The Thief

Did you find Gen to be a sympathetic character? What about his personality and actions made you feel this way? Why do you think Turner chose to have her protagonist be such a difficult person, and how does this aspect of Gen’s personality add to or detract from the story?

The characters of The Thief have many discussions about rank and what makes someone important. Rank the members of the traveling party from most to least important and explain what each brings to the mission. Why did you choose this order? Are there any characters who could have been left behind? If so, who, and why do you think Turner chose to include them?

Explore the ideas about cultural identity present in The Thief. What aspects of a culture make it what it is, and how does culture become a part of who people are? What do you think of cultural memory and the idea that what happened hundreds of years ago should still affect people? Explore this idea in terms of your own experience of culture and who you are based on the culture to which you belong.

Loyalty plays a large role in informing relationships throughout the novel. Choose three pairs of characters and explore how loyalty (or the lack of it) contributes to the development of their relationship. Overall, does loyalty make the relationships stronger or weaker? Does a character’s loyalty to themselves affect how they are loyal or not loyal to others?

Agreeing that Gen is the protagonist of the novel, who or what is the main antagonist? Why did you choose this person or circumstance, and what makes your choice more prominent than other antagonistic forces? How does your choice challenge Gen, and what makes these challenges the greatest ones Gen faces?

Examine the ideas present in Beliefs Are Not Truth. How does the novel illustrate this point? Apply the examples present in the story to real life. How does taking one’s beliefs as universal truths bring positive and negative consequences? Is having the right to a belief the same as having the right to force that belief on others? Support your answer with evidence from the text.

Considering the magus’s question of whether a blacksmith or his hammer gets the credit for a sword doing what it is meant to do, explore how credit is given and acknowledged. Who should take responsibility or get the credit for retrieving Hamiathes’s Gift: Gen, the magus, or both? If only one, why that character, and why doesn’t the other deserve any recognition? If both, lay out how each contributes to obtaining the stone and explain whether one character deserves more credit than the other.

Based on the interactions Gen has with the gods in the novel, do you think the gods are real? What about the interactions supports your position? Why do you think Turner left the truth of the gods so ambiguous, and how does this enhance the story and its conflicts?