Previously, Elain was kidnapped by…the Cauldron. Feyre and her pals all fought about FEELINGS. I guess there’s still a war going on.
Chapter 64:
Feyre breaks down why the Cauldron kidnapped Elain. Because Nesta took something from it, the Cauldron took Elain to punish her. She acts like her usual Nesta self only even grumpier.
Azriel announces that he’s going to go get her. So is this another story that’s going to happen behind the scenes? Like isn’t Lucien also off retrieving someone who has been kidnapped? I understand that Maas has a huge cast of bland, interchangeable characters but it’s a pretty bold strategy to just write them all off by giving them kidnapping-related side-quests.
BUT WAIT! Feyre says that she’ll be going with Azriel. Her plan is to…morph into Ianthe so she can walk right into the army. Wait Feyre can completely shapeshift now? Why has she not used this power before? WHAT CAN’T FEYRE DO? Anyway, they hope that Hybern doesn’t already know that Ianthe is dead (but IS she really dead? Who knows.)
[Rhys] brushed a kiss to my brow. “Ianthe sold out your sisters,” he said, his voice turning sharp and hard. “It’s only fitting that you use her to get Elain back.”
Good contribution, Rhys. Thanks for the expo as usual. He tells Feyre that she is a wolf who cannot be caged and off she goes. I don’t really understand what Azriel’s disguise is going to me, maybe the shadows?
Chapter 65:
I couldn’t see Azriel, but I could feel him, as if the Siphon parading itself as Ianthe’s jewel was a tether. He dwelled in every pocket of shadow, darting ahead and behind.
Okay, yes, so shadow disguise. Cool.
Feyre gets into the camp just fine, and she spends a weird amount of time descirbing to the us the jewelry is wearing. Like down to the detail of which wrist or finger she’s wearing things on. This book is already far too long for this nonsense!
Inside the camp, the soldiers are having a party.
Some danced in wicked circles around the fire, their contorted shapes little more than twisted shadows flinging through the night. Some drank from enormous oak barrels of beer I recognized—right from Tamlin’s stores. Some writhed with each other—some merely watched.
Obviously, Feyre takes a much needed break to have a dance party. Ianthe loves dance parties, so it’s all part of the disguise. Just kidding! She hears screams and needs to figure out a way to investigate.
It isn’t Elain she finds but a human from that cult that gets mentioned from time to time. The Children of the Blessed who worship Fae or something. FEYRE MUST SAVE HER BECAUSE SHE LET CLARE CHEDDAR SCALLYWAG DIE!
ClareCheddar Scallywag. It was likeClareCheddar Scallywag, what had been done to them. And like Clare, they had been left there to rot, left for the crows surely to arrive at dawn.This one had held out for longer. I couldn’t.
I couldn’t—couldn’t leave her there—
Can we just let this go? Is this Cheddar Scallywag motivation working for anyone at this point?
Jurian shows up and tells Feyre!Ianthe that Hybern has been looking for her. I’m kind of expecting that this is just a trap, but who knows. The stakes always seem super low for Feyre so I wouldn’t be shocked if she got out without a hitch just as I wouldn’t be shocked if Hybern was like, “LOL I KNOW IT’S U FEYRE!”
Jurian stared at me for a long moment, eyes sliding to the Siphon atop my head.
I knew the moment he realized who I was. Those brown eyes flared—barely.
“Where is she,” was all I breathed.
Jurian gave a cocky grin. Not directed at me, but anyone watching us. “You’ve been lusting after me for weeks now,” he purred. “Act like it.”
I sincerely hope Jurian is the new love interest in all this. That would be a wild ride. Also, if Jurian could immediately identify Feyre…how the fuck will Hybern not realise?
BUT WHERE IS ELAIN!
I tried not to scowl. “Where is she.”
“Safe. Untouched.”
My chest caved in at the word.
“Not for long,” Jurian said. “It gave him a shock when she appeared before the Cauldron. He had her contained. Came here to brood over what to do with her. And how to make you pay for it.”
Wait. How exactly did the Cauldron go about this kidnapping? Did it just straight up teleport Elain to it? Oh my god what??
Feyre tells Jurian to help her save the human girl being tortured as well. Given this series’ track record, she’ll get turned into a Fae and turn out to be Tamlin’s mate.
They rescue Elain and flee, there is some action where Feyre gets to use a bow and arrow again. They hit a cliff, and GASP, the girl is there! Jurian must have saved her and left her there for them!
BUT OH NO! The KING SHOWS UP!
“What intrepid thieves,” he drawled, the words everywhere and nowhere. “How shall I punish you?”
I had no doubt the wards ended just beyond the cliff’s edge.
Bro, you should punish them by making them read this book.
It all seems like it’s over. Feyre gets hit with an ash arrow, the king is gloating, but then…Tamlin (!??!?!) shows up and saves the day. I guess this is redemption arc? Now I’m really convinced that random human girl they just saved will turn out to be his maaaate.
In order to escape, Feyre manages to use her flying skills that she practiced earlier in the book with Azriel. They return to the camp, and everyone is injured, and I know it’s supposed to be dramatic but every time people are injured in this book (even when it looks SO DIRE) they are fine.
All the sisters hug, happy to be reunited.
Chapter 66:
Another army arrives. The human girl they rescued in the last chapter, Briar, seems to be settling in okay. Feyre and Mor talk for the first time since their fight.
“I said things I didn’t really mean to—”
“We both did.” She led me up to the tree line at the border of both our camps, and I knew from that alone … I knew she was about to tell me something she didn’t wish anyone overhearing. Something worth delaying my meeting with Amren for a little while.
Oh no…I know what’s coming…I wasn’t able to remain unspoiled for this and I’m afraid of what’s about to happen.
Mor rubbed her face. “You were right about me, though. You were …” Her hand shook as she lowered it. She gnawed on her lip, throat bobbing. Her eyes at last met mine—bright and fearful and anguished. Her voice broke as she said, “I don’t love Azriel.”
Okay, that’s fine. I mean it’s kind of weird you wouldn’t have had a conversation with him after like hundreds of years, but okay. Go on.
“Have you ever loved him? That way?”
“No.” She wrapped her arms around herself.
“No. I don’t … You see …” I’d never seen her at such a loss for words. She closed her eyes, fingers digging into her skin. “I can’t love him like that.”
“Why?”
“Because I prefer females.”
For a heartbeat, only silence rippled through me. “But—you sleep with males. You slept with Helion …” And had looked terrible the next day. Tortured and not at all sated.
Not just because of Azriel, but … because it wasn’t what she wanted.
“I do find pleasure in them. In both.” Her hands were shaking so fiercely that she gripped herself even tighter. “But I’ve known, since I was little more than a child, that I prefer females. That I’m … attracted to them more over males. That I connect with them, care for them…
She goes onto explain how her family/culture was all about “breeding”, and she reminds us she slept with Cassian to escape marriage and a life where she’s just forced to have children.
She loosed a shuddering breath. “I sleep with males in part because I enjoy it, but … also to keep people from looking too closely.”
Though she knows that her friends would accept her and in Velaris she’d be fine to pursue relationships with women, she fears her family would find out and find new ways to shame her.
Okay, so far the only thing that’s actually bothering me about this is that she could have been honest with Azriel and not had her family find out? Or at least be honest with him that she just doesn’t have feelings for him like that? And yeah, this plotline does feel like it was forced in because readers complained that all the characters were white/straight.
I know a lot of people were angry by the bi representation being poorly done here and I can see where they’re coming from, but I’m surprised it’s not bothering me that much. Based on what I read, I thought it would be a lot worse. But I actually feel really bad for Mor here. I’ve struggled so much with coming out as bi over the years, and the way she was raised she must be pretty fucked up about her sexuality.
Also sexuality is so different for everyone, I don’t feel comfortable complaining about her not being able to fall in love with a man but enjoying sleeping with them sometimes. It does sound a bit odd when I’m writing it out, but I don’t know, maybe there are people out there who can super relate to that. Super curious about y’alls thoughts on this chapter.
Mor goes on to tell us during the war she’d fallen in love with a human queen, but the wall separated them in the end. Mor managed to find a way to return to her through the wall, but by then the queen had married, so they never reunited.
“Do you think Azriel suspects?” I asked.
Mor drew her hand from mine and paced a few steps. “Maybe. I don’t know. He’s too observant not to, but … I think it confuses him whenever I take a male home.”
As annoying as it is she hasn’t just talked to him…Azriel is also kind of a moron if his logic is, “She’s sleeping with other dudes but not me??” Like maybe get the hint she isn’t into you that way…he has been “pining for 500 years”. Good god.
There is a lot of war talk after this. Plans made. They realise Hybern is going to the human lands to slaughter everyone he can.
“He could have done that from the start,” Kallias countered. My knees began to shake.
“Why now?” It was Nesta who said from her seat across the room beside the faelight brazier, “Because we insulted him. Me—and my sisters.”
[…]
Kallias said, “Only a madman would wield the might of his army just to get revenge on three women.”
That might be one of my favorite lines in this whole book. WHY THREE WOMEN specifically? ALSO OBVIOUSLY THE KING IS A MADMAN? ALSO THE KING IS RIDICULOUS OMG.
Everyone agrees they’re going to go fight this battle even though it seems hopeless. But then Amren shows up and says they all really need to go to the battle because it’s a distraction.
Amren set the Book upon the table with a thump. “Because we will need it as a distraction.” She smiled grimly at me. “We need to get to the Cauldron, girl. All of us.”
Apparently she’s found a way to stop the entire army. Wowee!
If you enjoyed today’s post, please consider buying the BBGT writers a cup of coffee? That’d be swell of you!
It would have been cool if Mor could have just been a character who slept with guys casually and didn’t feel guilty about it. That was one option for her character. Another option was one in which she actually talks to her best friends of 500 YEARS and tells them not to tell her family she likes women. I mean, honestly, she’d already fallen in love with a woman. What was she going to do when it happened again? Keep lying to the family she made? What was the point, then, of cultivating those relationships? I have trouble accepting that an immortal would just not communicate about something that’s obviously a huge, integral part of themselves for that long, at least with the people who truly matter. The fact that FEYRE is the one she ends up telling is just too fucking stupid for me, too. Not Rhys? Not Azriel, who I doubt would be anything but gentle? I guess I wasn’t even surprised, though, since Feyre has only ever been perfect and of course people would just tell her things in the middle of a war. Like how do they even have time for this? That’s annoying too.
I don’t even necessarily think the representation is that bad–although I honestly don’t know enough to speak with authority–I just think the reveal is completely unrealistic and a late addition that doesn’t seem thought through. I called it inexplicable in a previous comment because when it happened all I said to myself was “Why NOW?” Like any other time and probably to anyone else of the super friends, I would have been like “okay, sure.” I get particularly frustrated, as well, when I don’t think an author knows what they’re doing. The trust here was never established so every time stuff like this happens, I can’t help but throw my hands up and question the motives.
I don’t think Mor has to tell her friends about herself being bi, regardless of how close they are. From my own point of view, I just don’t feel it necessary to discuss my sex-life and my sexuality with my friends, simply because they aren’t involved in it, so I can understand her. It’s something different about relationships though – if i had a SO currently I would definitely bring it up with them and update my status, so to speak.
To me it sounds as if Mor is still carrying a torch for the human queen and doesn’t want to get involved (or hasn’t found anyone worth) with anyone and is more or less cough satisfied by meaningless banging when she feels like it. I wouldn’t want to involve any of my Friends in something such fleeting and possibly problem-causing like that either.
I think Mor and Azriel are both idiots here. Him for not getting the hint that she’s not interested in specifically after some centuries and her for not telling him “sorry, I really like you as a best friend or brother but I don’t want a relationship”. On the other hand, no single person in any of these books looks like the brightest candle in the chandelier, so it fits -_-
Something completely different @ Ariel / Matt: I’m sure you heard that EL James has written a new book. Are you gonna read it? The blurb on her website already made me hate the male lead who sounds like another one of these great romantic lead douchebags (“Oh no! I’m rich and beautiful and have lots of sex but now something horrible happened! I suddenly got … responsibilities!!!! WOE IS ME! Pity my poor self!”).
I liked what you said about not necessarily discussing your sexuality with your friends (I’m the same way) but that you would mention a SO. Also the 500 years of not telling the person closest to her is ridiculous.
What bothered me about it is that she read to me as if SJM couldn’t decide whether to present her lesbian or bisexual (though I feel like it may not even be that. Just that she literally has no idea what she’s doing here). But there’s that implication earlier where Feyre is like “Oh THAT’S why you look so dissatisfied after you bang a dude.” Which to me comes off as an idiotic idea either way? If Mor only likes females it’s weird and feels condescending. If Mor likes dudes too (or just likes sleeping with them but doesn’t have romantic interest) what Feyre said is still a fuckin weird thing and still feels like she’s condescending to Mor. Idk.
It is kinda dumb and grim, but her reasons sort of resonated with me, because I was raised by a latently honophobic family, so my bisexuality expressed itself in weird and fucked up ways until I found people who accepted me. But I still fucking hate sjm, all her characters and this reads like shitty fanfic that is updated weekly and subject to the whims of the audience. Bad all round tbh
Honestly after reading Mor line I’ve seen her as bisexual-homoromantic. It does not explain why she didn’t come out to gang, of course…but maybe it has something to do with the “culture”. Still I wished for a little more deep explanation…