Nesta Archeron: A Lens of Pervasive Drive for Autonomy to Understand the Depth Within
- Megan Agee, LPA, HSP-PA
- 2 days ago
- 11 min read
Updated: 4 hours ago
I named my psychology practice Velaris after the city of starlight.
Like many of us, ACOTAR is a series that took but one read to make it a favorite. The mix of action, suspense, fantasy, and relationships are gripping. It’s a different world and reminiscent of human life all at once; the mix of fantasy with psychological insight is something I find thrilling.
Feyre’s journey from naivety, fawning, and self-sacrifice to self-actualization, empowerment, confidence, and discernment spoke to me.
So Velaris was a natural choice for the name of a practice that seeks to provide safety that fosters growth and evolution. And also, connection through shared interests.
I’m a big fan of waving my flag to others. Shared connections can signal safety.
I’m also a big fan of waving the autism flag, especially PDA autism. I am PDA Autistic, and I work almost exclusively with it in my practice: affirming, supporting, studying, and evaluating it.
Through the fan communities, I’ve seen that Nesta Archeron tends to have a polarizing effect on readers. It seems much more love/hate than most other characters in the series.
Those that don’t get Nesta really dislike her (understandably).
Those that do get Nesta, and maybe even relate to her, really like her (understandably).
She’s very complex.
My first read of SF was in 2022. I didn’t pick up on it then. But like any good Maas fan, there have been a few re-reads. During my last one, it hit me square in the face.
Nesta Archeron is one of us.
If you don’t know who Nesta Archeron is, I do recommend you first read the ACOTAR series before continuing on. There are too many spoilers below; I can’t feel neutral about taking that risk for you, gentle reader. It’s a series rife with wonderful, delicious twists that I want you to experience firsthand.
So if you read past this sentence, you are fairly warned.
Let’s actually start with the Cliff’s Notes on PDA, so that we all know I’m not talking about Public Display of Affection.
Depending on where you sit while reading this, you may be very familiar with PDA, or very much not.
Pathological Demand Avoidance is a name that needs to evolve along with our general understanding of the breadth, depth, and nuance of autism in general. It does not at all describe what is happening to the individual. Also interchangeable with PDA: Pervasive Drive for Autonomy. Persistent Desire for Autonomy. Autonomy is freedom - to be them.
The word “demand” can throw people into assumptions very quickly, assuming contrary, oppositional, defiant tendencies to explain the “avoidant” behaviors. When actually, the basis of PDA is emotional overwhelm and the attempts to avoid that overwhelm.
Heightened emotionality is common in both autism and ADHD. Many PDA’ers are at the intersection of both of these conditions, and I’ve wondered if the intersection of them increases the strength of the emotionality considerably, as the feed-in is notably increased.
While one could never simplify the complexity of PDA, we could rename it so that those who identify as PDA feel more seen and understood. So when I say emotional overwhelm, I’m talking O-V-E-R-W-H-E-L-M. This translates to a tendency of avoidance, which is actually something that all human beings have - when we feel overwhelmed by certain emotions, we tend to sidestep the experience.
Why is it called pathological? Because it actually is talking about much more than typical human demand avoidance. Add to this that Autistic folx in general might have more difficulty identifying their felt experience due to interruptions in interoception, our ability to identify and understand sensations in our bodies. See my handout link below to distinguish what I mean by this. And if you aren’t familiar with PDA, I’ll provide some additional links so that you can properly go down the rabbit hole.
One more thing. Values are a really big deal to PDA’ers. File that away for later.
But back to Nesta.
We meet Nesta early in the first book. To say she makes an impression is likely to understate the visceral response she evokes in many readers. At this point, we know little about the individual backstories, and aren’t likely to predict what is to come.
Upon our introduction, Nesta displays many of these qualities I noted above: oppositional, avoidant, judgmental. Additionally: self-centered, cold, uncaring. Nesta seems in it for Nesta and not as a member of her struggling family unit.
Later in the book, Feyre has a revelation about Nesta’s emotional and psychological depth that encompasses so much of what I know to be true of a PDA’er - deep feelings and intense reactions to inauthenticity and injustice:
But Nesta’s mind was so entirely her own. She had put up such strong walls of steel, and iron, and ashwood, that even a High Lord’s magic couldn’t pierce them.
“Elaine said… said you went to visit me, though. That you tried.”
Nesta snorted, her face grave and full of that long simmering anger that she could never master. “He stole you away into the night, claiming some nonsense about the treaty. And then everything went on as if it had never happened. It wasn’t right. None of it was right.”
My hands slackened at my sides. “You went after me?,” I said. “You went after me to Prythian?”
“I got to the wall - I couldn't find a way through.”
I raised a shaking hand to my throat. “You trekked two days there and two days back through the winter woods?”
She shrugged, looking at the sliver she pried from the table. “I hired that mercenary from town to bring me a week after you were taken, with the money from your pelt. She was the only one who seemed like she would believe me.”
“You did that.. For me?”
Nesta’s eyes, my eyes - our mother’s eyes, met mine. “It wasn’t right,” she said again.
Tamlin had been wrong when we’d discussed whether my father would have ever come after me. He didn’t possess the courage, the anger. If anything, he would have hired someone to do it for me. But Nesta had gone with that mercenary. My hateful, cold sister had been willing to brave Prythian to rescue me.
“What happened to Tomas Mandray?,” I asked, the words strangled. “I realized he wouldn’t have gone with me to save you from Prythian.” And for her, with that raging, unrelenting heart, it would have been a line in the sand.
I looked at my sister, really looked at her. At this woman who couldn’t stomach the sycophants who now surrounded her, who had never spent a day in the forest but had gone into wolf territory. Who had shrouded the loss of our mother, then our downfall, in icy rage and bitterness. Because the anger had been a lifeline; the cruelty a release. But she had cared; beneath it, she had cared. And, perhaps, loved more fiercely than I could comprehend. More deeply and loyally.
‘Tomas never deserved you, anyway.’ I said softly.
My sister didn’t smile, but a light shone in her blue-gray eyes.”
Hateful, cold. These words describe a really solid mask. I’m sure it was/is/has been heavy.
Also, from ACOTAR:
“There are days,” Nesta said, as she paused in front of the door to her room, across from mine, “When I want to ask him if he remembers the years he almost let us starve to death.”
‘You spent every copper I could get, too,’ I reminded her.
“ I knew you could always get more. And if you couldn’t, then I wanted to see if he would ever try to do it himself, instead of carving those bits of wood. If he would actually go out and fight for us. I couldn’t take care of us, not the way you did. I hated you for that.* But I hate him more. I still do.”
*We’ll come back to this later.
For many PDA’ers, injustice and unfairness are absolute deal-breakers. Remember the importance of values? I believe that PDA is an evolutionary movement in humankind. One that seeks to challenge our millennia-long patterns of dictatorship, oppression, and inequality. These core values could be thought of as having an existential quality to them. Adaptation at their base.
In addition to injustice and unfairness, inauthenticity is intolerable. True connection and relationship are paramount.
From ACOWAR:
“...she turned to Cassian, looked him over as if she were a queen on a throne, and then declared to all of us, 'What do I care? I get to be young and beautiful forever, and I never have to go back to those sycophantic fools over the wall. I get to do as I wish, since apparently no one here has any regard for rules or manners or our traditions. Perhaps I should thank you for dragging me into this.”
From ACOSF:
“After the war with Hybern, Rhysand had offered her jobs. Positions in his court. She didn’t want them. They were pity offerings. Thin attempts to get her to be part of Feyre’s life. To be gainfully employed. But the High Lord had never liked her. Their conversations were coldly civil at best. She’d never told him that the reasons he hated her were the same reasons she lived here… every damning thing Rhysand thought about her was true.”
We can see themes of Nesta’s self-concept and her struggle to be adjacent to shame. Also recall above when she noted that she hated Feyre for the fact that she couldn’t take care of the family like her sister had. Shame is a notoriously difficult emotion to feel and, sometimes, good ole’ projection will do in a pinch. Indeed, Nesta is not a person that is in it for Nesta - she’s a complex individual who is overwhelmed by the depth of what she feels for those she loves, toward those she loves, and because of those she loves. She has strong feelings about the way her own feelings leave her paralyzed.
In ACOMAF, Feyre discusses Nesta with Cassian, who has had a strong, visceral reaction of his own as a result of their interactions.
"I think she sees everything—feels too much; sees and feels it all. And she burns with it.”
Note: this was before Nesta was Made by the cauldron, so we aren’t attributing this to her preternatural abilities.
Deep, intense feelings paired with sensory acuity indeed result in a tendency to experience regular overwhelm. This is the case with all of autism, which is not to say that it is the experience of every Autistic person. Just that it is not specific to PDA. Among other vast and varied traits, autism includes heightened sensory perception that can be experienced as a flood to the individual.
Oftentimes, Autistic individuals are highly intuitive, and often “know what they know” even if unable to distinctly identify what it is they have perceived. The Trauma Geek talks about this on their blog and takes us into a fascinating look at biorhythms (link below).
Let’s talk about PDA and stress/trauma responses. In the PDA world, we talk a lot about the fight/flight/freeze/fawn reactions. Emotional overwhelm typically does not occur in a vacuum, and results in some sort of bodily experience - even if this is numbness and dissociation.
Fight probably does seem like a prominent presentation for Nesta: Frank Hybern calls her a “hellcat” in ACOMAF.
And Nesta shows us time and time again that she is voraciously protective of Elain (every book) and will not hesitate to fight for her. From ACOWAR:
“‘I’ll help you with the wall, but I am not going to whore my story around to everyone on your behalf.’ She shot to her feet, color rising to her ordinarily pale face, and hissed, “And if you even dare suggest to Elain that she do such a thing, I will rip out your throat.’”
She threw herself over Cassian’s body in ACOWAR. And took on Briallyn so Gwyneth and Emerie could win the Blood Rite in ACOSF.
We also saw her freeze in ACOWAR:
“But Azriel asked softly, ‘What about Elain?’ Something cold went through me. Nesta
was just staring at Azriel. Staring and staring. Then, she broke into a run.”
Cassian says to her in ACOSF:
“I'll be with you every step of the way. Just don't lock me out. You want to walk in silence for a week, I'm fine with that. So long as you talk to me at the end of it.”
This verbal freeze is commonly reported by PDAers. It might be less an issue of “not finding the words” and more of an actual block on their capacity to engage verbally. The “words” are flying around inside them. But being able to share them doesn’t feel possible.
PDA’ers can struggle with direct input and direct output. In therapy, it is difficult for some individuals to answer the question, “How are things?” I definitely want to point out here that this question asked by your therapist is not actually small talk. It’s the invitation to guide the session how you like. And sometimes the answer to, “How are things?” is a sigh or a shrug. Blank stares are also valid.
But anyway, thematically, we see Nesta struggling to share her direct feelings (which might be synonymous with vulnerability to her).
Directly acknowledging Feyre’s sacrifice was something she may not have been able to access. But it was something she clocked.
“She looked to Kallias and Viviane. ‘I am sorry for the loss of those children. The loss of one is abhorrent.’ She shook her head. ‘But beneath the wall, I witnessed children—entire families—starve to death.’ She jerked her chin at me. ‘Were it not for my sister … I would be among them.’”
This ties in to the earlier example of the shame and overwhelm by many things inherent in their experience. The downfall and shift into an impoverished life (galvanizing, deeply disorienting). Her possible feelings of incapacity in handling it, which elicited myriad difficult feelings: shame, helplessness, hopelessness. Surely too much to feel. Instead, Nesta needed to defend against her overwhelm by deciding that Feyre had it. This allowed for some good ole’ experiential avoidance. But as avoidance goes, it doesn't protect us in the way we hope it does.
Let’s conclude by talking about how PDA autism looks in terms of social interactions. Though outdated concepts, autism is thought to exhibit observable social differences from the neuronormative expectations (The Trauma Geek has some good readings on this, too). In typical PDA, nuanced fashion, social differences are observable here too, but sometimes it takes a trained eye to spot it (or the namaste we feel with each other - it’s a whole vibe).
PDA’ers actually run an array of social presentations: class clowns, comedians, never-met-a-stranger butterflies, withdrawn and quiet, focused and attuned but not necessarily engaged, etc. I evaluated an adult one time who said, “I like talking to people, because I figure them out like puzzles. I can read a room. I know what people are thinking and feeling. But I don’t know how I fit into it all, at the same time.”
Additionally, though social interactions might be desired, there is likely an extended refractory period after socializations. And sometimes, they are desired and avoided all at once. Lots of complexity there.
We’re not sure what Nesta was like before Prythian, or before the loss of their fortune. But we get glimpses of a daughter who was groomed to perform, and loathed it. We see in ACOTAR that Nesta has feelings about the way her neighbors changed their interactions once the family had restored their wealth. She disappears at the ball after a time. She shares feelings about the “sycophantic” people beneath the wall. Feeling as though she did not fit into her social environment is thematic for Nesta. She doesn’t have any friends that we know of (aside from Clare Beddor, who is described as a friend of the sisters; and a tenuous connection with Amren), until we get to ACOSF, and we see the beautiful development of her relationships. Messy, awkward. Fiercely authentic. Transformative. Worth fighting for.
And at that base, that raging, authentic base (her silver flames), we have Nesta Archeron.
“She didn’t know what to do with it, that rage. It still burned and hunted her, still made her want to rip and roar and rend the world into pieces. She felt it all—too keenly, too sharply. Hated and cared and loved and dreaded, more than other people, she sometimes thought.”
More than other people, indeed.
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