My impression was that Discord preyed upon the other, more negative aspects of the ponies' characters, took advantage of internal fears/insecurities, or manipulated their defining trait to his own ends.

For example, Applejack feared the ponies' friendship dissolving, Discord used this to cause her to lie about the outcome of the maze in an attempt to protect their bond. However, this is actually one one of the factors that will lead up to the fallout.

He used Rainbow Dash's loyalty to his ends with the vision of her home being totaled. Her loyalty to her home took priority to her loyalty to her friends in this case, making her abandon them.

With Pinkie Pie, he warped her perception on the laughter of others' convincing her into believing they were laughing at her instead of with her, humiliating her.

Rarity had, in previous episodes, certainly displayed a large degree of vanity. He simply warped this and her love of gems into greed, and with her magic disabled, this was leaps and bounds easier to do.

The only individuals he could not affect this way were Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle. The former happily accepts her flaws and aims to improve, so he had to be a whole lot more direct with the Mind Control in order to make her cruel. With Twilight Sparkle, however, the situation is a bit different seeing as her element is Magic, which was already disabled thanks to removing her horn.

Probably going to be ninja'd, but I think that explains the Rarity situation adequately.

edited 19th Sep '11 7:22:19 AM by Motree

I'm pretty sue he's disabling her indirectly, with her friends all in a less than ideal personality traits their friendship is falling apart ans since friendship is magic her element is friendship which she would lose at the loss of her friends aka Twilight's corruption is dependent on the corruption of the others.

Ah, that's the conclusion I was trying to reach with her. I was looking at it a bit too directly.

Then again, I reiterate. She'll probably be the one that solves it with The Power of Friendship and all that jazz.

Thanks (to alll) that makes it clearer.

I love how seriously Bronies and Pegasisters take their series. Hell yeah, analyzing a children's show!

"Pegasisters"? What?

Another attempt to try to make a term inclusive of female fans. Clever, but long.

edited 19th Sep '11 7:41:32 AM by MousaThe14

Not that it is it is a bad thing...

edited 19th Sep '11 7:47:52 AM by FallenLegend

Don't care for the shipping, but dang that's a nice art style. Especially Celestia in the first two poses.

And I never liked the term "bronies" (nor "pegasisters") for some reason. What's wrong with just "fans"?

—R.J.

I think "Pega-sis" was the female fandom term pre-G4, but I don't know for sure...

And why do we overanalyze a children's show and shoehorn every trope on the site to it?

Because we're all insane!

edited 19th Sep '11 7:57:34 AM by Calnos

Because we're [bleep]ing TV Tropes, that's what we do!

Why can't we use Mares if we can't have a gender neutral term? We use the word for everything else around these parts.

Anyway, I have to go with the Ryan theory on Eq D that Discord isn't showing his cards just yet. In his mind, the other 5 are expendable, because the entire time he's been after Twilight. Logic being, if he can get in her head straight and legal, he has her under his thumb under way stronger pretenses than any puppet magic he has in his bag of tricks. And you have Twilight on your side, you have Celestia's ear, a nerfed set of Elements, a strong demoralizer to Team Celestia, and untold raw magics at your beck and call.

With everyone comparing Discord to the Joker and arguing if he is a Complete Monster or not, I came to a terrifying realization. The Joker is almost certainly a brony. Not the Heath Ledger version mind you, but I could easily see Mark Hamill or even Kevin Micheal Richardson voicing the Joker as he plays with plastic replicas of our favorite equines. Then writting Cupcakes.

edited 19th Sep '11 8:03:21 AM by WillKeaton

I think that of all of those Elemental Inversion/Disharmonization scenes, Rainbow's was handled the best by Discord. (except the thing with the cloud in the maze. That could have been done much better.)

If RD had taken the time to analyze the situation, she would realize that (a) Equestria being doomed/thrown into eternal chaos is way worse than Cloudsdale being destroyed*

^{not only that, but also that she needs to be loyal to her country first, then her hometown}

, and (b) getting her wings back and flying off to save her hometown would be breaking the rules, thus causing the worse result.

BUT we all know Dash doesn't do that. It was a really well-set trap.

Someone probably said something like this already, but eh.

The Joker is a pony

AHEM. YOU SHALL ALL STAND TRIAL.

...Wow, BronyVids already has a new trailer out with Season 2 footage.

edited 19th Sep '11 8:21:15 AM by Calnos

What was wrong with the cloud in the maze?

By the way, all the Pony pages are unlocked (for now). Remember to behave and trope properly!

People you should see the stuff they've been posting on the Friendship Is Magic Know Your Meme page...

• Silliness[1][2]and shufflin'
• Cruelty [3] [4] [5][6] [7] [8] [9] [10]
• A nice summary
• WE HAVE FANON

^The fourth link... DAT FANON. My god. That series just keeps getting better... I'm a little iffy about the inclusion of other ponies, but holy shit triple bloody Rainboom.

edited 19th Sep '11 9:05:46 AM by RedSavant

. . . Triple Rainboom?!

Shame it's already Jossed....

That was awesome! No seriously, that was heartbreaking.

Is the idea supposed to be that NM was pretending to turn back into Luna? or did she really revert for a second?

Wait, how was it jossed?

edited 19th Sep '11 9:18:32 AM by gingerninja666

It's left ambiguous, but Luna doesn't seem to remember it, so it was probably an illusion.

I like the idea that the Hatedom is the Miasma, though. I feel like combining that comic with this one - It should be Celestia alone who banished Nightmare Moon, but still... hell yeah, triple bloody Rainboom.