So, um, I was thinking things again. And remember when Cardan was hurt because Jude had used a command on him to make him do something he would have done with or without a command? (Which that actually did happen once with the command and once without it, but with Taryn).
The first time--when she commanded him to make sure he wasn't alone at night. He flinches at this, because he's surprised that she used that command, and I think it's also because he's hurt that she feels she needs to use a command to get him to do what he otherwise would have simply agreed to.
The second time, when Taryn came in posing as Jude and asked him to do something. Cardan simply does as she asks and here's Jude puzzling over how because Taryn didn't command him, and he'd thought it was Jude etc. And he says that he didn't want to refuse her (Jude). He wanted to show her that she could trust him. Essentially, he didn't need to be bound by that vow to show her that she can trust him. He wants her to know that she can trust him in spite of that.
Okay, so I thought about this, and then I thought about their marriage. We all know Jude is an unreliable narrator, our beloved, but unreliable. So in...I think QoN? She considers that her marriage to Cardan is a political alliance, nothing more.
Allow me to (over)analyze a certain passage from TWK because I am in my feels.
He goes on. “Moreover, since you plan on forcing me into abdicating for your brother, it’s not as though we’d be married forever. Marriages between kings and queens must last as long as they rule, but in our case, that’s not so long. You could have everything you want at the price of merely releasing me from my vow of obedience.” My heart is pounding so hard that I fear it will stutter to a stop. “You’re serious?” I manage. “Of course I am. In earnest as well.” I look for the trick, because this must be one of those faerie bargains that sound like one thing but turn out to be something very different. “So let me guess, you want me to release you from your vow for your promise to marry me? But then the marriage will take place in the month of never when the moon rises in the west and the tides flow backward.”
He shakes his head, laughing. “If you agree, I will marry you tonight,” he says. “Now, even. Right here. We exchange vows, and it is done. This is no mortal marriage, to require being presided over and witnessed. I cannot lie. I cannot deny you.” “It’s not long until your vow is up,” I say, because the idea of taking what he’s offering—the idea that I could not only be part of the Court, but the head of it—is so tempting that it’s hard to believe it might not be a trap. “Surely the idea of a few more months tied to me can’t be such a hardship that you’d like to tie yourself to me for years.” “As I said before, a lot can happen in a year and a day. Much has happened in half that time.”
So this hit me. He starts by clarifying that their marriage wouldn't last for very long because he knows she plans on forcing him to abdicate. The marriage of a king and queen would last as long as they rule, but in their case, no, because she'd basically be giving him the boot. Just from the start it got me thinking, he's sort of implying that if it was to end, it would because she wanted it to. Like she wouldn't want to be married to him anymore because she wants to remove him from the throne.
Then the fact that he gave her a ring when they were wedded! Exchanging rings is NOT a faery custom. They don't do that, people. But he did. For her. He who read a book of Alice in Wonderland when he was little, and he who happens to be very much in love with a mortal.
One of the last things she says to him in these passages, and his response is very telling for me.
So what she says, if you turn it around and make it simple, is saying, "If being with me for a few more months is really that terrible, why would you want to commit to me for years?"
And he says, "A lot can happen in a year and day. Much has happened in half that time."
Which maybe I'm reading to much into it, but it seemed to me like he's quietly expressing that he wants to marry her for something other than this alliance they have...or that he doesn't think it's terrible at all. He wants to love her and show her she doesn't need to bind him to her in any of this restricting and confining sense to understand that.
He never intended to end it, I think. I mean, my friends, did anybody else catch it when he turned the broken throne into two?! TWO.
And who's to say, maybe one of those things that change, that he's saying, is referring to feelings too. He doesn't hate her anymore, he's in love with her. Idk.Me being a stupid romantic, sorry. I thought about this morning.
