Discussion: ACOTAR

I want to talk about all the things ACOTAR. Because we all remember how much I loved ACOMAF, and with ACOWAR coming out later this year... well yea.

If you're not in the know, I am talking about A Court of Thorns and Roses, by Sarah J Maas. This will be a very spoilery discussion for both the first and second book. So beware. If you haven't read both, you might not want to continue.

So. Let me first link you to my original review for ACOTAR, here.

I just finished rereading this book now (finally). We all know how I felt about Tamlin after ACOMAF, but I want to discuss why I think he was completely in character being the tool he was.

So I want to start with my shipping him and Feyre in ACOTAR. So why did I ship them? Okay, I remember when I first read it, I didn't like Tamlin. It took me a long time to warm up to him because of a lot of things I will mention later. I wanted to ship them. Because I knew it was a Beauty and the Beast retelling. 

So moving forward. I think I began to actually ship them when Rhys finally came in because I sensed a love triangle. And I hate love triangles. And obviously Tamlin was Beast so how could the ship possibly be anything else, right?

Yea, okay.

So now about Tamlin. Things Tamlin has always loved:

- Control

- Withholding information

- Keeping Feyre locked up

- Order

- Lying

Yes, the curse didn't allow him to share information about many things. But certain things he could have easily told. Why did Feyre need to stay in her room on Fire Night? Oh I dunno. Maybe it's because she could get raped by another faerie. But that's not important.

She wants to stay with her family? Nah. She has to come to satisfy the treaty. Except that's a lie. But it doesn't matter. She has to do it. 

She wants to run home? Nope. Even though it doesn't violate the treaty, she can't leave. And she's pretty much stuck in his estate.

She wants to finally stay with him? Nope. She's not allowed to do that. She's sent back, completely against her will.

She's about to die under the mountain, and he has one minute without Amarantha watching him. What does he do? He pulls Feyre into a room to fuck her instead of getting her out.

Even at the very end after she became high fae, Feyre expressed having difficulty being high fae. And Tamlin and Lucien ignored it. As they did.

We get the idea that he and Rhysand obviously hate each other, but we can't be exactly sure what happened. So his male fae territorial-ness just goes into overdrive, and he can't stand that Feyre made the bargain with Rhys. He also just can't seem to see that Feyre doesn't like being "protected". Helped, sure. But any time someone tries to stop her from doing something because it's a bad idea, she does it anyway.

Feyre never loved him, and he never loved her. I think he was in love with the idea of her. But he never truly knew her. So when she suffered from PTSD and kept her locked up out of his own PTSD (the need to protect her), it was truly the last straw. He couldn't understand why she didn't want to paint. He couldn't understand why she didn't want to stay locked up inside. And he couldn't understand why she didn't want to stay with him.

But it was very him. Because he never understood her. He never cared enough to share important information with her, or give her a choice before. Why should he start now?