My name is Danielle, and I am a Tamlin Apologist (an ACOTAR re-read)

 Admitting you have a problem is the first step in recovery, right?

I will not feel bad for loving you Tamlin, and not just because you're super hot.

Problem is, I don't really hate Tamlin, not like I'm apparently supposed to, and certainly like I felt like I should (and sort of did) after witnessing his total 180 (or retcon, tomato tomahto) in ACOMAF.  I changed my tune pretty quickly though when 1). I saw what a bleating, whiny, overpowered cunt Feyre became as you progressed through the series, and 2). I couldn't help but feel bad the more everyone in the vaunted inner circle started shitting on him, and not only shitting on him, but like actually enjoying shitting on him.

The issue that really rubs me the wrong way is sort of twofold:

1. I did NOT appreciate the deepfake SJM pulled with the love interests.  At that point I had very much already decided that Tamlin was my new book boyfriend, because the whole Beauty and the Beast thing is sort of my catnip.
2. The more I thought about, and the more I payed attention to Tamlin's behavior (from Under the Mountain through ACOMAF), the more I saw that he was hurting just as badly as Feyre, but dealing with it in a wholly different way.

So in any case, this is my first "re-read" of the series since I originally read them way back in 2019 I think?  Re-read in quotes because I'm listening on audiobook on my daily commute.  I've been listening specifically for hints that SJM may have dropped as to Tamlin's "true nature", and outside of several mentions of his temper, I'm not really seeing anything.  I'm juxtaposing this with Feyre's first meeting with Rhys (mostly because I literally just listened to that this morning so it's fresh in my mind) and I can see now that there was something, an attraction at least, even then.  I don't think, given even this small scene at this point, that SJM just suddenly decided to make Rhys the hero and Tamlin the bad guy in book 2; I think she was planning on Rhys stepping into that role all along, and it's fairly obvious that she was laying that groundwork.  What she did a shitty, lazy job on (at least from a reader's perspective at this point, as technically the series is still unfinished and Tamlin's ultimate fate still malleable) was explaining away Tamlin's behavior in book 2 as "well he's just an asshole" instead of "he's a guy dealing with some serious shit and doing a really bad job of it and goddammit someone please help him).  Feyre is our heroine, so presumably we're supposed to agree with her most of the time and find her motivations believable, and if we're supposed to believe that she really loves Tamlin because he is actually a really decent guy underneath that gruff, beastly exterior (just like the Disney cartoon).

Building off that, if you ask me, thus far all I know of Tamlin (I'm just past Calanmai) is that he had a shitty childhood, absolutely zero familial support, and nobody paid enough attention to him to even tell him that maybe acting like a wild animal most of the time isn't so good?  So basically it's kind of all he knows; this fits in with the whole "beast" aspect of his story.  We've also seen enough at this point (his thoughtfulness with encouraging Feyre's painting, the way he cared for the wingless fairy, etc) to see that there is a much gentler aspect to his personality, underneath the exterior gruffness (much like the eventual redemption of the beast).  

There are definitely shadows of his eventual overprotectiveness, especially with him telling Feyre to lock herself in her room at Calanmai, but still, he's telling her, not forcing her as he does in the next book.  I guess some would say that even something like that is unforgiveable, but I can't fault a guy for being overprotective, especially when she decides to leave anyway and almost gets sexually assaulted by those fairies.  He also knew what the magic of this night did to him, and I'm guessing didn't want to risk hurting her.  Of course, he could have just told her about this.  It's not like there's really any point in protecting her delicate human sensibilities given that she's in Prythian for life at this stage.  I always assumed (I forget at this point if/when it's stated outright) that Tam never explains the whole curse/mask/blight thing in detail because the curse itself doesn't actually allow him to, but there's no reason that he can't talk in detail about stuff like this.  Was he embarrassed?  Did he not want to risk offending Feyre (and thus ruining his courtship of her and his chance to break the curse) or does he just not think to talk to her about stuff like this.  I think ACOMAF Tam leads the reader to believe that he's just a secretive misogynistic asshole that doesn't want to trouble Feyre's delicate female brain with the complexities of Calanmai, but I counter that with the fact that he's revealed plenty of his past and life at this point that someone who was otherwise a secretive asshole probably wouldn't have done.  

Oh, he's just being a manipulative asshole who's trying to woo Feyre for his own benefit (getting that mask off his face), you say?  To that I counter with that at this stage in the story he quite obviously cares for his people - he says it plenty, and demonstrates it with his care in tending his borders and particularly with the way he cared for that blue fairy.  I know all of this can be interpreted as him really laying it on thick so Feyre falls for him, but if he was really concerned about that I don't think he would have slipped the way he did the night of Calanmai.

At this point in the story, other than be gruff and standoffish at times, Tamlin hasn't yet done anything really objectionable.  You CANNOT count the Calanmai bite/fairy hickey because first, he warned her and fey have already been portrayed as animalistic on some level, and second, she admitted to herself that she did enjoy it more than a little bit.

I'm really looking forward to revisiting the Under the Mountain stuff to look for things I might have missed the first time or forgotten.

Lastly, That’s not to say that I think his behavior is acceptable or that it can be explained away like Rhys’s, rather that he’s not some mindlessly cruel beast, and that while he has issues and definitely needs help, A) so does Rhys and B) he meant well in his own way. The wrong thing done for the right reasons is still the wrong thing, you know? 

I am determined to not feel guilty for my Tamlin love and my exceedingly strong desire for a redemption arc and happy ending for him. I mean if Rhys can be a total fucking’ creeper and still find true love surely Tam can too.