Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash Review a Daring Do Book
Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash Review a Daring Do Book
Twilight Sparkle pressed “record” on the cassette player, then stepped back to squeeze in between Rainbow Dash and Rarity. “Okay, welcome to our review of–”
“You know what?” Rainbow Dash interjected. “Before we even start this thing, the mare who writes these books? What's her name? Rowling?”
“A.K. Yearling,” Twilight replied.
“A.K. Yearling? Fuck you! Fuck you!”
“Rainbow Dash, you sound upset.”
“Oh, my gosh! It was a three-hour-long coma, occasionally interrupted by some of the most awesome action scenes I've ever read! What did that need to be two and a half hours for?”
“There's your verdict, I guess,” Rarity spoke up, earning a giggle from Twilight.
Twilight cleared her throat. “Anyway, welcome to our review of Daring Do and the Crystal Skulls. All three of us just got done reading this yesterday. We've been thinking about it for a while. I'm going to go ahead and let them start this off because I already know what I'm going to say and I think you guys do too. But you guys go ahead and start us off and I will take it from there once Rarity is done.”
“Hello, everyone,” Rarity said. “Well, first of all, I guess a few of you thought I had no right to be reviewing any of these books, but I just wanted to start off by saying that I am actually a really, really big Daring Do fan, so I think I have some sort of say in if I liked this book or not. I think that my opinion might be valued and valid. So, shove it. But let's hear what Rainbow Dash thought about it.”
Rainbow Dash sighed. “Well, as for the book, I mean, I think I've made myself clear as to how I feel about the last book. I think it's a big pile of garbage that A.K. Yearling crapped out in a weekend. I have absolutely no idea how this book was received. I haven't read a single review. My thoughts going in, I suppose that this was going to be pretty much a slam dunk. I mean, she had to have this in the bag. There's absolutely no reason why this shouldn't be great. I figured that there was just sort of an understanding in Equestria today that if, you know, we can continue to make books good in a franchise, we can continue that franchise. If not, it's just going to die or get rebooted. I've had a lot of experiences in my life where I thought that a book was going to be bad and it surprised me. Rarely do I ever think a book is going to be super good, and it disappoints the hell out off me. But I had that unfortunate experience last night. I did not have a good time. That was a very, very bad novel.
“But the funny thing is, ever since I learned that this was going to be split up into two novels–like, the day I learned that this was going to be split up into two novels, I actually said, 'Why does this need to be two novels? What's the first novel going to be, Daring Do sitting around in a tent for two hours?' But the thing that makes that funny is, I was joking, and then you read the book and–oh, my gosh–it actually is Daring Do just sitting in a tent for two hours. And, you know, fuck me if anypony can tell me what the hell this book is about. The basic premise just kind of runs like this, like I could pretty much just summarize the whole thing right now. Okay, you start off with Daring Do being chased and then they're like, 'Oh, Daring Do was chased. Oh, well, they didn't get her. Anyway, let's go dick around in a pointless wedding. Oh, hey, the wedding got attacked, but we all got out. Anyway, let's go dick around in Celestia's old castle and talk about the Crystal Skulls. Oh, hey, we found a Crystal Skull. Okay, let's go track it down. Okay, well, we got it. Anyway, let's go sit around in a tent and talk about the Crystal Skulls for two . . .' I mean, the whole book is just these three people sitting around waiting for the next action sequence to happen to them. How is that a story? This is the worst book I've read in a very long time. I think the last time I read a book this bad was Daring Do and the Triangle of Light and I think I would rather read that because more happened in that novel. This book fucking blew.”
“A good time was about as far from what I had as you can possibly imagine,” Rarity said.
Rainbow Dash gave her a surprised look. “So it wasn't just me?”
Rarity shook her head. “No.”
“Oh, good,” Rainbow Dash cried, relieved, “because I kept on leaning over to you guys and I thought that maybe you guys were getting a little pissed off when I was making a few slight comments like, 'Why aren't they doing anything' or 'Where the fuck . . .' I think I leaned over and said once, 'This book has no direction.'”
Rarity nodded her head in agreement. “No, it didn't have any direction. You're right about that. I leaned over to you and whispered at one point in the book, 'We've been reading this book for an hour,' and nothing happens in the first hour.”
“Nothing in the two hours,” Rainbow Dash corrected.
“Nothing at all happens! It's ponies sitting around, doing nothing, and then at the end we get a piss poor climax and the story's over.”
“And that's pretty much it. We could just turn the review off right now! I mean, I'm not even mad. Like, this wouldn't be very good for a regular Rainbow Dash review because I'm not mad. This isn't bad as in like, 'Oh, there's this huge plot hole here' and 'What were they thinking when they did this?' It's just a depressing kind of bad.”
“I'll tell you something. Depressing is exactly the word. I'm just deflated! This book, it was gas getting let out of a balloon. There was no energy in this book.”
“Not at all. Not at all. Nothing was pulling me through this book. Let's talk about Seti. I know this is all over the place, but so is the book. That guy needed to be written out of the fucking novel. He was not only obnoxious, but he was purposeless. And I'll tell you something: this book had the exact same problem that Triangle of Light had with the Thunderhoof character, where I'm thinking to myself, 'Why didn't you just make Seti do what the Thunderhoof character's doing. What is the point of having these two ponies here?' 'Cause you've got this villain and then you've got this diet main villain who's doing more than the main villain. That's exactly what they did with the Seti character.”
“Yeah, that's exactly what she did. Thunderhoof was at least a little bit tense. There was some tension behind him. I agree with you that he shouldn't have been in the story, but he was at least tense. This Seti guy was stupid. His jokes weren't funny. Every scene with him in it died. It didn't end; it just died horribly. What are you doing putting a comic relief character in the position of egging on the main villain? You can't take it seriously once you've done that.”
“No, you couldn't take anything he did seriously, and he's our main threat! 'Cause I'll tell you something: our main threat is not that Ahuizotl guy, and I'll tell you why. He has this introduction where his dad dies. We got this great introduction scene, then he fights with Daring Do and he talks with Daring Do and he says, 'You know, your family is a sham. A lot of ponies died because of them and I'm going to expose you.' This, that, and the other thing. Then he sits on ass for three-fourths of the book and then he comes back and does something.”
“Let me ask you this: what did Daring Do's family have to do with his father's death?”
“I don't know,” Rainbow Dash cried, exasperated. “I don't even know what he wanted!”
“What did his father die of? Yeah, what did he want?! Exactly!”
“I don't know what his motivations were. A.K. Yearling had the opportunity to make this a very personal thing, to have Daring Do introspect and say, 'Gosh, did my family really do this? Am I really rewriting my own history to make it the way I want it or did I really hurt somepony?” This could have been like The Amulet of Power where it was an idea-driven story. She had all the material there to make that happen.”
“Yeah, she had all the material. There were three elements of this book that could have been good. We'll get to the other two, maybe later on down the road. Like everything else, it was a sketchy, first draft idea that she did nothing with.”
“Yeah, she cranked out a first draft and said, 'Let's shove it into the bookstores,' was my impression.”
“Well, that's exactly what she did, and that really bothers me because this was something that could have been special. This was something that could have been good.”
“This was also something that I was really looking forward to. I actually really wanted to read this. I was excited when I heard that it was coming out. I wanted to read it earlier. I was really pumped up for this. Around the time where Daring Do was with that stupid stallion with the eye patch and the guy said, 'If you try to leave, I'll taze you,' I fucking wanted to close the book and not finish it.”
Rarity nodded. “Yeah, me too.”
“I didn't care anymore,” Rainbow Dash continued. “I didn't want to sit through this anymore.”
“You know,” Twilight spoke up, “A.K. Yearling said in an interview, she said she can't imagine why, when she was editing her novels, she said she couldn't imagine why a scene should be on the page for longer than it could justify itself.”
“Almost every scene in this book drags on longer than it can justify itself,” Rarity said.
Rainbow Dash nodded. “They are unjustifiablly long. There's a scene where Daring comes in after doing Celestia knows what, Celestia knows where, sitting on ass like everypony else in this novel. She comes in and the group starts talking about strawberries and I'm like, 'She's really going to continue this scene? She can't just cut it here? She can't just cut it here? She can't just cut it here?'
“That whole scene needed to be cut out. And she got the–this doesn't really go anywhere either–but she got the idea for the new reactor by looking at a model. She could have gotten that information from . . . wouldn't it have been much more interesting if she got it by looking at the journal that she was reading.”
“Yeah, what the fuck was she reading the journal for in the first place?”
“What did they need that scene for?”
“So, let's talk about the Ahuizotl character. I don't even know where to fucking go with this review. That novel was so fucking all over the place.”
“Where did the story go?” Rarity wondered out loud.
“So,” Rainbow Dash continued as if she hadn't heard Rarity's question, “the Ahuizotl character seems to have some sort of motivation because of what was done to his family.”
Rarity gave Rainbow Dash a confused look. “Well, what was done to his family?”
“That's the thing. His family was legitimately crooked. So, what I'm saying is, what did Daring Do's family do to him? He has no real legitimate motivations.”
“The best that I can determine is that the Daring Do family figured out that he was crooked. Now, at this point, rather than have him arrested for selling secrets and tried for treason against the Crystal Empire, they send him back to Canterlot where of course he can apply his knowledge and give it to them.”
“We're talking about his father, right?” Rainbow Dash inquired.
Rarity nodded. “Yeah, so what about him being deported contributed to his father's death?”
“I have no fucking idea.”
“Yeah. Nothing!”
“So,” Rainbow Dash cleared her throat, “let me ask you one serious question about the stallion with the eye patch character in this book. Who the fuck was he?! Where did he come from? He and Daring Do were having conversations like we were supposed to know who this guy was and I had no idea who he was.”
“Get ready for a pissed off alert.”
Rainbow Dash swallowed. “Okay.”
“In order to learn who the stallion with the eye patch character is, you have to read the very first Daring Do book–”
“Oh, come the fuck on!”
“Listen to me. At the end of the book, you read through the entire book, and then they have a little scene at the end saying that his name is blah-blah-blah and that he works for Celestia's Army and Daring Do has just been recruited.”
“Does it say what 'Celestia's Army' is?”
“In the book, it sort of did. Remember in the first book, where the stallion, he kept on wanting to debrief Daring Do and–”
Rainbow Dash nodded her head in rapid succession. “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember that.”
“He said, 'Our organization's called Celestia's Army now.' We don't really learn what they do.”
“I will say I've only read the book once and I didn't fuckin' remember that, so . . .”
“So,” Rarity went on, “you could have conceivably known what Celestia's Army was, sort of. I don't really know what it is. We weren't told in the first book. But as for the stallion with the eye patch, you have to read through the entire first book to learn that.”
“Great. Well, I was lost there. I had no idea who–”
“What did they need to be in the story for? Didn't they already detract from an already detracted story?”
“Yes! She put too many fucking threads in here. It had the same problem as the last book, except the threads here were way more boring than they were in that book. I never thought I would ever say that. So, the guy who's apparently the leader of Celestia's Army, he brings Daring Do in and Daring Do is apparently, like, dying 'cause, you know, the venom is killing her.”
“That goes nowhere.”
“Goes absolutely nowhere,” Rainbow Dash concurred. “But they're like, 'Okay, you need to stay here and work this out.' So she stays there, and what the fuck does she do? What the fuck do they have her do to work it out? She read that one journal entry and then what? And then she leaves! So she goes in, sits on ass, and leaves. And we had to read that?”
“You know, when she got put under house arrest, I thought to myself, 'You have done nothing with the Daring Do character this whole story and now you're going to make it illegal for her to do anything in the story?” Like we haven't sat around enough . . .”
Rainbow Dash shook her head. “Fucking hell . . .”
“So let me just kind of barf out one thing that I noticed. Remember the scene where they're in the restaurant and everypony's like, 'Oh, Daring Do's going to be competing in the race? Oh, my gosh!' So Silver Bells says to the dude, she calls him Twinkie for some reason, she goes, 'Yeah, I need this mare. Get this mare in here, the mare who's got the armor handcuffed to herself.” They get in the carriage, they drive to the race track, they drive into the race track while the competitors are going. They don't know that there's any danger. They don't know that Ahuizotl's there. Nopony does. Only Ahuizotl does at this point. What did they drive onto the race track for? Let's say Ahuizotl wasn't there. What were they going to do? Daring Do was going to run right by them. She would have stopped. They would have turned around and said, 'Daring Do, are you nuts? What are you doing'”
“Well, I think you actually might be mistaken there. If I'm not mistaken, I think they saw him walk onto the race track, which was why she said, 'We got to go. We got to go.'”
“Well, they didn't know who he was.”
“Yeah, I know. You still have the problem. I'm going to say that there was kind of a conflict, but I wouldn't go as far as to start driving on the fucking race track on the wrong side of the track. Yeah, I know. That whole thing was stupid. I actually thought it was kind of dumb how we see Daring Do using a bunch of really, really heavy tools like a sledgehammer and this huge, like, you know, wrench to knock down a wall and stuff. And I was like, 'Why isn't she using her hind legs?' It then occurred to me that they actually did specify that any kind of physical exertion is kind of accelerating her condition. That's fine. But isn't that just a testament to how bad this is? You start noticing things that you otherwise wouldn't have noticed, which wouldn't be that big of a deal had the story been there. But you've got the protagonist and the antagonist sitting on ass for three-fourths of the novel. I haven't seen that since the third Daring Do book.”
“Well, the other thing is you have some elements of this story that might have worked. This needed rewrites. She needed to take the Celestia's Army characters completely out of it. Take the retarded stallion completely out of it. You know, focus on the fact that Daring Do's dying. Focus on that she wants to maybe leave something behind and she's going to leave it to her friend.”
“And then she goes and sees how her dad was trying to leave things behind.”
“You're right,” Rarity agreed, “and they sort of did that, but horribly!”
“No, you're right. There was a lot of potential in a lot of areas here.”
“And with the Ahuizotl character, have him switch places with Daring Do in the first book where he's brought in by some other archaeological team and they tell him to help them find this thing and he finds it. They sort of did that.”
“Yeah, but they should have had him running the show there. They shouldn't have had this fucking Thunderhoof jackass in there, you know, taking over all of the villain time.”
“For whatever reason, he felt that Daring Do had damaged his family and father, have him start a archaeological team and build on that.”
“Yeah, be her competition. I thought that's what she was going to do. That's what she said she was going to do in the interviews. You know, like I said, I don't know how anypony else felt about this. I don't know if they liked it or hated it. If everypony liked it, I'm sorry. If anypony liked it, I'm actually glad. I'm glad you had a good time 'cause I had a horrible time.”
“Oh, it ranks up there with some of the worst experiences I've ever had reading a book.”
“Let me just ask you before we end: did you like anything about this book?”
Rarity sighed. “I like what it might have been. As for the book itself, no. I kind of liked the Ahuizotl character.”
“I wish she would have made him a character. I liked what little I read. It reminded me kind of like, you know, a rehearsal.”
“It's like a beautiful stained-glass window that you put in a room in a house that no light can touch.”
“That actually made sense.”
“Thanks.”
“Let's end it there. I didn't like it. She didn't like it. If you liked it, great. Anypony who paid to read this, I'm sorry.”
“You have my utter sympathies.”
“I had a horrible time.”
“I had a very horrible time.”
“All right.”
At long last, Rarity got to her feet and beamed at her two friends. “You know, as much as I would absolutely love to stay here and listen to you two argue about this book, I have to get back to the Boutique. Hopefully, Sweetie Belle hasn't done anything to destroy it. Besides, I need to get back to work. I'll see you both tomorrow, though, right?”
Twilight smiled and nodded. “Of course. We'll make a copy of our review for you.”
“Please and thank you.” Without another word to either one of them, she trotted out of the Golden Oaks library.
Once she had rewound the tape, Twilight flipped it over and pressed record. “First of all, I guess I'd like to start this review off by saying that, I mean, it wasn't my favorite of all the books. I still think that number four–Daring Do and the Chasm of Death–was still my favorite.”
“Mine too,” Rainbow Dash agreed.
“But I liked it. I don't know. I thought she did a pretty good job of writing the book. She put all the important parts in there and she did a good job.”
“Well, as I said before, this book fucking blew, but go ahead and tell me why you liked it.”
“Well, first of all, I don't even understand why you didn't like the book. I don't even understand . . . okay, so first of all, you liked the books up to number six.”
“Yes. I even liked the fifth book and that was one that fans didn't like very much. They thought it was very thin and boring.”
“That's my favorite book, actually . . .”
“No, no, no. Was it the fifth?”
“That's The Abyss.”
“Which one is The Scion of Fillydelphia?”
“The sixth.”
“Oh, okay. That's the one that most ponies didn't like very much. I even liked that one. I liked all the books except for this . . . I don't even know why I'm calling it . . . what book?”
“Okay, you liked all the books up to the sixth book. Okay, so in the sixth book, they introduce the Crystal Skulls.”
Rainbow Dash nodded. “Yes.”
“So, what do you think she should have done in the seventh book?”
“See, this is what I'm talking about–”
“So, you're saying it's bad, but you have no solution.”
“No, I don't.”
“I don't know what you think she was supposed to do. Did you want her to go back home and do some more researching and studying?”
“Yes.”
“How is she supposed to find the Crystal Skulls when she's at home?”
“Okay, why does this have to be about Daring Do tracking down the Crystal Skulls? What does that have to do with the Daring Do world. I will never understand because every single book up until this one was a story. The best part about Daring Do was always her learning something about herself or learning something about her life or learning something about her family. Or, you know, getting to know somepony and not really knowing whose side they were on until she got to know them better. The Daring Do series has never been just about Daring Do versus Ahuizotl. This is just about Daring Do versus Ahuizotl. Nopony's in this. Nothing's happening in this. I will never understand why A.K. Yearling said, 'Okay, this is the way I'm going to finish my series. I'm going to remove every setting and character that made ponies love this series and replace it with fucking camping.'”
“You're right,” Twilight agreed. “That is what it is. It comes down to Daring Do and Ahuizotl, but that's how it was always supposed to be. She has support through her life to prepare her for this. I mean, that's what the prophecy said. One of them has to kill the other one. It has to be Daring Do by herself.”
“You said that it's preparing her for this. What is the 'this?'”
“For her to destroy Ahuizotl.”
“And how is she doing that, by sitting around waiting for the Crystal Skulls to happen?”
“I think, honestly, by putting the Crystal Skulls in there it gave her something to do. Otherwise, it literally would have been just, 'Okay, we sit around and we find Ahuizotl.' She kills Ahuizotl. Whatever. I mean, I understand what you're saying. Okay, maybe she just made up something for her to do. But she had to find the Crystal Skulls. I mean, there was a lot that happened.”
“What in Celestia's name happened in that book?”
“In this book that we just read?”
“Yes.”
“I mean, I don't know what you thought there was going to be. Did you think that there was just going to be fights one hundred percent of the time?”
“No, I'm not–”
“There was character development–”
“When?!” Rainbow Dash exploded.
“There was a lot of stuff between Twinkle Sunshine and Light Feather and Daring Do.”
“When?! When they were sitting around not talking to each other or just wandering around–”
“Do they have to talk in order for there to be character development?”
“Yes!”
“They did talk.”
“They have to talk or they have to experience something or they have to learn something about themselves. This is just them walking around looking for the Crystal Skulls. What did they learn about themselves when they were sitting around in the tent? What did they learn about themselves when they were walking around the museums of Canterlot? What did they learn about themselves when they were laying around Celestia's old castle? I don't understand what event–”
“Are you just not paying attention?”
“No! I'm asking you! What happened that made their characters develop in this book?”
“Well, first of all, you can only put so much in the book, but there was a lot of stuff in the book about the stuff between Twinkle Sunshine and Light Feather and how they're getting closer. I mean, they even have that nice little scene where they fell asleep in Celestia's old castle and they were almost, like, holding hooves when they slept. I mean, it's just little things like that. You mean you'd rather have them in a scene going, 'Oh, I love you, but I think you like Daring Do?'”
“No.”
“I mean, you're not just going to, like, throw it out there.”
“No, but I would like something in between those two extremes, something in between nothing and something.”
“I'm trying to explain it. So they're, you know, in the tent and she showed a lot of, you know, Twinkle Sunshine when he was recovering from being stabbed. He kept watching Daring Do and Light Feather and thinking that there was something between them even though they were just friends and they were just planning, or trying to plan, you know, what they were going to do next. And, you know, Twinkle Sunshine was getting jealous and then he left and then he came back. There was a lot of that. And then, when they left, Twinkle Sunshine was gone and there was that actually really kind of awkward little scene where Daring Do and Light Feather were dancing. First of all, that was weird.”
“No, she really needed to put that in the book,” Rainbow Dash said sarcastically.
“Well, I think it was just showing that, you know, it was just a little, 'Let's have some fun, 'cause this really sucks and we're sad and whatever.' But I think it was also showing, you know, they kind of almost, maybe thought about kissing and then it was like, 'No, this isn't us. We're not going to do this.' And I don't know. I just think she did a good job of character development. It doesn't have to be nonstop action.”
“I'm not looking for nonstop action.”
“I know. I'm just saying that you're saying, 'Oh, they're just sitting around in a tent,' and there was about a half-hour of a little bit of down-time, you know, when they're in the tent. I think what maybe you're not getting is they mention this, I think in some of the other books. I can't remember at the moment when they started this, but Ahuizotl's plan is to isolate Daring Do, to make her feel like she's alone, and so that she feels defeated. And so, that's kind of what it was. It was letting us feel what she's feeling. You wanted her to feel isolated, like she had nopony to help her. That's why he put up that 'undesirable number one.' He has the whole world of Equestria against Daring Do.”
“Okay, first of all, all the things that you just mentioned–the stuff between Twinkle Sunshine and Light Feather, Daring Do feeling alone and isolated and everything–we've seen that in other books.”
“Yeah, but it's supposed to get worse.”
“It hasn't gotten worse. That was done better in all the other books. So, we're not getting anything new. If the plan of this book was to make us feel that we are just as isolated and nothing is happening just as much as it's happening to Daring Do, then that completely paid up. It absolutely felt like nothing was happening. It's not literally that nothing is happening. It's extraneous things that are happening. It's things that are happening that don't formulate into a story. There is no story in this book. It's just sitting around, action sequence. Sit around, action sequence. It's a very lather, rinse, repeat kind of formula to this that you didn't get in the other Daring Do books. What would we lose in the story if you cut the wedding out? What would you lose in the story if you cut most of the camping scenes out? What would you lose in the story if you cut out the diner attack scene? See, that's what I'm saying. That's why I'm so frustrated about this, and I said this from the beginning. This does not need to be two novels. Just cut everything except them getting and destroying the Crystal Skull and make this one book. That's the only important thing that happened in this.”
“First of all, there's more than one Crystal Skull.”
“No, no. I'm talking about this book. They only destroyed one Crystal Skull.”
“Well, if it was just they went to the museum in Canterlot, they got the Crystal Skull–”
“That is it!! That is all that happened!!”
“If that was literally all that happened, then you would go, 'What the fuck was this book? Nothing happened.'”
“That's what I'm saying. That's why this doesn't need to be two books. Just take that and combine it with whatever the fuck she's going to do in Part Two and just make this one book. There is no reason this needs to be two books. Why don't you just take the epilogue and make that into two books? Nothing happened there either.”
Twilight groaned. “I don't even want to talk about the epilogue.”
“Well, yeah, we shouldn't get into that yet,” Rainbow Dash agreed, laughing. “But, no, honestly, really think about this. What fundamental difference would it make in this book if you replaced Daring Do, Twinkle Sunshine, and Light Feather with any other three ponies in the world? This isn't their story. It's not about them. We don't learn anything about them. They don't experience anything except sitting around. It would be exactly the same. When I read the last book, I oftentimes forgot that I was reading a Daring Do book. This is a Daring Do book with no Daring Do in it. You know, nopony's in it. Sixth String isn't in it. And when I say nopony is in it and nothing is happening, I don't mean that literally. What I mean is–”
“Sixth String was in it.”
“No, he wasn't. He was present, but he's not . . . to be in the book, you have to add something and you have to contribute something and you have to be important. It could have been anypony that was driving Daring Do around. And that's another thing I don't like. She cuts every single good character out of these books, but, hey, we get a fucking useless Licorice Delight cameo. That-that's wonderful. We needed her to be in there, but we couldn't put anypony else in there.”
“Well, she had to have Daring Do have some sort of enemy since she didn't really face down Ahuizotl. Well, kind of. A little bit during that scene when he was in the carriage with Licorice Delight, but I don't know. I just think we're just going to have to agree to disagree.”
Rainbow Dash nodded. “We're going to have to.”
“'Cause I don't see it this way at all and I cannot see your point of view. I just don't know what you think that she should have done.”
“I think she should have made a story like she did with the other six books.”
“That's really vague and it's not a specific thing.”
“Okay. I think she should have done something to . . . it's as if she didn't even know that this was the last time that these ponies were all going to be together. I could understand her removing, you know, Canterlot and everything else that we love about this series, maybe in the second to last book, to change things up. You cannot remove everything that made this series great for your finale. You have nothing. This story hinges on nothing. And another thing that I really want you to think about–a lot of ponies to think about and I'm sure a lot of ponies will give me an answer to this that I don't agree with–why the fuck hell is this called Daring Do and the Crystal Skulls? The Crystal Skulls have dick to do with anything. I know we're not into Part 2 yet, and so I can't really go into exactly why, but they have dick to do with anything. They could have just as easily called this Daring Do and the Second Tree She Happened to Pass When They were Camping, for all the fuck that they have to do with anything with this damn story.”
“Well, that's a little bit of an exaggeration. I do agree. I think she just picked it 'cause it sounded cool, I guess. I don't know.”
“You guess? I don't even know what they're doing in the book. And then, I love what she did with the teleportation spell, which makes absolutely no sense in the fucking universe. It's like, 'Oh, hey, I tried the teleportation spell and a light came out of my horn and it went inside me and I knew where you guys were and also, it gave me a carriage for me to get there.' You know, as long as it's doing whatever the plot needs it to do, why not?”
“Well, I kind of agree with that. Actually, in the book, and for anypony who hasn't read the book, it's that scene where Twinkle Sunshine said something about, you know, 'Oh, the teleportation spell, it let me find you guys.' I don't know if you remember this from the book, but there was a cool little piece of dialogue where Twinkle Sunshine said, 'Oh, great, that meant that Celestia knew that I was going to leave you guys. Great, she thinks that I'm a deserter.' And then Daring Do–well, I think it was Daring Do, it had to be Daring Do 'cause Light Feather wasn't talking to him at that time–but Daring Do said something about, 'No, she knew that you would always come back and she would give you the means to always find us.' I think that's why she kind of wanted to put that in there too. Besides that, yeah, it was useful.”
“That's fine. My problem was it didn't make any damn sense.”
“Well, because they're on the run and nopony was supposed to be able to find them. So, if they were going to have, you know, him leaving and then coming back, how else would he find them? But, whatever. Everypony who writes does that. You have to make up stuff to make your plot make sense.”
“But it's all the time in this, though. I mean, I can't talk, 'cause the whole thing with the Elder Scroll becomes real bullshit in what's going to be the second book. So, I can't really go into that. I mean, it's every single thing. I didn't like a single thing about the book.”
“I remember you told me you did like a few things about the book.”
“Oh, no, I did. I liked one thing about the book.”
“Where Light Feather beat the crap out of Twinkle Sunshine?”
“No. What I–”
“You said you liked that.”
“The only thing I liked about the book that I thought was very special and true to what I love about this series is when she goes into Luna's story, when they tell her whole story. That was really good.”
“I just . . . I don't know. I'm out of arguments, I think. She couldn't have made it like the rest of them 'cause, like I said, it was building up to Daring Do's going to be released and on her own. Like, she's of age now.”
“I never saw this series–”
“Well, that's what the prophecy said.”
“I understand that.”
“She is the only one–”
“I understand that.”
“Daring Do with all her friends standing behind her–”
“I understand that. I understand it's going to be Daring Do versus Ahuizotl's. I do not understand why she had to single out that one aspect of the story and make that a whole fucking book. I mean, you can add a layer and a depth to one idea, like the layer and depth she had to the one idea of The Star of Fire. You know, the whole thing just wasn't about, you know, Daring Do and Princess Celestia. You had a tapestry of stories going on there, and everything connected. I'm just using that as an example because that was my favorite book. I mean, you had a very rich, deep story in that book. This is just good guy versus bad guy. I think she could have put a story together and made something more interesting than just the external conflict of Daring Do tracking down the Crystal Skulls. There's no internal conflict here. Daring Do is not conflicted; she's just doing what she needs to do to get to the end. She's never done that before and I don't like it. I think it's garbage.”
“Well, there are just a few things that I want to talk about from the book, scenes and stuff. Actually, I thought that you said that when you read the book, one thing that you liked about the beginning was when she said goodbye to the Crabtrees. Another thing just generalized, I mean, I liked the book, but as I was reading, there are a few things that I noticed. I was thinking, 'Okay, if I hadn't read the books, I would be fucked!'”
“Totally lost, yeah,” Rainbow Dash agreed.
“Completely lost. There was a lot of things that she did not explain. Like, if you read the books, you're totally okay and you might not even notice 'em, but if you stop and think, there's a lot of things. Like, I'm sure there's a lot of you out there listening to this who didn't read the books and you were completely lost. Like, there was one thing that I'm just thinking about right now. When they broke into the museum of Canterlot and you could see that little eye on Licorice Deight's door, that was Dark Sabbath's eye, but it never said that, and Daring Do never even reacted like, “It's Dark Sabbath,” meaning she had something to do with it or she somehow knew somepony who killed him or retrieved his body and gave her the eye. She just showed it for ponies who'd read the books. See? See?”
“Oh, I know what that is.”
“And that kind of annoys me, but, then again, if she had explained every single little mention like that–”
“But, once again, you want something in between her explaining nothing and explaining everything.”
“I actually do kind of agree with that, but since I did read the books, it was fine for me, personally. I know there were several other examples of little things like that where, you know, we would know, if we had read the books, what was going on. So, I think that's kind of not fair for the people who just read this one book. Things like the glass, where she kept looking in the mirror, and they actually mention the mirror at the end of the fifth book, 'cause that was the glass that Princess Celestia gave her. Celestia said, you know, 'Hey, here's this.' They never even opened it in the book, I think. Princess Celestia just gave her a package and she said–”
“I can't remember. I've read that one the least.”
“Celestia said, 'Here's this package. If you ever need to get into contact with me, here you go.'”
“And, hell, you know, for all that I liked this character, the filly character comes out of fucking nowhere. He was never talked about. And she kind of did explain to some extent.”
“Just that he was a thief. I guess it really wasn't important beyond that.”
Rainbow Dash nodded. “Yeah.”
“But, yeah, never explained. I don't think I'm giving anything away because she'll probably mention it in the second book that she didn't mention in the first, but it was Seasoning's brother who had the other half of the mirror and he's the one who sent Nightingale. My point is, she didn't put that in the book.”
“Well, I think she is going to put it in the second one. I guarantee it.”
“I hope so because, otherwise, imagine if you didn't read the other books and you just read this book and you're just like, 'Help! Help! Okay, here's Nightingale. How the hell did that happen?'”
“Well, they meet Crimson in the first book, so I assume he's going to be getting a bigger role in the second book.”
“Yeah, but my point is if you haven't read the other books and you just read this book, you're going to wonder what the hell happened. Why is she talking to this mirror? I don't remember this probably because I don't think she properly introduced in the books. And then Nightingale shows up and you're like, 'Well, I guess that's lucky. How the hell did that happen. All right.'”
“Oh, you know what? That is one thing that I did like about this book. Nightingale died.”
“I don't understand why you don't like Nightingale. I understand he's a little annoying, but how could you hate him? All he ever does is help.”
“I don't hate him. I'm joking when I say that I hate him. If I was Daring Do and there was this short little thing constantly singing my praises, I would be like, 'Dude, you know what? There have been plenty of ponies who have been grateful for what I've done with them and they've thanked me and that's fine. Crawl out of my ass.'”
“Rainbow, he just saved their asses, though. They were, like, in Ahuizotl's basement getting ready to die.”
“Eh. At that point, I didn't really care who died and who didn't. Let me just ask you one thing before we stop here. Do you think there was nothing that she could have cut from this book and just made this one book? Do you really think that it's necessary to split this up into two books?”
“I think that there's some things that she could have cut. I don't think it would have been enough to just make the whole thing one book, not without cutting too much. That's just my opinion and probably the opinion of most ponies who liked the seventh book. There's a lot of things, whether they're actually relevant to the actual plot, it's just fun to read. I don't know. For fans of the books, you like to read all those things. And another thing that just popped into my mind. When Twinkle Sunshine was going to destroy that Crystal Skull, that was actually a cool little scene that she did there. Like, I did not picture, at least from the description in the book, it being actually that huge. Like, that actually startled me when that giant cloud of whatever the hell that was. That was pretty creepy.”
“I'll admit that I actually thought that was pretty cool.”
“Yeah. Whether you think the Crystal Skulls are important or not–”
“They're not,” Rainbow Dash bellowed.
“That little scene was actually cool. I think the descriptions for that were very good.”
“It was. It was very well done.”
“And I liked the colt character when he wasn't crazy at the end. Oh, and another scene that I actually really, really liked. In the book, she actually showed Luna's room and I thought that it was really cool and cute. A little bit sappy and sad, but I liked the chance to see Luna's room. You remember, 'cause she painted all of her friends on the wall–Daring Do, Twinkle Sunshine, and Light Feather. And Fudge Packer, I think.”
“Yeah, Fudge Packer was there. Holy hell, Fudge Packer grew the fuck up.”
“You could barely recognize him.”
“You see him for, like, two seconds and then I'm like, 'Holy shit! Is that Fudge Packer?!'”
“Well, we're going to see him in the second book.”
“I'm sure.”
“That's the thing, too. Splitting it up, you know, she sees a little bit of ponies in the beginning, but she sees everypony again at the end, too.”
“And they're there.”
“Yeah, but they have parts.”
“They do?”
“They have their own little roles.”
“They do?”
“Lancer and Private have things to do and their mom.”
“Well, one of them doesn't really have much to do except for one thing.”
“They're there. Raspberry Pie has a really cool scene.”
Rainbow Dash waved her hoof in a dismissive manner. “Eh.”
“You didn't like that scene?”
“No.”
“All right. Well, it was a little bit out of character.”
“Well, this is the last thing I'm going to say about the matter and then I'll let you have the last word. You can't make a good book about that story. The story sucked too much. There is no excuse for this being two novels; it doesn't even need to be one. And I hated it.”
“Well, I guess my final words are going to be, 'fuck you.'”
“Fair enough.” They both laughed. “We really love each other. We just disagree. Okay, thank you, guys. We'll see you later.”