Did Fourth Wing EARN Its Popularity? | Fourth Wing
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- Опубліковано 1 бер 2024
- Fourth Wing had the reading world divided. Is it the next great fantasy series to pay attention to, or is it just more BookTok cringe?
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Booktok is Wattpad for wine moms, change my mind.
My parents would not understand a single thing in that sentence, amazing.
Fuck man it’s come to a point that most fanfiction I read is better than most of those booktok books. And don’t get me wrong, there are some crazy talented and skilled fanfiction authors out there, but the standard for published works seems so damn low these days…
I've only been up an hour and I won't find a better comment today. Goodnight!
I'm sure it's the same demographic but just older now. Like I was 14 when I first used wattpad, and I'm 24 now. I would be lying if I didn't say a lot of my out of school reading has been fanfic or creepypasta, I'm sure it's the same for a lot people.
@@TopboxicleI can’t lie I still read fanfics and I’m damn near 20 lmfao
Krimson Rogue could give a review on hardcore bukkake porn and I’d still be like „what a fine distinguished gentleman“ and not question the topic at all
SAME. It’s his tone of voice coupled with the subtle humor in the critiques for me. Makes it shady and fancy at the same time lol.
@@LeoGirl80 the way he talks about a book with porn in it is just phenomenal. Like, so nonchalant and dry, as if that’s just a common thing to read on the bus or in a book club.
@@Anyratac Exactly that!! Or like he’s the instructor of an English course, the cool one everybody loves by the end of term lol.
I think it's because he takes the topics seriously. Even in his Empress Theresa videos, he engaged with the book instead of just dunking on it. He does the research on the topics (and admits when he doesn't know much) and brings up examples from other similar media.
He'd have watched hours of bukkake and be lecturing us on how to properly portray it.
@@Elaan021 YES EXACTLY!
Other UA-camrs uploading hour long videos: "Sorry the video is so long guys"
Crimson: *Uploads a full length feature film every couple of months*
Yes!!! And we all come running to watch! :D
Feature film? He's moved on to miniseries!
I come from EFAP; no such thing as "too long." 😈
@@axelvoss9653 Greetings fellow commenter following Longman (a.k.a. Mauler)
Yeah 😎
I have the same condition as Violet and Yarros. Reading Fourth Wing made me miserable because it treats being disabled as a discredit to character. For those not in the loop, "pushing through" hypermobile pain can leave you entirely immobile for days at a time. It's a horrible, ableist narrative usually used to put down disabled folks who are, well, disabled. I kept waiting for Violet to mention the mystery bruises, or the weird throat spasms, or the clicking ankles, or any other secondary symptom of her condition. It felt like she was smashed into a weird, flat stereotype, and I just couldn't see myself in her.
Toxic productivity never really gets calledout. My sister has clinical pain and the amount of "you just gotta work through it" mentality she has to slog through is just bullshit
@@jim-bob3093 I'm very sorry she has to experience that. I hope she has lots of Good Days soon ^-^
Yep, yep. My sister has diagnosed hEDS and I have multiple symptoms. If she pushes through to do something that costs a lot of spoons, like showering (having to transfer in and out of a chair) or take a long car ride, she's in deficit and pain for days after. I feel like Yarros has a lot to introspect about if her end all be all is that her disability needs to be "fixed".
@gemstone4264 i feel like everyone with a disability reaches the "it is not fixes or fought, its manngaed" gate at some heart breaking point. I fo kinda fear if Yarros would be accused of hiding behind disability if she tried to write the more cynical approach
(I get a bit ranty, whoops! Sorry about that. It was not my original intention.)
Seriously? I understand to a degree of things being so normalized to yourself that you don’t notice (didn’t notice my own hypermobility for years or how my pain sensors were abnormal). But the rest of it? Yeesh.
Pushing through my pain has left me exhausted beyond belief. “Push through it!”, they say, unaware of how it feels like doing anything beyond your limit feels like wasting your life away. I absolutely despise people treating my life as a demerit and the fact that I call myself “expensive and difficult” because I know that I am incapable of holding down any job with a commute or office due to my body.
Mate, I hope your days are as good as they can be. Pain’s truly awful. Sorry you had to experience this with this book.
So, hold up, the murder students at the murder college prepare the food?! On what planet does this make sense?! How has there never been an instance where the entire class (except one squadron) just dropped dead a couple hours after breakfast? Oopsie, looks like the cooks all get dragons this year. Again.
sometimes it's okay to not think about very important details in a story, because the author apparently didn't either
Absolutely. Even what Violet gets away with...no one got suspicious that her first several sparring partners fell ill during or before they fight?
@@GunNNife it's implied that they only fell ill just during the fight and it was just mild enough, this then brings into question how violet was able to time it that well, so it kinda just shifts the issue
@@AlphaNinjaFTW1The implication is that Violet is just that smart you guys, she did the math super good and did the timing perfectly
@@P0rk_Sinigangyou know that's honestly amazing margin of error for stuff like poison can be so wild she really should've been a scribe
"She has a very particular bias..."
" *I LIKE DRAGONS* "
understandable have a nice day.
Kinda a shame that like Krimson himself says, they’re barely in the book when you really look over the text. Even more a shame when the writing for them is often really strong
"I LIKE SHARP THINGS"
When it comes to the "history lesson exposition dump" Violet gives while crossing the bridge, wouldn't it make more sense for her to be reciting an epic poem that frames Navarre's history and relationships with other kingdoms in a very nationalist and glorifying manner? Y'know, propaganda, that thing that the daughter of an elite general would no doubt have been spoonfed her entire life, not to mention the kingdom at large?
Edit: Just got to the part where Rebecca Yarros explains her reason for writing this story (the erasure of history and the weaponization of ignorance), and I think that just reinforces the credibility of my idea since it'd plant this thematic seed very early on in the story.
Exactly!
Honestly that would be a good idea to have an exposition dump but have it work with the world and character.
I said before that I thought history info dumps should take place in history class, but this is brilliant
Yeah! It could be some kind of chant or recited poem.
That would make infodump 1. make sense and 2. not feel like an infodump. I like the idea. I also don't think Rebecca or the publishers care enough to do that.
I think a better rule for murder within the school, would be to apply the same logic as an old teacher of mine: "As students, you must do everything you can to approve the exams. That includes cheating. But as a teacher, so it's my job to prevent you as any way I can to do so, and suspend you if I catch you doing so. So make sure I don't notice."
So applied to this world, it would be: "You are free to try to kill each other as you see fit. Just make sure no one on the school notices you doing so, or you are done."
Teacher's job 'to do anything to prevent students succeeding in exams' sounds like set up for murder school
Sort of like the first part of the Chunin Exam in Naruto. Still one of the best moments in anime imo
Danganronpa style
@markbunst5961 that's exactly where my mind went too.
@@stardoogalaxie9314 Exactly what I was about to comment.
So....we couldn't have had Violet discovered Jack's allergy to oranges with her working breakfast. Be like, "huh...he always avoids oranges, and anything that has touched an orange." Like if she could poision peoples food....couldn't she not help but noticing if people skip over certain foods? Just...something to ponder
also he just blurts his allergies out in the open in a school where everybody seems to be keen on killing each other, while being a big massive bully. What a moronic idea.
Also, allergies can be so severe that eating something prepared in the same kitchen as the allergen can cause a reaction. It would be totally believable that Jack made a request to the kitchen or the school itself regarding his allergy and the preparation of his food. It would make sense that not anybody would know because that would be private medical record and it's a school where murdering is a high risk, and it would make Violet in the unique position to learn such information through that job
It'd be kind of strange to assume allergies just from avoiding oranges, that easily could just be simple dislike for them. As others have pointed out, as a member of the kitchen crew though she would need to know these things.
when Krimson got to this part i thought he was going to say that she knew from working in the kitchens, it's weird that that's not how it was written
I have EDS and what bothered me most was how the book never critiques the “just push through” mentality. Not only is “just push through” the message we hear most, but it’s also incredibly dangerous. It’s one of the most dangerous things you can do with this illness. I’m glad people are learning EDS exists but it was so upsetting to see such a harmful idea championed through this book.
I can't talk about EDS but this book has a lot of narratives I don't like. My roommate described the MC as whining about how she'd rather be a scribe constantly but turns around when she gets a cool dragon and powers. As I heard from my roommate, the character is placed by nepotism, whines about it but tbf it is death military college, and gets lucky by getting their special powers/dragons then decides she's capable after all without...I dunno, deciding internally to do this for her. It's just weak - and I don't see the story saying anything new or novel for themes or perspective.
I'm open to being proven wrong, I ain't reading the thing myself based on the audiobook snippets I've heard
@@bumblehoney7206 I've read some of the book and watched many reviews on it, and generally agree with you here. The MC has a lot of privilege and doesn't seem to realize it; it makes me wonder if the author has a lot of privilege and also doesn't realize it.
My husband has EDS (as well as a few other comorbid conditions), and I learned years and years ago that asking him to "push though" to do something always resulted in him being bedridden for days.
@@AidenFeltkamp I'm a judgemental person with writing and art. I absolutely think she has a lot of privilege without realizing, and feel confirmed with snippets from the interviews I've seen..
for real. like, if you wanna have her push through, at least show the consequences! being bedridden. the bone-deep exhaustion that doesn't go away even after you sleep for 8 hrs. it bums me out so bad that disability accommodations in fantasy could be LITERALLY ANYTHING and that would be so cool, but instead we get... this. :/
What I find frustrating about the Rider’s Quadrant model is that they recruit hundreds of riders but not all available dragons will choose riders. This means (assuming all the spare riders don’t get killed off) that you have soldiers trained to do an unavailable job who can’t simply be rotated into, say, the infantry. Surely it makes more sense to give all recruits identical training, then select for specialization than the other way around. If the dragons chose from the fully trained infantry, you’d get the exact number of needed riders and all those unchosen can simply continue in their infantry roles.
Are you really expecting an author who wrote nothing but porn books before to have thought this through?
@ilikecookies9796
You have a point I'll give you that.
@@ilikecookies9796 if she’s going to undertake writing epic fantasy, in my opinion, then she should learn to handle its demands. She doesn’t get to beg off decent world building just because she used to write porn.
That's a good point. If not all trained dragon riders are able to get a dragon, you would imagine there would be options avalible for them to keep using their skills in the field. I could imagine in such cases dragonless riders would turn to other flying creatures as mounts until they are able to get a dragon of thier own. Creatures like pegasi, hippogriffs and wyverns may lack the shear power of a dragon, but they would be more than capable for efforts like scouting and skermishing with enemy forces. A few hundred wyvern riders in a proper formation could still prove valuable for breaking enemy lines with a diving charge from the rear. Allow the spares to prove themselves and still take an active role even if no dragon is avalible.
Essentially, you just described the basic training model that all militaries adopted centuries ago for this specific reason. Not only would you avoid the issue of having soldiers trained for a job there are no openings for, but you would also make sure that your average infantry have a better idea of how to work with the specialists. I would imagine this nation has a massive problem with infantrymen thinking that riders are capable of a lot more than they are, just like how armies in the early day of tanks and aircraft had to deal with soldiers and even officers who massively overestimated the capabilities of the equipment, leading to lots of unnecessary casualties through misuse of assets
I think the name Dylan is something of a "Tiffany problem." The Tiffany problem being, the name Tiffany sounds out of place in a historical context based on its modern usage, but it is actually a very old name and would be perfectly at home on the 1600s. Our brain just interprets it as too modern because it's still in common use today. Dylan, or Dillon, is, in fact, a very old Gaelic name (albeit an anglicized one) and therfore does fit in with the other names even though it _sounds_ incorrect.
Jack is, according to some circles, also Celtic in origin, although most consider that somewhat spurious and place the origin very squarely in medieval English.
Which leaves us with Zayden... which is Arabic or Hebrew.
isn't dylan a welsh name?
Zayden sounds like a ship name of Zayd and Zayn, both Arabic names 😂, but in itself it isn’t Arabic.
dillon would sound more in place , through jacob might sound better than jack?
Violet is French
Maybe in a certain country in the 1600s or maybe late 1600s, but I have about 45,000 Londoners in 1575-1605, and an additional 25,000 people in a family tree (1200-1586) of mostly British (English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh) but a few French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Scandinavians. Not one Tiffany or any similar name amongst them. I think I have a few women named Theophana, that's the closest.
So my sister works at a used bookstore, and she was telling me about how the first release of Fourth Wing had these sprayed edges that made their value leap up by hundreds of dollars. Then apparently when Iron Flame came out, there were tons of books that were printed wrong, things like the sprayed edges being super sloppy and even some of the pages being printed upside-down or the spine being broken. Some copies even had Fourth Wing's cover under the book jacket. Basically it was a very obviously rushed publication.
I also feel that because Fourth Wing had those rare sprayed edge copies, a lot of publishers are now pushing hard for these first editions and rare copies, like how the latest Sarah J. Maas book has five short stories but they're randomized in the books so you have to buy five versions of the same book to get them all, and it just feels super scummy and shitty to do that to your readers by making them feel pressured to collect the "super rare limited edition you'll only get one chance to buy". I get it if it's for a book box and you're willing to pay a monthly subscription for it, but for the general public? It feels super scummy
I love the look of sprayed edges but now whenever I see one I assume the book is gonna be disappointing 😞
@@hyenaedits3460 nothing to do with anything but i looooove your hyena pfp, SUPER cute!!!
@@CommanderDarcy omg thanks! I drew it myself!
That sounds exactly like what comic companies did with variant covers.
@@georgethompson913 To be fair, at least it's just the cover. This one is 5 books with 5 different side contents, like it's a video game DLC.
There's a big problem with the world building right out of the gate, and that's Violet's disability. No military would allow someone with a condition like that to go into open combat. They'd be considered too much of a liability. She'd either be disqualified from entering or put in with the scribes because that would be where she would be useful. Militaries are very particular about the physical capability of their soldiers. Being flat-footed is still a major problem with them. Some won't even allow soldiers to have beards. Because they're afraid it'll miss with the seal of gas masks, so this would disqualify her from active combat, no matter what her mother says.
Edit: People keep bringing up the idea that they're possibly desperate for soldiers due to the war. That doesn't make sense because it's not people in low supply but dragons. They had nearly 400 people on day one. Also, if they were desperate for people, the killing rule would make even less sense than it does now.
This is clearly foreshadowing for the twist in the next book where Violet benefitted from giga-nepotism via her family's trust fund.
Like a interesting direction this could go into, is that how people with disabilities would left behind and/or disregarded in an ultra militaristic society, or maybe that this certain society is willing to let disabled people be murdered by throwing them into those combat situations to cut the social costs of having them around and avoiding having to make a more accessible environment for those people (a thing that has happened in multiple militaries throughout history)
My thoughts exactly, where I live, the military is so strict with their acceptance that I had a friend who went through various surgeries (lasik, some other one to fix their hipbone, and a weight loss surgery) so they’d be more qualified for it.
I tried to give this book’s settings the benefit of the doubt bc it’s set in a fantasy world, considering their military didn’t even try to minimise death that happened during the testing and wouldn’t discourage killing among its members I suppose accepting a member with debilitating physical illness into their rank is just on brand
@@ygthemoth9425Perhaps or that they thought she would quickly die off
@@Ashbrash1998 Eugenics by "accident"? A bit too dark for my taste...
Just saw this. Thank you so much for the lovely comments.
As a sidebar, much of this is autobiographical, with a fiction twist.
My Nellie and I have settled our differences, I am better in many ways, but mental health is a journey, as we know.
Thank you so much, and I’m glad you liked it.
I'm happy you're doing better
You and me both. Thank you.
@@MarissaBeck40will definitely be checking out your book, been waiting for some good mental health rep:)
Aw. Thank you so much. Hope it meets the mark.
I have a long, long TBR list, but i am going to keep an eye out for your book to add it to the pile. I might have to make an exception from my thrift only policy
and buy it new
Is the book available for sale anywhere besides amazon?
My biggest qualm with the book was the lack of internal consistency for the rules of the death game. According to the rules, any student can kill another except at muster/parade events or during sleeping hours. In which case, how do students like Jack Barlow survive the first week of academy?
Even barring Violet's weird no-kill rule, a student that hostile and antisocial would paint a humongous target on their back. Any number of students would probably make it their first priority to send him sailing off the nearest ledge just to stop his insipid, edgelordy yammering. Setting up a lethal social structure and then having no consequences for the most obviously antisocial character makes no sense by the school's internal logic. The only reason he survived for so long was a simple matter of plot contrivance.
I absolutely agree. You have hundreds of people in one place. They must be at least 5 strong enough to get rid of Jack, and at least 15 not that strong that could gang up on him.
"You were raising him like a pig for slaughter," to quote certain dark character.
I guess Yarros enjoyed Daganronpa but didn't understand it lol
@@gokuxsephiroth4505 > Implying Danganronpa is any more well written than this book, and that it has enough depth/subtlety that someone may not "understand it".
I also like how you imply this **specific** element is something DR does better, given that the antagonistic characters who make life a lot harder for everyone else (Byakuya "let's mess with the crime scene for funsies even though this will drastically raise our chances getting killed with no real benefit to anyone on my side, including myself" Togami, Komaeda, Ouma, etc.) consistently survive until very late into the game, and if/when they do die it's never due to people getting fed up with them putting everyone else in danger, but instead the direct result of their own plans.
@@hellothere9520
Although I find it rather enjoyable overall and appreciate its existence due to inspiring 'better' media; I definitely agree with the sentiment that Danganronpa is not exactly what one would call 'well-written' (moreso it's a jumbled mess of great and bad ideas slapped together with dubious execution). However I don't think that the aforementioned element is actually badly done there. There are a few important things to consider such as: the punishment in the case of failure to kill unnoticed, most characters aren't really eager to resort to murder (the cases that were mostly planned before they occured are definitely in the minority, and I think that's quite reasonable given our cast of characters), etc. If you looked at the games case by case I think it'd become apparent that survival of those characters is not much of a stretch. Let's actually do that.
For the first 2 cases of the first game there's not much of a reason to target Byakuya. After that the only person really on board with playing this whole killing game schtick is Celeste and she mostly gangs up on the 'weak' rather than attacing the 'strong'; that's exactly what she does in the 3rd case, leaving Byakuya alone. After that the 4th case is suicide and the 5th case is fake. It's clear that no one left after the 3rd case would be willing to kill Togami. Looking at the situation even closely, in the 4th chapter the tension was high, but most were focused on Sakura and the only person really directing their anger on Byakuya was Aoi. It's possible that with time she would be driven to killing him, but that's exactly what Sakura wanted to prevent and I don't think it's much of a contrivance.
In the second game the first case was orchestrated by Nagito and once again no reason to target him before that. I don't think anyone would be eager to kill him right after that considering he was all tied up and the presented motive didn't involve him at all. After that pretty much the whole rest of the cast consisted of people not really onboard with the killing school trip. I mean that's why they had to pull the bullshit disease in the 3rd chapter (where Nagito could've been the victim, but the whole thing was random enough that it's also reasonable that he wasn't) and the forced kill in the 4th chapter (where I think it makes sense for Gundham to be the one to do something; and he's not the kind of person who would rely on Nagito's offer to kill him - outside of that no reason in making him the victim in particular, especially considering the fact that the plan he came up with needed Mechamaru (which is fair considering it's hard to single someone out in the funhouse)).
In the third game I don't think Kokichi did all that much meddling until the 4th chapter. Definitely not much of a reason to target him specifically in the 1st and 2nd chapter. After that in the 3rd chapter everyone was understandably focused on the whole student council issue. And finally in the 4th chapter he was actually targeted by Miu. Here I do agree that the way he got out of that situation is definitely a bit contrived, but someone did definitely try to kill him.
All in all (also TL;DR I guess) I think the structure of the killing games in Danganronpa doesn't really reward going after those antagonistic characters just because they're annoying, and after their respective casts learn of their problematic behavior there aren't really that many situations where it would make sense for someone to kill them.
@@hellothere9520 the killer in dangaronpa has to get away with the crime, why would they kill the guy who tampers with crime scenes for the lols.
Why would they target somebody who's annoying that would constantly disrupt the discussions.
Hell the annoying people often cast suspicion onto themselves.
If anything they should be targeting the smartest character they can.
I'm not even a danganronpa fan, but the logic seems pretty clear to me.
I can’t believe someone wrote a whole book about the second task of the Triwizard tournament
Wasn't that the first? I mean, we're talking about the dragons, right?
The thing with high stakes is that they can be too high. When too many people die around the main character it becomes clear after a while that she has plot armour and won't be significantly hurt in any way, and if she is it's not going to matter. The best stakes are high in a way that fits the story, and the murder college doesn't. It just makes any side character uninteresting, because we the readers already know they're going to die soon when they are introduced.
Game of thrones did this perfectly. Everyone basically could die at any given moment, nobody is safe.
It also just stops being shocking if you do it too much.
@@shadenox8164 Yes, I think death of characters should be used more sparingly, and the characters killed should be somewhat more important to the plot.
@@jo_helaciI agree. Her introducing a character just to have them die ten pages later to prove how "dangerous" the college is feels like lazy writing to me.
"When a man loves cats I am his friend and comrade, without further introduction." --Mark Twain
"I am glad you have a Cat, but I do not believe it is So remarkable a cat as My Cat."
-T.S. Eliot
The way Yarros handled Jack and his oranges allergy is a prime example of how she mishandles information delivery. There was absolutely no reason for that information to be delivered to us so awkwardly when an opportunity to deliver it more organically already existed. Violet was on kitchen duty. Food was her responsibility. She should have had access to a list of cadets' allergies. Why couldn't she have learned of the allergy in a way that had already been established? It would have made more complete use of her being on kitchen duty, rather than having a random, hamfisted exchange that was only memorable because of how strange it was to read.
I think a good example is in Glass Onion where Dave Batista is handed a cocktail and he asks if it has Pineapple because he doesn’t like pineapple. We find out later he’s killed from having a severe allergic reaction to pineapple juice
This is really old now.
But come on... In a college where people are killed on a daily basis you think it would make sense for them to care about ALLERGIES of all things? In a world where they burn your things when you're dead? Where your parents can opt out of coming to retrive your body?? 😂
Not even an IRL college would care about your allergies lol
@@quinnzykir"Duke don't dance with pineapple" was so good in its simplicity.
I know Yarros has EDS, but Violet is an able-bodied person's idealized hEDS patient; her joints slip out of place sometimes, and that's kind of it. No mention of hypermobility, slow wound healing, wide scarring from wounds, fatigue, stretchy/fragile skin, mystery bruises, dizziness when sitting up or standing, none of the common, classic symptoms apart from joint instability.
It's a shame, because Yarros wrote a character with physical limitations who needed to solve physical problems with her brain instead of her body, but then dropped Violet's disability whenever it was inconvenient. I know at least 4 people with EDS, and while symptoms are different for everyone, sometimes your joints popping out are the least of your worries, even living in a safe, modern environment.
It’s surprising for sure. I thought it was gonna be done better than it was especially considering the author actually has it.
I haven't even gone 1/3 through the book, so no idea how it gets later, but the injuries she's suffered from in the part I've read were also just... regular injuries that a non-athletic person gets when forced to train with semi-professional athletes. Like others said before me: where are random bruises? Where's a "I slept on my belly and woken up with a dislocated jaw" (a real thing that happened to me btw.) moment? IIRC Krimson did mention that most of her problems could have easily just come from her being shorter and less muscular than other students.
Also, I still can't understand how they are all riding dragons without any sort of saddle or harness keeping them in place. It's not the same as a real-life mobility aid, it's common sense.
Violet: you are not gonna die Dylan
Dylan: I'm not? Then what's my last name?
Violet: it's, um...
Dylan: nobody knows! You know why because my character is not important enough to have a last name!
Haha exactly, I was thinking of Guy Fleegman a lot with this side characters
Honestly, the book would've greatly benefited from getting rid of the murder college bs. One, it makes no sense for all of the reasons you've mentioned. Two, having the stakes be that high only highlights how much plot armour the protagonist has, because we know she will never be killed. Having it be more like how it is in the HTTYD movies where they train and bond with the dragons more would've made a lot more sense. I still find it super ironic that Yarros has no clue how military academies work, despite being a military wife.
That and putting the rebel kids in the infantry school
Books like this is why I believe that writers need to read a lot of different literature and be in reader+writer communities. To avoid the worst cliches and popular, basic mistakes.
Yep. Books like these are also the reason why I get really annoyed at anyone who says/asks something along the lines of "is it really _that important_ to read as a writer?" or "I want to be a writer but I find reading too boring."
OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR HAS RETURNED!!!
HALLELUJAH!
cats right?
I hope he gets to review Breaking Dawn Parts 1 and 2.
@@Raximus3000With cats!
He look somewhat like Jesus, if Jesus was white.
I see adorable kittens. This video is worth watching. Take my upvote, Krimson
Come for fourth wing, stay for cats
@@lizabethhampton4537 Always, good time guaranteed.
this aint reddit
“Cadets try to kill each other because there aren’t enough dragons to bond with and to prune the ranks of weaklings.”
Then, just, be harsher with the application process. Even if their “weak,” their not useless. Send them out to die while you replenish the strength of the strong.
But how would the author create stakes if she was being realistic? Well, it is established that Violet’s mother is an important military figure and Violet is unprepared for the life of a rider. Just have the mother use her influence to get her daughter into the riders school. All the other riders would hate her because she took the “easy path” and has never “worked” before, so they torment and sabotage her to try to get her either demoted to a different branch or kicked out all together. Additionally, she obtains the strongest dragon, even though she is "weak," increasing everyone's distain for her even more. Stakes are high, they make sense, and it gives the protagonist a difficult, but not unreasonable, challenge.
Krimson's special forces analogy was actually perfect. Anyone can try for special forces. If I wanted to, I could go off and be training for Army Rangers or SEALS within a month or two. Whether or not I'd make the cut is another matter entirely, and if you fail to qualify, you just get kicked back to the regular service of whatever branch you're with. No one thinks any less of you for failing to qualify, the training is meant to be more than most people can handle, but you're still useful to the military. Crucially, you can also toughen up and try again later
@Queen_Cnidarian Exactly. I tend to find a lot of newer authors try to over complicate things in their work and not question if those elements make sense or are consistent. Your fix works; it makes sense why Violet is in the academy( you can even play up the mother’s expectations due to their family lineage) and having someone come in due to nepotism in her his advanced opportunity would be an easy way to create conflict. Especially if that same person got a dragon.
Contrast this with a much better series like Songs of Chaos. In that book Holt Cook wished to be a Dragon Rider but can’t because of his social status even though he cooks for the dragons. The only reason why he got a dragon was because his Dragon, Ash, was deemed to die due to his disability which was being blind and Holt not wanting Ash to die because he disagreed with Dragons killing their young due to weakness.
Logically consistent and adds conflict because other Dragon riders and Dragons would have an axe to pick with him due to not being a noble and dragons being prejudiced against a blind dragon.
Ok, a LOT of people with EDS cannot ride a horse because of joint issues. I know last time I was on a horse my hip slipped out of joint, and if she has no saddle/stirrups for support then her legs are going to he wrecked every time she flies. Hell, I've dislocated my shoulder opening a freezer door, and I have a rather mild case of EDS.
EDS made joints stable as the relations in the syrian civil war
I tried Forth Wing. I really did. But a dropped it at the part where the main character was getting horney because she could feel her dragon getting it on through their bond...
Eh?😳😣 what?!😬
@@gracekim25Yarros just took that aspect of McCaffrey's Dragon riders of Pern and run with it. If dragons mate, their riders get it on too, because reasons.
That's feels like so violating, to be forced to feel things tou have nk control over
I dropped it halfway through the first page.
I'm 7 minutes in wtf
I have no idea why this series suddenly jumped up in popularity so quickly, especially with the amount of Fantasy books that come out all the time. I always see in the top selling on online ebook stores.
I don't trust BookTok because they thought this was the best book ever. I will never forgive them for that.
Watch, there's probably talks for adapting it into a movie or series.
1. Dragons
2. "Romantacy"
3. Enemies to lovers (hardly)
Those are really all it needs in order to be picked up by BookTok, thrown around for a bit, and then it hits the top because of the tropes. It doesn't have to be good; it just needs to check the boxes. Marketing helps a lot, too. Like I said, if you even hint at having those boxes checked on your personal social media accounts before publishing anything, others are going to ask questions, request ARCs, and make their own reviews if they get those ARCs.
I can see *why* it made it as a bestseller, though I don't necessarily agree that it's that good. For me, it's more of a guilty pleasure; not the worse I've read, but definitely not the best either.
Tik tok loves book trends/tropes and romance. The author put a lot of booktok favorite tropes with spicy sex scenes and romance and boom, suddenly the entire booktok is recommending the book and it explodes in sales.
@@zamp_gaming I'd add one more: disability representation. Violet has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a rare disease that is a real-life condition. It is so rare that characters have disabilities in fantasy books, let alone a main character-- AND the fact its a zebra disease is so meaningful to many people.
Using Ruffnut from HTTYD 2 for “oh shit that guy’s actually kinda hot” description is probably the best thing I’ve seen this week.
That made my day!’
In-direct / still related rant on how to write disabled characters better:
I have cerebral palsy and a spine with permanent deformations and several injuries; in the Witcher Netflix series I found Yennefer's de-flowering/sex before getting surgery scene to be really upsetting because the way Yennefer's spinal deformity had be portrayed suggested it heavily effected her mobility and that she had a limited range of motion that prevented her from being as physically active as other students in the school, or people around her in the outside world (emphasized by how the show framed Yennefer doing house chores as 'extra cruel' because of her physical disability, on top of the discrimination she was saddled with). Then this sex scene rolls up and it's not a fade to black sort of thing; it's very hbo games of thrones and shows Yennefer doing things that A) Directly contradict all of her shown limitations earlier, B) Emphasize that the actress is an able-bodied person just wearing prosthetics to give the appearance of being deformed and C) Reminded me, as someone with a lot of spine issues, of the sensation of doing things that would cause a great deal of pain. Watching the actress seamlessly do all of that on camera, framed as a moment of "empowerment" felt really twisted to me and out of touch.
If you want to effectively write a character who is disabled, this is my best advice; Understand that their limitations are what they live with and that their personal life goals are about living life to the best of their ability while not being able to "shake off" the limitations they have. If the setting is magic or high-tech, then assume that anyone living with a disability is doing so because they lack access to treatment and are making due; again, living their life to the fullest, while acknowledging their limitations. If the option comes up to cure a condition and be free of it; very few people would choose to stay disabled; it's all about accepting the challenges of having an issue and trying to not let it emotionally consume you. If there's an option to just wave it off, then the great majority just would. The one time this differs a bit is with certain sensory things; if you were born blind, at 40-years old you may feel hesitant to want to be a seeing-person. Wither you can see, or hear, does effect your mental and emotional development enough that there are a lot of people who would be cautious about changing their perception so much. But for very sort of external-body based issues, such a spine or joint problems or skin problems; most people would always try to be as proactive about treatment as their setting and personal circumstances allow for.
As a final bit to this three-paragraph rant I'd like to just offer some direct insight; For me, personally, I can do many things a person in perfect health can, but I do have to modify the activity to fit around my limitations. As an example, yesterday I did a bunch of loads of laundry; but moving the laundry up and down the stairs is very difficult on my spine. I had to carry the laundry down or up, load or switch the machines and then sit for the 40-60 minutes before the cycle was done to give my spine a break. At the end of the day I ended up with a mountain of clean clothes next to the dresser, but I did not sort/put away/fold anything, because that in combination with the other actions would be too much time on my feet. So today I'm going to just stand for 30 minutes or so by the dresser and fold it all up and back it all away as an isolated activity, before sitting down for an hour or two straight to rest. This is a long description of a boring daily activity, but I hope you can see that as a disabled person I am getting the same amount of work done but it has to be broken up and performed in a different order; it takes a different amount of time, it requires making different kinds of assumptions and such. So when writing a disabled character, try to keep that in mind; you can have a disabled blacksmith but he's going to mend your shield or make your sword differently; it's not "better" or "worse" it's just different.
ive been trying to do that while writing a character with eds, and ive also been running everything by my close friend to make absolutely sure i dont fuck anything up. ive been trying to be careful to agknowledge that the character (their name is Beetle) is plenty capable. its a tricky balancing act to nail where you know theyre capable but still have issues with certain things and id absolutely reccomend to anyone without a disability youre writing about, even if youre also disabled, to talk to someone irl who has it to make sure you get it right.
I guess it also depends on how severe the condition is😅
I was kinda worried after hearing that having a character with disability be cured in story is ableist, it’s nice to have a different perspective.
(Closest I’ve got is a character that can’t do magic in a world where most everyone can have various levels of proficiency but near the end he accesses base spells through means left ambiguous, either a wishing stone that could be bs or growing beyond his self doubt, the lesson being that it doesn’t really matter if he "earned" his magic or not)
@@tigaliyt I have several chronic disabilities, and my boyfriend had the same indagation, if it would offend me to be offered a cure
My biggest desire from the moment I discovered that all treatments are innefective, and my diseases were to be for life, was wish for a cure, so I doubt thats a rare opinion
I suffer from chronic pain, heart issues, sleeping disorders and spinoskeletal issues, so almost everything someone does to day to day, I can do, but either with pain or great difficulty (except sports, those cause convulsions) to exemplify better
The best thing a creator can do is talk to people a part of that community. Ask them not just about their disability, but how it impacts even the most mundane parts of life. In “What's Eating Gilbert Grape,” Arnie holds his silverware with his fingers going over, and thumb underneath. My sister has a similar condition, and holds her silverware the exact same way. It was details like that that made me really appreciate the actors and director, cause I knew they were actually invested in portraying Arnie accurately instead of just using him to create some cheap drama or tension.
“If you know this show, you know I mispronounce foreign words. It’s not my fault.”
Wrong excuse.
“At least I’m on brand.”
Better excuse.
Love spending 4-plus hours on a book series I’ll never read. It’s the cats.
And the dragons.
Lol, I'll use that next time.
@@KrimsonRogue"Remember, mispronouncing things IS my thing." ~ John Green
Caring about mispronouncing foreign words is an American concept. In Britain we don't argue how to pronounce a word that's not even in our language
@@TheHeroFrostTo be fair, you Brits leave out half the damn letters when pronouncing your cities. Nobody gets 'em right without having heard 'em.
@@None-Trick_Pony Yes, but those are our words. We can care about those names because we made them, we're not translating from some other culture
I absolutely hate when speed and strength are treated as if they were different, or worse, opposite, outside a videogame.
I'm not gonna pretend I understand the condition, but I'd imagine that sudden, _quick_ movements would be especially hard on those with it.
Yeah I have chronic back pain from a bad injury, & not only has it affected my physical strength, it also 100% affects my reaction time, which is a massive pain in the ass
I'm hypermobile, and honestly, speed is worse than just strength for me personally. I can use strong muscles to brace loose joints for a heavy lift, but quick sharp movements are almost guaranteed to injure me. I can lift weights but I can't run, for example
Being fast instead of strong CAN work, if it's because the character usually runs away from the situation or because muscle mass makes them a bit slower, but yeah, does not work with someone who has a disability that narrow their movement.
Honestly, strong but slow might have worked better. She can throw a hell of a punch, but only a few times before she can't move anymore/way slower.
I don't have any physical disabilities, but I have a lot of muscle mass and I'm pretty past in small spurts, so strong but slow isn't entirely my experience, but strong and bad at running long distances works so much better than "my disability doesn't effect my speed, because I said so!"
You have a good point, I think people generally don't understand just how connected out muscles tissues are and just give much we use them for well, EVERYTHING. Not even just speed or strength, just that everything is connected and affects the other. For example, had a coworker pull a muscle in her chest and it hurt ALL the time. Because her chest muscles were moving about to breathe and her regular body movements. She couldn't do fast or strong or really much, because all in all it was killing her to have it do anything. Even the smallest twitch
I mean... I've done a lot of combat sports, and to a degree speed and strength can kind of be opposites. To a degree. For example, I'm quite muscley, and I'm fast... for someone of my size. However, when you bulk up, you just can't move that much muscle as fast as someone 20kg lighter than you.
With that being said, that 20kg lighter m'fer simply isn't going to hit as hard as someone who's bulkier, no matter how hard they try.
BUT this is from the perspective of someone who's not disabled and has done combat sports for approaching a decade at this point. As far as the condition is concerned, I have no idea. It... uh, doesn't sound like it works that, but I'm no expert either.
40:00 Not going to lie, a military general like character that rocks up to any and every battle in one of those 15 layered gothic Victorian era dresses and immediately gets parachuted into the air and dies during their introduction would be iconic.
"I like dragons!" XD almost choked on my coco
That was extremely cute. Giggity.
“I like sharp things.” The Book Queen is just adorable.
truth XD@@CheyenneR55
My roommate was apparently recommended this series because they like dragons, and was immensely disappointed to learn what it actually was 😂 I had to show them both these Book Queen clips
The person who made the map watching this: "I KNEW I should have moved that compass down! Damn it!"
Re: Dylan, it is a Celtic name, albeit Welsh, and it means “son of the sea”. It technically could fit in this world, especially if there were a region inspired by Wales that this Dylan is from. I would count it as an example of a Tiffany Effect. Zayden though? That’s just a stupid name.
EDIT: Turns out it’s spelled Xaden, which is somehow worse.
My name is Xaden Sha'dow Dementia Raven Riorson and I have short ebony black hair and tawny skin and a sick dragon tattoo. Violet Sorengale walked past me. I put up my middle finger at her.
Why do fantasy writers try to name their characters like they need to get the highest scrabble score 💀
@@cursedcontent4207 Ebony? Is that you?
@@Saphia_IT'S ENOBY!! YOU PREP!!
@@purpleberry3564 Holy shit. I deserve to die for making this mistake.
Edit: that SCOTLANDDDDDD meme actually killed me 😂😂 also don't worry about the names, most of them are words people struggle with anyway haha
I'm a Scots Gaelic speaker and the way the author uses the language in this book fills me with rage 😅
Could you perhaps elaborate on why it fills you with rage? Genuinely curious about that
@@lianneeden4873 For starters, the author just chose a bunch of S.G words like "aimsir" with is basically just "weather", or "solas", which means "light" or sometimes "sun". They're words, not names, and while I understand they're dragons and all, the author can't even pronounce the words correctly despite claiming she got a tutor. She's treated the language like it's a fantasy language that can just exist as that and not be part of the world building. There's no Celtic, or more specifically, Scottish influence in the world building, so Scottish Gaelic has been thrown in there as a gimmick. It's a living language that deserves more respect than that.
I hope this helps! I'm knackered so hopefully I articulated my thoughts well 😂
@amonrawya3064 no that makes a lot of sense. Thank you for explaining!
@@lianneeden4873 oh good haha 😂 not at all! :)
Oh I'm learning Scottish Gaelic at the moment, it's a lovely language! ❤
Honestly, it's refreshing to hear you talk about a book that didn't constantly make you angry at it, and i like how you point out the strengths of the writing here
>the poison thing sounds clever the first time, and maybe the second time. But by the third time, someone absolutely would notice - and I don't mean only Xaden. After all, once is bad luck, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action. Having one gimmick is not clever. It's in fact extra stupid.
It is a conflict where it'd require violet to be some kind of a people person. Maybe one of her opponents doesn't really want to be at the War College and is open to being bribed, maybe she can sweet-talk the one who makes the matchups into giving her a favorable one, maybe she can get a matchup with a friend who is willing to lose to her. These aren't particularly good, but they're more variable than just "poison every time".
@@dustrose8101 That'd be soo cool! And would fit with her disability much better than the "just power through" approach. Some things you just can't power through, no matter how much you want; you have to find a way to compensate. Someone physically frail doing her best to find people's emotional/mental weaknesses rather than their physical ones would make so much sense!
@@eldara3 Another possibility I want to toss out there is that Violet still starts with poisons, she makes the mistake of using it too many times and someone who is NOT Xaden notices and blackmails her with the info (this is where being General Sorrengail's daughter would come in clutch, she could have something her blackmailer wants), Violet realizes her mistake and decides to take a page out of her blackmailer's book and starts a rumor about them that incentivizes the other kids to kill them and maybe her future opponent happens to die in the resulting skirmish as well :3
@@dustrose8101 that, or doing the (imo) entirely reasonable thing of pulling the family card herself, a la "what do you think the general will do if you kill her daughter?" Whether or not her mother would actually do something doesn't matter; any *reasonable* parent would, and it's not like anyone knows about their family dynamic, except for Dain.
Matter of fact, how was that not a point of consideration for any of those people that were planning to publicly murder her, except where it made her more of a target? It doesn't matter whether or not it's technically legal in the murder-college or whatnot, her mother is one of the highest generals around, she could completely ruin you without moving a single finger. Ugh.
@@eldara3 Honestly, this is something I'd actually like to see more with these sorts of characters. If you're going to have the main character be related to someone important, have them throw that around occasionally. And, in my opinion, it works best when the character has the sort of strained relationship Violet does with her mother. Have them hate having to pull it, to be reminded that they're only known as the Son/Daughter/Cousin/Whatever of General So-and-So, give them some sort of extra motivation to 'prove' themselves so they can get out of the shadow of their family.
It would have been better if Dylan wasn’t used as an example of how dangerous things are. Like explore how his hopes for graduation and marriage shape how he handles the stress and danger, continue sprinkling in death flags, and then when it’s been a book or two and the readers have gotten used to the death flags, they stop seeing them as foreshadowing, then BAM, he dies, after the audience has gotten to know him and love him, and his death has the most potential for stakes/drama/tension. Like it’s kinda half assed to throw obvious death flags and kill the character almost immediately, it’s such a waste
Even better he dies right in front of Violet and she both has to cope with the trauma of that _and_ she has to give his last words to his girlfriend or something. Like, _any_ sort of drama and conflict that actually makes you feel something, unlike what we actually got in this book...
Yeah absolutely, like I also think of a pretty famous death of a side character in the anime Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. No spoilers if you haven't seen it, but a side character you really get to know dies tragically and the weight of their death never really leaves the rest of the characters. Because we really got to care about them, their death is still so damn tragic and memorable in the best way
"You'll have to forgive me, I'm distracted by a cat bouncing around all over the place."
So relatable
As Krimson starts talking about dragons choosing their riders, a kitty shows up having chosen their human^^
If instead of "There hasn't been a lightning wielder in a hundred years" it was "Lightning wielders aren't very common" it would already feel better. You could have all of the 'character learning how to use a power without much point of reference' with a little less of 'this is the most unique and special thing ever'.
Also adding: For as much fun as it is when you review books that are terrible, it's very refreshing to hear you talking about all of the positive points in this and balancing it out a bit.
Yeah that bothered me! Earlier in the book, they’re like, “ice wielders are very common so it’s whatever.” They’re both elemental powers. Why is one so much specialer?!
The book that was porn for the people that think they're to good for porn.
Same thing with 50 shades of grey
@@tVt2000Nope, “50 Shades” is erotic romance for people who have never read an erotic romance in their life.
It’s called socially acceptable porn.
That's all these Booktok crazes are in the end, huh.
Just scantily-clad author fantasies for the ignorant and wine moms. From Twilight to now the new adult label to hide it under.
Exactly what I was thinking
If Your character says “I’ll be fine”, start casket shopping.
If they have a special item that needs to be returned to them/someone else “when they come back” start digging the 6 foot pit
This: "I'm not going to tell you what I think about the book until the end. Gotta get that run-time up."
Also this: Her mother puts her child with fragile health issues into the dragon wing school with a high percentage of fatalities.
I think I can guess what he'll say.
UPDATE: I'm half-wrong. Or half-right. It's pleasing to see how a best-selling author (and I do mean that; I checked the book's amazon rating, and she's easily a six-figure author for this book alone) win over her fans.
Every time an author introduces a guy I bet they can't go without mentioning that he's tall first! Even funnier when they end up being mafia bosses or stalkers but at least they're not short!
I have to be careful about this as a writer because I'm 5'1" so most people are tall to me. I tend to write shorter protagonists because we need rep, but it does mean saying "this dude is tall" is kinda meaningless.
@@Elaan021 Lol, exactly. At some point, I had to come to terms with the fact that in fiction, a character that is being written as "tall" is probably a good 4-6 inches (or 10-15 cm) taller than whatever I'm imagining. Maybe even eight inches taller. Or ten.
@@meifennellysieu7510 I have the opposite problem. I am 5'1 too and I imagine anyone described as 'tall' as twice my height.
I refuse to call any of my characters tall or short unless their height is meant to be abnormal or that feature is important to the story.
@@Elaan021 Perhaps it can be framed as the tall character being described as tall next to or by the protagonist but not explicitly in relation others. Maybe implied but not stated.
"The man towers over me" (to be dramatic), or "I have to look up to meet their gaze", but making no reference of other people needing to do so. Even if they do.
Could put the emphasis on the height difference between the two rather just "oooo they tall". But then again just describing them as tall is easier and quicker.
I say that as a tall person who sometimes crouches down and realise how different the world is for normal people.
JESUS HAS COME TO SAVE US FROM ANOTHER BOOK. Almost 5 hours!? IM HERE FOR ITTT
Okay. "Not that I wouldn't climb the man like a tree with the right set of circumstances." got a good laugh out of me.
Yeah
See that could have been a funny way to make a nod to her disability as well. “Not that I wouldn’t climb the man. Or as much of him as I could before I dislocated something.”
A few days later, but I've decided I wanted to say this. Talking about that egregious violation of show don't tell, I wanted to give what I consider to be one of the most masterful examples of show don't tell. That's Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven". In it, you're introduced to the unnamed narrator looking longingly at a painting of his "lost Lenore", before returning to reading volumes of "forgotten lore" by the fireplace. In a single stanza and two very natural human actions, you've just been implicitly given these facts:
1) The narrator has just lost his wife
2) He desperately wants her back
3) He copes with loss by reading
4) His choice of reading are very old books, indicating him to be a scholar (which Poe confirmed in personal notes).
All of this-everything you need to know for the rest of the poem-is given to you in two simple lines. It's a master-class in exposition. It helps there's not a lot of exposition to give, but it's still brilliant in its simplicity, elegance, very human and natural flow, and the fact it's purely implicit. He's not looking at the reader and talking about how much he misses his wife who just died, and that it'd be really kind of her spirit to send a message along and talk to him again, thanks. Also, he's a scholar so he loves all the oldest and most intelligent books nobody knows of (sounds like Steve Brungus, "where is the place with all the most books? Name of-libarry"). No, he looks at a painting of his wife and reads. That's all Poe needed to write to establish the narrator's character perfectly-his choice of references and why he was so easily manipulated and emotionally devestated by a raven mindlessly repeating a single word.
Krim, on the incredible off-chance you read this, this might be a good way of hammering in "show, don't tell". It's short, digestible, easy-to-understand, and to the point. Love the hair and attitude, never change!
That's a solid example. I'll try to bring it up next time I need an example of well-compacted writing.
i love The Raven! currently writing a term paper on The Black Cat and The Tell-Tale Heart
I couldn’t deal with how the characters kept talking. Like. This. And it’s not like it’s a quirk of violet’s, every character has that. It’s strange. I gave up after the horrible exposition in the parapet scene. The bad writing along with the premise making zero sense made this one of the worst books I’ve ever attempted to read.
Oh same. IIRC (which, I don't remember much), I reached the point where Violet got off the parapet and Jack was threatened or something while on the parapet, put the book down for the say and just... forgot about it.
No need to worry about pronouncing the names, it's not like Yarros did her own research on them until she started getting ripped into for said lack of research by readers (:
Yay! That's my evening entertainment sorted. Happy to meet the new kitties, they are very cute. Now let's get into this absolute trashfire of a book....
Right? Just started UA-cam, wondering if I could find something fun to watch for the evening. And there it is! The answer to my question! The night is saved!
Congrats on your marriage!!
God the amount of painful telling at the start of this book, we are one "as you know" from me slaming my head into the table.
"Have you read the codex?"
"Yeah!"
Processes to expo dump the codex
I just realized it's one of those video game choices where no matter what you pick, the NPC is still gonna hit you with a wall of exposition anyway...
@pikapower_kirby when your on your 8th run of a game and cant skip the tutorial
As a severe narcoleptic I’d be fucking set in this world. So many instances of being asleep while “awake” means no one would be able to kill me 😎
"Hi guys, I'm always asleep, even when I'm talking to you, so you'd better not try it or you'll get roasted." xD
The conversations I've had with my husband when he's "awake", lol. I take notes these days, just in case I'm talking to his narcolepsy demon instead of his conscious self.
I literally just watch a dude reading sections of this book in the voices of Carl Wheezer, Kermit, and Kronk. This is perfect timing as I’m now more curious about this book
Where is this video I want to see it
^I second this
Link please?
@@SodaPoPSauce the link is shared
@@TheLittleStarKingShort from Grumpy Reads called "He's not allowed to borrow my books anymore" (stating this bc idk if yt will allow me to post links)
I rescued an 8month old notch-ear in 2018 and he’s the most cuddly/lovey boy ever
That's what Umbra is turning into. He's very cuddly and loves to latch on to your arm while he's getting a belly rub.
@@KrimsonRogue I swear it’s like they know what almost happened and love us extra hard because of it
I feel sorry for Krimson about all the crimes against military code, but it's pretty fitting with stereotypes of low quality fantasy. The strongest people are the most rebellious and individualistic and whatever. We live in one piece everybody is a pirate discipline is a myth
Thank you 😂 i needed this comment bad military’s annoy me
Honestly a part of me wants to write something that has a reasonable evil military dystopia "if you don't work with your unit, the unit will decide your fate." And "dragons were too... uncooperative. We poisoned them. Gryphons are weaker but much more... controlled and easier to command"
"Uniform and discipline before the self and cowardice"
Six months old? Umbra is going to be huge
That's what I was thinking lol.
my cat was that size at that age and can confirm. he’s massive
she'll probably top off somewhere between seventeen to twenty pounds. source: my cat was about as big as her when he was six months old and now he's a big dumb asshole who's almost eleven inches tall at the shoulder.
Right? My adult cat (she's still my baby though) is probably as big as Umbra.
Must have some Maine Coon in him. They get huge
time to crack open a puzzle, make some tea, put this on and have the best saturday of my goddamn life
Violet's mother is a General, but is highly dismissive of the the scribes. You'd think that as a general, she'd have a keener appreciation of the group that sounds like the logistics clerks of their military. Dragon rider might be a prestigious and flashy position, but without the scribes to oversee the proper movement of food, arms, clothing, and equipment, that army is going to come to a halt fast.
Especially since she was married to a Scribe
unreliable narrator, my friend. That is Violets perception of her mother, not her mothers actual feelings or motivations.
@@blah914Lilith literally says she lthinks less of scribes in the first chapter
@@blah914 given the second book you had a better argument that she is making up an excuse but you went with one directly contradicted by this book... also it doesn't help that due to the explination being in the sequel it's kinda... moot?
What irks me about how Violet got recruited despite having a disability, is that no military on earth would think of hiring her because of her disability. Any disability, whether it be physical or mental is considered a liability when it comes to military recruitment. For example, my cousin wanted to enlist militarily when he was younger, but because he had type 1 diabetes, they refused his entry, despite him being very fit. They can't be wasting resources on getting your meds or become responsible for not giving you the proper treatment for your illness. Hell, the military does mental health checks and if they find you slipping into any form of depression, they’ll remove you. The fact that Violet could get in despite her disability shows how little research Yarros did when it came to military practices and training. Then again, from what I've read from the comments about disabilities, Yarros doesn’t understand physical disabilities either and comes off as an ableist. It just seems like Violet got a freebie from her mother because of nepotism.
Yarros has the same disability as her character, so I recon she understands it perfectly fine. and strictly speaking, Violent was not recruited, she volunteered (her mother voluneered her). but why do u assume the military in a fantasy world work the same as it does in our world, where militaries in different countries dont even have the same standards 🤷♀️
It looks like this military is based on the Klingon, just have people fight each other and the strong comes out on top.
I know she couldn't do this because "Romance" but I think this would've benefitted from being like Tamora Pierce's Protector of the Small Quartet. Have all these characters start at 9-11 years old and bond with a hatchling. Also get rid of the murder college part. Have the dragons only hatch with someone worthy of them or their personalities would click. Then the dragon and rider would learn and grow together.
could have still worked if she already planned a 3 book series (now making it a 5 book one would work even better). Start as a young adult in the beginning, no concrete romance but all of them being friends and forming playful rivalry while they grow older, feelings between some of them develop but no couples or confessions yet. Have them have a fight of some sort at the end of book one they split up and then book two starts with them being adults and they have to reunite and sort their shit out because it's time for war or whatever. You can bring the romance into the story in that book.
I read both books and bonding wouldn't work
I had a whole long comment about how much I love Tamora Pierce that I accidentally deleted, but I think that if we took the “rider and dragon bonded since hatching and childhood” element of Eragon (which does have its issues, but I have lots of fond memories of it) plus the excellent treatment of being in a fantasy military school and dealing with not being perfectly cut out for it that we see in song of the lioness/protector of the small (and also the strong development of side characters to the benefit of the team dynamic), we could have a really good foundation for a dragon school book. Fourth wing makes me mad mostly because I can envision what it could have been
Ah yes. Dragon Riders of Pern, but Fantasy instead of Sci-fi.
(or if Yarros had written it, 'Romance' instead of either)
@@gggthsb Ooh. How about the cause of them splitting being the war? Xaden and Violet get separated because Xaden's dad is the rebel leader and her mom doesn't want her to associate with him. Years go on, and neither get to see each other anymore. Her friendship with the others in the group continues to grow. Then one day, Violet gets the news of her brother's death. Xaden's dad killed him. On the other side, Xaden gets the news that Violet's mom killed his dad. Both want revenge on the other.
In this world, unlike the others, Violet doesn't have a dragon yet. She never bothered to search for one because she thought she'd be a scribe. Her dad was one and she had a disability. Being a scribe was the better option. But her need for revenge is greater. She's a good student and owing to her late father, she has some connections in the library (or equivalent). So she manages to get access to the documents which have the location of the dragon eggs. She researches day and night the ways to artificially hatch a dragon's egg. She's desperate, after all. The book says she's clever/smart. Here, we show her using that smartness to 'stumble' into the location. She starts inspecting the eggs to find one that might be closer to hatching or something. To her surprise though, one hatches. The shock causes her to make a sudden movement, which dislocates her joints. She's in pain.
Violet watches as the egg hatches and a tiny golden dragon emerges from it. Sensing a disturbance in the eggs (they're not supposed to hatch right now), one of the elder dragons approaches the scene and sees Violet on the ground. Violet thinks she's going to die and is determined to go down giving her best. This will establish a pattern of her trying to push through her disability and later, suffering due to it. Anyway, the dragon comes closer and Violet gets ready to fight. A little bit of combat happens where she's mostly using her brain. But unfortunately, she takes one hit which not only renders her immobile but also allows the dragon to come close to her. She thinks she's dead. The dragon however, gently lifts her in one paw, takes the egg and the newly hatched dragon in another (or in the mouth). Violet passes out.
When Violet wakes up, she's in a hospital room/healing room. It's a familiar scenery to her and she realizes she is back home. For a second, she thinks that was all a dream but then she's called to the office where the two dragons are; a golden hatchling and a black elder dragon. Elder dragons, in this universe, are dragons whose original riders have passed away. These dragons retire mostly, opting to look after the eggs and the hatchlings. Rarely though, they might bond with a new rider. This black dragon happened to have been bonded to her brother's best friend who died trying to save him. Earlier, when the dragon got close enough to hit her, he also got close enough to recognize her scent. Turns out, Brandon and his best friend (and consequently, their dragons) babysat Violet a lot and the dragon had taken a liking to her then. Now, with his original rider dead and Violet older, the elder dragon bonded with her. Normally, that wouldn't happen but the fact that her dragon hatched just now when she was nearing conscription (which means she has to be a dragon rider now but her dragon won't be ready for training for another X many years) combined with the fact that the elder dragon watched her grow (which made him protective of her in addition to the hatchling) kinda made it a perfect condition.
Anyway, the mom is pissed off but also scared. She doesn't want to lose another child. So mom, with her connections and experience prepares Violet the best she can. She even takes her to the parapet late at night (when everyone is asleep) and gets her to practice walking there, herself flying just below in case she falls. She wants to give her daughter the best chance at survival.
*This is getting too long, I'm sorry.*
Thanks to the training, Violet gets in. She's sure Xaden has a target on her back. And she has one on his too. But then they meet and old feelings resurface. So do old memories. Both try to forget the friendship, mutual crush, nostalgia, etc. and focus on the revenge. The lives of their lost ones lost. They try to sabotage each other. But they can't bring themselves to sabotage each other in a way that leads to them seriously getting injured or losing their lives. And even simple sabotage gets harder to do the more time they're forced to spend with each other. Maybe he's tasked with training her/ acting as her mentor. They try to make excuses, to themselves and to others. And they banter. A lot. The enemies/rivals to lovers arc? ✅✅
And during all this, there's a mild existential crisis/imposter syndrome as her need for revenge diminishes. She thinks she got chosen because of that and she fears her dragons won't want her anymore as she gets less revenge-y.
*And the plot continues. I'm too tired to continue this further. I'm sorry for making you guys read this. Also sorry for any grammar errors and typos. I can't be bothered to check for them.*
ETA
For her pushing through her disability: Idk anything about EDS but from what I've heard so far, we could possibly make her push through until she can't anymore. It's her character flaw. Maybe as she bonds with her dragons, they lend her some strength or are able to slowly heal her but that is taxing on both her and themselves so she finds herself in the healers' room/hospital bed really often. Maybe, we could even make her try to push through a battle but she and her dragons end up so tired they nearly die. We could then add an arc/subplot where Violet learns to consider her body's limitations and unashamedly ask for accommodation where possible. Maybe she could even put her scribe intellect to use and design some disability aids that prevent her from harming herself too much (maybe it's some gadgets, maybe it's a spell or a medicine or something else).
as a proud tortie mom, your lil girl is bossing tuck around now - soon she's gonna be the boss of the whole house. my whole house is run by my tortoiseshell and i wouldn't trade it for the world!
cannot wait to see you tear into this ableist nightmare of a book. i've got mac and cheese and a kitty cat for company.
Same, my tortie rules the roost 😅
Ah yes, the butt slams of 'YOU. I like you.' Truly cats are the most. And Ori is very Most.
Edit: Your wife is amazing. Good taste.
See, here's my problem with the whole murder collage is that yes she's killing off characters, and she's telling us that she is, but the setting doesn't feel like it's thinning out. Like show us how the breakfast hall is getting emptied and how the hallways are getting quieter
Ahh, I had finished watching Reads With Rachel’s three part in depth review of “Fourth Wing” literally yesterday. This couldn’t have come at a better time. 🥰
Also, I lurve the new kitties and the little inserts of mrs. Rogue were adorable. “I like sharp things.” Very cute.
I LOVE Reads With Rachel!
PLEASE do Iron Flame as well! Even the people who liked Fourth Wing didnt enjoy it and I would LOVE to hear your thoughts about what went wrong
I'm here for this. I think the book's premise would be better without Violet being "fragile" or without the death college. There is enough to do without needing both of those things. The worst thing was the language for me. It was way too out of place. Without three pages of my thoughts. 3/5 ignoring the anachronistic language. 2/3 considering the anachronistic language.
Edit: I shouldn't have put fragile in quotes. It isn't meant to disparage anyone who lives with EDS. I apologize.
I think Violet being "fragile" is good to have in the book because it means she has to go about things in a different manner compared to her classmates. The death college just makes it a lot worse. Death can still be a real possibility that cadets face (dragons and all that and accidents can happen).
What the author could've was introduce the possibility that serious INJURIES are incredibly common that would take someone out of consideration for the riders college
@@twigshell9848 The reason I say one or the other is because Violet couldn't handle our current day basic training for the Army. She has plenty of enemies and I think Yarros would have done better by having "accidents" happen and she gets injured. Violet can't find out who did it. Krimson gets to it kind of. The idea that if they can't cut it in the riders, they should get shipped to the infantry. The only reason Violet stays in this dangerous quadrant is because of her mother. The danger comes from Violet not being able to handle her and getting special treatment for being a generals daughter. That creates way more tension than "i can snap your neck so you much be too weak"
Yes, modern slang was so out of place
The entire book is about Violet overcoming her disability. By taking that away, you take away one of the most meaningful parts of this story. I don't mind if people don't enjoy the books, that is their right, but it rubs me the wrong way when you put "fragile" in quotation marks and act as though its a trivial plot point. Violet's disability is based on a real one that I have, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. To remove her "fragility" is to remove her disability, to erase the diversity this book adds and the awareness it encourages.
@KewlImp she gets in BECAUSE of her mother but she doesn't stay because of her mother. Not once does Krimson mention the teachers giving Violet any special treatment because of her mother. Violet proves her right to be there over and over again by using unorthodox methods that she herself comes up with. Saying she stays because of special treatment is not true and devalues the hard work Violet puts in to prove herself.
Violet has a limitation and instead of constantly going "oh woe is me I can't do it" she realizes her limitations (can't use swords but can use daggers, not strong but she is fast) and works with them to get through things. She works hard and I admire that in a protagonist
I find it hilarious that the school has a higher mortality rate than the Spartan II program from Halo.
Really?! That high?! How can they justify that?! How would they have enough soldiers for a standing army? They aren't even mutated army heroes that hit their enemies like tanks!
@venomoussocks1017 I thought these were their elite soldiers? I can't remember. Either way, it's incredibly stupid.
@@mattd5240 they are. But they are the results of human experimentation to increase their military effectiveness. Thus, those who don't adapt to their forced mutations become part of the mortality rate.
@@venomoussocks1017 I meant the dragon riders, not the Spartans. My bad.
I havent listened through yet, but i cannot imagine a single fighting style done on dragonback where easily dislocating your shoulder wouldn't be a huge constant risk
My wife (who is a vet) got hanged on the idea on how much poop that amount of dragons would make and why isn't poop managment a prime job in the kingdom. And not only the dragon's poop, but the sheep the dragons eat also must produce a lot of poop XD... Hearing her rant over this was really fun :P
Your wife sounds like she should start writing scripts for Game/Film theory.
No, Fourth Wing’s popularity isn’t deserved. It has 0 (zero) originality: plot has OBVIOUS parallels with Divergent and Red Queen, love interest is Rhysand’s carbon copy. In addition to that, main character is a Mary Sue (I don’t use this term lightly, I actually hate it, but she is a Mary Sue). For example, she became an expert in poisons in 3 seconds (after reading 1 (one) book). Also, just an observation, she is an embodiment of that sound from TikTok “she was absurdly petite…”.
The worldbuilding is not bad. As far as I’m concerned at least, I wasn’t trying to find faults with it while reading. But. The atmosphere is thrown out of the window with the usage of modern slang (that line about MC’s being attracted to toxic men will forever haunt me).
Anyway, there are positive things about it. The representation (it is not necessarily perfect, but it’s there), all the banter with dragons (Tairn the old grump is hilarious), the pacing. However, it doesn’t deserve its popularity.
Dang it and I adore dragons 🥺
Tairn was a good character until he groomed/allowed the baby dragon into bonding with Violet. Not to mention the way he technically sexually harasses both the baby and Violet every time he and Sgaeyl have s*x because of the stupid rules with bonding. I called him "Creepy Uncle Tairn" until I DNF'ed.
@@rachelstanford9784 the baby dragon story gets its continuation in the next book, which makes it less creepy (but do not read it, it’s worth than the first one, much worse). YES. The bond between Xaden&Violet and their dragons making them horny against their will is ICKY.
@@dnister_nymphwould this happen to be the writer’s first time publishing?😅
@@dnister_nymphto be fair it does get harder and harder to be original as time goes on and technically everything is inspired by something 😅 just say🤷♀️ (doesn’t excuse the weird dragon bond thing you mentioned though 😶)
HE’S ALIVE!! :D AND HE HAS BROUGHT AN ADORABLE KITTY!!
NOT JUST ONE KITTY!!! TWO KITTIES!!!
THE PROPHECY HATH BEEN FULFILLED! HE HATH RETURNEDED!
Any setting with magic school that has a fatality rate worth mentioning needs some amazing world building to explain how anyone can afford this waste of lives.
Either resources are limited so the weak are discarded or the world is truly so lethal the school is better. Writing a school setting with a fatality rate isn't cool it just sounds incompetent
The krimson rogue catlady arc continues, and its adorable :3
its adorable what?
The cats and the cathousehold growing@@farkasmactavish
Agreed.😊
@@marocat4749 Ah, you meant "it's".
Didn't know that there were shepherd's cats
Regarding the orange allergy, my first assumption was that due to breakfast duty she would have access to information about allergies. Since you don't want to lose a top student because they accidentally ate a peanut or something
Can confirm as a Scottish that was my reaction 100%. (Also fun fact! the reason Gaelic words sound so right in fantasy is because, ahem, CERTAIN very very popular fantasy writers liked to use our language and culture as fantastical and magic-y-sounding nonsense)
As an author who based one of her conlangs on gaelic... I'm sorry but it fits so well xD
To be fair, at least i mixed it with finish and welsh to make it sound a bit different
I like how balanced this review is. You praise it where you feel it deserves it while tearing it down where it's bad. This is how criticism should be.
Haven't watched it yet but this... I needed this in my feed. THANK YOU for making a 4h+ video.
I will die on the hill that her agent read her most recent book and asked her to please add dragons and fantasy so they could sell more to the booktok girlies. Her plot is such an rip off that Veronica Roth should be getting royalties.
Thank you. I also think this is more like viral marketing than an actually good book
She literally wanted to write a romance with fantasy. She doesn’t know how to write fantasy tho, this is romatasy
@@vashtinayagar1325 not sure she knows how to write much of anything except Divergent fanfic.
@@spacemonkey340 her other books are original and good. This is literally her first fantasy book and no one is saying its well written. Everyone I’ve ever heard talk about it has been saying that they enjoyed it as a guilty pleasure. It’s not a work of art, but there’s absolutely no reason to compare Fourth Wing of all books to much better fantasy novels. And also, the only thing that’s inspired from Divergent is the scene at the start of the book where everyone fell to their deaths. Xairn and Four may have been introduced similarly but they’re completely different characters, who look and act in no way similar to each other. Violet is very different from the mc in Divergent. The plot of Divergent and Fourth Wing are completely different.
I'm only 40 minutes into the video but wouldn't a better system (rather than letting murder be totally cool and chill) be like, the 25 lowest ranking students get kicked out each week/month? That way it creates more pressure to do well in the program? It could even literally be that they get kicked out with nothing and most of them die out in the wilderness if the writer wants more stakes.
ETA, I am now 3 hours in, and I gotta say, I don't know where Yarros is going with this series but it really does feel like a war book written by someone who doesn't know how war, the military, or military training works. So much is inconsistent with how actual strategy works. I'm not saying you need experience with this to know how to write it, but basic research into the military and war strategy would have gone a long way for believability.
It takes a willpower of pure titanium and a nearly bottomless capacity for self-restraint not to make a Jojo reference when discussing a character freezing time.
I largely agree with your assessment. A surprisingly good (and pretty saucy) romance that falls into waaaaay too much YA tropy worldbuilding fluff, death fodder side characters, and conflicting internal logic. I didn't NOT enjoy reading it, but I definitely found myself skimming later chapters to get to the badboy smooching.
Read if you like dragons and smut. Stick clear if you're looking for serious fantasy. (Go read Eragon or Dragonriders of Pern instead.)
2:42:00
They: we kill telepaths cause knowledge is the power
You mean, you kill the only people who can get you infinite amount of secret knowledge?
Also, dragons can read their riders’ minds as well as all the minds of all the other dragons. How is that not a security risk?
they kill the telepaths bc they don't want anyone to know their entire history is bullshit and their kingdom is built on a lie 🤷♀️ book 2. it ties together.
The mere fact they exist would probably make the whole system break
OMG, Void Kitty! And Pretty Kitty! They're so adorable, I love them!
I think Violet’s mother could have changed a lot after the father died and maybe resented anything that reminded her of it, to the point she would rather have her children in danger than having one following his footsteps. Or maybe the writer could’ve made it clear that the mother wanted her children to be the strongest and able to defend themselves in a way her husband couldn’t.
Maybe the mother could’ve been set on having daughters that can defend themselves once she’s gone, no matter what
idk so much could’ve been done in showing her motivations, that’s really disappointing
maybe a “i loved you father, but he was weak and that got him killed”
“ideas won’t save you from wars” idk something in that sense
2:56 oh hey my cat does the same thing to my dog! She’s absolutely obsessed with him and she just loves going up and trying to nuzzle him. He’s a Labrador so whenever he lays down, she goes up and bats at his nose to try and get him to be affectionate
It’s been happening since she was a kitten and after two years he’s still very unimpressed with her
That's not what's happening in the clip lol the cat is literally doing border collie behavior.
@@farkasmactavishI mean I’ve only ever had labs so I don’t really know anything about border collie behaviour lol, but the way she headbutts Tuck’s chin is exactly what my cat does. She follows my dog around and constantly gets in his way to headbutt him, she does the same to me when she wants pets
My cat does something similar. She’s taller than my dog, so she is able to headbutt the dog in the face. She usually does this to get attention and play, but my dog’s so scared of her that she backs away.
Mine too. But with me and my mom.
Im just a swedish 17 turning 18 teen who binged your videos whilst drawing and I just think the little clips of the pets and ur wife is so sweet and funny. This channel is really homely in a weird way 😭
I love how your very shy cat keeps scent marking your dog. It’s like she’s saying ‘He’s my puppy.”
considering yarros is an american military schill, im surprised shes so bad at developing a military in her own book. i fucking hated this book, the entire time i kept finding plot holes and as someone with a chronic illness that is debilitating, her way of approaching violet's disability was INFURIATING. my disability follows me everywhere every second of the day, it doesnt just TURN OFF when its not "plot relevant" and i cant just work harder the way she basically makes violet do. i cant just TRY , my disability doesnt stop because i put in extra effort, if that was the case it wouldnt be a disability. when i cant move because my head is in so much pain id vomit or pass out if i even tried, i cant just "push through" and overcome it, i do need accommodations, and thats OKAY. the way yarros wrote violet's struggles felt so 1 dimensional and im very confident she only put it in to beat the mary sue accusations shed otherwise have. its soooo frustrating because people use yarros having EDS as a defence but she didnt even approach her own disability correctly - like u would think shed notice all the times where violet shouldve FAILED or where she wouldve been in immense pain, but since it wasnt plot relevant at that specific moment it wasnt included - because the EDS is not a real disability to violet , not unless its relevant to a specific scene. its so disappointing and frustrating to me because i originally picked up the book because the main character had a disability - but the fact the book was basically a "people with disabilities can do everything able bodied people can do if they just try hard enough!" propaganda piece made me genuinely upset.
Thank you thank you thank you this so much
@@tinykitsune0387🫡🫡🫡 its my duty
you‘re absolutely right about writing badass characters: you want the john mcclane, the john wick, basically beaten to a pulp, but somehow making it through.
The only good thing that came out of Fourth Wing was that if you want to include a foreign language, especially one that is endangered, you have to respect it.
Learning pronunciation is the least you can do.
As someone whose mother language feels like is going slowly extinct I would be pissed if a popular author used it just to *spice* their book up and not learn what the words mean or are pronounced.
I just realized something.
Violet picks daggers because shes weaker but fast. It becomes HER weapon. Its a limitation she has, and she focused on daggers in a way to benefit her.
Then in Iron Flame, all the weapons being produced for the war are daggers......No swords. No bows and arrows. Just daggers. Thats the weapon for EVERYONE. Why care about giving Violet this handicap, and just make it the only weapon thats being used in a war??????????
Wait, really? That sounds really crazy lmaoo I am by no means a professional but I have never heard of daggers being the best weapon for war
I am so happy to be taking a break from the toxic problematic books that make me so angry and instead its just something that is just stupid and poorly planned
Why are you reading books that make you angry?
@@iggydaking9117i meant we are collectively watching him review a book that isn't problematic but is just poorly written
This Danganronpa style selection is really weird because like what is stopping the students from just killing each other constantly until 1 remains? Then it doesn't matter how many dragons there are, *one* of them will choose him because he's the only one left. Not to mention the fact that if the fatality rate of your school is 80%, you'd have government and nobility looking into it and asking questions like "why is your entire class dead?" and then promptly shut the school down as the nobles wouldn't want risking their heirs dead before any feasible glory in combat could be achieved and government actively wants an actual army on standby, especially seeing as there's political tension and you're essentially coming off the foot of an attempted rebellion and killing off 80% of the student body doesn't make for a very stable income of people into active duty. What you end up with is like 1-10 traumatised cannon fodder who will never trust anyone ever again after experiencing this battle royale and are thus prone to disobeying direct orders because how can they be sure you're not trying to send them on a suicide mission?
I'm only about 50 minutes in and I can't stop comparing the Rider's Quadrant to the Bloody Mist from Naruto. And now I can't stop myself from waiting for a Zabuza like character to show up with no training, kill everyone, and take the Dragons for themself.
Excellent idea
'WHERE'S MY ZABUZA SWORD--'
3:27:42 ah, the Harry Potter school of "this tedious plot device will go on far too long, then at the end the investment will be revealed to be meaningless because the last five minutes is all that matters."
Admit it, you're not sure if I'm talking about the House Cup or a Quidditch match.