jude dies and cardan goes on to become what he started as - a villain. He goes on a killing rampage. There’s nothing stopping him now as how he stopped jude from killing
i don’t think y’all understand the way jude & madoc’s relationship absolutely KILLS me .
it agonizes jude to love madoc when he is the one who killed her parents, but he is the only father she has ever known.
she wants to be nothing like him, and yet she is her father’s daughter. it is him who teaches her to fight, to be strong, to be ruthless and unyielding and cunning. and she loves him for this, so much so that when she uses all that he taught her against him, it breaks her heart a little.
when they find themselves on opposite sides of the war, jude can think only of how his love for her is not enough to outweigh his love for power. yet she realizes that her love for him does not outweigh her desire for power either. they are two sides of the same broken coin.
in the end, when she must pronounce madoc’s punishment, she exiles him because she knows that being forced to live in a place of peace is a worse fate than death for him. and yet a small part of her also cannot bear to see him die. she knows their relationship can never be healed, but it is her lingering love for the father that taught her how to be strong once upon a time that saves him from death.
jude has only ever called madoc “father” when she is about to betray him, but when she whispers, “goodbye, father” it is not to announce a betrayal. it is to acknowledge that he is her father, and she loved him, and she hurt him, and he did exactly the same to her, and now they find themselves back where they first began with the roles reversed- madoc brought jude to the faerie realm, where she had no desire to be, and now jude sends him to the human world, where he has no desire to be. but perhaps he might learn to love it the way jude grew to love elfhame.
perhaps jude’s punishment was never a punishment at all.
perhaps it was a final gift to the only father she ever knew.
