The Grandest Game

The story’s deuteragonist, Rohan is lean, tall, and broad shouldered. He has light brown skin, sharp cheekbones, and black hair with a slight curl. When Lyra first meets him, she thinks that he moves gracefully, like a dancer, and that his smile is “dangerous.” As his accent shifts during this initial meeting, she realizes that he’s a chameleon who can assume various personas according to his needs. He’s the only character whom the novel identifies by just one name, which emphasizes his secretive nature and mysterious background. He comes into the game believing that he can manipulate the other players, particularly the women, with his charm. He can be condescending: For instance, he’s prone to using words like “pet” and “love” when he addresses women. In addition, he generally views others as simply a means to his ends. He isn’t above using physical intimidation to achieve his ends in the game; his coercive and self-centered behavior help convey the book’s ideas about Balancing Morality and Ambition.

Rohan’s personal history explains much about his ruthless and selfish nature and informs the novel’s theme of The Relationship Between Motivation and Individuality. He experienced abuse in his earliest years and afterward came into the care of the Proprietor of the Devil’s Mercy, which shaped him into a future heir for the head of this powerful secret society. The Mercy is the only home he knows, and its shady ethics are the only ethics he knows. There, he learned to fear vulnerability and to exploit the vulnerabilities of others: This is why, despite his attraction to Savannah Grayson, he carefully controls his feelings and won’t let them distract him from his goal to win the competition.

The 18-year-old half-sister of Grayson Hawthorne, Gigi Grayson functions as the novel’s tritagonist. She has shoulder-length, wavy hair that is “always wild” (38). Gigi is a playful bundle of energy, cheerful optimism, and good intentions. She’s an eccentric and humorous character whose hobby is breaking into people’s homes to leave gifts behind. These “reverse heists,” as she calls them, are Gigi’s way of making up for her father’s crimes. Gigi’s highly ethical outlook shows in the lengths she’s willing to go to protect her twin sister, Savannah, from learning the truth about their father. She keeps the secret of their father’s death during his attempt to kill Avery, even though keeping secrets distances her from Savannah and the estrangement causes Gigi pain. Gigi is unfailingly kind to others, using her gentle sense of humor and perpetual curiosity to diffuse tension and offering support when others struggle. Even when she’s angry about Knox stealing from her, and Savannah asks whether he has gotten on Gigi’s bad side, she tells Savannah, “I don’t have a bad side […] I believe in rehabilitation” (91).

Gigi often feels inferior to her sister and is thus anxious to establish her independence and competence. She refuses the ticket Avery offers her and then refuses Odette’s place in the game at the story’s end because she wants to earn her own chance. Angry about Brady and Knox dismissing her early in the game, she demonstrates her observational and puzzle-solving abilities to them. While Gigi does have strengths of her own, however, she isn’t the competitor her sister is. Physically, she isn’t as capable, as is evident when she nearly misses the game’s initial deadline and causes her team to miss the first challenge’s deadline. In addition, she’s more naive than she wants to admit: Brady easily misleads Gigi to miss obvious clues like the fact that he knows her real name. Her character arc thus helps develop the novel’s theme of The Risks and Rewards of Trust.

Gigi’s twin sister and Grayson’s half-sister, Savannah is very fair: Her long hair is so pale it almost appears silver. A college basketball player, she’s strong both physically and mentally and retains poise under almost all conditions, making her a foil to her sister, Gigi. She’s intelligent and perceptive enough to see through Rohan’s attempted manipulations and confident enough to stand up to him. Despite recent orthopedic surgery, she doesn’t spare herself during the games, running, climbing, and jumping without concern for her healing leg. Her endurance impresses even Rohan, who thinks that Savannah acts with a kind of furious purpose. She’s fiercely competitive but has an ulterior motive for the intense battle she’s willing to wage to win the Grandest Game: She wants the publicity to broadcast Avery’s role in her father’s death.

Savannah’s inclusion in the story creates tension of various kinds. She’s a particularly personal competitor for her twin sister Gigi, who rarely beats Savannah at anything and is intimidated by her. She’s a romantic interest for Rohan, who battles against his genuine attraction to her to preserve her utility to him in the game. At the end of the story, the revelation of her real reason for competing creates suspense for the events of the upcoming Glorious Rivals, the second and final book in The Grandest Game series.

The second-oldest Hawthorne brother, Grayson Hawthorne was initially Tobias’s heir, but Tobias disinherited Grayson at the last minute, deciding to leave his fortune to Avery Grambs. Grayson is stern and businesslike, and Lyra notes that his face “[looks] like it [is] carved from ice or stone—sharp angles, hard jaw, lips full enough that they should […] [soften] his appearance, but [don’t]” (31). Because of his silvery eyes and fair hair, Grayson strikes Lyra as “weaponized perfection” (31).

Grayson isn’t as inhuman and in control as Lyra imagines when she first meets him, however, and he eventually becomes a romantic interest for her. He recognizes both benefits and drawbacks to his upbringing as a Hawthorne; he’s working on letting himself be more vulnerable and admitting his mistakes, and he understands that the desire to always be in control is ultimately self-defeating. Grayson is a useful device to the story’s construction: Even though he’s temporarily an outsider to his brothers’ plans because they’ve cast him as a player in the game, he’s still an insider in the world of the Hawthornes who can provide helpful exposition regarding the puzzles and the family’s history.

Knox is a man in his early twenties, with “frat-boy hair […] dark eyebrows, and a sharp jawline” (29). After he steals the scuba gear from Gigi, she poetically describes him as being a “human wolverine” with a “conceited vest” and a “darkened soul” (71). Brady is 21 and has “ebony skin, and […] thick-rimmed glasses” (39), and he makes a far better initial impression on Gigi. Brady and Knox arrive separately to play the Grandest Game, but it soon becomes clear that they’re old friends, like “brothers…Or the closest thing to it” (141).

Having fallen out over Calla’s disappearance, the two are working at cross purposes in the game. Brady, who seems friendly, open, and ethical on the surface, presents Knox’s irritable, rude, and sometimes aggressive behavior as a danger to Gigi and positions himself as her defender. Knox makes little effort to create a better impression of himself for much of the story. Little by little, however, Knox reveals a more vulnerable side, and his behavior begins to hint that he’s deeper than meets the eye: He protects Gigi on several occasions and confides in her that he’s trying to protect Brady by not telling him the complete story of Calla’s decision to disappear. Ultimately, the novel reveals that Brady, not Knox, is trying to use and manipulate Gigi.

Through their constant fighting and painful backstory, Brady and Knox allow Gigi to display her empathy and compassion and her ability to charm and soothe people. In addition, they serve as a catalyst for Gigi’s growth. The surface differences between the two men distract her from an underlying similarity: Both have strong individual motives for entering the Grandest Game, and both are willing to do whatever it takes to win. Through her interactions with Knox and Brady, Gigi learns a painful lesson about trusting people based on their surface appearances.