Who is the real author of the Daring Do books? · 9:01pm Dec 7th, 2013
Spoiler Warning if you haven't seen episode 4 of season 4 yet.
Spoiler!
Spoiler!
And read on if you have seen the episode.
It is revealed that "AK Yearling" a pegasus pony who is obviously Daring Do herself... (AK Yearling must be her pen name...) is the writer of the Daring Do series, and furthermore, has based them on her own, real life adventures.
At the same time, we have two pieces of information that point toward Twilight's mother being the author. First, in the 11th comic (detailing Shining Armor and Cadances courtship) we see that Twilight Velvet has a number of book awards on the wall, including one that has "Daring Do" written on it.
Second, in her description for her toy in the blind bags, as well as her bio for the MLP game, Twilight Velvet apparently "loves writing stories about adventures".
But the episode apparently contradicts that. Or does it?
What if Daring Do has a ghost writer? She's obviously pretty busy doing Archeology... and fighting bad guys, and saving the world... so what if the adventures that Twilight Velvet writes about are the real life adventures of Daring Do... told to her (or perhaps described in letters or diaries) by Daring Do herself, and then put into a fun, readable form by Twilight Velvet?
Daring Do is obviously a skilled adventurer and Archeologist... but is she a skilled enough writer to turn her real life adventures into a best selling book series as well?
Other evidence... Twilight knows a LOT about "AK Yearling." More than a normal fan should. She even finds out where she lives... when obviously Daring Do values her privacy highly.
So how did Twilight know her address? By asking her mom, of course!
Wouldn't Twilight know if her mother was writing the series?
I dunno. The episode doesn't really make sense. So Daring Doo, that monster and etc are all real, their adventures are being chronicled in a book series and no one has noticed this?
Is this the first time Daring is meeting someone who has read her book? Do these references just don't get mentioned in the book series?
I mean, I suppose it is kinda like when the Mane 6 saved the world twice, got a big reception on Canterlot Castle and then no one in the Canterlot high society recognized Rarity.
Still, it bothered me.
Well, I have already put forth my own theory about why the Mane 6 aren't recognized as heroes in my story... aka, the elements of Harmony, being EXTREMELY powerful world changing artifacts, have the side effect that, when used, they prevent anyone outside those that used them from remembering what actually happened...
Since huge amounts of fame would almost certainly be detrimental to the Mane 6's friendships, it makes a certain amount of sense for the Elements magic to have a feature that makes it unrecognized by those not directly "in the know" like Celestia, Luna, and Discord.
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As for Twilight knowing if her mother is writing the series... perhaps she does know that her mother is "ghost" writing the series... and thereby also knows that the series is being delayed by her mother's "co-author" AK Yearling... without necessarily knowing why.
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Sure, I remember that. Although it wasn't so much a memory spell as it was a perception spell, right?
As I recall, Cheerlee knew what they had done, she just didn't emotionally recognized them as heroes. Until Jonathan broke the spell by pointing it out.
You know, I really liked that theory and I did enjoy it in the context of your story, but the reason why I can't really accept it as head canon, is because it is trying to explain something that just seems to be a plot contrivance and therefore can't really be explained, just accepted.
Perhaps kinda of a strange way to look at it, but oh well.
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I dunno. I guess it is possible, but it really feels like it is the sort of thing, that if it were the case, it would have to have been mentioned.
I propose it's the other way around. Daring Do is obviously a parody of Indiana Jones, who's 'adventure name' is a pseudonym (His real name is Henry Jones Jr.). I actually think neither name is her real name. A.K. Yearling is likely a pen name. What I'm curious about is what the AK in her name stands for. I thought the whole name might be an anagram or something, but my search reaped little. Best I could find is A LEAKY RING.
Twilight's mother is a unicorn right? If you want to go WAAAY out there with theories, you could say that Velvet is an extremely skilled shapeshifter, and balances a triple life as Velvet/Daring/Yearling.