YMMV / Gentleman Bastard

• Captain Obvious Reveal: In the second book, Jean was just conning the mooks and isn't betraying Locke. Who really fell for that one, aside from Locke apparently? It doesn't help that there is zero evidence given throughout the book that Jean is growing dissatisfied enough to betray Locke. Jean does call Locke out though, even missing the signal he really shouldn't have thought Jean was betraying him for even a second.
• Complete Monster: The Falconer of Karthain became the leader of the magical supremacist wing of the Order of the Bondsmagi to spite his mother, and is the worst person that even that faction has to offer. A petty sadist who sees himself as part of a Superior Species, Falconer persuades the rest of the Bondsmagi to accept Capa Raza's black contract, then offers to carry out the contract himself, murdering seven of Capa Barsavi's garristas, his daughter Nazca, and finally Barsavi himself for Raza, and torturing Locke Lamora into assisting with Raza's plot. Following Barsavi's death, Falconer murders Locke's friends Calo and Galdo, and his apprentice, Bug, and hypnotizes Dona Vorchenza into allowing statues full of Wraithstone to placed at Duke Nicovante's ball, all as part of Capa Raza's plot to "gentle" the nobility of Camorr. Captured and crippled by Locke and Jean after his final attempt at murdering them goes awry, Falconer survives, and makes a comeback, murdering the nurse-attendant who had kept him alive, and then having his mother, Archedama Patience, eaten alive by crows.
• Cry for the Devil: Prior to the final duel in Lies, readers are treated to a section from the perspective of the Gray King. While it in no way excuses his actions, his lifelong trauma is made very clear - and with his scheme failing utterly and his family and crew all dead, he's essentially lost every reason he ever had to live. Twice.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Sofia Salvara, since she's a gorgeous, intelligent noblewoman and alchemist who is one of the only people to smell a rat concerning Locke's scams who doesn't have a network of spies at her beck and call and she also has the dubious honor of being one of two named female in the story (aside from Sabetha, who is The Ghost and doesn't appear in the first book) who manages to survive the entire plot.
• Genius Bonus: Camorr was no doubt named for the Camorra, a Neapolitan crime syndicate with a more horizontal hierarchy than its Sicilian Mafia rival. Like Camorra clans, Camorr gangs are independent of one another, aside from being under Barsavi.
• Magnificent Bastard: Luciano Anatolius, alias the Grey King, alias Capa Raza, used Locke Lamora and the other Gentleman Bastards as disposable pawns in his campaign against Capa Barsavi and the Camorri nobility, forcing Locke to impersonate him so that he might fake his own death, and then killing off most of the team with ease. With twenty-two years to plan out his revenge on Barsavi and the nobles for the death of his family, Anatolius leaves few details unattended to, killing off Barsavi's gang bosses and inserting his own men into leadership positions, hiding his Co-Dragons among Barsavi's personal bodyguard, and hypnotizing the chief of the Secret Police into bringing his hidden Wraithstone weapons into the Duke's ball. Successful at taking over the Barsavi organization and killing off Barsavi's entire family in the process, the newly minted Capa Raza comes within a hairsbreadth of taking out the whole of the Camorri nobility, before Locke and Jean manage to halt his rampage.
• Squick: Selendri's disfiguration and Requin's revenge. Also, the horse urine thing.
• Tear Jerker:
  • The scene of Bug's death.
  • Ezri's Heroic Sacrifice
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Maxilan Stragos, one of the main antagonists of Red Seas Under Red Skies. While it's no surprise Jean and Locke hate him, the pair often dance on the edge of being Unintentionally Unsympathetic themselves, and Stragos' actions would primarily harm Locke and Jean (who are thieves) and the pirates. He certainly is a Well-Intentioned Extremist, trying to gain better control over the city in a power struggle against the Priori, but they're actively scheming against him in more or less the same way. For this reason the Fate Worse than Death that Locke and Jean give him at the end of the book can feel more like Disproportionate Retribution than karmic. He did poison them, but the only actual death they personally care about was actually caused by a different independent villain, although it technically came about as a result of them trying to fulfill Stragos' plan.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: While obviously antiheroes already, the Gentleman Bastards can come across as unsympathetic due to their arrogance and criminal ways. It's mitigated somewhat by many of their victims being as bad or worse, but it means the reader doesn't always side with them as intended when they're being brutally chastened.

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