Spoiler Alert: This Post contains spoilers for all of the A Court Of Thorns And Roses books and some plot point for the Throne Of Glass series.
Hey! I’m writing a blog post! It’s been a while. I missed you!
I recently read the A Court of Thorns And Roses series and something that had long slept woke up in my brain. I was doing point by point check ins of my reading on my Instagram Stories, which were a lot of fun and are now pinned to my profile there if you want broader thoughts.
I have a lot to say about this series which I found incredibly compelling and extremely frustrating and in the end I didn’t like that much.
Some things I thought about writing
Once Again, I think this might be all Reylo’s Fault
Sympathy For A Dumbass: Why Tamlin Should Be Left Alone
Bisexual Disaster: What’s Morrigan’s Deal, Exactly?
The Night Court or NXIVM?: Parallels between Rhysand and Dangerous Cult Leaders
Nesta Never Did Anything Wrong In Her Life, Seriously, Fuck Those People (Except Cassian, obviously…well fuck Cassian too, but in the fun way)
But when it comes down to it, it’s a problem I had with the Throne of Glass series as well. Maas is an incredibly effective and creative writer. Her prose is clear, readable and propulsive. She’s created massive engaging fantasy worlds, and characters that very obviously connect with a lot of people.
I do not happen to be one of them.
Anyone who knew me while I was bundled on my couch reading Throne Of Glass in the height of pandemic isolation probably remembers my consistent allusions to “Aelin The Annoying.” (Again, it says something about Maas’s ability to keep a book engaging that I read a six book series about a protagonist I couldn’t stand.) But my frustration with Aelin Galythnyius pales, is massively dwarfed by my intense and complete loathing of Rhysand, High Lord of The Night Court.
You know when I liked this guy? When he was the morally questionable, intriguing, broody side character who seemed to be manipulating Feyre Archeron for his own ends. That is, I really enjoyed the characterization that was being built in A Court Of Thorns And Roses. I really like a lot of things about A Court Of Thorns of Roses (The book). Sure, it was clear that something lighter was playing under the surface of his careless darkness and that Feyre was absolutely the person to draw it out.
But instead Maas decides to throw that foundation away, in favor of presenting a less complicated, squeaky clean white knight who no one should ever question. And no one we’re meant to care about does. No one ever asks what exactly he was doing to undermine Amarantha under the mountain (having sex with her when she got too crazy? I guess?), why the hell he felt the need to constantly drug and sexually degrade Feyre during her time there (this being completely forgotten in the face of their great love and his perfection really really bumps me), and the idea that every sign and omen from the first book that was pointing Feyre to Tamlin was actually about Rhys is sloppy and nonsensical.
A big twist and foundational shift in it’s wake is fine, good even, I would say Maas pulled it off much more effectively in Throne of Glass with the reveal that Celaena is actually Aelin. The moment when the shift begins, when Tamlin imprisons Feyre “for her own protection” (please do not misunderstand, my dislike of the writing around Rhys does not make me “pro Tamlin,” but it is hard to muster any kind of passionate opinion about a character that boring) is actually fantastic.
The problem comes in everything after. There’s an interesting story to be told about these two broken people who did terrible things in a desperate situation pulling one another back to the light with love and tenderness. (And Maas goes on to tell it, kind of! With Nesta and Cassian in A Court Of Silver Flames) But instead Maas takes the cowards way out. She strips Rhys of all edge and darkness, he doesn’t need to be pulled back, he was always the hero, and makes anyone who’d dare, dare suggest that he was anything other than a benevolent savior, a firm antagonist.
And I couldn’t get on board with it. It’s such a missed opportunity.
I tend to think a lot about The Matrix when I talk about this sort of thing, because I really think no one has ever done it as well as The Wachowskis did when Neo meets The Architect and learns The One is just another system of control in The Matrix Reloaded. That then informs everything Neo and Trinity do in The Matrix Revolutions. By no means do I ever expect anyone to be as on top of the structure of genre stories as Lilly and Lana Wachowski, but you could at least try and it seems, with her decision to make Rhys and Feyre’s story a primary love story rather than a triangle (clearly the set up in A Court Of Thorns And Roses) Maas didn’t even attempt to shift the dynamics of the love story she wanted to tell. Seriously, think about Rhys’s discussion of regret and brutality and trying to build a better world. Now think about what we know of Tamlin in A Court Of Thorns And Roses through his treatment of The Archeron Family and Lucien and Alis’s loyalty to him and tell me she didn’t just switch up the dynamics and names.
But I finally lost it with A Court Of Silver Flames a book I like a lot partially because large stretches are about how intolerable the perfection of The Court Of Dreams could be to someone outside of it. (And because Nesta is the only character who never once got on my nerves) The fact that Feyre and Rhys do exactly what Tamlin did to Feyre to Nesta but it’s framed as an act of love is unbelievable. That Rhys then goes on to hide vital information about Feyre’s pregnancy from her while searching for a way to save her THE EXACT THING THAT TAMLIN DID IN A COURT OF MIST AND FURY regarding her bargain with Rhys, but it is brushed off as a small problem and Nesta revealing the secret to her sister as something Nesta is doing wrong completely broke me out of the story.
Maas over and over again made the decision to chase something shiny that would move her plot along rather than invest in sound characterization, and as someone who loves serialized storytelling, especially because of it’s ability to develop strong complicated characters with multiple facets, I couldn’t get over it. This series simply fails in that capacity, around it’s male lead especially. And since everyone in this world is constantly braying about how wonderful he is, I find myself just frustrated by it.
Anyway, The Crescent City books are currently sitting on my shelf, and I have every intention of reading them, with a tentative revisit Throne Of Glass planned too, to see if this is a Rhysand specific annoyance or if it’s a larger pattern in my irritation with Maas, which I had more trouble putting my finger on when reading Throne Of Glass.
Oh, and in the past few months I also read Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros and if you want to talk about that I’ll talk all day about how much fun I had. Maybe someday…
The Fangirl's Dilemma 