#tlt paul

[dammit-tazmuir]

The entire thing that makes Paul so special is that lyctorhood has always involved taking power from others. Earth tried to offer John power to use it to help her, and he took more than she could give and destroyed her himself and twisted her into a new form to suit his needs. Even with her still alive, so much was taken from her. Other lyctors are "half-dead cannibals." Even for Gideon and Harrow, with Gideon knowing what she was doing and giving her life on purpose, still gave Harrow something to take, to still be Harrow with extra parts. Any cavaliers of old who gave themselves willingly are the same way.

Paul does not do this. Paul represents a choice where nothing was taken and everything was given, mutually and fully, without reserve or hesitation.

They're not Pal with extra parts. They're not Cam with necromancy. They're a new person, a full whole person whose thoughts and feelings and opinions are informed by the two people who created them but exist independently of them, even right away, let alone with more time to develop as their own person. Palamades wouldn't have let Nona wear the shirt outside the house, Camilla wouldn't have let her wear it inside, and Paul doesn't care about either. Paul knows what Pal and Cam would have thought, but Paul isn't Pal or Cam or even Pal-AND-Cam. Paul is PAUL.

Their love and their hopes and dreams live on in Paul, and Paul inherited a lot from them, but Paul is Paul. And we have every right to grieve them both, but I think we can do that while also understanding and respecting that this truly was the best and kindest end they could have hoped for given the lives they lived. Personally, I deeply love Paul, and I'm so looking forward to seeing all they can bring to the world. I think they'll know Cam and Pal would be proud.

Locked tomb hot takes:

Insisting that the birth of Paul is only a tragedy because of the uneven power dynamics between Palamedes and Camilla as Necro and Cav invalidates Camillas autonomy and undermines her as a character capable of making her own decisions. It also undermines Palamedes constantly checking for consent. He understands more than most that there is an uneven power dynamic and actively works to respect her autonomy as much as he can while also respecting their bond/positions as necro and cav.

In a world where those who identify as men have no natural power over those who identify as women or neither, we can not apply the same cisheteronormative expectations of male behavior to male characters.

Camilla made every. Single. Choice. Willingly. She had reasons for it, and Palamedes respected that more than readers seem to. We get plenty of examples.

"What would you do if you discovered Camilla was a murderer?”

“Help her bury the body,” said Palamedes promptly.

“Sextus.”

“I mean it. If Camilla wants someone dead,” he said, “then far be it from me to stand in her way. All I can do at that point is watch the bloodshed and look for a mop. One flesh, one end, and all that.”

GtN chapter 30

NtN chapter 17

The relationship between these two may be codependent, but it's predicated on trust and consent. The whole way through. This is the life Cam wants to live. Becoming Paul was what *she wanted*.

I find it strange that some people think they know what's best for her more than she does, just because she's a cavalier.

[pine-rhyme]

I think it would be funny in Alecto, if we spend more time on the Ninth, for the great aunts to, very affectedly, inform Harrow of her parents' passing during their silent practice to which Harrow barelly even manages to act either surprised or mournful (while Kiriona has a fit of laughter nearby).

"And that makes you, Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus, our 311th Reverend Mother."

Freshly out of Hell and still dazed by whatever happend post tomb opening, Reverend Mother Harrowhark Nonagesimus, can urge no other reaction out of her but a slightly out of breath, shamefully informal "Ok."

Cue a pleathoa of mom jokes that everybody seems to get into.

"Reverend- forgive me Harrowhark, I cannot in good faith look at your face and call you-"

"Then please don't. Thank you, Paul."

"Oh, mother!" ejaculates Ianthe at her every movement.

"Oh, sorry mommy", Kiriona is already begging for it.

Worst things worst she is still, functionally, the last person ever born on the Ninth.

[crtki]

my 6 fav characters! i’m on a roll! closeups under cut

[rat-studio]

I don't like confrontation but I'm staring at the sun I won't quit until my eyes go red I'll finish what's begun

Verse 2! I really liked the idea of Nona being sooo annoyed at Varun-- pretty much exactly like this post-- so I tried to make her look as irritated as possible here. Song: Unsweetened Lemonade by Amélie Farren

Verse 1 Verse 3

Version without lyrics, timelapse, and reference/symbolism explanations below cut.

[vulpes-aestatis]

Listening to the HtN audiobook and just got past the past where Jod explains the origin of the RBs.

Did Paul commit the "indelible sin"? Will the RBs hunt them like the other lyctors?

[kairos-polaris]

Gideon and Coronabeth are two characters who change their names after going through a major life altering event. they attempt to shed their previous identities, taking on the names and titles given to them by someone else. yet they fail to do so because their new names have the same meaning as their old ones, which is something they are likely unaware of

Lyctors and their cavaliers are given new names, too. but all is left of their previous identities is the first letter of the names just likes all is left of the people John knew is their bodies

Paul, just like the Lyctors, keeps the first letter of their name. but unlike the Lyctors Camilla and Palamedes chose their new name and they chose to die and become something new. they stand apart from their old selves and it is their choice

[moonstonecockatiel]

Like once a day I remember that one post that read “I don’t like Kiriona’s characterization because she didn’t try to SexPal Paul’s name” when that’s quite literally one of the first things she does upon meeting them. Like she very much did that.

[swordsandspectacles]

Yes, forever, yes. Life is too short, and Love is too long.

[featherbreak]

Camilla’s clockwork interrupted with a series of urgent beeps: the BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP of a timer alarm, faster and more panicked than the usual time’s-up sound. ... but then Camilla had straightened and was blinking furiously, and it was Camilla. Her eyes were pale grey again and she shuddered like herself.

happy Nona the Ninth paperback release day! here's some New Rho Palamedes Sextus Camilla Hect for your "I just read The Unwanted Guest or remembered that Paul exists, and now I have 99 feelings & all of them are pain" mood.

no? can't be just me sobbing about Camilla Hect forever

bonus action outtake inspired by @shesmymausoleum 's awesome fanart of my last cosplay post:

[katakaluptastrophy]

@greatandquestionablecontent noted that my discussion of Paul and St Paul didn't touch on the latter's awful views on women and sexuality.

And while I very much hope those aren't relevant for our new Lyctor-ish buddy Paul, they very much do haunt the narrative of The Locked Tomb.

We get one in-world bit of theology in Gideon the Ninth: the Sermon on Necromancers and Cavaliers, which talks about how the Houses understand the relationship between necromancer and cavalier and god. And it's pretty much St Paul's Letter to the Ephesians, ctrl + F'd for necromancy, with a few other infamous Pauline verses thrown in for good measure, especially from 1 Corinthians:

A necromancer who must leave her House and fight requires a swordswoman./For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh. - Ephesians 5:31

Our necromantic characteristics make us more like the Emperor...the necromancer and the cavalier are no different./[A man] is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of the man. - 1 Cor 11:7

As [the Emperor] was once man, and became God...so were we dead and became alive./And as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. - 1 Cor 15:22

Their love is the love that fears only for the other: the love of service on both sides. Some have tried to characterise this relationship as the cavalier’s obedience to the necromancer, but the necromancer must be in turn obedient to the needs of the cavalier without being asked or prompted: theirs is arguably the heavier burden./Loving one another with the charity of brotherhood, with honour preventing [anticipating] one another. - Romans 12:10 (I suspect this one is also meant to call to mind Ephesians 5's instructions for wives to submit to their husbands, while husbands are asked to love their wives like Christ loves the church - an instruction proponents of so-called Biblical gender roles will often describe in language similar to the Sermon as being the bigger ask.)

The love of the cavalier for the necromancer, and the necromancer for the cavalier...cannot be libidinous./But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity...because these are improper for God’s holy people. - Ephesians 5:3

So cavaliership very much reproduces the gendered asymmetries of power found in many traditional Pauline-flavoured interpretations of Christian marriage.

But when you look at some of the invective around a romantic or sexual necromancer/cavalier relationship, it's coded rather more as homophobia.

The Sermon on Necromancers and Cavaliers hedges around explicitly condemning necro/cav relationships as specifically against the will of god, but makes it clear that's very much a view held within the Houses:

"after a myriad of thought about the matter, marrying your cavalier remains taboo at best. There have been those who have argued eloquently that it is traitorous to the ideals of the Necrolord Prime."

While St Paul isn't the only source of egregiously homophobic Bible verses, he's responsible for a good chunk of them, and the idea of this specifically defying the designs of God is a recurring theme...

It's worth noting that not all of what's generally described as St Paul's writing likely actually is. And Ephesians, which features so strongly here, is one of those "pseudo-Pauline" letters - a sort of Pauline fanfiction written to fill in perceived gaps or deal with issues as they arose.

But it feels oddly appropriate that the Houses' theology of gender cavaliership, itself an imitation of St Paul, is so strongly inspired by an imitation of St Paul...

[dammit-tazmuir]

Paul: Palamades would have been alarmed. Camilla would have been offended.

Pyrrha: And what about you?

Paul: I'm appalled.

Pyrrha:

[bookwyrminspiration]

[pine-rhyme]

Nona sketch dump. I am still thinking about the New Rho fam way too often.

[bad-ads]

tlt camilla and palamedes really said actually the all consuming and cannibalistic nature of love and lyctorhood isnt just romantic relationships! its also for QPRs

[toweringclam]

The only proof I need that Kiriona is not actually Gideon is that she didn't call Paul "Sex Cam."

[hellsitedotcom]

I deeply miss Camilla Hect and Palamedes Sextus.