Daring Don't Review · 7:50pm Dec 7th, 2013
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I'll have the other out soon! I just need to re-watch it so I can review it more freshly!
Anyway, so today's episode was Daring Don't, the title alone being all you need to know.
Let's get these bits out of the way...
~A.K. Yearling is a parody of J.K. Rowling.
~Daring Do/Rainbow Dash has pretty much been given so much fuel.
~FlutterDash opening, yay! <3
Anyway, let's move along, shall we?
So our episode begins with Rainbow's excitement for the next Daring Do book to be released. This can definitely be interpreted as a mix between the Harry Potter franchise reactions and also fans in general. The writers clearly do know what's going on and are making fun of us for it. But what works is that they do it in a playfully mocking way, as if saying "Yeah, we know you guys can be nuts. But we love you anyway!" <3 Now they know how to make fun of our flaws and still be funny and classy about it.
Things get started for real when they try to find A.K. Yearling's home in the middle of nowhere, only to find that her place is trashed. When she comes around, it's interesting how she's played up to be a regular author pony. But she's not. It's then revealed that A.K. Yearling is a pseudonym, because she is actually Daring Do! Oh yes, they took the trope and just twisted it around! We've seen this idea done quite a bit in a lot of other shows, where one of the main characters meets their favourite author and things turn out not to be what they seem.
But here, we have it that Daring Do herself is not only real, but the books she writes are recounts of her actual real-life experiences! Everything in her books are real, right down to the villains. Because nopony knows her personally, due to her nature of not trusting anypony, her books are believed to be complete fiction. I have to say, this was a very clever twist to the trope we've seen before!
So of course, Rainbow Dash is a little in over her head, and I have to say that those scenes right there where she was struggling with what to do were well done. They felt so real, like something you actually did and felt in your lifetime when you were up against someone you really admired. The way Rainbow tries to do what she can to help, then later feels she's worthless and has overstepped her boundaries, and everything else was really great to see. It not only showcased a very real reaction to this sort of thing, but it exposed Rainbow being very vulnerable. She was even openly expressing it to all of her friends, when normally you'd see her trying to cover it up. This was a great look at her character development since season one! By expressing how she feels, her friends stepped up to the plate and tried to help!
It's all about showcasing that asking for help is not a sign of weakness and that you can trust others if you just let yourself do that. I think Rainbow's line about how the fact that just because you can't trust some doesn't mean no one can be trusted. Being that miserable leads to a lonely existence, and that it's good to be cautious, but not close yourself off completely.
We of course then come to the entire moral, where it's good to admire someone, but to never forget about yourself. I think that was a very good lesson to learn!
It was an overall great episode! The comedy was hilarious with great visuals and awesome lines, the action was intense and felt like something out of an Indiana Jones film, and it all came to together with a lot of real moments. I really enjoyed it! Daring Do/A.K. Yearling was a very likable and relatable character, the way they handled her was, while nothing new, still well done and added to the entire episode's story very well. And again, the playful jabbing against fans in general was both funny and yet still good-natured. I love that!
I've reached out to people I admire, so this episode was kind of special, in a way. <3 A great episode and yet another good entry into season four!
This episode just created my 2nde new favorite Rainbow ship
God, I love Rainbow in this one.
What I loved the most about this eppie, is that it did kind of go against my expecations and kind of did what I wanted for "Spike at your service" (or, as I call it, the most dispicable episode in existance). IT took what I was expecting and change it. I was worried that the so-called adventure was going to become, "Well, I have these chores I want done, so you do it and I will trick you. I am such an a-hole"
Or the ever classic, and my third most hated cliche,I am a hero in your eyes but because you have no sense of reality, I am actually a whimp and will break your heart. Thus, later on, you will do something stupid and I have to go in to save you to prove myself a real hero, trope. GOD I hate that cliche, it is in a lot of shows and everytime I see it makes me want to scream.
It was fun to see that someone that was an idol actually live up to the legend and be the hero that was meant to be seen in the eyes of the character.
My only real complaint in this...Why was Rarity here? She was not needed, she did nothing, and even in the final struggle...SHE WAS BEARLY THERE! Oh, we saw her tugging on a ring...once, but that was it. I would like to think that she was in the background, kicking butt while we weren't looking. Heck, you could've done this story with just a small team of Twi, AJ, and Dash and I wouldn't noticed the difference.
As soon as I saw the episode, my first reaction was "Well, Daring/Dash is going to skyrocket soon... FIMFiction, don't let me down!"
This episode definitely ranks up in the higher praised ones for me. There were elements that I could link to real life, such as authors putting real life elements into their works, and pouring their own experiences into characters (though in this, the author was literally their own character). Plus, we got to see fangirl Rainbow, which is adorable in so many ways.
What I really loved about this episode is that it has one of the oldest philosophies, and takes the road less traveled: Don't meet your heroes. Usually when this is applied, the hero is always the opposite of how the protagonist expects them to be, and leaves the protagonist questioning what they know of their heroes.
I can't wait for next week. I have high hopes for this season. I hope for a bit more of Luna time, and the CMC finally getting their cutie marks (everyone knows Sweetie Belle is gonna be a singer). Though, soon I'll have 2 shows for Saturday: MLP and Doctor Who.
This ep was great, I loved it so much, not to mention that is helps bring Echo-The-Diamond-Dog-verse ever so closer to the canon-verse.
~Hearn
Ach I had to go out yesterday and by the time I got back home I found a chuck of the episode. It just started at the point where RD suggested that they go to A.K. Yearling and help her finish her next book. I wouldn't be surprised if there was ever a group of harry potter fans thought about doing the same thing with Rowling.
Anyways, my point is I missed the beginning and I'm having trouble finding the whole episode on youtube. I can't do a review and I missed a flutterdash moment
With what I saw, this was a really funny episode. Two things made me burst out laughing
1:Twilight and Rainbow arguing about the best course of action to take by using their knowledge about the Daring Doo novels. This is making fun of two fans arguing about a franchise or lore they have great knowledge about, while Flutters, Applejack, Rarity and Pinkie are that group of people that have no clue what these two fans are talking about.
2. When Rainbow sets out to help Daring, she constantly switches between, excitement and dread while at the same time she's trying to calm herself down and be cool about the situation. Yes fans meeting their idols do act like that. It's only increased tenfold when you actually spending time with them. If you're really lucky for that to happen, you'll be overexcited about all the cool things you could do but at the same time you're afraid you might be bothering your them.
I'm not sure I can see the full episode anytime soon, until somebody can upload the beginning. Oh and uh, thanks for telling me about the Flutterdash NG, now I'm just sitting, wondering what the hell happened between the two while everyone's like "Yay another Flutterdash scene in an episode"
.
I'll find out soon
I did say I would get around to commenting on this review and what do you know, here I am. Now ultimately I ended up not liking this episode but I shall leave the reasons for that within my review. You can check that out here of course. Instead I shall just out forth my opinion on the things you bring up. So then, let's begin.
One of these is a terrible thing to have happen. The other is absolutely amazing and we should get more. Guess which.
The parodying to the brony fandom, or rather fandoms in general was nice touch to this episode. All in all the first quarter, maybe even 3rd, had a lot of nice things and the fan parodies were definitely one of them.
The moment A.K. Yearling revealed herself to be Daring Do was the moment things started to go downhill for me. Not that I find the reveal bad or anything, a little obvious with the character model and a few questions get raised about how she managed to pass it all off as fiction, but those I can disregard without much thought.
The whole Rainbow Dash admiring thing ended up being one of my negatives. There was the occasional moment I felt it to be well presented such as the scene where she was debating with herself but otherwise I felt it to be poorly presented, particularly in how useless it seems to make Rainbow Dash. Furthermore, the whole admiration thing I feel would make much more sense with a Wonderbolt, a group we're more familiar with Dash admiring and one that wasn't just proved seconds ago to actually be real.
Ultimately, while I like the morals presented, I feel they were mishandled. In the case of the episode I feel it would have even made more sense if it were Daring Do the focus and her the key character to learn the moral of trusting others. In the end though it just felt like they tried to add in two really great morals into the episode but managed to mangle them when adding them in.
I can see why you liked this episode. The case of admiring someone doesn't relate to me in the slightest as I've never looked up to anyone (or rather strived to be like someone, the best person you can be is the best you). After the Daring Do reveal the only humour moments I enjoyed were Dash and Twi's fan banter and Applejack being unable to say Awi-what's his name's name. The action was nicely done but mostly focused on Daring Do, a not bad character but not one I had any invested attachment to. I like how she was flawed, coming across as unlikable in lots of ways, yet with good intentions (not all heroes are nice to hang around with after all).
To really understand my gripes with this episode you better check out my review. Ultimately though I'm glad you enjoyed. This was a nice review, not quite as informative or in-depth as your season 4 opening review but well worded none the less.