Deviation Actions
Daring don’t I deem a drudgery.
This episode seems to have an identity issue. The semblance of simple minded action story is there, much like the Indiana Jones’ movies it takes inspiration from, but this episode has a critical issue with who it focuses on and the story it tries to tell.
Indiana is always the protagonist of his own movies, because everything revolves around him, the story and action is from his perspective or built around him. Daring don’t has the story and acton revolve about Daring Doo, but has Rainbow Dash be the main character.
It wants to tell both a simple fun action story, but also it want to tell a story about a fangirl’s self importance issues. The two types of story are oddly meshed together, with Dash (and rest of the M6) acting as just observers to the main story almost all the way until the end. It makes our protagonist a supporting character to her own story.
Rainbow Dash’s fangirl angle is pushed really hard this episode. It’s a flanderization of her character and makes her come across as a bit of a 5 year old. This combined with her little involvement in the actual plot, reduces the impact of her arc.
Also, speaking of the actual main character, Daring Doo being an actual person really strains my suspension of disbelief and she seems to be just the awesome action hero of her stories. She is shown as being without fault or risk; She hurts her leg but that’s forgotten, she gets captured but that was her plan all along and she’s so competent and independent. Her main fault seems to be that she is a jerk but that is for her own reasons (but keeping secrets when you publish all your adventures is kinda contradictory). Which all in all, makes Daring Doo not much of an interesting or deep character, which also hurts my engagement in her main story.
I was surprised to hear this was another Dave Polsky episode, because this story doesn't have much of his crude humour that usually undermines everything, it actually is just a lot of talking and action which is an improvement I guess. The story doesn't fit that well together though. The meaning in RD’s fangirl breakdown is undermined by the more action oriented story it’s built around and that main action story isn't that great either. It tries to do two things at once and fails at both, it makes the whole thing pretty forgettable.