How did Tirek trick Discord?

[CastletonSnob 3,026]

How was Tirek able to trick Discord into joining him? Discord should be smarter than to get manipulated like that. 

[Drunkfrank 1,125]

Well, I have my theory that Discord manipulated Tirek the whole time

But disregarding that, Discord was consistently treated like garbage by the mane 6 (aside from Fluttershy) so simply having an ally that respected him must have been enticing.

In reality, Meghan is not a very good writer for Discord (or at all) and just said "lolfuggit" ignoring consistency and Discords character and just wanted to make Tirek look more epic. 

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 40,397]

That entire season Discord never seemed fully reformed, at least not to me. He wasn't good with the mane 6 except for Fluttershy. Flutters was the only pony he ever really got along with, so it could be a case where he was still had a disdain for most ponies and easily could betray them. His betrayal didn't surrrise me much.

[DonMaguz 1,023]

I think his ability to do anything has made him an incredibly creative being, but not so smart since he doesn't really needs to think how to do anything, he just snaps his fingers and done.

At the same time, Discord's ability to be defensive or distrustful of another being is pretty much non existent as a result of being pretty much a demigod who can do anything with his magic. We have seen several instances of this inability during the show.

- When Celestia and Luna imprison him in stone, Discord was being cheerful while throwing the dark vine's seeds totally sure they would work.

- When he taunts Twilight to use the elements of harmony on him (both times during Return of Harmony).

And what matters to answer this question:

- When he is tricked by Tirek, he has Tirek under control with handcuffs, he knows he can do anything and if it doesn't suit him, go back to how he likes it, he's taunted into being truly free and he just took the offer to check it out without realizing that it could backfire.

The only time I can think Discord's ever been defensive and distrustful of the situation is during To Where And Back Again when he had no magic.

tl;dr: yes he is not smart, because he doesn't need to be.

[Drunkfrank 1,125]

Well, DIscord knew that the princesses had the Elements, he played dumb and asked what they were, but he knew that they were going to defeat him then and he planted the seeds because of that, and the seeds would have worked, they would have taken longer but they would have worked in freeing Discord.

Discord was just dumb at the end of Return of Harmony, but he did pretty much win at that point.

He should have known Tirek would betray him, more importantly, Tirek would have to be like a universe buster to defeat Discord, that whole part of the episode just makes no sense. 

[cmarston1 5,952]

Because Discord has the emotional development of a child.

[Castle Bleck 19,186]

On 8/2/2017 at 10:13 AM, cmarston1 said:

Because Discord has the emotional development of a child.

 

After all:

 

Being a clever b*****d =/= automatically being a paragon of maturity.

[Hierok 11,829]

Discord was blinded by freedom. Or maybe he played like this knowing that the sixth key came in the process. 

[CypherHoof 26,479]

Maybe he had a moment or self-realization and saw how dependent he was getting on the goodwill and approval of Fluttershy, and that scared him enough to run away from it?