#i wonder how harrow ended up on a ship with the emperor

[technicolorxsn]

finished gideon the ninth this morning then was busy all day so it hasn't rly Hit Me yet....

[lemon-natalia]

Nona the Ninth Reaction - John 1:20

i honestly hadn’t considered that John would have access to a bunch of other info, like the FTL planning to leave everyone behind, via the politician he’s puppeting around. he’s practically running the government of this unspecified country at this point. i mean i guess it was good practice for everything he’d later end up doing as Emperor 

‘I’ve got plans for that arm’ um. what. y'know what i really really don’t want to even know

for a guy who keeps saying he didn’t want to nuke anything he’s reallyyy leaning into the nukes every chance he gets

something i find very interesting is that John possibly also has powers besides necromancy that he’s seemingly glossed over a lot? even though they’re very toothy, he can apparently grow roses, and earlier C— talks about him potentially stabilising the North Glacier like that’s something he could definitely do. i wonder if it is actually possible to use thalergy, the life energy stuff, which really never gets mentioned that much tbh, in a similar way to thanergy?

ok how on earth is ‘Cows exhibit mourning behaviour for other cows’ such a goddamn impactful line. like its a really chilling moment of John confirming that he’s willing to start a nuclear war rather than let the ships leave. and it’s also objectively fucking ridiculous

John’s reflection here on his friends doubting him, and how ‘People don’t forgive, not really’ is very interesting considering his actions at the end of HtN, where he asks Augustine if they can have a ‘fresh slate’ in the wake of him killing Mercy. idk really what i’m trying to say here, but i do wonder how much John really meant what he was offering there 

well what with Ianthe, Harrow, and Kiriona, John certainly took M—’s remark about recruiting teenage girls in the next cult to heart

what i’m personally choosing to take away from this chapter is that multitasking is the true villain of the Locked Tomb universe. get some sleep and stop trying to do six things at once kids, or you might just end up nuking the entire earth

‘I can’t Sister. It’s too big’ i’m quite frankly a little disappointed that John didn’t take the opportunity to make a ‘that’s what she said’ joke here

holy crap, the nun shooting herself is certainly a moment. this is really leaning into the eldritch horror of what it would be like to be a human and aware of the Earth literally screaming at you

there’s such a tragic contrast between M— literally begging in her last moments for them not to shoot John vs Mercy being the one to kill him & John killing her so horrifically in return

John’s been essentially levelling up in necromancy as all of these chapters have progressed, but it’s a truly horrifying level of power he displays here. it’s not even the nukes that end up killing a lot of people, because John points out that he was able to just straight up snap the necks of about half of the entire world population

so much about this chapter is just walking the line between absurdist comedy and abject horror, but there is something just so … viscerally disturbing about the mental image of John literally just eating dirt as he consumes the soul of the Earth 

THIS is where the Barbie comparison comes in??? this?! John modelled a body for the remains of the soul of the partially-absorbed soul of the earth after BARBIE?!! talk about taking Barbieheimer to a whole new level

‘I drank them in, and it wasn’t enough’ someone better at comedy than me has probably made a very Hungry Caterpillar joke about this chapter 

‘You and I went full fucking Hungry Caterpillar’ DUDE. ok i stg i made the Hungry Caterpillar annotation immediately before i read like the next page and saw this 

‘I picked you to change [...] I still love you’ well, there’s some form of answer about how John actually got his necromancy in the first place. there’s something so awful about being a human being given powers you just straight up can’t really comprehend by a being so much bigger than you out of love 

the message reads ‘THE/TOWER/HAS/REACTIVAT’. at this point i can’t really think of anything else it could say other than ‘reactivated’. and given this is the chapter where John describes himself as becoming God, there’s something very poetic about the chapter heading being John 1:20, in which John the Baptist confesses that he isn’t the Messiah

[paradoxcase]

Prologue of Harrow the Ninth

So the genre is still at least partially "murder mystery", that's cool. Especially since it looks like someone tried to murder Harrow in this prologue, also

So, the best I can guess about what is happening here is that they are fighting some sort of ??insectoid?? ??aliens?? or entities of some kind as part of the Emperor's war that he was talking about at the end of the last book? All of the characters in this scene seem to expect Harrow to die at the end of it, but I'm not sure they were actually anticipating someone stabbing Harrow with the rapier, I think they were expecting something to happen during this necromancy battle. However Harrow does say that she "doesn't intend to be murdered" so maybe she was expecting something like that? Also interesting that it's a rapier, given that the last book ended with her wielding Gideon's two-hander

Since the first chapter is "Fourteen months before the Emperor's murder" I gather this is a scene from the middle of the story that's been bumped up to the front so all of these questions will be answered later

Interesting that she is calling the Emperor Teacher, I wonder if that is related to Teacher in the previous book wanting to be called that

I don't think we have a reference for what letters these could be yet, do we?

I actually have seen some references to Harrow being schizophrenic since I started this read, so this isn't really a surprise, but I'm interested to see how it's depicted

This is actually so funny after an entire book of Gideon describing Ianthe with words like "repellent" and "anemic" and various synonyms for "bloodless". Types of people Harrow is attracted to: literal corpses and people who just look like corpses

I don't know what she's talking about here yet, but "Harry" is officially the worst possible nickname for Harrow ever

Ianthe looks like she's playing the same role in this book as Cytherea played in the last book, i.e. being the creepy and evil person to start off their introduction by flirting with the MC? Only I already don't trust Ianthe to begin with because I already read the first book. But where Cytherea appealed to Gideon's willingness to empathize with everyone, Ianthe is going for this "join me and we will have ultimate power" bid, since Harrow seems to be at least somewhat bad at empathy. And Harrow isn't buying it, or at least not at this particular point in time

Curious about this, also

Ok, so this ship or space station or whatever that they're on is called the Mithraeum, I guess? This is kind of interesting here, because Harrow is worried about what will happen to her body when she goes into the River, but she also thinks she will die without returning to her body, which indicates being killed while in the River somehow. So I'm not sure if she actually anticipated being stabbed or not

Also curious what the Resurrection Beast is

So that's at least the story that's being told about what they're fighting. I'm guessing it's probably slightly less mystical than the actual religious concept of Hell. Or is the River being referred to as "Hell"? The River seemed kind of neutral when mentioned in the glossary of the last book, so I'm guessing not

She definitely wasn't half a Lyctor at the end of the last book, so I wonder what happened. She did ask the Emperor to extract Gideon from her and bring her back to life, to which he said it would damage both of their souls to do that, and I know that Gideon does eventually come back to life, and Gideon is a smudge in the Dramatis Personae of this book, so maybe Harrow tried to do this herself somehow and damaged herself in some way, but succeeded in removing Gideon and since she's no longer partly Gideon she's only partly a Lyctor now?

Something I just remembered: in the glossary at the end of the last book, it said that there were "seven full Lyctors" but in other places in the book it said that there were "eight Lyctors". So I'm guessing the one Lyctor that wasn't a "full Lyctor" was Anastasia who isn't afforded the title of Saint. But Anastasia must be an incomplete Lyctor in a different way than Harrow is here, because her cavalier isn't a smudge

Cool fact about bees, by the way, they literally do this to wasps that invade their nests. They have a higher heat tolerance than the wasps, so they surround the wasp and vibrate until the wasp gets hot enough that it overheats and dies. I wonder if that was an inspiration for this battle, given all of the insect-based words

Kind of wondering where Harrow would have had occasion to hear a lot of sword sounds growing up, though

Not sure what this is meant to be, but it reminds me of Gideon's mom saying "Gideon" after she was necromanced way back when. Gideon is three syllables, but Harrow ought to know those, shouldn't she? Or did she forget Gideon's name after doing whatever she did to remove Gideon? Now the smudge is making me think of when in the Stormlight Archive Dalinar couldn't remember his wife's name and just heard it as "shshshsh", it looks like a visual representation of white noise. I thought it looked like a bunch of characters typeset on top of each other, so I went and found where the .epub file of this book was stored on my computer to see if there was actual legible text in there that had just been zalgoed somehow with the zero-width joiner or something (I'm not sure if you can actually do that with ASCII, but there's probably some way to use it to product weird anomalous output), like some secret message of some sort, but no, sadly, it's just an image

[alex51324]

Harrow the 9th/

Locked Tomb Series observation #3:

Here be spoilers, up through and including Nona the 9th:

The people in the bone coffins that JG is sending to replenish the 9th House are, according to him, people he "set aside” from the Resurrection 10,000 years ago--they’ve been in some form of stasis ever since. 

With the usual caveats about how there’s a lot we still don’t know about the end of the world, it’s pretty likely that the last thing these people remember is the day JG set off the world’s nuclear stockpile.  And, given that JG kinda seems to not want even the Lyctors to remember that little incident, there’s a good chance he fixed it so no one else did, either.  So their memories may stop a little short of that.  

Maybe the last thing they remember is getting up on the day that the quote-unquote “first wave” of FTL evacuation ships were due to leave.  Maybe they had a conversation with a relative or co-worker, along the lines of, 

“Are you going to watch the launch on TV?” 

 “IDK, maybe...we’ll all see it up close when we make the trip ourselves, hey?”  

“I guess--have you seen that crackpot on YouTube who thinks there aren’t going to be any other ships?”  

“Uh.” **Chuckles nervously, in the manner of one wondering whether an acquaintance is about to don a tinfoil hat. ** “I heard about that--didn’t watch it, though.  He’s the guy who exploded those cows, right?”

“Yeah, same dude.  He has the whole serial-killer chalkboard with the string, going on about how they aren’t buying the right things they’d have to buy to build ships, and the cargo trucks coming in to the facility are decoys.  Completely off his rocker.”  

**sighs in relief, and gestures vaguely in the direction of getting on with the day**  “Takes all kinds, I guess?”

That happens, on a world very much like our own, and then the next thing you know, you’re waking up at the bottom of a well full of  skeletons, on fucking Pluto.  

That’s gonna  be, a, uh, fascinating transition*, is what I’m saying.  I hope we get a look at one of those almost-500 people, either in the 4th book or in a short story or something.  

(*Even if you never find out that the God-Emperor of your new world is also the fucking Cow Guy.)  

[terezis]

i was halfway through a post about this last night when tumblr ate it for power, so i went to bed, but now i’m back and i'm here to say:

gideon the ninth: the netflix series

like, it’d work??? it’s got a similar vibe to warrior nun, which was pretty popular. i have thought about how i would divide it up extensively. and now i am going to talk about it. a lot. 

three arcs, with four episodes each, for a total of twelve episodes covering the first book. arc one, enemies. arc two, friends. arc three, lovers, which doesn’t even really fit but i'm too charmed by the idea of enemies-to-friends-to-lovers as story arcs to take it back now.

EPISODE ONE opens with gideon packing up her things, tying her shoes, leaving her security cuff and its key nicely on her cell's pillow, and absconding; all of this overlaid with some sick music. guitar riffs. something upbeat and a little cool, and tonally dissonant from the setting of the dreary ninth house.

from there we go through the first few chapters of the book, the confrontation with crux, aiglamene, and harrow, mass, the letter from the emperor, all the way up to gideon realizing that her ship has taken off with out her. episode ends with

gideon: why? harrow: because i completely fucking hate you, no offense.

episode two: opens with gideon lying face-down on her cot in her cell, she's depressed, but like in a funny way. the viewer is amused. harrow shows up to kick her out of bed.

then we go through everything - gideon “agreeing” to be harrow’s cav, training, final mass - up until she and harrow leave for caanan house. they get on their ship. we see earth from orbit, ooh, aah, it's a big moment. ends with them about to breach the atmosphere:

harrow: i want to watch you die. gideon: maybe, nonagesimus, maybe. but you sure as hell won't do it here.

episode three: landing at caanan house. meeting dulcinea. all the onboarding stuff with teacher and the early days where gideon is left to her own devices. dueling magnus. 

the climax of this episode is dueling babs, ending on gideon looking away from the aftermath of the fight and locking eyes with harrow, who has been watching from the shadows the whole time. it's a very intense moment. harrow turns and walks away.

episode four: exploring caanan house. dulcinea. mysterious, airy, almost nostalgic music plays when she calls out for gideon on the terrace.

searching for harrow. the meat of this episode is all about meeting the sixth house, going down into the basement with them, and finding harrow, asleep in her bone, like an asshole. end the episode with gideon and harrow's argument about gideon's duties as a cavalier; they agree to work with each other - completing their first character arc. end episode four.

ARC TWO: FRIENDS (DUBIOUSLY). EPISODE FIVE. the first laboratory, which is the regenerating skeleton. dinner with the fifth. gideon and harrow leaving early for the labs, completing the trial at the end of the episode. as they're leaving, they stumble across the bodies of the fifth house... dead. drama! cliffhanger

episode six: opens like chapter seventeen, with the assumption that everyone's been investigating the crime scene for several hours. they get called back up by teacher, who thinks there are monsters down there. netflix intro plays. 

gideon and harrow investigate the first study; gideon finds the notes with "her" name. harrow reluctantly agrees to help dulcinea with the siphoning trial, which is the real meat of the episode. dulcinea says a bunch of cryptic shit with gideon in her arms. harrow completes the trial. episode ends with gideon passing out. ooh! aah. another cliffhanger

episode seven begins w gideon being woken by camilla, all that stuff about keys with sixth, talking to them in the morgue, only to realize that the fourth are eavesdropping. ("i often find myself wondering how dangerous they really are.") next scene: gideon training, isaac comes to get her because jeannemary found human remains in the incinerator; that scene, which gideon leaves only to find dulcinea collapsed in the rain. reveal that protesilaus is missing. ("he never came back!")

episode eight: briefly talking to dulcinea, but mostly the duels for the keys. afterwards gideon goes to the basement with the forth house to investigate. isaac dies. gideon takes jeanne to the study where she thinks it'll be safe. end with gideon jolting awake and finding jeanne dead. "SWEET DREAMS" written in her blood. END ARC TWO.

episode nine: open in the morgue, where the teens are laid out to rest. gideon is hysterical, talks to dulcinea, flees the room, talks to the eighth. harrow negotiates with the sixth for information; the gummed up door. gideon and harrow fight. end with gideon asking to be released to the seventh house.

harrow: when i release you from my service, nav, you'll know.

acting like a... jealous lover??? lmao anyways things look dire!

episode ten: gideon's conversation with the eighth house. finding protesilaus's head with harrow's things. bringing that information to the sixth house, confronting dulcinea. the pool scene. (why is episode ten always the big Emotional Reveal of a show... i am thinking about madoka magica hard right now) anyways this is why it’s the lovers arc. ends with one flesh, one end, gideon gets shoved back into the pool. she emerges sputtering and laughs.

episode eleven: the sixth and the ninth investigate a study together, and the fire alarm goes off. i think someone would say something cryptic here and then the intro would play LOL. like it's not even five minutes of the episode. 

the bulk of this one is the confrontation with ianthe, who has become a lyctor. the eighth dies. like 2/3 of the way through the episode gideon runs after sextus, which is when she overhears his conversation with dulcinea. end sextus exploding, cytherea emerging.

"i have come to kill the emperor and burn his houses. and gideon the ninth... this begins with you."

episode twelve: you know what happens from here. bbeg fight, climaxing with things looking grim, hiding in the bone shield, gideon throwing herself onto the iron spike. harrow ascends. they defeat cytherea. harrow pulls at gideon's body and sits with it. maybe she holds her hand? sad music plays.

the camera pans up from that, from them, up, and up, and up, to a very blue sky. eventually the sky darkens. we see stars. we see space. i think maybe something bright streaks across the sky, to imply that boe has arrived. but eventually we see a ship. harrow wakes up on the erebos, meets the emperor, and pledges herself to him.

"rise... harrowhark the first."

END SEASON ONE

anyways i also think another plus is that one of the big “twists” of this book is that the main character fucking dies. and you KNOW tv entertainment is all about that shit. like, doing what the viewer doesn’t expect? look at game of thrones. except it actually works here for obvious reasons. netflix would eat that shit up.

[gveret-fic]

Alright HtN final thoughts

Similarly to the last book, I’m overstimulated to all hell and back. Gideon is my favorite protagonist of all time, no question. The sheer endorphin rush I get reading her cracking jokes and being insufferable is just bonkers. I started this book with 2 spoilers, without which I might never have even started this book: 1) there was Gideon content in HtN, and 2) there was multiple Gideons content in HtN. On the first point, I’m more than satisfied; I’m currently buzzing with how ecstatic that was as a reading experience. On the second, Gideon 1.0 was a boring lump of dude lmao, the only interesting thing about him was his bodyswap poly relationship with Better Gideon’s mom, which, wow. What a 10,000 year old soap opera. So that was disappointing, but you know what, one Gideon is really enough.

The vast majority of this book was a miserable slog and it genuinely hurt to read to the point where I don’t know that I can recommend this experience to anyone who isn’t already a huge fan. Yeah, the payoff was massive and I was played like a perfect little fiddle, but I don’t approve of the tune. I think Muir could’ve cut out a good third of the book and at the very least 50% of the relentless torture she put Harrow through and it would have still been effective. I still have a bad taste in my mouth. I don’t have a problem with difficult or hurtful stories and I’m not trying to invoke any moralistic outrage here, but that wasn’t what I expected or frankly could have prepared for coming out of the (drastically tonally different) first book and I do believe it was excessive. It was blow after blow after blow to an isolated, terrified, pointedly disabled protagonist with no single moment of relief, comfort or connection until the fucking reveal and I don’t want it, thanks.

Okay that’s enough about that. Now the rest of it.

I really tried to care about the new characters, but no dice. God had his moments, but we haven’t really seen him do too much interesting shit. Ianthe was fucking excellent, though I really really didn’t want her to be. The rest were dead boring, I’m sorry. The blasphemous makeouts were their only redeeming moment. When we finally got some Palamedes and Cam, I could have cried. Wish we could have spent more time with them, but I have high hopes for the next book. Ortus, surprisingly, was awesome! I wish him a happy afterlife with his poetic legendary husband. Also he did nothing wrong and all that nonsense about finally fighting for what’s important yada yada was pure military propaganda, let the man write lengthy poetry about his ghost boyfriend in peace. Dulcinea was a fucking badass! So happy she got a chance to shine, and to say ‘nyah!’ Abigail was also fantastic. Well that whole section of the book had me swimming in endorphins so maybe it isn’t saying much, but I fucking loved them, I fucking loved how much Harrow cared about them, Harrow, who had been an emotionally depleted husk throughout most of the book, now showing the most heartrending vulnerability and care for this little found ghost family and practically rotating through them one by one to apologize in the most terrible, gutpunching way, and finally being told not everything in the whole fucking world is her goddamn fault. This is the only reason I was able to accept no Gideon reunion, not even a single word between them. I’ve been yearning for hundreds of pages for Harrow to find human connection and care, and I’m so happy these are the people she found it with.

Gideon. I’m like tearing up right now just thinking about this. After the endless tedium, suffering, emotional disconnect to the point where characters dying horribly seemed insignificant against the backdrop of unrelenting despair, to have that vibrant, wonderful, dumbass motherfucking voice back---it was beyond cathartic. I reread every single line multiple times and I still don’t think I’ve wrung em fully dry. It was amazing. The personality dripping off the page, the immediate chemistry with any character living or dead or dull as rock, the blatant, beautiful disrespect for the sombre self importance of the whole preceding narrative. It was my favorite character crashing into one of my least favorite books, and making it awesome. I think a lot of people try to write a Gideon, and most of the time the result is completely unbearable, and I’d posit there’s 2 reasons for this: 1) they tragically, mistakenly make their Gideon a man, and 2) they just aren’t funny. Of course an unfunny Gideon would be unbearable. Of course a funny but emotionally vacant Gideon would be dull. But this Gideon is a fucking delight with a real heartfelt gooshy selfless vulnerable yearning center, and every line I got to spend with her was a rush.

Harrow and Gideon. Oof. I’ve been going back and forth on whether I shipped them, whether I even could, whether it was the intention at all. But like, come on. This is clearly a love story. It’s a love story from start to finish, and it’s cool that it got me to doubt that so sincerely when it’s just this level of ride and die, jump into hell, carve out your brain, share a body and preserve its modesty against your every instinct and not even make any jokes about it, universe crossing, death defying, soul melding level of mushy ass romance. Harrow fucking kept Gideon’s shitty sunglasses wrapped in a love note. She did find&replace on her whole personality. She kissed Ianthe. I remember the first time I watched Revolutionary Girl Utena, where almost every other episode would begin with a lil fairytail backstory recap telling you about the little girl who saw a prince and was so enamored she decided to become a prince too. And you believe that narrative, because why wouldn’t you? It’s a stylized repetitive fairytale at the start of a show. Why would it lie? And then you find out, at the very end, that it wasn’t the cool manly prince who precipitated all of this, but baby Utena witnessing another young girl in pain, and deciding then and there that she was going to grow up and help her. And she does, even if she can’t remember why.

This was that level of paradigm shift for me. Harrow and her pile of letters and rules and her obsession and her nauseating work ethic, what was she doing?? Saving the world? Fixing a broken timeline? Trying to unlock unlimited power, bring back the corpse in the locked tomb, serve her god and emperor? Nope! She was just trying to keep her big beautiful dumbass girlfriend a little bit alive. 

Yeah. It’s a fucking love story.

Random thoughts: I liked Harrow’s grudge against food and the word ‘pommel’. I liked the diminishing ages Mercy inflicted upon her. I liked the first/second person shenanigans, tho really, there’s no way that was Gideon’s voice, first of all, there was way too much anatomical knowledge there. (Gideon’s secretly a time traveling bone doctor, calling it now). I liked the fanfic AUs, and very sad we didn’t get a fake dating one or like a nice “there was only one bed”. Not gonna mention soulmate AUs cuz that’s just canon.

That was a ride. Coulda done without some parts of it, but don’t regret it one bit. Let’s see what kinda nonsense the next one brings!

[goattypegirl]

Harrow the Ninth Live Read: Chapter 6-11

Con: It’s been a while

Pro: We finished part 1!

Con: this post is hella long now.

Chapter 6

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ohhhh Mom and Dad are fighting.

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

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

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

That makes no sense.

Something to keep in mind.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 7

Sixth House icon.

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

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

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

Not a lot to say here besides 

fuck.

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

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

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

Chapter 8

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 9

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FUCK.

(bruh what the fuck is a pseudo-Beast)

Okay yep time to fight an eldritch god.

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

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

Chapter 10

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

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

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

Hehehehe dick jokes.

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

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

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

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

HEEEEY

WHAT THE FUUUUCK

WE’RE CONTINUING ON THIS DYING EGGS THING

PROBABLY WILL BE RELEVANT LATER.

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

Chapter 11

Seventh House skull.

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

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

[katkonstant]

Harrow the Ninth: Act 1 Analysis - Local Bone Lady Newly Single and Ready for Mental Breakdown

I am so scared! so confused! and so turned on by the sepulchered mystery of Harrow the Ninth’s Act 1! And because it’s quarantine time, it’s organizational mapping and near-obsessive theorizing time baby. 

I’ll warn you: this got LONG. 

Spoilers galore. 

This post is to try and organize my own thoughts as well as preserve in time that I don’t know shit when HTN finally hits. All to answer the big question: What in the necro-hell is going on? Here’s what we know as fact:

Gideon the Ninth was about Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter and Badass Emo Princess, and her not hugged enough but grinning through the pain sword lesbian cavalier, Gideon Nav. A catalogue of their romp of death in Canaan House.

Harrow the Ninth is currently cataloguing two things: (1) Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter and Mentally Unstable Concussion, and her cavalier, Ortus Nigenad and their guided tour of Canaan House. AND (2) Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Baby Lyctor, aboard His Imperial and Unending Magic School Bus.

Similar to @Siadea‘s wonderful post (x), I am all aboard the Timeline Fuckery Theory (TFT). Operating under the TFT, I will refer to our cast of characters accordingly. To summarize the TFT, the major point is thus:

In the prologue of Harrow, I think the Harrowhark of Gideon the Ninth (hereby Harrow1) settled in, swan dove into the River, somehow backstroked in time to when she woke up on the Emperor’s ship, and then she resurfaced (with Ianthe’s help), stripped of all memory&detection involving Keyword:Gideon. 

Gideon  [ORTUS]

It appears Harrow1 has programmed Harrow2 with a find+replace formula for ‘Gideon’ and replacing it with ‘Ortus’ on a pure, sensory input level. I have NO idea how she (or something else) did this. Prologue Ianthe Tridentarius telling Harrow, “I know what you’ve done, and I know how to reverse it” makes me think Harrow did this to herself. 

It scrubs the past as well as the present. Proof - (1) When Harrow2 gets the Emperor’s invitation to Canaan House, we gather from context that Ortus asks her if she’s considered someone else. Only we read it as Ortus saying, “have you considered ORTUS NIGENAD?” AND THEN THE SCENE STARTS OVER, but rewound to moments before. Like a glitch in the Matrix; (2) The Emperor’s lips distort when he says “Ortus Nigenad did not die for nothing” and is confused when Harrow2 says it back to him; (3) When the Emperor later says the name of the third Lyctor ‘Ortus’, Harrow2 starts bleeding from the ears and passes out.....We’ll get to him in a sec.

The three syllables Prologue Harrow dies on: Could be ‘Gideon’ and the mark of her successful mindflaying from recognizing the word. Could also be ‘Alecto’. Hell, could even be ‘Nigenad’. Inconclusive.

The Chilly Weirdo Harrow Has the Hots For (alternatively, who tf are you?)

The Lady of the Locked Tomb is appearing and disappearing in Harrow2′s mind, both at her recall of Canaan House and in her (current?) stay with the Emperor. 

She has Griddle’s Eyes. As we’re familiar with the lyctors, we know that when their cavs are “eaten”, necromancers’ eyes change to their cavalier’s colors. OR the Lady has simply taken on Griddle’s eyes to put Harrow2 at ease.

She has the voice of who Harrow2 needs to hear. We’ve heard the Lady sound like Pelleamena (Harrow’s mommy dearest), Crux, and Aiglamene (Captain of the Ninth guard). Both of these are people who loved Harrow1. 

These characteristics ^ lead me to believe that the Lady can see Harrow1′s obsession with her and is either Manipulating Harrow2 by manufacturing her voice and eyes, or is genuinely trying to love Harrow2 in return. (She may have been present for Harrow’s entire life. See my Ch.3**)

What does she want from Harrow2? --> I think, without support or proof, that the Lady wants to Rise Again (as villains entombed are wont to do). As she doesn’t have a corporeal form, she’ll likely need Harrow’s help. Underlying idea being: the Emperor dies when his Unholy Other Half returns. It would be a little contrived to have the “beautiful lady revealed to be the big bad” device be the GTN and the HTN twist but we’ll see. 

Interesting point: The Lady doesn’t like His Holy Frumpyness & Co. “Lie. Lie now.” She’s either protecting herself further down the line, or the Lady thinks that Mercy would have harmed Harrow2 because of this info. It’s possible this is the same interest if she needs Harrow’s help to free her. 

Now Let’s Talk about Swords

AKA the sexiest part of this dissertation. 

Harrow the Concussed is carrying Griddle’s Two hander. Not just any two hander. It is in fact and distinctly, Griddle’s sword. This is supported by (1) Harrow2 was given the sword by the Emperor “as a gesture” implying he knows Griddle and the sword’s significance to Harrow1. And (2) The severe physical reactions Harrow2 has to the sword’s loathing. In GTN Harrow1 mentioned to Griddle, “I have always felt like that sword hates me”. (this in and of itself is mystifying but I’ve got bigger occult fish to fry)

Either Griddle’s Sword or Cytherea is alive. The fade to black of Harrow rekilling Cytherea is a mystery within a Christmas light tangle of other mysteries and I’m not fucking with it. BUT. There are Five lifeforms aboard the ship that traversed the River: Mercymorn, the Emperor, Ianthe, and Harrow. Harrow2 tells us that the Body/the Lady isn’t in sight. That leaves inanimate objects: Cytherea’s body, or the two hander that hates Harrow. 

Harrow2, the Concussed, is not carrying a rapier. Only in the Prologue does Harrow have a rapier on her hip. Ortus the Alternate cav carries a rapier. See the next theory for why this is significant. 

The Events of Canaan House Two are Not Real. 

These are my weakest theories. They’re all weak, but these ones are chief weaklings. The Time Fuckery Theory’s biggest snag is ‘Canaan House: What’s Real?’, and I think only the events with Harrow2 on the ship with Ianthe are actually occurring. 

I think someone is soul/spirit guiding Harrow2 on this Canaan House Round II to show her something. Proof: (1) The repeated “Is this how it happened?”/”This isn’t how it happened.” Clearly indicate that this IS a repeated experience for Harrow, and not the original. (2) Ortus glitches a bit, looks at Harrow2 and says “You never did have much of an imagination.” Someone who knows Harrow1 made him say this. I think. (3) If we count who possibly could spirit-guide Harrow2 on this quest, we have to find the denominator candidates: the only people who knew Harrow1 at Canaan House and at Drearburh are Gideon, and Harrow1 herself. And - if the Lady really has been following her around, the Lady of the Locked Tomb. (4) This theory cannot account for the strobing red egg hallucinations on paper Harrow2 is being delivered. 

Second explanation: it’s all happening in Harrow’s head, and Harrow1 is the spirit guide. In support: There is a surprising amount of explanation and character depth from Ortus. I believe Harrow1 knows Ortus enough from childhood to be able to project him onto Harrow2 this way. 

Third explanation: Because the people Harrow2 is interacting with are all dead, it’s microscopically possible Harrow2 is tripping some soul-shrooms in the River and having the souls of Canaan House teach her something via flashback. In support: Prologue Harrow says five pairs of eyes close to submerge into the River, but hers would not open again. Incredibly vague, but could mean she was going to be spending a significant amount of time in the River. This theory is unlikely, as Harrow is a bone adept. Souls are squishy and freaky to her. Unlikely also from what we saw of the River. Ie; the River is an inhospitable predator which ripped Cassiopea apart and scares the hell out of Mercy and the Emperor. Not an ideal destination spirit-walk vacation spot. Plus, the only clear reasoning we get from Harrow about why she’s descending into the River is because she knows she’s going to die (although she tells Ianthe she has no plans to die)

Things to Note: (1) Teacher immediately spills the Sleeper beans, lets the laboratory cat out of the bag, and unmasks the key mystery. I think who/whatever is guiding Harrow2 around makes this happen legitimately just to save time. (2) Harrow2 is learning things from Ortus, Teacher, Abigail Pent, etc that Harrow1 and Gideon didn’t know.

If the Events of Canaan House Round Two ARE Real. 

If the Great Value Canaan House timeline is actually happening and are physically influential, the implications are fucking vast, because now we’re considering the multiverse of how time works. I am not about to get into that shit because I do (contrary to this post’s existence’s suggestion) have a life, and I don’t feel like rededicating it to the theory of relativity and time dilation. 

The biggest question though would then become: How would events have unfolded if Ortus had gone to Canaan House and not Griddle? The only conclusion to that is: everyone would be dead and Cytherea would be alive. Which does not jive with the happenings of Emperor Frizzle’s Magic NecroBus and Harrow2 (many are alive, and Cytherea is dead). It could be that Cytherea is, in fact, alive and needs re-killing via the Act 1 end of Harrow2 stabbing her. I can’t say.

What does freak me out about Canaan2 is Harrow herself. 

Not her insanity, mind you, but the fact that Harrow2 is hilarious. She’s always been acidic and funny, but Harrow2 is crude and funny. This is very, very bad. She makes a remark about the term ‘bone frenzy’ that Ortus says only someone who’d prefer ‘prurient magazines’ would think of. Can anyone guess who might be more incline than Harrow to prefer prurient magazines? Say a messy sword necrolesbian with a subscription to Frontline Titties of the Fifth?

Harrow2 is also not chasing Palamedes Sextus around the grounds of Canaan House in a near-suicidal race to Lyctorhood. 

Not only is she not working herself to death, but Harrow is doing the opposite: she is socializing. With the Fourth and Fifth! She’s caustic and rude while she does it, but she’s still spending time around them for whatever reason. 

All these behaviors are Griddle behaviors and they make. me. nervous. 

Is Harrow2 Actually a Lyctor?

Harrow’s Dramatis Personae section lists ‘Harrowhark the First’ with a huge and glaring and delightful redacted section below her name. If someone truly had the time, I’m sure they could sleuth out the layers of the censorship and find out what it says. However, it’s plain that the underlying text does NOT say ‘Gideon Nav, her cavalier’. So we’re left with more questions - who or what died to give Harrow her power? .....As a point of interest, it looks like the original writing has been overlaid with even more text. 

Ortus’ eyes were black - the same shade as Harrow’s. Harrow2 wouldn’t be able to confirm or deny that she had successfully eaten her Canaan Redux cavalier.

In the prologue, Harrow1 calls herself “half a lychtor” implying that either 1) she’s simply not trained, or 2) something went wrong in her lyctorhood creation

And then we have this weird Chapter 3** internal narration of Harrow2′s childhood without Griddle. And she’s.. absolutely bananas. She grows up a ghoulish, lonely, nut job. But she still says she had committed the indelible sin halfway. That she hadn’t been able to choke him (Ortus) down. 

Her manifestations of power don’t add up. First, Ianthe (undisputedly a lyctor) shoves Babs’ knife through her hand and has no problem with it, or healing right up. Harrow2... isn’t so lucky. Prologue Harrow is also in the process of dying. Conversely, while in the River, Mercymorn dismisses the idea that Harrow2 could possibly be using theorems and freaks out when she discovers Harrow can. Conclusion being: Either Harrow2 is incredible weak, or incredibly powerful but untrained, or she is Something Else Entirely*.

Harrow2 isn’t experiencing lyctoral indigestion. Cytherea tells Ianthe right after she eats Babs, “I can see him fighting you. Mine [meaning her cav, Loveday] came willingly, and it still hurt for a century.” We know Babs still fights Ianthe in HTN, as her eyes are usually swapping shades. It’s not something Harrow1 or 2 mentions as a problem. 

* My working theory is that Harrow2 is kind of lyctor-ish and being protected by the Lady, the Sword, or Griddle (who might be incarnate in either).  

Side note: It might be too far into the weeds to wonder about but I want to know what pregnancy would do to a lyctor. If we follow the Die Young but Beautiful and Powerful practices of the Seventh House, Dulcinea’s family uses their crappy genes as internal combustion engines: cells dying within them allow a perpetual source of thanergy. On the opposite end of that same theory, a necromancer constantly producing thalergy (life and cell growth) should therefore be significantly weaker, right?

This^ is only relevant when considering the other theory:

Papa Gideon [ORTUS] knocked up a fellow Lyctor. 

While it would explain the creepy “egg” texts Harrow2 is hallucinating, as well as why Cytherea spared Griddle multiple times at Canaan house, I doubt this theory for a few reasons: 

Of the available lyctors able to carry children, there is Cassiopeia, Anastasia, Mercymorn, and Cytherea. We only know Mercy and Cytherea.

It’s strongly implied that Cytherea and her cav, Loveday, were in a relationship. Since Loveday is technically still inside of Cytherea, I doubt she wanted to date around. 

The Emperor strives to present the Lyctors as siblings. This a) props himself up as the holy and imperial papa bear to guide and govern them, b) perpetuates the eternal and indestructible bond of siblings, and c) kills any idea of inter-lyctoral hooking up. Can you even imagine the destruction a Jersey Shore: Unholy Power bar fight would wreak?  

I’m not fully convinced Lyctor Gideon [ORTUS] is Griddle’s father. While it would make sense in terms of stature (Lyctor G/O is a single rippling muscle and Griddle’s biceps are... noteworthy), Silas Octakiseron told Gideon that her mother had hair just the same shade as her (source: Sister Glaurica’s toiling soul). Could be that Griddle’s Mom’s soul screaming “Gideon!” was her calling for the Lyctor, her brother/other relation. 

However, I DO believe Griddle is... more than. She wasn’t killed by the nerve gas, and Harrow2′s eyes are not Griddle Gold. 

As a second side note, Lyctor Gideon [ORTUS]’s cav was named Pyrrha Dve. This is exciting to me because of my slutty fandom tendencies and because a name like ‘Pyrrha’ begs for Tragic Backstory, and I’m here for it. Also, I want more interaction with Augustine as he’s who Ianthe says “won’t come save” Harrow. Eye emoji.  

Alecto

As far as I’m aware, there are no solid leads on who or what Alecto the Ninth is. Casting about in wildly unwarranted guesswork, I can throw a few baseless theories out; 

Alecto is Griddle’s truer name (possibly birth name or even what she’s called if when she is brought back);

Alecto is the Lady of the Locked Tomb; 

Alecto is the Emperor’s Cav. In Harrow’s ‘Dramatis Personae’, The Emperor is listed as well as his lyctors and their cavaliers. Except, the Emperor does not have a deceased cav. He has “A.L.”, his guardian. A.L. =Alecto, mayhaps?; 

Alecto, a combination of (2) and (3). The Lady is supposedly the Emperor’s death and who he could not kill twice. If she were his ‘guardian’ she would be a) more powerful than him, and b) someone he was emotionally attached to which he couldn’t bring himself to kill again. 

Things I Cannot and Refuse to Account For:

Ianthe Tridetarius became a sewn tongue as a favor for Harrow1. Wtf. 

Ortus Nigenad’s self-insert cavalier epic of Matthias Nonius. Wtf. 

**The entirety of Chapter 3 is either true or it’s not. Wtf was that shit.  

The psychotic “You lied”/”Egg” texts Harrow2 is hallucinating. Wtf.

This is.... all probably incorrect, and I applaud you if you made it this far. I could keep going, the material of Act 1 is that dense. But in answer to The Great Big WTF that is Harrow Act 1 - my theory is simple. 

TLDR; I think Harrowhark Nonagesimus is tearing down the laws of the universe to bring back Gideon the Ninth.

[goattypegirl]

Harrow the Ninth Live Read: Chapter 1-2

Poor Harrow :(

Chapter 1:

Ok back to second person! And we’re nine months pre-murder.

Is the sword actually burning or is this psychosomatic? She doesn't flinch when she pierces her hand to make the bone glove so maybe?

The muscle memory from Gideon seems to be gone. Maybe Harrow's traumatized? Understandably so tbh. And she's lowkey suicidal. Mood. Ok yeah this feels more like shock than anything supernatural. The events of Canaan House, becoming a Lyctor, being on a spaceship hospital, and unable to properly paint a skull mask... Poor Harrow.

Ok yeah being a Lyctor sounds fucking terrifying. Being aware at all times of everything around you... what a sensory nightmare.

Damn okay, Harrows being visited by the Body. Now I'm wondering if it is just a hallucination or if its something more. A part of Harrow seems to think its the latter...

"Red, and wet, and ill defined." Oh god Harrow what did you do.

Chapter 2

Knocking and waiting for permission before entering being a true sign of Divinity is sad and hilarious.

Harrow has a point. Why would necromancer demigods need swords? On the other hand, swords fuck, so.

I do wonder what life is like for the average person on Erebos. I was half thinking it was literally just the emperor and the lyctors in the First House.

Oh my god God is ghosting one of the Lyctors. "Make static noises". Slacker God is a rare character archetype but it's always so fucking funny.

And Harrow can raise eighteen thousand dead? Or is he talking about himself? Hmm...

Well thats a pretty smart way of carrying a greatsword when actually touching it makes you violently ill.

So it is trauma? I guess that explains everything being in second person; it adds a layer of depersonalization to the narration.

Wow ok being a Lyctor really sucks. Being intensely aware at all times of all the bodies on the ship...

The emperors speaking metaphorically, right? Or could we be reading a story about chronurgists now?

Yooo cryosleep! Part of me is wondering if these weren’t actually people alive 10,000 years ago who were resurrected, but frozen zygotes that have been artificially aged into people? IDK. 

Oh no. These special caskets are for the cavaliers and heirs that died in Canaan House, aren’t they? Yep, yes they are. Ok. Wait, the black casket with the rose, that has Cyntherea’s body, but it’s decorated like a Ninth house? Or has Harrow already switched to thinking of herself as First House, and black is the color for both the First and Ninth Houses? 

“You wanted to be relieved, but no longer recalled how that worked, glandularly speaking.” I really don’t think there’s something supernatural going on here, but. I once read someone’s worldbuilding notes on how liches worked in their D&D game, and it boiled down to liches are immortal, but all bodily functions have to be manually done. Swallowing, breathing, heart beating, cell division all had to be done manually. Their mind expanded to allow for that, but eventually all liches slip up and their body starts to fall apart. Anyway. That’s not what’s happening here, but I was reminded of it.

I want to see fanart of the Emperor, or at least his eyes, because I just cannot picture it. All I can picture is just oily black/rainbow eyes. I had this same problem reading the Lightbringer series. I do not know how eyeball anatomy works.

Bro what do you mean the cost is too great. Crackpot theory: there’s some kind of like thanergy pressure difference? And if the Emperor actually steps foot on one of the planets, the Resurrection is undone and everyone suddenly dies.

Of course he doesn’t know how to hug. Gods Who Are Fully Aware They Are Bastards is another rare, favorite trope of mine.

Okay this is a lot of science words but I’m following so far. Okay, so only humans have souls... Okay, I remember reading this in the guide at the end of Gideon the Ninth. It is really weird that planets in the Dominicus system have both death energy and life energy, for reasons I couldn’t quite put my finger on. But, planets have souls, apparently! Cool!

Being pissed that another major that you always thought was stupid would have covered this a lot earlier than you is kinda relatable lmao.

Okay, I can see where this is going, but there’s a wider scale story we’re only getting pieces of here. Necromancy and thanergy are like viruses that slowly kill a planet, literally. And the entire population has to be relocated, presumably to a new infected planet. Late stage necromancy capitalism.

Also, the Body moving Harrow’s arms for her is strikingly similar to her hallucination of Gideon at the end of the last book... 

OKAY COOL. PLANET SIZED GHOSTS. RESSURECTION BEASTS. UNDERSTOOD. 

GOD IS CRYING.

THEY EAT PLANETS.

LYCTORS HAVE DIED DISTRACTING THEM.

FUCK.

Okay. 3 are left. There were 9. 5 were defeated? And those were... Two, Eight, and Six. I’m with Harrow. The math does not check out.

Oh, okay, they automatically home in on the Emperor and Lyctors no matter where they are. Cool. Understood. 

(Which indelible sin lmao).

Uhhhh what the fuck? So the Body has Gideon’s eyes now. That’s not good. Okay she’s talking to it now and it’s responding. “I am half a Lyctor?” “Ortus did not die for nothing?” Excuse me?

Ooooh. Okay. I think I know what’s going on. Harrow is trying to completely erase Gideon from her mind. That’s why the Emperor’s mouth ‘looked strange’ when he said Ortus. That’s why she doesn’t have the muscle memory she should have gotten from Gideon.

Poor Harrow.

EDIT: Oh my god I'm an idiot. This totally recontextualizes the Parados chapter. It might just be Harrows perspective of that chapter in the library with Gideon, but with Gideon forcibly redacted and replaced with Ortus... that would explain why the Body said it didn't happen this way.... I've connected the two dots....

EDIT THE SECOND: thinking more about the Resurrection Beasts. The Emperor said there have been other, smaller ones besides the original 9. Perhaps created during the Cohorts campaign when they converted a planet to thanergy too fast? Second, the prologue showed Harrow and other necromancers astral projecting into the River to fight one. So, maybe over the course of the book a way to kill the Resurrection Beasts is discovered? That or they're distracting it? Third, the Emperor apparently also did the Lyctor ritual, or something close to it, to attract the Resurrection Beasts. Fourth, I was kinda right! It was a side effect of the Resurrection that prevents the Emperor from returning to the Dominicus system, and it would call all the inhabitants to die. It just wouldn't be suddenly. Hopefully.