What's Up with All the Magic Superpowers? (Part 3 - The Empyrean)
Hello, all. Thank you for joining me this Sunday.
This is Part 3 of my analysis of magic superpowers in modern Fantasy. If you’d like a more conceptual overview of the concept, please see Part 1 and Part 2. In this part, as well as Part 4 we’ll be doing case studies of the stories that crystallized my concerns that magic superpowers are begin lazily abused as a shortcut by writers who don’t respect the shortcoming of that trope, thereby invalidating its benefits.
All right. Let’s unleash the power.
SPOILER WARNING
Throughout this piece, I am going I provide unmarked spoilers specific to the worldbuilding of The Empyrean. While I am going to be focussing on worldbuilding, some of the elements we will discuss may directly or indirectly spoil key plot developments up through the end of Onyx Storm.
THE EMPYREAN - ALL THE POWER, NONE OF THE RESPONSIBILITY
To be very clear, I am not dedicating an entire part of this series to The Empyrean because it is a particularly egregious example. In fact, for all of the issues in its worldbuilding and magic system, the inclusion of magic superpowers is one of the less concerning examples of the trope. I’d go so far as to say that, if we were only considering Fourth Wing, I might actually say that this series was an example of how to use magical superpowers correctly.
What sets The Empyrean apart is simply that I’ve read more books in it (which, as of the time this is posted, is 3 out of a proposed 5 books). There is more material to be discussed. The issues also manifest more gradually across the series, necessitating that we discuss all of that material in order to understand how to avoid making the same mistakes.
So, while I won’t hold back from my usual level of scathing criticism from The Empyrean, I do want to emphasize that this is the mild example of misusing magical superpowers. I feel that the examples we’ll cover in Part 4 are much more severe. They’re the actual reason I decided to write this interview; this dissection of The Empyrean is just about being thorough about the issue.
An Acceptable Foundation
Among Yarros’s many problems is that she has some good ideas but won’t put in any effort to follow through on them. She does lay the groundwork for magic superpowers to make sense. Signets (both the powers she acknowledges as “signets" and the ones that are functionally the same thing) are supposed to be based upon the character and desires of the individual wielder. Sure, Yarros only ever uses this when she wants to have Violet play at being Sherlock Holmes, but the idea is there. This is a world of “lesser magic” that anyone who can channel magic can access and individualized magical abilities that are an expression of the one who wields them. The concept makes sense and holds together.
And if that were all there were to it, I wouldn't have much to talk about here … except, starting in Iron Flame, problems arise.
See, throughout Fourth Wing, “lesser magic” is not explored. It’s used to handwave conveniences like pens and wards on doorways, but we are never taught how it works, how it's used, or what its limits are. Likewise, we never get an explanation for what the limits of venin magic are or how it is wielded. It’s all used for spectacle.
All of this was fine at the time. Signets get 100% of the narrative focus. We weren’t given any reason to believe that lesser magic matters enough to the story for us to need to understand the mechanics, and venin magic being unknown lends itself to the vibe of a mysterious and terrifying foe.
Then, in Iron Flame, Yarros decided to expand upon the magic system.
Rune Magic
Yarros could have used runes as an extension of the lesser magic system, or even retconned them in as an explanation for how lesser magic is wielded, but no - she had to make it a brand new thing. Furthermore, she explicitly established that rune magic is so powerful that “runes are the great equalizer” to Signets, as well as that the combinations achievable by runes are “nearly limitless”.
There are two gaping problems with this. The first, which we previously covering during the Iron Flame review, is that rune magic should make this setting unrecognizable. At the very least, Navarre has everything to gain and nothing to lose by training riders to create runes and arming their entire military with runic weaponry (regardless of what Yarros claimed while trying to handwave the retcon). The issue more pressing to this analysis, though, is that Yarros has destroyed her ability to compartmentalize the magic system.
When all the most powerful magical abilities were locked up as superpowers, Yarros could have things like the lightning and shadow Signets exist without breaking the world. With the rules are written for runes, there is no good reason why these powers shouldn’t be widespread. This would be like if Rowling had introduced Metamorphmagi and Legilimens first, then retconned the Polyjuice Potion and Legilimency into the narrative after the fact while also establishing them as beginner-level magic.
(To a lesser extent, Yarros also did this to inntinnsic-type Signets when she established “mindwork” as a “lesser magic”. The reason I’m not leaning on this as hard here, when I criticized it pretty heavily before, is that Yarros doesn’t lean on this detail as heavily as she does the runes.)
But fine. This situation could have been recovered. We have a lesser magic system, a Signet system, and a rune magic system. Signets are magical superpowers functionally act as permanent rune effects that are unique to the character that possess them, and each character has only one. We can expect Violet to be an exception to the one-per-person rule, but that’s because she has two dragons, so it’s an exception that proves the rule (though more on this in a moment). If Yarros had established this as the system of magic from the start of Fourth Wing, this would have been workable. The lost advantage of compartmentalizing Signet powers could have been made up for with character work.
Double Signets
… and then Yarros chose to get rid of the limited nature of Signet powers, first with Xaden in Iron Flame and then with multiple other rebel children in Onyx Storm.
I’m not going to rehash my criticism of the idea that the scribes (whose job it is to track rider lineages and who bonds with what dragon) and the rider leadership (who have every reason to be suspicion of the rebel children) overlooked the possibility of double Signets (something that there was established precedent for) in the rebel children. Instead, I’m going to highlight that not only is Yarros erasing the limits of Signets (by making it possible for people to just having additional powers to get around their original limits), but she’s erasing limits in a manner that directly resolves narrative problems.
Garrick’s ability to teleport allows Yarros to ignore distance to reposition characters and alloy during the climax.
Imogen’s petrification Signet gives a character who previously lacked combat magic options in battle (as was demonstrated when the Signet was introduced).
Xaden’s and Liam’s second Signets allowed Yarros to untie narrative knots, with Xaden’s giving her an excuse to inject relationship drama after resolving the Jealousy conflict and Liam’s allowing her to cover up something that seems like a pretty clear-cut editing error.
Then there’s Violet. Having Andarna’s time stop power in Fourth Wing not be a Signet power allowed Yarros to change Violet’s powers to solve whatever the current needs of the story were. However, by stating in interviews that Violet’s powers “evolve with her understanding”, Yarros has effectively declared that she’s going to keep changing Violet’s powers to whatever she needs in the moment, which will almost certainly mean invalidating more narrative obstacles. She has written herself a black check to ignore Violet’s limits.
The Balance of Power
By this point, Yarros has already sacrificed both of the advantages of magical superpowers. She’s just handing out “power for power’s sake”.
Once she brought in Balance, everything properly collapsed.
The problem with the Balance element is that it invalidates everything about characterization affecting the powers. What does it matter what a character’s desires are if there’s a cosmic balance sheet that needs to be reckoned with? Why do Violet and Xaden get any say in what they “need” while some other character is going to be slapped with a corresponding Signet just to match them? What are the odds that multiple people with the right desires to match up with powerful Signets happen to be born at just the right time to participate in this conflict, instead of existing in every generation?
At this point, Signets don’t even work as a tool for character development, unless the development we are meant to derive from them is that Violet is an idiot who tries to retroactively justify powers that were handed out on a cosmic whim to balance a ledger.
Oh, but it gets worse.
Venin Signets
While this is an extension of the Balance issue, I find it rather telling about Yarros’s priorities with Signets.
Venin in Fourth Wing and Iron Flame were sorcerers of terrible power. They had amplified versions of lesser magic (demonstrated via their telekinetic powers and incredible speed), could use rune magic (demonstrated by the wyverns), and had a handful of other magical abilities:
Immorality
Conjuring blue fire
Teleportation
All things linked to draining magic
Pain projection
Communicating over vast distances by utilizing dreams
This made sense. Venin were unnatural beings. Riders and fliers could only stand against them through a combination of Signets and alloy daggers. We didn’t need to understand more about venin or how they worked because the unknowns added to their menace. It wasn’t like Violet was encountering venin outside of the finales of the books.
Onyx Storm changed things by making venin a bigger issue. Xaden is now a venin. Violet was given a recurring nemesis who is a venin. This didn’t meant that Yarros had to delve deeper into venin magic and how it worked, but it did create a scenario would venin magic would need to be applied more often. Yarros would need to account for their telekinesis, fire conjuration, teleportation, pain projection, and mental communication powers (not to mention, you know, the fact that Theophanie could move like the Flash).
Instead, she gave venin magical superpowers, and made that the focus of the threat they now posed.
…
Which brings me to why I am gong on yet enough rant about The Empyrean less than two weeks after that review wrapped.
Can’t Be Bothered
I’m convinced that Yarros uses “power for power’s sake” to avoid the hard parts of writing a magic system.
When Signets were first introduced, this wasn’t an issue, but she kept doing it. Every time she had a chance to delve deeper into the magic system she’d created, she’d just make up something new. First she added runes. Then she started handing out double Signets. Then, when the time came for the venin to properly enter the spotlight as antagonists, she started handing them Signets and made a big deal about a cosmic balance that didn’t previously exist. (I’m not even going to touch the issues she added in with divine intervention - you can find my breakdown of that here.)
Magical superpowers are used in The Empyrean because they don’t need a comprehensive system to work, but Yarros was so negligent that she circled right around to the place she’d be if she didn’t bother to use magical superpowers in the first place.
NOT AN ISOLATED INCIDENT
What I’ve just relayed may sound like standard fare for my criticism of Yarros’s writing, but there is a reason I needed to spell it all out again.
When it comes to magical superpowers, Yarros is not the only one mishandling the concept. Other authors are inflicting similar damage on their narratives, only they are doing it either far more quickly or far more egregiously. And it’s the more severe examples that inspired this series.
On Tuesday, January 6th, we’ll wrap up with a look at:
The Lightlark Saga
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.
