The Dark Side of Dragonkind: Empyrean Series Theories & Lore - Dear Fantasy Reader

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Dark Side of Dragonkind: Empyrean Series Theories & Lore"

Episode Release Date: January 3, 2025
Podcast: Dear Fantasy Reader
Hosts: Hannah, Karly, and Kinsey
Season: 2 - Onyx Storm Prep

Introduction

In the episode titled "The Dark Side of Dragonkind: Empyrean Series Theories & Lore," host Carly delves deep into the intricate relationship between dragons and the Venin within Rebecca Yarros' Empyrean series. This episode is part of the Dear Fantasy Reader podcast’s second season, which focuses on prepping for the upcoming release of Onyx Storm by exploring theories, lore, and character analyses from previous installments, Fourth Wing and Iron Flame.

Dragons and Venin: An Intricate Connection

Carly opens the discussion by highlighting the substantial overlap between dragons and the Venin, the mysterious antagonistic force in the series.

Carly [00:00]: "When I started putting down all the information about dragons and Venin and I put it all down side by side, it was actually hard to decide what to put in the Venin category and what to put in the dragon category because there is so much overlap."

She emphasizes that the dragons likely played a significant role in the creation of the Venin, suggesting a complex interplay between these two entities.

Dragon Breeds and Tail Types

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to dissecting the various dragon breeds and their corresponding tail types, a crucial aspect of dragon classification in the Empyrean series.

Known Dragon Breeds:

Seven Breeds: Including Indarna, known for her pearlescent, color-changing scales.
Tail Types: Five adult dragon tail types, plus the Feathertail, making six known tail types.

Carly speculates on the possibility of a seventh tail type corresponding to the seven dragon breeds, hinting at undiscovered or lost classifications.

Carly [Timestamp Unavailable]: "I think it would be interesting if we had also a seventh known tail type to match up with the number of dragon breeds we have."

She also touches upon Indarna, discussing the various names fans have coined based on her unique attributes, such as the shimmering dragon and Chameleon dragon.

Hatching Grounds and Their Significance

Carly presents a compelling theory connecting the dragons' ancestral hatching grounds with the Venin's emergence and the peculiar issues surrounding dragon breath.

Key Points:

Location of Hatching Grounds:
- Black Dragons: Around Orisha.
- Green Dragons: Around Bazgayth.
- Orange Dragons: Esben mountain range.
Venin Movements: The Venin infiltrated through Poromil into Navarre via the Stonewater River and Espen mountain range, areas rich in hatching grounds.

Carly hypothesizes that the Venin may have exploited these ancestral sites to create different breeds of wyvern, which in turn affects the dragons originating from those lines. This theory is used to explain anomalies such as the bad breath problem in certain dragons, hinting at possible corruption or tampering by the Venin.

Carly [Timestamp Unavailable]: "I believe the Venin have somehow located and used ancestral hatching grounds in some way to create different breeds of wyvern, and that by doing so, this is going to affect the dragons that came from those ancestral lines."

She further speculates on the use of dragon eggshells in this process, linking it to the remaining magic in the shells as mentioned by Zaden.

The Ryerson Family's Connection to Dragons

The episode explores the deep-rooted ties between the Ryerson family and dragonkind, suggesting a long-standing alliance and mutual protection.

Highlights:

Ancestral Ties: The Ryerson family is historically linked to the Black Dragons, with their ancestral hatching grounds situated near Ryerson House.
Protection Roles: Entrusted with ribstad chests designed to entrap Venin, indicating a strategic role in combating dragon-related threats.
Historical Events: Reference to King Gretwild’s death at the hands of a Venin wielding Shadows, believed to be Zaden's grandfather, underscores the family's pivotal role in dragon-Venin dynamics.

Carly connects these points to assert that the Ryersons and Black Dragons have been allies even before Navarre's unification, working together to safeguard important sites and secrets.

Carly [Timestamp Unavailable]: "I suspect that the Ryerson family and the Black Dragon lineage have been closely entwined together for a very long time, likely even before the unification of Navarre."

Themes of Control in Dragonkind

A recurring theme in the Empyrean series is the struggle for control between riders and dragons. Carly delves into this dynamic, tying it to the creation and motivations of the Venin.

Discussion Points:

Rider Control: Characters like Verish obsess over controlling their dragons to prevent the beasts' emotions from overpowering them.
Dragon Influence: The bond between rider and dragon sometimes leads to dragons exerting dominance, either intentionally or unintentionally.
Navarre's Intervention: The creation of a serum by Navarre to block out dragon influence hints at attempts to mitigate this power struggle.

Carly suggests that Jack's unique ability to control his dragon might be a result of experimental attempts to find a balance where riders can manage their dragons without succumbing to evil influences.

Carly [00:00]: "There are many themes in these books about who is ultimately in control and in power as a result."

She posits that these control dynamics are intrinsically linked to the advent of the Venin, shaping their creation and objectives.

Upcoming Topics and Teasers

As the episode concludes, Carly teases future discussions, particularly focusing on the Feather Tales, Papasaur, and Gail, indicating their close ties with dragon lore that warrant separate deep dives.

Carly [Timestamp Unavailable]: "If you made it this far and you were hoping we were going to dive deep into feather tales, I am sorry we have to talk about it in the next episode because while researching this, I found that I think the Feather Tales and Papasaur and Gail are too closely tied to be able to talk about one without the other."

She hints at exploring Dane's original research and the intricate connections he uncovered, promising more revelations in subsequent episodes.

Conclusion

This episode of Dear Fantasy Reader offers a thorough examination of dragon lore within the Empyrean series, presenting well-articulated theories and connections that enrich the understanding of the intricate world Rebecca Yarros has crafted. Carly's insightful analysis provides fans with a deeper appreciation of the series' complexities, setting the stage for future explorations as the community eagerly awaits Onyx Storm.

Don't miss out on future episodes—subscribe now and join Hannah, Karly, and Kinsey every Tuesday for more in-depth discussions and theories!

Transcript

Carly (0:00)

Welcome to the Dear Dragon Reader series segment of Dear Fantasy Reader Podcast. These episodes were originally part of the Dragon Readers Podcast, but we have since merged. My name is Carly and in each of these episodes we dive deep into a single topic from the Empyrean series and this week's episode will be on the Dragons. Please note, this podcast will have spoilers for Fourth Wing and Iron Flame. Do not listen if you have not read these books in their entirety. And there is also a content warning for language and adult themes. I am so excited to get in today's topic with you guys. When I started putting down all the information about dragons and Venin and I put it all down side by side, it was actually hard to decide what to put in the venom category and what to put in the dragon category because there is so much overlap and I don't want to give you guys an episode where there's just a lot of repetitiveness from the previous week's episode. If you listen to the episode on the Venin from last week, you will know that I think the Venin are likely the original victims in the scenario and that perhaps the dragons are partially responsible for the creation of the venom in the first place. And as I deep dived the dragons more and more and more, it really just solidified what I was finding when I was pulling all the information for the Venin that the dragons likely had something to do with this in the beginning. And this Deep Dive episode will not feel like an epigraph from Kaori's field guide. This is really a deep dive on when you put all the information together, what pictures does it paint about dragonkind overall? Because I think that's the important thing we will be looking at. For some of the more standard information on the dragons, I am going to create a dragon guide and post it to my bookstagram account, ookishesbetter. So if you want that information as well, it will be there if you need it. What I find so fascinating about this series is that it is called the Empyrean series and yet we start out in Fourth Wing with very little information about dragons and by the end of that book we do not know much about dragons. And even honestly by the end of Iron Flame we we actually don't know that much about dragons or how they work. However, in Fourth Wing we actually start out with bad information about dragons. Violet and the Riders and even Kaori are all under the impression that the dragon breeds are based on their tails and this is because of feather tales. People know that feather Tales exist, they almost never see them, but they do know that they exist. And because of this, dragonkind had to make people think that the breeds were the tail type, not the color of the dragon. And I will be getting into feather tales later, but for now I just want to focus on the fact that in fourth wing they know so little about dragons. That one, they don't even know that the colors of the dragon are the breeds of dragon. And two, they don't know what the Empyrean is. They find out that term at Violet's threshing because of two dragons bonding her. And by the end of Iron Flame, of course we learn that the tails of the dragons are in fact a matter of choice and need on the dragons part. And by the end of Iron Flame, we know a few things about dragons so far that at this point there are seven known breeds, including Indarna. I'm not exactly sure what you want to call Indana. I know people in the fandom refer to her as several different things. Pearlescent because of the bond that she has with violet. They also refer to her as like the shimmering dragon, as the Chameleon dragon because she has color changing scales. I'm not sure what her default color is going to be or if she even has one, but for now I'll just refer to her as like a pearlescent dragon because of the bond she has with violet. We also know that there are five adult dragon tail types as well as the feathertail, which would make a six tail type. I think it would be interesting to find out if maybe there is also a lost tail type that maybe only Andarna's breed could have. I just wonder, because if you include feather tales, there's six known tail types and there's seven known colors of dragons at this point if you include Andarna. So I think it would be interesting if we had also a seventh known tail type to match up with the number of dragon breeds we have. I want to discuss the hatching grounds and what I think the connection to the Venin, the Wyvern and that weird issue with the dragon's breath that seems to be happening in Iron Flame. If you don't remember 10, Dain's dragon, Jack's Dragon and Varish's dragon all have breath. That seems to be something wrong with it. It's described as being fetid, dank, rotten. So clearly there is something wrong with the dragons. And while Jack is Venon and maybe that's what's wrong with his dragon and Verish is almost certainly Venon, and that's probably what's wrong with his dragon. We don't know that Dain is Vennon. And while I do think he is possibly Venin, I want to discuss an alternate theory for what is going on. And it involves the hatching grounds. And something I noticed that they all have in common. And what the Venin seem to be after and what we notice about the wyvern at end of Iron Flame, what all the hatching grounds seem to have in common is that they are in mountain ranges. The black dragons hatching grounds are in the mountain ranges around Orisha. The green dragons use the mountain ranges that are around Bazgayth, and the orange dragons use the Esben mountain range as their hatching grounds. And if you look at where the Venin are trying to infiltrate through Poromil into Navarre, you start to see a pattern. They have moved up the Stonewater river and into the Espen mountain range. And the Stonewater river runs from the Barrens into the Espen mountain range. And the Esmond mountain range runs coast to coast across the border of Poromil and Navarre. And within that range, it seems like they have moved out into these other little mountain ranges that branch off of the Espen mountain range into Poromil. And if you remember, at the end of Iron Flame, the Venin seem to have three different breeds of wyvern at this point, and they seem to be distinguished by the color of fire. And the color of fire that they seem to have is red, blue and green. But at the end of fourth wing, there is only one type of wyvern they are aware of, and that is a blue fire wyvern. And the thing that I think connects this bad breath of the dragons and these different breeds of wyvern are the ancestral hatching grounds of the dragons. I believe the Venin have somehow located and used ancestral hatching grounds in some way to create different breeds of wyvern, and that by doing so, this is going to affect the dragons that came from those ancestral lines. This would explain Dain's dragon, who is a red dragon, having that bad breath, because at the end of Iron Flame, we have a wyvern with red fire. And the easiest way to discount this theory is to say that, well, we don't have any mentions of Sigale having bad breath. However, we don't know how many different ancestral lines of blue dragons there are and which one they are using and if that would affect Sigail or not, because that may not be her ancestral line. Because again, we know very little about the Blue Dragons. And for the Green Fire Wyvern, it would be easy to say. Well, the Green Dragons hatching grounds are in Basgaeth and those are protected by the wards. However, we know the wards aren't providing as much protection as we thought. And we know that Jack had access to some extent because remember, there were no Green Fire Wyvern by the end of Fourth Wing. It was only by the end of Iron Flame. And we know Jack left all of those runes all over the path leading up to the Veil. So to lead in the Venin. And perhaps that was enough access to get what they needed in order to get the Green Fire Wyvern that they needed. And while I don't know exactly what the Venin need or exactly how they are creating Wyvern, I think if they want to create these different breeds of Wyvern, I suspect expect it is going to involve dragon eggshells. Because if you remember, Zaden tells Violet that they still contain magic. So my suspicion is they need access to the hatching grounds either for the location or for access to the dragon shells, or both. I want to really quickly touch on the Ryerson family and their connection to dragons because they seem to have deep ties with dragonkind. For the Black Dragons we find out that their ancestral hatching grounds, which are what Taryn and Coda descended from, are in the valley above Ryerson House. In the chapter 37 epigraph of Iron Flame, it says that the Ryerson house fell under the flame of the very dragons it existed to serve. And I find this very interesting. It sounds like Ryerson House has a long standing relationship with the dragons, that the Ryerson family itself has existed to serve dragons. And I wonder if it was specifically for a very long time, the Black Drag, since their ancestral hasaging grounds were in the valley above Ryerson House. And I'll point out that the Ryerson family was also the ones that were entrusted with those ribstad chests which seem specifically designed to entrap Vennon. I suspect that the Ryerson family and the Black Dragon lineage have been closely entwined together for a very long time, likely even before the unification of Navarre. And that they have worked together to both protect the Black Drag hatching grounds as well as protect Tyrandor in a long standing relationship. And if you listen to my last episode on the Venon, you will know that I believe that Sigale's previous rider, which was Zaden's grandfather, who I believe has turned Venon has likely made Taryn very suspect of the Ryerson's dedication to dragons. I think this is likely partially why Tar is so cautious of Xaden While he entrusts him to protect Violet. I don't think he trusts him with dragon secrets. And this all ties into the death of King Gretwild, who was a king of poor Emil. We're not exactly sure when, but we know he was killed by a Venon who wielded Shadows. And I think it is very likely that this was Zaden's grandfather. And one of the reasons why I suspect this is because of something Quinn tells us. If you remember, she is also a writer who is bonded to a dragon, who has bonded somebody within her family, but just not in the direct familial line. I believe she says it was a great aunt. And her great aunt also could astral project. And Quinn has the same ability, just stronger. And Zaden wields Shadows, and he wields them incredibly strongly. And I suspect it's because his grandfather also wielded shadows. So while there is something about a person's deep internal needs that is shaping their signets, I also think it has something to do with their family line. But I'm gonna have to get into that more when we talk about feather tales. The last thing I want to talk about today is the themes of control among dragonkind, because this is a topic that comes up again and again. Verish is obsessed with the idea of controlling his dragon, and it is brought up several times about riders needing to reinforce their shields so their dragon emotions cannot take over and control them. Even in the fables, it talks about the bond between rider and dragon turning on the rider. And I think this might be some form of the dragon controlling the rider, Whether intentionally or unintentionally. But again, I think this has something to do with the creation of the Venin. And. And it has to do with Navarre creating that serum that allows them to block out their dragon. I also think it might tie into why they allowed Jack on campus, because he could control his dragon. Perhaps he was an experiment to see if there was a way to allow a writer to turn Venom just enough so they could control their dragon, but not so much that they will go completely evil. There are many themes in these books about who is ultimately in control and in power as a result. And I think we're going to find that this all ties. Ties into the plot with how the Venin were created and what they want now, and why Navarre let Jack back on campus. If you made it this far and you were hoping we were going to dive deep into feather tales. I am sorry we have to talk about in the next episode because while researching this, I found that I think the Feather Tales and Papasaur and Gail are too closely tied to be able to talk about one without the other. So we are going to be doing a deep dive on the feather tales. Papa Sorengale, what his research was and why. I think Dane is the one that told us what he was originally researching back in the very beginning of Fourth Wing. And I can't wait to talk to you guys about it next week. I'll see you then.