#and there were 7 original lyctors

[tallshps]

hey Locked Tomb tumblr I think I uncovered a very obscure but very funny layer to John Gaius and his particular branch of religion

Mithraea (singular: Mithraeum) were classical Roman temples, underground (usually part of natural caves!), and dedicated to the worship of the god Mithras. Most obvious connection here is the cult of Mithras dealing with the travelling of the soul through the body and into the universe; connections to water, the sun and cosmos, etc. The cult of Mithras had some clashing with early Christianity too but I need to get back on topic

I’m talking about what’s always depicted in fresco or relief in Mithraea: him killing a bull

John.... this motherfucker is Mithras Tauroctonos ??? Mithras the bull-slayer. Did you know cows watch sunsets? 

[psyche-reads]

I’m rereading Harrow for the first time after Nona and noticed a very subtle but very disturbing trend when Resurrection Beasts come up.

The wording is careful, but quite specific when it comes to why the Resurrection Beasts come for the Lyctors; for John, it’s related to him killing the planets, but for his lyctors, it is very clear that the reason why the RBs want them is because they consumed their cavaliers’ souls.

This is pretty obvious in theory, but I didn’t really think much of it when I first read that. Like, it just kind of makes sense as some kind of abstract concept linking them with John while also being “unnatural” enough to invoke the wrath of eldritch monsters. But the more you look into it, the more it seems that the Beasts have some sort of connection to the cavaliers.

They see the consumed souls of the cavaliers and they are physically drawn to them. It’s like some base instinct that draws them to the lyctors at all times, that they just have to get to the cavaliers, but it’s not clear why. THEN, we get to Nona.

In the first conversation we get with blue-madness Judith, Varun the Eater shouts at Nona that he saw Gideon— and ALL the other cavaliers— in the River. The other cavs seem to be fighting the RBs, but Varun’s opinion on them isn’t exactly clear yet. What is clear is that wherever cavaliers go when their souls are consumed is the same place that the RBs go. There is something of them that is alike, where they are called to each other, where they are trapped together, and it has to be important.

Back to image 2 with Mercymorn’s cries about it seeing her cavalier’s mortal soul, she describes the RB (Varun) as “blue like Loveday’s eyes,” aka Loveday Heptane, Cytherea’s cav. You know, the one from the Seventh House.

Varun the Eater. Neptune. Number 7. Resembles the eyes of the consumed cavalier of the Seventh.

No way in hell is that a coincidence, especially with how important eye color is in this series.

It’s also worth mentioning that there were originally NINE Resurrection Beasts, including Alecto; one for each planet. Harrow is the Ninth Saint to Serve the King Undying. Including Gideon (but not Samael), there are NINE dead cavaliers.

THEN, thinking of Alecto, the gold-eyed gold-haired RB who already favors the Ninth House—whose cav has some Very Interesting eyes and a history of body hopping… do you see where I’m going with this?

My thoughts aren’t fully cooked on this one because I’m not that smart, but there’s clearly something here. Like, the Resurrection Beasts are drawn to cavaliers, they go to the same liminal space when they’re dead, they resemble cavaliers, there’s the same number of them as cavaliers… add to this the fact that John keeps all of the corpses of the dead cavs around and we know RBs can possess bodies… let’s just say he’d better start settling his affairs :/

[g1deonthefirst]

do you think john specifically invited the *scions* of each house to become lyctors rather than, say, the best necromancers (or necro/cav pairs, though given john's track record i don't think he cares much about the cavaliers beyond their use as tools for their necromancer) as a power move in some way to reaffirm his control over the nine houses?

like, he knew the state of things in the houses was looking increasingly bleak. he hadn't been in direct contact with most of them in millenia barring those in the cohort. even though he was still revered as god and saviour, john had something to gain from this: lyctorhood is posed as a highest honor to follow in the saints' footsteps and serve god in the name of their house - the announcement brings him back into public consciousness in a way that frames him as both bestower of blessings and supplicant requesting aid, and gives him a direct in to the inner workings of each house if they ascend.

the houses themselves though don't get any real benefit from this particular selection. obviously john didn't expect 7/9 of the scions (or 6/8 depending on how you count coronabeth and ianthe) to be murdered or kidnapped, but even if none of them had chosen to ascend and all had gone back to their houses afterwards, having the rulers of all eight houses away from their people for at least a couple months creates a notable upset in power dynamics regardless of whether or not there are structures in place to run things in the scions' absences.

and if all eight of them *had* agreed to ascend, then that would put at least the fifth, sixth, eighth(?), and unofficially the ninth out of their active leaders, since lyctorhood at this point doesn't exactly allow time for occupations elsewhere. especially given the established reproductive issues prevalent in the nine houses, and the fact that all but the sixth house follow hereditary rule, this decision to take the next or current rulers seems particularly cruel, if not actively detrimental to political stability down the road, if a new heir can't be produced fast enough. (incidentally, all of these houses now *are* without their original leaders/heirs so that's another thing i'm waiting on in terms of impact on the fate of the nine houses)

additionally, while it worked out that the scions were all strong magicians (in part because they'd had the resources to dedicate themselves to their craft), there's no guarantee that those in charge would be the strongest necromancers the house had to offer - hell the fourth were barely teenagers. (i know the sixth could be argued here for having the master warden being chosen on exam-evaluated merit rather than blood, but it's still an exam focused on suitability to run the house which we know is full of tedious bureaucracy, not just pure necromantic skill).

or does john just not care about that? does he equate political power/social class with intelligence? (we know there are some hints of classism in his determination of who amongst his pre-res friends ended up a necromancer and who a cavalier). does he equate bloodlines with worthiness to rule? (what does this say then about his own self-appointment to the role of god?) was he just desperate and/or not thinking things through?

tysm for this ask anon, it's one of the many questions i have about john's whole plan in gtn and gave me a lot to chew on. wild speculation below.

i think there are a few reasons that john might've chosen the scions of each house rather than the strongest necromancer for each house:

1. it gives john more control and insight into the nine houses and it gives the houses increased reason to worship john and his lyctors.

ok, so first of all anon, i think you're right on the money about the scions of each house ascending giving john and his lyctors more political relevance. after 10,000 years without being able to return to the nine houses, john must feel in some ways distant from his subjects, the fact that he's present in the cohort and televised communications aside. if the scions ascend to lyctorhood, i think it reinvigorates the houses in a sense, gets them feeling all good and patriotic (especially important when both coronabeth and abigail, at least, seem to have had anti-cohort sentiments even before canaan house — doesn't really paint a perfect picture of the nine houses as a whole). it also gives john a better idea of what's going on in the houses and potentially some say over what they do next.

2. it could undermine the houses's political systems if he asked for people other than the scions.

now, i don't know if the hereditary ruling lines of the nine houses justify their rule with the mandate of god, but even if they don't, it might not look great if god just skips right over you for sainthood and asks for your house's "strongest necromancer." then there's the question of how the houses determine who the strongest necromancer is. only the sixth house seems to be a purported(!) meritocracy — every other house would either have to hold some sort of lengthy competition (which might be embarrassing for the nobility)...or they might just try to send their scion or another noble anyway, which could incite challenges from other necromancers in the house if word gets out. it seems a little messy.

3. aesthetics and tradition

considering that at least a decent portion of the original lyctors founded houses, john probably thought that it would be just lovely if they selected the rulers of those houses to be lyctors — especially considering some of them might actually be descended from those original founders. i don't doubt that some level of classism plays a role here too, considering that john seemingly implemented or encouraged this hereditary system to begin with (or at least he didn't discourage it).

4. john didn't think it would be that much of a problem ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

the more i think about it, the less convinced i am that the scions ascending would've posed a real succession crisis, at least not on the level that john would've had to worry about it. we know it's a problem on the ninth house, but other houses don't seem to have a population crisis quite on that level. typically there's a line of succession in hereditary systems, and we know that at least the third has branch families, so most of the houses probably had someone lined up to take the scion's play (abigail certainly did). if they didn't, john or the newly-ascended lyctor from that house might have appointed someone. and insofar as it would've caused a succession crisis, it would've been on the order of political instability for a few years, which probably doesn't mean a whole lot to a guy who's 10,000. im not saying this instability won't play a role in ATN because i definitely think it could, i just think john probably underestimated the severity of the issue.

[7sage9]

the unwanted guest thoughts

OBSESSED with the format as a stage play... makes so so much sense for ianthe and the third house

funeral part is so cool and sexy and i wonder if thats insight into how funerals actually are on the third

palamedes' mask being shattered and glued together like his skull....

ianthe slaying in all her fits... wait this reminds me of a dream i had a while ago in which ianthe duelled someone and did a ton of costume changes... i literally predicted it

ianthe being the lady and the master of the house... unprecedented levels of gender

significance of 7 coffins?? bc of 7 original lyctors??

the VOICE!!! my first instinct was dulcie but how?? so i thought maybe babs or someone else?? but i was right!!

still unsure of significance of "did your tingue ever toungle" maybe shows ianthe not being in complete control??

not the playing strip poker with harrow...

fascinated by ianthe and pal's differing views of the job of the cavalier... to die for vs protect the necromancer

"because you never stop to check the price tag" FUCK

is palamedes actually shocked by the third house assigning cavaliers as babies or is he pretending to get ianthe to share more?

oh ortus... blown up for being sad

would love to read about one of ianthe and corona's insane birthday parties

should have seen earlier how much the gideon nav description was shaped by babs, it makes so much sense

something about ianthe disqualifying her opponents as a form of winning... she never plays fair

the more we get of her the more i LOVE DULCIE!!!

DYING to know what happened to dulcinea after harrow's river bubble collapsed

"I loved you. I love you still. I would have worked out how to love you better over time." "It would have been very beautiful. Camilla would have had to cook. But I didn't just want beautiful..." "This again? From you and her both? That merely by loving you, I added to your torments?" FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK IT REALLY ALL COMES BACK TO LOVE ALWAYS...... DYING

cant stop thinking about how ntn must have been such a cruel mirror to the domestic life they dreamed of with dulcie

"You two were my best friends, and that was real. I loved real, ugly, unfinished things. Gracelessly uncompleted things. There's freedom, too, in not ever being completed." FUCK DULCIE I LOVE YOU

its a river... there are two shores... still so curious about the river

"Was I cute?" "You're perfect." AAAAAAAAAAAAA <3 <3 <3

"would you have used your sister instead?" YES!!! THAT IS THE QUESTION!!!

"Or... Coronabeth herself is part of your goal. You can't spend her, because you'd invalidate the very thing you were trying to buy." WOAGHHH i am so so curious about ianthe's plan

THE FINAL QUESTION... THE FINAL REVEAL...

the implications of souls bleeding and mingling... first of all for the OG lyctors... how much of what we were seeing was alfred and cristabel and pyrrha (though its probably slightly different for them)?? how much of pyrrha is g1deon??

and this has SO MANY implications for the gideon harrow alecto nona situation... simultaneously makes things clearer and a lot more complicated, if there doesn't have to be an actual transfer of soul bits, but they just do it naturally when together

overall SO GOOD!!! so much analysis potential of course and also just gutwrenchingly, horribly beautiful, like everything she writes

[toughtink]

just finished my NtN reread so you know what that means—more TLT lists!! spoilers ahead for Nona the Ninth.

Resurrection Beasts in The Locked Tomb Series

Mercymorn saw it as “a great and incoherent machine” which she thought had a great tail and a thousand broken pillars on its back. Cassiopeia saw it as “a mechanical monster with swords for wings, and great horns of myelin, tessellated over with graves.” (htn 338) Status: Dead?

Fell soon after resurrection (htn p43), spewed quicksilver and remade itself into hundred foot spikes (htn 338). Status: Dead?

? Status: Alive?

Was a humanoid creature with a beautiful face who held Mercymorn under the water (of the River) and spoke in a lovely voice repeating, “die, die” (htn 338). Status: Dead?

? Status: Alive?

Drawn into ultramassive black hole by cyrus “[it] better be dead, because cyrus won’t be coming back.” (htn p43), kept sucking the lyctors into enormous sphincters and spraying them with worms, Mercy can’t even remember what it looked like (htn 338). Status: Dead

This is the one chasing them in HtN. would make a sort of sick sense if it is Venus with Cytherea killed last book. bug themed? (the heralds are anyway.) this is also the one that Cassiopeia died baiting the physical form of into the river (htn 333). “Blue like Loveday’s eyes!” G1deon dies fighting it. Pyrrha says it “got away” at the end of HtN before Augustine drops the entire Mithraeum into the River. In NtN, Number Seven is dubbed Varun the Eater and chats with Nona a bit via Judith Deuteros. Status: Alive

Cost a man’s immortal soul “I still see that day in my dreams” (htn p43) probably Ulysses? (htn 333 + he’s the only male lyctor left.) Definitely Ulysses (htn 335). He wrestled the RB through the stoma. It’s described as “a giant head” by G1deon and by Augustine as “finned like a fish” with ribs as bloody bandages and teeth protruding through its skull, “tangled about its face like a nest,” red with a single green eye that moved all around its body (htn 338). Status: Dead

Alecto probably? unclear if she’s being included in Jod’s count, but it would explain his initial discrepancy. Status: Alive

additional notes:

jod says 3 left, originally 9, killed 5. harrow notices his math doesn’t line up but doesn’t say anything. missing RB is probably alecto.

cass lasted 7 min in the river before being torn apart by ghosts, trying to bait RB. RB emerged from river 20 min later unscathed. (htn p97)

augustine says of number 7 (or RBs in general), “it is a revenant…a revenant of a specific hell.” the emperor follows, “once defeated, it can be forced down into the abyss, and from there it will not return.” august adds, “we hope. oh, lord, do we ever hope.” (htn 175)

The most permanent solution to ending RBs has been to force their soul through the River and into the stoma. The physical form cannot be bombed due to the density of heralds that surround it and it’s propensity to drive any lyctor nearby insane. (htn 337)

As seen in NtN, necromancers (that is a necromancer soul in a necromancer body) are driven mad and cannot perform necromancy while under the influence of said madness which also affects their overall physical health, being potentially lethal even without the RB being fully substantiated from the River. The disease seems to spread/be influenced by light, and can be controlled or the effects lessened by blinding necromancers.

The RBs don’t match the house order perse, nor the planet order necessarily. They’re numbered in discovery order (except potentially Alecto).

as always, feel free to add on or let me know if i messed something up! these were my personal notes taken on a reread with page citations base on the american paperback version for htn and the hardcover for ntn.

[regentdidmanyquestionablethings]

So is the girl in the locked tomb Alecto or Nona? Is one of them maybe the original Lyctor, or did the Ninth house not have one? I feel like I've read conflicting information on whether there were 7 or 8 originally.

[iviarellereads]

Harrow the Ninth, Chapter 37

(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.)

(Ninth House icon) In which the Emperor opens up to Harrow about some of the big questions.

The wait until the fight is agony, but at least there are finally organized lessons for Ianthe and Harrow, particularly in the River creating wards without the body's resources. Strangely, there are no ghosts in the epirhoic. Augustine says they're scared.(1)

When the Emperor offers again to have Harrow locked in with him when the RB arrives, Harrow asks him why he locks himself in an airless room when the RBs strike. In response, he asks Harrow what happens when a Lyctor enters the River. She says the secondary soul activates, to defend the body with the sword.

He explains that when he did the Resurrection and reignited the central star of the Nine Houses system, he became linked to Dominicus. If he dies, the light goes out, the Houses die again, for real. Harrow says, so the star would become a black hole?(2) He confirms, and says Harrow might be the one Lyctor who can truly understand the meaning of apocalypse(3) as this would be. Not a flashy, fiery death, but a sunset without hope of morning.

Both of you fell into silence. "If I fought the Resurrection Beast I'd leave my Houses to die," he said. "If I fought the Heralds, I might well go mad, which would be the same thing. So I'm shut in here--walled in, really--to prevent the Nine Houses becoming none House, with left grief."(4)

Harrow asks one more question: who was A.L.?

God looks astonished and asks Harrow if she'd rather go through the easier questions, like where babies come from. He's even got a book that can help with that one, and are she and Ianthe being safe?(5) Harrow carefully enunciates that she and Ianthe are not being intimate, they're not romantic, they're not even really platonic...(6) Teacher apologizes profusely, and Harrow asks forgiveness and retracts her initial question.

No, says God, he can talk about her. Perhaps it's time for Harrow to know about A.L.

He pronounced her name, as both his wayward saints had, as two clearly separate letters: you could hear the A and the L. He said, "It stood for a couple of things. a joke, mostly. I often called her Annabel Lee. Annie Laurie.(7) When I first met her I just called her First, One.(8) She had a real name, but I buried it with her, and nobody says it anymore."(9)

She was his bodyguard, before the cavaliers. His guide, his friend, at least he hoped it was so. A.L. was the first Resurrection, his "Adam" in a way.

Harrow interrupts to ask what destroyed the First House. "Rising sea levels and a massive nuclear fission chain reaction ... it all went downhill from there."(10) Harrow isn't quite sure what to make of the first details about the pre-Resurrection she's ever heard.

A.L. helped John learn to live again, and be God. But she was no normal human,(11) and there was a price for the sin of the anger she and John shared, in some ways. She died after the first RB hit them.

"I understand why cavaliers primary carry their House titles," said God. "It makes sense. But it is a corruption of the original. D'you know why you're really the First? Because in a very real way, you and the others are all A.L.'s children ... There would be none of you, if not for her."

He goes on to say he thinks A.L. would have liked Harrow, and that Harrow would make a hell of a daughter. Sometimes he wishes she were his.

Harrow shatters the glass table, kneels in the shards, prostrates herself before him. This moment of approval by one in authority over her is the undoing of her restraint. She admits that she opened the Locked Tomb. He says she did not. She admits every step of it, and what she saw, what her parents did when they found out, and she asks if she killed both her fathers that day.

God says no, she didn't, very gently. He insists she can't have done what she claims to have done. He made the blood ward, him alone, and it would never have opened for anyone else.(12) Harrow clams up, the uncertainty of insanity making her doubt herself again.

God tucks a tendril of hair behind Harrow's ear, and then his eyes widen, and he asks who's been tampering with her temporal lobe. Harrow has a seizure in response, if by seizure you mean she stands up, turns around, and walks away without another word.

As the door closed you might have heard, "Damn it, John--damn it." But the last thing you were going to do was trust your own ears.

=====

(1) The RBs sure terrify the pants off me, who can blame the ghosts? (2) Interesting. So far all indications are that the Dominicus system is very like our own, and our Sun wouldn't be able to form a black hole. It wouldn't even really be able to make a supernova, it's much too small. It's possible that Dominicus differs from our Sun in some meaningful way, or that the necromancy of it all could affect things. Also, black holes don't just mindlessly suck in everything in a certain range. I mean, consider that there's a giant black hole at the center of our galaxy, and the galaxy is still spinning billions of years later. A black hole still only has the gravitational pull of the mass that went into its singularity. (3) Technically, despite our modern use of it to mean catastrophe and destruction, "apocalypse" derives from words about revealing or uncovering. The Book of Revelation (no S here) was translated from the Koine Greek apokalypsis. It can be any disclosure of divine mysteries to a human, in dreams or visions or visitations. This is definitely the sort of thing Muir knows and might use intentionally to open up interpretations. (4) For all the puns and references in this book, this, this is the first one that made me put my ereader down calmly and walk away so that I didn't throw it through a window. None pizza with left beef is a classic and ancient meme. If you don't know about it, it's even on Wikipedia. (5) The question of whether Harrow and Ianthe are having sex or not is eternally fascinating to the fandom at large and eternally amusing to me as someone who doesn't particularly care about the answer. Is this John operating with knowledge of what goes on on his ship, or is he projecting his affairs with his Lyctors this last myriad of years? I suppose we can say with some confidence that he knows about reproductive safety since Dios Apate, Minor was obviously not the first time and so far he has no children in evidence. (6) Methinks the lady doth protest too much. [suggestive eyebrow waggle] (7) We already covered Annabel Lee, but Annie Laurie is a very old poem by William Douglas, also about the woman he loved. (8) That's a weird name even if you've been in Star Trek fandom in the last 20 years with Seven of Nine such a popular character. (9) That's awfully sad, but it makes sense. Grief is an odd old friend. (10) Rising sea levels and nuclear war… that feels a little too familiar. (11) Just what might that mean? (12) That's odd, because we know very well that it DID open.

[nimbuslich]

I posted 8,608 times in 2022

62 posts created (1%)

8,546 posts reblogged (99%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@a-near-cis

@toomuchdickfort

@hater-of-terfs

@definitelynotcecelia

@rosecolorednick

I tagged 363 of my posts in 2022

#nona the ninth - 181 posts

#nona the ninth spoilers - 178 posts

#tlt - 32 posts

#gideon the ninth - 16 posts

#ntn spoilers - 10 posts

#gtn - 8 posts

#harrow the 9th - 7 posts

#harrow the ninth - 5 posts

#picrew - 3 posts

#nonacore - 3 posts

Longest Tag: 134 characters

#but the cream is made of the feeling u get when u think of the horrible things growing in the corners of all ur favorite online spaces

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

See the full post

43 notes - Posted June 24, 2022

#4

Thought the Tumblr girlies would wanna see this one 👀

See the full post

61 notes - Posted April 5, 2022

#3

Literally could not love them more

101 notes - Posted May 21, 2022

#2

The number of times someone says "no one should have to see their cavalier die" in this book is rude and unnecessary and also hurts my feelings.

113 notes - Posted August 25, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I like to think jod thought the lyctor trials he set up at Canaan house were so clever and well put together. Like he thought he'd created this perfect riddle that all the adepts would peacefully work together to solve like the original lyctors did when actually it was a hot mess with no clear direction headed by a crazy bag of spirits pretending to be a person that was doomed to spiral into confused infighting even without a rogue lyctor stirring the pot.

Like, at first I thought it was just a poorly constructed part of the plot but actually it fits in perfectly when you remember jod is an idiot.

305 notes - Posted September 1, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

I mean if the Amazon preview is anything to go by (which it isn’t, because we aren’t totally sure whether John is lying or not).

1) John and the original Lyctors were trying to save Earth’s people 2) They were planning on evacuating the whole population 3) Rich people left on spaceships/sabotaged the evac in some way 4) He and the Lyctors were left Lyctorfied on a dying Earth 5) Earth gets reborn, somehow. Likely after killing it. 6) Wake comes back claiming to avenge the Earth and John says “You abandoned it” 7) John has been on a 10,000 year campaign of “symbolic revenge”

------

At the bare minimum, John sincerely believes that the Blood of Eden left most of humanity to die for purely selfish reasons when they could have saved them all, and is now coming back to “avenge the Earth” they doomed.

Most likely, some parts of it are true, and Blood of Eden is running based on millennia old propaganda campaign created to cover their own cowardice/possible crimes.

Worst case scenario, he’s completely right.

[ryttu3k]

Pre-Nona Locked Tomb reread time! Going back over both Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth, Mysterious Study, As Yet Unsent and the extra content in the paperbacks, and, possibly, the already-released content for Nona. Assorted thoughts, callbacks, et cetera that catch my eye, with the assumption that anyone else reading has already seen all the above content, so obviously massive spoilers abound.

First up! Gideon the Ninth - Act 1, chapters 1-8.

Chapter 1

The door to the castle has carvings where the eyes seem to look right at you. Whenever Gideon had to go through them as a kid, "she'd screamed like she was dying." Warded?

"Your Lady would stone cold eat a baby". Awks.

"and she loved her sword so much she could frigging marry it." Awkwardness continues tbh

'"I guess I'll disgrace you," Gideon admitted easily. "I feel like I was born to it."'

Chapter 2

Harrow is massaging her wrists and hands the whole time she's talking to Gideon. Even before the reveal, nice bit of foreshadowing.

"All because," said Gideon, checking her clock again, "I completely fucking hate you, because you are a hideous witch from hell. No offense."

There was a pause.

"Oh, Griddle!" said Harrow pityingly, in the silence. "But I don't even remember about you most of the time."

They're in love.

Chapter 3

"I know the things that befall cavaliers, my lord, I know his fate!"

Chapter 4

She reached down and hauled up one of the discarded blades. It was at least mildly hilarious to see Harrow have to heave with all the might of her, like, three muscles. Gideon took it while the necromancer rubbed fretfully at her wrists.

It's okay Harrow you'll get better at that.

"You're bound to the Locked Tomb... and at the end of the night, the Locked Tomb is me."

Hm.

"... if you don't get out now, you won't even get out in a box."

"So what happens if I agree?"

You’ll still get out in a box :(

Chapter 5

"All you need to know is that you'll do what I say, or I'll mix bone meal in with your breakfast and punch my way through your gut."

Which was, Gideon had to admit, entirely plausible.

AND HOW.

Chapter 6

What was Crux doing down in the bowels of Drearburh?

'"I want to watch you die."

"Maybe, Nonagesimus," she said with deep satisfaction, "maybe. But you sure as hell won't do it here."'

Oh yeah that's a fun line I love getting punched in the heart with spikes.

Chapter 7

Timeline details - Jod hasn't been back to the First House in nine thousand years.

Gideon just flat-out in awe of Earth and wondering how anything less wouldn't be on fire. Sixth and seventh are definitely Mercury and Venus, then.

The sunglasses were found in Drearburh, so I wonder whose they were originally? Anastasia's? Samael's? (Anastasia might have brought them back.) Matthias'? Wake's? ...Alecto's?

Edit: Harrow’s reaction here oh man.

Chapter 8

The cups are 'hot and smooth to the touch, like stone but smoother and thinner.' Porcelain, I guess? There are a lot of materials that just... don't appear on Drearbuhr.

"But I see no reason not to hope that I may behold eight new Lyctors by the end of this, joined together with their cavaliers" Yeah :-\

[clacing]

The way I was counting down the days when u finished the book shsjsksk when that email notification came I was 🏃‍♀️ like im sorry I was excited but no ur so right.

[Light Spoilers(?)]

The book is totally incomprehensible especially when you get to the part where they're driving the bus, the way the narration switches up is hard to keep up with. Especially given how we are going from Nona's POV to about three of Nona's POV and then we snap back and just don't question that part like???

But I don’t have much to say rn because you're still processing the book and like talking about how Nona is a soup of about three and a half souls and the implication of a Percect Lyctor and the whole of John's chapters, it's all just mush until you kind of crawl through each point.

If you want like a super boiled down explanation of the book; imo it's a book meant to juxtapose Nona and who her original body is. The John chapters go into a fair amount of detail on how the series has gotten to this point(in as much as we can trust John about anything)

But like I'm so very interested in Anastasia and her connection with the 9th house and the relationship she seems to have had with The Body, given what we hear her say about Anastasia during that chapter.

Which like also goes into how Harrow is compared to Anastasia by Mercy(a less attractive Anastasia) and why Harrow and the 9th house specifically has such a nuanced relationship with the Body and the Locked Tomb.

I'm jumping around walls, I'm literally so in love with this book rn I just want to blab about it 😭

DAMN that was quick lmao No you're right the truck part is absolutely when I went from "I don't understand anything that's happening, but that's okay, I will eventually" to "Not only did I not understand anything that happened this far but it's probably only going to get worse" like I was so confused about the dynamics within BoE and the conflict Antioch had with God and the blue madness.... literally what

Having Nona as a narrator was interesting but also exhausting 'cause she also doesn't understand anything in a very different way than Gideon didn't understand anything in GTN or Harrow in HTN. 'Cause she literally doesn't know anything about anything. When they get to the Ninth she talks about stepping in a cage with bars and the floors flying up around them and I nearly had an aneurysm just trying to figure out that she was describing an elevator. And the whole book is like that 😭 I appreciate Muir's dedication to "Show, don't tell" but sometimes.... telling is just fine.....

The alternating chapters were a masterpiece though like how every piece of the story John told brought you one step closer to understanding who Nona was and sometimes paralleling her side of the story. I was so into it I could not stop reading for 7 whole hours on the train

(Also help who are the three and a half souls you're talking about.... I thought it was "just" Earth but I've since been informed that Harrow has consumed part of Gideon's soul so that's the half.... who are the other two.... Harrow and Anastasia?)

And about Harrow and The Body.... I'm so curious what the whole deal is. I don't know if I missed something but like. Alecto's soul was inside her all along somehow, right? And also. ALSO. is Harrow's love for The Body just the result of part of her soul longing for its original body. And that's why once Alecto is back in her body and she kisses Harrow Harrow isn't pleased about it. I literally realized this right now as I was typing 'cause while reading I was so convinced THIS line:

was foreshadowing that "Harrow was Alecto all along and that's why she loves The Body so much" but actually that works even if Alecto is only part of her soul. And the fact that the spirit of the literal Earth (or at least the part of it that John couldn't consume) was just chilling inside her... no wonder Harrow was so powerful and also very mentally unstable

[psiionicwolf]

Let's Rate The Likelihood Of Other Lyctors Being Alive

Gideon (Original Flavor): 5/10 Do I buy one of the biggest contributors to "Harrowhark's No Good Very Bad 8 Months" being killed off screen with no chance for Gideon (Encore) getting her pound of flesh? Not really. There is a chance though so eh.

Cyrus: 1/10 I just think it would be funny as shit for Ianthe to wake up to someone hotter than her beating her ass for using his stuff. If he really did take the Beast into the black hole he's been spaghettified. If he survived or faked his death he's probably lost his shit completely.

Ulysses: 9.9/10 His name is the Latin form of Odysseus. For anyone uninitiated thats a motherfucker who went on a long ass voyage, got lost on his way back for about ten years after a ten year long war i.e. a long ass time. Odysseus after coming home from his long voyage proceeded to wreck shit and clean house. We don't know how long he's been down there nor how long Lyctors can live without water so there's margin for error.

Augustine: 7/10 We don't really know if going into the stoma kills people. We don't know what it does. If he's alive I expect him to be filling Ulysses in on all the shit he's missed. I hope we haven't seen the last of this bastard.

Cassiopeia: 10/10 She's the only one other than Harrow who could manage theorems in the River. The way she died is rather pedestrian for a Lyctor. See Also: Palamedes Sextus. I just think it would be great if Cassiopeia high fived Palamedes for refusing to die and then hugged Camilla cause maybe she looks like Nigella. For me Sixth loving hours is 24/7.

Cytherea: 0/10 The entire Wake possession plot and then also that last portion of HTN where they try to summon Cytherea and Loveday threatens to come up and kill them. This did not happen in HTN it seems to have happened in a fic called Cataclysmic Variable Star on AO3. we'll see if I'm right about that.

Mercymorn: 0/10 We watched John atomize her.

Anastasia: 10/10 See the "Anastasia is the Body" theories. Her name literally means Resurrection. The Ninth House is also a house that canonically refused to die when they were supposed to. For similar reasons to Cassiopeia, i.e. See Harrowhark Nonagesimus. She worked closely with Cassiopeia its not unlikely she also installed a failsafe. Also the epilogue of HTN is odd to say the least.

Basically I just want to see most of the Lyctors come back and say "Bet you thought you'd seen the last of me" to John and wreck his shit.

edit: added rating on Cassiopeia

edit retracted the section on Loveday

[little-chattes]

Ok so I’ve done a complete re-read through and one thing that kept nagging at me was how little Gideon and Harrow’s relationship makes sense given its quite frankly abusive origins. Harrow spends her whole life making Gideon’s a living hell and Gideon just… forgives her. Total and complete forgiveness for an irredeemable girl.

At first I took the sudden shift in their relationship as lazy writing to rush along the end of the story, but that didn't make any sense either. Muir strikes me as an intensely purposeful writer. Then I remembered that Muir is also an intensely Catholic writer and it hit me. Muir isn’t writing a story about a healthy human relationship, oh no, she’s writing a story about Christ’s relationship with The Church… if Christ was a sword toting butch lesbian and The Church was a sardonic bone witch. Call it tender blasphemy. 

Now Gideon’s role as a Christ figure is fairly easy to parse out given that her dad is… God. But for the sake of self indulgence (I have to put my 15 year long flirtation with Christianity to use somehow) I’m going to go through all the parallels anyway. There are a LOT of them.

Let’s start at the very beginning (a very good place to start).

Miraculous Conception

Luke 1:34-38

34 But Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I [e]am a virgin?” 35 The angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; for that reason also the [f]holy Child will be called the Son of God. 

Gideon is conceived by artificial means when one of God’s own servants (Mercy) delivers a sample of John’s genetic material to Wake, a ‘normal’ human woman who chooses to carry Gideon in her womb. Notably, the sample lives far beyond its point of expected viability, thus making the conception somewhat miraculous (“Only the sample was still active, no idea how considering it was twelve weeks after the fact” HTN 441). 

The Cuckold

Matthew 1:18-25

18 Now the birth of Jesus the [a]Messiah was as follows: when His mother Mary had been [b]betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be pregnant by the Holy Spirit. 19 And her husband Joseph, since he was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her, planned to [c]send her away secretly. 

Gideon the First decides not to kill his lover, Wake, and releases her out the airlock (AND HE TOOK PITY ON ME! HE TOOK PITY ON ME! HE SAW ME AND HE TOOK PITY ON ME” from Harrow’s vision of Wake’s note, HTN 124) just as Joseph took pity on Mary, his betrothed, by deciding to divorce her quietly instead of making her infidelity public which would condemn her to death by public stoning (Deuteronomy 22:21). Gideon the First knew that Wake was pregnant and didn’t tell John because he thought the baby was his. Similarly, Joseph goes on to raise Jesus as his own son.

The Birth

Luke 2:7

And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a [f]manger, because there was no [g]room for them in the inn.

 Neither baby Jesus nor baby Gideon were given a proper cradle, one being laid to rest in a manger where the animals ate and the other stuffed in a transplant bio-container (GTN 23). 

The Dead Children

16 When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.

King Herod intends to kill the prophesied King of the Jews and instead of finding the specific baby, he just has a bunch of them slaughtered. However, Jesus escapes the slaughter of the innocents by Herod when his parents secret him away to Egypt.

 When the great aunts gas the nursery and kill the 200, Gideon is meant to die along with them but escapes her fate.

Now this event has a completely different biblical connotation for Harrow. 

Firstly, the murder of the 200 children represents Original Sin. In the bible, Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden, and as their descendants, all of humankind is doomed to also bear the weight of that sin from the moment we are born until the day we die. This is a fact that is drilled into Christians as soon as we’re able to understand it, we are born wretched and unworthy sinners, and there’s nothing we can do ourselves to fix that. 

“I have tried to dismantle you, Gideon Nav! The Ninth House poisoned you, we trod you underfoot—I took you to this killing field as my slave—you refuse to die, and you pity me! Strike me down. You’ve won. I’ve lived my whole wretched life at your mercy, yours alone, and God knows I deserve to die at your hand. You are my only friend. I am undone without you.”

Harrow is a multitude, she is 200 children, the entire future of her house. Shes not just one human being,, she’s the whole damn church.

Naz/Nav

he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.

Although Gideon is not from the Ninth, she is given the Ninth name Nav when she arrives as a baby. Similarly, Jesus is known as Jesus of Nazareth, though that is not where he was born.

The Poor Bondservant

Jesus' role as a servant is emphasized many times in the bible. He was a carpenter's son born in a stable 

Philippians 2:5-8

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

 Gideon is described as being made “a very small bondswoman” (GTN 24)

The Sword

Matthew 10:34

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

The Wretched Sinner

Harrow is wretched, self loathing, and cruel. 

She is in thrall of the enemy of god, a figure who was once gods most favoured warrior, cast into hell.

She is like the depiction of the sinner who loves the devil

It's important to note that Harrow isn’t a single person, she is a multitude, the entire future of her people condensed into one body. 

The Enemy of God

20 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, nholding in his hand the key to othe bottomless pit1 and a great chain. 2 And he seized pthe dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and qbound him for a thousand years, 3 and threw him into othe pit, and shut it and rsealed it over him, so that she might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while.

Before the fall, Satan was described as a “guardian cherub” who resided in the garden with God (Ezekiel 28:14) 

(a funny aside, in the bible the devil is known as the great deceiver but in HTN Muir specifies that Alecto is incapable of lying)

A Life of Abuse 

Isaiah 53:3

"He was despised and rejected by mankind,

    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.

Like one from whom people hide their faces

    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem”

They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff" (Luke 4:28–29).

Gideon lives a life of mockery and is abused by Harrow.

An Unlikely Savior

Despite the fact that Gideon does not fit the expected image of a Cavalier, Harrow chooses Gideon to be her sword and protector.

Despite the many openings Gideon has to make Harrow pay for the pain she caused her, she remains loyal to her

Trust

Harrow realizes that she cannot face the lyctor trials without Gideon, and places her trust in her

Christians are told they must place their trust in jesus in order to reach salvation

Purifying Water

Acts 2:38

Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Harrow confesses her sins to Gideon and puts herself at her mercy

Gideon forgives Harrow totally and completely, she baptises her

One Flesh

Mark 10:8

and the two shall become one flesh; so they are no longer two, but one flesh.

“The imagery and symbolism of marriage is applied to Christ and the body of believers known as the church. The church is comprised of those who have trusted in Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and have received eternal life. Christ, the Bridegroom, has sacrificially and lovingly chosen the church to be His bride” (x)

Ephesians 5:25-26

25 gHusbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and hgave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by ithe washing of water jwith the word,

They take the vow of necro and cav, one flesh one end

Gideon’s forgiveness of Harrow is reaffirmed

Harrow risks her life to stay and fight with Gideon, even if it means her death and thus the destruction of her death. Her love for Gideon is now greater than her love for the Body.

The Sacrifice

John 19:34

Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.

They will look on the one they have pierced'" (John 19:36–37).

Gideon chooses to die for Harrow, death by piercing

and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

In order to complete the lyctor process, Harrow both physically and spiritually consumes Gideon

Because of Gideon’s sacrifice, Harrow attains eternal life at the right hand of god

The Tomb

The Resurrection

1On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women came to the tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus

Harrow turns her body into a tomb for Gideon, a tomb fashioned after that on the Ninth

Resurrection on the Third Day

Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. Luke 24:46-47 

“So many months had passed: and yet, at the same time, she had only lost Gideon Nav three days ago. It was the morning of the third day in a universe without her cavalier: it was the morning of the third day—and all the back of her brain could say, in exquisite agonies of amazement, was: She is dead. I will never see her again.” (HTN 374)

Just in case you missed this important piece of information, Muir repeats it three times.

Go, and tell them, then, that he that was dead is alive, and lives for evermore, and has the keys of death and the grave,"

[dr-dendritic-trees]

Locked Tomb Old Kingdom Parallels

I've forgotten who I was supposed to tag in this sorry:

But anyway,

The first parallel I noticed was that Samael is a super Old Kingdom sounding name.... this is because I am a fool.

The most obvious parallel is that both the Nine Houses and the Old Kingdom have necromancy/magic based societies which draw on the power of death, and that death specifically takes the form of a river full of mangled insane ghosts, but there's a mysterious somewhere past the river and no one knows what goes on there.

The most interesting parallel is that the society and magic of the Old Kingdom is based on the Nine Bright Shiners of which 7 founded the society, 1 had to be sealed away to prevent the apocalypse and 1 noped out from the whole situation and was punished for it. Corresponding, roughly, to 7 Lyctors 1 Anastasia and 1 Alecto. Obviously, and even more interestingly, this is not a perfect correspondance because Anastasia at least seems to have died (as far as we know) and there's no obvious equivalent of Jod in the Old Kingdom.

I don't think this is as serious or as interesting as I'm making it and if I were sensible I'd end it here, but I'm not, so, if I take this much more seriously than I ought to, there's one huge obvious discrepency between the two, which is that the Old Kindom doesn't use necromancy, it uses Charter Magic to prevent people doing necromancy, because 90% of necromancy is just way more trouble than its worth. And on of the big Charter Magic undertakings that the original 7 gave their lives (or at least conscious existances) for was a way to prevent necromancy from spreading to the adjacent magic-free society.

So if we start from the idea that the Locked Tomb is a corrupted Old Kingdom parallel then presumably a team of 8 powerful magicians presumably including one of the originals (Pyrrha?) some aspect of Anastasia (or Alecto or both) will have to unite to put Jod in the Locked Tomb... which would be cool.

[number63liveblogs]

Harrow the Ninth: 7

“Don’t be ridiculous. She can’t be using theorems,” said Mercy. “She’d be barely awake and it’s totally beyond her at this poi—John, stop her, she’s using theorems!!”

Well, considering that I’m using Mercy’s name, I’m going to start using John’s too. Nine tenths for equality, one tenth because it’s pretty hilarious that the person Harrow keeps calling “God” in her narration is called something as basic as “John”. Although John does come from a Hebrew name meaning “God has been gracious” so there might be something else apart from using the literal default name.

“The throttle, Mercy, in Cristabel’s name!” God roared.

…That’s Mercy’s cavalier. Interesting, that’s who “God” has to appeal to. It would also implicate that the original Lyctors had the same kind of relationship with their cavaliers as the modern ones had (or in some cases were supposed to have) considering that her (?) name still seems to hold sway over Mercy. And they still chose to go ahead with the Lyctorhood process.

I hope we hear more about how the first batch of Lyctors ended up becoming the first batch of Lyctors, if only because they are clearly going to be either a warning or a goal for Harrow.

Most likely the first one, I’m going to be very surprised if they are stable after all this time.

Also, do they know that Harrow is prone to hallucinations? Because it could end up being an issue if Harrow doesn’t mention hallucinations that are caused by something dangerous when she thinks they are just her normal, every day hallucinations. Or does she hallucinate The Body consistently enough that she knows that’s normal but everything else is an issue?

[goattypegirl]

Harrow the Ninth Live Read: Chapter 6-11

Con: It’s been a while

Pro: We finished part 1!

Con: this post is hella long now.

Chapter 6

Eighth House icon. Oh no. Gotta say, not a fan of the characters from the Eight House in Gideon the Ninth, whose names I now forget. There was Big Dude and Mayonnaise Twink. 

OH OK WE’RE STARTING OFF WITH SOME LOCKED IN SYNDROME SHIT. 

So, panicked person wheeling Harrow is given the title “Sacred Hand.” I vaguely recall seeing that before; is that a title given to Lyctors? Is this one of the OG Lyctors finally making an appearance? Wheeling the frozen Harrow to the Emperor to “unfuck accordingly?” Well, maybe not. Presumably another Lyctor would be able to “unfuck accordingly” themselves.

Oh disregard it is a Lyctor! And if we go back to the Dramatis Personae, this should be... Mercymorn! Originally of the Eighth House! She seems nice.

“It was his order that she not be touched.” Did the Emperor do this? But hwhy?

Calling Harrow and Ianthe babies is kind of hilarious. Aaaand Mercymorn just knocked this random person unconscious. OH wait is this the person the Emperor said to make static-y noises at? Survey says... maybe? They were called the Saint of Joy, which seems a unique title?

The whole description of the Lyctor and the way she visually dissects Harrow is so poetic, but something else catches my eye here. Harrow says her eyes did not have such a startling transition, which helps confirm my theory that Harrow is suppressing or undid the Lyctor process.

Also using the power of Cringe, Harrow partially(?) undoes the paralysis spell done to her. “An emotion was playing out over her face that was- not unfamiliar to you- but nonsensical; you discarded it.” Eh? What emotion could this be referring to? Confusion over what Harrow did? Awe? Fear? All of the above?

OH okay before I forget, Harrow formed a bone hook inside of her to do that, and she made that bone sheath to hold on to the sword, so maybe her necromancy isn’t being suppressed? Well, maybe. That feels more... internal? Like she hasn’t grown any full ass skeletons from bone dust yet.

...Why is Harrow afraid of telling Mercymorn her actual age? Why is the Body telling her to lie? Why fifteen??

Relief? That’s what flashed across Mercymorn’s face? Oh, duh, because Harrow did that and didn’t immediately die. Duh. Also she straight up said “hiss”? That is weird. Also, thinking back, it is weird there wasn’t an age requirement in the Lyctor trials. Also Mercymorn took Ianthe too???

“You’re not as pretty as Anastasia.” Anastasia being the member of the Ninth House listed with the Lyctors, but not as one of the Saints. Doing this liveread has its advantages, namely that I can remember shit that happened earlier! 

OH WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT. “AS Anastasia,” not “As Anastasia was.” Implying Anastasia’s still alive? Matches her name not being struck through in the Dramatis Personae, and Mercymorn said there were 3 OG Lyctors now. Which matches with Anastasia not having that line about being a Saint! I’ve connected the two dots!

Okay there’s a lot going on here. Why is this normal necromancer so fascinating to Ianthe and Harrow? What she’s doing is pretty dope to be fair. Mercymorn called Ianthe 12... which... huh. More on that in a second. First, I need to google what the fuck an animaphiliac is... probably in an incognito window. Oh, okay, it’s just a style of necromancy in this universe okay thank God. Mercymorn also said Ianthe wasn’t as attractive as Cyrus... which is weird... And it reminds Ianthe of being with Mummy... I assume she means her mother, comparing her to Coronabeth? Oof.

So, back to the lowballing age thing. Mercymorn assumes Ianthe is 12, probably  because she’s super old and has forgotten how mortals age. Harrow seems to have subconsciously picked up on this, which is why she lied about her age. I’m still in the camp of the Body being non-supernatural in origin. Yes, she has Gideon’s eyes, BUT, she spoke in the voice of Harrow’s mother and Aiglamene. SO, my theory is that the Body is a product of the trauma Harrow’s gone through, that’s kind of externalizing Harrow’s inner thought process. Like I said earlier, I’ve read Twig, and this is reminiscent of that.

OH hey we’re headed to the frontline apparently? Because 3 warships got shot down suddenly? Which begs the question I’ve had in the back of my mind since first picking up this series, who the fuck are they fighting??? Probably not Ressurection Beasts, given what we know about them. Other humans, probably? Dominicus (probably) isn’t Earth or humanity’s home planet. 

Okay, hold up. The Emperor is trying to get to the frontline now, Mercymorn wants him to return to “the Mithraeum”, which is presumably the capital of the Empire outside of the Dominicus system? Also, Emperor’s been on the ship for 80 years, and been away from the Mithraeum for 100... Once again, the math’s not adding up...

Okay, so God hugs Mercymorn, she freezes, he confirms that he is leaving, and that he knows exactly who shot down 3 warships???

Okay cool we’re not headed to the fronline, we’re headed to the Mithraeum, whatever the fuck that is.

Ohhh and the Cohort necromancer girl died, or committed suicide? And the Emperor brought her back? ...There’s a story there.

Ohhhh Mom and Dad are fighting.

OKAY ONCE AGAIN A LOT TO UNPACK HERE BUT THE MITHRAEUM CAN ONLY BE REACHED BY ONE MEANS???? AND IT MAY HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH BEING A LYCTOR???

...Hey. So. Here’s something. In the description of Mercy’s sword, it says it has a white knob at the end of, and I quote “-you didn’t know the exact technical word. It was a pommel though.” There’s a disconnect there, between Harrow’s knowledge, and the narrator’s knowledge. This has happened a few other times, like just a few pages ago, Harrow says a room is used for bodily functions, but the narrator jumps in and says no one in the universe would call it that, it’s a toilet. And this is going to sound kind of batshit, but like 6 years ago i was in to Undertale, and there was a popular theory that the narrator in that game was a separate character from the PC and... a lot of the points used in that theory kinda ring true here... even the use of second person narration...

So the narrator is a separate character from Harrow? Now, whether this narrator exists in-universe, or if this is a really cool stylistic choice, is another story. Right now I’m leaning towards... I don’t know. Well, hm. If the Body is a kind of externalization of Harrow’s inner thought process, maybe the narrator is an internalization? 

That makes no sense.

Something to keep in mind.

Anyway, the shuttle detaches. There’s a sort of irony, in God being tired of people martyring themselves for him, but giving a speech saying “hey if you die in my service I love you.”

OKAY I think we’re about to go faster than light using necromancy? This should be good. OH OKAY WE’RE TAKING A SHORTCUT THROUGH HELL. COOL.

...so what was their original method of faster than light travel that turned out to be unusable? did it have to do with neutrinos in italy?

okay I love Mercy and the Emperor’s dialogue here. Again, objectively, I’m sure they’re bad people who have committed several warcrimes... but the way they bicker is just hilarious.

I’m googling hyperpotamus, and i’m only getting other Harrow the Ninth livereads, so it appears to be a term made for the book. But I have a terrible feeling it’s a pun on hippopotamus.

There are so many quotes here that I absolutely love, including “said the Lord of the Nine Houses, who apparently existed within a complex power dynamic.”  and “The magma metaphor falls apart from here.” 

...Oh. Okay, serious time. Even at the very start, just post-Resurrection, two of the Lyctors fell to the Resurrection Beasts. Well, one died, and one was “removed from play.” Which sounds horrifying.

So we’re dipping into Hell because you can move fast there. Hell is full of angry ghosts. This explains the ghost ward. Lyctors have hacked the system, and so can kind of survive there. And we learn what happened to Cassiopeia, one of the deceased Lyctors. (Interestingly enough it says she baited physical portions of the Ressurection Beast. Not a beast. Nor is it given a number...)

ALright so entering the River physically sounds fucking horrifying. I’m very glad we only have to do it this once and it definitely won’t come back later in the book nope definitely not.

“and that you felt alone in your head.” ;_;

Chapter 7

Sixth House icon.

There’s not a lot to say here, besides how freaky this is. How much do you want to bet that the faint wail Harrow hears is coming from the coffin with Cyntherea’s body?

JOHN. GOD’S NAME IS JOHN?? #NAME LORE UNLOCKED. IM JUST SO HAPPY I FINALLY HAVE A WAY TO REFER TO HIM WITHOUT STRUGGLING TO SPELL EMPORER EVERY FUCKIN TIME.

Also, Mercymorn knowing his like actual human name further implies some stuff about the timeline of the Ressurection, which I was wondering about previously... but that’s a discussion for later because Harrow’s in Hell!

Not a lot to say here besides 

fuck.

A few things. One. I think they’re going to get out of this okay? And by okay I mean alive? We know Ianthe, the Emperor, and Harrow live up to the point of the Prologue, and I don’t think Mercymorn is going to die already. 

Two. Cassiopeia was from the Sixth House, going by her Cavalier’s last name, which explains the chapter icon.

Three. The lights? The last page or so is very metaphorical, but, at the beginning it says Harrow perceived herself as a “sickly radiance”, and that she perceived the others on the ship as a light as well. She later said she was an “ova cluster of two hundred pinpricks of light.” So I think in this deep part of the River Harrow accidentally sent herself to, souls (maybe?) are displayed as lights. Harrow’s own soul is literally made up of the hundreds of dead House Nine kids, which is. Spooky. But then, at the end, when they jump out of the River, they bring 5 lights with them. So... either something hitched a ride with them, or it has something to do with Harrow suppressing Gideon and the Lyctor ritual. Everyone else on the ship has undergone the Lyctor ritual (or something similar, in John’s case), and they only have 1 light each. At least to Harrow’s eyes. BRUH IDK WHAT”S GOING ON. 

Chapter 8

No further answers here, this is a flashback chapter! So, sheared skull = flashback. And this chapter is going to feature the Fourth House, apparently. Who was Fourth House again? Oh no it was the kids. Oh no. ;_;

So, we are continuing through Harrow’s re-imagination of the events of Canaan House, with her Ortus OC in tow.

Of course Harrow is overwhelmed by normal tea, and of course Harrow thinks dressing up skeletons is stupid. 

AND of course Harrow would have a private prayer wishing doom on anyone that looks at her with any kind of emotion.

Hold up, the Anastasian tomb? Reserved for warriors? And presumably derived from the word Anastasia, the mysterious not-Lyctor of the Ninth House?? 

I can already tell Anastasia is going to become my Pepe Silvia. 

Ohhh this is going to be a lore bomb about the timeline of the Ressurection and I’m going to need to pull out my copy of Gideon the Ninth to see if any of this shit actually happened. 

TEN? TEN NORMAL ASS HUMANS? AND FIVE NECROMANCERS?? BUT THERE WERE SEVEN LYCTORS. THE MATH DOES NOT CHECK OUT.

Okay so I checked and none of this shit actually happened! In fact, Teacher actually said there were 16, 8 necromancers, 8 cavaliers. Where the fuck is Harrow getting 10 from? Who knows! And rather than explicitly saying “hey check out the basement labs to see how to become a Lyctor,” Teacher actually said fuck if I know. Not actually. But still.

Oh of course it’s called the Sleeper!! I had Kill Bill sirens playing in my head when I first read that. 

So,  had a whole ass monologue here, but this is already very long and im sleepy, so to very quickly summarize, the Parahumans series had an entity known as the Sleeper that was intentionally very mysterious and raised a lot of questions amongst fans, and the fact that there’s another entity here known as the Sleeper is flooding me.

So, I’m spooked. Again, this entire conversation did not actually happen. Teacher’s dialogue is precious. “go where I durst not go: because I love my life, and I love noise, also.” and “I do not know the answers to any of these questions, only that, already, you are being too loud.”

So, the rest of the chapter plays out with Ortus complaining to Harrow. Intriguingly, he says that Harrow doesn’t have much of an imagination, when she says there was no one else to choose as her Cavalier... And then one of the skeletons says, “Is this how it happens?” harkening back to Parodos, when the Body says something similar. There’s a lot to unpack here. One, like I said previously, because Ortus, and apparently the entirety of Canaan House, is a product of Harrow’s mind, they can maybe give some insight into Harrow herself. However, the fact that Ortus seems to break character and chastise her for her lack of imagination is... I don’t know.

Okay, theory time. “The Work” alluded to in the letters is not only the suppression of Lyctor-hood, it’s also the erasure of Gideon, and the creation of these false memories. Meaning Lyctor!Harrow somehow crafted them; there was conscious effort behind it. Which means we can totally pick these scenes apart to gain further insight into Harrow! The skeleton and the Body asking if this is what happened, and Ortus breaking character (maybe) are her subconscious breaking through... Maybe that ties into my idea of the narrator being an internalization or compartmentalization of Harrow’s trauma? Hmm...

Chapter 9

Seventh House skull, and not a flashback. I’m guessing this is because we’re going to inter Cyntherea’s body here.

Okay, so time seems to have passed. IDK how much of the River Harrow remembers here. It seems like she recalls it like a bad dream. Ianthe’s here, and they’re in a chapel made of bone. Or at least one absolutely covered in bone. 

Here’s a question. The necromancy Harrow excels at, that’s creating a whole ass skeleton from a single bit of bone. Is she actually creating a new skeleton? Or is she reforming one. Like if she had two teeth from the same skeleton, could she use that to make two new skeletons? In the last chapter the Ressurection was described as not creating anything new... does that apply to all of necromancy, or just what the Emperor did?

Also another side note, Harrow says the stars glow with an unearthly light, which matches what the Emperor said, that they restarted the stars near the Mithraeum with thanergy, so they’re weird now. Except... wasn’t Dominicus restarted the same way? Or is the Dominicus system a hybrid of thanergy and thalergy? I’m getting my energies mixed up.

Anyway yep it’s Cyntherea’s funeral, and Harrow is checking the fuck out.

Okay we have a new Lyctor... and I’m guessing it’s Augustine, since he and Mercymorn are fighting.  

Okay and John’s giving a speech and giving more lore about the pre-Ressurrection and it’s confirmed that this guy is Augustine and-

First gen? Second gen? Sixth installation?? Valancy? ANASTASIA?

bruh im so flooded and this is supposed to be such a reverent moment.

Ohhh this is awkward now that they’re pulling Ianthe and Harrow forward. Okay we get a formal introduction to Mercymorn and Augustine. Augustine trails off before the third... and asks if he, the third surviving Lyctor, knows about the missile strikes...Is the third Lyctor the one leading the people who shot down the warships, which is sounding increasingly like a rebellion rather than a battle against others? Who’s the third again ah fuck it’s ORTUS.

ORTUS is apparently interested in “you-know-what”. Which I don’t know what. Please elaborate. 

ORTUS is here and he’s skeletal. OH AND SO IS RESSURECTION BEAST NUMBER SEVEN.

FUCK.

(bruh what the fuck is a pseudo-Beast)

Okay yep time to fight an eldritch god.

Speaking of which, God’s name is John confirmed.

And Harrow bled from the ear and fell unconscious, hearing the name ORTUS.

Chapter 10

Pog we’re almost done with part 1. Fifth skull, sheared, so it’s flashback time. 

I don’t recognize immediately where we are; apparently this is in the library in Canaan House? Though I don’t remember one from Gideon the Ninth. We see a bit of personality from Ortus, when he complains about Fifth House poetry, which is nice. 

Oh, wait, never mind, that was Magnus speaking. Ortus remains as boring as ever.

Hehehehe dick jokes.

Hey so no fake vow of silence in the false memories of Canaan House! That’s interesting. As is Magnus and Abagail being here, and them being pretty fleshed out characters. As are these cooking instructions from the Lyctors...

HOOOOOOOLD the phone here. The cooking notes mention an M and Nigella... which was the first name of Cassiopeia’s cavalier... How would Harrow know that? The easy explanation is that this is a note that Harrow actually found, and is placing here in her fake memories... The other explanation is that something funky is afoot...

Ooohkay Magnus is asking if this is how it happens now. The simulation is breaking down. AND ABAGAIL CAN TELL THAT HARROW IS A LIVING WAR CRIME. PANIC.

Okay now we’re getting Ortus emotion! He is a grown ass man Harrow. At least, he would be, were he not a figment of Harrow’s imagination.

HEEEEY

WHAT THE FUUUUCK

WE’RE CONTINUING ON THIS DYING EGGS THING

PROBABLY WILL BE RELEVANT LATER.

Okay and the simulation breaks down further when Ortus says “you did have a cavalier with a backbone, I’m not them.” Interestingly enough, it’s hours later Harrow realizes something’s weird... Huh...

Chapter 11

Seventh House skull.

Literally just a paragraph saying Harrow sleepwalked and stabbed Cyntherea’s body.

...She sleep walked... the Sleeper from the fake Canaan House...