Dragons who lie, bonds perhaps decided in advance and hidden clues. Rebecca Yarros’ new book challenges what we thought we knew about the Empyrean.
Warning: This article contains spoilers for Threshing Day and Rebecca Yarros’ Empyrean saga.
In the Empyrean universe, truth has always been a matter of perspective. Page after page, Violet discovers that the history taught in Basgiath has been rewritten, that the archives may be incomplete, that information is hidden, and that even what seems like a certainty may depend on who is telling it. Threshing Dayhowever, occupies a particular position within the Rebecca Yarros saga: it is the only book in which we can start from the assumption that the information we receive is true.
A detail that inevitably changes the way you read it. Telling the same day through different perspectives, Threshing Day it doesn’t just add new pieces to the story of characters we already know. It allows us to compare versions, identify anomalies and, above all, distinguish what really happens from what we have learned in previous novels through inevitably limited knowledge. Here are the five most interesting theories that emerge from reading.
Dragons might lie
That dragons hold information that they don’t share with riders is something we learned early on. Threshing Dayhowever, seems to suggest a more radical possibility. They wouldn’t necessarily just omit the truth. They could be lying.
It is above all Imogen who raises the doubt. The relationship with her dragon long precedes the moment of bonding: she has known him since she was a child. Precisely for this reason, the moment in which she essentially accuses him of lying to her acquires particular weight. It is not the distrust of a rider who is trying to understand a creature she has just met, but the reaction of someone who has known that dragon for years.
The scene inevitably puts into perspective everything we’ve learned about the species in previous novels. In fact, if dragons can lie, it is no longer enough to wonder what information they have decided not to share. We need to start asking ourselves how many of the rules we consider certain are only so because they were the ones who told them to us.
Threshing may be much less random than Basgiath would have you believe
For cadets, Threshing is built around uncertainty. They enter the camp not knowing if they will be chosen, which dragon might be interested in them, or even if they will make it out alive. From the dragons’ point of view, however, things may look very different.
Threshing Day disseminates several clues in this direction. Xaden and Aaric come to question the possibility that some choices have already been made. It is Sawyer above all who makes the hypothesis difficult to ignore. After running out of dragons on his first Threshing, he must wait another year before bonding with Sliseag. Their exchange, however, suggests that that wait may not have simply been the consequence of failure. His dragon wasn’t ready yet.
Making the theory even more interesting is the fact that some dragons appear to be already deployed, or at least much closer to the future rebellion than their riders know. Their choices may therefore not only depend on their affinity with a particular cadet, but also on the role that human being may have in what is about to happen.
The blood could be part of the bonding
It’s one of the smallest details in the book and therefore one of the hardest to ignore once noticed. During Threshing, blood continues to appear. Sawyer bites his tongue and tastes it metallic. Bodhi discovers small bloody holes on his fingertips. Imogen digs her nails into her palms until she gets tiny cuts. Aaric ends up with a bloody scratch on his hand.
Minimal injuries, almost irrelevant compared to the violence that surrounds the characters. Yet Yarros takes the time to tell them. Not once, but through different perspectives. Then Dain arrives.
He also gets hurt during the Threshing. He hits his head against the doorknob and the belt digs into his hands. The narrative, however, almost seems concerned with underlining what doesn’t happen: the belt tightens, but doesn’t manage to cut it. No blood is described. It could be a narrative coincidence. But the repetition of the same element in the other stories at least makes one question legitimate: what if bleeding was part of the bonding?
The blood could represent an unconscious component of the process through which the bond between dragon and rider is established, a sort of passage that the cadets take without knowing they are doing it. And this is where Dain gets even more interesting. What if the blood test was a test to find out who has Venin blood? Does the disappearance of Dain’s mother have much darker contours?
Brennan’s bracelet could be the same one Mira is wearing
One of the more subtle clues of Threshing Day it does not come through what we see, but through a smell. When Papa Sorrengail reaches Brennan, the bracelet he gave him is associated with a very specific scent, that of parchment. Taken alone it might simply seem like a detail capable of evoking the father and his work as a scribe. The problem is that this is not the first time that association has appeared.
When Violet sees the bracelet on Mira’s wrist, she also smells parchment. The coincidence is precise enough to open up a possibility: Brennan and Mira could own the same bracelet. At that point, however, the question becomes inevitable. Why?
Papa Sorrengail has gradually become one of the great enigmas of the saga. Her research went beyond what Violet knew as a child, and we now know how important some of the information gathered before her death may be to understanding the history of dragons and Navarre.
The signets were all already there, before they even manifested themselves
Perhaps one of the funniest aspects of Threshing Day it’s realizing that we already know the future of the characters we’re watching. And Rebecca Yarros seems to continually exploit this advantage.
In fact, even before their signets manifest themselves, the cadets’ statements, fears and reactions seem to anticipate the powers they will develop. Not necessarily through explicit references, but by highlighting precisely that characteristic or that need from which the signet will end up being born. It is a particularly significant mechanism in the Empyrean universe. The signet is not a power randomly assigned by the dragon, but something that reflects the rider, his nature and what he needs. Threshing Day it therefore allows us to observe those needs when they have not yet taken on a magical form.
And this is where another strangeness of dragon behavior returns. Sgaeyl speaks of the potential of everything his interlocutor can become. Marbh already talks about the battles that will be won together. Chradh almost seems to be counting on Garrick’s future difficulties. When Liam claims to be ready, the answer he receives shifts that certainty into the future: he isn’t ready yet, but they will be. Are we witnessing a future already written?
At this point, perhaps, the real mystery of the Empyrean is no longer just what Violet has yet to discover. It’s how much of what we thought we knew was true all along.
