u/Overall-Presence6884

So I’ve just finished ACOSF as a first time reader. I’ve been seeing some absolutely wild takes, and I don’t mind spoilers so I’d seen a few about ACOSF especially, and things that when seeing the take lined up with the text simply did not make sense. So just wanted to share some thoughts on it all. Please don’t come into the comments to argue or put me down for my opinion. If your opinion is different that’s fine, but no need to attack anyone.

So firstly, and I suppose the heaviest one - rape culture in the books. Especially when I got to the blood rite, I remember feeling deeply uncomfortable and having this one recurring thought - “why are so many men in this book so okay with, and even eager to, rape, harm, and kill women?” I sat with this discomfort for a while and the conclusion I came to is that it’s uncomfortable because it’s accurate to real life. Our society and media seem to have collectively decided that men’s discomfort around the subject of their behavior, and many men’s treatment of women, is far more important than portraying things accurately or women’s lived experiences. Any post that brings this up is inevitably bombarded by a brigade of “not all men.” I’m looking at this through the lens of someone who has experienced rape and sexual assault both at the hands of strangers and in intimate partnerships. I have experienced physical and emotional abuse since childhood. I have seen the way men are consistently covered for. There’s the 62 million men on the rape academy that inevitably draws out the men who think they need to do damage control by minimizing it to views and suggesting there are far fewer men involved. Despite evidence suggesting there are likely far more men involved than we want to admit. There was the recent study that found a huge percentage of men would be willing to commit rape if they knew they could get away with it, and many said that they had raped a woman when the question was worded so as not to outright call it that. Looking at the blood rite, it really is just an opportunity for these men to be as horrible as they want, to act on their worst desires and impulses, guaranteed to be without consequences. Isn’t that just like real life? And even the “good men” in the books as they’re portrayed like Cassian, Azriel, and Rhysand don’t seem to go far enough to do something about it despite knowing that it happens. (Just like all the “nice guys” in real life). I can’t recall the exact wording, but there was a line in ACOSF about Cassian knowing there would be a different sort of horrors for females in the blood rite. I do think Rhysand should be given more credit for things like outlawing wing clipping because we tend to forget the other mitigating factors - yes he is High Lord, but the Night Court is massive, has deeply divided factions with heavily ingrained culture and traditions, and that is hard to break through while trying to ensure their loyalty for wars to come. I still think he should have done more, as should Azriel and Cassian, but it’s certainly a start. Not to mention that he started the library as a haven for victims of sexual assault and other horrors. Overall, I’m impressed with SJM for incorporating these very important and relevant themes in a way that felt believable and accurate to reality.

The other thing I wanted to address is that it seems like in this fandom you either have to hate the inner circle and be a diehard Nesta/Tamlin defender, or hate Nesta and Tamlin and worship the ground the inner circle walks on. I just don’t think this is supported by the text, I think there’s a lot more nuance to it, and I don’t think it’s fair to the characters as written or to the fans who just want to enjoy something that makes them happy. So here’s my thoughts on it.

1. Nesta. I’m not a Nesta defender. I didn’t like her in the first books, but grew to love her over the course of her journey. I think she’s a complex character who had to learn that she’s worthy of love - but she also was pretty horrible to start with. This isn’t a comparison so I’m not interested in any “but so and so did this which was worse” arguments. I am saying this as the eldest sister who grew up poor and in a heavily abusive and turbulent household with no real stability whatsoever. Nesta was nasty and cruel to everyone who tried to show her kindness, and most especially to her youngest sister who arguably needed her the most. Is it fair for her to be parentified? Absolutely not - coming from experience. Was the way she handled it okay? Also no. Does that mean she’s a horrible person? Also no. I want to add that I’m also a trauma professional. I’m working towards my masters degree in a trauma related field and have years of experience in emergency services. And one very important distinction that I think seems to be forgotten by a society that has romanticized mental illness and allows everyone on TikTok to self diagnose in order to be trendy, is that while trauma can help explain behavior, it does not excuse it. From my upbringing and work, I have PTSD. I was also diagnosed with ADHD. (Emphasizing diagnosed, because both of these things have been addressed with professionals, not by TikTok experts). A lot of my issues are around men specifically. I’m married to a man. Sometimes I don’t handle things well. But it’s my job to be aware of that, to apologize if I’ve done wrong, and most importantly to work on it so that an apology comes with changed behavior and isn’t just empty words. I do think Nesta is beginning to learn to do that by the end of the book, and I do know it isn’t easy. But to say she’s always been wonderful and perfect is just not supported in the text. For large portions of it, she relished in being as hateful and hurtful as she possibly could to ease her own pain. I’ve also seen the argument that none of this is true because Feyre is an unreliable narrator - but even if you assume that’s true, other characters including Nesta herself confirm that her behavior was objectively awful. Also on another note, I don’t think Cassian implemented the hike to punish her. He told Feyre to say as much to Rhys, who was angry and having his fae protective moment, but we see in his internal monologue that it was meant to get her away safely and give her a chance to heal. So I don’t agree with putting motivations on him that aren’t there in the text.

2. Tamlin. This will be shorter because a lot of my points about trauma apply to him too, but again trauma isn’t an excuse for him. I don’t think he’s an irredeemable abuser. The key here is that he wasn’t being abusive for the sake of it, because he enjoys it, or really to get anything out of it. But his behavior was abusive and neglectful. I think for him to heal and move on, he’s going to have to take accountability for that, and try to make things right. That includes with Feyre and her sisters. And he needs to be able to accept that they aren’t obligated to forgive him. He did some pretty terrible things. But I do think he has room to grow and change.

3. The Inner Circle and especially Rhysand. I see them as flawed, “human,” characters that at their core want to do what’s right but don’t always go about it the right way, and in many instances are ruled by their own trauma. This may be controversial but I actually think Rhys is one of the best at not being controlled by his trauma/letting it define him (but again not perfect and he definitely has his moments). Side eyeing the fact he was interested in a 19 year old, but the same could be said for Tamlin. Much like Tamlin, the things he did that could be perceived as abusive or wrong he didn’t do out of malice or a desire to hurt her. Unlike Tamlin, he did actually apologize and try to make it right when he did things wrong. I will admit, as a pregnant woman the pregnancy storyline irked me, but at the same point I think I understand it more going through pregnancy than I would have beforehand. Pregnancy is extremely rough on the body, the mind, everything. It’s overwhelming and exhausting and sometimes horrible. Feyre’s is a high risk fae pregnancy. Studies have shown women are more likely to miscarry boys especially when under stress, and stress can impact the health of both mother and baby. I don’t agree with him keeping it from her, but I understand why he did it. And as we saw in the time leading up to it, there was nothing Feyre could have done about it anyway. I see it as a very very misguided attempt at giving her the best chance possible, and also not wanting to take away her joy with he explicitly stated. Now onto the comments calling him a narcissist. I disagree. I saw this in the SPECIAL ME post recently. One of the points was that he has an inflated sense of self importance in calling himself the most powerful high lord. I can’t remember him ever really saying that, mostly other people, and it’s not inflated if it’s true. His powers, the size of his court, and the reactions and comments by many other characters, including the other high lords, seem to support this. I don’t see him being preoccupied with power and beauty either. Also having a small social circle was mentioned, plenty of people who aren’t narcissists have a small circle for non-insidious reasons, and I’ve seen no indication that this is why he has one. Envious of others - I really didn’t see this one. He openly made jokes with Feyre about Tarquin liking her. Feyre also was his mate but not with him yet. Jealousy is a normal emotion, and nothing he did suggests that he handled it poorly. Another really important thing is that I’ve never seen a narcissist sacrifice themselves or their desires for the good of anyone else, which we see Rhys do on several occasions. I could go on but I realize this is already incredibly long.

All this to say, I actually love most of the characters. I think they’re flawed, layered, and nuanced, and categorizing them blanketly as “the best ever” or “the worst most evil narcissist ever” just does not make any sense after reading. I’m curious to see what other people think. I’m sure I left off some points.

Hear me out on this - as a first time reader who so far loves the books (I’m up to 2/3 through ACOWAR) I have to say I’m noticing a pattern of things that seem almost directly lifted from other books. I’ll give some examples and I’d be curious to know if anyone has any others.

So here are the ones I’ve noticed:

The Nephelle philosophy “even the unlikeliest person can alter the course of history” = almost word for word a line from LOTR, changing unlikeliest to smallest.

The Attor = very similar to the Nazgul, again LOTR

The Wall (with a supernatural threat above it) = the Wall in GOT, just with a more nuanced threat (the fae)

The Cauldron - this one’s more nuanced, as it pulls from Irish mythology/the Cauldron of Cerridwen and Dagda myths, but very on the nose that Hybern is essentially Ireland. Also very on the nose that Prythian is basically the UK, and that Hybern (Ireland) is pissed at Prythian for the fact they’re living in poverty…

Seraphim Blades = Seraph Blades from the Mortal Instruments. Even the way they’re described is the same.

Illyrian Steel = Valyrian Steel from GOT

These are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head, I’d be curious to know anyone else’s thoughts or if I’m way off base.

Does anyone else find it funny how in a society of magical faeries, most of the food described sounds like typical British/American food - which sort of makes sense given Prythian seems to be based on a magical alternate UK, but they don’t seem to have cultural foods of their own (at least to where I’m at on my first read of ACOMAF). And when Rhysand is trying to show Feyre the high life, he takes her out for what is described as very similar to an Indian takeaway, and Feyre is like “I’ve never experienced flavor before 🥹” like this is not a complaint at all but it did really make me laugh 😂

I’ve been seeing a lot of posts here and in other similar groups and it’s made me realize I finally can share my own story. I was 20(f) when I married my husband (24m). He was from another country and later admitted he was just using me for citizenship. Whether that’s true or he just wanted to lash out and hurt me I don’t know.

A couple months into the marriage he starts criticizing me hard. He had just finished uni, I was still in school. He couldn’t work because of his immigration status (legal, just no work authorization while waiting for the green card). I was working as a 911 dispatcher and also went through EMT school at the same time so I was working crazy hard. He goes after me really hard for my weight. Making comments, randomly looking at me like I was disgusting when he’d never done so before, telling me I shouldn’t wear shorts because my legs looked bad, saying he wanted his wife to look “badass” and I was not. Now granted I was a little overweight, but not crazily so, and I hadn’t gained any weight since we got married so it was nothing new. In fact I lost over 30 pounds over the course of the marriage, but it was never enough for him. He pushed me into a program aimed at losing a lot of weight in a short time and naturally I was supposed to pay for it all too. It didn’t work out because I couldn’t afford to keep paying for it and it was insanely restrictive (4oz of meat, 4oz of veggies, 4oz of fruit,no carbs, no oil, 2 meals a day, and if you screwed up at all you had to have a “reset day” where you eat nothing but apples). Later he’d push me for surgery, again that he expected me to pay for.

He starts asking for an open relationship because he says he can’t have fun anymore, and he wants to enjoy “badass girls” and can he at least screw around until I lose enough weight. I was absolutely heartbroken and exhausted from all the work I was doing, working nights, and he’d wake me up in the middle of the day for no reason. I said absolutely not. He kept pushing.

Soon after we moved to another state to live with his family (cousins) with promises of helping us so we could save for a house. He became intensely emotionally abusive behind closed doors and then painted me as the villain who was making him look bad because I couldn’t smile and fake it at family gatherings and his family and their friends kept asking what was wrong with me. He wouldn’t stop comparing me to other women. I started working out heavily. Doing jiu jitsu. He said that wasn’t a real workout and why couldn’t I go jogging like all the other sexy women he was seeing outside. He refused to go to my best friend’s wedding with me, despite me paying for the flights, because he was embarrassed to be seen with me. Shortly after that I made an attempt on my own life.

He found me, called me ghetto, careless and reckless, told me I should be locked up, that all his family would see how crazy I was and he would divorce me. He pressed me again about an open relationship. Told me I just get paid to sit on my ass all day and get fat, and he should get to have some fun. Bearing in mind I never tried to stop him from going out, spending time with friends, and often suggested things to do together. He shut it all down. Just stayed home playing video games all the time. I even planned a ski holiday together as a birthday gift to him, he refused to go. He said we’d go on trips when I lost enough weight, but not now because I wouldn’t look good in pictures. We moved out of his family’s house because he acted like there was something wrong with me that I just couldn’t be happy, and there were cultural differences.

At the new house, rent was 3x what it had been in our old state because the new one had a much higher cost of living. I bore that burden alone along with his car payments, his student loan in his home country to stop his parents losing their house, sent money and gifts to his family, learned to make all his cultural foods, did all the cooking and cleaning. He’d throw tantrums if the food wasn’t perfect and give me the silent treatment. I got a takeaway once of his favorite dish from a restaurant we hadn’t tried (he was extremely picky and hated all the restaurants that made his cultural food), but I was exhausted and wanted to do something nice for him because I didn’t have it in me to cook. He threw it in the trash and demanded I ask for a refund. One night he made me remake dinner twice because it wasn’t up to his standards and I had ruined everything. He again asked for an open relationship.

This time I relented. But I jumped way ahead of him. I set up a dating profile and got loads of attention immediately. He didn’t believe it because he thought no one would want me, that I was fat and ugly. I started messaging one guy and let him send me explicit messages detailing what he wanted to do with me. I showed my husband. He no longer wanted an open relationship. I agreed.

We moved again to a different state. I continued working. 3 years in at this point, he finally got his work authorization. He refused to hold down a job or pay his fair share. He’d act nice one minute, horrible the next. He nearly cost me my job with his antics. Still criticizing me, telling me how fat and unattractive I was all the time. I lost more weight. I was in the gym every day, even after 16 hour shifts. I looked much better than I had when we met. That only seemed to piss him off more. Everything I did was wrong. He wouldn’t stop comparing me to a girl in our apartments who he’d never even spoken to but thought she was hot, other women he saw jogging outside, the bartender when we went out for dinner. It was incessant. I’d lost weight but not nearly enough for him to be happy. He’d keep dangling the number in my face, 120, 120, 120. He said it would motivate me. That I’d regret it if I had to tell me family I lost my husband because I was too fat. That he couldn’t take me to his home country because “no one wants a fat wife.” He hadn’t seen his family in about 4 years so I encouraged him to go home, rethink his priorities. His parents are very traditional and very against divorce. His parents paid for his plane ticket, and I gave him several hundred $ to take with him for any needs and expenses, and spent weeks going shopping purchasing gifts for his family as was expected. He went for a month while I stayed home and worked as much overtime as I could to pay for it all, and worked extra hard in the gym. This was in October of that year. He was better for about a week or two after he came back, then he got worse.

New Year’s Day he said you were my wife last year, this year I’m single. We won’t divorce because of immigration. I was in tears and so depressed I couldn’t leave my house for days. He backtracked for a while but then it got worse.

He wanted an open relationship again. Even suggested I find a sugar daddy because he wanted to trade in his charger for a hellcat. I had enough. I agreed to the open relationship. I started talking to people, genuinely this time. I realized random strangers were nicer to me than my husband. I asked him for a divorce.

He cried and said he’d change. That he’d do better. I didn’t believe him. He begged me to go on a trip with him, something I’d been begging him to do for years. Nothing extravagant or crazy, just a state park and a night away in a hotel. I said no repeatedly. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. By the end of the trip I told him I still didn’t know if I could move on. After all the times he’d said he wanted a divorce and he wanted to be open, I’d had to seriously think about it. I’d had to think about the comparing all the time, all the birthdays and holidays he’d ruined by berating me. He wouldn’t even get me anything for Christmas, and on the day of he’d complain how bored he was and how my company wasn’t good enough for him. And finally decided divorce was worth it. It was very hard to go back on that decision. He asked me about marriage counseling which I’d suggested a long time ago. I said I’m making no promises, and I’m not setting it up but if you make the arrangements I’ll go.

We went. To his credit he was mostly honest with the counselor about what he was like. The counselor did his best to be impartial, but even he was incredulous and said he’d be surprised if I stuck it out. He didn’t follow any of the advice of the counselor. Couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t sleep in the same bed (I’d set up a cot in my office months prior at this point). Pushed and pushed for me to stay in the same room. One night, exhausted, I agreed just to shut him up - if I refused he’d play extremely loud music with the speakers and subwoofer and bang on the door all night and I wouldn’t get any sleep. I’d had to sleep in my car a few times because of it. It was freezing outside.

I woke up and went to my nail appointment. While there I realized I couldn’t get into my phone. He’d changed the code and reset everything (probably face ID’d me while I was sleeping) and deleted all the evidence I had of him being abusive. All my texts, all my photos from the last year (literally everything, not just the incriminating ones), all my notes where I’d documented it and even ones that had nothing to do with it - ideas for art and poetry and things that mattered to me, videos of him being abusive and threatening me.

I told him I was done. That we’d live in the house until the lease ran out because he couldn’t afford to live on his own and he had until then to sort himself out. I started seeing someone else. He threw fits. I said I don’t know why, you wanted an open relationship and you wanted a divorce, now you get both. I flew out to see my new partner.

He played the victim. Claimed I was having an affair and had betrayed him. Even tried to blackmail me with the threat of revenge porn. Told all his family that I was a slut who was cheating on him. It was fine when he thought he could get a hellcat out of it. It was fine when he thought no one would want me. He oscillated wildly between screaming at me and calling me names, and begging me to have him back. Called me a fat cow in one breath and the next was crying and vomiting on the floor. I left. He promised a peaceful divorce if I helped him with a few things. He lied. He’d moved back in with his family and didn’t have a job yet, so he needed money to keep his car from getting repossessed. I was a co-signer on it so I agreed to keep the peace and avoid damage to my credit. He got it repossessed anyway.

He still thinks he’s the victim. He still harasses me about financial things as I get the last few things untangled, but I’m nearly there. He had co-signed my car as well, which I still have and am trying to get rid of, then that’s it. He uses these things as an excuse to play the victim some more, tell me how he’ll never forget what I “did to him” and makes vague threats that are just veiled enough to not be actionable. We’re divorced. I moved to another country, his threats are meaningless. I remarried and am extremely happy. He blames my new partner, and claims that he “stole” me. He makes his threats. But he has no power anymore. And I’m much happier without him. With my now husband who wants no one but me, and vice versa. Who treats me extremely well, takes care of me, holds space for me to feel safe both physically and emotionally, takes an interest in my interests, and loves exploring new places with me.