Storyweaver

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My Predictions for future POV characters no I have not finished the book

Book Sixteen - Umber (of course)

Book Seventeen - Platypus*

Book Eighteen - Royal**

Book Nineteen - Mulberry

Book twenty - Sora

*Could also definitely see this being a Quokka POV book, but I can't see both characters getting books, especially if Umber and Sora both get books.

Honestly I’m kinda on board with the NightWing village, if only because it has the potential to positively impact other tribe’s views on RainWings + end the era of RainWing isolationism

I don’t think the books handled it too well, though, its weird how little the RainWings care even for a particularly peaceful tribe, and I wish they had emphasized how the NightWings feel to finally have a stable home and good access to food and other resources instead of just “urghh rainwing queen bad because rainwing”. It’s interesting to see two tribes coexist in one environment without conflict or subjugation (I know they’re under a RainWing queen, but it doesn’t seem that Queen Glory has any interest in oppressing or controlling the NightWings, those that are acquiescent of their own volition are welcome to stay, but those that wish to leave can do so without trouble. I also know that she has RainWing guards watching the village, but as the NightWings are only in the rainforest as a part of a failed invasion, it feels like a reasonable security measure)

I’ve got some small grievances I’ll address in a second but the most glaring issue in my mind is the fact that the LeafWings just Do Not Care about the Silkwings and never have, in fact its a very major point in both The Lost Continent and The Hive Queen that the PoisonWings want to kill all SilkWings too. Sundew in fact notes that only the SapWings (more specifically, Willow), care about mitigating SilkWing casualties.

A major part of the arc is that despite there being three clear factions in this conflict, neither side recognizes the SilkWings as allies, and the LeafWings especially do not. The HiveWings keep the SilkWings around because they’re reliant on their silk, fire, and labor. They keep the SilkWing rebellions down through threats of violence, and SilkWings are taught from a young age that their subjugation is the price they pay for HiveWing protection from LeafWing invaders.

“Cricket stumbled, suddenly remembering the rest of the statue that commemorated the end of the war. The marble dragon that lay dead below the queen’s other talons, with one of her deadly wrist stingers plunged through his heart. She’d never stopped for a moment to think about that dragon, because he wasn’t anyone in particular. He was just “the enemy.” He was a blank nobody representing the tribe who’d been defeated and exterminated when the HiveWings “saved” the SilkWings from them.”

Most of the insults Sundew uses aren’t even directed towards HiveWings, they’re just vaguely anti-hive-dweller, such as “Four-wing” and “Tree-killers”. She and the other PoisonWings feel no need to distinguish between HiveWings and SilkWings, and when nuance is applied, it’s in painting SilkWings as being “tainted” by their proximity to HiveWing society. The PoisonWings feel that even the most rebellious SilkWings are by their very nature docile and obedient and can never serve any purpose other than servitude. The LeafWings view them as mindless HiveWing servants just as much as the HiveWings do.

Theres a scene in The Hive Queen where Sundew tries to convince Swordtail to help her burn down the hives, and Cricket is able to momentarily dissuade him by telling him that the biggest casualty is going to be SilkWings, namely SilkWing dragonets who can’t fly themselves to safety. The LeafWings, including Sundew, are fully aware of this and just do not care what happens to them.

“Bryony tried not to show how startled she was. “To save you?” she echoed.

“The SilkWings,” he said. “You could have left us to rot in Queen Wasp’s talons, after we abandoned you during the Tree Wars. But you didn’t. You came back to set us free.”

Oh, the guilt! Bryony felt it stabbing all her internal organs at once. How could she tell him that she’d never once thought about the plight of the SilkWings before she met him? That their mission was vengeance, not rescue?”

Sundew, Bryony, and the other LeafWings cannot fathom the idea of the Chrysalis, they don’t understand that there are unhappy SilkWings, they use “SilkWing” as a synonym for naivety and helplessness, even after becoming close with SilkWings, Sundew calls them “a simple tribe” and Bryony calls them “beautiful and useless”.

Most of Sundews character development is based on unlearning this! She has to learn to see SilkWings as dragons and not collateral damage! And we’re expected to believe that offscreen both entire LeafWing settlements do that in a matter of weeks with no real issues? I’ve seen a lot of people complain about the vague group of HiveWings that suddenly want to join the LeafSilk kingdom but honestly I think just the concept of a LeafSilk kingdom is less realistic.

The LeafWings are Not allies of SilkWings.

SilkWings view LeafWings as their saviors but any benefits the SilkWings have reaped from the LeafWing rebellion are either purely coincidental or because Sundew trusts Blue.

The SilkWings are finally free from the grasp of Queen Wasp and then immediately join up with another tribe who actively resents them. All that work of “the SilkWings should be able to self-govern” only to have them become dependent on the other tribe. Giving them a government specifically mocked as being useless and incapable by Swordtail also just seems like such a slap in the face after everything they just went through. Yes a democratic society in which SilkWings are given a voice after being ruled by a monarchy that does not favor them is a good idea but the execution is just so strange. Why not have the Bloodworm Chrysalis +Io lead?

Minor issues ahead:

I don’t like the implication that the LeafWings are united under Queen Sequoia and wish the ending had maintained that divide between the PoisonWings and the SapWings given their vastly different ideologies.

I wish they had focused more on showing unhappy HiveWings during the events of the book, there were 5 (Cricket, Malachite, Treehopper, Jewel, Scarab) total that I could remember, and so much of The Hive Queen focuses on that uncertainty that comes with the HiveWing’s inability to openly rebel against Queen Wasp, and it really just fizzled out towards the end. I think thats why the conclusion of “some HiveWings joined the LeafSilk kingdom” felt so unsatisfying.

I’m like half with you on this one actually, I think the epilogue of Flames of Hope should have been Luna/Cricket/Blue/Io/Tau/Whoever finding the map in the book of Clearsight and then have that lead to the first contact between the two continents in the arc. I think the idea of “ALL the tribes must band together to fix this” is interesting since despite it being thematic for the previous two arcs, they never fully committed to the idea (No IceWings or SkyWings in arc 1, No MudWings in arc 2 and the RainWing spends half the arc unconscious), but it fell apart so quickly it mitigated the impact that it could have had.

I also really did not like the reveal of Sky, I admittedly haven’t read Dragonslayer but Kestrel killing the flameless dragonet and attempting to leave with Peril is such an interesting choice for her character and to have that be just another lie really sucks. It put her focus of ruthlessness with Clay into perspective, even in choosing between her own dragonets, she chooses the one more likely to be combat adept and sacrifices the “weakling”. This decision both works in her favor and backfires. Kestrel sparing specifically her firescales dragonet is both the reason Kestrel had to escape empty-clawed and the reason Scarlet decided to keep Peril alive. It shows a deeply ingrained idolization of strength, likely from her time in the military/as a guard, and to retcon that for the sake of introducing a dragon who does next to nothing for the plot is just so…disappointing, i guess. I also, as everyone else, did not care for the humans.

The rest of the Pyrrhia half of the arc was similarly disappointing for me. I hated the fact that Boa got rid of animus magic, specifically going against the point of arc 2, doing the exact same thing that Darkstalker did to Turtle that was allegedly so evil, and I hadn’t even considered until now that had Moonwatcher not received that prophecy and had Turtle not swam over to Pantala that it would not have been necessary from a narrative standpoint to take away animus magic. Moonwatcher’s prophecy abilities in general really seem to go against everything established by Clearsight in Legends: Darkstalker and the prologue to The Lost Continent, but I digress.

I liked Pineapple, I liked Lynx, I liked Bullfrog, there was no reason for Qibli and Tsunami to be there AGAIN, Moonwatcher makes sense but we also have yet to have a pov NightWing outside of that one winglet that actually is from the Night Kingdom, Cricket/Luna/Sundew/Willow make logical sense but it seems weird to have the conclusion be the reunification of the LeafWing kingdom when they’re acknowledging the split here. (I have many more issues with the LeafSilk kingdom as a concept that I will not be getting into here)

I also enjoyed Snowfall’s perspective with the ring, when it wasn’t being used to further punish Winter or show off the new human characters or show why animus magic can’t exist etc etc

I can’t say with any level of confidence that a single thing I enjoyed from the Pyrrhian side of arc 3 was worth the tremendous downsides. Especially not in how it shafted Queen Wasp as an antagonist.

Suddenly very invested in the implications of this line. There’s alcohol in the wings of fire universe? Is this song specific to SeaWing bars? Probably not seeing as an IceWing prisoner is noted to be familiar with it despite being on an opposing faction in the war. How did this song carry over the lines of the battlefield anyway? Did it originate among the IceWings and SandWings? If so why does Clay believe Peril would recognize it? If he meant “recognize” to refer more to her hearing the song and knowing Clay is behind it than her actually knowing what the song is then the “it came from Blaze’s army” theory makes the most sense, especially given that the SandWing soldiers who followed her are explicitly stated to be homesick and tired of conflict, and Deathbringer notes the existence of IceWing taverns in his initial encounter with Glory. Having said that, how could Webs have possibly heard the song to begin with if not through Dune himself?