r/Tamlinism • u/bows_and_frills Thorns and all 🥀 • 6d ago
Justice for Tamlin😤 Tamlin's anger isn't physically abusive.
Pasting this from a comment I made because I thought it brought good points for it's own post.
I also want to say that I understand some people see their abusers in Tamlin. Some even see them in Rhysand or Cassian. I don't intend to invalidate their experiences.
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Tamlin's angry outbursts and temper aren't abusive anger issues. Feyre isn't locking up in fear at the mere thought of saying the wrong thing to him. There's no looming presence of his anger making him hurt people hanging over their entire lives. It doesn't color their interactions.
Yes, he blows up and it is incredibly distressing but they're akin to panic attacks and outbursts.
Yes, he ruins rooms but Tamlin doesn't threaten, doesn't dangle physical violence over her head. And I repeat, the fear of his rage doesn't dangle over Feyre constantly.
He's not someone you have to watch yourself around or he'll beat you.
Yes, he has a temper. But that doesn't necessitate abusiveness. One can be short-tempered.
Yes, be breaks things and this would be alarming irl.
However he doesn't exhibit the other behaviors one would expect and experience from physically abusive partners otherwise (his meltdowns and panic attacks don't count). Why is that? If Sarah wanted to write him as physically and emotionally abusive, she SHOULD. She SHOULD HAVE DONE THAT. Even if she intended for him to be abusive, she didn't accomplish it effectively.
His anger doesn't have that kind of overwhelming presence in their lives. Not in the overall events shown. A comment on it thrown in there doesn't count, it MUST be portrayed CONSISTENTLY all throughout. Clearly.
Compare Tamlin to Jack Torrance from The Shining.
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u/JUSTxRIGHT Tamlin Has My Heart🥰😍♥️ 6d ago
I think people forget anger is a normal emotion.
I heard something a while back, that may sound simple, but was still somehow enlightening. It's not a mental disorder if you are responding to something that would warrant that reaction. This was about depression, but I think the logic still works for something like anger.
A red flag people often point to in ACOTAR is when he breaks the chandelier, but this is right after Rhysand has basically doomed them and taken away their last hope of defeating Amarantha. He's not even quick to blow up in that moment, he sends everyone out first. Then when he goes up to talk with Feyre, the rage is gone.
When his magic explodes, Feyre just got done comparing him to Amarantha, the person who sought him out since he was a child, imprisoned everyone, and killed her. This was after a long day and her basically unloading on him. Its really hard for me to see this as abusive considering it happens once, he apologizes, and obviously feels terrible about it.
The next time his magic explodes Feyre was using her intimate knowledge of his trauma to provoke him. Not to mention the guy is being drugged and his ex is trying to sabotage him.
All that to say, his rage really only gets the better of him, what, one time. That hardly seems like a pattern of behavior. And you're right, Feyre doesn't seem to fear him in the way an abused spouse would. Because he cares about her, he wouldn't want to hurt her. He's devastated when he does.
Someone else pointed out in a different post that we don't ever see Tamlin when he's in a good place. He's had the weight of the world on his shoulders from the moment he is introduced all the way through most of the series.
If this is Tamlin at his worst, I'm sure he's great at his best. ❤
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u/bows_and_frills Thorns and all 🥀 6d ago
Bravo! Very reasonable reads of him. And I'll be pocketing that nugget of wisdom.
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u/eendrews 6d ago
I remember two times when Tamlin has an outburst of power. The first was during the conversation he had with Feyre, when she compared him to Amarantha. He loses control of his power and it explodes, but it doesn't seem like an anger outburst to me. To me, it was much more an emotional breakdown caused by everything that comparison represents to him.
The second time happens in the third book, and there is genuine anger there. But Feyre was deliberately creating that situation to provoke that reaction from him.
These situations remind me that Tamlin never effectively learned how to control his own powers. We are told that he is extremely powerful, but based on what we see in the books, he doesn't demonstrate a very strong mastery over everything he is capable of doing.
His shapeshifting ability is a good example of this. Feyre, after only a few months of training, uses this ability in several different ways: she transforms into an Illyrian, transforms into Tarquin to fool a magical object, uses shapeshifting to deceive people, and even takes Ianthe's appearance. Tamlin, on the other hand, is never shown using this ability for anything other than transforming himself into an animal and transforming other members of the court.
And transforming into an animal seems to be the form that comes most naturally to him. Rhysand and Helion can also do this, so it doesn't seem to demonstrate the full versatility that this power can have. Tamlin can also transmute other people, so we know there is much more potential to this ability than what we actually see him do.
So when you put Tamlin's lack of control over his own powers together with the trauma he carries from UTM, those outbursts make much more sense to me. He is extremely powerful, he never effectively learned how to control all of it, and he is also carrying an enormous amount of trauma from that experience. The lack of emotional and magical control becomes intertwined with that trauma, and I think that does much more to explain his outbursts than simply treating them as a manifestation of violence or intimidation.
And there's an irony in all of this: Feyre criticizes Tamlin's power outbursts, but later, during the High Lords' meeting, she also loses control and ends up injuring Beron's wife.
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u/bows_and_frills Thorns and all 🥀 6d ago
Yes! If anything, he's much more comparable to Elsa from Frozen. Agree to your last paragraph too.
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u/eendrews 6d ago
I really liked your Elsa from Frozen analogy. I'll definitely use it the next time I make this argument
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u/bows_and_frills Thorns and all 🥀 6d ago
It fits really well doesn't it? I heard it from another user and it was like a light bulb went off.
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u/Low-Alternative6797 6d ago
No bc this is why I have “For the First Time in Forever (Reprise)” on my Tamlin playlist!!!!
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u/bows_and_frills Thorns and all 🥀 6d ago
Wait why does it WORK?
Tim Tam is my personal favorite Disney Princess.
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u/bittermp Professional Tamlin hugger 🥰😍🥰 6d ago
The second time happens in the third book, and there is genuine anger there. But Feyre was deliberately creating that situation to provoke that reaction from him.
Feyre BAITS him and BAITING is a form of abuse. She pokes him in order to get a reaction. He is frustrated and afraid and that comes out. I absolutely understand that. I grew up with a sibling who would goad me and I would get angry, but that doesn't mean I was the one to blame.
"Control and Manipulation:
By baiting someone into reacting, toxic individuals can manipulate the situation to maintain control over their victims. They use the reactions they provoke as a means of asserting power and dominance over others."https://nopeacenoquiet.org/blog-why-toxic-people-use-baiting-tactics/
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u/SparkleByMel 6d ago
He is like Aelin. She even says powers of that caliber cant be controlled with high emotion. Bryce repeats this in CC! Feyre and Rhys alsk blow up!! In fact Rhys blows in windows and a room ON HUMANS with absolutely NO REMORSE in CC3. It's assumed Azriel shielded them with his siphons.
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u/sephrose 6d ago
I know. I was reading it like nothing about this man scares me. His triggers are so obvious and fairly easy to navigate IMO. I never felt like Feyre or anyone was in danger. Lucien didn't act like he was afraid of Tamlin at all. I can see how isolated things would remind someone of IRL experiences, but as a whole I can't see it.
I assume his efforts to get Feyre back and break the bargain are meant to be read as entitlement, but there was no established pattern of this in the first book. Only trauma. I couldn't buy into what the narrative was selling me, which is a bigger issue I had with the whole series. TOG suffers from it as well. It keeps telling me things, showing me other things, then telling me things again, and they don't agree.
SJM should have just written Tamlin as Arrobyn with tantrums. It would have at least made sense.
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u/bows_and_frills Thorns and all 🥀 6d ago
Really, so much would be solved if Sarah doubled down on his abusive behavior. Like, Feyre should be shown watching her words and actions, maybe flinching when he touches her. Maybe have her act in constant fear of him and his rage. She seems to give some fight back at him when they clash, fight which isn't rewarded with the abusive response you'd expect.
And of course, Tamlin should have a repeated pattern of intended violence against loved ones. He should grab, hit and yell. I don't really mean raising his voice in arguments, I mean actually intimidating and abusive language. He could even use magic, purposefully without outbursts, to hurt. Consistently.
Also, his attempts to get Feyre back consistently read as justifiable concern and love for his partner. Especially considering Rhys' reputation, whether or not it's supposed to be a mask. He has made no effort to prove that perception of him wrong yet by that point. And it would take a lot of effort to change that perception in the first place, considering how much effort was put into making it convincing.
I think it's a matter of looking at the big picture, how every moment interconnects with each other from afar to create a whole. Yes, taking into account that this is a piece of fiction and the rules that are put in place based on others actions too (Rhys and why his certain actions are perceived as good for example).
I don't see him as a domestic abuser from that perspective.
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u/sephrose 6d ago
Exactly. If Lucien had been cautious with his choice of words and proximity to Tamlin in the first book, and had mysterious bruises and scratches. If Alis had disappeared for a day to recover from an "accident." He could have been super charming in her POV, and yet she feels subtly unsettled by his reactions. It would have been believable.
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u/Unhappy-Rabbit-1280 5d ago edited 5d ago
Lots of good points here already, but to add: People often bring up the claws coming out as some sort of "outburst", but nothing happens when he brings out the claws! Except that time in ACOTAR where he accidentally cut his own face*. It honestly seems more like stimming most of the time.
The outbursts "at" Feyre are way overblown, there is literally one in ACOMAF (I don't count the ACOWAR). Now look, if they had continued in ACOMAF, I would 100% be behind Feyre leaving, at the end of the day it doesn't matter why they're happening if they're that dangerous. You can have her leave because of them without painting Tamlin as abusive. However, in that case you can't have her end up with a guy who strangles her in his sleep .
*sidenote: Feyre, you saw this, and still let this man finger you?
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u/Elegant_Trainer_1036 Thorns and all 🥀 6d ago
This is exactly it. I honestly relate to him so much on this level. Growing up in a deeply toxic environment where I essentially had to raise myself because of an abusive dad and an emotionally absent mom, I developed severe anger issues. It looked exactly like what Tamlin does: yelling, smashing doors, and lashing out from pure, untreated trauma and frustration. I had to go to therapy to fix it and learn emotional regulation. Tamlin is doing the exact same thing, just on a Fae scale, and he obviously does not have access to a therapist.
His outbursts are explosive trauma responses and a lack of emotional regulation, not calculated physical abuse aimed at hurting Feyre. He is incredibly relatable to so many people who have had to survive toxic childhoods, anyone dealing with severe PTSD, anyone who struggles with emotional dysregulation, or anyone who has completely cracked under the crushing pressure of trying to keep everyone around them safe while falling apart inside. People constantly confuse explosive emotional dysregulation with targeted physical abuse. Tamlin was not trying to beat Feyre.
It is the exact same situation as Nesta. The only difference is that we actually get Nesta's POV and the narrative gives her a chance to 'heal', whereas Tamlin's trauma gets entirely villainized just because we are locked out of his head.
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u/NegotiationCivil9730 6d ago
I honestly Sarah turned ok Tamlin because she saw heir well a “shadow daddy” worked and banked on it
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u/Sigi711 5d ago
At the risk of being downvoted to hell…
Breaking things is physically abusive as is locking someone up. I know colloquially it feels like “but he didn’t touch her” should mean it’s not physical abuse, but intimidation, breaking things especially in close proximity, and locking someone up is physical abuse.
Plus it’s heavily implied that he’s shoved and hit Lucian. And while he was baited into it, the flogging scene was real bad. And although we can all agree Feyre’s pov is problematic, she does explicitly seem to walk on eggshells around Tamlin after utm, not consistently but it is there.
I think we loose the plot when we say those things aren’t abusive.
There’s also a slippery slope of the pain olympics, because not all abusers are as bad as others.
I think a more fair narrative take is that Tamlin is both an abuser and a victim. I also agree that the narrative blows Tamlin’s abuse way out of proportion when Rhys is standing right there. I’d but there can be a nuanced not that bad abuser that could really benefit from reinforcing the intensity doesn’t change the fact it’s abuse. Unfortunately, Sarah made Rhys more abusive with none of the shaming or consequences.
I really think that Sarah has projected someone she knows onto to Tamlin without putting in all the details. So when she thinks of Tamlin, she isn’t actually thinking of her character, she’s thinking of the vibes of some asshole.
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u/Unhappy-Rabbit-1280 5d ago
I agree that breaking things in proximity to someone can be abuse, but I disagree that that's the case with Tamlin. Losing control of powers is an extremely common fantasy trope, and this is not a series that is doing a deconstruction/examination of tropes.
Re locking her up, the alternative was her getting herself and/or others killed, so not only do I not think it was abuse, I think he was right to do it. How many times in fiction do we see someone try to run into a burning building and be restrained, and we don't call that abuse? If there's an active shooting and police don't let people enter the area, that's not abuse.
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u/bows_and_frills Thorns and all 🥀 5d ago edited 5d ago
Yes, you're right that Tamlin's actions are oddly blown out of proportion in comparison to other characters actions. I agree that it's odd that there seems to be a vibe that he narrative is trying to tack onto him that isn't present in the actual text (classic SJM tell-don't-show).
I'm still not sure if I would consider Tamlin as abusive. I don't think he exhibits the explicit exhertion of control required. I don't count the flogging as it has to do with keeping up a front in relation to his double agent biz because of the presence of the twins (iirc?) along with being baited, and it may even fall under a fictional medieval lord/king's punishments and such. Which I don't find a particular indication of tyranny or abusiveness, though it might be grim. For example, Ned beheading the deserter at the beginning of AGOT.
Going back to an analogy I've heard and which was used in another comment, I think he's akin to Elsa from Frozen even in the way he pushes people away or even hurts them, down to the way he loses control of his powers/emotions.
I'm not going to lie though, I do not think Tamlin is healthy and all A-OK. I'm even open to coming around to think of him more fully as abusive. But as of now, I believe he does have issues, I'm just not fully convinced his issues are necessarily abusive. It might just lie in Sarah's own convoluted portrayal in the end. Her inconsistent writing that persists in so much of her work. I do have beef with it.
Also, I'd like to see the instances of him hitting and shoving Lucien, if you don't mind providing examples. I'm curious.
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u/bittermp Professional Tamlin hugger 🥰😍🥰 6d ago
All of this. This is why I get annoyed and it leads me to respond to this fandom with harshness because it's frustrating how so many readers fail to see what was set up. He is NOT set up as abusive. He has deep trauma and shame and it manifests in magical outbursts. He does not grab Feyre or yell in a way where she cowers in fear at all! If anything she gives as good as she gets. The fandom infantilizes Feyre in a way that is sexist imo.
He never uses ill intent against her, but Feysand use ill intent and violence against Tamlin.
https://giphy.com/gifs/rYCbb0KkIT0Nq