Talk:Discord/@comment-11751741-20150913144019/@comment-10390252-20150913144946

This is only a guess but I think it was something like this:

From the moment Return of Harmony first aired, Discord was a firm fan-favourite, both in concept and thanks to John DeLancie's bravura voice acting. The Powers That Be decided that he simply had to come back to capitalise on this positive fan reaction.

The problem was that there was only so many plots consistent with the show's TV-Y rating that could use him plausibly as a villain. The way they chose to circumvent this problem was to reform him and turn him into a mischievous and generally neutral to frustratingly cryptic ally. By making him an ally character, it was also possible to fit him into plots that were not the beginning- and end-of-season apocalypses.