r/thecruelprince

Hi!

I was rereading the original series recently + The Stolen Heir duology (honestly for the Jude x Cardan crumbs). I fell in love again with the world of Elfhame and discovered the unending world of fanfiction 😅

Does anyone have some recs for their favorite? I'll obviously go browse but there are almost 100 pages out there and it's a hit or miss.

(I'll also take recs for similar books! I already read Emily Wilde, and A Forest of dreams and whispers which felt like a cruel prince fics in a good way)

Thanks!

Surprisingly, I'm developing interest towards their relationship. (Don't get me wrong I don't like Nicasia not even a little but I love how she was written)

I'd like to hear your thoughts about them. Why did he love her? (She's really different from Jude so I'm curious what attracted him to her)

How deep was his love for her?

How deep was their relationship?

Did he love her just as much as he loved Jude?

And any other thoughts about them is very much welcomed!

I'll admit that I only read the first book of the series, but two years later I still can't make myself read the second book. Cardan is very clearly depicted as a disgusting bully, and the "oh but he loved her" excuse is complete BS. If it was in the name of love, no fucking way would he torment her. I hate how most of the fandom supports this.

Along with that, broadly, enemies to lovers romanticizes bullying and worse. It instills values in young people that oh, maybe the person bullying or stalking you just has a crush. Pure stupidity.

The writing wasn't even that good, but anyways the dynamic between Jude and Cardan left me with a sick feeling in my stomach. Bullies to lovers is gross.

I read The Cruel Prince years ago. I absolutely loved Cardan’s character, Jude’s female rage, the plot, and the world-building. The Cruel Prince is actually the book that got me back into reading.

My tastes have evolved since then: I often find the worlds, characters, and romances in YA romantasy a bit too shallow. I enjoy discovering deep, complex characters and intricate, thrilling plots.

I’d love to get back into romantasy and find a book like The Cruel Prince again—a character like Cardan who makes me feel that same excitement and obsession—even though I’m older now and a lot more demanding as a reader.

I’m not a fan of spice. I don’t mind one or two scenes if they genuinely serve the story.

For context, I’m not a fan of SJM. I didn’t enjoy A Court of Thorns and Roses or Throne of Glass (sorry). I loved the action and world-building in Crescent City 1, but I hated Crescent City 2 because the 🌶️ and the testosterone-fueled, perpetually-in-heat males took up far too much space (please don’t hate me 🙏).

In general, I don’t like love triangles. I can tolerate them if they’re very well written or if the endgame love interest is obvious. But if the heroine is genuinely in love with two guys at the same time, I tend to enjoy the reading experience much less.

I also really enjoyed the world and the character of Jacks in Once Upon a Broken Heart.

Thank you for your help!

I'm not sure if I understood the whole thing correctly so I'm going to write it down and waiting for someone to tell me if what I understood is correct or not.

So basically humans are "mortals" and it's mainly because their lifespan is short. Not because they die, since Faes and humans both can die.

But for the Faes I don’t understand the aging system. In a lot of official works for HB series it's obvious that some Faes are older than others. So I'm assuming that the Faes do actually age but it's just really really really slow compared to us? Also madoc said while the Folk don't die from age, they can grow weary with it, and I'm not sure the I understood that. Madoc said that Eldred was going to neverland or smth like that and Jude said it was their way to take about death. So Eldred was eventually going to die? (I knew he was being poisoned slowly but that was an info madoc didn't know by then)

Also what is the difference between the Folk and the Gentry

Do yall remember in chapter 15 from TWK when they were Doingg itttt??

Later in QON when jude told cardan that she loves him in THAT ROOM and he didn't believe her and said something like "you lied in this room the last time we were in so please don't do it now" and jude blushes when she remembered those lies

I can't sleep and I really want to know what she said 😭

Hey! I just wanted to ask really quick if anyone has a list of all the different types of faeries and fey mentioned in the Folk of the Air series. I was hoping to make a list of my own

I finished the original folk of the air series like 2 years ago and now I'm finally reading the stolen heir. Tell me about cardan and jude in this duology without giving any spoilers

That's simply it. I just miss my babies so much, the book hangover for this series is so real. It's been twon months and I'm still in love with them 😭 I really hope if there was more of Cardan to read I love him specifically so much

Before anyone comes for me - I know Jude is supposed to be morally grey. I loved her the first time around. But rereading the trilogy as an adult, I found myself genuinely uncomfortable with her in ways I didn't expect, and I think a lot of it comes down to one thing: the narrative frames her defence mechanisms as power, and we never question it because we're locked inside her perspective.

The "I'm not impressed by anything" performance

This is the one that gets me most on reread. Jude's permanent unimpressed exhaustion is sold to us as strength - she's not dazzled by magic, not seduced by glamour, not swept away. But she's also a 17-year-old raised in trauma by the man who murdered her parents, surrounded by creatures who have existed for centuries. The idea that she has not just adapted but outplayed them all at their own game is a lot. And the tell is that she maintains the performance even inside her own head, when no one is watching. That's not strategy. That's an identity built entirely around never being caught caring. It has a name, and it isn't confidence - it's the faerie world equivalent of pick-me energy. I'm not like other mortals. I don't need wonder. Watch me be more fae than the fae.

Control as trauma response, sold as ambition

Her obsession with power is framed as political genius. And yes, she's smart. But her parents were murdered in front of her at seven years old by the man who then raised her. The hypercontrol - the scheming, the refusal to trust, the need to always be three moves ahead - is a completely understandable response to that. What's strange is that the narrative never names it as such. The famous speech to Cardan in book one >!- "you have much to lose and I have nothing" - !<is presented as an iconic power move. But it's a dissociation from fear, not the absence of it. A person who genuinely isn't afraid doesn't need to give that speech.

The hypocrisy with Cardan

She spends book one hating Cardan for how he treats her - fair enough - and then spends the rest of the series doing equally questionable things to him, including >!binding him to her will entirely.!< The fandom romanticizes this. If the genders were reversed we'd be calling it what it is. She deceives almost everyone she claims to love, the narrative rarely calls her on it, and we forgive her every time because we're inside her head hearing the justification in real time.

>As you can guess from my username - you know exactly where I'm coming from. I love Cardan enough to be frustrated by what happens to him narratively. He's a fae prince with a genuinely complex inner world and one of the best redemption arcs in YA - and so much of it gets filtered through the lens of what it means for Jude. The wonder of existing in a world of actual magic, of being him - treated as background noise. Meanwhile Jude meets all of it with permanent deflection, and we call that strength. But Cardan is the one character whose mask the narrative actually acknowledges as a mask. Jude's mask is just called her personality. That asymmetry bothers me more every reread.

None of this makes the books bad. But I think we give Jude a pass we wouldn't extend to a male character doing the same things, and I think we do it because we've spent three books justifying everything alongside her. Curious if anyone else felt this shift on reread.

People started saying the Locke probably used his Ganganach magic on Taryn and Nicasia to seduce them. If Locke has to glamour the more submissive sister, then it would make sense he also tried to glamour Jude into liking him because she's always on guard around faes.

In the coronation scene, Locke asks Jude if she'd cry if he ever hurts her. She said no and that she'll hurt him back. He's surprised because he probably thought she's under his influence which would expose her secret that she's somehow immune to his magic. I just suddenly thought of this while I'm stuck on sleep paralysis and I haven't read the books in a while so correct me if I'm wrong in some way✌

+ bonus question:

In tqon, Taryn stitches Jude up. But where did she get the needle and threads? It doesn't say if I remember correctly. I just read tls and it also doesn't explain where Taryn got her supplies to stitch Jude up

Exactly what the title said. I have just finished the prisoners throne and I cannot get over how oak gets treated . I need a fanfic where he actually starts resenting suren or starts outright hating her. Any help in this regard would be highly appreciated 😊.