I love how the dissonance between what you think you’re conveying about yourself to the world and how others perceive you is demonstrated in “the folk of the air” book series.
There’s a huge contrast between Jude’s internal struggle with her own insecurities and how others, like Cardan, perceives her.
Her biggest insecurities are a.) people seeing how scared she is all the time and b.) being perceived as being weak, because she has been indoctrinated her life that she as a mortal is a lower creature.Â
She tries her best to hide all of that, especially from her enemy Cardan, who she is scared of, because she knows he will exploit every weakness he finds in her. But she’s never sure of herself that she can even hide a little bit of it.
In Cardan’s eyes, however, she is this fierce and fearless monster that can’t be controlled or intimidated, that is unpredictable and unstoppable. He doesn’t even see beneath her facade to get to her insecurities. He’s scared of how unscared she seems.
But she is scared of him. In fact, he is the one person that scares her the most. And he doesn’t see it, but she thinks he does.
She sees Cardan the same way he sees her, a fearless monster. She even tries to emulate the mask he wears and make it to her own because in her eyes he can hide everything so exceptionally well that she isn’t sure that he even has insecurities.Â
When in reality Cardan hides too well the person he really is and how much she terrifies him.
She always thought he, as a princeling, got everything he wanted spoon fed to him. That he is accepted, respected and yet feared in faerie, has endless resources and power. So everything she ever wanted for herself.Â
But he actually thinks the exact opposite of himself. He feels, lonely, unwanted, hated and utterly powerless.Â
He thinks that she can see all his weaknesses. Especially when she knows about his romantic feelings for her. But she doesn’t really understand his feelings as a weakness she could exploit because she’s too busy seeing an evil scheme in his every move. And he doesn’t get that she doesn’t get it.
They both don’t realise that they hide their true self far too well, so that the other one has no chance to see through it but they think that the other one can see through it all the time.
The best part is when they finally do realise this dissonance. It’s mindbowing. Even for the reader, because we only get to see Cardan through Jude’s mental filter, through her eyes and not how he truly is in reality.
We judge ourself on our intentions and others on their actions, when we rather should question their intentions before we can judge their actions.
God, I love this book series.
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