#and just talks to Palamedes

[saddest-girl-in-the-whole-world]

God, I can't stop thinking about what Camilla's internal dialogue must be like after GtN

She's such a quiet character and really seems to try to keep up a stoic appearance but like, man she really has a lot of shit going on and her development between GtN and NtN is so insane but still seemingly subtle.

I can't even begin to imagine what the final day on Canaan House must have felt like to her because in many ways she's kind of a weird mirror to harrow right?? Her Necromancer has just sacrificed himself to save her life, tragically failed at doing so, and now she's all alone trying her best to collect the bone fragment of the person closest to her? Clinging on to a plan b that, as far as she knows, could have already failed! The fact she even let Palamedes consider a plan b like this would be unthinkable for the Camilla of NtN! She's just incredibly out of her depth the entire time, probably trying her best not just to break down

Do you ever think she resents Palamedes for that day? Whenever she was looking at his bone fragments, or even when he was back and now in his mind it's like. The fact that he acts like she's the reckless one, that he keeps getting mad at her to take better care of herself, do you ever think she hears that and just. remembers picking up pieces of his skull?

Maybe that's why she's relieved when they get to perform grand lysis, she doesn't need to be scared that he'll risk his life for her again and he doesn't need to be scared she'll do the same, they both choose to die together and make something new, someone new that risks their life only for themselves?

Idk, I just think their whole story is so scary and beautiful, they really did go loud.

[castellankurze]

Here's the thing that interests me about the dueling scene in Gideon the Ninth. Yeah, the narrative phrasing Harrowhark rose to the occasion like an evening star is peak and the line "Death first to the vultures and scavengers" is pure fire but why is she in that position to begin with?

The situation is thus: Camilla Hect has just won a duel against Marta Dyas attempting to claim the Sixth House's necromancy challenge keys, but she was wounded in so doing. Naberius Tern, backed by Ianthe Tridentarius, is pressing a dueling challenge against the injured Camilla in a flagrant bid to beat Camilla down and take the keys for the Third House while she's already recovering from one match. Gideon is standing by watching things unfold and, to her relief, Harrowhark steps up to put Gideon in the ring as a substitute for the injured Camilla and thus shut down Naberius' vulturing.

Except...why? You'd think that in anything like a polite societal dueling code (I know, I know, but go with it-) Camilla and Palamedes would have the option to demure, saying something like "the Sixth House cavalier just fought a duel and is wounded to boot, piss off for a day and we'll see then." But that's not even floated as an option. Palamedes isn't a dumb guy - far from it - and even if he were out of his element, you'd think someone else could just lean in and say 'dude tell them to shove it.' Judith Deuteros objects by saying "There are rules" and Ianthe shuts that down by pointing out she pressed Marta's duel on incredibly flimsy pretext, so that seems to be an objection on the grounds for presenting the challenge, rather than probing for an option to refuse. If Harrow and Gideon (or Jeannemary, jumping on the bandwagon) hadn't interceded, Camilla was about to fight her second duel back to back.

(Even in the first dueling challenge, the tone of onlookers seems to be that people want Palamedes to default and hand over his key to the Second House to spare Camilla the fight, because they assume the Sixth House is weak and don't know how good Camilla is.)

To sum up: the Sixth House seems to have no recourse but to either accept the repeated dueling challenges or default; with no way to decline except to give the Third House something they want (in this case, a Canaan House key).

That's insane.

And if that's deliberate, rather than an oversight on Tamsyn Muir's part, that suggests so much about the Nine Houses' dueling culture. It suggests that a challenge from a cavalier primary can't be refused; you have to either throw down or roll over as if they won. It speaks to a distinct lack of value placed on human lives, that the cavaliers are forced to accept a challenge on pain of their house losing face at best, something material at worst. The defending house can only negotiate to a degree that the attacking house is willing to let them. This is, depressingly, fully in keeping with the series' characters' treatment of the cavaliers. The subsequent books and short stories (especially The Unwanted Guest) really hammer this idea in, that the cavaliers are nominally viewed as a source of blades and shields in the hands of the necromancers, even if the laypeople of the setting don't know all the reasons behind the traditions.

In real life, formal dueling typically had customs and rules for negotiation and ceremony, with multiple exit points for parties to back out of a potential threat to life without losing face. Only truly aggrieved parties would press a suit to the point of confrontation. The Nine Houses say screw that, put up or shut up. They've more or less raised up the informal tradition of 'swords now motherfucker.'

To steal a phrase from another tumblrite, 'congrats god that's the worst anyone's ever done it.'

[mayasaura]

Nona has been so good to me and my sex-repulsed aroace Cam headcanon. feeling so validated in this chilis tonight.

aroace camilla hect my beloved

[notedchampagne]

camboy propaganda..... hold on i think youre on to something.....

im SO glad

gideon: you are doing some cocomelon shit to me

[gellavonhamster]

reading the post-vulgate, part 2 (the quest for the holy grail)

Lancelot describing Galahad as "strangely beautiful" makes me imagine Galahad was the kind of child who looks angelic but says the most cryptic shit

I love misinterpreting chapter titles on purpose

like, oh no, what happened, were they such bad guests?

Tristan's horse is called BASTARD

I gotta be honest, I'm just skimming some parts because they largely repeat the Grail Quest in the Vulgate, and I'm not interested in the Grail Quest enough to read it for the second time in a row

but at least this one has Palamedes. Everything is better with Palamedes

Calogrenant's death is fascinating - his body bleeds milk instead of blood, and from this milk some sort of medicinal/poisonous herbs grow

Guinevere wearing a crown of thorns in Lancelot's dream. Hmm.

“Whatever [Mordred] may be,” said Gawain, “he’s our brother, and we must love him, however much others hate him.” 💔💔💔

Agravaine tells Gawain that either Lancelot or Eric is fated to kill him, and Gawain immediately goes "oh, that certainly can't be Lancelot, he'd risk his life for me"... god

the story of the conception and family of Arthur the Less is some dark shit

Arthur and Morgan parted on worst possible terms and yet he asks her for information about his son and she actually provides it

you can always count on Palamedes for Pining and Yearning and Longing

"Galahad went off across the forest, glad to escape from Tristan’s company" relatable

love that Tristan and Palamedes are never, never normal about each other

"the More Than Good Knight" is such a funny title

very interesting that in this version Perceval's virtuous, self-sacrificial sister who takes part in the Grail quest also concocts a plan to have Gawain killed for the murder of her relatives

did NOT have King Mark trying to invade Logres on my bingo card for this

"When Kay heard this, he could not help saying, “Sir knight, I’m King Arthur’s man, and I’m so much his that I would be disloyal if I didn’t avenge him on all his enemies with all my strength. For love of him I say to you that you have no greater enemy in the world than I." 💔

"Lancelot’s luxurious lifestyle" is sending me

Palamedes <3

points were made!

Esclabor killing himself after the death of his son and ordering his squire to write the letters on his son's tombstone with his blood... insane insane insane

this must be the most incest-heavy version of Arthuriana I've read so far? Nothing prepared me for the origins of the Questing Beast

[toastsnaffler]

ALSOOO thinking abt this bit in ntn... the obvious revulsion ianthe has for the realisation that palamedes was right + she IS irreversibly part naberius + her immediate abandonment of naberius' body in response.... the whole thing reeks of denial like rest in peace to the sandy foundations she built her performative sense of self on but this wave is inevitable girl!! you can't uneat what you've already digested

[frontlinebicepsoftheninth]

in light of a second migration to this site i just need to speak my truth which is that harrow is a redditor gideon is a twitter user and ianthe is a tumblrina hope this helps

[reflection-s-of-stars]

I want to be Palamedes Sextus’s best friend but if I ever had the opportunity I know I would chicken out because Camilla Hect already holds that honor and she would squish me like a bug with her shoe without a second thought

[corvidfeathers]

hats off to palamedes sextus for being so incredibly chill about being dumped by his long term internet girlfriend who he had shaped the entire trajectory of his life around that he “this is fine, I’m happy she’s happy”’d himself into not noticing she had been murdered and replaced by an immortal saint with a deathwish

[piratespencil]

Love whatever the fuck is happening with gender in Nona the Ninth.

[altblock-tm]

god fuck I forgot how much I love Cernunnos in the secrets of the immortal nicholas flamel <3333

[robobee]

re: mushrooms

the beauty by aliya whitely but it’s adansey… a plague took out all the lil white guys w autistic swag…. now they’re back in the form of sexy mushrooms…. mushroom mpreg………

didn't read that and my google is Norwegian rn for some fucking reason so I can't find a suitable summary but I like what I'm hearing. sexy mushroom gansey is coming for you adam parrish

[katakaluptastrophy]

I think what's so interesting about Gideon as a narrator at the anniversary dinner is the fact that there's clearly tensions that she's just not picking up on because she's only there to eat a dessert.

But these people are all the immensely powerful leaders of the Houses and consider themselves to be in competition for literal godlike powers and the favour of the emperor.

There's so many little snippets that are potentially intriguing: why is Teacher trying to prime the Ninth to consider the Fifth a threat? Why are the Third and the Sixth "sizing each other up like prizefighters"? The Fifth absolutely knew what they were doing when they sat the teen heads of the opposing cults near each other.

Through Gideon's lens, Magnus' speech is a little awkward jokey thing. But...the seneschal of the House that is known to be actively trying to absorb another House is saying it's such a shame they're all so remote from each other and what do they all have in common (and it's so quiet you "could have heard a hair flutter to the floor") - that had to feel a bit different to people who aren't Gideon.

Palamedes' is dissecting the meaning of "Master Warden" and at one point compares it to a prison warden. 'Dulcinea' asking about whether Magnus and Abigail have children is perhaps less small talk and rather more pointedly political. Harrow's apparently stilted conversation with Protesilaus is clearly her actually probing his limitations like he's a bad Chat GPT-run chatbot.

And then 'Dulcinea' tells Gideon she liked the dinner because it was "useful". In her typical "I never lied to you" way, Cyth wasn't lying when she said Abigail had to die because of her hobby - Abigail Pent let loose on the Facility would have risked blowing Cyth's cover sky high. But what does a Canaan House look like where after the dinner party, the Fifth go down to the facility, get a key, and survive to continue their 'the Houses are going to get along or else' agenda? We've seen Fifth House soft power on a smaller scale in HTN: and it looks like inviting a teenager round for coffee, lulling her into a false sense of security with small talk, and then physically preventing her from leaving the room until she does what you want, while smiling the entire time. A series of little coffee chats could probably have led to a lot of cooperation in Canaan House, one way or another.

Gideon jokes about Silas marrying Ianthe because of their similar colour pallete, but it does raise the fact that there seems to be some tension around the Third, its succession, and the *point* of Ianthe. Why is Silas openly saying Ianthe should have died at birth? Combined with Judith's comments in the Cohort Intelligence Files about succession on the Third, it feels like there's something else being said here that Gideon isn't picking up on.

And of course, Harrow wasn't the only one desperate to become a Lyctor because her con was unsustainable. Presumably at some point Corona and Ianthe would be expected to marry, or at least take on more separate roles as Corona prepared to take over the throne and Ianthe was funneled off elsewhere. At some point, their package deal would have become unsustainable and Corona's cover would have been blown. But much as Harrow wants to become a Lyctor so she can reveal the state of the Ninth without repercussions, Ianthe is probably in part motivated to become a Lyctor for the same reason. Because otherwise, what would Ianthe's expected role have been? Amidst the suggestion of anxiety about the Idan succession, the dinner party also presents the fact that the reason Abigail and Magnus' infertility isn't a succession crisis for the ruling family of the Fifth is that Abigail's younger brother dutifully married in his early 20s and had kids. We know there are branch families in Ida - Babs is from one. He may be a prince, but he's not treated well, and you do get the sense that the stakes to stay in power in Ida are high.

We don't learn anything about the political situation in the Houses themselves during HTN or NTN, but in the wake of Canaan House, you have to suspect there are a number of tensions and concerns.

[beroebluejeans]

I am constantly thinking about a review of Harrow the Ninth where the reviewer disliked a lot about the book but specifically complained how it wasn’t sci-fi-y enough for something set 10,000 years in the future. He complained it was unrealistic they were eating ginger biscuits and smoking cigarettes and I’m like … THAT’S INTENTIONAL! IT’S THEMATICALLY SIGNIFICANT!! TAMSYN MUIR IS MAKING A POINT ABOUT HOW CLINGING TO A GLORIFIED PAST WILL DESTROY YOU!!

John Gaius tells us (well, Harrow) in Nona the Ninth that he always hated change, but even in Harrow the Ninth it’s clear—he and his lyctors are stagnating and have been for millennia. They’re constantly talking about how great things used to be (sexy parties, Cassiopeia’s cooking, etc.). They have no hope for the future. John has a spaceship full of bodies in cryosleep—literally frozen in time and undying but also unable to grow or live. He is the Emperor Undying.

The theme becomes more explicit in Nona the Ninth: we see John (and arguably BOE) stuck on this 10,000-year-old grudge and unable to move past it. He thought he could keep Alecto in stasis in a tomb what, forever? He makes Gideon into a non-living preserved version of herself.

Meanwhile the characters who are living and growing are changing, even when it’s sometimes awful, because it’s how they keep doing what needs to be done. Palamedes and Camilla say before they become Paul that it wasn’t inevitable, but it is the best thing they can do now: they will make this imperfect irreversible change because that’s how they keep living and protecting the people they love. On the trip to the Ninth, Nona considers it might be better to just die, instead of continue this uncertain journey forward, but ultimately accepts irrevocable, painful change because NOODLE. And because “You can’t take loved away”: change doesn’t destroy the past or invalidate the good that existed there. Living requires change, but change doesn’t require forgetting.

Anyway, thank you to that reviewer who was so annoyed by the ginger biscuits in Harrow the Ninth that he illuminated a major theme in the series for me.

[gellavonhamster]

The antidote Palomides procures against death by unrequited love cannot fail to appeal to a modern reader, familiar as we all are with the therapeutic powers inherent in ones creative faculties: 'therewythall he leyde hym downe by the welle, and so began to make a ryme of La Beall Isode and of sir Trystram... [S]ir Palomydes [lay] by the welle and sange lowde and myryly (473-4.86).

— Between Knights: Triangular Desire and Sir Palomides in Sir Thomas Malory's "The Book of Sir Tristram de Lyones" by Olga Burakov Mongan

So the therapeutic powers part is a beautiful interpretation, but also all I can think of now is Tristania modern AU, in which they're all in a band with messy interpersonal relationships and writing songs about each other Fleetwood Mac style.

(Dinadan, the only one not tragically in love with someone, writes weird narrative songs and diss tracks about the people he dislikes)

[lastflowerofyourhouse]

something i like about nona's family is that they're so like, almost a perfect little nuclear family, and then just. not.

like. pyrrha is "the person who works for her" but also the one who makes breakfast and does the dishes. she's a woman quite literally posessing the body of a cis man and really leaning into the look, honorarily trans in both directions, working construction and shaving in the mornings and braiding nona's hair before school.

and then there's camilla, her...nagging wife? troublemaking older child? roomate who she barely gets along with? the fact that palamedes shares this role is doubly weird. he's a man literally posessing the body of a cis woman, and they're both pyrrha's nagging wife/problem child/roomate. i don't personally believe that anything explicitly or overtly sexual was happening between her and either of them, but i completely understand where people who think that are coming from. and it's fucking weird (affetionate?).

even nona occupies a weird place in this dynamic. like. pyrrha is definitely a parent to her but camilla, who takes a much more active role in her daily life, is...idk. nona has a crush on her and wants to marry her and adopt dogs. camilla's feelings for nona are more parental or older-sisterly, in that she cares for her and wants to protect her, and if her feelings are more complicated than that, it's because of the obvious aspects of the situation which make her extremely sad and apprehensive of the future. her affection for nona seems relatively simple.

and then there's palamedes, who is in theory another parental figure (see: camilla's "i'll talk to your mother later" face, or pyrrha's "you're going to make someone a really irritating wife one day, sextus"), but in nona's view of things he seems like something more along the lines of an older sibling, or perhaps a cool uncle, which is funny because pyrrha arguably treats him more like a spouse than she does camilla.

it's all just so fucking weird and jumbled up on itself. pyrrha will kiss camilla on the head and say "i'll be home for dinner, dear," and then turn around and call both her and nona "daddy's own treasures" (don't get me started). she'll kiss palamedes and camilla both on the mouth and tell them she loves them. she'll tell them she didn't love them well, or even wholesomely, and she won't explain what she means by wholesome.

alecto calls her "mother and father." alecto tells her she should've given into her urges and eaten them.

palamedes and camilla are second cousins and queerplatonic and married and the same person and by the start of the book the lines between them are already dissolving.

nona is so so young and she's so so old and she's not so much younger than camilla and she's older than pyrrha can even comprehend and some days she needs help getting her shirt over her head.

and most importantly they all love each other. it's a weird and confused and unhealthy love. it's a love full of tension and annoyance and fear. it's a love that wants very badly to fit a category and can't. but it's love it's love it's love and even when it's over even when it has nowhere left to go it's not gone it can't be gone. it's over it's done you can't take loved away.