Discord represents things like anarchy, communism, democracy, freedom, entropy, dynamism, randomness, etc. It lacks a real hierarchy, since everyone has disagreeing ideas on how to structure that hierarchy. Some of them are not too different from the extremes of Order, not that they would admit it! What they do have in common is their enmity for the forces of Order and Chaos, except when they do not. An example of a paragon of Discord would be Discord from My Little Pony, Eris from The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Malal/Malice/Malign from Warhammer, the Fair Folk from Exalted, etc.
Chaos, despite the name, is not chaotic. In fact, they have a static, sagging hierarchy which has remained in place for an arbitrarily long period of time. Chaotic punishments are typically ironic, predictable, mean-spirited and generally orderly (speaking of which, Order considers all crimes equal). An example of a paragon of Chaos would be the Event Horizon spacecraft from the movie of the same name, the ruinous powers from Warhammer, the demons and devils from Dungeons & Dragons, etc.
Discord hates Chaos for being lying hypocrites, for stealing the title of Chaos and giving Discord a bad image. For the typical commoners that inhabitant fantasy land, chaos and discord (lowercase) are pretty much synonymous and all kinds of horrible. Indeed, many sages make the same mistake and label aberrations like proteans and ogdoad as fiends. This annoys discordians to no end.
Relevant links
- http://discordiarulesok.blogspot.com/2007/01/event-horizon-and-nature-of-chaos.html
- http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChaosIsEvil
- https://forum.rpg.net/archive/index.php/t-289048.html
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