Something anti Elriels seem to forget is that if Az ends up with Gwyn and Elain ends up with Lucien, Lucien and Gwyn will always be their second choice.
You can mislabel it as lust, but in actual canon text, Azriel and Elain wanted each other OVER BOTH Gwyn and Lucien. Any relationship for Azriel and Elain that is not each other at this point would be settling.
There are a lot of arguments about first loves not working out in SJM novels, and besides the fact that this argument completely ignores the existence of Mor and Greyson, there is one key point you’re not getting. Never in any of those instances, has the FMC or MMC met their endgame love interest BEFORE their failed one.
- Dorian met Sorcha first.
- Nysern met Chaol first.
For these relationships to exist and then eventually fall apart, the endgame love interest could not be present. If Feyre and Rhysand had met before she fell for Tamlin, there would be no Feyre and Tamlin. If Aelin met Rowan before Chaol, she wouldn’t have entertained Chaol.
Azriel met Gwyn before he ever encountered Elain, and still did not form an attachment to Gwyn . Elain met Azriel and Lucien in pretty quick succession, but she had heard of Lucien before she met Azriel, from Feyre’s stories. And she was not emotionally available for either of them until she was turned Fae and had her engagement/life ripped apart. But when Lucien became an option for her, she was not interested.
And to make this trend crystal clear for you:
- Elain met Greyson first.
And both of those relationships dissolved in part due to Azriel and Elain meeting one another and becoming friends. Azriel fell out of love with Mor after knowing Elain. Elain overcame her feelings for Greyson after spending time with Azriel.
See the trend here? If Azriel and Elain do not end up together, they will always be the one that got away for each other.
So why, if you love Lucien or Gwyn, would you want them to develop a relationship with a partner that settled for them, only because the person they really wanted was unavailable?
