How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

This first section of the story functions as exposition, setting the scene for Cardan both as an adulthood and as a child. It also establishes his first character development arc: Cardan, though an unloved and neglected child, will prove not to be completely morally corrupt and without empathy. This is the first part of his villain origin story.

These chapters explore a key theme of the book, The Class and Race Divide. In Elfhame, there is a stark rift in status between faeries and humans, with faeries deemed superior to their mortal counterparts. As a child, Balekin teaches Cardan to view humans as inferior. He has human servants punish Cardan to inflict humiliation, cementing Cardan’s contempt for humanity. It is not until Cardan meets Jude and her sister that his impressions change. Jude is vital and strong, a stark contrast to Balekin’s lifeless, ensorcelled human servants. 

Cardan’s evolving impressions of humans eventually lead him to free Balekin’s servant Margaret, who is charged with beating Cardan when Balekin is displeased with him. Cardan views his saving of Margaret as a petty prank against Balekin, rather than an act of empathy toward a human. However, his thoughts of Jude and his own inability to lie hint that he frees Margaret for reasons beyond committing a prank. Cardan may consider himself a petty villain, but his act of rescue indicates heroism beneath the villainy.

This section explores another key theme, Transformation: Change Versus Stasis. In the novel, stone represents stasis, and monsters represent change. For example, in Aslog’s story, the stone-hearted boy cannot change. He is frozen in maturation because his transformed heart feels nothing. In contrast, the cursed girl is capable of transformation since she herself turns into a monster. She is also capable of transforming others. Through her, the boy’s stone heart is shattered and changed. 

Aslog and Cardan are extensions of these metaphors, though Cardan is unaware of it. As a troll, daylight turns Aslog into stone, hinting at her connection to stasis. Cardan, a monstrous child, undergoes transformation when Balekin turns him into a proper prince and later when his views on humans gradually shift. However, Cardan considers himself to be the stone-hearted boy. His hatred of his family remains constant, and the murder that he is framed for as a child cements his reputation as a villain, which he thoroughly embraces. While he does transform, Cardan himself is initially unaware of it.

Black examines the interplay of Truth, Lies, and Deceit. Faeries physically cannot lie, but humans can. For example, when Cardan frees Margaret, he starts to unwittingly say an untruth and can’t speak the words. To faeries, the human ability to lie makes humans untrustworthy and deceitful. However, the delineation between human and fey is not entirely binary. Margaret, a human, also stops speaking during a conversation because she was potentially about to lie; Cardan muses that this might be an influence of her time in Elfhame, rather than any special human trait, though the narrative leaves it ambiguous. 

An inability to lie does not mean an inability to deceive. Faeries are masters of trickery and wordplay. For example, Dain has framed Cardan for murder—Cardan’s arrow was the murder weapon, but Cardan was not the one who fired it. Additionally, Queen Gliten used trickery to deceive Aslog out of the bargain they struck during Aslog’s period of Court servitude. Although faeries must tell the truth, they are not always honest, and while humans can lie, they are sometimes more truthful than the fey. In this way, the lines between truth, lies, and deceit are blurred.

These chapters introduce a key motif, the rule of three. The rule of three appears in both fairy tales and other stories, where a variation of an event happens three times and often escalates. For example, in “The Three Little Pigs,” the pigs build a house of straw, then of sticks, then of brick. The houses get stronger, with only the last withstanding the breath of the big, bad wolf. 

Series of three events or elements often appear in Black’s novel. Cardan has three major phases—childhood, adolescence, and adulthood—with the initial chapters portraying the first. The stone-hearted boy likewise has three adventures—his introduction, seeking his fortune, and his quest. The motif of three also appears when he spends three nights with the cursed monster girl before his heart shatters. Like Cardan, the boy has three phases of development: his punishment for his rudeness, the beginning of his maturation, and his final character development and untimely demise. 

The novel examines how stories can reveal truth, even though they’re fictional. While Aslog’s tale is presented as fiction, she asks Cardan what lesson it teaches, implying that fiction (including fantasy) has an underlying grain of truth to it. While Cardan ultimately dismisses what Aslog says as meaningless, Aslog hints at her story’s hidden meaning: “A sharp tongue is no match for a sharp tooth” (21). This implies that Cardan’s wicked tongue and caustic insults are no match for physical altercations and brute strength, such as Balekin’s corporal punishment and Dain’s machinations.