hoa (citxuan)

A close reading of Vicious by V. E. Schwab allows for an interpretation of the relationship between Eli Ever and Serena Clarke not merely as a utilitarian alliance or a failed romance, but as a deeply coercive dynamic rooted in manipulation, loneliness, resentment, and compromised consent. This reading does not absolve Eli of responsibility for his actions, nor does it flatten him into a passive figure. Rather, it insists on holding two truths simultaneously: Eli is capable of extreme violence, and he is also enmeshed in a relationship that systematically undermines his autonomy. Within the logic of the novel, Serena’s power literalizes abuse in a way that demands ethical attention, especially when read through the lens of sexual and emotional coercion.

At the core of this analysis lies Serena Clarke’s ExtraOrdinary ability. Her power is persuasion so absolute that it erases resistance. When she speaks, others comply not because they are convinced, but because they are compelled. The text makes clear that this power is not subtle suggestion; it is domination of will. When such a power exists within an intimate relationship, the concept of consent becomes structurally unstable. Any affection, desire, or compliance on the part of the non-powered partner cannot be fully disentangled from coercion. Even if Eli experiences genuine attraction toward Serena, that attraction does not arise within a neutral field of agency. It is filtered through a dynamic in which Serena always possesses the capacity to override refusal.

This is what makes the relationship troubling on a fundamental level. Abuse, particularly sexual abuse, is not defined solely by overt physical violence. It is defined by the absence of freely given consent. Serena’s power annihilates the possibility of that freedom. The novel never needs to depict explicit sexual assault for the relationship to be read as abusive; the abuse is structural, systemic, and ongoing. Eli’s body, emotions, and choices exist within a space where Serena’s will can overwrite his own. In this sense, their intimacy whatever form it takes is inherently compromised.

One of the most commonly cited objections to reading the Eli Ever & Serena Clarke dynamic as abusive is Eli’s demonstrated resistance. Unlike a stereotypical depiction of coercion, Eli is not consistently compliant. He argues with Serena, contradicts her assessments, refuses her commands, and at times actively undermines her authority. The text even suggests that Serena enjoys this resistance that she is drawn to his attempts to oppose her, to test her limits. This detail is crucial, not exculpatory.

In many real-world abusive dynamics, particularly those centered on power rather than affection, resistance does not disrupt control; it intensifies it. Abuse is not negated by defiance. On the contrary, the abuser’s pleasure often lies in overriding resistance, in asserting dominance precisely where autonomy is asserted. Serena’s fascination with Eli’s defiance does not indicate equality. It indicates that his resistance functions as a stimulant to her authority rather than a threat to it.

Serena’s power is absolute, but she does not deploy it constantly. This restraint is itself a mechanism of control. By allowing Eli moments of opposition, she preserves the illusion of choice. He can believe he is acting freely because he is not always compelled. Yet the asymmetry remains intact: Serena always retains the final override. The fact that she does not use it does not make it irrelevant. Eli’s resistance exists only because Serena permits it.

Another frequent objection centers on Eli’s intelligence. Eli is not naïve. He is methodical, disciplined, and capable of evading law enforcement for years. If he were truly endangered by Serena, the argument goes, he would have left. This logic, however, rests on a flawed understanding of how coercive relationships operate articularly for individuals whose emotional lives are already constricted.

Eli may have stayed because he could leave. That distinction matters. Staying under conditions of constraint is not the same as staying freely. Eli’s intelligence enables him to rationalize his situation, to frame endurance as strategy, proximity as utility. He does not remain because he is unaware of danger, but because the relationship fulfills functions he cannot or will not access elsewhere.

Serena is, by the text’s own admission, his only sustained relationship for years. This does not mean he likes her. In fact, Eli frequently demonstrates disdain, irritation, and emotional distance toward Serena. But abuse does not require affection to persist. Loneliness is not alleviated only by warmth; it can also be alleviated by familiarity, by routine, by being recognized as something other than alone.

What makes Eli particularly difficult for readers to categorize is that he is not emotionally expressive in ways that align with familiar narratives of victimhood. He does not plead. He does not seek rescue. He does not frame himself as harmed. But victimhood does not require self-recognition. Many victims, particularly those socialized to value control and self-sufficiency, reinterpret harm as endurance and coercion as compromise.

Eli’s vulnerability to this dynamic is inseparable from his psychological state following his rupture with Victor Vale. Victor is not simply Eli’s former friend; he is the axis around which Eli’s identity once revolved. Victor was his intellectual equal, his mirror, and his witness. Together, they created meaning. When Victor becomes, in Eli’s mind, a “devil wearing his best friend’s skin,” Eli loses not only companionship but ontological grounding. His certainty about the world crystallizes only after this loss, hardening into absolutism as a defense against unbearable ambiguity.

Serena enters Eli’s life precisely at this moment of profound isolation. Crucially, she resembles Victor in ways that matter to Eli: she is an EO, she understands power, she operates in moral gray space, and she is dangerous. But unlike Victor, Serena does not challenge Eli. She affirms him. She validates his crusade. She supplies him with information, targets, and logistical support. The dossiers on EOs compiled by Serena are not incidental details; they mark her as an enabler of Eli’s ideology. Where Victor was confrontation, Serena is compliance.

This compliance, however, is itself a form of control. Serena does not oppose Eli because opposing him would destabilize the bond she is constructing. By aligning herself with his mission, she embeds herself into his sense of purpose. Eli becomes dependent not emotionally in a conventional sense, but existentially. She fills the void Victor left, not by replacing him, but by offering a distorted echo: a partner who understands the darkness without threatening his authority within it.

It is in this context that Eli’s complacency must be understood. He is not unaware of Serena’s power. He knows what she can do. And yet he allows her proximity, her influence, her partnership. This is not because he is immune to manipulation, but because he is willing to accept control in exchange for purpose and connection. His complicity does not negate his victimhood; it complicates it. He chooses the cage because the alternative is isolation.

The sexual dimension of this dynamic emerges precisely here. Attraction does not require freedom to exist, but consent does. Eli’s desire if we accept that it exists is shaped within a relationship where refusal is never fully possible. The more he relies on Serena for validation, companionship, and operational support, the more entangled his body and will become in a system that erodes his autonomy. This is why the abuse reading is not an accusation of Serena as a one-dimensional predator, but an acknowledgment of how her power corrupts intimacy by default.

Sydney Clarke becomes the focal point where this corruption turns outward. Eli’s attempt to murder Sydney is often framed as the logical extension of his EO-hunting ideology, but this explanation alone is insufficient. Sydney is not just another EO; she is Serena’s sister. She represents a vulnerability Eli cannot otherwise access. His resentment toward Serena resentment he cannot consciously articulate or act upon finds an outlet in Sydney.

Sydney’s power is everything Eli claims to despise: overtly unnatural, life-defying, uncontrollable. But symbolically, she also embodies Eli’s own compromised state. Like him, she exists because of death. Like him, she violates the natural order. And like him, she is tethered to Serena. By attempting to kill Sydney, Eli performs a symbolic purge not just of EO transgression, but of the part of himself that feels trapped, manipulated, and unclean.

The scene itself underscores this dynamic with chilling clarity. Serena orchestrates Sydney’s presence. She encourages her to demonstrate her power, using the same smooth, coercive tone she uses elsewhere. When Eli moves to kill Sydney, Serena’s protest is weak, delayed, and ineffective. This is not resistance; it is performance. The structure of the scene reveals a division of labor that mirrors abusive systems: Serena positions the victim; Eli executes the violence. One controls, the other enforces. Responsibility is shared, but not equally.

What makes this relationship tragic rather than merely monstrous is that the attraction between Eli and Serena can still be read as real. Abuse does not require absence of feeling. On the contrary, it often thrives on it. Eli’s loneliness, his need to be seen as righteous rather than aberrant, his craving for connection after Victor all of these make Serena’s presence intoxicating. She offers him a version of himself that feels sanctioned. In return, she gains proximity to power and validation of her own existence as something other than a monster.

In the end, the Eli&Serena (everclarke) relationship is best understood as a bond of mutual corruption. It is not a romance, but it is intimate. It is not consensual, but it is not entirely resisted. It is a relationship where control masquerades as partnership and attraction becomes a mechanism of captivity. Eli remains responsible for his actions, especially the harm he inflicts on others, but acknowledging his victimization within this dynamic does not weaken the narrative. Each uses the other to avoid confronting their own emptiness. Intimacy becomes not a refuge from monstrosity, but its most efficient vehicle.

To read their relationship through the lens of abuse particularly as a dynamic rooted in power rather than affection is not an act of sensationalism, but of fidelity to the text’s moral architecture. Vicious is not interested in clean victims or singular villains. It is interested in how harm reproduces itself through proximity, how control disguises itself as partnership, and how people can remain, willingly and unwillingly, inside relationships that wound them because those wounds feel preferable to silence.

In this light, Eli Ever and Serena Clarke are not lovers, nor simply allies. They are co-conspirators in each other’s captivity bound together not by desire, but by the shared refusal to be alone with what they have become.