Iron Flame (Chapter 36)
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
Xaden makes a move to cut Dain down, just as he did the guards outside, only for Violet to intervene. After convincing Xaden that Dain is on their side now, they turn their attention of Draconis. Xaden drags Draconis into the chair that was used for Violet’s interrogation and helps her to stab Draconis through the chest. After this, Xaden delivers a big, romantic confession of his utter love for and devotion to Violet.
As they leave the prison, they find their way blocked by General Sorrengail. She hands over the antidote needed to flush the elixir out of Violet’s system and requests three minutes to speak with Vioelt alone. It is here that she explains that she pushed Violet into the Quadrant to protect her from the scribes and that Xaden was protecting Violet to repay General Sorrengail for the deal to protect the rebel children. She then allows Xaden, Dain, and Violet to depart.
Violet is not content with merely escaping with Dain, Xaden, and the rebel children. She insists that all of the riders be told the truth about the venin. In the end, “nearly half the quadrant” and more than a hundred unbonded dragons flee to Aretia.
STRUCTURE
I’m not going to be doing separate Plot, Character, and Worldbuilding breakdowns for this one. This is because, much like Chapter 35, the issues cascade, one atop the next; unlike Chapter 35, this phenomena is not confined to just Plot. Rather than jumble things up by zigzagging through the cascade, I’m just going to lay things out in order.
PSYCHOPATHS
The way that Draconis is killed is absolutely horrifying.
Actually, it’s worse than that. The way they decide to kill him is horrifying.
“Your father will be so disappointed,” Varrish hisses through bloody, clenched teeth. Coughing up blood means he doesn’t have long.
“If he already knows what Violet showed me, then I’m the one disappointed in him,” Dain countered, picking up his sword and raising it as Varrish.
“No,” Xaden snarled. “Not you.” His hand flexes at my back, and shadows wrap around Varrish a second before they drag him across the floor. Horror widens his eyes as the strands of black dump him into the chair, then bind his wrists and ankles in place of the shackles. “That honor belongs to Violet, if she wants it.”
“She does,” I reply instantly.
Draconis isn’t killed in a moment of passion. Xaden doesn’t lash out with his shadows in sheer fury of the harm done to Violet, nor does Violet see an opening and stab him while Xaden and Dain are arguing. He’s not being finished off as an enemy combatant - that’s what Dain was about to do, and Xaden stopped him. Nor is this a necessary kill. By Violet’s own assessment, he is already dead. (Technically, he’s not, as Nolon could mend him, but if Violet says something is so, then we are expected to accept that it is so.) They could have just left him there.
No. What we get is cold-blooded, sadistic murder to satisfy the bloodlust of a pair of psychopaths. Xaden goes out of his way to reposition Draconis so that Violet can maximize the satisfaction of killing him herself. When Violet can’t stab him under her own power, Xaden guides her hand, all so that she can feel the satisfaction of having taken a human life.
The fact that Violet wants to kill Draconis makes sense. He caused her immense physical suffering. Of all the people she hates, he’s the only one who’s given her adequate reason for it. The problem is the execution. Had Violet crawled over to him and cut his throat, that would be an easily understood moment of passion. Better yet, since the elixir’s antidote is just handed over without struggle anyway, Yarros could have had Xaden arrive in the cell with the antidote and give it to Violet, and the combination of power surging back through her and her fragile, post-torture emotional state would cause her to electrocute Draconis. This would still give her a kill whilst making it a crime of passion (and, technically, an accident).
What we got is calculated murder. I’m fairly certain it is also a war crime, given that Draconis is an enemy combatant who is at their mercy. Violet and Xaden murdered an incapacitated prisoner in an unnecessarily grotesque manner for their own gratification.
A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with someone on the Shadiversity Discord regarding why heroes in revenge stories so rarely get both their revenge and a happy ending. Why is it that they are forced to choose? I told that user then, and maintain now, that human beings have pretty universally accepted the bloody revenge is a destructive path that shouldn’t be rewarded, at least not overtly. The aspirational thing is for the hero to let go of vengeance and dedicate his- or herself to a higher calling. That’s why revenge stories so often end with the target of the revenge being killed by another party, or getting his- or herself killed when one last evil act that backfires, or putting the protagonist is put into a position where finishing the revenge mission is incidental to self-defense or saving other people. Vengeance, in its purest form, is not a heroic trait, so most writers will opt to either keep the protagonist’s hands clean or to find an alternative justification for the protagonist to finish the mission.
What Violet and Xaden have just done here is a hideous demonstration of just how unheroic vengeance is.
DEFLATED CONFESSION
Let’s ignore the fact that Xaden delivers his big love confession to Violet in a moment when they really should be getting out of there. Yes, they’re wasting valuable time, but Xaden already slaughtered everyone who’s an immediate threat. I’m willing to accept that he thinks they’re safe enough for him to get this out of his system.
My issue is what he says in the confession - or, rather, what this confession is supposed to pay off.
“You’ll lose everything you’ve worked for.” My voice breaks. “Because of me.”
“Then I’ll have everything I need.” He lowers his face, leaning in so he’s all I see, all I feel. “I will happily watch Aretia burn to the fucking ground again if it means you live.”
“You don’t mean that.” He loves his home. He’s done everything to protect his home.
“I do. I’m sorry if you expect me to do the noble thing. I warned you. I’m not sweet or soft or kind, and you fell anyway. This is what you get, Violet—me. The good, the bad, the unforgivable. All of it. I am yours.” His arm wraps around the small of my back, holding me steady and close. “You want to know something true? Something real? I love you. I’m in love with you. I have been since the night the snow fell in your hair and you kissed me for the first time. I’m grateful my life is tied to yours because it means I won’t have to face a day without you in it. My heart only beats as long as yours does, and when you die, I’ll meet Malek atyour side. It’s a damned good thing that you love me, too, because you’re stuck with me in this life and every other that could possibly follow.”
My lips part. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, ever needed to hear. “I do love you,” I admit in a whisper.
This confession is not the payoff to the Romance subplot we have gotten thus far.
Let’s be charitable and ignore for a moment that Violet equates sex with a security clearance. Her issue with Xaden is that she can’t trust him to not keep a secret that she feels she needs to know. She needs “Full. Disclosure” of anything that might affect her personally. The idea that she needs Xaden to lower his guard and admit to loving her is an idea that has only really surfaced for brief blurbs in Chapters 18, 27, and 32. What’s more, by caving into Violet’s ultimatum for sex, Xaden told Violet what she needed to hear back in Chapter 27, invalidating the blurb in Chapter 32 (and, now, this confession).
I don’t think that the confession itself is bad in isolation. It’s not terribly creative, but it gets the job done. I could see a version of the Romance subplot where this is a huge, cathartic moment that ties everything together.
What we got is not that version of the story. Xaden has loved Violet unconditionally for this entire book, while she held him at an arm’s length and demanded sex from him. She is the one who needs to make a confession here, not him.
The easiest way to fix this would be for Violet to break down as a result of the psychological strain of what she’s just endured. She could confess the depth of her feelings and spill out all of her delusions and insecurities to Xaden. He could then answer her with this confession. It wouldn’t be a perfect fix, but at least it would make what he says here make some sort of logical sense.
As it is, this reads like Xaden knew Violet is emotionally fragile, took a wild stab in the dark as to what delusion needed to be satiated today, and just happened to say the right thing.
THE MOTHER OF ALL RETONS
But Why Do You Feel That Way?
To fully understand the retcon of General Sorrengail, we first need to revisit a topic that first surfaced back in Chapter 39 of Fourth Wing.
Why does Violet side with the Aretia rebels?
The conversation between Violet and General Sorrengail in Chapter 36 of Iron Flame begins thusly:
“You’ve known what’s happening out there for all these years.” I white-knuckle my weapon.
She steps forward, her gaze jumping from the dagger in one of my hands to the splint on the other, then selects a pocket in my uniform top and slides the vial in. “When you have children, we can discuss the risks you’ll take, the lies you’ll be willing to tell in order to keep them safe.”
“What about their children?” My voice rises.
“Again.” She hooks her arm around my upper back, sliding her hand under my shoulder, and hauls me against her side. “When you are a mother, talk to me about who you’re willing to sacrifice so your child lives. Now walk.”
I grit my teeth and put one foot in front of the other, fighting the dizziness, the exhaustion, and the waves of pain to climb the stairs. “It’s not right to let them die defenseless.”
“I never said it was.”
Why does Violet feel this way? What principles, moral code, philosophy, religious belief, or personal experience has led her to take this stance?
Back in Chapter 39 of Fourth Wing, I commented on how we didn’t actually have an in-character reason for Violet to side with the rebels. She seemed to be doing it purely because Yarros needed the plot to go in that direction. At the time, I was content to leave it at that, because I thought the only thing that needed to be discussed was how Yarros was using a sudden POV shift to mask the shoddy characterization.
However, in just a few sentences’ time, the fact that Violet would side with the rebels is going to become very, very important. This cannot be left up in the air. We must now interrogate why Violet would take the moral stance that she is taking.
The answer: she wouldn’t.
Violet has absolutely no qualm with sacrificing innocent people for her own self-interest. Since the moment she entered the Quadrant, she has been sabotaging her fellow cadets through the use of poison, with the full knowledge that, at best, she is condemning at least one of them to death by taking a dragon that they would otherwise be able to bond with. She refuses Dain's escape route from the Quadrant prior to Threshing, thereby meaning that she could no longer claim that these acts were necessary for her own survival. She then did not bat an eye as Xaden slaughtered a half-dozen unbonded cadets who tried to kill her, cadets who did not have an escape route and thus were acting purely for their own survival.
On top of this, Iron Flame has repeatedly reinforced two things about Violet:
She is highly emotional, irrational, and hypocritical, with a moral compass that spins whatever direction is needed to make herself feel good. This is demonstrated most clearly in her wanton hatred of Dain and in her coddling of Sloane.
She values her loved ones beyond all reason, to the point the Chapter 35 explicitly tells us that caring for her loved ones is her weakness.
The Violet we have been shown throughout this series should absolutely have the same perspective as General Sorrengail. She would allow everyone outside Poromiel to die if doing so protected her family and friends within Navarre. Given how intelligent she is supposed to be, she would absolutely do the same calculus that Melgren and the rider leadership have done and conclude that there is no other choice.
And Yarros has confirmed this. Remember, Violet did not condemn Xaden for putting Navarre before Poromiel back in Chapter 28. She acknowledged that it was a hard-hearted decision to make, but that’s it. Her objections run as deep as her mother’s do here.
The absolute closest thing Violet has to a trait that would lead her to support the Aretia rebels was her aversion to killing back in Fourth Wing. This is, at most, a distaste for getting her own hands dirty. She knew that sabotaging her fellow cadets would create a scenario where one of them would have to die in her place, and yet she sabotaged (and cheated) anyway. I have no trouble believing that Violet would have an issue to personally killing Poromish refugees, but she would have no qualms about allowing other members of Navarre’s military to kill them, and she certainly wouldn’t mind them being slaughtered by a third party.
The icing on top of this cake is that Violet has always been this person. She did not evolve into this state over the course of this series. In Chapter 1 of Fourth Wing, Yarros calls attention to the fact that Violet was bringing the book on poisons into the Quadrant. Her reason given as why she was bringing was quite literally, “Killing people.” Violet has always been willing to sabotage others, to the point of their deaths, for her own sake.
Based upon this titanic weight of evidence, Violet siding with the Aretia rebels and aiding the Poromish, to the detriment of Navarre, is out of character. It only happens so that Yarros can drive her desired plot.
Therefore, it is utterly ludicrous that Yarros uses Violet’s moral purity to justify the retcon of General Sorrengail.
My Daughter is Too Pure for This Sinful Earth
“I never said it was.” We take the first turn, climbing slowly. “And I knew you’d never see it our way. Never agree with our stance on self-preservation. Markham saw you as his protégé, the next head of the scribes, the only applicant he thought smart enough, clever enough to continue weaving the complicated blindfold chosen for us hundreds of years ago.” She scoffs. “He made the mistake of thinking you’d be easy to control, but I know my daughter.”
“I’m sure you think that.” Each step is a battle, jarring my bones and testing my joints. Everything feels abominably loose yet so tight I might split open from the pressure.
“I might be a stranger to you, Violet, but you are far from a stranger to me. Eventually, you’d discover the truth. Maybe not while in the Scribe Quadrant, but certainly by the time you made captain or major, when Markham would start bringing you into the fold, as we do with most at those ranks, and then you would unravel everything in the name of mercy or whatever emotion you’d blame, and they would kill you for it. I’d already lost one child keeping our borders safe, and I wasn’t willing to lose another. Why did you think I forced you into the Riders Quadrant?”
“Because you think less of the scribes,” I answer.
“Bullshit. The love of my life was a scribe.” Steadily, we climb, twisting along the staircase. “I put you into the Riders Quadrant so that you’d have a shot at surviving, and then I called in the favor Riorson owed me for putting the marked ones into the quadrant.”
I agree, Ms. Yarros. This retcon that you are trying to foist upon us is absolute bullshit, both in terms of character and worldbuilding.
Character
There is zero evidence that Violet has ever been the person General Sorrengail just described. Every piece of evidence indicates the opposite. It’s not impossible to explain this contradiction through an in-character bias - that General Sorrengail has the wrong impression about her daughter - but there are two reasons why such an explanation does not apply here:
Yarros never challenges this assessment of character. She wants us to believe this about Violet. The only thing she challenges, as shown here, is whether General Sorrengail actually believes this assessment, a challenge which is immediately answered with, “Yes, she does.”
General Sorrengail’s entire characterization up to this point indicates that she would not possess this bias. We have been repeatedly shown and told that she is a cold, calculating woman. We were also told, all the way back in Chapter 1 of Fourth Wing, that Violet had gone “months” without being alone with General Sorrengail. The series has also made it clear how close her mentorship with Markham was. The General Sorrengail we have come to know thus far would therefore defer to Markham’s judgment on this matter.
In short, as far as General Sorrengail is concerned, there is zero reason why she would not agree that Violet would support the deception of Navarre regarding the venin. Her decision to divert Violet away from the scribes therefore amounts to character assassination. At best, this is Yarros breaking the fourth wall to scream, “MY SELF-INSERT MARY SUE IS JUST SO PURE AND GOOD, YOU SEE!”
Worldbulding
Let’s ignore for a moment that there is no good reason to withhold the truth about the venin from the dragon riders, given that their dragons know and should be the dominant force within the bonded relationship. Let’s ignore that the riders stationed along the border will potentially be exposed to the truth anyway, and if they weren’t previously, they should have been told by now so that they can actually make use of the venin-killing daggers that are being stored at the border forts. We will simply assess the two scenarios that General Sorrengail has considered here:
Scenario 1: Violet enters the scribes. At some point in the distant future, she will reach a sufficiently high rank to be entrusted with the secret of the venin, at which point, General Sorrengail (supposedly) believes she will refuse to cooperate and will be killed.
Scenario 2: Violet enters the Quadrant. If she does not die on the Parapet, then there is 75% chance that she will die within her three years of education within the Quadrant. (That’s the statistical risk for the able-bodied, mind. Violet’s risk should be significantly higher.) Xaden watching out of Violet (we’ll get to that in a moment, don’t worry) only really helps her during her first year, so even if we assume he is omniscient and omnipotent during that first year, Violet’s statistical odds of survival would be only 50%. After that, she enters active military service, where she might be killed by a gryphon or by a gryphon flier or just by falling off her dragon in a flight accident. Over time, she will be promoted, until she … reaches a sufficiently high rank to be entrusted with the secret of the venin, at which point, General Sorrengail (supposedly) believes she will refuse to cooperate and will be killed.
If General Sorrengail actually cared about giving Violet “a shot are surviving,” then forcing Violet into the riders is the single dumbest decision she could possibly make. Rather than do something that would address the endpoint of (supposedly) certain death, she has simply dialed up the risk that Violet will die before that point. Rolling the dice that Violet would change as a person over the next few years as a scribe would have been the better decision.
Then again, there is the awkward fact that General Sorrengail has ignored Scenario 3: don’t let Violet join the military at all.
Navarre isn’t Israel or South Korea. Service is not mandatory for all. Conscription is to sustain Navarre’s version of the Imperial Tithe, with each province needing to meet a quota. Chapter 1 of Fourth Wing makes this very clear.
Each of Navarre’s six provinces has sent this year’s share of candidates for military service. Some volunteer. Some are sentenced as punishment. Most are conscripted.
If military service were mandatory for everyone, then no one would volunteer or be sentenced. Everyone would be sent regardless.
If General Sorrengail truly cared about Violet’s survival, then she should have used her influence (the same influence that we are supposed to believe would allow her to force Violet into the riders, even if it meant dragging her out of another division of the military, despite the fact that conscription into the riders specifically is seen as an heinous and extreme even for the rebel children) to bar Violet from serving at all. Violet should have been forced to make her way in the world as a civilian. General Sorrengail wouldn’t even need to be subtle about it. She could just tell Markham, “I don’t care what you think, Violet is not going to play ball. Let’s not waste time and resources for someone who is going to let us down and then need to be killed.”
Xaden’s Role
Continuing right along:
I stop as the door at the Archives level comes into view. “You did what?” She didn’t just say what I think she did.
She tilts her head to look me in the eye. “It was a simple transaction. He wanted the marked ones to have a chance. I gave him the quadrant—as long as he took responsibility for them—in return for a favor to be named at a later date. You were that favor. If you survived Parapet on your own, all he had to do was see that no one killed you outside of challenges or your own naivete your first year, which he did. Quite a miracle, considering what Colonel Aetos put you through during War Games.”
“You knew?” I’m going to be sick.
“I discovered it after the fact, but yes. Don’t give me that look,” she chastises, pulling me up another step. “It worked. You’re alive, aren’t you? Though I’ll admit I didn’t foresee the mated dragons or whatever emotional entanglement you’ve involved yourself in. That was disappointing.”
It all clicks into place. That night at the tree last year when he should have killed me for catching the meeting of the marked ones. The challenge where he had every opportunity to exact his revenge on my mother by ending me—and instructed me instead. Nearly intervening at Threshing…
My ribs feel like they’re cracking all over again. He’s never had a choice when it came to me. His life—the lives of those he holds dearest—has always been tied to mine.
Ms. Yarros, I will continue to speak in language you understand:
Bullshit.
The reason that Xaden is being retconned into Violet’s protector is to support a weak attempt to pretend that Violet grows as a character in Part Two. I will get to that in more detail then. For now, I will simply point out that this directly contradicts Chapter 39 of Fourth Wing.
Whilst indulging in the fantasy of Xaden being an utterly devoted romantic who loves Violet completely, Yarros summarizes Fourth Wing from his perspective. At no point was any favor to General Sorrengail mentioned. At no point was his being Violet’s protector prior to Tairn bonding with her mentioned. What were mentioned were all three of the details that Yarros is now listing to convince us that this retcon is actually a clever twist. Surely, if the favor owed was at all a factor, Xaden would have connected it to one or more of those three details while spilling his inner monologue to the audience. That he did not confirms that this detail did not exist prior to this chapter of Iron Flame.
The thing about gaslighting your audience, Ms. Yarros, is that you actually need to keep your story straight. Contradicting yourself this lazily shatters the illusion you are trying to foist upon us.
Bitter and Hateful
And suddenly, I have to know. “Are those your knife marks on his back?”
“Yes.” Her tone is bland. “It’s a Tyrrish cust—”
“Stop talking.” I don’t want to hear a single explanation for such an unforgivable act.
Right in schedule, Violet reminds us that she is a spiteful bitch who prioritizes her hatred over anything that might alleviate said hatred. With what little General Sorrengail just said, coupled with what Xaden told Violet back in Chapter 30 of Fourth Wing, any “rational woman” would immediately conclude that Xaden consented to the scarification as part of the traditions of his people, not because General Sorrengail likes to mutilate teenagers. Violet chooses to ignore this obvious information in favor of preserving her hatred.
Ah, well. We shouldn’t judge Violet too harshly. Her hatred of Dain was her anchor in the Materium. Now that she is considering giving him a chance, she needs another conduit of hatred to keep herself from being dragged back to the Warp.
Why This is Happening
It has been very clear, from the beginning of Iron Flame, that Yarros wants General Sorrengail to be redeemed. Chapter 36 is when she once again shows her hand. After absolving this character of blame for the climax of Fourth Wing, she now needs to grant absolution for putting Violet into the Quadrant in the first place. Yes, she has Violet find another reason to hate General Sorrengail, but enough is revealed to the audience to make it clear that we aren’t supposed to hold General Sorrengail accountable anymore.
This redemption should have been earned. As bloated at this book is with unnecessary elements that go nowhere, surely there was time to actually explore the relationship between Violet and her mother. There should have been time for Violet to process emotions and actually come to see her mother in a new light.
What we have been given instead is shamefully lazy.
CALLING IT RAIN
Ah, yes. Now we come to the point where Yarros either contradicts what she told us in Chapter 35 or insults the intelligence of the audience.
“Hmm.” She dismisses Dain with a single sound, then looks at Xaden. “And so the war of the father becomes that of the son. It is you, right? Stealing the weaponry? Arming the very enemy trying to rip us apart?”
The rider leadership knows about the theft of the venin-killing daggers.
They know that those weapons are going to Poromiel.
This flies directly in the face of what Draconis said in just the last chapter - and that plot hole is the best case scenario.
You see, if this isn’t a contradiction, then that means that Navarre knew that weapons were being stolen, and yet did nothing to tighten security or set a trap for the thieves. They knew the weapons were going to Poromiel, and yet didn’t monitor the movements of riders and dragons coming to and from Basgiath, nor did they search departing riders for contraband. (Draconis instituting a search in this book does not resolve the issue of stop-and-searches not being conducting during the previous three years.) They would know, via Melgren, that whomever is doing this must be hidden from his future sight, meaning that it had to be one of the rebel children, yet they did not crack down on (or, you know, simply execute) said rebel children. Only when the son of an officer happened to report glimpsing a memory of two rebel children leaving the Quadrant for an unscheduled flight did someone think, “Hmm, I wonder if those mischievous scamps are involved in this? Let’s arrange an overly elaborate test of loyalty and then not monitor said test!”
The fact that Yarros expects us to swallow this is … let’s see, what new word does the thesaurus have for us today?
It’s imbecilic.
THE RALLYING CRY
Finally, at long last, we come to the event I alluded to back when discussing draconic agency back in Chapter 13: the effort to recruit people from the wider Quadrant to fight the venin.
I want to do a deep dive about this scenario, but … what can I say that hasn’t been said already? The dragons are in control of the dragon-rider bond. Xaden himself admits this fact - no, worse, he loudly declares it, as if it strengthens his position - during his recruitment speech. Despite this, the scene is framed as though the riders are the one who need to be convinced. It is so bizarre and empty.
If Yarros really wanted this scenario, she should have this be a confrontation with the Empyrean itself. Violet and Xaden should have challengedp the dragons directly, demanding their involvement. This could have led to a schism where dragons willing to fight relocated to Aretia, dragging their riders along with them. That would have made far more sense and allowed the Empyrean to be explored as a faction with actual agency in the world (which, you know, they are supposed to be), rather than some faceless group that makes illogical decisions behind the scenes.
On top of this mess, there are multiple smaller issues.
Traitors in Their Midst
When Violet proposes that they tell everyone about the venin, Xaden is reluctant. This is how Violet wins him over.
“Dragons will vouch for the ones who want to leave for the right reasons,” I whisper.
Okay, Violet. How about the dragons who want to leave for the wrong reasons? What if, for example, a bonded dragon (or an unbonded one) comes along to assassinate you and Xaden at an opportune moment, or to report wherever you all end up back to the rider leadership? Who’s vouching for the dragons?
They’ll Kill Us All
“What has the Empyrean decided? We aren’t the only ones making choices tonight.
“It will be up to the individual dragon. They will not interfere, nor will they punish those who choose to leave and take their clutches and hatchlings with them.”
It’s better than the alternative, which is the full-scale slaughter of the dragons choosing to fight.
Since when was THIS the alternative? If it was, why were the dragons who aided the rebel children in their smuggling operation not executed years ago (or, you know, back in Chapter 4)?
Virtue Signal Hair
Remember back when I said this in the analysis of Chapters 17 and 18 of Fourth Wing?
I can’t help but wonder if Yarros gave Heaton the signature flame haircut so that she could use changes in hair color to hit the pronoun button again (because, after combing through the narrative, the only context I could find for Heaton’s pronouns being used after Chapter 11 is to describe the hair color changes).
Heaton’s name appears a total of 11 times in this book, spread across six different scenes. All of these scenes use this character as a Red Shirt, as interchangeable as any other background character. Heaton’s involvement in Chapter 36, though, is rather special. It is the first of only two scenes where non-binary pronouns are used.
There is an uproar in response to the truth of the venin being revealed, leading a Red Shirt to lash out.
“You’re lying!” Aurea Beinhaven shouts, snapping my attention back to the current situation as she charges toward Dain, blade in hand.
Garrack steps into her path, drawing his sword. “I have no problem adding to my body count for the day, Beinhaven.”
Heaton draw their axe at the base of the steps, the purple flames dyed into their hair matching the shade of my pinkie finger, and faces the formation alongside Emergy, who already has his sword ready with Ciana protecting his back.
Ms. Yarros, are you serious? Why did you think that Heaton’s hair color was at all relevant to this moment? Did you not think it would derail the flow of the scene? Did you not think we’d notice that this is the first time you jabbed the Token Non-Binary button in this entire book?
If you’re going to virtue signal, at least have the courtesy to not be this sloppy about it.
Leadership Material
Dain has been abused, throughout Part One, for being a bad leader. He has been indicated to be inferior to Xaden on at least three occasions. Yarros has never explained how he is inferior. She doesn’t explain how he does things differently, nor does she specify how his efforts to imitate Xaden fall short. She just has everyone put him down at every opportunity.
Chapter 36 finally gives us a direct comparison.
“If your dragons don’t choose—” Dain starts, but his voice is overpowered by the outbreak of mayhem within the ranks.
“How’s it going there, wingleader?” Sarcasm drips from Xaden’s tone.
“You think you can do better?” Dain turns a slow glare his way.
“Can you stand on your own?” Xaden asks me.
I nod, grimacing through the sharp bites of protest all throughout my body as I straighten.
He steps forward, raises his arms, and shadows rush in from the wall at our back, engulfing the formation—and us—in complete darkness. There’s a glimmer of a caress across my cheek, right where it’s split to what feels like bone, and more than one cadet screams.
“Enough!” Xaden bellows, his voice amplified, shaking the very dais under our feet.
The courtyard falls silent.
Shadows recede in a rush, leaving more than one cadet gawking at Xaden.
“Fucking show-off,” Garrick mutters over his shoulder, still squared off with Aura.
A corner of Xaden’s mouth rises. “You are all riders!” he shouts. “All chosen, all threshed, all responsible for what happens next. Act like it! What Aetos has told you is the truth. Whether or not you choose to believe is up to you. If your dragon has chosen not to share what some have seen, then your choice has been made for you.”
Xaden has no leadership skills. He simply uses brute force (brute force that was gifted to him by his dragon, so it’s not even something he’s earned) to intimidate people into compliance. At best, Yarros is confirming that this crowd of “egotistical assholes” have military discipline of a Mordor orc. At worst, she is sending the message that true leadership comes down to nothing but force and the fear of force.
There’s more than Xaden has to say after that, but there’s nothing about it that inspires confidence. He just radiates bad boy edge.
Good Teachers, Assemble!
As part of his operation to rescue Violet, Xaden staged a distraction along the border, forcing the Quadrant to send teachers to cover up the mess. Conveniently, despite the fact that Xaden has dropped the corpses of wyverns all along the border, the Quadrant that sends teachers to solve all the problems at the borders decided to leave “Devera, Kaori, Carr, and Emetterio” behind.
Carr attempts to stop the madness by conjuring up fire and hurling it at Dain, Xaden, and Violet. Bodhi uses his anti-magic Signet to dispel the fire. (Yes, this abrupt introduction is also how this “fucking terrifying” Signet was introduced in the book, and it will now be forgotten just as quickly.) Devera then official announces that she is a Good Teacher.
“We won’t stop you,” Devera says to Xaden, then shifts to where her own dragon perches beside the parapet. “In fact, some of us have been waiting to join you.”
“Really?” Bodhi grins.
“Who do you think left the news about Zolya all over Battle Brief?” She nods.
A smile lifts my mouth. She’s exactly who I’ve always thought she is.
Of course, the Good Teacher who validated the Mary Sue’s opinions is ready to throw away her whole life to follow the Mary Sue in a revolt. What a deep and nuanced character.
Also, the “I’ve ALWAYS thought she is” bit makes no sense. Devera was a mob character in the last book. There was no “always.” They have no prior relationship. Violet has thought about her allegiance for maybe a few months, at most.
Moments like this make it clear that, just like Sawyer with the Jesinia romance, Yarros invalidated her original plans by changing a character’s role within the story and now must ram an underdeveloped character into place to avoid making more changes. This is a moment the belongs to Markham, the teacher Violet actually had a prior relationship with. Yarros’s decision to make the scribes the bad guys and to assassinate Markham made this beat impractical, so she grabbed the nearest available character to replace him.
It’s such a shame, as this could have been a great payoff. Imagine if Violet genuinely had to struggle with the question of whether Markham could be trusted. Here, he would reveal his true colors, planting himself between his favored student and the other teachers (who can mow him down with their dragons and their magic, while he only has his words).
KEEPING SECRETS
We’re in the air less than an hour later, flying south in the biggest riot I’ve ever seen: two hundred dragons and a hundred and one riders—nearly half the quadrant—strong. And more are coming, taking a slower route with hatchlings.
There are two massive plot holes here.
“Nearly half the quadrant” immediately abandons everything to side with the Aretia rebels. Assuming that this choice wasn’t made for them by their dragons - it really should have been, as Xaden reminded us in this very chapter, but the triumphant framing of the scene makes it seem like the riders joined of their own free will - that means that Navarre’s elite fighting force has a 50/50 chance of flipping on a dime and betraying the rider leadership the moment they learn about the venin. How aren’t there multiple riders going rogue every year, particularly from the border forts? The Aretia rebels do have dragons and riders on their side, but nowhere near the numbers that this massive defection indicates that they should have. The previous rebellion was also led by Xaden’s father, who was not a rider. If defection can happen this easily, then why hasn’t the rider leadership recognize this as a problem and prepared for this eventually? They should reveal the truth about venin to all cadets prior to Threshing, taking the chance to eliminate the problem children and properly indoctrinate the rest before they are ever partnered with dragons.
Also, in his … leadership speech … Xaden tells the riders that Melgren will never be able to find them. Why WON’T Melgren be able to find more than two hundred dragons who traveled together? The fact that the rebel children block his future sight is irrelevant. People will SEE this. Eyewitness reports will at least allow the dragons to be traced to Tyrrendor, and narrowing down their hiding spots to Aretia and the surrounding area would be child’s play after that (not to mention that, if even one dragon is a traitor, that dragon could slip away and report where all the other dragons went). Does Yarros seriously expect the audience to believe that the Aretia rebels are still a secret after this? (The answer, as we will get to in Part Two, is yes.)
END OF PART ONE
The entire review of Fourth Wing took 13 parts.
It has taken us 15 parts, not including that bonus breakdown of the heist, just to get to the end of Part One.
The book thus far has been a nightmare. It would be bad enough if what we’d covered thus far were a standalone, but we are barely halfway through this mess. It is not going to be better after this.
As mentioned previously, we all deserve a break. The review of A Master of Djinn will start on May 17th and take us through the back half of the month. Between then and now, we’ll have an intermission to look back over Part One and look ahead to Part Two. This will not merely be a summary of the virus bombing we have endured thus far. We will also evaluate two potential scenarios for how Part One could have been salvaged. These scenarios would be intensive rewrites that fundamentally alter the nature of Part One, but they would preserve and enhance the aspects of Part One that Yarros seemed to care the most about.
Thanks for coming with me this far. I hope to see you on May 10th. Have a good week.
