Wait, rhys can forgive nesta because "illyrian at heart". I did some logic:
Rhys forgive Elain = Elain has no illyrian heart
Rhys couldnt forgive Nesta = Nesta has illyrian heart.
Rhys dislike illyrian = Rhys dislike Nesta = Rhus couldn't forgive Nesta = Nesta has illyrian Heart
He dislike illyrian when he, himself half illyrian? Not surprising but it make me thing Rhys is a High-Fae-boo (idk inspiration from try hard people wanting to be korea = koreaboo)
P/s: Please, any mathematics major, let me know if my logic is wrong
In a way yes, they all are because despite how cool and exotic sjm wants us to see the bat bitches being ⚔️ ILLYRIAN ✨ as, those benefits are exclusive to TheGoodOnes™
They get to be deadly warriors and have special clothes and sooo many siphons and huge dicks wings and they get to be ambiguously poc for white women to feel spicyyyy about
But only them and only those superficial things.
Despite being characterised by their less fortunate years, Rhys became HL at 30 and brought up Cassian and Azriel to be his overpaid helpers immediately.
That means (Amarantha years excluded) they have been the richest and most powerful people in their court for more than 400 of the 500 they have been alive
The reality of being "lesser Fae" or lower class/ bastards/ poor/ being part of a culture that glorifies war and harms it's ppl, has not really played as big a part in their lives as what sjm insists
They don't live in it, they don't deal with it, in fact, they benefit from it
They are free to not just feel their internalised racism, but allowed to physically, emotionally and mentally set themselves apart. Above.
And they spread it to their non-illyrian "family"
These men and the women they teach to mistrust and fear and hate Illyrians are the government, they have and will continue to have influence over the lives of the Illyrian ppl as a whole for CENTURIES if not FOREVER
Feyre, the High Lady, is taught to think of those people (almost third of the population, a racial minority and the poorest + most underprivileged people in the whole court) as savage brutes when the only Illyrians she personally knows are Rhysand, Cassian and Azriel themselves. She should at least love some Illyrians and their culture since appropriating it was such a big part of her healing and growth
But instead of frustration and sorrow spurring her into action to help raise Illyrian women from their oppression/ helping set up a more standardised living conditions for non-nobles/ even meeting the nobles to learn their culture and begin to find some way forward - she sighs, curses them as proud savage brutes and carries on flying around velaris in her culture vulture wings
I don't think sjm was really going for anything other than a vague "Nesta is nasty and tough, she'll be fine, I just don't like her" when she made Rhys say that but god does it reek
I don't think Nesta should be celebrated as Illyrian, even in a "good" way. She's not Illyrian. Her very nature is ominous to their culture and we should respect that. (I love Nesta but at the end of the day she is an extremely powerful high Fae who is sister to the HL, and a white woman, she won't die just because they call her a witch)
Part of this is why I wanted Cassian (who despite his problematic attitude and position, is the closest culturally to Illyria) to end up with an Illyrian woman. Centring a brown Illyrian woman as a love interest would be the closest this garbage series would ever get to acknowledging those women as important people and not just plot devices.
So, really the statement "Nesta is Illyrian at heart" or whatever he said, is like everything else surrounding the Illyrians: lazy and not well thought through, and just racist.
