Can we talk about ACOTAR?

Writing Desk Archive
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So…

I re-read the series again (minus Silver flames) and decided to research Tamlin.

I ended up reading some reviews of the series and found out a few reoccurring issues/common thoughts with the series. Although more specifically, Tamlin.

I thought I could use this opportunity talk about some of the tropes/themes in the series that you would/wouldn’t use in your story/writing and why.

So, as I’ve mentioned there is a few re-occuring kinks in the series that several people have pointed out.

To start with;

The Lack of Consistency with Characters.

Lucien

I can’t explain in words what exactly happen to him but his character development could have been handled better. He more or less flipped without much wiggle room in between.

His personality and traits changed very suddenly without explanation or a steady but continuous development. He went from cold and distant (and kinda a jerk) in ACOTAR to “sappy” or kinder by the time ACOFAS rolled around. It wasn’t growth at that point, his character was more or less rewritten rather than built upon which kinda sucked as he was/is and interesting character.

If the character development was more gradual, and actually showed points/reason for the growth, I think this would have improved Lucien’s character.

Tamlin

Tamlin probably got the most screwed over out of all the characters.

He had, as a few readers put it, “He was evil all along,” arc. He got villianised. And although his actions in ACOMAF were inexcusable at best. It was pretty out of character (besides his temper) from the Tamlin we see in ACOTAR.

It is clear that something happened to Tamlin in Under the Mountain with Amarantha, although we don’t get a very clear picture of exactly what happened due to the narration (I will come back to this) and a few people brought up the theory that the Tamlin we saw in the first and second Trial wasn’t actually Tamlin and could have been another glamour (like the Attor) that Amarantha used. But Tamlin was there in the third Trial. His personality switching from kind and caring to distant with Amarantha and going back to normal Tamlin again in the third Trial, was the main reason for this, among the fact that Tamlin never says/talks about what happened (we know he does has nightmares about it though).

So for all we know bad stuff was happening to him (not out of character for Amarantha) and that’s why he wasn’t himself during the trials.

Moving on from that, Tamlin acts extremely differently in ACOMAF than in ACOTAR. He’s far more aggressive, over-bearing ect… Which, much like Lucien was a 0 to 100 situation where he was just completely flipped without much cause or explaination.

Long term, I doubt despite this, that Feyre and Tamlin’s relationship (romantically) would have lasted; it was built on desperation. Tamlin was desperate to break the curse and save his court and Feyre, wanted soneone to care about her, who would give her love and affection. Tamlin gave that to her as Feyre gave him the hope he needed.

Although, romantically I don’t think that they would be together long term, I do think they would have remained friends, I mean she literally died for this guy. I find it hard to believe you would act as though that never happened. Or would suddenly, without warning, not be in love with him anymore.

Feyre’s revenge also was problematic but that’s in it’s own category.

The characters felt rushed, someone did mention that it felt like the author was trying to skip a large chunk of the story to get to Feysand.

There was no redemption arc for Tamlin and no insight or care about his well being after Under the Mountain. I can’t remember a single time in ACOMAF where someone asked him if he was okay.

I could go into further detail.

There were similiar consistency issues with the other characters such as Rhysand and Elain and Nesta.

Onto my next point,

Narration

ACOTAR has a similiar problem/style of naration as The Great Gatsby.

An unreliable/biased narrator.

By that I mean, the whole series was basically all Feyre’s POV. Especially in ACOTAR.

It would have been interesting and fixed the character inconsistencies if we could have had chapters from Tamlin or even Lucien’s perspective. Later on, in the series, we do get other character’s POV but they are few and far and I don’t believe there is a POV for Tamlin in the series.

So, it’s difficult to say if what Feyre says is exactly what was happening without another character’s or 3rd person narrators POV. Which would have balanced everything out.

Again, I could go into more detail but this is the basis.

Feyre’s Revenge

Did Feyre at no point stop to think about the potential consequences of her actions?

How many people were/would be put at risk?

How, despire knowing war was brewing, decided to destroy vital military forces that were needed against Hybern.

The fact that what she did didn’t seem like much, she never thought about or faced the consequences of her actions. She left a court of innocent people defenseless.

And at no point thought that Tamlin was spying on Hybern or put herself in his shoes to figure out why he did what he did.

From his perspective, Tamlin saw Feyre hurting and when she went to the Night Court with Rhysand (who has mind related abilities and can control people) would come back as a completely different person. And all of a sudden decides not to cone back? I’d probably think that she was being controlled as well. We don’t have time to unpack all that.

Which brings me onto my next point.

Consequences

Or the lack there of except for the people Feyre decided deserves it. In this case Nesta and Tamlin specifically.

Nests never owns up or apologies for what she did, it gets swept under the carpet and only got mentioned like twice in the whole series.

Feyre never faces the consequences for what she did to the Spring court.

Rhysand never really apologies for Under the Mountain or you know coercing and hurting Feyre. Despite doing equally awful if not worse things than Tamlin, he’s painted as a saint.

Rhysand never thinks that, while pretending to be the bad guy, that others believe it and thus why Tamlin was worried about Feyre and Feyre originally hated Rhysand.

Onto that, Feyre appears to take on the opinions of those around her. Tamlin hates Rhys so she hates, Rhys hates Tam so she now hates Tam.

This was just the tip of some reoccuring problems with the series.

I’m sure I’ve missed a few things on here.

Still not a fan of the whole ‘mates’ trope though.

Edit:

Fixed spelling and tagged people who might be interested.

Also some abbreviation clarification (say that ten times fast)

ACOTAR - A Court of Thorns and Roses (although only the first book is called that, it is used for refering to the series as a whole, in context of my post, I’m using it to refer to the first book).

ACOMAF - A Court of Mist and Fury (the second book in the series).

ACOWAR - A Court of Wings and Ruin (third book in the series).

ACOFAS - A Court of Frost and Starlight (novella/fourth book in the series).

ACOSF - A Court of Silver Flames (the fifth book in the series and the most recently released - as of writing this post - book in the series).

Tags: @Writers @Bookworms @Familie @FTDFam

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What book?

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The series as a whole

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Yes, he became so nice. I remember in the beginning he wasn’t like that at all. At one point, it stopped seeming like character development and more like the author was trying very very hard to make us like him. The whole thing with Elaine didn’t make sense to me at all; it didn’t line up with what we knew of his character.

I agree and I will forever be sore about this. There is a drastic difference between Tamlin in the first and second halves of the book! Everyone but Tamlin helped Feyre at least a little while she was Under The Mountain. Rhysand, Lucien, Lucien’s mother too (I think? I could be mixing stuff up tho.) And yet he didn’t, which didn’t make sense to me. Yes, i don’t think Tamlin and Feyre would have worked out long term, but not everything beautiful and worthwhile has to last forever. In the first half of the book, they were exactly what the other needed. Tamlin needed the hope she represented so badly after constant failures and I think he was a good High Lord. (My thoughts are really murky since I read the series a while ago.) For me stuff started going downhill as soon as he forced her to go back at the first sign of threat when they all knew if anyone could help everyone, his court, the other courts, all under Amarantha’s thumb? It didn’t make a lot of sense.

And then Rhysand came and Tamlin was pushed to the sideline.

Sarah discussed Rhysand’s trauma at the hands of Amarantha a lot, actually. Everyone is trying to recover from her rule at the beginning of the second book. And yet, Tamlin’s struggles were never recognized. A psychotic woman was in love with him, enslaved him, cursed his entire court, and then the girl he loved and tried so hard to save from her ended up in her clutches anyway. I think the days between when she sees him last and when they meet again are so crucial; I don’t think it was a glamour, but something really bad must have happened that made him so afraid to show any sort of favor to Feyre in the fear that Amarantha might get jealous. Yet, his inaction is seen as indifference. He could and should have done more, yes, but we don’t have the
complete info. We don’t know what she did with him. And as much as Tamlin didn’t acknowledge her struggles, Feyre didn’t acknowledge his either. What was so bad that he couldn’t even talk about it, refused to talk about? Feyre and Tamlin could have very easily been shown to grow apart because of their individual traumas then, and meanwhile she’d be falling for Rhysand. That would make a lot more sense to me. But instead, Sarah wanted everything to be quick. She jumpstarted Feysand at the expense of Tamlin’s goodness. Every good trait in him was suddenly ignored, he was so badly villainised in a few pages and he went from the guy Feyre was prepared to give her life for to the guy she needed protection from so badly, she tried to destroy his court from the inside during a time when war was imminent and they all needed to be prepared, all for petty revenge. (And yes, I think it was very petty.)

It was similar to Chaol’s character after Rowaelin happened. He was suddenly such a different, terrible person (to Aelin at least); I think Sarah wants her main ships to be universally supported; and the quickest way to make everyone adore the second guy is to make the first one bad, so the second can look good by comparision. I hate it.

YOU MENTIONED IT!

The fandom in general seems determined to ignore this part of the story and what it says about Feyre.

To me, it was a beautiful moment when Feyre finally got off her high horse and did what she wanted, the queen of petty. And it might have worked well later on, when she realised how much her petty revenge cost her, but she never did. Through the entire series, it was maintained that Feyre could do no wrong! She destroyed the court from inside, swayed people out of Tamlin’s favor, and what about the innocent people who had to have gotten caught in the crossfire? We have to remember High Courts aren’t just a thing for show. High Lords look after their people, care for them. As did Tamlin, and he was a good High Lord. You can’t tell me this didn’t affect his people. What about the people she put at risk, destroying their defenses, purposefully posing herself as a goddess, a beacon of hope, etc etc, and then taking that away from people who were so badly destroyed? It would have been an interesting arc if she faced consequences for it.

Tamlin did what he did out of love. He was badly misguided, but at the end of the day, his actions are more forgivable than hers simply because of the motive behind them. He thought of Rhysand as a pure villain. Rhysand kidnapped his bride, kept her with him (unwillingly, as far as he knew) and then suddenly she said she didn’t want to come back. It was a drastic change of heart. I would have thought she was being forced too!

And I distinctly remember Rhysand telling Feyre not to be guilty, not for invading Lucien’s mind, not for the Spring Court and she didn’t. She was so devastated about those two people she had to kill Under The Mountain but who knows how many more suffered because of her actions later on?

If she needed revenge that badly, after the war would have been a better time for it.

Rhysand just crowned her High Lady and everyone went along with it. As a woman with that much responsibility, she should have considered how her actions would affect the innocent people whose court she was sabotaging. And then she had the nerve to jump to the worst conclusion about Tamlin. His actions, misguided as they were, I could still understand. Rhysand purposefully maintained a certain reputation so of course Tamlin would doubt their connection based on that alone. He didn’t know better.

But Feyre did.

In the end, she was highly influenced by the people around her and seemed to have almost no opinions of her.

I wrote this sleep deprived so I’m pretty sure this is a huge mess but meh.

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I’ve never heard of this series.

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It’s a pretty popular young adult (or new depending on who you ask) fantasy story by a somewhat controversial author. it basically focuses around the fae and the fae court. it’s actually pretty old too. the author wrote a throne of glass too, I believe.

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the series is kinda seen as a joke nowadays in the book community with most people posting about it critcizing and making fun of it. as people do with most 2015 books

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Wait, A Court of Thorns and Roses?

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Oh, controversial ‘cause of the reason said in OP?

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Yeah, the themes in her book are vv questionable. But also herself as a person, she recieved a lot of backlash when people saw she was a zionist

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A what?

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Hmm… interesting. So she’s the new JK Rowling then? HAHA

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Yea, i wasnt sure on that theory, but its plausible however chapters in Tamlin’s pov would have been so helpful.

This. Literally this.

At least he got de-villianised later on

Can we be done with this trope? Please.

Very true.

It got mentioned in passing (through the mating bonds) during the high lord meeting in ACOWAR and not because she felt bad, because it screwed them over

This, heck, even Aelin faced the consequences of her actions.

Yup

I hope not, throne of glass is a good series

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Closed due to inactivity