Villain Thread

Discuss about the show’s villains.

They did nothing wrong.

What is the most evilest villain out of all of them?

@Background Pony #2988
Cosmos. Within just the show though, I’d say full power Tirek.

@Background Pony #2988
Definitely Cosmos, then the Storm King and Chrysalis. Tirek isn’t that evil to be honest (neither is G1 Tirac).

Sombra was a great antagonist, I stand by this

I like to think that Grogar’s bell can absorb not only magic from living creatures, but magic from artifacts as well, and even rainbow magic. Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow turned everypony against each other (because nopony bothered to question anything. In real life, it would not be that easy to turn people against each other.), stole the magic of every creature more powerful than them, destroyed Canterlot, and pretty much undid everything Twilight and her friends had ever done. They won every single battle in that episode and came closer to winning than any other villain in MLP ever has (though Tirek came just as close on his own in season 4). Even when all of Equestria was united they still stood no chance against them. All they had to do was use the bell on Twilight’s giant rainbow laser. Had that worked, they would have won, every creature would have bowed down to their new rulers after witnessing Twilight’s death, and anyone who resisted would have either been imprisoned or executed, committed suicide, or would have given up and accepted defeat. They only had to do one simple thing and they couldn’t even do that (now had the bell failed they still would have lost).

And we all remember the only reason they were even a threat to begin with was because Discord gave them all that power. Had Discord never assisted Tirek at all, nobody would have ever heard from him. Season 9 would have been better off if Grogar (the real Grogar, not Discord impersonating him) was the main antagonist instead of those three idiots.

discord didn’t give them all that power, they stole it, by stealing a book from somewhere else.

@CORDZ2000
Let’s see…

Discord released Tirek and Cozy Glow from Tartarus.
Discord encouraged them and Queen Chrysalis to work together.
Discord gave them the location of Grogar’s bell (the most powerful and dangerous artifact in Equestria) and ordered them to retrieve the bell.
Discord never bothered to watch them even though he easily could have. When they raided Canterlot and caused trouble, Discord just watched the chaos. If he knew that the villains were raiding Canterlot but did nothing about it, it’d make him even worse than he was had he not known.

Tirek wasn’t a bad villain (he’s one of the best villains mainly because all the other villains suck), but he relied way too much on Discord since both times he was a threat during the show’s run, he was a threat because Discord assisted him. Without Discord, Tirek would have never been heard of.

I agree with both the tirek scernarios.
He definitely should have watched them but because of his arrogance he underestimated them, thought that the trio would be too scared of him to lie about not having the bell and likely didn’t know it could even take magic heck they had to go found a random book to learn how themselves.

Also Discord was being meta af lol, he knew and believed in the mane six to win and fix everything in the end, ironically in a roundabout way he was right, plus he saw himself as a safety net incase they couldn’t handle it. He did it ultimately for the purpose of trying to help twilight as ruler of equestria.

I disagree with all the other villains sucking, but tirek is the best one imo.

@CORDZ2000
Tirek is the 2nd best in my opinion, behind Starlight Glimmer.

Nightmare Moon was just a generic starter villain and I feel like the events of the series premiere were staged in order to introduce the elements of harmony.
Discord is an idiot as we discussed.
Queen Chrysalis is insane and a borderline complete monster.
King Sombra in season 3 didn’t talk at all. Sombra in season 9 talked too much and his voice didn’t sound threatening at all.
The Storm King is an idiot and too comedic to the point to where he sounds like some 9 year old boy playing a video game.
The Pony of Shadows did nothing except try to kill Star Swirl and Twilight.
Chancellor Neighsay (not a villain but i’m still including him since he was an antagonist) is underrated but the only reason he ever succeeded at anything was because of his position as head of the EEA. Without that, he wouldn’t pose even a minor threat.
Cozy Glow is annoying and some of her plans aren’t even thought out well, like when she purposely failed a test in an attempt at getting the CMCs into the school of friendship. Also her plan in School Raze would not have worked since Cozy wouldn’t have any magic of her own and her true nature would have inevitably gotten the best of her.

I haven’t really watched any of the G1 episodes except parts of the Tirac episode and The Return of Tambelon. G1 Tirac kinda sucked and he really isn’t as evil as people say he is. Grogar was alright though (at least this Grogar actually did something and wasn’t Discord in disguise).

Starlight was great until her backstory

@CORDZ2000
That’s still better than the villains who don’t have any backstory at all and are just evil for the sake of it (Cozy Glow). I think Starlight was forgiven too easily. Sunset Shimmer wasn’t even as bad as she was and she had to earn everyone’s forgiveness. Starlight Glimmer just had everything given to her.

Now imagine Starlight Glimmer didn’t redeem herself and instead ripped up the scroll knowing she’d risk destroying all of Equestria, resulting in millions of ponies, including Sunburst, either dying or never existing to begin with. She would have lost any redeeming qualities she had and she’d no longer be a tragic villain. She could have became a complete monster.

@angryprogrockbrony
Discord and chrysalis can be mostly explained by the very nature of their being, they dont really need one. I can kinda agree with cozy. Although i definitely think starlight shouldn’t have had that backstory if they were planning on reforming her because it made her look pettier more childish and insane than intended.

Like instead of being this complex villain with this real world esque dictator philosophy, her backstory of being a supervillain because one friend left knocked her down pegs for me for a character that actually seemed to be so much more at first. Then she immediately becomes a perfect nice girl and so much like twilight they make a joke about it and so much like sunset idw makes one bout it. Sunset is a great reformed character but was a badly written villain.

Yeah she is kinda petty considering she risked destroying Equestria (albeit unintentionally) just to get revenge on Twilight and because she lost one friend. I think her actions outweigh her “tragedy” and she shouldn’t have gone without punishment. I would have been okay with Starlight being imprisoned in Tartarus and released after season 6 (or during the season 6 finale), but then what could happen is Tirek could manipulate her and she’d become even more evil than before.

So is Princess Luna. Discord, on the other hand, was a good villain but the worst reformed character in the show.

I think Luna is pretty good, the only thing is she didn’t really choose to be evil in the first place, so its not as much of needing redemption more of her believing she needs it, which is interesting in a way.
That’s were my unpopular opinion comes that discord is the best reformed character in the show. Discord actually has faced consequences before such as being turned to stone for 1000 years, has the characters call him out when he does something wrong. In I know from experience, how hard it is to change and become something better, discord is the most realistic character when it comes to that.

He has mishaps and learns and improves slightly more and more with each appearance, instead of instantly becoming someone different.
He also has a pretty good reason to be the way he is, as if he completely changes he will disappear. He is still chaotic but trying to help his friends in his own chaotic way, especially twilight to learn a lesson. Heck People harp on the grogar twist and while it certainly has plenty issues, it is far from the worst writting ever like many claim, as even that shows his growth:

only time i think discord was objectively badly written was matter of principals in the show. I think sunset possibly surpasses discord in terms of reformed character but only because of that episode.

@CORDZ2000
About Luna, I think the whole Nightmare Moon thing was staged for a few reasons. Lauren Faust confirmed Celestia released Nightmare Moon. Also, when Luna is Nightmare Moon, she doesn’t even try to kill or harm the mane six. All she does is test them. I think Celestia and Luna had collaborated on this and Luna wanted the mane six to defeat her.

The Grogar twist was the worst thing to have happened to the show. I don’t care about Twilight being an alicorn (I wasn’t even part of the fandom when that happened), but Grogar being Discord ruined the show for me. Not long after I became a brony (this was years before I joined Derpibooru), I had watched a bit of G1 including The Return of Tambelon and thought Grogar was a pretty good villain and for years I hoped he would return. The Ending of the End, which in my opinion is the worst episode in the whole series, would have been a decent finale if it weren’t for that plot twist.

And the whole Discord trying to boost Twilight’s confidence was a terrible plan not only because it backfired horribly, but because Discord’s plan involved reviving Equestria’s most dangerous villains just so they can die again. He revives King Sombra just so Twilight can kill him and then uses that to scare the other villains into submission. I don’t care how evil Sombra was (and Sombra is definitely one of the worst villains), what Discord did is evil. Discord was doing so well up until seasons 8 and 9. They should have turned him back to stone.

Even if it happened, people would still get upset.

@Andyxdr
People would have gotten upset no matter what happened. How many times was the show “ruined forever”? Too many. Twilight becomes an Alicorn? “Ruined forever”. Starlight Glimmer redeems herself and joins the mane six? “Ruined forever”. The School of Friendship exists? At this point the show was starting to get ruined forever. Then season 9 happened, and while I wish I could go back and rewrite the season, there isn’t anything we can do and there is no hope for MLP (come to think about it, there isn’t any hope for anything. Everything gets worse overtime). We might as well pretend the show ended after season 4 or 5 and forget about anything after that.

@angryprogrockbrony
Maybe, but still, the fact that Discord didn’t get turned back to stone is something people who weren’t happy about it have no choice but to live with.

Turning discord to stone because he messed up so badly in s9 despite that fact that he was genuinely trying to be a helpful friend and also strived to make up for it is pretty messed up. And would go against what the cast said for.