| Moon is a new students coming to Jade Mountain Academy and fears her secret will be discovered: this little NightWing can read minds and see the future. She feels overwhelmed by all the thoughts. But one voice is different: he can hear her thoughts as well. The dragon, DarkStalker, has been trapped under the mountains for two thousand years and begs Moon to release him. History says he was a monstrous villain. He says she can trust him. And another prophecy emerges, this time from Moon’s lips: danger is coming to Jade Mountain Academy. Moon and her friends—Winter, Qibli, Turtle, and Kinkajou—set out to stop the disaster. Wings of Fire' Series Overview Video (YouTube). |  |
Series format: chronological
The series is broken into three 5-book arcs:
Books 1-5: The Dragonet Prophecy
Books 6-10: The Jade Mountain Prophecy
Books 11-15: The Lost Continent Prophecy
Each book is told from another character’s point of view:
6: Moon Rising — Moon attends school, meets our other main characters, and hears from Darkstalker.
7: Winter Turning — Winter hunts for his prisoner-of-war brother and learns more about Darkstalker’s history.
8: Escaping Peril -- Peril can burn dragons by simply touching them, but wants to win trust by capturing Queen Scarlet. Darkstalker escapes.
9: Talons of Power — Turtle, another animists, casts his own counter spells and spies on Darkstalker as he rebuilds the NightWings.
10: Darkness of Dragons — The final showdown with Darkstalker as Qibli tries to outsmart him.
Positive elements
Our characters are loyal to each other, brave, and want to save lives. Our heroes save each other multiple times. After learning about DarkStalker’s evil deeds, the gang agrees that they cannot free him.
Moon shows empathy and sees the good in all dragons (this is also a negative trait as she fails to see the evil in dragons).
The leaders of the school care deeply for their students.
The new queen of the SkyWings closes the gladiator-arena and sets up a hospital instead. She sells part of the royal treasury to help her tribe.
Theme: Free will/identity verses magic.
Through magic, several characters are given new identities. One prisoner lived as a different dragon for years with no memory of his true self. Once the spell is broken, he struggles with his identity and conflicting memories. Another dragon has a love-spell put on her and can’t trust her emotions. However, one character grows during her enchanted years. Driven by the love of her young son, she acts contrary to the spell and later chooses to live as her alternate self.
Our villain, Darkstalker, displayed this theme. Able to read minds, see the future, and use magic, he wants to use his powers to make a happy world for dragons. The problem? Dragons don’t always cooperate. Are the IceWings going to start a war in the future? Just send a plague to kill them all (and take revenge for what their ancestors did to his mother).
He has no problem overriding free will for the “greater good.” He lacks perspective and justifies what he does, including killing his own father. He is shocked when he learns that his soul is corrupted.
Sadness surrounds Darkstalker. We see true moments of loneliness. His mother laments he didn’t grow up in a happy home and that he might have turned out differently if he had.
(Major spoilers) So how do our heroes stop Darkstalker? They give him a fresh start by turning him into a dragonet without his powers or memories. He now can live a normal life and find happiness. I fear has yet again Sutherlands tells us one value while showing us its opposite: overriding free will is seen as bad until our heroes enchant Darkstalker.
Character development
Each character starts out with some flaw, but Qibli goes through the biggest change in his story (book 10). Born without magical power, Qibli feels frustrated with how other animists squander their magic. If he had magic, he'd know just how to use it.
Sound familiar?
Darkstalker invites Qibli to join him, promising to give him magic, and that together, they can craft a better world. But while Darkstalker gives into this power-lust, Qibli refuses.
Religious/spiritual content
We don’t know the source of prophecies, magic, or mind reading. It’s simply apart of the world with no divine influence.
Family structure/gender roles
Instead of being raised by their parents, MudWings grow up and are raised by their litter mates.
Queens rule the tribe, but a male leader convinces his tribe to make him their king.
Winter’s aunt is queen of the IceWings, meaning his sister could challenge for the throne. Her parents have been training her for this purpose.
Turtle is one of thirty-two brothers and isn’t raised by his busy queen-mother, who has to ask “which one are you again?” at the beginning of the series.
Both male and female soldiers make up the army.
Romance/sexual content
The schools dorms are divided by gender.
Two of our characters are both madly in love with the same girl, and at this point, that tension has not been resolved.
Same-sex romance is introduced in the 10th book between two minor characters. Another character jokes that he should marry another boy, and his mom says there’s no reason they couldn’t.
A cook falls in love with a prince, but when the queen finds discovers the lovers, the cook run for her life with their unborn baby.
Drugs/alcohol
One tribe uses blow-darts with knockout poison. SandWings have venomous tail stingers.
Language
“By the moons!” Or “three moons!” is a popular expression among the dragons. "Gosh" also appears.
Violence
A bomb explodes, killing two dragons.
There are several brawls between dragons that include claws, bites, fire or ice breath. Blood drips from these cuts. A pair of animists get into a magic-battle by throwing large objects at each other or calling upon animals to attack. A hyper-strong dragon throws a student against a tree, putting her into a coma. We see a challenge for the throne, and the victor breaks her enemy’s neck. A dragon uses her venom to destroy another dragon’s eye.
Peril, our extra-hot scales dragon, mistakenly collides with another dragon, burning him badly.
Magic
We go ALLLLLL in on the magic on this one.
Anything is possible with the rightly worded spell: Enchanted objects, hiding themselves, making people like them, or creating alternate identities that can be changed like a new coat.
For every enchantment, a piece the animus’s soul is consumed. To combat this, one magic-user puts his magic into a scroll, disconnecting it from his soul. One tribe only allows their animists to use their magic once during their life. Or you can cast a spell to protect your soul (not sure how that one actually works).
One character seems to have a corrupted soul—when confronted, she finally breaks down sobbing, saying she can’t avoid the soul corruption. It’s implied that the magic isn’t corrupting her, but her own chooses are.
To kill his father, Darkstalker enchanted him to disembowel himself.
Other negative elements
A student gives into revenge and mistakenly kill innocents instead.
Peril is used by her queen as a weapon, including killing about-to-hatch dragon eggs. Because of this, she is banished from the kingdom by the new queen. Only Clay offers her a second chance. Peril gets her own point-of-view book, and while I found her hilarious, she has a jaded view. She often says something along the lines of ‘I could just kill him’ before correcting herself: ‘no, no, Clay wouldn’t like that. Can’t be burning dragons to death.’
Moon keeps her mind-reading a secret from her friends. When she finally tells them, they are angry with her.
Many of the students sneak off without telling their teachers, causing worry.
As a punishment, a dragon is made immortal and ‘killed’ repeatedly.
The IceWings have a caste system. To redeem themselves, two brothers engage in the diamond trials, where one is expected to kill the other.
While unclear, it is implied a father broke his daughter's leg to keep her from challenging the queen, saving her life.
Writing quality
These stories do an excellent job with characterization and stakes. Sutherlands uses creative descriptions and metaphors.
While we have the over-acting threat of DarkStalker, many characters engage in their own side-quests, which I found annoying: Get back here and deal with Darkstalker!
With magical fixes and expanded rules, it would be too tempting to find a quick fix, but the solution was creative and stayed with the set magic rules.
Final thoughts
Thought-providing, I enjoyed this arc and would re-read it. It definitely brought up questions about evil and free-will that I’m still pondering.
The series is broken into three 5-book arcs:
Books 1-5: The Dragonet Prophecy
Books 6-10: The Jade Mountain Prophecy
Books 11-15: The Lost Continent Prophecy
Each book is told from another character’s point of view:
6: Moon Rising — Moon attends school, meets our other main characters, and hears from Darkstalker.
7: Winter Turning — Winter hunts for his prisoner-of-war brother and learns more about Darkstalker’s history.
8: Escaping Peril -- Peril can burn dragons by simply touching them, but wants to win trust by capturing Queen Scarlet. Darkstalker escapes.
9: Talons of Power — Turtle, another animists, casts his own counter spells and spies on Darkstalker as he rebuilds the NightWings.
10: Darkness of Dragons — The final showdown with Darkstalker as Qibli tries to outsmart him.
Positive elements
Our characters are loyal to each other, brave, and want to save lives. Our heroes save each other multiple times. After learning about DarkStalker’s evil deeds, the gang agrees that they cannot free him.
Moon shows empathy and sees the good in all dragons (this is also a negative trait as she fails to see the evil in dragons).
The leaders of the school care deeply for their students.
The new queen of the SkyWings closes the gladiator-arena and sets up a hospital instead. She sells part of the royal treasury to help her tribe.
Theme: Free will/identity verses magic.
Through magic, several characters are given new identities. One prisoner lived as a different dragon for years with no memory of his true self. Once the spell is broken, he struggles with his identity and conflicting memories. Another dragon has a love-spell put on her and can’t trust her emotions. However, one character grows during her enchanted years. Driven by the love of her young son, she acts contrary to the spell and later chooses to live as her alternate self.
Our villain, Darkstalker, displayed this theme. Able to read minds, see the future, and use magic, he wants to use his powers to make a happy world for dragons. The problem? Dragons don’t always cooperate. Are the IceWings going to start a war in the future? Just send a plague to kill them all (and take revenge for what their ancestors did to his mother).
He has no problem overriding free will for the “greater good.” He lacks perspective and justifies what he does, including killing his own father. He is shocked when he learns that his soul is corrupted.
Sadness surrounds Darkstalker. We see true moments of loneliness. His mother laments he didn’t grow up in a happy home and that he might have turned out differently if he had.
(Major spoilers) So how do our heroes stop Darkstalker? They give him a fresh start by turning him into a dragonet without his powers or memories. He now can live a normal life and find happiness. I fear has yet again Sutherlands tells us one value while showing us its opposite: overriding free will is seen as bad until our heroes enchant Darkstalker.
Character development
Each character starts out with some flaw, but Qibli goes through the biggest change in his story (book 10). Born without magical power, Qibli feels frustrated with how other animists squander their magic. If he had magic, he'd know just how to use it.
Sound familiar?
Darkstalker invites Qibli to join him, promising to give him magic, and that together, they can craft a better world. But while Darkstalker gives into this power-lust, Qibli refuses.
Religious/spiritual content
We don’t know the source of prophecies, magic, or mind reading. It’s simply apart of the world with no divine influence.
Family structure/gender roles
Instead of being raised by their parents, MudWings grow up and are raised by their litter mates.
Queens rule the tribe, but a male leader convinces his tribe to make him their king.
Winter’s aunt is queen of the IceWings, meaning his sister could challenge for the throne. Her parents have been training her for this purpose.
Turtle is one of thirty-two brothers and isn’t raised by his busy queen-mother, who has to ask “which one are you again?” at the beginning of the series.
Both male and female soldiers make up the army.
Romance/sexual content
The schools dorms are divided by gender.
Two of our characters are both madly in love with the same girl, and at this point, that tension has not been resolved.
Same-sex romance is introduced in the 10th book between two minor characters. Another character jokes that he should marry another boy, and his mom says there’s no reason they couldn’t.
A cook falls in love with a prince, but when the queen finds discovers the lovers, the cook run for her life with their unborn baby.
Drugs/alcohol
One tribe uses blow-darts with knockout poison. SandWings have venomous tail stingers.
Language
“By the moons!” Or “three moons!” is a popular expression among the dragons. "Gosh" also appears.
Violence
A bomb explodes, killing two dragons.
There are several brawls between dragons that include claws, bites, fire or ice breath. Blood drips from these cuts. A pair of animists get into a magic-battle by throwing large objects at each other or calling upon animals to attack. A hyper-strong dragon throws a student against a tree, putting her into a coma. We see a challenge for the throne, and the victor breaks her enemy’s neck. A dragon uses her venom to destroy another dragon’s eye.
Peril, our extra-hot scales dragon, mistakenly collides with another dragon, burning him badly.
Magic
We go ALLLLLL in on the magic on this one.
Anything is possible with the rightly worded spell: Enchanted objects, hiding themselves, making people like them, or creating alternate identities that can be changed like a new coat.
For every enchantment, a piece the animus’s soul is consumed. To combat this, one magic-user puts his magic into a scroll, disconnecting it from his soul. One tribe only allows their animists to use their magic once during their life. Or you can cast a spell to protect your soul (not sure how that one actually works).
One character seems to have a corrupted soul—when confronted, she finally breaks down sobbing, saying she can’t avoid the soul corruption. It’s implied that the magic isn’t corrupting her, but her own chooses are.
To kill his father, Darkstalker enchanted him to disembowel himself.
Other negative elements
A student gives into revenge and mistakenly kill innocents instead.
Peril is used by her queen as a weapon, including killing about-to-hatch dragon eggs. Because of this, she is banished from the kingdom by the new queen. Only Clay offers her a second chance. Peril gets her own point-of-view book, and while I found her hilarious, she has a jaded view. She often says something along the lines of ‘I could just kill him’ before correcting herself: ‘no, no, Clay wouldn’t like that. Can’t be burning dragons to death.’
Moon keeps her mind-reading a secret from her friends. When she finally tells them, they are angry with her.
Many of the students sneak off without telling their teachers, causing worry.
As a punishment, a dragon is made immortal and ‘killed’ repeatedly.
The IceWings have a caste system. To redeem themselves, two brothers engage in the diamond trials, where one is expected to kill the other.
While unclear, it is implied a father broke his daughter's leg to keep her from challenging the queen, saving her life.
Writing quality
These stories do an excellent job with characterization and stakes. Sutherlands uses creative descriptions and metaphors.
While we have the over-acting threat of DarkStalker, many characters engage in their own side-quests, which I found annoying: Get back here and deal with Darkstalker!
With magical fixes and expanded rules, it would be too tempting to find a quick fix, but the solution was creative and stayed with the set magic rules.
Final thoughts
Thought-providing, I enjoyed this arc and would re-read it. It definitely brought up questions about evil and free-will that I’m still pondering.
