Discord (My Little Pony)
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About
Discord is a villain in the animated television series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (MLP: FiM). A pony-dragon hybrid known as a “draconequus," the character is introduced in the show's second season premiere as a cunning manipulator with powerful magical abilities. In the show, Discord performs a shuffle-style dance which inspired a series of YouTube remix videos.
Origin
On September 12th, 2011, the tech news blog Wired[1] posted a leaked one minute clip showing footage from the upcoming second season of MLP:FiM. In the video, several ponies discover Discord at the entrance to a hedge maze, where he proceeds to disable their magical powers in order to make them play a game of his choosing. The same day, a screen capture of the footage was posted on the Cheezburger site My Little Brony.[27]
The Character
Discord is the former ruler of Equestria, the land in which MLP:FiM takes place. During his reign, he was seen as a tyrant by Equestria's inhabitants, which caused Celestia and her sister Luna to imprison him in stone using magical artifacts known as the "Elements of Harmony." When the artifacts broke their bond with Celestia and Luna, they connected to Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rarity and Rainbow Dash, which allowed Discord to break free from the prison. Using powerful magic and illusions, Discord manipulated the ponies in a series of tests but was ultimately turned to stone by the Elements of Harmony a second time.
Spread
On September 13th, 2011, the web culture blog UpRoxx[28] published an article titled "Good News, Bronies: My Little Pony is Back, and Star Trek's Q is Voicing the Villain", which contained an embed of the leaked video footage from Wired. On September 17th, the full episode "The Return of Harmony" was released, which featured Discord as the primary antagonist against Twilight Sparkle and her friends. The same day, DeviantArt[26] user Vitoamito submitted a fan art of the character.
On October 22nd, a photograph of Discord papercraft sculpture (below, left) was posted on the Paperkraft[30] art blog. On October 31st, FanFiction.net[29] user Bronuis Maximus submitted a fanfiction story titled "Discord's Reign", which received mostly positive reviews from the community. On May 5th, 2012, an animated pixel art version of the character was posted on My Little Brony.[25]
The meme has continued to spread on sites like Deviantart[2][6][7][8], Ponibooru[3], the /r/mylittlepony[4] subreddit and Ponychan.[5] As of May 15th, 2012, a Facebook[24] page for Discord has received over 3,100 likes.
Notable Examples
Discord Dance
In the second season premiere of MLP:FiM, Discord performs a dance similar to the Melbourne Shuffle in a stained glass window. On September 17th, 2011, YouTuber Trizero126[19] posted a video of Discord performing the dance to the song “On the Dancefloor” by the electronic musician David Guetta (shown below, top, left). The same day, the single-serving site Disco Discord[20] was launched, which featured the looped animation accompanied by the song "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" by the electronic duo Daft Punk. Shortly after, other YouTubers began uploading remix videos of the dance scene, in similar fashion to the DJ P0N-3 dub videos.
John de Lancie
Discord is voiced by the American actor John de Lancie. The day after the first Discord episode aired on September 18th, 2011, de Lancie reacted to the sudden surge in attention from pony fans on his Twitter account.[14]
Roddenberry warned me that I had no idea what I was getting into with Star Trek. Someone should have warned me about My Little Pony! Egads!
— John de Lancie (@johndelancie) September 18, 2011
De Lancie is known for playing the omnipotent trickster Q in the science fiction television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. In an interview at the 2011 BronyCon convention, MLP: FiM supervising director Jayson Thiessen mentioned that Discord was created with the Q character in mind. On September 25th, sections of the interview were posted to the MLPonies Forums[16] by member Headless Horse.
"Discord was a character straight off Lauren's pen, because apparently she'd been bingeing on Trek:TNG lately at the time that script got written. She decided to play him just like Q, because why the hell not? She'd originally planned to have Discord voiced by a De Lancie soundalike; but then during one of the meetings, someone (Jayson said it might well have been him) just said, "Why don't we just try to get the real guy?" Sure it cost money, but Hasbro said why the hell not? And John was free, and he was game, so there's our Discord. Why the hell not?"
On September 28th, fans edited the Q Wikipedia[18] page to match the Wikipedia[31] description for Discord. The changes were reset a few hours later with the message "Very funny, guys. Real mature."
![Q (Star Trek From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . It needs additional citations for verification. Tagged since April 2010 It may contain original research. Tagged since April 2010 This article is about the character Q. For the race, see Q Continuum Q is a fictional character who appears in the television series Sar Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager, as well as in related products. In all of these programs, he is played by John de Lancie. Q claims to be omnipotent, and is continually evasive regarding his motivations. His home the Q Continuum, is accessible to the Q and their guests, and the true nature of it is said to be beyond the comprehension of "lesser beings" such as humans so it is only shown to humans in ways they can understand Beginning with the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Q became a recurring character, with pronounced comedic and dramatic chemistry between himself and Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Gene Roddenberry chose the letter "Q" in honor of his friend, Janet Quarton.1 12] The name "Q" also applies to all other individuals of the Q Continuum as well Contents [hide] 1 Behavior 2 Overview 3 Appearances 4 References 5 External links Behavior edit Discord is a mischievous, slightly threatening, purportedly omnipotent being who has taken an interest in ponies. Discord's power is thus far limited only in that he annot overcome others in the presence of the Elements of Harmony. He can apparently stop death, create life, travel through time, stop time, multitask/create multiple versions of himself and create entire worlds effortlessly. He can change a pony's mind or make them take any action Discord's mercurial personality switches between camp joking and deadly threats. While boastful, condescending, and threatening, he arguably has ponydom's best interests at heart, as seen in Friendship is Magic episode 2, "The Return of Harmony Part 2", in which he causes Twilight Sparkle to lose all of her friends, giving him a chance to save chaos. In his portrayal of Discord, John de Lancie used Lady Caroline Lamb's description of Lord Byron as "mad, bad and dangerous to know planet as his inspiration. Discord most often appears as a draconeguus Q in the guise of "God in Tapestry Species Home N/A; originates from the Q Portrayed John de Lancie by](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/180/868/b06.png "b06.png")
Search Interest
Search query volume for Discord rose in September 2011, the same month the leaked footage was released on Wired.
External References
[1] Wired – Season 2 Exclusive Clip
[2] Deviantart – Search: Discord
[3] Ponibooru – Search: Discord
[4] MLP Reddit – Search: Discord
[6] Deviantart – mlpDiscord group
[7] Deviantart – Discor-Fanclub group
[8] Deviantart – The-Order-of-Discord group
[9] Deviantart – DISCORDXOC group
[10] Deviantart – Have-Some-of-DisPie group
[11] Tumblr – Discord tags
[12] Tumblr Blog – Ask Discord of Discordia
[13] Tumblr Blog – Ask Octavia
[14] Twitter – John de Lancie
[15] Equestria Daily – John de Lancie on Ponies
[16] MLPonies Forums – FiM Reviews, Interviews, Media Appearances
[17] DeviantART – Comment on fyre-flye's profile
[18] Wikipedia – Star Trek Q
[19] Youtube – Trizero126
[21] Wikipedia – Dark Souls
[22] Wikipedia – Dark Souls Edit History
[23] Wikipedia – Dark Souls Revission Comparison
[25] My Little Brony – 8-bit Discord
[26] deviantArt – Discord from My Little Pony
[27] My Little Brony – Discord
[28] UpRoxx – MY LITTLE PONY IS BACK, AND STAR TREK’S Q IS VOICING A VILLAIN
[29] Fan Fiction – Discord's Reign
[30] Paperkraft – Discord Papercraft
Top Comments
Mr Bumhole #1 Fan Of Osaka
Sep 20, 2011 at 07:32AM EDT
Daugeas
Sep 20, 2011 at 08:50AM EDT