#briallyn

POV: You’re Cassian at Koschei’s lake, your body stops obeying you and you’re about to get yoinked into your girlfriend’s Blood Rite

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And here's a drawing timelapse 😊

King of Hybern: ...

The Cauldron: ...

Lanthys: ...

The Kelpie: ...

Briallyn: ...

Eris: ...

Helion: ...

Let's be honest, aside from Amarantha, who had an actual personality, there's really no point to have villains in the ACOTAR series.

All the villains/antagonists after are just there for the protagonists to fight against and be the heroes. We don't know really anything about the king of Hybern, Briallyn, or Koschei. Why do they want what they want? What are their motivations? At most, it's for the sake of the most vague revenge I've ever heard of.

There's nothing personal about it. Sure, Briallyn wants revenge on Nesta for not getting eternal youth when she went into the Cauldron because Nesta took power from it, but that still feels pretty flimsy. Maybe take out your anger on the actual fae who were there and not the human who got turned against her will.

Even Ianthe, who stuck around for two books, is just there. She's like Amarantha lite. I assume she just wants power, but that's all I got.

Even the smaller antagonists are just there to up the ante. Feyre kills the Attor and traps Ianthe in the Cottage. The twin ravens attack the Library and then are defeated by Rhysand. Branaugh and Dagdan are defeated pretty quickly. Lanythys is a mere footnote.

I pose that the books after ACOTAR should have just been about the consequences of the last 50 years Under the Mountain.

"End in tow, we're headed nowhere, we can watch the world burn"

"Too late to start again, so let's live to see the end...and we'll leave our shadows when we're gone." (Essenger- blood moon)

(this was—again—supposed to go into the notes of my fic but turned out too long)

And then it was time for another lengthy rant, because the plot holes in ACOSF specifically are a gift that just keeps on giving. Especially anything concerning Briallyn and her stupid-ass plan to lure Nesta into her Evil Trap.

Alright. So. If you really think about it, Briallyn’s plan in ACOSF makes ZERO sense. None.

As far as we know from canon, the end-goal of her convoluted kidnapping plot was always to kill Nesta. Both to get her revenge on Nesta for taking too much from the Cauldron and Briallyn ending up old and frail as a result (which… dramatic, but I guess), and then to take the Dread Trove items from Nesta (to achieve world domination, original).

So she has Nesta kidnapped from Emerie’s house. Great! She now has Nesta tied up, drugged and unconscious. Plan complete! Right? Wrong.

She proceeds to SET NESTA FREE. Into the Blood Rite. Where she could be killed by some random Illyrian at any second and render Bri-Bri’s grand plans of vengeance null and void.

So Nesta is now fighting her way through the Blood Rite, to “wear her down.” After Briallyn literally already had her in prime-kidnapping-condition of drug-induced grogginess, but I digress.

In the meantime, Briallyn doesn’t watch Nesta struggle or get chased by her Illyrian lackeys though, which seems like something that would’ve gone well with her allegedly sadistic plan of revenge. No. Briallyn then… kidnaps Eris. To… lure Cassian??? In what absurd world is ERIS the correct person to kidnap if you want to draw CASSIAN out of Velaris? Did I miss something? The one thing about this entire part of the plot that makes sense is that Cassian immediately went “Well, too bad. Sucks for him.” when Azriel told the IC that Eris had been kidnapped. There’s also never an explanation as to WHY Briallyn chose to kidnap Eris specifically, which still seems wildly suspicious to me. Any other Night Court ally would have been more enticing to Cassian. Literally anyone. Even someone like Keir, probably, just for the satisfaction of killing him himself.

Anyway, Briallyn brainwashes Eris with the Crown and parades him around for a bit so Az and Cassian (who’s there only because Rhys ordered him) can watch from afar. She brings Eris to Koschei’s lake to lure the batboys there and makes a half-assed attempt to have Eris stab Cassian. There’s a brief moment with Koschei that feels very “you haven’t unlocked this villain yet” and then Az whisks Eris away while Briallyn uses the Crown on Cassian and takes him back to Nesta for… reasons. Probably to distract her so Briallyn can hold her evil monologue.

After explaining her motives and plans to Nesta like some 2000s cartoon villain—instead of just, y’know, putting her under the Crown’s thrall while she has the chance—she of course loses spectacularly to the Power Of Love and Lazy Writing. Because somehow, the least believable part about this is that a human queen who has both a vendetta against and obsession with Fae would be defeated by her own unfortunate wording in her command to Cassian. Who the fuck just says “Kill” in the most dramatic way possible, without specifying WHO to kill?

Nesta, whose power wasn’t drained or worn down in the least from Briallyn’s fun little plan, simply erases her from existence. The End.

Note: Check out previous reactions here. Feel free to comment, reblog, like and talk to be about books whenever!😊

ACOTAR Book 5 Page 699 of 757 Almost there...

What's happened so far: Nesta and Cassian have been horrible at being in a relationship again. They had an argument about being mates. Then Nesta, Emerie and Gwyn were kidnapped and put into the blood rite, which is like a death competition.

What I think so far: Every time we deviate from the Nesta/Cassian relationship the book gets better! The part where Nesta and the team fight in the blood rite has been ok.