#has he been informed by informants that say to him if Illyrian women getting clipped or not

[lainalit]

As long as I don't get a detailed description of how Rhysand executes the wing clipping ban I will not believe that it is enforced or upheld sry🤷‍♀️

[nestable]

Feminism in ACOTAR

(This is a bit long so bare with me)

As a politics student and general member of the public who's curious about feminist themes, I've read a lot of feminist writings which have informed my opinion in saying that none of the acotar books can be described as feminist.

I've noticed that the big motivator behind describing the books as feminist is feyres appointment of High lady. Though that may be pivotal in prythian history, we cant ignore the fact that it is still a fairly patriachal society. Having a few women in places of power like mor, amren, feyre etc. Is not enough because women don't grow up on an island and are also influenced by patriachal views or mindsets. In short, just because someone is a woman and is in a position of power, doesnt mean that they will cater to the needs of women or are feminist. Women, especially white women(this is important because sjms writes white feminism) have often gotten into positions of power and actually ignored women and done the same that their male predecessors have done and often threw other women under the bus in order to retain their tokenism status. And the main flaw of white feminism which is the reason why it coined the term 'white feminism' is that it doesnt encompass all the intersectionalities that women reside in and only focus on a western model of what it means to be a woman and anything outside of that is backward and 'barbaric. We see this in the judgement and disregarding of POC's experiences and outlooks on life because they are different to theirs. There are more than enough examples of the white women in the series judging the illyrians which are seen by the fandom as POC's and how they maliciously drag their customs through the mud. Instead of getting these views from illyrian women themselves, we get them from white women who arent connected to that culture whatsoever and who have nothing to say except judgement and critique instead of actually helping.

We see this with the white characters views of illyrian cultures and their conclusion of the condition of women without even having a single conversation with illyrian women. Illyrian women in this set up have no agency and no voice and that leaves the women of the IC to speak for them which is counterproductive. This is wrong in that many western cultures have misinterpreted different cultures and ignored the women in those societies as being disenfranchised and have used this as an excuse to invade and colonize under the guise of liberating women when in actual fact they dont care about the women at all, and are only concerned in reaping the benefits of that culture and keeping them under their control. An example of this is rhys ignoring the treatment of illyrian women but reaping the benefit of having illyrians fight in his wars.

Feyre as high lady

It's unfair to judge feyres actions as high lady as yet because we've barely seen her act, but from the little that we know, she follows Rhys' every action and decision without question. And rhys hasn't done anything for the improvement of women's position socially or economically at all (we all know the state of the illyrian camps) in all the 500 yrs he's been high lord. Apart from Rhys, the inner circle has 2 women in the highest leadership positions and even they havent done anything and have even ignored the plight of women under their jurisdiction, (mor with Hewn city) I dont even think amren cares about anything besides her jewels tbh. So it's fair to assume that feyre will follow in those very footsteps. She already has biased and low views on the illyrians and people who reside in hewn city to the point where she participates in the 'pimp and whore' act that she puts on t deal with them. And we've never seen her speak to illyrian women so to her their voices and autonomy dont matter.

Male feminism in the IC

The only male who can be seen as being feminist in the series is Cassian because aside from simply declaring that wing clipping is illegal, he actually does the ground work to ensure it doesn't happen by offering the women to train with him. Though this is a weak cure for the issues the women face in Illyria, it's a start and far more work than anything the other characters have done in the name of women empowerment.

Another so called feminist figure in the series is rhysand. Why he's described as such defeats me, but I'll go through some points to prove that hes nothing of the sort.

1. He created a library for sexual assault survivors.

Though this is a nice effort, it can't be described as feminism because he doesnt extend the same courtesy to the other women in his territory and is only concerned with women in Velaris. Supporting women who worship you isnt feminism isnt feminism either and we know that the entirety of Velaris see the IC as blameless gods. Based on mors history, its obvious that the women in hewn city are suffering just as much if not more but hes forsaken them to live under mors parents/abusers rule. And creating a safe house for sexual assault survivors isnt as much feminism as it is human decency. Especially considering how much money hes got.

2. Banning illyrian wing clipping

Wing clipping is still a pandemic in the illyrian camps meaning that he didnt put enough provisions to ensure that it stops. Passing a law and ensuring that it is followed are two different things and rhys clearly dowsnt know the distinction. An additional point regarding illyrian women is that it was mentioned in acofas that they were joining the men in rebelling, and if that doesnt say anything about their feelings with him being high lord and how he doesnt cater to them, then I dont know what does. This also speaks to the point of the assumption that women of color dont have agency in their own societies. He said something like the men 'manipulated' the women into joining their rebellion, which insinuates that they can't think for themselves and are completely voiceless and this is a factor of whit feminism, the belief that WOC colour cant speak for themselves and are meek and susetable to being controlled or manipulated. It is a huge possibility that the women can't really express their opinions because they are suppressed by their men, however we dont see rhys interacting with any women and getting their opinion on things. He assumes that they are forced into everything and though we havent gotten the book yet I'm gonna say this is false. The reason being if rhys was such a good high lord and cared for women's issues, why would the women side with their 'abusive' men instead of their so called benevolent high lord?

3. Rhys appointed women in his IC

First of all, appointing women based on merit and qualifications is feminism, not appointing family members and you underaged bride just because 'you love her'. Though mor and amren may be qualified, and that's a massive 'maybe', they haven't done anything to improve the lives of women. Like their high lord they are complacent and Hewn city and illyria are more than enough to prove this. What rhys has essentially done is nepotism and corruption and no one can convince me otherwise.

Going further on the inner circle women, rhys was willing to sacrifice these very women to achieve his goal and this is self serving and anti feminist. The first being abusing feyre UTM and then using her as bait for the attor, then later making a deal with eris even though he knows his history with mor. If anyone believes that these actions are remotely feminist or excusable, then feminism is not for you and need help because its abusive and patriachal.

In conclusion rhys isnt feminist, mor isnt feminist, amren isnt feminist, feyre isnt feminist, azriel isnt even in the conversation and cassian is the only one scratching the surface. Also, white feminism is an exclusive and limited way to portray and execute feminism, women getting leadership positions based on their proximity to men just advances the false notion that women can only succeed if they 'sleep' their way to the top and just because a woman is in a leadership space, thag doesnt make that state of affairs inherently feminist because women are also carriers of patriarchy.

I tried to sum up my points but for more on white feminism, feminist intersectionalites and how being female doesnt make a person feminist, I advice you read Bell Hooks' writings because she touches on these topics in far better ways than I can.

[hellacioushag]

Since you believe Gwynriel is the next book can I ask how you see this playing out? I know you claimed Azriel will need to deal with his Illyrian issues, but how would that possibly tie into the Koschei plot?

i may have some gwynriel/acotar5 headcanons. there’s a lot so i’m only going to go into how i could see gwynriel and illyrians subplot start and how it could weave into the bigger koschei plot:

az and the necklace drama will all come out during nessian’s mating ceremony when elain notices the necklace gwyn is wearing. elain confronts az about it in private, but gwyn and emerie overhear when they are drunkenly giggling about emerie’s failed flirtation with mor. gwyn takes off the necklace, walks into the room, and drops it onto the floor in front of az. she turns to elain and asks her to dance with her. gwyn, elain, and emerie spend the rest of the night drinking and dancing while az is left feeling like the idiot he is.

gwyn and az have not spoken to each other since that night. he tried to pull her aside during training, but she has ignored him and focused solely on mastering new fighting techniques. nesta and emerie, however, send him regular death glares when they catch him looking at her.

it’s been about 2 months since the nessian mating ceremony. emerie has been dealing with bullshit illyrians angry about her winning the blood rite and now has heard rumors of some tribes in the mountains talking about clipping wings again and possibly aligning themselves with beron (koschei by default). she takes this information to cassian and he, azriel, and rhys discuss the threat/loss of control. they agree that control of illyrians is already shaky enough that they can’t start accusing them of breaking the law/treason without proof. rhys tasks azriel with spying in illyria to find the decenters. they decide to use valkyrie recruiting as a way to explain their presence so emerie is asked to join az.

emerie explains to nesta and gwyn about what rhys asked her to do. she talks about being terrified because she may have to face the trauma of losing her wings again if she sees more women like her being forced into having them clipped. she talks about how her family may even be part of it and if they are she doesn’t know how she will handle it. nesta offers to go with her, to be there as support, but emerie reminds her that she and cassian are supposed to be working with eris to find out beron’s plans and discover how to use the dread trove against koschei. gwyn realizes she doesn’t have that excuse and wants to offer to be support to emerie, but is still scared about leaving the library. she’s only just managed to face walking around velaris with nesta and emerie, but to go into illyria still frightens her. nesta and emerie never mention gwyn joining which makes her feel guilty because of how understanding they are. 

while in the library gwyn runs into mor, who was visiting with clotho. they get to talking and gwyn confides in mor about emerie and wanting to be there to support her having to face her fears, but she’s terrified. mor talks about how she used to be consumed with terror when she had to interact with the court of nightmares, but she remembered that she’s now their nightmare. she holds the power over them now. she says she found strength in her friends and knows that with them by her side she can face any nightmares they throw at her. gwyn realizes she has that same sense of love with nesta and emerie and, inspired by mor, decides to join emerie so they both can face their fears together. mor decides she wants to be there for emerie as well so she talks to rhys and convinces him to let her join in the mission. that with her and the valkyries distracting the illyrians azriel will have a better chance of spying on them and getting the information he needs to squash any decenters and rebellions.  

these are just headcanons. i don’t claim this is logical or will ever happen. just that it would be super nice to see not just gwynriel with the illyrians, but also have it heavily feature emerie and mor too. i think it would be a pretty easy leap for illyrians to be “seduced” by beron considering they have similar ideas of power and women. and with him trying to recruit some illyrian soldiers he could be trying to go through some powerful lords in the area, like azirel’s father...? 

[moltazia]

A court of silver flames plot rewrite

Plot doctor. SPOILERS!!!

ok so i really dislike the latest ACOTAR book, it really undercut the illyrians as cool warriors and the achievements of rhys, cas and azriel for reaching the mountain. Really 3 people whos trained for a year is alot better than people whos trained their whole life?? it also really ignored Nestas actuall skillset and seemed to try and make her feyre 2.0. in this feyre is also very much not pregnant. that whole plotline deserves its own book and since they said they wanted to wait i think it can happen 50 years into the future or something rather than the immidiate next book from the one saying they wanted to wait. also no attempted rape tacked on plot or 3 objects everyone just forgot about. if i was to do a rewrite of the plot beats and settings of the book it would go something like this:

we move it so nesta actually moves to the illyrian camp full time for her intervention. with how the human society is structured this fits her better than velaris with the more strict and defined gender roles, we can explore here how in a way she is quite alike to illyrians. cassian is frustrated that she is not on his side when it comes to training women. we see flashbacks of her life and how it was beaten into her by her parents and everyone around her that it was mens job to care for women and it was horrible and unsightly if a woman tried to do anything on her own or push to hard for something with physical force.

she helps with the womens chores but are also confronted with the ones who want more out of life and they ask her why she thinks why shouldnt they be allowed. not all women will suddenly be trained, just the ones who want to. she comes around. she makes friends with the female shop keeper, she really likes the idea of being in control of making and having her own money. flashback to the cottage, her frustration with her father for not fulfillinf the role of provider and leader he was "supposed to" and her not being able to bring herlsef to chop the wood because it will ruin her hands, hands she was told to take care of because it was a sign she was a lady. her admiration for feyre for bringing them food but that first instinct to shun her for not being feminine or adhering to her role is very strong. she doesnt know how to handle it.

life in camp settles into a routine a bit, she sees cassian caring for his people and being a gentle person, she finds this very admirable and thirts a bit. sexism being directed at her, now that shes settled in with the women well the other illyrians have started to regard her as "just another woman" she gets angry and it becomes a bigger spat. she gets some approving comment from the more outspoken women who wants to train. she asks cassian to show her some basic defense moves.

she sees a wing clipping when cassian is gone to inspect some other camt´p and she tries to intervene she cant do anything since shes too weak and illyrians are stone hard super warriors. she makes the bargain with Cassian this time its for protection if another spat happends and so through the bargain she could summon him.

the evil queen attacks the camp with autumn court soldiers. its a disaster and alot of people die. since it was made clear they were soley after nesta she gets blamed for the attack in the high emotions after when people find their loved ones dead. she cant stay in the camp any longer.

cassian and her leaves for the court of nightmares, meeting up with the gang and Eris to discuss whats happened.(before eris arrives it is tense between her and feyre, fyre tries to hug her after hearing what happened and nest cant stand to ahve someone be kind to her after feeling like shes to blame and shrugs her off) it is agreed since nesta is a mostly neutral person to the rest of the courts and the one most trained in court manners she will be the one to go with Eris back to the autumn court to investigate. cassian will come with her as her personal guard. as the queens sister it is not something off about that arrangement. to give a reason for her to visit the autumn court they decide to fake a romance between eris and nesta. same ballroom scene as in the book.

longer flashback of nestas life right before poverty, shes the ultimate mean girl and a social butterfly, switching masks to be different people to different artistocrats with ease. shes admired and she holds high society in her small lace gloved hand. they arrive in the autumn court. she gets a "low" faerie assigned to her as a handmaiden. she has a audience with Beron and his wife.

Eris is a much better mirror for nesta than cassian. he is the same as her in many regards, growing up in a strict role. missing a step in the social dance can mean death (symbolically for nesta growing up, real here). putting on an uncaring mask to not show how intensly you care is a big theme in this part. Eris and Nesta are great at playing "the game" toghether and cassian as her silent bodyguard grows to admire her slyness and how great an actress she is, manipulating the courtiers to giving information and making accurate conclusions from their clothes and manners ("we can pressure X person to do this, their clothes are a season old and they are doing their own hair because its messier in the back where they cant see it in the mirror, this means they cant afford a hand maid anymore. give them a bribe and they will do anythign" etc). she and eris starts growing a friendship of two people who see alot of themselves in eachther.

they are figuring out the evil queen, but some moves from the enemy doesnt make sense, theres a third player in this game they realise (death god lake dude). the trio have become comfortable with each other and are hanging out and putting together their intel and gossip. Nesta becomes friends with her handmaiden. this helps break down her elitist and class barriers in her head a bit. while feyre has her painting it is to messy for nesta when she tried it.  but shes always loved clothes (we can see a bit of it in the first book even), she starts putting her own touch on dresses throughout the book and starts designing her own even. we can see how many in the court she has won over to her, cassians and eris´s side by what courtiers copy details from her designs.

she makes her handmaiden some nice outfits. we can also learn what nesta likes about herself here, in the dresses she designs: what does she emphasize, what does she hide? while she probably has a whole range of outfits to make her look anything from innocent to evil queen what does she wear when shes just "nesta"?  Feyre once remarked she hated her eyes because they reminded her of her mother and nesta. does nesta feel the same way or does she like her eyes for just the same reason? combat training with cassian continues in secret. some fun wrestling or close combat fighting flirting. she reflects on the fact that while she "let loose" in velaris and slept around she would never sleep with him casually, she knows it would mean somethign and she wouldnt be able to brush it off if she did. he asks her to teach him something aswell or explain some etiquette thing. idk, poin is that they are learning from eachother and admire each others strenghts. she says to him she thinks hes very brave to never masks his feelings but notes it leaves him open to manipulation easily. he asks back if shes then thinks herself a coward for always masking herself. conversation started out nice but turns sour.

Autumn court outing, she and cassian makes up and she opens up to him about her and feyres realtionship. we can also maybe get some more background on why shes so protective of elain here, as someone whos described to be so beautiful and charming i dont buy its because someone was like once mean to her. elain would have been popular in her own right.

she and eris ride together and jokes and such, he makes some halfjoking remark about cassian maybe and she defends him. they talk about family pressures and parental figures who are very imposing and bossy while the other is passive (something they have in common) eris lets down his guard a bit and talks about how he doesnt want to be like that, he doesnt want his future partner to be trapped in the same situation either. she talks about how she never really thought about how married life would be like growing up, everythign was about getting married. the after wasnt something discussed. she thinks about if she would ever want a family, she probably assumed she would have children one day (it was expected) but the only thing she can imagine is a perfect child like she was. she starts being afraid of if she has children she would turn into her mother. she has a quick image of cassian as a dad with a smiling little girl in his arms.

throughout this whole thing nesta is writing letters to the night court, it is expected since shes the high ladys sister and since they are surely read they use it to throw suspicion in the wrong places to beron about what she sees and suspects. but as she writes and recieves back letters and she reflects and improves on who she is, her letters become more heartfelt. doing some work to improve their relationship a bit. in her dresses she starts sewing in hidden pockets. Cassian gifts her a dagger, saying he thinks she will be able to be marginally more dangerous to others than herself by now with it. she makes a special hidden pocket for it and always has it on her.

the trio finds out who in the autumn court is the death gods agent and kidnaps them. azriel comes by to get information through torture but the agent does not break. Nesta goes in and through playing a perfect balance between caring and arrogant she gets the agent to slip up and give them a clue about where they will strike next, what they are after. Azriel is impressed, notes she is a a great interrogator and would make a great spy for him. he also notes to cassian about how shes changed alot since he saw her last. more focused and balanced in herself. Eris notes how she reminds him of Amarantha from the first book before she betrayed everyone and cassian gets mad he would say something like that. back and forth but and eris notes how "a knife is a knife, its about how its wielded." and pointing out that just because a person was an enemy on the battlefield doesnt mean he couldnt admire a skilled warrior. and so likening her to amarantha was a compliment. cassian huffily agrees and sees their, to his mind, more boring socialite nights with a new eye. same revelation as in the original book when nesta read battlefield books and saw how like it was to a court but for cassian instead.

the clue from the death gods agent leads them to trying to go after the mcguffin under the guise of a romantic trip. think a bunch of weapons hidden in a picknic basket. Handmaiden comes along to make it look real. on the perilous trip they all work together and and finally gets it, on the way back to bring the macguffin to meet up with nighcourt gang so amren can study it, they get attacked by the queens cronies again. Eris has the mcguffin and the handmaiden on his horse and rides off, making the smart decision to first and foremost get it out of the enemies reach and try and lure them off cassian and nesta. it doesnt work. the evil queen is overcome by her hatred for nesta and order her soldier after her instead of the mcguffin. nestas had some training but cant hold off soldiers whos trained for centuries and gets taken. she sees cassian being overwhelmed but still trying to get to her. she invokes the bargain of favour they made to force him to abandon her. they share a long look before he is forced by the bargain to fulfill her wish.

Eris and Cassian meets up the NC gang and they are besides themselves. a rescue mission is put toghether. Feyre insists on coming "she came for me, trying to pass the wall". handmaiden stays with azriel and amren.

Nesta wakes up in The evil queens castle. we get some one on one talks with the villain. we get insight into her motivations and why she valued her youth so much. we get to see how Nesta used to also think the most valuable thing about herself was how well she could appeal to others and the power that gave in a society wich was designed to make her powerless. she now finds it a bit sad and reflects on how much she values her new friendships and how cassian would probably still like her even if she wasnt traditionally beautiful anymore. The Villain starts draining her blood bathory style to get her youth back. agents of the deathgod comes and makes her stop before Nesta dies. he has bigger plans for her. Evil Queen looses her shit at not getting to kill her.

we see eris, feyre, and cass making plans for how to get in and rescue Nesta. some heart to heart between feyre and Cas about his feelings for Nesta and how hes holding off on showing her them. He talks about how hes seen alot get thrown at her. he talks about how she havent gotten to choose alot in her life and so in a way he hates the bond because he himself realises that that is yet another thing she havent gottent to choose. feyre wonders if nesta thinks he isnt attracted to her. that she thinks cassian only said what he said in the heat of the moment on the battefield. Cassian is dumbstruck by how anyone could not be attracted to nesta.

Evil queen comes by to taunt nesta in her cell. they exchange barbs and she lies and says she killed "her warrior" to mess with her. Nesta doesnt believe her but still gets anxious. has a twinge of doubt anyones goign to rescue her. elaine has always been with her when things go bad and a part of her thinks they only got rescued because of her since everyone loves elaine and now when its just her will they still come?

shes to be transported somwhere by the evil deathgods cronies and the evil queen is accommpanying them. the rescue trio sees them leaving. their whole plan on infiltration flies out the window and they have to move quick. Feyre uses her shape shifting to look human and makes herself bait. running at the caravan of nestas captors when theyve left the city (a castle usually have a city around it) screaming theres fae attacking from there pointing to the right as eris and cass attack from the completely opposite side. in the chaos nesta gets loose and starts running for the trees evil queen blindly pursue her and tries to kill her. with her arms free she grabbs the hidden dagger from her dress and kills the queen in self defense. the rescue trio finds her and they all go back to Night Court.

the book concludes with her and cassian having a heart to heart about how he was so worried he would loose her again and she admitting how she certainly feels somethign for him but she wants to take it slow. (her being terrified of showing her true raw feelings have yet to be resolved. her admitting this much is a big step forward for her) and they have a super smoldery kiss.

end of book. sets up evil lake dude as big baddie, nesta gets to have her own skillset instead of being yet another warrior and next book can build on the change illyrian culture regarding women plot aswell. and makes the sex have some build up.

this whole thing was of course just my personal opinion, and an impulsive plot and theme re-write. rant over.

[ritamordio19]

The Idea of a Love Triangle in ACOTAR 4.0 vs. Nessian

So I’ve been much more active in the last two days on my Tumblr than I have since like....well, ever, to be honest (considering this is my first post), and I’ve been seeing a lot of mentions of a possible love triangle between Cassian and Nesta/Emerie, which I heavily disagree with, so I wanted to dissect Cassian’s character quite a bit in this post. I won’t touch Nesta’s character since, as much as I love her, I don’t think I could possibly do a better job than rhysand-vs-rowan did on the one reblog I have on my wall (seriously, read that one too; it’s amazing!!).  But Cassian is just as important (and real) to me as Nesta, and I think people don’t realize quite how large his main character trait drives his actions, which is to say: He has to help every female character in distress. And it’s true.  He literally cannot help himself whenever there is a woman in any type of problematic situation, which I factor largely due to how his own mother was treated when he was a young child and the helplessness he felt at that time when he couldn’t stop her from being killed. Now I’m not saying this is a character “flaw” per se-- he certainly does quite extraordinary deeds at times, sometimes at great personal cost, to help out these various women in his life -- but it isn’t really a choice for him and can cause serious emotional exhaustion for him when he’s overburdened (often the case when dealing with the Illyrian camps).  I see a helper’s complex in him where he can’t feel complete or satisfied as long as he knows a woman is burdened, causing emotional drainage until he’s fixed the issue. The reason I bring this up is because people are looking at how Azriel or [especially] Rhysand treat women they love/have romantic interest in and saying “Cassian treats X girl this way too, therefore there might be a love triangle.”  But they’re not comparable situations.  Rhysand --only-- put in the amount of effort he put in with Feyre because she was Feyre.  You do not see him draining himself to the bone to help Nesta now, and you did not see him draining himself to the bone to help Elain earlier either.  At best, he offered them positions in his court, a very low-energy offering, and he left almost all of the grunt work to Cassian, Azriel, and Feyre.  This is not to say he doesn’t -care- about their pain, but he is not the type to go out of his way to help while he’s busy being High Lord.  He is much more of a passive resource, available to help if asked for, which Elain only uses to a small extent and Nesta is incapable of using (as it would require her to ask for help, something she is currently not capable of and possibly/probably does not believe she deserves at the moment, with the amount of trauma she is dealing with). Azriel we have less information on, but he puts exactly zero work into helping Nesta, while putting in a noticeably larger effort with Elain.  And were Morrigan to ever have another traumatic event, it is almost assured that Azriel would be there for her as well. Cassian, on the other hand, has been like this with every woman he has encountered in the story who has been hurt, regardless of [lack of] romantic interest.  He put in emotional work with Feyre during their initial training, and he constantly, CONSTANTLY fights for the rights of Illyrian women to remain unclipped and holds these rights and their rights to be trained as his #1 and #2 priorities when in Illyrian camps during non-war times.  In addition, while he admits doing so due to jealousy and claims he regrets it, I don’t think he truly would reverse his decision to sleep with Morrigan if that decision had come five years ago instead of 500 years ago.  I do strongly believe that, even with age/wisdom/”maturity”, he would’ve risked sacrificing his friendship with Azriel to save her from a life in the Autumn Court with who he believed Eris to be (who Eris truly is?), not having advance knowledge of what her parents would do to her. Yes, he has gone overboard emotionally with Nesta as a result of his interest in her, mainly in terms of their mutual verbal jabbing, but remember this really crucial line, when Cassian realizes she’d been sexually assaulted, from their small story in the back covers of ACOMAF:

“She hadn’t answered him.  ‘Would it change anything if someone had?  Would it make you see me differently, treat me differently?’

‘It’d make me hunt them down and shatter every bone in their body.’ A shiver went down her spine -- not at the fear of him, but at the truth in the promise.  The sincerity. ‘You don’t know me,’ she said.  ‘Why bother?’ Cassian snarled, inching closer, his hand gripping hers -- then paused.  As if the question sunk in.  As if reality sunk in.  He blinked.  ‘I’d do it for anyone.’ She knew he meant it -- and that he would.”

In terms of him acting as the protector/helper figure that he is, he would go to the ends of the earth for anyone.  So the pain he feels at Emerie’s wings being clipped, the anger he feels that the entire village is ignoring her store because a female Illyrian is running it -- that would’ve been the same for any female he encountered. In fact, he demonstrates the same exact internal dialogue/speech with Emerie that he does with literally any female character in the cast other than Nesta.  While he may make comparisons to Nesta, these are still passive thoughts from his first impression of a new face (and daughter of an old friend), and they have no emotional baggage or romantic obsessiveness behind them. I want you to compare this to his attitude towards Nesta, far different than with any other member of the cast.  In their first and second meetings, he has a very low view of her due to her treatment of Feyre and insults her [protecting Feyre], earning a fairly large backlash from her as well.  Importantly, at no point does he see her in any way as vulnerable or burdened until he finds out her past trauma from sexual assault in their second meeting.  He doesn’t know about her starving herself (and by proxy her other sisters) in order to try to force her father to do something and the subsequent guilt she faces.  He doesn’t know about the trauma she faced watching her mother die.  He doesn’t know about Tomas until mid-second meeting.  He doesn’t even know about her loneliness/feeling of madness at being the only one to know the truth in their entire household in the midst of Tamlin’s glimmer on their household.  He doesn’t know how she braved the forest for weeks in order to try to rescue Feyre.  Yet, importantly, he says this in his inner monologue before meeting her the second time to deliver Rhysand’s message:

“Cassian surveyed the estate, the muddy, thawing grounds, the distant village, and looming, budding forest.  He’d left their first encounter not entirely sure where he’d stood, or who’d had the upper hand.  And, Mother damn him, in the past few weeks, he’d found himself turning over every word and look he’d exchanged with her, over and over.

None of it had been pleasant, every syllable from her mouth barbed and vicious, and...Cassian huffed a breath, hot tendrils ripping away in the wind.  He couldn’t tell what was worse: that he’d thought so much about it, or that he’d run here so damn fast.  And was now...dawdling.

The thought sent him into a swift, reckless dive for the green-roofed estate.

Nesta is the only character in the entire series that Cassian feels this way towards.  She is the only character who gets under his skin -- Emerie included. And remember, this started from their first meeting, whereas his meeting with Emerie was the very definition of platonic, even as he felt the need to solve her shop’s financial crisis.  Seriously, could you imagine the following:

He’d had lovers, some for a night and some for months, and Mor had never cared, but...

This woman standing before him like a pillar of steel and flame...Cassian didn’t want to tell Mor about her.  About how he’d touched her neck.

...being said about any other female character in the series, even Emerie?  Cassian would likely help any woman in distress the way he helps Nesta, but would he freak out about them, constantly replaying their conversations in his head?  Would he find himself drawn, time and time again, to any other woman that he views with as much disdain as he did Nesta in their early days?  He literally calls her a bitch at least three times in their second meeting alone, and that’s not counting the large number of other insults he sends her way, whether stated out loud or not, all with full intent.

Conclusion

Now, I will temper my comments to a small degree at the end here, which is that, despite being a huge Nessian shipper, I do think it is possible that they do not end up together despite believing, without a doubt in my mind, that they are mates.  I just do not think that this would ever be due to Cassian’s end, which is what an Emerie love triangle would entail.  

On the other hand, Nesta is dealing with quite heavy emotional trauma post-war, and she is [very understandably] pissed off that literally everyone sees her as Cassian’s.  She is free to do whatever she wants, and she may choose to take her own path as Cassian (and the rest of the Court) reminds her too much of the reasoning for various aspects of her trauma (the Cauldron, the war, her father dying).  And that is absolutely okay -- she has the right to make her own choice, even if it isn’t Cassian, even if the person she chooses isn’t her mate (are you hearing me Feyre about Elain?????).

But I 100,000% believe with my entire heart that Cassian would rather go single another 500 years than ever give his heart to anyone but her. Thanks for reading my way-too-long comments on Cassian.  Let me know if you agree/disagree -- I’d be interested to know why the love triangle theorists believe Emerie to be in play for Cassian’s emotions and am open to having my mind changed.  Until then, I’m straight Nessian trash though~~.