#and the ganseyness of it all

[squash1]

on life being a kind of sowing time <3

[trk / ted lasso, quote from vincent van gogh / greywaren epilogue / ? / greywaren]

[kazbiter]

big fan of gansey saying "mon dieu!" when ronan shows him that turkey clock

[cryinglookingatsoulages]

reason 69507607542 why declan and gansey should date:

⚔️ ganseyism and declanism of it all.

[czenzo]

TRC Actor AU

an AU where The Raven Cycle is adapted into a popular tv show

for the main five, there would be an open casting call to encourage new, unknown names to take on the roles and make the show feel more authentic

at least one of them would end up being English — my money's on Gansey's actor (and if he had a penny for every time someone on set mocked his accent, he would be richer than Gansey)

Gansey and Ronan's (half-Irish) actors would both have some acting experience with minor roles in some small British productions, but for Blue, Adam, and Noah's actors, they're completely new to being in front of the camera

Gansey's actor was able to pull off a convincing enough accent to get through auditions and snag the role, but after being cast he underwent vocal coaching to get Gansey's Ganseyness down to a T

he still messes up occasionally, and a fair chunk of the show's bloopers are dedicated to him accidentally saying the British pronunciation of a word and then softly cursing under his breath

he took up rowing to get Gansey's physique

he's overjoyed the Pig is a manual (stick shift) car, he can't drive automatics (and they freak him out)

the Pig is in such bad shape though there are countless bloopers of him stalling it

within the first week of being in Virginia pre-shooting, Gansey's actor gets heatstroke after severely underestimating the difference between British and American warm weather

every scene where anyone says yeehaw takes a god awful amount of time to film because Gansey's actor cracks up at it every time

by the time filming is wrapped up for season 1, Gansey's actor has gotten incredibly attached to the story and its characters — if he sheds a tear or two after filming the final scene, no one says a word about it (if the show made it to a fourth and final season he would be an absolute wreck when it came to saying his final goodbyes to it all)

Blue's actress was a huge fan of the books before the show, so when she heard about the open casting calls she travelled hours to audition — she didn't think she'd actually get the role and burst into tears when she found out

she has a little ley line tattoo on her wrist

she also helps out a lot in the costume department! the designers found out about her love of the books and encouraged her to pitch clothing ideas for Blue. some of Blue's hand-made, shredded pieces were actually partially made by the actress herself

the "I am not a prostitute" scene took so long to shoot because she couldn't stop laughing at Gansey's actor

prior to being cast, Ronan's actor had dark, shoulder-length curly hair thanks to his Irish genes, but upon being asked if he'd be willing to shave his hair for the role he did it with no hesitation (his mother almost cried)

Ronan's actor has an Irish accent! he was born and raised in Northern Ireland but moved to Massachusetts in his mid-teens, so he was able to put on a very convincing accent for Ronan

he was 100% willing (and maybe too eager) to actually get Ronan's back tattoo but wasn't allowed due to cost and the fact that healing would take far too long, so it was done with makeup and SFX instead

he falls in LOVE with Ronan's car and gets so excited every time he has to film a scene with it

Blue and Noah's actors like to turn the seat heaters on super high every now and then to mess with him — their favourite blooper becomes the one where Ronan gets into his car and immediately shoots right back out of it while howling every swear under the sun

the "I'm always straight" / "Oh man, that's the biggest lie you've ever told" bit took many, many takes to get right because everyone kept laughing

before the first scene featuring the Murder Squash song was shot, only Ronan's actor had actually heard the song, so in that scene Ronan's look of glee and everyone else's looks of shock and horror are genuine

while shooting Ronan and Declan's fight outside Nino's, Ronan's actor accidentally lands a genuine punch on Declan's actor's face and everyone freezes completely until Declan's actor folds over with laughter

Ronan, Gansey, and Adam's actors all pick up the habit of going to the gym together to get themselves into the right shapes for their roles, and Blue and Noah's actors end up joining them (chaos and mishaps ensue)

a video gets posted online of Ronan's actor doing benchpresses while Blue's actress narrates like David Attenborough

off set, Ronan's actor is an easy-going, friendly guy, and his ability to snap into Ronan's mindset and attitude once the camera starts rolling is almost scary

that being said, he messes his lines up the most out of anyone — he'll snap at another character, pause, then burst out laughing

Adam's actor became aware of Adam's whole trademark Coca-Cola t-shirt shtick while researching the character prior to auditions, and after getting the role he made a point of wearing anything but a Coca-Cola t-shirt in any behind-the-scenes pictures that were taken on set just to mess with fans — Pepsi, Fanta, 7Up, you name any soft drink other than Coca Cola, and Adam's actor was probably caught on camera wearing a t-shirt of it at some point

Adam's actor is actually partially deaf, though it isn't limited to just one ear — there are many bloopers of him completely missing his cue, but he always laughs it off

being one of the ones with no prior experience in front of a camera, Adam's actor accidentally looks directly into it so much. and always apologises for like five minutes straight afterwards

Noah's actor is the one to do the majority of the behind-the-scenes filming. after the show's release he posts a compilation of the cast and crew's on-set shenanigans

in the video is a section dedicated entirely to Gansey's actor grimacing every time he's given a new garish polo shirt and pair of boat shoes to put on

out of all of them, Noah's actor most frequently forgets the fact he has a mic on him while in front of the camera. on more than one occasion he whispers "slay" after a character says a good line and the scene has to be reshot because of course the mic picked that up

"Call it by name. Cabeswater." "slay..." "CUT—"

all five of them become incredibly close friends over the course of filming and it's clear to see every time they do group interviews

Blue's actress's legs will be casually slung over Ronan's actor's lap, Adam and Gansey's actors will lean on each other without a second thought, and every time Noah's actor gets excited about a question he gleefully grabs the arm of whoever's sat next to him and they always fondly smile at him in return

[steelycunt]

started the trc reread. enjoying reading all the ganseyisms and going to annotate them with ‘loser alert!’ only to find that past-me has already helpfully written something like ‘okay weirdo’ or ‘he’s so fucking lame’. she is my best friend we are doing this for Real: 👩🏽‍❤️‍💋‍👩🏽

[cheeeryos]

can't believe u all are too cowardly to accept that the lynches grow beards fast & thick and so like 80% of those books they prolly spend unshaven

[runekeepershymnal]

What if Gansey is the oldest physically as well as spiritually?

It makes sense that he might've completely lost track of time on his travels and come back to Richmond to be trapped with a private tutor all winter break because he missed his first semester of high school, or was unable to study for a good while due to recovery from his stings.

Maybe the reason we don't hear about Gansey's birthday is that he's been the eldest all along.

Maybe he deliberately spends it away from everyone who loves him because he always knew he would die young and a part of him mourns losing one of those precious years to injury or societal expectations, all while cursing himself for the hypocrisy of not letting people who love him celebrate while he's alive.

Maybe he finally relents on the road trip, and Blue and Henry debate where to take him- Henry wants to take him to Amsterdam, because while Gansey's been, Henry doesn't think he's gotten the full experience. Blue wants to take him to Antarctica, a biome he's never experienced.

They compromise with Las Vegas to start the day before, a place Gansey hasn't been and which runs completely counter to all Ganseyness. (He's met Adele before, they have dinner and she listens, fascinated, as he tells her the whole Glendower story, unedited. She asks if she can write a song about it and his ears get very pink. Blue cackles at her side of the Robert Pattinson story. Henry helps her disguise herself and they go do karaoke, and she and Henry kill "Afternoon Delight" together. Later, all four do "Vacation" by the Go Gos.

They manage to sober up in time to make their way out to the desert to set up camp for the night, far enough that the Milky Way is in full view.

They lie there under a sky so full of stars, so much of the galaxy on magnificent display, that when a meteor shower that shouldn't be happening begins, there is wonder without surprise. Blue holds one hand, Henry holds the other, as they watch, more wishes than they could make flaming through the dark in this moment when none of them could think of a single thing that would be better than here, now.

The band of the Milky Way is as sure and steady a path across the sky as the leyline has been for Gansey on the ground as midnight ticks over, and he opens the gift of a year he never thought he would see.

[hklnvgl]

your ficlets are so amazing!! if you want, “Why do you have to look at me like that? It’s making me weak, please stop.” and/or “The more I look at you, the more I think we need to leave.” for pynch?

“And just why do you have to look at me like that?”

Adam’s lips curled but the fucker tried to hide it by taking a sip of his champagne flute.

“Oh, don’t be a child. I’m not even looking at you.”

“Yes, you are. You are most definitely looking at me indeed. From the corner of your eye, see? There. Don’t think I haven’t noticed. It’s making me weak. Have mercy, Parrish. Please fucking stop.”

Now Adam was laughing. It probably wasn’t proper to laugh at a place like that—Adam pretended the canape selection was holding all of his interest but even then he couldn’t hide the his shoulders’ flutter. Ronan angrily drank from his own glass—the lengths he had to go to make Adam relax. These motherfuckers wouldn’t know a miracle if it punched them in the face. If they weren’t impressed by Adam Parrish they didn’t deserve a second of their attention. Not even a thousand of a second. They could burn in hell.

If it were up to Ronan, they wouldn’t even have come to this thing. Blue was already here to be supportive of Gansey when his family upped their Ganseyness levels. She’d promised Ronan she wouldn’t hesitate to kick shins if needed. Ronan couldn’t of course see her now, because she was still tiny and the massive chandeliers were giving him a headache, but Gansey would tell him later if there had been any damaged shins.

Ronan had only come because he’d found Adam in a slight and very controlled panic state when he’d realized he’d outgrown the sleeves of his only presentable suit. It had, of course, led to a very heated discussion whose agenda included hits like “you don’t need to prove anything to these pricks” and “it’s called networking, Ronan” and which had ended on a quite more heated note against the cracked tiles of St. Agnes’ bathroom walls.

Anyway. Adam looked hot in his new suit. But he would look even hotter if he could turn his brain off for once and stop looking around as if those shrimp-eating assholes Gansey’s parents loved to invite to these shitshows were sharks who could smell the sweat in Adam’s hands—it was perfectly lovely sweat, in Ronan’s opinion, but that was beside the point.

“What was that. Oh, shit, a stolen glance. You wanna kill me on the spot, or what? Man on a mission. Jesus.”

“Shut up.” Now Adam was looking at him and he didn’t seem mad. Win-win.

Ronan grinned.

“Now I see what everyone means when they claim they’ve been swept out of their feet by Adam Parrish. Way to secure the game, man. How many heart attacks did you cause with this move?” he asked, meaning the way his eyes got brighter when he smiled for real.

“Oh, you know, just the one.”

“Who was the victim’s name again?”

“You wouldn’t know him,” Adam deadpanned, drinking the last of his champagne. “Pretty face, bald head. He thinks I don’t know what he’s trying to do.”

Ronan rolled his eyes. “Not bald,” he said.

Adam hummed. He left his empty flute glass on the buffet table, next to the blue cheese rolls. “Thanks for coming,” he said, sobering up.

“I’m only here because Gansey asked, man,” Ronan shrugged. “Don’t sweat it.”

“Sure. I can also play the game, you know?”

“No idea what you’re talking about. Have you tried the asparagus? Good shit.”

“Can’t. Too busy falling for that fake-nonchalant front you’re pulling. Now I can’t stop looking at you. I’d kiss you right now. Hard. That chocolate fountain over there is giving me ideas, Ronan.”

Ronan felt his ears getting warm. “What kind of ideas.”

“In fact, the more I look at you the more I think we need to leave.”

Ronan swallowed, but found his mouth dry. “If we leave there’s no chocolate fountain.”

Adam smirked and took a new champagne glass from a passing waiter. “We’ll have to stay, then.”

[rovinky]

gansey? 🤔👀

Favorite thing about them: his earnest eccentricity! I love Gansey's Ganseyness so much

Least favorite thing about them: nothing! I love Gansey 🥺

Favorite line: hmmm, I don't have the books memorized so it's hard for me to pick lines, but one of my favorite lines/moments is:

brOTP: Gansey and Noah!

OTP: Ronsey, sarchengsey, polygangsey, bluesey, adansey, declansey, chengsey

nOTP: I can't really think of any tbh

Random headcanon: Gansey, Blue, and Henry open up a little shop together near Henrietta and sell all types of fun things - witchy and kitsch stuff

Unpopular opinion: I don't think I have any unpopular opinions about Gansey, other than he should have smooched Ronan 😌 but I'm not sure that's unpopular

Song I associate with them: rip, I do not have a Gansey playlist :(

[squash1]

a (canon) list of gansey’s silly phrases:

“hey, tiger”

“top shelf”

“man-child”

“manwhore”

“hooey”

“devil’s in the details”

“yee haw”

“why, hello”

“matchy matchy”

“hot as Hades”

“what fresh hell is this?”

“shindigs”

“beg pardon?”

“alas”

[professorllayton]

the aura of ganseyness surrounding him at all times.... why has there ever been other gansey fcs. 

[gaybluesargent]

Ronan asked, “Is this about Glendower?” Gansey flinched. He and Ronan didn’t talk about Glendower. Troubling Ronan with his grief over his quest was unfathomable when Ronan had lost so much more — when Gansey had made it out with his life but Ronan’s mother hadn’t. But the question remained. Was it about Glendower? It was about Glendower only as much as it was about Gansey. At some point, he’d stop drawing the distinction. “I suppose so,” Gansey said. “You don’t need Glendower,” Ronan said.

dvd commentary ask game & link to this fic

AUGH. THEM. so like, upfront, this is some Typical Ganseyness. his chronic refusal to acknowledge the importance of his feelings. his guilt at the very idea of stepping on ronan’s grief while still definitely sort of dumping his feelings in ronan’s lap like ‘Help Me Please.’ and, of course, glendower.

because glendower is the most Gansey thing there is, right? in gansey’s mind, at least. glendower was a core piece of his identity. like, from the moment ten-year-old gansey woke up in that forest, glendower was Hope, and Potential, and Worthiness. even though glendower didn’t really grant gansey his life, glendower was gansey’s Reason To Live. 

and, after trk, glendower is… nothing. just like that, gansey lost the one thing he used to Cope with his death (and all his other Issues tbh) — and that’s especially debilitating now, since he just died again. doesn’t know how to live without glendower and everything glendower represents. he feels like he’s lost everything he was, everything he wanted, Every Thing. 

but ronan, who has Been There, who has lost everything and then lost more, is trying to tell him that he doesn’t Need glendower or any of That Glendower Stuff. that, sometimes, you’ve got nothing and you want Nothing and you need to Keep Living Anyway. 

but gansey’s like… Not There Yet. in order to learn to live without glendower, he first has to acknowledge all that he’s grieving, and gansey is Bad at feeling his feelings. he’s… dumb. he doesn’t understand what ronan’s trying to say at all. so, in the following few paragraphs, ronan corners gansey into conceptualizing how hopeless he’s feeling, and then finally convinces him that he can live with the loss even though it hurts. they get there. yknow. 

tldr: boys will only talk about their feelings in Metaphors, but first, ronan needs to make gansey cry. 

[fromchaos]

Does Aglionby have sex ed classes? Let's pretend it does for a few minutes, because please imagine the raven losers having to do the week long Robot Baby project Please consider Ronan Lynch taking it Way Too Seriously but also being a jackass about it because he has an image to maintain. Imagine Adam, for once, having no chill at school because his baby /hates/ him. Imagine Gansey being useless and getting a terrible grade because robot babies can't be dazzled by his Ganseyness. Pleaseeeee

ronan and gansey definitely get paired up/pair up with each other because they’re bffs and they live together. gansey is like “don’t worry, i’ve got this. i’m not letting you take the baby out racing god forbid” and ronan’s all “oh yeah cool haha i’d probably get the baby killed.” fast forward to gansey fucking it all up and getting VERY stressed and hey it turns out ronan driving the baby around actually does make it stop crying and hey he has very good intuition about what the baby needs, etc etc.

adam probably has shit luck and gets paired with fucking tad carruthers and god forbid he ruins his 4.0 with HEALTH CLASS. and god help tad if he ruins adam’s 4.0. and when he’s not worrying about tad fucking up the baby while he’s at work, he’s having deep psychological concerns over his aptitude for fatherhood. someone help him. pls.

[steelycunt]

someone needs 2 make a greatest ganseyisms poll. i am tired and bound to miss key moments in the gansey cultural tapestry but it is something that needs to be done all the same i think can we put our best minds on that please

[squash1]

THREES THREES THREES:

Oh hello. I want to talk about the stylistic/textual role of Threes in The Raven Cycle.

Threes – as a general concept and as a number – are a major symbol and motif in the series. Maggie tells us that threes are important from the very first book: from Maura’s favorite saying being “good things come in threes” to Persephone telling Adam that “things are always growing to three or shrinking to three,” threes are discussed at length in the text of the narrative. Maggie also shows us that threes are important as a motif/symbol for important aspects of the story: three Raven Boys, three Fox Way women, three Lynch brothers, three main ley lines, three sleepers, etc. Threes are, textually, incredibly significant in The Raven Cycle, and we know this because we are shown AND told it throughout the entirety of the books. 

We all know the significance that is given to threes in the story itself, but what I want to talk about is the usage of a thrice-repeated word or short phrase (going forward I’m referring to this as “Threes” or “a Three”) as one of Maggie’s writing signatures (across the series, there are 65 Threes). This creates a meta level to threes being an important aspect of The Raven Cycle universe. A classic example of a Three (one of my favorites, in fact) is from The Dream Thieves: 

“As they walked, a sudden rush of wind hurled low across the grass, bringing with it the scent of moving water and rocks hidden in the shadows, and Blue thrilled again and again with the knowledge that magic was real, magic was real, magic was real.” (TDT, 12)

In a way, the Threes join the intradiegetic (what is happening within the narrative itself) with the extradiegetic (what the narration is communicating solely to the reader). The reader and characters are told explicitly that the number three is significant, important, notable, and powerful. In using Threes as a writing signature after giving the reader that information, the Threes are designed to signal to the reader that this line, this moment, is important.    

So the question is: What Are The Threes Trying to Tell the Reader??? 

Amazing question. 

In my recent TRC reread, I was already keeping track of Threes, because I was curious to see how many times they appeared. And then my sister, who was also rereading, said something interesting (after reading this Three from The Raven Boys):  

“He was full of so many wants, too many to prioritize, and so they all felt desperate. To not have to work so many hours, to get into a good college, to look right in a tie, to not still be hungry after eating the thin sandwich he’d brought to work, to drive the shiny Audi that Gansey had stopped to look at with him once after school, to go home, to have hit his father himself, to own an apartment with granite countertops and a television bigger than Gansey’s desk, to belong somewhere, to go home, to go home, to go home.” (TRB, 370)

My sister said: “Adam’s like Dorothy.” And then she said: ��Wait. Do you think the Threes are like a spell? Or… a wish?”

Which was……. Interesting. 

What I have determined, after completing my reread and spending way too much time analyzing this, is that a Three is either a wish, a hope, a longing, a prayer – or, alternately, a warning, a curse, a negative promise. 

In either sense, Threes are a foreshadowing of what is to come – whether it be good or bad. Threes exist to signal to the reader that they should be paying close attention to whatever is being said or observed.

Threes in….. Everything Else: 

Before we get too far into TRC Threes, let’s talk about the precedent for three being an important number in art, math, storytelling, etc. I found some interesting information about how three is a satisfying number for the brain: 

Grouping things in threes leverages the power of repetition to aid memory; denote emotional intensity or importance; and ease persuasion (research by Shu & Carlson (2014) found that three positive claims is the most effective for persuasion).

Three is the smallest number that the brain can still recognize as a pattern, and the brain loves pattern and repetition. This is true in visual art – having three main compositional figures to create a pleasing image – and also in storytelling and narrative. Using threes for repetition in storytelling is a very common occurrence. 

Some classic examples of repetitive threes are Shakespeare’s “tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” or Lincoln's “a government of the people, by the people, for the people.” In each of these examples, a repetition of three is used to create pleasing auditory rhythm. There is something inherently memorable about literary Threes. 

Perhaps the most interesting information I found while digging into the precedent for threes is about the rule of threes in folktales. This information happens to come from Wikipedia (side note: Wikipedia is a modern tool of collective consciousness and we should utilize it more). This page describes how in its most basic form, the rule of threes in storytelling is just beginning, middle, and end. Because this is such a common convention, writers tend to “create triplets or structures in three parts.” It then talks more directly about the use of threes in folktales: 

“Vladimir Propp in his Morphology of the Folk Tale, concluded that any of the elements in a folktale could be negated twice so that it would repeat thrice.”

This is especially interesting to me. The idea that an element of a folktale “could be negated twice so that it would repeat thrice” shows up prominently in the plot of The Raven Cycle – a book that is heavily influenced by folktale motifs – but also in so many of the folktales/fairytales we all know. A classic example of this would be Goldilocks and the Three Bears – Goldilocks must try porridge that is too hot, too cold, and then, finally, just right. The journey of these three actions is satisfying to the brain because it is a complete pattern: the third and final result of “just right” porridge is only satisfying because of the two “not right” porridges that preceded it. 

Getting back to Stiefvater Threes:

For anyone who’s seen The West Wing (and even those who haven’t), here’s a good way to explain what I think the Threes are doing. You know that thing they do during a The West Wing “walk and talk” where two characters will be throwing information and little quips back and forth at each other rapid-fire, and then suddenly, they will both stop walking, and the camera will stop moving, and they’ll say a line that contains really important information that you need to know to understand the storyline of that episode? That’s what Maggie’s Threes are doing for the reader. That’s what 6:21 is doing for the characters. It’s intentional: the writers/directors/actors/camera operators on The West Wing know that they’re throwing a lot of information at you, and know that they need to get you to pay attention to the most important parts somehow, so they do it by forcing the viewer to lean in and listen. It changes the focus and energy of the scene from something with momentum to something that pauses, and therefore makes you pause. 

The Threes compel the reader to pause and consider the information being delivered as more important than they might consider it if it was not written as a Three. “Maura’s expression was dark” does not read the same as “Maura’s expression was dark, dark, dark.” And in a text where characters directly state the magical importance of threes, compounded by three as an overarching motif, there is clear intention and meaning behind these written Threes.

In the context of TRC, Threes act as a fourth-wall break.

They are essentially a way to poke the reader and say: “Are you paying attention? Because you should be.” 

These Threes use a symbolic motif – the rule of three – that is already heavily discussed in the text – to get the reader to pick up on the internal motivations of the character who is “wishing” their Three or the narration which is using a Three to foreshadow some important aspect of the plot. 

The Threes are like the literary equivalent of a record scratch. It stops you in your tracks, breaking the established rhythm and making you take notice of what is being said in a new way. 

Let’s Look at Some More Threes (but just a few don’t worry)!

1. We get a classic Three, and a very Gansey Three, right after the group comes out of Cabeswater: 

“‘What about that thing in the tree?’ Blue asked. ‘Was that a hallucination? A dream?’ 

Glendower. It was Glendower. Glendower. Glendower” (TRB, 231).

Finding Glendower is one of Gansey’s core wishes, one of his core longings. Although this line is a literal answer to Blue’s question – he saw Glendower in the tree – in making it a Three, Maggie has given it added weight and meaning. It is prayer-like in its intention. It is almost an incantation: by saying it in Three, Gansey wishes it into being.

2. In The Raven Boys, after Gansey has bribed Pinter to keep Ronan at Aglionby and has learned that Noah has been dead the whole time they’ve known him, we are given this Three: 

“The Pig exploded off the line. Damn Ronan. Gansey punched his way through the gears, fast, fast, fast” (TRB, 311). 

This moment foreshadows what directly follows: a distinct lack of fast as the Camaro breaks down and Gansey is held at gunpoint by Whelk. This Three is not a prayer, but a warning, and an indicator to the reader that something important is about to happen. Had Gansey not been trying to go so “fast fast fast,” the car might not have broken down; because the Three incanted it, disaster follows. 

3. To return to a Three I have already mentioned, but follows the typical Three structure: 

“...to go home, to go home, to go home” (TRB, 370). 

In this scene, Adam’s wish is less about actually wanting to return to his literal home, because his house was never really a home for him. Adam’s wish/longing is for a home that he could return to, that he would want to return to. He is longing for a place/feeling/experience that does not exist for him. The Three in this sentence comes after a string of active wishes/longings, and by ending with this Three, it casts a spell of sorts, honing in on the truest underlying wish that Adam has. In using the phrase “to go home” three times, the narrative is making sure you, the reader, know that this want, this need, this wish, is the most Important to Adam, and will drive his actions for the rest of his story. 

Most of the Threes feel like this. They are often tacked on at the end of a sentence or embedded in a sentence. They’re an addendum to the action of the story. They’re like casting a spell – once to manifest, twice to charge, three to cast. 

…..And Some Other Types of Threes:

Then there are the Threes that don't follow the typical pattern of the same word repeated three times one right after the other, but are still a Three in a different way.

There are short phrases/sentences that are repeated three times throughout a page or chapter. In the prologue of The Raven King, we get this: 

“He was a king…

He was a king…

He was a king.

This was the year he was going to die.” (TRK, 1-3)

In this case, the Three acts as a promise of Gansey’s kinghood, but in ending the sequence with “this was the year he was going to die,” the promise of the three is given a condition: it is not going to be a joyful kinghood, but instead a kinghood intertwined with the death we’ve known is fated for Gansey.

One of Adam’s Threes from Blue Lily, Lily Blue, uniquely breaks the mold of Threes in a format that does not appear anywhere else in the four books: 

“It was his father. 

He opened the door. 

It was his father. 

He opened the door. 

It was his father” (BLLB, 242).

❋ (We’ll talk about this one more in-depth later.)

There are also a few “unfinished” Threes: 

In The Raven King when Ronan is having a nightmare (infected by the demon) about Matthew and the mask, he has this Three: 

“Ronan’s throat was raw. I’ll do anything! I’ll do anything! I’ll do anythi 

It was unmaking everything Ronan loved. 

Please” (TRK, 96). 

With the uncompleted Three, there is an uncast wish. Ronan’s wish is about Matthew, yes of course, but also about being willing to do anything to keep those he loves (ie. Adam, Gansey, Blue, his brothers) out of the reach of the “unmaking.” This unfinished Three serves to foreshadow the harm that does ultimately befall first Adam and then Gansey as a result of the unmaking of Cabeswater by the demon: without the Three spell completed, his wish is not fulfilled.

*This is Not all the uncommon/mold-breaking Threes, just a few that are interesting!

Do All Threes Come to Fruition???

The short answer is: No. Or at least not in that way. 

Once again looking at the text of The Raven Cycle, we are given an answer of sorts. In discussing Gansey’s predicted death, Maura says:

“First of all, the corpse road is a promise, not a guarantee” (TRB, 155).

This seems to apply to Threes as well. Threes are not a guarantee. They are a promise. Not all Threes come to fruition the way one might expect – or at all, for that matter. The important part of Threes is not that they will definitely come true, it’s that they could come true, because the Three gives them the potential to come true. 

Structure, Structure, Structure:

The main Threes structures are:

Three of the same word separated by commas: 

“magic, magic, magic” (TRK, 59).

A short phrase/sentence separated by periods:

“My father. My father. My father” (TDT, 369).

A short sentence that is repeated three times throughout a page/paragraph:

“Gansey did not breathe…

Gansey did not breathe…

Gansey did not breathe” (TRK, 209).

A word that is repeated three times and is connected by “and”:

“Round and round and round!” (BLLB, 224)

Italics vs. Non Italics:

Italics in The Raven Cycle are often used for character’s inner thoughts/anxieties. This continues to be true in the context of Threes. A Three that is not written in italics indicates a promise, or some foreshadowing of a plot point being foretold through the Three – it is typically more “real” – whereas a Three that is written in Italics seems to indicate a wish/hope/longing that is unattainable in some way. Italics almost always indicate a Three that may never come to fruition, or at least not in the way the character hopes it will. 

An example of this distinction can be found in chapter three (hah) (I don’t believe in coincidences and neither does Gansey) of The Raven King: 

First we are met with Ronan wishing/hoping to return home:

“That morning, Ronan Lynch had woken early, without any alarm, thinking home, home, home” (TRK, 24). 

This home, home, home, is in reference to the idea of home rather than the reality. Ronan is wishing to return to a home that does exist physically, but is not the same as in his memory – he wants to be at the Barns as it was in his childhood. 

Then, in the very same chapter, Ronan actually returns home and we are given this Three: 

“Slowly his memories of before — everything this place had been to him when it had held the entire Lynch family — were being overlapped with memories and hopes of after — every minute that the Barns had been his, all of the time he’d spent here alone or with Adam, dreaming and scheming. 

Home, home, home” (TRK, 27).

This second home, home, home, is about the actual reality of being in his childhood home – the good and bad that has existed in the years since the childhood he longs for. 

The Addition of AND:

The most notable use of “and” is in Noah’s very last chapter:

“Sometimes he got caught in this moment instead. Gansey’s death. Watching Gansey die, again and again and again” (TRK, 416).

When “and” is added into a Three, it becomes circular, cyclical. The “and” gives the Three a sense of infinity, or creates a loop of sorts. 

This Three operates in the same way “tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” does in Macbeth – it is meant to convey the endlessness of time, a relentless cycle of tomorrows.

❋ While there are not many of these Threes with “ands” in The Raven Cycle, there are other examples of Threes or Three-like occurrences that fulfill the same purpose as the “and.” For example, remember this Three:

“It was his father. 

He opened the door. 

It was his father. 

He opened the door. 

It was his father.” (BLLB, 242).

In this case, instead of the word “and,” the Three (It was his father) is connected by “he opened the door.” This Three is accomplishing the same feeling as “again and again and again” – the feeling of being caught in an endless loop. 

Another example of an (implied) “and” in The Raven Cycle is: Gansey’s life. Gansey starts out alive and then dies as a child only to be reborn, and then killed again through his sacrifice, and then reborn for a final time. Gansey is Alive, Dead, Alive, Dead, Alive. And so Gansey’s life is a cycle of Three.

As with the Threes that contain “and,” Gansey starts where he ends: alive. 

Other Ways Threes Show up in The Raven Cycle:   

I will state the obvious once again: there are three Raven Boys, three Lynch brothers, three Fox Way women, three sleepers, three main ley lines (the lines that “seem to matter” to Glendower’s story), Gansey the Third (Gansey Three, Dick Three). 

There are also the more obscure: the “three kinds of secrets” in The Dream Thieves prologue and epilogue; each Lynch brother inheriting three million dollars from Niall Lynch; the three figures with Blue’s face on the tapestry and later as a vision in Cabeswater; Adam and Gansey going to DC for three days; the shield pulled from the lake having three ravens embossed onto it; Ronan having dreamt Matthew at the age of three; the door to the Demon’s room needing “three to open” it; Aurora Lynch staying awake for three days after Niall died. 

And of course, we have the ley line symbol/chapter header:

And then there are the 300 (three hundred!) Fox Way “villain” readings. (This was something that was particularly interesting to me.)

The first antagonist we meet is Whelk. When he comes for a reading at 300 Fox Way, he first pulls the Three of Swords. 

When the women all draw cards together, they pull identical cards for Whelk: three of the Knight of Pentacles, then three of the Page of Cups. After drawing, essentially, three threes (the Three of Swords, then two sets of three matching cards) in this reading, the first Three of the entire series appears: 

“Maura’s expression was dark, dark, dark” (TRB, 124). 

The second “antagonist” we meet is the Gray Man, who comes to 300 Fox Way in The Dream Thieves to “observe.” Maura, Calla, and Persephone are predicting which card is on the top and bottom of the stack and the first card, predicted by Calla, is the Three of Cups off the top of the deck that Mr. Gray is holding (a remarkably happy card in stark contrast to Whelk’s Three of Swords). 

When the third antagonist, Greenmantle, comes for his 300 Fox Way Reading he also draws the Three of Swords. The fact that each of the three antagonists come for a reading is in itself a sort of Three, but to further the importance of these moments, each of them draws some sort of three-related card. 

All of the examples I have touched on have been more symbolic references to Three as a motif of the books as a whole. However, Threes also show up in the literal number of times important quotes are said/written. 

I was tracking some of the most well-loved TRC lines to compile them, and noticed that the lines “don’t throw it away” and “safe as life” happen to appear exactly three times throughout the series. This was honestly pretty surprising based on the importance of those quotes – I would have assumed they showed up far more. Actually, they both appear twice in The Raven Boys and once in The Raven King. Threes, and the importance of Threes, is embedded so strongly into the narrative of The Raven Cycle that even the quotes we all think of as the most beloved of the series follow this rule of Threes. 

Now, could you chalk some of these up to coincidence? I guess. But Gansey doesn’t believe in coincidences so I don’t either. So what’s the point of all these Threes?

Conclusion???

In a literal, literary way, Threes are a fourth wall break to make the importance of a moment obvious, but I’m not sure what the larger “point” of Threes is. My best analysis comes from the idea of The Raven Cycle being all about time and Threes playing into the importance of time as a sort of record scratch or loop. The Threes, as a stylistic, written motif, seem to connect the time-based cycle the characters experience to the time-based cycles the reader experiences by reading the books. 

But my conclusion feels incomplete and so I would like to rely on the collective for this one – just about the most Raven Cycle thing you can do. So I’m asking you, the collective you, what conclusion would you draw? What do you think? 

What I do know for sure is that Threes are magic, magic, magic.

For Your Convenience: Here is the textual significance given to threes within the books (chronologically): 

And here are the Threes, Threes, Threes (compiled):

(If you made it to the end of all this, I love you. Have a gold star and a hug <3)