I’m shamelessly plugging my new Fantasy Romance serial in the intro to an unrelated post. Join the new Patreon tier or my Ream page , or read it on Kindle Vella.
As promised, I’m importing the A Court of Thorns and Roses recaps here from Patreon. These were originally written beginning in August of 2020, so there will be references to upcoming or seasonal events that won’t fit with our current timeline. I am not a time traveler and you’ll never be able to prove that I am. I will also include editors notes like this every now and then as we go, mostly to amuse myself but to give re-read value to those who’ve already been on this awful, awful journey with me.
Is anyone else here old? Does anyone else remember the “Reading is FUNdamental” posters in our classrooms?
I remember the AP English teacher had one of David Bowie. I always felt like I belonged in that class because I loved books and I loved Bowie, but alas. I was a special ed kid.
Anyway, it’s time for Feyre’s second task.
I’m going to gloss over a lot of repetition in this part. Please don’t hate me. It’s just that it’s what should be a quick, tight, tense scene, but the author stretched it out for nearly an entire chapter.
And if you think that means the pacing of this chapter sucks all the excitement out of it… you’re in exactly the right place. Welcome, friend.
The scene opens in a room that’s not the throne room, it’s smaller than the throne room.
It had no decorations, save for its gilded walls, and no furniture; the queen herself only sat on a carved wooden chair, Tamlin standing behind her.
It had no decorations, except for the fact that the walls are COVERED IN GOLD and there was no furniture EXCEPT FOR THIS FURNITURE.
Didn’t Fifty Shades of Grey have a lot of that going on, too? Something would be “opulent” but then described as being like, super sleek and modern and stark? I feel like that happened, and frankly, I’m starting to understand why people called this Fifty Shades with faeries. The stories aren’t alike at all, but the heroines are obnoxious, everyone thinks they’re smart and amazing when they’re annoying and as bland as unsalted chicken bone broth, plus we get stuff like, “down there” and “this thing was this way, except for that it wasn’t.”
Amarantha announces that Feyre’s second trial is here.
Within the ring, Jurian’s eye turned—turned to face me, its pupil dilating in the dim light.
I feel like I’m being subjected to some A Clockwork Orange-style aversion torture because my stomach roiled—roiled when I saw that em-dash.
Amarantha asks Feyre if she’s solved the riddle yet, and everyone laughs at Feyre because she hasn’t solved the riddle yet and frankly, Feyre, you deserve to be laughed at.
There’s more of the standard Feyre-stares-down-Amarantha-because-Strong-Female-Character, followed by:
But I dared a glance at my High Lord, and found his eyes hard upon me. If I could just hold him, feel his skin for just a moment—smell him, hear him say my name …
WHY THE EM-DASH?!
Amarantha gets jealous that Feyre and Tamlin made eye contact, so she starts the task. The floor sinks into a big pit. Under the Mountain is just riddled with pits. Is it because of the worms?
Some faeries cackled, but I found Tamlin’s stare again and held it until I was lowered so far down that his face disappeared beyond the edge.
And then Rose jumped back on the Titanic.
This pit is all polished and tidy, and there’s a big iron grate bisecting it. On the other side of the grate, Lucien is chained down to the floor for… reasons. I don’t get it, but maybe you will understand as we go on.
The faeries all start betting on whether or not she’ll win, and Amarantha explains that all Feyre has to do is pick the right lever for this puzzle and she wins. And the other two levers will lead to instant doom, via a set of red hot grates in the ceiling that are slowly descending toward her.
I whirled to Lucien. That was the reason for the gate cleaving the chamber in two—so I would have to watch as he splattered beneath, just as I myself was squashed.
I’m not sure that does explain the grate, Feyre. It just seems like an unnecessary step, if you’re both going to get squashed. Why not just, you know. Throw you both in there. Why the chains and metal bars? ed.—In hindsight, it’s because he could help her with the trial. But like…just one of those would do. Both is still overkill.
The spikes, which had been supporting candles and torches, glowed red—and even from a distance, I could see the heat rippling off them.
So, there are people crowded around this hole, and this giant, near-molten set of spikes is slowly descending in front of them? And let’s go back to the gilded walls. Gold melts at like two-thousand degrees and it takes at least a thousand to make iron glow, right? I think? So this is a huge slab of super-heated iron that somehow had candles on it? Is that right? In a room with gold walls? Just a giant, one thousand degrees heating element hanging in there, not melting anything?
Lucien wrenched at his chains. This would not be a clean death.
I don’t know why that line made me laugh, but it did.
A lengthy inscription was carved into its smooth surface, and beneath it were three stone levers with the numbers I, II, and III engraved above them.
The Roman numerals got me, too. I can’t figure out what it is that tickles me so much about them. Like, it’s fantasy, right? It’s not like every fantasy novel has to have entirely different number systems and shit. But somehow, the idea that Feyre is illiterate but still can read Roman numerals as numbers tickles me. As does imagining that maybe this whole fantasy world is here but also there’s Italy. Not fantasy-equivalent Italy. I want to believe that Italy just happened in the ACOTAR cinematic universe. No faeries, no magic powers, just pasta and Catholics as far as the eye can see.
I recognized only basic words—useless ones like the and but and went.
Well, that explains the em-dashes, doesn’t it?
The spiked grate was still descending, now level with Amarantha’s head, and would soon shut off any chance I stood of getting out of this pit.
…what about Lucien? Like, is the plan to get out of the pit and leave him to get smashed?
The heat from the glowing iron already smothered me, sweat starting to bead at my temples.
Keep this sentence in the back of your mind, please.
Feyre is like, who told Amarantha I couldn’t read and I’m thinking…maybe the guy who steals your thoughts?
“Something wrong?” She raised an eyebrow. I snapped my attention to the inscription, keeping my breathing as steady as I could. She hadn’t mentioned reading as an issue—she would have mocked me more if she’d known about my illiteracy. Fate—a cruel, vicious twist of fate.
I mean, I suppose it’s possible that Amarantha doesn’t know about the reading thing. She does, however, know that riddles aren’t Feyre’s strong suit because Feyre didn’t immediately get the answer to that painfully easy riddle earlier. She’s probably assuming Feyre will pull the wrong lever, release the grates, and the whole thing will be over.
Lucien is too far away to read the puzzle on the wall, which I guess explains the grates but not the chains and vice versa. One of them is just overkill. ed.—Oh, I see I did eventually get there. Good for me.
Feyre does point out that Lucien has an “enhanced metal eye,” which answers a question I didn’t really have. I don’t remember Lucien’s eye ever having enhanced capabilities. And if it did, he doesn’t seem to have used them in any part of the plot that was memorable. It makes more sense for him to not have a super-enhanced eye because Amarantha was the one who gave it to him. Why give your enemies more power? That doesn’t make sense.
Feyre alternates thoughts of how she’s going to be smashed with despair over not being able to read the puzzle.
The air became thick and stank of metal—not magic but burning, unforgiving steel creeping toward me, inch by inch.
Is it steel or is it iron? ed.—This is an even more important question because since writing these recaps, I’ve learned that it takes around 1500 degrees to cause steel to glow. Yet, again, candles are on this thing. And the walls aren’t affected.
Lucien decides to be helpful by shouting at the person who can’t read and is panicking.
Through the holes in the grate, I thought I saw Lucien’s eldest brother chuckle. Hot—so unbearably hot.
Weird time to get horny, Feyre.
She tries to sound out the words of the riddle. Words like “grasshopper” and “bouncing,” give her enormous trouble despite the fact that she was reading and writing words like “conflagration” earlier in this book. But as you already know, what happened before doesn’t matter. That was the then times.
Feyre decides to leave it up to a mix of chance and fate. Instead of reading what sounds like a story problem, she decides to assign moral values to the numbers? I guess?
Two. Two was a lucky number, because that was like Tamlin and me—just two people. One had to be bad, because one was like Amarantha, or the Attor—solitary beings. One was a nasty number, and three was too much—it was three sisters crammed into a tiny cottage, hating each other until they choked on it, until it poisoned them.
What in the Doreen Virtue did I just read?
Also, Feyre, I hate to poke holes in your numerology here, but Amarantha lives in a mountain fortress with hundreds of people who are not allowed to leave and who have to party with her every single night for idk, eternity? How long do these people live? Anyway, she’s not a solitary being. Not in the very least.
Feyre decides that this near-incoherent ramble has something to do with being desperate enough to believe in the Cauldron, so she’s going with lever two:
I reached for the second lever, but a blinding pain racked my hand before I could touch the stone. I hissed, withdrawing. I opened my palm to reveal the slitted eye tattooed there. It narrowed. I had to be hallucinating.
By the way, the grate is still descending, it’s still hot, and it’s only six feet away.
I again reached for the middle lever, but the pain paralyzed my fingers.
The eye had returned to its usual state. I extended my hand toward the first lever. Again, pain.
So, it’s not the first lever, then, huh? We’re all on the same page with that?
I reached for the third lever. No pain. My fingers met with stone, and I looked up to find the grate not four feet from my head. Through it, I found a star-flecked violet gaze.
Through your head?
Obviously, the third lever is the right one. Feyre can just pull the lever.
I reached for the first lever. Pain. But when I reached for the third lever …
FEYRE. Pull the fucking lever. It’s so obvious that Rhysand is giving you the answer.
The spikes were so enormous up close. All I had to do was lift my arm above my head and I’d burn the flesh off my hands.
Then perhaps you should PULL THE FUCKING LEVER.
I shook so badly I could scarcely stand. The heat of the spikes bore down on me.
The stone lever was cool in my hand.
Then may I humbly suggest you PULL THE FUCKING LEVER.
I shut my eyes, unable to look at Tamlin, bracing myself for the impact and the agony, and pulled the third lever.
Good job, Feyre, but I’m curious to know how you could see Tamlin, anyway, when you already told us that you locked eyes with him or whatever while you descended until you couldn’t see him anymore.
Silly Jenny, it doesn’t matter if it makes sense. It only matters that it’s dramatic.
But yeah, the grate stops moving because Feyre beat the task. It goes back up to the ceiling and the floor of the pit brings them back up.
Tears burned just before pain seared through my left arm. I would never beat the third task. I would never free Tamlin, or his people. The pain shot through my bones again, and through my increasing hysteria, I heard words inside my head that stopped me short.
Were the words, “Bitch, nothing hurt you?” Because those are the words I’m thinking. There wasn’t any injury or anything, she doesn’t talk about getting burned at any time, and now she’s in such horrible physical shape for apparently no reason?
And what’s this bullshit about how she’s not going to win the next task? She knows now that Rhysand is going to help her.
Oh, and if you’re keeping track, Feyre has yet to beat any of the challenges without help from someone else.
Strong. Capable. Constantly rescued. Feyre is… KICK-ASS HEROINE.
Wouldn’t that be the most boring movie ever?
Feyre is so strong and independent, in fact, that she relies totally on Rhysand communicating with her telepathically to instruct her on what to do next. He has to tell her to stand up and even forces her body to stand “not entirely of my own will,” because she’s just so broken and sad about not being able to read. Rhysand coaches Feyre through an epic staredown and on how to walk away until she’s taken back to her cell.
After a section break, we arrive at Unearned Pity Junction.
I wept for hours. For myself, for Tamlin, for the fact that I should be dead and had somehow survived. I cried for everything I’d lost, every injury I’d ever received, every wound—physical or otherwise. I cried for that trivial part of me, once so full of color and light—now hollow and dark and empty.
…what part are you talking about? I know you said “that trivial part” but like… which part is that? There are so many parts about you that I find useless.
She’d won; it was only by cheating that I’d survived.
Is this the first time you’re realizing that? You didn’t have this crisis when Lucien warned you about the worm, saving your life in the first challenge. You didn’t mind when Rhysand sorted those lentils and Lucien’s mom made the water bucket clean. Now you’re concerned about cheating?
The walls closed in—the ceiling dropped. I wanted to be crushed; I wanted to be snuffed out.
I would love that for you, Feyre.
Rhysand shows up in the middle of Feyre’s panic attack and is like, uh, you’re not dead, why are you crying?
I wept harder, and he laughed. The stones reverberated as he knelt before me, and though I tried to fight him, his grip was firm as he grasped my wrists and pried my hands from my face.
Why did the stones reverberate? How heavy and/or metal is Rhysand?
While Feyre struggles to escape him, Rhysand does this:
I pulled away, but his hands were like shackles. I could do nothing as his mouth met with my cheek, and he licked away a tear. His tongue was hot against my skin, so startling that I couldn’t move as he licked away another path of salt water, and then another. My body went taut and loose all at once and I burned, even as chills shuddered along my limbs. It was only when his tongue danced along the damp edges of my lashes that I jerked back.
This dude is literally just licking her fucking face and she’s like, oh no, no, no, YES YES YES.
Oh, and he’s super pleased with how uncomfortable she is:
He chuckled as I scrambled for the corner of the cell. I wiped my face as I glared at him.
He smirked, sitting down against a wall. “I figured that would get you to stop crying.”
Well, as long as you have a reason, I guess it’s not GROSS AS FUCK TO LICK ON SOMEONE’S FACE.
Feyre tells him that was disgusting. Because licking someone’s face and eyes while they struggle to get away from you is, you know. Disgusting.
“Was it?” He quirked an eyebrow and pointed to his palm—to the place where my tattoo would be. “Beneath all your pride and stubbornness, I could have sworn I detected something that felt differently. Interesting.”
Mystical sexy bonds are 100% my trope. I love it so much. If I’m writing a book with any kind of fantasy in it at all, you’re gonna find telepathic links and soul bonds and destiny and all that shit. I eat it up. And if I’m reading a book and there are fated mates and shit in it? I am THERE.
Except in this book, because Feyre is basically enslaved to him at this point. She’s tattooed to show that she’s his property, he’s free to drug her and force her to sexually humiliate herself in front of an audience every night, he literally owns one week per month of her life. Now, he’s able to tell her that her “no” really means “yes.” There is zero way Feyre is ever going to be able to have a consensual relationship with this, the character she will end up with in book three, I think.
For example:
It was bad enough that my life was forfeited to this Fae lord—but to have a bond where he could now freely read my thoughts and feelings and communicate …
I’m just saying, this trope gets done a lot better by a lot more authors who never once stop and go, you know what would make this even better? If the heroine experiencing it was enslaved and had no recourse to consent in any situation.
Rhysand makes fun of Feyre for not being able to read and when she calls him a bastard he’s like:
“I’ll have to ask Tamlin if this kind of flattery won his heart.” He groaned as he stood, a soft, deep-throated noise that traveled along my bones. His eyes met with mine, and he smiled slowly. I exposed my teeth, almost hissing.
First of all, he makes a middle-aged person noise when standing and it’s supposed to be sexy? I am a middle-aged person and I don’t find making noise when you stand sexy. It’s just a reminder of my mortality. But I wanna zoom in here on the whole exposed teeth thing. Imagine what that looks like. Imagine what it would look like if someone bared their teeth at you and almost hissed. Go do it in a mirror.
It looks ridiculous, right?
He paused by the door, but didn’t dissolve into darkness. “I’ve been thinking of ways to torment you when you come to my court. I’m wondering: Will assigning you to learn to read be as painful as it looked today?”
This is the endgame love interest mocking the heroine for being illiterate.
Maybe Maas thought that nobody would care about how fucking terrible that is because people who can’t read wouldn’t see this and get offended?
It doesn’t matter, though, because Feyre realizes that all she really needs to get by is to be demeaned by a man:
It took me a while to realize that Rhysand, whether he knew it or not, had effectively kept me from shattering completely.
Yay. It’s a bully “romance”.
We’ve got a bully romance, everyone.
Let me see if I’m getting this straight. Tamlin is a horrible terrible monster until he keeps showing her his claws and nearly rapes her. Rhys is a horrible terrible monster until he keeps showing his teeth and licks her? This girl has got some oddly specific kinks.
Was this the turning point, where Fayray starts to see Rhys as her Twu Luv? Because he licked her, and got up like an old man, groaning and bearing his teeth in the effort?
Poor Lucien, once again thrown under the bus because Fayray is too busy thinking about herself and getting to her hot boyfriend than anything else in the world.
I am old and remember Reading is FUNdimental. But I have a feeling reading this book was more dimental than fun.
Yeah, poor Lucien, holy shit. Beaten and unable to move for days, then chained in a death trap and relying on this idiot to somehow save him. What even was the point of putting him down there? Amarantha had to know more than one fairy is helping her AND she doesn’t like… bat an eyelash at Rhysand just pulling her out of her cell and bringing her to the throne room for a fucking week.
god I wish Wingless Wonder had survived to comfort Lucien alongside Lucien’s mom whose name I forget if it was ever mentioned. fuck. Maybe Lucien had a premonition that Feyre would get his ass into this horrible mess and that’s why he tried to get her killed before. Ugh.
Some authors who put their characters in situations designed to exploit character weaknesses will put effort into figuring out how those characters can overcome those challenges using strengths they DO have, Lol what a waste of time when CHEATING is right there!
“somehow survived”
SOMEHOW. With the amount of indecision involved, I’m pretty sure everyone in the stands knows one of the usual suspects was helping. even without having it narrated to them (twice, since Feeree is so slow on the uptake). Those were not the observable actions of a problem-solving genius.
When they pulled her out of the pit, Queen Pretty But Not THAT Pretty should have called her bluff. “You’ve figured out a solution that’s been stumping my enemies for a bazillion years. REGALE US WITH YOUR THOUGHT PROCESS, O BRILLIANT ONE!”
I would have loved to see the look on QPBNTP’s face when Fayray went into the whole: Well, since Tam and I are two people, and you are one person and some shit about my horrible sisters meaning 3 sucks, I was going to pull 2 but it burned so I decided to go with 1 because even though you have shown willingness to flay innocent humans for fun, you’re still better than my awful family, but that one burned too so I went with terrible, awful 3 because it was the only one my delicate hands, I mean, my tough and fearless hands could actually touch. But I wasn’t help, nope, not at all. Did it all by myself. Yep.
Queen Evil might have just offed her then and there, just to put us all out of our misery.
I do not, do not understand the appeal of stories like this where the FMC is supposed to be brave and resourceful but never actually accomplishes things on her own. And like you pointed out, Feyre being devastated by having to rely on outside help to survive this task doesn’t jibe with her being cool with the help she’s gotten for the previous ones. Why not let the protagonist DO stuff? Like, this was a huge problem with Apolonia too. Whose wish fulfillment is “I’m very important but my actions don’t achieve squat?”
Even if Maas needed to have Rhys help Fay for story reasons, so Fay could see that deep down he’s a caring and wonderful man despite all the drugged up humiliation he likes to thrust on her, it could have been done better.
It could have played out that Rhys was the one who had to set the pit up, chain up Lucien (I think Rhys would be into that), put down the gate between them, set up the spikes. He could have hidden something, either a weapon or clue, knowing that Fay is smart enough to find it and figure out how to use it to save her.
Fay sees the item, realizes it is a clue and pulls the right lever. Later, when Rhys comes to lick her, he can make some comment about her finding his little gift. Then it dawns on her that he’s actually been trying to help her and maybe even his rapey attention is some sick form of helping her (like maybe if he’s torturing her, Amakillya will leave her alone, and whatever A had in store would be way worse than what Rhys is doing (doubtful, but I think Maas thinks what Rhys is doing is okay because he’s going to be her twu luv so it’s just foreplay).
At least that way it depends at least in part in Fayray being smart enough to find the clue and know how to use it rather than “ouch, that one is hot, ouch, that one is hot, oh, this one is not hot, hmmm, which one should I pull”. Honestly, the fact that she didn’t just pull the not hot one right away makes her even dumber than she already was. Even if she didn’t realize Ryhs was helping her, she knows for a fact that Lucien has helped her in the past, so should at least assume he was somehow doing it and showing her which is the right one.
I think the phrase “too stupid to live” was Maas’ basis for creating her main character. Like her pitch for the book was ” there is this girl who is too stupid to live, but all the fairy guys are hot for her so they push her along on a heroes journey by enslaving her, molesting her and humiliating her. It’ll be empowering…for someone.”
Honestly if that was was the premise and how it was sold I’d’ve been way more into it XD maybe it’s not empowering, but it certainly sounds entertaining!
As someone with low self-esteem, I kinda appreciate the “shes an idiot but people love and help her anyway and she doesn’t have to do anything to achieve this” XD if people can love Feyre as a good character and draw fanart of her, in spite of how awful she is, surely I can be more forgiving of myself…
That said, I’d love to see a protagonist more grateful for the people she’s relying on, instead of mad that she’s not as strong and independent as she wants. It’d be cool for her to be really appreciative of Lucien’s mom and for them able to connect a little more… also one who doesn’t shit on disabled people and criticize art or flowers or anything. Basically someone who might be useless but isn’t Like That, yknow?
Oh I can totally get that. I’m so chronically fatigued I fantasize about sending out homunculi of myself to get the things I need to do done. I also feel super guilty whenever another person has to do anything for me. A character who has to be held up by others but shows gratitude? I’d love that! A fairy tale where past acts of kindness or loyalty result in the protagonist getting boons to overcome the obstacles set by the antagonists? Great!
The problem I have with Feyres and her ilk in fiction is they try to be Katniss Everdeen in a Bella Swann scenario, to use old YA juggernauts as examples. Bella is presented as a human girl with no special abilities that would help her survive against supernatural threats, but has a conviction to help the people she loves even when she can’t do much. She has the love of the Cullens, so they have to be the ones to save her from other vampires. I can understand the appeal of that, since Twilight is a romance not some more action focused genre.
In the Hunger Games we’re shown, not just told that Katniss is brave, resourceful, and capable. Other characters have to get her through danger sometimes but she has to cooperate with people, figure out what their schemes are, manipulate public opinion… she’s always making what choices she can in the situations she’s placed in. This is the kind of “hunter” Feyre supposedly is.
Which fine; you can have a story where Feyre is Katniss level competent in the human world but as out of her depth in the fae world as Bella is among vampires. But then Maas would have to stop writing Feyre grabbing weapons or making escape plans but then a minute later saying they’d be of no use anyway. Nothing in this book is consistent except how repetitive it is and how insufferable the main character is.
“A character who has to be held up by others but shows gratitude? I’d love that! A fairy tale where past acts of kindness or loyalty result in the protagonist getting boons to overcome the obstacles set by the antagonists? Great!”
I am a huge lover of stories where the protagonist needs to rely on others to get through their challenges because they are not great at everything, but are smart enough to build up a support system that, collectively, and kind enough that others are willing to risk their lives in support of their endeavor, not because everyone wants to fuck them, but because what they are doing is noble and worthy. More Frodo less Fayre.
But, what exactly is Fayray trying to do? What is her quest? Originally it was just saving herself, then it somehow morphed into saving Tamlin I think? Is that what she’s trying to do? I mean, I guess this is romance novel first, fantasy novel second, but IDK I just don’t really feel there are any great consequence in what she’s doing. She’s not trying to save her family or the Spring Court, she’s not even worried about saving Lucien who has tried to help her more than once, she’s just concerned with her and her boyfriend, so she comes across as very selfish and the whole story is just weak.
Hell, it doesn’t work as “romance first” either, because a GOOD romance would communicate why the characters would work well together apart from, to use Captain Awkward’s phrase, pantsfeelings.
I read your comment right after posting my own. It sounds like we’re on the same wavelength. 🙂
haha, “pantsfeelings”. Well, we know that’s what it is because Fayray is not like other girls, she wears pants because she’s so brave and strong. And yeah, a good romance would have us rooting for the couple against all odds. Also, this far into a book I’d think we’d know who the actual couple is that we’re meant to be rooting for.
A love triangle only really works if the two points are not basically the same guy but one is hotter and more powerful or something. Honestly, I know so little about either of her supposed love interests that I don’t really know what the difference is or why she’d end up with one over the other.
This is so very true and I appreciate you breaking it down like this! Yes there’s so many ways this could have gone that’d be better…
An element in a lot of fairy tales is to have the heroine be helped with “impossible” tasks… but it’s usually because of something said heroine has DONE. I recall one story in which the heroine shared her lunch with some sparrows, so when the witch told her to fetch water in a sieve, the sparrows chirped, “Ashes, ashes!” at her, which gave her the idea to put ashes at the bottom of the sieve. In another story, the youngest child is the only one to accept her mother’s blessing rather than extra food, so the blessing helps her (though I was never clear on exactly how that worked).
So, having Lucien’s mom help out as thanks for Feyre saving her son? Sure, fine. But Creepy Rhys helping out just because he has pantsfeelings and/or wants to undermine his boss? No.
I recall someone complaining about The Hunger Games because Katniss had help, but I thought that was some epic point-missing. First of all, because “reality” TV shows tweak the odds all the time, but more importantly because all the help Katniss got was due to her own actions.
Exactly. I can’t really think of a single thing Fayray has done that would make someone want to help her. All she does is say what she can’t paint, paint some stuff, bitch about her terrible family, bitch about fairies, bitch about how other people are being tortured around her and disrupting her sleep. All I’m getting from this book is that fairies have the worst taste in romantic partners.
“…fairies have the worst taste in romantic partners.”
Since faeries tend to be enormous drama queens, I could totally see a reading of them in which they’ll go after whichever romantic partner would cause the most ~EXCITEMENT~ at any given time. This tends to be messy for anyone who gets involved with them, and occasionally for innocent bystanders.
This would be a reading of the fae in which they are, at worst, cold-hearted monsters and at best, forces of nature that no human should interact with for long.
OMG and this would also allow the MC to be kind of horrible as long as they weren’t so fucking bland and boring. Then you could understand why the fae would be drawn to the MC and their drama while the MC has an enabler or gets some just desserts or the MC simply loves being burned when playing with fire (or the potential risks get them excited anyway.)
I’m also in agreement with everything else that you and Mab are saying in this thread. I was reading and nodding along but I already make too many posts so I’m just putting that here. There are so many ways this MC and her situation could’ve been improved and instead we got this hot mess.
All I could think of the moment Sarah set up this chapter’s task:
“Pull the lever, self.” (pulls, falls into crocodile pit) “WRONG LEVEEEEEEEERRRRRRR—” (splash)
“Why do they even HAVE that lever?”
Imagine if, say, Tamlin HAD helped her learn to read instead of that turning into a weird abusive negging situation. Imagine if there were any kind of consistent, interesting, thematic parallels throughout any of this book. Imagine if the author had remembered that the first 40 chapters of this book happened and used ANYTHING that she had written in those early chapters to create an interesting moment during this scene.
Not only am I convinced that no one ever edited this pile of crap, I’m thoroughly convinced that SJM never even reread her own work while writing it.
The useless/trivial part of Feyre is, again, her artistic talent.
Meanwhile, I’m thinking that it could have been a lot of fun to explore that artistic talent as something more than just, vague background fluff. It could have been a touch of human magic.
Maybe Feyre could be particularly good at seeing/remembering details because she’s always thinking about how to paint her surroundings. Maybe she could have a talent for seeing people’s true selves and putting it on canvas, and because if that glamours don’t work on her.
Maybe, when she paints someone, she gains a power over them – either they hate that she unveils their hidden vulnerabilities, or they aspire to become the version she paints, a more honest/open/courageous person..
You could still leave an entire arc of Feyre thinking her talent is useless, because it won’t out food on the table and didn’t help her survive during the years of poverty, but now she’s discovering the power of her own mind and learning to embrace her own brand of ‘magic’.
Heh. Not in this story, though.
I would have loved that. It could even be that Fay, trapped in this new world, went around sketching things she sees, sketching the various fae she had observed not realizing that doing so is sort of capturing some of their magic, or making them fall for her, or have to do her subconscious bidding.
Of course for that to really work story wise it would help to get out of her head and into there’s. Like Tam being all “I was only using her, but there was something about her, I couldn’t stop myself from having these feelings I never thought I’d have for a mere mortal.” Lucien wondering why he keeps putting his life on the line for her. Rhys being “I thought she was just a plaything, something to amuse me, but, when I saved her from that pit, it wasn’t the feeling of saving a toy, I felt relief, a sort of comfort that she would still be in my life. What is wrong with me? She is just a mortal.”
Oh how I wish we’d gotten anyone else’s POV in this story.
Honestly, yeah. Fay works so much better when she’s not the MC or else one of many. Forcing this first person POV the entire time saps so many possibilities and increases the insufferable nature of it.
I’m furious we didn’t get what you’re suggesting here. That would’ve been fantastic!
I decided to look up other books with soul bonds after reading this, and on the first reddit post I clicked, someone had commented recommending this book and calling it “beautifully written”… Now I’m just Ben Affleck smoking jpg.
I’ve learned a new meme and now I’m beside you as one of the other Ben Affleck smoking images in this set.
“Lucien wrenched at his chains. This would not be a clean death.”
I think this is funny because it’s so detached it sounds like Feyre is the one killing Lucian. Or at least she’s vaguely annoyed that Lucian is struggling while she will obviously accept her horrible death stoically.
She just casually acknowledges that she’ll be the death of him while Lucien is busy thinking to himself the word fuck on repeat. TBH I don’t know why he didn’t say anything the entire time unless Jenny cut it out because it was so boring.
“She’s tattooed to show that she’s his property, he’s free to drug her and force her to sexually humiliate herself in front of an audience every night, he literally owns one week per month of her life.”
You make it sound hotter and more interesting than it actually is. A better author can make such heavy subject matter actually titillating. Maas is not that author. Despite your description being accurate, this whole book is unbearably boring.
My unpopular opinion is that Lucien shouting out to help Feyre in the first task was a good element and would have been touching in a better book – hell, this is a terrible book and it was still kinda touching and endeared us to Lucien. Plus, it was a short intervention in what was otherwise a gritty encounter of her evading and killing the worm on her own. It was fine there because she did plenty on her own, so (again, in a better book) it wouldn’t have undermined her status as an action hero.
It’s just that this book is already so damn full of… well, you know.
> You didn’t have this crisis when Lucien warned you about the worm, saving your life in the first challenge. You didn’t mind when Rhysand sorted those lentils and Lucien’s mom made the water bucket clean. Now you’re concerned about cheating?
I get the intent here because surviving impossible or extremely difficult challenges by using up favours from people one had previously selflessly (!!!!) helped, and who now serendipitously reappear to return the favour, is very much a recurring fairytale trope – the hero who wins not necessarily by being smart or strong, but through being kind-hearted. The reason it doesn’t work here is because Feyre doesn’t really help other people, and even when she does (like giving her name so Lucien wouldn’t be tortured), it’s not given the appropriate attention and her supposed kindness is so nonexistent the rest of the time that the thematic connection doesn’t really register.
Wasted potential, once again.