Iron Flame (Chapter 27 & Chapter 28)
STATS
Title: Iron Flame
Series: The Empyrean (Book 2)
Author(s): Rebecca Yarros
Genre: Fantasy (Epic)
First Printing: November 2023
Publisher: Red Tower Books
Rating: 1/10
SPOILER WARNING
Heavy spoilers will be provided for the entire story up through the end of the content covered in this part. Mild spoilers for elements later in the story may be provided, but I will keep the first paragraph of each section as spoiler-free as possible. Heavy spoilers from later in the book will be confined to clearly labelled sections.
STORY
Violet arrives at Samara, and … Xaden is completely unharmed. She gets over her embarrassment at overreacting by screaming at him. We then get an exchange that sounds rather like an ultimatum to Xaden: have sex with Violet now, or lose her forever.
One scene of pornography later, Xaden offers to take Violet along when he drops off venin-killing daggers to the Poromish gryphon fliers, which Violet accepts. They fly out of the safety of the dragon wards to the drop point.
This group of Poromish fliers are led by a mob character who also led the fliers from the climax of Fourth Wing. Xaden reprimands her from not keeping other gryphon fliers from assaulting Navarre, to which she responds by demanding that even more daggers to meet the needs of Poromiel. Xaden declares that he will not compromise the safety of Navarre to save Poromiel, and then the shipments will be cut off entirely if the attacks do not stop. The Poromish must make do with what little he can provide.
During this discussion, one of the fliers is identified by the mob character as Catriona, and Violet realizes that this is Xaden’s ex.
THE ROMANCE PORNOGRAPHY SUBPLOT
Sex Scenes in Fiction
Before we get into the problems with the execution (and, frankly, the inclusion) of the pornographic ink stain in Chapter 27, I feel it is important to touch upon the general issue of sex scenes in fiction. As mentioned in the closing of the last part, this will not be a definitive editorial that delivers a magic bullet argument to end all further discussion. I merely wish to lay groundwork and provide adequate context for us to explore what went wrong here.
I am in the camp that sex scenes, by their very nature, are a form of pornography (hence why I have not hesitated to call it such in this and in previous reviews with such content). This is because showing characters having sex rarely serves a narrative purpose, and on those rare occasions where it does, that purpose could be just as easily (or better) served through either a non-sexual scene or without any of the explicit detail (that is to say, it’s clear that we have narrative purpose that is incidental to the sex, rather than sex that is incidental to the narrative purpose). Portrayal of sex in literature is ultimately an excuse for authors to exhibit their fetishes and addictions and to bait readers with the hollow spectacle that taps into said readers’ own fetishes and addictions.
That is not to say that the acknowledgement of sex serves no objective literary purpose. The fact that sex occurs can drive plot developments and provide key characterization. It’s the explicit details that leave the realm of purpose and enter into pornography. This is where the “fade to black” - the use of a scene break or in-scene time jump to incorporate sex into a narrative without bombarding the audience with explicit details - comes into play. It allows the author to reap the narrative benefits without the self-indulgence.
Let’s look at three examples and then acknowledge the Twitter discourse.
Son of the Storm
Both a plot twist and important characterization for Eshme hinge on the fact that she was sleeping with her hairdresser when she was engaged to Danso. Showing a scene where she goes to the hairdresser for a scheduled sexual encounter make sense.
Where Okungbowa slipped into erotica was when he felt it was important to describe insertion and fluids.
The other two sex scenes were much the same. Eshme having sex with the book’s Token Non-Binary Character has some relevance to Token’s role in the plot, and Danso’s buddy having sex with some tertiary character informs his motivations later in the book. The issue, each time, was that Okungbowa did not need to go into detail about tongues and mounting to get this information across. He always chose to take things one paragraph too far.
Iron and Magic
This Romantasy novel by Ilona Andrews (a writing team composed of a husband and wife) is built around an enemies-to-lovers romance between the leads, Hugh and Elara. The moment when these two finally have sex is a payoff to their (admittedly predictable) relationship arc. This payoff technically occurs before a battle scene, when Elara motivates Hugh to survive the battle by promising to have sex with him if he comes home safely, but it doesn’t fully execute until a later scene, where Elara visits Hugh after the battle and he challenges her to make good on her promise. She has a chance to simply walk away. Instead, she shuts the door to his bedroom, effectively trapping herself inside with him.
At this moment, Iron and Magic could have faded to black. The payoff was achieved. Had the story cut to the pillow talk scene after the sex, nothing would be lost. There is even a scene break (more specifically, a POV switch) at this moment, as if to acknowledge that the narrative beat had been achieved.
Instead, the audience was exposed to an multi-page scene of sex that was so graphic that it would not shock me if the writing team had rehearsed it multiple times.
Legions (Onslaught Cycle, Book II)
Many years ago, Wizards of the Coast would commission a tie-in novel to go along with every expansion set for Magic: the Gathering (versus the more sporadic novels that they commission now). These ranged on a scale from forgettable to quite good. More relevant to this discussion, they were very much written for the mass market of the late 90s and early to mid 2000s. Many of the books did feature characters having sex, but it was almost always fade-to-black, with one notable exception.
Legions featured a sexual relationship between the antagonist characters of Phage and the Cabal Patriarch. The first sex scene merely showed how the Patriarch seduced Phage, cutting to black when Phage surrendered to his advances. The second sex scene appears to take place at a pause midway through another sexual encounter (I think, at least - the scene was sparse on details, so it’s hard to tell). This second scene is the noteworthy one. Even though it is in the middle of a sexual encounter, there were no explicit details as far as I can remember. The scene was also very short. It existed solely to provide a demonstration of character: namely, that Phage and the Patriarch were past the honeymoon phase and had moved on to attempting to murder one another with magic while in bed together. Once that was demonstrated, the scene ended. There was barely enough detail to even tell that they were having sex in that scene; I only remembered that it was a sex scene at all because the context of the preceding scene made it clear that they were going to have sex.
I feel like this book is a good example of how to handle sexual content without being pornographic. The author, J. Robert King, had a clear objective, and he didn’t waste time on fetishes and graphic details. He wrung out the narratively relevant information and moved on.
What I find … rather hilarious … about Legions versus so many other books that I’ve reviewed with sexual content is the relevance of the sex. Other books construct ramshackle plots to force pornography or pounce on any excuse to go into unnecessary detail, while the sex itself is either wholly relevant or is but one minor component of the larger narrative. By contrast, Phage and the Patriarch having sex is one of the most important events in the entire Magic franchise.
If Phage does not have sex with the Patriarch and conceive a child with him, then most of the following events would never have happened. Those that did still happen would have been delayed by centuries or millennia, fundamentally altering their outcomes.
The birth and death of Karona
The transfer of the Mirari to the plane of Mirrodin, followed by the Mirari’s transformation into the golem Memnarch
Memnarch becoming infected by Phyrexian oil and conveying that oil down into Mirrodin’s core, thereby initiating the corruption of the entire plane into New Phyrexia
The Mending
The destruction of the Helavult on the plane of Innistrad
The luring of Emrakul to Innistrad, along with her subsequent … “imprisonment” … inside Innistrad’s moon
The War of the Spark
The corruption of post-Mending planeswalkers into Phyrexians
The March of the Machine
The creation of the omen paths
I don’t expect my readers to know what even half of these events are. (There are plenty of lore videos on YouTube if you want to go down the rabbit hole for yourself.) Suffice it to say that an entire multiverse was rewired twice over, dozens of planes of existence were ravaged or corrupted, a Lovecraftian space jellyfish changed her address, and billions of people died or were assimilated by a machine cult, all because Phage and the Patriarch had sex. This corresponds with millions, if not billions, of dollars of Magic: the Gathering merchandise being marketed and sold in the real world across a period of 20 years on the basis of these stories.
J. Robert King could not have known where Wizards of the Coast would take the story five years, fifteen years, or twenty years after he wrote Legions. The only narratively relevant points he could have known about were the first two, as he wrote them into the sequel to Legions (released a mere four months later). Nevertheless, the fact remains that the direction and identity of any entire franchise was dictated by the fact that two characters had sex, and that crucial information was successfully delivered to the audience without needing to go into detail about fluids, swelling, or smells.
Twitter Soapboxing
As mentioned back in the Fourth Wing review, there was a flash of loud Twitter statements about the relevance of sex scenes around the time that Fourth Wing was gaining popularity. From what I saw, these were primarily delivered in the form of pseudo-intellectual mockery. The defender of pornography in literature would establish a false equivalency between sex scenes and another aspect of literature and then argue that this other aspect lack relevance and should be removed. Action scenes and fantasy elements were popular choices (to the point that I can’t recall an other examples). The end goal of this argument seemed to be to claim that declaring sex scene irrelevant puts humanity on a slippery slope into stories that are nothing but bland sludge.
This is an argument that is so fundamentally broken that it convinces me that the people using it have literally nothing else to justify their position, resorting to scorched earth tactics out of desperation. At best, it is a false equivalency. At worst, it is a damning argument, not a redemptive one.
First, let’s consider the false equivalency. Both fantasy elements and action scenes (again, I need to go with what I actually saw) are fundamentally different from sexual content. Fantasy elements are usually an integral part of a premise. They are a selling point. They enrich a world and enable escapism. Action scenes are a storytelling tool that drive a narrative. They expresses conflict in terms that people of all ages and cultures can wrap their heads around. This could be violence, a daunting physical challenge, or a simple instance of peril, but it is all justified within the narrative by the conflict that it expresses.
It is not impossible for graphic sexual content to accomplish this goals. It’s just that the genre in which it does accomplish these goals is pornography. Everywhere else, it is, at best, a genre shift.
Now, for the self-damning aspect. Both fantasy elements and action scenes CAN be spectacles just as hollow as pornography. Fantasy elements that are thrown in just to add to the wonder of a setting or because the author thought they were cool can produce a bloated or contradictory world that actively damages a narrative (as demonstrated by the book we are currently reviewing). Excessive time spent on the fantastical aspects of a world can also detract from time needed to deliver a satisfying plot or characters. Likewise, action scenes that offer only sound and fury, or which outstay their welcome, cease to be exciting or meaningful. The audience grows bored as they begin to realize how pointless it is.
In other words, by equating pornography to fantasy elements and action scenes, one is acknowledging a shared flaw without imitating redemptive conditions.
On top of these purely writing-based arguments, I think that it’s worth pointing out that the human relationship to sex is not the same as our relationship to imagination or to physical challenges / peril / violence. We react very differently to sexual crimes versus purely violent ones that inflict an equivalent amount of physical damage. We treat people with non-sexual mental afflictions differently from those deemed as sexual deviants. I live in a country where convenience stores sell pornography right next to the comics for children (sometimes on the very same magazine rack), and even here, said pornography is at least sealed with plastic (whereas the children’s comics are not) and can’t be purchased without showing ID.
Payoff Versus Pornography
Bringing this back to Iron Flame, let’s discuss the inclusion of the sex scene. Much like with the cringe debate in Chapter 21, I feel that it is most productive to work through the chapter in reverse chronological order.
Where the Payoff Stops
In theory, the pornography in Chapter 27 is meant to pay off and resolve the Trust conflict. (Only in theory. We'll get to that shortly.) The moment of this supposed payoff happens after a brief stretch of sexually charged kissing and groping but before the hardcore content properly kicks off. In other words, much like Iron and Magic, there is a clear point where narrative relevance stops and masturbatory material takes over.
The fight within [Xaden] is palpable, the tension between us sharp enough to pierce dragon scale. And for a second, I think he might just be stubborn enough to walk away and keep us at this impasse.
But then—thank gods—he breaks, fusing his mouth to mine, and the fire that had banked during our argument flares back to life even hotter than before. He kisses me like I’m the answer to every question. Like everything we’ve been and will be hinges on this moment. And maybe it does.
Much like Iron and Magic, nothing is lost if we skip to the aftermath. Literally all that is needed to complete the transition would be the addition of a short phrase (inserted here in brackets), and that is only because there is no scene break in the existing version.
[After we finish destroying the shower, Xaden says,] "Fuck." His forehead rests against mine, our chests heaving as we fight to catch ourbreath. “Just when I think I can handle you, I completely fucking lose it.”
“That’s my favorite part.”
“Why does that not surprise me?” He brushes his lips over mine, and he locks his armsaround me, keeping me from melting off his lap. “Death of me, I swear.”
If one short phrase can deliver the same narrative value as a spectacle, then that spectacle is unnecessary.
IOU A Payoff
What's rather maddening about this scene is that it doesn't actually resolve or pay off the Romance subplot conflict.
Thus far, it was made very clear that Violet is mad at Xaden for denying her the full access to rebellion secrets. She think that sex equates to a security clearance. At the absolute best, she is behaving irrationally out of fear of one of those secrets hurting her feelings (while simultaneously pretending that she is being a "rational woman").
That isn't how Yarros spins this sex scene. She presents it as though the conflict has actually been about Xaden having commitment issues and not being about to tell Violet that he loves her. This line in particular jumped out at me.
“Don’t make me fight for this. Not again.” I retreat from the warmth of his arms, and every nerve in my body screams in protest. “I can’t always be the one fighting for this while you invent new ways to hesitate or tell me no, Xaden. You either want me or you don’t.”
Since when was THIS the focus of their conflict?
Yarros did float this idea in Chapter 18, but as we covered then, that was a bizarre pivot that went against everything previously established. Repeating it now compounds the problem by retconning Xaden’s characterization from this very book. He is not hesitating or telling Violet “no” to them having a relationship. He openly tells her that he wants her, wrote a love letter to share his secrets, and is only giving her space to come to terms with the reality of their situation because SHE refuses a relationship. VIOLET is the one who is hesitating and inventing ways to tell him no. By her own admission, she is being wholly irrational about a situation in which she has also admitted that Xaden is in the right.
I strongly suspect that Yarros did not actually have a resolution or payoff in mind for the Trust conflict (at least, not one that would fit without the validation power fantasy of her self-insert Mary Sue). She milked it for what she wanted, and now she just wants it to go away so that she can do the Jealousy conflict. She's going to revive the trust conflict again in Chapter 56 (after tossing aside the Jealousy conflict with another non-resolution), so in the meantime, she is hoping that the pornography distracts us from this non-resolution.
Unfortunately, this is Yarros we're talking about, so of course she screws this up by doubling down.
Chapter 28 will draw attention to the trust conflict, acting as though it was resolved. Xaden uses their psychic link to share rebellion secrets with Violet.
“It’s near Athebyne. I’m not hiding it from you, just not repeating it in front ofthe rest of her drift.”
“I appreciate the honesty.” It’s surprising and refreshing.
So … I guess that the Trust conflict is just over? It resolved itself without any actual resolution taking place?
Except, no. Chapter 29 will indicate that Xaden is still withholding information and that Violet still takes issue with that.
The ache in my chest damn near explodes. I love this man with every beat of my reckless heart, which would be his if he’d simply stop keeping all his secrets and let me know him.
So … they’re still going to make the trust conflict front and center?
Nope. After Chapter 29, the Trust conflict just ... fizzles. It is more or less forgotten until Chapter 56. In the interim, Violet and Xaden stop pretending they are not a couple, and things progress as if the Trust conflict had never existed in the first place. We could have skipped this whole conflict and just had Xaden and Violet be a happy couple from the start of the book, and nothing of value would have been lost.
All of this is to say that, ultimately, this sex scene is so extraneous that not even the mere fact of sex occurring serves a narrative purpose. Yarros just decided that now was time for porn, and Romance subplot happened to change gears at the same time.
The Ultimatum
You may recall, back in Chapter 12, that I said this relationship would get even worse than Violet toying with Xaden for sex.
Chapter 27 sees Violet extorts sex from Xaden by threatening to leave him. This happens when she issues the following ultimatum, just prior to the pornography kicking off:
“You want to fight for me?” I reach up into my hair and pull the pins loose one by one, letting them fall to the stone floor. “Then take a chance without knowing how I feel. You want my heart back? Risk yours first this time.”
“If I tell you how I feel right now, you’d never trust that I’m not just desperate for your body.” His brow furrows.
“Exactly my point.” The last pin falls from my hair. “Choose, Xaden. You can let me walk out that door, or you can be the one who takes what I’m willing to give this time.”
Surely, I can't be the only one who reads this and hears:
"I won't accept you as a romantic partner because I don't like that you won't bend knee to my every whim, but I do want to use you for sex. Anyway, if you don't have sex with me now, you'll lose your hope for a romantic relationship. It’s totes your choice."
Violet is ... well, let's use Yarros's phrasing. Violet is a Fucking. Abuser. This is sickening. Xaden needs to put as much distance as possible between himself and this self-serving sex addict.
Other Considerations
Prior to even the kissing, Violet and Xaden exchange some heated words. Xaden notices that Violet is wearing someone else's flight jacket (Bodhi lent her his so that she could run straight from Battle Brief to the landing field), and demands to know whose it is.
"Really?” I throw my arms out, happily letting the warmth soak into me. “It has third-year rank, Fourth Wing insignia, and a section leader designation. Who the hell’s jacket do you think I’m wearing?”
His jaw ticks, water streaming down his face.
“It’s Bodhi’s, you territorial asshole!”
That answer doesn’t seem to help.
“Are you serious right now?”
I don't have criticism for this in isolation. For once, Violet actually has a solid foundation for her anger. Xaden’s reaction likewise fits his characterization as the Bad Boy Love Interest.
My issue here is that Chapter 28 is going to kick off a Jealousy conflict - you know, a conflict in which Violet feels that her territory is being threatened. Violet is about to be ... territorial. The hypocrisy is not going to be acknowledged. By having Violet attack Xaden like this, Yarros has devalued the very conflict that she expects to keep this romance in focus until Chapter 56.
The Jealousy Conflict
The introduction of Catriona and the formal establishment of the Jealpusy subplot is fine. It's bland, predictable, and lacking in subtlety, but those are general issues with the Romance subplot, not something specific to this conflict. Catriona is established as a character, Violet figures out who she is, and Violet feels insecure about it. That's functional and effective.
That being said, there are two issues I would like to highlight.
First, there is a matter of pacing. The Trust conflict is brushed aside in Chapter 27. Catriona's first appearance is Chapter 28. Yarros won't even give us one chapter of Violet and Xaden as a stable couple. We're whipped from one conflict to the next without any time to catch our breath.
Second, as Violet is figuring out who Catriona is, there is a line that really doesn't come off well on a reread.
My chest tightens. The way she looks at Xaden isn’t just doe-eyed. There’s an unmistakable longing there, a hunger that has me blinking. It’s like she’s been trudging through a desert and he’s the oasis.
She looks…like how I feel.
Chapter 47 is going explain exactly how Catriona feels about Xaden, and thus, how she was looking at him here. I'll hold off on that under we get to it, as that is another can of worms. Suffice it to say that, in hindsight, Violet making the equivalency confirms just how self-centered she is.
THE REBELLION HYPOCRISY SUBPLOT
Melgren is the Good Guy
When Xaden issues his ultimatum to the gryphon fliers, he absolves Melgren and the rider leadership of any wrongdoing.
“So you’d rather we die while you sit protected behind the very weapon that could save our civilians?” the [gryphon flier] asks like he’s requesting the weather report.
“Yes.” Xaden shrugs.
My eyebrows hit my hairline.
“This is a war,” Xaden continues. “People die in wars. So, if you’re asking if I’d rather your people die than mine, then obviously my answer is yes. It’s foolish to think we can save everyone. We can’t.”
I inhale sharply at the reminder that the man I get behind closed doors isn’t the one the rest of the world knows. It’s not the first time I’ve heard him express the sentiment. He feels the same way about the marked ones who won’t work to save themselves at Basgiath.
“Still an asshole, I see.” Cat folds her arms.
“We’ve lost riders to the venin, too,” he counters. “We’re fighting with you. But I’m not sacrificing the safety of our movement or our civilians for yours. If that makes me an asshole, then so be it."
Xaden goes on to mollify the gryphon riders by assuring them that he's working on getting Teclis's luminary, but the damage has already been done.
This is an argument IN FAVOR of Navarre's isolationism. Does Yarros really expect us to think that the military led by a man who SEES THE FUTURE has not made the exact same calculation that Xaden has here? That Navarre does not see the merit of arming their neighbors to serve as a buffer against the venin? That they have not evaluated how much alloy they can produce and how much they can give away without compromising the safety of their taxpayers (you know, the people whose protection they have an obligation to prioritize)?
Come to think of it, Poromiel and Navarre are trading partners (or, at least, they were during Fourth Wing). Are we really supposed to believe that Navarre is not trading alloy or venin-killing weapons to Poromiel? These are something Poromiel needs and that Navarre monopolizes, so Navarre could extort Poromiel viciously while simultaneously benefitting from using Poromiel as a buffer state. For Navarre not to make such an obvious arrangement can only mean that Navarre has realized that they can't even afford to trade away alloy at a ridiculous markup.
By making this argument, Xaden establishes the Navarre is morally in the right. He simply disagrees as to where the cutoff line should he drawn, and he is ready to invalidate Melgren's visions (thereby damning all of Navarre) to satiate his personal standards.
The Double Standard (Heavy Spoilers)
This would be all well and good if Xaden were condemned for this, but he isn't.
Within this scene - in fact, in the text shared above - Violet acknowledges that Xaden is making the hard choice. She does not condemn him. She does not accuse him of anything. At most, she reminds the reader that her Bad Boy Love Interest is an edgy boi. By the rules of the self-insert Mary Sue power fantasy, that makes his actions justified.
The actions of the rider leadership, who have more information than him, should therefore also justified.
Did Yarros not have anyone proofread this book for such a glaring contradiction?
Apparently not, because Chapter 57 is going to feature an identical conversation with Melgren, and we're supposed to think he is an “evil villain” for having the same position as Xaden.
“But only the people within your borders,” Mira accuses. “Fuck everyone else, right?”
Mom’s eyes flash with barely leashed reprimand.
“Yes.” Melgren turns that unnerving stare on my sister. “When you abandon ship in the middle of a hurricane, you save those you can in the dinghy, then cut the hands off anyone else who tries to climb aboard so they don’t pull you under.”
“You’re a callous asshole,” she fires back.
“Thank you.”
“Are we here for a reason?” Xaden asks. “You know, besides the evil villain lecture?”
By Xaden’s own admission, he himself is now an “evil villain,” yet Yarros will never acknowledge the hypocrisy.
More Antagonist Incompetence
Violet and Xaden - two people the rider leadership has marked as seditious elements, whose duties at their respective facilities have been arranged to limit their contact with one another, whose leave is so strictly scheduled that someone at Samara should have serious questions about why Tairn and Violet are here early - need to leave Samara and cross Navarre's border to meet the gryphon riders.
Yarros knows that this does not make sense, so she drops another virus bomb on her story.
The thing about being two riders in an assumed relationship who happen to be bonded to a mated pair of dragons is that no one thinks twice about a midnight flight to get away, and there is no better view of the stars on the Continent than from Tairn’s back.
This is ridiculous. Everyone in the know about the venin and the rider leadership’s vendetta against Violet and Xaden, which should include whomever is in charge of Samara, should absolutely think twice about this departure. Violet and Xaden should have been intercepted before they even reached their dragons. Barring that, they should have been followed. Barring that, they should have been arrested on their return (which does not happen, either).
But then again, these antagonists have no credibility, so I'm not shocked.
CHARACTER
Violet
Chapter 27 provides another good example of how the power fantasy of moral and emotional validation destroys this book.
Violet came to Samara because she made a mistake. Her wild leaps of logic caused her to come to a bizarre conclusion, thereby causing her to be Absent Without Leave. At minimum, she has embarrassed herself and Tairn.
This should be a moment of character growth. This should be a chance for Violet to reflect. This should be a chance for her to suffer consequences and change for the better.
Yarros cannot allow her self-insert Mary Sue to do even that much.
From the very start of the chapter, we are beaten over the head with how much Violet loves Xaden. She didn’t screw up because she’s irrational and enslaved by her emotions. No, no, she is just so in love, you see. She is a holy servant of that most pious of emotions. It is a beast that no one could hope to tame. It’s made all the worse by the mental influence of a dragon.
How could we every hold such a pure creature accountable for being wrong?
Oh, but it gets even better. It turns out that Violet wasn’t wrong. Xaden is unharmed now, but he was indeed critically injured during the recent battle. It’s just that a mender patched him up after the casualty report was sent to Basgiath. This means that, even if Devera wasn’t actually signaling Violet, she still came to the correct conclusion.
Moments like these are a strong example of why Mary Sues are a cancer upon storytelling. Prime opportunities for great storytelling and character work become seething blights upon the narratives that accommodate them, all because the writer cannot grasp the concept that compelling characters thrive on their flaws (or, in the case of paragons, genuine challenges to their virtues).
Xaden and Melgren
One of these men sexually gratifies Violet, and thus, he is shielded by the Protagonist-Centered Morality. The other is not. That is the only meaningful difference between these two characters at this stage in the narrative.
Catriona
The only thing we really learn about Catriona here is that she wants Xaden back and has already pegged Violet as her rival. This is bland and predictable, yet it is functional.
WORLDBUILDING
The Chapter 28 Epigraph
Though gryphon riders are not capable of producing Signets, they are not powerless. In fact, some would argue that they’ve honed lesser magic, especially mindwork, into the deadliest weapon of all. Underestimating them is an error.
-Gryphons of Poromiel, a Study in Combat, by Major Garion Savoy
Oh, boy. This one is going to get messy very quickly.
Fliers & Signets
The bit about not producing Signets is fine in the moment. “Lesser magic” is an established aspect of the setting by this point. Given how the dragons have been presented as overwhelming superior to the gryphons, withholding Signet powers is likewise logical.
The problem is that Yarros is going to contradict this lore the moment that gryphon magic actually becomes relevant to the story.
Chapter 40 features this bit of exposition.
“Fliers might not wield Signets, but most of their lesser-magic gifts involve mindwork, and it’s the one area where the have the upper hand on us.”
This implies that gryphon riders don’t exclusively use “lesser magic”. Their version of the Signets are simply “lesser” than Signets. Starting in Chapter 41, this new interpretation will be confirmed. Specific gryphon fliers (Catriona is the one I was able to find at the time of writing this, though I was sure I saw this for other named fliers) will be identified as having individual gifts.
This is such a blatant contradiction. It’s not even a case of the epigraph having unreliable information. The contradiction is never acknowledged, and the later exposition from Chapter 40 is framed as something that any experienced rider who’s fought against gryphons would know (versus a new revelation).
Did Yarros miss this while editing? Did she take things too far while trying to give each faction an identity and end up with confusing terminology? Either or both are plausible, and it is bad writing no matter how one swings it.
I have no interest in confusing you all with such inconsistency, so I will call the gifts assigned to the gryphon fliers, “Signets,” for the remainder of this review (and any reviews of future books in this series). That does, in the end, seem to be what these powers ultimately are, even if their powers trend in a different direction than the dragons.
Danger, Danger, Danger
Gryphon magic should not work inside the wards. Gryphons needs to fly well inside the wards to assault Navarre’s forts and steal alloy. Shouldn’t that negate the danger posed by gryphon flier Signets? Or does the epigraph only refer to engagements outside of the wards?
Mindwork
Mindwork is listed as a lesser magic. No matter whether Yarros meant for gryphon fliers to have alternative form of Signet or really did mean to lump mindwork in with locking doors, creating mage lights, and using ink pens (still no explanation for how that one works), this creates more problems.
Let’s start with what this means for gryphon fliers having Signets. Yarros is trying to ratchet up the tension by acting as if fliers have some mysterious power that dragon riders don’t, but that simply isn’t the case. Between inntinnsics, Dain’s memory-reading powers, the lie detector Signet, and another couple of Signets that will be established later in this book, the dragon riders can already breach the human mind. What do gryphon fliers have, then? Mind control? Illusions? Do their inntinnsics have greater control or range? Yarros doesn’t specify, perhaps hoping that the mystery will ratchet up the tension, but the vagueness is just annoying. Coupled with the contradictory presentation of whether fliers have Signets, this reads as though Yarros jotted down this idea while drafting Chapter 28 and then didn’t bother to put any more thought into it until she started work on Chapter 41.
If mindwork is indeed a “lesser magic”, Yarros has somehow managed to do even more damage to the concept of Dain being an antagonist. Why has Violet been so focussed on Dain if literally any rider could train to read minds? An author can't write an entire book where select individuals are highlighted as a threat for a rare gift and then vaguely state that many people have access to that same gift. Limits need to be firmly established and set if the audience is to understand the stakes.
PROSE
One of Yarros’s signature moments of unsubtlety comes off as particularly forced.
Tairn lowers his head in a gesture I recognize as both a threat to them and a favor to me, allowing me to see the rest of the approach.
The gryphons, half eagle and half lion, halt about twenty feet away, and three of their fliers dismount, leaving the pairs at the edges ready to fly at a moment’s notice.
Our trust is as thin as December ice. One misstep and the fracture will have deadly consequences.
On what basis is Violet drawing that conclusion about thin trust? I ask both in terms of character knowledge and what is actually shown on the page. What we are actually shown, and what she has reason to believe, is that these are allies whom Xaden has worked with for years, showing up for an agreed-upon rendezvous, and they’re simply giving the dragons and gryphons space. Up until Xaden and the fliers actually start to argue, the only reason to believe that they barely trust each other is that Yarros is telling us that they barely trust each other.
WASTED TIME AND IMITATION
Next time, we will dive into Chapter 29.
This chapter truly manages to impress. Yarros finally decides that it is time for the Rebellion plot to gain some momentum. She does this through contrivance so extreme that she might has well have tried to propel a bicycle by strapping a block of C4 to the rear axle. In just two scenes, she officially makes everything between the end of Chapter 12 and the start of Chapter 29 (more than 20% of this book) completely pointless.
This is also the chapter where the effort to ape Order of the Phoenix becomes impossible to ignore. Yarros has her Good Teachers loudly throw their support behind Violet. Unlike the teachers of Hogwarts uniting in passive resistance against Umbridge, no part of this makes sense.
It’s coming your way on April 12th. I hope to see you all then. Have a good week.
