I ultimately always enjoy Feyre wrecking the Spring Court and the fallout from that because it’s a very honest portrait of revenge, like, of course you can’t just wreck your abusers’ lives without feeling moral qualms over that or there being consequences. But that doesn’t mean that that plot line is not important and valid given Feyre’s overall arc in the series? It’s what she feels she emotionally needs and YES IRL we cannot just act on our emotional needs and there’s an argument to be made that she shouldn’t have either, but the catharsis that plot line offers in unparalleled. Like yeah she shouldn’t include Lucien but also seeing her get revenge on him for how he ends up treating her in acomaf idk, it’s not kind or rational or “okay” but it’s like….damn have I not felt that same rage at ppl who stay friends with my abuser? while knowing what they did to me? YEAH I have. would I not want my abuser to die if given the chance? I mean yeah I would.
I don’t exist in a world that affords me the ability to enact the fantasy in which my abuser’s life in ruined and the people who support them like…also get hurt, nor would I really want to enact that fantasy IRL if it could.
but I am exhausted by arguments that @ Feyre for these actions when it’s… actually so nice to NOT see a woman rise above her rage. Like, what narratives afford us that? I mean sometimes it’s just exhausting when the hero has the be so Good all the time? It’s why Aelin gutting Archer Flynn is such a key moment in that series, because it shifts the moral compass from “you need to act perfectly and rise above things because you’re the hero” to “actually there’s space for you to be a messy, angry, depressed person who makes mistakes.” And it allows readers to like…have that catharsis on the page rather than IRL where that would be harmful.
In a world full of narratives in which women forgive their abusers and totally skip the Righteous Fury and Rage phase, Feyre wrecking the Spring Court is a breath of fresh air like…would I do this? Nah but….Do I enjoy reading it? Am I okay with the parts that make me uncomfortable? Have they made me reflect on how I deal with abusers? Do I have it in me to grow past rage? Can I offer someone forgiveness for myself? Can I make my anger into a weapon and if I did, what would happen because of it? Do I want to be that person? These are all the questions those scenes make me ask myself, which always make me feel like it’s not just there for Yes Girl Feminism. And the fallout from that is so real- the destabilization of the Spring Court is apparent in acosf, and Lucien is going to be a major character in a future book (so we can assume he will have thoughts on all of this).
idk I just think that part of acowar needs to be read as “what does it do for Feyre and the larger story of abuse” rather than just “Feyre was a bad person for a few chapters hate her!”
because you know, maybe I am a bad person for like, actively wanting my rapist to disappear off this planet and die, but you know, those are honest feelings trauma left for me and Feyre’s story is interesting first and foremost because the abuse she deals with is not some simple sadist like Maeve or Amarantha. She loved Tamlin, Lucien was her friend (not implying he abused her but he was in that situation with her), and as readers we know that neither of them are completely corrupt people, and so seeing her still feel that rage and give into it, is so much more effective than if we saw Rhys mist Amrantha. Of course we are going to be okay with him doing that—but Feyre’s story more closely mirrors the abuse we as readers have perhaps experienced with similarly complex morally grey people.
And SJM giving us the ability to empathize with the people who fall prey to Feyre’s scheme as well as empathizing with her rage, is a rather wonderful picture of the simultaneous rage and empathy that we as real people feel for those who abuse us.
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