Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and child abuse.

The number three is an important numerical motif in fairy tales. For example, in “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” only during the third attempt is anything “just right” for Goldilocks. In “Cinderella,” the heroine visits three balls before winning her prince. In “The Three Little Pigs,” the pigs build three kinds of houses with different material, with escalating fortitude.

It follows that the number three is also an important motif in How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories. For example, Aslog and Cardan exchange stories three times, but only on the third time does Cardan tell the story, and only during the third version do the stone-hearted boy and the cursed girl both get what they deserve—a happy ending. This signals that the third telling is both the most important version and the final one. Cardan and Aslog only meet three times. Each encounter occurs during a different phase of Cardan’s life: childhood, adolescence, and emerging adulthood—another set of three. Each is a different but equally important stage of the book: the beginning, the middle, and the end.

Additionally, Cardan has three major plot arcs: