#/j of course rivers is my lovely son who i fucking hate

[druidshollow]

im going to bed guys gniiiiiite. rivers is being angry and hurting meanwhile

[limeros]

I hate Rowan Whitethorn!

Alright people, the time has finally come. Time for me to rant and roast the one and only Rowan Whitethorn (aka Rowboat Whiteporn), the worst fictional character ever created. Am I being dramatic? Maybe. I have tried hard to try and like him, to see why people love him so much. Usually, if I hate a character that people love, I usually can see why people love them. But with Rowan I can’t. Literally everything about him makes me cringe. Every time I see him or hear of him I just want to gag and punch something.

Rowan Whitethorn is a main protagonist in Sarah J. Maas’s Throne of Glass series. He is introduced in the third book in the series, Heir of Fire, as the Prince of Doranelle. He is fae and over 300 years old and has silver hair and pine green eyes. He is often described as very tall and muscular with tan skin. Many say that he is quite handsome. He is the first to join Aelin Galathynius’s court and helps her try to win back her kingdom of Terrasen.

Doesn’t sound too bad does he? Well, guess again.

Okay, I honestly did not want to hate him at first. I had several friends recommend these books for me. And one of them, her favorite character is Rowan and she loves him a lot. She kept telling me that I would. So when I met him, I was excited to see him and get to know him. I’m not kidding, I was. Let’s just say, he’s an ass in the beginning of Heir of Fire. My friend agreed with me on that and told me that he got better and that I’ll love him later on. And that was not the case. The more and more I read about him, the more and more I hated him. Like it went from dislike, to strongly dislike, to hate, to despise. Yes, you saw that right, I despise Rowan Whitethorn.

Okay, sorry that I won't have any quotes, my books are currently not with me so bear with me, I will not be using an direct quotes.

Now, when we first meet Rowan, he's this rude, moody fae male who basically hates Celaena because she won't do what he wants her to do. So he hits her, he shoves her around, he calls her horrible things. Now, I'm not a big fan of Celaena either (but that's a whole different story), but I felt bad for her because she is not in a good mental state in the beginning of this book and Rowan is just bullying her. It goes so bad at one point, Rowan bites her neck to get her to shift into fae. Yes, you read that right. Rowan fucking bit her neck. THAT IS NOT OKAY! Celaena made it clear that she wasn't able to shift on her own and instead of helping her, he bit her. And not just anywhere, her neck. A place that is very sensitive and for some people and intimate place. He bit her so hard that she started bleeding, he had her blood on his teeth. AND HE FUCKING SMILED AFTER DOING IT!

Just when you think it couldn't get any worse, after she tries to defend herself, he calls her weak and says that the world would've been better if she just died ten years ago in the frozen river. YOU DON’T SAY THAT TO PEOPLE! Especially someone who is such a horrible mental state as Celaena. And that event ten years ago is such a touchy and scarring event for Celaena so that fact that he had the guts to even bring it up is not okay. His comment here is basically telling her to go commit suicide because the world would be better off without her. As someone who has been suicidal before, this makes me so fucking mad. You never EVER tell anyone this, no matter how terrible they are.

I know Rowan stans often try to say “oh well, Celaena egged him on.” or “Well Celaena hit him too.” Yes, she did hit him, but only after he hit her first. And she did it to protect herself! She did it to try and get him to stop! So, you're saying she's not allowed to protect herself? Because, hell, I'd do the exact same thing. This man just bit me, hit me, told me the world would be better off without me, you bet my ass I'd try to hit him back to get him away from me.

Okay, yeah, he does try to redeem himself and he does help save her from monsters but still, that doesn't just erase the shit he's done to Celaena. I still find his personality repulsive.

Okay, moving into Queen of Shadows. The whole Rowan and Aelin romance came out of nowhere for me. At the end of Heir of Fire, they're like badass bffs who are Carranam. And to be completely honest, if Rowan and Aelin had stayed friends, I think I may have liked him. I'm not kidding. He may have warmed up to me and I would've probably liked him. But of course, the two singles had to become a thing, even though Rowan had a wife and mate a while ago who tragically died.

There's only, like, 3 weeks time span between the two books. And in those three weeks, Aelin (who made it clear that she only saw Rowan as a friend) is now basically in love with Rowan. Um, okay? And this leads to another reason as to why I hate Rowan. Chaol’s character development. Now before you yell at me “Kels, what does Chaol have to do with Rowan?” hear me out. In Heir of Fire Chaol had really good development and really grew as a character. And even though he still felt something for Aelin, he was fine with not ever having a chance with her again. And Aelin still feels something for Chaol, maybe not romantically, but at least some sort of human connection.

Then you have them meet again in Queen of Shadows and suddenly, in those 3 weeks, Chaol suddenly loses all his character development and acts like a little whiny bitch who hates Aelin and Aelin hates Chaol and says that she never even loved him.

“What does this have to do with Rowan?” you ask? Well, the reason Chaol is a total bitch (and so out of character, literally everything he did in that book was nothing like the Chaol I knew #notmychaol) is so Rowan Whitethorn, the perfect, sexy, fae looks like the better option as a love interest for Aelin. Yeah, that's right. SARAH J. MAAS RUINED CHAOLS DEVELOPMENT AND MADE HIM A BITCH TO MAKE ROWAN LOOK BETTER!

To be honest, I don't even care who Aelin chooses, she can choose Rowan all she wants. That even works in my favor because I ship Chaol and Dorian (which is whole different story, don't even get me started on them). So Aelin choosing Rowan means nothing to me. So that's why I'm so pissed that Sarah ruined Chaol, my favorite character, to make Rowan look better, who she clearly favors over everyone.

While we’re on the subject, I would like to state a common theory that Rowan stans think of us Anti Rowan people. They think that we hate Rowan because Aelin chose him over Chaol. I don't give a shit about that. That's not even close to a reason as to why I hate Rowan. Aelin can date whoever the hell she wants and I'd still probably hate Rowan.

Okay, moving on from that little bit, let's address on the reason Rowan is even here shall we. Oh wait, there is no point. He's been in three books, three long books and I see absolutely no reason for him to be there except to be horny and want to bone Aelin. That's right folks. He's just horny and territorial.

Let me explain. In both Queen of Shadows and Empire of Storms, Rowan is acting all horny over Aelin, a 19 year old girl. We've already established that Rowan is 300+ years old. Yep, a 300+ year old fae male is obsessing over a 19 year old girl. I'm 19 and that just makes me super uncomfortable. I don't care if he's immortal and super hot, get away from me you horny slut.

He basically spends all his time being super protective of her and not the cute protective, like the obsessive protective. He's territorial, he sees Aelin as his own, like as a thing that he owns. Not as a human being. Aelin often calls him a territorial fae bastard as a joke, but it shouldn't be a joke! It's not cool. Everyone knows that Aelin is capable of taking care of herself. Not only that, he gets all jealous and mean whenever she's around other men. Like she can't even breathe near them. How is this attractive to anyone? He's claiming her and it's not cute at all. It's so, so disturbing. Especially when he looks at her like she's an object, thinks of her like an object. He's horny and thinks of wanting to have sex with her and again, she's only 19 and that’s just super disturbing to me.

Now, into Empire of Storms he just gets even more territorial and obsessive over her. He only thinks of her, but not her, just her body and how he can have sex with her. I HATE it. Like calm down, you horny son of a bitch. Like, there is literally no point in him being there except to touch her, make out with her, and be horny over her when she's not around. If you were to take nun out of the story, the plot wouldn't really change at all. I have tried these last 3 books to see anything redeemable in him but I can't. Like, he has no redeemable qualities whatsoever.

And then there’s that dreaded Rowaelin sex scene that stans obsess over. Yeah, that quite unnecessary five page long, descriptive, sex scene. The scene that I had to suffer listening to on audio book while I drove to pick up my sister. And I couldn't skip it. So, for those five pages, I had to suffer listening to them hitting it up on a beach. I've never cringed or gagged so much in my life. Sarah literally said, and I quote, that Rowan's dick is like “velvet wrapped steel”. WHAT?? I can't believe this scene was in a YA book. There are some 13 year olds who read these and I can't imagine them having to read that. I was 18 at the time and I was scarred from it. It was honestly more graphic and descriptive than Game of Thrones and that is saying something. It wasn't much better than reading a smutty fanfic on Tumblr.

Right okay, enough of that horror. Right after, Rowan waded in the sea to keep the marks of Aelin’s fingernails going into his skin from healing. It's like he wanted the world to know that he was taken by the fingernail marks. I'm sorry, but I definitely do not want my S/O to keep my fingernail marks on him. That's disgusting. Not cute. Disgusting.

After the two hook up (which they do multiple times, ugh) Rowan says that he never felt anything like that before. Um, buddy, you had a wife and mate over 200 years ago…is Lyria chopped liver now? (Okay she is, but that's not the point.)(also, Aelin literally burst into flames while they were hooking up. Don't you love when your girlfriend bursts into flames while your having sex with her?)

And just when you think Rowan couldn't get any more territorial and annoying, he does. He's even more protective, he doesn't even allow Aelin around men anymore. He just thinks of having sex with her again. Plus he has this really weird earlobe fetish….like who gets turned on by earlobes??? It's. Really. Weird. And. Disturbing. Once again, he's only there to be horny and have sex with Aelin, nothing new honestly.

Oh and the two of them decided to get married and found out that they're actually mates??? Apparently Maeve tricked Rowan into thinking that Lyria was his mate so he'd fall in love, then she'd kill Lyria, and then Rowan would be left broken??? I just feel bad for Lyria in this situation.

And there's this thing that mates aren't able to hurt each other??? Explain the neck biting and abuse back in Heir of Fire??? They definitely were hurting each other then.

One thing that really annoys me is that Sarah spends so much time and effort to make Rowan look amazing and the best. She's always commenting on how attractive he is, many characters are constantly saying how attractive he is. How great he is. She's basically forcing her readers to fall in love with him, his perfect, beautiful self. It honestly just makes me hate him even more. He doesn't have any real flaws. He's just hot and horny.

Then there's something that Aelin says to Rowan in the fifth book, something along the lines of, “You're not human and I wouldn't expect you to be.”

So basically, every shitty thing he does like being territorial, abusive, and all these other horrible things is okay because he's not human. It's okay because he's fae. Fae are allowed to be horrible like this, because they're immortal, gorgeous, and excellent fighters. There are so many girls who find Rowan to be boyfriend goals and what they look for in a relationship! And that is so awful! Sarah J. Maas is making all of this look okay and considered attractive. No one, man or woman, should ever be like this. It's absolutely awful and disgusting. And Sarah is just romanticizing it! I despise it.

I've gotten into quite a few debates with Rowan stans about this, including a few at a Sarah J. Maas event. Sarah is an absolutely wonderful person and an amazing speaker. I love her as a human. I just don't like where she has taken these books, especially with Rowan and the other fae. While I was at the event, I came across several Rowan stans. So while we waited for Sarah to come out, I decided to strike up conversation with her. We got to the topic of Rowan and I stated my views on him, she instantly jumped to his defense. Which I'm completely okay with, I defend my favorites too. I wanted to hear why she loved him and see her reasons behind her opinion. The problem: her reasons behind loving him were that he's hot (I mean I do love me a nice hot guy, but there's always more to a guy than being hot, thanks), that he's protective, and that he's her boyfriend goals.

I stated my arguments, basically everything I've noted up above, and her reasoning to why all that's all okay. He's fae. She told me, and I quote, “That's just how fae are. It's not his fault.” So because he's fae, he can bite other women in the neck, he can be territorial, he can be constantly horny? If that's how fae are I don't want one. I want to get as far away from one as possible. Who cares if they're gorgeous and immortal.

What annoyed me the most was that as soon as the girl figured out that Chaol was favorite character, she came to the conclusion that the only reason I hated Rowan was because Aelin chose him over Chaol. Not because of all the reason I told her, but because Rowaelin was canon and Chaolaena wasn't. That's basically when I stopped talking to her.

I've had these debates with so many other stans and it always ends the same way. They're only defense for Rowan is that he's fae and it's okay for him to be like this. I want no part in that.

Okay, this is long, so in conclusion, Rowan Whitethorn is a horny, toxic, territorial bastard that I hate more than any other fictional character. And yes, that includes villains. In TOG7, all I want is for Rowan to die painfully (a nice Game of Thrones worthy death.) There's nothing more I want. And there's basically nothing this man can do to ever earn my love and devotion. I hate him that much. I honestly still do want to know why people love this man so much, he is considered one of the most beloved characters in the series, even Sarah loves him more than anyone else. I want to understand why he's just so appealing. Something besides him being hot and fae.

So yeah, that's my rant and if you made it this far, I applaud you. No doubt I'm going to get some serious hate for this, but at this point, there's no changing my mind so who cares! But to all you Rowan lovers out there, I still love you as a human, just don't understand your love for Rowan Whiteporn.