#cassian meta

Listen, after ACOMAF, when this happened, EVERYONE was buzzing about this. Most people thought he wouldn't outright lose his wings permanently, but there would be a LOT required.

And then ACOWAR came and approximately nothing happened whatsoever. Oh he had to be healed. the healer had to rebuild his wings. he had to do strength training every day. But fundamentally: not a sausage.

Personally? I think Maas chickend out. I think she was unable to commit to taking Cassian's wings, or figuring out how to write him as anything other than what she's established him as: fun jock man who likes to hit things real hard and make dick jokes sometimes.

Having to see Cassian vulnerable? Having to see him broken, and struggling, and having to reevaluate his entire life and self-esteem and sense of masculinity would have been an incredible option for a character arc.

Most of the theorising/Nessian fics involved Nesta helping him. The two of them being broken/fundamentally altered by their experiences in Hybern - she being killed and Made with a dark power, Cassian losing his wings.

There was expected bonding over that, peeling away the masks they both wear to discover the softness underneath. The two of them being able to reach one another, because of their bond, in a way the others could not. It produced some pretty epic stuff, honestly.

And how badly I wanted that I didn't FULLY realise until the disappointment of ACOSF, when it hit fully.

Because instead of stripping Cassian back and seeing the tactician, the strategist, forcing him to put his other skills to use, to develop those skills, rather than 'smash with sword and ask questions later'. This man is a General. All the combat training in the world doesn't let you be good at this job if you can't command, if you can't use tactics, if you can't strategise.

And THIS is where I wanted to see Nesta. Nesta, the woman who calculated how many ships would be needed to save the humans of Prythian. The woman who looked at Greysen's manor and assessed its capabilities and saw a prison. The woman who devours history novels, who has a tactical, cunning mind. Who has never been a warrior or a creature of brute strength or physical abilities.

THIS is how I wanted to see Nesta evolve. This was how I wanted to see her develop. I didn't want her taken out of lady's dresses. I didn't want her forced into fighting leathers, to basically become another copy of her sister, and follow down that path.

I wanted her to take her own. I wanted her to finally be in a place where she could learn, and strategise, and contribute. And I wanted her to work with Cassian on this - who was grounded because of his wings, who couldn't command on the frontlines anymore, or even fight. Who had to stay back, and see how he handled this. How he maintained his authority. How he maintained his sanity without his wings.

We could have had so fucking much. Such a powerful narrative about survival. I wanted her in the library, with the other survivors, (and with fucking MORRIGAN - not sidelined, not dismissed, not being bitchy and catty for the sake of it. But someone who visits the library frequently, who interacts with the women there, and sometimes just is a woman there herself, because there are still hard days.)

But no. No instead of something nuanced, and original, and actually tailored to Nesta's strengths as a character, we got Yet Another Weapon's Trainng Montage.

We got the narrative that the only way to heal from abuse is to be able to beat the shit out of your abusers. Because that's #GirlPower, right?

It makes me so furious I almost want to just. Just fucking rewrite the whole damn fucking thing myself the way it SHOULD have gone.

And I know you talked about Cassian and not Nesta, so I do apologise, but they were tied together. But I agree.

We all wanted Cassian to evolve from that 'Lord of Bloodshed' / "savage brute" because reading between the lines and forcing some nuance from these books, which is the only way to survive: Cassian has a lot of layers. There's a lot of trauma there. A lot of insecurity. A lot of angst. A lot of heart. A lot of fucking INTELLIGENCE. (I'll fight on that point, I really will. Cassian is not a dumb himbo who can barely add 1 and 1).

But sjm was too busy writing him having a hard on for Nesta to explore....anything about himself. Or his relationship with Azriel, and Rhys, and Mor, and everyone else.

The removal (even temporarily) of his wings would have allowed for a LOT of that exploration.

Firstly, the fact that he injured them by CHOICE, saving Azriel's life. That would have been such a deep connection and bond between them. The guilt that Az would feel - but the potential for Cassian to step in, even with his wings gone, and say that he'd do it again.

Because Azriel is his brother. He loves him. And it was worth it. It would be worth it a hundred times over to save him. Because he's worth saving. And he's worth sacrificing for. And what that would have done for Az as a character, too. Who always offers himself up first for dangerous missions, puts himself in peril to protect the others.

And having Cassian join Feyre and Az's flying lessons? Because Cass having to relearn how to fly once (if) his wings healed to that extent, means letting Azriel train him. Because those old instincts aren't enough. And he has to learn how to strengthen them, and train with them. And how this affects his perception of himself and his masculinity, as he said. But also deepening his understanding for Az, and the bond the two of them share, in having this experience together.

Bonding with Rhys, who FINALLY fucking opens up to someone and has some nuanced therapy-like conversations about what happened with Amarantha. The sacrifces they've made for their people. How they'd do it again but it still hurts, and changes them, and how they have to learn and grow and move on from that and heal together.

Rhys working with Cassian on his other talents, using him as the skilled strategist and tactician he MUST be. Helping him to develop that, keeping his brother from losing his mind while he can't fight or use his physicality to solve problems, as he usually does.

Mor personally healing and tending to Cassian. Mor being there at his bedside every day while he was bed bound. Mor becoming as possessive and overprotective of both him and Az as any mate ever has been.

Mor speaking to him about her own rehabilitation after what her family did to her, the physical toll that took on her. Mor's heart breaking because she nearly lost both him and Az and she couldn't handle that at all. Mor reiterating how much she fucking loves him, and how she needs him.

Mor helping him through the darker days of his depression because she's been there. And she knows what it is to put on a front. To always be laughing, and joking, without the seriousness of life -leave that to the others. But sometimes it's too much and he needs to break down. And be angry. And furious. And hopeless. And scared. And that's what she's there for. Because she understands.

Mor winnowing him to his favourite spots that he can't fly to anymore, just so he can be there. The two of them spending time, and bonding, and developing that relationship we got in ACOMAF beyond 'we bicker constantly and drink together and make sexual innuendos'.

Even Amren showing up and doing her part. Snapping at him to stop brooding so much. But also bringing him some of her puzzles. Some of her favourite military history books (which she has anotated and edited to highlight the bits that have been incorrectly reported). Spending time with him to stop him going mad. Exhausting herself those first few days personally attending to Cassian's wings, and snarling at anyone who tried to interfere.

IT COULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH.

Right I’ve been a grouchy salt goblin for days and I feel the need to talk about something else so we’re going to talk about the Cassian/Mor brotp and how this one aspect I’ve been meaning to meta on for decades was actually sustained incredibly well across the two books (consistency, god bless) 

The basic outline is that Cassian has been, consistently, the most concerned for Mor’s emotional and mental well-being. He reacts the most strongly to her returning to the CoN, understands her trauma, shows concern for her, and he’s there for her when she needs someone. 

“I came in here to say I’m not going with you—to the mortal realm.” “Because of how they treat women?” Her rich brown eyes were bright, but calm. “When the queens come, I will be there. I wish to see if I recognize any of my long-dead friends in their faces. But … I don’t think I would be able to … behave with any others.” “Did Rhys tell you not to go?” I said tightly. “No,” she said, snorting. “He tried to convince me to come, actually. He said I was being ridiculous. But Cassian … he gets it. The two of us wore him down last night.” My brows rose a bit. Why they’d gone out and gotten drunk, no doubt. To ply their High Lord with alcohol.

Obviously the fact that women in the mortal realm tend to be smothered by their husbands, married by their fathers and then used for simply breeding and rearing children is probably not something that Mor gets a huge kick out of. Rhys tries to coax her into coming with them but Cassian is on her side and argues for her staying in Velaris because he understands why it might upset her and works to protect her. 

Mor shrugged at the unasked question in my eyes. “Cassian helped Rhys get me out. Before either had the real rank to do so. For Rhys, getting caught would have been a mild punishment, perhaps a bit of social shunning. But Cassian … he risked everything to make sure I stayed out of that court. And he laughs about it, but he believes he’s a low-born bastard, not worthy of his rank or life here. He has no idea that he’s worth more than any other male I met in that court—and outside of it. Him and Azriel, that is.”

I feel like this is probably why. Cassian helped Mor get out of the CoN which means that he saw her in there when she was at her worst and her most vulnerable. He saw first hand what those people and that place did to her and he’s never forgotten it.

 I feel like...People talk a lot about Cassian’s childhood and how difficult it was but they dismiss Mor’s because she had a roof over her head and was well-off. But I think...Cassian of all people, who was abandoned, who was alone, who had to make his own way, yes...But he was also taken in by another’s kindness, understands what that is. He had a mother-figure who loved him, who showed him gentleness and love while Mor’s mother tried to sell her to a sadist right along with her father. 

I think he knows what a difference that can make, what a difference it did make to him, to have brothers, to have a mother-figure, to have a family and I think he looks at Mor’s situation and it sickens him that she never had that, never had anyone, that she spent her entire childhood living in fear without love or kindness. I think he tries to be that person for her, the one who protects her and listens to her and never dismisses her feelings they were in the CoN. 

Maybe I should have asked Mor to come. But she’d left after dinner, pale-faced and jumpy, ignoring Cassian’s attempt to speak with her. Azriel had taken to the clouds to contact his spies. He’d quietly promised the pacing Cassian to find Mor when he was done.

This is just after Rhys announces that they’re going to make an impromptu visit to the CoN in order to steal the Veritas. It bothers her. It bothers her a lot and Cassian notices that, and Az notices him and assures him that he’ll talk to her and look after her. 

Cassian’s focus had gone right to Mor, Azriel indulging in all of a glance before scanning the people around them.

[...] 

Cassian gave Keir a slow nod that told him he remembered—and would never forget—what the Steward of the Hewn City had done to his own daughter.

While their in the CoN, Cassian keeps an eye on Mor and there’s a perhaps pointed reminder that Cassian got her out and remembers exactly what Keir did to her. 

“When do you head for the Hewn City tomorrow?” Cassian said to her—quietly enough that I knew it was probably time to head upstairs. Mor scraped the bottom of her bowl. Apparently, Cassian had made the stew—it hadn’t been half-bad. “After breakfast. Before. I don’t know. Maybe in the afternoon, when they’re all just waking up.” [...] Mor and Cassian both stared at their empty bowls of food, softly talking for once.

Cassian and Mor have a volatile relationship, they’re both intense people and they run hot. They rub off some of that friction with one another and they bicker and they tease except for when Mor is to head off to the CoN. Cassian is deliberately quiet and gentle with her beforehand in case she’s feeling on edge about it. The two of them just talk quietly and keep each other company before she has to leave. 

“Thank you,” she said, coming over to watch me. “Visiting them always leaves me raw.” “Cassian seemed concerned.” Another prying question. She shrugged. “Cassian, I think, would also savor the opportunity to shred that entire court to pieces. Starting with my parents. Maybe I’ll let him do it one year as a present. Him and Azriel both. It’d make a perfect solstice gift.”

Mor is not immune to what happened to her. Mor faces the CoN for the same reasons that Rhys spent fifty years UtM, that Cassian returns to those war camps and the sneering camp lords, that Azriel tortures and spies: for her Court. She doesn’t enjoy it. She is strong but she’s not invincible and spending prolonged periods of time in the company of her abusers, completely alone but for herself, is difficult, it takes something out of her. 

So of course Cassian is concerned about her, understands her trauma and protects her (even when others are a little dismissive about what she endures. Cass has her back, always, and she can rely on him for support in cases like this...which becomes especially important as we move in acowar where Mor gets trampled under what she’s endured about 16 times and needs someone in her corner. 

“You’re working with that prick,” Cassian cut in, whatever catching-up now over, apparently. He moved to Mor’s side, a hand on her back. He shook his head at Azriel and Rhys, disgust curling his lip. “You should have spiked Eris’s fucking head to the front gates.”

[...]

Mor blinked. Cassian’s hand moved to her shoulder and squeezed. [...]

Mor shook her head as she whispered, “He’ll still destroy it.”

Cassian slid his arm around her shoulders, his face harder than I’d ever seen it as he studied Rhys. Then Azriel. “You should have warned us.”

 This is after....The scene which I am not getting into here because we don’t have all day but Cassian very, very firmly places himself on Mor’s side here. Which no-one else does until Amren intervenes to stop the fight, and even then she agrees with both sides. Cassian is the only one who solidly has Mor’s back in this. Rhys and Azriel are united together and Feyre sides with Rhys to support him. Cass firmly sets himself against them to defend Mor because he knows exactly what she must have went through down there alone. 

He makes sure that he’s there for her, he uses touch to comfort her and he doesn’t bother to hide his disgust and his anger at what Rhys and Az have done to her. (And just...thank god for Cassian jfc because everyone else in this scene, Rhys in particular, but also Azriel, dismisses her. They talk about her like she’s a child (you should have stopped the deal, we had to keep it a secret from you) or implies that she’s selfish and oversensitive to have been affected this way. Cassian just has her back and calls Azriel and Rhys out for not warning her, not warning ‘us’ he says, because he’s firmly on her side in this) 

Mor was indeed sprawled on a couch—one wary eye on Azriel. Cassian sat beside her, holding her feet in his lap. He’d taken the spot closer to Azriel—right between them. As if he’d leap into their path if need be.

[...] Cassian now rubbing Mor’s feet. 

Yes I’ve wiffled about the feet rubbing already, it’s precious, but I think it’s also important. This is just after the meeting with the High Lords where Azriel’s sudden outburst triggered Mor. Cassian is there for her afterwards, he understands why she was so upset and he sits with her, again comforts her physically. He also puts himself between her and Az, a little bit of distance, making her feel safe and reinforcing those boundaries and that little bit of domesticity and normality to help calm her down and ground her. But the point is that he’s there for her, even if she doesn’t seem that distressed in this moment, he’s there and he’s there for her and that’s important. 

Gif made by @stevenrogered and used with their permission.

Cassian just got off the space phone with Draven who reconfirmed his orders about killing Galen Erso first chance Cassian gets, an order that does not rest easy on Cassian’s conscience or heart.

We’ve seen Cassian struggle with what he has to do for the Rebellion since the moment we meet him. 

His expression after he shoots his contact, to keep him from being caught and meeting an even more painful end at the hand of the Empire, is one of anguish and regret. He lives with it because he has no choice, because the Rebellion has no choice if there is ever to be any hope of freedom at all, but the choices he has to make and the things he has to do to keep that faint hope alive, does not rest easily on him.

The orders to shoot Galen rest particularly uneasy on his heart because he trust Jyn and he trusts Bodhi, thinks they’re telling the truth. And he, unlike Draven, saw Jedha and knows what the Death Star can do. Will do if not stopped. That it will extinguish all hope and that is something Cassian cannot live with.

And sits Bodhi Rook, ex-Imperial cargo pilot, who took a wild leap of faith because of his own conflicted heart and anguish, who sits there speaking in his quiet voice about following his heart and setting things right with himself. Do what he believe is right.

You can see it in the scene, it’s so well acted. Bodhi sits there talking to Jyn and Cassian is off in the background. The moment Bodhi says the words about “setting things right by himself” the camera shifts to focus on Cassian who has been fiddling with the space phone and we see him turn around and half look at Bodhi.

And we see the conflict on Cassian’s face, the one between his orders and his common sense telling him one thing - that Galen Erso is probably dangerous and should be removed - and his heart and conscience telling him another - that that Jyn and Bodhi are telling the truth, that Galen Erso has build a weakness into the Death Star so that it can be destroyed and something like Jedha never happen again.

And all he can hear is Bodhi’s quiet voice, slowly drowning out Draven’s.

Up on the mountain top Cassian hesitates, even when he has a clear shot. Because there is a chance that Galen is genuine and that there is hope, and Cassian doesn’t take the shot because he can’t abandon hope, Hope more than anything else, is what lives in his heart and the reason he has made all those compromises, why lives with the guilt and the pain.

So when they all return to Yavin IV and Cassian suspects that the council will turn Jyn’s request for sending a raid to Scarif down his mind is already made up. he too is going to trust what his heart is telling him, that there is still hope.

While this is being discussed... Cassian, like, isn't dumb? I hate that Cassian is pushed aside as the idiot of the group when he is potential is the most emotionally intelligent... He just understands the moods of all the other character's like the other's can't. I love Cassian, and he is being misrepresented dismally

YES. This is so frustrating because Cassian is....Such a complicated, rich character?? Who...Doesn’t get enough meta/things talking just about him tbh. But yes there is so much emotional intelligence there? Like he worked out that Rhys and Feyre were mates but had enough good sense to just...Let them sort things out themselves. He’s the only character who knows that Nesta has been assaulted because he’s the only one who can get any kind of read on her. 

The whole leading armies thing too though? Like that’s...not just....you stand at the front of the yelling crowd of soldiers and bam. Leader. Cassian brought the entire Illyrian army under his control as a lowborn bastard warrior. And he has to be able to strategise, think tactically and quickly under huge amounts of pressure, read battles and read and understand his enemies as well so he understands how to win against them. Like? Cassian is incredibly intelligent and it’s...irritating when he gets dismissed the way he does. 

It sort of reminds me a little bit of the way Elain gets treated, actually? They have a similar sort of strength in their groups which is emotional intelligence. Feyre and Nesta are both...pretty hopeless when it comes to people tbh but Elain just...gets them. She understands how to coax them to do what she wants, she understands how to read them and what’s best for them in the moment. And that intelligence of hers and the strength that she has as a character so often gets underplayed and she gets reduced down to ‘shy plant girl’ and that’s...it. 

But okay yes on the Cassian front, and I suppose circling back to the original Az point I think it’s more irritating because...They’re deliberately written not to be this way? Cassian is set up in the mould of the dumb jock basically with a little bit of ‘greatest warrior ever’ thrown in there too for good measure. And both of those get seriously undermined by the book because Cass, as you said, is incredibly emotionally intelligent, and just intelligent full stop, really. The warrior thing gets undone too because he’s one of the warmest, most kindhearted characters we come across and he takes like 0 pleasure or glory in battle. So you’re supposed to expected him to be thick as mince and take so much pleasure in sort of baser warrior’s instincts and he doesn’t do either. 

Same idea with Az he’s set up to be the quiet, reserved, devoted, damaged type and he is. But he also argues back, he states his opinions and his plans even when they upset the people around him that he’s the most devoted to (Rhys/Mor I’m thinking here) Azriel is actually...pretty independent as far as these things go. He even disobeys orders in order to do what he feels is necessary to protect his court and his people. He’s loyal, he’s devoted...But he’s not a mindless servant who just obeys and blindly does as he’s told. And he’s a fun contrast to Cassian in that Cassian doesn’t have that bloodlust but Azriel does. There’s a cold, vengeful darkness in Az we’re not used to characters with his polite, almost shy exterior, having, that icy rage that his calm, composed exterior never quite hints at but it’s there. 

This line is so iconic for Cassian because for all that he is a grey moral character, he has hope. He embodies hope.

It is his greatest strength and his weakness. Everything he does, he does for hope.

He has kept hope all his life. Despite fighting oppressors from age 6, despite losing everything, he still has hope.

All the things he’s done that he hates himself for, all the times he’s compromised his morals and consciences, he did it for hope. It is his hope that drives him.

Hope that the Empire will fall, that some day this fight will be over, hope that the next generation will not have to do what he’s done, live the life he’s lived.

That everything he’s sacrificed will have meaning.

it’s not an idealistic or naive hope, that they will win without sacrifice, without getting dirty. It’s the knowledge that they have no choice but to fight, that they must or there will be nothing.

He has so much hope that when the Alliance leadership, the people he has put his faith and trust in for years, fails,  he will rather go rogue rather than give it up. 

Rebellions are build on hope and Cassian is made of it.