#especially from harrow the ninth

[ezramire]

I think some often-overlooked context for gideon's sacrifice at the end of GTN is that, if gideon survives, harrow asked her to return to drearburh.

of course, harrow's plan of I'll-hold-the-lyctor-off-you-and-cam-jump-into-the-sea is dogshit, not going to work etc. of course gideon is a perpetual Good Girl, a butch in shining armor--she's a saint. she's jesus christ. I don’t mean at all to undermine her selflessness, but in her panic i can't help but think the threat of the ninth house made the choice much simpler.

let's go back to the beginning of GTN to the amalgam of everybody's worst hometown:

gideon the ninth, chapter 1

gideon's entire life has been a series of escape attempts. in canaan house her relationship to harrow undergoes a metamorphosis, but behind her is eighteen years of trying--relentlessly--to run from a cold dark place that she is beholden to. (whenever beholden comes up in this series at least 8 alarms go off in my head and i drop whatever i'm holding).

gideon the ninth, chapter 4

I think aiglamene understands drearburh is inherently soul-killing in a way that harrow does not. harrow genuinely loves her house (which, to her, is the Tomb). gideon was never allowed to love the ninth house--it rejected her at every opportunity. harrow, however, threw herself into it wholesale. she had nothing else.

skip to the pool scene. harrow receives absolution and a emotionally charged tender forehead kiss (top 10 lesbian baptisms of all time). they are finally on the same side, out from under drearburh's shadow. they can trust each other. then harrow, with her seventeen years of pining, obsession, and isolation, asks gideon something truly fucking awful:

gideon the ninth, chapter 35

in harrow's mind, the locked tomb (specifically) has served as her reprieve. it is The Thing For Which She Suffers It All, and so it must be good. harrow sees herself as the thing that poisoned gideon, because she IS the ninth house, and she hates herself. I genuinely don't think harrow understands the depth of cruelty in this ask at all. in harrow's mind she is saving gideon and protecting The Body.

and as cytherea bears down on them, harrow reminds her:

gideon the ninth, chapter 37

if harrow sacrifices herself, gideon owes her AND gets abandoned. gideon has to go back and protect the tomb, back to a life she could not bear long before she had ever seen the sea and the sky, before kind-hearted house scions and princesses with swords. the chains would be slapped on. gideon would not get out twice. not even in a box.

gideon can die neatly and heroically, like a protagonist in a comic book—she can save harrow, save camilla, get vengeance for lost friends, carry out the last wish of jeanmarry and isaac, who she so badly let down—or she can live and return to drearburh.

gideon the ninth, chapter 37

gideon the ninth, chapter 37 (final line before the epilogue in harrow's POV).

of course she chooses the fence.

[mayasaura]

The way The Locked Tomb uses cannibalism is so interesting, because while it does serve as a metaphor for intimacy, the series only uses it that way when it's cannibalism of the soul. Cannibalism of the flesh is either extremely limited, or straight up horrific.

Like step six of the Eightfold Word. It's literally presented as "consume the flesh," but Ianthe goes out of her way to specify that a single drop of blood is sufficient. The most unhinged act of intimacy in the series, and it's explictly the soul and only the soul being digested.

Human flesh is only consumed in any volume twice: John's post-apocalyptic survival cannibalism, and Harrow's delicious murder soup. Both those scenes are exactly the opposite of intimate, and about as far from erotic as you can get.

John and Alecto gorging themselves on anonymous strangers was debasing to everyone involved, and not something John ever wanted to be reminded of. Harrow's soup was a desperate attempt at self-defense, like an animal in a trap gnawing through her own leg. It horrified and disgusted everyone at the table, even Ianthe, the number one suspect at making it weird.

I love the overall effect of the layered symbolism, because it allows cannibalism to be explored both ways. Seperately, without one connotation implicating the other. Except for Babs, of course, who gets to be both.

[nose-coffee]

i think that tlt fic writers (myself included) are sleeping on matthias nonius. i think we should be making more use of him! walk w me for a second, okay? this bitch became a name that readers associated with groaning and complaining and "boring" verse - only for him to come out swinging when he actually hit the page, thereby rending us all asunder. he saved the fucking day, against all odds, and he did it while speaking in meter!!! is that not sick as hell? is that not actually fucking hilarious?? this man is so powerful, he's so cool, he's got immense swag, and i think that if you play it right, having nonius fix whatever plot drama you have going oddly makes sense (the way it did in htn). using deus ex nonius in your fics is an option, and i think we could all benefit from it

[mercymcrn]

rereading gtn knowing everything about cytherea and loveday is so upsetting. “i’ve been dying alone for what feels like 10,000 years,” “i’ll probably live forever.. worse luck. whatever happened to one flesh, one end?” and, when cytherea is asked why she wanted to be a lyctor: “i didn’t want to die.” the TENSE! she didn’t want to die 10,000 years ago and now, she can’t! she’s been on the verge for a myriad, and yet is still forced to keep going!

[lishenkaaa]

rereading the first few chapters of gideon the ninth after nona is actually excruciating, so many pieces of dialogue and narration straight up describe the abuse and trauma she endured in the ninth but at first we laugh because gideon herself laughs at it! it's not until we meet kiriona that we finally get to see the true depth of gideon's unreliability as a narrator of herself, and every "exaggerated" description of harrow or crux's cruelty suddenly becomes much much more real

[procrastinationaccount]

I wonder if the fact that Gideon has never hit Harrow is going to come back in Alecto...

[ourg0dsal]

Gideon Nav CANNOT Die. Hold on- I know... but give me one second and I'll explain.

So, as I said before Gideon Nav cannot die, or at least her body can't. Cause clearly (spoiler warning) Gideon Nav died at the end of Gideon the Ninth. There is no avoiding that.

But! If you have read all the books GtN, HtN, and NtN including all of the accompanying short stories (tho I will admit I have not read The Mysterious Study of Dr. Sex yet) then there is a better understanding of the timeline of the whole story outside of just what the three main books give you. Specifically and especially with Gideon's body. But also there are many times In Gideons life were she has faced near death events or events that she should not have survived from and still was breathing on the other side.

To go in chronological order of these events, when she was first born she was found in a container held by the air depraved suit of her mother. And while ofc In the book it does state that her mother had redirected her air supply to Gideon, but it is simply being stated to cover all my bases.

Then the 200 sons and daughters massacre when Gideon was 1 (or 2 im not sure) when she inhaled poisonous air without dying. Which led ofc to the Reverend Mother and Father fearing the ground she walked. And this is a big one because, it literally creates waves in the plot. It's a defining point of Harrow and Gideons relationship. That Gideon did not die when she was supposed to.

Later in the story Gideon talks with Pal when she believes Harrow to be a murderer and openly admits to him that "she nearly killed me a half dozen times growing up" which obviously in context was to emphasize on the brutal relationship between her and Harrow. But this could also be other times where miraculously Gideon survived death when she shouldn't have. Because as we know from the first confrontation between Harrow and Gideon. Harrow doesnt hold back for her.

Finally of all the events where Gideon escapes death, this one actually happens within the main story of Gideon the Ninth. When Harrow siphons from Gideon to retrieve one of the challenge keys. And at the end when Gideon passes out, it is narrated ""ha-ha," said Gideon, "first time you didn't call me Griddle," AND DIED." Now, this could obviously just be the snarkiness of Gideon narrating. Or something incredibly clever left behind by Tamsyn Muir for a book series that is so clearly meant to be reread. But ofc to do my rounds the next line after does state "well, passed out. But it felt a hell of a lot like dying." But then immediately after "wake up had an air of ressurection." Which honestly feels like Tamysn Muir teasing the readers at this point. The question then becomes rather, which one was the tease and which one was foreshadowing/ evidence.

Now the point of listing all of these events is that in all of these cases the chances of death are so incredibly high that for most its a miracle she's alive. Ofc most notably for the siphoning trial and the poision gas, but none the less there is proof within the written story and and out that Gideon has looked death in face and moved on with maybe a headache. And it wasn't just in her child hood this is something she can just do. Some recreated in the written story! Because as Pal said. Even with the siphoning challenge done perfectly the chances of leaving Cam with severe brain damage was far to high. And Gideon didn't even suffer that.

Sadly, despite all these Gideon gets to the final battle and fights Cytherea and does die. At the hands of a particularly pointy fence. Or was it truly the fence that did her in? Rather than the lyctorship ritual that was started seconds afterwards.

My full theory, isnt just that Gideon Nav can't die. It's that Gideon Nav wouldn't have been able to die... If Harrow hadn't sucked her soul out. There are at the very least 8 seperate events that Gideon should have died, two of which were nearly gauranteed, but she was ended by a piece of metal. Yes, a very well placed piece a metal, but the point still up to that point she had faced worse a came out unscathed.

If Harrow had not completed the lyctor ritual, Gideon would not have died. Wether or not through resurrection or simply walking it off. Gideon's body has some sort of necromantic attributes to it that keep her alive. We see this in the Untitled Entry short story with Judith Deuteros that describes Gideons body, as it does not rot, cannot be injured, cannot be fed to animals forced or otherwise. And that is all before Jod ever gets a look at the body, because otherwise he would have known Gideon was his daughter before the later events of Harrow the Ninth.

And ofc during the first challenge when Harrow uses Gideon as her eyes to be able to see the construct in the other room and Gideon is able to see the thanergetic signatures that Harrow remarks should be impossible. (I assume because the process is Harrow extracting information (Gideons eyesight) from Gideon and so Gideon should not also be receiving information (the ability to see the signatures)) unless Gideon had some form of necromantic abilities, which she was tested for as a kid and apparently did not have. Alongside not having the correct attitude to be a nun of the ninth. And so we can round it out to be her body being naturally necromantic leaving Gideon without the ability to use it. (Which Is a jump from the actual point we are attempting to use, but for now this stops us from assuming Gideon as any sort of necromantic ability which is a theory all on its own. One that I personally have no evidence for or against)

Now, that I have hopefully made both my Ap Lit and Lang teachers proud with my 3 am essay, I must give you the real tragedy of Gideon the Ninth. Had Gideon not died, had Harrow been unable to complete the lyctor ritual for emotional reasons or otherwise, had Harrow not become a lyctor and killed cytherea. Gideon would have had to watch Harrow and Cam be killed, possibly even Corona, Judith and Ianthe. And then to be used for Cythereas own motives. Tamysn Muir beautifully set up the story so that the best possible outcome could have happened. Had Gideon not died. Everyone else would have. And "Camilla the sixth was no idiot" cam knew and accepted this whereas Harrow never would have. And so the unkillable Gideon had to die, and forcing Harrows hand was the only way to do it.

[castellankurze]

Here's the thing that interests me about the dueling scene in Gideon the Ninth. Yeah, the narrative phrasing Harrowhark rose to the occasion like an evening star is peak and the line "Death first to the vultures and scavengers" is pure fire but why is she in that position to begin with?

The situation is thus: Camilla Hect has just won a duel against Marta Dyas attempting to claim the Sixth House's necromancy challenge keys, but she was wounded in so doing. Naberius Tern, backed by Ianthe Tridentarius, is pressing a dueling challenge against the injured Camilla in a flagrant bid to beat Camilla down and take the keys for the Third House while she's already recovering from one match. Gideon is standing by watching things unfold and, to her relief, Harrowhark steps up to put Gideon in the ring as a substitute for the injured Camilla and thus shut down Naberius' vulturing.

Except...why? You'd think that in anything like a polite societal dueling code (I know, I know, but go with it-) Camilla and Palamedes would have the option to demure, saying something like "the Sixth House cavalier just fought a duel and is wounded to boot, piss off for a day and we'll see then." But that's not even floated as an option. Palamedes isn't a dumb guy - far from it - and even if he were out of his element, you'd think someone else could just lean in and say 'dude tell them to shove it.' Judith Deuteros objects by saying "There are rules" and Ianthe shuts that down by pointing out she pressed Marta's duel on incredibly flimsy pretext, so that seems to be an objection on the grounds for presenting the challenge, rather than probing for an option to refuse. If Harrow and Gideon (or Jeannemary, jumping on the bandwagon) hadn't interceded, Camilla was about to fight her second duel back to back.

(Even in the first dueling challenge, the tone of onlookers seems to be that people want Palamedes to default and hand over his key to the Second House to spare Camilla the fight, because they assume the Sixth House is weak and don't know how good Camilla is.)

To sum up: the Sixth House seems to have no recourse but to either accept the repeated dueling challenges or default; with no way to decline except to give the Third House something they want (in this case, a Canaan House key).

That's insane.

And if that's deliberate, rather than an oversight on Tamsyn Muir's part, that suggests so much about the Nine Houses' dueling culture. It suggests that a challenge from a cavalier primary can't be refused; you have to either throw down or roll over as if they won. It speaks to a distinct lack of value placed on human lives, that the cavaliers are forced to accept a challenge on pain of their house losing face at best, something material at worst. The defending house can only negotiate to a degree that the attacking house is willing to let them. This is, depressingly, fully in keeping with the series' characters' treatment of the cavaliers. The subsequent books and short stories (especially The Unwanted Guest) really hammer this idea in, that the cavaliers are nominally viewed as a source of blades and shields in the hands of the necromancers, even if the laypeople of the setting don't know all the reasons behind the traditions.

In real life, formal dueling typically had customs and rules for negotiation and ceremony, with multiple exit points for parties to back out of a potential threat to life without losing face. Only truly aggrieved parties would press a suit to the point of confrontation. The Nine Houses say screw that, put up or shut up. They've more or less raised up the informal tradition of 'swords now motherfucker.'

To steal a phrase from another tumblrite, 'congrats god that's the worst anyone's ever done it.'

[peachesobviously]

Nona from Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

p.s.:THIS IS YOUR SPOILER WARNING IF YOU HAVEN't READ THE LOCKED TOMB AND ESPECIALLY NONA THE NINTH THERE WILL BE SPOILER BELOW!!!!! ok, y'all have been warned! so, since harrow and nona have the same face, i needed them both to look similar but different because their personalities are so opposite from each other, so while harrow is glaring, her head titled down, nona is beaming and her face is open to the world with her sad bittersweet smile, anyhow, i hope i partly achieved what i was trying to do haha in any case i did my very best

[liesmyth]

Do you think the Nine Houses follow a Marxist, Keynsian, or Austrians economic model

this ask made me SO happy you have no idea! some vague thoughts

The Houses obviously have to do careful resource allocation. I doubt they have a free market economy, at least not on a system-wide scale. I could see some of the Houses — like the Third or Fifth Houses, which are by all accounts wealthy and with a very large population — develop some kind of internal capitalist economy within the House itself. Namely, private actors who control and own properties, wealth accumulation, competitive markets etc. But ultimately I think even those are subject to strong (local) governmental oversight because, again, they live on space installations in a situation of constant resource constraint. I bet there are quotas for everything.

However! No way ALL the Houses have a market economy. I'm thinking especially those Houses that are very small and/or have a "mission" which means that societal development is carefully planned, and probably the economy is also centrally planned. (Ninth, Eight, Sixth, maybe Second and/or Fourth).

On an overreaching scale (within the Home System) I don't think "the Empire" (as in, John) is overly concerned with the yearly economic development of the Houses, partly because he's been historically absent for decades or even centuries at a time. Verging sharply into headcanon territory, I think the closest thing the Houses have to a real centralised government is military leadership (High Command or the Fleet Admiral, who's the head of the Second House) and when it comes to issues that concern multiple Houses but are more "civilian" in nature, is kind of a free-for-all. I'm thinking about how Harrow thought that writing to ask for help would result in the Fifth or maybe the Third cannibalising the Ninth House — it looks like there's an informal council of House leaders, but no properly organised central government.

Trade: travel and commerce between the Houses is regulated. You can't just take a spaceship and move from the Eight to the Second, for example — movement of people as well as goods depends on a ship schedule that runs on "routes" and I'd bet there's an immigration/emigration quota that's maybe decided between specific House leaders, or maybe a third party. My best bet is that one of the Houses (possibly the Third or Fifth) OR an ad-hoc organisation (which includes multiple higher-ups from said well-off Houses) are the ones who regulate shipping and travel, and either have an ownership stake in the shipping system or administrate it in the name of the Emperor.

The shepherded planets: putting the "imperialism" in "Empire". The Houses definitely exploit their colony planet for resources, as per AYU (talking about the "contracts" that the Empire signs with the occupied planets). However, it's also worth noting that 1) for at least 5000 years, the House system was self-sustaining and hadn't made contact with any other population; and 2) stele travel is kind of a hassle, and only seems to be limited to Cohort ships that we know of.

What I'm getting at is that I think the economy of the Houses is not dependent on their war of conquest — imo it's more of a mission of conquest for conquest's sake, see Corona thinking that the economy of the Houses doesn't quite add up, and Augustine talking like the ongoing expansion of the Houses is a whim of John's and little else. Basically, it seems to be a way to oppress the occupied planet for occupation's sake, and I wouldn't be surprised if the resources the Houses extract from the conquered planets go straight into financing yet more war and occupation and very little (if any) of any wealth they may accumulate makes it back to the Houses.

It COULD be that there's a necromantic equivalent of the East India Company, and my bet would be on the Second administrating it — Harrow doesn't seem to rate them at all, which tracks because Harrow's primary concern is Houses that could be a threat to the Ninth, and the Second being focused on exploitation that's external to the Home System could be an explanation for that. I've also seen speculation that making money from colonialism is the Fifth House's purview (*) but EYE think it makes more sense if the House that are more strongly associated with running the war effort are also the ones making money from it. Or it could be a joint operation.

(*) never forget the iconic tag #we regret to inform you that spreadsheets dad is maybe running the necromantic East India Company @katakaluptastrophy here)

Anyway. Sorry I haven't answered your actual question! GUN TO MY HEAD, if I had to pick ONE economic model to map the Houses onto, I wanna say soviet type economy (think: centralised planning, no inflation, little to no unemployment, tendency towards black market, little to no innovation). I have thoughts about what the consumer needs market looks like in the Houses but nobody needs to hear that. Also, it's def very limited

If anyone has thoughts PLEASE feel free to jump in, I'm always thinking about the logistical side of space imperialism in the necro empire!

[mayasaura]

just occured to me that John knows Harrow is Harrow in the verse chapters of Nona. After the end of Harrow the Ninth, he went and found the last person he cared about who didn't yet know about his deception, but who had every reason to hate him for it, and confessed everything to her. I want to study him like a bug

[direquail]

My specific read on John is not that he's a nice guy, either. It's that, like any good character (specifically a tragic character, which, TM has said that he is modeled on a mythical tragic hero, so) he has a flaw that dooms him. And what that means is, when he has the choice to change what he's doing, that flaw either prevents him from taking the option he's aware of, or prevents him from being aware that there is another option altogether.

And so as a writer, what I look for are moments where either:

something good about a character becomes an excess that harms themselves or others

we receive information that shows a persistent blind spot a character has

we look for times when a character gives their view of the world/a situation and it Does Not Match Up with reality, or is hinted that it doesn't

we look for evidence of something simmering under the surface that clashes with their outward, agreeable presentation

What fills that role for John?

Yep.

When this first pops up, it's pretty easily dismissed as yet another layer on the falsehood he's propped up. Admittedly, he's been doing it for ten thousand years, so it's probably got a few layers to it.

However:

This one, to me, gives us a hint about what John is blind to: That his friends see his vindictiveness and his failings and that they could still love him. This is where it crosses into tragedy, for me; where his own inability to forgive blinds him to the capacity that other people have for generosity--and so, to a world where "justice" means more than "vengeance for the dead".

And this illuminates the whole chain of events that leads him to that climactic scene in Harrow the Ninth, telling Mercy that she never would have forgiven him anyways:

John is, at heart, deeply angry--like most characters in the series, and like a lot of people who grew up in poverty, especially if they managed to escape it. He also has some deep sense of justice, and deep sense of judgment.

So we have this cycle of related emotions and ideas: Justice, judgment, outrage. And a human measure of selfishness, amorality, double standards, etc.

In one situation, this allows him to throw himself completely into the cryo project, something that (if it hadn't been sabotaged politically) could have made a difference to humanity. He brings in people who work to make it even better, who demonstrably want to make the outcome as just and humane as possible. It's also implied that this is part of why he received those powers; "I chose you to change."

(And, I'll be honest, one of the other things that I see that chafes me is the implication that there was nothing about John to recommend him to the Earth. I'm actually of the opinion that there was; she chose him, and I don't think she just rolled a d100 or drew a card off a tarot deck and called him up. John is also still a human, flawed person.)

Then, the situation changes. It's no longer an issue of dedicating expertise to solve a problem; this is a political issue, and specifically of rich people using their resources to shift outcomes towards the one they think will benefit them the most, that will secure their survival, explicitly at the expense of everyone else.

And their strategy is, profoundly: short-sighted and unnecessary (pooling resources would help create a better outcome for everyone, including the rich, by reducing global trauma and preserving more of the systems that already structure their world); bigoted and uninformed (many rich people think that the world has to be a certain way, generally that the world is violent, competitive, dog-eat-dog, etc., and someone has to be "on top", and there will always have to be a loser, or lots of losers); and utterly cruel, unjust, and pointless.

And John--John, who grew up poor, who grew up aware of the despair around him and the injustice of his position and more than likely made use of that anger to achieve what he had up to this point--John is so angry.

Because they're all the same. They're all the same. It's the same song, over and over again, no matter how stupid and pointless and unnecessary. He is certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it doesn't have to be this way. He passes judgment.

But John is losing to them, because he doesn't have the resources they do. He can hate them and fight them all he wants, and it doesn't matter, because he's nowhere near in the same league as they are politically.

And then, after the cryo project is cancelled, he gains his powers.

The thing about anger and judgment is that the deeper it runs, often, the more invested the person who holds that anger in themselves is in not seeing what they hate in themselves. E.g: John has conceptualized the people he's resisting as fundamentally unjust, cruel, amoral, and bigoted. There's a very good chance--to different degrees, depending on the person--that becoming aware of similar traits in himself might wake up those feelings he has towards those other people--aimed at himself (that is, cognitive dissonance). He can't see the things he's passed judgment on in himself and function. He's not like them; he's trying to fix things, to bring about justice.

Of course, there's justice as in "living in a just society", and justice as in "justice for the dead". But that's a later realization, because right now, everyone is still alive.

So John hides those parts of himself; from himself, from other people. So thoroughly he can exclude it from his consciousness and pretend it doesn't exist. He thinks no one sees the real depth of his own rage, his own cutthroat pursuit of a solution. And then, when he can't pretend it doesn't exist, he can still pretend to be the man he thinks they need him to be. He can "fool" them. He can say--he's trying. He screwed up. He doesn't know what he's doing.

And then, Casseiopeia says, No, actually, we know you, and we know you're horribly vindictive. And we're on your side--we're on the same side--our fight is your fight--and we love you. But your drive for revenge is seriously limiting your ability to imagine and create a living, just world, and that's what we're fighting for. Remember? That's what we set out to create.

And John's brain can't quite handle this; he can't imagine that they could actually see him and still be on his side. Because he couldn't see that and still be on his side. He can't forgive; he can't imagine forgiveness.

He can't see the things he's passed judgment on in himself and function.

And, by this stage, in some ways, it's already too late to change course. But this is one of several "come to Jesus" (no pun intended) moments where John could become aware of alternatives, or could change his behavior--and doesn't.

And I think this is where we get that self-awareness from, the thing that makes him creepy and tragic but also infuriating: He is aware, but apparently that's not enough to stop him from being his worst self--so is he just pretending to be moral? Capable of making different choices but choosing not to? And the weird statements he makes later:

This is, imo, not a power-hungry dictator who genuinely doesn't care about the cost of his throne, or a gleefully predatory abuser. This is a dude who's committed to a course of action and doesn't feel great about it. This is a guy who has violated his own sense of justice and has to live with it.

This is a guy who set out to save the world, killed it, and now the only thing that's left to him is to avenge it.

And like, from a mythology standpoint, that is exactly what the Erinyes are, like the Furies and Alecto. They are not the justice of Apollo or Athena. They are screaming for blood. They are hunting their quarry to the ends of the universe. They are chthonic.

Again: This isn't what Cassieopeia or Christabel said to him. This is what John has said to himself. This came from him. This is a reflection of what he believes.

And it encapsulates, exactly, why he erased their memories. Why he took away their agency.

The difference between him and many, many people is he had the power of a god and no one to check him when he was struggling with his own worst impulses. And then, he created a world where no one could, not just because then he could do what he wanted and pretend to be kind and loving and moral, but so that he would never have to lose the love of the people he needed.

Because, unfortunately, he still needed them.

It just took ten thousand years for the lie to unravel.

[katakaluptastrophy]

So we all know how Ianthe became a Lyctor for “ultimate power—and posters of [her] face.”

And I'm sure someone made a nice icon.

But you know who would have definitely gotten a poster of their face? Coronabeth.

Think about it: every House but the Ninth has lost a scion. In a culture that thrives on melodrama and the conspicuous consumption of death, there is a wave of hysterical funerary fervour to mourn their lost leaders. And the Third - the House of glitz, trendsetting, and political intrigue - has lost its beloved Crown Princess.

We don't know a huge amount about funerals in the Nine Houses, but we do know a bit about Third House funerals:

The front coffin is distinguished from its fellows by its gorgeous arrangement of flowers and wreaths. The flowers are all in hues of gold or violet, and are fake. The coffin is hinged open at the front, with its contents hidden from view by the flowers. A tray of meat is rested on the closed bottom half of the coffin. A queue of gaudily masked mourners process past the coffin, slowly, each one taking a strip of meat, then stopping by the head to lean within—kissing or feeding; we can’t be sure. - TUG

Apparently, a Third House funeral - unsurprisingly for flesh magicians - focuses on the physical. The reverence of/fear of/(lust for?) the body. A wake on steroids. But they received no body for Coronabeth. So I can only imagine larger than life posters of Corona decked with flowers, the weeping crowds surging through the streets of Ida, etc etc... Poor Ianthe, second place once again to a 'corpse'.

Moving past Ianthe to House funerary customs in general, and to the awful aftermath of the Lyctor trials in particular, it seems especially unfair that neither of the flesh magic Houses got a body back to mourn. Obviously Corona wasn't actually dead, but for those who believed her to be, the lack of a body for such visceral funerary rights must have been traumatic.

We don't have as many details of Seventh funerals, but the House famous for it's "beguiling corpses" likely also focuses much of its post-mortem ritual around the body. Dulcie suggests that the deceased might even leave specific instructions in their will about the appearance of their corpse:

That drawing looked nothing like me. I loved it. You don’t know this so it doesn’t help, but I included it in my will and put down that I wanted to look like that after I died. I thought maybe it would give you a laugh at the funeral, you know? - TUG

Meanwhile, the Fourth, Fifth, and Eighth receive their perfect pairs of "statuesque and incorruptible" bodies, preserved beyond the wildest dreams of the Seventh. These Houses are all spirit magicians. The Fourth, for whom thanergetically detonating oneself on a battlefield far from the rays of Dominicus isn't unheard of, almost certainly have funerary rites that don't presuppose a body. And the Fifth, whose necromantic practice is far more concerned with the spirit than the body, likely centre their most significant funerary rites around the ghost.

Y'know, the bit they don't have? Just as the flesh magicians of the Third and Seventh would have been unable to mourn their lost scions with rites around the body, the Fifth would have been unable to call their ghosts, trapped in Harrow's River bubble.

So amidst all the grief and awfulness, and the Emperor refusing to answer any questions about what happened (why are they all dead? Why are so many bodies missing? Where are the ghosts? Why are the bodies so creepily perfect?), half the Houses can't even mourn their dead in the way they normally would.

[theriverbeyond]

thinking deeply about Kiriona Gaia being just... Gideon Nav laid bare. like yeah, there's probably some soul fragment fuckery going on but i am just so convinced now that she IS Gideon Nav it's just that we the readers are, for the first time, seeing Gideon with all her trauma and horrible coping stratagies and none of her evasive and unreliable narration to offset any of it. and not only has Gideon been through the absolute ringer over the last what, 18 months? she was just... always kind of a bitch, because she needed to be in order to survive.

like, Gideon has always been Made Of Knives. and it's totally understandable!! to be clear my girl can do nothing wrong, thank you very much. but the Ninth House eats its own. of course she wouldn't be well adjusted, and not just in the "poor baby" way. the first language she ever learned was cruelty: abuse from the Reverend Parents, abuse from Crux, Aiglamene's mismatched love, her and Harrow tearing into and over each other like plants fighting for one small patch of sunlight.

we just had the last 2 books from her perspective, and she is a deeply unreliable narrator especially with regards to herself, so it didn't really come through -- though it is definitely perceptible once you understand the amount of emotional deflection parkour she's doing.

something something trauma makes you worse. suffering is not beautiful and does not make you better. sometimes you get fucked up and you dont emerge on the other side a poor little baby. sometimes you emerge a monster, because what other option did you have.

[procrastinationaccount]

Foaming at the mouth thinking about Harrow quoting Annabel Lee to Gideon

[flammenkobold]

One thing I am a bit obsessed about in TLT (aside from everything) is Harrow's arc about survival and living.

She is alive, she is surviving, against all odds.

But - crucially - never at all costs.

She shouldn't be alive, but she is. She wants to be alive, but she will not sacrifice the people around her to do so.

She cost 200 children, but she knows no matter what nothing she does will repay that debt - those lives.

When Gideon dies to save her (and Camilla) Harrow refuses the pay the price of becoming a full lyctor. She looked at the cost of becoming a lyctor and said no that is too much and I refuse to pay.

For all that she wanted to kill Gideon the First, when he is about to be killed by someone else she choses to help him over her own safety and this gives her the information she needs to protect herself against him without taking his life.

She calls, subconsciously, for help in the River and the ghosts of those she met and lost in Canaan house as well as Ortus come to her aid and still, even if her soul is on the line, once she becomes aware of what is going on she tells them to leave - only to find out that they could have left at any time and chose not to because they want to help her.

Her arc in Harrow the Ninth is a lot about surviving and about accepting that sometimes the price has already been paid and to accept that. But ultimately she find out that her refusal to pay might actually have paid off. Gideon's soul is still there - Gideon is still there. And so she goes I am not intending to die, but I am not going to let go of the chance to save Gideon and be with her again. There is a difference between keeping a slip of a dance card and saving the last dance. And it's made clear that she intends to find another way out of the mess she is in, that she has no intent to die herself but she can't, at this moment, return to the living without risking Gideon again.

And then we have her bits in Nona, sparse as they are, but she is back to finding her own way, she is back to fighting and then she places her life into the hands of Alecto. Alecto who gave Harrow the will to live in her darkest moment and if Alecto wants her dead then she is not going to fight her. And again this pays off, instead of killing her Alecto swears herself to Harrow.

And idk this feels so meaningful, especially in her own book, where she find herself in a world where people around her see the deaths of others as a necessary price to pay, where other people are often just considered small change or nothing worth at all - or at worst a liability to be eliminated - Harrow looks at the world and goes: yes I want to live, yes my life cost too much to throw it away, but the lives and souls of other people have value too. She survives, she fights for her life, but she never places her own life above everyone else.

She haggles with death and imo so far she keeps winning.