A Court of Thorns and Roses

Bowater, Charlie. “Wings & Ruin Montage.” a Court of Thorns and Roses Fandom


What is ACOTAR?

A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR) is a high fantasy series written by Sarah J Maas. The first book is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast as a human girl, Feyre, becomes trapped in the fae world after unknowingly killing a faerie. She eventually falls in love with her captor and must try to break a curse on the faerie realm. While there are many characters of importance in this series it is mainly important to note that my focus expands beyond the first book as many of the important minor characters, like Azriel, are not introduced until the second book. The series currently consists of 4 novels and a novella but is still incomplete as two more novels are expected in the near future. Sarah J Maas also recently announced the development of the first book for a TV series with Hulu.

A Court of Thorns and Roses

A Court of Mist and Fury

A Court of Wings and Ruin

A Court of Frost and Starlight

A Court of Silver Flames

Why did I choose this fandom?

I first read this series in ninth grade after my best friend recommended it to me. We both were previously interested in young adult dystopian and fantasy novels so this was something that just slightly differed by incorporating more magic and romance. The series quickly became my obsession and is still one of my favorites to read when I need an entertaining easy read. I was so obsessed with the series at the time that I decided to make playlists to go along with each book.

I also chose this fandom because I thought it would be interesting to analyze aspects of the plot or different characters in a fandom where the original series has not been completed yet. This means that some characters aren’t matched with their endgame partner yet, so speculation about different ships being endgame is still canonical because it could happen with either option based on foreshadowing. The spin off series has only released one book thus far, but it is expected that each of the three will be centered around important side characters from the original trilogy. As of this year this leaves two of the three important minor characters with incomplete plot lines, backstories, and relationships to expand upon in fanfiction. Prior to reading any of the fanfics for my fandom I hypothesized that some of these ‘incomplete’ minor characters may be more popular because without the next book to determine what is canon there is a lot of room for creativity to interpret how these characters will form relationships while still writing a canonical fanfic.


My Initial Research

Upon researching the fandom and reading weekly fanfics I noticed a few patterns that sparked my curiosity and inspired my research question. Firstly, I noticed that the most popular fanfics in the fandom on AO3 are a set and are the majority of the second book chapter by chapter, but from the other main character’s point of view. In the source text you don’t get Rhysand’s point of view in the second book as him and Feyre were falling in love so it is understandable that there is a high demand for this story, yet still surprising that the whole set of fics is the most popular out of all 7000+ fanfics. Secondly, I noticed that Azriel was one of the most popular characters to write fanfic about recently, despite not having a main role in any of the books thus far. Lastly, I noticed that most of the stories stay true to canon but especially the most popular ones.