful about this than the fact it proves their friendship wasn't real and his remorse that he has betrayed his true friends. With Tirek's defeat he regains his abilities.
  • Suffers from this again in the Season 6 finale, when entering Chrysalis' territory; she happens to have a big-time Power Nullifier in her hive.
  • For a different definition of "normal", he does this to himself in "Discordant Harmony", where, in an attempt to make his place more inviting to Fluttershy, he tames the chaos inside of his house to something more akin to Fluttershy's cottage, dresses himself up in more formal attire, and speaks and acts far more orderly. Unfortunately, this nearly causes him to fade away, and by the time he catches on that this is an issue he's no longer solid enough to just snap his fingers and do something chaotic to bring himself back, playing the original trope straighter.
  • Happens to him again in "The Ending of the End", Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow use Grogar's bell on him, draining his magic completely.
• The Bully: Removing the Mane Six's wings and horns looks like a bully taking someone's lunch money. In general, Discord tends to enjoy lording his incredibly powerful reality-warping abilities over mortal ponies, and humiliating other people for his own amusement. Even after his Heel–Face Turn, he's periodically slipped into disturbing bouts of sadism when he doesn't get his way: like trying to banish Tree Hugger to another dimension forever out of jealousy, trapping Spike and Big Mac inside a tabletop game so he can torment them for not letting him make their "guys' night" all about him, and endangering the students at Twilight Sparkle's school because he is jealous she left Starlight Glimmer in charge and not him. Even when he thinks he's doing a good thing, it can fall into this, such as trying to give the ponies' a confidence boost by strongarming Chrysalis, Tirek and Cozy Glow into a villain plan they are meant to fail.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Beneath his Cloudcuckoolander status, facetiousness and free-spirited personality, Discord is one of the most powerful creatures in Equestria and actually highly intelligent.
• Byronic Hero: Downplayed given the nature of the show. However, he's the closest thing MLP has to one after his reformation next to Tempest Shadow. He's moody, somewhat sophisticated, intelligent but also very self-centered, conceited, has a Blue-and-Orange Morality but ultimately he has good inside of him and does want to be a good friend.
• The Caligula: His reign over Equestria was a time of madness and suffering, and he causes incredible mayhem once he takes over again.
• The Cameo:
  • A version of Discord briefly appears in "The Cutie Re-Mark — Part 2", in a Alternate Timeline where he was able to take over Equestria and turn Celestia and Luna into his personal clowns.
  • In "A Royal Problem", he is seen in a dream, having a pillow fight with the Smooze.
  • He shows up looking through the window of Fluttershy's cottage during the opening, from Season 4 on.
  • He appears during the credits of the movie.
  • He makes a brief background appearance in "Between Dark and Dawn", during the song "Lotta Little Things".
• Cannot Keep a Secret: Proven in "The Big Mac Questions"; when Spike and Big Mac initially refuse to tell him about Big Mac's upcoming proposal to Sugar Belle, Spike invokes this. In attempting to argue, Discord inadvertantly proves Spike's point by blurting out several secrets, such as how Fluttershy is afraid of clowns, or how he once found Twilight sleep-trotting through Ponyville.
• Cannot Tell a Joke: While he's naturally funny when it comes to cracking jokes, he's a pretty bad stand-up comedian.
• Card-Carrying Jerkass: Even after behaving, he delights in messing with others (especially Twilight) for his own amusement.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Before his Heel–Face Turn, he was proud of his malevolence.
  Discord: Perhaps we haven't met. I'm Discord, spirit of chaos and disharmony. Helloooo?
• Category Traitor: "Frenemies" reveals that the villains see him as this; Tirek calls him a "turncoat" and gleefully reminisces about how he tricked Discord into helping him, while Chrysalis claims he was "really something" until friendship "ruined" him.
• The Champion: He clearly fancies himself as such for Fluttershy, as he becomes livid when Chrysalis captures her in the season 6 finale.
• Changing Clothes Is a Free Action: As shown in his second appearance, he can don outfits at will.
• Chaos Is Evil:
  • Zigzagged in canon. Played straight in that his status as "Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony" is initially used to portrayed him as a villain; a Mad God who turns the world in a Cloud Cuckoo Land and wreaks havoc on people For the Evulz. Subverted in that he ultimately is redeemed and becomes a friend to the Mane Six, whilst still being a Cloudcuckoolander Reality Warper who revels in chaos and nonsense.
  • Inverted in one comics story, where he becomes his polar opposite; the Order Spirit Accord. In this guise, he portrays the trope's Inversion, "Order Is Evil", by pointing out that individual personality and thoughts are a form of chaos and seeking to grant Equestria "true order" by brainwashing everyone into a single homogeneous Mind Hive. The only way to stop him is to reverse him back into Discord.
• Character Development:
  • By the end of "Keep Calm and Flutter on", he decides to now use his magic for good instead of evil... more or less. Which he does so by using chaos to teach lessons to the other characters, especially Twilight.
  • While Fluttershy taught him that he desired willing companionship, it is a betrayal of a presumed ally, plus Twilight's example that teaches him the character and loyalty of his companions is more important than them letting him do whatever he wants. This turns him from a being who saw friendship as a restrictive burden with benefits into one who's begun to see it has its own value.
  • In "Make New Friends but Keep Discord", he almost ruins the Grand Galloping Gala and puts everyone in danger out of petty jealousy for Fluttershy. But in "Best Gift Ever" special, except for the trouble with Winterzilla (which he knew that Fluttershy would be able to control), Discord surprisingly behaves in the Hearth Warming, contenting himself into eating pudding and sitting quietly besides his favorite mare. Judging by how fast the palace was clean of all that pudding, maybe he has helped with that, too.
  • Still in "The Best Gift Ever", he seems as horrified as everybody else when Pinkie Pie sinks in the pudding.
  • In "Discordant Harmony", he shows kindness towards ordinary ponies who aren't directly his friends or especially Fluttershy.
  • In "The Break Up Breakdown", he shows a very low opinion of love and romance, but starts to change his opinion by the end of the episode. In "The Big Mac Question", he is ecstatic to hear that Big Mac plans to propose to Sugar Belle).
  • In "The Summer Sun Setback," he goes up to the Mane Six and simply asks to be included in the event's preparations, rather than resort to his usual tricks or manipulations to get what he wants, proving that he took what Starlight told him in "A Matter of Principals" ("Next time you want something, just ask for it") to heart.
  • In "The Ending of the End Part 2" he doesn't just apologize but actually swears to make up for something, his concern isn't just for Fluttershy to be safe but for Equestria to be as well.
• Character Tics: He has several.
  • He has a tendency to stroke his beard when contemplating something.
  • He tends to rub his claws together whenever he's planning.
  • Whenever he's particularly annoyed, he face-palms, then runs that hand down his face, briefly stretching it.
• Chekhov's Gun: Much like Celestia's ability to raise the sun, Luna's ability to raise the moon, and Cadance's ability to make people fall in love, Discord can detect the flow of magic in the Universe. This means, whenever necessary, he can tell when something big and magical is happening, or when someone has lost their magical abilities. This comes in handy a few times, most notably in "Princess Twilight Sparkle" and "To Where and Back Again".
• The Chessmaster: He pulls several very successful plans during his "game" with the group.
• Chick Magnet: Believe it or not, Discord is this in the MLP comics — at least for goddesses and female entities.
  • In MLP Friendship Is Magic issue #24, the Egyptian goddess Bastet flirts openly with him and hisses at Fluttershy with evident jealousy.
  • In the Cosmos arc, although Discord refers to her as a "friend", it's obvious that they were lovers. They used to date, sing "Endless Love" in a karaoke and Cosmos called him "darling", although in a sarcastic way. The way Cosmos obsesses over having him back in spite of Discord's rejection is typical of an abusive lover trying to resume their relationship.
  • In the show, Princess Celestia is quite fond of him, accepting flowers from him and inviting him to the gala. He's implied to be in a relationship with Fluttershy in "The Last Problem".
• Classic Villain: Fits all of the criteria as a Wrath and Pride villain before his Heel–Face Turn.
• Cloudcuckoolander: He makes Pinkie Pie look like a dullard.^note Literally. He turns her into a complete dullard. Fitting, considering he is the spirit of chaos.
• Color-Coded Wizardry: As revealed in the season 4 finale, Discord's magic is apparently colored purple plaid.
• Colorful Contrails: In "What About Discord?", he leaves a plaid contrail behind himself when flying next to Rainbow Dash.
• Complexity Addiction: Being a Reality Warper, he could just teleport his problems away (or something). But given his Hedonistic personality, he just loves his Awesome, but Impractical gags too much. This comes back to bite him more than once: he didn't have to give the Mane 6 a chance to recover the Elements, he could've immediately warped Tirek back to Tartarus instead of merely handcuffing him (and giving the latter a chance to manipulate him), etc.
• Cool Shades: Has green-framed ones in "The Return of Harmony – Part 1" and red-framed ones in "The Return of Harmony – Part 2". Would count as Sinister Shades, but he doesn't do anything particularly sinister while wearing either pair. He's also seen with 3D glasses in "Princess Twilight Sparkle".
• The Corrupter: He emotionally breaks the Mane Six, then brainwashes them into jerks.
• Could Say It, But...: In the Season 4 premiere, after the girls tell Twilight to go back to Ponyville against her wishes out of concern for her safety, Discord convinces her to go back to help them in his own... special way.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: He gets angry when Fluttershy invites Tree Hugger to the Grand Galloping Gala instead of him. He does everything he can to drive Tree Hugger away, and even threatens to banish her to another dimension until Fluttershy calls him out on it.
• Creepy Circus Music: His Leitmotif incorporates a particularly sinister version of this.
• Creepy Good: He is an red-eyed serpentine mess of mismatched animal parts who can come off as creepy and when he gets very angry is downright terrifying. Interestingly, unlike Changelings he didn't really become less creepy even if he does have his adorable moments... probably to emphasis his 'reformed but not that reformed' nature.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Discord may be a goofy jokester, but he's also a nigh-omnipotent Reality Warper who can erase you from existence in a instant. Just ask Tirek and the changelings.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: He gets the better of the Mane Six numerous times before they finally return the favor.
• Cute Little Fangs: He has one next to his creepier body parts; all part of the "disharmony" effect.
• Cutting the Knot: After trying and failing to break Fluttershy, he opts to straight-up hypnotize her.

Tropes D to F

• Dark Is Not Evil: As he points out, chaos is not necessarily evil, and a necessary counterpoint to tyranny. Not good either, but he has capacity for both.
• The Dark Times: His rule before the time of the show is referred to as a time of endless suffering by Celestia.
• Deadpan Snarker: The single biggest one in the entire show. Given he doesn't appear in a whole lot of episodes, that's saying a lot.
• Deal with the Devil: Sells out Equestria to Tirek in exchange for complete freedom to do what he wants. However, not only does his guilt keep bothering him, Tirek stabs him in the back.
• Death by Irony: He uses the group's personality flaws and his knowledge that the Elements of Harmony won't work if their friendship is destroyed to break them. In the end, it's his own personality flaw — being too prideful to believe they're a genuine threat to him — combined with that knowledge that renders him incapable of realizing that the Elements of Harmony are working for real until it's far too late. His Fatal Flaw was also what defeated him the first time, as he was too prideful to realize until it was too late that Celestia and Luna could actually defeat him now.
• Defeat Means Friendship:
  • Defied; he sarcastically tells the Mane Six to "friend" him before they turn him back to stone.
  • A variation in "Keep Calm and Flutter On". There he's defeated by friendship.
• Despair Event Horizon: After Tirek turned on Discord, the poor thing is utterly devastated by the fact that he backstabbed all of Equestria and possibly destroyed his friendships for absolutely nothing. When Tirek attempts a Hostage for MacGuffin gambit, Discord is the only one not telling Twilight to not to fork over the Alicorn powers because he's crossed this line.
• Desperately Craves Affection: In spite of his disconsideration towards others, Discord is that. After the Tirek incident, he clings to Fluttershy because he realized how much she means for him and also because she forgave his treason (although Twilight did that, too, she keeps treating him like crap). To not lose her, he goes to extremes like threatening to send Treehugger to another dimension and to try to become "normal" — twice — even if that almost kills him. Realizing that can't be healthy for any of them, Fluttershy encourages him to make friends with Spike and Big Mac — and surprisingly, the three end up getting along, in spite of their very troubled beginning.
• Deus Exit Machina: He's a Reality Warper who could easily fix most of the series' conflicts with his powers. But by the time he's redeemed enough to be willing or trusted to do so, he's rarely around to ask for help, except when he's up against something he can't magic away — or he is causing the conflict.
• Didn't See That Coming:
  • In his first appearance he plans for everything except two things: first, that Celestia will send Twilight Sparkle her letters back, breaking her out of her Heroic BSoD and pulling her back from the Despair Event Horizon; second, that Twilight will somehow free and reunite her friends and wield the Elements of Harmony against him. The first he couldn't see coming at all; the second he doesn't even consider a possibility.
  • It's shown in "Princess Twilight Sparkle" that he didn't see the existence of the Elements of Harmony coming either.
  • In "Keep Calm and Flutter On", his plan is to take advantage of Fluttershy's hospitality and kindness to drive a wedge between her and her friends, thus rendering the Elements of Harmony ineffective against him. However, while he fully expected Fluttershy to put up with his antics, he never expected her to genuinely like him and consider him a friend.
  • He also doesn't recognize the Tatzlwurm in "Three's a Crowd".
  • He did not expect Lord Tirek's betrayal in "Twilight's Kingdom – Part 2".
  • In "To Where and Back Again — Part 2", he is aware of the changelings' tricks. When one is disguised as Fluttershy while he is separated from the rest of the group, he's smart enough not to fall for it, but he becomes shocked when an entire group of Fluttershys appear in front of him and the first one points out it might be possible the real Fluttershy could be among them somewhere. After the incident with Tirek, Discord can't bear potentially abandoning Fluttershy and is captured as a result.
  • In "A Matter of Principals", he wasn't expecting Starlight to actually apologize to him after all the trouble he caused her.
  • Practically the entire Villains arc in Season 9 was a huge one for him. He pretends to be Grogar, forms a Legion of Doom with them, and attempts to teach teamwork and helping each other in order to set them up as a major threat for Twilight to defeat, believing it will boost her confidence. It fails miserably since King Sombra first strikes out on his own and ends up getting the Elements and Tree of Harmony destroyed. He saw himself as a safety net in-case things got too dangerous, so he never saw any true danger in his plan. However, Chrysalis, Tirek and Cozy manage to get Grogar's Bell and the means to use its power without him finding out and end up powering themselves up and discover his ruse.
• Didn't Think This Through: This happens to Discord very often. He very rarely, if ever, thinks ahead of his immediate actions and does not consider the consequences they could have on him or others around him, usually due to his arrogance. Many of his plans tend to blow up in his face because he didn't consider the consequences if something went wrong or if things didn't work out the way he expected.
  • In "Twilight's Kingdom", he ends up betraying Equestria and siding with Tirek, believing that with Tirek as a friend he can be his usual chaotic self and continue to have friendship in his life. He realizes too late that Tirek was simply using him to drain magic from ponies quicker and betrays him when he no longer needs him.
  • In "The Big Mac Question", it didn't occur to him to actually tell his living apples who they were supposed to deliver their messages to, resulting in them running loose through town and shouting their messages at everyone they met.
  • The biggest example is in "The Ending of the End"; it is revealed that he was actually pretending to be Grogar all season, and had gathered the previous villains together to form a Legion of Doom and provide Twilight with one final challenge to give her the confidence boost in being ruler. Although he was setting the villains up to fail and saw himself as a safety net. He never expected for them to eventually conspire against him behind his back or lie that they failed to retrieve the powerful artifact he sent them to get and keep it for themselves. By the time he discovers their betrayal they have already drained him of his magic and things have spiraled out of his control, putting Equestria in the most danger it has ever been.
• Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: He and Fluttershy often have tea parties together.
• Dimensional Cutter: In "Make New Friends but Keep Discord", after growing increasingly irritated with Tree Hugger over the course of the episode, he raises his eagle claw, audibly sharpens it, and uses it to slice open a portal to another dimension to throw Tree Hugger into.
• Dimension Lord: "Discordant Harmony" implies that his powers are linked to his dimension, as he accidentally risks erasing himself by altering it too much. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (IDW) Issue 57 confirms that yes, Chaosville is the source of his powers — when Pinkie accidentally invokes Hijacking Cthulhu in there during one of his absences. By taking over as its ruler, she cut off his connection to it and deprived him of his powers, forcing him to rely on Twilight and co. in order to even return to it.
• Disintegrator Ray: In Best Gift Ever, he fires a white beam of light from his finger that totally eradicates Flim and Flam's "Holly the Hearth's Warmer" dolls, leaving only scorch marks behind.
• Divide and Conquer:
  • He utilizes this tactic in his first appearance, trapping the Mane Six in a hedge maze and and corrupting them one by one.
  • In the final arc of the Season 10 comics, he uses the Knights of Order's hatred for him to trick them into chasing duplicates of himself, splitting them up so his friends can defeat them.
• Ditzy Genius: Discord can be a calculating mastermind but he can also be an impulsive Manchild.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: Oftentimes, whenever Discord is involved in the conflict, his powers are stripped away, to avoid the plothole of "Why doesn't he just snap his fingers and instantly fix everything?"
• Dramatically Missing the Point: In Best Gift Ever, he seems to genuinely believe Hearth's Warming Eve is an "exclusive, pony-only holiday". This is despite the fact that Spike regularly takes part in it (not to mention the season 8 episode "The Hearth's Warming Club" showed the Young Six being invited to Twilight's castle for the event).
• The Dreaded: When Princess Celestia is genuinely intimidated by someone, they're truly a force to be reckoned with.
• Dystopia Justifies the Means: His goal is nothing less than plunging Equestria into never-ending chaos for his own amusement. He's done this before, and Celestia's words imply it was far from pretty. That and the cries of pain in the background as she gives his back story tell you all you need to know.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: In his debut two-episode appearance, he actually flaps his wings whenever he flies or hovers above the ground. Most appearances after this have employed Wings Do Nothing with Discord simply levitating with no wing movement whatsoever.
• Eldritch Abomination: Perhaps the most classic example in the show.
  • No one knows where he came from. The most we might know is a "college" he mentioned with the Smooze; whether he was serious or not isn't clear.
  • His motives are nonsensical and incomprehensible, hence his following catchphrase.
    Discord: Make sense? What fun is there in making sense?
  • He is bizarre-looking and can change his appearance at will.
  • His magic is very powerful and incomprehensible; only the Elements of Harmony and a highly power-charged Tirek have been able to match him (although other individuals such as Twilight, Celestia, the Tatzlwurm (an Eldritch Abomination in its own right), and Zecora demonstrate that it is possible to affect him to an extent).
  • He is able to break a pony's mind, either through subtlety or with force.
  • He lives in a bizarre, chaotic dimension named Chaosville and can open gateways to another live-action dimension with puppets. Each can be considered an Eldritch Location.
• Emotion Eater: It is implied that the Cutie Mark Crusaders fighting in front of his statue prison (creating discord) gives him enough power to break free.
• Engineered Heroics: Quite a fan of this. When he's not subject to The Worf Effect, he's playing the part of Trickster Mentor by making the heroes do the work.
  • In "Princess Twilight Sparkle", he knows that the trouble in the Everfree Forest is a result of seeds he once planted, and that he could probably take care of it. But he does nothing as a way to prove that Twilight is capable of handling things herself.
  • Does this a few times throughout Season 9, this time with the goal of proving to Twilight that she's capable of handling Equestria's governance. When King Sombra shows up, Discord can literally snap Sombra's power out of existence, but acts like he can't to prove to the Mane Six that their friendship is stronger than him.
  • In "The Ending of the End", he's revealed to have been Grogar the entire time, acting the way he was to prove to Twilight that she could take out all of her remaining villains. However, it is a plan that has Gone Horribly Right by the time Discord makes this known.
• Entropy and Chaos Magic: His brand of magic isn't easily handled. It takes a powerful and knowledgeable being to control and utilize his magic.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • When he appears in the stained glass windows, he demonstrates a sense of humor and mystery, as well as great knowledge of things about the Mane Cast which he had no apparent way of finding out.
  • Can also double for his first appearance in person which begins with ominous music, storm clouds, and an evil laugh before melting back into daylight and him laughing at the frightened ponies like his arrival was a good prank.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • In The Return to Harmony, Discord corrupts/breaks the Mane Six, but returns their horns and wings after the game is over. Justified with Rainbow Dash because he wants her to fly away from her friends, but Discord doesn't have any reasons to fulfill his promise to the rest of the Mane Six (and returning Twilight's horn is a BIG mistake!). And other villains, particularly Tirek, King Sombra and Queen Chrysalis, never would do that. ^note Maybe that is the reason why Celestia suspected that there would be a chance of Discord being reformed.
  • In the Best Gift Ever special, he is just as disgusted with Flim and Flam's shoddily-made Hearth's Warming dolls as everypony else, zapping two of them out of existence. Also, to add on to this, in general he doesn't seem to be a big fan of commercialism, given his statement in "The Break Up Break Down" about greeting cards.
  • In the comics storyline "Cosmos", the pre-reformation Discord was deeply unnerved by the extremes Cosmos would go to, and saves a bunch of foals from dying buried under an orphanage she destroyed. He ultimately sided with the Royal Sisters and their allies in order to seal Cosmos away.
  • In "The Beginning of the End - Part 1". Even Discord is surprised when Celestia announces that she and Luna will pass the reigns of power to Twilight and her friends in only a few days time.
  • In "The Ending of the End - Part 1 and 2". As much as Discord enjoys Chaos, with his comment about being a safety net and his later showing himself to be sorry for his mistake, it's clear that he didn't wish for his stunt as Grogar, to put all of Equestria and by extension his friends in truly grave danger.
• Evil Counterpart: Formerly to Princess Celestia, in a way. She is the ruler of Equestria, has magical powers, takes the well-being of her subjects seriously, and values good relationships between them, but is not above a little mischief. On the other hand, Discord used to use his powers to torment the ponies and break their friendships before ultimately realizing his errors and befriending the ponies.
• Evil Is Bigger: While he's not massive like a dragon or Ursa Minor, Discord is very large for the setting, being almost three times as tall as a pony and even being slightly larger than Princess Celestia and about the same height as powered-up Tirek. In fact the only major villain larger than him is the Pony of Shadows.
• Evil Is Hammy: It's John de Lancie playing a much more malicious version of Q as a draconequus.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Finds this out the hard way in Season 9, when he summons Chrysalis, Cozy Glow and Tirek disguised as Grogar, planning on having them attack Equestria as a final test for Twilight, only for them to turn on him and become far more of a threat than he intended.
• Evil Laugh: He often mixes it with or switches it to an "Oh; that's just hilarious!" kind of laugh, but it's still undeniably evil. He's also capable of producing a very menacing one if he feels like it, such as when he's freed from his prison.
• Evil Overlord:
  • Ruled Equestria over 1,000 years ago. Celestia implies his rule was far from pretty — the stained glass window depicting his rule shows a cackling Discord dangling three helpless ponies on puppet strings over a pit of fire. He becomes this again during his brief reign over Equestria after being freed.
  • In one alternate future in "The Cutie Re-Mark", Discord returns to power unopposed, and turns the current sovereigns, Princesses Celestia and Luna, into his personal clowns to torment in payback for his original defeat by them.
• Evil Plan: Return Equestria to its former state as a world of endless chaos.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Averted; while John de Lancie does have a deep voice, he doesn't give Discord a commanding, threatening tone, but a jovial, excited, and sarcastic one, suiting his initially deceptive characterization. De Lancie has said his recordings are sped up to make Discord talk faster, resulting in his natural bass being lost. In his first appearance, there are instances where his voice drops to a more threatening, ominous tone, usually when he's doing something particularly malicious. However, follow his reformation, this aspect mostly disappears.
• Exact Words: Twists and turns are indeed his master plan, but he never says the Elements are in the maze. They are, however, "back where you began." Twilight finds them in her book on the Elements. Take a guess what the very first frame of the very first episode shows.
• Expy:
  • Of Star Trek's Q, admitted by Word of God. He can warp reality without much effort and has a habit of humbling the main characters, especially Twilight. He even has the same voice actor.
  • Following his redemption he starts shapeshifting himself more often, including into pop cultural figures, making him similar to the Genie from Aladdin. "Three's a Crowd" serves to hang a lampshade on this by making him blue for the duration of the episode and giving him a Disney Acid Sequence of a musical number.
• Extreme Omnivore: When he gets a glass of chocolate milk, he drinks the glass, then throws away the milk. Which explodes. Confirmed in "Keep Calm and Flutter On", when he foils Twilight's plan to magically reform him by eating the pages to her spell books.
• Face–Heel Turn: In "Twilight's Kingdom – Part 1". He turns back to face by the end of part 2.
• Fading Away: In "Discordant Harmony", this is the end result of Discord making himself orderly to make Fluttershy more comfortable in his home. As the episode progresses, he becomes more and more transparent and his behavior more and more bland and robotic, until he fades to the point that his hands pass directly through objects when he tries to touch them and he is no longer capable of performing magic. Since Discord is a creature of pure chaos, being orderly is quite literally destroying him. Fluttershy is eventually able to reverse the fading by acting in chaotic, random ways until Discord regains enough physical presence to create chaos on his own again.
• The Fair Folk: He doesn't look much like an old-school fairy, but he definitely has a lot of their more malevolent features. Despite possessing Reality Warper powers, he delights in playing mind games with the ponies as well as manipulating them into his power, even though he can just hypnotize them right off the bat. He's also not above ignoring the rules he sets for others or ruthlessly undermining his game to suit his own ends.
• Fair-Play Villain: Poses as one, but subverted — he sets up a game where he claims he'll allow the ponies to search the maze for the Elements of Harmony, then manipulates them to make them lose, also knowing the Elements were never there anyway. Lampshaded when Twilight tells him he didn't play fair, and Discord replies she's obviously forgotten he's the spirit of Chaos and Disharmony. (On the other hand, he returned the wings and horns to the Mane Six as he promised. Big mistake, but still.)
• The Farmer and the Viper: Is on both the giving and receiving ends of this in "Twilight's Kingdom – Part 2". Though ultimately subverted in that being betrayed after his own betrayal of the Mane Six ultimately leads to him to finally understand the meaning of friendship and cement his Heel–Face Turn.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: Part of his chaotic look. See Mad Eye and Mix-and-Match Critters.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • Pride — he can't recognize a threat even when it's staring him in the face, and he hates when his reputation or image are in jeopardy. In his debut episode, he sits down and lets the Mane Six activate the Elements of Harmony to petrify him, not realizing until it's too late that it's actually going to work. A flashback to his original petrification by Celestia and Luna shows that his original pose as a statue was one of laughter because he was mocking them as they activated the Elements, because he found the very idea that they could defeat him to be amusing. In his spotlight episodes, what really ticks him off more than anything else is being made to look foolish, and he'll often angrily lash out at the pony who provoked him. It also bites him in the Season 4 finale, when Tirek provokes a Face–Heel Turn by playing to his ego, convincing him that becoming friends with ponies has tamed him and he's too powerful to be reined in by their ways. It bites him again in the series finale when he arrogantly releases Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow to test the heroes, thinking he can control all of them, only for them to outmaneuver him and steal his powers.
  • To a lesser extent, Wrath: while it does take a while for him to go from just being annoyed/irritated to being angry, once he does lose his temper, he tends to lash out at everyone around him, causing a lot of damage and trouble.
• Faux Affably Evil: In his debut, Discord dances between this and Affably Evil, treating the ordeal as a "game" and seems good-natured... then we see the absolute joy he takes in manipulating and breaking the Mane Cast. However, by the end of in his second appearance, he becomes genuinely Affably Evil at worst, courtesy of Fluttershy.
• Fiction 500: Technically — "Discordant Harmony" shows him casually creating piles of bits from nothing to pay various ponies for his tea-party supplies, confirming that money is no object to him.
• Final Boss: He's the boss of Level 6 of The Hub's Web Game Adventure Ponies!.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Discord and Trixie's egos clash quite a bit in "To Where and Back Again", even while they are working together to help rescue the Royal Family and Mane Six. By the end of the episode, they are on (somewhat) better terms and seem to have at least grudging respect for one another.
• Fisher King:
  • Justified, as he is a Reality Warper; under his rule, Equestria is every bit as chaotic and twisted as he is. He even spends his time atop a creepy-looking throne after taking over. The moment he's vanquished, a World-Healing Wave returns it to normal.
  • In "Discordant Harmony," making his Pocket Dimension too Orderly ends up nearly erasing him.
• Flat "What": This is his reaction in "A Matter of Principals" when Starlight apologizes to him.
• Flaw Exploitation: His MO for breaking ponies. He loses thanks to the heroes taking advantage of his flaws.
• Flight: Discord can fly by flapping his mismatched wings. However, considering how ridiculously small they are compared to his body mass, there are strong hints his flight is entirely magical. Indeed, once drained of magic by Tirek, or within an Anti-Magic field, he's ground-bound.
• Foil: To Twilight Sparkle. They're as opposed to each other as ever, what they have in common is that they're learning new roles as good guy and princess respectively, and both are trying to be better friends. "Twilight's Kingdom" has them both questioning their roles, and it's their mutual realizing the value of friendship that lets them save the day and complete their development into those roles.
• Forgiven, but Not Forgotten: The Mane Six don't hesitate a second to accuse him of being behind the Everfree Forest overtaking Ponyville in "Princess Twilight Sparkle". Even Fluttershy isn't entirely willing to take him on his word that he's not responsible. And technically, he was.
• Forgot About His Powers: In "The Break Up Break Down", he briefly indulges in a childish struggle with Spike over a telescope, forgetting that he could either use his powers to take it from Spike, or just conjure up another for himself.
• Foreshadowing: There are subtle displays of character in "The Return of Harmony" that suggest his Heel–Face Turn isn't totally sudden:
  • After breaking Twilight, he tries to convince her to just give into chaos and have fun with him. When a despondent Twilight refuses, he gives a brief forlorn, rejected look... before quickly returning to his merriment.
  • It is Fluttershy he had the most trouble corrupting, her vigilant kindness eventually frustrating him to the point that he breaks off from his mind games and just corrupts her by force.
• For the Evulz: While he may do things because it amuses him, he's not above doing terrible things to achieve that goal. He clearly acknowledges morality as a thing, but, true to the trope, he doesn't care about it in any way other than how he can exploit it for his own ends. Subverted as of "Keep Calm and Flutter On", when he has a Heel Realization. After that, while still a Jerkass, his actions tend more towards It Amused Me than this trope.
• Friendless Background: Unsurprisingly, given his past as an Evil Overlord, but officially confirmed in his second appearance via Freudian Slip.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Even after he claims to be reformed, no-one, barring Fluttershy, does more than tolerate him. This is because, even if he's not deliberately antagonistic anymore, he's still a mischievous Jerkass. In his case, he's kept around because he's too powerful for anyone to get rid of, and with maybe a little hope that he'll learn from everypony else's example and become less of a troll.
  • Season 4 deconstructs this by showing how it'd feel like to be this. Because Fluttershy can be considered his only real friend while the others tolerate at him at best, Tirek is able to manipulate Discord by acting very amicably and furthermore, by taking Discord's feelings and thoughts into consideration, asking him what he wants to do. As of the end of "Twilight's Kingdom", he seems to be gaining more acceptance, and by "What About Discord?", the other ponies no longer have qualms having fun with him, and he instead moves on to having friendship conflicts with side characters like Spike, Big Mac and Trixie.
• Fun Personified: Subverted. Discord is genuinely fun-loving in a chaotic way but while his playful nature can be charming and amusing, he's often too annoying and troublesome towards other creatures.

Tropes G to I

• Gaslighting: In the 2019 IDW holiday special, Discord (at Twilight's request) posed as "Krumple Horn" (a creature Pinkie claimed punished those who were bad around the holidays) in order to invoke Scare 'Em Straight on the Young Six. First, he made himself look like the shadow of Krumple Horn, and allowed Gallus to see him, inciting his fear that the creature was real. He also wrote "Enjoy Hearths Warming Without Me" on the wall of Ocellus's room after she left for home early, further instilling the fear of "Krumple Horn" into the Young Six.
• The Genie Knows Jack Nicholson: Has made the odd reference to real world culture in his reality-warping antics. In "What About Discord?" he does a pretty perfect imitation of Bob Ross.
• Genre Motif: The music when he appears consists of circus music. The first theme song however, can be heard here.
• The Glomp: In his more sentimental moods, Discord can get surprisingly affectionate with the Mane Six, sharing warm hugs with the ponies in "What About Discord", "Twilight's Kingdom" and "To Where and Back Again". In the Best Gift Ever special, he hugs Rainbow Dash tightly when she invites him to Hearth's Warming.
• God of Chaos: The spirit of Chaos and Disharmony, which he remains so even after his Heel–Face Turn.
• God of Evil: Closer to God of Chaos and Disharmony, but a much more literal example than Nightmare Moon. Not only is he truly evil, but his powers are far more god-like than hers were, and he claims to be several eons old. However, this is eventually subverted, as he eventually is reformed and comes to truly embrace the importance of friendship (although he still remains rather chaotic).
• Godzilla Threshold: Celestia sends him, of all people, to recapture Tirek in the season 4 finale. It backfires horribly, as not only does Discord betray them, but once Tirek has absorbed enough power even Discord is not immune to being drained of magic.
• Gone Horribly Right: His Batman Gambit in Season 9 assuming Grogar's identity and getting the major villains (except Sombra, who goes off on his own) to work together as a team in order for them to attack Twilight at her coronation, setting them up to be defeated by her. They do indeed manage to work as a team... and they end up obtaining the necessary power boost to make them stronger, making them bigger threats to Equestria.
• Good Feels Good: Celestia tells him as much at the end of the second issue of Friends Forever, which he spent trying to help the Cutie Mark Crusaders get their cutie marks.
• Good Hurts Evil: A variant born of the "Chaos Is Evil" trope. In the IDW comics, Discord has tried making himself more directly orderly, and both times it has backlashed on him seriously. In the comic, inverting his personality to become Accord ultimately turns him back into a villain again, as he seeks to spread order by forcibly assimilating the world into one giant Mind Hive.
• Good Is Boring: Considers harmony and good to be no fun; disharmony and broken friendships are hilarious! Though he still seems to enjoy himself doing (somewhat) good deeds in "Princess Twilight Sparkle". Tirek uses this to convince him to Face–Heel Turn. In some episodes he finds a middle ground by being a Trickster Mentor or playing good natured pranks, but still almost always seeps in a bit of mean spirited Trolling.
• Good Is Not Nice:
  • Yes, Discord is officially reformed, no longer trying to take over Equestria. He wants to be good and do good although often in his own Trickster Mentor way. He can even be surprisingly heroic in the natural sense (see Heroes' Frontier Step) when it matters most. However he's still more than a bit of a Jerkass who likes to annoy the Mane Six (especially Twilight) for the lulz and rarely does anything to help the heroes in a crisis, even if they directly ask him. Spike sums him up best.
    Spike: Discord's reformed, but he's not that reformed.
  • In the comics storyline "Chaos Theory", a rare cosmic event transforms Discord into Accord, a spirit of pure order. Accord is both affable and polite... but quickly decides to brainwash every pony in Equestria into thinking and acting the same in order to achieve what he believes is true order. Then played with some more when it's revealed that the event didn't transform him. Discord transformed himself into Accord because he felt that no-one liked him as he was and sought to change himself.
• Good Wings, Evil Wings: Has mixed angelic (pegasus) and demonic (bat) wings, one of the more sinister types, further adding to his asymmetric look and theme of disorder.
• Got Volunteered: In "The Big Mac Question", Spike recruits Discord to place the riddle apples across Ponyville (to Discord's annoyance). Although despite his annoyance, being a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, he does still try to help.
• Graceful Loser:
  • "Well played, Fluttershy. Well played."
  • Also shown in "What About Discord?": After having his own tactics bounced back at him, all it takes is a small peace offering from Twilight for him to accept his punishment and pull the Mane Six into a Group Hug, laughing merrily as he does.
• Greater-Scope Villain:
  • Of "Princess Twilight Sparkle", albeit something of an accidental version. He planted the Plunderseeds just before Celestia and Luna defeated him the first time. However, the Seeds end up taking far longer to kick in than he anticipated; and by the time they actually do, his priorities have already changed into those of an Anti-Hero.
  • Also, in season 9, he turns out to be responsible for the return of all the remaining major villains, due to Grogar actually being him in disguise. A weird case were the Bigger "Villain" is actually on the side of the good guys, as he did it out of a desire to create a final epic challenge for Twilight to overcome to boost her confidence in being the Leader of Equestria and to make sure she was really ready for the position..
• Great Gazoo: Fits the bill quite nicely post-reformation. He still makes the fabric of reality cry uncle before his power, but is now more of a petty trickster than a malevolent Mad God like before.
• Green-Eyed Monster: In "Make New Friends but Keep Discord", he doesn't handle Fluttershy taking her new friend Tree Hugger to the Grand Galloping Gala instead of him very well at all. Ultimately, he gets so fed up with Tree Hugger that he tries to throw her into another dimension. His eyes even glow with green flames, making him a literal example of this trope.
• Green Thumb: Has seeds called Plunderseeds that grow into large vines that feed on magic. They would end up causing trouble long after he was sealed.
• Grin of Audacity: Sport one of these in "The Ending of the End – Part 2" when making Tirek angry so he can free the ponies.
• Gruesome Goat: His head makes him look especially goatish.
• Guile Hero: In "The Ending of the End Part 2" pulls a Batman Gambit on the villains, so his friends can escape and save Equestria.
• Guilt-Ridden Accomplice: After switching allegiances to Tirek in "Twilight's Kingdom", he has visible moments of looking uncomfortable or remorseful at the after effects even prior to Tirek betraying him. He can't bear to watch as Tirek drains Fluttershy.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: He's pretty dangerous when he's angry and it's very easy to make Discord angry, especially by mocking him.
• Hand Gag: Discord covers up Spike's mouth with his eagle talon to keep him from guessing the next step of Big Mac's proposal (with the talon detaching from his arm to keep Spike quiet).
• Hate Plague: One of his abilities is breaking friendships.
• Hates Being Alone: Several episodes have shown that Discord needs to have company; if not friends to spend time with, then an audience to bear witness to the havoc he creates.
  • In "Dungeons and Discord", he is so distraught over Fluttershy leaving for an overnight diplomatic mission to Yakyakistan that he practically begs her to let him come along.
  • In the Best Gift Ever special, he is genuinely upset at the idea of not being invited to Hearth's Warming Eve.
• A Head at Each End: In "The Return of Harmony Part 2", Discord briefly appears to have a head at both ends of his body while taunting Twilight.
• The Hedonist: He lives for self-gratifying pleasure. Kind of a given, since he embodies chaos.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Heel in the season 2 premiere, turns face mid-season 3. Fluctuates between heel and face throughout Season 4, goes back to heel in "Twilight's Kingdom – Part 1", then turns face in "Twilight's Kingdom - Part 2" and stays face for the rest of the series. Even after finally settling on "face" and remaining the ponies' friend, Discord is still mischievously naughty.
• Heel Realization:
  • "I guess when you're friends, you can't always have things exactly your way all of the time."
  • He has a bigger one in "Twilight's Kingdom" when Tirek tricks him into betraying Fluttershy and Equestria. While he shows signs of second thoughts the entire time, it truly hits home when Tirek stabs him in the back... just like he did to Fluttershy. As he puts it, he had both magic and friendship, and now has neither because he sold out his friendship. After Tirek is defeated, he gets both back.
  • In "Make New Friends but Keep Discord", he realizes that he "May have overreacted" by threatening to send Fluttershy's new friend Tree Hugger to another dimension.
• Heroic BSoD: He suffers a minor one in "To Where and Back Again – Part 2" when a group of Changelings all disguise themselves as a crying Fluttershy, and one of them points out one of them might be the real Fluttershy. Discord doesn't know what to do and is captured.
• Hero with an F in Good: Discord obviously wants to be good, but constantly ends up letting his nature as an immature spirit of chaos get the better of him. While his intentions can be good-hearted in origin, his methods are often unorthodox, misguided, and even dangerous. Zigzagged; He had truly pure-hearted intentions, which shows he has come a long way from causing chaos For the Evulz, but his misguided actions in season 9 led to releasing dangerous villains and putting Equestria in more danger than its ever been. But he does however later risk his life to help his friends escape, facing the villains despite having no powers, so he manages to go up letters in Good especially in Season 10 and is forgiven by the ponies.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Downplayed by the end of "Keep Calm and Flutter On" in the sense that while he has ultimately pledged that he'll use his powers for good, everyone except Fluttershy is still understandably cautious toward him. Especially shown in "Princess Twilight Sparkle" where everyone but Fluttershy suspects that Discord had something to do with the Everfree Forest invading. Turns out they are right, just not in the way they were expecting.
• Heroes' Frontier Step: "To Where and Back Again" gives us the first example of Discord doing something genuinely heroic (joining the mission to save the captured Mane Six and Royal Family), with no sign of doing it out of self-interest or for his own amusement. In "The Ending of the End Part 2", Discord, despite being responsible for the villains' conquest, vows to make up for his actions, and commits an act so heroic that he manages to be forgiven by the ponies; starting the heroes counterattack by risking his life to get Starlight free so she could free the other prisoners, then joins the battle against the three villains without any powers to give the Mane 5 and Spike time to escape so they can save Equestria.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • He lets the Mane Six find the Elements of Harmony, knowing they can't use them since he has destroyed their friendship at this point and allows them a "free shot" at him, aware it will fail. He tries to repeat this a second time, only to realize too late that their friendship is back together. Heck, Applejack tells him this, but since he turned her into a liar, he doesn't believe her because he thinks she's still lying.
  • It happens again in "Three's a Crowd", when he gets Twilight and Cadance to travel to the edge of Equestria to fight a giant worm and get a magical flower to cure his sickness. Turns out he was faking the sickness to mess with them, but mere moments after he reveals his ruse, the worm that Twilight and Cadance had fought re-emerges and sneezes on him, making him sick for real.
  • In "What About Discord?" he convinces the rest of the Mane Six to leave Twilight out of a weekend of fun, then gleefully rubs their new inside jokes and reminiscing in her face as she struggles to contain her jealousy. Once his ruse is revealed, the Mane Six develop an inside joke of their own, leaving Discord out. Since Discord had genuinely had fun and bonded with the others, being left out makes him feel as bad as Twilight did.
  • His plan to help boost Twilight's confidence in season 9 ends up going horribly wrong in "The Ending of the End" when it is revealed he was pretending to be Grogar all season and recruited the other villains to attack Twilight as a "final test" for her. But the other villains plot against him behind his back and betray him by using the Bewitching Bell he sent them to get to drain him of his magic and become an actual threat to Twilight and all of Equestria.
• Holy Halo: He sometimes makes an angel halo appears atop his head when he's pretending to be doing good; he rarely is, of course. Funnily, with the one he sports while talking to Tirek, he chases it as if an annoying bird.
• Horrifying the Horror: As bad as he was in his pre-reformation days, Cosmos was even worse, regularly scaring even Discord with her actions.
• Humanizing Tears: In "Keep Calm and Flutter On", he sheds a Single Tear with Puppy-Dog Eyes when he learns that Fluttershy does genuinely care for him and that he almost ruined their friendship.
• Humiliation Conga: After thinking he's attained total control of the world and considering the Mane Cast to be no more than an amusing distraction, he watches in shock as those same six completely obliterate his Evil Plan, return Ponyville to normal, and turn him back to stone with an Oh, Crap! look frozen on his face — all in the span of less than a minute.
• Hypnotic Eyes: What he uses to brainwash the Mane Six. It works for most of them, except for Fluttershy.
• Hypocrite: In "The Break Up Break Down", Discord claims that love isn't real, like all things "warm and fuzzy". He apparently doesn't count friendship among those things. Spike seems to acknowledge this, even claiming at one point Discord is just "putting on a front."
• Iconic Sequel Character: He's one of the most iconic characters in the G4 series for his stint as both a villain and as a Token Evil Teammate, and didn't appear until the start of Season 2.
• I Gave My Word: Promised Fluttershy that he'd lay off the chaos for their friendship, and even once the Elements are gone, he keeps it.
• Ignored Epiphany: In "Twilight's Kingdom", Tirek's betrayal and Twilight's demand that Discord be freed in return for her magic convinces Discord that there is nothing more valuable than friendship, and he tells Twilight that he truly is her friend. However, later episodes show him risking his friendships through his selfish behavior (and having little interest in making new ones), and continuing to toy with and poke fun at Twilight for his own amusement like nothing ever happened.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: He tries this on multiple occasions with the Mane Six, particularly Twilight Sparkle.
• I Just Want to Have Friends:
  • At the end of "Keep Calm and Flutter On" this is the main reason why he's upset when Fluttershy says that she doesn't want to be his friend. Luckily, he wins her over in the end but he didn't know or care he felt this way until he actually had a friend to lose.
  • Seen even more in "Princess Twilight Sparkle", where Fluttershy is able to talk him out of his old tricks after the Elements are lost, meaning that losing her friendship is literally the ONLY thing keeping him in check.
  • In "What About Discord?" he shares a weekend of fun with the Mane Five, and gleefully reminisces with them via inside jokes. When the others no longer laugh at those jokes, and leave Discord out of one they make with Twilight, Discord quickly breaks down in sorrow.
  • Despite thinking of Spike and Big Mac as beneath him, and tormenting them when they refuse to spend their "guys' night" the way he wants to, Discord is dismayed and ashamed when he learns they only invited him because they felt sorry for him, and not because they thought he was "cool".
  • In the comics arc "Chaos Theory", He chooses to become Accord after his antics at the beginning of the story result in him being rejected by the ponies. He believed his new self might be better accepted than he ever was.
• Imagination-Based Superpower: His magic works this way, allowing him to summon and transform objects in almost any way he pleases, with no obvious limit as to what it can do.
• I Meant to Do That: His Trickster Mentor moments are plainly this. When the Mane Six learn friendship lessons, they do so in spite of Discord, not because of him, but he has no problem with taking credit for it.
• Immediate Self-Contradiction: In "The Big Mac Question". Big Mac didn't want to tell Discord about his upcoming proposal to Sugar Belle because he can't trust Discord to keep it a secret. Discord claims he's great at keeping secrets, then rattles off a few secrets he's been told before. After realizing what he's just done, Discord concedes the point.
• Irony:
  • In "The Break Up Break Down", Discord, a Reality Warper and Mad God, claims to be a "realist."
  • In "The Summer Sun Setback", Discord openly finds Twilight's character growth "boring". How ironic that a creature of random chaos would dislike change.
  • In "The Big Mac Question". Despite his own habit of Complexity Addiction, he suggests that Big Mac's proposal to Sugar Belle could be done more simply.
• Immortal Immaturity: He's centuries old (not counting the thousand years he spent as a stone statue), but usually acts like a bratty kid.
• The Imp: Following his Heel–Face Turn. He's actually a lot like Mr. Mxyzptlk now as he is still quite the Troll, just no longer malicious thanks to a new sense of honor.
• Inconsistent Spelling: The spelling of the name of his species, draconequus, has been mangled by both The Hub's web site (Dragonokis) and the closed captioning (draconequis). Word of God is clear on the subject, though, and his trading card◊ and a tweet by Hasbro's My Little Pony Twitter account both use the correct spelling.
• Inexplicably Awesome: No one in- or out-of-universe seems to know where Discord came from, why he has all those crazy powers, or where he got his trollish sense of humor. He's just the way he is, and that's that.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: While Discord generally prefers to act like he's above the ponies, there are times that show hidden insecurities in him.
  • This usually presents itself whenever he feels like his friendship with Fluttershy is threatened, with him often going too far in his attempts to preserve it.
  • As episodes like "What About Discord?" and "Dungeons and Discord" show, he doesn't take it well when others don't think he's funny or "cool", quickly becoming saddened or ashamed.
  • Several episodes (and the Best Gift Ever special) show that Discord doesn't react well when he's excluded or left out of things. Despite his haughty, trouble-making nature, he really does want to spend time having fun with others. Getting him to admit this instead of acting out can be difficult though.
• Informed Species: Discord is said to have "the head of a pony" but his head looks more like a goat head.
• Intergenerational Friendship: He's eons old, so he's bound to have this with just about everypony by default.
  • With Fluttershy by the end of his second appearance, who continues to be his strongest relationship to this day.
  • And again with Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo as of Friends Forever #2.
• It Amused Me: The main reason he toys with the Mane Six before he corrupts them. Also, the chaos he spreads is less malicious than breaking their friendship.
• It's All About Me: "It's all about my lulz" is more accurate, but the principle is still the same. The biggest part of his character development in his second appearance, is learning that having friends means it isn't always about himself.
• It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time: This is how he justified his plan to gather up Chrysalis, Tirek and Cozy Glow and make them work together, believing defeating them would give Twilight the confidence she needed to rule.

Tropes J to N

• Jackass Genie: His Sadistic Choice to Rainbow Dash: either watch the foundations of her home crumble without her, or continue wandering aimlessly in his labyrinth. However, he never says which choice is right, or that Cloudsdale is the home that would crumble without her. Rainbow goes to save Cloudsdale, letting Discord have his way with Equestria, paying special attention to Rainbow's new home of Ponyville, his "chaos capital of the world".
• Jack of All Trades: Discord has a wider variety of magical spells than any other character in the whole series.
• Jerkass Gods: He's the spirit of Chaos and Disharmony. However, he is more than a plain old Jerkass. Even after reforming, he's mischievous at best.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Subverted when he tries to call Princess Celestia out on turning him into stone in front of the Mane Six. He only avoided things like that because it wouldn't be any fun for him.
  • Played straight in the season 4 premiere, when Twilight has returned to Ponyville without her friends, because they feel that with Celestia and Luna gone, Equestria can't afford to lose another princess. Discord needles her about it, and Twilight runs off angrily to rejoin her friends.
  • Shown again in "Three's a Crowd" after Twilight learns Discord faked his illness; he says he did that to test if she really saw him as a friend. Whether or not he lied about his reason, he's right that Twilight has never proved she sees him as a friend. Her befriending her, up to that point, had in fact been solely for pragmatic purposes and she was very open about it.
  • Once again in "What About Discord?", where he correctly points out that Twilight not dealing with her jealousy of him because she doesn't want to admit that she's jealous or can even become jealous at all is a problem and one that she needs to address.
  • In the Best Gift Ever special. While he wasn't being nice about it, Discord was right when he pointed out to Rainbow Dash that getting a candle as a Hearth's warming gift for Fluttershy, a pony who has many fluffy (and therefore, flammable) animals at home, isn't the best idea. He also points out out that Rainbow, having known Fluttershy since they were kids, really should have a better idea of what to get her. It makes Rainbow decide to get her something else.
  • In "The Beginning of The End - Part One"; He's not wrong about calling out the same predictable process that happens every time Twilight has one of her panic attacks; her friends comfort her, saying everything is going to be fine and she doesn't believe them. He is also technically correct in pointing out that using the Elements of Harmony to stop the returned Sombra doesn't count as the Mane Six doing it themselves (and also that they defeated him before without them).
  • In "The Summer Sun Setback", he was correct that the Mane Six didn't have to rely on him to fix all the damage caused to the Summer Sun Celebration — which they ended up proving under Twilight's guidance.
  • In "The Big Mac Question". While he wasn't exactly blameless himself for all the disasters, Discord had a point in calling out Spike for ruining Mrs. Cake's baking. Spike concedes the point.
  • In "The Ending of the End - Part One", he defends his plan to pose as Grogar and have the villains attack Twilight's coronation by pointing out that one doesn't take a final exam on their first day. He intended for the attack to be Twilight's ultimate challenge before stepping up to rule Equestria.
• Jerkass Realization:
  • In "Twilight's Kingdom" he sells out all of Equestria to Tirek after being tempted with a promise of power and ruling over it. Unfortunately, Tirek is a Card-Carrying Villain who betrays Discord and absorbs his magic once Tirek decides the Chaos Lord has outlived his usefulness. That makes Discord realize how much of a jerkass he's been and that he betrayed his real friends for nothing.
  • In "Make New Friends but Keep Discord", he realizes he went too far with his jealousy over Fluttershy taking Treehugger to the Grand Galloping Gala instead of him. He also realizes that he treated the Smooze (whom he'd only invited to try and make Fluttershy jealous) terribly the whole night, and apologizes to all concerned.
  • In "Dungeons & Discords", he considers himself superior to Spike and Big Mac, and is a total jerk to them when he has to hang out with them and play a role-playing game with them. When it comes out that Spike and Big Mac also consider themselves superior to Discord in a sense but deal with this compassionately by feeling sorry for him, trying to be nice to him and including him in their game, Discord realizes what a jerk he's been in comparison and actually apologizes to them.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • After his reformation, he still finds amusement in trolling the ponies. Though, he's also helpful in his own twisted way when he teases Twilight about her leaving her friends just because she's now a princess and not revealing until the end that he was the one behind the Plunder Seeds invading Ponyville.
  • Likewise, though he is willing to play tricks on the other ponies, he still keeps his promise to Fluttershy not to cause too much trouble since he still values her friendship.
  • In "Three's a Crowd", he speaks highly of Fluttershy (when she's not around to hear it) and reveals that they've been writing letters to each other.
  • He has several flashes of guilt for his betrayal of the ponies in "Twilight's Kingdom" and is flat-out remorseful when he makes another Heel–Face Turn, not even believing he's worth being shown friendship anymore.
  • His interactions with Twilight qualify as this. Though he often taunts and tries to humiliate her, there are signs that he genuinely respects her and sees her as a friend, and most of his long-term pranks revolve around helping her learn a lesson or do the right thing.
  • In "The Break Up Break Down". Despite scoffing at the idea of love, and showing little sympathy to Big Mac's romantic woes, he is genuinely angry at Sugar Belle for "breaking up" with Big Mac, and ultimately sabotages her cart so the two can reconcile.
  • In the Best Gift Ever special, he pouts over supposedly not being invited to the celebrations. However, he is respectful enough to not try and force his way into the proceedings, instead being intent on making sure Fluttershy gets a "quality" gift.
• Just Toying with Them: Since he's more powerful than anyone else, obviously it would be boring to use those powers straightforwardly to beat them.
• Kansas City Shuffle: The hint he gives is "Twists and turns are my master plan, then find the Elements back where you began", causing the Mane Cast to search the maze for them... except he never says the Elements are in it; it's just a ploy to lure them into his trap.
• Kick the Dog: Often. The best example is in "The Return of Harmony – Part 2", when he gives a Big "YES!"/Victory Pose after realizing he's broken Twilight Sparkle.
• Kick the Morality Pet: Fluttershy is saddened by his betrayal, and he taunts her for it. This would later become his personal biggest shame.
• The Klutz: He's not nearly as graceful when he's depowered, since he's so much used to float or teleport to move around rather than actually walking anywhere. In "To Where and Back Again – Part 2", he trips on a rock and faceplants.
• Kryptonite Factor:
  • Certain kinds of wards, like Celestia's on the Elements upon his second release. Likewise, in the Season 6 finale, Chrysalis's domain is revealed to contain a Field Power Effect that negates all non-Changeling magic (chaotic or otherwise).
  • Also, he's shown to be vulnerable to the Tatzlwurm's disease.
  • Season 7's "Discordant Harmony" shows that either being around or causing too much order (it's not clear which) ^note Alternatively, it's simply a Fisher King/Fisher Kingdom consequence of 180ing his Pocket Dimension way too much. has serious negative consequences for Discord. When he forcibly changes his chaotic home realm to be more sane and orderly out of a desire to please Fluttershy, it ends up sapping away his life, causing him to start fading away into nothing. Fluttershy ends up having to reset Discord's realm back into a World of Chaos before Discord dies.
• Lack of Empathy:
  • His reaction to Twilight crossing the Despair Event Horizon? To give a Big "YES!" and celebrate.
  • Ultimately mostly subverted during his second appearance, though it takes a lot for him to realize what it means to care for someone else. "Make New Friends but Keep Discord" shows that his trouble with empathizing with others is something he's aware of and trying to work on improving. He still has trouble with this, but he apologizes and is regretful when taking things too far and gains more empathy over time.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • In "Three's a Crowd", Discord spends the entire episode faking an illness to Troll Twilight and Cadance and ruin their day; he even makes Applejack and Rarity sick as part of the act. Then the Tatzlwurm sneezes on him, making him sick for real. Lampshaded in the end:
    Applejack: I don't wanna go sayin' you got what you deserved...
    Rarity: Well, I have no trouble saying it. You got what you deserved!
  • In "Twilight's Kingdom", after stabbing the Mane Six in the back and selling them all out to Tirek for power and untold chaos, Discord promptly gets backstabbed himself as soon as he's no longer useful to Tirek.
  • In "What About Discord?" he purposefully leaves Twilight out, which is turned by on him when he ends up being purposefully left out.
  • In "The Ending of the End", he did truly have the best intentions in mind, but it still was reckless to release dangerous villains putting Equestria at risk and not keeping better watch over them. This leads to losing his magic, his friends deeply upset with him and being mistreated by the villains by being dragged on a chain. He does however come to realize the extent of how badly he has messed up feeling genuine guilt and remorse over this and ends up risking his life to make up for it, managing to be forgiven by the ponies, so in that way he gets positive karma as well.
• Large Ham: Even when he's not being an evil mastermind, his general demeanor is incredibly and chaotically over-the-top, dramatic and flamboyant which does make him quite crazy and unpredictable in an entertaining and comedic way.
• Laughably Evil: He's fun to watch, that's for sure, but he's more like The Joker in this respect, as it just makes him more creepy and disturbing. After his Heel–Face Turn, he... well, he's still this, in more of a Poke the Poodle fashion.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • His riddle is "Twists and turns are my master plan; then find the Elements back where you began". Where do they find the Elements? In the reference guide which was the very first thing we saw in the very first episode, literally back where the series began.
  • After Twilight is shown to have finally gotten her habit of stressing out under control in "The Summer Sun Setback", Discord groans that "character growth is so boring".
• A Lighter Shade of Black: In his "Cutie Re-Mark" Bad Future, while he does invoke World Gone Mad on Equestria, he's visibly far-less cruel and much-more juvenile than the other villains (e.g. — he merely turns Celestia and Luna into clowns and chases them for fun; meanwhile, the other villains are warmongering People of Mass Destruction, and Nightmare Moon's payback on Celestia involves a lunar And I Must Scream). Falls into more of A Lighter Shade of Grey of the BlackAndGray Morality kind after his Permanent Reformation.
• Light Is Not Good: Much of his reality-warping and teleportation are accompanied by a bright light. Somewhat subverted when he befriends the Mane Six, but he still loves to cause mischief.
• Logical Weakness: Discord is the Spirit of Chaos; forcing himself to be perfectly orderly is detrimental to his existence.
• Longing Look: Toward Fluttershy. He sometimes looks smitten when mentioning her, and sometimes even in front of her, but she doesn't seem to notice. Whether it's romantic or platonic remains debatable, but he definitely feels something strong when she's around.
• Loophole Abuse: In "The Summer Sun Setback". Twilight's instructions for Discord were for no "Discord-y" stuff, meaning no chaos. Discord agreed, but there was nothing there about stopping other kinds of chaos, or not bringing Twilight's attention to that chaos.
• Lovecraft Lite: He's an eldritch abomination with reality-warping powers and is at odds with anything resembling logic and order, but he's eventually redeemed and most of his antics are Played for Laughs since then.
• Loves Secrecy: Befitting his trickster nature. There have been occasions (such as "Princess Twilight Sparkle") where he could have just told the Mane Six how to solve a problem, but he prefers to keep the solution to himself.
• Mad Eye: One of his eyes is sized differently and more deranged than the other.
• Mad God: He even provides the page image; did you expect the spirit of chaos to be sane?
• Manchild: After his Heel–Face Turn, the psychopathic part slowly fades away, but he's still dangerous, egotistical and childish.
• Manipulative Bastard: Multiple:
  • Tricks the Mane Six to go on a (fruitless) search for the Elements of Harmony, separates them, and uses trickery and magic to turn them into the opposite of their personality, thus making the elements useless against him. Fortunately for everyone but him, he fails to account for Princess Celestia and Twilight's friendship letters.
  • In "Keep Calm and Flutter On", his new Master Plan is to pretend he's reforming so that Fluttershy wouldn't agree to use the Elements against him. At the end of the episode, he makes Fluttershy promise she wouldn't use her Element and drops all pretense entirely, certain that she will keep her word. Ironically, his new Spanner in the Works is... himself, as he realizes friendship is more important to him than he had given it credit for.
  • It gets inverted in "Twilight's Kingdom" where he's for once on the receiving end of this from Tirek.
• Master of Illusion: A rare example of this trope overlapping with Reality Warper; his method of corrupting Rarity and Rainbow Dash is closer to an illusion than true Reality Warping.
• The Matchmaker: Briefly in "The Break Up Break Down". He tries to get Big Mac over his seeming break up with Sugar Belle by introducing him to Skellinore, a female version of the skeleton ponies from Ogres & Oubliettes.
• Maybe Ever After: "The Last Problem" leaves it as to whether or not if he and Fluttershy are a couple. She comes out of Discord's dimension, Fluttershy has bluebells◊ in her mane — but it's never outright stated and deliberately left open to interpretation.
• Meaningful Name: "Discord" means disagreement between people and lack of harmony, befitting his nature as the Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony. That being said, his name loses its meaning after his Heel–Face Turn.
• Mind over Matter: An ability that's easy to disregard considering his various greater powers, but he can also use telekinesis at will, both on items or living beings. Unlike with unicorn magic, there is no visible aura around what he manipulates.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: He is truly a chimera. To further cement that he is chaos incarnate, Discord looks generally like an Eastern dragon, but with the head of a goat (not a pony as Cheerilee would have you believe), one goat horn, one stag horn, one fang, the tongue of a snake, the mane of a horse, a snake-like torso covered with eagle feathers, one eagle talon, one lion paw, one batwing, one bird wing, one green dragon leg, one horse leg, and a red dragon tail. Even his species name is a combination of "dragon" and "horse".^note Presumably "draconequuscervuscaperleonaquilalacertavespertilioserpens" would have been a bit too long.
• Morality Chain: In "Princess Twilight Sparkle" the Mane Six have to give up the Elements of Harmony to save the day. When Discord hears this, the tone of his voice implies "No one can stop me now..." Except Fluttershy. She immediately tells him to stop thinking like an Evil Overlord and help them clean up, which he does. Although it ends up not being enough to stop him from being talked into aiding Tirek.
• Morality Pet: Fluttershy awakens his inner "sweetheart" during his second appearance, by virtue of her being the first real friend he ever made. In the end, he can't bring himself to throw Equestria into chaos again knowing it'd cost him her friendship. At least, not until Tirek convinces Discord he can have it both ways by becoming friends with him, though even then he finds betraying Fluttershy visibly difficult.
• Moral Myopia: Has absolutely no qualms about sadistically torturing innocent ponies mentally and physically, turning all of Equestria into a World Gone Mad, driving everypony insane, and generally doing whatever he wants to for his own amusement with no sense of morality... but gives Celestia a What the Hell, Hero? for turning him to stone for the aforementioned acts.
• Morphic Resonance: He can take many shapes on a whim, but he often retains some aspect of his true Draconequus form, notably his antlers, lopsided tooth and yellow/red eyes, or some aspect of his Fashionable Asymmetry, if only with the colors. In the episode "Twilight's Kingdom – Part 1", it is downplayed when turned into a stallion, as it would give him away, but he still keeps the overall color scheme of his head (including that of his mane, not to mention his unicorn horn is the same blue color as his goat horn). However, he proves able to hide any telltale sign when disguised as Grogar; only the eyebrows and eyes have some slight similarities.
• Motivational Lie: He engineered the Villain Team-Up in season nine in order to help Twilight gain the confidence in herself to rule Equestria.
• Motor Mouth: Discord tends to talk somewhat quickly. During a 2013 convention panel, John de Lancie had stated that his voice recordings of Discord are sped up and lose their deep bass sound.
• Mundane Utility:
  • When not spreading Chaos, his reality-warping powers are mostly used for mundane tasks like making chocolate milk, especially his telekinesis. In "Dungeons & Discord", they are used to turn a tabletop game into a LARP.
  • In "Discordant Harmony", he makes an entire tree sprout up out of the ground... so he can use one of its branches as a toothpick.
  • In "The Break Up Break Down", Spike calls in Discord to quickly bake a pie Big Mac made for Sugar Belle. Discord is understandably a little annoyed at being summoned for such a minor task.
  • In "The Last Problem", Future Discord uses his ability to open portals to allow Fluttershy to quickly travel to Canterlot, and later to allow animals to travel to her sanctuary.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • When he realizes he truly does value Fluttershy as his friend and just alienated her with his actions.
  • Ultimately feels this way about betraying Equestria to Tirek, when he realizes that Tirek was never really his friend at all.
• My Greatest Failure: In the Season 6 finale, the means by which the changelings are able to capture him implies that failing Fluttershy and making her cry back in the Season 4 finale is the thing he feels the deepest remorse about and is determined to never let happen again.
• My Significance Sense Is Tingling: He has the power to sense magical disturbances in Equestria.
  • In the comic Abyssinian arc, Discord feels when Fluttershy is in danger, although he is wearing a magic-blocking collar.
• Mysterious Past: While this applies to most of the antagonists on the show to a certain degree, Discord is the most mysterious. Discord's past prior to ruling Equestria is never explored in any real detail, either on the show or in the expanded universe, and he was one of the only antagonists to not be given an issue in Fiendship Is Magic. It is unknown how Discord became the lord of Chaos, or if there are other draconequui.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: You just know that an entity called "Discord" can be nothing but trouble, especially when the heroes are the bearers of the Elements of Harmony.
• Narcissist:
  • He seems to love his own image, as seen with the "repaired" lamp or the altered glass windows.
    Discord: Congratulations. You've found the one thing in Equestria that can match my face for sheer beauty.
  • In "Dungeons & Discord", he considers himself to have "the best name in the universe," and is unwilling to take on a character role different from his own in Spike and Big Mac's game.
• Never My Fault: In "The Big Mac Question". When the giant apple monster appears, Big Mac immediately yells "Discord!" Discord protests with "Why is it everypony automatically assumes I had anything to do with this?" He's forced to yield when the apple monster makes Big Mac's marriage proposal for him.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The series finale reveals he was posing as Grogar the entire time, but the Legion of Doom he assembled pulls off a successful Starscream maneuver and the situation escalates far beyond his control.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: When Twilight Sparkle complains about the hedge maze being taken away, he corrects her error in reasoning by proving he never said the Elements were in the maze, instead of keeping quiet and letting her continue to believe they've already lost because of his cheating. He is completely aware of this and never lets Twilight know that the Elements won't work if the team isn't completely united. In fact, he was banking on their failure increasing their despair to the point where it will drive them apart permanently, thus granting him long-term security from the only viable threat to his power. It still comes back to bite him, as the Elements are ultimately used to defeat him later on.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: As he notes himself in the "Abyssinians" arc of Season 10; he is used to suffering from doing something bad but this time he suffers from doing what Fluttershy wants and not using magic, which ends with him captured and imprisoned. In a twist though he isn't actually mad he’s suffering from it, just surprised that HE of all people would be so noble, Fluttershy is proud and calls him a sweetheart for this.
• Nominal Hero: After being "reformed", he becomes this as he helps the heroes, but only because he cares about his one friend, Fluttershy. He remains a Jerkass and has no qualms about using trickery on the heroes to get what he wants. Tirek betraying him leds to his permanent Heel–Face Turn. To which he starts sliding into a Unscrupulous Hero who slowly gets nicer and more genuinely well-intentioned overtime.
• Non-Action Big Bad: Among the Big Bads, he's the least inclined to fight directly (Nightmare Moon, Chrysalis, Sombra, and especially Tirek and Starlight all have action scenes ranging from brief to lengthy); at most, he just sticks around to watch his Powers Do the Fighting.
• Non-Indicative Name: Despite his title of the "spirit" of chaos, Discord possesses a physical form, one that remains even after his magic has been removed or nullified, and is vulnerable to certain illnesses.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Often slithers up against the Mane Six and presses his face against theirs; also tends to caress their muzzles and sometimes wraps his serpentine body around them. He especially loves touching Twilight's face, more often than not pinching her cheeks or pulling on her lips.
• No Social Skills: As a creature that spent centuries being chaotic and not having any friends, he does struggle with social skills when it comes to interacting with others without acting obnoxious and he especially is pretty bad with jokes.
• Not Bad: He holds this opinion towards Trixie in "To Where And Back Again — Part 2", declaring her use of her smoke bombs to evade the changelings "not exactly great and powerful, but effective", and later admitting that some of her illusions were "slightly above average".
• Not Good with Rejection: Being told "no" doesn't sit well with Discord.
  • In "Make New Friends and Keep Discord", he reacts to Fluttershy inviting somepony else to the Grand Galloping Gala with bitterness and resentment.
  • In "Dungeons and Discord", he loses his temper after Big Mac and Spike refuse to spend "guys' night" the way he wants to.
  • In "A Matter of Principals", Starlight rejecting his offer to help with the School of Friendship drives him to sabotage her.
• Not Me This Time: Since he's so often responsible of chaotic events, he's the first one to be suspected when something weird happens, even if he's not responsible (for once).
  • In "Princess Twilight Sparkle", everyone but Fluttershy immediately suspects that he was behind the Everfree ordeal. Discord immediately denies having anything to do with it. This is ultimately subverted at the end when he accidentally reveals that he was the cause of it... just much later than intended.
  • The Flashback at the beginning of the "Cosmos" comic arc shows him invoking this, as the chaos that was currently happening was actually the work of Cosmos herself.
  • In "The Summer Sun Setback", when the ponies see chaos happening outside, they all stare at Discord. He defensively says that he had nothing to do with it.
    Discord: Don't look at me!
  • In "the Big Mac Question", he reacts this way when Big Mac and Sugar Belle disappear mid-conversation.
    Discord: Okay, this time, it really wasn't me!
  • "The Ending of the End – Part 2": In the climax, after a giant cupcake lands on top of the Legion of Doom and chocolate rain starts raining, everyone glances at Discord, who just arrived with Starlight and the princesses, and he innocently tells them "Don't look at me." He is correct and it is immediately revealed Pinkie is responsible, having taken Discord's magic from Grogar's bewitching bell herself.
  • In the 2019 Holiday Special, he states that he wasn't responsible for the pie prank while he was posing as Krumple Horn.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: At first, he only seems mischievous by doing things like making cotton candy clouds that produce chocolate rain. Then he steals the Elements of Harmony, and things just get worse from there.
• Not So Invincible After All: It generally takes the Elements of Harmony to shut him down long-term, but there have always been signs that it's not entirely impossible to counter his powers. Twilight is able to cancel out his Psychic Strangle on her friends and partially undo his chaos magic with a force field, Celestia successfully prevents him from stealing away the Elements the second time he is released, he is shown to be affected by the Tatzlwurm's sneeze, a super-charged Tirek is able to restrain him with telekinesis and drain his magic, and an Anti-Magic field is able to nullify his powers entirely. Additionally, his My Little Pony: Friends Forever issue with Luna reveals that he is just as vulnerable as anypony else in his dreams (though he can still keep others from entering his in the first place). "Discordant Harmony" shows that repeated claw-snaps can actually leave him tired and a little sore.

Tropes O to S

• Odd Friendship:
  • The first pony he ever befriends? Fluttershy. It becomes the subject of "Discordant Harmony" when his insecurities about it (caused when other ponies keep commenting on it) have him try and put a lid on his chaos. It nearly kills him. Fluttershy manages to save him and points out it doesn't matter if their friendship doesn't make sense to others, it means a lot to both of them.
  • Has this with the CMC in the comics, although he acts like a child and they can cause a lot of chaos. Their main point of bonding seems to be that the CMC love new experiences, which the creative Reality Warper can supply in copyright-skirting spades.
  • Basically anytime Discord forms a genuine friendship (which is admittedly quite rare) it turns into this. Another example is his friendship with mindless, amorphous blob Smooze.
  • With Spike and Big Mac. The thought of hanging out with a quiet farm pony and Twilight's young assistant doesn't appeal to Discord at first, but they eventually form a genuine bond and share regular "Guys' Night" activities from then on.
  • With Starlight Glimmer. She's all about control, while his entire raison d'être is Chaos. Yet, after their adventure against the Changelings, he tries to get Twilight to assign Starlight to him as a student, while she finds herself laughing at his playful antics. Their friendship is frayed during "A Matter of Principals", but Starlight manages to convince him to stop after realising the reasons for his actions, making her the second pony after Fluttershy who proves capable of talking him down.
  • His oddest friendship out of all is with Twilight. They are total opposites, chaos and harmony. Most of their screentime together consist of Discord mischeviously messing with her and Twilight being annoyed with him. However despite that they consider each other friends and will go to the ends of Equestria for each other. Examples include Twilight saving him from Tirek and Discord's whole plan in the Final Season involving trying to show her she has what it takes.
• Oh, Crap!: He gets that very look just before the Elements of Harmony hit him full force.
• One-Man Army: He is very possibly the single most powerful being in all of Equestria. Even Princess Celestia and Princess Luna stood no chance against him without the Elements of Harmony. In "To Where and Back Again", it is said that if it hadn't been for Chrysalis's Anti-Magic throne, he could have defeated the entire Changeling army effortlessly on his own.
• Only Friend: For a fair while after his Heel–Face Turn, Fluttershy was the only one who could stand him (though he got occasional friendly gestures from Pinkie Pie). He seems to be edging out of this and gaining some positive bonding with the other ponies however, though they're still Vitriolic Best Buds at best.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • After going through a brutal Break the Haughty moment by Tirek's betrayal, Discord's voice loses all its snide haughtiness, showing that he's genuinely remorseful for his actions this time.
  • In "Make New Friends but Keep Discord", he shows a brand of anger he's never actually exhibited before, from quiet discontent to full-blown raging, with none of the joviality and joke-making he usually invokes.
  • In "What About Discord", Twilight becomes freaked out when Discord is actually getting along well with the other ponies.
  • He drops all notion of silliness and playfulness when he learns the Changelings have kidnapped Fluttershy. He is furious and spends no time teleporting himself, Starlight, Trixie and Thorax to the Changeling Kingdom.
• Operation: Jealousy: He brings the Smooze to the Grand Galloping Gala as his guest in order to make Fluttershy jealous. When it becomes clear it isn't working, he stuffs the Smooze in a closet.
• Order vs. Chaos: This is his conflict with the bearers of the Elements of Harmony. However, it's more Harmony vs. Disharmony, Harmony in this case being more compromise and working together while Disharmony is self-centered and breeds strife and hatred between them. Discord, obviously, is Disharmony incarnate. Until his Heel–Face Turn, that is — after which, the spectrum shifts more toward Balance Between Order and Chaos, and his Chaos (as long as it's the Good kind) is ironically accepted as another part of Harmony.
• Our Dragons Are Different: His species name is draconequus and, while he's more of a chimera, he seems to be at least partly modeled off an eastern dragon. His left leg and part of his tail also seem to be those of a dragon.
• Out-Gambitted: In Season 9, his Trickster Mentor Batman Gambit plot to use the major villains as pawns via teaching them teamwork to set them up as a threat for Twilight to defeat instead gets them to work out their own hidden agenda to dethrone "Grogar" by using his Bell and giving themselves a major power boost.
• Painting the Medium: How he helps to clear the sky in "The Summer Sun Setback"; he pulls up the bottom edge of the screen like a curtain to expose a mass of TV static behind it and shoves a cloud through.
• Paper People: The very first appearance of Discord is under a stylized, two-dimensional shape moving over stained-glass windows in the royal Canterlot castle.
• Pass the Popcorn:
  • At the beginning of "The Return of Harmony – Part 2", he finds the sight of Twilight's bickering friends to be so entertaining that he gets a movie theater seat with a bag of popcorn to properly enjoy the show.
  • He does it again during the season 4 premiere while Ponyville is being overrun by the Everfree Forest.
  • He slowly chews on some popcorn while listening to Twilight making a speech about Starlight Glimmer in "Celestial Advice".
  • He enjoys some popcorn in "A Matter of Principals" while watching Smolder sneezing fire uncontrollably (due to a Dragonsneeze tree he had "hired" as a substitute teacher).
  • In Best Gift Ever, he treats himself to popcorn while watching the Mane Six trying to contain the Winterzilla... then dispenses with it out of annoyance over them not hitting upon the proper solution.
• Pay Evil unto Evil:
  • Shown to be completely on board with this in "The Ending of the End" Discord decides to stone Chrysalis, Tirek and Cozy Glow like he once was as a villain, deciding it’s only fitting for beings who rejected and hated friendship more than anything given how they divided Equestria to be forced to spend a eternity together. Even if one sees him as doing this as too cruel or him not deserving of giving out the punishment, it is true that after everything they attempted to do or did to the characters for selfish evil reasons they had it coming quite a bit.
  • His whole gambit with the three as Grogar reeks of this, as he forces Twilight's worst unreformed enemies into a Villain Team-Up to become a more serious threat, but only so they would ultimately lose to Twilight's group as a proof of their competence. He seems to have the mindset that since they are so bad, it's fine letting them get defeated. He ends up threatening them to stay in line and engages in some villainous abuse towards them as well, so much that they end up using the trope on him when they progress further than he expected and use the real Grogar's bell on him. Notably they didn't know it was Discord until afterwards, he was just that ire-inspiring a Mean Boss via Grogar.
• Pet the Dog: Even after reforming, Discord is still generally a Jerk with a Heart of Gold only really on a good day, but he does have genuine moments to show he cares for others more than he lets on. Any interaction he has with Fluttershy are generally the biggest example of this. "Discordant Harmony" in of itself is an entire episode of Discord showing kindness.
• Physical God: Is all but directly said to be one, only ever being referred to as a "spirit", but his incredible reality-warping powers make him one of the most powerful forces seen in the G4 franchise. Among his other powers, he's strong enough to break Celestia's magical barriers, overrides both sisters to control the sun and moon himself, can shapeshift and teleport, can duplicate himself several times over, can create impressive illusions and/or flat-out alter reality to a very great degree, can open rifts in time and space and created an entire pocket dimension to live in.
• Playing Sick: During "Three's a Crowd", he fakes being sick to "test" Twilight's friendship by seeing to what lengths she'll go to take care of him and accommodate his inane requests.
• Playing with Puppets: Discord's favorite trick. If you look at the windows in the Equestrian palace as Princess Celestia talks about Discord, Fluttershy sees one of them with an image of Discord holding ponies up with puppet strings screaming over a pit of fire. Look at the same window after he's helped Tirek banish the first three alicorn princesses and has begun re-making the windows. The "three tribe" ponies have been replaced with the three alicorn princesses.
• Poke the Poodle: In comparison to all the harm he inflicted on the Mane Six in "The Return of Harmony", his actions in "Keep Calm and Flutter On" are somewhat tame. Justified because if he went to the big stuff the Mane Six would petrify him again. Also, if he did any major puppy-kicking, he probably would have come off as too Easily Forgiven at the end. He also does this after becoming a AntiHero as his new care for friendship makes him have some level of compassion for others.
• Poor Communication Kills: In several of his spotlight episodes, Discord could have easily resolved matters by being more open about his feelings. But his Pride often leads him to rely on elaborate schemes and trickery instead.
• The Power of Hate: He is the antithesis of the Elements of Harmony, which run on the Power of Friendship. As such, he's able to get stronger from strife and fighting between ponies. The Cutie Mark Crusaders getting into a fight in front of him is what grants him enough strength to break free from his weakening stone prison. Though some have theorized that the Crusaders' fight was not a cause but a consequence of Discord's impending breakout and that they were in truth his first victims. Whatever the case, Discord thrives off hate magic, using it to undermine The Power of Friendship.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • Unlike a certain princess, he doesn't turn ponies into stone! This has nothing to do with morals; he's "chaos", and chaos is "active", so turning ponies to stone is just too boring.
  • His friendship with Fluttershy was initially part of a plan to cause chaos under her nose, until he came to genuinely care for it. Even then, he admits that he was only being a good guy for the sake of it, letting Tirek tempt him.
  • The "Discord's Magical History Tour" comic reveals he helped topple a evil regime long before his Heel–Face Turn, likely because he viewed it as "boring".
• The Prankster: When he's not breaking ponies or driving them insane, he's making unruly clouds and chocolate rain.
• Pride: His Fatal Flaw. Even after reforming, it's still a major part of his personality.
  • In "Dungeons & Discord", he initially scoffs at the idea of hanging out with Spike and Big Macintosh, believing he is above "sidekicks" like them. Learning that they only invited him because they felt sorry for him (since Fluttershy and the others were away, and he was alone) comes as a complete shock to him, and he actually manages to swallow his pride and apologize for thinking he was better than them.
  • In "A Matter of Principals", he feels left out over never being invited to visit the School of Friendship. Rather than admit this to anypony, he sends the Mane Six on a fake map mission and causes trouble for temporary headmare Starlight when she refuses his suggestions on how to "improve" the school. Even when Starlight realizes he did all that because he felt left out, Discord weakly attempts to act like that wasn't the case.
• Promotion to Opening Titles: Very very sneaky, but check the window of Fluttershy's cottage during her "Sharing Kindness" line in the theme song of the Season 4 opening and beyond. In the season 8 opening, he makes a more noticeable appearance in the background of Fluttershy's animal sanctuary.
• Psychic Link: In MLP FIM comic issue #97, he feels Fluttershy is in danger, although he is wearing an anti-magic collar.
• Psychopathic Manchild: While he's aware of his actions and how horrific they are, he has nothing better to do than have whimsical and nonsensical fun at the expense of other characters, no real business to take care of, and no compassion for the beings he's toying with to restrain him. Whenever things don't go his way, his reactions include performing a Rage Quit, pouting, or throwing a temper tantrum, depending on how bad he's been beaten that time.
• Psychotic Smirk: Sports one of these when feeling particularly devious.
• Pulling Himself Together: He can detach his body parts at will and reassemble them later. Notably, he falls into pieces while pretending to be under the "blue flu" in "Three's a Crowd", and splits his head from his neck to receive a medal in "Celestial Advice". He falls to pieces again in "A Matter of Principals", and quickly restores himself.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: His use is split evenly between sarcastic and genuine.
• Rage Quit: His reaction to Fluttershy beating his mind games is to cease the mind games and outright brainwash her.
• Reality Warper: He can do just about anything. For instance, he holds out a glass under a cotton-candy cloud that rains chocolate milk, and it fills up from top to bottom rather than bottom to top. He then proceeds to drink the glass. Not the milk; the glass itself. He then throws the milk over his shoulder and it explodes (darkening the area rather than lighting it up). And of course, that was after he warped Equestria into a surrealist mess that fit his aesthetic preferences better than the boring old version with gravity and normal weather and roads that aren't made of soap and such. He's a crazy one, that Discord. Season 9 shows that he even has the power to resurrect the dead, although the fact King Sombra may have already been a supernatural being at the time of his destruction could possibility have contributed to that.
• Real Men Wear Pink: He carries a pink umbrella and at one point wears a pink robe. There's also his pink cotton candy clouds. Plus when he remakes a broken lamp in his image, it's wearing a pink tutu. He also has tea parties with Fluttershy.
• Recruiting the Criminal: Celestia's "use for Discord's magic" is tracking down Tirek. That's why she released him from his statue form.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: His irises are red, and there's hardly a minute goes by he's not doing something naughty, or at least troublesome. They narrow and glow when he learns that Fluttershy was kidnapped. He looks downright menacing and shows just how pissed he is.
• Red Right Hand: Anyone made up of thirteen different creatures has to be evil.
• Reference Overdosed:
  • Too many to name: He has dressed up as Mary Poppins and did a Dumb and Dumber tux ensemble with the Smooze, his "Glass of Water" song had one cut in Hogwarts, and went full Metal Gear Solid when he entered Sugarcube Corner Solid Snake-style!
  • In the end of Cosmos arc (MLP Friendship Is Magic issue #78), Discord dresses as a ghostbuster to suck Cosmos into a ghost trap. And in the issue #97, he feels Fluttershy is in danger, much like Luke Skywalker feels his friends' suffering in The Empire Strikes Back.
• Reformed, but Rejected: Throughout Season 4, while he is no longer outwardly mean, none of the ponies (except Fluttershy) genuinely likes him. This is mostly due to his habit of messing with them for fun. However, overtime, all of the ponies learn to accept and love him as a dear friend in spite of his mischief.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: Despite his Heel–Face Turn at the end of "Keep Calm and Flutter On", his mischievous streak is still intact, and he's not above pulling the occasional prank or voicing his amusement at whatever chaos befalls Ponyville without his direct input. His more villanous tendencies can come out when he is left out. In Discord's case it's eventually shown to be a Justified Trope, as if he were to completely change his chaotic mindset, he would disappear from existence.
• Regretful Traitor: In "Twilight’s Kingdom", after Tirek betrays him and drains him of his magic, Discord is genuinely heartbroken.
• Remember the New Guy?: Inverted. Because his reign over Equestria was such a time of suffering, and Celestia and Luna battled him to become rulers themselves, there is no reason that the general Equestrian public shouldn't have a basic idea of him, but nopony except Celestia and Luna have any idea of his existence, not even Twilight, who is very well-versed in history. This is most likely a case of Legend Fades to Myth since his reign was both very long ago and he himself is more of a primal force of nature than even Celestia and Luna.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: He is part dragon after all, and he also moves and coils quite snake-like at times (especially in "What About Discord?" where he actually turns into a giant rattlesnake, before shedding the scaly skin). All of this highlights his evilly chaotic nature.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: After allying with Tirek during "Twilight's Kingdom" and helping him steal pony magic, he ends up drained of his own magic and cast aside like yesterday's garbage. This ends up inspiring a genuine change of heart in Discord and firmly cements him as a friend of the Mane Six.
• Rhymes on a Dime: Not as often as Zecora, mind you, but he loves handing out torturous riddles. He normally sounds far more menacing while doing so as well.
• Riddle for the Ages: We never find out where Discord came from or how he got so powerful. He's just the way he is.
• Riddle Me This: He loves giving riddles to challenge people.
• Ridiculously Small Wings: Discord has a pair of mismatched wings (one feathery and one leathery), which he flaps when flying despite how ridiculously small they are compared to his body mass. Of course he's a being of pure chaos, so there are strong hints that his flight is entirely magical.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: He's right for calling out Princess Celestia for turning him to stone, considering that he had never done that to anypony in the past, but it isn't because he was a decent ruler or even because he thinks it's cruel; it's because having a kingdom of stone subjects would be too boring for him.
• Roaring Rampage of Rescue: His mentality in "To Where and Back Again", when Fluttershy is kidnapped by the changelings.
• Rubber Man: Given his impressive array of powers, this one might seem minor, but he can stretch out his arms, tail, and serpentine body at will, and even split his body in half. May fall more into the cartoonish Elongating Arm Gag sometimes, though.
• Running on All Fours: He switches to a quadrupedal stance for a boost of speed in "To Where and Back Again – Part 2" when pursued by changelings, but that's only because he cannot use magic to escape otherwise.
• Sad Clown: He's usually a clownish and silly jokester that pranks others for his own fun but he's also very lonely and insecure due to living centuries without friends, which is why he's scared of losing his friendship with Fluttershy.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Supernatural Powers!: Spirit of Chaos; not big on rules.
  Discord: I'm not playing fair? Perhaps we haven't met. I'm Discord: spirit of chaos and disharmony. Helloooooooo!
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In the comics storyline "Cosmos"; when he realizes Cosmos has escaped, his first thought is to grab Fluttershy and leave Equestria immediately.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Discord had been imprisoned in a stone statue by Celestia and Luna since ancient times for the suffering his rule brought everyone in Equestria. The Cutie Mark Crusaders release him by creating discord (fighting) in front of it, giving him the power to break free from his weakened prison. He's put back in his can at the end of Part 2. The Mane Six eventually release him and reform him.
• Self-Duplication: Discord can create doubles of himself at will for whatever task at hand, like a Hold Up Your Score gag, or even to simply illustrate a point in the conversation. For example, a Dastardly Whiplash-styled double appears in "What About Discord?", to contrast his "old self" with the current one. "Discordant Harmony" reveals that he often conjures them so he can have someone to bounce ideas off of. In the Best Gift Ever special, he uses this to demonstrate how he'll be spending Hearth's Warming having "quality time" with himself, having a duplicate appear so they can sadly walk away together.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Discord's whole motivation for holding the Jerkass Ball in "A Matter of Principals" is that he wanted to be involved with the School. Finally, at the end, he is made vice-principal... but then the Mane Six return, which means Discord won't be vice-principal after all. The episode ends with Discord sighing and throwing away the business cards he'd already made for his new role.
• Shameful Shrinking:
  • In "Princess Twilight Sparkle – Part 2", he briefly considers the possibility of causing chaos with the Elements of Harmony gone. Fluttershy then scolds him, telling him to help clean up Ponyville if he wants to remain friends, causing him to shrink.
  • He invokes this again in "What About Discord?", shrinking when he feels bad about being left out of the Mane Six's new inside joke.
• Ship Tease: With Fluttershy. They're shown to spend a lot of time together off-screen (having tea together once a week and exchanging letters), he stares at her quite adoringly even when she isn't looking, strokes her face a couple times, she blushes when he hugs her, he even gets jealous when he can't go with her to the gala, to name a few things.
• Shut Up, Kirk!: Right after Celestia has explained how horrible things used to be thanks to Discord, he reveals himself and they have this little exchange:
  Celestia: Discord! Show yourself!
  Discord: [chuckling] Did you miss me, Celestia? I missed you. It's quite lonely being encased in stone. But you wouldn't know that, would you, because I don't turn ponies into stone!
• Silly Rabbit, Romance Is for Kids!: In The Break Up Break Down", Discord dismisses Hearts and Hooves Day as just a "greeting card holiday" and romantic love as an illusion. This opinion seems to change by the end of the episode, where he used his magic to arrange for Big Mac and Sugar Belle to be able to reconcile.
• Single Specimen Species: The only known draconequus to exist.
• A Sinister Clue: He tends to favor the eagle talon he has for a left arm when snapping or holding things.
• Sissy Villain: He shows some feminine traits, such as cross-dressing.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis:
  • While his friendship with all the ponies is vitriolic at best, it is no-nonsense Twilight Sparkle that distrusts and loses patience with him the most, which of course makes her his favorite target for pranks and heckling. There are blatant signs of sympathy between the two, however, especially following "Twilight's Kingdom".
  • He also becomes one for Trixie after the Season 6 finale, as their egos come to blows quite a lot.
• Sizeshifter: He can change size just as readily as he changes form. Often as part of his pranks or his Trickster Mentor shtick, turning into a literal shoulder angel/demon for ponies. He also uses it twice to evoke Shameful Shrinking. And there was that time Rainbow Dash called him a big liar, and:
  Discord: Now, look who's a liar. Anyone can plainly see that I'm not big at all. [camera zooms out to show a tiny Discord sitting on the couch]
• Slasher Smile: He briefly sports one when he finally decides to directly engage the newly bonded Mane Cast with his magic.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Played with. He's not a small name when it comes to the power he wields, as he's arguably the most powerful ^note By default; not via Amplifier Artifact, Energy Absorption, etc. creature in Equestria. But he seems to expect people to find him personally charming and hilarious as well, when mostly they just think he's obnoxious. Best seen in "Dungeons & Discords", where he's shocked to learn that Spike and Big Mac, who he considers far beneath his notice, only invited him to join their game night because they felt sorry for him.
• Smug Snake: His plan to deal with the Elements of Harmony is a genuinely well thought-out one, and he's quite effective and cunning in achieving his goal. However, he quickly grows complacent as soon as he thinks he's won, and refuses to take Twilight and her friends seriously until it's too late for him.
• Smug Smiler:
  • Outside of his reaction to Fluttershy withstanding his taunts and his reaction to the Mane Six reactivating the Elements of Harmony, Discord has two smiles that function as his standard facial expressions: the first is the aforementioned "psychotic" one that appears anytime he successfully tricks someone into doing something; the second is the silly grin that appears anytime he does something particularly outlandish. The contrast between the two is quite unsettling.
  • "Keep Calm and Flutter On" features him finally giving a genuine, non-malicious smile. It's adorable.
• Smug Super: Since he's far more powerful than most characters in the series, he doesn't see anyone as a threat and tends to see everything as a game. The fact that he never takes Twilight and her friends seriously eventually leads to his undoing. It also lead to his defeat in ancient times. He was so sure of himself he didn't even make a move to fight Celestia and Luna when they showed up, resulting in them turning him to stone with the Elements. It also leads to him being drained of his magic by Tirek.
• The Sociopath: He doesn't care who or what he hurts so long as it's entertaining to him. He's also sadistic and quite the Manipulative Bastard. He dials it down after Fluttershy befriends him. Still, he proved sociopathic enough to sell her and everypony else out for what seems a better offer, even if he had some regret over it. It takes this blowing up in his face for him to genuinely lose it.
• Sociopathic Hero: After his sincere Heel–Face Turn, he still has little to no innate regard for anyone other than Fluttershy, which at first came of as possessive. He yawns when hearing of everyone kidnapped by Queen Chrysalis and only cares when he learns that Fluttershy was one of them. He's still prone to lying to or manipulating her and others, is quick to anger when he doesn't get his way, and overestimating himself and underestimating others. Even when he does have good intentions, he goes about it in often morally questionable ways. It's only after he's flat out told why his actions are wrong or the consequences of them catch up to him that he sees the error of his ways and atones.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: Zig-zagged. He has a deep voice and he can make it quite menacing, he mostly speaks in a jovial, excited, and sarcastic tone. See Evil Sounds Deep for more information.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Of sorts. Before befriending the ponies, his more mean actions are usually because he feels jealous or left out.
• Spock Speak: He usually speaks this in his daily vocabulary, despite numerous times when he would use contractions.
• Spoiled Brat: His words imply this is because he's so used to getting everything he wants due to his powers that he thinks he can get away with anything. Also shown in his reactions when things don't go his way: in "The Return of Harmony" his response to Fluttershy beating his mind games is to basically Rage Quit and he throws what amounts to temper tantrum at Fluttershy telling him off in "Keep Calm and Flutter On". He gets somewhat better after she befriends him.
  Discord: You think you can boss Discord around?! You think I'm going to turn all this back just because you say so?!
• Stalker without a Crush: Towards the Mane Six themselves, but more so towards Twilight.
• Story-Breaker Power: Now that he's no longer considered as evil as when he was first introduced, his vast powers could potentially be used to easily solve most problems. Except that being a spirit of Chaos, he's just as likely to do so as when he was out-and-out evil (that is, he isn't, although he's less likely to be the cause of said problems). Discord's game-breaking power is actually put in check in the Season 6 finale, as he falls prey to an Anti-Magic field created by Queen Chrysalis, her throne in particular. So Discord can't use his powers even if he wants to, in this case, motivated to saving Fluttershy. The fact that he doesn't appear in the Movie speaks volumes. His game-breaking powers are later put in check again, this time for both the good and bad guys, in the series finale. The Legion of Doom use the Bewitching Bell to drain him of all his magic, immediately rendering him unable to stop them himself. However, it is explained that nobody but him is capable of controlling his magic, therefore making it useless to the Legion themselves. In Season 10, he resolves the conflict with the Abyssians very quickly once his magic restraining bolt is destroyed.
• Sugar Apocalypse: In the Season 5 finale, Twilight sees multiple Bad Futures for if each villain came to power, and the episode specifically states each future is worse than the one she saw before. Discord is shown here as the worst villain of all (save for the Flim-Flam Brothers), with his reign over Equestria implied to be worse than Sombra, Chrysalis, Nightmare Moon, or Tirek. And it still looks like a crazy World of Chaos instead of the more conventional Dark Worlds shown in the other timelines.
• Superpower Lottery: Reality Warper, Complete Immortality, Voluntary Shapeshifting, etc.
• Super-Strength: At one point, he uproots a tree with his bare claws like it is nothing (while pretending to be ill and "unable to lift a spoon").
• Surreal Humor: Thrives on it. This is why he turns Ponyville into a surreal Wonderland.
• Sweet Tooth: He sure likes to make sweet and tasty food while causing chaos.
• Sympathy for the Devil: The Mane Six are genuinely horrified when Tirek betrays Discord and drains his magic. Even Applejack, who had the most reason to want to punch the guy for the crap he pulled, had no biting sarcasm when she asked him if he saw that coming. And Discord sounds so thoroughly broken when he replies that he didn't.

Tropes T to Z

• Tarot Motifs: A stained-glass window of Discord has him hanging tied-up ponies over a pit of fire, bringing to mind the Devil card.
• Taken for Granite: What the power of the Elements of Harmony does to him. In "The Ending of the End", he suggests turning Cozy Glow, Lord Tirek and Queen Chrysalis into stone, and helps Celestia and Luna carry it out.
• Taking the Bullet: In "The Beginning of the End - Part 2", Discord throws himself in front of a magic blast from Sombra aimed at Fluttershy, taking the full brunt of the attack. He later reveals that the blast didn't seriously hurt him at all, but he plays up the injury to encourage the Mane Six to finish the fight by themselves.
• Thin-Skinned Bully: He enjoys taunting and poking fun at others, but isn't nearly so good at taking insults and mockery himself.
• This Cannot Be!: His reaction when the Elements of Harmony are activated after being so certain he's completely broken the Mane Six's friendship.
• This Is the Part Where...:
  • In "The Beginning of the End - Part 1", Discord points out what usually happens whenever Twilight starts to Freak Out.
    Discord: This is all so predictable. Now's the part where you all tell little Sparkle here that everything is going to be fine, but she won't believe you.
  • Subverted twice in "The Summer Sun Setback".
    • Discord believes he's arrived just in time for the "Twilight gives her friends an impossibly long and overly detailed list" predicament, only to be proven wrong when Twilight gives them each a card with a minor task to perform.
    • When Twilight's friends tell her what's been happening, Discord believes she's going to go into another Freak Out. Twilight instead takes a calming breath and comes up with a plan to fix everything.
• Time Abyss: All we know is that he was imprisoned by the Elements of Harmony some time before Nightmare Moon appeared a thousand years ago. He states that he's "eons" old; in astronomy and geology, an eon is half a billion years or more, but immortal beings in fiction use the word much more loosely. In "Make New Friends but Keep Discord", he describes himself as "centuries" old, so he probably isn't that old, but still pretty old.
• Token Evil Teammate: Post Heel–Face Turn. He's not evil anymore, but he's still a mischievous Troll who only helps out when and if he feels like it, and the cast aside from Fluttershy don't trust him. "Twilight's Kingdom" then deconstructs this — turns out when you team up with a former villain with nothing to ensure his cooperation but the honor system, The Power of Friendship can only do so much. Especially if he is only really friends with one pony and the others... really don't try to understand him (though he didn't make much of an effort to endear himself to anypony but Fluttershy). Now that he's truly learned how valuable friendship has become to him, he seeks to subvert this trope and become genuinely good.
• Too Clever by Half: He is well aware he's a powerful Reality Warper and never views anyone as much of a threat to him as a result, not even the Mane Cast. This is ultimately his downfall. He's so confident he's broken up the Mane Cast, he never considers they'd be able to regroup and truly use the Elements of Harmony against him.
• Took a Level in Kindness: By the end of his second appearance, thanks to Fluttershy, he finally realizes what it means to care about someone else. Takes another one at the end of "Twilight's Kingdom", having learned an even bigger lesson in friendship. He pretty much takes another one in every appearance except for "Matter of Principals".
• Too Much Alike: Humorously, he and Trixie have a highly argumentative relationship due to their mutual massive egos and love of the spotlight.
• Too Powerful to Live: Given that his powers make him stronger than almost every character in the series we've seen thus far, there's no way that he could stick around without the series ending on a downbeat note. At least until his Heel–Face Turn, but even then his appearances in the show are sparingly at best. After all, the plot would end in seconds if he was free to run around. That said, he has been shown since then to have more weaknesses than expected.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: In "The Ending of the End" it's revealed that his powers are too chaotic for any being other than himself to control, which explains why Tirek never bothered to use any of his abilities in the season 4 finale. Cozy Glow finds this out the hard way. However, Pinkie Pie turns out to be able to control some of Discord's power, just like she did in the comics.
• Touché: "Well played, Fluttershy, well played."
• Tranquil Fury: While he is usually just annoyed or tends to sulk like a spoiled child, nothing has made him truly mad until Fluttershy is kidnapped along with the rest of the important ponies in the Season 6 finale. His eyes narrow and he becomes dangerously calm and serious.
• Trickster God: Beneath his tricks there's a hidden side of malice.
• Trickster Mentor: Multiple:
  • Seems to fancy himself something like this by the end of the season 4 premiere: He knows all along what is causing the Everfree Forest to run wild, but keeps silent because he doesn't want to "rob Twilight of an important lesson about being a princess." He is also the one who suggests they speak to Zecora for guidance, and convinces Twilight to return to her friends, albeit by insinuating her new title has gone to her head; see Jerkass Has a Point above. He also guides Twilight to focus on opening the Tree of Harmony chest while at the same time, bookmarks certain sections of the Mane Six's Friendship Journal pertaining to five of the keys.
  • He continues doing this in several other episodes as well. Notably, he seems to be "trickster" first and foremost and "mentor" more as an afterthought — he likes using the excuse of teaching some character (usually Twilight) a "friendship lesson" even when it is quite clear to everybody that he was really mostly getting his kicks out of ruining someone's day. He usually gets called out on this, and sometimes even gets his schemes turned around on him.
  • In "The Beginning of the End - Part 2", Discord fakes a serious injury in the final fight against Sombra to provoke Twilight into overcoming her confidence issues and defeating him. It's implied by Rainbow Dash's knowing "That's Discord for you!" line that this is also why he's hardly ever lifted a finger to help when it would've been most convenient.
  • Deconstructed in "The Ending of the End - Part 1". It turns out that Discord has been masquerading as Grogar the entire time, bringing Tirek, Cozy Glow, and Chrysalis together as one last "test" for Twilight to make sure that she's really ready to take over Equestria when three major threats attack at once. However, the three outwit him, steal his Chaos powers with the real Grogar's Bewitching Bell, then use the magic stored inside it to supercharge themselves and very nearly take over Equestria, along with nearly resulting in the return of the Windigos and utterly shattering Twilight's confidence when he had meant to bolster it. When everyone finds out about this, they are not happy.
• Troll: From the first line of dialogue he speaks, he makes it clear that he has fun messing with ponies just for the fun of doing it. From Season 4 onward, even when he's on their side, he still goes out of his way to annoy them for the lulz.
• The Troublemaker: Discord has been known to troll Twilight on her paranoia of him spending time with her friends because "It Amused Me", and once, he pretended to be sick when Twilight was trying to spend time with her sister-in-law, Cadance, by having her care for him in his time of need (complete with Musical Number). He does get karmic payback at the end when he becomes sick for real.
• Tsundere: Discord shows shades of this, by usually putting on a act that he doesn't care as much as he lets on. By either acting like a jerk to hide his true feelings or secretly caring about helping Twilight and admiring her. Spike lampshades this in "The Breakup Breakdown" by saying he acts tough but deep down he's a softy. His biggest examples include:
  • In Breakup Breakdown, he acted like he didn't care about love and worthless heartwarming feelings. He does love fluttershy rather platonically or otherwise and gets Big Mac back together with Sugar-belle.
  • He pretends to be against Twilight being ruler instead of him, when he is actually nothing but supportive of the decision.

• Underestimating Badassery: Due to his power, he views everyone as amusing distractions at best, blinding him to the fact they potentially could beat him. This becomes his undoing, as he counts Celestia and the Mane Six out far too early and refuses to treat them as a threat afterwards. He also seriously underestimated what Tirek was capable of, twice in fact, and both times he payed dearly for said mistake.
• Undying Loyalty: To Fluttershy, post-Heel–Face Turn, due to her being his very first real friend.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Despite Fluttershy showing him nothing but kindness throughout Season 4, he betrays her along with all the rest of the Mane Six to Tirek in the Season 4 finale. Twilight calls him a friend and saves him from Tirek despite his betrayal of them, and he ends up apologizing to her for what he did. Yet, in later episodes he continues to manipulate and toy with Twilight for fun as if nothing happened (granted, it lacks the genuinely malevolent bite that it had in his debut, instead being more along the lines of The Gadfly; though it's still quite a jerk move) He still does try to help her in his own chaotic way every now and then to be fair .
• Unscrupulous Hero: By the final season, he just as much wants to be a good friend as everypony else and has become completely genuine in trying to help in his trickster mentor ways. At the same time, his plan to help his friends, involves releasing dangerous villains and using them as pawns, while potentially putting all of Equestria at risk in a effort to give Twilight, the confidence needed to rule Equestria. He puts himself in harms way to help save Equestria, and did so without any powers and later Pay Evil unto Evil on the trio. Downplayed in season 10, where he shows potential for the same ruthlessness and anger in some issues but at the same time recognizes more of faults, genuinely trying to improve for Fluttershy, helps save a kingdom and take down the Knights of Harmony.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Played with in issue #57 of the main comics. Discord, having always been all-powerful by default, has never needed to study magic; so he has to go to Twilight for help when he starts to mysteriously lose his powers. However, during his Wizard Duel with Chaosville Pinkie Pie — a David vs. Goliath scenario where he's the former, and she's the latter — he wins by tricking her into exhaustion (a common Weak, but Skilled tactic).
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: In later seasons, the citizens of Ponyville barely bat an eyelid at the sight of him walking through town.
• Villain Decay: While he is still as powerful as he was in his premiere, Discord's evil has been downplayed since season 3 because of his Morality Chain. Tirek pointing this out to him is the motivation for Discord's Face–Heel Turn to try and reclaim his former glory, but he has reformed more than he realizes and just doesn't have it in him anymore.
• Villainous Breakdown: Twice. First he throws a hissy fit when Fluttershy doesn't give into his mind games. Then he goes from cocky to terrified when he realizes the Elements of Harmony are working again after he becomes so certain he's broken the Mane Six's bond.
• Villainous BSoD:
  • Undergoes a brief one in "Keep Calm and Flutter On" after realizing how much he's come to care about having a friend.
  • Another in "Twilight's Kingdom" after Tirek betrays him. Rather than the expected Villainous Breakdown over losing his beloved magic, Discord bemoans in earnest heartbreak that he thought their friendship was genuine as Tirek gives his Did You Actually Believe...? speech. Even the ponies he just sold out feel sorry for him after this display.
• Villainous Friendship: He genuinely hopes his partnership with Tirek will count as such, even viewing the medallion he gives him as a token of their friendship, only to find out he is just using him.
• Villainous Legacy:
  • In the "Princess Twilight Sparkle" two-parter, the conflict stems from an old scheme of his coming to threaten Equestria, but he's more or less a good guy at the time and isn't directly involved with the action.
  • The final issue of the Season 10 comics reveals that, during his original reign of chaos, Discord encountered the Knights of Harmony, and, unable to turn them against each other, manipulated the nations the Knights had taught Harmony to into waging war on the Knights' homeland. This led the Knights of Harmony to became the Knights of Order and actively prevent the other nations from harnessing the power of the Elements, leading to their successors' attack on Equestria in the present day.
• Villain Teleportation: Utilizes this more often than walking; it goes well with his lack of personal space to teleport in someone's face.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Is capable of transforming into anything he desires, though he seems incapable of hiding (or simply unwilling to hide) some of his traits such as his horns. See Morphic Resonance.
• Walking Spoiler: He disguised himself as Grogar and freed Equestria's most dangerous villains to test Twilight on her abilities before her coronation.
• Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: Even after notionally "reforming", Discord has distinct shades of this, claiming to be just as good a friend of the Mane Six as they are to each other in spite of all the trouble he's caused (and keeps causing) and then complaining when they don't immediately return the sentiment. Being the Trickster, how much of this is him actually meaning it and how much is him just messing with them for amusement isn't clear.
  • Another factor is that it may be that since he is the Spirit of Disharmony, what counts as decent behavior may come as foreign or even antithetical to him (especially since his Physical God status means he's spent most of his life seeing ponykind and others as merely playthings). One examination where this is Played With is in the Season 4 finale; the Big Bad Tirek convinces Discord to perform a Face–Heel Turn by acting friendly and amicable to him while giving him the chance for Discord to do what he wants. Discord falls for it because Fluttershy is the only one who is really friends with him and tries to understand his needs while the others barely tolerate him and even then, Fluttershy reins him in. He is unsurprisingly backstabbed and this betrayal did teach him some more humility to have a better understanding of friendship. He has been getting better though and for the most part, seems more like a somewhat spoiled child than anyone truly amoral at heart.
  • Explored further in the episode "Discordant Harmony", where Discord hosts a tea party for Fluttershy and tries to make her feel at home by completely removing anything bizarre from his home and changing his behavior to being impeccably nice. This started because Discord became irritated at how the ponies he was doing business with questioned his friendship with Fluttershy (though it appeared it did get to him). However, by doing so, he begins to fade from existence with the implications that Discord would've died. Furthermore, it's implied he is connected to "Chaosville", a pocket dimension that seems to serve as a Fisher King purpose and where his power is connected to. As such, while Discord can be amicable and nice, being chaotic and causing trouble is a literal part of who he is.
• Was It Really Worth It?:
  • Does this to himself by asking Fluttershy if she thought he'd think his World of Chaos wasn't worth losing their friendship. To everyone's surprise, including his own, he discovers it really wasn't.
  • Happens again in "Twilight's Kingdom". His expressions constantly show that he's not sure whether selling out Equestria to Tirek to be fully free was actually worth it or not. In the end he decides it wasn't worth it. At ALL. And now his mistake has cost him everything he had.
• Welcome Back, Traitor: In the season 4 finale, Discord betrays all of ponykind to the most titanically dangerous threat it has ever faced, and gleefully enjoys doing so until he gets backstabbed himself... and yet Twilight still rescues him with the rest of her friends. This is crucial to the episode's Double Aesop and is what turns Scorpan's medallion into Twilight's Plot Coupon. Towards the end, when the Mane Six are having a Group Hug and a guilt-ridden Discord is nervously waving from off to the side, Twilight uses her magic to pull him into the group, making this trope literal.
• When She Smiles: Normally he's a creepy unnatural Mad God, but when he honestly smiles at the end of "Keep Calm and Flutter On" and "Twilight's Kingdom — Part 2" he suddenly turns into an adorable Ugly Cute puppy.
• Where's the Fun in That?: "What fun is there in making sense?"
• White Hair, Black Heart: He has white hair and acted inconsiderate to the ponies in his debut episode. Eventually, the ponies find there is some gold buried in that supposed black heart of his.
• Wings Do Nothing: Although he does flap his mismatched wings when flying, they are ridiculously small compared to his body mass, and it's certain he can't fly at all without his Reality Warper powers. Indeed, once drained of magic by Tirek, or within an Anti-Magic field, he keeps to the ground. He does fly after the climax of "The Ending of the End – Part 2" despite being drained again, but Pinkie was literally pumping Chaos magic in the air by this point, he likely benefited from it.
• The Worf Effect: Even he's gotten this occasionally.
  • At the beginning of "Keep Calm and Flutter On", Celestia preemptively casts a new spell to prevent him from (directly) stealing the Elements anymore, and it works — unlike her defenses that didn't even faze him in "The Return of Harmony". However, this is downplayed due to her still not doing anything to him directly.
  • In "Three's a Crowd", the Tatzlwurm's sneeze makes him seriously ill and weakens him severely.
  • Perhaps the most well-known example is when Tirek ultimately betrays him and drains his magic in "Twilight's Kingdom", leaving him completely Brought Down to Normal. Things were actually the other way around at first, until Tirek built up enough strength to be able to do this to him in return (though it still required Tirek draining most ponies in Equestria, including the powerful magic of the Mane Six sans Twilight Sparkle).
  • In "Friends Forever #20", Luna is evidently able to not only just zap him unconscious now, but also wield a Home Field Advantage over him in dreams — the former understandably being a case of averted Talking Is a Free Action, and the latter being a case of what happens when a Reality Warper gets thrown out of his element.
  • His powers are nullified in "To Where and Back Again" due to the Anti-Magic effects of Queen Chrysalis's throne.
  • In Friendship is Magic #57, Discord starts to lose his magic after Pinkie Pie stumbles into his realm and starts bending it to her will — forcing him to face off against her in order to regain control. With his powers still weak, he is distinctly the underdog during the fight — ultimately resorting to Rope A Dope tactics to trick Pinkie into exhausting herself.
  • In the "Cosmos" storyline, Discord is deeply outclassed by the eponymous villainess, whose own Reality Warper abilities were powerful enough to threaten the very fabric of existence.
  • Subverted in "The Beginning of the End Part 2" when he fights King Sombra. after easily blocking all of Sombra's attack, he's seemingly taken down by Taking the Bullet for Fluttershy, but it's later revealed he was merely pretending to be hurt so he could motivate the Mane Six into getting their 11th-Hour Superpower. It's made abundantly clear that he could have easily defeated Sombra himself had he actually taken the fight seriously.
  • In "The Ending of the End", Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow double-cross him (while he's disguised as Grogar) and remove his magic using Grogar's bell.
• World Gone Mad: Equestria's fate after he takes over during his debut episode. The former pastoral Arcadia is promptly turned into a surreal psychedelic mess to suit a Mad God's whims and amusement. The landscape is warped beyond recognition and the ponies themselves are either driven mad in a variety of unique and interesting ways or became helpless pawns in cruel mind games, all to the background of the laws of physics being firmly shoved out the door and told not to come back. This is all highlighted by Twilight being left sane and aware of twisted everything is and having to deal with a nonsensical world, the hateful, one-dimensional parodies her friends were twisted into and Discord's constant mocking.
• World-Healing Wave: In "Keep Calm and Flutter On", after Fluttershy ends their friendship, he restores Sweet Apple Acres back to normal.
• World of Chaos:
  • Once he took over Equestria in "The Return of Harmony", he promptly began turning it into his vision of an ideal, chaotic world. By the end of the episode, this had resulted in an Equestria where the sun and moon switched places in the sky every few minutes and large parts of the landscape had been either patterned like chess sets or floated upside-down above the landscape, and filled with things like roads made of soap, herds of rabbits with grotesquely elongated legs, cotton candy clouds, and ponies twisted mentally into performing various behaviors Discord found amusing. And going by Discord’s comments, that wasn’t even the finished result!
  • Chaosville, the pocket dimension he takes up residence in after his reformation is an even more extreme example. Even at its most extreme, his version of Equestria still had a uniform ground instead of floating in multicolored pieces through the void, and that's before getting to quaint amenities like the weird fauna flying about the place, the bottomless pit, the psychedelic swirls of black and purple making up what's probably supposed to be the sky...
• World's Strongest Man: While he's never actually described as this, his individual (i.e., default and unamplified) magic being the most widespread — combined with him giving Celestia and Luna more trouble in the past than any other villain of that time — implicitly qualifies him as this.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • In "Twilight's Kingdom", he trapped Spike in a bubble and let it float up high before it popped, which would have hurt Spike if Rainbow Dash hadn't caught him.
  • In "A Matter of Principals", he has no problem scaring and endangering the School of Friendship students with his antics.
  • In "The Ending of the End – Part 2", he turns Cozy Glow into stone.
  • By other turn, in a flashback of Cosmos' arc in My Little Pony issue #76, he saves a group of foals from an orphanage half-destroyed by Cosmos.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: In "The Beginning of the End - part 2". After seemingly being critically wounded Taking the Bullet for Fluttershy, Discord pretends to be in pain and low on magic after being hit with Sombra's magic. He is just faking being hurt to get the Mane Six to stop worrying and believe in themselves.
• Yandere: In "Make New Friends but Keep Discord", Discord becomes jealous of Fluttershy hanging out with a new pony and inviting her to the gala instead of Discord. He tries to make her jealous by bringing his own friend and tries getting her attention, complete with him wedging himself between Fluttershy and Tree Hugger. Not to mention him boasting about how close he and Fluttershy are in order to drive Tree Hugger away. Things get worse when he attempts to send her to another dimension so that he will be Fluttershy's only friend.
• Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: Combined with his red irises, this marks him as particularly mischievous.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: In "The Beginning of the End Part 2", the seemingly wounded Discord gives this speech to the Mane Six.
  Discord: You lost sight of what's in front of you. You're here, together, willing to give everything you've got for Equestria. Nothing and nopony can ever take that away from you, because that's who you are.

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