GB Readalong: Week 3

The Lies of Locke Lamora Read-along continues...

We're over halfway through Lies of Locke Lamora!   

If you're just joining in, check out the intro post for the schedule and other details!

What we're reading this week

Lies of Locke Lamora | Book III, Chapters 9-13

Recap from last week

Flashbacks: We learn more about Chains' trials for the boys, including how Jean Tannen learned to fight and a certain scheme that involves keeping someone down until Jean Tannen comes back...

Present Day: We finally meet the Falconer, Nazca is killed, Locke plays the Gray King is practically destroyed by a livid Capa Barsavi.

Observations/Theories/Questions

Phew, things got really intense, really fast!

This Book was called "Complications", and that certainly describes this part of the book really well. Although the complication is initially a benign, "let's find a way to not marry Nazca without offending dear old Capa Barsavi," it ends up being the enormously harrowing "let's try to avoid being killed when we're trapped between a Bondsmage and a furious, bloodthirsty father"!

If you haven't already figured this out about the Gentleman Bastards series, you absolutely cannot count on the fact that your favorite characters are going to be okay.

Consider yourself warned.

Food for thought:

• More on the Elderglass:
  
  "miles and miles of spun Elderglass cords had been found in the tunnels beneath Camorr centuries before" (UK paperback, p284)
  
  Who found the cables, and what were they doing there in the first place? This suggests that someone built these fantastical structures that the humans still don't know much about but then suddenly disappeared, leaving their creations behind. For a group that powerful, human or otherwise, to disappear without a trace...something really big had to have happened.
  
  I believe Republic of Thieves mentions a group of people called The Elders. Maybe talking about who the Elders are and what happened to them is a discussion for later on in the summer.
  
• Locke's past:
  
  When we find out that Jean's parents died days before the Thiefmaker brought him to Father Chains, Locke tells Jean that he doesn't remember his mother but his father was "away a lot." I'm going to keep tabs on these little details from Locke's past before being a Catchfire orphan so that I can compare it to revelations further along in the series.
  
• The Gray King:
  
  Locke and Jean have already established that the Gray King is someone unspeakably wealthy for being able to employ a bondsmage (one with three rings no less) for over two months. We also get a little hint that Locke has met the Gray King before, but can't place it. I honestly don't remember the identity of the Gray King or even if that's something we find out in this book, so I'm guessing along with you first time readers. Who could even potentially be that rich and yet have no one know their true identity? That takes a lot of power, or at least a lot of ability to manipulate people into keeping you a secret even if they do find out who you are (just like the bondsmages going around and beating all their competitors into submission...)

And since this was such a dark section, here's something to cheer you up from In A World Full of Tasters:

How do you think things will turn out for Locke? Any thoughts on who the Gray King is?