#i'll forever be salty about no more calanmai

[soartfullydone]

For fifty years, Rhysand was not doing the Calanmai ritual for the Night Court. 

That means the supposed most perfect and powerful court was missing out on fifty years’ worth of revitalizing magic from their High Lord conducting the Great Rite. Fifty years that would’ve likely led to famine and biting cold, making the entire land, court, and people weak AF and desperate, their High Lord appearing to all but abandon them. And there’s Valeris in the center of it all, its citizens unable to leave, unable to get any food or supplies in or out of the city. They’re trapped and dying while the Illyrians and the Court of Nightmares fight over what lingering bounties they can scrounge up.

A stand-in for him has never been established to my knowledge, and it never will be because SJM didn’t think this through at all. I actually don't believe the stand-in method works, like when she claimed that Lucien stood in for Tamlin. For one, why would the High Lords choose to make themselves vulnerable to both potential enemies and foreign magic if they could appoint anyone else to do it? Better, if they could spin it as an honor to serve? Endless ways to politically, socially, and culturally spin this one. Endless ways a volunteer could be rewarded for service, but whatever. We all know it doesn’t work like that.

Also, Lucien’s connection to the Spring Court is through loyalty to Tamlin. He is not connected to that court’s land and magic like native-born Spring Court fae are. He’s still Autumn fae through and through. At best, he could potentially contribute a smidgeon of magic by having sex, but it wouldn’t be any more powerful than any other fae’s contribution, and no one’s contributions would matter at all without the High Lord at the center of it all, performing the Rite. Like,,,, that’s the whole point,,,,,

If I was Amarantha making that bargain with Rhysand to leave the Night Court alone in exchange for his loyalty, I’d honor that to the letter (and she would, too!). Yeah, the Night Court will be completely left to its own devices. No Calanmai for you, Rhysand :). It would ensure another Prythian court would become weaker and weaker, unable to rise up beyond their own dire problems. And also, what a power trip for Amarantha, who gets to bed Rhysand whenever she wants without his full consent, and none of it will make a positive impact to his court. 

I won’t even fully get into SJM’s throwaway line that Rhysand and Feyre having sex just so happened to fall on the Night Court’s Calanmai. We all know that’s bullshit. There was no ritual (eating a bowl of soup for a mating bond isn’t it). There was no foreign magic entering Rhysand’s body (a mating bond isn’t it). There was no magical revitalization to the Night Court. Making a mountain explode because you orgasmed sO hArD didn’t help your land, babes. It probably just made some more poor Illyrians homeless.

It’s like this because she didn’t plan it for book 2. She didn’t plan anything. Not Valeris or Illyrians or the Inner Circle. Calanmai, however, was planned. It was one of the few world-building elements that SJM firmly established in book 1, so firmly in fact that she couldn’t figure out how to incorporate it into her fake feminist Night Court that she made up much later. So she decided to ignore it and rely on that one throwaway line, and it doesn’t work. She established that every High Lord has to perform the Rite.

Well, now it’s been what? 51, 52 years? And Rhysand still hasn’t done it.