hey! Aelin stan here, I just wanted to say that i've seen your anti Aelin posts and you make really good points! You're completely correct in pointing out that Aelin should in no way have all the "life experience" SJM throws at her or be able to play the queen card all the time. In my opinion, the root issue is bad writing and SJM's apparent inability to write MCs who aren't some glorified, deified "perfect" being who checks all the boxes ever imagined.
I honestly wish that we saw more of Aelin making her mistakes and having to deal with the consequences. Like yeah, we sort of do, but not in any real way, and I think that's one of the things we as readers in general but also as Aelin stans tend to gloss over. She was rash and impetuous and never seemed to suffer the consequences, and everyone around her backed her up even when they "were mad that she didn't tell anyone her plans." Again, i think a decent part of this is bad writing and a too-heavy relance on the fantasy as opposed to making characters believable, but Aelin was the main main character, she deserved more than being exalted to god status.
thank you for being a voice of critique :) feel free to respond however you think this giant rambling braindump deserves :)
Hi Aelin Stan! I hope youâre doing awesome.
First of all Iâm so sorry for taking centuries in replying to this đ Thank you very much for taking the time to drop by and leave your question.
Thank you so much for reading my posts! I wouldnât consider myself fully anti-Aelin, but I include the tag so people can navigate through the content easier and well, because that post, as you remember, wasnât precisely hyping her up hahah đ
. I do, however, see she has lots of positive traits to her and actually like her, she has a special place in my reader heart.
I agree with you completely! It was most likely because lots of things were going on throughout the series. First, it heavily relied on fantasy, as you say (which is not bad and itâs part of why I loved it) but soon SJM was tasked with
-Generating lore for this fantasy world
-Explain fantastic elements as more characters were added (For example: Introduce Manon= Explain the whole dynamics about witches. Introduce Rowan= Explain the whole dynamics about fae and demi-fae)
- Weaving the characters and making them interact so we had a story
-Developing each characterâs arc
- Bringing the story forward making it make sense
-Write romance for all these characters ending with more than 6 pairings
SO IT WAS A LOT GOING ON! And I do admire as a reader the amount of work this represented and how she brought it forward. in the end, the series counts with 8 books and it still left us wanting for more!
At the same time, maybe this was the reason there wasnât enough space for development, introspection, accountability for Aelin. There simply was no space for this to happen! If Aelin suffered the consequences, as you very smartly mention, it would have required to edit the text and narrow certain elements to have space, or add 2 more books to the series and make it 10 (which Iâm personally not opposed to hahah, but we know how editorial publications work and itâs already hard as it is to publish 8 books in a row!)
Perhaps the work got so big no amount of words did it justice. Maybe we wouldnât have gotten Elide or Aedion. Who knows how it wouldâve gone.
Many readers mention in their critiques of TOG the space management (aka: reading and editing to cut out irrelevant parts and make reading more efficient and straightforward) What I can say about it is: I agree, however, SJM is the writer. We must respect as readers that maybe these parts in her mind were specifically relevant to her and helped her build this big fantasy world in her head. Many parts could be left out to make it âneaterâ but itâs easy to critique when youâre not the one whoâs writing.
Throughout the 8 books, I felt SJMâs necessity to transmit. She wanted to take us into the narrative, clarify all of the readerâs questions and she did a commendable job in doing so. However, she did drown in words in some parts. Sometimes you were reading and the narrator was talking and talking and you couldnât help but think: ???? Why is this relevant? Hahaha
Maybe these parts could be used for the character development we were seeking at the expense of cutting out certain details from the books.
Well, you have no idea how much I love engaging in these types of conversation so I really have to thank you đĽšâ¤ď¸ I send you a hug wherever you are and youâre not rambling! It makes so much sense! I can see youâre an avid reader đ
Lots of love and if you ever want to discuss books again Iâm here! Promise to take much less in replying.
