#there are a lot of cool subtle nods to it in acotar

[goforth-ladymidnight]

Amarantha: If I give you an eye in a ring, will you give me a kiss? Tamlin: *staring at Jurian's eyeball* What in the actual...

Inspired by @kateprincessofbluewhales hilarious post.

In all seriousness, though. Why are eyes Amarantha’s thing?? Eye know why. ;)

OK, OK. Now I'll be serious.

So, it turns out that it's a reference to the original Ballad of Tam Lin (well, one of many versions). When Janet wins Tam Lin back from the faeries on All Hallow's Eve, the Faerie Queen is naturally furious.

'But had I kend, Tam Lin,' she says, 'What now this night I see, I wad hae taen out thy twa grey een, And put twa een o tree.'

Translation:

"If I had known that this [your rescue] was going to happen, I would have taken out your eyes and replaced them with wooden ones."

Savage.

Depending on the version, she also says that she wishes she had thought to replace his fleshy heart with one of stone, so that he could never feel Janet's love. (That explains why SJM added that detail into ACOTAR, too.)

While the eye thing can be interpreted in a similar fashion (so that he cannot look upon his love), there's another reason she might have wanted to blind him. At the time the Ballad was written, there were folk tales that told of mortals that obtained faerie sight (and wisdom) that they should not have had, and were later blinded (or had their eyes plucked out entirely) by the faeries when their knowledge is discovered.

So, there you have it! There was a precedence for Amarantha’s weird obsession with eyes, after all. :}