I am not going to say TLT is about fossil fuels because it’s about a lot of things and it’s reductive to boil it down to anything, but a society fueled by necromancy/death magic/corpses is reminiscent of our society fueled by and built with petrochemicals (oil, natural gas, plastic), and given that within the necromancy framework the role of the cavalier is to be metaphorically, literally, and/or spiritually consumed, it’s interesting that the first cavalier was the planet Earth. This new world is still based on devouring the planet.
Does this make Paul a metaphor for nuclear fissionI’m joking but I suppose the question Alecto must resolve is whether we can escape needing to consume to survive.* And maybe we can’t - stop trying to make your carnivorous pets vegan - but can we find a method of consumption that’s less destructive?(Some people may see Paul as that answer but I am a Hater who isn’t into ego death.)
OP you’re really right. I don’t have anything to add about what this means for the series, but I have had an interest in how fossil fuels are represented–in TLT and in general–and I hope you don’t mind me using your post as a jumping off point. I believe the aesthetics of fossil fuels really inspire and inform how necromancy looks and behaves, and in this sense Muir has been cooking with gas since book one. Here’s a non-comprehensive compilation.
When Palamedes raises a thanergetic barrier:
“…the whole space before her shimmered like the oily surface of a bubble” (GTN, Ch. 12).
Isaac’s necromantic flames are blue-green like a gas fire. Necromancers are also prone to blowing up (trust Palamedes to ruin a curve).
More on gas fires, Cytherea:
“Her eyes had been taken from somewhere else, two blue spots of someone else’s fire“ (GTN, Ch. 37).
Our first description of Earth:
“From space, the House of the First shone like fire on water. Wreathed in the white smoke of its atmosphere, blue like the heart of a gas-ignited flame, it burned the eye” (GTN, Ch. 7).
Also interesting, a description of Babs:
“they were stained through in places with a light, insipid brown that made Gideon think of oily water“ (GTN, Ch. 11).
This is a stretch but he is thoroughly doomed by the narrative. Organisms are oily, and there’s the proximity between oil and nastiness. However its frequent pairing with necromancy descriptors (in HTN, Ianthe’s bone arm is described as “oily” a few times) and Muir’s throwaway foreshadowing style make me a little suspect.
Our introduction to Jod, the first description of his eyes:
"The irises were dark and leadenly iridescent–a deep rainbow oil slick, ringed with white” (GTN, Epilogue).
In HTN, you can’t get near John’s eyes without slipping on an oil descriptor. I think the same goes for anything described as “rainbow” or pearlescent, like the Canaanite robes.
“…his monstrous eyes, oil on carbon, were only for you” (HTN, Ch. 2).
“…you saw the Erebos, and for the first time you got a sense of the enormity of the flagship: its scintillating, dark, and rainbow-hued steel, like an oil spill” HTN, Ch. 6).
“Those great black eyes were empty pools: abyssal holes–an oil spill in the dark–or unfilled sockets” (HTN, Epiparados).
This is just reads like a description of an oceanic oil spill:
“The hot white jelly of the eyes was dyed black as though oily drops had been squeezed into it–purling over in black, shining wavelets, staining it true nitid ebony–the white rings bobbing up the surface as though they’d been ducked into the the water…” (HTN, Ch. 52).
Then we get to Nona. There was a lot I didn’t notice in NTN but find interesting after having ctrl-f’d the ebook.
John, M–, and A– meet on “a random oil rig” to strike the deal to animate the dead foreign leader in exchange for the billions and the suitcase nuke (NTN, John 5:1).
“He said, You were screaming. I wanted you to stop, I wanted … I wanted you. I wanted you like a caveman wants a wildfire … or the sun.” (NTN, John 1:20).
I think humanity/John and the sun are in a sort of dialogue with one another similarly to how the Earth/Alecto is with fossil fuels (Jod’s golden eyes + life linked to Dominicus). Then there’s the plastic Barbie body young John loved and Alecto hates.
In Varun’s speech:
“Dust of my dust—such similar star salt—what they did to you and what they wrung from you and what shape they made you fill—we see you still—we murdered—we who murder—you inadvertent tool—you misused green thing” (NTN, Ch. 13).
We could break this all the way down to how thanergy and thalergy work (the energy generated by combusting dead things vs energy generated by living things —> photosynthesis powering the primary producers which lay foundation for everything else).
Even more tangential, as warming oceans dramatically threaten biodiversity, jellyfish are thriving, which makes their appearance in Nona significant regardless if it was intentional. What better companions for the displaced soul of Earth.
Lastly, just because:
“…fuck you, planet, thanks for the oil and the chicken yakitori, we loved that stuff” (NTN, John 19:18)