#mor meta

In both cases, Thee and Mek make the overture to make the merit together, are positioned to the left side of the shrine (right side of the screen) and are faced with their intended’s hesitance to be spotted. Both are in white (Mek with the brown over it). And it’s very clear how willing these men are to step across both sexual and class lines to go after what they want. And just the casual way Mek accepts that Dech isn’t ready to be seen with a male servant and makes space, and contrast with Thee’s struggling with what he perceives as Rati’s rejection and disgusting Rati’s silence.

Meanwhile, Rati and Dech are clad in blue, are to the right side of the shrine and are hesitant to be spotted making merit with the man who has invited them to engage in an activity meant for lovers. And I just think how both of them were raised in Baron Ruj’s house, and his clear disdain for queerness and his focus on class stratifications, and how much that colors their sense of being watched: both as queer men and in reaching across a class divide. But when it comes to it, they still want and still reach back.

And I just love how much is said in the silences and the gaps and the hypotheticals. The way it’s very clear there is an overture and a recognition without having to fully voice it (tho Rati is deep in his what is this queer feeling—bless.)

this is so interesting and tbqh I agree. Rhysand DOES NOT show loyalty to Mor. He doesn't really show loyalty to anyone

and tbh I don't like Mor all that much. I think she's mean and catty and a snob. But that being said I hate how she was treated in WAR. bringing Keir into her one safe space WITHOUT warning her was nasty work. She didn't deserve that. NO ONE deserves to have their abuser allowed into their safe space

People being like "uhhhh she's been in the closet for 500 years. she has a loving and trusting family. Why doesn't she come out." idk Kayleigh why DOESN'T she come out. It's not like Rhysand routinely undermines her or other members of the IC. It's not like Rhysand allowed her abuser into her one safe space where she feels some sense of freedom

I don't think Mor being "secretive" is all about some evil twirly mustache behavior. The IC are a collection of fucked up, codependent losers who somehow all friends AND are weirdly incestuous

Right *rubs temples* we have finally reached a point I have been struggling with with this whole Mor...fiasco which is the tension between my desire to drag sjm through the mud for the way this was written...but also my intense desire to protect Mor’s choices as a queer character having agency with her own identity. This ask is going to be dedicated entirely to the latter (okay maybe not ENTIRELY but when I’m talking about  how Mor acted I’m going to do it in such a way that’s just ‘I wish all of this hasn’t happened how it did but it has and I’m working with what I’ve got here’) Clunky disclaimer out the way, let’s pick this apart... 

Right, first off,I would like to point out that it’s canon that Mor did actually try to talk to Azriel about this after he found her in the Autumn Court. However he wasn’t really listening and was doing some babble-confessing of his own at the time and she panicked. She was seventeen years old and the boy who just saved her life, who she knew she couldn’t be with, tried to tell  her that he loved her and she had no idea what to do so she panicked. After that it’s not really surprising she struggled with trying to explain things to him. 

Then  I think it’s important to remember a lot of things about the dynamic between Mor, Cass, Rhys and Az early on in the series when she knew Az and might have told him. So she’s only known Cassian and Azriel for two weeks when the whole Incident happens. The situation Mor is in is a  hell of a lot more complicated than ‘I slept with this one dude and this other dude loves me but I’m queer I’m not sure how to tell him’ (which is complicated enough in itself) 

Mor owes her life to all three of them at this point. Azriel saved her from the Autumn Court. Cassian and Rhys got her out of the Court of Nightmares and then proceeded to keep her out. So not is she indebted to them for saving her she is also completely reliant on them for her freedom. At this point in the canon we’re dealing with an extremely vulnerable queer girl who has been brutalised beyond belief and has only just been able to get out of her abusive situation. If the relationship she has with Cass Az and Rhys deteriorates she has nowhere else to go but back to her emotionally abusive homophobic family. 

Factor into that that she’s recently had sex with Cassian, largely because of Az and his jealousy over the two of them, and then walked away from that and the fact that she knows Azriel is in love with her but that she can’t reciprocate...I’m not surprised she’s terrified of telling them the truth. She’s grown up being told people like her are selfish and awful and that they should be forced into marriage and breeding regardless of how they feel about it, she probably believes that’s how Az and Cassian definitely, since she’s only known them about 3 weeks, will react to her. And Rhys grew up with them, they’re his brothers, she’s probably petrified of telling them the truth about her and having them all reject and abandon her which leaves her with nowhere to go but back to her father. I don’t blame her for not telling them. 

Then the War happens and she’s away from them all for a while and falls in love with Andromache and she has to go through losing her (twice) completely alone because no-one knows and she can’t tell t hem. She says herself that there was no-one for a few decades and like..Those aren’t circumstances where I’d feel like adding a whole  heaping pile of angst on top when she still isn’t sure how the boys will react so she just bottles things up and hides them away again. 

And then...Things settle out a little bit. The dynamic between her and Cass and Az finds something like what we see now, the three of them all tied together and loving each other just in different ways. And then she has to start trying to accept herself (Andromache was her first female lover and after that fell apart Mor was alone for decades, it’s hard to talk to people about something you barely understand or accept yourself) 

She has to unlearn the vile homophobia that she grew up with, she has to coax herself into trying to be with a woman again after what happened before, she has to try and explore this part of herself without letting anyone know...That’s hard. And so she finds Velaris, she finds Rita’s and at last she has a little safe place, a place where she experiment and be herself and so she does.  But that’s a safe place, a place that’s just hers, a thing that’s just hers, that no-one has yet managed to take away from her or destroy, and she feels this desperate urge to keep it safe because it’s all that’s kept her from breaking at times, knowing that no-one has ever truly known her. 

All of this takes time. Mor is healing and I know she’s a strong, confident woman when we meet her in ACOMAF and she’s had while to process all of this but...Abuse and that sort of homophobia and the trauma she was subjected to on top of then losing the only person she’s ever truly loved...That takes a lot of healing, that takes a lot of time to slowly build up an identity and a self-worth and by the time that happens...She needs the people around her. She has a support system in place and she deeply loves all of them. 

If she suddenly reveals that she’s queer that’s going to mess up her relationship with everyone in the Circle (except, perhaps, Amren) But everything will change and she’s only just managed to find herself and a place where she belongs and she has NEVER had that before. Cassian and Azriel both had difficult childhoods but they also both had Rhys and Rhys’ mother. Mor has not had a single positive, mutual, respectful relationship before Rhys, Cassian, Azriel and Amren. That is so fucking important for her recovery and her stability and I cannot find it in myself to shame her or hate her for wanting to keep that whole. 

Not to mention the fact that she knows this will hurt Azriel. And she loves him. I don’t care what bullshit that coming out scene spouts about her not being able to love him ‘the way he deserves’ because of her sexuality (which I have issues with) because she loves this man in a very deep, unconditional way and this will hurt him and she can’t bear that. 

So there are a lot of pressures surrounding her keeping her sexuality hidden. She’s petrified of her family, of the homophobia she grew up surrounded by and she wants to keep this one tiny piece of herself hidden from them, so they never truly know her and therefore can’t own or break her. She’s petrified of losing the Circle, who she owes her life, freedom, power and stability to, they’re her support system and the only truly positive relationships she’s ever known. of course she’s terrified of losing that? And she’s scared of hurting Azriel and wrecking her relationship with someone that she truly and genuinely loves, even if she doesn’t want to be with him romantically. 

Also I think, when you mention that she didn’t have to come out to explain things to Azriel I think....In this case it’s complicated by them? She’s already walked away from him once while he was trying to tell her that he loved her...If she just goes to him and tells him that she can never ever be with him without the context of her sexuality...That’s going to ruin him? And she knows that. She knows how he sees himself and she’s probably terrified of offering up that rejection because the Circle is Az’s safe space and support network too and she loves him. She cannot just say ‘I don’t want you, I never will’ because then it will just...sound like he’s not good enough for her and he never will be? It’s going to sound like a ‘him’ problem than it just being the way that she is and she knows that would shatter him. (You can argue all you like that this is an Azriel problem and it’s not on her to fix or attend to his insecurities, and it’s not, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy for her to just shatter him like that? This is the reality of their situation) 

Also, on the subject of her not wanting to change it...I want to make it clear that I don’t think this is actively good for her. Like, I’m sorry, but if you think that Azriel, a straight man, is suffering more for Mor not feeling like she’s able to come out, feeling ‘petrified’ of facing him with this, than she is...I don’t know what to say to you. 

Being closeted is not fun. It’s not a little ‘straight passing’ card that you get to wave around so you can blend in with the normal people and not get noticed, it’s hard. It’s painful. It’s frightening. It’s constantly having to censor yourself whenever you’re talking to people, constantly worrying if they’ve figured it out even though you’re not ready, this constant paranoia and this guilt that builds up and the frustration and the hurt at not being able to be yourself. 

This situation is harming more exponentially more than it is Az and when she says that she doesn’t want it to change that’s not her being selfish. at all. 

(Especially when, as Mor told us herself in ACOMAF, she could peel her clothes off in front of Azriel and he wouldn’t move. He isn’t ready for this relationship anyway. He could have gone to her as well at any point in these 500 years and approached her about this and he hasn’t. Mor is not the only one maintaining this stasis between them and telling herself it’s ‘good enough’ this thing is mutual. 

Azriel isn’t technically losing out on anything by this because he hasn’t tried to make a move or talk to her about it and isn’t ready for the relationship himself? Maybe he could have moved on if she’d given him a concrete no but like...After five hundred years...He could have damn well just decided to move on for himself, like I’m sorry. A man should not need a flat out rejection from a woman (which, you could argue that he’d gotten when she walked away from him when he told her he loved her) to move on with his life, okay. 

He could have made that choice for himself she is not stopping him making that choice and she is not ‘stringing him along’ either, she isn’t hinting that oh maybe some day this might happen, not today but maybe tomorrow, she’s avoiding the subject and she has Cassian buffer them ffs to try and protect her from this. That’s not stringing him along, like, sorry) 

“WheneverAzriel makes his feelings clear, like he did with Eris … It’s stupid, I know.It’s so stupid and cruel that I do this, but … Islept with Helion just to remind Azriel … Gods, I can’t even say it. It soundseven worse saying it.”

“To remind himthat you’re not interested.”

“I should tellhim. I need to tell him. Mother above, after lastnight, I should. But …” She twisted her mass of golden hair over a shoulder.“It’s gone on for so long. So long. I’m petrified to face him—to tell him he’sspent five hundred years pining for someone and something that won’t everexist. The potential fallout … I like things the way they are. Even if I can’t… can’t really be me, I … things are good enough.”

Right, regardless of how you personally view Mor’s sexuality (bi/gay/queer/whatever you wish) the fact of the matter is that, in canon, Feyre states THREE TIMES that Mor did not enjoy sleeping with Helion and that she got no pleasure out of it. She’s described as ‘pale and vacant’ the next day and during the coming out scene Feyre actually thinks of her as looking ‘tortured’ okay, she is not enjoying this. The fact of the matter is, Mor is repeatedly having sex with men...For Az. To keep him at a distance. This is...Like I’m sorry but if you can’t see how fucked up that is (for HER) I don’t know what to say to you. She’s repeatedly putting herself in sexual situations she may or may not want that she does not seem to enjoy...For Azriel. 

She is suffering here, okay. She is closeted, that’s painful, that’s hard in itself but she also has this to deal with. Azriel’s affection has kept her closeted (in part) all these years and she is PETRIFIED of facing him with this?? How can this possibly be purely selfish on her part? How is she the only one getting flack for doing what she needs to do to keep herself safe. 

Especially when it’s hurting her like? ‘Good enough’ it’s just..It’s like Lucien’s situation in the Spring Court. That was ‘good enough’ for him, yes he was being abused  horrendously, no he didn’t have any real agency or power over himself or freedom or love or respect but it wasn’t the abusive shithole he was trapped in all those years so it was ‘good enough’. 

That’s what this good enough is, okay. She cannot be herself. She cannot openly love who she wants to. She has to suffer heartache and grief alone and isolated because she can’t tell anyone how she feels. She is ‘petrified’ of facing Azriel. She is closeted and that hurts. She is also GUILTY AS FUCK. She’s doing all of this, hiding herself, hurting herself, sleeping with people she doesn’t get any pleasure out of, and has been doing this for five  hundred years and she still feels horrifically guilty about this. She’s said in that coming out scene too that she wants to be able to love Azriel the way he deserves but she can’t. She’s tried to change herself and has hidden herself and hurt herself all for this relationship that she doesn’t want, that makes her uncomfortable? 

She likes things the way that they are  because these are the first people who accepted even a part of her. They love her and they respect her and they treat her with dignity and gave her basic fucking needs from a relationship and that is ‘good enough’ for her. Because she grew up with emotionally and physically abusive homophobic parents who accepted no part of her, who treated her like an animal, or worse, and then she found this...She found this love and respect and of course she doesn’t want to change it. Of course she doesn’t want to lose it. Of course she’s terrified of telling them and seeing that same hatred that lived in her parents’ eyes. Even if she knows it’s irrational that doesn’t matter. She’s a terrified queer abuse victim and she is suffering, she cannot be herself, but that’s good enough because what choice does she have, really? 

Mor is a closeted, scared, vulnerable, abuse survivor who is petrified of losing the only safe space that she’s ever had just because of who she is. She is suffering 100 times more from this situation than Azriel or anyone else in the Circle. I will not sit here and call a queer character selfish or a bad friend or any of it for doing what she feels she has to to protect herself. Especially not when most of the things that she’s doing are more damaging for her than they are for anyone else. I love Azriel, I relate to his character a lot, but I’m not going to sit here and prop up this ‘oh no poor boy’ while Mor gets thrown under the bus because she is afraid. 

Her identity is her own and this choice, revealing this part of herself to who she chooses, is one of the only pieces of ultimate agency that she has ever had. I won’t say she was wrong to keep it hidden, keep it safe, if that made her feel okay. Mor’s situation is not ‘good enough’, Mor’s situation is deplorable and painful and I refuse to call her selfish for maintaining something like this because she is absolutely terrified of the alternative. 

Queer people have the right to be in the closet for as long as they need to be in order to feel safe. It is not for anyone else (especially not straight characters a la Feyre) to tell them when they should come out. They are not ‘liars’ for being closeted. They should not feel guilty for being closeted and keeping themselves safe. That’s a disgusting way of looking at things and it’s an incredibly damaging mentality to have. 

‘Out and proud’ is great, okay, but it’s not possible for everyone. A queer person’s safety comes first and if they feel that they need to keep their sexuality hidden in order to do so that is their choice. And it is not up to anyone, especially those who have no way of understanding what this feels like, to judge them or shame them or guilt-trip for that. It’s not selfish to want to protect yourself and not risk ruining the relationships you have with those around you for the sake of telling them something they do not have a right to know unless you choose it. 

Of course. Respect is probably, at least for me, not the right word/phrasing. I think I feel better articulating it as: Mor doesn’t hate Nesta, Mor was threatened by Nesta. 

Mor in this book was SO FANTASTIC! We finally got to see who she really is and I LOVED that! In ACOMAF she was always said to be too chipper and always came off as if she were putting on a front. And in this book, we finally got to see who she is without that front. We got to see Mor.

And Mor was so relatable in this book. 

A lot of things happened to her that slowly stripped away at the front she wore in ACOMAF. And it’s only after this moment of her watching (with her magic I think) Azriel see Elain (post Eris in the Court of Nightmares when he figures out that Elain is a seer), and after Nesta openly ask about Cassian’s wellbeing—that Mor really starts to come apart. And it’s in that moment when her attitude toward Nesta changes. That’s when we first see her threatened by Nesta and what she, Nesta, means to Mor’s way of life. 

Or to put it a different way. Mor realizes then that things are going to change and that the system that had always kept her secret safe, is starting to crumble. And that’s a scary moment.

It’s almost a “loss of innocence” moment, or the beginning of one. And I think we can argue that Mor, on some level, knows that she can safely pick a fight with Nesta and not stand to do any lasting emotional damage to Nesta. Being mean to others to distract from, and hide, deeper emotions is a game Nesta has perfected. I mean she practically invented it. So I think we could argue that while Nesta was always going to be Mor’s target because of the threat she poses to Mor’s relationship with Cassian, Mor also knows that Nesta is the one person she can dish it out to who won’t break. 

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. 

Ahhh, no no please, please don’t feel bad, your ask was incredibly polite (which makes a damn nice change) and I think…there’s been a lot of insinuations of Mor’s selfishness and guilt and what not when it comes to this arc and it’s been Bothering me I think I maybe jumped off of your ask in a way that maybe wasn’t intended/didn’t quite circle back round to talk about how this reflected on things from a writing POV. 

But no I completely agree with it being contradictory. I think…One of Mor’s best loved lines in ACOMAF is where she tells Feyre this: 

“I once lived in a place where the opinion of othersmattered. It suffocated me, nearly broke me. So you’ll understand me, Feyre,when I say that I know what you feel, and I know what they tried to do to you,and that with enough courage, you can say to hell with a reputation.” Her voicegentled, and the tension between them all faded with it. “You do what you love,what you need.”

Which was…an incredibly powerful statement for an abuse survivor to make, especially when it’s directed towards another abuse survivor. It’s empowering, it’s emotional and it sort of summarises who and what Mor was in ACOMAF in a nutshell. She was the survivor. She had recovered and she had moved on and she was still light and strong and warm and loving. And most of all she loved herself. Which is..So important for someone who grew up in that environment, to be able to get out of the pit she was left in and stop hearing the degrading opinions of others because they don’t matter. 

Then we come to ACOWAR and she’s…Her relationship with the Circle is hugely damaged by her being closeted (not just with Az) She clearly doesn’t feel as safe around them and…It just directly goes against doing what she loves and what she needs. She loves other women yet she hides them away and lets those relationships destroy themselves because of the secrecy. She needs to be out and accepted but she can’t have that either because like, Angst. 

Mor’s character was supposed to be the light at the end of the tunnel for Feyre and other abuse survivors. She was proof that you could escape a situation like that and escape the insidious effects that it has as well. You could grow, you could become strong but not hard, not cold, not withdrawn. It was possible to be hurt and manipulated that way but still love and trust other people as well as yourself and I think the greatest damage that ACOWAR did was in taking that away from her. 

Because the character we see in ACOWAR is not allowed to own her body, her sexuality, her life. Her agency gets stripped away repeatedly, her authority and power are removed and undermined repeatedly. The trauma from her abuse is triggered repeatedly and she’s dismissed as being overly sensitive and even selfish repeatedly. She’s mocked for fearing her abuser. She has her safe space, as an abuse survivor, and queer woman taken from her. She’s guilt-tripped into outing herself and that whole mess takes place and she just has to take all of this. She isn’t allowed to really protest. She backs down and she yields over and over and over again and this is just…

From the way Mor’s character was set up to the way she’s being treated down is just a huge let down for everyone who loved her character, everyone who identified with her as a survivor, and the role that she played in the narrative as an inspiration to Feyre (and a hopeful inspiration one day for Feyre’s sisters too but..We all know how that went down)

And it’s frustrating and upsetting because we sacrificed all of that, all of that empowerment and the positive representation of this character…For a plot twist. For some hints at conflict and arguments. For some drama and angst within the story that ultimately went nowhere for any of the characters but Mor. Who is left by the end of this book closeted and afraid to tell her family, still with her safe space being violated by her abuser, miserable and alone without any of her power or agency ever really being returned to her. 

Because I made a little throwaway post a little while back but people still apparently don’t get the Mor is selfless as all hell. So I thought I would compile a long, rambling list of Reasons and Evidence as to why irreverence does not mean disregard and why taking care for and loving yourself does not mean selfishness.  

Right, so, apparently people still think Mor is selfish (w h y?) which I...obviously disagree with. I don’t think that she makes a habit of putting her own needs/wants above others’ (though if she did she would be entirely entitled to, given what she’s been through/the abuse she endured) I just think she stopped letting other people rule her. I think she stopped taking the opinions and wants of other people for her as gospel and acting only on them at the expense of herself and her own wants and agency She does what she loves and she does what she needs but that doesn’t mean she acts selfishly. It just means that what’s important to her and what she wants to do she now does.

But I don’t think she puts her needs above others. There’s a thoughts vs actions distinction here - she refuses to place any more validity or weight to the opinions of others over her own - her feelings and ideas are valid and she has the right to express them and act upon them. She lets herself make the choices that she wants to make. But actually I think the choices that she makes are often very selfless and she puts the people that matter to her above her own well-being and happiness and she actually does this repeatedly.

Variety of ‘Mor being subtly selfless’ examples and analysis to follow. 

“Don’t get me started on what you did to me Under the Mountain.” Rhys went still. As still as I’d ever seen him, as still as the death now beckoning in those eyes. Then his chest began to move, faster and faster. Across the pillars towering behind him, I could have sworn the shadow of great wings spread. He opened his mouth, leaning forward, and then stopped. Instantly, the shadows, the ragged breathing, the intensity were gone, the lazy grin returning. “We have company. We’ll discuss this later.” “No, we won’t.” But quick, light footsteps sounded down the hall, and then she [Mor] appeared.

Right, listen, this scene flat out parallels Rhys’ rescue of Feyre at her wedding and I refuse to see it in any other light. Feyre suffers a panic attack, she flashes back to UtM, she needs help, she needs a way out, Rhys appears and does just that. Same thing happens here. Feyre (inadvertently) triggers a panic attack in Rhys, he flashes back to UtM, he needs help, he needs away out, Mor is there in a heartbeat. That’s as much as a coincidence as Rhys showing up exactly when Feyre needed him: ie it’s literally not a coincidence at all.  

Right, so, for context, this is the first time that Feyre is at the Night Court since...well everything. At this point in time the only people know who about his and Feyre’s history as well as the fact that Rhys and Feyre are mates are Mor and Rhys. This is because the first words out of Rhys’ mouth when he saw Mor again after fifty years were ‘she’s my mate’ and he then proceeded to tell her everything. So for three months the only people who’ve known what Rhys went through and what he’s dealing with due to his bond to Feyre are Mor and Rhys. That means the only person who’s been supporting Rhys through all of this is Mor.

So when it comes to it and Feyre is there and having witnessed the shoe-throwing, less than wonderful reaction Feyre had to Rhys the night before Mor makes sure she’s nearby the next day. She makes sure that she’s around and the second that Rhys gets out of his depth she’s there to balance things and smooth them over. Which she does in spite of Rhys’ grumbling.

“You could be attending your own duties,” he said testily. I clamped my lips tighter together. I’d never seen Rhys … irked. [...] “And as my only remaining relative,” Rhys went on, “Mor believes she is entitled to breeze in and out of my life as she sees fit.” “So grumpy this morning,” Mor said, plopping two muffins onto her plate.

He huffs about it but there’s no doubt that Mor’s appearance was sorely needed and that she calms him down and grounds him. Mor also goes out of her way to welcome Feyre, to make her feel like she fits in at the Court, to be a friend to her, to help her, and to encourage her to give Rhys a chance.  

‘...Mor said, swirling her wine, her shoulders loosening as Azriel at last blinked, and seemed to shake off whatever memory had frozen him.

[...]

“A new bastard in the camp—and an untrained shadowsinger to boot. Not to mention he couldn’t even fly thanks to—” Mor cut in lazily, “Stay on track, Cassian.” Indeed, any warmth had vanished from Azriel’s face. But I quieted my own curiosity as Cassian again shrugged, not even bothering to take note of the silence that seemed to leak from the shadowsinger. Mor saw, though—even if Azriel didn’t bother to acknowledge her concerned stare, the hand that she kept looking at as if she’d touch, but thought better of it.

These both happen at the first dinner at the House of Wind. Once again Mor is monitoring things carefully and she intervenes - casually, lazily, thoughtlessly, as though she doesn’t even care/is barely noticing what she’s doing but she knows exactly what’s going on. She keeps very careful watch over Az throughout the dinner, reacting when he feels better, intervening when Cass started wandering into dangerous waters and showing such overt concern for Az that Feyre noticed it before she knew anything about either of them/their dynamic. And as with what we saw before with Rhys her actions aren’t rewarded with any kind of gratitude from the people she’s looking out for - but she does it anyway. 

Azriel just shook his head. “I’ll go. The Prison sentries know me—what I am.” I wondered if the shadowsinger was usually the first to throw himself into danger. Mor’s fingers stilled on the stem of her wineglass, her eyes narrowing on Amren.

[...]

“Here we go,” Cassian grumbled. Mor gave Azriel a warning glare to tell him not to volunteer this time. The spymaster just gave her an incredulous look in return.

Azriel: *is first to volunteer to go into dangerous situations likely due to his own disregard for his personal safety and the way he prioritises others over himself* Mor: *reproves him for doing this because he does matter. twice.* Fandom: *oh but she’s so selfish, she doesn’t care about Az at all! She doesn’t show any regard for him/love towards him/anything at all until the very end of the book when he gets shot* Me: -_- A N Y W A Y. 

She stared and stared at the Book—as if it were a ghost, as if it were a miracle—and said, “It is the Leshon Hakodesh. The Holy Tongue.” Those quicksilver eyes shifted to Rhysand, and I realized she’d understood, too, why she’d gone. Rhysand said, “I heard a legend that it was written in a tongue of mighty beings who feared the Cauldron’s power and made the Book to combat it. Mighty beings who were here … and then vanished. You are the only one who can uncode it.” It was Mor who warned, “Don’t play those sorts of games, Rhysand.”

Oh look, it’s Mor watching out for Amren’s well-being as well as Rhys and Azriel’s. It’s almost as though....There’s a theme here. Shocking. Even though Amren is one of the most powerful beings in the world Mor still has her back and still looks out for her. It’s almost as though she deeply loves and cares for her little found family and wants to protect them, even from small things. Incredible. 

And just in case anyone was doubting (since this relationship falls under a lot of scrutiny from Mor’s side) she also puts herself out there for Cassian’s sake too :) 

 “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.”

Against the popular fandom belief that Cass still feels guilty about what happened with the Incident and that Mor somehow encourages this/benefits from it in some way I give you this. Actual canon. Because the only response that Mor ever shows to Cassian’s part in her past is gratitude. She is grateful. She is grateful that he was kind and good and gave her a choice. She is grateful that he rescued her from her abusive situation. It’s been five hundred years and she is still grateful to him for risking himself to get her out of there. And she considers him to be worth more than any other male she’s ever met aside from Rhys. 

Mor, on her knees beside Cassian, hurtled for the king with a cry of pure wrath. He sent a punch of power to her. She dodged, a knife angled in her hand, and— Azriel cried out in pain. She froze. Stopped a foot from the throne. Her knife clattered to the floor.

 To be entirely clear about what happens here, okay: the king shreds Cassian’s wings with half thought and Mor, with absolutely no magic, with nothing to defend herself, with no ability to protect herself and with nothing but a single, solitary knife in her hand against a centuries old king strong enough to strip the magic from the two most powerful Illyrian warriors in history, the most powerful High Lord in history, and Feyre who has the power of all seven high lords in her veins at the same time launches herself at the king to punish him for what he’s done to her friend. And the only reason that she stops her attack is not because of the magic he tries to hit her with - but Azriel, because if she’d hurt the king then Azriel would have died but at no point is her own safety a concern or a consideration here. But...Yeah, sure, Mor doesn’t care about Cass that’s...just. yeah. 

Next point: 

But Mor hopped off the bed, opened the door for me, and said, “There are good days and hard days for me—even now. Don’t let the hard days win.”

I’m using this as a kind of catch-all quote for a couple of points. First of all I think a lot of people seem to think Mor is ‘over’ what happened to her? Or there’s certainly a lot of talk about how ‘jfc it was 500 years ago move on’ when it comes to Mor...yet we frequently discuss Cassian, Azriel and Rhys’s childhoods (funny that) Anyway, the point is that Mor is not just magically better/never suffers for her trauma. She still has hard days. She just doesn’t let them win. But that means that all of that aloofness, all of that irreverence, all of that brightness and light and hope is something that she fights for. Constantly. Trauma does not have an expiry date, it doesn’t just up and leave one day, it still affects her, it still hurts her, she just refuses to let it beat her. And that makes her strong af but anyway. 

Second thing I want to talk about is how much Mor opens up for Feyre’s benefit. I’m just using this quote for that because it happens several times throughout the book and we’d be here all day if I quoted them all and they’re well enough known I think that I don’t need them. But Mor rips open old wounds of hers over and over and over again for Feyre. She tells her what happened in grim, explicit detail, she tells her how it affected her, she rips open those wounds again to show Feyre that it is possible to heal from them. It’s possible to endure the dark horrors that she, that they both, have endured and still come out able to love and trust and be bright and warm and friendly and selfless. 

(And aside from Feyre’s storyline and what this does for her this is an incredibly important message for abuse survivors in an audience as well. Because it’s a fairly frequent thing that we see- especially female characters- suffer some form of abuse or hurt (usually at the hands of men) and as a result they become acerbic and cold and withdrawn and mistrustful. I am not in anyway saying that this is a ‘bad’ response to trauma or pain. It happens. It’s real. But in terms of media portrayal seeing something that actively goes against that is I think incredibly important. Because that’s not what has to happen. Mor came out of what she endured and she came out of it soft and warm and selfless and loving and that’s a perfectly valid endpoint of recovery too. Dark days don’t have to lead to more darkness. They can lead to bright, warm sunshine too. and that’s important.) 

This also leads me on to the role Mor plays in the Court of Dreams. I’ve talked before about her position in the Court of Nightmares being empowering (and a perfect counterpoint to the Tamlin/Lucien dynamic when it comes to thinking about her and Rhys and how they respond/react to her being forced to return to the site of her abuse/trauma) And it is. She is given power over her abusers. Her father is reduced to a steward and she is given not only authority over him but she is given his authority. She rules the place that tormented her and that is so incredibly important but it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t affect her, it doesn’t mean that she isn’t performing a selfless act for the sake of her court and it doesn’t mean that it’s easy for her (hint: it’s not) 

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.  [...] “How was your visit to the Court of Nightmares?” She paused, her face going uncharacteristically pale. “Fine. It’s always a delight to see my parents. As you might guess.” [...] “I’m sorry—for all that you endured.” “Thank you,” she said, coming over to watch me. “Visiting them always leaves me raw.”

 All of these are Mor’s direct responses either facing a trip to the CoN (the first quote) or after visiting them (the second). Yes Mor is in a position of power over her abusers. Yes that is, in a sense, empowering and likely helpful in terms of her recovery. But the fact is that she does, and has for centuries, returned to the place that she was abused and tortured and traumatised. It’s like what Feyre does at the end of ACOMAF - returning to the Spring Court with Tamlin for the good of her court. Except Mor has been doing this for hundreds of years, even though it leaves her raw, even though it can still make her panicky and upset. She does it. Which makes her brave and selfless as all hell I will fight you on this point. 

More things: 

 Cassian realized I was in one piece and hurtled for Rhys, who was struggling to rise, mud covering his bare skin, but Mor—Mor saw my face. I went up to her, cold and hollow. “I want you to take me somewhere far away,” I said. “Right now.” I needed to get away—needed to think, to have space and quiet and calm. Mor looked between us, biting her lip. “Please,” I said, and my voice broke on the word. Behind me, Rhys moaned my name again. Mor scanned my face once more, and gripped my hand. We vanished into wind and night.

 [...]

“Still recovering, but fine. Pissed at me, of course, but he can shove it.” I combined Mor’s yellow gold with the red I’d used for the Illyrian wings, and blended until vibrant orange emerged. “Thank you—for not telling him I was here.” A shrug.

Again Mor puts other people’s needs over own. She took Feyre away from Rhys - knowing it would hurt Rhys, knowing it would upset him, knowing that Feyre was forcing her to choose a side but choosing it anyway. Then she dismisses Rhys being angry with her and Feyre’s thanks for what it cost her to help her and keep her location from Rhys (I’m pretty sure Rhys didn’t just politely ask her this once over a cup of tea and then let the matter drop. Not if Mor describes him as being pissed at her) 

Even more evidence: 

It was satisfactory enough to my mate—who at last looked at Mor. She nodded once, but said, “I know my orders.” I wondered what those might be—why I hadn’t been told—but she gripped my hand. [...] Mor kept at my side, constantly monitoring. The last line of defense. If Cassian and Azriel were hurt, I realized, she was to make sure I got out by whatever means. Then return.

Right to make this part even more explicit, because I think the difficulty here of what Mor has to do is possible to be underrated and I want there to be no doubt: before they went to infiltrate Hybern Rhys ordered Mor to leave Cassian and Azriel, two of the people she loves most in the world, behind if they were injured in order to get Feyre to safety. And this is something that Mor agreed to and acknowledged and I have no doubt would have done if the need had arisen. And then, once she had gotten Feyre to safety, she herself would have returned and put herself in an incredible amount of danger to get them back. 

This is like....the dictionary definition of selflessness idk what to tell you any more okay. 

Is this enough? Do I need to say more? Or can we just, like re-read ACOMAF and remind ourselves what an incredible specimen of pure selfless goodness Morrigan is? 

Yeah. Heteronormativity played a big part in how people read Mor’s actions in ACOMAF. I wrote a few posts on why I thought Mor might be gay back in February, and that was one of the arguments I made, and that people who thought she was gay made. 

I loved Mor is this book so much. We finally got to see the woman hiding behind the chipper attitude. We also got to see her as her way of life, the means by which she’s kept herself hidden and safe, was coming apart. It just really brought her to the forefront so much more. 

And my thoughts on Mor’s sexuality are conflicted. I totally see how based on exactly what she said, that she is bi homoromantic. BUT. I think when I look at her behavior in that scene, and apply what I know about what it’s like to confess the truth about a lie we’ve told….that it’s human nature to confess the lie, then go back on it to protect ourselves a bit, then confess more, and then go back on it. It’s rarely ever a clear cut and dry confession. So part of me wonders if Maas intended that to come into play in this scene. And Maas is known for paying attention those kinds of details, so I’m on the fence.

I would like to see how Mor articulates that part of her. I’d like to see how she labels herself.