i wanna talk about the ‘treasure room’ because i think it does a really good job of summarising what’s happening between ed and stede at the moment.
stede ‘takes the initiative’ (or acts without discussing what he’s doing) and puts all of ed’s remaining treasure in one room that’s completely hidden. his reasons for putting it away are:
it was all over the place
he was tripping over it
some of it is quite ugly :/
and instantly ed hits him with the “excellent. a reminder of all my guilt. a guilt room. 😔🤘”
they’re not being subtle about it. this is a physical representation of their guilt and they’re demonstrating here exactly how they’re taking care of it.
ed is living with it. it’s in his space. sure it might be in the way but where else could he possibly put it? there’s so much of it and it’s his. there’s no use in just palming it off to someone else. no one wants this much treasure.
but stede can’t stand it and he has to deal with it now or he’ll die. so he just crams it into some hidden space and considers the matter resolved. it’s out of the way. it can’t hurt them if they don’t think about it. and it’s ugly! no one wants to look at something ugly, especially when they’re trying to rebuild their space.
but that’s just the thing. neither of them are actually dealing with or addressing the problem. stede has just. put it away.
WITHOUT ASKING ED WHAT HE THINKS THEY SHOULD DO WITH IT.
so they decide to just use it to throw this big party because surely that will fix it, right? that will get rid of the Treasure Issue.
WRONG!!
because they still didn’t talk about any of it. yeah they talked about “turning poison into positivity” and “giving some of it to the less fortunate” but they didn’t deal with the root of the problem. how did ed amass that much treasure in the first place? what’s the ideal way of getting rid of it? is there anything they want to keep?
they’re on such uneven planes this season because they can’t communicate to reach a common ground. ed is surrounded by his guilt and wants to leave it all behind. stede has just hidden the guilt and wants to pretend it isn’t even there.
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where in the locked tomb universe are we?
or: a tentative guide to the solar system in the locked tomb and which houses go where :)
[id: a diagram of the solar system, including pluto, with additional white text overlaid over each body. the sun is labeled dominicus, mercury is labeled the sixth, venus is the seventh, earth is the first, mars is the second, jupiter is the third, saturn is the fifth, uranus is the fourth, neptune is the eight, and pluto is the ninth. /end id]
note: i'm pretty sure people have put together similar analyses before, but i wanted to try my own hand at it! and please feel free to share if you disagree with me on anything & your own evidence and thoughts <3
evidence & analysis under the cut!
THE NINTH HOUSE:
okay, this one is pretty much just a freebie. if you didn't know that the ninth house was on pluto, then, uh... sorry! i'm not going to exhaustively go through all the evidence for this one, but some things that stick out are the cold, gideon's awe at how close the first house is to the sun, and the fact that it's the "ninth" to begin with—the house that wasn't really meant to exist, perfectly in line with the planet that isn't really a planet
THE FIRST HOUSE:
this one is given to us just as much, if not moreso, than the ninth. with that in mind, i'm just going to do a quick run through of the evidence that the first house is earth: it's very blue and covered in water, there are ruins of civilization, it's "the first", so on and so forth. home, sweet home :)
THE SIXTH HOUSE:
Then he said, "The sun has stabilized. Hope the Sixth House didn't get cooked in the flare." (Harrow the Ninth, 490)
this line is pretty much the entire selling point for the sixth being on mercury, the closest planet to the sun! (until they run away to the other side of the universe, that is)
THE SEVENTH HOUSE:
There were other planets that made their homelands closer to the burning star of Dominicus--the Seventh and Sixth, for instance--but to Gideon they could not imaginably be anything else than 100 percent on fire. (Gideon the Ninth, 67)
the implication here is fairly obvious: the seventh and sixth are on venus and mercury, or vice versa. thankfully, since we have the sixth squared away as mercury, it's pretty obvious that the seventh is located on venus
BONUS MYTHOLOGY FACT: venus is the roman goddess of beauty! (also known by her greek name, aphrodite). "seven for beauty that blossoms and dies", huh?
THE EIGHTH HOUSE:
"I squeal so long and so loud that they hear me from the Eighth." (Gideon the Ninth, 26)
while this line is obvious hyperbole, to me it implies one of two things: either the eighth is the farthest planet from the ninth, or it's right next to them. and since we know that mercury already has its hands full with sixth house, i think it's safe to assume that the eighth is on neptune, the ninth's next door neighbor :)
THE SECOND HOUSE:
"We went through the same shitty questions of what to do. What about the Mars installation, what about the fusion batteries?" (Nona the Ninth, 74)
john helpfully offers this tidbit to us when he's recounting everything that happened leading up to the apocalypse to harrow. i think it says a lot that there was a mars installation even before the apocalypse properly hit, and it makes sense that said installation would eventually become a proper House, with a capital H
BONUS MYTHOLOGY FACT: mars is the roman god of warfare (known in greek as ares)! looks at the second house and how closely they're associated the cohort... yeah, i think that speaks for itself
THE THIRD & FIFTH HOUSES:
"I thought we'd end up on the Third or the Fifth, or a sweet space station, or something." (Gideon the Ninth, 56)
"We are not becoming an appendix of the Third or Fifth Houses," continued the necromancer opposite." (Gideon the Ninth, 58)
okay, here's this bit where things begin to get a bit hairy. repeatedly throughout the books, we're told about how the third and fifth are the two "big" houses. harrow's scared of them and worried they'll make the ninth one of their appendixes, gideon originally thinks the entire lyctoral meeting will be on one of their planets, so on and so forth. with that in mind, it really isn't that much of a stretch to think they'd be situated on the two giants in our solar system: jupiter and saturn. we'll come back in a moment to sort out which is which!
THE FOURTH HOUSE:
aaaand uranus is the only planet left! congrats, fourth!
THE THIRD & FIFTH HOUSES (again):
"Naturally [Isaac] is Pent's protégé. I hear the Fifth takes special pains with the Fourth... hegemonic pains, some may say." (Gideon the Ninth, 170)
from this quote, as well as the whole of jeannemary & isaac's relationship with magnus & abigail, we can surmise that the fourth house is very close to the fifth house (hegemonic though it may be). it's reasonable that that metaphorical proximity is reflecting (or caused by) something else: physical proximity. with that, i think it's fairly safe to assume that the fifth is on saturn, putting the third on jupiter
DOMINICUS:
aaand finally, the center of the solar system itself! i really, really don't think it needs sharing that dominicus is the sun, as long as you accept that the locked tomb takes place in our own solar system. however, i do think the meaning of dominicus is worth sharing. coming from latin, it translates roughly to "lordly", "belonging to god", or "of the master." very subtle, john, very subtle.
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