My original idea for an opening credits sequence of The Cruel Prince
if it ever became a streaming series 🤞🏻 I made one season per book and one opening per season…
The camera would open with a giant map model of Elfhame carved on a table (the one in the High General office), the background music could be ‘Shadow’, of Livingston (I also think the book vibes matches a lot with ‘Enemy’, from Imagine Dragons, but I don’t want to take it from Arcane bc they were amazing with it, and, also, ‘Shadow’ feels very Jude coded for me).
The camera would travel through it and land in the board with the view of a hand from above placing a doll piece that resembles Cardan and when it lands, the screen paralyzes and in the background are shown some of his scenes in the series for some quick seconds.
Then, the hand leaves him and camera follows it while it keeps moving through the islands and the places; it keeps adding several doll pieces of the characters; such in Madoc’s state, the hand inserts dolls of Madoc, Taryn, Oriana, Vivi and Oak; in Hollow Hall, we have Balekin and in the castle, Dain; in the school fields, Valerian, Nicasia and Locke, and the background images show the scenes of the actors in that season.
In the end, the camera follows the hand leaving and changes the perspective of the view, showing that it was Jude who was moving the pieces. And the scenario around her is her bedroom.
She places her hands on her hips and watches the board a second longer before laying down on a drawer and sighing while frowning and crossing her arms.
The screen goes black with the title
The opening starts alike the one of Season 1, the differences are that she starts placing Cardan doll in the Elfhame palace (with his coronation and some of his scenes in S2 in the background) and now Jude snaps off with her finger each person that already had been murdered in S1, and the person’s death is shown in the background.
She snaps Valerian and uses Balekin and Madoc pieces to snap Dain. The hand takes Oak and Vivi from the board, moves Taryn from Madoc’s state to Locke’s mansion and places Balekin in the Tower of Forgetting and inserts Lady Asha doll there too. She places Lord Roiben, Orlagh and Grimsen dolls in the board.
It ends with the camera moving to Jude, but she’s no longer in her bedroom and not alone, she’s in the Court of Shadows secret room and theirs members are watching her actions with attention while laying or sitting in an opposite table (Bomb, Roach and Ghost) and Cardan is also laid against it, wearing his king attires and the crown, Jude lays in the table too. She’s wearing her spy outfit and Nightfell is laid next to her. She and the folk around her exchange a glare and return the gaze to the board.
The same as in S1, the screen goes black with the title card
Special opening, Season 2
I imagined Jude would be held hostage in the Undersea for like 1-2 episodes, and we could have a ‘filler-like’ episode outside of her point of view talking about the time she was imprisoned in Orlagh’s palace and what happened to Cardan, Madoc and the folks meanwhile.
It would be nearly the same, but the board would be messier and the hand moving the dolls would be Cardan’s.
After he does the moves with the pieces, such as taking Balekin from the destroyed Tower of Forgetting and placing him with Orlagh in the Undersea, the camera changes to show he in royal attires, a bit disheveled, along Bomb and Roach in the High General office. The Bomb gives him a Jude doll and he places it on the Undersea zone.
As TQoN starts with Jude in exile, instead of a wood modeled table map, this sequence opens above a dinner table in a messy apartment with an improvised map of Elfhame made from Monopoly, Candyland and other family friendly games.
The camera goes to the map, with Jude’s hand adding improvised pieces to represent the characters, like colorful modeling clay, matches, human dolls etc…
The opening ends with the camera changing the view to show Jude, with human clothes and messy hair, in the living room of Vivi’s apartment, sprawling herself in a couch while staring the board with rage and sadness with Nitghfell next to her and several chocolate boxes, fish sticks, chips bags and soda cans around her.
Mid- Season 3, after Jude becomes the High Queen
It returns to the S2 opening style with the high quality table model map with Jude’s hand snapping the murdered characters, placing and adding others.
Now, it ends with the camera showing Jude with royal clothes sat on her throne chair, Cardan is sat on it’s arm rest, the Roach, the Ghost and the Bomb are around it too and Taryn is standing next to them.
The screen goes black with the title card.
