Moon getting into the mindspace without being absorbed by the Othermind is explained pretty well. Her mind reading powers are her natural ability and she was not injected with the plant because she was invisible the whole time (or rescued by Sundew. I do agree though. I think this book would have been paced so much better if it did what the Legends books did and had three perspectives to show what happened exactly on Sundew's end. Still, the ending leaves the door open for a possible future, but also ties up enough to paint a clear picture that this is the end.
YESS also, there was something in the last paragraph that might signify the next arc!! "Humans and dragons traveling and living with each other. I wonder how that will go." Or something along the lines
@@voldy3565 I didn’t mean that at all- I’m actually a regular fanfiction reader and I know they can be amazing, sometimes even better than published books. I just meant that the book didn’t feel official like the others.
@@keru6925 I agree. For instance, I know it might sound weird, but the MLP fanfic Background Pony is one of the best written pieces of literature I have ever read.
Man, I HATED the Cottonmouth reveal! I feel like it came so out of nowhere and didn't feel satisfying. I feel like Tui was trying to get across the "anyone can do something good" but I feel like she's done that so many times already! I agree that Luna should have been the one to take down Queen Wasp or at least do SOMETHING! I was also super annoyed with Duskie showing up just so Luna could get attached to him and follow him into the abyss.
Honestly, I kind of would have preferred to have Dusky as a side character and instead of him being allowed to come with Luna in the first place he should have had to stay back, and then have Luna follow Blue or Cricket to make them (especially Blue) actually IMPORTANT in the story!
same, he was so damn ANNOYING! and honestly it was so slow. I hate how the ending is just "Oh just cut the vine".... really -_-?! Just REALLY! Don't even get me started on queen wasp's "death" and that being her only appearance in it. I thought I was missing so much this entire time beacuse it's the final book! But NO! It's so infuriating.
Absolutely same. It felt so out of nowhere and annoying. I think wasp should have stayed the original villain. I disagree that Luna should’ve been the one to stop her though because she wasn’t there for most of the third arc, so I feel she doesn’t really deserve that spotlight. As for who should have I have no idea, blue I think would be the best choice if it weren’t for the fact that he already had his book. Side note I had a cool idea for wasps death, she gets caught in a collapsing silk wing bridge and is strangled to death. Tui started getting hate from idiots because the themes of racism and showing all sides of the story started getting hate during the BLM protests so I wonder if tui had to throw away everything she built to and pump out an entirely different ending to get it to stop
10:27 The perpetually hungry one, the group muscle, the sassy one, the smart one, the bundle of joy, the bundle of anxiety, the emo, the sociopath learning how not to be a sociopath, the shy rollie pollie, the jokester, the pathetic one, the curious one, the fierce but venerable one, and the insecure one. Then there's Luna, the racist.
this is. a very gross misunderstanding of real world racism. Luna is the victim of a world that has done nothing but oppress her her entire life. she's RIGHT to be angry at the hivewings.
@@icebearlikestrains6238 Alright, if that's how you want to play, let me pick a fairly fitting example. If a black person in Apartheid South Africa discriminated against a white person who'd made huge sacrifices for them and hadn't hurt them in any way, and even implied that they wanted all white people gone, would that still be racist? Yes.
@osheridan it's a very complicated issue with a lot of different viewpoints, and i don't really want to argue. i think more what i want to get at is that i think the books handle these topics a little poorly, especially when the main demographic is going to be 12 year olds who haven't quite grasped or understood these complexities.
tbh, this book wasnt that bad. sure it was messy, but it was actually ok. the only thing i HATE about it is how they sideline wasp. and, inreal honesty, swordtail and Luna are awesome, and im happy swordtail is still here.
I was also quite mad that Wasp was cast aside in favor of the Othermind. I really wanted them to be co-equal villains in this book. And yeah, Swordtail and especially Luna really helped make the book better.
I feel like sidelining wasp could have worked if it was handled better, like, if she served as the full on antagonist for the first few books before being defeated, the protagonists could get a false sense of victory, before the book introduces cottonmouth, lizard, and the othermind as the antagonists for the second part of the series. I really loved them as characters, and I was really disappointed that they were only around for a fraction of the last book.
@@scootermcpeanuts6699 nah, Im sorry but the book would have been better if cottonmouth and lizard were scrapped. They are both obnoxious and have no real point in being in the book to the point it honestly feels like they were a last second idea. Sure they aren't the main reason I feel like this book is bad, but that's a big chunk of why I am not a fan. The fact that Luna just had to cut the vine was dumb as well, there's ways she could have maybe did that better. Maybe lizard was wrong about that, but it gave Luna time to escape and they would need a different way to destroy the plant. I mean Cricket was in a class about plants, she could have done something.
Also does anyone else think the overly repeated motif of the tapestry was odd? Like I know she’s mentioned to enjoy weaving in the other books, but it feels shoved down your throat, I felt like I was constantly being told she loved weaving and that felt like her only character trait.
Well we barely got to see anything of Luna before, none of her personality really. The tapestry thing is something she does and loves, it wasn’t shown before because everyone was too busy to notice her personality
I also felt like it was her only character trait, and that felt very odd, but I didn’t mind the frequency with wich it happened. I don’t think it’s any more constant than Blue trying to shove himself into other dragons, turtle trying to find out what character or story archetype he’s in, or Peril constantly having violent thoughts. While Peril’s thoughts were pretty understandable, Turtle’s writing obsession is just as or more out of the blue than Luna’s weaving is. I think the biggest difference is the subtext. with Blue, him imagining other dragons’s days was world building(and character building). With Turtle it was a window into how Turtle saw himself and his friends. With Peril, it was also a constant character demonstration of herself and what scarlet did to her perception of others, and it was funny. With Luna it’s pretty redundant. Tui describes the scene, and then Luna describes how she would weave it. As the audience we don’t get any subtext info. On paper I feel like Tui wanted Luna’s tapestries to describe more of the mood of the scene, or point out that there’s more going on than what meets the eye, but the original scene description often does that just as well if not better.
Idk this felt the most normal thing to me. It’s like then qibli kept thinking about moon in book 10, that didn’t bother me as much and as charcoal said, it’s the only thing that gives Luna any personality
i’m honestly so frustrated by the sudden importance of humans. i started reading these books when i was younger because i wanted a dragon book without humans, and now i feel like that aspect of it is gone. if there is ever a book 16, i’m not reading it.
I didn't feel it really became all about humans, I feel the humans were more to teach kids how we affect nature and doubt the humans will be a large focus in the following Arcs if there are any. I feel it would be thrown to the side like Animus magic
I agree 100%. I was so happy to find a series where dragons are the focus and humans are just two legged snacks or weird pets. I haven't read Dragonslayer yet and really disliked when a random talking human tried to put all the dragons off eating them.
I feel like writing humans out of the equation would be an easy task. 1. Tell the readers that the humans went extinct during the scorching. It’d be a fun thing to know. 2. Now, arc 1 DOES happen because some scavengers killed Queen Oasis. However, when you look at the elements you need to keep, you realize the you need to keep 3 things: Somebody killed Queen Oasis but we know that it’s not a SandWing as the Eye of Onyx would’ve deemed them unworthy & blasted them to smithereens, Blister had a part in Queen Oasis’s death, & that the thief hid the Eye of Onyx in Queen Oasis’s mouth. My current Alternate Universe solution for this is that the NightWings wanted the Eye of Onyx to control the SandWing queen, so they sent Morrowseer to kill Oasis & get the artifact. Blister did see Morrowseer, but after realizing he was trying to kill Oasis, she went back into her room & let him kill off the competition; unaware of the fact that Morrowseer also wanted the Eye of Onyx. Now, Morrowseer didn’t expect Oasis to scream & wake up everyone up, but she did. With the thuds of the dragons getting closer, Morrowseer panicked & stuffed the artifact into Oasis’s mouth, and left.
Yeah, I feel confident with this alternative universe solution. I’m pretty sure a line of the prophecy said "They will bow to a fate greater then them", which was originally meant to refer to the NightWings, but Sunny twisted it into referring to Thorn. So the NightWings wanting the eye of onyx to control the queen would definitely go right along with their plan. In addition, it fills all the requirements. Oasis is killed by a non-sandwing, the artifact is stuffed in her mouth, and Blister had a part in it. I do think the biggest tweak to this solution would be that Blister hires the NightWings to kill Oasis, the NightWings agree, but they don’t tell Blister about their ulterior motives, which are stealing the Eye of Onyx.
I had seriously low expectations for this book to be “Okay.” Fortunately the book passed them with flying colors. I had 3 things that needed to happen. 1. Don’t kill Moon or Qibli. (They are my personal favorite couple and I needed them to survive.) 2. Queen Wasp does NOT get a redemption arc. (She is evil and using “the breath of evil controlled her” excuse is complete BS) 3. Don’t kill off Bullfrog (I needed to know a new mudwing that isn’t one of Clay’s relatives, or a member of the mudwing royal family or Ochre)
My big complaints of TFOH: -The Secret Stealth Team gets separated in just a few chapters -Luna and Dusky being stuck in the mindspace for two arcs -Luna being unable to participate in any of the action sequences -Lack of intense moments -Wasp doesn’t die and gets treated like day old bread after the reveal of Cottonmouth -Blue and many other characters don’t get any spotlights
Thats what i thought when i read the first time around too. But really, the thing you hate about arc 3 isn't because it's bad, its just really different from arc 1 and 2 and have to be look at a different perspective to appreciate the books. Similar how we still have our minds opened for the first time we all read the dragonet prophecy.
I felt each arc had hits and misses (imo) and arc three had two real good books (11 and 12) a pretty good book (13) and a not so good one (14) and finally an okay one (15)
My biggest gripes are humans being important and Queen Wasp being completely sidelined lol. I read these books for dragons and while I liked the Othermind/Breath of Evil stuff, Queen Wasp needed more attention. But no. She was just...thrown to the side when they set her up to be so dangerous and terrifying. Also flamesilk!!! It was set up to be so important and it isn’t even used to defeat the villains!! I feel like Tui may have been a bit rushed to get this book out. The writing quality drop was so sudden and I have suspicions that the publisher may have pushed her to finish this book early, but I have no proof for this. That being said I do like the book overall! Great points
@@bennyboo123 There’s SO much dragon media out there with humans in it, where they’re either working together with dragons or training them. There’s so little dragon media based completely on dragons. I don’t want HTTYD, I want Wings of Fire.
@@nathanielmandrake1500 I get what your saying Wren worked well in the story because Wren kinda act like a dragon but I wouldn't mind if their was humans in it as long as they're not the main attention
Moon getting into the mindscape is not contrived at all. She’s constantly in what’s basically a collective mindscape, and I actually theorized that she might be able to communicate with dragons under the influence long before this book came out. Also, if the dreamvisitor can communicate with swordtail’s real self while he’s injected, moon can overhear dreams, and luna can be in the mindscape as herself while injected, Its not at all a stretch to think that moon would be able to access the dreamscape by way of an infected party member. Also the ending. I think its fine that everything could be solved by cutting that stem. In fact I think it makes more sense than anything else I could think of. It sounds like you feel like that’s kinda anticlimactic. For me, the climactic part isn’t what had to be done. It was Lizard volunteering that information. Im much more annoyed that Luna’s flamesilk had nothing to do with it at all, that our book 15 prologue and book 14 epilogue ‘characters’ and Io and Axolotl and even kind of Wren were nothing but plot devices. Sky and wren were worked into this arc when they, and every human except cottonmouth really never should have been In this arc. Give Wren, Sky, Winter, Cricket, and Axol a and maybe throw in smolder and rose and give them a winglets, but I think the humans could have been cut out. Pineapple is wonderful but I would have loved to see his mind excerpt thing before he attacks. Bullfrog isn’t dumb. He’s just logical. He does do absolutely nothing tho. I feel like mudwing’s ability to hold their breath could possibly have been utilized with him. Also really want to know about his sibs or what happened to them. While Lynx does do something, she absolutely gets shafted in terms of interactions. She holds Luna’s hand, and decides to trail moon, and that’s it. Bullfrog, Sky, Cricket, and Tsunami do nothing, but at least they talk. Actually scratch that Tsunami really really gets shafted too. I don’t care as much about her shafting as I do Lynx’s tho, because tsunami’s screen time is just so high, and lynx’s is not. And luna makes a big deal about moon looking like clearsight, but this is never important. I like the subversion of Luna’s expectations about how moon’s future sight didn’t help as much as luna hoped it would, but I can’t enjoy it fully because the characters never react to this. They even make a deal talking about how it’s up to you about how you fulfill a prophecy but that doesn’t go anywhere. I do think this book has a lot of problems, but they’re summed up by: Too many characters, too many plot lines, not enough payoff. And less by ‘this doesn’t make any sense’ but there are a few thing that straight up don’t make sense, specifically, pinapple not falling under the plant until after the throne room scene, when he drank that crap the night before. It would be forgivable if it was the morning of, as smoke inhalation is generally more effective that eating but as it is, it’s just really odd. More than anything, I think it feels unfinished. Not the book but the story. Like, tui is matching up shapes and colors to make a picture but while some loops of color close, others don’t, and she hasn’t figured out how to arrange them all to close all the most important loops.
i think pineapple was faking the not being infected rather than the infection not happening yet like how they were tricked ibto burning the breath of evil because a infected dragon faked being cured
I always felt like a tiny thing that would’ve helped Luna’s character was for her to actually use her flamesilk abilities. We got to know her in the first book as a rebellious individual, and she should’ve been thrilled to know that she could help defeat Queen Wasp with her flamesilk. If Tui wanted to go for the “maybe I don’t want to be the savior who has to murder everyone” thing, it would’ve been much more effective for Luna to have USED her flame-silk in that first battle sequence, and for an enemy to get so horrifically burned, she begins to question if she even wants to do this anymore. Idk, this is obviously not my biggest gripe of the book, but the entire time, it felt like Luna was ‘out of character’, which just made the entire thing so much worse. She was presented to us in one way, and then that way was ignored and replaced by other stuff. Did anyone else feel that way?
@@someonesomebody388 She felt like she gto mellowed out. She was portrayed as this character whos morals were supposed to challenge Blue's. Blue's journey towards rebellion was fairly well paced, and took place over the course of three books. Luna, however, was presented as a "rebelllious" character who didn't have the power for rebellion. But she did absolutely nothing when she DID get power
I’m calling it now: he was massively disappointed by the book. At least I was. The best way I could describe it is by saying it felt more like messy fanfiction than an actual official book written by the same author. It’s like all of Tui’s writing skill and experience suddenly vanished when writing this book. It just felt so sloppy in my opinion.
@@spoongoon7742 I think that Tui will totally keep writing books. Not nessisarily WOF tho. She writes tons of stuff outside of WOF already: Menagerie, Pet Trouble, etc, and she has said she wants to write other stuff in interveiws. So I don't think she's going anywhere.
Can I say it was a massive disappointment that Luna's flamesilk was brushed aside? It was talked about for a few sentences and it would have been better if Luna killed Wasp with her Sunsilk
Very true! Did anyone else get that feeling again of actually reading wings of fire? Idk what it was but it was awesome! And yeah not the best best book but still pretty nice!
@@winter2716 I actually agree - It felt like Tui T Sutherland wasn’t really taking it very seriously while she wrote it. Her tone constantly de-fused any tension the scene was carrying, by making out-of-place ‘self-aware’ jokes that just didn’t land. Characters making self-aware comments can be good and funny if used wisely, and it’s usually something that Sutherland is good at, but for some reason, it just felt too forced in this book. Like, there’d be no reason these characters, who are in a dire situation, would be thinking or saying these things as if they’re just having a fun chat with their friends instead of, you know, *literally trying to save their entire species from extermination*. Every time the characters made a joke in the middle of what’s supposed to be a life-or-death situation, it just made it feel like the characters were being incredibly immature, and that they didn’t actually care about one another. It got so bad at some points, I sometimes had no idea what the setting looked like around them at all. She used up more words making jokes than giving basic descriptions of their surroundings, leaving most scenes just sorta floating in a white void. The author not taking it seriously caused me to not take it as seriously, pretty much. The whole book felt childish and fanfiction-ish, like you said. It would’ve gone better if she regulated the jokes, to leave them out of the serious moments to stop breaking the immersion. Don’t attack me for my opinion, I’m a random person on the internet who you’ll likely never see irl or have to interact with again. This is just what I have to say about it.
I have very mixed feelings about this book because there were aspects that I really liked reading about but I feel like it wasn’t Tui who was writing the book. It did seem messy and the epilogue was nice but it left out so much. I wish that the order of events was different too.
(Please do not kill me) I really did NOT like the conclusion. I felt like it ruined the first three pantala books and did not follow the original problem of queen wasp. If anyone could agree, the middle was like the middle of Harry Potter 7, when they are aimlessly wandering through the forest. I feel like everything important in the first three books was shunted aside for this weird random idea that didn’t fit. Tui is amazing, and I love WOF, I was just very dissatisfied at this in justifying and weird book.
I went to a recent WoF event hosted by Tui, there is definitely more wings of fire coming. The Netflix series is still a while away, probably over a year, but from what I've heard it will be good. I will agree that book 15 was a bit disappointing to me, and I hope there is an arc four to finish the series with. Good video.
the first three pantala books were so good im rlly dissapointed with how 14 and 15 turned out :( wasp just getting completely sidelined like that was so sad i really wanted to see more of her lol. it was also super annoying when the pov was being in a room the entire time. they shouldve switched povs with characters occasionally, it wouldve likely helped make the luna scenes stronger. idk, this book was just pretty confusing
I expected the flames of hope to be an epic final battle between the group and queen wasp, boy was I miss lead. The only major fight scene was on the island and nothing else really happened. Wasp was hardly even in the book.
As for axolotl I completely agree, they had no defining characteristics except that they were enby. I wish we could have more diverse characters but actually have depth to characters as well.
I really wished that Wasp (or the Hivewings in general) found out that Moon had Future Sight, seeing the confliction with someone who they would most likely view as a second coming of Clearsight saying "you guys are in the wrong" would be very interesting.
Honestly what a good video summing up the shortcomings and shining parts of this book. I feel like at some point the draft of this book was different, but it was getting too long to the point it couldn't pull the series together in a single book, so Luna had to be pulled back as an observer character to keep the focus broad enough for the readers to clue in on all the action once the plot threads started tying off. From a writer's perspective, it does feel like Series 4 was a thought in the aether during Book 11, and THIS series was setting up for the Tribes to unite and go to Pantala to fufill the prophecy over the span of five additional books after Series 3. And for reasons unknown- maybe worries about series bloat, or the fourth series would be too dilute with everything that needed to happen every book, it was compressed down to Book 15. You can kinda get a sense of each story beat that might've otherwise been the focus of a book of its own. Not the worst way to end a series- just not the roar we thought we'd be left with. Better than a lot of books that're currently suffering series bloat. I'd rather WoF ended like this, than be dragged on and have the newer books essentially be counter-writing complaints about the series that've been brought up by fans who continue to read it
Eh,the book was okay in my opinion but definetley ( I know I spelled it wrong sorry) not my favorite. When they said Wasp and all her sisters got locked up,does that mean Scarab,too? I know she's Wasp's aunt,but they don't say anything about her. I wanna know what happened to her. And yes,I agree with Charcoal,I don't really like the way the humans are introduced. I don't like the fact that they're anything more than side characters in the books.
My bullet-point review of The Flames of Hope: *Pros* - Part 1 (especially the island battle) - The concept of the Othermind (2 minds, an evil human and an innocent dragonet with leafspeak, joined together by a parasitic plant with an instinctive desire to grow and spread by any means possible) - HiveWings having green blood (like many insects) - Luna & her character arc (yes, tapestries and all) - Pineapple (including his relationship with Jambu) - Malachite - Moon’s mind-reading being useful *Neutral* - Part 2 (including the Scorching backstory) - Dusky - Axolotl - Cottonmouth - All characters not listed elsewhere *Cons* - Part 3 - Best villain (Queen Wasp) getting completely sidelined - The execution of the concept of the Othermind (the mindspace just felt really dumb and contrived, not to mention confusing at times) - The literal execution of the Othermind (killed with an ordinary thread of silk? Really?) - Setting (half the book was literally spent in a hole, not to mention all the caves) - Style of writing (felt kind of like a sloppily-written fanfiction, especially in part 3) - Tone of writing (too lighthearted; should have been darker overall) - The epilogue (lack of meaningful followup on Blue and lots of other major characters from the arc (Admiral & the other flamesilks, Burnet & Silverspot, Io, Wasp, Scarab, Jewel, Belladonna, Sequoia, Hazel, Mandrake, Snowfall, Sky, etc.)) - Humans being so integral to the plot - Humans are suddenly big enough to carry a 2-year-old dragonet, apparently - Blue SeaWing blood - The way Axolotl’s gender identity was introduced (very cringe) - Lizard/Freedom (super annoying character) - Bullfrog (yet another throwaway MudWing) Overall, this book only gets a 3/5 from me, making it my least favorite in the entire series. What a shame 😔
In some way, I feel I'm glad to have just skipped the third arc entirely and treat book 10 as the true ending of Wings of Fire. My reasoning behind this is that all the way from the start to book 10, the books seemed to have some sort of connection with each other, as if the series was meant to have exclusively just 10 books and two arcs tying the series together with a nice bow tie to give to all the dragon fans. There was definitely no indication that there was a third arc in the first two, so what I'm guessing is that Tui did not exactly see this would get so popular that she'd be in a position to provide more content whether it's needed or not (probably because of superiors and whatnot, can't blame her if she's being forced to produce more than what's needed or planned for). This very much happens with any franchise that goes on for too long, pokemon being the first name I can definitely think of, who has probably the longest story I can really think of with a lot of places to put a satisfying ending in. Sad that Wings of Fire couldn't have a much deserved ending that would have been book 10 than what seems to be book 15. But oh well, at least there's still an animated adaptation left to enjoy and I'm really hoping that it's not a fake like the few times I've already seen happen prior. Good video in any case.
I loved the idea of a second continent, and I loved the third arc. I think we need a fourth arc to even it out, reconnect it, and give it a true conclusive ending
@@jumbopopcorn8979 There was just as much hard foreshadowing for Pantala as there could have possibly been, then as there was for Darkstalker. Darkstalker shows up in the original arc once, as a name that strongwings freaks out about. The dreamvisitors don’t count as foreshadowing darkstalker specifically because they could have been made by any animus, and in fact they’re first introduced as made by Jerboa. So really, I just don’t count that as foreshadowing. Pantalan dragons are also foreshadowed once in burn’s weirdling tower, when we see a dragon that doesn’t look like any dragon sunny has ever seen, and if I remember correctly, is even wingless. Both of these are little details that didn’t force a next arc to explain them. Darkstalker didn’t need to be an actual character, he could have been simply a ghost story and it wouldn’t have mattered. Besides, it’s not like Tui could logically foreshadow pantala anyways. The lost continent was a myth most dragons didn’t know about and fewer believed existed back in clearsight’s time. There’s no way any record or story exists of pantala from pyrriah, so how exactly was she supposed to foreshadow it? And lack of foreshadowing from the previous arc doesn’t make an arc bad. I get that it maybe doesn’t feel as cohesive, but isn’t that the point of having arcs in the first place? I felt like pantala was completely refreshing for that same reason.
@@serpentmaster1323 I mean true, it may be refreshing, but there's pretty much a lot of things that can lead to assume that this was a last second addition. If the lost continent had any sort of significance, there would maybe be something indicating to a loose end. Can be in the first or second arc, but I think the idea is to be cohesive. The first and second arcs created this expectation because they brought plots from the first arc and ended those at least fairly well. There's still things I'd nitpick, but those are just nitpicks that I can just make a fanfic of, no big deal. Like, if Pantala is a lost continent, there could be a few indications throughout the books that could show that there's another continent they haven't explored, like a mystery building up as the first two plots progress that eventually brings a more natural drive to head out into the ocean. Things slip and dragons go pretty much everywhere they like so something will likely be carried over to Pyrrhia. I just feel it could have been better written. And I think I've heard a few times that the idea is to make this a lot more friendly for newer readers, but I think piquing their curiosity with questions allows them to further explore the other books and piece everything together. Not to mention, book 6 also feels rather friendly to newer readers considering it's basically a new and much more fresh start, however it does not do away with things from prior arcs like if to pretend prior characters don't matter anymore. This is why I like the second arc, because it builds upon the foundations laid before it and enhances them. This is literally where the series took a high for me. Anyways, I feel like I'm repeating myself at this point lol, so I'll just cut it here.
@@serpentmaster1323 I think that with Darkstalker, at least we knew he existed. In Burn’s tower, it could have been a dragon with wings cut off and scales burnt. When arcs are completely separate but in the same world, you lose the ability to make a plot twist in the basic world building (for example, nightwings not actually having powers). So by creating basically a new world, Tui was able to make these changes (leaf wings were actually alive). It felt like a different series that kind of had the same elements as wings of fire but also didn’t. I understand how that could be refreshing, but in my mind it was just wiping clean everything we learned about before. Also, dragons not knowing about the lost continent was a decision Tui made; you could generally have changed the first and second arcs to include something about Pantala. TLDR: Foreshadowing was done bad in both, but somewhat better in arc 1.
Is no one gonna talk about how during the fight scene at the beginning, Tsunami was bleeding and it was described as “blue SeaWing blood,” but in the graphic novels and in previous books, SeaWings had red blood. IceWings have blue blood.
@@ThatOneWattpadWriter No? I think Tui switched Lynx with Tsunami. Also, I think Albatross looks like a Sea-Ice hybrid purely due to genetics. Albatross, Lagoon, and Sapphire were hatched at the same time, so they all have IceWing descent. Not just -murderous grandpa- Albatross.
it’s okay. It has it’s flaws, and feels kind of simple and didn’t live up to expectations, but i mean, freedom’s character arc was done pretty well and that’s probably the saving grace of this book (if you consider it saved, maybe helping is a slightly better word.)
Here's a scene i wrote that something the likes of should have literally been in the book: “ _You have to go!_ ” Sundew screamed. More guards were pouring into the room like smoke, the snarls of battle and the drone of wings and the slither of vines everywhere filling Luna’s skull, a horrible cacophony. She gasped for air, her breaths coming in sobs at the sight of Sundew about to vanish under a wave of HiveWings, all their blank white eyes coldly following the LeafWing’s every heave and slash and bite. Sundew reached for her last pouch, only for it to be ripped and thrown skiddering aside. _And I’m useless I’M USELESS my flamesilk would only let us be infected by smoke!_ Luna screamed at herself. Sundew kicked away a HiveWing who was snapping at her tail and twisted towards Tsunami, who grimly fought at her side. “Leave! LEAVE, ALL OF YOU!” “We will not leave you behind,” Pineapple shouted from above. Another dart went _thunk_ into the side of a HiveWing reaching for Sundew, but two more instantly took her place. “This is our last chance,” Sundew cried, voice raw. Tsunami barrelled into the two HiveWings clambering over her, giving her just enough airspace. “They’ll catch you all after me, and our last hope will be gone. Do without me.” “ *Clever LeafWing,* ” a HiveWing sneered before whipping out his tail, a glistening stinger sliding out in one slick motion. Luna felt a lurch in her gut as something green and translucent pulsed up towards the tip, exuding a single malevolent drop. Tsunami lunged to sink her teeth into his tail, but he knocked her aside, sending her thudding hard to the floor. Even as Luna watched through blurred tears, the vines were inching closer and closer to Sundew, hungry for leafspeak to speak them into multiplying. “We have to go - Luna! Tsunami!” Pineapple’s voice sounded far away. “This battle is lost!” Luna snapped her head up, blinking, to see Pineapple winging down towards her at the window. Tsunami hesitated for just a moment, torn, before letting loose a growling cry and taking off too. “Sundew,” Luna whispered. Two burly HiveWings had forced her wings open and pinned them down, while the one with the stinger stalked forward, grinning to reveal all his teeth. Sundew relaxed, all the fight releasing from her, as she met her fate in the eye. Everything else seemed to pass like a dream, like a fading nightmare. Luna had managed to catch one last glimpse over her shoulder, before the three of them leaped into the skies. Another glimpse, even as they flew with all the last vestiges of energy in them. The stinger in Sundew’s neck. Sundew sitting upright, bowed in pain. The LeafWing’s last, steadfast gaze after the fleeing dragons. Before her eyes flickered white and the breath of evil erupted into life all around her.
I did like the ending, and Lizard/Freedom's redemption brought tears to my eyes, but overall this book was just okay for me. There were some good moments and great ideas, but the execution was poor for the most part, and there was too much wasted potential. If this truly is the end of Wings of Fire (I doubt it) then let the main series end here. I used to think that Arc 3 was my favorite of the series, but after seeing how the Arc concludes, I may have to reconsider.
I just finished this book and I feel like Tui pushed concepts and themes over the actual plot.The villains didn’t do to much themselves because well, they can’t, their dead. And some characters just seemed to be placeholders.
My Afterthoughts of reading the book and watching this video: 1. To give some background, I usually will almost immediately reread a good book (every wof book included), this time I disliked it SO much that I haven't reread it once. 2. I think it's bad because of one thing that I call the Train-to-Busan-syndrum which is based off the zombie movie: Train to Busan, that I disliked too because of the one factor: the main part or majority of whatever I'm talking about (book 15 in this case) is in one small space for wwwwwaaaayyyyy to long. 3. Saying I hated the book is probably not far off, I just didn't like it, I'm reading this series to see dragons doing cool stuff, not for CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT THAT ISN'T EVEN THAT GOOD! AAAAAAAAAAA- 4. Screaming over with I would like to discuss the future of this series (what I would like to see) starting at a book (yes 300 pages) about the aftermath, I would also like to see a book where Sky meets Peril and (maybe in the same book) one where they tie off the loose end in the epilogue of Legends: Dragonslayer. 5. Jumping back to book 15, I have no idea what the shi-[REDSCTED] was going on the whole time, I expected some fighting, storming the hives, and some other cool stuff not sitting in a cave doing nothing. 6. Rewinding to before book 12 came out (a while ago) my brother and I thought that it would be cool if Darkstalker, not the coward Sandwing I would gladly purify, removed Animus Magic as a I-can't-be-alive-so-you-can't-have-magic thingy. 7. I don't have high hopes for anything else wof-related I think the guide/forge dragon world thingy will come out and nothing else, no Netflix show, no nothing. I believe this is true cause book 15 and 14 flopped so oH tHeY mUSt noT liKE wOf anYmORe. Which is wrong, the developers of the pvz shooter games thought that and cut production of anything related to that, they were wrong and they aren't changing their minds. 8. Due to my thoughts I would overall consider book 15 a 1.5/5 and wof in general a 8.9/10 (doniask why so sespific), it would be a 10/10 if it weren't for somethings... Liiikkkkeee being in a cave for half a book-yeah you get the point. That's it, do you agree with some of what I said or do you disagree? Up to you what you think, and god dang it don't think I'm trying to insult you of do anything bad/speaking the truth it's all an opinion just RELAX!
Apparently we’re still getting info on the Netflix show, and I hope it’s gonna be a thing. I especially agree with your train-to-busan syndrome thing, i had the exact same thoughts that it stayed in one spot the entire time. And whilst other people didn’t like it, 14 is my 2nd favourite book of the franchise, Snowfall is developed so well and while people call it ‘filler’, what did you want instead? We need some sort of transition from ahh flee from the plant to secret stealth team, and i dont think that could’ve been handled in a prologue and epilogue alone.
@@carrott36 2 months later aaannnddd the cancelled the Netflix show. So I was right which gives a little bit of deja vu on book 10 and not I'm a good way.
Ok honestly not the best book but I still like it. It was definitely a messy conclusion. I wish we got to see like kaydid and malachite come back, or blue and Luna meet back up, I would have loved to see more dragons coming back together in a heartfelt “holy crap I missed you” hugging loving catching up way, but we just got “oh and everyone got together and caught up and now everything is fine and we can go back and forth between continents” Also I wish wasp was more than a minor character and I agree with everything said wasp related like bruh why couldn’t Luna just up and murder her. Also lizard/freedom holy crap I love her and I hate that she had her life taken away from her as a dragonet, yes her tantrums and arguements can get annoying but dude she’s a wee baby, small children’s thoughts are usually about themselves so the fact that freedom gave up her life for everyone else to live means a lot seeing how she acted before and that she is a dragonet who had her life taken from her means a lot. Also I HATE how in like every page there’s something about tapestries! Like we get it Luna likes tapestries we don’t need to hear it every other sentence! It definitely helps sometimes with visualizing but there’s still way to much tapestries tapestries tapestries! Overall I like the book but it could’ve been a lot better, my favorite character from it is freedom, she deserved so much better. And I just wish that the book was better, I wish it was longer to give us a better conclusion but this is fine
This was a fun review and I agreed with most all of your critiques here - the book really was... messy, as you put it. I do, however, have to disagree with you on three points: 1) Bullfrog was not at all a sack of bricks. Did he talk slowly and simply? Yes. Did he fail to keep up with Qibli in conversation? Also yes, but come on, who wouldn't? When it mattered, though, Bullfrog came through. He was the one who brought the insight that prophecies are more guidelines than exact predictions which ultimately got the group moving in the right direction. He was also the first (and only) one to react when they turned visible again and their only human connection was about to escape. Without Bullfrog, things would not have gone well for the group. He may have talked slowly, but this was in no way representative of his ability to contribute and I, personally, really enjoyed discovering this nuance to his character. 2) Maybe this is just a me thing, but I don't see humans becoming more involved in the plot as a bad thing. At the end of the day, they're just new characters. All of the dragons we've come to know and love could just as easily have been humans (with a few extra abilities) and we'd still love them for who they are. It's not the simple fact that these characters are dragons that make these books so special. It's the writing behind them; the writing that builds them up, that shows us their strengths and their flaws, that lets us connect with them, and that makes us feel as if they really are part of our lives. Human characters in these books are no different, especially now that they have ways to communicate with dragons. 3) Luna definitely has character and a character arc. Going along with your classification of each of the pov characters from the series, I would call Luna the "Rebel". Her "thing" is that she detests the society she grew up in and actively wants to take it down. She works toward this goal, or at least considers it, in almost every scene she's in. As for her arc, in part 1 of the book she needed to rehash the whole "understanding things from other dragon's perspectives" arc that Sundew went through so that in parts 2 and 3 she could use that while trying to convince Lizard that there are better lives out there. It was necessary for the plot because, without it, Lizard's transformation feels forced/unorganic which absolutely ruins Lizard/Freedom's climactic moment. Now, that raises the broader question of whether or not it was a good idea to introduce two new characters as the main bad guys in the final book of the arc, but that's a different discussion - given the context, this was an arc that Luna and Lizard/Freedom went through _together_ and that makes it both more important and perhaps easier to see. But other than that, I agreed with pretty much everything! I also really liked your idea for the time-skip epilogue. I think that would have made a perfect end to the series. Given that it didn't happen, I've got my fingers crossed that it wasn't truly the end hahaha.
Think what you want about this, but this book create one of the biggest plot holes in the whole series. In part 2 or 3, lizard says that the first dragons came 3000 years after they did. Want to know when that was? The same time as darkstalker. As we know at the end of darkstalker and prologue of book 11, clearsight went to the lost continent and found dragons already there, speaking a whole new language. It even says in the epilogue of book 10 that they made jokes about the lost continent. So how in the world did two entire species of dragons flee the continent and start a new language the same time that darkstalker tried to take the throne? There’s no thought at all about two species fleeing. Also ig tui decided it was a good idea to change an already developed blood color by changing seawing blood to blue instead of red all of a sudden. Good job tui
Pretty sure a 4th arc was announced, let’s hope it lives up to the hype, especially with the, late 1990’s-2000’s Disney famous movie sub-par sequel feel with arc 3
Y’know what would be better? If Tui published four more winglets that concluded so many missing/less developed characters (Umber+Sora, Bullfrog, an explained backstory for a SandWing animus’s existence, and how Queen Monarch easily gave up her role as queen to Queen Wasp, though that sounds better as a Tree Wars legend than it does as a short winglet)
I agree with many of the points you made. Book 14-15, while they were good books in their own right, felt lack-luster in comparison to the rest of the series; it seems Tui is trying to experiment with absent storytelling by making the main characters (Snowfall and Luna) see different circumstances through the eyes of other dragons or just plainly have them not be there during conflict. I particularly have issue with Pineapple spitting venom at Queen Wasp and the "fight" that broke put while Luna was trying to destroy the BoE in Book 15. There is so little substance in those events because Luna (and thus the readers) are watching events unfold from an outsider's perspective, that when Pineapple attacked Queen Wasp and ruined her face, we don't feel any sense of finality or justice behind it. It just... Happened. It felt mildly incomplete at best and lazy at worst. For Tui to call Queen Wasp her favorite antagonist then dispose of her in such a boring way really irks me. Personally, I think Book 14 should have been told from the perspective of Swordtail. It would have been fascinating to read him trying to help Blue and the other Silkwings while simultaneously distrusting himself in the event Wasp takes over. Sort of like Meilin's trauma in the first arc of the Spirit Animals (the 5th book was written by Tui herself). Why Tui wrote the book for Snowfall when she wasn't even part of the plot to begin with bothers me immensely. I have my reservations about Book 15, but only in that Luna herself was a passive force, really only doing the bare minimum to keep the plot going long enough to meet Cottonmouth and Lizard/Freedom (who was the highlight of the finale). Sad since Luna said she didn't want to be a tool used by Queen Wasp or a symbol by the Silkwings, yet ultimately she was a slave to the story. I don't want to call Tui's writing bad or claim the third arc was horrible- in fact, I think arc 3 had the POTENTIAL to be one of the best arcs, up until Books 14-15 came out- but it is clear at the least she's trying to experiment different writing mediums. Absent storytelling does work to an extent, but dedicating the near entirety of the book to flashbacks and out-of-body experiences caused the weight behind the main character to fade. Nonetheless, I enjoyed these books for what they were and I lament their potential and what could have been. Though making Dragonslayer was a massive mistake. I hate all the human characters and especially Sky.
This book was quite good for me! I actually liked the idea for the mindscape, and Cottonmouth, and how it relates to the Scorching. What wasn’t good at all, was the start, and how they literally got captured. Also, it was like the other part of the team immediately poofed (Sky, Wren, Bullfrog) They just didn’t do anything and just stayed with Bryony and the SilkWings- I’m gonna compare this to my favorite, and my least favorite book in the series My most favorite: Winter Turning (although I might edit this one because It is in competition currently) My least favorite: Talons Of Power Talons of power was really bad, because Turtle and Kinkajou did NOTHING. And Tui took that word seriously in the books. Most of the book was just Turtle and Kinkajou spying on Darkstalker, and trying to communicate with Qibli through the slate with a stupid enchantment, that Qibli can’t write back, which made me really mad. Even worse, Tui pushed all the action to the end of the book, which would make it very little, besides everybody remembering the animus battle. Comparing to Flames Of Hope, Talons Of Power is way worse. Flames Of Hope atleast had some action. Such as the backstory of The Scorching, and Luna and Dusky getting captured by the Abyss, and the death of Freedom (which was just sad) It had a happy ending, which if there is a Arc 4, it would most likely take place in a new continent. Now my favorite. Winter Turning Winter Turning gave a lot of depth to the characters, I didn’t want to read it, and I tryed to avoid it at first, because that time I was a Darkstalker simp, and since he wasn’t talking In that book, I didn’t want to read it, which caused me to just go read Darkstalker Legends, because I am a idiot. I later on read it and gosh was it good- How Foeslayer turned out to be frozen by Queen Diamond as a punishment, which was why the red dot in the map in the legends book wasn’t moving. It also felt like a mystery book, and most things connect, such as all of them trying to find Hailstorm, which they first had to find Icicle, then find where Scarlet hid him, which lead to the Diamond Trial, and Foeslayer. Again, it’s in competition, as it might be replaced as favorite, with another book I really enjoy, so I might edit this. Let’s compare it to Flames Of Hope Flames Of Hope was messy indeed, but it did connect, such as how the Scorching caused all of this, but something unlike it, is what did Bullfrog, Wren and Sky had to do with ANY of the book? They did absolutely nothing more then say ideas and that’s it. Flames of Hope was really enjoyable though, yet some of it was frustrating, and sort of rushed. Anyways this is my opinion.
Here’s my disappointed review for Book 15 and how I would fix it: (SPOILERS) As much as it pains me to say it, I am legitimately shattered by how much of a letdown this final entry was. Before reading, I had my suspicions that it might not go so well, but NOTHING could’ve prepared me for the mess I read. And just to clear away any possible confusion, I’m not upset about a specific event happening in the book or the ending not being what I wanted or a protagonist not being towards my liking. I’m upset because this book was absolutely sloppy almost from beginning to end, as if Tui (the author) suddenly just lost all her writing talent. The best way I can describe Book 15 is by saying that it didn’t feel like an actual official book written by the same author who wrote all the previous ones, but more like a messy fanfiction written by a kid who was too excited to wait for the final entry so they tried making it themselves. Originally, my least favorite books in the series were The Lost Heir and Winter Turning for reasons like the protagonist being difficult to root for or the story being too slow or some other nitpick that either couldn’t have been avoided for that book or just not to my taste. The Flames Of Hope is something entirely different. It simply lacks the magic that made all the other 16 Wings Of Fire books feel so fresh and polished. It squanders nearly everything that had been built up towards it like a joke. I’m gonna try to go through every major part that made the book feel so stale to me, in order of occurrence: I have never in my life seen a more outrageous plot device than those invisibility bracelets on Sundew. Right at the beginning of the book the team gets separated because of the most ridiculous conditions. Apparently the dragons in the lead don’t notice an ambush of 20 mind-controlled HiveWings on a small island near the continent until they get jumped by them. Even more ridiculous, apparently Sundew can’t turn them invisible because they’re out of sight because they just HAPPENED to race each other very close to the hostile continent. And then she can’t make them invisible at all because apparently she has to make the others visible first for a second to do so, and they can’t just hide behind a tree or a rock for literally one second to make that happen. And so their only choice is to sit by and watch as all three protagonists of previous arcs get taken away for the majority of the book. It should be clear that it’s a bad idea to bring back protagonists of previous stories as side characters, just to get them screwed over immediately like total idiots that no one cares about. The most infuriating part about this is that all these characters should know full well that the fate of the entire world is likely resting on this mission, but instead they’re completely goofing off until they get screwed. If you ask me, the only right way to start this book is with the team staying focused on the mission and not getting compromised until about a third of the way through. It would’ve been incredible to finally see a full team of dragons with different handy field skills working together and gathering the Intel they need regarding how things have changed since they were last on Pantala and how they can get closer to the abyss. Each dragon making the most of their talent to help the whole group get closer to success, all the while getting to know and trust each other a little more through quick conversations about backstories and morals during breaks and stopping points. Instead, we mostly get Luna slowly learning to accept Cricket… WHILE INVISIBLE. They remain unnecessarily unseen for almost a quarter of the whole book purely for the sake of Wasp not knowing there’s a second Clearsight on the island. So Luna, Cricket, Bullfrog, Sky and Wren are literally just sitting there and doing nothing while Sundew and Lynx are experiencing all the action offscreen. And this is coming from someone who completely adores Cricket as a character and usually treasures the high amount of screen-time she gets in the books. I’m just gonna recap the entire book and after that I will talk about how it could’ve been done so much better: And then they finally become visible all of the sudden and find the Pantala survivors where they have a cool reunion and get directions to the abyss and a cute baby who Luna will apparently TAKE WITH HER (she would be such an irresponsible mother). And once again, some stupid plot inconvenience happens. Two humans from the prologue somehow manage to snatch the baby dragon and bait Luna to the abyss, decide to change their minds, and then something else snatches the baby and forces Luna to dive all the way to the bottom of the pit even though she’s a dragon and can easily just fly. But this bizarre sequence of events determines otherwise and gets her trapped. And she stays there for the ENTIRE SECOND HALF OF THE BOOK until the epilogue. Literally all she does is watch a few bits of the other characters go through all the critical plot sequences without her (like the captured dragons escaping, one of them being mind-controlled and getting discovered, and them all heading over to the abyss despite knowing it’s a trap), and learning the origin story of literally everything that had ever happened in the world as well as trying to sympathize with a brand new character to save them (and the only reason she isn’t taken out by the Othermind is because the the character is cranky). And then they go through memory trips and Lizard (the new key character) tells Luna to kill her and stop the Othermind and there is a very underwheming fight sequence elsewhere as Luna plays pin the tail on the donkey while bumping into walls and then she finally cuts the critical vine and has a heartfelt moment with Lizard before she dies. Luna doesn’t even get to use her epic flamesilk to deliver the final blow. Here is just about everything from this point I would’ve done differently to make the book much better: the group eventually gets compromised and some of them get taken by the Othermind, but they don’t get to escape its control once they’re paralyzed and captured, and the rest of the group keeps going forward to accomplish the mission. Sundew gets caught and mind-controlled towards the end when they’ve almost found the abyss and uses her leaf-speak and combat skills to put up a huge fight. Since she was originally supposed to be the one who stops the Othermind and now that she’s been taken over by it, the Othermind has basically won with her power to grow all over the world, and the stakes raise that much higher. Thanks to either her leaf-speak or Moon’s mind reading beforehand, they are able to confirm that the source of the Othermind is at the bottom of the abyss. So the group knows the only way they can succeed is by going down there and finding out to how to destroy it. By this point, very few characters are left un-mind-controlled. Especially Luna, Sky, and Wren. Maybe also Cricket and Lynx or Moon. The protagonist manages to dive down to the bottom but gets caught by the Othermind. They find out about Cottonmouth and Lizard and get the backstory of the Scorching, the same way they do in the original (but maybe with more evil vibes instead of dumb arrogance in the story). But this time the protagonist immediately feels pity for Lizard and expresses it very strongly, before Lizard even gets to mention how much her life sucks. She would be overwhelmed with the sudden affection that she wouldn’t even know what to do with it, and then told that it’s a curse she has to live like this. The protagonist would tell Lizard that her living is hurting everyone in world including herself, and ask if there is any way to kill her to put her out of her misery. Lizard would say that it would be stupid for her to want to die, for the protagonist would say “Wouldn’t it be worth it, if you could finally be free from this curse? Wouldn’t this be a mercy?” while having their front arms on Lizard’s shoulders to emphasize their seriousness. Lizard would say that, since they are both in the Othermind source area, she could try to release the grip on the protagonist against Cottonmouth’s will, but only for a minute at most. The protagonist will suddenly be snapped out of the trance and wake up wide-eyed partially submerged in terrifying vines wrapped around them, some of them actually digging into them. They would have a very disturbing sequence of struggling to break free and tearing roots out of their body. And once they’ve popped out, they’ll drowsily, but determinedly, wobble over Lizard’s real body and destroy all the vines going through it, preferably with flamesilk. For dramatic effect maybe there could be plants trying to stop them from getting over, but not reaching because of Lizard’s resistance. (See reply for second half of review)
(Here is second half of review) There are also two key other events I would’ve added in the middle of the book. One would be the death of Queen Wasp. She’s one of the most evil villains in the series (pretty much a mix between Blister and Scarlet) and deserves a good death sendoff instead of simply being imprisoned and glossed over. Maybe the group could get caught by her and her HiveWings, but once someone kills her (preferably Sundew and Luna are trying to hold her down and then Cricket delivers the killing blow, who Wasp had a personal hatred for), the Othermind weakens and needs a minutes to refocus its control on the sudden bigger amount of dragons it has to control, buying the group enough time to escape. Another key event I want to see happen is the group turning hostile on each other with words. The whole theme should be about unity between the ten tribes, and what better way to demonstrate that than by having them at each other’s throats due to the stress of failing the save the world? After a rough event happens and they get exposed, having their original plan in ruins, nearly everyone but the protagonist starts blaming someone else and yelling. I can easily imagine Sundew blaming Pyrrhia for not giving them real magic and that they must’ve lied to keep it to themselves, Tsunami and Lynx lashing back by saying they never even had to get involved, Pineapple and Bullfrog saying it’s Pantala’s fault for even dragging Pyrrhia into their rotten mess, Cricket lashing back yelling what else were they supposed to do, Luna snapping at Cricket saying that she shouldn’t even be allowed to be in the argument since she’s a HiveWing, Wren getting mad at everyone just for arguing, Luna blaming Moon for not being nearly as good of a Clearsight as they needed, Qibli getting hostile in defending Moon and telling Luna she can’t just expect Moon to solve all her problems, and the main character being the only one trying to stop the arguing and eventually getting everyone focused on the main topic and that they all need to trust and rely each other if they want to defeat the true evil. It would line up perfectly with “talons united”. And as you may have noticed, when I say “protagonist”, it doesn’t seem like I’m talking about Luna. Which brings me to an idea I’ve had since even before the book was released. And to top it all off, I think the critical changing factor that could’ve made this book as great as it deserved to be… is to make Sky the protagonist instead of Luna. Now don’t get me wrong, Luna is a great character. But let’s be fair: most of her character development arc suddenly appeared only in her book and was pretty unrelated to the overall theme. The whole “just keep smiling” thing was nothing like how she was in the previous books and the whole “all HiveWings bad” thing was covered in Sundew’s character arc only two books ago. The whole “learn to trust and accept Cricket” thing would’ve been a nice touch if it was done in an earlier book with less tension on the obvious enemy, but not in the final entry where everyone should know who the real enemy is by now, unless of course it only happens in an impactful moment of hopelessness. Sky on the other hand had the perfect opportunity to fit his potential character arc with the theme of the book: learning to accept himself despite his disability and trying to convince even enemies to see things his way and give in. If instead of making him act like a toddler who keeps getting distracted, Tui could have him be a little more responsible and focused on trying to be a hero that the world needs him to be. He can understand both dragons and humans so the reader can have the fresh new experience of a protagonist being a dragon talking to humans, he can poetically break up fights between the other characters and remind them that the main focus is saving the world and they all need to work together they want to succeed thanks to his pure pure-hearted words that can only come from someone with zero selfish or spiteful intentions of their own, and he would probably be the perfect candidate to convince Lizard to give up her life for everything. He could talk about how he kind of relates to Lizard considering how on the same day he was hatched, he was almost killed by his own parent and also had to be raised by a human. Then he can say that it’s awful how Lizard never got the affection from her human like he did from his. And then Sky could give her his memories about how much he and Wren cared for each other, and how scared he was when he was alone without her. While doing this, he can continue to emphasize his remorse for Lizard and tell her how much she wants to help her. Then she will eventually cave in and tell him how to kill her and the Othermind and that she will try to keep him awake and free to move for as long as she can. Sky will show an unfamiliar determination that had grown from him maturing and taking on the responsibility of saving everything, showing in the way he forcefully pushes himself to break free from the terrifying vines that had dug into his scales. Just imagine how cool it would be for this initially soft character to have such a determination to tear roots out of his scales without hesitation out of pure determination. But then he will suddenly panic and feel hopeless that he can’t destroy the vines because he can’t breathe fire, and even though he made it this far, he still won’t be able to go all the way with it. But then he will find some way to get flamesilk or start a fire quickly (maybe he could make a fire with wood pieces thanks to lessons from Wren, maybe he can call for Luna to shoot flamesilk down, just something symbolic to show that he can achieve the goals even without the same advantages as other SkyWings). And then he would run over with his actual body to physically hug Lizard for real as she sheds a tear and says thank you. I honestly think that it would’ve been better to have Sky as the main character because since the entire origin of the Scorching is revealed in this book, it only feels right for a Pyrrhia dragon (especially a SkyWing, the absolute textbook definition of a standard dragon) to be the one to experience it. The story really isn’t about Pantala anymore as much as it is about saving everything and stopping a crazy weird evil. I will say that the only major thing that was done very right was Luna and Swordtail’s romantic dynamic and backstory. All of that was done really great. No complaints from me on that. Everything else though, not so much. The irony about all this is that at last I get to read about Moonwatcher and Qibli’s official romance in action after so much build-up throughout Arc 2 to make it happen (something I had impatiently been waiting four whole books to see). But honestly, I was too bummed with the rest of the book to be proud of my favorite dragon couple finally showing off their great genuine love and affection for each other. Another thing, while the short backstories of the other characters were cute and wholesome, it kind of messes with Qibli’s background of always having to fend for himself all alone, when there was apparently at least one dragon who defended him as a hatchling. That just doesn’t add up. Overall, the concept at the end that ties in with the Scorching was a good idea, but executed very poorly. Everything before that was an underwhelming mess of the protagonist just sitting around while all the action is happening elsewhere and going through stage 1 character arcs, both of which should never happen in a grand finale. And in the end, things don’t get nearly as dramatic and tense as they should have. I’m sorry, but this book was a bigger letdown than I ever could’ve imagined from Wings Of Fire.
As much as I would like to see this video…I can’t. I haven’t read the book yet. But the title is immediately making me think the ending is disappointing. But I hope it’s more based on opinion than facts. I better not be disappointed by the book. I’ll be back here when I get a chance to read It. Edit:I read the book and I must say. I actually ended up liking it. I think it was arc finale worthy. But…it just wasn’t series finale worthy. Although it would be better to leave it off there. Instead of making everything worse by extending the series with a 4th arc. Besides. We will still get graphic novels and other kinds of books. But if we do get a 4th arc. It better be done right. And have an actual reason to continue the story. Due to the way book 15 ended.
I just finish the series a few days ago (main books only) and Tbh the 3rd arc feels more like First Fanfic than a series finally, ecspshaly(can't spell) Lunas pov. It's boring & dragged out. Like give Luna Something to do! not just sit on her tail and talk to the ghost of a dragonet. I'll admit The cutting the vine was okay but I would've preferred Luna figured it out on her. I think the biggest problem with Flames of Hope is it was conestly breaking the Show don't Tell rule of writing, with Luna & Lizard.
I honestly loved book 15 but I agree with you. The only real reason is because I loved Lizard/Freedom. She was feisty but wanted freedom so bad. I just loved her at the end when she sacrificed herself. I feel like she kind of got that development that Luna needed.
Problems with the book and my personal solutions: 1.) In book 11, we know Luna as this fierce, disobedient SilkWing that will not hesitate to stand up for whats good, but in book 15, she just becomes really…shy? Like, all her fierceness just kinda evaporates. I mean, think about it. We know Luna DOESNT like HiveWings. But when all her friends are in danger against HIVEWINGS, shes just…there. Like, she worries her flamesilk might burn her friends, but why cant she just go down there all invisible and burn them herself? It’s not like they’ll be able to see her, and even if they manage to hurt her, they dont know where she is. Overall, Luna kind of just…downgraded 1S) I think Luna’s fear of her flamesilk should be completely dissolved, and instead, replaced by losing her friends. (Swordtail, Blue, Io, etc) Why? She’s already fearful for losing Swordtail, and that shouldnt be different from all her other friends being controlled by the Othermind. And I know shes scared of being blown out again, but that was during a STORM. Yes, a STORM. Was there a storm during that fight sequence? Or high winds? Nope. Also, in Book 14 when Jerbora was asking her scroll if Luna was dangerous, it responded with “Only to those who hurt her friends” Ironic, isnt it? And add her fierceness back. 2) Most of the Stealth mission members didnt get much, uh, screentime? Booktime? Idk what to call it, but still. Pineapple is trapped by the HiveWings and doesnt show up for a while until he enters the mindspace. Moon is also trapped by the HiveWings and doesnt show up for a while until she enters the mindspace. So is Tsunami and Qibli, oh dear, they were gone for literally SO LONG. Although Sky was there for most of the time, he mostly did nothing. Sundew and Lynx were gone most of the book to rescue the others, Bullfrog was basically a minor character. Overall, this aspect was disappointing. 2S) Like the Legends book, I think they should have switched the POV each chapter. With so many characters to keep track of and so little backstory with Bullfrog and Pineapple, I think it’s fair. It would be interesting to see how Lynx and Sundew rescued the others. 3) Wasp’s defeat was so unclimatic. I expected something better than an already used strategy of defeating an evil queen and imprisonment. 3S) Kill her. Straight up, just kill her. Dont keep her alive. Snap her neck, blast frostbreath, choke her with vines (funny that Sundew hated Queen Wasp so much only to keep her alive) snap her neck, pull out her teeth, gouge out her eyeballs, BURN HER WITH FLAMESILK JUST KILLED HERRR RARATAYHEHDDJJDJD
U know the painting Lady Scarab did of Wasp? The wasp getting consumed by ants? It could have been a faint foreshadowing of Wasp's death. It could have been smt like the othermind being "We'll, Wasp, as it turns out I don't need u anymore" and then swarms her with her own HiveWings, and she goes down screaming while the secret stealth team escapes and looks back in horror. Yeah. Long reply, I know, but u gave me an idea -
Personally I really enjoyed this book, and I think it was well written. I just don't think it had the "ending" kinda thing we all wanted, I do think the end was a bit underwealming, but over all, I very much enjoyed it
This was the most confusing book in the series as read more of the book and grasped more things the book would just keep shoving more things in my face causing me too constantly be prosesing what is going on
I hate that Sunderland had to make it end in such a way somewhat but the thing is that I wish she could do a fourth arc but with an ending like that tells me it might not happen, I mean who knows if yhe fourth arc will happen. I mean I think the series still has a lot of potential for adventures and stuff but honestly even to me 15 is yes a lot of books for an author but for someone like me who's a fast reader and who longs long well done series I do love but I know that if you go down the path like warriors did to how much worse it got over time to slowly die out it was bad and wings of fire could have that if Sunderland does decide to actually even have a fourth arc after many years of a break, but I can see why she would stop the series but it's so popular rn and many people and one like me thinks that the series beyond 15 had so much potential left and I want it too because I'm freaken hungry for more but I know it's something that might not happen and we might mostly get stuff like legends and guides and such for the series. I hope to God if it does continue I think their should be a time skip not the year and a half something or so that's happened throughout the three arcs I think we should have all the ones we have all grown up or so and have new ones like bumblebee and such as sky and such wren and whatever young ones be apart of something new pr basically what im saying is to instead of continuing on the same boring old dying path like warriors did without a time skip for WOF, of anyone agrees to what I'm saying about this please let me know that I'm not the only one thinks that their could be much more potential for the series after 15 books or her doing the rest of legends books and such after her long break from it and such.
So, at the end of TFoH, we see Sundew sorting out saplings from Pyrrhia. This doesn’t seem like a big deal, but…those saplings are most likely going to become an invasive species on Pantala. There’s a reason why trees on Pyrrhia are on Pyrrhia and why trees on Pantala are on Pantala. Also, how is anybody going to be able to TURN THE SAVANNA INTO A JUNGLE?! I’m not even sure how Pantala became a savanna if the whole continent was covered in jungle/rainforest, but I guess it was just plot convenience. Here’s another rant: Why is the Burning of Bloodworm never mentioned again? It might’ve been mentioned, but I don’t feel like going through TFoH to find it. While yes, Bloodworm Hive was the worst out of the Hives, this doesn’t justify it being gone, reduced to ashes. Tui sort of paints it as “Oh, but they’re the good guys, so they can do a literal war crime!”. Seriously? About the war crime thing, it’s because there were most likely a lot of HiveWing casualties, and the fact that there were probably a lot of injuries. Even if there weren’t any deaths (which is very unlikely), the Hive housed 1/9 of the HiveWing and SilkWing population, which leaves a bunch of lives having to move to a different Hive. Also, there were lots of goods, money, valuables, and personal belongings that were probably lost in the fire. This means a bunch of HiveWings and SilkWings are now left with nothing. Honestly, what the heck?
I was pretty underwhelmed with the book. And yeah Luna's lack of consistency didn't help. Which is a shame, everything we had seen up until the release from her had me excited. I was ready to make her my all time favorite. But when we get her pov in this book it feels like she has 15 different personalities and perspectives, which could have been used if they acknowledged it but I don't think it was intentional. We have the Luna who hates hivewings which is probably the one that gets the most focus but has the least amount of bearing, we have the Luna that thinks her way is the best way which COULD have worked perfectly. Against with the parallels to darkstalker if she and qibli had been able to have more interactions I think this idea of her black and white view of the world could have been used in the climax with it being as emotion and dialogue heavy as it is could have been best used if freedom and Luna helped each other and that was the resolution or the thing that pushed freedom to sacrifice herself. The Luna I think tui wanted though was the one who had to learn to open up and acknowledge her feelings. Which doesn't really match with the emotional Luna we get in previous installments but none of these really do so it's fine ig. I feel like if the memory things required Luna to be vulnerable with freedom and freedom in turn reflected on herself because of this it could have worked instead of the few random lines. Also there was this "we aren't so different you and I" esc line from cotton mouth that really should be removed if they weren't going for the 2nd option. I really am hoping for another arc so they can tackle the political state of pantala. I want to see bumblebee working for the pantalan investigative agency tracking down assasins and preventing political distress while we see how sever the hivewing problem is and how far wasp supporters are willing to go. Remember LOK SEASON 1? Yeah like that except even more based in politics lol.
It felt like Qibli was on cocaine or something. I actually thought Tsunami was written pretty well, though. And Lizard/Freedom was almost unbearable most of the time.
@@Hepoxni I know, right? The overall tone/mood of this book felt way too lighthearted given the stakes. I was expecting something super dark, but apparently that’s too much to ask for.
@@winter2716 I agree that the tone was way to light-hearted. I don’t think a single living thing died (except cottonmouth and freedom, who I didn’t really care for and weren’t technically living anyway) in this book, despite the large fights that happened and other odds
Tbh when playing, reading, or watching something I'm usually just "Oh this is nice I was able to enjoy it enough to pass time with it" and I'm not the best at critiques or reviews or anything, but the ending of the book I do agree it's not really the best ending for Wings of Fire in general (Meaning the main series, unless an arc 4 is revealed), and I wish it focused on other dragons. The new characters were pretty nice however I kind of hoped for Axolotl to be more focused on and more important to the story after how they were introduced Also couldn't help but mention how I recognized the PLA Giratina and route 209(?) theme as soon as it began playing, they're some of my favorite soundtracks lol
Spoilers for the book 15, but you already knew that when clicking show more Now i wouldn't go off and say this book was a complete trainwreck like some comments or videos i have seen, tui had not introduced the lost continent well.. and it could have been written better, for example in the lost continent, they could have made a longer prologue to introduce this arc, and now for the rant, First, what needed to be changed Lets start with cottonmouth, I HATE COTTONMOUTH, all i got from him was he wanted to take over the world, other villans i could understand, or slightly understand: Morrowseer- wanted a better home forhis tribe, smae with queen vengance, scarlet was hard, but all i could say is her childhood is what caused her insanity as i don't know any of it, darkstalker.. truthfully, arc two was kind of messed up too, but i could understand the villan, to a degree, Darkstalker, born with is unique power thought he had to use his power "responsibly from the beginning, he knew he had it" allthough he could just.. not known? wait im not fixing all the books here, just arc three, although he was actually good before his mom disappeared, is what made me fan over him a looong time, and im finnaly done with that, And then arc three, were brought in too quickly, we could have used a few chapters to a longer prologue, we have this mysteriouus unseen abillity, the hivemind, whitch lets wasp control any dragon, i would have loved to see her as the main villan of this arc, and see her get what she desereved in the end, but we soon find out, that the hivemibd, now known as the othermind, si a plant, okay, wasp could still well be the main villan. when it was revealed that she was not the villan, i was a bit iffy about it.. but alright, and when the main villan is revealed, I KID YOU NOT, A SCAVENEGER!? (this is what i hate most, in TFOH) cottonmouth is the cause of the scortching, ok he's ancient, ok had that topic before, but his brain- controls the othermind- AHHHHHHHHHHHHH okay enough screaming, he wants to take over the entire world, that legit is the most CLICHIE THING EVER, and why a human why.. okay i need to fix this before i have a mental breakdown What can be fixed: Wasp, the original main villan of this arc, BE THE VILLAN. there are so so many ways this could play out and i would have loved to see them, yet in book 13..? it is revealed that the othermidn is controlled by something else The true othermind source, first keep lizard, she deserved better than some random captured hatchling. instead of cottonmouth, the othrmidn be a dragon! and i liked the plot point of needing sundew's leaf speak, i would keep that, as for the otherdragon-other brain.? haven't decided that dragon be as evil as scarlet and burn, as smart as blister anb darkstalker, if not more than them, here is how i would have described it, "She jumped down into the abyss, chaseing dusky's captor, shw crawled through a damp tunnel that she could barely fit in" when she exited, she saw something incredibly terrifying, vines overtaken their scales.. red eyes.. a eerie sound as they walked twords luna, sounding like walking on vines and bones.. their teeth replaced by thorns, their horns replaced by branches" i know its not much and its a bit off the top of my head, its still something just as scary as wasp, in my opinoin, and it would have been a better villan in general. moving on to character inclusion. Although it was evident that we would loose some dragons to the othermind, i'd rather loose somone in the arc, or preveous, instead of a random rainwing by the name of pineapple, who apparently is jambu's boyfriend moon's inclusion, have her get taken over or better yet, not taken over.. maybe even just... i know some moon fans will hate me, but maybe killed it would devistate the pyhrran characters, and BOOM part two Next up, something devastating for luna to experience... the death/ near death situation of one of these characters, sundew, cricket, or even blue or swordtail this would devastate the fanbase and me, but it would be devastating enough to make luna want to give up, or something, but it gives her a reason to push forward, and take down the othermind The thing that could stop the othermind be one thing me and others would have liked to see, BEETLE WINGS, we have little know about them and i would absolutly LOVE to learn more, they were mentioned when clearsight fled to pantala, and i think at least part of arc four could include them! if tui said that she would write an arc four, all that is known is that they were the predisesors to the hivewings and silkwings, and probably had powers similar to them, and only.. 2000 years later, they're mysteriously ALL GONE, this could have played out much better... yet it was a wasted opportunity the after effect, the members holds a funeral/ does their best at helping mentioned character get better, i like the second option bette, because it wouldn't hurt as many people, as for moon, whatever her fate was she was/ is honored for her heroisim, if alive, she stays on pantala with the dream visitor, to make sure everyone ajusts safely, that no wars are drawn, if she is dead that service is passed onto qibli. Preparation and ideas for arc 4 first, if it were to take place on a new continent, introudce the new continent in a stretched out prologue or wait till the second book to fully introduce it, have one book have the point of veiw with a living, actual BEETLEWING, if there was supposedly a spider tribe introduced, (arachniwings is what i would call them) an arachniwing pov saved for the last book, and in the series, include the tribes that only got one book on them, the mudwings the skywings the leafwings, hivewings or the rainwings (come on kinkajou book) and then the villan be, what ever seems fit for that arc to anyone who reads this, thank you for taking the time to do so, this took a while for me to type
That's actually really interesting and a cool idea! I would honestly prefer this to the actual storyline and I love the idea of the half plant dragon othermind villain you thought of. The arc 4 idea was also pretty neat! You did a good job!
They messed up the villains so much. Wasp was defeated by Pineapple, a RAINWING, that’s not even a POV CHARACTER. And then we’re just told she’s jailed. And the breath of evil? It feels more like Luna is defeating Freedom because of the entire conversation convincing her to go against Cottonmouth, and because she also dies when the Breath of Evil dies.
I freaking loved pineapple from chaptor one, he just became such a loveable charter for me and i was so upset when he got captured :( i honstly wish he could of had more...um..screentime? booktime? idk what the word would be but i loved him. As for Bullfrog i had a theroy about him, from the dangurse gift, ever since snowfall said he was a big buff mudwing ive been wondering, could he of lost all his siblings in the war? did he join the stealth mission in the hopes it would be a one way? or did he hope it would give him soemthing to live for? Why would a dragon like him, that could of been a bigwings, join a mission he might not return from? The flames of hope made me think that maybe becuse he lost so much that he was so reseved, becuse he was scared to get close to anyone, yet he still felt the bigwing urg to protect others, hence saving cricket from Prongweed(might of got the name wrong, havent read the book enought to remeber much) and trying to save part of the group at the start. i have so many thoughts and questions from Bullfrog that i would of like answered but the FOH just left more questions.
Honestly, for a possible finally , it's straight up disappointing. For an Arc that is basically character development, Luna didn't change. Honestly, I didn't really like Luna at the start, and it's the same at the end. Honestly, what I mean is, Sundew doesn't hate thenivewings due to what wasp is doing, snowfall is no longer paranoid, cricket realizes what their queen is doing, ect. Honestly, probably the reason the book is so disappointing, I the main character itself.
I felt like the book fell off after the island ambush. I liked that scene because it was tense to see characters we know and love get taken like that and it felt like it could’ve got so much better from there with a rescue mission.
Moon I absolutely hate her inclusion in this book because once again it was her who saved the world. she’s already an annoying character with way too much attention I also think this book is unlikable because it made Luna unlikable. She just comes off as a whiny entitled brat to me and I have no sympathy for her. Mainly because of how she treats poor cricket. And it would have made sense if it weren’t for the fact that cricket had already done so much for everyone so there was no reason to make Luna so racist towards her. Luna barely even acknowledges what cricket did at all. She also complains nonstop about everyone else and how they aren’t up to her standards. I also really hate how cricket was barely involved and blue didn’t even make an appearance. It just irks me so much that they and everything their characters built to were tossed aside for the authors favorite child and the random new villain she pumped out
I feel like book 15 ran into the same problem as book 10, in that the antagonist was a bit overpowered to the point that it made it hard to come up with valid ways to fight them. Also, the plant’s mind control powers felt off somehow. It doesnt quite make sense that it can control people like it does. Its hard to explain but theres something just off about the way the mind control works, almost as if there were no plans on how to defeat the antagonist when the book 13 twist ending was written. The whole “talons united” part of the prophecy felt irrelevant and did not feel like it played into the solution at all (well, not much at least). The issues are compounded in book 15 by the weak PoV, shoehorned humans and sidelining of the other main characters. I’ve noticed that once characters get a PoV book, they tend to fall into the background as if becoming adults and suddenly being susceptible to the “adults are useless” trope. Moon is the only PoV character who really gets involved in any plots after her book, with the 2nd closest being Tsunami getting lines in multiple books. I think this is an attempt to give the main character more space and screentime but it often hinders the story because 1. It deprives the main character of characters to bounce off of and the interesting dynamics and interpersonal conflicts that can come from a small group of characters interacting. 2. It feels disrespectful to the characters that people are already attached to, and disappointing to anyone who wanted to see more of them being as cool as they were in their PoV story. 3. It draws attention to the hand of the author when other characters get obviously sidelined. For example, in the beginning of book 15, I did not enjoy that fight as much as I could have because I was thinking about how disappointing it was that the author was removing those characters from the story and how disappointed I was in not getting to interact with them during the rest of the book, despite them not even losing the fight yet.
Freedom's life was heavily skewed and manipulated by Cottonmouth and her situation. she's spiteful, petty, rude, possessive, but she's also had no good influence in her short life. i found her to be a very sympathetic character. i would not be a very "normal" person at all if the only outside influence in my life was the most selfish being alive.
Book 15 wasn’t the worst book but not the best I really liked the characters that came out of it but I was really upset about Sora and Umber. 8.5/10 because at least it wasn’t like Dragonslayer or The Dark secret.
the dark secret was okay, but the most starflight did was follow people around. Dragonslayer had the issue of how the characters switched around, Wren’s part was mostly okay, Ivy’s felt slow, and Leaf’s entire point was ruined by the fact that Wren wasn’t dead, and was working with dragons so we’re left knowing he got it all wrong with nothing to do about it. But i mean, not outrageously horrible.
Important distinction between humans being important and humans being a focus. Sandwing queen getting killed by a human and kicking off a 20 year war between dragon tribes- important. Chapter from human PoV- probably human focused but can still be dragon focused if the events occurring are important to or involve dragons. Chapter about what humans are doing- human focused. I don’t mind some focus on humans, but it needs to be really well done and compliment a larger focus on dragons. Humans being around dragons in a dragon run palace. Good balance. Dragon running into humans at an oasis- fine for a scene but not a whole chapter. Anything involving human settlements and kingdoms needs to be very interesting and near immediately relevant to at least some of the PoV dragons. As in, it can be done, but I would need to be sold on it through quality, and I expect dragon PoVs.
All right there are two major corrections I want to make here for anyone who may have gotten the wrong impression from this review and in case wings of charcoal is actually reading this comment First of all axolotl does have a personality and I actually thought them being non-binary was a minor part of what they were compared to what they actually did which is more than being a tour guide because they are basically the human version of cricket They are a human character who somehow found a dragon book and with teaching themself the dragon language all on their own Yeah honestly it's even more impressive than what Ren did because as far as I know axolotl didn't have a dragon to have help teach them and they still found the book and we're still translating it by themself Also that book led to talking about the scorching which has made very clear is a major part of stuff that happens in this They are also learning to speak dragon now with Friends help and will probably be the pentalon version of Ren once Wren and the sky return to pyrrhia So yes there's quite a bit more to them than just their gender Okay second correction point I wanted to make Luna isn't just an artist learning to tolerate other tribes She also has depression kind of I'm pretty sure It's not explicitly stated but Luna's mind is mentioned to have funny and rainy times in it and Luna dealt with and hidden all the time she says she has foggy days Part of her Arc is learning to trust and confide in other people when this happens and learning that it's okay to be sad and it's okay to talk to other people when she's sad I want to point out that Cricket does a bit more than just nothing since she talks to axolotl learns about the scorching gets kind of tricked by Luna and is there with thunder when the fighting starts even though Luna wasn't Also almost everyone gave lizard a memory and that was important because that was what was necessary everybody had to do it so that she could learn about other dragons and that's what fueled her change of heart which I don't agree with her realizing things were wrong but just it felt different okay I will agree though bullfrog does absolutely nothing and I hate it bullfrogs guy and Wren should have also given memories And even though Skye and ren didn't they were important because we need to translators obviously even though that's not a major contribution that is still kind of a major contribution because talking to humans wouldn't have worked otherwise But other than saying a tiny bit about the scorching bullfrog does nothing he does absolutely nothing And his personality is dumb hungry and disrespectful to humans and no one needed or wanted that Agreement that pineapple is awesome Also it was really cool that pineapple pulled a glory on wasp and it was also qibli's idea so it kind of means it was sort of him too since I don't think pineapple would have thought to do that on his own because rain wings never think about doing that
If Wasp got the Queen Scarlet treatment, does this mean that she is going to attempt to take back the throne in book 18? (It'll make more sense when you think about it)
yk i LOVE tui and love wings of fire, but i just felt a little, empty reading this.If this is the end of wof(which i really hope it isnt) the last few lines of the Lost Continent Propehcy, it said "face a great evil with TALONS UNITED"! except, luna was the only one who did something that impacted the WHOLE story.I wish there was an epilogue where maybe each main protag of each arc got thier own little povs, showing where they are and who theyre with, kinda like darkness of dragons.
I hated this book. Mostly because I was deeply underwhelmed and my friend claimed it was her absolute favorite (I’m pretty sure she changed her mind) 🤦🏻♀️ Also, Luna’s boring. I kinda wish Winter was part of the group instead of Lynx. He and Qibli were one of my favorite parts of The Dangerous Gift and I wish there was more of that in this book. I like Lynx, but she doesn’t know the other characters as well as Winter does
(don't know if I've already said this, but here goes.) humans being important in Wings of Fire (a book series about dragons) outside of both causing their own downfall and the rise of dragons as well as starting a 20 year war. that's like rats being given a place among a meeting of government leaders from around the world after not just bringing the fleas that started a plague that nearly wiped out the whole human population, but started a world war that lasted for 20 years because a few rats killed some government official and another nation was blamed for it. how is it so powerful? it speaks several broken languages badly.
For me, like you said, it's a correct and good book, maybe not the great finally we expsected but at least a sufficient ending to this arc. About if there will be or not a Arc 4, there currently any confirmation that will happen, but any official cinfirmation that this book was the last of the entire main serie either ! It's very likely that the main serie will continue, since the popularity and overall reception are always here, but for now, it's pretty obvious we will have here a big pause, that Tui Sutherland will make a break and work on others projects (inside or outside the franchise) to return with more clearer ideas for the next. For example, she is free to work more on the others WOF stuff like the Netflix serie or the extended differents books. Like Wings of Charcoal said, we are all far from the true end !
I would have loved this book so much more if Luna and Dusky didn't spend literally a third of the book making small talk with Freedom instead of actually fighting . Also, i wanted a gory description of Wasp's scales melting off because of Luna's flamesilk, and i didn't get it. I was so mad that i wrote an entire fanfiction of a perpetually murderous flamesilk killing stuff/hj
I enjoyed the book, and thought it was fine. My personal gripe with it is that we only got to see the Pantalan dragons in the epilogue, and we don't really know exactly how it went with the Phyrrian dragons returning home and telling everyone about how the mission was a success.
One of my biggest gripes with the finale was Dusky, as in the entire character of Dusky. He was annoying but somewhat tolerable, right up until the flashback of the Scorching. This little rat was cheering on human genocide because of the actions of Cottonmouth and his men. That would be like us nuking Japan 30 times and people cheering it on because of what Unit 731 did. And even after humanity was punished and were fleeing for the other continent, he flat out said he was hoping they’d drown. And the book has the audacity to frame this as a good thing! Combine that with other issues my fellow commenters have pointed out, and this book starts to feel like a Wattpad fanfic rather then a official installment in the series. Also the they/them Axolotl character felt more tacked-on then a stickynote. Just felt like a cheap grab at brownie points with the diversity crew.
*SPOILERS* While I enjoy Arc 3... there are somethings I disliked about it 1. Really? Do humans *have* to play a huge role? Fine, yes, we can have Wren... but having one of the Othermind hosts be a human? Was that necessary? 2. The plant is the main villain... why 3. The ending of book 3 with Blue and Swordtail being mind controlled and Luna being book fifteen's protagonist. OF COURSE SHE WOULD TRY TO SAVE THEM! THEY'RE HER BROTHER AND BOYFRIEND! While doing both SilkWings wasn't the worst, I wished someone else had been mind controlled instead of both of them like Sundew because than the Othermind would be a bigger threat... or someone who Luna doesn't have the closest connections to, instead of it being "OH NO! MY BOYFRIEND AND BROTHER GOT MIND CONTROLLED, I HAVE TO SAVE THEM!" Like really? Did both of them had to be mind controlled? Why not Blue and Sundew for example? (I don't hate them, well Blue used to annoy me). That would mean the Othermind could spread faster.
Actually your wrong about the epilogue, in the last paragraph or so someone thinks, "Humans and dragons traveling and living with each other, I wonder how that will work." That probably references the next arc to be something about humans and dragons!! Although I do dislike that humans are getting more involved.. hopefully there's a mass human extinction
i HATE the way they treated dragon racism in arc 3. so many characters have the insentive that "oh we can learn to coexist and empathize with our opressors! lets all hold hands like nothing happened!" THAT IS NOT THE MORAL WE NEED TO SHARE. those who harm entire maginalized groups, even in a book about fictional dragons, need to be held accountable. not the morals we should be promoting. book 15 had some lovely plot points, like freedom's arc and seeing some recurring characters, but other than that it's just. not it.
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Moon getting into the mindspace without being absorbed by the Othermind is explained pretty well. Her mind reading powers are her natural ability and she was not injected with the plant because she was invisible the whole time (or rescued by Sundew.
I do agree though. I think this book would have been paced so much better if it did what the Legends books did and had three perspectives to show what happened exactly on Sundew's end.
Still, the ending leaves the door open for a possible future, but also ties up enough to paint a clear picture that this is the end.
Yes this would have been better.
YESS also, there was something in the last paragraph that might signify the next arc!! "Humans and dragons traveling and living with each other. I wonder how that will go." Or something along the lines
This book felt super messy. That’s really the only way I can describe it- like a fanfiction instead of an actual book.
Exactly.
I hate it when people assume that fanfiction can't be good.
@@voldy3565 I didn’t mean that at all- I’m actually a regular fanfiction reader and I know they can be amazing, sometimes even better than published books. I just meant that the book didn’t feel official like the others.
@@keru6925 I agree. For instance, I know it might sound weird, but the MLP fanfic Background Pony is one of the best written pieces of literature I have ever read.
@@voldy3565 Oh, trust me, I’ve read fanfiction that was ten times better than this book. But that seems to be quite rare, at least in my experience.
Man, I HATED the Cottonmouth reveal! I feel like it came so out of nowhere and didn't feel satisfying. I feel like Tui was trying to get across the "anyone can do something good" but I feel like she's done that so many times already! I agree that Luna should have been the one to take down Queen Wasp or at least do SOMETHING! I was also super annoyed with Duskie showing up just so Luna could get attached to him and follow him into the abyss.
Yeah, not gonna lie, I found dusky kinda annoying
Honestly, I kind of would have preferred to have Dusky as a side character and instead of him being allowed to come with Luna in the first place he should have had to stay back, and then have Luna follow Blue or Cricket to make them (especially Blue) actually IMPORTANT in the story!
same, he was so damn ANNOYING! and honestly it was so slow. I hate how the ending is just "Oh just cut the vine".... really -_-?! Just REALLY!
Don't even get me started on queen wasp's "death" and that being her only appearance in it.
I thought I was missing so much this entire time beacuse it's the final book! But NO! It's so infuriating.
@@nova14414 Actually, she had an appearance in The Hive Queen, while going to inject the eggs, and Cricket investigating.
Absolutely same. It felt so out of nowhere and annoying. I think wasp should have stayed the original villain. I disagree that Luna should’ve been the one to stop her though because she wasn’t there for most of the third arc, so I feel she doesn’t really deserve that spotlight. As for who should have I have no idea, blue I think would be the best choice if it weren’t for the fact that he already had his book. Side note I had a cool idea for wasps death, she gets caught in a collapsing silk wing bridge and is strangled to death.
Tui started getting hate from idiots because the themes of racism and showing all sides of the story started getting hate during the BLM protests so I wonder if tui had to throw away everything she built to and pump out an entirely different ending to get it to stop
10:27 The perpetually hungry one, the group muscle, the sassy one, the smart one, the bundle of joy, the bundle of anxiety, the emo, the sociopath learning how not to be a sociopath, the shy rollie pollie, the jokester, the pathetic one, the curious one, the fierce but venerable one, and the insecure one. Then there's Luna, the racist.
this is. a very gross misunderstanding of real world racism. Luna is the victim of a world that has done nothing but oppress her her entire life. she's RIGHT to be angry at the hivewings.
@@icebearlikestrains6238 "Racism is different when _I_ do it"
~Absolutely every racist ever
@@osheridan i am not arguing racism is ever okay. literally just think about real world comparisions and some of this gets a little uncomfortable.
@@icebearlikestrains6238 Alright, if that's how you want to play, let me pick a fairly fitting example. If a black person in Apartheid South Africa discriminated against a white person who'd made huge sacrifices for them and hadn't hurt them in any way, and even implied that they wanted all white people gone, would that still be racist? Yes.
@osheridan it's a very complicated issue with a lot of different viewpoints, and i don't really want to argue. i think more what i want to get at is that i think the books handle these topics a little poorly, especially when the main demographic is going to be 12 year olds who haven't quite grasped or understood these complexities.
tbh, this book wasnt that bad. sure it was messy, but it was actually ok. the only thing i HATE about it is how they sideline wasp. and, inreal honesty, swordtail and Luna are awesome, and im happy swordtail is still here.
I was also quite mad that Wasp was cast aside in favor of the Othermind. I really wanted them to be co-equal villains in this book.
And yeah, Swordtail and especially Luna really helped make the book better.
I was mostly fine with it, kind of hard to keep track sometimes. But what I'm really ticked about, is we don't get to really see Peril and Sky meet!
@@mahlukstudios Agreed on all points.
I feel like sidelining wasp could have worked if it was handled better, like, if she served as the full on antagonist for the first few books before being defeated, the protagonists could get a false sense of victory, before the book introduces cottonmouth, lizard, and the othermind as the antagonists for the second part of the series. I really loved them as characters, and I was really disappointed that they were only around for a fraction of the last book.
@@scootermcpeanuts6699 nah, Im sorry but the book would have been better if cottonmouth and lizard were scrapped. They are both obnoxious and have no real point in being in the book to the point it honestly feels like they were a last second idea. Sure they aren't the main reason I feel like this book is bad, but that's a big chunk of why I am not a fan. The fact that Luna just had to cut the vine was dumb as well, there's ways she could have maybe did that better. Maybe lizard was wrong about that, but it gave Luna time to escape and they would need a different way to destroy the plant. I mean Cricket was in a class about plants, she could have done something.
Also does anyone else think the overly repeated motif of the tapestry was odd? Like I know she’s mentioned to enjoy weaving in the other books, but it feels shoved down your throat, I felt like I was constantly being told she loved weaving and that felt like her only character trait.
Well we barely got to see anything of Luna before, none of her personality really. The tapestry thing is something she does and loves, it wasn’t shown before because everyone was too busy to notice her personality
I also felt like it was her only character trait, and that felt very odd, but I didn’t mind the frequency with wich it happened. I don’t think it’s any more constant than Blue trying to shove himself into other dragons, turtle trying to find out what character or story archetype he’s in, or Peril constantly having violent thoughts.
While Peril’s thoughts were pretty understandable, Turtle’s writing obsession is just as or more out of the blue than Luna’s weaving is.
I think the biggest difference is the subtext. with Blue, him imagining other dragons’s days was world building(and character building). With Turtle it was a window into how Turtle saw himself and his friends. With Peril, it was also a constant character demonstration of herself and what scarlet did to her perception of others, and it was funny. With Luna it’s pretty redundant. Tui describes the scene, and then Luna describes how she would weave it. As the audience we don’t get any subtext info. On paper I feel like Tui wanted Luna’s tapestries to describe more of the mood of the scene, or point out that there’s more going on than what meets the eye, but the original scene description often does that just as well if not better.
yeah every time she mentioned tapestry waving I kept zoning out it was just so unnecessary
I agree, it just felt so out of place and forced, like she needed to have a character trait and it was made up last minute
Idk this felt the most normal thing to me. It’s like then qibli kept thinking about moon in book 10, that didn’t bother me as much and as charcoal said, it’s the only thing that gives Luna any personality
i’m honestly so frustrated by the sudden importance of humans. i started reading these books when i was younger because i wanted a dragon book without humans, and now i feel like that aspect of it is gone. if there is ever a book 16, i’m not reading it.
I didn't feel it really became all about humans, I feel the humans were more to teach kids how we affect nature and doubt the humans will be a large focus in the following Arcs if there are any. I feel it would be thrown to the side like Animus magic
I agree 100%. I was so happy to find a series where dragons are the focus and humans are just two legged snacks or weird pets. I haven't read Dragonslayer yet and really disliked when a random talking human tried to put all the dragons off eating them.
Same
I feel like writing humans out of the equation would be an easy task.
1. Tell the readers that the humans went extinct during the scorching. It’d be a fun thing to know.
2. Now, arc 1 DOES happen because some scavengers killed Queen Oasis. However, when you look at the elements you need to keep, you realize the you need to keep 3 things: Somebody killed Queen Oasis but we know that it’s not a SandWing as the Eye of Onyx would’ve deemed them unworthy & blasted them to smithereens, Blister had a part in Queen Oasis’s death, & that the thief hid the Eye of Onyx in Queen Oasis’s mouth.
My current Alternate Universe solution for this is that the NightWings wanted the Eye of Onyx to control the SandWing queen, so they sent Morrowseer to kill Oasis & get the artifact. Blister did see Morrowseer, but after realizing he was trying to kill Oasis, she went back into her room & let him kill off the competition; unaware of the fact that Morrowseer also wanted the Eye of Onyx. Now, Morrowseer didn’t expect Oasis to scream & wake up everyone up, but she did. With the thuds of the dragons getting closer, Morrowseer panicked & stuffed the artifact into Oasis’s mouth, and left.
Yeah, I feel confident with this alternative universe solution.
I’m pretty sure a line of the prophecy said "They will bow to a fate greater then them", which was originally meant to refer to the NightWings, but Sunny twisted it into referring to Thorn. So the NightWings wanting the eye of onyx to control the queen would definitely go right along with their plan.
In addition, it fills all the requirements. Oasis is killed by a non-sandwing, the artifact is stuffed in her mouth, and Blister had a part in it.
I do think the biggest tweak to this solution would be that Blister hires the NightWings to kill Oasis, the NightWings agree, but they don’t tell Blister about their ulterior motives, which are stealing the Eye of Onyx.
I had seriously low expectations for this book to be “Okay.” Fortunately the book passed them with flying colors.
I had 3 things that needed to happen.
1. Don’t kill Moon or Qibli. (They are my personal favorite couple and I needed them to survive.)
2. Queen Wasp does NOT get a redemption arc. (She is evil and using “the breath of evil controlled her” excuse is complete BS)
3. Don’t kill off Bullfrog (I needed to know a new mudwing that isn’t one of Clay’s relatives, or a member of the mudwing royal family or Ochre)
Definite BS with the queen Wasp thing.
My favorite couple was Sundew and willow but now it’s equal is pineapple and jambu
No offense, but I absolutely hate Moonbli-
My big complaints of TFOH:
-The Secret Stealth Team gets separated in just a few chapters
-Luna and Dusky being stuck in the mindspace for two arcs
-Luna being unable to participate in any of the action sequences
-Lack of intense moments
-Wasp doesn’t die and gets treated like day old bread after the reveal of Cottonmouth
-Blue and many other characters don’t get any spotlights
The first two arcs are just masterpieces, let’s forget the third arc is a thing
Thats what i thought when i read the first time around too.
But really, the thing you hate about arc 3 isn't because it's bad, its just really different from arc 1 and 2 and have to be look at a different perspective to appreciate the books. Similar how we still have our minds opened for the first time we all read the dragonet prophecy.
I felt each arc had hits and misses (imo) and arc three had two real good books (11 and 12) a pretty good book (13) and a not so good one (14) and finally an okay one (15)
@@zForce4 Arc 3 is that bad.
@@mayfightu have you re-read arc 3 tho
@@zForce4 the first three books were great, but then it fell off at TDG and TFoH
My biggest gripes are humans being important and Queen Wasp being completely sidelined lol. I read these books for dragons and while I liked the Othermind/Breath of Evil stuff, Queen Wasp needed more attention. But no. She was just...thrown to the side when they set her up to be so dangerous and terrifying.
Also flamesilk!!! It was set up to be so important and it isn’t even used to defeat the villains!!
I feel like Tui may have been a bit rushed to get this book out. The writing quality drop was so sudden and I have suspicions that the publisher may have pushed her to finish this book early, but I have no proof for this.
That being said I do like the book overall! Great points
Completely agree on all points. I did think Cottonmouth was a pretty cool villain (though certainly not as good as Wasp).
@@winter2716 Agreed! Cottonmouth was pretty cool!
Just wish Queen Wasp wasn’t sidelined kinda offscreen
What's wrong with humans being important?
@@bennyboo123 There’s SO much dragon media out there with humans in it, where they’re either working together with dragons or training them. There’s so little dragon media based completely on dragons. I don’t want HTTYD, I want Wings of Fire.
@@nathanielmandrake1500 I get what your saying Wren worked well in the story because Wren kinda act like a dragon but I wouldn't mind if their was humans in it as long as they're not the main attention
Moon getting into the mindscape is not contrived at all. She’s constantly in what’s basically a collective mindscape, and I actually theorized that she might be able to communicate with dragons under the influence long before this book came out. Also, if the dreamvisitor can communicate with swordtail’s real self while he’s injected, moon can overhear dreams, and luna can be in the mindscape as herself while injected, Its not at all a stretch to think that moon would be able to access the dreamscape by way of an infected party member.
Also the ending. I think its fine that everything could be solved by cutting that stem. In fact I think it makes more sense than anything else I could think of. It sounds like you feel like that’s kinda anticlimactic. For me, the climactic part isn’t what had to be done. It was Lizard volunteering that information.
Im much more annoyed that Luna’s flamesilk had nothing to do with it at all, that our book 15 prologue and book 14 epilogue ‘characters’ and Io and Axolotl and even kind of Wren were nothing but plot devices. Sky and wren were worked into this arc when they, and every human except cottonmouth really never should have been In this arc. Give Wren, Sky, Winter, Cricket, and Axol a and maybe throw in smolder and rose and give them a winglets, but I think the humans could have been cut out.
Pineapple is wonderful but I would have loved to see his mind excerpt thing before he attacks. Bullfrog isn’t dumb. He’s just logical. He does do absolutely nothing tho. I feel like mudwing’s ability to hold their breath could possibly have been utilized with him. Also really want to know about his sibs or what happened to them.
While Lynx does do something, she absolutely gets shafted in terms of interactions. She holds Luna’s hand, and decides to trail moon, and that’s it. Bullfrog, Sky, Cricket, and Tsunami do nothing, but at least they talk. Actually scratch that Tsunami really really gets shafted too. I don’t care as much about her shafting as I do Lynx’s tho, because tsunami’s screen time is just so high, and lynx’s is not.
And luna makes a big deal about moon looking like clearsight, but this is never important. I like the subversion of Luna’s expectations about how moon’s future sight didn’t help as much as luna hoped it would, but I can’t enjoy it fully because the characters never react to this. They even make a deal talking about how it’s up to you about how you fulfill a prophecy but that doesn’t go anywhere.
I do think this book has a lot of problems, but they’re summed up by: Too many characters, too many plot lines, not enough payoff. And less by ‘this doesn’t make any sense’ but there are a few thing that straight up don’t make sense, specifically, pinapple not falling under the plant until after the throne room scene, when he drank that crap the night before. It would be forgivable if it was the morning of, as smoke inhalation is generally more effective that eating but as it is, it’s just really odd.
More than anything, I think it feels unfinished. Not the book but the story. Like, tui is matching up shapes and colors to make a picture but while some loops of color close, others don’t, and she hasn’t figured out how to arrange them all to close all the most important loops.
i think pineapple was faking the not being infected rather than the infection not happening yet like how they were tricked ibto burning the breath of evil because a infected dragon faked being cured
I always felt like a tiny thing that would’ve helped Luna’s character was for her to actually use her flamesilk abilities.
We got to know her in the first book as a rebellious individual, and she should’ve been thrilled to know that she could help defeat Queen Wasp with her flamesilk. If Tui wanted to go for the “maybe I don’t want to be the savior who has to murder everyone” thing, it would’ve been much more effective for Luna to have USED her flame-silk in that first battle sequence, and for an enemy to get so horrifically burned, she begins to question if she even wants to do this anymore.
Idk, this is obviously not my biggest gripe of the book, but the entire time, it felt like Luna was ‘out of character’, which just made the entire thing so much worse. She was presented to us in one way, and then that way was ignored and replaced by other stuff. Did anyone else feel that way?
yeah, i felt super off about her personality in the book. i felt like it wasn’t how she was really presented at first.
@@someonesomebody388 She felt like she gto mellowed out. She was portrayed as this character whos morals were supposed to challenge Blue's. Blue's journey towards rebellion was fairly well paced, and took place over the course of three books. Luna, however, was presented as a "rebelllious" character who didn't have the power for rebellion. But she did absolutely nothing when she DID get power
I’m calling it now: he was massively disappointed by the book.
At least I was. The best way I could describe it is by saying it felt more like messy fanfiction than an actual official book written by the same author. It’s like all of Tui’s writing skill and experience suddenly vanished when writing this book. It just felt so sloppy in my opinion.
Amen. As sad as I am to say it, I was very disappointed in how this book turned out.
Yep. By far my least favorite book of the series so far.
Agreed
Same. Tui might not even write another series after this one, and if she doesn't this is just a really disappointing ending
@@spoongoon7742 I think that Tui will totally keep writing books. Not nessisarily WOF tho.
She writes tons of stuff outside of WOF already: Menagerie, Pet Trouble, etc, and she has said she wants to write other stuff in interveiws. So I don't think she's going anywhere.
Can I say it was a massive disappointment that Luna's flamesilk was brushed aside? It was talked about for a few sentences and it would have been better if Luna killed Wasp with her Sunsilk
Very true! Did anyone else get that feeling again of actually reading wings of fire? Idk what it was but it was awesome! And yeah not the best best book but still pretty nice!
Definitely! It was very interesting and I'm glad the last book finnaly brought back some action even if it was a bit of a roller coaster
In terms of the action? Yes. In terms of the writing style? Most certainly not. It felt like reading someone’s crappy fan-fiction.
@@winter2716 everyone is entitled to their own opinions
@@wipeout157 I know.
@@winter2716 I actually agree - It felt like Tui T Sutherland wasn’t really taking it very seriously while she wrote it. Her tone constantly de-fused any tension the scene was carrying, by making out-of-place ‘self-aware’ jokes that just didn’t land. Characters making self-aware comments can be good and funny if used wisely, and it’s usually something that Sutherland is good at, but for some reason, it just felt too forced in this book. Like, there’d be no reason these characters, who are in a dire situation, would be thinking or saying these things as if they’re just having a fun chat with their friends instead of, you know, *literally trying to save their entire species from extermination*. Every time the characters made a joke in the middle of what’s supposed to be a life-or-death situation, it just made it feel like the characters were being incredibly immature, and that they didn’t actually care about one another.
It got so bad at some points, I sometimes had no idea what the setting looked like around them at all. She used up more words making jokes than giving basic descriptions of their surroundings, leaving most scenes just sorta floating in a white void.
The author not taking it seriously caused me to not take it as seriously, pretty much. The whole book felt childish and fanfiction-ish, like you said. It would’ve gone better if she regulated the jokes, to leave them out of the serious moments to stop breaking the immersion.
Don’t attack me for my opinion, I’m a random person on the internet who you’ll likely never see irl or have to interact with again. This is just what I have to say about it.
I have very mixed feelings about this book because there were aspects that I really liked reading about but I feel like it wasn’t Tui who was writing the book. It did seem messy and the epilogue was nice but it left out so much. I wish that the order of events was different too.
(Please do not kill me)
I really did NOT like the conclusion. I felt like it ruined the first three pantala books and did not follow the original problem of queen wasp. If anyone could agree, the middle was like the middle of Harry Potter 7, when they are aimlessly wandering through the forest. I feel like everything important in the first three books was shunted aside for this weird random idea that didn’t fit. Tui is amazing, and I love WOF, I was just very dissatisfied at this in justifying and weird book.
I feel like the Othermind was a fine addition if it was taken over by Wasp in the final book.
I went to a recent WoF event hosted by Tui, there is definitely more wings of fire coming. The Netflix series is still a while away, probably over a year, but from what I've heard it will be good. I will agree that book 15 was a bit disappointing to me, and I hope there is an arc four to finish the series with. Good video.
the first three pantala books were so good im rlly dissapointed with how 14 and 15 turned out :( wasp just getting completely sidelined like that was so sad i really wanted to see more of her lol. it was also super annoying when the pov was being in a room the entire time. they shouldve switched povs with characters occasionally, it wouldve likely helped make the luna scenes stronger. idk, this book was just pretty confusing
I expected the flames of hope to be an epic final battle between the group and queen wasp, boy was I miss lead. The only major fight scene was on the island and nothing else really happened. Wasp was hardly even in the book.
As for axolotl I completely agree, they had no defining characteristics except that they were enby. I wish we could have more diverse characters but actually have depth to characters as well.
I liked this book but I was kind of hoping that sky and peril would meet in the epilogue or something. THEY JUST NEED TO KNOW EACHOTHER.
I really wished that Wasp (or the Hivewings in general) found out that Moon had Future Sight, seeing the confliction with someone who they would most likely view as a second coming of Clearsight saying "you guys are in the wrong" would be very interesting.
Honestly what a good video summing up the shortcomings and shining parts of this book. I feel like at some point the draft of this book was different, but it was getting too long to the point it couldn't pull the series together in a single book, so Luna had to be pulled back as an observer character to keep the focus broad enough for the readers to clue in on all the action once the plot threads started tying off. From a writer's perspective, it does feel like Series 4 was a thought in the aether during Book 11, and THIS series was setting up for the Tribes to unite and go to Pantala to fufill the prophecy over the span of five additional books after Series 3. And for reasons unknown- maybe worries about series bloat, or the fourth series would be too dilute with everything that needed to happen every book, it was compressed down to Book 15. You can kinda get a sense of each story beat that might've otherwise been the focus of a book of its own.
Not the worst way to end a series- just not the roar we thought we'd be left with. Better than a lot of books that're currently suffering series bloat. I'd rather WoF ended like this, than be dragged on and have the newer books essentially be counter-writing complaints about the series that've been brought up by fans who continue to read it
Eh,the book was okay in my opinion but definetley ( I know I spelled it wrong sorry) not my favorite. When they said Wasp and all her sisters got locked up,does that mean Scarab,too? I know she's Wasp's aunt,but they don't say anything about her. I wanna know what happened to her. And yes,I agree with Charcoal,I don't really like the way the humans are introduced. I don't like the fact that they're anything more than side characters in the books.
omg i was wondering this too! When they said her sisters got locked I was like, “what happened to Scarab??”
Scarab was the aunt of queen wasp and mother of now queen jewel, not a sister so I wouldn’t think she was taken captive like the others
My bullet-point review of The Flames of Hope:
*Pros*
- Part 1 (especially the island battle)
- The concept of the Othermind (2 minds, an evil human and an innocent dragonet with leafspeak, joined together by a parasitic plant with an instinctive desire to grow and spread by any means possible)
- HiveWings having green blood (like many insects)
- Luna & her character arc (yes, tapestries and all)
- Pineapple (including his relationship with Jambu)
- Malachite
- Moon’s mind-reading being useful
*Neutral*
- Part 2 (including the Scorching backstory)
- Dusky
- Axolotl
- Cottonmouth
- All characters not listed elsewhere
*Cons*
- Part 3
- Best villain (Queen Wasp) getting completely sidelined
- The execution of the concept of the Othermind (the mindspace just felt really dumb and contrived, not to mention confusing at times)
- The literal execution of the Othermind (killed with an ordinary thread of silk? Really?)
- Setting (half the book was literally spent in a hole, not to mention all the caves)
- Style of writing (felt kind of like a sloppily-written fanfiction, especially in part 3)
- Tone of writing (too lighthearted; should have been darker overall)
- The epilogue (lack of meaningful followup on Blue and lots of other major characters from the arc (Admiral & the other flamesilks, Burnet & Silverspot, Io, Wasp, Scarab, Jewel, Belladonna, Sequoia, Hazel, Mandrake, Snowfall, Sky, etc.))
- Humans being so integral to the plot
- Humans are suddenly big enough to carry a 2-year-old dragonet, apparently
- Blue SeaWing blood
- The way Axolotl’s gender identity was introduced (very cringe)
- Lizard/Freedom (super annoying character)
- Bullfrog (yet another throwaway MudWing)
Overall, this book only gets a 3/5 from me, making it my least favorite in the entire series. What a shame 😔
Yeah this book is leagues below all the others
whys blue seawing blood and the way axolotol was introduced as non binary a con?
Axolot's was so weird; I love it when characters get more inclusive in literature, but the way they worded it was so... odd.
In some way, I feel I'm glad to have just skipped the third arc entirely and treat book 10 as the true ending of Wings of Fire.
My reasoning behind this is that all the way from the start to book 10, the books seemed to have some sort of connection with each other, as if the series was meant to have exclusively just 10 books and two arcs tying the series together with a nice bow tie to give to all the dragon fans. There was definitely no indication that there was a third arc in the first two, so what I'm guessing is that Tui did not exactly see this would get so popular that she'd be in a position to provide more content whether it's needed or not (probably because of superiors and whatnot, can't blame her if she's being forced to produce more than what's needed or planned for).
This very much happens with any franchise that goes on for too long, pokemon being the first name I can definitely think of, who has probably the longest story I can really think of with a lot of places to put a satisfying ending in. Sad that Wings of Fire couldn't have a much deserved ending that would have been book 10 than what seems to be book 15. But oh well, at least there's still an animated adaptation left to enjoy and I'm really hoping that it's not a fake like the few times I've already seen happen prior.
Good video in any case.
I loved the idea of a second continent, and I loved the third arc. I think we need a fourth arc to even it out, reconnect it, and give it a true conclusive ending
IMO, there needed to be more foreshadowing for pantala like there was for Darkstalker.
@@jumbopopcorn8979 There was just as much hard foreshadowing for Pantala as there could have possibly been, then as there was for Darkstalker. Darkstalker shows up in the original arc once, as a name that strongwings freaks out about. The dreamvisitors don’t count as foreshadowing darkstalker specifically because they could have been made by any animus, and in fact they’re first introduced as made by Jerboa. So really, I just don’t count that as foreshadowing. Pantalan dragons are also foreshadowed once in burn’s weirdling tower, when we see a dragon that doesn’t look like any dragon sunny has ever seen, and if I remember correctly, is even wingless. Both of these are little details that didn’t force a next arc to explain them. Darkstalker didn’t need to be an actual character, he could have been simply a ghost story and it wouldn’t have mattered. Besides, it’s not like Tui could logically foreshadow pantala anyways. The lost continent was a myth most dragons didn’t know about and fewer believed existed back in clearsight’s time. There’s no way any record or story exists of pantala from pyrriah, so how exactly was she supposed to foreshadow it?
And lack of foreshadowing from the previous arc doesn’t make an arc bad. I get that it maybe doesn’t feel as cohesive, but isn’t that the point of having arcs in the first place? I felt like pantala was completely refreshing for that same reason.
@@serpentmaster1323 I mean true, it may be refreshing, but there's pretty much a lot of things that can lead to assume that this was a last second addition. If the lost continent had any sort of significance, there would maybe be something indicating to a loose end. Can be in the first or second arc, but I think the idea is to be cohesive. The first and second arcs created this expectation because they brought plots from the first arc and ended those at least fairly well. There's still things I'd nitpick, but those are just nitpicks that I can just make a fanfic of, no big deal.
Like, if Pantala is a lost continent, there could be a few indications throughout the books that could show that there's another continent they haven't explored, like a mystery building up as the first two plots progress that eventually brings a more natural drive to head out into the ocean. Things slip and dragons go pretty much everywhere they like so something will likely be carried over to Pyrrhia.
I just feel it could have been better written. And I think I've heard a few times that the idea is to make this a lot more friendly for newer readers, but I think piquing their curiosity with questions allows them to further explore the other books and piece everything together. Not to mention, book 6 also feels rather friendly to newer readers considering it's basically a new and much more fresh start, however it does not do away with things from prior arcs like if to pretend prior characters don't matter anymore.
This is why I like the second arc, because it builds upon the foundations laid before it and enhances them. This is literally where the series took a high for me. Anyways, I feel like I'm repeating myself at this point lol, so I'll just cut it here.
@@serpentmaster1323 I think that with Darkstalker, at least we knew he existed. In Burn’s tower, it could have been a dragon with wings cut off and scales burnt. When arcs are completely separate but in the same world, you lose the ability to make a plot twist in the basic world building (for example, nightwings not actually having powers). So by creating basically a new world, Tui was able to make these changes (leaf wings were actually alive). It felt like a different series that kind of had the same elements as wings of fire but also didn’t. I understand how that could be refreshing, but in my mind it was just wiping clean everything we learned about before. Also, dragons not knowing about the lost continent was a decision Tui made; you could generally have changed the first and second arcs to include something about Pantala.
TLDR: Foreshadowing was done bad in both, but somewhat better in arc 1.
Fun fact there is only one book about a mud wing which is the first
Is no one gonna talk about how during the fight scene at the beginning, Tsunami was bleeding and it was described as “blue SeaWing blood,” but in the graphic novels and in previous books, SeaWings had red blood. IceWings have blue blood.
Albatross has ice wing blood so he gave blue blood to the seawing bloodline.
@@ThatOneWattpadWriter No? I think Tui switched Lynx with Tsunami. Also, I think Albatross looks like a Sea-Ice hybrid purely due to genetics. Albatross, Lagoon, and Sapphire were hatched at the same time, so they all have IceWing descent. Not just -murderous grandpa- Albatross.
@@mayfightu Where do you think the SeaWings got their animus magic from?
@@socialistrepublicofvietnam1500 From an IceWing?
@@mayfightu IceWing royal family, yup
unpopular opinion: i absolutely LOVED this book
Same!
No, I liked it, too
Same!
it’s okay. It has it’s flaws, and feels kind of simple and didn’t live up to expectations, but i mean, freedom’s character arc was done pretty well and that’s probably the saving grace of this book (if you consider it saved, maybe helping is a slightly better word.)
Me too but I also like book 10 book 13 14 and dragon flare so maybe I'm not the best judge since everybody else seems to hate those
Here's a scene i wrote that something the likes of should have literally been in the book:
“ _You have to go!_ ” Sundew screamed. More guards were pouring into the room like smoke, the snarls of battle and the drone of wings and the slither of vines everywhere filling Luna’s skull, a horrible cacophony. She gasped for air, her breaths coming in sobs at the sight of Sundew about to vanish under a wave of HiveWings, all their blank white eyes coldly following the LeafWing’s every heave and slash and bite. Sundew reached for her last pouch, only for it to be ripped and thrown skiddering aside.
_And I’m useless I’M USELESS my flamesilk would only let us be infected by smoke!_ Luna screamed at herself.
Sundew kicked away a HiveWing who was snapping at her tail and twisted towards Tsunami, who grimly fought at her side. “Leave! LEAVE, ALL OF YOU!”
“We will not leave you behind,” Pineapple shouted from above. Another dart went _thunk_ into the side of a HiveWing reaching for Sundew, but two more instantly took her place.
“This is our last chance,” Sundew cried, voice raw. Tsunami barrelled into the two HiveWings clambering over her, giving her just enough airspace. “They’ll catch you all after me, and our last hope will be gone. Do without me.”
“ *Clever LeafWing,* ” a HiveWing sneered before whipping out his tail, a glistening stinger sliding out in one slick motion. Luna felt a lurch in her gut as something green and translucent pulsed up towards the tip, exuding a single malevolent drop. Tsunami lunged to sink her teeth into his tail, but he knocked her aside, sending her thudding hard to the floor. Even as Luna watched through blurred tears, the vines were inching closer and closer to Sundew, hungry for leafspeak to speak them into multiplying.
“We have to go - Luna! Tsunami!” Pineapple’s voice sounded far away. “This battle is lost!” Luna snapped her head up, blinking, to see Pineapple winging down towards her at the window. Tsunami hesitated for just a moment, torn, before letting loose a growling cry and taking off too.
“Sundew,” Luna whispered. Two burly HiveWings had forced her wings open and pinned them down, while the one with the stinger stalked forward, grinning to reveal all his teeth. Sundew relaxed, all the fight releasing from her, as she met her fate in the eye.
Everything else seemed to pass like a dream, like a fading nightmare. Luna had managed to catch one last glimpse over her shoulder, before the three of them leaped into the skies. Another glimpse, even as they flew with all the last vestiges of energy in them.
The stinger in Sundew’s neck. Sundew sitting upright, bowed in pain.
The LeafWing’s last, steadfast gaze after the fleeing dragons.
Before her eyes flickered white and the breath of evil erupted into life all around her.
I did like the ending, and Lizard/Freedom's redemption brought tears to my eyes, but overall this book was just okay for me. There were some good moments and great ideas, but the execution was poor for the most part, and there was too much wasted potential. If this truly is the end of Wings of Fire (I doubt it) then let the main series end here.
I used to think that Arc 3 was my favorite of the series, but after seeing how the Arc concludes, I may have to reconsider.
I just finished this book and I feel like Tui pushed concepts and themes over the actual plot.The villains didn’t do to much themselves because well, they can’t, their dead. And some characters just seemed to be placeholders.
My Afterthoughts of reading the book and watching this video:
1. To give some background, I usually will almost immediately reread a good book (every wof book included), this time I disliked it SO much that I haven't reread it once.
2. I think it's bad because of one thing that I call the Train-to-Busan-syndrum which is based off the zombie movie: Train to Busan, that I disliked too because of the one factor: the main part or majority of whatever I'm talking about (book 15 in this case) is in one small space for wwwwwaaaayyyyy to long.
3. Saying I hated the book is probably not far off, I just didn't like it, I'm reading this series to see dragons doing cool stuff, not for CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT THAT ISN'T EVEN THAT GOOD! AAAAAAAAAAA-
4. Screaming over with I would like to discuss the future of this series (what I would like to see) starting at a book (yes 300 pages) about the aftermath, I would also like to see a book where Sky meets Peril and (maybe in the same book) one where they tie off the loose end in the epilogue of Legends: Dragonslayer.
5. Jumping back to book 15, I have no idea what the shi-[REDSCTED] was going on the whole time, I expected some fighting, storming the hives, and some other cool stuff not sitting in a cave doing nothing.
6. Rewinding to before book 12 came out (a while ago) my brother and I thought that it would be cool if Darkstalker, not the coward Sandwing I would gladly purify, removed Animus Magic as a I-can't-be-alive-so-you-can't-have-magic thingy.
7. I don't have high hopes for anything else wof-related I think the guide/forge dragon world thingy will come out and nothing else, no Netflix show, no nothing. I believe this is true cause book 15 and 14 flopped so oH tHeY mUSt noT liKE wOf anYmORe. Which is wrong, the developers of the pvz shooter games thought that and cut production of anything related to that, they were wrong and they aren't changing their minds.
8. Due to my thoughts I would overall consider book 15 a 1.5/5 and wof in general a 8.9/10 (doniask why so sespific), it would be a 10/10 if it weren't for somethings... Liiikkkkeee being in a cave for half a book-yeah you get the point.
That's it, do you agree with some of what I said or do you disagree? Up to you what you think, and god dang it don't think I'm trying to insult you of do anything bad/speaking the truth it's all an opinion just RELAX!
Apparently we’re still getting info on the Netflix show, and I hope it’s gonna be a thing. I especially agree with your train-to-busan syndrome thing, i had the exact same thoughts that it stayed in one spot the entire time. And whilst other people didn’t like it, 14 is my 2nd favourite book of the franchise, Snowfall is developed so well and while people call it ‘filler’, what did you want instead? We need some sort of transition from ahh flee from the plant to secret stealth team, and i dont think that could’ve been handled in a prologue and epilogue alone.
@@carrott36 I agree with you on book 14 being good, just everyone else doesn't so I consider it as a flopp.
I haven’t even read the entire book a _first_ time, it was that bad. I skipped a big chunk in the middle and read the WOF wiki summary instead.
@@carrott36 2 months later aaannnddd the cancelled the Netflix show. So I was right which gives a little bit of deja vu on book 10 and not I'm a good way.
Also, SeaWing Blood is red, but now blue?
Yay, someone else noticed!
Yes I was so taken aback when I read that part it distracted me for the next few pages
Ok honestly not the best book but I still like it. It was definitely a messy conclusion. I wish we got to see like kaydid and malachite come back, or blue and Luna meet back up, I would have loved to see more dragons coming back together in a heartfelt “holy crap I missed you” hugging loving catching up way, but we just got “oh and everyone got together and caught up and now everything is fine and we can go back and forth between continents”
Also I wish wasp was more than a minor character and I agree with everything said wasp related like bruh why couldn’t Luna just up and murder her.
Also lizard/freedom holy crap I love her and I hate that she had her life taken away from her as a dragonet, yes her tantrums and arguements can get annoying but dude she’s a wee baby, small children’s thoughts are usually about themselves so the fact that freedom gave up her life for everyone else to live means a lot seeing how she acted before and that she is a dragonet who had her life taken from her means a lot.
Also I HATE how in like every page there’s something about tapestries! Like we get it Luna likes tapestries we don’t need to hear it every other sentence! It definitely helps sometimes with visualizing but there’s still way to much tapestries tapestries tapestries!
Overall I like the book but it could’ve been a lot better, my favorite character from it is freedom, she deserved so much better. And I just wish that the book was better, I wish it was longer to give us a better conclusion but this is fine
Oooo! I'm excited to see what you have in store for this wings of fire discussion!
This was a fun review and I agreed with most all of your critiques here - the book really was... messy, as you put it. I do, however, have to disagree with you on three points:
1) Bullfrog was not at all a sack of bricks. Did he talk slowly and simply? Yes. Did he fail to keep up with Qibli in conversation? Also yes, but come on, who wouldn't? When it mattered, though, Bullfrog came through. He was the one who brought the insight that prophecies are more guidelines than exact predictions which ultimately got the group moving in the right direction. He was also the first (and only) one to react when they turned visible again and their only human connection was about to escape. Without Bullfrog, things would not have gone well for the group. He may have talked slowly, but this was in no way representative of his ability to contribute and I, personally, really enjoyed discovering this nuance to his character.
2) Maybe this is just a me thing, but I don't see humans becoming more involved in the plot as a bad thing. At the end of the day, they're just new characters. All of the dragons we've come to know and love could just as easily have been humans (with a few extra abilities) and we'd still love them for who they are. It's not the simple fact that these characters are dragons that make these books so special. It's the writing behind them; the writing that builds them up, that shows us their strengths and their flaws, that lets us connect with them, and that makes us feel as if they really are part of our lives. Human characters in these books are no different, especially now that they have ways to communicate with dragons.
3) Luna definitely has character and a character arc. Going along with your classification of each of the pov characters from the series, I would call Luna the "Rebel". Her "thing" is that she detests the society she grew up in and actively wants to take it down. She works toward this goal, or at least considers it, in almost every scene she's in. As for her arc, in part 1 of the book she needed to rehash the whole "understanding things from other dragon's perspectives" arc that Sundew went through so that in parts 2 and 3 she could use that while trying to convince Lizard that there are better lives out there. It was necessary for the plot because, without it, Lizard's transformation feels forced/unorganic which absolutely ruins Lizard/Freedom's climactic moment. Now, that raises the broader question of whether or not it was a good idea to introduce two new characters as the main bad guys in the final book of the arc, but that's a different discussion - given the context, this was an arc that Luna and Lizard/Freedom went through _together_ and that makes it both more important and perhaps easier to see.
But other than that, I agreed with pretty much everything! I also really liked your idea for the time-skip epilogue. I think that would have made a perfect end to the series. Given that it didn't happen, I've got my fingers crossed that it wasn't truly the end hahaha.
Woahh hello :0
Think what you want about this, but this book create one of the biggest plot holes in the whole series. In part 2 or 3, lizard says that the first dragons came 3000 years after they did. Want to know when that was? The same time as darkstalker. As we know at the end of darkstalker and prologue of book 11, clearsight went to the lost continent and found dragons already there, speaking a whole new language. It even says in the epilogue of book 10 that they made jokes about the lost continent. So how in the world did two entire species of dragons flee the continent and start a new language the same time that darkstalker tried to take the throne? There’s no thought at all about two species fleeing.
Also ig tui decided it was a good idea to change an already developed blood color by changing seawing blood to blue instead of red all of a sudden. Good job tui
Pretty sure a 4th arc was announced, let’s hope it lives up to the hype, especially with the, late 1990’s-2000’s Disney famous movie sub-par sequel feel with arc 3
Really? Is it actually stated?
@@markofabecic6824 I’m going off google, but we all know how google is sometimes so….
Y’know what would be better? If Tui published four more winglets that concluded so many missing/less developed characters (Umber+Sora, Bullfrog, an explained backstory for a SandWing animus’s existence, and how Queen Monarch easily gave up her role as queen to Queen Wasp, though that sounds better as a Tree Wars legend than it does as a short winglet)
@@Littlefox1213 you have a point that would be cool
@@markofabecic6824yes he made a short mention of it in his guide to the dragon world book review
I agree with many of the points you made. Book 14-15, while they were good books in their own right, felt lack-luster in comparison to the rest of the series; it seems Tui is trying to experiment with absent storytelling by making the main characters (Snowfall and Luna) see different circumstances through the eyes of other dragons or just plainly have them not be there during conflict. I particularly have issue with Pineapple spitting venom at Queen Wasp and the "fight" that broke put while Luna was trying to destroy the BoE in Book 15. There is so little substance in those events because Luna (and thus the readers) are watching events unfold from an outsider's perspective, that when Pineapple attacked Queen Wasp and ruined her face, we don't feel any sense of finality or justice behind it. It just... Happened. It felt mildly incomplete at best and lazy at worst. For Tui to call Queen Wasp her favorite antagonist then dispose of her in such a boring way really irks me.
Personally, I think Book 14 should have been told from the perspective of Swordtail. It would have been fascinating to read him trying to help Blue and the other Silkwings while simultaneously distrusting himself in the event Wasp takes over. Sort of like Meilin's trauma in the first arc of the Spirit Animals (the 5th book was written by Tui herself). Why Tui wrote the book for Snowfall when she wasn't even part of the plot to begin with bothers me immensely.
I have my reservations about Book 15, but only in that Luna herself was a passive force, really only doing the bare minimum to keep the plot going long enough to meet Cottonmouth and Lizard/Freedom (who was the highlight of the finale). Sad since Luna said she didn't want to be a tool used by Queen Wasp or a symbol by the Silkwings, yet ultimately she was a slave to the story.
I don't want to call Tui's writing bad or claim the third arc was horrible- in fact, I think arc 3 had the POTENTIAL to be one of the best arcs, up until Books 14-15 came out- but it is clear at the least she's trying to experiment different writing mediums. Absent storytelling does work to an extent, but dedicating the near entirety of the book to flashbacks and out-of-body experiences caused the weight behind the main character to fade. Nonetheless, I enjoyed these books for what they were and I lament their potential and what could have been.
Though making Dragonslayer was a massive mistake. I hate all the human characters and especially Sky.
This book was quite good for me! I actually liked the idea for the mindscape, and Cottonmouth, and how it relates to the Scorching. What wasn’t good at all, was the start, and how they literally got captured. Also, it was like the other part of the team immediately poofed (Sky, Wren, Bullfrog) They just didn’t do anything and just stayed with Bryony and the SilkWings- I’m gonna compare this to my favorite, and my least favorite book in the series
My most favorite: Winter Turning (although I might edit this one because It is in competition currently)
My least favorite: Talons Of Power
Talons of power was really bad, because Turtle and Kinkajou did NOTHING. And Tui took that word seriously in the books. Most of the book was just Turtle and Kinkajou spying on Darkstalker, and trying to communicate with Qibli through the slate with a stupid enchantment, that Qibli can’t write back, which made me really mad. Even worse, Tui pushed all the action to the end of the book, which would make it very little, besides everybody remembering the animus battle.
Comparing to Flames Of Hope, Talons Of Power is way worse. Flames Of Hope atleast had some action. Such as the backstory of The Scorching, and Luna and Dusky getting captured by the Abyss, and the death of Freedom (which was just sad) It had a happy ending, which if there is a Arc 4, it would most likely take place in a new continent.
Now my favorite. Winter Turning
Winter Turning gave a lot of depth to the characters, I didn’t want to read it, and I tryed to avoid it at first, because that time I was a Darkstalker simp, and since he wasn’t talking In that book, I didn’t want to read it, which caused me to just go read Darkstalker Legends, because I am a idiot. I later on read it and gosh was it good- How Foeslayer turned out to be frozen by Queen Diamond as a punishment, which was why the red dot in the map in the legends book wasn’t moving. It also felt like a mystery book, and most things connect, such as all of them trying to find Hailstorm, which they first had to find Icicle, then find where Scarlet hid him, which lead to the Diamond Trial, and Foeslayer.
Again, it’s in competition, as it might be replaced as favorite, with another book I really enjoy, so I might edit this. Let’s compare it to Flames Of Hope
Flames Of Hope was messy indeed, but it did connect, such as how the Scorching caused all of this, but something unlike it, is what did Bullfrog, Wren and Sky had to do with ANY of the book? They did absolutely nothing more then say ideas and that’s it. Flames of Hope was really enjoyable though, yet some of it was frustrating, and sort of rushed. Anyways this is my opinion.
Here’s my disappointed review for Book 15 and how I would fix it:
(SPOILERS)
As much as it pains me to say it, I am legitimately shattered by how much of a letdown this final entry was. Before reading, I had my suspicions that it might not go so well, but NOTHING could’ve prepared me for the mess I read. And just to clear away any possible confusion, I’m not upset about a specific event happening in the book or the ending not being what I wanted or a protagonist not being towards my liking. I’m upset because this book was absolutely sloppy almost from beginning to end, as if Tui (the author) suddenly just lost all her writing talent.
The best way I can describe Book 15 is by saying that it didn’t feel like an actual official book written by the same author who wrote all the previous ones, but more like a messy fanfiction written by a kid who was too excited to wait for the final entry so they tried making it themselves. Originally, my least favorite books in the series were The Lost Heir and Winter Turning for reasons like the protagonist being difficult to root for or the story being too slow or some other nitpick that either couldn’t have been avoided for that book or just not to my taste. The Flames Of Hope is something entirely different. It simply lacks the magic that made all the other 16 Wings Of Fire books feel so fresh and polished. It squanders nearly everything that had been built up towards it like a joke. I’m gonna try to go through every major part that made the book feel so stale to me, in order of occurrence:
I have never in my life seen a more outrageous plot device than those invisibility bracelets on Sundew. Right at the beginning of the book the team gets separated because of the most ridiculous conditions. Apparently the dragons in the lead don’t notice an ambush of 20 mind-controlled HiveWings on a small island near the continent until they get jumped by them. Even more ridiculous, apparently Sundew can’t turn them invisible because they’re out of sight because they just HAPPENED to race each other very close to the hostile continent. And then she can’t make them invisible at all because apparently she has to make the others visible first for a second to do so, and they can’t just hide behind a tree or a rock for literally one second to make that happen. And so their only choice is to sit by and watch as all three protagonists of previous arcs get taken away for the majority of the book. It should be clear that it’s a bad idea to bring back protagonists of previous stories as side characters, just to get them screwed over immediately like total idiots that no one cares about. The most infuriating part about this is that all these characters should know full well that the fate of the entire world is likely resting on this mission, but instead they’re completely goofing off until they get screwed.
If you ask me, the only right way to start this book is with the team staying focused on the mission and not getting compromised until about a third of the way through. It would’ve been incredible to finally see a full team of dragons with different handy field skills working together and gathering the Intel they need regarding how things have changed since they were last on Pantala and how they can get closer to the abyss. Each dragon making the most of their talent to help the whole group get closer to success, all the while getting to know and trust each other a little more through quick conversations about backstories and morals during breaks and stopping points.
Instead, we mostly get Luna slowly learning to accept Cricket… WHILE INVISIBLE. They remain unnecessarily unseen for almost a quarter of the whole book purely for the sake of Wasp not knowing there’s a second Clearsight on the island. So Luna, Cricket, Bullfrog, Sky and Wren are literally just sitting there and doing nothing while Sundew and Lynx are experiencing all the action offscreen. And this is coming from someone who completely adores Cricket as a character and usually treasures the high amount of screen-time she gets in the books. I’m just gonna recap the entire book and after that I will talk about how it could’ve been done so much better:
And then they finally become visible all of the sudden and find the Pantala survivors where they have a cool reunion and get directions to the abyss and a cute baby who Luna will apparently TAKE WITH HER (she would be such an irresponsible mother). And once again, some stupid plot inconvenience happens. Two humans from the prologue somehow manage to snatch the baby dragon and bait Luna to the abyss, decide to change their minds, and then something else snatches the baby and forces Luna to dive all the way to the bottom of the pit even though she’s a dragon and can easily just fly. But this bizarre sequence of events determines otherwise and gets her trapped. And she stays there for the ENTIRE SECOND HALF OF THE BOOK until the epilogue. Literally all she does is watch a few bits of the other characters go through all the critical plot sequences without her (like the captured dragons escaping, one of them being mind-controlled and getting discovered, and them all heading over to the abyss despite knowing it’s a trap), and learning the origin story of literally everything that had ever happened in the world as well as trying to sympathize with a brand new character to save them (and the only reason she isn’t taken out by the Othermind is because the the character is cranky). And then they go through memory trips and Lizard (the new key character) tells Luna to kill her and stop the Othermind and there is a very underwheming fight sequence elsewhere as Luna plays pin the tail on the donkey while bumping into walls and then she finally cuts the critical vine and has a heartfelt moment with Lizard before she dies. Luna doesn’t even get to use her epic flamesilk to deliver the final blow.
Here is just about everything from this point I would’ve done differently to make the book much better: the group eventually gets compromised and some of them get taken by the Othermind, but they don’t get to escape its control once they’re paralyzed and captured, and the rest of the group keeps going forward to accomplish the mission. Sundew gets caught and mind-controlled towards the end when they’ve almost found the abyss and uses her leaf-speak and combat skills to put up a huge fight. Since she was originally supposed to be the one who stops the Othermind and now that she’s been taken over by it, the Othermind has basically won with her power to grow all over the world, and the stakes raise that much higher. Thanks to either her leaf-speak or Moon’s mind reading beforehand, they are able to confirm that the source of the Othermind is at the bottom of the abyss. So the group knows the only way they can succeed is by going down there and finding out to how to destroy it. By this point, very few characters are left un-mind-controlled. Especially Luna, Sky, and Wren. Maybe also Cricket and Lynx or Moon. The protagonist manages to dive down to the bottom but gets caught by the Othermind. They find out about Cottonmouth and Lizard and get the backstory of the Scorching, the same way they do in the original (but maybe with more evil vibes instead of dumb arrogance in the story). But this time the protagonist immediately feels pity for Lizard and expresses it very strongly, before Lizard even gets to mention how much her life sucks. She would be overwhelmed with the sudden affection that she wouldn’t even know what to do with it, and then told that it’s a curse she has to live like this. The protagonist would tell Lizard that her living is hurting everyone in world including herself, and ask if there is any way to kill her to put her out of her misery. Lizard would say that it would be stupid for her to want to die, for the protagonist would say “Wouldn’t it be worth it, if you could finally be free from this curse? Wouldn’t this be a mercy?” while having their front arms on Lizard’s shoulders to emphasize their seriousness. Lizard would say that, since they are both in the Othermind source area, she could try to release the grip on the protagonist against Cottonmouth’s will, but only for a minute at most. The protagonist will suddenly be snapped out of the trance and wake up wide-eyed partially submerged in terrifying vines wrapped around them, some of them actually digging into them. They would have a very disturbing sequence of struggling to break free and tearing roots out of their body. And once they’ve popped out, they’ll drowsily, but determinedly, wobble over Lizard’s real body and destroy all the vines going through it, preferably with flamesilk. For dramatic effect maybe there could be plants trying to stop them from getting over, but not reaching because of Lizard’s resistance.
(See reply for second half of review)
(Here is second half of review)
There are also two key other events I would’ve added in the middle of the book. One would be the death of Queen Wasp. She’s one of the most evil villains in the series (pretty much a mix between Blister and Scarlet) and deserves a good death sendoff instead of simply being imprisoned and glossed over. Maybe the group could get caught by her and her HiveWings, but once someone kills her (preferably Sundew and Luna are trying to hold her down and then Cricket delivers the killing blow, who Wasp had a personal hatred for), the Othermind weakens and needs a minutes to refocus its control on the sudden bigger amount of dragons it has to control, buying the group enough time to escape. Another key event I want to see happen is the group turning hostile on each other with words. The whole theme should be about unity between the ten tribes, and what better way to demonstrate that than by having them at each other’s throats due to the stress of failing the save the world? After a rough event happens and they get exposed, having their original plan in ruins, nearly everyone but the protagonist starts blaming someone else and yelling. I can easily imagine Sundew blaming Pyrrhia for not giving them real magic and that they must’ve lied to keep it to themselves, Tsunami and Lynx lashing back by saying they never even had to get involved, Pineapple and Bullfrog saying it’s Pantala’s fault for even dragging Pyrrhia into their rotten mess, Cricket lashing back yelling what else were they supposed to do, Luna snapping at Cricket saying that she shouldn’t even be allowed to be in the argument since she’s a HiveWing, Wren getting mad at everyone just for arguing, Luna blaming Moon for not being nearly as good of a Clearsight as they needed, Qibli getting hostile in defending Moon and telling Luna she can’t just expect Moon to solve all her problems, and the main character being the only one trying to stop the arguing and eventually getting everyone focused on the main topic and that they all need to trust and rely each other if they want to defeat the true evil. It would line up perfectly with “talons united”. And as you may have noticed, when I say “protagonist”, it doesn’t seem like I’m talking about Luna. Which brings me to an idea I’ve had since even before the book was released.
And to top it all off, I think the critical changing factor that could’ve made this book as great as it deserved to be… is to make Sky the protagonist instead of Luna. Now don’t get me wrong, Luna is a great character. But let’s be fair: most of her character development arc suddenly appeared only in her book and was pretty unrelated to the overall theme. The whole “just keep smiling” thing was nothing like how she was in the previous books and the whole “all HiveWings bad” thing was covered in Sundew’s character arc only two books ago. The whole “learn to trust and accept Cricket” thing would’ve been a nice touch if it was done in an earlier book with less tension on the obvious enemy, but not in the final entry where everyone should know who the real enemy is by now, unless of course it only happens in an impactful moment of hopelessness.
Sky on the other hand had the perfect opportunity to fit his potential character arc with the theme of the book: learning to accept himself despite his disability and trying to convince even enemies to see things his way and give in. If instead of making him act like a toddler who keeps getting distracted, Tui could have him be a little more responsible and focused on trying to be a hero that the world needs him to be. He can understand both dragons and humans so the reader can have the fresh new experience of a protagonist being a dragon talking to humans, he can poetically break up fights between the other characters and remind them that the main focus is saving the world and they all need to work together they want to succeed thanks to his pure pure-hearted words that can only come from someone with zero selfish or spiteful intentions of their own, and he would probably be the perfect candidate to convince Lizard to give up her life for everything. He could talk about how he kind of relates to Lizard considering how on the same day he was hatched, he was almost killed by his own parent and also had to be raised by a human. Then he can say that it’s awful how Lizard never got the affection from her human like he did from his. And then Sky could give her his memories about how much he and Wren cared for each other, and how scared he was when he was alone without her. While doing this, he can continue to emphasize his remorse for Lizard and tell her how much she wants to help her. Then she will eventually cave in and tell him how to kill her and the Othermind and that she will try to keep him awake and free to move for as long as she can. Sky will show an unfamiliar determination that had grown from him maturing and taking on the responsibility of saving everything, showing in the way he forcefully pushes himself to break free from the terrifying vines that had dug into his scales. Just imagine how cool it would be for this initially soft character to have such a determination to tear roots out of his scales without hesitation out of pure determination. But then he will suddenly panic and feel hopeless that he can’t destroy the vines because he can’t breathe fire, and even though he made it this far, he still won’t be able to go all the way with it. But then he will find some way to get flamesilk or start a fire quickly (maybe he could make a fire with wood pieces thanks to lessons from Wren, maybe he can call for Luna to shoot flamesilk down, just something symbolic to show that he can achieve the goals even without the same advantages as other SkyWings). And then he would run over with his actual body to physically hug Lizard for real as she sheds a tear and says thank you. I honestly think that it would’ve been better to have Sky as the main character because since the entire origin of the Scorching is revealed in this book, it only feels right for a Pyrrhia dragon (especially a SkyWing, the absolute textbook definition of a standard dragon) to be the one to experience it. The story really isn’t about Pantala anymore as much as it is about saving everything and stopping a crazy weird evil.
I will say that the only major thing that was done very right was Luna and Swordtail’s romantic dynamic and backstory. All of that was done really great. No complaints from me on that. Everything else though, not so much.
The irony about all this is that at last I get to read about Moonwatcher and Qibli’s official romance in action after so much build-up throughout Arc 2 to make it happen (something I had impatiently been waiting four whole books to see). But honestly, I was too bummed with the rest of the book to be proud of my favorite dragon couple finally showing off their great genuine love and affection for each other. Another thing, while the short backstories of the other characters were cute and wholesome, it kind of messes with Qibli’s background of always having to fend for himself all alone, when there was apparently at least one dragon who defended him as a hatchling. That just doesn’t add up.
Overall, the concept at the end that ties in with the Scorching was a good idea, but executed very poorly. Everything before that was an underwhelming mess of the protagonist just sitting around while all the action is happening elsewhere and going through stage 1 character arcs, both of which should never happen in a grand finale. And in the end, things don’t get nearly as dramatic and tense as they should have. I’m sorry, but this book was a bigger letdown than I ever could’ve imagined from Wings Of Fire.
#longest Comment ever.
@@TrickyTalon23 damn dude you’re really getting heated over these dragon books
@@kaliido_scope nah, just this one
@@kaliido_scope They have every right to express their displeasure.
As much as I would like to see this video…I can’t.
I haven’t read the book yet. But the title is immediately making me think the ending is disappointing.
But I hope it’s more based on opinion than facts.
I better not be disappointed by the book.
I’ll be back here when I get a chance to read It.
Edit:I read the book and I must say. I actually ended up liking it.
I think it was arc finale worthy.
But…it just wasn’t series finale worthy.
Although it would be better to leave it off there. Instead of making everything worse by extending the series with a 4th arc.
Besides. We will still get graphic novels and other kinds of books.
But if we do get a 4th arc. It better be done right. And have an actual reason to continue the story. Due to the way book 15 ended.
Same.
I just finish the series a few days ago (main books only) and Tbh the 3rd arc feels more like First Fanfic than a series finally, ecspshaly(can't spell) Lunas pov. It's boring & dragged out. Like give Luna Something to do! not just sit on her tail and talk to the ghost of a dragonet. I'll admit The cutting the vine was okay but I would've preferred Luna figured it out on her. I think the biggest problem with Flames of Hope is it was conestly breaking the Show don't Tell rule of writing, with Luna & Lizard.
I honestly loved book 15 but I agree with you. The only real reason is because I loved Lizard/Freedom. She was feisty but wanted freedom so bad. I just loved her at the end when she sacrificed herself. I feel like she kind of got that development that Luna needed.
Problems with the book and my personal solutions:
1.) In book 11, we know Luna as this fierce, disobedient SilkWing that will not hesitate to stand up for whats good, but in book 15, she just becomes really…shy? Like, all her fierceness just kinda evaporates. I mean, think about it. We know Luna DOESNT like HiveWings. But when all her friends are in danger against HIVEWINGS, shes just…there. Like, she worries her flamesilk might burn her friends, but why cant she just go down there all invisible and burn them herself? It’s not like they’ll be able to see her, and even if they manage to hurt her, they dont know where she is. Overall, Luna kind of just…downgraded
1S) I think Luna’s fear of her flamesilk should be completely dissolved, and instead, replaced by losing her friends. (Swordtail, Blue, Io, etc) Why? She’s already fearful for losing Swordtail, and that shouldnt be different from all her other friends being controlled by the Othermind. And I know shes scared of being blown out again, but that was during a STORM. Yes, a STORM. Was there a storm during that fight sequence? Or high winds? Nope. Also, in Book 14 when Jerbora was asking her scroll if Luna was dangerous, it responded with “Only to those who hurt her friends” Ironic, isnt it? And add her fierceness back.
2) Most of the Stealth mission members didnt get much, uh, screentime? Booktime? Idk what to call it, but still. Pineapple is trapped by the HiveWings and doesnt show up for a while until he enters the mindspace. Moon is also trapped by the HiveWings and doesnt show up for a while until she enters the mindspace. So is Tsunami and Qibli, oh dear, they were gone for literally SO LONG. Although Sky was there for most of the time, he mostly did nothing. Sundew and Lynx were gone most of the book to rescue the others, Bullfrog was basically a minor character. Overall, this aspect was disappointing.
2S) Like the Legends book, I think they should have switched the POV each chapter. With so many characters to keep track of and so little backstory with Bullfrog and Pineapple, I think it’s fair. It would be interesting to see how Lynx and Sundew rescued the others.
3) Wasp’s defeat was so unclimatic. I expected something better than an already used strategy of defeating an evil queen and imprisonment.
3S) Kill her. Straight up, just kill her. Dont keep her alive. Snap her neck, blast frostbreath, choke her with vines (funny that Sundew hated Queen Wasp so much only to keep her alive) snap her neck, pull out her teeth, gouge out her eyeballs, BURN HER WITH FLAMESILK JUST KILLED HERRR RARATAYHEHDDJJDJD
U know the painting Lady Scarab did of Wasp? The wasp getting consumed by ants? It could have been a faint foreshadowing of Wasp's death.
It could have been smt like the othermind being "We'll, Wasp, as it turns out I don't need u anymore" and then swarms her with her own HiveWings, and she goes down screaming while the secret stealth team escapes and looks back in horror. Yeah. Long reply, I know, but u gave me an idea -
Personally I really enjoyed this book, and I think it was well written. I just don't think it had the "ending" kinda thing we all wanted, I do think the end was a bit underwealming, but over all, I very much enjoyed it
I never saw a silk wing without wings
Edit form over 9 months later 3:34 is the the wingless silkwing
This was the most confusing book in the series as read more of the book and grasped more things the book would just keep shoving more things in my face causing me too constantly be prosesing what is going on
This is almost EXACTLY how i feel about it!!
I hate that Sunderland had to make it end in such a way somewhat but the thing is that I wish she could do a fourth arc but with an ending like that tells me it might not happen, I mean who knows if yhe fourth arc will happen. I mean I think the series still has a lot of potential for adventures and stuff but honestly even to me 15 is yes a lot of books for an author but for someone like me who's a fast reader and who longs long well done series I do love but I know that if you go down the path like warriors did to how much worse it got over time to slowly die out it was bad and wings of fire could have that if Sunderland does decide to actually even have a fourth arc after many years of a break, but I can see why she would stop the series but it's so popular rn and many people and one like me thinks that the series beyond 15 had so much potential left and I want it too because I'm freaken hungry for more but I know it's something that might not happen and we might mostly get stuff like legends and guides and such for the series. I hope to God if it does continue I think their should be a time skip not the year and a half something or so that's happened throughout the three arcs I think we should have all the ones we have all grown up or so and have new ones like bumblebee and such as sky and such wren and whatever young ones be apart of something new pr basically what im saying is to instead of continuing on the same boring old dying path like warriors did without a time skip for WOF, of anyone agrees to what I'm saying about this please let me know that I'm not the only one thinks that their could be much more potential for the series after 15 books or her doing the rest of legends books and such after her long break from it and such.
So, at the end of TFoH, we see Sundew sorting out saplings from Pyrrhia. This doesn’t seem like a big deal, but…those saplings are most likely going to become an invasive species on Pantala. There’s a reason why trees on Pyrrhia are on Pyrrhia and why trees on Pantala are on Pantala. Also, how is anybody going to be able to TURN THE SAVANNA INTO A JUNGLE?! I’m not even sure how Pantala became a savanna if the whole continent was covered in jungle/rainforest, but I guess it was just plot convenience.
Here’s another rant: Why is the Burning of Bloodworm never mentioned again? It might’ve been mentioned, but I don’t feel like going through TFoH to find it. While yes, Bloodworm Hive was the worst out of the Hives, this doesn’t justify it being gone, reduced to ashes. Tui sort of paints it as “Oh, but they’re the good guys, so they can do a literal war crime!”. Seriously? About the war crime thing, it’s because there were most likely a lot of HiveWing casualties, and the fact that there were probably a lot of injuries. Even if there weren’t any deaths (which is very unlikely), the Hive housed 1/9 of the HiveWing and SilkWing population, which leaves a bunch of lives having to move to a different Hive. Also, there were lots of goods, money, valuables, and personal belongings that were probably lost in the fire. This means a bunch of HiveWings and SilkWings are now left with nothing. Honestly, what the heck?
Looks like a game of thrones season 8 moment
That’s exactly what it was, but maybe even worse.
@@winter2716 in my book there are no humans literally
I agree with all of your points, I feel like Luna was ok as a side character, but she more of a way to view the story through her eyes.
I was pretty underwhelmed with the book. And yeah Luna's lack of consistency didn't help. Which is a shame, everything we had seen up until the release from her had me excited. I was ready to make her my all time favorite. But when we get her pov in this book it feels like she has 15 different personalities and perspectives, which could have been used if they acknowledged it but I don't think it was intentional. We have the Luna who hates hivewings which is probably the one that gets the most focus but has the least amount of bearing, we have the Luna that thinks her way is the best way which COULD have worked perfectly. Against with the parallels to darkstalker if she and qibli had been able to have more interactions I think this idea of her black and white view of the world could have been used in the climax with it being as emotion and dialogue heavy as it is could have been best used if freedom and Luna helped each other and that was the resolution or the thing that pushed freedom to sacrifice herself. The Luna I think tui wanted though was the one who had to learn to open up and acknowledge her feelings. Which doesn't really match with the emotional Luna we get in previous installments but none of these really do so it's fine ig. I feel like if the memory things required Luna to be vulnerable with freedom and freedom in turn reflected on herself because of this it could have worked instead of the few random lines. Also there was this "we aren't so different you and I" esc line from cotton mouth that really should be removed if they weren't going for the 2nd option. I really am hoping for another arc so they can tackle the political state of pantala. I want to see bumblebee working for the pantalan investigative agency tracking down assasins and preventing political distress while we see how sever the hivewing problem is and how far wasp supporters are willing to go. Remember LOK SEASON 1? Yeah like that except even more based in politics lol.
I actually really liked the book although I felt like Qibli and Tsunami were like different characters. And Freedom was annoying
It felt like Qibli was on cocaine or something. I actually thought Tsunami was written pretty well, though. And Lizard/Freedom was almost unbearable most of the time.
It felt weird for them to be joking around when they were captured by Wasp
@@Hepoxni I know, right? The overall tone/mood of this book felt way too lighthearted given the stakes. I was expecting something super dark, but apparently that’s too much to ask for.
@@winter2716 I agree that the tone was way to light-hearted. I don’t think a single living thing died (except cottonmouth and freedom, who I didn’t really care for and weren’t technically living anyway) in this book, despite the large fights that happened and other odds
I can’t wait for the book 6 graphic novel because of the scenes with darkstalker
Tbh when playing, reading, or watching something I'm usually just "Oh this is nice I was able to enjoy it enough to pass time with it" and I'm not the best at critiques or reviews or anything, but the ending of the book I do agree it's not really the best ending for Wings of Fire in general (Meaning the main series, unless an arc 4 is revealed), and I wish it focused on other dragons. The new characters were pretty nice however I kind of hoped for Axolotl to be more focused on and more important to the story after how they were introduced
Also couldn't help but mention how I recognized the PLA Giratina and route 209(?) theme as soon as it began playing, they're some of my favorite soundtracks lol
Spoilers for the book 15, but you already knew that when clicking show more
Now i wouldn't go off and say this book was a complete trainwreck like some comments or videos i have seen, tui had not introduced the lost continent well.. and it could have been written better, for example in the lost continent, they could have made a longer prologue to introduce this arc, and now for the rant,
First, what needed to be changed
Lets start with cottonmouth, I HATE COTTONMOUTH, all i got from him was he wanted to take over the world, other villans i could understand, or slightly understand: Morrowseer- wanted a better home forhis tribe, smae with queen vengance, scarlet was hard, but all i could say is her childhood is what caused her insanity as i don't know any of it, darkstalker.. truthfully, arc two was kind of messed up too, but i could understand the villan, to a degree, Darkstalker, born with is unique power thought he had to use his power "responsibly from the beginning, he knew he had it"
allthough he could just.. not known? wait im not fixing all the books here, just arc three, although he was actually good before his mom disappeared, is what made me fan over him a looong time, and im finnaly done with that, And then arc three, were brought in too quickly, we could have used a few chapters to a longer prologue, we have this mysteriouus unseen abillity, the hivemind, whitch lets wasp control any dragon, i would have loved to see her as the main villan of this arc, and see her get what she desereved in the end, but we soon find out, that the hivemibd, now known as the othermind, si a plant, okay, wasp could still well be the main villan. when it was revealed that she was not the villan, i was a bit iffy about it.. but alright, and when the main villan is revealed, I KID YOU NOT, A SCAVENEGER!? (this is what i hate most, in TFOH) cottonmouth is the cause of the scortching, ok he's ancient, ok had that topic before, but his brain- controls the othermind- AHHHHHHHHHHHHH okay enough screaming, he wants to take over the entire world, that legit is the most CLICHIE THING EVER, and why a human why.. okay i need to fix this before i have a mental breakdown
What can be fixed:
Wasp, the original main villan of this arc, BE THE VILLAN. there are so so many ways this could play out and i would have loved to see them, yet in book 13..? it is revealed that the othermidn is controlled by something else
The true othermind source, first keep lizard, she deserved better than some random captured hatchling. instead of cottonmouth, the othrmidn be a dragon! and i liked the plot point of needing sundew's leaf speak, i would keep that, as for the otherdragon-other brain.? haven't decided
that dragon be as evil as scarlet and burn, as smart as blister anb darkstalker, if not more than them, here is how i would have described it,
"She jumped down into the abyss, chaseing dusky's captor, shw crawled through a damp tunnel that she could barely fit in"
when she exited, she saw something incredibly terrifying, vines overtaken their scales.. red eyes.. a eerie sound as they walked twords luna, sounding like walking on vines and bones.. their teeth replaced by thorns, their horns replaced by branches" i know its not much and its a bit off the top of my head, its still something just as scary as wasp, in my opinoin, and it would have been a better villan in general. moving on to character inclusion.
Although it was evident that we would loose some dragons to the othermind, i'd rather loose somone in the arc, or preveous, instead of a random rainwing by the name of pineapple, who apparently is jambu's boyfriend
moon's inclusion, have her get taken over or better yet, not taken over.. maybe even just... i know some moon fans will hate me, but maybe killed
it would devistate the pyhrran characters, and BOOM part two
Next up, something devastating for luna to experience... the death/ near death situation of one of these characters, sundew, cricket, or even blue or swordtail
this would devastate the fanbase and me, but it would be devastating enough to make luna want to give up, or something, but it gives her a reason to push forward, and take down the othermind
The thing that could stop the othermind be one thing me and others would have liked to see, BEETLE WINGS, we have little know about them and i would absolutly LOVE to learn more, they were mentioned when clearsight fled to pantala, and i think at least part of arc four could include them! if tui said that she would write an arc four, all that is known is that they were the predisesors to the hivewings and silkwings, and probably had powers similar to them, and only.. 2000 years later, they're mysteriously ALL GONE, this could have played out much better... yet it was a wasted opportunity
the after effect, the members holds a funeral/ does their best at helping mentioned character get better, i like the second option bette, because it wouldn't hurt as many people, as for moon, whatever her fate was she was/ is honored for her heroisim, if alive, she stays on pantala with the dream visitor, to make sure everyone ajusts safely, that no wars are drawn, if she is dead that service is passed onto qibli.
Preparation and ideas for arc 4
first, if it were to take place on a new continent, introudce the new continent in a stretched out prologue or wait till the second book to fully introduce it, have one book have the point of veiw with a living, actual BEETLEWING, if there was supposedly a spider tribe introduced, (arachniwings is what i would call them) an arachniwing pov saved for the last book, and in the series, include the tribes that only got one book on them, the mudwings the skywings the leafwings, hivewings or the rainwings (come on kinkajou book) and then the villan be, what ever seems fit for that arc
to anyone who reads this, thank you for taking the time to do so, this took a while for me to type
That's actually really interesting and a cool idea! I would honestly prefer this to the actual storyline and I love the idea of the half plant dragon othermind villain you thought of. The arc 4 idea was also pretty neat! You did a good job!
@@arianimates79 thanks!
@@R..E..H your welcome!
I kinda wanna draw your dragon other mind design thing now
If that's ok with you
@@arianimates79 sure
@@R..E..H ok
I absolutely adore Bullfrog. He's so funny.
How charcoal described the start of part three is something similar to how I’d imagine freedom to explain it
They messed up the villains so much.
Wasp was defeated by Pineapple, a RAINWING, that’s not even a POV CHARACTER. And then we’re just told she’s jailed.
And the breath of evil? It feels more like Luna is defeating Freedom because of the entire conversation convincing her to go against Cottonmouth, and because she also dies when the Breath of Evil dies.
Ngl their was so many gaps and they got sky's color palette wrong TwT. ALSO BLUE seawing blood when they have red blood (confusion)
I freaking loved pineapple from chaptor one, he just became such a loveable charter for me and i was so upset when he got captured :( i honstly wish he could of had more...um..screentime? booktime? idk what the word would be but i loved him.
As for Bullfrog i had a theroy about him, from the dangurse gift, ever since snowfall said he was a big buff mudwing ive been wondering, could he of lost all his siblings in the war? did he join the stealth mission in the hopes it would be a one way? or did he hope it would give him soemthing to live for? Why would a dragon like him, that could of been a bigwings, join a mission he might not return from? The flames of hope made me think that maybe becuse he lost so much that he was so reseved, becuse he was scared to get close to anyone, yet he still felt the bigwing urg to protect others, hence saving cricket from Prongweed(might of got the name wrong, havent read the book enought to remeber much) and trying to save part of the group at the start. i have so many thoughts and questions from Bullfrog that i would of like answered but the FOH just left more questions.
I honestly loved the book but it was so confusing. I also hate the fact that Luna didn’t even see half of the action
Honestly, for a possible finally , it's straight up disappointing. For an Arc that is basically character development, Luna didn't change. Honestly, I didn't really like Luna at the start, and it's the same at the end. Honestly, what I mean is, Sundew doesn't hate thenivewings due to what wasp is doing, snowfall is no longer paranoid, cricket realizes what their queen is doing, ect. Honestly, probably the reason the book is so disappointing, I the main character itself.
Luna herself was actually one of the saving graces of the book, imo (and I say “saving graces” with huge quotation marks).
Book 15 Tui's POV: The Flames of Hope
Book 15 Our POV: The Flames of Trash
I am very excited for the Wings of fire on Netflix series like come out already
I felt like the book fell off after the island ambush. I liked that scene because it was tense to see characters we know and love get taken like that and it felt like it could’ve got so much better from there with a rescue mission.
Moon I absolutely hate her inclusion in this book because once again it was her who saved the world. she’s already an annoying character with way too much attention
I also think this book is unlikable because it made Luna unlikable. She just comes off as a whiny entitled brat to me and I have no sympathy for her. Mainly because of how she treats poor cricket. And it would have made sense if it weren’t for the fact that cricket had already done so much for everyone so there was no reason to make Luna so racist towards her. Luna barely even acknowledges what cricket did at all. She also complains nonstop about everyone else and how they aren’t up to her standards.
I also really hate how cricket was barely involved and blue didn’t even make an appearance. It just irks me so much that they and everything their characters built to were tossed aside for the authors favorite child and the random new villain she pumped out
I feel like book 15 ran into the same problem as book 10, in that the antagonist was a bit overpowered to the point that it made it hard to come up with valid ways to fight them.
Also, the plant’s mind control powers felt off somehow. It doesnt quite make sense that it can control people like it does. Its hard to explain but theres something just off about the way the mind control works, almost as if there were no plans on how to defeat the antagonist when the book 13 twist ending was written.
The whole “talons united” part of the prophecy felt irrelevant and did not feel like it played into the solution at all (well, not much at least).
The issues are compounded in book 15 by the weak PoV, shoehorned humans and sidelining of the other main characters.
I’ve noticed that once characters get a PoV book, they tend to fall into the background as if becoming adults and suddenly being susceptible to the “adults are useless” trope.
Moon is the only PoV character who really gets involved in any plots after her book, with the 2nd closest being Tsunami getting lines in multiple books.
I think this is an attempt to give the main character more space and screentime but it often hinders the story because
1. It deprives the main character of characters to bounce off of and the interesting dynamics and interpersonal conflicts that can come from a small group of characters interacting.
2. It feels disrespectful to the characters that people are already attached to, and disappointing to anyone who wanted to see more of them being as cool as they were in their PoV story.
3. It draws attention to the hand of the author when other characters get obviously sidelined. For example, in the beginning of book 15, I did not enjoy that fight as much as I could have because I was thinking about how disappointing it was that the author was removing those characters from the story and how disappointed I was in not getting to interact with them during the rest of the book, despite them not even losing the fight yet.
Freedom's life was heavily skewed and manipulated by Cottonmouth and her situation. she's spiteful, petty, rude, possessive, but she's also had no good influence in her short life. i found her to be a very sympathetic character. i would not be a very "normal" person at all if the only outside influence in my life was the most selfish being alive.
I found after a bit of thinking I understood all of the mind space and breath of evil stuff
WTF IM REALLY BEHIND
Book 15 wasn’t the worst book but not the best I really liked the characters that came out of it but I was really upset about Sora and Umber. 8.5/10 because at least it wasn’t like Dragonslayer or The Dark secret.
But The Dark Secret was actually good. Flames of Hope was not.
the dark secret was okay, but the most starflight did was follow people around. Dragonslayer had the issue of how the characters switched around, Wren’s part was mostly okay, Ivy’s felt slow, and Leaf’s entire point was ruined by the fact that Wren wasn’t dead, and was working with dragons so we’re left knowing he got it all wrong with nothing to do about it. But i mean, not outrageously horrible.
Important distinction between humans being important and humans being a focus.
Sandwing queen getting killed by a human and kicking off a 20 year war between dragon tribes- important.
Chapter from human PoV- probably human focused but can still be dragon focused if the events occurring are important to or involve dragons.
Chapter about what humans are doing- human focused.
I don’t mind some focus on humans, but it needs to be really well done and compliment a larger focus on dragons.
Humans being around dragons in a dragon run palace. Good balance.
Dragon running into humans at an oasis- fine for a scene but not a whole chapter.
Anything involving human settlements and kingdoms needs to be very interesting and near immediately relevant to at least some of the PoV dragons.
As in, it can be done, but I would need to be sold on it through quality, and I expect dragon PoVs.
I listened to the audiobook for book 15 and the first few chapters i had 14 heart attacks
I would really love to hear your opinions!
All right there are two major corrections I want to make here for anyone who may have gotten the wrong impression from this review and in case wings of charcoal is actually reading this comment
First of all axolotl does have a personality and I actually thought them being non-binary was a minor part of what they were compared to what they actually did which is more than being a tour guide because they are basically the human version of cricket
They are a human character who somehow found a dragon book and with teaching themself the dragon language all on their own
Yeah honestly it's even more impressive than what Ren did because as far as I know axolotl didn't have a dragon to have help teach them and they still found the book and we're still translating it by themself
Also that book led to talking about the scorching which has made very clear is a major part of stuff that happens in this
They are also learning to speak dragon now with Friends help and will probably be the pentalon version of Ren once Wren and the sky return to pyrrhia
So yes there's quite a bit more to them than just their gender
Okay second correction point I wanted to make Luna isn't just an artist learning to tolerate other tribes
She also has depression kind of I'm pretty sure
It's not explicitly stated but Luna's mind is mentioned to have funny and rainy times in it and Luna dealt with and hidden all the time she says she has foggy days
Part of her Arc is learning to trust and confide in other people when this happens and learning that it's okay to be sad and it's okay to talk to other people when she's sad
I want to point out that Cricket does a bit more than just nothing since she talks to axolotl learns about the scorching gets kind of tricked by Luna and is there with thunder when the fighting starts even though Luna wasn't
Also almost everyone gave lizard a memory and that was important because that was what was necessary everybody had to do it so that she could learn about other dragons and that's what fueled her change of heart which I don't agree with her realizing things were wrong but just it felt different okay
I will agree though bullfrog does absolutely nothing and I hate it bullfrogs guy and Wren should have also given memories
And even though Skye and ren didn't they were important because we need to translators obviously even though that's not a major contribution that is still kind of a major contribution because talking to humans wouldn't have worked otherwise
But other than saying a tiny bit about the scorching bullfrog does nothing he does absolutely nothing
And his personality is dumb hungry and disrespectful to humans and no one needed or wanted that
Agreement that pineapple is awesome
Also it was really cool that pineapple pulled a glory on wasp and it was also qibli's idea so it kind of means it was sort of him too since I don't think pineapple would have thought to do that on his own because rain wings never think about doing that
In my opinion queen wasp could’ve been wings of fire’s scariest villain I can make a list on what could’ve made her so terrifying
If Wasp got the Queen Scarlet treatment, does this mean that she is going to attempt to take back the throne in book 18? (It'll make more sense when you think about it)
yk i LOVE tui and love wings of fire, but i just felt a little, empty reading this.If this is the end of wof(which i really hope it isnt) the last few lines of the Lost Continent Propehcy, it said "face a great evil with TALONS UNITED"! except, luna was the only one who did something that impacted the WHOLE story.I wish there was an epilogue where maybe each main protag of each arc got thier own little povs, showing where they are and who theyre with, kinda like darkness of dragons.
The Flames of Hope was torturous to read! Months of anticipating and hoping WASTED!!
i really was not expecting monster hunter music in a wings of fire video but it's great
I’ve found Monster Hunter’s soundtrack fits WoF surprisingly well
The conclusion dident tell us how after wasp and cottonmouth if peace remained
I already have it! I can’t wait to read it!
Brace yourself.
good luck
you'll need it
I hated this book. Mostly because I was deeply underwhelmed and my friend claimed it was her absolute favorite (I’m pretty sure she changed her mind) 🤦🏻♀️
Also, Luna’s boring.
I kinda wish Winter was part of the group instead of Lynx. He and Qibli were one of my favorite parts of The Dangerous Gift and I wish there was more of that in this book. I like Lynx, but she doesn’t know the other characters as well as Winter does
(don't know if I've already said this, but here goes.)
humans being important in Wings of Fire (a book series about dragons) outside of both causing their own downfall and the rise of dragons as well as starting a 20 year war.
that's like rats being given a place among a meeting of government leaders from around the world after not just bringing the fleas that started a plague that nearly wiped out the whole human population, but started a world war that lasted for 20 years because a few rats killed some government official and another nation was blamed for it.
how is it so powerful? it speaks several broken languages badly.
For me, like you said, it's a correct and good book, maybe not the great finally we expsected but at least a sufficient ending to this arc.
About if there will be or not a Arc 4, there currently any confirmation that will happen, but any official cinfirmation that this book was the last of the entire main serie either !
It's very likely that the main serie will continue, since the popularity and overall reception are always here, but for now, it's pretty obvious we will have here a big pause, that Tui Sutherland will make a break and work on others projects (inside or outside the franchise) to return with more clearer ideas for the next.
For example, she is free to work more on the others WOF stuff like the Netflix serie or the extended differents books.
Like Wings of Charcoal said, we are all far from the true end !
I wanted to see a possessed Sundew
I would have loved this book so much more if Luna and Dusky didn't spend literally a third of the book making small talk with Freedom instead of actually fighting .
Also, i wanted a gory description of Wasp's scales melting off because of Luna's flamesilk, and i didn't get it. I was so mad that i wrote an entire fanfiction of a perpetually murderous flamesilk killing stuff/hj
I enjoyed the book, and thought it was fine. My personal gripe with it is that we only got to see the Pantalan dragons in the epilogue, and we don't really know exactly how it went with the Phyrrian dragons returning home and telling everyone about how the mission was a success.
me at the start of book 4 then seeing this: who the f- are all of these new dragons pineapples relatives are probably stick bugs.
One of my biggest gripes with the finale was Dusky, as in the entire character of Dusky.
He was annoying but somewhat tolerable, right up until the flashback of the Scorching. This little rat was cheering on human genocide because of the actions of Cottonmouth and his men. That would be like us nuking Japan 30 times and people cheering it on because of what Unit 731 did.
And even after humanity was punished and were fleeing for the other continent, he flat out said he was hoping they’d drown. And the book has the audacity to frame this as a good thing! Combine that with other issues my fellow commenters have pointed out, and this book starts to feel like a Wattpad fanfic rather then a official installment in the series.
Also the they/them Axolotl character felt more tacked-on then a stickynote. Just felt like a cheap grab at brownie points with the diversity crew.
Man i was really disapointed when wasp died not to luna NOT to swordtail OR sundew!!! she just went splat and i am still salty about that akshdjasdhh
*SPOILERS*
While I enjoy Arc 3... there are somethings I disliked about it
1. Really? Do humans *have* to play a huge role? Fine, yes, we can have Wren... but having one of the Othermind hosts be a human? Was that necessary?
2. The plant is the main villain... why
3. The ending of book 3 with Blue and Swordtail being mind controlled and Luna being book fifteen's protagonist. OF COURSE SHE WOULD TRY TO SAVE THEM! THEY'RE HER BROTHER AND BOYFRIEND!
While doing both SilkWings wasn't the worst, I wished someone else had been mind controlled instead of both of them like Sundew because than the Othermind would be a bigger threat... or someone who Luna doesn't have the closest connections to, instead of it being "OH NO! MY BOYFRIEND AND BROTHER GOT MIND CONTROLLED, I HAVE TO SAVE THEM!"
Like really? Did both of them had to be mind controlled? Why not Blue and Sundew for example? (I don't hate them, well Blue used to annoy me). That would mean the Othermind could spread faster.
Actually your wrong about the epilogue, in the last paragraph or so someone thinks, "Humans and dragons traveling and living with each other, I wonder how that will work." That probably references the next arc to be something about humans and dragons!! Although I do dislike that humans are getting more involved.. hopefully there's a mass human extinction
i HATE the way they treated dragon racism in arc 3. so many characters have the insentive that "oh we can learn to coexist and empathize with our opressors! lets all hold hands like nothing happened!" THAT IS NOT THE MORAL WE NEED TO SHARE. those who harm entire maginalized groups, even in a book about fictional dragons, need to be held accountable. not the morals we should be promoting. book 15 had some lovely plot points, like freedom's arc and seeing some recurring characters, but other than that it's just. not it.