A Court of Thorns and Roses

Beyond roses, flowers in general symbolize hope for a better future, particularly for Feyre and her sisters. The flowers Elain grows in her garden outside the cottage represent her hope and positive thinking—something that the novel on the whole suggests is something to aspire to. Feyre doesn’t fully understand it for some time, but the flowers she paints in the cottage speak to her hope for a simple, meaningful life at some point in the future. Though she sees the chipping paint on her pictures and her family’s eventual inability to afford more paints as proof that her hopes will never come true, her flower paintings nevertheless inspire Nesta. Nesta clings to a chunk of wood from the family’s table, on which Feyre once painted a spray of foxglove. It becomes proof for Nesta that Feyre was taken from their family under dubious circumstances, and it keeps Nesta’s loyalty to Feyre alive during the time that Feyre is at Tamlin’s estate. When the three sisters ultimately reunite in the mortal realm, Feyre comes to see that all three of them held onto hope in their own ways, and in the case of each sister, she can track their thinking by considering their relationship to flowers, real or painted.

In Prythian, Feyre’s thoughts on the flowers in the Spring Court allow readers to track her development and her increasingly positive, hopeful mood. Feyre initially refuses to appreciate them, despite their beauty, suggesting her initial mindset: that she’ll reject anything and everything to do with the faerie realm, even if it’s positive and interesting, and focus only on getting back to her family. Once Feyre settles in at the estate, she comes to appreciate the flowers covering the grounds and look forward to the years she expects to spend in Prythian, blissfully painting.

Broadly speaking, the flowers of the Spring Court suggest what the Spring Court stands to lose should Feyre and Tamlin fail to fall in love and voice their feelings for each other. They, like other fragile and beautiful things, will almost certainly be wiped out if Amarantha takes over all of Prythian. By preserving the Spring Court and its spring flowers, Feyre and the other High Fae demonstrate their hope for a future that prioritizes such vulnerable living things as the flowers. This stands in stark contrast to Amarantha’s aesthetic preferences and her mindset—nothing grows Under the Mountain, highlighting her moral bankruptcy. Moreover, Amarantha’s willingness to murder and otherwise mutilate other living beings speaks to how she thinks little of things that are beautiful and more fragile than she is.