Stop Calling It Smut: Fourth Wing Deserves Better — And So Do Its Readers

 886 pages of world-building, friendships, and dragons — but sure, let's reduce it to the spicy parts.

I've been deep in the pages of Rebecca Yarros' Fourth Wing series, and now I am currently deep into Iron Flame. What I keep running into — in reviews, social media, and males who have heard about this series but have not read it — is this impression that these books are filled with smut and porn. 

I'm genuinely puzzled.

It's Not About the Spice

Are there spicy moments between Violet and Xaden? Yes. But that's maybe 10% to 20% of the book. Iron Flame is 600 plu pages long, and those 800-plus pages are packed with so much more than romance. 

They're filled with friendships between Violet, Rhiannon, Ridoc, and Imogen. They become a team forged in the crucible of genuinely lethal situations. 

Before the romance even begins in Fourth Wing, the first thing Violet does is form a foundational bond with another woman. Rhiannon. This is a story about loyalty long before it’s a story about lust. 

Give Me Tairn Over Xaden Any Day

Then there's the relationship between Violet and Tairn. I mean, who wouldn't want to be tethered to a dragon with that level of dry, sarcastic humor? 

Yes, Xaden is compelling. But come on — Tairn has his moments.

Yarros has created the kind of male love interest that readers yearn for, and then she turns around and gives us Tairn and Andarna, who steal scenes in an entirely different way.

What People Actually Miss

Here's the fact critics conveniently miss: in Fourth Wing, nothing “spicy” happens until you're three-quarters of the way through the book. 

Three-quarters. For three-quarters of the book we watch Violet Sorrengail transform. We see her go from being the “weak link” with fragile joints into a badass rider. She is an inspiring protagonist for anyone who has ever felt underestimated by family, friends, and enemies. 

The vast majority of Fourth Wing and Iron Flame is world-building, character development, friendships, danger, dragons, and survival.

And finding your own inner strength and power. 

When you read the part where Violet is chosen by Tairn — one of the most powerful dragons — you cannot tell me this book is “just about sex.”

The Real Problem With the "Smut" Label

So why does the "smut" label stick? 

Reducing these books to their most explicit scenes is a convenient way to dismiss them — and by extension, to dismiss the women who write and read them. 

We’ve seen this pattern before: when women love something, it gets trivialized. Categorizing Fourth Wing as smut says less about the books and more about how society continues to devalue female storytelling and female interests. 

Look beyond the spicy parts. There's a whole world in there.

What's the moment in Fourth Wing or Iron Flame that proved to you this series is so much more than its spiciest scenes? I'd love to hear it in the comments.