In defense of Cardan
Rereading The Cruel Prince is fascinating, because there was such an effort made to show Cardan as “cruel” in the beginning, and he does do some nasty things. For instance, I don’t think we ever learn if he had a good reason for his random cruel act of tearing the wing of a faerie who didn’t bow to him. That moment has always bothered me and I don’t have an explanation for it.
And yet, so many of his interactions with Jude can be seen through a different light on a reread after we know his character better. Once we know he does not relish violence and expends a lot of energy avoiding his own humiliation.
Take the everapple incident during astronomy lessons.
Valerian and Nicasia certainly wanted to hurt Jude, and Locke was already playing his own twisted game. But knowing what we learn later about Cardan, all his possibly cruel actions go slant and are arguably a kind of protection, the only kind he can offer Jude while being subtle about it.
First, Nicasia starts it - she steals Jude’s notebook and slaps her across the face.
Cardan looks over, and I can tell from his expression that she has failed to please him.
I’m not sure if Nicasia was trying to please Cardan. It may have been for her own amusement, not his. But he’s already wary and not thrilled about what’s going to happen.
Then Valerian shoves the faerie apple into Jude’s mouth. Nicasia steals her salt, the antidote, before she can reach for it. Valerian shoves the apple back in her mouth, choking her, and Jude begins to black out from lack of air. Someone yells “Do something!” and it’s unclear who - this was probably not Cardan, because it doesn’t seem like his method of intervening. Maybe it was Locke, maybe one of the teachers or bystanders. And then…
Abruptly, Valerian is kicked off me. I roll onto my side, coughing. Cardan is looming there. Tears and snot are running down my face, but all I can do is lie in the dirt and spit out pieces of sweet, fleshy pulp. I have no idea why I am crying.
“Enough,” Cardan says. He has an odd, wild expression on his face, and a muscle is jumping in his jaw.
I start to laugh.
Valerian looks mutinous. “Ruin my fun, will you?”
For a moment, I think they’re going to fight, although I cannot think why. Then I see what Cardan’s got in his hand. The salt from my basket. The antidote. (Why did I want that? I wonder.) He tosses it up into the air with a laugh, and I watch it scatter with the wind. Then he looks at Valerian, mouth curling. “What’s wrong with you, Valerian? If she dies, your little prank is over before it begins.”
So Cardan is the one who intervenes to save Jude’s life before Valerian can choke her to death. He’s freaked out, he doesn’t want this, and it’s possible his friends basically know that and are messing with him just as much by messing with Jude.
He has also gotten his hands on Jude’s salt. Now, why would he have bothered to pick up her salt? It was inside her basket, which Nicasia had, and that’s not the most direct path to an imminently choking Jude. I think he was intending to get her the antidote.
Except then he was caught out in an awkward position where, for just a moment, it looked like he might be helping her - he’s even just pulled Valerian off her. He can’t show that weakness to any of the court teens, least of all his friends. So he improvises and scatters the salt, making it look like he’s part of Valerian’s game. This sucks for Jude, who needed that salt, but it’s also probably the best move to avoid a target on himself and a worse target on Jude, who he’s now reframing as a game, a plaything, not something to completely destroy. While that is still dehumanizing and demoralizing, it is still ultimately safer to downgrade her torment to a fun joke for them, not something that should end in physical harm. He is deescalating a situation he can’t entirely defuse.
This intentional choice of his, one he hates having to make, is reinforced by the difference between his words and his expression.
“Prince Cardan?” Noggle says. “She ought to be taken home.”
“Everyone is so dull today,” Cardan says, but he doesn’t sound as if he’s bored. He sounds as if he’s barely keeping his temper in check.
He’s trying to maintain the attitude that this is silly, this is no big deal, but he’s simmering with anger at this assault on Jude, and possibly at the way he must carefully strike this tone so that his friends don’t escalate, or worse, turn on him too. It would be bad for him in general if they turned on him, but it would also leave him with no power to put a stop to how they’re treating Jude.
Nicasia smiles, holding up the golden thing she has in her hand. The filthy, mashed remains of the apple. “Come lick my hands clean. You don’t mind, do you? But you have to do it on your knees.”
Gasping and tittering spread through our classmates like a breeze. They want me to do it. I want to make them happy. I want everyone to be as happy as I am. And I do want another taste of the fruit. I begin to crawl toward Nicasia.
“No,” Cardan says, stepping in front of me, his voice ringing and a little unsteady. The others back off, giving him room. He toes off his soft leather shoe and puts one pale foot directly in front of me. “Jude will come here and kiss my foot. She said she wanted to kiss us. And I am her prince, after all.”
I laugh again. Honestly, I don’t know why I laughed so infrequently before. Everything is marvelous and ridiculous.
Looking up at Cardan, though, something strikes me as wrong. His eyes are glittering with fury and desire and maybe even shame. A moment later, he blinks, and it’s just his usual chilly arrogance.
Once again, he has saved her from the everapple. Nicasia was not just going to humiliate her, she was also going to drug her more. Cardan had to stop her.
But he can’t just play the hero here. So he suggests that Jude, who has also just said she would be happy to kiss any of them, kiss his foot. It’s humiliating, sure, but it’s also innocuous compared to Nicasia’s intentions, and kissing his foot will not further drug her.
He has to keep playing this game to get them both out of this as cleanly as possible. He’s still struggling to keep his fury under wraps, though, and it slips through when Jude looks at him.
And then Locke becomes an active player in the scene.
“Well? Be quick about it,” he says impatiently. “Kiss my foot and tell me how great I am. Tell me how much you admire me.”
“Enough,” Lock says sharply to Cardan. He’s got his hands on my shoulders and is pulling me roughly to my feet. “I’m taking her home.”
“Are you, now?” Cardan asks him, eyebrows raised. “Interesting timing. You like the savor of a little humiliation, just not too much?”
“I hate it when you get like this,” Locke says under his breath.
This exchange is harder to parse. In the moment, it does look like Locke is the only good guy, who is sweeping in to save Jude from Cardan and Nicasia and Valerian. This is how Locke wants it to look, and it is how Jude interprets things immediately after.
But knowing what we learn later about Locke’s character and his intensions, and noting how quietly intrigued he was by this incident up until this moment, it seems that Locke has decided to chime in to play the hero on purpose - he’s seen his in with Jude, and that is acting like he’s on her side and getting her out of this situation.
Cardan knows all about Locke’s love of “story” and watching things play out, which is why he makes a jab at him that Locke seems to think some humiliation is fine, at least. He’s asking where the line is for Locke, who is acting morally superior when Cardan knows that’s hypocritical. On a first read, it seems that Locke is saying he hates when Cardan gets into a mood to humiliate people. But on rereads, it’s more likely he’s annoyed that Cardan won’t fully surrender himself to the unfolding story in front of them, or allow Locke to move it forward unhindered.
Now, I’m going to take a moment to wildly speculate about a couple things. First, Valerian probably could have come up with this idea and gotten his hands on an apple himself - it’s not like they’re rare, and they’re known to be dangerous for humans. But why now? He’s not that bright - if he wanted to do this to Jude, why hadn’t he done it before? Is it possible that Locke suggested it and/or handed him the apple? Secondly, Lock is the worst, and I think it’s entirely possible that he didn’t only want to play hero by walking Jude home. If he got to have a little “fun” with her on the way home and manipulate her into thinking it was consensual, well, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind that either. We know he sucks. He’s awful. This doesn’t feel like a stretch to me. Jude was not guaranteed to be safe alone with Locke while nearly naked and drugged.
I think Cardan knew or guessed some of that too.
Cardan pulls a pin from his coat, a glittering, filigree thing in the shape of an acorn with an oak leaf behind it. For a delirious moment, I think he’s going to give it to Locke in exchange for leaving me there. That seems impossible, even to my wild mind.
Then Cardan takes hold of my hand, which seems even less possible. His fingers are overwarm against my skin. He stabs the point of his pin into my thumb.
“Ow,” I say, pulling away from him and putting the injured digit into my mouth. My own blood is metallic against my tongue.
“Have a nice walk home,” he tells me.
[…]
I suck on my injured thumb, feeling odd. My head is still swimming, but not like it was. Something’s wrong. A moment later, I realize what. There’s salt in my human blood.
This, to me, feels like Cardan’s most risky move. He might have given himself away to everyone, but he almost certainly did to Locke. While Locke probably already knew how Cardan felt, so he wasn’t revealing anything wholly secret, confirming his feelings could also be dangerous.
He might have been able to pass it off as a quick moment of cruel harm toward Jude, or even managed to prick her finger without anyone else noticing.
But crucially, he ensured that she did not walk off alone with Locke while not in her right mind. He did it. He got them out of that situation without revealing any of his feelings (well, he tried - probably only Locke noticed) and made sure Jude, whose human blood he knew would have salt she needed, received the antidote to the everapple’s effects.
Cardan did make Jude’s life harder throughout their teen years, but I really don’t think he ever intended real harm to come to her. He was a bully, but not a complete villain. And once he had a certain reputation, he had to maintain it and use it, just to navigate through sticky situations when his friends decided to commit villainous acts themselves.
I could continue on about all the other indications that he has helped or defended humans, but I’ll leave that for another day.
