Vivienne Duarte

Quick Facts

• Role: Eldest Duarte sister; half-fae daughter of Madoc; defiant bridge to the mortal world
• First Appearance: Prologue
• Key Relationships: Sisters Jude Duarte and Taryn Duarte; girlfriend Heather; father Madoc; younger brother Oak

Who She Is

Bold, half-fae, and unapologetically mortal at heart, Vivienne Duarte is the story’s living refusal. Stolen back to Elfhame by the father who murdered her human stepfather, Vivi vows never to belong to Faerie—and then keeps that promise. Her split-pupiled eyes and lightly furred, catlike ears mark her as Folk, yet she dresses in jeans and a billowy shirt and treats Court revels like a dare to ignore. Vivi embodies an alternative path for the Duarte sisters: not assimilation or conquest, but escape. In her, the theme of Belonging and Otherness becomes personal—belonging, for Vivi, is something you choose, not something your blood demands.

Personality & Traits

With Vivi, rebellion isn’t a phase—it’s a moral position. She refuses the rituals and hierarchies that glamorize violence, framing her disobedience as loyalty to the mortal life she lost. Yet beneath the mischief and scorn lies a fierce protector who would rather burn bridges than watch her sisters be caged by them.

• Rebellious and defiant: She skips Court, sneaks through paths to the mortal world, and taunts Madoc with visible nonconformity. Her childhood promise—“I will always hate you”—becomes a code that guides her choices, not just a tantrum.
• Protective: In the moment of greatest terror, she steps in front of Jude and Taryn, insisting Madoc take her instead. Later, she offers them a way out—home in the human world—because safety, to Vivi, is worth defying a kingdom.
• Mortal-aligned: Vivi hoards “mortal junk,” dates a human, and seeks a life where glamours and oaths can’t twist the truth. Faerie feels like a prison; the mortal world, messy as it is, feels honest.
• Cynically cheerful: Vivi’s “cheerful selfishness” is a shield and an invitation: she gives others permission to prioritize themselves, too. Her detachment keeps her from being consumed by vengeance—even as it sharpens her choices.

Character Journey

Vivi’s arc moves from raw, explosive fury to deliberate, consequential refusal. As a child, she rages against captivity, smashing what she can because it’s all she can control. As she grows, her rebellion gains strategy: she learns to slip into the mortal world, builds a secret life with Heather, and tests the borders of who she can be away from Madoc’s reach. The botched rescue of Sophie—who chooses death rather than bear Faerie’s scars—forces Vivi to confront the cost of her in-betweenness: not everyone can survive the crossing she longs to make. By the end, she transforms her private defiance into a public responsibility, agreeing to hide and raise Oak in exile. The girl who vowed only to hate becomes the woman who protects a future she doesn’t even want for herself.

Key Relationships

• Madoc: Their bond is blood-deep and emotionally severed. Vivi’s vow to hate him is both trauma response and ethical stance: she rejects the logic that power justifies violence. Madoc’s frustrated affection reveals the tragedy of their tie—he can train a daughter to wield a blade, but not to forget what she saw him do.

• Jude and Taryn Duarte: As the eldest, Vivi offers a door out while Jude and Taryn try to survive by playing the game inside. Their love is steady but strained; Vivi sees their yearning to belong as a dangerous delusion. Together they map a family spectrum across Family, Loyalty, and Betrayal: Vivi’s loyalty is refusal, Jude’s is conquest, Taryn’s is conformity.

• Heather: Heather anchors Vivi to the life she wants—uncomplicated, mortal, chosen. But the secrecy around Vivi’s fae nature plants a fragility at the heart of the relationship, underscoring how difficult honesty can be for someone who has survived on masks.

• Oak: At first, Vivi’s mischief uses Oak to needle Oriana; later, he becomes the burden she volunteers to carry. Agreeing to raise him in the human world reframes her rebellion as caretaking—she’ll give him the ordinary safety she was denied.

Defining Moments

Even Vivi’s smallest acts read like declarations, but a few moments redefine her.

• Vowing to hate Madoc (childhood, Prologue): After witnessing the murders, Vivi’s public vow cuts the last thread tying her to Faerie’s moral order. Why it matters: It establishes a lifelong ethic—she will not normalize violence, even when it’s “family.”

• Proposing the move to the mortal world: Vivi invites Jude and Taryn to leave Elfhame and live with her and Heather. Why it matters: It’s the first time her rebellion becomes a plan for communal safety, not just personal escape.

• The death of Sophie: The rescued mortal leaps from the ragwort steed rather than bear Faerie’s memories back to the human world. Why it matters: Vivi confronts the truth that good intentions can still destroy mortals; rescue, too, has consequences.

• Agreeing to raise Oak (the Epilogue): Vivi accepts the risk of hiding a royal child in the human world. Why it matters: She chooses responsibility over freedom, translating defiance into stewardship.

Symbolism

Vivi embodies the liminal space between worlds—half-fae body, human allegiance. She dramatizes the tension of Mortality vs. Immortality: the mortal world offers fragility and freedom; Faerie offers power without consent. Unlike Jude, who seeks agency within Faerie, and Taryn, who seeks acceptance, Vivi symbolizes the path of refusal—the right to walk away.

Essential Quotes

“I hate you,” Vivi proclaimed to the tall man with a viciousness that Jude was glad of. “I will always hate you. I vow it.”

This vow is more than anger; it’s Vivi naming her moral boundary. She will not be made complicit by silence, even as a child. The line becomes the spine of her identity—her choices answer to this oath, not to Faerie’s demands.

“The mortal world is where we grew up,” Vivi insists, climbing onto a bench and walking the length of it, acting as though it were a stage. She pushes her sunglasses up onto her head. “You’d get used to it again.”

Vivi frames the mortal world as home by habit and heart, not blood. The casual performance—sunglasses, stage-walking—shows how natural rebellion feels to her: she makes refusal look like play to make it easier for others to choose it.

“Love is a noble cause. How can anything done in the service of a noble cause be wrong?”

Here Vivi justifies risky choices (including deception) through the language of nobility. The line exposes both her tenderness and her blind spot: noble motives don’t erase consequences, as Sophie’s fate proves.

“You fit in better here than I do,” Vivi says. “But I bet it cost you something.”

Vivi recognizes Jude’s adaptation as a kind of self-payment. The statement is admiring and accusatory at once—belonging in Faerie requires sacrifices Vivi refuses to make.

“I am your elder sister,” she says. “You don’t need to protect me from my own decisions.”

This asserts agency and reverses the protective dynamic with Jude. Vivi claims the right to bear the weight of her choices—foreshadowing her decision to take Oak—and reframes responsibility as part of her rebellion.