#anti ccity

[someopinions]

"But he doubted Baxian wanted to hear someone try to liken losing a sister to losing one's mate." Chapter 44, House of Flame and Shadow

I'm not the first person to point out how icky Sarah J. Maas' writing is, especially when it comes to her characters and relationships, but as someone who's aroace, I'm especially disgusted whenever she throws in acephobia or puts romantic/sexual relationships on a pedestal, at the cost of all other relationships.

Who can forget Sarah J. Maas implying Dagdan and Brannagh are soulless. just because they don't have sex? Or her fans preferring to think that these two siblings would rather commit incest, rather than that they just might be asexual?

Believe me, I wouldn't have picked up Crescent City if it weren't for the crossover with ACOTAR (which I only read for characters like Tamlin anyway). And to no one's surprise, Maas continues her fated "mates" bullshit, along with messier world building and somehow worse human/slavery subplots. But that's a post for another day.

Today, I wanted to talk about this quote from about a third of the way through House of Flame and Shadow. For context, most of the main characters are gathered at a dining table together. Bryce and Baxian, the Asteri's Hellhound-turned-defector-and-ally, are holding hands or whatever and feeling sad for about the 1000th time over Danika. Who was Baxian's mate.

Putting aside Sarah J. Maas's weird need to have 20 something year olds paired with 500+ immortals (the age difference isn't necessarily the problem, although it's still weird, pairing a 30 something year old with an immortal would have been fine but Maas is also ageist apparently and doesn't want her characters to have quote, "sagging tits", hence the need to make her protagonists in their 20s), "mates" should not take priority over other relationships in your life.

The speaker of the quote is Tharion, who reflected on his own sister's death and how, quote, the "hole in his heart" still hasn't healed. You got that? He is still very much in pain from his sister's death, which isn't helped by how he defected from the River court, and his parents called him to say how they were still devastated about the loss of one child, and now they lose another.

But Sarah J. Maas says that Tharion's grief and loss is somehow less valid than Baxian losing his mate. Because the sexual/romantic mate relationship trumps all others.

What's funny is that Bryce here is not Danika's mate. She was Danika's best friend yes, but not mate. But her sadness over losing Danika is not seen by the narrative as lesser than Baxian's sadness for losing his mate.

If anything, Bryce knew Danika way longer than Baxian. Danika literally sacrificed what was left of her soul to help Bryce do the Drop. That's honestly more of a love story than whatever she had going on with Baxian.

But sure, unless you're the main protagonist who's crying over her friend's death, YOUR sadness and grief over losing a friend, family member, or other loved one shouldn't matter, because at least it wasn't your MATE, right???

[moonssalad]

Im amazed at how SJM is so good at writing such immature characters.

[happysharkintensifies]

Rhysand's sudden appearance at the end of HOSAB is the culmination of one of the most annoying and infuriating tropes that plague supposedly 'feminist' titles.

Let's say you've picked up a book. Maybe it’s fantasy. Maybe it's science fiction. Maybe it’s historical fiction, or straight up romance. Whatever the genre, you probably picked it up because there's a female protagonist whose story you want to hear.

And for a while, it's going great. The protagonist is intelligent/witty/capable. She's ticking most of your boxes, if not all of them, and you're eager to see where she goes.

But then the male love interest sidles into the plot, and then things start to go wrong.

He swaggers in, all broody, or smirking, or mysterious. He's got a shady, secret past, or he's had major trauma in his life. He has an athlete's build and he's strangely beautiful. He has a mission or crusade for justice or vengeance. He has a brooding intensity or a smoldering gaze.

Bonus points if he dresses all in black or he has aesthetic 'shadow powers'.

Either way, our heroine finds herself intrigued. And as time goes on, as the love interest plays a bigger role in the story, that intrigue starts to become something more.

Finally, there will come a moment. The heroine's inhibitions fall away, and she finds herself completely infatuated.

And that's when there's a shift. Sometimes it's a bit sudden and jarring if the author isn't quite practiced yet. But sometimes the author is skilled enough that the shift is subtle and easily missed.

Whichever it is, the result is the same: sooner or later, our female protagonist has been sidelined in her own story. Her motivations, her drives, her every waking thought, are now subordinate to this smirking male love interest, who has now displaced her and taken away her protagonist spot.

Our female lead is no longer an active player; she's become the grand prize to be won by this male character. Sometimes, there's a veneer of an equal relationship; our female lead may be his valuable confidante or his right hand woman. But it’s still just a veneer: at the end of the day, she's still subordinate to the man she's paired with.

And then you realize; our protagonist was never the true focus at all. Our protagonist is now just a walking camera, a proxy through which her author can focus their effort and care onto the real focal point of the story; the male love interest, who's been the actual main character this whole time.

It was never her story in the first place. It was his.

She no longer makes decisions or takes initiative for herself; it's now for him.

It's no longer about her mission or goals or desires; it's now about his.

It's no longer about her struggles or pains or hardships, it's now about his.

And it's not just her story that's stolen from her. Her personality, character and strengths are wittled away as well.

If she's competent and skilled at something, then she'll suddenly have the rug pulled put from beneath them by a man who inexplicably outclasses her.

If she's confident, well-spoken, and respected, then she'll suddenly become tongue-tied, flustered and condescended to by a smirking man who's somehow more witty and eloquent than she is.

If she has ambitions that don't immediately revolve around men or relationships, then she'll suddenly have her mind changed by a man who'll make her forget and discard her goals in favor of his.

If she's disinterested in, or indifferent to men, she'll suddenly become infatuated with and softened up by an excessively attractive man almost instantaneously.

And, worst of all, if she confronts him for his gaslighting/manipulation/violence/abuse, she'll suddenly find her anger and will crumbling as the story and narrative excuses and forgives him for his misdeeds. Worst of all, she'll be forced to admit that she's wrong.

I've picked up too many books that are supposed to feature badass or compelling women, only to find them being undermined by men.

And I'm tired of it. I'm tired of compelling female protagonists ceding all their initiative and agency because they’re suddenly convinced some Byronic edgelord's grand quest or crusade is somehow more important than their own.

SJ/M's books suffer from this terribly, especially in the case of Rhysand. It's as if SJ/M (and other authors like her) can't concieve a scenario in which a woman, protagonist or otherwise, is NOT awed by, overpowered by, subservient to, or superceded by Rhysand (or, for that metter, any other man) in some way.

I don't care if this male love interest is a deep character. I don't care if his motivations are compelling. I don't care if his morality, grey or otherwise, makes him fascinating. I don't care if he has six pack abs, lustrous hair, or shimmering eyes. And I certainly don't care about whatever oh-so-tragic backstory or trauma he uses to justify his predatory/abusive/manipulative behavior.

If he swaggers into the story and starts leeching away at the female protagonist's agency, headspace, character, and story, then he's not a character; he's a tumor that needs to be excised posthaste.

And it's not that hard to cut out that tumor. It's absolutely possible to have a unique, compelling, interesting, and even funny female protagonist tell her story, without some pretty-faced, musclebound bad boy barging in and stealing her spotlight. I've seen it in videogames. I've seen it in fanfic. I've even seen it in history, IRL.

Just for once, I'd like to see so-called feminist authors actually make their female protagonists centerstage with desires and goals and ambitions, instead of just being a vehicle through which the author can fawn over the tall, overly attractive, self-pitying popinjay who's been the real focus the entire time.

And if they still prefer to write a story just so they can ooh and aah at their imaginary Adonis, then they can at least do the courtesy of excluding a female perspective outright. They can make this special, muscle-bound snowflake the protagonist from the outset.

They don't need to undermine smart, capable and competent female leads and squander their potential in favor of their thirst trap.

[paragon-of-anxiety]

every post i see that brings up how "better" sjm's representation has gotten always includes how "hot" those characters are and how they are the same level of attractive as her main white characters...

...is that your fucking requirement? how attractive you find them? is that how you judge the representation in a book????

[thebellekeys]

sjm connecting all of her separate fantasy worlds through portals and shit and making cc3 a "crossover story" is literally the most obnoxious and half-assed form of storytelling I can think of

[bythenineshards]

The worst crime you could ever commit in a novel by Sjm is having a vag and disliking the Main Character.

[saccharinerose]

Believe it or not , crescent city is worse than acotar! By a lot actually!

Oh, I believe it!

I've seen excerpts of it on other blogs and it looks horrid.

Not only in the sense that every paragraph I've seen reads like the city's water supply is contaminated with a/b/o heat pheromones but also bc it has my FAVOURITE trope of Rebellious Group Of Oppressed Minority Are Evil Bc They Are Not Nice Enough About Asking For Rights

[captainninej]

since i spend so much time ragging on sjm, here's a list of things i actually like about her books

(a completely personal list, as hate for something is so much deeper when it's something you once adored)

- feyre's water powers in ACOMAF and the imagery of creating butterflies in the summer court and wolves in velaris

- the settings in the ACOTAR series and how they're described: the dawn court, the moonstone palace, the spring court in ACOTAR, the summer court (particularly how adriata is like a sandcastle), heck even velaris before it got so annoying

- particular scenes in the battle for anielle in KOA: elide saving lorcan, the dam breaking and aelin extinguishing it, chaol and aelin fighting together

- i actually liked KOA as a whole, i thought it was a pretty decent finish to the TOG series. apart from a few problematic scenes and the page count being bible-length and typical sjm girlboss shenanigans it was a really good final instalment

- sartaq and nesryn's story in TOD + KOA

- bryce and danika's friendship in HOEAB. the bit where bryce made the drop with danika at the end actually did tug at ya girl's heart strings

- danika fendyr = defender

- apart from sjm's signature weird writing of POC, the khaganate in TOD and yrene, as well as the Torre and how the healing powers connected to the valg

- lucien

- chaol and dorian's relationship (platonic or romantic, you tell me)

- manon and the thirteen

- the crochan and ironteeth arc and manon becoming queen of the witches

- dorian taking down morath in KOA

- the archeron sisters healing and fighting together in ACOWAR (u know, before this was all thrown out the window in the later books)

- elide and lorcan being a part of a travelling circus thing in EOS (the only bit i liked about that book)

- the winter court aesthetic + kallias and vivienne

these are things that i like about her books, because if they were entirely trash we wouldn't spend so much time picking them apart. so much of it comes down to the concepts of her books having potential to be great, but her lack of ability or effort to truly do them justice. like they could have been great, but just...weren't? and there are so many problematic things about her books that once you're aware of them it's hard to enjoy them anymore.

let me know what you think!