ivy

jude’s coronation dress, and why cardan sent it analysis

hi! yes! thank you for the ask!

ah yes 🚬 the infamous coronation dress.

firstly let’s start w the how.

madoc is the grand general and very influential yaddah yaddah, it makes sense for him to share the same seamstress as the greenbriar family. this seamstress is also tight w dain, so cardan having access to her makes sense.

i’d assume he’d sketched out the deign he wanted and just gave it to the seamstress. but me personally, i’d die if he personally chose out the colors thinking, “this would suit my future wife’s color palette fs!”

as for what it looks like:

it’s ombre, and described as dark indigo at the bottom, to pale blue, then white at the top. there is a silhouette of trees that that start at the bottom and move upwards. there are gems sewn on that resemble stars in the night sky. i WISH the actually shape of the dress was designed/mentioned, just for the visual ig lol

when locke sees the dress, he says jude is beautiful, like a winter night.

now the design (my fav little detail that ppl seem to forget) is actually a view jude can see from her balcony/window!!!

so, perceive that how you want, but me personally, i def think cardan was obsessed w her enough to 1 know where her balcony is(from locke ig) and 2 watch her from it (just a hc but 👅👅👅)

as for the why. i think deep down cardan had started to realize that even he wasn’t a complete monster asshat that wanted to kill jude for making him want to kiss her so bad, and he started to want to almost apologize, but w out showing weakness. so he sent that dress anonymously.

i mean, we already know that by this point he knows he desires her, and he knows that he doesn’t want to hurt her and see her humiliated.

i think it’s mostly sweet bc from his pov, he knew that jude would assume the dress was from locke, but he sent it anyway. or maybe, since locke was going to declare himself as taryns man at the coronation, that jude would have to guess she had some other secret admirer waiting for her once she finished w locke.

he also knew that taryn was screwing her over w locke, and i think he could really relate to that (lockes an asshole) and didn’t want to see her humiliated. (both are canon so it makes sense)

so he sent her an extravagant dress, like the ones liriope wore, to spare jude from the embarrassment of having her twin steal her man. (Outshine her ig!)

another reason i think he did this was for protection. it’s mentioned directly after the dresses come that they must be careful at dains coronation so this is pretty plausible.

i recall the commission for judes original dress being red and covered w madocs crest. but the fact that she is a human, and wearing the crest of a noble household, would make her seem like a slave to the other courtiers at the coronation.

so commissioning a grand dress, one worthy of the high courts gentry, would make it seem as though she were one of the high courts courtiers, and would make those that want to hurt her probably hesitate to do so, bc why does this human girl have this nice ass dress? they’d think that she must be important or atleast well cared for.

another detail abt the dress is that nicasia knew cardan sent it. now she says this in qon, so we don’t actually know when she found out that cardan sent it. she could’ve known in tcp, maybe she caught cardan sending it off or making the sketch? or maybe she found the sketch and then later saw jude wearing that dress? she could’ve found out in twk, or when jude was in exile, etc. we may never know.

but i still think it’s sorta bittersweet that nicasia knew that cardan loved her.

anyway, cardan is on top as always🫦 thank you for the ask! 🫶🫶🫶 and feel free to add on!

faerie beauty standard, human/faerie attraction, jude and taryns beauty, and short faerie breeding analysis!!

hi, gladly!! this is another long one bc to fully understand, i threw in some faerie facts lol! hope u don’t mind!

let’s start w what we know,

holly says (at a washington convention !!) that faeries and their beauty is very alien like. they can be beautiful in many ways, beautiful in a way that is not sexually attractive. she compares faeries with the alien man in the movie “shape of water” (this was all found on a tumblr post by a deactivated acc!!! i attached a cropped pic below of the extent of what holly said!)!!

above that pic however, is a letter from holly black herself, explaining faerie beauty standards and if humans would find jude or nicasia more beautiful, to which she says that humans would find jude more beautiful, bc humans have different beauty standards as well.

she also says that beauty is suggestive, which it is. what i am attracted to in a person differs from what YOU are attracted to in a person. this is the same for faeries.

their standards of beauty are ofc centered around faeries and not humans. but that does not mean that they do not find humans to be beautiful, bc they can and many do!

but to them, it’s just a different sort of beauty that they are familiar with, humans do not look like falling stars, they do not have translucent teeth that only shows when they catch the light. they do not have fangs or webbed fingers or green skin.

another thing abt humans and faeries is that faeries can be very skinny and lanky, and jude says that her fingers are rounded like her cheeks and ears, while the opposite is true for faeries, they have cutthroat jawlines and cheekbones, and pointy ears.

every faerie sees humans differently, and every human sees faeries differently. ESPECIALLY since faeries have advanced eyesight, and can see in the darkness, makes me wonder if they can see shadows very well, (like if jude’s eyes always look amber, like the sunlight is shining in them, which is what cardan implies in htkoelths when he says that her amber eyes are alight, despite them flying at nighttime.)

anyway, to make it simple, you can compare it with human traits, hair color, eye shape, hair cut, lip shape, smile, teeth, etc etc! what YOU find attractive or pretty in a person is yours and yours alone, no one will have the EXACT same attraction as you (ever heard someone say “i don’t see the appeal”??)

anyway, take for example, eva duarte and madoc. madoc is a big green guy w tons of sharp teeth that poke from his bottom lip and two cat eyes. YOU may find that scary or ugly, but to eva, she is attracted to him. whether she finds him handsome is another story, bc attraction and good looks don’t always go hand in hand-yk how ppl are attracted to funny but unattractive ppl, it can be like that.

now let’s compare how cardan sees jude. cardan is attracted to jude, lusts for her and desires her despite not liking her, because he’s attracted to her. he later on reveals that to him, her beauty is overwhelming, distressing, alarming, etc.

BUT he also says, “some of you may swear jude is unlovely” bc that is the faerie way, jude does not conform to the faerie beauty standards of being this sunrise eyed, blue haired, skinny to death sort of beauty, like faeries do.

now onto jude’s overall appearance:

we know jude is of average height; abt 5’4, she has the wavy red-brown hair of a willow tree, and she has amber eyes. she is described by kaye, as someone who is comfortable in her body, someone that has the body of an acrobat, or a soldier. jude says that she is musclier than taryn, and only when she rises from the undersea does she look sickly and pale. (just mentioning that i don’t think she is pale skinned, i imagine her w warm brown skin) and lastly, she has freckles across her body.

i also wanna add that another things faeries and humans do not have in common aren’t just their looks, but the shape of their bodies. jude’s hips and breasts are heavier than that of a faeries, mainly because faeries are so unfortunate in fertility, that their bodies do not grow to suit childbearing, because few of them have any children at all if ever.

i suppose that trait is something that could’ve been passed down through natural selection(or they just simply were never built for childbearing), as faeries started using human midwives and human women to help care for babies had, and to help strengthen the bloodline. (bless it w the fertility that comes w being a human)

and since faeries breed true (if a human bears a faerie child or if a faerie bears a child w a human, the child will still be very fae, more than it will be human) human characteristics (like heavy breasts and wide hips) are not passed onto those children, and instead they acquire glamour, curse breaking, magic weaving etc.

now onto jude:

one thing abt hollys writing that differs from many other authors is that she does not consistently remind the reader of the main characters looks.

but, fortunately for us, jude’s looks are described a few times by a few faeries.

in book one, immediately, valerian comments that jude and taryn are recognizable in any crowd, and that there is no head more plain.

which i actually find funny. since he was attracted to her.

nicasia in the first scene that she has any lines, speaks down on jude’s appearance, comparing jude’s looks to that of a faeries beauty, “did you think [this hair pin] would make you as we are?”

nicasia says that jude is not pretty like faeries and merfolk are, bc she isn’t, which jude finds disheartening bc the fae are painfully gorg if they aren’t frighteningly disgusting.

now me personally, the way that ONLY nicasia mentioned jude’s looks out of the whole group makes me think she’s sorta insecure bc she knows that locke is seeing one of the twins, and she’s not outright dumb, she prob also sees that val and cardan look at the twins in such a heated sort of manner.

but again later on, nicasia actually ends up calling her a “pretty thing” so, pretty contradictory but she just means that jude will never look the way a faerie does, but she admits that jude’s still pretty in her own way.

later on, jude visits the mortal world, where “milo” the human boy, circles jude at the mall before approaching her, hitting on her, and asking for her number, promptly before jude clocks his shit for grabbing her. (as she should queen, what was he grabbing at her for 🙄)

time passes and locke tells jude how beautiful she is (twice, like a “winter night”), yaddah yaddah yaddah, in book two, balekin says jude has a pretty face, and ofc smooches on her, and val moren calls jude pretty. in book 3 grima mog calls jude pretty, and later grimsen takes a liking to jude since he likes pretty things (pretty sure he said something to her abt that along those lines, or oriana did, too lazy to get my books)

as for taryn, jude often says how pretty she is, like a princess out of a story book, soft and beautiful, how impossible it seems that they share the same face. taryn also encounters a faerie that describes her beauty as “divine”

i mention all these things bc faeries cannot lie, so jude is beautiful, atleast in those faeries eyes.

lastly, i wanna add; that of course there is human-faerie sexual attraction, bc cardan feels it for jude, as does valerian. jude feels that way for cardan, and once even locke (? tbh she didn’t long for his touch like she did cardan so) but there is also eva and madoc, val moren and eldred, whom val moren was willing to burn his life away just to feel eldred touching him again, there is val and ravus, and hazel and jack. and more.!

so moral of the story, while jude’s and taryns beauty do not fit the faerie beauty standard, they are still seen as beautiful and desired by many faeries, just not all of them, since they all have their own attractions.

i hope this made sense, and thank you for the ask! feel free to add on in the cmmts!

not sure if ppl are actually weirded out by my user or not, which most certainly is not my intention, but i feel the need to rant abt my thoughts on madoc! i also don’t wanna deter anyone bc of my user 😭! btw i totally understand if u hate him w all your guts like truly i get it but don’t hate on me for not! my user is mostly a joke! (also i LOVE cardan and jude sm more than madoc obviously just the “madockisser” user is funnier and so few ppl talk abt madoc so i feel the need to 😭)

madoc raised 3 children that weren’t his, was willing to risk quite literally everything to become king so his poor mortal daughters will be treated like princesses in a world where they’re treated like garbage. madoc has his faults(like trying to make poor oakey pokey king), but a lot of them can be chalked up to his redcap nature, being bloodthirsty and power hungry and just not understanding jude and her morals since their morals and life experiences are just SO different

him and jude have the same goal, except madoc and his nature, his morals, make the execution of that goal and the endpoint a bit different. jude is trying to save oak from being king so he won’t have to grow up bloodthirsty and drenched in blood like she did, while madoc is trying to make oak king, which he thinks is obviously the best thing he can do for him since madoc is so power hungry.

in their own eyes, they each think what they have planned for oak is best, and obviously to madoc making his son king after slaughtering nearly the rest of the greenbriar bloodline which solidifies his succession to the throne is a great boon, and in his eyes, jude isn’t trying to keep him from doing that to protect oak, (since he doesn’t understand that jude grew up so miserably) he sees jude trying to take/keep oaks throne from him.

jude says in her inner monologue at some point that she’s sure that madoc would relinquish the throne to oak when he’s of age, since he’s a man of honor or wtv, and madoc obv thinks this is just the best course for oak. why wouldn’t madoc want his children powerful and bloodthirsty? he wants them to be like him, and more than that, he doesn’t want them to slave away for a greenbriar like madoc did to eldred and balekin and dain(which he reveals in the stolen heir duo)

another thing is his morals when it comes to dain. he was livid in a way oriana had never seen when he heard about what dain did to oak and liriope. which makes perfect sense for him because he has honor enough to not slaughter a woman for being pregnant and by extent taking the life of the child inside just to remain in power and in favor.

dain did something that madoc inherently disagreed w. so madocs decision was obviously to betray him and run him through after replanning. it’s just in his nature. he replans, betrays, and resorts to murder when it matters lol. he does the same (sorta) w balekin by using him as a ploy to get oaks throne. balekin who has human slaves treated terribly, while madoc had a human wife and human children. i’m shocked balekin didn’t see madocs betrayal coming.

and even tho jude did something he inherently disagreed w/ and didn’t try to understand (which frustrates me sm) he gives her so many chances to come back to his side, he gives her advice, he gives her chances, betraying his nature for his daughter until qon, when he finally resorts to murder. fucking devastating.

on a lighter note, i do think it’s funny tho that despite it all he was still a better father than eldred and dain, and better guardian than balekin. though i will say that i do NOT excuse so many of madocs actions (bc he causes my poor baby jude so much pain), and when i’m actively rereading esp during qon i do in fact hate that mf, …i just think he’s dilf-y.

unrelated but he’s like the lead of a monster romance. holly black actually has another green sweetheart-chemist murdery bf, in her book valiant, but he’s too niche like nobody knows abt him which is so sad bc he’s sooooo cute and sweet. “ravuskisser” would be my user

i love reading his and jude’s dynamic, i love reading abt him and eva and him and oriana. i love in tpt when he FINALLY says something abt eva, finally understanding why she left him, and him owning up to his mistakes, but then saying , “but if it were not for my mistakes, i would not have the family i have today.” 😭😭😭😭😭

ALSO, the exile. it was so necessary. madoc living amongst humans helps him realize so much about eva, jude and taryn. “since humans have a shorter lifespan, they would risk much for happiness.” he says (not word for word) in tpt when speaking of eva, but ofc it also applies to jude and taryn.

anyway i guess moral of the story i like madoc bc daddy issues ig and also his complexity, holly black is a genius at writing morally grey faeries w diff mindsets! also how jude describes him to be a “tall man” the second he’s on the page like damn i get it eva and ori! anyway even holly black supports madoc kissers like me so don’t judge me!