Awesome / Wings of Fire

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

---

First arc (#1-5)

The Dragonet Prophecy

• The dragonets manage to come up with a plan to escape the cave rather quickly. It actually ends up working and would've gone without a hitch if Scarlet hadn't tracked them.
• Webs puts up a good fight against the SkyWing soldiers and manages to flee out of the cave.
• During Kestrel's trial, Osprey (for being so old and enfeebled by his missing wings) expressing disgust towards Scarlet for going back on her word years ago when she promised Kestrel she'd spare her and her children if she killed one of them. And even though Scarlet just shrugs it off, Osprey calls her out on how dishonorable it was she basically wronged her most loyal and faithful soldier.
• The graphic novel showing Kestrel's lividness when Scarlet accuses the former wanted to kill Peril all this time. Even though she's Maternally Challenged, she's fuming from within her chains and muzzle!
• "I call upon the tradition of Champion's Shield! I want to fight for my mother."
• The scene where Clay sings "The Dragonets Are Coming" in the arena, which causes the other prisoners to sing along. It instills hope in the prisoners, who are going to be killed soon, and reassures Clay that dragons genuinely do want the dragonets to stop the war.

The Lost Heir

• Tsunami protecting her unhatched sibling from Orca's animated statue.
• Anemone killing Whirlpool by knocking him out, leading to him falling into pool of electric eels. Considering he was planning on exposing Anemone's magical prowess (even if it meant she'd lose her soul sooner), this exploitive leech had it coming for a long time.
  • Especially in the book, when he made it a point to declare that if niether Tsunami or Anemone wanted to marry him, he'd try to marry their new-born sister Aucklet instead. If anything, Whirlpool's murder was an act of justice and sisterly love.

The Hidden Kingdom

• In the graphic novel, Queen Magnificent callously remarks "Do we really need to get [the missing rainwings] back?" in order to reason they don't really need to lift a claw to help them. To this, Glory seethes "You mean you would leave them there?" all the while turning a righteously-furious shade of red, one that no rainwing has ever seen.
  • Although not as satisfying as actually doing it, Glory's thought bubble has an illustration of her throttling Queen Magnificent. And it doesn't hurt that it's coupled with her incredulous inner-monoloague about how she can't believe that someone who's supposed to be queen can be so apathetic and uncompassionate towards her missing subjects.
• Glory giving the Rainwings a rousing speech about how they need to stop being passive and lazy and start being more active in the war. Not to win, not to conquer or kill other dragons, but for the sake of the captured Rainwings who need them.
• Any time Glory's team wins a match, despite Magnificent and her team cheating.
  • Tamarin beating Fruit Bat in finding flowers, using her enhanced sense of smell to find the flower they need to win.
  • Also, Mangrove beating Dazzling at gathering fruit despite that Magnificent's team hid some fruit ahead of time. If anything, Mangrove won on the principle that Dazzling couldn't resist her gluttony for fruit and ate some of the extra fruit they found ahead of time. How poetic!
• Even though she's on Magnificent's team, one can't deny that Grandeur is awesome unto herself when she declares that unlike her cohorts, she doesn't need to cheat in order to win at venom-spitting. One gets the feeling it's less "I don't even need to cheat" and more "I would never dream of cheating".
  • Despite she's too young to spit her venom the farthest, Kinkajou gets an awesome moment for how well she can aim, even earning a compliment from Grandeur herself.
• When Kinkajou is accidentally poisoned by Grandeur, Glory orders that someone related to Grandeur come forward so they can use their venom as an anti-venom. When Grandeur worriedly points out she doesn't even know who's related to her or if she even has living relatives anymore, does Glory give up hope of saving Kinkajou? Of course not! Instead, she asks that they try everyone, even volunteering herself. As luck would have it, Glory finds she and Grandeur are a match, thus using her anti-venom to cure poor Kinkajou.
• When the former forfeits the contest to give Glory a win, Grandeur talking down a livid Magnificent. Magnificent tries to argue that Grandeur can't just give away the throne to Glory like that. To that, Grandeur says that of course she can: it was her throne to begin with and (as she so puts it) she's only been tolerating Magnificent and her posse of incompetent queens.
  • What's more, this may be Grandeur's response to every time Magnificent callously made jabs at her having less value for being old.
  • In the graphic novel, when Magnificent is having her This Cannot Be! breakdown, she starts out angry. But when she tells Grandeur "You can't do this", she's not angry: she's desperate. She knows she and the other "queens" will no longer have a grasp on the throne, and all she can do is plead to Grandeur, to no avail.
  • And the best part is, now it's Magnificent's turn to know what it's like to lose unfairly, as she loses the last challenge on the technicality that Grandeur forfeits.

The Dark Secret

• In the graphic novel, the very sight of Queen Battlewinner rising from her lava pool, like an actual heat-proof dragon.
• It's apparent that back in "The Dragonet Prophecy", Tsunami made such an impression at the Skywing Kingdom as the Seawing of Destiny that when the fake dragonets are presented, a guard who was scarred by Tsunami so easily recognizes that Squid is not the real seawing.
• When Morrowseer talks down Starflight for speaking up, it's Fatespeaker who comes to his defense, despite she's one of the nicer fake dragonets.
• In true fashion, Starflight coming up with the clever idea to get back to the rainforest by making up the story that Flame needs to go to the rainforest for a cure to his venom-infected eye.
• When everyone is arguing about how to best send an army of rainwings to retrieve their comrades from the nightwings without compromising their peaceful nature, it's Sunny who comes up with a pacifistic middle ground: use their sleeping darts on the nightwings! That way, they can take the offense against them but not have to kill anyone.
• Every instant of Starflight during the debate between Queen Glory and Queen Battlewinner. First, he comes up with the compromise that instead of the Nightwings either invading the rainforest or dying on their island, they can simply live in the rainforest with Glory as their new queen. Second, he sizes up that the only reason Queen Battlewinner is delaying her subjects live somewhere better is out of selfishness to delay her own demise. But the cherry on top is him standing up to Battlewinner, as opposed to cower at the slightest insult like he normally would.
  Battlewinner: SHAMEFUL.
  Starflight: (defiantly) It's not up to you. You're stuck here. We're negotiating with greatness.
• Both times that Starflight stands up to Morrowseer. The second time being more-so when he gives him a Big "NO!"! As though in response to him making Sunny cry. Not to mention how the dragonets see through he's just going to give a hollow pledge to Glory as his queen before he turns on them.
  • Unto itself, Morrowseer being killed by the volcano without ever having set claw in the metaphorical Promised Land. It's as though karma saw fit that although he intended his "prophecy" would give his people a chance at life, his cruelty meant he was not worthy of surviving long enough to even taste that better life.

The Brightest Night

• Sunny escaping her would-be captors, preventing a ransom hostage scenario.
• Sunny leaving a message for the nightwing dissenters, unwittingly making it so scary that they mistake her for the Darkstalker.
• Sunny making the mature choice to bury the obsidian mirror, even if it means she'll possibly lose it to the sands. But in a smart move, she decides it would be better to potentially lose this powerful (and soul-sucking) mirror to the sands of time and take her chances than risk it falling into the wrong claws.
• On paper, Thorn wanting to throw a party for her daughter on the fly sounds like something Blaze would want to do. But she has her intelligent reasons for such: relieve tension among the Scorpion Den, let everyone know Sunny is the dragonet of destiny, make it known to the public she's under protection of the outclaws. Sunny can't help but marvel how clever her mother is.
• Sunny unraveling the mystery of how Queen Oasis died and how the treasure was stolen.
• Sunny choosing to tell Peril about Kestrel's death on the honorable principle that she's been lied to by Scarlet her whole life, and therefore deserves the truth, even if it hurts. Rather emotionally mature for a young dragonet.
• Peril is such a force to be reckoned with that when Sunny sends her to simply scare away the Outclaws from further harm, all that skywing has to do is hover in their midst like a draconic fireball, and they all flee.
• Sunny possessing an ability no other dragon has: to focus their flame into a small portion. It's focused enough that she can use it to break open a lock without burning the other papers.
• Sunny deciding to take charge of her "destiny" and end the war regardless that there's no prophecy that says so. This marks the instant Sunny grows beyond needing a prophecy and relies on her her determination and hope instead. And the graphic novel drives home how she relies on her will power to fly back to her friends, flying through day and night, rain and sun, knowing the world still relies on them to try!
• The reveal that the rainwings have anticipated that some of the nightwings would attempt to assassinate their new rainwing queen, due in no small part to Deathbringer being Glory's new bodyguard. Despite that the rest of the world thinks rainwings are stupid, Good Is Not Dumb, indeed.
• Sunny coming up with two brilliant ideas on how to end the war: (A) Find the Eye of Onyx and give it to a worthy dragon and (B) gather the sandwing princesses and all dragons of Pyrria to decide once and for all who will be queen.
• After Sunny and Clay use the dreamvisitor to convince Queen Moorhen and her siblings not to commence with the Icewing genocide (which would've ammounted to a costly Suicide Mission), our heroes hear them cheer on the Dragonets Song, as though celebrating how the dragonets have saved their lives. A perfect Book Ends to Book 1.
• A villainous one for Blister, who anticipated that Burn would anticipate she'd send a Dragonbite Viper to kill her. ...so she planted a second viper to kill her.
• Peril saving Clay by burning out the Dragonbite Viper venom out of his system. Between her fire powers and his fire immunity, his life is saved.
• Sunny not only demonstrating the insight to realize she doesn't want to be queen, but instead give the Eye of Onyx to her mother Thorn. For one thing, even without a prophecy, she recognizes she doesn't need to be queen (or a prophecy for that matter) to have self-worth. For another, she and the dragonets are able to invoke a Prophecy Twist where, instead of having to choose between two evil princesses and an incompetent one, they choose a worthy successor like Thorn. When Blister tries to make the prophecy about her and her sisters, it's Sunny who points out "One shall learn" means that she and Blaze must bow to their new queen.
  • Fridge-Awesome: Unwittingly, Sunny got back at Morrowseer for his overall nastiness towards her (especially rubbing it in her face that the prophecy wasn't real) by making it happen, and on their own terms no less. When Morrowseer made up the prophecy, it was with the intent that the nightwings would have an ally in Blister and take over the rainwing kingdom, even if the war didn't end. But thanks to Sunny choosing her mother Thorn, just the opposite has happened: Blister is dead, the rainwings have a say in the nightwings staying in their forest, and despite his cruel claims the dragonets would fail, the war is ended!
• When Blister doesn't sit well with the idea of Thorn being the new queen, Thorn offers she can fight her, in the process calling her out on her Dirty Coward tendencies (she did kill Burn with underhanded tactics, and fought her much weaker sister Blaze).

Second arc (#6-10)

Moon Rising

• Peril and Clay run into a burning classroom to save the students trapped there.
• Moon's Character Development from a Shrinking Violet into a brave young heroine who decides to us her oracular powers to save the world.
• Winter standing up to Icicle when she tries to kill Starflight to appease Scarlet. The fact he knows not to trust Scarlet speaks volumes of his good judgment of character.

Winter Turning

• When Winter is about to spiral in yet another pity party about how everything is his fault, Qibli cuts off this thought process and lets him know pitying himself isn't going to help matters anymore than taking initiative.
• Even though it's mostly funny, there's something awesome about Qibli mimicking Scarlet when they listen in on her dramatically bemoan how her life is horrible, as though indirectly calling out the ex-queen on her narcissism.
• Winter freeing Foeslayer from her animus-curse, signifying that he's ready to take the steps to let go of his tribe's centuries-old hatred against the Nightwings.

Escaping Peril

• Even while brainwashed to think she's still loyal to Scarlet and that she never met Clay, Peril quickly comes to her own conclusion that Scarlet is a cruel parental figure who does not deserve her loyalty to begin with. The awesome part is, this is what prompts her to remove the necklace that is brainwashing her in the first place. If anything, she practically saved herself with little but simple maturity.
• The Catharsis Factor that comes from Tourmaline killing Scarlet once and for all. After all the pain and misery she has brought to her family and strangers alike, it's a relief to know Scarlet can't hurt anyone else ever again.
  • Even more poetic, Scarlet tried to brainwash Tourmaline to think she was her "younger sister" Ruby in order to keep her powerful and brave daughter from ever challenging her. Turns out, she's undone by the very dragon she tried to brainwash into being weak and lowly.
  • The entire duel between the two was born from Scarlet daring to threaten Cliff, not to kill him, but to abuse and warp him into a killer like she did with Peril. When Ruby hears this, the gloves are off.
  • The entirety of the preceding Curb-Stomp Battle after Tourmaline remembers her true self. And it was prompted by Scarlet's prideful gloating that Ruby doesn't exist except as a docile version of her daughter. Tourmaline then proceeds to turn the tide of this duel. And judging by the book's description of Scarlet's extensive injuries and desperation, Tourmaline certainly makes her suffer during her last moments alive before she seethingly tells her "You shouldn't have returned mother..." and then giving the battle cry "For the Skywings" and administers to her mother the ol' Neck Snap.

The Darkness of Dragons

• Qibli comes up with a way to remove Darkstalker's spells from everyone by himself.
• Anemone taking the initiative to free Kinkajou from her brainwashing. And she does so during a full-scale war, in the midst of all kinds of worry and danger, when no one could blame her for being distracted. That's how determined she is to become a better person, compared to every animus user before her who gave in to their curse.
• Darkstalker has over a thousand years' worth of excuses and delusions and hatred built to justify his evil. Qibli shoots them down within minutes.
  Qibli: So … why didn't you do that? To the IceWings. When you first came out of the mountain and you saw visions of them threatening your tribe. Why didn't you enchant all of them to want peace with you instead? Or cast a spell to make all IceWings and NightWings forget their ancient hatred and forgive everything that's happened? Why didn't you use your magic to avoid war, instead of trying to kill them all? (...) The fact that you can't be good on your own. That's part of the problem. You shouldn't need a dragon on your shoulder telling you that killing all the IceWings is wrong, or that taking over your father's mind was an awful thing to do. (...) You didn't lose your soul because magic ate it away slowly. You lost it because you chose to do terrible things, over and over again. Each terrible thing, each betrayal, each murder, added to this mountain. That's not the magic's fault. That's you. That's who you chose to be.

Third arc

• An incredibly villainous example, but the Otherminds's plan to use the smoke to assimilate the Leafwings whilst tricking them into thinking they're curing them is utterly diabolical.
• Queen Snowfall destroys the Great Ice Cliff with the tiara of strength after realizing that other dragon tribes aren't necessarily evil.
  • Later, she destroys the gift of order in the same way.

Legends

• Seven-year-old Wren considers the abusive family that scapegoated her, and quickly concludes that their cruelty was not her fault, there was no excuse for what they did, and that she's better off without them. Which she shows immediately by saving Sky and starting a new, very happy life on her own. Most victims take years to develop that degree of clarity.