#It's the epitome of hubris to think that SJM thinks this is a good book

[vidalinav]

Nesta even losing some of her powers was unnecessary.

Prefacing this by saying, I can understand why Nesta trains, but I can’t understand why she doesn’t also discover more of her powers. The whole thing set up by Nesta’s character is that in order to control a lot of what she feels, because she feels too much as Feyre suggests, is that she pretty much shows no emotion, or she makes a great show of being aloof and taciturn and arrogant (Darcy 2.0), putting up walls, and the one emotion that slips through the cracks is always anger. Anger that incontrollable flame that we know has been associated with her and with Cassian, who goads that anger out of her, almost yearns for it. She is raised, we learn, to be this way. She has to be this way or she will drown under the weight of it all, as it’s suggested. Drowning is like that main motif running through the entirety of acosf. Nesta drowned in that cauldron, she was pulled under, there’s a constant theme about the sea. We learn in acofas that Nesta one, doesn’t feel anything except sometimes anger, and two, that she can’t control her powers. She couldn’t control them in the war, which she uses as a way to form some feeling of irrational internal guilt, and she doesn’t use them in acosf for the majority of the book, really. Which would be understandable in some ways because reasonably by the end we learn that she doesn’t really want to feel anything, and when she does promise that she’ll feel it all that is the direct instance where she is seen to use her powers to save Feyre, because she makes that deal with the cauldron and in some ways the Mother. We definitely get instances of her using them unknowingly in ways that suggest the powers are not evil (i.e. the sword, the house, etc) though we have the contrasting perspectives of the IC believing that they are malevolent because of... Nesta?

However, I feel this book completely lacked the idea that Nesta took that cauldron’s power, something I consider to be set up as empowering (because well she gained power and control) which is the other half of this whole situation of the power overwhelming her. This is something that many fans have brought up in the case of people not liking Nesta losing the power, that “oh it was overwhelming her, so I don’t think her getting rid of the power is bad thing,” and I’ve always kind of taken that stance as like ehh, because I’m like yes... but no... It’s not that the power overwhelms her, it’s that her entire being overwhelms her. That she feels too much and she burns with it--that’s what Feyre says in acomaf. She keeps walls up to keep herself from being overwhelmed. And what happens throughout acosf only to end where Nesta loses power? The entirety of the book is that Nesta needs to change, and being accepted is the heavy conclusion. I won’t re-make that argument it’s in another post. 

However, I am saying that that is why I don’t like Nesta losing her power, even if it was a self-less act on her part. That was never a doubt. Nesta has done constant things to prove that she would be there for Feyre/people at the drastic end, even if she’s not welcoming in the uneventful middle. The wall scene, the “we’ll be fine” scene in acotar where she’s like we don’t need you be free, To the queens in acomaf, sticking up for Feyre/Cassian with Tamlin in acowar, telling her story to the High Lords, using herself as a sacrifice in the end of acowar. We didn’t need another scene of Nesta doing a dramatic thing for Feyre. I’d argue we only needed a scene where they came together and mutually understood each other for once in their lives. But that’s not what we got, we got a scene that following Nesta having revelations that she’s “okay” and hopeful after being constantly berated and shoved in a house and walked up mountains as punishment, where her father is seen as okay (???), where we learn she has had a bad childhood, where she is in constant situations that are exactly the same as the situations that made her trauma in the first place, and where she doesn’t ever come to the conclusion that perhaps her thoughts are both accurate and incorrect, that she can be both the victim and the tormentor, which are two sides of the same coin. Nesta loses most of her anger... and then she loses most of her power... It remains to be seen how much she’s lost, but that’s a great big chunk of character. That’s quite a bit of everything we know of her character. 

But going back to the power itself and anger. Feyre in acotar says that her father wouldn’t have went and saved her because he didn’t have “the courage, the anger... but Nesta had gone with that mercenary” to find Feyre. Something that can be viewed as the first act of love to Feyre. Something that makes Feyre change her mind about who Nesta is. This is the first time that her anger is associated with something directly “good” because that’s how Nesta is, which is then show again and again.  

 And then in acomaf, Nesta who is put in a terrible situation where she has no control whatsoever, which is the start of something deeply traumatizing, in her anger steals from what is stealing from her. Similarly, I feel to learning how to fight so that she can have control. Nesta takes some manner of control in a situation where she has none. 

And then Nesta in her anger at almost losing Cassian obliterates the queen and her power is felt across Prythrian. 

And what I’m trying to really piece together here, is that Nesta’s power--Nesta’s anger--can be both something good and bad, something overwhelming and empowering... Something that Nesta logically may never be able to control completely, but can learn to accept, learn to minimize damage or know that she must constantly be aware, which is I feel the more natural way of growth. That growth is a constant battle. It is also something that remains to be seen whether it is good or evil, perhaps is neither of those things, something that remains in the middle to whatever situation occurs naturally. That is overwhelmingly good at the drastic end as Nesta is, and may be neutral or so-so or chaotic or unwelcoming in the (un)eventful middle. 

She didn’t have to lose anything. Not only is it something that S/JM has done so many times. Not only is it something she doesn’t do with her male characters. It is not necessary, when everything is set up perfectly fine to have developed those powers and in turn develop her character, because they’re equally related instead of having the end lead up to losing her power and in turn losing a major facet of herself, which is something that has a constant presence in this book. In no way is this book more about acceptance than it is about change. 

Acosf lacked the nuance that is Nesta’s character. It was one side of a coin. Which 1. is not fitting for a standalone in which romance occurs but character growth was suppose to happen in and sort of be relatively completed in (the bulk) and 2. it’s why I don’t understand why S/JM just didn’t leave Cassian’s pov out or integrate it better or leave some of the plot that was irrelevant. It’s also why I get deeply perturbed about this book series, because it can be so good and it’s just so disappointing. She set it all up. It doesn’t take a genius to connect dots. So why was this book so woefully underwhelming? Oh I know, it’s because she drastically reduced a character to “I hate myself. I hate my power. I hate my anger. All of these must be gone”/”These characters think my anger is bad, they’ll also think my power is bad and I’ll agree” and then did virtually nothing to prove that all of this was irrational in both cases, except with a “losing my power” moment that wasn’t even necessary or set up well.