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“And if you want to remain friends, you’ll stop thinking whatever it is you’re thinking and help us clean up.”
That’s a very well done analysis of his character, much better than many reviewers I’ve watched.
I’m not talking about them being effective. Quite the opposite, actually. Villains are generally presented without dimension in their first appearance (or sometimes, repeat appearances) because they are effective that way. You don’t need to know the villain’s tragic backstory to know you need to fight them.
What I’m saying is that you cannot actually predict the full range of a villain’s in-character future behavior from their first appearance as a villain, because villains don’t show you their full character the first time you see them, and this isn’t just a storytelling trick that applies to villains – it actually is a natural part of life that goes reciprocally as well. Villains do not see the full dimensions of the heroes they fight the first time they encounter each other, most of the time, any more than the heroes see theirs.
So there was nothing wrong with Discord’s portrayal in Return of Harmony – it was both the proper amount of characterization for a children’s cartoon villain, and it was natural to real life, not just comic book tropes, that Discord wouldn’t have revealed much if any of his emotional weaknesses to his enemies the first time he fought them. I’m just saying you can’t look at a villain, the first time they appear, and predict what emotional weaknesses and extra dimension they’re going to turn out to have.
So yeah, you can’t watch Return of Harmony and guess that Discord is going to turn out to be so lonely and needy that he’ll willingly tone down the chaos to levels ponies can tolerate in exchange for a friend, but when you look back knowing that fact, none of his behavior in RoH is inconsistent with that either. He’s an attention whore, he loves getting his opponents riled up, he uses emotional attacks on friendship instead of any of his huge repertoire of potential magical attacks, and the only thing he says about his experience in stone is that “it’s very lonely”. All of that is totally consistent with a guy who wants friendship, has given up on ever getting it, and is bitter about it, but hides his bitterness with a jovial facade.
I disagree, villains don’t need to necessarily have a lot of dimension to be effective. Tirek proves this.
The problem with villains is that they’re never going to seem to have a lot of dimension when they first appear, because they’re the enemy. We don’t see their weaknesses (aside from combat weaknesses), we don’t see their deeper emotions, we see basically the face we put up front. It goes both ways, too; Nightmare Moon, Discord and Chrysalis all had time to do some research on their opponents, but Discord plainly didn’t guess that Fluttershy would be able to resist him in the labyrinth, and would Nightmare Moon or Chrysalis have expected Fluttershy’s “YOU WILL LOVE ME!” fit? Would any of the three of them expect Rainbow Dash to cry over her pet hibernating? Would the Diamond Dogs who saw Rarity whining and crying expect her to be able to kick ass?
You never know your opponent’s soft spots until you’ve fought them at least more than once, and preferably more than that, or until you’ve befriended them. Discord prioritizing anything over Chaos doesn’t seem like something he’d do in Return of Harmony because he’s not being offered anything he has any interest in. The offer of friendship has to be made before Discord can even consider what its value to him might be.
Yeah, Discord considering Fluttershy above his love for chaos or at least on the same level is something i would never expect from him after Return of Harmony episode
Kind of more like “And if you want to remain my boyfriend, you’re going to help clean up this mess you made instead of dumping it all on me and my friends, and you’re going to stop ogling other girls”. Except where “other girls” = Chaos.
Fluttershy’s not treating Discord like her personal doormat, she’s demanding something perfectly reasonable. Don’t care about Chaos more than he cares about his friend, or he won’t have a friend much longer. And if he screws up and makes a mess, fix it.
@rdibp
No words are strong enough to overstate my stupidity.
Looks like someone doesn’t know their pone.
No, this is from first episode from 4th season, not from 5th season.