Discord

Discord is the antagonist featured in The Return of Harmony Part 1 and Part 2. In the episode, Princess Celestia explains that before their rule over Equestria, she and her sister had imprisoned him in stone using the Elements of Harmony, but now that the sisters are no longer connected to the elements, the spell has been broken. Discord breaks free of the spell and sends Twilight Sparkle and her friends in a quest after the missing Elements of Harmony. The ponies venture off to retrieve the Elements of Harmony in order to stop him.

Development
Jayson Thiessen, the show's director, stated that the character Discord was "straight off Lauren [Faust]'s pen" and was inspired by John de Lancie's popular character Q from the Star Trek television series. At first, the production was planning on having a voice actor that sounded like de Lancie, and were later thrilled to find that they could have de Lancie himself for the part. John de Lancie let slip at a Calgary Expo panel that he had lent his voice again for a future episode; he later confirmed this on Twitter. He has not explicitly referred to Discord by name as the character he voices.

Discord appears with a bright white flash, and the two even share some mannerisms, including a fondness for "games" and snapping his fingers to use his powers. In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Q Who, Picard refers to Q as "...next of kin to chaos".

Physical appearance
"This creature is called a draconequus. He has the head of a pony and a body of all sorts of other things."

- Cheerilee

The word "draconequus" is composed of the Latin "draco" and "equus", meaning "dragon-horse". Discord is a combination of many body parts from different creatures. His head is horse-like, much different from the other character's head styles, with a deer antler on the right, a goat horn on the left, one long fang, different-sized pupils, a snake tongue, and a goat beard. He has the right arm of a lion, the left claw of an eagle, the right leg of a lizard, and the left leg of a goat. In addition, he has a bat's right wing, a Pegasus' left wing, a horse's mane and a dragon's tail with a white tail tuft. The shape of his body resembles that of a snake. While Discord is technically a chimera, which is a creature with parts from multiple animals, this term is not used in the show.

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

- Discord

In The Return of Harmony Part 1 and Part 2, Discord is shown to be a mischievous, manipulative trickster who pulls gags on his targets through the use of his powerful magic, illusions, and hypnotism, with little to no consideration towards his victims. He has a sense of showmanship and drama, preferring to be playful towards his victims before getting down to business, even mocking and bantering with Celestia and the six main ponies in Canterlot Tower. He is seen laughing at the expense of others and often manipulates the laws of reality for the sake of his own amusement, often at the cost of others. Among other things, Discord reverses the ponies' behavior, making Twilight Sparkle miserable and depressed, and generally causing ridiculous and horrific things to happen.

Discord is arrogant and overconfident, as he underestimated the ponies' ability to restore their friendship and wield the Elements of Harmony. Despite having a fondness for anarchy and chaos, he can become easily annoyed if things don't go according to his plan; he becomes impatient when he cannot corrupt Fluttershy as easily as the other ponies.

History
Discord first appears in The Return of Harmony Part 1 during the opening scene, encased as a statue in the Canterlot sculpture garden. The statue is posed in a cheerful manner, in contrast to the frightened pose that Discord assumes when being turned to stone at the end of the two episodes. Cheerilee, who is taking her Ponyville class on a field trip, stops the class to point out the draconequus, and the three Cutie Mark Crusaders get in a fight over what he represents.

Before he is introduced, the six leading characters witness the effects of his power in Ponyville. Inexplicably, things begin acting irregularly, such as clouds made out of cotton candy that move of their own accord, chocolate milk pouring down from the sky as if it were rain, and animals that behave uncharacteristically and spontaneously change shape. Princess Celestia explains to Twilight and her friends that Discord is the spirit of disharmony in a way similar to Cheerilee's teaching. He caused unrest and unhappiness throughout all of Equestria for Earth ponies, unicorns and Pegasi alike. Princess Celestia and her sister, Luna, rose up against Discord and used the Elements of Harmony to turn him to stone. However, since she and Luna are no longer connected to the Elements of Harmony, the spell imprisoning Discord has broken and he has escaped from his stone prison. When the Elements of Harmony go missing, Celestia accuses Discord of stealing them, because they were held in a chamber protected by a spell that she believed only she could break. Discord appears in the stained-glass windows of the palace and replies with a riddle, leading Twilight to believe that he hid the Elements in the Canterlot castle labyrinth.

When Twilight and her friends venture into the palace labyrinth, Discord prevents them from "cheating" in his "game" by magically removing the ponies' wings and horns. This enforces the first rule of his game: no flying and no magic. The second rule is that they must play the game, or else he wins. He physically separates them in the maze and the game begins. Discord uses representations of the friends' cutie marks to psychologically manipulate them into contradicting the elements they represent. The one exception is Fluttershy, who is not embittered by Discord's claim that her friends think she is helpless; he snaps and brainwashes her by touch. He bids her goodbye with an extremely agitated "arrivederci".

After making Applejack untruthful, Pinkie Pie disagreeable, Rarity selfish, and Fluttershy mean, Discord plays with Rainbow Dash's loyalty to her friends by showing her a vision that her hometown of Cloudsdale would be destroyed without her. He offers her a choice: she can either have her wings back and go to the aid of Cloudsdale, or continue to seek the Elements. Falling for the bait, she flies out of the labyrinth and breaks Discord's "no flying and no magic" rule. Discord, having "won," destroys the entire labyrinth and proclaims that "we might be due for a big old storm of chaos".

Twilight is upset when Discord takes away the maze before they can find the Elements of Harmony until Discord reveals they were not in the labyrinth. Discord magically shows her the riddle again, and she realizes that the Elements are "back where she began". Afterwards, Discord turns Ponyville into what he claims will be the "chaos capital of Equestria". Twilight finds the elements and forcibly places them on the corrupted ponies and Spike (substituting for the absent Rainbow Dash). However, Discord is unimpressed and the Elements fail completely. Twilight loses faith in their mission until she re-reads the letters that she wrote to Princess Celestia about the magic of friendship. She cures all her corrupted friends by making them remember the wonderful times they had together. Discord continues to be unconcerned about the power of friendship and is easily defeated with the reawakened powers of the Elements. After being struck with a rainbow similar to that previously used on Nightmare Moon, Discord is turned back into stone, but this time with an expression of horror frozen onto his face.

Quotes
"Oh, what fun is there in making sense?"

- The Return of Harmony Part 1

"A weighty choice is yours to make, a right selection or a big mistake. If a wrong choice you choose to pursue the foundations of home will crumble without you."

- The Return of Harmony Part 2

"Oh, for goodness' sake! You've been kind for far too long, my dear. Time to be cruel. Arrivederci!"

- The Return of Harmony Part 1

"When all the truth does is make your heart ache, sometimes a lie is easier to take."

- The Return of Harmony Part 1

Hub promotions
At The Hub's website's "Naughty Or Nice?" contest, it was stated that he is a dragon. The part of the text that said this was later removed, though at least one link to the page still referenced it. Commercials for the contest initially included a fan-made picture of him.

Merchandise
A trading card was released of Discord in 2012. As a gag, the text, which says Discord can turn Equestria "upside down", is deliberately upside down.

WeLoveFine.com carries T-shirts, hoodies, and other merchandise of Discord.

Gallery

 * Discord image gallery