There’s a problem with the way Sarah J Maas depicts physical abuse/intimidation in ACOTAR

The fact that Tamlin’s physical abuse of Feyre being communicated through a magical/emotional outburst is problematic in the sense that it undercuts the reason why abuse happens. Incorporating magical concepts into a portrayal of domestic violence muddles the issue at hand and makes the abuse an accidental consequence of involuntary magical impulses as opposed to a deliberate tactic of intimidation and control. This issue is exacerbated by the fact that Feyre too, experiences an uncontrollable magical/emotional outburst during the High Lords meeting due to Beron’s provocative remarks. To be clear, I don’t view Tamlin as detestable or as an irredeemable abuser, but the text very much does. What I want to comment on is the problematic framing of Tamlin’s actions that are meant to characterize him as an abusive partner to Feyre.

So, I’m going to compare and contrast a scene from ACOMAF with a scene from ACOWAR, both of which depict magical outbursts that are brought on by intense emotional stress or rage.

ACOMAF

Here, Feyre objects to Tamlin’s protective measures he had enacted earlier. She expresses how suffocated she feels and how she wishes that she had the breathing room to cope with her new reality and that Tamlin’s actions are making her suffer. Furthermore, Feyre introduces her doubt in their engagement and expresses her reservations. Tamlin then goes blank, reacting explosively with his power blowing the room into splinters.

This is a good first step towards characterizing Tamlin as an abusive partner (despite the leaps it took to get there) But, where it goes wrong is the emphasis the text puts on Tamlin's blank expression and subsequent magical response. He loses control momentarily, but the issue about this portrayal is that abuse is not "losing control" or accidental, it is a conscious decision made by the abuser. But here, Maas makes it seem as though Tamlin really was not in control, that the heightened emotions made him react that way.

It gives Tamlin an out and consequently undercuts the message Maas is trying to communicate. Bringing magic into the scene takes away Tamlin's agency and removes a portion of his culpability in harming Feyre.

This scene should not have been Tamlin simply losing control of his temper, if Maas wanted to enhance her abuse narrative, she should have taken Tamlin’s temper and had him weaponize it. Intimidation is a possibility, one that would work towards making Feyre feel scared about voicing ver true feelings on their relationship. But Maas doesn’t go all the way, she doesn’t lean into that interpretation and instead plays it straight.

This is also undercut by Tamlin's second magical outburst in ACOWAR. Feyre intentionally provoking him does nothing for Maas's abuse narrative and actively undermines it by strengthening the idea that Tamlin's destructive outbursts really were caused by overwhelming emotions. Once again, it gives Tamlin a way out and dilutes the message.

The notion of an involuntary magical outburst is applied again in ACOWAR

Beron’s inflammatory remarks provoke an immediate reaction from Feyre, she goes blank so to speak, and can no longer focus due to the intensity of her emotions. This manifests in a fiery outburst that throws the meeting into disarray and injures the Lady of Autumn accidentally.

She’s so angry that she can’t think straight or logically, and it manifests in an attack. Though this isn't exactly the same, Feyre's "blinding fury" is so powerful that it cannot be restrained and ends up harming an innocent party. This moment strengthens the case for magic manifesting strong emotions as external attacks, characterizing it to some extent as involuntary.

Ultimately, the magical element removes the agency of the individuals in question. It frames their violence not as a conscious act designed to inspire fear, but as a genuinely accidental reaction to intense emotions. This is why the "Tamlin is an evil abuser" narrative is so weak. Because it dilutes the severity of the violence and makes it seem as though these kinds of emotional outbursts are an element of possessing magical powers. It gestures at a larger issue of Maas picking and choosing when and where she wants to apply real-world standards to her characters' morality. It makes events less believable and hypocritical, making allowances for certain characters, but condemning others without adequate narrative set-up.

This is why Maas is fundamentally incapable of recognizing the abusive dynamic she constructs with Feysand. It is a combination of double standards, authorial bias and a misunderstanding of how abuse manifests.

Tamlin is actually such an underrated character in acotar. Because of feyres very biased narrative she forces readers to ignore the complexity of his character and man. its sad

Tamlin is a character who is genuinely GOOD at his core. He changed so much of the spring court for good, eliminating slavery within the spring lands and mortals having more protection. Hes a morally good character that made a few mistakes and is boiled down to just those mistakes. Locking feyre in the house and the magical/emotional blow up, which are both pretty decent fuck ups (i dont think siding with hybern fully counts as he was a double agent all along and tamlin was decently justified in thinking feyre was being kept against her will. lets be fr here) and even after he’s extremely fucked over by the nightcourt, his lands and court burned to shit, he still saves rhysand. Saves rhysand and tells feyre to be happy, even when he has every reason to NOT do that!

Hes a character that clearly holds himself to a higher standard. throughout acotar he puts lucien and feyres safety above his own, even sending feyre away when she was the only one who could save him. Even though what he did to her wasnt great its not completely irredeemable, rhysand did much worse things to feyre and other people but hes living his best life while Tamlin seems to find himself unworthy of being a person (acosf wheres hes been in beast form for roughly over two years) hes a perfectionist who now doesnt even think he deserves anyone because he accidentally hurt the people he loves most.

Sjm accidentally created a beautifully rich and morally righteous character who is so extremely fucked by the narrative. Which doesnt even work half the time as sjm cant seemingly commit to making him a full villain (seemingly by accident again she gave him quite a reasonable explanation to everything he did ‘wrong’ but still chooses to make him a punching bag)

If Tamlin was genuinely a morally evil character he wouldnt have NEARLY the amount of fans as he does. Hes a character that requires the minimum amount of media literacy and comprehension to understand and i LOVE him.

I’m a bit peeved I have to say this and I’m frankly exhausted of the fact that people need to be reminded of this fact.

Feyre suffered just as much if not more than everyone in this series including Tamlin’s pathetic disgusting ass.

He’s not the one whose blood got boiled in his veins by Amarantha, he’s not the one who was mocked and humiliated by her in public over and over again, he’s not the one who was given impossible tasks that would either result in his death or being horrifically beaten, he’s not the one who was locked under the mountain for 50 years, unlike the rest of the HLs who had to stay there and suffer he was living fairly comfortably during those 50 years, he just had the anxiety looming over his head of impending doom and while that’s traumatic it’s not the same as experiencing it.

Why does he need to be given the benefit of the doubt? Why is he deserving of sympathy or grace from the fandom? “His trauma made him do this”, “When he lost control of his magic and it attacked Feyre it was him having a panic attack”, “Everything he did came from a good place”. Okay? Why should I give a fuck? Do you know how many real men have sob stories like Tamlin and take it out on the women in their lives? Would you tell those women or the people who support them that they need to give that person the benefit or the doubt or try to understand where he was coming from? There really aren’t any valid Tamlin defense arguments and his stans are quite vile.

Anyways stan Feyre and Tamlin death arc

Acotar fandom is so toxic with all the ships wars and Rhys girls,i miss the first book era 😪

I’m not even part of this fandom ‘cause i don’t like the series or the author so idk why people are attacking me in my inbox.I only shared my preferences and opinions.

But yeah,the first book was the one i enjoyed the most and i miss that Feyre,Lucien and Tamlin.

You're telling me that Tamlin showed up and saved Feyre's raggedy traitor ass completely unprompted midway through ACOWAR and ppl still have the NERVE to say he is irredeemable???

Forgive me this sweeping generalization but I love how most ACOTAR fanfic writers DGAF about Tamlin.

My Facebook/Reddit/whatever groups are full of people all like “Tamlin has trauma too, where is his redemption arc!!!” (It was ACOWAR but whatever)

Meanwhile like 95% of fanfic I read is “Oh yeah and then Tamlin died offscreen, lololol”

I can’t get through this book!!!! Why on earth did she choose to write a book about Nesta!!!!!! It is so BORING! There are so many more interesting people to write about, no? Even out of the bat boys Azriels story would have been more interesting than cassians, elain is a SEER, and the redemption arc that could have been written about Tamlin??? Why tf am I reading about a woman who has just been horrible and cruel her whole life and using her trauma as an excuse???

I see people have refound my Tamlin beast fic.

yall i am so goddamned exhausted with the bullshit you're pulling out of your asses aimed at sjm and acotar and all this other shit. you guys seriously cannot be saying, 'if you dont like my opinions then block me idc' and then literally rant shit about a book you clearly hate. i see so many people going 'ugh im anti sjm she needs to do her research on politics and ugh anti inner circle' tf???? just dont read the god damned books then!!!!! i can understand getting into debates and shit about it and having strong opinions about books, hell i have strong opinions about the books i read. but if it pisses you off that badly then just. dont. read. the fucking books. its not that hard. oh- and also- its a fucking book. its a fantasy world. sjm is in charge of the characters, of their thoughts and feelings of everything they do. she decided what is canon, yall fuckers are just speculating. let her do her thing- if you dont want to- then dont read her books! its really quite simple.

Dain literally confirms exactly how he stole a memory one time and apologizes to Vi but the fandom likes to list out every damn time he touched her as him stealing memories, making him sound worse than he is. Meanwhile, Xaden ADMITS he kept reading her memories all the while until they kissed (and reads memories of everyone else whenever he chooses) and it’s crickets from the fandom lol. Hypocrisy much?

omg it turns out I was completely right to not like tamlin!!

Feyre JUST got out of a being trapped in a cell situation and you MAKE IT SO SHE CANT LEAVE?!

“Bitch” wow! I don’t see the reason for getting so heated over these characters. They don’t actually exist you know? You’re not defending anyone’s honour or being some saint here. I didn’t mean anything in a bad way, I was trying to have a rational conversation because I’ve never come across an IC hater and wanted to know why you didn’t like them. But obviously having a rational conversation is out of your zone of abilities since it didn’t take a lot for you to get down to name calling. My only suggestion to you because I truly wish the best for you is control that anger and learn to listen to other people before someone shows you your place. It won’t be nice. Good luck bbg 💜💜

You're the one coming in anon and shitting on characters that I like. What did you expect??? I'm going to defend my characters, obviously. You want my dissertation on why I hate each member of the Inner Circle? Let's start with captain asshole Rhysand: Rhysand: Sexually assaulted Feyre, did not apologize, licked Amarantha's boots for fifty years to "protect" no one since he only rules 1/3 of his court. He claims to be uber powerful yet he can't control misogyny within 2/3 of his court. But it's totally fine to go into Tarquin's house, steal an important possession, then act superior later when his wife's antics in Spring caused Summer to be invaded. Pretends to give his wife a "choice" while not giving her crucial information, i.e. that he wouldn't be helping her out with the Weaver at all. Locked Lucien in a house, made rape jokes about his mother, altogether treated him like shit for no reason. Then the Inner Circle acts all shocked and furious that their "masks" as "bad guys" fooled everyone and act violent towards literally everyone not Inner Circle there. Rhysand forcibly shut Tamlin's mouth, Feyre burned Lucien and Eris's innocent mother, Azriel nearly choked Eris to death. Ironically, Cassian acted the most sane here. After Tamlin saved Feyre and Rhysand's lives multiple times, Rhysand has the gall to tell Tamlin to kill himself despite knowing they'll need him as an ally, which is a terrible thing to do and also made Lucien's life harder. ACOSF he locks Nesta in a house and hides the malignant nature of his wife's pregnancy from her. That's just the gist of it. Cassian: Rhysand's dog. He need to grow a fucking spine. He never defends Nesta in front of Rhysand, and constantly abuses her physically and mentally. Won't let her eat sugar, forces her to train, tells her everyone hates her, makes her hike a fucking mountain for having the nerve to disobey rhysand and tell feyre the truth she deserved to hear. Then again in HOFAS not defending Nesta in front of Rhysand when he was screaming at her for giving away the trove and telling her she should've killed Bryce instead. THAT. IS. YOUR. MATE. He treats all the women in his life better than her, like mor and feyre. Azriel: A fucking weirdo violent creep. He needs to man tf up and admit Lucien is the superior man. His creeping on Mor for 500 years when she's clearly not interested is not cute. Nor is choking Eris to death in an important political meeting. Nor is treating Elain like a helpless object and masturbating to a gag gift he gave her. I'lL dEfEaT hIm WiTh LiTtLe EfFoRt boi stfu no you can't and Lucien has done NOTHING to you. I have absolutely ZERO respect for a character who treats the nicest guy in the series like that. Elain is not a child to be fought over. He's so pathetically jealous that Lucien is a good dude and has a mate and is better than him at everything. He needs to admit his homoerotic desire for Lucien and get it over with. Or let Eris humble him. Either way. Mor: the biggest hypocrite of all time. I aM a DrEaMeR aNd I gOt OuT so did it ever occur to you that maybe you're not the only dreamer? You're not even going to try to save good people stuck under the Court of Nightmares or ask your High Lord to? You just write them off because you're the only good one? And you want to throw Nesta into the court of nightmares? You don't do shit when Cassian is harassing Nesta? You're a bitch and not a girl's girl at all. If there's ANYTHING women should be united on, it's creepy dudes. ESPECIALLY if one of them is your best friend. Amren: this bitch should've stayed dead after ACOWAR. How dare she talk to Nesta the way she did in ACOSF? She KNEW how much Nesta was hurting and she did it anyway. She's over 15 thousand years old. What a bitch. They're all part of an elitist establishment and the epitome of modern politics that needs to be destroyed. Oh, I'm sorry? Should I apologize for saying "bitch" when you're the one coming in hot on my anons? How about you get a life besides harassing people who disagree with you first?

maybe I'm just a hater but it's weird how hellbent everyone was about Feyre becoming a high lady bec #feminism or whatever but the minute the war was over and she has been doing extremely surface level work and is now not involved with anything bec Rhys keeps leaving her out of the big discussions yall keep harping ok "she deserves rest!! she was in a war!!!"

yall she is now a POLITICAL LEADER and is supposed to have as much power as Rhys or Tamlin or any other HL. she does not get the LUXURY of "well she can take a break" when she is in charge of the damn country. Rhys isn't taking a break either. Don't yall think he deserves a break after everything he's been put through 🥺🥺 or does it only matter when it comes to picking and choosing when Feyre has responsibilities. Bec she isn't acting like a high lady or a high lord or whatever. She's acting like just a normal Lady like the Lady of Autumn or like what you'd expect from the President's wife

SJM's true power is coming up with names that look good on paper but sound so awful being said aloud that you can't even think them without cringing

Never will I ever, EVER understand the hold that Lucien Vanserra has on parts of this fandom.

I am not a Lucien hater. To me, he is a throwaway character that did a good job being a comic relief and first friend to Feyre in ACOTAR. And that's it.

But my god. Every day there are all these glowing, obsessive posts about him. About how he deserves everything. About how he deserves his mate. His happiness. About how Elain is a slut for even considering anyone else, let alone trying to kiss another man while Lucien is around. That Feyre is an ungrateful bitch. Rhys is a Lucien abuser. Azriel is an unhinged maniac who wants to kill Lucien. Lucien suffered the most in the entire series. Nothing compares to the horrors that Lucien lived through. Lucien is homeless. Oppressed. Depressed. He doesn't have parents. He doesn't have friends. He is abandoned. Woe is Lucien.

And I am just like...wut?

You know who suffered more than Lucien? Literally EVERYONE in ACOTAR. Not to play trauma olympics, but really? Lucien is the most unfortunate character is ACOTAR? Are people nuts?

You know whose fate is 100 times worse?

Clotho!

Gwyn Berdara!

Rhysand!

Tamlin!

Elain Acheron!

Feyre Archeon!

Every Priestess in the Library!

And many more.

Lucien is a High Fae who's lived a privileged life his whole life. Yes, he's got a mean dad. His girlfriend was murdered. He lost his eye. None of these are easy things to live through. But I don't recall him watching his entire family die violently. Has he ever struggled with poverty? Didn't have enough to eat? Was he enslaved? Was he ever violently tortured? Was he forced into an unwanted marriage? Was he turned into a human against his will? Watched thousands of his people slaughtered in a war?

Elain's history and suffering are brushed under the rug like they mean nothing, but poor Lucien, who's moved from palace, to manor, to palace wearing his cream pants and glossy boots is the epitome of suffering. Rhys was tortured by his dad more intensely and cruelly than anything that Beron's ever done to Lucien. Somehow Emerie, who is permanently mutilated, truly oppressed, is a 'lesser' Fae, violently abused by her father, and not accepted by her people, is just an afterthought, but Lucien is praised and cried over (for basically exactly the same things as Emerie is living through) like he is the most tragic character in history.

I don't know. I don't get it. I will never get it.

You know what its past midnight Im gonna make a post critisising acotar despite never having the read the series, the only book of SJMs ive actually read was crescent city but I spend a lot of time in anti acotar circles bc its fun being a little hater sometimes and I think I know enough by now to atleast critise some of the themes. I definitely know more about this series than I should, like I know about that immortal horse whose horse wife tragically died in horse childbirth and then Im pretty sure he died of horse sadness. And yet, despite cari can read being pretty good at explaining magic shit, I still dont know what the hell syphons are or why illyrians have them or why they matter so you really never stop learning huh

Anyway, I wanted to talk about the misogyny within the universe of acotar because its really bad, both in the sense that its just annoying and insufferable to read about even second-hand and in the sense that its badly written. The thing that inspired this was this short piece of flashfiction by @feynessupremacy about an unnamed girl from the hewn city being married off and having a horrible time living in this endless cycle of misogynistic abuse that her mom is still in and that her dauggters will end up in, all powerless to do anything against this kind of systemic sexism. I thought it was good and made its intended point pretty well but it also made me once again realize how borderline comical this series portrayal of misogyny is

Like, okay, once again, I have not read these books myself but it very much seems like the sexism in this world just materialized in the second book, from the summaries Ive watched it straightup seems like it was just not there in the first book. I mean hell, the entire plot hinges on the fact that Tamlin was sending all these fae disguised as fucked up creatures out so that they would hopefully be killed by a woman so she could break the curse, which implies that women being hunters was pretty normal. (Also, dont come at me with any kind of "oh, it doesnt specify the gender of the person who needs to break the curse a guy couldve done it as well", sjm is too insufferably heteronormative to consider that)

So basically what Im saying is, from my perspective it very much seems like sjm put not only systemic misogyny but like, incredibly violent systemic misogyny to the point where women being brutalized is basically completely normal, in her fantasy series for the sake of making a man look good because hes a wittle sad :( about it sometimes which is honestly pretty funny to me

But it gets even funnier because it doesnt even seem like sexism is really a widespread thing ? Like, i have never seen anyone else directly address this but its all I can think about: in the Nightcourt, the misogyny and institutionalized violence against women is literally the worst it possibly can be with genital mutilation and everything and then in the rest of Prythian its just like, not there. There are plenty of women with political power, the queen of adriada comes to mind first, Im pretty sure I read something about a woman from the wintercourt who was in a similar position of power, its unclear to me what all these fuckin priestesses do because theres no focus on the religion at all much less the institution(s) behind that religion, but they have to have some kind of power if theyre anything like priests in our world (although tbh they seem more like nuns to me functionally just with a diffrent name), especially Ianthe who was like a high priestess and directly in charge of Feyre, who shouldve been the most powerful woman in the springcourt by virtue of being with the high lord, Amren and Mor seem to be well respected outside of the NightCourt, their only deity is the MOTHER. Sure, there arent any "official" High Ladies but if being a High Lord entails being chosen by the magic of the land or The Cauldron or The Mother or whatever other kind of magic bullshit and women just dont get to have it for some reason, is that really indicative of the broader culture being sexist, or is that just God, Who Canonically Exists being sexist? Idk about you, but Im leaning towards the latter option

Thats not even mentioning the mortal lands which seem to be ruled by queens exclusively at the time of the story taking place, or Hybern which had Amarantha and I think her sister as well be these high-ranking generals and it wasnt presented as anything unusual. Like, are you telling me that the kingdom whose only value is "we love slavery, we would like to have slavery back" is more progressive than the court of fuckin Feminist King Rhysand?? I Am Going To Turn Into The Joker

Anyway, I think thats all I have to say, please correct me if I got any of this information wrong I cannot stress enough that I have not read these books and dont plan on reading them anytime soon, atleast not in english because reading the term mate a 1000 times sounds like too much for me to bear, atleast in german theyll probably use a term like "Gefährte/in" which doesnt make me think of actual animals