My thoughts on "Daring Don't"

What can I say about this episode, um how about FREAKIN AWESOME. Honestly this is top tier episode for me because it is a very relateable episode overall. First though lets look at the episode from the beginning. How the writers basically summed up the entire fandom through Rainbow Dash being excited over the new daring doo book was genius. I know I can't be the only one that was thinking that Rainbow saying "4 more months" was basically us counting down. I know that Polsky probably wasn't trying to nod his head at us, but it was enjoyable all the same. I think this relatable opening along with Rainbow's thinking that she can honestly have an impact on making the book release faster makes what happens next all the more epic. Now lets talk about Daring Doo and its return. I'm glad she made a reappearance in the series, because she offers up a very unique element to bring us out of the monotony of the slice of life style stories that make up the majority of the season. Her adventures allow us to have a nice 22 minutes of action-y style story and it be absolutely ok because it doesn't seem wierd that out of nowhere there is a crisis for the mane 6 to solve. It means we don't need to have an excuse to write an action-y episode. Now in that sense, I did find this episode unnecessary. This is only episode 4 and we just got finished with the opener a few weeks ago, which was very action packed and intense, we didn't need another action based episode so soon. I enjoyed Castle-mane-ia not because it was the best written or was the best animated, I enjoyed it because it was a return to what we loved, ponies being ponies in their everyday life, and it would have been nice to enjoy that for a while before embarking on another adventure. Now what about the big reveal of Daring Doo being real? Well I think for the needs of the episode it worked amazingly, but long term its going to be a problem. The episode's moral centers on Rainbow regarding Daring so high that she loses sight of her own worth. Having Daring Doo teach this moral works because we know Dash admires her a lot after the intro and we can all relate to looking up to a person we admire. However some people argue that it was pointless to hype and use Daring this way because we already know Dash has an idol in the Wonderbolts. I think using Daring however works even better because we as the audience are under the assumption that Dash has in that Daring Doo is a fictional character and in my eyes a fictional idol has more meaning than a real life idol. For example, I can look up to my friend who has energy all day, but even I know that she has a limit to how much energy she can have because reality sets in eventually. I can admire Pinkie for the same reason however with more awe because we never see Pinkie with a lack of energy, therefore we can believe that her energy is limitless and she is supernaturally happy all the time. We can also believe it to be possible because Pinkie lives in a world separate from our own. Now look back at Dash's love of Daring Doo. She, like us , believed the Daring Doo books to be fiction, so when it is revealed to us that she is actually a real pony, it shocks Dash that the fictional hero she's grown to love now is a real life pony. Its like if your favorite pony just shows up in front of you, you wouldn't believe it and thus would probaably be speechless. Because she has been understood as a pony of fiction, and could be given traits that could be considered impossible, it makes it all the more suprising the reveal, whereas the Wonderbolts are understood to have limits and are grounded in the perceptions of reality so it makes more sense to use Daring as opposed to the Wonderbolts, and it makes it totally justified that Rainbow reacted the way she did, I mean Could you imagine how you'd act around your favorite pony if you learned they were real. That said though, the fact the Daring Doo series is real does raise some unnecessary questions like, "What is Auizhotl", "why hasn't Celestia done anything about this", and many more. It also kinda removes the fictional expections we can have on Daring and makes its harder to reuse for action based stories for the future.
Another thing that makes this fictional vs real expectations element interesting is that you can see that Dash's dilemma's and problems talking and interacting with Daring are a direct result of Dash still seeing Daring through a fictional lens. She doesn't see Daring as a person who could fail so no matter what she does there is no possible way Daring would get in any possible danger. This is why its so hard for her to approach Daring and offer assistance, as well as be helpful when she is really being attacked by Auizhotl. However when Dash sees her hero being captured as a result of her fictional expectation of her never losing her hat, Dash becomes heartbroken because she blames herself for her defeat and potential downfall. This is when it gets even more interesting because now she is struggling with the realization that Daring is an actual person who isn't perfect and so the struggle becomes weather to believe Daring will maintain her fictional invincibility and Dash will only cause more harm in helping or accecpting that the hero she has revered isn't as amazing because she could truly be in danger, something that wouldn't make sense under the perception of her fictional expectations of Daring. This makes Dash's decision more of a moment of realization that leads her to be her usual awesome self, as shown by verbally scolding Daring saying "You can flap too, you know." The ending still shows she revere's Daring and still idolizes her but now can understand that her talent still matters in the presence of those you admire.
This episode also has a lot more to love. Polsky does a phenomenal job and found a great way to include everyone while still keeping the main conflict focused on Dash and Daring. Every interaction was awesome and meaningful, which overall lead to a great episode. Moments like the geek out between Dash and Twilight, Daring's snarky attitude talking to Auizhotl, and Dash's fangirling made the some of the best moments in the episode and show in general. Animation was still just as exceptional as usual and was very interesting at times. some very interesting moments were when we see the pillar dissolve to sand and when the temple collapses. Also we can't forget the faces that showed up, I know I can't be the only one that flipped when you saw the "SO AWESOME" face and not to mention the smirk that I feel was put in just so the fandom had another face to obsess over (Still awesome all the same.). All the faces were just the amazing cherry on the top. Musically the score was also exceptional. It captures that adventure-esqe vibe very well and was reminiscent of Indiana Jones. I've always admired how well the music score complements the background and really captures the atmosphere a scene is conveying both clearly and exceptionally well.
So yeah I loved this episode. Action, Rainbow Dash, and great character interaction put in a well done story that not only allows us to see more of Equestria, but also provides great character development and growth from Dash. Also with exceptional use of Daring Doo and inserting her into actual character while also providing great character moments of her own, make this a very memorable. However I cannot ignore how this episode gave us many questions that didn't need to be asked and that we got little info on where exactly we went, because all we knew this place as was the Valley (more info please) not to mention that the timing of this episode was probably wrong for being to action based after the premiere wasn't that long ago . Overall, still one of my favorite episodes and very worthy of a score of 9/10

PS.
Talking Ponies from Chrystal Heart Entertainment just released the episode talking about Daring Don't with me in it for the first time, you should check it out, its awesome. Here's the link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aymSleiVQ1A