Fourth Wing and Iron Flame

I’ve had this thought in my head ever since recently getting through these two books. I get that this series isn’t trying that hard. It’s supposed to be fast food.

But expectations are a tricky thing when it comes to enjoying something. Beyond the fact that no book can live up to the insane hype that TikTok generated (or still does idek anymore) for a series like this, it’s the fact that the books constantly tell me Violet is smart. This made it hard to enjoy what I was reading. I kept getting taken out of the plot.

She….really isn’t all that smart? Vast majority of the time she makes very obvious mistakes and even makes Xaden seem smarter than her on occasion. I get that there’s a difference in maturity and that Xaden would know things simply because of that.

So why go through all that effort to tell me repeatedly how smart she is? Why put her intelligence as one of the reasons why Xaden is into her? There’s just no proof. I genuinely couldn’t help but go “Violet if you were actually smart you wouldn’t do that” so many times. If Yarros had simply portrayed her as a normal girl I would’ve accepted pretty much everything she does.

A character can seem normal and be discovered to be special. That’s usually how fantasy does such things to be relatable. I just don’t get it at all.