A genuine question for Bryceriels
First, I come in peace, and expect everyone despite their ship preference to return the favor.
This is a neutral, curious question, so please keep the comment section polite. My question is directed to those who wholeheartedly believe in the Bryceriel endgame. Sorry it's way too long.
If your ship ends up being canon endgame, how do you see it technically going over in the rest of the CC books? Hunt and Bryce have developed their relationship for 3K pages and are in a solid place, no cracks to be seen. There is one confirmed CC book left, at least. Let's say that Bryce and Az end up together in ACOTAR 6-8. How would this go over in CC4?
CC3's events can't be meaningless, but the series aren't officially told to be read as one. They aren't marketed as a ONE series with a specific reading order and all, is what I mean. No matter how beneficial it might be to read both for the certain plot. Some people will forever prefer only CC or only ACOTAR. This is not a slight against either.
At the moment, ACO6 will likely have to summarize the CC3 events somehow, unless we get a whole retelling of the whole thing, which is unlikely. That would then mean that CC4 would have to have a summary of ACO6-8, which seems impossible and a waste of pages to tell the same story twice.
If Bryceriel was endgame, then logically CC4 would have to explain the complete turnaround and the mate plotwist to its own audience who do not read ACOTAR. What would happen to Hunt and his friends? How would the author get the majority to ship Bryce with someone else when Hunt has done nothing to deserve the rejection? Or would the author not care about the fandom's support or lack thereof? Do *any* pairings exist in all of Maasverse that have the collective disapproval of the majority? No pairing will ever have the full support of every single fan, disagreements happen, but I can't think of a single pair that has failed to gain the acceptance of most readers.
If Hunt was a relatively new love interest like Tamlin was (Tamlin and Feyre's love story lasted for a few hundred pages before the cracks started showing), it would seem more plausible. But 3K pages in and then a sudden turnaround out of nowhere? All this for *Azriel* who, bless him, is not even an MC of his own series? I love Az, I'm not criticizing him. Bryce and Az had chemistry and bonded weapons and whatnot, but is it enough to undo the past 3K pages and three whole massive books of a different relationship build-up? Could their chemistry *maybe* be read as something other than romantic?
Imagine Aelin suddenly mated with Ruhn after a visit to his world in the last book. It wouldn't gain much support from the majority of the fandom. How is this any different, really?
Not to mention that if Bryceriel indeed happened, every single following ACOTAR and CC book would simply have too many characters, povs, relationships, plots and subplots, enemies, universes, political swirls, freaking \*everything\* too much. Wouldn't they? Each are great stories on their own, and a smaller merged plotline might work, but does anyone honestly see a full merging of the two working logically for the rest of the existence of both series? And if CC and ACOTAR ended up being one big story, wouldn't TOG fans cry unfair? Wouldn't it then follow that all three series merged? Would anything make sense anymore if they did? Would every single fan be then required to read ALL 19+ books to be able to continue each new novel in literally any series?
Genuine theories are welcome! I'm interested in all sound views. Please try to understand my overall question and point, and don't take it as an attack or get stuck on a single sentence. Best of luck to every single ship out there though! Nothing is certain until October 27th.