Happy birthday to our queen of lies, Jude Duarte!!<33
And happy anniversary to Holly Black‼️
cardan just wanted love. 😐
i was just replying to someone regarding nicasia and i had this sorta realization moment abt cardan lol
Cardan is consistently merciful toward people that wrong him. To his abusers.
He spares his mother when she leaves the tower of forgetting. He gives her a courtier title. After her lifelong abuse. he spares balekin from execution time and time again, despite all the death threats and beatings and humiliation. he forgives nicasia and Locke and remains (sorta) friends with them after they screwed around behind his back and broke his heart. He forgives Jude for putting him on the throne, for killing balekin.
Cardan has the capacity to be a lot kinder to those he cares about. While he attempts to act like he has a stone heart, he cares so deeply about the few people around him. No matter how they treat him in return.
Even his sisters, whom treated him like a dog when he was a child, throwing food at him under the table. He held balekin responsible for killing them, even when they had little love for him.
and his father, whom tossed him out of the kingdom for dains lies. He still strove for his fathers love and attention. And he did what he thought he needed to do to get that attention.
All he wanted was love, and he gave a lot more of it than he wanted to show. I’m so glad he found it w Jude 😭
And with Jude, he gave her everything. He gave her half of his army bro. HALF OF HIS ARMY just because she ASKED. She didn’t even have to order him to do it, because he trusts her and he so badly wants her to trust him too.
He secretly desired (and eventually cared for) her for yearsss. It’s so sweet how they went from school rivals besting and beating one another, to them making each other king and queen. ENOUGH
moral of the story, he just wanted LOVE. 😭😭😭😭😭😭
I’ll never stop thinking about them, idc how generic and obvious my posts are, every throwaway thought i have of them i will post
madockisser reblogged
See, I get the whole Jude is the dom argument because of how strong and scheming and power hungry she is, but that is EXACTLY why Cardan doms, and stay with me on this, Jude spends every single second of her life on high alert, I guarantee you she want nothing more than to relax and let someone else take control and Cardan would do anything for his wife
cardan is the only man jude would ever let top her! but fr them being vulnerable w only eachother is too sweet. and so accurate too.
“jude and cardan and bully x victim!”
WRONG! let me tell u why! since this cmmt makes my blood BOIL. obviously spoilers for whole trilogy!
first of all, and most importantly, you cannot call them bully x victim bc jude and cardan were not romantically involved til the last book(or the end of the 2nd if u include their marriage), and were only sexually involved in the second.
by the time they were romantically involved, meaning, a consensually formed romantic relationship, was by the end of book 2, which by then, cardan had not in fact been bullying jude.
he had not “bullied” jude at ALL during the second book. i could argue that CARDAN is the victim of jude’s bullying in the second book because she quite literally enslaved that man!(consensually ofc!)
i agree that cardan treated jude poorly in the first book, but he consistently went out of his way to ensure her safety all the while his “friends” actively humiliated and attacked her.
ex: he freed her from her faerie fruit glamour so locke wouldn’t go anywhere with her while she was under the influence, he kicked valerian off of jude while he was trying to kill her, he sent her a coronation dress so that taryn and locke wouldn’t further humiliate her when they announced their engagement, he also sent that dress to protect her from faeries that may be unaware of her social status and try to hurt her, he warned locke against persusing her, he ensured she didn’t drown when his dumb friends tried to drown her. and that’s just the first book.
yes, i agree, cardan put her in shitty spots, but holly black herself said that cardan was “all talk” and he only acts this way so she can finally leave his mind and he can stop having feelings for her. i don’t recall the exact quote but it was in htkoelths, “every night jude haunted him, an absent bite of her lip…”
when they kiss in the first book, that is jude, HUMILIATING him back. “u rly do want me and u hate it” no, they are not madly in love w each other at this point. no, all is not forgiven on cardans part since they’ve kissed.
she weaponizes his feelings for her so she can use him in a plot to protect her brother.
“jude falling for cardan didn’t make sense!”
idk if anyone who has said this just didn’t pay attention or what bc the ENTIREE book jude’s just thinking of cardan LOL.
“wonder what cardan would think of this”
“cardans the hottest faerie ever he’s way better looking than the rest but i hate him sm i can’t breathe” like babe u want him cmon now. oh and not to mention her literally sucking face w locke just bc she wants to get back at cardan since she knows he doesn’t like her w him. plus her kissing locke while her and cardan are having staring contests like ok delusional
“jude didn’t even get revenge!” yes. i HAVE heard this 😭.
jude killed his friend, her father killed nearly his entire family, then jude was like “oh! missed one, dad! haha!” then kills cardans brother, his abuser, but also the one he cared for the most. then again w her placing him on the throne which he desperately didn’t want, and also yknow, their year and a day vow in which she commands him to do her bidding. like ???!
“but cardan exiled jude!”
yeah! he sure did! to PROTECT her! from orlagh! u really think the queen of the undersea would let her ambassador being killed and her only chance at ruling both the sea and the land slide like that, ESPECIALLY after cardan completely put her in her place in front of all of elfhame?? like cmon people!
but he also does this to trick her. “i thought you’d admire me a bit for it.” bc jude tricks ppl. jude tricked him into sitting on the throne. so he tried to impress her by tricking her back in a way that could ensure their futures. and he’d thought she’d understand but babe was blindsided by her feelings of rejection since she likes him sm and is pissed that she for once let her emotions get the better of her. and when she didn’t come back cardan was devastated.
but, all the while knowing exactly where she is but not wanting to invade her private life and wanting her to come back willingly, he grovels like crazy!
“come home and shout at me, come home and scream at me, just come home”
jude and cardan both, against all odds, hated and desired and loved each other, lost each other, and when they were reunited again, they cleared the air and forgave each other. anyway, i could go on, but i’m still finishing my reread so!
but bully x victim my ass.
(these are holly blacks annotations(canon))