I’m curious what aspects of tamlin’s actions in acoMaF do you consider a part of his trauma response to what happened UTM and what parts do you consider just completely inconsistent writing and sjm’s feeble attempts at character assassination? Your tamlin takes are always so insightful I love everything you have to say fr 🙇♀️💗.
Hi anon!! This is such a great question!
A lot of people may disagree, but I genuinely don't think this is something that I can differentiate, because in my opinion, I believe the function of Tamlin's trauma from MaF onward only serves to vilify him. So, I believe that most aspects of his 'trauma' responses are meant to say something negative about him, instead of starting a conversation into the complexity of trauma. I also think its hard to even have a conversation about Tamlin's trauma as its purposely just...not elaborated on. We know what Lucien, Rhys, and Feyre partially went through UTM, but we know next to nothing about what Tamlin was subjected to UTM. The conversation just never happens.
I don't think Tamlin is meant to be elaborated on. He only accidentally has a character arc because he is consistently dealt with consequences (conflict = integral to character development). I am not saying this from a sympathetic standpoint, but a literary one: Tamlin behaves. He is reactive to the plot; he is perceived both internally and externally. What I mean is - he has semi-noble intentions, but those intentions do not always present as noble. Tamlin is interesting in the realm of the story - we do not always know how he will react, nor how others will react to him. There is more there. Rhysand, in comparison, becomes boring not because he villainous or has done bad things, but because we know how the story will frame them.
So, there are things such as his paranoia that exists, but they only serve to make him a villain, and not open up the conversation about how Amarantha's consistent spying, isolation, and cruelty might shape that paranoia; so instead of being anxious, the paranoia is Feyre centered when in my opinion, it should just be general.
In short - I don't think there a lot of genuine discussions into Tamlin's trauma. I don't think anything that happens from the point Rhys is introduced that isn't just really bad bias. Like - at some point Feyre rewrites the entirety of UTM to fit another narrative (see: he didn't craw for me - when he quite literally - and i mean literally - did). Which is fine if people fine with that type of brainless writing, but becomes quite burdensome when we're like trying to draw an analysis of character interactions, which depends not on whats told to us, but what's observed by the reader.
Thank you anon!
