theres something so personal about Aelin wanting to be a healer when she was young and Chaol saying that a healer would make a great queen and then also Yrene being Aelins mirror and also Chaol loving them both for who they are
i usually stay very far out of fandom discourse for a thousand reasons, one of which being that i don’t like drama or confrontation and like to let people have their own opinions about characters and books. however, this one i just can’t really let go. i’m not going to go full meta on this post because i plan to do one on this topic and aelin’s mental health in the future but here is just some of the stuff on my mind with this one.
i want to start by saying i respect your opinions of chaol. if you like him, that’s fantastic.
however, chaol did not love aelin for who she was.
he spends a lot of crown of midnight brooding over the fact that she is an assassin and the kings champion after he literally coached her through that competition with the goal to win it. he seemed to kind of come to terms with her being an assassin but he later throws that in he face as well.
the second he finds out he’s fae, he starts judging her. the second he finds out about her magic and finds out that she’s aelin galathynius, he’s judging her. all of becomes very evident in heir of fire, when dorian has this conversation with him
“You cannot pick and choose which parts of her to love.” and “You do not have the right to wish she were not what she is.” Also note here that dorian says chaol can’t pick and choose which parts of him to love, either.
moving onto queen of shadows, he treats her like absolute garbage.
Chaol is judging her here for both being an assassin and for having magic, calls her a monster and insinuates that nothing could keep her power in check. not to mention throws killing those guards at endovier in her face, like they didn’t straight up deserve it for the way they treated those innocent people in those mines.
Here he even admits to Yrene that he saw her as a monster and admitted he was afraid of her.
i could keep going but i’m tired and it’s been a long week, but chaol never loved her for who she was. it was okay for dorian and yrene to have magic, but not okay for aelin to have magic. he threw her past in her face over and over (which she had no choice in, by the way) and despite all that aelin was the one that continued to save his life and love him despite his faults. it was not the other way around.
@highqueenofelfhame - I am like you and really hesitate to participate in discourse for the same reason, so I hope it’s clear that I respect your decision to hate Chaol, just wanted to throw in my two cents with yours! :)
I get where you are coming from that Chaol was afraid of aelin, judged her and didn’t accept her for who she was. Can you blame him though? I personally think that he was right to fear magic at the time. He had grown up to fear it, it was ingrained in him. I actually love the scene you posted where Dorian calls Chaol out. It was a huge turning point for him. I think of Chaol as one of the only mere humans in the series who did things out of fear and an intense desire to keep his human people safe. It was his duty as captain of the guard. He made a lot of choices that went against Aelin because he was afraid. It really made me relate to him. I think about Nesta’s character. She was terrified of Fae and judged them entirely for 3 books. She came around and realized she was wrong and came to love them. I think her and Chaol are very similar here. Chaol learned to love Yrene and her magic, and if that isn’t a testiment to his growth, i don’t know what is.
Before I continue, I am going to note that I am a huge Nesta, Rowan and Lorcan fan. So when I mention them, it’s not to throw shade, but just to make a point!
I appreciate that Chaol still helped Aelin despite being afraid and them being in a disagreement about killing Dorian (book 4 he went to the fighting pits to protect her, went to keep watch at after her dinner with aerobyn etc). None of that was to his benefit. You mention that Celeana saved his life a few times, but he saved her life a few times too (in the portal, as a champion and his sacrifice end of book 4). The relationship was a rocky one that may not have been founded on trust alone, but they cared a lot about eachother.
You do make a good point about him coaching celeana to be an assassin, but being afraid of her for it. I personally felt like he did that out of love for her. He was told to take her out of Endovier to fight by Dorian, but fell in love with her and didn’t want her to die. Btw, I am definitely Rowaelin and not at all Chaoleana, just making a point.
I agree that Chaol made mistakes, but I like him because of his arc and how he realized he was wrong and the things he did to make it right. I think his sacrifice at the end of Queen of Shadows speaks a lot to that.
One point I’d like to make is that I think that a lot of fans forgive other SJM characters for far worse things. Like Lorcan calling back Maeve in Eos and resulting in a lot of deaths and aelin being straight up captured, Rowan literally beating the shit out of aelin in training and calling her horrible names and pre-judging her as a snobby princess and nesta’s character in general). I don’t expect people to forgive Chaol if they don’t want to, but I feel they did that for many other characters who did far worse.
Another example is that many people hate Chaol because of his loyalty to the king at the beginning. Obviously we as readers know it was misplaced loyalty, but all Chaol knew was the king’s army took him in when his father kicked him out, he was his best friends dad and it was all he knew at the time. Don’t forget he is like what 19 years old? Yet Rowan had loyalty to Maeve for 500 years and killed thousands for her and decimated entire cities when he knew all along she was evil? Like I said, I love Rowan, but just trying to provide another example where folks can forgive certain characters for doing the same things. Rowan broke from Maeve and we applaud him, but not Chaol?
I love most of the characters (the not evil ones tho, Erawan can straight up eat it) in SJM world because they are so flawed. I love seeing what they do despite it. I personally feel like Chaol is one of those individuals.
