Madoc

Quick Facts

• Role: High King’s general of Elfhame; a redcap warlord and adoptive father to Jude Duarte, Taryn Duarte, and Vivienne Duarte
• First appearance: Prologue, murdering the twins’ mortal parents to reclaim Vivienne and his wife
• Allegiances: The High King’s army; outwardly aligned with Prince Dain Greenbriar and the Circle of Falcons
• Signatures: A blood-soaked redcap “stained a brown so deep it’s almost black,” forest-green armor and clothing, sword always at his hip
• Defining tension: A brutal code of honor versus limitless ambition—and the daughter trained to outplay him

Who They Are

A towering redcap with cat-gold eyes and an “odd green tint” to his skin, a jaw crowded by too-large teeth, and a war-cap dyed dark with old blood, Madoc is the paradox at the heart of Faerie: a loving father who is also the monster under the bed. He kills to reclaim what he considers his—and then raises the surviving mortals with food, training, and a terrifyingly sincere sense of duty. He is most alive in conflict, where violence and strategy fuse into purpose; in peace, he grows restless, as if rusting.

Madoc embodies the machinery of Power, Politics, and Ambition: he speaks the language of honor while pursuing leverage through coups, alliances, and calculated mentorship. At the same time, he forces the story’s hardest questions about Family, Loyalty, and Betrayal. To be loved by him is to be sharpened into a weapon—and to learn that his “responsibility” can mean both protection and annihilation.

Personality & Traits

Madoc is a study in contradictions: monstrous yet paternal, principled yet treacherous, frank about his nature yet endlessly deceptive in politics. He treats war as both vocation and art, finding pleasure in tactics, drill, and games of strategy. Most tellingly, he fosters in Jude the very ruthlessness he later fears, misreading her as a loyal piece rather than a rival player.

• Bloodthirsty and warlike: He’s biologically driven toward violence as a redcap and emotionally addicted to it. “What good is a general with no war? ... It’s time to ride to battle. It’s time for a new monarch, a hungry one.” His restlessness in peace reveals a compulsion that shapes every decision.
• Strategic mastermind: He masks long-term plots behind ostentatious loyalty, gaming councils and coronations alike. His patient instruction in strategy creates his most dangerous opponent in Jude—proof that his methods are sound even when they backfire.
• Contradictory father figure: He educates, feeds, and protects the very children whose parents he slaughtered. Jude’s attachment—real but “not a comfortable kind of love”—shows how his care binds as tightly as his violence wounds.
• Harsh code of honor: “I may be cruel, a monster, and a murderer, but I do not shirk my responsibilities.” Madoc keeps oaths to family on his terms, even as he discards political promises whenever they limit his power.
• Ruthless and ambitious: He is willing to upend the realm’s order at a single stroke. His actions at the coronation reveal a man who would rather remake Faerie than accept a future he does not control.
• Imposing presence: The green-tinted skin, golden eyes, and too-large teeth make his inhumanity visible; the redcap, “almost black” with old blood, brands him as a creature who makes war not just his job but his identity.

Character Journey

Madoc enters the story drenched in mortal blood, then paradoxically becomes a disciplinarian guardian who turns his household into a training ground. He refuses Jude’s plea for knighthood—misdiagnosing her as “no killer”—yet equips her mind for subterfuge. Beneath a façade of loyalty to Dain and the Circle of Falcons, he engineers the novel’s rupture: at the coronation, he seizes the realm’s throat, murdering Dain to clear the way for Prince Balekin Greenbriar. Afterward, he tries to recruit Jude, confident that the pupil will accept the master’s vision. Instead, she wields his lessons against him. By the end, the mask is off: the stern mentor has become the central antagonist of Jude’s political life—and the standard-bearer for the world she must outwit.

Key Relationships

• Jude Duarte: Their bond is forged in paradox—murderer and guardian, teacher and opponent. Madoc respects her courage and craft but cannot imagine her ambition exceeding the limits he designed; his failure to read her correctly is both paternal blind spot and strategic error.
• Vivienne Duarte: Vivienne is the reason he crossed into the mortal world, yet she rejects everything he stands for. Her defiance marks the boundary of Madoc’s influence: he can claim paternal “responsibility,” but he cannot compel love—or ideological allegiance.
• Taryn Duarte: Madoc reads Taryn as pliant and properly fae-courtly, channeling her toward marriage rather than battle. In doing so, he underestimates her appetite for intrigue as badly as he underestimates Jude’s appetite for violence.
• Oriana (and Oak): Their marriage functions as a political partnership more than a romance—two pragmatic courtiers sharing a household and a secret-riddled court. Madoc respects Oriana’s role in protecting Oak, but he keeps his boldest ambitions compartmentalized from even his closest domestic ally.
• Prince Dain Greenbriar: Madoc performs loyalty to Dain with practiced ease, positioning himself as an indispensable general. The brutality of his betrayal at the coronation reveals that for Madoc, allegiance is always provisional—an instrument to be laid down the moment it dulls.

Defining Moments

Madoc’s story is punctuated by decisive, bloody acts that reveal his creed: protect what is “yours,” seize advantage, and never deny your nature.

• The murders in the prologue: He slaughters the twins’ parents before their eyes to reclaim Vivienne and his wife. Why it matters: It establishes his terrifying version of “responsibility” and sets Jude’s lifelong conflict with him—and with Faerie—into motion.
• Denying Jude knighthood: He dismisses her ambitions with “You’re no killer.” Why it matters: This misjudgment pushes Jude into clandestine power, turning Madoc’s mentorship into the seedbed of his future opposition.
• The coup at the coronation: Madoc orchestrates chaos and personally kills Dain, upending Elfhame’s succession. Why it matters: It exposes his long game and announces his intent to rule from the shadows through a malleable monarch.
• The offer to Jude: After the bloodshed, he tries to enlist her to find Prince Cardan Greenbriar, promising rewards and shared power. Why it matters: The negotiation reframes their bond as a contest between equals—and confirms that fatherhood, for Madoc, is another theater of war.

Essential Quotes

“I may be cruel, a monster, and a murderer, but I do not shirk my responsibilities. Nor should you shirk yours as the eldest.” This credo yokes brutality to duty, justifying violence as caretaking. It reveals how Madoc recasts horror as obligation—teaching his children that love in Faerie can feel like a command.

“What good is a general with no war? ... It’s time to ride to battle. It’s time for a new monarch, a hungry one.” Madoc’s hunger is ideological and bodily; he needs war to be himself. The push for a “hungry” monarch telegraphs his plan to install a king he can feed—and feed on—through perpetual conflict.

“You’re no killer.” Intended as protection or condescension, the line becomes his gravest misread. It propels Jude toward the very ruthlessness he denies, proving that Madoc’s authority cannot contain the agency he nurtured.

“After today, things will be different. I will wait for you in the carriage.” Calm and domestic on the surface, this promise hides imminent catastrophe. The juxtaposition of carriage and coup captures Madoc’s talent for smoothing violence into routine.

“My talent is in making war. The only thing that has ever kept me awake was denying it.” Here, he names his nature without apology. The line reframes his schemes not as aberrations but as fidelity to self—explaining why peace feels, to him, like betrayal.