Let’s put it this way: It was bad, but it definitely could’ve been worse.
Grogar could’ve been real, just amazingly incompetent, with Discord being worfed alongside Celestia and Luna.
He could’ve been real, a true summoner/minion-type villain, only for it to end with all three being redeemed, wasting so much time as to make the episode a hurried mess on top.
This was the streamlined option, to immediately start off the conflict by cutting off one loose end right away. The pacing was definitely on point, the writing… a bit less, but still better than what we could’ve got.
The whole really, really could’ve used more preparation, though. A plot shouldn’t come out so far off the left field that absolutely nobody can see it coming.
Discord’s mastery over chaos magic being so complete that he’s able to copy other kinds flawlessly, allowing him to do whatever it took to bring back Sombra and use black/yellow “Dark” magic to do exactly what he wants? Bullshit
Grogar’s bell being a power conduit just happening to contain raw adaptive magic which morphs to the one it’s given to and conveniently supercharges them just the right way? Are you kidding me?
There’s the alicorn amulet, there’s changeling artifacts around, there’s the very concept of foreshadowing. Yeah, I’m salty that all my predictions fell apart because I didn’t expect them going for the obvious asspull, cause I thought they knew better.