#tazmuir i’m begging

[drawerbread]

New year griddlehark smooch!!

wishing everyone a happy 2024! my only resolution is to go insane unless we get alecto news

bonus:

[figonas]

I’m sorry but you all aren’t listening, lyctorhood itself is not the “indelible sin” and you can pry this theory from my cold dead hands, honestly, maybe not even then. TazMuir herself could not dissuade me until she explicitly tells me otherwise. My proof for this you ask? Pyrrha’s conversation with Varun in NtN chapter 9.

But let’s backtrack for a second. John has stated that the resurrection beasts are after him and the lyctors for committing the indelible sin of lyctorhood, and as such the lyctors can never return to the Dominican System for fear of drawing the RBs back to the Nine Houses. I’ve never believed this was true given the fact that John is always the greatest common denominator when it comes to the presence of an RB and there’s no mention of an RB going after a lone lyctor. Sure, lyctors have been killed fighting resurrection beasts but there’s a huge difference between being caught in the crossfire and starting a firefight. For me, Nona the Ninth only reinforced that what we’ve been told is the “indelible sin” is either John misunderstanding the RBs (doubtful) or lying for his own purposes (more likely).

In chapter 9 of NtN, Nona recounts the story of her disastrous beach trip and towards the end of this recitation Nona says that Pyrrha;

“…crossed to the taped-up window, bottle and glass in hand. To Nona’s awe, she twitched the blackout curtains aside—stood bathed in the hyper-blue light from the sky as Nona held her breath—and she said to the window, “Here’s to Camilla Hect, yet another of devotion’s casualties,” and knocked back the glass. Then she said to the light, quite gently, “No, I don’t blame you, man … He was always looking for things to throw himself on.”

Pyrrha stands in front of Nona, bathed in the light of Varun the Eater, and proceeds to have a conversation with it. We only get one side but based on the context of the last line, “No, I don’t blame you, man … He was always looking for things to throw himself on.” Varun seemingly apologizes to Pyrrha for killing G1deon. It’s proven later on in the book that Varun can speak to Nona, and while it could be argued that since G1deon is dead and his soul is gone the “indelible sin” has been undone this still begs the question; why would the punisher apologize to the sinner?

If Varun and the other RBs are hunting the lyctors to dole out justice for their sins why would they apologize for doing the very thing they sought to do unless that wasn’t their true intent. The “indelible sin” is not the consumption of another soul, it is the consumption of a specific soul. It is John taking Alecto into himself, not being able to house all of her and instead making an exchange. Housing a piece of her in him, and a piece of him in her. Splintering the soul of a great and terrible force into manageable parts. Which explains Varun’s ominous presence hanging over the planet in the first place.

If RBs are hunting Lyctors there are no lyctors on this planet. Palamedes has not consumed Camilla’s soul, G1deon is gone, Harrow is in the River, Gideon is thumbtacked to her dead body, the only soul of any significance to Varun is Nona. Later on in chapter 13 Varun, by way of Judith, says to Nona;

“…what they did to you and what they wrung from you and what shape they made you fill—we see you still—we seek you still—we murdered—we who murder—you inadvertent tool—you misused green thing—come back to us—take vengeance for us—we saw you—we see you—I see you.”

And in chapter 27,

“….what did he do to you, to make you this way.”

What did HE do to you!!! what did HE do to YOU!! To give John credit he doesn’t deserve he may not realize it himself but the RBs have been looking for Alecto this whole time. They don’t want the lyctors, they want what John stole, they want the piece of Alecto inside of him. Want to make her whole again, their misused green thing. She’s almost there. She has her piece back from harrow’s body, united with the piece of her hidden in the locked tomb. She only has 1 piece left to collect. And god knows what will happen when the green and breathing thing is whole once again.

[abigail-pent]

OK, as promised long ago: my Cassiopeia theory.

Essentially, I’m pretty sure she is still alive, and here’s a long-form exploration of why I think this, accompanied by a full catalogue of everything we know about her.

(1) We know that the skills you learn from the Lyctor trial in Cassiopeia’s lab is what Palamedes calls “the hideous corpse”: tethering a fully intact spirit to a body that loses its integrity (GTN p. 366).

(2) We know that Pal employs this technique, or something very closely related to this technique, to successfully tether his spirit to his body (HTN chapter 33).

(3) We know that Cassiopeia’s body is torn apart by ghosts after physically entering the River and using theorems while physically submerged (HTN p. 97). 

Proposition One: If Pal can use Cassy’s technique to successfully tether his spirit to his body, which is then torn to pieces, I see no reason why Cassy herself could not have done the same, before she is also torn to pieces. Also: it’s an interesting parallel, and I refuse to believe it isn’t on purpose.

(4) Cassiopeia loved to cook (HTN p. 231), leading me to believe that the scrap of recipe that Abigail finds on HTN p. 130, which references Nigella in a defensive sort of manner, was probably written by Cassiopeia. Immediately after finding this, Abigail says she “may be able to call the writer’s ghost” and also says: 

(4a) “I mean, there’s the issue of whether the Lyctor in question is even dead.”

(4b) “I am not even certain where [Lyctors] go. Do Lyctors enter the River? Do Lyctors pass as we pass? I don’t know where they wait.”

Proposition Two: this is tazmuir directly suggesting that Cassiopeia is not dead, and that other Lyctors can be called back from wherever they have been waiting -- which, in Augustine’s and Ulysses’ cases, are on the other side of the stoma --  by a sufficiently talented speaker to the dead. 

(5) Cassiopeia was awake and performing necromancy in the River the first time she was physically submerged in it (HTN p. 156). And yet she didn’t get torn apart by ghosts until later. This may be why HTN Chapter 7 has a 6th House skull on it -- this is the chapter where Harrow, Ianthe, Mercy, and John physically travel in the River -- and I feel strongly that the chapter would have had a different House’s skull attached to it if we weren’t supposed to be thinking specifically about Cassiopeia at this time. Certainly if the bits we learn about Cassy in this chapter are just red herrings or colorful backstory, it wouldn’t necessarily warrant a 6th house skull for the chapter. It feels like a strong hint.

(6) Augustine considers Cassiopeia to be his superior re: spirit expertise. He says he’s a generalist, implying she was the specialist. So she can out-spirit the Fifth House. He says she was “unravelled” and that she “disappeared” but not that she has died (HTN p. 171). In fact, nobody ever directly says she died, only that she was physically torn apart. Mercy says she saw the spirits “[seize] her legs and arms” (HTN p. 105) but not actually that she died.

(7) Cassiopeia had a large ceramics collection (HTN p. 105).

(8) Cassy is a super lightweight (HTN p. 268).

(9) Anastasia was working closely with Cassiopeia as she studied to try and achieve Lyctorhood (HTN p. 482). If she nearly got it right after studying with/under Cassy, then it’s possible that Cassy came to understand perfect Lyctorhood, but only after having killed Nigella. This, in my opinion, is the sort of thing that might make a person fake their own death to remove themselves from service, especially as Cassy has been described as extremely protective of Nigella (HTN p. 279).

(10) Cassiopeia and Anastasia together created Teacher to be a soul melange (GTN p. 368). Is this the same thing as the “Sixth installation” referenced at Cytherea’s funeral (HTN p. 122)? The existence of this “installation” implies the presence of both Valancy and Anastasia. So it’s possible that Valancy was working on the soul melange too. The other possibility is that they had some other project going, that we don’t know anything else about yet.

(11) Cassiopeia was “brilliant and sensible and careful” and figured out that blood wards are actually cell wards and appears to have been the most scientifically minded of all of the original Lyctors, and arguably the most powerful of them.

So what does this all add up to? I just don’t believe that brilliant, sensible, careful Cassy, the spirit specialist, would have failed to use her own techniques to keep her soul tethered to her body. And yes, her body was torn to pieces, but there’s precedent for the recovery of the soul after this, and in fact the narrative sort of begs us to look at the parallel between her and Pal and to conclude that she isn’t actually dead. I think she had plenty of motive to do everything she could to stop working for John, who she almost certainly knew had betrayed her and Nigella, even if she wasn’t sure exactly how. I don’t know what all she was working on, besides the soul melange -- though undoubtedly she worked on many things -- but at the end of the day, there are too many extant question marks surrounding her work for me to believe we’ve closed the book on her and everything we can learn from her. 

[drawerbread]

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