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listen-to-the-inner-walrus · 1 year

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can you explain why you dont believe the titanic switch conspiracy theory? didnt they find a propeller with "olympic" written on it amongst the wreckage?

i feel like the phrase "you just activated my trap card" applies here but i have also never watched yu-gi-oh so dont fully know the correct use of that. anyway whats the text limit on a tumblr post because i think i might hit it with this response.

before we begin (if you wanna join me on this fucking journey), ill just drop some useful sources on the topic:

olympic & titanic - an analysis of the robin gardiner conspiracy theory dissertation by mark chirnside in july 2006

titanic or olympic: which ship sank? by steve hall and bruce beveridge

olympic & titanic: the truth behind the conspiracy by steve hall and bruce beveridge

with that shipkeeping housekeeping out of the way, lets jump into it after the cut

so hands up, how many people knew that this theory originated in a book from 1995?

yeah, its a pretty modern theory considering titanic sank in 1912. the theory originated in the riddle of the titanic by robin gardiner and dan van der dat.

and the theory argues that the ships were switched and titanic (actually olympic) was deliberately sank as part of an insurance scam. now they didnt do this at all for shits and giggles. instead, the theory posits that the navy enquiry that followed the 1911 collision between hms hawke and olympic was biased which meant white star line couldnt recover the costs of repair from lloyds (the insurance company), and therefore, they wrote olmpic off as too damaged to be repaired, lied about the amount of damage, switched the ships and sank olympic disguised as titanic to recover some costs.

far-fetched? oh definitely and it gets worse, but ill leave that til later in this gargantuan response because its really fucking funny.

(seriously, i recommend you read til the end or just skip to the part where i start talking about the sinking itself because fam, gardiners theory gets wild )

according to van der dat, who is a dutch journalist and naval history writer with an incredibly dutch name, gardiner had wrote the manuscript after researching the titanic for however many years and sent it to his literary agent. this agent had previously worked with van der dat and so sent it to him to double-check the information by going back to the original sources. he then rewrote the book with line-by-line consultation with gardiner.

and would you like to hear a quote from van der dat regarding the theory? i think you would:

"the publishers were disillusioned when the theory did not stand up"

he also, in correspondence with titanic author and researcher paul lee, called it "bilge" which is a fun ship joke alongside calling the theory bullshit.

anyway, the publishers went ahead with the book anyway because fuck integrity, i guess... thats kinda harsh considering this first book (oh yeah, theres more) was praised for stellar research and for being balanced, and the final chapter of the book literally acknowledges that the wreck has titanics shipyard number (401) on it, hence disproving the theory.

in 1997, it was published in the us under the name the titanic conspiracy - cover-ups and mysteries of the worlds most famous sea disaster, and it sold like sliced bread in 1928 because 1997 was titanic fever, baby!

unsurprisingly, gardiner's following books (titanic: the ship that never sank? in 1998; the history of the white star line in 2001; the great titanic conspiracy in 2010) were a lot less well-received and were not co-authored by van der dat.

"but wait, kai!" you might shout if youre up to date with issues of the times from 1914, "what about raymond asquith's comments? he was junior counsel for the board of trade at the sinking inquiry!"

and i would say, what about it? the letter asquith wrote to the times was a sarcastic letter in response to a prior stance taken by the paper.

yes, he said "the architect, the owner, and the captain to repair their desperate fortunes by sinking the ship and sharing the insurance money" but said letter also included the phrase "manipulating dummy icebergs".

if were taking sarcastic or satirical responses outside of their original contexts as serious quotes, then i guess i need to cancel my dropout subscription since the company holds the opinion that oj simpson is innocent.

and while were here, that single deathbed confession from james fenton is not evidence of anything. his name is not on any crew lists or survivor lists, and not a single payment was ever claimed by a crewman called james fenton. he was not on board the titanic and his claims hold no weight.

now, my go-to explanation as to why i dont believe the switch theory is that their insurance scam would have lost them money and they would know that it would have lost them money.

see, it cost white star (which was a subsidiary of the international mercantile marine) £1.5million/$7.5million to build titanic and they insured it by lloyds (you can check their records on their website) for £1million/$5million.

you dont have to be good at maths to see a problem here.

they didnt just not insure the rest; it was self-insured by imm's insurance fund, but that still means theyd have lost £500,000/$2.5million on the sunken ship.

this whole insurance thing was established by uh the united states senate inquiry report:

"the vessel fully equipped, cost £1,500,000 sterling, or about $7,500,000. at the time of the accident the vessel carried insurance of £1,000,000 sterling or about $5,000,000, the remaining risk being carried by the company's insurance fund."

oh and the £1,000,009 insurance was announced in the daily mirror on 16th april 1912

and the insurance scam seemingly thought up by someones whose first and only introduction to maths was golf isnt the only way white star would have lost money on this.

after the sinking, olympic was temporarily pulled from service to increase safety measures like adding more lifeboats. obviously, a logical move made by a company with a brand new, safer ship on their hands who were desperate for any money they can make.

white star also halted construction of britannic, titanics other sister ship, in order to alter the design and make it safer. this costs quite a bit of money and is, again, an odd choice for a company apparently desperate for money.

and hey, question for you guys: if you were alive in 1913 and needed to cross the atlantic, would you

a) choose the near identical sister ship of that ship that sank last year and was the deadliest sinking of a ship at that time

b) choose any other option such as the lusitania or the mauretania or the ss france or the ss imperator

personally id take my chances with option a, idk about you

yeah so the point im making here is that the sinking of the titanic was what the kids say

a marketing disaster

it was the loss of the newest flagship on its maiden fucking voyage and it had been touted as "practically unsinkable". maybe just maybe people wouldnt feel that comfortable getting on a white star line ship after that.

i dont have any figures for you because reading through a detailed account of white stars history just is not on my to-do list, but that doesnt even matter. what matters is that its clearly a massive risk and who the fuck is taking that risk?

as titanic author, senan molony states:

"one doesnt need to compare designs and count portholes - a moments serious consideration of the reputational risk involved - individually and collectively - is all that is required to end any entertainment of the notion"

anyway, you guys wanna compare designs and count portholes? yeah? okay, here we go!

may i present a non-exhaustive list of differences between the ships:

olympics wheelhouse was curved; titanics was flat

titanic was 4 inches longer

the porthole arrangements on shelter deck c were different

on b deck, olympic had a 1st class promenade; titanic had 2 private verandahs and suites (put a pin in this by the way, it comes back in the best of ways)

titanic had additional cabins on promenade deck a

olympics promenade was open all the way along; on titanic, the forward half of the 1st class promenade on a-deck was enclosed with retractable glass screens

on titanic, the forward bridge wings aft docking bridge on the stern extended over the ships side by a couple of feet; this would not be true for olympic until the 1912/13 refit

the officers deck house was pushed out more on titanic

the iron gates of the elevators were different between the ships and this is evident in the wreck itself

their propellers had different pitches and hence not interchangeable (pitch is a theoretical concept which is like the distance a propeller would move if it turned once through something solid, yeah i dont know either)

the wireless cabin had an outside window on olympic, but not titanic

further, it was placed on the port side of the officers deck house on olympic but amidship on titanic

they had different air vent arrangements around the funnels

white star line cut the ships names into the shell-plating at the bow and stern, four feet high and a ½ inch deep

now, please, close your eyes, take a deep breath and consider how much money it would cost to switch just the list above. now compare all of that to the -£500,000/$2.5million youre losing in the insurance scam.

truly, a spend less on candles situation.

and while we're here, shall we quickly talk about how much hush money white star would be paying to silence everyone about this since its apparently an illegal insurance scam.

not to make another non-exhaustive list but heres just who i can think of that youd have to silence:

the 15,000 workers employed directly by the shipyard

the 20,000+ workers in support services or sub contractors

any permanent or casual staff at the belfast dock and harbour comission

all of the officers and crew who came directly from olympic onto titanic such as the captain or stewardess violet jessop (puppet history fans rise up) who interestingly remarked on how improved titanic was compared to olympic

any staff at white star, imm and harland & wolff (where she was built) who would be in the know such as designers

passengers who had previously sailed on olympic who then sailed on titanic

just like anyone in belfast who walked past while the ships were docked together

olympics wreckers: thomas wards & sons who kept huge loose-leaf ledgers for each ships. the one for olympic was 72 pages long and funnily enough olympics yard number and builders I'd frequently appear in it, as seen below

bob ballard who was the one who found titanic. hes known as a very honest man and didnt even claim salvage rights on titanic because he assumed everyone else would also recognise it was a gravesite. he also said "i think it is the titanic at the bottom of the ocean"

every other explorer or researcher like james fucking cameron or us navy consultant and titanic wreck explorer, parks stephenson

its been estimated likely over 60,000 people were involved in just the building of titanic. this was ⅕ of belfasts population and ⅓ of the working population. heres a photo of them leaving olympic at the end of the day

now maybe im just a fool, but that looks like a lot of people you need to silence, and unless white star were blackmailing them or idk fucking killing them i guess, thats a lot of hush money just in the photo above.

i mean, theres also the claim, from noted liar james fenton, that the surviving crew were forced to sign the official secrets act of 1911, but that act was about espionage that benefits the enemy military so im not sure how this is relevant to the switch, and also, again, the guy was never on the ship.

are you perhaps starting to get the picture as to why i dont believe the conspiracy theory because im still going.

okay so as established, if the ships were switched, there would have clearly been a lot of work that would need to be done to switch the ships.

and i only mentioned some of the structural differences, i didnt get into the aesthetic differences like the floor tiles and carpeting being different colours, or how the lounge furniture in each ship having the ship name on them.

mind you, this is what titanic looked like (in the foreground) when olympic was first docked next to her:

this was taken around october 11. olympic docked next to titanic on october 7th for repairs after that whole catastrophic collision.

now how much time do you think it was before olympic sailed away? mind you, titanic has already been launched at this point and just needs to be fitted-out, and that normally takes around 4 to 6 months?

oh, what was that? 44 days? why, kid, youre going somewhere. it was 44 days exactly!

now, i dont think i need to get into the fact that the dock only had 1 crane (which you needed to install and uninstall funnels and machinery) that physically couldnt reach olympic unless she was moved or how olympic was painted white for her launch and then painted black and that the white paint would get exposed in rough weather so the same would have to be applied to titanic so it would look convincingly like olympic.

i mean, you have that information now, but im hoping just by the words "44 days", you might get how off the wall insane it is to suggest white star was able to switch the ships so well no one noticed for decades in 44 fucking days.

"wait kai, youre forgetting that they were docked together again!" you shout, "after olympic threw a propeller, they were docked together from march 1st to march 7th 1912"

and i dont know dude, im pretty sure white star cant warp space time so i really dont know what eight extra days is gonna do.

i hate to strawman but man, the late robin gardiner would have won a gold medal in scarecrow hide and seek.

lets also take a quick detour into the idea that olympics repairs were so expensive.

without getting into gardiners claims about the damage because theres no evidence of it and as mark chirnside states "there are no credible sources indicating that the damage to olympic was worse than reported at the time - and indeed ample sworn expert testimony to the contrary", lets just quickly go over some financial stuff.

during the case, it was unofficially estimated that the damage didnt exceed $125,000. imm, by including lost passenger receipts, wanted to claim for as high as $750,000, but they lost that case.

during the year 1911, imms surplus profit was $822,062. so weve got:

750,000 > 822,062

now as we might remember from key stage 1 maths, the bigger number eats the smaller number, aka, their surplus profit covered the costs of repair.

aka, no ill-advised insurance scam needed.

"thousands of people in belfast would have seen the switch operation - and yet there is not one word in the papers of reporters or photographers rushing out to find out what was happening."

-dr paul lee

so this is the section where i ask how did no one fucking notice?

no one on titanic, who had previously sailed on olympic, ever said anything about the switch other than one guy who was literally not on the ship at any point.

no one who has ever explored the wreck or done research on it has definitively stated it was olympic. rather, they have definitively stated otherwise.

for example, what remains of the base on the wheelhouse shows it to be straight and not curved, and as you might remember: titanics wheelhouse was heterosexual straight and olympics was curved.

(id be impressed if you did remember)

also, as parks stephenson has stated:

"weve got actual high def images of this wreck. ive seen with my own eyes. weve identified the name titanic on the port bow"

its difficult to make out but its there; the name is on the fucking ship.

also, as you might remember, titanics b-deck was different to olympics. the 2 suites there were nicknamed the "millionaire suites" and jim cameron has used rovs to go inside of them.

funnily enough, robin gardiner has gone on the record saying that these suites didnt exist so make of that what you will.

and further, no one noticed anything about olympic even though she sailed for 24 more years. theres no written record of anything, theres nothing in the board of trade reports, theres no photographic proof and theres not even fucking hearsay.

she served as a damn troopship in ww1, youd figure someone would figure it out as all of her fittings were ripped out.

but no, theres nothing.

as i mentioned above, olympic was scrapped in 1935, but some of her fittings were auctioned off and still exist today. and these have the number 400 on them because that was her shipyard number. titanics was 401 and the wreck reflects this also:

the wooden parts are from olympic; the other has been salvaged from titanics wreck.

theres even the famous myth that olympic or olympus as one person told me is written on the propeller at the bottom of the ocean. its not, but you can see the number 401 written on it:

and while were disproving myths about the name olympic being on the titanic, the story about olympic being engraved on titanics lifeboats is also false:

theres no written testimony, no sketches and no photographs of this.

white star didnt engrave names onto lifeboats, the names were on metal plates that were screwed on

do you really think they did all of this work but just didnt fucking swap the lifeboats? if theyre this stupid, how did it take until 1995 for someone to figure it out?

we can also discuss the stupid olympic room thing while were here. see theres a maritime superstition that changing the name on a ship is bad luck and obviously, if youre swapping the ships, youre changing the names.

so to... get around this? cheat luck? outsmart superstition? i dont fucking know, to take a detour to avoid this, white star named a room "the olympic room."

i cannot find any evidence at all that this room ever existed. its not in the design plans or the blueprints, and no passenger or crew has ever said it existed, so im pretty sure the room just didnt exist.

and even if it did exist, titanic was in the olympic class of ships. thats what olympic, titanic and britannic were. its not weird to have an olympic room on an olympic class ship. i mean it is weird in this case since the room didnt exist, but you get my point.

and heres some quickfire myths and falsehoods

the myth about the 14 vs 16 bow portholes is also a false. yes, titanic had 14 portholes on launch but an extra 2 were added before her maiden voyage so yes, the ship photographed departing southampton with 16 bow portholes is the titanic, and do you really think it would take 83 years to figure this out if it was this easy?

similarly, titanic did have evenly spaced b-deck windows on launch, but then the extra verandahs and suites were added so the window configuration was altered, so that photograph is off the titanic.

the idea that titanic had a 2 degree list to port like the olympic before her is evidence of the switch theory is, to borrow a word from dan van der dat, bilge. plenty of ships at the time and now have minor lists. the one on titanic was only recorded by 2 passengers and we know that the list was related to coal consumption. it means nothing.

jp morgan (owner of imm) did not cancel last minute. as mark baber points out on encyclopedia titanica, it was announced in the new york times that hed be in venice on april 23. at that time, transatlantic voyages took at least 5 days so it would at least be a 10 day round trip and likely not give him time to get to venice for the opening of a store of whatever it was.

also, j bruce ismays wife and kids also didnt cancel last minute. theyd already decided to go on holiday to wales rather than sail on titanic.

addendum to that point: if ismay knew it was going to be sank deliberately and so warned his wife, why would he get on board himself? further, why would harland and wolff designer thomas andrews (who did not survive by the way) get on board?

and we're finally at my favourite part of this entire mess: the sinking itself.

see, a deliberate sinking doesnt really make sense for titanic because the conditions under which she sank has led to the descriptor "freak sinking."

these are: a new moon meaning less light, unusually calm ocean that disallowed lookouts to watch for foam as waves hit any icebergs, ice having drifted further south than normal for that time of year, and a sideways glancing blow that breached more watertight compartments than the ship could handle and stay afloat.

and idk dude, is there not an easier way? like maybe some light arson. just call it an accidental fire that got out of control and led to the ship being a write-off, this isnt difficult.

but you see gardiner has an answer to this, and i am laughing as im typing this, he claims that:

titanic didnt hit an iceberg, it hit an imm rescue ship.

thats right, this guy fully says titanic didnt hit an iceberg. apparently it hit another ship and NO ONE FUCKING NOTICED

i mean we have testimony from survivors but fuck them i guess.

he claims that as titanic was apparently a "steel double-hulled vessel" so an iceberg simply couldnt inflict so much damage.

yeah titanic wasnt double-hulled. she had a double bottom, but it was only after titanic that shipbuilders were like ah maybe full double hulls arent an unnecessary expense after all.

theres also the issue of uh no evidence of this rescue ship ever existing? at all? i dont know where it came from, i dont know where it went, and who fucking knows, maybe it was called the rms cotton eyed joe.

yeah so weve got a theory riddled with problems and im just gonna introduce some more problems with this theory as gardiner has also alleged that:

the original plan was to open the seacocks and slowly flood the ship, but this was interrupted by titanic hitting another ship

1) titanic didnt have seacocks? and 2) was the rest of it a coincidence then? i think its meant to be a coincidence.

i believe his theory is alleging that the crew on titanic would open the seacocks that didnt exist to flood the ship slowly, and that the imm rescue ship that also didnt exist was in the area in advance to help evacuate passengers, alongside other ships such as the ss californian.

this is that ship that was like 10 miles away or something and didnt respond to titanics distress signals. according to gardiner, they were expecting a rendezvous with titanic according to the "original plan", but never received it.

instead, they saw the rockets of the fabled imm rescue ship and helped them instead.

this is fucking stupid.

i cant be charitable here, its a fucking stupid theory. i mean, that imm ship did not exist, and also californian is a ridiculous choice for a rescue ship. her capacity was 47 passengers and 55 crew; there were more than 2200 people on board titanic.

to counteract this argument, gardiner alleges carpathia was also in on the scheme as a rescue ship. she, at least, had capacity for the passengers, but theres also several problems with this too.

for one, it was fucking 50 miles away and famously arrived several hours after the sinking even though the captain had her running at top speed to get there.

for two, carpathia was owned by cunard, white stars rival. was their rival line in on the insurance scam??? how much money did they have to pay cunard for this????? why? just why?

do you understand why i dont believe it? please tell me you understand. i need you to understand. i need you to tell me that you understand that the guy who created this conspiracy claimed titanic didnt hit an iceberg.

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wutheringmights · 1 month

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please please please explain how the bullshit military death cult in Fourth Wing is unsustainable. I need more Iron Flame slander in my life lol

I may have chosen the wrong phrasing last night. It’s less about the sustainability of the magical dragon country’s military college, and more about how much Yarros’s tendency to use specific numbers riles me up. Very specifically, a graphic at the beginning of Iron Flame.

(Note: I only got a little bit over 200 pages into Iron Flame before I had to return it to the library; if there is an universe rebuttal to any of this, I may not have reached it yet; I also do not have the book in front of my to double check specific numbers, but luckily Yarros’s Specific Numbers have rustled my jimmies so much that I have been spamming my group chats about them so I inevitably wrote them all down.)

The graphic in question is this:

It illustrates the structure of the titular Fourth Wing. As you can see, it is made out of 3 sections that are then divided into 3 squads. You will notice two important notes on this graphic:

Each squad contains 15-20 people

Each of the four wings that make up the dragon rider cadets in the military academy has the same layout

With this information, I should be able to more or less calculate the number of dragon riders attending the military academy.

In theory, the fourth wing has 8 people in leadership positions, and 136 to 180 squad members. That’s a total of 144 to 188 people in the fourth wing.

If the fourth wing is identical to the other three wings, that means that there are anywhere from 576 to 752 dragon rider cadets across three grade levels. That’s already a pretty small number, but this is an exclusive military program. It’s not an unreasonable.

Except it’s actually impossible for there to be 576 to 752 dragon rider cadets. Why do I know that? Because Yarros already gave us a Specific Number.

Let’s rewind. In Fourth Wing, it’s established that you cannot advance beyond your first year unless you bond with a dragon. If you do not bond with a dragon, you repeat the year until you either bond or die trying. There are also only a select few dragons who are willing to bond each year.

Yarros, of course, told us specifically how many dragons were willing to bond not only for that current freshman class, but for the two years previous:

1st year: 100 dragons*

2nd year: 137 dragons

3rd year: 163 dragons

(*actually, it was 101 but two dragons, in a super special unprecedented move, bonded with the same person; I’m trying to count the cadets, not the dragons so this really does not matter)

That means that there are around 400 dragon rider cadets, which is way less than what the info graphic implied. You can argue that the missing 176 cadets are those who did not bond with any dragons, but I highly doubt they would make much of a difference. Why? Because dragon rider cadets keep dying.

I kept track of how many people were dying in Fourth Wing. By the end of that book, there were less than 80 bonded cadets still alive. Yarros then contradicted herself in Iron Flame by stating that there were 89 cadets in the second year. This isn’t because a bunch of cadets suddenly bonded with dragons and advanced a year; that only happens in a one a year ceremony. Yarros is just bad with numbers, which shows how silly I am for going to this much trouble trying to prove her wrong.

All that’s to say that I’ll split the difference and say that 85 cadets were still alive at the end of the first year. That means that there is a 15% death rate between bonding with a dragon and getting to the end of the first year.

That means that by the time each class ended their first year, this about how many dragon rider cadets there should be:

1st year 85 cadets

2nd year: 117 cadets

3rd year: 139 cadets

That’s 341 people across all four wings. That means each wing has about 85 people.

But wait! People die beyond their first year. There’s an ever decreasing number of cadets each year. If we assume that 15% death rate is consistent each year, that means that by graduation day, each year has:

1st year: 85 cadets

2nd year: 100 cadets

3rd year: 102 cadets

That’s 287 cadets across all four wings, or 71 people a wing. I need not remind you how that is far below our predicted 144 to 188 per a wing.

And I haven’t even mentioned that not every dragon available to bond even bonds. So those starting numbers are already the best case scenario where every possible dragon selects a cadet. Our actual class numbers are probably 10 to 20 people smaller, and that’s before the numerous deaths.

When I started Fourth Wing, I inferred that the incoming freshman class started with about 700 people. (Each of the freshman dorm floors hold 156 people; there are at least three but it makes more sense for there to be a floor for each wing. Sixty-seven freshman died on the parapets. That’s a total of 691 freshmen, which I rounded up to 700.)

Xaden (terrible name) has a speech where he claims that 1/2 of the incoming class will die by the end of the first year, 1/3 by the second, and 1/3 by the third. He’s probably just trying to scare the newbies, but let’s take him at his word anyway.

According to his estimation, by the time the freshman class graduation, 172 people should still be alive. That’s a 21% survival rate, according to Xaden. That is somehow less severe than what is actually happening in the books.

There's never a point in time in the story where we acknowledge that the class sizes are this small. Everyone is dying, and there always seems to be more nameless faces than not. Yet, as all evidence suggests, there's not even enough people in the entire dragon rider curriculum to fill up a movie theater.

Ultimately, the numbers don’t really matter. What matters is that this fantasy military system is wildly inefficient. I understand on a trope-level why it has to be deadly. New Adult, the gangly older sister of YA, loves a good deadly game of wits and wile. Yarros was commissioned to write a romantasy story, and by god she was going to write the most marketable one possible. But you would also assume that Rebecca “second generation army brat who loves military heroes and has been blissfully married to her for over twenty years” would have a better understanding of how the military works.

On the most basic of levels, you win a war by having the most people still alive at the end. Everyone knows this. It’s not that hard. It’s in the best interest of the brass to keep your soldiers alive. When that best interest gets screwed over, it’s usually because of economic issues (like being able to afford the supplies needed to keep your troops alive), or prejudice (soldiers from persecuted demographics being less worthy of better food/ammo/missions, under qualified officials earning their jobs via privilege, etc.).

That is in itself another gross simplification. My point is that there’s no good reason why you would kill your own troops before they can even reach the battlefield. That’s a waste of resources! I don’t care if the dragons demand a blood sacrifice, or whatever. A practical military leadership would find some way to reroute failed rider cadets to a different career track before they needlessly died in training. The training can be as dangerous as you want, but for world building sake, be practical about how wars work. At least acknowledge that the military’s favorite canon fodder aren’t soldiers, but foreign civilians.

Believe it or not, but I actually don’t really care that the worldbuilding is nonsense. Can I write a needlessly long essay about how the numbers don’t add up? Sure, but who cares? It’s just bad in a normal way. I’m more than happy to let other people harp on it.

What is interesting is the way that Yarros views the morality of the military. It’s one thing for something to be pro-military. It’s another when your book’s thesis comes down to “it’s morally wrong for the big, powerful, totally not American, country to not provide military intervention to smaller, poorer foreign countries that are being viciously attacked by a seemingly unbeatable, dehumanized enemy.” Yarros doesn’t even try to cover it up; Xaden makes a giant, righteous speech about how they have a moral duty to protect citizens, to actually quote the book, “beyond our borders.”

As I said when I first read this: what the fuck?

Rebecca “second generation army brat who loves military heroes and has been blissfully married to hers for over twenty years” Yarros claims she is writing a series about the dangers of censorship. See how callous we are for letting other people die, and then covering it up? Yet, she mindlessly reproduces that idealized justification we’ve been fed for decades. Yarros, it’s never about helping civilians. I know you’re a biased army wife, but you know about the oil and the military industrial complex. You know America is not the good guy.

Moreso, the in-book movement to wage a war “beyond our borders” is labeled as a rebellion. According to this series, it’s counterculture to want military intervention overseas. Yes, Yarros is writing the world’s most marketable book. In a post Hunger Games society, there must be a little rebellion sprinkled in there. But to frame the desire to fight a war as any form of counterculture is downright insidious.

Fourth Wing is a book that looks you in the eye and tells you that the government is lying to you-- the war beyond our borders is necessary, that if we do not send the army to fight our inhuman enemies, they will hurt not only our poorer, less fortunate allies but also our homeland. War is a morale imperative.

I haven’t finished Iron Flame yet. Perhaps this rant is premature. Maybe the series turns itself around. But as one can imagine, I don’t trust Rebecca “second generation army brat who loves military heroes and has been blissfully married to hers for over twenty years” Yarros to have thought it through all the way. Just a gut feeling. Who can say? If I am wrong, I would be more than happy to eat my words, though. I would love to be wrong.

Me being wrong means that the most compelling reasons why Fourth Wing is bad really is the bad worldbuilding, prose, romance, characters, action, lore, smut, dialogue, editing, and everything else. There’s already a hundred big brained book reviewers who are making a video essay career off of telling you that in five hours or less. I respect the hustle. Personally, I never want to hear about this series again unless it’s about how Yarros built her blockbuster book series on conservative ideals of militarism and foreign policy, and then had the audacity to tell you that’s what it means to be a rebel.

#you asked for the number situation and I gave you the conservatism rant ooops #you would think I would learn from captive prince to save my dissertations for when i've read the whole thing but like i said. this matters #to me a bit more than the numbers #me rambling #me reading #ask #empyrean-thrones #fourth wing #the empyrean #iron flame #bookblr #bookish #books #books and reading #maybe if I spread this around more some tiktok star will steal my argument and this will become the mainstream opinion lol

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