fan community for the Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner; for fanworks, discussion, and everything else!
favorite plot twist/surprise reveal?
one of the defining characteristics of this series is its plot twists, whether that comes in the form of an unreliable narrator, outsider point of view, or some other dramatic form of withholding details until the last minute. a few people have called this out as one of their favorite characteristics of the books, so:
which plot twist or surprise reveal of the books is your favorite? this can be the most shocking, the most emotionally impactful, or your favorite on any other metric. let us know your answer (and why) in the comments! (as always, you can have more than one!)




Actually I was going to say the fall of Erondities, but in actuality my favorite twist is Gen leaving a gun for Sophos in conspiracy of kings. Whenever I read that scene I can imagine Sophos imagining Gen in the shrug emoji pose because there is literally nothing else he can do. Go on Sophos, we won our countries back through a battle go wage a war. OOooooooooooohhhhh, I think I wanna make a comic of that scene now...
OMG PLEASE MAKE A COMIC OF THAT SCENE
i love that scene so much oh man. it's great because gen is lending his weight to sophos's decision, but also because "i make the king" and also the gun matches irene's and and and--
also doesn't sophos cry when he sees the gun?? or did i make that up
He does cry! It is an important detail and I'm glad to remember it.
YESSSS
i'm realizing i asked this question and i don't have an answer but WHATEVER LET'S GO WITH IT
i think one of my favorites is when gen ~kidnaps~ irene in queen of attolia and you're like "oh no what's he gonna do" and then he like, confesses his love??? "before you make a decision, i want you to know that i love you" and all. it's not even because of my own reaction, but because there's nothing i love more than watching people react to this scene for the first time. that moment of "oh what the fuck WHAT THE FUCK" going to "ok is this endgame??? i can't ship this" to "ok but i'm kind of emotionally invested" going to "ok i'm tentatively on board" at the end of the book and then you hit king of attolia and you're like "shit shit i really ship this". i love watching that progression. it's one of my favorite things about queen's thief tumblr fandom (people liveblogging their reactions and fandom cackling).
Gah...I loved all the twists but one that no one's mentioned yet is when in Queen of Attolia, Gen shows up to steal the magus in the middle of the night. It's perhaps less of a twist than some, but that's when you know that Gen's done with moping and back in the game. And the magus certainly never saw it coming.
oooh I love that one! and it's such an "oh shit" moment for everyone in-story, too, to realize that eugenides isn't out of the game just yet.
this is a really small one, but there's a moment in The Thief where just as Gen steps inside the temple, he goes through his pockets and lists all the things in them--all things he's stolen off-page.
I had to do a double-take. I think it was the realization that if Gen could hide half a hundred tiny things from his pockets from the reader, even in that tight third-person perspective, then he could be hiding so much more. I sorta knew the reveal at the end thanks to reading KoA several years before, but that scene solidified Gen as a lying liar for me.
It was also interesting because up to that point we were encouraged to think of Gen as incompetent--he'd stolen the king's ring but had also been caught because of his own bragging, he was whining and falling over every two minutes. But when he went through this list of things he'd stolen so sneakily that THE READER hadn't even noticed, we got a sense of just how good gen is at what he does.
so, yeah. weird one, but that was the little twist that made me fall in love with gen lmao.
Oh, I love that moment. Agreed that is great.