#TFoTA

[allergictojoy]

the absolute mental gymnastics he had to to do write that letter bc he can’t lie😭 like my brother in christ you ran your own daughter through with a sword!! how is that cardan’s fault??

sorry I have to point out that over those few days after the duel in the snow Madoc sent Cardan a very rude letter saying “FUCK YOU MY DAUGHTER IS DEAD BECAUSE OF YOU” even though he doesn’t even know Cardan was there that night. he truly hates this dude with all of his fatherly heart

[avelanlorelay]

And every morning when the Sun rose, the Moon admired her brilliance from afar, enchanted by her radiant beauty.”

I did. I finally drawing more Jude and Cardan tarot cards

[thejudeduarte]

Cardan: hey, what do bees make?

Jude: *deadpan* honey

Cardan: ..yes dear?

Jude: *smacks him*

[theprincedain]

I'd like to make you an office for... reasons

And what exactly would these reasons be, darling?

[astraeajackson]

omg omg omg. i'm basically done reading the wicked king and i am SOBBING. LIKE GIRL. CARDAN SAID SO HIMSELF. IT WAS ONLY POSSIBLE FOR TARYN TO PULL OFF HER BETRAYAL BECAUSE BECAUSE BECAUSE.

cardan wanted jude to trust him.

HE WAS SICK AND HE WAS TIRED AND HE WANTED TO SHOW JUDE SHE COULD TRUST HIM. I'M LITERALLY GONNA CRY. I LOVE THEM SM JURDAN IS LITERALLY MY ROMAN EMPIRE I CAN'TTTTT

[memory-lane-and-back-again]

Tbh I think a lot of hate Taryn receives is more or less a reflection of misogyny. Jude is far more forgiving to Taryn than the vast majority of readers are because for her, Taryn’s actions are just how she has chosen to survive.

Taryn is always described as more obedient and as if she is trying to slip under the radar. She chooses to help Locke and then Madoc, two powerful men, instead of running her own campaign for power like Jude did and the people that criticise her for it most aren’t Jude or anyone else, but the readers who live in a world where femininity is equated with weakness and foolishness.

The one token we give her is that she killed her husband, because it is badass. But most people hate her happy ending because she didn’t ‘deserve it.’ In reality she was no crueler than any of the other fae, and no less interested in her own ending than anyone else.

But where Jude conforms to the modern ‘empowerment’ trope by behaving in a way that is more typically masculine, being bold abrasive and combative, Taryn leans into femininity to survive. I think, with how desensitised Jude’s narrative is to the risks to her life, we forget how insanely risky Jude’s ambitions are to achieve.

And while Jude strives to achieve them, Taryn has none of that same ambition so no need for the risk. I never got the hate for Taryn when I first read the books, but it took my ages to try and understand her choices. Her great ambition is safety: marrying Locke, siding with Madoc, asking Jude to lie for her—it is all about being as safe as she possibly can in a world that treats her like dirt.

And what irk’s me the most is that the narrative never judges her like we do as readers. The betrayal Jude feels is never soothed with misogyny; Jude’s narrative never criticises Taryn based on her femininity or loves her less because of it.

Taryn is the kind of character you love to hate because she's Selfish capital S. Jude is someone you'd like to root for despite having killed people because they're for the Good Reasons. She also has pretty bad thoughts about almost everyonee but that's Okay 🆗 because it's backed by her good intention.

Do I like Taryn? Not really. Do I hate her? Nah. She's just a girl trying to survive the way she knows how to. Does that mean she's never betrayed her loved ones? No. It happened when she tried to get what she wanted.

Jude adapts by pissing off the Folks and showing them she belongs there using ways that gives them no choice but agree they gotta agree with her

Taryn adapts by being like those chameleons, she analyzes people just the same as Jude does and she grabs whatever opportunity she can get to get what she wants, exactly like Jude.

The biggest difference is Taryn does it for a boy, which if you replace the boy with a placeholder 'objective' just the way Jude does with 'power to feel like she belongs in Faerie', you get something of uhhh == they're both trying to survive the way they're comfortable with

Does it Piss some people off the way Jude got she wanted? Yh. Who? Cardan, Madoc, Oriana, Randalin, Orlagh, Nicasia, Balekin, etc etc etc. They were betrayed, regardless whether they deserved it or not. They're just tricks to get the upper hand in Jude getting her objectives.

Does it Piss people off too with how Taryn got she want? Yh. Who? Jude and Cardan and eventually Locke. They were betrayed, regardless whether they deserved it or not. They're just tricks to get the upper hand in Taryn getting her objectives, too.

They both played dirty at some points. Another difference is Jude's objectives are power and her free will, which instantly places her in a nobler light, while Taryn's is wanting to belong to the Folk and adapting by not pissing them off, getting her boy, and occasionally backing up Madoc, which instantly puts her in the bad light

Jude's betrayals are viewed in a better light because they don't *all* feel personal, which if you read the books, yknow the politics of Faerie is as much personal as it can get for Jude. She lives for it.

Taryn's betrayals are viewed in a dimmer light because they're for her personal reasons. And long story short, they're the betrayal against our main character, Jude

Consequentially my conclusion is, I don't think Taryn would've been hated as much as she does if she's the main character. I bet people be like, she was just trying to survive! It sucked! But that's the way she knew how to! Yes she betrayed people! But it was bound to happen! She's flawed! We love a flawed queen!

In the same practical vein, Kaz Brekker is a con-man. And we root for him because he's the main character. He's done some pretty shady stuff, they're not all wholesome Inej-hearteyes coded, but because he's the main character, we excuse them and maybe we say, hey he's a flawed character, he's a gray character. We don't want a black and white goody two shoes now, Kaz Brekker embodies someone broken and morally gray who clawed his way out of the Barrel in any which way he can

Listen, i think, i think.....what I'm trying to say is, Taryn is a also a morally gray character. She loves her sisters and Oak, but will she stop that from getting what she wants even if the methods are bad? No.

On a tangent, As a sister of a sister and we're close, but we're not the loving Jo and Beth kind, but leaning more to Jo and Amy,.I've often wondered how this person who's my blood can be so endearing and important to me while at the same time makes me want to bust a vein, and I'm sure I've been in the same line of thoughts in my sisters' minds too

Because humans are multidimensional and we're stupidly prone to wanting what we want no matter what, sometimes going against what the other person, our siblings good opinions of ours

So yh, food for thoughts

Edit: because this bears saying for some reasons, i should've added that i dc abt what you think I'm not looking for a discussion this series is almost a decade old and I'm just tired seeing Taryn hate only because she chose the more discreet path to reach her personal goals, was it annoying? Yes, but she deserved as much thought out discourse as Jude because hey being morally gray doesn't mean being on the right side of the story. It's really not.

Just because you like Jude and her intentions and she's killed people and she's the mc doesn't make her morally gray.

Taryn is.

Bye. I don't need your opinion.

[viivdle]

is this.. is this the viivdle return?

[patrickbatemanbuthomo]

Wicked king

[murasaki-cha]

Wow book artists are FEEDING me these days!!!!

Credit goes to:

@frostbite.studios for Jurdan

@palinlineart for AlizehCyrus

[love-and-books320]

thank youuuuu

i decided to get needlessly curious about the progression of time in tfota, then realized there wasn't much about it online. so for the like. two other people in the world who care about this stuff, here's what I've got:

jude says her birthday is nov 13, 2001 when telling dain a series of truths + one lie. the lie is that she can't swim, so we can assume this is truly her birthday

madoc says the new king will be coronated on the autumn solstice, which typically falls in late september (if you want to be really annoying about details, the autumn solstice was on sep 23 in 2019, the year tcp is set)

jude is seventeen at the beginning of tcp (7 yrs old when taken to faerie, and tcp takes place 10 years after that). given the timing of the coronation and her november birthday, she turns 18 during the time skip between tcp and twk (happy bday queen, pls take it easy on poisoning yourself)

twk starts with 5 months of jude's bargain with cardan already past, and by the end (when he proposes) 7 months of the bargain have gone by. this puts us at like... springtime. maybe april?

then there's the tqon exile time jump, which the internet says was four months (i tried looking in the book and couldn't find an exact number, but jude does make a comment about it being early autumn near the beginning of tqon, so this (or even slightly longer) checks out)

tqon timeline is a little foggy but it's pretty fast-paced, so I'm going to posit that it's about a month (feel free to drop details below, i just couldn't find much)

tldr: tfota all takes place in the span of about a year, which we already knew, but it's fun (for me lol) to see it all laid out. jude is presumably not far from her 19th birthday when she's officially coronated at the end of tqon. this also means that oak’s books are set in the future! (2028, i think?)

also, if I’ve done the math right, jude was exiled in the mortal world in 2020, so covid does not exist in this universe. good for them

[avelanlorelay]

Sorry to bother with questions but do we ever find out where Cardan was when he didn't return to bed with Jude those few nights? As he seemed to be avoiding the question when she asked. Was he with someone else?

Questions never bother me, I love to talk! I assume you're talking about that TQOF scene after Jude's presentation banquet. Feel free to disagree with me, but I think that to think that Cardan is just a womanizing boy is not to understand even half of his personality, especially when (I've already posted about this) he's the most sensitive character in the series.

In my view, it's implied in the book that Cardan's vice is drink, not sex. I'm not saying that he's a pure boy who didn't like taking part in orgies, but there are some points that show that it wasn't his priority. For example: Cardan isn't seen making dirty jokes or analyzing women's bodies like Valerian (except with Jude). He never had two lovers at the same time like Locke and Nicasia (I'm not saying that the intention of these two was just sex, but obviously there was a lot of desire for Jude on Locke's part and for Locke on Nicasia's part too).

And the main point for me, is that we see in TWK, when Jude invades Cardan's chambers at Balekin's behest, he is completely alone in bed, that is, at a time when he is worried about Jude and the situation of the kingdom is delicate, he doesn't have time to think about sex or anything like that, so to think that Cardan is still the same boy who only thinks about the pleasures of life and hasn't matured is to ignore his evident change in the second book. It's clear that in important situations, such as when the Crown of Blood is at stake, he no longer maintains the behavior of enjoying himself like a member of the circle of grackles.

It's not exactly proof, but on the same night that Jude breaks into his rooms, he confesses that Balekin forced him to take part in orgies, meaning that his perverted behavior was practically forced on him by his brother. It's no wonder that when he met a girl he liked, Cardan immediately committed himself to an engagement. And here, we all have to agree because it's obvious that he was always faithful in his commitment to Nicasia, their relationship was totally monogamous, otherwise he wouldn't have been so heartbroken by her betrayal.

Which brings me to the conclusion of your question: Cardan was faithful to Nicasia because he loved her and the two of them were engaged, in other words, they had a solid commitment. And he remained faithful to her until the engagement was broken. Cardan respects commitments, he has many faults but he is one of the few loyal characters in the books. So, throughout TQON Cardan and Jude had a real commitment, they were married by fairy law. Whether the marriage was consummated or not, I believe that he remained completely faithful to her. 1- Because he loved Jude and was completely fall with her.

2- Out of respect for their legitimate marriage.

3- Because he was too busy worrying about Jude's exile, her whereabouts after Madoc's invasion, her health and, most importantly, how to win her love. He wouldn't let himself be carried away by frivolous desires, especially when his greatest desire was her. I believe that when Jude asked where he was, Cardan didn't imagine that she might be jealous, so he answered without bothering to give details. Even when Jude expresses her feelings in words, he is still unsure and in doubt. Perhaps he was too embarrassed to say where he stood, or he was just a little slow to be objective. Someone here on tumblr already commented that he was probably in the Court of Shadows and I totally agree. And I would add that he probably spent nights drinking, playing cards and worrying about Jude's recovery and how to win her heart.

I think that sometimes, like Jude, we overcomplicate Cardan's thoughts and intentions, when in fact he is simple and even naive in his actions lol. Sorry for the long text, I hope I've answered your question 💗

[grendel-menz]

another fake cover

[slightlyrebelliouswriter23]

the "i definitely do NOT have feelings for them in any way shape or form" while obviously crushing on them trope might be cliché to you. it's about being doomed from the start, the desperate denial of the starved self, the tragic inevitably of love to me tho

[thecourtofteeth]

my thoughts exactly

im mad mad that all fandom gafs about in tfota is jurdan PLEASE can we appreciate the other characters and dynamics outside of that please please please please

[anu-ca]

The cruel prince, chapter 20, dance scene: a small comic 🧚🏻‍♂️