#i have a bad feeling it’s gonna be a case of htn all over again (ortus? gideon?? who/where???) except w both of them 💀

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

Harrowhark Nonagesimus

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The legend herself. I still love her so much.

I also have some questions, and some answers. This is gonna be a long one.

How did she open the tomb?

I puzzled over this for most of the book. Always assumed that John was lying when he said it was impossible - but then again, Gideon was around, so did she get Gideon's blood somehow? Or was it something else?

The proof was right here - right after John was revealed to be Gideon's dad:

It was worse when I was a kid. I remember the time you caught me telling her, I love you, and I can’t even remember what you said, but I remember that I had you on your back—I put you straight on the fucking ground. I was always so much bigger and so much stronger. I got on top of you and choked you till your eyes bugged out. I told you that my mother had probably loved me a lot more than yours loved you. You clawed my face so bad that my blood ran down your hands; my face was under your fucking fingernails. When I let you go you couldn’t even stand, you just crawled away and threw up. Were you ten, Harrow? Was I eleven? Was that the day you decided you wanted to die?

Harrow was ten; she had Gideon's face under her fingernails. Harrow opened the blood ward when she tried to kill herself. This makes a lot of sense. Mystery solved.

Is Harrow actually insane? Is the Body more than a hallucination?

Simply put: No, and yes. The Body is the manifestation of Alecto herself. She hitched a ride with Harrow's body when Harrow opened the tomb. She's been "haunted" by Alecto, the same way she was haunted by Wake for most of HtN.

I realised that this must be the case when I read this, after Harrow tries to kiss Alecto's ghost on the mouth.

As though you had crossed no boundary, and above the soundless rough shouting in your ears, the Body said: “I have to go away for a while,” and you regretted everything. “I have done wrong,” you said. There was the tiniest suggestion of a furrow in that cool unbreathing brow, and she said, “How?”

Alecto isn't upset that Harrow kissed her. She simply has to go away for a while. I thought about this. I read it as upset in my first read, but now it doesn't feel that way at all. "As though you had crossed no boundary", questioning why Harrow would think she'd done wrong. Alecto isn't upset at the kiss. She just has to go do Important Alecto Business.

Harrow interacts with Alecto throughout HtN. The Body is always there, until it isn't. Picking up on what we learned about Revenants from Wake, Harrow is haunted by Alecto in the same way. Dulcie, in the bubble, confirmed that she could sense someone other than Wake. Alecto came forward to Gideon when Harrow's sternum was shattered, her tomb was empty in Harrow's final vision.

Alecto isn't a revenant. She may not even be a ghost. Some essence of her, however, managed to cling to Harrow and infiltrate her mind. Alecto's powers must be strong - did she have enough of a connection with Harrow to adhere to her body? Wake needed Harrow to die to come forward - Alecto may have no such limitations. She's there, in Harrow's peripheral vision, most of the time. I don't think she had the limitation of needing that connection. Anyone or anything would do, hence the locked in an ice cave behind a million wards. Not exactly a revenant, as Alecto's body is almost certainly still alive, but an ability to cast her spirit and let it cling on to something, anything that moved in there.

Is Harrow actually insane? Well, on one hand, yes. She's Harrow, after all. She's had to live with what she thought were hallucinations all her life. She's been hearing things like the Secundarius bell and doors closing/banging as well, which might also be Alecto's input - some sound comes in even through the ice?

Alternatively, well, Harrow has 200 souls inside her, from the kids that were killed. (How did the Ninth, a house of mostly decrepit elders, get 200 children anyway?) Those kids will have left some kind of mark on her soul, and they all would have heard the bell and doors during their short lives. Maybe it's just a reflection of this.

This means that the hallucinations we've seen Harrow have, are all likely caused by souls hitching a ride with Harrow. Wake, Alecto, the unnamed 200.

Doesn't mean Harrow hasn't been hearing things and seeing things that were ostensibly not there, though. All throughout her entire life! That kinda stuff would drive anyone a bit mad.

Mind you, Cytherea under her bed was absolutely real. Ianthe took advantage of Harrow's vulnerability in that moment.

I'm still convinced that Ianthe is with Eden in some way. Eden came to Canaan House first, retrieved Camilla, Coronabeth and Judith, along with part of Palamedes's skull. Cytherea somehow managed to call BoE to the scene before she died. Harrow wiped some memories - maybe she strategically also wiped this memory? I really wanna know what happened at this point in the story.

Okay well I think it's time to talk about what and who we know.

>> Next: Ianthe, Coronabeth and the Blood of Eden

[harrowharksoup]

How do Gideon and Harrow fulfill all the major couple tropes (enemies-lovers, bodyguard/princess, jock/nerd, sunshine one/grumpy one, tall one/short one) so perfectly and yet have never kissed??