# Discord
Discord is a chaos-loving draconequus villain from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic who debuted in the season two premiere in September 2011. Voiced by John de Lancie, he became a favorite of the brony fandom, spawning remix videos, fan art, and a running joke tying him to de Lancie's Star Trek character Q.
## Origin
On September 12th, 2011, Wired posted a leaked one-minute clip from the upcoming second season of MLP:FiM, showing several ponies meeting Discord at the entrance to a hedge maze while he strips away their magic to force them into a game[1]. A screencap from that clip went up the same day on the Cheezburger blog My Little Brony[2]. The full episode, The Return of Harmony, aired five days later on September 17th and revealed Discord as the former ruler of Equestria who had been sealed in stone by Celestia and Luna using the Elements of Harmony[5].
The day the leak hit, UpRoxx ran a piece flagging the character to a wider audience under the headline noting that Star Trek's Q was voicing the villain, which is where a lot of non-brony readers first heard about him[4]. DeviantArt user Vitoamito posted fan art of the character on September 17th, the same day the episode aired[6].
- **Platform:** TV (MLP:FiM) / YouTube and DeviantArt (viral spread)
- **Creator:** MLP: Friendship is Magic writing team
- **Date:** 2011
## Overview
Discord is a draconequus, a mismatched pony-dragon hybrid, who shows up as the main antagonist in the second season premiere of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic[1]. He is drawn as a patchwork of animal parts, a snake body with a lion's paw, an eagle's talon, and a single antler, and he uses reality-bending magic to torment the Mane Six for fun. Inside the fandom, the character is instantly recognizable for that chaotic silhouette and for his smug, theatrical delivery.
A big part of the meme is the voice. Discord is played by American actor John de Lancie, best known as the trickster Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and supervising director Jayson Thiessen said the character was written with Q in mind[3]. That casting turned Discord into a crossover joke almost immediately, with bronies treating him as a My Little Pony version of Q. He also does a short shuffle-dance in a stained glass window during the episode, and that clip is the raw material for most of the remix videos that came later[5].
## How It Spread
The Discord dance clip was the first thing to blow up. On September 17th, 2011, YouTuber Trizero126 uploaded a version set to David Guetta's On the Dancefloor[5], and the single-serving site Disco Discord launched the same week looping the shuffle to Daft Punk's Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger[7]. Other remixers followed with their own audio swaps, treating the stained-glass shuffle the way earlier bronies had treated DJ P0N-3 clips.
John de Lancie noticed. The day after his episode aired, on September 18th, 2011, he acknowledged the sudden brony attention on Twitter, which the fandom took as a green light to keep going[8]. On September 25th, forum member Headless Horse posted excerpts on MLPonies Forums from a BronyCon interview where Thiessen confirmed the Q inspiration[3]. Three days later, on September 28th, fans edited Q's Wikipedia page to swap in Discord's description before an editor reverted it with the note "Very funny, guys. Real mature"[9].
The character stuck as a fandom fixture through 2012. A Discord papercraft build was posted on the Paperkraft blog on October 22nd, 2011[10], the fanfic Discord's Reign went up on FanFiction.net on October 31st[11], and an animated pixel-art Discord appeared on My Little Brony on May 5th, 2012[2]. By mid-May 2012 a Discord Facebook page had passed 3,100 likes[5].
## How to Use
Most Discord content is either the stained-glass shuffle clip set to a new song, or fan art that leans into the Q comparison by putting him in a Star Trek uniform or dropping Q's catchphrases into pony captions. When people post the shuffle, the common convention is to pick a track with a strong four-on-the-floor beat so the loop syncs cleanly, the way Disco Discord did it with Daft Punk[7].
## Frequently Asked Questions
### What is Discord?
Discord is the draconequus villain introduced in the season two premiere of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and the brony fandom meme built around him[1].
### Where did Discord come from?
He first surfaced in a leaked clip Wired posted on September 12th, 2011, ahead of the full episode The Return of Harmony airing on September 17th[1].
### What does Discord mean?
In the show, Discord is the former tyrant of Equestria, a chaos god who was sealed in stone by the Elements of Harmony and later broke free[5].
### How do you use Discord?
Bronies typically remix the stained-glass shuffle dance clip with different music tracks or draw crossover fan art tying him to John de Lancie's Star Trek character Q[7].
### Is Discord still popular?
He is a classic brony fandom staple from the peak MLP:FiM era of 2011 to 2012 and is still referenced in pony fan spaces, though the burst of remix videos and Q crossover jokes belongs to that period[3].
## References
1. [https://www.wired.com/2011/09/my-little-pony-clip/]()
2. [http://mylittlebrony.com/]()
3. [http://www.mlponies.com/forums/]()
4. [https://uproxx.com/tv/good-news-bronies-my-little-pony-is-back-and-star-treks-q-is-voicing-the-villain/]()
5. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/discord]()
6. [https://www.deviantart.com/vitoamito]()
7. [http://discodiscord.com/]()
8. [https://twitter.com/johndelancie/status/115508006430711808]()
9. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_(Star_Trek)]()
10. [http://www.paperkraft.net/]()
11. [https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7594040/1/Discords-Reign]()
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Source: https://meme.com/memes/discord
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