Something I was thinking about with the whole “Feyre and Nesta had it easy” thing is that we are again failing to understand Elain as a character, as an individual, and for all the shit I’ve talked about sjm in the past few days, the one thing I count on her for is to really understand her characters’ internal lives. So here we go:
First off, SJM was listing off questions and objections from Elain’s pov. I think that’s pretty clear. She said that as a writer she wants to explore these things, and she does so using the characters as a vehicle.
So in regards to “Feyre and Nesta had it easy”, that is Elain’s perspective on things. Also, Feyre and Nesta got to naturally meet and get to know their mates, but Elain didn’t. That right there makes it harder. Elain wasn’t there for all the heartache and drama, to see how Feyre felt when she knew she’d been lied to and that Nesta was grieving the last shred of her humanity. Elain wasn’t there UtM, she doesn’t know what Nesta’s experience in the Cauldron was, she doesn’t understand Nesta much at all, honestly.
Of course to Elain it seems “easy” at this point, from her POV it seems like her sisters have everything - the high lord, the hot Illyrian dude, the houses, the friends, the mates who are right for them.
Meanwhile, Elain feels like she has lost all of that. And she’s had nothing to replace it. She had the house, the social status, the fiancé, the future. Now it’s all gone, but meanwhile her sisters seem to have found their new places and Elain is just… stuck.
So when sjm says “nature chose right”, that is again, Elain’s current thinking of the situation. She thinks that hey, my sisters were able to make this work, but I’m not like them at all and I’ve lost everything I worked for, so how can this possibly be right for me? Especially when everyone is shielding her from going out into the world and finding out for herself!!!
The way that sjm was talking about male characters, the main thing he needs to be is hot, and then he needs to treat his partner like an equal. Right now, Az is hot, but he is not treating Elain like an equal. Lucien is hot, and he is giving Elain space and not being a macho shithead about protecting her during the war.
Anyway this is just the beginning of my thoughts, because I think that exploring Elain’s perspective right now is actually the most interesting thing because she’s facing the mating bond in a way that no characters have had to before! It’s a new way of writing the same story that sjm loves - HEA, mates, and the journey is the exciting thing you get to figure out. The fact that that’s what she talked about - Elain’s current perspective, how she’s trying to navigate this situation - is really interesting to me. Because… this may be romantasy, but acotar has always been romance-forward, with mates. The question to me isn’t ever really, "will these mates end up together", it’s “how will these mates make it work?"
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