Prythian Lies East of the Sun and West of the Moon

Yeah, but there’s no reason not to think the B&B themes carried over into the second book, considering that ACOTAR had more than one fairy tale threading through it, so why couldn’t ACOMAF have more than one myth/legend/folkloric thingy in it too? In ACOTAR, not only do we have B&B, but we have “The Ballad of Tam Lin,” where a knight is kidnapped by a faerie queen and his lady-love has to go to the faeries and complete several trials in order to win him back.

Also, the B&B aspects of ACOTAR were heavily influenced by East of the Sun, West of the Moon - in fact, it’s far more similar to EotS/WotM than B&B, because in EotS/WotM, the beast-character is stolen from the main character, his awesome magical house-mansion is destroyed, and the the girl has to travel all over the world to where the evil magical queen is holding the dude prisoner - and then she has to accomplish several tasks set by the queen, while doing housework and getting help from a double agent, all while the prince-dude is pretending he doesn’t know her (in some versions it’s because he’s under a spell, in other versions it’s to protect her).

The only thing really missing from this is the MC getting help from the Four Winds, except that Feyre gets help from Nesta, Rhys, Lucien, and…the old lady fae maid…Ailis? We’ll say Ailis, all of whom could count as the Winds. Nesta is fiery and sharp-tempered? Southern Wind. Lucien is all warm and kind of friendly after being chilly and dickish? West Wind. Ailis is demure and sweet? East Wind. Rhysand is a bad@$$ mofo and the most powerful dude in Prythian? North Wind.

The other big thing? Although Tamlin becomes a bigger douche is ACOMAF, he is much nicer than most modern interpretations of the Beast in B&B usually are (thanks to Disney) in ACOTAR. But in EotS/WotM, the beast-dude isn’t much of a douche except when his beasty nature gets the better of him. Tamlin acts more like the Bear King/Beast King in EotS/WotM in ACOTAR and more like Gaston in ACOMAF.

So while SJM says ACOTAR is straight up B&B, it’s not. It’s mostly EotS/WotM with a huge side of The Ballad of Tam Lin (I mean, dude, even the name is the same) with some thematic elements of B&B that don’t really pop up until the EotS/WotM and Ballad of Tam aspects get shunted to the side in ACOMAF, and then we’re full on double-playe of B&B and H&P.

Concerning Iron Sickness and Once Upon a Time

so how does iron sickness work in OUAT exactly? Because human blood can make Dylan's brownie sick and Nuada hates the smell of blood but it doesn't hurt him and the iron chains his dad used were magicked to stop him from resisting the iron but in the first few chaps he had iron fatigue? was it b/c he was sick? Does Sreng have a sensitivity to iron since he was made immortal by fae magic? And how come the cubs don't worry about iron? Or Wink?

Iron sickness only affects certain fae. I’m not sure why iron affects faeries (apparently it’s a holy metal because it’s an element, not an alloy? And it’s hard to manipulate which I guess makes it constant??? I dunno) but in a lot of western euro-centric mythology, it does. However, for some creatures, even western euro-centric ones, it clearly doesn’t. Redcaps, for instance, wear iron shoes and have hats that bleed human blood (which has iron in it). Dwarves obviously don’t have an issue with iron, and dullahan are said to fear gold, not iron, because it’s such a bright and cheerful color.

So Becan would get sick if he had to handle human blood (wash it off the floor, etc) because he’s one of the Wee Folk and doesn’t have a lot of magic, but Nils Fjonisse, who’s a tomte (the farm/barn equivalent of a brownie) can handle iron because he has magic that concerns horses, which wear horseshoes. Wink isn’t sensitive to iron because he’s a cave troll (so he has immunity similar to Dwarves).

Nuada is sensitive to iron - it smells really bad to him, though he’s become accustomed to it over the centuries - and if he’s unwell, it can cause mild irritation, a rash, or even burn him. He can smell iron in Dylan’s blood very strongly when they first meet because she’s bleeding, but as she heals it becomes bearable and by now he doesn’t even notice unless she’s injured.

Although sensitive to iron, as long as he is otherwise okay - not sick, not hurt - mundane iron doesn’t affect him other than to make him a little twitchy/uncomfortable because he’s a royal and he just has sooo much innate magic, the iron can’t deplete it enough to make him sick or kill him. If he were to become king, he wouldn’t notice it at all except for the smell. So the magic would have to be enchanted - only a very powerful fae could enchant iron - with magic-killing spells in order to hurt Nuada. Which is what the king used on him for the whip and the shackles when he was flogged.

In the first chapter, Nuada was suffering from iron fatigue because a few weeks earlier, he’d been bitten by a dipsa serpent. A single bite can kill a human in less than a minute, and kill most fae, but Nuada was at peak health when he was bitten, he spent most of his recovery time in a healing-spelled chamber, and his blood is saturated with royal magic. But he spent the first couple weeks after being bitten so sick that Wink had to take care of him and he couldn’t get out of bed and he barely ate anything, which left his body weakened to the iron and lead of the city above him once he moved out of the healing sanctuary to a normal hideaway.

Sreng has iron sensitivity like Nuada - royal magic made him immortal - because of the magic flowing through his veins, but he also has iron in his blood, so he is in constant pain. It’s one of the reasons he’s insane - he’s been in mild agony for over three thousand years and he has iron sickness, but can’t die from it because he’s immortal, and the pain is exceptionally bad because he’s a human with raw, wild, royal magic poured into his body to keep him alive without any sort of buffering spells to balance him out.

The kids don’t have to worry about iron because as far as I know, Cherokee otherworldly beings don’t have iron allergies.