Aelin Ashryver Whitethorn Galathynius
also known as: Celaena Sardothien
Adarlan's Assassin
Dianna Brackyn (alias in The Assassin and the Underworld)
Dianna (Arobynn's niece)
​
​
Female | Fae | Fae form is human |
Fire & Water Magic
(was demi-fae)
Loyal to Terrasen
​
Lives in Orynth, Terrasen
Born in Orynth,Terrasen to age 8
Assassin's Keep | Rifthold, Adarlan | Ages 8-17
Celaena's apartment | Rifthold, Adrarlan | Age 17
Endovier | Labor Camp in Adarlan | Ages 17-18
The Glass Castle | Rifthold, Adarlan | Age 18
​
16-20 | Birthday is May 3rd | Alive
From The Assassin's Blade to Kingdom of Ash
House Galathynius and Ashryver
Rhoe and Evalin Galathynius (parents)
Love Interests
Rowan Whitethorn (husband and mate)
Chaol Westfall (Crown of Midnight)
Dorian Havilliard (Throne of Glass)
Sam Cortland (The Assassin's Blade)
Physical Description
Aelin is considered very beautiful, and she uses that to her advantage. Yrene compares her beauty to that of wildfire.
She has long, golden blonde hair, except during Queen of Shadows, when she died her hair red to hide her identity. She has "Ashryver eyes" - turquoise eyes ringed with gold - that are a dead giveaway to her identity because only people in her family has eyes like that.
She is of average height, fit but with sharp curves. While slender, her body is rock hard with muscle. While she has scars in The Assassin's Blade (Yrene thinks that Celaena wears her scars as those who wear fine jewelry) none are compared to the scars she receives while she is imprisoned in Endovier, where she was whipped often, and had salt rubbed in the wounds to prevent healing. These scars disappear in Kingdom of Ash, because of Doranelle's healers.
She also has five tattoos given to her by Rowan Whitethorn in Heir of Fire, each telling the story about how she lost her loved ones: her mother and father, her uncle, Lady Marion Lochan, Sam Cortland, and Princess Nehemia. These tattoos also disappear due to the healers at Doranelle, which greatly upsets her.
Aelin has a passion for beautiful and expensive clothing, right down to her underwear. She loves cosmetics and expensive soaps and perfumes. Her closet in Rifthold was enormous and exploded with color, patterns, and fabrics.
Personality
Despite her upbringing, she is actually a very caring person. If she let's someone under her skin, she will do whatever it takes to be there for that person. Physically, as a shoulder to lean on, anything. Aelin is an incredibly loyal person - until that loyalty conflicts with her morals. Despite this, she doesn't have the easiest time making friends, as it's not something she is accustomed to with how she grew up.
Aelin is incredibly intelligent. She is able to make up elaborate plans, and con her way into where she needs to be. She is often thinking outside the box, and concentrates on the long game.
Aelin is known to be vain. She knows she is beautiful, and learned growing up at the assassin's guild to not be modest. She uses her beauty as a weapon. She does genuinely loves being beautiful, and wants to keep it that way. When Ansel cuts Celaena's face, she is upset about it because of the potential of scarring, and Ansel scoffs, asking how vain she can be. She loves fashion, makeup, and luxury soaps and lotions. She also loves parties.
While she can rough it, she doesn't enjoy it. her heart lay in luxury - fine clothes, delicious food, and exquisite furnishings.
She has a temper, and will often lash out without thinking, which conflicts with her long term plans.
Yrene describes Celaena as wildfire - deadly and uncontrollable, and slightly out of her wits.
Celaena tends to be more comfortable around men, as the only females she was around from the age of eight on, was courtesans that Arobynn had invited over to the Assassin's Guild. Ansel of Briarcliff is her first female friend, which is one of the reasons it broke her heart when Ansel betrays the Silent Assassin's.
Skills
Aelin is an incredibly skilled fighter. She trained under Arobynn Hamel - the King of Assassin's - from the age of 8. She is so skilled she is widely known as the infamous Adarlan's Assassin, and is feared by most. Arobynn trained her how to torture a person, to skin them, and keep them alive, awake, and coherent for hours. She knows how to inflict immense pain with little bloodshed. We learn that she learns this by withstanding torture herself.
At the age of ten, under Arobynn's order's to develop at least one refined skill that did not include killing, she took up the pianoforte, and fell in love with it. She is also a very skilled dancer, due to her hiring Madame Florine (the dance teacher at the Royal theatre) to give her weekly lessons.
Weapons
Aelin is very skilled and comfortable with all weapons, but her favorite to use are her duel daggers made from Adarlanian steel.
Before Book Events
She almost dies from drowning at the age of 8.
From the age of eight, Aelin assumed the identity of Celaena Sardothien. Arobynn trained her personally to be an assassin. He made sure she began her training learning self-defense, and to fight without weapons, before teaching her fighting with weapons, and the art of torture.
Early on in her training, she admitted to being infatuated with Ben - Arobynn's second-in-command and her trainer - when she was too young to understand the impossibility of that. When she was thirteen, a young Archer Finn was sent to the keep from his madam Clarisse to train for a few months. During this time, Celaena developed a crush on him. She also meets Lysandra at this time. During their first meeting, after Lysandra grabbed lace from Celaena's hand, they started to fight. They both rolled down the stairs, and Celaena ended up spending the night in Arobynn's dungeon after leaving welts on Lysandra's face after beating her with her fan.
From the age of 12 on, it became a tradition for Arobynn to take Celaena to the Royal Theatre for a show, with seats in his box. That tradition ended after she left the Assassin's Guild.
The Assassin's Blade
For Book Walkthrough, click here.
​
In The Assassin's Blade, we learn she is very cocky about her skills and beauty. She is intelligent, and is often described as the best assassin in the world. One of the reasons she is so successful, aside from her skills in combat, is her hidden identity, which makes it easy for her to infiltrate different places. Due to her age - 16/17 - no one would ever think she is as dangerous as she is. Despite her occupation, she is against the inhumane practice of slavery, and has a sense of morals and loyalty. At this point in the series, she lives in Rifthold, in the Assasin's Guild.
While she begins the book thinking that Arobynn and her have a good relationship, Celaena believes the day Sam and her returned from Skull's Bay, and Arobynn discovered Celaena's betrayal, was the night she ruined her relationship with him. After he beats her to unconsciousness, and he sends her away to train with the Master of Silent Assassin's in the Red Desert for a month, Celaena is angry with him.
When she helps free the slaves in The Assassin and the Pirate, she becomes close to Sam Cortland, another young assassin in the guild. While he eventually becomes a love interest, her relationship with Sam is the most impactful of the book. When she is separated from him due to her punishment, she becomes acquainted to a young healer named Yrene, and teaches her self-defense. She leaves her money so she can escape her situation and go train as a healer, not just because she wanted Yrene to become a healer and help their broken world, but because she felt a tug inside of her to help, and she decided to "tug" back to see how far and wide the reverberations went.
When she reaches the Silent Assassin's in the Red Desert, she becomes friends with a young woman named Ansel of Briarcliff. Celaena realizes she doesn't have a lot of friends, and doesn't have any female friends at all. When Ansel betrays the assassin's, and Celaena has to face down her friend, it breaks her heart. She gives Ansel the chance to flee, and gives her an extra minute before shooting the promised arrow her way, missing her by inches. In her time with the silent master, her respect for Arobynn has decreased.
When she returns to Rifthold, Arobynn is quick to try to bring Celaena under his wing again. He gifts her a lucrative mission, amongst other things, which causes friction between Sam and her. She is assigned to assassinate a man that Arobynn says is planning making a deal with Adarlan to create a road for an easier transfer of slaves. Celaena has Sam help her during her mission, and they get closer during this time. She completes her mission, only to learn that Arobynn lied to her, and the man she killed was actually in league with the rebels, and was trying to stop his ex-wife from making the deal to build the road. This was the last straw for Celaena. She used the money she got from the Silent Assassin's, and bought her freedom, and a loft over a warehouse. She used the rest of her coin to buy Sam's freedom, and they both moved out of the guild.
Celaena has one love interest in The Assassin's Blade, but another shows interest in her. She becomes attracted to Sam Cortland in The Assassin and the Pirate Lord, but it doesn't truly hit her until Ilias, the son of the Mute Master, tries to kiss her and she backs away, because Sam's face flashes in her mind. When she returns to Rifthold, after some back and forth, Sam and her end up together. She buys their freedom from Arobynn, and they move out. As they grow closer, they makes plans to move to the Southern Continent together. Sam eventually tells Celaena he loves her, but while she loves him, she doesn't tell him. Sam takes on an assassination job to secure the funds for them to leave, but never returns. She learns of his death from Arobynn. In her rage and need for revenge, she falls for a trap that leads to her arrest. We learn at the end of the book that Arobynn is the one who betrayed her. She ends up being tried, found guilty of, and sentenced to 9 lifetimes of labor in the Salt Mines of Endovier, with orders for the guards to keep her alive as long as possible, so she can experience Endovier's special kind of agony.
Celaena has no shortage of enemies in The Assassin's Blade. After freeing the slaves, losing a lot of money for Rolfe, and forcing him to sign a contract promising to never sell slaves again, Rolfe tells her if he ever see's her again, he will kill her. Arobynn, after he realizes he no longer has control over her, betrays her, which leads to her arrest. Her ultimate enemy, though, is the man she fears above all others - the King of Adarlan.
Facts
-
Aelin's first kiss is Sam Cortland. She didn't kiss anyone before Sam because she hadn't found the right person.
-
Everyone, including the servants and assassin's, were under threat of pain and death if they revealed to anyone that Celaena was Adarlan's assassin. The other assassin's tended to keep their distance from Celaena.
-
Aelin feels most at home - the happiest - in a theatre.
-
In the Assassin's Blade, Celaena believes that she fears the King of Adarlan above all others. However, she considers her bond with Sam as unbreakable and unyielding, and it changed the entire axis of her world toward him, and that terrified her more than anything.
-
One of the things she feels most guilty about was not letting Sam use her expensive lavender soap, and forcing him to use cheap soap - something she was reminded of when she laid next to his body, and could smell Sam, and the soap.
-
After her arrest in the Assassin's Blade, the King of Adarlan had her trial closed to the public, as he didn't want anyone knowing who she was. She is charged with the deaths of a very long list of people.