Against All Odds, Nesta Is The Best Character Now: A Court of Wings and Ruin Chapter 18

Previously, Rhysand had a plan to organize a meeting with the other High Lords to see who’s going to be on whose side for the war that’s about to pop off. Then they got dinner. Pretty much nothing happened last chapter. You didn’t miss much. Hell, this chapter picks up during the same scene. Somehow these thrilling plot developments just couldn’t be contained in one chapter.

A Court of Wings and Ruin: Chapter 18

Rhys explains that the next part of his plan involves going to the Court of Nightmares to ask Mor’s father for his help in the war. Thankfully, Nesta is our new audience surrogate, so I don’t have to write a summary explaining what the hell the Court of Nightmares is myself.

“What is the Court of Nightmares?” Nesta demanded.
Lucien answered for us. “The place where the rest of the world believes the majority of the Night Court to be.” He jerked his chin at Rhys. “The seat of his power. Or it was.”
“Oh, it still is,” Rhys said. “To everyone outside Velaris.”

That’s exactly what Lucien just said, but sure, good share, Rhysand.

“Keir’s Darkbringer legion is considerable enough that a meeting is warranted.”
The last meeting had resulted in Keir’s arm being shattered in so many places it had gone saggy. I doubted the male would be inclined to help us anytime soon—perhaps why Rhys wanted this meeting.
Nesta’s brows narrowed. “Why not just order them? Don’t they answer to you?”

Hahaha oh fuck ok everyone get ready for ACOWAR to explain how Rhysand’s gentrified-to-shit shadow government is supposed to make sense again.

Cassian set down his fork, food forgotten. “Unfortunately, there are protocols in place between our two subcourts regarding this sort of thing. They mostly govern themselves—with Mor’s father their steward.” […]
“The steward of the Hewn City is legally entitled to refuse to aid my armies,” Rhys explained to Nesta, to me. “It was part of the agreement my ancestor made with the Court of Nightmares all those thousands of years ago. They would remain within that mountain, would not challenge or disturb us beyond its borders … and would retain the right to decide not to assist in war.”

TO SUMMARIZE THIS BOOK’S GOVERNMENT THAT IS SLOWLY STARTING TO REQUIRE A MORE COMPLICATED EXPLANATION THAN WHEN AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS HAD TO EXPLAIN HOW THE UK HAD A MINORITY GOVERNMENT BACK IN 2017, LORD IN HEAVEN: The outside world thinks that the Night Court is full of monsters and depravity living in dungeons and caves and shit. However, some percentage of the population – including the royal family – resents this association because they really like artist districts and independent coffeeshops, so they secretly sectioned off a part of the country where they could shop at Whole Foods in peace. (Don’t worry, it’s totally not a weird form of fantasy racism because the rest of the country just wants to live in gloomy torture caves; nothing is less racist than asserting that some people just don’t want to be civilized!) So the government (which is composed of a head of state assigned via family bloodline and his BFFs who also all like to shop at Whole Foods) live in a secret city in the civilized part of the country while a steward secretly (to the rest of the world) assumes the throne in the undesirable part of the country that the rest of the world assumes is the real government. Sounds like it’s just local government, right? Well, yeah, except apparently the gentrified part of the country wanted this arrangement so fucking badly that they gave up command of their motherfucking military to the fake secret local government so they could rule the country without having to ever actually interact with their country. I think that’s it?

Mor points out that her dad – the leader of the fake secret local government and also the military – may not offer the kind of help that they want.

“I’ll remind you that the Darkbringer legion was nearly as bad as the enemy when it came to their behavior,” Mor said, pushing her plate away.
“There will be new rules.”
“You will not be in a position to make rules, and you know it,” Mor snapped.
Rhys only swirled his wine again. “We’ll see.”

Anyone else starting to feel like Rhysand has no fucking idea what he’s doing but just keeps telling people that he’s the only person who can make things work? Not that that reminds me of any real-world heads of state or anything. Just thought it was interesting totally independently of that.

Feyre abruptly changes the conversation by announcing that she wants to learn how to fly. Mor “spewed her wine across the table”, which is roughly the point where I realized that A Court of Wings and Ruins has the most spit-takes out of any book we’ve read for the blog. What an achievement.

Feyre explains that shape-shifting is one of her many new magic powers, Cassian expresses concern that it may not be possible because it takes years of practice and they might only be a few weeks from the war, but they all agree it’s worth trying anything that might give them an advantage. Now, I’m not an expert on military strategy or anything, but I think they gotta start thinking outside the box with this whole “oh, huh, Feyre has shape-shifting powers now” thing.

marvel saw the post about how ant man could defeat thanos by crawling into his ass and instantly growing in size and that’s why they didn’t put him in the movie, send tweet

— c a t (@filmgloss) April 30, 2018

Feyre tries to convince Nesta to help them out too by using her mysterious, unexplained, and yet-to-be-seen magic powers to help them fix the wall before the King of Hybern can destroy it.

“you … being made of the Cauldron itself … if the Cauldron can widen those holes, perhaps you can close them, too. With training—in whatever time we have.”
“I can show you,” Amren clarified to my sister. “Or, in theory I can.” […]
Nesta said nothing.
I waited for her outright refusal, the cold shutdown of all hope. […]
“What happened to the human queens?”
I blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Were they made immortal?” […]
“Reports have been murky and inconsistent. Some say yes, others say no.”

Nesta immediately goes from the story’s most pointless character to its best.

“By the end of this war, I want them dead. The king, the queens—all of them. Promise me you’ll kill them all, and I’ll help you patch up the wall. I’ll train with her”—a jerk of her chin to Amren—“I’ll go to the Hewn City or whatever it is … I’ll do it. But only if you promise me that.”
“Fine,” I said. “And we might need your assistance during the meeting with the High Lords—to provide testimony to other courts and allies of what Hybern is capable of. What was done to you.”
“No.”

“I don’t give a shit what’s going on in the book I’m in, I just want to murder everyone who made me be in it.”
“Ok cool, can we exploit your victimhood so the rest of world feels bad and helps us?”
“No.”

“Don’t talk down to me. My answer is no.”
I angled my head. “I understand that what happened to you was horrible—”
“You have no idea what it was or was not. None. And I am not going to grovel” […]

I’m sure this isn’t quite the intended reading of this scene, but check out how this bomb-ass bitch is basically the only character that gets how badly the Night Court administration has fucked itself over.

“The High Lords might not believe our account, which makes you a valuable witness—” […]
“it is not my problem if you’re unreliable.”

HI WHY ISN’T NESTA THE FUCKING MAIN CHARACTER

After dinner, Feyre and Rhysand go for a walk in Velaris. Feyre observes how the city is still rebuilding from the battle at the end of the last book. They talk about Nesta and Feyre recognizes that she fucked up how she went about asking her to help them. Feyre and Rhysand also talk about how they’re equals which is nice and all, but also about which High Lords hate them and whether they can trust Lucien and what is trust really when you think about it and oh my god I really don’t give a shit about anything these two have to say anymore tbh. Give me more of the adventures of Nesta who wants to murder her way out of being in this stupid story and thinks Rhysand is an idiot.