Grogar

Grogar is a male ram and the main antagonist of the ninth and final season of Friendship is Magic. He is first mentioned in a children's story in A Flurry of Emotions, and he makes his physical debut in The Beginning of the End - Part 1. He is an ancient tyrant who forms an alliance of villains to defeat the Mane Six and take over Equestria.

Development
Grogar shares his name and overall design with the Generation 1 villain of the same name from the My Little Pony 'n Friends four-parter "The Return of Tambelon", from which elements of his backstory are also drawn.

Depiction in the series
Grogar is first mentioned in the season seven episode A Flurry of Emotions as the antagonist of the children's storybook Gusty the Great, which Twilight Sparkle reads to a group of sick foals at Ponyville Hospital. In the story, Grogar battles a group of unicorn warriors led by the titular hero.

In the season nine premiere The Beginning of the End - Part 1, Grogar is revealed to be real when he summons Queen Chrysalis, Lord Tirek, Cozy Glow, and King Sombra to his underground lair. As the villains explain to Cozy Glow, who is unfamiliar with Grogar, he is a legendary tyrant who once declared himself emperor of a young Equestria, creating foul monsters to wreak havoc across the land until Gusty the Great took his mystical bell and banished him, leaving him weakened.

Having spent the past millennia recovering his strength and observing his fellow villains' defeats, Grogar proposes that they work together to overcome the Mane Six and conquer Equestria. When Sombra objects to this alliance, Grogar makes a proposition: he can either retake the Crystal Empire on his own, or inevitably fail and suffer the consequences if he still refuses to submit. In Part 2, Grogar witnesses Sombra's demise at the Mane Six's hands from his crystal ball, which he shows to the other villains as a warning to secure their loyalty to him.

In Frenemies, Grogar seeks to recover his stolen bell, and sets out on a mission to locate it while ordering his allies to learn to cooperate. Upon returning, he finds that they have not done so, and decides to send them to recover the bell from Mt. Everhoof, believing that none of them will be able to make the trek alone. Upon their return he is pleased that they have become a team, but frustrated by their apparent failure to retrieve the bell, unaware that they did retrieve it and have concealed it from him.

In The Summer Sun Setback, Grogar leaves his lair to search for another source of power to defeat Twilight and her friends, still believing his allies failed to retrieve the Bewitching Bell. While he is gone, his allies sneak into the Canterlot Archives and steal a book so they can gain information on how to use the Bewitching Bell themselves. When Grogar returns, he revealed to them that he has successfully located a new source of power and will set out the next day to retrieve it. After he leaves, his allies plan to unlock the power of the Bewitching Bell soon before he returns again.

In The Ending of the End - Part 1, Grogar acquires a new artifact of power to defeat the Mane Six, but Chrysalis, Cozy, and Tirek enact their plan to overthrow him with the power of the Bewitching Bell. When they use the Bell to drain his power, he is revealed to be Discord in disguise.

Magic
Grogar is a wielder of incredibly powerful magic, capable of transporting creatures to and from seemingly any location, including the depths of Tartarus, and restoring King Sombra's body after it was obliterated by the Crystal Heart. He demonstrates his power by using a small sample of his magic to rejuvenate Tirek into his second form, which he previously only attained after absorbing a great amount of unicorn magic.

Grogar is known in legends as the "Father of Monsters", having allegedly created dangerous beasts that plagued ancient Equestria. However, the true source of his power is his Bewitching Bell that was taken by Gusty the Great, which weakened him for millennia. He also possesses a crystal ball resembling a goat's eye that allows him to observe anything from inside his lair.

According to the storybook Gusty the Great, Grogar gained power through the fear of others, which allowed him to free himself from a beam of magic stronger than a thousand armies.

Depiction in comics
The G1 version of Grogar appears in Princess Eris' casino on page 12.

Other depictions
Grogar is featured in August 31, 2019 and September 8, 2019 posts on the Discovery Family Instagram as part of "The 'Most Evil' Q&A Ever". In the former post, he declares himself the "greatest, most powerful sorcerer the world has ever seen" but expresses jealousy in Penn and Teller. In the latter, he shares his Instagram selfies taken at various real-world locations.

Personality
Grogar is an opportunistic bully with a desire dating back thousands of years to claim dominion over all that he sees. He summons the members of his legion only once they have sunken to their lowest, and he is cruel inasmuch as he "gave life to the foulest of creatures and allowed them to run wild" in his glory days. He is also an outstandingly patient strategist, preferring to work behind the scenes and considering the remote loss of his mystical bell only a temporary setback. Grogar resents being relegated to myth and forgotten, as evidenced by his displeasure when Cozy Glow purports not to recognize his name.

Although he disdains ponies and any villains defeated by them, Grogar acknowledges the power of the Mane Six's teamwork and acknowledges them as a considerable threat to his ambitions. It is the ponies' very strength in unity that inspires Grogar to forge an alliance with other villains, demonstrating a unique insight towards his enemies that most of his fellow villains lack. Nevertheless, he commands his allies with an iron fist, holding their obedience through fear and intimidation rather than trust and loyalty.

In spite of his own self-image as a tyrant, Grogar has little patience for the arrogance of others. He patronizes King Sombra's claim that he can conquer the Crystal Empire by himself, and the unicorn's boasting irritates him enough that he teleports him away mid-sentence. He displays no tolerance for the self-centered and petulant attitudes of Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy, going as far as to punish them with his magic when their constant bickering and complaining becomes too much for him to bear.

Quotes
"I have been away too long if my name no longer strikes fear into the heart of one so tiny."

- To Cozy Glow, The Beginning of the End - Part 1

"My reign was a glorious, fear-soaked epoch of darkness in Equestria."

- The Beginning of the End - Part 1

"Where one is weak, another is strong, and thus unified, they are a formidable force! But we shall use their own strategy to defeat them."

- The Beginning of the End - Part 1

"Such confidence. Go! Try to take back your kingdom. I shall send you there myself. If you prevail, you may keep it. But when you fail, you will submit to me!"

- To King Sombra, The Beginning of the End - Part 1

"I'd say he gambled and lost! But at least he can serve as a warning to those who doubt continuing with my plans."

- Referring to King Sombra, The Beginning of the End - Part 2

"I don't care how, but you must learn to work together! Only then can we accomplish what you so greatly desire – the defeat of Twilight Sparkle and her friends!"

- Frenemies

"Each of you failed to defeat Twilight Sparkle and her friends! My power is greater than all of yours combined; this is but a fraction of it! Understood?!"

- Frenemies