Fourth Wing (Chapter 12 through Chapter 14)
STATS
Title: Fourth Wing
Series: The Empyrean (Book 1)
Author(s): Rebecca Yarros
Genre: Fantasy (Epic)
First Printing: 2023
Publisher: Red Tower Books
Rating: 2/10
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
Immediately after their final run of the Gauntlet, the 1st-year cadets of Violet’s squad attend the Presentation, an event where the dragons seeking riders can assess the available cadets. This is dangerous for the cadets, as the dragons will cull anyone they deem to be a liability. Violet’s squad is encouraged to interact as they pass by the dragons, giving the dragons insight into their personalities. However, when the squad sees an unexpected dragon, a golden feathertail, an argument breaks out among them, which is narrowly broken up before the dragons intervene and wipe out the whole squad. On the walk back, however, two members of the squad are culled.
The day of Threshing arrives. The 1st-years are thrown into a valley with the dragons and told to find a dragon that will bond with them. During her wandering, Violet learns that Jack and two other 1st-years are trying to hunt down and kill the golden feathertail. She intercepts them right as they engage with the feathertail. Xaden chooses this moment to arrive as well, with his dragon beside him. However, due to the rules of the Threshing, he can only watch, not intervene.
Violet battles with Jack and his cohort. She manages to incapacitate Jack and one other, only narrowly being bested by the last one. The black dragon introduced in Chapter 8 intervenes before she can be slain. He kills Violet’s last opponent and telepathically commands her to get onto his back. Violet only manages the task with the dragon’s help. When he takes off, however, she immediately slips off his back and begins to fall.
PLOT
Chapter 12 (The Presentation)
Despite Presentation being built up as a major plot beat, the chapter itself is actually a slow-paced chapter for characterization. The introduction of the golden feathertail is the only major development that occurs.
I think this was a good decision on Yarros’s part. We had just endured several chapters of both peril and heightened emotional tension. This is the first chapter since Chapter 7 that tapped the brakes. Not only does this give the audience a reprieve, it also allows the events of Threshing to have a greater impact.
However … neither of the big characterization bits contribute to the story. They are just forced setup for elements that don’t get a payoff.
First, this scene tries to explore Violet and Rhiannon’s friendship. Outside the boot incident and Violet of being supportive of Rhiannon “getting a few much-needed orgasms” in Chapter 7, their friendship has not been demonstrated. We are merely told that Rhiannon is helping Violet to train for sparring tests off-screen, which loses much of its impact when Violet chooses to just poison her opponents anyway. So when Violet asks Rhiannon how her pregnant older sister is doing (something that was mentioned in passing all the way back in Chapter 1), it feels like it comes out of nowhere. When Rhiannon asks Violet why she kept her method of getting up the Gauntlet a secret, and then Violet promises not to keep any more secrets (while also reflecting on the fact that she had to keep Xaden’s secret), I don’t feel that the relationship has been tested or that either of them have grown. Violet telling Rhiannon about the dragonscale vest, which is intended as a show of trust, is just baffling. With how the story has been framed thus far, it’s a surprise that it is still a secret at this point (Chapter 5 establishes that it visibly shimmers, so even if Imogen was blindsided by the armor in that first fight, people should have started to figure things out over the past few months). The long and short of it is, when I say that Rhiannon feels like an accessory for Violet, this scene is why. Beats that should be meaningful just feel like they’re tacked on without any real weight to them.
Second, the fight over the golden feathertail is the first time that we actual get characterization for the squad as a whole. The most we have gotten in previous chapters was interchangeable lines of banter. Here, Yarros aggressively asserts characterization for 1st-years who are present (much the same way that she did for Aurelie in Chapter 10). We then get a confusing line where Violet is appalled by how the squad turns on one another when there’s no supervising officer present. Much like the friendship with Rhiannon, this feels incredibly hollow. Squad unity has never been demonstrated, and we haven't been given any reason to care about squad unity in any case.
Chapters 13 & 14 (The Threshing)
These chapters are the payoff to everything built up thus far. I think they work well overall. The fight scene is functional at a conceptual level. While the black dragon hasn’t bonded with Violet, the fact that he offers to take her onto his back is still a payoff to Violet’s progression.
CHARACTERS
Violet (In Isolation)
What we have here is mostly solid, continuing Violet’s established trajectory. We learn that Violet does not like infighting in her squad. She is compassionate towards the dragons, being appalled at how her squad mates belittle the small and weak-looking feathertail and how they talk about killing it for the greater good. When Jack’s cohort attack the feathertail, she makes the pivotal decision to engage them on their terms, without the aid of poison. The intervention of the black dragon feels like a reward for her character growth as well as her progression through the plot. This is still excellent.
Violet (In Context)
This murderous narcissist continues to demonstrate the depths of her double standards and her sheer lack of repentance for cheating her way into her current position.
The Codex is Still for Losers
First, during the Presentation, Violet expresses that she believes that the Codex prohibition about 1st-years writing to their families is “a bullshit rule”. She says this as a reaction to Rhiannon’s frustration as not being able to write to her pregnant older sister and inquire about said sister’s health. On the face of it, this is fine as a way to show support for a friend. The issue is that Violet actually does believe this. When Rhiannon reminds her that the rule is about encouraging loyalty to the wing, Violet responds as follows.
“I think I’m just as loyal to my sister whether I’ve had a letter from her or not,” I counter. “There are bonds that can’t be broken.”
Violet has memorized the Codex. She is the daughter of a rider and was trained as a scribe. She should be fully equipped to understand every rule in the Codex and appreciate its practical functionality, even if she personally disagrees with its inclusion. For her to utter this particularly line about this particular rule, she is either deliberately twisting the meaning of the rule or so self-absorbed that she can’t think critically about it.
Nothing has been said about breaking bonds with people outside of the wing. The worst possible interpretation of the rule is that it temporarily depriving riders of outside emotional support so that they will be forced to build new bonds with their fellow riders. This may clash with the Codex’s current approach to the murder school, but it makes perfect sense. A good military unit wants its soldiers to learn to trust each other rather than leaning on distant friends and relatives as a crutch. The fact that Violet clings to such a crutch speaks volumes of her perspective on human relationships, which is not good if the story wants to sell us on her romance with Xaden.
There’s also the general matter of her double standard about using the Codex. She was perfectly happy to exploit technicalities to cheat on a critical test and claim an honor that she doesn’t deserve, but within the hour, she is back to badmouthing those rules when they inconvenience to her or a friend of hers. Were she not the pivot of the Protagonist-Centered Morality, and were she held accountable for this double standard, this would not be an issue, but all I can think about is the fact that rules-compliant Aurelie is dead while this hypocrite is rising through the ranks.
Sexual Objectification is Evi - … Ooh, a Hot Guy!
Remember that delightful paragraph from Chapter 1 where Violet mentally drooled over Xaden? Remember how she sexually objectified male riders in Chapter 5?
Fourth Wing hopes you have forgotten, because according to Chapter 12, sexual objectification makes you “fully-body-shudder gross” and “an asshole”.
During the Presentation, Violet gets angry at a cadet named Tynan. This is one of her squad mates who advocates killing the feathertail, and he is the member of Jack’s cohort who nearly kills Violet in Threshing before being executed by the black dragon. This is what he says to elicit condemnation from Violet.
“I’d be loyal to your sister, too,” Tynan says, turning around and grinning as he walks backward. “She’s one hell of a rider, and that ass. I saw her right before Parapet and damn, Violet. She’s hot.”
And then, a few lines down:
“I’m just wondering how one of you got all the good traits and the other looks like she got the leftovers.” His gaze skims down my body.
In isolation, this behavior is merely one of Yarros’s efforts to set up a character for karmic death. Tynan is disgusting, so he must die. However, comparing this to Violet reacting to Xaden in Chapter 1, coupled with her commentary in Chapter 5, I find myself wondering why Violet herself does not deserve to be immolated.
How Dare He Not Validate Me
This is where the demonization of Dain really kicks into gear.
At the start of Threshing, Violet chats with Rhiannon about some advice Dain gave her.
“Dain tried talking me into [seeking out] a brown [dragon].”
“Dain lost his vote when he tried talking you into leaving,” she counters.
There’s a lot of truth to that.
Remember, Dain has done nothing but support Violet up to this point. He has walked with her in the hallways to protect her against physical violence that she can’t handle. He has tried, time and again, to find a way to get her safely out of the Riders Quadrant. Whenever Violet tries to make it about her and accuses him of not believing in her, his counterargument also comes back to how much her cares for her well-being and how dangerous he knows that challenges ahead are. There is little doubt in my mind that, if Violet were able to earn her status as a rider fairly, he still would have arranged the out for her, just so that she could have the opportunity if she wanted to take it. Plus, no matter how hard Dain fought with her on this, he has never once forced her. He has given her this opportunity and asked her to consider it.
In response, Violet spits on him for doubting her ability to overcome the very same challenges that she needs to cheat on to complete.
This is what I meant when I said that this book is mean-spirited in its efforts to demonize Dain. There is no need for this. Violet’s character arc is carrying her away from Dain already. All that having her treat Dain as the bad guy accomplishes is highlighting how utterly empty her character development is.
Xaden
The Threshing provides further confirmation that Xaden, like Violet, doesn’t care much for the Codex and likes to twist the rules to allow him to bypass them. We got some of this in Chapter 11 as well, as he backed Violet up when Amber accused her of cheating on the Gauntlet, but this is a much more clear-cut demonstration of this trait. He can’t intervene to help Violet (or the feathertail, it seems, otherwise this would be cut and dry), but he claims that it is acceptable to “narrate” Violet’s battle by shouting warnings to her.
Unlike Violet, this does not poison his character. The narrative doesn’t try to paint him as anything other than what he is. He’s also not the main character, and all evidence indicates that he properly earned his way in the Riders Quadrant, so this doesn’t collapse any character arc.
Dain
Poor Dain. He doesn’t even appear in these chapters, yet his characterization is spit upon.
Jack
Threshing reminds us that Jack is both the Murderous Sociopath Classmate and the Bully. His only role here is to threaten Violet and then be humiliated by her.
Tynan
This character had a few lines prior to these chapters, but Threshing and Presentation are the only scenes where he gets proper characterization: as a bloodthirsty brute who is a minion for Jack. He is eager to kill the feathertail, and he has no qualms with killing a squad mate during Threshing. Yarros goes out of her way to make him seem terrible and then kill him off.
Luca
This character is the stereotypical Alpha Bitch archetype. She also got a few lines in earlier chapters, but much like Tynan, her characterization is rushed before her death. Unlike Tynan, she dies in the Presentation. Yarros had to rush things so much that she had to outright state that every other character hates Luca. They apparently find her so insufferable that her asking a very basic and innocuous question at the start of the Presentation - she heard a rumor about the feathertail being at the Presentation, and wanted to know if that was true - is treated as her being selfish and rude. She is also among the trainees who mock the feathertail’s size and color and reiterates the Violet is a liability. The chapter closes with her being incinerated by one of the dragons at the Presentation.
Also, Luca is part of the reason that I concluded that Violet having silver hair is a flag of her being a Mary Sue with a special appearance, rather than merely putting a positive spin on having EDS. Luca mocks the golden feathertail for being “yellow”, yet pivots back to calling it “gold” just so that she can associate it with Violet (since Violet having “silver” hair goes with the golden dragon). Given how Luca is characterized, I don’t buy that she would think up and hurl this insult on the spot unless Violet’s hair was so undeniably silver that Luca would look foolish if she tried to call it gray.
Pryor
This cadet is indecisive, so he gets incinerated during Presentation.
I honestly can’t remember if this character even got lines before Chapter 12. It’s also hard to tell whether Yarros wanted us to feel bad about his death or was trying to establish that he deserved his death because of his indecisiveness. However, given how characters we are supposed to hate berate him for this flaw before his death, I am inclined to think that we were supposed to feel bad for him.
Rhiannon
Best friends forever, I guess.
This really is a nothing character. At least the various flavors of characters we are supposed to hate have specific elements we are supposed to hate about them. Rhiannon is just a placeholder for a Best Friend character who still hasn’t had any substance added.
Tairn
The black dragon’s full name is Tairneanach, though he allows Violet to call him Tairn. This name is given by him to Violet at the very end of Chapter 14. All we know about him is that he is willing to bow down to help Violet mount him. However, given that this is the first dragon to really be fleshed out as a character, we have no reason to believe that this is out of the ordinary for dragons.
WORLDBUILDING
I really don’t want to repeat myself too much, so I’ll just say up-front that all previously established holes in the worldbuilding are still there. It’s just that now we have a few additional elements to make those holes wider and deeper.
Dragons
We learn more about the dragons in these chapters. While the information is coming somewhat late, the Presentation and the Threshing are natural places to reveal the information.
Gold is not a standard color among dragons.
Feathertails are smaller than normal dragons, do not have weapons at the ends of their tails (hence the name), do not bond with riders, and do not have claws. They also appear to be idiots who lack basic survival instincts, with no fight-or-flight response when threatened by three armed opponents.
When a dragon selects a rider to bond with, the rider will feel a telepathic call to a dragon. The 1st-years at Threshing are advised to roam around the valley where Threshing takes place and meet different dragons until they find a dragon that has chosen them.
We are also presented with two pieces of information that call into question the Codex and the policies of the Riders Quadrant.
Tairn is willing to help Violet mount. He acts put-upon by this, yet he still does it. Why, then, does the Gauntlet demand that a rider by able to shimmy up a dragons leg without any gear? If the first dragon we meet as a character is willing to do this, it calls into question whether all of them are.
The squad’s argument in Chapter 12 is within earshot of the dragons. At the very least, we are given absolutely no reason to believe that they walked a considerable distance away from the dragons, nor to think that the dragons are deaf. Dragons clearly understand human speech well enough to judge the 1st-years based upon what they say during the Presentation. Furthermore, the opening of the chapter establishes that a dragon will slaughter an entire squad at Presentation if necessary to weed out one weak link. Why was Violet’s squad not annihilated for Luca and Tynan mocking the feathertail?
Glaurung Sue
The golden feathertail is not established as being more powerful than Tairn. However, it is established as being a super-special dragon that no rider has ever ridden. Violet has demonstrated her goodness by standing up for it during Presentation and then protecting it during Threshing. What's more, Luca originally wanted this dragon, so bonding with it would still count as a victory over a bully.
As mentioned above, Tairn has not actually bonded with Violet at this point. He has only communicated with her telepathically and consented to her riding him. The feathertail is very much on the table for Violet to bond with.
Which do you think will bond with her?
I was honestly blindsided by the answer. But that is a discussion for next week.
Culture of Violence
When Jack and his cohort attack the feathertail, we get this rather curious line.
“Letting something so weak, so incapable of fighting, live is against our beliefs!” Jack shouts, and I know he’s not just talking about the dragon.
Outside of being a murderous sociopath, we have not been given anything to establish that Jack is special. Nothing has been mentioned about him practicing a different religion or coming from a specific subculture within Navarre that holds an extreme viewpoint. The statements made by Tynan and Luca about the golden feathertail further indicate that this is not an isolated viewpoint (they likewise have not been singled out as anything special). Couple this with the Codex, the influence of the dragons, and the fact Violet’s mother would rather her die as a rider than live as a scribe, this implies that Navarre as a whole values physical strength and seeks to cull any physical disability or weakness.
This is fine in concept. It ties so much about this world together. It would also explain why Jack wasn’t executed on the spot for murdering another candidate on the Parapet and then declaring his contempt for the Codex and eagerness to murder Violet in front of multiple superior officers. If these are indeed the values of Navarre, then he comes off less as an unstable maniac and more like an overzealous idiot.
The problem is Violet. Her existence is fundamentally incompatible with this culture.
If this is a widespread cultural belief, and if the Codex allows murder in the hallways, then Violet should be dead many times over. Dain might scare off unbonded 1st-years, but surely a group of bonded riders would have dealt with her (and him, for threatening the wing by shielding her). Even if her EDS was not widely known before, her cheating on the Gauntlet should have marked her for death and gotten her killed at the hands of Amber and other higher-ranking riders in the days between the Presentation and the Threshing.
Let’s think bigger picture, though. How is Violet not seen as a liability as a society at large?
To be clear, my biggest issue here is not that Violet has not been the target of a focused extermination effort since entering the school (despite Yarros herself emphasizing the danger). It is not that this society did not kill her in the name of eugenics when her health problems became evident. It is not that Chapter 6 established that the Healers Quadrant, including the resident dragon rider with the mending Signet, has a long history of patching her up, thereby wasting time, energy, and resources that could be funneled towards people who would be viewed as stronger and more valuable. All of these are problematic elements that contradict what Yarros established through Jack, but they are not the main issue.
The problem is that, based on the narrative voice, Violet has not been raised in such a society. Her insecurities about having EDS are just that: insecurities. She does not read as someone who was actually raised to believe that she is a liability. She reads as someone who was raised in the luxury of modern American sensibilities about physical disability.
As a result of this, we are presented with a society where two opposing systems of beliefs about physical ability are manifesting at the same time. There are ways to explain this dichotomy, of course.
Jack could represent a minority.
Violet could have grown up surrounded by a minority.
Both could represent minorities that form the extreme ends of Navarre’s worldviews.
Navarre could be experiencing an ongoing ideological conflict between the two extremes.
Yarros chose to provide no explanation at all. This is therefore a massive plot hole.
I have a theory for why Yarros did this. However, because that involves heavy speculation, I'd prefer to save it for the retrospective. Just know that we will be coming back to this in late December.
Dress Code
This is an issue which could have been brought up in any of the previous three parts, but since we have some space here, we might as well address it.
Yarros wrote video game character customization into this book. It makes no sense, and it is very distracting.
The Riders Quadrant, despite being a military academy, has no dress code outside of all of its trainees wearing black. They can have any hairstyle (or hair color), carry around any weapons they choose (despite combat training thus far resolving entirely around hand-to-hand and knives, and despite the fact that the dragons are so large that any non-ranged weapon would be laughably useless), and customize their outfits with any accessories. Chapter 12 includes the following passage:
“They’re all yours,” Garrick says to the quadrant’s senior wingleader, a woman I’ve seen a few times in Battle Brief murmuring to Xaden. Her uniform still has her signature spikes on the shoulders, but this time they’re gold and look sharp as hell—like she wanted to throw in a little extra badass today.
A commanding officer of this military school dresses like a character from a 2000s Tony Hawk video game. She is not the worst offender in this regard.
Chapter 3 establishes that one of the officers greeting the new cadets as they come off the Parapet walks around with a crossbow slung over her shoulder. (This is at least a practical weapon to wield while stop a dragon, but given the tech level of this world, this is akin to a midshipman casually walking around the US Naval Academy with a fully automatic rifle slung over one shoulder.)
Chapter 3 also establishes that Imogen has “half-shaved, half-pink” hair.
Chapter 11 establishes that Heaton's hair has “red flames cut and dyed" into it. Those flames will be dyed green by Chapters 17 and purple by Chapter 23.
Chapter 5 establishes that “the cuts of [female cadets'] leathers are chosen by preference”.
This raises a multiple of questions and inconsistencies. The only explanation that Yarros ever provides is that riders don't play by the rules. Setting aside the fact that the enforcement of the Codex disproves this (and the Codex does indeed get enforced when doing so benefits Violet), it also ignores the practical realities here.
Militaries don't only enforce dress codes as a means of fostering a common identity and encouraging conformity. Logistics and safety are also issues to consider. Providing soldiers with a wide array of style and customization options for their uniforms is a logistical nightmare; it's much easier to just provide standardized gear in a limited range of sizes. Furthermore, customization opens the risk of clothing and accessories that might catch on equipment (or weapons, or a dragon) at the wrong moment and get the wearer (or others) killed. It is safer to have everyone conform to a single common denominator of low-risk clothing. This even extends to hair styles. It's a lot more efficient to have military barbers reproduce one or two hairstyles than to waste time and energy on complex styling to suit the whims of the soldier.
Yarros is not unaware of these problems. It is established that the Riders Quadrant provides uniform pieces through “central issue”. This means that either this central issue is wasting resources to supply hair dye, custom leather outfits, and random accessories so that riders can express themselves, or else that the riders are bringing all of these things into the Quadrant themselves. I doubt that every single rider volunteer could afford a custom rider outfit, especially given that no mention is made of the Quadrant being restricted to wealthy families.
However, that then brings us to a bigger issue: immersion is once again taking a hit, because this does not feel like a fantasy world. It feels like a modern American university campus, right down to Imogen having the so-called Gender Studies Haircut. The existence of hair dye, custom outfits, and edgelord accessories in a fantasy world is not unbelievable. Each of these things have arguably existed in our own world for thousands of years, in some form or another. The issue is that Yarros has included them in a very specific manner that is more reflective of our own world than the world she has created for this story.
The thing is, a flexible uniform code would not have been implausible. I can name two very good examples of military organizations in fiction that have the same loose uniform code as Fourth Wing. Both demonstrate why this aspect of Fourth Wing was poorly considered.
In Divergent, the Dauntless faction conducts itself exactly the same as Fourth Wing. (This is one of the reasons I named Divergent as the basis for the smut fan fiction that was fused with Eragon to spawn this book.) Divergent explicitly takes place in the future, with technological developments that make self-expression much easier. The film, at least, shows us that tattoos can be applied in seconds. Furthermore, due to the nature of Dauntless within the social structure of that setting, it makes sense that Dauntless members would be encouraged and facilitated in any impulse decision they make regarding their appearance. Their efforts at self expression are, in a strange way, a method of ensuring their conformity to faction values.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars shows us that clone troopers will go to great lengths to make themselves stand out from their brothers, including tattoos, crazy hair cuts, and hair dye. Much like Divergent, technology makes these changes incredibly easy and convenient (it is established in a same show that facial reconstruction surgeries are so low-risk that they can be used for temporary disguises). The customization is almost always limited to what's under the armor. Only high-ranking clones get to modify the armor itself, and even that, it's usually confined to a paint job. The real kicker here, though, is that Clone Wars was an animated show. Storytelling in a visual medium tends to rely heavily on visuals. When you show has dozens, if not more than a hundred, characters who all used the same model and have the same voice actor doing the same voice, you’re fighting an uphill battle to make the characters distinguishable from one another. Tattoos, paint jobs, and hair dye were necessary concessions to the medium.
The dress codes of Fourth Wing do not break the world by themselves. What they do break is immersion. Every time one of these special snowflakes shows off their personal specialness, it is a slap in the face that reminds me that I am reading someone's self-insert power fantasy.
ACTION
The fight scene between Violet and Jack's cohort is another instance of Yarros trying to have her cake and eat it.
Violet is a small, “fragile” woman with EDS who is armed with nothing but knives. She is facing three men, all of whom are larger than her, heavier than her, and armed with weapons that have greater reach. Her knives are not established to be throwing knives, so targeting these men from beyond their reach is an extremely risky proposition that necessitates that she sacrifice a weapon for uncertain results. Her armor might protect her from knives in turn, but it shouldn't do squat against blunt force trauma from the impact of a sword, not if the armor is as flexible as it has been described as being. She will probably suffer severe bruising to her internal organs (if not outright rupturing, thanks to the complications of EDS) if they land a solid blow to her body. For that matter, because Chapter 5 has established that her armor shimmers, it should not be a secret after all these months, so they shouldn't target her torso anyway. In terms of training, every fight since Imogen where someone was genuinely trying to hurt her had her opponent be compromised by poison. Realistically, Violet has almost no chance of incapacitating even one of these men, let alone two.
In another fantasy book, I might roll with this. Knife throwing is a Rule of Cool thing. Violet's decision to stand and fight without the advantage of poison is an important growth moment. A setting can handwave the differences between men and women.
Fourth Wing is not such a book. Yarros has put considerable effort into establishing that Violet will die if she faces any one of these opponents in a fair fight. That she only narrowly loses when faced with three directly contradicts what Yarros has repeatedly told the audience. Yarros tries to do some choreography to account for this, but the damage was done before the scene even started. Violet should have died here, quickly and without fanfare.
This entire scene was a poorly conceived power fantasy. If the action alone wasn't proof of this, the one-liners and narrative voice are. Violet quips like a fanfiction character written by an amateur writer who thinks that Whedonism is the only way to make a character likeable. One of these weak lines specifically evokes Violet's EDS to call out how she is a master at targeting weak points in the human body. There is also a line in the narrative about how Violet is more used to pain than her opponents. The edgy daydream energy is palpable here.
(Putting a personal power fantasy into a story is not an objective flaw in and of itself. My point is that the artifice of this situation is extremely blatant and extremely distracting.)
This would have been so easy to avoid. All Yarros needed to do was show us a scene where Violet wins in a sparring test fairly, without poison, showing her deep understanding of the human body. Such a display of skill would elevate this fight from self-indulgent power fantasy to a lethal but still believable trial. Alternatively, because Violet knows that Jack is already gunning for her and might try something during Threshing, and she knows that the members of his cohort are in league with him well before the Threshing, she could have just poisoned all three of them at breakfast that morning. Not only would this weaken them to the point of this being a realistically fair fight, but it could also mitigate the culture clash issue I identified up above. If, say, the poison she chose compromised judgment and lowered inhibitions, then the three men could be acting upon desires that they'd normally restrain, implying that society does not actually cling to such an extreme interpretation of survival of the fittest.
MAKE THE BOND
Thus far, the issues with Fourth Wing has primarily been rooted in the worldbuilding. If the core plot beats and the characters were transplanted to a New Adult Romance set in a modern American university, without any fantastical elements, the story would still have some issues, but the strengths would far out weight the bad.
Sadly, the story is about the peak, and after that, the plot and characters are going to buckle without any interference from the worldbuilding.
Next time, we will review Chapters 15 through 16. These will be the chapters when Fourth Wing should have ended. I hope to highlight just how well Yarros ties off her established plot threads before we even hit the 50% mark. It will make the deterioration that begins with Chapter 17 easier to see.
This is the last deep breath before the plunge into sludge. I hope none of you miss it. See you all next week.
