#I also want to jump inside the book and save tamlin from the narrative

[sad-scarred-sassy]

Hello, my Tamlin variant is Caelus from “My derelict favorite” (webtoon)

LOOK AT HIM

Tamlin variants (my opinions!!!)

Prince Charming from Shrek:

Howl Pendragon from Howl's Moving Castle:

Geralt of Rivia from The Witcher (Henry Cavill can break my back-):

Alucard from Castlevania:

Ken from Barbie (Tamlin would love I'm just Ken, talk to a wall):

Legolas or Thranduil from Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit:

The beast from Beauty and the beast (an obvious one):

And the original himself, Tam Lin:

If you have your own thoughts on what variants Tamlin would be, comment or reblog them if you like!

[maevelin]

1/2 What I found so difficult to grasp in acowar (I hated the entire trilogy, although acotar had a lot of potential), was that Feyre didn't fight. It completely contradicts her whole arc and journey up till that point. Acomaf was her realising that she wanted to play a part in the war, she wanted to fight to defend her sisters and Prythian. One of her biggest arguments with Tamlin revolved around that. She spent acomaf learning how to fight, how to use her powers. Except she didn't.

2/2 Worse, she didn’t want to. The only reason SJM did this was because she wanted a satellite to showcase what was going on and Feyre was right there for her to use. All seven of the High Lords fought, but the High Lady, who was supposed to be the strongest, didn’t. She spent her time observing and being with her mate. That’s all she did. Even her actions in the Spring Court turned against her. I hated ACOWAR for many reasons, but that was definitely one of my top ones.

—

ACOWAR was a mess in many ways. I don’t hate the trilogy (except Acowar lol) but I do think it is awfully overrated. Generally speaking SJM has the tendency to hype things to an epic extent and in the end, she just can’t deliver (anyone remembers the riddle in the first book? lol). It is beyond her writing capabilities in my opinion. She does have a vision that should it be executed correctly it would indeed give a great pay off that obviously, the execution was bad. There was no substance. No real stakes. No loss that gave no realism whatsoever so everything was just polished (as a conclusion because the writing and the editing were anything but) and easy. No substance. Most of the things were convenient and anticlimactic. Basically, we had so many pages leading to a halfhearted lukewarm narration because everything was more telling than showing. You could take out 1/3 of the book and it would be the same. In the end, all the buildup and led to a sloppy mess.

That been said I didn’t mind that Feyre didn’t fight. Yes, the first person PoV can limit some of the options to the writers that don’t know how to use it correctly so SJM used -badly- Feyre’s voice as a satellite around everything as you pointed out.

But in the narrative, it wasn’t exactly out of reason. Yes, everything before that seemed to be leading there. But the issue Feyre had with Tamlin was not that he was not letting her fight exactly. It was the lack of choice. She had no voice. She had no options. She was not free to decide if she was going to fight or not. That was decided for her and in the end what she wanted, what she thought, what she felt had no importance and was sidelined. Feyre breaking free from that and eventually deciding for herself not to fight was as empowering as it would be for her to fight. Because it was her decision and hers alone. 

Yes she is a massive weapon given the powerhouse she turned to be (and I have things to say about this that fall to the Mary Sue special snowflake department but I digress) and under a different leadership her powers could have been applied far more effectively but in the end Feyre’s worth was not defined by her powers and she was not treated as an object to win a war. Should she have been? Given how this war was described and the lack of options and what would happen if they lost (which they knew very well) and how it was a matter of desperately needing all hands on deck and not having the luxury of stepping back…mmm… It is a big discussion. That can bring arguments both in favor of it and against such a decision. Military wise it was one of the book’s weaknesses in the way it was handled anyway. Everything about this war was simplified and romanticized and didn’t add up with what we were told it was going to be or what it was presented to be.

The thing, however, is that Feyre was just 20 years old. She was and is too young. She barely had been able to tap into her powers and their potential. She had been traumatized and was still healing and struggling. She had never been in a war. It is easy to say ‘but why didn’t she fight’ but it is not so simple. She had never been inside an army. She never knew the horrifying reality of it. Sure, in theory, it was easy to say I’ll fight but the reality of it was different. Taking a very young inexperienced civilian (from another country to add to that) that has no understanding of what war means, has never been into a bloody battlefield and has no training whatsoever when it comes to this and throwing them into the field and expecting them to go for the slaughter and act like a badass soldier and even more so as a badass leader is far more unrealistic and I feel many people would also jump at the opportunity to point that out. It seems that in some cases Feyre can’t win no matter what she does or how she acts and by extension neither can SJM. But the truth is that into the battlefield someone like Feyre could be instead of an asset a liability. 

My issue in Acowar was not that Feyre didn’t fight but how everyone else fought and acted or didn’t. 

How these people won the war is something beyond my understanding. I am even putting the extreme powers, everyone conveniently has, aside. In the end, wars are won by careful planning and strategy. Did we see anything of that at any point? They were all acting like headless chicken running around.There was disarray. Everyone was doing what they wanted without any consistency or consequence. This was meant to be a tight teamwork under strong leadership. Did we actually see that? 

Rhysand had no plan really. He winged most of all and somehow his hidden agendas and ‘plans’ that were treated as “hey I have a secret ace in my sleeve that I haven’t told anyone about. Surprise!’ and were delivered as twists and it was just a sloppy mess. 

Azriel was able to infiltrate the Hybern camp so easily with no worry for the consequences and what it would mean for the outcome of the war if he died or was captured (given his position along with Feyre’s) or what it would mean if he went into the battlefield injured (imagine that) but then this was pointed as heroic instead of plain stupid. Yeah yeah they saved Elain and it was important but we are talking about a WAR here. 

Cassian was meant to be THE General. The Commander. He was instead a suicidal idiot that instead of leading the armies he was all over the place. Generals like him lose wars. 

Morrigan is my main issue here. Feyre not fighting made sense. You know what didn’t make any sense whatsoever? The fact that in the previous books it was hyped that she was THE Morrigan. That in the previous war she made a name for herself. That she had this awesome power that made her a legend. That in the battlefield this would be one of the saving graces that could win any war. Please do tell me what Morrigan’s power is? Really I want to know. I may have missed it somehow. What was her extraordinary value in the field? She fought yes. She supposedly has moves. Good. And we were told that she did and how good she is in combat. Great sure. I am not devaluing it but the writing itself did. Because the trilogy was not leading to that anticlimactic performance that basically gave no answers to the questions and the hype that surrounded Morrigan. Did you see the Night Court’s Third in Command anywhere in the book and more so in the final battle? I am not even here to address Rhysand’s constant vile treatment that deprived her her choices and her options and even her leadership (which was Feyre’s issue with Tamlin but here for The Night Court’s third in command it was just swept under the rug). But really. What was Morrigan’s extraordinary indomitable might everyone feared? Because if she had all that power that even the King of Hybern had seen in Acomaf and was in awe of then what was she waiting for? Why didn’t ANYONE had a strategy here? Why didn’t she used it? She was an awesome kickass fighter but so were all the soldiers that fought out there. What made her so different? They got to the point where they were losing the war and we didn’t see Morrigan being THE Morrigan. Morrigan that is centuries old. Morrigan that had fought in wars and was actually fighting in that one too. The Morrigan you know. Really…I couldn’t believe what I was reading or what I wasn’t reading for that matter.

In the end, everyone had an idea (usually wacky and stupid) and were like let us do that. Sure Jan. Go for it. It is not as if there is anyone taking charge and actually leading.

And do not get me started on how everyone was stopping in the middle of the battle to frigging CHAT! Like are you kidding me? Go and gossip and babble in your free time you idiots! 

Like seriously! It was no wonder that Elain was able to freely and easily take a walk through the battlefield and stab the King. No one else would have been able to do it anyway. It was not just the element of surprise. It was basic incompetence. From all sides concerned.

Not to mention that their half-assed master plan with the cauldron almost destroyed the world/universe because you know they were so clever about it. Which showed in the way they handled themselves in the war and in the whole book really. I mean I shouldn’t have expected much from the people that had as a great plan to show their ‘true’ selves instead of their ridiculous asshole facade and not stay calm in one meeting and couldn’t do that. And while they couldn’t decide with their mean girl invitations where they would meet and what they would wear the King of Hybern ‘ambushed them’ and acted faster which was such a surprise and such a twist.Who would have thought? Right? Riiiiight.

And then the actual war came and …sigh…

I kid you not I kept reading and for the most part when I was not rolling my eyes I was like…morons. 

That sentiment has not really gone away tbh. And that is not even me talking about the other parts of the book that made me salty like the OOC and the suicide pacts and the nonsense in general.