“I had her in my bed, so I think that says enough about my feelings.” He hated the words, even as the temper, the sharpness … it was a relief, too. Yrene sucked in a breath, but didn’t back down. “Yes, you had her in your bed, but I think she was likely a distraction, and was sick of it. Perhaps sick of being a consolation prize.”
If Yrene called Chaol out for using Nesryn as a distraction, why is impossible to imagine Elain and Azriel were using one another for the same thing?
With her away, she is a memory, a distant ideal, but when she is here, and you look at her, what do you see? What do you feel?”
If Yrene could call Chaol out for using Nesryn as "an ideal" rather than having genuine feelings for her then why can't Sarah write the same for Az, where he too was using Elain as a "distant ideal", for fixating on her so he could imagine himself having what his brothers had?
If Chaol could say this to Yrene:
“I knew another woman who lost as much as you. And do you know what she did with it—that loss?” He could barely stop the words from pouring out, could barely think over the roar in his head. “She hunted down the people responsible for it and obliterated them. What the hell have you bothered to do these years?” Chaol felt the words hit their mark.
Yet turn around and think this:
Too far. He’d gone too far. He’d never once believed those things. Even thought them. Not about Yrene.
Why do we have to believe that Elain means what she says with absolute certainty? What, because she's female and that means she's got nothing going on beneath the surface? She can't be dealing with deeper emotions and trauma the way Chaol was?
“No.” The word pushed out of Yrene on a breath. Hafiza’s slim mouth tightened. “No,” Yrene said again. “I will not heal him.” There was no softness, nothing motherly in Hafiza’s face, as she said, “You took an oath upon entering these halls.” “No.” It was all she could think to say. “I am well aware how difficult it may be for you—” Her hands started shaking. “No.”
If the author has to respect what a female wants, that it would be unfair to force her into a situation that made her uncomfortable, then why did Sarah write Yrene not only having to heal Chaol despite her strong vocalization opposing it but also having her fall in love with him?
They were not bad men. People existed in Adarlan worth saving—worth fighting for. They were not her enemy, had never been. Perhaps she’d known that long before he’d revealed it in the oasis yesterday. Perhaps she had not wanted to.
If it took Yrene until page 558 in her book to realize she had been wrong about the soldiers in Adarlan, that she had been wrong about Chaol, that she maybe knew of it much sooner but hadn't wanted to face that truth then why is it impossible for Elain to have that same realization about Lucien? That he was never responsible for what happened to her?
And it was only when Yrene settled her hand on his chest, not to push him away but to feel the raging, thunderous heartbeat beneath, that Chaol lowered his head and kissed her.
Lucien's heart for Elain:
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.
