@CronoM  
I never said he had a rational justification, I said he thought he had one, but obliviously he didn’t

@Prometheus labs CEO  
That’s an absurdly roundabout way to try to rationalize this both flawed and nonsensical attempt of Discord’s.
 
Don’t mistake my ability to follow with what your saying as the same thing as believing your explanation is a rational justification. Its a hypothesis, but most certainly not a sensible one.
 
His reasons for the subterfuge were shaky at best, his idea for the subterfuge were shaky at best, his methods during the subterfuge were uncharacteristically restrained, and his end game goal for the “serious” subterfuge had almost no solid plan AT ALL. Its very incohesive, and is dripping with bad writing.

@CronoM  
I figure it’s a combination of him just being a douchebag and that he genuinely believes his own explanations and reasons, it’s just that as a being of chaos thinking logically, and logic in general, isn’t exactly something that he understands fully, that doesn’t stop him from thinking he’s knows what logic this of course, and that + douchebaggery = “What is wrong with you?!”

@Prometheus labs CEO  
It would almost be better if he did stuff solely because they didn’t make any sense. But instead he actually HAS honest patchwork reasons and justifications for the bullshit he pulls off that fails misery.
 
He’s making very restrained and non chaotic subterfuge to create non-chaotic results with (neither zero sense or fully formed sense) a stupid plot.

@CronoM  
Don’t they fall under “do insane crap that doesn’t make any sense”?

@Prometheus labs CEO  
Yes to the former, no to the latter. And honestly, attempted subterfuge and restrained spy missions aren’t in the job description of a lord of chaos either.

Isn’t insanity/stupidity part of the job description

@Background Pony #8004  

 
Exaggeration much? The Brony fandom wouldn’t even EXIST without the excessive praising of the show by its fans. The title of the show is called My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic for goodness sakes. It shouldn’t even have a fandom outside of 10 year old girls.
 
And don’t blame the fans on the writers accumulating deserved criticism. When the show’s presentation got good, it got REALLY good. But when the show’s writing got bad, it got REALLY bad.
 
Face it, way too many premiers or finales are considered either controversial in quality or just plain stupid by a large portion of the fans, and that isn’t the fans fault AT ALL. Its the writers. They do have their blind spots in terms of quality. You labeling it as ‘senseless’ doesn’t mean a damn thing. Heck, YOU just admitted that plenty has been mishandled. The MLP fandom is for the most part nontoxic. Most MLP fans I’ve known over the years are extremely accepting of other fandoms and very understanding of initial opinions of MLP from non fans. Aspects I can’t say the same from some truly toxic fandoms I’ve met over the years.
 
Most criticism of the show has been VERY well deserved. The issue lies in MLP’s ability to ‘coast’ on not breaking the camel’s back, never making mistakes that are too drastic no one defend. Thus there is a lot of polarizing opinions from people.
 
Your “A” and “B” are both largely incorrect. The finale COULD have been better if it had better writing, but it did not, and the Discord twist was a very worthy of criticism in particular. I like Discord, but Discord is also at the mercy of bad writing. Our end of series judgments of him have to unfortunately take into account that the Grogar plot was actually canon. Which is unfortunate to say the least.

@Background Pony #8004
 
I don’t fit either of those criteria. I like Discord, and I loved the rest of the finale.
 
I hated the twist. It was poor writing, it robbed us of an interesting final villain (Grogar), and it was out of character even FOR Discord.
 
You and anybody else is welcome to enjoy it, that’s fine. To each their own. But it was objectively bad writing. We all enjoy something objectively bad, nothing wrong with that.

@DiamondDust  
Bad writing by your opinion. I honestly enjoyed the twist.
 
 
@Background Pony #6500  
Hardly. I thought Last Problem, while a nice wrap up, had a few hasty design problems. Also think it was a mistake to end the series without something, in comic or show, hinting at Cozy Glow’s backstory. Use to think Celestia and Luna were underused, but they KIND of made up for some of that in the last season.
 
There is a lot of mishandled stuff in this series, but I don’t think the Grogar twist is one. I genuinely think people are hating on Discord for A. Because they already hated him to begin with or B. They were going to hate the finale no matter what, so he’s their primary scapegoat.
 
And seriously, blindly praising? I’ve seen far more blind flaming and senseless hating on this series from its own fandom than I have seen anything approaching praise. Which is why we’re getting labeled more and more a toxic fanbase.

@Background Pony #8004
 
“Waah! Why aren’t people blindly praising the show and every decision the writers make?”.

@Background Pony #8004  
There’s nothing senseless about it. If you can’t handle criticism for bad writing, then that’s your problem.

Oh great, more senseless hating on Discord, and even one saying “no one is a hero for allowing the trio to be turned to stone”. Geeze, I thought this was done with.

@Background Pony #EE7  
To be honest, I still wanna murder him myself.

It’s the truth. Discord was a mistake.

@Smart Heart  
Not just Discord. None of the characters we all thought we knew and loved are heroes either. Celestia and Luna aren’t heroes. The Mane Six aren’t heroes. Starlight and Spike aren’t heroes. The Student Six aren’t heroes. I can’t believe I am going to say this but I wanted to murder Discord. Not joking.
 
My main concern with Discord being Grogar is how did he pretend to be Grogar. He may be the Lord of Chaos but he pretended to be Grogar in the exact same fashion as a changeling. Is Discord secretly a mutant changeling? Or is this just the writers who know absolutely nothing about Discord? Either way, it’s just not okay.

@Background Pony #C25C  
That doesn’t excuse the fact that he wanted them to start a war with Equestria just to prove Twilight had what it took to be leader.

Well, one of his biggest flaws is his ego. Dispite knowing them as proabable backstabbers he doesn’t ever expect to be betrayed… even when it’s been his downfall before.

@Joshua  
Oh yeah, overall I loved the whole finale. I was just very disappointed with the Discord thing.

Discord is the real villain here, not those three.

In Discord’s defense it is very believable, if not expected, that they would fail to work together and get the bell.

Congratulations Discord, you played yourself.

@Joshua  
I know. But I am still siding with these specific OPs.

@Jacalope  
Precisely.
 
@FlutterButterButt  
Bad writing deserves to be referred to as bad writing. Excusing it via random character stupidity does not work. If the characters are constantly dropping the ball compared to their average intelligence, then we have to assume the writers themselves are dropping the ball if they can’t write their characters well.

@FlutterButterButt  
Except it is from a character who should have already measured his actions, at least not to do stupidities of giant levels. If S6-7 Discord saw what he did, he would kill him for putting Fluttershy at serious risk.
 
And with your plan there are several questions.
 
-Why did he gather the villains in the first place when he could simply create an enemy that seems superior to Discord so that the protagonists take care of it and still maintain control as in the Christmas special?  
-If I wanted to redeem them as a bonus, why was he the first to suggest putting them in stone and letting Sombra do what he wants?