SPOILERIFIC THREAD: Thick as Thieves & the Queen’s Thief Series by Megan Whalen Turner
A thread for discussing Megan Whalen Turner’s Queen’s Thief series with spoilers included. All your thoughts are welcome.
For those readers who prefer spoiler-free reviews and discussions, reviews of the earlier books can be found below:
The Thief
The Queen of Attolia
The King of Attolia
A Conspiracy of Kings
Thick as Thieves
Our interview with Megan Whalen Turner, including her discussion of her writing process and twists, can be found here.
@etv13 (in the Thick as Thieves thread):
HERE BE SPOILERS, BIG SPOILERS:
Okay, so here are my thoughts on that. I think the wine merchant was Immakuk, and the prosperous gentleman who helped Kamet decide to go back for Costis was Ennikar. Costis kept calling the latter Ennikar, and Kamet put it down to his delerium, but remember, Costis had an encounter with the god of thieves in The King of Attolia, so my bet is on him to recognize an immortal. Later on, Kamet wonders who the wine merchant was, and marvels at how that wine merchant very luckily rescues him, not once but twice. And an answer is never given. And if you think about it, the other guy, who I think is Ennikar, rescues Costis, not once but twice. First by pep-talking Kamet into going back for him, and later by getting them past the guards who are hunting them.
So. What I consider the main twist is that Nahuseresh wasn’t dead at all, and Laela lied to Kamet. I did not figure that out at all. What I thought the twist was going to be was that Costis not only knew about Nahuseresh’s death all along, but he was the one who had killed him, or helped the person who did, on behalf of Eugenides. The whole time Kamet dwelled on how the Attolian didn’t know that Nahuseresh was dead, and what would happen to him if the Attolian found out, I thought this was dramatic irony. And I guess it was, but not the kind of dramatic irony I thought it was.
The part of the twist that I did figure out was the identity of the kitchen boot-boy whom Kamet had befriended in Attolia. My husband had no idea, and I was laughing up my sleeve when Kamet talked of how the kitchen boy had been sent back to his relatives in disgrace and sent Kamet some poetry or play from his cousin’s library that had been transcribed in bad handwriting.
The “inconsistency” that bugged me in A Conspiracy of Kings was that Gen was still getting sand in his food even after he had revealed himself to the Attolian court in The King of Attolia. But that was explained beautifully here by the altercation Gen had with the cook.
With regard to Costis’s identity, I think the main hint was simply in how honorable and honest he was. That was how I figured it out. Then he gave the name “Aris” to the guards on the caravan, and Aris was Costis’ best friend in The King of Attolia. The ring with the god Miras was also mentioned as a possession of Costis’s in The King of Attolia.
Can you elaborate on what you are referring to here?
Yes! I couldn’t agree more.
I agree with you that the main twist is that Nahuseresh isn’t really dead. I had both of your possibilities in mind (i.e., he wasn’t really dead, or Costis knew he was dead all along), but I thought the not-really-dead was most likely, because all we ever had was Laela’s word for it and Kamet never sees the bills that were posted.
By possible secondary twist, I was referring to Gen’s being the sandal-cleaner who sent the badly written scroll. I couldn’t remember his interactions with Kamet in The Queen of Attolia well enough to know if somebody who remembered better than I do would have just known that, the way I knew the Attolian had to be Costis. And speaking of which, did he feel Costis-like to you? He seemed much savvier and more bad-ass to me — and also, as I said in an earlier comment, bigger and better-looking than I had imagined from The King of Attolia. Although I suppose those qualities (except for maybe the good looks) help explain why Teleus liked him and Gen singled him out in the first place.
I am pretty sure the gentleman who sent Kamet back to the well was a god. I missed the wine-merchant.
Thanks so much for this spoiler thread!
@etv13: One of the reasons I had assumed that it was the second possiblity (that Costis knew all along) rather than that Laela had lied to Nahuseresh was that in The King of Attolia, Costis and Gen’s attendants see Gen having that temper tantrum (where he ruins the bedpost) over being unable to go and strangle Nahuseresh personally. Not long after that, in one of the last scenes in The King of Attolia, Eugenides tells Costis that he has a new job for him. At the time that I read it, I thought the job would be to send Costis into the Mede empire in order to kill Nahuseresh.
Gen being a sandal-cleaner wasn’t hinted at in The Queen of Attolia, as far as I recall (maybe someone will correct me?). It was mentioned that he spotted Irene in the kitchen gardens, though I can’t recall if that was just in The Queen of Attolia (he sees her dancing alone, with imaginary “sisters,” under some kind of fruit trees when he is quite young) or also in the scene he describes to Sophos in A Conspiracy of Kings, where he sees Dite trying to propose to Irene and realizes he loves her when it is not longer funny.
What clued me in to Gen being the kitchen sandal-cleaner were smaller things, like the mention of his cousin’s library (in both The Thief and The Queen of Attolia, he lived in the Queen of Eddis’s library prior to his move to Attolia), and his poor handwriting post-amuptation (in The King of Attolia he sent Costis notes on his meetings with his teachers / advisors but the letters were blocky and shaky, due, as it turns out, to his having to learn to write with his left hand). I also think he may have sent someone some stuff from the library in Eddis before, but I’m fuzzy on whether that was the Magus, Relius, or just something I imagined that never actually took place.
The wine merchant (Immakuk?) was the person who, early on, got Kamet to the docks where he met Costis, and whom Kamet later hid from in the first inn, thus narrowly escaping being seen by the guards who were after him. At first I thought he was an agent of Gen’s and it wasn’t until late in the book that I realized otherwise.
ETA: What did you think of the scene in the garden between Kamet and Irene? I thought it was heartbreaking but so well-done. Maybe my favorite scene in the book. Everyone else feel welcome to chime in.
@etv13: SPOILERS, SPOILERS (Adding this so Jennie’s first sentence won’t show in the comments sidebar. -Janine) I doubted that Nahuseresh was dead for the same reasons – it stuck out at me that Kamet never had first-hand confirmation, and every time he worried about the Attolian seeing a notice somehow it would shake out so that Kamet himself never saw it. Same with his fears that someone who was hunting him would mention it. It was like the fact that Kamet’s fears kept coming up and being emphasized pointed to the fear being baseless.
@Janine – good detective work on Gen being the sandal-cleaner! All the stuff you noticed went over my head.
@Jennie: SPOILERS SPOILERS. In my own reading, I also noticed the emphasis on Kamet’s fears that Costis would learn the truth, but I took it as a hint that Costis knew all along and had been involved in Nahuseresh’s death in some way. The only thing that didn’t fit with that was that Nahuseresh was poisoned, and poisoning didn’t seem like Costis’s MO. But then I thought that maybe Ornon had done it, or someone else who had accompanied Costis on his mission to Ianna-Ir.
With regard to Gen’s being the kitchen boy, I was greatly helped by having just reread the first four books! But my husband didn’t figure it out, and he had read them with me.
So much depends on how literally short-sighted Kamet is – and it’s fun that way. The wine merchant is mos def Immakuk, because he’s missing an eye, and Unsu-Sek claws one eye out in Kamets translation to Costis. Immakuk’s delivery is PRICELESS though- UM HELLO IT IS ME A COMMOM WINE MERCHANT AND STUFF. I adore that Kamet is the wise king – the Annux will surely install him as ruler once he breakers the Mede empire. Who better to square the accounts and understand every level of society? And although they are precious boyfriends, I thought Aristogiton was his squeeze? She went to weird lengths to show Costis and Kamet too as SERIOUSLY I WAS ALWAYS INTO LADIES AND LADIES ONLY, which is doubly wierd when you throw little Godekker and his hinted past of being thrown over by a lover who got him to run away. But then Enkidu and G were also always with ladies, even though Gilgamesh loves Enkidu “As A Wife”… so bi/pan sexuality for the win?
Man, that scene with Irene was pitch perfect. But your killin’ me, Turner – stop with the constant reminders about the fragility of life and helpfully pointing out that the health of the king is also poor. Let’s not forget there’s a looming volcanic explosion in the near future, too!
Also, which Erondites is the new attendant/jr spy master? I thought both brothers were imprisoned/exiled…?? Did Gen settle the estate on the disinherited sister who’d married for love?
MWT has always been a fav of mine, especially QUEEN OF ATTOLIA, so I was excited to find this thread, and Jennie and Janine’s joint review.
I agree that it is difficult to read new books in the series, because one knows now to expect the “twist.” I’ve always found it interesting that in order to create that “twist,” MWT had to shift POV between the first-person THEIF to third person but inside the heads of Gen and the Queen in QUEEN, then to another character’s POV entirely in KING in order for it to be plausible for the secrets to be kept. In THICK AS THIEVES, we’re back to the first person, but inside the head of a character who has no access to the “big” secrets. So Turner is able to keep readers in the dark, too, even while giving them the close access of a first person narrative.
I was one that figured out both of the big twists pretty early (although the twist that Gen had kept Costis in the dark was one I didn’t expect, but probably should have, given all of Kamet’s comments about how honest the Attolian soldier was).
Do you consider this book a love story? A “bromance”? (Friendship but not sexual attraction?) An enemies who become friends road trip story? I’ve been reading a lot of m/m romance of late, and so was really rooting for a love story to develop between Costis and Kamet. The way that Kamet regards Costis (as so much braver and brawnier than readers will think of him, remembering him from KING) make me think his regard might be tinted by his attraction to men in general. Turner doesn’t give us much about the sexual practices of the Mede culture, though, so we have no idea if sexual relations or love between men is acceptable. And to argue against the idea that we’re meant to read “romance” into Costis and Kamet’s relationship, we have the references to Ennikar always getting in trouble with “maids” (but Costis could be noting that ironically), and the stories Kamet and Costis share about their early first, decidedly heterosexual crushes.
The characters here are clearly not children. But since the first book in the series was published for children, and the subsequent books have been issued by the same children’s book publisher, it may be difficult for MWT to include actual sexuality in the books. Too bad; I would have liked to have seen her grapple with issues of culture and sexuality, as well as friendship between cultures.
Oh, and I loved the Gilgamesh-inflected poetry/stories. Try reading them out loud; they’re really beautifully written!
@kormantic: Thanks for mentioning that about the wine merchant, because I didn’t pick up on the missing eye detail. I started out thinking he was an agent of Gen’s, and realized he was Immakuk only at the end, after Gen denied it. I’m sure that and his delivery will be fun when I reread TaT.
@kormantic: Was there something about Erondites working for Gen in this book? I totally missed it. Can you remind me what it was?
@Jackie: My favorite is The King of Attolia, but I love Queen, too.
That’s an interesting intepretation of what’s behind Turner’s POV choices, and one that hadn’t occurred to me before. I wouldn’t assume that is all that’s behind them, but I’m sure keeping the twists secret from the reader is a big consideration. I am really curious as to who the POV character will be in book six. After reading A Conspiracy of Kings, I wondered whether we would get one from a Mede perspective, and in Thick as Thieves we sort of did. I don’t really have any theories about book six, but I’m hoping for Relius because I really love him. Though I suppose he is too old to be the POV character in a YA novel.
@Jackie and @kormantic: I did read it as a bromance, though near the very end, when we Costis shows up again much to Kamet’s surprise, I thought perhaps it was more than that. I was never certain if Aris was Costis’ lover, or just as a close friend, but if they were, people can have more than one relationship in their lifetimes.
Besides Godekker, there is also Legarus in The King of Attolia, whose lover uses neptoism as a guise to promote his squad so there will only be neophytes on duty during the assassination attempt. So there are definitely queer characters in this world, but one character’s sexuality doesn’t necessarily imply anything about another’s IMO.
I don’t think this being a kids’ book is the only reason there aren’t any sex scenes. Some of today’s YA novels do have brief sex scenes. I think putting in a sex scene would change the tone of these books and make them inconsistent with the earlier books. And I think it’s also a stylistic choice. Sometimes less is more. We wouldn’t be having this discussion if the answer was obvious. Sometimes it’s more interesting to wonder, and to use our imaginations, than to know.
@Jackie: I did read them out loud. They have a neat rhythm to them.
@janine KoA is my favorite – ah, poor Legarus the Awesomely Beautiful. At least Costis and Gen prevent them from dying for it!
I actually like that she keeps it deliberately ambiguous – keeps a 12 year old and grown ups alike considering from every angle, and isn’t rigid about sexuality being just one thing. It just seems weirdly jarring in Costis, thinking of him in debt to Ladies of the Night – but if sexual shame isn’t an aspect of these cultures, and it doesn’t seem to be, really, in Attolia and anyway, then sex work is just a job like any other. I wonder if Costis realized that, by assaulting him, Kamet saved him from more than bruises from the slaver? Kamet never had a chance to explain, because our sweet Costis felt worthy of any blame heaped upon him for “getting them captured”. After fighting off a lion! And hand feeding poor bleeding, frightened Kamet with gross mountain rat or whatever. Oh, Costis, how could anyone NOT fall in love with you, you beautiful crooning swoon-worthy goofball?
For me, I think Kamet thought “my Costis!” because he was well and truly in love with him, and I don’t think you run away to spy for your (adopted) country with your boyfriend usually, but it would be like Gen to send them on a busman’s honeymoon, I think.
As for Erondite, he was Gen’s “youngest attendant” and giving his tutor a hard time – but Kamet discovers he’s not a fool or a churl, he’s telling a joke in code, so he’s then apprenticed to Relius – and Kamet gives him tips on how to read his master’s notes and addresses the map to him, too.
I was intrigued to learn that the servants were INDENTURED, which explains why they had such status – essentially it was a rich kid apprenticeship that got them networking contacts and cut taxes for their parents.
Do you think Gen was posing as a “sandle polisher” while he was acting king, or was it really the time between his capture and his marriage? I think it must have been before? Because the kitchen crew says they put sand in his food because they felt hurt, not because they hated him or were showing how easy it would have been to poison him.
I will say, when she goes out of her way to be coy about something for no good reason- unless he really was Aris, which could have been fun, we knew he had to be Costis – who Gen patiently taught to read and speak Mede, after all – and I think Aris had dark curly hair. I wasn’t really sure why she kept us waiting – I admit she did throw me off when he called himself Aris, not thinking it would also be an alias like the one he gave Kamet.
The next book might be the Braeling – Skell? Who was going to buy an estate with his earnings? They need an in with the Continent, and new people to underestimate/discover Gen all over again.
One more thing: how intriguing/refreshing that it seems ALL the gods of each culture are real and yet living!
Also: completely without basis, I’ve decided Costis’s sister is marrying Aris. Although he’d have probably said that…
@kormantic:
I forgot to respond to this bit before:
I have a theory, and it’s only a theory, that Gen is in good health and this was a bit of misdirection. Remember in A Conspiracy of Kings he said Attolia’s palace physician was in competition with Galen (Eddis’s physician) and that seemed to be his explanation for his being doctored so much. And in The Queen of Attolia Gen was “closeted in his bedroom/library being seen by Galen alone” when in reality he was setting up his theft of Sounis’s Magus. My theory is that he isn’t as frail as he pretends, and instead he’s making sure the Medes continue to underestimate him or preparing to travel while being closeted in his rooms for medical reasons.
Re the characters’ sexuality, I like that it is kept ambiguous as well. I was not jarred by Costis’s story of being swindled by a pretty girl at all, though. It seemed totally in character for someone as honorable and honest as he to be completely taken in / conned. There was nothing said about whether or not any actual sex with this girl took place, or whether it was just a crush, but in any case, I also don’t see much indication as to whether Costis is gay, straight or bi. I’m not even sure these characters of that world think in those terms–
certainly throughout our own history we haven’t always used these labels. Because Costis’ sexuality isn’t the topic of the story, too, I’m wary of speculating too much.
I seem to recall that in one of the earlier threads (linked to above) someone said they’d thought Gen and Sophos would end up together, and were disappointed by Gen being matched with Irene. And while I love Gen and like Sophos a whole lot, I just can’t imagine the books being anywhere near as complex and interesting without Irene, or with Irene as the one dimensional villainess that she appeared to be in The Thief.
I still don’t remember that Erondites stuff. I wonder if it was in the ARC I read and went over my head completely, or only in the final book?
Gen was definitely, without question, serving as the “sandal polisher” in between The Thief and The Queen of Attolia. Remember he told Helen, in Queen that when he used to disappear from Eddis, he was mostly going to Attolia, to observe Irene. If you reread Kamet’s first thoughts on the “boot boy” / “sandal polisher,” he specifically writes to Kamet about being sent home to his relatives in disgrace from Attolia, and getting injured in the process — this would be when Gen is sent by Attolia back to Eddis post-amputation. Kamet also says Gen then sends him poetry or a play (I forget which) from his cousin’s library (which his where Gen lived during Queen), copied in a terrible hand (this fits as he was just learning to write left-handed), and which Kamet presumably receives while he is still in Attolia. And remember, Kamet and Nahuseresh escape Attolia at the end of Queen, so I don’t see how any of this could be happening concurrent with King. Or with The Thief, for that matter.
It is also unlikely that Gen could have polished sandals with one hand and not had Kamet remark on it.
Gen was therefore serving as sandal polisher just before his capture and marriage, and I’m guessing the sand in his food was his punishment for conning the kitchen staff, and for the sandal polisher’s altercation with the unpleasant cook which Kamet describes, as well as for taking so long to visit them.
IMO concealing Costis’ identity was effective; it was fun to try to guess. I guessed pretty early on, but Jennie didn’t, as you’ll see if you read our review (linked above — there’s an interesting, albeit spoiler-free, discussion at the bottom of that post which you might enjoy reading, too). And I think if Kamet had shared his name with readers early on, we would have known Gen was behind everything and less surprised by the final twist. Additionally, I thought the fact that Kamet refused to think of Costis as anything but the Attolian showed that Kamet was struggling not to trust Costis or his king, or believe in their promises of freedom.
The Braeling or another “Continental Powers”-based character is a great guess for the next book! I’m hoping for another third person, multi POVs that include Gen and Irene’s or at least people close to them, since it’s going to be the last book in the series.
Re. the gods, well, Kamet’s gods and Gen’s gods are living, but I’m not sure about Attolia’s prior gods such as Miras, whom Costis worships. There’s been no indications that these gods are still around; in fact, I think it may have been hinted in one of the earlier books that perhaps they were not.
@Janine: It’s not so much that I would like a sex scene (I don’t need/want one) but that the YA origins show in the somewhat sanitized version of human relationships. This isn’t a criticism per se; I think it’s just an artifact of the world that the story was created in.
@Jennie: Yes, that’s true.
As to the sexuality question, I agree that it’s important to keep in mind that our ideas of exclusive sexual preference are in fact very modern ideas and wouldn’t have occurred to ancient, medieval, or even early modern peoples. For example, King Edward II of England had five children with his wife and queen plus one bastard outside of his marriage, but he was also deeply in love with at least two men during his reign, Piers Gaveston and Hugh Despenser the Younger, and this in fact fueled his downfall. As for Kamet and Costis, I found it significant that their heterosexual liaisons were both explicitly connected to periods of immaturity and naievete in their lives, learning experiences that are embarrassing or painful in retrospect, whereas their relationship with each other develops at a time when both men are much more mature and when Kamet, at least, is first coming into a sense of himself as an individual. One thing I did wonder–perhaps I’m evil for wondering it–was whether Kamet’s relationship with Nausheresh was sexual at all. My skin crawled when his master called him back in after beating him and told him to disrobe in order to “examine his handiwork.” I don’t know, it was just a question that popped into my head.
I did guess the big twist at the end that Nausheresh wasn’t dead, but the Eugenides=sandal cleaner twist completely went over my head, maybe because I never though of him as a “boy” and that’s how Kamet describes him? I did completely call Enkidu (or, whoops, is that Gilgamesh’s bro?), but I missed Immakuk as the merchant! I thought he was one of Gen’s agents as well, right up to the end! The thing that I wonder about, though, is why Medean gods would help people who were trying to damage the Mede empire? Or is it because they pre-date the Medes and have no particular attachment to that culture, they just like fostering their own brand of friendship when they can?
@Amy Reynolds: Yes, that is one of the points I tried to make earlier, too. That our sexual mores and labels might not apply to these characters.
Re. Eugenides. As I said above, this would have happened between the events of The Thief and the events of The Queen of Attolia. And I recall that both queens referred to him as a boy early in The Queen of Attolia. His size and youth have led people to make that mistake in the past.
And yeah, I think you mean Ennikar! I wondered that too, about why they would choose to take the side they took, but then I decided they were simply trying to help Kamet gain his freedom. He had kept their myth alive by translating their tale, so perhaps they started keeping an eye on him and wanting to aid him then.
@Janine: Ooo, I like that a lot–Kamet as a myth-keeper, preserving and disseminating their stories, keeping them alive in a metaphysical way. I feel like that actually kind of fits in with the way he names Eugenides “Annux” at the end–he is extremely skilled with words and the words that he uses and the ways that he uses them constitute his central source of power, I think. In calling Eugenides Annux he helped MAKE him Annux, and in translating Ennikar and Immakuk’s stories and in sharing them–and in recreating them with Costis–he makes them more real. It’s a very Pratchett-ian way of thinking about the gods and I quite like thinking about it applying to this series…
@Amy Reynolds: I think it was Teleus who first predicted Eugenides would be an “Annux” or “a king of kings” at the very end of The King of Attolia. And in A Conspiracy of Kings Gen did become a king over Sophos and Helen. I wonder if over time their three kingdoms will become one. But Kamet naming him an Annux was interesting too, and shows Kamet’s perceptiveness and Gen’s power.
As to the gods, with the Attolian gods, it does seem like they rewarded Gen for making sacrifices to them. And he has recommended it to others too, so it’s been implied throughout the series that the gods reward those who pay attention to them. That’s why I think it’s possible that Immakuk and Ennikar wanted to reward Kamet for keeping their narrative alive, loving it, and spreading it as far as Attolia. That’s my theory, anyway.
I have not read much Pratchett (started one book once and quit when it didn’t grab me) but that sounds interesting.
There’s a really interesting interview with Megan Whalen Turner in Vox today.
https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/6/12/15692920/megan-whalen-turner-interview-queens-thief
Hello! Great to find this thread after listening to all the books :)
What about the heir that was mentioned? Do you think we can expect an heir in the next book? and might this be one more twist hidden in this book?
When Kamet speaks to the queen in the garden, at the end of the book, he tells her a story about the river and that it will come when it’s time… she says then that she will come when it’s her time, Is this related to the heir? was it really a girl after all?
Virginia,
Check out the dedication on the map at the beginning of the book.
@Amy Reynolds: What is it? i don’t have the physical book as i listen to it as audiobook
@Virginia: The map is signed to “Gitta Kingsdaughter” so yeah.
ETA: For more information, take a look at my interview with Megan Whalen Turner.
What’s the deal with Gitta’ s map and the one Kamet draws at the end not matching? I was so confused as I was reading the book why the map didn’t align with Kamet’s descriptions. (Perf, Traba, Koadster)
Was it mentioned in the book that the maps didn’t match? I don’t remember that.
Gitta’s map (the one in the book) didn’t seem that accurate to the descriptions of where they went, but maybe it was hard for the illustrator to make a map that would fit the story?
@Janine:
I didn’t mention that the maps didn’t match, but when Kamet and “the Attolian” were talking about their route, they talk about going northwest from Perf to Koadster (but on Gitta’s map, Koadster is northeast from Perf). I think there was another spot, too, where I was really confused because I was trying to follow Kamet’s explanation but was looking at Gitta’s map and it didn’t seem to fit.
@Adrienne: I had the same difficulty following their journey on the map while reading that you describe having. Maybe it was simply hard to design a proportional map that would fit all the events of the story as well as past stories in one drawing?