#my.meta

[harrowharksoup]

NTN COVER REVEAL 3 DAYS AWAY *starts foaming at the mouth like Alecto*

Some initial thoughts, and: is Camilla Hect on the cover of Nona the Ninth?

I’ll start with the bottom left panel —

The right hand is in a similar position to Harrow’s on the HtN cover, in what I’d guess is a necromantic gesture. We know that Ianthe’s right arm is the gilded bone one, so we can probably rule her out. The skin tone appears to be a few shades darker than Harrow’s, which could point to Gideon, but this relies heavily on the quality and definition of the photo.

I’m not sure if I’m seeing it entirely clear, but the right hand appears to be wearing some sort of fingerless glove. This could support Gideon (or Gideon’s body) as the cover character, since the need for gloves could be indicative of swordplay (though it isn’t the knuckle-knives because those would be on the left hand). The person appears to be wearing some sort of gray clothing that might be a cloak or a skirt/dress.

The N being in a different style than the other three Ns makes sense because it denotes a new character rather than a House title. That’s all I have to say on this topic for now.

Lastly, I’ve read speculation that the strange blue lighting alludes to an underwater setting, and I agree wholeheartedly. The River will have a big part to play in the remaining books, and this would be a perfect first glimpse of that.

On to the middle panel —

I honestly have no idea what that strange diagonal cord-looking thing is — maybe it’s a dog tail (jk). Surprisingly, there are bones.

The final panel —

Now this is a particularly interesting one. It has far more detail and variation in content than the the first two book covers have in their entirety. That might be a hazmat/deep-sea diving suit with a glowing yellow faceplate in the top right corner, and there’s some industrial metallic-looking components that could be part of a space ship or the suit.

The vertical crosses on the top right and bottom right Ns are absent on the middle right N. It makes me think of the crossed out IX on Gideon’s skull symbol that we first see in Chapter 37 when she and Harrow have begun the lyctor process and Harrow is a body containing two consciousnesses. Additionally, we are given the promise that “Gideon will return in Nona the Ninth,” and Gideon herself has been quite resistant to being tied to the Ninth in the past, so maybe there’s some sort of parallel to be found there. It might also be a cavalier thing.

And here we arrive at a third possible cover character I hadn’t really considered before: Camilla Hect. The gray clothing made me first consider the idea, and the rest of the details kind of fell into place to support her as a definite possibility. In this post, tazmuir describes Cam as being “Middle Eastern extraction,” which is supported by the hand’s darker skin tone. The hand is making a necromantic gesture, but we know that Cam now has Palamedes’s eyes (and possibly other Sex Pal traits?), and the glove as cavalier symbol fits with Cam’s excellent ability to go loud.

Overall, I’m inclined to say that whoever is on the cover, they’re probably someone we already know, and they’re likely to have the shared characteristics of both a necromancer and a cavalier. And whether it’s Camilla or Gideon or some body completely new, I am dying to find out. 💀

[harrowharksoup]

Wild theory that the monstrous consciousness that possessed Colum’s body back in Canaan House right before Ianthe killed him was Alecto. (And if that’s the case … yikes.)

I was just rereading the section where Ianthe faces off against the Eighth House after becoming a lyctor, and:

Colum the Eighth’s eyes were as liquid black as, before, Ianthe’s had been liquid white. (GtN 391)

Whose eyes are also pure black (admittedly with a white ring, but the black is the main point here)? John’s — but he didn’t originally have black eyes.

“… Alecto had your eyes from the moment any of us first saw her. And those extraordinary black eyes you’ve always worn … they were always hers.” (HtN 481)

From the few descriptions there are of Alecto, it’s clear she has some distinctly inhuman attributes, not least of all the eyes:

his monstrous eyes, oil on carbon (HtN 32)

His alien eyes were cool and calm (HtN 41)

Colum’s behavior after he was soul-siphoned also matches up with how Augustine and Mercymorn indicate Alecto would act:

He now moved like there were six people inside him, and none of those six people had ever been inside a human being before. (GtN 391)

“She was a bloody monster in a human suit …” (HtN 478)

“because if A.L. turned up on the Mithraeum, she would have been as … distinctive as ever …” (HtN 480)

Going off speculation that Alecto is Earth’s Resurrection Beast and is buried on the First House under Canaan House, it seems entirely plausible — likely, even — that the character of Alecto the First is not new to the Locked Tomb Trilogy. She was right under our noses all along.

I’d figured out that the eye-change is what happens when two people become one. It’s not what happens when two people swap places. … Unless the cavalier failed to die. (HtN 481)

[harrowharksoup]

Over the course of GtN and HtN, tazmuir has pretty much taken us through the full range of POVs: we’ve had third person limited from Gideon, Harrow, and Ianthe. We’ve had second person seemingly from Harrow but actually from Gideon. Finally, we’ve had first person from Gideon-Harrow.

This therefore leads to the crucial question: what’s next for us in Alecto the Ninth? The royal “we”?

We should have keeled over and died saying sadly, Oops.

We didn’t.

— Harrow the Ninth, The Locked Tomb Trilogy

[harrowharksoup]

I know this is a small thing compared to the cover reveal, but I’m interested to see what the skull symbol on the spine of Alecto the Ninth will be. Drawing from past examples, it seems reasonable to expect that it will be different from the first two and contain multiple spoilers for AtN.

[Major Harrow the Ninth spoilers ahead]

The first possibility that comes to mind is the herald wasp symbol introduced in HtN, since both of the previous skulls had already been revealed before their debut in the text. However, I’m also wondering whether it might not be a symbol for BOE, since presumably the third book will center on a rebellion point of view.

Another convention that the symbol might follow is that it’s personalized or somehow related to a new relevant character/POV, probably the person in the HtN epilogue. (It’s up for debate as to whether she’s Anastasia/the Body or Alecto/both/all three are one and the same. I’m pretty convinced a particular way on that theory, but I’ll put down possibilities for both.)

If it were Anastasia, the obvious choice would be a Ninth House skull, the same as was used for HtN. But as a necromancer who nearly discovered perfect Lyctorhood before being thwarted at the last minute by the murder of her cavalier, Anastasia has one of the greatest reasons to hate John and despise the house system. In that case, the symbol could be a corrupted parody of the original, similar to how the GtN skull is a Ninth House skull but with aviators, a laughing jaw, and a slashed Roman numeral nine. I’m picturing something with a chain to represent imprisonment/Samael’s offhand, or maybe a fractured skull like in the HtN AU chapters.

For Alecto’s part, there are multiple reasons the symbol could be hers rather than Anastasia/the Body’s even if they are in fact two different people and the POV is Anastasia’s. Alecto was John’s cavalier with whom he shared the secrets of immortal life and forged a soulmate-level connection before betraying and imprisoning in a tomb for roughly 10,000 years. AtN could take several of many story arcs (a heist is confirmed), but I believe revenge will play a part, and Alecto’s revenge will be like nothing we’ve ever seen. (Simply writing the words Alecto’s revenge gives me chills of excitement. I can’t wait for her to absolutely wreck John’s game.) Additionally, Alecto is the character the book is named for, and the key to perfect Lyctorhood/Gideon’s parentage reveal. It would make sense for the symbols of each book to represent the title character.

When it comes to symbol possibilities, there’s been extensive speculation that Alecto is Earth’s Resurrection Beast, which sets us up for some interesting times if that’s the case. If Alecto is an RB and the third symbol is hers, I could see it being a herald symbol. However, as John explains, “The Heralds and corpus sometimes vary between Beasts … Some Lyctors have seen them as insectoid.” (HtN 173). Following this, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a giant evil space wasp; anything insectoid is up for consideration, and as he had just made an analogy with spiders, possibly arachnid. When it comes to tazmuir, giant evil space tarantulas are definitely not beyond the realm of possibility.

I would also totally be here for just the most unhinged-looking abomination of a skull you ever saw with three eye sockets, vampire fangs, a half-dozen horns/antlers give or take, extended cheekbone flanges sharper than Benedict Cumberbatch’s, and just all-around madness. Honestly, I’ll take whatever tazmuir gives me, and congratulations to her for writing in a set of [eleven?] awesome symbols to automatically be considered for tattoo templates.