The Black Curtain Club
Weird mysteries, creepy stories, chaotic 2 a.m. conversations, and all the things your afraid to ask your friend - that’s what you’ll find at The Black Curtain Club.
The Black Curtain Club
Grab the Headboard: A Journey through ACOTAR
Step into the enchanting yet dangerous world of Prythian as we explore Sarah J. Maas's beloved fantasy series, A Court of Thorns and Roses. What begins as a seemingly familiar Beauty and the Beast retelling quickly transforms into a dark, sensual journey through a realm where magic, politics, and ancient beings collide in unexpected ways.
Our special guest Laura Henthorne joins hosts Becca, Kyle, and Angi to dissect what makes this series so captivating—from the complex evolution of relationships to the monsters lurking in the shadows of each Court. We dive deep into how the author subverts familiar fantasy tropes and creates characters who grapple with trauma, power, and healing in profoundly human ways.
Whether you're a dedicated ACOTAR fan looking to relive your favorite moments or curious about what makes this series so special, this episode offers both heartfelt appreciation and thoughtful analysis of a fantasy world that continues to capture readers' imaginations long after the last page.
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Okay, I'm going to skip to this one. Any character you low-key wish had died. I seriously wish somebody had just snapped Elaine's neck, like somewhere, early on so we don't have to carry her through the rest of the fucking series. Elaine, why don't you grow some fucking vegetables in your flower garden? How about that? Why don't you help out the family a little bit?
Speaker 2:You, grandpa, joe-ass, motherfucker.
Speaker 3:Elaine is pretty like. I mean truthfully, she's useless.
Speaker 4:Before we begin today's episode, we would like to share a quick disclaimer. The views, opinions and statements expressed by the hosts and guests on this podcast are their own personal views and are provided in their own capacity. All content is editorial, opinion-based and intended for entertainment purposes only. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 1:Hello, darlings, and welcome back to the Black Curtain Club podcast. It's your favorite manic menace, Becca, and this week's episode is going to tell you to grab the headboard before it sweeps you off your feet to fly you over the fantasy city of Starlight herself. This week, I'm joined by special guest Laura Henthorne and my two favorite co-hosts, Kyle and Angie. How are you guys doing today?
Speaker 4:Wonderful. Can't wait to hear about this book.
Speaker 3:I'm doing great. Super excited to be here. Thanks for having me?
Speaker 1:Yeah, before we get started, do you want to just tell us a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so hi everyone, I'm Laura. Actually, this is my first podcast ever, so I'm really excited to be here. I am a book lover, so much so that I started a whole Instagram account to share my love of books, so I guess you would consider me a bookstagrammer, and I basically share all of my obsessions, one of those being the ACOTAR series and the world of Sarah Jameis, so I'm really excited to be here and talk about this with you guys and Becca, angie and Kyle. So, yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:I'm so freaking lately, like I love them so much. Today we are talking about the book series A Court of Thorns and Roses by author Sarah J Maas and, like I said, we have a predicament here. You and I have read these books, laura, but Kyle and Angela here are a couple of uncultured swines. I had to hire a stranger to talk about this with me. I want to make them feel a little bit left out right off the bat. So let's start with the deep end. Which court do you belong to and which one is your book boyfriend?
Speaker 3:Oh, my gosh, I'm so excited to answer this question. Okay, so I am the night court through and through. Yes, give me the mountains, give me the stars, give me the strength, the found family, the art. I love it all. The Night Court feels like home. My book boyfriend would be Cassian. No competition there. I think as you read the books, you kind of go through this journey of falling in love with different characters. Books, you kind of go through this journey of falling in love with different characters. But Cassian is a little rough around the edges but has the biggest heart, a ton of patience, so I know he could deal with me. He's strong, loyal, funny. So I'm a slow burn girly and Cassian delivers the slow burn. So that's my court and that's my book boyfriend. What about you?
Speaker 1:Becca Okay, I'm definitely. I have to go with Night Court too, just because I'm a little night owl. Valaris City of Starlight. I mean like why would you want to live anywhere else? They have canned soup here. You guys don't understand.
Speaker 4:Oh no, oh no, not the broccoli cheddar soup.
Speaker 2:Oh God, we're starting off.
Speaker 1:We're starting off there if I'm gonna be in the freaking night court, I'm gonna have resand shadow daddy. Are you kidding me? He is the number one in the entire series. I think resand is. Oh god, oh, I love it. I gave you guys just like a little cheat sheet to give you like faces to put with names. Did you guys have a chance to take a look at that?
Speaker 3:I did.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, okay. So we have a few of the big names here. You guys see the names of the courts, that kind of is what they are Kind of like, which region controls what, and you have a couple of faces. I want to know who you guys think off the bat your core and who your book boyfriend would be, or girlfriend kyle, if you see a lady here that you like better angie, you go first oh, I put you on the spot I think my court would be and this is no pun intended but dawn, because I like the mountains and the sun.
Speaker 4:Book, boyfriend, just based on what you gave me, how do you say it? Ray Sand Ray Sawn. Ray Sand Ray Sand. Yeah, it's the, it's yes. I don't know what color his eyes are but you know it's that that, dark haired, light eyes, they are like purple, aren't they?
Speaker 1:Oh my God, okay, violet eyes, violet eyed man.
Speaker 4:That's it. That's all you had to say. Yeah, so I guess him Perfect. Do we just get one or do we have to pick?
Speaker 2:one for me. Oh Jesus, no, you don't know these books. I would never make you pick one.
Speaker 1:Not in Perithian, will never make you pick one Not in Perithian. I would make you pick one in Throne of Glass. Just to be mean, kyle, what about you? What do you see here? What calls to you?
Speaker 2:Oof, I feel I have absolute zero skin in this game, but I've always worked in the night. Very, very well. Sounds like there's mountains, so why not with that? Yeah, so we'll go with what just was the uh, the night court.
Speaker 1:There you go, go with them okay, um, I'm an equal opportunities lover, so like. Because everyone throws me a bone, why? Not, I feel like you and asriel would have a lot to talk about, I think I also just kind of picked that one because I have a very good friend of mine.
Speaker 2:Shout out to vix on that one. She's obsessed with these books as well. She knows that I'm a cosplayer and I put up a poll on my social medias for everyone to vote for who they would like me to see, and she put out the character Cassian, and then like 90 people just voted yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I was like I literally don't know what this is. So I thought she wanted to meet a dude from Narnia and I was just like what are you talking about?
Speaker 2:And she was like she's like you have no idea how far off you are.
Speaker 4:Yes, he's attractive, but you have no clue.
Speaker 2:So now, probably like November, time is probably when I will be dressed up as him for like a 30 second ha ha on the internet. I'm so excited, we're going to we're going to tag this episode whenever you do it.
Speaker 1:So circle back before you knew Cassian and then you wore his skin. I will say the quote I said at the beginning grab the headboard. That is a hundred percent a Cassian quote. Just to give you a little something to nibble on before we get too deep into this.
Speaker 2:Is that what he said?
Speaker 1:Excellent courts by the way. Yeah, that's a Cassian quote. Kyle, Grab the headboard.
Speaker 2:Gotcha Noted. I got to take notes on this because I need to remotely know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:later, oh yeah, this is going to help you so much. You're going gonna get to know these people I don't see this is a good thing briefest of synopsis, I'm gonna do my best to kind of describe the bones of this behemoth book. One is a court of thorns and roses and the story is told from the perspective of a human girl, phara. Yes, the fairy novel is about a girl named Feyre. Get your giggles out.
Speaker 2:Her human name is that? Get the fuck out of here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's her human name Feyre.
Speaker 2:I guess it is better than like Brittany or Jessica, because that's just going to take you right out, that's just going to break the magic.
Speaker 1:Okay, we love Feyre. Don't shame her. If you have read or you've seen Beauty and the beast, you know this story already. To an extent we have a few differences, though there is a wall. Fey live on one side, humans live on the other. Um, when I say fey, I'm not talking like tinkerbell. I want you to picture the fey in this book like the elves of middle earth, because that is going to be what you hold on to the most. They are very much apex predators, very lethal. The humans are terrified of these fuckers. Okay, like they are dreading the day the Fae decide to tear down the wall and basically storm the village like Vikings, because they all have magic. Humans don't Keep that in mind.
Speaker 2:So Threndio with wings got it.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Not all of them have wings, though We'll touch on that. So Fae live on one side, humans live on the other and in a very Katniss Everdeen move, feyre kills a giant wolf while she's out hunting and a few days later Beast kicks down the door of her daddy's house and tells her that wolf was Fae and she is big time fucked. From there we go to Perithian, the Fae realm, and the story kicks off. Like there is a whole lot to this story, I don't know how deep we want to go. I don't know how much we want to spoil for people balls, I will say.
Speaker 1:What essentially happens is this fey monster, this beast that breaks down the door, tells her that she has to come and live with him over the wall. It's very much a forced proximity. That's how we start this novel. So she goes basically from living in poverty in this little hovel on the human side of the wall in like the most brutal winter she can remember. She is 19, by the way, she ends up in the spring court and the monster who came and got her from her daddy's home, he turns into a blonde man with a gold mask. So she sees that all of the human presenting fey around her are also wearing masks.
Speaker 3:It's like a thing with this area that she is in everybody is wearing a mask yeah that is something everybody forgets, so you can't really see his full face, but you know that he's a good-looking man you just and yeah, and farah is pissed.
Speaker 3:She does not want to be there. She's the sole provider for her family, so she's the one that goes out and hunts. She's the one that gets their food uh, she sells the hide of the animals, and that for money, so that her family can survive. And she's now stuck with this man who she views as a beast. Essentially right, he shapeshifts and I think, yeah, of course you know what happens. They force proximity. One thing leads to another. Stockholm.
Speaker 2:Syndrome.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, forced proximity, one thing leads to another. And Stockholm syndrome? Yeah, yeah, she starts to. She starts to figure out that she likes the man, but she's, you know, she's curious and she wanders and she gets herself into trouble and he saves her, of course. Are you shitting me?
Speaker 2:yeah, she said beauty and the beast. Yeah, yeah, gets in trouble the wolves, he saves her.
Speaker 3:Come on, yeah, and it like gets deeper into the story. So like you think book one is really good until you read book two. Book one starts off and it's like beauty and the beast and then it just shifts and you're like holy shirt balls. What is happening? And everything changes, which you know, you know, if you know, you know if you're listening to this, and you know you know she's going under the mountain to try to save humanity and everybody that she knows and loves and she has to fight all these beasts and she's just this human person. It's just crazy.
Speaker 3:It gets wild and you're like it started off slow and now there's all this action. Then you meet Rhysand and it becomes this whole other thing where you have this evil man she's trying to save Tamlin, and it just becomes this big web and you think you know what's going to happen, but you don't and you're hooked by that point. She goes under the mountain, shit gets wild and now you're like, well, I have to keep reading because everything just changed. She's a badass bitch. I just rambled for 15 minutes about the book. You are our people.
Speaker 2:One of us the war of the land party.
Speaker 1:Not all understand, but those who do, they're welcome here. I want to talk about the characters that ruined us in this book for a second. I want to know, Laura, who did you fall for first and who did you end up loving at the end of this series?
Speaker 3:If I'm not honest, then I don't think that I'm being truthful to the experience that is this book.
Speaker 1:So I need you to say what you're gonna say, right now.
Speaker 3:So, of course, in A Court of Thorns and Roses, you just fall in love with Tamlin. That was the person I fell in love with at first and then quickly realized, like actually no, not at all. And then you transition right. Like I said, I ended up loving Cassian, male-wise, and then, where my heart ended up with the female main character is I am a nester ride or die. Oh, thank you so much. I love her. I know we will talk about redemption. I really ended up loving Reese, obviously. Then I really loved Cassie, but Nesta is my girl.
Speaker 1:I'm in the same boat entirely. I think it is something in our brains chemically. If you have been scorned, or if you know what fight or flight feels like in your body when you read A Court of been scorned, or if you, if you know what fight or flight feels like in your body when you read a court of thorns and roses, you're gonna meet tamlin and he's gonna sweep you off your fucking feet, his little fiddle playing.
Speaker 1:It's not gonna seem cringy the first time you read a court of thorns and roses. Okay, it's the rite of passage. Everybody falls for tamlin because he makes her feel safe. He takes her from starving in the woods to this beautiful mansion where there's flowers growing everywhere. She doesn't have to hunt anymore, she can enjoy the woods right. He gets her painting again. Everybody loves Tamlin. I loved Tamlin. I am guilty of loving Tamlin. But in the second book, when Feyre and Rhysand are talking and she says to him I'm worried. I came out here and fell in love with the first person who was kind to me. I felt that in my fucking bones.
Speaker 4:Sarah, do you have a?
Speaker 1:few comments.
Speaker 2:I just love how you started this bit with hey. If you've ever been through trauma, you fall in love with this guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%, 100%, 100%, because he is like ultimate himbo protector. But he also seems deceptively soft in the beginning. But you can. If you reread the book as many times as I am I'm talking 11 times here you see all of these little threads that the author left in the first book. The second time you read it when blinders are off, and you're like seeing the relationship with Tamlin. You're like why did I? Why?
Speaker 2:So John Stamos got it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Unreal. Yes, it's fiction, but Sarah J Moss has like this way of weaving in the human experience in a way that's like hard to replicate. Truthfully, the problem with tamlin is the control, and he's not about partnership. I think he likes because she's weak and because he can sort of dominate her, or so he thinks and when she starts to need freedom and agency more than protection, he really starts to like collapse within himself, Like he can't handle that. So there's a lot of control and manipulation, I think, and you start to see that and it can trigger you if you've ever been in this situation Like you get the ick real quick, which I feel like that's a spoiler.
Speaker 1:Listen, these books have been out since pre-Panny, right yeah, if you have not read Akatar.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, she is about to put out her seventh or eighth book next year. Get on the bandwagon. If you're clicking on this that says Akatar and you're scared of spoilers, just pause it, mute it, whatever. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Okay, there's nowhere else to talk about these books. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Okay, there's nowhere else to talk about these books. Anyways, laura, I was reading A Court of Mist and Fury like just to kind of prep.
Speaker 1:I've been reading a little bit of all of the books and I am reading the part in the beginning of A Court of Mist and Fury when Feyre is. You know, she's not sleeping, she's not eating, she's getting sick in the middle of the night because of these panic attacks she's having. She's having like PTSD from under the mountain the middle of the night because of these panic attacks she's having. She's having like ptsd from under the mountain. And it goes into how tamlin reacts whenever he has bad dreams. And something that I found so interesting was the way favor would say she could tell that tamlin woke up when she was sick because she could hear his breathing change, but he would stay still until she came back to bed. So he would hear her in the night like crying, throwing up in the bathroom because she's so distraught and then she's like going back to bed, knowing this guy was awake the whole time. He let me go through that by myself.
Speaker 1:And on the other side of that, when tamlin's having his dreams, his go-to response isn't to like get sick or anything like that. He literally just gets up in patrols and make sure that nobody is coming to get Feyre. That is all he's doing. He's not making sure she's good because, like the dreams he's having, like obviously she's, you know, getting got under the mountain, he's having these dreams too. He's not trying to really like make sure she's safe, he's just making sure nobody else can get her. That is his entire goal and the entire beginning of a court of mist and fury. And it goal and the entire beginning of a court of mist and fury. And it's almost like you get whiplash going from a court of thorns and roses into mist and fury and all of a sudden, tamlin, prince charming, you're like wait, hold on a second buddy, come on, please don't do this to me, not again yeah, prince charming and disney to prince charming and shrek got it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like what happens after the happily ever after I mean, really, if you even go back to Under the Mountain, right, she went under the mountain to try to save the entire kingdom, but also to save Tamlin. There's an evil queen, right Of course, there's someone evil and Tamlin gets taken under the mountain. He's quote, unquote prisoner, right, and this is the same queen that cursed them all. And so she goes under the mountain. She's a human and he does nothing. He literally just stands by and watches her get essentially tortured and have and she has to go through all of these challenges to not die. And he just stands by and and just pretty much slow, blinks and like, does absolutely diddly squat.
Speaker 3:Meanwhile, rhysand, like he's the bad guy, right, like that's what Feyre's been told. Feyre's been told that the Night Court is evil Rhysand, all he does is torture people. So when Feyre meets Rhysand for the first time, she's like I want nothing to do with you, you're bad. But really, the whole time erisa is trying to protect feyra and keep her safe and he's making himself look like the bad guy to protect her because, oh. And then it's like oh, it gets so good, guys, it gets so good, so good, oh god.
Speaker 1:Because he knew her the whole time. He knew her the whole time. Oh, he knew her the whole time. The guy too big, he knows he's Psychic Mind Towers fairy boy. He's the High Lord of Night Court. The High Lords are like the alphas in that region and it's usually familial. And so Rhysand is High Lord of Night Court. He has bat wings in that region, right, and it's usually like familial. And so risanda's high lord of night court he has bat wings and his like illyrian form. Nobody knows about this until book two, but you can just imagine his bat wings if you want. It makes me very happy to imagine his bat wings. You go under the mountain. You see tamlin again. You're like, oh, thank god, it's tamlin, she sees tamlin, we can get this started. The challenges are so fucking cool. You guys will. You guys would be obsessed. The first one is did they start with the Middengard worm? Is that what they bust out the gate with? It's the fucking worm, laura.
Speaker 3:I thought that that was the first one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah because then she gets hurt. Picture the Alaskan bull worm from spongebob she's like down in this, like muddy pit fighting like a grab boy, that's even worse like human hunty skills.
Speaker 1:She determines that the worm is blind she can kind of see. It's like a maze, like a dirt maze, that she is down below and all of the fey are up above watching her fight this fucking monster. She discovers it's like a maze, like a dirt maze, that she is down below and all of the fey are up above watching her fight this fucking monster. She discovers it's blind and she ends up like setting a trap with some like bones from it's like it's layer in the middle of the maze, like she literally is like, oh, this is an arm bone, this is leg, but this is perfect.
Speaker 1:And she goes to like the corners of the maze and she starts like hammering these bones in and she literally like sets a trap for this giant worm, like all of us fey are watching this human with no magic, and all she does is literally like, oh, this is what I have, these are, these are the things I need. Let me just macgyver a little home alone trap for a worm and it's so fucking dope, so dope, it is so good, it's so good. Afterward, I'm pretty sure she flips re-stand off, does she not? Yeah, yeah, she like slings one of the bones at the queen and it splashes in the mud and like gets her dress all dirty, like it was like a hundred percent, like instead of if, instead of katniss ever deemed doing the little three finger salute, if she just like double flipped off president, snow, no, are you kidding?
Speaker 2:me, I think the badass in the first, in the first one, when they're not paying attention, she takes the arrow and she like, shoots the thing, like off the guy's fork, like yeah, that's badass. Oh the apple it was the apple through the pig's mouth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah yeah very much. That is like the energy that farrah is bringing into this first book. In the first book, cause she is very much like human, going into the world of magic and having to use, like what she learned growing up in the woods being the provider for her Okay, being the provider for her family at the age of 19,.
Speaker 1:When she has an older sister, a father who is okay Her father is handicapped and then a useless sister, elaine, oh my god this bitch, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait wait, wait, wait her sister has a normal name and she has fucking what we have feyra, we have nesta and we have elaine, and that goes into um, okay, I'm gonna skip to this one. Any character you low-key wish had died. I seriously wish somebody had just snapped elaine's neck, like somewhere early on, so we don't have to carry her through the rest of the fucking series. Elaine, why don't you grow some fucking vegetables in your flower garden? How about that? Why don't you help out the family a little bit?
Speaker 3:you, grandpa joe, ass motherfucker elaine is pretty, like I mean truthfully she's useless, like I'm sorry, she just is, and like out of the three sisters, nesta gets like the most shit and farah's like the hero and elaine's just like nothing, like she's just like oh, I just want to bake and garden, which is like great. But come on, you could have done something, elaine. You could have done literally anything.
Speaker 1:She's a human living in this cabin. Right. She's growing flowers because she thinks they're pretty. Everybody else is taking care of where the food comes from and where the money is coming from. Elaine doesn't have to worry about that, because she is pretty. Everyone talks about how pretty Elaine is. She becomes Faye, and that's when she decides to take up cooking as a hobby. Like bitch, you have literal magic and now you're going to start helping out around the house, when we literally have two little shadow babes who are perfectly willing to do that themselves, like thank you, no, thank you. God damn, why did we have to drag her to parithia?
Speaker 4:right, tell me how you really feel about elaine I mean she.
Speaker 3:She redeems herself a little in a court of wings of ruin. She does a little. I mean not for me, she kills. She kills the man, the man, the one, she helps.
Speaker 1:She finally gets her hands dirty. Guys. It's book three, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, finally, after everyone's traumatized and everything's gone to shit, she like steps up kind of and does something good. But yeah, the sisters it's so funny because I talked about the human experience and like the sisters all experience the same upbringing and they all treat their trauma like completely different. And it's again reflective of like if you have siblings in a house, they can go through the same exact things and they'll be completely different people and deal with their shit like totally different ways.
Speaker 3:You just kind of see yourself in a character Hopefully you're not elaine, who like does nothing the whole time, but like if you are sending you so much love, hopefully, don't fucking talk to me, wait, I have a quick question.
Speaker 4:So so, farah nesta and el Elaine are sisters.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 4:In the pictures do Nesta and Elaine have pointy ears and Feyre does not. Does Nesta?
Speaker 1:turn into a-. That is an interesting observation. That is very interesting that you would pick that out.
Speaker 4:And also, Cassian does not have pointy ears.
Speaker 1:Angie, you need to read these books, babe. You've got a detective's mind. Okay, cassian is what we call an Illyrian. This is a race. He's technically fae, he's not high fae. So Illyrians are like a warrior race in the mountains of Night Court and they are where the Batwings come from. Technically, rhysand is like a little mutt. He is half high fae, half Illyrian, and that's why he has bat wings too. So resand, cassian and asriel are considered the bat boys.
Speaker 1:And then so the thing about the archer on sisters fey, renesta and elaine. They all start the series as human. This is spoiler territory. Somewhere along the way they all three end up fey, all three of them. And of course it's like very classic, like they're all these immortal men in in parithian, and finally three human women have become fey and of course, like they find their perfect mates and stuff like that, you know. So on, so forth. It's like very, it's very deus ex machina, if you want to say, like it's very convenient, plot wise. But they all at one point end up being fey. But they are made, which makes them different.
Speaker 1:Everyone else who was born fey. It's like genetics, but they had to be turned fey. So they are like. They're like pretty much gods in parithian now, if the rest of Perithian hasn't caught up yet. There are a few who know what the Arsharon sisters are capable of, but it is a lot of fucking shit. Like we're talking about unwriting time and like mastery over death, shit like that. Like they are in direct communication with the old gods. Nobody even worships anymore, but they don't even know that yet because they haven't read Throne of Glass like I have.
Speaker 2:Eleven times.
Speaker 1:Spoiler I've not. I've not read it either. I've not read throne of glass either.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's so good, laura, it's so I know, I know, I know I will, I uh, yeah I will get there. The reading order is intimidating yeah, it's like a whole rabbit hole of why I started it and like didn't continue it. I'm going to finish it. I've finished Crescent City. I'm going to oh my.
Speaker 1:Hold on, don't you dare, glaze, you read Crescent City before you read Throne of Glass. Yes, oh my gosh, you psychopath. What the hell.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because how dare you commit such an atrocity?
Speaker 3:I was motivated. I was motivated by the third book coming out last year. I had the, the motivation. I jumped right from Akatar right into Crescent City and I was like I'm skipping the uh, the behemoth series that is Throne of Glass. But now everyone's like Throne of Glass will ruin you. You need to read it.
Speaker 1:I'm like I know I know, the best series I've ever read in my entire life. So for context, for angie and kyle, if you want to think about them as all on the same timeline, throne of glass is like 50 000 years in the past. Parithian is as close to present day as they get, but it's still very much like renaissance style. There are some like signs of like I said. There's canned, canned soup and like electricity and Starlight. Like they're. They're coming out of the dark ages in Perithian.
Speaker 2:Right and then Crescent.
Speaker 1:City is literally futuristic, like if you go from reading the ACOTAR series to Crescent City, one of the first chapters. She's like Bryce opened up her laptop and it like literally gave me whiplash, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:That's, that's, that's an experience.
Speaker 1:Out of body experience.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that's that's, that's an experience. Experience, yeah, it's like her cell phone. I'm like wait what they're calling? They're calling each other, yeah they're not talking to their minds futuristic in crescent city.
Speaker 1:It's very cool all right.
Speaker 4:So I don't. I don't want to mess up your order here on how you're telling this story, but I have a question. Yes, so on the on the bottom row of the pictures that you sent us, I need to know why. Why does every single person on this bottom row look like they have like a stick planted firmly up their ass?
Speaker 2:fun fact, they all do.
Speaker 1:Okay, bottom row. Okay. So we are looking at.
Speaker 4:You got Highburn, bonecarver, bonecarver is sick. Yeah, they all look so intense. This guy with the white hair?
Speaker 1:Oh, collius yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, they all look like they're just like is the bottom right corner.
Speaker 2:Is that really just a fucking cauldron?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, it's like yeah, the cauldron is, it is. There's a very beautiful tapestry in the spring court that shows like the hands of fate throwing in all the ingredients and like spilling this cauldron over the land and from that Perithian sprouts up and spoiler alert the cauldron is a very real thing and comes into play in like books three on ish, because that is how two of the sisters kind of become Faye.
Speaker 2:Gotcha yeah the cauldron is.
Speaker 1:It's a very, it's a sentient thing. By the way, it's not just like a pot that they used, it's like it's very special. Oh, I thought it was just like where they make their canned soup. Yeah, you get a mate. You get a mate. I love it. I'm telling you like when Outlander came out, everybody was traveling to Scotland to go touch the rocks to see if it would take them. I feel like there are so many bitches on BookTok that would leap into that culture. Oh shit, you touched on something really good here. Angie, everybody on this bottom row here, they are kind of intense characters. Gwyneth and Emery are not. They're kind of the outliers. And these are three of my favorites In the first row, Surreal. In the second row, the Weaver and in the bottom row, the Bonecarver. These are like.
Speaker 2:Sounds fucking metal.
Speaker 1:Intelligent monsters that we come across in this land. So it starts with the Surreal. It's very much a Fey favorite is bored at the spring court in book one and she's like trying to get answers and she knows that there are fey out there that will like answer your questions. So she starts like being sneaky with lucy and the courier and she's like you know, if I were to like look for one of these fey that answer all your questions, what would I do? And he's like okay, so here's what you do. You get a chicken, you get, you go into the woods, you set a snare and you wait for it to come along for the chicken. And so she, she does all these things. She goes out, sets her snare, she has the chicken. And this fucking surreal, this goddamn horrid thing my favorite character in the entire series, by the way, it is. Oh my gosh. It reminds me of the guy in Endgame that has the Death Stone.
Speaker 2:Red Skull.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The Soul Stone Close.
Speaker 1:He's very much like he wears robes. He's got a very gaunt face, he is very deadly but for some reason he lets Feyre trap him and he answers all of her questions. Because, suriel, guys, you don't know this. Nobody in parithia knows this, except for we learn this. When barry learns this, the surreal is in it for the plot and he is so down to help favor with her missions. Like anytime she calls the serial, he's like coming and there's. There's like a whole encounter. After the first time she meets the serial where she gets chased by these things called Naga and it's like this whole thing. They're crashing through the trees, the Suriel's still trapped in the snare and he's like Bitch, please don't leave me. They're coming. And so she's like, okay, if I let this thing go and it just rips my throat out, I'm gonna be so pissed. But she's like Okay, okay, okay. So she unties the little guy and he just like poofs off into nothingness and she has to like escape the naga.
Speaker 1:This is one of her like first head-to-head fights with the monsters in the fey and it's like it's real scary. Tamlin comes to save her. It's very much the scene with bell and the wolves from beauty and the beast. Like he comes and she's like, oh my gosh, I must tend to your wounds, like you've saved me. And it's like very cute. She talks to the housekeeper later like elise. Nobody gives elise any credit and elise is like you know, if you had just gotten a new cloak and went out there, that thing would have been eating out of your hands. You didn't have to kill a perfectly good chicken. But yeah, and there's just so many like really good monsters in this. The weaver in the wood is another one. She comes in the second book and she's literally like this eyeless, she looks badass haired woman.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she's sick and like okay, resend, sends her, sends feyra into her cabin to get something for him to see if she can like track something that belongs to him. She's trying to like prove what kind of power she has. So he's like, yeah, just go in there. Like try not to touch anything, that isn't what you're coming for. Um, don't let her see you. And he's just like all right, get on gone so she's absolutely gonna touch everything oh, it's so like hansel and gretel, creepy.
Speaker 1:And it's like she approaches this cabin in the woods and she hears this woman singing a song about like two sisters one sister like drowns, the other one in the river, like it's fucking horrid. She hears they're like singing this little like lullaby. That's fucked up. And she's spinning something on a loom and farah just like comes into the cabin. She's being like super quiet. She's like creeping around and she finds what she's looking for and that's when the fucking weaver like turns around.
Speaker 1:She's like, oh my God, this bitch is eyeless. She is like clawed and she is like crawling around like a spider. So she's like in this cabin, like trying to get out. I think the doorknob on the door disappears so she has to scramble out through the chimney and the whole time Rhysand is like in the woods and he can hear all this going down. He's just like leaning up against the tree checking his cuticles. Doesn't give a fuck. She's in here fighting for her life, climbing through a chimney and when she was, oh, she throws bricks down at the weaver because she's like crawling up like a spider and she's like throwing bricks trying to get out of the chimney.
Speaker 1:And when she busts out of the chimney she realizes the roof is made of hair. That horrified me looking hair. Yeah, she like flies through the trees looking for resand like bumps into him and he's like what did you do to her? Like you can hear this bitch screaming in her house. She's been eating bricks for 10 minutes. It's so good. I love the monsters in these books.
Speaker 3:It's so good they all come back later, though, to like they all have their moment where they're like scary and like and you know, you, you hate them and you're like, okay, they're, you know, they're like really bad. And then they all come back later to kind of rally and and help. So it's like the this like full circle moment where okay, yeah, like you were fighting for your life against this creature and then this creature is actually going to come and help save the day, because we need all of the power right.
Speaker 3:So they have like all of their little redemptions. Like did I cry when the serial said to Thera that like you were the only one who was ever kind to me, like everyone else was a source of fear to me and you were the only one that I hadn't feared in a long, long while, and I'm like he was just a creature. I needed love. You know, like you feel bad for these creatures who were like used for their magic and like not respected and they're like they aren't kind to them. So, anyways, it's like like you feel bad for them honestly.
Speaker 1:At least I do reading this book if you don't pay attention. There's like this whole subplot that the high fey essentially brought order to parithian. Parithian was like very elemental and raw when the high fey like came and like tamed everything. They separated everything into courts to keep the land stable and they put all of the big scaries either up in the prison or in this place called is it called? The middle? Yeah, in book two they're looking for information and they say like we have to go to the prison to see the bone carver and it's this like huge ordeal to like go to the prison. It's basically like alcatraz at the very tippy, tippy tip of the night court and it's like enchanted. It's very hard to get into. Resand brings favor there and they go down into the depths. It's literally like it's like a big mountain but it's like hollowed out. They love hollowing out mountains in this bitch, if you're gonna read this series, they love hollowing out a mountain and making shit out of it.
Speaker 1:So the prison hollow earth baby and in the depths of the prison is the bone carver. All of the cells are made out of bones, bones that this thing carved and he like made whoa.
Speaker 4:How did they come up with his?
Speaker 1:name yeah right, he's actually from throne of glass, but I will. If we ever do a throne of glass episode, I will tell you about this. This is an Easter egg. I found, anyway, the bone carver is very much a powerful being who is in prison because he chooses to be, and he makes that very clear. He says I don't want to be out there. I know what is out there waiting and I am biding my time in here.
Speaker 2:He very much is choosing to be here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:Charlie Manson.
Speaker 1:And he's very much like okay, we want to talk about Silence of the Lambs. It's like Clarice coming in to talk to Hannibal Lecter and get advice about this crazy shit happening in Perithian. She's like so, bone carver, tell me this. And he's super into her because she has died and come back to life. It's sick, dude. It is so sick he did, he carved all the bones. It's like the way he tells his stories. It's so cool.
Speaker 3:And also he appears as something different to each person that looks at him, so like for. Farah he appeared as one thing, but for Rhysand he appears as something different, so you really never know what he looks like. He appears to either the thing you fear most or the thing that you love most, so he can pretty much manipulate you. Whether it be like striking an emotional cord or like making you fear him, he becomes. Whatever that thing is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it'd be disturbing as hell. I had a question about Okay, yes, oh no, so this, this cat Att.
Speaker 4:Oh no, so this cat Ator. Oh the Ator, he's more of a bat-faced thing.
Speaker 1:It's not a cat.
Speaker 4:He looks like something that came from He-Man and Skeletor.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's her 100%. It's like a giant man bat, not Batman. He is not like Man-B man bat, he is very much like. Yeah, it's, it's man.
Speaker 2:That's a character in batman is it really? Yeah, there is. There really is one called man bat. I swear to god, oh my god okay, well, man bat.
Speaker 1:Man bat is very much like the evil queen's little, like minion, like her flying monkey that like goes around and does things, but he switches sides when the evil queen gets caught and he starts fighting for the evil king instead. But there's this very cinematic moment where Feyre is fighting this bat creature that I am fucking obsessed with.
Speaker 2:She literally like rides it out of the sky, beating the fucking shit out of it, like it's so cool he he kind of reminds me of fidget from the uh the great mouse detective, like tell me, like tell me that little thing isn't going.
Speaker 1:He would hate the comparison, he thinks he's very intimidating oh no, he's, he's fidget.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, he's got the little beret. He's getting all right these tools, uniforms. I got the uniforms like that's him.
Speaker 1:That's that guy right there, no questions yeah, so kind of sorry we totally fucked up your, your game plan oh babe, this was like very loose on purpose. I didn't know how deep we wanted to go.
Speaker 2:I didn't know what kind of characters.
Speaker 1:We wanted exactly kyle. That is what I'm saying right now.
Speaker 2:Listen. Everything. Every line you just said is what she said. I don't know how deep we wanted to go. I don't know which characters we wanted to be.
Speaker 1:Everything she said, everything you should have a podcast. I think you'd be really good at podcasts.
Speaker 2:I should be on one. I should be on one.
Speaker 1:But I left this very open on purpose. I just kind of outlined this so I would not lose my place and I just wanted to touch on, like how powerful it is to find someone who shares your exact flavor of fictional obsession. Like, laura and I have never met, but we have read this series. That is the only thing we have in common. You'd think we'd known each other for years and I was curious what other series you guys think has that kind of power to like pull together a community Pretty much any fantasy because it is so magical, it is so whimsical, because there's always.
Speaker 2:In every fantasy you've ever read. You can relate to what the world is and what you wish the world was like, whether it's like an economical standpoint, political standpoint, just monsters and beasts and just personal interactions. So I feel fantasy is the most relatable and breathtaking experience that you can have, because it is the perfect hermaphrodite of reality and what you wish it was yeah, my degree.
Speaker 3:I think the fourth wing series definitely had the power to connect people. Um, though newer, um, like I went to the book release for Onyx Storm and just like the amount of people of different walks of life that come together to like celebrate the release of a book is just wild. And you know, we're all so different. Like I was looking around at that book release and like we're all so different. And yet here we are, we're obsessed, right, and it's the, and we're obsessed, right, and it's the same thing with, like Akatar, same thing with Throne of Glass, crescent City. All of these books just have the power to like connect people who would never otherwise, probably ever talk.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've also heard a lot of similarities to the Witcher the Witcher with it.
Speaker 2:So what really made me think of it was like we said, with like the beasts and how they were kind of like almost like a lot of them were like misunderstood, like. I think that's one of my favorite things about the witcher books is that there's a lot of that just misunderstood give the person a chance kind of overarching tone. Not everything is just as black and white as it seems. There is that gray area, yeah and um, so like a lot of the. That's what makes gerald so differently, because, yes, he's the best monster hunter that there is, but he also knows that the bigger monsters are men and not the actual monsters like these are just creatures trying to live, so not all of them have to die about 80 to 90 percent of them do, but not all of them. So same thing. So I think that's another one that really kind of brings.
Speaker 2:I feel like it's one of those really big morals that people have or wish that they had, and I feel that that's another series that really can people who have read it. You don't have to read. If you've watched the show, played the games or read the books any of them, you're going to notice that pattern and I think everyone can kind of relate to that we're like you're going to notice that pattern and I think everyone can kind of relate to that. We're like they've you know something that people hate and despise and they see repulsive. You know somebody else finds you know cute and cuddly and adorable or they like, or whatever.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, I think the other, the only other book series that I can think of, that it's probably more of an obvious um are the harry potter books. But again, fantasy land you know it's that absolutely has a huge community, um, but again it's it's that you have your favorite characters. You see yourself in one of the houses, you see your friends, in certain people or your family you can relate to being an outcast or being the hero or whatever. So, yeah, I think it's a great thing about fantasy books in in the worlds that they build.
Speaker 3:yeah, I mean I I loved harry potter when I was like a kid and I think along the way of becoming an adult I kind of lost, like I, I read, you know, tw Twilight. I was a huge Twilight fan. Take me to Forks Washington any day, but I think I lost that in my 20s like the magic right. I think as you get older, like society tells you to like stop, not intentionally, like no one's ever said like, oh, you can't do that, but you know. But you go through school or you get a job and then you just become boring.
Speaker 2:You get distracted with reality. And then a little bit later, and then something like this book comes along and you're like, oh shit, wait, I like this stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you get the imagination back and I think that it does allow you to connect with other people who have the same interests. Like I talk about that all the time, like on Bookstagram. Like having a Bookstagram has allowed me to connect with so many people who have read the same books and like that's all we have in common and that's all that we need to have in common. Like Becca was just saying, like we don't really know anything else about each other, but now we have this in common. We can talk about it all day and it's. It's really cool to connect with people simply because we read a book.
Speaker 2:It's like go back and listen to some of our other episodes.
Speaker 4:You learn a lot about Becca.
Speaker 2:Once might say too much.
Speaker 3:Just just one soup, just one just one particular soup and hers was like broccoli cheddar. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's one of my favorite things I ever learned about her, because it paints such an image every time it's at least every other episode I bring it up, at least every other episode. It's at least every other episode I bring it up.
Speaker 4:At least every other episode. It is one of the most fascinating factoids about Becca. Any gravy is a breakfast gravy for Bravenor. Anyhow, yes.
Speaker 2:What kind?
Speaker 1:of gravy. Do you think the Fae's would eat? They would eat like kings Dude?
Speaker 4:Yeah, they do, they have all the gravies Like like which kings?
Speaker 2:I've seen theoden eat. I've seen denethor eat. I've seen oh, like, uh, it's very much like harry potter style it seems like food just kind of comes out of nowhere.
Speaker 1:But when we get to the night court we see like there are like people that actually, like you know, they cook and stuff like that and they like bring all the food out.
Speaker 1:And the reason I keep bringing up it definitely sounds like the night course, the shit the reason I keep bringing up canned soup is because it's such an outlier part in the second book because, like, farah and reesand have a little argument okay, and I am hoping that I don't get cut out, but they have a little argument. Farah goes up to a cabin to spend some time by herself and she's like looking through the cabinets and she's finding things like cans of paint and things like that. And then when Rhysand shows up later she makes him a can of soup, not to spoil anything for you. But that was what took me out of it for a minute.
Speaker 1:It broke the immersion because I had like a little Kyle moment where I'm'm like is there a means of production? Like who delivers the canned soup? Like is there a warehouse somewhere where there somebody has to like make soup? It goes down a line they're gonna put it in a can. They're gonna make sure it ends up on this cabin at the top of this fucking mountain in fairyland. Like where did this soup come from?
Speaker 3:everyone else is like I just want you to know I yeah, I never once thought of that. Like ever, I'm just like here for the vibes I like her.
Speaker 2:I like her. She just very professionally, very hr email approved, was just like yeah, becky, you're alone.
Speaker 1:You're fucking psycho for that one, the scene with the soup. The soup is really not a big deal at all because it's like such a romantic scene, like arguably one of the most romantic scenes in history, and I'm looking at you, the notebook, like you cannot.
Speaker 2:You cannot compare to rissan in the cabin um but yeah, it's like a very intense I don't know going out on that little very sweet.
Speaker 1:She's like making him a can of soup and I'm like, okay, hold on bitch, why is the soup in a can?
Speaker 2:There you go. It's called broccoli cheddar. It's called broccoli cheddar. Here it's room temp. Here's some busted tortilla chips.
Speaker 1:We don't have electricity, but we have canned soup, we have stoves, but you know it's just I dig myself into these holes. I really do Exactly.
Speaker 2:Welcome to my world. I just do it all the time. Also, how dare you? I had a Kyle moment and I had a brilliant thought that broke the yeah, screw you.
Speaker 1:Screw you. Hey, I didn't say your overthinking is always a bad thing, I'm just saying as soon as I read Can can of soup, it was like something activated in my brain and I was just like kyle for a moment. And this was months before I knew you. It was like I took on your personality without even knowing you. I'm like where the fuck did this kind of come from? Hold on hold, on hold on the paint on the walls is very nice, but uh, the the soup favorite I have questions since I'm talking about the cabin, I want want to tell Angie and Kyle about this, and this is like 100% the community
Speaker 1:getting involved and making a scene seem like something different than it was when you read it originally. So Feyre and Rhysand have this fight and she gets dropped off at his family cabin up in the mountains and she's just going to fuck off by herself for a little bit. And one thing she decides to do while she's there Feyre, she's a painter, right, we hear about her painting a lot in the books and while she's in this cabin she literally starts painting like floor, walls and ceiling with like all kinds of random shit. We're talking like clusters of flowers, like she's saying. She's like painting pictures of her new friends that she's made, like pictures of their eyes on the wall All of these things she's painting all over the table.
Speaker 4:That's psychosis.
Speaker 1:And somebody on TikTok said Of course, people show up and they're like, oh my gosh, feyre, you're so artistic, you're part of the family, it's like you've been here all along. They're like thank you so much for fucking up this antique home we have. But somebody on tiktok and I'll never forget this they were like we never really hear if fair is a good painter or a bad painter. We just hear she is a painter.
Speaker 1:So every time I read this scene I'm picturing stick people and like lopsided flowers, like fucked up crossed eyes on the macaroni art that is just. It makes me so happy to think about them like coming up after she's had this like psychotic break in the cabin and they're like, oh fuck, farah's gone, fucking crazy. Okay, everybody just smile yeah we're so glad you're here, farah. Yeah, but you are adjusting well.
Speaker 2:Thank you, babe yeah, this is you did great. So the more and more you talk about her, the more and more she sounds a lot like cheryl from archer, just unhinged just completely unhinged.
Speaker 1:She is honestly like. She kind of is cheryl, she very, she very much like, like, so the war comes right. All these high fae, they've been fighting for generations, hundreds of years. We're all immortal. We've all fought wars before Faerun comes to this war and she's like oh, I can't learn how to fly in time and I can't really do a whole lot of combat training. I can do some, but not enough. Let me just round up all of the eldritch fucking monsters in Parithian and make like a monster battle, like it is so fucking dope, like she is unhinged.
Speaker 1:A monster bash one would say yeah, a monster mash like a death. It's like a death match. It really is. It's so cool.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:She gave them all groovy bears.
Speaker 2:She gave them all groovy bears before.
Speaker 1:Before we wrap this up, I want to know, angie and Kyle, would you read this series?
Speaker 2:Absolutely not. I'll wait for the show and or the movie. It's just reading, and that's nothing personal. I'm wildly interested, I really do. This definitely sounds like something I would a million percent be into and enjoy. I just reading is just. I don't have come on golden retrievers, we just don't read. Yeah, we just don't do it.
Speaker 1:What about you, Angie?
Speaker 2:I'm for it, though, like someone put out like videos doing like deep dive explanations of these Dude.
Speaker 1:I know everything and I listen to every second of it and we're're gonna start meeting up in vc once a week and I'm just gonna do like, okay, today we're gonna go over book three of proverbs, literally just read it to me what we'll meet daily.
Speaker 2:You can just read chapters to me.
Speaker 1:I would read it to you if you wanted me to. I would read you a chapter a day. I love this book. It's no skin off my back. I get to read this book out loud. Fuck yeah, what about you, angie? Would you read these books? I?
Speaker 4:think so. I probably would do an audio book for something like this.
Speaker 1:There are very good audio books. I will say if you like voices, there are some very good audio books.
Speaker 2:Oh, I can imagine, I can imagine I mean I subscribe to Quinn?
Speaker 4:Yes, I like voices.
Speaker 1:They did that thing like a theatrical reading where, like they put a little extra, yeah, the dramatized versions, yeah, the dramatized versions. They put a little extra zhuzh into them.
Speaker 4:Oh, that's the Like yes, yes, that it's an experience I would be so into that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would you have to.
Speaker 1:Let me, let me know the second you start reading them, cause I want to be there for like every chapter with you, like, what did you think about this? What do you think about this person? Oh, just tell me everything, angie. I want to know. I would, I would be stoked if you guys started reading this. Is there any ACOTAR little head cannons, anything you've got up in your brain that you're dying to get out?
Speaker 3:Well, I just want to shout out to my and I can officially say this now my future sister-in-law, my brother's fiancee, just happened, like within the last week, that they were engaged and they became engaged, so I could say that like officially now, but I just, yeah, congrats to brandon and sydney.
Speaker 3:But if it weren't for sid, I would never have picked up this series. And you know, like I got a random text that was like, hey, you usually read romance, right, would you be open to this type of book? And I'm like, if you read it and liked it, I'll just, I'll trust you. So they live in Florida. She mailed me the first book and, yeah, if it weren't for her, I would have probably never picked up the series. And that's what like led me to the journey of, like you know, starting a bookstagram, because I finished this series that went into Crescent City and then I just like never, like I've always read, but it, this series, is what really like sparked my adult life love in a whole different way. So just shout out to her, um, and that's the power of sharing a book. So if you're listening to this and you have a favorite book, gift it to someone, because you might just change their life.
Speaker 3:And the last thing I want to talk about and I'm going back to Nesta, and I just want to say this in a public forum that I think as a society, we have to stop treating female characters differently than male main characters. And I say that because we all adore morally gray men in books and we love them. We fantasize, we put on our rose-colored glasses and say that's why the flags are red. The flags are red. And then when we have morally I would say gray female characters, we oftentimes hate them without being able to see their arcs, and I see that a lot with female main characters.
Speaker 3:But I think as a society we need to give more grace for women in books and if we want, I would say, emotionally driven, complex female characters, we have to be open to them. And there's so much Nesta hate and if you're a Nesta hater, I totally get it. If you're listening to this and you're like I hate her, I totally understand. She's a complicated character, but female main characters need to have complex feelings and emotions as well. And I'm going to show all of the the complex female characters love because, yes, you know they need it.
Speaker 1:Oh, no, a hundred percent. Yes, a hundred percent.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh yes, nesta gets nothing but love you definitely have more of the great women to know that, like we almost bow our heads and pray for nesta, like this girl can do no wrong. In my eyes she's very much like the messy messy side of trauma, where it's you bring in everybody around you, you make every single person around you feel the way you're feeling on the inside, and she pulls herself out of that literally by her fingernails. And if anybody wants to at her in my presence, I'm gonna at you and you won't like the way I do it like she's so, yeah, such good character.
Speaker 2:Fantastic, I'm so glad that you love her as much as I do sounds like I'm in love dude, you'd love nesta.
Speaker 1:You guys would be nesta lovers. You would never have a moment where you're like nesta is annoying. You would understand her. You would see where she was coming from.
Speaker 2:I have no doubt about that well, no, laura definitely told me she was like oh, there's all these morally gray men that we all love. How about these morally gray ladies? Wait a minute. There's ladies like this I'm very intrigued.
Speaker 1:I'm very intrigued we just call them toxic you know, like.
Speaker 1:That's just all it is. Yeah, you just call them toxic. There's one more thing. If we can, if you guys will, let me just say one more thing about this series I want to talk about. There's this one of the trials under the mountain.
Speaker 1:Her buddy, lucien, gets captured and like put in this saw trap where all she has to do is read a riddle and pick an answer. But we learned that early on in the book. Feyre was never taught to read, nope. So like Lucien looks her in the eye and he sees her like looking at the riddle and I swear to god he knows like in that moment this bitch cannot read. Like the blades are lowering from the ceiling and she's looking at it and doing it like a math problem, like it's, it's some weird like riddle about love and there's the answers are like one, two, three.
Speaker 1:I don't exactly remember the riddle at this point. Maybe I'm illiterate too, but she's doing this like word problem in her head where she's like well, one plus one is two, me and tamil are two, maybe the answer is two or maybe the answer could be one, and she's like literally like trying to figure out. She's playing with lucien's life because she literally cannot read, and this is like when rissan like whispers the answer in her ear. He's like bitch, it's two, please just pick two. This is painful to watch. It's so good. I love it so much. I love this series.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was like something about. It was something about like it's something that people spend their life searching for, but it like kills you slowly or something like that. Like when I kill, I kill.
Speaker 1:I just remember, like when I kill like a sloth and the answer was love, and like she couldn't figure it out like it was because she couldn't fucking read. She couldn't fucking read, oh my god. And then she in the second book spoiler alert she writes a break like ruse and make. He's like you're not going to be in the night court and not know how to read. It's a bad look for me. So ruse and makes fair, learn how to read while she's there.
Speaker 1:And she ends up breaking up with Tamlin through a letter and this part is glazed over in the books. But he obviously does not take this well and I don't think a lot of people realize, like from Tamlin's point of view, like the last he knows his bride to be kidnapped, taken away from him. All of a sudden she's sending him like a perfectly legible letter like by the way, you disrespectful piece of shit, I would like to break up with you. Like like there's no fucking way he would believe that in real life. I don't, I don't believe for a second he would have believed that and they should have considered that. They really should have thought about what it would look like if all of a sudden his illiterate bride is writing him breakup letters. No wonder he went off the fucking rail like god yeah, they play mind games with tamlin.
Speaker 1:They really do. They get him all worked up and they're like wow, look, how crazy he is but like.
Speaker 3:What's even funnier is when she's learning how to read, resam writes these like, writes for her like, right, like and like makes her read it. This is so respect. He's like um, the high lord is the most handsome high lord. Like, the high lord is the most caring high lord. Like. He's like writing things that she has to read that are just boosting him up.
Speaker 1:It's like very much bart simpson of the simpsons theme song writing on the chalkboard she has to write out the words of affirmation for resand yeah, this guy definitely sounds like.
Speaker 2:He sounds like the kind of people who stands in a mirror with like no shirt on and he just puts a scoop of ice cream on his chest just to watch it melt yeah, I could do that actually I hope I'm reincarnated as that scoop of ice cream who has the biggest wingspan of them all is like the true question asriel has the biggest wingspan.
Speaker 3:We just don't know who Asriel's going to end up with. And there's like this whole love triangle thing happening, because when you become maid, like you have a mate right. And so there's Lucien. He's maided to Elaine but Elaine is like no, sir, not today, not having having it, I don't like you. And then she's like kind of attracted to asriel and asriel is attracted to her, but she's made it to this other person and like sarah j maas has never really said if there's like a solid, if there, if there can be more than one mate, and so we're all just kind of waiting to see who elaine is going to be with I just I wanted to tell you, if you read Throne of Glass, you will learn that a mating bond can be fake.
Speaker 1:You see that, I know, see.
Speaker 3:I don't know Becca. I don't know, becca, if you're onto this as well, but people in the fandom are like they're shipping Tamlin and Elaine.
Speaker 1:They are fully I do too, like finally, elaine can do literally nothing. Okay, let's start the podcast over, let's do two of these bitches. I'm telling you it's so perfect. And there's this, okay, coming from the historian herself, in a court of mist and fury, no wings and wings and ruin, the beginning of wings and ruin. When Feyre comes back and she talks to Elaine for the first time since she's been turned and Elaine and Lucien have their interaction, she says to Lucien I can hear your heart beating through the stone. Can you hear mine? And he's like I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Through the stone, can you hear mine? And he's like I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. In akatar, in book one, we learn tamlin's heart is made of stone. No shit, I forgot that. You're welcome.
Speaker 2:I know his story, I'm telling you oh my god when I tell you, like, go back and read it every chapter has highlights and like notes and books more, like in the margins.
Speaker 1:I this is my manifesto.
Speaker 3:Okay, I know everything this is why we need to be friends I'm like I can tell you how it made me feel I can't tell you one freaking fact about that book.
Speaker 1:I'm like wait what I know the big things and I have sources and shit like it was telling you I I listen to wind us down here.
Speaker 1:I found this series postpartum, like I'm talking, I had a baby. I was staying up all through the night. I had nothing to keep me company except these fucking books and it, like you said, it brought back my love of reading as an adult. I got so swept away like I read the first book I. It was like 3 am when I finished reading book one I went on to Apple Books. I had a hard copy of A Court of Thorns and Roses. I went on to Apple Books and I paid for Mist and Fury because I didn't want to wait for Walmart to open to go and buy it. And then I read all of Mist and Fury. I finished it by 1 am.
Speaker 1:The next day. I had to buy Wings and Ruin in the middle of the night because I'm not going to wait for Walmart to open to go and buy it. This is how it went, and as I finished them I would start over and reread. And then somebody was like oh, there's Throne of Glass and Crescent City and my fate was sealed. I mean God. But seriously, I'm so stoked that I got to talk about this series with somebody who loves it as much as I do. I'm so glad that Angie brought me a new friend to play with, laura. Thank you so so much for being here today. Before we really really wind down, is there anything else that you would like to plug for your personal channel before we ride this bitch out into the sunset?
Speaker 3:if you love books and you get obsessed with them as well, come find me. My handle's at lalareadsit and I share a lot about romance. I'm a big, I'm a romance girly to my core, but I also love romantasy. So if there's a happily ever after, I'm there. And so, yeah, come find me and come yap about all the books that you're reading and maybe we'll find our new obsession together.
Speaker 1:Find her or I will find you. I swear you have to go and check out my new friend or I'm going to be very displeased.
Speaker 1:Listeners listeners, listeners, listeners. You've been listening, but I need you guys to step it up a little bit. We need more weirdos in the comments telling us how weird we are. We need ratings, we need views and shares, and you're the only ones I trust to get it done. Every single Monday, we're dropping savory sounds for your ear holes to digest. Every week, I'm finding new and creative ways to tantalize and torture my friends, and we want you to be a part of it. Join the collective. Follow the Black Curtain Club on all social media.
Speaker 1:One of us One of us, one of us, one of us, one of us.
Speaker 3:One of them. One of them.
Speaker 4:Oh, Laura, you're one of us now.
Speaker 3:I am one of you now. Thanks for having me, guys.
Speaker 4:All right, are we ready to say bye all right, everybody say bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. Kyle, are you gonna say bye, I did?
Speaker 2:say bye. I said bye kyle, screw you. Fucking bye kyle. Are you gonna say bye? I did say bye. I said bye kyle, screw you fucking bye kyle 2.0.
