By Lucky Felder and Haley Kim
Sparked by our love for romance-fantasy and conversations about book boyfriends, we’ve decided to dive back into Rebecca Yarros’ TikTok-famous series Fourth Wing, which is set to have five books once completed. Although we’ve hit a couple slumps on our journey reading this series together, we were finally able to continue and are now halfway through the 700-page sequel, Iron Flame. Throughout reading sessions, we’ve discovered we basically hate all the characters (except for one in particular of course). Truly, only the plot is making us go on. Here are our feelings about the characters so far:
Violet Sorrengail – (5/10)
Worst. Main. Character. Her personality consists only of cringy one-liners and pick-me girl energy… Rebecca Yarros must be stopped. For an embarrassingly large chunk of the novel, her whole internal conflict was deciding whether or not she should forgive Xaden for keeping a secret. First of all, he didn’t do anything wrong. Second of all, have you discovered that perhaps you’re the problem? She has the biggest ego ever, and thinks she can do everything herself just because she survived the riders’ trials (like everyone else?), PLUS the only reason she’s not dead is because of plot armor. You’re not special, girl. We can only hope she’ll redeem herself in the later books.
Xaden Riorson – (∞/10)
Um. So we don’t know where to start with this one. No words can express the amount of aura points he gains in every single scene. Dare we say he’s carrying the whole series? He IS the plot. The way he can communicate with Violet through his mind has us kicking our feet in the air every time. If we’re caught smirking at each other, just know we’re talking about Xaden.
Aaric Greycastle – (7/10)
Wait. Hold on, why are we giggling, toes wiggling all of a sudden? Our initial thought was that he was just another unimportant side character, but he’s turning out to be one of our favorites (besides Xaden, of course). He’s giving rebellious bad boy, and he’s proving to be more useful to the plot than Violet at this point.
Rhiannon Matthias – (6/10)
She’s meant to be the sweet, supportive friend who also has a tough side, but it’s just done wrong. Similar to Violet, most of her lines are cringy, however she’s slightly more tolerable and she (mostly) stays out of the way. So far, we can deal with her, and she’s on the less annoying side of all the characters.
General Varrish – (4/10)
This man is INSUFFERABLE. He’s a new general at the riders’ quadrant but is already acting like he’s the king (I’m sorry your dragon’s head got chopped off). He does thicken the plot, but he literally only exists to ragebait Violet. At first, he seemed to be the main villain, but why is every single scene him dumping out Violet’s backpack before she leaves? Please can he be MORE evil.
Jack Barlowe – (6/10)
He lowkey came back from the dead, and it was one of the most exciting scenes so far, but he’s not forgiven for what he did in the first book. He’s a character we’re still hesitant to trust, but he definitely has potential to be important to the plot.
Imogen Cardulo – (5/10)
You’re not as cool as you think you are. Stop trying to act like that girl who’s effortlessly nonchalant. She’s always trying to prove herself, but it’s just not working. No one thought her half-buzzed pink hair would eat.
Mira Sorrengail – (4/10)
How has she contributed to the novel so far? She actually hasn’t, because she’s useless. Her only role has been interrupting Violet and Xaden’s moments. She’s a sheep who follows the pack, which means she’ll probably ruin their plans in the dumbest way possible at one point.
Tairn (9/10)
Who knew we would be falling for a dragon? Fine, maybe Lucky isn’t. But Tairn proves to be protective and snarky so that we almost wish he were human. He always shows up at just the right time to save Violet and would kill anyone who comes in her way. I mean, put his personality into a man, and we would be fan-girling over him like any other love interest.
Dain Aetos – (6/10)
Solid character, but not sure how to feel about him. He’s just the off-brand love interest, but obviously still thinks he’s the right choice. However, he did surprise us during a few of the important scenes, and we’re glad that at the very least he has stopped hindering Violet and Xaden. It wouldn’t matter if he disappeared though.
Long story short, we are confused why this series is so popular when it’s pretty much just mediocre writing (you will catch us continuing the series though). That being said, we’re only halfway through Iron Flame, so we’re praying that Rebecca Yarros will come in clutch in the second half of the book, but so far it’s not looking good.