#pro humans

[psalm40speakstome]

[lady-of-the-spirit]

acotar au where the Archeron sisters all had and kept this attitude while dealing with the fae:

[alectology-archive]

“Let’s go flying.”

“What about the humans?” They’d run screaming in terror.

Cassian gave her a wicked smile, opening that half-broken door for her. Leading her into the sunlight and clean air. “It’ll add a little spice to their days.”

It’s not funny

[cinaja]

"Why are you [Nesta] letting her marry that bigoted prick[Grayson]?" The question snapped out of him [Cassian].

"He has good reason to hate your kind. As do we all."

"That's bullshit and you know it."

(A court of wings and embers)

I hate Cassian. So. Much. This is as bad as Rhysand's "Neither side is innocent" line.

So humans have no reason to hate Fae? What about millenia of slavery and cruelity? (Something Cassian literally thought about two pages ago.) Or the fact that many of those slave owners are still alive and never got punished? Or that humans are still getting murdered by Fae?

And may I just add that of course the narrative leaves this comment be without calling it out. Because apparently, the humans are the ones who are bigoted for being rightfully scared of the Fae and the Fae (former slave owner nearly all of whom think they are better than the humans) are the good guys. Right.

[cinaja]

I really hate that sjm decided to set the battle where most of the Valkyries died during the War (500 years ago) just because she wanted Cassian to have been in love with one of the Valkyries which wasn't even properly used for the plot, theme or romance, it was such a useless detail. For one, it makes this narrative of "no one remembers anything about the Valkyries" completely ridiculus since most of the Fae characters are older than 500 years.

But I also find it kind of tasteless to set this entire backstory in the war that was about trying to end human enslavement, but never really touch on that aspect. Slavery or the humans don't get mentioned once in the entire Valkyries backstory, to the point where it's not even clear which side they fought on. And I feel like this far-too-big focus on the Valkyries (who were Very Much Fae) dying out ends up making the War that was originally about the humans all about the Fae and their tragedies.

Don't get me wrong, the Valkyries dying out is tragic and terrible and certainly worth discussing. But this struggle was NOT ABOUT THEM. It was about the humans, who had been enslaved for millennia, who'd had their culture stolen, who were murdered by thousands and who never received recompensation or even an apology for what was done to them. THIS is the problem that should have been discussed, and once we were done with that, we could maybe have talked about the ways the Fae suffered under this war.

[cinaja]

I think part of the reasons why Briallyn only appears twice, and the other queens disappear completely from the plot, is that their motivations as villains are so unlogical that they fall apart the moment you look too closely at them. They can't appear too much or it will become painfully obvious that none of this makes sense. For all that sjm tries and tries to villainize the humans, the entire world simply isn't set up to allow a human villain. The Fae enslaved, oppressed and murdered the humans and fought a war to do so again just a few months ago. There is no way this set-up will ever work for a human as the villain.

And it shows. It shows so much. Because even with the little page time Briallyn gets, sjm doesn't manage to keep her motivations consistent AT ALL. The book starts out with "Briallyn and the other queens don't want peace, they keep their armies raised and might even want to expand into the Fae lands." Only on the very same page, the book continues with "Actually, Vallahan and other Fae countries want to invade the human lands, and the humans are too weak to stop them. The human queens are the only ones who might stop them." And it's like... which is it? Are the Fae the threat and the humans too weak to protect themselves, or are the humans now somehow a threat to the Fae? It's never explained. It also isn't explained why the humans would want to attack the Fae, why they ever allied with Hybern. (Likely because there is no logical reason that might explain it.)

The next motivation that's tossed around is: The problem is actually only Briallyn, and she allied with Koschei, who is Evil Personified and wants to take over the world. There's a bit of jumping around on who is using who, but then, the book settles on Briallyn not being played by Koschei and being ambitious herself. Her big goal: Finding the Cauldron so that she can become young again. Also power. Whyever. Then, the book seems to notice that this is far too unpersonal, so it moves to: oh AND she wants revenge against Nesta. So from there on, it's an extremely wobbly mix of motivations that jumps between "Power" (no reason or purpose specified), "Being young and beautiful again" (because ageism) and "get revenge against Nesta" (because we needed a personal connection).

[cinaja]

“I always thought she was born on the wrong side of the wall,” Elain admitted. “She made ballrooms into battlefields and plotted like any general. Like you two,” she said, nodding to Cassian, and then, a bit more shyly, to Azriel.

Yes, as we all know, the humans have no generals /s *glances at Jurian* How stupid is this? Now, only Fae can be vicious, or badass, or intelligent?

Apparently, we are. Oh, and:

She was a wolf who had never learned how to be a wolf, thanks to that cage humans called propriety and society. And like any maltreated animal, she bit anyone who came near.

Now, the humans are also getting blamed for Nesta being mean and not helping Feyre hunt, apparently. This is ridiculous. As if the humans are the ones with rigid rules. Did they already forget what happens to Fae women in some places, like the Hewn City or the Illyrian Mountains? Are we really going to say that the humans, who are ruled by queens, are the misogynistic ones?

[cinaja]

(i'm the previous anon) is it just me, or is the fact that humans apparently couldn't have had a chance at winning the War unless they had Fae allies kinda messed up? That they are so WEAK and PATHETIC that they needed the help of their oppressors to fight for their own freedom from slavery leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

s/jm just hates humans and loves to remind us they're inferior i guess :/

I also think it's really messed up! In general, the way sjm writes humans (who are the oppressed group in her world) is just SO BAD. The entire struggle is allegedly about their freedom, yet they are never allowed a voice and constantly stripped of their agency by a bunch of Fae who make all the choices for them. The story even goes so far as to present the humans as the bad guys and "bigoted" for being scared of the Fae, while the Fae are presented as The Best for not actively wanting to enslave humans (even though they still treat them as inferiour). There is a line about how "neither side is innocent" that is presented as correct about the human-Fae conflict, and none of what the Fae did to the humans is ever adressed.

For the specific point you mentioned, I think the problem is largely with the way sjm frames it. It kind of does make sense that the humans, most of whom were slaves at the point and who don't have magic, would have had a hard time winning a war against the Fae (although it is on sjm for setting it up this way, and she could have changed the situation so that humans are more on even ground because of... idk, technological advancements or magic of their own). I still don't like it at all and I would have preferred if it had been just the humans fighting against the Fae, but I think I would have had FAR less of a problem with it if it hadn't been written in a way that strips the humans of any agency or influence so completely. If it had been the humans starting the war, humans getting some Fae to help them, humans making all the important choices and undoubtedly being the reason why they won the War in the end, I think it would have been much better. Because then, the story would have been about them, and the victory would have been theirs. (Maybe it could have even included them purposefully using the Fae.) But sjm just writes it as the humans being Helpless And Pathetic and unable to do anything on their own. She goes such lengths to make it absolutley clear that the humans would have had no chance on their own, that they actually contributed little to nothing to a war that was about their freedom.