#tbona theories

[hollowinmyheart]

It's jacks actually

The sketch belongs to insta account @staroling

[littlefoxandthearcher]

[onceuponaneverafter]

Let's Talk About Jacks's Apples

...and especially their COLORS. I wanted to figure out what they could mean, so I made a spreadsheet!

First, DISCLAIMERS:

MAJOR spoilers for OUABH and TBONA + the Caraval series!

This post was written BEFORE ACFTL and does not contain information or spoilers from it.

This post is based on my interpretations and observations, all of them may not be perfectly accurate. The conclusions I make are my theories, not necessarily canon information.

When I reference page numbers, they're from my OUABH UK paperback and TBONA UK hardcover - it's possible they're a bit off for you if you have different editions of the books.

This is a long post, so grab a snack and get comfortable!

I hope you enjoy reading! 🍎

Table Of Contents

Introduction

Why Apples?

A Detailed Look Into The Apples (= explaining everything I say I'll explain later)

The Colors

Where Do The Apples Come From

Conclusions/TL;DR

This is a long post, so here you can see what's coming and skip over to what interests you most :)

Introduction

Throughout the OUABH series, there are 14 scenes in total where Jacks is holding an apple in his hand (sometimes eating them, sometimes not) while Evangeline is there to witness it. All of those apples are unnaturally colored. To look for connections between them, I made a spreadsheet:

For sake of clarity, I will be discussing 13 total apples instead of 14 - I believe the "undescribed" apple (its color is not explicitly stated in the scene) is the same as White Apple #5, but it appears in two separate scenes, so both are included here. I will get into this later.

The spreadsheet contains various details about the apples, such as what Jacks does while holding them, when he picks them up (or if he's already holding them when they're described), what happens to them (dropped somewhere etc.), how he feels during the scene, etc. I will discuss these later in this post.

Then I realized he also has some apples in Legendary and Finale, so I made another list of the ones he has while Tella is present:

Here's a summary of all the apples:

That would make 20 apples in total, half of them being white.

Now let's go over some relevant context! Then I will get to analyzing what these colors mean and what kind of connections I found between the apples, I promise.

Why Apples?

Before we do a deep dive into the details, let's go over the basics on why Jacks keeps eating the apples. The most popular theory (if it can even be called a theory, it's basically canon) is based on what LaLa tells Evangeline in OUABH:

"When we [Fates] feel, it's intense and consuming. It devours us and drives us. And the strongest of our feelings is always the urge to be that which we were made to be." –OUABH page 270

She proceeds to explain that when she sews wedding dresses, it helps her with that urge, and to say that for Jacks it's similar – he has the desire to find his true love, and supposedly that's the one person his kiss doesn't kill. So, according to LaLa's logic, the apples help him with that. It makes a lot of sense, and everything he physically does with the apples makes more sense in light of it.

When Jacks is first introduced to the Caraval series, he is described eating an apple. While I believe the theory above is true, it was also interesting to notice that he seems to already be holding the apple when he meets Tella practically by chance. In fact, there are only four times he ever picks up an apple during a scene, and they are all during the OUABH series. I will get more into it later.

In OUABH, Jacks is described to have countless apples and apple cores in his rooms and offices, so we don't know how many he eats and why when Evangeline isn't around him. However, I found that he almost never touches Evangeline while holding an apple. (With sort of the exception of the silver apple, where he touches his dagger to her lips, and the blue apple, which he was holding before stopping Evangeline from taking the luck stone back from Chaos.)

Now, this could just be for practical reasons, but he touches Evangeline in about 21 of the 25 (I focused on the apples so this may not be the exact count) scenes where he doesn't have an apple and only in 6 of the 14 scenes where he has an apple, and in 2 of them the touch is barely there or brief and initiated by Evangeline.

An interesting comparison is how he does touch Tella while holding an apple (like Blue Apple #1 and White Caraval Apple #2), so it definitely isn't purely about logistics. Maybe it's related to him thinking she's his true love, that's the greatest difference I can think of. It is also noteworthy that he doesn't eat any apples while in the Hollow, which Evangeline also notices (TBONA 284).

With the theory above in mind, the way Jacks touches his apples is pretty straightforward:

He tosses them when he's in a good mood or needs to distract himself

Him biting them is practically his version of self-control

He drops them when things aren't so fun anymore or there's a clear mood shift (I will discuss this a bit more later).

He stabs two apples in total: the Silver Apple and White OUABH Apple #4. the first time he tells Evangeline how Apollo would be eternally heartbroken if she called off the engagement, the second time he tells Evangeline that the Archer ends up killing the Fox. And what unites these? Great heartbreak.

A Detailed Look Into The Apples

Or in other words, let's get into everything I said I would discuss later. After this, we'll look more into the apple colors.

The Undescribed Apple

I believe that White Apple #5, the apple Jacks holds in his hand before he and Evangeline leave to LaLa's engagement party, is the same as the apple that he picks up in the next scene, in the carriage as they travel - its color is not described, but the narration leads to the assumption that this apple is already familiar to the reader:

"Jacks leaned back in his seat and picked up his apple" –TBONA page 184

13 is also a more meaningful number than 14 (and the total count of all apples would be 20 instead of 21), so even though the total number might be purely coincidental, it also could be a fun intentional detail.

Caraval vs. OUABH

There are some very interesting parallels between apples in Legendary/Finale and apples in OUABH/TBONA.

First, we have the blue apple (in Legendary) that Jacks ends up dropping into a fireplace (see chart below). The only other apple that he specifically drops into fire is the very last white apple in TBONA. Before he drops the blue apple, Tella says that nothing could make her fall in love with him. Before he drops the white apple, Evangeline suggests that maybe Jacks could find another true love.

Second, every apple is either last seen still in his hand or dropped on the floor/ground (or fire), except for two: the sparkling white one in Finale (in Tella's dream again) and the pink one in OUABH, which he tosses to Tella and Evangeline. He directly encourages Tella to taste the white apple, and he tells Evangeline that she might need a snack. In terms of color, the sparkling white apple is especially interesting – I will look into the sparkling later along with the colors.

"Jacks picked up his apple"

The main difference between the Caraval and OUABH apples - and the one thing that keeps messing up my theories - is that during the Caraval series, Jacks never picks up an apple during a scene, he is always already holding one when the scene begins (see chart above). However, during OUABH and TBONA, he picks up four apples in total. And they are all white.

White Apple #1: Meeting Evangeline for the first time

White Apple #3: Evangeline says she'd stab Jacks if she got the chance to

White Apple #5: Evangeline forbids Jacks from killing people at LaLa's party

White Apple #7: Jacks lets go of Evangeline and shuts off from her, he's about to tell her the truth about planning to go back in time

All of them are different in terms of why exactly he picks up the apple, but there is more or less a shift in tone/topic of their conversation during all of these scenes.

The Colors

White Apples

I think that white apples are the "default" color, and/or they represent focusing on what's important.

They make up half of the apples Jacks has, and all of the apples he spontaneously picks up are white. So, if something like his emotions or circumstances affect the apple colors (which I think is at least somewhat the case), it makes sense for white to be the basic color – and what would be a better "default" apple than the one who reminds him not to get distracted.

Even though the apple he tosses to Tella is sparkling white, I don't think the color represents her because he was holding a white apple before he met Tella. He couldn't have been thinking of her, but he most likely had plans that he was thinking over as he was hoping to take the throne from Elantine.

Black Apples

I originally thought the black color could mean bad intentions or regret, but I'm now quite sure it represents doing whatever it takes to get what he wants. The context surrounding the black apples highlights this:

Black Apple #1: Jacks offers his help in exchange for controlling Tella's emotions. He wants to find true love more than anything, and this is his last attempt to make Tella fall for him.

Black Apple #2: He's controlling Apollo in order to make him propose to Evangeline. He needs it, again, in order to reach his goal – only this time he's planning to go back in time. Still to find true love, though.

Black Apple #3: This one stands out a bit from the other two. Jacks brings Evangeline to Chaos' castle so she can be healed after Apollo shot her. Here the black apple might symbolize doing anything to keep Evangeline alive (he also needs her alive, so that checks out, but at this point I don't think it's just that), and possibly his reluctance to either ask Chaos for help or put Evangeline through being infected with vampire venom.

Blue Apples

Blue apples seem to represent happiness and success, because we tend to see them after something went just like Jacks wanted. This could also be connected to his eye color.

Blue Apple #1: It's the first apple we see after Tella didn't die of his kiss, and he's obviously more than happy about that.

Blue Apple #2. He got into Tella's dream, for the second time, and he had successfully tricked her into the "marriage thing" before.

Blue Apple #3. He is holding this one right after Evangeline agreed to open the Valory Arch, while the apple he held in the previous scene (only five pages earlier) was white.

The Golden Apple

The apples that there are just one of are the trickiest because there's less context to go by, but I think the golden apple represents Tella. It's the first one we see in his hand after the events of Finale, and Tella's hair color is close enough to it. She is also a princess now, which the color gold could also represent.

It's worth mentioning that it could also be tied to failure, heartbreak, or Jacks's own hair color (as it is often described as golden). He also lives in the North now, known as Lord Jacks, and he's "friends" (?) with Apollo, a prince, so it could be related to that as well.

The Silver Apple

I think the silver apple is like a "milder" version of the blue apple, in which case the apple representing happiness would definitely be intentionally the same color as his eyes: The Caraval Wiki describes his eye color as "silver-blue".

When Jacks has the silver apple, Evangeline has got married to Apollo just like he wanted, but everything isn't perfect yet. He's quite content, but it isn't quite as big satisfaction as when he has a blue apple. However, because Evangeline asked him to meet, the apple's color could also represent for example curiosity.

The Pink Apple

Because of Evangeline's hair color, the pink apple seems to intuitively represent her. Not only that, he's just spent the night holding her before he appears with the pink apple in hand, so it just makes a lot of sense to me. This is also the apple he tossed to her.

The Purple Apple

I've had the most trouble with the purple apple. It being the apple he holds after talking with Scarlett and the scene leading to Tella's discovery that his heart beats, and the only purple apple during any book and scene, I don't even know where to start.

While basic color symbolism is connected to the apple colors loosely at most, purple as a symbol for royalty, nobility, and power could make sense if he wanted to emphasize those qualities while talking to Scarlett. Purple is also associated with mystery, and with us and Tella not finding out immediately why he met with Scarlett, it could also be a storytelling element.

Bonus: Sparkling/shimmering Apples

There are some apples that deserve a special mention, and that's the ones that are described as sparkling or shimmering.

White Caraval Apple #3, "sparkling white": This is the apple that Jacks gives to Tella (in her dream), urging her to taste it.

Black Apple #3, "shimmering black": And this apple is in TBONA, when Jacks brings Evangeline to Chaos' castle to be healed.

The only similarity between them that I've found so far is that they both stand out from the other white and blue apples: the sparkling white apple is the only white apple that Jacks gives to someone else, and the shimmering black apple is the third one that stands out to me (see "Black Apples" above).

Where Do The Apples Come From

A very good and for now unanswered question is where Jacks gets the apples from. Does he pick them from a tree? What tree? What color are they, do they start off as natural apples or maybe white? What makes an apple something other than their default color? For these questions, I don't have solid theories yet, only speculation.

We're all obsessed with how intensely Fates feel when they do feel something (*cough* the end of TBONA *cough*), but I also think that it could have something to do with the apples, at least some of them. When Jacks feels something or spends a lot of time thinking of something, maybe it could somehow affect the apples' colors? Some of the apples seem to be connected to his emotions, such as the blue ones. No apples are seen changing colors and some apples seem to not have a direct connection to his emotions, though, so there is little evidence to support this.

Conclusions

To summarize everything I went over above,

There are 20 apples in total that Jacks is seen holding throughout every scene he is in, seven of them during the Caraval series and 13 during OUABH and TBONA.

What Jacks does with his apples (tossing, biting, picking up, dropping) is connected to his emotions.

The apples have different colors that I believe represent different things: white (10 of 20, focusing on what's important), black (3 of 20, doing whatever it takes), blue (3 of 20, happiness), gold (1 of 20, possibly Tella? multiple possibilities), silver (1 of 20, possibly happiness mixed with something else), pink (1 of 20, Evangeline?), and purple (1 of 20, power? nobility? mystery?).

The origin of the apples is for now unknown, as is the reason for each color (both the colors' meanings and how they take on the different colors).

With all that said, there is quite much room for interpretation, especially in terms of the apple colors. My theories aren't the only correct ones, and I do not wish to present them that way. As I stated in the beginning, I might have overlooked details or noted some down inaccurately. The purpose of this post was to share my findings and to have fun theorizing!

Let's hope that we get some actual answers for these in ACFTL and that the books treat us kindly <3 Please do not give me any spoilers, not on the topic of apples or anything else, I'm actively trying to avoid them!

If you read this far, THANK YOU SO MUCH!! I poured my heart into this research and this analysis, and I'm so happy if at least one person besides myself enjoys looking at my little findings. <3 Here, have an apple as a reward: 🍎

[ouabhlover]

acftl spoilers!!!

acftl waterstones exclusive edition bonus chapter

credits to @amyslittlelibrary in tiktok

[lily-stans-legend]

ACFTL WATERSTONES ALT ENDING

Other Caraval and OUBAH content linked on my page enjoy

Source: @imy.reads on Tiktok

[moobell55]

Thinking about the slightly strange friendship/convenience of the Lala, Jacks and Castor interactions.

Like Jacks and Castor were childhood friends with Lala’s dead brother Lyric. So Lala was older than both of them when she became a Fate. As a teenager and older sister, I imagine those 4 were always annoying her (that’s what younger siblings do best.) Then she becomes a Fate then Castor and Jacks do 🧍🏽‍♀️. I just know she was fed up, like damn I’m stuck with them for an eternity🤨.

Lala is also engaged to Castors older brother Dane. I like to imagine her thinking in OUABH when she gets Eva ready to go see Castor, “yeah this will piss my somewhat brother in law off and my younger brothers friends.”

Also Aurora and Lyric fell in love, while Dane and Lala were engaged to be married. I just know those conversations were awkward as hell if they all knew.

Not to mention she probably saw Jacks and Castor as they were growing up most of their lives. She probably watched them go from these sweet kids who just wanted to have adventures and play in the woods. And now Jacks is this cold heart immortal who kills every girl he kisses and is addicted to Apples. And Castor is an immortal Vampire who runs an underground castle of assassins who can be trusted around a certain rose gold princess.

[aoibheann04]

I have a theory. Or maybe it’s so obvious that no one thought to mention it and I’m just catching up now.

I think Jacks made a deal with the Fallen Star to break the Archer’s curse. And the unseen cost was that he would become a Fate, that he would become the Prince of Hearts. So he kissed the original Fox not knowing it would kill her.

Perhaps Castor and LaLa made similar deals with unforeseen consequences. The Fallen Star was the big villain of the Caraval series so it makes sense that his villainy would trickle into this new series and have lasting effects upon the characters of Once Upon A Broken Heart. In particular the Fates - The Prince of Hearts, The Unwed Bride and Chaos.

It draws an interesting parallel with the beginning of Evangeline’s story - making a deal with Jacks and it not working out as she had hoped.

And it leaves room to expand on all the Fates stories, The Assassin, The Maiden Death, The Lady Prisoner, Poison, etc. Why did they make a deal with Gavriel? What price did they pay beyond becoming a Fate? What are they doing now?

Again maybe this is common knowledge but that’s just my two cents on the issue. This is my first post so I really don’t know what I’m doing.

[evajackslover]

favorite page series #2!!

this one’s pretty self explanatory…

BUT ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME HE CALLED HER LOVE. LOVE!

and not to mention how sweet he was firstly cradling her to his chest then bandaging and taking care of her afterwards🥹🥹

“It hurts, Jacks.”

“I know, love. I’m going to take you somewhere safe.”

46 MORE DAYS💖

[fatedreader]

Questions that remain after reading A CURSE FOR TRUE LOVE 💘🦊🍎🏹

1. Significance of Jacks eating apples and the different colors

2. Vengeance’s cuff - is it still being worn by Eva?

3. The last broken heart scar - when if ever will the bargain be repaid?

4. Who was the first Fox Jacks fell for? And why wasn’t she named. No backstory or excerpt about her.

5. The Valor children and their backstories (especially the sons, and Vesper)

6. Who cursed the Valors into a sleeping state and locked them in the arch?

7. Did Jacks ever meet Eva’s parents in the curiosity shop? Why did the bell ring in OUABH prologue and for whom?

8. Who was the ghost librarian in the Valory library from TBONA?

9. What will become of the future in the North and of the side characters (Lala+Chaos???)

10. What happened to Luc, Tiberius and Marisol?

11. Will Evangeline stay in contact with the Dragna sisters? What will Donnatella’s reaction be?

12. Do all Fates have 2 hearts? Does that mean they are capable of feeling emotion as long as they have the second heart in them?How does one extract the second heart from one’s person - is there a cost to this magic?

13. How did the Ballad of the Archer and the Fox really end?

14. Why didn’t Eva and Jacks or Wolfric and Honora just obliterate the story curse? This would’ve made for an epic ending and I was expecting for something like this to happen.

15. What was the actual cause behind the end of Jacks’ curses? If the archer curse was lifted out of pure might and will (like with the first fox), then what made his kiss non-lethal to Eva? (Was it Vengeance’s cuff protecting her and recognizing Jacks’ intentions as non-harmful? Or was their first kiss, a true love’s kiss simply capable of breaking curses?)

16. Did Garrick of the guild of heroes just give up on hunting Jacks? Is Jacks still wanted in the North?? Will the Valors clear Jacks’ name or will the story curse just wipe it out? What about the massacre of House Fortuna - will that be dumped on Apollo now or will Castor’s vampire nature be brought to light by the Valors?

17. How will Valors relay the news of Apollo’s disappearance from the throne? Will they declare him a dead traitor/madman? And will they reveal their true identity as Valors or continue as Vales but assume power?

Comment if I missed anything that went unanswered (because there’s a lot) ⬇️

[evangeline-and-jacks]

‼️ACFTL POSSIBLE SPOILER‼️

🍄🍄🍄

❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

🐺🐺🐺

🌳🌳🌳

Proceed with caution 😜

Saw this on tiktok, one of the fairyloot editions have this art!!🫣❤️‍🔥 My heart! Please please we need a HEA! 🦊🍎

Looks to me like they’re going to settle in The Hollow. Eeek! ✨

Our Jacks is smiling. Hopefully this is the part where he no longer needs any apples. I could live here just looking at them!😍

[a-manda-lorian]

Has this been discussed?!?! Is Jacks’s apple the Unbitten Fruit?!?! All throughout Caraval and Broken Heart he’s eating a different colored apple, just tosses it away, and then magically has another in his next scene 😅 Stephanie hasn’t given any background on the fated object, but it would make sense that Jacks has it as a Fate himself. Maybe it helps suppress his killing power???

Someone please speculate this with me!!!

[hollowinmyheart]

Things that I want in a curse for true love to happen is : I want jacks to all the time to be jealous and worried about apollo being physical with evangeline or not. His jealousy is so romantic when any man tries to get near eva. The last time in TBONA when apollo asked him to get off his hands from eva he instead tightened his arms around her. This will be so much fun to see what he'll do to make apollo stay the hell away from eva. I think he is going to spy on apollo and eva all the time so apollo doesn't get to touch her.

[littlefoxandthearcher]

spoilers for a curse for true love…

rant….solely about APPLES.

With the lil teaser via Stephanie:

“Apollo hated apples”

i’d like to state that this is sooooooo important to the breaking of the curse.

from the first book it’s established that Evangeline has a connection to Jacks… which I believe is stronger than true love to start his heart, but to break the archer/fox curse that has kill almost everyone he’s loved (Donatella being the exception).

Within the first 20 pages we are told that Jacks is her greatest heartbreak…

And then the motif continues once Evangeline gets to the North and well well well… the evidence is overwhelming. Not only is Jacks her biggest heartbreak (the past of his curse killing those he loved and the loss of her memory in the last book) but he is also her true love.

—-this we already know, but Evangeline will not… she will smell and taste the apples with a hinting sensations of love and affection but will not know what it means…

Further proof of her subconscious reminding her of Jacks

BUT

WHAT DO THE APPLES MEAN!??!?? To jacks.

truly I believe that since the apples taste like true love, they curb his instincts of kissing people to kill them- because all the fates can’t fight their feelings. So Jacks obsession with apples is just another form of his love for love but also his restriction to love anyone. Maybe he knows the apples taste like Evangeline…and that’s why “she’s better off not knowing” - to save her from kissing him and dying…

HIS IMPULSES BEING EVANGELINE??? I’ll die.

And lastly… Evangeline’s association with apples also causes… impulses too…

So, Apollo’s hatred of apples will send little alarm bells going off in her head/gut on her true feelings and memories. Maybe after coming into contact with Jacks again she’ll realize something is drawing her to him…

…

And a bonus moment that is overlooked…

[onceuponaneverafter]

Let’s Talk About Jacks’s Apples PART 2

And again, their COLORS! Because after reading A Curse For True Love, I HAVE MORE TO SAY SO LET’S GET RIGHT INTO IT.

First, though:

You can find PART 1 here! It’s a quite thorough analysis of every single apple Jacks is ever described holding from Legendary to TBONA.

This post contains MAJOR SPOILERS for ACFTL. I will also reference my earlier findings, so spoilers for every book!

The focus of this post is on what ACFTL adds to my earlier analysis. For a summary of my findings, go to the end of part 1 (where we left off) or to the end of this post (general conclusions of everything).

Every non-canon conclusion I make here is just theories, based on my interpretations and observations! They aren’t the only right interpretations and I do not wish to present them that way.

The page numbers are from my ACFTL UK hardcover so if you have a different edition of the book, they may be a bit off for you.

That being said, welcome! 🍎❤️

So, to put it shortly: Because Stephanie Garber didn’t provide us with any answers about the apple colors, I decided to take it upon myself and go back to my trusted spreadsheet <3

What we did get is two new apples and more context, so let's get into it!

Table Of Contents

Introduction / Updated Spreadsheet

Why Apples? w/ the answers that we DO get in ACFTL, and my favorite new discovery!

ACFTL Apples

The Apple Colors (feat. me losing my mind over the lack of actual answers BUT I HAVE THEORIES and more thoughts on most apples!)

Conclusions / TL;DR

Introduction

The Updated Spreadsheet

In ACFTL, we get two new apples: one black and one white. I will take a closer look into these shortly, but here's the updated spreadsheet:

The total apple count (including apples from Legendary and Finale, which are presented in part 1) now looks like this:

This makes the total apple count 22, and the apples seen during the OUABH series reach the satisfying count of 15.

I don't know if there is anything intentionally symbolic about the total apple count, but I found with a quick google search that the number 22 can represent at least balance and harmony – which our beloved characters certainly deserve after everything they've been through.

Half of the apples are still white, while the rest are other colors - with Black Apples being the second most common. Like in part one, I will later go over all of the apple colors individually.

Why Apples?

New Information

First of all, let's appreciate the one time Jacks addresses his apples at all during ACFTL, after Evangeline asked about them:

"It doesn't matter," he said softly. "I don't need them anymore." –ACFTL page 381

This practically confirms that Jacks indeed has the apples to control his urge to kiss people in order to try and find true love (see part 1 or other people's theories for a more detailed explanation). Now that he's found true love and can kiss Evangeline all he wants (yay <3), he doesn't need the apples anymore. He's fulfilled his goal, and honestly, it's no wonder he's had enough of apples now:

"Her Prince of Hearts was never far from her, except for when she went to pick apples. Jacks never so much as tossed an apple any more." "– –Jacks preferred to avoid the apple grove altogether." –ACFTL, Waterstones bonus epilogue

While this is not officially part of the book, it's more context regarding the apples. If you want to read the entire bonus epilogue, others have posted it here on tumblr – if it would be helpful, I can post it myself/link others' posts as well. The other two bonus epilogues are available somewhere here as well.

Physical Movement

Alright, there are some interesting things going on here so let's get into some of my favorite discoveries!

In part 1, I pointed out how Jacks avoids touching Evangeline at all costs while he's holding an apple, and the interesting contrast that he does touch Tella while he has an apple in his hand (at least twice). While his apples are more or less his interpretation of self-control, this didn't completely align with it.

Now, I think I have figured out what's going on here! And it has to do with the way he would do anything (including giving up his only chance to go back in time to save Evangeline, and giving up his heart if it means no one can harm her again) to keep Evangeline safe.

He only touches Evangeline while holding an apple with not his hands (OUABH silver apple in hand, touches dagger to Evangeline’s lips), only because he has to and it’s complicated (blue apple in TBONA, Evangeline tried to grab the luck stone from Chaos) or he’s not himself at all and doesn't care about hurting her like he normally would (in ACFTL after he gave up his heart).

With Tella, he's always been reckless – not the least because he didn't truly love her, and because she didn't die when he kissed her.

I’d also like to point out that he kept carrying apples around after he kissed Tella and she didn’t die. Only once he finally found true love with Evangeline (and she also didn’t die when she kissed him <3) did he not need them anymore.

Regarding what he does with the apples, there isn't much new information. I still think it has to do with his emotions (see part 1 for a list), and the ACFTL apples confirm the theories I presented there.

ACFTL Apples

Page 101, Black Apple

It makes a lot of sense to me that this is the scene in ACFTL where Jacks has an apple. He's watching as Evangeline sleeps, convinced that she's better off not knowing him and that their story can't end happily. Still, he can't stay away from her. He is trying very hard not to get too close, though, which is where the apple comes in.

The apple is only described once, so aside from more context on its color (that I will get into a little later), there isn't much to analyze. What is particularly interesting about it, though, is Jacks's thoughts earlier during the scene that are connected to it:

He'd never understood why someone would watch another person sleep... until her. Castor did it. He said it was how he helped manage his urges. It did the opposite for Jacks. – ACFTL page 98-99

Considering that apples are what do help Jacks, this just further proves that we've been right about why he has them.

Page 289, White Apple

First of all, I love how Jacks is written after he gave up his heart. Evangeline says that he reminds her of when she first met him, and it really highlights how much he's changed throughout the series. He's gradually grown softer and to genuinely care about Evangeline – the development feels natural, even if there is a lot of it especially throughout TBONA. The way he acts when that softness is taken away creates a sharp contrast that wouldn't be so noticeable otherwise.

I also really love how even the apple reflects that. I will get to the color next thing, but let's take a look at what exactly he does with the apples (see chart above in Physical Movement).

Like I mentioned above, he touches Evangeline while holding the apple, which already sets the scene apart from the others. He never does that, not really.

Then, he drops the apple on the ground (before he tries to kiss her). While that isn't exclusive to the first half of OUABH where I don't think he has really fallen for her yet, dropping apples on the ground/floor is a pattern there, whereas most apples in TBONA and the black ACFTL apple are last seen in his hand. It's just a small detail, but I think it really adds to the contrast even if it's subtle and may not be intentional.

The Apple Colors

White Apples

In part 1, I said that I thought white apples either were the default color or represented focusing on what's important.

Now, with the context of White ACFTL Apple in mind, I think it's the default color. Half of Jacks's apples are white, and the one time he isn't himself at all (one could say he's even "defaulting" when he doesn't have his heart), he has a white apple.

With the first apple we ever see him holding (during and before the first time he meets Tella) also being white, I'm inclined to say that white is the "default color" for his magical apples.

Black Apples

I still think that Black Apples definitely represent doing whatever it takes, but I also think that their meaning has a touch of desperation as well – desperation is what drives him to do whatever it takes, isn't it? This is the one thing in common with all of the Black Apples:

Black Apple #1: Finale, last apple. Jacks offers to help Tella and the others in exchange for getting to control Tella's emotions forever. He's very desperate at this point, thinking it's his only chance at finding love.

Black Apple #2: OUABH, Nocte Neverending. Jacks is controlling Apollo's emotions because to fulfill the key prophecy, he needs Apollo to marry Evangeline. Even if he doesn't care about opening the arch, he's working with Chaos and has probably promised him that the Valory Arch will be opened. Overall, he has his plan and is willing to do stupid things for it.

Black Apple #3: TBONA, Chaos' place. Jacks brought Evangeline there to be healed because she'd been shot. At this point, I believe he already personally cares about whether Evangeline is alive or not. And even if he didn't, he would still need her alive – not only for the reasons stated above, but also because as a key, she feels each stone's magic the strongest (TBONA page 123).

Black Apple #4: ACFTL, Evangeline's bedroom. Jacks believes that the price he had to pay for Evangeline being alive was her memories being lost, and now his primary goal is to keep her safe. During this scene, he plans on leaving her for good once he "got what he needed" – I believe this refers to the protective glass cuff thingy that will stop anyone from harming Evangeline. Considering the price he paid for it, and the way she died in his arms only days earlier, he's very desperate to keep her safe in this scene. So, this apple also supports my theory.

Blue Apples

As we have no new Blue Apples to analyze, I still think they represent happiness and success – though maybe success even more than genuine happiness, because he has got something he wanted every time he's holding a blue apple.

Also, at the times he's genuinely happy, he doesn't even need any apples (The Hollow, which the cursed forest shows as the best day of his life in ACFTL, and his happy ending with Evangeline, when he says he doesn't even need them anymore).

The Golden Apple

We also didn't get any more Golden Apples to analyze, which is a shame, because this one's a struggle. I'm not so sure the Golden Apple represents Tella anymore because he's quite obsessed with her for a good while and he only has the Golden Apple after all hope of ever finding love with her is gone.

A noteworthy detail is that Jacks's blood is described multiple times to have gold flecks in it, so this apple could be connected to that – maybe he's feeling wounded, or it's more symbolic to him and the Golden Apple simply represents failure, heartbreak, and/or overall feeling broken? Tella did literally stab him in Finale, and at this point he still believes Tella is his one chance at finding true love, which obviously didn't work out even though it was supposed to.

The Silver Apple

This one is also still a mystery to me, and I mostly stand by what I said in part 1 – the Silver Apple could represent success but something being incomplete, being a "milder" version of the Blue Apples. Something about both being related to Jacks's eye color – which is being described over and over – seems significant.

I'd like to think the metallic apples, Gold and Silver, would have some kind of a connection with each other. The only thing I can think of is that these apples appear right before the scenes where Jacks tells Evangeline to fulfill a part of their deal – the Golden Apple is before Evangeline kisses Apollo, and the Silver Apple is on their way to the Fortuna castle, where Evangeline kisses the Fortuna matriarch's cheek.

Something that doesn't add up, though, is the fact that when Jacks is holding the Golden Apple, he isn't expecting to see Evangeline – he tells her he thought she'd be happily married to Luc by now.

This could be a storytelling element, like I suspected in part 1 that the purple apple might be. However, their deal is never fully completed, so we're lacking crucial context for this theory. It would have been fun if we had got a scene with him holding a bronze apple, before asking Evangeline to finally fulfill the last part of their deal.

The Pink Apple

I still think that the Pink Apple represents Evangeline, and I've only grown more convinced about this as time has passed. Before this scene, Jacks is only intrigued about Evangeline – one useful piece of information that we get from his chapters in ACFTL is that he's been interested in her from the second he saw her, but at first he only connected this interest to her hair color and the fact that she was a key (or that's what he told himself) (ACFTL page 100).

However, between the Silver Apple and the Pink Apple, Jacks saves Evangeline's life and spends a night holding her. I think this is where he starts developing a more personal interest towards her, and the pink apple represents that.

The Purple Apple

This one is still a struggle to me, because it doesn't seem to be connected to anything. I stand by my theory that either the purple apple represents royalty, nobility, or power, or is a storytelling element representing mystery.

The last scene where we see Jacks before the scene where he has the Purple Apple is the dinner with Elantine, before which he's holding a White Apple. He's hoping to take the throne, which makes sense in relation to the meanings associated with purple color.

Conclusions

To summarize all of my findings and conclusions, both from part 1 and part 2,

There are 22 apples in total that Jacks is described holding throughout the Caraval series (7) and the OUABH series (15).

What Jacks does with his apples (tossing, biting, picking up, dropping) is connected to his emotions.

As Jacks is a Fate, he carries around the apples to help control his urge to kiss people, in search of true love. Only once he finds true love with Evangeline does he not need them anymore. Now he's happy and has had enough of the apples <3

The apples have different colors that I believe represent different things: white (11 of 22, default color), black (4 of 22, desperation/doing whatever it takes), blue (3 of 22, success), gold (1 of 22, possibly failure or feeling broken), silver (1 of 22, possibly partial success or intrigue), pink (1 of 22, Evangeline), and purple (1 of 22, royalty/power/nobility or mystery).

The origin of the apples is still unknown, as is how the apples take on different colors.

If you have read this far, again, THANK YOU SO MUCH! Today I offer you two apples as a reward: 🍎🍏

Almost all of my conclusions are just theories, but I'm so happy if I could provide something to think about – and some much needed "answers". I know I was losing my mind when I read ACFTL and got almost none of the apple-related answers I had been hoping for, but on the other hand, researching this has been a ton of fun!

In part 1, I said I'd be happy if just one person besides myself would enjoy looking at my findings and theories. As of writing this, that post has 103 notes. Guys. I'm blown away by all the likes and reblogs and nice things some of you have said to me and just,,, THANK YOU. All of you. I'm overjoyed that I could share my little theories and that so many of you have liked them, it means the world to me.

You all have made the hours upon hours I put into these posts and dedicating my heart to this little detail a thousand times worth it. Thank you so much for reading, truly!! 🍎❤️

[ouabhlover]

some ouabh / acftl memes 🤗

credits to @emmas.bookshelves on tiktok

[bookishbitchh]

❗️the ballad of never after spoilers❗️

the way Jacks’ whole plan was to get the missing pieces and use them to go back and redo his whole first meeting with donatella his “true love” only for it to end with him using those pieces to save evangeline instead and that leading to her surviving n getting her memory wiped which will mean that in book 3 he will get a redo of his whole first meeting with her… it’s g i v i n g

like i cant put into words what it’s giving as i’m too tired rn but ITS DEFINITELY SOMETHING