#anyway i never ever got over htn

[gideonysis]

harrow the ninth spoilers below the cut

lying in the tomb that had claimed her heart, faraway in a land she had never travelled, harrowhark nonagesimus fell asleep, or dropped dead, or both (htn)

[littlecactiguy]

@yellowmagicalgirl

Rather than add onto our post again, I decided to write out what's been simmering in my thoughts in a Harrow the Ninth-inspired study, with Penny in Gideon's position in Ruby's head.

Ruby, like Harrow, locked her Cavalier away in her head with help (I sort of imply the brain surgery, but don't actually describe it here).

ngl I'm not entirely sure how the end of HtN would go in this au. I do like Penny ending up in a position similar to Kiriona at some point, though that's also largely due to me really liking the idea of inserting Copper in as a Nona (which I can concede is partial bias toward my own oc for Reasons) and them perhaps interacting.

Except that begs the question of, if Ruby's not in her body, then where'd she go? (talk to Maria in the Tomb maybe...)

(I also really like your idea about Ruby being speedy, especially bc it also kind of reflects her semblance. Though I'm not as well-versed in tlt theories - I have never been more frustrated that I left my copies of the books back with my family some states away.)

Anyways, here's a short(ish) study in the 2nd Person from Penny's POV (also the first time I think I've tried 2nd person pov, so that was fun)

Ruby.

I love you. I have always loved you. I always will.

I will do anything for you. I did everything for you.

I would do it all again.

So, why did you lock me away?

I know I’m not…I was never as good as you, as good as the others. I tried my best, but I…

I thought…

Do you not love me back?

I don’t understand. It was enough. My soul. We did it. You became a Lyctor, and it was enough. You lived.

Cinder didn’t.

It was worth it.

Then you sought her out. The one who helped Cinder, who lied to our faces, pretended to be our friend, and—

I don’t understand, Ruby. I’ve been trying to. It’s all I can do, inside this tomb you’ve made for me. Emerald tried to—

She and Cinder almost succeeded in—

And yet you—

She could have killed you. I watched. I fought her. I fought you.

You looked in the mirror when it was done. After they found you where you lay unconscious in that cold, dark prison. After they interrogated Emerald on what she had done and she replied, only what she asked me to do. After they healed you. After they tried, and failed, to free me.

You looked in the mirror. My eyes looked back at you.

You didn’t remember me. You still don’t.

We were together almost our whole lives and you threw it all away.

I loved you.

I still do.

But I…

Everyday since they brought you here, you struggle. You may have been faster, but you never had my strength, and now you’ve rejected it. You lift the blade they gave you, but it’s not enough. Not to deflect the General’s attacks. Not to parry his sword away. Your speed has kept his blade from your heart so far, but it can’t forever.

I know you fear he will kill you. I can feel it. I could have protected you. I swore I’d always protect you. Even before the vow left my lips.

You were the first thing I ever saw on the Ninth. I was alone. My father put in me in that pod and sent it away. He didn’t even put in coordinates. He didn’t know of anywhere I’d be safe. He hoped.

And I arrived on the Ninth. Months and months later. I mapped the stars that passed outside the only window I had on the journey. I wondered if they’d be the last thing I ever saw before my body finally deteriorated enough that I would be lost.

Except I arrived on the Ninth. I remember seeing its form grow bigger and bigger in that little window. I remember being relieved I would crash, because the journey would finally be over then, and I wouldn’t be lonely anymore.

And I wasn’t, just not how I thought.

It was terrifying, seeing the entry panel of the pod be jostled, my father’s last work, his sealing of it, being broken. Then, you got it open, and our eyes met.

You commented on mine being so bright so quickly I didn’t have the chance to say the same about yours.

No one had ever said anything like that to me before then. No one besides my father had ever talked to me before then either. No one on the Ninth would talk to me, not like you did. Not even your Uncle Qrow, though he was a little better than most.

You meant the world to me, Ruby. You still do. You always will.

I was meant to protect you.

Why won’t you let me?

My strength could be yours. My resilience. Every sword I wielded, I did for you.

Your arms tremble as you try to hold one now. You look at the General across the training arena. We both see the cold calculation in his eyes. They’re green, like mine. They aren’t his. We’ve both wondered who they once belonged to.

I wonder if that soul is like me. I hope they aren’t.

You told me, once, my world would never be a the littlest of windows ever again.

You lied.

[chaos-has-theories]

Part 1: The Eye of John

You’ve heard of „Alecto is a Resurrection Beast“, „Alecto is Gaia“ and „Alecto is a seamonster“, you’ve heard of John’s sun symbolism, now get ready for:

John is Ra and Alecto is Mehet-Weret

or less specifically Hathor, or The Eye of Ra

[Image description: A picture in the Ancient Egyptian style. It shows a large blue cow with stars along its belly. There are nine people under it, keeping it steady. An empty boat floats by its back legs, and another boat by its front legs, this one with the god Ra as a passenger. A large red arrow points at the cow and is labelled “Alecto???”.]

(More under the cut, because this shit will get long.)

First, for the record, I am emphatically not a learned egyptologist, so I might be getting things wrong here.

Secondly, ancient Egyptian mythology is a gorgeous mess. You can’t ever just say that x is the child of y, because they’re bound to also be siblings, and spouses, and x is also a and b and y is also b and c and... yeah.

Anyway, let’s do this.

---

I was rereading Harrow the Ninth with my roommates and we got to this part:

"Your sword will not rend its armour”, he said, with his back turned to them. “It’s weapons will ruin your flesh. It will not stop until it has subsumed its quarry.” (HtN p. 329)

and I thought to myself, huh, that kind of sounds like the Eye of Ra.

So let’s talk about that!

Now, the main story of the Eye of Ra is that, long ago, when the gods were still like, living on earth with the humans, people started to criticize Ra, their ruler.

That pissed off Ra, so he sent off his „Eye“ to punish them. She did, killing almost all the humans, but then Ra couldn’t really get her to stop. So the gods made a bunch of dyed beer with some blood in it, and the Eye drank it all and became drunk and docile.

So far, so good. Technically, at that point Teacher is talking about the Sleeper, but we all know that there are heavy parallels between the Sleeper and the Body. Also, there’s more where that came from.

"My lord,” said Augustine formally, “you told us the truth about Annabel–about Alecto–because she knew the truth too, and you never could control her.” (HtN, p. 478)

”Annabel Lee... was not the dying kind,” said the Emperor. It might be more accurate to say that I switched her off.” “You came to us and we asked, Is she dead?” said Mercy. “And you said, As dead as I can make her... I remember, Lord, that you wept.” (HtN, p. 479)

Neither Alecto nor the Eye of Ra are stopped by death or reason but instead kept somehow subdued.

But it gets better, and weirder.

The most famous version of the Eye of Ra is probably Sakhmet, the lion goddess. Sometimes she's a cat, Bastet; but just as often she’s depicted as a cow, Hathor.

There's a specific version of this myth called „The Book of the Heavenly Cow“ or „The Destruction of Mankind“. Here’s a translation of it.

I just learned about this myth. I learned about it under the Name of „Mehet-Weret“. Hathor and Mehet-Weret are… the same goddess? Not the same goddess? Sometimes the same goddess? They’re both cow themed, and occasionally take the same roles. Mythology is confusing, y’all.

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about it:

Hathor was given the epithets "mistress of the sky" and "mistress of the stars", and was said to dwell in the sky with Ra and other sun deities. Egyptians thought of the sky as a body of water through which the sun god sailed, and they connected it with the waters from which, according to their creation myths, the sun emerged at the beginning of time. This cosmic mother goddess was often represented as a cow. Hathor and Mehet-Weret were both thought of as the cow who birthed the sun god and placed him between her horns. Like Nut, Hathor was said to give birth to the sun god each dawn.

Since I remembered the name Mehet-Weret and was very proud of that, that’s where I actually started my research here, and…

Mehet-Weret or Mehturt (Ancient Egyptian: mḥt-wrt) is an ancient Egyptian deity of the sky in ancient Egyptian religion. Her name means "Great Flood". She was mentioned in the Pyramid Texts. In ancient Egyptian creation myths, she gives birth to the sun at the beginning of time, and in art she is portrayed as a cow with a sun disk between her horns. She is associated with the goddesses Neith, Hathor, and Isis, all of whom have similar characteristics, and like them she could be called the "Eye of Ra". Mehet-Weret is primarily known as being the "Celestial Cow" or "Cow Goddess" because of her physical characteristics, but she contributes to the world in more ways than that. She is also the Goddess of Water, Creation, and Rebirth; in Egyptian mythology, Mehet-Weret is one of the main components in the making and survival of life. (...) She was credited for the birth of Re, also known as the Sun God Ra; she is also the one who protects Re. (Wikipedia)

SHE’S (a version of) THE PRIMORDIAL FLOOD, Y’ALL.

You said, “Teacher, what destroyed the House of the First?” “Not much,” said the Emperor, and he tried to smile. It was awful. “Rising sea levels and a massive nuclear fission chain reaction...it all went downhill from there.” (HtN p. 346)

"Even the devil bent for God to put a leash around her neck (...) But when the work was done (...) they bade him kill the saltwater creature before she could do them harm...” (HtN p. 328)

Next to you, the body said quietly, “The water is risen. So is the sun. We will endure.” (HtN p. 294)

On this same read-through I snagged on „The water is risen, so is the sun“ because it sounds so much like a quote, but I couldn’t find anything. Yes, John has sun symbolism and Alecto all that water stuff, but where is the connection?

Well, here. It’s just Ancient Egyptian Creation Myths.

The different creation myths have some elements in common. They all held that the world had arisen out of the lifeless waters of chaos (…) The sun was also closely associated with creation, and it was said to have first risen from the mound, as the general sun-god Ra.

That makes Alecto literally the First One. It makes her John’s protector as the Eye. It gives her a connection to water and and even death and the underworld. (It also gives her a connection to the sky, which always fits in a Space Fantasy.)

Essentially,

I can see two figures in Egyptian mythology that fit what we know of Alecto. Those would be the Eye of Ra, an uncontrollable creature of rage and revenge; and the flood from which the sun god rises during the creation of the world. And Mehet-Weret fits into both.

But you’re not convinced yet? Alright then. Remember how Hathor/Mehet-Weret is a cow?

"Oh, singular,” said Dulcinea quietly, more to herself than to Gideon. “Lipochrome...recessive.” (GtN, p. 106)

When she spoke at last, she sounded frozen and numb. “I see. I understand. Lipochrome. Recessive. You are the evidence.” (HtN, p. 410)

I did not know what the fuck to say to her incoherent spew. She said, ragged, peevish: “What? No tongue in your head, you–you mutant, you mistake, you great big calf-eyed fuck-up?”

If you’re like me and know nothing about biology, you’ll hop over to Wikipedia  and find this:

A lipochrome (from Greek λίπος ("fat") and χρῶμα ("color")) is a naturally occurring, fat-soluble pigment. Lipofuscin—a product of fat breakdown in lysosomes—is a type of lipochrome that is associated with the decomposition of cell membranes. Beta carotene, a lipochrome, was found in the retina, pigment epithelium, and iris of cattle eyes.

This is the entirety of the article by the way.

…and I was wondering why Tamsyn didn’t just call the eyes „Amber“.

Now you might say, but Chaos, you know they’re not really her eyes…

Yeah.

They’re John’s eyes.

They are, you might say, the Eyes of John.

---

THERE WILL BE MORE PARTS because I am LOSING MY MIND OVER THIS but this post is already longer than it has any right to be.

In the meantime, here’s an article on Mehet-Weret that I think is actually well researched and probably does a better job explaining how all these different gods fit together than I ever could.

[gveret-fic]

A lil fic in which Gideon showers with her clothes on, changes in the dark, applies her face paint out of a manual, and doesn't touch herself ever. Well. Hardly ever.

HtN spoilers ahead!

---

A bit anticlimactic, if you ask me, after slaying brain melting horror bees and swimming right out of hell, for my next great big challenge to be trying to figure out how to take a dump in a prudish little nun’s body without compromising its modesty.

Not to put too fine a point on it or anything, my sombre bathroom break micromanager, but you really didn’t stick the landing on this one. You had a letter for basically every contingency, like you had one for if God sneezed really hard and blew out the sun, I’m pretty sure, and then mine was basically just ‘fuck you, return to sender’. You just went and parked your porsche in my landing pad with the blasters still on and didn’t even bother to leave the DRY CLEANING ONLY tag on the upholstery. I had to come up with a virtue-preserving game plan all on my lonesome, you know.

And I've been such a good girl, Harrow, you'd be proud. Well, at least you'd be such an unexpectedly small, tiny, miniscule, astonishingly negligible amount of pissed off that it's basically pride at that point, right.

Don't get me wrong, it was a logistical nightmare. Ever tried to shower in multiple robes plus what I must assume are, like, pantaloons? The sonic flaps it all the fuck around, and let me tell you, getting spanked by heavy Ninth vestments is now officially off my kink list. Now, the other option is wet dog trapped in straightjacket, and I'm not too keen on that one either. But I stuck with it. It takes like 20 minutes, no joke, to struggle out of all your stupid layers in the dark, with my eyes closed, without touching any of your most hallowed skin. But I've got a knack for it now, you know? If I ever get the chance to get a lil frisky, maybe with a hot ghost or something I don't know, I can totally impress her with my wild 100% contact free striptease skills.

What I'm saying is, I've been such a super duper chaste and meticulous and ephemeral little make believe nun it's like I was never even here. So you gotta take that into consideration, Harrow, when you pass your terrible judgment once I tell you how I've sinned.

So, it happened when I was putting your face paint on. It wasn’t half bad, either. Really, it was half good. I’ve been practicing. I found this horrible little book full of the gnarliest, creepiest, just most hideous skull faces, and they all had these pretentious titles like The Palm of the Storm or The Young Boy’s Booger. Just your style, basically.

But I was looking at your face in the mirror—that’s the way paint application goes, Harrow, don’t pout—and I got stuck on your pinched, bloodless lips for some reason, and I forgot for a moment that it was me in your muscles, and I just thought, wow, you looked so sad. You always looked so goddamn sad, and no one ever did a fucking thing about it, least of all you, and in that moment I was so angry about it, I could smack you.

So naturally I reached out and I brushed your knuckle gently over your cheek. And lo, I wasn’t struck down on the spot. That gave me a bit of a confidence boost, I suppose. I ran your thumb under your eye, just a little avuncular half circle while thinking just the purest fucking thoughts, and it came away wet.

Really got you going, that one little barely there swipe. You needed this real bad, Nonagesimus. I needed this, too. We were gagging for it. We were crying for it. I needed you to be touched gently, so bad, and I needed even badder to be the one doing the touching. I knew you wouldn't want that, of course, don't feel the need to defend your honor. This was my best compromise, okay? I didn't have a lot to work with. This way you wouldn't really be touched and I wouldn't really be touching, but maybe we'd both get a little something out of it anyway.

This is maybe a good time to confess those thoughts weren't so totally super pure. They were maybe a little muddier, a little earthier, you know. Harrow, listen, I've been thinking a lot about your body, what with living in it for months and having only the one made up magazine to look at and being balls to the wall in love and all. Sorry. So when I tell you I've been thinking about running my fingertip over your eyebrow from glabella to sphenoid, what I'm saying is I've fantasized about the texture of each one of your big black goddamn eyebrow hairs so much my finger's never not tingly anymore. And when I wiped your eye with a tiny knuckle and ran that smooth little fingertip along your real ass eyebrow, Harrow, there was a definite fucking tingle, and I didn't fucking stop.

I traced the smooth plane of your frontal bone, the proud arch of your brow ridge. I dragged your fingertips over your temple and into the mass of your sweaty, overlong hair. The side of your finger grazed the shell of your ear, and you shivered—your ears are so sensitive, Nonageaimus, I thought this stuff only happened in porn—and I felt the full, terrifying shape of your skull in my hand. I cupped the back of your sore-ass neck in a palm and I squeezed just a little, just to let us know we were held, and I worked our fingertips into those nonexistent traps that still somehow managed to be clenched tighter than a stoma that's munched down on one too many emperors. I kneaded them good until they loosened just a bit, and we were still crying like a little bitch.

I squeezed your shoulder, the clavicle pressing sharply into our palm, and I stroked down your bicep, which did not deserve the name, by the way, and I brushed the inside of your elbow and I dragged the underside of your bitten fingernails up your forearm and over that terrifyingly delicate wrist and your doll sized soft palm and then I held your fucking hand.

Yeah, I laced our fucking fingers together, Harrow. Eat me.

I could feel your heart beating in our interdigital folds, I was holding your hand so hard and so intertwiney. And we were definitely feeling some kind of way just then. I had to sit down on your bony ass, your eyes leaking, your shoulders shaking, as I was having just the most mortifying little breakdown over holding my own hand.

I'm sorry, Harrow. I wanted to hug you a lot, these past few months. There were so many moments I wanted to reach outside of you, all like blerghgrgh sudden gorgeous beefy arm bursting out of your stomach to smack Shittier Gideon in the balls or give Shittier Tridentarius a purple nurple. I wanted to give you a pat on the head, tell you've been a good good doggie and you can take a lil break now. Wanted to rub your shoulders and arms all over, force a bit of warmth into em even if I've given up on muscle. Wanted to brace the heel of my palm at the small of your back, squeeze your hips and pull em back, run a hand along that spine to make it proud again, just to give you some support, just to see you stand up straight. Wanted to rub the frown right off your brow, poke your lil cheeks and make you snarl, give you something nice and tough to bite on. But mostly I just wanted to hold you.

I wanted to wrap you tight, so that you'd become a compact little package with well defined edges and maybe then you could open it all up and let it out. Only in my big stupid arms, I'd think selfishly, like some sort of grand duke of self delusion, would you finally feel safe enough to cry.

Nah. Who was I kidding? It was me who was crying. It was me who wanted to be comforted, to be touched kindly, to have her hand held, and it was only me who was getting anything out of doing this stupid weird creepy bullshit. I wasn't giving you shit, Nonagesimus. I just wanted to hold your hand.

I didn't let go, though. Again, Harrow, sorry. Your body didn't care that it was only you, only me. Your skin and your flesh and all those bits you didn't care about wanted this too, probably. The pressure, and the warmth, the illusion or the weird roundabout reality of another person who cares about you. Maybe I'm making excuses again. But I care about you, Harrow. You'll believe that much, won't you? I care about your body. I care about all the non-skeleton parts of you, even. Baffling, I know.

So I sat on your ass, and I bent your head over our joined hands, and I cried, and I didn't let go.

[thunderon]

Harrow was only able to open the tomb because she has Gideon’s blood/skin under her fingernails at the time right? but we know it took her time to actually be able to work out how to cross into the tomb and I think it’s fair to say that she didn’t always have Gideon’s blood under her nails for every attempt. how come she didn’t die in those other attempts?

so. things are actually a little messy regarding this. there’s a few ways we can take things in terms of like, the timelines and the actual layout of the tomb. just so everyone’s on the same page here, (as i understand it) the known components that make up “The Locked Tomb” are as follows:

outer components:

The Locked Door (outer door) > passage/drill shaft > The Rock

although everything is set with traps, The Rock is what is actually protected with the bloodward. once The Rock is rolled, the inside is comprised of:

cave > saltwater moat > island > mausoleum > coffin > The Body

check out these three quotes (one from gtn, two from htn):



a relevant excerpt i didn’t include is in htn chapter 3, harrow recounts her experience opening the door but it is very clear that her memory is tampered with and harrow’s recollection of the event is unreliable. harrow doesnt remember gideon, but harrow does state that there was a time gap between traversing the outside and breaking the ward. what is confirmed by both harrow and gideon, is that harrow broke the bloodward and entered the actual tomb at the age of 10 (gideon is 11). after breaking the bloodward, both harrow and gideon give accounts that confirm that harrow’s parents killed themselves at this time.

now to my conclusion:

from my understanding, harrow spent a year traversing the outer layers but didnt go into the actual tomb until the day she fought with gideon (when she was 10 and gideon was 11). so despite all her trips, technically the bloodward was never broken until then.

and i dont know if it’s ever actually confirmed that harrow ever visited inside the tomb again? so harrow would have needed gideons blood only the once, right?

in any case, if she did enter the tomb again after her first trip, possibilities ive also considered is that blood wards, once broken, are no longer effective OR harrow never rolled the rock back over. that would mean after harrows first trip, the Tomb is now free real estate to anyone who wants to get in. if you recall this line from gtn:

could be related? harrow could think that the tomb is compromised? i dont necessarily think this is a leading theory, but i think we don’t know enough to discount it.

anyways these are my thoughts on it. hopefully it made sense or you got something out of it. im sure it can be interpreted other ways and other people probably have their own theories!

[zenosanalytic]

Harrow the Ninth: The Ending

OK this one’s pretty short it’s just a breakdown of how I read the ending.

So we’ve got two bits: we’ve got three people taking care of an invulnerable amnesiac in a conflict-ridden city on a world with a carbon economy, and then we’ve got Harrow in the River.

First Bit

I think this one’s rather clear. Camilla(the one who looks after me), Corona(the one who works for me), and Judith(the one who teaches me[only one who can do necromancy]), are taking care of Harrow’s body and whatever/whichever soul(s) are currently inside it. I’m pretty sure it’s Gideon, but with amnesia from the trauma of being deep within, and somehow exiting, The River. I feel like the last bits of Chapter 52 are clear that Gideon didn’t die even if she THINKS she did, if you read between the lines. The last section starts with

“...if you die by drowning your whole life flashes before your eyes?”

and that doesn’t happen for Gideon. Instead, she sees a fading visitation by Alecto(did Alecto perhaps come back to her in those final moments and push her out of The River?), and then Camilla trying to save her life(and apparently succeeding). Also as I’ve written before(and wrote after reading Gideon the Ninth but cant seem to find X| X| X| probably did it on Twitter their search function is CRAP >:( >:() I really don’t see Muir killing Gideon off.

It could also be a merger of Gideon and Harrow’s souls, but I don’t think that’s the case. To begin with the treatment here isn’t nearly commiserate to that particular development, and I trust that if Muir went in that direction, she’d do it justice(I mean: Look at Harrow the Ninth; it’s all ABOUT doing justice to characters and premises). More practically tho Chapter 52 brings up the concept in discussing “life flashing before your eyes” and dismisses it. There IS the implication that the person can do Necromancy, which points in that direction, but the above, combined with my reading of Harrow’s situation, makes me doubt this outcome.

The last possibility is that it could be Alecto in Harrow’s body; there is that vision, and the necromancy(and given Alecto’s ease navigating The River, I’m assuming she’s Necromantic[as are all Planet-Souls hinthinthint]). I doubt this mainly cuz as above I don’t think Muir would kill off Gideon like this and if it were Alecto then where’s Gideon? I suppose it COULD be a triple-soul bodysharing and/or merging situation though.

Second Bit

Harrow chose not to go to her body because she KNEW Gideon was in her body currently and this would displace her, leading to Gideon’s consumption and making all she’s done to keep Gideon alive for naught. She chose NOT to stay in her Dream-Bubble because this is Harrow: OF COURSE she wouldn’t take security, surety, and comfort over the Hard, Chancy, Self-Risking, “Right” course. So:

Harrow destroys her Dream-Bubble(don’t try to argue with me that’s absolutely what it is >:|)

She goes into The River

Then a flash of her hallway, the same one from Ch. 33 when traveling back to her body

Then she’s back in her memory of Gideon dunking her. To be clear: this is a baptism analog.

Then she breaks the surface of the water and she’s back in Drearbruh, back at it’s heart, back in The Locked Tomb; finally “Home”

Alecto’s tomb is Bare(She is Risen!), a two-hander lies within the hollow of the bier, and so does Gideon’s fantasy of a Cohort titty-mag.

I think there are three possibilities here.

One: The Tomb represents her mind/soul and she’s in a modified version of the position Gideon was in throughout Harrow the Ninth. I don’t think this is likely because Harrow explicitly rejected returning to her body, and going into The River was presented as a separate choice from returning. HOWEVER the Hallway(returning to her body) and the dunking(Gideon was underwater, “surfacing”; now she’s pushing Harrow underwater) can be read as evidence of it. As to the Alecto set-dressing, I don’t really think these signs of escape really subtract from this idea as we know Alecto has a spiritual connection to Harrow, and they could be read as symbolizing that.

Two: Harrow has traveled through The River back to Alecto(so to Drearbruh since that’s where Alecto is), through an act of spirit-projection similar to what Alecto was doing with her throughout the book. I think this is a more plausible read given the setting and the possible explosion(the sounds of Alecto escaping), but there are a couple facts which push me in another direction; some quotes I’ll bring up later, the sword(why would Alecto leave her sword?), and Frontline Titties of the Fifth. As has been repeatedly belabored; that’s not even a real publication, Griddle!(though I will say, if she’s spirit-projecting she’s probably in some extra-liminal space btw The Shore and the world of The Living, and maybe thoughts&desires can manifest as spiritual objects within that place. Given all the similarities The River has to The Immaterium in the Warhammer universe and how that plane is directly shaped by thoughts, it’s not entirely out of the question)

The reading I hold to most strongly is this though:

“floundered not to the shore but to the island in the center...”

The Shore has been mentioned throughout HtN as a sort of transitional part of The River which the living arrive at when they either die or project to The River, and here the book is explicitly saying she’s refusing to return to The Shore. She swims across the water to a place on the other side of it; an “island in the center”. And, while the place she arrives is familiar and sentimental to her, it is also, explicitly and textually,

“faraway in a land she had never traveled”

Drearbruh is her home; she opened The Locked Tomb when she was 10; the scene Harrow is in is as familiar as it can be for her and yet the book calls it “a faraway land she [has] never traveled”. She’s home yet she’s faraway. She’s laying in a tomb of ice, glass, and iron and yet it’s warm and soft as cotton bedding to her(someone who has refused such comforts her whole life). It is COMFORTING and COZY to her! A two-hander lays within

“that final resting place of Harrowhark’s one true love”.

Which is HILARIOUS and sneaky ambiguity if you ask me. I mean: obvsl the surface read is Alecto’s “final resting place” cuz that’s literally what it is in the story, but it is the sword that is “finally resting” there now; the sword that can represent both Alecto and GIDEON(and, if we want to go even further beyond getting super-symbolic with it, the hard path of conflict, justice, and suffering Harrow has ALWAYS chosen throughout her life[1]). Anyway the more immediate point is: this is the grave/home/bed of her Love. She finds a magazine that doesn’t exist there; one made up by Gideon which warmly recalls Gideon to her mind as she drifts to her rest.

This book is HEAVY with Christian, specifically Catholic, reference and symbolism. In Christianity God is Love and God’s Home(Heaven) is a “Home of Love”. In Christianity Heaven is(among other things) a place of rest; when one goes there one’s burdens stay behind. This is the first place we’ve ever seen(aside from her “warm” attraction upon meeting BARIstar Gideon) where Harrow’s emotional and physical state is described as “warm” and “comfortable” and the Christian Heaven is a place of comfort. Drearbruh is Harrow’s Home; “Home” is a common Christian synonym for Heaven and “coming Home” is a common Christian synonym for going to Heaven. 

Harrow has Crossed the River, and come Home, to Rest, in a Heaven of her own making.

[1]And also, just cuz I refuse to be unthorough, European two-handers are perennially cruciform. Harrow, by embracing it, is, by necessity, embracing a cross.