Challenging Gender Stereotypes in Holly Black’s The Folk of the Air Trilogy

Here's the abstract:

Holly Black is a contemporary American author of fantastic fiction. Her trilogy entitled The Folk of the Air (2018–2019) is a popular young adult fantasy series centering on Jude Duarte, a mortal girl growing up in a magical land called Faerie. It focuses on Jude’s quest of ensuring safety for herself and her family, gaining political power,and, ultimately, becoming the Queen. The heroic quest is entangled with the romance plot, with Jude gradually developing a relationship with Cardan Greenbriar, a prince of Faerie. This chapter focuses on Jude and Cardan and analyzes them as a romance heroine and hero, respectively. It compares Jude both to the prototypical romance heroines and to the strong woman characters found in adventure fantasy. Cardan is primarily examined through Pamela Regis’s elaboration of the dangerous hero in need of taming and the sentimental hero in need of healing. Finally, keeping in mind the fantasy aspect of the series, the paper turns to Jude’s and Cardan’s connection to magic and nature to demonstrate to what extent they confirm or subvert gender stereotypes. It argues that Jude and Cardan partially adhere to the typical characteristics of the heroine and the hero archetypes but never fully conform to the stereotypes associated with them.