I think a lot of people are poorly misunderstanding Rhys’ question to Az about deserving Elain here. It really bothers me that people started to freak out about Rhys and Az’s dynamic after (mis)reading this one conversation. There seems to be a couple of issues causing the confusion:
Interpreting the words
Context
The first half of all the confusion seems to be a problem of language. Sarah might’ve chosen a less ambiguous word here but, alas, here we are.
So.
Deserve: to have earned or to be given something because of the way you have behaved or the qualities you have. (Cambridge Dictionary)
Deserve: do something or have or show qualities worthy of (a reaction which rewards or punishes as appropriate). (Oxford Dictionary)
Obviously both these definitions are different and you can probably see where this is going.
In the same vein, two synonymous phrases to ‘deserve’ are ‘to be entitled to’and‘to be worthy of’. We see that the word can be used to describe either of those attitudes. For the latter, Rhys asking Az if he actually believes he’s worthy of Elain would be so, so bad - and also completely and ridiculously out of character. Rhys constantly talks about how much it hurts him to see Az (and Cassian) believe that he’s a worthless bastard and even expresses this to Feyre on multiple occasions. So for him to to turn around and imply that Az wasn’t worthy of Elain would be so uncharacteristic of Rhys’ personality. But Rhys asking Az if he thinks he’s entitled to Elain’s affection makes much more sense in this context - and also how we’d expect Rhys to respond to Az’s words just before this question: “What if the Cauldron was wrong?… The Cauldron chose three sisters. Tell me how it’s possible that my two brothers are with two of those sisters, yet the third was given to another.” To which Rhys responds: “You believe you deserve to be her mate?” The context of the conversation makes it obvious that Rhys is freaked out because it sounds like Az feels he’s entitled to the third sister because of some sort of Cauldron-math - not the possibility that Elain herself might choose Az. Azriel never even mentions considering Elain’s choice in this whole conversation, even if he might have thought about it privately. So it seems obvious where Rhys’ line of thought would go, what he would be concerned about. He was obviously making a point about how fucked up it would be if Az were to think he deserves Elain as if she were an object. Like one would deserve a trophy or prize. As if Elain’s affection is EXPECTED to be directed at Az by the Cauldron/fate because HE thinks so. That he is somehow entitled to Elain.
Bear in mind that Rhys is a male who’s obsessed with choice (because his own was taken away) and who himself didn’t ever allow himself to believe that he was entitled to his own mate’s love. There are plenty of men who believe themselves entitled to a woman for all sorts of reasons - so it’s not a stretch that Rhys would be disturbed to hear something that sounds similar to entitlement in Az’s words. Especially since it’s obvious that Az is in a dark place (not sleeping, sad eyes, standing in the doorway throughout Solstice celebrations) and Rhys has obviously noted this. People can try to justify all sorts of attitudes when they’re in such a dark place (See: Nesta).
All this context is important to this conversation, guys!
OH MY GOD you guysss i just realised something. So you know how cassian has red siphons and azriel has blue ones and when you mix red and blue you get purple, right? Rhys’ power is basically night and the colors of night are mostly black and purple (and his power is often depicted so in art).Also rhys has violet eyes. It feels like one more way sarah’s showing us their connection. Both cassian and azriel were alone before they made friends with rhys and then each other and it’s like rhys connects them? Does this make sense? am i blabbering or am i onto something
