Onyx Storm (Chapter 12 & Spotlight on Dishonesty)
STATS
Title: Onyx Storm
Series: The Empyrean (Book 3)
Author(s): Rebecca Yarros
Genre: Fantasy (Epic)
First Printing: January 2025
Publisher: Red Tower Books
Rating: 1.5 / 10
SPOILER WARNING
Heavy spoilers will be provided for the entirety of The Empyrean up through the end of the content covered in this part. Mild spoilers for elements later in Onyx Storm may be provided, but I will keep the first paragraph of each section as spoiler-free as possible. Heavy spoilers from later in Onyx Storm will be confined to clearly labelled sections.
STORY
Violet and Xaden make out and moan about how badly they need each other sexually before Xaden reels himself in and admits that he can’t be trusted. He and Violet discuss the commonality of double Signets among the rebel children. Violet tells Xaden about the information she left out of her official report about the encounter with Theophanie, namely her suspicion that the venin have Signets of their own.
Violet goes back to classes while Xaden goes to serve on the front lines. Xaden sends her a (badly) coded letter about how he drained magic to aid him in a fight across the border. Violet shares this with Imogen and reiterates her resolve to cure Xaden. She also trash-talks Grady.
Violet and Imogen go to interrogate Jack about the venin, something They have apparently done multiple times (despite asking basic questions). Imogen erases his memory of the interrogation.
PLOT
I’m going to save the discussion of the cataclysmic damage inflicted by the double Signets reveal for the Spotlight, as understanding the plot holes torn open by it is an integral part of understanding Yarros’s dishonesty. We will instead focus on the other issues opened up in this chapter.
The Make-Out Scene
The making out, along with Violet and Xaden telling each other how badly they need sex, lasts about three pages, and it concludes with Violet reiterating that she will find a cure for Xaden.
…
So when are you going to start on that, Violet?
Thus far, the Romance subplot has been almost entirely focused on sex. The little that isn’t is Violet reiterating her motivation to cure Xaden without doing anything to pursue it, and thanks to this scene, we have explicit confirmation that this motivation is also at least partially about sex.
I'll leave this here for now. I really do want to consolidate my thoughts on the Romance subplot into one Spotlight article. For now, I’ll just leave you all with a question.
This is the third book for this couple. Yarros will surely give us more than sex and Will They Won’t They drama, right?
Back to School
Violet just … goes back to class.
Over the next week, our professors display just how accomplished they are at making everything at Basgiath feel almost routine, like we’re not in the middle of a war. Physics, RSC—with a new professor, since Grady is busy organizing the quest squad and researching where to go—math, and magics. All classes have resumed save one: history.
Why is she going back to class?!
This is Iron Flame all over again. Violet has a vital role to play in protecting everyone from an existential threat, yet this responsibility is being treated like a school club that might occasionally do overnight trips. I’d blame this on Yarros making the rider leadership look incompetent, but they weren’t in charge of Violet during those analogous events in Iron Flame, so it’s clear that this is just how Yarros thinks Violet would naturally approach this situation.
This continuing of school despite a looming existential threat wasn't an issue in the fifth or sixth Harry Potter books because there was very little Harry could do to contribute to the fight against Voldemort at that stage in his life. Sending him to school while the adults fought the war was the best move in the long run, as it meant he was in a protected space and could learn the magic he’d need for when he was old enough to fight. Once Hogwarts was no longer safe and he was armed with the knowledge of the Horcruxes, he dropped out of school and went to work.
Here, Yarros is actively making a lie out of her premise. Remember this?
After nearly eighteen months at Basgiath War College, Violet Sorrengail knows there’s no more time for lessons. No more time for uncertainty.
Why is Yarros devoting time to lessons while Violet waits around uncertainly for someone to tell her what to do, then?
Interrogation
The interrogation with Jack is a bit of a weird one for me to analyze.
Taken at face value, I think it’s functional. Violet needs information, so she goes to bribe Jack with sustenance (magically imbued alloy) in exchange for exposition. The exposition itself is at least partially intended to fill a plot hole (and fails in that task, though more on that when we get to Worldbuilding). The fact that Violet has Imogen wipe Jack’s memory after the fact also pays off the closing of the Prologue. It’s very clear-cut and effective.
Then I started to think about it.
First there’s this line.
“You think out of all the interrogations, the mendings, that I’ll finally break for you?” Hatred shines from [Jack’s] eyes.
“No.” I don’t bother telling him that he’s broken for Xaden multiple times already.
This implies that Violet has interrogated him, and had Imogen wipe his memory, “multiple times already.” If that’s the case, though, why does Violet ask basic questions that should all of been asked in an initial round of interrogation, both for reasons of practicality and because of her personal motivations? She asks:
Can venin truly sense each other (implied to be a control question, since she knows this already via Xaden)?
How easily can someone turn into a venin?
Do you know the plans of the venin forces?
Is there a cure for being a venin?
Violet’s reactions to Jack’s answers, especially that last one, make it clear that she hasn’t heard these answers before. What, then, was she asking him during previous interrogations?
The other issue is that wiping Jack’s memory is explicitly spelled out as a means to keep the rider leadership and the scribes from finding out that Violet has been conducting these interrogations.
“And what’s to keep me from telling your favorite scribe that you’ve been feeding the enemy?” Jack’s smile widens.
“Hard to talk about something you don’t remember.” Imogen steps into his space, and his grin slips.
By feeding Jack, Violet is leaving evidence that someone was in here without permission. Jack feeding on the imbued alloy visibly changes his appearance, and even if it didn’t, the fact that she is prolonging his life “multiple times” should be noticed (espeically if, as established in this scene, he was estimated to have less than 24 hours to live). If his captivity is being used as proof that the wards are holding, surely people will be checking on him regularly just to ensure he isn’t regaining his full powers. His restored vitality should be noticed.
It doesn’t matter that Jack doesn’t remember that Violet specifically visited him. There’s already been one attempt to break him out; if someone is now feeding him, then any competent jailors would increase security to ensure that can’t happen anymore. For all of the incompetence of the rider leadership, they were at least competent when it came to keeping Violet imprisoned, so their inability to notice his restored health and to respond to it really doesn’t make sense.
Pacing
According to the e-book, the end of Chapter 12 marks the 21% mark in terms of page count for Onyx Storm (counting only the pages of actual narrative).
The story still has not started.
Don't get me wrong - stuff has happened. A lot of stuff, frankly. It’s that all of it has been retcons, power fantasy, and establishment of characters and new information. Nothing is driving the plot promised by the premise and the Prologue forward.
The second encounter with Theophanie in Chapters 10 and 11 and the interrogation with Jack here in Chapter 12 could have recitfied this problem. If that was Yarros’s goal, they have fallen woefully short. The Theophanie monologue just introduced her as Violet’s nemesis (a fact which, as mentioned in the last part, will be narratively irrelevant for the next 40 chapters), told us that rainbow dragons were special (which we already knew), and told us that rainbow dragons are called “irids” (which I’ll keep in my back pocket in case I’m ever on Jeopardy, but it does nothing to move the narrative forward). As for Jack, all that questioning him accomplished was to apply patches to plot holes and to tell Violet that there was no cure for being a venin (which we already knew, given the ending of Iron Flame, and which doesn’t change Violet’s situation at all).
Again, I find myself wondering why the book didn’t start after this point.
Just to clarify: I am fully aware that many stories have scenes, chapters, or whole chunks of the plot they could be removed with minimal impact to the main narrative. We’ve already touched upon the cold openings from the Bond films; another example would be the amateur film subplot from Koe no Katachi, which the anime adaption was able to cleanly slice out without damaging the story.
What I’m referring to here is how Yarros is avoiding engaging with the main plot that she promised us. She is wasting our time on other things. It’s not necessarily that the stuff happening on the page is unsalvageable. It's just that it doesn’t belong in this book. The events at Samara and Theophanie, much like the events around the peace treaty, could absolutely make for an interesting story if released as a standalone short story that exists between the books. Here, it's wasting time.
I think this is a contributing factor to why I’ve heard of complaints from even fans of The Empyrean about this book being meandering. Yarros has a clear direction to take the story in, yet she wanders in every direction except that one. She’s just filling pages instead of delivering on what was promised.
Yarros must be aware of this on some level, because she tries to justify this stalling within the narrative … by projecting onto Grady.
[Imogen] unbuttons her flight jacket. “You meet with Grady yet?”
“Next week.” I sigh. “He’s still researching before he’ll deign to meet with me, but he sent a first draft of the squad yesterday, and the only rider I know on it is Aura-fucking-Beinhaven, because—get this—she’s a trustable companion of my own age and the most powerful fire wielder in the quadrant.”
“Does he know you’ve already almost killed her this month?” She lifts her brows.
“Don’t think he cares. He has no idea where to start, either, which I only know because he tried to get his dragon to question Andarna. And that’s after reading my report stating everything she remembered about her first hundred years in shell, which—like most dragons late to hatch—is nothing.”
See? We can’t start the story. Grady is researching, you see, and he has no idea what he’s doing. And it’s not like Violet has ever done independent research …
…
I mean, it's not like she’s ever jumped to conclusions with little or no evidence and been …
…
I mean, it's not like she’s ever defied authority to do things her …
…
My point here is that it is out of character for Violet to sit on her ass like this. Iron Flame made that very clear. If Yarros was going to start this book before the task force was ready to launch, the least she could have done was have Violet helping with the research or doing independent research. Wandering between random side quests just wastes everyone’s time.
CHARACTER
Violet
I want to save the full breakdown of the following passage for the destruction of this series’ themes in Chapter 20, but let’s appreciate the character hypocrisy while we’re here.
“Right.” I take a deep breath, knowing we still need to talk about Samara. “The report Rhiannon gave at Samara left some things out because we didn’t want to contribute to misinformation or look like we don’t know what we’re talking about. What did Garrick tell you?”
Violet is self-redacting her reports because she believes that certain information should not be released. Her reasons for doing this are:
She doesn't want people to draw premature conclusions … except she is already drawing premature conclusions about venin having Signets, so really, she just doesn’t want anyone else to have the power to draw conclusions.
She doesn't want to embarrass herself.
Remember how Violet called Markham a, “Fucking. Liar,” for withholding and concealing information in the name of preserving Navarre’s civilization in the face of an existential threat? Misguided though Markham may have been, that motivation is far less selfish than Violet’s.
Will the narrative acknowledge this hypocrisy?
Of course not.
Grady
[Imogen] unbuttons her flight jacket. “You meet with Grady yet?”
“Next week.” I sigh. “He’s still researching before he’ll deign to meet with me, but he sent a first draft of the squad yesterday, and the only rider I know on it is Aura-fucking-Beinhaven, because—get this—she’s a trustable companion of my own age and the most powerful fire wielder in the quadrant.”
“Does he know you’ve already almost killed her this month?” She lifts her brows.
“Don’t think he cares. He has no idea where to start, either, which I only know because he tried to get his dragon to question Andarna. And that’s after reading my report stating everything she remembered about her first hundred years in shell, which—like most dragons late to hatch—is nothing.”
“How did that go for him?” Imogen asks, her brow scrunching.
“Tairn removed a dozen of her neck scales, and Andarna left teeth marks in her tail.”
“We’ll collect enough next time to make you new armor,” Andarna promises.
“From his dragon? Thank you, but no,” I reply.
A smile tugs at Imogen’s lips. “Got exactly what she deserves.” Her smile falls. “I agree you need experienced riders on the squad, but it’s hard to trust judgment like that.”
Grady’s judgment is untrustworthy because he gave practical reasons for appointing a rider Violet does not like (Aura was the face of the Navarrian mob in Chapters 5 and 6) to the task force.
His dragons deserves pain and injury for … trying to gather information vital to the quest to save them all from an existential threat … information that Violet and Andarna have no reason not to share with them.
Remember how Grady was one of the Good Teachers in the last book?
WORLDBUILDING
Again, I’m going to save the worldbuilding issues specific to the double Signets for the Spotlight, so let’s use this section to get everything else out of the way.
Signet - Teleportation (Distance Wielding)
Yarros provides us with very vague limits about Garrick’s ability to teleport. While this is good for avoiding contradictions, this open-endedness opens many plot holes (which we’ll get to in just a moment).
During the events of Chapters 10 and 11, Garrick teleports himself and his dragon twice. We aren’t told exactly where is was being teleporting to the Poromish village, but he was supposed to be sticking by Xaden’s side, so we can reasonably assume he was with Xaden at Basgiath. He can therefore teleport both himself and an amount of additional mass the size of his dragon from Basgiath to a village outside the border (hundreds, if not thousands of miles) without any acknowledgment of exertion. He can then teleport back safely with no mentioned risk of failure or threat to his health.
It’s going to get crazier in the climax. Garrick will teleport no fewer than four times without experiencing magical burnout - four confirmed times. Between implications and logistics, there’s a significant chance that his limit is at least seven:
Potentially one time from Aretia to Basgiath, bringing with him his dragon and that magical treasure chest that popped up in Chapters 41 and 42 of Iron Flame. This teleport is not stated by the text, but given the timetable of the climax, there's a strong chance he teleported rather than flying 18 hours.
Once from Basgiath to the Poromish city of Draithus, bringing not only his dragon but also Jack inside that magical treasure chest.
Once from Draithus to either Basgiath or Aretia, taking his dragon, Jack, and the chest with him.
If he went to Basgiath on that last teleport, he and his dragon would then need to teleport again to get to Aretia.
Teleporting from Aretia to Draithus with his dragon and a load of venin-killing daggers.
Teleporting Imogen out of a building, this time without his dragon.
After teleporting Imogen, he tells her he has only one more teleport in him before he risks burnout.
This is a massive amount of power. Thus far, the only threes limits I can discern outside of the number of teleports (which may be even higher than the potential seven listed above) are:
This is a Signet, so it relies on magic channeled from his dragon. It’s safe to assume that he can’t initiate a teleport unless at least his starting point is within range of his bond with his dragon. The only teleport we’ve seen where his dragon didn’t teleport with him was the one with Imogen, and his dragon was at least in the same city at that time, so this limit holds up.
Distance may be a factor in how much magic any given teleport requires. When Garrick indicates that he is close to burnout, he implies that he’s not sure he’d make it to Aretia from Draithus. The implication is that he could teleport again, but he won’t be able to travel that far.
If Yarros wants to go with the idea that venin have Signets, then we have two examples of venin teleporting via Signet, one in Fourth Wing and one late in this book. Based upon the latter example, Garrick may need continuous physical contact with anything or anyone he moves. For example, he could teleport Jack because Jack was in the chest, which his dragon is touching, while he is touching his dragon, but he couldn’t simply point at Jack from across the room and send Jack to another location without traveling himself.
Also, it’s important to note that teleportation is not like being an inntinnsic. Only inntinnsics get executed for their powers, a fact implied in Fourth Wing and explicitly stated in Iron Flame. Garrick could have revealed this Signet to the rider leadership without any danger to himself.
Venin
Yarros uses the Jack interrogation to fill plot holes and address the potential issues caused by Xaden being able to sense venin. I do appreciate that she took this effort. She sets some reasonable limits here. The issue is that she is treating flesh wounds rather than the gaping hole opened the moment Xaden became a venin.
Let’s go through the questions Violet asked one by one (save the last, which was about the cure).
Can venin truly sense each other?
Jack confirms that initiates and asims can be detected, but Sages and Mavens can mask their presence from the other venin. I like this rule. Not only does it mean Xaden can't be expected to home in on and kill every high-ranking venin, but it reflects an increase in mastery to go with the higher power levels.
How easily can someone turn into a venin?
I’ll let Jack speak for himself here.
“Do you have to be taught?” I repeat. Xaden did it on his own, but I need to know if we’re in danger from every random infantry cadet who didn’t have the guts to cross the parapet.
His breath rattles, and he drops his focus to the alloy. “Not if you’re already experienced with the flow of magic. Someone who has never wielded would require instruction, buta dragon rider or gryphon flier?”
This closes the plot hole I raised back in Chapters 65 and 66 of Iron Flame. Not anyone can randomly become a venin. This is wonderful patch work.
Unfortunately, it does not address the plot hole opened in Chapters 59 and 60 of Iron Flame. Navarre should still be overrun with venin spawned from within the ranks of the riders, and now that Chapter 2 of this book has given a practical example of how easily venin can infiltrate Navarre, there should be plenty of other venin trained by Sages and Mavens (such as, say, to infiltrate the Riders Quadrant).
Do you know the plans of the venin forces?
Jack doesn't know, claiming he is too low in rank to be told anything important. It’s not clear if this is true. Given what happens to him later in this book, I suspect he’s lying, but I want to put a pin in that until we get to the Spotlight.
PROSE
False Cliffhangers: 5
Chapter 13 begins like so:
Four minutes later, we emerge from the staircase and find Rhiannon, Ridoc, and Sawyer waiting in the tunnel.
“For fuck’s sake, can’t you four do anything by yourselves?” Imogen mutters.
“What?” Rhiannon shrugs and pushes off the wall. “We didn’t tag along while Violet played inquisitor. We respect boundaries.”
“Do you even have boundaries with one another?” Imogen shoots a look at the three of them. “If you’re all going with her, then I’ll excuse myself from what I’m sure will be a fascinating trip to the Archives. See you at formation.” She gives Rhi a mock salute and heads left, toward the quadrant.
Oh, wait. That’s not just the opening to Chapter 13. The cliffhanger ending to Chapter 12 is buried in there somewhere.
THEME
As mentioned above, Violet’s decision to withhold vital information for combatting an existential threat really don’t play well for the theme. We will absolutely be tearing into this down the line.
SPOTLIGHT: DISHONESTY
We have already discussed, in both the Iron Flame review series and in previous entries of this series, how Yarros lies to and gaslights her audience.
What makes this chapter so special is that here, she tells a lie so massive that it delivers a cyclonic torpedo into the heart of this very series … to cover up a petty mistake.
Disclaimer
Just to reiterate what I said in the Prelude: when I accuse Yarros of lying, gaslighting, or other forms of dishonesty towards her audience, I am not basing this upon personal knowledge of her character, correspondence or old drafts, insider information from people who know her, or any other points of data that provide me with direct insight into why she does the things that she does. This assessment is based solely upon the presentation of The Empyrean as seen on the pages of her books as well as things Yarros has said in interviews and on author press tours.
Perhaps Yarros is indeed a very honest, virtuous person in her daily life. However, the way she treats her audience is unacceptable. I will call her out on that.
Ms. Yarros, if you wish to counter any of the points that I make in the following analysis, I am open to discuss the topic with you further and to share that information with my readers. I am willing to restore the benefit of the doubt to you and to let you represent yourself fairly. In the absence of that, I need to go with what information that you have chosen to make available to your audience.
Not All Incompetence is Deception
Yarros has shattered this entire series many times over. That is nothing new. Most of the time, it’s not the result of deception. It’s a lack of care for the story being told and/or a lack of competence, but not dishonesty. For example, Yarros didn’t lie to us when she introduced maorsite (and yes, later in this book, we will get explicit confirmation that maorsite can indeed kill venin). She also didn’t lie to us when she gave Andarna the power to kill venin; the lie in that case, as we discussed in the Prologue, was when she tried to insist that her self-insert Mary Sue (and thus herself) was not an idiot for overlooking that plot hole.
Likewise, while the lie we are about to discuss is a retcon, retcons are not inherently dishonest. For example, Yarros did not lie to us when she gave venin such vast powers inside the wards. She also didn't necessarily lie to us when she retconned how the Aretia wardstone worked; the lie there came from the fact she previously told us to panic about fliers using magic in Aretia and now expects us to believe the opposite without acknowleding that Violet’s initial reaction was wrong.
And of course, as touched upon in the Prelude, it is possible to present the audience with false information without lying to them. It is simply of matter of structuring the narrative such that the false information is justified within the story itself, allowing the falsehood to coexist with the truth.
In order to get a better understanding of what constitutes a lie versus what doesn’t, let’s quickly go over three examples where Yarros didn’t lie to the audience, taken from just the first 12 chapters of Onyx Storm.
“Oranges?”
During the interrogation scene, Violet breaks out orange peels to threaten Jack.
“And if I’d rather meet Malek?” he challenges.
“Does your kind meet Malek?” I counter, setting the alloy just out of reach and pulling one of the glass vials from my arm strap when he doesn’t respond. “You’re a day away from finding out, but if you’d like me to end your suffering, I came prepared to do so.” The glass clicks against stone as I lay it next to the alloy.
“Is that…” He stares at the vial.
“Powdered orange peel. Simple, yet effective in your case, given how close your body is to giving out. Merciful, too, considering your actions resulted in my mother’s death. But I’m not so merciful as to leave you with a dagger.”
Yarros is acknowledging the past contradiction of Jack having venin immortality yet still going into anaphylactic shock when exposed to oranges by implying that venin immortality is a function of them having adequate magic in their bodies. Jack is so weak at this point that exposure to oranges would kill him.
This almost works as a patch to explain how he could have been a venin all the way back during the sparring test in Fourth Wing. The reason it fails comes down to basic lore. We have been told, both in Iron Flame and Onyx Storm, that the red rings that appear in the eyes of venin initiates are only present right after they feed, then fade over time. As we covered in the Chapter 60 Addendum, the only time Jack’s eyes featured the red ring prior to him destroying the wardstone was the sparring test. He should have been at his strongest at that point. By both the previously established rules and this new rule, oranges should not have worked on Jack.
The reason this is not a lie is rather simple. When Yarros lies to the audience, she asserts information as objective truth, only to reverse position later without justifying the initial falsehood. Adding a rule to Jack’s orange allergy as a continuation of past continuity (and, no matter how nonsensical it is that his allergy still affects him as a venin, this does count as continuity) is not a lie. It’s just poorly considered.
Secret Plans
This is what Jack says when he claims to not know the plans of his masters.
He scoffs. “Does a first-year command the wings? No. We’re not as stupid as you assume. Information is need-to-know. What a waste of a question.
As mentioned above, I’m pretty sure Jack is lying. We aren’t given any reason to think the venin have close bonds with their comrades, so why did they stage that risky rescue operation in Chapter 2 (which ends in multiple venin being killed, a risk they surely would have assessed before deciding to rescue him)? What’s more, in the climax, Theophanie will make another bid to rescue Jack, only to immediately attempt to kill him. These aren’t actions one would take for an individual who knows nothing. These are actions taken for someone you need to silence before he can spill vital secrets to the enemy.
That being said … it makes sense for Jack to lie here. He is on the venin team. He dislikes Violet in particular. He also knows that she has no way to know if he’s lying. In this circumstance, he has every reason to give a false answer.
More importantly, consider this from Violet’s perspective. She is interrogating Jack precisely because she needs answers that she either can’t afford to wait for or doesn’t think she can find in Poromish books of venin (and we’re told in Chapter 13 that she’s already read most of those books, so she would have a basis to make that judgment). She has no choice except to accept all of his answers at face value. In the case of this particular question, it also does seem like it was that important to her. It honestly reads like she only asked on the outside chance that he might let something slip.
In other words, if it does turn out later that Jack was lying, this would not be a case of Yarros lying. The presentation of false information is fully justified by Jack’s character. Violet’s acceptance of false information would be fully justified without contradicting the rationality and intelligence that this book insists she possesses. This is a mislead, and one that could potentially be executed quite well if Yarros plays her cards right.
(Just to hedge my bets in case Book 4 reveals that Jack was indeed lying here: Yarros is not lying to us by having Jack lie, and she is not lying by having Violet believe him. However, my hopes have been dashed enough times that I won’t state that Yarros can’t somehow turn this into a lie. It’s just that the conclusion that she has lied would need to be based on some other point of evidence.)
The Wardstone Mutilation
Context clues within the text make it clear that Violet fully intended to mutilate the Basgiath wardstone all the way back in Chapter 1. However, Yarros does not exactly share this plan until Chapter 7. She just makes a lot of vague implications and has Violet dither about treason.
We’ve already covered how the treason (and its consequences) were lies … but the concealing of the plan isn’t. Yes, it’s information that Violet was fully aware of and had not reason not to think about. However, Yarros took the time to establish the altering the Basgiath wardstone was possible and to establish that Violet had this plan early on. This isn’t something she made up just for Chapter 7 and then insisted that it had always been a thing. This means that, at worse, this is a case of Yarros withholding information from the audience without properly justifying that decision within the text itself.
The Moment of Truth Deception
What makes the element we are about to discuss a lie is that Yarros is asserting something as objective truth despite the fact that it simply cannot coexist with what came before. It is attached to a retcon, and it may even be why Yarros implemented the retcon, but it is not the retcon itself. Rather, the issue is that Yarros is taking something that is very clearly a proofreading error and trying to insist to the audience that she did it intentionally.
The Lie
My spine stiffens as I contemplate everything that can go wrong out there and what just went right for me. “Speaking of powerful…”
He tips my chin back to look in my eyes. “What is it?”
“Garrick’s a distance wielder, isn’t he?” I don’t bother hinting around the question.
A moment of silence passes between us, but I see the confirmation in his eyes. “Are you pissed I didn’t tell you?”
I shake my head. “You don’t owe me your friends’ secrets.” My brow knits. “But twenty hours of flying gave me some time to think. You. Garrick.” I tilt my head. “And I once thought I saw Liam…”
“Wield ice,” Xaden says, stroking his thumb along my chin.
I nod. “How often do second signets accompany these particular relics?” My fingers trail down the side of his neck.
“Often enough to be sure Kaori can’t possibly have accurate records, but not too completely that anyone questions why I only present with one,” he answers. “Our dragons came looking for us. They knew what they were doing.”
“Giving you a better chance of survival?” I rest my hand over his heart.
“If you wax sentimental. More like building their own army.” A corner of his mouth rises. “More signets equal more power.”
The retcon is the double Signets. This is dumb, and it opens plot holes, but in and of itself, that is not dishonest.
The lie is that bit about Liam in the middle.
Violet saw Liam wielding ice in Fourth Wing, despite the fact that his Signet was clearly established in that book to be “farsight” (he just sees really far). I had completely missed this moment. However, upon combing back through Fourth Wing, I found this paragraph buried amidst the chaos of Chapter 36.
Tairn puts us into position, hovering about twenty feet aboveground as Liam flies for the gryphons above us, wielding spears of ice into the injured wyvern’s throat. Blood streams as the wyvern falls from the sky with an ear-piercing cry.
Violet saw a character - not just any character, but her closest friend at that point in the story - exhibit two Signets.
And then she forgot about it.
Why, in the entirely of Iron Flame, did Violet never reflect upon this moment? Why did it not come up during the reveal that Xaden had a second Signet? We are supposed to think that Violet is a “rational woman” chosen by one of the smartest dragons in existence for her “intelligence”, yet she memory holed this information that breaks her concept of reality even when processing an identical revelation, only to flip around and remember it here?
The reason Violet did not reflect upon it because Yarros did not reflect upon it. Yarros did not catch this glaring contradiction in the process of proofreading Fourth Wing (or never did any meaningful proofreading at all). It never crossed her mind during Iron Flame.
What most likely happened is that, in some point in the year since Iron Flame, Yarros finally noticed her mistake. Perhaps a keen-eyed fan asked her about this mistake at a panel, at which point Yarros panicked and blurted out something about it all being planned and that we’d get our answer in Onyx Storm. She then slapped on the idea of many rebel children having multiple Signets onto this book. I say, “Slapped on,” because the presence of multiple people with double Signets does not impact Onyx Storm.
Garrick teleporting is limited to his presence in Chapters 10 and 11 (which seem to exist only to establish that he has two Signets, so as to set up this retcon) and all the teleports in the climax (which could easily be written out of the story).
Imogen will be revealed on the climax to be able to petrify materials; this is used for one flashy but narratively meaningless action moment.
Even Xaden being an inntinnsic barely factors into this book, merely being mentioned on occasion.
Bodhi is implied to have a Signet that’s never shown.
That last is from Iron Flame, but it does bring that whole twist (such that it was) back into focus. At the time, it seemed like Yarros made up Xaden being an inntinnsic just so that she could milk a little more angst out of the Trust conflict. Now, she’s done with that conflict, so she basically ignores that Xaden can do this (despite the fact that his ability to read people’s intentions really kicks the legs out from under the plot twist in Chapter 65).
Applying that same logic to the other double Signets, it really doesn’t feel like this was a deliberate development. It feels like something Yarros slapped on to legitimize the lie that she didn’t make a mistake. Sure, it’s not impossible that Yarros is trying to use this opportunity to give the rebel children new Signets that she will make proper use of in future books (a couple of other reviewers have noted how Violet robbing her mother’s office in Fourth Wing and completing the heist in Iron Flame hinged on her friends conveniently having the exact combination of Signets she needed to get the job done), but given what her supposed planning has delivered in Onyx Storm, I’m not holding my breath.
Yarros did not need to pretend that this proofreading error was deliberate. She could have admitted to making an honest mistake. If I’m wrong about a fan asking her about the mistake, and she discovered it herself, she could have done nothing. Liam wielding ice in that scene does not affect the scene’s outcome, so it’s a meaningless blip in the grand scheme of things. If Yarros really wanted to correct the mistake, she could have appealed to her publisher to let her do a second edition of The Empyrean once all the books are released, at which point she could have deleted the incriminating paragraph (and corrected the other mistakes she’s now lying about, like Violet’s reaction to Andarna killing a venin).
She instead chose to blow up her previous books in the name of not looking bad.
Now that we understand the lie - just how bad is the damage from the cover-up retcon?
Rebel Smuggling
Please look back on that list of teleports Garrick performs or is implied to perform in the climax of this book. Specifically, consider these two examples:
Teleporting from Basgiath to a major Poromish city and back again within the span of a few minutes, without taking him to the point of burnout.
Teleporting crates of venin-killing daggers.
Garrick could have single-handedly executed all of the smuggling of venin-killing alloy. Xaden and the other rebel children would just need to raid the luminary for him. He could then take it from there.
Yarros has told us here that Garrick being able to teleport is the secret the rider leadership are not aware of. She also wanted us to think that the Empyrean never did anything about trios of rebel children flying off with their dragons, so not even the dragons aligned to the rider leadership would report him teleporting away from the school and the back again. Garrick and his dragon could therefore teleport directly from the flight field of Basgiath (or just fly around the school and dive into some concealed spot), drop the weapons off somewhere in Poromiel, and return almost instantly.
This means that there would be no strange cases of Violet seeing Xaden and other rebel children in flight leathers at odd hours. She would therefore never ask Xaden about Athebyne. Dain would never read that memory. He would never tell his father. The climax of Fourth Wing would never have happened.
Now, that leaves the issue of Melgren seeing the deliveries - but that’s not actually an issue. Violet and Xaden delivered daggers to fliers in Chapter 28 of Iron Flame with zero concern of being detected; one of the toggled states for the rebel children's zone of interference is that they make all of Basgiath into a blind spot. Garrick would teleporting to a place that is apparently beyond the range of Melgren’s Signet, from an established blind spot in Melgren's Signet, and back to that blind spot. Melgten would know nothing.
If Xaden really wanted to be careful, they could still do this as a group of three, but since teleporting reduces the journey to minutes instead of several hours, they could do so at any convenient time, rather than needing to sneak away in the middle of the night. This means Violet would never catch them and would never ask Xaden where they’d gone. Even if she had, the fact they were gone mere minutes would change the answer Xaden gives, so when Dain read her memory, he wouldn't be able to give his father anything that would point to a secret trip to the border.
In other words, by introducing this retcon, Yarros has invalidated the plot of her series.
Violet’s Characterization
Yarros beats us over the head with how intelligent Violet is supposed to be. It’s a fundamental aspect of her personal power fantasy. No opportunity is wasted to showcase how observant, how rational, and how well-read Violet is.
Are we honestly supposed to believe that not once in the process of mourning Liam, not once in the process of deciphering that Xaden had a second Signet and what that Signet was, did Violet ever think about the fact that Liam had demonstrated a second Signet right before her eyes?
I messed this up with Jack and the red eyes, so this time, I made extra certain. I checked every mention of Liam’s name in Iron Flame, in addition to reviewing the discussion of second Signets in Chapters 53, 55, and 56. At no point was this obvious display of Liam displaying a second Signet, which Violet recalls so easily now, ever brought up.
The only way to reconcile this, outside of Yarros lying about making a mistake by pretending it was pre-planned, is for her to be lying about the intelligence of her self-insert Mary Sue.
To illustrate what I mean by this, if Violet were truly the “rational woman” chosen for her “intelligence”, this is how Chapter 53 of Iron Flame might have played out. I will put my additions in bold.
“So do you think you’ll get a second signet?” Visia asks, breaking the silence. “Two dragons, two signets, right?”
“I don’t know,” I answer, glancing back at Andarna. I actually figured because she bonded me so young and lost the ability to stop time, the signet of lightning wielding was all that I would be blessed with. But now I wonder…
Wait. That isn’t the only way I could get a second signet.
A flash of memory - Liam, soaring above Resson, wielding spears of ice into a wyvern’s throat. That wasn’t supposed to be his signet. So either he’d lied about having farsight, or he had two signets.
“Second signets only happen when dragon bonds a rider in the direct familial line as its previous,” Sloane says, misunderstanding Visia’s question. “But there’s an equal chance of it causing madness. From what Thoirt told me, that’s why Cruth wasn’t punished for bonding Quinn. She’s only the great-niece of her previous rider. Her signet’s more powerful but not entirely different.”
“Thoirt shouldn’t be telling you matters resolved within the Empyrean,” Visia lectures, then does a double take when she glances my way.
Gravity shifts. Liam had bonded to Deigh, and I remembered seeing a record that Deigh had bonded with his great-grandmother. And he isn’t the only rider I knew whose dragon had bonded with an ancestor.
That would mean—
“Violet, are you okay?” Visia asks.
I shake my head but say, “Yes.” How do you explain your heart is sinking past the rock floor of the cave? I take a deep breath, flex and unflex my hand as I grip the brightly glowing conduit. Andarna growls to my right, and I quickly assure her, “I’m fine.” But we both know I’m anything but fine—I’m also equally certain now isn’t the time to let my mind wander down that path.
Those few paragraphs are literally all it would have taken to smooth over the mistake from Fourth Wing. Better yet, if this double Signet reveal had indeed been planned since Fourth Wing, Sloane could have been the one to bring up Liam and send Violet down this path, seeing has how Liam is her older brother and wrote letters to her. Instead of the previous edit, consider this:
“Second signets only happen when dragon bonds a rider in the direct familial line as its previous,” Sloane says, misunderstanding Visia’s question. “But there’s an equal chance of it causing madness. From what Liam told me, that’s why Deigh wasn’t punished for bonding with him. She only bonded to our great-aunt before. Liam’s signet was more powerful but not entirely different.”
Gravity shifts. But Liam did have a different Signet. I saw it, at Resson. I thought I’d imagined it in the chaos of battle, but now that Sloane is calling attention to it, I can’t ignore the contradiction. Liam was an ice wielder as well have possessing farsight.
And if Liam lied to his own sister, he might not be the only rider with a rebel relic to lie.
That would mean—
“Violet, are you okay?” Visia asks.
Personally, I think a combination of the two approaches, with Violet remembering what she saw Liam do a split second before Sloane hammers on the contradiction, would be best, but any amount of care for the story being told would have been better than what we’re getting now.
Xaden Getting Caught
Let’s revisit this particular passage of nonsense.
I nod. “How often do second signets accompany these particular relics?” My fingers trail down the side of his neck.
“Often enough to be sure Kaori can’t possibly have accurate records, but not too completely that anyone questions why I only present with one,” he answers. “Our dragons came looking for us. They knew what they were doing.”
There are a few ways that this opens or widens plot holes.
First, let’s start with the bit about Kaori’s records. The fact that Xaden mentioned this at all implies that Kaori knows of at least one rebel child with double Signets. This would kick up an absolute hornet’s nest.
Unless the double Signets in question were both classified, the whole school would know about it, since the rebel child would be issued two signet patches. Violet should therefore we aware of the double signet, and it should have come up at some point in the Signet discussion of Iron Flame.
The rider leadership would be aware that said rebel child’s dragon had previously bonded to someone else in the rebel child’s bloodline. They therefore would not take for granted that Xaden not manifesting a second Signet was explained by clerical error in his ancestry. Xaden would be monitored closely, and questions would be asked when he didn’t spawn a second Signet or go mad.
If the rebel leadership weren’t aware that this rebel child’s dragon had previously bonded to someone else in the bloodline, that would be even worse. At best, we need to swallow that the scribes messed up the exact two family trees that they needed to mess up. At worst, the rider leadership will conclude that this is a side effect for the rebel relics, at which point all the rebel children would be under tight scrutiny. Xaden could be found out as an inntinnsic with a brief interrogation with one of those people with a lie detector Signet.
Then there is the bit about the rebel childrens’ dragons seeking them out. Ignoring that we again run into the issue of non-characters doing things because the author says so, are we really supposed to believe that no scribe noticed how often rebel children bonded to dragons who were previously ridden by direct ancestors? At that point, it wouldn’t matter whether any rebel children had been discovered with second Signets. The rider leadership would have them all under surveillance for either madness or that second Signet. Or are we meant to thing the scribes messed up the family trees of all the rebel children (and didn't notice the trend of dragons bonding to not-quite-direct descendants, either)?
The Variety Article
Because Yarros just can’t help herself … let’s take another look at the Variety interview from January, where the subject of double Signets came up.
Variety Intervieer: So when Violet gets interested in this particular topic and asks Bodhi if he has a second signet, he answers an interesting way, by saying, “I don’t have one, just like Xaden.” But we as the reader know Xaden does have a second signet. Does Bodhi know?
Yarros: Violet is the only one who knows about it. She is the only one who knows. Because in that world, it’s a death sentence.
Once more, Yarros is counting on the audience not paying attention. This is the passage being referred to, from Chapter 28 of Onyx Storm:
Given how difficult it was to get our hands on these books, it’s wild to think that Garrick could probably walk straight from here to wherever her library is.
I blink, then lean forward, bracing my elbows on the wall right above Bodhi’s head. “Hey, Bodhi?” I whisper so only the two of us can hear.
“Hey, Violet?” he answers, looking up.
“What’s your second signet?” I lower my voice even more.
He lifts his brows, then glances in Garrick’s direction. “Don’t have one.”
“As in you don’t have one that I get to know about but will eventually see you wield, or don’t have one have one?”
A corner of his mouth lifts into a wry smile that reminds me of his cousin’s. “Don’t have one. Just like Xaden. Why?”
“Curious,” I admit. “And selfishly hoping you’d be able to do something cool like keep Halden from speaking.” Gods only know what he’ll do at the other isles after his performance on Deverelli.
Why would Bodhi bring up Xaden here? He has no reason to. If Violet had suggested that Xaden has a second Signet, that would have been one thing, but why use Xaden as a reference point? And why the “wry smile” if he’s just saying, “Oh, the two of us aren’t special?”
What Yarros has Shown us, in the book, is that Bodhi does have a Signet, and he knows Xaden has a second Signet, and that he is coyly telling Violet that he also knows about Xaden being an inntinnsic. Yarros’s claim about being an inntinnsic being a “death sentence” doesn’t apply here. All the rebel children, including Xaden, were already under the death sentence for years because of the smuggling. None of them would turn Xaden in just because of his Signet. There's absolutely no reason for him not to reveal the truth to them.
It’s possible that Yarros simply forgot what she wrote. Maybe this was just a mistake. However, given the handling of this double Signet twist, it really wouldn’t shock me if the real reason she said this is because Bodhi does have a second Signet, but she doesn’t know it yet, so she’s lying to the reviewer to avoid being asked what it is. I guess future books will confirm whether this was a lie or an honest mistake.
If She Planned It All Ahead
Chapter 11 gave us this line from Garrick regarding second Signets.
“You have a second signet, don’t you?” And like Xaden, he hid the strongest one.
“So do you.” He hands back my daggers and sways. “Or at least you will.”
Whether Yarros realizes it or not, she has stumbled right past a very simple solution that would have immensely streamlined the double Signets reveal, provided that she actually had planned ahead and implemented it early on.
Garrick saying that Violet will get a second Signet makes no sense in the story as written. There is no precedent for a rider with more than one dragon, and he has no reason to believe Tairn bonded to Violet’s ancestor. The only reason he has to say this is that she has technically has two relics.
Just like every single rebel child.
What Yarros could have done (if this really had been “plotted out and arced and all of that”) was to have this double Signets reveal back to Iron Flame and make that the epiphany that leads Violet to discover that Xaden was an inntinnsic. Yarros didn’t have to explain what anyone else’s second Signet was. Simply by making this the explanation of how Xaden has two Signets, she would eliminate the plot hole involving the confusion of ancestors while also laying the groundwork for her to slap whatever other Signets she wanted onto the remaining rebel children down the line So, for example, Violet’s revelation could have gone like this.
“So do you think you’ll get a second signet?” Visia asks, breaking the silence. “Two dragons, two signets, right?”
“I don’t know,” I answer, glancing back at Andarna. I actually figured because she bonded me so young and lost the ability to stop time, the signet of lightning wielding was all that I would be blessed with. But now I wonder…
Wait. I don’t just have two dragons. I have two relics.
Liam did, too.
It comes back to me in a rush: Liam riding Deigh, high of Resson, wielding spears of ice. I’d be too caught up in the rush of battle to think about it then, and it had been too painful after, but now that the question had been asked, I couldn’t ignore it anymore.
Liam hadn’t just had farsight. He’d been an ice wielder. His rebellion relic had given him a second signet.
Gravity shifts. Xaden must have a second signet, too. Why would he keep that a secret from me?
Takeaway
The fact that Yarros so casually devastates her entire series, for no other purpose than to try to cover up her mistake, speaks to a fundamental lack of care for the story she is writing and a fundamental lack of respect for her audience.
Doing nothing would have been the superior option here. If she just had Xaden as the only character with double Signets and left ice-wielding paragraph of Fourth Wing alone, then we could have forgotten her mistake. I certainly had. If she gave all rebel children double Signets and left Liam as an implication, that retcon would still have devastated her series, but I would have no reason to think she was being dishonest.
However, Yarros chose to look directly at the audience and call attention to her past mistake, just like she did with Violet overlooking Andarna killing a venin and just like she will do later for when exactly Violet manifested the lightning Signet. There is a pattern on display. Yarros desperately wants us to know that her mistakes were not mistakes, that she is perfect, that the “rational woman” whose “intelligence” would amaze dragons could never be so sloppy. And, since she acts to protect her image rather than repair the integrity of her narrative, she ends up doing such significant damage that she exposes her own lie.
The Twitter Ghost
Like many successful authors, Yarros has to contend with bots and scammers masquerading as her on Twitter. These false personas have created a massive amount of distrust in the Twitter sphere, as writers trying to network with each other are no longer certain who’s a bot and who’s a legitimate contact.
One such questionable account is @authorRyarros. This account participates in engagement farming activities and repeatedly asks people who respond to its posts to chat in DMs, including unsolicited DMs to people who follow it. By most outward signs, it is a fake.
That said … for a fake, it sure seems awfully devoted to marketing on Yarros’s behalf. I scrolled back through its feed only a couple of months, but there is a great deal of diligence to promoting Yarros. More importantly - more disturbingly, if this isn’t really Yarros - there are a lot of family photographs featuring Yarros with her husband and children. I’m talking photographs from personal events, not the ones that come out of her press package.
I fell for it. I followed the account. Within moments, I got a DM and realized, “Oh, it’s just a bot.” Feeling a bit annoyed, I decided to try calling it out. My first jab about being a bot was met with a (typo-laden) assurance that this was indeed the real Yarros. So, feeling even more annoyed, I responded:
All right. Easy way to verify that.
At what date after the publication of Fourth Wing and Iron Flame did you realize that you’d accidentally given Liam a second signet for a single paragraph of Chapter 36 of Fourth Wing? Did you figure it out yourself, or did a fan call it out to you at an author event?
I received no response. I didn’t expect one, to be honest, unless this was a bot account. A scammer would have realized I wasn’t playing along, and the real Yarros wouldn’t have anything to gain by responding.
What did surprise me was when, a few days later, I discovered I’d been blocked by this account. Do bots and scammers usually do that when they’re called out? I was so curious that I actually went to Yarro’s website and made an inquiry to her assistant or social media manager or whomever it is who handles her pages, asking if this account was really her or not. (They did not get back to me prior to the publication of this post.)
I bring this incident up because I am sincere about giving Yarros a chance to defend her herself. I’m not going to harass her to demand an interview, but if this account is her, she DMed me first. She opened the door, and I’m full prepared to let her tell her side of the story if she reopens it.
Ms. Yarros, if you do somehow read this, and you do want to give you side of the story on these things, I’m happy to discuss this matter with you further and give you a fair shake. You have everything you need at this point to reach out to me if that’s what you want. (Just don’t reach out to me on Twitter. The ship has sailed on that particular avenue of communication.)
The Virtue Signaling
Now, let’s progress from intellectual dishonesty to moral dishonesty.
The virtue signaling in this book is less dense than in the previous books. Yarros still rams simplistic messages down out throats, but at least these tie into the existential conflict; at worst, they’re a symptom of the power fantasy. Scenes that bring the story to a halt to shine a spotlight on Representation are more properly grounded in character and setting, resulting in something that, while far from perfect, at least feels like a genuine effort to talk about the topic. Tokenization is not emphasized as strongly. The number and variety of tokens hasn’t changes, but Yarros doesn’t take the same amount of effort to remind us that the tokenized chracters are there.
However, what Yarros does to and does with her tokenized characters exposes just little she actually cares about the characters in question or the people Represented by those tokens.
Token Non-Binary (Heaton)
If you have read my past reviews, you will know my grievance with this character. Yarros didn’t just introduce a character whose only defining feature is a pronoun. She introduced a character who is a walking stereotype who only emerges form the Red Shirt mob for the sake of using those pronouns.
In Fourth Wing, when I pointed out that Heaton’s hairstyle was chosen specifically so Yarros could use nonbinary pronouns to describe that hairstyle, I spoke with dismissive disdain, but not anger. When I said, “I told you so,” in Iron Flame, I thought it was funny that Yarros actually followed through on it.
I’m done laughing.
Heaton’s name appears six times in Onyx Storm. All of them are in Chapter 12, occuring in the same scene. Heaton is one of the two guards watching off Jack’s cell when Violet and Imogen come to interrogate him. During this scene, non-binary pronouns are used exactly three times.
Guess what one of those three times is for?
“Why do I feel like you only visit when we’re on guard?” Heaton sets their cards on the table. “Also, I win.”
Emery looks at what Heaton’s laid down and sighs. “You have unnaturally good luck with cards.”
“Zihnal is with me.” Heaton grins and scratches the magenta flames dyed into their hair. “Both of you going in?” They glance over our weaponry. “He probably has twenty-four hours left at this rate, but I can’t vouch for what he’s capable of.”
Like clockwork.
This is sickening.
When I said in the Prelude that Yarros may actually be prejudiced against the people she Represents, this is why. Her default portrayal is the blandest, laziest execution of a stereotype that she could come up with. Rather than making Heaton an actual character who matters to this story, rather than give Heaton any traits outside of this stereotypical hair, she just slots Heaton in at a moment of minimal impact, fires off a pronoun, checks the box on her DEI checklist, and walks away.
Oh, and speaking of stereotypes that show Yarros’s true colors …
Token Queer (Quinn)
Yarros decided to write Tara, the piece of ass who existed to provide Rhiannon with “a few much-needed organisms” in Fourth Wing and to show how supportive she is of homosexual romance in Iron Flame, out of Onyx Storm. As we will shortly learn in Chapter 13:
“Tara and I are old news.” Rhi shrugs. “Leadership is hard on both our schedules. We’re together when we have time, but it’s not like we’re seeing other people.”
Oh, no! Our main reminder that Yarros supports homosexuality is gone! Whatever will she do?
Well, Ridoc is also a Token Queer. Yarros can just …
…
No? She wants to write him as an actual character? And, in doing so, his homosexuality is going to almost completely vanish, outside of one flirtation that would make Captain Jack Harkness roll his eyes and a comedic moment that would have played out the same even if he were heterosexual?
No need to panic. Who else have we got here …
Oh! We still have Quinn! The Token Queer character introduced in Fourth Wing in the same chapter that it was revealed that Rhiannon has sex with both men and women, as if to assure the audience that homosexual purity will be maintained!
How very thoughtful of Yarros to pack a spare.
And, yes, I do need to phrase it that way, because that is how Yarros exploits Quinn. It could not be more clear that Yarros was keeping a Token Queer on a shelf to use at her convenience. You see, after excusing herself from writing about Tara, Yarros plays catch-up for Quinn’s sexual orientation in Chapter 55.
Turns out Panchek doesn’t actually care where anyone sleeps. Quinn spends every night with her girlfriend, too, since Jax happens to be stationed here.
Chapter 55 also includes a scene to remind us just how wonderful and sympathetic Quinn is … so that Yarros can give her an overwrought death scene in Chapter 63, and which point she goes into how Quinn was going to marry Jax, thereby allowing her to virtue signal about also supporting homosexual marriage.
This is not why my blood is boiling, though. Yes, Yarros does casually murder her spare Token Queer for the sake her own glorification, but given how Quinn is basically a Red Shirt, I’m willing to accept that Yarros would have butchered her and milked her death even if Quinn was heterosexual. A last-minute injection of character and a flash-in-the-pan moment of grief is standard fare for Red Shirts.
The moment that exposes Yarros’s prejudice comes in this seemingly innocuous passage right before Quinn dies.
The Quinn a handful of stairs beneath me has her labrys strapped to her back and is actually moving closer to the infuriated dark wielder who thrashes wildly with his dagger while other versions of Quinn dance around him, serving as the diversion.
What is a labrys?
Looking back now, I realize that this weapon was also mentioned in Chapter 5, when it is described as having a “head,” but because I missed that, Chapter 63 was my first exposure. I turned to Google.
The top search results described a Greek axe … and its association with lesbianism, including its use on at least one flag associated with homosexual activism. In fact, seemingly half of Google’s top search results on “labrys” are about the activism. At least one of the pages that is about the weapon itself also mentioned this association.
Yarros chose to give the Token Queer character … more specifically, the Token Lesbian character … the Weapon of Lesbianism.
Token Deaf (Jesinia)
While Yarros does not virtue signal about sign language the way that she did in Iron Flame, it is still transparently clear that Jesinia’s deafness is an afterthought. Jesinia never has trouble communicating with anyone. What’s more, she’s utilized in ways that make sense for a character who’s not deaf but not for one who is.
In Chapter 14 of this book, Grady's task force has a planning meeting. Jesinia is in attendance … to take meeting minutes.
Jesinia has rolled her eyes twice from the left end of the table, where she sits with a stack of books, quill, and parchment, keeping record of the meeting and who’s now officially been chosen for the mission.
How does Jesinia do this, when she can’t hear what’s being said?
“Northward is obviously the answer.” Grady signs simultaneously as he speaks, just as everyone has since the beginning of the meeting, then scratches a beard that isn’t as neatly trimmed as he usually keeps it.
It’s okay! Everyone in th meeting speaks sign language (yes, I will keep calling it that for as Yarros keeps formating sign language as normal dialogue) and takes care to sign so Jesinia can take minutes!
… why does everyone here people speak sign language? Not only are there no reasons given for them to all individually learn it, but the virtue signal in Chapter 45 of Iron Flame can only happen because Sawyer never learned it, implying that, while there apparently exists some moral imperative for people in Navarre to learn it, there’s no actual societal pressure to force the matter.
Setting that aside, how does Jesinia keep track of the signing when she looks down at what she’s writing or … say … hides her face so people can’t see her laughing (something that happens in this very scene)? She’s not a stenographer who can memorize a keyboard and type without looking. She is using a quill pen (because, remember, only riders can use more modern pens) on a piece of paper. This means that, at bare minimum, she will repeatedly need to check whether this “inconvenient” quill is going dry and dip it in fresh ink.
Why wasn’t VIOLET, who is not deaf, assigned to take the meeting minutes while Jesinia contributes by sharing her research findings?
It’s almost as if this scene was written for a character who wasn’t deaf, with Yarros slotting in a Token Deaf character to get Representation credit.
True Colors
Yarros does not care about Representing anyone but herself. That is the pattern on display throughout this series and its marketing, most especially with this book. If virtue signaling for identity politics was not popular right now, there is no doubt in my mind that Heaton and Quinn would not exist, that Tara would be Taro, that Ridoc would still be a man-whore but would limit his activities to women, that Jesinia would not be deaf. Yarros executed these virtue signals in manner that maximizes her visibility while minimizing activity and effort. This lack of care demonstrates where her priorities truly reside.
The only Representation in this book that has anything close to substance is the EDS and POTS Representation, and that is because those are about Yarros herself. Even then, she toggles them off when they would interfere in the power fantasy. She doesn't care about making others with those conditions feel Represented. Putting herself on a pedestal is what is most important.
You all may have gathered, from reading my past reviews, that I am not someone who enshrines Representation as a sacred mandate. I don’t believe that Yarros needed to Represent anyone in this text. The only reason I keep bringing this matter up for her and other authors is that they are damaging immersion in their haste to beat me around the head with their virtue. Additionally, the reason I go to extra step to accuse Yarros of being a liar who is actually prejudiced against the people she tokenizes (whereas, say, Fonda Lee was merely accused of not truly believing in the thing she was signaling) is that Yarros’s signals are very clear-cut cases of saying one thing and yet doing the exact opposite.
Yarros makes a fuss about Representing people, yet she demonstrates that Exploitation is her true creed. Therefore, every time she signals about Representation, whether on the page or in an interview, is another lie rammed down out throats.
STUFF HAPPENS
Next time, on June 20th, we will be covering Chapters 13 through 18 all in one go.
The reason we can do so much, after moving in relatively small spurts in all the previous parts, is rather simple. Much like everything since Chapter 4, a lot of stuff happens, but very little of it propels the narrative forward. Some new characters get introduced, and Yarros implements another side quest to delay starting the actual story. The rest is filler. It’s filler with flaws, contradictions, and other aspects that merit analysis and criticism, but the glacial pace of the narrative stretches this issues out rather than turning them into a cascade of problems.
HOUSEKEEPING
On June 13th, we’ll be diving back into the world of Magnetic Magic with Relics of the Wolf. I hope you’ll join me for it.
Also, don’t forget that we’re just over 3 weeks out from the premiere of Chapter 1 of “The Unbottled Idol” over in Tales of the Five Worlds.
Mohsen Yavari's task within the Imperial Inquisition was simple: monitor the gods' activities in the mortal world. When a diplomat is killed by a goddess, a maverick inquisitor recruits him for her investigation. Their search for answers will lay bare sinister truths, with a child’s soul hanging in the balance.
Whatever you’re here for, thank you all for joining this week. Please remember to subscribe if you’d like to get the weekly newsletter with the latest post links. Have a wonderful week, everyone.
