The Republic of Thieves read along, part TWO.

Posted by: Redhead on: November 4, 2013

• In: read along | Scott Lynch
• 39 Comments

Bad planning on my part folks, when I was chopping up the book for the read along, I did it by chapter headings in the e-book table of contents, not by actual page count. So this week was a doozy! On the bright side, we’re nearly half way through the book, so future sections will be shorter!

okay, let’s get to the discussion, this week’s excellent discussion questions were provided by Lisa of Over the Effing Rainbow, and I love that she did a question for each chapter!  My answers are after the jump. Be warned friends, I wrote a freakin’ thesis.  That Sabetha thing? yeah, apparently that hit a chord with me, just so ya know.

teh questions:

1.Blood And Breath And Water: Patience tells Locke that the ritual to save him is serious business. She wasn’t kidding… What did you make of this scene, and do you think any of it might (perhaps literally) come back to haunt Locke?

2. Orphan’s Moon: Back to the childhood of the Gentlemen Bastards, and here we get another ritual, this one in service to the Nameless Thirteenth. It looks as though it might be Locke vs. Sabetha, round two – but this time Locke seems to be a little slow on that uptake… Who do you think deserves to be given the final oath? Locke or Sabetha?

3.Across The Amathel: This chapter takes a breather for quite a bit of Eldren history, while Locke starts recovering. What do you think of the history lesson, and Patience’s ominous speculation regarding the Eldren? Is this something you’d like to know more about?

4. Striking Sparks: The gang’s off to Espara, after a bad summer and a pretty thorough dressing-down from Chains, and we finally get to the source of the book’s title – they’re bound for the stage! What are your thoughts on this latest ‘challenge’ and the reasons for it?

5. The Five-Year Game: Starting Position: The election gets underway with a party (as you do) and before it’s even over, the Deep Roots party has problems – and not just thanks to Sabetha. What do you make of Nikoros and his unfortunate habit?

6. Bastards Abroad: The gang arrives in Espara, and already they’ve got problems (nicely mirroring the Five Year Game!)… This aside, we’ve also seen some more of what seems to be eating at Sabetha. Do you sympathise with her, or is Locke right to be frustrated with her?

them is some awesome questions!

Everyone else’s answers:

Over the Effing Rainbow

Dab of Darkness

Lynn’s Book Blog

Tethyan Books

Violin in a Void

Genkinahito’s Blog

Just Book Reading

Joma’s Fantasy Books

Theft and Sorcery

Many a True Nerd

All I am – A Redhead

mah answers:

1.Blood And Breath And Water: Patience tells Locke that the ritual to save him is serious business. She wasn’t kidding… What did you make of this scene, and do you think any of it might (perhaps literally) come back to haunt Locke?

Oh, I loved this scene! the lines painted (in specific patterns?) on his body, the dreamsteel that spikes all over the place, how the ritual exhausts the bondsmagi, and Locke’s vision of Bug, that part creeped the shit out of me. There’s a romanticism about lines on the body, almost like ley lines, of sorts. The dreamsteel scene followed by the Bug dream put me in the mind of a glorious bastard child of Genndy Tartakovsky’s Anakin Skywalker and the storytelling girl from Catherynne Valente’s Orphan’s Tales.

Will it come back to haunt Locke? Gods I hope so. Would that not make for some awesome tension, or what?

2. Orphan’s Moon: Back to the childhood of the Gentlemen Bastards, and here we get another ritual, this one in service to the Nameless Thirteenth. It looks as though it might be Locke vs. Sabetha, round two – but this time Locke seems to be a little slow on that uptake… Who do you think deserves to be given the final oath? Locke or Sabetha?

If Locke stood in front of a mirror long enough, he might notice two things. One, that he is completely dim witted about Sabetha; and two, that he never does anything on a small scale. The Gents need offerings for the ceremony. Does Locke simply pickpocket someone? Nope. He takes hours and hours making an elaborate cake, planning a scene, choosing a mark. He makes sure Jean is involved, so someone is around to tell the story afterwards.

He’s got Sabetha on such a pedestal that he doesn’t even notice how she doesn’t need her ego stroked, that she doesn’t brag about anything, that she doesn’t need a buddy or a sidekick who is waiting with baited breath to tell the story. Sabetha may not have a crazy adventure, but Wow does she get impressive results.

But who actually deserved the priesthood?  Is it cheating to say both of them? I think Chains chose Locke before that night, he’s seen the crafty genius in the boy. Sabetha may be just as deserving, but the things that Locke has already done! She may be just as talented, but he is louder about it.  Makes me feel a little sorry for Sabetha though. I bet she was really pissed off at Chains, and he deserved it. Most of us have read Red Seas Under Red Skies, and if you remember, there are a few scenes in that book that couldn’t have happened if Locke wasn’t a priest.

3.Across The Amathel: This chapter takes a breather for quite a bit of Eldren history, while Locke starts recovering. What do you think of the history lesson, and Patience’s ominous speculation regarding the Eldren? Is this something you’d like to know more about?

Arrggg, this is where Patience began grating on mine. A huge pet peeve of mine is the “may I ask you some questions?” conversation because they tend to be characters talking at each other rather than with each other.  I did enjoy (and we needed!) the history lesson, I just didn’t care for how it was presented.  Maybe a story-within-a-story would have been more effective? Something more akin to the flashback that Patience offers through a stab of dreamsteel to the eyes?  ehh, I dunno.  I’ll quit bitching, because yes, I do want to know more about the Eldren!

Lynch has dropped some rumors here and there that after this book, Locke and Jean find themselves involved in a massive civil war. I am suddenly wondering if said civil war involves the factions of the Bondsmagi, and the taunting of whatever scared the Eldren. that, would be fucking awesome.

4. Striking Sparks: The gang’s off to Espara, after a bad summer and a pretty thorough dressing-down from Chains, and we finally get to the source of the book’s title – they’re bound for the stage! What are your thoughts on this latest ‘challenge’ and the reasons for it?

And it all starts with Locke having a very particular dream.  Braggy bit – I heard Lynch read that exact scene at a convention, it was just great. He’s an excellent reader, and people were howling with laughter.

I’m surprised Calo doesn’t get stuck with sweeping under the horse cart every night, since it was his early morning shouting that woke up everyone else in the glass  burrow and led to Chains being even more pissed off.

But put yourself in Chains’s position.  Most normal families have children  who are a few years apart. Often there is only one kid at a time going through awkward years. All five of Chains’ adopted kids are within a few years of each other, they are all going through those awful teenage years all at the same time. No surprise he’s pulling his hair out. And this will be good for them. Like Chains says, it’s time to see if they can all work together as one big team, pull something off, not get killed or arrested. Chains isn’t young anymore, and neither are the Bastards. It’s time they proved how much they’ve matured. It’s time they proved they can function without their “dad” around the help and guide them.

5. The Five-Year Game: Starting Position: The election gets underway with a party (as you do) and before it’s even over, the Deep Roots party has problems – and not just thanks to Sabetha. What do you make of Nikoros and his unfortunate habit?

woohoo, party!  I know it happened a few scenes ago, but I love the lady tailors. I think Jean could easily fall in love with one of them, or all of them. They are so nonchalant about the Wicked Sisters, they’ve even got multiple rig designs!

Locke is absolutely in his element, making plans and picking fights, getting the obvious over and done with. This is what he lives for, and it’s doing more for his health than any dogleech could have hoped for. Until now, Jean has been carrying many of the scenes, mostly because Locke is half dead, so I wonder if Jean is relieved that he can take a step back and be the bruiser?

And then there is Sabetha’s little trick.  That’s so her. To do something simple and oh so painfully effective.

6. Bastards Abroad: The gang arrives in Espara, and already they’ve got problems (nicely mirroring the Five Year Game!)… This aside, we’ve also seen some more of what seems to be eating at Sabetha. Do you sympathise with her, or is Locke right to be frustrated with her?

I sympathise with Sabetha, absolutely. Even though at the same time, I’m cheering on Locke. I could write an entire blog post, nay, a thesis on this.

A quick aside – I love how the Espara storyline mirrors the Five Year Game. The Bastards are brought in from far away to save a situation they know nothing about. Everyone is working under aliases. They are outside of their comfort zone, with little time to plan or work something out. There are surprises around every corner and they don’t know who they can trust.

Sabetha is on the quiet side, but she ain’t stupid. She sees Locke as the little boy who replaced her. If it wasn’t for him, she’d be the one leading the Gentleman Bastards. if it wasn’t for him, the first book in this series would be called the The Sins of Sabetha Belacoros (doesn’t quite roll off the tongue, does it?), or some such. And now, the strange little boy who took her place has put her on a pedestal so high that he can barely hear what she’s saying.

It’s not that she’s not attracted to him (wow, was that enough double negatives for you?). And it would be so easy to indulge him, so easy to get into a relationship with the man who adores her. What woman doesn’t dream of that exact situation? Sounds like a perfect corset busting regency romance plot line, actually.

But if she indulges him, if she takes the easy route, she will effectively disappear in his shadow.  She’s seen how the other GB’s take her suggestions as suggestions, and Locke’s suggestions as holy orders, how the Sanza boys immediately latch onto an alias for Locke but pay hardly any attention to her chosen alias. She knows if she got into a relationship with him, the price would be her potential and her ambition. She’d give up herself, her agency, to be with him.

And because Locke is the hero of the story, he is completely blind to her feelings.  He can’t escape the requirements of the character that’s been written for him. Every step he takes towards being the leader of the Gentleman Bastards is a step away from Sabetha, and he just doesn’t get it.   Even more than he can’t take her off a pedestal, we, the readers and the fans, can’t take him off a pedestal. His pain, his destruction, is entertainment for us. ugg, we’re sick fuckers!

It’s extra fun, in a meta sort of way.  Fans like us, we are indulging Locke. we are stroking his ego by singing his praises.  We’re cheering on his “everyone! look at me!” behavior, we’re clamoring for his next adventure, we want to be that buddy who gets to tell the story, we quote him to other people for godssakes!!  In a way, we’ve already told Locke that anything he did to be the leader of the Gentleman Bastards was worth it, it never even dawned on us to ask what it would cost him.  As my mother used to say, “if you have to ask, you can’t afford it”.

Give us incredible characters, do horrible things to them, and then make your readers feel partly responsible. Well played Lynch, well played.

Tags: fantasy, Locke Lamora, read along