81 pages • 2 hours read
Sarah J. MaasA Court of Wings and Ruin
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Genre Context: Fantasy Romance for New Adults
A Court of Wings and Ruin combines the genres of high fantasy, romance, and action, each of which is known for intensely emotional or high-stakes scenarios. While popular with readers of all ages, these genres are often associated with the similarly heightened emotional landscape of young adult literature, which typically features story arcs related to first experiences, coming of age, and other significant events in a young person’s life. Maas takes advantage of these associations by grounding 19-year-old Feyre’s epic romance in her journey of self-actualization, but the sexually explicit and graphically violent series is tailored to a slightly older literary audience: new adults.
New adult literature is intended for readers who are 18-29 years of age, whose transition from adolescence to full-fledged adulthood mirrors many of the experiences of teenage coming of age (further loss of innocence, disillusion with heroes and previous beliefs, a need for greater confidence and self-sufficiency) but who may already have life experience with sexual intimacy and moral complexity. Maas’s use of generic tropes reflects this distinction explicitly. Most significantly, high fantasy often depicts the battle between good and evil; Maas’s world has some clear moral distinctions (Hybern is obviously evil; Velaris is a sanctuary), but characters often must confront how their biases and assumptions inform their understanding of ethical behavior. Feyre must sometimes perform evil deeds, like murder, for what she determines to be the greater good.
Maas adjusts other genre tropes similarly: Instead of the first loves of YA romance, her characters navigate new marriages (and mating bonds) and the boundaries of casual sexual intimacy. Her battle sequences trade the descriptions of tactical maneuvers that build tension in YA books for gory and lyrical descriptions of violence that might disturb younger readers. In all cases, Maas blends the colloquial diction of contemporary romance and action with the heightened language of high fantasy to create a youthful, energetic tone that still appeals to adult sensibilities.
Series Context: The A Court of Thorns and Roses Series
A Court of Wings and Ruin is the third novel in the series narrated exclusively (or primarily) from Feyre’s perspective. The novel concludes an informal trilogy that traces Feyre’s character arc from starving huntress to High Lady of the Night Court.
The first novel, A Court of Thorns and Roses, is loosely based on the 16th-century Scottish ballad of Tam Lin and Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot Villeneuve’s classic, Beauty and the Beast. After the human woman Feyre Archeron kills a faerie while hunting to feed her impoverished family, Tamlin, the shape-shifting High Lord of the Spring Court, gives her a choice: Forfeit her life or live with him forever. Feyre chooses life in Prythian and falls in love with Tamlin as she learns many of her biases against faeries are baseless rumors. Feyre learns Tamlin brought her to Prythian hoping to break a terrible curse placed on him by the faerie queen Amarantha, a general to the ancient and evil faerie King of Hybern. Feyre must make a bargain with Rhysand, High Lord of the Night Court, to spend one week of every month with him in exchange for his help defeating Amarantha. When Feyre sacrifices her life for love, saving all of Prythian from the tyrant, the High Lords of the seven faerie courts resurrect Feyre as High Fae in gratitude.
A Court of Mist and Fury loosely interprets the myths of Hades and Persephone and Eros and Psyche. Traumatized by Amarantha, Feyre struggles to recover as Tamlin’s own traumatic response to watching Feyre die leads him to become protective and controlling to the point of emotional abuse. Rhysand rescues Feyre from the Spring Court on the terms of the bargain they struck. Rhys knows what Feyre does not: They are mates, fated to experience an unbreakable spiritual connection. As Rhys helps Feyre recover her sense of self, they work to prevent the King of Hybern from using the legendary Cauldron to begin a new war with Prythian. Though initially angry that he hid the truth, Feyre eventually realizes she loves Rhysand, and they secretly marry. Meanwhile, Tamlin allies with the King of Hybern to free Feyre from the bargain, unaware that she no longer loves him. When the king hurts her family and threatens worse, Feyre pretends her mating bond is broken and returns to the Spring Court as a spy.
The world of Prythian draws heavily on Celtic myths and fairy traditions, featuring a diverse range of faerie species, from the beautiful-but-deadly, humanoid High Fae to countless malevolent or harmless varieties connected to elements of the natural world. However, while the first two entries in the series also borrow plot arcs from established fairytales and classical myth, A Court of Wings and Ruin has no obvious analog. Despite featuring many fairy tale tropes—poisoned apples, magic mirrors, etc.—the final novel in Feyre’s perspective is a “faerie” tale all her own, emphasizing her development into a confident young woman ready to determine her own story. Since the publication of A Court of Wings and Ruin, Maas has published two additional novels in the A Court of Thorns and Roses series, A Court of Frost and Starlight (2018), and A Court of Silver Flames (2021).
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By Sarah J. Maas
