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separatist-apologist · 3 years

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Lucien Vanserra + The Villain Theory & Why the Mating Bond Is Not Fake

I've been thinking about this for a while and I've decided I want to debunk this because of all the *insert character that is definitely not the villain becoming a secret villain*, Lucien is most definitely not it.

The theory, according to tiktok, is that Lucien is a secret schemer who has tricked everyone, including Elain, into believing they are mates for undefined, suspicious reasons likely related to Koschei. I find this unlikely considering his "father" is ALSO scheming with Koschei and Lucien likely has some awareness of this considering how often Eris is suddenly hanging around.

This is so long. Everything is under the cut.

However, lets pretend he doesn't. There is consistent, contextual proof that Lucien a) could not make up a mating bond even if he wanted to and b) everyone would know if he had.

Starting in ACOTAR, Tamlin tells Feyre the story of Lucien. On page 160, Tamlin says:

"Lucien said he didn't care she wasn't one of the High Fae, that he was certain the mating bond would snap soon and that he was going to marry her and leave his father's court to his scheming brothers."

Followed up on page 161, Tamlin adds:

"...his father has never apologized and his brothers are too frightened of me to risk harming him. But he has never forgotten what they did to her...even if he pretends he has."

That's ACOTAR. I know SJM likes to change things on a whim, but foundationally, this is Lucien's character and across all five books, it never changes. Lucien is still haunted by Jesminda and the mating bond he lost. He firmly believes, if we believe Tamlin to be a reliable narrator (and we should, as Lucien backs Tamlin's opinion up in his private thoughts. It is also worth noting that if Lucien has a villain origin story, it begins right here, the moment his father beheads Jesminda. To assume he's the villain, we ought to believe that he's been scheming non-stop for at least 200 years (since he's like, 300ish?) and to what end? To kill Beron? He'd have been scheming far longer than Elain was alive.

Moving right along to ACOMAF, on page 619, Amren says:

"And the bond," Amren breathed, Cassian's blood shining on her hands as she slowed its dribbling.

Mor said, "She asked the king to break the bond. He obliged."

I thought I might be dying- thought my chest might actually be cleaved in two.

"Thats impossible," Amren said. "That sort of bond cannot be broken."

"The kind said he could do it."

"The king is a fool," Amren barked. "That sort of bond cannot be broken."

"No, it can't," I said.

This is from Rhys' perspective. A mating bond can't be broken with magic- it's forever. Even rejected or in death (we'll get there), the mating bond is for life. Assuming Lucien's mate was Jesminda, even if it hadn't snapped in death, she would STILL be his mate and death would not have changed that. Neither would any magic Lucien, a spell-cleaver, might possess.

Let's also consider Elain, who has no reason to lie and every reason to call Lucien out regarding the bond. In ACOMAF, page 608, we see this:

"...Elain was staring over Nesta's shoulder. At Lucien-whose face she had finally taken in. Dark brown eyes met one of russet and one of metal. Nesta was still weeping, still raging, still inspecting Elain-

Lucien's hands slackened at his sides. His voice broke as he whispered to Elain, "You're my mate."

It's Elain who sees him first, who feels the mating bond mere seconds before Lucien. Why choose Elain, if you're going to pick a fake mate for your scheme? The argument is generally that she has the least amount of knowledge about Faeries and no interest in that education but how would Lucien know that? Feyre told Lucien nothing about her sisters (she told Ianthe instead), which means he would have had to guess. Given that Elain fights being put in the Cauldron, there's nothing contextually in that moment that suggests that Lucien somehow knew she was the easier sister to fool.

It's also worth noting that Lucien, up until that moment, still genuinely believes Jesminda was his mate. If he's the villain, having a fake mate makes no sense to the story or his plans.

Feyre has been inside Lucien's mind twice. Once in ACOMAF (pg. 95):

"Thoughts slammed into me, images and memories, a pattern of thinking and feeling that was old, and clever, and sad, so endlessly sad and guilt-ridden, hopeless-"

And again in ACOWAR when Lucien meets Elain for the first time. On page 249, we get the best description of what Lucien is feeling regarding the mating bond, all through Feyre's perspective:

"Too thin. She must not be eating at all. How can she even stand?

The thoughts flowed through his head, one after another. His heart was a raging, thunderous beat, and he didn't dare move from his position a mere five feet away. She hadn't yet turned toward him, but the ravages of her fasting were evident enough.

Touch her, smell her, taste her-

The instincts were running a river. he fisted his hands at his sides."

"But there she was. His mate. She was nothing like Jesminda."

"Elain had been...thrown at him."

"That circle of people who now claimed to be Feyre's new family...It was what, long ago, he'd once thought life at Tamlin's court would be. An ache like a blow to the chest went through him, but he crossed the rug."

"But he couldn't breathe as she faced him fully. She was the most beautiful female he'd ever seen. Betrayal, queasy and oily, slid through his veins. He'd said the same to Jesminda once. But even as shame washed through him, the words, the senses chanted, Mine. You are mine, and I am yours."

"She looked away- towards the windows. 'I can hear your heart,' she said quietly. He wasn't sure how to respond, so he said nothing and drained his tea even as it burned his mouth.

'When I sleep,' she murmured, 'I can hear your heart beating through the stone.' She angled her head, as if the city view held some answer. 'Can you hear mine?'

He wasn't sure if she truly meant to address him, but he said, 'No, lady. I cannot.'"

These are Lucien's thoughts from Feyre's perspective. He has no idea she's in his head, so why is he thinking all those things? Why feel guilt that he finds her beautiful or that he'd once said all the same things to Jesminda that he thinks about Elain? Why care about her well-being? We know mates are driven to protect and Lucien's very first thoughts about Elain are ones of concern. She's not eating, she's too thin, how can she possibly stand? Not, hahaah my evil planned worked and I totally have an in with the Night Court (which, why would he need considering Tamlin is currently allied with Hybern and Lucien could have taken full advantage of that?).

Additionally, assuming Lucien is faking the mating bond for some poorly defined, evil plot, why keep such distance? Why not force himself on her? That's the claim, right? That he's forcing her to be with him which is amusing because in ACOFAS, Lucien has some thoughts on page 162"

"'How is she?'

'Better. She makes no mention of her abilities. If they remain.'

'Good. But is she still...' A muscle flickered in his jaw. 'Does she still mourn him?'"

First question he asks. "How is she?" Followed by if she's still in love with her ex-fiance. And I can hear the screaming now, "HE ASKED BECAUSE HE WANTS TO OWN HER" but like, on page 165 of ACOFAS, we get:

"I can't stand to be in the same room as her for more than two minutes."

Truly a stupid plan to fake a mating bond with a person that is causing you to be eaten alive with guilt and longing. We know the second he's around her, Lucien's is overwhelmed with the mating instincts and feels guilt over Jesminda, which is why he spends little time around Elain. He also tells Feyre, on that same page, he doesn't want his life to be financed by Rhysand. Feyre practically begs Lucien to move back to Velaris, to work for her full time, to let her set him up somewhere nicer and Lucien declines it all. If his plan hinged on getting closer to the IC, to using Rhys' resources, why tell her no? Why not take her up on it? Why not make him part of her life in a much more tangible way?

And finally, the dreaded scent of the mating bond. Feyre doesn't risk talking to Rhys when she's in Spring for fear of alerting everyone to the scent of the bond. Azriel, too, cannot stand the smell of it to the point he stands in the doorway during solstice rather than come in.

Ladies, Gentleman, and Non-binary pals of the jury, examine the evidence. For Lucien to be a villain, he has to KNOW that Feyre is a daemati before she does and both leave his thoughts unguarded while constantly assuming she MIGHT be picking through them. He also has to be able to control large amounts of people at the same time via the smell of the bond and Elain being able to feel it. When he tugs, she responds.

It would require everyone around them to be incredibly dumb. Feyre and Rhys basically share a mind and while they don't necessarily trust Lucien (unfairly imo), I firmly believe one of them would have picked up on a fake bond or Lucien's scheming.

Lucien wanted Jesminda, not Elain. If he decided to punish the world around him for the consistent pain he was enduring, he doesn't need Elain to achieve this. He's friends with Feyre. He has contacts all over Prythian. He didn't need to fake a mating bond, nor does it make any sense to do so. What they have is REAL.

And lastly, the bond can't be broken. Rejected, yes, broken no. Regardless if you think they'll keep it or not, they ARE mates and Lucien is NOT the villain who will be heroically slaughtered. They're awkward, they're uncomfortable, they have shit to work out but they ARE mates, and Lucien has proven over and over that all he wants is a home and goddamn peace and quiet.

#lucien vanserra #lucien vanserra meta #anti e*riel #antiv*ssien #anti el/riel #anti v/ssien #theories that are just not based in reality #but are probably interesting twists in a fanfic i wouldn't read

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livlepretre · 3 years

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I'd love to hear more about your thoughts on Feyre's behavior, should you ever want to expand on them. You write interesting meta!

I’m not sure this is going to qualify all the way as meta, but I suppose I find there to be a dramatic shift in the way Feyre is writing in ACOTAR/ACOMAF vs. ACOWAR... and one of the obvious ways this shift occurs is in the lens in how Feyre views Tamlin. I think in ACOMAF, her view of Tamlin was significantly more nuanced-- even after she left him, she recognized that he was also suffering from trauma-- that they had both been broken from the events Under the Mountain, and that while they had loved each other and really worked before hand, they were so changed by those events that afterwards they could no longer fit together in any way other than a poisonous one that destroyed them both little by little. I liked this quite a bit-- Tamlin does things which are abusive afterwards, and Feyre is right to leave, but I don’t think he’s an abuser by nature-- it illustrated the complexities of trauma and how it can rot a person struggling with it without making Tamlin a villain. It was very sad, tragic really, and it lent the ACOMAF and ultimately, in ACOTAR, some real emotional weight and meaning. Yes, there are moments of brilliant realization that Feyre reaches in reflection-- like the fact that Tamlin didn’t try to free her from Under the Mountain and instead tried to hook up with her... but again, that was flawed, not villainous. I really loved Feyre as a character who was so empathetic she would give her jewelry to a water wraith... and I loved her story of healing and finding herself as she clawed her way up from the abyss, and the way that the novel took the complicated route with the characterizations and the relationships.

What really bothers me in ACOWAR is the way the characters are treated much more flatly, and without any empathy from Feyre. Especially with how Feyre treats him Tamlin so viciously, as though he’s truly a villain... like, yes, the events in Hybern are awful, but it never ever occurs to her that Tamlin is dealing false with Hybern, or that things didn’t go the way they were supposed to... which Lucien flat out says at one point, and she just... skates over it. I find it bizarre that Feyre, who used to have a great deal of empathy, supposedly loved Tamlin, supposedly understood him, and could meanwhile so easily forget what he told her with so much heart-felt honesty in the first book: that he would fight against oppression, wherever he found it (there’s some irony in the way he oppresses her in ACOMAF through his desire to shelter and protect... and that’s part of the tragedy in Tamlin’s arc). I remember reading ACOWAR the first time and feeling like none of it made sense-- until the reveal that he had been allied as a double agent all along. It’s very hard to stomach the beginning of ACOWAR on this my 2nd read through, because Feyre never questions what she thinks she knows-- she is just so ready to see Tamlin as the villain, much more so than when the wounds from their relationship were fresh, and she is also so ready to assume the very worst of him in a way that makes me see the worst in her. And what does that mean? That with time and healing, the people who hurt us turn out to be evil monsters? Sometimes they are, but more often, isn’t the answer that they are simply supremely flawed human beings? (or, well, faeries?) and there’s pathos in that?

Also: she is a vicious wolf to the people in the Spring Court-- she doesn’t merely spy, she takes bloodthirsty revenge. (It’s also bizarre because she spent basically a year with Tamlin and Lucien, and like 3 or 4 months with the Court of Dreams... and she just wrecks them. Like, she transfers her loyalty so quickly. Could she do it again to the Court of Dreams? I don’t know!) And yes, she does take Lucien with her, but at what price? She goes out of her way to destroy his most important friendship-- the one he values most-- his brotherhood with Tamlin. She intentionally triggers Tamlin over and over again to drive him to madness and violence... when it’s clear at the beginning of the novel that he had genuinely been... trying (which she mocks). I suppose this is a very long-winded way of saying that a lot of what she does isn’t so much about disrupting the Hybern alliance or spying to help with the war effort as it is about taking cruel and bloodthirsty revenge on Tamlin, and Lucien, and everyone else there. And of course, it turns out that if she had actually done her job and spied, and used her emotional bonds with these people (as withered as they were), used her history with them, her knowledge of them, and yes, her shriveled up empathy, she probably could have figured out what was going on. It’s not that hard to figure out. Lucien all but tells her. She was just so deadset on personal revenge, so deadset on believing that Tamlin was a monster who would do anything to get her back (narcissistic much?), that she pretty much set her side of the war back... and of course... everyone in the Court of Dreams applauds.

This all feeds into one of the things that I find very frustrating about SJ Maas’s books, which is how often the characters are just awful to each other or are bloodthirsty in ways I don’t understand. Is it just for drama? To stir the pot? Like, I STILL don’t get that scene in Empire of Storms where Aedion goes off on Gavriel. But also... I can’t figure out what SJM wants to do with Tamlin-- the fact that he’s a much better man and much more complex and kind is all there in the narrative, but the story also revels so much in Feyre being just horrid that I’m not sure what to make of it. Honestly the further into this series I go the more and more I am #Team Tamlin.

#anonymous #team tamlin

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oohnoniall · 3 years

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no one asked for this but here we go!

songs that remind me of tamlin rosehall and why:

snow globe - waterparks; “in the daytime i get to debate myself and quiet all the evil things i say like; everybody hates you, people miss the old you, they hate everything they all changed you into.” idk this song just gives me tamlin vibes from the beat and the way it’s slowly progressing into how much he hates himself, also you can’t tell me these fuckers in the ic didn’t fuck with his mind.

just kidding - waterparks; “i wish i was dead sometimes so i could spend a day alone and not feel like everyone hates me” tamlin has a lot of people who hate him constantly and doesn’t get a chance in hell to just process his trauma, another line in this song that makes me think of him is “i buried all my pain today” bc he buries shit a lot. also the way the song repeats that the narrator is “just kidding lol” makes me think of how everyone treats things in this series.

awakening - yellowcard; “yes i miss you still, and probably always will, i’m living with a busted heart that i will have until i find the strength i know it’s somewhere in my bones.” tamlin has a lot of feelings for feyre, it’s obvious. this song is about letting go of that type of love and i can see him getting absolutely smashed on his own as a celebration of letting go of her and embracing his future.

dear insecurity - gnash, ben abraham; “dear insecurity, when you gonna take your hands off me? when you ever gonna let me be proud of who i am?” not only does this song sound like it was written in the spring court with the gentle guitar and the soft chiming that is sprinkled throughout but the lyrics sound like a letter that tamlin would write to himself. homie hates himself and you can see it in every single interaction he has with anyone. also the line “i’m a mess, i’m depressed, i’m alone and it’s all my fault” is definitely how he feels daily.

lowkey as hell - waterparks; “i think i’m halfway there, but my heart feels off so, what’s the point in being great if i’m great alone?” literally everyone has left him. he genuinely just needs a friend at this point. he let the spring court go to hell bc lucien and feyre both abandoned him. also, the song discusses how the narrator feels as though his problems are overlooked because people have a certain way of thinking about him. i couldn’t make this more about tam if i tried.

you’d be paranoid too (if everyone was out to get you) - waterparks; “you’d be paranoid too, if everyone you knew was out to get you” literally everyone in this series, including his one and only friend, paints tamlin out to be the villain at every single turn. he cannot catch a damn break. how does this not fit tamlin to a t? someone tell me right now.

permanent heartbreak - the friday night boys; “you set me up and that was my mistake” feyre deadass set the spring court on fire and didn’t give a single fuck about the innocent lives that she either destroyed or killed in the blaze. like how are we all rooting for this woman? but no, tamlin trusted her. he trusted a woman who loved another man and it ended up nearly killing him. i don’t see how he’s going to come back from this nor how sjm is going to give him any redemption since she hates anyone that isn’t rhysand.

numb - waterparks; “you only like me when i’m numb” the one and only time we saw tamlin as a sympathetic character was when he had a literal heart of stone. this song fits him as the fandom and as feyre see him. it’s so shitty to see that he has never had a chance to grow, thanks for coming to my ted talk.

if i could i would feel nothing - blackbear; “if i could i would feel nothing, that’s the truth and i don’t care” while this song is about addiction i think it also fits tamlin as he has a hard time controlling his emotions and often acts out in rage because of this. this goes back to numb as well, the only time we find him to be worth love is when he is held back by this stone heart and i can see the character wanting that back.

#acotar #a court of thorns and roses #tamlin #can you tell i like waterparks

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