Gwyn: Which one hurt the most?

*Azriel looks at and touches the scar on Gwyn's leg where she was struck by an arrow during the Blood Rite*

Azriel's last thought of Gwyn before they start interacting more in the book:

With that being said, you look at Gwyn and Emerie, and you look at ACOMAF Mor and Azriel, and to me Gwynriel and Emorie are variations on what Moriel was originally planned to be, but with consideration of the changes made to Mor and Azriel’s respective characters since the Moriel-sinking of ACOWAR. Gwyn is incredibly similar to ACOMAF Mor, right down to the backstory, tension, and reactions she illicits in Azriel; Emerie, a scarred Illyrian with a complicated relationship her people pining after Mor, paralleling what Azriel felt towards Mor in ACOMAF. Emerie and Gwyn were designed for Mor and Azriel, in the particular ways in which Mor and Azriel had complemented each other prior to the ACOWAR re-write.

Art by @brielyasmin commissioned by @lulufoxlainfawn and @kt-reads-things

Such peace and serenity in this artwork! it’s one of my favourites ever for that reason🥹

Az was just there.

It seems a bit odd that they've been around each other so much, yet it's only when a certain someone's right upstairs that she's sleepless, wandering around, and considers sleeping with him.

She likes him well enough. He's been good to her. He rescued her. He's gorgeous. There's a little crush going on.

But from what we know about Elain, she's not the type to act on something as little as a crush. She is profoundly different from her sisters in that way, and that fact has come up more than once.

Lucien—whose heartbeat she hears through the stone—is right upstairs.

She feels Lucien through that bond, not Azriel.

Azriel is a deterrent.

I don't find it coincidence either that the very same "bonus chapter" (which, don't get me started on that nonsense) shifts focus right after to Gwyn.

Also, I'm dating this 6/28/26.

Cassian: Not everyone likes Gwyn

Nesta: What?

Azriel: Who the fuck doesn’t like Gwyn?

Cassian: I don’t know, I was just -

Azriel: Give us the names

Okay, but now the pink and blue hearts have me thinking we're getting The Valkyries and Azriel's POV. SJM herself said she was listening to The Batman soundtrack (Azriel coded) and K-Pop Demon hunters (Valkyrie coded) while writing these books!

Are we getting breadcrumbs?!

She’s evil.

She’s a red herring. (Mind you, Elucien’s mating bond already existed. That alone is a built-in romance obstacle. In literally any SJM series, that would’ve BEEN the conflict, more on this below)

She’s not even straight (Yet, she spoke about wanting to lay with a MALE)

She manipulated Azriel

SJM is tricking us

At some point y’all need to ask yourselves why every single explanation requires twisting the text into a something so negative instead of just… reading the story that was actually written…. another thing too SJM already confirmed The Valkyries are based on real friends, and while that has nothing to do with the romance with Azriel, it does prove (beyond the fucking obvious understanding of character archetype) that Gwyn is a good character.

So. sorry, Gwyn is not evil, stop being delusonal, Sarah did not spend an entire bonus chapter shifting Azriel’s emotional focus, paralleling language, carrying symbolic objects between scenes, ending on Gwyn’s image and her joy, just for some of you to decide none of it matters because it hurts your ship feelings.

The same people screaming “reading comprehension” are the ones insisting a character only exists as a plot device, they have to degrade, villainize or erase her entirely to make their theories and proving to US who lacks true reading comprehension.

And while on this top , for them red herring has truly become fandom code for:

I nderstand the implication perfectly, I just don’t like it, so I’ll make up bad faith theories to gaslight myself and others.

Let me save everyone the conspiracy theories and mental gymnastic

Gwyn’s inclusion was intentional

The emotional contrast was intentional.

The ending on Gwyn was intentional.

You don’t have to like it, but pretending SJM accidentally wrote romantic narrative structure into a romance series is genuinely embarrassing at this point.

But apparently Elriel is such a once-in-a-generation special romance that it requires

a mating bond obstacle

political obstacles

Rhys disapproval

Gwyn somehow secretly evil/manipulative

Lucien needing to disappear or their bond being fake

Meanwhile Feysand, Rowaelin, and Quinlar all managed to become canon without needing 102919343 separate obstacles.

If a ship only functions when every narrative obstacle, thematic setup, side character, established lore point and trope, and alternate love interest is removed or demonized… maybe the story is trying to tell you something.

Because SJM does not usually write romances where the audience has to spend 5+ years arguing why the text “doesn’t actually mean what it says.”

And calling Gwyn a “red herring” after an entire bonus chapter deliberately shifts Azriel’s emotional focus onto her is especially funny because that’s not how red herrings work in romance.