“It hit her then. In fairytales, there was always a price for magic. Nothing came without a cost; peasants who turned into princesses always had to pay. And suddenly Evangeline wondered if her lost memories were the price she had paid for all of this.”

The Once Upon a Broken Heart series relies heavily on fairy-tale tropes for its characterization and worldbuilding, and this excerpt from Evangeline’s thoughts shows how fairy tales have influenced her thoughts. Without her memories, Evangeline can only make judgments based on what’s happening at the moment—Apollo is a dashing prince beloved and worshipped by his subjects. She defines her role in this situation with what she knows of princesses in fairy tales. Evangeline concludes her memory loss is the price she paid for getting everything she ever wanted, showing the danger of relying on others’ experiences to understand what is happening to her.

“King Roland often told his son Apollo, ‘If you are nice, it means you are not enough of anything else. People are nice because they must be, but as a prince you must be more.’

As a boy, Apollo had taken this advice as a license to be careless with life and with others. He was not cruel, but neither did he embody any of the other virtues his father extolled. Apollo had always imagined he had time to become clever, formidable, wise, or shrewd. It never occurred to him that, in the meantime, he was becoming something else.”

These lines from Apollo’s first point-of-view chapter set up his character, motivations, and actions for the entire book. Apollo is angered to find his subjects didn’t even miss him when they thought he was dead and, like Evangeline, relies on others’ experiences to define how he views himself. These lines also show how unaware Apollo is of who he has become. As a result, he doesn’t see the harm in his actions, which keeps him from being able to care about those around him.