My reaction to his S9 portrayal.

Discord is not a villain!

its on deviantart

Let’s be fair, in terms of sheer competence Sombra wins, hands-down. Chrysalis’s debut emphasized that everyone was a moron, not that she was spectacularly cunning. Discord comes close to Sombra; he had no way of telling that Celestia would be able to send those reports to Twilight but his whole “I’ll give you a free shot” thing was moronic.
 
Lulz at Nightmare Moon actually being a competent villain though.

Don’t approve of “Sombrabuse,” as I’ve heard some legitimate defenses of him. But I’d be lying if I said NMM, Discord, and Chrysalis weren’t reflecting my own personal feelings about him, much for the same reasons that Kiana has.

I’m not saying you could remove him entirely from the show. I’m saying that having him act as an on screen villain, rather than “That evil guy in the past that set up this situation”, doesn’t actually ADD anything.
 
He’s great for setting background (in terms of the episode’s plot), but what does he actually do in his appearances?
 
He’s a plot device, not a character.

Yes, Sombra cast the curse in the first place. But all that means is that he fits in the back story of the episode, not that he’s an effective villain IN the episode. One tiny little change - have the curse persist black crystals grow WITHOUT Sombra around (easily doable, as its shown just his horn is enough, even when separated from him) - and Sombra serves no purpose other than setting up the dangers in the episode.
 
I maintain that this keeps from being much of a villain. He is a plot device. The closest he comes to directly interacting with the cast is the brief instant Shining Armor gets hit by him and at the very end when he flies at the crystal heart.
 
In both instances, he’s not doing anything the crystals and shadows couldn’t have been doing. He doesn’t bring anything to the episode by making an appearance that his crystals wouldn’t do on their own, aside from giving Shining a reason to throw his wife.

@Kiana: The city wasn’t being protected from the arctic just because of the temperature. The city was protected because, oh, uh, who was knockin’ at their door? The black crystals were growing because, um, who was trying to push their influence onto the city? The curse was originally cast by, uh, who?

I don’t think Sombra is a sucky villain. In fact, I don’t think he’s much of a villain at all.
 
After all, what does he DO? If you removed Discord or Nightmare Moon’s direct influence from their episodes, the conflict is gone. If you remove Chrysalis’ direct involvement from her episodes, you’re left with a mindless army… But a vastly different plot, seeing as how uncovering her scheme is the entire point.
 
Sombra? If you take the black crystals growing all over the place and the city’s protection from the tundra failing due to the effects of a curse, you could take out Sombra and the plot would be EXACTLY THE SAME.
 
He seems to exist for the sole purpose of giving the threat a face. This is why he isn’t a villain: He’s background. An ornament.
 
Without depth or charisma (both of which Chrysalis was fortunate enough to have), there’s not much reason to even have him on screen.

In my opinion, all of the villains suck in some way. The only way Hasbro can make a villain that works is if they made him/her have a personality that’s confident but not arrogant and is defeated through being overpowered, not looking over a simple mistake.

This artist just won the internet!
 
and I quote Patrick Star: “He’s just standing there, menacingly!”

Sombra was a pretty neat villan I mean sure he could have used a speaking part assides from aoiuhcvoisnhd CRYSTALS! Other then that he was extremly intemidating a good backround and really just a good villan that wasnt put to a good enough use.

I am making myself watch G1 ponies, as a break from forcing myself to watch the two last seasons of Voyager.  
I prefer Sombra to any of the G1 villains. He’s more an evil force, like Sauron or the Lost cloud. His personality has been usurped by the evil-ness (?).

you other bad guys are assholes. sombra is a fine baddie

Discord didn’t make a dumbass mistake, he knows as much about the Elements of Harmony as anyone else does, which is not much. He broke the Mane Six down so hard that when they tried to use it, they failed. How was he supposed to tell they were harmonious again? Their color was back? Cause that was an audience clue, considering only Pinkie and Spike noticed it, the two biggest breakers of the fourth wall.

We need new tag.  
“Sombrabuse”.  
Poor guy, he doesn’t get as much love as he deserves.

Let us not forget that all the other villains made dumbass mistakes. Nightmare Moon let her confidence get the better of her and was caught off-guard when the true elements were revealed, Discord couldn’t see that the ponies were harmonious again and just thought “oh they’re just going to fail again haha,” and Chrysalis knew that Shining Armor and Cadance’s love was incredibly strong, yet laughed off the idea of them using that power to defeat her. The only thing that went wrong with Sombra’s plan was Twilight getting through his castle(and he did a lot to make sure nobody could get to the Heart) and her being willing to fail her test to save the kingdom(which he couldn’t control).

Sombra is awesome!
 
He took down an entire empire for crying out loud!
 
He probably did more damage than any of the others did.

Eh. I have a feeling we haven’t seen the last of him. We saw his horn get blasted off and we know he can regenerate. He’s apparently recruited/corrupted Trixie to do his bidding. I think he’ll be the cause of more problems further into the season and show up in the finale.

i still dont like him  
he only had 30 seconds of legit speaking lines and the rest of just snarling like a primitive beast

Tl’dr.  
NMM was crazy and jealous.
 
Discord never did anything truly ‘evil’
 
Chrysalis was only trying to feed her people.
 
Sombra made ponies suffer without reason.

NMM just wanted to overrule the thrown out of corrupted jealousy. Nothing really ‘evil’ about that, besides the fact the side effect of this would of been to make the entire planet uninhabitable by starving and freezing everything to death. If nothing else she could plead for insanity.
 
Discord once again was not doing anything strictly ‘evil’. He did torment the mane cast but that was in self defence as much as anything. Could you blame him after being frozen in stone for 1000 years? Other then that, although the world he was creating was chaotic, it was not an evil world.
 
Chrysalis just wanted to feed her people using the only way she knew how. Perhaps her methods where evil (mind control for a start) but that was the way she was born, and once again, it was to feed a whole empire. She did bad to make good.
 
Sombra enslaved an empire and dictated a harsh life to everyone under him. I suppose he might of had a reason to do it, but still, that’s harsh. As he got banished he dragged the empire with him, and then when freed, tried to do it all over again.
 
He was the only one too do evil without good reason. If anything he was TOO evil to make a villain.

Hilarious pic, to be sure, but I still think he was actually a pretty formidable villain. Maybe not AS bad as the other three (especially Discord and Chrysalis), but still worth fearing, imo.

I want source

While I personally don’t like Sombra, they shouldn’t _bully him about that. :|