The Queen of Nothing

This set of chapters contains the direct combat between Madoc and Jude toward which the entire series has been building. Since Jude is the child who matches Madoc in his drive for power as well as his appetite for war, it is poetic justice that father and daughter face off. Jude has often feared that she is becoming like Madoc in her quest for survival and power; thus, her fight with Madoc is symbolic of her fight with the part of her most like her father. The question the fight then raises is whether Jude can defeat this part of herself. The novel’s color symbolism carries into the fight in Chapter 14, with the white of snow and the red of blood clashing (these are also popular and resonant color symbols in many fairy tales, with white denoting chastity and innocence and red denoting love, courage, and violence). Thus, the clash is described in archetypal terms, a conflict between peace and violence. Madoc refers to Jude as “child” and tells her to “submit to your punishment,” infantilizing her (127). He represents the patriarchal, oppressive father whose ego consumes his children. Jude, who is mortal and brown-haired and thus identified with the earth, represents the potential for change and regrowth. She resists Madoc because at a symbolic level, she wants to build a new world order. She tells him: “I never wanted to be your enemy […] but I didn’t want to be in your power, either” (129).

Madoc tells Jude, “Do not run from me,” echoing what he said to her mother decades ago, right before he killed her (129). The repetition shows Madoc has not grown as a character and is still stuck in his desire for total control. When Madoc strikes Jude a potentially fatal blow, he divests her of any lingering sense of hope in him. Jude has always had mixed feelings about the man who raised her, acknowledging her debt even when resenting him. But Madoc’s violence reminds her that he is the same man who killed her mother. The strike finally severs her relationship with Madoc. Jude may have learned from Madoc, but she is not like him, because she wouldn’t have struck him with a fatal blow. This marks a watershed moment in Jude’s character arc.

The sisters coming to rescue Jude is a variation of the deus ex machina (divine intervention at the crucial moment) trope in fantasy fiction, when help arrives for a protagonist in a miraculous way. The difference here is that the help is from an all-female ragtag group, with a toothy Grima Mog in tow. This image strengthens the themes of sisterhood and the toppling of patriarchal structures. Jude notes that despite everything, her sisters “came for me” (138). The sisters and Grima Mog manage to drive away Madoc, representing a defeat of obsolete patriarchal forces. (Earlier, Madoc laughed at Jude when she told him it was time for Elfhame to have a queen as its ruler.) Taryn’s stitching of Jude’s side is symbolic of their renewed, strengthened bond and Jude’s bond with the land. The land not only heals Jude, showing that it has chosen her, it also sprouts white flowers where Jude’s blood has fallen. The white and red color symbolism now suggests that Jude’s blood will lead to peace. This mirrors the prophecy around Cardan’s birth, in which a great ruler is slated to rise from his spilled blood. Jude’s magical ascension represents the merging of magical and mortal worlds. The realms are no longer as discrete as Folk once thought, and great change is in the offing. Grima Mog’s allegiance to Jude is an instance in which the motif of shifting loyalties is explored. As characters gain new knowledge, their loyalties and alliances change. This demonstrates the whimsical, shifting nature of the faeries, as well as how seriously they take certain kinds of magic. In this case, the magic is the deep bond between the true ruler and her land. For Grima Mog, the demonstration of this old magic settles the question of her loyalty forever.

Despite the serious themes and high etiquette being explored in the novel, the author retains a sense of freshness through her use of irony, humor, and contemporary vernacular. For example, when Jude tells Cardan she must save the Ghost before she can go with him, Cardan says with exasperated humor, “Perhaps you could just allow yourself to be rescued. […] For once” (120). Vivienne notes in Chapter 16 that everyone in Elfhame “acts like killing a king is going to make someone better at being one. […] Imagine if, in the mortal world, a lawyer passed the bar by killing another lawyer” (137). The oddness of the analogy exposes the bloodthirsty instincts of Elfhame court as ridiculous; at the same time, Grima Mog’s befuddlement at the comparison adds to the humor of the situation.

Taryn returns Nightfell to Jude, symbolizing her complete return to Elfhame. Nightfell is the sword Madoc gave to Jude. It was crafted by Justin, her father, apprenticing with Grimsen. That Madoc should retain the sword of the man he killed and gift it to his daughter, whom he is raising as his own, is an example of the strangeness and apparent ironies of the world of Faerie.