Previously, any chance y’all remember how I’ve pointed out once or twice or a bajillion times that it’s super problematic that this book is celebrating that the Night Court has a whole secret city where the part of its population deemed civilized enough gets to live in privilege, untouched by the war, and with access to organic farm-to-table avocado toast, while the rest of the country is referred to as literal monsters who totally just want to be uncivilized and aren’t even allowed into the suburbs secret city? Yeah, that comes to a head today.
A Court of Wings and Ruin: Chapter 25
Today is the day that Rhysand – High Lord of Night Court – and his gang go to meet with Keir – The Guy Who Actually Gets To Rule Over The Night Court Because It’s Full Of The Poors And Paul Rhysand Doesn’t Ever Wanna Actually Go There – to strike a deal with him to use his army in the upcoming war. Why does a regent of the systemically socioeconomically disadvantaged majority of the country get his own fucking army? Who the fuck knows. This book is dumb as shit.
“Matthew, are you maybe taking this book a little too seriously?” I hate this elitist, self-important motherfucker that this story is so fucking gaga over that it spent the entire second book plot twisting every character into the exact opposite person they were in the first book, yet came up so gobsmackingly short that now this is our hero:
Rhys only winked as he gracefully escorted me right into that throne, the movement as easy and smooth as a dance.
The crowd murmured as I sat, the black stone bitingly cold against my bare thighs.
They outright gasped as Rhys simply perched on the arm of the throne, smirked at me, and said to the Court of Nightmares, “Bow.”
For they had not. And with me seated on that throne …
Their faces were still a mixture of shock and disdain as they all dropped to their knees. […]
“I will interpret the lack of two thrones to be due to the fact that this visit came upon you quickly,” Rhys said with lethal calm. “And I will let you all escape without having your skin flayed from your bones as my mating gift to you.”
Seriously, fuck Rhysand, finally showing his face in front of his people that he does jack shit for and demanding that they bow and cracking jokes about not killing them. This is our good guy?
And rest assured, this chapter does tons of “oh gosh, they’re all disrespecting Feyre because how can a WOMAN be the head of state“, which would work a lot better if this book’s limited scope of feminism ever paused to think of class issues as feminist issues and consider how fucked up it is that Velaris, Rhysand’s beautiful city of “trade and peace”, is literally systemically closed off to the uncivilized plebs.
Ok, everyone still reading? Who did I all lose by going on a rant about how Velaris is a neoliberal haven of discrimination and Rhysand is an authoritarian bag of dicks? Because I’m only on like page 3 of this chapter.
Rhysand, Feyre, and the gang go off with Keir to talk politics over dinner. Keir cuts to the chase, saying that he knows Rhysand is going to ask for his army to join him against Hybern, but that he “find[s] myself… sympathetic to Hybern’s cause”.
“There are many similarities between Hybern’s people and my own. Both of us trapped—stagnant.”
“Last I checked,” Mor cut in, “you have been free to do as you wish for centuries. Longer.”
Keir didn’t so much as look at her, earning a flicker of rage from Azriel at the dismissal. “Ah, but are we free here? Not even the entirety of this mountain belongs to us—not with your palace atop it.”
“All of this belongs to me, I’ll remind you,” Rhys said wryly.
“It’s that mentality that allows me to find Hybern’s stifled people to be … kindred spirits.”
…are we seriously supposed to sympathize with Rhysand’s side of this argument because I seriously fucking do not?
Rhysand brings out his first bargaining chip for Keir’s army, and – out of the goddamn blue – calls for Lucien’s brother Eris, heir to the Autumn Court, to enter the room, and then we cut for a dramatic chapter cliffhanger…
A Court of Wings and Ruin: Chapter 26
…that lasts for all of half a page.
“You once wanted to build ties to Autumn, Keir,” said Rhys, setting down his goblet of wine. “Well, here’s your chance. Eris is willing to offer you a formal alliance—in exchange for your services in this war.” […]
Keir leaned back in his chair. “It is not enough.”
OK COOL THAT WAS A GOOD CLIFFHANGER, GOOSEBUMPS.
Meanwhile, Feyre and Mor are visibly hurt and angry that Rhysand struck a deal with one of their enemies (who has personally done terrible things to Mor) in secret and then surprised them all with this new alliance during a high-stakes moment with their other enemy. Gee, Rhysand kept secrets from people because only he knows how to solve the world’s problems and then failed miserably? Gosh, that sure doesn’t sound like Rhysand at all.
Keir continues to call out Rhysand on gentrifying his country to shit and generally be a much more sympathetic character than the assholes we’re supposed to like.
Keir must have known, too. And said simply to Rhysand, “I want out. I want space. I want my people to be free of this mountain.”
“You have every comfort,” I finally said. “And yet it is not enough?”
Keir ignored me as well. As I’m sure he ignored most women in his life.
Well, “more” sympathetic is a stretch. Keir’s a misogynist. Feyre’s a white feminist who refuses to acknowledge her complicity in her country’s gentrification. They’re both garbage. I wish I knew what Nesta made of this scene (because she’s there, but never gets to do anything). She’s the only character who hates everyone in this book as much as I do.
“You have been keeping secrets, High Lord,” Keir said with a hateful smile […] “I always wondered—where all of you went when you weren’t here. Hybern answered the question at last—thanks to that attack on … what is its name? Velaris. Yes. On Velaris. The City of Starlight.”
Mor went utterly still.
“I want access to the city,” Keir said. “For me, and my court.”
“No,” Mor said. The word echoed off the pillars, the glass, the rock.
I was inclined to agree. The thought of these people, of Keir, in Velaris … Tainting it with their presence, their hatred and small-mindedness, their disdain and cruelty …
You see how this book continues to celebrate gentrification? Yeah, Keir as a person is a nasty piece of work, but how the hell is he wrong about this issue? This is the literal definition of systemic oppression, meanwhile, we’re supposed to sympathize with Feyre and Mor’s pearl clutching at the thought of just anyone entering their free-trade coffeeshops? It’s easy to forget that when Feyre first learned about the existence of Velaris, she got angry at Rhysand for not opening up its borders as refuge during the war and talked about wanting to “pick up a loose piece of cobblestone and shatter the nearest window”. But now she benefits from the systemic inequality, so I guess that’s what Feyre’s character growth is over the last two books. Feyre totally isn’t the small-minded one, she’s just better than other people.
Honestly, a huge shortcoming of this book and a thing that makes this criticism difficult to write is that because we never spend time with common people in this book (just heads of state and princes and shit), it’s really fucking hard to tell what kind of systemic inequality we’re talking about here. I have no idea if the Court of Nightmares is composed of different species of faeries. And we’ve seen that there seems to be some bigotry towards Illyrians such as Rhysand and his friends. And we’re told that the Court of Nightmares is full of small-mindedness and hate. But we’re not shown how this is true. We’re not given a full picture what that actually means. And in contrast, we do know that Rhysand has political power and uses it to uphold a system that redlines huge subpopulations of his people by virtue of whether he deems them properly civilized, and his friends are all totally on board with it. With the information we actually get in this story, it’s hard not to feel like our heroes are missing the goddamn point.
Rhysand does the only thing that I’ve ever thought shows a glimmer of humanity… he agrees to listen. He says they’ll discuss the specifics later, but largely agrees, and Keir accepts and offers his army.
Feyre also goes “OH BTW I NEED THE OUROBOROS MIRROR” and Keir’s like “yeah, sure, this chapter’s running long anyway, go ahead, btw you can only claim ownership of the mirror if you look into it and it totally causes madness to everyone who looks into it” and Feyre’s like “cool, thx bbz”
Keir leaves. Eris reminds everyone that he’s still here and that he’s a really important character now despite still having served absolutely no purpose. He and Rhysand explain that Eris has agreed to an alliance and to keep quiet about Feyre’s powers (especially to his father) in exchange for Rhysand’s support of Eris’s claim to the throne “when the time comes”. Eris suggests they just kill his dad now and get it over with, but is chill with waiting if that’s what Rhysand wants to do. Diplomacy!
Eris places his bid for the “you all think I’m a bad guy but you don’t know the real me” club:
Eris’s pale face flushed. “I was given an order. And sent to do it with two of my … brothers.”
“And what of the brother you hunted down alongside me? The one whose lover you helped to execute before his eyes?”
Eris laid a hand flat on the table. “You know nothing about what happened that day. Nothing. […] How do you think [Lucien] made it to the Spring border”
Eris also helpfully reminds everyone that Rhysand’s made a deal with his best friend Mor’s bigoted ex-fiance who left her to die after she fucked an Illyrian to get out of the engagement. GOSH, THAT RHYSAND SURE HAS A REAL HEART OF GOLD.
“I wouldn’t have touched you,” he said to Mor, who blanched again. “But when you fucked that other bastard—” A snarl ripped from Rhys’s throat at that. And my own. “I knew why you did it.” Again that secret smile that had Mor shrinking. Shrinking. “So I gave you your freedom, ending the betrothal in no uncertain terms.”
“And what happened next,” Azriel growled.
A shadow crossed Eris’s face. “There are few things I regret. That is one of them. But … perhaps one day, now that we are allies, I shall tell you why. What it cost me.”
“I don’t give a shit,” Mor said quietly.
Oh good, just what this book needed, another man who only pretends to be an asshole to everyone because he has to to achieve his secret humanitarian goals. Maybe he and Rhysand will one day be BFF rich boyz who want to save the world and disrupt the magic industry and have conversations on fantasy Twitter about how unions are actually bad.
If you like what we do here, please consider buying the BBGT writers a cup of coffee? That’d be swell of you!
It could be so interesting to read a story that has the express purpose of making commentary on an issue by having characters do the things they shouldn’t, but you know that isn’t what this book is doing lol
Oof yeah, that’d be way better, and why I tried to be very specific about how this story isn’t doing that. It isn’t any of this as a mistake they’re making, but as a terrible price they have to pay. Oh the horror of desegregation.
I didn’t fully clock that on my only unfinished read through, but it’s definitely bothering me now. It’s so heavy handed. Your analysis is great and I’m glad you’re putting it out there
Okay, I cannot keep track of all the characters and their backstories, but wasn’t Mor raped or severely tortured? And now Eris comes along and says ‘Yeah, sorry about that, but I had a good reason for letting that happen to you and of course I could not tell you that. Because reasons.’ Are we supposed to care about what it cost him?
I also love your analysis in this post. I have read stories in the past in which I considered the main characters to be flawed, even if that was not the authors intent (Sword of truth series comes to mind), but that only worked because I was much younger and could not imagine the author thinking that what the characters were doing was actually good.
The book tries to make Rhys and Feyre the good guys but they are terrible
I want tk say something witty but all I can think is “God I hate this book.”
I hope Velaris experiences a Kale shortage and it’s awful classist subjects riot and burn it to the ground. Velaris is a nightmare (no pun intended).
I know it’s not the same but all this horror over ”’uncivilised” people entering their “pure” city reminds me of anti immigration sentiments being tossed around by the ”alt right.”
Don’t you just love how every male abuser in this series has the chance for redemption but women don’t?
“Paul Rhysand” I’m dying! LOL
“Tainting it with their presence, their hatred and small-mindedness, their disdain and cruelty.”
Feyre is literally hating on, with disdain and small-mindedness, the entire population of these people. TF. Also, I’m not saying that Ianthe didn’t deserve punishment, but I’m pretty sure forcing someone to smash their hand with a rock over and over qualifies as cruel and Rhysand uses cruelty or threats of acts of cruelty to get what he wants all the time.
Feyre has forgotten how it feels to be hated by her family, the sole bread-winner, and discriminated against for being a human by the faeries pretty damn fast.
Your take on feyre sounds incredibly off base and biased 😮💨 yikes