It really is so fun that Essek started mentioning "my partner" like every three lines because he probably doesn't actually get the chance to talk about it that often.
I think there can often be an impulse when you really care about someone to want to shout from the rooftops all the great things you feel and notice about them, and Essek isn't really in a position to do that. The people who he can talk freely to already know him and Caleb, and the people who don't know them likely aren't safe to tell real personal details to. It's one thing to fabricate a parental relationship knowing that there isn't someone to trace that to, but it's an entirely different thing to tell someone honestly about the people you love when any small detail might put them in danger if it fell into the wrong hands.
The Hells are safe to say that kind of thing to—perhaps mostly on a meta level, in that the DM is aware that they are the protagonists—and they also characteristically tend to offer a listening ear to anyone they meet, and I think it's delightful that Essek actually recognized and responded to that.
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I think we should talk about the fact that satyrs age at half the speed that mortals do??
Grover was 28 in The Lighting Thief, physically 14, so...
Grover was 23 when he found Luke, Annabeth, and Thalia, and physically 11/12. Presumably mentally to some extent as well, considering, y'know. He doesn't exactly act like a 30 year old in the series.
He was older than Annabeth.
He was the same age as Thalia.
He was younger than Luke.
I wonder if Luke looked at this boy, seemingly the same age as Thalia but technically so much older, and seethed. Or maybe he couldn't bring himself to, because Luke hates, he hates so much, but it's a little harder when the face he tries to hate is round with baby fat and overtaken by teary eyes it hasn't quite grown into yet. It's a little harder when the face he tries to hate shares so many traits with the face of his best friend.
I wonder if Annabeth looked at this boy, once so much bigger than her, and realized that they could go to the same middle school class and not be questioned. That they could wear the same size now and it would fit — or hers might even be a bit bigger, really, because he's always been so scrawny.
I wonder if Thalia looked at this boy, fresh after her resurrection, and noticed that– well, he's not unchanged, he has grown, but it's not Luke-is-an-adult or Annabeth-is-a-teen grown; it's the same grown she sees in the mirror, maybe two or three years worth of it. And it's odd, because everyone else is so much older, but it brings her to tears sometimes, because at least someone is the age they should be, relative to her.
(She gets more used to it, once she halts her aging herself, but it's still something she clings to in those first days-weeks-months of her revival)
I wonder if Percy looked at this boy, his best friend since middle school, to see him becoming younger and younger. He was a little older than him, at first — by the time he's twenty, though, the roles have reversed. The gap only gets bigger and more noticeable with age. Grover never seems like an actual kid next to him, not the way Thalia does, but Percy is thirty and Grover hasn't even hit twenty-five. He tries to ignore it; he doesn't like to think much about his mortality in the face of everything, not after he was forced to do so every day of his teenage years.
I wonder if Grover ever looked at this boy in the mirror and compared himself to his friends, to the kids at Camp that were still missing their front teeth when he met them but now look so much older, and thinks about how painfully mortal they are in spite of their divinity.
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The dissonance between era inspiration in ACoTaR is one of the more brushed over flaws in the book series. Looking at the Inner Circle's fashion alone, we jump between "literal scraps of fabric" (Under the Mountain, Court of Nightmares) to "orientalist painter's imaginings of the Ottoman Harem" (clothing described during Feyre's first few visits to the Night Court) to "modern 'corset' dress" (Feyre's Starfall dress, majority of Mor's clothing, most of the clothes drawn in fan art) to "modern -- almost sci-fi style -- skin-tight leather armor" to "sweater and leggings combo".
Then, between courts, we have Helion wearing Spirit Halloween's take on the ancient Grecian tunic; Feyre's Spring Court wedding dress looking like an 1830s fashion plate; and Dawn heavily implied to have traditional East Asain clothing (e.g. kimono, hanfu, hanbok).
On top of all of that, some of the Dawn Court's small cities ". . . specialized in tinkering and clockwork and clever things. . ." which -- combined with Lucien's metal eye and Nuan's mechanical hand -- implies a sort of post-industrial revolution time period. However, a decent chunk of the fandom says that ACoTaR is medieval; which, yeah, it's medieval themed in the first book -- sans the "dress" Rhysand forces Feyre to wear UTM.
The wild inconsistencies in ACoTaR's inspiration leads, not to a rich and diverse world, but a world that seems ramshackle and haphazard -- like it's creator simply threw together a board on Pinterest and called it a day. This is a major part of why the world building is so abysmal, it relies on convenience to the plot and whatever pleases the aesthetic whims of the author. Cultures deemed "pretty" or "badass" are thrown together, irregardless of how far apart they actually are. This is not only disrespectful to the narrative, but to the readers and the cultures used as inspiration.
All of this to say: Sarah J Maas is a bad author, not just because of the way she handles serious topics like power dynamics and abuse, but also because she cannot put together a world that is even the slightest bit cohesive.
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Ok, but how did I only just realize that their fatal flaws are the reason Percy and Annabeth fall?
Like, we've got Annabeth, who's fatal flaws is pride, who has known her fatal flaw is pride since she was thirteen! And here she is riding high after beating the quest noone else has even survived!!! She found the Athena Parthenos!!! She beat a giant spider using only her wits!!! Of course she managed to cut all the spiderwebs first try, of course she doesn't need to double check that!!!!
And Percy. Percy "my fatal flaw is loyalty" Jackson. He doesn't even think. Of course he's not letting her go. Letting anyone go would be a betrayal, but this is Annabeth. Nothing else matters!!! No! Other! Choice! Matters! It doesn't matter that they'll probably die. It doesn't matter he might be more help above. It doesn't matter that he's been missing for a year and has not seen his mother once that entire time!!!!! It does not matter!!!! Because Annabeth is hanging off a cliff and he's the only thing keeping her from falling and letting her go would be a betrayal of the highest order and he cannot do that. So of course he falls with her. What other choice is there?
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