“cardigan” tells the James-Betty story from Betty’s perspective alongside Taylor Swift’s “august.”
Folklore’s interconnected narrative uses three songs to show a fictional love triangle. “cardigan” is associated with Betty, “betty” is narrated from James’s perspective, and “august” follows the unnamed girl involved in James’s summer romance.
The connection is reinforced by recurring names and overlapping events rather than by a single continuous plot presented in chronological order. The three songs invite listeners to compare how each character remembers the relationship and its aftermath.
A common mix-up is to answer “betty” because that song names Betty in its title. However, the song connected to Betty’s perspective is “cardigan”; “betty” is James’s perspective, while “august” belongs to the summer-romance narrator.