What did you mean when you said Mor is afraid of the men around her?
That Mor is afraid of the men around her- I said it, I stand by it. Since people love canon, I think we should also be allowed to discuss CANON Mor and CANON Azriel vs fanon.
Mor had the choice to sleep with Cassian or Azriel when she decided to "ruin" herself to escape her marriage to Eris and she chose Cassian, NOT Azriel because she knew Azriel would take it too far and would read too much into it.
When Azriel finds Mor in Autumn, he begins to confess his feelings to her. We know, from context clues, that he got far enough that she realizes what he's saying and she turns around and LEAVES.
I've seen a TON of people say that Elain doesn't owe Lucien anything and silence is an answer. I'm not saying I disagree with that, but I find it weird that people will turn around and argue passionately that her leaving isn't its own response. She didn't feel safe to finish hearing him out and so she just left. If a man is asking you out and you just leave in the middle of it, is it your fault for not hearing him out?
3. Mor is using Cassian as a buffer and EVERYONE is aware of this except, presumably, Azriel. Which also leads us to the conclusion that she doesn't really feel safe around any of them because they all know Azriel is obsessed with her, all clock his longing, his yearning, his desperation, and just...choose to look the other way. would you confess something highly personal in a deeply misogynistic society to men like that? I probably wouldn't.
4. When Azriel beats up Eris, there is a passage about Mor's fear. If this were Elain, everyone would be up in arms about it but because it's Mor, and people have decided she's the sneaky queer, it just gets written off. We see how unpredictable Azriel is, and how his rage spills out spontaneously. Is this someone you want to confide that actually, you're more sexually attracted to women? I'd second guess that shit too.
5. No one has Mor's back. She's technically "regent" of Hewn City and yet undermined at every opportunity by her cousin who is the High Lord. Her title is purely ceremony and nothing else- so when Rhys needs Kier, he makes a deal that undermines both Mor's wishes AND her authority by letting both Eris into her domain without letting her weigh in AND Keir into her one refuge away from him.
Like, Mor has a lot of very good reasons not to want to come out or trust the people around her. "Family," but really, it's a court system with tiers, and Mor is not the priority no matter what we're told about her being his "second". She's routinely left out of decisions, she's undermined, and she's forced to interact with a man she has repeatedly rejected. Everyone around her is aware of this dynamic and chooses to let them "sort it out", so she's basically on her own.
And like, this isn't an anti-Azriel post though I'm sure it feels like it. I just get tired of the way people villainize Mor to absolve Azriel of how weird he has been, across 4 books- from crawling to Mor in ACOMAF, to the heated looks he's giving her in ACOWAR/ACOFAS, and even in ACOSF though less so.
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