I see your point, we really don't know Tamlin's past for sure but a good author doesn't use one or two lines to justify someone they paint as pretty "good" in 98% of the story to actually turn out to be a bad guy. Its manipulative to have a character be portrayed as "good" by pretty much everyone important in the story (Feyre, Alis, Lucien, even RHYSAND says he is a good guy) and to act "good" the whole way through only to be undone in another book and have it justified by saying "oh well, he DID say he was a war lord in the past." I mean, Tamlin himself says he felt he had no other option but to fight and he says he would go and fight for humans if he had the chance. So this isn't so black and white. And when I referred to him killing only "bad" fae , i was referring to the only type of killing we saw him do in the actual book. He only killed the nagge, bogge and other creatures that went onto his land when they aren't supposed to be. Its mentioned a few times in the book that those type of faeries would never have normally stepped into other courts but because of Amarantha, they were beginning to press more and more into the spring court. And I agree with you that "bad" and "good" can be relative which is why I put quote marks around the word "evil" in the first place.
But i think the main point here that I'm trying to make is that I don't think she wrote Tamlin well if her intention was to show that he's really NOT that great of a guy. She built him up in the first book and one or two sentences about him being a war lord (and I don't think its fair to say he's been one for 400 years, we have no idea if thats true) does not unmake that. So if she does end up saying he is crazy and possessive and turns out to be really not a good guy and people, in turn, use that one sentence you pointed out about him being a war lord (again, I stress here that it appears he didn't have many options AND that he has grown since then) to say that SJM was justified in this character change... well i just think thats poor writing and wrong. But i know we are all entitled to our opinions. I guess in a way that makes this book really good? Its getting us to discuss things in such depth!
And when I referred to him killing only "bad" fae , i was referring to the only type of killing we saw him do in the actual book. He only killed the nagge, bogge and other creatures that went onto his land when they aren't supposed to be. Its mentioned a few times in the book that those type of faeries would never have normally stepped into other courts but because of Amarantha, they were beginning to press more and more into the spring court. And I agree with you that "bad" and "good" can be relative which is why I put quote marks around the word "evil" in the first place.
But i think the main point here that I'm trying to make is that I don't think she wrote Tamlin well if her intention was to show that he's really NOT that great of a guy. She built him up in the first book and one or two sentences about him being a war lord (and I don't think its fair to say he's been one for 400 years, we have no idea if thats true) does not unmake that. So if she does end up saying he is crazy and possessive and turns out to be really not a good guy and people, in turn, use that one sentence you pointed out about him being a war lord (again, I stress here that it appears he didn't have many options AND that he has grown since then) to say that SJM was justified in this character change... well i just think thats poor writing and wrong. But i know we are all entitled to our opinions. I guess in a way that makes this book really good? Its getting us to discuss things in such depth!