Wings of Fire Ship Thoughts, Critiques, and Overall Opinions

Anemarin // Anemone x Tamarin

Weee! We're almost done with the lineup of canon (or hinted at in canon) ships! Now we'll be talking about Anemone and Tamarin. (Note: we skipped Turtlejou because... well... we don't have any interesting input on the pairing. Just know that it's a very "meh" ship for the both of us.)

eaz's thoughts

Now we're talking about Anemarin- the second wlw ship that came after Foxflake, and the third LGBTQIA+ ship after Umbli (even if it was onesided) and Foxflake and before Sunlow. In short, I'm not a fan of this ship. My core problem with this ship is how underdeveloped it is, although I do have more reasons. 

 Let's discuss the main reason- how it is underdeveloped. At the time this is being written (December 1, 2019) I can only recall two "Anemarin moments." First when Turtle's chapter mentions Anemone's crush on Tamarin, and second when Anemone attempts to heal Tamarin's blindness. Now, frankly, I have a lot of issues with the second experience which we'll discuss later, but let's go over what happened from Kinkajou said in Turtle's section of the chapter. Kinkajou reflected on Anemone's sudden feelings for Tamarin. Now... my first thought when reading that was "wait, what?"

 Anemone is a... complicated character. But there was no warning or clue given to suggest this pairing. At this point, we don't even know if Tamarin returns these affections. I understand liking their dynamic, but in terms of canon, it doesn't make much sense for a character to very suddenly be head over heels for another. 

 Here is something I want people to know: I am very happy that there is three canon (or semi-canon for this case) wlw ships in Wings of Fire. I am very happy Tui included them. But while we have books and chapters and tons and tons of pages on development of straight ships, for this one in particular, we have, what, two pages? For Foxflake, we have subtle hints at some parts plus the end, and for Sunlow, we have the end of Sundew's book (this info comes only from the time I am writing this.)

 Onto the second reasoning, I want to discuss the second "Anemarin moment" we have in the canon text, where Anemone attempts and fails at healing Tamarin's vision. Now, this is a bit of a tangent more on Tui, but I want to include it nonetheless... 

That bit... upset me. I'm not physically disabled myself, but I think it was unnecessary for Tui to have the character who she is setting Tamarin up with to try to completely erase the disability that Tamarin functions completely fine with. We see Tamarin's abilities shown multiple times throughout the books (completely mapping out JMA, the RainWing royalty competition) and then Tui to just... act like that never happened? I really hope that Tui doesn't actually end up erasing the blindness of one of the very few disabled characters in Wings of Fire.

My third reasoning is... well... I guess I just think that Tamarin deserves better. She's one of my favorite characters, along with Glory, Jambu, Blaze, and Turtle, so I absolutely love her. Anemone has done... a lot of things- she nearly killed her entire family, she helped the most dangerous dragon in all of Pyrrhia, and hurt many others. I think it's just too fresh a wound to so quickly set her up with another dragon right at the end of Darkness of Dragons. Overall, I think that Tamarin has a lot more development with characters like Kinkajou, and that this relationship should be expanded on more by Tui.

gale's thoughts

anemarin is, surprise surprise, a ship i'm not the biggest fan of. I don't despise it like past ships mentioned in this book- it's more of me just... not really getting the appeal of it? 

in short, I feel like this ship is pretty overhyped. in turtle's part of the darkness of dragons epilogue, kinkajou just randomly throws it out there, like, "by the way, your sister has a crush on my best friend! isn't that cute????" and then it's hardly touched again (save for one scene in particular that makes me REALLY iffy, which i'll touch on in a sec) 

 I feel like a part of the community is so starved and desperate for lgbtq+ content that they'll just take whatever's thrown in their faces, no matter if it's good or bad. there's a difference between representation done RIGHT, and representation done REALLY poorly. tui mostly just wanted to please that part of the community, and without a second thought they just. took it. 

 and I feel like a lot of people mistake this ship as being "canon" when it's. really not? in darkness of dragons, it was only mentioned that anemone had a CRUSH on tamarin, and then it was never mentioned again (mainly because we were immediately rushed into the third arc, leaving arc 1 and 2 characters behind, but that's not the point). 

 aaaaaaand on to the part of this ship that makes me really uncomfortable. in the epilogue of book 12, the hive queen, it is mentioned somewhere that anemone tried to.... 

 cure... her crush's.... blindness..... 

 okay, excuse me, what????? 

first of all, that REALLY shouldn't be how you treat someone you have a crush on. it has been stated PLENTY of times that tamarin is able to manage just fine with her disability. she doesn't NEED a cure, and that whole plot point (if you can even CALL it that, thank god that animus magic didn't work and tamarin didn't get "cured") is extremely ableist. and the fact that it's out there and canon makes me just. really uncomfortable. 

 anyways, I really don't like this ship, nor do I understand why it's so overhyped. it's incredibly underdeveloped, and one of the two scenes these two have been shown interacting in is extremely ableist and wrong. if it had been developed more, and if anemone didn't want to cure tamarin's blindness, then it might not be so bad, as they wouldn't have a terrible dynamic. 

 but honestly, these two deserve better, in my opinion.

Overall Rating Out of 10 (from both of us)

3/10