#cus i gotta type up my handwritten annotations and then edit and source and yada yada yada

[hope-luvs-hrtstppr]

my tlt annotations! part two: Harrow the Ninth (by Tamsyn Muir) *spoilers ahead*

- “Nonagesimus, nobody is coming to save you. Not God. Not Augustine. Nobody.” (Muir, 15) starting off strong

- i love ianthe calling harrow “harry”

- “The past is dead, and they’re both dead, but you and I are alive. What are they? What are they, other than one more corpse we’re dragging behind us?” (Muir, 16)

- “Sometimes you would forget who you were, and at recalling yourself, weep like a child.” (Muir, 30) HARROWHARK GET BEHIND ME

- “‘And you shouldn’t call me God either,’ he said. ‘You don’t comprehend the word, and I don’t want to be God to you yet.’” (Muir, 39) ianthe and harrow are the first lyctors to become god’s hands after growing up worshipping him. augustine, gideon, and mercy have known him since the beginning. they understand that to worship god is to let him use you. that god doesn’t want ‘his hands’ clasped together in prayer, he wants ‘his hands’ balled up in fists. harrow must learn that from teacher before she can know him as god.

- “‘Ortus Nigenad died thinking it was the only gift he was capable of giving,’ you said, ‘and I have wasted it—like—air.’” (Muir, 45) GOOD GOD this hurts. griddlehark’s pseudo-lyctorhood is painful enough, but all the cavaliers that were fully absorbed by their necromancers?? pyrrah and gideon, cristabel and mercy, alfred and augustine. to be so devoted to someone that you offer your life on a silver platter so that they, your other half, can become full without you. jod when i catch you jod. jod when i catch you!!!! (not saying that all the cavs consented to being absorbed, just spiraling abt lyctors as a concept yk)

-the only reason harrow is alive is because “she had cost too much to die”. her life was never her own, it had always belonged to the 200 children of the ninth (plus the latest addition, gideon nav). she fights so hard to stay alive (despite her personal desires to die) because she’d be damned if she let the souls inside her die twice.

- “Love had broken her life into two separate halves: the half before she had fallen, and the half afterward.” (51) THE WAY GIDEON IS DESCRIBING HARROW’S LOVE FOR ALECTO BUT IT’S TRUE FOR HARROW’S LOVE FOR GIDEON TOO

- when harrow recalls that “There had been another girl who grew up alongside Harrow—but she had died before Harrow was born.” (54) she’s not wrong. pre-lobotomy harrow grew up alongside nav, and nav died before post-lobotomy harrow was born

- ianthe calling harrow a skull-faced fruitcake

- “You staggered over to the Body, standing so quiet by the wall, and you buried your face in her thighs.” (67) i’m picturing the “there goes my babyyyyyyy” pose

- THE EGGS YOU GAVE ME ALL DIED AND YOU LIED TO ME

- taking a moment to acknowledge that this series has vastly expanded my vocabulary. i would include a little word bank of all the words i had to look up in order to comprehend what was going on, but that feels too boring to subject other people to

- harrow’s brain conjuring the image of baby-nav’s corpse while in the river for the first time is so beyond fucked

- IS THIS HOW IT HAPPENS?????? (spoiler: it isn’t)

- ianthe looking down harrows robe at cytherea’s funeral is so classic ianthe

- the girls are fighting!!! (the girls being ortus and harrow in harrow’s dreams)

- “But when she was scared, she was a child again, and she was almost afraid of being a child again than anything else in her life. Almost.” (133) :(((((

- i feel like harrow’s the type to eat uncooked pasta

- can someone get harrow a tshirt that says “i heart my frozen corpse wife”

- “… because Ianthe was overfamiliar and frankly a pervert.” (161) LMAOOO

- “‘I want that sword,’ said Ortus the First. / ‘What?’ / ‘Give me her damned sword,’ said Ortus the First. / ‘You’ve already got a whole complement of oversized weapons, greedy.’” (191) this whole exchange reminds me of Schmitt at the aquarium demanding a lion fish (New Girl reference lol)

- “For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams / Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.” (196)

- harrow may have repressed everything besides her beef with septimus lmao

- i like to think that the whole of tlt so far was just elaborate world building for the real story: a commentary on gun control (starring Commander Awake Remembrance of These Valiant Dead)

- i have so little respect for g1deon. bro really attacked A NAKED TEENAGE NUN.

- harrow = that one snoopy picture that’s like “belly full of soup”

- “And the Saint of Duty lifted his cigarette to you in an unmistakable salute.” (235) oooh he’s so nonchalant

- the scene where harrow regrows ianthe’s arm feels like an inverse sex scene. like a reverse orgasm.

- “That first night in her bed, you’d placed your bone-dressed sword between you, and felt better…” (258) ah, yes. me, my gf, and her ex’s six foot two hander

- “You do know there are children present? Should I kill them, or what?” i love mercy so fucking much

- ianthe is so me, my first instinct when drunk is also to kiss the homies

- the question is: would harrow be so devoted to worshipping the locked tomb if ‘the body’ wasn’t hot?

- “Kill me all you like. I would know you in the blindness of my eyes…in the deafness of my ears…as a shadow smudged against the wall, annihilated by light…stop. Not here. Not now. Let it go, love. I just want the truth…after all this time.” (Muir, 291) HELLO?!??!??????!!?

- harrow when she runs into camilla on a planet she’s meant to kill: “my main goal is to blow up and act like i don’t know nobody heheheheh” (please tell me you get the reference)

- TASMSYN MUIR LET GIRLS KISS CHALLENGE ( harrow trying to kiss the body:( )

- “…the Emperor of the Nine Houses had someone, and then, like all his Lyctors, the Emperor of the Nine Houses had lost someone.” (346) this reminds me of that Langston Hughes poem, “I loved my friend. He went away from me. There’s nothing more to say. The poem ends, Soft as it began,— I loved my friend.”

- “And you walked to your death like a lover” goes hard

- rip BARI-star au you will always be famous <33

- the scene where harrow remembers gideon is sickening. the grief of losing gideon hitting harrow all over again after months of repression. her body crumpling and her throat raw from screaming. “She dug her hands into the mattress and she cried for Gideon Nav.” (380) LIKE HELLO?????

- YOU SAWED OPEN YOUR SKULL RATHER THAN BE BEHOLDEN TO SOMEONE. YOU TURNED YOUR BRAIN INTO SOUP TO ESCAPE ANYTHING LESS THAN 100 PERCENT FREEDOM. YOU PUT ME IN A BOX AND BURIED ME RATHER THAN GIVE UP YOUR OWN GODDAMNED AGENDA. ¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡HARROWHARK, I GAVE YOU MY WHOLE LIFE AND YOU DIDN’T EVEN WANT IT!!!!!!!!! (390-391)

- “…probably because i am a good girl and you are an evil nun…” (391) god i missed you, gideon

- both ortus and harrow feeling crushing guilt over gideon’s death:(( so much guilt over a situation with no one to blame (although, the real villain here is capitalism. but that’s another post.)

- “Child, that bee smashed you.” (406) my fav line in the whole book.

- “‘Hell no! I’m going to pull your whole ass off,’ I said. ‘You want that? You want Harrow to grow you a new bone ass where I pulled off the old one? Let’s dance, Tridentarius.’” (429) i just missed nav so much you don’t understand

- gideon and harrow not reuniting despite being so close (GIDEON IS LEGIT INSIDE OF HER) ((ayo)) gideon is a part of her mind but still can’t see how harrow thinks of her. she’s operating her body but can’t feel how much it misses her touch. FUCK THIS BOOK BRO

- as a dancer, the way harrow describes watching matthias nonius and wake fight is how i feel when i watch people dance. the admiration for different approaches to movement stylistically, and making inferences about the intentions behind their movements. the appreciation for different skills in different areas and the keen eye for artistic choices. anyways.

- a reminder from marta: chickenshits don’t get beer.

- “She had not said goodbye. Harrow so rarely got to say goodbye.” (458) MUIR WHY WOULD YOU SAY THATTTTT

- “… meet Commander Wake Me Up Inside, sincerest apologies if I got that wrong…” (468) HELP

- gideon meeting her mom for the first time as a soul taking over the body of a lyctor she and harrow killed, after briefly having had a thing for said lyctor while she was impersonating a woman she’d never actually met— is messy, to say the least.

- “…Were you ten, Harrow? Was I eleven? / Was that the day you decided you wanted to die? / You remember how the fuck-off great-aunts used to say, Suffer and learn? / If they were right, Nonagesimus, how much more can we take until you and me achieve omniscience?” (477) they make me ill. i can’t even dissect this. just know i am ILL.

- mercy making jod say that he loved cristabel and never wanted any harm to come to her as a sort of final confirmation he was who she feared he was. because they both know that he let mercy kill her knowing full well she didn’t have to die. the fact that he is able to look mercy in the eyes and refuse to be honest, after all this time; the way he still won’t take accountability for his actions; confirms that the lives of others mean nothing to him compared to revenge.

- PYRRHA DVE HAS ARRIVED Y’ALL

- the thing at the bottom of the river with all the teeth and tounges??? like who thinks of this shit

- “‘There’s a difference between keeping a shred of a dance card’ said Harrow Nonagesimus, ‘and saving the last dance.’” (502) tamsyn muir is just toying with us atp

hi!! so this was… long. if you’ve somehow read all of this then you deserve a medal and ur favorite snack:) i hope you enjoy these!

part 3 (ntn) is on the way!