Analysis of Elain Archeron’s character!
This is a LONGGG analysis on Elain Archeron’s character!
I know a lot of people think she’s boring, useless, or even a coward but I think she’s courageous and has shown it many times in the series!
(Also refrain from shipping talk here, I’d rather not have this post locked, thank you in advance!!)
ACOTAR: Feyre returns from Spring and is talking with Elain in the garden, Elain is ready to leave everything she knows behind and is asking Feyre if she'd like to go with her. (page 256)
>”You should come with me," Elain went on. ”Nesta won't go, because she says she doesn't want to risk the sea crossing, but you and I...Oh, we'd have fun, wouldn't we?”
Elain on page 260: When I first read the book, this paragraph caught my eye, it said a lot about Elain as a character.
>’I gazed again at that sad, dark house- the place that had been a prison. Elain had said she missed it, and I wondered what she saw when she looked at the cottage. If she beheld not a prison but a shelter- a shelter from the world that had possessed so little good, but she tried to find it anyway, even if it had seemed foolish and useless to me. She had looked at that cottage with hope; I had looked at it with nothing but hatred. And I knew which one of us had been stronger.’
When Feyre is ready to go, Elain is concerned ready to help, even though I think she's both sad and scared (page 270):
>Elain, to my surprise, had a horse, a sachel of food, and supplies ready when I hurried down the stairs. My father was nowhere in sight. But Elain threw her arms around me, and, holding tightly, said, ’I remember- I remember all of it now.’
>I wrapped my arms around her. ’Be on your guard. All of you.’
ACOMAF, on page 248 when her newly made sister and three enormous warriors show up on her doorstep and ask for help. Feyre describes them as "wild and rough and ancient (250), and Elain and Nesta are afraid of them, as they have been raised to know that the Fae are horrible monsters.
>’Nesta,' Elain said again, twisting her hands. If...if we do not help Feyre, there won't be a wedding. Even Lord Nolan's battlements and all his men, couldn't save me from...from them.’ *Nesta didn't so much as flinch. Elain pushed.. ’We keep it secret- we send the servants away. With the spring approaching, they'll be glad to go home. And if Feyre needs to be in and out for meetings, she'll send word ahead, and we'll clear them out. Make up excuses to send them on holidays. Father won't be back until the summer anyway. No one will know.’ She put a hand on Nesta's knee, the purple of my sister's gown nearly swallowing up the ivory hand. ’Feyre gave and gave- for years. Let us now help her. Help...others.’
They're terrified, Feyre can smell it on 253:
>My sisters did not curtsy. Their hearts wildly pounded, even Nesta's, and the tang of their terror coated my tongue-
Here is Elain, on 256, owning her part in Feyre's neglect which is the opposite of cowardice because all through this scene she is visibly afraid. She's trembling, her voice is described as a rasp, and she's gripping her knife so tightly Feyre wonders if she might use it as a weapon. A coward would have let Nesta take all the blame: >’And as for Ferye's hunting during those years, it was not Nesta's neglect alone that is to blame. We were scared, and had received no training, and everything had been taken, and we failed her. Both of us.’
I can't not share my favorite Elain line ever, on 389: >And it was Elain- Elain- who sighed and murmured, ’I hope they all burn in hell.’
I think what’s important for me in ACOMAF is that if Elain is the coward hiding behind the most powerful person, and she values power as a way to stay small/unharmed, then Elain would defer to the people she feels has power. Her fiance, with his battlement, her elder sister who runs her household. She could have ran to Graysen and hid behind his walls the minute she saw Rhys/Az/Cassian and who would have blamed her? And instead she doesn’t tell her Fae hating fiance that she's helping them because she views this as working for the greater good and repaying Feyre for years of perceived neglect. And she argues with Nesta to continue helping them, even when Nesta is saying no.
Consistently Elain is described as the kind of person who could convince someone to do something with a smile and a few kind words which implies she has learned how to get the things she needs through a combination negotiation, flattery, and perhaps a little manipulation if it suits her. What use are any of those things to a coward? Why not have Nesta do all of that for her?
On page 549, Feyre even acknowledge how strange it is that Elain is there when she could be under Graysen's protection:
>’Does my sisters' presence here not speak to you? There is an iron engagement ring upon my sister's finger-and yet here she stands with us.’
>’Elain seemed to be fighting the urge to tuck her hand behind the skirts of her pale pink and blue dress, but stayed tall while the queens surveyed her.’
>’I would say that it is proof of her idiocy," the golden one sneered, "to be engaged to a Fae-hating man....and to risk the match by associating with you.’
That doesn't look like cowardice to me. In fact, it looks like courage to me. It looks like risking everything in service of the greater good, and it even looks a little like shame that she's wearing that iron ring which is a symbol of her and her fiance's prejudice in the face of her Fae sister who I believe Elain does love.
Rhys offers to take Nesta and Elain to Velaris for protection in the face of war and the queens acknowledgement they're leaving the humans to suffer. Rhys, the most powerfully magic man in existence and if Elain values power so much and is such a coward, surely she goes? (555)
>Elain swallowed, a doe caught in a snare. ’I-I can't. I...’
But she could, and she chooses not to. Which leads, of course, to her own tragedy.
Elain who gives up safety in Velaris for love, finds herself kidnapped and shoved into a Cauldron. Gagged by strangers, and knowing she's going to drown and probably die, Elain still manages this moment on 602:
>My sisters were shrieking over their gags. But Elain's cry- a warning. A warning to- My right, now exposed. Tamlin ran for me. To grab me at last. I hurled a knife at him- as hard as I could.
So now she's traumatized, and I think Elain get's too much unfair criticism for how she handles it. She's never going to be loud, or a warrior and she's not girlbossing her way through it. She is the thing she's always feared and yet, with war coming, Elain is pushing it aside for the moment to think about others (ACOWAR, 470):
>’Then Elain said quietly, We could move them to Graysen's estate.’
And while I think she desperately wants to see him, this is still an act of courage to consider that they would be safe. I also think Elain knows well Graysen is not going to accept her as she is now, and still she hopes he will, hopes enough to agree to see him when hiding away and quietly mourning would have been emotionally safer.
Feyre even tells her, on 471
>’This could end very badly, Elain.’ She brushed her thumb over the iron-and-diamond engagement ring. ’It's already ended badly. Now it's just a matter of deciding how we meet the consequences.’
On 492, before Graysen, the love of her mortal life, and his terrifying Fae hating father, she says:
>’Graysen, I've come to beg you...’ A pleading glance at his father. ’Both of you...Open your gates to any humans who can get here. To families. With the wall down...We-they believe...There is not enough time for an evacuation. The queens will not send aid from the continent. But here-they might stand a chance.’
And Elain… who was caught in a snare, and still pleading for him to listen, managed to say this:
>’You are mated to some Fae… Male’
>’His name is Lucien.’
Elain, willing to damn convention and immortality to be with the man she loves.
>’Take that ring off.’
>Elain's fingers curved into firsts. ’No.’
Elain in the war is endless courage, despite having no tools to defend herself. After Nesta's scrying causes the Cauldron to lure Elain away as punishment, Elain risks her own life to get out a human. A coward would have looked the other way and risked nothing that put them in danger. Which is the opposite of what Elain did. 577:
>’Grab onto him!’ Elain ordered the wide-eyed human girl as Azriel thundered toward her. The girl looked like a doe about to be run down by a wolf. The girl did not open her arms as they neared. >Elain screamed at her, ’If you want to live, do it now!’
Elain holds the entire time, keeping Briar from slipping and dying.
Elain, on 610, when the violence is unavoidable and Az offers her truthteller: >’I -I don't know how to use it-‘
And of course, Elain, who tells him she doesn't know how to use a weapon, who could have hid (and might have been smart to do so) while everyone else fought, does this (653):
But as a blade broke through the king's throat, spraying blood, I realized someone else had. Elain stepped out of a shadow behind him, and rammed Truth-Teller to the hilt through the back of the king's neck as she snarled in his ear, >’Don't you touch my sister.’
On 655, I love this moment because Elain is truly Cauldron-blessed in that this sentient cooking pot made of ancient, godly magic, loves her and wants to protect her/gift her things. Nesta makes herself into a God, but I think Elain could have been made one, too, had she the inclination. The Cauldron certainly had the will:
>The Cauldron seemed to realize what she'd done, too, as his head thumped to the mossy ground. That Elain...Elain had defended this thief. Elain, who it had gifted with such powers, found her so lovely it wanted to give her something...It would not harm Elain, even in its hunt to reclaim what had been taken.
I think Elain gets labeled as a coward in part because of what happens in ACOSF- she didn't stand up against the IC, so she's a coward because Nesta would have never let them take her up there, but Elain spends a good portion of ACOFAS trying to coax Nesta out, and then offering Nesta space in equal measure when it's clear Nesta wants to be alone. I'm not going to argue whether the intervention was good, because I personally don’t think it was.
And Elain has never enjoyed the coddling, no matter how she benefitted from it. In ACOSF, when Elain is offering to scry on Nesta's behalf. Nesta doesn't WANT to scry but Elain DOES (232)
>’Absolutely not,’ Nesta spat, fingers curling at her sides. ’Absolutely not.’
>’Why?’ Elain demanded. ’Shall I tend to my little garden forever?’
>When Nesta flinched, Elain said, ’You can't have it both ways. You cannot resent my decision to lead a small, quiet life while also refusing to let me do anything greater.’
I think this moment says so much about how Nesta views herself and what she's worth to people more than anything else. Elain is offering Nesta an out- I will do this because I want to (Feyre states it Elain's choice and still Nesta is saying no), and you don't have to. Nesta can't let her, because she can't risk Elain and Nesta is in such a bad place (and I think she was way before she was made, which only amplified it), that to her, she's the expendable one. She can get hurt, she can be the shield because who would miss her? Who would value her if she didn't? That doesn't make her view true, but it does offer insight into their relationship over the last few books, and it makes Nesta all the more tragic.
But it doesn't make Elain a coward either.
Elain might be a lot of things, /positive but cowardly is not one of them. Elain gets a lot of shit for being quiet (which makes her devoid of a personality to some…) and for internalizing her trauma, but she consistently shows up for her sisters every time it matters, often at the expense of herself.
I don't think Elain is drawn to power, nor do I think she's a coward hiding behind whoever can keep her safest. I think Elain is in stasis, partly because her time hasn't come for a narrative but also because she doesn't know where she fits anymore. She has no clear, defined purpose and so she's looking for one. Also, this is a SJM book. Feyre, Nesta, and Elain love each other even if you don't.
If you’ve read this far, thank you!! I think I’m going to do an analysis on Gwyn next. Who else should I do?