Discord is a dick, that’s part of his character. Sometimes I like it, specially when it bounces off with other characters, but at times I want to slap him. In “Matter of Principals” he was such an asshole, such a fucking huge asshole that even I (look at my profile picture, he’s my favorite MLP character) can’t defend him; Starlight shouldn’t have needed to apologize to him, she should have called him out on his shit for being such a tool. Now, I do really like him when he tries to do good because even then he’s burdened by the fact that he’s such a dick.

I think it’s interesting that he’s trying to help out and support his friends but he’s still malicious in nature in a way that ends up causing a lot of trouble; he’s a conflicted and conflictive character and I think that makes him very interesting. For example, convincing Big Mac to break up with his GF; it was harsh but I can see why someone would stick up for his friend by saying “fuck that girl” (not literally in this case), or all his attempts at building up Twilight including the catastrophe that was the season 9 finale (no hate, I mean it literal catastrophe). He’s a loose canon who has come to develop feelings of closeness and affection towards other people but he’s still stuck in his ways of being a dick.

And honestly, I think that’s way more realistic than how Glimmer was written, whose personality was repurposed as well as her motivation. She did fuck up a lot, which is interesting, such as brainwashing the mane six that one time and all her other questionable actions (love that about her character), but I think Discord is more interesting at the very least because of that incongruous duality in his character. He’s an anti-hero trickster archetype, which means that he’s an interesting character but not someone you’d want to befriend in real life, whereas I’d buy Starlight a drink if she were real, but Discord would probably just piss me off. However, thank God these are just fictional characters which means that Discord is the more interesting one of the two (for me at least, there is yet a lot to appreciate in Glimmer’s redemption and at no point have I ever hated her or even disliked her).

@Incursor
Simply it’s the execution that went wrong despite the intent.

@CORDZ2000
If Starlight wasn’t also meant to be not-fully reformed, why does nearly every one of her focus episodes her focus episodes have her do something morally objectionable that has to be fixed? Where did staff state Starlight was supposed to get a straight 100% redemption?

Maybe that’s the problem with Starlight’s redemption, they didn’t have that level of thought put into it to even say what it was/wasn’t supposed to be/compared to.

Even if her redemption is closer to Sunset’s, Discord’s it still a more useful comparison for what went wrong.

Unfortunately I have the impression that the writers didn’t know what to do with discord after he was reformed or at least after the s4 finale, which is really disappointing because I find him a much more interesting and captivating character than Starlight.
They could have done so much with this guy, such as his backstory for example, but instead they made him a comic relief/plot device.
Oh well, you can’t have everything you want I guess…

I think I figured out the difference a long time ago

@Incursor
Starlight and Discord are two very different characters who are meant to do different things in the story.

In the official guidebook [
My Little Pony: The Elements of Harmony Meghan McCarthy stated this about Discord regarding his reformation:

While Starlight has the more standard redemption arc.

Nothing stated on the comparison, know the difference chart is inherently wrong or untrue but definitely misses context and seems to be presented as a way to say why starlight is a great character and discord isn’t, when they aren’t even meant to be similar characters lmao.

Starlight and Sunset are better to compare and contrast.

@Joshua
That misses the point that they are not so different that Starlight’s redemption wasn’t that much worse than hates make it.

Then again, those comparing Starlight’s redemption to Sunset miss that Discord is the more apt comparison; being ultra powerful character prone to misusing it and had to struggle to change (while Sunset changed so easily her only conflict was acceptance). S8-9, even What About Discord? in S5, showed Discord was never as fully/cleanly redeemed as we like to believe.

Also, what is “causing death for fun of a town” referring to?

Based crazy troll Discord vs goody two shoes Starlight Glimmer

Both strive to be better and have good intentions, just that discord has a harder time because he is a spirit of chaos and disharmony. Discord also is intentionally written to be the anti-hero not-so reliable ally. While Starlight has the more standard redemption arc.

Maybe switch the name positions, and then it’ll look more accurate.