Discord

Discord is the primary antagonist featured in The Return of Harmony Part 1 and Part 2. Previously, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna had imprisoned him in stone with the Elements of Harmony over a millenia ago. But when the Elements are transferred to Twilight Sparkle and her friends and the infighting of the "Cutie mark crusaders", Discord escapes from his stony prison and starts to wreak chaos. As his first move, Discord steals and hides the Elements of Harmony and offers a challenge in the form of a riddle as the only hint to their whereabouts. Twilight Sparkle and her friends agree to play by his rules and venture off to retrieve the Elements of Harmony in order to stop him.

Development
The show's developer, Lauren Faust, stated that the character Discord was inspired by John de Lancie's popular character Q from various Star Trek television series. Jayson Thiessen, the show's director, noted that 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. 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".

John de Lancie accidentally said at a Calgary Expo panel that he had lent his voice again for a future episode; he later confirmed this on Twitter. However, he has not explicitly referred to Discord by name as the character he was appointed to voice.

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 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, and a snake's tail. A creature composed of several different animals is called a chimera. While Discord is technically a chimera in that sense, 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 with little to no consideration towards his victims, who uses powerful magic, illusions, and hypnotism. 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 while the Ponyville class is taking a field trip. 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 stops the class to point out the draconequus, and the three Cutie Mark Crusaders get in a fight arguing about what he represents.

Before he is introduced, the effects of his presence are experienced in Ponyville by the six leading characters, with clouds made out of cotton candy that move of their own accord, chocolate milk pouring down from the sky as if like 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. 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, which Twilight connects with the Canterlot castle labyrinth.

When Twilight and her friends venture into the palace labyrinth, Discord magically removes the ponies' wings and horns so that they would be unable to use their magic or be able to fly to "cheat" in the "game" he forces them to take part in. He also separates them by raising sections of the labyrinth's walls. Discord uses representations of the cast's cutie marks to subtly manipulate them into behaving in discordance with the element they represent. The one exception is Fluttershy, who doesn't fall for Discord's manipulation leading him to snap and simply convert her by touch. He bids her goodbye with an extremely agitated "arrivederci".

He eventually 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 seeking the Elements. This tricks her into flying out of the labyrinth, breaking Discord's rule that magic and wings are forbidden. Discord, having "won," then causes the entire labyrinth to collapse, and standing before the five remaining ponies, gleefully states that Equestria will now be thrust into eternal 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, as she thought. 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. When Twilight finally cures all her corrupted friends, Discord continues to act calm and complacent, thus allowing him to be easily defeated with the reawakened powers of the Elements. After being struck with a rainbow similar to that previously used on Night Mare Moon, Discord is turned back into stone, but this time with an expression of horror frozen onto his face.

A creature similar to Discord is depicted fighting a Pegasus on a relief in Hearth's Warming Eve.

Other depictions
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.

Gallery

 * Discord image gallery