In contrast to the two preceding chronicles, the dialogue between the characters is much more developed than the plot elements in the third book. In particular, the central question of the book, which Panurge and Pantagruel consider from multiple points of view, is an abstract one: whether Panurge should marry or not. Torn between the desire for a woman and the fear of being cuckolded, Panurge engages in divinatory methods, like dream interpretation and bibliomancy. He consults authorities vested with revealed knowledge, like the sibyl of Panzoust or the mute Nazdecabre, profane acquaintances, like the theologian Hippothadée or the philosopher Trouillogan, and even the jester Triboulet. It is likely that several of the characters refer to real people: Abel Lefranc argues that Hippothadée was Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples, Rondibilis was the doctor Guillaume Rondelet, the esoteric Her Trippa corresponds to Cornelius Agrippa. One of the comic features of the story is the contradictory interpretations Pantagruel and Panurge get embroiled in, the first of which being the paradoxical encomium of debts in chapter III. "The Third Book", deeply indebted to "In Praise of Folly", contains the first-known attestation of the word "paradoxe" in French.