i love that red queen puts family as the chief unit of love even above true romantic love like that for some reason is SO overrated in ya media. i dont think of the characters within friendship or romantic groups first, i unconsciously catergorise them into their family.
cal loves mare but cal will put maven first always and he loves his dad and his image so much he’s willing to sacrifice his character and relationship with her to fulfil the expectations set by his family and its not until realising what his MOTHER wanted for him that he lets go. and mare loves cal but she will always put her siblings and parents first which is why everything started with gisa and shade’s loss and it ended with her sister and the loss of her brother too. maven loves mare but he loves elara more even if she twisted him and elara loves maven more than the entire kingdom and thats why she twisted him. and elara couldn’t enact her plan to make maven king without getting rid of his love for cal first!! when shade gets killed mare HAS to kill elara because that is the only way she can make sure her pain is even with at least one person.
cameron does everything for her brother’s safety, she was willing to abandon her morals and dehumanise anyone standing in her way if thats what needed to happen. and after morrey was safe she quit— nothing was worth losing herself over except him. farley and shade’s love was so pure that it brought life and family to the farleys who were already broken with the grief of being halved. their love brought a daughter named after the death of the woman that destroyed the family, and it was so healing.
and that is what KILLS me about the samos family!!! that compared to all this unconditional loyalty— the samos family is a continuous act of playing at love and loyalty, when in reality volos and larentia could not care less about their children because they dont know how to. silver society never showcases this love and so then you have so many parents fucking up their kid in so many ways but doing it out of love because thats how they see it— all except volo and larentia.
so the samos family is an exception. i cant think of evangeline without thinking of elane and ptolemus and i cant think of ptolemus without thinking of evangeline and wren. thats their family. and at least evangeline and ptolemus experienced real love with each other, even if they were never taught it (evangeline’s fear over shade’s death was proof that she could imagine a world without him and it was one of the few times she was genuinely scared in the series).
One thing I wish Miss Aveyard would’ve done is to have gone more in depth about Cameron and her powers.
The way she acts on the plane after being kidnapped by the Guard makes it seem like she has absolutely no idea of what she’s capable of because she was panicking and she didn’t seem to understand why she was the only Red unharmed by the Silent Stone (this may just be a lack of knowledge about what Silencers or Silent Stone is however). But by the next book when she finally gets Morrey back, his first instinct is to take her and run because he thinks the Guard are going to hurt her for what she is which implies that he (and she herself) already knew of her abilities despite being a part for so long. But not once in any of her POV chapters does she mention when she first figured out she had powers even though she references both them and her family memories a couple of times.
So was it just something she (and her brother) were trying to hide? Was her using her silencing powers the real reason she managed to escape the prison and she lied to seem less special? Was there any other case of her using her powers? I just feel like there’s a whole interesting story here that I’d like to know more about.
@redqueenetwork task: mare barrow’s birthday week | day three; favorite mare moment/scene
Cameron talks to Mare before leaving the Scarlet Guard
Words: 1076
She talked for a long time, more than she ever did, blurting everything she had kept inside. She understood the fear, the anger and the disgust that took her when she thought about what she could do and what she had done, how that power that once thrilled her, making her feel invincible and indestructible now made her feel ashamed. It had happened to her too and to admit it, even if only with herself, had been like being stabbed in the stomach, so she didn't say anything while Cameron was talking avoiding her eyes, keeping her gaze fixed on her feet as they walked the training ground. As they went back and forth, the field was filled with soldiers, a warning of time passing by. Reds and Newbloods, all there for the morning exercises, wearing the green uniforms provided by Monfort, difficult to distinguish from each other and therefore stronger in shouting even during such a banal moment of the day the slogan of the Guard: we’re all equal, we stand united.
"I want to protect my brother. He tells me we should leave..." Cameron's voice faded to die in her throat. She had no more words so it was the right time for Mare to talk.
"My sister says the same thing every day. She wants to accept Davidson's offer, reintegrate into civil life and let others fight." an attitude typical of Gisa, for which she would once have resented her, but which she now understood, although she couldn’t share it. Gisa had never been a fighter, and she should never have expected her to be, just as she never should’ve asked for help to steal the money Farley had asked her during their first meeting that seemed to have happened more than a lifetime ago. Maybe, if she hadn't done it, things would’ve been different, maybe even worse, but it made no sense to dwell on those kinds of thoughts, not when there were real possibilities ahead of them. "She says we have already given enough," she concluded, and she could only agree on this.
"So what will you do?" Cameron asked, as if she were looking for a guide. Many things had changed during her absence and the most reluctant of her recruits was one of them, but perhaps it was just the fact that she had completed her mission, finding her brother, although Mare wouldn’t have bet on it. But after all, she had never been a great gambler.
"I can't turn my back." she replied, biting her lip. There was too much anger in her and if she couldn't find a way to get rid of it she would end up poisoning her own mind. Maybe it was the wrong way to handle the situation, but it was the only one she knew, but probably this wasn’t what Cameron wanted to hear.
"Waiting would kill me," Cameron admitted, but it was clear she couldn't even go on like that, using her ability to kill. That little girl didn't want to become a monster, and Mare could understand her: she had seen too many people corrupted by their own ability and thirst for power, she even wore the mark of one of them, and she didn't wish it on anyone, let alone someone who was there for her fault.
"It’s easy to become a monster, especially if you are like us…” Mare let slip, but she immediately recovered from her memories. She didn't have time to think about Maven and that wasn't the right time. It never was. “You didn't fight in Archeon, or if you did I didn't see you. "
"No, I came just for..." Cameron didn’t finish the sentence, but Mare understood. She had come for her, but she didn't want to know why.
"It was Kilorn's idea when we were in Trial." she said. "He’s good at sorting the Newbloods and the Reds and he knew I wanted to take a step back. So I went, not to fight, not to kill, unless it was absolutely necessary."
“And you want to continue on this path.”
It wasn’t a question but she nodded slowly anyway: “I think it’s better this way. Defend, don’t destroy."
Mare smiled. She would’ve liked to see it that way too. In some aspects, Cameron and Gisa were really similar.
"I'm not your commander, I can't tell you what to do or how to fight, but I think it's a good idea and if someone tries to convince you otherwise, send them to me."
Cameron also smiled and seemed to have lightened up. She doubted she was convinced that she owed her something, but perhaps she just needed to know that she had the support of someone like her. Mare, on the other hand, owed something to her: excuses, which for a long time she didn’t realize she had to say but that now were more urgent than ever. And so she put aside her pride, another teaching that imprisonment had given her, and apologized, and together they put aside old animosities. Her brother was waiting for her a little further on, his figure standing out against the base’s buildings. Cal was gone, but perhaps it was better this way: talking about brothers did nothing but sadden her, but when the subject was touched with him, a flame that she didn’t liked erupted in his heart, a fire he couldn’t control and she was convinced that sooner or later would’ve devoured him, leaving behind only the ashes of the person she loved. It was also evident that Morrey could hardly stand him, a Cole family trait, evidently.
“Am I abandoning you? The Newbloods, I mean.” Cameron asked before returning to her brother, a last doubt to be dispelled in order not to leave them with a still heavy heart.
Of course she was a weapon, whether she liked it or not, and she could be useful, she could be used in many ways. But she was a girl too, a human being, and if someone could’ve seen letting her go a reckless or soft gesture, Mare knew that letting someone have the freedom to choose was the nobles of attitudes, what distinguished them from the tyrants they were fighting. And so, although she had asked herself that same question many times, she answered that no, she wasn’t abandoning them, but that she was one less monster they have to worry about. One less ghost.
Cameron Cole everybody, my heart and soul. With a small side of Morrey, of course, for my new collection of RQ wallpapers? Idk, I guess we’ll just see just where this goes.
I really wanna see a Gisa x Morrey brotp. They seem like the type of friends to just sit on a porch together and talk shit about the people who walk by. I also headcanon that Cameron joins in once in a while and leaves them reeling from her comments.
Yes *__*
Maybe they both like sewing (or any other hobby)? Or Gisa asks Kilorn about getting people used to Newbloods? But Gisa and Morrey talking about random strangers sounds so accurate. They poke fun at people, but they don’t get really mean.
