#teacher (gtn)

[we-are-the-graves]

Anybody else catch this in GtN?

And then there's a paragraph or so, but the next words that are spoken are:

"Anybody else want to admit they're an unholy necromantic construct?"

The Unholy Necromantic Construct enters.

"Maybe later," he says.

Nobody bats an eye.

[illisidifan]

"As for Teacher's expression, well, that one was hard to fathom. In the end it was something like melancholy and something like resignation [...] Harrowhark asked, 'Teacher, was Lady Septimus so diagnosed?' 'Dulcinea Septimus was not meant to live to 25.'"

I swear to jod, Teacher 100% knew that Dulcie wasn't what she seemed.

And I'll never get over the fact that he of course knew the way the trials would end, what would happen to the cav's and when he talks about the third's "discrepancy", he mentioned that it would be "Only trouble at the end of the line, and trouble confined to them!" The *foreshadowing*.

I swear, this book gets better with every re-reading, I find something new every time, notice some new bit of connection to what will happen later, sometimes not even until the next book.

[harrowharkwife]

since tamsyn's said that there will be a wedding in alecto the ninth...

who do we think is getting married?

leave your guesses/predictions in the tags!

[locking-the-tomb]

Only trouble at the end of the line, and trouble confined to them.

[curetsun]

オトナプリ２話。プリキュアになれなくても生徒を守るところ、オトナになっても、のぞみはのぞみで良かったです🦋 by ねここ ※If you like this artwork please support the artist by visiting the source!

[birgittesilverbae]

beatrice: cavalier

ava: necromancer

me: screaming

[clown-bear]

Listening to harrow the ninth and I have a Theory about the book fragments that are "Harrow in the 1st house but with Ortus as a cavalier"

[saltwater-creature]

Hey so what're the current theories on the constructs in canaan house after nona?

It's human souls attached permanently to skeletons, either done by jod or during the lyctor experiments. Personally i wonder if those were cultists who stormed their compound.

Also once again I am asking about Teacher (priest edition) and why exactly Cassiopeia and Anastasia melange 500/50 souls into one construct. Whose souls were they and where did they get them? Did jod just go "here you go, research grant approved in 100s of souls :) dw where i got them" from like pre-res souls or like. Plucking souls out of the river? Not to mention like ethics or whatever

Also Teacher is capable of necromancy in some form? What is he who was he...

[anarcho-decepticonism]

desperately searching for a post abt how teacher dies so that john gaius may emerge from his limp, puppet-like body

[iviarellereads]

Harrow the Ninth, Chapter 35

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For detail on The Locked Tomb coverage and the index, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

(Slashed Ninth House icon.) In which Harrow could easily develop a complex about being the target of every major supernatural threat.

Abigail is trying to help Nigenad do a psychometric analysis of a rapier.(1) Harrow enters the library and ignores them. She confirms to the group that she has set wards around the Sleeper's coffin, and that she tried to move it but it was totally immovable.

They discuss how some tubes have started growing between the stones of the building, occasionally pouching out into weird organs that just hang around on the walls and in the corners, pulsing in unpleasant colours. They discuss how they might fight these back into order.

There's some focus on how dire Dulcie Septimus's condition looks despite her continued breathing, before Teacher comes in drinking something "apple-coloured" that he insists he can't get drunk on, though how he's tried. At any rate, Ortus accuses him of speaking in riddles.

"Then let me speak plainly," said Teacher. "You worship a monster in a box and play at being the masters of its tomb.(2) Now we have a monster in a box, and it has become obvious that it means to master us all. Canaan House has never changed its colour, nor its shape, nor with the seasons. I should know; we measured summer to winter, temperature and precipitation and the acidity of the very sea beneath us, and it never hailed, and it never snowed, and we certainly never saw fimbriae(3) hanging from the rafters. Let me prophesy in my old age: the Sleeper is getting up the strength to wake completely, and colonize what it finds. I fear! God! How I fear!"

After further ranting, mostly about how pointless it is to resist, he adds that it's coming for Harrow, and when it gets her, the Emperor is dead.(4)

"Well, bugger Teacher," said Abigail Pent crossly.

=====

(1) How curious to have a bit of focus on an ancient Ninth sword, right after a bit of focus on an ancient Ninth sword. (2) I mean, that's true of the Ninth, but not the whole of the Nine Houses, is it? (3) Fimbria - Latin for "fringe", with meaning different depending on context. Some bacteria have projections we call fimbriae, the little "fingers" at the ends of the fallopian tubes to catch eggs released from the ovaries are known as fimbriae, and there's an entire genus of clams with the name Fimbria. The organs on the walls almost sound like a combination of all three, less the shells of the clams. (4) Now, just how could Teacher possibly know this? He's operating entirely on vibes… though, from the end of Gideon, we know he's also a multi-spirit-construct of some kind. Maybe he has a sensitivity to vibes? Or maybe he's just ten thousand years old and even more insane than Harrow assumes she is.

[katakaluptastrophy]

What do the Fifth House actually do?

Sure, yes, ghosts and tradition and the Heart of the Emperor, and Watchers Over the River - but none of those things give you the kind of assets that mean you can dress your cavalier in a coat that "probably cost more than the Ninth House had in its coffers" for a dinner party.

It's made clear very early on that the Fifth are a power to be reckoned with. When they first receive the letter about the Lyctoral pilgrimage, Gideon assumes it would be on the Third or Fifth. Harrow, meanwhile, has frequently-repeated anxieties about the Ninth being subsumed by the Third or Fifth, to the point that she worries that the anniversary party invitation may be an attempt to wipe out the other Houses. Teacher describes the Fifth's relationship with the Fourth as "hegemonic". The Fifth loom so large in the cultural imagination, they even inform the name of the made up porn magazine that Gideon offers to Crux.

The links between the Third and the Fifth that both Gideon and Harrow make seem to reflect both the fact that these two Houses have particular power and influence, but also that they frequently cooperate. Judith writes about the close cooperation of the Second, Third, and Fifth, a relationship which becomes a source of tension as the scions seek to establish authority after the Fifth are murdered. Judith says:

“The Fifth are dead. I take authority for the Fifth. I say we need military intervention, and we need it right now. As the highest-ranked Cohort officer present, that decision falls to me.” “A Cohort captain,” said Naberius, “don’t rank higher than a Third official.” “I’m very much afraid that it does, Tern.” “Prince Tern, if you please,” said Ianthe.

Which makes it sound as though Abigail might technically have been considered the highest ranking person at Canaan House (likely because she was head of her House and not an heir in waiting like Judith or Coronabeth), and that following her death there is some question as to whether the Second or the Third should take control, but notably no suggestion that anyone else might.

We know what the Second do: they are the leaders of the Cohort and the Bureau, the military and intelligence that forms the core of imperial expansion. Most of the information that we get about the other Houses talks only about their cultural or ritual roles in the empire - we get very little in the way of gritty details of what happens outside of the Dominicus system.

We know a little bit about what the Third does - according to Tor they are cultural trendsetters and players in soft power, but the one detail we get in GTN itself is revealing: when Gideon imagines her glorious future in the Cohort, one of the assignments she considers boring is the prospect of being "in some foreign city babysitting some Third governor." Which makes it sound rather like the Second are conquering the planets and the Third are then running them. But the books are even lighter in details about what the Fifth do, beyond ghosts and manners.

However, there is one suggestive detail: an important topic in HTN is stele travel - the necromantic FTL used by the Nine Houses. And Mercymorn, in describing a stele, specifically states that Fifth House adepts are required for their construction. Which rather makes it sound like the Fifth have a monopoly on the manufacturer of the technology required for FTL travel. Now that in and of itself could be the basis of their enormous wealth - selling aerospace tech to an ever expansionist military is probably quite lucrative.

But there's another element of House imperialism that only gets mentioned in passing that doesn't seem to be entirely accounted for, which Judith describes in As Yet Unsent:

"Their other line of attack is the business contracts. They claim that the services asked of them by the Emperor were set down in lifetime contracts by previous generations, who assumed the contracts would be terminated upon the Emperor’s death."

There are obviously some unanswered questions about the imperialist project of the Nine Houses - both Augustine and Coronabeth question quite why it works the way it does - but from the above it sounds like in many respects it functions exactly as you would expect an empire to: as a vehicle for the exploitation of others' resources.

Perhaps the Cohort themselves administer these business contracts. Perhaps they fall under the purview of the Third House planetary governors. But if you're exporting resources from the living planets of your empire to the mostly desolate planets of the Dominicus system, you're going to need some FTL ships and a whole lot of bureaucracy.

And if there's one other detail that we get about the Fifth, it's that there is something significant about the political power of their bureaucracy. As Judith puts it: "Quinn himself is a Fifth House bureaucrat with all that entails."

Are the Second, Third, and Fifth so close and so powerful because they form the bedrock of the empire: the conquest, control, and exploitation of planets beyond the Dominicus system?

[abigail-pent]

some things I'm noticing (again) in my ??th gtn reread:

- Cytherea has a whole little monologue about how if you're going to create or pull thanergy it has to be by taking thalergy and vice versa. You can only join death to life or life to death, kind of like batteries

- Basically I'm more convinced than ever that the entrance to the Tower is under the Canaan House facility -- Teacher says it's the most dangerous place in the whole Nine Houses, and we know by now that Alecto was not there, so I am pretty sure it's the Tower

- ten billion unfed ghosts in the Tower, under Canaan House, which were there since the Resurrection; sounds like the tongue guys tbh.

- there's a whole bit about how Silas sends Colum's soul *away* and exploits the space it leaves behind, which is meant to be the opposite of what the Second House does. the Second House takes enemy thanergy to create more thalergy for the cavalier. so I think that means the Eighth takes in thalergy - like from the whole room, I think this is why the color starts draining from everyone whenever Silas does it to Colum - to create more thanergy for ... maybe both the necromancer and the cavalier?

- Anyway I just kind of think John's bomb + eating Earth basically ripped open a wormhole to tongue guy space (the stoma) and he pushed the ten billion through. giving up a shit ton of thalergy to create the first source of thanergy. like Silas does to Colum but bigger. and this created the tongue guys and the tower was built to contain them.

- this is maybe also why John has said siphoning is the most dangerous thing any House had ever thought up - he does like to say this kind of thing from personal experience

- there are sure a lot of towers referenced in Canaan House and then we don't really get towers again until Nona, with the Tower Princes and, obvi, the Tower.

- I am very fine and normal about Silas and Colum and have never cried about them, what are you even talking about

- the Tower is a tarot card that "is associated with sudden, disruptive revelation, and potentially destructive change." Sounds like John's flashbacks in Nona to me tbh

- the Eighth breeding program is still interesting and a mystery to me, mainly because I'm not very clear on what blood type matches have to do with necromancy. But it does feel like the most medical aspect of the modern Eighth and therefore probably the part that Mercy had the most influence over.

- but actually I think "the Eighth breeds batteries" makes more sense to me than ever if the point of sending Colum's soul away is to take his thalergy to bring Silas more thanergy. Which is siphoning, exactly - it's the avulsion trial. And I suppose that would be easier to do if the necromancer and cavalier were a closer genetic match. But then I guess I don't understand why everyone else in the room loses color when that happens. Is that because of where Silas is sending Colum in those moments?

- also then it makes me wonder if Cam and Pal really could have done the avulsion trial without giving Cam brain damage. They are a super close genetic match. Harrow and Gideon are *not*, of course, but I think they pulled through because Gideon has extra thalergy from her dad's side.

- you know who would be a PERFECT genetic match? the Tridentarii! really wondering if this will come up in Alecto... Corona actually would be perfect for Ianthe to siphon because there is no genetic difference between them.

- is it going to be important at some point that the Chaturs have been cavaliers since the time of the Resurrection? is Jeannemary a descendant of Titania?

- when Teacher laments the "poor child" he could be talking about... almost anyone. Dulcinea, Cytherea, Isaac, Jeannemary. Anastasia. Like really anyone

- in retrospect it's extremely weird that Aiglamene tells Gideon she's up to the standards of "a bad cavalier, one who's terrible" and then when Gideon gets to Canaan House and starts dueling people, she's like one of the best? Crazy fast, hero-worshipped by Jeannemary, and even Babs said it was "incredible" to fight her. Like that's strange that Aiglamene's expectations were apparently much higher than any House cavalier primary.

- there's something so fascinating about the scene where Babs stops Corona from fighting Gideon. like it becomes really clear to me that he is in on Ianthe's ruse, and that Corona has been fighting to get out of it for a long time - maybe her whole life - and can't. They're both terrified of Ianthe and Babs is constantly trying to protect Corona *from Ianthe*. But Corona is so tied up in the toxicity of the relationship, and the love of it, that she can't accept Babs' help even when consists only of taking her side in an argument between the twins, as in the first scene when they're overheard on the stairs. She can't even accept Babs' help when it consists of dying instead of her. Ugh the whole thing is so domestic-abuse coded...

- "she had bitten him, apparently to soothe her own obscure feelings" I say this to/about my cats often

idk probably more later

[nonas-third-tantrum]

during the gtn dinner party gideon notes that teacher is “perennially pleased to see [harrow and gideon] for no reason gideon ever knew” and I’m wondering if this is just teacher being quirky or if teacher had a particular fondness for anastasia and is delighted because harrow reminds him of her and/or because harrow’s presence confirms that anastasia’s line and house have continued

[hypnostouched]

Fucks me up that Hot Sauce is the same age as the Fourth duo in GtN. Because they let Hot Sauce be a kid; a sadly matured kid, a kid that knows and thinks too much but its sad because she's a kid.

Isaac and Jeane are quite almost active frontline military. They're young, thats acknowledged a lot in GtN but not in the same way as Hot Sauce and her gang. Because we saw the gang through the lense of a childlike teacher's aide, because we saw them as students, as kids with older people around them that were their older people as kids who ate fruit together on break and argued and fought and got to be kids, even in their war torn little school.

Isaac and Jeane were on equal footing with everyone else at Canaan house. The Heir to his house, and his Cavalier - the same rank as any other pair of them. Eager to fight, eager to die, seen mostly through the eyes of Gideon who didn't particually like them which took away some of that innocence. They felt younger in HtN because we mostly heard about them through Abigail

i was definately picturing hot sauce as younger until it directly said 14

[no-man-no-woman]

Okay, I'm going to be very direct and I'm sorry if I come off as mean, but I just have to say it: I hate people who consider NtN a bad book and Nona a bad and/or childish narrator.

First of all: Nona is six months old and dying, it makes sense that she's a "childish" narrator, of course her point of view is strange and slightly useless at some points; she's treated like a child! She thinks a bit like a child!

Nobody says anything to her. I think that's also something to keep in mind: Gideon and Harrow were told things, even if they were half-lies [or just lies] at times, Nona is purposely kept in the dark (even if it's with good intentions for the most part).

And yes, the setting is different, but also (in my opinion) quite more grim than GtN and HtN because it's basically set in a big refugee camp, New Rho is an active war zone (the bombed out buildings where Nona and the gang spend their afternoons, the way the kids at school talk about violence...) but both Nona and her environment are highly desensitized to it. The BoE people are pretty much the dictionary description of guerrilla fighters. Hot Sauce is a radicalised child. Kevin, from the way he is described, seems to have suffered a severe catatonic shock. And Nona doesn't know that.

New Rho is all she's ever known, but the horror, for homely it feels at times, is the basis of it all. Children so used to mass ejecutions that they thalk about them while eating, gas mask that have to be kept on whenever you are outside, a teacher so used to child prostitution that was her first thought upon meting Nona's family, Hot Sauce not thinking twice before shoting her friend's brains out, Honesty being a drug dealer…

Also: I think the underlying body horror of this book is a fucking gift. Phyrra living in her dead best friend corpse, Phyrra drinking bleach because she was bored, Palamedes and Camilla fusing along the way (even before Paul), Nona not remebering how to move correctly at times, Judith sharing a body with a planet's soul, Nona's tantrums destroying her body over and over again, Aim not being allowed to be just herself and having to be the Mensager.