The Raven Cycle Week 2016: The Friendship

Welcome to Day 3 of The Raven Cycle Week! Today's subject is one that is incredibly dear to my heart: the epic friendship between Blue, Gansey, Ronan, Adam, and Noah.

I love, love, LOVE the evolution of their relationship. It ranks up there with some of my all-time favorite literary friendships: Harry/Ron/Hermione, Will/Jem, Chaol/Dorian. That's some mighty fine company to be among, and Blue and the Raven Boys undoubtedly belong there.

While Blue initially harbored a deep dislike for all Aglionby students, and I totally understood her mindset, the more time she spent with Gansey, Ronan, Adam, and Noah, the less she saw them as the usual snobby Aglionby types with gargantuan senses of entitlement. Being the new addition to a firmly established group of friends isn't easy, and I loved watching the quartet gradually expand to a quintet, as though the boys had been waiting for Blue to join them all along because she fits in with them so naturally.

My attempts to describe what exists between Blue and the Raven Boys will always be inadequate compared to Maggie Stiefvater's own exquisite words. This quote from Blue Lily, Lily Blue is one of my absolute favorite quotes from the series, and it perfectly captures the friendship:

"Orla wasn't wrong, of course. But what she didn't realize about Blue and her boys was that they were all in love with one another. She was no less obsessed with them than they were with her, or one another, analyzing every conversation and gesture, drawing out every joke into a longer and longer running gag, spending each moment either with one another or thinking about when next they would be with one another. Blue was perfectly aware that it was possible to have a friendship that wasn't all-encompassing, that wasn't blinding, deafening, maddening, quickening. It was just that now that she'd had this kind, she didn't want the other."

And I also just about burst out sobbing when my eyes encountered this quote, also from Blue Lily, Lily Blue, for the first time:

"Now he could see that it wasn't charity Gansey was offering. It was just truth.
And something else: friendship of the unshakable kind. Friendship you could swear on. That could be busted nearly to breaking and come back stronger than before.
Adam held out his right hand, and Gansey clasped it in a handshake, like they were men, because they were men."

These quotes leave no question that there isn't a single thing one individual in the group wouldn't do for the other, or two or three or four others. Yes, they tease each other and even occasionally argue with one another (Ronan is particularly gifted at this), but that's a grain of sand in comparison to the magnitude of their bond. If they find Glendower, I have no difficulty imagining everyone being selfless and asking him to help someone else in the group because that's just how Blue and her Raven Boys are. Theirs is the kind of friendship that endures anything, and even long after I've read the last word of The Raven King, I won't forget Blue, Gansey, Ronan, Adam, and Noah. (And Chainsaw!)

Do you love The Raven Cycle, too? Feel free to post this week on any Raven Cycle-related topic and add your link to the linky below! :)