dhilizzle

Also I don't think it works technically. When Oak tries to love talk Wren he needs to talk to her directly to make her do what he wants. He's not giving an order directly but he still needs contact. And Taryn came up with a marriage blackmail before she came to see Locke if I remember correctly so he didn't have an opportunity to charm her.

Yeah, giving Locke that ability and having him actually use it makes no sense in the story we were given. Based on what happened with Oak and Wren, it's easy to tell when some is using love-talk on them. I could maybe buy Taryn might not be aware (I'd need a really good explanation, though), but Nicasia? Cardan? None of the various Folk that Locke was dealing with? None of them knew?

Taryn is the only one who continually endangered Judes life ( starting the chain of events where Valerian almost kills her twice, leaving her alone with Valerian in the tower, leaves her in the lake of nixies alone, send Jude to the court where she is exiled from to cover her which coulve definitely gotten her killed if caught , stole half of her army to give to Madoc giving him an advantage to start war where she couldve been overthrown and killed in battle) and gets away with it unscathed.

And Jude never ever takes her lick back. She doesn’t even acknowledge it as danger for her life. Taryn sacrifices Jude at every turn for things Jude would never have chosen over her. She throws away her relationship with her father. Making him an enemy to protect Oak and Taryn abandons her to her fate and almost causes her death to get with Locke. And steals her army to appease Madoc.

Its the misbalance between the sisters where one only takes and one only gives that i think inspires the hatred for Taryn.

whenever there’s discourse regarding taryn’s mistreatment of jude in the first book, majority of the fandom seem to be focused or most bothered by the locke fiasco but for me the scenes that stood out the most were the river scene and the scene where taryn stole jude’s fabric for the coronation dress. some argued that since taryn was expecting to be proposed to on the night of the coronation, it makes sense that she would want to stand out (which is fair), however if she had been a more decent sister, she should’ve let jude have at least one nice thing for the night (the fabric) since that would also be the night where her betrayal against her twin sister would come to light. bcs let’s be real… if taryn were a decent sister, she really would have considered of letting jude keep the nice fabric (especially as oriana pointed out — jude found it first) as her first attempt to redeem herself and make up for her dishonorable action of sacrificing her twin in exchange for a permanent place in faerie. but no taryn simply couldn’t let that happen. instantly she had to take the fabric from jude right then and there.

ironically, it was jude’s sworn enemy who was more considerate of her feelings in that situation. said enemy who knew what it was like to be betrayed by a loved one, gifted her an extravagant gown, in hopes to cheer her up and spare her from the humiliation and heartbreak of her sister’s betrayal.

Prince Cardan:

kicked dirt onto Jude's food

thrown Jude into a river and threatened her implicitly with drowning

threatened Jude to curse her with longing a kind word from his lips

High King Cardan:

ate dirt not to die

felt like he was drowning while Jude was under the waves

so i’m reading the scene with the river and i realized something i had not noticed in any of my previous rereads—

the pause after he asks “does that feel noble?” and taryn’s hitched breath— this is the moment cardan realizes he was going after the wrong twin. and taryn knows she’s been found out

(afterward, nicasia and locke’s reactions show that she knew all along (imo) but they don’t matter rn)

anyway let’s see the next part:

cardan is now looking at them both more closely. this part of the scene and this question always felt off to me— like it didn’t belong— but it is actually just cardan working out the details in his mind. he had thought all along that jude was the one that ‘took locke from nicasia’ (barf—more on that later) but here he is realizing that they are not actually identical.

moving on

here i believe that now that cardan has come to the realization that taryn is not who she appears to be, he is (in some way) trying to show that to jude

while also reveling in this fact (remember, he is still cruel at this point. he doesn’t like her so much as resent her. his ‘being nice’ is still more about him than her at this point.)

and also we see taryn worried that jude might catch on— in this reread i noticed way more how she tried to hide the secret and yet made it more obvious. she literally has guilty face/attitude all throughout this book (well until it all comes out)

oh i almost forgot

yeah he was very direct with her here— obviously there is a double meaning because taryn abandoned jude here but also she has abandoned her in the sense that she has allowed her (j) to take the abuse meant for her (t)