Olivia Ponton says Fourth Wing's Violet proves strength isn't physical

Hi guys, it is Olivia Ponson and welcome to Booked to Bizzy. [music] [music] So, this series is specifically for the girlies who love to read

I probably started reading about 4 years ago when I moved to New York City

Reading is kind of my escape away from the world

I like to specifically read fantasy books

So today the first book of Booked and Busy is Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yeros

For people who know me, hi and welcome back

Thank you for coming and watching this

For people who do not know me, my name is Olivia Ponson and I live in New York City

Little backstory on me

Born and raised Florida, moved to LA for a year

My agents told me if I ever wanted to work for Victoria Secret, I couldn't do it in Los Angeles

So I moved to New York 2 weeks later and then it was my first job when I moved here

So here I am 4 years later still working for them

And kind of through this endeavor living in New York, we live crazy crazy lives

So reading has just kind of taught me to slow down

And then I didn't really know book talk was a thing until my agents were like why don't you post about this? So hello book talk if we're on that side

For Booked and Busy, I really wanted to create a space where it's kind of deep diving on the books

I'm not quizzing you

This is not like a book club where I'm like holding you accountable or I pretend that I even have an English degree because I don't

I didn't go to college transparently

I'm just someone who likes to read and is very passionate about it

So kind of want to share that with you guys

On each episode, we are going to choose one book to kind of weirdly understand because these books live rentree in my brain

Pretty much every book I read alters my brain chemistry in some capacity

Some books I think about for weeks, days

Oh, some have almost been months

And then we all know the book rut that we get into the book slum where you just like can't really find something to like spark your interest and your inspiration

So I want this podcast to kind of introduce new books to people and kind of fill that void in a little

So also with each episode I would love to do a beverage of the day

Um if you know me I'm obsessed with caffeine a little too much

So today we have a golden latte

Golden turmeric latte

I know you can't really see, but I'm wearing a full golden outfit

And that is because if you've read the book, you know about Miss Anadara, my queen, my princess

She is the juvenile dragon who's golden

So, I wanted to embody her today because she's my favorite character in the entire book, even though she doesn't really talk ever

Anyways, next we are going through all the character names, and I'm going to give you a little bit of a cheat sheet cuz things get complicated with all the words

The first main character is Violet Sornal

I never know how to have pronounced and their names, so please don't judge

So the entire book is from her perspective

Okay, girl queen

I love that

We have Lilith Sorenale

She's the mother of Violet

We have Mera Soringal, who is the sister

And then we have Brennan Saringale, who's the brother

Next, we have my favorite, which is Zaden Ryerson

Book talk notes

That's all I got to say

He is Violet's at the beginning enemy, but if you read the book, you you kind of know where that ends up

He is the second main character of the book and Violet's love interest

I feel like I can say that now before I get too deep into it

Next, we have Rannon, who is one of Violet's friends that she makes on the parit

Jack Barlo

We don't like Jack Barlo, basically

And then there's Liam

Love Liam

Dane Atos

I'm not going to talk too much about him because to be so honest, I'm not a fan

We have Miss Queen Anadora, who I'm proudly representing today

We have Taran, who is the ancient dragon that Violet is bonded to

And then we have Sigail

Please insert how to spell that because what the heck, who is Zaden's dragon, who he's bonded to

Next, we're going to have a little bit of a cheat sheet because we need it all

We have the kingdom of Ne, which is the kingdom that they all exist in

We have Bas, which is the college that they all attend to when they are 20

And the college has four quadrants

We have the scribes, riders, infantry, and the healers

I feel like the two most important are the scribes and the riders

The writers's quadrants are divided up into four wings

And each four wings have three sections underneath them

It's a lot

It's confusing

It's a little irrelevant, but just for information

And then the scribes are responsible for all of like the paperwork

They are the most knowledgeable people in Neare

They're responsible for maintaining the documents, keeping all the records straight, and that is actually what Violet grew up doing because her father was a scribe

Next we have conscription day which is once they turn 20 years old that they all say which section they're going to go to

I I think of it like divergent honestly where they go and they cut their hand and they they're like okay I'm going to go to Amnigation or Dauntless etc

Next we have the parets which is going to be one of the first things that I talk about

The paret is basically this bridge that goes across from the mainland to the writers's cordin

It's very small and you have to walk across it very deathly not fun

Next we have cadetses which is basically firstear people who are going into the writers quadrant

We have the gauntlet, the threshing, and the warfare course

The gauntlet is just like a deathly obstacle course

That sounds terrible

The threshing is basically where you are bonded to a dragon, and it is very common for dragons to kill you or eat you

Next, we have the warfare course, which I feel like that pretty much explains itself

The next word is signate, which is basically the magical power that you get from your dragon once you are bonded with them

This is a very, very important theme throughout the entire book

Next, we have the rebels, who are called the marked because they have tattoos on them to show that they are part of the rebellion or their parents were

Next, we have the wyverns

They're kind of similar to dragons and they're very deadly

They're just like magically engineered monsters

And then we have the Venon, who are very not natural

They basically siphon magic [clears throat] from the earth

So, it just makes them out of control with the amount of magic that they're able to siphon

And they're very deadly, and if you get attacked by them, they are very poisonous and you die

So, now we're going into the three main topics of the book

I took a really long time to think about the topics because I wanted to make sure I was capturing Violet in the correct light from my perspective, not just from what's out on the internet

The first one that really taught a lot about myself learning through her was power and identity

So, Violet completely redefineses what the word strength is in my opinion because in the writer's cordin they define strength as physical. you know, if they can get through fights, if they can, you know, physically ride on the dragons where Violet kind of defines strength as intellectual perseverance and inner discovery

In the book, they do not stop talking about how fragile Violet's body is to the point where like I'm like, "This is a little weird." I'm not sure if this is a conspiracy theory, but it is thought that she has a chronic illness that makes her bones super fragile and brittle

In the book, they often describe her as frail, brittle, and gentle

I don't know if I'd like to be called brittle, but that's just me

A big part of the book is her relationship within her mother

Her mom is the one who forces her into the writer's cauldron when she knows her daughter is probably not going to survive

And that is some real foreshadowing

Even with all the cards against her, she's an absolute genius from studying so much so early on from the scribes

Her father was a scribe

She thought she was going to go into the scribes quadrant, but then last minute when he passed away, she was then forced into the writer's quadrant

She never falls out of line. she kind of just like adjusts into this new world that she's thrown into

Like for example, when she's on the paret and she meets Randon, who you know, they're both equally freaking out

Violet's sister Meera gave her shoes for the paret that had like special spikes so they could like really grip into the ground

And I just thought it was incredible that Violet gave one of her shoes to Ray Anon and was like, "Hey sister, we're in this together." And then they both made it

And then that was how she made her first friend

I thought it was very important that right in the beginning you had to establish your friend group almost immediately to know who had your back and who did not have your back

So I loved Rionin and Violet's friendship

Another example of Violet using her power is when she started mini poisoning people the night before their like physical fights because Violet was very fragile and brittle when they had to do these in-person fights

She was losing like every single one

But she's a genius and like whipped up a little concoction

Not to the point where anyone would really realize, but we're going to introduce Zaden in very quickly

And Zaden started realizing, but he didn't get her in trouble

He just kind of like respected her a little bit more

Another example of just pure power within Violet is the fact that she was able to bond with not one but two dragons

So, there's only 100 dragons that you can bond with

There's 160 cadets that make it to the threshing

That means 60 people are no longer going to be dragon riders

And we're not going to explain what goes on after that

I honestly loved that the author spoke so frequently that dragons didn't bond with like the weak and unworthy

So I just thought it was 10 times more iconic that Violet bonded with two, but other people in the book did not like that she bonded with two

So therefore, a lot of them got together after the threshing and tried to kill Violet

And that's when we found out Anadara's signant, which is freezing time

During this time that is frozen, Zidane comes and rescues her and you know da they start falling in love

But you know, and I believe that happened in chapter 19, which in retrospect, that's like a good hefty bit into the book

From starting the book to chapter 19, Zaden and Violet hated each other

It's very much like a enemies to lover trope

They were enemies

Like family generation did not like each other

So, because bonding with a dragon is so competitive, I think it just makes her that much more confident within herself that she's able to bond with two dragons

And I think that's the first kind of bit of where we start to see Violet embody herself and feel confident because honestly a good bit of the book is self-deprecation

She's just constantly in this state of mind where she's like, "I'm going to die

There's no way I'm not dying tonight." It's not only her that believes that

It's kind of everyone around her

Zaden has no faith in her

And the mother, oh my god, she has even less faith in her than Zaden does

So a large part of the book you're just kind of expecting her to die at some point, but she just she always just hangs on a little bit

It's like thread by thread and you're just like, "Wow, she really got out of that." Oh, okay

The second topic is loyalty within war

There's not only an external war that's going on, but an internal war within herself, within her friends, within her family, also within the kingdom of Ne

Her loyalty at the beginning of the book lies within the military that raised her, her family, because her mother is actually a general and one of the most feared and powerful people within the government

But the story kind of develops because we figure out like the marked, aka the villains, aren't really what we thought

They're also referred to as the rebels and the traitors

Violet was always taught that the rebellion happened ages ago and that the traitors quote unquote got what they deserved, which was Zaden's father passing away

But as Violet kind of digs a little bit deeper into the meaning behind the rebellion and like the wards that are holding in the kingdom of Navar, she finds out a good bit of research

She kind of slowly starts figuring out everything that she had been taught was a total lie

She ends up finding out that the traitors were trying to uncover something that the government was trying to suppress, aka it wasn't treason

It was their attempt to unleash what was actually happening beyond Bazgay

And I think at the core, Violet just wanted to help bring awareness to what was going on because so many innocent people were in danger

So, she gets into this little bit of a pickle where she's very confused of what side she's going to stay on

I mean, I cannot personally imagine my mother using me as a pawn, lying to me, manipulating me, brainwashing me, and then still expecting for me to stay on her side

And she was also brainwashed into thinking that these marked people were these high and mighty bad guys who were actually just fighting for the same things that Violet was fighting for

A perfect example of this is Violet's mom sending them to this hypothetical warfare course

When they get there, they end up being ambushed by these Vernon who are super deadly

And what she thinks is this test for them to join the Riders Quadrant ends up becoming a very real battle

Initially, Violet was another pawn in this game of war where they were all basically sent to not make back

Imagine your mother doing that

That's crazy

So, next we have trust and romance, which for me is my favorite topic to talk about

So, we're going to talk about Zaden and Violet specifically

Their story line is like the whole time they were sought after to hate each other because of their parents, because of the rebellion

You know, Zaden's dad was the leader of the marked and Violet's mother is the head of the military

So, Violet's mom initially killed Zaden's father

So, they just automatically hated each other

So, this is actually the first enemies to lover book that I actually enjoyed a lot

So, where the slowburn kind of starts happening, which I touched on a little bit earlier, is when Zayen finds out that Violet has been mini poisoning people for her physical fights the next day

And I touched briefly that Zaden gained a respect for her when he found out what she was doing, but I think he could have immediately gone and punished her for doing this and not actually loyally fighting them

I think he starts gaining the soft spot for her

And that is like really when we first see the turning point of like, oh, maybe they don't hate each other as much as we thought they did

So, while you're reading the book, you really do not think Violet is going to get through the threshing, which is when you're bonding to a dragon

She's out there in the fields

No one's picking her

I mean, inevitably, a bunch of the cadets are picking on a juvenile dragon named Miss Anadara, who's my queen

And Anadara ends up eventually bonding to Violet

And she also ends up bonding to Torrent

Violet starts realizing that Zaden probably isn't as bad as she thinks he is because I think she realizes that he's bearing a lot of pain from protecting so many people around him, aka he starts secretly helping out the people from the Venon from neighboring kingdoms

Violet is undergoing a ton of different push and pulls of like what a hero is versus what a villain is because in her brain she's brainwashed from her mother

But then she meets this amazing guy Zaden who's actually trying to help people

And in her brain she's like, "Do I trust him? Do I not trust him? Like what's going on?" And then we have the scene where Zayen and Violet first kiss

If you remember from the book, lightning starts going crazy like everywhere

And it's not raining

It's like the middle of the night

It's perfect night

And that's when we figure out Violet signet from Tarn, which is the power of lightning

She just doesn't really know how to control it

But in that moment, she's feeling a lot of emotions

It was crazy scene and it's just just going off everywhere

So that's when they officially went from enemies to lovers

So this whole book is pretty much about trust and who to trust when nothing is certain

One thing that is certain is that Zaden has never lied to Violet

Not once

Even when he doesn't want to tell her things, he does

On the contrary, her mother has lied about every single thing that she [clears throat] knows

And I think one of the turning points is when Violet realizes that her mother was keeping such important information away from a large amount of people

I feel like that was kind of the turning point where Violet was like, I can't trust you anymore

A lot of Zaden and Violet's relationship is like life and death situations

They're never just like calm and at peace and in love

It's constant like like what what's going on? What's going on? So, this information that the mother is keeping away from these people, it's 100% life and death information

Even going through the threshing, she's still trying to figure out who her friends are, who her enemies are

Like, we love Liam

We love R and we don't like Jack over here

We hate Jack

Even from when he pushed someone off the carpet, that was just like immediately, you're done

Violet spends a large part of the book trying to hate Zayen

Like, I think she really does, but there's always this like constant pull to them

And when Violet bonds to Taran, Taran is mated to Sigail and Sigail is Zaden's dragon

I know it's a little confusing, but it all it all works

Their whole relationship is built on trust because Zayen has never once lied to her

And in a world where she's constantly lied to from everyone, that was something that was very valuable to her

And like I was saying earlier, their relationship wasn't really about like, oh, I'm falling in love with this guy

Like, I love him so much

It's so amazing

It was more so just like nothing was certain

I trust this guy with my life and that is how they found love

It was definitely about the bond of trust that they developed over time

So trust is what defines Violet and it's not within her relationship, it's within herself and her confidence

At the beginning of the book, I was touching on how she was super insecure and how it was like an ongoing theme that she did not believe in herself and then towards the end of the book it's like we saw a whole new person

She was confident within her decisions, which I feel like the beginning we were not seeing that she learns and gains a lot of her confidence through her actions and her opinions that she starts to kind of curate, specifically with learning all the information about her mother, especially at the end of the book where they're running away from the Venon and they end up in this like magical third world that they didn't even know existed

Well, that is a wrap on my first episode of Booked and Busy Fourth Wing

The first few episodes, I kind of want to test out a few different outlines to see which ones you guys wanted to hear

So, thank you for deep diving this book with me

I hope I could spread some of my love for books with you

Bye, guys

Love you. [music] >> [music]