#i dont even hate rhys I just hate feeling manipulated by the narrative

[sad-scarred-sassy]

The discourse regarding Rhys is that “it would be boring if he was just *good*” and yeah I totally agree. But then these same people turn around and say “hes just pretending!! Its a mask!!” So which is it? I ask. This is the MAIN issue with Rhys character. Is he evil or just pretending? The narrative and his actions tell two different stories.

I LOVE wicked characters. One of my favorite characters is Vincent from The serpent and the Wings of Night (and if you read it you will KNOW). Im an Eris stan for gods sake. What I love about these characters is that they are wicked and they are morally grey and the narrative is aware of it, the narrative lets you know they are. The people who love them (at least in Vincent’s case) have a LOT of troubled feelings and thoughts regarding them, because they are aware that they are not good, but there is still some good in them.

With Rhys the narrative tells us he is “wearing a mask” and hes actually good! His evil side is just him playing pretend. But it isnt a mask if he is actually doing all that evil shit.

What gets me about Rhysand is that the writing makes him as this “savior” who can do no wrong. A feminist king. But then he segregates 1/3 of his court. But then he does nothing to prosecute wing clipping. But then he hides a pregnancy risk from his MATE who is supposed to be his equal in every way.

And the narrative NEVER puts his actions into a morality check. Feyre never questions him, she never even THINKS Rhys is capable of doing bad things, FOR GODS SAKE shes not even MAD after she finds out about the pregnancy fiasco. Nesta never acknowledges what he did to her sister instead we get her thinking she just doesn’t like his personality??. We keep getting the “hes a just leader” “he is an amazing partner” narrative. So it just feels like I’m being manipulated as a reader.

Either that or Rhys is actually mind manipulating every member of his court, which at this point is not a goddamn crack theory anymore. I just doubt SJM would be bold enough to do such a thing.

End of rant

[aho-dapa]

hi i just found your account and i just realized we kind of have the same problem with sjm but went 2 different ways about it. i read the books in like a week during a depressing episode so i didn't retain all that much and the parts i didn't like i just replaced (mostly bc i felt like the books were lacking in so many aspects that i don't feel bad basically rewriting it in my head). but the way i went about it is mostly changing the characters i want to like (rhysand, feyre, nesta) and just pretend they didnt do things that didnt make sense to me or they had good reason to do it. i was always bored with tamlin and the high lord of the night court is so up my alley so i just make rhys a little better in my head. i hate that sjm set him up to be morally grey but didnt make the darker parts in the right place if that makes sense? like i dont mind questionable morals in a character if it's to protect their family or people which is kind of what sjm started doing but then made him kind of a bad high lord? and i dont think she even sees it like that tbh bc i know she loves rhysand so i think she left the shitty situations in hewn city and illyria like that to set up plot but didnt stop to think what it would mean for rhys to not do shit about those situations. i know some people have theories that rhys might end up being a villain and is just manipulating feyre and the sisters but i think that's giving sjm too much credit tbh. i think she really leaned into the romance and the rest kind of morphed into the background but honestly i do love romance so i feel like i ended not minding it as much as other people at times. i'd rather have romance than a messy plot which is what sjm gave us (especially in acosf). also none of her characters have that much depth to them (feyre, nesta and rhys are probably the ones that have more but their actions don't always match with how sjm led us to believe they were) so i dont mind just making stuff up in my head like for example mor, she barely has a personality so i made her up one bc i wanted my proper lgbt representation.

anyway im sorry im ranting on your blog like this but it's interesting that so many people can agree that sjm set up a good world but the plot and characters ended up falling flat. and it's funny that the readers end up making the characters more interesting in fanfiction whether it's making rhysand the villain or making up how i think sjm meant him to be

I completely understand!! When I first read ACOTAR, I did the same for Rhys and Feyre because I truly didn't mind them until ACOWAR and sjm's constant inconsistent character writing caught up to me and my suspension of disbelief.

Also I think rewriting characters her characters in our head to make them more entertaining or relatable is something this fandom thrives on. A lot of people like Nesta because they relate to her even if the cabin years are a narrative mess. I personally relate to Tamlin too because of this both because and despite how his character was written.

Yeah, I also don't really mind rooting her or liking morally grey characters or even downright horrible people because sometimes they're just more interesting to me personally. In a sense, Rhys has a bunch of contradictions that don't mesh well because of sjm trying to make him some paragon of moral goodness when his character never even functioned that way even in the beginning.

I also like the villain manipulation Rhys hc but I also don't think that's where sjm is going with it. She fumbled too hard with Tamlin’s arc of abuse to suddenly make the mastermind move with Rhys.

Tbh it's really fun (and tiring) making up new canon adjacent personalities for her characters. I think the maybe unintentional problem with this is that the fandom uses those characterizations in critiquing characters or even hating them.

[vidalinav]

Do you think Sarah sincerly believe she wrote a beautiful healing story? I did enjoy the valkyrie part, but the romantic story was... crazy and not romantic. To me Cassian seemed almost manipulative at times. Nothing wrong with writing controversial shit, but I dont think that was the actual intention. On the other hand I’m ‘how can she not see this?!’

I think... She sincerely believes she wrote a beautiful healing story. Only because I don’t imagine any author dragging their own work when it’s already published. 

Also, I have a hate and love relationship with nessian. In my mind, I love their romance, I love the smut, I love the potential of them, the idea of them, the imperfection of them. But the way SJM writes it, I’m like only onboard 85% of the time. Which is why I always say I like 85% of Cassian. Because it’s not his flaws that are the problem, it’s the narratives insistence that he cannot change his mind, that he cannot have major growth, himself, or have scenes that make him accountable.

He’s like a very surface level good guy and I don’t mean that to trash him, but I mean that just like the rest of the characters, they’re “good” but only because they believe they’re good and the author believes it too. He’s probably more in the middle, closer to neutral rather than good or bad as most people should be. I hate this “good guy” rhetoric. It doesn’t exist. But he’s absolutely not the magnificent, holy grail of a person that many of the characters claim, even Nesta. He says shit. He’s a mindless soldier rat at the best of times. He is oblivious quite often (at least in ACOSF). He’s not very supportive, even if the narrative insists that he is. How many times did Cassian not offer really any consolation or contradiction to Nesta’s narrative? He went above and beyond? No. He didn’t. Cassian was only involved because Rhys told him to be. He only kept going because he was told to do it. How many times did he concede because someone pulled rank? How many times did he defend Nesta but for the most basic things, that they shouldn’t have said. It’s like this whole “good guy” scenario, giving credit to men for just being decent, giving credit for the bare minimum. 

At times, it seems like he has no mind of his own. He just plays the role that he's put in. He had so much potential to be this really, complex character with this great want to see improvements in his own culture, to this deep empathy that he felt with comrades, this goal that encompassed his character, this male who kept coming back even after being pushed away, because HE COULDN’T STAY AWAY, and you know what he validated people’s experiences. Feyre’s poverty. Nesta’s trauma. Where was that guy??? He was drastically reduced as a character as many of them were... 

And to me, it was like SJM tried hard to make this book as surface level as possible. I feel that you have to try to make it that bad, and so I’m always scratching my head like was this not intentional??? Did you type some words, kiss the pages and was like walla this the most beautiful piece of art I’ve written? This is peak healing! I laugh. 

Because there was so much that was such a let down that I was like... wow. Not even just a few things. If there was a bullseye, the arrow is lying in the grass, because she did not hit the mark on what is suppose to be a “beautiful healing story.” I cannot tell you how many people I’ve seen say they were disappointed, even non Nesta stans. Sigh.. (cue maniacal laughter)