YMMV / Firelight

• Anti-Climax Boss: Darur in Balefire. He is killed rather quickly and abruptly by the pirates after they attack while his forces are asleep. Charla lampshades this, noting to herself in disbelief that she can't believe Darur was defeated that easily without even a "heroic battle" as she puts it.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Several
  • Did Nuala come back to free her friends out of any kind of kindness or simply because using Charla is her best bet to kill Gual? However, it should be noted that she suffered a severe injury from the crossbow bolt that hit her during the attack and explicitly put her life in danger to save her friends from the pirates since her wound was not fully healed and it put a huge strain on her to fly. Risking her life like that is a lot to do for a kid she apparently saw only as a weapon, but when called on her abuse by Lance she outright dismisses it and downplays it, so she likely is not doing this out of fully good intentions. It's possible it's a mixture of both seeing Charlaas too useful for revenge and some lingering care for her friends.
  • Gual attacking Jayce on the ship. He was yelling a second ago he wanted Jayce alive, but his men kept injuring Jayce as he kept fighting and Gaul was apparently pissed off enough by this to attack him after Jayce kept fighting back; and was last seen bringing his giant swords down where Jayce was, that out of Charla's viewpoint. Did he change his mind about sparing Jayce to make him suffer and kill him or did he simply enter the fray to stop his minions from killing Jayce so that he could have him sent into the dungeon? It's possible since the point of impact was not fully seen, he brought his scimitars down around Jayce to get his men to stop. Charla outright considers both options a possibility in-story.
• Arc Fatigue: After the initial four chapters of Charla meeting Lance, the story cuts to a prologue of sorts that details Charla's earlier life, and how she was raised at the Well of Souls in secret by two apes named Jayce and Silverback. The Jayce arc is not really considered bad by any means and does a good job of setting up the main events of the story. Additionally, it provides a great deal of world-building and character development, as well as being considered generally well-written. The only problem is that this arc comprises about ten chapters out of the forty-five that comprise the main story, which in itself is not horrible as it was not truly filler and provides a plethora of important info and events. However, seeing as this prologue took up nearly a third of the story, some readers were more than eager for it the prologue arc to end so that the fic could get to the main premise of Charla traveling with her group of friends.
  • Some considered the Warfang arc to suffer from this as well. It also provides great world-building and character development, but it still feels as though it drags on for a while until Charla finally decides to steal the map from the library and leaves the city. Then again, the whole point of this fic is to expand on the world-building of the Legend of Spyro, so perhaps this was partially intentional.
  • The Whisperglade Forest arc in Balefire was this to some. Like the other arcs, it is typically considered good, and certainly provided a ton of development for the characters and their relationships, as well as world-building and important foreshadowing of events too come. However, it takes up a bit over an entire third of the whole story and has scenes that seem to repeat the same subject, such as multiple training magic training sessions the characters take part in over the same power.
• Base Breaking Charecter: Charla falls into this in the later parts of Balefire. She is near-universally considered an endearing and well-written character, but there are a few who get tired of her hypocritical moaning to be treated like an adult despite acting very immaturely. Oddly enough, for years over the series' run, this never really caused much detraction from the audience until the later stages of Balefire, where this trait gets worse. After Nuala preys on her desire to be treated like an adult, she irrationally falls for her abuse, despite Lance's warnings, and even goes as far as to run off with Nuala and temporarily abandon her friends for Nuala; actions that irritated and pissed off many who felt she was acting stupid. While some feel this makes sense since she is being abused, others lost sympathy for her for not listening to Lance despite everything they had been through together and knowing he had her best interests at heart, as well as seemingly being in denial of Nuala's abuse despite fighting off the mind control.
• Broken Base: The drama in the later act of Balefire, after the Whisperglade Arc ended. A big part of this was due to *Third Act Stupidity being in full effect. Specifically, Charla's actions after Nuala becomes abusive and starts manipulating Charla to be her weapon against the apes. While it is clear Nuala's manipulation is to blame for this, Charla herself is also taking questionable actions in following her. While some felt Charla's actions made sense and she was simply caving to Nuala's manipulation due to Nuala making her feel like an adult, others felt Charla abandoning her other friends in the group to run off with Nuala and still listening to Nuala over Lance did not make sense considering her previous experience with the other characters. Detractors pointed out that previously, Charla considered Lance an older brother, and had been through many experiences with him and knows that he knows well and has her best interests at heart; thus should have listened to him when he warned her about Nuala being a toxic influence. Additionally, detectors noted that for her to cave to Nuala's abuse, she would have to actively ignore Nuala coercing her to attack two apes and Lance later on, despite being shown to be fully aware of and actively fighting off said mind control during the incidents.
• Catharsis Factor: For those who were pissed at Nuala for becoming an abuser to Charla and manipulating her as a weapon, it can be very cathartic to see Nuala get singed by Charla's fire (albeit by accident) after a failed attempted to more or less mind control Charla into murdering two ape soldiers they found who were in the middle of fishing, and thus not fighting back. Even more so later, after she attempts to force Charla to attack Lance using the same method. It's revealed later that Nuala survived but suffered a nasty, nearly life-threatening wound.
• Moral Event Horizion: A few characters cross it.
  • As seen in A New Beginning, Gaul and the Dark Army as a whole cross this when they start their current war by massacring a bunch of unborn dragons. If that wasn't enough, their conquest and genocide of other species, such as the Vulpala, pushed the whole army over this.
  • Cynder does plenty of nasty things under Malefor's influence, but what really pushes her over this in the story is how she attacked the neutral Sky Serpent city of Zephyr with an army of dreadwings, killing most inside the city and effectively destroying it. The city did not even really serve much of a strategic purpose either, as it was in the sky and uninvolved in the war. However, it should be noted was still brainwashed at this time.
  • Commander Pevmuffin crosses it by capturing a teenager, Lance, and intending to skin him for his scales and ivory; it's mentioned he would do this to Charla, a younger child, as well.
  • Subverted my Nuala, who only turned against her friends because the apes tricked her into thinking they would kill the last remaining pups of her near-extinct species if she did not obey them. Later played straight, twice over. In Balefire, her abuse and manipulation of a child, Charla, was bad enough, but what cements this is when she tries to froe Charla to murder two apes who were not even fighting them, and then when she tries again to force Charla to attack, and possibly kill, Lance, her adoptive big brother. However, it's possibly played with in that she did come back afterwards to save her friends from the pirates, and explicitly risked her life to do so, due to a severe crossbow-related injury she suffered that hinders her ability to fly.
• The Scrappy: Nuala seems to get this from some members of the audience, in light of her actions in the later chapters of Balefire. Namely, she ends up becoming a toxic influence on Charla and manipulates Charla, who is only a young Child, to use as a weapon for her revenge against the apes. Nuala even goes as far as to more or less mind control (mentally coerce her using their magic link) Charla twice; first to try to murder two apes when Charla did not want to, and later to try to attack Lance when Nuala's manipulation is found out(though neither attempt succeeded. Her manipulation, combined with the fact her toxic influence and relationship with Charla still seem to linger even after what happened and being called out for it, did her no favors in the eyes of many readers.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: Sort of. After the first chapter depicting the raid seen at the beginning of A New Beginning, the rest of the actual opening chapters involving Charla finding and freeing Lance are rather action-packed and exciting. But after those are done, as detailed above, the story shifts to a belated prologue story arc detailing Charla's earlier childhood and eventual escape into the wilderness, as well as the events of how she was separated from Jayce. The prologue is not exactly considered bad or even boring, but many wished it could have been over a bit faster, considering it takes nearly a third of the whole story for the main premise to finally take center stage. Many agreed that the story became more exciting again after Charla and Lance properly set out on their adventure.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Charla's determination to see her quest through. While her motivation to save her adoptive family is definitely understandable and sympathetic, the problem is the lengths she is willing to go to and the fact that the quest could be a lost cause. The journey of just getting to the Well of Souls has nearly killed her and her friends many times over, and it's been explicitly pointed out that infiltrating the Well of Souls itself is nearly impossible, due to the heavy presence of apes there, and Charla lacks a proper plan to get in and out. It's understandable that she would not be deterred by this, but the story makes it's also implied in the story that both Jayce and Silverback could very much be dead, and Charla knows this, possibly making this whole quest more of a lost cause. What makes this worse is the fact Charla has been getting many, many omens about the Well of Souls and even an explicit warning from an order of monks who can predict the future that she should not go there. Later she finds a carving from said monks detailing her taking part in a ritual of some sort with apes, likely against her own volition. As her quest seems more and more like a lost cause, it becomes harder to sympathize with Charla's desire to see it through, despite her motives.
  • Nuala falls into this, though it is not entirely clear how sympathetic she is meant to be at this point in time.As noted above, she manipulates and abuses Charla and starts seeing her as more of a living weapon in the later parts of Balefire but Meredy suggests she is not really fully aware of the implications of her actions and it implies her desire for revenge is driving her to do rather heinous things. After this comes to a head and the rest of the group gets captured, Nuala does come back to save her friends from the pirates after they are brought onto the ship and she finds an opportunity to contact them. She was also suffering a deadly injury at the time and notes it to be life-threatening, but it's still hard to see her in a positive light after her manipulation and abuse of Charla, as well as the fact she seems to brush the abuse aside when Lance calls her out on it. Though Charla and Meredy are happy to see her back, it can be very hard to see this as a genuine act of kindness on her part after what she did, nor does it really vindicate the abuse and manipulations of Charla. It is likely, though, that she is simply intending to continue to use Charla as a weapon.
  • Charla again in the later parts of Balefire. She runs off with Nuala because Nuala makes her feel treated like an adult and leaves Meredy and Lance behind, and keeps falling for Nuala's manipulation despite being clearly aware of the fact Nuala nearly mind-controlled her into attempting to murder too apes, as well as having been blatantly warned by Lance about Nuala being a toxic influence prior. Yes, Charla is a child and is being manipulated, but the fact she is acting selectly oblivious to Nuala's obvious toxic influence and mind control, as well as disregarding Lance's advice to her and not trusting him all of their previous experience and developments together (and the lengths Lance as gone to care for her prior) can make it hard to sympathize with Charla here for some. Not helping matters is that fact Lance has not shown the condescending behavior towards Charla that Charla feels she has gotten for being a kid.