SJM is an "initial spark" author.
Not vibes, not fated mates.
The characters HAVE TO have that spark
This is the part that people drop (conveniently) while discussing this topic. But that is, in fact, the most important part.
The spark here represents chemistry.
They have to have that spark initially = They have to have that chemistry. Initially.
When asked to elaborate on CHD, she described writing Rhysand's first appearance. He came into the scene (unplanned) and stole the show. His chemistry with Feyre was off the charts. This is when she knew where Feyre's story was heading.
She once again, uses the word INITIAL.
How do I know that she is not referring to a literal "spark" but is using it figuratively to signify chemistry?
When Feyre met Rhys, there was no literal spark mentioned. But...there was chemistry. That is the whole point.
She also uses the phrase "initial seed".
So, SJM endgame couples just cannot exist without that first, charged encounter. She said so herself. The characters have to have it. It is not up for debate.
So...let us use examples instead of mere words.
I plan to do this for every single couple but this is part 1 with only a few examples.
They were strong hands—warm and broad. Not at all like the prodding, bony fingers of the three faeries who went utterly still as whoever caught me gently set me upright.
“There you are. I’ve been looking for you,” said a deep, sensual male voice I’d never heard. But I kept my eyes on the three faeries, bracing myself for flight as the male behind me stepped to my side and slipped a casual arm around my shoulders.
The three lesser faeries paled, their dark eyes wide.
“Thank you for finding her for me,” my savior said to them, smooth and polished. “Enjoy the Rite.” There was enough of a bite beneath his last words that the faeries stiffened. Without further comment, they scuttled back to the bonfires.
I stepped out of the shelter of my savior’s arm and turned to thank him.
Standing before me was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.
Everything about the stranger radiated sensual grace and ease. High Fae, no doubt. His short black hair gleamed like a raven’s feathers, offsetting his pale skin and blue eyes so deep they were violet, even in the firelight. They twinkled with amusement as he beheld me.
For a moment, we said nothing. Thank you didn’t seem to cover what he’d done for me, but something about the way he stood with absolute stillness, the night seeming to press in closer around him, made me hesitate to speak—made me want to run in the other direction.
He, too, wasn’t wearing a mask. From another court, then.
A half smile played on his lips. “What’s a mortal woman doing here on Fire Night?” His voice was a lover’s purr that sent shivers through me, caressing every muscle and bone and nerve.
I took a step back. “My friends brought me.”
SPARKMETER: level 2729190288292929928291922882919192. Off the charts. Immaculate. Sexual tension is there. Very charged, there is chemistry clear as day.
But there was a roar that half deafened me, and my sisters screamed as snow burst into the room and an enormous, growling shape appeared in the doorway.
Had I been alone in the woods, I might have let myself be swallowed by fear, might have fallen to my knees and wept for a clean, quick death. But I didn’t have room for terror, wouldn’t give it an inch of space, despite my heart’s wild pounding in my ears. Somehow, I wound up in front of my sisters, even as the creature reared onto its hind legs and bellowed through a maw full of fangs: “MURDERERS!”
But it was another word that echoed through me:
I snatched another dinner knife off the table, the best I could do unless I found a way to get to the quiver. “Get out,” I snapped at the creature, brandishing the knives before me. No iron in sight that I could use as a weapon—unless I chucked my sisters’ bracelets at him. “Get out, and begone.” With my trembling hands, I could barely keep my grip on the hilts. A nail—I’d take a damned iron nail, if it were available.
He bellowed at me in response, and the entire cottage shook, the plates and cups rattling against one another. But it left his massive neck exposed. I hurled my hunting knife.
Fast—so fast I could barely see it—he slashed out with a paw, sending it skittering away as he snapped for my face with his teeth.
The beast plopped into the chair, the wood groaning, and, in a flash of white light, turned into a golden-haired man.
I stifled a cry and pushed myself against the paneled wall beside the door, feeling for the molding of the threshold, trying to gauge the distance between me and escape. This beast was not a man, not a lesser faerie. He was one of the High Fae, one of their ruling nobility: beautiful, lethal, and merciless.
He was young—or at least what I could see of his face seemed young. His nose, cheeks, and brows were covered by an exquisite golden mask embedded with emeralds shaped like whorls of leaves. Some absurd High Fae fashion, no doubt. It left only his eyes—looking the same as they had in his beast form, strong jaw, and mouth for me to see, and the latter tightened into a thin line.
“You should eat something,” he said. Unlike the elegance of his mask, the dark green tunic he wore was rather plain, accented only with a leather baldric across his broad chest. It was more for fighting than style, even though he bore no weapons I could detect. Not just one of the High Fae, but … a warrior, too.
SPARKMETER: 1.5. She finds him objectively attractive but it's all very dry. Very unimpressive. Compare it to the Feysand scene which was a literal show stopper...Yeah. No comment. That's not what SJM was referring to at all.
The best initial encounter she ever wrote aka Manorian. (😋)
He would have been beautiful were it not for the dark collar around his throat and the utter coldness in his perfect face.
He smiled at Manon as though he knew the taste of her blood.
Manon stepped forward, enduring the raking gaze of the king. The dark-haired young man who had ridden at his side dismounted with fluid grace, still smirking at her. She ignored him.
The prince was now leaning against a gnarled oak. Noticing her attention, he gave her a lazy grin.
It was enough. King’s son or not, she didn’t give a damn.
Manon crossed the clearing, Sorrel behind her. On edge, but keeping her distance.
There was no one in earshot as Manon stopped a few feet away from the Crown Prince. “Hello, princeling,” she purred.
“Hello, princeling,” she said, her voice bedroom-soft and full of glorious death.
“Hello, witchling,” he said.
And the words were his own.
“Is there a reason you’re smiling at me,” she said, “or shall I interpret it as a death wish?”
He didn’t care. Let this be another dream, another nightmare. Let this new, lovely monster devour him whole. He had nothing beyond the here and now.
“Do I need a reason to smile at a beautiful woman?”
“I’m not a woman.” Her iron nails glinted as she crossed her arms. “And you …” She sniffed. “Man or demon?”
“Prince,” he said. That’s what the thing inside him was; he had never learned its name.
He cocked his head. “I’ve never been with a witch.”
Let her rip out his throat for that. End it.
A row of iron fangs snapped down over her teeth as her smile grew. “I’ve been with plenty of men. You’re all the same. Taste the same.” She looked him over as if he were her next meal.
“I dare you,” he managed to say.
Her eyes narrowed, the gold like living embers. He’d never seen anyone so beautiful.
This witch had been crafted from the darkness between the stars.
“I think not, Prince,” she said in her midnight voice. She sniffed again, her nose crinkling slightly. “But would you bleed red, or black?”
“I’ll bleed whatever color you tell me to.”
That's genuinely insane idk what to say. THAT is a spark.
Elide twisted to shove her canteen into her bag.
But a warrior was crouched across the stream, a long, wicked knife balanced on his knee.
His black eyes devoured her, his face harsh beneath equally dark, shoulder-length hair as he said in a voice like granite, “Unless you want to be lunch, girl, I suggest you come with me.”
A small, ancient voice whispered in her ear that she’d at last found her relentless hunter.
And they’d now both become someone else’s prey.
Well, the girl was about to die. Either at the claws of whatever pursued them or at the end of Lorcan’s blade. He hadn’t yet decided.
Human—the cinnamon-and-elderberries scent of her was utterly human—and yet that other smell remained, that tinge of darkness fluttering about her like a hummingbird’s wings.
He might have suspected she’d summoned the beasts were it not for the tang of fear staining the air. And for the fact that he’d been tracking her for three days now, letting her lose herself in the tangled labyrinth of Oakwald, and had found little to indicate she was under Valg thrall.
Lorcan rose to his feet, and her dark eyes widened as she took in his towering height. She remained kneeling by the stream, a dirty hand reaching for the dagger she’d foolishly discarded in the grass. She wasn’t stupid or desperate enough to lift it against him. “Who are you?”
Her hoarse voice was low—not the sweet, high thing he’d expected from her delicate, fully curved frame. Low and cold and steady.
“If you want to die,” Lorcan said, “then go ahead: keep asking questions.” He turned away—northward.
SPARKMETER: 2000029. Right off the bat we have a hunter-prey erotic situation established. Chemistry is palpable. When Sarah establishes a romantic pairing, it happens immediately so right when they meet AND there is no whats or ifs about it. She is very clear. Always.
At least she could take some comfort in knowing that it couldn’t get worse.
But then a deep male voice chuckled from the shadows behind her.
The man—male—down the alley was Fae.
After ten years, after all the executions and burnings, a Fae male was prowling toward her. Pure, solid Fae. There was no escaping him as he emerged from the shadows yards away. The vagrant in the alcove and the others along the alley fell so quiet Celaena could again hear those bells ringing in the distant mountains.
Tall, broad-shouldered, every inch of him seemingly corded with muscle, he was a male blooded with power. He paused in a dusty shaft of sunlight, his silver hair gleaming.
As if his delicately pointed ears and slightly elongated canines weren’t enough to scare the living shit out of everyone in that alley, including the now-whimpering madwoman behind Celaena, a wicked-looking tattoo was etched down the left side of his harsh face, the whorls of black ink stark against his sunkissed skin.
She ignored the shocked faces around them, focusing solely on sizing him up. He stood with a stillness that only an immortal could achieve. She willed her heartbeat and breathing to calm. He could probably hear them, could probably smell every emotion raging through her. There’d be no fooling him with bravado, not in a thousand years. He’d probably lived that long already. Perhaps there’d be no beating him, either. She was Celaena Sardothien, but he was a Fae warrior and had likely been one for a great while.
She stopped a few feet away. Gods, he was huge. “What a lovely surprise,” she said loudly enough for everyone to hear. When was the last time she’d sounded that pleasant? She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d spoken in full sentences. “I thought we were to meet at the city walls.”
He didn’t bow, thank the gods. His harsh face didn’t even shift. Let him think what he wanted. She was sure she looked nothing like what he’d been told to expect—and he’d certainly laughed when that woman mistook her for a fellow vagrant.
“Let’s go,” was all he said, his deep, somewhat bored voice seeming to echo off the stones as he turned to leave the alley. She’d bet good money that the leather vambraces on his forearms concealed blades.
She might have given him a rather obnoxious reply, just to feel him out a bit more, but people were still watching. He prowled along, not deigning to look at any of the gawkers. She couldn’t tell if she was impressed or revolted.
SPARKMETER: 1819119919.This was a bit more subdued and their energy is bordering on hostile but the chemistry is literally jumping through the cracks. Both are sizing each other up and she is obviously attracted and in awe of his presence.
My sisters both stiffened at Cassian and Azriel, at those mighty wings tucked in tight to powerful bodies, at the weapons, and then at the devastatingly beautiful faces of all three males.
Elain, to her credit, did not faint. And Nesta, to hers, did not hiss at them. She just took a not-so-subtle step in front of Elain, and ducked her fisted hand behind her simple, elegant amethyst gown. The movement did not go unnoticed by my companions.I halted a good four feet away, giving my sisters breathing space in a room that had suddenly been deprived of all air.
I said to the males, “My sisters, Nesta and Elain Archeron.”
My sisters did not curtsy. Their hearts wildly pounded, even Nesta’s, and the tang of their terror coated my tongue—“Cassian,” I said, inclining my head to the left. Then I shifted to the right, grateful those shadows were nowhere to be found as I said, “Azriel.” I half turned. “And Rhysand, High Lord of the Night Court.”
Nesta was waiting at the head of the table, a queen ready to hold court. Elain trembled in the upholstered, carved wood chair to her left. I did them all a favor and took the one to Nesta’s right. Cassian claimed the spot beside Elain, who clenched her fork as if she might wield it against him, and Rhys slid into the seat beside me, Azriel on his other side.
A faint smile bloomed upon Azriel’s mouth as he noticed Elain’s fingers white-knuckled on that fork, but he kept silent, focusing instead, as Cassian was subtly trying to do, on adjusting his wings around a human chair.
Cassian was sizing up Nesta, a gleam in his eyes that I could only interpret as a warrior finding himself faced with a new, interesting opponent.Then, Mother above, Nesta shifted her attention to Cassian, noticing that gleam—what it meant. She snarled softly, “What are you looking at?”
Cassian’s brows rose—little amusement to be found now. “Someone who let her youngest sister risk her life every day in the woods while she did nothing. Someone who let a fourteen-year-old child go out into that forest, so close to the wall.” My face began heating, and I opened my mouth. To say what, I didn’t know. “Your sister died—died to save my people. She is willing to do so again to protect you from war. So don’t expect me to sit here with my mouth shut while you sneer at her for a choice she did not get to make—and insult my people in the process.”
Nesta didn’t bat an eyelash as she studied the handsome features, the muscled torso. Then turned to me. Dismissing him entirely. Cassian’s face went almost feral. A wolf who had been circling a doe … only to find a mountain cat wearing its hide instead.
“I can imagine,” Azriel said. Cassian flashed him a glare. But Azriel’s attention was on my sister, a polite, bland smile on his face. Her shoulders loosened a bit. I wondered if Rhys’s spymaster often got his information through stone-cold manners as much as stealth and shadows.
Elain sat a little higher as she said to Cassian, “And as for Feyre’s hunting during those years, it was not Nesta’s neglect alone that is to blame. We were scared, and had received no training, and everything had been taken, and we failed her. Both of us.”
Cassian watched every bite she took, every bob of her throat as she swallowed. I forced myself to clean my plate, aware of Nesta’s own attention on my eating.
Elain said to Azriel, perhaps the only two civilized ones here, “Can you truly fly?”He set down his fork, blinking. I might have even called him self-conscious. He said, “Yes. Cassian and I hail from a race of faeries called Illyrians. We’re born hearing the song of the wind.”
“That’s very beautiful,” she said. “Is it not—frightening, though? To fly so high?”
“It is sometimes,” Azriel said. Cassian tore his relentless attention from Nesta long enough to nod his agreement.
Rhys chuckled, Cassian’s wrath slipping enough that he grinned, and Elain, noticing Azriel’s ease as proof that things weren’t indeed about to go badly, offered one of her own as well.
SPARKMETER: 4006828390. Nessian and Elriel have two completely opposite dynamics that are presented right at the beginning. Nessian is volatile and rough, while Elriel is calm and peaceful. Both Cassian and Azriel are hyperfocused on each sister. Both couples share one thing: chemistry. Right here during their first encounter.
Lucien staggered a step forward as Elain was gripped between two guards and hoisted up. She began kicking then, weeping while her feet slammed into the sides of the Cauldron as if she’d push off it, as if she’d knock it down—
“That is enough.” Lucien surged for Elain, for the Cauldron.
And the king’s power leashed him, too. On the ground beside Tamlin, his single eye wide, Lucien had the good sense to look horrified as he glanced between Elain and the High Lord.
Lucien snarled at the king over the bite of the magic at his throat, “Don’t just leave her on the damned floor—”
There was a flare of light, and a scrape, and then Lucien was stalking toward Elain, freed of his restraints. Tamlin remained leashed on the ground, a gag of white, iridescent magic in his mouth now. But his eyes were on Lucien as—
As Lucien took off his jacket, kneeling before Elain. She cringed away from the coat, from him—
Nesta slammed into Lucien, grabbing Elain from his arms, and screamed at him as he fell back, “Get off her!”
Elain’s feet slipped against the floor, but Nesta gripped her upright, running her hands over Elain’s face, her shoulders, her hair— “Elain, Elain, Elain,” she sobbed.
Cassian again stirred—trying to rise, to answer Nesta’s voice as she held my sister and cried her name again and again.
But Elain was staring over Nesta’s shoulder.
At Lucien—whose face she had finally taken in.
Dark brown eyes met one eye of russet and one of metal.
Nesta was still weeping, still raging, still inspecting Elain—
Lucien’s hands slackened at his sides.
His voice broke as he whispered to Elain, “You’re my mate.”
SPARKMETER: 0.1. Oh brother...
This is completely different from everything else if we want to pretend we are looking at it from an endgame lense. He is all over the place, she is NOT feeling it. This is an uncomfortable encounter. There. There is no usual chemistry, no tension. The scene itself carries tension because of the events and emotions involved, but him and her do not have tension or chemistry in this scene. This does not fall under initial spark. It's giving biological terrorism aka wonky mating bond.
For Example 8 it would make sense for me to do Gwynriel but we know that there was no initial spark when they met...nor when they met AGAIN. The infamous bonus scene happens much later, that is not their first encounter. I literally have nothing to work with. There is no initial spark for me to even speak about.
