Nightmare Fuel / Wings of Fire

Please note that spoilers will be unmarked. Proceed at your own Peril.

For a series that finds itself in the kids section of libraries, there’s a lot of nightmare fuel here.

In General

• This series is generally a lot more violent and realistic than most childrens' fiction and is has a lot of depictions of parental abuse and abandonment, mental illness, racism, genocide, war, slavery, mind control and the like. The only way it gets away with this is because it doesn't glorify any of this, but neither does it spare many details.
• Anything that has to do with Scarlet, an insane dragon who rules the SkyWings with an iron fist, and later gets utterly out of her mind after Glory melts half her face off with RainWing venom. She then returns for books 6-8 being behind Icicle going insane, and with Chameleon’s help THROWS GLORY'S HEAD AT THE JADE MOUNTAIN DRAGONS.^note It later turns out to be a random MudWing's head, disguised with magic.
• Animus Dragons are an utterly terrifying concept. Essentially they're completely normal dragons, except for the fact that they have infinite power at their literal command. Most animus go utterly insane after using their power more than once (and sometimes not even that as Power Corrupts). Turtle later clarifies that he believes said insanity is a case of Your Mind Makes It Real or is at least controllable, which if true would mean that every dragon that went insane did it themselves.
• Darkstalker is a rare surviving example of an insane animus Dragon. He can also see the future, and is nigh-unkillable, even by animus magic. Also he's a genocidal tyrant bent on killing one species of dragon (for reasons he never bothered to verify and for events that happened two thousand years earlier) and ruling over the rest.

Book 1

• The prologue has Hvitur delivering the SkyWing egg, but gets interrupted by Queen Burn, who kills him and the egg (an act which is seen as a Moral Event Horizon even in universe).
• The Guardians talk about snapping Glory's neck while everyone is asleep just because she’s a RainWing and they tie up Tsunami because she was the only one who might have been able to stop them, which triggers Clay to try to leave the caves.
• Peril’s firescales bring out a slow kill to all dragons in Scarlet’s Arena. Not to mention that Peril is very clearly mentally unstable and has killed an absurd amount of prisoners, causing the remaining prisoners to be so afraid that one SandWing immediately just throws himself on her scales during the arena battle and dies.
• The next arena battle we see pits Clay against an IceWing, in which we see Clay about to lose, only to be saved by Glory spitting RainWing venom, which horrifically melts the IceWing’s eyeball out and kills him.
• Tsunami killing Gill in the arena. Especially in the Graphic novel, where it shows Tsunami snapping Gill’s neck.
  • Gill’s treatment in general. After refusing to kill another dragon in the Arena, Gill is denied access to water, which slowly drives him absolutely insane.
• The Nightwings’ attack on the Icewings, when the Nightwings arrive to save Starflight, is nothing short of a massacre, with the Icewings being completely unable to fight back.
• Kestrel's death in The Dragonet Prophecy graphic novel. Instead of Blister slicing her across the throat (as is in the book), she flat-out stabs the SkyWing straight through the chest. In full. Gory. Detail. You know, for kids! In the actual book, Blister slits Kestrel's throat, stabs her with her poisonous tail, and then Morrowseer throws her off of a cliff. It is as brutal as it sounds.

Book 2

• Orca’s statue was enchanted to kill anyone who could challenge her claim to the throne... when they had just hatched from an egg. It moves creepily and was pretty much designed to only kill when no witnesses were around. In the graphic novel, we actually do get to see one of the dragonet corpses. It then tries to kill Tsunami during the climax.
• Anemone is an animus as well, a two-year-old dragonet, and is being trained to be the secret weapon of Blister and Queen Coral, basically where she's used as an object.
• The death of Tortoise, having all her teeth pulled out individually and then being impaled by Coral. For some, this is when she crosses the Moral Event Horizon.
• The Reveal that Tsunami killed her father in the Skywing Arena in book 1 is dark enough in the original book, but the Graphic Novel adaptation makes it even more so, with Tsunami (and the reader) slowly putting the pieces together, while showing us the same panel of Tsunami snapping Gill’s neck from the first book.
• Anemone, a two-year-old, commits murder by throwing Whirlpool into a vat of eels. She's horrified by what happened and clearly didn't mean to do what she did. Unfortunately, the one person knowing and willing to support her in the way she needs is the one that needs to get out of the palace right now, and doesn't end up returning for a few months...

Book 3

• The RainWing venom was horrific enough, did we really need to see it used (if accidentally) on a sympathetic two year old?
• The decayed poisoned, and yet somehow still living sloths that the Dragonets stumble across.
• Scarlet abruptly visits Glory’s dreams and figures out where she is. She then tries to kill her with her claws Freddy Krueger style, and fails miserably.

Book 4

• The book describes just how much the volcano sucks to live on. It's clearly uninhabitable, the NightWings are all suffering, and the volcano is in danger of erupting any time. It's so bad that the NightWings are desperate for a new home, even if it means that they have to commit genocide to do so.
• The casual way Vengeance is forced under lava until he boils to death.
  • Later on, by sheer accident, Viper suffers the same fate.
• The two nightwing corpses found by Starflight and Fatespeaker. They must've been the unlucky ones that either died from the heat or from volcanic gasses. Either way, one can safely assume they did not meet a good end...
• In the graphic novel, Flame having to show the nightwing guards the extent of his injury. After being scratched by Viper's tail, his eyes is grotesquely swollen and bleeding.
• Starflight’s eyes are burned out in the last few pages of the book.

Book 5

• The reveal that Scarlet not only survived Glory's venom, but is horribly scarred, matching her nasty personality. Worse still is her declaration to Sunny that she knows where Glory is, and she plans to kill her as soon as she's freed.
  • When Thorn inquires she give her the head of the stuffed nightwing so she can know if it's Stonemover or not, Scarlet (true to form) mean-spiritedly tosses the head to her. The Graphic Novel does not pull any punches, showing the creepily walled-eyed look of the hapless nightwing's head.
  • Her being freed opens up some really disturbing implications that she's out there, waiting to do her worst to the dragonets.
• Stonemover's fate. Although he had already lost a good portion of his soul, he tried to salvage it from the animus curse by turning the curse into a gradual stone curse. Now he lies in the dark caves of Jade Mountain, helplessly waiting to turn entirely into a stone statue.
  • The graphic novel also makes it very creepy when he opens his eyes all the way. There's an element to his eyes that feels like he truly lost a good chunk of his soul.
• The viper that had just killed Burn within seconds attacks Clay in the leg. He would've died an agonizing and brutal death had it not been for Peril burning the poison out. Still, Clay is left with a gaping hole in his thigh and a permanent limp in his leg.
• Blister's death. She takes the Eye of Onyx and abruptly explodes into dust.

Darkstalker

• Any scene that features Albatross.
  • In his very first scene he tells Fathom how glad he is to have an apprentice...while using his powers to strangle a seagull.
  • In a following scene he tells Fathom how he realized his powers. He caused several seashells to rip out his sister’s claws. When describing her crippled condition he chuckles. (She had been teasing him about his clumsy swimming just prior).
  • And then there’s that scene where he kills (almost) his entire family, a visiting royal, and a few bystanders with an enchanted knife, of note he kills an attacker without even looking. He follows this up by hunting down Fathom explaining the reason he hasn’t killed him yet. He wants to see him die firsthand.
• Darkstalker wants to use his infinite power to kill his father mere seconds after hatching, but stops because it would make his mother feel sad.
• In the middle of the book Darkstalker’s mother is magically kidnapped/presumed dead. Darkstalker doesn’t take it well, and decides to contribute to the war effort. His ideas include enchanting a stick to kill every IceWing on the continent, enchanting random snowballs around the kingdom to explode when an IceWing gets near it, and he is eventually talked into his least violent idea, an invisible barrier that kills any IceWing that passes through.
• Darkstalker feels like Indigo is standing between his "friendship" with Fathom (Especially after she deduces that he was trying to brainwash him and stops him) so he traps her soul inside a little carving Fathom made of her.
  • The way animus magic is used in this book would imply that it can do basically anything as Darkstalker keeps pushing the boundaries of what it can do. Because of him, we now know that it's possible for animus dragons to enchant other dragons with animus magic and he uses this discovery to force his own father to disembowel himself in front of the entire NightWing Kingdom.
  • After losing his wife to an uncertain fate within the Ice Kingdom, Prince Arctic places a spell on his daughter to cure her mental illness/rewrite her mind so he can ask for his wife back and marry his daughter off. Darkstalker, who is convinced Foeslayer is already dead, is EXTREMELY angry about the mindwipe and forces Arctic to do nothing but obey his commands. This culminates in forcing Arctic to, in front of a large crowd: Praise Darkstalker, insult himself, rip his tongue out, and disembowl himself... slowly. By the way, Foeslayer isn't dead so he horrifically killed his own father for nothing.

Book 6

• The Graphic Novel has Moon reading Sora's mind, treated to the visual of the nervous MudWing peeking up from a quagmire of mud, muttering how she's not safe.
• Anytime Moon reads minds of those haunted by visions of their war trauma.
• The book ending on the note that whoever Scarlet's ally is, they have Darkstalker's powerful animus scroll. That unto itself is scary enough. But what's even more chilling was how they were casually fiddling around with it while they were but yards away from the last dragon who should ever hold it, Scarlet herself! The only reason it didn't fall into Scarlet's talons was the simple fact that her mystery ally was too smug to tell her what it was for.

Book 7

• All the Self-Harm Icicle exacts on herself to stay away. That is all.

Book 8

• When one thinks about it, the book explores that in the grand scheme of things, Scarlet is a glorified abusive mother to both her adopted children and her biological children. Think about it: take away the fact she's a (former) queen and a dragon, and you're left with a mentally unstable narcissist who takes pleasure in hurting her own family. And the worst part, had she succeeded in killing Ruby like she claimed, she intended to do to Cliff, her own grandson, what she did to Peril: she was going to abuse him to the point of fear, warp him into a killer, make him forget his dear mother Ruby, and make him blindly loyal to her.
  • Peril coming to the Fridge Horror that Scarlet will make good on her threat towards Cliff because that's exactly what she did to Peril herself.
• The Paranoia Fuel of Scarlet using (for lack of better words) magic jewelry to brainwash anyone to her whims. For starters, she uses a magic necklace to wipe Peril's memories and manipulate her to think her sole purpose is to get her back on the throne. And it weren't for the fact it was only temporary, it's almost nauseating to think Scarlet nearly wiped Clay (the first dragon to care for Peril) from Peril's memory! That's how powerful the magic is: it can twist you to forget those you love most!
  • It goes further than simply wiping your mind: it can also change your personage! Remember Queen Ruby and how she hates Peril for burning her older sister Tourmaline? Yeah, it was all a lie: Ruby is Tourmaline! Thanks to some magic earrings fashioned by Chameleon, she was polymorphed and brainwashed to believe was her own younger sister because Scarlet thought Tourmaline was too powerful and headstrong. So she made her into Ruby to mold her into the "perfect" daughter who would fear and obey her. That's right, Scarlet can not only wipe your mind, but literally turn you into someone else entirely!
    • Ruby/Tourmaline's situation can be easily likened as a chilling allegory about how Abusive Parents can take even the strongest, most confident child (Tourmaline) and abuse them to the point they are a self-doubting version of themselves (Ruby).

Book 9

• Anemone's descent into madness, which culminates with the battle between her and Turtle on the beach. Before that, she goes off into a tirade on how she'll murder anyone who poses a threat to her (including her one-year-old sister) and gleefully revels in having murdered Whirlpool, something that she was horrified of having done at the time. Keep in mind that Anemone is only three years old.

Book 11

• The fate of most of the LeafWings and the sheer destruction implied about the Tree Wars, with almost all of the trees on the continent of Pantala destroyed.
• The fact that Queen Wasp can take control of literally any of her subjects, or all of them. We see her do it as she attempts to capture Blue, complete with blank white eyes, Voice of the Legion, and the HiveWings are described multiple times as zombies. Even when they come back to themselves, the description Katydid told her sister Cricket is that it's And I Must Scream incarnate; they're aware of what they're doing, but are forced into really really wanting to follow what they're being ordered to do.
  • On top of this, the fate of the Librarian is especially awful: the rest of the Hive Wings only deal with this every now and then. The Librarian has been under control for years on end, ever since she accepted her role as Librarian. She believed she would be in a position of honour and prestige, voluntarily entered the role, and then spent almost the rest of her life without any agency over her body, and the only conditions that allow her to be free for even a moment require her to be in horrible agony.

Book 12

• Sundew’s plan to stop the HiveWings: using Blue’s flamesilk to burn down the Hive. Thankfully, due to Blue’s nature and Sundew’s Character Development, it doesn’t happen... until the end of the book.
• Lady Scarab had a favourite secretary, Malachite. He wanted to marry the love of his life, Katydid. What does Wasp do to spite Scarab? She forbids their marriage, takes permanent control of Malachite in a fate worse than death, with him being fully aware of everything happening around him but unable to stop it. Oh, and she parades his empty body past Scarab whenever she can. Just to be petty.

Book 13

• Blue finds out where the LeafWings got the flame-silk needed to kill hundreds of SilkWings and HiveWings. They stole it from his chrysalis while he was sleeping. He doesn't take it well. Sundew's reaction is to wonder what's wrong with that.
• The leaf-speech in general is... unsettling to say the least. Sundew can hear carnivorous plants's basic desires to kill her and feed on her, enjoying it when they come close.
• Special mention must go to the twist though:
  • So Sundew and co. have seemingly discovered a dragon who has the antidote to Wasp's mind-control. How did Wasp get the mind control powers in the first place? Turns out this dragon had slipped her a plant in an attempt to Mind Rape her. At a peace negotiation meeting!
  • Sundew and company give the antidote to the LeafWings, telling them to spread it. Then Sundew realizes the truth. The "antidote" was actually the plant that spread the mind control, and they just set up a massive army of LeafWings to be assimilated. Then they realize that the dragon they just sent back to a cave, as well as the dragon they're with must also be under the mind control.
    • Also, note: The mind control plant had been genetically modified to work on HiveWings only, though after decades of reversing its effects, it can now affect all tribes, and it infects several LeafWings and SilkWings as well, including those that had been planning to evacuate to Pyrrhia, meaning it could hit there as well.
  • The way the Breath of Evil works. Once it gets into your system, there's pretty much no hope of getting it out. Your mind is completely taken over and your mental state slowly decays.

Book 14

• Jerboa III was cursed by her mother to loose parts of herself whenever she cast a spell, this inflicted painful wounds upon her that will never regenerate. It is explicitly stated how painful it was for her to cast spells. What makes this worse was that she had no idea what was causing her injuries until she'd already lost a majority of her claws.
  • If she hadn't cast animus magic out of existence this would have continued until she bled out and died.
  • Not to mention everything else her mother did to her before she died. She spent centuries using spells on Jerboa III to make her the "perfect" daughter, even turning her back into a dragonet and erasing her memory multiple times.

Book 15

• Literally everything involved with the Breath of Evil, including its origins, where the human that brought it into existence and the dragonet he trapped with him for all eternity in a misguided attempt to Take Over the World have been alive for five thousand years with only each other for company. Up until a few years ago, it had also preyed upon the human settlement above it, forcing them to give it one of their number to serve as its "Guardian", which meant that it controlled them, not allowing them to eat or move or think on their own until they died.
• The fate of Carabid, a Hive Wing with unusually powerful stingers, who was force fed the breath of evil in horrible amounts so that he could be used to infect as many people as possible, forever.

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