On Narcissistic Writing in the Works of SJM
Was browsing the news today and came across an article talking about narcissism, covert narcissism, specifically. I've often said in my reviews that there's a lot in SJM's books and characters that comes across as narcissistic. Thought I'd pull some quotes from the article and discuss how they come up in her work. The article is here, for the curious:
As "narcissist" becomes the catch-all insult of the social media age, here is the crucial difference between everyday selfishness and a seri
Most of my thoughts will come from ACOTAR and CC, as I've not read TOG yet - feel free to chime in with any thoughts on how it fits in the comments! I'm curious.
Anyway, without further ado. Let's begin.
“People with Narcissistic Personality Disorder see life as a vertical hierarchy,” leading American expert Elinor Greenburg says, “where the goal is to get as close to the top as possible. Everything is about status.”
One of my greatest pet peeves with SJM's works are around the portrayal of status and inequality. It isn't just that her protagonists end up rich - ACOTAR is essentially a billionaire romance with a fantasy coat of paint, and CC has most of its characters receive "considerable inheritances" or other such excuses to give them a lot of money. It's in everything.
Every relevant character is the Best and Most Awesome and Dangerous and Scary ever. A common tactic to discredit characters we're meant to dislike is to imply that they're fakey-fakers just trying to copy the "real" elite. E.g. as part of the demonisation of Tamlin, we learn that apparently all his fighting techniques are Illyrian techniques he learned from Rhys, and even his damn knives are suddenly of Illyrian make. Nowhere else in Prythian has ever made a knife, I guess. Amarantha, as well, is only copying the "real" atrocities of the Night Court.
Most egregiously, it's in the portrayals of conflict between the powerful elite and the oppressed masses, usually humans. How often do both ACOTAR and CC try to "both sides" their respective conflicts? Despite the situations being not even remotely close to a "both sides" situation? It's an element of the covert narcissist - victimising themselves in order to gain sympathy from their target (in this case, the audience). The poor, poor fae/Vanir, victimised by these evil, evil humans! Jurian tortured a fae woman, tortured her I say! And the human rebels killed some Vanir children one time! Weep! Weep for the oppressors! And yet, we get curiously little mention of the (significantly worse and more numerous) atrocities committed by the fae/Vanir side...
Both ACOTAR and CC make attempts to ingratiate their protagonists with the "lessers", primarily for cheap victim points (see above point about covert narcissists). Feyre with her family situation and living in poverty, Bryce with her half-human status. But it's clear the book doesn't *really* think they belong in that filthy class. The portrayals of poverty and class dynamics are laughable at best. In CC, Tharion is even "punished" by having to pick up rubbish! And having him whinge at the indignity of it! And it's *that* incident that makes him start thinking there needs to be a leadership change! Despite pretences to the contrary, it's clear the books think that such tasks are "unworthy" of their protagonists, despite how fundamental and important such things are in reality.
At best, The Poors are something protagonists can use (and discard) in order to make themselves look good, to pose with for cheap Good Person cred. Feyre when she's oh-so-generously handing out money (that she's conveniently just received a bottomless supply of) to the families in her village who are apparently Even Poorer than she was - families who were never mentioned even once when trying to build up Feyre's victim cred, note. Bryce does this as well, with her book setting up centrepiece moments for her to "fall to her knees" in grief at the plight of the Lesser humans, but having her not give a shit at any other time. Even going so far as to only even entertain the idea of helping the rebellion on the basis that she might be able to personally gain something out of it. The Poors are tools to be used, according to these books. The overwhelming majority of them never even get names!
An exaggerated sense of self-importance, preoccupation with fantasies of success, power and brilliance, a belief they are special, excessive need for admiration, sense of entitlement, pattern of taking advantage of others, a lack of empathy along with envy and arrogance are the criteria to look out for.
The criteria list is very interesting. It's painfully obvious to us how well it fits many of SJM's characters - Feyre puffing herself up about what an awesome High Lady she is, how she deserves to have the other High Lords (her alleged equals) bow to her, how she's such a brilliant spy, how she deserves to be calling the shots on running a nation and Tamlin is Wrong for suggesting otherwise, her complete inability to consider perspectives other than her own, etc, etc, etc.
But what makes it interesting is how the narratives will twist and contort themselves in an attempt to justify and make true some of the narcissistic delusions. Giving Feyre all of the High Lords' powers, for example. Or Bryce and her constant power-ups as the Super Awesome and Magical Starborn Princess, or however it went whenever the book wanted to be cute by lampshading it. All the faceless masses *do* fall on their knees in admiration; failure to do so is used as justification for all sorts of atrocities e.g. breaking multiple bones in Keir's body because he took Rhys's (carefully and deliberately crafted) bait and called Feyre a whore. Failure to think the Main Characters are the Greatest People Ever is a fault to be corrected, at best, and a one-way ticket to irredeemable villainy, at worst. The framing of the novels are a narcissist's wildest fantasies made manifest, in a world where literal god is on your side.
We all know about the balls-out, boasting, shiny, charismatic braggadocio of the overt or grandiose narcissist who creates stories and causes chaos and confusion. But vulnerable narcissists are a sub-species that can appear fragile and charming. This is a mask.
They are insidious and pernicious, says US psychologist Ramani Durvasula. “Quietly hostile, passive aggressive, sullen, brooding, victimised. A covert narcissist’s tactics only show up when there are no witnesses, apart from the victims.”
They can appear needy, brittle and dependent. “It draws us in,” Ferguson says. “It makes us want to help and protect them.”
But this is weaponised weakness. By getting people to feel sorry for them, covert narcissists are gathering the sympathy and support to isolate their victim.
Says Durvasula: “Covert narcissism is essentially a manipulation through victimhood.”
A long quote, but a telling one, because how often are SJM's characters making sure to play the victim for us? Probably the most egregious examples are the in-universe ones with Rhysand. He uses sob stories to dodge all sorts of responsibilities, from what he did to Feyre Under the Mountain, to the murdered Winter Court children, it's all classic DARVO to try and make the other characters (and the audience) feel sorry for him and therefore cow to his will (usually by dropping whatever thing they were trying to make him take accountability for).
But of course, it's not just him. Every character and their dog has an extremely traumatic backstory (no, really, Bryce's dog does too), to the point that it's kind of excessive. Said backstory is often the very first thing we learn about a character, in an attempt to prime us to feel sympathy for them regardless of what happens after this point. Our first chapter in Hunt's POV is a multi-page infodump of his Tragic Backstory. Feyre's first dinner with the Inner Circle is full of them positively tripping over each other to share details that make them sympathetic, and this continues in the chapters immediately afterwards as various characters tell her about the other characters' respective Tragedies. As if a sad past is a replacement for a personality (which we'll get to in a bit).
Also, note the specific use of the word "mask" in the quote. How often are the Night Court banging on about "masks" and how they "have" to use them?
Instead, [the narcissist was] studying you, learning how to become your perfect companion by mirroring your traits, mimicking your behaviours and flooding you with praise and admiration, says Robert, who also asked to use a pseudonym.
When the real person emerges it looks like this: “The gaslighting is constant. Mood swings and outbursts of anger are frequent. It is a cycle of highs and lows. The narcissist lives in chaos and confusion, and they need you to live in confusion as well,” Robert says.
The parallel between e.g. Rhysand's lip-service to Feyre's wants and the subsequent constant gaslighting is obvious. But I want to talk about it more on a meta level. Most of SJM's works pay lip-service to topical issues - feminism, gay relationships, abuse, class struggle, slavery, and so on and so forth. We all know they're poorly done, but that isn't really the point here. In a way, the narratives are making sure to provide a constant feed of things it assumes we want to hear, rather than establishing a consistent setting that the characters inhabit and are true to. Arranged marriage, for example, seems to be a staple for prominent persons in CC... but the characters are still complaining about it in a way that's very in-line with our modern views on the practice, that it's oppressive patriarchy at work and it's a girl-power thing to throw a fit about it. Even though it should be a normal thing in that world. But the book doesn't care about that; it's saying whatever it thinks it needs to to make us like it/its characters. It's also why it keeps insisting that e.g. Rhysand is such a feminist, despite all evidence to the contrary.
The gaslighting is obvious throughout the narratives. See everything concerning what happened UtM from MAF onwards, as an example. Or the slow appropriation of the human rebellion by the Vanir over the course of CC. But even the rest of that paragraph in the quote - mood swings, outbursts of anger, highs and lows, chaos and confusion - is honestly pretty representative of the style of narrative as a whole. Very little makes sense in a contiguous way. The book oscillates between self-congratulatory preening and self-righteous anger at the drop of a hat, performative emotions dismissed as soon as they're no longer needed. We're told whatever it thinks we need to be told to think how it wants us to think in the moment, and damn whatever came before. Motivations and plot points do not exist, they are merely tools to make us feel a certain way about the main characters, usually to get us on their side. And so on. E.g. CC expecting us to both be self-righteously angry over the mystics situation with the protagonists... but also on the protagonists' side when they're complaining Karen-style about how much the mystic service cost. People who are legitimately so horrified by the situation wouldn't use the service at all. But the book attempts to milk both kinds of angst from the situation, and cares not a whit that the two types don't really fit together. It's all in service of making the protagonists look like heroes, but also like victims. And on that note...
The covet narcissist will use “rat cunning”, she says, and go to any lengths to be in a dominant position, even if another person’s self-esteem is eroded to make them feel better.
“They create a new version of reality where they’re always the victim, the hero, or the innocent party,” she says.
Yeah. How often do we see this play out with Feyre and Rhysand? Rhysand essentially attempts to re-write everything from the first book in order to establish himself as the Selfless Hero who Sacrificed Himself and became Amarantha's Victim in order to save Everyone Else (read: only Velaris). How many elements in Feyre and Tamlin's relationship is appropriated and re-framed in a Feysand context? E.g. dancing with the will-o-wisps being replaced by Starfall, insisting Rhysand crawled for her but not Tamlin, even insinuating that Feyre and/or Rhysand were the ones who killed Amarantha, at times. Or when Rhysand is confronted about the Wonter Children, and tells us that a heretofore unmentioned and never spoken of again daemati is responsible, while he himself is an innocent victim (and isn't everyone else just such an asshole for assuming otherwise!).
Eroding someone's self-esteem to make themselves feel better is an almost verbatim description of what Cassian does to Nesta throughout their relationship. SF is devoted to tearing her down, so she can be rebuilt as he/the Inner Circle desire.
CC isn't safe from it either. Bryce and co often get stroppy about not receiving the treatment they think they are due for "helping" the rebels (e.g. insisting the rebels need to rescue the "valuable assets" that are Hunt and Ruhn from captivity), while completely ignoring all the times they've actively sabotaged the rebel efforts. Or when Bryce is telling us all about how it was So Hard for her to lie to her parents and dump them in Prythian as collateral for a bargain of dubious use beyond powering her up further - all without telling them! But damn if we aren't expected to feel sorry for her for "having" to make such a Difficult Choice.
The High Lord meeting is another interesting example, and shows the narrative warping itself to accommodate the narcissistic fantasies. Despite having absolutely zero reason to trust the Night Court, every other High Lord is immediately on board with the Tamlin Bad campaign, and spend most of the meeting bashing him and creating openings for the Night Court to look Better. All previous history the Night Court has established for itself is irrelevant - they are The Heroes now, and the book does not give a shit if it makes sense with anything else.
“They remove the context, erase the lead-up and cut out the things they did or said to push you over the edge,” Shaw says.
Suddenly you are presented as an unstable abuser.
“It is a clever, cruel trick,” says author Debbie Mirza. “They have effectively vanished from the crime scene they created, leaving you standing there holding the evidence of your own emotions.”
And this, I think, is very evident in a few places. Rhysand manipulating Feyre's (and the audience's) perceptions of the events UtM being the most prominent one. And the book helps him. Feyre's outfit during those events are not "the clothes Rhysand forced her to wear", but "the clothes she was made to wear Under the Mountain." Rhysand carefully admits to *some* wrongdoings, but is very careful to avoid acknowledging others - he'll admit (without apologising) that he made her drink the wine, for example, but never mentions any of the subsequent sexual assault. He reframes what he did as "protection", conveniently leaving out that the protection was only necessary because he dragged her out of her cell in the first place. And thus, when Feyre has any notions of maybe holding him accountable for that behaviour, she's instead twisted into feeling that she misunderstood him, and is thus Wronging him for daring to think he might have been anything less than a hero. All with a copious side-helping of Rhys attacking himself for being So Terrible - we're dealing with a covert narcissist here, after all. Baiting Feyre and the audience into wanting to comfort him and assure him that he's not terrible at all.
This same pattern is also very clear with Feyre and Tamlin. The book frames Tamlin as abusive, and Feyre as his victim (and using this to justify her later atrocities in Spring). But often, her own actions inform and exacerbate much of what goes on. More subconsciously in MAF, and then deliberately in WAR when she starts manipulating and baiting him. But returning to MAF, Feyre staunchly *refuses* to communicate with Tamlin for much of her time at Spring. She's upset when he buys her paints, but at no point has she communicated her new-found distaste for them to him, before or after the event. Instead, she resents him for not Just Knowing. Yes, Tamlin's explosion during that scene was not good, irrespective of whether he did it deliberately or as a result of a loss of control or whatever. But it doesn't change that Feyre is, unconsciously, setting up little tests (and only telling the readers about them) that are designed for him to fail. I don't remember which MAF post it was, specifically, but there's one where I listed a whole bunch of quotes from earlier in the book that show Feyre engaging in this avoidant behaviour, and blaming Tamlin for not being able to work out what she wanted anyway. This is a very common form of manipulation and abuse. It's not physical abuse like Tamlin's explosion. But it's also not about one-upping who was the Most Abusive. That's what the book wants us to be doing, and is precisely why it's framed things as it has - so that we see Feyre as the bigger victim in this situation, and thus overlook her own shitty behaviour. But all it really proves is that they were both abusive, just in different ways. The book points to Tamlin's overt behaviour and cries foul, when really, it's mostly just to distract us from Feyre's covert acts. I'd even go so far as to say that the bulk of her victimisation and suffering here is presented to us with the sole intention of smearing Tamlin, because most of it disappears *immediately* once she is in Night. Lucien's hair and flower petals trigger her, but not Mor's red dress? Okay, book. Okay. But speaking of smearing:
But if you expose a vulnerable narcissist and leave the relationship, the smear campaign can begin.
The demonisation of Tamlin is the prime example. The NC even shit talk him to the other High Lords before the meeting, classic smearing.
But it happens in more subtle narrative ways as well. How often are we told that Hewn City and Illyria are Evil and full of violent, sexist assholes before we get to see either place for ourselves? We learn all about Mor's Tragic Backstory in HC, and how Cassian and Azriel were abused by the Illyrians, long before we get to meet any of the people there and decide for ourselves. And the book is very careful not to show us too much of either place when we are there. The only named character from HC is Keir; the only named Illyrians I can remember are Devlon and Emerie. And most of the time, we're being "shown" behaviour that (the book thinks) "proves" its assertion about them. There is no room for nuance whatsoever. Only the smear campaign, conducted by both the book itself and its characters.
CC is not immune either. Pippa Spetsos, and the human rebellion more broadly, are victims of it. We're told that Pippa is insane and evil and is leaving strings of bodies behind her..... all well before there's even a shred of evidence to suggest that it's true. But, the book wants us to hate her, so that we cheer the protagonists on when they blow up the rebel base, instead of questioning why our alleged of-the-people heroes would do something that's so blatantly in line with the oppressors.
“I hate myself. But I am better than anyone else. I need to be better than everyone around me. My life feels like an act. I feel like a shell, a patchwork of traits that I stole from other people over the years. It feels like being dead, emotion is deeply uncomfortable and distressing. Emptiness is safe.”
This quote is from a diagnosed narcissist interviewed for the article. But it goes back to what I mentioned earlier about a lack of personality. We learn all about the (external) parts of a character's life that are meant to make us feel sorry for them..... but very little about who *they* actually are. External measures of suffering (verified as abusive by popular consensus) are being used as a replacement for an internal world. Many of SJM's scenes lack an emotional component when they would really, really need one - Feyre's re-enactment of UtM when they first visit HC is one of the most egregious offenders that springs to mind. We get very, very little from her about how she actually *feels* about the situation (apart from feeling horny). It's mostly her gushing about how awesome and selfless Rhys is - becoming an external validator for what the book wants us to think about him. Emotions are uncomfortable and distressing to narcissists. Thus, the book avoids writing about them deeply at all costs.
And it's very clear the book has no understanding of proportionality of emotion. The Rage at being wronged is absolute and all-consuming, no matter how minor the offence. Bryce "falls to her knees" in grief upon realising that human women were abused 15000 years ago (even though it's still going on, and she's allegedly aware of it, to this day). Feyre sits in the dead Summer faerie's blood until it goes ice cold, too numb from grief to even move, even though she didn't even know him. And so on. Aping genuine emotion, rather than considering how and why characters might feel the way they do.
And on the topic of being a "patchwork of traits stolen from other people." I already touched on how Rhys appropriates many of Feyre's scenes with Tamlin. But Tamlin's not the only victim of it. The first time we hear about wanting equality for lesser fae is from Tarquin - and wouldn't you know it, right after that Rhysand claims he's secretly wanted the same thing all along. Even though he was pretty noncommittal to Cassian's resentment of the Illyrians being considered "lesser fae" earlier...
And if we look at Rhysand's "inspiring" speech in WAR, it's all about how he's gotten things from the rest of the IC and become better because of it. Nothing about their own merits. Only the parts that serviced him. The fact that the book frames this as "inspiring" is very telling.
Many believe the more important question is whether the narcissist can even recognise that they need to change. Ferguson suggests that the reason NPD is rare is that so few make it to therapy in the first place.
Complete lack of self awareness is another common flaw in SJM's writing. Not understanding how the Night Court would come across to the other Courts is the obvious example. The book cannot conceive of how the Night Court could ever be perceived as in the wrong - it is blind to the faults that are so blatantly obvious to the rest of us.
“Many others joined in [the smear campaign], including my friends and even my own brother, spreading rumours, attacking my credibility. It was a coordinated effort to destroy my reputation.”
And this last quote is interesting to me, because it shows how far-reaching the impact of a narcissist can be. And I think this is part of the reason this fandom is in such a toxic state of division. In the same way that IRL narcissists cause fractions and divisions amongst real groups of people and turn them against each other, so too does the narcissistic writing in these books turn factions of the fandom against each other in kind.
So yeah, to sum all this up, I believe there is an inescapable narcissistic element to the writing of the books themselves, and this goes a long way to explaining many of its faults. Was this writing style a deliberate decision on SJM's part? Hard to say. And I don't know which answer is worse, tbh.
