"What About Discord?" is widely considered the worst Discord episode, one of Season 5's misfires and many fans consider it one of 'My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic's' worst episodes. As somebody who really likes to loves all of the previous Discord-centric (or at least where he's heavily featured) and who is a fan of him as a character, part of me really did hope on first watch that the episode would be better than its reputation but it wasn't.
On recent-re-watch, "What About Discord?" still is as bad as has been said. It is absolutely the worst Discord episode by far, in my view it's the only one to being close to bad. Despite "Appleoosa's Most Wanted" and "Princess Spike" being misfires, this is worse than both and gets my vote as the worst episode of Season 5, which was inconsistent but had enough solid and more episodes to make it worthwhile. And when it comes to talking about 'My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic' overall, "What About Discord?" is in the bottom 10 and even come to think of it bottom 5 and certainly the worst of the show up to this point of its run.
There are a few good things here, despite being vastly outweighed by everything else with the episode. The animation has the usual vibrant colours and rich background detail. The music fits well tonally and sounds appealing.
Voice acting is still accomplished, John DeLancie tries very hard with the material he has, which is well beneath him, and is pretty much the only thing about Discord here that works. The 'Back to the Future' reference/joke was quite fun.
As much as part of me really wanted to give "What About Discord?" a 4, the writing and the way Discord is written is so bad it would be an insult to the misfires that just scraped that score that had lots of things wrong but didn't ruin their featured characters anywhere near as insultingly. Hence what was meant when calling it the worst episode up to this point. It's the way Discord is written that dooms "What About Discord?" and warrants its own paragraph. This is how to take one of the show's funniest and most entertaining characters and not just make them completely unfunny but take away what made them such a great character in the first place, one of the show's worst ever character distortions. Discord is written so obnoxiously and his mean-spiritedness taken to such wild extremes that it is enough to put one off him for good (thank goodness "Dungeons and Discords" redeemed him). His jealousy for example is so exaggerated and borderline sadistic, that it makes Spike's overdone jealousy in "Owl's Well that Ends Well" seem tame in comparison.
None of the other characters stand out (not even Twilight) and the character interaction, one of the best things about the show, is bland and easily forgettable when one is too distracted by the terrible writing for Discord. Also hated the moral. Not the actual moral itself, which on paper is actually a good one and an important one to address. "What About Discord?" is yet another episode that has a good moral but executes it badly, the execution here being muddled and mean-spirited. Another example of an episode of that it would have been a lot more believable if Discord's character flaws weren't so distorted and overdone. With the sole exception of the 'Back to the Future' reference, the writing is embarrassingly forced, gratuitously unsympathetic and even surprisingly childish at times.
Furthermore, the story is paper thin, very bland in atmosphere on the whole and dull with no charm or heart whatsoever. The only emotion felt actually was anger at how rather tasteless the whole episode felt, which is the only thing one thinks in their heads throughout.
In summary, very, very weak episode and quite insulting. 3/10
On recent-re-watch, "What About Discord?" still is as bad as has been said. It is absolutely the worst Discord episode by far, in my view it's the only one to being close to bad. Despite "Appleoosa's Most Wanted" and "Princess Spike" being misfires, this is worse than both and gets my vote as the worst episode of Season 5, which was inconsistent but had enough solid and more episodes to make it worthwhile. And when it comes to talking about 'My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic' overall, "What About Discord?" is in the bottom 10 and even come to think of it bottom 5 and certainly the worst of the show up to this point of its run.
There are a few good things here, despite being vastly outweighed by everything else with the episode. The animation has the usual vibrant colours and rich background detail. The music fits well tonally and sounds appealing.
Voice acting is still accomplished, John DeLancie tries very hard with the material he has, which is well beneath him, and is pretty much the only thing about Discord here that works. The 'Back to the Future' reference/joke was quite fun.
As much as part of me really wanted to give "What About Discord?" a 4, the writing and the way Discord is written is so bad it would be an insult to the misfires that just scraped that score that had lots of things wrong but didn't ruin their featured characters anywhere near as insultingly. Hence what was meant when calling it the worst episode up to this point. It's the way Discord is written that dooms "What About Discord?" and warrants its own paragraph. This is how to take one of the show's funniest and most entertaining characters and not just make them completely unfunny but take away what made them such a great character in the first place, one of the show's worst ever character distortions. Discord is written so obnoxiously and his mean-spiritedness taken to such wild extremes that it is enough to put one off him for good (thank goodness "Dungeons and Discords" redeemed him). His jealousy for example is so exaggerated and borderline sadistic, that it makes Spike's overdone jealousy in "Owl's Well that Ends Well" seem tame in comparison.
None of the other characters stand out (not even Twilight) and the character interaction, one of the best things about the show, is bland and easily forgettable when one is too distracted by the terrible writing for Discord. Also hated the moral. Not the actual moral itself, which on paper is actually a good one and an important one to address. "What About Discord?" is yet another episode that has a good moral but executes it badly, the execution here being muddled and mean-spirited. Another example of an episode of that it would have been a lot more believable if Discord's character flaws weren't so distorted and overdone. With the sole exception of the 'Back to the Future' reference, the writing is embarrassingly forced, gratuitously unsympathetic and even surprisingly childish at times.
Furthermore, the story is paper thin, very bland in atmosphere on the whole and dull with no charm or heart whatsoever. The only emotion felt actually was anger at how rather tasteless the whole episode felt, which is the only thing one thinks in their heads throughout.
In summary, very, very weak episode and quite insulting. 3/10