#onerainydayatthespringcourt

[onerainydayatthespringcourt]

Discussing the tithe in ACoMaF:

Honestly, this is likely a hill I’m going to die on, but I’m willing. So, let’s talk about the tithe in ACoMaF.

The tithe:

It is further explained that Tamlin pushed the collection of the tithe back one month to give every one just a bit more time to collect it.

If however a faerie still fails in handing in their tithe, the following happens:

That’s what Lucien tells Feyre.

Everyone who fails to bring the tithe will get an additional three days to be able to still make it. Granted, depending on what the tithe is, three days might not be enough. But, I’ll get to that in a second.

Note also: Tamlin will be expected to hunt them down. Note that it says expected, and not "he wants to hunt them down bc etc."

And then, when Tamlin does actually confront the water-wraith, we get this information:

So, you don’t actually have to hand in the tithe in just three days. You can literally just wait 6 months and pay double. Now, double might seem like an unfair increase, but really it isn’t. If you think about it, all that this rule is, is an extension of the time that you get for earning the first tithe. You just get an additional six months.

Also, as it was established, the tithe is literally calculated and based on your income and status (whatever that means. I suppose it means that even the rich that don’t have an income, but just a stale heritage, get taxed accordingly). So it means that acquiring the tithe isn’t an impossible feat. It’s really just taxes, but more fair, because this time the rich get taxed accordingly, too.

Also:

You might wonder: how much is the tithe for the water-wraiths that they failed to hand it in in the time given to them?

Through Feyre, we find out that the tithe for the water-wraiths is, drumroll please 🥁…. A bucket of fish. Yeah, a single basket of fish for the entirety of the water wraith population of the pond …

All they had to do was hand it a single basket of fish. And they didn’t.

(Also, I find it so stupid that Feyre literally just says they don’t even need a basket of fish, bc how would she know? She never asked Tamlin what happens to the things people bring for the tithes. She just assumed that they don’t need them bc she is dead set on making Tamlin out to be this splurging man, living lavishly in unnecessary luxury)

Anyway, now, during the conversation the water wraith has with Tamlin, Feyre gets the impression that the water wraith is starving. Why? Bc the water wraith claims the pond they live in is empty of fish.

Now, why is that? Because the water wraiths ate all the fish.

Feyre immediately makes the connection between her and her sisters, as they too know what it means to have no food, to feel the hunger.

Only later we find out that the water wraiths aren’t actually starving. They’re just cursed with "insatiable hunger", whatever that means.

Now, I just saw that it says appetite instead of hunger, which makes it even worse. Omg.

So they’re not even starving, they’re just constantly craving food.

But then, in the next line, it says that they do actually die of starvation. But that begs the question: HOW?

When is it that their hunger/ appetite isn’t satiated enough (which, by definition it can never actually be???? Because it’s insatiable ) that they starve?

It’s all just super unclear. And vague. It makes zero sense 🤦‍♀️😒

Okay, during that conversation Feyre also tells Tamlin that instead of making them pay their tithe, they should help them replenish the pond. Tamlin declines and Feyre in turn thinks that he is being unnecessarily cruel etc.

But, here in the conversation with Alis, it is revealed that actually no one, not a single faerie in the spring court, would have given the water wraiths money or whatever, because it virtually makes no sense. They just spend whatever they will get trying to satiate a hunger that cannot be mended.

And they know this. Everyone else knows it. But Feyre refuses to believe it.

The jewelry that Feyre gave them will last merely a week. A week. That’s nothing. But somehow, we’re all supposed to be on Feyres samaritan side here and think that it would be the right thing to give them money/ resources etc.

Until when? Exactly? Because as it is, there would never be an end to it.

Now I’m not saying that making them give something is more sensical. It’s obvious that they struggle to curb their hunger and making them forfeit on food has proven to be an exhausting task for them to accomplish.

Only that … only that according to Tamlin, the tithe has been around for ages. His father did it like this, the father of his father did it like this and so on and so forth. Btw, that means it’s been a lot of time since faeries essentially don’t die unless they're killed. And all of this in turn means that the water wraiths have had to have paid their tithes in the past. Otherwise they wouldn’t be around anymore. So it gets you wondering: how come is it that they were able to pay in the past and only now they can’t?

Now, it could definitely be that when Tamlin killed Amarantha and took over the spring court again, they struggled to adjust to it in the little time that passed. However, that’s just a guess. And it’s not backed up by anything, because Acotar has little to no world building and all that we know about the history we find out in the details that are conveniently added just how it fits the narrative whenever a new book comes out 😀

Therefore, the explanation I would offer is:

The tithe is just another example of Sjm's inconsistent, bad worldbuilding and it goes to show furthermore, that she was just trying to find a way to make Tamlins character look bad. Unsuccessfully, if I may say so.

Anyway, I can’t believe I’ve spent so much time discussing the fking tithe, but this has been simmering in my brain for like two years now so I just needed to make this post!

[onerainydayatthespringcourt]

Rhysand: *pretends to team up with Amarantha, who enslaved all of Prythian and regularly tortures and kills people according to her whims, in order to keep the secret subgroup of his citizens safe that nobody knows about. And later reveals that he was good all along*

Prythian: Wooo! Rhysand rocks!!

Tamlin: *fights against Amarantha and for Prythian for 50 years straight, even lets people that he cares dearly for sacrifice themselves for the cause, which eventually leads to the curse being broken, saving everyone in Prythian from Amarantha. Then he momentarily pretends to team up with Hybern, but reveals that it was a ploy to get intel on Hybern and all of it also served the purpose of keeping all of Prythian safe*

Prythian: Booo!! How are we supposed to trust you now? You seem evil and we believe Rhysand over you!

I’ve got to ask: Why do people think this mess of a plotline makes sense? 😀

[onerainydayatthespringcourt]

My frustrations with the Acotar series have become so severe that there’s a small (yet growing) part of me that’s convinced that Sarah J. Maas literally wrote the series as some kind of on going experiment where the last book in the series will be one that explains that it was all just a hoax. That Feyre and Rhysand and the IC are the true bad guys of the series after all.

Because why else, literally why else, would she write it so painstakingly obvious that they are so unbelievably awful. I mean there are so many holes in the logics that they apply. So many things one has to criticize them for. I mean??? Feyre literally has this one moment (just a single fleeting moment, two and a half books in) in Acowar where she thinks about the consequences of her actions for others and whether it’s truly just (or just straight up self righteous) and then she fking throws that thought away a single second later. She was for real like "mmh, should I be more reflective? Would that benefit someone? Ah, what am I even saying, forget about it.". And that was it.

How is it that Sjm will literally point at the problems in her work herself with a fucking ten feet pole, highlight it in unerasable neon graffiti, but then ALSO completely disregard them in the next line or scene or next book? How is that even possible???

Meanwhile she gives Tamlin every reasonable excuse in the entire world as to why he acts the way he does, while simultaneously having all the beloved main characters talk about how terrible of a person he is. When Sjm herself literally writes explanations for the way he acts that check out 100%?? Every time??

I refuse to believe that the irony in all of it is unintentional.

I just can’t. It has to be some sort of mastermind scheme of hers that I’m just not quite getting yet.

[onerainydayatthespringcourt]

I really think that Tamlin in general is a better person than Rhysand. And I could name a million reasons for why I came to that assessment, but I feel like that perhaps one little instance explains it best.

After everything that happened between Tamlin, Rhysand and Feyre, Tamlin could still find it in himself to revive Rhysand and even wish for Feyre to become happy.

We’re talking about the man that killed his mother unprompted and the woman that destroyed his entire court and thereby exposed them to the invasion of Hybern.

Meanwhile, we have Rhysand, who comes to Tamlin's court unprompted, sees this traumatized, beaten person who’s already lost so much, and what does he do? He tells Tamlin to k*ll himself. 😀 Like? Is this really someone we should be rooting for? Telling a depressed person to commit? After said person literally revived you?

I genuinely think that Rhysand would have never revived Tamlin, and I think that’s all you need to know about the two of them. It should tell you who’s the bigger person really.

[onerainydayatthespringcourt]

If you think about it, like, really truly think about it, Rhysand literally introduced segregation into his court. Or at least works hard to keep it up.

'Cause why else is his realm seperated into the court of dreamers (the good people) and the court of nightmares (the big bad people made of nightmares grr).

When the citizens of Velaris get everything they want, but the citizens of Hewn City are literally confined to living in that cave. And Rhysand as well as everyone else in the inner circle hates them. They have no ideas how to make living better for the people there, how to "turn" those supposedly all evil people into model citizens so that at some point during their eternal life, they could be reintroduced into the rest of Rhysand's court. No, he just keeps them there and doesn’t give a shit what happens to them.

Rhysand always gets praised for being the most revolutionary out of the high lords. For having the most imagination. For being able to think of a future where the status quo is challenged, since he, the most powerful man, can think of a world in which women may rule (let’s for a second completely ignore that S/jm literally crafted a world in which misogyny is perpetrated by the magic that determines the system, let’s just … forget about that for a second. Let Rhysand have this moment).

In what world is discrimination the answer? Why is this somehow the "right way" to do things?

And it is discrimination because there’s no way that Morrigan is the only "good person" to come out of Hewn City. Saying that everyone else there is bad and therefore deserves to be imprisoned is blatantly wrong. And quite frightening, to be honest.

Anyway, that’s just a quick thought I had.

[onerainydayatthespringcourt]

The High Lords of Prythian: deciding to revive their savior out of gratitude to her and Tamlin, in the wake accidentally giving her droplets of their powers. Something they wouldn’t have done, if they’d been given the choice.

Feyre, knowing this fully well: Ehe, finder’s keepers 🤭