So like Im curious. What ARE your many problems with the LeafSilk Kingdom? I must admit I never really thought about it throughly. It feels kinda just... slapped at the end of the arc for no reason so whenever Im thinking about wof in the future I either forget about it or pretend it never existed.
I’ve got some small grievances I’ll address in a second but the most glaring issue in my mind is the fact that the LeafWings just Do Not Care about the Silkwings and never have, in fact its a very major point in both The Lost Continent and The Hive Queen that the PoisonWings want to kill all SilkWings too. Sundew in fact notes that only the SapWings (more specifically, Willow), care about mitigating SilkWing casualties.
A major part of the arc is that despite there being three clear factions in this conflict, neither side recognizes the SilkWings as allies, and the LeafWings especially do not. The HiveWings keep the SilkWings around because they’re reliant on their silk, fire, and labor. They keep the SilkWing rebellions down through threats of violence, and SilkWings are taught from a young age that their subjugation is the price they pay for HiveWing protection from LeafWing invaders.
“Cricket stumbled, suddenly remembering the rest of the statue that commemorated the end of the war. The marble dragon that lay dead below the queen’s other talons, with one of her deadly wrist stingers plunged through his heart. She’d never stopped for a moment to think about that dragon, because he wasn’t anyone in particular. He was just “the enemy.” He was a blank nobody representing the tribe who’d been defeated and exterminated when the HiveWings “saved” the SilkWings from them.”
Most of the insults Sundew uses aren’t even directed towards HiveWings, they’re just vaguely anti-hive-dweller, such as “Four-wing” and “Tree-killers”. She and the other PoisonWings feel no need to distinguish between HiveWings and SilkWings, and when nuance is applied, it’s in painting SilkWings as being “tainted” by their proximity to HiveWing society. The PoisonWings feel that even the most rebellious SilkWings are by their very nature docile and obedient and can never serve any purpose other than servitude. The LeafWings view them as mindless HiveWing servants just as much as the HiveWings do.
Theres a scene in The Hive Queen where Sundew tries to convince Swordtail to help her burn down the hives, and Cricket is able to momentarily dissuade him by telling him that the biggest casualty is going to be SilkWings, namely SilkWing dragonets who can’t fly themselves to safety. The LeafWings, including Sundew, are fully aware of this and just do not care what happens to them.
“Bryony tried not to show how startled she was. “To save you?” she echoed.
“The SilkWings,” he said. “You could have left us to rot in Queen Wasp’s talons, after we abandoned you during the Tree Wars. But you didn’t. You came back to set us free.”
Oh, the guilt! Bryony felt it stabbing all her internal organs at once. How could she tell him that she’d never once thought about the plight of the SilkWings before she met him? That their mission was vengeance, not rescue?”
Sundew, Bryony, and the other LeafWings cannot fathom the idea of the Chrysalis, they don’t understand that there are unhappy SilkWings, they use “SilkWing” as a synonym for naivety and helplessness, even after becoming close with SilkWings, Sundew calls them “a simple tribe” and Bryony calls them “beautiful and useless”.
Most of Sundews character development is based on unlearning this! She has to learn to see SilkWings as dragons and not collateral damage! And we’re expected to believe that offscreen both entire LeafWing settlements do that in a matter of weeks with no real issues? I’ve seen a lot of people complain about the vague group of HiveWings that suddenly want to join the LeafSilk kingdom but honestly I think just the concept of a LeafSilk kingdom is less realistic.
The LeafWings are Not allies of SilkWings.
SilkWings view LeafWings as their saviors but any benefits the SilkWings have reaped from the LeafWing rebellion are either purely coincidental or because Sundew trusts Blue.
The SilkWings are finally free from the grasp of Queen Wasp and then immediately join up with another tribe who actively resents them. All that work of “the SilkWings should be able to self-govern” only to have them become dependent on the other tribe. Giving them a government specifically mocked as being useless and incapable by Swordtail also just seems like such a slap in the face after everything they just went through. Yes a democratic society in which SilkWings are given a voice after being ruled by a monarchy that does not favor them is a good idea but the execution is just so strange. Why not have the Bloodworm Chrysalis +Io lead?
I don’t like the implication that the LeafWings are united under Queen Sequoia and wish the ending had maintained that divide between the PoisonWings and the SapWings given their vastly different ideologies.
I wish they had focused more on showing unhappy HiveWings during the events of the book, there were 5 (Cricket, Malachite, Treehopper, Jewel, Scarab) total that I could remember, and so much of The Hive Queen focuses on that uncertainty that comes with the HiveWing’s inability to openly rebel against Queen Wasp, and it really just fizzled out towards the end. I think thats why the conclusion of “some HiveWings joined the LeafSilk kingdom” felt so unsatisfying.
also ngl I feel like the concept of the LeafSilk kingdom is just the exact same plot beat for beat as the NightRain kingdom and it bothers me that they did it twice.
