Here’s my first stupid thought:

There is no way Edward Didn’t think, at least once, that Regurgitate was actually Jacob’s daughter.

I mean, Sure, later on it’s pretty clear that she’s part vampire.

But in the early stage?

What’s more likely between these two options:

A) You masturbated so rarely over the last century that your 117 y.o. sperm was actually still human AND fertile

(Also the baby’s growing at weird speed, in order to Make the timing correct)

B) Your wife cheated on you. (Maybe with the very much alive and fertile guy she always had by her side and whom she almost choose over you?)

It reminded him of something he def didn’t want to think about… and then, Rob’s son dies at 20, just like Dream’s

We see Dream spend over a century in silence, unmoving. Everyone’s really creeped out.

Then, as soon as we meet the others Endless, we realize they act 100% normal, Rodrick just got the Emo sibling. And Dream‘s petty as fuck

Oh my god! I loooove Astarion, but I never tought of comparing them

TCP, Jude is mad at her twin sister and duel her.

The entire family is surprised, horrified, terrified.

Jump cut to TPT (SPOILERS): Oak goes psycho mode and slaughter at least five people in front of his family.

I mean, Eldred was one of the most important and long lived king of Elfhame, and yet, most of his subjects were unaware of the strict bound between a king and the his reign.

At the coronation, the Folk were amazed by BUTTERFLIES.

In Cardan’s first year of kingdom, he raised an island.

He constantly manipulated plants, the earth, and even changed the castle!

In TPT, he turns the ghost into a tree with half a thought.

And yet, he now hates to be deemed scary, so “he leaves the fighting to his wife”.

To myself, I thought I just preferred Jude at her maximum power.

But then I got my mom to read The Cruel Prince, and ( even if she read the entire book in a day) she deemed it “yeah, nice. Kinda childlish”

??

Sure, it’s a fairy world, not really No longer Human, but what of Jude’s Breaking Bad Arch is childlish??

So I finally gave TCP a re-read.

And Damn.

Our Queen begging Madoc to let her attend a school event? First crushes, kisses, sex talks with Taryn?

Thanks to the dark themes, power play, court scheming and violence of the rest of the saga, I had completely forgotten that she was just a teenager.

Holly’s ability to develop her arch is incredible.

You can see the seed of what she will later become, and while circumstances def help, she does most of it herself!

But while I love TCP and the growth of Jude’s character, I am scared people mistakes this as just a weird teen romance and don’t read the rest of the saga.

Do you all think this is just a teen/ya romance book?

As an editor, I think he really sums up a lot of the reasons why I love Holly’s writing so much.

(I’m going to yap for a while, but he deserves it.)

We’ve got the classical folklore call-to-arms: an ogre breaks into your home and slaughter your parents. What’s left for you, if not revenge?

Then realism, even in a folk world: you’re five, how the fuck are you supposed to avenge them?

- Then, a personal touch to make it even more scary: he’s not an ogre, but a redcap. He bathes his cap into his enemies’s blood. That’s how scary he is. Thanks to Shrek and other tales, Ogres aren’t that scary in the mind of a reader. But a redcap? Yeah, that’s creepy.

But redcap, or ogre, Madoc is the masculine traditional man, with it’s pros and cons. (I really don’t want to make this political, but he kinda is?)

If he were more logical, less violent, he wouldn’t have killed their parents. At the same time, was he a little less honorable, he would have left the twins there. They were toddlers, they would have died somehow.

Bringing them to Elfhame and glamouring them would have been a sign of weakness, because they’re not his problem, but he couldn’t kill children (I’m kinda sure he would, at least before becoming a dad).

Raising them himself is the true show of his character. He thinks of it as a punishment for himself, to pay back for his crime, but in reality it is just a second crime. Not only I’m sure he enjoyed it, but the ones who actually suffer from it are the twins, again.

Was he a little less self-centered, less focused on a world made of honor and punishments, he would have found them an accommodation in the mortal world. Or at least care enough to notice what they were going through.

But he didn’t.

And in the end, the murder wasn’t Jude’s inciting incident, but Madoc’s.

For Jude, it’s her childhood. And even if she spent her childhood in the magical kingdom of Elfhame, having a fucked up childhood is so much more relatable and realistic than avenge-your-parents kind of motive.

Back to Madoc, his “punishment” is simple: he will see his children amount to everything he dreamed for himself, basically every parent’s dream.

But since he is a very fucked up parent, he hates it.

—

To sum up my yapping, Holly manages to mix enough fantasy elements to make us dream, with enough realistic elements to make us see and feel them.

An ogre breaks into your home, slaughtering your parents. How does he feel about it? Will he be a better parent?

But there is no such thing as the better parent. Parents are by definition the most morally grey characters: if they’re good, they’ll do their best.

But that isn’t always the best.

So Madoc, the murderer, the ogre, becoming the parent is absolutely genius.

Not in a OOC way, but… more like each other.

Jude is more talkative, and can now hold court better. She’s better at formal dinners and even more sassy than she was, which is so typical of Cardan.

Cardan is more prone to violence.

He couldn’t even lift a sword properly, but now can fight even when injured?

When he thought Wren hurt Jude, he was 100% ready to fight her

I just- they grew as an old married couple.