Brennan (A Tale of Threshing Day)
Hello, all. Happy Columbus Day and Sports Day, and welcome back to the review of Threshing Day, a supplemental anthology for The Empyrean.
Brennan is a character sorely in need of development. He was a combination of a really dumb twist and Deus ex Machina in Fourth Wing, was good because That’s Good and then changed his name for “obvious reasons” (i.e. no reason, but Yarros couldn’t be bothered to think things through) in Iron Flame, and an almost interchangeable Leader archetype in Onyx Storm. His journey from loyal rider of Navarre to a leader of the Aretis rebels could be compelling, if Yarros couldn’t be bothered to write it.
Instead, she told us this story.
Buckle into those Special Snowflake dragon saddles. It’s time to purge some initiates.
STATS
Title: “Brennan”
Series: The Empyrean (Supplemental Anthology)
Author(s): Rebecca Yarros
Genre: Fantasy (Epic)
First Printing: September 29th, 2026
Publisher: Red Tower Books
SPOILERS & DISCLAIMER
This post will provide heavy, unmarked spoilers for the entirety the Threshing Day anthology up through the end of the story being featured. Mild, unmarked stories for later stories may also be provided, while any heavy spoilers for later stories will be confined to clearly marked sections. I will do my best to keep the first paragraph of every section spoiler-free.
Heavy, unmarked spoilers will also be provided for all mainline books of The Empyrean (Fourth Wing, Iron Flame, and Onyx Storm) released prior to Threshing Day. I’m going to assume that you’ve read those previous reviews, but it won’t be necessary to understand this review, as I’ll be doing my best to recap or reference recurring issues or prior canon as it comes up.
For more information regarding the standards by which I’m going to be rating these stories, please see the post titled “Focus and Continuity (A Prelude to Threshing Day)”.
WHAT WE KNEW ABOUT BRENNAN BEFORE THRESHING DAY
Brennan switched sides in a war either before or after a near-death experience because That’s Good.
He changed his last name because … pettiness? That’s really the most coherent explanation. It doesn’t do anything to hide his identity, and while changing it to protest his mother’s continued service to Navarre could work, it hinges on the whole changing-sides-because-That’s-Good thing.
Yarros wants us to like Brennan, because despite arguably having more to do with concealing his survival from Violet than Xaden did, Xaden is the one Violet abuses for that. Mira does abuse Brennan over that choice, but given how far Yarros goes at that point in the series to make Mira a loathsome bitch, it’s hard to argue that anything she does to abuse another person is deserved.
Oh, and Brennan may be tokenized representation for male homosexuality. Yarros has carefully avoided acknowledging any past romantic relationships with women while also acknowledging that there were past relationships. I speculated in the Onyx Storm review that she was keeping his sexuality on the shelf to either virtue signal or blend in with the crowd, depending on how the political pendulum swings in the coming years.
All this is to say that Brennan is a perfect example to start with in terms of a cast member who could become a character. Yarros has neglected him despite having rich ground to work with. The story we really need is the story of his defection, yet anything at all is better than nothing (provided Yarros does not mess it up).
CONTENT
After reflecting about how his male lover and other classmates are all idiots whose stupidity will get them killed. Brennan bumps into his father Asher in the middle of the Threshing. Asher tells Brennan his character traits as the pair discuss what color dragon Brennan wants to meet (anything other than those unpredictable orange dragons) and is told about how Violet and Mira are doing. Asher then fades into the forest like he’s Homer Simpson sliding into the hedge.
Brennan climbs a tree to get his bearings and his confronted by Marbh (who is, of course, one of those unpredictable orange dragons Brennan didn’t want to bond with). Marbd telepathically tells him that he will bond with Brennan if Brennan jumps from the tree onto his back. Brennan does so, landing on Marbh’s face, and survives the trip Marbh’s back. Just like they, the pair are bonded.
ANALYSIS
Wow. What a waste of time.
Plot and Worldbuilding
Asher’s presence in this story actively makes it worse. Ignore the ridiculousness of him even being here and then exiting via meme. The entire interaction between him and Brennan contributes nothing of substance and wastes time.
We already knew the Sorrengail family dynamic and how close Brennan and Asher were.
The exposition about the world that gets rehashed does not contribute to the story, outside of insisting on dragon personalities being dictated by color (something that has had no impact on the series so far and only amounts here to, “Haha, Brennan got the color he didn’t want”).
All this interaction with Asher accomplishes is eating up pages that should have gone to Showing Brennan’s characterization … which makes me wonder if Yarros just added it for filler, and how many other pointless scenes this anthology will be filled with.
Brennan
… what characterization?
Still Breaking Others Down
Yarros tries to show that Brennan is cautious and intelligent by making all his classmates into morons. A big deal is made about his lover bringing a sword for self-defense against the fire-breathing tanks and his classmates grouping up when Kaori told them not to do that. (Glad to see that foreshadowing from “Trial by Fire” is paying off instantly.) Brennan outright thinks:
Gods, they’re foolish.
Yarros once again demonstrates her inability to write actual intelligence or virtue. Rather than build Brennan up as a man of “integrity, compassion, and wit” (all traits Asher will Tell us he has a little later) by … oh, I don’t know … actually doing something to show these qualities, she just arbitrarily has his classmates be morons so that he can look better by comparison.
Legacy
Brennan is apparently crushed by the legacy of the Sorrengail name and wants to forge his own path. For this reason, he joined the riders. The emphasis put on the name seems to imply it factored into changing his name in Iron Flame.
This does not make sense.
If he wants to be his own man, why did he not become a healer? We are explicitly told during the Asher discussion that he did train for this role. Why would he follow in his mother’s footsteps into the profession where she would be all but guaranteed to continue overshadowing him?
And if the idea is to retroactively explain the name change, why did he not take Asher’s name (Daxton)? The Asher dialogue emphasizes just how close the pair are. If the goal is to leave his mother’s shadow, why not reclaim the name his father set aside?
The Book of Brennan
My brilliant plan might not be so brilliant after all. Would have been nice if Mom had given me some guidance or warned me about…anything. Parapet. Gauntlet. Presentation. The futility of climbing trees. I should write all this shit down so Mira doesn’thave to figure it out on her own.
This is a weak memberberry. What aspect of Brennan’s identity makes him decide to write this information down when no other cadet has? Is the idea that only Sorrengails love their siblings?
Yarros clearly wanted us to point and clap here, but this moment is not earned. The entire story could have built towards this moment (and it really should, if she wanted to include it).
Stable / Boring
This is a great example of how Yarros will establish a character trait, only to pulverize it the moment the plot demands it.
Brennan does not want to bond with an orange dragons because he desires stability, not unpredictability. Then an orange dragon picks him and tells him, “You are boring. You need a dragon who will challenge you. Successfully mount me, or I will kill you.” Just like that, Brennan is over his reservations and totally on board with being bonded to a dragon whose entire personality clashes with his.
This is the kind of character arc that could define an entire story. Instead, Brennan gets a trait, it is blasted aside to force a resolution, and we are meant to think something deep happened here. None of this was earned.
The Adorably Predictable Virtue Signal
Brennan has sex with other men! Who could have possibly seen that coming? Yarros was so subtle and humble about her virtue!
Stuff like this is precisely why I have no issue sharing my opinions, predictions, and theories about Yarros. She is becoming irritatingly predictable.
Still Not a Character
One job. This anthology has ONE job. It was marketed as doing that one job. And already, in its first story, it has failed. Brennan is just a much of a non-character now as he was before.
Do you know how easy it would have been to make Brennan a character? Yarros just had to pick one idea. She could have focused on the idea of legacy or on Brennan having an arc in which he discovered that he and Marbh actually click really well. If she really wanted to go with the idea that Brennan is less of an idiot than his classmates, she could have told a story in which he guided his foolish group of classmates and minimized their casualties, thereby Showing his potential as a leader of an underdog faction in addition to his other traits.
Instead, she wasted a massive chunk of the plot on exposition and a character dynamic that didn’t matter to this story, and wasted all of that.
You know who is a character, though?
Marbh
We are Told within the text that Marbh is a stereotype orange dragon, who are defined by bring “unpredictable”.
What we are Shown is that:
Marbh engages with Brennan while Brennan is stuck in a tree.
He telepathically goads and insults Brennan.
He gives his future rider an ultimatum: make a leap of faith, die trying, or just die.
He then flies straight up while Brennan is trying to get from his neck to his head.
All this is to say that Marbh is not unpredictable. Unpredictable would be quirky compared to this. Marbh is instead belligerent and eager to abuse the power he has over others. He’s a violent, sociopathic asshole. If one were to be extremely charitable, one could argue that he’s an evil trickster with zero regard for human life or the consequences of the games he plays.
That being said … this is consistent characterization. Marbh has a strong voice. Frankly, the fact the contrast between the Told characterization and the Shown characterization is so obvious from such a short interaction speaks to a strong character voice.
All this is to say that Yarros accidented her way into the strongest dragon character in the series thus far.
And you know what? I like Marbh. He reminds me of Terriermon in Digimon Tamers. I could totally see this clown trashing a parking garage for shits and giggles before trying to play it off as harmless fun. Given that Brennan’s Told characterization isn’t too far off from Jianliang’s Shown characterization in Tamers, there’s precedent for this character dynamic leading to some interesting drama and character growth.
If, you know, Yarros can be bothered to put in the effort.
RATING: 4/10
This rating testifies to just how low the bar is.
“Brennan” is lazy filler. The character work is all either bad or accidental, with an arc that amounts to nothing more than sweeping the POV’s apparent most important trait under the rug. Yarros wastes the limited page count to rehash exposition that doesn’t even facilitate the story being told. The effort to explain elements from the mainline series is laughable and nonsensical.
But it doesn't destroy the mainline books. No harm has been done to the wider series. Time has been wasted, but The Empyrean is no worse off for it. So, yes. I am very happy to say that this is the best story (the introduction was not a story) of the series thus far.
THE WICKED WITCH
Well. This was a terrible start. As someone who hoped to at least be able to give all these stories midling ratings, “Brennan” was a cold dose of reality. Yarros could not be bothered to care about the story that leads the whole anthology. Why, then, should I expect anything better from the rest of them?
Thankfully - and, rather surprisingly - “Mira” demonstrates that this anthology has much more to offer. While it’s not exactly a deep story, it’s a coherent, reasonably efficient narrative. What’s more, Yarros manages to take a cast member whom I’ve come to despite over the last book and a half to restore her to the factory settings that I originally appreciated. We’ll delve deeper into this on next Sunday.
In the interim, if you’re looking for your fix of gritty fantasy, my free serial Moral Support is ongoing. It’s a Dark Fantasy story where motorbike-riding Persian alchemists face off against medieval Balkan soldiers in a haunted forest. Chapter 1 through Chapter 3 Part 2 are now available, with Chapter 4 arriving later this month.
Thank you all for stopping by. Please remember to subscribe and share if you enjoyed what you read here. Take care, everyone, and have a good week.
