This fandom didn’t become toxic overnight. Can we talk about how we got here?
There’s a reblog on my blog where I already touched on this, but it’s very long and mostly about Nuala and Cerridwen. Still, there’s one point I want to repeat separately: I think a lot of the nastiest arguments in this fandom didn’t appear out of nowhere. They often started as reactions to other bad arguments
That doesn’t justify them, but it does explain why everything escalated so much.
And yes, I know I’m an “Elriel baby,” as some people say 🫠 I wasn’t active during the years that shaped a lot of these arguments, so I’m not going to pretend I lived through every phase of this fandom. I’ve tried to “study” the history a little, but it’s a lot, and honestly I don’t know if I even want to be too active in certain discussions.
Still, I think a good way to have an honest conversation is to actually ask the uncomfortable questions:
Why do some people minimize Gwyn or Emerie?
Probably because, for years, some fans used them to argue that Elain was boring, useless, flat, or less deserving of a story. I’ve literally seen people say things like, “Who cares about reading about gardening?” or “She could die and I wouldn’t care,” or “The only way to make her interesting is to make her evil.”
So eventually people pushed back with, “G&E are JUST supporting characters.” Sometimes that became unnecessarily dismissive, especially toward Gwyn, and I don’t think that’s fair. Gwyn is a beautiful character. But I also think it started as a reaction to Elain being constantly erased from her own potential book.
Gwyn was written in a way that makes her very easy to love. She’s brave, kind, funny, talented, resilient, and we saw a lot of her healing arc in Nesta’s book. She doesn’t really have any flaws. The only criticisms people tend to bring up are connected to the trauma of her assault, things she never chose and can’t be blamed for. Maybe she’s a bit competitive, but even that barely registers as an actual flaw. Essential for Nesta’s arc.
Elain, meanwhile, has been deliberately held back. Comparing Gwyn’s already-developed arc to Elain’s intentionally hidden one has always felt unfair to me.
Why did the horrible argument that a SA survivor can’t have a sexual or romantic story become a thing?
I hate this argument. I don’t support it even slightly.
But I do think part of it came from people weaponizing bodies and trauma on both sides. Some people said Gwyn couldn’t be with Azriel because of her trauma, which is awful. Some people also said Elain couldn’t be with Azriel because of Illyrian babies/pregnancy, which is also awful, and that argument is STILL brought up and justified way too often.
Different arguments, same problem: reducing women to their trauma, bodies, or reproductive ability.
Why do some people think Nuala&Cerridwen/ Elain are like “Valkyries 2.0”?
Because every female friendship in this fandom gets turned into a competition. Nesta has Gwyn and Emerie, so if Elain has Nuala and Cerridwen, suddenly people act like one friendship has to threaten the other.
But that isn’t how stories work.
Elain can have her own circle without erasing Nesta’s. The Valkyries are beautiful, important, and they’re obviously going to remain part of the story. Nothing about appreciating Nuala and Cerridwen takes that away. The Valkyries are warriors. Nuala and Cerridwen are spies. Those are completely different dynamics, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being excited to see a different kind of female group.
I also think Elain’s friendships are often minimized in a way that I don’t really see happening with the other sisters. I’ve seen people dismiss her relationship with Nuala and Cerridwen as “they’re just servants” or “they’re only doing their job,” even though the books explicitly tell us they became close and that Elain genuinely enjoys spending time with them.
People often bring up the fact that Feyre wanted to pay them for spending time with Elain, as if that somehow proves the friendship wasn’t genuine. But that’s Feyre’s interpretation, not theirs. Feyre noticed how much time they were dedicating to Elain and thought they deserved to be rewarded for it. That doesn’t mean Nuala and Cerridwen only spent time with her because they expected compensation. In fact, they had already formed that bond BEFORE Feyre ever suggested rewarding them.
We don’t question whether Gwyn and Emerie are truly Nesta’s friends because we watched that relationship develop. With Elain, people often dismiss the friendship before she’s even had the chance to tell her own story. I think that’s an unfair standard to hold only her to.
And I also think the friendships serve different narrative purposes. Watching Nesta learn how to build and accept friendship was a fundamental part of her healing arc. That process needed to happen on the page. Elain, on the other hand, has never struggled to make people care about her or to form connections. Her internal conflict seems to lie elsewhere. So it makes sense to me that SJM didn’t spend Feyre’s or Nesta’s books showing us every step of those friendships being built. If Elain’s story is about something different, then naturally the focus of her relationships will be different too.
Why do people assume every discussion about the twins is secretly only about Elriel?
Because yes, they are connected to Azriel, and I’m not going to pretend Elriels don’t know that. But they’re also Elain’s current canon friends, spies, half-wraiths, Black women in a series with limited female POC representation, and characters who have existed since book one. There are several reasons someone might be interested in them.
And honestly, why is it such a problem if they are also a bridge to Elriel?
Isn’t the Band of Exiles often treated the same way for Elucien?
Why do people want Elain with the Band of Exiles?
BECAUSE IT SUPPORTS ELUCIEN. And that’s fine. But then let’s be honest about it. If Nuala and Cerridwen are “just a bridge to Azriel,” then Vassa and Jurian can also be seen as just a bridge to Lucien, because right now they’re Lucien’s friends, not Elain’s.
And honestly, Elain probably has every reason to dislike Jurian right now. He played a role in Graysen finding out the truth before Elain had the chance to tell him herself. It would need actual development.
This is the issue: the fandom keeps pretending these arguments are neutral when so many of them are shaped by ship preferences. One side says something ugly, the other side responds with something uglier, and suddenly everyone acts like the worst take represents an entire ship.
I’m not saying every reaction is justified. Some arguments are genuinely harmful and should be called out. But I do think it’s worth admitting that a lot of this discourse has been built like a chain reaction.
At this point, almost every character discussion becomes a competition:
Band of Exiles vs Night Court
Soft femininity vs Warrior femininity
Maybe the real problem is that this fandom struggles to let female characters coexist without turning them into threats to each other.
