Wings of Fire - Teamwork

April 1st, 2024 (I promise it’s not April fools).

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

Warning: this contains spoilers

The Wings of Fire books show the value of teamwork. The series is split up into three sections of five books each (plus two legends books). Each section has a different team and everyone in the team has to work together.

The first set of five (the dragonet prophecy) is probably the most focused on teamwork out of all of them. The assumption throughout the books was that different dragons couldn’t work together, but the dragonets proved them wrong. They still fought and that sometimes made it difficult, but ultimately they were as loyal as Mudwing siblings, thanks to Clay.

Each character had their own personalities, but they were able to work together as a team. The core idea of the books (especially the first five) seems to be that fighting is not the answer. It’s important to set aside differences and work together to achieve a better world.

It’s such a good message. It seems like the world is entirely too focused on tearing each other down. Teamwork with your “enemies” appears unthinkable in our culture, at least based on the news and social media. No one seems to be willing to think, “is this worth fighting over?”, “is this the most important thing right now?” or “is this how we should be fighting for this?” instead of listening first.

When you try to listen first or not fight, everyone treats you as their enemy. Even though they didn’t try to hurt anyone, the dragonets of destiny ended up as most people’s enemy. I think it’s because they didn’t choose sides, or at least not the options offered to them. If they weren’t fully on someone’s side, they distrusted the dragonets and treated them as enemies. In the end they choose no one’s side. Thorn became queen, and it ended up being way better than any of the options offered to them.

All the other books focused on teamwork to some extent. It was always a group of dragons from different tribes, but the other two sets had other larger themes as well, which I’ll get into in some other post.

The fact that the dragonets were able to show everyone that yes, working together is not only possible, but so much better, led to peace and understanding. They ended a world war mostly by just talking to people. I’m not sure if that’s ever happened in real life, so maybe we shouldn’t get our hopes up, but I think talking to people should definitely be the first choice. So many conflicts are due to a misunderstanding and sometimes you really need an outsider to tell you if you’re being ridiculous.

Each dragon has different powers, making them so much stronger as a team. Having five dragons didn’t just make them five times stronger, it probably made them a hundred times stronger. Each one brought their personality and special abilities. Whether it was being fireproof, strength, knowledge, invisibility, or if it was unconditional love, boldness or joy, they each brought something, and the team was much better for it.

It’s the same for people. You need different personalities and different talents on your team. It makes you stronger. I loved the books because they showed how important teamwork is. That’s the amazing thing about fiction, it shows instead of tells. We need to work together if we want to make anything better. One person can’t do it alone.