Iadon
King of Arelon and father of Raoden — and, secretly for years, a practitioner of the Jeskeri Mysteries who has been sacrificing palace maids and minor Kae cooks in the city sewers to petition the Jesker spirits, lately to destroy Sarene. Exposed at the altar and locked in his own jail. EL:EL:Ch 32
King of Arelon and father of Raoden. When the Shaod takes his son he refuses to meet the prince's eyes and has him quietly thrown into Elantris before the court can learn of it. EL:EL:Ch 1 superseded at EL:EL:Ch 32
Known facts
- took-throne-after-reodIadon took the throne of Arelon during the turbulence of the Reod and remarried — to Eshen — only months later. Raoden was the only child of his first wife, who died about twelve years before the present chapter.EL:EL:Ch 2
- abolished-landholdingThe first act of Iadon's reign after the Reod was a decree voiding every existing land title and vesting ownership of every estate in the throne, enforced by hired mercenaries on a country with no standing army. He then redistributed estates and noble titles to the merchants who had backed him, leaving only men whose fortunes were too large to seize — like Kiin — untouched.EL:EL:Ch 8
- head-of-merchants-guildBefore the Reod Iadon was chairman of the autonomous Arelene merchants' guild — by long-standing arrangement the largest and most powerful body in Kae not under Elantris's influence. When the Elantrians fell, the guild's history of friction with them made its chairman the natural fit for the throne.EL:EL:Ch 8
- paranoid-sleeper-with-secret-passageKing Iadon sleeps in a fortress of his own anxieties — barracked guards adjacent to his chamber, a paranoid bedtime ritual, and a secret escape passage installed for one last way out. He once showed the passage to Raoden as a child; Raoden and Lukel played in it for hours.EL:EL:Ch 13
- merchant-rival-of-telriiBoth Iadon and Duke Telrii run merchant fleets out of Arelon across the Sea of Fjorden; they get along well enough as nobles, but are direct commercial rivals in the same trade.EL:EL:Ch 14
- merchant-fleet-being-sunk-by-fjordenEventeo's spies tie a string of ship sinkings — officially blamed on the remnants of Dreok Crushthroat's pirates — to Fjorden. Iadon's merchant fleet is being quietly destroyed. Under his own coin-equals-rank system this puts the king's title at risk, opening the throne to whichever rival (Telrii, very visibly) can demonstrate the wealth Iadon is losing.EL:EL:Ch 17
- hidden-paranoiaPressed off-balance in his study, Iadon reacts to a casual mention of court rumours about his throne with an outburst of cursing and sweating directed at his nobles — confirming for Sarene that the king is privately paranoid about losing his crown, a fear he normally keeps very tightly hidden.EL:EL:Ch 20
- lost-three-quarters-of-fleetBy the time of Sarene's confrontation, Iadon has lost roughly three-quarters of his merchant fleet to the sinkings — enough that his accounting-period revenue may fall below Telrii's within months, and enough to give a coup attempt by the duke a real chance of being ratified by the rest of the nobility.EL:EL:Ch 20
- secret-midnight-errandSarene notices a faint scraping in the stone of her bedroom wall at exactly eleven o'clock, twice a week, and deduces a passage running inside the unusually thick wall between her chamber and Iadon's — implying the king is making a regular, secret excursion somewhere in or beneath the palace.EL:EL:Ch 20
- bans-beggary-from-kaeIadon forbids begging on the streets of Kae as bad for the city's image and ships beggars he catches back to the farms regardless of age or fitness. Most of those who run from the fields shelter in the rubble of the three sister towns that once surrounded Elantris and have since dried up for want of food.EL:EL:Ch 21
- palace-honeycombed-with-escapesKiin confirms to Sarene that Iadon — the most suspicious man Kiin has ever known — has honeycombed his palace with concealed passages and well over ten ways out.EL:EL:Ch 26
- jeskeri-practitionerCaught by Sarene in the Kae sewers leading a Jeskeri Mysteries rite — blood-painted, naked behind a stone altar with a butchered serving woman on it and an instruction to the Jesker spirits to destroy Sarene written in her blood. Eondel takes him to the jailhouse.EL:EL:Ch 32
- inheritance-decreeTen years before his death, Iadon dictated a sealed scroll to Seinalan freezing every Arelene title where it stood and binding inheritance to lineage. The wealth-rank system he ruled by was a deliberate filter — he had always meant the lineage code to take over once a generation of survivors had proved itself.EL:EL:Ch 38
Events
- EL:EL:Ch 2 Receives Sarene in the throne room only after a long deliberate wait; dismisses her with embroidery and hands her off to his wife.
- EL:EL:Ch 5 Holds court over his ledgers; brushes off Hrathen's ultimatum; later notices Sarene loitering in his throne room and dismisses her as a foolish woman.
- EL:EL:Ch 8 Rails at Sarene for painting in his throne room, then settles into ledgers and a peasant-ownership dispute he resolves by splitting a father from his children.
- EL:EL:Ch 13 Asleep in his massive bed, oblivious as a dead son creeps through a tapestry-curtained passage and out into the barracks beyond.
- EL:EL:Ch 14 Holds his usual private upstairs court, scowls at Sarene's non-black dress, and storms from the room with his courier after Hrathen needles him about loose-tongued company.
- EL:EL:Ch 20 Caught wearing reading spectacles he has hidden from his court; rages, then steadies as the bargain emerges, and finally relents — paranoid but already grinning at the silk price he is squeezing out of Eventeo.
- EL:EL:Ch 29 Cracks under Sarene's threat to publish his secret dependence on Teo contracts; signs the countermand recalling his troops from Elantris, then sobs into his hands.
- EL:EL:Ch 32 Sulks in his sculpture garden at the ball, slips away on foot, and is caught in the sewers naked behind a Jeskeri Mysteries altar with a sacrificed serving maid. Eondel takes him to jail.
Relations
- relatedRoial — Iadon's posthumous decree, read by Seinalan at his funeral, hands the throne to Roial through his marriage into the family. EL:EL:Ch 38
Backreferences
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 1
- factRaoden
- factArelon
- factKae
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 2
- factRaoden
- factIadon
- factEshen
- factKetol
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 4
- factKarata
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 5
- factGyorn
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 6
- factShu-Keseg
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 8
- factIadon
- factIadon
- factSarene
- factTelrii
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 9
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 10
- factEondel
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 11
- factSarene
- factRoial
- factShuden
- factEdan
- factIald
- factWidow's Trial
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 13
- factIadon
- factKarata
- factOpais
- factThe Well of Elantris
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 14
- factIadon
- factSarene
- factHrathen
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 15
- factRaoden
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 17
- factIadon
- factSarene
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 18
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 19
- factRaoden
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 20
- factIadon
- factIadon
- factIadon
- factSarene
- factKiin
- factMeala
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 21
- factIadon
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 22
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 23
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 24
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 25
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 26
- factIadon
- factEdan
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 27
- factHrathen
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 29
- factSarene
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 30
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 32
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 35
- factSarene
- factSeinalan
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 36
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 38
- factIadon
- factSeinalan
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 39
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 43
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 44
- factTelrii
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 46
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 47
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 48
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 50
- factRaoden
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 53
- factRaoden
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 55
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 56
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 58
- summaryEL:EL:Epilogue
- factRaoden
- factArelon
- factHrathen
- factSaolin