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Meet Ms. Daring Do, the strong and clever head of the Royal Canterlot University Department of Equinology. She has made it her mission in life to learn everything she can about the long lost civilizations of the world, by hunting down their treasures, great and small, and preserving them back at the Canterlot University. But unfortunately for her the mysterious Ahuizotl is out to get them first for aims that aren't clear to anyone, least of all Ms. Do herself...

The Adventures Of Daring Do is a series of Adventure/Action/Fantasy novels written by a secretive author under a variety of pen names and published by Polo House, Inc. in Canterlot. The books are written in a Anachronic Order, starting close to the beginning of Do's adventuring career, and then skipping around the various missions and adventures, with little to no explanation. Bits and pieces of Do's backstory have been revealed but nothing concrete; there also appears to be a Myth Arc, but it seems to be happening out of order.

This is largely attributed to the strange manner in which the books were published: the manuscript of the first published book Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone was found in a desk drawer at the back of the Canterlot Royal Library by acclaimed Editor and Literary agent Hard Cover. Later more and more such manuscripts began turning up in the Library until eventually all sixteen Daring Do books were published. According to Polo's spokesmen they began regular correspondence with the author (who would occasionally be referred to as T. Ropers by Polo House because the manuscripts were bound in teal-colored rope when discovered, though this is little more than an unofficial nickname) directly at some time early in the series's release. The "Core Sixteen" make up a loose canon; though numerous Expanded Universe/Spinoffs exist, many fans refuse to accept them as canon. The stories quickly became one of the most well-known classics in modern Equestrian literature, and are popular with grade-school pony classes. There's also a large adult fanbase as well; Princess Celestia herself has even praised the series. It is as of yet unknown if the series as a whole is complete or if further volumes will be "found".

Over the decades since the original author stopped publishing, Polo House noticed there was still an insatiable demand for new Daring Do works. As such, they started allowing authors to publish novels starring the eponymous heroine. However, to insulate Polo House from potential backlash (especially if new manuscripts are "discovered"), the Daring Do Expanded Universe initially existed separately from the main series (using it as the starting point), and even from each other (though there are various "continuity families". However, thanks to an increasing number of collaborative works, the Expanded Universe is becoming increasingly more connected).

Please note: to avoid any Canternet Backlash regarding Mahavir/Mahiavar's name in these descriptions, we will be using the spelling that corresponds to the earliest appearance of the name in the first print of the relevant book. This is to help avoid confusion like in Scepter Of The Chaos Beast where his name alternates almost every time it appears and even between print runs^note The author assures us this is intentional. THIS IS FINAL!!!

There is also a series of shorter Daring Do stories aimed at young foals called The Young Adventures of Daring Do which take place prior to the main series, though whether these are in continuity, or even done by the same author is hotly debated amongst fans (as is the rumor that Princess Luna, since her return, likes to read them aloud to her friends and one of her toys).

Gene Trottenberry has written a sci-fi series on Daring, called Star Quest. Originally a trilogy, he announced he planned two more stories.

There is also a seven-part arc written by an anonymous contributor known by the pen-name "Ghost Writer", Blood Diamonds is very much intended for more mature audiences. Due to the sheer grimness of the series and the fact that most of the established cast beyond Daring herself rarely appear in favor of entirely new characters, the series is mostly underground, but managed to hold enough of a readership to stay going strong, despite its controversial content.

Starsong Turner is writing a series of books on Shūbidū, who is the Seapony mayor at the time of Trident. She says that at the time of the first book, Shūbidū has just come of age.

Several Equestrian magazines across the world have published short stories about our favorite adventurer. Many are accepted as canon by fans, though some, fans prefer to pretend were never published. Most of these stories can also be found in the recently-published anthology, Scenes from a Pith Helmet. This is an incomplete list. Please add any that are missing.

For a short time, there was a comic book series by Mareval about the hero, but it was critically panned and only lasted ten issues. More recently, a run of Daring Do issues were greenlit by Darkpony Comics and a team of enterprising young ponies, who shall remain nameless, were able to get their hooves on large amounts of conceptual material and press releases. A DC representative could not be reached for comment. The fandom is unsure what to make of some of the ideas they have seen thus far; one half is interested in seeing Daring Do adapted to a new medium while the other is concerned that the character may change from an Adventurer Equinologist to some kind of alien superpony who was sent away from her dying homeworld as a foal.

There were also several comics in the weekly Disneigh Adventures magazine under the name "Diamond Daring", featuring Daring being turned into a Diamond Dog by Ahuizotl and her quest to become a pony again. The series is purely comedy, with rarely any drama. Despite being written with an extreme dose of Lighter and Softer, the comics are praised for their witty writing and subtle adult humor. Several readers have billed them as, "the Animaniacs of Daring Do comics. There are a total of four arcs at the moment, but the writers for Disneigh Adventures have confirmed there will be more in the future.

As apart of the...stranger media, Taclopyuki Ishikawa, electronic musician and noted Daring Do fan, has collaberated with SoyAnimation and produced several songs with accompanying music videos about Daring Do's adventures. Despite the heavy dose of Soundtrack Dissonance (all the songs are electronic, despite the universe taking place long before it even existed), reception has been positive. Praise has gone to the stellar animation, high-quaility music, and packing in so much action and emotion into a single video that it heavily averts It's Short, so It Sucks .

Several authors were curious about some of Daren's adventures mentioned in the main series, so they opted to create their own takes on them.

Shortly after the publication of Daring Do and the Universal Cracks, author Muffin Parcels was granted permission by Polo House to rewrite and publish her three Zapapple Tock AU fics, as these had inspired the chapters set in the alternate universe in which Daring was killed instead of Zapapple. Muffin Parcels has confirmed that if sales are successful, she will continue the series with wholly original stories.

There have been art books and collectible books dedicated to Daring Do under Polo House, Inc. High budget Broncway stage adaptions have been made based on the first four books, starring Hairerion Trot in the title role. A fifth had been in Development Hell for some time, as the Applewood film series (also starring Trot, though almost none of the other stage actors) started shortly after the closing of Wooden Mask and the filming schedule left Trot unavailable. The Broncway series was revived last year with Alicorn's Shadow, albeit with Shauna Flankery taking over the lead role.

Applewood also recently did a remastered rerelease of Sapphire Stone, but excessive use of the magic effects budget as well as several other changes has given it mixed reviews. There have also been several radio plays done for each book in the canon series as well as numerous lesser stage adaptations.

The series has spawned a wide variety of video games, beginning with an arcade machine called Daring Do and the Bauble of Mystery, released after Curse of the Yeti was published. It isn't very good and is not canon in the slightest, although it has produced a number of in-jokes and memes in the Daring Do fandom. A later trilogy of graphic adventures, all original stories, were released between the publication of Cove of Candles and Legacy of Nightmare Moon, by Siyegua. These were notorious for several Unwinnable by Design Guide Dang Its.

More recently, Telltail Games announced two seasons of four Episodic Games. The first consisted of adaptations of books in the original canon: Sapphire Stone, Wooden Mask, Trident of the Seaponies (slightly re-written to be later in the timeline than the book was) and Ring of the Marengeti. These were largely praised for their voice acting and writing, with a lot of Adaptation Expansion, but criticised for unchallenging puzzles. Telltail have announced that they will work to correct this aspect in the second season, which will consist of original stories. The first announced title for Season 2 is Daring Do and the Fate of Atlatigo. Another videogame company, PAL Laboratories, announced that they're working on a more action packed platformer called Daring Do and the Great Cave Offensive which takes place on a completely separate continuity from the Telltail games and apparently the books as well.

Colt Disneigh Studios has recently announced the production of two Daring Do animated features, one based on the leaked Children of Primus, the other an entirely original story called Daring Do and the Monkey King. Both features scripted by author Terri Prancett. They are both scheduled for release at next Nightmare Night.

Currently being adapted as a Radio Play for Celestia Radio, by Pony in a Box Productions.

The Third Griffon-Diamond Dog War is heavily alluded to in many of the works. This prequel proceeds to give into the assorted adventures of the veterans of this conflict. It is divided into several sections.

Also, there's a drinking game now. Try at your own risk.

For more information on this classic series of Equestrian literature, ^{click here.} This title is not real and is actually a page for fun, inspired by a Show Within a Show book introduced in the episode "Read It And Weep" from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Add whatever you like so long as it fits into at least the first book of the series (from the episode), and make sure it fits in the genre. Keep in mind also that the readers in the world of Equestria, and possibly the author, are ponies, and edit your entries accordingly. Tropers have decided to STICK WITH THE 16-VOLUME MAXIMUM NUMBER OF VOLUMES FOR THE CANON STORY, since there were 16 books on the shelf Twilight got it from, and adding more and more volumes would make this page too long and confuse new tropers. Tropers can add Expanded Universe material with a bit more leniency, as long as they clearly identify such additions as Expanded Universe titles. Please remember that Daring Do Expanded Universe works are not mandated to be consistent with each other (similar to the Star Trek Expanded Universe).

Has a developing character sheet and a Famous Last Words list.

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This Series contains examples of:

• Action Mare: Who else but the eponymous pony herself?
  • Derring kicks almost as much flank as Daring when she really wants to.
  • As does Outback Jack.
  • And Irene Saddler could give them both a run for their money.
• Accidental Marriage: Stongly implied, but never made explicit. See Noodle Incident below.
• Adaptation Decay: The inevitable result (to varying degrees) when the stories are brought to stage, radio, film, and comics. Some particularly picky ponies refuse to read or listen to any of the spinoffs.
• Adaptation Distillation: The stated intention of the new Daring Do Adventures radioplay by Pony in a Box Productions
• Advanced Ancient Acropolis: The Ancient Pegasus cloud ruins of Cloudyon in Cloud-Held Eternity seem like this. It certainly has technology that would not be developed for centuries.
• Adventurer Archaeologist: Daring Do. Quite possibly the most famous in Equestrian literature.
  • The entire Do family has a history of it.
• Alas, Poor Villain: When Inferno believed Ahuizotl smashed her egg, she went on a rampage forcing the fleet called in as reinforcements to shoot her down. When Daring showed that the egg was fine, she said she was sorry, and asked Daring to keep it safe before collapsing.
  • In Mirror Pond, being forced to admit the truth Greyhoof has been evading for so long to create the Cutie Pox cure (and realizing there was one) broke him on a fundamental level. He drank himself to death right afterwards, using a combination of some 470-proof hard apple cider and a torch.
• Alien Geometries: Steam Whistle's workshop. The straight hallway that loops is probably the tamest anomaly.
• All Just a Dream: Daring Do and the Moon Ponies.
  • Some parts of Cove of Candles are this...but which?
• All Musicals Are Adaptations: There is a stage show, and it is indeed a musical. Oddly, it focuses on the villains Sweeney Trot and Mrs. Hoovett, not on the Do family. The latest revival featured Cloppy Depp as Sweeney and Hoofena Bonham Trotter as Hoovett.
• All Myths Are True: The series makes heavy use of both Equestrian and non-Equestrian mythology, including the more mythological aspects of real historical artifacts. However, with the release of Nightmare Moon and Discord (who matches the description of the Great Beast Of Chaos in Alicorn's Shadow), there is talk that maybe the myths really are true.
  • Subverted with "The Poodonkus". That one was revealed to be false.
  • Something of a weird case in Tinker's Seal, where Star Shimmer is vaguely implied to have been a descendent of the Dark Lord of Ultima Mule. However, after the return of the Crystal Empire, scholars have noted that Ultima Mule had many trappings of the Crystal Empire (crystal motif, evil ruler, lost in time). That said, Ultima Mule was supposedly banished because it was just as wicked as its ruler, whereas the only true evil in the Crystal Empire was King Sombra and his personal retinue, and it was cursed to be lost in time by King Sombra as a final "buck you" to the Princesses. Word Of God decided to go with Star Shimmer being a descendant of King Sombra and one of his dark consorts when asked about it.
• All-Star Cast: The current Applewood movie series has a large number of heavy hitter actors, like Sean Trottery, Bruce Campfire, Shia LaBuck, Anne Hoofaway, Cloppy Depp, as well as international actors like Samuel L. Hawkson and David Bowwow.
  • Granted, not all the actors chosen were well received.
• All The Myriad Ways: In Universal Cracks, we get to see several universes where our heroes, at one point or another, failed. It's not pretty.
• Aloof Big Sister: Derring-Do is this to Daring
• Alternate Universe: Multiple are seen in the Expanded Universe story Universal Cracks. Most notably, the one where Daring died in place of Zapapple Tock. Others seen include one where Daring and her friends wield the Elements of Harmony, a Genderswapped Universe where Daring is a male, and the Bizarro Universe that serves as the origin of the Leader of the Colt of Smooze.
• Always Somepony Better: Derring-Do has repeatedly proven that she's a better explorer than Daring is. Interestingly, Ahuizotl can't stand her and when she gets involved in one of his schemes, instead of Daring, he forgoes the usual Death Trap and, instead, curbstomps her and takes the artifact. Daring must then retrieve it along with rescuing her sister. Ahuizotl claims he could do the same to Daring as well, but chooses not to, since it's more fun to struggle with her.
  • Subverted in Shrine of the Silver Monkey, when both Derring-Do and Daring Do get placed in identical death traps. Daring escapes easily due to her prior experience with such things while Derring needs to be rescued.
• Ambiguous Gender: Some books refer to Calypso as male while others, female.
• Ambiguous Syntax:
  Daring: I flew up to look for signs of the pirates like you suggested, but I didn't see anything noteworthy.
  Greens: Well maybe they're camouflaged. And don't call me Noteworthy!
• An Alicorn Am I: Inti, briefly, in Legacy of Nightmare Moon.
• Alchemy Is Magic: This trope is played completely straight with Elementum in Daring Do and the Sultan's Curse.
• Anachronic Order: The novels, as mentioned above, though some stage and radio adaptations have averted it, choosing to begin with Spear of the Windigos. The Broncway plays stuck with the books' order while Hairerion Trot was in the role, as did the first six Applewood films before various circumstances resulted in the producers fiddling with the schedule: Shrine of the Silver Monkey was moved forward due to Pony Jay's failing health, Staff of Star Swirl the Bearded was moved up due to the success of Sweeney Trot's Broncway run, Trident of the Seaponies was delayed as the amount of swimming and diving training involved would have put the film months behind schedule, and, most controversially, Alicorn's Shadow was cancelled during production due to a falling-out between Agister Jolie (Derring) and Brad Pinto (Mareton). This resulted in Mareton being written out of the Temple of Nightmare Moon. Both of these are back on track, however, thanks to Hairerion Trot taking lessons on her downtime, and Haystack Leaves being cast as Mareton.
• An Arm and a Leg: According to the legend, the Assembler takes body parts from its target during the night, and the victim later wakes up with a sutured stump in its place.
• And I Must Scream: See Fate Worse Than Death below.
• And the Adventure Continues: Every book except for the first (since it wasn't a series yet) and the Nightmare Moon arc.
• Androcles Tyrannosaur: Near the end of The Valley of Grouchy, the eponymous dinosaur swallows Daring whole before he is subdued by the royal guards. Daring discovers a bone stuck in his throat and dislodges it, for which Grouchy is extremely grateful.
• Apocalyptic Log: Subverted by Steam Whistle's journal. Both Daring and Herpy expected it to end on a catastrophe, but the last entry is simply Steam Whistle expressing his hopes that "future generations understand that we did this for them" and casually mentioning he plans to get himself scrapped once he's done writing it.
• Arc Number: In the Expanded Universe novel "The Skull of Ages", the recurring number is "twenty-nine"
• Arc Words: Throughout Trident of the Seaponies, the phrase "Sea bears foam, Life bears dreams; both end the same way: CRASSSH" are uttered by both the old oracle an during the Dream Sequence. This on its own is a subtle shout out (or probable origin, considering the uncertain time of writing of the series as a whole) of a phrase used in an unrelated work: The Awakening of the Wind Fish
  • A less obvious example is in Cove of Candles. Every clue given to Daring regarding Blackmane's treasure contains the phrase "You have to go inside", from the obvious, to the spelled out through misplaced capitalization to written in invisible ink on the scroll.
  • Two of the villains in the Expanded Universe have Arc Words associated with them-books involving The Smooze often contain the phrase "Nothing can stop The Smooze", while books where Krastos appears have "All is one, one is all", referencing his final Grand Theft Me plan.
  • The phrase "Someday I'm gonna go home" is an Arc Phrase that appears throughout the Colt of Smooze/Colt Leader subplot in the Expanded Universe. This is brought to a conclusion in The Stinger for Tinker's Seal, which leads into the Colt Leader-centric Universal Cracks: "I'm going home."
  • In Tales of the War, the phrase "End the War Tonight" appears frequently in the story Sacrifice of Alicorns, and to a lesser extent, No Matter The Cost.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Sweeney is hit with a pair before he grabs the Staff fragment.
  "Oh, come on, Sweeney! Even if the artifact's power could bring back your wife, would she even want you after all this? Would Linnet?"
• Artistic License- Equestrian History: The series ping pongs on it. For the most part the actual Royal Canterlot Equinology Society praises the series for its accuracy (right down to the number of bells on the hat of acclaimed wizard Star Swirl The Bearded), but they do note that some of the twists are impossible and directly contradict facts, most notably in the Nightmare Moon arc, where the villains' plans revolve around channeling power directly from the eponymous goddess in her prison. Ahuizotl, in order to destroy Canterlot with the use of the artifacts Daring has been collecting; and Inti, simply destroying much of Equestria and reshaping it to his liking. It's noted that channeling such power would be impossible due to the nature of the seal on Nightmare Moon and the fact that many of the cultures the artifacts come from predate Nightmare Moon's imprisonment.
  • Also from Temple of Nightmare Moon, the eponymous Temple is said to have been Nightmare Moon's main fortress when she began her campaign against the Sun. While there was a Real Life "Temple of Nightmare Moon", in reality it was just Princess Luna's (rather elaborate) summer retreat home converted into a place of worship for Nightmare's followers and served no military value during the Equestrian Civil War.
  • One of manuscripts contained a series of frustrated notes, where the author debated telling a good story versus accuracy. Apparently, the author went with a good story.
• Ascended Extra: In The Griffon's Goblet Daring briefly stops to talk to Herpy, a somewhat silly, but surprisingly competent Page for the University. Later on he becomes more prominent, becoming Daring's assistant and helping out with her research and the like. He is Put on a Bus in Cove of Candles where Daring remarks that he is working on getting his own degree in Equestrian Economy. He comes back for a minor Big Damn Heroes moment in Temple Of Nightmare Moon and later gets A Day in the Limelight for a large chunk of Ring of the Marengeti. In "The Spear Of the Windigos", although not mentioned by name, Daring complains about how a pony matching Herpy's description drank all the coffee.
  • Mahavir/Mahiavar was only given a passing mention in the main series of books is given a prominent role in the Expanded Universe
  • Swinn and Dell, a pair of traveling Con Artist sisters who had popped up as joke characters for several volumes, actually help Daring in Cove of Candles, and again with several other characters in Temple of Nightmare Moon.
  • Dr. Capacitor's cousin, Lemon Johnson, originally given a brief mention in Tinker's Seal, becomes a Supporting Character in Universal Cracks.
• Ass In Ambassador: Ambassador Hawkwings is a rude, obnoxious and outright abusive guy who only really got his job via nepotism, and who by the penultimate chapter of Griffon's Goblet only avoids a righteous beating by the Dos by claiming it could create a serious international incident. At which point Professor Storm Talon casually walks by and smacks him over the head with his prosthetic tail.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The eponymous Ring of the Marengeti is used to awaken Sobek, an enormous crocodile with a taste for horseflesh.
• Author Appeal: Expanded Universe author L. Heartstrings has a weird obsession with hands, the appendages where the forehooves would be on Minotaurs and apes. She's also very big on the mythology of humans (think Incitatus' unique ape, Calligula, or the series "My Small Human").
  • Ember Roundup is a huge fan of Feetlebaum and his City Slickers, and it shows.
  • A few excerpts from Alicorn Amulet indicates that Beatrix Lulamoon has an interest in vanquishing Ursas and the Magical Filly genre.
  • Every few chapters in Mystery of Flutter Valley, a stallion is rolling. And Herpy rolls in the Crystal Message preview.
• Author Avatar: Fans have searched the books to find a character who might be operating as one of these. The most intriguing (because the most Badass?) is Laurentia of the Red Mane from ''Temple of Nightmare Moon".
  • Another possibility is Mirror Dreams, who first appeared in Alicorn's Shadow. Mostly due to her freaky knowledge of everypony's backstory.
  • A third option is Herpy, which is brought up because of another rumor that the author's major is in Equestrian Equinology and that s/he based Daring Do off of a pony s/he was a grad student to.
• Author Existence Failure: Gusty Lulamoon was slated to write a sequel to Ruby of the Blank Village, before she was found dead in suspicious circumstances in the Everfree Forest. Her notes were left to J. Thunderlane Hurricane Jr, who used some of her ideas in Tinker's Seal and Mirror Pond.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Herpy's modus operandi when it comes to death traps. While Daring Do simply charges ahead and dodges by reflex, he tends to study trajectories or find ways to trigger or disarm the traps.
• Batmare Gambit: After losing the first few artifacts necessary for his doomsday weapon to Daring Do, Ahuizotl starts letting Daring Do retrieve the other artifacts, so that she'll gather them all in one place. He can then swoop in and steal them all from her at the same time.
• Badass Bookworm: Daring, of course!
  • And Derring-Do as well.
  • For the majority of the series, Herpy only fit the "Bookworm" category - until his Big Damn Heroes moment in the Ring of the Marengeti, which forever earned him the title of "Badass."
  • Okpono only fit the bookworm category until Temple of Nightmare Moon—see Beware the Nice Ones below.
  • Tabula Rasa as well, in her few adventures outside the university.
• Badass Bystander: Sea Shanty, see Memetic Badass.
• Badass Damsel: Holy clopping horseapples, Shūbidū in Vault of Posteidon.
• Badass Family: The Dos. Unquestionably. Griffon's Goblet and Trials of Unity both showed how unstoppable this family can be when they come together.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Silver in Cloudfall Conspiracy - Masra is killed, and her reputation is so badly tainted that the University board decides to go in an entirely different direction with her replacement. That said, he doesn't live to enjoy said victory.
• Ballroom Blitz: The San Palomino Ball in Mystery of Flutter Valley. See Ripped from the Headlines below.
• Batmare Gambit: Ahuizotl's plan to get rid of the Do Siblings in The Trials Of Unity. He found an ancient treasure that destroys (and teleports) anything around it whenever it comes into contact with sunlight, and moved it to an equally ancient temple that hosts the eponymous Trials Of Unity: a series of challenges that are magically enchanted to only be solvable by siblings. He placed the treasure within the trials and sent a map to Daring's sister Derring. He knew that the sisters' obsession with finding treasure would make them willing to co-operate, but he also planned for their rivalry to interfere with their performance in the trials, leading to their destruction.
  • Xanatos Gambit:Even if they somehow succeeded, the treasure waiting for them at the end would also destroy them as soon as they took it outside. Whether they win or lose the trials, Ahuizotl wins.
    • Take a Third Option:Fortunately, the Do siblings deduce the nature of the treasure just in time and throw it into Ahuizotl's arms as it activates. Being Nigh Invulnerable, the treasure doesn't destroy him, but it still teleports him far away where he can't immediatley threaten the Do Sisters.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Daring and Bravado, in spades!
• Berserk Button: The Ape King Scorpan from Shrine of the Silver Monkey gets really mad if anypony mentions the time he was transformed into a monster.
  • And you DON'T threaten Okpono's students—see Beware the Nice Ones below.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Kindly, forgiving Okpono takes on Ahuizotl when the latter threatens the U. Ahuizotl... doesn't fare too well.
• BFG: The Hoof-Held Cannon in Tinker's Seal. Mareton, who's very strong even for an earth pony, has a ton of trouble carrying it around, let alone aiming.
• Big Bad: Ahuizotl is this for the series as a whole, as he's often revealed to be the one giving orders to the other villains.
  • Sebastius Mareton is this in Alicorn's Shadow. Unlike other villains, he didn't take orders from Ahuizotl...until Temple of Nightmare Moon where he's the Dragon with an Agenda.
  • Inti was this in Legacy of Nightmare Moon until his Fate Worse Than Death demise due to his own plans.
  • Various other villains take this role in the Expanded Universe books, among them being the Colt of the Smooze and Krastos.
  • Tinker's Seal has a veritable Big Bad Ensemble, with Ahuizotl, Krastos, and the Assembler all fighting for control of Steam Whistle's creations.
• Big Damn Heroes: Herpy gets an awesome one in the Ring of the Marengeti when he saves Daring Do. Who knew he had it in him?
  • This is how Derring-Do is introduced in The Platinum Crown. In the beginning Derring-Do saves her sister from an especially nasty death trap and carries her to safety... only to incessantly rub it in Daring's face after the fact. Later on, Daring gets a BDH moment of her own when she saves Derring from Ahuizotl and his forces.
  • The climax of The Valley Of Grouchy involves a reconciled Daring and Grouchy saving Derring from Hammond's regiment and throwing Hammond into prison.
  • Sweetie Bottle in ''Universal Cracks.]]
• Big Little Brother: Daring and Derring's younger brother Darrin. He appears to handle the logistics of the operation, while Daring and Derring do the actual adventuring.
• Big "WHAT?!": Once per volume, and always by one of the main cast.
  • Played straight in the original canon series, not so much in modern interpretations.
• Bizarro Universe: The existence of one is hypothesized by Daring as the origin of the Colt Leader. Proved in Universal Cracks to be correct.
• Blind Alley: Dashing into one of these to escape a swarm of bees leads to Daring's Dungeon Bypass in Wooden Mask.
• Bloodier and Gorier: Blood Diamonds is this, though not so much that the books have gratuitous carnage, but the source material is clean enough that even moderately violent adaptations are this trope.
• Blooper: One of the print runs accidentally put the title for Quest for the Sapphire Stone on the cover of Griffon's Goblet while keeping the correct picture. While it was caught in time, the books were distributed as collector's items at a convention.
• Body Horror: Sweeney Trot's death.
• Bombproof Appliance: Daring protects herself from one of Inti's fireballs by hiding in a refrigerator.
• Bond One-Liner: In Tinker's Seal, To Page and Header in response to their debate on who would win between Krastos and The Assembler after blowing them up "The answer is Daring Do!"
• Bond Villain Stupidity: A must have for almost every villain in this series. They just can't resist a good death trap. It's eventually implied that Ahuizotl deliberately makes his traps escapable because he would be too bored if she wasn't around.
• Booby Trap: Includes almost every variety under the sun and in at least one case, all of them at once. Including:
  • Rise to the Challenge
  • Spikes of Doom (see below)
  • The Walls Are Closing In
  • Animal Assassin of every kind imaginable: scorpions, snakes, spiders, you name it. It crawled out of walls of a trapped room.
• Book Ends: The Blood Diamonds arc begins and ends with Daring giving Storm Talon a Death Glare. In the beginning, because of a Noodle Incident, and at the end when Storm Talon thinks she's been on vacation.
• Bound and Gagged: It's not uncommon for Daring and her friends to be left tied up on top of whatever death trap they're stuck with, just to make it that much harder.
  • In Worship in Fear, after being knocked out in mid-sentence, Noteworthy Smith comes to in Talonus' base to find that he's Bound and Gagged—and Talonus is about to really get to work on him. Although given what a loathsome character he is...
• Breaking the Fellowship: Daren, Storm, and Ghoul ended up having to end their adventuring days as a team with the outbreak of the war.
• Break the Cutie: Talonus' Mooks do this to Kimmy. When Daring finds her, she's lost in her own sugary-sweet world.
• Broad Strokes: The Tinker's Series made a concerted effort to tie together as much of the Expanded Universe as possible (except Buffalo Burial Grounds), but since Expanded Universe works were not mandated to fit together except within their own sub-series, there are a few things that had to be shuffled around. For instance, Ruby of the Blank Village and Scepter of the Chaos Beast take place over the same period in vastly different areas, so the assumption is that one happened after the other in the production order. Meanwhile, Silvia Clawson is stated to be Hawkwings' illegitimate daughter in Eye of Discord, but she's his mistress in Burning Heart. The Tinker's Series hangs a lampshade about these two positions but doesn't actually take a definitive stance.
• Brown Note: The Princess in Pink. Little is known about the play, other then it involves a costume party, the Vivid Balloon, the Pink Mark, and is freaking hilarious. Herpy reads it and ends up laughing uncontrollably, all throughout a Daring Escape no less.
  Minuette:(Delighted, aside to Lyra.) No mask? No mask!
  • It is believed that this cursed play, when performed in its entirety, is a summoning ritual for Hosstur, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Neighed.
  • From the Expanded Universe: The Song of the Smooze. It gets in your head and tells you "Nothing can stop the Smooze", and those who hear it are compelled to forward its agenda.
• Buck the Dog: Numerous times throughout the series.
  • In Amber of the Smooze, after taking over Desert Rose's body, one of the first things the Colt Leader does is screw with Gypsy Bard, who had just made friends with Desert Rose and could distinguish the very subtle visual differences between them.
• Calling Card: The Chickerufus always paints an eye on the tent he visits, then comes back the next night for his dinner.
• Canis Major: Anasazi's true form is a giant, talking, animated Buffalo painting of a coyote.
• Can't Hold His Salt: Trench from Blood Diamonds. In Swimming in Red, he mistakes Rumble Saddlon for a mare, addressing him as Daisy, and when told that's not his name goes on to call him various other mares' names, culminating in Celestia). Then he flirts with a barstool...
• Carnivore Confusion: Daring and her allies are perfectly happy with having a pet T-rex, though he IS technically kept in a zoo. Ponies are herbivores; T-rexes are carnivores. How the hay the former can feed the latter without risking the lives of their fellow plant-eaters is never brought up or explained.
• Cash Cow Franchise: By far one of the best-selling book series in Equestria.
• Casual Danger Dialog: Daring seems a bit nonchalant about all the deathtraps she ends up in. Justified in that she's been in so many, she probably isn't surprised anymore.
  • Subverted when Shūbidū has been kidnapped by Tsunami.
• Cats Are Mean: The Big Bad Ahuizotl's many minions are all cats.
• Catch Phrase:
  • Daring has "Another day, another dungeon!" with pretty of variations on that last word.
  • Ahuizotl has "CURSE YOU, DARING DO!"
    • At the end of Shrine of the Silver Monkey, when he comes to to find that he's headed for the dungeon, he cries out "CURSE YOU, SCORPAN, FOO!" Which endears him to the simian guards no end.
• Character Name and the Noun Phrase: Every book follows this pattern for titles.
• Chekhooves' Gun: Every major artifact Daring has recovered in her adventures returns in the last (in-verse chronologically wise) book as a part of Ahuizotl's master plan. Since this book wasn't the last one published it has the rare honor of having the pay off to "guns" that haven't shown up yet, as well as a few artifacts we still haven't seen outside of it. Some of the artifact descriptions are deliberately vague to allow for later books.
• Chekhooves' Gunmare: Linnet Bird, the filly-next-door is Sweeney Trot's daughter.
• Chekhooves' Hobby: Herpy's knowledge of snakes.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Besides his main betrayal, Shifty Gaze at various points robs Daring's cooler of everything in it, abandons her early into the temple after she's caught in a trap, and lies about an expedition with a different pony to make it sound like he did all of the work. All in the first third of the book!
• Chunky Updraft: The Steelclad Sorceror tends to cause this when particularly angry. Which is very, very often.
• City Mouse: Orange Burn, in contrast to:
  • Country Mouse: Outback Jack.
• City of Adventure: Subverted, so far at least, with the city of Arkhoof. Daring has only visited a few times, usually to study a book at Agaether University, but strange narrative events constantly happen there. The city as a whole is described in abnormal, vivid detail. There are odd Meaningful Background Events that never actually come to anything. A number of locations are brought up, repeatedly sometimes, that Daring never actually visits. Weird things are happening in town but Daring doesn't have the time to investigate. It seems like Arkhoof was being set up to be significant, the setting of a whole book perhaps, but it never came about.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Arthur, King of the Trots. Lampshaded by Linnet Bird:
  "What a strange pony..."
• Coachmare's Holiday: The Young novel Swords of the Sun.
• Cock-a-Doodle Dawn
• Cold-Blooded Torture: In Tinker's Seal, after making it back from the Blank Village, Mareton manages to capture Storm Talon and in an attempt to find out about the progress of the others, he breaks his wings. When he's only answered with swears, insults, and the occasional thanks for offing professor Nagridge, threatens to cut out his tongue and shove a parasprite down it. Ghoul manages to sniff Mareton out, but he manages to escape unscathed.
• Comic Book Adaptation: There have been a few. The most recent series almost reached 46 issues before the publisher went bankrupt. The best known series was illustrated by the famous artist Crow Quill Nib roughly seventy-five years ago. Occasionally, collected reprint graphic novels are released by various publishers.
  • An artist from Fillydelphia has recently started talks with Polo House to start an Ultimate Universe series.
  • Arguably the most infamous of all the comic adaptations is the limited Mareval print run, which only lasted for ten issues before bad publicity and low sales killed it. They were later collected into graphic novel format and redistributed, oddly enough leading to the formation of a cult following of the comics in question.
• Comic Book Time: Particularly blatant in Trials of Unity, where the technology is leagues beyond what was capable back when Griffon's Goblin was published decades ago. All the recurring characters otherwise remain frozen in time, although Calypso at least Lampshades this hilariously to the confusion of everypony.
• Comic Book Within a Novel: Various characters seem to be secretly fans of the So Bad, It's Good comic book Sasquatch Mafia.
• Continuity Porn: Daring Do and the Revenant's Effigy has a lot of references to previous Expanded Universe works.
  • Continuity Lockout: It also gets a bit hard to read if you're not familiar with them.
    • This gets worse for Tinker's Seal, which requires previous knowledge of pretty much the entire expanded universe, barring both the Star Quest and Blood Diamonds series.
• Convection Schmonvection: Daring Do's escape from a room filling with lava, at one point with her standing inches above it (bare-hooved, even), without harm. She even gets a face-full of steam with no ill effects.
• Cool Airship: The Explorer, loaned by the university, which carries Daring and Bravado around the globe in Staff of Star Swirl.
  • In the first Blood Diamonds book, main villain Colonel Talonus has an enormous armored war zeppelin called The Iron Fist.
  • Coco Pie's airship,The Sweet Dream.
  • Storm Talon's last command, The Storm's Vengeance, a Tiger-Hawk class aerial dreadnought, makes a brief appearance in Griffon's Goblet and was one of the ships brought to bear against Inferno in Shrine of the Silver Monkey.
  • In The Skull of Ages, Marshal Goldstar has an enormous zeppelin called The Executor. Anne Bonfire later kills him and takes it for herself.
• Cool Gate: The Assembler's modus operandi: With the information provided by its infiltrated constructs, it pinpoints the location of another suitable target, and turns a door or window nearby into a portal, which it uses to flood the area with anesthetic gas and start cutting.
• Cool Pet: Grouchy the T-rex, while not exactly a pet per se, is considered one by Daring and company.
• The Corruption: The Wooden Mask. It does some...interesting things to Daring. Rest in peace, Tennis Set.
  • The Blood Diamonds in the series of the same name give their bearers homicidal urges, the extent of which varies depending on the bearer in question, as well as which and how many of the Diamonds they possess.
  • This is basically Krastos' MO-just being around him causes it, although the stronger the pony's will is, the less effect it has. Those who let it fester in them too long eventually have their consciousness subsumed by his, turning into a copy of him.
• Covers Always Lie: The scene depicted on the cover of Sapphire Stone never actually happens in the book.
  • Though it does appear in Zapapple Tock and the Sapphire Statue, as a Development Gag.
• Cowcolt Bebop at his Computer: Frequently, especially in the Equestria Inquirer: one infamous article, concerning yet another series of complaints over Herpy's portrayal in Griffin's Goblet, incorrectly stated that Herpy was female^note In reality, Herpy was based on this article, but we decided that Herpy was a male..
• Crapsaccharine World: Mareahnee, R'ni's Evil Twin culture, in Caverns of R'ni.
• Creator Breakdown: In-universe, with Star Shimmer's paintings becoming terrifying after Earth Song disappears.
• Creator Provincialism: the Brumbiland setting of Ember Roundup's Curse of the Golden Key, as well as its heavy focus on Outback Jack's family. Though it seems to be an isolated example, as her previous book was set in Saddle Arabia and she had little-to-no involvement with the Outback Jack sideplot in Tinker's Seal.
• Crossover: Not in the main book series, but there was a memorable episode of the popular Trottingham radio series Professor Whoof where the good Professor and his companion met Daring Do on one of her adventures. No, really.
  Roseluck: What? You're real?? I thought you were just a character in a book!
  Daring Do: Real as the sun, Missy. Speaking of books, I did lose my journal a while back...
  • Daring also played a major part in a recent issue of the Mysterious Mare-Do-Well comic book series, accompanying MDW on a museum heist mystery.
    • The upcoming Shards of the Void has all three!
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Ahuizotl vs anyone when he gets serious. Except Rex. Rex is probably the only character Ahuizotl couldn't crush in a straight-up fight when he wasn't holding back. Which is why Ahuizotl later resorted to more underhanded methods.
  • Blackmane is also something of a subversion. Ahuizotl curb-stomps him SEVERAL times over the last third of the book, but Blackmane keeps getting back up due to being dead already.
  • Ahuizotl was on the receiving end of one from The Pikmin of all creatures. They were enraged that he would mess up their home, The Gardener's Garden. They literally swarmed all over him, not a pleasant thing. Counts as a Did You Just Buck Out Discord? since a single one is the about the size of a grain of rice.
  • The two golem siblings vs. anypony. Of course, them being war machines crafted by the Mad Tinker himself, this isn't that surprising.
• Cute Witch: Mistress Spark, the Arkhoof artifact thief, complete with an enormous witch hat.
• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: The Steelclad Sorceror makes these all the time. He almost never carries them out.
• Darker and Edgier: Daring Do and the Temple of Nightmare Moon (not to be confused with the more recent book Legacy of Nightmare Moon) is considered one of the darkest entries in the Core Sixteen series and one of the only movie adaptions likely to receive a 'PG-13' rating. See Once per Episode for just one example of the more somber tone.
  • Blood Diamonds starts extremely grim for a Daring Do series, and gets worse from there.
  • The Expanded Universe book Daring Do and the Coronet of Chaos, as it introduced Krastos, possibly one of the most evil characters in Equestrian history.
  • Breathing Weapons, featuring an antagonist who kidnaps griffon children and turns them into weapons, and the deaths of no less than five characters over the course of the story.
• Daring Escape: Trope Namer, of course. The iconic scene comes from The Griffon's Goblit.
• Daring Hat Roll: The Trope Namer. Averted in the first book. Played straight in most of the subsequent ones.
• Daring Ploy: Take a guess.
  • Platinius could give her a run for her money in this department. The bit with the mallet comes to mind.
  • Mareton utilizes these as well.
• Dashing Horsepanic: Bravado, and how! For example, he fought off nine of Ahuizotl's Mooks using nothing more than his knowledge of the Veneightian backstreets, a vegetarian stroganoff, and his mandolin.
  • Not to mention the fact he can hold his own against Daring in a fight, which is no small feat by any means.
• A Day in the Limelight: The first half of Ring of the Marengeti focuses quite heavily on Herpy.
  • As does The Wooden Mask, where, after three chapters of Daring being manipulated and subtly controlled by the mask, "Disappearance" and most of the rest of the book focuses on Herpy's attempts to find Daring.
  • Staff of Star Swirl is one for Bravado, with him actually serving as the main character for the first fifth or so of the book before the real Daring Do shows up.
  • The Curse of the Golden Key gives some focus to Outback Jack in the first three chapters, who is investigating odd going-ons around a village, such as new wildlife, which, as it turns out, is actually old wildlife but in newer, more metallic forms.
  • Swinn and Dell get to actually help out with the mane plot in Cove of Candles.
• Deadpan Snarker: All of the Do's have shades of this, although Daring herself displays it the most.
  • Even her pet macaw Calypso has shades of this.
  • Though Mirror Dreams can out-snark Daring when she wants to.
• Dear Princess Celestia: What Have I Done?: Hammond in The Valley of Grouchy surrenders to the authorities after witnessing Grouchy's rampage thanks to his own public revealing of the tyrannosaur Gone Horribly Wrong.
  • Daring when she learns what the wooden mask made her do.
  • Sweeney became evil because he was mad from grief upon being separated from his daughter. When he finds out she was living next door to him the whole time...
  "I'm sorry, Linnet Bird... I've been a bad dad, haven't I?"
  • Silver in Cloudfall Conspiracy when he learns that Masra has been slowly and painfully bleeding to death, rather than the quick death he wanted for the both of them.
• Death by Irony: Mrs. Hoovett is shoved into her own oven.
  • Fuergott, from the Expanded Universe, is a fire-based villain who is killed after being thrown into the sun. Screaming all the way.
  • In a recent radio adaptation of Ruby of the Blank Village, Starlet is among those responsible for murdering Ruby after she gets her cutie mark, and takes such sadistic pleasure in it that she immediately ends up with a cutie mark of a bloodstaiend knife. This instantly gets her killed by Greyhoof, and the irony is lampshaded by Roneo, who then gets a cutie mark for irony appreciation, and is likewise killed.
    • The same joke appears in the book, but is a lot subtler - the marks are described, and the basic order of events is given, but the reader is left to fill in the implications.
• Death Is Cheap: Sweet Princess Celestia, let me count the ways...
  • The following characters have actually died and have come back, either true resurrection or as some form of undead in either the main series or the EU (alternate reality versions of them dying don't count): Ahuizotl (twice, once in the main series and once in the EU, both unexplained), Commandant Rex (comes back as a revenant), Attic Fan and the other imprisoned surviving members of the Colt of Smooze (turned into soulless by the Assembler), Gas Whole, Charity, Applesack (ghosts summoned by the Wandering Whistle), Princess Sparkler (ghost, unspecified manner of return), Sweetie Bottle (rebuilt as a golem by Princess Sparkler), King Hammerhoof (returns as a Nightmare), the entire Blank Village and the victims of Sunnytown (due to the curse, they return as Nightmares or Bone Fiends, or in Ruby's case, a ghost), Inferno (stated to be a zombie under Ahuizotl's control in Trial)
• Death Trap: Ahuizotl loves these, and seems to be attempting to top himself in each subsequent book. He starts with tying Daring Do to an altar in a room where the spiked walls are closing in, while the room fills with spiders, cobras, and quicksand. They get even more over the top from there.
  • This was eventually lampshaded in Cove of Candles.
    Daring: How much time do you spend thinking up these things?
    Ahuizotl: If you'd actually stick around long enough in one of them to die, I wouldn't have to keep trying to top the last one!
• Defector from Decadence: Neighdrah pon'Jethhay in Caverns of R'ni.
• Defictionalization: Several of the items Daring searched for in the series were made into actual objects and most were sold at a Canterlot auction last year, half of which were bought by THE esteemed publishing tycoon pony J. P. Quillhorn.
  • Inverted with the Staff of Star Swirl the Bearded; the genuine article has been on display in the Canterlot Museum for the last couple centuries, and has been on several traveling tours in the last few decades.
• Despair Event Horizon: Daring spends the start of the fifth book of Blood Diamonds here, attempting to get over the trauma of almost committing cold-blooded murder at the end of the previous book.
• Dei Ex Machina In Shrine of the Silver Monkey, ape gods Margarita and Balthasar^note Megan and Danny come to Daring's rescue.
  • The mysterious Laurentia of the Red Mane gets Daring and co. out of a tight corner involving Diamond Dogs with augmented magical abilities in Temple of Nightmare Moon.
  • The equally mysterious Banizacherla deals with the Raptorians in Spear of the Windigos.
• Did You Just Buck Out Discord?: In Amber of The Smooze, Desert Rose used the Eyes of Fatima on the Smooze as it was trying to submerge her while she was trapped in the Colt Leader's body. It cowed the Smooze into returning Desert Rose to her own body.
• Do Not Do This Cool Thing: Nearly every time a new book comes out, some silly Pegasi decide to try the aerial maneuvers Daring Do does. It rarely ends well...
  • Which is why the author included the following exchange in the Young Daring Do novel Valley of Grouchy, after the first encounter with a dino.
  Blinkamena: Can you teach me to do that somersault over the head.
  Zapapple: That was sheer luck, nothing more. You'll probably get yourself killed if you try it. I'd probably get myself killed if I actually tried to do it.
• Door Stopper: Daring Do and the Ring of the Marengeti, sweet Celestia.
  • Alicorn's Shadow could give it a run for its bits.
  • Both topped by Tinker's Seal. The thing could easily be split up in at least five volumes, and each could easily pass for a normal book.
• Downer Ending: Cloudfall Conspiracy - Masra is dead, her reputation with the university board remains ruined (though not with the staff, for the most part) and and we know that Tabula won't be acting President for long.
• Do Wrong, Right: In Temple of Nightmare Moon, Professor Storm Talon catches Herpy trying to steal an airship to gather Daring's allies for a rescue, expresses disappointment in him... then shows him how to bypass the security measures.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: In Sapphire Stone, Daring's wing is injured upon making it to the island where the eponymous stone is found, and she's unable to fly for a few days. Conveniently, none of the temple's traps require her to fly, though it would have made it easier. Later books have more traps that have fliers in mind, so the author doesn't have to resort to this as often.
  • Zapapple Tock and the Sapphire Statue does something similar, with Zap being temporarily blinded in one eye.
  • Daring spends much of Cloud-Held Eternity as a filly, rendering her unable to fly, which makes navigating an Ancient Pegasus ruin that much harder. The loss of her cutie mark also dulls her instincts concerning traps and makes it somewhat harder to call on her knowledge and experience.
• The Dreaded: Anypony who has ever heard of the Assembler is completely terrified when it starts to show signs it's back.
• Drunk on Milk: Diamond Dogs find chocolate delicious. And inebriating. And toxic. Ghoul is known to snort cocoa powder and shoot chocolate sauce into his veins.
• Dungeon Bypass: In Daring Do and the Wooden Mask, Daring manages to bypass most of the traps in the temple by forcing her way through a locked door in what was supposed to be a dead end.
  • Claddie's dungeon crawling method can be summed up as "make an educated guess as to where's the exit and tear down the walls between you and it".
• Durable Deathtrap: This is normally played completely straight, but subverted in Wooden Mask, where the lock mechanism on one of the doors failed, leading to a surprisingly easy path through the temple.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Bravado turns up for a single chapter in Griffon's Goblet where he is perusing his own adventure that has nothing to do with Daring's current one at the Summit. He helps Daring get the key needed to steal back the eponymous Goblet from Ahuizotl's minion in exchange for helping him get his hoofs on a satchel of unknown contents. It's implied later to be one of the pieces of Star Swirl's staff that he ends up losing and has to help Daring recover later on.
  • It's believed that Mistress Spark's background appearances were intended to be Early Bird Cameos that never came to pass.
• Early Installment Weirdness: Because the author didn't know it would be a series yet, Daring Do and the Sapphire Stone is the only book not to explicitly include supernatural elements; the Sapphire Stone is never even hinted to have any supernatural powers. It is also the only book where Daring goes on the expedition completely by herself, she does not own Calypso yet, and it is surprisingly short, making it seem no less epic but set in a vastly smaller world than what is established later.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Tinker's Seal. It took several near-death experiences, an invasion of soulless soldiers, more Artifacts of Doom than you can shake a stick at, and an explosion that could have taken the Everfree Forest off the maps, but the artifacts were secured, and Krastos and the Assembler were finally taken down.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Great Intellect in Curse Of The Yeti, The Great Beast of Chaos mentioned in Alicorn's Shadow. Krastos, Smooze, Nightmare Inti and the Assembler from the Expanded Universe.
• Eldritch Location: Steam Whistle's workshop in Tinker's Seal. The creation and (temporary) containment of so many insane artifacts combined with centuries of abandonment has seriously messed up the place.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Ahuizotl had one of these for two books before it was never mentioned again.
• Enemy Mine: Several Expanded Universe works involve Daring Do and Ahuizotl teaming up to stop another villain from destroying the world with an Artifact of Doom, like in Amber Of The Smooze and Scepter of the Chaos Beast.
  • Bravado and Daring (who normaly compete with each other) have one at the start of The Staff Of Star Swirl Daring and Ahuizotl have a canonical one near the end of the book. It lasts all of five minutes before he double crosses her for his own aims. Even Daring acknowledges that it was stupid to trust him to any degree.
  Daring: Yeah...Should have seen that one coming.
• Equine Resources: The Assembler, who uses whatever flesh it's gotten to create new members for its army, and recycles existing constructs for raw materials as it sees fit.
• Even Evil Has Standards: In the Expanded Universe book The Skull of Ages, Marshal Goldstar briefly considers testing the power of his death ray on the lost city, but decides against it because he's unwilling to commit cultural genocide.
  • In Almost Got 'Er, Mareton gives a very... graphic description of his current plans for Daring and Herpy. Rex, Swinn, Dell, and, yes, even Ahuizotl all react with the appropriate amount of disgust.
  • In the Core Sixteen, even other mobsters hate Noteworthy Smith.
• Everypony Can See It: The chemistry between Stalwart Shield and Mirror Dreams in Alicorn's Shadow. Of course, they're too busy fighting with each other to notice.
• Everything's Better with Dinosaurs: Grouchy exists mainly for this reason. Also, The Valley of Grouchy.
• Everything's Better with Monkeys: The eponymous Shrine of the Silver Monkey has a primate based theme going for it. Including a giant gold statue of a multi-armed... bipedal thing. It then comes to life to stop Daring. Scary stuff.
  • Then the ancient ape gods Margarita and Balthasar come to her rescue
  • King Hammerhoof has the exact same species of ape that Margarita and Balthasar were supposed to be.
  • Prism Rush Presents features a lot of gorillas in the narrative.
• Everything's Better with Penguins: The Amethyst Penguin from the Expanded Universe novel of the same name. And real penguins show up in chapter seventeen.
• Evil Is Hammy: Another must have for the villains in this series. Ahuizotl is the most obvious example, though.
• Evil vs. Evil: The Blood Diamonds eventually set Wou Ban and Colonel Talonus against each other. Talonus wins, but is weakened.
• Exact Words: Inti was too clever for his own good when he tried interpreting the whispers of Nightmare Moon in a way that suited his goals. See Fate Worse Than Death below.
  • Professor Neighton, attempting to control Sobek, believes that he'll be safe from him because Sobek craves horseflesh, and Neighton is a pony. This is quickly and horribly subverted.
• Exit, Pursued by a Bear: In Ring of the Marengeti, both griffon guards are dispatched in this way. Don't buck with sea lizards.
• Expansion Pack Past: The Young Dering Do series is quickly becoming this.
• Expanded Universe: One of the more expansive of Equestrian literature. Originally, Expanded Universe works were not required to be in-canon with each other, but with increasing collaboration between authors, and especially after the massive work that was the Tinker's Series, this line is becoming increasingly blurred. Furthermore, information revealed in the Tinker's Series has been adopted as background canon for EU works, even for authors who don't write sequel material to it, because many of the original authors had given their input to that series.
• Expy: Platinius from Griffon's Goblet is Mane Retief in a less comic setting.
  • The Diamond Dogs in Trials of Unity are Expies of the three Diamond Dogs in J.R.R. Tackien's The Miniature.
  • Fuergott, from the Expanded Universe book Burning Heart has been dubbed by displeased fans as a ripoff of both Inferno and Sweeney Trot, in that she is a fire-based villain with a tragic backstory. Other fans claim that a few similarities do not a ripoff make.
  • Sterling Silver, from Cloudfall Conspiracy, has been accused by some critics as an Expy of Sebastius Mareton.
• Face Death with Dignity: Assuming it actually died, the Assembler, in Tinker's Seal. It recognizes the leyline's detonation as being (potentially) fatal to Krastos, and simply considers his duties to be fulfilled.
  • Masra in Cloudfall Conspiracy.
• Faking the Dead: The Steelclad Sorceror pretended to die and locked himself in his crypt for a few centuries to avoid everypony that worshipped him as a hero.
• Family Unfriendly Death: Sweeney Trot. Also, in the Extended Universe, Fuergott.
• Fanfare: The music for one of the plays got fillies humming it for years.
• Fantastic Nuke: In Tinker's Seal, we have Daring blowing up a Leyline by feeding it Chaos Magic then setting off a large explosion next to it. Leylines are normally extremely stable, the use of Chaos Magic to destabilize one only really exists in theory.
• Fate Worse Than Death: Inti. Oh dear Celestia, Inti.
  • He ends up nailed to the sky as a living constellation, bound in chains made of star matter that burn even hotter than dragon's fire, whose new found immortality protects against death but not hunger nor suffering, where the lack of air prevents him from even screaming in pain, with his only company being Nightmare Moon's mocking laughter in his head.
  • The Colt Leader's death by My Skull Runneth Over in Universal Cracks, as her access to the Multiverse overloads her ability to control it, causing countless thousands of Alternate Realities to flow through her.
• Felony Misdemeanor: The crazy pony insisting that no pony should play ping pong may be on to something....
• Fighting from the Inside: The only way to overcome the Wooden Mask is to let it take control of you - and then defeat it with the Power of Love.
• Fish Out of Temporal Water: Averted in the Star Quest trilogy; a mental-chronological-aclimation spell is included in Princess Luna's time-pull summon.
• Foil: Platinius is this to Ambassador Hawkwings.
  • And the Assembler to Krastos, in the expanded universe.
• Food Porn: The three paragraph long description of the grasses, herbs, and wildflowers in the Marengeti certainly got this tropony drooling!
  • And that flower garden in Purloined Stone.
• Foreign Queasine: The griffon territories use a wide variety of meat-based dishes, which is sickening enough for most Equestrians. However, wild horse meat is considered a delicacy, which as the closest non-sentient relative to ponies, makes it particularly Squicky.
  • The chilled horse brain scene can be nauseating for first-time readers.
• Fortune Teller: Mirror Dreams in Alicorn's Shadow. She tries to coach Daring through the academic portion of dream interpreting after her first encounter with the titlar Alicorn's Shadow, but alas...
  • Though Daring can at least make educated guesses regarding the visions after the second and third encounters, thanks to Mirror Dreams's tutelage.
  • She also pops up again later in the series, most notably at Canterlot University. Her showdown with Nagridge was EPIC.
• Fountain of Youth: Central to the plot of Cloud-Held Eternity.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: A part of The Cove of Candles has a plot twist turn out to be that certain events of the book may not have been real, an illusion cast by Blackmane. The thing is, the book never tells you which parts were and weren't grounded in reality.
• Funetik Aksent: Part of Claddie's charm.
• Friendly Rival: Bravado, a dark grey Spanish pony falls under this heading. Like Daring, he is a treasure hunter. Unlike Daring, though, he sells what he finds to the highest bidder. There are no hard feelings between the two, however; they often help when the other is in danger. Subtle hints have been dropped in several books that suggest there may be more than just a rivalry between them... Several fans have latched on to this insinuated relationship, creating fanfictions with scenarios that range anywhere from unrequited love, torrid romance up to outright marriage.
• Gambit Pileup: Holy horseapples, Griffon's Goblet. Daring wants to get the goblet for a museum, Ahuizotl is playing Hawkwings like a string bass in order to take over the griffons, Platinius is desperately improvising to prevent an international incident, Nimbusbeak wants revenge on Hawkwings for backstabbing her for a promotion, and Copperbeak's Nightwings are stirring the pot everywhere.
• Gas Whole Victim: Gas Whole, the Colt Leader's draconic abuser, enjoyed tormenting her relentlessly. When he eventually threatened the Colt of Smooze, she broke him, flayed his scales, eviscerated him, and used his blood as a slide down the mountain side.
• GASP!: in the original canon series the main characters rarely do this, although minor or supporting characters who are caught off-guard do.
• Getting Crap Past the Radar: Having a magical lock that can only be unlocked with your horn could be innocent by itself. However, the following line of dialogue HAS to be intentional.
  Just hurry up and stick it in already!
  • Also,
  I see you're using your pay as wisely as ever, sister dear.
  • The Expanded Universe novel Minotaur's Maze has the following Pferdian Slip, as Lepus is eyeing Derring's plot lustfully:
  Lepus: I've got to get into the vul— vault.

  • Then, Daring sees that he's still ogling them and proceeds to threaten him with gelding.
• Genius Bruiser: Darrin-Do. While he was always physically larger than both of his older siblings, and acted as the brains behind every single one of their operations, Darrin didn't prove that he had the "Bruiser" part until The Temple of Nightmare Moon where he became the only person in the entire series to single-hoofedly overpower all of Ahuizotl's minions in a straight up fight, and even landed a solid hit on the big man himself.
• Genre Shift: Chapter 4, "Disappearance" in The Wooden Mask is much more Noir-like than the rest of the book, with Herpy aggressively trying to find any lead-ins to Daring.
• Ghost Pirate
• Gondor Calls for Aid: When Herpy manages to mobilise a whole group of past characters including Bravado, Outback Jack, Desert Rose, Mirror Dreams, and Swinn and Dell in Temple Of Nightmare Moon. Even Tabula Rasa provided the directions, and Starlight lent them her airship... and Coco Pie provided snacks!
  • A similar reunion occurs in Tinker's Seal, with all of the above and more rallying together to hunt for Steam Whistle's inventions.
• Gone Horribly Right: The Colt Leader's Draconic abuser claimed he only abused her the way he did to make her strong. And she was. Strong enough to kill him at least.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Attic Fan's death. We only get to hear him scream for help while the Assembler scraps him whole while he's awake, for his involvement in the Colt of Smooze.
  • In 'Tinker's Seal, both Mareton's beating at the hooves of Claddie and the Blanks getting an impromptu lesson on firearms courtesy of the Marksmare are covered up by the book's most heartwarming moments.
• Gotta Catch Them All: The pieces of Star Swirl's Staff.
• Gratuitous Andalusian: Bravado occasionally slips into his mother tongue.
  • Most definitely a case of Everything Sounds Sexier In Andalusian. He even deliberately invoked this when pretending to flirt with Daring during that incident in Granoldia. She doesn't fall for it.
• Great Offscreen War: The third Griffon-Diamond Dog War, which ended not long before the series is set.
• Group Hug: Unity ends with the entire Do clan engaging in one.
• Ham-to-Ham Combat: Ahuizotl vs. Bravado in Staff of Star Swirl the Bearded.
  • And Ahuizotl vs. Claddie.
• Happily Adopted: Linnet Bird is very happy with the Bloom family.
  • Amber of the Smooze reveals that Short Stuff was adopted by Professor Ed and his wife.
• Haunted House: Normally a staple of such stories, this only comes up in about half of the books and two Cold Opens. Differing standards and practices for children's literature mean that their existence could only be implied in the Young Daring Do books.
• Heh Heh, You Said X: No matter how dangerous the situation may be in the Cove of Candles, Daring can't help but inwardly snicker whenever Blackmane so much as mentions the poopdeck.
• Hero of Another Story: Every time Bravado shows up except for Star Swirl's Staff he is always doing something completely different from Daring, they always end up trading favors and (usually) part ways with a little flirting. Derring is also implied to be having her own adventures while not working with her sister.
• Heroic BSOD:
  • A little past halfway through Blood Diamonds, Miss Do has a pretty bad one when she almost kills the bandit leader.
  • In Alicorn's Shadow, Derring goes through one after a particularly nasty Breaking Speech by Sebastius Mareton.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Winchester Tock's Start of Darkness.
  • A major theme after Mareahnee falls in Caverns of R'ni.
• Hijacked by Ganon: Daring Do and the Cove of Candles was originally played up as featuring a completely new antagonist, the ghost of Blackmane. Guess who shows up two thirds of the way through as the real villain? This ends up happening in every book except Legacy of Nightmare Moon and Spear of the Windigos.
  • Played With in ''The Staff Of Star Swirl, Daring spends about half of the book thinking that Ahuizotl is the one she's working against only to learn a third party is the real enemy. He reclaims his role as villain after pulling a Enemy Mine for all of five minuets
  • By the time Ring of the Marengeti came out, they didn't even bother pretending anymore. Ahuizotl's minions show up in the very first chapter, and even on the cover.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Inti. It seems that, even imprisoned in the Moon, Nightmare Moon should not be underestimated.
  • In Ring of the Marengeti, Ahuizotl's habit of using the artifacts in his doomsday plots literally comes to bite him in the flank as he is the first target of Sobek.
  • In Cloud-Held Eternity, after Daring returns to her normal age and saves Shifty Gaze from the crumbling architecture of Cloudyon, he tries to throw her back into the Fountain of Youth, only for an expectant Daring to dodge and cause him to fall in himself.
• Hotter and Sexier: The rather infamous erotic comic series by John Poniesco.
• Howling To The Night
• "I Want" Song: Mirror Dreams gets one in the Broncway verison of Alicorn's Shadow.
• I'm An Equinitarian/I Ate What?: The evil baker Sweeney Trot from Staff of Star Swirl the Bearded made everypony in Trottingham unwitting cannibals.
  • He only got found out when Professor Storm Talon, finally getting around to having his leg re-adjusted after mis-aligning it in Temple of Nightmare Moon, pointed out that he could taste fresh horse meat in the cupcakes and while as a griffon that's not a problem, it was supposed to be illegal to sell meat-based products in Equestria without clearly labeling them (most meat-based foods being pet food anyway).
  • Explain Explain Oh Horseapples: Daring notes that "That doesn't make any sense. There aren't any horses around here, only— Hey! Where's Lightning?"
    • And when they find Trot preparing to carve Lightning's corpse, Storm Talon draws a knife. Sweeney tries to use the Staff fragment, which liquifies his flesh and muscle.
• Impostor Reinie Has No Accent: In the Young Daring Do Expanded Universe book Return of the Fire of Friendship, Lady Blue-Blood noticed that Lady Dove did not tap the rigging with a forehoof thrice for good luck anymore, and investigated. King Mayhem got wise to her investigation.
• The Incitatus: King Hammerhoof in Platinum Crown. He is a clear expy of the historical Incitatus...
  • Incitatus' Ergaster ...right down making his pet ape a senator.
  • Dride, the drone leader of the changeling swarm in the semi-final Blood Diamonds book, is paranoid, incompetent, petty, and has random migraines and violent fits, with only some of his problems being caused by his Blood Diamond's thrall.
• In the Blood: Darrin is so far the only member of the Do Family to display no interest in archaeology. Even then it's heavily implied in The Trident of the Seaponies and at the start of The Trials Of Unity (where he refuses to partake forcing Derring to ask Daring for help) that it's mostly out of bitterness from the Parental Abandonment.
• In Medias Res: Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone, the first novel of the series, starts off with, "As Daring Do trekked through the tropical jungle, the wet heat sapped her energy and slowed her every step. If only she could escape this oppressive atmosphere and fly up into the cool blue sky, but her crash-landing in the jungle had injured her wing and she was grounded for a few days. Few days. It might as well be a few months. Or a few years!" The reader only finds out who she is, why she was on a plane, why she is on this mission, and her relationship with Ahuizotl through flashbacks over the course of the next few hundred pages. But before exposition, we get ACTION!
• In Memoriam: Gusty Lulamoon was given a mention in the introduction to Tinker's Seal, with a short biography written by her college friends and longtime housemates J. Thunderlane Hurricane and Ember Roundup, who described her as a great writer and a great friend.
  • Beatrix Lulamoon is slated to provide one in the upcoming Alicorn Amulet
• Insistent Terminology: Outside of Equestria and other equine-held lands, most creatures use the more obscure -"body" suffix as opposed -"pony", as in "anybody", "everybody", or "nobody".
  • Also, in books where Changelings are featured as characters, they use their equivalent of these words with the even more obscure -"ling" suffix, such as "everyling" or "anyling". This becomes a plot point in Return of the Fire of Friendship, as Lady Dove's ingrained and habitual use of these words tips Daring off to the fact that Dove is the disguised Changeling.
• Insufferable Genius: Derring-Do is damn good at what she does. Unfortunately, she'll never skip an oppotunity to let you know it. (especially if Daring Do is around)
• Insult to Rocks: Using "soulless" as an insult around the Steelclad Sorceror pisses him off more than anything else.
  "I. Beg. Ye. PARDON!?"
• Ironic Echo: At the start of Griffon's Goblet, Daring states to her class that most archeology is done in an archive, looking through tomes and scrolls because "there is no large checkmark indicating the right place." Guess what she finds on the large tile sealing the Knight's tomb?
  • A heart-wrenching one happens in the Blood Diamonds novel Never Forgive Me: As Kimmy was originally to be Kimono of Harmony Sentai Ponyranger but changed at the last minute, she used Kimono's Catch Phrase, "This... is why I live out of town." When Daring finds her delusional, she's just been advising an imaginary Bad Liar about supposed "welcome signs" that she tells Daring are obviously a present. She then comments the Catch Phrase.
• Joker Jury: Trial has one.
• Just Toying with Them: There are numerous occasions where Ahuizotl could finish Daring Do off, but he lets her go or sticks her in an easily-escapable deathtrap because that's more fun.
• Kaiju: Sobek from Ring of the Marengeti
• Karmic Death: Sweeney Trot. Sure, it was pretty nasty, but you can't say he didn't deserve it.
  • Even more karmic was the death of Mrs. Hoovett. Evil as Sweeney is, she had to go.
• Kid Appeal Character: Probably the only reason why the Pikmin are included in certain scenes.
• Killed Off for Real: It seems that this was supposed to be the case for Ahuizotl, after Daring Do shoots him in the head with a cannon in Temple of Nightmare Moon, especially given his conspicuous absence in Legacy of Nightmare Moon. Fan outcry resulted in his return in Shrine of the Silver Monkey.
  • Seems to have been finally played straight at the end of Ring of the Marengeti, considering he was Sobek's first victim, there's no mention of him after the beast is defeated, and it's the last printed book of the Core 16. Of course, given the nature of the Expanded Universe works, it's likely he'll still be making plenty more appearances in the future, possibly with some Lampshade Hanging.
  • Played more straight with Inti, although he wasn't exactly killed. It's possible that he could return, but the lukewarm fan response to Legacy of Nightmare Moon makes this unlikely.
• Kill It with Fire: One weakness of the Smooze, though it requires at least six fully-grown dragons to do much damage.
• Lampshade Hanging: Occurs frequently.
  • From Cloud-Held Eternity:
  Shifty Gaze: "I just want to make sure you know everything so we don’t run into any trouble."
  Daring Do: "If you don’t want to run into trouble, then you’ve picked the wrong pegasus. I always seem to run into trouble."
• Land Down Under: Brumbiland as depicted in Curse of the Golden Key. Outback Jack, Alice Springs and other residents of their town fit most of the stereotypes, though Sydneigh residents like Orange Burn don't.
• Large Ham: Several characters, but Ahuizotl is the most prominent
  • From the stage musical adaption Platinum Crown, if the actress playing Derring isn't completely tearing the house down with the song Derring's Turn, she's doing it wrong.
• Less Embarrassing Term: In Prism Rush Presents, he doesn't wear prescription glasses, he wears a hoofin' set of shades (that happen to be prescription).
• Let's You and Him Fight: Essentially the whole plot of the Mare-Do-Well one-shot, where Ahuizotl plays the two mares off against each other to distract them from his mass theft of ancient artifacts.
• Lighter and Softer: Shrine of the Silver Monkey, most likely as an Author's Saving Throw after the Darker and Edgier Temple of Nightmare Moon and the lukewarm response to Legacy of Nightmare Moon. It's generally considered a return to form for the series.
  • The Prism Rush Presents series is a lighter and softer take on assorted infamous stories. The in-universe explanation is that Prism Rush is being affected by the side-effects of his medication, and starts improvising when the subject matter gets too depressing. The Rainbow Factory campfire story has Prism Rush start getting depressed, so he starts improvising, and the story has a happier ending when they find an alternate source of rainbows in family pictures and crayons. One of the factory workers blurts out at this revelation "Oh man! We're going to pony hell for nothing!" That said, he does tend to Cross The Line Twice, since he doesn't quite realize some of the more horrible things he's saying between weaving in and out of the story he's reading, other stories he's thinking about at the moment, and the improvisation. The My Little Shadie story particularly has a bit where the eponymous heroine is having a great time sharing a love song, but the love interest is at that point some fusion of a gorilla and the main nemeses of the Harry Trotter and Batmare series, and is acting accordingly.
• Like Father, Like Son: Daring and Derring are both very much their father's daughters.
  • Subverted by the Tocks and the Maretons. Winchester Tock was a murdering plotter who killed Rodolphus Mareton, a good pony, for his own ends. Their children, Zapapple Tock and Sebastius Mareton, each turned out the exact opposite of their fathers, with Zapapple being courageous and loyal, and Sebastius being a manipulator and monster.
• Little Miss Snarker: Linnet is impressively sarcastic.
• Living Statue: The titular character in the Expanded Universe story Daring Do and the Obsidian Sentinel. Subverted when the Sentinel turns out to be Star Shimmer's lost lover Earth Song, who was brainwashed and forced to wear the Obsidian Armor by Ahuizotl.
  • The Steelclad Sorceror, too.
• Loads and Loads of Characters: Just look at the character sheet!
• Lost World: The eponymous Valley of Grouchy.
• Lotus Eater Spell: In Witch's Circus, Somnambula keeps the townsponies from realizing what's happening to them by making them think they do what they like best.
• Lovable Rogue: Bravado, Daring's on-and-off love interest, is certainly this. He can be quite the goofball.
• MacGuffin: Once an Episode. Whatever treasure Daring Do is currently seeking to recover is essentially one of these
• MacGuffin Delivery Service: Turns out each of the treasures is a necessary part of a device Ahuizotl plans to use to Take Over the World.
• MacGuffin Title: Yup.
• Mad Scientist
• Made of Evil: The eponymous Wooden Mask.
• Made of Indestructium: Daring's hat. It's been shot, thrown, crushed, and once time even set on fire, yet still sits proudly atop her head.
  • Lampshaded in Shrine of the Silver Monkey:
  Darrin: Can't you stop the floor with your hat or something!
  • As opposed to Derring's hats, which typically get destroyed within one or two scenes of her entrance. In Trials of Unity, Daring discovers that her sister typically packs about a dozen or so extra hats because they get ruined so often.
• Manipulative Bastard: Darrin shows signs of this. In The Trials of Unity, his refusal to help Derring-Do initially appears to be the result of disinterest and bitterness, (since The Temple of Nightmare Moon proved that he's more than capable of helping out) but it's later implied that he was trying to force Derring into asking for Daring's help, knowing that their mutual love of treasure hunting would ultimately trump their sibling rivalry. He hoped that their adventure would bring them closer together. From the looks of things at the end of Unity, he appears to have succeeded.
• Market-Based Title: Ring of the Marengetti got renamed to Daring Do and the Noetherian Ring for the edition released in the Marengetti, presumably because it didn't sound exotic enough.
• Minored In Plot Kicking: Daring Do.
• Mobile Maze: Mareahnee has some in Caverns of R'ni.
• Mood Whiplash: After Sweeney Trot's horrific death due to the staff fragment in Staff of Star Swirl, the assembled individuals stare in shock in the aftermath before Storm Talon breaks the silence by quipping, "Well, I'm not touching it." He gets yelled at for making light of the situation given what happened to Lightning Kicker, but is quickly forgiven because he was getting lightheaded from the stab wound Mrs. Hoovett gave him, and thus wasn't thinking completely straight.
  • All of Revenant's Effigy. We have the Steelclad Sorceror on one side, The Assembler on the other, and the result is quite jarring.
    • The two golems seem to be masters of this. In Tinker's Seal, the two most heartwarming moments are sandwiched by either of the siblings utterly thrashing somepony.
  • In Universal Cracks, Applesack restates her Undying Loyalty to Charity, then asks what's the problem they need to solve, using sociopathic metaphor.
    • After humiliating the Colt Leader trying to distract her, Storm shoots the Colt Leader in the face in a genuine attempt to kill her, fails due to Smooze regeneration, and gets his wing impaled with a Smooze tentacle.
• Mr. Exposition: In most of the novels, Daring at some point gives a description and summary of the MacGuffin of the book (usually to Herpy). Sometimes, this role is fulfilled by other characters, such as Professor Storm Talon in Griffon's Goblet, the Zebra Chieftan Zibrahim in Ring of the Marengeti, and Princess Celestia in the Nightmare Moon series.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Sometimes characters will over react to seemingly mundane things — often when they know something that the rest of the characters haven't learned, yet.
• Mundane Wish: Daring and Herpy spend a bunch of time discussing what they'd wish for if the rumor that the Staff of Star Swirl grants a wish is actually true. Eventually, Herpy suggests that they should just wish for cake. This was before what happened to Lightning Kicker.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Daring Do has a moment of this in Blood Diamonds when those same Diamonds drive her to almost kill a group of grave robbers.
• Mysterious Past: Dear Celestia, Mirror Dreams. Even in the Expanded Universe!
• Nerds Are Sexy: Herpy for the female fans, Tabula Rasa for the male fans.
• Never Found the Body: Earth Song in Obsidian Sentinel was never found after the cyclone, and turns out to be alive, but not exactly himself.
• Never Smile at a Crocodile: Especially crocodiles that HANG FROM THE CEILING.
• Nice Hat: Daring's trademark pith helmet.
  • In The Valley of Grouchy, it's shown that the helmet is given to Daring as a gift from Coco Pie and, like Coco, it's appeared in every book since.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Thanks to Somnambula's Lotus Eater spell, Okpono is finally able to work out that mathematical theorem he's been working on for years.
• Ninja: The Night Wings in Griffon's Goblet.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: In Daring-Do Adventures #1, Daring meets her robot clone, Daring-Don't. The public outcry against this element, in addition to poor storytelling and terrible art, contributed to the cancellation of the comic.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Several controversial public figures appear over the course of the story as thinly veiled Expys (Most notably Nagridge, who is a clear jab at controversial Governor Maggie Thadder; no discussing whether she comes close character-wise, as if the animosity between left-hooved and right-hooved gets much worse, the Windigos will probably return), however the (then era) Wonderbolts are mentioned by name occasionally and Princess Celestia appears in person several times.
  • In Shūbidū and the Vault of Posteidon, Tetra Blues is a clear Expy of Trot Cousteau.
  • In Legend of the Zomponies, Dawn Glow is a clear Expy of Twilight Sparkle.
• No Stallion of Mare Born: Ahuizotl is able to acquire a number of artifacts because the prophecies associated with them state "Nopony will find X" or "Nopony can wield X".
  • It gets turned on its head in Ruby Of The Blank Village. Near the climax, Ahuizotl taunts Daring after she steals the artifact that the Nightmares will not listen to "Those who would bear the Curse Marks". Completely nonchalant, she passes it to Professor Storm Talon.
• No Name Given: The author, or several if we are to believe the history books, has no actual name except for whatever pen name appears along with the manuscripts. The obscurity and mystery behind this (these?) pony scribe(s) is what fascinates most fans to this day, rather than the stories themselves. Because there is no estate from where the rights go to, the rights to the books are currently held by Canterlot's esteemed publishing company Polo House Inc.
  • Her Highness the Princess Celestia of Canterlot denied knowing the author's identity when confronted by the press.
• Non-Action Stallion: Darrin, at least until Temple of Nightmare Moon.
  • Herpy is a straighter example. The first half of Ring of the Marengeti is all about his efforts to grow out of it.
• Nonindicative Name: Prism Rush Presents: Captain Hook and the Biker Gorilla is a retelling of the infamous Rainbow Factory campfire story.
• Non-Malicious Monster: Grouchy. The only reason he was grouchy was because he had a bone stuck in his throat, which was removed by Daring.
• Noodle Incident: The Squid Beak Clipper Caper.
  • Bravado begins to mention to Herpy an adventure he had with Daring in Lyrland involving Flutterponies, a misunderstood ritual and an awkward morning after, but Daring cuts him off before he can finish.
  • Platinius reminds Ambassador Hawkwing of "the incident in diamond dog territory."
  • From 'The Cloud-Held Eternity':
  [Daring] couldn’t even count on the re-shelving job at the library; after what happened the week before finals, the librarian probably wouldn’t want to see her for a few months.
  • Don't ask Ahuizotl what happened in Fillydelphia three years ago. You'll only get thrown in the dungeon.
    • Apparently it involved a burrito and him being on the run from Canterlot.
  • Steam Whistle's journal hasn't aged well. As a result, there's a ton of these alluding to projects, collaborators and events we never know about.
  • The years that Ghoul spent in the Gallopagos during his Intrepid Reporter days are never fully elaborated on. He claims to have helped several other reporters topple a drug smuggling ring, and Daring suspects that it's also where Ghoul discovered his second-most-favorite vice, Witch-Weed.
    • Another of Ghoul's books apparently details two weeks spent in Las Pegasus with his former attorney, one Doctor Fozzie. The trip apparently resulted in multiple destroyed hotel rooms, two destroyed and very expensive rental carriages, and a massive bill that Ghoul refuses to pay off.
  • A more dramatic one: the events and reason behind Winchester Tock's murder of Rodolphus Mareton are shrouded in mystery.
  • What happened to Princess Sparkler's old friends is left vague but implicitly unpleasant.
  • In the expanded universe, Swinn and Mareton used to date. And as of Trial, they're back together (for awhile). We're probably better off not knowing how that happened.
  • A fair number of Daren's adventures, which became the subject of its own series.
  • Curse of the Yeti opens, as usual, at the end of one of Daring's lectures, with the line "...and that is why you do not want to make Seaponies angry." This one may have been explained in Trident of the Seaponies, though the author hasn't confirmed it. This line has since become a Running Gag in the Expanded Universe and in various stage and radio adaptations.
  • At one point in Temple Of Nightmare Moon, Storm Talon says that when Ahuizotl attempted to take a class hostage wasn't the first time Okpono got dangerous. We know nothing about when or the circumstances of this/these previous occasion/s, however.
  • In Universal Cracks, Ghoul comes across his alternate self in the Blank World, who is convinced that Normal!Ghoul is a hallucination like the other one. So, either Blank!Ghoul hallucinated the other one, or there was another group of our heroes going around.
• No Pronunciation Guide: For quite a while, the base was very confused about how to pronounce "Ahuizotl".
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: In-universe example. Daring Do is fluent in a wide variety of languages, but appears to be incapable of speaking with any kind of foreign accent.
• Nothing Is Scarier: The Pony in a Box Productions radio play, Daring Do Adventures, takes full advantage of its medium in Herpy In The Dark by only hinting at the horrors being inflicted upon poor Herpy in a way that no stage performance could match.
  • In The Crimson Horde we do not know what tortures Saberwing inflicted on Leather Couch to make her spill the beans on Kimmy. Nor do we know what tortures Saberwing inflicted on Kimmy herself three books earlier.
• Not In Front Of The Parrot: It's a running gag to have Herpy or Darrin say something confidential in front of Calypso only for it to be repeated to other ponies, including Daring herself, at the most inopportune times. He probably does it on purpose.
• Obviously Evil: Shifty Gaze is perpetually on edge even before reason is given not to trust him, and his penchant for backstabbing comes with a knife cutie mark. He claims it's for salad-making.
• Odd Name Out: Most of the griffons have Badass sounding names, but Platinius has a periodic table based name. Justified as such names are actually more common.
• Oddball in the Series: Had Children of Primus seen official publication, it would DEFINITELY be this.
  • The new Swords of the Sun definitely fits the bill, focusing more on the idea of superheroes fighting giant monsters. Not that it's necessarily a bad thing, though; enough fans enjoyed it that Polo House is giving the Poniranger team their own comic book series.
• Off Hoof Back Hoof: Professor Storm Talon nailing Ambassador Hawkwings with his with his prosthetic tail while casually walking by him.
  • Daring has gotten in a number of them as well, notably flooring one of Ahuizotl’s pouncing cats^note It was the little white kitten but still. with only her wing.
  • Sea Shanty's Frying Pan of Doom can seek out those who serve evil, even when its master cannot sea them.
• Oh Horseapples: Numerous throughout the series and Expanded Universe.
  • Like in Tinker's Seal, when Ghoul, Storm and Rayback realize that the gem that was acquired back in Ruby Of The Blank Village, which would have let them control/ward off the inhabitants of Sunny Town, no longer works.
    • Mareton has an epic one in the same book, when he fires the Hoof-Held Cannon at Claddie, and he doesn't even get dented.
  Claddie: "What, did that not go accordin' ta' plan?"

  • The entire university staff gets one when Claddie finds out about Sweetie Bottle's depression, and is convinced they're at fault. Herpy sums it up quite well:
  "...why aren't you yelling?"
  • In Spear of the Windigos, the Raptorian force, which has Daring et al. pinned and doomed, has this reaction when Banizacherla shows up to kick their plots.
  • In Daren Do and the Wrath of Zeb, Erebus has this reaction when he learns that Pegasi can dispel clouds and Daren is about to dispel him.
• Old Dark House
• Once per Episode: Daring defeating a trap with her hat. It's frequently joked by fans that Ahuizotl would win instantly if he just took it away from her.
  • The above is brutally subverted in Legacy of Nightmare Moon. When Daring tossed her hat, the fandom sat back and waited for the usual awesome to unfold. But it turns out the lever that had been conveniently left in the death trap sets the villain's plan in motion and speeds up the death trap! Do not mess with Inti.
• One-Hit Kill: The Hoof-Held Cannon, one of the first artifacts retrieved in Tinker's Seal, will kill anything in one shot, according to Steam Whistle's journal. It doesn't work on anything that isn't alive (Claddie didn't even get dented by it) and even then, Herpy survives a shot.
• One Steve Limit: One of the rare aversions. Apart from the obvious Daring/Derring thing, the background characters have a realistic distribution of names, including duplicates. For example, a character named Sunny Days is mentioned in winter festival scene of Curse Of the Yeti, but another Sunny Days shows up as one of the Redcoat archeologists searching for the staff of Star Swirl. Of course it is also possible that the author didn't expect fans to pay so much attention to background characters, so it may be an unintentional aversion.
• The Only One: In The Cloud-Held Eternity, Daring Do is the only one who can stop Shifty Gaze, as they are the only two in the ruins.
• Only Smart Ponies May Pass: Many of the traps Daring overcomes require figuring out a riddle.
• Oneigh-sama: Derring occasionally has shades of this, in the flashbacks to when she and her siblings lived together after the disappearance of their parents. It's especially true in the spin-off stand-alone Derring-Do and the Book of Moon, which took place while she and her siblings were foals attending a boarding school.
• OOC Is Serious Business: When Okpono gets dangerous, you know something's bad.
  • It's assumed this is happening to Count Vryko Lakas, who usually keeps to himself until dragged in by others. In the newest EU book announced, he's breaking into various museums to steal artifacts.
• Our Mearas Are Better: Tackien-style mearas appear in Fires of Family.
• Our Zombies Are Different: Eichelhäher calls herself a, "ghost", despite the reveal that she still has a body, albeit a heavily rotted and decayed one.
• Outfly The Fireball: In Tinker's Seal, when the Chaos magic-flooded Leyline detonates, presumably killing Krastos and the Assembler, Daring is forced to grab Herpy by the scruff of his mane and fly at what is described as near-Rainboom speed to escape the magical outpouring.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Apparently, all it takes is dyeing your fur and putting on a fake cutie mark, and everypony will think you're a completely different pony.
  • Especially egregious when said fake cutie mark is literally a piece of paper taped to one's flank.
  • Also occurs in Rings of the Marengeti when Herpy tries disguises himself as a zebra with a quick paint job. Subverted by Bravado, who tries and fails to disguise himself by sticking on a false mustache and a pair of flat-lens glasses.
• Parental Abandonment: Daring is hinted to have essentially been raised by her big sister after their parents went missing while hunting down the Platinum Crown. Her father is revealed to be alive in The Griffon's Goblet.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: The murder of the title character in Wrath of Zeb is Winchester Tock's Start of Darkness.
• Perspective Flip: The first few chapters of Staff of Star Swirl are told from the perspective of Bravado, including some flashbacks to his earlier interactions with Daring in previous stories from his own vantage point. This turns out to be because the "Daring Do" who initially asked him to help her find the pieces of the staff was an imposter working for the bad guys. When the real Daring shows up again she's the main character for the rest of the story.
  • Tinker's Seal switches between each group of adventurers during their respective hunts for Steam Whistle's creations, with each group being written by a different author. Daring, Herpy, and Claddie search for another of Steam's golems (Kit Saddler); Bravado and Outback Jack hunt for the Great-Grandfather Clock (Steeplechase Moffat); Daren, Desert Rose and Starlight investigate his abandoned laboratory (Ember Roundup); Ghoul, Storm, and Rayback search the Blank Village for what Greyhoof stole (J. Thunderlane Hurricane Jr.); Minos relating what happened when Ahuizotl attacked his labyrinth (L. Heartstrings); and so on, with the various other groups (mostly Grant Mareson). With so many subplots and stories, it's little wonder that Tinker's Seal is such a Door Stopper.
• Pferdian Excuse: Ahuizotl gives one of these in Trials of Unity, about how he was neglected by his parents and abused by his many siblings. Ultimately subverted when it turns out he was just using the tale to distract the Do siblings.
  • It is revealed in Ring of the Marengeti that Nagridge had a very traumatic experience in her foalhood involving an abada diplomat who developed a brain tumor and went on a rampage.
• Phantom Thief: Mistress Spark. Arcane artifacts throughout Arkhoof simply vanish from their collections, defenses and guards simply bypassed, and replaced with a letter explaining why the item is better off in her care. A pity is this all second-hoof information and all she's done in the narrative is stalk Daring around the city.
• Pinball Projectile: Daring's hat is quite often used as this, would be a Precision-Guided Boomerang, except it never actually comes back on its own.
  • Except in Temple of Nightmare Moon
• Pirate Booty: The MacGuffin of Cove of Candles. It's also cursed.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: In Daring Do and the Cove of Candles, it appears that the only purpose of pirates is to hang around and provide clues to their secret treasure stashes. One wonders where it came from in the first place.
  • It's implied that most of the pirates are only there due Blackmane's curse. It's also implied that Blackmane had them working themselves to death in order to get more treasure for the stash.
• Planimal: The Pikmin: bizarre tiny creatures that used to live in The Gardener's garden, but then followed Daring out of there and now turn up in weird places.
  • The Gardener's Garden is actually only populated with this kind of lifeform, save The Gardener. Alongside the Pikmin are leaf monkeys, dinosaurs with bulbs and leaves on their backs, necks and heads, literal leaf-tailed geckos, leaf monkeys, cotton sheep, deer with branches for antlers, ivy snakes, a turtle with a whole tree growing out of its back... and a potato frog. He also has a dog made of wood (which he claims was bred from a wolf made of timber, if such a thing exists...)
• Plot Tumor: Anything with the Colt of Smooze. If you don't care for them, it is difficult to like the series at this point in time.
• Powered by a Forsaken Foal: In Caverns of R'ni, it turns out that literally everything in Mareahnee is powered by slaves whose taskmasters make Simon Whinnee look positively compassionate by comparison. Haytrus and Daring are horrified to learn that Daring's innocent request to up the difficulty on pon'Jadgray's Mobile Maze likely killed several geldings.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: According to early information on the Trials of Unity adaptation, David Bowwow doesn't have the build to pull off a convincing Rex, which is why his diamond-claw gauntlets will be given magical strength-enhancing properties, and he'll be made out to be a Badass Bookworm instead of a Genius Bruiser.
• Proper Lady: Linnet Bird is always very polite, though that doesn't stop her from snarking at Arthur.
• Proud Warrior Race: The tribesponies of Kuhestan are portrayed as this in Expanded Universe audio drama Daring Do and the Helm of Bucephalus.
  • The Samawat in The Sultan's Curse.
• Power Trio: The Do siblings. Specifically, a Pferdian Trio: Daring/Id, Derring/Superego, and Darrin/Ego.
  • A meta-example, the Expanded Universe writers Gusty Lulamoon, Ember Roundup and J. Thunderlane Hurricane Jr have been one since their early college days, and Ember's account of their history together paints Thunderlane as the Ego, Gusty as the Id and herself as the Superego - something she has tried to work on since the loss of their friend.
    • The three also fall under Token Trio - Unicorn mare, Pegasus stallion, Brumbilander Earth Pony mare - as well as an odd mix of Platonic Life Partners and (formerly) Heterosexual Life Partners.
• Precision B Strike: Daring almost never swears, going through most of the series with hardly a 'darn'. Then, when she finds out Ahuizotl's plan in Temple of Nightmare Moon...
  "...We're bucked."
  • Can't forget the line, "No one gives a flying feather!" from the same book.
  • Desert Rose, of all ponies, gets one in Wooden Mask, during an argument with Outback Jack over her treatment of Billabong. After getting sidetracked by Outback's reference to a confusing Noodle Incident, she snaps "That's not the bucking point!"
  • Darrin in Platinum Crown.
  "...and if [Derring] gives a buck what happens to us now, I'll eat my hat."
  • And in Minotaur's Maze, Daring confronts Lepus:
  "You've spent this whole time alternating between ogling my plot and my sister's. If either of us catches you doing so again, we will bucking GELD you!"
  • Ring of the Marengeti:
• Pre-Plotkicking One-Liner: Before completely owning the super Diamond Dogs, Laurentia of the Red Mane says "Meow".
• Promoted Fanfilly: Just about all of the Expanded Universe writers, really, though some of the more recent ones were already well-known in fanfic circles, in particular L. Heartstrings, author of Daring Do and the Minotaur's Maze and contributor to Tinker's Seal and Mirror Pond, who was previously known for a number of crossover fics and Darrincon appearances.
  • Also, Muffin Parcels collaborated with her idol Steeplechase Moffat on Universal Cracks, which both authors have confirmed is intended to be in continuity with her earlier Zapapple Tock Alternate Universe Fics - or at least with the rewritten versions she will be publishing this year.
• Ptero Soarer: Averted with the Quetzalcoatlus in The Valley of Grouchy, which is not only furry and quadrupedal, but also a ground-based hunter according to recent studies.
• The Purge: Whatever remained from the Colt of Smooze gets offed by the Assembler in Revenant's Effigy. It's implied that the leader survives.
• Quicksand Sucks
• Raptor Attack: Averted by the Deinonychus pack that attack the cast in The Valley of Grouchy. They are correctly depicted with primary feathers, including wings and a tail fan.
• Reality Subtext: There actually is a Royal Canterlot University Department of Equinology, but with considerably fewer action mares undercover as employees.
  • Greyhoof's usage of the Mirror Pond as the source of his body duplication powers was based on an incident that happened in L. Heartstrings' hometown of Ponyville.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Storm Talon likes giving swear-laden rants disassembling people he doesn't like. Hawkwings gets one for being a useless, obstructionist, ungracious jerk, Nagridge gets one for being a disruptive, speciesist witch, and Sweeney Trot gets one for being a murderous nutcase who treats personal tragedy as an excuse to hurt others.
  "You lost someone close to you? Well guess what, *squawk*-wit? You and bucking everyone else!"
  • Darrin to Derring in Platinum Crown, calling her out for leaving him and Daring without even bothering to call or write for seven years.
  "I have one thing to say to you, Derring: GROW UP."
  • Daring gives a short but epic one to Mareton in Temple of Nightmare Moon.
• Recycled In Space: The Daring Do: Star Quest series, by Gene Trottenberry.
• Redemption Equals Death: Likely Nagridge.
  "Tell... Okpono... I'm..." Daring was sure the last word was "sorry", but it was really quiet. Then Deborus Mane Nagridge was gone.
• Red Herring: In Daring Do and the Return of Fire of Friendship, Lady Blueblood does a lot of damage to any vehicles, making Daring think she is the Changeling. Daring Do as well as the readers are surprised/shocked when Lady Blueblood is kill off. After the successful return of the Fire of Friendship, Lady Sun Sparkle tells D.D. that Lady Blueblood told her that Lady Blueblood thought that the Princess Celestina ordering them on the mission was a Changeling, and was going to bring in Changelings with the fake Fire of Friendship into Canterlot to conquer it.
• Red Pony, Blue Pony: Bravado is the red to Daring's blue, but Daring is the red to Derring's blue.
  • From Goblet, Ambassador Hawkwings is red to Platinius' blue.
  • For the foreign teachers, Storm Talon is red to Ghoul's Blue, while Ghoul is red to Okpono's Blue.
  • In order from most Red to most Blue, the Mane Six Mares ^note a name commonly given in merchandise, and a strange one given that the six rarely appear together in one book are: Coco, Daring, Outback Jack, Starlight, Tabula Rasa and Desert Rose.
• Right-Hand Cat: Though Ahuizotl has a large variety of cats, it's the small white kitten Ripper that fits this roll.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: The Pikmin are tiny plant-animal hybrids whose main purpose in the books is to act cute and get killed by things.
• Ripped from the Headlines: The way the San Palomino Ball goes to pieces in Mystery of Flutter Valley is clearly based off the Grand Galloping Gala fiasco earlier that year.
  • Common in the books of L. Heartstrings, due to her hometown being something of a real life Town of Adventure.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Bend-Or and his faction among the Unseen in Caverns of R'ni, after Mareahnee falls.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: King Scorpan of the apes.
• Rule of Pool: Although the first time is an unimportant incident in Gardens of Equestria, this is used as an actual plot point in both Trident of the Seaponies, and Cloud-Held Eternity, but completely subverted in Cove of Candles.
• Rummage Sale Reject: That minotaur dress, as far as Margarita is concerned, as she sees colors differently. Given that griffons have even more cones due to their eagle heritage, when Ambassador Hawkwings' secretary sees it later, she calls it a crime against fabulosity.
• Running Gag: Most of the canon books open with Daring Do teaching a class before invariably being pulled away early to start her adventure. After Herpy becomes more prominent, it's almost always him that pulls her away.
  • In Ring of the Marengeti, she gets pulled away a bit more literally than usual.
  • Calypso revealing secrets that Herpy or Darrin told him.
  • Herpy emptying the coffee pot from the fourth book on.
  • Ponies jumping whenever Mirror Dreams pops up. Partially justified, as she finds it amusing to do so literally more often than not.
  • Bravado having found a Mundane Solution to a trap or puzzle Daring nearly broke her back over.
  • Someone asking Ahuizotl about what happened in Fillydelphia three years ago... and being promptly thrown in the dungeon.
  • Ambassador Hawkwings' obsession with how ponies pick things up with their hooves.
  • In Coronet of Chaos, the bizarre horrors Krastos wishes to unleash on Banizacherla, Laurentia of the Red Mane, and several other alicorns of whom nothing is known.
  • Various random characters seem to be secret fans of the In-universe comic book "Sasquatch Mafia".
  • In Curse of the Yeti, Rayback swears servitude to everypony who saves his life, citing a Dragon's Code. In the case of Tabula Rasa, it sticks, but only after he agrees to sign an employment contract with the university, and when he tries it in later books, Tabula has to remind him that his contract is explicitly more binding than his Code.
  • In Amber of the Smooze, Princess Sparkler's incomplete dye jobs.
    • Running Gagged: Her return in Alicorn Amulet intends to return her to her natural coloring.
• Scenery Porn: Most of the books, though Sapphire Stone is especially loaded with it, taking up a significant percentage of the book. Surprisingly, this factor doesn't usually alienate new readers, even those mainly in it for the action.
• Scooby-Doo Hoax: The conclusion of Ballad of Chickerufus.
• Secret Test of Character: Blackmane's Treasure in Cove of Candles.
• Sequel Hook: Steam Whistle's many unsuccessful projects. He mentions he never bothered to scrap them, and considering he made both Claddie and the Assembler, and the entire can of worms that the Assembler's sudden resurgence opened, they're bound to show up soon.
  • Tinker's Seal has a massive one amongst the epilogues. The Leader of the Colt of Smooze shows up at Steam Whistle's abandoned workshop, quickly dispatching the guards, and is able to enter the building thanks to a secret entrance, the location of which was apparently provided by Greyhoof. The Colt Leader proclaims that she is "going home", and the scene ends.
• Shaggy Diamond Dog Story: The artifact that Greyhoof stole from Steam Whistle turned out to be the Cutie Mark Replicator. Which he destroyed. Making the trip to the Blank Village in Tinker's Seal pointless.
• She Knows Too Much: Why King Mayhem kills Lady Blue-Blood.
• Sherclop Scan: Daring and Derring can do this with ancient artifacts to identify how old they are, what material they're made of, and the history of the area in which they were found. Early in The Platinum Crown Daring and Derring get into a Scan battle to identify a slab of stone that had recently been put on display in a local museum.
• Ship Tease: Daring and Bravado, most heavily in The Staff Of Star Swirl. Herpy and Daring in The Ring of Marengeti.
  • Bravado and Outback Jack get some in Tinker's Seal.
• Shoot The Shaggy Dog Story: Greyhoof finds out there was a cure, one that could be found by speaking the truth. The two things that defined his entire life and unlife was trying to find a way to stop the spread, and hiding from the fact that he was the one responsible. He downs all of Ghoul's 470-proof cider. Then swallows a torch.
• Shout Out: The scene in Platinum Crown where Daring tries to tell apart the real and fake crowns by using water displacement to calculate density is a Shout Out to the legend of Eureka. Unfortunately, they're both the same density. The crown isn't made of platinum, it was just owned by Princess Platinum.
  • Some of the Expanded Universe works contain overt references to H.P. Hoofcraft's Dirge of Discord series.
  • In a recent stage adaptation of Shrine of the Silver Monkey, there were statues of the Core Six from My Small Human.
  • A fair number of Sweetie Bottle's lines are references to "Do Golems Dream of Ceramic Sheep?".
• Shown Their Work: Surprisingly, Zebra culture is depicted rather accurately.
  • The late Gusty Lulamoon, author of two Expanded Universe novels, was an equinologist specializing in the paleopony period, and it shows in her writing.
  • Changeling characters usually make use of the little-known "-ling" suffix that is used exclusively by Changelings.
  • In Legacy of Nightmare Moon, one sees that "Ropers" knows her herbal remedies.
  • Shrine of the Silver Monkey has some very well researched depictions of canine and simian body language, such as Beta Max going in circles before sleeping and the head-scratching gesture King Scorpan makes while pondering how to defeat Ahuizotl.
    • Also, apes of that genus have a third set of cones in their eyes, and so when Margarita visits the tailor she sees the colors on the first dress shown as clashing hideously, a fact that Derring quickly points out when the tailor takes offense.
• Sibling Rivalry: Oh Celestia, is there ever.
• Sickening Sweethearts: In Universal Cracks, one of the alt universes had Daring and Ahuizotl as these.
  • You want sickening? Swinn and Mareton. Seriously. She calls him puddin'.
• Sickly Green Glow: In Tinker's Seal, when the Great-Grandfather Clock sends ponies back in time, the numbers and hands glow green. Also serves as foreshadowing, since Tight Ship, who controls the clock, is always seen in a green suit coat.
• Sigil Spam: The titular Tinker's Seal, a pointed steam whistle, brands every one of Steam Whistle's works. Which is fortunate, when you get to know them firsthoof.
• So Last Season: In Ruby of the Blank Village, the eponymous blanks ignored non-Cutie-Mark-based lifeforms, which allowed Ahuizotl and Storm Talon to move about unmolested. Picking up on this, in Tinker's Seal Storm and Ghoul are the ones sent to deal with the village, only to find out that the town has branched out their paranoia as a result of the incident.
• Somepony Set Up Us The Bomb: In Spear of the Windigos, Banizacherla leaves the Raptorian commander a present.
• Somewhere, a Palaeontologist is Crying: While the dinosaurs of The Valley Of Grouchy are surprisingly accurate in terms of anatomy (including feathered raptors), they are obviously millions of years and thousands of miles out of place. Also, mammoths, giant ground sloths, and saber-toothed "tigers."
  • The animal behaviors are also pretty accurate, such as ground-hunting Quetzalcoatlus and fishing Spinosaurus.
• Somewhere a Mammalogist Is Crying: In Sapphire Stone. Rats aren't predators? Oatwell knew better; the threat of hungry rats is how Whinnyston Smith is made to give up.
  • In the Daring Do Adventures adaptation by Pony in a Box Productions, the rats are replaced with sheep for precisely this reason.
• Spanner in the Works: The Steelclad Sorceror's specialty, which Ahuizotl learns the hard way. In Daring's words, "If your plan involves him then it's already a failure".
• Spell My Name with an S: Mahavir/Mahiavar of the Expanded Universe Also Daring, her sister Derring, and to a lesser degree their younger brother, Darrin.
• Spikes of Doom: Appears oh-so-very-often and every form imaginable, starting in Sapphire Stone. The only books that don't have them in some form are Gardens of Equestria, Trident of the Seaponies, and Ring of the Marengeti.
• Spot The Impostor: The Young Daring Do Expanded Universe novel Return of the Fire of Friendship
• Stating the Simple Solution: In Tinker's Seal, after the initial fallout of Rayback sneaking into Storm's luggage in order to go with Storm and Ghoul to the Blank Village, Rayback offers all his qualifications while Ghoul is trying to think up all sorts of contingency plans on how best to keep the kid safe on their journey through the Everfree Forest so Dr. Tabula Rasa doesn't fillet them for putting him in danger. Storm points out they're at a hotel. They should just leave him at the hotel and have a pegasus chariot pick him up after they leave (they couldn't make sure the chariot picks him up because they had to leave early due to time factors).
• Stock Dinosaurs: The Valley of Grouchy features Tyrannosaurus, Allosaurus, Spinosaurus, Deinonychus, Quetzalcoatlus, Smilodon, Stegosaurus, Triceratops, Compsognathus, and mammoths. It also averts this with Gigantoraptor, Wannanosaurus, Masiakasaurus, Megatherium, Charonosaurus, Pinacosaurus, Therizinosaurus, and Sauroposeidon.
• Stop Worshipping Me: See Faking the Dead above.
• Super Serum: Ahuizotl's unicorn serum in Temple of Nightmare Moon.
• Talking Is a Free Action: Frequently done in the expanded universe comic series. Lampshaded on a few occasions by Herpy.
• Talk To The Hoof: Bravado is perfectly aware of Mareton's way with words, and any situation with both of them involved will end in this. It helps that Bravado absolutely hates him.
• Throw It In: The first book in the series makes a passing reference to a University page called Harpy. However, his name was misspelled as Herpy, and fans latched onto that spelling and embraced the silly pony. Herpy appeared briefly in the second book, typo intact and with his fanon personality. Later on, Herpy returned as a major character.
• Team Pet: Calypso, Daring's purple macaw. However, he's usually kept at the university while Daring is adventuring.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: To show the power of the Scepter of the Chaos Beast, the narrative gets messed with. One way it does so is that Mahavir/Mahiavar's name alternates constantly, to the point where even different print runs will have different name combinations.
• Theres No Kill Like Overkill: To put down Krastos and the Assembler, Daring detonated a leyline by imbuing it with chaos magic to destabilize it and then activated several powerful artifact explosives next to it. To give an idea how powerful a blast this is, it's described as being able to turn the Everfree Forest into the Everfree Crater (no, it wasn't done there).
  • Though considering what they are, that may not have been a permanent solution.
• The Stars Are Going Out: Part way through the Star Quest Trilogy, something causes the stars to blink out of existence. Turns out, it's Inti, no longer bound by Nightmare Moon and having finally broken free of the chains that bound him, EATING THEM for power.
• Those Two Bad Guys: Page and Header, Nagridge's loyal minions.
• Threatening Shark: Attracted by the title artifact in the short story Shūbidū and the Ruby Shark.
• Tickle Torture: Used by Ahuizotl to get Daring Do to reveal the location of the treasure in Cove of Candles. It doesn't work.
• Title Confusion: The Sapphire Stone is set into a small blue statue, and so the MacGuffin is referred to as "the statue" very frequently in the action and dialogue. Because of this, even the most pedantic fans tend to call Quest for the Sapphire Stone "Quest for the Sapphire Statue" about half the time.
  • This got an amusing Shout Out in the title of Muffin Parcels' recently published Alternate Universe Fic, Zapapple Tock and the Sapphire Statue.
• Took a Level in Badass: Balthasar in Shrine of the Silver Monkey is more of an action ape than in Classical Mythology.
• The Trickster: Anasazi. It helps that his true form is shaped like a coyote, who was considered by the original trickster in Buffalo mythology.
• The World Is Not Ready: Minos' motivation for keeping the secret of the Labyrinth of Legends.
• Tome of Eldritch Lore: Several are mentioned, including: Hamdani Hadban's Mikrohippocon, Furler's Leises Pferden-Erscheinen, and the Barbaequus of Celeres.
  • The Neighcronomicon is brought up by Herpy in The Staff of Star Swirl, but is dismissed by Daring as being just a bunch of made-up hooey. As it turns out, the original print of that very book contains the clue to find the last piece of the Staff.
  • A copy of the Unaussprechlichen Colten can be seen in the comics for a single frame of the first issue, on Daring's office bookshelf along with Le Colt Des Goules and The Princess in Pink (see Brown Note above).
• Tournament Arc: In the second book of the Blood Diamond series, Daring Do has to enter one to get the artifact she was after.
• Town with a Dark Secret: Almar's Cliff, from Revenant's Effigy, whose inhabitants are all soulless, and part of the Assembler's army.
• Tranquil Fury: The Steelclad Sorceror at his angriest is surprisingly quiet and relaxed, and could almost pass for calm if he weren't shaking uncontrollably from all his rage.
  "Ya see, I can't afford ta get mad right now, I'd jus' tear 'is head off in a moment. And we both know he deserves worse than that."
  • Fuergott is also very contained in her emotions, only letting the bitter surface leak through.
• Twitchy Eye: Mirror Dreams. In spades. She detests the destruction of anything with historical/magical value, which, unfortunately, tends to happen a lot.
  • So, this is a semi-permenant state for her?
  • Mareton develops one when Daring points out that for all her racism, jackassery and treachery, Nagridge was still the objectively better pony.
• Tyrannosaurus rex: Grouchy.
• Ultimate Universe: As mentioned above under Comic Book Adaptation. Among other differences from the main canon, the story is set more in present-day, so Princess Luna is set to be included as a character alongside or sometimes in place of Celestia ^note how this would affect the Nightmare Moon story arc is unknown, and the Do siblings' father will be the still-missing parent, rather than their mother.
  • The upcoming Pony in a Box Productions radio play entitled Daring Do Adventures plans to make significant changes to the canon as well, while still taking strong inspiration from the original series. One of the biggest changes is that Ahuizotl will be given less focus in favor of other villains.
• Unfortunate Names: Suppleclaw in Griffon's Goblet.
  • Herpy as well, something that has consistently not gone unnoticed by STD sufferers.
  • A meta example is Muffin Parcels' true name.
• The Unpronounceable: For years, fans were baffled as to how you're supposed to say the name 'Ahuizotl'. Many were quite surprised when the first movie adaption came out and revealed it.
  • Elementum's actual name is ʿUnşur. No wonder Daring Do just sticks with "Elementum".
• The Unreveal: The Church of the Shining Void claims to have documented all the true events that happened during the foundation of Equestria as it is in modern day. The documentation is a room with hierogyphs and pictograms on the walls, floor, and ceilings that Daring Do can't completely decypher herself.
  • Subverted somewhat in that later in the story Daring is able to come back with some equipment and can read enough to get a basic idea of most of the story, though some details and the beginning and ending are still to hard to translate. She sees that Discord was a denizen of Tartarus that was accidentally released and given sentience by the pony immigrants,that he either created or gave power to the Alicorn race, and that Celestia and Luna were his top agents before they turned on him and reversed his magic to create the Elements of Harmony to usurp him.
  • In Revenant's Effigy, Steam Whistle's journal never fully explains what would warrant the Assembler's creation.
• Villains Out Shopping:
  • In Temple of Nightmare Moon, there is a brief scene where Professor Nagridge is at a bar discussing who would win in a fight between Starswirl the Bearded and The Great Beast of Chaos with Page and Header.
  • Early on in Vaults Of Celestia, Daring is wondering what schemes Ahuizotl is plotting at this moment. Cut to Ahuizotl making tea in a fez and bathrobe, feeding his cats, and reading a newspaper in his stronghold. Subverted when Rex and his troops bust in through the front door and the resulting fight ends up destroying several floors.
• The Watson: Herpy often is the one in this role.
• Unwilling Roboticisation: An ability of the eponymous artifact of the Expanded Universe story The Curse of the Golden Key.
• Unwinnable by Design: Hoo colt, Archeological Quest.
  • Archeological Quest I:
    • Forget the mirror? You can't get ye flask. No flask? No medication.
    • Can't guess the Flutter Pony's name in the time allotted? No flower. And the formula is notoriously counterintuitive.
  • Archeological Quest II:
    • Made even one unnecessary trip over the bridge? Too bad, it breaks when you make a fourth crossing and you go splat.
    • You cannot know in advance that it is the apple you need from the fruit stand, rather than the pear or the orange.
  • Archeological Quest III:
    • What's that? You didn't chase Ripper off? You're bound in that one cul-de-sac for good.
• Vanishing Village: The populated Blank Village only appears at certain times. Otherwise it's just ruins.
• Villain Song: A number of stage adaptations give Ahuizotl one of these
  • Seeing as how one stage adaptation focuses solely on Sweeney Trot and Mrs. Hoovett, every song (with the exception of Nightangale, Blackbird for Linnet Bird and Linnet Bird for Anthony Hopewing) is one of these. The most obvious is A Bit of Priest, which is sung by the evil duo about baking the residents of Trottingham into cupcakes.
  • Fuergott's ballad, Set the Rain Ablaze.
  • Both Krastos and the Assembler have Leitmotifs.
• Villainous Breakdown: Ahuizotl goes through these once a book.
  • Sweeney, after he finds out his daughter is still alive.
  • The unknown villain Claddie fought in his backstory apparently had a nasty one when his favorite technique didn't work on him. Nasty enough that he apparently didn't even try to dodge.
• Volleying Insults: Arthur, King of the Trots and Linnet Bird.
  Arthur: I blow my nose at you, you silly pony!
  Linnet: ...what a strange pony.
  Arthur: I blow a raspberry in your general direction!
  Linnet: Yeah? Well, I request that you get off my porch, you son of a silly pony!
  Arthur: Go boil your tail, you maggot!
  Linnet: Your mother was a parasprite and your father smelt of griffon droppings. Now, get off my property, or I shall taunt you a second time!
  Arthur: ...taunting brat...
• War for Fun and Profit: The reson Colonel Talonus wishes to start a huge war is simply that he is the head of a mercenary army and he personally believes that War Is Glorious.
• "Well Done, Daughter" Pony: In Griffon's Goblet, Daring discovers her dad is alive. In the following volume, her dad is an actual character whom she feels she had to live up to his standards growing up, and the volume puts a good deal of focus on their struggling to get along.
• Wham Episode: Staff of Star Swirl the Bearded has the murder of Lightning Kicker.
• Wham Line: Staff of Star Swirl:
  Mrs. Hoovett: Mr. Trot—I'm sorry—they only escaped because that stupid filly, Linnet Bird— (freezes as she realizes what she just said)
  Sweeney Trot: That filly next door—the one who—she... She has the same name as my daughter?
  Mrs. Hoovett: NO! I mean, yes, the same name, but—
  Sweeney Trot: (realization) That filly next door... is my daughter, isn't she?
  Mrs. Hoovett: NO! NO! I would never—!
  Sweeney Trot: Don't lie to me! Is she?!
  Mrs. Hoovett: ...yes.
  • When Daring is puzzling out what happened to her father's old cadre of archeologists, she assumes that since Daren's former partner Rodolphus Mareton was the father of Sebastius Mareton, he must have been the one to betray the group by murdering Winchester Tock. To readers, this would make sense, since Sebastius Mareton is a ruthless monster, and Winchester's daughter Zapapple was one of Daring's closest friends. Daren's response?
  Daren: Darling, you have this awful habit of jumping just next to the right conclusion... it was the other way. Winchester killed Rodolphus.
  • Revenant's Effigy has this line from Steam Whistle's journal:
  "After so many unsatisfactory projects, I can finally have something to celebrate: The Assembler is up and running"

  • The entire thing is one big Wham Line.
  • From Universal Cracks, after Herpy brings Daring's attention to the knocking on the other side of the Crack:
  "There's somepony on the other side of this wall... and they aren't in this building."
• What Do You Mean, It's Phlebotinum?: Some of the MacGuffins were finally found out in plain sight, and one such turns out to be an Artifact of Doom.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Outback Jack mentions two unicorns and a pegasus going missing in what turns out to be the eponymous Gardens of Equestria. They are never brought up afterwards.
  • Also happens in Children of Primus, where two of the statues are unaccounted for at the end of the book. Popular fanon states that at least one of Bravado's adventures has been directly related to them.
  • Other than Skywarp, Optimus, and the unnamed statue in The Temple of Primus, the other statues' fates are never elaborated upon, and aren't shown waking up, the ones that are shown waking up disappear from the plot afterwards.
• What You Are in the Dark: Herpy is confronted with the chance for selfish power gain when trying to acquire the titular Ring of the Marengeti and that "Daring would never know." He only pretends to accept the offer to access a critical clue in a stolen manuscript.
• ...When Both Your Hind Legs Are Broken?: The Trope Namer is from Ring of the Marengeti, when a Hoofstapo Mook threatens to buck Storm Talon's skull in.
• Where the Chaos Is Hoofington?: Trotham from Temple of Nightmare Moon looks a lot like Manehattan, but Storm Talon speaks of Manehattan as a separate city.
• Who Is This Guy Again?: Many villains can't remember who Darrin is when meeting him again, and even forget his name after a clear reintroduction just moments ago!
  • Herpy has a similar problem with Swinn and Dell: he knows who they are, he just seems physically incapable of remembering their names.
• Who Names Their Foal "Tralala"?: Blinkamena's reaction to a Flutter Pony's name in Mark of the Trickster is the Trope Namer.
• Wicked Cultured: Noteworthy Smith (from Trident of the Sea Ponies, Ring of the Marengeti, Buffalo Burial Ground, Wrath of Hammerhoof, Sad Statue, and the first three Blood Diamonds stories) loved classical music and fine art, and was a fairly decent artist himself. He was also a crime lord, a former hit stallion, and heavily implied to be a foal-mounter in the Blood Diamonds series. Nopony sheds any tears when Colonel Talonus tortures him to death in Worship in Fear.
• Woman Scorned: Mareton learns this the hard way.
• Worthy Opponent: Ahuizotl comes to consider Daring Do one of these. The feeling is not mutual.
  • Daring (grudgingly) sees Irene as this.
• Write Who You Know: Bowtie Whooves says he based the Flutter Pony Zipzee off his younger sister.
• You Have Failed Me: Ahuizotl. Failing him is not an option.
  • Subverted in Staff of Star Swirl. Mrs. Hoovett is quite relieved to find out that Sweeney won't kill her for failing. Purposely keeping the location of his daughter hidden from him, on the other hoof...
  • Talonus can't stand failure either. One of his goons commits suicide rather than face the Colonel's wrath.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The Assembler kills whoever it finds obsolete, and uses the corpse to make new constructs.
• You Shall Not Pass: In the Expanded Universe novel Amethyst Penguin, The Colt of Tirek, working for Ahuizotl, is trying to get at the temple where the title artifact is located. Daring et al. are already inside when the Colt Mooks arrive, and Odo Bahn, the ornithologist, runs out to stop them. He takes many of the Colt members with him.
• Zombie Apocalypse: The backstory for the sought-after artifact in one volume, and the (unsuccessful) threat made by the antagonist in another.

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