Iron Flame

Part Zero | Part One | Part Two | Part Three

Author: Rebecca Yarros Genre: “New Adult” Romantic Fantasy Year of Publication: 2023 Pages: 706 (e-book)

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Writing: 1/10 Plot: 1/10 Characters: 1/10 Creativity: 1/10

Overall: 1/10

Spoilers Ahead.

Fourth Wing was bad, but this one… this one…

Wha’ Happun?!

Okay so, Violet’s brother, Brennan is alive and he is working with the rebels. The rebels need something called a luminary, which according to the American Heritage Dictionary, is an “object, such as a celestial body, that gives light.” In this book, a “luminary” is a device that can amplify dragonfire’s heat. They need it to melt the special alloy they use to make Venin-killing daggers. The luminary is not explained nor is it all that important. Blah blah blah, Violet suggests making more wards, but the knowledge on how to do that has been lost to history. She thinks there is information in the death school’s archives. She, Xaden, Imogen, and some red shirts go back to death school where it is revealed that Dain’s dad is evil and had indeed sent them on a suicide mission at the end of the last book. Violet doesn’t like Dain anymore because he used his mind-reading powers to find out what the rebels were doing and he told his dad which in turn led to the death of Liam and a red shirt we don’t care about. For some ungodly reason, Dain’s dad doesn’t just arrest or kill the rebel children and Violet on the spot even though he knows they know. Apparently, some higher-ups like Violet’s mom didn’t know about the doomed mission even though they do know about the Venin secret… I- nothing makes sense. Dain’s dad lets them continue their next semester in death school mostly unharassed for reasons I’ll never understand. Xan is shipped out and because his dragon and Violet’s dragon are mated, Violet gets to see him once a week. Dragons cannot be apart from their mate for more than three days. Why they let mated dragons bond in the first place is beyond me. While he is gone, Violet sneaks around in the Archives with the help of her scribe friend Jesinia (who is deaf and uses sign language. Pretty cool rep tbh). Meanwhile, Liam’s sister Sloane is in death school and she hates Violet for “killing her brother.” The king’s youngest son, Aaric, has somehow entered the school to train because he knows about the Venin and wants to fight them. How no one besides Violet and some of her friends recognize him is beyond me. There’s also a new bad guy called Evil McEvilson (aka Varrish). He’s evil and likes torturing people. Homicidal maniac Jack is alive somehow and he seems… fine. Violet spends the first half of the book hiding information from her friends, dealing with Evil Man, and searching the Archives for ward creation info. Blah blah blah, boring boring boring. Violet and her crew work together to get info from the royal section of the Archives with the help of Prince Aaric. Why the king’s private archives are in a school and not his castle is beyond me.

Anyway, they get caught and Violet is tortured by Evilson. We get an admittedly good scene where she slowly loses hope and talks to an apparition of Liam. It’s good. I liked the scene. The good stuff gets ruined when Dain and Evilson show up. Evilson tries to get Dain to steal information from Violet’s empty brain by reading her mind with his hands. He instead wounds Evilson and then Xenomorph shows up to save his girlfriend. Together, Professor X and Violet kill Evilson. We can’t have our pure protag kill people on her own. Nah. Boring. Death school is in chaos now. XanXan and his friends left wyvern carcasses at all of the outposts and now everyone is freaking out at the truth. Why the government kept this stuff a secret for so long… sigh. Anyway, Violet, Dain, and the others convince the majority of the riders to leave the school and join their fight. The next half of the book is Violet and the crew hanging out with the gryphon people and training them how to fight Venin (even though the gryphon people have been fighting them for centuries). Violet bickers with some chick named Cat who was Xylophone’s ex. Oh, and Xbox 360 is the heir of Trryandor and owns a mansion because of course he is and of course he does. Cat is catty and annoying and I hate her existence. Andarna, Violet’s golden dragon, is going through dragon puberty and it’s taking longer than normal. Blah blah blah, General Melgren comes groveling for the rebels’ help because the Venin are about to murder them all. Brennan and his crew say no, but Violet and her crew say yes so they go fight. Homicidal maniac Jack is still a homicidal maniac and a Venin. I must’ve missed the part where they said Venin can turn people into them. The lore makes no fucking sense. Anyway, the homicidal maniac snuffs out the ward fire by slitting his dragon’s neck. The death school’s wards go down. Some red shirts die and then we get a very confusing scene where Violet is struggling to turn the fire back on. Her mom, with the help of Sloane, sacrifices herself to the wardstone thing and brings the ward back to life or some shit. I don’t know. I was really confused. The wyverns within the ward die and the Venin flee. Violet goes to find Xena: Warrior Prince and he has been turned into a Venin. Oh no. Oh and Andarna is actually a color-changing dragon, a special seventh breed of dragon that hasn’t existed in 600 years because Violet is so fucking special. The End.

I left out a lot of stuff because honestly, this book is bloated with fluff and nonsense. I have so many grievances.

Grievance 1: The Rebels Suck

First, Yarros made the rebels look dumb in order to make Violet look smart. The rebels have a forge and a wardstone ready for ward creation, but Brennan and his crew do not want to figure out how to activate the stone because the knowledge on how to do so has been lost to time. Why don’t they try to find the information? Because the information is in the death school Archives. Okay. They have rebel kids living in the death school so they can get the information, but nah that’s too hard. They would rather waste their time making daggers. I hate this conflict because it makes no sense for the rebels to not want to do this! They know damn well that the wards kill the wyverns so why hesitate? Why risk the lives of your meager forces fighting these overpowered dark magisters when you can save yourselves by creating more wards? I don’t understand why Violet was the only one perusing this when it should’ve been their main goal way before she showed up. These fuckers didn’t even know how wyverns were created even though that fact was present in their fables for generations!

[Brennan] “We know [the wyverns] have two breeds, one that can produce blue fire and a faster one that breathes green fire.”

“How many?” I ask him. “Where are they making them?”

“Do you mean hatching them?”

“Making,” I repeat. “Don’t you remember the fables Dad used to read to us?”

Pg 30

Brennan should know this! He’s been fighting them for six years! Even though the wyverns are a new development, he should still know this because their creation was a major part of his dad’s fables. It doesn’t make sense, Yarros! I want to highlight this dumb moment from Violet because she is so dense that it makes my brain hurt.

“It’s the scribes who hold all the power.” They put out the public announcements. They keep the records. They write our history. “Do you think Dad knew?”

Pg 32

Violet… your dad left you a cryptic note in Fourth Wing telling you to not believe everything you hear or some shit. Of fucking course he knew! She’s so dumb, but Yarros really wants us to believe she’s a genius. Back to the rebels, the dragon riders are working with the gryphon people, and their king/leader/whatever Tecarus is holding back the luminary from the dragon people even though he knows they need it to create the wards they need to protect themselves. He will give it up when he sees Violet wield her lightning powers. Xandra says no because he thinks Tecarus is going to collect Violet like a special prize or some shit. It’s a dumb conflict that doesn’t matter. Violet goes anyway because Xan is stupid. Blah blah blah, Venin attack, Violet shows off how cool she is, and Tecarus gives them the luminary and a bunch of gryphon riders he wants the dragon people to train.

“And what would you like us to do with your cadets?” Xaden asks, tilting his head slightly. “Gryphons don’t fare well at altitude.”

“They’ve never been given the chance to adjust,” Tecarus argues. “And I want you to educate them just as I assume you are doing with the rider cadets. Keep them safe, teach them to work together, and we might have a chance of surviving this war.” … “It won’t help the fliers to stay safe here in the south- not when they want to fight. And who better to teach the fliers how to kill wyvern than dragon riders?”

Pg 461

Haven’t the gryphon people been fighting the Venin for centuries?? The dragon riders just started. Shouldn’t the gryphon people teach them how to fight? This perplexes me. It is becoming more and more obvious that Yarros wrote this as she went along. She’s an explorer (or a “pantser” if you want to use that term). There’s a spectrum writers typically fall into. On one end there are the architects, those who meticulously plan out their plots but sacrifice character development, and on the other end there are the explorers, those who focus on character development and figure out the plot as they go along. A lot of people fall somewhere in the middle, but either extreme is fine. The catch is that if you fall on one the extremes, you NEED an editor to help you in your weak areas. Yarros is an explorer who is making up the worldbuilding and plot as she goes, thus creating the mess we have now. She did not have a developmental editor sit her down and help her fix the plot holes. That’s my theory, anyway. The gryhpon people should know how to fight the Venin. The rebels should not be so hands-off and ill-prepared. None of this makes sense.

Grievance 2: The Riders Suck

In this book, our crew goes to a class called RSC (Rider Survival Course). Here, the riders are supposed to learn how to deal with interrogations if they are captured by the enemy. However, the class only exists to kill off people like everything else in this school. At this point, I wholeheartedly believe the king of Violet’s country wants the riders to fail. Let’s list my evidence.

Violet’s dragon scale armor: I keep forgetting she has this literal plot armor until Yarros reminds me whenever it is convenient. In Fourth Wing, Mira gifts Violet a cuirass of dragon scales before she walks across the balance beam. The cuirass saves her life over and over. My question is: Why don’t all of the riders have dragon-scale armor? It would’ve been cool, it would have given them a distinct look, and it would’ve made sense for the world. Dragons are impervious to fire. Humans are not. The dragons offering up their scales for armor production would have been a cool way to show their allegiance to their human friends.This should be a standard uniform, but no. The riders wear sweaty-ass, movement-restricting black leather because leather is sexy I guess.

Lack of survival skills: In this book, we get a pointless scene where Violet’s group and some faceless infantry members are thrown into the forest and are told to navigate out of the woods while dragons hunt them down. Some of these idiots don’t know how to read maps.

“Just find the extraction point and secure it? That’s our mission?” Sawyer asks, eyeing the map like it might bite him. This is not his strongest skill, for certain.

Pg 167

They have been in war school for a full year. Some of these guys have trained for years before ever stepping foot onto the balance beam and you’re telling me, Yarros, that Sawyer cannot read a fucking map? Sawyer was held back a year! How does he not know? What the fuck are they being taught in military school?! And that’s not even the worst part.

[Truncated]

“Did you get dinner?” Ridoc asks, brushing grass off his pants as he stands.

“I’ll grab some when I’m done.” I slip my pack from my shoulders and set it next to me. … “Infantry caught a good amount of rabbit that should be done cooking any minute.”

“They’re way better at that than we are,” he admits, begrudgingly. …

[Dyre, an infantry member] “I owe you my life, Cadet Sorrengail.” He hands me a plate of roasted rabbit. “The least I can do is bring you dinner.”

“Thank you.” I set the plate in my lap. “Just do me a favor and keep your head down next time.” Another thing infantry has on us? They carry a rudimentary set of survival gear- including a mess kit- in their packs at all times, like they might get deployed at any second. We definitely have a few things to learn from each other.

Pgs 176-177

Why aren’t they taught how to hunt? Why aren’t they taught how to cook? Why don’t they carry survival kits at all times? Why don’t they know these basic things? Hell, why don’t their dragons teach them these things? If a dragon can die if their rider dies, wouldn’t the dragons want their humans to not starve to death if they get separated in the wild? These people exist to die.

Animosity toward the infantry: The riders treat the infantry soldiers like shit and it bothers me to no end. Y’all are on the same side of the conflict. Why is it okay for the riders to talk down to the infantry like they’re lesser than them? This breeding of animosity between branches is just going to fuck up their strength on the battlefield. Friendly competition between groups is fine. The Marines think they’re better than the Air Force and all that. Stuff like that is fine. But actively hating each other and not giving a shit if the other dies? Yeah no. Say a rider and their dragon are downed and the only people close to them are infantry members. Since that rider treated the infantry like they’re sub-human, the infantry may just ignore them and let them die because fuck ‘em. In Fourth Wing, we are told that General Melgren full-on uses the infantry as death fodder because the riders do not value their lives!

General Melgren moves toward the front of the dais … the top general in our kingdom is terrifying. He’s never had an issue using infantry for fodder.

Fourth Wing, pg 188

Since this country does not have propaganda (more on that later), the infantry should overthrow the leadership. Where’s my uprising?

Insufficient tools/skills for dragon riding: In general, the riders lack all kinds of tools and skills one would think would be important for their role. We never see them learn aerial combat formations, but honestly, I don’t think they know any. We get a lot of dragon/wyvern dogfights but they’re always one v. ones. They don’t fight in teams when you think they would since “squad loyalty” is said to be very important. But we don’t get that.

They don’t have saddles, they don’t have good armor, they don’t have crossbows, their powers range from useless to overpowered, they are taught hand-to-hand combat over aerial combat, they do not have set flying formations or techniques, they do not practice strategies, they have a torture class (RSC) that only exists to kill then off, and they don’t have survival skills. The riders suck!

Grievance 3: The Government’s Motivations Do Not Make Sense

I will never understand why the government kept the Venin hidden. We get the half-assed excuse that they kept the secret so that people would not panic, but why would they panic if they have wards that are specifically made to keep them out? Why pretend the Venin do not exist when you could’ve used their existence to keep people under your command? Why change the villains from the Venin to the gryphons? What have the gryphons done? Why lie about how the gryphons are after your land when they’re just trying to protect themselves? Wouldn’t it make more sense to let them into your land so that the king can control the gryphon people and the dragon people? Wouldn’t he want both mythical creatures under his rule? Did the dragons tell him “No gryphons allowed” or some shit? Keeping the Venin hidden and eliminating those who know about them is just so stupid that it hurts my brain. You can’t keep giant-ass wyverns a secret! Your soldiers on the front lines are going to figure it out eventually. Are you going to kill them as soon as they see a wyvern?

It’s not like keeping the populace ignorant about this very real threat is helping the government stay in control. In fact, them killing the Venin and pretending like they’re the only force that can protect them is a great way to stay in power. If the government was more totalitarian and had harsher laws that oppressed the people, they could use “we are keeping you safe from the Venin” to manipulate them. The real secret could be “the Venin are gone.” They’ve been dead for centuries. The wards exist to keep people trapped, not safe. Dragons pick riders who are loyal to their cause and are fully brainwashed. The riders are a militarized death cult, worshiping the dragons like gods and acting out their bidding for the promise of power and prestige. The average Joe lives in fear of the ruthless, bloodthirsty riders and their monsters. The dragons are the ones in charge. They let the humans think they have an alliance when in reality the dragons are controlling them. The dragons like ruling over the humans, treating them like livestock and entertainment. The dragons hate the other magical creatures and do not want to share their home or their resources because they’re racist. The gryphons, the wyverns, and maybe some other flying beasts and the humans that live with them are inferior to them. The dragons could be attacking and destroying the homes of the other beasts just because they hate them and want to get rid of them. The story follows Violet, who joins the death cult and she’s fully on board until she bonds with a dragon who doesn’t agree with the others. Just like the humans, there are rebels amongst the dragons. She, her rebellious dragon, and some others who disagree with the government abandon the riders and work with the rebels to overthrow the government and spread the word. I can go on with my fanfiction. There’s a good story here but Yarros didn’t think out anything.

As written, the government makes no sense. Keeping the Venin a secret is hurting them because it creates rifts within their provinces. Tyrrandor almost succeeded from the union because they wanted to help the gryphon people but the king said no even though the Venin are trying to kill them too. We are told in the book that the dragon people allowed the surrounding lands to join them under the protection of the wards or else be killed by the Venin. Those who didn’t join them during the short duration were doomed to die and forbidden to enter. This confuses me. It’s not like wards create a physical dome that blocks others from coming in. It just blocks the Venin and their wyverns. So why don’t they just let the gryphon people in? Why are they killing them?! Why are they wasting resources fighting a pointless war against the wrong people!? Why are the dragons okay with that?

The dragons keep secrets from their riders for no reason! The dragons do not bow to humans, they all know about the Venin, and they know that the gryphons are not the enemy, but yet they do not tell their riders anything and they actively participate in the slaughter of innocents. The reason that is given is “the Empyrean is divided.” So because the dragon government is split on what to do, they just… go along with the humans’ random slaughter. So many dragons and riders died fighting this pointless war and I guess they don’t care about that. These dragons suck. Once Violet tells the death school students what’s happening, their dragons confirm what she says which convinces the students to join the rebels. Why did they wait for Violet to confirm the truth when they could have told their riders ages ago? I don’t get it. It’s so contrived.

Later on, General Melgren shows up and asks the rebels for help because the Venin are attacking them and they do not have the numbers to fight them off. Yeah no shit! If you didn’t keep all of this a secret, trained your soldiers properly, and didn’t waste all of your resources fighting the wrong people you wouldn’t have this problem! Nothing makes sense.

Grievance 4: Why was Ward Creation Hidden?

When Violet is not whining or lusting after Xerxes, she is scouring the Archives looking for the ward creation formula. The formula was “lost to time.” Only the original six riders knew how to create the wards. I don’t understand this at all. The government hid this information so that no new wards could be created. This would make more sense if they were totalitarian and didn’t want the other provinces to think they could create their own wards without them but they’re not. The current wards are fading and yet the gov is like “No new wards. That’s illegal.” I’m so confused! Why don’t the dragons know how to create wards? Wouldn’t they know since they were there? Do the dragons not share stories or talk about their history? I guess that they do know but they don’t want to tell the humans because of the mystical seventh dragon they don’t want the humans to know about for some reason. I don’t get it. Mira’s damn signet is creating wards and yet…

[Mira] flings another knife. “[The wards are] woven to the ground out here,” … “Think of an umbrella. The wardstone is the stem, and the wards take the shape of a dome over Navarre.” … “But just like an umbrella’s spokes are strongest at the stem, by the time the wards reach the ground, they’re too weak to do much without a boost.”

“Provided by the alloy,” I whisper.

“And the dragons.” She nods, two lines appearing between her brows. “You know about the alloy? Are they teaching that now? Or did Dad—”

“It’s the alloy stored in the outposts that tugs some of those umbrella spokes forward,” I continue … “Extending the wards twice as far as they’d normally reach in some cases, right?”

“Right.”

“And what’s it made of?”

“That’s definitely above your clearance.” She scoffs.

“Fine.” … “But how do you weave new wards? Like if we wanted to protect places like Athebyne?”

“You don’t.” … “The extensions are what we weave. It’s like continuing a tapestry that’s been stretched too far. You’re just adding threads to something that already exists, and we can’t extend the wards to Athebyne. We’ve tried. But who told you—”

“Is that how your signet works?” … “Because you’re basically a ward, right?”

“Not exactly. I kind of pull the wards with me. Sometimes I can manifest my own, but I have to be close to an outpost. Kind of like I’m just another thread.”

Pg 232

Okay so the wards are stretched thin and the mystical alloy extends their strength a bit further. The dragons add more to it, but only a little bit. Mira pulls the wards with her, whatever that means, and can only manifest her own when she’s at an outpost. So… if the wards are stretched super thin and are weak at the edges, why did they hide how to make more wards? If they could make more, they would be stronger. Why hide the information that can save you all? I don’t understand!

I Do Not Understand these Dragons (and Gryphons)

The lore of the dragons is getting more and more convoluted and it’s pissing me off. We were told last time that dragons have six colors and various tail ornaments. These colors and tails reflect the breeds’ behaviors and traits. Sure. Golden Feathertails are juvenile dragons who are not allowed to leave the Vale except for when they are. In this book, Andarna is going through puberty. We are told by Tairn a dragon’s scale color and tail ornament are random.

[Tairn] “Black dragons are rare but not unheard of.”

“And I happened to bond to two of them?” I counter…

“Technically, she was gold when you bonded her. Not even she knew what color her scales would mature to. Only the eldest of our dens can sense a hatchling’s pigment. In fact, two more black dragons have hatched in the last year, according to Codagh.”

“Not helping.”… “If there’s a morningstartail on her—”

“Tails are a matter of choice and need.” He huffs indignantly. “Don’t they teach you anything?”

Pg 36

Only the leaders of each breed can tell what color the hatchling will be and the dragon can choose what tail ornament they want. But what about the parents? Wouldn’t they know their children’s scale color due to what color they are? If mixed colors are not a thing, shouldn’t it be easy to determine? I get that all juveniles are gold but the parents aren’t. Do the colors of the parents not matter? Later on, Andarna adopts a scorpion tail to kill Solas. Her genetics had nothing do with that. She chose that. But what about her scale color? Were here parents Chameleons too? Or were they random? If I’m understanding this correctly, the dragons are NFTs who randomly generate. Andarna is one of the super rares that can only be obtained after opening 10,000,000 packs or whatever.

It doesn’t make sense to me why they have differing powers and “breeds” when they are random. We are told each color and tail have specific personalities and powers. Does the color and tail ornament augment their behavior as they age? How do Brown Daggertails pass on their sensitivity to the wards (or whatever) when their offspring is randomly generated? Two browns can make a red and only the elder of the reds would know! It’s like a pair of German Shepherds producing a Golden Retriever! I’m confused!

I know dragons aren’t real and don’t need to adhere to real-world genetics, but as someone who loves speculative zoology and well-realized fantasy creatures, this shit bothers me on such a deep level. This is advanced laziness. Yarros made her dragons obscure and random so that she can skirt around all the plot holes she developed. How come orange dragons are more aggressive? They just are. How come black dragons are the most powerful? They just are. How come the Empyrean allowed one of their babies to bond with a human if they were so protective of them? Because dragons are mysterious. How come they keep their juveniles secret from humans when humans are no threat to them or their children? Because dragons are mysterious. How come the dragons don’t tell their riders about the Venin? Because they don’t. How come the dragons’ power allow humans to unlock doors magically? Because dragons are mysterious. How does a randomized tail ornament augment a dragon’s personality? They just do. If humans have no say over what a dragon can and cannot do and the dragons are intellectually superior to humans, why do don’t they enslave the humans? Because they don’t.

The levels of laziness is impressive. Yarros doesn’t care enough about the dragons, their personalities, or their culture, but she will use their lack of explanation to swerve around her plot holes. If the dragons were malevolent gods (like how they are in The Elder Scrolls) then I would not care. But they’re not. They’re creatures who can breed, die, eat, etc. They’re animals in this world but Yarros didn’t put in the effort to make them fit into her universe. Doing so is too hard.

Since the riders’ powers are also random despite their dragon, it makes the world feel even more hollow. It would’ve been cool if each dragon unlocked specific signets in the riders because of who/what the dragon is. Say, Red Dragons unlock pyromancy, so those who ride Red Dragons are a part of the Fire Division of the army. The Black Dragons can unlock more powerful and harder-to-classify abilities that are based on the individual human if you want to keep some of that randomness. No one who is important has a “common” power because Yarros had to make all of her characters the coolest most badass people ever. There is no cohesion. There is no depth. This world is wide and not deep.

Violet’s dragons suck. Tairn is the grumpy old man dragon. When he’s not expositing lore, he’s sitting in the background growling at people. His connection to Violet feels hollow because we never see them actually bond! They don’t even play off each other well. He feels more like her dad than her equal and that could’ve been fine if Yarros leaned more into that and played it straight. I think Tairn becoming a father figure to Violet after hers died would've been so cool. It would’ve been nice to see her confide in him about her self-doubt or whatever since they share a mind now. Even though he’s a dragon and doesn’t understand the eccentricities of humans all too well, he has lived among them for a long time and so understands somethings. Hell, after awhile he could confide in her about dragon drama. Not only would that build his character, but it would have been a better way to deliver dragon lore. But nah. Can’t have that.

We are told constantly that he chose her for her intelligence which I do not believe. Violet is dumb as rocks and honestly, it feels like Tairn doesn’t even like humans and only bonded with her because the plot made him. Whenever he says anything, it’s either about how humans are dumb or dragon lore. That’s it. Yarros plays off their interactions as jokes which quickly gets old and makes Tarin look lame. There’s one scene where Tairn damn-near murders Varrish’s dragon Solas, hinting at a troubled past between the two and honestly, I was intrigued. Are we going to get some Tairn backstory? No. Andarna murders Solas. Bye bye interesting character threads.

Andarna is pointless. She’s also here to make Violet stronger. She had no personality whatsoever in Fourth Wing and here, since she is now a teenager, she’s all moody and annoying. She spends the majority of the book off-page sleeping. I bet Yarros did this so that she wouldn’t have to write Andarna. Andarna makes Violet too strong and we gotta have some tension. I don’t get why juveniles are magically stronger than adults nor do I understand why their power lessens as they age. I forgot to mention that, in Fourth Wing, thanks to Andarna, Violet could stop time for 30 seconds. What a hyper-specific, overpowered ability. She can’t do it anymore because dragons get weaker as they age I guess. I really do not like Andarna. You can remove her from the books and nothing would really change.

Another thing that we learn from this book is that if a dragon bonds with the descendant or relative of an old rider of theirs, their new rider may unlock two signets. Because of this dumbass contrivance, Xandra’s dragon, whose name doesn’t matter, unlocked two powers within him: shadow manipulation and mind reading. Mind reading is an executable offense except when it’s not. Dain can read memories but only recent ones and only when he’s touching you. Xerneas can read “intentions,” whatever the hell that means. He is also a Mary Sue. All of this double-power crap is contrived. We all know damn well that Violet is gonna get another very broken power from Andarna in book three. Hell, she may even get a third power because of her ancestors or some shit. All of my hate.

The gryphons suck. For one, Yarros does not describe what the gryphons look like at all! I said this before, but yes; we all know what gryphons look like but describe them anyway. It adds flavor. It adds mystique. Because if you don’t describe them, they’re going to look copy/pasted in one’s head (at least to me) thus making them boring. I don’t think she ever describes what color the feathers of each gryphon are. You could’ve had them be different birds of prey! This one has a hawk head, this one has an eagle head, etc. It would’ve been simple but it would’ve been cooler than not describing them at all! Plus the gryphons “don’t do well in altitude,” which doesn’t make a lick of sense! There’s a scene where the gryphon fliers and the dragon riders are climbing up a mountain to make it to the dragon rebels’ hideout. For some ungodly reason, the dragons don’t just fly the humans to the top. Instead, the fliers, their gryphons, and the riders painstakingly climb up the mountain whilst the dragons fly around “patrolling”- leading some red shirts to fall to their deaths. It makes sense why the humans don’t fare well in the thin air of the mountains, but the gryphons are birds! Why are they struggling?! And the dragons are so lame. They’re supposed to be patrolling the skies for Venin but they still get ambushed by them. Granted it was foggy, but don’t they have a sense of smell? I hate these dragons.

To create the wards, six dragons of each color (red, brown, blue, black, orange, and green) must breathe fire onto the wardstone or something (it was confusing. I don’t remember nor care). Violet and her big brain did not translate the ancient texts correctly and actually seven dragons are needed. And Andarna is that seventh dragon.

[Violet] “Your scales aren’t really black.”

“No.” Even now, [Andarna’s] scales are changing, taking on the grayish hues of the stone around us. “But he is, and I so badly want to be just like him.”

“Tairn.”

“He doesn’t know. Only the elders do.” … “They revere him. He is strong and loyal and fierce.”

“You are all of those things too.” … “You didn’t have to hide. You could have told me.”

“If you didn’t figure it out, you weren’t worthy of knowing.” She huffs, “I waited six hundred years and fifty years to hatch. Waited until your eighteenth summer, when I heard our elders talk of the weakling daughter of their general, the girl forecasted to become the head of the scribes, and I knew. You would have the mind of a scribe and the heart of a rider. You would be mine.” She leans into my hand. “You are as unique as I am. We want the same things.

…

“You are not a black dragon, or any of the six that we know of. You’re a seventh breed.”

Pg 688

Andarna is a Chameleon Dragon who waited for Violet to be born because she is a Mary Sue. I loathe this. It’s shocking how lazy, predictable, and uncreative this series is.

Oh and I forgot to mention this last time in the full review but whenever Tairn and his mate Whats-Her-Name have sex, Violet and Xatu feel their horniess. I didn’t talk about this last time. It’s the most infamous part of the book and I skipped it to save my sanity.

I Hate Violet Round 2

Now onto the human characters, namely Violet who I hate more than ever.

Violet might as well be invincible: I do not have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, so I cannot speak on the specifics of the rep itself. As always, please beseech the words of those who do have this disability as their opinion is stronger than mine. I added some links down below. I know some people saw themselves in Violet and I’m not here to take that away. As someone who cried when Todd Chavez from Bojack Horseman was revealed to be asexual, I totally understand how powerful- how validating- it feels to see yourself in a character (especially in a property you love). Representation is important for normalization, validation, and education. I know full-well that Yarros has EDS herself and wanted to put that aspect into her main. I get it. However, I have critiques.

I don’t think Violet’s EDS is done well. It is treated like an afterthought. In my full review, I mentioned it offhandedly once because it is so inconsequential to Violet’s character and life as a whole. It only pops up when it is advantageous for the drama. Sometimes, we get a few lines in both books where Violet complains about her body being weak, but that’s it. She doesn’t think about it much until the plot demands. I learned that people with EDS constantly have it on their mind because it affects their daily lives. Granted, like a lot of disabilities, it varies in severity from person to person. However, it changes how one goes about their days. Yarros did not write that. She wrote a girl with noodle arms who gets buff via training, but she called it something else. This is the part that irks me the most.

There’s this phenomenon called toxic perseverance. Toxic perseverance is ablest in and of itself and can seriously hurt people who follow it. This flawed way of thinking promotes setting aside your bodily pain and reasonable limitations to relentlessly pursue a goal even if that goal is hurting you. You pretend that your physical limitations do not exist. I get that resilience is an attractive trait to have, but you need to know your limits. There’s nothing wrong with admitting that you cannot do something. I despise toxic positivity and toxic perseverance. This “can-do attitude” crap can (and does) hurt people. Expressing negative emotions is healthy. Being aware of what you can/cannot do is healthy. You are not weak for looking after yourself. These books promote toxic perseverance and I hate it. Violet’s EDS is treated like an obstacle she has to overcome which isn’t how EDS works. You can’t exercise your genetics away.

Violet’s EDS stops existing after she works out really hard. She participates in very extraneous exercises and drills with little to no struggle. Her EDS is treated like an inconvenience she can just get over. In Fourth Wing, Imogen remarks on how Violet is too weak and so they start training. Violet works out and is fine because her EDS only matters when it’s important to the plot. We get this “I have a high pain tolerance” crap that is just so toxic. Just because you can handle the pain doesn’t mean your body is fine. A big part of self-love is knowing your limits.

So the saddle thing. Xandy Manny provides Violet a saddle because he’s just so considerate. I hate this so much. Instead of having Violet work with Tairn by herself to craft a saddle for her to use, Yarros instead had Xanax do it for her to make him look good. Yeah let’s just remove Violet’s agency. It would’ve been super cool if she crafted a saddle with Tairn and the other riders saw just how useful a saddle is and so they copy her. Violet could’ve changed how the riders operated for the better and thus making it easier for other riders like herself to join. But nah. Can’t have that.

I really like this comment underneath Unresolved Textual Tension’s video (linked below)

@SloanePoaPow “It seems like authors think having characters with disabilities counts as good representation. But good representation requires more skill at weaving that character aspect into the story and character arc. Checklist representation is not good representation.”

I love the phrase “checklist representation.” I’m stealing that. It’s mine now. But in seriousness, they’re right. Violet feels like a check-list disabled character. So does Jesinia for that matter however Jesinia is deaf, a more visible disability. Jesinia hardly has a personality but at least we got deaf rep. I would like to see more of that (and I want the deaf character to have more going on). The same can be said for the one non-binary character (who’s name I’ve forgotten) who has like… five lines? Same can be said for the Token Black BFF Rhiannon. You get it. Anyway, “invisible” disabilities, ones that are not physically obvious (ie. neurological or genetic), are not represented much in media because it requires the writer to discuss it. If you’re going to have this, it has to be a big part of the character. Don’t make it their only trait, mind you, but have it be present. Actually try, damn you! There’s plenty of ways to write good representation but that’s a post for another day (plus advice on this already exists and they’re written by people way smarter than me).

If Violet thought about her EDS more and it actually affected her, then I wouldn’t be writing this section. But she doesn’t. It would’ve been so cool to follow a dragon rider with EDS! Imagine how cool it would have been to watch Violet strive to become a great soldier in her own unique way. Say, she always wanted to be a dragon rider but her mother wouldn’t let her because of her EDS. Violet understands the apprehension but she wants to ride a dragon. She joins anyway, but quickly learns just how dangerous the training is to her. You can have an arc where she starts off ablest toward herself. Hating herself for “being weak,” she keeps the disability hidden and tries to participate in the physical entry exam only for her body to remind her quite severely that she can’t do what the able-bodied riders can do. It can be a sad moment. She’s down in the dumps about how she failed her admission, but her superiors come in to tell her that while she failed the physical, she aced the intelligence test. She did study as a scribe before joining the riders so she had an upper hand in taking tests. She’s shocked and pleased by this. Since Navarre is desperate for soldiers (the Venin keep wiping them out and dragons are becoming less and less likely to bond) they decide to keep her on. She’s excited but her happiness is killed when they tell her that she is to be a strategist away from the battlefield. She wants to fly and fight by her dragon’s side, not huddled away looking at maps. A dragon would never pick her. She expresses this distaste quite loudly. Her superiors try to convince her otherwise but she pulls out “my mom is the general” card to make them back down (hell, you can have her mother be in this scene arguing with her only to relent when she sees the rebellious determination in Violet’s eyes. No matter what she says, Violet’s gonna keep trying). Her superiors let her stay but she’s not allowed to participate in wrestling matches or any other extraneous activities. She’s upset at being treated differently but eventually resigns to the fact that yeah she really shouldn’t be doing back flips and shit. She just wants that dragon. The higher-ups can’t stop a dragon from choosing her.

During group practice missions, she is the one who plans out strategies and what not. Her ideas and no-nonsense attitude gain her respect and eventually she becomes the leader of her squad. However she’s not pleased with the idea of being unable to defend herself when she’s away from her dragon so she starts practicing marksmanship. All riders are taught how to use a bow but she grows attached to the crossbow (because crossbows are awesome). Crossbows can be a new invention in this world. Many people don’t use it because they are used to bows. Violet can be one of the few riders who takes a liking to them. Unlike a traditional bow, a crossbow only needs you to load it and pull the trigger. Way less strenuous on the joints. She wants to be “useful” on the battlefield (remember she’s going through an arc where she overcomes her internalized ableism, so at this point this is how she thinks about herself) so she practices and practices and practices until she’s one of the best shots in her class. And we see her practice. We see her fail, we see her succeed. We see her work to achieve her goals. And so do the dragons. A dragon, say Tairn, takes a liking to Violet’s drive and chooses her to be his rider. Etc etc I’m writing fanfiction again. More like hatefiction but you get the idea. Make EDS a big part of her character and arc. You know, represent.

As written, Violet might as well not have EDS. Hell, there’s a scene I forgot to talk about last time where Violet slips off Tairn during their first flight and he catches her. This happens twice. She is falling through the air at high speed and Tairn swoops down to grabs her mid-fall. Her bones should’ve shattered upon impact. You don’t need to have EDS to bust your damn spine from a move like that. I know I know. Fantasy physics and all that but… come on.

Violet is just so smart you guys: Yarros does this thing where she just tells the audience that Violet is smart by having her say obvious shit that make the other characters gawk at her giant brain. OR she arbitrarily makes Violet know things and handwaves it with “she studied it in scribe school.” There’s one scene where Jesinia is trying to translate some homework and she goes to Violet because she’s a genius.

[Jesinia] “I’m trying to translate this for an assignment and I’m struggling with a couple of sentences. It’s in Old Lucerish, and from what I remember, it’s one of the dead languages you can read.” … “I’ll be in trouble if anyone knows I’m asking for help. Adepts shouldn’t ask.”

“I’m good at keeping secrets,” I sign, my face falling as I remember using the language to pass secret messages with Dain when we were kids.

Pg. 124

And it just so happens that the ward creation journal Violet needs to translate is written in the dead language she knows. In fact she and Dain are the only ones who can read it because their dad taught them. It’s fine for your characters to know things, but this is such a cheap way to showcase intelligence. I really wish we saw Violet’s time in the scribe quadrant. We could’ve seen her be taught how to read this language so that way it wouldn’t feel so random and contrived. In Fourth Wing, Yarros constructed bullshit to show off how smart her main is instead of creating situations that make sense logically. Look at the poisonings. It makes no sense why Violet did not get caught pulling that shit. Everyone else being dumb does not make her smart. Look at Light Yagami from Death Note for an excellent example of an intelligent character. We see that sociopath think through every little outcome and action logically and logistically, following the rules that were established to him and to us, the readers. You can 100% believe that he is a genius because we see him be a genius. Violet does not need to be like Light, but show her intelligence in a way that makes sense internally and externally. For the language thing, it would have been nice to see her studying it beforehand in book one. If Yarros coupled that with her crafting clever plans for her squad and/or weakening her opponents in a way that is actually intelligent then we would have a smart character. But nah.

Speaking of the poisonings, in this book the evil gov roofies the riders during RSC in order to disconnect them from their dragons. Violet just drinks the water without a second thought.

Professor Grady hands each rider a waterskin. “Sorry for hte abrupt change of scenery. Hydrate.”

We all uncork our skins and drink. The water is crisp and cold… but there’s something else there too. Pungent. Earthy. And something bitterly floral that I can’t quite place. I close the skin, cringing at the aftertaste. Professor Grady needs to take better care of his skins.

Pg 165

The giga brained master of poisons Violet notices that the water taste a bit funny, but she never questions it. She doesn’t trust the government and knows they’re shady but this weird tasting water is perfectly normal. She’s so dumb…

Her “relationship” with Xanana is insufferable: Once again, calling this shit a romance is an insult to romance. Here, our breeding pair is in a conundrum. So, Dain read Violet’s mind last book which outed the rebels’ plans and got some of them killed. Violet is mad that Xander didn’t tell her anything about the Venin or her brother being alive until the very last minute and so she wants him to tell her more things. He refuses to tell her because he doesn’t want Dain to steal any more information from her empty head. He won’t tell her anything until she learns how to shield her mind, but he will tell her information about himself, something she wanted in book one. Violet, the entitled brat she is, gets all pissy that he won’t give up rebel’s secrets even though it makes sense why he won’t. Violet is too dense to reflect on his reasoning so the poor dude has to deal with her screeching at him. Throughout the entire book, they have the same argument over and over and over again because we gotta buff out that word count.

I despise both of them so damn much. While his reasoning make sense, Violet is actively working on shielding her mind from Dain, plus she avoids him like the plague, but Xan doesn’t want to risk it. Okay. Kind of weak imo, but fine. Personally, it would make more sense if his reason was “Violet is too impulsive to keep vital information secret” because that is very true, though the characters and Yarros do not see that. In this universe, Violet is a genius, but to us, she’s a loudmouthed moron who almost told her sister rebel secrets.

[Mira] “Tell me what’s going on with you. Now.”

I was thrown into a battle with dark wielders, lost one of my closest friends, fought an actual venin on the back of my dragon, and then was mended by our very not-dead brother. “Nothing.”

…If there was only one person on the Continent I could tell, it would be Mira. “I just think it’s weird that you wouldn’t know anyone on the missions into Poromiel. You know everyone. And how do you know that what you saw was one of the riots tasked with reconnaissance?” I ask.

“Because there were over a dozen dragons in the distance to the south, over the border. What the hell else could it have been, Violet?” She gives me a skeptical look. This is it. This is the opening to tell her the truth.

…

“I don’t know,” I whisper. “What if they’re wyvern?” There. I said it. Kind of.

She blinks and draws her head back. “Say again?”

“What if you saw wyvern? What if they’re destroying Poromish cities, since we both know it isn’t dragons?” ... “What if there’s an entire war out there we know nothing about?”

Her shoulders dip and sympathy fills her eyes. “You have to spend less time reading those fables, Vi.”

Pgs 233-234

Good thing Mira is just as slow on the uptake as Violet. Must run in the family. This proves to the audience that XLR8 is right to not tell her anything. But again, this is not the intention of the author. Yarros wants us to thinks Violet is right to demand secrets when she is not. Yarros doesn’t see the entitlement and lack of self-awareness in her main because she is too distant from her own writing. It’s a talent really. Writing is super easy when you don’t care.

Secondly, it doesn’t make sense why she keeps yelling at X (the app formerly known as Twitter) for “lying” when he never lied to her. He kept secrets but no outright lies. Plus, he has a very good reason for the silence (Violet’s proximity to Dain). However, as much as she hates lying, she has to lie to her friends in order to keep the rebellion safe. You would think having to keep secrets from her buddies for the sake and safety of others would humble her but no. Introspection is not a word she knows.

As much as I hate X Videos, I feel a bit bad for him. He is actively trying to open up to her, but she is too stupid and egotistical to allow him in. Well, I guess it’s a good thing for him that Violet is so weak for his dick that she forgets all of her hangups just so that they can fuck. I hate these two so much. They have no chemistry, they have nothing in common, they’re horrible for each other, and I do not believe in their “romance.” There is no romance to be had here. I’m starting to believe allos don’t know the difference between lust and love. It’s sad.

Everyone worships her: Everyone around Violet is constantly talking about her and/or her relationship with Xart. They have no lives outside of her. Yarros having all 15,000 of her red shirts worshiping the ground her main stands on is so boring and makes the world feel flat. Side characters are here to compliment the main, not bow to them. When they’re not worrying about Venin, they’re asking Violet about her sex life. That’s not even a joke. That’s all the side characters do. The only ones with something outside of Violet are Jesinia and Sawyer. Sawyer has a crush on Jesinia. He goes out of his way to learn sign language so he can speak to her. Wherever Jesinia is, he’s right there, trying to get to know her. It’s cute. Genuinely! Neither Sawyer or Jesinia have a personality, but damn their little romance is something. It’s something. But that’s it. All the other 14,998 characters do not exist outside of Xerox or Violet. Yarros is a cowardly writer by the way. No one in Violet’s squad dies. Sawyer gets his legs bitten off but he doesn’t die because Yarros is too scared to kill off one of her mains. Coward.

Let’s talk about Cat. Cat is a gryphon flier who was engaged to Xander at some point. Violet is instantly jealous of her and the two of them butt heads over some dude. Cat is so aggro from the jump because her old bf is now dating some other girl. Maybe it’s just my ace mind not understanding this brain rot, but I hate this. Men ain’t shit! There’s like a billion of them. Why are you fighting over some dude? It’s embarrassing. What is this, highschool? Why is she so mean? The “mean girl” trope is tired and dated. Can we please kill and bury it? I don’t mind romantic rivals nor jealousy being a thing but you gotta give the characters more outside of their shared love interest (look at Juno and Haru from Beastars for a good example). Cat is… catty towards Violet for no fucking reason. I hated her immediately because I knew exactly what Yarros was doing. She’s bringing in this tired bullshit so that we can have yet another rift in Xontron’s and Violet’s relationship. It’s cliche. It’s not written well. I hate it. I thought we as a society had moved past the dreaded “girl hate” trope of yesteryear. At least with Sloane, she hates Violet because she blames her for Liam’s death. That’s more interesting then Mean Girl Cat badgering Violet over some dude. Eventually Cat does develop more reasons to dislike Violet but it’s shallow because Cat is shallow and we don’t care about her nor her problems (or at least I don’t). While they’re traversing the mountain for no good reason, one of Cat’s red shirt friends falls to her death. Cat blames Violet for it because how dare Violet save the life of her red shirt friend over this woman she only knew for a few hours. We then get a scene later where Cat and Violet spar and Cat is bragging about how good she was in bed with Xander or some shit.

Holy shit.

She fights like Xaden. He trained both of us.

…

[Cat’s] eyes flare, like she’s come to the same conclusion as we circle each other, and then they narrow in a way that makes my stomach clench. Devera may have set the rules, but something tells me that Cat is about to break them.

“Does it bother you?” she asks, lowering her voice as she raises her hands. “Knowing that he taught me first? That I had him first?”

“Not at all, since I have him now.” I swallow the sour jealousy that rises with the burn of bile in my throat.

“Really?” She jabs, and I weave. “The thought that I know what he tastes like?” She throws another combination that I block, then retreats as if it was nothing but a test. “How his weight feels above me?”

…

“I think it does bother you,” she says softly as we circle again. “Seeing me here, where I belong. Sleeping right down the hall. I bet it keeps you awake at night, knowing I’m a better match fro him in every way, counting the seconds he tires of your frail excuse for a body and comes back to the woman who knows exactly what he like and how he likes it.”

Pgs 513-516

The scene goes on like that for a few more pages. This whole thing was painful to listen to, let me tell ya. I hate this scene so damn much and that’s saying something. Cat is only here to create pointless love drama because Yarros is creatively bankrupt. She doesn’t add anything to the overall story. I can’t stand this fucking trope.

Violet is boring and annoying: Since Violet is a walking deity, she’s boring. When she’s not being boring she’s being obnoxious, entitled, and horny. This is the problem with writing perfect characters. Since they can get out of any problem with their godlike powers, it’s hard for the audience to give a damn about them (at least for me). The tension is gone. Without tension, there is no intrigue. Without intrigue, there is no reason to read.

Nonexistent Magic System

The powers these people have do not make sense at all. As usual, the best way to explore it is to break it down. Lesser magics include: unlocking doors, powering up ink pens (whatever the fuck that means), “cranking up your speed” (actual wording. Is this supposed to mean super speed? We never see the characters do this), starting mechanical objects, rune creation, magelight manipulation, sound shielding, mind shielding, and minor ward manipulation.

Do you see what I mean when I say there is no cohesion? Some of these do not mix. Why are ink pens powered up by dragon magic? Why can riders telepathically unlock doors? When are dragons unlocking doors or using pens? This is dumb and it’s not even fun dumb. It’s just dumb and I hate it. The mind shielding stuff makes more sense with dragons who have psychic links with their riders, but it clashes with what was already established. If riders can mentally block mind reading, why are some inntinnsics (mind readers) killed on the spot? Why don’t they teach all riders how to block their minds? Inntinnsics wouldn’t be a “security risk” if everyone knew how to shield. It doesn’t make sense, Yarros. You are breaking your own verisimilitude again, Yarros.

In both books, Xenon: Guy of the 21st Century “wards” Violet’s bedroom doors to keep people out. Wards are extensions of the existing wards. Okay fine. Xanny’s wards block out other people… how? How is he doing that? His wards can’t just be an extension of the existing wards since the big wards only block out magical creatures like wyverns. He’s creating his own versions that block out humans. How is he doing that?! Is he manipulating the properties of the wards themselves so that humans cannot break through them? Can they all do that? How and why? How come Mira’s wards are just extensions of the big ones but Xbox One’s are not? Isn’t that broken? Why is he so overpowered? It doesn’t make sense, Yarros!

Okay now the signets, but first this scene.

Context: Felix is Violet’s new signet instructor.

[Truncated. Be thankful I removed so much bloat text for your reading ease. This book has no business being this long.]

“What is it?” I glance at the offering … [insert overly wordy glass orb description here]

“It’s a conduit,” Felix explains. “Lightning may appear from various sources, but Tairn channels his power through you. You are the vessel. You are the pathway. You are the cloud, for lack of a better term. How else do you think you can wield from a blue sky? Did you never realize it’s easier for you to wield during a storm, but you’re capable of both?”

“I never thought of about it.” …

“No you were never taught it.” … “Your lack of aim, of control, is not your fault. It’s Carr’s."

“Xaden only moves shadows that are already there,” I argue…

“Xaden can control and increase what already exists. It’s why he’s more powerful at night. No two signets are alike, and you create something that was not there before. You wield pure power that takes the form of lightning because that’s what you’re most comfortable shaping it as. Apparently Carr never taught you that either.”

“Why wouldn’t he?” … “If I was the best weapon?”

…“Knowing Carr, I’d say he’s scared shitless of you. … You brought down Basgiath on a fucking whim, no less.” …

“I didn’t do that.” … “Xaden did.”

[blah blah blah. Felix talks about how Xanannanan killed wyverns for Violet and how Violet has some kind of control over him.]

[Violet] “I did no such thing.” … “I presented a humane option and [Xaden] took it. He did it for the sake of the other cadets.”

“He did it for you. … Power isn’t only found in our signets.”

“I’m not powerful because he loves me.” …

“No. You’re powerful and he loves you which is even worse. Your power is too closely tied to your emotions,” Felix notes. “This will help. It’s not a permanent solution, but it will keep everyone in Aretia safe from your temper for now.”

Pgs 428- 430

So I wrote this out to showcase quite a few things.

1) Violet is a Mary Sue. She wields pure energy because she’s so damn strong. In fact, she the strongest rider of their generation. That is said blatantly earlier in this scene by the way. Violet is just so strong, guys. It’s bad because the only reason why she is so powerful is because Tairn, the giant powerful scary black dragon. The same is applied to X Corp and his big powerful dragon What’s-Her-Name. Neither one of these idiots earned their strength. They were given to them by the author because the author is lazy as fuck (and she’s copying SJM’s signature “trip, fall, become a god” thing that she does with all of her leads). Lame. Also, why in tf would the evil government allow a rebel’s son to have access to such a powerful dragon? I know humans have no say in what the dragons do, but they could have avoided XannyXan’s rise to power by simply murdering him. This world doesn’t make sense.

2) Violet’s magic is tied to her wuv for Xanny Boy because of course it is. This is beyond lame. I don’t mind magic being tied to emotions but it is so lazy here. Her power is unstable because her love is unstable. Fuck off. Give me something new.

3) Signets are stupid, arbitrary, and I hate them. It was stated in Fourth Wing that the riders catalog each signet and that some riders share the same powers. However, every character we meet has a unique signet, therefore aren’t there like… 10,000 signets? 50,000? 1,000,000? They’re all different!

Violet can wield pure energy. X Games can manipulate tangible shadows and can read people’s intentions. Dain can read minds but only when he touches his target. Mira can create wards but not really (and so can everyone else). Complete background character Quinn can astral project which will always baffle me. Rhiannon can teleport small objects. Imogen can erase recent memories. Sloane can siphon magic from other people. Cat can amplify emotions. Brennan can magically heal all wounds. Sawyer can bend metal like Toph from ATLA. Violet’s mom can control the weather. Homicidal maniac Jack can project pain onto others…? Melgren can foresee the outcome of battles but not really. Kaori can project images from his mind. Liam (rip) could see very far away. Varrish McEvilson can sense people’s weaknesses (I-I don’t know either). Bohdi (Xolo’s cousin who looks exactly like him) can counter and manipulate other people’s signets! That’s broken! What the fuck?!

Do you see this mess? There’s no consistency. There is no magic system. Bohdi is beyond overpowered. Why in the world would the evil government allow Rebel Son Bohdi into death school where he gained an ability as strong as countering all magic? Why would they allow that to happen? Having magic this strong and this inconsistent stirs up so many problems. Many people have complained about Melgren and his hyper-specific, nondescript, seemingly useless power, and for good reason. Yarros didn’t think it out at all. What constitutes a “battle?” Does a skirmish count? What about a practice battle? Does a battle have to be between enemies or do battles between allies count? How large do the armies need to be in order for the conflict to be seen as a “battle?” Do two people fighting count as a battle? Does he see every battle or can he only see one at a time? Even though Melgren’s dragon was the one who created the rebel relics and gave Melgren his signet, the relics prevent him from seeing the rebels when they are in groups larger than three. So does that mean when they send third year rebels to war, he cannot see the outcome? Can only three rebels assist the army at time? What’s the point of having the relics if they’re that disruptive for Melgren? If he can’t see the possible future when the rebels are around, he’s useless. Do the rebels just standing around in groups of four count as a battle? Why can’t he see them if they’re just gathering and not fighting? IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE, YARROS!!

This Writing Hurts My Brain

Same verse as the first. Violet’s internal voice is insufferable. All the characters talk the same. The anachronistic swearing is very cringe. And the pacing is real bad this time around. Violet spends the first half hiding her secret from her friends for pages upon pages until she finally caves and tells them everything. They immediately believe her and help her get the journal she needs. There are scenes between her and Xbox Series S where Yarros regurgitates information we just learned in the previous scene! I started skipping shit. To be honest, I skipped damn near all of their scenes because I hate them so much. There are times after tense moments (say a Venin attack) where Violet and X Man start fucking and it’s like… why are we so horny right now? Y’all almost died. What the fuck is wrong with these idiots? The back half is about Violet translating the journal while she bickers with Cat and Xj-9. It’s very boring. I had the audiobook on 2.75 speed for my own sake.

Let’s explore some of Yarros beloved writing quirks.

Periods. Between. Every. Word: She does this constantly and it’s obnoxious every time. I get using this technique to create emphasis but she does it so much that it ruins any drama she is trying to create. Having this every three pages makes the book read like a bad YA. The book in general reads young, which becomes disturbing when the explicit sex scenes show up.

“My eyebrows shoot up.” “My throat tightens.” “Anger heats my neck” “Envy clenches my fists:” Yarros overuses these [emotion/body part does an action] sentences and I noted them every time because they annoyed me. These are clunky and awkward and some of them don’t even make sense! How can an emotion heat your neck? Are your eyebrows flying off your forehead??

“He folded his arms across his chest:” This is another repeated action that is stated over and over. [Insert X Name Here] is always “crossing his arms across his chest.” It’s like she couldn’t think of what else he could do with his hands in a scene. Plus “across his chest” is redundant. We already know that ones crosses their arms across their chest whenever they fold their arms. We all know what this action looks like. The only time you need to state where someone is crossing their arms is if they’re behind the back. An editor would have caught this. I don’t think Yarros had an editor. Click this link. This is a page listing body movements and expressions for various emotions. It can help you guys avoid reusing the same movements over and over.

An over-reliance on swearing: “Fuck” (or a variation of the word) is said 395 times, “Shit” is said 199 times, “Hell” is said 138 times, and “Damn” is said 105 times. Yarros needs everyone to know that this book is for adults so she has characters say “naughty” words at least once every time they speak. Because that is what mature people do right? Swear every three words? Look, as you can tell, I swear like a sailor so I’m clearly not offended by a few “bad words,” but the way these supposed adults say these words reminds me of a child first discovering them and then spamming them because they think they’re edgy. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve assumed this book was written by a pre-teen on Wattpad.

Strange dialogue tags: When I read physically, I skip dialogue tags, focusing only on the words in-between the quotations. Audiobook narrators however read out every word so the weird dialogue tags stuck out to me. “I seethe” “He counters” “She warns,” etc. I already wrote a long rant about “seethe” in part two. I’m not repeating it here. Whenever two characters are arguing, you don’t need to put “he countered” when Character B is replying to Character A. His dialogue already shows us that he countered. You can just say “said” if you need to identify who is speaking. The same thing can be applied to “she warned.” Usually, audiences can discern tone from the dialogue itself alongside the context. Sometimes, you don’t need to put a tag at all. Granted, Yarros mostly has her characters doing actions between dialogue which is fine, but whenever she does do tags, they’re strange, telling, and redundant. Let me just link this video by Hello Future Me about tags and dialogue. It’s great. Go watch it.

Why is this written in present tense? I don’t understand this choice. It doesn’t add anything to the prose. It feels like Yarros saw The Hunger Games, completely ignored the reasons why that book was written in present tense, and went “I’ll do that.” The present tense just makes the prose clunky to read. I don’t get it.

Other Issues

Not all of my complaints fit into neat categories so here we go.

No character arcs: No one has an arc in this mess. Violet is stagnant, X Name is stagnant, and… that’s it. No one else matters.

Jack is a Venin now I guess: I do not understand why Yarros brought back homicidal maniac Jack and then made him a Venin. We learn that the school’s healer has been trying to heal Jack’s Venin-ness which brings up a slew of questions. When they found out Jack was a Venin, why didn’t they kill him? Why did they allow him to rejoin the students especially if they are trying to keep the Venin a secret? How the fuck did Jack survive a mountain falling on top of him? Did a Venin revive him with dark magic? How come his dragon is still bonded to him after he is turned into a Venin? Was Jack mentally controlling his dragon? Or did his dragon not care that his rider is now the creature that is trying to suck his home dry of all of it’s magic? Was he suicidal? What’s up with Jack’s dragon?? Also I hate how the one guy Violet killed is not dead, now absolving her of any guilt she may have had. Again, can’t have a bit of gray on our pure MC because she is holy and we are meant to worship her. Gray characters are boring.

Brennan might as well not exist: Fourth Wing made such a big deal about Brennan being alive, but once we got to Iron Flame, Brennan doesn’t do shit. Violet hardly thinks about him nor is she angry at him for lying about his death for six years. Mira, once she reunites with him, rightfully punches him in the face because YEAH! What the fuck, Brennan? You would think Violet’s beloved brother would be a big player but nah. Fuck ‘em. Who cares? Yarros doesn’t.

Mom Sorrengail: Violet’s mom was such a background character in Fourth Wing and that doesn’t change here, however, it’s super strange to see her actually care for her children in this book when, last time, she seemed to not give a shit. Like, she threw her disabled daughter into the dragon’s den against her wishes for legacy reasons. She sucks, but here she sacrifices herself to save her kids and it’s written to be this valiant thing and like… I feel nothing. Good riddance. She sucked! She was an imperialist piece of shit who treated her kids like fodder. No Yarros. You can’t make me to care about a character you wanted me to hate.

Yarros doesn’t care about her world at all: We hardly know anything about the cultures of these people. The names of gods keep getting dropped on us, but we never learn how these people worship them. There’s a scene near the beginning where we are told the riders are allowed to enter the town just outside of the school when before they were forbidden to go because they were too rowdy and disruptive. Before, they could only go to the temples there to worship. Now, they can go and explore and what not. We never see this Hogsmeade knock off nor are temples mentioned again. Even when we finally leave the dragon school, Yarros does not explore the world. All the other provinces and towns may as well not exist. And the gryphon people are exactly like the dragon people, but they ride gyrphons and don’t randomly kill each other. That’s it. There’s hardly any fantasy in this fantasy series.

Varrish McEvilson: McEvilson really wants to see Violet’s little Golden Feathertail. However, Andarna is not longer little nor golden. Again, the dragons (for no good reason) do not want the humans to know that their juveniles are Feathertails nor do they want the humans to know how dragons age, so Andarna is MIA. Varrish is real mad about this and keeps yelling at Violet. Violet keeps telling him that the dragons do whatever they want, but he pulls the “but I am your commander! You answer to me!” card. This doesn’t make sense because Varrish also has a dragon named Solas and Solas must know that Andarna is a youth so why doesn’t Solas tell his unhinged human to fuck off? Tairn yells at Varrish (technically he yells at Solas and it is implied that Solas relays his words to Varrish) to piss off about Andarna and eventually he relents, but why was he so obsessed in the first place? Why don’t the dragons just tell the humans that Feathertails are their children?!?!

Wishy-washy military propaganda garbage: There’s a lot of weird pro-military/anti-imperialism themes that directly oppose with each other in this. Yarros is so tone-deaf and disconnected from her own story that she evidently did not notice the thematic clash. Throughout Iron Flame, we are informed about how Navarre has erased the cultures and languages of their claimed provinces. Yarros makes us know about how awful it is to erase another’s history. Doing so erases the identity of the people and makes them homogenized aka easier to control. Yes. That is correct. This is true. We even have scenes where the gryphon people tell the riders that murdering each other is barbaric, backwards, counterproductive, and stupid. Yes. They are correct. BUT THEN

[Context: Rhiannon and Violet are arguing about the Gauntlet and Violet’s time out on the field where Liam died]

[Truncated greatly. Praise me]

[Rhiannon] “I wish that you would just say whatever you’re thinking. I never know anymore.”

“You don’t want to know.”

“I really do, Violet! … Talk to me!”

“Talk to you,” I repeat, like it’s really that simple… “Fine. Yes, it’s awful that Aurelie fell. That she died. But I think I’m a better rider for having been there, having watched her fall to her death and known that if I didn’t get my ass moving, I was going to be next.”

“That’s… horrible.” Rhiannon’s lips part, and she looks at me like she’s never seen me before.

“So is everything waiting out here for us.” … “That stupid fucking Gauntlet isn’t just about physically climbing it. It’s about overcoming the fear that we can’t. It’s about climbing after we see it kill our friends. Parapet, Gauntlet, Presentation— they seem excessive when we’re here, but they prepare us for something way worse when we leave. And until you… You don’t know what it’s like out there, Rhi. You can’t understand.”

“Of course I don’t know,” she retorts… “You won’t talk to me! … Don’t forget, Liam was my friend, too!”

“You weren’t there!” … [she goes on about how traumatic it was to hold her dying friend] “My shoulders almost dislocated, he was so damned heavy, but I held on! And it didn’t matter!” Rage burns my throat, devouring me whole. “You haven’t seen what’s out there! What makes me run every fucking morning!”

“Vi,” she whispers…

[blah blah blah Liam’s dead. Sad sad sad]

“And as horrible as it might be, as callous as it might make me, watching Aurelie fall, and Pryor burn, and even Jack-fucking-Barlowe get crushed under my landslide prepared me for the moment I had to leave Liam’s body on the ground and fight. If I’d sat there and mourned like I wanted to, none of us would be here. Imogen, Bodhi, Xaden, Garrick—everyone— we’d all be dead. There’s a reason they want us to watch our friends die, Rhi.” … “We are the weapons, and this place is the stone they use to sharpen us.”

Pgs 220-222

So… evil imperialist death college ran by the evil imperialist government is good because you become desensitized to people dying? That’s cringe. It’s just cringe. What the fuck, Yarros? Which is it? Imperialist military good or bad? Pick one. Why are you doing both? You can’t do both. They contradict each other! Violet is just spewing cringe propaganda about how good it is that people die for no reason in death school. But Violet is also someone who realizes how awful it is that the government erased the languages and cultures of the other provinces in order to better control the people. She knows this! So why doesn’t she realize that the murder school a part of the government’s control? Is Violet just that dumb? This girl does not look inward at all. It’s sad. And this is our main? Yarros… do you know what you’re writing? What is this??? I don’t understand how you can write one theme and then go back on that theme with contradictory nonsense.

When you couple all this with her fence-sitting stance about the Palestine/Israel conflict, it makes reading this book infuriating. She understands cultural genocide, but doesn’t condemn the military that is actively involved in said genocide! The mental gymnastics one has to do in order to write this garbage deserves a gold medal. I am in shock that people can be this dissonant.

Let’s end this off on a fun note. I made a bingo card for Onyx Storm!

First row across: Violet will heal Xan with her love because of course. It’s already established that her power is tied to her emotions so… duh. One of the tokens characters is gonna die for Violet. Either Jesinia or Rhiannon. There's no way they’re surviving this series. I’m leaning toward Rhiannon since she’s the only black girl we got. She’s gonna die. While Violet is going through her depression arc, she may lean on Dain and perhaps they will hook up. Then afterwards, they will announce that it was mistake and go through a whole drama with Xanax. It’s so predictable. I can feel it happening. Xylophone'’s dragon What’s-Her-Face may lay some eggs. Just because. We gotta take her out of the picture some how while her rider is out of commission. Violet may get a new lover boy who is not Dain while she’s in her depression arc just to eat up pages. Either she hooks up with Dain or she gets a new lover boy. Or both. Fuck it.

Second row: First box is self-explanatory. Brennan X Naolin gay love story thing is a reference to this theory I’ve seen people float around. Naolin was Tairn’s previous rider and he died saving Brennan’s life. Me and others think that they were probably a couple or, at the very least, Naolin loved Brennan. So, we gotta have that tragic gay love trope because gay people aren’t allowed to be happy. “More girl hate” means “more girl hate.” Women can’t be friends. Violet is such a Mary Sue that I’m waiting for Yarros to give us “it was foretold” at least once. Violet is the chosen one. One of our mean girls will sacrifice herself to save Violet because she finally sees just how good and incredible Violet is. I’m leaning more towards Sloane since she will carry baggage about killing Violet’s mom. Plus she may want to join her brother in Heaven or some shit.

Third row: First box is self-explanatory. It’s gonna happen at least once in this series. Bohdi is said to look exactly like Xanatron so I’m expecting him to die and then get a scene where Violet starts freaking out because she thinks the body is Xan’s. Bohdi is such a non-character. He’s not living long. Violet is gonna get a second signet. That’s a given. It’s going to happen. Jack dies again because he’s evil. Now, for the dragon school one, I’m not too sure. It would be hilarious if they did go back to school and continued their studies after everything that has happened. Yarros needs to fill up pages and this is the only way she knows how.

Fourth row: Violet getting a third signet is gonna happen. I feel it deep in my gut. Perhaps Andarna is so powerful that she unlocks another signet for her. We don’t know anything about Chameleon dragons so, who knows? Tairn and Codgah are going to fight for dominance at some point. Yarros keeps telling us how massive and scary Codgah is, but it’s up in the air if he’s evil or not. We don’t know and neither does Yarros. Since Xander is out of commission, there will be a coup in the rebellion and Violet will be elected leader because she’s just so smart. In Iron Flame, there’s a whole scene about how Andarna may not be able to hold Violet’s weight because of some dragon disability, but I doubt that because she’s still growing. Once she gets older, she’s gonna be big enough to carry Violet. It’s gonna happen. Yarros is going to forget about Andarna’s “disability.” We haven’t met the king yet so we will see him in book three. I’ll be shocked if we don’t.

Fifth row: Violet will be the first human to ever step foot on the dragon’s homeland because she is just so special. Dad Sorrengail being alive is a crack-theory but Yarros brought Jack back to life after a mountain fell on him so… While X Ray is going through his Venin phase, Violet is going to spiral deep into depression. The next one ties back into the “tragic gay” trope I was talking about earlier, where once it is revealed that Brennan and Naolin were in love, Brennan will see just how much his sister loves Xandra so he will do what his lover did for him and bring him back to life, dying in the process. Again, gay people are not allowed to be happy. A lot of these godawful “new adult” trash has a ballroom scene so, it’s happening especially if we finally meet the king in the capital.

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Truly a work of fart. I hate this book. I hate both books. Rebecca Yarros is not a good author. I do not know how she is going to squeeze 3 more tomes out of this concept. Her world is flat, her characters are annoying, her plot is all over the place, and the whole thing lacks effort and creativity. Will I read the other ones? I love dissecting trash so maybe, but honestly I cannot see there being more than three books in this series. Don’t read these. Don’t give Red Tower or Rebecca Yarros your money or time.

Resources

Toxic Perseverance: Link

EDS: Link

Blog by someone with EDS: Link

When they post their full review I’ll add it here.

r/EDS Fourth Wing thread: Link

Some people really liked it and others found it lacking. Interesting read.

Videos:

Unresolved Textual Tension: Link

They make some good points about how Violet’s EDS is both damaging and lazy.

Reads with Rachel: Link

Not only is this review fun to watch, but there’s a lot of enlightening comments from people with EDS underneath it. Give them a read.

Donate:. https://www.pcrf.net/ https://www.palestinercs.org