Scott Lynch's Thorn of Emberlain is Not Completed

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

14 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

I just assumed he picked a gang he knew he could use...

Though maybe that's something that'll come back to be revealed...

 

They were tiny… why would they be of more use than another gang?  He… apparently had no idea before the Falconer’s surveillance they were false facers playing confidence games.

[Derfel Cadarn]

4 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

They were tiny… why would they be of more use than another gang?  He… apparently had no idea before the Falconer’s surveillance they were false facers playing confidence games.

Probably spied on all the gangs before making any move, to know who was best to hit, learn weaknessss while they were all complacent. Once bodies started dropping, they would be more alert and suspicious

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Probably spied on all the gangs before making any move, to know who was best to hit, learn weaknessss while they were all complacent. Once bodies started dropping, they would be more alert and suspicious

How?  Falconer was using Vestris.  The Scorpionhawk couldn’t see all things at all times.  That’s simply impossible.  Further Falconer cost for every moment of his services.  

They got luckier than imagined when the Grey King picked the GB’s is possible but it still doesn’t explain why the Grey King picked the GB’s in the first place.

[Zuzu Bolin]

Vestris was flying overhead when Calo and Galdo were pretend beating up Jean and Locke whilst Bug was up high keeping watch. The Falconer's curiosity may have been piqued.

[Gaston de Foix]

4 hours ago, Zuzu Bolin said:

Vestris was flying overhead when Calo and Galdo were pretend beating up Jean and Locke whilst Bug was up high keeping watch. The Falconer's curiosity may have been piqued.

My memory has faded but is it possible given Locke's supposed past identity that someone whispered the name of the gentleman bastards in the Falconer's ears?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

5 hours ago, Gaston de Foix said:

My memory has faded but is it possible given Locke's supposed past identity that someone whispered the name of the gentleman bastards in the Falconer's ears?

I’m unaware of that… but it would make some sense.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

9 hours ago, Zuzu Bolin said:

Vestris was flying overhead when Calo and Galdo were pretend beating up Jean and Locke whilst Bug was up high keeping watch. The Falconer's curiosity may have been piqued.

That’s the “extraordinary luck” possibility.

[C.T. Phipps]

On 6/27/2022 at 2:05 PM, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I’m re-reading tLofLL and something I’ve never put my finger on… why did the Grey King know to set the Falconer to watch the Gentleman Bastards?  I get that watching them is how he found out about their confidence games… but why watch them in the first place?

I took this as less a convoluted matter than people are accrediting it with. The Gentleman Bastards have managed to humiliate and steal a vast fortune from the nobility of their hometown while relying on their humiliation to keep their victims silent. I'm inclined to think the Grey King, who has been observing events for some time, caught wind of this and found out who was responsible.

Edited August 6, 2022 by C.T. Phipps

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

35 minutes ago, C.T. Phipps said:

I took this as less a convoluted matter than people are accrediting it with. The Gentleman Bastards have managed to humiliate and steal a vast fortune from the nobility of their hometown while relying on their humiliation to keep their victims silent. I'm inclined to think the Grey King, who has been observing events for some time, caught wind of this and found out who was responsible.

How?  Without knowing to look at them… they were too quiet to notice.  That was the whole point of their confidence games.  Make the marks too ashamed to go for help.  They over played their hand with the Salvara’s because they couldn’t have known they were fucking with the Spider’s favorite God child.

[C.T. Phipps]

8 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

How?  Without knowing to look at them… they were too quiet to notice.  That was the whole point of their confidence games.  Make the marks too ashamed to go for help.  They over played their hand with the Salvara’s because they couldn’t have known they were fucking with the Spider’s favorite God child.

That's actually what I'm getting at. Locke and company haven't been nearly as clever as they think they are in hiding their activities. The Spider is already picking up what is going on and there's going to be people who notice what they have been doing but they're overconfident. We don't need to be told precisely how the Gray King found out about the fortune they stole because, well, he did.

Which implies they were not as good at covering themselves up as they think.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 minutes ago, C.T. Phipps said:

That's actually what I'm getting at. Locke and company haven't been nearly as clever as they think they are in hiding their activities. The Spider is already picking up what is going on and there's going to be people who notice what they have been doing but they're overconfident. We don't need to be told precisely how the Gray King found out about the fortune they stole because, well, he did.

Which implies they were not as good at covering themselves up as they think.

So… by that logic… the Gray King had someone in with the Spider to get that information.  And if that’s the case why wasn’t the Spider jumping up and down on Locke’s balls?

Either Locke and the other GB’s are successfully hiding their activities… or… the people who would like to shut them down, the Spider, Barsavi, etc… know whats going on and have some reason to allow it to continue.  There were no leaks from inside the Camori GBs.  As such it doesn’t make sense for the Gray King/Falconer to know about the GBs without there being a leak from within the GBs.

The most logical source for the Gray King/Falconer’s information and desire to put the squeeze on the GBs is the member of the GBs who was no longer with the GBs… Sabitha.  But Lynch doesn’t go there… at least not yet.

[C.T. Phipps]

23 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

So… by that logic… the Gray King had someone in with the Spider to get that information.  And if that’s the case why wasn’t the Spider jumping up and down on Locke’s balls?

Either Locke and the other GB’s are successfully hiding their activities… or… the people who would like to shut them down, the Spider, Barsavi, etc… know whats going on and have some reason to allow it to continue.  There were no leaks from inside the Camori GBs.  As such it doesn’t make sense for the Gray King/Falconer to know about the GBs without there being a leak from within the GBs.

The most logical source for the Gray King/Falconer’s information and desire to put the squeeze on the GBs is the member of the GBs who was no longer with the GBs… Sabitha.  But Lynch doesn’t go there… at least not yet.

No, I'm saying the Gray King has his own spies in the city and is ahead of matters. Maybe the Falconer helped but given the majority of the plot happens because the Gray King takes out Locke's fortune and kills members of the group, I believe that its important to state, "Yes, he is that good."

Which is to say, "Locke and company didn't hide their tracks perfectly and their con games WERE going to be found out. Its just the Gray King found out first."

Which I don't think is a particularly out there take.

And even if we were to go with Sabetha, she has no information on the group's present activities.

Edited August 7, 2022 by C.T. Phipps

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

38 minutes ago, C.T. Phipps said:

And even if we were to go with Sabetha, she has no information on the group's present activities.

Sabetha didn’t need to have any information about the GB’s current activities to say in a fit of anger, jealousy, or irritation that the “GBs aren’t sneak theives or upper story men they are a small gang of false facers ripping off the Camorri nobility with a ton of white iron in a vault beneath the Temple of Perelandro”. 

Once the Gray King knows the above he could set the Falconer on the GBs to learn more about their activities and as he learns more set his trap for Locke.  The more I think about this the more it makes sense.  The GBs trust each other absolutely so much so that they never even consider one of their number, even one no longer among them, either deliberately or accidentally giving away their games.  Sabetha is the only one who was away from Camorr. She’s the only one who had need of cash.  She’s the only one angry about how things were playing out, so angry she left the City.

I think Sabetha, accidentally or purposely, set the Gray King onto the GBs and that we just haven’t gotten to that part of the story yet.

[C.T. Phipps]

59 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Sabetha didn’t need to have any information about the GB’s current activities to say in a fit of anger, jealousy, or irritation that the “GBs aren’t sneak theives or upper story men they are a small gang of false facers ripping off the Camorri nobility with a ton of white iron in a vault beneath the Temple of Perelandro”.

I admit I actually always side with Sabetha in the Locke/Sabetha issue because she's the one who has made her boundaries clear and he's the one who seems to ignore they're not boyfriend and girlfriend anymore. It's one of the best awful relationships in fiction, IMHO. I think it would have come up, though, if she was somehow responsible for the death of some of the people she was raised with as brothers, though.

Versus, again, Locke and company having been too obvious in their heists and left a trail for a sufficiently clever person studying the city to follow.

I could be wrong, though.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

13 minutes ago, C.T. Phipps said:

I admit I actually always side with Sabetha in the Locke/Sabetha issue because she's the one who has made her boundaries clear and he's the one who seems to ignore they're not boyfriend and girlfriend anymore. It's one of the best awful relationships in fiction, IMHO. I think it would have come up, though, if she was somehow responsible for the death of some of the people she was raised with as brothers, though.

Versus, again, Locke and company having been too obvious in their heists and left a trail for a sufficiently clever person studying the city to follow.

I could be wrong, though.

The latter presumes Barsavi and the Spider are incompetent.  Sabetha doesn’t even have to be malicious… just in cautious at the wrong moment.

[C.T. Phipps]

3 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The latter presumes Barsavi and the Spider are incompetent.  Sabetha doesn’t even have to be malicious… just in cautious at the wrong moment.

Yet she would absolutely still be responsible. Also, something she'd know or think about in The Republic of Thieves.

And I think Barsavi is absolutely incompetent because his organization is utterly destroyed in a handful of days.

The Spider is also about to find out about Locke and company. They would almost certainly have done so in a few weeks at most and were already investigating the con games. Mind you, part of the idea I got from The Lies of Locke Lamora is that Locke and company's "good days" were never meant to be eternal and staying ine one place, being comfortable, was always doomed.

Their overconfidence got them killed and we saw the result of it.

I know some readers think they would have gotten away with it forever if not for the Falconer and Gray King.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

Yet she would absolutely still be responsible. Also, something she'd know or think about in The Republic of Thieves.

And I think Barsavi is absolutely incompetent because his organization is utterly destroyed in a handful of days.

The Spider is also about to find out about Locke and company. They would almost certainly have done so in a few weeks at most and were already investigating the con games. Mind you, part of the idea I got from The Lies of Locke Lamora is that Locke and company's "good days" were never meant to be eternal and staying ine one place, being comfortable, was always doomed.

Their overconfidence got them killed and we saw the result of it.

I know some readers think they would have gotten away with it forever if not for the Falconer and Gray King.

But the Falconer or Gray King randomly happening upon the GB and their games doesn’t further the pathos of the story.  Sabetha, inadvertently, giving that information to the Gray King or the Falconer… does.

[Rhom]

All I'm getting out of this is that I need to re-read LoLL.

 

[3CityApache]

Same. And I'm planning to, once the Thorn is finally published.

[C.T. Phipps]

On 7/5/2022 at 12:57 PM, Gaston de Foix said:

My memory has faded but is it possible given Locke's supposed past identity that someone whispered the name of the gentleman bastards in the Falconer's ears?

I mean, I'm like 90% sure that Locke was getting conned there. Because that was the absolute most hurtful thing that the Falconcer's Mother could do to him.

And it's a book about cons.