61 pages • 2-hour read
Glorious Rivals
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Themes
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death by suicide.
The Inescapable Influence of Family History
In Glorious Rivals, family history is not passive backstory; it is an active, often malevolent force that dictates the present. The novel argues that the characters are inescapably shaped by the traumas and secrets of their families, suggesting that an independent identity can only be forged through a direct confrontation with family history. This struggle is central to the narrative, as characters find their motivations, conflicts, and even their sense of self determined by events that occurred before they were born and struggle to grow beyond them.
Lyra’s life is governed by the unresolved trauma of her father’s death by suicide and its mysterious circumstances. His cryptic final words haunt her recurring dreams and define her purpose within the Grandest Game. She feels she has been placed in the competition as “someone’s pawn […] Or a weapon. Or a bomb” (5), a tool whose function is directly tied to her father’s death and its connection to the Hawthorne family. Her history is an active puzzle she is compelled to solve, demonstrating that her present agency is compromised by a past she does not fully understand. Her quest for answers becomes a quest for self, illustrating the novel’s core idea that one cannot move forward without first looking back.
Half-siblings Savannah and Grayson are similarly tethered to their family’s legacy. Savannah’s primary motivation for entering the game is her desire to avenge her father, whose death she believes was covered up by the Hawthornes. Her quest for what Rohan calls “measure of…revenge” frames her every action (22), reducing the multimillion-dollar competition to a means for personal retribution. Grayson, conversely, is defined by a rigid personal code instilled by his grandfather and the Hawthorne family’s history of loss. His methodical and protective nature is a direct response to his upbringing, shaping his cautious interactions with Lyra and his sense of duty to his family. As Savannah and Grayson progress through the game, however, they both discover that if they wish to develop a more multifaceted identity and relationships with others, they must step away from their family histories and move into the present.
Glorious Rivals portrays its characters as inheritors of conflict, their lives a continuation of stories that began generations earlier. By intertwining their present struggles with unresolved familial traumas, the narrative suggests that autonomy is not a given but something that must be earned through independent thought and action. The path to defining their own future lies in dissecting the painful and complex legacies they have been handed, making the confrontation with history an essential and unavoidable part of their journey toward a fully realized and independent self.
The Fragility of Trust in a World of Competition
Within the high-stakes world of Glorious Rivals, trust is a volatile and precious currency, constantly at risk in a game in which betrayal is a viable strategy. The novel explores the difficulty of forging genuine connections when personal ambition and hidden agendas incentivize duplicity. Through the characters’ calculated alliances and deep-seated conflicts, the narrative argues that true loyalty is a rare and powerful exception in a world governed by competition.
Many relationships in the novel are constructed on a foundation of mutual suspicion, functioning as temporary conveniences rather than true partnerships. The alliance between Rohan and Savannah most clearly embodies this dynamic. They agree to team up with the explicit understanding that, once the other contestants are eliminated, they will try to beat each other, a pact Savannah confirms when she tells Rohan, “When I promised to work alongside you and then destroy you, I meant it” (21). Their collaboration is a game within the game, marked by constant maneuvering and a shared assumption of eventual betrayal. Savannah’s attempt to steal their team’s sword and Rohan’s anticipation of her move highlight a world where even allies operate as opponents in waiting, demonstrating that strategic cooperation requires no real trust at all.
In contrast, the struggle to build genuine trust is fraught with peril, as emotional vulnerability becomes a significant liability. Lyra’s internal conflict over trusting Grayson illustrates this tension. She is drawn to him but cannot forget that his family is implicated in her own traumatic past, making every step toward him a calculated risk on both a personal and competitive level. This fragility is not limited to new relationships. Grayson faces betrayal from within his own family when his brother Jameson attempts to have Lyra disqualified, prioritizing what he perceives as the family’s safety over his brother’s trust. This forces Grayson to choose between his loyalties, further undermining the connection he is trying to build with Lyra. In his quest to maintain his allegiance to his family, he offers Lyra half-truths and lies of omission that she senses, resulting in her own withdrawal and return to independent strategy, illustrating how quickly trust can be undermined.
By setting these relationships within a relentless competitive framework, Glorious Rivals examines the high cost of loyalty. The novel suggests that in a world where everyone has a hidden agenda, forming authentic bonds requires a leap of faith that few are willing to take. While strategic, trustless partnerships offer a path to temporary power, the narrative implies that true loyalty is a formidable and transformative force, its power underscored by both its rarity and its fragility.
Cultivating Awareness of Deeper Games and Hidden Agendas
In Glorious Rivals, the narrative is framed through a series of overlapping games, where characters struggle for control while being manipulated by unseen players with their own powerful agendas. Through these nested games of strategy, the novel argues that true agency comes not from mastering the rules of any single, visible contest, but from recognizing and navigating the multiple hidden competitions being played at all times. This framework suggests that there is always another layer of strategy and manipulation at work, arguing that control is often an illusion. The novel hence argues that although one isn’t always cognizant of the larger game in play, awareness is the only real weapon.
The story is built around the formal structure of The Grandest Game, an elaborate competition with public rules and objectives. This official contest, however, serves primarily as a stage for numerous shadow games being simultaneously enacted in the narrative. Wealthy sponsors like Eve manipulate the players from behind the scenes, turning them into instruments for personal vendettas that have little to do with the game itself. Lyra is acutely aware of this dynamic, feeling like “someone’s pawn […] Or a weapon. Or a bomb” (5), placed in the game by an unknown benefactor to serve a purpose tied to her family’s history. Her sense of being a tool for another’s agenda underscores the novel’s suggestion that the visible game is merely a surface layer, while the real struggles for power occur out of sight.
Within this intricate web, characters adopt different strategies to assert control. Rohan embodies the philosophy of active manipulation, seeking to “control the board” by gathering information and exploiting the psychological weaknesses of his rivals (23). He operates with the keen awareness that multiple games are always in play, an understanding built growing up in the Devil’s Mercy. However, even astute players like Rohan are subject to larger, unseen forces. The revelation of a secret triumvirate—the Lily, the Omega, and the Monoceros—that influences events on a scale far beyond the scope of the Grandest Game introduces the narrative’s ultimate hidden contest. This secret society’s existence suggests that even master strategists like Rohan are merely pieces in a much larger, more clandestine struggle for power, their perceived control merely an illusion.
Through its game-within-a-game structure, the novel suggests that the main event is often a misdirection from more significant, concealed conflicts. The narrative implies that true agency is a rare commodity, attainable only by those who can look past the obvious competition to perceive the hidden agendas and unseen players truly shaping the outcome. The novel’s layered reality portrays a world in which very little is what it seems, reflecting its larger argument that behind every game, a larger force is at work, and the only strategy is to develop a healthy suspicion of surfaces and facades.
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