0:01

Welcome,

0:09

welcome, welcome to the Fantasy

0:11

Fangirls podcast where two sisters

0:14

dive deep into beloved lore, characters,

0:16

themes, theories, and more! We are

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so excited to kick off our Iron

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Flame deep dive today. Oh my gosh,

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the day has finally arrived!

0:25

Iron Flame is the highly anticipated

0:27

sequel to Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yaros

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and it came out earlier this month in November and

0:32

the book community, first of all, went absolutely

0:34

nuts and now we all need to process

0:37

it. Which is where Lexi

0:39

and I come in. Now

0:41

before we start curing this book hangover,

0:44

please listen closely to our content warning.

0:47

Most importantly, we are talking spoilers for

0:49

all of Iron Flame. We may be focusing

0:52

on chapters 1-6 today, but we are

0:54

bringing the entire

0:55

book into the conversation. So

0:57

if you don't know what pleasantly fuddled

0:59

but not entirely sloshed means,

1:02

this is not the place for you. I don't know, I feel

1:04

like I do actually kind of know what that means without

1:06

needing to read the book, but you all get the point.

1:10

This also of course means spoilers for Fourth

1:12

Wing and anything else from Rebecca Yaros.

1:14

It is all on the table here, folks. However,

1:17

you do not need to have listened to our 8 episode

1:19

podcast Deep Dive covering Fourth

1:21

Wing in the lead up to Iron Flame's release.

1:23

By all means, if you want to and laugh at

1:25

our theories that we got oh so wrong,

1:28

you can, but you do not have to listen to those

1:30

in order to do these deep dives

1:32

of Iron Flame. Which by the way, if you're new to the

1:34

Fantasy Fangirls Party, welcome, welcome, welcome.

1:36

We're so happy you're here. Next content

1:38

warning. This podcast is rated

1:41

R. We at Fantasy Fangirls are adults

1:43

who say adult things about an adult book.

1:47

Let's see, there is drinking

1:50

and partying in this section.

1:52

And thank God, thank God

1:55

that's the

1:55

only adult content

1:57

we ever talk about here at Fantasy

1:59

Fangirls. not ever

2:02

the hot, taut, muscles of Zayden Ryerson's body.

2:07

Nope, absolutely not thinking about that

2:09

one thing. I can't even look at you as

2:11

a straight face. Is that it? Last thing

2:13

before we jump into our first Iron Flame

2:15

deep dive. If you love fantasy

2:18

fangirls and you want to support us in making

2:20

this dream podcast our livelihood,

2:23

and if you want more content, more community

2:25

connection, discounts on merch, early access

2:27

to episodes, and so, so, so much more,

2:30

please check out our Patreon. We have two membership

2:33

tiers, the Cadet tier and the Dragon Riders

2:35

tier, and our Patreon community is insane.

2:38

Like I knew they were gonna be incredible, but they take

2:40

first place of Patreon communities ever

2:42

to walk the planet. We did our first monthly

2:45

live Q&A recently, and it was so much

2:47

fun. If you want to join in the

2:49

party, the link is in the show notes or

2:51

YouTube captions, depending where you're watching this, and

2:53

really and truly, thank you so much for helping

2:56

us bring these episodes to you. And

2:58

now, let's see. It is time

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to

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graduate. Baa

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baa baa baa baa baa

3:06

baa.

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We will still be

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friends forever.

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Forever means very different in this world. We

3:15

always begin our episode deep dives with Battle

3:17

Brief, AKA Nicole's summary of what

3:20

happens in the stretch of chapters. So,

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let's kick it off with chapters one through six of

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Iron Flame. Take it away, Nicole! Part

3:28

one, chapter one. The second book

3:30

of our story opens up with Violet in the middle

3:32

of a huge revelation. The

3:34

biscuits in Oresia are good.

3:37

Oh, and Brennan is alive. Brennan, or

3:39

Lieutenant Colonel Asari, stares at his sister

3:42

and tries to fill the awkward silence,

3:44

but Violet's inner monologue is giving us readers

3:47

a recap. Oresia is being rebuilt after

3:49

getting scorched six years ago. Then

3:51

in Wyvern are real. Who knew? She's

3:53

been mended by Brennan. Oh, and Lexi.

3:56

Do you know that Brennan is alive?

3:58

Brennan leaves for an assembly. meaning, but Violet

4:01

is determined not to just sit around

4:03

and wait. On her way to snoop out this meaning,

4:05

she is baffled at the beauty of Ryerson

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House. I mean there's

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actual art on the wall. Lexi!

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Wow! More on Ryerson

4:12

House today in our archive section. By the

4:15

Imogen and Bodhi, she joins them to eavesdrop,

4:17

but not really, on the assembly meaning, which is

4:19

in full swing and run by just...

4:22

peaches. But two things are very clear. One,

4:24

the assembly does not like to agree on

4:27

things, including the idea of the eight

4:29

Russian survivors going back to Baskaias. Two,

4:31

Violet Sorengale cannot be trusted,

4:34

and thank goodness our shadow

4:36

daddy is sitting on his chair.

4:38

Hello, throne room scene, and looking like he

4:41

don't give a fuck, he is loud

4:43

and clear that Violet Sorengale is

4:45

his responsibility. Yeah, she

4:47

is. Zaden outs the eavesdroppers, and assembly

4:50

is shocked. They're listening?

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The door is open, Siri. Calm down.

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The meeting is dismissed. Really, this could have

4:57

been an email. And Zaden clears the room, finally

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giving Violet and Brennan the opportunity to talk

5:02

about the six years Major Yzma voiced

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here. He's supposed to be

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dead! I did my best. Chapter

5:08

two, time, school, answers. After

5:10

an awkward silence, Violet starts firing

5:12

off her questions. Here's what we learned from Brennan.

5:15

He knew that she was in the writer's quadrant and that she

5:17

survived. Naolin didn't fail,

5:19

but it cost him everything. Yes,

5:22

we will be talking about it. They had to destroy

5:24

the box that Garak's dragon found. Also,

5:26

the box is Navarian made? What? Aracia

5:29

has a dormant ward stone. Brennan

5:31

thinks that they have about six months before the Venon are

5:33

at their doorstep. And Brennan doesn't

5:35

remember shit from their father.

5:37

How did they function without Violet? I am truly

5:40

baffled. Violet leaves the room mentally agreeing

5:42

with Taren. She has to go back to Bezgaiath.

5:45

Speaking of that, Kormudgeon, it's time to

5:47

see some dragons. Violet,

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Brennan, Brennan's dragon Marb, Taren,

5:52

and Segal all meet up. But

5:54

what the

5:55

fuck is that? And Darna

5:57

is huge. Well, sort of.

5:59

to guilt size, and her skills are

6:02

fucking black, and much

6:04

to Taren's dismay, she's a

6:06

teenager!

6:10

Zayden joins along with the other six

6:12

Bizgaya students who are ready to roll

6:15

on out of here, and Darna wakes up with the energy

6:17

of Bambi learning how to walk, but

6:19

Bambi with some sass. We

6:21

do learn, however, that she can no longer stop time.

6:24

Zayden has a plan to get our golden one, if we

6:26

can even call her that anymore, back

6:28

to the veil, but they gotta move fast, because

6:30

it's time to graduate!

6:32

Chapter 3! 18 hours of flying

6:35

later, woof! Taren and Violet approach

6:37

Bizgaya's along with the rest of the riot who fought at

6:39

Resin. As they walk towards the college, Violet

6:41

and Zayden have an out loud conversation,

6:44

far too intimate to speak mind

6:46

to mind, but our favorite, Shadow Daddy, does not

6:48

mind reminding her that they've been far more intimate

6:50

when she's been wrapped around his- Violet wants

6:53

to know if there's any other scribes that they can trust

6:55

in the rebellion. Zayden shuts it down.

6:57

Nope, no scribes. They also create a

6:59

plan for handling the Dane situation. But

7:01

it's not throwing him off the parapet or dick-punching

7:04

him. Rad. They enter Bizgaya's and the two

7:06

go into Liam's room to gather his letters from

7:09

Sloan. Cue weeping. But Violet's

7:11

ability to keep her mouth zipped is immediately

7:13

put to the test when she runs into her squad.

7:16

Violet gives Liam's letters to Reed a hide so

7:18

that they aren't burned with the rest of his things. A

7:21

very, fairly paranoid Zayden

7:23

rushes them away to the rotunda and Zayden

7:25

takes a huge L. I'll tell you

7:27

some answers. And

7:30

cue the start of some major conflict for

7:32

this dynamic duo. Violet issues

7:34

an ultimatum but cocky Zayden is like, LULV

7:37

good luck with that. The group walks outside to

7:39

formation and Zayden's and Garrix's names are

7:41

being called on the death roll. Awkward.

7:44

Chapter 4. Captain Fitzgibbon says it perfectly.

7:46

You're not dead. Colonel

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Aetosis immediately unhinged. Inconspicuous,

7:52

my guy. But General Soringale is pissed.

7:55

Zayden spins their story. They were attacked

7:57

by griffins on the flight to Athbane. Killing,

7:59

dae,

7:59

fuel Liam and Soleil. Violet

8:02

steps in and shares her selective

8:04

truth, but also

8:05

that she was sliced open by a poison-tipped

8:07

blade. Mama Thorngale is irate

8:10

with Colonel Aitos. Clearly his discretion

8:12

lacks all common fucking sense. God fucking

8:14

damn it, Dane's dad! She dismisses the showing

8:16

and graduation continues. Dane breaks formation

8:19

towards Violet. Violet, you're safe!

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And Violet replies in true parks and

8:24

rec, mean fashion. Touch me and I swear to God

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I'll cut your fucking hands off and let the quadrants sort

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you out at the next round of challenges, Dane Aitos.

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Violence, indeed. Zayden makes

8:33

this whole spectacle of it. She's

8:36

mine, Dane Aitos! Violet

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is looking up at the heavens. Kill. Me.

8:41

Now. Zayden puts Dane in his place with one

8:44

word, though. Aspene. That

8:46

shut him up. Graduation finally continues

8:49

and the third years get their orders. And

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that's it! Their second year is now. Yay?

8:54

Chapter 5! Who's ready to par-day?

8:58

After a quick chat about the mysterious village

9:00

of Shuntara and a download of what we can

9:02

expect from the second year at Buzzgaius, we,

9:04

in Violet's head, learn that she's dealing with

9:06

some major survivor's guilt, making it

9:08

really hard to go back to the swing of things. The

9:11

squad starts asking questions about Violet and Imogen's

9:13

war games, but luckily Imogen covers

9:15

and they all cheers to Liam. Quinn

9:18

quickly changes the subject into something nice

9:20

and light-hearted, like advice on

9:22

not getting attached to the first years, because they're probably

9:24

gonna die. Wait'll lighten the mood, Quinn.

9:27

Zayden captures Violet's attention and she

9:29

excuses herself from her squad to go talk to

9:31

him. Oh, and Garak is there too,

9:33

but not for long, because he's ignored and he leaves without

9:36

figuring your shit out. Garak, come back!

9:38

I need more of you in my life! Zayden and

9:40

Drunk Violet have their moment together and they pick

9:42

up their earlier conversation. Violet needs full honesty.

9:45

Zayden needs her to start asking questions and he'll

9:47

answer them. Get used to this, friends, because

9:49

this will be a common theme in this book.

9:51

But this lover squabble is interrupted by Colonel

9:53

Aitos and a major with a perfect uniform

9:56

and a perfectly cruel smile. Dun dun

9:58

dun! Aitos introduces this man to the world. as a

10:00

new life commandant, Varish, and get ready

10:02

to hate him with a fiery passion we had

10:05

practiced with Dayne last year. It's time to put it to

10:07

use. We learn that Zayden has been sent to Samara,

10:09

a southern outpost on the front, but Varish

10:11

does his first heinous thing and

10:14

hands Zayden and Violet their misses. Every

10:16

fortnight, you get to fly to one another, rotating these

10:18

trips, put them at seeing each other every seven

10:20

days. Ato's turns to leave, but not without a

10:22

nut, so cryptic, secrets die

10:25

with those who keep them. Yikes. And

10:27

again, fly, my guys. Chapter 6. This

10:29

was absolutely a death promise. Violet

10:32

is furious and out in the courtyard, Violet reps

10:34

her lightning rip, but there's other

10:36

cadets around. Oops, sorry. Zayden

10:39

and Violet say their goodbyes. We learn that Segal

10:41

and Taren can't communicate from that far away. They

10:43

can't put anything in writing. Violet

10:45

cannot involve herself in any marked one's missions,

10:48

and she can only trust those who are at rest in. Oh,

10:50

and Zayden is going to continue being a

10:52

morally gray cocky prick. Just

10:55

as Violet is about to give in and kiss her shadow

10:57

daddy, he pulls away with the anticipation

11:00

is good for us, and for us readers, Violet

11:02

pulls the I can go fuck anyone I want card,

11:04

and confident cocky Zayden comes back out

11:06

to play. You can, but you won't ruin

11:09

me Zayden Ryerson. Zayden leaves and Rhee comes

11:11

to comfort her friend, but she's shining

11:13

with pride. The bad news? Zayden is a

11:15

wing leader. The good news? Rhee is

11:17

a squad leader. Her first orders

11:20

to her squad, though? The not at all

11:22

ominous live. Easier

11:24

said than done.

11:26

Oh, I forgot how hard those were.

11:28

Oh my gosh, it's so good to be

11:30

back in these deep dives. Great job,

11:32

Nicole. Let's now tap into our signet power.

11:35

This is really the bulk here of these deep dive episodes

11:37

where we are going to discuss key insights, reflections,

11:40

foreshadowing, and of course, all of our favorites

11:42

theories. Before we even dive into

11:45

the story itself, I want to start with the dedication.

11:48

It's to my fellow zebras, not

11:50

all strength is physical. If you were like

11:52

me and you wondered why a

11:54

zebra from the Ellers down a society, a

11:57

common saying in med school is when you

11:59

hear hoof beats. behind you don't expect

12:01

to see a zebra. In other words, look

12:03

for the more common and usual, rather

12:05

than the surprising diagnoses. People

12:08

with rare and chronic illnesses

12:10

though, spend years trying to figure

12:12

out what the heck is going on with them and

12:14

hearing answers like, you look normal,

12:17

you are probably too young to have so

12:19

many problems, you can't have that, it's

12:21

too rare. A lot of my friends have chronic

12:23

illnesses and every single one of them have

12:25

heard these exact phrases and more.

12:28

It's heartbreaking really. The zebra became

12:30

the symbol for EDS and HPD,

12:33

Hyper Mobility Spectrum Disorder,

12:35

because sometimes it is the unexpected.

12:38

Quote, sometimes when you hear hoof beats,

12:40

it really is a zebra. Also, not

12:42

two zebras have identical stripes. Just

12:44

like everyone with EDS and HSD aren't

12:47

the same as well. Now, this was just a

12:49

fun little addition from the EDS

12:51

Society. A group of zebras

12:54

is called a dazzle. That's

12:56

lovely, I love that. That's so delightful, yes.

12:58

And I've seen on social media, a lot of people

13:00

were over the moon to

13:03

see the dedication to my

13:05

fellow zebras. And I think that just proves

13:07

how much care and attention Rebecca

13:10

is putting into the

13:12

representation in this book. So I thought that was just

13:15

beautiful. Then right after the dedication,

13:17

we get the content warning. And woof,

13:19

this set me in the mindset of like, oh

13:21

dear, we are about to get emotionally

13:24

wrecked by this book, because it just goes

13:26

on and on and on and on. Psychological

13:29

and physical torture was a eye opener.

13:32

This is when I was like, oh dang, we're about

13:34

to see some interrogation. When we were doing

13:37

our deep dive of fourth wing, I was really

13:39

convinced that we were gonna get some level of interrogation.

13:42

But I can honestly say, I wasn't

13:44

expecting it to be a class at

13:46

all. And I love this because the content

13:48

warning just keeps on going. It does say an animal

13:50

death. I am curious because I'm guessing

13:53

she means bade, but we didn't get that

13:55

in fourth wing when they died.

13:57

So it was just an interesting addition to iron and flour.

14:00

And now as we move forward the transcription

14:02

it is the same as in fourth wing So I'm gonna

14:04

pull out the first half of it here The following text

14:07

has been faithfully transcribed from Navarian

14:09

into the modern language by Jacenia Neil

14:11

Wert Curator of the Scribe Quadrant at

14:13

Biscayeth War College now like

14:16

I just said This is the exact same as we saw in fourth

14:18

wing here I do want to point out that no

14:20

matter how our five book story ends It

14:23

sounds like there will still be a Biscayeth War

14:25

College at the end of it either that or it falls

14:27

and Jacenia And a group of others are like

14:29

in charge of recreating it Hopefully

14:32

be more truth involved

14:34

of assuming since Jacenia would be the curator of

14:37

the Scribe Quadrant Also people have pointed out

14:39

the rankings in the epigraphs

14:41

for each of the chapters so for instance

14:43

one says cadet Violet Sorengale, Lieutenant

14:46

Zaden Ryerson and Also,

14:49

there is one where it's cadet Jacenia

14:51

Neil Wert. It's interesting the dichotomy

14:54

between Curator of the Scribe

14:56

Quadrant at the beginning now There

14:58

is a lot of people who are very very

15:00

worried at the recovered Correspondence

15:03

from Lieutenant Zaden Ryerson and cadet

15:05

Violet Sorengale considering the fact that those

15:08

are their current statuses

15:10

But throughout the book it is everyone's current

15:12

status. However, there is one Notable

15:15

difference and one notable exception

15:18

and I will be talking about it later in this episode.

15:21

Oh, I don't even know what you're talking about here

15:23

I'm excited

15:25

Now let's get into the book itself So

15:28

as we open this up in chapter one First

15:30

of all, we did do a bonus episode in what

15:33

mid October on this excerpt and

15:35

the audiobook excerpt from chapter three as well

15:37

So it's really fun to now Reanalyze

15:40

this with the context of the whole book So

15:42

if you want even more on just chapter

15:45

one, please go listen to that other bonus

15:47

episode We did like two hours on eight

15:49

minutes of audio like there's a lot there So

15:53

chapter one's epigraph is from Cyrilla.

15:55

No word now no word that is the same

15:57

last name as Jacenia So I

15:59

think that we can gather that this is either

16:01

Jacenia's mother or maybe an ant

16:04

figure. This public notice is

16:06

from six years ago, so it absolutely

16:08

must be someone older who has of course

16:10

graduated from the scribe quadrant. And

16:12

it's also notable that this is like the public

16:15

notice for the erasure burning.

16:17

So we would assume it's not only

16:19

someone who has graduated from the scribe

16:21

quadrant, but it's also someone who is high

16:24

up the rankings as a scribe. I'm

16:26

really leaning towards mother on this

16:28

one. I think you mentioned in the bonus episode

16:31

that it could be an ant, but

16:33

knowing Rebecca's writing style, the

16:36

mother just has so much more weight to

16:38

it. And we also get a excerpt from

16:40

Silraila Nillwert later on in this book when

16:42

she's discussing the transfer of power

16:45

of Tyrrondor. But we'll cover that when

16:47

we cover those chapters. And while we knew this at the

16:49

end of fourth wing, it is reiterated here. Erycia

16:52

was burned by dragon fire. And

16:54

so you'd have to ask by which dragons? My

16:56

guess is at minimum, Kota

16:58

was definitely the one who torched it. I definitely

17:01

think that Aemser was involved with this as

17:03

well, Loa, Soren, Gail's dragon. And

17:05

at this point, let's throw Colonel Eitos' dragon

17:07

in there too, because god fucking damn it, Dane's dead.

17:11

DSDDD. I agree completely.

17:13

I agree completely. Dakota, absolutely. I'm

17:18

really leaning towards Aemser

17:20

being firmly absolutely as well. We

17:23

have it confirmed in Zayden's POV chapter

17:25

from fourth wing, not the bonus one, but

17:27

the one we actually get at the very end, that Violet

17:29

says, my mother saw the burning with her own

17:31

eyes. So if Lilith was there, we can strongly

17:34

assume that Aemser was there as well. And

17:37

considering her rank, she would probably

17:39

be the person who roasts Erycia.

17:41

That might be another reason why Brennan is a little

17:44

bit peeved at her, huh? So speaking of Brennan,

17:46

we open and what we can guess is less than

17:48

an hour after where fourth wing's cliffhanger

17:50

left us. If you somehow forgot, it ended

17:53

with Brennan saying, welcome to the revolution,

17:55

which shocked a fandom to its core

17:57

because he was supposed to be dead. Violet

18:00

had just been mended by Brennan and Arisha after

18:02

she was stabbed with a poisonous dagger by a

18:04

zenon because guess what? They're real. So

18:07

she's dressed, she's healed enough to be on her feet,

18:09

she's now eating with her brother, and no

18:11

Zayden's around. So we all caught

18:13

up and let's say yeah, less than an hour later here.

18:15

I love Violet's thought process

18:18

as she's processing

18:20

all of this. I love how it catches us up with

18:22

the end of the last book. Violet is reciting

18:24

all these big, unbelievable things and she's

18:26

just still actively processing everything

18:29

that has happened to her in this past week. This

18:31

is also brilliant from Rebecca.

18:33

You know, in sequels, we

18:36

have to have some element of the first chapter

18:38

being a recap for the audience. Not

18:41

everyone does 23 hours of podcasting on a book.

18:43

So having that first chapter being

18:46

the here's what went down

18:48

last book is really important for us readers. But

18:50

what I love is it's not forced here. It's

18:52

Violet's natural processes of thinking.

18:55

And it's always something that stands out to me in

18:57

a book series of when they do it well because

18:59

you don't really notice it when

19:02

they do it well. It just feels like it's part of the story. But

19:04

there's sometimes where it's like, oh, we are in recap

19:07

mode, and it feels a little

19:09

forced. But this is not at all. It's

19:12

so brilliant from Rebecca. I love

19:14

it. I absolutely agree. Just like the setup within

19:16

sequels is so important. I believe Harry

19:18

Potter is the star example of how

19:21

to do that catch up there with what's happened in the

19:23

past books to get you all caught up and moving

19:25

on with the rest of the story here. I always think of

19:27

Order of the Phoenix for that one because it's like Harry

19:29

laying out in the grass or in the bushes

19:32

like listening to the news. And that's how we get

19:34

the recap. Yep, those guys do it right. All

19:36

right. And guess what? Brennan

19:38

is alive. He's grown

19:41

up in these years. We can guess that he's between 30 and 32

19:43

years old. Yes, I did

19:45

the math. But war and the secret revolution

19:47

have aged him understandably. But

19:50

notices his dimple is quote unquote the only

19:52

boyish thing left. I love this description

19:55

quote, which now has tiny lines

19:57

at the edges of his eyes. It must be

19:59

shot. to see someone who you

20:02

knew so well six years later

20:04

and it's like you saw them and then you blinked

20:06

and then they're six years older and

20:09

so I love again we're always talking about Rebecca's

20:11

show don't tell and just lines like that

20:13

which has tiny lines of the edges of his

20:15

eyes it's that way of describing that he's older

20:18

and also he's probably been really

20:20

stressed he's one of the leaders of a revolution that

20:22

will age someone pretty quick and

20:24

I just I love those little descriptions it's so

20:26

beautiful. Throughout their short time in Arisha here

20:29

Violet keeps thinking about he's still so him though

20:31

no matter how much Brennan has aged these past six years

20:34

no matter how mad Violet is at him for faking

20:36

his death no matter how much he realizes

20:38

he is kind of a stranger now she

20:41

feels this familiarity that you

20:43

only have with someone who you knew so deeply

20:45

for so long. There's that line quote it's

20:47

the most Brennan move ever you

20:50

can only say that about someone you know so well and

20:52

it just that those six words

20:55

have so much subtext and so much history

20:57

behind them. However Violet is

20:59

definitely giving her brother some sass to

21:01

be honest I would be pretty pissed off at

21:03

my brother too if I'd been mourning his death for

21:06

the past six years and it's like oh hey you're actually

21:08

alive? I would be furious

21:12

like I think she's going easy on

21:14

him I

21:14

would have ripped him a new asshole.

21:17

What you mean like maybe punch him in the face like the other

21:19

one time? I

21:21

would have

21:21

been Mira yes absolutely. He's

21:23

like just sitting there and you know eating

21:26

biscuits and smiling and trying

21:28

to fill this awkward silence because Violet's

21:30

like not talking for you know two

21:32

pages but I do love the irony

21:34

of this line Brennan says quote a few

21:36

days ago I'm pretty sure I never get to watch

21:39

you do well anything ever again

21:41

Brennan think before you speak

21:43

my guy because she felt

21:45

that way for six years.

21:48

I love how Violet is more angry than

21:50

she realizes there's such a mix

21:52

of emotions between being relieved that

21:55

her brother is alive and being upset that

21:57

he let her think that he was dead and this

21:59

whole book is Violet grappling with the aftermath

22:02

of her world turning upside down. You

22:04

know, knowledge is what grounds her. Knowledge is what's

22:07

sacred to Violet. And now everything

22:09

she thought she knew is a lie. And

22:12

it shows in very big ways in this book, but

22:14

also in just like little ways like this

22:16

where she is more angry than she

22:18

realizes. And she's just again processing

22:21

so much throughout a lot

22:23

of this book. We learned that Brennan has a new name,

22:26

Lieutenant Colonel Aesirai, which means resurrection.

22:29

We learned later that's what it means in Tearish. And

22:31

with this new identity, he's hidden.

22:33

No one in Poromil knows who

22:35

he is. The assembly does, but

22:38

I doubt most people in Orisha know

22:40

that he is Brennan Sorenghal. He's had to take

22:42

on a new identity and now

22:44

he is someone new and in a position

22:46

of power here in this revolution. There is

22:48

a moment when they're at Uncle Pecares' house

22:51

where he is addressed as Lieutenant Colonel

22:53

Aesirai, but then he says something about like,

22:56

as her brother or something to that effect. And

22:58

I don't know if that was just a

23:00

whoops, that might have been a whoops,

23:02

but that was a moment where it was like, wait,

23:05

what? I'm like, who knows this? So it is

23:07

fun to speculate who knows and who doesn't. There are

23:09

a lot of mentions of how Bodhi

23:12

closely resembles Zayden. It's

23:14

throughout this entire book, but it's specifically here.

23:17

Now this could just be character development

23:19

and descriptions. It's like ease for us reader to

23:22

be able to picture Bodhi, but

23:24

it did really stand out to me on a reread and

23:26

I was actually talking to a friend of mine and she

23:28

was saying how in the second half of the book

23:30

when they're at Orisha, Bodhi

23:33

is rarely mentioned and

23:35

she was wondering, she's like, is he off doing missions

23:37

impersonating as Zayden?

23:40

And yeah, so I'm curious,

23:43

I want to know more about Bodhi because

23:45

if that's the case, that

23:47

would be a cool character development for

23:49

our guy Bodhi. That's interesting. I don't think

23:52

that he's necessarily impersonating

23:54

Zayden, but I think that there's

23:56

going to be more emphasis on their

23:59

bloodline. They're not necessarily royalty,

24:01

but they are of aristocratic status

24:04

here. And I believe that Rebecca is

24:06

really drawing the line here between

24:08

Bodhi and Zaden are related.

24:10

And that's going to play a bigger role throughout

24:13

the series moving forward. I think also we

24:15

get a little bit more of Bodhi at Best

24:17

Gaius. And so it's just kind of trying

24:19

to have, I'll call it like a Zaden representative

24:23

there for her, you know? So

24:25

that's kind of how I saw it. It's really creating

24:27

a bridge that these two characters are

24:29

related. They're close. This

24:31

is going to play a bigger role later on. Totally.

24:34

There is that missive that Brennan

24:36

gets with the blue wax seal and

24:39

you and I spend so

24:42

long deciding who

24:44

is this missus from? And we were firmly

24:47

in It's From Professor Carr. Now

24:50

with the information that we now have in Iron Flame,

24:52

Professor Carr is

24:53

off the table. I am furious at

24:55

that, man. I cannot even tell you. Right

24:59

now, we'll definitely get to Professor

25:01

Carr when we get to that part, but now we

25:03

thought this missive was so important.

25:05

And it's like clearly not.

25:09

But it does make me wonder who is this missive

25:11

from still? And I'm leaning towards Davera.

25:15

So I kind of got the impression during

25:17

my first read that she was more of

25:19

a silent sympathizer, that it

25:21

was kind of like she was just waiting for her opportunity

25:24

to rise up and join. I don't know if the

25:26

missive would be from her. We know that

25:28

there are people forging

25:30

weapons at this guy. They have a connection to

25:32

a blacksmith or someone to that effect at

25:35

this guy. So my guess is that

25:37

it's a little bit more related to that. We still

25:39

don't fully know who is undercover

25:41

at this guy. At the end of part one,

25:43

we do learn that there are a lot more people who are sympathetic

25:46

than we might have realized, but not necessarily

25:48

who were undercover previously. Yes,

25:51

I agree. I think that there's definitely going to be like

25:53

it was not as important as we thought

25:55

it was going to be. I thought I went through the

25:57

book and like searched blue wax seal

25:59

or even just the color of blue and couldn't

26:02

find anything. I

26:04

don't know, maybe it's important, maybe it's not.

26:06

Maybe we'll get it in book three, we'll see. It's like, is

26:08

it from the healer's quadrant because they're

26:10

a blue shade or is it from the

26:13

infantry? Exactly, they're navy blue

26:15

too. So it's like, I don't think it is. I think that

26:17

it's something that we just have to understand. It's from

26:19

Baskias that they have a lot more

26:21

people undercover there than we realize and

26:24

the story keeps moving on.

26:25

That's not good enough for fantasy manga

26:27

like me nor. Well, let's move on

26:29

here to the assembly. First of all,

26:31

I want to know more about them. Same.

26:36

I want an entire book of the

26:38

assembly. I do love that we get Major

26:40

Ferris' name in this stretch, but

26:42

Violet still calls him a Hocknose for

26:44

the rest of the book. We also get a petite

26:46

woman whose hair is glossy. This is Trisa.

26:49

We get a man with thick silver hair and

26:51

a silver beard. This is Felix. My

26:54

love, I love Felix. I can't wait to

26:57

talk about him more. We get a blonde woman who's

26:59

built like a battle axe. Her name is Battle

27:01

Axe to our knowledge. And then we get Suri

27:03

who is just delightful. She's

27:05

described as having a giant emerald

27:08

ring. And the fact that this was pointed out,

27:10

it's probably nothing but you know me and

27:13

my like parsing through this language.

27:15

It's something to look out for. So keep

27:17

that in mind. Giant emerald ring is

27:20

Suri. I thought that as well. And I saw that. Ooh,

27:22

I wonder what this could mean. We'll dive more into

27:25

who these assembly members are and the limited

27:27

info we know of them, which Nicole pretty much just

27:29

recap. But we'll go into it more in a later episode.

27:32

But for now, we know that these are the five

27:34

assembly members plus Brennan and Zaden.

27:36

We learn later that Zaden is

27:39

the seventh assembly member. I

27:41

can't remember, is Brennan an assembly

27:43

member as well? Which would mean then that

27:45

all seven are present. There are seven total

27:47

assembly members. They need five to be

27:50

present together and four is a

27:52

majority. So even though it's made to

27:54

sound like not all seven are present at this

27:56

time, I'm under the impression that they are

27:58

because I think Brennan is. one of the assembly members

28:01

as well. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I got the exact same

28:03

thing. So that's why it was like, I think that's why this was such

28:05

a big deal, because all seven

28:08

were present. So that's when you know like,

28:10

Oh, shit's going down. Right?

28:12

Well, I want to know where else like they're from? Like

28:14

does everyone here live in Arisha? Or are

28:17

they from some of the other areas in Tirindor?

28:19

And they're like more I'll call it undercover

28:21

there. Because remember the other cities of

28:23

Tirindor, they were taken over by loyal

28:26

Navarian families. So I wonder if

28:29

Hocknose and Suri and all of them are

28:31

part of these other cities. I don't

28:33

know. I don't think so. I think that they really are

28:36

all somehow situated in Arisha. I again, I

28:38

want to know more about these characters. I want

28:40

to know how they all got to this place right here.

28:42

I want to know more. But until

28:44

then, we do know one thing for sure. They do

28:47

not trust Violet. Oh, no, they

28:49

do not. We hear a lot from the

28:51

assembly's discussion that we don't understand

28:53

in this moment. Again, it's a lot of information

28:56

gathering that us as the readers

28:58

and Violet, we just tuck that information away

29:00

for later because like, I know this is important.

29:02

I don't understand it yet. Once when I have

29:04

more context, this will all make a lot more sense.

29:07

And I love that little line tuck away this information

29:09

for later. It's so scribe. And

29:11

I just love the way Violet thinks with that stuff.

29:14

Now there is a moment in the assembly meeting where

29:16

Brennan and Zaden share a look and it dawns

29:19

on Violet that Zaden probably knows Brennan

29:21

better than she does. And it's moments

29:23

like this where it's like, Oh, God, I

29:25

sympathize so hard with Violet,

29:28

not only is her brother, who she's been

29:30

mourning for six years alive,

29:33

but she's also talked to

29:35

Zaden about him before she

29:37

knew that he was actually

29:40

alive and they knew the entire time. He

29:42

said nothing obviously with his like selective

29:45

truth stuff. How he wormed

29:47

his way back into her life after

29:49

this, I am shocked. I mean, not that

29:52

I am one to talk, I would have caved fast,

29:55

but still the fact that like he was able

29:57

to do that is just that that's impressive

29:59

Zaden. Well done. I like how

30:01

Taryn responds to Violet when she's

30:03

really him hawing over this, that

30:06

he's like, what would you have done with this information? And

30:08

it's a very good point. It does not excuse the

30:10

fact that Zaden really chose

30:12

some selective truth here, but it does make

30:14

sense of it's like, what would she have done with this

30:16

knowledge? Yes, of course, she had to eventually forgive

30:19

him. But man, that is the big thing

30:21

to have to forgive. Back to the assembly. When

30:23

one of the assembly members says that they should send

30:25

all but quote unquote, the two back

30:27

to Baskias. Which two are they talking

30:30

about? I assume that they're talking about Zaden

30:32

and Violet and them not being the ones to return

30:34

back to Baskias. But is that what you understood as well?

30:36

That's exactly what I understood. I definitely Violet,

30:39

no matter what, because I think that they were like, how do we

30:41

make Violet stay here and not be

30:43

a prisoner? But sorry, like be a prisoner. The only

30:45

other person I could think of with Zaden is like, you're

30:47

about to graduate. You're the leader of the revolution. You

30:50

gotta stay here, my guy. But just

30:52

as I'm talking about how Zaden warmed his way back

30:54

into Violet's life, I want to swoon over

30:56

Zaden for a moment. Quote, my

30:58

life is equal to any of theirs. We

31:01

learn and can gather based off

31:03

of this commanding presence in this

31:05

room that he has, that Zaden is actually

31:07

the rightful leader of Aracia.

31:09

Technically, Duke, sort

31:12

of, but the other guy was named Duke of Tirindor

31:14

when Aracia fell, as we learned

31:16

from a epigraph by Celilla Nilbert

31:19

later on in this book. But hearing him say

31:21

that his life is equal to any of theirs, that

31:23

is just such a good leader

31:25

alert. Also saying she, Violet,

31:28

is worth a dozen of me and I'm not

31:30

talking about her signet. Just, God,

31:33

I love Zaden. I love this so much. I'm

31:36

gonna say that so much this book and I don't even care. Also,

31:38

how did Zaden know that they were

31:41

in the hall? I'm assuming his shadows

31:43

or he had, you know, his

31:46

intended antenna up and he could

31:48

hear probably Violet's thoughts

31:50

or, because I'm assuming Imogen and Bodhi have like

31:52

shields locked in the place at this point. What

31:55

do they have their shields locked in the place here at Aracia?

31:57

I don't know if they would because they are in a safe

31:59

space. It's like all of the things that they would have to shield

32:02

from people. Everybody else already knows about

32:04

that. And nobody else knows that Zayden is an Intensic,

32:06

so they don't even know to shield out his thoughts

32:09

here. I am under the impression that Zayden

32:11

doesn't like to use his Intensic ability

32:13

for the people that he knows and loves. Like he's pretty

32:16

clear about saying he's not going to use it

32:18

with Violet. No, whether he actually doesn't

32:21

use it is another question, but he tries not to.

32:23

I assume that the same extends to Bodhi,

32:26

Emmogen, Garak, like the people who he's closest

32:28

with, he has a sense of respect for their

32:30

privacy. And more than anything, he already trusts

32:32

them. So he doesn't need to know what their

32:34

intentions are because he knows that they are on his

32:37

side. They know that he can, he knows that he can

32:39

trust them. Well, and there's also that moment later when

32:41

we are at the uncle's

32:44

house and Zayden is in the dining

32:46

room, Kat, Violet, Mira, and

32:48

Serena are all walking towards the dining room

32:50

and Zayden could hear the conversation,

32:53

quote unquote, hear the conversation happening out in the

32:55

hall. Now that could be because of his shadows again,

32:58

or it could be an Intensic moment. I do wonder

33:00

in that moment, was that him using his shadows or

33:02

his Intensic abilities? Can he use

33:04

his shadows to sense other people or is it

33:06

his Intensic powers? I don't know. I'm

33:08

going to lean shadows because again,

33:11

kind of like people are hiding. It's, there's

33:13

a little bit more of like that shadowy quality

33:15

to it. So I'm going to go with door number one, shadows.

33:18

I'm going to shock everyone and go door number two.

33:20

Intensic abilities. Of

33:22

course you are. I do want

33:24

to ask you, what do you think of this line? So

33:27

Brennan mentions how Violet needs

33:29

to be protected because if she

33:31

dies, Zayden dies. And Violet

33:33

thinks, quote, is that all I am to him? Brennan

33:36

Zayden's weakness. Do you think that he's

33:38

actually thinking of her as a weakness or is he

33:41

in like, you know, super Lieutenant Colonel

33:43

mode where he's in like plotting or what

33:45

do you think of this line? I think that he is definitely

33:47

in that Lieutenant Colonel mode. I think more than anything,

33:50

it's a reflection on Violet and her insecurities.

33:53

Because it's just a valid fact.

33:55

It's not subjective or anything like that. It is

33:57

a simple fact that her life is.

34:00

to the leader of this revolution.

34:02

There's no way around that. And it is a tactical

34:05

fact that needs to be considered with all

34:07

things involving Violet and Zayden,

34:09

right? But she is really insecure that

34:11

she is nothing more than a

34:13

lifeline for Zayden. That's really how

34:15

she was feeling in the second half of fourth wing. And

34:18

that's carrying over here as well, because while

34:20

yes, it is a fact, of course she's

34:22

more than that. Of course she is her own person

34:24

who should be kept alive just because she's

34:27

a person and not just because of Zayden. And

34:29

so I think that just because it is a fact that Brennan

34:31

has to point out, it's much more of a reflection

34:34

on her insecurity that that is all

34:36

she is. And that's something that she's really having to come

34:38

to terms with throughout this book in addition

34:40

to in fourth wing too.

34:41

I love that. I could not agree more with

34:44

that answer. Yes. Felix, already

34:46

stealing my heart. I love this man

34:49

so much. In the Iron

34:51

Flame like reactions episode, you actually

34:54

compared Felix to my husband's

34:56

best friend in our previous roommate. I

34:58

cannot see him any

35:00

other way now. I love it too.

35:02

I love it. Oh my God, I

35:04

love it. So Violet is being just like

35:06

absolutely eviscerated by the

35:08

assembly, mainly sorry with words

35:11

and stuff like that. But Felix defends her

35:13

in a way that it's almost, it's from a

35:16

very teacher kind of a way. Not

35:18

necessarily that he's teaching in that moment, but

35:20

it's very like professor status. He's

35:22

telling her that should she return, quote, Ato's

35:25

will not be among your friends. He will do

35:27

everything he can to kill you for what you've seen.

35:30

One, nope, actually when she does

35:32

show Dane what happens, he

35:35

will come to their side, which is

35:37

wild to me and I cannot wait to get to those stretch of chapters.

35:40

And secondly, Felix is already stepping

35:43

in as a pro Violet guy.

35:45

I fucking love Felix. He actually,

35:47

he does kind of give me like Dumbledore vibes where he's

35:49

like, I'm gonna tell you what you need to know in

35:51

that moment. I'm gonna push you, but

35:54

I'm also never gonna make you feel less than.

35:56

And I love that. Yes, I'm so excited

35:58

to talk to get into the. Felix side of things,

36:00

but it's just fun like again in a reread where

36:03

it's like, oh, Felix from the get go was

36:05

pro violet here and he does become her

36:07

mentor. He's not as prominent of a character

36:10

in Iron Flame as I might have liked,

36:12

especially in part two, and she's training with him

36:14

and all of that, but I am excited to learn

36:16

more about him and for him to really

36:19

be her mentor when it comes to

36:21

her lightning wielding here. It opens up so much

36:23

more with what she can do with her power, right? And

36:25

it makes me really disappointed in Professor Carr, but we

36:27

will get to that when we get to that stretch of chapters.

36:30

Anyway, as we start our much needed

36:32

info dump with Brennan, we learn

36:35

Brennan knew that violet

36:37

crossed the parapet and survived her first year.

36:40

Who was writing him? Who was giving him this information?

36:42

Was it Zayden or was it this mysterious

36:45

blue seal missive person that we are

36:47

so on that bottom? I don't think

36:49

that it's like one particular person that he's getting all of his

36:51

information from. I think that there is

36:53

a whole underground network that they have.

36:57

And yes, Zayden probably is a

36:59

big factor in that. Remember Emmogen is

37:01

also very familiar with Erysha, Bodhi

37:03

is as well. Like people who are in her squad

37:06

are coming to Erysha after threshing.

37:08

So I'm sure that it's just kind of general

37:11

knowledge and not one source of information

37:13

there. We also learn Mira does

37:15

not know that Brennan is alive. There

37:18

was a lot of speculation about this with most

37:20

of us assuming that no, Mira didn't know. But

37:23

maybe their mom does, which we sort of

37:25

learn now and get confirmed later that she definitely

37:28

did not know that Brennan was alive. When

37:30

I read this section of the book, I was like,

37:32

Oh, Lillis knows I

37:34

was convinced. I absolutely

37:37

was convinced that Lillis knew and then I was

37:40

laughably proven wrong later in this book

37:42

when she like is horrified

37:45

to learn that that Brennan is alive. And let us not

37:47

forget that in chapter one of fourth wing,

37:49

it is described that she, I'm

37:52

paraphrasing here, but it's something along the lines of she

37:54

tolerates Violet. She

37:56

sees herself in Mira, but she loved

37:59

Brennan. And for her to learn that Brennan

38:01

is alive was just such a powerful

38:04

moment. And I'm glad she didn't know. In

38:06

hindsight, I'm so glad she didn't know. I am too.

38:09

And it's so funny that you read it as, oh, this means that Lilith

38:11

did know. I read this as, oh, okay, I think

38:13

that this means that Lilith doesn't know that he

38:16

is alive. So we do learn that

38:18

Marb is Brennan's dragon. He's an orange

38:21

dagger tail, which I want to talk about the

38:23

color orange of dragons later, but that

38:25

is very much on my radar of whose dragons

38:27

are orange. But Marb

38:30

in Scottish Gallic and in Irish

38:32

as well means dead, which

38:35

is pretty on the money. Like, but

38:38

it also makes me wonder, is that future

38:40

foreshadowing or is that looking backwards

38:43

at the past as we thought that

38:45

Brennan was dead? I'm leaning towards the latter.

38:48

I think it definitely is a reflection on him

38:50

having died. And then of course his name means resurrection

38:52

as well. So it just goes hand in hand there. When

38:55

her and Brennan are talking, he goes like,

38:57

whoa, whoa, whoa, one question at a time. And

38:59

he puts his hands up like he's, you know, in trouble basically, like

39:01

put your hands up. And Violet notices

39:04

a rune shaped scar on Brennan's

39:06

palm. What could

39:09

this be? In our Q and A with

39:11

our Patreon members, we speculated this for

39:13

a little bit as well. There is a

39:16

lot of evidence that this could be the rune that

39:18

resurrected Brennan. So maybe Naolin

39:20

crafted this room and pressed it into Brennan's palm.

39:23

However, later on in room's

39:25

class, Professor Luchera is teaching

39:27

them how to weave runes. She weaves

39:30

a rune in the air. She describes this

39:32

is how you create one, you decide when

39:35

and how long it's going to be activated

39:37

for. And then she places her palm

39:40

on a wooden board and that's how the

39:42

rune gets actually activated. So

39:44

another thing I'm thinking is could this rune

39:46

on Brennan's palm be a non-activated

39:50

rune that is like ready to roll

39:52

when he places it in something? That's so

39:54

interesting. I love thinking about this. So

39:56

I thought of it as more of a scar from a rune that was already

39:59

used. I'm gonna go ahead and pull the line here of what we're talking

40:01

about. One at a time, he, Brennan,

40:04

holds up his hands like he's under attack, and

40:06

I glimpse a ruined shaped scar on his

40:08

palm before he grips the edge of the

40:10

table. Naolin, he was

40:13

his jaw flexes, unquote. I don't think

40:15

it's a coincidence that this description

40:17

is stated in the middle of their Naolin

40:20

resurrecting him conversation. That's not

40:22

a coincidence. So while we

40:24

don't know exactly what this

40:26

ruined scar is from or what it's for,

40:29

my guess is that it happened, or

40:31

was activated during that battle, whether

40:33

it was a reason that Brennan was killed or

40:35

it helps him stay alive. I think that it was

40:38

something that had to do with him being resurrected.

40:40

I definitely could see this being the

40:43

rune that someone, most likely Naolin,

40:45

pushed, like, activated within

40:48

Brennan, and that was the resurrection rune,

40:50

for lack of a better term. Now, it does make me wonder,

40:52

can someone burn out and maybe

40:55

channel from the source, which we'll talk more about in a second, when

40:57

they're weaving runes? Like, is

40:59

that how it gets really complicated? I

41:01

don't know. Like, as I was saying,

41:04

because originally I really did think that this ruined

41:06

scar was what helped him

41:08

resurrect, but you're right, Naolin,

41:11

he burned out from siphoning, or he pulled

41:13

that power from the source. Again, we'll talk about that here in

41:15

a second. So I don't know if runes would even

41:17

have anything to do with that in that situation.

41:20

So maybe it is actually not activated

41:22

yet, and it's something that will be, or maybe it's something

41:25

to do with protecting him, like

41:27

how the rebellion relics, and how that is actually

41:29

protecting all of them from Colonel

41:31

Laurie's ruins. So maybe

41:33

it's something to that effect. Ooh, I like

41:35

that idea too. There's so many possibilities,

41:38

and I know that that was not just a throwaway line. Like,

41:40

we will learn

41:40

more about that later books.

41:42

Absolutely. The way that Brennan exclaims

41:45

that Violet did have their dad, even though they

41:47

didn't have Brennan anymore, it gives us a

41:49

sense of confirmation that their dad wasn't pretending

41:51

to be dead, and actually part of the revolution as

41:53

well. There was a lot of speculation on maybe

41:56

he faked his death, and he's actually now with the revolution,

41:58

that he was teaching Brennan all about it. the stuff about

42:00

the revolution and that's what made Brennan turn over.

42:03

But from this point, none of that's the

42:05

case. I think it's pretty straightforward here. TBD,

42:07

if their dad is a Venon, I can't believe

42:10

I'm even entertaining this series. If

42:12

you listen to our fourth wing episodes, I was very

42:15

adamant about people not being Venon

42:17

and all that is out the window now. So I'm still

42:19

convinced, however, that Violet and Brennan's dad

42:21

is not a Venon. But who knows anything

42:24

anymore? I am just so

42:26

firmly in the camp that Papa Thorengale

42:28

was killed by leadership. And I mean, killed,

42:31

not Venonified by leadership, killed.

42:33

It's too perfect. Like

42:36

Lilith saying I'll see him soon at

42:38

the end of the book just like, Oh my god,

42:40

it's heartbreaking. However, there

42:43

is an incredibly popular theory

42:46

out there on the interwebs by Claudia

42:48

Carlucci and I'm going to link her TikToks

42:50

in the show notes. Claudia mentioned

42:53

that in the epigraph for chapter 66, it says, quote,

42:56

we have tried every method we know of

42:58

as he requested. There is no cure.

43:00

There is only control unquote. This

43:03

is a missive from Lieutenant

43:05

Colonel Nolan to General

43:08

Lilith Thorengale. Now, on first read, I was

43:10

like, Oh, this is about Jack. However,

43:14

Nolan, as Claudia mentioned, Nolan

43:16

in our stories timeline is

43:19

a Colonel, not a Lieutenant Colonel.

43:21

Uh-huh. So

43:24

in chapter 25, it

43:26

stated Colonel Nolan. If you wanted

43:28

a chapter timestamp, yes, I searched my entire

43:30

ebooks high and low. It is in there.

43:33

But this letter says Lieutenant Colonel. So Lieutenant

43:35

Colonel is the step below Colonel. So

43:37

that means it would be from the past, which means

43:40

either it's not about Jack and

43:42

it's about someone totally different, or it is

43:45

about Jack and he was promoted midway through

43:48

the Jack stuff. But that doesn't feel right. Absolutely

43:51

not. What if this is about a different Venet,

43:53

not Jack, a different Venet that

43:56

Lilith wanted cured,

43:58

but they weren't able to because As the missus

44:00

says, there is

44:01

only control. However, the

44:03

plot thickens. So

44:06

at Make It Say on Instagram,

44:08

which by the way, you all have tagged us in all these theory videos,

44:10

thank you so freaking much. You are

44:13

all amazing. Make It Say mentioned that

44:15

in chapter one of fourth wing, we get

44:17

the quote, "'Lilith had a fever

44:19

when she was pregnant with Violet. "'What

44:21

if it wasn't a fever? "'What if she was

44:24

drained either by herself

44:26

"'and she's the venom or by

44:28

Violet's father?'" Who is

44:30

venom and she was trying to save him by

44:33

finding a cure. Lieutenant Colonel

44:35

Nolan was not able to find a cure. He only

44:37

found control. Now,

44:39

here's my thoughts on these theories. I

44:41

don't

44:42

think it was Violet's father. I'm

44:45

so firmly in the camp that

44:48

Violet's father is dead just because it's

44:50

so perfect. It's too perfect for the story. Now,

44:52

we were also firmly in the camp of a lot of things that

44:55

we now have big eggs on our faces, so who knows? But

44:58

my question is, what if Lilith was asking about

45:00

herself because Violet's hair

45:02

has the color drained from

45:04

it no matter how short she cuts it? So there's

45:07

a lot of, you know, venom, Violet

45:10

crossover, but what if it's from Lilith instead?

45:12

I have not, this is all new information

45:15

to me. Like I am just flabbergasted

45:18

right now. So, okay, so first of all, absolutely

45:21

brilliant on catching that Lieutenant Colonel

45:23

Nolan versus Colonel Nolan, fantastic.

45:25

Well done, Claudia. Yeah, right, well done.

45:28

What if the venom that did get Lilith?

45:30

A lot of us fans are in the camp that Lilith

45:32

fever when she was pregnant with Violet is

45:34

definitely from a venom. Now, how it's

45:36

from a venom, we all kind of differ on our theories with

45:39

that, but the idea here is that it's definitely

45:41

from a venom. What if they caught

45:43

the venom that did get her and

45:45

they're trying to find a cure, they're trying to find control

45:48

and something to that effect. So it's not necessarily

45:51

that it's, but no, because they are wanting to

45:53

find that cure. I agree with you wholeheartedly.

45:55

I don't think it's their dad who's a venom

45:57

and they're trying to cure him and whatnot, but I do.

46:00

things like this right here really illustrates

46:02

how long leadership has known

46:05

and had been in that they're experimenting

46:07

on that Jack is absolutely

46:09

not the first right and in fact I bet he's not the first

46:12

because they know the telltale science they are watching

46:14

on that map there. What if Professor Emetario

46:17

I bet you more people than we think turn

46:19

then and on the mat because like they're having to suddenly

46:21

start channeling they're in a fight or

46:24

die situation and they're they don't

46:26

have control over their power right and

46:28

a lot of them are very power hungry like Jack

46:31

so what if Professor Emetario is almost like keeping

46:33

an eye on people because they know

46:35

that they need to pull them for those experimentations.

46:38

I'm gonna stir the pot a little bit deeper are

46:40

you ready for it? So I was

46:42

on Instagram this morning and someone tagged this in a

46:44

video I don't remember the name of the account but I will

46:46

put it in the show notes. When in fourth wing

46:49

we meet Dylan who rips

46:51

my guy Dylan he did not get the

46:53

time he deserved but it's described as

46:56

him looking so young and he having

46:58

blonde hair. Later on in Iron

47:00

Flame when we get the big zenon fight at Bespres

47:03

she faces she violet faces off

47:05

with a zenon who is young too

47:08

young and has blonde hair so

47:10

what if leadership is

47:13

also taking cadets who fall

47:15

early before threshing or hell

47:17

at this point maybe even after threshing and

47:20

then in the fighting them but

47:22

not curing them and only controlling

47:25

them and like making them a part of their army

47:27

I don't know I'm at the belief that writer quadrant cadets

47:32

are turning them in more often than we

47:34

assume or maybe even other people to

47:36

like after they graduate and the way

47:39

of trying to control them is

47:41

first of all trying to find the cure that's step number one and

47:44

when they can't find the cure then they try to control them

47:46

and they're always doing these experiments on them

47:48

and then like with what Colonel Atos does then he

47:50

uses controlling them for assassination

47:53

attempts for instance. There's so much

47:55

here I'm speaking

47:59

of venom We have to ask the

48:01

question, is Naolin a Venon?

48:04

Or is he dead? Yes, he's Venon. In

48:07

our reactions episode, Nicole and I were very

48:09

much on the Naolin is a Venon train. And

48:12

while I'm definitely still leaning this way, because

48:14

of the way losing him is discussed

48:16

in this book. Like when Taryn says with

48:18

a rough voice to Violet, quote, we will

48:21

no longer speak of the one who came before. It

48:23

could be as simple as he's still mad that Naolin

48:26

let himself burn out and die. And that's

48:28

why Taryn is extra sensitive to Violet

48:30

risking burnout multiple times. Or

48:32

it's not because he knows what happened

48:34

to Naolin. And like it just doesn't sit well.

48:37

He is so angry about what happened. So

48:39

in the assembly meeting, Brennan says, quote,

48:41

knowing that she's bonded to Taryn, whose bonds

48:44

get deeper with each writer and whose

48:46

previous bond was already so

48:48

strong that Naolin's death nearly

48:51

killed him. Death. That's

48:53

not very cryptic. However, I think he was

48:55

lying to the assembly. Because later he says Naolin

48:58

didn't fail, but it cost him everything. And

49:00

we'll talk about that more in a second. But that's

49:02

not adding up. So taking a step

49:04

back, the biggest question is, if

49:07

Naolin is still technically alive and he

49:09

is a Venon, what does that mean for his

49:11

bond with Taryn? Because the

49:14

dragon bond, it did not break for Jack

49:16

and Bade. And it did not break for Seagal and Zaden.

49:18

At least we assume that Seagal has not reached

49:20

for Zaden or talked to him since the battlefield

49:22

where he turned. But they are definitely

49:25

still bonded. I'll get to that way later. Are

49:27

we sure it didn't break for Jack and Bade? Because Jack killed

49:29

Bade and he still lived. So

49:32

that seems to me like their bond was broken.

49:36

I didn't think about that. Taryn was

49:38

saying that Bade has been keeping a

49:40

secret from them, from all of them, that Jack

49:42

was still alive. But you're right, maybe

49:45

Bade was more like wallowing

49:47

in self-pity. Very

49:50

Grinch of you. Or like maybe

49:53

the bond is just very different. I mean,

49:55

obviously a bonded can kill

49:57

their dragon and still live. Because

50:00

they're no longer tethered to that power,

50:02

they're tethered to another kind of power as

50:04

well. God, this makes me so nervous

50:07

for Zayden and Segele. But okay,

50:09

but here's the other thing too, is that Zayden

50:11

is still able to use his Signet powers

50:13

in that last POV. And he can only

50:15

use his Signet powers that he received from

50:18

Segele from channeling with

50:20

her power. So I really do think that Segele

50:22

and Zayden are absolutely still bonded.

50:25

That is a great point about Jack and

50:27

Bade. But back to Taren and Naolin.

50:29

If Naolin did turn Venon, that

50:32

means that Taren probably broke the

50:34

bond himself. I don't know how that's possible,

50:37

but he probably did. Or if Naolin

50:40

ventured further into what's called Venon

50:42

Hood, remember, there's different levels

50:44

of turning Venon. And there's

50:46

like a certain like there's no going back point where

50:48

the dragon bond breaks. Maybe that happened with

50:51

Jack. So that's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking the

50:53

more you channel from the source, the weaker your

50:55

dragon bond gets. Considering Zayden

50:57

only did it once, for now,

50:59

I was just terrifying to say, his

51:02

bond with Segele would still be, I

51:04

would assume, fairly strong. But we're

51:06

assuming that Jack's been doing this

51:08

a lot. Not to me. Not to the point

51:10

though. Well, I'm assuming. But his

51:13

eyes are still sometimes red, sometimes not.

51:15

Which we know from that epigraph that

51:18

sometimes the lowest level of Venon,

51:20

their eyes, their red eyes go in

51:22

and out based off of how often they quote unquote feed,

51:25

which goes back to Zayden's being almost

51:27

indistinguishable, which means he only kind

51:29

of towed the line there, so to speak.

51:32

But that's what makes me think like if Naolin

51:34

is not a low level Venon,

51:37

what if he's a sage or a maiden, aka

51:39

the generals, like if he's one of those higher

51:41

level Venon, then that

51:44

I would assume that bond would be absolutely eviscerated

51:46

at that point. But it would

51:48

take a lot of time and the bond breakage

51:50

with Taren, it might not have been absolutely

51:53

immediate, but it was definitely very,

51:56

it happened very quickly. I like your idea about Taren

51:58

breaking it. I think I think you're on the money with

52:00

Taren breaking the bond because he was betrayed

52:03

by Naolin. Yeah, that's my... But then

52:05

that goes back to I don't know if Bade would have broken the

52:07

bond because Bade was kind of a... Bade's

52:10

insane! Bade would not have broken the bond.

52:12

Bade is fucking crazy.

52:15

Orange, orange dragon. There's another

52:17

one. Just to point it out. We also

52:19

know nothing about a body for Naolin

52:21

and we all, meaning me, learned our

52:24

lesson from Jack. Brennan woke up

52:26

on a nearby cliff. Where did Naolin's dead body

52:28

go? How did Brennan get there? There's lots of questions

52:30

here that we'll also be getting into here in a moment. And

52:33

while it's not really like a sign pointing to Naolin

52:36

being a Venon, I do want to point

52:38

something else out. We don't know what he

52:40

looks like and I think that it's safe to assume

52:42

that Violet doesn't either for the most part. Would

52:45

she recognize Naolin as a Venon? For

52:47

instance, if he was a Sage and he was up there

52:49

on the battlefield, would she recognize him? I

52:51

don't think she would, but I can guarantee you that Taren

52:54

definitely would. So there's a lot of people who are

52:56

speculating that Naolin was a Sage and

52:58

at the fourth wing battle. I do

53:00

not believe that. I do think that Naolin,

53:02

if he is a Venon, which I do think he is,

53:05

that he is like one of those higher ups like a Sage

53:07

or something. But I do not think that we have

53:09

seen him yet because Taren, no matter what,

53:11

would have known that it was him. Another potential

53:14

Venon hint, how Brennan says that Naolin

53:16

didn't fail, referring to how he saved Brennan's

53:18

life. But it cost him everything.

53:22

This could easily mean everything just

53:24

meets his life because that is a pretty big thing.

53:27

Or it could mean his soul is

53:30

this everything, which is exactly what happens

53:32

when you turn Brennan. It cost him everything.

53:35

It cost him his soul. It cost him being

53:37

a person. So later in the book, Lyra

53:40

in her journal, this is another epigraph,

53:42

which I love how many epigraphs to get in this book. It's

53:44

really fun to parse them through all together. At

53:47

some point, I want to make this a document of every

53:49

single epigraph from fourth wing and Iron Flame

53:51

and like connect the books. Is that a thing already?

53:53

One of our Discord members already created

53:55

it, at least for Iron Flame. And so it is actually

53:58

in our Discord available to us.

53:59

I love our discards

54:01

so much, you guys are the best. Thank you

54:04

for everything you do. It makes me so happy. But

54:06

in this epigraph from Lyra in her journal,

54:08

it says, quote, I am alone in thinking the

54:10

knowledge of the wards, the protections they

54:12

provide should not solely benefit

54:15

Navarre and it has cost me everything.

54:17

This is the chapter 63 opening, which

54:19

we all know chapter 63 is a very,

54:22

very important chapter, it's where we get the

54:24

huge and Darna download. It's where Lillis

54:26

dies, everything. So this is similar

54:28

language to cost me

54:31

everything, cost him, Naolin, everything.

54:33

Now this is me, she's also a

54:35

linen. Baseless, reporting,

54:37

and

54:37

what she's talking about here, I don't think so. But

54:39

what is this similar phrasing? Or is this

54:42

just a saying, you know, cause cost me everything

54:44

is a saying that we say in the modern

54:46

language and nothing else? Maybe,

54:49

but it's fun to see those two parallels. That's not

54:51

interesting, yeah. There's definitely something

54:53

more to Naolin. Like it's, we've just

54:55

seen like the surface level about

54:58

what happened with him and the way that it keeps appearing

55:00

in this book. Now I do wanna play devil's advocate

55:02

here. I'm wondering if Naolin

55:05

really did die and his story keeps

55:07

popping up because it's meant to be a cautionary

55:09

tale for those other writers who hold

55:11

such great power, including Sloan, who becomes

55:13

a siphon as well. It's definitely

55:16

some foreshadowing for our characters in the present

55:18

day, whether he's alive or not alive. And

55:20

yet I just can't shake this feeling

55:23

that there is key information about Naolin

55:25

that we don't know yet. And that is why

55:27

we feel kind of unsatisfied with what

55:29

we're hearing right now from Brennan's download. There's

55:32

a whole iceberg below this surface level

55:34

information we know right now. And

55:36

that is exactly why I think it makes him a

55:38

Vennon and that he's one of these Sage Vennon right

55:40

now that there's going to be a really big reveal

55:43

regarding Naolin in the future. I just wanna

55:45

point out that if he is Vennon, which I'm very much

55:47

in Vennon camp, imagine him

55:49

and Taren facing off on the battlefield. No,

55:52

isn't that crazy? Oh, I'm

55:54

so excited. I wanna point out one little

55:56

theory and I'm gonna keep this really short because we've

55:58

been tagged in it a lot. that Naolin

56:01

is Brennan and Violet's dad.

56:03

His age is never said, so we could.

56:06

We might be jumping to conclusions

56:08

thinking he's around Brennan's age, but

56:10

there are series saying that he is Violet

56:12

and Brennan's dad. I would assume then also

56:15

Mira's dad, but there's

56:17

a lot of reasons I'm not buying into this theory, more

56:19

of which we'll talk about in just a second. I'm very

56:21

much in the camp that their dad was their

56:23

dad. A lot of people are thinking, oh, their

56:26

dad is somebody else. I firmly believe that their

56:28

dad is their dad, that he

56:30

and Lilith did love one another, and

56:33

that he was killed by leadership. I think

56:35

it's a little bit more straightforward

56:37

than a lot of us are thinking. It's funny,

56:39

because a year ago, that wasn't

56:41

straightforward. A year ago, that was like, oh

56:43

my God, but now after all of our theorizing and

56:45

parsing through this text, it does feel very straightforward,

56:48

but that just feels so cemented and right

56:50

to the story and where we think it's going,

56:52

yes. Now let's talk about Brennan's story, because

56:55

I have a lot of things that I need to say about this. Once

56:58

again, we have only gotten the tip of

57:00

the iceberg with Brennan's story about how Naolin saved

57:02

him, but it cost him everything, and

57:04

I am left with still so many questions. For

57:07

one, did Ben Ryerson really strike a

57:09

would-be killing blow to Brennan? We have no

57:11

idea. Like we discussed above, did

57:13

Naolin turn Vennon? The explanation was

57:15

a little cryptic, so maybe we're thinking too much into

57:17

it. I really don't think so, but there's that question too.

57:20

Another question, what's the timeline of

57:22

Brennan turning against Navarre and siding

57:24

with the revolution? This kind of goes right back to, did

57:26

Ben Ryerson actually try to kill him? It sounds

57:29

like Brennan was on the Navarre inside,

57:31

and then at the very last second, or after

57:34

he was saved and he just woke up in Orisha,

57:37

Stockholm Syndrome, where

57:38

he became part

57:39

of, where he then

57:41

joined the revolution, that's very unclear still.

57:44

And of course, I have new questions also after

57:46

hearing the story. How did he wake up on a

57:48

cliffside, presumably away

57:50

from where he fell in what we think was battle? Again,

57:53

did Ben Ryerson maybe

57:55

try to kill him, or was he trying to save him, and he

57:57

helped him get to this cliffside, and that's when he was...

58:00

captured? Did Mart Brennan's wounded dragon

58:02

get him to this cliffside? Did Naolin

58:04

drop him off here before running away to go become

58:06

a Venon? Think that Brennan woke up on this

58:08

cliffside near Ryerson House before

58:11

Arisha was burned and then that is when they

58:13

stayed hidden in the caves while it was torched

58:15

and then after it was torched that's where

58:17

they met up with the civilians who survived it. Another

58:20

question was his dragon wounded by

58:22

another dragon? How did the Empyrean

58:24

feel about this human civil war where the

58:26

dragons had to fight dragons? I think there

58:29

were not Venon and Wyverns in this vicinity

58:31

here so if his dragon was wounded

58:33

which dragon wounded him or was it a crossbow

58:36

or how was his dragon wounded if it was not

58:38

from a Venon, Wyvern, or Griffin?

58:40

And let's talk about other dragons but

58:43

there are other dragons here. Who

58:45

saved quote-unquote us? Who is us

58:47

that Brennan is referring to? Is it

58:49

other Nevarians who turn for the revolutionary

58:52

side? Are the assembly members part of this us?

58:54

Other Tyran Dorr rebellion fighters who evade

58:56

capture and execution? Again maybe it's

58:58

the assembly members. What else is in this network

59:01

of caves besides apparently solace? Later

59:03

on I just like have so many

59:05

questions about this. I

59:08

literally have written into the outline

59:09

Nicole does shrug emoji.

59:11

I have no idea.

59:14

All of these are such good questions

59:17

and I wish we had answers for them but

59:19

I wouldn't even know where to speculate

59:22

on a lot of these questions and I hope

59:24

we just get a full-on like princess tale

59:27

moment for Brennan so we

59:29

can understand what's going on and I do

59:31

think that is highly probable that we will

59:33

get something like that. Here's one thing I will

59:35

say with very high high high

59:37

amounts of certainty. Naolin was

59:40

something more to Brennan and Violet

59:42

actually literally says those exact words and

59:44

she speculates I think that he was something more to Brennan.

59:47

Moments like that is exactly what makes me absolutely

59:50

not believe the Naolin equals their father

59:52

figure line. Little tells

59:54

like his jaw ticks when he's talking

59:56

about Naolin and then later when she's like

59:59

what about you are you married, kids, da

1:00:01

da da da da da, he says no partner, no

1:00:03

kids, point made. Partner is a very intentional

1:00:05

word there. Now to be fair, I

1:00:07

called Brett my partner for

1:00:10

years back when he was still my boyfriend and I absolutely

1:00:12

refused to call him boyfriend because

1:00:14

that was just so not what he was to me, he was

1:00:16

partner. But this wording

1:00:18

here feels very intentional. And

1:00:21

again, it's representation without representation

1:00:23

being shoved in our face and I freaking love

1:00:26

it. I'm here for Brett and being gay. I

1:00:28

love this. I really hope that this is true.

1:00:30

I absolutely like especially after seeing this,

1:00:32

a lot of us speculated that he and Naolin were

1:00:34

lovers and this to me

1:00:36

was like 99% confirming that. Yeah,

1:00:39

same. It is very concerning how Violet

1:00:41

knows more about Vennon and Wyvern than Brennan

1:00:44

and the rest of the show. I have the same like thought.

1:00:47

This is wild. Brennan

1:00:49

confirms that they've only known about Wyvern for

1:00:51

a few months. They don't know where they're originating.

1:00:54

In fact, they thought that they hatched, not

1:00:56

created by the Vennon. And this is like

1:00:58

Nicole just said, this is wild. Like just wild.

1:01:01

Have the Vennon only just started using Wyvern

1:01:04

as they invade Poormiel or are they using them

1:01:06

way more often and in bigger numbers? I bet

1:01:08

that they are able to create more Wyvern

1:01:10

as they gain more power and invade Poormiel.

1:01:12

The more that they're sucking the land of its magic, they're

1:01:15

then partially using it to create their Wyvern

1:01:17

army. That's got to be why this is a relatively

1:01:20

new development. Brennan also doesn't know

1:01:22

that Vennon are teaching each other. He also

1:01:24

has kept the cadets in the dark to protect

1:01:26

their safety, which he admits may

1:01:28

have been a mistake. Kind of like how

1:01:31

if Zaden told Violet about them earlier,

1:01:33

she could have armed the crew with knowledge

1:01:36

about the Vennon. The fact that they have been

1:01:38

dicking around for six years,

1:01:41

six years, and

1:01:43

Violet comes in and gives them like all

1:01:45

of this info dump and they're like, we were

1:01:48

just going to fight this with daggers. She's like, you

1:01:50

can activate a wardstone. You can do this. Wyvern

1:01:53

are made, not born or hatched or

1:01:55

whatever. The way my jaw

1:01:57

hit the floor when I was reading this for the first

1:01:59

time. I said it in battle brief, I'm gonna say it again.

1:02:02

What the fuck were they doing before Violet

1:02:04

came along? This is ridiculous. So

1:02:07

I think also that it really shows

1:02:09

that all of these writers have

1:02:11

pretty limited perspective

1:02:13

here. Even Brennan, who is described

1:02:15

multiple times throughout fourth wing as a brilliant strategist.

1:02:18

And Violet has a scribe's mind.

1:02:21

And so when she hears, oh, we have a dormant

1:02:23

ward stone, she's like, well, then we have to go and search

1:02:25

out the information to activate it. And

1:02:27

that doesn't even cross anybody else's mind. And

1:02:31

same thing with Vennon and how her brother's

1:02:33

like, oh, wow, you were actually listening to dad when

1:02:35

he was telling us all these stories. Unforgivable, unforgivable.

1:02:38

Yeah, this whole thing

1:02:40

was just like, wow, you all really don't

1:02:43

know very much. And it also does go to show

1:02:45

however, how secretive the Vennon

1:02:47

have been. And there's like,

1:02:50

poor meal knows so much more, but they're

1:02:52

not talking to the revolution like they should be. There

1:02:54

is just a lot of miscommunication

1:02:57

here among everybody on the continent. This

1:03:00

is unforgivable. The fact that Violet faced

1:03:03

off with one of the Vennon on

1:03:05

the back of Taren knows all

1:03:07

of this information. Like, make sure,

1:03:09

I got a note for her. Why not

1:03:12

instead of verbally

1:03:14

attacking her and being like, this soyngale

1:03:16

is not very chest ready, why

1:03:18

not sit her down in the assembly meeting and

1:03:20

being like, what did you learn from that Vennon

1:03:22

who you had a chat with?

1:03:25

You just grabbed some coffee on the back

1:03:27

of Taren. Why don't we talk to you

1:03:29

about what you learned in that? Like, I know

1:03:31

that Zaden later is like, no scribes. We don't have

1:03:33

any scribes in this revolution. They fucking

1:03:36

need a scribe is what this is telling you. This

1:03:38

is unforgivable. I cannot believe

1:03:40

this. I'm heated. Oh man.

1:03:42

We can joke about how frustrating this is,

1:03:45

but it really just, just from a literary

1:03:47

perspective, just show how,

1:03:49

I don't even know the words for it, it just shows

1:03:51

how disoriented everybody

1:03:54

really and truly is no matter how much they're

1:03:56

trying. It really just goes to show how little

1:03:58

everybody knows about Vennen and

1:04:01

the fact that her dad was reading her these

1:04:03

stories just from when she was

1:04:05

young is huge. And again,

1:04:07

I think that it does mean that their dad knew more

1:04:10

than he let on that Brennan just did not

1:04:12

ever catch either. So Brennan thinks that they have about

1:04:14

six months until the Vennen are knocking down

1:04:16

their store.

1:04:18

Hey Nicole, isn't that how long this book is?

1:04:20

The way I read this when I was

1:04:22

first reading this for the first time, again,

1:04:24

I read this in one sitting midnight

1:04:27

premiere. I freaked

1:04:29

the fuck out when I read this for the first time

1:04:31

and I thought for sure I was going to be

1:04:33

right with them hearing from the Vennen

1:04:36

and how they breached the wards and all that kind of

1:04:38

stuff. And that was going to be the cliffhanger

1:04:41

at the end of Iron Flame. And

1:04:43

oh, how naive I was, how

1:04:46

optimistic

1:04:47

I was, considering where this

1:04:49

book actually ended. Oh man,

1:04:51

I know, right? We need to pull out this line about Resin

1:04:53

being the exception to the Vennen's pattern of

1:04:56

moving northwest toward Navarre. Plus the location

1:04:58

about an hour east of Resin, which has

1:05:00

to be the other village they flattened a few days before

1:05:03

heading to Resin. Remember? Is this

1:05:05

other village, Janna, where the other box was found

1:05:07

and already destroyed? I really do wish this

1:05:09

map was more detailed. I said that in Fourth Wing.

1:05:11

I'm saying it again here for Iron Flame. Fourth

1:05:14

Wing did not specify the name of this village,

1:05:16

so I'm going to just assume that it is Janna.

1:05:18

This is all confirming that the Vennen were lured

1:05:21

to these two outlier locations, assumeably

1:05:24

by Colonel Aetos. Lured? How,

1:05:26

you ask? That iron box from the clock

1:05:28

tower that they were trying to get. This lure

1:05:30

was a little anti-climactic on the audience.

1:05:33

I'm going to say for now. This lure is anti-climactic

1:05:35

for now. I think that these boxes are going to play

1:05:38

a

1:05:38

way bigger role soon.

1:05:39

So yes, so it had to be destroyed

1:05:41

before it could be fully investigated, but

1:05:43

they could tell that these boxes were made in Navarre. And

1:05:46

so Violet wonders what reason Navarre

1:05:48

has to build these lures besides having them targeted

1:05:51

at Resin. I believe that we can

1:05:53

assume this type of Vennen lure is not

1:05:55

unique only to Resin. Jack later uses

1:05:57

his own lures, but are they the same as this?

1:06:00

I kind of assume so. How else would he

1:06:02

be able to get to them unless Vennon

1:06:04

like smuggled these lures into Biskayeth?

1:06:07

I think that these lures, whether they're

1:06:09

all boxes or whatever they are, I think these

1:06:11

lures are already in Biskayeth and

1:06:13

that is how Jack was able to then distribute

1:06:16

them out. So he was just using what Navarre

1:06:18

already had to his disposal to then help

1:06:21

the Vennon, which I think is really interesting because now

1:06:23

there's multiple uses from both the Navarre side

1:06:25

for luring the Vennon in to target

1:06:27

people that they don't like and the Vennon use

1:06:29

them as well to lure the Vennon there to target

1:06:32

Biskayeth. So do you think that Jack

1:06:34

is the one planting the boxes? I took

1:06:36

this as someone in leadership is either

1:06:38

planting the boxes or someone is Vennon

1:06:41

and planting the boxes almost as like

1:06:43

a follow the leader or like a Jack

1:06:45

and Jill like breadcrumbs situation for

1:06:47

the other Vennon. Yeah, I was under the impression

1:06:49

it was Jack because Dane is able to

1:06:52

find out where the location is for

1:06:54

most of those boxes. Now keyword

1:06:56

is most of those boxes. So maybe Jack

1:06:58

was just planting most of them and then

1:07:01

someone else planted the other ones. My

1:07:03

understanding, however, is that Dane just wasn't

1:07:05

able to get the entire the full download. He

1:07:07

got like the 90% download before it cut

1:07:09

off. Oh, I forgot about that. Yep, you're right. Then

1:07:12

we have the question about how much Violet and Brennan's

1:07:15

father knew. Again, one of our big questions

1:07:17

heading into this book. We've already kind of talked about

1:07:19

it, but let's wrap this up. We only get speculation

1:07:22

in which his children hope he didn't know about what was

1:07:24

going on. Violet doesn't want to believe

1:07:26

that their dad withheld this big bit of info.

1:07:29

However, I personally don't think

1:07:32

many of us view it in the same way that she does here.

1:07:34

Are you thinking the same thing as I am? We

1:07:36

think he was trying to tell her in

1:07:38

his coded ways because he wasn't able to outright

1:07:41

say it for obvious reasons. And

1:07:43

she's not even considering this as a possibility

1:07:46

right now. She did back at Athbane

1:07:48

in fourth wing before the battle when

1:07:50

all these pieces were falling into place. And she

1:07:53

was thinking about his book of fables and his letter.

1:07:55

And they were major pieces to the puzzle.

1:07:57

But right here, she just feels like her father was

1:08:00

was lying to her her whole life. And

1:08:02

I disagree with that. I

1:08:04

disagree entirely as well, because it is

1:08:06

so obvious to me that he's

1:08:09

like children read between

1:08:11

the lines. Now obviously Brennan was a dangled

1:08:14

dwarf and didn't. Like the

1:08:16

fact that him, I can only

1:08:18

assume Mira as well, were just

1:08:20

like oblivious and didn't

1:08:22

remember anything. And yet he's a

1:08:24

lieutenant colonel in the revolution. I will never

1:08:26

get over that. That's ridiculous

1:08:27

to me. Well, so just thinking about

1:08:30

it as like being siblings, right?

1:08:32

So he and Mira are much

1:08:34

closer than Violet was, just because she's

1:08:36

a younger, like she's six years younger than

1:08:39

Mira, who is the second oldest. We can assume

1:08:41

that Mira and Brennan are about three to four years apart.

1:08:44

So I think that Mira and Brennan,

1:08:46

they were the writers, they were much more of a duo.

1:08:49

And then there was Violet who was almost kind of left

1:08:51

behind and their father kind of took her

1:08:53

under his wing. I mean, she naturally gravitated

1:08:55

towards books and subscribe put anyway.

1:08:58

But I think that it's not surprising

1:09:00

that she comprehended a lot more than Brennan

1:09:02

did because he considered it much more of just

1:09:05

stories that his dad was telling him when he wanted

1:09:07

to go run off and do other things. Well,

1:09:09

for her, it was like her Bible,

1:09:11

you know? So. Okay, fine. I

1:09:13

guess you're right. That'll satiate me for

1:09:15

now. I gotta defend Brennan here. Like, man,

1:09:17

you are really on the Brennan hate train. I'm

1:09:20

the younger sibling and I will die for my

1:09:22

younger siblings. So we

1:09:24

do get confirmation from Brennan in this

1:09:26

Brennan download that the Sage at Ressen

1:09:29

did get away. So all

1:09:31

of Lexi and I is counting of how many

1:09:34

that in there were. I think this is confirmation that

1:09:36

there were either six or seven

1:09:38

Vennen on the higher end. Wait, I

1:09:40

took this as there were five. God damn

1:09:42

it. We're not opening this can of worms.

1:09:44

We're not doing it today. We're never

1:09:46

gonna know how many Vennen there were in that

1:09:48

battle. Honestly, I see you do accept that and move on. But

1:09:50

we do see the Sage later

1:09:53

in this book, but is it the same

1:09:55

Sage? Is there only one or are there

1:09:58

several? I'm reading several. There's new. in

1:10:01

the chapter 47 epigraph it says sages

1:10:04

multiple yes absolutely there

1:10:06

are multiple sages and

1:10:08

I don't know but I bet that nailing

1:10:11

is one of them we've already kind of talked about that but

1:10:13

yes there are absolutely multiple sages one

1:10:15

of them got away and it helped us

1:10:17

learn that there are multiple do you think

1:10:19

nailing is a sage or a maven I

1:10:21

think he's a sage I don't think he's old and he hasn't

1:10:24

been a then and long enough to be a general

1:10:26

good point good point so last thing on this Brennan

1:10:28

stuff before we move on to dragon mode Lexi's

1:10:31

favorite mode violet coming

1:10:33

in with the logic I'm going back on my violet train but

1:10:36

for different reasons she says quote you

1:10:38

think you're going to win this war with a bunch of daggers

1:10:41

thank you in fourth wing in our deep dive

1:10:43

I was irate that

1:10:45

they were just focusing on daggers

1:10:48

and that's it and Brennan here is like

1:10:50

we just need to forge more weapons that's how we're gonna win

1:10:52

this war and she's using logic and her

1:10:54

scribe smarts where would

1:10:57

the knowledge of these words be how to

1:10:59

activate a word and Brennan is like no just

1:11:02

weapons met like it's just it drives

1:11:04

me insane but this shows how different

1:11:07

violet is she is the like

1:11:10

Hannah Montana best of both worlds of scribe

1:11:13

and writer and that is why she's our heroine

1:11:15

and I love it you get the thing Hannah

1:11:17

Montana you're

1:11:20

welcome I was

1:11:22

a little too old for Hannah Montana but maybe

1:11:24

I'm the older sibling I'm gonna protect

1:11:26

Brennan at all I just

1:11:28

think he deserves a little bit

1:11:30

more credit for what he's been doing for the last he hasn't

1:11:33

been doing shit for six years in my

1:11:35

mind I wholeheartedly

1:11:37

we're finally

1:11:41

at the point oh my gosh how

1:11:43

long have we been already talking and we haven't even gotten to

1:11:45

page six which she goes to

1:11:47

her dragons I'm so excited

1:11:50

now let's talk about everything

1:11:52

of with in Darna you hear Lexi just like salivating

1:11:55

into the microphone

1:11:56

so

1:11:58

my

1:11:59

question often that is why do you think

1:12:01

Segele never liked Brennan? He says

1:12:03

quote, she's never liked me. So

1:12:06

here's my theory. It had to do with

1:12:08

Naolin, Taryn's previous writer. I

1:12:11

don't think that Segele likes Brennan. First of all, it's also

1:12:13

noted that she just doesn't like anybody, which I do

1:12:15

think that's definitely a part to play here. But

1:12:17

we have to remember that Naolin had

1:12:20

the bond with Taryn. And

1:12:22

so technically, he was also bonded to

1:12:24

Segele in that, you know, pattern kind of

1:12:26

way. Don't think however, that he that

1:12:29

Naolin and Segele really talked to each

1:12:31

other kind of like how Zaden and Taryn

1:12:33

didn't talk to each other until Violet entered the picture.

1:12:35

But again, she might not like Brennan

1:12:38

because he is the reason Taryn almost

1:12:40

died since Naolin sacrificed himself

1:12:43

for Brennan. So she might just be on the Brennan

1:12:45

hate train, because he kind

1:12:47

of almost killed her partner. He does say she's

1:12:50

never liked me. I'm assuming

1:12:52

Brennan has interacted with Segele before

1:12:54

the Battle of Eratia. So I also wonder

1:12:57

again, supporting Brennan and Naolin being

1:12:59

lovers, was he Brennan

1:13:02

a distraction for Naolin, and

1:13:04

therefore a distraction

1:13:04

for Taryn's

1:13:06

writer. And that was another reason why

1:13:08

she didn't like him. Possibly. I

1:13:10

thought that was a very interesting line. And I wanted to pull

1:13:13

it. We get confirmation. Okay, so

1:13:15

now back to Ndarna. We

1:13:18

get confirmation that Ndarna grew so

1:13:20

fast from all the energy she used to

1:13:22

stop time. Violet feels the weight

1:13:24

of guilt that this is her fault, but Taryn assures

1:13:26

her that it would have happened eventually. His biggest

1:13:28

concern is getting Ndarna back to the Vale so

1:13:31

she can sleep uninterrupted. I have a bone to

1:13:33

pick with Zaden's description from fourth

1:13:35

wing that Ndarna is fucking huge.

1:13:38

We were all speculating that Ndarna

1:13:40

would now be close to Segele's size or something

1:13:42

to that effect. But she's not. She's

1:13:44

about twice as big as she used to be. But

1:13:46

that's not even close to Segele

1:13:49

or Taryn's size. Like this line just it

1:13:51

really threw us all off in fourth wing how we were

1:13:53

then speculating. And yes, she is

1:13:55

larger, but not that much bigger.

1:13:58

Come on. This is another example of Zaden's. Raiden

1:14:00

Ryerson leaving out information again.

1:14:02

Even Brennan, even Brennan

1:14:04

is like quote, Ryerson left out some

1:14:07

details when he reported in this morning.

1:14:09

My guess is that because he wanted

1:14:11

this to be a big moment for Violet and her

1:14:13

dragons, he didn't want this to involve him.

1:14:16

So I respect that I respect

1:14:18

him wanting her to figure this out. These are her

1:14:20

dragons like he understands that bond, as

1:14:23

well as any other writer, but a clue

1:14:25

would have been nice Zayden. Like if

1:14:28

I was Violet, I would have been like the fuck my

1:14:30

guy. Like you kind of weighed in that something

1:14:32

was off and like I would have come here sooner.

1:14:35

But I just love that Zayden was like, I'm

1:14:37

gonna let her figure this one out. Very Zayden.

1:14:39

It's hers to figure out too, right? I bet that

1:14:41

Taryn had something to do with you better keep your mouth

1:14:44

shut Zayden. The big reveal here is that

1:14:46

and Darna is no longer golden.

1:14:49

But she's black or is she so black

1:14:52

that she shimmers purple? Almost

1:14:54

iridescent. We do later figure

1:14:57

out that she is a chameleon or she's

1:14:59

like iron color will be speculating on all

1:15:01

that way later. And I just love all

1:15:03

the hints that we get throughout this book that she that

1:15:05

and Darna is reflecting the colors of

1:15:08

what's around her. But for now, she

1:15:10

wants to be like Taryn so she's like

1:15:12

her rip to our golden dragon

1:15:14

tattoos. I'm still in the camp. I know I was

1:15:16

like, horrifically against getting them

1:15:18

but now I'm like so married to the idea

1:15:20

I might

1:15:22

make a petition for us to get our dragon tattoos

1:15:24

and just get like one of black dragon tattoo.

1:15:27

Just because it's like fourth way. It would just be

1:15:29

a fourth

1:15:30

way.

1:15:31

Maybe no, we

1:15:34

lost it. I'm sorry. It's

1:15:36

lost its luster for me. Okay, fine. We'll

1:15:39

just do our Harry Potter tattoos in December then. Yeah,

1:15:42

that was already planned. Now violet learning

1:15:44

about and Darna. If I were violet,

1:15:47

this moment, it would be like a straw

1:15:49

that broke the camel's back for me like she has

1:15:51

been left in the dark from

1:15:54

Zaden, Taryn, her

1:15:56

brother, and this would just be like

1:15:58

the one person like we keep on bringing back this

1:16:00

moment in fourth wing when she Violet

1:16:03

learns that Mira actually is alive at the

1:16:05

end of the Montserrat battle and

1:16:07

she runs to her safe

1:16:10

haven which is Andarna and

1:16:12

her and Andarna have this special connection that is

1:16:14

even more cemented at the end of this book

1:16:16

when we get like this prophetic level

1:16:19

info dump from Andarna and I'm so excited to talk

1:16:21

about it but that moment for

1:16:24

again I just really sympathizes Violet in the first

1:16:26

half of this book of just how much

1:16:28

she's been left in the dark and she's trying to grasp onto

1:16:30

reality and then she walks up to her dragon

1:16:33

who she is like this is my number one comfort

1:16:35

and she's a different size and a different

1:16:38

color than she was the last time she saw her I just

1:16:40

I really really sympathizes Violet

1:16:42

in this moment even though she's like not

1:16:44

hurt necessarily if putting

1:16:47

myself in Violet shoes I would have been I hear what

1:16:49

you're saying I don't know if hurt is the right word

1:16:51

I think that just surprised and

1:16:53

Taryn even comforts her where he's like

1:16:56

it would have happened anyway like of course she's not

1:16:58

golden anymore she's growing up like that's

1:17:00

just it's just what happens

1:17:02

and it's almost like Violet just she does know

1:17:04

that she knows that as a fact you know it's kind

1:17:06

of like when you're looking at pictures of your kid when they're all tiny

1:17:09

and little and then you look at them next to you and it's like oh

1:17:11

my gosh you're so big and it's like your

1:17:13

heart kind of hurts because you don't want

1:17:15

them to be big because you always want them to be little

1:17:17

like how you know them but it's just a fact

1:17:19

of life you know I don't know that feeling personally

1:17:22

I do have that when I look at your kids though because they're just

1:17:24

so damn cute and

1:17:25

I love them so much it's okay I

1:17:27

think they're really

1:17:28

cute too you're

1:17:30

the most biased but I might be

1:17:32

biased as well yeah Violet

1:17:34

speculates that and Darna has a morning star

1:17:36

tail but Taryn says that they form based

1:17:39

on the dragon's choice and needs so

1:17:42

we don't get confirmation but I am assuming

1:17:44

that and Darna still has her feather tail in this

1:17:46

scene it turns into a poison scorpion

1:17:49

tail during her dreamless sleep or at least that's

1:17:51

when we learn about her scorpion tail from

1:17:54

Violet so again we can assume right now

1:17:56

that is not a poison scorpion tail it

1:17:58

will be once we reach that part And right

1:18:00

now it is still a feather tail. So excited.

1:18:03

I do love the connection between the Taren

1:18:05

saying it's a dragon's choice and

1:18:08

need. Now obviously writers

1:18:10

cannot choose their signets necessarily,

1:18:12

but they do get their signets based on what

1:18:14

they need the most or who they are at their

1:18:16

very core, which will be a huge

1:18:18

theme for us as we go through this book and speculate

1:18:20

what Violet's second signet is. Like what does she

1:18:22

need? Who is she at her core? But I love

1:18:25

that's mirrored in the dragons as well. As they choose their

1:18:27

tail, I love that as well. And we will get

1:18:29

all into why Andarna chose that.

1:18:31

We have a really great excerpt from Rebecca,

1:18:34

but now is not the time to go into that. Also,

1:18:36

Brennan makes a comment that he's never seen such

1:18:38

accelerated growth in a dragon before. Okay,

1:18:40

first of all, no one at this guy is to our

1:18:43

knowledge has seen a dragon grow whatsoever.

1:18:46

So can we assume that because

1:18:48

there are other dragons in this valley, which again,

1:18:50

I have questions about, where the original

1:18:52

hatchling grounds of Taren's line are,

1:18:55

does that mean that there are dragons still hatching

1:18:57

here? And maybe the secret of dragon

1:18:59

hatchlings aren't so important here because the humans

1:19:01

have quote unquote proved that they're trustworthy

1:19:04

because, you know, like they're not just trying

1:19:06

to hold themselves up with the wards. I don't

1:19:08

think that's the case. I don't think that there are hatchlings

1:19:10

here because there's emphasis on the dragons protecting

1:19:13

Andarna in particular at all costs.

1:19:15

So it could be a throwaway line about how

1:19:18

he's never seen such accelerated growth,

1:19:20

or it could mean that there are dragons hatching

1:19:22

somewhere outside the veil, outside the wards,

1:19:24

maybe here, or at least somewhere that Brennan

1:19:27

has seen. You know what would have been really

1:19:29

nice Lex? Papasaur and Gail's

1:19:30

research. Papasaur and Gail's fucking research

1:19:32

right

1:19:32

about now. The fact that Violet

1:19:35

hears this and experiences the situation

1:19:37

and does not immediately think about

1:19:39

her father's research on feather tales,

1:19:42

that she knows where it is, that

1:19:45

is wild to me. That she did not immediately,

1:19:48

like natural thought process, wild

1:19:50

to me that she did not immediately go there. It would

1:19:52

have been nice to have Papasaur and Gail's research

1:19:54

but here we are, researchless.

1:19:58

That's gonna be a common theme for us. in this book

1:20:00

too, where is his research? So

1:20:03

Brennan's feelings towards Lilith,

1:20:06

I need to know what

1:20:08

happened at the battle of Oratia. Cause when Brennan

1:20:10

says things like quote, this is

1:20:13

right after Violet was like, mom wouldn't send

1:20:15

me to my desk. He says quote,

1:20:18

say that again. And this time try

1:20:20

to convince yourself that you mean it. The

1:20:22

general's loyalties are so crystal fucking

1:20:25

clear that she might as well have a tattoo.

1:20:27

Yes, there are then. And now go back to class on

1:20:29

her forehead. How did he

1:20:31

and his mother leave things to the point where he

1:20:34

is so capital C convinced

1:20:36

that she is evil. She is

1:20:38

the devil reincarnate in his mind,

1:20:40

it sounds like. And she would just send Violet

1:20:43

off to Aspene because she sent

1:20:45

him off to go fight in Oratia for

1:20:47

a war that he was graduated.

1:20:50

He was a lieutenant. True, however,

1:20:52

he is so angry because

1:20:55

he was lied to as well. He felt like he

1:20:57

was on a battlefield. He was risking his life

1:20:59

and everybody else around them as well, they were risking

1:21:02

their lives for a lie that none of

1:21:04

them even knew about. Something just feels

1:21:06

like there's more to this, especially when

1:21:08

she sees him for the first time. And he is just

1:21:10

like a

1:21:11

polar express ice cold

1:21:13

to

1:21:13

his mother, which I get like

1:21:15

he's had a narrative in his

1:21:17

head for six years that this

1:21:20

woman sent me to my desk. Like this or this woman

1:21:22

is like keeping everything. So I get

1:21:24

it in that sense. I just wanna know more

1:21:26

about what that send off or what that

1:21:29

like pre Brennan quote unquote death

1:21:31

was. Like I just wanna know so much more

1:21:33

about that experience. I need Brennan's

1:21:36

Prince of Hail. I need it now. I

1:21:38

wanna know more about it, but for me, it's pretty

1:21:40

cut and dry with everything with Lillis. Like that

1:21:43

to me makes total sense and it's

1:21:45

all natural. And I just have a lot of other questions regarding

1:21:47

Brennan's. You have many. You went off for five

1:21:49

minutes of all this nonstop questions.

1:21:51

I did and not a single one of them were

1:21:53

about Lillis because to me, it's like this

1:21:55

all just totally checks out for me. Yeah.

1:21:58

And I think also it's building on her. development

1:22:00

as well where she loves and protects

1:22:02

her children at all costs, in

1:22:04

her opinion. And

1:22:07

he does not view it that way whatsoever. And

1:22:09

so I just find that that's a character

1:22:12

development for her more than anything.

1:22:14

Fair. When we're on this

1:22:16

hilltop in Aracia, we are meeting

1:22:19

the other cadets from

1:22:21

Resin who fought in the battle alongside

1:22:23

Violet. Because there were three that she didn't know. We

1:22:26

learn it's Kieran, which, RIP

1:22:28

to my guy Kieran. I was convinced

1:22:31

that Kieran was gonna be like this, you

1:22:33

know, like inside bad guy

1:22:35

in Aracia, all this stuff. I even

1:22:38

had GFDC, god fucking damn

1:22:40

it Kieran, ready to roll. And

1:22:42

that did not happen. Kieran died very

1:22:45

quickly. And we did, like I need to

1:22:47

quote Lexi because I, when I got to

1:22:49

this part in the book, I texted Lexi and was like,

1:22:51

oh my god Kieran died, no. And

1:22:53

Lexi was like, RIP Kieran, we never

1:22:56

got the chance to hate you. GFDC

1:22:58

is now saved though for god

1:23:00

fucking damn it Kat. But we will get that in

1:23:02

part two. Oh boy, will we all get

1:23:04

to that in part two. We're gonna be having a lot

1:23:06

of things to say about Kat. But when

1:23:09

we're talking on this hillside, we're meeting

1:23:11

these three new characters, we get to meet this

1:23:13

guy, Mason. And I have mad

1:23:15

hot respect for Mason. And let me tell

1:23:18

you why. To be a writer, to

1:23:20

fight in the battle of Resin and

1:23:23

have glasses. My

1:23:25

guy has glasses that he's like pushing

1:23:27

up on his face, which tells me that they're not

1:23:30

fitted to his face perfectly. My

1:23:32

husband Brett ran two half

1:23:34

marathons with glasses and I thought he

1:23:36

was insane. To be

1:23:38

a writer and have glasses

1:23:41

is insanity to me. Also, how do

1:23:43

slight goggles work? Are there like prescription

1:23:45

slight goggles? And if you lose them,

1:23:47

those fucking things are expensive. Like

1:23:50

I have, oh, maybe it's in their couch,

1:23:52

huh? I

1:23:55

had some very nice prescription Ray-Ban

1:23:57

glasses that, you know, my insurance covered most

1:23:59

of. but I was still very expensive and

1:24:02

I went swimming at Nicole's pool and

1:24:04

then later on my glasses went missing and I thought

1:24:06

for sure that you know in the craziness

1:24:09

of trying to get the children out of the pool and all that that I left

1:24:11

them there and I could not find them at the pool and

1:24:13

I was heartbroken and I was gonna try to get them replaced

1:24:15

and it was gonna cost like $600. I got

1:24:18

a cheap pair from Target instead. What was it

1:24:20

like five months later? Nicole's

1:24:23

like just sends me a picture of my beautiful

1:24:25

Ray-Bans and it's like hey these

1:24:27

were in our couch and it's like So

1:24:31

happy and now I wear my glasses again

1:24:33

and I can put the Target cheapies away

1:24:36

and so maybe the slight goggles

1:24:38

are in the

1:24:38

Perfection

1:24:41

there's one other part I want to pull out

1:24:44

of this dragon download and that

1:24:46

is when Violet is describing in Darna She

1:24:48

says quote I nod and study

1:24:50

the coppery streaks in her eyes were

1:24:52

those always there unquote Now

1:24:55

the first part of this line, I wouldn't really have thought anything

1:24:58

of it I would just be like oh this is in Darna's new

1:25:00

self and we're just getting descriptions of this But

1:25:02

the second part were those always there

1:25:05

really made me pause and be like I need

1:25:07

to do some research So I looked up what copper

1:25:10

Means for lack of a better term and it's a

1:25:12

symbol of wealth protection and

1:25:14

prestige now This could be something

1:25:16

probably not but I just found it a very

1:25:18

interesting note now. She could also

1:25:21

be Reflecting the landscape of

1:25:23

Arisha in her eyes. Maybe

1:25:25

you know, it's July So I'm not really

1:25:27

sure if we're looking at like fall colors

1:25:30

by any means, but I don't know I just thought that was

1:25:32

interesting. I don't have it in front of me right here But

1:25:34

throughout the book there's also hints to

1:25:36

violets eye color changing as well So

1:25:39

we will definitely keep an eye out for that because

1:25:41

there's a lot of our listeners have pointed out

1:25:43

that her and in Darna's eyes And how they're changing

1:25:46

really do mirror one another so we'll

1:25:48

have to keep an eye out for that I love that that's delicious

1:25:51

Now as our crew is going to be returning

1:25:53

to best guys I will say we covered this

1:25:55

in detail during our audiobook sample reactions

1:25:58

video, but of course we need to highlight it

1:26:00

here as well. I think that

1:26:02

their return to Biscayas is the perfect balance

1:26:04

of feeling the weight and anxiety of this decision

1:26:07

while also knowing it's the only right

1:26:09

decision to protect the other marked ones and

1:26:12

to keep the story moving along. You know, we

1:26:14

have to keep things moving. We have to get them

1:26:16

settled back at Biscayas for our story

1:26:18

to continue but there's a lot of

1:26:20

disagreement about the decision among our characters

1:26:22

here to go back to Biscayas. I love

1:26:25

how our group here is echoing all of us

1:26:27

readers when we're theorizing about the why

1:26:29

of every possible option. Brennan,

1:26:31

for instance, is convinced that their mom will let

1:26:33

Violet be executed but Violet knows better

1:26:36

and this difference of opinion makes sense for

1:26:38

each of our characters. Brennan feels like his mom did

1:26:40

sacrifice him for keeping the secret

1:26:42

so why wouldn't she do the same with Violet?

1:26:45

While Violet, on the other hand, saw what losing

1:26:47

Brennan did to their mom and knows she

1:26:49

wouldn't have just let her co-workers execute

1:26:51

her child. And then Kieran, my

1:26:53

guy, comes to the rescue. Who would have thought

1:26:55

that this fucker would come to Violet's defense

1:26:57

and agree that General Sorengell wasn't there

1:27:00

when orders against the marked ones and their parents

1:27:02

were made? But now let's move on to

1:27:04

one of my favorite lines of this entire book. Fucking

1:27:07

Dane.

1:27:07

And the

1:27:10

fandom shared. I died.

1:27:13

And I love how it just

1:27:14

totally set up like all of our feelings

1:27:16

about Dane. It's gonna be quite the emotional

1:27:18

journey here processing everything with Dane. Thank

1:27:21

goodness we are still on the hate Dane train right now.

1:27:23

But then Violet does say a

1:27:25

few moments after she says fucking Dane that

1:27:28

she's only 99% sure she can't trust him. Like

1:27:32

I know they were childhood best friends and that

1:27:34

level of deep trust doesn't just go away.

1:27:37

But after what he did, we're only 99%

1:27:40

sure we can't trust him. After Liam.

1:27:42

This moment right here was when I was like uh

1:27:45

oh, his redemption arc might become as sooner than

1:27:47

we expected. It felt like Rebecca Yarrow

1:27:49

saying hey everyone, I know

1:27:52

the fandom. I know you all hate this guy.

1:27:54

But here's a reminder that we need to have 1% open

1:27:58

for what's coming. quote,

1:28:01

that 1% makes me question if Dane knows

1:28:03

what was really waiting for us at Aspene. I'm

1:28:06

sorry,

1:28:07

I thought it was pretty fucking

1:28:08

clear when Zayden and Violet

1:28:11

were at Aspene, it was right after they got the message from

1:28:13

Colonel Aitos, and Zayden

1:28:15

was like, what did Dane say to you as we were leaving?

1:28:17

And she said, he said, I'll miss you, Violet.

1:28:20

And that was like this big revelation for

1:28:23

us, for the fandom. And here it is just being

1:28:25

like, oh, that's not actually what happened. And it's like, what?

1:28:28

I have a lot of feelings about this. I do.

1:28:30

I have so many

1:28:33

complicated feelings about Dane. It was so easy

1:28:35

to just hate him. And now I don't know what

1:28:37

this, but here I do. Here I get to hate him.

1:28:39

We're not past chapter six, so we can still bask

1:28:42

in it. Yay! During our bonus

1:28:44

episode where we were talking about this audiobook excerpt,

1:28:47

we speculated a lot about why

1:28:50

Andarna being spotted while they're on flight heading back

1:28:52

to Vaz Gaius and the Vale is so dangerous.

1:28:55

And so the truth of the matter is,

1:28:57

as a smaller black dragon flying with Taren,

1:28:59

especially with the harness that everyone knows to be

1:29:02

Andarna's and her assumed feather tail, they're

1:29:04

immediately going to put two and two together. This

1:29:06

dragon is no longer golden. It has to be

1:29:09

the same one. And that means that she

1:29:11

must have been a hatchling before. So my

1:29:13

best guess is because with dragons

1:29:15

being very secretive, they want to

1:29:17

keep everything that they do

1:29:20

hold secret, keep it that way. Humans

1:29:22

find a way to channel from the source. And maybe,

1:29:25

you know, dragons are worried that they'll find a way to steal

1:29:27

from dragons, just like they found a way to

1:29:29

steal from the earth. Taren's line

1:29:31

says, quote, neither species has ever

1:29:34

been entirely truthful, both using

1:29:36

the other for their own reasons and nothing

1:29:38

more. I get them not being trusting

1:29:40

of humans. And vice versa.

1:29:44

Even Aetos in fourth wing says I'd like to

1:29:46

run some tests on her, like basically

1:29:48

says a line like that, especially now

1:29:50

after the interrogation room scenes. I

1:29:53

get it. I totally get them wanting to be super,

1:29:55

super secretive. Who would stop

1:29:57

them doing something like the interrogation scene?

1:30:00

up with a dragon. Now with dragons, they

1:30:02

can speak mind to mind a lot further. So what would

1:30:04

stop a bigger dragon like Taren or even

1:30:06

Seagale coming in and just like tearing

1:30:08

the interrogation place down. All in

1:30:10

all, I think it's just truly the like

1:30:13

Cold War almost style between

1:30:15

dragons and humans like neither of us can

1:30:17

trust each other. So we're gonna hold all of our secrets

1:30:19

as close to the chest as possible. And the

1:30:22

Cold War between them. That's a very good way

1:30:24

of playing. Thank you. I never studied

1:30:26

that in school. So I appreciate it. I

1:30:29

was so excited about this dragon info

1:30:31

dump when we read it in the audiobook preview. Like

1:30:34

if you listen to that, you know how excited

1:30:36

I was. We will definitely do a first six

1:30:39

archive section at some point here. And this

1:30:41

right here feels like a promise that

1:30:43

the first six are going to play a very important

1:30:45

role in this plot. It was the second time

1:30:47

that they've been mentioned within these first three chapters,

1:30:50

and they were barely mentioned at all in

1:30:52

book one. So those are neon signs

1:30:55

that show how important this world

1:30:57

building context is for this story. It

1:30:59

shows the first six are very, very important

1:31:01

to the story as they absolutely will be. So

1:31:04

Nicole, I want to hear your thoughts about

1:31:06

how Violet feels towards zating right now because

1:31:09

their relationship is definitely a little bit rocky.

1:31:11

Violet has some not so nice things to think about

1:31:13

him, but then she's still very attracted to him.

1:31:16

He's got some cocky swagger. I love to hear

1:31:18

your thoughts on this. Oh, give me the mic. Give

1:31:20

me a dissertation. I got this. Absolutely.

1:31:24

So first and foremost, I want to start with everything

1:31:26

that she's feeling towards him is so

1:31:29

hella valid. But I also

1:31:32

understand her not just wanting to be an outright

1:31:34

hostile bitch to him. I love that this

1:31:36

even surprises Zayden. He

1:31:38

says to her like I'm shocked you're not icing me out

1:31:41

and her response is so logical, which is just

1:31:43

classic Violet. She says quote, I'm angry

1:31:45

with you for keeping information from me. Ignoring

1:31:48

you doesn't solve that. But this is also

1:31:50

the beauty of this morally gray

1:31:52

character that we get from Zayden and thus this

1:31:54

very gray area relationship that we get

1:31:56

with Zayden and Violet. Also with

1:31:59

him being like I'm gonna

1:32:01

get you back attitude. Him kissing

1:32:03

her palm when she like covers his mouth. He's

1:32:05

like, yeah, like we've been a lot more intimate when you've

1:32:07

been wrapped around and she like reaches up and covers

1:32:10

her mouth. And I know he's just joking

1:32:12

around with her. However, I do

1:32:14

think that Zaden can be a little bit more. I'll

1:32:17

rephrase that he can ease his way back in a little

1:32:20

bit more. It's not really Zaden

1:32:22

to do that. But the fact that he's just like kissing

1:32:24

her palm when she's like, don't say things, she like

1:32:26

refuses to speak to him intimately mind to mind.

1:32:29

And he is just so cocky like homeboy is

1:32:31

confident that he will be

1:32:33

able to win her back. And on my first

1:32:36

read, I'm not gonna lie, I was a little frustrated

1:32:39

seems too heightened. I was a little taken

1:32:41

aback. I was put off by his

1:32:44

cocky name. It wasn't from a place of like, oh,

1:32:46

I'm cocky and I'm gonna get you back in a

1:32:48

like a mutually understanding

1:32:50

here. It almost felt like he was invalidating

1:32:53

her anger towards him with how confident

1:32:55

he was being. And on the reread,

1:32:58

I felt that a little loss throughout

1:33:00

the book. This is a scene where it's most in the spotlight

1:33:02

where it is most like, I'm, you know, I'm

1:33:04

gonna be cocky and I'm gonna get you back, rather

1:33:07

than later on in the book where it's very passionate,

1:33:09

like I am fighting for you, I am fighting

1:33:12

for us. There's a huge, huge difference

1:33:14

there. I do love and

1:33:16

hate the moment where she asks

1:33:18

him about how long he's known about

1:33:21

Brennan. And he tells her

1:33:23

that just like straight up, he tells her I've known

1:33:25

about him since his quote unquote death. And

1:33:27

she's shocked. And

1:33:29

my heart breaks for how shocked

1:33:32

she is by the man she loves being actually

1:33:34

honest with her. She even says she's like,

1:33:37

my jaw drops and he asks her like, what?

1:33:39

And she's like, you didn't evade the question. And

1:33:42

the fact that that is so surprising to her

1:33:45

is really heartbreaking. And it

1:33:47

shows how much she desperately

1:33:49

needs the truth right now. And the fact

1:33:51

that Zayden is being all like, I'll give you,

1:33:54

I'll talk about this more in a second. But the fact

1:33:56

that he's like, I'll only tell you the truth if you

1:33:58

ask the right questions. She says it perfectly.

1:34:01

She's like, you'll only give me the answers to the things

1:34:03

that you want to give answers

1:34:05

to, like not the whole candid truth. So

1:34:07

I get her being really frustrated. It

1:34:09

just all feels very human. I love it. I

1:34:12

do as well. And similarly,

1:34:14

I have a lot of feelings about Zaden and Violet's

1:34:16

dynamic here in this book that we'll definitely

1:34:18

parse through throughout our deep dive here. But

1:34:20

I do wanna just point out here, and this

1:34:22

is something that Rebecca has said, and I love the

1:34:25

analogy she uses. Zaden can't trust

1:34:27

anyone, anyone with everything.

1:34:29

Rebecca compares them to a CIA agent, and

1:34:31

I love that. Violet needs to know

1:34:34

everything that's in her character. Her strength

1:34:36

is knowledge. So that right there

1:34:38

means that they're gonna have conflict. He

1:34:41

says that she fell for the leader of a revolution,

1:34:43

but in her defense, she didn't know it

1:34:46

at the time. So now that she does

1:34:48

know that she's in love with the leader of a revolution,

1:34:50

they're gonna have to kind of start over again

1:34:52

with trust in a completely new way

1:34:55

that conflicts with each of their needs. For

1:34:57

him to have secrets to protect the people

1:35:00

he loves and his mission, and for

1:35:02

her to have all the knowledge in the world

1:35:04

because knowledge equals power. And so they are going

1:35:06

to have to come to some compromises together. And

1:35:09

his compromise here is, well, I'll

1:35:11

answer what you ask me. And from her

1:35:13

perspective, she's like, no, no, no, that's not how this

1:35:15

works. So it's really

1:35:18

interesting how it plays out. I know I got on a lot of people's

1:35:20

nerves as they were reading it, but that's kind of

1:35:22

the point is that it's realistic. It's

1:35:24

not supposed to be enjoyable

1:35:27

for us as readers because it's not enjoyable for our

1:35:29

characters in the moment. If you're mad at

1:35:31

Violet in this book, I don't blame you, but

1:35:33

please remember what she's been through and

1:35:35

how her world has completely turned upside

1:35:37

down. I'm gonna quote this and it really sums up

1:35:40

everything that she's feeling in this book. Brennan's

1:35:42

been lying to me for six years, letting me mourn

1:35:44

his death when he's been well the fuck aware the whole

1:35:47

time. My oldest friend stole my

1:35:49

memories and possibly sent me to die. My

1:35:51

mother built my entire life on a lie. I'm

1:35:53

not even sure what parts of my education are real

1:35:56

and which are fabricated. And he, Satan,

1:35:59

thinks I'm not going to die. to demand total complete

1:36:01

honesty from him. And here's the thing, she

1:36:04

expects full disclosure while he can't

1:36:06

give it because so much is not his to

1:36:08

disclose. And again, that brings us

1:36:10

right back to that CIA analogy. And

1:36:12

it's just so true. And it just,

1:36:14

they have so much to figure out together because

1:36:17

her points are valid, his points are valid,

1:36:19

and they just need to communicate. And let's not

1:36:21

forget that in fourth wing, whenever

1:36:24

Violet was stressed or scared, she starts

1:36:26

listing facts that she knows. And

1:36:28

now she looks back on those facts and is questioning

1:36:31

what's real, what's not her grounding.

1:36:33

We get so many analogies to gravity

1:36:36

in this book, her gravity was

1:36:39

knowledge, her gravity was facts.

1:36:42

And now that's not even part

1:36:44

of what she knows to be true. I will

1:36:46

say his quote, some answers,

1:36:48

especially after the last chapter

1:36:51

of fourth wing where he's like, I'm going to tell you everything

1:36:53

is a big Zaden L.

1:36:56

You could have explained this better, dude. I'm going

1:36:58

to call Zaden the fuck out. I get

1:37:01

that Violet is absolutely infuriated

1:37:04

when Zaden says this

1:37:05

for the first time, he is going back on

1:37:07

his word and literally

1:37:09

actually even flinches when

1:37:11

she says to him, quote, as long as

1:37:13

you meant what you said about telling me everything.

1:37:16

It is not a great way to build trust

1:37:19

back my friend by immediately starting

1:37:21

off with like, oh yeah, that thing I promised you, I'm

1:37:24

actually not going to do it. And Violet brings

1:37:26

up a great point. I mentioned this earlier, but I want to mention

1:37:28

it again. It's whatever truth he

1:37:31

wants to share. It's truth on his

1:37:33

terms, which she is like, I will not

1:37:35

do that. My heart did break a little

1:37:38

bit when not a little bit, a lot of it, when

1:37:40

we get the quote, or I'll get busy unfalling

1:37:42

for you. When she issues that ultimatum, he

1:37:44

is actually genuinely surprised,

1:37:47

which breaks my heart, but I'm also kind of

1:37:49

like, Zaden. Yeah, it's

1:37:51

an ultimatum. Of course it's a fucking

1:37:53

ultimatum to exactly your point of what you just quoted

1:37:56

Lex. Like she needs to know

1:37:58

this information. Now I under where

1:38:00

he's coming from with the CI agent and stuff and

1:38:02

da da da da da da. But I think his subtext

1:38:05

here is she cannot find out I'm an Intensek.

1:38:07

She cannot find out I'm an Intensek. So