#foxybananaaz

[princessofmerchants]

Nesta?

Thank you for asking me about my fave, @foxybananaaaz! Tagging @highfaenesta too because you also sent me my girl 😍

How I feel about this character: I don’t even know where to begin. Nesta Archeron is the first literary, fictional character who has made me feel fully seen on the page in terms of her emotional response to her particular trauma, which without getting into specifics is incredibly similar to my own. There’s a line in “Wings and Embers,” which, when I first read it, I crumpled into an emotional, gasping heap because I had never seen my own inner experience written so clearly: 

“She didn’t know what to do with it, that rage. It still burned and hunted her, still made her want to rip and roar and rend the world into pieces. She felt it all—too keenly, too sharply. Hated and cared and loved and dreaded, more than other people, she sometimes thought. Could sift between them all in a matter of moments, like she was trying on different sets of clothes, and no one could tell or care.“ 

The irony is, in my day to day life, I don’t act or appear rageful. But getting to see a fictional character fully experience and at times act upon the rage I also feel, but am a regulated grown person who knows it isn’t healthy to act on my own rage in the real world in the same way, is cathartic, and badass (women are allowed to feel rage - Nesta reminds me of this), and validating, and just, yea, I could go on. 

Then we get to ACOSF where Nesta’s particular traumatic response in terms of her inner life and experience of the world and herself in it, is also so deeply similar to my own, and my love and compassion for her (and by extension, for me - see how powerful that is?) only deepened. There’s so much more I could say, but I’m grateful for this character every damned day of my life since I met her when I first read the series years ago.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Cassian, obv. Because that quote above, that made me feel deeply seen? Cassian is the first person in her world to see that part of her as well, really see her, and not run or shy away. That is next level OTP right there. Nessian has my whole romantic heart.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Gwyn and Emerie, her fellow Valkyries. Friendship on the page does not get any better than what SJM gave us in ACOSF between these three. 

My unpopular opinion about this character: My opinions about Nesta are all gonna be unpopular with someone 😂 The two I think are unpopular with some of my fellow Nesta stans, though, I’ll go ahead and share, and they are intertwined with each other. 

First, I think Nesta’s healing arc in ACOSF, as it relates to her feelings about her father, Papa Archeron, was handled beautifully, and in just the way I felt made sense for someone who does not want to be held down with the heavy baggage of resentment and hate toward a parent whose relationship with her was deeply complicated. (I know many people think narratively that Papa A got off too easy, but when I consider the generational trauma and dysfunction that he was likely in turn enacting --- we don’t know anything about his childhood, what kind of father figure he had or didn’t have --- I think the ruling on what he deserves or doesn’t deserve in the narrative becomes less black and white and a lot more greyscale, and I think where Nesta lands in terms of her feelings about her father, at the end of ACOSF, is the most healthy place for her to have landed. This is also super personal for me, which I admit, but how SJM handled Nesta’s feelings about her father was on my shortlist of needs in ACOSF, and for what I was looking for in this regard, the book delivered and then some.) 

And second, I also think Nesta’s healing arc as it relates to her traumatic response in terms of her spiraling anxiety and negative self-talk, was also portrayed realistically, and in a satisfying way for me (as someone who has experienced the exact thing we saw in ch. 50 before). This one I hope to unpack in longer posts someday after I finish my slow, deliberate reread of ACOSF, but for now, suffice it to say in this book I continued to feel really seen by this part of her experience as well, and it means ACOSF, for all of its faults which I can readily admit exist, will be a beloved, favorite book of mine always, despite its faults.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I want Nesta to remain a main character (lol), and for the bargain she made with the Mother at the end of ACOSF to play an important role in the rest of the series. I also want a true but believable reconciliation of the three Archeron sisters in canon on the page, but I can see why we haven’t gotten that yet at this point in the meta series arc. And I want Nesta in the future books to still be her prickly self, even as she has access to inner peace a lot more now than she used to. 

Send me a character and I’ll break them down!

Past character posts: Mor | Rhys | Eris | Elain