Hi, I just finished reading Queen of nothing and I was looking through the books again.
The scene with the faerie fruit in TCP Carden throws the salt away (the antidote), I find that quite odd
Although as he's returned human servants before pricking their fingers seems like an easier thing than making them eat something salted?
Maybe there's no significance to it, it's just something that sticks in my mind for that scene and wondered if you had any thoughts on it
short cardan analysis / why did cardan throw the salt
hi! i am not sure i understand the question completely, so feel free to send another ask abt this, but i assume that you’re wondering why he threw the salt in the first place? i doubled this as a short cardan analysis/ scene analysis! hope u don’t mind!
if you’re asking: why bother with the salt at all, when jude has salt in her blood? not sure, but salting food destroys ensorcellment on that food, so she has to keep it on her anyway, opposed to pricking her finger and putting her blood on her food lol, BUT as for cardan..
at the faerie fruit scene, cardan does not yet recognize his feelings for jude as anything that isn’t hatred.
since jude is consuming his every thought, he’s frustrated, and eager to make her obey him, because he thinks that when she submits to him, stops opposing him, that he can finally stop thinking of her.
and so, he pushes valerian off when he’s atop her, choking her, bc he never wanted her to die. that is very clear to him from the start, he never wants to be like dain. but it’s unclear to jude bc she’s biased.
holly states that if cardan were a better person that he would’ve found a way to stop his friends sooner, which is true, but unfortunately, because of his upbringing, he is not.
now, he throws the salt in the air scattering it among the grass, because finally, he thinks that under influence of the faerie fruit, jude is going to submit to him.
in part, he does want to see her humiliated, brought down low, for bringing him down low with her. another part of him does want to see her hurt.
which is obvious. cardan hurts and humiliates faeries throughout the high and low courts. it’s just what he does.
but as the events progress, as nicasia makes her undress and humiliates her further, cardan finds himself irrationally upset.
because it turns out that cardan does not in fact like seeing jude hurt or like seeing her humiliated as he thought.
bc he hadn’t recognized his feelings for her yet. until i suspect, now, due to this scene.
anyway, i must sum up cardans character to help ppl understand, prince cardan acted as though he had no heart for a long time, to protect himself. because when he did act like he had a heart, ppl hurt him. his mother, dain, balekin, nicasia, locke even.
and so by pretending to not feel for jude made things easier, but when they both clashed and fought, he realized more and more how jude takes up his every thought, even when she shouldn’t. even when he was w nicasia.
and when jude was hurt and humiliated, he realized not just the surface level feelings of desrire, but how much he cared for her. how much he didn’t want to see her hurt, see her humiliated.
opposed to the many folk he hurt and humiliated and cast from court. bc jude was different. she wasn’t a courtier that bowed and smiled and faked at flattery, which he grew to find insufferable and angering.
she found him undeserving of princely treatment, and tried her hardest at fitting in, even when she very clearly was human. even when he thought that it was pointless and ridiculous.
cardan finds jude fascinating for many of her qualities, but as we see in htkoelths, this is one of them. and one of the first qualities in her that catches his eye. her determination. her unwillingness to give up and to submit.
which he didn’t understand, bc he’s fae and a prince and he doesn’t have to fit in, and she was a human and a bastard, so why put any effort into anything at all? why work hard for a short life? cardan does not understand humans, he’s a child, and he only interacted w glamoured humans before her and val moren.
anyway, it seems that jude and taryn were mostly left alone in gentry classes by cardan specifically, while valerian would harass jude himself (ex: when he stole her pen and madoc replaced it w a ruby one). until taryn started seeing locke which made nicasia upset.
that is when they full on started harassing them.
at this point cardan cared for nicasia(despite the cheating) which he admitted he hurt jude and taryn for her sake when he was kidnapped by jude,, but as a facade he pretended at wanting to hurt the twins just for funsies.
until he didn’t anymore, and it was fueled by jude’s “audacity” to fight back, and his hatred-desire for her.
meanwhile, valerian was struggling w the same hatred desire. except like 1000x more twisted and sick. bc he truly wanted to hurt and kill her. he is very unseelie.
and nicasia is searching for any opportunity to bring the twins low for taking locke from her.
and locke wants to make a game out of hurting taryn and jude and nicasia AND cardan (LOL) bc he knows that cardan wants jude, so he starts “seeing her” which drives literally everyone; taryn, nicasia, cardan, and perhaps even valerian mad (LOL) bc he’s a cunt
BUT the point i’m trying to make is that cardans friends ARE NOT really his friends bc they all wanna hurt him. intentionally or not. if it sates their desires then they’ll take it.
if cardan had started showing his care for jude.. i mean. it would be over. they already want an excuse to hurt jude as is, cardans just a bonus. and locke was actively already doing that, since he was the only one who had yet realized how cardan felt for her. if nicasia and valerian had realized?
i don’t think jude would’ve survived. but i do think that valerian did sorta know that cardan wanted her, but i think when he realized it was more than lust was when he crashed out and went to kill her.
why? bc, jude had always payed singular attention to cardan when they were harassing jude and taryn as a group, but to jude it was all “i hate cardan i hate cardan” and for cardan it was all “i hate jude i hate jude”
and valerian wanted jude, he wanted her to be as affected by his hurting her as it did when cardan hurt her. but it never did.
i think he realized this and crashed out and got high and tried to kill her.
so in short, i think he threw the salt as a guise to his buddies, to 1, appear as though he didn’t have a heart (like usual) so that they wouldn’t realize he cared for her and hurt her more bc of it, and 2, he knew jude’s blood has salt content, so he could always (and did) resort to that, and 3 bc he thought that he wanted jude hurt and humiliated, but as it was happening, he didn’t like it and began realizing how he truly felt for her
below are holly blacks official annotations, which are canon, so pls read the pen markings!! very important!!
this was SUPER messy i literally just threw this together the second i saw it so i’m sorry! hope this helped tho!! 🫶🫶🫶 feel free to add on!
70 notes
·
View notes
The Actress (Cardan Greenbrair x f!reader)
…
"𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰, 𝐰𝐞'𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐞, 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐈. "
"𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭?"
"𝐖𝐞'𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐭𝐡 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐮𝐬 𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐞𝐥. "
…
Y/n, the Actress, part of the Court of Shadows. Twin sister of Valerian, despite the fact that she hates him. Her skill: getting Dain's targets to love and trust her with their secrets.
Prince Cardan Greenbriar, the wickedest prince of the Greenbriar line. Best friend of Y/n's twin brother, Valerian, and he's secretly in love with Y/n. His skill: pretending he hates her.
Jude Duarte, mortal treated as Faerie. Best friend of Y/n, despite her twin sister's, Taryn, hatred toward the girl. Her skill: swords play.
Prince Dain, soon to be king. Leader of the Court of Shadows. He's in love with Y/n and abuses her oath to him to use her for his own pleasure. His skill: getting Y/n to hate him more and more.
Prince Balekin, Cardan's abuser. Oldest child of the Greenbriar line. He's in love with Y/n and oblivious to the fact that she's just using him for information. His skill: being wicked.
Valerian, twin brother to Y/n. Best friend of Prince Cardan. He hates Y/n, and he doesn't hide it. His skill: pissing off his twin sister.
‼️Disclaimer‼️: I do not own the plot or any of the characters except for: Y/n and Lorla and the parts of the plot that I added or changed.
⚠️‼️Warnings‼️⚠️: swearing; mentions of sexual, physical, and mental abuse; and lots of blood, gore, and death. maybe some smut later on?
cardan greenbriar masterlist
my main masterlist
253 notes
·
View notes