Aye, we're here! At the last few! I know that I still technically have to do the RainWing queens at some point, but I've already explained that if I do end up doing them they'll be getting a separate post. They're just different from everyone else to rank on this list in particular.
So let's get these ground rules out of the way one last time, eh?
A "queen" is anyone who has held the office of queen or an office that holds equal power, such as Gill's regent-ship of the SeaWings in Coral's absence or Drakstalker's brief time as king of the NightWings. This also means that "queenship" is not limited to female candidates, largely because I don't think anyone would actually contest that those two held major power at some point.
I will also only be talking about those queens which we have met in the books, specifically during their time as queen. For this reason, there will be several absences:
The Legends: Darkstalker cast of royalty, as we never meet them (exempting the three main queens of the time)
Other historical queens such as Cochineal, as we never meet her and know very little about her reign and the pre-Tree Wars HiveWings in general
I will be judging on three categories:
Leadership Skills: How good are they at actually rallying their population to do anything at all? Can they actually be an effective leader, or are they constantly bogged down by politics? So on and so forth. Out of three points.
Effectiveness: Are the things that they do actually good for their kingdom. This is a fairly utilitarian option, so I'll be using a "greatest good for the greatest number" idea here, even that is often a morally questionable standard. Out of five points.
External Factors: Not necessarily a problem with the ruler herself, but more so a case of "are they actually going to be able to do their job effectively?" External factors refer to anything that the queen doesn't have direct control over, and thus is only rated out of two points.
And let's get to packing this up!
Previous Post: https://wingsoffire.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000000756589
Queen Snowfall: 4/10
Leadership Skills: 1/3
Effectiveness: 3/5
External Factors: 0/2
I think that the best way to summarize Snowfall is this: she's a much younger, much less experienced version of Ruby in an environment significantly more hostile to change.
For Leadership Skills, Snowfall has two major point against her. the first is, of course, that she's a child. Child rulers are automatically going to be less authoritative than adult rulers just by virtue of being so much younger. The other point against her, though, is Tundra. Tundra wields truly immense power in the tribe, being Glacier's sister (by marriage), a very prodigious warrior, a talented political figure, and overall just the "ideal" IceWing by most of the tribe's standards. And Snowfall, despite holding the crown by Glacier's decree, still has some massive competition from Tundra because the two of them are not going to agree on anything.
I can guarantee it. Tundra and Snowfall agreeing on anything is one of the signs of the WoFpocalypse.
For Effectiveness, I do have to dock Snowfall's points largely because of the sheer range of her reforms. They are... very abrupt, and are massive in terms of ramifications for the tribe-- specifically destroying the Gifts of Order and Defense. The IceWing Aristocracy is basically a miniature tribe all of its own, one that commands the entire rest of the tribe and holds every single one of the tribe's best and brightest, and Snowfall just threw it all into disarray. As much as I agree that the Wall had to go, wrecking it and saying "we saved the city!" was not the way to go about it.
And in regards to the Cliff, Snowfall basically did the same thing there. Again, I agree that the cliff probably needed to go if the IceWings were going to connect with the outside world in any meaningful way, but the way Snowfall went about doing it... I can't be the only one who has a problem with that, right? Generally when you're making reforms as massive as those, it's a bare minimum to make sure that the populace is on-board with the changes. Snowfall just did the things anyway, which is... well, it's very clearly not good.
As for External Factors, if I could give Snowfall negative points here, I honestly would, because I don't think two possible points is enough to represent the sheer magnitude of problems with the IceWings right now. i already mentioned how her changes came way too quickly to be properly effective, at least in the present, but then there's another problem: the plague. By my best guess the IceWings lost probably a third of their entire tribe, possibly even half, and that sort of population loss is a massive issue. Jobs are suddenly vacant, work isn't being done, the army gets cut completely, resources aren't being stockpiled, there's so, so many problems that arise from this alone, and then you put "gargantuan social upheaval" on top of that, and I just can't see this going well.
So Snowfall is in... a very precarious situation, to put it lightly. She fits pretty neatly in with the Edelgard category of rulers, I think, where "I like your thought process but please fix your methods."
Good luck to the young queen, I suppose, because there are a multitude of paths where this ends poorly for her.
Queen Thorn: 4/10
Leadership Skills: 2/3
Effectiveness: 2/5
External Factors: 0/2
Another queen who doesn't get nearly as much slander as she deserves, Thorn is... y'know what, let's just get into it.
Leadership Skills off the bat is a 2/3 because... I'm gonna be honest, I don't know how much of the Kingdom of Sand is actually going to listen to her, or even does. The Kingdom of Sand is a desert, so there's a natural element of decentralization there, and Thorn was a legitimate crime lord for some twenty years before she took the throne, and that's a reputation that doesn't fade away. I can see it posing some serious problems in the future, even if the dragons and royalty of other kingdoms aren't aware of this.
And for Effectiveness, this is where the meat and bones is. Because, for as much as I absolutely despise the dastard's wasted potential, Vulture proved a really good point: Thorn is not good at her job. Specifically in one very big instance: the bombings. We don't know how many cities were bombed, but it's repeatedly referred to as a series, which to me says at least five or six. And Thorn did... what, exactly? Sure, she might have provided aid, but she doesn't even mention the attacks-- not a single word about it, and that worries me in the extreme. The idea that the queen of a fractured, very-much-still-recovering kingdom can be completely oblivious to her cities being blown up by the King of Crime over down south does the exact opposite of instill confidence. It makes her seem actually incompetent which, I don't think she is, but there is evidence for that line of thinking.
I would like also to bring up that the bombings are not brought up by anyone in the palace, either, so they just... literally might not be aware that any of it happened, and not just Thorn, but the entire palace. I don't think I need to explain how that could be astronomically bad.
And External Factors here is another zero, second in a row, and it's in almost complete part thanks to rebuilding from the war. "But Skrill!" I hear you yelling. "You said Burn made it so that no rebuilding had to be done!" Very astute observation, I did indeed say that. What I'm referring to, though, is rebuilding the population of the tribe, not its infrastructure. Thorn has the herculean task of knitting back together three completely opposed sides of a two-decade war that spanned two, three, maybe even four generations, and she wasn't even a player during the war itself, so she has zero clout to rely on. All she has is the idea that everyone's just gonna be too tired to keep fighting, which very clearly isn't the case based on Vulture's... anything.
So yeah, Thorn... I know that the Eye of Onyx picked her, but I honestly think it's just coded to pick folks with what it deems as good intentions. It doesn't put any onus on the actual skill of the candidate, which I find to be... extremely worrying.
Yet another queen to make a greater slander post about later.
Queen Wasp: 9/10
Leadership Skills: 3/3
Effectiveness: 4/5
External Factors: 2/2
Hmmm... Y'know what, let's actually split Wasp down the middle here.
Wasp, Queen of the HiveWings:
Leadership Skills: 3/3
Effectiveness: 5/5
External Factors: 2/2
Wasp, Queen of the SilkWings: 8/10
Leadership Skills: 3/3
Effectiveness: 3/10
External factors: 2/2
So the reason why I split Wasp specifically into two entries is because of her dual-queenship over the Hive and SilkWings. Glory didn't get the same treatment because her rule over the NightWings is shaky, disputed, very hands-off on her side of things, and in really complete opposition to Wasp. Wasp has been queen of two tribes for over fifty years, which is a massive amount of time in the dragon world (they mature two and a half times faster than us and can live possibly even for double our lifespans), and that rule is very well-consolidated. Plus, her treatments of both tribes are dramatically different in a way that Glory's isn't, so I think the two entries are justified.
Also because I think giving her the ranking above would result in me being actually crucified, even if we all know that I'm not judging any of this based on morality.
Regardless, Leadership Skills is an automatic three regardless of how you spin it. Post-Tree Wars, Wasp can mind control the entire HiveWing population at the drop of a hat, so there's just... literally no way I can give her anything lower. And even before the Tree Wars she had a remarkable well of authority to draw on. She managed to drive the HiveWings into all-out war against the LeafWings, and enough authority that Monarch just surrendered outright, even if said authority was based on the falsified Book of Clearsight.
Even over the SilkWings, Wasp's authority remains entirely intact. Sure, she doesn't have the same mind-control abilities that she can hover over the heads of her HiveWings, but the fact remains that the SilkWings have been very thoroughly cowed over the course of fifty years, and Wasp's rule over them is basically absolute.
External Factors as well for both tribes is a two, because Wasp is ruling effectively during peacetime on Pantala. I've gone on record saying this before, and I'll say it again: Wasp is basically Darkstalker if he succeeded. Queen over the only two tribes (the ones on record, anyway), complete control over both of them with limited questioning, the ability to do basically whatever she wants, and so... yeah, Pantala is at peace. Even if said peace is under the metaphorical boot of a megalomaniacal drug addict.
For Effectiveness, though, there is a marked difference here. For HiveWings, I would legitimately give Wasp a sixth point if I could, and the same goes for Leadership Skills-- these fifty years are basically the equivalent of a HiveWing golden age. The tribe is prospering very strongly, peace is present for the HiveWings, technological advancements have skyrocketed-- plumbing, bound books, consistent light sources, elevators, so on and so forth-- and just generally the HiveWings are doing extremely well for themselves under Wasp. She might genuinely be the single best queen that the tribe has ever had.
For SilkWings, though... I can't in good conscience say that a queen is effective when her main accomplishment is turning an entire tribe into second-class citizens. That being said, by the standards of this list I can't actually ding her for much else-- treatment doesn't really factor in here. The advancements made by the HiveWings still apply to the SilkWings, so I still have to give her points there, the SilkWings were offered places to live and regular sources of food, medicine was plentiful and easily administered, and really the only thing I can actually get her for is the abysmal state of SilkWing education. That's,... really it, at least by the utilitarian point of view this ranking is taking on.
So yeah, Wasp is... a bit divided, but even across both of her rankings she's still a very effective queen. Turns out being able to control the majority of your population with a thought is really good at keeping order.
Who'd'a thunk it?
Queen Vigilance: 8/10
Leadership Skills: 3/3
Effectiveness: 4/5
External Factors: 1/2
Going from one of the longest entries to yet another semi-obscure one feels deeply unfortunate but, alas, the alphabet has spoken.
Regardless, Vigilance's presence as an intimidating ruler is mentioned several times through L1, so for me she gets full marks in terms of Leadership Skills. Fear is an undeniably powerful way to rule, and Vigilance combines it with a surprising lack of totalitarian elements to her leadership, which I think is actually pretty admirable.
For Effectiveness, I'll be taking one point off for her seeming desire to keep said power. That, I think, is what in the end got Darkstalker to make his invulnerability spell-- or at least proved its existence-- and was one of the reasons why he made to kill her in the first place. Why I haven't deducted more points from her because of that is because... let's be honest, Darkstalker attacking Vigilance was basically inevitable, there was no way he wasn't going to do it eventually.
And External Factor is a 1/2 because of the pretty sizable Ice/Night War happening at the time over the Kingdom of Sand-- which really makes you wonder if Scorpion was profiting off of it in any big way. Hmm... regardless, Vigilance's point off here is really because of Darkstalker's existence. The war wasn't anywhere near her doorstep, so it's not actually something I'm taking off points for, but Darkstalker existing under her rule is... pretty major, I think.
Something I do wish I could give Vigilance points for, though, is the Glass Jubilee. I tend to highly value any sort of project that cultivates the culture of the tribe, and while there's not really a place for that on this ranking, it's still something that I wanted to mention.
Closing:
That's it! We're done! Exempting the RainWing trade-off queens, but they'll be... some other time, I guess.
Regardless, if you were one of the folks who read all of these entries-- and even if you haven't-- thank you for reading! This was a very fun thing to try out once again, because the last time I did this it was a number of years ago and I didn't have any sort of actual criteria in mind so everything was just sort of up in the air, but I think I'll be mostly adhering to this from now.
And also, because a number of folks have been asking for it, I will be starting up a Ping list for any of these general rambles and rants that I do. "Citizens of Yapsville," thou shalt be, and I hope you enjoy your stay.
Mutual Majumbos:
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Queen Rankings Pings:
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Citizens of Yapsville (Name Subject to Change):
@Orphiceunoia
@Brucenotbryce
