#but in this case he's ianthe and I'm Corona

[trash-but-trying]

Not me quoting evidence outweighs testimony without even thinking about tlt until after when i realize.

[liesmyth]

Blood cancer, necromancy and physical ailments

This started as a reflection on the evergreen “but could John have healed Cytherea’s cancer?” and then it went off… somewhere else, namely necromancers being physically frail and what it means for the worldbuilding and thematically. Bear with me etc.

what do we know about the nature of Cytherea’s cancer?

Very little! We know it runs in the necromantic line of the Seventh, but we don’t actually know how house heirship is passed, so we don’t know if it only affects one / a few family lines or most of the House. Cytherea-as-Dulcie says that her family “wanted her to keep the genes going,” implying that the illness was rare outside her immediate family, but Dulcinea doesn’t seem to have been under the same pressure, from what little we know.

Another guess is that the Seventh hereditary cancer is tied to necromancy in some way, as it seems to only manifest in descendants who also exhibit necromantic attitude. If that’s the case, then it’s likely it is a strain of leukemia that manifested post-resurrection and didn’t exist before (like necromantic ability) and like necromancy, it can’t be studied properly – because the understanding of the illness barely evolved from Cytherea’s time to Dulcie.

[FOUR more bullet points under the cut]

why I don’t think John lied about not being able to heal Cytherea

A variety of reasons. The obvious one is that it would be pointless not to heal her, if he could. The Lyctors dismiss the theory that cancer makes a necromancer stronger (“Seventh House woo-woo,” cit. Augustine) and so does Palamedes, who studied it for years. I'm going to assume they're right. Then there are no benefits to John in keeping Cytherea ill, except watching her suffer, and this is deeply at odds with John’s entire shtick in which they’re all a happy family and he makes a point to personally serve everyone at dinner because he’s just some guy. John likes to think of himself as the good guy, even when he's being actively terrible, and there’s no way to spin ‘let someone live with cancer for millennia’ in a way that makes you look good to yourself.

Additionally: if he had lied, then it would have been with the knowledge that it would backfire horribly if it ever came out he had, and completely shatter for good the happy family act. Conversely, the Lyctors have had ten thousand years to consider their long list of grievances against John, and they all studied Cytherea's cancer to figure out how to help her when she joined them (per HtN) but don’t even seem to consider the possibility that John refused to help when he could have. Mercy, the ultimate anatomy savant, is so pissed off at John that she’s ready to kill him — I think if she had even vague suspicions it would have come out in that confrontation. The only reason it didn't, IMO, is because she knew how the illness worked better than we readers do and had reasons to confirm John's claims herself.

if John wasn’t able to heal Cytherea. Why? he’s God, etc

This is where I take a step back and look at the broader picture. Necromancers are frail. They are physically slight, have low endurance, and are physically weak. Judith is a decorated officer but she runs a 10 minutes km (a fast-paced walk) and Ianthe can barely hold up her arms to do her hair (probably an exaggeration by Corona, but not by much). These are also people who could kill someone at a distance with only moderate effort, but can’t turn that power inward to give their own bodies a boost. The same goes for the various reproductive issues we hear of in the series – Harrow’s parents, of course, but also Abigail and Magnus being unable to conceive even with all the resources of the Fifth.

It seems that necromancy can be turned against others – manipulating their bodies – with a lot more ease than it can be used to fix necromancers’ bodies, which have some level of ‘flawed by design’, probably related to the way their bodies process thanergy. There's no juicing up Judith’s lungs to make her run faster, and necromancy doesn’t make Abigail and Magnus's genes compatible for reproduction. IF the Seventh House cancer is tied to necromancy in some way, it seems plausible that it can’t be “suppressed” from the organism of a necromancer, because it’s just another facet of their abilities.

(That said, it all hinges on that big IF! My theory that it would make very little sense for John not to heal Cytherea if it was within his abilities IMO holds whether the cancer is tied to her power or not, but if it’s the second one then I can’t begin to guess why.)

the #THEME of it all

Look. I just think that “some things can't be fixed by necromancy if they are rooted in it” is pretty plausible as a worldbuilding detail (setting the limits of a magical system) and also it really resonates as a doylistic writing choice. Magic has a price, and so on. I just think it’s neat!

(And, again, I think it makes more sense as a framing for the characters’ actions, from how John likes to play the good guy to how Cytherea probably has some amount of control over the tumors in her body, post Lyctorhood, just as Lyctors have detailed control over every other cells in their organisms. There’s something about the way she decided to go on for millenia, “mostly cancer and a little bit woman” as a funeral monument to her lost humanity. I’m not eloquent enough to put it into words but I’m gonna link to these tags by @thewinterstale on this OP by @theriverbeyond. Big thoughts, big brains etc.)

IF cancer doesn’t make someone stronger, why do people think it does?

We know “thanergy boost at the moment of death” is a real thing. It is a leap that slowly dying for years = more power during your lifetime, but it’s not an unreasonable conclusion. What is odd is that we have multiple informed accounts that it doesn’t (Augustine, Palamedes) but the idea keeps being perpetuated.

(Ianthe seems to believe that it does, but fwiw this is not Ianthe’s area of study and I find it plausible that she’s just repeating something she has been told which, again, makes sense superficially)

Anyway. Cytherea knower @thewinterstale​ has suggested that maybe Cytherea herself is the reason why the Seventh House, to the present day, believes that cancer = power. She was incredibly talented despite the illness, so much that the Emperor summoned her specifically as the last disciple in his super-exclusive circle. And that was the last the Seventh House saw of her.

If the memory of Cytherea that lives on was that of an incredibly powerful necromancer, the miracle at Rhodes, cancer-ridden and so powerful… that’s enough fuel for a dangerous myth. Maybe, through the millennia, all the Seventh House hoped to achieve was to produce another Cytherea – suffering and all

[shayminlucario07]

I want to talk about Naberius Tern.

We, The Locked Tomb community, talk a lot about how Babs (AKA Naberius Tern) is awful. Because he is. He is deeply unpleasant, and is viscerally off-putting to the majority of characters in the series- I'm not sure if there's anyone who actually has a positive opinion of him. He's an asshole, and we should treat him as such.

But... that's not his fault.

Something I've seen proposed in a post here on Tumblr (I can't find it and wouldn't know how to link it even if I could, I'm very sorry), which seems to be pretty widely accepted is the idea that, Naberius' proportions being. Basically perfect for the rigidly structured dueling that takes place, is a result of his body being altered by Third House flesh magic to *make* him that way (Likely by Ianthe). But what we don't seem to talk about or acknowledge as much, is...

That's not all that would have been *made* the way it was.

I have seen the theory be proposed that all of Naberius' unpleasant behavior in Gideon the Ninth is simply him attempting to draw attention away from Coronabeth so that she can conceal her lack of necromantic ability (Again, I can't find the post and wouldn't know how to link it if I could, and I am very sorry about that- both posts I've referenced are excellent ideas that make perfect sense and are extremely smart insights!). If this is true, which it very much seems like it is, then it would mean that Naberius has no choice but to be an unpleasant asshole- otherwise, the act he needs to put on to shield Corona wouldn't work. I'm not going to make the claim that Naberius was secretly a good person all along, because that's probably not true, but I think it's important for us to acknowledge the fact that, Naberius Tern has no choice. Naberius Tern has no power. Much has been said about the power imbalance between Necromancer and Cavalier, and about the added layers of nuance to that imbalance in the case of the Necromantic Heirs of Gideon the Ninth- but Naberius is, perhaps, the best possible example. And yes, I say that in spite of Gideon being an indentured servant, knowing full well what that means. While the relationship between Gideon and Harrow is never anywhere remotely close to healthy, Harrow will at least listen to Gideon, ever- though she doesn't do so very often. However, neither Ianthe nor Corona *ever* listen to Naberius. Due to the nature of the Necromancer and Cavalier relationship, the Cavalier has no power by default. There are examples of individual cases where a Necromancer gives power to their Cavalier, such as Camilla and Palamedes, or Abigail and Magnus, or even Judith and Marta, but Ianthe and Corona *do not do this*. In fact, if anything, they have taken away whatever power he may have had, in a very similar way to how Harrow did to Gideon when she kept Gideon trapped on the Ninth- due to Naberius knowing Corona's secret, he *cannot be allowed to have any escape*, in the exact same way as Gideon. He is privy to a secret that could destroy the heir of a house. As such, he is a threat to that house- and his leash cannot be given the slightest bit of slack.

We see at least one example of Naberius seeming to genuinely want something divorced entirely from the Tridentarii. This is when, at the Fifth House's anniversary dinner, he seems to genuinely want to befriend Colum Asht- albeit, in his distinct, asshole Naberius way. And, of course, Colum is visibly discomforted by this, because Naberius is quite unpleasant. However, personally, when I think about this interaction, who I feel the most bad for is Naberius. By all evidence, he seems to be genuinely interested in a friendship with Colum, but this idea is visibly distressing to Colum- and, given the fact that Naberius doesn't have the choice to not be an asshole- at least at Canaan House, due to its public nature- this is a prospect that simply is not available to him, and it isn't even his fault. He is denied the chance at a friendship he seems to genuinely want because of a persona he was *forced* to cultivate.

The final note I want to discuss is probably going to be the least well received, which is frankly understandable- but a sentiment expressed by some characters in the books (Most notably Gideon), and echoed by many fans, is that Naberius' attractiveness is unpleasant. He seems to want people to know that he's hot, and that *he* knows that he is, and he attempts to draw attention to that. He puts time into wearing his hair Pompadour every day, he stretches to show off his abs- and no one cares. He seems to be bothered by this, and it may genuinely be upsetting to him- especially given the fact that, in The Unwanted Guest, it's stated by Ianthe that every ex he's ever had has cheated on him, and that fucks up your self-esteem- but he doesn't actually make a big deal about it. But, the general consensus is that this aspect of Naberius' character makes him particularly unpleasant- and, largely, I think that sentiment comes from our perceptions as the reader being flavored by Gideon's own thoughts, as she is the lens through which we view the events of the book- and Gideon, of course, is a lesbian. She simply does not find men attractive, including Naberius, and she especially seems to find muscular men particularly unattractive, as she describes Protesilaus' muscularity as "Grotesque". Ultimately, her reasoning for this doesn't matter, and it's not a problem- she's perfectly allowed to have that opinion. However, what it has inadvertently lead to- which is further stoked by Naberius' failed efforts to draw attention to his attractiveness, and every character seeming to not find him attractive at all- is that Naberius' attractiveness is, itself, unpleasant; as though that mere fact of his character is a source of unpleasantness. And, to be clear, I can completely understand why someone would find that attitude unpleasant- especially a person who isn't attracted to men, given. You know. The way the world thinks about lesbians, what with patriarchy and all, but this, to me, seems like an example of an odd phenomenon in our modern culture, where men voicing attraction to someone, or attempting to be attractive themselves, is seen as inherently predatory, whereas a woman doing so is not. Now, maybe I'm just wrong- I'll fully admit that's a possibility. I'm a bi/pan cis man, so I definitely do not understand the full nuance of the situation. But, at least the way that I interpreted the book, Naberius *isn't* predatory, he's just kind of conceited? Or, at least, considers his attractiveness to be a major, relevant part of his identity. And, being hot, and trying to be hot, is not inherently predatory- it can make people uncomfortable, but that does not make it *bad*, nor is it *the fault* of the person who is trying to be attractive that the other person was made uncomfortable by them. That's the other person's problem to solve, and not the responsibility of the person who's trying to be attractive, since they're just living their life how they want to. That's true of Naberius, too- it's not a bad thing that Naberius is trying to be attractive, even if he is in a book primarily about lesbians. He has the right to do so- and frankly, given all the shit he's been through, I think he's earned the right to be a bit of a fuckboy.

Anyway, with all that said, my ultimate point is this: While, yes, Naberius Tern is awful and we hate him because he's an asshole, and that's deserved, we also have to be willing to acknowledge the fact that... he doesn't really have any choice BUT to be an asshole, and if he weren't trapped in the *situation* with the Tridentarii, it's entirely possible he wouldn't be an asshole at all. It really isn't his fault that he's deeply unpleasant in so many ways, and that only furthers the tragic nature of his character. And I think that we, as readers and fans of these books, haven't really acknowledged or accepted that. It's actually quite sad that Naberius is so awful, and it's tragic that he ended up that way, whether it was by his own choice or not, whether it was simply a product of his nature or not.

[greatandquestionablecontent]

Hi it’s me again with more Gideon the Ninth reread meta thoughts.

Consider:

p. 257, when analyzing the incinerator cremains as a group:

"Interesting you should say them."

Ianthe had two small fragments on her palms. One of them was recognisably part of a tooth. For some reason, this dental fact had Harrow looking at lanthe's palms, then lanthe, then lanthe's palms again as though both were suddenly the most fascinating things in the world. Gideon recognised this sudden diamond focus: Harrowhark was reestimating a threat.

lanthe said, idly: "You see? There's at least two people in there."

And then, p. 310, when talking to Palamedes:

He frowned. “It's the Third I'm least certain of. I don't know which twin to watch out for."

"The big one," said Harrow, without hesitation. Gideon was pretty sure both twins were the same size, and was surprised to discover that even the anatomist's gaze of Harrowhark Nonagesimus was not immune to the radiance coming off Princess Corona. "They're both only middling necromancers, but the big one is the dominant. She says I; the sister says we."

"Honestly a good point. Still not sure.

Maybe that’s what she’d believed before, but she knows better now — Ianthe is the real threat. Very Harrow-fashion, holding her cards close to her chest, just in case, even with apparent allies.

[paradoxcase]

Chapter 21 of Nona the Ninth

I don't understand why she did that? She knew it would be We Suffer listening and making the call on whether to shoot her, and that she would consider stealing Judith to be betrayal. I still have no idea why Camilla saved her here, other than just that Camilla doesn't particularly want her to die? Pyrrha had not appeared or said any codewords at the time she objected to the shot. Corona obviously wasn't collaborating with Pyrrha to communicate things to Camilla and Nona via codewords, I don't think she expected to see Pyrrha there at all and she doesn't know about the codewords, either. So I don't know what her plan for not getting shot was? Was she just hoping that Ianthe would take in Judith after she got shot?

This seems to be setting things up to say that Nona is actually Gideon, but I don't think that's correct, for numerous reasons. I guess we'll probably find out what's up when they get ahold of Gideon's body

I can't find this particular code. Going back to the beginning of the book, supposedly the code for "someone listening" was "fritters", but I don't see Pyrrha saying that anywhere in the last chapter

I did find these ones:

That's clever, I didn't expect those to come back, presumably the important resource is Gideon's body and not Ianthe's cigarette stash (does she still think smoking is cool after she decided to sacrifice Augustine to the Stoma? I wonder). But I don't think I would have been able to find those again without the Nook app's search function

Yes, they do give weird incest vibes

I'm surprised that We Suffer is offering to give them a shuttle and information on the Sixth House in exchange for Gideon's body - I think since she no longer has Judith, she no longer has a way to leave the planet and get to a place where she can use it to open the Tomb. Or does the wider BOE have a way to rescue them that they'll use if they get ahold of Gideon's body? It sounded like from what We Suffer said about the mysterious package she wants them to take with them that she is stuck

So yeah, John obviously made no attempt to resurrect Gideon, and it doesn't even sound like anyone is puppeting her corpse like Ianthe is with Naberius? I'd say he lost his mind, but I think we're going to eventually find out that that already happened 10,000 years ago at this point

I wonder if there's going to be some reveal at some point that John can't actually resurrect anyone, and whatever happened during the Resurrection was like, a one-time fluke, or Alecto actually did it, or something like that? Because he started out Harrow the Ninth telling Harrow that he can't resurrect the Ninth House because "the cost is too great" but it never became clear what he meant by that or why that was the case, and now he's clearly not resurrecting Gideon despite that being the obvious thing for him to do. I think there weren't any Lyctors other than Cytherea that died in a way where they could in theory have been resurrected: Cassiopeia was torn apart by angry ghosts, Cyrus went into a black hole, Ulysses went into the Stoma, and Anastasia wasn't a Lyctor

So the theory now is that they think Harrow would have reappeared where Number Seven is, and so they broadcast Gideon's body to get Harrow back? Except... during Ianthe's last interaction with Harrow's body, it was being occupied by Gideon. So maybe Gideon's body is also meant to lure Gideon in Harrow's body in addition to Harrow in Harrow's body?

I have no idea what the exchange is about

Was this like, 12 year old Corona suggesting making wards out of cum or something

Right, so obviously we're meant to interpret this as being code:

but I can't find any instance of "None" being used as a nickname for Nona in this whole book, and as amply demonstrated by this example, "none" is in fact a pronoun, which would make it confusing to be used as a nickname - it'd be like nicknaming someone "You" or something like that, there'd be no real clear indication when it was being used with its usual meaning and when it was meant to refer to Nona. So this seems like a really big stretch

Surely colored contacts are going to be easier to find than iris dye?

Anyway, I guess Nona is going to go pretend to be Harrow

[queeoretician]

Initial thoughts on The Unwanted Guest below the cut:

Well, damn. There sure is a lot going on here, and I'm all about it.

Front and centre is the concept of the permeability of the soul, and there's so damn much to chew on around that. Then we have Dulcie! Dulcie! She and Pal finally get to talk, both dead but still kicking! She would have liked Gideon! And we get more direct insight into Ianthe's psychology, which is a nasty little treat.

The first place my mind went was to Paul - if Pal and Cam were already experiencing memory transference, then maybe they saw some kind of soul merger as inevitable, and that was another push towards doing it intentionally, doing it right. But writing it down now I'm less sure of that inference. And the fact that Pal and Dulcie got to talk, really talk, was both wonderful and all the more bittersweet if (I'm assuming) Pal's and Cam's individual souls no longer exist to reunite with Dulcie in Alecto. I have to say, when I first read Nona I didn't really get why people found the birth of Paul to be so sad, but I've come around on it since then. (I should write more about that sometime...)

Regarding the permeability of Ianthe's soul, one thing that occurred to me is that her genderfuckery vibes over the past two books are probably not Ianthe Tridentarius's identity, but a new thing formed of the (imbalanced) gestalt that is Ianthe Naberius. I really hope Alecto gives us more on gender and lyctorhood and soul permeability! I imagine this is all the more jarring for Ianthe with how she's so deeply anchored to her relationship with Corona, to find her ego boundaries to be permeable in relation to Babs. I firmly believe her shell-shocked reaction to the birth of Paul was at least in part her thinking "oh shit, did I eat the wrong person?" If she had wanted this kind of erosion of self with anyone (and I'm not sure she did), it would have been Corona. Having it happen with Babs by accident is a real slap in the face.

Which brings me back to my wild theory for Alecto - Corona will (at least try to) pull a Paul with Judith, and Ianthe will utterly lose her shit. This story really underscored just how little Ianthe understands her sister, which we already saw some of in the embassy scene. Sure, Corona isn't the flawless sword hand that Babs was, but in BoE she's shown herself to be a canny operator and a decent fighter, which Ianthe is steadfastly in denial of. At the end of the day I believe the story of Ianthe will be of someone who loved without understanding, who put her love up on a pedestal and at the same time belittled her as someone both more and less than she actually was.

Another thing that I latched onto was the argument about whether lyctors' cavaliers' souls provide a truly perpetual source of energy or not. Ianthe was pretty adamant that they do, but that honestly came across as arrogance or bravado. There's a strong parallel between lyctoral power and nuclear power, and all kinds of nuclear activity eventually reach a point past which they no longer emit appreciable energy, so I feel confident in saying that lyctoral power also diminishes over a long enough timespan. I'm less sure of whether this will come up in Alecto, though - I would be quite surprised if we saw a 100,000-year timeskip (but if we did that could be super fucking interesting).

Back to more direct applications of soul permeability, I have to imagine there's been some exchange of something between Jod and Alecto, at least before he locked her in the Tomb. That could go in all kinds of interesting directions that I haven't yet had a chance to contemplate adequately.

Speaking of Alecto, the John chapters of Nona seem like a pretty clear case of transference between her and Harrow. I wonder - were those happening concurrently with the Nona chapters? If so, it would make for a nice symmetry between Harrow and Alecto/Nona.

Either way, we've got a gross messy soul transference hookup graph with Gideon<-->Harrow<-->Alecto<-->John (gross) - I'm dying to know more about what this means for each of them (especially with Tazmuir's "if Gideon's soul is a happy meal" line from this interview).

So as usual, Aaaaaaa there's so much to chew on and so much more I want to know and I can't wait for Alecto aaaaaa...

[nonagesiiiimus]

eden's TLT reread: GTN's peripheral materials, pt 2:

part two! this turned into a super long one, and i still didn't even get all my thoughts out about the naming conventions. but it's long enough already.

A Sermon on Cavaliers and Necromancers

what a freaking interesting passage. this part does a few things for me.

it highlights the colonial attitudes and blindnesses of those living in the Empire. it uses the phrase "bullet-fueled barbarism" to describe non Resurrection societies, which is a complete and total colonialist phrase: used often to describe Native peoples, calling a group barbaric is a racially undertoned, 'better-than-them' filled word (p. 450).

this passage also says a lot about how the necro-cav pairing is a) perceived and b) marketed, to an extent, to the empires' people. the ideology of the empire is propagandized here to ensure that people view the necro-cav bond in a particular way. is it actually that way? in many cases yes, these two are bonded to each other in a love that is undefinable, and powerful, and balanced. what i think this passage does is try to hammer the reader over the head with that in a way that comes off as almost repressive towards any dissenting opinions.

i laughed at "BE MY CAVELIER V11". it reminded me of palamades' romance novel. he's absolutely dying for 6 sequels.

i also laughed at the "lowly lieutenant" remark (p.450). massive slam on marta dyas out of nowhere

this passage also gives some interesting information on how necromantic babies are born, and how the families work: “One flesh” is the underpinning of our whole Empire. We are born necromancers, or we are not; yet we are one. The non-necromancer will still have necromantic children. The necromancer will have parents who lacked the aptitude. The possibility is within us. We live under the thanergenic light of Dominicus, are born, grow, and die in his thanergetic Houses; the Resurrection made us so. We are fundamentally different to those born on thalergy planets outside the Empire. Our anxiety drives the expectant parent to arrange to give birth back home, or concern themselves with the baby’s proximity to grave dirt sourced from home" (p.451). not much more to add to this except that it seems like people in the Dominicus want their children to turn out as necromancers.

i was overall confused on the pattern marriages thing's importance and purpose. is it to hold onto necromantic power? what's up with all the bloodline stuff in the Houses, especially with the Sixth and their "set childbearing pairs" and "genetic scarcity" (p.453)? my understanding is that the sixth all descend from a very limited group of people and maybe have had difficulty marrying out of their house, which makes their gene pool limited. more of this is addressed in GTN/Dr. Sex/Nona, so i'm putting a pin in it to dive back into later.

THE NOTE. THE LYCTORAL NOTE. which reads: valancy says one flesh one end sounds like instructions for a sex toy. can’t stop thinking about that so can someone stop cris and alfred before the sex toy phrase catches on, thanks

i don't know who wrote it yet (cyrus?) and maybe we'll never know. but... hilarious. a bit of acid to cut through the fat of the propagandizing.

Cohort Intelligence Files

judith and marta have never seen action on the battlefield (p. 455)! also confirms there's a Cohort youth group, which, yuck. i guess they don't mind child soldiers.

i love that the tridentarii got in-house necromancy training. there would be no way ianthe could have kept up Corona's lie if they were in school! their parents must be committed to the matching set idea. again, yuck. i also think it's interesting the way that judith, like everyone else and despite knowing her for a long time, discounts ianthe completely. they are absolutely codependent in a lot of unhealthy and weird ways, but i feel like you'd have to be really not watching her to not notice ianthe's strengths. but tbh, she must have perfected the disguise. their descriptions are the first place we see "resurrection purity family" listed as a qualifier, under Naberius (p. 458).

the descriptions of isaac and jeannemary make it very clear how connected the fourth and fifth are. my question is, strategically, what does the fifth want/need from the fourth? we don't know enough about either of the houses to hazard a guess, in my opinion.

magnus and abigail married before magnus was her cavalier, which according to the Sermon, is a fifth house tradition they stick to in many cases (p.452). i enjoy the idea of magnus quinn leading a board meeting as a bureaucratic type.

palamades genius confirmed. also, camilla is so mysterious- and COMPLETELY DISCOUNTED by Judith (p.463). oh babe, she can soooo "compete on the cavalier stage".

heptanary blood cancer. yeesh. i'm dying to know what heptanary means or if it's a tamsyn word. also, reading judith's notes on protesilaus, it's wild to me that nobody fucking thought "hm. mr family man is acting like... a robot? that doesn't track. and he sucks at swords and is super slow? that doesn't track with his record either". hindsight on the beguiling dead is 20/20.

i didn't realize silas was 16. yikes, again! also, the breeding cavaliers thing is fucking disgusting. i feel so much pity for colum.

the poor mysterious ninth.

A Little Explanation of Naming Systems

first name refers to your family in some way. surname always in indicative of the House. first and last name can be used interchangeably to the same effect. names are not changed in marriage (p. 467)

some marraige stuff here too: non-necros must pick which house to settle on and affiliate with, and all children will be of the SETTLED house. necros can't marry out of house, which is why if they are to be married to someone from outside the house, that person has to affiliate with the necro's house instead of keeping their own house identity (pgs. 467-468).

harrow = harrowing of Hell. from swordofthespirit.net : "The “harrowing of hell” refers to what Christ did when he descended to Hades or hell between his death and his resurrection. Specifically, the early church believed that after his death Christ descended into hell in order to rescue the souls of the just, starting with Adam and Eve, who had died under the Fall. When Jesus descends he beaks down the doors of hell, unbinds the prisoners held in chains, and then leads the just to their heavenly paradise."

“hark is one of those terrible, portentous words that always precedes an awful time, but in the old sense of ‘awe’.” (468)

Harrow’s name is potentially a direct reference to the plot of ATN, or her character’s end game: to descend into Hell, and free those in chains, bringing them back to the light.

gideon: one who cuts down, Hacker or One Who Hewed Down the Enemy. in the bible, Gideon is a massive warrior and prophet of God, who is called down to fight the Midianites and essentially whoops ass. interesting quote from abarim publications: "The verb גדע (gada') means to hew down or cut off, mostly of religious regalia and holy trees and such. Strikingly, there are no nouns formed from this verb, suggesting that whatever was cut off, was no longer discussed and even cut off from speech itself."

tamsyn writes: "Gideon is a prophetic name: someone named their own demise in her" (p. 468). which i LOVE. their names tell of their future story, i.e she's going to KICK GOD'S ASS. hopefully.

priam: "priam in the iliad was famously a dad in a city about to go splat. (p. 469)"

coronabeth: Corona: the sun, the halo, the crown

ianthe : quoting from ancestry.com: "The name Ianthe finds its root in ancient Greek, where it is derived from the combination of the Greek words ia meaning violet and anthos meaning flower. This gave birth to its meaning as a violet colored flower. In Greek mythology, Ianthe was a [oceanid water] nymph who was beloved by one of the gods, who granted her immortality." violet eyes, immortality by God. also interestingly, ianthe was also the name of one of persephone's companions when she was taken by Hades.

there's one more legend of ianthe in greek mythology, as presumably another individual: Ianthe, a Cretan girl who was betrothed to Iphis, appears as another figure in Greek and Roman mythology. Iphis, a woman raised as a man, also fell in love with Ianthe and prayed to the gods for permission to marry the other woman. Instead, Isis changed Iphis into a man who then became Ianthe’s husband. very queer of her!

this note on the sixth house: "any person, regardless of necromantic aptitude, marrying any member of the Sixth House (also regardless of necromantic aptitude), becomes a member of the Sixth House. This binds them to the Sixth House for the rest of their lives; additionally, any subsequent children they might have are for the Sixth, even if their current partner is not of the Sixth House" (quote from the wiki). tamsyn remarks that this makes it complicated.. which i can imagine. but it probably helps with their gene pool issue.

isaac: Named for Isaac in the Bible, who was set to be sacrificed by his father by God’s orders, in order to test his father Abraham’s loyalty. “the sacrifice and death of Jesus Christ is heavily foreshadowed in the biblical account of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac…God had already asked Abraham to leave his kinfolk and give up his past, and in asking him to sacrifice Isaac, his only son, was asking him to "surrender his future as well... Just as Abraham was prepared to sacrifice Isaac, God sacrificed his only son, Jesus.”

jeannemary: named for Jeanne d’Arc, aka Joan of Arc.

isaac being named for the foreshadowed death of christ, and jeannemary being named for jeanne d’arc are just masterful (p. 472). the symbolism is near heavy handed but i eat it with a spoon anyway. gideon as christ for sure.

i LOVE tamsyn’s use of the matching parts of the name to signify the necro cav pairs that were truly devoted to each other: palAMades and cAMilla… mAGgnus and abiGAil… sobbing (p. 473)

dulcinea: Named for the imaginary love interest of Don Quixote. Don Quixote believes he must have a lady, under the mistaken view that chivalry requires it… As he does not have one, he invents her, making her the very model of female perfection.

“a case of a woman you want to exist but who really doesn’t” is heart shattering foreshadowing (p.473). this foreshadows the reveal that dulcinea as they all knew her never existed: she’d been killed by cytherea before they could even meet her

but tbh she does exist… just not in gideon. gotta wait for the river for that one. i am a pal/cam/dulcie polycule truther.

not much more except i am just consistently delighted in the thoughtfulness of the naming and how much foreshadowing is layered in the very names of these characters. many in ways we still have yet to see play out in the broader story of the text.

[tomomiisasleep]

random thoughts on tlt on random re-reads

this line is amazing. shows how driven by rage John is(well, part of his soul is an RB) and induces thought on how Gideon would react after Harrow "turned her back" on her.

btw I always thought that Gideon being the saddest girl ever is because her soul is "fractured".

The series focuses on this, cases where two person are a whole and they could never be apart, and when they are apart they are as sad as Gideon. Or not because Gideon is double fractured.

Ianthe had tried to pull Gideon back when she walked out, but after hearing about the cavs she stepped out. She couldn't help it.

in the Unwanted Guest we see how important Babs' role is in her life. In As Yet Unsent(this name for the short story is very good btw) she uses her only invite spot to annoy Babs. she doesn't have any friends, she doesn't have a love life(“Ah, the romance I have been awaiting all my life,” she said pleasantly. “Babs always said it would come along … or at least, he once said I would go to hell and get fucked, which I took as a roundabout way of expressing the same thing.), she only has necromancy and Corona and Babs, and she was forced to choose between them.

Here:

Hate. that's what should have appeared on her face when she stepped out during the Emperor's murder. She was in denial the whole time.

but now she knows that there is a way, seen it herself, yet it's too late already. She'll never be truly one with Corona. Babs will always be there. Despair.

Also, I think it's safe to say that if met with a choice between Corona and Harrow, she'd just chose Corona again and kill Harrow like Babs.

Camilla took a couple of gasping breaths—it was obvious how much they hurt her—and then she said: “Warden—will she know who we are, in the River?”

“Oh, she’s not stupid,” said Palamedes lightly. “In the River—beyond the River—I truly believe we will see ourselves and each other as we really are. And I want them to see us.

He already knows at this point that Dulcie is beyond the River. Cam never had the chance to even talk to her. Pal didn't tell her yet. but they'll know when they're together.

re-read the unwanted guest too, why can't Dulcie tell Pal about the River? Who's not letting her explain?

that fucking short story hits harder and harder the more I read it. the dialogue and scenes are so good. during my first read I was confused and like, what? souls mix? that's so messy?? then... Ianthe never was Ianthe in HtN? I don't believe this.

now I'm like, *crying* souls mix, *crying* Mercymorn Cristabel is Mercymorn Cristabel *crying* Ianthe was never Ianthe in HtN and never will be Ianthe again *crying*

Cam, though probably not for long by the looks of it—Mumfucker Prime—Judith Deuteros for some reason, or, like, her corpse

is Judith dead???? will she be able to get her soul back? I think Jod would be able to manage it though

[0w0]

Made a post on Reddit of tlt theories I have, here's it:

But here it is under a read more so you don't have to suffer. I'd really love to hear everyone's thoughts!

Ianthe, Lychtorhood(s), the Tower, the Trinity, Ba & Ka, Vriska

Inb4; I'm an audiobook listener so my spellings are probably not right

[ Not Vriska ]

I'm a broken record when it comes to finding all of the little homestuck things in the locked tomb, and Ianthe seems ofc Very Serket-y. So my unironic but absolutely crack theory is that she's going to end up having a hand in bringing the story to its climax but in a way that could be considered either heroic or aligning with the protagonist, even if that's not the spirit of what she's doing. "Protagonist" being Alecto over all, not Harrow, not Gideon.

[ Motivation ]

I genuinely think Ianthe wants knowledge and power But not because she wants to be God to everyone, I think she wants to be God to herself (and of course however that plays into her enmeshment with Corona), looking back on how she always had to play second fiddle to Corona ineveryone's eyes, she was a puppet master further puppeted by her parents who obviously gave her a lot of issues. I genuinely believe she hates herself, and just looking for anything to fill that void.

[ Tower ]

I haven't read very many other theories on the Tower, But because the afterlife we've seen is referred to as the river, I believe it is a lighthouse allegory, meant to guide all of the souls who have been lost, straying, and absolutely ravenous. "Jewel or gleam of a smile" gives me very "beam of light" energy, I believe Ianthe will have some kind of end as a ferryman or harbinger, becuase John never was - he was just vindictive as a god.

[Types of Lychtor]

💙1) Swaparoo; John and Alecto - the switched souls or essences, something that traded their eyes but let them both live.

💙2) Headmates; Pyrrah and Gideon - two souls living in one body, independent of each other but the eaten soul isn't actually devoured, Pyrrah still having agency for example. I believe this is what Anastasia and Samael may have ended in, if John hadn't killed him.

💙4) Fusion; Paul - When Camilla and Palamedes achieved lychtorhood, it seems like they've fused into and have become a new being, like their souls are blended into a new one, which is parts of them both, yet is still new being.

💙3) Cannibal; Mercymorn and Christabelb- And the other cases of lychtors we've seen for the most part it seems like the soul has been completely devoured, or like the personality of the cavalier is gone, all there is, is autopilot and a battery.

[ The Trinity - what is it? ]

BUT if the perfect Lychtorhood trinity is actually 3 souls, here are my guesses for endgame trinity:

Upon my reread of Nona I realized Anastasia had mentioned a trinity, and I don't think it's just in a Christian Context. A possible reading of what the Trinity is - Adept, Cavalier, and the whole of what they make. The new entity is the 3rd thing, Lychtor type 4.

Ianthe, Babs, Corona

Alecto, Harrow, Gideon

John (father), Gideon (son), Alecto (holy spirit).

Alecto (father), the 10 billion souls (son), the tower/river (holy spirit)

Ianthe, for those last combos, I'd consider a Judas or Longinus allusion. I think her final defining act will be one of mercy, that will leave everyone in... awe ;)

[ Connective tissue ]

💙 Permission; "There is only one rule. Don't go into any locked room without permission. Wink." This quote from teacher in Gideon has been making my brain itch, and I really feel like it has something to do with the tomb itself, the tower, the river, the stoma.

💙 Eyes; are the window to the soul. The way to a man's heart is through his stomach. I believe the stoma at the bottom of the river isn't just a gateway, and isn't just full of teeth because it's creepy and necromantic. I think the entire river is a living being, that the entire universe in this series is a consciousness all of its own, and that entropy is only being expedited by John, whether he realizes it or not. I believe the river is one big revenant waiting to happen.

💙 Iceberg; Alecto is the Earth, but not the 10 billion souls. John is very much like Harrowhark, in that he is made up of so many more than just his own soul. I don't believe he devoured human kinds souls, I believe they're the mindless restless dead in the river that are so hungry and searching for closure.

💙 Tarot; The tower card often means unforeseen change and dangerous circumstances etc, though in reverse it means illness, loss, etc. I'm choosing to see the river as a reflection of sorts, so I believe the tower is a place of mourning, not the dangerous and ominous thing it seems to be. I genuinely feel like there used to be beings in the river who would help guide souls along.

💙 Ba & Ka; everyone here is extremely well read so I'll let you look up this Kemetic belief and jump into it curtly: I believe when a necromancer devours their cavalier, the eye color switches because the KA (essence) is what is switched with adept and cavalier. I believe this is why even though Gideon dies, Pyrrah still has his eye color rather than hers remaining. Her essence is what has been made part of their soul.

I believe the Ba is what joins the river even when a Cavalier is made into a battery, but that the KA stays. I believe that is what would explain things like only certain body parts or bisected spirits in the river, because why would it dead thing see itself as only part of its whole? Because it's whole isn't there.

Now the BA, personality and individuality, is what gets destroyed in type 2, but blended in type 4. Think Paul's eyes blending color.

[ In conclusion ]

(I'm talking about a lot of complex things that I only have cursory knowledge of, apologies if I get anything wrong thusly dismantling this entire red string maze.)

I still firmly believe that the Trinity is it's two parts plus the whole it makes, and I believe Babs will be rejected or expunged based on what was said in Nona. I don't think his entire Ba has been corroded down to just his Ka yet, so he still may be able to be saved.

This would leave and Ianthe and Corona. BUT I believe Ianthe will have to reconcile her own parts to become a whole person, and become a mini Trinity before even thinking about a perfect Lychtorhood - But she gives a love that is toxic and codependent, I could really see her going between eating Corona, or simply denying her again because she is the one person she can't live without, despite everything.

That, and Corona being Judith's Cavalier in spirit, I'm not sure where her final loyalties will lie. I think her rejection of Ianthe is what will drive Ianthe to do the ""right"" thing. She's always been into people who don't want her and Ianthe had already rejected her once, I don't know if she will get a second chance to reject her.

[iviarellereads]

Gideon the Ninth, Bonus Content, Cohort Intelligence Files

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For detail on The Locked Tomb coverage and the index, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

The next paperback bonus from Gideon, in-world intel files on what was knowable about each of the characters. It'll make sense shortly.

Intelligence report assembled on the advent of the Lyctor pilgrimage by Captain J. Deuteros (Dead Fleet, Dve Territorials 12th Necromancer's Unit). NOT FOR ARCHIVAL USE. Only for use accompanied with verbal distribution to Trentham-based members of the Admiralty, Generals [REDACTED] and [REDACTED], Head of Intelligence [REDACTED], and Lieutenant M. Dyas (Dead Fleet, Dve Territorials, 12th Necromancer's Unit Auxiliary) acting in the role of cavalier primary.

So, you see, before Canaan House, Judith assembled files on what the Second was able to access about every necromancer and cavalier. In some cases that was quite a bit. In some cases... well.

She starts, naturally, with herself.

Second House

Captain Judith Deuteros, age 22. First enrolled in the Junior Cohort Territorials at age 11. She follows her illustrious career so far, but in a way that seems to minimize her involvement and the honours implied, until promotion to captain at 22.(1) She then takes a side trip to apologize for the awkward use of third-person to describe herself, and continues about her aptitudes and grades in first-person.

As well as having passed psychological examinations, I will be interested in acquiring for the Cohort the first up-to-date intelligence on the First House in three hundred years.(2) I have no family or marital responsibilities that will distract me.(3)

Marta Dyas, age 27. Judith goes into Marta's achievements in considerably more detail than she did her own. Joined the JCTs at 10, awarded cavalier status at 20. Ranked first place in duelling in the whole system two years ago. Judith adds a side note about how Marta is just the BESTEST cavalier.(4)

Third House

Crown Princess Coronabeth Tridentarius, age 21. Educated at home, not at a formal institution. No Cohort placement. Corona is the eldest, and will lead the House when her father relinquishes his place. No marital ties. Notes: intelligence is incomplete, Corona could be "a necromantic dilettante or a powerhouse." She is very popular in and out of her House, and "physically imposing and extraordinarily beautiful, or at least very beautiful on a subjective level to many people,"(5) but is in danger of mistaking charisma for leadership ability. Judith has known Corona "since childhood, and she was capricious then."

Princess Ianthe Tridentarius, age 21. Received home instruction as well, and the same lack of information applies. "Ianthe has never performed necromancy without her sister in the room, which may indicate a lack of confidence or aptitude."(6) No marital ties. Notes: Judith believes that Ianthe is less than Corona "in almost every way." Physically frail, less sociable, "unappealing in her personality." Defers entirely to Coronabeth when they appear in public.

Prince Naberius Tern, age 23. The only child of the previous cav prime. "Resurrection-purity family,(7) line has been serving Ida and providing cavaliers historically." Registered as cavalier at age 14, but has been assigned to both the princesses, which is most irregular. Notes: offhand style is both the dagger and the Third House threefold knife.(8) He's materialistic and "socially immature" with an inflated opinion of himself and his talents, which Judith remarks that Marta has noted "occasionally aligns with reality."

Fourth House

Baron Isaac Tettares, age 13.(9) Another "Resurrection-purity family," eldest of eight siblings, which were conceived and carried with "a mix of vat-womb and XX-carry." His father was killed on duty nineteen years ago, and all his children have been posthumous.(10) He's a strong spirit magician, and he trained mostly at home but spent time on the Fifth under Abigail Pent. Sought Cohort placement two years ago, but was rejected on age and health grounds, "on advisement from the Fifth House."(11) If he reapplies next year, he'll likely be accepted at last.(12) Notes: Judith finds it unlikely that Isaac will achieve Lyctorhood,(13) and his immaturity would make it undesirable besides. It's been suggested that Pent's nephew "will be affianced to [Isaac] once they are of age." Judith thinks this a pity, as Isaac could be an "interesting personality".

Sir Jeannemary Chatur, age 14.(14) More "Resurrection-purity", second of six siblings. Chatur is the name given to the first non-necromancer in her family line in each generation. Intended as Isaac's cavalier since birth, swore the oath and earned the title at age 9. Cavalier primary since "last year's bombing."(15) Attended the same schools as Isaac, and has the same relationship with Abigail Pent. Notes: Offhand is the dagger, and she actually placed in duelling last year despite her age. She and Isaac could be a huge asset to the Cohort, "if one can prevent native Fourth instinct from making too much headway."(16)

Fifth House

Lady Abigail Pent, age 37. Achieved head of her House five years ago, "at which point her husband became her cavalier." Their inability to procreate together means her brother's children will be her heirs unless she names another. Abigail carries "a slew of first-class degrees." She's a necromantic generalist "with status as speaker to the dead", and "future generations will look at her as one of the great historians of the Nine Houses." Pent's sentiments seem to lean anti-Cohort. Her grandfather was Admiral of the Undying Fleet, so "where this sentiment came from is to be investigated."

Sir Magnus Quinn, age 38. An administrator, not a duellist, but a "capable civil servant". Notes: Quinn is only cavalier primary because of his marriage, and Judith says the Fifth "is undoubtedly chagrined at the timing."(18) Offhand is the dagger, "but Quinn remains a schoolboy fighter." There's evidence that Abigail intends to step down as leader and name her brother her heir.(19)

Sixth House

Master Warden Palamedes Sextus, age 20. Not much data available, but he's the youngest Master Warden ever recorded. Hasn't published outside the Sixth, but secondhand accounts indicate he's "regarded as a genius by his Sixth peers (!)."(20) Has not evidently weakened his house since he took leadership. Notes: Judith met the Master Warden once, and found him "light-hearted" and not as "dignified or ponderous" as she might have expected. She would not have known him for the Master Warden if not told beforehand.

Camilla Hect, age 20. Almost nothing is known, "except that she passed the examinations to become Palamedes Sextus' cavalier when she was twelve." No duelling tournaments or informal bouts. Notes: registered as Pal's second cousin, as Sixth still publishes genetic data since it's their "leading concern." Judith decides her offhand is likely the dagger, "as the Sixth House do not have the confidence to move away from the classics." She also decides that Cam "will not even bother to compete on the cavalier stage."(21)

Seventh House

Duchess Dulcinea Septimus, age 27. Has publicly been "removed multiple times to high-atmosphere facilities on-planet to convalesce" as she dealt with the hereditary blood cancer known to her House. Has outlived the terminal diagnosis considerably, but has not been seen in public for five years. Notes: "Attempt to become a Lyctor may well be based entirely on the cavalier."

Protesilaus Ebdoma, age 39. Well-regarded as a cavalier, served Septimus's father as cavalier secondary until he was given to Septimus, "albeit this may well have been because Septimus was not expected to live and it would have been a waste to give her a cavalier close to her in age." Served in the Cohort at 18, "did tours to three separate front lines before returning home." He is married with multiple children.(22) Ranked first in duelling three years running in the "general class cavaliers" before retiring home to serve Septimus. Notes: Offhand style is the chain. Seventh "still rest on the laurels" that he won them in his service and in his duelling. Judith is particularly vexed by why he was assigned to Dulcinea. His marital responsibilities "mean his attention may be divided."

Eighth House

Master Silas Octakiseron, age 16. Not much known. Eighth tradition holds that he would have been aware of his future role at a young age, and "bonded with his cavalier in the extremes of youth." It is safe to assume that he is a soul siphoner. Notes: "The Eighth House consists of both safe guesses and absolute enigmas."

??? Asht, age 32, 34, or 37. There are three brothers registered to the name, which would be prepared to serve Octakiseron. Notes: Offhand "could be anything from the shortsword to the shield or the claws. Eighth House cavaliers have tended in the past few generations toward close melee."(23)

Ninth House

Absolutely nothing known about the Ninth House, necromancer or cavalier. They may not even show up for the pilgrimage. "Shuttles are still ordered regularly to the site, but the contents have been blanked out in the system.(24) Someone with higher intelligence clearance than myself may want to check the database." Judith also suggests that the Cohort get in touch and schedule an inspection of the prison. The cavalier's offhand could be anything. The necromancer will be a bone adept, but could be anyone. She plans to "proceed with caution" as the Ninth may be hostile.(25)

=====

(1) No wonder she was so uptight at Canaan House. She's only just been promoted and takes her duty VERY seriously. (2) Why have they been so out of touch with a planet within their system for so long? Like, we saw that there was no communication from Canaan House itself, but (3) What a curious thing to specify. (4) It's kind of cute really, how much Judith obviously looks up to Marta and, you know, I wouldn't say there's zero indication of a crush here. Muir's love of subtext didn't end at the original edition content. (5) Nice save, Judith, careful or people will think you have more of a crush on Corona than you do on Marta. (6) The dramatic irony, huh? It tells you a lot about the sisters' relationship and why they were the way they were in the book, this one line. (7) I think this is just meant to gesture at people who have been doing the same thing for hundreds of years, or in this case thousands, but I can't help but note that this is comparable to the sort of people who trace their lineages back to the American Revolution. (8) Avoiding calling it a trident or a fork is difficult, bravo. (9) Even younger than Gideon thought. Sobbing forever. (10) We as a society are getting more accustomed to sperm donation and egg and sperm banking, but damn. (11) He was no younger than Judith when she applied and was accepted, but I expect Abigail wanted to protect him. (12) The gut punches just keep on coming. (Don't stop, never stop.) (13) Judith, you don't even know what it requires. (14) How cool is that coincidence, being able to use the fourteenth footnote on the number fourteen? I swear I didn't plan it and I hope I don't have to renumber these and lose it. (15) The poor Fourth. (16) I believe the Fourth instinct is "rushing into danger headfirst, asking questions and considering caution later". (17) I didn't comment on this in the narrative of Gideon when it came up, but I love the idea that Muir (and probably others before her, but none I've read yet) read the title of Speaker For The Dead (as in Orson Scott Card's work, hashtag end bigotry and don't support him or his work) and said, "that would be better if it was actually talking to ghosts". (18) I would tend to disagree, but Judith's biases are as telling of what Muir wants us to believe of her and her House as anything. (19) Or is that wishful thinking on Judith's part? (20) So impressive even Judith has to put an exclamation mark in. (21) Fascinating how little is known about the Sixth despite obviously socializing occasionally with the other Houses. (22) Oh noooo not half-orphans! (23) Interesting that Judith gives Eighth this credit, but no one else. (24) Now THAT'S something to look into, huh? (25) I suppose that's one way to put it.

[thunderon]

This has probably been debated to death but I'm curious what you think.

What if there wasn't an unhinged Lyctor at Canaan House and everyone wasn't murdered: Who would've actually gone through with becoming a Lyctor?

We already know that Harrow had to be forced and that Ianthe didn't hesitate lol

i dunno whether or not other people have hashed this out but i do have feelings on this! (in case you want an Official Author Answer, tamsyn muir answered pretty much this exact question here) but im glad to throw in my thoughts as well! for the purposes of this post, im defining “becoming a Lyctor” as imperfect lyctorhood (aka necro snacks on cav for eternal go-go juice)

house by house let’s do it:

2nd: so let’s start with a direct quote from judith:

…. those are not the words of a necromancer who would be willing to kill their cavalier. additionally the way judith refuses corona’s offer in ayu makes me HIGHLY doubt she’d do this to marta. verdict: would not

3rd: so obvs ianthe wouldnt hesitate for babs (cuz who cares about babs, after all) BUT let’s make this interesting. what if it was her and corona? i could easily imagine a situation mirroring augustine and alfred where her hand is forced by corona. i don’t think ianthe would choose to become a lyctor with corona but i could see her turning out like augustine and mercy where they unwillingly consumed their cavs. ianthe would, however, become a lyctor with babs any day of the week and twice on sundays. verdict: would

4th: I just absolutely cannot see isaac doing that to jeannemary. just. cannot. but if in some twisted way he were about to do it, abigail would show up and put a stop to that nonsense with a firm “absolutely not”. verdict: would not

5th: abigail already skews heretical. in the gtn cohort files she’s labeled as leaning towards and anti-empire in htn she starts questioning god and house beliefs a bit more... combine that with the fact that magnus is too damn lovable i don’t think she’d murder him. verdict: would not

6th: alright pal time!

yeaaaah that’s basically a canon no. verdict: would not

7th: we have significantly less time with pro and dulcinea than our other pairs so it’s a little tougher to point to exact quotes on this one. we’ll call it a gut feeling, and ill say she wouldn’t. just doesn’t have the personality i think. verdict: would not

8th: so after finding out what lyctorhood is, silas brands ianthe a heretic and tries to kill her and he also says this:

i went a little more in depth about it here but ultimately it’s a sin to silas and he explicitly rejected the concept in gtn. verdict: would not

and obviously we know the ninth! anyways those are my personal thoughts on the matter! thanks for asking :)

[paradoxcase]

Chapter 23 of Nona the Ninth

I have actually already read Chapter 24, because I got to the end of this one and was like "...what?", but they're both long chapters, so they get different posts

Right at the beginning of this chapter, we are back to referring to Ianthe with she/her pronouns, right after we were referring to her with he/him pronouns at the end of the last chapter. I'm not sure what we are meant to understand here in terms of what Nona's thoughts on Ianthe's gender are

So Ianthe also doubts that blindness would protect necromancers from the resurrection beast. Also, her referring to Naberius's body as "some old thing from last season" is hilarious

Wasn't it Pyrrha who told Ianthe that Harrow was around? Ianthe did ask We Suffer to send her Harrow before Corona ever mentioned her

Ianthe is just so mad that she did everything right and was the smartest girl who succeeded the best at the Canaan House trial and ascended to the highest position possible in this society for anyone who isn't John and she saved the Nine Houses from being destroyed by saving John from the Stoma, but I think she still feels like she's made less of an impact on the world/John's general temperament than Camilla did by stealing the Sixth House. And now she's stuck alone with John being cranky and Gideon, who probably also isn't a big fan of her, and she's been stuck in Babs' dead body for three days and it's just not fair

I mean, the last time Ianthe actually interacted with Harrow, Harrow didn't even remember who Gideon was. It's interesting that she's not even entertaining the possibility that that's still the case. Also, like, Ianthe showed Gideon's body on the broadcast, but she named her as "Kiriona Gaia" at that time and she's now under the impression that Harrow has been blind all this time. So I'm surprised that she doesn't also think that that gambit failed to work for that reason. There's really a very large number of reasons to be pretty confident that Harrow wouldn't be asking to see Gideon's body at this point

Interesting, so this method of FTL travel is limited based on mass, and more obelisks transport more mass. I'm not sure if the "compensation" referred to is compensating for needing more obelisks than could be safely used, or just a general compensation needed for transporting something so large, or what "compensation" means here. Did they have to sacrifice people for thanergy? Also, if they can go wherever using these obelisks, how are BOE keeping them captive?

Right, so that's the "break clause" courtesy the Lyctor who used to be a contract lawyer. But it doesn't sound like this was a contract she made with John, just something she set up within the Sixth House leadership

Also, I love finding like, the urls and blog titles and stuff of my Locked Tomb followers and other people I see in the tag in the book and going, oh, that's what that means, so shout out to @jods-duplicitous-sluts for this one

I mean, this sort of raises the question of how Ianthe was planning on bringing Corona and Pyrrha and the Sixth House back to John? They're not Lyctors, and therefore can't survive physically going through the River

So the absence of live soldiers is because of Pyrrha

Who does she think is in Harrow's body here? Originally I figured she thought it was Gideon, but she's got Gideon in the back, and I think these two chapters establish pretty well that Gideon is in fact still moving around and generally being Gideon. Does she think Gideon has somehow left her body and is now possessing Harrow for some reason? I think she would have expected Gideon to talk back to her, too, though, wouldn't she? Ianthe doesn't have any knowledge about how Harrow opened the Tomb and was being haunted by Alecto

I'm not sure what happened here beyond that Nona is probably Alecto and did something resurrection-beast-adjacent, and maybe Judith screaming was also resurrection-beast-related since her issues are caused by the resurrection beast? Also, it seems to have done something to the electricity, which reminds me of how the lights dimmed when Mayonnaise Uncle did his soul-summoning thing, but I don't think necromancy has ever been described as having an effect on electricity outside of those two events

I wonder if these instances of water coming out of Nona's orifices are symptoms of her impending death, or what

Does John actually have multiple Hands, plural, at this point? I think at last count it was just Ianthe, right?

I love that there's all this high-stakes drama going down and Corona is threatening to kill herself to get Ianthe duel Camilla, and this is the thing she's being dying to say to her this whole time, that Ianthe is disrespecting Babs' body by not styling his hair correctly

So Corona at least threatened to commit suicide multiple times as a teenager. It makes sense, she was under a lot of pressure to be something she wasn't. She does genuinely like Ianthe and is glad that Palamedes didn't kill her, but I imagine it was different from her side where she knew that her survival in her social context probably depended on Ianthe being with her and supporting her her whole life. Maybe that's part of why she became so good at being likeable

What does "none of us ever could" mean here? It's not like they have a long association with Camilla

Camilla's completely deadpan sass is off the charts. I hope she winds up keeping it

Is she giving verbal orders to a bunch of dead bodies that she's directly controlling using necromancy?

Hot Sauce is a cut the Gordian Knot kind of gal

Apparently:

So it's another joke. Also, something something Saint of Awe probably goes here, but I'm not clever enough for this right now

She never fought Babs, or witnessed Babs fighting anyone - she must be referring to Ianthe fighting Colum and Cytherea at the end of Gideon the Ninth, when she was having a lot of trouble fully integrating Babs. So yeah, there's multiple reasons why she would be much better now

[tazmuir]

Hello! I loved Gideon the Ninth so much!! and would like to draw fan art, would you mind sharing any helpful summaries of what each character looks like? or must us fans hunt through the book for every offhand line of description? (not that I'm not planning on rereading it anyway)

I have let myself drift back onto Tumblr after two weeks, am deeply affrighted and excited at the idea that anyone has drawn my kids (I had an AMA on Reddit and as said there, my editor every so often hollered into my inbox about amazing shit people were doing, but I was too busy complaining back to him that my face had gone numb and that I no longer slept, but instead the darkness of the grave claimed me for four to five hours each night). Thank you so much to anyone who has already done this. Many people on my team have yelled and yelled.

Back early on in the piece I made a document for him about what characters looked like in terms of basic ideas/outlines for copyediting, covers and sense purposes, and I’ve dug out that document and slapped it up here for general delectation. As a note: I imagine specific things when it comes to my characters (I am a Kiwi: I write Kiwis In Space as a default) but as I have nothing but joy in my heart for how anyone would want to draw these characters, feel free to glance over this, then toss it out the window. It would bring tears of beauty to my eyes if anyone was like “Yes, but when I was reading I imagined Naberius Tern as a huge monitor lizard,” because absolutely yes, Naberius Tern was just a huge monitor lizard, godspeed.

I had only described below the specific cavalier-necromancer pairs, so that’s what you’ll find below, sorry if anyone wanted Teacher.

SECOND HOUSE

The only ones who seemed even vaguely compos mentis were the Second House: as it turned out, they had been the ones to call Teacher to the access hatch, and now they sat ramrod-straight and resplendent in their Second-styled Cohort uniforms, all scarlet and white. They both affected the same tightly-braided hairstyle and the same amount of extremely gilt braid, and also the same serious-business expression, and they could be told apart by one having a rapier and one quite a lot of pips at her collar.

Captain Judith Deuteros and Lieutenant Marta Dyas are alike in posture, bearing and extremely crisp military uniform (think a cross between US Navy whites and the Regency navy). Unlike every single other necromancer on the cast, Judith never wears necromancer robes, but is dressed in the exact same way as Marta. Judith is somewhat less completely scrawny than other necromancers on the cast, though she should be less built than Marta is; Judith is imposing, solemn-faced and reflective, Marta is more keen-eyed and restless. I imagined both as Tongan.

THIRD HOUSE

[Coronabeth] was tall and regal, with some radiant, butterfly quality – her shirt was haphazardly tucked into her trousers, which were haphazardly tucked into her boots, but she was all topaz and shine and lustre. All necromancers affected robes in the same way cavaliers affected swords, but she hadn’t tucked her arms into hers, and it was a gauzy, gold-shot, transparent thing floating out around her like wings. There were about five rings on each hand and her earrings would’ve put chandeliers to shame, but she had an air of wild and innocent overdecoration, of having put on the prettiest things in her jewellery box and then forgetting to take them off. Her buttery hair was stuck to her forehead with sweat, and she kept tangling a curl of it in one finger and artlessly letting it go.

The second twin was like someone had taken the first to pieces and put her back again without any genius. She wore a robe of the same cloth and colour, but wore it like a very beautiful shroud on a mummy. The cavalier had lots of hair, an aquiline face, and a self-satisfied little jacket.

Coronabeth is massive, taller even than Palamedes, larger-than-life – statuesque, very bright gold hair, golden/bright skin, violet eyes. Ianthe is the same height but gangly and washed out. Skin colour defined heavily in Corona’s case as golden/olive-hued brown/tanned; Ianthe similar, but less radiant/more pallid whatever the case. Both have long hair: Corona’s should be big and bouncy, Ianthe’s flat/sleek.Naberius is shorter than both, brown-haired (brown can be light, medium or dark, it’s not defined) and blue-brown hazel eyes. Also has lots of hair, cut short, but sense of pompadour/waves. I imagined all three as Pakeha/white.FOURTH HOUSEBoth Isaac and Jeannemary are around fourteen and have pretty much the same body shape still: Jeannemary is semi-muscular and has lots of corners, Isaac is skinnier. Both are natural brunettes, though Isaac has bleached hair (orange, fauxhawk) and Jeannemary is described as having curly hair. Both have multiple ear piercings and eyeliner and the visual is somewhat Glassons storecard punk. Both have dark brown eyes. Jeannemary has a somewhat dusty, fierce, monochromatic appearance (brown hair, brown skin), and I imagine her as Māori. Isaac I imagined as NZ Chinese.FIFTH HOUSEMagnus Quinn is a man in his middling to late thirties, with short, curly hair: he is a frank-faced, nice-looking guy of medium build with a face inclined to wholesome smiles. His outfits should be absolutely exceptionally well-tailored and not very flashy. Imagined him as Samoan. His wife Abigail is perpetually neat, wears round spectacles and has long, glossy dark brown hair – she is the least described of a cast not very specifically described. Much like Magnus, she should always be beautifully and tastefully dressed, though in her case she would affect trousers as well as a robe. Imagined her as Pakeha/white.

SIXTH HOUSECrouching in front of the hatch was a rangy, underfed young man: he was wrapped in a grey cloak and the light glinted on the spectacles slipping down his nose. Standing next to him holding a big wedge of broken sculpture and the flashlight was a tall, equally grey-wrappered figure with a scabbard outlined at her hip. She had hair of an indeterminate darkness, cut blunt at her chin.Up close, he was gaunt and ordinary-looking, except for the eyes. His spectacles were set with lenses so thick they could make spaceflight grade, and through these his eyes were a perfectly lambent grey: unflecked, unmurked, even and clear. He had the eyes of a very beautiful person, and the head of someone with resting bitch face.

Palamedes is seriously underfed with a bony, thin face and glasses: medium brown hair cut short and with no particular thought for aesthetics, dresses just in greys, eyes particularly lovely clear grey. Camilla has very dark cold-brown hair – chin-length, straight and with a fringe – dark eyes. She’s compact and has lots of lean muscle, and I imagine her of being Middle Eastern extraction, though due to Sixth House parameters both will be fairly mixed. They’re actually second cousins, so there ought to be a faint resemblance.

SEVENTH HOUSE[Dulcinea] was a slender young thing whose mouth was a brilliant red with blood: her dress was a frivolous concoction of seafoam green frills, and the blood on it seemed more somber against such a backdrop. Her skin seemed transparent – horribly transparent, with the veins at her hands and the sides of her temples a visible cluster of mauve branches and stems. Her eyes fluttered open: they were huge and blue, with velvety brown lashes.

Dulcinea is a girlish woman who looks extremely fragile and sickly, like a neurasthenic Victorian maiden. Eyes should be extremely blue. Hair is light brown in long curls; skin is pale. Pretty in a frivolous, invalid way. Gives the impression of being slight. Outfits should be gauzy and nightgownish. Imagined her as Pakeha/white.

The man who’d put the sword to her neck was uncomfortably buff. He had upsetting biceps. He looked like a collection of lemons in a sack. He didn’t look healthy; he was a dour, bulky young person, whose skin had something of the strange, translucent tinge that the girl’s had. He was waxen-looking in the sunlight […] He was dressed richly, but with clothes that looked as though they’d seen practical wear: a long cape of greyish-green, and a belted kilt and boots. There was a long, shining length of etched chain rolled up and over his arm, and a big one-handed sword hung at his hip.

Protesilaus is massive, buff, and also sort of sickly and indistinct-looking in his colouring – he is described as being made up mainly of muddy, ashen browns. Think Greek warrior, but with no vibrant colouring. Biggest on cast, even bigger than Colum Ash. Imagined him as mixed Pasifika.

EIGHTH HOUSEIt was a pair who were both boys – well – a boy and a man; one was a wan, knife-faced kid dressed in antiseptic whites and useless chainmail you could cut with a fork, it was so delicate. [Silas] was draped in it even down to a kilt, which was strange: necromancers didn’t normally wear that kind of armour, and he was definitely the necromancer. He had necromancer build. […] He gave the impression of being absolutely no fun at all. He was prim and ascetic-looking, and his companion – who was older, a fair bit older than Gideon herself – had the air of the perpetually disgruntled. He was rather more robust, nuggety, and dressed in chippy bleached leathers that looked as though they’d seen genuine use. One finger on his left hand was just a gross-looking stump, which she admired.

Silas is in his teens, has shoulder-length white hair in a braid and dark eyes. He has extremely pale skin, and coupled with the white robes and silver chainmail (all of which somewhat swamp him – he’s sort of slender and purse-mouthed) gives the impression of being arrestingly white all over. Pointy chin, oval face, disapproving expression, a little insubstantial. Colum, his older, larger nephew is much taller, broader and in his early thirties. He has medium brown hair in a short back’n’sides crop, dark eyes, and appears jaundiced in skin tone – he’s very weatherbeaten and tan-skinned, scarred, and though he’s dressed in the same colours he tends to contrast heavily with them and his leather armour is also beaten-up. He looks tatty and ill-used, expression is apathetic or forbidding; Silas always looks perfectly clean, crisp and white. Facially there should be a similarity. They’re both Pakeha, with Silas being significantly the palest person on-cast.

NINTH HOUSEThe light fell on [Harrow’s] painted grey face and black-daubed chin, and her short-cropped, dead-crow-coloured hair. […] She had such a peculiarly pointed little face, high-browed and tippy everywhere, and a slanted and vicious mouth.

Harrow is a scrawny teenage girl with black hair cut short (as befits someone in a monastery) and truly black eyes: she never appears except in black and white skull facepaint. She has a pointed, rather triangular face, not very long, a triangular heart rather than a triangular diamond or oval. She wears black robes and long-sleeved, long-trousered clothes – all black – with no skin showing: the main decoration on this is bones. She wears a corset of rib bones and could have any other bone decoration, which has been written of in the book as bone bangles and multiple bone stud piercings in the ears. She’s more femme-androgynous than outright butch; in Book 1 she’s a bit birdlike and free of specific masc or femme gender markers in terms of outfit or build. I imagined her as being mixed Māori.Gideon is true butch: tall of height – at least, taller than Harrow – extremely, shreddedly fit with the muscular arms of a swordswoman or boxer. She should have a strong-jawed, boyishly pretty face with a big douchebag grin. Cropped hair same as Harrow, except that hers as an oblate is more of an in-your-face mop (could be partly-shaved except that implies more care than Gideon possesses) and is intensely, vividly red.  I envision her as mixed Māori, darker-skinned than Harrow.  She also wears skull facepaint, though hers tends to be much less careful and baroque than Harrow’s. She often affects a pair of black aviator sunglasses. She wears the same black cloak as Harrow, without any decoration, and a plain black shirt and trousers underneath. Her eyes are an extremely vivid amber with more of a yellow/golden tint than a russet one.  

[paradoxcase]

Chapter 33 and 34 of Gideon the Ninth

Stuff I said way back when that turned out to be correct, actually:

I was wondering here if Corona was not a squib, based on this early piece of Ianthe dialog. And then when Magnus and Abigail died, the book said this:

And I thought, this could be an indication that Corona isn't actually a necromancer and is just pretending, but then I decided that it was too early in the book to be coming up with wild conspiracy theories based on a single line of dialog and didn't say anything

Anyway, there was also this:

Apparently, that is in fact what "one flesh, one end" means, and the body-sharing challenge they did was indeed in preparation for that.

Also, I think I understand the key shenangians now, things just happened in a confusing order. First, Palamedes said to Harrow that he wanted her help to pick the lock of the Sixth House Lyctor door, which corresponded to the grey key, which was the key that Dulcinea had originally had which was taken by Mayonnaise Uncle, and which she also showed to Palamedes. They then proceeded to a completely different Lyctor door, which was not the one corresponding to the grey key, but the one that had the keyhole stuffed up with regenerating stuff - Palamedes didn't want Harrow to pick this lock, he just wanted her to confirm that this had happened after they got to Canaan House. Then later, they actually did pick the lock on the grey key door, using the visualization thing and the mind-reading thing that Harrow had learned to do, so the door they opened in Chapter 32 was the grey key door. And the door in this chapter belongs to the key that Magnus and Abigail found, which was the one that was considered missing for most of the book.

Harrow has now seen the red key theorem, the white key theorem, the grey key theorem, the three theorems associated with Palamedes' keys, which I'm sure he duly gave her access to in payment for her help with the grey key door, and now the theorem associated with Magnus and Abigail's key. So she has seven out of eight, the last one belonging to the black key that Mayonnaise Uncle has, which is now free for the taking. Mayonnaise Uncle claims to have never entered any of these doors, but I think that's probably not correct - Ianthe has been following people into locked rooms this whole time to get the theorems, but the only person who's had access to the black key room this whole time is Mayonnaise Uncle. She claims she didn't need to see any theorems and figured it all out just from the challenges, but I don't believe her - if that was the case, why did she need to use Magnus and Abigail's key to access the last room, and she claimed that she only learned the last theorem in the last room. But I'm not sure which of Ianthe's steps the red key room contributed to. Probably the white key is the last step, and the grey key is the seventh step, though.

So, someone blocked the keyhole on the last room, and hid the key in Abigail's body. I don't think it was Ianthe, I think Ianthe just figured out where the key was before anyone else did. So it must have been Dulcinea, right?

This fight shows that Lyctoral immortality is in fact the kind of gory wounds-just-seal-up-automatically immortality from Lexx, I'm glad this book didn't let me down there

So, I think what happened here, if I'm not misunderstanding: Colum is Gone at this point, but I think Naberius's ghost must have taken advantage of that to possess him, and attack Ianthe without intending to actually kill her, because she was having some kind of argument with him at this point. They don't really seem to like each other much, and they probably don't enjoy sharing a body. Then Ianthe managed to get Naberius back under control, and that's the point when Colum got possessed whatever eldritch monster instead and killed Mayonnaise Uncle. It's kind of interesting that the eldritch monster targeted Mayonnaise Uncle and not anyone else in the room. Like, Colum getting possessed by a monster and killing Mayonnaise Uncle was pretty much foreshadowed when he tried to do the siphoning to necromance Magnus and Abigail, so it wasn't super surprising, but there were six other people there to attack, and four of them weren't immortal. And Gideon goes to attack it and Harrow acts like she doesn't want her to, but she did say this to her just before this:

So anyway, if Dulcinea is Lyctor, that explains why she had to reanimate someone to be her cavalier, since she presumably absorbed the soul of whoever her original cavalier was.

And this is interesting:

Maybe Corona did want to be the cavalier? Or she was just depressed because she wasn't born the way her parents wanted her to be born, and wanted to die, or just wanted to be useful to her sister, even if it meant she had to die. Now that I think about it, I think necromancy can't be simply genetic, if babies dying at the time of your birth or conception can make you a better necromancer, and it's heavily implied here that Corona and Ianthe are identical twins, so they should be genetically identical. I guess maybe whatever thanergy existed at the twins' birth all went to Ianthe for whatever reason, then?

I sort of wonder what was going through Harrow's mind when she said this during the fight:

There are three chapters left - I think what is remaining is Dulcinea's reveal, the answer to who the second person in the furnace was, and possibly the room locked by the black key, although that might be irrelevant at this point, and maybe the arrival of the Emperor, although I could see that maybe not happening until the next book

[paradoxcase]

Chapter 34 of Harrow the Ninth

I sat on this for a while, because I was trying to work out exactly what was going on. Then I wound up getting my Sims 2 back into a playable state and inadvertently spent a lot of time playing the Sims 2 haha

Anyway

Is this just because BOE is in a constant state of fighting against the Nine Houses and thus all their stuff is a bit battle-scarred, or was this shuttle in particular involved in a fight recently?

So Palamedes will become an animated skeletal arm instead of a talking skull. I should have realized that this story puts too much effort into having accurate anatomy to have talking skulls with no attached lungs or vocal tract

Also, I guess Palamedes is either not attractive enough or not female enough to get a sexy arm-creation scene with Harrow

If Camilla would get in trouble with BOE if they found out Harrow was making animated skeletons possessed by the ghosts of dead necromancers for her, that means they probably don't know and didn't plan for her to meet up with Harrow on this planet. But she knew Harrow was going to be there, she was specifically looking for her in the exact right part of the planet and everything. Probably only Harrow would do - regular non-Lyctor necromancers (like for example, Judith) can't do necromancy on thalergenic planets or in space without a bunch of people dying to generate thanergy, and the other Lyctors have no particular reason to want to do Camilla a favor (most of them don't even know who she is). So, somehow Camilla found out that Harrow was going to be on this planet at this time without BOE finding that out (since I'm sure that BOE would probably have objected to Judith being within range of a Lyctor they don't trust) and convinced BOE to let them go to this planet (I'm guessing, since Camilla later says they are still with BOE, and therefore they didn't like, escape from BOE in this shuttle or something). Based on Judith's dialog about a BOE mole, that leads me to suspect that the mole is Mercy, who is the main person who would be able to engineer Harrow being on this planet by herself for this period of time, which makes some sense, since we know that Mercy has some secret that she is bribing Augustine to keep from John. But if that's the case, I'm not sure why Mercy would share information with Camilla and friends that wasn't shared with BOE proper, since as previously stated, Mercy has no particular reason to do Camilla a favor that I know of

This seems to be suggesting that the poster is of Gideon, but no one was making posters of Gideon, and also, I wouldn't describe her as "unsmiling" and "adamant". But if Commander Wake was Gideon's mom, it both makes sense that there would be a poster of her inside this BOE shuttle and also that her appearance would remind Harrow of Gideon strongly enough to cause this reaction

What dangerous information could per-Work Harrow have thought that Judith (or for that matter, Corona) would have that Camilla did not? Or was there more to the letter that Camilla received that asked her not to talk about certain things?

This is hilarious, I can just see them fighting over the pen here

Is this the rapier that Gideon brought with her to Canaan House, and then abandoned during the fight with Cytherea in favor of her two-hander? Ianthe obviously took Naberius's rapier for herself, but there were several other dead cavaliers whose rapiers were never mentioned again, and whose necromancers weren't around to collect them (Magnus, Jeannemary, Colum) that she could have taken from, and I think Colum's would have even been in the same room as her after he died, and based on the early scene in Gideon the Ninth where they were trying to find a decent rapier for her, those others would probably have been in better shape. I wonder why she took Gideon's

On this read-through, this makes me think that Camilla's letter probably did say something about not talking about certain subjects, and that she conveyed this information to Judith and Corona while Harrow was in the River

So, after the last chapter of Gideon the Ninth, but before the epilogue when Harrow was rescued by the Erebos, BOE arrived at Canaan House, rescued/captured all of the non-Lyctor survivors, including Judith who would have clearly been an enemy officer, and stole Gideon's body. Why? I guess since Judith used regular EM-frequency radio to contact the Erebos and tell them about what had happened, that could have been intercepted by BOE and maybe they thought there would be something useful there? I guess they could have already been in the system, given that Commander Wake probably went to Pluto and died there at some point in the not too distant past. I guess they probably know something about Lyctors, and also how to recognize Lyctors, if they left Harrow and Ianthe alone - Ianthe might have seemed too injured to still be alive, but I don't think Harrow was that injured at the end of the book? And also there's the thing where Commander Wake probably knew Gideon the First personally. I guess they might have just taken them all because they couldn't leave them alive to inform the Erebos about them, and they maybe aren't the sort of people to just kill people like that, but why take Gideon's body? Did they recognize her as Commander Wake's daughter?

John said before that he thought that Cytherea was working with BOE, which sounded like a conspiracy theory back then, but if Mercy is working with BOE and BOE turned up at Canaan House just after Cytherea died, that might actually be a sensible conclusion to draw. BOE probably does benefit from that, there could have been potentially eight new Lyctors as a result of the Lyctor trial, which would have tripled the number of extant Lyctors. Cytherea's main damage seemed to be about the nature of Lyctorhood and not stuff that BOE probably cares about, but I guess she could have been both working with BOE and also doing it for her own reasons

[paradoxcase]

As Yet Unsent, Part 1

I think I said earlier that only Magnus and Abigail were allowed to be straight in this story, this clearly has not stopped being the case

This seems like a complete story, and ends with "FILE ENDS HERE" but it really doesn't fully explain how Camilla and Corona and Judith came to be on that one planet in the middle of the story, so someone please tell me if there's more to this story somewhere else that I'm missing. It does answer the question of why BOE didn't just kill Judith, though

I guess that's named after Pyrrha?

Is regrowing internal organs a technology that the Nine Houses have independent of necromancy, or does she mean "they failed to regrow my stomach and bowel because they don't have access to necromancy"?

So I guess these are former BOE planets that the Nine Houses have occupied

I guess probably for the same reason that John's sperm did not die even after all that time? And there was evidence at the end of the book that Gideon was not actually dead. So possibly it's just that Gideon literally cannot die, because because she came (partially) from John's body, and her body is not actually dead so much as just temporarily missing its soul, since Harrow performing the Eightfold Word caused Gideon's soul to wind up in Harrow's body. Which means that Harrow didn't actually do anything special there, like whatever happened with G1deon and Pyrrha didn't happen with Harrow and Gideon, it's just that Gideon literally cannot die, and possibly this also means that Harrow is unable to completely absorb her soul, which also explains why she failed to die after breathing nerve gas as a baby

I thought this might be cleared up later, but it wasn't, and I still don't know what this is about. I'm not even sure if Source Gram is meant to be a BOE name, or something else entirely

Interesting reference to Plato given that supposedly no one in this society remembers Plato

I don't think either of these guesses are correct. Corona didn't want to be seen as a necromancer, she wanted to be her sister's cavalier, and at the end of this story, she wants to be Judith's cavalier. And Ianthe obviously resents being placed under the pressure of having to fake her sister's necromantic abilities all her life, and seems to have resented that everyone assumed Corona was the better necromancer at least somewhat, so I doubt this was her idea, either

I'm still not sure exactly what is meant by "thanergenic conversion" here. "Thanergenic planet" was previously defined in the Gideon the Ninth glossary as meaning a planet that generates thanergy on a stable basis, i.e. just the planets of the Nine Houses, whereas planets that are merely dying or dead are just "thanergy planets", so the usage of "thanergenic" seems incorrect here. Regular organic humans do in fact seem to be able to live on planets in the Nine Houses, and I would think that if they can live on a thanergenic planet they should also be able to live on a dead/thanergy planet, or at least that's what I would assume. It was said a couple of times in Harrow the Ninth that life on thanergy planets changed or was mutated by thanergy, but not that they actually became uninhabitable. If it does make them uninhabitable, why kill the planets? Since denizens of the Nine Houses are just as much organic humans as the BOE population, it seems like killing planets for the hell of it and not in order to make a resurrection beast less powerful like what the Lyctors were doing in Harrow the Ninth would be dumb and counterproductive and not something that anyone would want to do intentionally. Is it something like that necromancers being present on a planet just inherently causes it to die?

I wonder what the "services" were that were promised in lifetime contracts, presumably they are no longer being offered. It is kind of funny and evil that John signed contracts that would only expire on his death, and it's also kind of funny that Judith is like, he's called the Emperor Undying, of course that means he's not going to die, given that probably no one believed in necromancy or that John was actually a god or anything like that at the time, and I'm sure plenty of despots have called themselves something similar. It kind of reminds me of back when I was playing CKII and managed to become immortal, and then of course immediately created a tributary arrangement with Venice that was set to expire when I died, and then, as a bonus, when the Doges died, the tributary contract was inherited not just by the next elected Doge, but also by the heir to the old Doge's patrician house, so as a result I eventually had all five patrician houses as eternal tributaries without any extra effort on my part and was rolling in money. My god, did I actually play CKII as John Gaius? I love when someone does something evil in a book and I'm like, yeah, I totally would have done that/actually did that once in CKII

So Judith is all caught up on this now. I wonder if Corona told all of this to BOE, or if she just told it to Judith. I guess with how she's described in this story, she doesn't really have much reason to not tell it to BOE also

I wonder how much of Judith's supposition here is true. Corona obviously felt betrayed that Ianthe chose to use Naberius's soul and not hers, but that seems like it would be a personal issue she would later have to resolve with Ianthe and not something that would turn her against the whole Nine Houses or immediately turn her pro-BOE. Everyone here is an unreliable narrator, so it's hard to judge what's correct or incorrect about BOE's complaints. I think I trust Camilla to have the most sensible takes on this situation, but it's not even really clear from Judith's POV to what extent Camilla agrees with Corona. Judith doesn't seem to think she does agree with Corona, but Camilla says nothing against Corona in this whole account, she just doesn't attempt to actively convert Judith to the cause, which is probably sensible regardless of what Camilla actually believes, and Corona mainly seems to be trying to convert Judith mainly because she likes Judith and wants her to be on the same side of things

So it was actually true that Cytherea was working for Blood of Eden. It strikes me now how funny it was that John is fighting a myriad-long war with BOE and then he's just like, oh, ho, hum, a demigod that I trusted implicitly for thousands of years turned out to be working for my sworn enemy, that's unfortunate. And then later he's like, oh, Mercy and Augustine were also working with BOE and G1deon was having an affair with the top BOE commander? That's fine, you're all forgiven. He doesn't start saying "if you don't swear loyalty to me right now you die" until Mercy disintegrates him. Like, until that point he's not really acting like the commander in chief of a war effort at all, being personally invested in a war turns basically everyone into a paranoid asshole (and we've been given to understand that John is very personally invested in this war), you would presumably expect him to take treason pretty seriously and make an effort to find out if any other Lyctors were involved in it, etc., but he just doesn't seem to care, so when he said that he thought Cytherea was working for BOE he just sounded like a petulant child, and not like he genuinely suspected her

I just want to say here that it's so funny how this account starts out as like an official intelligence document for the Cohort to read, and then she writes about how pretty Corona is, and her whole thing with Marta, and every single petty argument she has with Corona, and what she thinks about Camilla and Palamedes' relationship, and the things Corona says to her when she thinks Judith is dying, and at the end of it she's like, you know what? I hope nobody ever reads this actually

So on the first readthrough, Judith makes it sound like Corona is being intentionally antagonistic, but in retrospect after reading the rest of this, I think she is just trying to have a conversation with her to try to deprogram her a bit, she's not saying anything particularly radical here and I'm sure the thing about killing Judith was either a joke or just her expressing exasperation, but Judith takes it seriously and has a fight about it. I feel like Corona might be too used to the kind of relationship she had with Naberius, where she did actually seem to like him quite a bit but both she and Ianthe would mock him and throw him under the bus constantly and he would just take it, and Judith doesn't respond well to this kind of interaction. I think she probably liked Judith precisely because she did talk back to her, when I get the feeling that most people in her life didn't, even when she said something that deserved it. And you see clearly at the end of this that she doesn't 100% agree with BOE, she's not actually "radicalized" as Judith claims. It sounds like she thinks that either side winning would be a bad thing for different reasons

It's interesting that she thinks her relationship with Camilla is entirely based on her relationship with Palamedes, and it doesn't even occur to her that she also critically misjudged Camilla, or that she should at some point apologize directly to Camilla for having her cavalier attack her with the intent of beating her up for their keys

I guess she means that Camilla is still grieving Palamedes, and she is still getting over what she perceives as Ianthe's rejection, and therefore that's unrealistic?

Corona is very funny when she's being mean, and it's also funny to see it here (and in the previous section) being written out in this completely flat way

When I originally read this, I figured they meant a piece of niche pornography from the Nine Houses themselves, like one Gideon's magazines or something, but now, thinking about it again, I wonder if it's actually that this idea became a common porn trope within BOE, and then became mainstream to the point where no one questions it anymore

From the part about the stele, I'm guessing they probably wanted a captive necromancer to work it for them, but if the purpose of Cytherea disrupting the Lyctor trial was to capture a necromancer, why did they have her try to kill everyone?

This is weirdly self-aware? She's being unreasonable because she's injured and unhappy for a variety of reasons, and can't/won't verbally acknowledge that to Camilla, but she'll record it in this diary in this very detached way. I feel like she must have been trained very well in this style of writing reports, to the point where she can still do it even when she's this upset

And then immediately after that, there's this part where Judith apparently doesn't realize how she comes off to everyone else. I wonder if it's just like a Second House thing, where they are raised to interact with people in a particular way, and no one there sees it as weird or offputting, or if this is just Judith

Honestly, this whole little bit here was great praise for Camilla, and Judith doesn't even seem to realize it? Haha

I'm not sure if Judith doesn't want to talk to Camilla about what she was thinking during the duel because she realizes she was being unreasonable, or because she was thinking unflattering things about Camilla, or for some other reason. But I guess if she idolized Marta this much, maybe that explains why she was so sure she could win that fight without even doing any research on Camilla first

I guess if Palamedes had wound up in this situation instead of Camilla, he might have been able to do a better job healing Judith. But BOE probably would have treated him the same way they are treating Judith, and probably wouldn't have told him whatever it was they told Camilla about their connections to the Sixth House

It's interesting that she reframes this whole thing into "necromancers have romantic and/or sexual relationships with their cavaliers necessarily causes codependency" rather than "she just wasn't into me" but I guess that's probably easier to stomach? Like never mind that Magnus and Abigail seem to have a perfectly reasonable relationship. And if I'm understanding correctly here, I think she's assuming that because Camilla and Palamedes had what she perceives to be an unhealthy relationship, it must be because they also had a romantic and/or sexual relationship as well? She created this whole narrative to I guess recover from rejection and now assumes that this applies to everyone else as well

I think I saw a post somewhere about how necromancer/cavalier romantic relationships were essentially the queer relationships of this world, where same-sex relationships are considered normal and unstigmatized, and that does seem to track with this story

I would love to hear this story from Marta's perspective, this sounds so awkward for her

Opinion of unknown popularity: the cavalier/necromancer relationship as idealized by this society is already codependent, regardless of whether or not it's romantic or sexual. Like obviously some people manage to do it in a healthy way, like Magnus and Abigail, and Camilla and Palamedes and Isaac and Jeannemary seemed fine, basically, but like, I don't think this relationship that Judith had with Marta was ever really healthy, regardless of romantic feelings, etc., and the way Gideon started seeing her relationship with Harrow after the pool scene when she really leaned into being Harrow's cavalier also seems very unhealthy, and the whole thing was conceived of as a way to facilitate the necromancer becoming a Lyctor by consuming the cavalier's soul

I wonder if Camilla ever told Judith about how Palamedes bound his spirit to his bones precisely for being able to persist beyond death. I guess there was probably no reason for her to do that. I also wonder how much of Camilla's reaction is because of Judith telling her that she was doing the cavalier/necromancer relationship wrong, and how much of it was because Judith seems to have assumed that they had a romantic and/or sexual relationship of some kind

So I guess the degree of hereditary rule varies from House to House? Like, Judith is the scion of the Second House because she was the Fleet Admiral's oldest child, but it's not actually guaranteed that she will later become the Fleet Admiral herself, whereas the Third House seems to have more hereditary titles, and makes more use of European royalty terminology. I'm still not sure what the status of the words "king" and "queen" is in this society, or what they mean to these characters

It's interesting that they've known each other for thirteen years and had such different ideas about what their relationship actually was. Corona constantly sent her flowers (I guess red is Second House color and purple is a Third House color?) and invited her to her birthday every year and Judith is like, yeah, we're just acquaintances. Corona made everyone else love her and Judith was the only person who resisted, so she was the person that Corona actually liked and felt wasn't being fake with her, I guess? And now she feels like even Judith isn't being real with her. And Judith is willing to tell her story about her whole relationship with Marta to Camilla, who is a stranger who she had Marta physically attack at Canaan House, but she won't mention it to Corona, because she doesn't consider them to be close enough. Gideon thought that Palamedes' relationship with Dulcinea was tragic, and I disagreed with that, it was honestly just weird, but I feel like these are the real tragic relationships here. Judith hero-worshipped and fell in love with Marta and read books to impress her and she didn't return her feelings; Corona wanted so much to be friends with Judith and sent her flowers and read war stories to impress her and she didn't return her feelings, and got rejected for being her cavalier. This is the real tragedy

Was Mercy seriously like "Eugh! Why don't you people who hate necromancers do Lyctor-level necromancy to heal people???"

So it seems like maybe Mercy did intentionally direct them to the planet where Camilla bumped into Harrow, but there still isn't any reason given for why she did that. Or... maybe Mercy actually directed them to the moon that she went to when she left Harrow by herself on the planet, and Camilla et. al. escaped somehow in the shuttle to go down to the planet to meet Harrow? They might have let Corona go, but they seem more wary of Camilla and there's no way they got Judith down to the planet with BOE's permission, and it actually seems kind of odd to bring Judith on that trip anyway, it would have been both inconvenient and more difficult to get her out and she wasn't really needed for Harrow to check if Palamedes was still around. And how did they know that Harrow was down there? I guess maybe Mercy told BOE when she met with them on the moon? I would have liked an actual explanation of how this all happened

Or did Judith somehow work out how to steal the shuttle? Except, it sounds like since Judith didn't think that Camilla's attachment to Palamedes was healthy, she'd be unlikely to this for Camilla

Wow, I put too many images in this post, tumblr actually cut me off. See you in the next post I guess