The Raven Boys

What role does Blue play in each of the boys’ character arcs? What role does each boy play for Blue? Why these roles, and how do these different relationships come together to turn the group from reluctant allies to a team? Support your answer with evidence from the text.

Love triangles in young adult literature often represent a choice one of the members must make. Analyze the love triangle between Blue, Adam, and Gansey. What decision for Blue do the boys represent, and what outcome might each lead to? At this point in Blue’s character arc, which boy seems like the better choice, and why? Support your answer with evidence from the text.

Do you agree with Adam’s refusal to move out of his parents’ home? Why or why not? Is Adam’s rationale for his decisions based on reasons (logically thought out) or excuses (avoidance of making a decision)? Why do you feel this way?

Choose three characters from the novel and explore how death affects each of them. Does death—their own or someone else’s—influence their decisions or the people they associate with? What does their relationship with their own death and with killing say about who they are? Support your answers with evidence from the text.

The entirety of Chapter 25 is just the group deciding to celebrate because they found the magic part of the ley line woods. What purpose does this chapter serve, and why do you think Maggie Stiefvater chose to include it? Would the story be the same without it? Explore the idea that every scene of a story must serve to further the plot, character arcs, or conflict in your answer, and discuss how you feel about this idea as it relates to good storytelling.

Based on how magic and abilities work around Blue throughout the book, explain your theory of how her boosting power works. How does this intertwine with who Blue is and her character arc? Why do you think Stiefvater chose to give Blue this particular power, and how does it serve the story? Is there a different power Stiefvater could have given Blue that would have matched her role in the book better? Why or why not, and if so, what is it?

What messages about privilege and wealth does The Raven Boys send to the reader? Analyze Gansey’s desire to do more with his life and his guilt surrounding his privilege. Is this guilt productive? Do you agree with the idea that Gansey needs to feel badly about the circumstances of his birth? Why or why not? If so, is his quest to find Glendower enough to make up for it, and if it’s not, what is? Is the idea of feeling guilty for choices we had no power over potentially harmful?

Despite the role Aglionby Academy plays in the story, hardly any time is spent at the school itself. Why do you think Stiefvater chose to set the novel around a school for rich boys? What does Aglionby give the story that it wouldn’t have without what the school represents? After finishing the novel, how do you feel about the type of top elite that attend schools like Aglionby? Do you feel for the situations Gansey and Ronan experience, or does their nearly limitless wealth make their situations less sympathetic?