Dreamwalking, and Inntinnsic Signets
With the release of Onyx Storm, we now know what Violet's second Signet is--Dreamwalking. In and of itself, I have no problem with this ability. I'm mildly concerned with how Yarros will treat it moving forward, twisting it into something very OP in later books, but as of how it works in Onyx Storm it's fine.
No, the issue I have with Dreamwalking is how it ties back into the poorly handled 'inntinnsic' Signet category; for you see, somehow Dreamwalking is inntinnsic.
As of Iron Flame, inntinnsic, as a category, simply doesn't make any sense.
When we were first introduced to the concept of an inntinnsic, it seemed to only apply to those whose ability gave them the power to actively read minds without touch. These users are killed ASAP due to Navarre's desire to keep Venin secret from any but the most powerful. Despite some critics nit-picks I didn't find this practice unrealistic/stupid. Trusting an untrained cadet, who can read minds without any sort of tell, to keep national secrets would be ludicrous.
But then Iron Flame complicates things.
Xaden turns out to be inntinnsic--the problem is that he doesn't actually read minds. Instead, he essentially has a 'vibe' checking power. How it works is kept very vague, with a broad application, since he can seemingly tell if someone is telling the truth, detect their planed movements in one-on-one combat, and gauge a crowds' reaction to his words. The only thing we know for sure is that he is not reading individual thoughts.
Another issue is that Iron Flame introduced people who had Signets that turned them into lie detectors. From what I can recall, these people did not have to touch others for their power to work. Similar to Xaden, they simply can tell when the vibes of someone's statements are off when they lie. These people are not considered inntinnsic, even though they'd have just as much ability to suss out if their superior officers were lying to them as much as Xaden would.
Why is Xaden's power inntinnsic, but theirs were not?
Then we get the Fliers, who seemingly use 'mind-work'. The only example we have is Cat, who can, without physical contact, heighten people's emotions. To do so she must be able to detect the emotions of those around her, which would give her a similar, if a bit weaker, 'vibe' check ability to Xaden's. Yet she is not inntinnsic, nor any of the other Fliers' 'mind-work' abilities.
Now, with Onyx Storm, Violet is given an inntinnsic Signet of her own. The problem is that it makes even less sense than Xaden's to be categorized as such. From what we've seen of how her ability works, Violet enters a pre-established dream/nightmare. From there, she can affect how it plays out. Later, she may be able to create someone's dream herself.
How is that an inntinnsic ability? Or to put it another way, why would the higher-ups kill her for it? In fact, why would even the traditional inntinnsics be killed at all now that Navarre's secret is out?
First off, dreams are not always accurate. They don't always show the truth. We see this in the book itself. Neither Xaden or Maren's nightmares are true to life. We see what scares them, which could possibly be advantageous for blackmail, but it's not as if someone's fears are particularly difficult to find out. Of course Maren wouldn't want to lose the picture of her family she loves; of course Xaden is afraid of losing to a Sage. Violet didn't need her dream ability to figure out how to blackmail the man Xaden's mom is married too.
At best, it'd be a good power to use to possibly prevent an enemy from sleeping--constantly giving them nightmares when they tried to sleep. Though even then it seems difficult because Violet needs to be asleep herself, and from a distance she'd simply have to guess when they might be asleep.
Dreamwalking in no way would 100% lead to the user finding out about the Venin secret Navarre was so desperate to keep. Venin were not unknown to people in Navarre--they were simply seen as the boogeyman. It wouldn't be a huge red flag if a Dreamwalker stumbled into, say, Lilith's nightmare of being killed by Venin. It might be weird if every superior officer had a nightmare about Veinin, but that in no way confirms the lies they've told.
This leads to the question as to why Navarre still has the zero inntinnsic policy? Or at least that seems to be the case since Xaden says they'd kill Violet if they found out it (which makes 0 sense because it'd kill Tairn, his mate, Xaden and possibly Andarna--all of their biggest assets, during a world ending war).
Yes, a traditional Fourth Wing inntinnsic would be a huge privacy issue even with their secret out in the open, but given people can shield and they're in an epic war for their very lives, and losing, you'd think even a mind reader would be kept alive due to their usefulness. A Dreamwalker and an Intention reader, would be easy-peasy to work around, particularly when both are your strongest weapons. Especially when you've already been working with Truth Detectors, and Emotion Manipulators--one of whom is a former enemy, without killing them.
I find the whole inntinnsic thing to be such a big issue because it's clear Yarros is simply applying the label to her main characters for added drama/tension. It does not jive with the rest of the world building to claim Dreamwalking and Intention reading are inntinnsic, but what Cat does isn't, nor are the people who worked with Violet's torturer.
I don't think either of them needed their second signets to be classified as inntinnsic. They can still choose to hide them because it's an advantage to keep them secret. I mean, it turns out a bunch of the Marked Ones are hiding second Signets themselves, so why do Xaden and Violet need extra drama tacked on to their second powers.
Part of me wonders if in an earlier idea or draft of the story Xaden was going to be a traditional inntinnsic, but Yarros scrapped it because it would make him look bad (and also just be Edward Cullen 2.0). It would be far harder for Violet to believably forgive Xaden for reading her thoughts, than it is for her to forgive him for checking if she had trustworthy vibes. Especially when she completely turned on Dain for the same thing.
Meanwhile, Dreamwalking was added as an inntinnsic ability because it puts them on equal footing--now Violet has a forbidden power too, and she was using it on Xaden without realizing. It also makes it seem a far more powerful power than it realistically should be. Again, dreams aren't reliable sources of info, and unless Yarros adds something onto the ability--like being able to alter people's personalities or keep them asleep, it's not as groundbreaking of a power, like, say, Aaric's future sight.