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But then I remember, in her defense it’s normal to not know things. As you go through life you will be ignorant, and ignorance is not inherently malicious, or wrong, it’s just a lack of understanding, and not always looking past what you know to see that other possibilities and narratives are out there.

Nobody is born knowing the circumstances of others without learning of them; you have to look past your own experiences to discover someone else’s.

Now with that all acknowledged, I would still like to reflect on her and her way of thought here . . .

Aelin is someone who is very self involved and very selfish. Now, contradicting this, she is also someone who thinks a lot about others and does find the idea of sacrificing herself for another—or many others—as simply right; she believes herself tainted and her purpose contingent on who she can save, and who she can avenge, despite also being on autopilot to survive anything that comes at her.

It makes sense that two abused children who were raised in separate, different forms of exploitation by predatory and manipulative adults (Arobynn in particular who wants Aelin at least to be dependent on him for a multitude of things he could offer her), wouldn’t recognize the other’s situation for what it was: abuse.

For Aelin she’s raised to be skilled, adored but always redoubtable. She’s brought up being taught that mistakes = violence because anyone in the Real World will do just as bad if not worse; she’s not blind to the ways that society and scummy humans work, and being taught a lesson in a controlled environment by someone who ‘wants the best for you’ is preferable to being assaulted in a back alley, right? And I’m going to talk a lot more on my view of Aelin & physical violence because I’ve thought extensively about it and have a lot of opinions—but that will be another time. For now, though…

Aelin looks at Lysandra and sees someone who, in some ways, appears to have gotten the better end of the stick. Lysandra is groomed, preened to perform in a capacity to please sexually. Now I think a big difference between them and their ‘rivalry’ (which was of course a result of their teachings and the attitudes the adults using & influencing them both had), is Aelin did not receive an abundance of affection ever (to my understanding); Arobynn was meticulously scarce with showing her clear signs of love, so when he did it had a greater impact—thus leading to a larger effect on her and how she responds when he throws out this bargaining chip. E.g. telling her he loves her in TAB.

Hoping this is all making at least some sense…

Lysandra on the other hand, while also lacking a necessary level of love and support, found countless praise in her beauty, and was validated in her looks (so was Aelin, but I’m sure by more external factors). She was ‘loved’ (and I hate even using that Here) in a way that Aelin wasn’t: being ‘picked’ by Aelin’s own master.

And while Aelin has expressed occasional pity and sometimes empathy to sex workers in this series, and has a distaste for rape (as is referenced in literally the first book, from her time in Endovier early on), she does not have a very good view about women and womanhood IMO.

And why would she?

Yes we have moments like her aiding Yrene and explaining techniques for physical safety to her, but more specifically when it comes to women who don’t have a choice in the matter of selling themselves, she looks at it with a lot more judgement, shame, or a simple lack of regard and empathy for the humans beneath. And I’m sure that’s a lot to do, again, with her upbringing.

Aelin looks at sex work with a lot of disgust. There is disgust towards the situation as a whole, but often it also ends up coming off as shaming the girls who partake in these sort of exchanges. To survive.

Just like she’s done things others would—and do—look down upon in order to stay alive.

And actually I really like this idea that Aelin by nature doesn’t get along with women. She doesn’t. Read the series; she is regularly either threatened by a woman, or takes joy in being superior to them. And I don’t think that makes her an awful person. As someone who at a young age did have a lot of sexism towards my own gender because of issues with my mother growing up, I don’t think it’s just that she is a pick-me bitch…. It’s just another product of her environment; she was in a male dominated space, where she was looked at as less than, and whenever she would succeed it was then viewed as 10x more impressive because she had a vagina. So growing up she felt her value be placed in her capabilities, yes, but also her sex. Just like Lysandra’s value was in her looks; her body.

It’s a flaw, but one she needs to work on rather than be defined by, if you ask me. (However I unfortunately don’t see Sarah recognizing any of this, much less giving the proper attention to rectify and acknowledge it…. Though feel free to disagree).

So anyway, Aelin either sees prostitution as gross (which in a lot of ways it is, but she looks at it from a particularly bad angle), or something the female should perhaps be grateful for (because at least that’s all they had to do to get by). I’m pretty sure in TAB she expresses that she’s glad she gets by being an assassin rather than a whore, and I can’t say I blame her for that. But she also couldn’t in that time look at Lysandra and see both a bitch (because she was) AND a victim in unsavory circumstances. Just like herself, honestly. Aelin is very narrow-minded. She understands that her experiences were bad, but because someone else had a different time/version of events/abuse, she struggles to realise they could’ve suffered as well. At least that’s the impression I got.

And let me be clear: both prepping a child for a life of prostitution, and forcing a kid into a life of killing are violations; depravities that are frankly heinous and worthy of the upmost punishment. These girls deserved so much better.

I also want to add that the disrespectful or merely inconsiderable way prostitution is written just fuels my opinion that Sarah loves to write SA without being mindful of it whatsoever. Because in reading QoS, around chapter six when Aelin meets with Arobynn, she acknowledges all of the women who are there trying to make a means to live, but then she destroys the place…? I understand it’s a fuck-you to others, but it completely ignores all of the people there who WEREN’T criminal low-life’s trying to do deplorable things. Not only are you risking their livelihood (sure they’ll find another position, but in how much time? How much worse will it be?), she’s risking their LIVES. Plain and simple. (And yes the king sent those men, but she admits herself that she left the place worse than was necessary because of Sam).

You want to write about how dastardly the ‘real world’ is but then when your queen-to-be main character with ‘something’ of a moral conscience eradicates an establishment she doesn’t pay any mind or make any note of the women living there, serving there? It’s just fucking stupid to me. Maybe I’m overreacting but like… Jesus fuck.

In all fairness, she’s a nineteen year old girl. Aelin is still a child by many means. She has to learn, and I hope she continues to. She will be expected to act more grown than she is as a queen, and that’s not really unfair to expect; but she is still just a young woman, figuring shit out.

And I also want to add that Aelin can totally have a good, strong, and successful relationship with another woman because we saw a glimmer of that with Nehemia (and for a brief time Ansel). And even then she acknowledged how much she lacked female companionship, but it was nice to have. Somebody get this girl a slumber party!!!

I don’t know how much of these details were purposeful by Sarah (I assume from all I’ve seen of her stories that Sarah just has a lot of internalized misogyny—maybe…), but it makes a lot of sense to Aelin’s character, at least.

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Thanks for expanding my vocabulary a bit, lol.

That, in truth, does make a lot of sense, and it interests me to find out why people tend to use the father's name or names relating to the father as a middle name. In all ways, it is pretty harmless and a way of creating more headcanons, depending on the character.

And forget the fact that Snape is actually a (wizard-)racist bigot with zero excuse to be

Like nothing really excuses being a (wizard-)racist bigot of course, but at least someone like canon Evan Rosier was brought up in a pureblood, (wizard-)racist household where those ideals were imposed upon him from a young age, resulting in him sharing those views and joining the death eaters. And even then, countless people in the same situation (Sirius, Regulus, Andromeda, Narcissa, Draco) didn't stay (wizard-)racist and were tolerant (to varying extents) despite their upbringing.

But Snape is 1. A halfblood (which okay so was Voldemort) and 2. Literally grew up with a very lovely and talented muggle born as his best friend and crush, meaning it's not like he fell for misinformation or anything about blood purity. You could argue environmental factors like his friends Avery and Mulciber, but also he voluntarily made friends with them, and stuck by them through their opinions and actions.

So yeah, I feel like people miss that, cause I think most people here would agree that humiliating your neo-nazi classmate is pretty fair! And yet with Snape it's a debate.

I’ll circle back.

Andromeda we don’t know much of despite her appearance in the Deathly Hallows. We know she married a muggle man and had a half-blood daughter with him. But (and correct me if I’m wrong) wasn’t she also prejudiced toward Remus’s condition as a werewolf? My point is we don’t know the extent of her views, simply that she likely fell in love with a man who went against her parents’ approval, similar to her own daughter.

Regulus denounced Voldemort, not blood purity, as far as we know. We don’t get insight on whether he had some change of heart, only that he didn’t agree with Voldemort’s intentions and actions; he was looking to serve himself and his own agenda, not that of someone meaning only to aid their own cause, not that of anyone else.

Narcissa if I can recall correctly was less nasty, yes. She wasn’t so manic that she wanted to gut Harry herself as Bella might’ve. But her motives to lie about Harry being alive were selfish, and not based upon self reflection. I think in a scene in maybe the third book(?) where she’s taking Draco robe shopping and the golden trio are there she herself makes comments about the place being ‘bad’ or whatever because it was serving trash like The Poor and Harry Potter, idk. But Go Narcissa 👏👏👏 right.

Draco I can understand this argument more for because we at least see more of him as a whole. He was fed beliefs that he then carried, and later contested (even though that barely happens in the books).

Now let’s talk about Sirius. Sirius was heavily against his family, but let’s look deeper. He was basically gloomy on that train when he and James first met. He disliked his family already based upon his disappointment (for lack of a better word) when bringing up how all of his family have been in Slytherin. Let’s think about this for a second; a boy with a troubled home life finds something associated largely with all he’s really known up to this point, which we can assume hasn’t been very fond. So he decides to go against all things “noble and ancient house of black” or whichever way the title goes. James also had this idea for whatever reason (presumably his pride regarding his Gryffindor father and the natural ‘rivalry’ to do with Slytherins that comes with it), and it’s something they connect on.

Yes, Sirius goes against the beliefs of his family and the harshness of their views, but let’s realise that he replaced them by being jaded about anyone who at all resembles them. They’re kids, so you can have some wiggle room to give them a ‘pass’, but the issues still matter. This isn’t just a child realising there’s more to life than the less-than-satisfactory upbringing they might’ve had and reveling in their newfound opportunities. It’s a faulty world view that people Not Like Him are in the wrong and somehow deserving of punishment and severe criticism. Or worse.

Let’s take these previous speculations and examine Severus now. Sev as we know was born into poverty, abuse, and neglect. I don’t recall if we ever get confirmation that there was physical harm done in their home (I’ve taken my own liberties to add it to fics), but there is a line from Snape where he states he “doesn’t think his father liked anything” which is the best I can remember about his dad being brought up. But anyway. You have a boy who’s known at least some levels of cruelty in his life (and in such a short time), and then goes on to be picked apart by two boys who have never known the same struggles; yes, Sirius probably had a bad childhood (at least from his own disparity in being in Grimmauld place we can’t really say he had a good time there), but it’s comparing apples and oranges, no? However I kind of want to . . . Both are in some ways more similar than I used to think.

They each come from upbringings that shape them into wanting to be Nothing like what they experienced and witnessed growing up. Ironically it just points them against each other even more. Severus was using words like “Mudblood” before he even attended Hogwarts, and now that I’m thinking about it this does lead me to wonder, as he grew up in a muggle neighborhood, where he learned this; for all we know perhaps his mother was a blood purist? I mean that begs the question of why she married a muggle, but there’s really no evidence that her circumstances weren’t that of something as awful as an assault, wherein marriage saves you from further scrutiny, ridicule, a lack of security for your child… etc. (be mindful that we’re discussing decades past, so this sentiment stands more true than nowadays.) Now it could also just be a word she taught him, without using it herself, that he chose to use. We don’t know. But it’s incorrect to call out other characters as being raised into their beliefs (still not an excuse to have been the way they were), and then not acknowledge that Severus did not adopt his views at age twenty, well rounded enough to pick them up after years of just being taught what all was right. He didn’t have a good example of what was right. And he wasn’t shown many reasons to follow what was good and proper, was he? Doesn’t make it okay, but it adds more layers than are given here.

Characters like Barty Crouch jr., yeah, he too also suffered a bad home life we might take away from the story, but he still tortured two young parents to insanity for nothing other than a leader with a corrupt cause. Or pleasure, which is worse. So I don’t think Snape, Barty, or any other fucking Death Eater who did awful things you want to bring into mention is somehow excused because they suffered as well. But the difference is, Snape did actually have the chance—and took it—to change. He did so for selfish purposes, just like Narcissa, sure, but he still did more in the end to better things than characters this fandom turn into little quirky queer goofballs who hangout and all fuck each other.

Another point I’ll raise is, they were not “humiliating their neo-nazi classmate”. They were mocking a kid on his opinion of which house he’d go to based on characteristics of oneself that THEY held improper biases toward. They were in the wrong. They continued to be in the wrong, regardless of Severus’s own faults if we’re gonna dissect who did it worse.

He’s a nasty gremlin of a man, sure. But you shouldn’t smear all the facts of their adolescence just because some characters are objectively more ‘likeable’ later on.

Also Lucius literally influences Snape on day one of school. Do you think minds are only impressionable until age eleven? Again where’s the cut off? There are so many other facets than simply a mother and father that go into the development of a child. Environmental is not just the people he associated with at school, either. It’s his home life. The things he sees in a struggling slum of a neighborhood. So on and so forth.