Gentleman Bastards series - Scott Lynch

I apologize if this thread's already been done, but my searches came up empty.

There is NOTHING like these books out there. I've tried looking. (And if I'm just blind, please, let me know.)

I cannot wait for Thorn of Emberlain to come out! I keep looking for a firm release date, but can't seem to find one. Anyone know anything on this?

I was kinda disappointed by Republic of Thieves. While it had some hints of major things to come, the plot was aggresively low stakes (there's not much of a penalty for our heroes if they fail to swing the election, and it's made quite clear that the winner of the election does not matter one bit). If I was binge-reading the series, and could go straight from Red Seas Under Red Skies to Republic of Thieves and on to Thorn of Emberlain, I might have actually enjoyed the change of pace. But with such a long gap between installments, it felt wanting.

First two books are great. Republic of Thieves is a trainwreck, and after it I'm honestly not sure if I want to read the fourth book, should it ever come out. In addition to what was said above about the plot's lack of stakes, Sabetha's entire existence is just irritating. Not only is she just another spin on the old, tired tropes of both the One True Love and the Femme Fatale who is the hero's equal only by virtue of his IQ dropping every time they're in a room together, but her characterization is ragingly inconsistent to boot. We lost Calo and Galdo and Bug, we lost Nazca Barsavi, we lost every other important character from Locke and Jean's backstory, but we kept this piece of work?

edited 17th Sep '17 9:59:57 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar

I have an ambivalent feeling toward the series in that from various interviews, I've found Scott Lynch to be an immensely likable guy in addition to being an impressive and knowledgeable raconteur regarding both genre conventions as well as literature and history. And his recent short story "A Year and a Day in Old Theradane" is one of my favorites.

However, I have kind of a mixed feeling about the series so far, although based on his "current state", I am quite interested in reading The Thorn of Emberlain. And incidentally, because of his mental issues, I cut him a lot more slack for it being in Development Hell than I would for say George R.R. Martin, although prior to learning of those issues, I was annoyed by how he initially had this plan for all of these books and short stories, despite only having two and eventually three books published.

And at the risk of being a pop psychologist, I think that the Creator Breakdown has to do with some issues with the books so far, which is part of why I'm curious about how Thorn will be, since he's in a much better personal/mental state. Because like he initially had this idea for the stuff in the first book being almost an incidental prequel to the substance of the story. Which is why the book kills off most of the cast. I think the problem is that while this would totally work if there were lots of subsequent books in the series, but since there aren't, it sort of feels like a waste. And I was thinking of this one recent interview where Scott basically talked about being really interested/part of the "grimdark" trend when he first wrote Lies and how now the genre/he has moved away from that. And IIRC, there was definitely more than a hint that this has a lot to do with why so many characters were brutally killed off in Lies, including Nazca in a particularly egregious example of Stuffed into the Fridge.

And regarding Sabbattha, I'm not sure at what stage it was written in terms of Scott's divorce, but I'm definitely conflicted as well. Because while I think there's a lot of interesting points made in terms of deconstructing/criticizing bad gender politics (especially in fantasy novels), I have to admit that Sabbatha is none too sympathetic. I don't really like abrasive and unlikable characters in general and I hope I'm not judging Sabbatha more harshly than I would an equivalent male character, but it kind of undermines the point that "strong female characters don't have to be likable", when the character used to illustrate/argue this is particularly unlikable.

Although for what's worth, I've never really found Locke that sympathetic either. Jean, yes, and I'd almost rather just read about him. I think Locke's loyalty to Jean does a lot of work in the story in making him somewhat likable, even as he continues to wreck both of their lives.

Speaking which, that's kind of why I really like the twist in the third book, because of the implication that Locke's unfettered attitude in his schemes and heedlessness of the harm he causes others, including his friends, are exactly the same qualities he despises in the Bondsmagi.

I think one of the keys here is that there'd never be an equivalent male character. Sabetha, as a character, is a combination of tropes who only appears in stories with male protagonists (and that are usually written by male authors). She's the hero's One True Love (TM), who he madly pursues despite her treating him like shit and displaying zero interest in him. She's forgiven anything and everything she does to the hero, not only by the hero himself, but by the narrative, and whenever something happens that might force her and the hero to stop being dicks to each other, you can rest assured that the plot will come up with another way to drive them apart and wring further angst out of them. Dena, from The Name of the Wind is a very similar, and near as frustrating character.

Of course in Sabetha's case it's made even worse by two things. One is the way in which sexism and the author's clear issues with women influence her characterization and leave it rather schizophrenic. The author wanted there to be reasons (beyond just flat out disliking him) why she wouldn't get with Locke, so he gave her serious hang ups about sex and sexuality, and had her give a speech about how she isn't an object and hates how men are only after her for sex. Unfortunately, he also subscribes to the idea that all female criminals must sleep with their marks (seriously, when's the last time you saw a male conartist or assassin sleep with the woman he's trying to rob or kill in a book; conversely female characters are pretty much expected to do so, complete with implication that this is the only way they can be successful) so he has her give another speech to Locke, right before they finally do get it on, that she hasn't waited for him the way he has for her, and has been having sex with lots of men as part of her cons. Consistent characterization? What's that? Worse still, while she's billed as Locke's intellectual equal, we never see any demonstrated evidence of this—Locke's IQ plummets a good fifty points whenever she's in the room, and the only person she's able to consistently manipulate successfully is him—the guy who has personal hangups and handicaps where she is concerned. This is depressingly common when male authors attempt to write "strong" female characters, especially when said characters have a whiff of the Femme Fatale, an inherently sexist trope, about them.

Worst of all, however, is the fact that Sabetha doesn't feel like a particularly organic part of the story. She's absent from every single flashback in The Lies of Locke Lamora, to the point where it becomes baffling—how does she manage to be absent for every relevant piece of Locke's training with Chains? You start to get the impression that the boys never spent any time with her, she's gone so often (this also gives us some amazingly stupid dialogue, like Chains saying "when Sabetha gets back from where she is now", in an effort to hide the fact that Lynch has no idea where Sabetha actually is and just needed to make sure she wasn't present), and this makes the fact that Locke is still obsessed with her come off as even stupider and more pathetic than it already was—Locke's a flawed enough person without making him come off as a stalker for a girl he barely seems to have known. In both The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies her name is only invoked when a) Locke is being a dick or b) someone else is being a dick to Locke; we find out nothing about her. And when she finally does show up, three books in, she not only comes off as totally unlikable, she not only comes off as a somewhat unbelievable character, but she fails to come off as an organic part of the series, instead feeling like she was crowbarred in so Locke could have a (shitty) love interest.

Sabetha's bad for the story and she's bad for the protagonist. She's not a fun character to spend any time with in and of herself. She's not a likeable enough person for you to want she and Locke to move past their issues and get together, but she's also not sufficiently evil for you to cheer for her to be defeated or for her presence to add any sort of tension or menace to the story. She makes the protagonist, who already has enough character flaws for his likeability to be a precarious thing, look like both a creepy, obsessive stalker and an amazingly poor judge of character for remaining so besotted with a girl who both wants nothing to do with him and is a pretty lousy person. Her influence on the story is all negative, and sadly, it's negative in ways that are entirely tied up with how Lynch chooses to deal with her being female (or at least, deal with her being a love interest to a male character).

edited 17th Sep '17 12:44:37 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Conmen sleeping with their marks is quite common in fiction (they're two Sawyers from Lost spring immediately to mind), though it's usually portrayed as them seducing women they'd want to sleep with even if a con didn't require it (Max Bialystock from The Producers is a notable exception).

That's the key difference—female con artists are typically portrayed as doing it even if they don't like the men in question. Worse yet, female assassins are often portrayed as doing the same which is just unbearably stupid.

None of Locke's plans have ever called for himself or for Calo, Galdo or Jean to seduce a mark. So that makes the writer having Sabetha do so even more glaring, since she has the same training that they do, and therefore logically should not need to do this. And since nothing in her characterization suggests that she likes doing it—and there are parts of it, including her rant to Locke about everyone wanting to screw her that should suggest she does not like doing it—that makes her come off as pretty inconsistent.

If that were the only problem with her, it would be tolerable, but it's just the tip of the iceberg. She incorporates sexist double standards and is an unlikable character who doesn't bring anything to the story.

In Locke's case, isn't it that he literally can't get it up for anyone but Sabetha?

Indeed it is. Which frankly, is just utterly creepy and weird given that in every interaction they have she comes off as if she despises him.

You'll note, however, that I said that his plans never call for any of the others to seduce a mark either, and that it's that that makes the thing with Sabetha a sexist double standard (and a common one in fiction sadly).

I didn't recall the mention of Sabbatha sleeping with the marks. That definitely gets at the "shizopherenia" of taking a positive aesop- criticizing the idea that female characters/love interests need to be virgins or else they will be Defiled Forever- but then still including a problematic aspect.

For what it's worth though, as part of his con in the second book, Locke fakes an infatuation (or really love for) with Selendri as part of both making his persona seem like a real person, and in the hopes of getting her to let down her guard. Granted, he didn't sleep with her (and she turned out not to reciprocate those feelings at all). It's kind of interesting because while she and Requin are awful people, I think there's definitely a sense that this is to be seen as kind of scummy and lend some (warped) Moral Luck to the fact that Locke's plan doesn't end up working and Selendri and Requin are pretty much the only characters who have a happy ending.

Sabetha brings it up during one of her "romantic" scenes with Locke. He tells her there's been no one else. She tells him it hasn't been the same with her, and that she's both slept with guys to forget him and seduced men as part of the con. Because, sigh, female characters in villainous occupations are only allowed to succeed when they use sex to get their way.

The series had better not end with Locke and Sabetha getting together. Hell, it best not have them get together partway through and then kill her off. If there's anything Republic of Thieves convinced me of, it is that the two of them are absolutely toxic to each other. She's contemptuous and dismissive of him at best, outright hates him at worst, while he's obsessive and creepy at best, absolutely entitled at worst. They bring out the absolute worst in one another, and Locke needs to let her go. He can settle on being single, he can move on with another girl, he explore any interest he may have in men for all I care, but the Sabetha obsession is poison.

Wow I never thought to compare Sabetha and Dena like that.

They're depressingly similar archetypes. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I find both characters deeply frustrating.

I think it's part of the way some authors feel they have to make a big deal out of romance being sooooo complicated and difficult and confusing, and the way they achieve that is the women being these infuriating mysterious temptresses who never come out and say exactly what they mean (or, rather, they say that don't like the male lead but secretly they actually do, etc etc).

Which of course only encourages the "no means yes" mentality.

Sabetha is probably one of my favorite characters in fiction.

I think a lot of the hate comes from the problem which is only a problem if you are attempting to pigeon-hole her into the role which Locke has done. Sabetha is a great deconstruction of the One True Love and Love at First Sight tropes and only is a problem if you actually think she and Locke are going to get back together. I'm hoping it will be the case in future books that Scott Lynch does what almost no writer in history has done and have Locke realize, "She doesn't want me. I should just let her go."

Sabetha states repeatedly she'd be fine with Locke as a friend but his obsession with her romantically and treating her as his sidekick/love interest offends her. She's a thief goddammit and wants to be better than Locke himself.

FYI - I'm a grimdark writer and I suggest people interested in it should check out the Grim Tidings podcast which interviews grimdark writers like Lynch but also regular fantasy like Salvatore. I'm going to be on it next month.

edited 24th Sep '17 11:18:32 AM by CharlesPhipps

Whether she and Locke wind up together is irrelevant to me. I mean, I sincerely hope they don't, because it's an absolutely toxic relationship and I wouldn't wish them on each other if they were the last people on earth, but in the end, no resolution to their plotline (not them getting together, not them staying apart, not, god forbid, her dying for him to angst about) is going to fix the problems that Republic of Thieves created.

Locke already had a legion's worth of character flaws before the third book. He was already a narcissist with a Complexity Addiction. He was already prone to treating other people like game pieces, and has a proud record of ruining the lives of his friends. He was already a Control Freak who got jealous any time his friends make lives for themselves outside of him. Making him an obsessive stalker of a genuinely unlikable woman adds "douchebag Nice Guy (TM)" and "dumbass with bad taste" to his list of character flaws, and pushes him from "troubled but fun" into "I cannot stand him". The way Lynch handled the Locke/Sabetha relationship was absolute poison to Locke's characterization, and since he's the main character, it taints everything that comes after.

As for Sabetha being a great character on her own, can't say I see it. Even if you want to claim she's a deconstruction that a) isn't proven yet and b) still makes her whole arc about her relationship with Locke. Even if it ends with him giving up on her and ceasing to obsess about her that won't change the reality that Sabetha exists only for Locke to interact with for good or ill. If you strip out their "relationship" all you're left with is an inconsistently characterized woman whose views on things schizophrenically shift from scene to scene. Actually, that's true even if you don't strip out her relationship with Locke.

Except that none of this is really true, is it? Sabetha sometimes acts like she wants to be friends with Locke, sometimes acts like she hates him and wants nothing to do with him, and sometimes acts like she returns his romantic interest. Which way she's treating him shifts from scene to scene and there's often little reason for the shifts—and from the standpoint of a reader that's a serious problem for me. Sabetha has the right to change her mind as often as she wants, but since the reasons for her shifts aren't clear, it just leads her to come off as inconsistently characterized (this doesn't just apply to her relationship with Locke, by the way, but to a number of her personal beliefs as well; see her somewhat incoherent position on the use of her sexuality).

As for wanting to be a better thief than Locke, right here we have two more problems. One, the exact nature of that desire is never clear; whether she sees Locke as a rival to best, or as someone who was never as good as she is and therefore should never have been the leader, shifts. Two, nothing in the story actually backs up the idea that she has it in her to rival Locke—the narrative may assure us of her brilliance, but it's told and not shown, with Sabetha's few onscreen victories over Locke all orbiting her exploitation of his feelings for her. That's a consistent problem with the Femme Fatale archetype across genres and fiction I might note; instead of making a female character who is genuinely smarter than the male protagonist, the author acts as if she's equipped with Poison Ivy-style pheromones and drops the protagonist's IQ in every scene she's in.

To make a long post short—Sabetha's not a character. She's a collection of tropes, many of them problematic, some of them mutually exclusive. Even if some of those individual tropes get deconstructed, it won't make Sabetha herself a more interesting or coherent character.

edited 25th Sep '17 11:40:07 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar

I disagree with your interpretation. Sabetha is a perfectly interesting character without the relationship with Locke. ***A*** relationship with Locke is inevitable because it's from HIS perspective in the book so invariably all relationships in the book are going to lead back to Locke as everything relates to him as the narrator. However, Sabetha is a master thief and plotter and rival for the group as well as a person who has own self-interested and much more cold blooded take on thievery than Locke or Jean. They're in it for the thrill while Sabetha is much more in it for the money.

Sabetha's attitude with Locke is the fact she grew up with him and he fell in love with her but she's basically The Resenter and Driven by Envy which is a common thing for "male" characters who grew up together but almost never something you see with the supposed love interest. She's a character who rejects being the love interest as her role in the story and I think that's a good thing.

Here's an article on her: https://www.feministfiction.com/blog/2014/05/02/a-few-thoughts-on-sabetha-belacoros

Then why is it that every single character trait of hers that you list after this is one that's deliberately contrasted with or otherwise bound up with Locke? You're own description of her positions her as a foil to Locke, not as a functioning and independent character.

Except that she's not a master thief or a brilliant chessmaster or plotter. That's the whole problem with her character. Her victories over Locke in Republic of Thieves rely on exploiting his obsession with her (as well as Jean's lingering affection from their never-demonstrated friendship), which is entirely to be expected of a Femme Fatale archetype but undermines her claims to being Locke's rival or intellectual equal—if you only get by because your opponent's lose IQ points whenever you are around, then you aren't actually much of a challenge, are you?

The text tells us Sabetha is a master criminal to rival Locke. It shows her acting like a bog-standard Femme Fatale, an archetype so worn as to have to have holes in it (and so innately sexist that deploying it in a nonsexist fashion becomes a serious challenge).

If Sabetha actually rejected the role of love interest, that would be fantastic. Unfortunately, she doesn't. For all her supposed problems with Locke and her purported lack of interest in ever being with him, she ultimately winds up falling in bed with him by the end of the story (complete with creepy and awkward discussion about who they have or had not had sex with since the last time they were together)—and that's after a book of exploiting his hangups about her in order to score him off to boot. That the reason she ran off in the first place is because of a frankly idiotic miscommunication only further muddies the waters. If Sabetha is consciously rejecting the role of love interest, she's doing a pretty poor job of it—or perhaps more accurately, Lynch is doing a pretty poor job of portraying it.

Hell, the story even makes it seem like they're going to be an item again, before Patience drops The Reveal and sends Sabetha running—something that the narrative treats as being Patience's revenge on Locke and as her having taken something real away from him (and if Sabetha was never going to stay, then that's not taking anything real away). Which is a running problem in the series and one that goes well beyond just the Locke/Sabetha storyline—for all his skill as a writer, Lynch often comes across as blithely unaware of the way he has structured his narrative and the expectations that structure pushes onto the reader. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Sabetha is supposed to be all that you say she is, but it doesn't present that way and at the end of the day that's all that matters.

I'd welcome a female character who deliberately rejects the idea of being a love interest and forces the hero to come to terms with his own sense of entitlement. That would be fantastic. Sabetha isn't that character though. Lynch tried to do too many different things with her and left her an incoherent wreck.

edited 25th Sep '17 2:45:39 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

It's a real shame that Sabetha is basically totally absent from ALL the flashback scenes of them growing up in the first book. Like, if she's supposed to be a part of the gang like the twins and Jean and Locke, then ... why didn't we get to see that? Why did we only get to see her always being conspicuously absent, and Locke mooning over this mysterious Old Flame He Can't Get Over, and then in later books Sexually Charged Rivalry?

Again, the romance was built up as a mystery in the first book. And if you're going to do that, Sabetha can't be just one of the gang. You have to consistently other her and leave her out and make her motives opaque.

Her role is Locke's Mysterious Love Interest and that's it. She was never given anything else.

edited 26th Sep '17 4:38:24 AM by LoniJay

Makes her feel absolutely crowbarred into the story come Book 3, doesn't it?

RE Loni Jay's post- I think that really gets at the "problem" with Sabbatha. I tend to more agree with Charles Phipps' understanding of her and the deconstructive aspect, but I think a big part of what makes her divisive is the fact that she's absent from the first two books besides those mentions in terms of love interest/bad breakup/etc. So, when she does show up in the third, not only is there a lot of built up reader expectation, but it means that part of what is being deconstructed is the impression that readers might have in their heads based on the first two books and the fact that readers would like a hypothetical, idealized version of Sabbatha unlike the real one.

I don't know if a Doyleist versus Watsonian perspective necessarily matters because of Death of the Author, but I don't really get a sense that the mentions of Sabbatha in the first two books were intended to set up the character/deconstruction we get in the third book. And while it's good for an author to question and try to correct previous noxious gender politics- which I think is the case here- a lot of the reason why Sabbatha is "put on a pedestal" is not just because of Locke's infatuation with her, but because of the way the story frames her in the first books books (granted, which are almost exclusively from Locke's POV).

I do like the deconstructive aspects of Sabbatha's character (with the caveat that at the risk of coming off as sexist, I think she's a rather abrasive person), but while we wouldn't really get that kind of deconstruction had Sabbatha featured in previous books/flashbacks, it might have made for a better story and wouldn't be as divisive. Like for example, one of the big ideas is that Sabbatha is the better thief but that Locke gets more attention and approval from Chains (and Barsavi) because he's a guy. So, you could have a scene in either of the first two books where the two are conning people, and from Locke's perspective, he comes across as doing the best, but then we get a Once More, with Clarity view in the third book.

But we don't have that, of course, which I think is because Lynch didn't really have much/any idea of what to do with Sabbatha/what she was like as a person when writing them.

edited 26th Sep '17 8:46:36 AM by Hodor2

I'm honestly not sure why you'd be worried about coming off sexist. If you were holding men and women to different standards, and condemning in Sabetha what you'd forgive in a male character, that would be sexist, but that's not the case (unless I've entirely missed the point of what you're referencing).

One of Sabetha's key character moments involves mocking Locke over the death of his twelve year old apprentice. That's a dick move regardless of gender, as are many of the other things she does over the course of present day story and flashback alike.

Frankly if someone should be castigated for sexism, it's Lynch. Because whatever his intentions he threw a collection of sexist tropes together, then slapped the name "Sabetha" onto them and called it a character (and honestly I don't know if she even is a character so much as a conflict generator and plot device).

She's not the only example of Lynch struggling with writing female characters, either. He's better than many fantasy authors, and he creates a couple of memorable, fleshed out, and capable female characters—Dona Vorachenza, Zamira Drakasha, and even Dona Sofia all come to mind. However, that's counterbalanced by the fridging of Nazca and Ezri (in back-to-back books no less), Cheryn & Raiza being a single Flat Character entirely subordinate to The Grey King, Selendri's disfigurement somehow being all about Requin, and of course the disaster of a plot device that is Sabetha. More than once, Lynch has fallen back on sexist stereotypes and tropes, and while Sabetha is emblematic of it, she's not the only problem.

This goes back to something I mentioned before about Show, Don't Tell. Sabetha tells us she's so much better than Locke but that he got preferential treatment due to his gender. Lynch however, fails to have the narrative demonstrate the truth of her position (and makes her demonstratively less competent than Locke in the present day) and in consequence she presents as immensely resentful and jealous for petty reasons.

This applies to most of Sabetha's complaints. She's mad that Calo, Galdo, and Jean essentially elected Locke leader over her. But we're never given good cause to think they should have done anything else. She was absent from every flashback in the first book when Locke was building his control over the group, and since she's thoroughly unpleasant to everyone in both present and past, it's not clear at all why she should have expected them to do any different.

If we saw Sabetha transition into the bitter person she is in the present because of preferential treatment given to Locke, or what have you, that'd be one thing. But Sabetha in the past is just as casually cruel (and inconsistently characterized) as Sabetha in the present.

This gets at the core of the problem. You can't do a deconstruction or a subversion or anything of note with a character who is shoved into the story inorganically.

edited 26th Sep '17 12:40:29 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Eh, there's a number of things going on here which should be noted.

1. Sabetha isn't a member of the Gentleman Bastards. She's not part of Locke's inner circle because she resented the fact they all looked up to Locke and we also get the fact she prefers to work alone. She was raised with them but she was always away from them.

2. The subversion of NOT being Locke's idealized perfect love interest may be the point. Locke thinks a bunch of things about her but when we meet her, she's none of those things and calls him out on making her that in his head.

3. I think it's better she's not an idealized perfect woman or even terribly likable. Locke loves her in a rather pathetic way but Sabetha has extremely mixed feelings about her. I also like the fact Jean is not all that fond of her.

She can prefer to work alone or she can resent Locke for controlling the group. She can't do both—not without a lot more character exploration.

The problem here is that she's so thoroughly contemptuous of Locke that he looks like an absolute moron for being interested (which is a whole 'nother thing from how creepy his obsession with her makes him look). Locke didn't need more character flaws.

Sabetha's mixed feelings are the problem. It's hard to deconstruct or subvert or otherwise do anything with Locke's creepy obsession with her when she actually does reciprocate his feelings. Them actually hooking up again at the end of the book (regardless of Patience's subsequent derailment of it) entirely undermines the storyline of Republic of Thieves up to that point.

Also, Jean's not all that fond of her, but was all on board with forcing Locke to say nice things about her in the first book and is furious at Locke about her in the second book for never talking about her, insisting she was his friend too. Consistency. There's none of it when Sabetha is around.