#the locked tomb theories

[ourg0dsal]

Gideon Nav CANNOT Die. Hold on- I know... but give me one second and I'll explain.

So, as I said before Gideon Nav cannot die, or at least her body can't. Cause clearly (spoiler warning) Gideon Nav died at the end of Gideon the Ninth. There is no avoiding that.

But! If you have read all the books GtN, HtN, and NtN including all of the accompanying short stories (tho I will admit I have not read The Mysterious Study of Dr. Sex yet) then there is a better understanding of the timeline of the whole story outside of just what the three main books give you. Specifically and especially with Gideon's body. But also there are many times In Gideons life were she has faced near death events or events that she should not have survived from and still was breathing on the other side.

To go in chronological order of these events, when she was first born she was found in a container held by the air depraved suit of her mother. And while ofc In the book it does state that her mother had redirected her air supply to Gideon, but it is simply being stated to cover all my bases.

Then the 200 sons and daughters massacre when Gideon was 1 (or 2 im not sure) when she inhaled poisonous air without dying. Which led ofc to the Reverend Mother and Father fearing the ground she walked. And this is a big one because, it literally creates waves in the plot. It's a defining point of Harrow and Gideons relationship. That Gideon did not die when she was supposed to.

Later in the story Gideon talks with Pal when she believes Harrow to be a murderer and openly admits to him that "she nearly killed me a half dozen times growing up" which obviously in context was to emphasize on the brutal relationship between her and Harrow. But this could also be other times where miraculously Gideon survived death when she shouldn't have. Because as we know from the first confrontation between Harrow and Gideon. Harrow doesnt hold back for her.

Finally of all the events where Gideon escapes death, this one actually happens within the main story of Gideon the Ninth. When Harrow siphons from Gideon to retrieve one of the challenge keys. And at the end when Gideon passes out, it is narrated ""ha-ha," said Gideon, "first time you didn't call me Griddle," AND DIED." Now, this could obviously just be the snarkiness of Gideon narrating. Or something incredibly clever left behind by Tamsyn Muir for a book series that is so clearly meant to be reread. But ofc to do my rounds the next line after does state "well, passed out. But it felt a hell of a lot like dying." But then immediately after "wake up had an air of ressurection." Which honestly feels like Tamysn Muir teasing the readers at this point. The question then becomes rather, which one was the tease and which one was foreshadowing/ evidence.

Now the point of listing all of these events is that in all of these cases the chances of death are so incredibly high that for most its a miracle she's alive. Ofc most notably for the siphoning trial and the poision gas, but none the less there is proof within the written story and and out that Gideon has looked death in face and moved on with maybe a headache. And it wasn't just in her child hood this is something she can just do. Some recreated in the written story! Because as Pal said. Even with the siphoning challenge done perfectly the chances of leaving Cam with severe brain damage was far to high. And Gideon didn't even suffer that.

Sadly, despite all these Gideon gets to the final battle and fights Cytherea and does die. At the hands of a particularly pointy fence. Or was it truly the fence that did her in? Rather than the lyctorship ritual that was started seconds afterwards.

My full theory, isnt just that Gideon Nav can't die. It's that Gideon Nav wouldn't have been able to die... If Harrow hadn't sucked her soul out. There are at the very least 8 seperate events that Gideon should have died, two of which were nearly gauranteed, but she was ended by a piece of metal. Yes, a very well placed piece a metal, but the point still up to that point she had faced worse a came out unscathed.

If Harrow had not completed the lyctor ritual, Gideon would not have died. Wether or not through resurrection or simply walking it off. Gideon's body has some sort of necromantic attributes to it that keep her alive. We see this in the Untitled Entry short story with Judith Deuteros that describes Gideons body, as it does not rot, cannot be injured, cannot be fed to animals forced or otherwise. And that is all before Jod ever gets a look at the body, because otherwise he would have known Gideon was his daughter before the later events of Harrow the Ninth.

And ofc during the first challenge when Harrow uses Gideon as her eyes to be able to see the construct in the other room and Gideon is able to see the thanergetic signatures that Harrow remarks should be impossible. (I assume because the process is Harrow extracting information (Gideons eyesight) from Gideon and so Gideon should not also be receiving information (the ability to see the signatures)) unless Gideon had some form of necromantic abilities, which she was tested for as a kid and apparently did not have. Alongside not having the correct attitude to be a nun of the ninth. And so we can round it out to be her body being naturally necromantic leaving Gideon without the ability to use it. (Which Is a jump from the actual point we are attempting to use, but for now this stops us from assuming Gideon as any sort of necromantic ability which is a theory all on its own. One that I personally have no evidence for or against)

Now, that I have hopefully made both my Ap Lit and Lang teachers proud with my 3 am essay, I must give you the real tragedy of Gideon the Ninth. Had Gideon not died, had Harrow been unable to complete the lyctor ritual for emotional reasons or otherwise, had Harrow not become a lyctor and killed cytherea. Gideon would have had to watch Harrow and Cam be killed, possibly even Corona, Judith and Ianthe. And then to be used for Cythereas own motives. Tamysn Muir beautifully set up the story so that the best possible outcome could have happened. Had Gideon not died. Everyone else would have. And "Camilla the sixth was no idiot" cam knew and accepted this whereas Harrow never would have. And so the unkillable Gideon had to die, and forcing Harrows hand was the only way to do it.

[fortruthoversolace]

Palamedes could only stick around because he planned for it in advance. The Canaan House servants were called back and bound to skeletons. This level of persistence in a revenant is remarkably rare and is usually intentional. So how does Wake do it?

[transbutchbluess]

hi locked tomb fandom !!

i made an analysis document that compile important informations about the series, comments on every single chapter of every book, theories, biblical and classical parallels, name meanings (not limited to those in the prononciation guides, and linked to character theories), and other things. i spent a very long time on it and it’s still in progress, but i think it’s long enough to be shared now, since it’s over 100 pages.

please tell me if you have ideas of things to add, any theory you’d like to share, anything you think might be relevant. and please share this, writing it really helped me understanding and connecting things better, so i think it could be useful for others

[so-we-all-know-toenails]

i see your “gideon was always an asshole” and raise you “yes she was but also she was property gideon doesn’t feel like she’s her own person gideon doesn’t feel like she has autonomy gideon doesn’t really know what emotions are, she never had anyone to talk to about anything except maybe aiglamene and then this girl who has been nothing but mean to her for her whole life is telling her that she’s her ‘only friend’ and that she is ‘undone without her’ and even if gideon feels the same way imagine how confusing that is for her??? maybe she lets harrows head get hit on the wall because she sucks (girlboss btw) but maybe its also because she doesn’t understand that her own pain-- and by extension, harrow’s-- is serious. she’s been abused and beaten her whole life and when you grow up like that you don’t understand that it’s a big deal. gideon doesn’t understand that she needs things. she just understands when she’s hurting.”

[gretathetenth]

TLT Alecto The Ninth possible theory

Hear me out.

Gideon and Harrow are going to be the new Alecto and John.

There are a couple of things thst made me think about this but it could be a reach.

First is the Gaius/Gaia name. Which are respectively male and female version of Earths name. Makes sense why John would have that name since he tried to basically swallow earths soul and therefore part of it it’s merged with him, but why would Gideon (or Kiriona) get that name?

The other thing that its connected to what i said earlier is how Gideons soul just like Alectos seems to be separated between her necromancer and original body. This could somehow lead to a perfect lyctorhood perhaps.

This part could be a bit of a reach but their eye color. We know that John had brown eyes turned golden after he developed his necromancy and black (eclipse like) after perfect lyctorhood with Alecto causing Alecto to have his golden eyes. Now Gideon has golden eyes she inherited from John and Harrow has black (not eclipse like but close enough). Could this be a parallel to John and Alecto.

Also i think that theres a reason why sometimes even John is surprised on how strong Harrow is even with her butchered Lyctorhood.

The other idea is that John and Alecto might die in a double suicide and someone will need to keep the solar system going, someone will have to replace John.

But this could be just me wanting god to be a woman and Griddlehark to be connected to each other for the rest of eternity but differently from John and Alecto to actually have a good relationship and not try to murder each other

[haltraveler]

The best thing about how The Locked Tomb is written is that the chance that Mercy’s “acid jail” is foreshadowing for whatever ends up happening to John is significantly higher than zero.

[mellori]

Jod wants to die (and will, happily in Alecto the Ninth).

He's either:

Spent the last 10,000 years enacting turbo space colonialism on the trillionaires' descendants as purely symbolic revenge for their forefathers "getting away".

OR

(I personally subscribe to the theory that when Jod says all but one of the trillionaires' ships escaped into FTL and were "lost to me in time" that stopping one ship ruined the mathematics of the jump and stranded them in transit until, presumably, some time soon in Alecto the Ninth. See also: "I still don't understand the maths. It'll take me ten thousand years to understand it."

Which would mean:)

He's been doing all of the imperialism and murder to a bunch of innocent bystanders so that his real enemies will have nowhere to hide when they finally, ten thousand years later, complete their jump. Which is worse. (Which is why I subscribe to this theory.)

Either way, everybody he loves is dead and he's turned himself into literally everything he professes to hate. The cognitive dissonance alone must be exhausting. It doesn't redeem them in any way, but at least the trillionaires only slowly murdered their own planet extracting all the resources they could from it.

Also one of the Nine Houses is basically themed around front line suicide mission first assault child soldiers, and he's apparently alright with that? Millennia spent sending literal children into active combat zones, most of them armed with nothing but a sword?? Could've stopped it at any time with nothing more than a single sarcastic question???

Anyway I could go on...

But Mellori, you say, Jod just happily submitting to everybody that wants him dead just so he can skip the finding out that's otherwise sure to follow his 10,000 years of fucking around is so unsatisfying. Every good story needs an antagonist.

Well you're right, I say. If only this story had somebody who could replace him?

Somebody with the knowledge and experience necessary to kill a planet and perform the eightfold word? But more than that, somebody dedicated to understanding precisely how he became God? Somebody we've already established is happy to carry on his legacy of theocratic space fascism? Somebody with their own nebulous and/or nefarious plans we're not yet privvy to?

Maybe to make it even more juicy, somebody with an already established narrative and emotional connection to our heroes? Maybe even somebody who at least one of the main characters is indebted to in some way, making their defeat more difficult and complicated? But maybe with some convenient restrictions on the limits of that debt, so that ultimately our team can surprise and overcome her when she "forgets just one thing"?

Now if only we had somebody like that, ay?

[incorrect-house-of-nine]

I’m fully convinced that after the Avulsion trial, Gideon straight up experienced a mini death and her space Jesus powers kicked in reviving her. (First time was when Crux tried to poison her n she crapped blood for a month.) Those three sneezes back in the Ninth quarters? Gideon’s brain knitting back together offsetting the brain damage Palamedes hypothesized would surely occur.  Her body just wont quit. After the Cytherea fight,** I bet if they left her on the floor of the terrace long enough she would have woken up feeling like a hot bag of ass -- if only her soul hadn’t gone on a foreign exchange program -- and she would have finished off all the survivors by way of heart attack.   (Do I have concrete evidence? Nope, not really.) **obviously, this is hypothetical and relies on a lot of thing in the last act not happening such as if Cytherea hadnt been so hell bent on a lil Regicide 

[c0sm0butch]

Please somebody tell me I'm not crazy for this but I just reread The Mysterious Study of Doctor Sex for the millionth time just to take another look at the "letter" and my heart almost stopped.

Every time I've read this before I was like oh god, a letter from a doomed cavalier to their necromancer before they're about to die the next day, how heartwrenching. But now I suddenly see this in a completely different light.

First of all, "darling girl" - so this is addressed either to Mercymorn, Cassiopeia or Cytherea. We know that the letter is stored in a wooden sphere as a keepsake, in the Sixth House, at the time of its opening locked away for at least 460 years at the time Pal and Cam solve it.

Now what are the odds that either Mercymorn or Cytherea, who are both truly PAINFULLY attached to their dead cavaliers would somehow lose or give away ANYTHING given to them by Cristabel or Loveday? None.

It makes sense that the letter addressed to the founder of the Sixth House somehow finds itself in the Sixth House after the alleged death of Cassiopeia, then. So upon the first several readings, I was like "oh Nigella wrote this to Cassiopeia" (especially because it's said that nobody could "get a look at" Nigella with Cassiopeia around, which I always thought pointed at the possibility of them being romantic).

However, when we look at the bits of information sprinkled through HtN, we learn that Cassiopeia worked closely with Anastasia to figure out the perfect Lyctorhood, that Anastasia "failed" because she had "researched it too much" which was apparently "classic Anastasia". The Ninth House also didn't exist before she founded it upon the Tomb, which also begs the question where she is originally from. My suspicion is that Anastasia and Samael were Sixth, just as Cassiopeia and Nigella, which is why they worked so methodically and closely together.

I always thought the phrase "when you are far away" was purely metaphorical, because a cavalier is merged with the necromancer in the lytoral process. Their soul doesn't even go the River, it is perpetually inside the lyctor, they become one, an integral part of one another. But what if this was meant literally? And the choice of words in the phrase "one thing that never stays entombed", as if they already know there's something that IS to be entombed and stay that way?

Anastasia is the one who can't follow where the lyctors go. She is the only one from the group left behind, who will literally be far away from them because she is sent to build the Tomb while the lyctors leave the system aboard the Mithraeum.

Is this a bloody love/farewell letter from Anastasia to Cassiopeia when she learns that she's leaving to build the Locked Tomb while the lyctors head to space? I'm going insane here.

[firstfloweroftheninthhouse]

Guys, what do we think the chances are that Camilla has bones that aren't hers?

Palamedes requests that Harrow reshapes his remains into "something more useful ... anything that articulates"

Harrow takes this directive and makes a hand. Then we have this fun tidbit from Gideon:

"Warden, it's just my right hand" - Camilla

"My right hand, more like" - Palamedes

and Camilla's debut in Dramatis Personae

Camilla Hect cavalier primary to the heir, warden's hand of the library.

I just feel like there's a really good chance that she has bones that aren't hers and that's how they were sharing a body.

[allowaykirk]

Listening to the Nona audiobook and realizing…when Nona describes Kiriona Gaia’s chest speed-hole as having teeth around the edge, is she talking about literal teeth? Or are those the tips of Kiriona’s ribs poking out? And that’s how just Nona is describing it in her own mind

[ourg0dsal]

Harrow The Ninth, pg 17

"Beloved dead, hear your handmaiden. I loved you with my whole rotten, contemptible heart- I loved you to the exclusion of aught else- let me live long enough to die at your feat."

Like look, I know at this point in time Harrow does not remember Gideon. And this is mostly likely about The Body (Alecto). But jeez man- why the use of LOVED in PAST TENSE. Like if it was the body it should have been in present tense ya know? it almost feels like she is doing it instinctively. That Harrow is talking to Gideon and she doesn't even know it.

Then ofc Gideon In narration is like " you extemporised wildly" because she obviously thinks it's to the body as well. And even if Harrow did remember her, she would still have thought that.

[trambrosia]

We know that Nona contains at least a part of Alecto, right? But Nona doesn't really act like the Body of Harrow's visions. Nona can't lie, but the Body at least tells Harrow to lie about her age. Pretty sure that Nona is Earth's Resurrection Beast, but the Body acts more like a ghost in HtN where it gets the hell out of Dodge, a week before the RB shows up. There were lots more contrasts drawn in the October 11 bonus episode of @onefleshonepod, which was awesome and got me thinking about this. Before reading Nona, their thought was that it's most likely the Body was Anastasia, and I felt pretty convinced!

How did Nona, and for that matter the Body, get into Harrow?

We don't know for sure that Nona is the Body and they entered Harrow at the same time, as far as I know. So Nona could have joined in between the books. But I think it's more likely they are the same or at least joined at the same time.

So in that case, how did the Body come to Harrow? It could have come from the Tomb when Harrow was ten. On the other hand, this incredible theory post puts together a lot of evidence for the line of Ninth house tomb keepers being stewards of Alecto's soul, passing the soul from Tombkeeper to Tombkeeper:

What if Alecto and Anastasia have been hanging out in Harrow's head? In HtN chapter 2, we get a description of multiple "incarnations" of the Body:

When you were ten years old, the Body was quiet and rigorous, practical and merciful. At fourteen the Body was tender and serene, and sometimes smiled. When you were sixteen the Body was resolute and impassioned. In all these incarnations, she had preserved her vow of silence.

In GtN, we're already familiar with a vow of silence as a Ninth House technique for hiding identity. So, what if the Body is three souls, perceived as one because they're silent? The three incarnations match Nona's three sections of thoughts, top/middle/bottom.

At a guess, "quiet and rigorous, practical and merciful" sounds like Anastasia, "tender and serene, and sometimes smiled" sounds like the Nona we saw, and "resolute and impassioned" sounds like the other part of Nona/Alecto?

Someone else must have theoryposted about this, right? I joined Tumblr a month before Nona, so I missed most of the Gideon and Harrow theorycrafting. Would love to read other people's takes on the three Body incarnations.

[transbutchbluess]

i don’t see many theories about the Angel/Messenger in the locked tomb. mine is pretty obvious since it is just that they have something to do with Cassiopeia the First. the Sixth House is on Mercury. Mercury is the Roman God of travelers, and the Sixth is the only House that moved. He is also the god of messengers and communication. Cassiopeia had left secret instructions to her house, which indicates that she had probably betrayed Jod. she might also have had some contact with Blood of Eden ? an Angel is a Messenger (of God) (but that wouldn’t make much sense here). and Lyctors are sort of Angels (companions of God, also the equivalent to the angels in the EAP’s poem Annabel Lee), so i think the Messenger has something to do with one of the Lyctors. i think some people said that the message might be something about preserving culture through oral tradition (since BOE also does that with names), and the Sixth is the House with the library, the archivists, the scholars, and psychometry.

if you have any theories about the Messenger (or about anything really) please share, i’m very interested

[necromancy-savant]

I just finished re-reading Nona the Ninth and I'm having some thoughts and theories...

I'm really interested in what Varun the Eater says: "they are coming out of their tower...There is a hole at the bottom...I will pull their teeth. I will make it clean" (406-7).

It sounds a lot like the stoma seen in Harrow to me. They could be the same thing, or the stomata might be or have something to do with whatever is wrong with the River.

I think Alecto's soul might have gone to the River while she was asleep in the Tomb, been in that Tower while she was there, and then entered Harrow's body while Harrow was under. We already know the danger of someone leaving their body unattended without a soul for too long: it happens to Colum Asht back in Gideon, and we're reminded of that exact thing again towards the end of Nona when they're fighting the "devils" that Gideon explains are the same thing (467), right before Alecto and Harrow return to their bodies.

John might have sent Alecto's soul to the River intentionally in an attempt to distract the Resurrection Beasts there because she says "he laid [her] down as an appeasement to them" (495).

[weirdprophetess]

Keep seeing people say why the hell did Ianthe lie about seeing Cytherea and I was also so confused about that for the longest time but guys. Guys Harrow told her not to talk about Canaan House. I don't remember what chapter it was but at one point Ianthe says "It was the first thing I ever admired about you back at--well, I promised not to talk about that." I think she's talking about the letters here, but whether or not she is, Harrow told Ianthe not to talk about Canaan House. When Harrow dreams and experiences the Ortus-at-Canaan-House AU, she keeps getting confused and feeling like something's off because thinking too much about what her DIY lobotomy rewrote is messing it up. And guess what would mess it up the most? Thinking about Cytherea, the woman pretty much responsible for Gideon dying, the thing Harrow is not allowing herself to remember.

Since the contents of the letters aren't directly revealed, I don't know if Harrow specifically told Ianthe not to talk about Cytherea, but Ianthe does confirm she was told not to talk about Canaan House, and so probably made the choice, in the moment, realizing Cytherea walking around was probably somehow going to fuck up Harrow's whole plan, to lie about seeing her corpse.