wings of fire opinions

in defense of icicle + why i don't like sora

the sora and icicle subplot was super interesting to me, personally, and i really enjoyed reading it. however, i'm super confused on why the the majority of the fandom blindly hates on icicle and portrays sora as their "uwu smol traumatized bean" when, if you ask me, sora's actions are significantly worse than icicle's and i'm gonna explain why now.

first, in defense of icicle: icicle was raised in a cold, uncaring and harsh society that held her and her siblings to nearly impossible standards. her whole life, she was told that she needed to be the best or else she just wasn't good enough, and we already know how horrible and abusive her parents were. people who defend winter but refuse to defend icicle confuse me, because while, yes, winter didn't do anything as bad as icicle did, they grew up in the same environment with the same parents, missing the same brother. and, about hailstorm, icicle was shown to look up to him a lot. they truly cared for each other, and suddenly he goes missing. icicle loses her mind looking for him and suddenly, queen scarlet gives her the opportunity to save him.

she was told that if she killed the dragonets of destiny, she could have her missing brother who she loved dearly, back. picture this: your brother goes missing and suddenly someone tells you if you kill a few people, you can have him back. if you had the same bond icicle and hailstorm did, you would at the very least consider it.

now, about her killing crane: IT WAS THE MIDDLE OF A FUCKING WAR. what was she supposed to do, NOT kill anyone when if she didn't, she'd probably be heavily looked down upon? there's no reason to be mad at her for killing a random mudwing who she didn't know. she didn't have a choice.

that brings me to sora: i understand her actions, too. her and icicle are similar in the sense that they both did awful things out of pain due to the loss of a sibling who they loved more than anything else.

what differs between them is their motives:

icicle was willing to kill the dragonets of destiny because she'd been told that if she did, she could have her brother back. hailstorm was *missing*, aka possibly alive.

sora was willing to risk killing plenty of innocent dragons in order to get back at one, who basically had no choice but to kill crane. crane was already dead.

you see the differences, right?

in conclusion, sora did terrible, unreasonable things out of pure fury when she could simply be rational with herself and try to overcome her loss healthily, whereas icicle killed one dragon because she had no other choice and almost killed a few in order to get her missing brother back. sora killed two dragons knowing damn well their lives were at risk when she put her plan into action.