#end-of

The core of the sexism in this series lies with Aelin. Sarah’s initial intention to make Aelin conventionally beautiful was so she could write a female character who is confident in her beauty and knows how to use it to her advantage. However, SJM ended up going down a slippery slope of hyper-sexualizing a 17/18-year-old girl in the eyes of men. There are very few male characters we have met that have not had some king of romantic/sexual thoughts about her. She was just a child when she was first taken in by Arobynn and had since had a skeevy relationship with him. Not only did he beat her, turn her into a killer, murder a boy she loved, and send her to a labor camp, but it was also implied he was interested in her sexually. This comes up again later in Queen of Shadows when he forces her to wear his scent in order to mark her as an object, as well as when he kissed her neck after he thought he had enslaved her mind. She’s a teenager. She never gets a chance to be without some form of a lover when she’s trying to figure out who she is. In TAB she was with Sam. In Throne of Glass she was romantically interested in Dorian. In Crown of Midnight she was with Chaol. In Heir of Fire she went through depression because of her previous relationship with Chaol and in Queen of Shadows she goes directly from having a platonic relationship with Rowan to suddenly having a strong sexual desire for him. 

So let’s talk about her relationship with Rowan. It started out in really negative terms of Aelin being in a really bad mental place and Rowan verbally and, at times, physically hurting her. As I mentioned, Aelin has grown up only really knowing this terribly abusive relationship with Arobynn. He was probably the first man to look at her as more than a child (nasty, but the truth). Her and Lysandra were constantly at odds with each other because he intentionally made his attention to be a reward that they both wanted. It has taken her years to get over everything Arobynn has done to her and made her feel, she found a healthy relationship in Sam and afterwards formed healthy relationships with Dorian, Nehemia, Chaol (sort of…), and Lysandra. So why in the world would Sarah force her into a relationship that started off in such a negative and violent manner? Rowan kicked her when she was down. She was sad when she got to Wendlyn but he made her depressed. Emrys flat out said there was in an emptiness in her eyes that Rowan put there. Sure, yeah, eventually Rowan got off his high horse and actually put some kind of effort in being nice and actually helping her, but after everything Aelin has been through in her life, she should owe absolutely nothing to someone who would make her feel worthless. 

Queen of Shadows is unarguably the most sexist book out of the series. While Sarah on the surface claims that Rowan and Aelin are equals, Rowan does not treat her like one. He follows her when she tells him not to. He lashes out at any man, her own cousin including, dares to fairly speak out against her. Instead of demeaning her like he did in Heir of Fire, he holds her on a creepy pedestal rather than treat her like a human being. And ontop of that, he plays the biggest role in oversexualizing her. He’s an ancient fae who’s had a wife (and children? dont quote me pls), he’s fought in many battles, but suddenly he’s sees a teenage girl in a sexy nightgown or a beautiful dress and he has to literally drench himself with cold water in order to sleep next to her without making sexual advances. He’s written as if he is completely out of control with his desires and emotions, and we’re as readers supposed to find that attractive. He’s bitten her, said terrible things to her, stalked her, was ready to kill her own cousin, and instead of treating him like the aggressive animal that he is, Sarah forces readers to like him because he’s “sexy”. 

No woman in this series save for Nehemia (who was killed off pretty quickly so she doesnt count), is written as being able to function without being in a relationship with a man. Aelin certainly started off that way, but now she is required to have her “other half”. Lysandra suddenly feels less because she does not have some great love. Manon, who is wholly independent and never had any reason to have a romance with a man, is ~interested~ in Dorian even though she knows nothing about him other than the fact that he’s a good-looking prince who sought out a witch to murder him so he did not have to live as a prisoner in his body anymore. Elide hasn’t had a romance but give her time, she’s only been here for one book so far. 

There’s also the fact that the (very few) women of color in this series are treated as if they are expendable/replaceable. Though Nehemia was Aelin’s best friend, her murder was used as a means to get Aelin to face her ~destiny or whatever and then was replaced with a man who gets boners thinking about teenage girls who wear sexy nightgowns (can we talk about the fact that Nehemia is 1000% ready to fight Rowan in the afterlife? anyway). Sorscha was also brutally murdered and as a means to?? Make Dorian sad? I don’t really know. I’m pretty sure that valg collar and the fact that his friends suck and ditch him at crucial points in his life was reason enough for him to be sad. He’s been deeply affected by her death for sure, but I feel like this Thing with Manon is gonna be SJM’s excuse to erase or ice over any memories of Sorscha at all.

Either way, Sarah has continuously put her female characters in violent situations. Her two women of color were murdered gruesomely. Aelin was beaten and abused by many people and reduced to a slave and has the scars as a constant reminder for the reader. None of the men have faced this kind of abuse, save for Dorian, Sarah’s metaphorical punching bag (maybe because he’s not as /Masculine/ as the other men in the series). We’ve never read about a man who had to suffer in Endovier or a man who has been brutally abused. Sam was murdered violently, sure, but that was just for Aelin’s own backstory. Unless you’ve read the prequel novellas, than you would never have really known the gruesome details about his death.