The Queen of Nothing

The opening section of the novel includes key backstory, illuminating the interplay between the mortal and faerie realms. Told from the point of view of protagonist Jude Duarte after the Prologue, the first set of chapters quickly establishes Jude’s self-aware voice and her conflicts and struggles as a character. At the beginning of the text, there is a map that shows the setting of Elfhame. The palace is where Cardan lives as High King, surrounded by the Crooked Forest, the setting of the novel’s climactic battle. Elfhame is hedged by the waters of the Undersea—realm of merfolk and other aquatic magical folk. This section introduces most of the important players and themes of the narrative and delves immediately into the action. Since the book draws on a world already established in its prequels, the author doesn’t spend much time on exposition.

The Prologue—set years before the present timeline—offers an insightful look into the ruthless politics and clever rules of magic that govern the land of Faerie. Blighted by a prophecy, Cardan is immediately cast aside by his father, the king of Elfhame. Cardan is left to his own devices and the manipulation of his older siblings. His brothers’ cruelty toward Cardan suggests the intense rivalry for the throne that forms the backdrop of their existence. Ironically, while the faerie folk are immortal and far superior to humans in physical abilities and magic, their lust for power is the same as that among mortals. Females are governed by certain gender norms in Faerie as well, where Lady Asha, the king’s mistress, is sent to the Tower of Forgetting to atone for her son Cardan’s supposed crime. The ease with which Asha is set aside and Cardan neglected highlight the theme of Violence, which is a feature of life in Faerie. The incident between Prince Dain, the mortal he torments, and Cardan reveals how deceit operates in Faerie. One of the defining traits of faeries is that they cannot tell a lie. Therefore, to deceive and trick each other and mortals, they use elaborate riddles and wordplay. (Because mortals can lie openly, faeries mistrust them.) Prince Dain exchanges his arrow for Cardan’s to shoot at the walnut on the mortal’s head, explaining that if Cardan misses, he can say it was Prince Dain’s arrow that went awry. When Cardan bows out of shooting at the mortal, Dain shoots at him using Cardan’s arrow, incriminating Cardan. Thus, Dain uses an elaborate ruse to trap Cardan. Fairies use such tricks often, which also makes them mistrustful of each other’s words. Having been so duped, Cardan begins to doubt the words of everyone around him. His reputation—sullied by Dain’s deception—becomes worse as Cardan grows more defensive and crueler. By providing this bit of backstory, the text shows that Cardan—whom Jude feared and disliked initially—is more complex and nuanced than he appears. The impression Jude and the others carry of Cardan highlights the text’s theme of prejudices and preconceived notions. Jude is shown to be quick to judgment, not just in the case of Cardan, but also with her sister Taryn. Though Jude loves Taryn, she tends to be dismissive of Taryn’s pliability and love of beauty and glamour, mistaking these for weakness.

Jude is immediately established as a resourceful and plucky character who, even in exile, is dynamic and resilient. Conscientious about the well-being of her siblings, Jude works dangerous magical jobs at night, carrying charms and enchanted objects for protection, such as the iron fob fastened on her bike when she goes to meet the phooka in Chapter 2. Iron as a safeguard against monsters and magic is a common trope in folklore all over the world. Author Holly Black draws on English, Welsh, Celtic, and associated legends and mythologies to enrich her fictional universe, with Faerie explicitly based on these sources. Most of the creatures mentioned in the text, from phookas to redcaps, are drawn from folklore. The connection to folklore—with the associated cultural resonance—give Black’s faerie world authenticity as well as a rich atmosphere. Jude’s encounter with Grima Mog, a redcap—a malevolent faerie who dips her cap in the blood of those she slays—shows how well Jude has learned to negotiate the world of Faerie, as well as how close she has come to becoming one of the Folk. When Jude tells Grima Mog she is in retirement, the redcap scoffs: “Though I have been cast down, I will find another army to lead. An army bigger than the first” (18). Jude is immediately disturbed at the similarity between her and Grima Mog, as she has had exactly the same thoughts about her own future. Earlier in Chapter 1, when Jude finds Oak using magic to win a fight against human children, she sneaks up on him and chokes him to teach him that “fighting isn’t a game” (8). Her brutal tactics make her realize “I am speaking with Madoc’s voice instead of my own” (8). Jude’s attempts to preserve her softer, more compassionate side while being a protector of her family and a ruler of her people create tension and develop her character throughout the text.

The difficulty of coexisting in the vastly different mortal and faerie realms is a theme the text revisits often. Madoc killed Jude’s parents and took her and her sisters away to Faerie. To Madoc and Oriana’s credit, they treated the mortal children on par with Faerie folk, but other faeries were not so kind, tricking and humiliating Jude and Taryn. Sometimes the siblings were even put in dangerous situations. At these times, Jude pined for the mortal world, its “scents of fresh-cut grass and gasoline […] and orange popsicles” (6-7). With time, however, the sisters adapt to the beauty and strangeness of the faerie realm. Exiled, Jude finds herself longing for magic with “a raw intensity,” feeling barely alive (7). On her way home from the encounter with Grima Mog, Jude loses track of time. She notes that she is still running on faerie time, which is different from time in the human world. For Jude, her “sense of a day’s shape sits oddly with the human world” (28). Faeries have been described by Black as twilight creatures, who awaken in the late evening and thrive at night. For Jude, time during the mortal days becomes like sleepwalking. She feels torn between her two clocks. Until Jude finds a way to reconcile these two experiences, she will continue to feel a citizen of neither world, a permanent exile.

Jude is not the only one affected by the different modes of existence in the mortal and faerie worlds. Both of her sisters must also negotiate the two sets of ethics to which they have been introduced. In Faerie, playing tricks on people, including casting spells, is not necessarily seen as bad. In fact, Faerie folk do not have the same notions of ethics as humans claim they do (one of the text’s subtle ironies is that many humans act as questionably as the faeries, despite possessing guiding ethical and moral frameworks). Having lived in the faerie realm, Vivienne doesn’t think enchanting her girlfriend is a terrible thing. Taryn shows little remorse for killing her husband. The sisters’ chief concern now is getting Taryn off the hook, rather than grieving for Locke. It is implied that Locke was a cruel, indifferent man; by the code of ethics the sisters share, killing Locke is not an evil act. Thus, the text shows that definitions of right and wrong are complex and shifting. The ease with which Jude and Taryn reunite despite Jude’s bitter anger toward her twin highlights the strength of the bond between the siblings. Sisterhood—and brotherhood—is an important theme in the book. Madoc’s children band together, no matter what.

Taryn’s pregnancy forces her to reconsider her childhood. She indicates to Jude that one of the reasons she left Faerie is because “no one should have the childhood we had” (50). Taryn has been badly traumatized by her parents’ murder and the humiliations in Faerie. She does not want to expose her own children to the violence she associates with that world. As Jude visits Taryn’s estate, her understanding of Taryn begins to expand. In previous books, Jude has been too busy with the goings-on at court to know her twin’s life. Now she finds evidence that Taryn may have been consuming faerie fruit, which makes mortals lose control and become happily pliant. Jude does not know if Locke was forcing Taryn to eat the fruit or if an unhappy Taryn was choosing to eat it “as a sort of recreational blurring of the senses” (56). Clearly, Taryn’s life is far more complicated than Jude thought. Jude’s surprise at Taryn’s life foreshadows her changed understanding of Taryn. Jude has tended to perceive herself as the stoic one and her sister as the compliant one in their dynamic. In The Queen of Nothing, Jude will come to see that her sister can be helpful and resourceful. Jude will even depend on Taryn for help.

Other important themes and motifs introduced in the opening chapters are Madoc’s troubled relationship with his children, Jude’s love for Cardan, the violence that is a feature of life in the magical realm and shifting loyalties.