S09:E21 Daring Doubt (beware, spoilers inside)

[Sepul-Coloratura 762]

There are more specifics of the flaws in this episode I want to mention.

1. The show's revelation of turning villains into good guys were unfair for the audience. Not that all villain's sympathetic backstories are automatically bad, but the audience believed that they were legit bad guys and enjoyed the simple adventure episodes based on that premise. Turns out that Daring Do was a horrible pony. No innocent beings in cartoon shows does the villain laugh unless it's some kind of a parody. It's an afterthought that unjustly twists the audience's believes.
2. Feels like Fluttershy basically betrayed Rainbow Dash for a short moment. And as the episode's conclusion, Rainbow Dash was a completely clueless idiot as well. And that automatically makes us, the audience idiots too. Fluttershy should have been a little bit cautious when approaching the issue and with a little bit of grain of salt. Rainbow Dash is one of her best friends and what RD strongly believes based on her life and death experience didn't affect Fluttershy at all, it's either very impressive of her or it makes no sense.

Edited September 23, 2019 by Sepul-Coloratura

[ShadOBabe 18,997]

38 minutes ago, Sepul-Coloratura said:

Turns out that Daring Do was a horrible pony.

Eh, I don’t think she is horrible. Caballeron is absolutely still a pilferer and admitted to using Fluttershy until he started to like her. She even straight up uses the fact that he’s a profiteer to (hilariously) get them out of danger, correctly guessing that he was the one who stole a precious gem and likely had it on his person. Daring was and is justified in not trusting him, and I’m sure rationalized that she was keeping the treasure safe and out of Calby’s hooves. Better that she hold on to them rather than let Caballeron smelt them and sell them, right?

Meanwhile, Ahuizotl’s straight up tried murdering her. Repeatedly. And in one episode, tried using one of the artifacts to, presumably, destroy the Basin. Again, Daring rationalizes that it’s better to hold on to these objects that let someone use them for evil. And Ahuizotl’s apparently not great at communication.

I assume that if she’s not giving these objects to museums, she has some kind of issue with institutions like this. Probably because people like Caballeron keep breaking in and stealing crap.

Daring: You know what? Screw it. Apparently I’m the only one that can keep these relics safe.

She’s been shown to be a loner until only recently. I would not be shocked. She might consider keeping these artifacts out of evil hands to be of much higher priority than the academic knowledge that can be gleaned from them.

Daring’s Priorities: 1) keep artifacts from being destroyed or sold on the black market, 2) keep bad people from using the artifacts to hurt others, which ties into keeping them off the black market.

1 hour ago, Sepul-Coloratura said:

No innocent beings in cartoon shows does the villain laugh unless it's some kind of a parody.

I have an amusingly evil sounding laugh at times. Like people give me the “What the?” look over it. But I promise, I am a good zotl. XD

[ShadOBabe 18,997]

LOL! I was just thinking...

Remember when ponies were so freaked out by a Zebra they’d all hide indoors?

And now they’re having stories read to them by a giant Aztec monster in a bookstore, and no one bats an eye?

To be fair, Ponyville was a small quiet town and the book signing looks like it’s in a city, but still... multiculturalism has really taken off in Equestria. 

[ShadOBabe 18,997]

4 hours ago, Ganondox said:

Pulling Windigos out of nowhere is where you cross the line from merely having different interpretations of the events to just making excuses for bad writing, there was zero implication of such.

To be fair, while I’m not certain if Ahuizotl is as old as @BornAgainBrony suggests, the Windigos is actually not impossible.

If Ahuizotl’s jungle is part of Equestria, or even near a border, then it would have likely been affected by the Windigo Winter. And if it was, then BAB is right about it being catastrophic for the region.

However, if Ahuizotl was around to witness that firsthand, then that would mean that he is SUPER old. Like possibly as old as the Celestial Sisters, maybe older. I always headcanoned Ahuizotl as having a longer lifespan than a pony, but I was thinking by like a couple hundred years, not a couple thousand. 

But there’s nothing to DISPROVE the idea either!

[BornAgainBrony 2,397]

18 hours ago, Ittoni said:

So there you go. There's aztec ponies living there.

Something else that suggests the ring of destiny fiasco might be misunderstood. The natives don't seem particularly concerned about Ahuizotl activating the ring of destiny. The only ones who seem to see it as a bad thing are the interlopers. If the Ponies who live on this land want this treasure restored as mich as Ahuizotl, then Daring Do probably doesn't know as much as she thinks.

Finally, if you're going to say Ahuizotl is in the wrong for placing these rings at a site which was built to receive them, then you also have to consider the motivation behind this talisman being created in the first place.

3 hours ago, ShadOBabe said:

Like possibly as old as the Celestial Sisters, maybe older. I always headcanoned Ahuizotl as having a longer lifespan than a pony, but I was thinking by like a couple hundred years, not a couple thousand. 

The idea came from a few things. At minimum, he's decorated like a king. But it seems more likely that he either literally is a god, or is being treated as one. He has a throne seated atop a stubby version of the classic aztec pyramid, which is usually a spot reserved for a shrine or altar. The "cat guards" also seem to fit with the kind of lesser beings that are known to hang around as servants to such entities. Finally, the obsession with the ring providing 700 years of power, and Ahui's manic reaction to the idea, suggests he expected to enjoy at least the majority of this new age that he was going to usher in.

[ShadOBabe 18,997]

7 minutes ago, BornAgainBrony said:

Something else that suggests the ring of destiny fiasco might be misunderstood. The natives don't seem particularly concerned about Ahuizotl activating the ring of destiny. The only ones who seem to see it as a bad thing are the interlopers. If the Ponies who live on this land want this treasure restored as mich as Ahuizotl, then Daring Do probably doesn't know as much as she thinks.

The idea came from a few things. At minimum, he's decorated like a king. But it seems more likely that he either literally is a god, or is being treated as one. He has a throne seated atop a stubby version of the classic aztec pyramid, which is usually a spot reserved for a shrine or altar. Also the obsession with the ring providing 700 years of power, and Ahui's manic reaction to the idea, suggests he expected to enjoy at least the majority of this new age that he was going to usher in.

I can live with this if true. Ahuizotl is on par with Celestia in my heart. Not sure if I’ll use it in my fan content, but I can still dig it! 

I need to keep working on the list of names I was giving to the Aztec ponies. I know I was calling the red one in the front left “Eztli” and the one in the front right with the blue make up “Teocalli”.

[KH7672 1,604]

I think the only thing holding me back from liking this more is the fact we already had "listen to all sides of the story" moral from the second part of Shadow Play with Starlight playing Fluttershy's role of the mediator between the pillars. However this episode does use the mediator role really well too. Like with Starlight having the empathic mindset of what it was like to be a villain on her side, Fluttershy provides that much less drastic mindset of keeping positive kindness to bring out the best in others when a seemingly harmless goal is in mind.

I'm happy that Fluttershy got to end the series gracefully much much more solid characterization for me than we've had the past two seasons.

[OptimisticNeighsayer 471]

3 hours ago, KH7672 said:

I think the only thing holding me back from liking this more is the fact we already had "listen to all sides of the story" moral from the second part of Shadow Play with Starlight playing Fluttershy's role of the mediator between the pillars. However this episode does use the mediator role really well too. Like with Starlight having the empathic mindset of what it was like to be a villain on her side, Fluttershy provides that much less drastic mindset of keeping positive kindness to bring out the best in others when a seemingly harmless goal is in mind.

I'm happy that Fluttershy got to end the series gracefully much much more solid characterization for me than we've had the past two seasons.

One thing that does give this episode a bit more nuance than “Shadow Play” is the importance of doing so even if all the parties aren’t being completely candid. The conflict between Stygian and the Pillars was because of poor communication, here there’s no such innocent failure (except maybe on Azuihotl’s end).

Or so we’re told. I wasn’t too keen on the device of the talisman that forces truth-telling for such a moral; true mediation emphasizes the voluntariness of the parties to come to an understanding. It would have been more powerful if Fluttershy’s charismatic kindness itself somehow persuaded everyone to tell the truth. 

Edited September 23, 2019 by OptimisticNeighsayer

[JH24 385]

12 hours ago, ShadOBabe said:

 

Meanwhile, Ahuizotl’s straight up tried murdering her. Repeatedly. And in one episode, tried using one of the artifacts to, presumably, destroy the Basin. Again, Daring rationalizes that it’s better to hold on to these objects that let someone use them for evil. And Ahuizotl’s apparently not great at communication.

 

It could be argued (not excused) that Ahuizotl was driven insane by Daring Do's continued incursions into the Tenochtitlan Basin. Communication didn't work because they both got the wrong impression of each other. Ahuizotl seeing Daring Do as just another greedy artifact thief, and Daring Do seeing Ahuizotl as just a monster. (Ahuizotl did say "He gets that a lot") 

Instead those two got locked into a rivalry that presumably kept on going for years. Daring Do kept coming back which lead Ahuizotl to a point where he would come up with (cruel) ways to either scare or kill Daring Do so she would never come back.

 

Edited September 23, 2019 by JH24

[BornAgainBrony 2,397]

2 hours ago, JH24 said:

It could be argued (not excused) that Ahuizotl was driven insane by Daring Do's continued incursions into the Tenochtitlan Basin. Communication didn't work because they both got the wrong impression of each other. Ahuizotl seeing Daring Do as just another greedy artifact thief, and Daring Do seeing Ahuizotl as just a monster. (Ahuizotl did say "He gets that a lot") 

Instead those two got locked into a rivalry that presumably kept on going for years. Daring Do kept coming back which lead Ahuizotl to a point where he would come up with (cruel) ways to either scare or kill Daring Do so she would never come back.

Well, a lot of Ahuizotl's behavior is rooted in the common lore of supernatural/archeology films. Ancient peoples in those universe didn't set up laser security grids to alert the police to show up. They set up pressure plates to shoot poison darts, flood the chamber with sand, or just drop a giant bowling ball on the intruder. It's understandable for "lost tribes" and whatnot too who haven't come to the modern century who still adopt a shoot-first-and-ask-questions later policy (and to be fair, some first world countries still do this). Then you have people who instead of electronic security systems, just have a territorial rottweiler as a deterrent to thieves.

I'd love to see a sign on one of these temples that says:

"Beware of Dog.
...with Monkey Hand-Tail.
And the Big Cats too."

[Ganondox 899]

11 hours ago, ShadOBabe said:

To be fair, while I’m not certain if Ahuizotl is as old as @BornAgainBrony suggests, the Windigos is actually not impossible.

If Ahuizotl’s jungle is part of Equestria, or even near a border, then it would have likely been affected by the Windigo Winter. And if it was, then BAB is right about it being catastrophic for the region.

However, if Ahuizotl was around to witness that firsthand, then that would mean that he is SUPER old. Like possibly as old as the Celestial Sisters, maybe older. I always headcanoned Ahuizotl as having a longer lifespan than a pony, but I was thinking by like a couple hundred years, not a couple thousand. 

But there’s nothing to DISPROVE the idea either!

The problem has nothing to do with whether or not it’s possible (it’s fiction, the writers can make anything they want to be possible), it’s whether or not it was implied. It’s a blatant plot hole, the burden is on the watcher to contrive something like Windigos to fill it when it shouldn’t have existed in the first place. 

[ShadOBabe 18,997]

1 hour ago, Ganondox said:

The problem has nothing to do with whether or not it’s possible (it’s fiction, the writers can make anything they want to be possible), it’s whether or not it was implied. It’s a blatant plot hole, the burden is on the watcher to contrive something like Windigos to fill it when it shouldn’t have existed in the first place. 

I can get that. I just suppose I’ve gotten so used to filling in things like that, that it like barely even registers for me. Heck, I even find it fun. I like “up to your interpretation” stuff.

But you are correct in that it is shoddy writing to have your viewers fill in all your holes.

[BornAgainBrony 2,397]

1 hour ago, Ganondox said:

The problem has nothing to do with whether or not it’s possible (it’s fiction, the writers can make anything they want to be possible), it’s whether or not it was implied. It’s a blatant plot hole, the burden is on the watcher to contrive something like Windigos to fill it when it shouldn’t have existed in the first place. 

Well, in this case, the Windigo idea had already crossed my mind more than once. I just never bothered making it anymore than a passing thought until now.

[ShadOBabe 18,997]

As soon as I get my own computer, I’m making this my new background. 

Spoiler

[Thrond 3,263]

11 hours ago, KH7672 said:

I think the only thing holding me back from liking this more is the fact we already had "listen to all sides of the story" moral from the second part of Shadow Play with Starlight playing Fluttershy's role of the mediator between the pillars.

I think this is a better version of that than "Shadow Play" because Rainbow Dash trusting Daring Do is something with a tangible reason behind it, as opposed to Twilight's senseless hero worship, and also because this episode allowed us to believe for a while that Fluttershy might be mistaken, whereas "Shadow Play" always privileged Starlight's perspective even when it presented Starswirl's argument. 

[KH7672 1,604]

2 hours ago, AlexanderThrond said:

I think this is a better version of that than "Shadow Play" because Rainbow Dash trusting Daring Do is something with a tangible reason behind it, as opposed to Twilight's senseless hero worship, and also because this episode allowed us to believe for a while that Fluttershy might be mistaken, whereas "Shadow Play" always privileged Starlight's perspective even when it presented Starswirl's argument. 

I do want to clarify that after the section you quoted I did go on to explain how Daring Doubt did things well but also differently.

 

13 hours ago, KH7672 said:

...the mediator between the pillars. However this episode does use the mediator role really well too. Like with Starlight having the empathic mindset of what it was like to be a villain on her side, Fluttershy provides that much less drastic mindset of keeping positive kindness to bring out the best in others when a seemingly harmless goal is in mind.

I've thought deeper about it and do realize both episodes have much more differences when in comes to moral and how it was presented despite me feeling they are similar. I could expound upon their differences further if you'd like, but I do know your stance on the latter episode and have no intention on changing it.

[Senko 459]

Well this is another episode to add to my theory that the season 9 writers are ignoring or being pressured (I know there's behind the scenes controls on these things) previous episodes for this season. Honestly at this point I'm just not considering it canon as there's just too many things here that don't work with the previous seasons.

Anyway thoughts on the episode specifically . . .

1) I know ponies get shown as guillable but seriously the book writing issue bugged me. It's like me releasing a novel saying "Harry Potter is a greasy git who stole the credit for other people's work as shown by me Draco Malfoy who was bullied by him all through high school till he got my parents killed . . ." and having everyone believe it over the original author. Liking sure but the fans (presumably) of A.K yearlings work suddenly just accept a brand new unknown author not only claiming her "fictional" character is real with no proof but not the person presented in her books. It doesn't make sense.

2) Fluttershy's "Yes I believe you . . ." with Cabelleron with Discord she knew from the begining he was playing her she just had confidence if she kept genuinely trying to befriend him it'd work. Here she's aparently happily buying what Cabelleron is selling the whole time and only succeeds by luck in his coming round. A redemption that really feels rushed to me unlike Discord where he at least had that moment where she keeps her promise not to turn him to stone but refutes his friendship.

3) Ahuizotl is a guardian.  . . no, just no.

It could have been done well and had revelations that still hit the plot points they wanted to but as it is it just doesn't work for me. Feeling both contradictory to earlier seasons and rushed in its own implementation.

That said I did fiind Fluttershy's many expressions when Dash tossed her book aside or prevented her getting an autograph to be really cute. Plus there were a lot of nice callbacks to previous seasons even if they are ignoring them like the Flyders.

Edited September 24, 2019 by Senko

[ShadOBabe 18,997]

50 minutes ago, Senko said:

Ahuizotl is a guardian.  . . no, just no.

Just YAAAAAAAAAAS. 

LOL, I kid. Kinda. I totally agree that it was not executed smoothly. It wasn’t. And I had ZERO PROBLEM with Ahuizotl being Bond-villain-evil. But you know what? I can’t be mad. The whole thing just had had me in tears laughing.

Mentioned it already, but this going to absolutely WRECK all of my fan works. Like once I catch up, I’m just gonna have to scrap everything and start over. But I was just too entertained to be pissed about it. XD

[bwrosas 252]

Here I give my review and thoughts on what could be the last Daring Do episode of the series. Was it good? Time to find out.

Comments are Welcomed

[JH24 385]

11 hours ago, BornAgainBrony said:

Well, a lot of Ahuizotl's behavior is rooted in the common lore of supernatural/archeology films. Ancient peoples in those universe didn't set up laser security grids to alert the police to show up. They set up pressure plates to shoot poison darts, flood the chamber with sand, or just drop a giant bowling ball on the intruder. It's understandable for "lost tribes" and whatnot too who haven't come to the modern century who still adopt a shoot-first-and-ask-questions later policy (and to be fair, some first world countries still do this). Then you have people who instead of electronic security systems, just have a territorial rottweiler as a deterrent to thieves.

I'd love to see a sign on one of these temples that says:

"Beware of Dog.
...with Monkey Hand-Tail.
And the Big Cats too."

You make a very good point. I hadn't thought at all about the cultural part of Ahuizotl.

===

One thing I'm wondering though, would Daring Do return the artifacts she had already taken from the Basin? With everything now being resolved, there would no longer be a need for her to keep them safe.

Edited September 24, 2019 by JH24

[Ittoni 538]

7 hours ago, JH24 said:

You make a very good point. I hadn't thought at all about the cultural part of Ahuizotl.

===

One thing I'm wondering though, would Daring Do return the artifacts she had already taken from the Basin? With everything now being resolved, there would no longer be a need for her to keep them safe.

I had the impression that she didn't. She just basically said "I'm not going to take anything from you anymore" but everything else is already done so I'm keeping those. Same with Caballeron, he just promised to Ahuizotl but we don't know if he could steal things from others or other sites. 

About the cultural background, I'm just gonna say, tomb raiding is bad and punishable by law (despite what the movies or videogames say), specially if the place you are raiding is not abandoned because then it's just plain stealing. Sorry Daring but it's the truth. Professor Fossil says so. Actually she didn't said anything but I'm pretty sure she would.

 

And this problem is likely because Daring shouldn't have been an actual real life pony in the first place because a lot of what she does suddenly is not as good as it is seen in her fantasy adventure books. That's what happens when you try to bring Harry Potter to real life with real life consequences.

I can just imagine how it was from Ahuizotl's perspective. It would be like  you are in your house one day and you have this beautiful painting of Jesus your great great grandma made and it's been deteriorating a bit with time but it's a family heirloom that you put in the living room with candles to pray. Then one day you are sleeping in your room and suddenly someone enter your house and without any explanation just takes your painting. You try to stop them and they kick your a** claiming that it is invaluable and belongs to a museum, and that somehow it has the ability to cast millenia long curses when you pray on it when in reality it like, idk keeps your house safe somehow (it's the support pillar). They ran out destroying your house in the process and you are pissed off, shaking your fist in the air saying things like "curse you, freaking (uhh...idk, put some racist stuff here)! I hope you die in a fire and all of you because it's the third time this month! And when I find you I'll kill you!". And then you have to rebuild your home if you can or move elsewhere waiting for the day they'll come back and take more of your stuff but next time you'll be prepared, and every time it keeps escalating until you actually find a way to probably punish those who fault you and from your side of the story you would be absolutely right to be pissed.

All this time we have seen this story from Daring's perspective and we know she hasn't say all the truth. Also half truths are not truths, they are lies, either she knew knew about them or not. I do believe she was trying to do good, honestly, but in trying to do good she did more damage to not only the people living in Tenochtitlan but the archeological places and mythical beings living there for an artifact. You are suppose to be preserving the stuff you are destroying! And, you never approached the people first to explain them why?! And even if you do you have no right to take their stuff! We don't know how the conflict started (like a feud fight (I forgot the word)) but it sounds to me that it was Daring that was like "I'm taking this, thanks! (tips fedora)".

We actually had another episode dedicated specifically and entirely to Daring's misbehavior and destruction of Sonambula's town. And on top of that how Caballeron, even if he was taking advantage of this situation to best Daring, was actually saying the truth about his she leaves a path of destruction behind her. And I actually thought that episode, trying to make Daring not the bad guy, took away her responsibility over many of the things she was responsible of and patted her in the back because she couldn't be bad, "she's the hero", "Caballeron is the scapegoat... I mean, the bad guy".

Edited September 24, 2019 by Ittoni

[Ittoni 538]

I will say that Fluttershy, being the one that wasn't biased like twilight or rainbow, was the one more likely to find the truth behind everyone's perspectives. We saw in another episode that Caballeron knows that more than lies, the truth itself is what's against Daring, so why wouldn't Fluttershy believe him if the points he's making are completely valid and reasonable. on top of him being probably a bit too generous to himself since he has done bad but we already know that, we know that he's bad, the bigger issue here is that Daring has been portrayed as a hero and is allowed to do what she does without consequences. That would also explain why everyone else was on board with Caballeron's version of the events, because he has a point! Or several. And Daring can't deny them because it's true.

[BornAgainBrony 2,397]

2 hours ago, Ittoni said:

I had the impression that she didn't. She just basically said "I'm not going to take anything from you anymore" but everything else is already done so I'm keeping those. Same with Caballeron, he just promised to Ahuizotl but we don't know if he could steal things from others or other sites. 

This was something I was thinking about and it's too bad it didn't happen but I would have loved to see some kind of compromise with this. I wish we knew if Cabaleron was telling the truth about the museum he was trying to fund. Based on other things he said while forced to honesty though I can't see any reason why this couldn't have been the case at some point. That would have been pretty cute actually if he started out in his profession with much higher ideals and fell into corruption because the playing field was so much more cutthroat than he could have imagined.

But it would have been really cool if they agreed to bring the loot back, but with an interesting set of conditions. Restoring one of the temples that Daring Do wrecked and make a living museum out of it that all three parties have a vested interest in. The modern world brings the state-of-the-art security to protect against thieves. Ahuizotl can be the curator. Daring Do and Cabaleron are giving tours and doing research. The henchponies are doing extra security. Granted, with the way things were going now that Ahizotl is a celebrity, such a thing could have easily happened not far into the future.

 

2 hours ago, Ittoni said:

All this time we have seen this story from Daring's perspective and we know she hasn't say all the truth. Also half truths are not truths, they are lies, either she knew knew about them or not. I do believe she was trying to do good, honestly, but in trying to do good she did more damage to not only the people living in Tenochtitlan but the archeological places and mythical beings living there for an artifact. You are suppose to be preserving the stuff you are destroying! And, you never approached the people first to explain them why?! And even if you do you have no right to take their stuff! We don't know how the conflict started (like a feud fight (I forgot the word)) but it sounds to me that it was Daring that was like "I'm taking this, thanks! (tips fedora)".

We actually had another episode dedicated specifically and entirely to Daring's misbehavior and destruction of Sonambula's town. And on top of that how Caballeron, even if he was taking advantage of this situation to best Daring, was actually saying the truth about his she leaves a path of destruction behind her. And I actually thought that episode, trying to make Daring not the bad guy, took away her responsibility over many of the things she was responsible of and patted her in the back because she couldn't be bad, "she's the hero", "Caballeron is the scapegoat... I mean, the bad guy".

Being that Daring Do is so heavily inspired by Indiana Jones, I'm really not too surprised that this happened. Leave it to FiM though to encourage the audience to look deeper into what's going on. Indiana Jones is guilty of this same behavior, using self-righteous as an excuse to commit some rather dirty crimes. Fortunately, we're given other reasons to like him, because he's the only thing preventing the freaking Nazis from getting their hands on a supernatural fusion cannon; and he'll initiate total anarchy to break up a child-slave operation. But when the fate of the world isn't hanging in the balance, his moral high ground disappears and he goes from super hero to scoundrel. I had always figured the relationship between Daring and Cabaleron was plucked right from the first ten to fifteen minutes of "Last Crusade," but never thought the huge gray area of the whole thing would ever be addressed. It certainly wasn't in Indiana Jones. "This should be in a museum" is the only argument he has to justify him stealing from treasure hunters (a group of four, by the way). He's so confident he's in the right that he even goes so far as to get the sheriff involved. But the sheriff knows the law, and gives the artifact back to its rightful owners. Even that isn't enough to sway Indy though, and well into his adult life, he steals the item again from the same people!

"Daring Don't" having literal Aztec ponies involved, makes things pretty dark. It's actually amazing that we're given a literal battle between our "heroes" and the natives to retrieve artifacts that as far as we can tell, are their property anyway. The only argument the 'good guys' have is concern about the "curse of searing heat." But when the local population is working with Ahuizotl to make this happen, Daring Do plus the Mane 6 are JUSTIFIED in ATTACKING them to prevent it? This just screams first-world elitism and tiptoes into the mindset that powers colonialism. "Oh, you poor primitive savages, you don't know what's good for you. But we do, so let us help. Oh no... we INSIST. Either comply or things are going to get ugly." They're meddling in affairs they essentially have no clue about, except for what's written in the novels, and as we know now, Daring Do is not the ultimate authority on such matters.

All of that said, the only thing that saddens me about all of this, is they could have completed the Indiana Jones formula here. Show Daring Do as less than a hero, and THEN bring Hitler into it. "But BornAgainBrony, there's no Hitler in FiM." No, but there was something just as good. Grogar. Twice there was an opportunity there. Grogar wanted his bell. That arc got handed over to the "legion of doom" and it was a wonderful episode, so we'll leave that alone. But Grogar shows up again, not knowing they have the bell, and says that he's found the location of another artifact that he can use instead. This was the perfect chance to give Daring Do a shot at literally saving the world in a "race to the treasure" story, and I was hoping it would involve an alliance between Daring Do and Cabaleron once they realized what was at stake. Bringing Ahuizotl into the mix had never even crossed my mind, but that would have been even more entertaining. But, time constraints. There's no way they could've done all of that in a half hour.

 

 

[Lambdadelta 1,462]

I actually enjoyed this ep until Ahuizolt explain his story. If Nicole wrote Ahuizolt story more carefully, this ep could be the best Daring Do episode ever. Writers in later stage of the series prioritize "reform" first then come up with "coherent story" later. The successful of Sunset Shimmer's reformation then following up with Starlight Glimmer's redemption arc gave the staffs a very bad habit. 

[Senko 459]

3 hours ago, Lambdadelta said:

I actually enjoyed this ep until Ahuizolt explain his story. If Nicole wrote Ahuizolt story more carefully, this ep could be the best Daring Do episode ever. Writers in later stage of the series prioritize "reform" first then come up with "coherent story" later. The successful of Sunset Shimmer's reformation then following up with Starlight Glimmer's redemption arc gave the staffs a very bad habit. 

It's not just reform there's been quite a few cases in season 9 where it's felt they've decided on what they want the story to be then just mashed the characters in around it changing them to fit rather than working from the characters to try and tell the story. Look at the way so many characters have had their personalities or character growth regressed to match the tale they want to tell. Just take Celestia and Luna along with their apparent mid-life crisis making them want to retire right now and not only have Twilight take over running the country when she's still got a lot to learn there but also take over raising and lowering the sun/moon. Something that is their cutie mark and they've been shown to have fun with in the past. The story they want to tell is Twilight takes over so they alter the characters of Celestia and Luna to fit.

Edited September 24, 2019 by Senko