lazy review: Daring Do collection · 9:04pm Apr 2nd, 2017

Having no ISP connection for 2 days is painful and boring. But that got me to finally read the Daring Do books so I can churn out a quick review on them.

These were originally packaged together in October 2014 as part of that Daring Do treasure box, which I didn't want to buy. October, that places it between the Applejack and Fluttershy books, probably when they were written too. Throughout 2016 they were republished individually, so I ordered them all at once. The three books have been sitting next to my desk for almost a year, collecting dust.

Why? Because they're actually written by A.K. Yearling, and G.M. Berrow is merely the co-author. But not important enough to share her name on the front cover. Maybe she just localized them from Equestrian?

Daring Do and the Marked Thief of Marapore

Daring Do and the Eternal Flower

Daring Do and the Forbidden City of Clouds

By A. K. Yearling
with G. M. Berrow

OK to be serious, I procrastinated so long on reading them because I easily get jaded with adventure stories. I obviously love Berrow's slice of life books, and I'd immediately charge through each new one as soon as it arrived, but I wasn't expecting anything special from these Daring Do books. To be honest, I even have a hard time reading adventure fanfics on this site. I'm picky, but I don't know how to narrow down what I'm looking for.

To get some facts out of the way... while the average pony chapterbook is on average 110 pages long, plus activity pages in the back, these are 190 pages, without activity pages. Not Harry Potter sized pages, more like Goosebumps size. Still, that's plenty more space than usual, but still small enough that it's still meant for young children. Instead of the official character clipart, the covers have unique vector art by Franco Spagnolo. If it weren't for the MLP trademark, they'd look like they popped right out of the show's unvierse. The three books have loose continuity, so it's advised to read them in the proper order.

First is Marked Thief of Marapore, and it reaffirmed my fears of reading MLP adventure stories. It's about a mysterious villain who steals treasures that are preventing a volcano from erupting. I liked that the story gave characterization to Daring Do by spending time inside her head. For example, she pretends to be a schoolteacher when visiting the volcano villagers, but does a terrible job teaching the bored children because she's too preoccupied with solving her next riddle. There's so much traveling from one location to the next, yet I didn't feel like there was much real action in it. Daring Do herself doesn't seem to have much agency. She's in the right place at the right time to receive clues delivered to her by helpful characters; she's in the right place at the right time to interfere with the villain. Perhaps children will think the story is epic because it has powerful artifacts and an evil antagonist, but adults will likely find it too predictable.

Second is Eternal Flower, which was an unexpected improvement. Daring Do's uncle, Gallant True, discovered clues to the location of the Flower that grants immortality, but was kidnapped by Ahuizotl. Yep, this borrows a lot from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Daring Do gets a lot more agency than in the first book, because many of the challenges here are social. We see how she interacts with ponies around her, and that tells us more about her as a character. Those moments were nice bonuses in the first book, but here they make up the action itself, the important decisions. With her uncle being held hostage, the physical action had a little tension to it, and we get to solve the riddles together with Daring Do instead of waiting for answers to fall into her lap. I had fun with this book!

Third is Forbidden City of Clouds. Daring Do goes on a quest to find a legendary pegasus city, invisibly floating in the clouds, housing a treasure known as the Halo of Cirrostrata. No one has ever found a clue to this city, except for one earth pony who claims to have been there before disappearing entirely. This feels like a departure from the other books, there's no antagonist to compete against, nothing at stake. Daring Do just wants to find this city because that's what she does. Instead of inhospitable wilderness or temples full of traps, Daring Do spends much of the beginning trying to blend in to the culture of a remote mountain village, so she can track down this eyewitness. It's such a slow burn at first, but it becomes truly fascinating when the search for the Forbidden City takes off. No villain, no innocents to save, no plot... for once it's like ~~Berrow~~ Yearling is in no hurry and can enjoy the present moment, discovering the unexplored. Daring Do can just exist in this legendary city, taking in the ancient mystery around her, studying the clues one by one. Everything feels huge and sacred when taken at this pace, and I found the setting to be very imaginative, even compared to a lot of contemporary fantasy and fanfics. And then a story further unfolds from there! Intrigue, danger, magic, wonder, and lost history -- I was completely hooked. And then it's over way too soon! I was seriously crushed that it couldn't go on for another 100 pages, and there was no sequel. I need more! OH MY GOD, AM I A DARING DO FAN NOW? GASP, I'M AN EGGHEAD

To summarize, the series started off generic, then it became pretty enjoyable, then it ended as the thrilling adventure I've been seeking all along. The author improved a lot here. It's a nice change from the usual pony books, since Daring Do is a character who already spends more time in danger than at home. Berrow doesn't need to shift slice-of-life MLP into an adventure (like in that weird Rainbow Dash book) so she can start each book in media res.

Even though Daring Do is more of an action star, and even seems downright anti-social at times, these books really work when they're in tune with "regular" MLP stories. She's a character, and I cared a lot more about her when she had to interact with friends and strangers. Special effects and CGI in movies get tiresome when there's no story or relatable characters to support them. Villains, treasures, and traps are the flashy, hollow props in a Daring Do book.

Obviously, Daring Do is an homage to Indiana Jones. Though I once had ACTUAL POPULAR FANFIC WRITERS arguing vehemently against me that she was not. They're moronic and wrong. She's Indiana Jones, because this entire genre of treasure hunting has become Indiana Jones. Even if you're not doing an intentional satire or parody, it's impossible to escape these tropes. It will be compared to the original. It's a genre of one. EVERYONE'S INDIANA JONES.

How different could one twist it? What if Jones wasn't an archaeologist with a heart of gold? Instead of searching for facts and uncovering mysteries, putting relics in museums, what if he's in it purely for himself, for the money? How about if he's already a miserly old billionaire? What if there's no nazis?

Also what if he was based on someone else's intellectual property?

It's no secret that both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg grew up on Carl Barks's duck comics. The rolling boulder trap, more famous than any other scene in the franchise, was a reference to an Uncle Scrooge comic from the early 50s, and it's so specifically similar to the source material that it feels a little cheap as a homage. Besides that scene, the characters, themes and stories on a whole are borrowed from old adventure film serials (which I've never watched, yet everyone seems vaguely aware they exist). On the surface, you could still say there's very little in common here.

Maybe even less with the original Star Wars. Everyone knows the obvious influences here: Flash Gordon for the theme, Hidden Fortress for the plot. WWII action films, Akira Kurosawa's samurai films, cowboy western films, horror films, adventure serials. He mashed everything up like Tarantino, but combining all your favorite influences doesn't necessarily make a good story. How many times have you seen Star Wars and Raiders used as timeless examples of good storytelling? Long before he even heard of Joseph Campbell's Hero of a Thousand Faces, I think he learned basic storytelling as a kid from Carl Barks.

The storytelling behind these duck comics might have been the strongest influence on these filmmakers. They were always character driven, and had strong narrative structure. You'd begin with the characters, and one event logically lead to the next, letting it unfold into a bigger tale. How did a comedy about collecting rare coins become an adventure escaping from the lost kingdom of Atlantis? It's surprising where you end up. Many graphic novels can go on for 100+ pages and still not achieve something this huge and epic, but Carl Barks makes you feel like you watched a whole movie within only 32 pages.

And he could make the fantastic feel convincing, more real then reality. Exotic cultures and landscapes, plausible explanations for myths and legends, hints of science fiction.... he had no firsthand knowledge of any of this, and he didn't travel outside of the US. He just read a lot of National Geographic, Popular Science, and Encyclopedia Britannica, and used those for new story ideas. It's easy to make an adventure fantasy that seems too cheesy, or too mundane. It's difficult to hit that right balance like audiences found in Star Wars or Raiders. Bars full of drunk aliens, temples hidden in the sand. You know none of this is real, nor entirely realistic.... but it could be.

I don't think anyone can count how many stories and videogames were inspired by Star Wars. Despite the high fantasy elements, The Legend of Zelda wasn't inspired by Dungeons & Dragons -- Shigeru Miyamoto said that the popularity of Indiana Jones made him want to try to make a videogame about finding hidden secrets and treasure. Who knows how many people were inspired to create their own worlds after playing Zelda. And none of this has to do with the surface elements in Barks's stories, but the fundamentals of storytelling he laid down.

He was anonymous; only Walt Disney's name was placed on every product to keep up the illusion. Yet his versions of these established characters (Donald and Huey, Dewey, Louie) were so popular that they displaced the original personalities. Readers noticed that this one unknown artist/writer at Disney was far better quality than all the others, and years later they managed to track down his true identity.

Carl Barks just might be the most influential writer of the past century. Yet his work was basically just «official fanfiction», with his own OCs later stealing the spotlight.

Don't take fanfiction for granted.