Why ACOTARâs Premise is Inherently Flawed
k so I donât talk much about ACOTAR on this blog, at least not in my own posts, but let me make something very clear - I think ACOTAR is a million times worse than TOG. Like, TOG is almost so bad itâs good. ACOTAR is.. not.
But Iâm not here to bitch about ACOTAR in general, Iâm here to bitch about a very specific thing in ACOTAR - the fact that it has an inherently flawed concept and breaks basically all the rules of retellings. ACOTAR is meant to be, and was marketed as, a Beauty and the Beast retelling. The entire series is referred to as a Beauty and the Beast retelling. Over the course of ACOTAR and ACOMAF, we cycle through three different fairytales/myths - Beauty and the Beast, Eros and Psyche, and Hades and Persephone. This is not how you write a retelling.
And this mightâve been solved had it, y'know, been marketed as an Eros and Psyche retelling. Itâs not as if people wouldnât have bought it; this is SJM weâre talking about, people will buy literally anything she puts out (for exhibit a of âSJM stans will take anythingâ, allow me to direct you to: the entirety of ACOFAS). But, instead, it was labeled as a Beauty and the Beast retelling for.. some reason? The thing with ACOTAR is that the first half works decently as a BATB retelling, and the second half goes straight into Eros and Psyche and never looks back.
For reference: the myth of Eros and Psyche follows the story of the Greek princess Psyche as she marries the god Eros, who had fallen deeply in love with her. However, Eros appears invisible to her, and thus Psyche doesnât know the identity of her husband. When her sisters come and convince her to sneak up on Eros as he sleeps and uncover his true identity, Psyche does so, but burns Eros when hot oil from her lamp falls upon his flesh. Eros flees, and his mother Aphrodite tells Psyche that she can have her husband back if she completes several tasks. During the last task, Aphrodite sends Psyche to the underworld in order to obtain some of Persephoneâs beauty for herself. Persephone gives Psyche a closed box and instructs her not to open it, however Psyche does anyway, and as it turns out all that was inside the box was murder. Psyche dies, but Eros rescues her and brings her back to life, then turns her into a god.
Sounds a lot like ACOTAR, doesnât it? ACOTAR awkwardly flips between BATB and E&P, which makes the story almost feel disjointed. The plot matches that of E&P, but the motifs, recurring themes, and backstory all match BATB. Needless to say, this was a stupid decision which weakens ACOTAR as a novel. But then we get to ACOMAF and we switch myths yet again, this time to Hades and Persephone. There is nothing more I hate in retellings then when the same characters represent different archetypes. Apparently Feyre is not only Beauty, but also Psyche and Persephone at the same time. Tamlin is not only the beast, heâs also Eros and.. Demeter? In ACOMAF, Tamlin suddenly takes on the role of Demeter for some reason, because thereâs literally no other character he could be. Rhysand is the only character with a consistent analogue (Hades) and thatâs only because he comes strutting in out of nowhere in ACOTAR and only gets actual development in ACOMAF.
In ACOWAR, SJM drops the retelling aspect entirely to have a more âthrillingâ conclusion. The law of threes is a thing. If ACOWAR was also a retelling, it wouldnât have fixed the problem, but it at least would have been somewhat consistent. And yet, itâs not. Itâs your generic final battle conclusion story. The overarching narrative feels lopsided and unbalanced because of it.
Now, you could argue that Hades and Persephone is technically the progenitor of stories like BATB and E&P, and this is true. However, in their current incarnations, these stories are so fundamentally different that you canât retell all of them at once. You canât make a Snow White retelling into a Sleeping Beauty one at the last second just because both of the heroines are asleep for most of the third act. They are different stories, with different implications and motifs. If you want to retell Beauty and the Beast, retell Beauty and the Beast. If you want to retell Eros and Psyche, retell Eros and Psyche. And if you want to retell Hades and Persephone, retell Hades and Persephone for godâs sake. Pick one and do the best you can within the parameters of that story.
anyway I hope you enjoyed my 10am ranting about 1000-year-old fairytales and why SJM canât write a retelling for shit
