2023-07-12 1:57:48 ¶ ●

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there’s a post floating around with the girl from the ring next to margo robbie from barbie that says ‘the alecto we thought we were getting vs the alecto we got’. when i sent it to my best friend (i infected her with the tlt brain rot a while ago) she had an epiphany that i haven’t seen any one else talking about yet.

In Harrow, we get multiple descriptions of who Harrow calls The Body, and they sound like the girl from the ring. What if when Harrow went into the tomb, Anastasia, who we now know was also locked inside, was the one who bound herself to Harrow all revenant like and haunted her for all that time?

haven’t done a reread since this started percolating in my brain so it’s more than possible there’s something in the books somewhere that unequivocally disproves this theory, but what do you think? Is Harrows haunting actually Anastasia?

Firstly, the below answer contains spoilers for Nona the Ninth, so please don’t read on if you haven’t read that yet!

Before I answer this, I should point out that, at a certain point in the fandom (circa early 2021, iirc) this theory by tumblr user ac-ld - which postulates that John switched the bodies of Alecto and Anastasia in the ninth tomb, and that The Body that Harrow sees is actually Anastasia and that Alecto is actually buried in the First House - was the most popular theory in the TLT fandom hands down. I think it still probably holds the crown of most popular TLT theory, despite being disproved as of Nona the Ninth’s publication.

If you read the above theory I linked, I think that your friend is thinking along similar, but not exactly the same, lines? Sorry if I’m wrong and misunderstood!

Full disclosure, before Nona the Ninth came out, I really thought this theory - that The Body is actually Anastasia- had a high chance of being correct, but (in my personal opinion!) I think Nona the Ninth has pretty much cemented in my head that the Body was Alecto. My reasons are:

1. If we look at the descriptions of The Body, Harrow - and Gideon when she sees the Body too - literally describes The Body as perfect (“Each limb was a carved representation of a perfect limb, each bloodless foot the lifeless and high-arched simulacrum of the perfect foot”, etc). It thematically makes sense for this to describe Alecto, an unreal being who was literally created to resemble a Barbie doll by John, than for it to describe Anastasia, who was a real human and therefore inherently flawed.
   Plus, Gideon’s description of The Body (“with a face so beautiful it almost went out the other side and became repellent”) specifically jives with how Augustine described Alecto looking inhuman, whereas if Anastasia was so unnaturally beautifully as to be repellent, I think Augustine would have mentioned it, since he specifically mentions at one point that Harrow is “Anastasia come again.”
2. Gideon describes The Body as “a woman with my eyes, dimmed dark yellow in death”, while Harrow’s POV mentions of her hair that “that long hair hanging wetly over her shoulders, that resinous colour that in death might have been brown or might have been gold or might have been anything” and of her eyes “in your youth her eyes had often been black, like yours were, but that ever since you had writhed in Lyctoral agony her eyes had turned a yellow that made you dizzy to behold” and of her voice “the voice—low, husky, musical—or its dry and uncanny echo of other voices you had known: your mother’s, Crux’s”.
   So The Body had a certain unnaturally beautiful look but it’s hair colour was not pinned down, and when it came to eye colour and voice it seemed to take on characteristics of other humans whom… Harrow had known? Who had died for Harrow? Thematically, it just makes sense to me that Alecto - the soul of Earth, the font of all the humans that were later reborn in the Ninth House and other houses - would be able to embody all the souls that Harrow … loved? mourned? Instinctively, it makes sense to me why Alecto can embody all these souls that ultimately once came from her, while Anastasia - who was ultimately just a human - can’t.
   While I’m here, Anastasia was most likely black-eyed and black-haired, as that is described by Harrow to be the overwhelming Ninth House look.
3. On a meta level, if you read Tamsyn Muir’s other works such as the Deepwater Bride and Floralinda, you’ll see that there are certain narrative themes she visits over and over again, but also certain aesthetic things, and one of the aesthetic things she visits again and again is of a very unnaturally beautiful golden-haired girl who turns out to actually be a “monster” (neutral). So, after reading her other works, I’m convinced on a meta as well as a narrative/thematic level that The Body and Alecto are the same.
4. Even if all the above weren’t true, I think Nona the Ninth pretty much confirmed beyond doubt that The Body is Alecto. In NTN, Harrow looks upon Alecto and calls her “corse of the Locked Tomb” (corse being an archaic word for corpse). We know that The Body is the same as the corpse in the tomb because that is confirmed in Harrow the Ninth (HTN Act One Ch. 3), so if we put that together with the above quote, then there is no doubt that “the corse of the Locked Tomb” = “The Body” = “Alecto”.
   Harrow also says in Nona the Ninth, looking upon Alecto’s face “I have loved thee all my life, with mine whole soul, and with mine whole strength.” To me, it wouldn’t make sense for Harrow to say this looking upon Alecto’s face, if Anastasia was The Body?

Therefore, given all the reasons above, I think Nona the Ninth has pretty much proven that The Body that Harrow is haunted by is Alecto, who somehow takes on the characteristics of other people that Harrow loves/mourns.

That being said, all of the above is just my personal opinion and observation! I’m not saying I’m right, and I fully welcome everything I said above being proved wrong in Alecto the Ninth!