So here is something I liked about Book 11 that took me until now to realize I liked it. I greatly enjoyed the fact that Blue didn't have wings.
Why did I enjoy this? Well, I think having Blue lack this (for this setting) very ubiquitous mobility option created some interesting challenges for the group to overcome. Challenges that aren't seen very often in this series and that I thought felt very fresh as a result.
See, there is a set of common issues you tend to run into when you give your protagonists access to free and convenient flight. It makes travelling almost trivial. It becomes much harder to challenge your heroes through putting some kind of treacherous landscape in between them and their goal, because unless said goal is inside that landscape, there is little stopping them from just soaring over it and laughing at you.
Maybe that is something you welcome. Perhaps the idea of Clay and friends having to rough it out in the wilderness for weeks, evading patrols and slowly making their way to their destinations doesn't appeal to you. You might prefer them to just fast-travel to the next big location because that's where the plot is. And that is a perfectly valid opinion to hold. Spending story time camping on a dusty trail might be a total pace killer.
But for me, a little bit of magic is lost if you can theoretically access any point on the continent with at most two days of flying. It makes the world feel kind of small. I yearn for that kind of trail filler, putting me into proximity to all the settlements on the way and exposing me to their little quirks and cultures.
Another aspect I liked about Blue's initial flightlessness was that it gave us another dragon body type to appreciate. The physiological diversity in Wings of Fire is... rather shallow. Barring injuries and some dragons having a harder time lighting a fire, everyone has roughly the same body shape and array of abilities to work with: Flight, something that kills, and in some cases one utility ability (like invisibility or darkvision). But very few have specific physiological shortcomings. I liked Blue's situation because it gave him a very glaring and obvious weakness that the others had to work around. That was interesting to me, having to conceive of ways to get him up cliffs or down to a deeper hive level.
I kind of wish there was more of that, dragons having to consider the weaknesses of their physiological makeup and planning around it. Like, if I really think about it, passing through the desert should be a huge problem for characters like Tsunami, Turtle, and Anemone, and being in the humid rainforest would be a struggle for Sunny and Qibli. The only instances I can think of where anything like that happens is with Clay's temperature-based breath weapon and Winter noting that proximity to a volcano makes his frostbreath less effective.
I’m maybe picturing a little side story on the way from the rainforest to Blaze’s fortress, where the group is crossing the desert and has to barter with some shady Sandwing water merchant because Tsunami is in danger of drying out. Maybe the merchant could say something like “If you don’t like my prices, you can go get your throat slit in the Scorpion Den instead,” setting up that place as bad news. Then when Sunny goes there in her book, people will recognize it and have appropriate expectations of it as a wretched hive of scum and villainy.
I don’t know, it could be fun.
So I guess if there are any aspiring authors of dragon xenofiction reading this, I leave you with this bit of unsolicited advice: Think about the physiology of your dragon characters and do not be afraid to give them appropriate gaps in their skillsets. Not every dragon needs to be able to fly, or do the same things every other dragon can. Sometimes it is fun watching your characters have to think of clever ways to cover for each other's shortcomings. That is how bonds are formed.
Those are my I'm-falling-asleep-and-am-rambling-nonsense thoughts of today. Let's hope they'll still make sense to me when I wake up again.
Here is this WIP sprite of Queen Wasp roaring, just to make this post a little more visually interesting.
I just finished reading the book about half a day ago. Same disclaimers as before apply: Stream of consciousness, unfiltered thoughts, very little time to let things sit and think about my feelings towards them.
Overview
This book was... good. Really good even. Probably one of the best in the series. I usually tend to take breaks between chapters, but somewhere towards the middle of it I started having trouble putting the thing down.
Me enjoying this book is good for me, but not so much for this post. I have an easier time articulating when I don't like something, so now I have to fight off the temptation to just say "excellent read" and leave it at that.
Okay, let me think of something to say so I don't just leave you hanging.
I liked the nuanced perspective this book took with regards to the Hivewings. It felt like an evolution of some themes from arc 1. I always felt a bit weird with how the Nightwings were handled back then. The potential existence of Nightwings who weren't entirely on board with the Rainwing extermination but had to bite their tongue so Battlewinner didn't have them or their family tossed into a lava pit never got much exploration. I think that was done a little better here. A little bluntly in places, but I appreciate that it was present at all. Like yeah, there absolutely would be people who don't actually agree with the mad regime and are made to act against their better nature through force, or misinformation, or indoctrination.
It's also interesting to have to discuss this dynamic within the protagonist group themselves. The gang goes into this story split through the middle and Cricket has to navigate a strange dichotomy of Sundew and Swordtail being her allies on one side, while they openly contemplate murdering her loved ones on the other. It's very tense.
Also a little gut-wrenching to hear the "You're one of the good ones" line out of a friendly mouth.
Yeah, it turns out I have to rescind my declaration of "Blue has nothing to contribute to this fight" from the previous book post. His kindness and consideration are absolutely needed to keep the other half of their group from descending into a murderous glee.
The stand-out character for me this time was Lady Scarab. She is so unapologetically cantankerous and old, it was hilarious. Plus, I can always get behind someone doing vent art on the side.
Cricket
While things got very heavy and sad again (recurring domestic abuse theme), I didn't feel as battered and bruised by the plot as I did last book. Part of that may be because Cricket is a very active protagonist who pushes back against her perils instead of surrendering to the onslaught of unweatherable abuse. I audibly went "Yes!" when she decided they need to go public with their knowledge about the Book of Clearsight and incite some kind of uprising. It's a very "her" solution, to fight by informing the uninformed.
I am ashamed to admit I did not see the twist about her birth mother coming. In retrospect it was probably obvious, and I'm certain Lady Scarab would call me an imbecile for being this dense.
There was a scene in Cadelle's house where Cricket ran into Katydid, and things got a bit ominous. I saw Katydid show signs of being indoctrinated and thought "No, come on. Don't have the only source of familial love and affirmation betray her." I think I'm so used to parents and siblings being horrible to each other in this series that I'm conditioned to expect it now. I'm glad she didn't sell her out and things went in a different direction.
Tension deflated a little once Cricket was thrown in prison, with the hive ruler immediately showing up and saying "Don't worry, I'll let you escape and take the heat for you," followed by everyone being very nice and cooperative. That seemed a bit too easy. But I understand why it happened. The previous chapter had been rather... intense, with all the scenes of mind-controlled hordes hunting Cricket down, pressing her against the floor and jabbing needles into her throat. I continue to be a bit baffled by the rapid juxtaposition of (comparatively) extreme violence followed by casual, joke-y dialogue that seems to pervade this series. But in a kids book you can't have something like that followed up by a chapter of Cricket being miserable and crying in prison. So I get why the tone shift was necessary.
I also enjoyed the ending. After the last book ended with them discombobulated and scared hiding in some cave, it felt like they really managed to strike a blow against Wasp this time. I'm up for this continuing, little victories, making cracks in the foundation until Wasp's control slips and her regime crumbles. Now that Wasp is forced into a reactive position with the loss of her plant stash, they can really mess with her.
Other thoughts
There are apparently giant wasps that can kill elephants on this continent. NO! That is unacceptable! I don't want to be here anymore!
Cricket mentions that treestuff is made of wood, clay, and silk while burning through the prison cell wall. I personally think it would be funnier if it was like real wasp paper, made by chewing up wood. I picture a couple poor Hivewings on treestuff duty, sitting in the basement and begrudgingly munching on logs all day to make them into pulp.
It could be a Hivewing power.
Hivewing A: You have poisonous teeth. And you have a stinger that paralyzes things.
Hivewing B: What do I have?
Hivewing A: You, uh... Your saliva hardens into a very practical and durable building material when it comes in contact with wood.
Hivewing B: Oh... Can I please get a reroll?
Hivewing A: No. Here, chew on this plank.
Sad chewing noises.
Cue Swordtail's horrified reaction when he learns his job is carrying around ancient Hivewing spit all day.
Conclusion
I'm glad I read this book. It builds excellently upon the last one and I want these guys (emphasis) to stick it to Wasp and liberate Pantala. Someone needs to give that Queen a good thumping.
Hi! I love your art and blog, and all the character analysizes that you do. They always carry such insight into what a character is that it lowkey changes my perspective of them. Not to mention all the fun headcannons you add on haha.
I was wondering, have you done anything on Glory yet? She is one of my favorite protagonists, and I find her very interesting.
Asked by @daishitheprofessionalfool & @americanman18
There’s always some difficulty to adding new context to a character who had their own book. After all, we already got an in-depth look at their inner thoughts and motivations. I think I got away with it with Clay, because his book had to divert some of its focus into setting up the series and he turned into somewhat of a bit character after it was over. But Glory is rather well documented, I’m unsure how much I can add.
I’ll give it a shot, nevertheless.
Personal values
Glory grew up in an environment that constantly devalued her as a person. While all of the Dragonets of Destiny suffered under their abusive upbringing, the others could at least find SOME solace in the fact that their lives supposedly mattered. They had a destiny. Glory did not have that. She was the errant Rainwing, the error of Webs, that inconvenient creature that was there because the Talons kind of needed her, but didn’t really want her all the same.
In the absence of external validation, one of two things will happen to us: Either we find some value within ourselves that helps us weather the harshness of life, or we sink into despair. This is the core struggle of Glory’s existence: She was born with nothing, told she is and will always be nothing, and claws and fights for any scrap of meaning she can give her own life.
Of all her peers, she is the most driven. She has to be, because her merit, her competence, her ability to accomplish things is how she defines her self-worth. Where Clay is placid, Sunny is carefree, Starflight is meandering, and Tsunami is flighty, Glory has iron discipline. The guardians refuse to see her worth, so she works twice as hard as everyone else to prove to them she has it. And more importantly: To prove to herself that she has it.
This mindset, while mentally and personally taxing, makes Glory very efficient, to a somewhat ruthless degree even. If she sets her eyes on a task, she does not waver or get distracted and it will generally be done. It’s a quality the others often find inspiring, if somewhat hard to imitate due to the intensity with which Glory pursues it.
While under the mountain, she actually studies as much and has an amount of knowledge comparable to Starflight. In a trivia contest, these two would be neck and neck. The reason why Starflight is known as “the” scrollworm among the group, and Glory is not, is because Starflight has a genuine passion for learning. He puts the work in because it’s how he relaxes, he loves it, talks about it all the time. Glory puts the work in, but it does not relax her, rather, it makes her more tense and tires her out. Yet she still does it because she has to, because the alternative is admitting that her tormentors are right about her, and that she is good for nothing. To her, this is unacceptable.
Glory works hard because it gives her life purpose. It’s something she can be proud of when no one else is.
In one particular sense, this is tragic. Of all the places this behavior could have been inspired from, it most closely aligns to Kestrel, who is equally driven and goal-oriented. That means in trying to escape from the psychological pit she was in, Glory subconsciously took on traits from her greatest abuser. As a testament to her own strength though, where her guardian was self-defeating and miserable, Glory did not let herself be ruled by fate, managed to transform these traits and eventually channel them into a successful life.
Physical constitution
It doesn’t come up a lot in the books as a major obstacle, but logically, Glory would have grown up severely malnourished. Rainwings are photosynthetic and their bodies require sunlight for certain key functions. Being forced to grow up underground would mean Glory was deprived of vital nutrients and vitamins she needed, which is why she was chronically fatigued while in captivity.
To be honest, I don’t quite know how this didn’t make her end up like Chameleon, stuck with one color forever. Perhaps what little sunlight made it through that one hole in the ceiling was just barely enough to not permanently debilitate her.
In any case, I imagine these circumstances made her somewhat of a sickly child, rail thin and much more prone to illness than the others. Not that she would allow herself many opportunities for bed rest regardless, to avoid exasperated yells of “the Rainwing is sick again??”. You can kind of see how she ended up the most cynical of the group.
Fortunately, she managed to escape these unhealthy living conditions before any of those complications stuck for good. With regular exposure to sunlight from then on, she made a full recovery. This might also be part of why she becomes a bit kinder once she’s in the rainforest. It’s much less emotionally draining when you don’t have to fight your own body on the daily, on top of everything else.
Character flaws and growth
Despite her reliability and personal fortitude, Glory is not infallible. While her ability to stay laser-focussed on a task is in many ways admirable, it also gives her an affinity for working herself to exhaustion. She often forgets to tend to her own physical needs—like eating, drinking, or sleeping—and has to be reminded, or sometimes made, to take breaks to do these things. There is one example of this in her book, where someone tells her to take a nap because she’s been going without sleep for upwards of a day.
To her, being idle equates to being lazy, that dreaded label she is trying to avoid at all cost. Fatigue, sickness, injury? Mere obstacles that must be overcome. You can power through anything if you just grit your teeth enough. Getting this dragon to relax is a monumental undertaking. If you convinced her to take a vacation, you’d soon need one yourself after how difficult that would be.
I imagine this has lead to complications in the past, that Glory has collapsed before and someone like Clay had to find her and carry her to a watering hole so she could get rehydrated. Maybe this is why she has a closer bond with Clay than with the others; the confidant she can let her guard down in front of because he’s been with her when she was at her weakest. I also imagine this exacerbated her already negative relationship with the Guardians, Kestrel and Dune being angry that “the Rainwing is sleeping in the hallway again!”
Glory is also very distrustful and has a misanthropic (misdracopic?) streak. While she genuinely loves the others and treasures their friendship, she perceives herself as not as close to them as the rest are to each other (with maybe the exception of Clay). Due to the very specific flavor of abuse she received from the Guardians, she has developed a tendency to other herself. Glory does not consider herself a Dragonet of Destiny and perceives an immutable separation between her and the rest of her peers, though this perception is not mutual. This is exemplified in, when her friends learn of Kestrel’s plan to kill her and brainstorm ways to prevent it, she keeps insisting that this is not their problem, which just serves to confuse them.
I find it interesting in this context that Glory is the only one of the arc 1 protagonists who ends the arc physically separated from the others. It makes sense in context, but also serves as a bit of an extension of how she sees herself in the group.
It’s because of this perceived gap that Glory is haunted by a subconscious expectation—or perhaps even fear—that she will be abandoned if she stops being useful or becomes inconvenient. There is always a little voice in her head that parrots what the Guardians told her growing up—that she is worthless and undeserving of love. She usually pushes it back, but certain stimuli can bring her buried insecurities to the front, and as is common with long repressed feelings, it tends to make her lash out.
The most notable example of this happens just after the group escaped Scarlet and the Sky Palace. Clay approaches Peril and theorizes that she might be the missing Skywing from the prophecy, and that she would have a place in their group if she needs it. The statement is made with pure, altruistic intent. But Glory hears it and interprets it maliciously, that Clay intends to replace her. I imagine deeper down she knows this is nonsense and that Clay would never be this openly callous to her. But in the moment, it triggers her greatest fear and she reacts irrationally.
So in that state she concocts a weird, spiteful scheme with Tsunami to punish Clay for his “betrayal”, by making him think he caused Glory so much anguish that she ran away. It’s honestly kind of uncomfortable and possibly one of the grossest things she does to another person (who isn’t trying to kill them). Like, I understand all of it and it makes perfect sense for her to act like this in that moment. But perhaps the story makes a misstep here by never having Glory visibly apologize to Clay after the fact, even when the story sets up an opportunity for it later when she and Clay are alone.
For me it’s not an insurmountable problem because I can just imagine they talked about it on their way to the Mud Kingdom (I’ve thought about how that would go before. I might write it out some day). But I could understand if this moment of spite towards a benevolent presence in her life with no explicit reconciliation soured the character for some people. Maybe that’s why the graphic novel cut that scene entirely (you know, other than for brevity).
Glory, over the course of their journey, eventually does address and temper a lot of these personal shortcomings. In particular after she gets out of that suffocating cave and connects with her people she blossoms into a more empathetic and considerate person. Perhaps finding her calling, with all the responsibility and purpose she craved, allowed her to move on from constantly pushing herself to the brink and being stressed out.
Nightwings' folly
This is already well-documented, so I’m going to be brief here. Perhaps one of the most satisfying aspects of Glory’s role in the story is how her presence exposes the folly of the Nightwing Regime and causes Morrowseer’s entire plan to implode, all through his own fault.
Glory enters the Nightwings’ awareness as a spanner in the works, a quick fix that became necessary due to an intervention by Scarlet, and a completely unknown variable. Consequently, she and the way she is treated shine a light on Morrowseer’s ability to adapt on the fly. Namely, the complete and utter absence of any such ability.
There were definitely ways for Morrowseer to make this work. The simplest solution would have been to just deliver an updated prophecy to account for Scarlet’s meddling, though he was really leaning on that fake mysticism and “unseen hand of fate” schtick, so I get why he didn’t want to tip his hand like that.
Ignoring that, he could have simply claimed that Glory IS the Skywing of the prophecy, that actually she is half Skywing, and then told her to stay red whenever she’s in public. He could have then ordered Kestrel to pose as her mother, which would have been extra ironic since Kestrel DID have a child with a Rainwing.
If they had done literally anything other than antagonize Glory and treat her as some kind of mistake, it stands to reason that the Dragonets wouldn’t have rebelled and tried to escape. Without the threat to Glory’s life, the others might not have been able to convince Sunny to leave and they would have stayed put. Maybe Morrowseer could have even swayed them to his side, by coming in as a savior to validate Glory’s existence and deliver them all from their captors’ torment.
If Morrowseer had swallowed his pride and been kind to Glory, even just pretending to be so, their plan would have gone off perfectly, and Blister would have taken the throne.
But instead, he short-sightedly ordered her death, ensuring that the Dragonets would never be loyal to him, and that Glory would dedicate her efforts towards destroying their plan. They created their own undoing, and as a reward, Morrowseer dies by having a volcano literally erupt up his backside.
Truly a con for the ages.
What I would do differently
Earlier nitpicks aside, if there is one blemish on the character for me, it is in the moment where her competence is tested and she becomes Queen.
Here is a quick recap of that moment: Glory, fed up with the display of self-serving lethargy, has just challenged Magnificient for the Rainwing throne. The ruling structure has decayed into this strange amalgamation of volunteering commoners who all take the position for selfish reasons, and the previous Queen just let this happen because she got disillusioned with her people. Glory needs the position to be functional right now to rescue some kidnapped Rainwings, so she seeks to cut out the rot.
Magnificient however is a catty little shit and convinces her gaggle of equally inadequate commoners-turned-monarchs to rig the challenge and humiliate Glory. Glory tries to persevere through the rigged challenges but it doesn’t look good. When she is at her lowest point, Kinkajou accidentally gets injured and Glory’s quick thinking saves her from excruciating pain. This reveals to the tribe that Glory has secretly been the Rainwing Princess all along and is the true legitimate heir to the throne by right of birth. This realization makes the previous Queen forfeit her match and wins Glory the challenge.
This is certainly a nice and validating moment for Glory, I’m happy for her, but... to be quite frank, this is completely backwards. The reason why Glory is awesome and aspirational is because of her inner strength, her propensity for getting things done, and her refusal to give up even as everyone keeps shovelling manure into her face. She is amazing because she comes from nothing and nobody expects anything of her, and she—through sheer grit and determination—turns all of that around and makes herself not only into SOMETHING, but one of the most significant somethings there is.
To have her personal, most important victory hinge on a random fortunate blood link that she had no control over is antithetical to her story. It removes all of her agency and, instead of proving that circumstance of birth does not have to define who you are, doubles down on it by suggesting Glory was incapable of winning by her own merits and had to be bailed out by a secret royal heritage.
Like, am I to assume that, if Glory wasn’t coincidentally a secret Princess, she would have failed? That everything she accomplished through her own power was rendered meaningless? Why is so much importance placed on birthright (of royalty) being the savior, when previously birthright (of being worthless) has suffocated Glory’s entire life? Like, the concept of birthright is arguably the VILLAIN of her story, why is the villain resolving her conflict for her?
And conversely, if we assume Grandeur would have heard her out even without the secret lineage, then why is it necessary in the first place? All it does is muddy Glory’s character journey and defiance of birth circumstance being a thing that defines you. No, sorry Glory, birthright still does dictate who you are, it’s just that your birth happened to be better than previously thought.
This secret Princess twist is perhaps what I would consider as the one significant misstep in Glory’s character development. Which is why I usually rewrite this portion of the story for myself.
Here is how I picture this playing out: Just turn it all around, flip the statuses. Rainwings don’t keep track of their personal lineages, but the exception of this is and always has been the royal family. Queen Grandeur had five daughters and she knows who all of them are. However, they were all incompetent for one reason or another, so when the time came to pick a successor, she couldn’t. At a loss for what to do, she reluctantly allowed all of them to share the throne on a weird rotating schedule. Her hope was, while they were all individually inept, maybe together they could balance out each others’ shortcomings.
This went catastrophically wrong. The Rainwing government became a farce of self-serving, ineffectual bullcrap. The Rainwing tribe, once a proud hub of travelling merchants, fell into complete decline. Grandeur saw this decay, but couldn’t do anything about it because she had already abdicated and couldn’t retake the throne. Thus, powerless and seeing no alternative, she became jaded and disillusioned with everything.
Then comes Glory, an upstart commoner and outsider, and dares make a grab for power. Magnificient huffs and slinks off to her tired mother, laying this out, but twisting it in her own favor. She completely neglects to mention the kidnapped Rainwings and instead assassinates Glory’s character, describing her as jealous and lusting for the position. Grandeur, long having grown accustomed to displays of selfish behavior around her, believes this without scrutiny. The former Queen is too checked out to question it. She half-heartedly agrees to mess with this upstart to get her daughters off her back.
The challenges play out, but throughout Grandeur keeps catching glimpses of Glory’s actual character, which does not align with the twisted caricature she was presented with earlier. It all culminates in that scene where Kinkajou tearfully apologizes to Glory for messing up the venom challenge, and Glory treating her with compassion and understanding, mentioning the kidnapped Rainwings in the process. Grandeur has caught on by now and decides to just talk to Glory to figure out what her deal is. Glory tells her about all the Rainwings currently in captivity. Jambu and Mangrove tell her about how Glory tried to find Orchid. Kinkajou explains how Glory risked her own life and got herself captured to rescue her. And the other Dragonets tell her about being stolen from the tribe when she was an egg. Grandeur learns of all the things Glory has done for their tribe since she arrived, despite not even really being a part of it or knowing any of them.
Grandeur hears this and becomes absolutely livid at having been lied to. She starts tearing into Magnificient about playing around while their tribe is being preyed on and the callous dismissal of their people’s plight in captivity. She is furious that her daughter would be so selfish to actively delay the only person trying to help, and frustrated at herself for enabling it through inaction. The rage reawakens the fire within her, she is feeling a drive and passion for her tribe and position like she hasn’t in many years. So she throws the challenge and disowns Magnificient on the spot, then names Glory her successor by right of merit, lack of royal blood be damned.
This is only possible because of all the things Glory chose to do for these people, and the heart, craftiness, and competence she displayed while doing them. It’s the personal integrity she showed in those moments, not a blood link, that sways Grandeur to her side. It’s an earned victory, not facilitated by luck or circumstance of birth, but an unrelenting will to prove to the world and herself that she matters.
It is the very victory Glory has worked towards her entire life. She wasn’t born special, but she made herself special. The circumstance was overcome.
Conclusion
It may strike some as odd that I dedicated so much essay space to discussing Glory’s character flaws (in-story flaws, not flaws with her narrative purpose). A while ago I saw this sentiment around that Glory is “too perfect” and gets overly glorified (ha ha).
To a certain extent I understand that. Her abilities feel like superpowers sometimes, to the point where she outclasses several members of her group, and she ends her arc in the most powerful and influential position out of all the arc 1 protagonists.
But I disagree with the notion that she has no flaws, or is generically perfect (a Mary-Sue, as some may describe it). The story, at the brisk pace it is told, may not always be interested in exploring them fully, but Glory does have significant shortcomings that cause friction in her life, particularly with her personal relationships. That she ends up in such a prominent position of power is to be expected from a character whose primary trait is that she is an overachiever, in a story that isn’t a tragedy.
But I don't think that's enough to make her generic.
Admittedly, I don’t know how widespread this sentiment actually is. It’s possible it was just a stray opinion I happened to witness. Perhaps beliefs like this would be less common if the story was more willing to rub Glory’s nose in it when she messes up, like I’ve mentioned with that Clay scene. At least every once in a while.
But despite all that, I hope it is evident that she is a well-rounded, three-dimensional character—one of the deepest out of all the arc 1 protagonists even. I can follow her thought process and understand everything she does because of how strongly she is characterized. And I can look up to her because of how much adversity she faces and manages to confront head-on. The place she ends up in (not necessarily all the steps that get her there) has always made sense to me.
And so, because I can’t think of anything else to do, let me conclude this wordy essay with a toast:
May we hence all stride onward, like our Glory, to our glory.
opinions on princess Orca? Why do you think she did what she did, and how did she get so close to killing Coral? Did she have narcissistic tendencies like her mother, or was she like Anemone; seeing through her mother’s lies but unlike Anemone, unwilling to stand by and watch?
This seems topical, what with my last post, so let me get into it.
As a posthumous character, Princess Orca is a bit of an enigma. From what is said of her in the text, she was artistic, she was principled since she refused to use her powers when she challenged her mother, and she might have been more than a bit paranoid which lead to her cursed statue gambit. Everything else about her we have to extrapolate from that. Headcanons ahoy.
Orca's art
I think Orca was a passionate artist who took her craft very seriously. She was dedicated and sensitive in a way her mother wasn't, and this might have been a source of pride (and occasionally arrogance) in her own life.
When I view Coral's creative pursuits I see her as someone who does art mainly for appearance's sake. There is a bit of a shallow, performative quality to her; she lavishes in the praise and attention it gets her, which is why she seats her council of advisors primarily with sycophants who fawn over her. The actual quality of her work is somewhat middling (not terrible, but plainly average), she just uses her power and influence to make people regard it highly.
I think Orca saw this quality of her mother and, while she idolized Coral's art at a more impressionable age, their understanding of what it meant to be an artist diverged as she grew older. To her, art was more about the work itself and the honing of your skills, rather than the price tag you can put on your creations. A large body of her work probably was never shown to anyone. There might even be a secret cave somewhere that's full of never-before revealed statues and figurines she made; hidden away from the public so the ignorant masses wouldn't lump her in with her mother as just another royal show-off.
Orca's ambition
Why exactly Orca chose to challenge her mother at a comparatively young age is difficult to say. Perhaps her perceived artistic superiority eventually turned into resentment and hostility. Perhaps she saw her mother as strong and enduring and felt so trapped in her shadow that she HAD to confront her. Maybe she was just cocky and wanted to be rude. We can't say.
I think what we can rule out almost definitively is that Orca's reasons were for any sense of "justice" or "goodness vanquishing evil". Orca was not an altruist and she didn't have anyone's best interest at heart. If her grab for power had been for benevolent reasons, she would not have concocted a plan to murder her unborn siblings and children in cold blood. You don't do something like that if you're a caring, nurturing person. I think whatever reason she had was likely self-motivated in some way.
It's also important to be aware that we have no idea what Queen Coral was like back when Orca was alive. The murderous version of her we see in the second book--the one who threatens her own daughter with death and who rips apart her servants from the mouth down--is a woman who has slowly and methodically been driven mad by grief and the continued loss of her children. It can be easy to lose track of, but if the odds of a newborn Seawing being male or female are roughly equal, there is a chance Coral has lived through the death of a child like thirty times by the time we meet her. It is very possible that before that horrific trauma, Coral was a well-adjusted and kind person who was maybe a bit self-absorbed but ultimately well-meaning. Intense grief and misfortune can wear us down and exacerbate our worst qualities.
So no, I don't really believe Orca was trying to take a stand against a tyrant, or to make the world a better place. I think she just wanted to challenge her mother, whether to prove to herself that she was capable of it, or some other, less-reputable reason.
Orca's Legacy
With everything I've extrapolated from what little canonical information there is... If Orca won her challenge and had become Queen, I think she would have not been very successful. With how the succession process works in most Pyrrhian cultures, it is important for the Queen to project an image of strength, confidence, and permanence. She is always under threat of being challenged by her heirs, but also expected to endure that pressure and remain strong in the face of it.
Coral, for all her numerous other faults, embodies this quality extremely well. Orca did not. She was scared to death of that situation (as would I be to be fair) and engineered a backdoor to avoid it altogether. This suggests to me that, had she assumed the role of ruler, she would have eventually buckled under the stress and fallen apart.
There is a tendency for us to under-appreciate what we have and instead covet what we don't. It's possible Orca would have flourished by focusing on her art instead of throwing it away in a bid for power she didn't even really want. But of course it is always easier to say that with hindsight.
Sometimes I like to imagine that Orca had a little brother--Coral's second child--who was named Starfish. Nowadays he goes by the name "Starfish the First", because Coral has since obliviously named two of her other sons "Starfish" as well. Orca was mostly aloof, but he loved her very much. He visits her grave sometimes. And after what Orca did to the hatchery came to light in book 2, I imagine he has to wrestle with the thought that his big sister hated her siblings so much that she made a weapon that kills them.
I’ve been wondering, since I’ve seen you give your thoughts on some other dragons, what are your thoughts on Clay?
On Clay...
Clay. I’ve talked about him for a bit in a previous post somewhere. He is the first protagonist in the entire series and thus serves as our introduction into this world. While he enters the story with his own emotional baggage, he pretty much resolves all of that within the first book and mellows out from then on, fading into the background as a quiet support character.
Because of that it is maybe easy to dismiss Clay as that big guy who talks about food a lot and doesn’t do much else. But I do think he’s a bit more complex than that and is a well-rounded character with things going on in his own right.
CW: Discussion of physical abuse.
Formative Years
Clays early years were molded heavily by his belief that he almost killed Tsunami while she was hatching. He believed this because his guardians, mostly Kestrel, insisted this is what happened. Of course at the end of the first book we learn that this wasn’t the case and that they were just misinformed about how Mudwings work.
To us, this may all seem absolutely ridiculous. We look at Clay and see this obvious gentle giant without a malicious bone in his body angsting about being a blood-crazed monster. But for Clay himself, this was a very real, very horrifying situation. Suspend your disbelief for a moment. His entire childhood was marred by the crushing guilt of almost having murdered his surrogate sister at birth, and he couldn’t remember why he did it. He understood nothing about this situation, and didn’t know if this secret violent side could even resurface one day. Basic things like going to sleep would become terrifying; he may have laid awake, wondering whether his body might act on its own as soon as he fell unconscious. Just like back then, when it acted before he could even form coherent thoughts. The fear of losing control to the monster and waking up on top of a loved one’s mangled body was always there.
This perception of himself as a violent killer was at odds with his social nature as a Mudwing. He loved his surrogate siblings with the same intensity that any Mudwing would love their own, and thus he hated the part of himself that threatened them. As a direct response to this dissonant view, Clay developed a desire to protect them. If he willed himself to shield them from getting hurt with all of his strength, he would never be able to harm them again. This was his way of coping with the fear.
It is pretty apparent from the text that at least Kestrel was physically abusive towards them. Dune was possibly too, Webs I don’t think so, but he also didn’t do anything to stop it. As Clay grew older I think he began to recognize the patterns. He would start deliberately acting in ways so that most of Kestrel’s ire would be redirected towards himself instead of the others. This is why all the Dragonets of Destiny have such deep respect for Clay; they remember him always standing between them and Kestrel, even as he ended up with more and more scars for it.
Luckily, he is able to reconnect with his Mudwing heritage at the end of book 1 and learns that he never was that blood-crazed murderer the guardians insisted he was. But even so, the scars and memories would never fully fade, and he’d never lose sight of the need to protect his loved ones.
Personality and Interests
Clay’s love of food and eating is well-established, to the point where it sometimes seems like it is his only character trait from book 2 onwards. This is normal; he’s got a big body and I assume the self-regenerative properties inherent to Mudwings burn a lot of calories, so he needs to eat a lot to refuel them. I think there’s a bit more to him still though.
Clay is at his happiest when he can either prevent someone else’s pain, or take it away. Conversely he becomes distressed when he sees someone suffering. I believe he is incredibly earnest and built close to water. He cries easily, though never in response to his own pain or suffering. He feels positive emotions very strongly and can get overwhelmed that way, especially when he sees his loved ones happy. When he cries, he does so openly and without shame. It is very unsatisfying to tease him because he will usually just take what people say to him at face value and thus make them feel bad.
He’s also very physically affectionate and huggy.
People who meet Clay often get the impression that he is book dumb, or just stupid in general. This is not the case, as Clay does have a capacity for learning even complex subject matter. I just think he struggles with subjects he can’t see a practical application for, or aren’t relevant to things he wants to do. He has little interest in memorizing ancient figures or learning how to measure the sides of a triangle
When Glory fights Deathbringer in book 3, she makes mention of a “dragon anatomy class” which I assume was taught by Webs. Clay, as much as he struggled with history and numbers, excelled at this particular class because its insight could be used to keep people safe. As such, whenever the need for it arises, Clay is usually quick to act as the group’s primary healer/medical advisor.
(Excerpts from WoF graphic novels 2 and 3, censored for blood.)
This notion is further supported by the fact that, once they all become teachers at the Jade Mountain Academy, Clay is the one to lead an anatomy class, just like the one he attended before.
In conclusion
Clay is pretty much everyone’s big brother. While he isn’t as eccentric and colorful as the people he is surrounded by, his earnestness and general benevolence make him the backbone of the Dragonets of Destiny. Whenever anyone has a deeply-rooted, serious problem they are hesitant to bring up with others, Clay will usually be the first person considered as a confidant. Tsunami and Starflight know he would never judge or shame them no matter how ridiculous the thing they approach him with. Glory trusts him with her emotions whenever her stoic facade cracks. And Sunny has an incredibly strong bond with him.
I think that makes him pretty cool, even if he doesn’t really have much to do anymore once he overcomes his personal demons. I’m happy that he gets to be happy in the end.
I'm ever so slightly concerned that you might not be taking these kind of asks anymore since you haven't answered any in a while, so please ignore if that's the case. I don't know how likely that is, but I'm chronically scared of being annoying.
That being said, my guilty WOF fave is Viper for absolutely no reason whatsoever and I'm ever so slightly peeved that I seem to be completely alone in that so I can't really find anything much about her. To me, at least, she seems to have gotten the shortest end of the stick of all the Alternates by a rather absurdly wide margin and it seems a bit undeserved, considering that she's mainly just a bratty dragonet in a pretty bad situation and there's definitely worse dragons out there that get lighter fates. I could also somewhat go into the fact that the family member or whoever comes to ask about her later seems a lot more angry than sad that she's dead, but that's veering into dangerous headcanon territory and it's not super important. I know you've given some thought to Flame at least in the past so I was wondering if you had any thoughts about her.
Here is a sneak-peek excerpt of a comic I've been working on since... October 2025 apparently?? Geez! Talk about schedule slip.
No need for guilt. Viper is a perfectly reasonable pick to feel an attachment to, even if the story doesn't give us a lot to work with. Because of her association with Flame I find myself thinking about her relatively often too. Who she was as a person, the legacy she left behind, and what she meant to those who knew her.
But as you have already implied by mentioning headcanon, it is difficult to point at exactly what she was about since she has so comparatively little page time. So a lot of extrapolation is necessary to arrive at anything substantial with regards to her.
Who I think Viper was
What we know for certain is not much. She is a Sandwing, roughly the same age as her four peers. Throughout the story she acts cranky and rude, yelling frequently and making threats of bodily harm against specifically Squid and Fatespeaker. During a mock battle she is pushed into Flame, takes out one of his eyes (implied to be reflexive/accidental), and then falls to her death into a river of lava. She has one known relative in the Talons of Peace (implied to be somewhat removed, not a direct parent) who reacts to news of her death with disgruntlement, but no immediately visible grief.
As far as I know, she is not mentioned beyond that. So the rest we will have to infer from various context clues (and a healthy heaping of filling in the blanks with conjecture).
First off, I think Viper is/was functionally the leader of her friend group. She is the most outgoing and socially dominant of them, and is the only one to ever speak or advocate for them as a collective, when she angrily chides Morrowseer for abandoning them in some room in the Nightwing palace. I also personally regard her as the most consistently competent of the group.
Now, admittedly, that does not mean much. All of the Alternates are some flavor of screw-up (endearingly), so one has to stand out as the best of the worst by necessity. If I had to rate the competency of each of them on a scale from 1 to 10, where 10 is "will generally succeed and likely excel" and 1 is "expect disappointment"...
Ochre would be a 1.
Flame would be a 3.
Squid would be a -4.
Fatespeaker... in the correct situation she can go as high as 8, but usually bobs around a 2.
Leaving Viper to take the crown by technicality of a consistently middling but decent-ish 4.
Hypothetically, if you dropped these guys off in town, gave them an overdue book, and asked them to return it to the local library, they might just barely accomplish this task. If you only send Viper and Flame, they will even accomplish it faster, with fewer chewing marks on the book.
Just don't ask them to do anything more complicated than that. They will somehow saddle you with several large fines and end up in jail on the way.
I also don't think Viper was as permanently hostile and aggressive as she appears in the story. I already talked a bit about this in my False DoD post, but the situation they were in on the Nightwing Isle was stressful and abnormal, and I read Viper's behavior there as a way to cope with the fear of having been kidnapped and confined on a hellish island with no food and contaminated air.
While Viper's default disposition is still rather bristly and she genuinely has a short fuse, I believe it is possible to have somewhat normal, even congenial conversations with her if you don't annoy her (challenging for Squid and Fatespeaker) and she is not bored (because she will mess with you to entertain herself). I just don't really see the others willingly hanging out with her if she was impossible to approach all the time.
Unfortunately, growing up in the Talons of Peace camp is very boring. So finding her in a non-cranky mood, while not impossible, is still a rather rare commodity.
Let's see, what else...
There is this one panel in the graphic novels that always stuck with me.
To my knowledge, this does not exactly happen like this in the books. There is a brief moment of everyone looking at Starflight expectantly, but it isn't described in detail what everyone is doing. So their postures here are a result of artistic liberty.
Still, the way Viper is making a fist here, as if to say "Do it! Bring it home!" made an impression on me. I like to think of this as the moment where the False DoD flip and begin to consider Starflight as someone who could be a leader, and in particular where Viper stops thinking of him as a useless nerd and starts respecting him.
What Viper left behind
At first glance, Viper doesn't really seem to have any kind of legacy. She is in the story, then she dies, and nobody really talks about her after that, apart from one moment where news of her death is given to her maybe uncle, who shrugs and says "bummer".
But I personally believe (or at least am convincing myself to think) that her demise did impact the story, and is pretty much the reason why Flame is so messed up through all of the second arc.
I think... Flame and Viper were friends. Not in the "only group of kids in a small town (or rebel camp) with nothing to do" kind of way the rest of the False DoD were acquainted with each other. Flame and Viper have similar dispositions and were likely the only option either had for stimulating conversation, the alternatives being aloof and dumb-as-a-stump Ochre, the-moons-are-talking-to-me Fatespeaker, and... Squid. So they really had to have been friends. It just makes sense.
So then Viper dies, and Flame loses an eye and is scarred for life. Half a year passes. Flame then reappears in arc 2 and seems very unwell, to the point where being in his mind is unpleasant to an unprecedented degree for resident mindreader Moonwatcher.
It left me wondering what happened to him. Why did his mind become this way? But unfortunately the narrative is as averse to exploring Flame's character struggles as it is to giving Starflight a pleasant day on-page, so I have to resort to more conjecture.
This is the conclusion I arrived at:
If you think back to the Nightwing island, to the moment Viper died and Flame received his scar... Think about what that was like for him, and how he is likely to remember those events.
Flame is forced into a training battle with his friends. At some point he sees Viper getting knocked into him.
Something gets caught in his eye. It happens so quickly he doesn't understand what is going on. His sight goes dark. Suddenly, all he can feel is a searing, blinding pain that overtakes everything.
He begins thrashing and flailing as the pain gets worse and worse. In his panic he pushes Viper away from himself.
He hears Viper scream. At the time he cannot process this information. Everything is a blur of blood and agony.
A while later, after having been somewhat stabilized, he learns that his eye is gone and Viper is dead.
Under the circumstances, considering that it is often difficult to recall traumatic events and situations of extreme pain with clarity due to your mind trying to block out the memory... With factual knowledge that he was the last person to touch her before he heard her dying scream... Is it not conceivable that he would remember that day as him pushing Viper into the lava?
Is it not likely he might think his closest friend died because he killed her?
I think this, the possibility that that could be the truth, is something that haunts Flame and makes him into the mess he is in the second arc. Holding in contradictory thoughts of "I killed Viper and I hate myself", "Viper did this to me as punishment, I hate her", "I pushed her to her death", "the Nightwings killed her", "I killed her", "I didn't mean to kill her", "I'm glad she is dead because she hurt me", "I deserve to be hurt because I killed her", turns his mind into a cesspit that torments him.
This is also why he becomes so obsessed with his scar. In his head it becomes a symbol of his guilt and the thing that marks him as a killer. His mother, though shown only to love him (enough to compromise her position in the Skywing Army), is hallucinated to suddenly hate him and send him away because she allegedly can't stand looking at his face. The face Viper marked as unforgivable. The animus dragon who could make the scar go away, along with all the guilt and torment wrapped in it, refuses to do so. "Probably because he thinks I deserve it", Flame concludes. "I hate him for judging me", "He is right to judge me, I killed Viper", "his people killed Viper so he owes me this", "I killed Viper", "they killed Viper", "I killed Viper"...
Meanwhile Darkstalker is seeing all of this and salivating, because it makes Flame the perfect scapegoat for his scheming.
It breaks my heart that Flame is just... left like this. Like, the story concludes "Yeah, he kind of sucks. Sunny kicks him out of school, tee hee!" I wish there was some kind of epilogue to the False DoD story. Where Fatespeaker somehow managed to convince Flame to confide in her, and they would find a way to grieve for Viper's death in a way that left Flame in a better headspace. Like, he finally breaks down and confesses to Fatespeaker that he killed Viper and it is eating him, and she points out "No, Morrowseer killed Viper. You were a victim, just like the rest of us."
Perhaps the two of them, along with Squid and Ochre (and maybe Starflight) could have a funeral for her. Something to bring peace and closure to all of them.
Closing Thoughts
I hope this answer to your question is in some way satisfactory, even if it is mostly my imbecilic speculation.
To finally respond to your initial inquiry: No, I did not stop taking questions. I just have a bad habit. Whenever I receive an interesting prompt, I tell myself "Well, I want to give a thoughtful answer to match this". Then I kind of obsess over the quality of my response, and usually find it lacking. So I put my response on the shelf, so I can come back later and address all the blemishes I've perceived. While that is going on, more questions come in...
I actually have a folder that is full of a number of responses that are mostly written but held back because I got self-conscious about releasing them in their "unpolished" state. It's really annoying but that's unfortunately just how my brain works.
To make sure I actually release this one, I've typed it out directly with no opportunity to let it stall out. As a result it may be a little rough in some parts. But I hope it is informative (?) nonetheless.
Hi flawseer, not sure if you're still active on this blog but I did see you post in April so here's to hoping.
Just wanted to stop by and say these are some of the most interesting WoF blogs I've read in a really long time - I just finished your 'thoughts on the end of arc 2' post, and I have to say your evaluation of writing errors in the jade winglet (ESPECIALLY moon and winter) is so articulate and clear it actually made me excited. Like I've been reading this out loud over call its just so good. I also love how you structure your posts! The comic panels are such a cool way of illustrating your interpretation of the plot and it's really inspiring to see.
I don't know if you have read arc 3 since posting that page or if you already know this, but the jade winglet (Some of them) do make an appearance, which you might honestly not like very much. Take that as you will.
I DO have a question for this blog, not just rambling... if you haven't already (Still going through this blog so I apologize) what are your thoughts on Six-claws or fierceteeth? (Or honestly, any of the winglet series characters.)
Hey, apologies for the late reply.
I get a lot of questions that make me think “Hmm... This could go somewhere interesting. I don’t just want to throw out three lines here and call it done. So I better set it aside and think about it for a while.” Then it’s suddenly seven months later, I have answered nothing, and people have likely moved on.
Fierceteeth
“I’m on fire today! Turns out I’m better than him at that too! Ha ha ha!”
I’ve had my downs and ups with Fierceteeth. See, I thought she was kind of funny for a bit in book 4, with her “Hey, are you dying yet? I’m bored and want to take over your life.” thing towards Starflight. Then in book 5 where she abducted Sunny I was lukewarm on her. To be honest I probably would have forgotten about her then if that was the extent of her story.
It wasn’t until I read Prisoners that I really clicked with her. That story made me really like her; it’s amazing how much a character can be elevated if you just give them a little bit of focus and vulnerability. She also gives us the perspective of what it was like as a "normal" kid to grow up on the Nightwing isle.
Turns out it really sucks, and the incompetent Nightwing regime isn't any better if you aren't a main series protagonist only passing through.
I don’t know if this will make sense to anyone else, or even why I am thinking it, but she somewhat reminds me of Shenzi from The Lion King (the good one).
It may literally just be because she is the female leader of a trio of minor antagonists with a muted color scheme, but I swear they have other parallels. Specifically, they have the same chaotic energy where they’re clearly an antagonist, but you can also sort of imagine them in a role where they aren’t? Like she is almost a true neutral party that becomes aligned against the protagonists via external circumstances.
They’re also both very outspoken with a razor-sharp wit, but barely holding the chaos around them together. If Wings of Fire ever gets an animated adaptation, I hope they’ll take some cues from her.
Of course when Fierceteeth comes back for the finale of Arc 2, the hilarity has very firmly stopped. The thing Darkstalker did to her and presumably was going to do to her if he hadn’t been dealt with and his experiment continued is extremely messed up. I sincerely hope she doesn’t have to carry any memories from that because... yikes.
Let’s conclude this section on something more wholesome. I think I read in the guidebook that Fierceteeth and Strongwings had children, and Fierceteeth wants Starflight to be their uncle, implying she is starting to get over her dislike for him. That’s a pretty nice ending for her, I’m down with wacky relative Fierceteeth and Starflight and Fatespeaker having to attend awkward holiday get-togethers.
Six-Claws
He seems fine. He’s a nice, reliable guy, has potential. I like to imagine he is this collected, self-assured veteran who always has everything under control... except when it comes to parenting. He is completely awkward and out of his element when dealing with his daughter.
The secret twist is she got it from Thorn.
As a POV protagonist, he is... a bit plain. It’s really moreso everything that’s happening around him that makes Deserter an interesting read. That may be by design, so he doesn’t overshadow any of the other characters.
I liked seeing some of these other characters again. Blaze as a kid was hilarious, I liked the additional characterization it gave to Burn. Also cool to get to see Dune’s backstory, it made me finally understand what his deal is. Very nice supplementary short story overall. I enjoyed it.
There were only two things I was a bit “eh...” on.
I had heard prior to reading it that Deathbringer was going to be in it. He’s not mentioned by name but it’s evident its him since it was set up in Assassin. Knowing that in advance at the time, I wondered what his role was going to be. But it turned out it was extremely underwhelming? Not only is his inclusion completely superfluous and awkward, popping in to state the obvious and tell Six-Claws “You are feeling this now, here is where you should go next to set up the main series,” he actually kind of interrupts a really dramatic scene that could have flowed better without him, and then just... ninja vanishes. That was a bit weird (the interruption part, I can buy that he’s able to ninja vanish).
Like, is that really what all those fandom wars regarding Deathbringer are about that people tell me about? He was retconned to be older than he was in the main story just to justify this limp moment? That’s kind of weak, and not worth the grief that everyone has to endure over it.
The second point is the character of Kindle. She just gets tacked onto the story at the very end with no setup, probably because Ostrich (the little one) needs a mom, and we obviously need to see the mom in-story because we can’t just infer that he met someone while living at the Scorpion Den. The way she has nothing to do except to get assigned to the protagonist randomly makes her feel like a bit of a trophy. I don’t hate it, it doesn’t really make me feel anything, other than that it’s kind of a waste of a potentially interesting character.
I guess I’m in a rewrite-y mood lately, because this is giving me the itch to try and re-arrange some parts of this story, just for the fun of it. Let’s do that right now!
Deserter Redux
As I said, I really like the core of this story, so for the most part everything will stay exactly the way it is. But I’d like to accomplish two things:
First, I want to de-couple the Deserter plot from Assassin. Deathbringer really has no role in Six-Claws’ story and his lukewarm inclusion does a disservice to his character. Frankly, he shouldn’t even be alive at this point. So I’m taking him out. I’m altering the ending of Assassin; Deathbringer still gets dispatched by Morrowseer to kill some guy, but it will be someone else. Deserter meanwhile takes place AND concludes well BEFORE Assassin, instead of after. This will hopefully un-cramp some of the timeline jumble that occurs because of this unnecessary link.
Second, I want to take the ball dropped by Deathbringer and instead give it to Kindle, who should be an actual character in this story. I’m going to seed her into the plot much earlier, so she can actually help shape it to an extent, instead of just coming in at the end to be a name that can be added to fan wikis.
So, Deserter Redux begins with the hatching of Princess Blaze, just like it did originally. It jumps forward two years, Smolder talks to Six-Claws, who meets Dune in the school pavilion, and they rescue Blaze from the sandstorm. Then he and Dune get drafted into the army and become best friends. Everything here is the same.
After this, we insert a new scene here, taking place roughly six years after the recruitment. This is when the Sandwing pandemic happens and kills King Char, and it’s also when Six-Claws’ father Quicksand dies. Six-Claws has been established prior as having a really strong connection to his family, so the death of his father is a pivotal part of his life I don’t want to skip. So he will be in the dragon-equivalent of a hospital ward, comforting his father in the final moments of his life. This is where he meets Kindle for the first time, who is in-training to become a healer at this point.
Six-Claws is despondent when his father finally passes, giving us a glimpse of how bad he is at dealing with those around him dying, which will foreshadow how desperate he gets later to avert the senseless slaughter of his troops. Kindle is there as a soothing presence, helping him through it. She does it because it’s her job at first, but the two manage to form the earliest hint of a connection. It is clear they have good chemistry.
We jump ahead another four years; this is where Queen Oasis dies. This scene will also stay the same as it is. Maybe we’ll add a conversation between Six-Claws and dune about vague misgivings about being re-assigned to Burn’s service. They have a bad feeling, but push it down. Or maybe not.
Jump ahead another two years. Six-Claws and Dune have been chafing under Burn’s rule, but kept their spirits up. This scene opens at some kind of ceremony to celebrate Six-Claws’ promotion to General. He isn’t too happy about it though, because the promotion was preceded by his mother Ostrich falling in battle.
At the ceremony he runs into Kindle again, who is not doing well. She is now a full-fledged healer, but has been pulled out of the palace hospital ward to serve as a medic on the front lines. Burn is not too concerned with keeping her own soldiers alive though, so she has seen a lot of war casualties and it is affecting her mentally. She also tells a story about her old teacher who came with her to serve as another medic, who tried to complain to Burn about the high number of casualties, but was then made an example of and killed. She is worried that, the way things are going, she might be next.
Six-Claws and Kindle then talk about the war and Burn and all the senseless cruelty. It becomes clear neither of them likes their new queen very much. At one point Kindle mentions the Scorpion Den and tells of a dumb little fantasy she has, where she just runs away from it all to go there and live her life away from the war. Six-Claws understands her feelings but dismisses the idea. He has been taught to be loyal his entire life, and the thought of deserting is inconceivable to him. Kindle apologizes for bringing it up, but Six-Claws reassures her that it’s okay to hold on to as a comforting fantasy when things get hard.
Still, the story of Burn killing healers sits awkwardly in his stomach, and the next day he uses his newfound influence as a General to have Kindle re-assigned to his service to be close enough to protect her. Dune thinks that’s kind of weird, but goes along with it. It should be noted they are just friends at this point. They aren’t romantically involved. There is a hint that there MAY be a spark between them that COULD blossom into something in the future, when Six-Claws is no longer Kindle's commanding officer, but right now they are both staying professional.
I’ve neglected to mention Dune in a lot of this, but he is still in the story. Keep in mind I’m only describing the scenes I’m adding in any detail. He is still in all the scenes where I say “this is staying the same”. In practice this should result in an interplay of scenes of Six-Claws+Dune → Six-Claws+Kindle → Six-Claws+Dune → Six-Claws+Kindle →Six-Claws+Dune+Kindle, giving both of them equal narrative weight. The story should make it evident that all three of them become friends with each other eventually.
Finally, three years later, we arrive at the final stretch of the story. Dune is injured in battle and Six-Claws and Kindle are tending to him. Burn arrives to give new orders, but since we’re de-coupling the story from Assassin, she is NOT coming in to seize on the dissolution of Blister’s alliance with the Mudwings. That won’t happen for another 10 years. Instead, Burn is just getting bored with them scurrying around in the north and wants to do something more interesting. She’s going to hit the Mudwings, which so far have been neutral, inadvertently setting up their push to ally with the Seawings. Also, low key, Burn just really wants Six-Claws’ feet for her tower, so she wants him to be somewhere he is more likely to die.
Six-Claws thinks this stratagem is appallingly pointless and will just result in more enemies and casualties, so he tries to diplomatically dissuade her from doing this. This annoys Burn, who then enters the healers tent to use Dune as leverage, just like in the original story. Unlike the original story, Six-Claws is not interrupted by a cameo and follows her immediately, out of concern for Dune. In there, he and Kindle watch in horror as Burn mutilates Dune, forcing Six-Claws to bend the knee and accept Burn’s orders.
They wait for Burn to leave and Six-Claws—anguished at the senseless ruination of his best friend’s life—apologizes to Kindle and tells her she had it right all along, that they need to desert Burn’s forces and leave for the Scorpion Den immediately. So they do. The story ends on the same scene—Six-Claws and Kindle carrying Dune in blankets, but we’re cutting it a little earlier. There is a really profound image in there—where Dune just silently and sadly stares at Six-Claws’ beating wings—that is the perfect place to end it on. The tacked-on conversation about loyalty, and the folly of loyalty, and the importance of new loyalty, doesn’t really add anything that isn’t already present in subtext. We don’t want to waste that powerful image.
So, the story ends here, with the new blocking placing this final scene in 4997 AS, roughly eight years before the brightest night. This gives the trio more time to actually live inside the Scorpion Den for a bit, for them to meet Thorn and become friends with her, and for Dune to grow into his bitter, resigned self from the present who eventually betrays Thorn. Likewise, with the story now de-coupled from Assassin, it gives THAT story liberty to take place in 5007 AS—two years AFTER the brightest night—instead of in 5003 AS—two years before. This hopefully fixes that unfortunate timeline error/retcon that has half the fandom in an uproar, by making Deathbringer roughly the same as Riptide’s age which is more consistent with how he was portrayed and treated in the main story.
So with that, the redux timeline looks something like this (with an error margin of 1 year for any events on it):
I'm sorry. I do not know how to summarize the contents of this thing for alt text. I'm hoping all the previous text explains it all enough.
This went way out of the scope of the original question, but I figured I won’t get many opportunities to talk about the Winglets otherwise. There’s also a possibility that I’ll get torn apart over this, in which case I won’t have opportunity to talk about anything anymore. We will see.
Anyway, those are my very tangent-riddled thoughts about Fierceteeth and Six-Claws. I somehow almost wrote Six-teeth just now. That would probably be an unfortunate fate.
On today's AFAF: So cool, didn't know that Flawseer's half-SandWing! I always thought their (should I say your?) colors were interesting for a NightWing. Was the scale color scheme derived from this half-SandWing blood or something just randomly chosen? And is there a ref sheet and extensive lore for this interesting dragon? In general, I'd love to get to know more about your OC (or you)!
His scale color was derived from Sunny’s template, since she is pretty much the poster child for Sandwing/Nightwing hybrids. It follows the principles of her color scheme, but inverted to suggest a reversal of parentage (Nightwing/Sandwing vs Sandwing/Nightwing).
This following part is about Sunny. If you're here for Sunny and don't care about my OC, you can read this part and ignore the rest.
Back when my partner and I were still dealing with arc 1, we wondered why Sunny was the color she was. How do a pale yellow dragon and a black dragon make a bright golden dragonet? You’d expect maybe a very dirty dark yellow, or a kind of heterogeneous yellow-black pattern (much like with Hivewings).
The answer we arrived at was rooted in (somewhat simplified) genetics. Biologists, don't get mad at me, this is just for fun.
What ultimately decides a dragon’s color is probably much more complicated than this, but for this example let’s examine two genetic traits: Pigment color, and pigment density. The denser the pigmentation of a dragon's scales, the more opaque the final color.
For Sandwings, their pigment color is usually yellow. They have low pigment density, so the yellow is muted and comes out looking pale. Some Sandwings have so little pigment they are almost white.
For Nightwings, their pigment color tends to be black. Their pigment count is usually very high, resulting in heavy shades of dark gray or black.
If these two dragons mate, their offspring will inherit a combination of these traits. For instance: The pigment color may be yellow like a Sandwing, but their pigment density is unusually high due to the Nightwing influence.
This makes the usual pale yellow appear very saturated and almost golden. That’s why Sunny is a brilliant beacon of saturated light: She has her mother's color but with her father's pigment count.
Part about Sunny is over.
Now, if we switch those traits around, we might end up with the inverse instead: Black pigment color like a Nightwing, but a much lower pigment density like a Sandwing.
This weakens the black color and makes it appear like a dull gray. That’s how you get the general basis of Flawseer’s color scheme.
If you’re interested in my OC, I actually received a few more questions about him that I’m probably going to answer in-character... as soon as I find out a way to do that without putting people to sleep. For now, there is a ref sheet attached to this post.
As for lore, uhm, part of me shudders to attach this to the main blog where people might actually read it because it’s rather daft, but there is a post on my side blog where I talk a bit about the inception of the character and what he is about.
About the you/they thing: It’s probably most appropriate to talk about Flawseer (the dragon) in the third person, unless speaking to him in-character. He’s sort of this blog’s mascot, but an entity separate from me as a blogger (even though I’m also calling myself “Flawseer” here and sometimes speak through him, confusingly). He is a much better and more graceful person than I am, so I can’t exactly claim to be him.
