SPOILER ALERT for Sarah J. Massās A Court of Thorns and Roses Trilogy.
With the newly-released title and release date of Sarah J. Massās Nessian spin-off, A Court of Silver Flames, I have noticed that the YA fantasy community, or at least a good enough portion of it, has begun to become very vocal about its lack of fondness for Nesta and their displeasure at her being matched with Cassian, who they believe ādeserves so much betterā. As the self-proclaimed number one fan of Nesta, I have an urge, that will not go unrequited, to dispel the idea that Nesta is a terrible person.
I have to admit, when I first read the series, I disliked Nesta, Elain, and their father an unfathomable amount. I relished in the idea that somewhere, later on in the series, they would each be served a mouthful of the crap they deserved. I would say, in terms of relativity, Nesta was highest on my dislike meter, Elain next, and then their father. Elain having bought Feyre the small tins of paint and Feyreās father telling her to never come back and live out her dreams were small redemptions in their favor. I admired Nestaās protectiveness over Elain, but disdained her for so easily having forgone attempting to protect Feyre, because, after all, she was the youngest.
After having read the series three times, and having deliciously bathed in gallons worth of putting-Nesta-and-occassionally-Elain-in-their-place, compliments of our wonderful, and even more scrumptious, winged friends: Rhys and Cass, I have come to the new conclusion about our dear Nesta. As the oldest, Nesta was able to receive the most education out of all three of the Archeron sisters. She learned valuable skills for women in society, making her a suitable match for eligible bachelorsābut that was worthless when their family became poor. Nesta had no skills in surviving in a world where you had to fend for yourself. All she knew was which fork to use with salad and how to greet gentlemen. Feyre, on the other hand, had not even learned to read and write, making it easier for her to adapt to their new situation and assume the role of interim head of household while the rest of the remaining Archeron family pondered on a life Feyre had never had the chance to be a part of.
Nesta began resenting Feyre when Feyre successfully began taking care of their family. Nesta was being showed-up by a fourteen year old girl that couldnāt even read, and all Nesta had succeeded at doing was mope around and wait to die. Nesta was ashamed of herself for this, blamed Feyre for her shame, and, in turn, wanted to make Feyre feel it as wellāhence, abusing Feyre, I do not excuse it, but I donāt know when the book community decided to cancel characters for being terrible in the past and GROWING to become better people. Nesta also never looked after Feyre like you would hope an older sister would do for their younger sibling because Nesta didnāt feel that Feyre needed taking care of. Feyre could hunt, make money, make food, and anything she set her mind toāshe didnāt need Nesta for anything. Nesta took this as a jab, feeling that if Feyre thought she was so good that she could do everything for herself, why should Nesta even lift a finger? Feyre was doing it all and seemingly handling it perfectly fine. Because of this, Nesta preferred Elain to Feyre; for one, Elain needed guidance and someone to follow, which appealed to Nestaās superiority complex; secondly, Nesta took care of Elain as she did because Elain gave her a purpose, to find someone for Elain to marry off to and care for her in the meanwhile.
Later on in the series, when Feyre shows up to their home as Fae and with part of the Inner Circle, Nesta feels a whirlwind of emotions, which makes her lock up even more than she always did. Nesta is scared of letting people see how weak and frail she is and how she has no real purpose in this world; and she is especially wary of letting Feyre see it because, even though she always resented Feyre, she liked that Feyre admired her for her steely exterior and unbendable will. For one, Nesta was shocked out of her mind because Feyre was Fae, something that all humans south of The Wall were taught to fear; Another thing Nesta felt with Feyre coming back into her and Elainās life was fear. Nesta feared that Feyre was going to disrupt everything Nesta had achieved while Feyre was gone: getting Elain engaged to Graysen. With Feyre gone and their father on his secret voyage, Nesta was finally the one in charge, the dependable one, the one protecting their familyāeven if that was only Elaināand Feyre was not only throwing off the balance, but threatening to destroy it altogether.
After having felt like we, the readers, had gone hand-in-hand with Feyre through everything, from the trials Under the Mountain to her neglect by Tamlin, we were angry and enraged that Nesta had the audacity to be so rude to Feyre, who had done absolutely nothing to Nesta all the months she was gone. For heavenās sake, Feyre hadnāt even made contact with Nesta up until this moment. But, we have to understand, Nesta uses her anger to keep people out and prevent them from seeing how insurmountably weak and riddled with dark emotion she is. Feyre seems to have the world figured out: a mate, a close group of friends, wealth beyond imagination, and a beautiful home; and Nesta is upset that Feyre would want to take away the little her and Elain do have for, what she believes, is Fae business.
After having realized all of this, I loved Nesta with my whole heartāthe most out of the whole Inner Circle, Az coming in close, close second. She reminded me of myself: flawed, jealous, wrathful, prideful, and resentful. Feyre seems to be some kind of unnatural super-beingāignoring the fact that she actually is for the sake of my argumentāable to overcome everything in her way, making me want to be like her and making me resent the parts of myself that she overcame within herself. Nesta is Sarah J. Massās way of letting us know, we can be powerful, strong, courageous women that surprise ourselves with our ability to do anything we set our minds to, as well as being flawed, broken, and distant. We do not have to be Elains: so kind that an other-worldly Cauldron gifts us power out of its sheer amazement at how lovely we are inside and out. We can be ferocious and take power for ourselves, just as Nesta had ripped power from the Cauldron with her teeth as repayment for making her and Elain undergo what they did. Nesta is devastatingly beautiful, graceful, collected, cool, intelligent, determined, curious, wrathful, prideful, resentful, and most of all, humiliated with herself for not being the strong person she wishes she could be. I love Nesta so, so much. I wish her all the luck and happiness in the world.
And, last but not least, something to remind everyone of. In A Court of Frost and Starlight, Nesta behaves outrageouslyābut this is her way of trying to cope, trying to get some sort of feeling back after having been turned Fae. Her transformation had occurred during the chaos of the battle to save humans from Hybern, and so there was no time for her to take for herself and understand what had been done to her. Once the adrenaline of battle and victory had faded, she was left with a hole within herself in a foreign body, leading an immortal life with an even more foreign power within her. Feyre also suffered from post-traumatic disorder, but in a different wayāas all people go through trauma uniquely and individually. Nesta does not want to admit how broken, how weak, how confused she is, and all the Inner Circle wants to do is what they think will make her happyābut they donāt get that she canāt even feel. Personally, I find that everyone, except for Cass and Az, seems to have their own opinion of her behavior without really trying to understand why itās happeningāespecially Feyre. I think Feyre has always felt responsible for the well-being of her sisters, and so she does this the most. She has never truly understood Nesta, why sheās so closed off, why sheās so distant, and it hurts her as well, because Nesta is the only sort of mother figureāa strange one I know, but she was the oldest, wisest woman in her life for a long timeāFeyre had, as their mother was basically absent and then died. Feyre is also young, so we have to understand that she does not truly understand how trauma can be different for each person, and so she tries to solve this by assuming that Nestaās trauma may be similar in some way to that of what she went through in Under-the-Mountain. Feyre isnāt doing anything wrong, itās just a younger sister trying to make her older sister as happy as she isāthink Anna with Elsa. Also, Feyre is confused because she would have thought that the beauty and power of the Fae realm would have made Nesta feel better about being Changed, but, as I will dive more in depth below, the circumstances surrounding their views on being Fae are completely different, and frankly opposite for Feyre and Elain/Nesta. Feyreās seeming misunderstanding and attempts at helping Nesta infuriate Nesta because she feels like some broken doll her sister wants to sew up new so that she can look pretty for the rest of them.
I also want to add that being Fae means completely different things for each of the Archeron sisters. Feyre loves being Fae, and I think itās because she has associated it with the insurmountable happiness that has been brought into her life after she had Changed: she found Rhys, became strong enough to defend herself and anyone she cared about, was able to paint whenever, whatever, and however she wanted, found a family that truly supported her and loved her and required nothing of her, and was finally able to dream of a future that was only for her, not for her sisters or father. Elain hates being Fae, or at least hated it at first but seems to be adapting to it, because it took away the future she had always dreamed of. While Feyre never really had the chance to dream of anything for herself, Elain didābecause, sheās sweet and I also love her, she really didnāt lift a finger until she shoved Azās knife into the King of Hybernās neck. Elain was raised in a society where domesticity are the best characteristics of a woman, and it is what she should strive for. She strived to be a loving wife, with a beautiful home to decorate, to have parties and socialize with everyone, and to be the sweet angel her husband came to after a long dayās work. She had that, and being Fae took that away because her fiancĆ© hates the Fae. The man she thought would love her no matter what she was or looked like, hated her. I mean, if that happened to any of us, weād all have been destroyed from within: she trusted this man with her heart, she trusted that he would always love and care for herāand for her to trust men was difficult because she had trusted her father to always look after her, but he failed herāand then he said he hated her for the abomination she was, for something she couldnāt control. Being Fae took away Elainās dreams, and so it is not all the pretty, supernatural stuff that we, the readers, would love to be a part ofābecause, remember that the series was written in first-person from Feyreās point of view, so obviously weāll have some bias towards being Fae and her beliefs. Nesta hates being Fae. Nesta demands control over her life, she demands being the one in charge of it. If sheās gonna die, itāll be because she said so; if sheās gonna eat, itās because she said so. She will not let anyone or anything control who she is or how she lives her life, and then she was forced to be immortal. Imagine, feeling so lost, so insurmountably despairing, in an immortal body. While she was mortal she could at least wait for death to take her away from the tortures of being poor, cold, starving, and out of control, at least death was something she had decided on accepting, not forced upon herābut as a Fae, she would have to wait hundreds to even thousands of years for merciful death to take her away from all these feelings, emotions, and general environments that she has absolutely no control of and feels she could never truly be a part of. I have not ever been depressed or suffered from PTSD, but from what I have learned, I have heard that it feels like a never ending hole you fall into, where you are consumed by darkness and there is nothing else you can see, and anywhere you are within that hole, you are alone and no one can reach you. Imagine that, but feeling like you will feel that way for the rest of your immortal life.
Last, last thing: Nesta and Cassian are mates. If she had an instinct within her to call Cass from battle just in time to save him from the Cauldron; if her willingness to sacrifice her life so she could die with him because she could not live without him, didnāt convince you of their status as mates, I *clap* do *clap* not *clap* know *clap* what *clap* will.
Anyways, thank you for reaching this point of my fanatic rant over Nesta.
