#and this is while Pyrrha still thinks it's probably Gideon in there

[mayasaura]

ntn spoilers ahead

Question!

I appreciate that you champion Harrow's schizophrenia, and I had a thought that I'd like to run by you. It's intended with full respect for anyone with the disorder, and is also related to the neuro-bio-psych elements.

When Nona, Cam, and Crown are visiting the Captain, Nona hears Varun speak through the Captain. Afterward, she references the incident and realizes that neither Cam nor Crown had heard this happen. I was confused *how* Nona-lecto had that sort of experience, but...

If Nona-lecto is in Harrow's body, is it possible that she's experiencing schizophrenia symptoms? I'm not wanting to imply that it's a full hallucination, though perhaps since Harrow's 'meat' is schizophrenic meat, there are effects. Would mental health/illness be tied to the soul? Personality certainly seems to be, and some forms of memory.

Just rolling this around in my head a bit, and have no thoughts more advanced than this. Thank you for all your theorizing and writings about the books 💀 - heedee

I've been wondering how or if Harrow's schizophrenia effected Nona since the cover first dropped, and literally speaking, the way you're wondering about? I'm still not really sure. Brain stuff is complicated, even before souls are part of the equation, and everything about Nona is already so goddamn weird. I do think Nona is thematically schizophrenic, the same way she's thematically intellectually disabled.

Like the scene you're talking about here:

I think you're absolutely onto something, seeing this as related to psychosis. Reading this scene with that framing in mind, Nona's experience is so clearly about hallucinations. She was just trying to change the subject, and fuck. Turns out no one else heard that! Camilla and Crown's reactions, too.

But to your point about neurobiology, and the relationship between soul and body, it doesn't really tell us much. Nona wasn't hallucinating, because it turned out Judith wasn't just screaming. Varun was speaking to Nona through Judith in the language of a murdered planet, a language that sounds like screaming to human ears. Like Nona's uncanny knack for human languages, that's a product of her soul, not her brain.

We get proof of that later when Nona is pretending to be Harrow, and faking being effected by the blue light. She imitates the way Judith screamed, makes her mouth make the same shapes Judith's did, and her words come out in italics; just like Judith's words that Camilla and Crown heard as screams. She calls for help, in the screaming language she'd heard from Judith, with Judith in the room to hear her, and Varun answers by attacking the planet.

To your question about whether schizophrenia would be connected to the soul or to the body in setting, I don't think there's a dichotomy there. Body and soul aren't separate things, even when they're separated.

Lyctorhood, for example. You'd think muscle memory would be a clear cut case of living in the body. It's muscles. But when Ianthe chowed down on Naberius' soul, she got his reflexes with it. His swordsmanship, his stance, his training. The soul brought the body with it. And when Harrow literally cut Gideon out of her brain, it removed Gideon from her memory even when her soul was elsewhere. She spent half that book in the River, but didn't remember Gideon until her skull construct failed and her brain began to heal. So I would say that, just like memory, it's both. Harrow's schizophrenia is tied to both her soul and body, and there's not really much point in trying to separate the two.

[cutetanuki-chan]

rereading Nona and not sure if Corona meant it about the broadcast or not

but this got me thinking about Pyrrha seeing Kiriona before Cam and Nona came, while she was still pretending to be just a corpse

probably didn't happen but👏give👏Gideon👏a👏mom👏

[liesmyth]

I'm always thinking about how G— was an engineer. A damn good one: the sole engineer of the cryo project, good enough that of all the ten billion, the FTL project chose him to inspect their work, back when the project was still a pipe dream. He was a man from an immigrant family in an underprivileged area who became arguably the world's best engineer, which is impressive in its own right, but it gets me thinking... Pre-Resurrection, John says they can't grow food on Mars (and for all John's unreliability, that's pretty believable, given that the high perchlorate concentration in Martian soil is one of the big obstacles to carrying out a sustained Mars mission), and as silly as this might sound, the engineer and scientist divide is real, and of all the nerds that John resurrected, I can't imagine it was the artist or the contract lawyer or the medical and chemistry experts that made the Mars installation viable. Gideon made a House out of it, and one that accepts recruits from across the Dominican system! "Saint of Duty" is said to fit him, evident in his loyalty and commitment to the Cohort and fighting the Resurrection Beasts, but I have to wonder, how much of that was his commitment to making shit work? I can't shake the image of a couple million people awaking to a ruined world, and someone had to get the other Houses settled, figure out spacecraft and space habitats using what little supplies they have left, and what better candidate for that than the man who canonically engineered spacecraft twice?

ANON I love this so much. You're SO right, and you put into words something about G1deon and John's shared background that I've tried to articulate for a while. In the very first chapter, John says, "It wasn’t that they didn’t have the money for a bigger team; we were simply the only ones capable of what they were asking."

This was an incredibly elite team. They were a brilliant bunch of hyperspecialised nerds. And, like, among John's squad, A- and M- and everyone else started out as colleagues — very smart people he probably met in academic circles, where being smart was kind of a prerequisite. It was their research that brought them together to begin with.

G1deon, though! He was John's friend growing up. John knew his grandparents. They spotted each other spare changes for snacks!! Then John went on to Dilworth, then to university and then overseas, and G1deon had his own (probably different) academic path, and maybe they only stayed vaguely in touch, but when it was time to look for an engineer that could help them build spaceships constructed to provide life support to the whole of humanity for centuries — and G1deon was the guy for that.

The fact that two boys from similar underprivileged backgrounds individually made huge breakthroughs in their chosen fields, and got to work together on a project that was meant to save the world... I bet at the time it felt like a miraculous coincidence. I think they thought, if they'd made it that far, that they could do anything.

(yet another layer to the tragedy of what happened etc etc. G1deon torn between John and P—. John stopping G1deon's heart)

Thank you so much for all your thoughts about the Mars space installation, also — I wonder how long there was between Mars becoming the Second House (founded by G1deon! he and Pyrrha did the bulk of the work!) and the institution of the Third House, which doesn't have a named founder and might very well have been a shared project built on the blueprint of what G1deon set up. "the man who canonically engineered spacecraft twice" — my god I love this so much. It's G1deon emo hours today

[abigail-pent]

Thoughts on rereading NTN for the (idk probably 4th or 5th) time:

- John and Pal each have specific, one-on-one "nobody has the right" conversations with the perspective character. but John's version of "nobody has the right" ends with "to judge you for mass murder" and Pal's ends with "to tell you who to love"

- it's interesting that Pal says Pyrrha was "made to be immune to the blue light" because like... how *did* the Lyctors figure out that their cavs would protect their bodies and were immune to the RBs? maybe Pyrrha said something about this to Pal at some point? idk

- I feel like I somehow missed, before, that Cam and Pal showed the Oversight Body "the secret of the installation" and got the whole Sixth House to move via stele to Ur? Not just the Oversight Body, but the whole House!

- I think Nona is alternately dreaming herself into the pool scene as Harrow (day one) and dreaming herself as Alecto in the Tomb with Anastasia (day two). In the day two dream, she's ravenously hungry, there are red eyes all around (sort of like the glow worms in the Tomb), and she can't tell the difference between her hands and the other person's hands. The only reason I think she dreamed as Harrow the first time is because she said she saw the "picture face" - which is Gideon's face.

- I will never stop being fascinated by Pyrrha's description of how her trial was developed. The only people who practiced "overlapping" (winnowing/transference) in the trial were her and Gideon, and Mercy and Cris, because every time they did it they would need to replace the cavalier's brain fluid.

- I might never be okay again after reading "I don't let go. It's my one thing."

- Corona saying that she'll give Gideon's rapier back if she asks, but otherwise "finders keepers"... hmmm.... ominous

- "the Second House installation" was abandoned 3 months prior to the beginning of NTN

- Crown says her hair is naturally big and manageable

- it's really hitting me this time how happy Camilla is to be with Palamedes, to be Paul, even if it means no longer being herself. she says it to Pyrrha after she's shot and was together in her head with Palamedes for a little while - "it was good. we were happy." Crown says she knows Palamedes is sharing Camilla's body because Camilla is happy. she's a casualty of devotion. it's giving "for I cannot be mine own, nor any thing to any, if I be not thine."

- "you and I don't even own our own souls" 👀👀 (not the first time this has jumped out to me, it's just so portentous!)

- interesting that Nona appears to mispronounce Born in the Morning's name to Hot Sauce, but then when Hot Sauce says it back to her she still hears it as "Born in the Morning."

- I'm not sure I really clocked it before but Hot Sauce is so vehemently anti-BoE ("traitors! fat cats! zombie lovers!") while at the same time being so devoted to Aim. She says that one of Born in the Morning's fathers is active in the group that runs the park cages, and distinguishes that pretty clearly from Blood of Eden. So even though We Suffer says that BoE is a "house with many rooms," the faction running the park cages (which I thought was Unjust Hope and Merv Wing, but maybe not) considers itself outside the house entirely. But even so, they remain loyal to Aim. Or it sort of looks like that, anyway, but then later Hot Sauce refers to Aim as "the asset" who "doesn't have to trust you" - so Hot Sauce thinks she's cultivating Aim as an asset, either for Unjust Hope or for someone totally outside of BoE. But then again, when Nona goes to the generator room where Hot Sauce is locked in, Hot Sauce basically says she didn't realize that Aim had a bodyguard; so I think she's trying to cultivate Aim as an asset for some entity totally outside BoE, without understanding who Aim is or why they are so important to BoE.

- Locked Tomb universe You're Wrong About episode idea: the so-called "cow wall" was not just cows, it was sheep too! but we all memory-holed the sheep! do sheep have best friends? do sheep exhibit mourning behavior for other sheep??

- the person who told Nona "once you've stepped in, you're in. this isn't the hokey pokey" is almost certainly John. it just really sounds like John when he's talking to Harrow in either HTN or the NTN dream sequences.

- Alecto wonders why "anything that hurt them only ever hurt briefly, but anger took such a long time to go away."

- John says it will take him ten thousand years to figure out the math the billionaires used for the FTL. Hmmmmmmm

- Pash's eyes are a "lovely hazelly yellowy-green color". Does that confirm that Wake carries the recessive lipochrome gene? Like I know Gideon's eyes couldn't be that way without it, but Wake either had the gene when she was born or she mutated to have it somehow. I think Pash's eyes suggest the former.

- Nona is dying because Alecto's soul is foreign to Harrow.

- Cam says Corona can't lie to Ianthe. Can't, not won't.

- in the Nine Houses, "fuck marry kill" becomes "marry kill reanimate"!!!!

- First Wake and then We Suffer are both desperate to break into the Locked Tomb. I'm not totally sure why, though. We understand from HTN that Wake is sent by Mercy and Augustine to try to break the Tomb open, but this is long before anybody knows what Alecto is to John. I suppose it's common knowledge in the Houses that the Tomb houses the "death of the emperor", and BoE would know that from all the Lyctors that defect to them over the millennia, so maybe that's it? They want to break in because they know it will make John vulnerable in some sense, but they don't know exactly how, and they don't really have a plan for what comes after?

- Corona telling Pyrrha she doesn't trust her or her motives, because she hasn't thought about her family in the last thousand years... meanwhile Cam and Pal and Nona are her family now... oof ow ouch

- Corona: "Nobody should ever trust me" I'M SORRY???

- Pal says Varun is transmitting something through the light spectrum and that "absorption through the eyes is worst for the brain" and it makes Nona think of something, but we never learn what. It seems to me that whatever it is, is related to the Lyctoral eye swap; but obviously I can't confirm.

- NOT NONA THINKING OF HOT SAUCE WHEN SHE'S TRYING TO WALK LIKE HARROWHARK!!! 😭😭😭

- I hate to admit it but Cassy is dead; but didn't she give instructions to the Sixth House 6000 years ago? What does that do to the timeline of the early Lyctors?

- Nona's scream in the barracks only affected people with necromantic bodies...

- Kiriona carries a rapier (the one John tried to give Harrow?) and an offhand with rivets

- Varun says that Alecto asked for help and he came. So maybe that's it - the RBs aren't chasing John for his own sake, or because he killed them or ate Alecto; they are chasing because Alecto asked for their help to stop him.

- I kind of think John saying he has plans for G--'s arm is a thing from immediately post-Resurrection. Like - except for G--, he has the body of every other member of his inner circle at what becomes the Canaan House facility after the Resurrection. He even has the body of "M--'s nun," although it looks like a pile of wet brown clothes and has not come through the water well. I think he needs their bodies to resurrect them; for G--, he starts with the copy arm and builds him a new body, and that's why it looks so fucked up and Protesilaus-like by the time of HTN.

- I really think John saying "God must be able to touch all of creation" is his real, full motive. The actual trillionaires themselves are long dead. Augustine is right, no one else has to be punished for what happened to humanity. John says he can't forget, but what he can't forget is that his dominion is not absolute. There are places and people that his power cannot touch. That's the real crime. The whole of everywhere isn't submitting to him, and that's what the punishment is for.

- Why doesn't the River want to touch the truck? The River has touched many RBs before, so it's not just that Varun and Alecto are on board.

- "You left them too long, my salt thing" feels like confirmation, to me, that the Tower is filled with the souls of the ten billion - whoever John didn't resurrect, or kept in reserve. We already know that souls in the River are supposed to go mad after a few months; Abigail and Palamedes are each shocked to find how long they've been bubbled in there. Imagine being a soul left in the River for ten thousand years! And then John resurrects some people - so, perhaps bringing their souls back from storage in the Tower, which may be a bubble of his making ("where did all the people go?" Alecto asked, "where have you put them?") - and he sends them to the Ninth, where the tongue things appear very shortly afterwards. I don't think that's a coincidence!

- Nona says she's seen "gray things" before once, and didn't feel up to seeing them again. That has to be from her time as Alecto.

- the chain of a kiss (between Alecto and Anastasia)! the favor of the chain (owed to Ianthe by Harrow)! is this anything????

- there are many, many thesis statements for the Locked Tomb set out in NTN. but I think a really underrated moment is when Gideon yells at Crux: "did you know I was God's child?" like - all the abuse he threw at her would not have been acceptable to throw at a child of God; but aren't we all children of God. it's sort of trite as a statement, but I adore how when Muir gives Gideon this line, it doesn't feel trite at all.

- Alecto finds the River "yet dead." Ten points to Abigail Pent!

[nonas-third-tantrum]

I’m trying to figure out when exactly Pyrrha realized that Nona was Alecto. I had been thinking that it was after Kiriona woke up, because at that point Pyrrha would have understood that Nona’s eyes came from Alecto, not Gideon, but I think it may have actually been a bit earlier…

After the fight between Ianthe and Cam, when Pyrrha and Nona go off to find the corpse, Nona tells Pyrrha that she’s dying, and Pyrrha says, “‘Course you are…the soul longs for the body, Nona. Even a fucked up soul…even a soul that’s been changed forever. It takes a lot to acclimate a soul to a body it wasn’t born in, if that original body’s around for it to miss.”

Now, she could still be talking about Gideon. BUT something about the way she phrases this, with the “fucked up soul that’s been changed forever” …feel free to disagree but to me that sounds a heck of a lot like Alecto. I think it’s possible that Pyrrha has even worked out Alecto’s true nature, so when she refers to the ‘original body’ she could be talking about the planet earth itself.

Pyrrha goes on to say, “Kiddie, when you were yelling…” but she trails off and doesn’t get to finish her sentence. We know that Nona “screamed like the captain had screamed.” We also know that when the captain screams, Nona hears her speaking in varun’s voice, and it’s interesting that Pyrrha describes it as yelling, not screaming, which to mean indicates that Nona may have said something. Something that alerts Pyrrha to the fact that Nona is not who they’ve all been thinking she is.

Yes - Pyrrha does say within the next couple of pages that Gideon’s body “might be you, kiddie.” But I don’t think that necessarily means she doesn’t at least suspect that Nona is someone else. I know the rest of that scene heavily implies that Pyrrha still thinks Nona is Gideon…but I’m suspicious. I think what she wants to believe and what she knows to be true might not match up.

This post is getting away from me but I just have to add that after the roof incident, both Nona and Pyrrha know who she is, and Nona is desperate to keep herself in the dark. Pyrrha starts to call Nona “A…” but Nona stops her and begs her not to make her remember. And then Nona slips into her Alecto self, and mocks Pyrrha for playing house with her (hello, more doll references), and that must absolutely break Pyrrha’s heart, but she lets it go.

So when Pyrrha finally says her “what’s like except a love that hasn’t been invited indoors?” speech, she’s reckoning with her feelings towards both Nona and Alecto, has probably been wrestling with those feelings for a while, and it’s just. So devastating. Pyrrha loved Nona. Nona loved and was loved by Palamedes, Camilla, and Pyrrha.

But Alecto? Nona is terrified that when she realizes who she is, she won’t love anything. We know that John loved Alecto, and I think we can infer that Anastasia did too, and Alecto loved them back. But then Pyrrha tells us that she and Gideon liked Alecto, and for some reason that feels even more significant to me—maybe because there are all kinds of twisted love in these books and to like someone, while less intense, is more…mundane. There aren’t a lot of instances in these books where people just like each other, plain and simple. And I think that the love everyone has for Nona is a lot less complicated than the other types of love we’re shown. Truly a like that’s been invited indoors.

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

Lyctorhood

Worldbuilding/Lore

<< Previous: Necromancy | Masterpost

-

You become a Lyctor by utilising the "Eightfold Word" and absorbing the soul of your cavalier. At least, that's what all the current and hopeful Lyctors thought before the revealing chapter at the end of Harrow the Ninth. There appears to be a way that you can gain Lyctoral power without killing cav or necro. Though so far, only John did this with Alecto, who is a special case. Anastasia almost managed, according to John, who admits to killing her cavalier. John is probably lying about some or all of this - maybe Anastasia got too close to doing it right, and he couldn't risk all his secrets being unveiled, so he killed Samael in order to save face. Maybe if he'd let Samael live, they would have attained perfect Lyctorhood.

I'm reasonably certain that you can also attain Lyctorhood by fusing souls in the body of the cavalier. A current example of this is Gideon the First, and Pyrrha, who mentioned Gideon "took more", and he is described as unusually buff for a necromancer. Could it be that they attained Lyctorhood "in reverse", using Pyrrha's body? Or is their body an unholy fusion of the two bodies? It's not made entirely clear - Pyrrha refers to it as "his body", which leans towards the second option, but her eyes are described as suiting the face more, which favours the first.

It's said that the cavalier part of the Lyctors have no sense of self, only fighting muscle memory. I highly doubt that this is even a little bit true. It's at least partially untrue - Pyrrha is an example, as is Gideon the Ninth. What about Naberius, then? Alfred and Cristabel? What about Alecto?

(Alecto is a special case, again, we'll get to her.)

I'm fully not ruling out the possibility that the cavs are all still in there, and while the necro parts are dipping into the river to hunt revenants and make wards against Resurrection Beasts, the cavaliers in the bodies could easily be plotting. The cavaliers could all be on Eden's side, for all we know - we don't know where Pyrrha's allegiance lies. And we Know that all Lyctors have had dealings with them at some point. (I'm still very much expecting that to include Ianthe and Harrow, btw.)

I think all those times when the souls of the necromancers were in the River, the cavaliers were busy plotting with each other in their necromancers bodies.

All that aside - in what we see as "normal" Lyctorhood, the only visible part of the cavalier inside the necromancer's body are the eyes. This leads me to believe that Lyctorhood isn't just a fusing of souls, but a fusing of brains.

Anatomically, the eyes are a part of the brain. We've seen people with golden yellow and with lilac eyes, unusual colours for eyes to be. Could be a result of genetic altering? But in Lyctors, the eyes change, and in Ianthe's case, keep fluidly changing - in Harrow and Gideon's case, and evidently in Gideon and Pyrrha's, the eyes are an indicator of which soul is "present", awake.

Narratively, souls and brains are inherently linked. Brains and minds are basically interchangeable. In order to kill something - a planet; a revenant - you have to kill its body, and you have to destroy the brain in the river. You can go into the River as a mind only, or take your body with you. Oh, speaking of...

>> Next: The River

[paradoxcase]

Chapter 26 of Nona the Ninth

A fourth skull, so another skull that corresponds to zero characters in this book that I know of. Aim/The Angel/The Messenger also isn't in this one, it's just the kids

Dark and blueless night - heh

Good on Palamedes

What is their plan, here? Camilla is going to have some conversation with Gideon/Kiriona while hopped up on a ton of pain meds? If they planned this out earlier, Nona didn't report it. And I see Pyrrha trying to get in a probably-family-related conversation with her there. Actually, I think everyone else other than Judith probably has more to talk about with Kiriona than Camilla does

At this description, I was like, oh, yeah, the Convoy was definitely 100% some BOE shit, wasn't it? Also, more of Pash's weird fear of Gideon/Kiriona's body

I really hope Judith makes it out of this book alive at this point

I'm sorry, Corona, Linkin Park has permanently ruined that line for me

So that is stuff that Honesty said when telling his story about the Convoy, and in that scene he was eating Nona's fruit, which was described as

but Nona gave away all of her fruit, just like she always does, she didn't eat any of it. Maybe she's eaten that kind of fruit before and knows what it tastes like, she seems to know how to eat it, anyway - but why would she associate the memory of tasting this fruit with this story when she didn't actually eat that fruit here? Like it sounds like she was somehow experiencing Honesty's tasting of the fruit in this scene. Maybe additional evidence of some telepathy thing?

You know, I think this ship could be a lot of fun, actually

I don't know if this means that Alecto's like, OG resurrection beast form is going to turn out to be some kind of cosmic spider, or if Nona is just missing normally being a lot taller than Harrow is, which seems likely if the body that John made for Alecto was approximately average

I need more scenes of Pash interacting with these two

Honestly, my first reaction to this was "earlier this week? That was like a month ago, wasn't it?" But no, this really is still just day five from when this book began, the whole thing has happened in less than a week, it just was like a month ago when I read that part. God damn

Does Nona know about something that could be termed "double death" at this point? I don't think she knows anyone or anything who's died twice, has she? There are some people who died once and came back (although, I'm not sure if she actually knows that Palamedes and Pyrrha died), and there's Naberius's corpse that's been wandering around lately, but I don't think she's seen anyone die twice yet, unless you count herself getting headshotted twice, but that "double death" was not final

So this is not some weird translation that Nona did, her name actually means "hot sauce" in the language that she speaks natively

I think this is probably the end of Hot Sauce and Honesty in this book. We've tied up the story behind Hot Sauce's name, the Convoy story, the map from the classroom, and Hot Sauce telling Nona she was out of the gang, so I don't think there are any remaining plot threads to resolve with them. I wasn't real invested in these characters originally, but I think I'll miss them now. I wonder what Hot Sauce would think if she ever found out that Nona wasn't just a "zombie" but actually like Varun the Eater's sister? Would she be out of the gang again?

[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

[treeofnonsense]

❤️ Wake/Pyrrha

I think I may have flipped the prompt from what you'd first think of.

Pyrrha’s body felt wrong – well of course it did, it wasn’t her body at all. You’d think you’d get used to that after a couple thousand years, but nope, just her fucking luck. Her eyeline was still too high, her arms too long and muscly, and she kept bumping her boots into corners if she didn’t pay attention. And rubbing her chin – Gideon’s chin – because apparently that oaf hadn’t even bothered to shave again. Fine, she’d do it for him after. He was lucky she didn’t slit his throat while she did it.

It wasn’t a long walk to the center of the Mithraeum, and she knew she’d come to the right place when she found flower petals under her feet. Cytherea’s body lay on a pedestal with her arms crossed over her chest, serene as could be. John must have patched her up, and then he’d decorated the room with the whole funeral shebang: flowers, softly burning candles, the works. Cyth probably would have loved it – she’d always been the drama queen. Pyrrha thought it looked fucking stupid, especially now that half the candles had melted into little ugly lumps.

God, I hope they didn’t hold a memorial like this for me. It had taken her a few months to manifest the first time, so she’d never really gotten to check.

Carefully, she maneuvered Gideon’s big body through the petals and coils of smoke, until she loomed over Cytherea’s tiny form. Ever-so-carefully, because Gideon had big meaty paws and Cytherea’s bones looked like glass, she cupped her old friend’s dead face in one hand. “You deserved better than this,” was all she could think to say; it was the only farewell she’d ever managed for a Lyctor. She bent down and gently kissed the body on the lips.

The corpse opened its eyes. One bony hand snaked out and seized Pyrrha by the collar, the grip like iron. Pyrrha froze and instinctively went for her spear, but of course she didn’t have it because Gideon liked to walk around the Mithraeum unarmed when he couldn’t sleep, protected by his magic. Pyrrha didn’t have that luxury, so she stared down into dead, milk-white eyes, the natural color so decayed that she couldn’t tell the soul within. But it wasn’t Cytherea, that was for damn sure. Cytherea could never look so fierce as that.

“I know it’s you, Pyrrha,” the corpse said, with a voice raw and burbling from disuse. She smiled, and Pyrrha’s blood ran cold. She knew that smile, even on different lips in a different face, though she’d never expected to see it again.

“Wake.”

“Yes. This is so much more comfortable than a sword.”

Pyrrha’s shoulders felt heavy with the number of questions she was carrying. She decided on the most pressing first. “How are you here? What are you doing here?”

“I’m finishing my mission.” And just like that the smile was gone. All that was left was the intense look, the burn-the-world-to-ash look. It was dangerous and a million times more attractive, which was what had gotten them all into this situation to begin with, dammit.

“You mean your daughter. Harrow's eyes…”

“Blood is nothing compared to a cause,” Wake said, which was both ironic given her organization and quite possibly the truest thing she’d ever uttered. Pyrrha knew she’d do anything to open the Tomb, and Wake knew she knew it, so she said, “Are you going to try and stop me?”

Pyrrha could, probably. If she got in a sneak attack while Wake was pretending to take a dead nap, or maybe just bodied her now. Wake didn’t have necromancy, but she was in a fragile little necromancer’s body. Granted it would be a risk, and it would mean hell for Gideon once the rest of the Lyctors found out, and who knew what splash damage could be done to the station or even the new kid Lyctors… damn. Damn it all.

“No. Not yet,” Pyrrha sighed. Wake smiled, released Pyrrha, and laid herself back down on the pedestal. “How did you know it was me and not him?”

Wake snorted. “I’ve always known. You kiss different. Fuck different too. Honestly, a lot better some nights.”

“A thousand years of practice does wonders,” Pyrrha said, because it was just instinct at this point. Wake didn’t respond; Pyrrha studied the body laid out before her and felt a pang in her chest. She realized she missed the red hair. “Don’t you touch those kids, Wake. They didn’t ask for this.”

“None of us asked for your necromantic subjugation,” Wake hissed. “If you’re not going to kill me or tell the world the truth, then kindly step off. I have some pretending to do, and I’ve gained a lot of patience over the last two decades.”

Pyrrha left, crunching rose petals into dust under her heels. She needed a smoke, and so she was going to have one, even if Gideon’s lungs paid for it. He deserved it really. Hadn’t anyone ever told them not to fall in love with crazy?

[empty-pizza]

thoughts on nona the ninth chapters twenty-four and twenty-five

PALAMEDES FUCKING TOOK THE BODY

HOLY SHIT

HE DID IT

HE COMPLETED THE NERD TO JOCK TRANSITION

we might be able to find gideon's body soon. can't wait to find out that none of this works as we expected.

maybe if ianthe read more novels about plucky youths with the power of logic she would have beaten palamedes in the mental battle

so pyrrha suspected nona was dying. honestly i've really enjoyed the way that nona is just, a kind of being that engages with life differently. aware of her own mortality in a way most humans aren't, yet enjoying every moment she can and always curious about the next moment.

damn we really might be about to find the body. key to a door, last thing left of wake, and possibly nona.

lol the blood wards are so weak they could only even kill one of nona's hands

hey it's her

got that potentially selfcest kiss in

kinda anticlimactic

is what i said until i finished the chapter what the FUCK gideon is here what the FUCK bingus bongus zinkus zonkus idk where this is going now, so maybe Nona really is just Harrow's mind in a weird state, or maybe she's Something Else, who fucking knows

let's read the next one

this is

gideon with more confidence than usual, i think, maybe, i dunno, it's been a while. i guess she kinda wasn't allowed to be outgoing during most of book 1 but idk. it's still a weird level of confidence for the situation. or not. idk.

so john just

brought gideon back

and this entire time she's just been hanging around as the daughter of big g

this makes me kind of mad, because i think how gideon and john would react to each other is super interesting and i wish we got a book that showed us more of that

but she goes by kiriona gaia now

and she's dead

but like, what

this isn't right

this is not right

the real gideon would care way more about finding harrow again

but what if she does, and this situation is just so fucking weird and i'm missing the contxt

what happened to her

she calls nona a fake nonagesimus

i'm gonna be honest, i like nona more than i like gideon and harrow, so if i have to say goodbye or fuck you to either of the OGs, i'm willing to if it means staying on team nona

gideon would not be this mean to someone as innocent as nona!!! don't tell nona to shut up!

what's going on in the river right now

kiriona wants to go to the ninth?

As emotionally frustrating as this is, I think this is probably the most interesting way to answer the mystery of finding Gideon again. That we find her, but she's not who we wanted her to be anymore. And the question of who Nona is can be something more complicated than just, Gideon or Harrow. A simpler reveal would honestly just feel flat.

her motivation being just to kill the boredom could make sense, but like... she just doesn't feel right. Where's the Gideon that cared?

But did she really ever care about anything that wasn't hot girls, fighting, and Harrow?

Is this how she always looked from the outside?

I don't think so (she wouldn't have been so mean to Nona) but they're questions worth asking. And I believe Nona that Kiriona is lying.

Maybe it's not a real Gideon. Or is intentionally corrupted in some way by John. Maybe this is all part of a big plan to sabotage the attempt to get into the tomb. Give them who they think they need, but she'll betray them.

hmm. can't take her blood. could just be a general defensive measure. or could be a way to force BoE to need to take the woman with them personally.

Honestly though, if we were building to a "not the real gideon" twist, if it was purely a fake, then it would actually try to hide it. I think that, like it or not, this is who John made his daughter into. Dick move ngl.

Nona had never seen anyone so sad in her whole short life. It made her nearly afraid to die.

damn

man this was some shit

[iviarellereads]

Full TLT series to date thoughts on rereading Harrow the Ninth, chapters 5-10

A probably semi-regular weekly bonus to my reread blog, since sometimes you realize things on reread that just make you need to yell in a full spoiler space.

Mercy's naked relief that Harrow isn't in any way the product of Dios Apate, Major. That she doesn't have to deal with that mess. Little does she know yet who's tagging along behind Harrow's retinas.

I still don't really understand the Sarpedon fanatics in the fandom but y'all are out there doing your thing and I respect that and love that for you.

Alecto seeing John. Just, that's it, that's the whole statement. The hard angles of her Barbie face soften for him.

Harrow's unsureness in herself, thinking that John is only saying he thinks her incapable of surviving the River… but Ianthe is still fighting Babs too.

In chapter 7, when they're in the ship in the River, John says a word Harrow doesn't understand. Did he just cuss in te reo Maori? (EDIT) User typicalstormcloak in the replies raises a good point: it's "Kumbaya". Of course it is.

Here we are at last, chapter 8 and the description of Canaan House's origins, at least as far as the remaining multi-soul construct of Teacher will or can explain in the River bubble. The House came first, then the disciples at different times across centuries. But why does John's story in Nona conflict so much with this? I need Alecto so bad.

Given that Varun caught up to Nona… I wonder if it sped up because it felt Harrow in the River, felt Alecto with her. Felt its sibling traveling close, and felt a drive, a need, to find out why she was back.

And I don't get to brag about much in this read, but I can say that I put together that Harrow had done something to her brain and forgotten Gideon and replaced her memory with Ortus as soon as chapter 9 ended. I already had a strong suspicion so much earlier, when John names Gideon and Harrow hears Ortus and starts bleeding and losing control of her body. This just cemented that suspicion in my brain. I'm not always very good at guessing what's coming next, so I'm disproportionately proud of that one and I'm sure it will never happen again in this series. LOL

Seeing Ortus, Abigail, and Magnus talk around Harrow's delusion that the River bubble is real (since I suppose it IS real in a way, she's the one shaping it so), it's just so interesting. I can see exactly why I didn't guess this reveal on the first read.

That recipe is fascinating and I didn't recall it at all until literally just reading it to summarize. The only M we know in the original crew is Mercymorn… If it's her, then it's funny that it's abbreviated to just M, not Mercy, while Nigella is in full. It calls to mind John's (and Pyrrha's!) mentions of the dead names of his crew, though that would be M-.

Wake's missive to Mercy in chapter 10 is the W I L D E S T of rides. That's it, that's the whole observation.

[griseldagimpel]

Does Pyrrha Remember: Presenting the Evidence

Alright. There are some possible hints in The Locked Tomb that Pyrrha remembers her pre-Resurrection life. Here is the evidence for and against.

1. In Chapter 27 of Nona the Ninth, you get this when Pyrrha is talking about Resurrection Beast Number 27: 

“...You want Gideon the First, and Gideon the First is dead. He’s not coming back. Oh, God, Gideon,” said Pyrrha, suddenly, “Gideon...G— , you died for nothing.”

This could be Pyrrha repeating Gideon’s name and breaking off in the middle of it as she processes that his death is in vain, but it could also be her using his pre-Resurrection name.

2. Earlier, in Chapter 24 of Nona the Ninth, you get this exchange between Nona and Pyrrha:

“What if I don’t like me?” she said.

But Pyrrha didn’t seem to understand.

“Well, you’ll probably start visiting clubs and trying to hit on the dancers, and going from relationship to relationship not really being able to commit.”

Nona was severe.

“You talk too much, Pyrrha.”

This could either be Pyrrha reminiscing about her pre-Resurrection life, or it could mean that in the first hundred years of the Empire of the Nine Houses, clubs with dancers were reestablished as a thing, and Pyrrha had a series of failed relationships in between establishing the Second House and the Cohort.

Or I suppose it could mean that she did this while controlling Gideon the First’s body.

3. Earlier still, in Chapter 28 of Harrow the Ninth, we get this Letter from Wake:

I WILL REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME YOU KISSED ME—YOU APOLOGISED—YOU SAID, I AM SORRY, DESTROY ME AS I AM, BUT I WANT TO KISS YOU BEFORE I AM KILLED, AND I SAID TO YOU WHY, AND YOU SAID, BECAUSE I HAVE ONLY ONCE MET SOMEONE SO UTTERLY WILLING TO BURN FOR WHAT THEY BELIEVED IN, AND I LOVED HIM ON SIGHT, AND THE FIRST TIME I DIED I ASKED OF HIM WHAT I NOW ASK OF YOU

I KISSED YOU AND LATER I WOULD KISS HIM TOO BEFORE I UNDERSTOOD WHAT YOU WERE, AND ALL THREE OF US LIVED TO REGRET IT—BUT WHEN I AM IN HEAVEN I WILL REMEMBER YOUR MOUTH, AND WHEN YOU ROAST DOWN IN HELL I THINK YOU WILL REMEMBER MINE

Okay! This is Wake’s perspective. The “YOU” appears to be Pyrrha, and the “HIM” appears to be Gideon the First. And we would appear to possibly have evidence for both.

When Pyrrha talks about meeting Gideon the First for the first time, does she mean post-Resurrection? Or pre-Resurrection? Additionally, she mentions the first time she died and talks about asking Gideon the First to kiss her. That would presumably be when he became a Lyctor. However, that would actually be the second time Pyrrha died, since she died in the shoot out before the bomb went off.

Conclusion: I honestly think it could go either way. None of the evidence in favor is strongly conclusive, but Nona the Ninth was originally the first half of Alecto the Ninth. If Alecto the Ninth is going to have the reveal that Pyrrha remembers - since, after all, the memory wipe was done on her brain, but she’s a soul living in a different body now - this could be some deliberate foreshadowing.

[liesmyth]

Why do you think Pyrhha never tried to communicate with G1deon and let him know she was still in there? Seems kind of messed up to let him think for 10k years that he killed the person he cared the most about while she was still there the whole time

Congrats! This made me sad <3

I'm honestly not sure HOW much Pyrrha was able to communicate, or even how often she emerged. I tend to believe that she became more aware as time went on, but that especially early on it was a struggle for her to make conscious decisions, as opposed to just piloting G1deon's body while he was in the River or something. I can believe that it took a couple of millennia and that Pyrrha only really became able to take over G1deon for longer periods of time (hours as opposed to minutes or seconds) relatively before canon. Probably his mental condition deteriorating contributed to that, or maybe Pyrrha's presence was actually fucking with his brain. Maybe she feared it making it worse?

I also think that it was a real concern that if G1deon became more aware of her it would complete the integration, and that's why he didn't Think Too Much about it and why she was hesitant to make herself known, but yeah, at some point she would've realised it wasn't as big of an issue as she had feared.* Maybe by that point she had witnessed enough that she didn't trust G1deon would have their best interests in mind and go to John? I find this unlikely though because G1deon "had an affair with Wake for 2 years" would IMO have kept a secret from John if Pyrrha asked him to.

(Re: awareness of Pyrrha and integration. My pet headcanon is that actually the reason why Pyrrha "remained" was because she regained her pre-Res memories since John's mindwipe was tied to the brain and not the soul, and she became aware of an identity that was "broader" than just Pyrrha Dve. Sort of how Harrow removed her memories of Gideon to avoid consuming her soul; the fact that Pyrrha's soul and her sense of identity did NOT match G1deon's memories of her could be WHY she remained even if G1deon clearly remembered her)

Anyway YEAH I truly don't know! Even with all these limits, she could have found a way to leave a sign. But IMO there's a lot we don't know about Pyrrha, and it may come out if we move out of the very narrow frame of Nona's POV in AtN.

(I also wonder what made Pyrrha get SO invested in Wake when realistically they couldn't have interacted that often, and why Wake out of everyone G1deon came into contact with over the centuries? So MUCH to think about)

[githjanken]

The Fandom Ask! - The Locked Tomb

:3 oh yes

The first character I first fell in love with: gideon because i’m predictable and i love a jock of a butch. even better when she’s this fucking stupid and gay and sad.

The character I never expected to love as much as I do now: crown. listen i am firmly camp “crown was big and tall” and i love a fucked up fat strong tomboy femme. she’s so sparkly and charismatic and deeply fucked up, i love that about her. like babygirl you really will just latch on to any shred of affection and belonging huh?

The character everyone else loves that I don’t: ianthe, probably? i know lots of folks love her but i don’t see the hype. like yeah she’s a greasy rat of a woman but also she just doesn’t do it for me.

The character I love that everyone else hates: ??? i don’t think my faves are particularly hated? i also don’t feel like people really hate anyone, like the fact that all these assholes are fucked up is part of the appeal of tlt right?

The character I used to love but don’t any longer: i mean, i did really like “dulcinea” in gtn but… well. (i do still love dulcie)

The character I would totally smooch: pyrrha dve loml stone cold fox. also abigail because she’s very cool and also not a literal baby.

The character I’d want to be like: These People Are Not Exactly Aspirational, but if i gotta… pyrrha and magnus. pyrrha cause sexy dyke vibes and magnus cause look at him. he’s just an admin guy who loves his wife and happens to be able to wield a sword.

The character I’d slap: john, hands down. probably the entire mithraeum gang, they’re such a great gatsby terrible edwardian set But Scifantasy, and while i appreciate they’re all very traumatised i would like to invite them to maybe just stop. consider not being like that.

A pairing that I love: i’m not super shippy with this fandom but honestly? whatever involves cam being super gay. camilla hect i love youuuu. (bonus points for crown/cam like it’s Compelling to me cause cam is so cam and crown is so shitty (affectionate)) also obvsly griddlehark

A pairing that I despise: ngl to me Cam and Pal are very much strong platonic love, they’re cousins and it makes me really uncomfy when people ship em. i also don’t care for harr*w/i*nthe (asterisked to make it not show up in tags) like i don’t HATE it, i just think it’d be much funnier if ianthe gets cockblocked, she’s trying SO hard to be draco in leather pants.

[nazumichi]

raii!! hi hello i have finished ntn. (finally. after being distracted by c.sm and m.p100 like 5 times) and. oh man.

i think i've noticed a pattern in these books actually! the pattern being the endings making me go WHAT THE FUCKING SHIT JUST HAPPENED. i mean! i suspected nona was alecto but oughhghg :(((((( her saying she won't be able to love pyrrha and paul anymore.... fucking christ ouch :(((((( fictional families make me so so unwell..

other than that i like how this book basically solidified that harrow's autistic! (i mean. if u still had doubts after htn) i was very happy to see palamedes and gideon again also!! even if not for long. ianthe and gideon being friends/acquaintances was probably the single biggest plot twist of the book. huge fan of their ugly ass friendship bracelets tho HGSKGSKG love how it HAD to be accentuated repeatedly just how badly the colours matched. two loser lesbians with the most cringefail friendship who have the ugliest friendship bracelets in the galaxy and they are so! important to me. they even have a stupid handshake.. do u think they bonded over their senses of humour and mutual love/hate/obsession with harrow? (honestly i might be beginning to see the appeal of gidianthe. just a bit) anyway NEED to see harrow's reaction to whatever they have got going on in atn. bonding while i was soul exchanged with the fucking Earth incarnated? in my horrible girlrfiends?? more likely than she thinks probably

oh oh another scene that is very important to me is when pyrrha kissed camilla and palamedes. collecting polycules (not really. more like. yk that bisexual photo with anne hathaway. yk the one. like that! i just don't have a word that's short enough to make the joke work) like they're pokemon

gideon and palamedes are still my faves but i also really like nona/alecto! ianthe is def growing on me too. (have to say she'd be a fav already if the book had any art of her tho bc. i may or may not be able to forgive a few atrocities if she looked hot while committing them.. i am not immune to women)

anyway! so sorry this got long and i'd love to hear your thoughts <3

hihhuhhuiiiiiii HI

omggg you finished???? WILD, WAH…. ALSO YEAH….. WHAT *IS* HAPPENING EVER??? unhinged. fun. i don’t know. restarted harrow today.

!!! their awful friendship bracelets are SO funny to me….. and then there’s a big Double Crossing Event like five minutes after that reveal, really is nothing like it…. at all…..

nona is SO beloved to me……. she’s just out here……. with a funny dog…… big heart…… barbie doll…… WAGHEH.

also very happy you got your augustine crumbs. granted, crumbs, but sometimes. that’s more than enough <33

[worrywrite]

I hadn't thought that hard about it, but probably. I think it would vary from cav to cav though. The sixth probably has some actual formal agreement, but the ninth is a grudging "one flesh, one end".

Also I'm thinking about it more, so I'm going to say that powers wise they would vary. Gideon is getting bone armor and unlimited bone swords. Camilla gets accelerated healing and can scan ignore most non-lethal wounds while transformed. Jeanmary gets stealth but also a sword that shoots lazers, because she deserves it. Marta gets enhanced speed and when she wounds a living thing she gets a little healing. Naberius doesn't do his thing so much, relying on his own talents most of the time, because his thing is that he eats Ianthe and gets a big general buff at the cost of Ianthe getting progressively more control over him (she gets spit out after, until she doesn't). Magnus gets to be the heart of the team, never really going on on missions, his abilities are research based and let him spot weaknesses and disarm people. Column... Hm, martial trance berserker ability probably. And Protesilaus isn't actually a contracted cavalier, he's a strong puppet creature because Dulcinea is actually Cytherea and Cytherea is like the archetypal fallen magical girl villain who commands demons and stuff.

I'm going to say that lyctors are entities that had their contracts "fulfilled" and can also take human form if the wish but they look part cat. Alecto is just a normal feral cat. Nona is straight up weird feral cat girl. John gets to be a sphinx cat. For narrative purposes, Harrow becomes a lyctor by dying with Gideon and they have to do a sort of body swap back and forth thing, sort of like Palamedes and Camilla do, but they're actually stable and can communicate mind palace style (because the genre is fluffier than the actual books) but eventually the Gideon half gets corrupted and sort of dies on Harrow.

I'll say... Main plot is probably more cohort versus the resurrection beats at first, with resurrection beats being the sort of they send a monster of the weak invading demons thing until Cytherea gets sussed out and all hell breaks loose and that season ends with Cytherea being defeated and Harrow and Gideon fulfilling their contract after Cytherea tricks Ianthe and Naberius into fulfilling theirs (to their detriment). Second season splits the original team into two teams (the river team and the lyctor team) and introduces the old lyctors, and I'm just going to assume setting wise everyone is still going to have to deal with high school or something. Lyctor team gets more direct missions to take on a resurrection beast properly, but they're disfunctuonal. John currupts Gideon behind the scenes and siphons her out of Harrows contract, leaving Harrow weaker and beginning to turn Gideon into a proto resurrection beast. The beast Varun arrives and all hell breaks loose when John simultaneously betrays everyone but then Harrow goes up against Varun alongside G1deon (her reluctant and harsh mentor character for the season) and there's a sort of fade to black season ending. Season 3 is sort of a mid apocalypse theme, Nona shows up and no one is sure who she is, Palamedes and Camilla have fulfilled their contract in the background, G1deon is dead but Pyrrha is around and it is implied that Varun did to G1deon what John did to Gideon. Varun is still there too, but inert. Everywhere there are rumors about an ancient hero, Alecto, who will return to end this crisis at the darkest hour. Somehow school is still happening, kind of. Gideon is around, weirdly becoming friends with Ianthe, also looking very demonic but acting mostly normal. The resistance, who has been a largely minor antagonistic force throughout the series, has turned into a general ally in John's sudden and dramatic absence. The cohort is falling apart. The pieces all come together is a dramatic all hell breaks loose scene where Nona accidentally turns Varun back on and releases everyone's souls back where they're supposed to be. And Alecto does return, but as the only human in appearance minion if a returned John at the last minute of the season finale.

The show gets canceled during preproduction for season 4.

Locked Tomb au, but all the necromancers are magical girl cat companions to their cavaliers (who get to be martial coded magical girls).

Mostly I want to see what cat Harrow looks like, but in a way where she's like an actual character and not just a cat. Also I think the cavaliers should all get a magical girl transformation sequence as a treat.