44 pages • 1-hour read
How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories
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Symbols & Motifs
The Rule of Three
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and child abuse.
The number three is an important numerical motif in fairy tales. For example, in “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” only during the third attempt is anything “just right” for Goldilocks. In “Cinderella,” the heroine visits three balls before winning her prince. In “The Three Little Pigs,” the pigs build three kinds of houses with different material, with escalating fortitude.
It follows that the number three is also an important motif in How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories. For example, Aslog and Cardan exchange stories three times, but only on the third time does Cardan tell the story, and only during the third version do the stone-hearted boy and the cursed girl both get what they deserve—a happy ending. This signals that the third telling is both the most important version and the final one. Cardan and Aslog only meet three times. Each encounter occurs during a different phase of Cardan’s life: childhood, adolescence, and emerging adulthood—another set of three. Each is a different but equally important stage of the book: the beginning, the middle, and the end.
Additionally, Cardan has three major plot arcs: setting Margaret free (Chapter 4), his failed relationship with Nicasia (Chapters 6-9), and his final confrontation with Aslog (Chapter 11). Each arc reflects a different level of maturity. With Margaret, Cardan only plays petty tricks and is still fairly childish, lashing out against the physical abuse and neglect that he has suffered from his biological family. Nicasia’s betrayal cuts deeper, as she is someone he has chosen for himself and made himself vulnerable to. Cardan shields himself through villainy, hoping that by hurting others, like Jude, he can protect himself from being hurt again. It is only when Cardan faces Aslog as a mature adult that he can at last see success: He no longer needs to seek love because he has it—Jude and her family have adopted him into their clan, and Cardan’s previous antagonists are gone. By facing Aslog, Cardan also faces his former self. Only as a mature adult can he overcome his past.
Similarly, Cardan views Jude in three different lights as he ages. First, he sees her as a mere curiosity, registering the differences between them in the context of the social hierarchy he was taught. As an adolescent, he views her antagonistically, as an inferior who is vastly superior to him in all the ways that matter and who highlights his failings accordingly. Only as an adult does he view her as an equal—queen to his king and a monarch in her own right.
Stone as Stasis, Monster as Transformation
In this story of dualities and mirrors, stone symbolizes stasis, while monsters symbolize transformation. Each time Aslog and Cardan meet, they exchange a story. The bare bones of the tale remain the same, a stasis of sorts: A boy gets his heart turned into stone and then meets a girl who is cursed (or spelled) to become a terrifying monster; they must spend three nights together for the story to conclude. Similarly, Aslog is a troll, a faerie that can turn into stone, while Cardan is considered a monster by all who encounter him; he and Aslog will meet a total of three times before the book draws to a close.
The story changes with each telling, so the lesson changes with the whim of the storyteller. “Boys change […] And so do stories,” says Aslog (79). However, Cardan spends much of the book refusing to change, aligning himself with the stone-hearted boy who remains in stasis because he “feel[s] nothing—not fear, nor love, nor delight” (15). It is only when the stone heart is shattered that the fairy-tale boy can feel emotions and transform.
Similarly, Cardan buries himself in villainy, using his antics to avoid change. He drinks to avoid choosing his future, bullies Jude to avoid changing his opinions regarding humans, and doesn’t bother to try and free himself of the murder charge that haunts him. During this period, Jude and Aslog both seem to be the transforming monster girl. They both are treated as outcasts: Jude for being human and Aslog for being duped by Queen Gliten. Both seek to change the fate that was dealt them.
The novel suggests that change is inevitable. Even as Cardan describes himself as a boy with a heart of stone, he gradually grows a heart of fire and then glass. While Jude transforms herself into High Queen of Elfhame, Cardan transforms as his worldview expands, much like the stone-hearted boy in the final story questions the merits of having an unchanging stone heart. Just as Cardan learns lessons about humans and friendship, so, too, does the stone-hearted boy learn to be considerate by helping with chores.
In the end, Aslog the troll proves to be the most like the stone-hearted boy, refusing to repent for her grudge against Queen Gliten and the death and suffering she caused as a result. While Cardan shatters his stone heart and embraces his “monster” girl wife, Aslog is turned to stone by daylight, reflecting how stone symbolizes stasis and monsters represent transformation and change.
Story as Truth
In the book, stories are a method of communication. They recount events, are a source of entertainment, and teach a lesson, sometimes all at the same time. They can be fact or fantasy, but there is always a reason for them. Above all, stories symbolize truth, though what that truth might be depends on both the story and the teller.
Each of the stories that Aslog and Cardan exchange is accompanied by a lesson, if not the moral one initially expected. In the first story, Cardan assumes that the lesson is that rudeness will be punished—since he is a rude, feral child. However, Aslog tells him, “A sharp tongue is no match for a sharp tooth” (21), meaning that there will always be someone more powerful out there. Indeed, Cardan may be a prince, but his siblings and father outrank him by far.
In the second story, Cardan assumes that the moral is that wickedness is punished—he is a bully and villain as an adolescent. Aslog surprises him again, this time with two lessons: Stories (like boys) can change, and even stone hearts can be broken. These lessons are significant and true because even as he resists, Cardan grows and changes as a person, and no matter how well he guards his heart, Locke and Nicasia still break it through their betrayal and tryst.
Tables turn in the final story. This time, Cardan is the storyteller, and Aslog assumes that the moral is getting one’s just desserts, for good or ill. However, Cardan surprises her by offering two lessons of his own. The first is that one must have a heart, no matter how terrible the burden. The second is that the storyteller always justifies the hero’s actions, implying that whoever controls the narrative skews the definition of justice. This reflects his own truth, learned by experience. It also rebukes Aslog’s version of grievance and justice. Cardan acknowledges that stories are more open-ended than one might think and that the truths he describes are not the only ones that could be applied.
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