Boomstick: Discord, the devilish draconequus from My Little Pony.
Wiz: The mighty, the righteous, the profound, and the profane; we have featured all manner of warriors on DEATH BATTLE! before.
Boomstick: But none as silly as these two apocalyptic goofballs!
For the ninth episode of DEATH BATTLE!'s tenth season, the first winner of the 2022 Champion's Poll sees a battle between two animation-borne reality-warping tricksters. While they may appear comedic at first glance, it would truly be folly to underestimate them, as Disney's force of weirdness shall be pitted against Hasbro's embodiment of chaos, for Bill Cipher and Discord, only one's trickery can prove more tremendous in a death battle.
We start our analysis by taking a road trip to the town of Gravity Falls, Oregon, the biggest Weirdness Magnet in the world. Among the many oddities that have plagued this town, from psychotic child performers, rainbow barfing gnomes and multi-headed bears, the subject of this analysis is by far its most terrifying one. A trillion year old triangular terror, Bill Cipher.
After destroying his home dimension and everyone in it, Bill settled in the Nightmare Realm while he searched for a new universe to liberate, setting his sights on our very own. He would spend millenia trying to trick humans to open the front door for him, and if he were to succeed, all of reality is screwed.
NOTE: This recap is a work in progress.
Boomstick: Aw buddy, get over here—
Wiz: Yeah, yeah, that's—agh, not the... noogie, ugh...
With both contestants having been thoroughly examined, fourth-wall breaking abilities and all, and the second sponsor in the form of Better Help done, it's time for a death battle!
Equestria. What was once a shining place of peace, happiness and prosperity for everypony is now an apocalyptic ruin filled with pyramids, bizarre monstrosities and Bill Cipher ruling over it all. Bill makes the finishing touches for his throne, using many of his petrified victims as the structure while Twilight Sparkle and her team are strung up as tapestries. Suddenly, the embodiment of chaos barges into Bill's throne room through Fluttershy's banner, lamenting his first best friend's defeat. Suddenly, his mood changes as he writes a letter to Princess Celestia, to Bill's disgust, and turns himself into a chef, throwing a pie that destroys Bill Cipher's eye and arm.
FIGHT!
Angered and disgusted by Discord's actions, Bill Cipher regenerates his injuries and goes on the offensive, summoning a bigger version of his hand to flatten Discord. The chimeraic being only gets blown out of Bill's throne room and crafts some desserts for the invader to taste... as in, get pounded by them, topping off his attack with a dessert-related pun. Bill emerges with a rimshot, before retaliating with multiple eye beams, avoiding an anvil in the process. By the time he's done, a huge Discord emerges from behind, turning him into a Dorrito and eating him whole.
The battle seems to be over... until Bill Cipher bursts out of Discord's head, unaffected by the unorthodox move. Still, Discord isn't down just yet, emerging none the worse from a little opening in the fabric of reality and taunting the dream demon. Angered by Discord's insult, Bill tackles the chaos bringer into multiple realities, from a claymation cartoon, to a sock-puppet show.
Emerging back in the true reality of Equestria, Bill Cipher stretches his arm out to grab his foe and squeeze the life out of him. Discord does likewise, but the showdown is actually due to both fighters playing with each others' plush toy versions of themselves. Deciding to spice things up, the draconic trickster summons some dice into the battlefield, but gets crushed by a knight chess piece courtesy of Bill. Discord still isn't down just yet and enters Bill's mind as a spirit, taunting him over knowing how he died, and tries to replicate Bill's most humiliating downfall while inside.
Infuriated by Discord's mocking, Bill Cipher enlarges his body into a three-dimensional pyramid, punches his hand into his own mind and grabs Discord just as he tries to fight Bill in the latter's mind. The draconic horse laments over not being able to defeat the menace of Pines family, but admits it was worth a shot, revealing he warped both of them out of Equestria and into Bill's original domain. Now that Bill is no longer in Princess Celestia's kingdom, his would-be addition to his list of conquered realities is restored to its former glory, with the Mane Six trying to recover from being freed from Bill's effects and Fluttershy mourning Discord's "death", his letter being all that is left of him, while the bringer of weirdness futilely rushes to the closing portal. Enraged over being outwitted by his adversary, a fuming Bill literally and fatally crushes Discord's spirit before roaring in unbridled fury over his latest defeat. He quickly calms himself down upon realizing he was in that state many times and is free to try again. With that, Bill turns to the screen and menacingly asking the viewers "WANNA MAKE A DEAL?!" with a hint of anger in his voice.
KO!
As Boomstick warns the audience to stay away from making any Faustian deals with triangles in top hats, the hosts begin their explanation for why the nightmare of Gravity Falls took victory in this chaotic encounter. Throughout it all, both Bill and Discord possessed such a tremendously long list of abilities and powers that saw them capable of rewriting the universe and back, but they only possessed a select few ways to actually kill the other and end the fight - most of which fell in the former's favor. Discord could siphon Bill's power with the Bewitching Bell, but Bill repeatedly coming into contact with the magic-nullifying unicorn hair barrier of the Shacktron meant that it wouldn't be effective. Both could restore their bodies from nothing, but only Bill had the means to damage his opponents' souls and restore damage to his own, which Discord could not counter. This proved to be the draconic trickster's Achilles heel, as Discord could be wiped out of existence completely if his spirit was fully removed. Discord's own tricks could keep Bill at bay, but Bill's absurd clairvoyance meant he could outlast the stall tactics enough. Both Bill and Discord have been tricked before by far weaker foes and are victims to excessive tunnel vision, but Bill is at least aware enough to directly go for the kill when put up against similarly powerful cosmic entities whereas Discord is subject to not realizing his disadvantages until it is far too late. Combined with Bill's trillions of years' worth of conquering universes, and it was only a matter of time before Discord simply had no more tricks to pull.
Bill: LET ME OUT OR I'LL EAT YOUR DREAMS!
[Boomstick screams in surprise]
Wiz: Uh... the winner is Bill Cipher!
Bill: [speaks in backwards speech]Translation
"Bill Cipher VS Discord" contains examples of:
- Actor Allusion: Boomstick compares Discord to Q from Star Trek — an apt comparison due to both being originally played by John de Lancie and Discord being an expy of Q. Bill even references this in the fight itself, telling Discord to "tell Jean Luc that his show is worse than Code of Honor" as he's attacking him.
- Affectionate Gesture to the Head: At the end of Discord's run-down, Wiz calls Boomstick his best friend in a roundabout way by grumpily admitting that he knows what it's like to be best friends with "the spirit of chaos incarnate." Touched by the gesture, Boomstick is implied to pull Wiz into a headlock off screen, then gives him an affectionate noogie despite Wiz's protests.
- Art Shift:
- Discord briefly transforms from the show's pixelated sprite style to a rigged-2D look more akin to Friendship is Magic.
- Discord and Bill go through three in quick succession thanks to the latter's Weirdness Bubbles: a clay-stopmotion, an inkblot cartoon, and one with them as hand puppets.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Wiz wants to see Discord's chaos in action, so Discord transports him and Boomstick into the bodies of their voice actors, causing the two to panic.
- Big "NO!": Bill screams this as well as a Rapid-Fire "No!" once he realizes Discord trapped both of them in the Nightmare Realm.
- Biting-the-Hand Humor: Discord takes two shots at the show's budget: in his bio he says that he's only voiced by his original voice actor John de Lancie "when the budget's high enough" (which could also be a reference to Pony Life), and he remarks on his Limited Animation when he makes a physical appearance.
- Bittersweet Ending: Discord manages to trick Bill with his tunnel vision, not realizing he's back in the Nightmare Dimension until it's too late. However, Discord's soul is destroyed, and Fluttershy is distressed by his disappearance. That said, it's noted that Discord is chaos embodied, so there's a chance he can resurrect, so it leans more towards the "sweet" side of things.
- Black-and-Grey Morality: Bill is notably the first wholly unsympathetic villain to show up in Season 10, and he's fighting against Discord, who's caused his fair share of issues and disasters, but has also assisted the heroines of his world on several occasions.
- Black Comedy: Bill states that making his throne of ponies took a lot of glue, before making a snide comment that the ponies make their own.Explanation
- Brain Bleach: After Discord teleports Wiz and Boomstick into the bodies of their voice actors, Boomstick is quick to find something to erase the scars. Thankfully, he finds "blissful ignorance" after a can of beer.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Considering the combatants of this episode, it should come as no surprise that the fourth wall is totally shattered (much to Boomstick's exasperation). Besides both interacting with their pre-battle analyses (Bill in shaky yellow all-caps, Discord in pink cursive), Bill briefly possesses Wiz, and Discord makes a personal appearance.
- Breather Episode: After the previous episode had the combatants go through an existential crisis over why they were fighting that effectively deconstructed Death Battle's concept, this one is a chaotic fun free-for-all with Reality Warper tricksters who outright screw over the fourth wall with very keen awareness of their brawl, and to top it off, unlike that previous episode, both of them are well aware of why they are actually fighting, and because of this, Discord manages to lose the battle while still saving his own reality.
- Call-Back: During Discord's analysis, Wiz notes how well Boomstick's composing himself, considering the latter's past animosity towards My Little Pony. And in relation to Discord's ability to shatter the fourth wall, Boomstick notes that he's not ready for another Deadpool situation to occur right before Discord himself pops up to greet the hosts.
- The Cameo: Throughout the fight, numerous cameos could be seen of various pony-fied characters, ranging from Rick who appears to be in a brawl with Doctor Whoovesnote , Dipper and Mabel, Sans and the Judge, and numerous ponysonas of crew members on DEATH BATTLE!'s team. And that's not to mention Bill's name in the analysis rapidly cycling through anagrams of all sorts of fans of the DEATH BATTLE! community. Speaking of fans, during the fight where Bill spins everything upside down, you can see images flashing by of other icons of said fans or ponysonas of them.
- Randy Savage and the Kool-Aid Man can be seen floating in the background of the claymation segment, and Bendy sways alongside the flowers during the Inkblot Cartoon Style segment while a little Cuphead holds on to a flower’s stem.
- The Mane 6 themselves make two appearances at the beginning and end of the fight: once while trapped within tapestries, and as their normal selves in a restored Equestria through a closing portal in the Nightmare Realm.
- Starlight Glimmer is momentarily seen just after Bill's Green Day shout-out.
- An Impostor and a Fall Guy can be seen in the hand puppet segment to the left of Bill.
- Converted Fanboy: Boomstick admits that he's become a brony thanks to watching the show with his daughter and states that Fluttershy is "best pony".
- Dead Man Writing: Discord is first writing a "Dear Princess" letter before throwing pies at Bill. That letter can be seen by Fluttershy's hooves.
- Demonic Possession: During Bill's analysis, Wiz realizes while describing Bill's tendency to invoke a Deal with the Devil that he probably shouldn't have done so as well, moments before Bill possesses his body. Fortunately, Boomstick is able to Beat the Curse Out of Him.
- Denser and Wackier: Because the two fighters are goofy Reality Warpers who can and will make anything and everything happen, there are plenty of completely absurd moments, such as Discord turning Bill into a dorito and eating him, causing Bill to blow up his head, to Bill successfully killing Discord's body by crushing him with a massive knight piece.
- Die Laughing: Discord lets out a proud laugh at having trapped Bill in the Nightmare Realm and saving Equestria, especially Fluttershy, from Weirdmaggedon; it then turns into a Death Cry Echo as Bill crushes his soul into nothing.
- Dying Moment of Awesome: This Death Battle is unique in having its big climactic moment not be the one where the winner lands the final blow on the loser, but instead, the one where the loser takes away everything the winner had built up beforehand. Compared to Discord revealing that he's trapped Bill in the Nightmare Realm again and sending the dream demon scrambling towards the rift to Equestria only to just miss it, Bill crushing Discord's soul in a fit of pique afterwards is treated almost as an afterthought.
- The End... Or Is It?: Bill is trapped in the Nightmare Realm once again despite destroying Discord, but it will only be a matter of time before some poor sap lets him out again if tempted enough. Although if him trying to threaten Wiz and Boomstick into freeing him at the end of the post-analysis is any indication, that's easier said then done.Bill: No big deal. I've done this once already... [slowly looks towards the camera, then suddenly grabs it] WANNA MAKE A DEAL?!
[...]
Bill: LET ME OUT OR I'LL EAT YOUR DREAMS!!! - Everyone Has Standards: While DEATH BATTLE! has played host to malevolent entities before, Bill is among the worst, especially given how he's capable of Breaking the Fourth Wall. As such, Wiz and Boomstick tread very carefully around him, even going so far as to keep him trapped while he rages behind the television screaming, demanding they release him.
- Evil Versus Evil: Downplayed, as Discord would undergo a Heel–Face Turn later in his home series. Bill on the other hand doesn't.
- Foreshadowing:
- In the character analysis, there's a back-and-forth between Discord and Bill, where Discord boasts that he has friends while Bill notes "Not for long". While it's a scathing Call-Forward to the G5 comics, where Discord is now a hermit as the Mane 6 have passed on, it also points to Discord dying to save his friends and the plot of the battle that's Bill unleashing Weirdmageddon on Equestria.
- Discord and Bill enter a Weirdness Bubble but escape through one of Discord's portals. When did this happen? During the hand puppet world. It's a reference to MLP, when Discord was about to send Tree Hugger through a portal to another world that has a Mexican fox sock puppet because he was jealous that Fluttershy had a new friend. But it also alludes to Discord's endgame; he's teleporting Bill away from Fluttershy and Equestria.
- Graceful Loser: Discord takes his impending death in stride as he goes out while laughing after tricking Bill and trapping him back in the Nightmare Realm.
- Gretzky Has the Ball: A board game variant after Bill and Discord get bored of fighting each other to a stalemate:Discord: This stalemate is getting dull. How about a different game? [summons several dice]
Bill: Sure, I love checkers! [crushes Discord with a huge chess piece] Go... FISH! - Heroic Sacrifice: Discord enters his spirit form in order to infiltrate Bill's mind to continue doing battle with him; leaving the demon completely unaware that as soon as he managed to catch Discord and is proceeding to burn his soul into dust; they are already trapped in The Nightmare Dimension again as Weirdmageddon has ended in Equestria. It may also cross over into Disney Death as since Discord is chaos embodied, there's a chance he might come back.
- Hero vs. Villain Duet: The music track for this episode, "Discordant Decipher"
, is a lyrical battle between Bill and Discord about how pathetic the other is when compared to them. - Hey, That's My Line!: Ringmaster says this twice, once when Boomstick announces Weirdmageddon during Bill's announcement, and again when Bill exclaims "K.O.!" at the battle's conclusion, both times just before Ringmaster himself makes the declarations. He sounds notably upset the second time.
- Interface Screw: Unlike with Deadpool, Discord and Bill actually screw with the analysis portions stating their feats, abilities, advantages, and disadvantages.
- Meaningful Background Event: After Bill and Discord return from their fight as hand puppets, there are no signs of Weirdmageddon aside from the Fearamid, the darkened sky and the rift (which has the wrong colors, being blue instead of red) present—an early hint that Discord's finger snap did not, in fact, send them back to Equestria.
- Meaningless Villain Victory: While Bill managed to defeat Discord, the latter reveals before getting destroyed that he transported them both into the Nightmare Realm, undoing Bill's conquest of Equestria. Combined with Bill being unable to find anyone to make a deal with him, and the fact that Discord can eventually reform due to being the embodiment of chaos meant that Bill's victory was All for Nothing.
- Medium Awareness: Both have this ability, having directly messed with the media they are in before. It sticks in the battle itself to the point where they cause several Art Shifts. They also end up exploiting their medium awareness to further their own goals:
- Near the end, Discord enters Bill's mind and attempts to erase it, taking advantage of the fact that he has canonical knowledge on who Bill is and what happens to him. Unfortunately, due to Bill still having a functional physical body unlike in his original defeat, the dream demon is able to prevent a repeat of his death by grabbing Discord's spirit and yanking him out of his Mindscape.
- At the end of the fight, Bill, trapped in the Nightmare Realm, grabs the camera and talks directly to the audience, attempting to convince them to strike a deal so that he can free himself.
- Medium-Shift Gag: When Wiz expresses his desire to study Discord's chaotic powers, the latter demonstrates by causing this, going from digital animation to live-action as the hosts' voice actors, Ben Singer and Chad James, record the episode's dialogue, with both reacting in-character. Cue We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties.
- Mythology Gag:
- Bill remarks in his bio that he's a big fan of cryptocurrency, NFTs, and AI art, the first of these referencing his cameo in The Simpsons.
- Discord references Bill's original defeat and attempts to reenact it by entering the Mindscape, and Bill goes through a similar Shapeshifter Swan Song. Unfortunately for Discord, since Bill still has a physical body, he's able to resist long enough to remove Discord's spirit. Although, Bill still technically loses due to making the same mistake as he did with Stan: failing to understand how much people are willing to sacrifice for those they care about.
- Noodle Incident: Who let Bill into Equestria to enact Weirdmaggedon in the first place? And if not from Equestria, from where? Note
- Pie in the Face: Discord starts the fight by throwing a flaming explosive pie at Bill, blowing up both his eye and his hand before the demon regenerates them.
- Pyrrhic Victory: One of the biggest cases of this in a Death Battle yet; while Bill ultimately emerges victorious for the Death Battle, Discord is able to lure and trap Bill back into the Nightmare Realm, saving Equestria from Weirdmageddon and restoring it to normal. A sidenote in the post-battle analysis also suggests Discord literally cannot be killed for good so long as chaos exists, meaning he'll be Back from the Dead sooner or later. While Bill tries to play it cool after a brief tantrum, believing that since he escaped before he can do it again, his outburst after the post-analysis suggests that it's proving to be trickier than he anticipated. This makes him the first DEATH BATTLE! combatant who completely lost in every possible way despite winning the actual battle.
- Reality Warper: Bill and Discord have this in spades like no other combatant before.
- Rimshot: After Discord throws ice cream at Bill to enjoy his just desserts, Bill creates a drum set to create a rimshot.
- Running Gagged: Wiz and Boomstick no longer groan at the idea of a character from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic being involved in a Death Battle. After all, they have witnessed a Pegasus breaking the speed of sound, a Unicorn wielding powerful magic from emotion, and an Earth Pony that can mess with the fourth wall herself without any magic, with Boomstick noting that he actually got into the series after experiencing it with his daughter.
- Sdrawkcab Speech: Considering this is an episode with Bill Cypher as a combatant, this is a given. Bill says "Reality is an illusion, the universe is a hologram, buy gold, bye!" in this tongue at the end of the episode. There's even some present in the music score for the battle where Discord says "You know the song doesn't decide who wins right?"
- Shout-Out:
- When introducing the town of Gravity Falls, Wiz remarks that the place is "less Mayberry and more Twin Peaks".
- In Bill's bio, Bill mentions how he was robbed by Sans in the infamous "Tumblr Sexyman Poll" that was held on Twitter (which celebrated its anniversary only a few days before this episode).
- The drumset Bill summons to perform a rimshot has the words Weird Day and a white hand clutching a heart (a normal heart, not a human one) on a black background, replicating the album art for American Idiot.
- Sore Loser: A rare case where the winner is this, as before dying Discord manages to trap Bill back in the Nightmare Realm where he can no longer hurt anyone, at least for the time being. This causes Bill to go into a flying rage, screaming while in a really demonic form. He quickly calms down, saying how he's already done this song and dance before attempting to make another deal; however, his initial reaction means that it's likely he's trying to play off just how screwed he is. His futile threats to Wiz and Boomstick when demanding that they release him from the Nightmare Realm cement this.
- Take That!: As the two get thrown into Discord's illusion of Canterlot, Bill asks him to "tell Jean-Luc that his show is worse than 'Code of Honor'". "Code of Honor" is known to be one of the most despised episodes of STNG.
- Tempting Fate: Bill claims that he sees everything. Cue Discord's Wham Line that he's teleported them to the Nightmare Realm, something Bill never saw coming.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Boomstick is less horrified and shocked that Wiz made a deal with Bill and got possessed and more thrilled by the prospect of having a new co-host.
- Visual Pun: When Bill goes "Ugh, gag!" to Discord mentioning friendship, his eye imitates a mouth. It's a literal visual gag.
- Wham Line: As Bill has Discord's soul in his hand, Discord lays one on him, revealing that while Bill may have won the battle, Discord won the war:Discord: It was worth a try. But still, I'm surprised you don't recognize your old home.
[the scenery of Equestria is replaced with that of the Nightmare Realm]
