Previously… oof, been a little while, huh? The Goosebumps break is over, and it’s back to this nonsense. Kind of feels like I should summarize a bit more than just the last chapter, right? Hm, what’s the best way to do this?
Nobody told you Rhys was gonna be with Feyre
NO. I said I wasn’t going to do a summary to the tune of a 90s sitcom theme song again. I’m sorry. This is beyond me.
Previously, Feyre sneakily spurred on a populist revolution in Tamlin’s Spring Court to get back at Tamlin and then never talked to a commoner again. Then Feyre and Rhysand began to plan a diplomatic meeting with all the High Lords to determine strategy and alliances in the upcoming war against Hybern, prompting roughly 300 pages of nothing to happen before the meeting finally fucking happened. It is going terribly.
Rhysand began the meeting by telling everyone that he was actually the good guy all along. Tamlin claimed that Feyre left the Spring Court vulnerable to Hybern’s invasion, which allowed Hybern to attack the Summer Court capital city, and also slut-shamed Feyre for leaving him for Rhysand. Rhysand magically silenced Tamlin, which is definitely something that good guys do.
(Also, we accidentally wrote in our summary of the last chapter that Rhysand was choking Tamlin, which is definitely not what happened. He’s using magic to silence him, which is still shitty. I mean, sure, denying someone a platform for their toxicity is all well and good, but I think the issue here is mostly that this book has such an Ayn Randian boner for Rhysand that it’s saying it’s ok for him to use his super magic to negate other people’s agency because of very little reason other than having super magic means you get to decide what’s ok. But, still, not as shitty as choking Tamlin.)
A Court of Wings and Ruin: Chapter 45
So like I was saying, we’re in a diplomatic meeting where Rhysand is magically preventing his main political opponent Tamlin from being able to speak.
Tamlin’s eyes were green flame, golden light flickering around him as his magic sought to wrest free from Rhysand’s control. As he tried and tried to speak.
“If you want proof that we are not scheming with Hybern,” Rhysand said blandly to them all, “consider the fact that it would be far less time-consuming to slice into your minds and make you do my bidding. […] Yet here I am”
Well, I can’t think of a more convincing way to say “I’m the good guy here” than “FYI I could brainwash all of you into agreeing with me if I wanted to, but notice how I’m not doing that”.
“War is upon us,” Rhysand declared. “I have no interest in wasting energy arguing amongst ourselves.”
He said while magically removing someone’s agency to so much as speak.
The better man—male.
Look, book, if you’re going to insist on calling everyone males and females like a fantasy pick-up artist, you can’t have it both ways now and make us read a sentence as stupid as “The better man WAIT I MEAN MALE WAIT BUT THE SAYING IS BETTER MAN AGH IS THIS MAKING SENSE”. Especially when LMAO ARE WE TALKING ABOUT RHYSAND?
Totally not because one of the people present reminded them he’s so much more powerful than them he can brainwash them or murder them p much whenever he wants to or anything, but immediately Tarquin decides to rescind his Court’s death sentence on Rhysand and Feyre. Probably just because Rhysand made a very convincing argument about political alliances! Not because Rhysand is John Galt.
Tarquin said to me, to Rhysand, “Despite Varian’s unsanctioned warning …” A glare at his cousin, who didn’t so much as look sorry about it, “You were the only ones who came to help. The only ones. And yet you asked for nothing in return. Why?”
Rhys’s voice was a bit hoarse as he asked, “Isn’t that what friends do?”
A subtle, quiet offer.
ARE THEY POLITICAL ENEMIES OR ALLIES OR FRIENDS WHAT IS DIPLOMACY ANYMORE
Rhys un-mutes Tamlin, who snarls. The Autumn Court starts stirring up shit instead. Beron asks where their son Lucien is and Eris (who is supposed to be their secret ally and Also Secretly A Good Guy) asks why they didn’t bring Elain because word on the street is hubba hubba. I’m not even paraphrasing this that disingenuously.
Eris snorted and surveyed Nesta, who stared back at him with steel in her face. “Pity you didn’t bring the other sister. I hear our little brother’s mate is quite the beauty.” […]
Mor replied smoothly, “You still certainly like to hear yourself talk, Eris. Good to know some things don’t change over the centuries.”
Eris’s mouth curled into a smile at the words, the careful game of pretending that they had not seen each other in years. “Good to know that after five hundred years, you still dress like a slut.”
I like how A Court of Wings and Ruin‘s entire thesis is that actually your actions aren’t representative of your character.
A fight immediately breaks out as Azriel rushes forward and starts beating the shit out of Eris. “Wait, I thought there were WARDS OF NEUTRALITY? The book made a very big deal about that,” you might be thinking right now. Well, sure, but Azriel’s shadowsinging powers mean these rules don’t apply to him! Apparently. Look, if you haven’t figured out that every rule in ACOTAR has a convenient exception by now, I don’t know what to tell you. Life is chaos.
Beron protests but Feyre takes her time before calling Azriel off Eris, who sure is fulfilling the “secret” part of secret ally, at least. Feyre warns Eris that next time she’ll let Azriel kill him. Eris apologizes to Morrigan. Beron gawks at his son apologizing to a woman, but his mom quietly smiles in approval, because this book is all about respecting women just nevermind that Eris’s mom doesn’t get to have a name.
The chapter then goes on a super long tangent about how Tamlin’s stolen maps reveal Hybern’s caches of faebane, how Helion’s “master tinker” has developed an antidote for faebane, but Beron refuses to let anyone in the Autumn Court take it because he doesn’t believe in “testing out a theory”, because I guess that all this fantasy novel was missing was an allegory about antivaxxers. Also Eris says he’d take it, and Feyre’s like “omg Eris is a good guy” because the bar is pretty much just lying on the floor in this story.
Beron only said, “No, you will not. Though I’m sure your brothers will be sorry to hear it.” […]
Rhys said simply, “Then don’t take it. I will. My entire court will, as will my armies.” […]
“At least you have armies to give it to,” Tamlin said mildly, breaking his roiling silence. […] “Surely you knew that when you turned my forces on me, it would leave my people defenseless against Hybern.”
I said nothing. Even as I blocked the images from my mind.
“You primed my court to fall,” Tamlin said with venomous quiet. “And it did. Those villages you wanted so badly to help rebuild? They’re nothing more than cinders now. [While you’ve been] casting yourselves as saviors, I’ve been piecing together my forces–regaining their trust” […]
Nesta said drily, “So you won’t be taking the antidote, then.”
Can Nesta be in charge of the Night Court instead?
Then we shift wildly from Beron is an antivaxxer to Beron hates refugees as there’s a whole discussion about evacuating the Spring Court. Then they speculate about whether the human armies will ally with Hybern, which at first everyone’s like “…you mean the Hybern whose entire motive is enslaving humans” and Feyre’s like “well, the human queens suck” and everyone’s like “oh, ok, this makes sense then.”
“The fate of the humans below the wall,” Beron cut in, “is none of our concern. Especially in a spit of land with no queen, no army.”
“It is my concern,” I said, and the voice that came out of me was not Feyre the huntress or Feyre the Cursebreaker, but Feyre the High Lady. “Humans are nearly defenseless against our kind.”
“So go waste your own soldiers defending them,” Beron said. “I will not send my own forces to protect chattel.” […]
“You’re a coward,” I breathed to the High Lord of Autumn. Even Rhys tensed.
Beron just said, “The same could be claimed of you. […] Funny, that you should now seek to defend humans when you were all too happy to offer them up to save yourself.”
OMG YOU GUYS ARE WE TALKING ABOUT CHEDDAR SCALLYWAG THE PIRATE MOUSE, THE CHARACTER WE NEVER MET WHO NONETHELESS MOTIVATES FEYRE EVERY NOW AND THEN ANYWAY BECAUSE SHE LOWKEY SENTENCED HER TO DEATH THROUGH CARELESSNESS?
I could barely hear the words behind the tangle of images: Clare’s mutilated body nailed to the wall
WE ARE.
Feyre tells Beron to leave if he’s “not going to be helpful”. Beron starts talking about how he hasn’t decided what side of the war he’s going to be on yet anyway, and how he can’t really trust the Night Court since in the last war Rhysand literally whored himself out to Amarantha for protection while she tortured other Courts. Feyre and Rhysand’s plan to convince the other heads of state that they’re not assholes who think they’re better than everyone else continues to not go so well.
“And now Rhysand wants to play hero. Amarantha’s Whore becomes Hybern’s Destroyer. But if it goes badly …” A cruel, cold smile. “Will he get on his knees for Hybern? Or just spread his—”
I stopped hearing the words. Stopped hearing anything other than my heart, my breathing.
Fire exploded out of me.
Raging, white-hot flame that blasted into Beron like a lance.
Well, that’s probably going to become a diplomatic issue.
If you enjoyed today’s post, please consider buying the BBGT writers a cup of coffee? That’d be swell of you!
“and the voice that came out of me was not Feyre the huntress or Feyre the Cursebreaker, but Feyre the High Lady”
There’s any exorcist in this book? Feyre is needing one, her voice even changed
Feyre cannot do anything right. They had a plan to be the good guys and she cannot control herself.
Also, I loved this: “I like how A Court of Wings and Ruin‘s entire thesis is that actually your actions aren’t representative of your character.”
I keep filling in details of a better book in my head. In my version, the Fey are shackled to stories, and act in accordance with the stories. Rys has all the loud stories of nightmares, but is trying to latch onto the humanity of the night, of dreams and lovers, and all that. Rys is torn because he wants to keep the power of the nightmare stories, and thus has to act that way, but he hates it.
Hyperion was a good and wise king, but turned evil when society kinda realized that slavery and segregation was bad, and so the stories turned against him.
“You should ally with us. We’re such good people.”
“What about this shitty stuff you did?”
“Well, we felt really bad about it, so no harm, no foul. Gimme your phone and I’ll text you my number!”
I love how the thing to truly make Feyre flip the fuck out was a goddamn gay joke about her oh so masculine and male and heterosexual mate.
You could make the argument it was in reaction to trivializing Rhysand’s sexual truama at the hands of Amarantha, but people have been doing that since the first book. No, it is the mere suggestion that Rhysand gets close to another penis that is the final straw!
Oh yeah, for sure, it’s very gay panicky that that’s when she snaps. It’s almost like we can’t expect particularly great representation from a novel whose only openly gay characters are Thesan and Unnamed Gay Male Lover.
Yes! It’s painted as being sexually traumatized is bad enough, but now you’re just being demeaning if you suggest shudder gayness.
Also I mean, they have the right to question if he’s gonna resort back to that tactic? They’re being rude about it but also they legit think (and tbh are correct) that Rhysand is the worst and a total jerkwad.