#snardan

Taryn : *kill spouse*

Jude : *kill spouse*

Cardan, raising his brows:

“You’d think I never did a more popular thing than sit in the dark on a throne and bite people who annoyed me. I could have always done that. I could do that now.”

Oak, being so smug Wren already bit him before:

i did not read this as an innuendo, no 😅🙈 i mean, you could pose that as an interpretation of the scene, sure. i highly doubt this is what Holly intended when she wrote it, though.

more likely, i think the snake eating Jude in her dream after she tells him she loves him represents Jude's own feelings.

when Cardan is a snake, he is all feeling, no thoughts. we get the understanding of what it was like for him in the final chapter of QON when Cardan, returned to his human form, describes the experience to Jude.

"I was perhaps not entirely an animal, but neither was I myself. I could not reason. There were only feelings—hatred and terror and the desire to destroy. [...] And you. [...] I knew little else, but I always knew you." –QON, p. 292

symbolically, snakes represent emotions, desires, and temptations at their basest levels. this is a fairly biblical reading re: the story of Eve and the serpent.

in her waking life around the time this dream occurs, Jude, out of desire to have some semblance of control over the outcome of the situation, is tempted to ensnare snake!Cardan with the bridle, keeping him against his will forever.

she is tempted because she is very afraid of her life without him, and can see no other clear path.

in the dream, Jude is subconsciously afraid that her feelings for Cardan are so large and so monstrous, they will swallow her whole.

and possibly that her grief in a world without him, should she fail to find a way to break the curse, will swallow her whole.

but snakes also represent healing, growth, and rebirth in non-biblical contexts. and indeed, when Jude learns to let go of her fears and her desire to control, the King of Elfhame is reborn from the bloodied body of the slain serpent.

–Em 🖤🗡