Maybe I have brainrot from reading too much shounen manga, but what could've also worked based on your idea for how to fix it is her wanting to be a dragon rider from the get-go, everyone (understandably) doubting her because of her illness, and then she somehow gets in and then _doesn't_ bond with two dragons, but with a dragon that everyone has written off as useless. So then you have two underdogs that shouldn't be in this whole thing at all, but working together they figure out a way to keep up and slowly rise through the ranks. Also the cheating could've been a point for character development! She gets into the dragon riding academy through deceit and trickery and slowly has to learn how to actually keep up and not die on the battlefield. Or, y'know. Something.
I love that so much! Adding onto that the dragon is useless for the things that the people think. Yeah they slowly can overcome but not by getting over the weakness but by learned different ways to get the same result as the other people. The dragon doesn't have some super special skill. Just different strength that most people expect dragons to have. Like how Mulan in the climbing the pole scene works smarter instead of trying to muscle through it.
The reason why I DNFd is because once Violet was bonded with her dragon she was forced into a relationship with the guy that "hates" her. So now her feelings she had for her friend are just gone. Great...so her and Xaden are forced into having feelings for each other because their dragons are mates...ew
There was a similar thing in the Dragon Riders of Pern series but in that series, the dragons would couple and the connection between rider and dragon would "fuse" their desires but there was open discussions about how there could be r*pe even between dragons. It was very interesting!
someone with the chronic illness she has: the book gives huge internalised ablism vibes? her success is measured by how much she can do the exact things as able bodied people? huge huge "just push through and you can do anything :) :)" energy ? like when she broke her damn arm and is like "no i cant wear a sling because then im weak" is such big "i cannot use a walking stick, i need to walk unaided no matter how much pain it causes because that way im a real person and not *weak*" you know? im not expressing myself well because it bothers me too much lol
no i felt weird about that as well! her illness felt like a personal flaw rather than an integral element to how her life is different than others. not weaker, just different.
yessss this 100%! it's also wild because she would say "i can't wear a sling/get healed because I'll look weak" but it's just illogical because now instead of LOOKING weak for a while, she is literally making and keeping herself more "weak" and more vulnerable? so she's in even more danger? she proved that she could sneak around and poison people, but she coudln't sneak around and see a healer? it makes no sense, and feels like an attempt to inflate stakes in a way that just makes her feel a bit dense and not the "smart" character we're told she is
Fr. I keep hearing that the EDS rep "isn't bad", and on a whole, sure I guess the illness isn't misrepresented, which is unfortunately such a low bar to clear that "not bad" means "not wrong"...but the disabled rep? Awful. I hate when (for no character-building reason) an mc has hella internalized ableism just to make them look "tough". Disability fucking sucks. A lot of disabled people have internalized ableism (tbh even I struggle with it and I'm nowhere near as disabled as many others) but this point is NEVER PART OF THE CHARACTER it's literally JUST THERE TO MAKE THEM LOOK TOUGH. It's gross.
I knew nothing about the book premise or the author - so to later learn that Violet was supposed to have EDS came as a surprise to me because outside of her struggling to stay seated on her dragon most of all her " issues" was overcome with just " training" and "cleaverness". So I say it was a poor reputation for showing chronic illness. I also hated that she had no character growth. She virtually stayed the same person from beginning to the last chapter. If I had to rewrite Violet, I would want her to want to be a scribe. Make Dain successfully sneak her in the scribe school and have her mom forced her back. THEN, have her have a grow into loving being a rider. I would also make her a better friend because, my goodness, she was horrible to Dain. Realistically speaking, Dain should have been the person she trusted the most and confided in the most, so I would have her taking his advice for a longer duration in the book and show scenes where they are hanging out. That way, especially when she's dragged back into the rider school- we see the transition of her pulling away from him. Making new friends, stop confiding into him and becoming her own person. The betrayel he bestows in the end would be more impactful as well because he's hurt by her leaving being in her growth. And Xaden? Is that how you spell it, I dunno I listen to the audio version of the book. Oh, what wouldn't I change? First, pick the romance. Instant love or enemies to lovers. Instant love, I guess, have him be quiet but always doing a small smirk around her - I don't know anything to show he was remotely interested, and he didn't hate her. That would also the mean, the beginning scene where they first meet he wouldn't be scowling and acting weird and hateful to her, but more arrogant and playful. Enemies to lovers? Actually, show both of them hating each other - because of the ending we know he knew her brother was alive so he wouldn't hate her just because of her " family" instead have him not like her because he sees her always on Dain's leg, being submissive and virtually not a team player. Then, later, he can soften around her and begins to like her once she starts growing as a character. Violet can start liking him once he starts being nicer and realize his good qualities. Also, the conflict between them? Flip it. Xaden is the one upset because after they got close, he warned her to stay away from Dain, but she automatically refused because BFF, right? and that way, when Dain looks into her memories the guilt falls on her, because he was able to take it because she didn't trust Xaden and now the whole " you don't trust me " speech they kept annoying repeating through out the book actually makes sense.
re: military propaganda vibes + calling the rebellious group "greedy" and "unsatisfied with their resources", the author's husband is a US army officer who's done tours in iraq and afghanistan. so there's that
She has another book called "In the likely event" that is in the same vein where the main character is the U.S. military. The whole thing was military propaganda and a big white savior complex.
my suggestion is: get the horny aspect OUT of the dragon bonding. they can bond with the dragons and the lizards can be partners, no prob, but INSTEAD OF MAKING THEM HORNY FOR EACH OTHER LIKE IMMEDIATLY what if we made them go the enemies/rivals to lovers route bc the dragons are together. like they'd have to spend more time together bc of the big lizards, and with that time they'd be Obligated to have with each other at first they'd know about each other more and THEN have a reason to fuck, eventually that would be a nice sideplot to the whole war school shit perhaps
Like a bajillion other people have said by now Fourth Wing is really clearly influenced off of The Dragonriders of Pern series and that thing specifically is from those books. Take it or leave it imo is clear that’s just kinda what Anne McAferry was Into, BUT. If you’re doing a kind of… modernization(?) of Pern it feels weird she kept that at all 😂
You said at one point the MC's illness makes her bones brittle, in which case that would be very BAD EDS representation as the disorder has nothing to do with our bones outside. of one rare subtype where vertebral shape is affected. It's not brittle bone disease. EDS is a connective tissue disorder. The most common subtype results in hypermobility and frequent easy dislocation of joints.
thank you for this information! i am less than educated on the subject but the book did very little to explain what Violet's symptoms were so when she was breaking/dislocating bones i wasn't sure what part was a true representation of her disability or not.
Dislocation is certainly realistic! Breaking bones, not so much. I'm sort of tempted to read this book just to judge the representation. EDS affects me and several other members of my family and I kind of want to see if I can get a sort of group weigh-in from them on relevant passages...
@@charlie2.048...now that you mention it I want to read it bc my mom has read it and I want to tell her what about Violet is accurate to me and what made me cackle or roll my eyes.
Violet: I don't want to be a dragon rider I want to be a scribe Dain: okay let's get you back to the Scribes district. You want to be a scribe and being a dragon rider can killer you. Violet: *shock pikachu face* How dare you! I thought you were my friend! --- Halfway done but yeah Violet is a terrible friend to Dain. I just got to where the one lady was basically executed Dain is "let me see to get evidence." Violet is "How dare you just don't believe me!" I need *i am the childhood friend but i get screwed over* book
@alilbitmads Oh I would find it much more interesting. Yes he is controlling and over worrying as a sports mom when their five year old plays sports. I think making him Violets best friend instead of her older sisters was a mistake. It would be "Yeah he really doesn't know her and expects her to behave like her sister"
The children of the traitors going into the elite military academy to *serve* the cadets would make sense. There would be a real surprise and potential for conflict when Violet finds out the lowly servant Xaden has bonded a dragon in secret...
I haven't read Fourth Wing, but i've watch so many reviews. After hearing a few things about the book, not only do I not understand why the children of REBEL TRAITORS are even allowed into the military academy at all, but then to allow them to be in the ELITE sector of said military and ALLOWED to have access to the countries MOST DANGEROUS weapons (dragons)! In a better fantasy book, that would obviously be the stupidest idea. In this book, it's not only a plot hole, but it just shows the lack of planning and thinking that went into writing this.
I think it was explained the kids were allowed to go through threshing because it was assumed the dragons were going to just burn them on the spot. When the dragons actually bonded them they didn’t know what to do and we’re stuck because you can’t tell the dragons what to do.
@@jeniferyeadon2955 I feel like that is worse tho, because if these are supposed to be the children of traitors who can't be trusted why would you give them the chance at all if there is a possibility (even if it is small) that they could succeed in bonding with a dragon, their nation's weapon. That's just stupid lack of forethought.
I still can't get over how the author straight up had Xaden get one of the most OP dragon, yet didn't spin the block on the whole school & country. I audibly went "Yep, this book was definitely written by a 🤚🏻woman because ain't no way someone in an oppressed group would let the oppressors slide."
Fourth Wing is inspiring to me because it makes me feel like I could write something as good. Also, the "meet stupid." I've definitely been there, Violet.
As someone with a similar thing to EDS (possibly EDS), the fact that she would get caught in the air by this giant dragon hundreds of times would DEFINITELY hurt her. when you pull on a hypermobile person's limbs, it is very likely to subluxate. at this point her joints would get so weakened that they'd be constantly dislocated
17:38 it really makes no sense 😭 i remember in how to train your dragon, hiccup lost his leg because the dragon tried to catch him before falling. It should be way worse for someone who has an illness, being tugged on and caught hundreds of times in the sky.
As a hEDS person who dislocated both hips and caused permanent nerve damage in both of my hips and knees just by … riding a horse for two hours (no, I didn’t fall off; no, I didn’t land funny; yes, it was just by sitting on the damn horse - my body literally came apart because it was struggling so much to stay on top of the thing), the can’t-stay-in-the-dragon-saddle thing really does feel accurate lol.
I don't know what it's like to live with EDS, but, from what you say, shouldn't she have dislocated something with all those falls? Like at least her shoulder, or, taking your horse riding experience into account, a hip? Again, I can't possibly know what living with a disability is like, but these kinds of misconceptions in media won't help me understand.
@@fuunosenshi it’s absolutely possible and even probable that those falls would cause dislocations, but even then, dislocations with hEDS don’t always look like the typical screaming-agony dislocations you see in tv and film. For instance, I dislocated my hip rolling over in bed last night. Because it’s a joint that frequently dislocates, I just pop it back in and go about my business. In my experience, the first dislocation is always the most painful, but once a joint dislocates or subluxes, it’s much more likely that it will slip out again - but it will likely be much less painful than the first time. I understand the frustration of feeling the portrayal in the book is inconsistent - but it’s my experience that living with hEDS IS inconsistent. I rode horses for 4 years as a kid without a single injury. Sometimes my shoulder dislocates when I open my front door - but most days it doesn’t. If you believe the physios, the only way to reduce the frequency of injuries like that is by building up muscle - but then you have the how-do-I-build-muscle-without-getting-injured quandary. In the book, I believe she trains consistently to build muscle. THIS is the part of the book where I would expect to see injuries and setbacks. Again, I can’t speak for everyone living with this, but in my experience this is a condition that looks different day-to-day, and even then, it’s a spectrum. I don’t consider it a failing on the author’s part that she didn’t manage to represent *everyone’s* hEDS experience, because it looks different on everyone, and if we consider that Violet is a whole person (not just her health condition) it’s reductive to insist that she *should* be a perfect archetype of her illness regardless (I’m not suggesting this is something you’re accusing the book of, I’ve just read other comments along these lines). I dunno dude, all I’ll say is it’s made me more consistent with physio. Thanks for being interested in this!
RE: The Disability Rep..... I have a lot to say lol. Yarros herself has been extremely vocal about wanting to represent EDS and for this book to be seen as inspiring, but the way she did it was to strip the disability of what would have been realistic, and she had the disabled character grit her teeth and push through her pain and injuries and symptoms to succeed without any consequence of treating her body like trash. I think this is frightening because it's teaching people that her representation of the disability is "good", and a lot of people just blindly buy into that without acknowledging the harmful stuff. She has like 2% agency in her OWN HEAD about her disability, and it really felt icky. in the beginning of the novel, she doesn't think about her own body and lived experience, we get mysterious hints that something is wrong with her through every other character BUT violet. and we're in her head. make it make sense. Activities or sports like baseball, martial arts, and running, are advised against for people with EDS. Yarros has even said her family doctor has advised them that her sons (with EDS) should not be playing hockey. This is because these activities are particularly injurious to EDS folks, and we heal slower. Yet she wrote a story in which Violet is in an environment where she has suboptimal strength, and is engaging in activities that are fast, high-impact, vigorous, and would therefore realistically cause an increase in symptoms or a flare-up, and that’s not to mention the long-term damage she’d be doing from constantly injuring herself... but then didn't have that really impact Violet in any meaningful way? i have a hard time agreeing with people who claim that every decision violet makes is informed by her disability, because violet isn’t ever really thinking of anything specific or being mindful of how she moves through the world. she tells us the dangers and stakes and has her internalised ableism thing going on, but she never shows any agency in sneaking painkillers, sneaking into the menders (who she KNOWS and is friendly with due to their history of healing her), or making makeshift wraps for her joints to keep them more stable. She has no agency in her accommodation either -- Xaden and Tairn make her a saddle. Yeah this is a facet of her internalised ableism, but it's also just... when she's never doing anything for herself, and everyone else knows what she needs more than she does, it makes them read as an authority on her body & experiences, and makes her read like she's a floating head who has no idea she's in a disabled body. Violet's gritting her teeth and pushing through pain and injury is toxic, unsustainable, and not something we should be selling as "inspiring". If she's able to get through everything by just trying harder... where is the actual disability rep? like, at that point she's not even limited. it's gross ableist rhetoric to believe that disabled people can simply try harder (and i've been dismissed by medical professionals with this bias. it's real and harmful and terrifying.) what was the point of making her disabled if yarros wasn't going to actually have her adapt or challenge her own perceptions of her body or learn that she shouldn't have to train/compete/succeed above and beyond everyone else?
thank you for this information! i truly didn’t understand her disability while reading the book bc as you put it violet barely explains what she’s feeling in the moment. it was really difficult to see her overcoming challenges when it just seemed like she bounced back from everything by the power of plot.
@alilbitmads yeah it's a real shame 😭 I went back and read it a second time and marked her disability symptoms down, and it just makes no sense how she survive the way she does. Violet's obsession with proving her strength, worth, and capabilities, made sense, but having her prove herself by gritting her teeth, mentally shelving her pain, and performing either as well as or better than her able-bodied peers and not problematising that is really harmful. In fact it's supported by the characters and the actual narrative itself by having her succeed time and time again. as someone with EDS (Violet’s condition), I'm just kinda sad and uncomfortable and a bit baffled as to how people are seeing this as inclusive and "good rep". each to their own, I just don't understand it 😅
I feel like the only way that plot line would be redeemable or better done was if she had say, her mom tell her to push through stuff and like you said “grit her teeth and try harder” to the point of internalizing it and eventually overcoming that after meeting new people and finally taking care of herself
the "violence" nickname makes me so irrationally angry, when i first heard about it i thought it was a little cringe but not the worst, but to find out that she isn't even violent!!!!! i figured she'd be more feral and down to kill someone
Yooo having her sneak into the Threshing at the start of the book would have been LEAGUES better. Like if she always wanted to be a rider but her mom didn't think she'd ever be good enough. So she sneaks in and bonds with a dragon and since they're desperate for riders or whatever, they wouldn't be able to just kick her out. It would also establish that she's actually skilled if she managed to sneak in to the super special dragon test. It would also give the dragon a reason for picking her too. Because of her skill and her grit/determination. It also would have been cooler if she was tough/fearless in a way. Maybe because of her upbringing she grew thick skin, and maybe she'd actually be able to find a way to work around her disability in a way that makes sense.
🐉 I too wonder how these books get the economic success that they get. It's one of those questions that will never get answered, or at least not by booktube, where the economy side in general is kept under the rug.
to be fair, they're popular right now because romantasy is popular. that being said i am more of a fantasy fan so when the romance became more prevalent i lost all lot of patience for the poor world building. there are some romantasy books that i enjoy but its few and far between.
I think her poisoning the first guy she had to fight against so she could learn some basics and then poisoning Jack would have been smart but her overdoing it the way that she did made no sense
Yeah, the EDS rep isn't great. It's inconsistent in ways that aren't just natural variation, and even though the situation might lead someone to try and hide injuries, "powering through things" has really bad consequences, particularly long term. I don't want people to think asking me to do tasks which I dislocate things is in any way more reasonable than they already do. EDS typically affects joints not really the bone itself except for maybe effects of a particular subtype or comorbid things. So lots of dislocation, sure, broken bones not really.
thank you for sharing this information! the book itself does a pretty poor job explaining her EDS and i get that everyones experience is different but it really felt like the author was channeling toxic positivity rather than true acceptance.
corsets actually provide amazing back and breast support. That is a huge reason they were popular with working class women while upper class women tended to wear them also for supportive reasons but for supporting the heavy dresses they would wear. Bernadette Banner talks about how her experience wearing a back brace compares to her experience wearing corsets here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1y25Go12sUg.htmlsi=rHteXVg20koVa2QG and as someone with hypermobility issues, the same type of issues caused by EDS, we can actually be very easily injured by sleep. I sometimes sleep in wrist braces and a shoulder brace to keep myself from fucking up my more problematic joints in my sleep when I won’t be concious of my position. if my back was bad and not just my shoulder I would honestly be considering wearing a corset to sleep, just one with minimal waist reduction.
As someone who’s had… intimate relations with someone w EDS, I can at least feel comfortable saying that shmex scene was nooot really within the realms of possibility. But my qualifications on the subject end there! Thank you and goodnight ✌️🐉
I read this book ages ago and completely forgot what happens in the sex scene (because it was … forgettable). But unless she’s doing some intense swing acrobatics during the act, I can assure you (as a hEDS person myself) many EDS people are perfectly capable of *ucking hard. It’s a spectrum.
this book suffers so much from making its protagonists FAR too op. cmon. dragons??? MASSIVE dragons, vs griffons. and dragon riders that have genuinely earth shattering powers. why ARE they fighting the fliers???? pretty sure tairn could just wipe em out asap, and apparently meldren's dragon is even more powerful like the entire conflice seemed SO unrealistic
hopefully, reading it in this one felt a bit like fanfic where all of the mc's have insane op abilities akkhsakshk. come to think of it the writing style wasnt exactly dissimilar to fanfiction- ik its meant to be a jumping on point for new fantasy readers and easily accessible but there was kinda a weird disparity for the serious and mostly very adult subject matter and lines like So. Freaking. Hot. @@alilbitmads
I am on my fourth rewrite of my fantasy novel because getting your fantasy world to be interesting, well explained but not world dumped, and functional is HARD! Especially if your plot is heavily tied to the function of the social, magical, and cultural systems in place. Also, I'm sick of novels with an owe so smart herione who is actually an idiot. Katniss is a great example of a well-done version. People acknowledge that she is smart at times, but an idiot at others. She is a genius tracker and archer, socially, she's a dumbass. Authors need to stop telling us that a herione is smart, just smart, no particular area of expertise, and then not showing us any intelligence. Wrath of the Dawn did this too and drove me nuts.
While listening to the audio, I fell asleep during that 1st sex scene... yep... in my defense, I was really exhausted from a weekend trip... they was kissing, and then it was the next day, & miss violence was aone. And I didn't rewind... just kept on going...🐲🐲
Honestly the plot points that I keep hearing about Fourth Wing sound like they were ripped straight from Red Queen: war with unclear reason, a rebellion, brother dies off-page, special powers, childhood annoying love interest, brother actually alive, and betrayed at the end. Not revolutionary ideas but still.
She is the most main character to ever main charactered 🤣🤣🤣🤣 I loved that. I'm on the fence with reading it. Heard it is either you love it or hate it and I just don't know where I stand with reading it.
23:25 Dragon battle,why? Because it 2023 and ever since Eragon we've been trying to make that stuff make sense. Also the protag having lightning powers, two dragons, is helpless with her condition, yet can brazzenly cheat with poisoning and may be the chossen one. It's like the author realized they had written a Mary Sue then instead of going back to the redraft board said i'll just tack on a disability to skirt that critique. Like a frail protag can work really well. You just have to make it a true disadvantage.
Pausing to explain the thinking behind the corset. Violet's illness causes joints to randomly dislocate. You can in fact dislocate your ribs, I've seen a story from someone whose prof thought their dislocated rib was a hidden cell phone and looked sick when they just shoved it back into place. So the purpose of the corset would be to restrict the ribs so they can't randomly pop out if Violet moves around too much in her sleep. IDK if that's a thing in the real world because fortunately I don't have that problem, my joints just sublux, but that's why she would wear a corset. It being restrictive is the point. It's still less uncomfortable than dislocated ribs.
the powers doesn't make sense to me, either that or I missed something. Like i have so much to talk about rn 1. The power system. Are the powers unique to the person, the dragon or the pairing between person and dragon? Because baby dragons being a wildcard instead of having one consistent power set not only makes them extremely powerful, but it contradicts what we're told about how power acquisition works 2. Multi-bonding Apparently there's zero downside to bonding with multiple dragons. Not only that but its the immature +4 wildcard dragon that initiated a second bond, yet its somehow the first *ever* because they just dont let it happen, until this very moment with this one specific person 3. The "limiter" So apparently the reason why dragons bond is because there's some block that negates their own usage of power, yet they found a loophole so that humans can use their powers, but its not explained as to why or how the entities that made the block in the first place didn't fix this. 4. The Wyverns So evil dragons become Wyverns, which seem like majin monsters to me if anything, and they're common enough to be integral to the universe, but not common enough that they don't just raid the academy. On another note, since Dragons can just choose who to bond with, zero autonomy on the human side, then why can't Wyverns just hijack the place, force bond with everybody and leave? They'd be automatically be considered evil, executed and the entire academy would be out of troops because no one there has self control when it comes to culling entire groups of people 5. Do the wyverns just hang out in one area? Cause assuming they're just mind controlled then there's probably thousands of Wyverns hanging out in a volcano waiting to swoop in. If they're zombies which some people have made it sound like, then *whos making them?* 5. Mind reading Has she never explained why mind reading is just this taboo? Is mind reading too strong to exist, but unlocking doors and refilling pens is just fine?
i think th ebiggest issue is that while reading u can feel the missing direction and pure motivation to write. u read foruth wing and feel like somebody sat at home, knew what booktok was crying for, knew that smut sells and especially heteronormative "anti vanilla tiktok" smut and while the ya fantasy part is really easy soft worldbuilding with a soft magic system and a lot of unanswered questions, so u would guess its a u would guess its for younger reader, sort of a divergent x eragon but written like a wattpad story, but then the smut hits and i feel like its df not written for kids, its more mature than that and solely for marketing strategies. and in the end u have a book thats only good to esp one kind of reader on your fyp, the rest sees it as a half done buzzword mess that could've been really great if either: the writing and worldbuilding woud've been better so mature fantasy fans had fun reading it, or tone done the smut and have a light fantasy book for younger audiences. either way its in desperate need of a lector.
This!! Also idk if anyone here even bothered with Red Queen but isn't it too much coincidence Violet & Mare have same powers and same hair?? Or is this common and i just missed it? 😅
Yeah, as someone with a chronic illness/disability from the same family as the main character, the disability rep in this book is atrocious and most of the praise for the disability rep seems to come from able bodied people who have no frame of reference for what its actually like and simply praise it for having rep but in a super inspiration porn-y way.
I keep saying this but it reminded me way too much of Divergence, but with dragons. I have thought about it, though, and I think I do like Violet. I just want Xaden to go away and just let this be a fantasy-adventure story w/o the romance, but that's my rewrite idea lol.
I wanted to read this book bcs I saw that it was popular and it looked to me that people liked it.... And then I watched some reviews and I was like "Oh, okay, nevermind. Maybe I'm not as interested as I thought I was." 🐉 Not that I wanna judge a book before I read it but I realized by listening to people explain the plot of the book that it just isn't speaking to me. Not bcs it's poorly written but bcs a magical war school where people kill each other bcs that makes perfect sense and the main character who doesn't even want to be where they are just doesn't seem like something *I* would want to read.
Thank you for this, I was really tempted to just buy this book to read, cause dragons, but I was suspicious that it always seemed to be put in reading lists with ACOTAR which I am not a fan of at all. Glad to see my intuition was right and thanks for saving me $20 bb 😘
when i got to the obstacle course, i lost it. that might be the funniest thing iv read in a long time. i feel like you can take this book and without adding any new plot points, just moving and removing events, make a much better written book.
I'm begging everyone to just read the Fireborn trilogy by Rosaria Munda. It's actual good YA, has an insane amount of similarities to Fourth Wing anddd was published way earlier...strangely. Like, the plot and world is the same but actually good? And fleshed out?
11:45 does it matter if these writers are white and women? Would you ask that if a black writer wrote a book like this or it bothers you when white writers write books like this?
I do have EDS and, in full honestly, I haven't read the book yet (i intend to) but from the parts I've seen reviewers read, I don't like the representation of EDS. It's a very complicated genetic condition with a lot of other complex conditions attached to it. And I feel currently that the rep is more 'owo she's so frail and weak and smol' as opposed to really trying to talk about a rare chronic illness. But, again, I have yet to read it, and my opinion can change afterward, but that is my view at a glance from this novel.
So this is the Dragonriders of Pern (Anne McCaffrey, 1968) but without the worldbuilding? Because those sound a LOT like Pern dragons and Pern dragon riders. There's 24 books in that series and I didn't care for it, but sadly every time I hear about Fourth Wing my brain just goes '"Wow, that sounds like a bad rip off of Pern and I didn't even like Pern!". For anyone that likes the idea of people riding dragons and books centered around this idea, I would recommend the series, my personal issue is that McCaffrey just has a very lush, wordy-way of going about describing people's actions and I felt like Pern is such a unique setting I would have perferred less Tolkien (homey, cozy, mythic, chatty) and more Asimov (dry, direct, chugs along) to the writing style. Personally my favorite book of the Perns was Dragonsong because it centered around a "Bard" in the Pern setting instead of a Dragon Rider. The Riders are definitely their own thing; it's not comparable to knights or a modern military group. The riders and the dragons are linked and that's neat and has neat implications but I felt like the riders often got a little navel-gazing instead of being more involved in the world around them; Dragonsong felt more like we got assigned to a random NPC that lives in the same world as the Dragonriders, but who has a more small-scale story to share with us with a slower build up.
I love it when a book has the potential to be good and really great for many readers, but the author took the easy high road of creating something that is. '"Meh Good" still liked and loved, but not everyone's wine. 🍷
Don't know about the book's portrayal, but a scribe is essentially a secretary/archivist/clerk, or similar. Some might even work in the commonly imagined image of librarians, but scribe =/= librarian. Their job consists of, but is not limited to: keeping track of expenses, income, and schedules; chronicling important events; writing copies and receipts for archiving as well as doing the actual archiving; draft speeches, treaties, itineraries, meeting minutes and do whatever else secretaries and archivists do. The specific tasks and how many would be needed in a given household would depend on the size, purpose and importance of said household. Area and era (aka. culture) would logically also play a role into said tasks, as well as the general importance and frequency of scribes. Disclaimer: This knowledge has been gained through osmosis. For further and more accurate knowledge on the topic I shall have to refer interested parties to google or their local librarian.
I 1000% agree. You should make a “fix it” segment for all books you talk about!!! You pointed out the exact issues I had with the novel, even though I really loved it. (I think I just really love the IDEA of this book 👀)
I haven't read this book because the whole setting makes no sense. Right off the bat, I know I won't like that, so why bother? I've DNF books for less 😅
There's probably like 12 type of Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and I have the hypermobile ( hEDS ) type. A lot of the symptoms and pain can differ depending on the individual. I can usually do most things, but have had to give up a lot of dreams and the career I'd wanted. I have chronic pain daily, and have to wear splints and kinetic tape so my smaller joints aren't as loose. The condition can also get way worse or it can stay roughly the same for years. Hope this helps some in understading and thank you for the video! I don't think I'll be reading Fourth Wing lol. Shame since it seemed good to begin with.
I am reading another fantasy book (low fantasy) and it made me realise that fourth wing was worsr than I realised. You just get trown in this world so much happens. And Iron flame is even worse. I liked your suggestions to make the book better. The betrayal would hit harder if Xaden and Violet had known each other for years.
I just choked down FW and returned it to the library. So many inconsistencies and awful world-building. I tried so hard, but I couldn't even turn my brain my off and vibe with the stupidity. Why give rebel kids giant, flying medieval nukes and super-powers? Why aren't more people using saddles when dozens of bonded cadets die by falling? Do the dragons actually *like* their humans? If so, why are they cool with other dragons torching their partners? I love how everyone in the comments is casually throwing out plots that are 10x better than the book. And I'm 90% sure the dragons were meant to be feral beasts before Yarros decided to make them smart.
I have gotten so sick of the whole mates/soulmates thing bc I haven't seen anyone really unpack the.. dubious consent implications. Like, Soulmate AUs in fanfiction makes sense bc of the investment in the couple pre-made but in popular original fiction its just so A. Awkwardly written and B. The relationships are Underdeveloped to the point where it gives insta-love that the character literally can't fight. I wasn't invested in Xaden and Violet's half-assed "enemies to lovers" 🙄 story bc it wasn't that so when violet is lusting after xaden and xaden's on his discount flirty bad boy bs it made the soulmate thing feel cheap
I came to the same conclusion after reading FW. The book could have been so good, but there is just so much that needs work. Too much tell rather than show, minimal worldbuilding and I found myself guessing all the twists correctly from the hints that were just too obvious. And I really don’t get the „romance“ bit, that was just highly irritating. With a couple of more editing rounds it could have gotten a much better book and I’m sad that we will never see that version 🥲🐉
OKAY PAUSING ONE MORE TIME I'm pretty sure everything this book did badly with the dragons was done well in SO LET THEM BURN so I recommend that book to anyone who likes dragons.
Oops pausing again almost immediately to say EDS doesn't make your bones brittle. The problem isn't in the bones, it's in the connective tissues. That's why joints dislocate really easily. It doesn't lead to fractures unless she has something else.
If anyone wants to read a book where the heroine starts out in a mercenary company in a way that feels very grounded and realistic, allow me to suggest the trilogy _The Deed of Paksenarrion,_ by Elizabeth Moon, where recruits absolutely do not murder each other on a whim.
This is the BEST review ever! I found this book rather meh personally; it all felt very shallow as if the author decided she was going to write and enemies to lovers and worked back from there. I don't mind romance in my fantasy - but there has to be a good fantasy story to tack the romance onto.
I could rant on the world in general. But I'm a guy, and the romance is just so weak. I think it wasn't for me and I'm fine with that. Dain is good at the beginning until he starts reading her mind without her permission. Xaden wasn't a good main love interest either. He is physically controlling and uses secrets to keep Violet tied up. Forget the horny for a moment, he keeps her on a leash through mutually assured destruction. Tairn is the only character in the entire book that has character. The corset is armor, thats all. Her sister tells her to always wear so she doesn't get ganked by someone. HATE THE LANGUAGE. The anachronistic is horrible, I didn't like it. How to fix Fourth Wing. Either ditch the fragile MC or death college. There are enough people who want to kill or please Violet. The "rebellion" is taught to be a cult instead, they were accused of worshipping the venin. Or have the moment when the flyers show up, Violet struggles realizing the venin are real and her own mother was a part of the cover up and while people die, she sits in a literal tower away from the conflict. This could be accompanied by a call back to the non classified scroll they saw chapters earlier. Or the gryphon riders were working with the venin and Violet is confronted with the truth. And the best, Xaden outright admonishes her before they fight the venin, telling her if she had been paying attention instead of worrying taking the D, she would have seen it earlier. This is never addressed that all she thinks about is sex. I want to give one real, honest compliment, Xaden not taking advantage during dragon horny is a nice consent matters moment. She would be under the influence and he doesn't take the advantage. I know this is most people's bare minimum, but it's better than what some writers have done with the dragon horny = rider horny trope.
🐉 Just found your channel and you just got a new subscriber. You're delightful! I agree with so much of what you've said. I've been hanging on DNF for about a week now, though I keep poking it because I've got about a hundred pages left and it's kind of like watching a train wreck at this point. What really got me was the bit where Xaden "betrays" her by giving the griffon people weapons or whatever (honestly, I kinda stopped paying attention at that point). And Violet gets all whiny because he didn't trust her enough to tell her that he's giving the "enemy" weapons. Girl, would you have even believed him if he'd told you? You're the GENERAL'S DAUGHTER. And another thing that really got me was when she's asking him questions like his favorite color or food or whatever...and it's just like the author wanted to include that because her Writing Character Sheet had those questions on it.
You know what's sad? Any time I hear "Dragonrider" as a plot point for a book, I just know it's going to be a bit of a dud. I don't know. I know there are good dragon rider stories out there, but it seems the exception instead of the rule, which is sad, as I said. It's fucking dragon riding. It should be the easiest thing to make good ever.
I literally just found your channel and already love your content. Also am I the only that hates it when dragons are portrayed as just horny animals. When I think of dragons I think of powerful, intelligent, mysterious otherworldly creatures that inspire awe and fear, so this trope is just weird and lame to me. Also I'm not a rider but what I would do to tweak the story is ditch the romance complexly and focus on the bonding aspect, instead of bonding with two dragons became she's a super special girl, I think it would have been interesting if she bonded to one that was seen as worthless, like it was the runt, or had a messed up wing or it couldn't breath fire or something, and have it be a story about two outcasts overcoming the odds and maybe rebelling against the system that looked down on them, she already has a bad relationship with her mom so it could work (I know that's basically the premise of how to train your dragon but I'm sucker for a well written underdog story) Also yeah I'm pretty sure if giant chicken cat went up against a flying fire lizard the latter would just burninate the living daylights out of the other
Fine, now I know more about that book, than I ever wanted to AND I am angry at myself for not finishing any project out of perfectionism, while crap like this makes money..
Well it's good to know my own feelngs about the _4W_ military academy were not unique. I thought the body and the minimal regard for dead students is weird. (While there are a lot of washouts in USMC basic training, they generally survive. Most pass PT and wash during rifle training.) That said, after Harry Potter, I hoped that fantasy school writers might actually research a bit on academic life. Nope.
God damn it I just want a GOOD DRAGON BOOK literally all I've found is the priory of the orange tree and I adore that don't get me wrong but I'd like more good dragon books please
