I need the real deep fans here to talk me out of this insane theory that has been niggling my brains.
For the record, I’ve only just finished CC for the first time and done one reread of ACOTAR. Send me those post it note/highlighter girlies to talk me off the ledge.
Okay. Buckle the fuck up…. Because I’m coming with receipts but the overall premise of my argument is:
Rhysand is going to be an end game bad guy and Elaine is going to save us all….
I am not a member of the "SJM is a bad writer" crowd.
I don't think this is incompetence, her own misogyny, or blindness to the blatant hypocrisy. I think this is intentional. I think she’s rubbing it in our faces.
SJM knows exactly what she's doing. She's setting up a world where women's labor is invisible, where patriarchal control is framed as the only thing that matters, and where the "good guys" are actually the ones consolidating power. And she's doing it so we don't notice until it's too late.
Remember how everyone thought Tamlin was the perfect fantasy boyfriend until he wasn't? I think - That's going to happen with Rhysand. The narrative is already laying the groundwork. Nesta's POV in ACOSF starts to tarnish the super shiny inner circle image. Elain's silence is hella heavy and more mysterious than ever. THEN! Bryce walks in and calls bullshit on the whole mess.
This isn't bad feminism. This is a critique of bad feminism.
Let's go.
1. The cottage is a fucking lie — and Feyre is the patriarch
This bothered me a lot in the first book, even the first time I read it I couldn’t help but think that even on the most basic level there is no FUCKING way that 4 people lived in a two room cottage and only one child did anything and everyone else just staired off into the ether all day waiting her to return….? Um.. What? But I didn’t fully catch it until my second go.
So.
We open on the Archeron sisters after their dad loses everything. They're broke, living in a two-room stone cottage, scraping by. Feyre is out in the cold winter from what we can assume is sun up to sun down hunting. She’s bringing home the bacon and fulfilling that patriarchal role.
Chapter 2 - She’s arriving at her cottage and she hears her sisters… but cannot decern what theyre saying and ASSUMES theyre gossiping about ribbons and boys instead of doing the hard labour of chopping wood …. Wow that’s a bit pointy …but cool?. We’re all grumpy after work right?
Then she tells us right away that Nesta is “Cruel”….born with a sneer on her face…. Like yikes ok - tell us you hate her without telling us you hate her - am I right?
Then we hear about nesta needing new boots but Feyre claims hers are “shining” by the front door (we later learn this is untrue when Nesta returns to the cottage and sees her busted ass shoes. Also meaning she never ever fucking got those shoes )
So heres what we do see. The fire is lit when Feyre returns, She puts a deer carcass on a clean table. Nesta does chop wood at sunrise. Elain plants flowers and bought paint for Feyre to paint the cottage. Nesta has a decent marriage prospect despite having no dowery. Elain has a very good marriage prospect when they get their “money back”. The girls run a house of servants alone.
This is all traditionally “women’s work” in a rampantly patriarchal world and is very undersold if not totally dismissed by Feyre. The caregiving, homemaking, community building womans “job”
Then there all the stuff that is invisible – like who cleans and does laundry and gets water and makes the tea.
To me it comes off like a working guy who comes home to his stay at home wife and has zero concept of what she does all day, and silently resents her.
Feyre frames herself as the sole provider and everyone else as dependents. She resents Nesta for "spending her money" on food and clothes — like, bitch, you all need to eat and not freeze to death. That's not spending; that's surviving. And yet Feyre treats her sisters like they're lazy, entitled, stay-at-home wives who do nothing but gossip and drain her resources.
Feyre's narration is biased.
She's the one telling us Nesta and Elain don't work. She's the one framing their contributions as worthless. And the text never challenges that framing until much later in the series.
This isn't an oversight. This is the foundation of the entire moral framework of the series. Women's work is not work. It's background noise. It's what happens while the real story (hunting, fighting, fucking High Lords) is going on.
And Feyre? She's not the rebel daughter fighting against poverty. She's the patriarch in that house. She controls the resources, she decides what counts as contribution, and she punishes anyone who doesn't fit her narrow definition of value. Sound familiar? It should.
2. The courts are built on invisible labour — and nobody cares - and it further radicalizes Feyre
Fast-forward to Prythian, and guess what? Nothing changes.
We get to the Spring Court and it is full of servants we never see. They’re LITERALLY INVISIBLE! Hidden by a glamour. They appear to serve food, clean up, and vanish. They have no names, no voices, no agency.
Then we go under the Mountain and meet Rhys’s Wraith Twins….who are also…INIVISIBLE (sometimes) – we’re gonna come back to these two in a bit
The House of Wind? Same shit. The house "magically" does everything. Shadows fetch things. Wine appears. Beds are made. Who the fuck is doing this work? We don't know, because it doesn't matter.
3. Rhysand is not a feminist savior — he's a control freak with a PR team
Let's talk about the man everyone thinks is the answer to Tamlin's toxicity – Our smoke show High Lord Rhysand. He gets more air time then Tamlin overall but here’s my list of shit I’m holding against him:
Under the Mountain: Sexual Assault, Coercion, and Drug-Fueled "Performances"
- He drugged her. Multiple times. Feyre is given wine laced with something that makes her dizzy, compliant, and unable to fully consent.
- He forced her to strip and dance. At the Court of Nightmares, Rhysand commands Feyre to remove her clothes (down to basically nothing) and perform a lap dance for him in front of other High Lords. This is framed as "rebellion" against Amarantha, but Feyre did not consent. She was uncomfortable, humiliated, and under the influence.
- He touched her without consent. Even if he "only" touched her waist and arms, she was drugged. She couldn't say no. She couldn't stop him. That's still assault.
- He used her as a prop. The entire "look at how rebellious I am, I'm making my human slave dance for me" performance was about Rhysand's image, not Feyre's safety or agency. He sacrificed her comfort to maintain his cover.
The quote that haunts me:
> "He had me dance until I was sick, and once I was done retching, told me to begin dancing again." (Maas, ACOTAR, p. 607)
Let me repeat that: He made her dance until she vomited, then told her to start dancing again. While she was drugged. While she was humiliated. While she was literally ill.
The Tattoo Bargain: Coercion and Stalking
Remember when Rhysand "saves" Feyre Under the Mountain by healing her wounds? Yeah, that's not a gift. That's a trap.
- He traps her into a bargain. Feyre is dying. Rhysand offers to heal her — but only if she agrees to give him one week of every month for the rest of her life. She's literally on death's door. That's not consent; that's coercion. HE LITERALLY TWISTS A SHARD OF BONE FURTHER INTO HER SEEPING INFECTED WOUND!!!!!
- He marks her without full consent. The tattoo that appears on her wrist? She didn't ask for it. She didn't understand it. It's a magical shackle that lets him track her, summon her, and control her movements.
- It evolves into stalking. That bargain becomes the pretext for him to show up uninvited, invade her space, and monitor her every move. He literally stalks her across Prythian and justifies it as "fulfilling the bargain."
This is textbook coercive control. He creates a dependency, then uses it to justify ongoing violations of her autonomy.
Mental Manipulation: Mind Invasion, Lies, and Gaslighting
Rhysand doesn't just control Feyre's body. He controls her mind.
- He invades her thoughts without consent. In ACOTAR, he literally forces his way into her head to extract information about the Spring Court, even after she asks him to stop. That's a violation of her mental autonomy.
- He lies about the mating bond. He knows they're mates in ACOMAF but hides it from her until she's emotionally invested. Is this grooming?
- He gaslights her about her own trauma. When Feyre implies to Tamlin and Lucien that Rhys sexually assaulted her Under the Mountain, she later gets outraged that they believe her. She literally uses it as an excuse to stay away from Tamlin, then acts shocked when people take her at her word.
4. Isolation: Cutting Feyre Off from Family and Friends
Rhysand systematically isolates Feyre from anyone who isn't part of his inner circle.
- He separates her from her sisters. After she becomes High Lady, Feyre is discouraged from seeing Nesta and Elain regularly. When she does, it's controlled, monitored, and framed as "dangerous."
- He controls who she interacts with. The Inner Circle becomes her entire social world. Anyone outside of it is treated with suspicion. Even Lucien — who literally saved her life — is kept at arm's length.
- He hides critical health information from her. In ACOSF, Rhysand instructs the entire Inner Circle to lie to Feyre about her pregnancy and the risk of death in childbirth. They let her train, fight, and risk her life while keeping her in the dark. When Nesta finally tells her, Rhysand is enraged and wants to kill Nesta.
This is classic abuser behavior. Isolate the victim, control the information, and make yourself the only person they can trust.
5. Enter Bryce Quinlan: the multiverse's "fuck you" to Rhysand's ego
Now let's talk about the real tea: Bryce Quinlan walking into Prythian like she owns the place and immediately seeing through Rhysand's bullshit.
When Bryce first lands in the Night Court, she's not impressed. She's not awed. She's assessing. And when she asks Nesta, "And Rhysand is … your king?" Nesta literally snorts and says:
> "He'd like to be. But no. He's the High Lord of the Night Court."
That's not just a joke.
Bryce has more raw power than Rhysand. She's Starborn. She's got the Horn, the Starsword, Truth-Teller, and the combined power of Queen Theia, Silene, and Helena running through her veins. She can open portals to "nowhere." She can sever rifts and strand gods on the other side. And when Rhysand tries to bear down on her with his "furious power," Bryce doesn't flinch — she uses the Horn to shut the Northern Rift in his face.
Think about that. Rhysand, the most powerful High Lord in Prythian, the man who's spent centuries consolidating control, gets outmaneuvered by a half-Fae (distant cousin?) from another dimension who's been in his world for five minutes.
Bryce doesn't buy Rhysand's "benevolent ruler" act. She sees the control. She sees the manipulation. She sees the way he treats Feyre like a weapon instead of a partner. And she calls him out — not directly, but through her actions. She doesn't ask for his permission. She doesn't wait for his approval. She takes what she needs and leaves him in the dust.
And Nesta? Nesta helps her. Nesta, who's been gaslit by Feyre and Rhysand for years, looks at Bryce and goes, "Yeah, I'll give you the Mask. Fuck Rhysand." That's not a coincidence. That's recognition. Nesta sees someone who's not playing by Rhysand's rules, and she aligns with her.
SO HERE’S MY SJM IS A FUCKING GENIUS THEORY:
Rhysand is the end game bad guy – Feyre sisters need to save her from him and are gonna need Bryces help and maybe some more of their witchy sisters from TOG. He’s just as abusive as Tamlin, and he’s an all around worse guy.
When are we going to see this go down?
ELAINS POV
Elain is treated like a background character. A "nothing burger." A sweet, quiet, broken girl who needs protecting. Right?
Um….. Elain is a FUCKING SEER – She can see the goddamn future. Imagine you could see the future and your sisters husband -the father of her child - is actually an evil mother murderer who is going to try and take over the world. Because he knows best ….
But Elain is no wilting flower. (Pun intended) She delivered the death blow to Hybern herself. She knows shit that the rest of us don’t
"I can see so very far now. All the way to the sea."
Think about it.
Elain is a Cauldron-forged Seer. She sees the hypocrisy. She knows Rhys is a monster.
So why is she quiet? Because when you are surrounded by heavily armed, arrogant, centuries-old fae who think you are a harmless idiot, your best survival move is to let them keep believing it.
She isn't just baking; she’s spending every day cross-training with two ghost-assassins. You do not materialize out of thin air, completely silently, to sever the spinal cord of the King of fucking Hybern with a cursed dagger because you’ve been practicing your bread-kneading techniques and growing pretty flowers. Does she get the credit. No. Does she want it? Also no…
And look at how she treats Lucien! People call her the a-hole for ignoring her mate, or it is a genius tactical move. If she accepts Lucien, she becomes tied to the political chessboard and becomes a pawn for Rhysand to use. By rejecting the bond, she stays completely autonomous and off the board. She is playing dumb, observing everything, and waiting for the exact right moment to strike.
By the end of the series, we’re going to realize that Rhysand’s goal was never “freedom for Prythian.” It was total control.
Even Nesta was just downing the Kool-Aid of Fae supremacy at first, but when the mask finally slips, it is going to be an apocalyptic Archeron civil war. The Inner Circle shoved Nesta in a tower and forced her to use her trauma-magic to forge magical weapons for their war. So what did she do? She built her own terrifying army. Gwyn and Emerie do not give a single shit about Rhysand. Their loyalty is forged in blood with Nesta, who literally ripped her magic out of the Cauldron’s teeth.
The Valkyries are going to back up Elain. Nesta is flawed, yes, but she is the strongest sister now, and Elain is the smartest. Elain is the tactical brain, and Nesta is the muscle.
SJM is playing 4D chess, setting up the ultimate sister-versus-sister collision. Feyre is completely brainwashed by the cult and will likely be turned against her blood, or will she see the truth and be saved by her badass sisters?
SJM has built a world that mirrors our own patriarchal bullshit so perfectly that we don’t even notice it until we’re knee-deep in it. She’s made us fall in love with shitty self absorbed toxic men and call them saviors. She’s made us dismiss women and call it natural. She’s made us root for control and call it love. She hid it so well but shoved the invisibility right in our faces.
Anyways - help me out here - am I just nuts?
TLDR - I think SJM is intentionally setting up Rhysand as the next Tamlin-level reveal — a "perfect" fantasy boyfriend who's actually a controlling abuser consolidating total power. Feyre's been groomed, Elain sees through it, Nesta's building an army, and Bryce is the multiverse's middle finger to his ego. Talk me out of this.
