#sjm critical

[snarkformysanity]

Night Court: Spends 500 years running a PR campaign to convince everyone else they're evil

Night Court: Is infamous for its tyranny and debauchery, and also for having the Most Powerful Daemati High Lord Ever as its lord

Night Court: The High Lord willingly serves Amarantha (Hybern's general) for no apparent reason other than to save his own skin (because no one else knows about the secret city he sacrificed the rest of his court to save, after all)

Night Court: High Lord publicly abuses a human girl for months Under the Mountain, in front of all the other High Lords

Night Court: High Lord kidnaps said girl from her wedding to the Spring Lord, she later turns up married to Night with an explanation that definitely doesn't involve mind-control

Night Court: Approaches Summer on the pretext of forging an alliance, betrays and robs them instead

Night Court: Sends formerly human girl as a double-agent to break the Spring Court from within

Night Court: Somehow Just Knew about an imminent attack on the Summer Court, despite no one else getting word. And they definitely don't try to leverage this as capital against their previous offences against Summer

Night Court: Tries to change the time and location of the High Lord meeting at the last minute and strongarm everyone into agreeing to it

Night Court: Causes immediate insult to every other High Lord present at said meeting by insisting they bow to its Lady, because the Night Lord thinks she deserves it

Night Court: Immediately starts talking shit to the other lords about Spring, who has yet to arrive

Night Court: Immediately starts drama with Spring, once he does arrive. Uses magic to choke him quiet when he says things they don't like

Night Court: Refuse to admit responsibility for betraying and stealing from Summer, using their aid in the attack to deflect from it

Night Court: Dodges questions about murdered Winter children and deflects with a sob story when pressed. A former human woman must apologise on their behalf

Night Court: Violently attacks delegates from the Autumn Court not once, not twice, but three times over the course of the proceedings

Night Court: "So, who wants to be our allies?"

.........................

................and then six out of seven fucking hands go up.

Please. Make it make sense.

[m4r-len3]

Do I hate Feyre Archeron? No. I pity her. I pity the person she became. I pity this trophy wife who is completely dependent on her husband. I pity this twenty year old girl whose environment continued to choose her mate over her despite claiming themselves as her friends. I pity this immature woman who will never see past the end of her nose when it comes to the suffering of those she rules over. I pity this practically newborn fae who has been molded and manipulated and unknowingly shaped by those who she was supposed to trust.

I pity Feyre Archeron.

And I hate how she was written, what the author failed to touch upon through her main character and I hate losing what could've been.

EDIT: she's additionally very annoying.

[spacerockfloater]

When Rhysand’s mother decided his future wife must be able to escape the clutches of a death god in order to prove her love for her son, Rhysand straight up surrendered Feyre to the Weaver. He sent his mate to a trap no other fae ever survived solely to satisfy his dead mother and his own ego.

When Tamlin had to make a woman profess her love for him in order to save all of Prythian at the risk of her getting harmed, he sent Feyre home.

Don’t ever get it twisted.

[deslizada]

I think a lot of acotar discourse could be solved by collectively understanding that sjm is a terrible writer who cannot use storytelling tools successfully tbh. like the correct answer to "why did rhysand put feyre in skimpy dresses and make her dance while drugged under the mountain" isn't "because he's a sexual predator" (although that's a valid interpretation) but rather "because sjm thought it was hot and didn’t think through the implications". the same thing goes for a lot of discourse sticking points. the whole bizarre no c-sections allowed pregnancy subplot happened because sjm wanted pregnancy drama and didn't care enough to come up with something better. cassian took nesta on a miserable hike to punish her because sjm thinks keeping someone happy takes priority over telling them lifesaving medical information. and on and on. unfortunately being in this fandom is a deeply frustrating experience because the source material fucking sucks, and most of the good stuff in the fandom comes from people's reimaginings of canon, not because the books are good. personally I cope with this by making shit up in my head that I like better and I highly recommend doing that

[lainalit]

The new synopsis for book 6

SJM writing all of this into the books:

[senu102929]

I found my official least favorite line in the ACOTAR series. 🤮

First of all - who picked out the clothes? Ianthe used to but at this point I don't think Feyanthe are on speaking terms, so Feyre must have picked it out. To appear harmless, I get, since she's undercover here and doesn't want to attract attention. But what's the deal with the second part?

Tamlin doesn't even attempt to seduce her until she gives him cues later on. And then backs off once she turns him away with her whole Lucien nightmare comforting scheme. In no way is he trying to treat her the way she suggests, nor has he ever.

From a meta perspective, I hate that the fact that she thinks being dressed feminine and wearing pink means she's portraying herself as a sex object (but only for the High Lords, she's a high class courtesan) without a will of her own who just exists to be submissive and used. Also what does this say about how she thinks about her sisters, who do dress feminine, especially Elain?

But if there is a High Lord who does want to "mount" Feyre whenever and wherever he wishes and in front of whomever, there is another one.

[maladattata]

No, let me go back to the beast abduction nesta retcon, so in acosf it says:

Literally never happens, though. Tamlin wants (and needs) the person that killed Andras, the Treaty he invents also only allows him to take the killer. This is the only time Nesta is acknowledged by Tamlin in that scene:

And isn't it interesting that Elain is the more self-serving one here? That phrasing seems like she's ready to let Feyre die bc she did kill the wolf after all, meanwhile Nesta never speaks.

Anyway, I dislike the retcon for many reasons but one of them is that it makes Nesta the guilty party in Feyre's abduction. Like objectively Tamlin is the one with power in that scene (well some power he's still cursed) but this retcon pretends that Nesta should and could have done something, that she is at fault for Feyre being taken. But she plainly isn't, Tamlin doesn't want her and even if he did, self sacrifice is an insane ask, it's perfectly fine for Nesta to not want to do that. Plus Feyre wouldn't have let her anyway, she's got a much stronger martyrial streak.

And bullshit like that lets me know that Nesta is not sjm's new self insert, those remain as Feyre and Rhysand, because this entire scene and really that entire book is about making Nesta be a terrible person that finally has to admit that she has always been wrong and evil, where Feyre and the Night Court are perfect and right. Like that entire scene is so endlessly cringe and not about Nesta and not about Tamlin, it's just about Feyre again and again lest anyone dare become a character in their own right.

[azuryn]

Random confession:

My biggest issue with Rhysand is that the plot portrays him as morally gray and seductive, yet the narrative tries to paint him as morally good and righteous.

Just let the guy who is clearly an anti-hero, be an anti-hero.