Wings of Fire - Empathy

April 2nd, 2024

Part of my thoughts on the “Wings of Fire” book series.

Warning: this contains spoilers

The Wings of Fire books include many themes. One of these themes is empathy. Throughout the books, the author is showing the importance of empathy. There’s this idea that everyone is more complicated than good or bad, even the characters who are evil, aren’t just evil.

And the way that she writes the books from a different perspective all the time helps the reader to get the full picture. Nothing is one-sided in her books, similar to how nothing is one-sided in real life. The ability to look inside each character’s head and feel like you truly understand them is really cool, and sets this book series apart. It was one of my favorite parts. The books are even sometimes written from the perspective of the more villainous characters like Darkstalker, which gives you an even fuller picture of what really happened, what they were thinking, and why they did what they did.

There are a few places in the first set of books that really show the importance of empathy. One is just the dragonets working together. The importance of empathy shows through their teamwork. Another way the author shows empathy is by placing extremely caring characters in the books. In the first set, there is Clay (and Sunny). Clay loves everyone. He tries to cheer the rest of the team up when they’re down, and he doesn’t get mad too easily. He understands others at least somewhat.

The second set of books really dives into empathy a lot more. Firstly, they introduce mind reading. Mind reading gives you (the reader) a glimpse into what all the characters are truly thinking. And it plays with the idea of what would it be like to read people’s minds, which I found fascinating. Sometimes it went poorly (like Darkstalker), and sometimes it helped the character understand others, although everyone hated it when Moon first revealed that she could read their mind. Overall it helped increase empathy.

While reading the books, I thought about what it would be like if I could read minds or if other people could read my mind. It would help with people understanding each other. It frustrates me when people get stuck on their own side of the story. There is always another side, it might be wrong, but it is often valid. People don’t believe things for no reason, and often their reasons are pretty good, even if you disagree with them. Yelling does not solve anything.

I loved it when they ended the battle at the end of the second series by having everyone read minds for a few seconds (and then teleporting them away to think about it). The amount of empathy that was produced in the IceWings and NightWings was amazing, it even continued into the third set of books. After seeing each other’s minds, their fears and their families, it was impossible to continue fighting. I wonder how often that is true for us. If we knew what another person was going through, would we continue fighting? Would we be able to? It’s hard to get mad at someone when you truly understand them.

The first two sets of books involve empathy a lot, but the third set introduces the character that embodies empathy the most. Blue has the most empathy out of anyone in the book. He always sees everyone else as another full dragon, with a life and emotions. He tries to understand them to the best of his ability and assumes the best of them. At first, this makes him naive, but eventually, he combines it with his experiences and learns to be careful and caring at the same time.

It took a bit of time for most of the characters to accept Cricket, but Blue accepted her immediately. He didn’t label people and consequently treat them all the same way; instead, he thought of people as individuals and could easily see that Cricket was different from most of the HiveWings, who were trying to capture him. All the other characters had a hard time understanding Blue’s empathy, and at times were frustrated by it. But eventually learned that it added a lot to their team, and some even tried to follow his example and have more empathy for others.

The Wings of Fire books series has empathy threaded all throughout it. Clay shows the dragonets what it means to care for one another. Mind reading is able to stop many dragons from fighting. And Blue shows what it looks like to truly understand others. Many other characters also show the importance of empathy. If we applied some of the ideas from these books, the world could be a much kinder place. Before fighting, think about what the other person is thinking. Before judging, think about what they’re going through. Before declaring them evil, humble yourself and put yourself in their shoes. The Wings of Fire shows, through fiction, that we are more similar than different. We need to treat others as humans, not as enemies.