I think it’s important to point out that the original endgame was Mor x Azriel. For the period between ACOMAF and ACOWAR, you could find memes and posts from the fandom suspecting them being mates, even some posts on SJM’s Pinterest. ACOWAR came, in the midst of SJM receiving heavy criticism for her lack of representation including lack of LGBT+ representation, and so the ship that wasn’t fully confirmed sunk. The framing for Mor and Azriel shifted from two people nervous to admit feeling into a man pursuing a queer woman who felt too unsafe to reveal her sexuality and let him down. Moriel was no more, their dynamics and parts of their characterization reframed, and both of them were without mates / love interests.
With that being said, you look at Gwyn and Emerie, and you look at ACOMAF Mor and Azriel, and to me Gwynriel and Emorie are variations on what Moriel was originally planned to be, but with consideration of the changes made to Mor and Azriel’s respective characters since the Moriel-sinking of ACOWAR. Gwyn is incredibly similar to ACOMAF Mor, right down to the backstory, tension, and reactions she illicits in Azriel; Emerie, a scarred Illyrian with a complicated relationship her people pining after Mor, paralleling what Azriel felt towards Mor in ACOMAF. Emerie and Gwyn were designed for Mor and Azriel, in the particular ways in which Mor and Azriel had complemented each other prior to the ACOWAR re-write.
I can explain away the ACOWAR E/riel moments as nothing more than SJM toying with where to put Azriel in light of knowing she was going in the direction of sinking Moriel, but Elucien had too much attached to them in terms of tension and tropes and plot, or E/riel just didn’t work with what she pictured for Azriel originally to continue down that line. But the creation of Gwyn and Emerie, for me, was not only friends for Nesta, but in part because she knew that something wasn’t right about E/riel, and Mor and Azriel needed love interests with backstory, build up, and dynamic to what Moriel was planned to be before, love stories that covered what she wanted Moriel to cover in terms of themes and tropes.
