The hidden character in A Court of Frost and Starlight

A Court of Frost and Starlight just dropped into the public's hands this Tuesday May 4th and the collective fandom is already losing their minds. (Me included) 

This is a "spoilery" review so if you'd rather be left in the dark about what happens I can respect that and caution you not to read any farther.  If you are desperate for any nugget of information that you don't care about spoilers then read ahead but either way YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

So I finished the first read of this new novella in a day. It's not necessarily a long read but there are a lot of elements weaving in out of each other between all of the characters which is exactly what you would expect to see in a bridging novella. We're going to explore a lot of those elements in future blog posts but for today I want to talk about about the hidden character in each of S.J. Maas's ACOTAR books. We hear of this character for the first time in a very vague sense in A Court of Thorns and Roses when Tamlin is explaining to Feyre that his family was killed by a rival court which we later discover was Rhysand's court but that's not the whole story. It's later discovered by Feyre that the reason behind this slaying is because Tamlin's family (minus Tam's mom) killed Rhysand's mother and sister and the slaying of Tamilin's family was revenge for that crime. 

In A Court of Mist and Fury we hear a bit more about this character as Rhys expresses his admiration for the woman who raised him. He calls her "soft fire", he explains to Feyre that she was low born, a seamstress, and the mate to his father. She is the one who gives the ring to The Weaver of the Wood and then extracts a promise from Rhysand that he'll make whoever he plans to marry retrieve it from her. We get to further know about the characters as Cassian tells the story of how the three of them met at the Illyrian camp when they were all children. Weaving in and out of all four of the now published books is the story of Rhysand's mother. I call her the "hidden character" because her story is subtle but important and in this latest book we discover what is perhaps the most sought after answer in all of the books. 

"Where does Rhysand get the dresses he puts Feyre in?" 

We've all theorized about these dresses. S.J. Maas goes to great length to describe these garments in her books going so far as to have Morrigan herself make numerous remarks on them. Some of us wanted to believe that it was Rhysand who created them. Some theorized it was The Weaver of the Wood and Rhysand working together, still other's believed it could have been dresses worn by previous high ladies to the Night Court but whatever your theories were NONE of us expected it to be Rhysand's MOM! For me that was the biggest reveal in this whole book. We finally get to know who made those dresses. If you read that scene and it didn't hurt your heart then you are dead inside my friend. Dead inside!

Now as a mother with two sons I can say in complete confidence that Rhys's mom is GOALS for all moms with sons. 

1. She realizes early on that her son will be hunted form the moment she conceives him and so pursues an upbringing that will give him the tools he needs to not only survive bu to Flourish!

2. She figures out that her mate is a cold blooded, ruthless, jerk and correctly theorizes that it's the exposure to this noxious court that may have twisted her mate. So she comes up with a brilliant solution. Raise him outside the court after he turns 8. She brings him to the Illyrian camp under the guise of having him trained as an Illyrian warrior and sharing her culture with her son. She manages to not only raise him away from the court (thereby ensuring she limits the corruption) but ALSO has him live in a humble house, continues his lessons, shows compassion to a bastard born nobody, demonstrating the correct behavior to her son at all times. #MOMGOALS

3. She knows exactly what the rest of the world thinks of her mate and their territory. She knows exactly what it's going to take  for a woman to be a fitting mate for her son and she takes steps to ensure that that woman is worthy. Not just worthy but capable of doing what needs to be done. A woman that would be a true equal to her son and she gives the ring to the weaver in the wood to ensure it. Then she goes one step farther and makes Rhysand promise that whatever mate he has he'll make her retrieve  the ring from the Weaver and explains to him that if she can't survive that task she'll never survive the marriage.

4. She's a seamstress by trade by Rhysand tells us she actually loved doing this work. That means she created and made all of these beautiful clothes for her son's future mate out of love. Lover for her son and for the future woman her son would love. 

5. My theory about all of this is that Rhysand's mother some how knew or guessed that she wouldn't be around to ensure these things herself so she put her thought, time, and energy into safe guarding her only child even if she were dead. She had to know about Feyre because each of these dresses is sewn to fit her. So some kind of way she knows what Feyre looks like, she knows enough about her future daughter in law to sew dresses for her Trousseau. 

Rhysand's mom is the real MVP of this series!