#tlt speculation

[grey-ves]

Especially with the release of The Unwanted Guest, I feel like I see too much focus on the “romantic” (as in idealized and regarding any type of love) message of the series and not enough on what I personally think tazmuir’s actual thesis statement is. We forget that she is a horror author, and I think that is her entire goal. Every set of relationships we’re presented with are codependent, unhealthy, consumptive. Someone is consuming someone they love, someone is being consumed by someone they love. Even if they claim not to, even if they try to find a more “fair” way to do it (ex.: Paul), it’s still what is happening in the end. (Abigail and Magnus are the only exceptions I can think of.) Pyrrha is the only character who seems to recognize this, and she tries so hard to call it out, but no one listens because they think it’s romantic. Because every relationship is either seen as romantic or wretched, both by the characters and by the readers, even though they are all so bad. I think tazmuir is trying to make readers question this. Why do we find certain toxic relationships - like Harrow and Gideon - romantic, but others - like John and Alecto - horrifying? Why is one acceptable but not the other? Where do we draw the line? In regards to TUG, why do we jump from changing each other with love, to consuming each other in its name?

I think this will be even more clear in AtN.

[shouldhavebeenpersephone]

So I was re-reading Nona. And. Have we talked about this yet? Have we gone through the implications of this section?

NtN John 5:4. Analysis under the cut.

I always assumed the tower was a part of the Ninth because right after this chapter Nona sees the tower in the River and after that drives the truck everyone is in to the Ninth. But nowhere does it say that the tower is the Ninth.

I mean, looking at the description it certainly sounds like it - all grey and death, which is why I assumed it was. The Ninth is tall even if embedded inside of a planet, one could argue shafts are towers. But why would a tower of the Ninth be in the River?

First things first; the tower in Tarot stands for sudden change, confusion and awakening - I don't feel this needs further explanation on why it's relevant (I might, however, someday do a Tarot Locked Tomb analysis because there is A LOT there). It also refers to the Tower of Babel, which was destroyed by God along with the uniform language of Earth so that people would not come so close to Him again, so that they stayed vincible. Sound familiar?

John did make a uniform language technically, but he also separated the population to different planets, rendering them unable to unite and overcome him not only due to instilled nationalism but also due to the faults in the Houses. We know that the Sixth is struggling to keep up their lineages and population number - we know the Fourth die too young to really leave anything behind - we know the Second is too busy fighting wars.

This leads me to believe that whatever the tower represents will be the end of the world as they know it - maybe through a new God and an end to the Houses, maybe the end of Godhood and Lyctorhood in general. Either way, something is piercing through the River - something that has the power to change it all.

NtN Chapter 30. Nona's mind knew what it was "above" and "below". Does this refer to Harrow and Alecto?

Now let's go back to that first passage from John 5:4. The parts that stand out to me are 'speared-through and mute', 'a tower that soared, impossible and deadly grey', and 'lurching out of the River as though gasping for air.' All of this sounds like Gideon.

GtN Chapter 37. Very much speared-through and mute.

NtN Chapter 16. Ramrod posture? Soaring, impossible and deadly grey.

NtN Chapter 25. And Gideon knows what's in the River. Chances are that the tower is a construct created by John for whatever purposes. Gideon is also a construct created by John - at least Kiriona is.

I obviously don't know how accurate this connection my brain jumped on is, but it honestly makes a lot of sense to me. There is something below the River, just like how 'reality' is above the river. Especially when considering Nona referred to a thought above and below that knew what the tower was, it appears to me like the below is a plane much like reality and the River where things exist and can continue to exist. I have not yet sat with or developed an opinion on what exactly might be there, but there is something there. I think it might be the cavaliers.

So what if Gideon ended up there? What if, when she ended up in the River at the end of HtN, Gideon ended up in the below once Alecto was forced into Harrow's body? What if John knew all along how to reach there and he finally decided this was the time to bring something - no - someone back?

But you can't really reach the other plane without the River, can you? We have seen it with the Resurrection Beasts - they travel through the River and exist in it while simultaneously being above it. And, if we look at Palamedes, one who has passed and is part of the River needs a container of sorts to be above. Perhaps, then, one can sink while tethered higher in the three layers, but one cannot soar from below without a container to carry them up. An integrated cavalier is forced down, not reaching up - they are buried in the below.

So let's say John brought Gideon back. Her corpse would obviously be the container for her above. The tower, then, could be her container for the River. Ianthe could be using Gideon's aberration in the River as a means to anchor herself as well. That could be why they are the Tower Princes.

Alecto would know the tower was a gateway of sorts. She would understand, like presumably any other Resurrection Beast would understand. But Harrow. Harrow.

GtN Chapter 36. I cannot let go of this passage in relation to the tower. "Instead, she was Drearburh." "She took the whole putrid, quiet, filth-strewn madness of the place, and she opened her doors to it."

Cavaliers' tethers are shown through the eyes, through altering the look of that which binds them to above - so, maybe through being Gideon the tower became Drearburh. Maybe Harrow saw it, and felt it, and she saw Gideon, and she saw home. So she walked, and she walked, and she knew that it would lead back to her.

The tower - Gideon, then, will be the changer of things in the end. Maybe Gideon and Harrow, but definitely Gideon.

[cassiopeiathe1st]

so as a biology major, here's some things i've been chewing on after reading the unwanted guest. this post is brought to you by the part of my brain that saw the 7th's hereditary blood cancer and thought ok but what KIND of cancer is that.

the phrasing of "permeability of the soul" makes me think of semipermeable membranes and diffusion. diffusion is a passive process -- our molecules, when left to their own devices, want to be everywhere because entropy, but the semipermeable membranes that make up cells organelles etc make life possible by keeping things organized. this dividing & filtering process is required to keep things in place. with me so far?

to me, this concept of permeability emphasizes that souls are objects with boundaries. there's a line somewhere, however blurry (clearly very very blurry) or porous, that divides self & other, and! and!! that line only exists because it is somehow constructed, maintained, enforced. see: ianthe working so hard to convince herself/pal/the hypothetical audience of this play she's putting on that she's just ianthe with no babs mixed in. or john's ritual of retelling his story to alecto/harrow in NTN. something something being the unreliable narrator of your own identity.

palamedes calls the process that merges him and camilla to give us paul grand lysis vs. the "petty", incomplete lysis of eightfold word lyctorhood. lysis = the disintegration of a cell by rupture of the cell wall or membrane. the boundaries of their souls are sliced open so their contents can be poured out & mixed together to make someone new. but even in conventional lyctorhood, there's some kind of exchange of whatever material makes up the soul between cavalier & necromancer. as our boy tells ianthe at the end of the unwanted guest,

This is the real truth of Lyctorhood, Ianthe--it's not some bloodless swapping-out of batteries. It's grafting; transplantation. When you absorbed Naberius Tern's soul, you didn't swallow a diamond. You swallowed a piece of meat...and the longer you digest that meat, the more its proteins and lipids and molecules mix in with yours, until you can't tell them apart anymore.

idk where i'm even going with all of this, i'm just rotating it in my head, but:

tamsyn muir is so precise with her necromancy jargon & anatomical terms that i feel like there's definitely meaning to be found in the imagery here. there is poetry in biology, the universe is made of stories not of atoms, etc etc

it turns out lysis is also the title of a dialogue of plato on "the true nature of loving friendship," so if any classics enjoyers have thoughts on that connection i would love to hear them!

if lyctorhood is transplantation, is it possible for that transplant to be rejected? can the graft refuse to take?

souls are contained within their edges not unlike how a cell membrane contains its cytoplasm. or how a capri sun pouch contains its juice. and lyctors slurp that shit up and digest it baby

why choose to link the soul so closely with water? (the river, bubbles, currents & waves in the river, nona saying the water of the river "doesn't want to touch us.") contents of souls = liquid in the same way that the river is a liquid??? the river = spirit version of the primordial soup???

dulcinea refers to the river having two shores, not just a generic "shore", so it sounds like they're different in some meaningful way. but that may be conditional on what happens in alecto ("if this ends well you'll find that out")? is the point of the river the river itself, or is the point of the river to separate those two places?

[tappytoeclaws]

I found some lovely TLT cosplayers at Bristol yesterday and we got some pics together 💜

[susurra-el-arroyo-manso]

Many people have pointed out that in The Locked Tomb books Gideon's conception parallels that of Jesus. However, I've noticed that many people also conflate "The Virgin Birth" with "The Immaculate Conception" when these actually refer to two different biblical events/concepts that have different implications for TLT. The Virgin Birth refers to the conception/incarnation and subsequent birth of Jesus without intercourse. The Immaculate Conception refers to the conception of Mary without original sin, making her an appropriate "vessel" to later become pregnant with Jesus.

Following the parallels in The Locked Tomb universe, The Virgin Birth still tracks with the conception and birth of Gideon (despite Wake being most def not a virgin, the conception didn't involve intercourse). We would then expect The Immaculate Conception to parallel Wake's conception.

Given the lack of information around Wake's origin, this distinction is super interesting to me. Was Wake somehow born without the BOE original sin of the billionaires who abandoned the rest of the earth? What could that mean for her origin? How would that fit with what bits we do know about her? Did that somehow enable her to conceive and carry Gideon when the dolls failed?

Personally, I think it would be interesting if Wake were descended from someone that was on the ships as a crew member or other non-billionaire. Maybe she was even on a ship herself, given the potential time-weirdness of FTL travel. Alternatively, maybe she was actually house-born, or descended from a house making her exempt from BOE's original sin (but the product of a whole host of others...). It seems like there might be a few things hinting at that option (eye color, hair color), but if so, how'd she end up leading BOE?

Lots of interesting questions! No answers of course, but I'm sure that Tamsyn is familiar with these two concepts, and I'm so curious to see if she weaves in aspects of the immaculate conception if we learn more about Wake's backstory in Alecto.

[nikkicafeina]

I'm confused as to why it some find it hard to believe or never consider that Kiriona could genuinely be on John's side.

Sure, John's kind of a silly asshole but almost everyone Gideon has ever met has been an asshole. All of the major players of her childhood straight up tried to murder her (Harrow, the Reverent Parents, the gross aunts, Crux, Mortus) or were chill with people trying to murder her (Aiglamene, Ortus, Glaurica). The only nice people she's ever met died within a couple of days of her meeting them, courtesy of the only woman to ever show interest in her (she was lying about it). Even the sixth weren't particularly friendly with her, there was a lot going on and then Pal froze her body so she could witness him literally self destruct. She thinks Harrow might hold non-murder feelings for her for like, two seconds before finding out she doesn't want her either. And then she finds out her mom (the mom she spent her entire awful, mortally dangerous childhood daydreaming about to cope) also didn't want her! Gideon was gestated explicitly to die, to be thrown away, to be a bomb. The Gideon Wake died thinking about was never Gideon Nav, it was Gideon Pyrrha. Wake never even named her.

So, yeah, sure, John's an asshole but he's an asshole who treats Kiriona like she's worth something. Jury's out on what the hell is up with her body, her soul, and her depression, but still. He makes her a prince, he gives her real authority and power, he claims her as his daughter. He acknowledges her talents and makes plans with her for the future. He gives her his name to make her own.

Nobody ever wanted Gideon Nav alive. Why wouldn't she willingly kick it as Kiriona Gaia in death?

[azuredragoonterra]

Hey hey hey.

Wasnt John gonna ship a bunch of old resurrected bodies to the ninth house?

And then next time we see the place its dealing with a demon infestation....

Uhhhhhhh??!?

[magnusth]

Living Souls and Alecto

Okay, so it's time for TLT theorizing. There's a line that's always stood out to me in Harrow the Ninth, and I've never seen a theory really grapple with it: "You are alive, Harrowhark—that does mean something where souls are concerned."

This is Abigail, who follows up with a description of how Harrow's soul will be drawn to her body no matter what. And the concept comes up a few times: It's important when Gideon comes back as Kiriona Gaia. She has not been resurrected; she's a revenant, haunting her own corpse. I thought it would come into play in Nona with Palamedes - I thought him being dead would make it too late, but that was not the case. Everyone mostly acts like Palamades, Wake, Gideon hanging about as revenants are just the same people, and the text bears this out. However, the text also wants you to know there's a difference between a dead soul and a living soul. These differences are unclear, but we know some things:

For one, there's the question of where they go. Revenants are drawn into the river, but can stick around through thanergetic links; living souls are drawn into their bodies, which are notably thalergetic. I think this might imply that dead souls are... converted? like plants? that they become thanergetic; there's mention of thanergetic cascades upon death, which is what makes revenants in the first place. This is also supported by not being able to get Thanergy for a reaction from Kiriona in Nona.

For another, there's the wild panic. Revenants flee their deaths; a living soul seperated from the body, again, is drawn back to it. This also seems to be what happens with 8th style siphoning: the soul returns to the body eventually.

This brings me to the Alecto part of this post. Because while it's common to describe Alecto as Earth's Resurrection Beast, I don't think that's true. While the part of Nona where John triggers nuclear Armageddon and then stuffs the earth's soul in a humanoid body is... unclear, there noticably is no part where john actually directly says he kills her. he says "i tried to hurt you" and "That stung, when i ate every single death." He describes putting his hand around her throat, but not twisting it. Now, that might be implied from the next sentence being him cupping her soul, but it's not clear at all. Further, Varun, through Judy, Calls Alecto-as-Nona "Green and breathing thing," which further implies that Alecto is in some way still alive, still green and breathing.

That implies some interesting things, however! Like... What is Alecto's body? There's the barbie one, yes, but there's also earth. When John became Alecto's lyctor, he claims he remade them; it's with Alecto's power that John became what he is. He had to make a body to house her but it's not clear why - she had a body! right there, he was standing on it! It could be he wanted to make her a body because her old one, the earth, was sick. But there's another option: because if he gave her back, he would give all of her back. There's a sliver of Alecto in John, but that's not the body it belongs to. Maybe, just maybe, the fear that John has isn't that Alecto can kill him, or that Alecto gets killed and that breaks their Lyctor bond, but something else: that Alecto, freed from the tomb, can leave the two bodies he made her - the barbie doll one, and the one he remade that houses him and a little of her, "his" body. This might also be why John calls it "a beautiful labyrinth to house you in." It's a trap, it's a delaying mechanism to keep her from just... returning to where she's supposed to go, as a living soul: her own, original body, the Earth. I don't know what that would do to John, but I think it's entirely possible that it will just... pull the part of Alecto in him out.

I think this stuff about living vs. dead souls is also why John talks about remaking, and why the Lyctoral process involves "reconstructing," to make the Lyctor, a suitable long-term host to the soul it's eating. This may also have to do with resurrection - the difference between revenanting around ala Kiriona and a proper, actual resurrection. That implies that Lyctorhood is a sort of self-resurrection where your cavalier is resurrected in you, but that's a theory for another day.

[kiriona-gayer]

Do you think that the reason Nona awoke saying/screaming "no no no" was because John was removing Gideon's soul from Harrowhark's body?

[beedreamscape]

With all this conversation about soul permeability, I'm now very interested in the return/survival of Augustine and his (and Cassie's) theories on spirit and soul magic.

But especially so that Ianthe can crawl over to him dripping with venomous guilt and shamelessness and beg him to tell her the soul is whole and impenetrable.

All the while seeing that the blankness, the emptiness he carries, is from him having shut down, for thousands of years, the parts of Alfred that once bloomed in him.

"Sorry, chick, we're sponges, not stones. Either soaked through or honeycombed with the emptiness the liquid leaves behind."

A lyctor carves in their chest a cavalier-shaped hole that will forever remain, and only that person, only their love can fill it.

[nose-coffee]

i AM thinking abt the significance of the number 200 in tlt. two hundred kids died in the creche flu. two hundred extra people onto the FTL ships. the things harrow is willing to do to make their sacrifice even vaguely mean something. everything john did to stop the ships.

[peachdoxie]

Consuming the soul. Eating the dirt. Endless consumption. Never being satisfied. The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I am rotating this in the microwave. I am looking at it under a microscope. I am spinning it in the autoclave to separate the meaning from the words. There is a Theme™ going on here and I am staring at it with unblinking eyes.

[wegottagetouttahere]

I'm still betting on paul falling apart and either cam or pal Coming Back Wrong. I don’t think Tamsyn could permanently kill them both (wishful thinking)

Also when I was typing “cam” for this I accidentally typed “clam.” Clam cam. Spongebob wont leave my brain

Clamilla Hect and Palamedes Sharktus… sorry that’s the best I could come up with

I think that it’s most likely Cam and Pal are forever merged within Paul. However I’m also of the opinion that if Tamsyn Muir decides to bring them back, it will only be to give them a second, even more tragic death. I don’t think a happy ending is in the cards for them :/

[nonas-third-tantrum]

so, if all 200 ninth house children died in the plot to conceive harrow…what happened to their parents? presumably these kids had parents in their 20s-50s, meaning some of them would have been young enough to have more children. why didn’t they? even if they were like nope, not doing this again, shouldn’t they still be around at least? the way the ninth house population is described it sounds like everyone besides gideon, harrow, and ortus is ancient. did they all leave the planet? that makes the most sense but if that were the case, other houses would have had an influx of ninth expats, and wouldn’t that raise questions/suspicions about what’s going on over there?

maybe this is explained somewhere and I just missed it (if so, please tell me!) but if not, it’s a big question mark

[susurra-el-arroyo-manso]

Finally convinced a friend to read The Locked Tomb, and the play-by-play of her read-through has been everything I wamted. I love the wild speculation & that she's coming to completely different conclusions than I did (if only until more information is doled out).

Ps. The boning in question in the first screenshot is of course the bone construct making its first appearance.

[katiebell]

anyway so you know how when nona threw her third tantrum she held her improvised weapons in a two handed grip? I think the piece of gideon’s soul that harrow took is still there in her body (particularly because how would her lyctor regeneration work otherwise), and WHAT IF that’s why kiriona’s missing pieces?