Wait, you’re telling me that Daring Do has been the villain all along, and Ahuizotl is the good guy? Well, gee, that’s a nice way to end Daring Do’s legacy, isn’t it? (sigh)
That revelation alone makes me want to hate this episode, even though it was pretty good overall.
Except the episode isn’t saying that at all. In fact, it makes it pretty clear that Dr. Caballeron was absolutely just out to make a quick buck off of stolen artifacts (at least before his change of heart), and that Daring Do was legitimately doing what she did because she thought she was preventing some undeniably dangerous artifacts from falling into the wrong hands.
Daring Do: “The only reason I’ve been taking the artifacts is because I thought I was protecting them.”
Dr. Caballeron: “I was stealing them to get rich.”
And as for Ahuizotl, yes, maybe asking what his deal was from day one would have worked out better for everyone, but given that by his own admission he is “a little violent and ferocious”, it’s not hard to see how the kinds of mistakes that transpired here could happen, and been reinforced over time.
Frankly the only real revelation here is that neither Daring Do nor Dr. Caballeron had Fluttershy’s capacity for caring about the problems of others. Which puts them in line with pretty much
everyone else in the entirety of Equestria.
@AWGear
Yes, that concept makes no sense what-so-ever, especially since, might I remind you:
Daring Do: So let me guess: Ahuizotl has put you up to this? You're stealing the ring to give to him so his hold on the Fortress of Talacon will be good for eight centuries as foretold by prophecy!
Dr. Caballeron: Close, but... no. I'm going to sell this to him, make a bundle, and retire from archaeology in splendor.
Daring Do: [grunting] Caballeron, you fool! You're dooming the valley to eight centuries of unrelenting heat!
HE WANTED TO BURN DOWN THE VALLEY FULL OF INNOCENT ANIMALS, ONES WHO FLUTTERSHY SHOULD WANT TO PROTECT
Actually, that episode never says that it will burn the valley. Just that it will cause eight hundred years of “unrelenting, sweltering heat”. Which, given that it’s something of a tropical jungle, is probably not all that dissimilar from it’s usual climate anyway. What it would probably do is dissuade unscrupulous ponies looking to make a bundle off of powerful stolen artifacts from traversing the jungle in the first place which, given his newly revealed status as the guardian creature in charge of protecting that jungle, would probably be a benefit to him overall.
Honestly, in hindsight. there’s almost a poetic logic to the plan he came up with in “Daring Don’t”. Daring Do only really shows up because Caballeron is there to steal something valuable and dangerous, and Caballeron is only there to steal something valuable and dangerous to get paid. So if Ahuizotl pays Caballeron for the item he stole, Ahuizotl gets the artifact he’s supposed to protect back, Caballeron has no more need to keep stealing, and Daring Do stops taking the artifacts herself to prevent them from being stolen. Using the artifact to make the Tenochtitlan Basin inhospitable to most other ponies and further protect the place is probably just a bonus.