ok listen nobody appreciates that skeleton key is a massive bundle of internal contradictions that messes up the rest of the main series timeline better than i do. like trust me i am also a continuity error hater. but unfortunately or not it is kind of the book about alex and family. not about john, or ian, or yassen, but specifically alex: he playacts in three different families (the pleasures, troy and turner, sarov) and none of them fit. he daydreams about his parents not as idols or shadows to live under but as familial structures that might have shaped him had they lived: he ‘might have been a softer person’, he thinks. he ‘probably would’ve had more friends’. it always gets glossed over but alex chose to go to wimbledon; it’s the first time he agrees to help MI6 without any kind of external pressure. it has nothing to do with john at all. 23 years on and sarov remains the only villain to explicitly kill himself because alex refused to step into the shoes of another dead teenager. you cannot play a son if you’ve never had a father. if you’ve never had a mother. you are fourteen years old and you cannot go home. you are fourteen years old and maybe home never existed at all.