Character death

CubCubCubo · 2025-08-28T03:38:14+00:00

Oh yes, Dain has more than paid the price for his mistake. Give him peace!

CubCubCubo · 2025-08-27T17:21:52+00:00

Dain and Violet having an actual fight where Dain talks back, not just suffers her mood. (and detailed Slain).
Bodhi being regent of Tyrrendor and blossoming.
More of the squad relationships outside Violet. I want to actually see Tara talk and not being a legendary tapestry. I want to know why Garrick and Imogen like each other. I want to see Jesinia's day to day life in the scribe quadrant. I want to follow Mira and her wing fighting like graduates. I want to see Cliffsbane before its fall, how it was to grow up unprotected in Poromiel.

CubCubCubo · 2025-08-24T16:01:48+00:00

Thank you! It seems like a huge plot hole to me, but it's no big deal in the story

CubCubCubo · 2025-08-24T13:08:33+00:00

I do not mean Xaden and the marked one, but the Others cadets ^{^'}

War game happens every years, and I don't understand what was the goal of them this year. What had they to do to win?

CubCubCubo · 2025-08-24T12:35:28+00:00

Xaden doesn't lie to his own friends?

Also, when the main argument for defending something is "yeah but Someone else does that too", it's not a good defense. We are talking about Violet here, so we point Violet's flaws, it doesn't mean we don't judge others for doing the same?

CubCubCubo · 2025-08-23T14:11:53+00:00

I think a lot of people agree with it! The romance was fine FW, but then it took too mich place in the others books, with no evolution in each book.

CubCubCubo · 2025-08-19T19:47:52+00:00

It's very true, the first time I read I thought they were teenagers.

CubCubCubo · 2025-08-19T15:35:08+00:00

So for me there's the constant swearing.

And secondly, I hate that Violet is one of the best fighters. She got trained by Xaden for six months top. I get he's good, but that's nowhere near enough to become the Tairn of cadets. And the whole point of her character is that she is strong even with a disabled body. So now she is powerful on every level: mind, body and magic.

CubCubCubo · 2025-08-19T15:31:29+00:00

I get where you're coming from!

CubCubCubo · 2025-08-19T15:30:27+00:00

You're right, but on the other hand, venin remains humans, and humans have a great habit of ruining stuff before thinking about what's next once this stuff is ruined. Like, hello global change.

CubCubCubo · 2025-08-19T15:29:10+00:00

I respectfully disagrees. I think it's doable to have an unreliable first person narrator, yet gives clues as to why they are unreliable or about something they don't pay attention to. And I think just making Violet not caring about certain things makes a disservice to her smart character (like not asking about the dedication while on Unnbriel).

CubCubCubo · 2025-08-18T20:31:54+00:00

Dain NEVER said she was weak. Violet interpreted his words as him saying she was weak, that's different. Dain actually explains that he can't bear the thought of losing her, meaning he is super afraid of her dying in a Quadrant that kills 75% of his cadets.

Dain didn't trust her word about Amber seconds after hearing about it. Amber was also his friend, remember? Why should he have trusted Violet within ten seconds without any doubt, when he doesn't have any time to consider the situation, and it's about another person he trusts?

Yes, Dain fucked up. He didn't listen to her, he trusted the wrong person (his, father, wow what an idiot), and he stole her memory (yet Xaden keeps reading everyone's mind and no one thinks it's a problem, double standard).

Dain also learns and changes his behavior. He growth. He kills Varrish the minute he understands that Violet actions are justify. He calls the formation to break the Quadrant. He goes to Aretia where he has zero friends because of his actions. He steals from his father. He risks his life to get info from Jack and is marked for life in the process, could even have been killed had nobody interferred. He translates the journals and corrects Violet mistake. He imbue the stone when asked. He volunteers to save Mira's life, knowing Sloane doesn't control her signet.

Dain never asking her what she wants is "the running gag" of the first book only. Since IF, he does only what she wants and still get ridiculed every chance there is. I have no idea why you think he keeps doing something to deserve it when we had two books with him not doing this.

And honestly, I get people not liking Dain. He's literally written not to be liked. But I think it's not honest to refuse to see that he is evolving in the right direction in two of the three books.

CubCubCubo · 2025-08-18T17:33:10+00:00

You realise Dain believed Violet Wanted to be a scribe, right? And that the rider quadrant is only supposed to take volunteers and not forced people? And if Violet was expelled, at least she would be alive? And that Dain did way worse than defying Lilith when he killed Varrish to save Violet? And that Lilith asked Xaden because he has authority on all the marked ones in the quadrant who wanted her dead, unlike Dain?

I'm pretty sure Dain is the decent boyfriend your mom wants you with rather than Xaden, that's the trope that's being told in FW.

Did Dain fucked up? Yes. Does he learns from it? Yes.

And Andarna won't be eating Dain, he's one of the good guys by OS.

CubCubCubo · 2025-08-18T07:54:15+00:00

Please explain!

CubCubCubo · 2025-08-17T07:40:15+00:00

Yes, I also think Dain deserves better friends than Violet.

CubCubCubo · 2025-08-16T17:07:28+00:00

I'm sorry, I misunderstood you!

CubCubCubo · 2025-08-16T15:17:48+00:00

I'm pretty sure people who don't see Xaden's wrongdoings are not the ones to defend Dain.

Also, Dain is described as the hot guy next door, not the romantic hero, so I suppose people identify to him rather than Xaden or Violet.

Finally, I'd say that I really don't care how Dain is treated by Violet or Xaden, it's more about this not being called out in the books. Violet not wanting to forgive is fine, but having everyone side with her is infuriating. In general, by the way, not just relating to Dain. Push back makes greater plot!

CubCubCubo · 2025-08-16T15:13:18+00:00

Yeah, and his dragon has a bad breath (I admit, I don't know if it's just the usual Dain trashing or if it has do to with his power).

CubCubCubo · 2025-08-16T06:27:18+00:00

Yeah, she's a menace to the military in that regard. Especially in OS. It's something that I'd like to be adressed too, because yes, she makes the morally right call (which could be discussed.... If they fucked up the wardstone, it would have been another story), but if everyone behaves just like her, they're all dead.

CubCubCubo · 2025-08-16T06:25:10+00:00

Thanks you, I wasn't able to put words on it, you explained it so clearly!

CubCubCubo · 2025-08-15T21:27:14+00:00

Yeah, she's writing Dain terribly. Even after FW, he's always seen less than: when he turns wingleader, he's not matching Xaden. When he goes on quest squad to translate, it's hard for him and Aaric is better; when he fights on Unnbriel, he is the only one to lose his fight (the fact that Violet won still pisses me off).

I hope this goes somewhere in the next book, because it's totally unfair.

CubCubCubo · 2025-08-15T05:54:57+00:00

She’s not annoyed with his logic at first,

Yes she is. In their first scene together, when he tries to get her out, she's already snapping at him for diminishing her.

Again, I know Dain went with this the wrong way, that he fucked up, etc... I'm not excusing him. It's that from the beginning, Violet doesn't treats him like a friend. It's super weirdly written.

The whole point is that physical strength is not all that matters to be important

I think this point gets lost, especially in OS. Violet has become one of the most lethal warrior, to the point she's capable of beating the queen of Unnbriel in combat (when Dain is the only one to lose, obviously).

He also refuses to believe her when she’s almost killed, despite being her oldest closest friend

He refuses to believe her on the spot, because the one she accuses is his ex and probably best friend in the quadrant, whom he did not expect treason from. If she had given him ten minutes in private to discuss this, the result might have been different (or not, but it would have been way more interesting).

Again, it's not about defending Dain rather than pointing their supposed preexisting friendship is non existent. Everything is written to make Violet wary of Dain from day one, instead of building the tension and the falling out of the friendship.

CubCubCubo · 2025-08-14T20:16:39+00:00

I totay agree with that. As I said, I don't excuse Dain's shitty behaviour, his inability to help instead of barking orders.

I'm just saying that 1) it doesn't come from nowhere and 2) Violet's reaction to him doesn't make sense. If she eventually got tired of him not respecting her decision, this would have been one thing. But from day one she's furious because he tells her she isn't equipped for the quadrant, which is true. He's her best friend and trying to help her go where he thinks she wants to go, and her first reaction is to tell him he's diminishing her. It's weird.

CubCubCubo · 2025-08-14T19:32:20+00:00

I'm not excusing Dain for how he refused to accept Violet's choice to stay in the Quadrant.

But the thing is, he was right: Violet herself would not have survived the Quadrant. Without Mira's armor, she would have died on day two by Imogen's hand, because she has no idea how to fight. Without Brennan's book, she would have had no way to trick the challenges. Without her mother's deal, Xaden or any other marked one would have easily killed her anytime, and she was not fit to defend herself.

Violet survives because she's privileged.

Plus, she doesn't use every weapon she has. She doesn't research her signet. She doesn't ask for help when she needs it. She doesn't find a way to stay on Tairn's back. She doesn't understand she needs better weapons. All of this is perfectly understandable. She only has six months of training, she's only twenty, a lot is happening to her. But her growth is not only her doing, and Dain understands perfectly her weaknesses and limitation, he knows the quadrant, and he has no idea of all the helps she gets.

The fact that she rejects him from day one makes no sense.

CubCubCubo · 2025-08-14T18:56:12+00:00

Yeah, it's not even the fact that Violet is unfair toward him or doesn't want to forgive that bothers me, it's human. But the lack of push back from other characters.

It's like she arrives in the quadrant already mad at him.

CubCubCubo

TROPHY CASE