Glorious Rivals

Grayson Hawthorne is a deuteragonist, a round and dynamic character whose identity is built on pillars of control, logic, and an unwavering sense of duty to his family. As the grandson of the puzzle-obsessed billionaire Tobias Hawthorne, he has been trained to see the world as a series of problems to be solved, stating, “[W]hen I encounter a problem, I solve it” (6). This analytical worldview makes him a natural strategist within the Grandest Game. His defining characteristic is a formidable self-control that governs his actions and emotions. When he first kisses Lyra, his admission, “I usually have more control than this” (3), is a significant crack in his composed facade, signaling the impact she has on him from their first meeting. His meticulously ordered world is disrupted first by his feelings for Lyra and then by the re-emergence of family secrets connected to his supposedly deceased grandmother, Alice Hawthorne.

Grayson’s primary motivation shifts from simply navigating the game to actively protecting Lyra and helping her win. He recognizes that her independence means she “will not accept a dime from [him]” (16), so he commits himself to ensuring her victory. He often places himself physically between Lyra and perceived danger, a gesture she frequently resists but which he views as an essential part of his code. This code of conduct, which he refers to as a form of “Chivalry,” is also a coping mechanism, allowing him to channel his sense of responsibility into concrete actions. This protective instinct is a core tenet of his character, extending to all members of his family. He is intensely loyal, but this loyalty is tested as he finds himself caught between his promise to protect Lyra and the increasing threat to Avert and his brothers.

His journey throughout the narrative is one of emotional development. Raised in an environment that prized intellect and strategy over feeling, Grayson’s relationship with Lyra forces him into unfamiliar emotional territory. For the first time, he allows himself to feel without restraint, a shift from his normally guarded nature. This emotional awakening makes him more vulnerable but also more determined. While he remains a brilliant strategist, his motivations become increasingly personal. He is no longer just playing a game; he is fighting for a future with Lyra, forcing him to confront the limitations of his control and the high price of the secrets his family keeps.

Rohan is one of the novel’s third-person points of view. He is also a primary antagonist and a foil to Grayson Hawthorne, characterized by his cunning, ambition, and charismatic ruthlessness. A round yet static character, his core motivations remain fixed even as his complexities are revealed. Raised within the clandestine organization known as the Devil’s Mercy, he has been conditioned to view the world as a series of games to be won through strategy, manipulation, and the exploitation of others’ weaknesses. His goal is absolute: win the Grandest Game’s prize money to secure the £10 million buy-in required to become the next Proprietor of the Mercy. This single-minded ambition informs his every action, making him a formidable and unpredictable player who believes that “[a]ll games are rigged” (47).

Rohan’s methodology is rooted in psychological warfare and information control. He operates under the philosophy of controlling “[t]he island. The house. The objects” (23), seeing every element of the competition as a piece on a board he intends to master. He perceives emotion and personal attachments as liabilities, internally referring to them as “[w]eakness” that can be exploited. This belief is a product of his traumatic upbringing, which has taught him to remain guarded and sleep lightly, “always aware, always listening, always on guard” (18). He uses his charm as a weapon, engaging in a seductive and dangerous alliance with Savannah Grayson with the clear understanding that they are temporary allies who will eventually become rivals. His interactions are performances designed to disarm and extract information, masking a sharp, analytical mind that is always calculating its next move.

Despite Rohan’s cold and strategic exterior, his interactions with Savannah suggest a potential vulnerability, as do revelations about his childhood. He has a deep fear of the water from an undefined memory in which he is weighed down and sinking, and as a result, he never learned to swim. His fear of water proves to be a challenge during some of the island-based games, but he doesn’t let it stop him. He also doesn’t let his connection with Savannah stop him from striving to win. Their alliance, built on mutual ambition and a shared capacity for ruthlessness, develops a palpable tension that occasionally threatens to blur the lines between strategy and genuine connection. He recognizes Savannah’s pain and ambition as both a tool and a point of fascination. While he remains committed to his goal, his dynamic with Savannah complicates his purely transactional approach to relationships, creating a central conflict between his lifelong conditioning and the undeniable pull of a rival who is his equal.

Savannah Grayson is a key antagonist and a foil to Lyra, driven by a cold fury and a meticulously planned quest for revenge against the Hawthornes. She is a round, dynamic character whose icy exterior conceals a deep well of familial pain. Her singular motivation for entering the Grandest Game is to avenge the death of her father, Sheffield Grayson, an act she believes was orchestrated and covered up by Avery Grambs and the Hawthorne family. This conviction places her in direct opposition to her half-brother, Grayson, and positions her as a character consumed by the inescapable influence of family history. Her warning to Lyra that Grayson “won’t choose you” is a direct projection of her own feelings of betrayal and abandonment by a family she feels has wronged her at every turn (39).

To achieve her goal, Savannah adopts a ruthless, pragmatic approach to the game. She forms a strategic alliance with Rohan, recognizing him as a similarly ambitious and unsentimental player. Their partnership is a volatile truce, founded on the mutual agreement that “When I promised to work alongside you and then destroy you, I meant it” (21). Although Savannah is an athlete, a skilled basketball player with both strength and speed, she carries herself with the poise of a high-society daughter, using her sharp intellect and cutting remarks as weapons. Her roughly shorn hair, which she had Rohan cut with a knife, symbolizes a deliberate rejection of the feminine ideal her father tried to impose on her and a severing of ties with her past self. Beneath this hardened persona, however, lies the profound pain of believing she was abandoned not only by her father but also by her twin sister, Gigi, who kept the truth about their father’s death a secret from her. This sense of betrayal fuels her rage and makes her vulnerable to manipulation by outside forces like Eve, who preys on her desire for vengeance.

Gigi Grayson, twin sister to Savannah and half-sister to Grayson, is one of the novel’s third-person points of view. Although she isn’t a participant in the Grandest Game anymore, after losing in the first round (in The Grandest Game), her storyline runs parallel to the main game. A round and dynamic character, she is defined by a relentless, almost weaponized optimism that masks a sharp mind and fierce determination. Her journey begins inside the Grandest Game but takes a sharp turn when she is kidnapped by Slate, an associate of the mysterious sponsor Eve, whom she first came into contact with in The Inheritance Games series. This removal from the formal competition allows her to function as an independent investigator, uncovering the hidden agendas and external forces manipulating the game from the shadows.

Despite the danger of her situation, Gigi’s response is one of tenacious curiosity. She immediately turns her captivity into an opportunity for interrogation, employing a disarming combination of cheerful banter and persistent questioning to chip away at Slate’s stoic demeanor. Her declaration that “maniacal optimism in the face of danger was a real strength of [hers]” encapsulates her unique approach to conflict (24). She refuses to be a passive victim, instead using her wits and surprising resilience to gather intelligence. Her discovery that her sister Savannah is Eve’s pawn in the game, and that Savannah now knows the secret about their father that Gigi kept from her, creates a deeply personal crisis. This revelation forces Gigi to confront the painful consequences of her actions and solidifies her resolve to escape and intervene, confirming her role as a determined protector of those she cares about.

Jameson Hawthorne is a supporting character and a direct foil to his older brother, Grayson. Jameson and Grayson were pitted against each other by their grandfather throughout their childhoods, and so while they are close, they also developed very differently. Where Grayson is the embodiment of control and logic, Jameson is a “sensation seeker, a risk-taker” who thrives on chaos and impulse (41). This reckless streak, however, is tempered by an intense, almost frantic protectiveness toward his family, especially Avery Grambs, his love interest in the series. His primary role in the narrative is to represent the immense weight of a dangerous secret. Having had a mysterious and traumatic encounter in Prague connected to his grandmother, Alice Hawthorne, he becomes singularly focused on containing the threat she poses, to the point where he is even afraid to say her name for fear of consequences.

This fear drives him to operate with a level of paranoia that puts him at odds with Grayson. He immediately views Lyra as a potential threat and goes so far as to secretly ask Rohan to find a reason to have her disqualified from the game. His decision to invoke the family’s rule of “On Spake” (42), forcing a confrontation with Grayson without allowing him to speak, underscores the desperation and gravity of his situation. He is a character torn between his natural inclination to hunt for answers and the terrifying knowledge that some secrets are too dangerous to uncover. His fierce, often misguided, attempts to protect his family create significant conflict and reveal the psychological scars left by his encounter with Alice.

Brady Daniels is a supporting character who initially presents himself as “the scholar,” a quiet and intellectual competitor. This persona, however, masks a deeper, more desperate motivation. He is not playing for the money but for a missing girl named Calla, with whom he shares a significant past. The photograph of Calla that he carries serves as a constant reminder of his purpose and also as a tool for his mysterious sponsor, who communicates with him via messages written in invisible ink on the back of the photos. In the previous book, Brady teamed up with Gigi and his half-brother Knox Landry, only to betray them at the end in order to continue to the next level, highlighting that he is not all that he presents himself to be.

His connection to Calla links him symbolically to the calla lilies that are a central motif in Lyra’s traumatic memories, suggesting a deeper, though not immediately clear, connection between their stories. As a player, Brady is observant and strategic, choosing to track his competitors rather than solely focusing on solving the puzzles himself. He operates as a lone agent, his motivations and allegiances remaining ambiguous for much of the game. His role highlights the theme of Cultivating Awareness of Deeper Games and Hidden Agendas, as he, like Lyra, is a player being manipulated by an unseen force with a powerful and personal agenda.