#tfota

JURDAN || JUDE DUARTE x CARDAN GREENBRIAR || THE FOLK OF THE AIR

5/5

The puzzle comes with a cute poster of the artwork and key on the back

There are 78 Tarot cards total, so here’s just some of my favs

First, all the Jurdan ones (Jurdan looks so gorg in this style, also Cardan on his knees 😍 him lounging while the words “Jude Jude Jude” float around him LOL)

Found family(court of shadows) on top and the morally bankrupt antagonists on bottom x love how whimsical everyone’s outfit is

Of course, characters from The Darkest Part of the Forest, the Modern Faerie Tales, and The Stolen Heir made their way onto some cards

So happy to see Val and ravus on here and i am pleasantly surprised to see Silarial (Seelie Queen) btw the card second to last on the top right is just a lake of masks card but I had hope it was another hazel card

Some cutie family photos ! ALSO THE FIRST OFFICIAL JUSTIN DUARTE ARTWORK everyone cheered (far bottom left) also Taryn and the ghost and Jude and madoc just kill me Holly black. baby Duarte sisters adjusting to their life in elfhame without their parents …. devastating

Lastly some random ones I liked! Cardans naughty buddies- thought the blonde was valerian but it’s Locke, happy to see valerian didn’t make the cut (his gut did tho) as he has no cards. and Baby Cardan :( the beautiful palace of Elfhame, and ofc Vivi and Heather on the bottom row alongside exiled Jude! Cuties

Lastly, the Tarot cards come with a handbook, here’s some descriptions that stuck out to me!! (Had to edit them into one picture to make it fit sorry guys)

First, my favorite: the lovers 😭😭 such a sweet description

The difference between Justin’s and madocs cards is so drastic and honestly kinda hilarious. also Kaye’s card has the most adorable description ever

Gosh these are so absurdly gorgeous I’m obsessed, i adore it all and the quality is great, highly recommend!

Crazy how much content we got with these, Hazel hasn’t been mentioned since qon😭😭 missed Val and ravus too theyr the CUTEST! also crazy we are finally seeing Justin the man himself

The postcards I didn’t take pics of cus it’s just the tarot card artwork in black and white fyi!

I might be the wrong person to ask since I don't hate either character. If I had to make a guess about why people seem to hate Taryn more than Madoc, it's probably because they (or we, I guess) felt betrayed by Taryn, too. Jude is the one who's POV we followed. We understood that she had a complicated relationship with Madoc, Cardan was an ass, but Taryn was one of the people she loved- and more importantly trusted- most. We saw that Jude was willing to sacrifice herself for Taryn's sake...and then we saw that Taryn was willing to accept that sacrifice and throw a bit more in for good measure. I'm sure I've said this before sometime in the last year, but I think the fandom would have had an easier time forgiving Taryn if her main (and until the last novel, her only) victim wasn't Jude. Like, if the person she hurt the worst was Nicasia instead. But no. Whenever Taryn needed to throw someone under a bus, it always seemed to be Jude who was on hand.

Madoc's biggest crime against Jude (aside from the obvious one) was that he underestimated her. Had he taken her into his confidence, well...the story would have been a lot different. (I think she still would have betrayed him, though). Madoc wasn't trying to hurt Jude by keeping her out of the loop. He was trying to protect her in the first book. Yes, he turned on her in the last book, but he wasn't betraying her by fighting her. He was meeting her as an opponent who was a real threat to his plans, which in its own twisted way was a show of respect. He also never set out to hurt Jude, which is more than I can say for Taryn. Or Cardan.

Speaking of Cardan, he never betrayed Jude either. Oh, sure it seemed like he did at the end of TWK, but it was a trick he meant for her to see through, and he did it for her protection, too. Before that, he was mean to Jude. He did some truly awful things to her (the worst of it was because of Taryn even though, she let Jude go on thinking it was her fault), but he didn't have her trust. Jude knew he was going to be cruel. We all knew he was going to be cruel. And so when he was cruel, it wasn't a surprise to any of us. I'm not saying what he did was okay, but Taryn's betrayal hurt more for both Jude and the audience. It makes sense for the fans to be quicker to forgive the Cruel Prince than the beloved sister who let her sister get played while believing she was protecting Taryn.

Another reason that I think people are okay with Madoc and Cardan (and I've definitely said this before) is because Jude got her get back with both of them. She beat them at their own games, and she made it look easy. She made them kneel. Madoc, specifically, was punished severely (I don't think that people appreciate the psychological aspect of him in particular never being able to wield a weapon again). If Taryn had faced some sort of consequence for how she treated Jude, I really think people would be less critical of her, but it really seems like she got rewarded for everything she did to Jude. She got the guy (and then got to be the one who killed him, which I will die on the hill of her not deserving the honor). She got the guy's estate. She gets the privileges that come with being the queen's sister (even thought the king is decidedly not a fan of her). Then she got another guy because...reasons?...I don't know. On top of that, she's clearly very cunning, but she seems convinced that she's the victims in everything, as confirmed by her novella. Madoc and Cardan, on the other hand, are who they are. They didn't pretend anything, and Jude knew where she stood with them both (for the most part, but Cardan's feelings for her are for a different post).

I know I'm not making a great case for my love of Taryn, but I do love her. My thing is that my loving her doesn't make me want to make her a victim of circumstance. I don't think that's fair to her. Taryn was not a mere damsel; she was as cunning as Jude, and it's also true that Jude was the most frequently harmed by her plots, or participation in other people's plots.

I hope that answered your question. I did my best not to meander too much. Also, this is just my thoughts on it. Someone else might have a different reason for why they're so critical of Taryn.

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