Character Clues

Character Analysis

Actions

You can't tell what a character is really like until you see what they've done. Barrington Whelk may seem like your typical unhappy adult with a job that he hates, but the reader knows that he's actually just awful and evil because he's killed his best friend. And Gansey may seem like a total snob, but when you see that he's always there to take care of his friends—whether it's financially or through moral support—you have to admit that he's not such a bad guy after all.

Clothing

The book spends some serious time describing the threads that characters wear in The Raven Boys. Gansey wears impeccable rich boy clothes—revealing his social status and how carefree about money he is. Adam wears an Aglionby uniform, but he's the only one with a secondhand sweater that's frayed at the edges, showing how impoverished he is and that he's not really in the same economic bracket as the rest of his friends. And Blue wears crazy clothes that she's stitched together herself, because she's kooky and weird.