#tazmuir you have layered so many goddamn things into this series I want to know how you do it

[lockedtombbrainworms]

Next TLT question I hope we get an answer to: why does Gideon the First have an anti-necromancy field as one of his major tricks in a fight? Augustine literally says that the only reason you'd need Mercymorn's anatomist powers is for killing Lyctors, but why would you need to be a thanergy void and bleed any nearby necromancy dry in a setting where your side is the only faction using necromancy?

Pyrrha refers to what he (or they) do as "bleeding" the thanergy, and it doesn't seem to be used to bolster G1deon or anyone else around him, like second house necromancers usually do when they drain thalergy. Lyctors don't need to steal energy for that sort of thing anyway, they have basically unlimited thanergy to draw from.

Having all the thanergy sucked out of the room doesn't seem to actually harm Harrow, who doesn't have lyctor healing to protect her from any horrible effects it might cause, so presumeably it's not much use as a weapon against BoE or anyone else from outside the Nine Houses, because they don't use wards or constructs for it to destroy. It might have some use against heralds, but the Saint of Duty already has a very effective defense against heralds in the form of stabbing the shit out of them with his gigantic fuckoff spear, which is probably easier to do when you're suffering from Herald Brainfuck Shit Your Pants Syndrome than advanced necromancy. And besides, the lyctors themselves generally aim to be in the River when the heralds show up, leaving their non-necromantic bodies behind, so in terms of necromantic skills to perfect, there are probably more useful ones for taking down heralds.

Augustine says he learnt the skill John asked him to perfect. Did Gideon the First do the same? Was he John's ace in the hole against a faction within the Nine Houses turning on him?

I am ROTATING this entire series in my mind!