I woke up to this post making a bit of rounds so to clarify things I’ve written down my thoughts here: (I’m not going to tag everyone who disagrees or made a comment on here, but I hope you all read through this)
Manon has been conditioned and trained from the moment she was born and her mother subsequently killed to be the heartless, man-eater, White-Demon people who are not close to her know her as. That is her myth and @propshophannah has made a great post of that right here.
“Manon had been born soulless, her grandmother said. Soulless and heartless, as a Blackbeak out to be. She was wicked down to the marrow of her bones.” (Heir of Fire, Chapter 9) I’m not going to look for every instance in the books where Manon hears her grandmother’s voice in her head because there are too many and they are all very similar, but this is the first clear explanation as to why Manon does the “horrible” things she does.
Manon follows her grandmother’s orders since she has always been threatened with “Flogging, perhaps a few broken fingers-nothing too permanent, but it would be public. That was her grandmother’s preferred method of punishment: not the how, but the humiliation.” (Heir of Fire, Chapter 9) Typical abuser behavior.
Manon’s first kill had been a Crochan at sixteen, “a gift for her grandmother.” Just take a moment to let that sink in. (Heir of Fire, Chapter 4)
Manon copies her grandmother’s behavior, which is the only thing she knows, however, it’s interesting how we only see one instance of her tasting blood (in her introductory chapter in Heir of Fire) and she spits it out. She only likes drinking the blood of people who don’t fear her.
For evidence, in Chapter 80, when Manon is searching for Elide (whom she does love like she loves the rest of her coven!) a laundress comes to help her out by telling Manon that Elide was taken to one of the dungeons. After Manon is thanked, she comments that “she did not think that woman’s blood would be watery or taste of fear.”
There is also a distinct difference in EATING someone and drinking their blood, just saying. No matter how much you want Manon to be a misandrist man-eater, she isn’t one. After the not shown attack on a village in QoS chapter 8, where Manon curiously mentions how they don’t kill children, she and her Thirteen clump all adult humans together, not just men. I’m not defending her actions here, but this was before her “things are changing” comment to Asterin I’ll talk about in the end.
Speaking of which, her interactions with humans and men/males in general have mostly been adverse. Remember that humans fear witches (no matter if they are Blackbeak/Crochan) and will KILL ON SIGHT. We see that in Chapter 4 of Heir of Fire. Manon went after the men because they attacked her first. And from the interactions in the boat and after she’s out of the chains in EoS, there is clearly deep prejudice against witches from ALL the other intelligent species in the tog world. The only one who paid mind to Manon and her needs was Dorian.
The men in Morath were tainted by Valg and Vernon is a prick who tortured and abused Elide, so of course her interactions with them were hardly-contained dissent. However, she gave an explanation to the blacksmith that was making the weapons for the aerial legion whose tongue was cut out, in QoS Chapter 12, on why she needed lighter weapons, arguably out of empathy and Manon also gave “a foot of spider silk to the overseer after he carefully grafted it onto Abraxos’ wings.” You know people have killed and died for less than that and she had no obligation to give him anything, but she was nice enough to give him a whole FOOT OF IT in apparent gratitude.
And remember that scene in Chapter 63 of QoS where Asterin talks to Manon about her hunter and love? Manon fell to her knees at the story and when Asterin described how she went back to check on him “something….something was cracking and aching in Manon’s chest, caving in on itself” and she left with Asterin to let Aelin know about Dorian immediately after that conversation.
In Chapter 87 of QoS, Manon asks Asterin about how the hunter died and later the question people seem to ALWAYS ignore:
“What is it like?” Manon asked quietly. “To love”
And after Asterin poetically gives her explanation, this happens:
“I’m surprised you’re not giving me the ‘Obedience. Discipline. Brutality’ speech.” (This was said by Asterin)
“Things are changing,” Manon said.
Manon recognizes that she was ‘made’ into a monster and that she wasn’t ‘born’ one. She recognizes that things will change, including the fact that she doesn’t have to be that monster anymore. She doesn’t have to kill or maim for her grandmother-her abuser. She enjoys war, and the world is at war, but there is a difference between killing for pleasure and killing out of duty to protect your own. That is what all these characters have been doing since the series started, Manon included. Manon doesn’t hate anyone except those who hurt her or her loved ones. She hates men like Vernon, like Erawan, like the others in Morath tainted by the Valg, but taking that and clumping it together with “she hates ALL men” makes no sense and just makes you look dumb. Subtext matters.
