@WitheredFlowers's post on Artfol
Okay, so about Blue from Wings of Fire: The Lost Continent. I used to hate him as a protagonist, I thought he was quite boring and not really the best written. Why is he so okay with the HiveWings walking all over the SilkWings? Why can't he see the obvious flaws in that world? He doesn't seem to have a lot of development, besides the fact that he doesn't like breaking the rules....
But now that I'm re-reading it, I don't think it's just that he's fine with the world just the way it is. I'm wondering if maybe he has some weird coping mechanisms in place to ignore how awful the SilkWings are treated.
At the beginning of the book, it shows how each SilkWing has different symbols carved into their wrist. A triangle with the first letters of each of their parent's names, as well as the first letter of their own. But catch this: "Luna always said she was glad the marking happened while they were to remember, but Blue was pretty sure he did have memories of that day. . . a bright light, a searing pain, and most clearly, a sense of betrayal."
Something else I found was that, every time a HiveWing does anything cruel to him or someone around him, he chooses to try and imagine what their life is like. He tries to emphasize with them. He also does this with other dragons, like the SilkWings. It seems more like a coping mechanism so he can ignore the harsh reality of things. We see multiple times in the book that he knows very well the HiveWings are dangerous, but somehow he's convinced himself that "the world could be so much worse" and "this is the way things are, and everything is perfect because people help each other and the HiveWings know what they're doing" and all of that.
So in conclusion, Blue is not a terrible protagonist, Tui T. Sutherland is just bad at writing trauma in characters. We see the same thing with Kinkajou, who was abducted by NightWings and had to live on a volcanic wasteland of an island while being researched. She was definitely going to have trauma from that, but Tui never really showed it in her character that well.Mar 30, 2024
But now that I'm re-reading it, I don't think it's just that he's fine with the world just the way it is. I'm wondering if maybe he has some weird coping mechanisms in place to ignore how awful the SilkWings are treated.
At the beginning of the book, it shows how each SilkWing has different symbols carved into their wrist. A triangle with the first letters of each of their parent's names, as well as the first letter of their own. But catch this: "Luna always said she was glad the marking happened while they were to remember, but Blue was pretty sure he did have memories of that day. . . a bright light, a searing pain, and most clearly, a sense of betrayal."
Something else I found was that, every time a HiveWing does anything cruel to him or someone around him, he chooses to try and imagine what their life is like. He tries to emphasize with them. He also does this with other dragons, like the SilkWings. It seems more like a coping mechanism so he can ignore the harsh reality of things. We see multiple times in the book that he knows very well the HiveWings are dangerous, but somehow he's convinced himself that "the world could be so much worse" and "this is the way things are, and everything is perfect because people help each other and the HiveWings know what they're doing" and all of that.
So in conclusion, Blue is not a terrible protagonist, Tui T. Sutherland is just bad at writing trauma in characters. We see the same thing with Kinkajou, who was abducted by NightWings and had to live on a volcanic wasteland of an island while being researched. She was definitely going to have trauma from that, but Tui never really showed it in her character that well.Mar 30, 2024
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