penwalla

ch. 24
going to try to get through these faster. let's go
xylon is at violet's bedside. he's grudgingly impressed by her orange strat, but when violet brings up the kiss they shared he immediately turns her down, because it would complicate things too much for them to be physically involved.
in the same conversation, he informs her that he'll be taking over all her training personally, since no one else can be trusted apparently since violet is still getting pinned on the mat.
i don't know how i feel about this. like i don't think realism is necessary important here--i wouldn't care if the book wanted violet to be tiny, fragile, and also a deadly killing machine. but the way it's been developed over the past 60% of the book, there's just been 0 progression. violet keeps saying she's changed, but the story never gives her a window to demonstrate that. so we're constantly being told she's training, and we're constantly being shown violet failing to win fights without using strategies that won't be possible in the field. it accidentally is painting a portrait of a woman who cannot, in fact, become a rider because she is physically incapable of withstanding the rigors of combat.
violet and xylon are now in the sparring area. violet describes her attraction to xylon in his fighting leathers with all his knives as "toxic", which is silly. violet is a military brat who grew up on the war college campus. her distaste for killing is inexplicable--she has barely any thoughts about the military or about the systemic use of violence. and in her culture, dragon riders are elites with a lot of social capital. being attracted to xylon could be "toxic" for a number of reasons, but "has knives" when they're both soldiers is not it.
sidenote: a lot of the scenes in this book are very short. doesn't always work for me.
xylon insists violet fight him unarmed. she reluctantly agrees.
violet points out she's still injured and should wait to heal, but xylon says the enemy won't wait for her to heal. which is true, but also stupid. violet is still in training--she should reasonably want to avoid any chance of unnecessary permanent injury before she's even been deployed.
xylon then explains violet's problem is her daggers are "too easy to pluck out of her hands" and presents her with a new knife, which he had made for her, which is lighter and made for her body type. this explanation does not make a lot of sense, but it is a nice moment. of course, the riders are only allowed the weapons they can win. so she has to fight him to get it.
i mean, that's a little silly as a rule. there should probably be weapons restrictions--the proficiency rules violet mentions here make sense--but they should all be issued the same weapons as baseline.
anyways violet and xylon have a completely fake fight so that violet can disarm him and therefore get all the knives he's wearing. it's not very well staged--it's basically all sexy pinning. violet is super horny for xylon.
it's kind of fucked up that xylon explicitly told her he didn't want to have a physical relationship and violet immediately starts coming on to him.
xylon did go out of his way to get violet personalized weapons and he's willing to pretend to lose to her so she can have them. these are nice gestures and suggest admirable things about xylon's personality, but violet is so distracted by sheer lust that she forgets to mention any of that.
this is such a weird, one-sided romance. like i can't believe i'm saying this but i feel bad for xylon! despite the author's attempt to fit him into a bad boy mold, he's helpful, reasonable, and seems to genuinely care about violet. and he appears to have noticed her qualities beyond being hot. whereas violet vacillates between unearned vitriol and ogling with nothing in between.
oh the knives xylon gives her have runes that are culturally significant to his decimated province, and violet notes that she's sad so much culture was lost during the rebellion. this rings a little hollow since she does not reflect on how xylon might feel about this, on what it means that xylon would give her this kind of gift, or that these knives were probably made for her by another rebellion kid. this could be a good emotional beat--she's being armed and protected by the son of a traitor who killed her brother. what would her mother say? does this dent violet's weird insistence that xylon has nefarious intentions? nope.
fast forward a month. the squad is preparing for the squad battle, which is some kind of event where all the squads compete. yarros clumsily drops an explanation of the details into dialogue, which once again reinforces the feeling that no one in this book has basic knowledge of their world. this could just be exposition!
xylon rolls in mid-convo to say violet is going to miss wielding class, since he's been giving her private lessons. he makes violet demonstrate a lesser magic to shut up dain, who complains, and then takes her elsewhere. as they walk to the dorms, xylon opens the door for her, and violet thinks "the motion is so easy that i know it's not only practiced but second nature, which is at complete odds with, well...everything i've come to know about him."
that's a lot to glean out of a man opening a door for you, but okay, i'm willing to give that to yarros. but we are 61% into the book and xylon and violet have been together for a decent chunk or it. is this really the first time they've gone through a door together? also why is this at odds with what you know about him?
when she asks about it, xylon starts to mention his father and stops. violet changes the subject to the weather to spare him.
violet asks xylon about his rationale for having her miss certain things, and he points out that she can't focus on the same things her squad is--they have two more years of training, but she'll have to follow him to the front lines. violet is briefly taken abakc,when she thinks about how her dragon will determine where she goes from now on.
i mean...duh. again, violet's a military brat and she was planning to go into the military. this should be a fact of life for her.
the problem with violet is that rebecca yarros wants her to be not like other girls and independent and kind and smart. but in doing so she seems to have completely divorced violet's characterization and motivations from the facts of her actual life. other than poisoning people using a book she brought with her, infodumping for the reader, and getting questions right in class, we don't get to see violet exercise her vaunted brainpower at all. the story is using her as a stand in for the reader by making her a newcomer to this world, but violet has lived here for 6 years and is from a family of riders! she should be well-acquainted with so many things that she is surprised or unprepared for. the book tells us about violet's compassion and her refusal to kill, but doesn't dig into those traits any deeper, even though those are qualities that are odds with violet's culture, her upbringing, and the values she would absorbed from the people around her. and those traits ring hollow, because violet's compassion extends as far as not murdering other people and feeling bad when other people die, and that's it. what if violet was so against killing she was willing to lie to protect her murderers? what if she actually went a step further and became opposed to the actual system of training that kills 3 in 4 riders?
uggghhh. xylon and violet run into dain's dad and then violet's mom as they're walking.
violet suddenly says she misses her sister, which is a first lmao.
violet's mom and dain's dad make a very unsubtle attempt to probe violet about her golden dragon's powers. violet lies to protect the baby dragon. on one hand it's weird that they even bother asking, they should be able to use the chain of command and should be ordering her to tell them, gather info on feathertails and report back, etc. then again, it's pretty clear that humans have 0 power in the relationship between them and dragons, so asking is really all they can do.
they then ask about violet's dad's research, which they can't find. violet knows where it is, but again keeps her mouth shut.
violet's mom leaves. violet is understandably quite shaken; her mom has a way of piercing her confidence. she and xylon walk, and xylon talks to her about it. violet confides in him. i like this scene.
off they go to flight practice.
ch. 25
so every chapter in this book opens with a quote from another text--either brennan's book, the codex, or sometimes a historical text from within the world. i bring this up bc this is pretty much the only time we hear about violet's brother's book.
these excerpts are actually good worldbuilding, so i enjoy them. though i do wish we were reading brennan's book instead of violet's. he seems like he's a lot more fun.
we open in the middle of the squad battle. their squad is in 7th place, in part because violet fucked up their flight time by repeatedly falling off her dragon. god, it must suck to be her teammate.
so violet mentions that she was being tossed "into the saddle" here. do the dragons have saddles? this is the first time it's been mentioned. if they are all wearing saddles, can't genius violet just...add some straps or restraints or something?
ok so the final squad battle task is a mystery and usually they get the night to plan after its announced. but today their instructors are trying something new: they're doing it right now and their squad leaders have been removed, to test how well they function without them! this is some top chef shit. also lmao...they probably function badly, because they have no camaraderie, because they kill each other.
the task is to obtain whatever would be most valuable to their enemies.
they split off and hide in a locked room to talk about their plans. imogen takes command.
violet has a plan which she feels is stupid, but the others encourage her to go for it. her plan is to break into her mother's office.
we get a list of everyone's signet powers, which include ice manipulation, wind manipulation, astral projection, and memory wiping.
as they pass the infantry, who are camping out in the snow, one of them comments that its nice that the others get a break. the implication being that the riders are worse off because they don't.
so first off--why do the scribes get the whole summer off? why do healers get weekends off for wellness retreats? neither of those make any sense. secondly, the infantry do not have it better than you because they get to sit around their campfires practicing making camp during the winter. y'all have repeatedly said the infantry are just cannon fodder who you don't respect. and second, you don't get time off because you're in the military! that's the price you pay for being an elite dragon rider!
they break into general sorrengail's office pretty easily. like way too easily.
so this is a plan that is obviously going to get them into huge trouble. unless it was anticipated by their instructors.
so violet reads two letters on her mom's desk. letter one is asking for reinforcements because the situation is dire; letter two is about unrest in the province where they draw the majority of their conscripts. violet is confused because none of this has been mentioned in battle brief.
they steal the map on the wall and flee, but are almost caught. they knock out the guard. violet says he's fine because he has a strong pulse, and forcefeeds him drugs to keep him asleep.
that is wildly inaccurate. okay, you know what? most media is just wrong about head injuries, so i leave it alone, but since yarros had time to try to accurately rep EDS, she could have also gotten head trauma correct in her super-dark military fantasy. you hit this guy hard enough he lost consciousness for more than a few seconds? his strong pulse is fucking irrelevant, and giving him sedatives while he's unconscious could very easily kill him. he could lose his airway and die. he could be bleeding into his brain and die. even if he lives, head injuries can cause short and long term disability. what if he can't work for a few months because he has migraines or develops psych issues? what if he has permanent neurological deficit now?
as the squad goes in to present their prize, i will point out another stupid point in this plan. violet has just realized a lot of current info about the war is being hidden from them by their leadership. and she doesn't think presenting an up to date map to the entire school might be a problem?
chapter end as violet basks in having impressed xylon.