paired with their often intimate and violent subject matter, i find the incidental way tamsyn muir frames women and their bodies throughout the locked tomb series to be refreshing bordering on radical
consider harrowhark; in the first book we see her as gideon sees her. she’s a hideous ghoul with a flat ass and no tits, she’s a delicate sopping wet beauty with a sharp face and angel bow lips, she’s a triumphant and awe inspiring master necromancer screaming and fighting drenched in her own blood. the shape and condition of her body is allowed to take on meaning contextually based entirely on the situation and how gideon feels about their relationship in any given moment
she then spends the second book hobbling around with a sword twice her size, ripping apart her body to use as a weapon and passing out in her own vomit, struggling to eat and sleep – she and puts herself through absolute hell and never once thinks anything of it, and we’re made to mourn this not as the desecration of a beautiful woman but as a manifestation of a human being’s despair and self loathing, and we see this specifically contrasted against the care gideon tries to take when inhabiting her body during the last act
it’s jarring, in nona, when we’re suddenly made aware that her body could be perceived or valued as a commodity, when pyrrha is assumed to be nona’s pimp. it feels strange and horrifying when we learn alecto’s form was modeled for a doll, learn that she was given a woman’s body as a display of ownership, an alternative to being consumed, and as we’re processing this we watch gideon, paul, and ianthe, immediately setting aside their conflict in a desperate scramble to preserve harrow’s body for no reason other than because it is harrow’s and they love her
feminist fiction often focuses on women’s relationship to a body which is valued more than the person within it – and that is a worthy experience to explore – but as a transsexual butch(ish) dyke, i have never really had the privilege of seeing my body as a precious commodity, never felt like it couldn’t or shouldn’t be a sight of violence and disgust, and as a result the locked tomb books have made me feel seen in a way that few other works of fiction have?
we as an audience are not made aware of how attractive any character would be outside of the context of our lesbian POV characters’ perspectives, their relationship to patriarchal beauty standards is an utterly irrelevant detail we’re never told and only occasionally glimpse through implication. the women in the locked tomb books are simply free to exist, to have experiences and feelings, to love and hate and grieve and suffer and die like anybody else, and to have those experiences reflected in their physical vessels
it’s a perspective that’s so fundamental and obvious that to praise muir for it for it feels almost patronizing, but i also think it’s a huge part of what’s made the series so resonant for so many queer women and i feel that that’s worthy of highlighting and celebrating
what do I want to be when I grow up? well, my friend is going to become the head of our planet to impress a girl and I’m going to become an unstoppable killing machine in his service. if that doesn’t pan out, I might work in a cubicle.
i do genuinely feel that actually no one is doing the dishes on the mithraeum. like the most possible one is actually john in my opinion, he’s like “i do the dishes in my leftist commune!!!” and then when he is done goes and sends some emails ordering drone strikes
I see the Franziska propaganda and consider it my sacred duty to say some words about Judith.
Judith Deuteros is known in the fandom for consistently having the worst time out of all the trauma everyone goes through. Bestie got grievously injured in book 1 and hasn't even managed to heal in the 1.5 years since. She got rejected one (1) time and is now so repressed that when her crush of 12 years asked her out she said "thanks for offering, but not in this life or any other". She compiled Intel files about all her potential competitors to be prepared but she was just wrong about 90% of what she wrote. Someone once glued her teeth together. Coronabeth pantsed her when they were kids. She got possessed by a planet. Only one living person cares about her. She deserves this.
Gideon wakes up in her first morning at Canaan House and of course Harrow left instructions!
Im storyboarding GtN as I read along for fun, and to stretch my storyboarding muscles a bit, so have a very first draft! Im also working on chepter 6, but its so very rough I dont feel like posting it yet.
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![#[heavy sigh] #unfortunately. tamsyn would love this.](../media/973dd2a02ada95aa8510c2c2e2ac6fe15b4479ae.png)
