Dragonflight

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1968

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction-Part 1, Section 3

Part 1, Sections 4-7

Part 2, Sections 8-9

Part 2, Sections 10-11

Part 3, Sections 12-14

Part 3, Sections 15-18

Part 4, Sections 19-21

Part 4, Sections 22-29

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Part 3, Sections 12-14Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 3: “Dust Fall”

Part 3, Section 12 Summary: “The Finger Points […]”

Part 3 opens with another disagreement between F’lar and R’gul. In the circle of ancient stones at Benden Peak, the sun appeared on the Finger Rock, and the Red Star was framed in the Eye Rock. F’lar cites tradition to argue that this means the Threads are approaching, while R’gul still refuses to believe. Eventually R’gul resigns himself, at least temporarily, to submitting to F’lar’s leadership. F’lar orders the firestone pits to be filled, the weyrling trainings to continue, and the five abandoned Weyrs to be searched for Records that might contain information on how to fight the Threads.

Lessa is still cold with F’lar, who admits to himself that he was more forceful in their lovemaking than he should have been. Lessa is angry too that she was not invited to see the phenomenon at the stones, but she lightens up when F’lar fulfills his promise to teach her and Ramoth how to fly between. As they eat, Lessa subtly tries to goad F’lar with news that a pretty and ambitious woman in the Weyr, Kylara, is bearing a child soon. They both know the child may belong to F’lar, but F’lar does not rise to the bait. Lessa also suggests F’lar remove R’gul by force. F’lar refuses but privately agrees. Finally, they discuss how restless the dragons seem to be lately. Lessa shares her premonition from the beginning of the book, adding that she felt something similar the night Fax invaded Ruatha Hold.

F’lar and Mnementh teach Lessa and Ramoth how to fly between. The rider clearly pictures the intended destination (a “reference point”), and the dragon takes them there. After a few successful practices locally, Lessa disobeys F’lar’s warnings and tries to strike out farther. She imagines Ruatha, but as it was in her childhood. When she sees Fax and his men scaling the Hold’s wall, she realizes she travelled not just across space, but time. This is the night Fax killed her family and took Ruatha for himself. Thus, the premonition Lessa had felt as a child—which warned her of the attack and saved her life—was actually a warning from her adult self. Panicked, Lessa tries to go to Ruatha in the present day, but accidentally returns to the morning the book opens; paradoxically, she originated her own premonition in both scenarios.

On her return, F’lar’s anger is tempered by this astonishing new development. Lessa has discovered that dragons can travel not just through space, but also time. Lessa is more upset than F’lar has ever seen her. He comforts her, saying that as things happened the way they did, Lessa could have done nothing to change them, and at least she saved herself. F’lar confirms this new time-travelling power with his own brief journey back into his childhood.

Part 3, Section 13 Summary: “Rise high in glory […]”

F’lar and Lessa review the Records retrieved from the five abandoned Weyrs. Lessa worries that the time travel development might mean that she and F’lar could be wrong about the Threads after all—maybe they only believe so strongly in the Threads because they had both gone back in time at some point, subconsciously influencing their younger selves. F’lar asks Lessa to show faith: The Threads will fall by spring.

F’lar and Lessa use the Records to determine a timetable for where and how the Threads will fall, sometimes mistaking or misinterpreting language and technological concepts from Pern’s distant past. They discover that cold weather renders the Thread spores into harmless black dust; warm weather activates them. They also determine that most late Intervals—or times between the Red Star’s passing—see dragon queens producing more eggs to meet the threat, but Jora and Nemora underproduced, putting Pern in grave danger. There are not enough dragons to fight the Threads. F’lar reveals himself willing to break tradition if it means properly preparing for the dangers ahead; for example, he allows individuals not brought up at the Weyr to attend Hatchings in the hopes of becoming dragonriders.

The Weyr gathers to celebrate Ramoth laying her first clutch of eggs, sired by Mnementh. There are many more than Nemora had produced, including a new golden queen egg. The number of eggs renews Lessa’s faith.

Part 3, Section 14 Summary: “Rise high in glory […]”

Over the next few months, Lessa’s belief in F’lar’s theories grows stronger as his predictions continue coming true: “These were based, however, not on the premonitions she no longer trusted after her experience between times, but on recorded facts” (186). F’lar continues to show a willingness to be flexible with tradition, changing the Impression ceremony to ensure the survival of more of the candidates; the beautiful Kylara bonds with the new baby queen dragon, Pridith. Meron of Nabol continues rabble-rousing against the Weyr, claiming that the dragonriders are only taking non-Weyr candidates for Impression to weaken the Lords’ bloodlines.

Part 3, Sections 12-14 Analysis

In these sections, Anne McCaffrey pushes her novel from pulpy fantasy into the territory of science fiction. The early sections of the book feature many of the expected elements of the fantasy genre. There is a damsel in distress, although Lessa is more capable than the cliché. There are knight-like dragonriders and sword fights, to say nothing of the dragons and the castle-like Weyrs and Holds. The social hierarchy of Pern, too, has the pseudo-medieval feel of a traditional fantasy novel. There are “monarchs”—the Weyrleader, Weyrwoman, and queen dragons—and feudal lords in the form of the Holding Lords. There is also a peasant class comprising the rest of Pern’s people, whose perspectives are rarely considered except in the abstract. Up until this point, the reader might assume that Dragonflight will play out like a standard fantasy.

In these sections, for the first time, McCaffrey introduces elements of hard science fiction, confirming a backstory touched upon in the Introduction: Pern’s colonists originated from Earth, and they were much more technologically and scientifically advanced than the people of Pern’s present. While F’lar and Lessa write off the colonists’ science as primitive and silly, the modern reader has knowledge the characters lack. The original colonists deduced that the Threads behave in a similar fashion to Earth’s fungi (“mycorrhiza”). They also recalled the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius’s theory of panspermia, which suggests that space dust, meteorites, etc., carrying spores might disperse life throughout the universe. These elements shift Dragonflight firmly into the realm of science fiction.

The most important narrative development of these sections is another mainstay of sci-fi: time travel. Lessa discovers that dragons can not only travel through space, but also time. This will be a crucial tool in their imminent fight against the Threads. Meanwhile, as Dragonflight’s genre shifts, so too does the characters’ understanding of the threat. What once seemed like a hokey belief of F’lar’s is quickly accumulating objective evidence all of Pern can see.