I hope to not be overstepping, but if you don't mind, i have something to add on this topic:
"How many half-Illyrians have you met?"
"Only Rhys, I suppose."
""That's because they're extremely uncommon. But Rhys's mother was Illyrian herself. And Illyrian women hardly ever marry and reproduce outside their communities. Illyrian males do so far more often, or at least fuck around, but you rarely see the offspring."
"Why?"
"Illyrian females have a pelvis shaped specifically for children with wings to pass through. High Fae females do not. And when a child has wings, they can get stuck during labor." His face had gone pale beneath the bruises. "Most females die, the babes with them. There's no way for magic to help, short of fracturing a female's pelvis to widen it for the birthing. Which might kill the babe anyway."
"Feyre is going to die?" Her words were a whisper. For a heartbeat, every bit of spite, of anger, of bitterness faded away. Pure, clear panic replaced it.
"A few do survive." Cassian made to rub his face, then stopped before he co-uld press the bruises. "But the labor is so brutal that many of them either come close to death or are so altered by it that they can't have another child."
"Even with a healer to repair them?" Her heart was pounding, so sickeningly fast she had to set down her utensils.
"Honestly, I don't know. And any attempts in the past to cut the child out of the mother's womb have been …" He shuddered. "No mother has ever survi-ed." Nesta's blood turned to acid. Cas-sian rolled his shoulders. "So we won't even try that route. Madja will be there each step of the way, though, doing whatever she can. And we don't yet know how Feyre's own Feyre's own magic will im-pact the birth."
As the issue is presented to Nesta and us by Cassian here, this is a problem that face a lot of High Fae Females on this universe who for some reason end up tied to an illyrian man (be is because they fall in love, are mates, or had a one night stand, etc).
This is a problem that is bigger than the Archeron sisters.
So, is very interesting that when Nesta is begging to the Cauldron to save Feyre and the baby, she's not asking for it to change Feyre's anatomy, her exact words are "SHOW ME"
She reached inward, toward the power that had made deathless monsters tremble and wicked kings fall to their knees, but … she didn't know how to use it. Death flowed through her veins, yet she did not have the knowledge to master it.
One wrong move, one mistake, and Feyre would be lost.
So Nesta held her sister tightly, with Time halted around them, and she whispered, "If you show me how to save her, you can have it back."
The world paused. Worlds beyond their own paused.
Nesta buried her face in the cold sweat of Feyre's neck. She opened that place within herself, and said to the Mother, to the Cauldron, "I'll give back what I took from you. Just show me how to save them-her and Rhysand and the baby." Rhysand her brother. That's what he was, wasn't he? Her brother, who had offered her kindness even when she knew he wanted to throttle her. And she him. And the baby … her nephew. Blood of her blood. She would save him, save them, even if it took everything. "Show me," she pleaded.
No one answered. The Harp stopped its echoing.
As Time resumed, noise and movement roaring into the room, Nesta whispered to the Cauldron, her promise rising above the din, "I'll give it all back."
And a soft, invisible hand brushed her cheek in answer.
- ACOSF CH 77
Already this text let us knonw that Nesta's exchange wasn't just for the "Illyrian anatomy" but for the Technique of how to do it, that's why she's asking "Show me", she's begging to be taught how to do it.
And if we were left uncertain about if that was what happened, we get confirmation a chapter later:
So Cassian asked, "Is your magic The power's really gone?"
The brisk spring wind whipped her golden-brown hair across her face. "I gave it back to the Cauldron in exchange for the knowledge of how to save them." She swallowed. "But a little remains. I think something else someone else-stopped the Cauldron from taking all of it. And I made some changes of my own."
The Mother. The only being who would see the sacrifice Nesta had made and give a little back. Perhaps it was she who had peered out at them through the Mask. "What did you change?"
Nesta rested a hand on her abdomen. "I changed myself a little, too. So none of us will have to go through this again."
For a heartbeat, Cassian had no words. "You … You're ready for a baby?"
Nesta barked a laugh. "No. Gods no. I'll be drinking my contraceptive tea for a while yet." She laughed again. "But I adjusted myself to match what the Cauldron did for Feyre. For when the time is
right."
He couldn't tear himself from the quiet joy lighting her face. So he offered her a soft smile. Yes-when the time was right, they would start that journey together.
-ACOSF CH 78
If it wasn't clear by the chapter 77 extract, here is Nesta, saying herself that:
1. She exchanged her powers for the Knowledge of how to change the anatomy of a High Fae Female to match the Illyrian anatomy.
2. That the change on her anatomy was made by herself matching what the Cauldron did to Feyre's anatomy.
3. When she says "So none of us will have to go through this again" she's likely not only talking about Feyre and herself, she's talking about none other High Fae Female who is having an Illyrian baby.
So no, at no point did SJM write that, and she went even further assuring the reader that we wouldn't experience this problem again because we already have a solution, be it that Nesta could do the changes herself with the knowledge or be it that she might teach others how to do it themselves.
It makes me happy that in recent years i have seen a lot more Gwynr/els and E/uciens express that this theory as disgusting.
What is "misogynistic" about this take is that by using it, you're reducing these characters to their ability to conceive, purposelessly ignoring what the text is saying to fit your agenda.
You have totally robbed the wider mean of this scene, the poetic beauty that Nesta Exchanged her power of Death for the knowledge of how to help Life, into this argument.
