Onyx Storm (Chapter 9 to Chapter 11)
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 her accessories arrive at Samara … to be promptly told that their punishment is meaningless, as the fighting there is already over. They are told to stay out of the way and help out where they can. The entire group takes shelter in Xaden’s old room (which is somehow still warded, despite the fact Xaden hasn’t lived at Samara for multiple months by this point in the story’s chronology).
Violet and the accessories overhear two officers discussing an ongoing venin attack on the Poromish village that flier Red Shirt hails from. The group challenges the officers about not helping before being told that Navarre is stretched too thin. They then vote to launch a rescue mission to retrieve Flier Red Shirt’s family.
The rescue begins with aerial combat between the dragons and the wyverns. During the battle, Garrick (who, while a close ally of Xaden’s, is not among Violet’s accessories) appears out of nowhere. His and Violet’s dragons are then driven to the ground by a tornado that appeared out of nowhere. Tairn is knocked out when the tornado slams him against a cliff.
Garrick joins Violet on the ground, at which point, they are confronted by Theophanie, who shows off her own ability to control lightning (leading Violet to control that venin have Signets) before proceeding to monologue about how she will corrupt Violet and use Violet to control both Xaden and Andarna. Theophanie than runs away for no apparent reason. Violet then realizes that Garrick has a second Signet, just like Xaden, and promises to keep it a secret. (The Signet in question is that Garrick is a “distance wielder”, which means he can teleport.)
Violet and accessories return to Basgiath. After Brennan mends Violet’s knee (which was injured during the action scene) and the group blows off General Aetos, Violet learns that Navarre still refuses to accept refugees, leading Xaden to announce that Tyrrendor will be ignoring that edict. The scene ends with Xaden kicking everyone out of the room. Violet things he’s going to reprimand her for nearly getting killed by Theophanie, but instead, he starts making out with her.
PLOT
Tension See-Saw
As mentioned last week, Yarros keeps inventing and then invalidating obstacles in these chapters. She clearly knows that obstacles need to exist to provide tension and stakes. She also wants to blast them aside the instant they would actually challenge Violet. The result is that every new challenge introduced feels hollow. Nothing seems like it matters after the second or third time an obstacle is blasted aside. Since the first obstacle in this sequence was the nonsense pardon in Chapter 8, that threshold is crossed as soon as the officer at Samara tells Violet and her accessories that there is nothing for them to do.
Dream Telegraphing (Heavy Spoilers)
Yarros could not make it any more screamingly obvious that the dream scenes she shows us are not normal dreams. This is not foreshadowing. It is overkill. This would be like if, every time Violet saw the rebel children sneaking around in Fourth Wing, she broke the fourth wall and told the audience, “You know they're up to something, right? I wonder how this will pay off in the climax?”
That said, I did want to give Yarros some credit: where she takes this is not the obvious conclusion of Violet having prophecy dreams. The actual payoff somehow makes Violet even more powerful than that (not helped by a character directly criticizing Andarna for giving Violet extreme power). Still, the deviation from the obvious was a welcome surprise.
… yes, the use of past tense in that paragraph was deliberate. You see, I was going to end this section here. However, about two weeks prior to the scheduled release of this post, I stumbled upon the interview that Yarros did with Variety on January 31st. In that article, two questions pertained to Violet’s second Signet.
Variety Interviewer: We get confirmation in “Onyx Storm” that Violet’s second signet is dream walking.
Yarros: I thought it was obvious in Book 2! I felt so bad when everyone was like, “We don’t know what it is!”
Variety Interviewer: Is it official that it’s dream walking? So in the fourth book, where the signets are listed at the start of the book would it be fair to say it will say “dream walking” and that would be the correct answer?
Yarros: I would say it evolves with her understanding. The maps evolve with her understanding, everything is through Violet’s lens.
“Dream walking” is an inntinnsic power by which Violet enters into the dreams of others while she sleeps. Once she realizes this power (and we’ll get into the scene where she figures that out in five or six months), she is able to lucidly navigate these dreams.
… Ms. Yarros, in what way have you set this up?
Yes, all the “just a dream” moments were obviously more than just dreams. Yes, we could assume they were magical, and yes, there was nothing in the pre-Onyx Storm dreams that would keep them from retroactively being someone else’s dreams instead of Violet’s. I’m not saying that this twist doesn’t make any sense. The issue is that there was also nothing in those dreams to suggest that they weren’t Violet’s dreams. The logical conclusion, based upon the evidence provided to the audience, was that Violet was dreaming the future, especially since:
Andarna’s hatchling power allowed her to control time.
A big deal has been made over how powerful Melgren’s Signet is, so it would make sense to give Violet a version of that Signet to make her even more powerful.
Prophecy dreams are a Fantasy cliché.
Is Yarros lying about setting this up? It’s honestly hard to say. Based on past precedent, it would be on-brand for her to start out with the intention of doing prophecy dreams, chance her mind, and then hide the change by lying about her original intentions and projecting blame onto others (in this case, onto the audience for not figuring out the “obvious”) to cover her tracks. That being said, there is also a past precedent for shoddy foreshadowing (like all the aftshadowing). Yarros could genuinely have thought she’d done enough for the audience to see this coming.
(We’re not done with this Variety article. Expect to see it a few times in the coming months, as questions from it become relevant.)
Action
The aerial combat between the dragons (namely Tairn, since his fights are what Violet can perceive via her POV) is the best action in not only this book but in the series as a whole. It is also my favorite scene in the entire series.
In past books, aerial combat was weightless, with physics being turned off whenever Yarros found it inconvenient. Violet and other rides fought upon and jumped between dragons like they were on a Super Smash Bros. stage rather than hurtling through the sky at high speeds. Dragons and wyverns clacked together like plastic dinosaurs in the hands of a first grader. The various action beats were incoherent noise.
All of these problems are corrected in this scene. The physics at play here is brutal; you can feel the weight of very maneuver. Just look at this:
Tairn punches his tail forward, underneath us, swinging his body in a way I’ve never experienced, and I fall backward, my stomach lodging in my throat as the ground takes the place of the sky and the strap pulls tight across my thighs, holding me upside down long enough for my heart to pound in my ears twice.
Snap. Bone fractures, and Tairn rolls right, dragging the broken-necked corpse of a wyvern with us, then releasing it once we level. I force my stomach back where it belongs and prepare to strike the other as it lunges for us.
And this:
The wind roars like a beast, blocking out any other sound, and Tairn banks hard, whipping himself back around. My face contorts into a grimace at the force my body absorbs with the maneuver, and I fight to remain conscious as we turn toward the battle.
The actual violence of these scene does still feel chaotic, but not in the sense of being incoherent. It felt immersive. Yarros puts us right there in the saddle with Violet; if things seem chaotic, it’s because things are happening so fast, are rattling her so much, that Violet herself is having trouble keeping track of things.
There’s also the matter of Tairn getting knocked out. For the first time since Liam died, I felt genuine concern that Yarros might actually kill off one of her darlings. What Violet experiences when Tairn falls unconscious and plummets to the ground really does feel like he’s at least in a bad spot. It was certainly a more heartfelt moment than that time Ridoc got riddled with arrows.
This scene is not without flaws, yet both of those flaws are perfect examples of why Onyx Storm is a far better book when taken in isolation from the rest of the series. They are only problems because there is prior continuity for them to clash with.
Combat Wheelchair Perks
Take a look back at those two passages I quoted.
How does any rider stay on their dragon without a saddle?
In the first passage, Violet is hung upside down for at least a second. At that angle, EDS wouldn’t matter; the majority of people would not be able to maintain their grip. We have yet to see riders train to hold onto their dragon at that angle.
In the second passage, Violet is subjected to extreme G-forces. Good luck holding on to a dragon with your thighs if you’re losing consciousness, to say nothing of the force your legs would need to exert to fight those forces.
All of the previous battles seem farcical now. Every rider who isn’t Violet should be dead. It is simply not credible that these dragons who advocate for death traps to winnow down their potential riders would hold back on aerial maneuvers, so it can’t be that Tairn is the only dragon willing to cut loose in a fight. They should be flinging off riders left and right.
So, this begs the question: why are riders going bareback? Why is the saddle not mandatory for everyone?
Also, now we have yet another practical demonstration of how Violet’s inability to be a rider leads to her having perks that all the able-bodied riders are denied. She survives in circumstances that would kill far better candidates. This is going to be rather damning evidence when we finally get around to discussing the Romance subplot.
Choose to Live
I should have heeded Tairn’s warning about the storm. Is he all right? Has he…
“Don’t think like that!” she wails.
My heart thunders a staccato beat as we plummet, and I throw my hands from the pommels and spread them over his scales. I can’t feel him breathing, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t. He has to be all right. I’d feel it if he wasn’t, right? Panic fights to close my throat. This isn’t how he ends, how we end.
Liam only had minutes after Deigh ceased breathing, but he knew.
“Choose to live,” I beg Andarna in a rush. “You’re the only one of your kind, you have to live. No matter what happens to us.”
Oh gods, Xaden.
“Stay with me,” she pleads, her voice breaking. “You both have to stay.”
Andarna can just … choose not to die because of the bond … which undermines all the stakes induced by this unique bonding situation in Fourth Wing and Iron Flame.
Yes, we covered this issue in Iron Flame. However, now we have a new wrinkle: judging by Andarna’s plea, Violet can also choose to live.
So … could Tairn choose not to die if Violet does? Could Sgaeyl choose not to die if Tairn does? Could Xaden choose not to die if Sgaeyl does? If the chain is set off in the opposite direction, why can’t Tairn or Violet “choose to live”?
Also, doesn’t this mean that Liam could have chosen not die? Sort of undermines the tragedy of his death, doesn’t it? It’s not even like he committed suicide as a result of the trauma of war. With how this passage if framed, Liam just decided, “Nah, I’ve had enough,” and stepped out of the series.
If Yarros wants to go the Inheritance Cycle or Pern route and have the loss of a dragon merely be emotionally traumatic, that’s fine. However, both the stakes across two books and a character death that is foundational to this series only work if a rider dying with a dragon (or all parties involved dying in a mated bond) is mandatory. What should have been a dramatic moment here is uncut by the sound of Yarros kicking the legs out from under her previous books.
The Return
Most of what I have to say about the return to Basgiath was already covered in the power fantasy spolight, but there is one point I need to highlight.
Most of Red Shirt’s family perished in the attack, but her two younger brothers survived.
The twin boys are seven, with her ochre complexion, dark hair and honey-brown, grief-stricken eyes, which must be why the two are so familiar to me.
First - Yarros is once again cutting the legs out from under a mystery. Violet could have pondered why the two look familiar to her instead of jumping to conclusions. However, she did jump to conclusions, and since she can never be wrong, there is no mystery for the audience to latch onto. I’m actually willing to give Yarros credit here and say that this is foreshadowing, not aftshadowing, but the nature of her Mary Sue derails it.
Second, and more importantly, Yarros milks these two children to give a face to the plight of the refugees. How could Navarre refuse to protect these sweet, innocent children? How righteous Xaden is, to abuse the ridiculous amount of political power that was handed to him to shelter them with zero consequence to himself! I sure do hope Yarros doesn’t ruin this moment later by showing another pair of young boys, taking even more time to emphasize how cute they are, and then celebrating Violet as something “beautiful” for plotting their murder and using the threat of executing said murder to extort their parents. That would make the moral grandstanding here rather hollow.
CHARACTERS
General Aetos
When Violet and her accessories arrive at Samara and present themselves to the commanding officer, we get this. (Italicized text is now bolded.)
Lieutenant Colonel Degrensi finishes reading the orders Rhi carried, then looks upat us over the paper. “They really gave command of Basgiath to Aetos?”
Why not Aetos? He was the aide to the previous officer in charge of Basgiath for several months, if not years. He has practical experience. The only reason I could see this being an issue is that maybe he’s leapfrogging ranks, but it’s not much of a leap. He’s just going from Colonel to General. In terms of US Army ranks (which, let’s face it, Yarros likely used), that jumps the ranks of Brigadier General (1-Star General), Major General (2-Star General), and Lieutenant General (3-Star General), but we don’t know if the commander of Basgiath is a literal General (4-Star General) or one of those intermediate ranks. Also, given the description of Basgiath War College and the number of conscripts on Conscription Day, the study body likely falls somewhere between the smallest size of a brigade (1,500 soldiers) and the largest size of a division (16,000 soldiers). If it’s at the lower end, that would be within the limits of what a Colonel could be expected to command, so it’s well within his qualifications; if it’s the upper end, then Aetos would need to jump only one rank (to be a 2-Star instead of a 1-Star), and that’s before we consider that Basgiath is a static facility far from the enemy lines rather than a military unit in the field, which means fewer logistical issues that need to be juggled by a more experienced officer. In other words, with everything Yarros has established, Aetos should be reasonably qualified, at least to the point that this random officer on the border should have no reason to question his assignment.
Granted, Aetos is incompetent in terms of sending assassins to kill Violet and the rebel children. That’s not really an issue with him specifically, though. All the rider leadership is selectively incompetent when it comes to stopping the Mary Sue and her accessories. (Also, it seems unlikely that this officer on the border would be aware of those failed assassination efforts.)
I want to hold off on saying more until the Spotlight in Chapter 19. While we won’t be discussing Colonel Aetos specifically in that Spotlight, the lessons on demonization of characters that we cover there also apply to this moment.
Theophanie
As mentioned in the last part, Theophanie is being set up as Violet’s nemesis. Violet concluded that the attack on the village was a trap to lure Violet to her, a fact Theophanie more of less confirmed during her monologue. Said monologue also reflects her immense interest in corrupting and controlling Violet.
That’s really all we have on her character. She's basically Berwyn 2.0, just being of a higher rank (she’s a Maven, rather than a Sage) and going after Violet instead of Xaden. This is functional. It just feels lifeless, a fact not helped by how this is the last time we see her until Chapter 52. We don’t even have the basic information needed to frame her as a dark mirror of Violet, which is the path many Nemesis plot lines take. Theophanie is just a threat for Yarros to dangle whenever she wants to inject tension.
Now, around Chapter 52, we will get backstory details on Theophanie. It’s just that these won't tell us much about her as a person, especially since it leans of religious worldbuilding that is not introduced very well.
Dragons
In Chapter 11, Yarros ends the battle with Theophanie by having Garrick and his dragon flee, while Violet promising to keep the secret of his second Signet. As soon as he’s gone, Violet askes Tairn if he knew about the second Signet, to which Tairn replies:
“We do not gossip about our riders.”
Good point. If they did, Xaden would be dead by now.
Yarros then opens the next scene by having the dragons gossip about their riders, having Andarna alert Brennan that Violet was injured. She tries to write off this glaring contradiction via lampshading.
“So much for not gossiping.”
This is more naked dishonesty. Yarros told us the one thing to end the first scene on an emotional note and immediately flipped to tell us another thing so that Brennan could heal Violet immediately. More importantly, though, it raises the question of character.
Why aren’t dragons gossiping about their riders? This is an issue that always existed, but Yarros is putting a spotlight it, so it’s time to discuss it.
The Empyrean could very easily share information among each other via telepathy. Information shared in this manner is so highly trusted that it is used by riders in their trails (as we saw with Amber’s execution). The dragons are also on the same team when Yarros wants to take a righteous stand about them not making a mistake regarding Violet and yet on opposite teams when she needs to explain why the Empyrean allows conflict between the riders.
With all this in mind, why aren’t dragons spying on the riders and then using their telepathy to share information with their allies? We know they have good hearing. We know that they can pick up sensory details through the telepathic link, even if the rider isn’t aware of the stimuli (since Tairn woke Violet when riders tried to kill her in her sleep). So why aren’t dragons monitoring the humans and then passing that information around?
To give just one example of how this could be applied: are we really supposed to believe that every dragon bonded to a rebel child is okay with Xaden being a venin? Neither Sgaeyl nor Tairn are pleased with this development, to the point that only the threat of their own deaths (because, remember, they can’t simply choose to live) seems to be keeping had them from exterminating him. Are we really supposed to think that Garrick’s dragon and Imogen’s dragon and Bodhi’s dragon and the dragons of whomever else they told (and everyone else Violet or Xaden will tell before this book is over) have zero issues with allowing him to live? Not one of them when to Melgren’s dragon and said, “Look, you didn’t hear this from me, but one of our number has been corrupted. Tell your rider to deal with him?”
This could be justified by character … if the dragons had any. As it is, Yarros still treats them as dogs that quip.
WORLDBUILDING
Wards
Wards vs. Venin
Yarros just keeps doubling down on mistakes. In this case, the mistake was giving venin the ability to do more than drain from the ground and control bonded dragons while inside the wards.
This is how the officer in charge at Samara describes the battle that took place concurrent with the climax at Basgiath in Iron Flame.
Degrensi crumples the orders into a ball. “Fighting ended yesterday, and even if it hadn’t, I’m not apt to send cadets into battle.” He points to the gaping hole in the fortress. “The biggest wyvern crashed through as the wards came back up, but once our perimeter fell, venin didn’t need magic to get inside the post anyway. Nearly lost our power supply killing them off. We managed to repel them across the border, but the front is just over the hill.”
When Chapter 1 established that the venin were killing off the riders that came after them, it was at least implied that the snowy conditions around Basgiath were allowing them to strike from ambush. Now we are being told that they can overrun a fortress without wyvern support. The fact that a wyvern cracked open a wall first means nothing. Venin have exhibited superhuman speed and strength, and telekinesis capable of lifting or immobilizing a human adult. (There’s also their ability to cling to dragons through those intense aerial maneuvers, though after this action scene, I am happy to write that off as Yarros being inconsistent with physics in past books.). Getting over a wall or bursting through a gate should be nothing to them. In fact, given that they apparently got close to the alloy stockpile, that means that they must have been able to breach any internal doors within the outer wall. The entire fortress should be worthless when it comes to stopping them.
At this point, the wards seem utterly pointless. The venin don’t need wyverns at this point. They could have assaulted and taken Navarre at any time.
For good measure, Yarros triples down on this before the scene ends. The commanding officer says this:
“Do me a favor and ask that dragon of yours to stay out of sight. You are both formidable weapons, but you’re also a giant target. The enemy may see this as their opportunity to attack en masse and dispatch you both from our ranks, and we can’t afford to draw more daggers from the armory if we want to keep the wards inplace. Not much we can do if he’s already been spotted, but let’s avoid additional opportunities.”
The venin can attack “en masse”. This implies either that they have massive numbers or that they are so individually powerful that just a few are considered a massed assault. Despite the fact they will not have the air superiority or additional speed offered by wyvern, thereby forcing them to approach by land (and probably be spotted and engaged at range), the officer fears them enough to not want to give any reason to attack.
At this point, all the drama invoking the wards feels utterly pointless, and the wyverns feel like set dressing. The venin really could have taken over at any time. It sounds like they don’t even need to bother with stealth or disguises at this point (though the fact they are aware of those options is one more reason they should have been able to easily take everything over).
Oh, and on that note: if venin can do all that, it strongly implies fliers also have access to most of their magic in the wards. After all, flier assaults on the forts would amount to nothing otherwise. It’s not like gryphons can breathe fire or tear through stone walls, so the only way fliers could breach fortifications to steal alloy (while being fought by riders, who have full access to their magic, and without venin immortality) is if they can use magic to a similar degree that the venin can.
In other words, by setting this benchmark, Yarros has potentially made every evil Violet enacted to allow the fliers to use magic even more inexcusable by eroding the justification Violet used for that evil.
Wards vs. Humanity
I want to like the fact that Violet and her accessories rest in Xaden’s old room, trusting the wards he set in Iron Flame to protect them. It’s a nice bit of continity.
… but …
Xaden left Samara when he deserted. That seems to have been about three months ago. How are the wards he placed on the room still intact? Ignoring for a moment the issue of whether this ward still has power (which, given how runes work and how the venin-killing alloy works, this wards should probably weaken over time), why did the Navarrian riders not breach this ward? Xaden was an enemy of the state. There might have been evidence in here that could serve as valuable intelligence on his activities. Even setting that aside, did the Navarrians really want to leave a room inside their military installation that they not only couldn't use but that only an enemy of the state could use?
The answer can’t simply be that Xaden’s wards are unbreakable. Sure, they could shrug off Draconis’s casual probing or eavesdropping by cadets, but it is not plausible that they would deflect a concentrated magical attack. After all, if riders could make eternal wards that can’t be breached by magical attack, why aren’t the Rider’s Quadrant, the Basgiath wardstone, and every single border fort warded to prevent any non-rider from entering without permission (thereby making it impossible for fliers or non-rider venin to go anywhere near the alloy stockpiles)?
Signets
Lightning Strike
When Violet and her accessories challenge the officers, we get explicit confirmation that only Violet can kill venin with her Signet.
“So we just leave them to die?” Trager’s voice rises. “Why? Because they’re Poromish?”
“Not because they’re Poromish. Because we can’t help.” The major’s words grow shorter. “Not all of us wield lightning.” She glances at me.
Yarros didn’t necessarily need to confirm this - implication can go a long way - yet I appreciate that she did. This helps to clarify what is and isn’t possible in battles.
Venin Signets
I could probably evaluate this one as a Plot element. However, in the grand scheme of things, this reveal doesn’t actually affect the trajectory of the story. It’s worldbuilding fluff that is given exaggerated importance.
In terms of fluff … eh? There’s a big issue here, but it has to do more with framing than with anything being contradicted. The idea that venin might have individual magical abilities that rival the magical abilities of riders and fliers is consistent with the rest of this world, plus it builds on the idea that venin power can enhance a rider’s Signet.
The framing issue is when and how Violet jumps to this conclusion (and … of course … is right). It’s a reaction to Theophanie calling down lightning. Sure, that’s startling, but after everything Violet’s seen, this feels like a delayed reaction.
Why did she not have this reaction to the Sage hurling blue fire in Iron Flame (and Fourth Wing - I’d missed that he did that in the climax of that book as well)? Is hurling blue fire a “lesser magic”? If so, why do we never see riders using it?
Why did she not have this reaction to that same Sage using telekinesis to immobilize Xaden? In this case, we do know telekinesis is a lesser magic, but we never see riders applying it in this manner. Actually, given that Theophanie strangles Garrick with telekinesis moments after the displace of lightning, why does Violet not conclude that to be a Signet, too?
Why did she not have this reaction when Theophanie moved so fast as to seemingly vanish? Again, riders can enhance their physical abilities. It’s something Yarros set up early in Fourth Wing and then almost never acknowledges. However, we never saw a rider move that fast.
What I’m getting at here is that, after all of the unnatural things Violet has seen venin accomplish, the natural assumption should be the venin can use magic that approximates Signets, not that they have literal Signets.
Plus, if venin have Signets, why does Yarros act like fliers have something completely different?
The Balance
The epigraph of Chapter 11 brings back up the idea of Signets being tied to fate or some other greater force.
In the hope and excitement this new development of the bonds between dragons, gryphons, and their humans brings, I wonder who has stopped to contemplate the nature of magic’s balance. Do we not risk the equal rise of the very powers we seek to wield?
—Recorded Correspondence of Nirali Ilan, Commanding General, Cliffsbane Fortress, to Lyra Mykel, Deputy Commanding General, Basgiath War Camp
So … magic has a balance now.
And Yarros is heavily implying that venin developed Signets to balance out dragons and gryphons.
I see that we can add the Balance of the Force from Star Wars to the list of things that Yarros copies without understanding how it works. Outside of Disney’s Sequel Trilogy, Balance in Star Wars does not mean that the Force will kick power-ups to Light or Dark depending on how strong the other side is. Even in interpretations of Balance where Light and Dark must equalize, that’s not how it works. It falls on individuals to either maintain the balance internally or else consciously work to oppose the other side. This is in spite of the fact that the Force is established to have a will and therefore an active interest that would theoretically motivating distributing power-ups.
No such higher power or will exists in the Empyrean. No concept of balance existed before this book. Signets have relative power levels and rarities, but we were told that this was tied to the power levels of the dragons and the psychology of the rider. Why, then, would anyone ever think the venin would gain new magical powers to “balance” out riders and dragons?
If anything, with how events have been presented, the dragons and the gryphons should have been seen as the balance to the venin. Yes, the folklore says that the venin came after the riders and fliers, but the only established threat to the dragons and their nests is the venin, so logically, the venin must have come first. So why would anyone thing that magic that manifested to balance the venin would lead to the venin manifesting magic to balance against the balance?
Double Signets
I need to hold off on discussing this until Chapter 12, as it is part of the most blatant lie in this entire book. For now, I just want to highlight two passages that will be very relevant in that discussion.
First, when Theophanie reveals how effortlessly she controls lightning, we get:
“Now wouldn’t be a bad time to manifest a second signet,” I tell Andarna as the dark wielder approaches. My heart thunders like a drum. All the venin has to do is palm the earth and the four of us will be desiccated in seconds.
“As if I control how you use my power?” Andarna counters.
Second, when Violet calls out Garrick having a second Signet, we get:
“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.”
Remember how, in Iron Flame, Yarros asserted the second Signets only happen when a dragon bonds with a rider who is a descendant of a previous rider? Violet may not have been the one to say it, but she accepted it without challenge, and it was the foundation of her leap in logic that exposed Xaden’s second Signet. Once again, we have Yarros lying to us by asserting one thing as true and then pivoting to assert another thing as true without acknowledging the disconnect.
Also, Xaden having two Signets is explictly being linked to Garrick having two Signets. That will be very important to expose the very big lie for a very petty reason that we will go over in Chapter 12.
Rainbow Dragons
During her monologue, Theophanie reveals rainbow dragons are called “irids” and shows great interest in having control over Andarna.
That’s … not new information. We already knew Andarna was special. As for the name, it doesn’t mean anything on its own. I’m all for giving the rainbow dragon a special designator rather than just calling them by color, but the name is just short for “iridescent” (a fact Yarros will go out to her way to point out in a later chapter), so it ends up less like a title for a mysterious and rare species of dragon and more like a nickname Andarna made up for herself while trying too hard to be cool.
Also, we get a weird line from Andarna after Theophanie reveals this name.
“Irid,” Andarna whispers. “Yes. I remember now. That is what my kind are called. I am an irid scorpiontail.”
How did you forget that, Andarna? You remembered your sacred mission, but not that your people are called irids? What exactly are the rules for what you did or didn’t retain while waiting in that egg?
Chapter 12 is going to give us a rule, and it’s going to make it impossible for Andarna to know this at all, let alone remember it. We will be told that all dragons remember “nothing” about their “first hundred years in the shell”. Navarre has existed for roughly 600 years, and since there’s no record of the rainbow dragons, they must have been gone for at least that long. The problem is that, per Chapter 64 of Iron Flame, Andarna “waited six hundred and fifty years to hatch”. This means the rainbow dragons departed when she was still inside that void when she should remember nothing. So who told her about the “irid” name, and when did that happen?
I’m not against retconning information by having characters “remember” it, but the fact the information was forgotten in the first place needs to make sense. Bionicle pulled this amnesia retcon twice, both times for far more world-shattering information than a simple name, but both times, they took the steps to make the amnesia make sense.
The Matoran villagers on Mata Nui completely forgot about Metru Nui, despite all of them originally being from there. This is justified by the fact that they’d been put into induced comas by a force of evil, poisoned with spider venom, healed via the sacrifice of the Toa Metru’s powers, and then spent a full millennium subsisting on an island teeming with vicious monsters. Forgetting their old day jobs is rather understandable under such stressful conditions. (It’s worth noting that the Toa Metru - now the Turaga elders - did remember everything, but they skipped three of those four steps.)
Everyone on the Toa Mata team completely forgot that they were the Chosen Ones who were purpose-built to reboot the Great Spirit if anything should happen to him. This is justified by their stasis cannisters being damaged when they were deployed to fulfill their mission. They spent a full millennium floating on the ocean while their organic body parts decayed into dust. When they landed on Mata Nui and regenerated, they had to relearn everything, not just their mission parameters.
Here, we haven’t been given a reason for Andarna to forget things, so every time she remembers something, it begs the questions of why she doesn’t know more and why she didn’t remember the things that she does know at an earlier time.
Arinmint
In all previous instances of mending, no drugs were administered to aid the process. Fourth Wing showed us that painkillers might be used to dull pain prior to the procedure, but the magic negates its effects.
Which is why it’s strange that, when Brennan heals Violet, he gives her medicinal herb.
“I brought some arinmint with me. I’ll have it steeped in milk to help speed the deep healing.” He nods to himself. “It helped after you were poisoned.”
Why is this the first time we’ve ever heard of this drug?
Simple. It didn’t exist prior to this book, and Yarros now needs to aftshadow.
The lines that immediately follow Brennan saying this are:
“You brought arinmint out of Aretia?” Xaden glowers at my brother.
“Breaking the law in front of the duke,” I try to tease my brother, but the pain makes my words pitchy and it falls flat. Fuck, that hurts. My leg throbs twice as hard without the wrap.
“I’m well versed in how to use it. You know they don’t take too kingly to walking out of negotiations when you speak for your province, right?” Brennan spreads his hands over the joint and looks over his shoulder at Xaden.
Oh, no! This herb is illegal to export? Why?
No, seriously, Ms. Yarros. Why? Is it an endangered plant that is in too short supply to export? Does it have cultural significance? What is the issue here?
And if it’s such a big issue, why does the scene immediately forget about it?
The answer to all these questions is that Yarros needs to aftshadow for a power fantasy moment later in the book. She needed to make Violet seem intelligent by having Violet know information that was never revealed to the audience. To this end, she made up something on the spot, then doubled back to slot in a disconnected passage so that she could assert that arinmint exists without actually explaining its properties.
The reason arinmint isn’t exported ties into that, “I’m well versed in how to use it,” bit. It’s an incredibly dumb and contradictory reason, amounting to another toggle that Yarros tries to jam into an intermediate position. It is based on a fact that is so basic that anyone who knows about the law should grasp know it, and thus, Yarros has no reason to not tell the audience directly … yet the implementation of that fact is something so incredibly specific and obscure that making it illegal in the first place is nonsensical. The end result is that Yarros is once more withholding information from the audience for no other reason than to make Violet seem intelligent.
PROSE
Odd Conclusions
After waking up from the dream, Violet discusses it with Rhi, leading to this odd line.
“I think so.” It’s been months since he’s slept here, but I swear I catch a hint ofmint as I turn my head toward Rhi, keeping my voice low. “But Cat was there, and Iwas trying to find this painting of my family, but it was weird, and then they were burning.” I sigh. “Which makes sense, considering my mother turned herself into an actual flame.”
General Sorrengail did not turn into a flame. She channeled too much magic and died as a result. There was a poetic line about how the wardstone flame was “ all that’s left” of her, but her body was specifically described as having “no heat”. This is therefore a rather bizarre leapt for Violet to make, especially since the flames in her dream were not black (the color of the wardstone flame).
False Cliffhangers: 4
Between Chapters 10 and 11, we get:
“Is that really your question?” My fingernails cut into my palms as Garrick’s kicks become more desperate.
“Just an observation.” Her gaze flicks toward Garrick. “For good faith.” She turnsher hand and Garrick crashes to the ground beside me, wheezing as he draws breath.
“Now tell me, which chose you first? The one who gifted you the power of the sky? Or the irid?”
“Irid?” I blink and fight like hell to keep my face blank.
“Yes, your irid.” Theophanie surveys the sky, then the landscape behind us as Garrick staggers to his feet, sword in hand. “Some do not believe, but I knew as soon as the cream-robed scholars whispered about the seventh breed in your war college. Pity I had to leave so abruptly. One hasn’t been seen in centuries, and I was so hoping toset…eyes on her.” She finishes the statement like the threat it is, bringing her crimson gaze to mine.
Andarna. Terror races up my spine and lightens my head.
“Irid,” Andarna whispers. “Yes. I remember now. That is what my kind are called. I am an irid scorpiontail.”
“Fly for the wards!” I scream mentally. “She’s not here for me. She wants you.”
“I will not abandon you,” she roars.
I’m not even going to do my usual bit here. This is a chapter break that just splits a scene in half without even the pretense of a revelation or other high-tension moment.
A Cliffhanger that Makes Sense
The cliffhanger from Chapter 11 to 12 does work. Xaden making out with Violet completely changes the tone of the scene, effectively making what follows a new scene. This is not what she or the audience were told to expect (even if, given the nature of the sexual fantasies in this book, this was pretty much inevitable, since Xaden lusting after Violet is more likely than him being genuinely angry at her).
QUEEN OF LIES
Chapter 12 breaks the entire series. Again.
There are two points to consider here. One is thematic, so I’m going to skip over that until Chapter 20. The other, however, has to do with Yarros’s fundamental dishonesty as a writer.
This is the chapter where Yarros lies to the audience and executes a titanic retcon in the name of covering up one incredibly embarrassing but ultimately harmless error in Fourth Wing. This retcon is fundamentally incompatible with Chapters 53 through 56 of Iron Flame. It also completely shatters the climax of Fourth Wing and the entire backstory of the rebel smuggling operation. Perhaps worst of all, it assassinates the self-insert the Mary Sue. Either Yarros is lying to us about Violet being a “rational woman” renowned for her “intelligence”, or she is lying about not making a mistake. She is free to pick her poison.
What Yarros is not free to pick her poison for is the virtue signaling. What Yarros does in this chapter (and later in this book) is sickening and dehumanizing. What she does here is not the mark of someone who cares about the people she is Representing. It is the mark of someone who sees the Represented as objects for her own glorification.
We’ll get into that on June 6th. I hope to see you all then.
ONE OTHER THING …
I’m excited to announce that a new section of the website will be opening up in July: Tales of the Five Worlds. This will be where I intend to post with my own original content. To kick things off, I’ll be posting the first part of a 13-part web novella, titled “The Unbottled Idol”, on July 1st, with subsequent parts releasing weekly on Tuesdays.
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.
I do sincerely hope you’ll join me for this ride. Not only do I hope to entertain you all with more than just analyses, but Mohsen is the Male Main Character for the Romantasy project that I’m working on, so this is a chance for you all to get to know him. (This novella is not required reading for the novel, just a little something extra for your enjoyment.) I’m hoping to post a second novella for the Female Main Character of that project, Daria, within the next year or so.
Regardless of whether you join me for this particular adventure, there’s plenty of content ahead. Please remember to subscribe to the newsletter if you’d like to receive a weekly e-mail with the latest posts. Have a great weekend, everyone.
