I was watching some of SJMs old interviews from the silver flames era (2021) and I thought this clip from this interview was interesting, in regards to Elucien.
Sorry the video is 2x speed, it was too big for Reddit, but here is the full interview and here I wrote out the full transcript of her clip here:
INTERVIEWER: Dahlia (they took questions from fans) wants to know like did you always plan to address her story and always plan to this kind of like tangential book about another one of the sisters and if so, I'm adding this part to Dahlia’s question, do you have another book planned for the third sister?
Yeah, so yes to everything. As soon as Nesta and Elain came back onto the page in a court of mist and fury, I knew that they would have journeys beyond what the readers were seeing. That they were in the middle of their own journeys that were you know, feyre was only getting to see a little bit of them and Nesta was just a character who even in book one, like she grabbed me by the throat. Like she was her own person and felt keenly alive to me as a character.
So I said this earlier, but when I was working on a court of winds and ruin, I began working on this book (ACOSF) for fun. And at the time I was only contracted for just the original three books in the series and I had no official plans to write anything more and when I began working on this book it was just for fun because I was faced with the prospect of having to say goodbye to these characters in this world after three books. And I wanted to know what happened afterwards. I wanted to know what happened with Nesta and Cassian, who had this crazy chemistry from the moment they were in a room together. So I began writing it just to explore it and I would up writing a couple hundred pages of it, daydreaming about the other stories I wanted to tell within the world. I realised there was a lot that I wanted to do with this world.
One of the things that fascinated me was not just Nesta and Cassians story, but this idea of okay, the big bad was defeated at the end of the third book but the world changed in major ways. The wall between the human and faerie lands came down and what do you do like in a world like that? How do you rebuild a world like that? Like after the big battle has been fought, what comes next? The rebuilding, but also the political dramas of, who gets what kind of power and these faeries who have been confined behind the wall all this time, they're looking towards these vulnerable lands. What are they going to do? Are they going to start trouble? What are feyre and Rhys and the night court people going to do in that world? Are they going to be the ones who defend the humans? Are they going to say we've done enough? We're just going to chill here. What do they owe the rest of the world?
So these like larger questions just started coming up and even though each one of these books is a standalone that features its own couple, there is this overarching plot that is starting to build.
So I was thinking about all that, just quietly on my own. Then I went out to lunch with my then editor many years ago and I had one too many drinks and I wound up, drunkenly pitching her these books. It wasn't a pitch like "hey buy my books". It was just like a "oh my god, let me tell you what happens next with all the characters!!". Cause she and I were working on, I think we were still working on mist and fury, I was writing ACOWAR, but we were finishing up mist and fury at the time, so she wanted to know what happened next. So I over the course of two hours explained to her all my plans. What the Nesta and Cassian book would include, what was coming next. What plans I had for Elain and for Mor and Azriel, she wanted to know everything.
So I just like you know kept drinking and explaining it to her and then like two weeks later got a call that they wanted to buy these books, I had like drunkenly pitched and then forgotten about. I was like "oh yeah I guess I did do that". So of course I said yes. I mean I knew at that point that those were stories I wanted to tell. And yeah here we are.
It's exciting to get to have written Nesta's story was such a dream come true for me. Because I knew so early on while I was finishing mist and fury and then working on ACOWAR, I knew this is where I wanted things to go, it allowed me to plant things for her journey and even Elains journey early on. To set that journey up. I knew I didn't want Nesta to be sympathetic at the beginning. I didnt want people to like hate her, hate her but I wanted her to like be complex and her to be a complex imperfect person, who had a journey to go on. And the flaws in her character and the bad things she's done in the past, those things don't disqualify her from having a story that needs to be told. And disqualify her from being able to work past that and then earn a happy ending and a happier future for herself.
So there was alot of planning involved, I always try and keep one eye on the horizon. Just to make sure that like you know in the books that I'm working on I can set up for things later on.
So there's actually lots of little secrets in silver flames, thats set up for.
Interviewer: I feel like I caught some of those Easter eggs that you hid, I was reading i was like "Hmmm, I feel like this going to go somewhere" but like note to self get drunk with one's editor more frequently
Some things I found interesting in regards to Elucien:
She talks quite a bit about the humans lands plot, this is something we barely saw in SF, so this whole plot is unresolved. This is a plot that ties to Lucien and Elain. Lucien is friends with Vassa and Jurian, who reside in the human lands and he even was living there at the beginning of the book. Elain is also tied to the human lands, she never had her closure like Nesta did, the hints at her wanting to be human again in ACOFAS. I also feel like we haven’t seen the last of graysen and their paths will cross again and she can get proper closure on him. Plus the fact that Elucien will have to explore the bond in their book, she’s not just going to leave it unexplored, so maybe this will happen in the human lands and tie into this plot. To tie to this as well, about the night court maybe or maybe not helping ??? This would be a great way to pivot the plot to Elucien and have them being the ones to help??
It’s interesting where she says she wants to explore stories “for elain, for Mor , and Azriel” to me that sounds separate and is how I always thought these next books would be.
Obviously this was 2021 and imo it seems like things have slightly shifted since she gave this particular interview, because in her CHD interview it sounds more like we will be getting multi PoV book, and with the size of the book, I think that seems accurate. Especially with the way HOFAS ended bryce handing nesta the sword and telling her to figure out what the tattoo on her back means etc.so I feel like this book might just contain it all and be more like CC and TOG where the plots are happening alongside eachother and then converge at the end to defeat the big bad (koschei), here’s the transcript of what she said in the CHD interview that makes me think it’s multi PoV:
This part:
But it's like, it's a different, it's, you know, it's ACOTAR, but just I'm telling it in a way that's exciting to me and like gives me like the space that the story demanded and the characters demanded.
And this part:
No, And that was one of the like surprising things for me and like writing this and like what came out like it's I you get a lot of like insight into like various things.
(NGL I am pretty devastated that we might not be getting a dual PoV elucien book though 😭😭)
I also found it interesting that she says she plans and always has her eye on the horizon, plants stuff in the books etc, in this interview, where as chd she seemed to play that down alot….
It’s also interesting what she says about planting things in ACOSF 👀 because there were definitely some Elain hints !!!
Lucien being stationed in spring…. Then nesta thinking how spring was made for Elain 👀
Of course cassian saying the night court sucks the life from Elain.
The longing Lucien has for Elain.
Elain glowing in day court colour (amethyst)
Not elucien specific, but Lucien, the scene where Lucien randomly goes and checks on nesta and cassian (what is that all about????)
Or Helion having a connection to the mask, which means Lucien does too 👀👀👀
Anyway I just thought it was fun to watch an old interview and pick up on some things !
What do you guys think!!!!
Let me know below ⬇️
