#because when rhysand does the same it's viewed as loving or sweet or protective or romantic or whatever instead
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Alright cause SOMEBODY had to say it and it might as well be me:
A lot of people sound like ACOMAF!Tamlin in their defense of Feyre's character trajectory in ACOSF. "Feyre needs to rest. She's done enough for everyone else! She shouldn't have to work hard anymore. Let her be a stay at home mom!"
Why is that, I wonder? 🤨
Y'all I have an ACOTAR hot take that the Feysand girlies are REALLY gonna hate.
#it adds to my theory that people don't really hate tamlin's actions/thought process they just hate that HE was the one doing them#because when rhysand does the same it's viewed as loving or sweet or protective or romantic or whatever instead#of correctly labelling it dismissive of what feyre wants#like Rhysand should've sat down and talked with her about the gravity of actually bringing a child into this world and the amount of WORK#it takes to be a mother instead of treating a child like a freaking present and trying for a child with no further discussion#like realistically either nyx is left with a bunch of babysitters all the time or feyre gives up her job to care for him because i don't#think rhysand can just drop being high lord and be a stay at home dad given he was chosen by magic and whatnot#so if rhysand really truly respected feyre as his equal and 'high lady' he would've talked with her about how a child would change#their dynamic and potentially make her lose the job she wanted so badly. its clear she didn't really think through#the ramifications of motherhood and how it'd affect her job but rhysand capitalizes on this lack of foresight#and JUMPS at the chance to immediately have a child#and the stans JUMP at it too. which again confirms that if it was rhysand in acomaf floating around the#'you've done so much now let me take care of you while you rest and lets have babies' sentiment despite feyre's protests#the stans would be swooning for it#its just because it was tamlin saying it that these people were able to notice that that attitude doesn't take into account her wants#and her future plans both political and personal#i hope i've articulated this correctly#anti acomaf#anti acosf#anti acotar
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I don’t know who needs to hear this, but...
y’all need to accept the fact that ALL of these characters are and can be horrible people. This is not anti post, this is a let characters be morally grey post. They’re flawed, accept that already.
I’m tired of seeing posts like but--but Nesta-- But Nesta what? We already know what her flaws are. They’ve been highlighted from day one. They’ve been acknowledged by every character including herself. They have never once been excused, nor empathized with though she needed that severely. She has made friends and no friends by being the way she is. She has made friends who understand her, and has a family who doesn’t understand her. Friends who take into account that she has been through horrible things, and a family who has not. A family who in her own POV has left her behind, because they did. I said this about Feyre, I’ll say this about Nesta, if in a POV someone says someone wronged them THEY DID. But she is not easy, and sometimes not nice. We know this, we accept this. I stan her for this because emotion often is not beautiful, but stop pointing out her flaws like we don’t know. We all know! We also know that she was aggressive for a reason, she was hateful for a reason, she was in a very low place, and she deserved healing and better, unjudgmental treatment by other people which she didn’t get. She helped in a war, she tried to get Feyre back, she talked to the High lord, advocated for the humans, showed she cared for Cassian in ACOWAR, etc, too. We know her perspective is biased and she’s never once been excused for her mistakes, but other character’s are not treated like Nesta is (like Lucien is, Like Eris is, Like Jurian is).
So, let me go through the ways that all of these characters are imperfect and that you just have to accept as a reader. Okay? Okay.
Elain is not going to be you’re pretty little doll that has done nothing wrong, because she has and she should. Elain was not a good character in ACOTAR, just as much as Nesta was not a good character. Elain does sometimes seem a bit oblivious to what is going on around her. Elain may be very nice and pleasant but that is and will not be all she is. She is allowed to make mistakes and she should be held accountable if she does. When she doesn’t do too much (because she doesn’t) or when she is not very helpful (whether by plot or by Feyre/Nesta’s POV-whether that is noted or not), we can be like okay, she’s in a bad way, because she was, she’s healing herself. But don’t be a hypocrite and please don’t make her victim of other people. Her narrative right now is that “Nesta coddles her,” but we already know that blame game. We’ve seen it in Nesta’s own POV. No one is in charge of anyone’s actions but themselves. If she wants to help, she can. Stop saying the IC won’t let her or Nesta won’t let her, if Elain wanted to help she can. She will find a way... or at least put her foot down, which we’ve already seen she can do. If Elain wanted to reject the bond right then with Lucien, she could, but she doesn’t. And, If Nesta says she wasn’t there and she chose Feyre (no matter how skewed that perspective is), and Elain shows in Nesta’s POV that she didn’t show empathy either to Nesta or even love in a way that Nesta could see, or try to understand where she was coming from vocally in the scenes she was featured in regardless of whether she was capable or not of helping Nesta (because she didn’t (i.e scene in library, the treatment spiel, and the “did feyre pay you?”, and also never being around while Nesta was there, but also ACOSF when she took a drink like she couldn’t handle the situation, and then laughed like nothing at all was wrong)) then she wasn’t there for her. She’s a complex character just as everyone else. Let her be a complex character! Flaws are not bad, please stop trying to negate flaws like they shouldn’t exist. She’s great and she stabbed the King of Hybern to protect her sisters, she let the fae into her home, and she chooses to be kind in a world that’s not very kind to people like her, and she’s got a whole lot of story to tell, but she’s a normal character not a disney princess. She’s not close to anyone. Why? That’s not anyone else’s predicament except her own. Neither is her life nor her actions. Okay?
Mor can be loved because she was very supportive to Feyre in Feyre’s POV, understood because she is the first LGBT character in this book and she lives in a world it seems where she has to hide who she is, and we as readers understand that she has been through also horrible things. However, this does not negate the fact that she is a horrible person sometimes, to both her friends and people outside of their little group. She was not good to Nesta on SEVERAL occasions, even when Nesta was not bad to Mor. This weird love-triangle kept happening because she didn’t want to just admit that she didn’t like Azriel romantically, whatever the reason was. She’s a complex character. Hate her/Like her, but acknowledge that no matter what you choose, she has fucking flaws.
I see posts sometimes about how people don’t understand where this Rhysand came from, like “he’s so awful in ACOSF, SJM did this to make Nesta look better.” What? He’s been a dick always. He’s just not a dick to Feyre but that could be argued as well really. We as readers can acknowledge though that he like all the rest have gone through horrible things, and though the horrible things he has done are not excused (i.e. murdering children, killing people, his court still having so many problems and their solution being lets go to Vallahan, putting up an evil front to just keep people in line, not instilling any action to help those who need it or not treating people like subject who depend on him as a ruler regardless of whether he likes them or not (i.e the Hewn City/Illyria)) we acknowledge that he can be understood at the same time that he is also a hypocrite. Generally he’s not bad on an individual basis. but he’s not “good!” He’s morally grey. As they all are, but because he’s a ruler, he should be 10x more responsible for all of these problems and for all of his flaws.
Azriel is a sweetheart and sometimes he’s understanding, and doesn’t seem judgmental. But he’s a psycho! I’m sorry. He’s got a lot of things to work through, I mean. We acknowledge that he has been through HORRIFYING things, but we also should not neglect the fact that he’s a creep and he tortures people on a regular basis. There’s no reason he should have had that insane long infatuation with Mor and now seems to have one with Elain. We understand why he does this, psychologically, but it does not excuse him for making Mor uncomfortable for 500+ years. Take all of him or none of him.
Cassian. I love Cassian, but he does not think before he speaks, he does have his head up the IC’s ass, and he’s does not connect dots very well. He’s sweet and he’s supportive, and I have less of a problem with him than some other characters, but!!!! He’s got flaws and those are not bad. Those do not make him unlovable, but he’s got them and they’re not going away.
Feyre has this same issue. She does what she needs to, she’s loving, she gives people a chance, and yes she was there when people needed her, she has also suffered a good amount, but Feyre’s suffering has been acknowledged by everyone. It has been given voice to, it has been reflected in empathy by every single character even when Feyre herself has not been a great character. She tends to be very one-sided in things, as in her own view is the only one that exists (though that’s everyone of them really as we’ve seen, there’s no nuance there) but she’s also not very emotionally intelligent and she does get into everyone’s business, when she should probably let people do their own thing (this has been her trait forever since ACOMAF I think). But she should also take more of a stance to be a ruler, because unfortunately she has that responsibility, and she should hold Rhys more accountable for the actions he does. It should not be a “let’s have sex and all is well” sort of situation. She’s a very biased perspective, but so are all of them. But she’s not perfect and we should never feel that she is. She is not the light of heaven that has glorified Prythrian, she is just an average human-to-fae girl trying to live. She deserves love, yes, but not more than anyone else and loving her should not mean hating other people, which this fandom and the book have a hard time realizing.
Amren... sigh... I don’t like her too much but for the thread I’ll continue. Amren is probably the only reason anything gets done, realistically, because at least she’s always thinking about the logistics of things. She’s horribly rude, and doesn’t seem to care about anyone’s opinion, but she’s 15000 years old or what not. Emotions probably have to be beneath her at that point, but that doesn’t mean I have to love her, and that doesn’t mean she’s an unflawed characters. She’s very flawed and I think that’s acknowledged but I don’t think any character has really held her accountable for being who she is, they brush it off and are like “Amren’s Amren.” But she’s morally grey for sure, getting to be a darker shade if you ask me (i.e Tyrant Amren). But I acknowledge that even though I hate her, she’s not ALWAYS horrible.
I don’t know what it is, maybe it is the narratives insistence that the IC are good that makes everyone go off their rocker, but my god, I think I would love all of these character’s more if there wasn’t this insistence that they’re the “good guys” and just have them make mistakes, have them eat their mistakes equally, and have them move on, learn to do better, maybe fuck up again. That’s life lol that’s interesting, morally grey characters. But I write this post not to say they’re all horrible, but to say that it is unnecessary to point out the flaws of other characters in defense of another one. They’re all horrible. Acknowledge it, breathe it in, love them or hate them anyway, but know (whispers for dramatic effect) they’re all horrible. And that’s okay, because that is not all they are.
Have a good day.
#nesta archeron#cassian#feyre acheron#elain archeron#rhysand#mor#azriel#amren#acosf#acotar#acofas#acomaf#acowar
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What did you think of Elain in Acowar? Most people did not care for her or condemned her as they did with Nesta but claim that she was useless and a waste of space.
Well Elain is not one of my most favorite characters in the books to be honest probably because we hardly saw her character in depth in the trilogy so far and the whole concept of her being too pure and sweet and too good and overly angelically beautiful to the point that even the Cauldron cherished and singled her out is not very enticing to me as a concept. However it is the same very beauty and even naivety that creates a facade when it comes to Elain’s characterization and many readers are unable to see past that. I admit I did that too at times where she was concerned. Something that I realized while I was reading ACOWAR and frankly it might sound odd but somehow I think that if you pay close attention the book actually did her justice. In retrospect Elain Archeron is one of the characters I appreciated the most in the Court of Wings and Ruin despite her almost silent presence. And if you have been lurking around my blog then you must already know that I had many issues with ACOWAR in general but I digress.
And to be honest Elain might not be my most favorite character in the books but she earned my respect for many reasons. And that as a character and not as an extension of Nesta and Feyre or of the Archeron sisters.
In fact even though that Elain in theory has the elements that can create a Mary Sue type of character in reality she is not one. Elain is not the typical YA heroine even if she is presented under the spotlight of pureness and perfection.
Elain I think is the polar opposite of Nesta and people other condemn characters like Elain or simply ignore their presence all together. Elain is the proper lady. The sweet girl with dreams of marriage and of having a good social standing. The thing is that unfortunately we are not used to have a great anad diverse variety of female characters in fiction. And when we do those that attract us have a certain form. Either they are characters like Feyre or are a limited number of characters like Nesta. Either we are talking about women that are badass and a statement for feminism. Warriors, outspoken women, martyrs, perfect, angry, a token of sexuality or a statement for diversity. And yes we do need these characters but on the other hand we have forgotten something very important. Yes, fantasizing about strong women is always great and I am all for it. I am advocate of it really.
But women can be strong and important even if they are silent. Even if the cry. Even if they care to find love and create a family. Even if their achievements are to cook and clean clothes and wear a wedding dress and knit and be proper. Women can come in all sort of forms. They can be loud, the can be silent. They can smile and they can yell. They can be angry and they can be sweet. They can be self sacrificing and they can be selfish. And there is nothing wrong with a woman that does not want to save the world and only wants to create a stable environment for herself and achieve a good marriage. Those are goals that should be a choice for women and we should not shame such characters for their needs and label them as useless because in truth they are not. They are just different from how fiction portrays women and ‘heroes’. For example we are seeing stories set in past eras and we expect every character to fall in line with the feminism aspects we have set in the western society of this age. And yet even in this time there are women that have different dreams too. And we should support these women too and in fiction we should also see more portraits of these women too.
Like we see period dramas and we always pay more attention to the girl that is different and does not want to fall in line with what society expects from her and while that is commendable (albeit not always that realistic despite being constantly repeated in books, shows and movies) we should also pay attention to women that conform to society’s rules too. That are girly. That have less of ‘epic’ dreams that are not easily attained. Women that are happy with doing the house chores or getting a husband (even without love in the equation) or caring for their household and their clothes and their dinner and balls and gossip too.
And here we have Elain that is collection of traits that people scoff upon and yet she could very easily be the girl of the next door.
Yes. Elain had been immature in the past and has not treated Feyre very right but she has apologized for it and regretted it and tried to make amends. Which shows that Elain is not a ‘perfect’ as she is presented in ACOWAR. She is not as bad of a sister people actually make her to be either (remember the paints she gave Feyre and how she apologized). And she hates poverty and not everyone rises to the occasion every single time and not ideals are meant to be altruistic and noble. Some people have just different more grounded and personal goals.
Elain is very beautiful but that beauty makes people not pay attention to who she actually is and they define her character only by the standards of her beauty. They fail to see how misguided she had been and in her attempt to find her knight in the shining armor and how lost she became in her perfect fairytale that was not real but it was still forcibly taken away from her. She was left without choice and while people chose to say that she was useless in the third book they choose to ignore that Elain Archeron was depressed.
That was her character progression in ACOWAR and for me it was one of the hardest parts of the book. Everyone expected Elain’s story to focus on romance. With Lucien and even Azriel and her former fiance. But I was so thankful that it basically didn’t. We got something different from Elain.
Aside from the gift she got from Cauldron that messed with her head her whole story was a brutal parallel of people that have severe depression and mental issues.
Elain was unable to get out of her room. She could barely get out of her bed. She starved away. She could not handle the light. She barely ate. She was in a constant haze. She hated her new body (her body period). People could not understand her. They saw her as strange. Her beauty was objectified by many. Even those that loved her treated her as if she was made from glass. She was unable to communicate. She was fragile and strong but people only saw her fragility. She was depressed to the point of not being able to function. Surely anyone that has lived through something like that could see it. The world could be burning around Elain and she could barely lift her head from the pillow. She would stare at the void. She was losing herself in an imaginary world. People did not know how to act around her. She was not normal. She was broken. She was damaged. She didn’t smile. She barely spoke. She was lost.
How many times people are battling with depression and others say hey it is all in your head. Get out of bed you are just being lazy. Why can’t you be like the other normal people. You are useless. You are doing nothing all day. You are fine you just like the attention.
Yes it is all very nice to see character in fiction that are able to fly and part the oceans and move mountains but what about those that can’t? Not all people are born to become heroes and saviors. Not all people are able to take care themselves without fail. There are people out there that have social anxiety, depression, are bipolar, are afraid. There are people out there with simple dreams. With fears. With the kind of anxiety that brings them to their knees and in those moments it is a struggle to even get out of bed. Some people fall down when they face heartache. When their heart gets broken. When they do not know what to do tomorrow and they can’t see past today. When they see no future. When their reality gets distorted.
And yet Elain managed to smile in the end. She battled depression and was able at times to get out of bed and bake bread and get out in the garden. In her old world she would become the trophy wife and then she was thrown to another world (to which she grew up viewing it with prejudice and fear) that magically decided that an unknown Fae male was declared to be her mate. No matter how good of a person Lucien is the fact that Elain out of all people rose to the occasion and declared that she belonged to no one but herself was admirable.
For many fans Elain might be useless. Yes she is not Feyre or Morrigan. She is not Nesta or Amren. She is not part of the close Inner Circle. She is kind and modest and shy. She does not like tight clothes or showing skin. She does not curse. She has ladylike manners and wants simple things as getting a man to love her and care for her and have kids and a family and she wants also things that others would consider selfish and shallow but are reasonable for living a good life like money and a social status and in certain worlds like the one the ACOTAR series presented those can be achieved by marriage and men (and if you pay close attention then for what Elain is shamed all others are praised for… because every crown and gown Feyre wore was given to her by Rhysand and originally by Tamlin that restored her family’s fortune too..but hey…Feyre won’t be judged for that).
Elain was unable to yield a sword and was unable to fight in the war but Elain is the kind of person that heroes want to protect. Why shame the very same characters that are the heroes’ noble causes. Because the heroes and the saviors fight so to save something. They fight so to protect civilians. They fight to protect children. They fight to protect the mothers and the old people and all those that are not trained for war. They fight for people like Elain and if we frown down to these people then we are really not getting the point of what drives a hero and we only stand to the superficial occasional badassery and we miss the point these kind of books try to make.
Elain despite her depression in the end she battled her own inner demons and went into the battlefield on her own to save her sister. Yes maybe this does not seem as something important to many but for Elain it was a breakthrough. She got up. She made a step and then another. She protected Nesta and saved her sister and Cassian. When Azriel got her from Hybern’s camp she fought in his arms so to save the other human girl and keep the beasts away. She kicked and yelled and held tight because…she wanted to live. That was the important thing. That Elain found the will to live again. Every step was a struggle and she took those hard steps. Yes based to what other impossible tasks other characters could do hers seem like baby steps but for a person with depression those are huge. It is the light in the end of the tunnel. Hope in a personal battle that never ends.
Later on Elain survived the war and lost her father. She lost her old life. She was left with uncertainty and wounds and the scars of depression. She mourned and in the end all she wanted was to make more gardens because the world needed them. That line alone had so much depth and was so important not only for Elain but for the whole book and as a message.
In the end all that pain and loss and ache and they made her…kind. Say what you want about Elain Archeron but people that manage to remain kind and share innocence and smiles and see the world as beautiful even after going through hell are very few and rare and this is why the world has more bombs and less gardens to be honest.
#Elain#Elain Archeron#Acotar#Acomaf#Acowar#a court of wings and ruin#honestly she was one of the few things the last book did right#tw: depression#female representation in fiction#Anonymous#look at me writing huge metas for elain out of all people#lol#someone take the keyboard from my hands
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