Propaganda I desperately want someone to get onboard with:
Anti-hero Rhysand, thatâs it. He did everything he did for peace or whatever, but he owns it. There is no mask. It was intentional from the start and he doesnât care what people think of him. Everything that happened UtM wasnât to protect Feyre. He took her to Night because his hatred for Tamlin runs that deep, because he could and so he did. He came up with the intervention for Nesta because his idea of help is demented; he never hides it and everyone knows. He still doesnât care but none of this is under pretence of doing Feyre a favour. (We have a whole lot for his feelings towards his court but that will take up the entire post, so moving on)
LolA is manipulative & equally abusive. She is abused by Beron yet she still stays because power is safe and being a Lady gives her that. She abuses her sons emotionally because they are the only ones standing between her and Beron; also she hates them since they are replicas of him.
Beron had and still has bastards to insult LolA as she ran away once (he loves her though, donât ask what that looks like idk yet). But they were either killed at birth as he couldnât allow autumn magic flow in such low lives, or never to be found in the court.
Lucien is a traitor. In the overarching theme, he has good intentions and always comes through, but he betrayed his home and Tamlin to figure out his mate. Given their history and all that theyâve been through, Lucien couldâve trusted Tamlin, instead he chose the woman who destroyed his court and ran away like a coward. (This isnât that special but I donât see people talking about this enough)
LolA doesnât love Lucien. She loves what he represents. (Again not far-fetched but sheâs a very romanticised idol in this fandom)
Vanserra brothers are distant. Eris and Lucien never had a connection. They have a huge age gap that forced Eris to keep away from the latest baby unless he wanted to look weak or âfeminineâ to his father. Actually the age gap exists between him and all his brothers, that's how his love for hounds started because he was lonely as a child and thus he's attached to his dogs more than his siblings. Anyway, Eris didnât care about his own brother being hunted down in Spring either. He had done his part in the escape, you see, if that sucker couldnât survive even after that, it ainât his fault. But after their family is pruned in one night, they both realise how badly they wanted to mend their relationship. Eris due to the added burden of protecting the now withering family line and finally seeing a brother in Lucien; Lucien due to his guilt.
Night Court Siblings arenât any better. Rhysand Sister (probably should name her too, my mind went to Rhysta as in Rhy-ster, then realised thatâs a Nesta crackship lol) hates their mother. She hates Rhysand too because he was the golden child to their mother (and probably to their father in a sexist way, but Iâm on the fence about this because no drama, no good. Ykw Iâm also entertaining the idea of her part in the ambush that killed the mother as well as her)
Rhysandâs mother is a raging misogynist and kept choosing her boy over her girl. She left her only daughter alone to nurture her son for years in the camps because âthat is no place for a girlâ. She was âprotecting her wingsâ or something along those lines, regardless sheâs negligent af.
Rhysandâs father is a sexist but he loved his daughter more than his son because thatâs the child he spent most years with and actually raised. He even wished at one point that if anyone in his line rules their court again, itâs his daughter, because she is better than the coddled, insolent wimp of a son (and he clocked Rhysandâs gay ass before anyone else, so heâs homophobic too) but wouldnât admit to it even if his life depended on it.
Tamlinâs parents arenât mates gone wrong. They were perfectly right for each other (excuse you, his father made a whole garden for his mother because she loved roses). Tamlin just remembers his mother in much better light because she wasnât as harsh as his father or brothers. He is also prone to seeing the good in people first before they prove him wrong, and his mother died before he was disillusioned.
If I may offer some more points (all of yours are exceedingly enjoyable) -
Lucien as a coward is one of my favorite things to enrich his character a little, less of 'he was always loyal and good and right', more of 'he is a complex character'. Also, he grew up in Forest House, you are not going to have the most well-adjusted persons coming from there. Generally, my headcanon is, that Lucien is very much a coward with weak spine. He always bends before he breaks, specifically in regards to societal pressures. He may make decisions that do not fit 'the norm' but at the same time searches for a way to make these decisions palatable for the society he lives in - he loved Jesminda as a lesser fae BUT also really wanted them to be mates so that the relationship would be acceptable and seen as proper (not that it ever would). He has no particular drive to be righteous himself (he may try but alone often fails) but when he has someone with strong moral spine (to which he is also very attracted) - Jesminda, Tamlin - they are his spine as well and in so he is/appears very loyal and righteous. Once the 'outer' spine is gone though, when that support trembles (Jesminda dies, all that happened with Tamlin) he is off to better lands. It is essentially a situation of Lucien being loyal to those who can protect and/or stabilize him.
Also, Eris and Lucien somehow suddenly being buddy-buddy with each other never really sat well with me. Again, they come from abusive household, make their relationship more interesting/complex than just 'oh we hurt each other but now we are better and we forgive each other and our relationship is fixed'. Your headcanon(?) is so much more delightful. Connected to that I also propose more nuance to the sibling relations between Tamlin and his brothers (yes, they are dead so less relevant but I enjoy them still, I would have implanted this dynamic on the seven sons of Beron but they are too many).
They did not hate Tamlin, in fact they loved him (they very much were still slave owners and terrible people, nothing changes about that), which however meant that in their point of view Tamlin - who they had an inkling would become the High Lord - was too weak for the position, would suffer in it and get himself killed at some point. So they tried to beat the weakness out of him, did not work (this cruelty was also interlaced with times they taught Tamlin how to ride a horse or hunt, so he has very confused feelings about his brothers). In the end, they had decided that if he does not grow out of his weakness they will kill him personally so as to spare him the pain of being High Lord. In their view, it would very much be a mercy killing and an act of love. Not so much in Tamlin's. And I absolutely agree that their parents were very much in love. They also never wanted any children while their position demanded it and so after their sons were born they essentially did not raise or acknowledge them them at all (until adulthood at which point their children became threat to their power). Their parenthood began and ended at the biological level. The only important person in Tamlin's mother's life was her mate and vice versa. And so yes, the only reason she is remembered somewhat fondly is because she did nothing especially bad or good (and because Tamlin was kinda raised by someone else who took her form but that is strictly fanfiction territory).
