See this poll on: https://poll.fm/7630361/embed
Give others the chance to vote.
Share this poll, because the more votes the better.
Create your own.
Opinions! We all have them. Find out what people really think with polls and surveys from Crowdsignal.
closed
OH MY GOD, WHO. THE HELL. CARES?
I was expecting A.K. Yearling to actually be Daring Do, but I was hoping that this episode would follow the "author used to go on these adventures but has mellowed out" path and discussed how your idols aren't really who you think they are. I was expecting Dash to invite A.K. yearling on an adventure and then Yearling would decline, saying "I just don't do that sort of thing anymore," and Dash would have learned more about how people (ponies) change over time and that if you spend too much time idolizing one feature about that person, you are oftentimes given the wrong impression about who they really are.
@Beatfox: Thanks! Culture twists idioms in curious ways!
I don't think that this was even the real problem with the episode. The problem was that "the author is actually the protagonist" twist is a cliche. It is so over used that it isn't surprising or clever anymore. It would have been a lot more interesting if we had an episode where RD learned that writing is a lot harder than it sounds. Maybe A.K. Yearling could have had writer's block, and the mane six try to help and hilarity ensues. This was just another Daring Do episode that was actually far less exciting than the story in Read It and Weep, but it also had RD making a fool out of herself, which I could have watched in The Mysterious Mare Do Well.
@Charles, again, they are just human beings, and we are talking about characters that are very well depicted. With such good characterization comes difficulties, as characters are creations of the human mind. The human mind thinks. The human mind makes decisions. And there are many human minds melded together in the creation of this show. Different writers and such have different opinions on how things flow, and different writers write different episodes. You can't expect everything to fit your head canon, it is only human, after all.
@Magic:
You get a very different result if you write via the method of thinking, "I have this established character. When placed in the following situation, how will they react?" ...than you do via the method of "I have the following situation. What does my character need to do to make that situation happen?" MLP is a character driven show. They're well established and we love them. It's frustrating to see writing methods that sacrifice character integrity for the sake of compelling events to happen, rather than placing character sin situations and allowing them to react to them. "Thinking up stuff to happen" and then rewriting your established characters at the convenience of that stuff is not a good choice for a character driven show.
See tvtropes: Character Derailment and Conflict Ball.
Also, @Charles, the writers think up the episodes anyway, what difference does it make that they think up 'ideas' that should/could happen. That IS how the episodes are made after all. Do you think they just appear out of nowhere and the writers change them? Plus, they are living, breathing human beings, so everyone has different opinions on what they do, even themselves. Just don't bash the writers because you have different feelings about an episode, there will always be more to enjoy eventually.
Think about it this way. If you went up to a friend, or anyone in general and said "I liked you better when you weren't real," that is the same as saying you liked Daring in season 2 better, rather than in season 4. Regardless of your thoughts on the episodes structure, you still have to respect that she IS a separate character, not some figment of the imagination. She is as much of a pony as RD or any of the other ponies, as you are a human to everyone else around you. Really, how would you feel if someone told you they preferred you as a fictional character?
She's technically real in season 2 as well, they and WE just didn't know it yet.
I don't mind if she turned out to be real, but I wouldn't mind if she wasn't either. She's a good character either way!
Whether she's real or fictional is irrelevant. The episode was poorly written. The mane 6 spent most of if it just standing around watching what was happening. It's silly to have "Princess" Twilight watching three earth pony thugs break into somepony's house and beat them up and not do anything about it. Reminds me of Celestia vanishing from the altar in the wedding episode when Chrysalis shows up. Fluttershy even lampshaded it at one point. Th writer's need to stop thinking up events they want to happen and warping everything else around them to conform to those events. This is a character driven show. Let the characters be themselves.
This should have been a Dash episode.
@Frith
I notice your profile says you're from Quebec, and I'm guessing the usage there is similar to in the UK where "I don't mind" indicates a lack of preference for any of a number of choices. In most of the US, "I don't care" is used for that purpose, while "I don't mind" is only used to indicate that you are not negatively affected by the matter at hand.
Anyway, I'm in the "I don't care either way" camp. The fiction-within-fiction concept was cool, but so is the worldbuilding that comes as a result of that supposed fiction being real!
Should stay fictional so it'll lessen the chances of being killed killed in real life while a bunch of Ponies look on & not helping...lol
I really don't care. Over the last 3 years alot of crazy shit happend. Why is this one so hard to swallow?
So far this is a pretty even poll. All three choices over 30%, normally we would have one option going strong for the 50% and 60% already. XD
The third option, "don't care either way" is not worded right. Of course practically everyone here cares or they'd be out lurking some other fansite. It should have been worded "don't _mind_ either way". That's the way I read it when I voted. Fiction or not, Daring Do is a cool character.
I preferred Daring Do as a fictional character. I always figured the reason she was a palette swapped Rainbow Dash, is because Rainbow Dash was reading the book and putting herself into the character.
As a real person, err pony, it just leads to more questions.
Could we have an "I don't know..." option? 'Cause that is my mind as of now.
Would it make any difference if she was real? So far, pretty crazy things have happened already in the series without making a book based on the actual Equestria.
Daring do was great both ways. Don't expect to see her in any future episodes though. Maybe as a background char. We'll see.
I prefer Daring Do as a fictional character in the show. Also i find it kinda annoying how IDW's idea that it was Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armour's mum that wrought the books ruined as well because i like that idea they had. (Just a small complaint)
Does it really matter? Because Daring Do and "A.K. Yearling" operate far enough away from Ponyville that she's just stories to the rest of the pony world. And it would be hard to bring back A.K. Yearling without making some meta-commentary on fandom, which is Dave Polsky's coup.
Daring Do is Rainbow Dash's Starswirl the Bearded like Lightning Dust is her Trixie.
Just imagine hugging your favorite character. Now imagine hugging your favorite character for real.