#htkoelths

[thejudeduarte]

I read somewhere that this was Cardans' first genuine hug and wtf why is there water leaking out of my eyeballs

[murasaki-cha]

Jude and Cardan on a flower field. Cardan laying his head on Jude's lap. Jude makes a flower crown for him and puts it on his head. Cardan tilts the flower crown succeeding in making Jude laugh. The flowers bloom brighter all around them. That’s it, that's the post. Just happy and soft Jurdan.

[letmeliveinelfhame]

FairyLoot TFOTA iron editions 💕

[deathsweetblossoms]

[darlingod]

HTKOELTHS by Holly Black

Cardan: since we’re on the topic of threats mY WIFE IS ON THE WAY—

[cromulentreader]

Cardan Greenbriar - 10 quotes over 5 books

“Do not expect others to share my depraved tastes.”

“Have I told you how hideous you look tonight?”

“My lady, you flatter me. I had no idea you were interested.”

"I want to tell you so many lies."

“You didn’t mention my handsomeness.”

"I knew little else, but I always knew you."

"It’s absurd, sometimes, the thought that she loves him."

“You don’t think monster girls and wicked boys deserve love?”

“Felicitations on the murder of your mother.”

“Love. That force that compels us to be sometimes better and often worse. That power by which we can all be bound. That which we ought to fear and yet most desire.”

[slarxsa]

The odd curve of her ear was what he had noticed first. A roundness echoed in her cheeks and her mouth. Then it was the way her body looked solid, as though meant to take up space and weight in the world.

When she moved, she left behind footprints in the forest floor.

Because she didn’t know how to glide silently, to disturb no leaf or branch. He felt smug to see how bad she was at even such an easy thing.

It was only later that it disturbed him to think back on the shape of her boot in the soil, as though she was the only real thing in a land of ghosts.

Something about the fact that one of the first thing about Jude that fascinates Cardan is her realness, the impression that she leaves on the world, her solidness, the fact that she takes up weight and space. Something about Cardan being a really small, light baby, something about Cardan being ignored his whole childhood. Something about Cardan never being noticed or allowed to take up space as a child, about everyone thinking he would never make any difference because he was sixth born. Idfk bro.

[romajuliettemai]

How The King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories Waterstones Exclusive Editition Bonus Conent

Creds to @letmeliveinelfhame thank you so so SO much for these pictures, I had no clue this edition even existed prev to this!!

[chaiichait]

I'd like to think that Cardan gives thanks to lady luck everyday for his marriage towards Jude

Mr Cardan how did I get so lucky? Greenbriar

[judesidepiece]

Something that I love about Jude and Cardan is they actually raise hell for each other. In other books, characters will often make these grand declarations of love and say things like 'i would burn the world for you' or destroy everything for you or whatever, but with Jurdan, they don't rlly say stuff like that to each other, they just do it. Like Cardan signing off a peace treaty allowing the undersea to attack the land and risk war to get Jude back, going against his morals and killing Madoc's guards when they were taking her, or Jude letting Snardan poison the land as long as possible because she was searching for a way to bring him back.

[tothestarsinvelaris]

"And you think it was sunrise I was waiting for and not my queen"

"There is one thing I did like about playing the hero. The only good bit. And that was not having to be terrified for you." the things Cardan says <3

"The next time you want to make a point," Jude says, "I beg you not to make it so dramatically." "So long as you're begging," he says. Cardan, my heart

[thejudeduarte]

Cardan hiding away when he was younger, telling himself that the reason he's not being found is just because he's such a good hider when in reality it's because no one truly loves and cares for him. Him also getting lost during the coronation as his family didn't care that he wasn't on the dias.

But then there's Jude who finds him almost instantly without having any idea on where he could be, once out of pure luck OH MY GOD they're made for each other.

[viivdle]

there's two ways this could go...

[highking-cardan]

// what did i learn from htkoelths?

Cardan has a begging kink

[madockisser]

I would love to hear your thoughts/analysis on why cardan didn’t turn out truly cruel like every other folk or like his siblings? Obviously with his upbringing and how he was treated by everyone so wrongfully you would think he would turn out 10x worse than he is. He puts up this false act of being cruel to impress and get the attention from those he seeks around him. But truly he isn’t like that…. At all from what we’ve read in the books. Even after all the betrayal … even after all the schemes and tricks people have done to him.

Naturally the fae are crueler than humans so I wonder why you think he didn’t turn out that bad at all. He releases the servants. He has the capability to actually feel remorse and empathy unlike his companions. I’ve just found his entire character development so intriguing.

Why is cardan different from the other fae / how his upbringing affects his behaviors

hi! Thannk you for the ask! This one’s kinda long but first I’ll start w fae natures:

I wouldn’t say the fae are crueler than humans, they seem to be less empathetic. humans also have the capacity to be cruel and awful, and since fae cannot lie, i imagine they are pretty closed off from the get go. They naturally want to be sneaky to protect themselves. not all of them are cruel, but they certainly can have the capacity to be. Just like humans.

also they cannot help their natures. A lot of fae prize fun and trickery above all, and so they find it by being awful. it’s just in their nature. They see the world differently, they are immortal, so simple things like protecting feelings of others or mortal lives are unimportant to them.

Now i can only speculate using what we know, but here’s what i think.

First of all, cardans upbringing.

most fae children are raised similarly to him, cast out to fend for itself. Cardan was the same except he grew up a prince.

he was told that he’s an important little prince, to be doted on momentarily then forgotten about.

he never had a midwife, his father never cared for him, his siblings treated him like an animal, the cat that fed him breastmilk fled from him.

cardan always wanted to be loved, TRULY loved. he detested fake admiration. and he never not one received real, true, healthy love.

Love from balekin was abuse, love from his mother was taking advantage of his title, love from nicasia was using him for power. no one loved cardan.

despite the love he gave, he never received.

He was not cruel for nothing. He did it because despite being a prince he felt powerless. He was the youngest prince, destined to cause ruin and unlikely to ever sit atop the throne.

So that’s what he did, he felt obligated to prove to everyone that the prophecy over his head would be true, he did it mostly for attention from his father, because it was all he knew from his mother / to be petty and prove to his father that he was even worse than he imagined- and mostly because it kept him with the smallest amount of power he had.

but that’s not all. he lashed out a lot because he was afraid of being seen as weak. like i mentioned above, his siblings all saw him at his weakest, even if he was a child. and he hated that. he didn’t want them to think lesser of him, i think part of him wanted them to admire him, if not fear him.

being awful and scary gave him power. he could cast anyone from court, could hurt those around him with no consequence. because that’s what he felt he needed to do to be powerful. To be like balekin.

Except he didn’t want to be completely like balekin, just powerful like balekin, he wanted to share balekins strong front. Cardan never wanted to be a murderer like dain.

That’s important. Cardan cherishes life. Meanwhile, nicasia, valerian, balekin, dain, madoc, SO MANY do not.

like i said in the beginning, the fae are unlikely to care for mortal lives, to them, mortal lives are too fleeting to care about.

but cardan frees balekins humans slaves for some reasons: first, to prevent balekin from using them to beat him

Second, because Jude’s existence has led him to believe that humans are perhaps more valuable than he was previously told

And third, because he’s witnessed human death. When dain shot Val morens human lover, he watched him die, feeling responsible. i don’t think he EVER wanted to feel that way again. which is probably why he was so stern w not wanting jude to get hurt, asides from his love/lust for her, he doesn’t want to feel guilty for killing her or getting her killed.

it’s worth mentioning that scene in his novella when he takes the human that beat him back to the mortal world. he pities her, but she also pities him, and also tries to apologize. i think this was the only time anyone that ever hurt him, intentionally or no, actually apologized and meant it. Because it showed they actually cared.

nicasia apologized, which should hold more meaning bc she cannot lie. but then she defended herself by saying that he should’ve known. by belittling him. Like his mother. Like balekin. Bc even if they were ever sorry, they still think less of him. Nicasia saw how weak he was for her. And he hated it. But not the same hate that he shared w jude.

Also, dain. Dain played a HUGE role on why cardan is the way he is. Though dains actions were fleeting, they were lasting to cardan.

Because dain framed cardan as an evil little murderer who killed humans, cardan strove to

1. prove him right by being awful, to be petty mostly,

2. to retain his dignity of being thrown out and treated like an animal by embracing the “rebellious” side of him,

but also, he never truly wanted to be a killer.

he refused it outright in book one. because dain framed him for killing a human, causing Val moren to go mad, cardan didn’t want to kill another human, or anyone for that matter.

from a young age cardan learned this: that people are cruel for personal gain, and that death brings around much misery.

Though cardan did not actually kill Val morens human lover, his death caused his mother to be cast away. And as much as cardan didn’t want to: he still cared for his mother. and since the murder, he was cast from the palace, to live in a stable only pretending that someone were looking for him. That someone cared.

Now; balekin. Obviously balekin played a large role in why cardan is who he is. balekin wanted a perfect little prince for his fathers favor. and so that’s what he mostly got. but balekin beat cardan when things didn’t go his way.

cardan wasn’t perfect by any means, he was poor with a sword because he didn’t want to learn. Because he knew he would never want to outright kill anyone, maybe to irritate balekin. But maybe even partly because he didn’t want to defend himself should someone try to hurt him.

while he does state that “being alive is better” I’m not sure he ALWAYS held those reservations. he didn’t always have much to live for, which is so sad.

but, he still cared for balekin despite his abuse and his sisters despite their misgivings about him.

I believe he felt his sisters were innocent in all of this, they simply were being obedient daughters by ignoring cardan. and he was grateful to balekin for taking him, he also owed him for it.

he really didn’t want to be heartless like dain, to abuse like balekin. to be neglectful like his father. but he also didn’t want to be killed off like his sisters so casually. to be killed off like liriope and the baby in her womb. so he stuck to being scary rather than weak.

Cardan learned from a very young age what death brings. it brings suffering and guilt. feelings he doesn’t want to feel bc he hates feeling weak. he’d rather lounge around w a human book in hand and a cup of wine in the other than feel belittled.

add on: cardan is very forgiving. i believe that may because he feels guilty. obviously he didn’t kill Val morens human lover, but i can see him blaming himself for being a hopeful fool about dain (poor baby). and i believe his internal monologue when dain shot the human was him scolding himself for not seeing the trick sooner.

no one forgave him for that. Val moren held it against him years later when he sat at eldreds dinner table. No one forgives cardan for the cruelty he inflicts, possibly because they don’t care.

isn’t that sad? they don’t care enough to pursue a genuine relationship w the youngest prince; everyone seems to treat him like a rabid animal, ready to lash out and attack at any given moment.

that could be why he’s so forgiving. Because he’s desperate for any sort of relationship, even if they’re negative, even if they’re abusive. he holds out hope for those that don’t care about him because despite this, he cares for them- to some extent.

i feel that he acted this way moreso in his youth rather than present cardan, who probably only truly cares for jude and only jude. jude was the only one to really hold out hope for him after all, despite his behavior.

cardan can be kind because no one was to him. He can be empathetic because he knows suffering. he and suffering went hand in hand all throughout his life, his impressionable youth. he’s eventually kind to jude despite his jealousy toward the love she received from her family, because he’s grown out of longing for love from his abusers. he grew into loving jude and jude grew into loving him.

add on: cardan not only longs for a true love (he’s such a romantic) but eventually learns to long for a more simpler life- such as getting away from his family and living a quiet life in a low court. w money and wine of course.

anyway cardans life is so sad but i probably missed some stuff so please feel free to add on! 🫶🫶 moral of the story however, cardan cares, even while others blatantly do not. he wants love, while others want power. makes his and Jude’s dynamic in twk all the more devastating. makes thinking about his letters all the more saddening.

anyway luv u bye

[darlingod]

Interact with this post if you would read a full length Cardan novel, I want to see how much of y’all want it