#fhso

Cardan's design of the dress that Jude wore at Dain's coronation.

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Balekin's refrigerator, where he shows all his proud for Cardan as the loving brother we know he is.

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Dain used Cardan naiveness and incapacity to tell true for false to manipulate his little brother to obtain what he wanted.

Jude used Cardan naiveness and incapacity to tell true for false to manipulate him to obtain what she wanted.

Jude was second Dain in Cardan’s life.

Ah, that feeling of complete helplessness to realize that someone has used you and that you can do nothing to change it. The placid acceptance that you cannot escape the lies that someone else has created.

This is Cardan watching Dain fire that arrow.

It is said that faerie children are not like mortal children. They need little in the way of love. They need not be tucked in at night, but may sleep just as happily in a cold corner of a ballroom, curled up in a tablecloth. They need not be fed; they are just as happy lapping up dew and skimming bread and cream from the kitchens. They need not be comforted, since they seldom weep.

Deleted Scenes from The Wicked King (Cardan POV)

Cardan growth process started in TCP and maybe it had passed unnoticed with everything that was going on.

It started after Dain’s coronation and Jude was the catalyst. The motives are not his feelings for her, but the complete and sudden change in his life situation.

Cardan has been a prince of Elfhame from his entire life. He had value and power as a prince. He hurt others. He threw girls in rivers, and he turned apart wings. And a lot of things we never discovered. After every one of those things, he escaped unpunched because his father was the High King and used the Blood Crown. So attacking the prince is treason.

But then Cardan father was dead and the Crown in no one's head. All the power of Greenbriar name vanished. Jude Duarte, a mortal who had no power at all, showed him his new reality.

Jude was one of the most socially vulnerable victims of Cardan, and - let's guess - 30 minutes after the Greenbriar lost their power, she had a knife in his throat. She asked him if he was surprised and alerted him that he shouldn’t be.

On the second night, Cardan himself said to Jude he knew what he deserved and that he had reasons to fear her. He had not only realized that Jude had reason and opportunity to hurt him, but he also noted that all those he had wounded and tormented had motives and opportunity now.

What made Cardan safe to abuse others were be the son of the High King, who was dead. Suddenly anyone could seek revenge against him, even a mortal girl. Every faerie whom he abused was free to act against him as she did. There were no promises, vows or oats anymore. Cardan was afraid of the repercussions of his actions.

Then being a prince wouldn’t keep him safe. It would not give him the freedom to do anything. Being a prince had no practical value anymore.

Before the coronation Cardan’s life could be hellish, but it was stable.

But then, everything that was unchanging had changed. The world he had always known and believed in had collapsed. And it happened very fast.

Jude let him free in Shadow Court because he has no place to go. He didn’t even try to escape because there he was safe.

He was safe because of Jude.

Not only that, this mortal whom he believed has no place in Elfhame’s Court was a spy and assassin of the most dangerous bother of him.

At that point, he had to rethink his beliefs and certainties while tied in a chair in Dain’s spy's place. 

Now, you should be asking “What it has to do with his romantic life?”

A lot because while the crown was in no one’s head, some reasons he had to deny his feeling for her (Why Cardan likes Jude and why he hates it.) weren’t there anymore.

The world that given him security wasn’t there anymore. He didn’t need to hate her for challenging that world. She could no longer put its balance at risk, everything had already been knocked over.

And if this world had already succumbed, why not admire her? He no longer had to fulfil his prince's role and protect that world by preserving and perpetuating its social bias through his actions.

At the end that world had fallen and the girl was up on her feet.

So while the crown was in no one head, Cardan was free to like Jude as much as he wanted.

Of course, although sudden, the change is not complete. Perhaps I should explain that I am not talking about decisions made consciously, but unconscious changes in Cardan's beliefs. Things that he doesn't even realize have changed in him.

Maybe out of attachment to the world that had always guaranteed his safety, he insulted her when they went to try to convince the nobles of the other courts to support the new HK.

He still has the prejudices, they just lost their strength.

 But change has its beginning.

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