A Court of Mist and Fury Chapter 68:
Alert! Alert! We are now entering Rhysand’s point of view. He winnows everyone back to his home while Mor takes Feyre’s sisters somewhere safe. I struggle to understand where could be safer than with the world’s strongest Fae, and it seems like a terrible plan to just drop them off somewhere else?
Amren shows up starts asking where Feyre is. Mor chimes in and tries to helpfully recap the plot for us, but it only sounds dumber when it’s laid out like this:
“Tamlin offered passage through his lands and our heads on platters to the king in exchange for trapping Feyre, breaking her bond, and getting to bring her back to the Spring Court. But Ianthe betrayed Tamlin— told the king where to find Feyre’s sisters. So the king had Feyre’s sisters brought with the queens— to prove he could make them immortal. He put them in the Cauldron. We could do nothing as they were turned. He had us by the balls.”
I do feel bad-ish about everything that happened but…they all came face to face with like A MILLION of their enemies, said enemies had them “by the balls”, and everyone is still alive somehow. In fact, I’m pretty sure the King of Hybern was already going to let Rhys and his friends go for some reason since Feyre begged Tamlin not to kill them.
I managed to say, “We were out of options, and Feyre knew it. So she pretended to free herself from the control Tamlin thought I’d kept on her mind. Pretended that she … hated us. And told him she’d go home— but only if the killing stopped. If we went free.”
“And the bond,” Amren breathed, Cassian’s blood shining on her hands as she slowed its dribbling.
Mor said, “She asked the king to break the bond. He obliged.”
The only reason I can think that we’re recapping this is because it was obvious how little sense it made, and we’re being brainwashed right now into forgetting that. Couldn’t Feyre have secretly broken the bonds and escaped with them? Also, this doesn’t explain why anyone believed Feyre’s terrible act.
Amren points out that you can’t actually break a bond like the one Rhys and Feyre has. Rhys admits that this is true. GASP! It was an act! All the king broke was the bargain between them (wait, that’s all I thought he was breaking in the first place?).
“The king broke the bargain between us. Hard to do, but he couldn’t tell that it wasn’t the mating bond.”
Mor started. “Does— does Feyre know—”
“Yes,” I breathed. “And now my mate is in our enemy’s hands.”
Why would Feyre trick the reader, though? And why is the king a complete idiot who would think you can break a mating bond?
Amren tells Rhys to go save Feyre right now, but he refuses on the grounds of this series being incredibly stupid.
But I managed to say to my cousin, “Weren’t you listening to what Feyre said to him? She promised to destroy him— from within.”
Yes. Yes I did hear that. How did Tamlin and all the other enemies miss this?
I nodded. “She is now a spy— with a direct line to me. What the King of Hybern does, where he goes, what his plans are, she will know. And report back.”
You guys I am dumb a lot of the time. Like straight up fucking stupid. And even I picked up on this. Normally I need things spelled out pretty clearly for me to comprehend them, and even I understood this. I cannot take the King of Hybern seriously as a villain.
Rhys also declares that Feyre is the High Lady of the Night Court. This is a big deal because Tamlin said there are never any High Ladies.
I caressed a mental finger down that bond now hidden deep, deep within us, and said, “If they had removed her other glove, they would have seen a second tattoo on her right arm. The twin to the other. Inked last night, when we crept out, found a priestess, and I swore her in as my High Lady.”
“Not— not consort,” Amren blurted, blinking. I hadn’t seen her surprised in … centuries.
“Not consort, not wife. Feyre is High Lady of the Night Court.” My equal in every way; she would wear my crown, sit on a throne beside mine. Never sidelined, never designated to breeding and parties and child-rearing. My queen.
Like that’s great, but why is this being treated like it’s a big fucking reveal. A big shocking reveal in ACOMAF is that Feyre is Rhys’ equal. But she’s still “[His] queen”. Woo-fucking-hoo.
Also, another tattoo? Isn’t that highly risky? Why does he keep tattooing her on easily spotted places? Why was a tattoo necessary to make her a High Lady?
“You mean to tell me,” Mor breathed, “that my High Lady is now surrounded by enemies?” A lethal sort of calm crept over her tear-stained face.
Please stop spelling this out for us.
Anyway, Rhys retorts that he means to tell them Feyre is making a sacrifice for them, and they’ll strike when the time is right.
Perhaps Lucien being Elain’s mate would help— somehow. I’d find a way.
Shhh. Spoilers, Rhys. I hope the exact opposite of this happens, and in a shocking twist of fate MATES DON’T END UP TOGETHER AND ELAIN LEADS A BADASS LIFE.
The chapter ends with Rhys declaring that until they save Feyre…they go to war??? What? Okay, sure! Why not!
This chapter was total bullshit to me strictly because Rhys’s voice is exactly the same as Feyre’s. I couldn’t tell the difference between them. And I know alternating perspectives is trendy in writing right now, but you have to be really good at it, and this was not one of those instances. It was like the last Divergent book where it was impossible to tell between Four and Tris whining. And on top of that, this chapter really only existed to outline a plot that was too confusing to stand on its own.
I think in first person POV it’s really noticeable. If you’re doing third person, I don’t mind it so much because it’s the same narrator. But if you’re going to first person, you have a big opportunity to make their thought patterns and word-choices different. Honestly, though, that didn’t bother me so much as the fact that it was so unnecessary to switch to his POV for this. Originally, I believe this book was supposed to alternate POVs the whole time, but Maas wanted things to be a surprise (like the mates reveal), so she kept it to Feyre.
How angsty would Tamlin’s POV be oh my god
Granted, the only way I’ve been exposed to these books is through your recaps, but I’m struggling to see the problem with getting Fae-ma-tized by the Cauldron. Yeah, there’s the chance they could have died, but they didn’t, so why are all the Fae still acting like it’s this huuuuuuge tragedy that her sisters got turned? Isn’t being a Fae 100000x more awesome than being human? Despite Feyre’s own transformation, this book hasn’t seemed to dwell much on the “what does it mean to be human?” question, so this angst makes no sense.
It’s sort of how like Edward kept up this constant “you don’t want to be doomed to my hellish life of undead existence!!!” at Bella while simultaneously driving awesome cars, swimming in money, and having super powers with basically zero drawbacks or weaknesses. This is a weird non-conflict to dwell on.
This is such a good point. The stakes are so low in these books.
Exactly!!!!! Thank you!!!!
I know the point that Feyre is his equal has been hammered into us a bajillion times at this point but STILL. The fact that Maas yet again does this thing where she just recaps what could have been a big plot point (Feyre getting made a High Lady) instead of showing us. I mean, I don’t have any faith really in her storytelling or writing at this point so I’m sure it wouldn’t have been that exciting. But still, it is a really prevalent issue with her writing.