Fourth Wing and the Predictable, Formulaic, and Generic State of Modern Fantasy
Or why knowing your audience, the genre's tropes and more can make or break your chances of success in such a competitive industry.
This is less of a review and more of a general commentary on what is currently a massive chunk of science fiction and fantasy-based stories even if the target audience supposedly falls under Young Adult (or it should but I imagine it often skewers older). Science Fiction and its more fantastical counterpart have always been since its inception an all-encompassing type of fiction. Appealing to audiences of all ages regardless of any complexity involved.
Now to preface this, if you enjoy Fourth Wing and other such stories. By all means, I won’t stop you and you’re free to dismiss this rambling for what it is. You could also go so far as to argue that this story and those like it make a strong case in favour of marketing to a specific audience subtype instead of just trying to put all the eggs in one basket. A tool of marketing that feels left by the wayside when looking at similar modern properties. For instance, something like Indiana Jones should easily appeal to a male-centric audience. Whether you like it or not. The adventure, action and mystery of such stories appeal to that demographic and trying to avoid it or setting out to dismantle it, is setting yourself up for disaster. And the box office proves things time and time again.
It’s why comparatively despite a marketing bait and switch, Barbie is running laps around the competition. And while some are talking about Margot Robbie in her role as Barbie. Many more are instead focused on how Ken is depicted and the general view of masculinity in this day and age. Which no matter how you cut it, is a touchy subject. One that we as men are often denied a seat at the table of, very much ironically mirroring the premise of Barbie with Ken existing in her shadow. In fact, his determined independence after experiencing a world where he isn’t a slave to someone else’s will is being championed and whatever criticisms were intended may in fact end up having the opposite effect, as Ken joins the long list of male characters that while intended to be written one way, come off as the exact opposite of what the writer wanted you take away from the character.
These massively successful books also follow a very basic formula and one that really could do wonders if copied to other various forms of media. Barbie and the very much unrelated Sound of Freedom, for better or worse found their own successes in the immediate aftermath of flops that preceded them. And that is despite a borderline conspiratorial effort to downplay the latter film. Playing into everything I despise about the modern media machine and its unapologetic application of biases when it suits it.
As for Fourth Wing itself, it is by no means a new phenomenon and is largely riding off the back of previous runaway successes that combine the past to make something not only marketable but potentially viral. It’s funny I’m midway through this article and haven’t said what Fourth Wing is actually about. Put simply, it is a romance-driven fantasy story set in a school-like setting where potential candidates are trained to become dragon riders or die trying. Already the formula is there. It’s no secret academia or dark academia as the cool kids now call it has taken off in the last couple of years. Bonus points if it features love triangles and generally cool setpieces. None of this is to knock the book even if my own personal rating of the sample I read is quite low. There are some elements early on that captured my interest but it soon came apparent that this book like Twilight before it, has a clear target audience: shippers and women. I have nothing against shippers or the fairer sex, as I’m a fan of Hololive English and kind of get the appeal of slice-of-life stories that also carry with them a more serious plot. I’m not joking, the last three years of Hololive English could easily fall into the category of a slice of life, idol, anime or manga with five girls to start with from across the globe brought together amidst prior struggles to show that no dream is ever truely dead. All they needed was someone, somewhere to see their collective potential and realise it. It’s a relatable story for everyone be they men or women, while occasionally distracting you with cute girls doing cute things. There’s even the other side of things with the male streamers that while appealing to a mixed audience also are often marketed to the most feared shippers of all, the Fujoshis.
But Hololive and companies like it feature real stories. We’re here to focus more so on the fiction and no matter how cut it, knowing your audience matters.
Because if you look up Fourth Wing anywhere, you will see those that think the romance between Xaden and Violet while centre stage is for the most part poorly constructed. I say this because from the get-go, the author Rebecca Yarros clearly and without any hint of subtlety and possibly whilst writing with one hand behind the wheel spells out what Violet thinks of this man. Don’t believe me? See for yourself;
He’s tall, with windblown black hair and dark brows. The line of his jaw is strong and covered by warm tawny skin and dark stubble, and when he folds his arms across his torso, the muscles in his chest and arms ripple, moving in a way that makes me swallow. And his eyes… His eyes are the shade of gold-flecked onyx. The contrast is startling, jaw-dropping even—everything about him is. His features are so harsh that they look carved, and yet they’re astonishingly perfect, like an artist worked a lifetime sculpting him, and at least a year of that was spent on his mouth. He’s the most exquisite man I’ve ever seen.
Yarros, Rebecca (2023-05-01T23:58:59.000). Fourth Wing (The Empyrean). Little, Brown Book Group. Kindle Edition.
It should also be said that this objectified brute is the son of the man who killed her brother. I would also argue that how the story is written does not convey the fantasy vibes many a reader would expect. Using terminology that is distinctly modern. This is one of the main criticisms of the story itself that the language used doesn’t feel applicable to a fantasy world like this. The wordbuilding is also built on a shaky foundation and is easily picked apart. Also while our MC is swooning guess who dies? Poor, death flag Dylan. Now I call him death flag Dylan because never have I seen a death flag signalled so clearly. I could swear, Rebecca was at my ear, giggling and saying: Guess what, Mad. He’s going to die. Just watch, it’s going to be hilarious.
“I’m not dying,” Dylan says with way more confidence than I feel as he tugs a necklace from under his tunic to reveal a ring dangling from the chain. “She said it would be bad luck to propose before I left, so we’re waiting until graduation.” He kisses the ring and tucks the chain back under his collar. “The next three years are going to be long ones, but they’ll be worth it.”
Yarros, Rebecca (2023-05-01T23:58:59.000). Fourth Wing (The Empyrean). Little, Brown Book Group. Kindle Edition.
His hands clench into fists, and he tenses. I prepare for the strike. He might throw me off this tower, but I won’t make it easy for him.
“You all right?” Rhiannon asks, her gaze jumping between Xaden and me.
He glances at her. “You’re friends?”
“We met on the stairs,” she says, squaring her shoulders. He looks down, noting our mismatched shoes, and arches a brow. His hands relax. “Interesting.”
“Are you going to kill me?” I lift my chin another inch. His gaze clashes with mine as the sky opens and rain falls in a deluge, soaking my hair, my leathers, and the stones around us in seconds.
A scream rends the air, and Rhiannon and I both jerk our attention to the parapet just in time to see Dylan slip.
I gasp, my heart jolting into my throat.
Yarros, Rebecca (2023-05-01T23:58:59.000). Fourth Wing: (The Empyrean). Little, Brown Book Group. Kindle Edition.
Now while this goes a long way to establish the ultimate threat present from crossing a dangerous, wet, and rocky bridge. It’s done to a character that we are being forced to care about and never really got a chance to properly develop or have his conviction and loyalty tested. He, who has so many plans but those plans end up dashed like his body off the concrete ground below. Dylan’s outcome is so obviously telegraphed that it makes the rest of the story seem predictable and formulaic.
This inevitably leads us to the interaction of two other support characters. One is Rhiannon who is fortunate enough to be provided with a spare boot otherwise she would have taken the plunge too. And then there’s Jack Marlowe. Look up the dictionary definition of a psychopath; this man’s mug is right beneath it. He makes it obvious from the get-go that he is out for Violet’s blood and that he will kill anyone who crosses his path. You might also be curious as to why a country in dire need of troops is willingly throwing away this many lives while allowing potential problems like Marlowe to run amok. It’s flimsy as world-building goes but the pace is so brisk that you don’t even really think about it.
And that’s kind of the point. After the Fourth Wing sample I read, I fast learned that this section of Science fiction and Fantasy is past the point of being shameless for better or worse. There is one caveat with anyone stepping into this Thunderdome. YA in general is often at the mercy of disagreements between reader and author on how to handle things like representation and more with varying disagrees of pushback depending on how much traction drama gets. While Cancel Culture has rooted itself in all parts of society, nowhere is it more apparent than in the YA genre.
The main thing these books have going for them is that they are made to be digestible. It’s not going blow to blow with Malazan any time soon and it’s not even trying to. Fourth Wing has over 200,000 five-star reviews compared to a couple of thousand negatives. The negatives largely encompass issues that stood out to me as soon as poor Dylan fell. I haven’t begun to mention the supposed other love interest, Dain. He is nothing more than fodder made to be hated by you, the reader. He takes the trope of being overprotective and dials it to a hundred. A fact that applies to many of these characters. He is constantly badgering Violet to enrol in the Scribe Quadrant. She refuses his request despite her having a connective tissue disorder that resembles Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. Normally this type of concern would be a one-and-done kind of thing. But Dain is not that guy because if he was, this love triangle wouldn’t actually be a straight line. Xaden is her man, and to say this is enemies to lovers is being very generous.
So what’s the takeaway from this? The first is that knowing your audience is critical and that by itself often comes with certain expectations. However, as mentioned above how you play into those expectations can make or break the success of your book. Then again, there are those who will gobble up just about anything. Finding that middle ground is never easy and yet YA or even the more adult-aimed fiction continues to have runaway successes. Translating that to visual media seems to end in wires being crossed. Game of Thrones had all the key pieces to be successful and for a time respected its audience until the latter seasons.
The Witcher is a well-regarded series with books, video games and more under it. It has a global audience that not only understands the material but has a continued desire to learn more. And what did Lauren Hissrich do instead, she like Kathleen Kennedy under Disney, threw the baby (the baby being the EU books) out with the bathwater. The producers of Witcher not only watered down the product, they completely failed to understand the audience for this assignment. It’s incredible, that Witcher videogames can do what a TV show in theory should pull off easily. If Edgerunners can do it, there is no excuse, other than hubris and self-obsessed arrogance that you the adaptor or showrunner are better than the audience, and even more so, the original writer themselves.
The problem with taking shows that mainly appeal to men is that there’s this strange obsession with deconstruction and overshadowing the main male lead. This is a trend that has thankfully not yet targeted the YA female main lead yet. Other adaptions like the Wheel of Time are apparently also guilty of this, Kenobi definitely is, and Witcher actually forgot that Geralt is the main character, and that kind of behaviour is what leads to your main actor walking away from the material and seeking greener pastures.
In the end, not everything is for everyone. Fourth Wing is not my cup of tea but I can appreciate what it and other such stories do for the medium. It gives people something to read and lose themselves in with shipping and other such discourse. I just wish this same realisation would sooner apply to stories that on paper appeal to either a young male or even older male demographic that might chase their nostalgia. There’s room for everything to exist at the table but taking male characters that are portrayed one way in written or comic form and turning them into chumps in the live-action form is not how you do it. And that arguably applies to casting too, there’s no clear answer to the best approach but here’s a tip for you Netflix.
When you adapt a book or comic. Most people don’t want your death of the author's take. They want what they know, take that away and you only have yourself to blame for failure. Not the audience, no matter how hard you might cope in the end. Every story has its main target audience, and knowing that and how to go viral from there is pivotal to anyone’s success.
—
A slight addition, as wordy as this is. If you comment, let me know if you want more of these ramblings. I have a lot on my mind these days and feel free to share your opinion. Always curious to see what others think about the modern media landscape, I feel it's largely trying too hard to appeal to everyone without first thinking of those who actually are already fans. And this is why fanbases are so fractured these days. A betting man might even say it’s done on purpose.
And of course, if Fourth Wing is your cup of tea, then you can find it here