ok so I have a THE GILDED BLADE THEORY
This is a very delusional theory. Highkey delusional. Extremely delusional. But everything has been fkjenfclmmcflw so far so anything is possible SO here we go.
In Jamesons card he's holding a knife. I always assumed this represented the knife in that game him and avery played in prague cos he uses the knife tobias gave them in one of their saturday games with the secret compartment. In the original card (the one where he looks like a toe) the knife is white so it's only gold aka technically a “gilded blade” (as gilded means golden) in this special gold card. Last year, there were special gold cards given out for gr and tsbaf and the items go gold, like slate's scar went gold for example. So even though this could be seen as "gilded" in this card, it's not in the standard card if that makes sense. I cant tell if jlb means all the cards will be made gold? I think so. Also idk why they switched the side he's holding it in but anyway. basically I'm saying yes this is a gold knife but I don't think its THE gilded blade.
To add to that, yes hes holding a knife and the name of the book might be “the gilded blade” but there is no knife or dagger or anything like that on the cover of the book. there is one on tig but I think this represents Avery as "the knife" in Tobias's games.
There IS, however, a golden (gilded) arrow.
So can an arrow be used as a blade? Of course it can. The arrowhead is sharp and pointed, it can be used to wound, cut, puncture, pierce, carve. Even if you took it out of its bow, it could be wielded as a blade of some sort and do anything a typical blade can. So what if the “gilded blade” is not a knife as most people assume, but actually the arrow on the cover of the book? Because why have it there if it's not important? and right in the middle as well. Jlbs covers always contain lots of clues and there is no knife but there is something that could technically be used as a blade and most importantly, it is “gilded”. Why would the book be called "the gilded blade" and not have said blade on the cover?
Not just that, but Calla comes in as important here. It's mentioned that Calla is skilled in longbow, something which uses an arrow, but we haven't even seen that come into play yet. At the end of glorious rivals, Odette tells Grayson and Lyra “The group you’re after—all I can tell you is that they believe that some situations require a gently guiding hand and others a gilded blade.” So we can assume that at some point that blade will be used and if Calla is the one to use it considering her role in the cult, why would it not be her weapon of choice? It also feels really obvious that the blade could be a knife and jlb tends to have loads of twists, so the blade actually being an arrow could be a twist. And as the quote says, it is this "group" that uses the gilded blade, so I dont see the knife Jameson is holding as being important to what the title is referring to.
Moving on. If the blade is to be used, who would it be on?
There are loads of characters I can dismiss as “very likely to not be used on” and that’s basically all the female characters. “Men ruin things,” Odette said finally. “Not all of them. Not all the time. But often enough—and powerful men more than most.” This is the same reason i dont worry for Avery. she's a girl she's going to be be fine😭 (I have a separate theory that she wasn't even kidnapped by the cult but thats for later). The cult does not hurt, target or prosecute women, they protect them or avenge them. The only exception I might think is Hannah because I do think Alice may have caused her death by slow poison or something but that might be different because the situation involved her son. So unless it’s by accident, the girls are safe. Or unless one of the members turns it against another member, like maybe Calla gets angry and uses it on Alice to take her place as the higher rank or something like that. Then there are 2 more people I feel can be dismissed as “it wont be used on them”:
I say these 2 because they have already had warnings. They had the same cut given by Calla. Knox's one turns into a scar and Gigi thinks it's a triangle but Avery sees Jamesons's one as an arrow although his doesnt scar. So already we’re seeing the arrow symbol related to the cult, specifically to Calla, so it makes sense if the blade is in fact an arrow. So I’d say there’s a very low chance this blade is being used on Knox or Jameson because they’ve already been “marked” in a way. Also there’s that whole obsession with “there’s always 3” so if we have 2 people who have already been marked by Calla, I highly doubt it would be them once again but maybe the 3rd one is who the blade will be used on??
OK THIS IS WHERE IT GETS EXTREMELY DELUSIONAL. But please STAY WITH ME.
So in Grayson's card, his item is a tie. Like ok, doesnt feel too important, especially before seeing tgb cover, but sure. BUT. BUT. BUT. Maybee just maybeee his “tie” might also be perceived as an arrowhead. Ties in general do have an arrowhead shape, and jlb could have given him any item yet they chose to highlight the tie. Again, I know this is VERYYY delusional it might literally just be a tie cos he loves his suits 😭 but PLEASE TELL ME IM NOT THE ONLY ONE SEEING IT!!! Here’s an up close comparison:
DO WE SEE IT!!!🥹 also its kind of a thing in the series that things can be seen in different ways, like the infinity turned into 8 in tgg then it became a mask in gr. So if that symbol can have more than one manifestation, then surely this can too!!!
The name of the book is the gilded blade and jameson has a knife but the cover has no knife
The cover does have a golden arrow so the arrow itself may be the gilded blade
Graysons card has a tie but if you look at it from a different perspective like many other things in the series, it could also be seen as an arrowhead
Not just that but I also googled what type of arrowhead this is and it's a “bodkin” arrowhead, which is most commonly used in the longbow. the EXACT thing that Calla is skilled in:
OK IT GETS MORE DELUSIONAL NOW BUT PLS STAY WITH ME AGAIN IM SORRY
so Graysons tie is not actually straight. It’s not pointing straight downwards as it should, its askew. If it looked straight it would look like this: (these are really bad attempts to show it looking straight but i tried my best im sorry 😭😭😭)
But instead we have it pointing to the left side of his body: (it could be because he's looking to the side but only his head is turned not his whole body) the middle picture is of course the actual card so you can see how its a little left facing (his left not ours) and not entirely in the middle but kind of going off-centre
SO the human heart is located in the middle of the chest but its position is skewed towards the left, so the heart in general is tilted slightly leftwards. Now why am i talking about Grayson Hawthornes heart🥹
Well if the tie can be seen as an arrowhead and its pointing slightly towards the left side of his body, that means it could be perceived as an arrow pointing towards the heart.
Now I take you back to the cover of the gilded blade, in which we have an arrow piercing a heart:
Not just that, but Grayson also has a Heart card. The only others to have a Heart card are lyra, odette, nash, libby and tiramisu. Lyra is likely safe because she’s a woman, libby too and I can’t see her and nash being this involved in the centre of the mystery and we all know aint no gilded blade getting used on the dawg😹😹😹 odette is a hard one because she has also already had a warning (calla lily 14 years ago) but if she was to get invovled in the mystery again, she might be threatened BUT I don't think they'd use the arrow on her unless she sacrificed herself. I think the arrow is reserved for men😭
The name of the book is the gilded blade and jameson has a knife but the cover has no knife
The cover does have an arrow so the arrow itself may be the gilded blade and this blade is supposedly only used on men
Graysons card has a tie but if you look at it from a different perspective like many other things in the series, it could also be seen as an arrowhead
The arrowhead is tilted slightly to the left where the heart is and the cover of the book also depicts an arrow striking a heart
In conclusion, if graysons tie looks like an arrowhead towards the heart and the cover has an arrow piercing a heart, the gilded blade will be used on Grayson 😀😀😀 NOW HOLD UP!!! Don't worry I'm not saying Grayson is going to die. I think that Calla will attempt to use the blade on him, especially because he is a powerful man and hes in deep with Lyra now and Calla is very interested in Lyra. But this is jlb, she doesn't ever kill off important characters lol. and if she killed off Grayson Hawthorne people would show up at her doorstep. So I think Calla will aim to use this gilded arrow on Grayson but when she does, it strikes him somewhere away from but near the heart so it's not fatal, just incredibly serious. I dont know why it would be used on him exactly, i havent figured that out yet but my guess is that Lyra and Grayson whilst looking for answers are found by Calla. i'll expand on that in another post but calla was leaving warning for lyra and just asking so many questions about her, so I think she won't care about Avery or Jameson in this book, she'll be after lyra. this was a pretty popular theory after gr, about how Avery is just the bait and lyra is the target. but the thing is lyra isnt alone, she has Grayson with her and Grayson is "a powerful man" to quote odette and also connected to the hawthornes, in fact hes about as hawthorne as you get.
So Lyra and Grayson are found by Calla and cornered/caught/captured whatever. Because of how ruthless and ambitious Calla is, if Grayson keeps trying to protect Lyra from her, she might snap and just try and get rid of him or silence him or even hurt him as a way to hurt Lyra. Calla is said to have a perfect aim so something would have to happen to make her miss her target, maybe someone pushes her or pushes Grayson idk but something happens that means he doesn't die. BUT I still think this could be suggesting that it will be used on him. The cult has already shown that they won't allow people prying into their actions and that is exactly what Lyra and Grayson are doing. and no one is stopping them because they're looking for Avery (goes back to the idea most people have of Avery being a distraction). but the difference between the two of them is that Lyra has some sort of connection and she is a woman. their approach to her will differ to how they approach Grayson. and its specifically Calla who they're involved with, Calla who wouldn't hesitate to hurt Grayson if he got in her way. In this big climax of things, I could definitely see this blade be used on Grayson somehow because it would actually work really well for Lyra's development. Not only would this make such a charged, angsty lyrason moment, but blood triggers Lyra's ptsd, so seeing the love of her life now bleeding out would put her in such a dilemma. She might go into a flashback and not be able to move and help him even though she really wants to (and Calla takes advantage of that to hurt both of them) or she might fight her way out of it by herself and manage to get to Grayson and start overcoming the flashbacks independently!! so this would be a good push for Lyra and how she will manage her trauma going forwards, since until now its been Grayson helping her out of them🥺🥺🥺
Another possibility: this happens when all the characters have banded together and are facing cult/calla together. It still makes so much sense for it to be Grayson because he's such a central character to so many people, so him being injured would cause the most havoc and panic. He's obviously important to Lyra, to Gigi and to Jameson. (only rohan dont gaf LMAO he the one shooting the arrow) So if towards the middle/end everyone is together and he gets hurt and bleeding, they would all be scrambling to help him and it would give everyone a common purpose. His girlfriend, brothers and sisters all seeing this horror unfold. Like they have to lock in and stop beefing otherwise Grayson gonna die. This could also be a way to induce of a lot of making up. Seeing Grayson hurt and bleeding might make them all realise how important it is to work together against the cult unless they’ll just lose people that matter to them. Like omg imagine a scene where grayson is straight up injured all faint on the floor and Lyra, jameson, xander, gigi and even savannah and maybe even eve have to help him. This would be such a juicy scene. and most importantly, if Grayson is hurt it puts him in quite a passive role and would let gigi, lyra, savannah etc. maybe even rohan take on active roles. How would they react? What will they do? Can they figure out how to work together? so it would let the new characters hopefully be very active and add to their arcs, seeing how they react to a situation like this.
Also when Odette said “some situations require a gently guiding hand and others a gilded blade” it could be seen as knox and jameson being the situations with the “guiding hand” because they’re allowed to walk away with just a warning, guiding them away from the cult. and then we have the situation where we have yet to see the blade be used. And again if there are always 3, then we have 1. Knox who was warned with the arrow scar and is holding an arrow 2. Jameson who was warned with the arrow scar and is holding a knife but it could be to symbolise the knife calla used or it could be pointing to the place 3. Grayson who is just a theory right now but if knox and jameson have blades of some sort, then graysons “tie” can also be seen from a different angle as an arrowhead, giving us 3 depictions of blades:
AGAIN, I know this theory is VERYYY DELUSIONAL!!!! im not expecting it to become true lol. But part of me thinks it can't be a coincidence that the cover of the book which is literally called the gilded blade has a golden arrowhead striking a heart and graysons card could be interpreted as an arrow pointing towards his heart!!! And it getting used on Grayson makes so much sense not just because he's a man but he's so important to Lyra who has this weird connection going on with Calla, and if Calla is the one to wield the blade which is very likely, Grayson is such a prime target for her. Lyra herself might represent a threat but if the cult wanted to handle that, they would try to offer her different a way like give an ultimatum. But Grayson? They could easily use that blade on him especially because he's a very powerful man now learning their secrets, and hurting him could be a big warning to Lyra.
The name of the book is the gilded blade and jameson has a knife but the cover has no knife
The cover does have a golden arrow so the arrow itself may be the gilded blade and this blade is supposedly only used on men
Graysons card has a tie but if you look at it from a different perspective like many other things in the series, it could also be seen as an arrowhead
The arrowhead is tilted slightly to the left where the heart is and the cover of the book also depicts an arrow striking a heart
Lyra and Grayson are seeking out the cult looking for answers which means learning their secrets which is a big red flag. But whilst they might handle Lyra in a certain way, a man getting involved might push them to take serious action (but I don't think he'll die, just be hurt, and crisis will be averted) OR this could be a catalyst in making everyone work together because jlb said there will be big twists and climaxes, and a major character like Grayson getting hurt could push development for at least 3/4 of the povs in a way that shows growth
its also such a big thing to happen, and jlb keeps saying this series is going to be epic and explosive etc
if graysons card changes then idk, we'll just have to see!! but yeah thats my theory!!
