I think we all know that Sarah drew a lot of inspiration from George R.R. Martin to write Tog, and that Aelin is practically her Daenerys.
But I wish she would go back to drawing inspiration from Martin to write Elain, and see the work he did/does with Sansa Stark.
Sansa and Elain suffer the same judgment: that they are weak, useless, and incapable of doing anything. When the truth is quite the opposite.
Both girls are traumatized. Sansa saw her father been killed in front of her and was held hostage, and Elain was thrown into the cauldron remade into something she didn't want to be.
Sansa has some phrases like:
My skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel
They are children, Sansa thought. They are silly little girls, even Elinor. They’ve never seen a battle, they’ve never seen a man die, they know nothing. Their dreams were full of songs and stories, the way hers had been before Joffrey cut her fathers head off. Sansa pitied them. Sansa envied them.
A lady's armor is courtesy
And these remind me so much of Elain; currently in the books Sansa is learning to play the game of thrones, she's becoming a valuable piece, and in the series the useless girl eventually becomes queen, she wins it.
Sansa, like Elain, was raised to be the perfect lady of the house, until her dreams are shattered and she slowly learns how to survive, and that, to me, is strength.
I want Elain's strength to come from her words and intelligence, more than magic swords. I hope she conquers and wins simply by being sweet and intelligent, Bringing monsters to their knees, just because she's smart enough to do it.
