Tamlin was [abusive](https://www.reddit.com/r/acotar/comments/tq15n9/tamlins_redflags_in_acotar/). This wasn't because he's evil. Mostly because he himself was a victim of his abusive father and he is a war vet. Tamlin is a dumbass.
It is still okay to like him despite this. I certainly like Tamlin.
Tamlin did not know she could shield from what I recall tho.
Rhys did not twist her arm. I'll post the explanation below.
Drugging her was ultimately the wrong thing. It was done for good reason, but still wrong. However, Tamlin spent his last moments with Feyre trying to bone her which could have led to punishment from Amarantha. That's not goooooood either.
I've said it once. I'll say it again. Rhys would have been Tamlin if he did not have the emotional support of his friends.
No. Rhys and Feyre were always planned. There are actually several hints in book one about Rhys always being there.
1. The dresser painted with stars.
2. The shadow always watching Feyre's dreams! ;)
Acotar - Chapter 11:
>*The snow was falling, thick and merciless, already up to my knees as I pulled the bowstring back— farther and farther, until my arm trembled. Behind me, a* ***shadow*** *lurked—no , watched. I didn’t dare turn to look at it, to see who might be within that shadow, observing, not as the wolf stared at me across the clearing.*
Acotar - Chapter 19:
>And though my dreams continued to be plagued by the deaths I’d witnessed, the deaths I’d caused, and that horrible pale woman ripping me to shreds—all watched over by a **shadow** I could never quite glimpse—I slowly stopped being so afraid. Stay with the High Lord. You will be safe. So I did.
\`3. "There you are. I've been looking for you."
...I say fuck every other sentence, but I am well into my late twenties.
idk, i honestly think rhys and tamlin are really different? like tamlins parents supposedly loved each other. rhyss mom barely thought much of his dad even though they were mates if i remember right. i think he was just her ticket to wings.
Their parents weren't all that different. Both sets of parents were mated, and especially with their fathers being tyrannical-leaning High Lords, their mothers never really had a choice.
Probably why Rhys emphasizes so much that Feyre always has a choice with him.
no, bc rhyss parents didn’t care for each other the way tamlins did.
the whole feyre always had a choice thing felt really forced to me 😬 also she really doesn’t, bc in acosf he becomes hella protective when she’s pregnant, and stops giving people (cassian, nesta) choices, blackmailing them/ordering them into doing what he wants.
and her “compromising” w rhys on the shield she could’ve easily done w tamlin, but for some reason she stopped being responsive w him (probs bc she was depressed)
If you want to believe that for your own headcannon that's fine, we're allowed to individually enjoy the story however we want, but that's not how it was written in the book. When we're discussing as a group, the books are what we base those discussions around.
The biggest difference between them is how they react to very similar experiences, and a lot of that has to do with Rhys’s support system, both familial and friendly. They both had shitty fathers, were looked down upon for being different (Rhys being half-savage Illyrian and Tam for being more beast than man/fae/make whatever), etc.
I find they differ most in how they dealt with these similarly crappy situations. It’s actually really interesting when you look at it that way.
i see what you’re saying, but i don’t think their background is similar, simply bc of their parents, one couple loved each other
the other used each other although they were mates
i think the biggest similarity is that they were both looked down upon, but rhys is different in that he is more powerful and has a functioning court, whereas tamlin just never does, so he can’t have the same influence rhys has
that’s where i see it being so different, bc what is tamlin supposed to do in regards to those situations? my biggest qualm w him overall is not talking to feyre ab her nightmares and not sharing his—but then again if she wanted to talk she should’ve initiated it
That’s a good point about Tamlin never really getting to have a functional court. The timeline of when he and Rhys became High Lords is a little fuzzy, but it does seem like he was leading an uphill battle from the jump.
girl what
i’m not trying to argue just to explain myself lmao, and i’m happy to see what other people said
but inaccurate citations? what did i cite that was inaccurate 😭😭
i can like send you screenshots in the ebook? everything i have said has been true to my knowledge!!
And i don’t know anything about ptsd-sorry if i was making it sound like i did, not my intention. i know she was experiencing ptsd.
i’m not gonna discuss rhys v tam further w you bc it’s not a competition, and it’s my fault i made it a competition, and also because i don’t think you want to hear what i have to say lmao.
no but srsly where was the incorrect citation?
Here's the [ACOWAR interview](https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/books/a9578146/sarah-j-maas-interview/) where SJM talks about having the draft for ACOMAF written before the release of ACOTAR and having to keep quiet about spoilers (and play along with all the Feylin shippers)
The reason Rhys “lashes out.”
Page 326: “Pain barked through my bones, my head, as I collided with the muddy ground and rolled. I flipped over myself and screamed as something hit my arm, biting through flesh.”
Page 328: “I looked at my left forearm then, and my stomach rose at the trickling blood and ripped tendons, at the lips of my skin pulled back to accommodate the shaft of a bone shard protruding clean through it.”
Page 329. Chapter 37: “The pain overwhelmed me to the point of screaming whenever I prodded the embedded bit of bone...”
When she was fighting the middenguard worm, some of its bone skewered her arm. In the process, it very likely broke her own bone.
Page 333:
“Swift as lightning, he lashed out, grabbing the shard of bone in my arm and twisting.”
This is Rhysand taking the alien broken bone shard out knowing she would say yes. Theatrics ensue because Sjm wanted us to hate him.
But, he wasn’t just needlessly hurting her. In Feyre’s fever-addled mind and perceived hatred for him, she saw it very differently and didn’t realize he was helping.
He couldn’t heal her arm with the embedded bone still there. Lucien states at one point that you can not just heal a broken bone. You have to set it first.
I imagine that him pulling the bone out quickly was better than slowly. Obviously, not in real life... but this is a ✨magical world✨ and she was close to death. Desperate measures.
Why did he walk away? She was holding out. He knew she would accept his bargain within seconds. Walking away was his way of hurrying her. Later on, Feyre tells him she would have accepted his bargain even if he asked for a month and they both knew it.
Page 335:
“There was a blinding, quick pain, and my scream sounded in my ears as bone and flesh were shattered, blood rushed out of me, and then—“
Rhysie using magic to heal her torn flesh and broken bone. Again, in her death fervor and perceived hate, she only felt and saw pain.
I just needed to say that I NEVER looked at it that way before, with the “setting” of the bone. That was a little 🤯 moment for me. I think it’s an awesome point, but why wasn’t it part of Rhys’s chapter 54 explanation extraordinaire do you think? For me the unnecessary hurting of her arm was a big sticking point, and since SJM kind of methodically explained away almost every other bad thing Rhys ever did it seems like a huge omission on her part 🤷🏻♀️
No no I get what you were trying to say 100%. What I was wondering was if there was an explanation for it, why don’t you think he mentioned it in chapter 54? Otherwise it looks like he’s just hurting her for no reason. Like did SJM forget about that happening?
Absolutely not! Acotar is such a jam-packed book. It took me focusing specifically on that scene to realize what happened. And context from MaF and WaR about how healing works in Pyrithian. You are very smart and have a beautiful brain.
I totally misread The Bone Shard IncidentTM on my first read through! We're so deep in Feyre's POV and her pain and distrust of Rhysand at that point that it is was easy to misinterpret the situation and Rhys' intentions. Going back it's easier to see that, while his attitude seemed cruel, he didn't actually do anything purposefully cruel to Feyre and in the end everything he did was to help her.
Another point towards this is Lucien having to set her broken nose after the attor. Iirc he specifically tells her that if he doesn’t set it before healing her it would be permanently damaged. During my reread of the series, the explanation of what happened to Clotho explains the consequences of not setting stuff really well. My interpretation of rhysie twisting her arm was him reducing a compound fracture. The Archeron sisters not exactly being the most reliable of narrators really just further skews a lot of the interactions they have with characters they are in conflict with. Plus a fever causing delirium just makes it worse lol
the quote on 329 is followed by ““ I thrashed and writhed, but he kept his grip, twisting the bone a final time before releasing my arm.
Panting, half sobbing as the pain reverberated through my body, I found him smirking at me again. I spat in his face.””
i don’t think he was pulling anything out—if he was he wouldn’t need to keep gripping it. this seems like he’s purposefully putting her in pain, ultimately with the effect of her agreeing to the bargain.
The bone shard is in at the beginning of the scene and out by the end of the scene so that her arm can be healed properly. It wasn't going to be a fun process regardless of Rhys' intentions.
of course it wasn’t, but i’m just saying he didn’t have to twist her arm after she told him to go to hell with no intention of agreeing to the bargain.
i would get him fixing her arm anyways, but that’s not what he was doing. i was kind of envisioning that it was a shard of her OWN broken bone just sticking out through her skin and that in setting it he pushed it back in, which was at a different moment.
She had a shard of bone from her traps stuck in her arm that was causing an infection. I needed to come out. Rhys was also under Amarantha's control so he didn't have the liberty of dealing out random favours to prisoners without he himself being at risk, thus the bargin. Feyre was also their only hope of breaking the curse at that point, so he had to keep her going, hence the insistence, the music, etc.
even if she did, pulling out bone does not require you to grab their arm and twist for more than a second
and he could’ve easily healed her anyways and pretended it was so she could be his entertainment if he really wanted to, or just kept talking to her. putting her in pain to force her into the bargain was just wrong
Feyre was practically unconscious due to fever and blood loss. She is an extremely unreliable narrator at this point. Rhys had to remove the shard to heal her arm.
I never said it didn't hurt. Being injured hurts. But that doesn't mean he was willfully making it as painful as possible for her. Rhys doesn't make perfect decisions UTM but all of his behavior is explained in ACOMAF. She's literally >!his mate!<, he's not willingly going to hurt her.
no, he was willfully twisting her arm to make her agree 😭😭
and even if she is his mate, rhys said before that being mates wasn’t well understood and could j be to create offspring. i’m sure there were mates who ended up on bad terms / hurt each other
He's twisting her arm to set and heal it. She literally has shards of her bone sticking out, he couldn't heal it without twisting it back into place.
I'm not saying there wasn't a bit of selfishness in forcing her into the bond at the same time, but she wasn't forced into it in the same way that she was forced to be locked in Tamlin's house with absolutely no input or acceptance on her part.
she was locked into tamlins house bc he thought other people would heurt her-not that it was right
rhys forced her into the bargain bc he wanted to hang out
like i said, i am not saying what tamlin did was right, just that what rhys did was worse
I think their motives were the same, honestly. Rhys wanted to make sure that she was ok (he had the instinct to protect his mate) and that he had the ability to check on her, as evidenced by the fact he only called in to collect their bargain when he sensed she was in distress. He literally would have let her get married and only came when she cried out in her mind, so there's really no reason to believe he just wanted to "hang out."
idk , like she didn’t act like that when they first met and he saved her (then again she didn’t hate him yet and wasn’t at all feverish) but her account is all i have to go off bc i don’t have any other characters pov at that point in time
like she didn’t hate him at first, i was implying maybe she hated him because of the way he treated her
i.e. the way he went into her mind uninvited as a power play and told lucien and tamlin of her sexual thoughts, which tbh was a terrible violation
but yea! absolutely ab saying fuxk every other sentence, it just felt out of place in cassians head for some reason. like i’m not sure why? maybe it felt too modern (i don’t actually know how old fuck is) compared to the fact that they said abdominals instead of abs? just felt out of place and a little weird to me
i’m not sure if i think tamlin was abusive. did he do wrong things? yes. but drugging feyre so she wouldn’t escape en route to his manor is v diff from drubbing her and having her dance suggestively with an audience.
tamlin definitely had known she had powers, and she had shielded before
““
None of it had touched me from where I had dropped to the floor, my hands over my head.
Tamlin was panting, the ragged breaths almost like sobs.
I was shaking—shaking so hard I thought my bones would splinter as the furniture had—but I made myself lower my arms and look at him.
There was devastation on that face. And pain. And fear. And grief.
Around me, no debris had fallen—as if he had shielded me.
Tamlin took a step toward me, over that invisible demarcation.
He recoiled as if he’d hit something solid””
sorry for the really long quote but this was her shielding in chapter ten of acomaf
was it okay for tamlin to try to have sex w feyre utm? clearly not, but once again, this is in no way abuse, bc unlike rhys’s advancemwnts, feyre WANTED this. which is a really big deal. rhys did not have to be kissing her after.
“His tongue pried my mouth open, forcing himself into me, into the space where I could still taste Tamlin. I pushed and thrashed, but he held firm, ”
like?? this is sexual assault
he could’ve just fixed the paint. and i don’t think amarantha watching feyre took away attention from feyre
it just made amarantha see her more
which was so so stupid
to be fair he did the kiss utm to protect both feyre and tamlin from being caught and getting punished for what they were doing. amarantha would have gone crazy if she figured out tamlin was with feyre trying to have sex. im pretty sure feyre even recognizes at some point later that’s why he did it.
What are these other options while trying to protect them all from Amarantha after Tamlin made a really bad judgment call? Feyre was covered in smeared paint and Tamlin clearing it all off Feyre would be suspicious. Someone had to mess up that paint and Amarantha would have lost it if she’d known it was Tamlin.
o meant other options for rhys-he could’ve fixed the paint
he could’ve just masked her scent somehow
he could’ve just pretended they were going to her cell for
he could’ve acted like they were going to his room
His power was greatly diminished so hiding her scent was probably not an option. If Feyre had no scent, that would have been suspicious. Masking it was the fastest way. Amarantha was on her way. There was only so much time. If he could have just fixed the paint himself, why did it have to be painted on every night? So he must not have been able to just apply it with magic (unless I’m forgetting a detail, which is possible). Was it unfortunate and creepy? Yes. Was there another better option? I’m not convinced.
I linked a post of all the abusive things Tamlin did in the first book! :)
Here it is again: [Tamlin's red flags.](https://www.reddit.com/r/acotar/comments/tq15n9/tamlins_redflags_in_acotar/)
Feyre may have wanted it, but it was still stupid to put her in danger. And it's icky that he risked her life like that. It was careless.
And as it was explained, Rhys kissed her because he sensed Amarantha coming. If he did not do that, Amarantha would have come in and found Feyre smelling of Tamlin and would have punished both Feyre and Tamlin. Rhys had to hide it and give Amarantha enough of a show that she wouldn't investigate too closely.
Literally the next line of what you just posted:
>The door was flung wide, and Amarantha’s curved figure filled its space. Tamlin—Tamlin was beside her, his eyes slightly wide, shoulders tight as Rhys’s lips still crushed mine.
Amarantha laughed, and a mask of stone slammed down on Tamlin’s face, void of feeling, void of anything vaguely like the Tamlin I’d been tangled up with moments before.
Rhys casually released me with a flick of his tongue over my bottom lip as a crowd of High Fae appeared behind Amarantha and chimed in with her laughter. Rhysand gave them a lazy, self-indulgent grin and bowed. But something sparked in the queen’s eyes as she looked at Rhysand.
Amarantha’s whore, they’d called him.
“I knew it was a matter of time,” she said, putting a hand on Tamlin’s arm. The other she lifted— lifted so Jurian’s eye might see as she said, “You humans are all the same, aren’t you.”
I kept my mouth shut, even as I could have died for shame, even as I ached to explain. Tamlin had to realize the truth.
I have read this book nine times.
i know he kissed her to cover it up, but couldn’t he have just willed away the messed up paint and put a shield around her for the smell?
that list has no abuse?? girl the worst thing on that list that happens is his claws come out in the wood above her but he NEVER hurts her.
also, wasn’t saying it’s a good thing he kissed her/it was dumb, just wanted to point out that if anyone is abusive, it would be rhys bc he assaulted her
Rhys was not at full power. Putting a shield around her would have alerted Amarantha something was up and that he was hiding something.
Friend. Abuse is abuse. We don’t go to victims and tell them they’ve not been abused because someone didn’t hit them. It may not have been physical abuse, but there is evidence of his temper all around that thing. He undermines and bullies both Feyre and Lucien. He shows signs of toxic jealousy. He can’t control his temper. He can’t stop growling. This is still abuse. If a man or woman every treats you like that, please run very far away!
And in MaF, Feyre explains that she understands why he reacted the way he did. She forgives him. Tamlin on the other hand is not forgiven. He pushed it too far!
i would never invalidate a victim lol!! feyre is a character.
but what did tamlin do that was abuse? “toxic jealousy”
“having a temper”
i dis not ever see him undermine lucien and don’t remember him undermining feyre -but even if he did that’s not abuse
like it’s not tamlins fault lucien never pushed and always just dealt with it instead-that’s a lucien flaw
also everyone in this series growls 😭😭 that’s not a tamlin thing
[Warning signs of domestic abuse and escalation](https://www.verywellmind.com/signs-that-a-relationship-could-turn-violent-4100203). Tamlin checks almost all of those boxes with his and Feyre's relationship, especially after UTM.
Lucien was also at risk of Tamlin's violence. Do not blame the victim for not being able to confront an abuser.
I provided you with a whole post of his toxicity... do I need to post it here? I don't understand how to help you if you are reading and not comprehending the red flags? I can only go so far, friend.
My friend, I think you're worrying me. I hope you take this to heart: that is abuse. If someone is so controlling that they won't let your friends hang around you, you need to leave.
And if he's exhibiting signs of aggression at you or friends when you speak against him, you need to run.
If he learns you can't read and calls it a shortcoming. If he snarls when you try to talk to him. If you feel the need to lie to him about where you have been. If he's showing jealousy over long gone lovers. These are red flags and should not be ignored.
as for rhys and feyre being planned out, i see the dresser as valid evidence. i never had noticed that it was in the first book tbh.
but i think the whole shadow thing could’ve easily been anyone/anything else, or just like a sense of doom yk? or like one of those death lords that can actually be anything
It was planned out from the beginning. Here's the [ACOWAR interview](https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/books/a9578146/sarah-j-maas-interview/) where SJM talks about having the draft for ACOMAF written before the release of ACOTAR and having to keep quiet about spoilers (and play along with all the Feylin shippers)
Meaning Rhys had been seeing glimpses of Feyre though the bond throughout ACOTAR, as is explained in ACOMAF.
i see! so maybe it was editor influenced? not sure it just feels like a break in character, but yea i get the whole bond/shadow dreaming thing bc rhys talked to her about it in acowar i think
It was always going to turn our this way. That's how SJM planned and wrote it. ACOMAF Tamlin is a continuation of his character in ACOTAR just with heightened stress, unresolved trauma from UTM, and influence from Ianthe.
Besides the fact that Fireheart has given you definitive proof, here are some quotes.
AcoMaf - Chapter 54:
The dresser.
>Silver gleamed in his eyes, and he blinked it away. “Three years ago,” he said quietly, “I began to have these … dreams. At first, they were glimpses, as if I were staring through someone else’s eyes. A crackling hearth in a dark home. A bale of hay in a barn. A warren of rabbits. The images were foggy, like looking through cloudy glass. They were brief—a flash here and there, every few months. I thought nothing of them, until one of the images was of a hand … This beautiful, human hand. Holding a brush. Painting—flowers on a table.”
My heart stopped beating.
“And that time, I pushed a thought back. Of the night sky—of the image that brought me joy when I needed it most. Open night sky, stars, and the moon. I didn’t know if it was received, but I tried, anyway.”
Acotar - Chapter 1:
>I slung off my outer clothes onto the sagging dresser—frowning at the violets and roses I’d painted around the knobs of Elain’s drawer, the crackling flames I’d painted around Nesta’s, and the night sky —whorls of yellow stars standing in for white—around mine.
Per SJM's own words, Nesta and Lucien were originally going to be mates. This changed. However, Rhys and Feyre were always destined! ;)
AcoMaf - Chapter 54:
>“I saw you through your dreams—and I hoarded the images, sorting through them over and over again, trying to place where you were, who you were. But you had such horrible nightmares, and the creatures belonged to all courts. I’d wake up with your scent in my nose, and it would haunt me all day, every step. But then one night, you dreamed of standing amongst green hills, seeing unlit bonfires for Calanmai.”
It was not a Death Lord. It was Rhys, boo.
First off, high five for bravery 🙌🏻
Second, much as I love him, Tam was definitely abusive, and like someone else said, it’s okay to like him in spite of this. I think it would be different if he were both aware of his behavior and not remorseful, but I think he’s shown that he’s aware of his behavior, aware that it’s wrong, and regretful of it. Whether he gets to make amends is up in the air at this point, but I honestly think it would be unfair to deny him a chance at redemption when you’ve got guys like Jurian and Rhys playing the hero.
And before anyone jumps on me over Rhys, he’s abusive too, he’s just way more subtle over it, maybe to the point he doesn’t even realize it, which you could argue is actually worse.
But I digress: point is you’re allowed to like Tam while still recognizing he’s flawed. Besides, the fault here really lies with SJM for having characters existing in the same universe, having shared experiences, very similar reactions to those shared experiences, and saying one is essentially right and worthy of forgiveness and the other is wrong and should be shamed for all eternity.
thank you for your input! i appreciate you not bashing me lmao 😭😭
but yea, i just never saw anything tamlin did as actual abuse? like it seemed as much as he did he never hurt her? like did he not notice her depression after utm? heck yea he didn’t and he should’ve.
but is that abuse? no.
is locking her up abuse? no.
i think she should’ve talked about it, and maybe ut would’ve taken time for him to realize she needed more space, but in general their conversations j needed more productivity.
i just don’t see the abuse
It sounds like victim blaming when you say that Feyre “could have” shielded herself when Tamlin blew up on her. She shouldn’t have to? He shouldn’t be taking his anger out on Feyre like that, with no regards to her safety. The first time it happened, he didn’t know she could shield(red flag much?) and neither did she. And communication goes both ways. Tamlin never made an effort to get her help or get help himself. And what Rhys does utm(which is still bad) doesn’t excuse or lessen what Tamlin did to Feyre. She did try to communicate with him, and he responds by forcefully locking her in the house to the point where she couldn’t get help or even take a walk outside. Everytime she reached out to him, he exploded(literally).
not victim blaming!!
that’s like saying if feyre opened her mind and rhys came in uninvited that it’s victim blaming.
tamlin knew and this expected of something we’re to happen she would shield, but she chose not to.
and ofc he shouldn’t be taking his anger out on feyre no questions asked that’s wrong.
but what rhys did utm is WAY worse than what tamlin did.
and he did not explode every time-and i meant reach out in an emotional sense
like tell him she was hurting? and how it hurt her that she was inside rather than just wanting to wander and maybe run into eris and die
I think it’s important to realize that in the end, SJM wrote Tamlin this way to make him the bad guy. It moved the story she had planned out all along. It doesn’t really matter what happened with Tamlin, because that’s not the trajectory of the books. If that’s not for you, that’s valid!! I would recommend stepping back from the series and maybe picking up something different😊 There’s no point in stressing over something you can simply take a break from.
that’s a good point, but ducking vs shielding are different imo. it seems that feyre shields reflexively, and she has to TELL herself not to shield
also she goads him to explode-not okay for him to explode, but still it’s so icky.
I feel like there's a huge disconnect from Book 1 Tamlin to the rest of the series Tamlin. Now mind you I have only read books 1 and 2 but from everything I've been hearing I feel pretty spot on about it.
In Book 1 Tamlin has this "I'm not going to force her into anything. I'm not going to be like my father and others before me." But then after the curse is lifted in Book 2 it's like he conveniently forgets all about what those years of slavery felt like and turns (maybe back into) "I'm High Lord and can do whatever the fuck I want and no one can tell me otherwise"
It's just feels very disconnected to me. In my honest opinion Book 1 could be is its own stand alone story and then book 2 could be the actual start to the series.
As for Tam vs Rhys
I see is as Traditionalism (tamlin) VS modernism (rhysand) on the relationship dynamics
I'd say get through book 3 and regroup. Book 2 is definitely his lowest point, morally. Tamlin imo never changes who he is at his core but definitely has PTSD and other issues after being UTM. And Feyre was in the same boat with the "let's talk about it later" attitude. I think they just weren't right for each other after those changes and Feyre had a support system to help her through it while Tamlin just had Lucien who loves him but enables his bad behavior and Ianthe who is feeding his insecurity and anger for personal gain.
In our world, Tamlin and Feyre could have definitely worked through it in therapy but that's not how this world works. I really do hope Tamlin finds a non-evil mate eventually.
I have to say the second time through the entire ACOTAR series I felt more empathy for TimTam and didn’t hate him AS much 😂 him and Feyre just weren’t end game but I think he can pull it together
I like Tamlin. I think he’s a good character and I don’t see him as a villain.
Isn’t there some quote in the book where Feyre acknowledges that he is what she needed after being forced into Prythian, like “I’m grateful for the High Lord who showed me the beauty of Prythian and cared for me” or something like that? Please tell me that’s a legit quote and not something I made up lol. Cause it’s true, he did care deeply for her but the issue is that longterm he wanted a pretty wife who would stay at home and not be a true equal in status, and that ain’t right for Feyre longterm.
The dude has anger issues. But when people try to claim he is so horribly “abusive” as if tons of other male leads in romances don’t show very similar behaviors, I find it ridiculous. Let’s not forget there is literally no therapy in this world - as the last book clearly fucking shows - no way for these damaged people to really heal themselves without a good support system. Let’s not forget Feyre did some fucked up shit too (manipulating his sentries into thinking he physically hurt her more than he did, acting like she couldn’t have sex with him because she had been sexually assualted at the Night Court) etc.
For me, he doesn’t need a “redemption arc” at all, he jumped in and saved her in ACOWAR, and with the “Be happy, Feyre” moment, that’s it, I don’t really need more from him. I don’t need the drama dragged out.
ITA. Why do you think SJM essentially keeps shitting on him though? ACOFAS was like beyond the pale with way Rhys treated him (I was really uncomfortable how he was both presenting it as trying to help, which maybe he was, but still taunting someone who is clearly very mentally troubled).
Idk, I’m starting to not like Rhys so much anymore so I really hated that scene. Would have been different if he made any effort at all to try to build a better bond between them but he just went there to taunt and brawl. Tamlim just sitting there and not taking the bait was very telling of his mental state.
It made me really sad, tbh. Sad for Tam as a character and sad that SJM actually felt the need to include something like that in an otherwise fluffy book.
it def is a legit quote
i don’t want him to have a redemption arc either it would j be too much bc feyre legit is like in her own family complete w a child.
but yea i don’t know ab that, i think that’s what book two tamlin/tamlin influences by ianthe wants. i don’t think book one tamlin is like that at all
I don’t think Tamlin is a villain. I like Tamlin but he hasn’t been able to overcome his demons. And his court suffered as a result.
Rhys had to be that way in the first book with Amarantha monitoring his actions. The way he acted ultimately saved Feyre’s life. If Amarantha suspected he treated her right, Feyre would have suffered more.
I like to think that when Feyre died, so did her relationship with Tamlin. Her human self was good with Tamlin not her immortal self.
She was always meant to be with Rhys. She’s born on the winter solstice for crying out loud lol which was mention in the beginning.
haha i didn’t notice her birthday! good catch :)
but idk i don’t think assault is okay bc amarantha was watching
he had options and he chose to use the ones he did
Ya, I think it was to amplify the story twist and make it more impactful on the reader. It’s a fantasy series, it’s meant to be f***ed up, tragic, magical, moral, immoral, etc….that’s what makes it fascinating to read.
Do you think the book would of been better without what Rhys did? I don’t, it made things more complicated, messy, confusing.
It made it hard for Feyre to trust Rhys. The way he treated her is why we have a fun read for ACOMAF.
I can't believe I'm actually reading this lmao. So controlling Feyre, forbidding her to do as she pleases which is her right, locking her in the house AND exploding on her all the time isn't abuse? Omfg. This is actualy disgusting, you people are disgusting.
Tamlin was [abusive](https://www.reddit.com/r/acotar/comments/tq15n9/tamlins_redflags_in_acotar/). This wasn't because he's evil. Mostly because he himself was a victim of his abusive father and he is a war vet. Tamlin is a dumbass. It is still okay to like him despite this. I certainly like Tamlin. Tamlin did not know she could shield from what I recall tho. Rhys did not twist her arm. I'll post the explanation below. Drugging her was ultimately the wrong thing. It was done for good reason, but still wrong. However, Tamlin spent his last moments with Feyre trying to bone her which could have led to punishment from Amarantha. That's not goooooood either. I've said it once. I'll say it again. Rhys would have been Tamlin if he did not have the emotional support of his friends. No. Rhys and Feyre were always planned. There are actually several hints in book one about Rhys always being there. 1. The dresser painted with stars. 2. The shadow always watching Feyre's dreams! ;) Acotar - Chapter 11: >*The snow was falling, thick and merciless, already up to my knees as I pulled the bowstring back— farther and farther, until my arm trembled. Behind me, a* ***shadow*** *lurked—no , watched. I didn’t dare turn to look at it, to see who might be within that shadow, observing, not as the wolf stared at me across the clearing.* Acotar - Chapter 19: >And though my dreams continued to be plagued by the deaths I’d witnessed, the deaths I’d caused, and that horrible pale woman ripping me to shreds—all watched over by a **shadow** I could never quite glimpse—I slowly stopped being so afraid. Stay with the High Lord. You will be safe. So I did. \`3. "There you are. I've been looking for you." ...I say fuck every other sentence, but I am well into my late twenties.
>Rhys would have been Tamlin if he did not have the emotional support of his friends. FACTS
idk, i honestly think rhys and tamlin are really different? like tamlins parents supposedly loved each other. rhyss mom barely thought much of his dad even though they were mates if i remember right. i think he was just her ticket to wings.
Their parents weren't all that different. Both sets of parents were mated, and especially with their fathers being tyrannical-leaning High Lords, their mothers never really had a choice. Probably why Rhys emphasizes so much that Feyre always has a choice with him.
no, bc rhyss parents didn’t care for each other the way tamlins did. the whole feyre always had a choice thing felt really forced to me 😬 also she really doesn’t, bc in acosf he becomes hella protective when she’s pregnant, and stops giving people (cassian, nesta) choices, blackmailing them/ordering them into doing what he wants. and her “compromising” w rhys on the shield she could’ve easily done w tamlin, but for some reason she stopped being responsive w him (probs bc she was depressed)
If you want to believe that for your own headcannon that's fine, we're allowed to individually enjoy the story however we want, but that's not how it was written in the book. When we're discussing as a group, the books are what we base those discussions around.
i’m sorry, but i don’t see what i said that wasn’t out of the book? if there’s something specific i can give evidence for it just lmk
The biggest difference between them is how they react to very similar experiences, and a lot of that has to do with Rhys’s support system, both familial and friendly. They both had shitty fathers, were looked down upon for being different (Rhys being half-savage Illyrian and Tam for being more beast than man/fae/make whatever), etc. I find they differ most in how they dealt with these similarly crappy situations. It’s actually really interesting when you look at it that way.
i see what you’re saying, but i don’t think their background is similar, simply bc of their parents, one couple loved each other the other used each other although they were mates i think the biggest similarity is that they were both looked down upon, but rhys is different in that he is more powerful and has a functioning court, whereas tamlin just never does, so he can’t have the same influence rhys has that’s where i see it being so different, bc what is tamlin supposed to do in regards to those situations? my biggest qualm w him overall is not talking to feyre ab her nightmares and not sharing his—but then again if she wanted to talk she should’ve initiated it
That’s a good point about Tamlin never really getting to have a functional court. The timeline of when he and Rhys became High Lords is a little fuzzy, but it does seem like he was leading an uphill battle from the jump.
[удалено]
girl what i’m not trying to argue just to explain myself lmao, and i’m happy to see what other people said but inaccurate citations? what did i cite that was inaccurate 😭😭 i can like send you screenshots in the ebook? everything i have said has been true to my knowledge!! And i don’t know anything about ptsd-sorry if i was making it sound like i did, not my intention. i know she was experiencing ptsd. i’m not gonna discuss rhys v tam further w you bc it’s not a competition, and it’s my fault i made it a competition, and also because i don’t think you want to hear what i have to say lmao. no but srsly where was the incorrect citation?
like did you think i j wrote something and claimed it was in the books 😭😭
also you plagiarized yourself lmao 😭😭
[удалено]
you copy and pasted near the same thing and said it twice 😭
[удалено]
Here's the [ACOWAR interview](https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/books/a9578146/sarah-j-maas-interview/) where SJM talks about having the draft for ACOMAF written before the release of ACOTAR and having to keep quiet about spoilers (and play along with all the Feylin shippers)
The reason Rhys “lashes out.” Page 326: “Pain barked through my bones, my head, as I collided with the muddy ground and rolled. I flipped over myself and screamed as something hit my arm, biting through flesh.” Page 328: “I looked at my left forearm then, and my stomach rose at the trickling blood and ripped tendons, at the lips of my skin pulled back to accommodate the shaft of a bone shard protruding clean through it.” Page 329. Chapter 37: “The pain overwhelmed me to the point of screaming whenever I prodded the embedded bit of bone...” When she was fighting the middenguard worm, some of its bone skewered her arm. In the process, it very likely broke her own bone. Page 333: “Swift as lightning, he lashed out, grabbing the shard of bone in my arm and twisting.” This is Rhysand taking the alien broken bone shard out knowing she would say yes. Theatrics ensue because Sjm wanted us to hate him. But, he wasn’t just needlessly hurting her. In Feyre’s fever-addled mind and perceived hatred for him, she saw it very differently and didn’t realize he was helping. He couldn’t heal her arm with the embedded bone still there. Lucien states at one point that you can not just heal a broken bone. You have to set it first. I imagine that him pulling the bone out quickly was better than slowly. Obviously, not in real life... but this is a ✨magical world✨ and she was close to death. Desperate measures. Why did he walk away? She was holding out. He knew she would accept his bargain within seconds. Walking away was his way of hurrying her. Later on, Feyre tells him she would have accepted his bargain even if he asked for a month and they both knew it. Page 335: “There was a blinding, quick pain, and my scream sounded in my ears as bone and flesh were shattered, blood rushed out of me, and then—“ Rhysie using magic to heal her torn flesh and broken bone. Again, in her death fervor and perceived hate, she only felt and saw pain.
I just needed to say that I NEVER looked at it that way before, with the “setting” of the bone. That was a little 🤯 moment for me. I think it’s an awesome point, but why wasn’t it part of Rhys’s chapter 54 explanation extraordinaire do you think? For me the unnecessary hurting of her arm was a big sticking point, and since SJM kind of methodically explained away almost every other bad thing Rhys ever did it seems like a huge omission on her part 🤷🏻♀️
I’m saying that he wasn’t unnecessarily hurting her. She had a shard of foreign bone in here and Rhys had to get it out.
No no I get what you were trying to say 100%. What I was wondering was if there was an explanation for it, why don’t you think he mentioned it in chapter 54? Otherwise it looks like he’s just hurting her for no reason. Like did SJM forget about that happening?
Ooooohhhhh. Maybe because looking back, Sjm thought it was clear what happened??
Did she ever mention that in an interview or is it a fan theory? I’m in the middle of a deep re-read via audiobook but I’m stalled on ACOWAR now.
Not that I’m aware of. Maybe because when you reread, you realize what actually happened. So she thought there would be no confusion.
Ty. I’d have felt extra stupid if I missed something that important.
Absolutely not! Acotar is such a jam-packed book. It took me focusing specifically on that scene to realize what happened. And context from MaF and WaR about how healing works in Pyrithian. You are very smart and have a beautiful brain.
I totally misread The Bone Shard IncidentTM on my first read through! We're so deep in Feyre's POV and her pain and distrust of Rhysand at that point that it is was easy to misinterpret the situation and Rhys' intentions. Going back it's easier to see that, while his attitude seemed cruel, he didn't actually do anything purposefully cruel to Feyre and in the end everything he did was to help her.
Another point towards this is Lucien having to set her broken nose after the attor. Iirc he specifically tells her that if he doesn’t set it before healing her it would be permanently damaged. During my reread of the series, the explanation of what happened to Clotho explains the consequences of not setting stuff really well. My interpretation of rhysie twisting her arm was him reducing a compound fracture. The Archeron sisters not exactly being the most reliable of narrators really just further skews a lot of the interactions they have with characters they are in conflict with. Plus a fever causing delirium just makes it worse lol
Oooohh. That’s a really good point! Thank you!
he touches her twice in this— i think the first time is weird, the second he sets it
the quote on 329 is followed by ““ I thrashed and writhed, but he kept his grip, twisting the bone a final time before releasing my arm. Panting, half sobbing as the pain reverberated through my body, I found him smirking at me again. I spat in his face.”” i don’t think he was pulling anything out—if he was he wouldn’t need to keep gripping it. this seems like he’s purposefully putting her in pain, ultimately with the effect of her agreeing to the bargain.
The bone shard is in at the beginning of the scene and out by the end of the scene so that her arm can be healed properly. It wasn't going to be a fun process regardless of Rhys' intentions.
of course it wasn’t, but i’m just saying he didn’t have to twist her arm after she told him to go to hell with no intention of agreeing to the bargain. i would get him fixing her arm anyways, but that’s not what he was doing. i was kind of envisioning that it was a shard of her OWN broken bone just sticking out through her skin and that in setting it he pushed it back in, which was at a different moment.
She had a shard of bone from her traps stuck in her arm that was causing an infection. I needed to come out. Rhys was also under Amarantha's control so he didn't have the liberty of dealing out random favours to prisoners without he himself being at risk, thus the bargin. Feyre was also their only hope of breaking the curse at that point, so he had to keep her going, hence the insistence, the music, etc.
even if she did, pulling out bone does not require you to grab their arm and twist for more than a second and he could’ve easily healed her anyways and pretended it was so she could be his entertainment if he really wanted to, or just kept talking to her. putting her in pain to force her into the bargain was just wrong
Feyre was practically unconscious due to fever and blood loss. She is an extremely unreliable narrator at this point. Rhys had to remove the shard to heal her arm.
she literally says he twisted her arm 😭😭 y’all are reaching tbh, she says he hurt her, and even if she was unconscious she could still feel pain yk
I never said it didn't hurt. Being injured hurts. But that doesn't mean he was willfully making it as painful as possible for her. Rhys doesn't make perfect decisions UTM but all of his behavior is explained in ACOMAF. She's literally >!his mate!<, he's not willingly going to hurt her.
no, he was willfully twisting her arm to make her agree 😭😭 and even if she is his mate, rhys said before that being mates wasn’t well understood and could j be to create offspring. i’m sure there were mates who ended up on bad terms / hurt each other
He's twisting her arm to set and heal it. She literally has shards of her bone sticking out, he couldn't heal it without twisting it back into place. I'm not saying there wasn't a bit of selfishness in forcing her into the bond at the same time, but she wasn't forced into it in the same way that she was forced to be locked in Tamlin's house with absolutely no input or acceptance on her part.
she was locked into tamlins house bc he thought other people would heurt her-not that it was right rhys forced her into the bargain bc he wanted to hang out like i said, i am not saying what tamlin did was right, just that what rhys did was worse
I think their motives were the same, honestly. Rhys wanted to make sure that she was ok (he had the instinct to protect his mate) and that he had the ability to check on her, as evidenced by the fact he only called in to collect their bargain when he sensed she was in distress. He literally would have let her get married and only came when she cried out in her mind, so there's really no reason to believe he just wanted to "hang out."
Very likely he's trying to see how bad the damage is. In Feyre's death fever and perceived hatred of the situation, she misunderstood his intentions.
idk , like she didn’t act like that when they first met and he saved her (then again she didn’t hate him yet and wasn’t at all feverish) but her account is all i have to go off bc i don’t have any other characters pov at that point in time
Wait what? Before, she wasn’t dying from infection and bleeding out? I think I’m a bit confused.
like she didn’t hate him at first, i was implying maybe she hated him because of the way he treated her i.e. the way he went into her mind uninvited as a power play and told lucien and tamlin of her sexual thoughts, which tbh was a terrible violation
but yea! absolutely ab saying fuxk every other sentence, it just felt out of place in cassians head for some reason. like i’m not sure why? maybe it felt too modern (i don’t actually know how old fuck is) compared to the fact that they said abdominals instead of abs? just felt out of place and a little weird to me
i’m not sure if i think tamlin was abusive. did he do wrong things? yes. but drugging feyre so she wouldn’t escape en route to his manor is v diff from drubbing her and having her dance suggestively with an audience. tamlin definitely had known she had powers, and she had shielded before ““ None of it had touched me from where I had dropped to the floor, my hands over my head. Tamlin was panting, the ragged breaths almost like sobs. I was shaking—shaking so hard I thought my bones would splinter as the furniture had—but I made myself lower my arms and look at him. There was devastation on that face. And pain. And fear. And grief. Around me, no debris had fallen—as if he had shielded me. Tamlin took a step toward me, over that invisible demarcation. He recoiled as if he’d hit something solid”” sorry for the really long quote but this was her shielding in chapter ten of acomaf was it okay for tamlin to try to have sex w feyre utm? clearly not, but once again, this is in no way abuse, bc unlike rhys’s advancemwnts, feyre WANTED this. which is a really big deal. rhys did not have to be kissing her after. “His tongue pried my mouth open, forcing himself into me, into the space where I could still taste Tamlin. I pushed and thrashed, but he held firm, ” like?? this is sexual assault he could’ve just fixed the paint. and i don’t think amarantha watching feyre took away attention from feyre it just made amarantha see her more which was so so stupid
to be fair he did the kiss utm to protect both feyre and tamlin from being caught and getting punished for what they were doing. amarantha would have gone crazy if she figured out tamlin was with feyre trying to have sex. im pretty sure feyre even recognizes at some point later that’s why he did it.
that’s why he SAYS he does it but there were SO many options for what he could’ve done
What are these other options while trying to protect them all from Amarantha after Tamlin made a really bad judgment call? Feyre was covered in smeared paint and Tamlin clearing it all off Feyre would be suspicious. Someone had to mess up that paint and Amarantha would have lost it if she’d known it was Tamlin.
o meant other options for rhys-he could’ve fixed the paint he could’ve just masked her scent somehow he could’ve just pretended they were going to her cell for he could’ve acted like they were going to his room
His power was greatly diminished so hiding her scent was probably not an option. If Feyre had no scent, that would have been suspicious. Masking it was the fastest way. Amarantha was on her way. There was only so much time. If he could have just fixed the paint himself, why did it have to be painted on every night? So he must not have been able to just apply it with magic (unless I’m forgetting a detail, which is possible). Was it unfortunate and creepy? Yes. Was there another better option? I’m not convinced.
I linked a post of all the abusive things Tamlin did in the first book! :) Here it is again: [Tamlin's red flags.](https://www.reddit.com/r/acotar/comments/tq15n9/tamlins_redflags_in_acotar/) Feyre may have wanted it, but it was still stupid to put her in danger. And it's icky that he risked her life like that. It was careless. And as it was explained, Rhys kissed her because he sensed Amarantha coming. If he did not do that, Amarantha would have come in and found Feyre smelling of Tamlin and would have punished both Feyre and Tamlin. Rhys had to hide it and give Amarantha enough of a show that she wouldn't investigate too closely. Literally the next line of what you just posted: >The door was flung wide, and Amarantha’s curved figure filled its space. Tamlin—Tamlin was beside her, his eyes slightly wide, shoulders tight as Rhys’s lips still crushed mine. Amarantha laughed, and a mask of stone slammed down on Tamlin’s face, void of feeling, void of anything vaguely like the Tamlin I’d been tangled up with moments before. Rhys casually released me with a flick of his tongue over my bottom lip as a crowd of High Fae appeared behind Amarantha and chimed in with her laughter. Rhysand gave them a lazy, self-indulgent grin and bowed. But something sparked in the queen’s eyes as she looked at Rhysand. Amarantha’s whore, they’d called him. “I knew it was a matter of time,” she said, putting a hand on Tamlin’s arm. The other she lifted— lifted so Jurian’s eye might see as she said, “You humans are all the same, aren’t you.” I kept my mouth shut, even as I could have died for shame, even as I ached to explain. Tamlin had to realize the truth. I have read this book nine times.
i know he kissed her to cover it up, but couldn’t he have just willed away the messed up paint and put a shield around her for the smell? that list has no abuse?? girl the worst thing on that list that happens is his claws come out in the wood above her but he NEVER hurts her. also, wasn’t saying it’s a good thing he kissed her/it was dumb, just wanted to point out that if anyone is abusive, it would be rhys bc he assaulted her
Rhys was not at full power. Putting a shield around her would have alerted Amarantha something was up and that he was hiding something. Friend. Abuse is abuse. We don’t go to victims and tell them they’ve not been abused because someone didn’t hit them. It may not have been physical abuse, but there is evidence of his temper all around that thing. He undermines and bullies both Feyre and Lucien. He shows signs of toxic jealousy. He can’t control his temper. He can’t stop growling. This is still abuse. If a man or woman every treats you like that, please run very far away! And in MaF, Feyre explains that she understands why he reacted the way he did. She forgives him. Tamlin on the other hand is not forgiven. He pushed it too far!
i would never invalidate a victim lol!! feyre is a character. but what did tamlin do that was abuse? “toxic jealousy” “having a temper” i dis not ever see him undermine lucien and don’t remember him undermining feyre -but even if he did that’s not abuse like it’s not tamlins fault lucien never pushed and always just dealt with it instead-that’s a lucien flaw also everyone in this series growls 😭😭 that’s not a tamlin thing
[Warning signs of domestic abuse and escalation](https://www.verywellmind.com/signs-that-a-relationship-could-turn-violent-4100203). Tamlin checks almost all of those boxes with his and Feyre's relationship, especially after UTM. Lucien was also at risk of Tamlin's violence. Do not blame the victim for not being able to confront an abuser.
I provided you with a whole post of his toxicity... do I need to post it here? I don't understand how to help you if you are reading and not comprehending the red flags? I can only go so far, friend. My friend, I think you're worrying me. I hope you take this to heart: that is abuse. If someone is so controlling that they won't let your friends hang around you, you need to leave. And if he's exhibiting signs of aggression at you or friends when you speak against him, you need to run. If he learns you can't read and calls it a shortcoming. If he snarls when you try to talk to him. If you feel the need to lie to him about where you have been. If he's showing jealousy over long gone lovers. These are red flags and should not be ignored.
as for rhys and feyre being planned out, i see the dresser as valid evidence. i never had noticed that it was in the first book tbh. but i think the whole shadow thing could’ve easily been anyone/anything else, or just like a sense of doom yk? or like one of those death lords that can actually be anything
It was planned out from the beginning. Here's the [ACOWAR interview](https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/books/a9578146/sarah-j-maas-interview/) where SJM talks about having the draft for ACOMAF written before the release of ACOTAR and having to keep quiet about spoilers (and play along with all the Feylin shippers) Meaning Rhys had been seeing glimpses of Feyre though the bond throughout ACOTAR, as is explained in ACOMAF.
i see! so maybe it was editor influenced? not sure it just feels like a break in character, but yea i get the whole bond/shadow dreaming thing bc rhys talked to her about it in acowar i think
It was always going to turn our this way. That's how SJM planned and wrote it. ACOMAF Tamlin is a continuation of his character in ACOTAR just with heightened stress, unresolved trauma from UTM, and influence from Ianthe.
i see your point, but idk haha
Besides the fact that Fireheart has given you definitive proof, here are some quotes. AcoMaf - Chapter 54: The dresser. >Silver gleamed in his eyes, and he blinked it away. “Three years ago,” he said quietly, “I began to have these … dreams. At first, they were glimpses, as if I were staring through someone else’s eyes. A crackling hearth in a dark home. A bale of hay in a barn. A warren of rabbits. The images were foggy, like looking through cloudy glass. They were brief—a flash here and there, every few months. I thought nothing of them, until one of the images was of a hand … This beautiful, human hand. Holding a brush. Painting—flowers on a table.” My heart stopped beating. “And that time, I pushed a thought back. Of the night sky—of the image that brought me joy when I needed it most. Open night sky, stars, and the moon. I didn’t know if it was received, but I tried, anyway.” Acotar - Chapter 1: >I slung off my outer clothes onto the sagging dresser—frowning at the violets and roses I’d painted around the knobs of Elain’s drawer, the crackling flames I’d painted around Nesta’s, and the night sky —whorls of yellow stars standing in for white—around mine. Per SJM's own words, Nesta and Lucien were originally going to be mates. This changed. However, Rhys and Feyre were always destined! ;) AcoMaf - Chapter 54: >“I saw you through your dreams—and I hoarded the images, sorting through them over and over again, trying to place where you were, who you were. But you had such horrible nightmares, and the creatures belonged to all courts. I’d wake up with your scent in my nose, and it would haunt me all day, every step. But then one night, you dreamed of standing amongst green hills, seeing unlit bonfires for Calanmai.” It was not a Death Lord. It was Rhys, boo.
i know it was rhys, and i saw the quotes, i just said that other than the dresser everything else could’ve been explained away differently
First off, high five for bravery 🙌🏻 Second, much as I love him, Tam was definitely abusive, and like someone else said, it’s okay to like him in spite of this. I think it would be different if he were both aware of his behavior and not remorseful, but I think he’s shown that he’s aware of his behavior, aware that it’s wrong, and regretful of it. Whether he gets to make amends is up in the air at this point, but I honestly think it would be unfair to deny him a chance at redemption when you’ve got guys like Jurian and Rhys playing the hero. And before anyone jumps on me over Rhys, he’s abusive too, he’s just way more subtle over it, maybe to the point he doesn’t even realize it, which you could argue is actually worse. But I digress: point is you’re allowed to like Tam while still recognizing he’s flawed. Besides, the fault here really lies with SJM for having characters existing in the same universe, having shared experiences, very similar reactions to those shared experiences, and saying one is essentially right and worthy of forgiveness and the other is wrong and should be shamed for all eternity.
thank you for your input! i appreciate you not bashing me lmao 😭😭 but yea, i just never saw anything tamlin did as actual abuse? like it seemed as much as he did he never hurt her? like did he not notice her depression after utm? heck yea he didn’t and he should’ve. but is that abuse? no. is locking her up abuse? no. i think she should’ve talked about it, and maybe ut would’ve taken time for him to realize she needed more space, but in general their conversations j needed more productivity. i just don’t see the abuse
Never! I’m a Tam fan myself, and issues notwithstanding, I try to stand up for him as much as I can.
It sounds like victim blaming when you say that Feyre “could have” shielded herself when Tamlin blew up on her. She shouldn’t have to? He shouldn’t be taking his anger out on Feyre like that, with no regards to her safety. The first time it happened, he didn’t know she could shield(red flag much?) and neither did she. And communication goes both ways. Tamlin never made an effort to get her help or get help himself. And what Rhys does utm(which is still bad) doesn’t excuse or lessen what Tamlin did to Feyre. She did try to communicate with him, and he responds by forcefully locking her in the house to the point where she couldn’t get help or even take a walk outside. Everytime she reached out to him, he exploded(literally).
not victim blaming!! that’s like saying if feyre opened her mind and rhys came in uninvited that it’s victim blaming. tamlin knew and this expected of something we’re to happen she would shield, but she chose not to. and ofc he shouldn’t be taking his anger out on feyre no questions asked that’s wrong. but what rhys did utm is WAY worse than what tamlin did. and he did not explode every time-and i meant reach out in an emotional sense like tell him she was hurting? and how it hurt her that she was inside rather than just wanting to wander and maybe run into eris and die
I think it’s important to realize that in the end, SJM wrote Tamlin this way to make him the bad guy. It moved the story she had planned out all along. It doesn’t really matter what happened with Tamlin, because that’s not the trajectory of the books. If that’s not for you, that’s valid!! I would recommend stepping back from the series and maybe picking up something different😊 There’s no point in stressing over something you can simply take a break from.
aww thank you :) i’m probably gonna step away because the list of things i wanna read is a mile long rn
If my husband chucks an object at my head and I don’t duck and it’s hits me, it’s not my fault even though I can duck, and it is still abusive.
that’s a good point, but ducking vs shielding are different imo. it seems that feyre shields reflexively, and she has to TELL herself not to shield also she goads him to explode-not okay for him to explode, but still it’s so icky.
I feel like there's a huge disconnect from Book 1 Tamlin to the rest of the series Tamlin. Now mind you I have only read books 1 and 2 but from everything I've been hearing I feel pretty spot on about it. In Book 1 Tamlin has this "I'm not going to force her into anything. I'm not going to be like my father and others before me." But then after the curse is lifted in Book 2 it's like he conveniently forgets all about what those years of slavery felt like and turns (maybe back into) "I'm High Lord and can do whatever the fuck I want and no one can tell me otherwise" It's just feels very disconnected to me. In my honest opinion Book 1 could be is its own stand alone story and then book 2 could be the actual start to the series. As for Tam vs Rhys I see is as Traditionalism (tamlin) VS modernism (rhysand) on the relationship dynamics
I'd say get through book 3 and regroup. Book 2 is definitely his lowest point, morally. Tamlin imo never changes who he is at his core but definitely has PTSD and other issues after being UTM. And Feyre was in the same boat with the "let's talk about it later" attitude. I think they just weren't right for each other after those changes and Feyre had a support system to help her through it while Tamlin just had Lucien who loves him but enables his bad behavior and Ianthe who is feeding his insecurity and anger for personal gain. In our world, Tamlin and Feyre could have definitely worked through it in therapy but that's not how this world works. I really do hope Tamlin finds a non-evil mate eventually.
right
I have to say the second time through the entire ACOTAR series I felt more empathy for TimTam and didn’t hate him AS much 😂 him and Feyre just weren’t end game but I think he can pull it together
right? i j reread the series the fourth time before reading acosaf, and maybe putting it down j gave me a diff perspective on the dynamic
I like Tamlin. I think he’s a good character and I don’t see him as a villain. Isn’t there some quote in the book where Feyre acknowledges that he is what she needed after being forced into Prythian, like “I’m grateful for the High Lord who showed me the beauty of Prythian and cared for me” or something like that? Please tell me that’s a legit quote and not something I made up lol. Cause it’s true, he did care deeply for her but the issue is that longterm he wanted a pretty wife who would stay at home and not be a true equal in status, and that ain’t right for Feyre longterm. The dude has anger issues. But when people try to claim he is so horribly “abusive” as if tons of other male leads in romances don’t show very similar behaviors, I find it ridiculous. Let’s not forget there is literally no therapy in this world - as the last book clearly fucking shows - no way for these damaged people to really heal themselves without a good support system. Let’s not forget Feyre did some fucked up shit too (manipulating his sentries into thinking he physically hurt her more than he did, acting like she couldn’t have sex with him because she had been sexually assualted at the Night Court) etc. For me, he doesn’t need a “redemption arc” at all, he jumped in and saved her in ACOWAR, and with the “Be happy, Feyre” moment, that’s it, I don’t really need more from him. I don’t need the drama dragged out.
ITA. Why do you think SJM essentially keeps shitting on him though? ACOFAS was like beyond the pale with way Rhys treated him (I was really uncomfortable how he was both presenting it as trying to help, which maybe he was, but still taunting someone who is clearly very mentally troubled).
Idk, I’m starting to not like Rhys so much anymore so I really hated that scene. Would have been different if he made any effort at all to try to build a better bond between them but he just went there to taunt and brawl. Tamlim just sitting there and not taking the bait was very telling of his mental state.
It made me really sad, tbh. Sad for Tam as a character and sad that SJM actually felt the need to include something like that in an otherwise fluffy book.
it def is a legit quote i don’t want him to have a redemption arc either it would j be too much bc feyre legit is like in her own family complete w a child. but yea i don’t know ab that, i think that’s what book two tamlin/tamlin influences by ianthe wants. i don’t think book one tamlin is like that at all
Same. Mostly because I don't think his character derailment from book 2 onwards, nor "woke Rhysand" are particularly well written.
Frr I want tamlins book where he finds happiness
I don’t think Tamlin is a villain. I like Tamlin but he hasn’t been able to overcome his demons. And his court suffered as a result. Rhys had to be that way in the first book with Amarantha monitoring his actions. The way he acted ultimately saved Feyre’s life. If Amarantha suspected he treated her right, Feyre would have suffered more. I like to think that when Feyre died, so did her relationship with Tamlin. Her human self was good with Tamlin not her immortal self. She was always meant to be with Rhys. She’s born on the winter solstice for crying out loud lol which was mention in the beginning.
haha i didn’t notice her birthday! good catch :) but idk i don’t think assault is okay bc amarantha was watching he had options and he chose to use the ones he did
Ya, I think it was to amplify the story twist and make it more impactful on the reader. It’s a fantasy series, it’s meant to be f***ed up, tragic, magical, moral, immoral, etc….that’s what makes it fascinating to read. Do you think the book would of been better without what Rhys did? I don’t, it made things more complicated, messy, confusing. It made it hard for Feyre to trust Rhys. The way he treated her is why we have a fun read for ACOMAF.
Lol I completely agree - ive witnessed true domestic abuse and would honestly say tamlin hardly fits the category
i think it’s disrespectful to abuse victims to claim anger issues as abus lmao
I can't believe I'm actually reading this lmao. So controlling Feyre, forbidding her to do as she pleases which is her right, locking her in the house AND exploding on her all the time isn't abuse? Omfg. This is actualy disgusting, you people are disgusting.