u/mortalfae

Take 100:
This is a pro Inner Circle sub. We delete anti IC posts and comments.

Think of it the same way you’d think of any ship based sub or for example the Tamlin sub. No one goes into the Tamlin sub to post about how amazing Rhys is compared to Tamlin, because that’s obviously not what people are there for. The same rule applies here, just flipped. No one in this sub wants to read posts about how annoying Rhys is while Tamlin is the best character in the world. Or you wouldn’t go into a Gwynriel sub to talk about how Elain and Azriel are so much better. It’s the same logic.

This sub was created specifically for talking positively about the Inner Circle. Venting about anti IC takes you’ve seen elsewhere is allowed, the same way it’s totally fine for people in the Tamlin sub to vent about anti Tamlin discourse. That’s part of the point of having a dedicated space.

We’re all adults here and I really don’t think this is hard to grasp. If you want a space to critique the Inner Circle, there are plenty of subs for that. This just isn’t one of them.

Thanks for understanding!

After my reread of Silver Flames, I actually don’t understand the argument that Elain and Azriel can’t carry a 1,600 page story. If anything, SF proved the opposite to me.

Part 4 felt incredibly rushed considering it contained almost all of the major action and payoff. The entire book was basically building toward those final events, and then suddenly everything happened at once. So many plot points could have had more room to breathe. Honestly, SF could easily have been split into two books. Part 4 deserved the page count that Parts 1 and 2 had together.

That’s why I’m actually grateful Sarah decided to structure the upcoming story as three books. To me, that decision says she knows these arcs need space.

And yes, I strongly believe that ACOTAR 6-8 is Elain’s story, with Azriel alongside her in a dual POV setup similar to Nesta and Cassian in SF.

With Nesta, we genuinely didn’t know where her story was going. We had the groundwork of her isolating herself from everyone and that was basically it. We had no foreshadowing for the Valkyries, no idea about the extent of her powers, nothing about the Dread Troves, nothing about her fighting in the Blood rite and so on. All of those plot points only opened up in SF itself.

With Elain, it’s the complete opposite. We already have so many plot threads pointing directly at her story, PLUS presumably plots we don’t know about yet. Put them all together and she can easily carry 1,500 pages on her own.

Take the most obvious one, the mating bond. I cannot imagine the bond won’t be one of the major arcs. How is she going to handle it? Will she reject it? How does bond rejection even work? How many fae have actually rejected a mating bond before? What happens to both parties when a bond is rejected? Could rejection trigger a blood duel because Lucien’s mate instincts overcome him? Sarah has mentioned the blood duel twice already in connection with Azriel, so I’m convinced she’s setting it up to pay off in this series. She did the same thing with the Blood Rite in ACOFAS, mentioning it before it became real in SF. I’m expecting the same pattern with the blood duel.

And if Elain rejects the bond, does she go further and try to break it? There’s so much to explore there. Or does she accept it? But that would require an enormous buildup, because it wouldn’t make sense for her to go from avoiding Lucien for two years and shrinking next to him to suddenly being content with him from one page to the next. Either direction needs real page count to land.

We have the mountain trial. If Sarah follows the mountain pattern; then Elain also will have a mountain arc like her sisters.

In SF, Elain said she is ready to train and sees herself as part of the Night Court. So I’m expecting a training arc, not as a warrior but as someone learning her seer powers. To me, Nestas mention of the twins and Azriel maybe training Elain, is foreshadowing that she’s more likely heading toward the spy club. Which probably means a mission of some kind.

That’s already a lot. And then there’s the question of how much Koschei gets resolved in this book versus saved for a finale. Even if the actual fight against Koschei is being saved, there will still be heavy Koschei setup in Elain’s book.

And we haven’t even touched Azriel’s backstory. His mother is still alive, there’s the Rosehall connection. Will Rhysands order staying away from Elain lead to a secret relationship?

So I see massive potential here. If Sarah intends to write all of this in detail at a slow burn pace, then yes, two or three books makes complete sense. Elain and Azriel can absolutely carry 1,600 pages, at minimum. Anyone who has ever written fanfiction or a book knows that this much plot can easily fill a thousand pages and then some.

I’m pretty sure people have mentioned this theory before, but I haven’t seen anyone talk about it, so I wanted to bring it back.

If you remember, Sarah once said in a live interview with Steph:

>“Once you get to the end of ACOSF, I think you’ll know who the next book is about.”

A lot of people assume she meant the final scene with Elain holding Nyx, and I’m not disagreeing with that. But I actually think it could be this part instead.

There’s this moment in the same final chapter where it says:

>“Nesta had stared and stared at her portrait, hung between one of Feyre and one of Elain…”

And the placement feels so intentional to me.

I think it’s interesting that Nesta’s portrait is hung between Feyre’s and Elain’s, even though hers was painted last. Wouldn’t hers have been placed last, then? Or, since she’s the oldest sister, why isn’t hers first in the row?

To me, the order reads:

Feyre – Nesta – Elain

Almost like the order of the books themselves.

And if that’s intentional, then it feels like that order (the end of ACOSF) was quietly pointing toward Elain’s book being next.

And if anyone is interested about Elain‘s portrait:

>“Even their gods-damned father had a portrait on the wall along one side of the grand staircase: him and Elain, smiling and happy, as they'd been before the world went to shit. Sitting on a stone bench amid bushes bursting with pink and blue hydrangea. The formal gardens of their first home, that lovely manor near the sea.“

Pink and blue hydrangea 🤭💙🩷

I love how their titles sound!!

The Seer and her Shadowsinger
The Shadowsinger and his Seer