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.
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Another day, another question I'd like to throw out to the fellow Brokeback Mountain tag lurkers. This time, I wanna preface my question with a little background info:
When I first saw Brokeback Mountain I maintained the belief that, when Jack's father tells Ennis about how Jack's plans to bring a rancher up with him didn't "come to pass", it was because the rancher (who we can presume is Randall) backed out, and it was just one more disappointment in a string of failures that was Jack's life before he died. The final knife twist to the gut.
After reading a ton of fics and listening to a ton of podcast reviews abt the movie, though, I've come across a lot of different perspectives about the whole Randall thing. A popular idea amongst the Jack-was-murdered crowd is that Jack and Randall were somehow discovered and that is what led to Jack's death. Interestingly enough, there's actually an entire deleted scene of the film dedicated to this perspective—we don't have any footage of it, but as far as I could tell, the gist was that Jack and Randall were either coming back from or on their way to having one of their own "camping trips", when the camera focuses on a good ol' boy mechanic watching them very closely, foreshadowing the scene of Jack being beaten bloody that happens during Ennis' call with Lureen. This scene was deleted most likely because the filmmakers thought it was leading the audiences too much to a firm conclusion of Jack's death, and they wanted to maintain the tragedy of it's ambiguity from the short story.
Anyways, all this aside, I'm just kind of curious to know what others think went down with the whole Randall/Jack thing. What, exactly, did John Twist mean when he told Ennis that it didn't come to pass—was it actually a sure thing that they were going to move on up there, or was Jack putting his time and effort into another futile effort?
In relation to that, I'm also curious to know what y'all think about how the Ennis/Jack dynamic would have continued in the event that Jack didn't die? Like, if you think Randall and Jack were actually going to make a go of it, do you think that Jack would still sneak off to get his hits of Ennis twice a year while living at his parent's ranch with Randall? If he lived and still didn't get Randall, would Jack have moved on? After their last fight, would Ennis have heard from Jack ever again?
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the first playtest of Stampede Wasteland is this week :)
(though, i feel like it's more accurate to call it a slice of some sort, since the GM material is not done yet, but anyways, it's gonna be fun)
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