The Lock of Hair: Mourning and Brotherhood in Bloodguard

What Is the Lock of Hair?

In Cecy Robson’s Bloodguard, a lock of hair becomes a quiet, devastating ritual of remembrance. After a forced fight-to-the-death, Leith cuts a section of his friend Sullivan’s hair and carries it with him. This small, fragile keepsake stands in stark contrast to the spectacle of the arena—a place where bodies are commodities, grief is invisible, and survival demands emotional numbness. The lock of hair is never described as a custom among gladiators elsewhere in the story, which makes Leith’s act feel intensely personal. It is his private refusal to let his friend vanish into the gray sand.

The hair appears first in the immediate aftermath of Sullivan’s death (Chapter 6 in the narrative), and is referenced again near the climax when Leith loses another companion, Gunther. In both moments, it anchors Leith’s grief in something tangible that he can hold, protect, and eventually lay to rest on his own terms.

The Ritual in the Arena

The first time Leith touches Sullivan’s hair, he is standing over the body of the only gladiator he dared call a friend. The crowd is chanting “Bloodguard,” celebrating Leith’s victory. He is supposed to bow, to perform for them. Instead, he cuts away a section of Sullivan’s hair and clenches it in his fist. He does not cheer. He does not smile. He raises his eyes to the royal box not in triumph but with an unspoken threat.

This moment is both a funeral rite and an act of defiance. In a setting that reduces fallen fighters to betting fodder, Leith reclaims a piece of his friend. He will not let Sullivan become just another stain on the sand. The hair is proof that Sullivan existed beyond the ledger books of the House, that he mattered to someone as more than a set of odds.

A Token of Remembrance and Defiance

Back in the stables, Leith reaches into his pocket to assure himself the hair is still there. He plans to bury it “someplace Sullivan would’ve liked.” The arena is out of the question; so are the cramped, reeking stables and the filthy barracks where men sleep with their backs against the walls. Sullivan deserves something better—a patch of earth far from the stench of blood and fear.

At this stage, the lock of hair becomes a promise. Leith is a man who refuses to cry, who has trained himself to kill without hesitation, but the hair betrays a deeper tenderness. Carrying it is a small rebellion against the dehumanizing logic of the games. Every time he checks his pocket, he reminds himself of the friend he lost and the world the High Lord has built. The lock of hair is a sliver of humanity that Leith will not surrender.

From Grief to Vow: The Evolving Meaning

When Gunther—a malnourished stable boy who dreamed of becoming a Bloodguard—dies from an arrow meant for Pega, Leith again performs a quiet ritual. He picks up Gunther’s sacred object: a bent nail, the boy’s only weapon against the arena’s monsters. Leith pockets it, and in his thoughts he connects it directly to Sullivan’s hair: “like I did with Sullivan’s hair. Maybe they can be buried together.”

This association transforms the lock of hair from a single memento into the first piece of a collection. The hair is no longer just about Sullivan; it now represents all the innocent lives crushed by the arena. Leith’s grief becomes cumulative. The two objects—hair and nail—are twin relics of brotherhood, and by planning to bury them together, Leith fuses the memory of both friends into a single, enduring act of love.

At the novel’s climax, after Leith has faced Soro and finally allowed himself to weep in Maeve’s arms, the hair and nail are still with him, invisible but permanent. The private rituals he performed in the shadows have carried him toward a public reckoning. The lock of hair has evolved from a raw gesture of mourning into a foundational piece of his resolve.

Brotherhood in a World of Blood

Friendship among the gladiators is a fragile, endangered thing. Leith and Sullivan had an unspoken pact never to turn on each other unless pitted together by the matchmakers. When that day arrives, Sullivan—already dying of illness—urges Leith to finish him quickly, to spare him further pain. Leith’s sword ends his friend’s life, and the lock of hair is born from that impossible mercy.

The arena is designed to pit the desperate against each other. Loyalty is a liability. Yet Leith clings to it. The lock of hair is the physical evidence that a bond existed and that it persists beyond the grave. Later, when Leith is building an alliance with Luther the giant, the memory of Sullivan—and the hair that Leith carries—haunts every decision. The loss fuels his determination to break the cycle, to stop more friends from becoming keepsakes.

Leith’s characterization throughout the novel is deliberately hard-edged: he doesn’t beg, he hides his injuries, and he never shows weakness. But the lock of hair gives the reader a glimpse behind that armor. It reminds us that his ferocity is built on a foundation of unhealed grief.

The Lock of Hair and Key Themes

Survival and Desperation

In a story where survival is a daily negotiation, holding onto a lock of hair is a desperate act of preservation—not of the body, but of the soul. Leith can’t change the past, but he can refuse to forget it. The hair keeps Sullivan alive in memory when the arena would rather erase him.

Sacrifice and Redemption

Sullivan’s death is framed as a sacrifice: he makes Leith promise not to let him suffer. By cutting the hair and safeguarding it, Leith accepts a responsibility to honor that sacrifice. The lock becomes a catalyst for his eventual redemption arc, pushing him toward the final challenge where he fights not just for himself but for everyone who was sacrificed before him. (Read more about sacrifice and redemption.)

Class Division and Exploitation

The hair also exposes the brutal gulf between the stands and the sand. While the crowd bets and the High Lord calculates lost revenue, Leith is left with a bloody fistful of his friend’s hair as the only souvenir of someone he loved. The noble spectators wear colorful clothes and cheer for “Bloodguard,” while Leith’s mourning has to be hidden in a pocket. This contrast drives home the class exploitation at the story’s core: the gladiators’ lives are entertainment, and their grief is invisible to those who profit from their deaths.

Love as Resistance

Perhaps most powerfully, the lock of hair is an emblem of love as resistance. The realm of Arrow demands that fighters become monsters. Leith is expected to celebrate the deaths of his colleagues, to view every other body in the pen as just another obstacle. By cutting Sullivan’s hair, Leith is saying no. He is refusing the role of unfeeling killer. The lock is a stubborn, quiet assertion that love—even in a place that tries to stamp it out—persists.

Corruption of Power

Though more subtle, the lock of hair also reflects the corruption of power. The arena is the High Lord’s machine, designed to turn men into instruments of profit. That Leith must secretly carry a lock of his dead friend’s hair—planning to bury it where no authority can see—illustrates how thoroughly the system has poisoned even the rites of mourning. There is no sanctioned space for grief. Leith must create his own.

Study Questions

1. Why does Leith cut a lock of Sullivan’s hair immediately after killing him, and what does this act reveal about his character?
   Cutting the hair is a spontaneous funeral rite in a place where no proper ceremony can occur. It shows Leith’s deep loyalty to Sullivan and his refusal to treat his friend as merely another kill. While Leith projects cold detachment to survive, this gesture exposes a core of fierce, private love that defines his hidden humanity.

2. How does the lock of hair connect Sullivan’s death to Gunther’s later in the story, and why does Leith plan to bury the hair and the bent nail together?
   When Leith pockets Gunther’s nail, he explicitly links it to Sullivan’s hair, thinking they might be buried together. The two objects become twin tokens of brotherhood, knitting the losses into a shared memorial. Burying them together symbolizes that Leith sees both friends as equally worthy of peace and that his grief is not finite but accumulates with every innocent life the arena consumes.

3. In what ways does the lock of hair highlight the theme of class division and exploitation in the arena?
   The arena’s economy depends on treating gladiators as disposable entertainers. The crowd bets on their deaths; the High Lord stages massacres to recoup revenue. Meanwhile, Leith’s only memento is a clipped lock of hair that he must hide. The contrast between the spectacle enjoyed by the nobility and Leith’s concealed mourning underscores how thoroughly the system dehumanizes the fighters and dismisses their personal bonds.

4. How does the lock of hair function as an act of resistance against the emotional deadening demanded by the gladiator life?
   Carrying the hair is a deliberate refusal to let go of love and grief, two emotions the arena’s brutality punishes. By keeping the lock, Leith insists that his feelings matter even when the world tells him they are a weakness. This quiet resistance eventually fuels his public challenge to Soro—proving that the very emotional bonds the arena tried to destroy are what ultimately empower him to overturn the system.