So I’m halfway through book 16… (spoilers!)
(Aurora and Borealis as I first imagined them. Where are their visible skywing genes? I lost them somewhere along the way to making this post… sorry. Just kidding! I interpret that Aurora takes most after her sky-side with the pink, and both have curlier spikes. not much skywing scale coloring is visible.)
anyways, I just started part 3 of the hybrid prince and I’d like to share any/all of my thoughts with you guys! Spoilers for parts 1 + 2, obviously! I will present these as they come to me, in the form of an unorganized list.
I am so in love with the aesthetic of the Dunegon isle AND the court. everything felt mildly cultish, mildly dreamlike and mildly surreal. Obviously this kind of falls apart as things get less confusing/the lore explains itself, but that’s okay. I do wish the palace looked a little more like the castle in labyrinth, but I wish that about everyone because I Love labyrinth.
IF I WAS UMBER AND I FOUND OUT MY CRUSH KNOWINGLY LED ME TO A PRISON TO BE STUCK THERE FOREVER, IT WOULD TAKE ME WAY MORE THAN THREE SENTENCES TO FORGIVE HIM? HELLO???
So cheese, wine, clocks and capybaras are canon now. And Aurora. The ancient nightwing queen had wine - do modern dragons still have wine or was it lost?
We’re all imagining Aurora as real life Aurora right. Right? I like to think she’s canon in every universe like Mike and that’s why she’s also in Sky cotl.
the dragon accords are really interesting to me and I hope they explain how/why those fell away, because they don’t show up at all in Darkstalker which is 1000 years later (right?) (I think so.)
skywing animus. Am I hurt? Yes. I really like their take on animus magic, and I guess I assumed it went all the way back to the beginning. It IS interesting that the skywings must’ve only sworn off of magic after the summer palace massacre in darkstalker. I know the skywing queen (presumably) kills Precipie, but did her bloodline die off before darkstalker? Or did Queen Summit also slime out her relatives?
The way things are going, MY guess is the next POV(s) will probably be Mulberry or Platypus? I guess it could be Quokka too, but Platypus just seems more involved out of the two of them.
I’m disappointed by how little we see Sora in this book. She’s relevant in the first part but it kind of just reads like she’s more of a plot device for Umber, especially considering a lot of her character points (ptsd) just aren’t really mentioned anymore after they arrive in the isle. I mean Umber LITERALLY seems to sleep off her entire character healing arc. Maybe this will change in the last part of the book? I hope so. It’s not like I expected her to be the main side character but… come on….
Book 16 definitely did not escape the WoF curse of fast romances…
I see a lot of critique about the wildwings not looking like WoF dragons, and I also see a lot of people getting REALLY upset about that critique (kind of how it always goes with this fandom. Ex: the graphic novel artstyle war.) I do agree that the fullbody spikes are more than a little out-of-place right now, but the books probably plan on explaining this. Umber makes a remark on lizards sharing the spikes, so it could easily just be a teaser for another tribe to be seen later down the line. After all, dragons from EVERYWHERE are coming here. Trust the process..?
Sharpwings grew on me a lot more than I expected them too. So did Dugong. I fucking love you Dugong I will give my life for you I don’t EVEN CARE WHAT ANYONE SAYS. don’t tell me if he betrays everyone in part 3. I don’t want to know. I don’t usually get so attached to any character like this but… dugong… you gotta fight back bro. Don’t let people lock you in your room for FOUR DAYS. GET BETTER FRIENDS OMG DUGONG. Dugong. :(
Seeing ancient technology/advancement is always fun because it just reinforces how BAD Darkstalker fucked everyone up!!
that’s about it! Overall, I’m loving the book! I don’t mean to be a negative Nancy, I just have the thoughts/critiques of… someone who is not in the target audience age range (middle grade.) Excited to see where part 3 goes! DOOOONT SPOIIIIL IT FOR MEEEEEEEEE
