When I was reading and rereading Harrow, I already
thought that the Mithraeum was a really cool name for
God’s space station, but it’s much funnier having read Nona. The
Mithraeum is a reference to the Mithraic Mysteries, an ancient Roman
cult/religion
about a guy who slaughtered a bull, spilled its blood and thereby renewed the
world. Or something, I’m not a Classicist and the
secret nature of the Mithraic mysteries mean that a lot of the sources are
vague or contradictory. What we know for certain that the Mithraea
were underground temples, built to look like a cave, specifically the cave
where Mithras killed the bull, and that the cultists held their feasts and secret
initiation rites there. So far, so good, the Mithraeum is God’s secret
temple,
a place where new Lyctors are initiated, and where blood is spilled, or at
least where spilled blood is remembered.
But then you read Nona, and find out that John sacrificed literal cows in very
large numbers, that in fact he made an inside-out cow-wall,
and
this reference to a mythological killer of cattle becomes
pretty
hilarious.
“Don’t think about the past / it’s always there anyway.”
[ID: A drawing of Gideon Nav from The Locked Tomb in purple and gold. A young Gideon, wearing a shabby tunic and pants, hugs her knees to her chest and looks at a spacesuit helmet sadly. A sword is stuck in the ground by her feet and she is surrounded by bones. Above, a cloud reveals Gideon in the present. She is a muscular person with brown skin, short red hair, and golden eyes. She faces away from the viewer and holds her sword over her shoulder. A gold circle is behind her. End ID]
“You’re going to die spewing your own lungs out of your nostrils, having failed at the finish line because you couldn’t help but prattle about why you killed innocent people, as though your reasons were interesting…”
“nona the ninth should have been the intro to alecto” to YOU. i think becoming intimately acquainted with the people especially children of this setting and the struggles they face and the ways in which their priorities are small and intimate and far removed from the galaxy-shattering events happening to and around them and then watching as the protagonist and her loved ones are wrenched away from their tenuous peace due toforces and history that have been out of their control for 10000 years is does necessitate like 500 pages actually
i’m on the fence here. It was painfully slow, but it was very interesting to see a slice of life outside the core of the Empire, on this nowhere colony world, get an idea of how the system of exploitation actually affects people on the ground
taz could push me around the worlds biggest walmart in a squeaky threewheeled shopping cart for nine hours if she wanted.
not pictured: magnus (would never do a crime), marta dyas (would never do a crime where anyone might see), isaac and jeannemary (the pents would maneuver them out of trouble), ortus nigenad (???), numerous well-deserving others
Magnus - a slew of petty misdemeanors, all objectively funny & documented on TikTok.
Marta Dyas - only war crimes, sir. (Her commanding officer is in front of The Hague.)
Pelleamena & Priamhark - Only war crimes, sir, and it was worth it. (They hang themselves in prison.)
Jeannemary Chatur - be gay, do crimes, get charged as a minor & released.
Issac Tettares - Magnus picks him up after a cop gives him a stern lecture for jaywalking.
Ortus Nigenad - sadly, can’t be arrested for busking without a permit.
Colum Asht - would never do a crime.
Our Lady of the Passion - (on the run will never be caught)
Hot Sauce - attempted war crimes, is charged as a minor and released.
Commander We Suffer and We Suffer - (on the run from war crimes tribunal, sells out Merv wing when captured and then kills herself before getting interrogated)
Naberius Tern - keeps trying to get charged with being “too sexy for his shirt”, ends up charged with contempt of court for interrupting proceedings for attention, Ianthe and Coronabeth forget him in jail and never post bail.
Kevin - has never done a crime. Cannot do a crime. Baby.
Noodle - his numerous crimes are probably what Alecto is about. Cannot be held accountable, because Noodle is a good boy, yes he is.
thinking about early in the book when nonas like “ugh itd be so EMBARRASSING to have another tantrum :(” then when we actually see nona have a tantrum it is like. body horror ripping and tearing and bleeding
listen i’d be embarrassed too if i blood tear rip agony suffer flesh and marrow snapped bones endless screaming horror nightmare blood. in front of camilla hect no less
say what you will about the sixth house but do not think for a moment that palamedes sextus and camilla hect would not write, elaborately plan, and carry out the most excruciating and disconcerting D&D campaign known to mankind. harrow is forced to participate. gideon is a paladin and her character looks exactly like her. ianthe gets down to death-saves and nobody lifts a finger to help. the fifth house is unnervingly good despite having been explained the rules an hour prior. isaac and jeannemary leave crying
Absolutely hilarious that Mercy and Cristabel’s relationship turns out to have been platonic. That means neither of the people who originated the “One Flesh, One End” mantra was sexually involved with their necromancer. It was entirely sincere. An overly earnest tax accountant and a Catholic nuninventing lyctorhood, and they accidentally set up ten thousand years worth of sex jokes
John, after letting his polycule destroy the galaxy for 10k years: you know what maybe it’s unethical to decide who I promote based on who’s in the polycule. Time to message some rich people’s kids on linkedin
john is so condescending about ‘A–’s hedge fund manager little brother’, considering that if it weren’t for alfred and cristabel’s financial detective work the trillionaires could very possibly just have taken off one day out of the blue and no one, including john himself, would have been able to see it coming lol. for someone who’s so horny for his revenge he sure does treat the people who enabled him to even try for that revenge at all like crap huh
(also I’m so unspeakably sad about the fact that my hunch that alfred was augustine’s *younger* brother turned out to be right. and the detail that really broke me was that augustine was the one who brought alfred into it, seemingly mostly to have him close enough to protect him as everything heated up and partially to help with their funding issues? my entire older sibling heart seized up at that, I hope if augustine ever gets spit back out from hell he’ll at least never find out about that because he is an awful old zombie bastard of a god enabler but that’s a realization I don’t think anyone deserves to have. that was his little brother, man.
btw how much of this came from john not liking sharing his found family brother (slash weird psychosexual polycule situation person it’s complicated all right) with his actual brother, do we think. because there’s certainly a disturbing trend in how all the people john loved the most ~just so happened~ to turn out to be necromancers after the resurrection and then the process of lyctorhood conveniently got rid of all the competition for their love and attention lmao. and then it ~just so happened~ he ended up with two scientists, a lawyer and an engineer while the artist, the finance dude, the cop and the nun died. god is a STEM major indeed. when john said he’d kill the humanities he meant all of them)