@Itsthinking  
An…odd agree to disagree request, (usually people leave a more objective statement to help their earlier statements), but okay. :) Lets agree to disagree.

@CronoM  
How about I leave it with “It’s funny to watch Discord get beat up and that’s what I prefer him to be in the show, and it’s made better when its because he created his own demise?”

@Itsthinking  
?? Why would your ‘demon child’ headcanon throw a wrench in a simple yes or no question?
 
Especially when you said ‘yes’, yet, no matter how you spin it, it makes no sense. The thought process you initially described and then I outlined for you doesn’t match any rational process at all. If he was trying to be subtle with his sadism deep down, while simply acting dickish, he wouldn’t mentally probe issues the heroes have and lessons that strike home often and can cause growth, the ‘demon child’ would simply act aloof about his inner sadism, which isn’t nearly as effective and is why the demon child always loses but his efforts are so painfully obvious he either gets instant forgiveness(TV-Y) or coldly shunned for a while or more; sometimes killed off in a funny non-serious ending scene, depending on the higher rating.
 
Additionally I am quite familiar with the demon child trope and its TV-Y subtrobes you are talking about, and few to none act even remotely like Discord.
 
Discord’s a Trickster, not a Demon Child or TV-Y Demon Child. His immaturity is very adult in its immaturity. He’s seen good and evil played out more times then he can count and is naturally trollish and self-entertaining to live for an eternity and still have fun, and things especially kick off if he finds some interesting heroes that get in his business or are too interesting to ignore or too tempting to toy with their personality limits, or both. He won’t get tempted by overly altruistic or sadistic tendencies beyond a slight helping or hurting hand once in a while, with the rare exception of something that triggers him personally enough, like getting sealed in stone for 1000 years. In the first episodes with Discord, excess anger was fueling his antics, making his actions temporarily more direct and aggressive then usual.
 
…
 
As for Discord being forgiven so easily, in MLP that’s more related to the plot then related to the character. Honestly, the stunts he’s pulled while supposedly reformed and how ridiculously easily he was forgiven are basically in response to them putting him on the reform track FAR too quickly while still wanting him to cause trouble in later seasons. Instead of freeing him from stone the second time and letting him ease from angry villain to neutral trickster with developing interest in 1 or 2 of the main characters, Celestia made public display for the viewers of how Fluttershy managed to reform Discord overnight. (Honestly, they basically allowed his dickish actions to slide without the slightest bit of effort or explanation simply because they changed his facebook status from ‘villain’ to ‘hero’)

@CronoM  

 
Yes, but I also think you have to throw a wrench in here that I personally see Discord as having a childlike sense of immaturity. In a way I guess you could describe Discord as basically a TV-Y literal “demon child” that always happens to lose and get hugs and kisses at the end of the horror film because of the rating.

@Itsthinking  
…except he DOESN’T paint it as teaching life lessons. I feel like this counter-point of yours has gone a bit off track due to the subject, which is partially my fault due to the emphasis…
 
With Discord’s lessons, he gives obvious subtext and alludes to life lessons, but he practically never outright says, ‘it’s a lesson’ to justify himself. That would very unlike him.
 
So what are you saying? It’s double subtext? He acts like a dick while obviously giving them harsh lessons but never outright saying it, but deeper, deeper down, he just wants to cause any pony pain cause he’s not just a wise but dickish old man, but more importantly he’s just a sadist?
 
I’m sorry but that makes no sense. Of cousrse he manipulates people, psychiatrists probe and manipulate people all the time to sort out the messes in our heads, and discords a dick so obviously the lessons he gets off on are going to seem more mean spirited. That doesn’t make him a ‘sadist’ or make his motivation sadistry, that just makes him a ‘smug and egotistical troll’.
 
Do you honestly think he is the former more the the latter? I think you are being overly sensitive about his later season actions.

@CronoM  
Yeah, he paints it as “teaching them life lessons,” but always gets his cover blown and you realize it wasn’t genuine at all. He understands friendship and how friendly people interact in order to manipulate them.
 
His Dungeons and Discords behavior, I’m sorry, was just him being called out for trying to be an “epic puppetmaster” and Spike/Big Mac falling for his crocodile tears.

@Starswirl  
I’m not exactly being lenient. He doesn’t give them lessons out of raw compassion, obviously, but its hardly an excuse just to do bad things either, that’s completely off the mark as well…
 
He gets off on giving the people he’s acquainted with hard life lessons. He gets a kick out of it. I’m not going to say something corny like ‘that’s his way of showing he cares’, however it IS how he demonstrates that he’s interested in them. They are HIS friends and frenemies to antagonize and share his assholish wisdom with, and he wouldn’t have it any other way normally. He can identify people’s flaws and mental weaknesses almost instantly.
 
He is the embodiment of chaos, he’s is naturally interested in how interesting or high potential people will change under extreme circumstances.
 
When stuck with Spike and Big Mac, he didn’t instantly take the opportunity to be a dick to them or inflict pain, cause that’s not his main motivation. He isn’t Chrysalis. The idea was that they weren’t his friends, and they initially weren’t interesting enough to him, for him to show him his less passive method for fun. Once he got more interested in how Spike and Big Mac would handle his type of fun, only then did he start. Being his trollish self for doing what he gets off on is a perk, not a primary motivation.
 
Alternatively, when he finally realized that Trixie could rebuff his guff, he took interest in her at the end of the finale, no sadism motivations. She has tongue sharp enough to verbally spar with him, and besides RD’s few ‘cut-the-bs’ type comments to him, that’s a rare thing for Discord.
 
Pit Discord’s ego-driven friendship motivations with his sadism-driven friendship motivations, and his ego will win every single time. He takes far, FAAAAR more pride in being smart and clever then being a bully or sadist.

@CronoM  
I think you’re being to lenient. All the times Discord did his “lessons”, he took greater pleasure in the suffering of his subject than whether or not they actually learned anything.
 
So, I disagree. Discord is in it for being a dick. The teaching part is an excuse.

In short…  
Celestia is the type of person who will take your biggest insecurities, delusions and psychological issues, wrap it into a pretty bow, put in on your forehead, and ask you ‘Don’t you feel pretty?’.
 
Discord is the type of person who will take your biggest insecurities, delusions and issues, wrap your entire body up in them, and throw you into the shallow end of the lake, and ask you and your water logged body afterwords “Did you enjoy that that? No? I didn’t think so.”
 
Is he an unconditional sadist? Of course not. Is he a dick? Absolutely. Is he, unlike Celestia mostly, actually helpful but in the worse ways possible?
 
Of course. He’s Discord.

@Starswirl  

 
Suffering you can’t learn teach with is pure sadism. Beyond his revenge in his first appearance, causing unnecessary suffering isn’t really Discord’s shtick. Is a good friend? Hell no. Is he helpful in the long run? Oh hell yes. He is the best WORST friend.
 
He enjoys seeing the overconfident face harsh realities. He enjoys forcing the passive to become unpassive. He enjoys seeing the complacent become adventurous and bold. And sans Fluttershy, he’s perfectly fine with being the target of that anger and emotion.
 
He will make you thick skinned, stronger, and 10x more psychologically fit if you let him, and all he asks in return is to be a dick doing it.
 
Kind of a contradiction isn’t it? Well, its John De Lancie, the original Q. Exactly what did we expect?
 
@Itsthinking  
That Tirek incident has already been kind of sketchy since he gave the instruction manual of both him and Tirek’s own undoing before heading out to certain victory(if he wanted it in the first place), and Celestia publicly forgave him so he wouldn’t be enemy of the state number one. The latter could of been simply bad writing to wrap things up, but the former is so mind boggling it defies comprehension.

@Itsthinking  
(Sorry for the length, you both had good points, I wanted to answer them fully)
 

 
Don’t you remember? They already did do an episode for that exact lesson. Even if, like Trade Ya!, it was one of those ‘hastily rewritten moral’ episodes. And do you remember who was trying to teach that lesson to the most easily manipulated pony, Twilight?
 
Discord.
 
The entire point of Discord’s presence in Three’s a Crowd was to teach Twilight that lesson. He demonstrated in a hundred ways how Twilight desperately needed to learn that. And it almost worked, it very nearly worked. But Cadence stepped in and taught Twilight it was a good thing to be a pushover, to take everything with a grain of sugar instead of a grain of salt, and turn the other cheek and let people take advantage of you so long as they can manipulate your motivations.
 

 
With the exception of Fluttershy, no, I agree he does not want friends. More accurately, he doesn’t want acquaintances who aren’t fun and can’t think outside the box. In his first appearance when getting revenge was his motivation, he really did look at them as only toys to play with. Afterwords, though, he was more interested in how he could push and pull their ‘white knight’ attitudes in comparison to his escapades. How much it would take to make them hate him, how much it would take to make them like him, and how far it would take to make Twilight broken enough to think for herself, especially considering she’s Celestia’s student.
 
In contrast to the Mane 6, his friendship with Trixie happened completely by accident. Discord got in her face more unrestrained then he could ever do with one of Fluttershy’s friends simply because he was irritable at the time, but it basically resulted in a clash of two volatile personalities to the point where, by the end, they couldn’t help but respect each other, if just a little. Trixie took all of his attitude and threw it in his face, and Trixie had such a non-passive personality he basically offered to mentor her at the end of the Finale.

@Starswirl  
He didn’t learn from the Tirek situation on three separate occasions (Make New Friends/What About Discord/Dungeons and Discord) and arguably four (S6 finale). Any “lesson” he learns doesn’t stick. Like you said, he’s a sadist. A particular kind of sadist that knows how to respond to people not liking his enjoyment of watching them suffer by manipulating their feelings.
 
A true friend, that Discord.

@CronoM  
The later seasons, especially “What about Discord” and “Dungeons and Discord”, also showed that being chaotic and random isn’t what drives ponies away. They enjoyed his wacky antics then. What they don’t like is that Discord is, well…
 
He’s a sadist. He enjoys watching others suffer.
 
He’s growing beyond that a little, as can be seen during Tirek’s rampage when he couldn’t watch what his betrayal did to Twilight’s friends, but other than that, he was reveling in the despair they were causing. His friends don’t like when he makes them suffer to amuse himself, which is totally understandable.

@CronoM  
Ponies quite frankly shouldn’t be friends with him. The show needs a “sometimes you don’t give people the courtesy of kind treatment if they wrong you repeatedly” lesson. At the very least, at least the ponies all don’t seem to enjoy being around Discord.
 
I still think Discord doesn’t actually want friends, he wants playthings and knows how to mess with them so he can have fun.

@Itsthinking  
Exactly. He’s a trickster, an incurable troll even after he gave up the tryant/revenge shtick. The stiffer the person, the more joy he takes in getting a rise out of them. Twilight sparkle is his favorite to breakdown due to her stiff zealotness, while pinkie pie is a perfectly loosygoosy and content person whom the worse he would do most of the time is distract her with something shiny.
 
But at the same time, for better or for worse, this current Discord is ALSO Discord of Make New Friends But Keep Discord and potentially the s6 finale. :/
 
His M.O. hasnt changed, but they added a caveat. They gave him insecurities. This isn’t a fluttershy story, but this IS a S5-S6 Discord story.
 
The ponies are beyond naive. I have no idea how they trusted discord so much after s4’s premier and finale. And discord WAS fine getting away with it with only momentary annoyance.
 
But now fluttershy has become a concern. Concern that exceeds his need for chaos, going for the direct approach to save fluttershy with his overwhelming magic (if it worked).
 
One could say he’s changing too quickly, and that can easily be a recipe for disaster just as much as going dark side.

@Starswirl  
To be fair even in the show, I think most of the characters are rather naive. For example: anyone who dealt with Discord’s “boo hoo I’m so sad I just want friends but I don’t know hooooooow” schtick in a person IRL wouldn’t fall for it twice.
 
He’s just fucking with people’s minds and taking advantage of ponies being naturally forgiving.

@Itsthinking  
Or at least trying to. What Discord is saying here is rather self-serving, especially is you compare it with the obvious glee he showed at getting to misbehave even though they asked him not to.

@Starswirl  
I worry about the comic writers portraying Discord so sympathetically sometimes.

It wasn’t your wacky antics that got you in trouble. It was you being a jerk. They told you they didn’t have a problem with you coming along, as long as you don’t try to ruin what is a thing they wanted to do and only would get to do once in their entire lives.
 
And what did you do? You tried to ruin it.
 
No, Discord, you get no pity.

@ArmadilloEater  
We already ended the convo. On my end at least.
 
Plus, since one of us is a BP, that’s not really an option unless the BP posts their pm info in a comments section, which is advice I wouldn’t give to my worst enemy tbh.

@Background Pony #2948
 
@CronoM  
I would suggest you take this to PM and try to keep it civil.

@CronoM  
Haha What? You use assumption and headcannon to explain the intetions behind writing without actually facing the actual problems with the story and you call ME a troll? Good night , sir. Probably Ted Anderson himself will be convinced from your explanation that he did well with Discord becasue he didn’t thought this story through at all.

@Background Pony #2948  
(computer logged me out)  
Discord’s character had already changed drastically by S5, so mentioning those S6 episodes and its timeline doesn’t really benefit your argument anyway so why bring it up? By Make New Friends but Keep Discord, he was already in mid-life crisis mode, and you know this already but pretend not to for some reason
 
Half your argument is making meaningless comparisons nobody cares about because you completely remove the original context and reason. This isn’t about Fluttershy exactly, its about the location of Discord’s life and stance at the time due to his growing connection to Fluttershy.
 
And since you avoided addressing even a third of my earlier points, there’s really no real meaning in talking to you is there? :/
 
What a BP troll.

@Background Pony #2948  
Discord’s character had already changed drastically by S5, so mentioning those S6 episodes and its timeline doesn’t really benefit your argument anyway so why bring it up? By Make New Friends but Keep Discord, he was already in mid-life crisis mode, and you know this already but pretend not to for some reason
 
Half your argument is making meaningless comparisons nobody cares about because you completely remove the original context and reason. This isn’t about Fluttershy exactly, its about the location of Discord’s life and stance at the time due to his growing connection to Fluttershy.
 
And since you avoided addressing even a third of my earlier points, there’s really no real meaning in talking to you is there? :/
 
What a BP troll.

@CronoM  
“He obviously thought his ’better’ self would make the right call and reverse things if he and Fluttershy weren’t happy. But his magic backfired on him, resulting in Accord. His original intentions weren’t AS grimm as your making them out to be”
 
That’s a headcannon that wasn’t established in the comics. This isn’t some Discord deciding to change his hairstyle. It’s literally every piece of him since his birth until now. It’s like a Mordor Orc deciding to become a lwaful Elf out of a harsh decision. There is nothing to indicate that he should undergo this tranformation based on his past experience with ponies. He know exactly how ponies act since he was ruling the years ago. How does bunch of ponies telling him to piss off when he was annoying them translate to “time to brainwash myself” instead, hmmm i don’t know JUST TRYING TO BE NICE OR ASK FLUTTERSHY/TWILIGHT ON HOW TO ACT???
 
 
And also no part of dialog ever established such strong bond of love toward Fluttershy to make Discord do that right in the instant without thinking this through. He’s being using friendship terms on both the comics and beginning of the comics doesn’t even make him mention Fluttershy at all. He just felt sad about ponies he barely cares about. There is simply no build up to this event. And taking S6 is a pure damage control since Anderson had no clue what would happen in either Dungeons & Discord and S6 finale when he was writing the story. This was written at least 4 or 5 months ago.
 

 
TL;DR
 
The story that you trying to sell me would make sense if this is what would happen: