#i opened my ask box back up and this is the shenaniganry i'm welcomed to

[separatist-apologist]

Do you think Elain is a coward?

LOL???

NO?

God, okay, this is going to be long but no, I don't think Elain is a coward. I think Elain displays a lot of courage and bravery throughout the series, even when she's afraid and would have every right to do even less than she does. And like always, I can prove it. Below the cut because this became way too long:

Starting in ACOTAR, consider:

When Feyre returns from Spring and is talking with Elain in the garden, Elain is ready to leave everything she knows behind and is asking Feyre if she'd like to go with her (page 256)

"You should come with me," Elain went on. "Nesta won't go, because she says she doesn't want to risk the sea crossing, but you and I...Oh, we'd have fun, wouldn't we?

I'm not always sure I agree with Feyre's assessment that she had less strength than Elain in the next moment because I think Feyre had to do a lot of horrible things that Elain did not, which sucked the joy out of Feyre's life. However Feyre's allowed to think whatever she wants, and this is what she thinks about Elain on page 260:

"I gazed again at that sad, dark house- the place that had been a prison. Elain had said she missed it, and I wondered what she saw when she looked at the cottage. If she beheld not a prison but a shelter- a shelter from the world that had possessed so little good, but she tried to find it anyway, even if it had seemed foolish and useless to me.

She had looked at that cottage with hope; I had looked at it with nothing but hatred. And I knew which one of us had been stronger."

Again, when Feyre is ready to go, Elain is practical and ready to help, even though I think she's both sad and scared (page 270):

"Elain, to my surprise, had a horse, a sachel of food, and supplies ready when I hurried down the stairs. My father was nowhere in sight. But Elain threw her arms around me, and, holding tightly, said, "I remember- I remember all of it now."

I wrapped my arms around her. "Be on your guard. All of you."

You get a better sense of Elain's courage in ACOMAF, starting on page 248 when her newly made sister and three enormous warriors show up on her doorstep and ask for help. Feyre describes them as "wild and rough and ancient (250), and Elain and Nesta are afraid of the Fae and have been their whole lives:

"'Nesta,' Elain said again, twisting her hands. "If...if we do not help Feyre, there won't be a wedding. Even Lord Nolan's battlements and all his men, couldn't save me from...from them." Nesta didn't so much as flinch. Elain pushed. "We keep it secret- we send the servants away. With the spring approaching, they'll be glad to go home. And if Feyre needs to be in and out for meetings, she'll send word ahead, and we'll clear them out. Make up excuses to send them on holidays. Father won't be back until the summer anyway. No one will know." She put a hand on Nesta's knee, the purple of my sister's gown nearly swallowing up the ivory hand. "Feyre gave and gave- for years. Let us now help her. Help...others."

They're afraid, Feyre can smell it on 253:

My sisters did not curtsy. Their hearts wildly pounded, even Nesta's, and the tang of their terror coated my tongue-

Here is Elain, on 256, owning her part in Feyre's neglect which is the opposite of cowardice because all through this scene she is visibly afraid. She's trembling, her voice is described as a rasp, and she's gripping her knife so tightly Feyre wonders if she might use it as a weapon. A coward would have let Nesta take all the blame:

"And as for Ferye's hunting during those years, it was not Nesta's neglect alone that is to blame. We were scared, and had received no training, and everything had been taken, and we failed her. Both of us."

I can't not share my favorite line ever, on 389:

And it was Elain- Elain- who sighed and murmured, "I hope they all burn in hell."

I think what is highlighted for me in ACOMAF is that if Elain is the coward hiding behind the most powerful person's skirts, and she values power as a way to stay small/unharmed, then Elain would defer to the people she feels has power. Her fiance, with his battlement, her elder sister who runs her household. She could have gone to Graysen and hid behind his walls the minute she saw Rhys/Az/Cassian and who would have blamed her? And instead she conceals from her Fae hating fiance that she's helping them because she views this as working for the greater good and repaying Feyre for years of perceived neglect. And she argues with Nesta to continue helping them, even when Nesta is saying no. Consistently Elain is described as the kind of person who could convince someone to do something with a smile and a few kind words which implies she has learned how to get the things she needs through a combination negotiation, flattery, and perhaps a little manipulation if it suits her. What use are any of those things to a coward? Why not have Nesta do all of that for her?

On page 549, Feyre even acknowledge how strange it is that Elain is there when she could be under Graysen's protection:

"Does my sisters' presence here not speak to you? There is an iron engagement ring upon my sister's finger-and ye here she stands with us."

Elain seemed to be fighting the urge to tuck her hand behind the skirts of her pale pink and blue dress, but stayed tall while the queens surveyed her.

"I would say that it is proof of her idiocy," the golden one sneered, "to be engaged to a Fae-hating man....and to risk the match by associating with you."

That doesn't look like cowardice to me. That looks like courage, that looks like risking everything in service of the greater good, and it even looks a little like shame that she's wearing that iron ring which is a symbol of her and her fiance's prejudice in the face of her Fae sister who I believe Elain does love.

Rhys offers to take Nesta and Elain to Velaris for protection in the face of war and the queens acknowledgement they're leaving the humans to suffer. Rhys, the most powerfully magic man in existence and if Elain values power so much and is such a coward, surely she goes? (555)

Elain swallowed, a doe caught in a snare. "I-I can't. I..."

But she could, and she chooses not to.

Which leads, of course, to her own tragedy. Elain who gives up safety in Velaris for love, finds herself kidnapped and shoved into a Cauldron. Gagged by strangers, and knowing she's going to drown and probably die, Elain still manages this moment on 602:

My sisters were shrieking over their gags. But Elain's cry- a warning. A warning to-

My right, now exposed. Tamlin ran for me. To grab me at last. I hurled a knife at him- as hard as I could.

So now she's traumatized, and I think Elain get's too much unfair criticism for how she handles it. She's never going to be loud, or a warrior and she's not girlbossing her way through it. She is the thing she's always feared and yet, with war coming, Elain is pushing it aside for the moment to think about others (ACOWAR, 470):

Then Elain said quietly, We could move them to Graysen's estate."

And while I think she desperately wants to see him, this is still an act of courage to consider that they would be safe. I also think Elain knows quite well Graysen is not going to accept her as she is now, and still she hopes he will, hopes enough to agree to see him when hiding away and quietly mourning would have been emotionally safer.

Feyre even tells her, on 471,

"This could end very badly, Elain."

She brushed her thumb over the iron-and-diamond engagement ring. "It's already ended badly. Now it's just a matter of deciding how we meet the consequences."

Not the worldview of a coward, but I digress.

On 492, before Graysen, the love of her mortal life, and his terrifying Fae hating father, she says:

"Graysen, I've come to beg you..." A pleading glance at his father. "Both of you...Open your gates to any humans who can get here. To families. With the wall down...We-they believe...There is not enough time for an evacuation. The queens will not send aid from the continent. But here-they might stand a chance."

Up to this point, Elain and Graysen are just staring at each other while Nesta and Feyre speak. Elain could have let them continue but they know her best, they've liked/loved her up until they realize what she is, and she knows it. She has to be the one to ask, and so she does.

And God she risks so much. Between 498-499:

"You belong to him."

"I belong to no one. But my heart belongs to you."

Elain, willing to damn convention and immortality to be with the man she loves.

"Take that ring off."

Elain's fingers curved into firsts. "No."

Elain in the war is endless courage, despite having no tools to defend herself. After Nesta's scrying causes the Cauldron to lure Elain away as punishment, Elain risks her own life to get out a human when a coward would have looked the other way and risked nothing that put them in danger. On 577:

"Grab onto him!" Elain ordered the wide-eyed human girl as Azriel thundered toward her. The girl looked like a doe about to be run down by a wolf.

The girl did not open her arms as they neared.

Elain screamed a her, "If you want to live, do it now!"

Elain holds the entire time, keeping her from slipping and dying.

Elain, on 610, when the violence is unavoidable and Azriel offers her his knife:

"I -I don't know how to use it-" And of course, Elain, who tells Azriel she doesn't know how to use a weapon, who could have hid (and might have been smart to do so) while everyone else fought, does this (653):

But as a blade broke through the king's throat, spraying blood, I realized someone else had.

Elain stepped out of a shadow behind him, and rammed Truth-Teller to the hilt through the back of the king's neck as she snarled in his ear, "Don't you touch my sister."

On 655, I love this moment because Elain is truly Cauldron-blessed in that this sentient cooking pot made of ancient, godly magic, loves her and wants to protect her/gift her things. Nesta makes herself into a God, but I think Elain could have been made one, too, had she the inclination. The Cauldron certainly had the will:

The Cauldron seemed to realize what she'd done, too, as his head thumped to the mossy ground. That Elain...Elain had defended this thief. Elain, who it had gifted with such powers, found her so lovely it wanted to give her something...It would not harm Elain, even in its hunt to reclaim what had been taken.

I like this moment because the argument that Elain aligns herself with power implies that whatever/whoever is most powerful would be a draw for her, and yet consistently, Elain eschews that to protect the people she loves, which includes Nesta. It is revisionist history and willful misinterpretation of the text to suggest Elain does not love Nesta because when she comes for Hybern, who has bested EVERYONE at that final last hour, and is poised to kill her sister, there is no reason for her to think her plan will work or that she, too, won't die. And still she comes. She still tries. The last words Hybern ever hears are a defense of Nesta. Don't touch her.

God this is so long. I think Elain gets labeled a coward in part because of what happens in ACOSF- she didn't stand up against the IC, so she's a coward because Nesta would have never let them take her up there, but Elain spends a good portion of ACOFAS trying to coax Nesta out, and then offering Nesta space in equal measure when it's clear Nesta wants to be alone. I'm not going to argue whether the intervention was good (I have made posts about my problems with this before, so go right and spare me your anger), only that Nesta was spiraling and I don't think Elain abandoned her out of cowardice, but a desperate hope to help her sister.

And Elain has never enjoyed the coddling, no matter how she benefitted from it. In ACOSF, we see her pushing back when Elain is offering to scry on Nesta's behalf. Nesta doesn't WANT to scry but Elain DOES (232)

"Absolutely not," Nesta spat, fingers curling at her sides. "Absolutely not."

"Why?" Elain demanded. "Shall I end to my little garden forever?"

When Nesta flinched, Elain said, "You can't have it both ways. You cannot resent my decision to lead a small, quiet life while also refusing to let me do anything greater."

I think this moment says so much about how Nesta views herself and what she's worth to people more than anything else. Elain is offering Nesta an out- I will do this because I want to (Feyre states it Elain's choice and still Nesta is saying no), and you don't have to. Nesta can't let her, because she can't risk Elain and Nesta is in such a bad place (and I think she was way before she was made, which only amplified it), that to her, she's the expendable one. She can get hurt, she can be the shield because who would miss her? Who would value her if she didn't? That doesn't make her view true, but it does offer insight into their relationship over the last few books, and it makes Nesta all. the more tragic.

But it doesn't make Elain a coward, either.

Infamous passage on page 580:

And he knew the cruelty of Hewn City troubled her. But she hadn't hesitated to come. When Feyre had offered to let her remain home, Elain had squared her shoulders and declared hat she was part of this court- and would do whatever was needed.

Anyway. This has gotten away from me. Elain is a lot of things, but cowardly is not one of them. Elain gets a lot of shit for being quiet (which someone makes her devoid of a personality- but Azriel is brooding and mysterious and the fandom's sexy, shippable boyfriend like yeah okay) and for internalizing her trauma, but she consistently shows up for her sisters every time it matters, often at the expense of herself. I don't think Elain is drawn to power, nor do I think she's a coward hiding behind whoever can keep her safest. I think Elain is in stasis, partly because her time hasn't come for a narrative but also because she doesn't know where she fits anymore. She has no clear, defined purpose and so she's looking for one.

Also, this is a SJM book. Nesta likes the IC by the end of it and idk why people think Elain wouldn't, too. Feyre, Nesta, and Elain love each other even if you don't so like. I don't know man.