Game of Captives (Part 3 - Characters)
Hello, all. I hope your week is going well. Thank you for joining me as we continue our exploration of the third Fire and Fang book, Game of Captives.
This week, we’ll be discussing the characters of Game of Captives, focusing on the two leads. If you’d like to read the overview, please see Part 1. If you’re instead interested in a plot breakdown, please see Part 2.
If you’re all caught up (or don’t care about that), let’s fly.
STATS
Title: Game of Captives
Series: Fire and Fang (Book 3)
Author(s): Lindsay Buroker
Genre: Fantasy (Romantasy)
First Printing: February 2026
Publisher: Self-published to Amazon
Rating: 5/10
SPOILER WARNING
Mild spoilers for Game of Captives will be included throughout this review, through I will keep the first paragraph of each section as spoiler-free as possible. Heavy spoilers will be confined to clearly labelled sections.
Heavy, unmarked spoilers for the previous two books in the series, Sky Shielder and Red Dragon, will be provided throughout this review. I’m also going to assume that you’ve already read the reviews for those books, though it isn’t necessary to do so to understand this review.
CHARACTER
Syla
Agency
It would be unfair of me to say that Red Dragon sidelined Syla. After all, she was one of the two POVs, and she was active throughout the story. However, I don’t think I’m off-base by saying that it felt more like Vorik’s story. Syla was a victim of the plot being on autopilot. She may have planned to get the shielder components, but she was forced to do so herself in order to avoid being thrown in a dungeon by those seeking to depose her. She didn’t wrestle with her feelings doing the fetch quest in the way that Vorik did. Her triumphant return to the kingdom was more a function of her finding the weapons platform and Wreylith decided she’d proven herself than of any meaningful decision by Syla.
In Game of Captives, though, Syla has agency. A lot of agency. And, while her decision-making process is flawed, most of her decisions make perfect sense for someone with her characterization who has to juggle the variables that she does.
Leading the assault on Harvest Island is a needless risk, but Syla wants to drive the stormers off the island as quickly as possible, and she believes she’s in greater danger of being assassinated by her political rivals on Castle Island than being killed by a stormer or dragon in the field.
When she learns about the stormers’ plans for Bogberry Island, she diverts to that location to aid in the battle there.
One of her plans to try to reclaim the shielder components is to let Vorik capture her and then use her medicinal knowledge (and Wreylith) to escape.
None of these decisions go quite the way that she wants them to. She also does make a couple other decisions that don’t reflect particularly well on her. However, I can’t recall a point where she every felt like a puppet dancing on the author’s strings. Syla always had a reason for her decisions, for better or worse, and that made her story very engaging.
Sex-Obsessed Idiot
Remember how I said, back in Part 1, that the sex felt like it was bolted onto the narrative?
Well, part of that is because every sex scene in this book requires Syla to take a massive hit to her intelligence. They do still come across as character decisions by Syla (rather than occurred Because the Author Said So). It’s just that, unlike with Syla’s debatable decision to lead a war from the front, these particular decisions don’t reflect particularly well on her.
Back in Red Dragon, Syla’s first sex scene with Vorik was so loud that everyone on the ship they were on knew what had happened. Syla was informed of this after the fact. Furthermore, while I’m a bit hazy on this point, I’m pretty sure that word of her dalliance with Vorik is spreading among her soldiers and is mentioned as a contributing factor to her nobles and military commanders losing faith in her. All this is to say that an intelligent character such as Syla should know better than to put herself in any situation where people would even think she is having sex with Vorik again.
…
Both of the pornographic sex scenes of this book take place on a ship filled with people, some of whom are explicitly aware that Syla is alone in a room with Vorik.
In the first one, she makes a pretense that this is an interrogation, but she can tell that her soldiers are extremely skeptical of her interrogating Vorik, alone, in her private cabin, after Vorik demonstrates to those same soldiers that he can break his chains at any moment. She then proceeds to have an argument with her bodyguard in front of the guards, during which he warns her not to have sex with Vorik (to which her only meaningful response is that she’s take a contraceptive). Buroker tries to make a pretense of the soldiers backing off from the door because Syla claims she’ll be using the drugged candles from the first book, but at that point, it’s a little hard to believe that all the soldiers are going to buy that.
In the second scene, we are explicitly told that a soldier standing guard right outside the door. He is not dismissed before the sex begins.
To makes matters worse for Syla’s characterization, in the case of the first scene, she needed to interrogate Vorik. He had information that her people needed. She had to means to extract the information without torturing him. Instead, they just had sex, and then she acted betrayed after the fact when she remembered that Vorik is indeed an enemy combatant working against her kingdom.
Remember how, in the first book, the sex was framed as seduction? How Syla was playing that game just as cleverly as (if not better than) Vorik? If sex with Vorik just so good that she’s become an addict who can’t think straight when there’s a possibility of her getting laid again? I don’t think that’s Buroker’s intention, because during the foreplay scene, it’s made clear that Syla is again trying to seduce Vorik. Why is she intelligent in that scene but a fool in these ones?
Oh, and then we need to talk about the contraceptives and abortifacients. The scene where the story crashing into a wall to discuss these things makes it clear that Syla carries these in her first aid kit. This first aid kit is small enough to be slung over her shoulder, and it has to hold not only emergency medical supplies but also the various poisons Syla wants to have on hand to deal with stormers. It’s safe to say that this is a vital piece of equipment for this conflict against an existential threat … so Syla naturally wastes space to ensure that her recreational sex life won’t have consequences. I must emphasize that medicine in this world is herbal. This isn’t like carrying around high-dosage pills, where hundreds or thousands of total doses can be contained within a few small bottles. Syla can’t just jam a month’s worth of contraceptive into a side pocket on this first aid kit It’s almost guaranteed that vital battlefield medicine or a usual poison will need to be removed from the kit to make room for even a few days worth of contraceptive.
All this is to say that, any time anything related to sex comes up, Syla goes from an intelligent young woman navigating the treacherous waters of war and political intrigue to the best of her ability to a caricature straight out of a cheap porno film.
Let the Hate Flow
Something I didn’t cover in the previous reviews is that Syla has encountered Vorik’s brother Jhiton on multiple occasions. For understandable reasons, she despises him.
She lays the blame for the deaths of her family in the inciting incident of Sky Shielder at his feet.
He has made multiple efforts to destroy shielders: by trying to take the Harvest Island shielder from her in the climax of Sky Shielder, by trying to destroy that same shielder again in the inciting incident of Red Dragon, and by showing up in the climactic battle at the end of Red Dragon.
On all three of the above occasions, as well as a couple in this book, Jhiton tried to harm or outright kill Syla.
While this particular reason is never called out in the test, it’s worth remembering that the inciting incident of Red Dragon happened because Syla opened peace talks with the stormers. Jhiton had a chance to accept her good faith gesture and make peace. He spat upon this overture by using the peace talks to smuggle in troops for that attempt to destroy the relocated shielder.
Syla knows full well why Jhiton does what he does. His motivations are ultimately the same sympathetic ones that drive Vorik. She just doesn’t care.
There’s a reason I’m laying all of this out. See, Syla makes it very clear that she wants Jhiton to die. She fantasizes about horrible accidents happening to him. Her attitude towards him makes it pretty clear that, if she were physically capable of overpowering him, she would simply murder him on the spot.
And yet … none of this reflects poorly on her character.
I mean, granted, it’s not a great look to be this obsessed with someone’s death. That doesn’t make her reaction any less realistic. From Syla’s point of view, Jhiton is the person most responsible for the suffering and upheaval that have overtaken her kingdom. He is an active threat to her and to her people. So while Syla’s wrath is presented in a way that reads across less like righteous indignation and more like hatred borne of a grudge, her emotional state and desires are both understandable.
As I was reading one of Syla’s fantasies about Jhiton dying, I found myself flashing back to Iron Flame. Violet’s irrational, murderous spite towards Dain in that book was sickening, yet at the end of the day, her attitude wasn’t significantly different from what we see with Syla in this book. The key difference is in what was done to trigger this wrath. Despite Violet being the POV, despite her incredibly biased narration, Yarros still made it very clear that Violet was blaming Dain for a death he was only tangentially, unwittingly, and accidentally connected to, a death where both the victim and Violet’s Shadow Daddy were far more to blame and yet received none of her venom. Jhiton is directly, knowingly, and intentionally bringing a significant amount of pain and death down upon Syla and the people she needs to protect. Thus, instead of feeling like the author vomiting pent-up hatred for a real person or people Jhiton was meant to represent, Syla’s anger reads like a very understandable reaction to her circumstances, the same as how most of her flawed decisions read like natural conclusions for someone in her situation to draw.
Vorik
Loyalties
Whereas Red Dragon felt like Vorik’s story, Game of Captives feels like an inevitable slide. It’s not that Vorik lacks agency. Rather, this story is less about Vorik decided what he’ll do with regards to Syla and more about him dealing with the consequences of trying to protect her while also prosecuting his people’s war.
It’s made clear from the start of the story that Vorik’s people are questioning his loyalties. His dalliance with Syla is public knowledge among the stormers; his objections to the tribes’ plans to enslave the stormers also irritates the chieftains. When Jhiton gives him the mission to abduct a moon-marked heir on Bogberry Island, it's as much about getting Vorik out of the way as it is about doing something productive for the war effort. Throughout the book, Vorik ends up having to fight his own people to maintain his rank.
Vorik also has to balance his feelings for Syla against his efforts to help the stormers. This is the part of the story where things feel inevitable. After the events of Red Dragon, it is not believable that Vorik would ever directly, intentionally harm Sgla or allow anyone else to harm here. Still, Buroker gives Vorik meaningful ways to try to balance his dueling loyalties. A good chunk of his story focusses on him trying to render the weapons platform inoperable, which will help the stormers while making Syla less of a target.
This book is also where things come to a head for Jhiton’s and Vorik’s relationship. Vorik’s efforts to shield Syla from harm finally pushes Jhiton’s patience to its limits. The two brothers end up in direct conflict as a result, with Jhiton makes very direct efforts to kill Syla and then being unapologetic when Vorik calls him out on that. In turn, Jhiton makes his lost faith in Vorik very clear by trying to steer Vorik away from any situation where Syla might be involved. This eventually brings the pair to blows. The resulting confrontation is a rewarding one (though I will have more to say about this moment when we talk about the tone).
Double Standard (?)
Vorik is an equal participant in all of the sexual content of this book. However, I don’t find this as damaging to his character as Syla’s involvement in those same scenes.
Thus far in the series, Vorik has been characterized as someone who is very easily aroused. He is very motivated by the possibility of sex with Syla. So when, during the foreplay scene, he simply realizes that Syla is seducing him to manipulate him and yet starts to submit to her anyway … that's consistent characterization. He ALWAYS was a sex-obsessed idiot. We can argue it’s a flaw, but it doesn't undermine his character.
Furthermore, Vorik has a lot less to lose in the sex scenes than Syla does. He’s not the one with allies and subordinates nearby who can overhear or simply know about the sex. Him having sex with Syla also doesn’t directly impact the trust of his allies and subordinates. (Yes, that fact is brought up when questioning his loyalties, but unlike the people of the Garden Kingdom, the stormers wouldn’t have seen the sex as an issue if Vorik hadn’t also been defending Syla at every opportunity.)
All this is to say that, where Syla having sex with Vorik is at odds with her goals and characterization, the same can’t be said about Vorik having sex with Syla.
The Right to Rule
A detail that gets brought up in this story is that Vorik can challenge one of the stormer chieftains to a trial by combat and thereby wrestle control of their tribe. Jhiton reminds Vorik of this in response to Vorik protesting the plan to enslave the people of the Garden Kingdom. A specific chieftain (Chieftess Shi, the woman who also likes to bring up periods in her quips), is framed as the specific antagonist Vorik needs to challenge. This possibility of Vorik claiming leadership via combat is brought up at least one other time as the story progresses.
What I suspect Buroker is doing here is teeing up Vorik to defeat Shi and take over her tribe, with this then being leveraged to end the war in the Garden Kingdom. This would then likely combine with a finale wedding for Syla and Vorik to politically unite stormers and gardeners via marriage. I could be wrong about this. However, much like the unfired Chekov’s Gun was discussed last week, it seems strange to call attention to this element if it is not going to get some kind of resolution.
CRUISING ONWARDS
Both the worldbuilding and the romance elements of Game of Captives are fairly consistent with what we’ve been seeing across this series (for better or for worse). Buroker does introduce a few new elements into the setting, but nothing that flips the table on how the world works. As for the romance, while this continues to be mostly sex, Buroker at least makes the emotional drama a key factor in stirring up conflict and directing the course of the story.
We’ll get into that next Wednesday, April 22nd. Until then, thank you all for stopping by. Please remember to subscribe and share if you enjoyed what you read here. Take care, everyone, and have a good week.
Volume I of my first serialized Romantasy novel, A Chime for These Hallowed Bones, is now available!
Kabarāhira is a city of necromancers, and among these necromancers, none are more honorable or respected than Master Japjot Baig. Yadleen has worked under him since she was a girl, learning how commune with bhūtas and how to bind these ancient spirits into wights. Her orderly world is disrupted, however, when a stranger appears with the skeleton of a dishonored woman, demanding that her master fabricate a wight for him.
To protect her master from scandal, Yadleen must take it upon herself to meet this stranger’s demands. Manipulating the dead is within her power, but can honor survive in the face of a man who has none?
Come for slow-burn tension, and Enemies-to-Lovers dynamic, and bone-based engineering! I hope to see you there. Volume II is in development!
