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sweetingseva · 2 years

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Evangeline Fox, the First and Original Fox 🦊

Hello!

Evangeline Fox, the girl with rose-gold hair and a great love for fairytales and happy endings, is stuck in her story of her own. Immediately after making a deal with the Prince of Hearts, her whole life is changed. She's turned to stone, brought back as Valenda’s Sweetheart Savior, married to a prince and later made a princess, accused of murder, and had her name clear.

Oh, and she’s a part of a life changing prophecy connected to the infamous Valory Arch.

But perhaps Evangeline’s story had started a long time ago before she even knew.

It’s all in the name 🦊💖

One of the first things that we find out about Evangeline is her love for stories, especially ones that end happily. However, there’s one story that touches her deeply because her mother had read it to her countless times when Evangeline was small.

The Ballad of the Archer and the Fox.

In Once Upon A Broken Heart, Evangeline states:

Evangeline loved the story because she, too, was a Fox, even if she wasn’t the sort who could turn into an animal.

OUABH, pg. 59

And that is significant. Before OUABH was released, Stephanie had teased that the name “fox” was important to the story. I had just finished reading TBONA when I stumbled upon this post from @lily-stans-legend

Now one can say, “Oh, of course it’s important. Jacks calls Evangeline Little Fox, and Evangeline’s favorite tale is The Ballad of Archer and the Fox.” It’s a good case, but I can’t help but think that the name goes beyond those speculations.

Evangeline likes the story because she, too, is a fox (repeated twice). And foxes are a prevalent symbol in the books. A common animal found in the Merrywood Forest, where Jacks once lived.

I think Evangeline's last name being "Fox" is a major clue to her being the first Fox girl in the past. It may be a little on the nose, but it's sort of clever that Jacks's story revolves around this ballad, looking for his true love after killing his first, and then so many years have past and he meets a girl with the surname "Fox."

I'd be surprised if I was him. He found another fox girl, albeit not the one who can transform into an animal.

And Jacks calls her "Little Fox" and he's the Archer! Like it's incredible how connected it feels from this alone.

MEMORIES? ✨

Evangeline seems to remember things that she couldn’t possibly have knowledge of like the language of the Valors.

Keyword: recognized.

Jacks had appeared shocked when she mentioned it, as if she wasn’t supposed to have known it since it was ancient. The Valors ruled thousands of years ago, so anyone who knows the language is probably dead by now.

I could say that every key knows the language, but it’s too flimsy of an idea since the keys themselves are their own person, however, have their lives dictated by a prophecy.

Regardless of this, Evangeline had recognized the language.

On top of that, after Evangeline and Jacks left the crypt and stumbled into Jacks’s office, Evangeline found seven volumes of The Ballad of the Archer and the Fox.

After reading TBONA, this line was one of the first things that came back to mind. I had thought that it was interesting that she said this. Evangeline had found her favorite tale in Jacks’s office. Out of all the books in the bookcases being crookedly set, these books were neatly tuckered on top of the bookcase.

We all know now that this was a “sign” of Jacks being the Archer from her favorite tale. Evangeline just didn’t know it then. And her heart had warmed because she had just seen a bit of childhood in one place she didn’t expect.

And perhaps it was also a sign that she was a part of that tale.

Moving onto The Ballad of Never After, Evangeline continues this strange remembering streak.

In Chapter 10, Evangeline notices the words on Chaos’s helm, which were written in the language of the Valors. Once again, like before when she first saw these scribings in the Fortuna Arch, Evangeline recognizes it.

Evangeline knows the language and it couldn’t just be because her mother was from the North. It has to be more.

A few chapters later, while she was trying to figure out why Jacks wanted to find the missing stones, Evangeline suspects that his “mysterious past” was a clue to why he wanted to open the Valory Arch.

Evangeline even briefly wonders if Jacks wanted to open the Valory Arch to save the Fox from the Archer curse.

Maybe Jacks was actually the Archer, and he wanted to open the Valory Arch to somehow save the Fox.

TBONA, pg. 181

It’s on the table, so I couldn’t entirely dismiss this when I read it again. Perhaps Jacks's original wish before he met Tella was to go back to the girl who had his heart first. It's plausible.

Also, this connects to Jacks’s past as the Archer, too, just before he became a Fate (will publish this post soon!). All right, so continuing on with Evangeline remembering things that seem odd to me.

When Evangeline first sees Petra Youngblood, she gets the sense that she has seen her before.

Petra is another pink-haired key who hides her hair under a moonlight hair wig. I can say that Evangeline remembers her because she’s simply another prophesied key and keys all have a connection with each other. Or I could say that she was Princess Serendipity Skystead, who had straight black hair.

But I think Stephanie would have made this clear if Petra was the princess.

Petra had been alive for some time now because of the Youth Stone, so is it possible that Evangeline could have recognized her in the past? This one could be a hit or miss, considering that the Valory Arch was not created until after Castor was killed.

However, I may be confusing the timeline here. For this one to work, the timeline would have to go like this:

Castor dies.

Jacks brings Castor to Honora.

The Valors bring Castor back to life, however, his rebirth came with a cost—his humanity.

A few men hire Jacks to hunt a fox.

Jacks falls in love with the peasant girl.

He finds out she’s the Fox. Thus commences the Ballad of the Archer and the Fox.

Either way, Evangeline believes she has crossed paths with Petra before, and it isn’t because she may have seen her picture before.

Fast forward to the Hollow, Jacks is carrying her in his arms as he walks into the inn. Evangeline makes a heartfelt comment about the Hollow feeling like home to her, which is sweet because the Hollow is a welcoming place. But then she adds, “...how it managed to feel like home, though even in her current state she was certain she’d never been here before.” (TBONA, pg. 265).

We all know Stephanie’s clues are hidden in plain sight, and I think this is one of them. Why would she stress this line? We know that Evangeline has never been to the Magnificent North until she was invited to go to the Nocte Neverending. And yet this fact was stressed here.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it, and Evangeline just meant that the Hollow felt like home because it was welcoming and sweet-smelling like her home in Valenda when both of her parents were alive.

But since the Hollow used to be Jacks's home, it sort of makes sense that the Fox girl might have visited one day. It was briefly mentioned that the fox girl lived in a cottage.

THE SIMILARITIES 🦊💖

“You give people too much credit.” - Jacks, TBONA, pg. 183

Evangeline has shown that she follows her heart and her emotions rather than reason. She doesn’t wish to harm anyone and she’s selfless when she puts herself in danger to save others like turning to stone or believing that she’s safe from Tiberius when she comes to visit him. Evangeline tries to look for the best in people.

The fox girl chose to see the bright side of things as she tried to convince Jacks that he could fight the curse.

Toward the end of TBONA, Jacks tells her from his point of view what the first fox girl was like.

“But she had more faith in me than I did. She chased after me. She was convinced I really loved her and that I could fight the curse. And I did.” (TBONA, pg. 353)

Isn’t that what Evangeline is doing now? Evangeline is trying to make him see that there’s another true love for him. She has faith that they could have another story.

Evangeline didn’t want to be another heartbreak, and she didn’t want to die. But she refused to believe that meant that she had to let Jacks go. There had to be another way. (TBONA, pg. 365).

Like the fox girl’s faith in Jacks, Evangeline shares this same sentiment.

Now this next evidence is the most convincing of them all.

In chapter 35, the Handsome Stranger aka Chaos visits Evangeline in her dream. He looked at her face and said one of the most mind-blowing things that I have read in TBONA.

“You’re a bit like her.”

“His first fox.”

It’s such a distinction, considering that Jacks has said to Evangeline that every girl is another fox. But not this first one. It’s so significant because one of his closest friends made this comparison to Evangeline.

And I believe a friend's statement more than the warped stories that appear in the story. It has to be important since it was given so much attention.

Evangeline and the First Fox share so many similarities that they couldn’t be mere coincidences.

Already connected? ❄

Sometimes it’s hard to differentiate what’s real and what’s done for the stones when it comes to Evangeline and Jacks. Jacks is being nice and charming to Evangeline just to get her to find the stones and open the Valory Arch. Everything that has transpired between the two can be traced back to this deal and its conditions.

However, there’s one thing that I found solid in evajacks’s bond before their deal was even made, before they officially met each other, and that moment is when Evangeline stands in front of the Prince of Hearts’ statue in the church.

“The back of her neck prickled.”

OUABH, Pg. 9

I concluded that this prickle she felt is the same kind of shiver she gets whenever Jacks is present.

OUABH, pg. 98

Jacks is all cold.

“She didn’t know how she knew that’s what the spike of cold meant…” This coldness is a separate notifier from the burning on the wrist where her three broken heart scars were.

The second time she feels this was after they had made their connection. Immediately after Jacks enters the ballroom the night before Nocte Neverending, Evangeline feels a bolt of cold.

Evangeline feels this cold prickle once more in TBONA when Jacks catches up with her in the library.

It was the spider-thin prickle crawling across her shoulder blades. It had been with her since the moment she'd stepped out of her royal suite...

TBONA, PG. 8

I tried to comb for more, but I know that these instances where the cold notified that Jacks was there is from a bond that had already existed between them. My guess is that Evangeline must have felt this as a fox whenever the Archer was nearby in search of her.

CONCLUSION 💫🦊✨

Now that her memories are erased, I reckoned that she’d get some flashes here and there of her moments with Jacks. I also think she might get flashes when she was the fox girl. Now, there’s this question that has been bothering me for a while.

How does Jacks not remember her face if Evangeline is in fact the reincarnation of the fox girl?

How does anyone (LaLa, Chaos, Apollo) not remember Evangeline’s face?

I saw a very good theory that helps with this reincarnation theory, where Apollo is Lysander. Because of him, he erased people’s memories of himself and this fox girl. However, it still leaves so many questions behind.

Anyway, I think it’d be super neat if Evangeline was the Fox girl, because I’m sure this girl was the first person Jacks had ever truly loved. Sure, he didn’t know if he loved her due to the curse, but he did love her enough that his employers cursed him to hunt the girl he now loved.

It’s true love. And it’s the same love that will give Evangeline and Jacks a new story ❤💖💘

#tbona #the ballad of never after #tbona theories #tbona spoilers #ouabh #once upon a broken heart #evangeline fox #jacks #prince of hearts #evajacks #jacks x evangeline #stephanie garber #first fox #the archer

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