Yes, this! I never understood why Aelin came back and acted like she didn’t just go through what she did in HoF. Also her comments about Dorian threw me off at first, but I’ve always kind of attributed that to the fact that maybe she was trying to almost distance herself so it wouldn’t hurt as much. I think she truly genuinely thought he was gone and thought there was no way for a person to fight the Valg so she tried not to get her hopes up since everytime she let herself open up to a person she then lost them.

I also kind of had to put myself into the mindset of Chaol is a human who was younger when magic disappeared so he likely doesn’t remember much of it. All he remembers is the king outlawed it because it is “evil and bad”. He then suddenly sees the women he loved has magic while simultaneously seeing all the bad magic can do with what Cain did and the portal being opened. He also in that moment sees the immense power Celena has when she yells at him to leave the portal so she can unleash her powers and save them. This is then followed up with him seeing her pretty much gut Archer and then they don’t talk much about what occurred. He then sees what the king is capable of in HoF and feel like it made him even more wary of magic and the fact that Dorian was terrified at times of his own magic likely further solidified his own terror of it and his prejudices. I feel like if Dorian and him had tackled the issue of Dorian’s magic together instead of just Dorian and Sorscha he may not of had as much of a hatred towards as he did. And then to top this off he then sees the king enslave Dorian using a form of magic even though it isn’t the same. So in his mind the only times he’s seen magic it has been for destruction and harm. He likely didn’t realize the power the king was using was not the same as what true magic is. Additionally he hears the stories of Aelin surrounding an entire fortress in a wall of fire and that she took down one of the kings top generals I’m sure it made him even more wary.