Discord: Overrated?

[Conred 274]

 

 

Discord's personality flip flopping all over the place is part of the problem. In his premiere, he's clearly evil, knowing full well that he's tearing apart their friendship and mocking Twilight while she's down, as well as attempting to kill the Mane 6 for trying to get back together

 

He's personality was the same as in future episodes with additional "classic villain" laughters and lightning strikes in the background. He's acting like he did in RoH because

- Celestia demanded his imprisonment without any diplomacy so he was basically defending himself against those who threaten his freedom

- He had no consideration toward others because of lack of any social experience, in his mind he was giving them a better world without rules and full of fun. He was born of chaos, he will see it as something good and needed on this world. He found their world to be predictable and boring.

-He found entertainment in tormenting Twilight just like you could be a best person at throwing snowballs at others and never realising that you hurt them because you never got hit by a snowball. He offered her a new world (Discord"This is your new home after all"). He thought that every pony will get used to his management.

 

 

 

Come Keep Calm and Flutter On, he's far less malicious for no apparent reason, even pre-reformation

He was as malicious as before. He just coudnt do more stuff since he was basically chained entire episode and threatened to get turn into stone. His plan basically was to manipulate one of the bearers (Fluttershy) and make Elements useless. He tried to turn Fluttershy against her friends right in their first moment alone which failes. He then tried to appeal her ego and pretend to be reformed so he could trick her into promising to never fight against him. He didnt understand concept of friendship, he tried to use friendship for his own benefit without realising that he himself falled for it. He thought of it as some kind of simple loyalty test toward others like minions toward a boss and didnt predict his own affection would destroy his plans. His lack of excessive mindless cruelty in RoH was a first hint toward him not being evil. Him showing some kind of positive emotions like friendship (which is a form of love in some way and level) is a second hint toward him not being evil.

 

 

 

Come Season 4, he's more of a jerk than in Keep Calm and Flutter On, but not too bad

 

Again, same jerk taunting Princess Twilight and Rainbow Dash. He doesnt care about other ponies and dont mind chaos but he is still helpfull toward his more favoured interests. He remember his ties with Fluttershy. He help Twilight get on the path to reach her friends. He hints them toward Zecora. He tell them a reason behind the plants.

 

 

 

Come the finale, he acts like an absolute douche beyond belief when he decides to stab Fluttershy and the Mane 6 in the back because he's having a mid-life crisis

 

He felt bad about Twilight situation, he capable of showing pity for those whome he care in some way and helped her open the chest to prove her importance. He still felt bad when Fluttershy was hurt because he DIDNT understand what friendship is. He thought he could replace a friend with another companion. Yet again, this is not an evil villain if he doesnt realise that he is doing evil things. You are evil when you enjoy evil things. If he learned that having a friend is important and that being loyal is also important that mean he is on the same level as child learning about social life and decency. A child that learns about fact that burning ants with a magnifying glass is wrong. This is who he is. Immortal god for ponies is like a human for ants. Once same human will live among ants and learn about their culture, he will stop being treated as villain.

[Adorkable 2,737]

Nah, Discord is hilarious. That's why everyone loves him. ^^

[duidamasterXD 9,627]

Nah. As of Twilight's Kingdom he has some great character development under his belt, and that episode did a great job of tying up any lingering complaints about his redemption earlier on. Sometimes being friends with somebody will compel you to change who you are, and I thought it was great to see the show address that by having a free spirit like Discord having to come to terms with it.

 

Even without any of that, he's a goofy trickster spirit with an amazing voice actor . I've seen characters be loved much more for much less.

[Pon3 76]

i never thought to much of him

[Hive King 2,001]

Nah, Discord is hilarious. That's why everyone loves him. ^^

He's about as hilarious as Jar Jar Binks, IMO

 

Nah. As of Twilight's Kingdom he has some great character development under his belt, and that episode did a great job of tying up any lingering complaints about his redemption earlier on. Sometimes being friends with somebody will compel you to change who you are, and I thought it was great to see the show address that by having a free spirit like Discord having to come to terms with it.

 

Even without any of that, he's a goofy trickster spirit with an amazing voice actor . I've seen characters be loved much more for much less.

I felt that episode was a step backwards. It made him join Tirek for the worst of reasons(does Tirek have telepathy?) and was shocked when Tirek betrayed him. Surely you can trust the guy who eats magic and tried to kill you upon seeing you

[VulpineTaco 525]

He's John Fucking Delancey, son!

[Visual Spectrum 1,932]

@@LordDiscord,

When a protagonist's victor is based on luck, it becomes pointless and merely serves to make the villain lose any crediblity, having their victims on the ropes and then losing despite a monstrous power edge.

 

Tirek wasn't beaten with luck, Chrysalis wasn't beaten with luck, Sombra wasn't beaten with luck, the Dazzlings weren't beaten with luck.

 

Nightmare Moon was defeated with luck and for this, she's another of my least favorite villains. Sunset Shimmer's defeat, while based on luck, also held irony, her own crown's power backfiring against her and returning to its true master. Discord's defeat is absolutely pointless because it involves so much PIS, that the victory feels foolish. Think Batman shooting Darkseid and Spider-Man beating Firelord

@@Celli,

I never said he was cliched, indeed, he's not. That's not one of his faults and it's what makes him better than NMM, the worst one 

 

You are saying the Elements of Harmony or Rainbow Powers being used is luck. 

 

 

To answer your original question, Discord is not overrated. You seem to have a problem mixing up dislike and overrated. Just because you don't like a character does not make them overrated. There is a difference.

[Hive King 2,001]

You are saying the Elements of Harmony or Rainbow Powers being used is luck. 

 

 

To answer your original question, Discord is not overrated. You seem to have a problem mixing up dislike and overrated. Just because you don't like a character does not make them overrated. There is a difference.

Then what makes a character overrated? When they reach Derpy levels of popularity? Batman levels?

 

BTW, it was LordDiscord who brought up Discord's defeat being luck. I don't think it was luck too much, I personally think it was just Discord acting like an absolute idiot

[Visual Spectrum 1,932]

Then what makes a character overrated? When they reach Derpy levels of popularity? Batman levels?

 

BTW, it was LordDiscord who brought up Discord's defeat being luck. I don't think it was luck too much, I personally think it was just Discord acting like an absolute idiot

 

Overrated is a word that makes no sense. It means being higher rated than it should be. The thing is, who decides how much rating something or someone should receive? Who is it that gives a restriction on how many fans someone or something should have or how high the ratings are? 

 

You seem to hate characters who are overrated. I don't know if it's because they are overrated, or you consider them overrated because you hate them. 

 

Overrated means to have more praise than it should be. I just don't see who has the power to say how much praise something should receive. 

[~Sassy Dashie~ 712]

I love Discord. 

 

Yes, he is a little bit overrated.  But Is one of my favorite characters in MLP. 

[NavelColt 22,883]

So much for 'not posting in this thread much because this is mostly opinionated', OP Seems to me the To n' Fro Debate Train is chugging right towards Arguementsberg and you're the conductor taking on multiples of others at the same time, like with all your threads.

 

I think there comes a point where a show gets so popular that the fandom of said show begins to over-exert the popualrity of generally liked characters to a fault online, through discussion, fanwork output and general amount of fans. Dash, Discord and Luna are the top three characters that are plagued by this endlessly. More a fault of our or-so imperfect fandom than of the characters themselves. When a character gets so hyped up all the time, they're bound to gain additional non-fans as they already have fans, sort of like a scale trying to balance itself out; overrated meaning that the ratio of fans vs non-fans is pathetically tipped in the positive favor, and underrated meaning the vice-versa. Even if the actual amount of fans isn't actually that different, just the fans or non-fans being particularly louder than the other side, creating the feeling that a character is overrated or underrated.

[Hive King 2,001]

@,

I agree with your main point, but in terms of arguing, I felt that it hadn't devolved into that until mildly later in the thread, which was when I clamped up 

[sweetolebob18 728]

As to the Mane 6 only winning by luck.  Voice of Experience, here.  Anybody can get lucky once. Once. They keep on being lucky, you stop calling it luck

 

As to Discord/Q thing, I was so pissed off by Star Trek III, In Search of Profits, I stopped being a Trekie.  I watched the series finale because some friends insisted, I've otherwise never seen an episode (It was good enough, I concede I might have missed out on a good thing)

 

To me, Discord was more like Mxylzptik in the Superman comics.  I always like those adventures because he couldn't just power his way out, he had to think his way out.  But, the same thing happened to him that happened to Dr Smith in the old Lost In Space series.  Started out cool, but got dumbed down into a cliché.  Return of Harmony, he was excellent.  Not exactly evil, just utterly without regard for the consequences of his actions (classic Sociopath, if I remember my Intro to Psych class, 40+ years ago)

 

But, in Twilight's Kingdom, Great Goooley Moogley!  In the 1st place, he can have anything he wants, any time he wants it.  Why in the world would he want to be ruler?  So he can listen to everybody bitch at him about it?  But, assuming he did want power, what does he need with Tirek?  As far as he knew, the Elements were gone, what else could stop him? Tirek would be about as useful to him as a parachute on a submarine.  Once upon a time, he had an excellent understanding of psychology (at least in the practical matter of getting people to do what you want).  He couldn't see he was building Tirek up as a rival?  He was surprised Tirek turned on him?  That was, without question, the stupidest thing anybody did the entire series. I include Dragonshy where Pinkie went into an annoyed Dragon's cave wearing swim flippers & a snorkel & Dash deciding the Dragon wasn't pissed off enough, she had to kick it.

 

OK, I understand that a character without limits is hard to write for.  I get it that if D is that powerful, where is the challenge?  You got a problem, just get Discord to blink it away.  But, writer dude, please find a better answer.

 

You know, Pinkie loves chaos almost as much as Discord does & she likes practical jokes & pranking.  Perhaps an episode where she helps him learn the limits of what is acceptable? (Pinkie as the designated driver on the Highway of Life? Now that's crazy?)

1 more thought.  If I'd been writing it, I'd have had Discord thank Tirek for the idea, kick his butt back to Tartarus & then run the rest with him as the villain.

[Arctofire 227]

I believe he is incredibly overrated. Now I made a post about him being flanderized but you assured me that he was always like that, and I now agree after re watching The Return Of Harmony. Now I don't blame this on John De Lancie; the guy is a brilliant actor, its the fact that he is overly comical. Whats sad is he is kind of like Tommy Lee Jones's Two Face in Batman Forever; if they had stuck with the character they had set up in the first few seconds, he would have been amazing. He should have been a smooth, narcissistic, villain, which would have matched with his actions and would have made his incredibly scary because we the audience would know that their was no hope for our heroes. In the episode he does do some very threatening stuff, but that is counter balanced by the fact that he is a complete idiot. Also the voice in the window scene was better, and I wish they had gone with that.

[Commissar Alexer 763]

Meh, don't really care about but he is a fangirl magnet.

[sweetolebob18 728]

One more thought.  Discord not having any limits makes it hard to write for him.  If it could be established he can't hurt the holders of the Elements, that might help.  I point out, putting someone in a cage doesn't really hurt them.  As to Return to Harmony, Did he hurt them? He put them in touch w their dark side & locked it in.  Does that count as harm?  Or, is it "No blood, no foul"?

 

As to How do the ponies find this out?  After Season 4, maybe he told Fluttershy to make amends? 

 

The Greek Gods couldn't break a vow made on the River Styx (the boundary between the land of the living & the land of the dead).  If there is such a thing in Equestria, maybe he could swear an oath on it to never again harm them.  Or, (a la Gollum), maybe he could swear on the Tree of Harmony? (The Elements being MIA)

 

There is a big line between "Never harm" & "Never annoy" At least, Celestia should be cured of trusting him.

[Hidey 2,836]

Not overrated.

 

He is after all based on Q from Trek. Played by the same person and everything. 

 

Q could change his form, so I like to pretend Q=Discord. Which makes him one of the best possible villain/anti-heroes a show about talking ponies could have.