Ok so a part of the NtN epilogue that has always bugged me is how Alecto very specifically doesn’t know who Harrow is until she bites kisses her and tastes her blood
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Which on its own wouldn’t necessarily mean much, except that Harrow is shown repeatedly to look almost exactly like Anastasia, and Alecto-in-her-aspect-as-Nona is shown to be very observant and aware of physical features. It’s not, like, a vision issue, after waking up Alecto immediately recognizes Pyrrha, and knows the general features of Harrow i.e. “black-eyed infant”. And in her aspect as Nona, she is keenly observant of physical features. She waxes poetic about all the little ways Honesty and Pyrrha’s red hair differs from Kiriona’s, and more than that, she immediately recognizes Kiriona’s corpse as the girl from her dream. So why doesn’t she recognize Harrow?
The other Lyctors recognize Harrow. The first thing Augustine says upon meeting her is: “Harrowhark the First—ninth saint, then, looking at you I can tell that’s appropriate”, and then in the same scene he calls her “Anastasia come again.” Mercymorn insults her (“You’re not as pretty as Anastasia”) but in that insult, she again emphasizes the physical similarity between Harrow and Anastasia. These statements are way more significant when you remember in this scene, Harrow has just woken up after travel through the River, and is still wearing a hospital gown. no black vestments, no Ninth Aesthetics, the only things really “Ninth” about her are her physical features.
And the first thing Alecto does after she realizes that Harrow is Anastasia’s blood is to apologize about Samael and reiterate her “vow”, which she specifically did not remember until after she remembered Anastasia.
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So like. What does this mean? I cannot help but have a feeling that this relates to blood wards being broken by the blood of a relative, the Ninth House being the House of the Sewn Tongue, and the established fact that necromancy can fuck with memory and perception. I guess I had always assumed the original “sewn tongue” referred to Anastasia but like what if it referred to Alecto? And the established blood ward (the Tomb) could only be spoofed by a close relative (because John wouldn’t program it to let anyone but himself in), but theoretically what is stopping Anastasia from whipping up a theorem for a blood ward that simply requires any kind of direct genetic link? Why would Alecto have forgotten her vows, how does this relate to Samael, why was she swearing allegiance to Anastasia? If she was made to forget because that vow was a secret, who was it kept secret from (John, presumably), and why, and how will this impact Alecto’s motivations and actions in the next book? John seemed happy/relieved to see Alecto when she woke him up via sword-to-the-chest, but the Alecto he put to sleep (presumably) didn’t remember her vows to Anastasia, and the Alecto who stabs him does, and what could this mean? How does this all connect to Anastasia’s bones being nestled by the Rock on the inside of the tomb? Did Anastasia have a long term plan, or was she just hoping that the next time Alecto woke up that things would be Different? What could she possibly have hoped or assumed would have changed in that interim time? How does this connect to Alecto calling out for Anastasia right before John leads her into the Tomb? What HAPPENED between Anastasia and Alecto, and John, and Samael, and—(I am pulled off stage with a large hook)
listening to someones read of tlt and they mention a bit in nona where pyhra was present for a birth and i tooootally glossed over that and they say a lot of people think that was related to wake BUT on grounds of absolutely nothing my brain has decided that this should be related to anastasia thank you
update: this apparently is totally intentionally the read lmao nice
i desperately want god to have botched anastasias lyctorhood attempt specifically out of a fucked up “u cant ur pregnant” arguement because id very much like to see that mental gymnastic experience explored by muir BUT i also very much want them to have all managed to keep it a secret from him completely as a fuck you subterfuge.
but like. man itd be such a fun additional way to fuckin hate jon. the hippocrisy of forcin someone to grow life because of some theoretical sanctity of life from a guy who murdered multiple planets and billions of people INCLUDING AND SPECIFICALLY the babies? fucking fantastic.
please dont hate me for my inability to remember how the fuck to spell pyrhaa im just putting those letters into an approximate jumble. i can do tridentarii and nonagesimus but u will not get me to remember where the fuck the h goes
shout out to the 20-80 other gays forever in the holds lines of the 5 tlt audiobooks our local library has that we pass around every couple weeks sisterhood of the travelling pants style
I need more of the princes. Part of me hopes alecto being so delayed is because we’ll get their side, cause honestly it sounded way more interesting than what was happened on nona.
i have a headcanon that nigella was not just an artist but a potter and u can pry it from my cold dead hands. Why does she have a ceramics collection. why is her house the masters of psycometry and understanding objects and their history. You know who use a weird form of divination? Potters tapping on a leatherhard pot while theyre trimming and somehow knowing exactly how thick the clay is. Also all of archeology related to pottery. You know what the 200 into 1 or whatever it is with teacher? aligning a bunch of souls into 1 body? its a stretch but that reminds me hella like the way i visualize the concept of clay molecules aligning and its importance to literally every aspect of pottery to make smthn without it breaking. also, gay. and potters have hella arm muscles thats good cav material right there.
I’m going crazy thinking about Pyrrha and Gideon and the permeability of souls. Bc what first tipped Palamedes off was a habit that he, the intrusive soul, picked up from Ianthe, the host. The osmosis doesn’t just go one way. While Pyrrha’s soul bled into Gideon, he was seeping into her, too.
Gideon wasn’t an attack dog in John’s recollection. He was steadfast and devoted, but he was an engineer moonlighting as a grill dad. Reminding John to put airholes in his bovine forcefield, then firing up the barbie to make sure everyone got fed. It was Pyrrha who carried a gun and wanted to hit back hard and fast. Pyrrha who advocated for a show of force.
How much of the Saint of Duty’s bloody minded perseverence did Gideon get from Pyrrha, and how much was originally his? Would the Pyrrha of ten thousand years ago have stood at a stove on the eve of an apocalypse flipping pikelets for the kiddie, or is that something she picked up from Gideon?
OH OHHHHH fucked up tlt thought. potential tw cause doing a trans to some genders + talking pregnancy. this absolutely is not a theory or speculation I just had a thought and wanted to run with it. a river bubble au at best if you will.
samael as afab and the chain of samael is 100% his pelvis and combo it with my “john sabotaged their lyctorhood cause anastasia samael was pregnant n john thought he was in the right to prevent that sacrifice and the Anastasia keeps the pelVIS to use as a WEAPON to beat the shit out of god with the part of her cavalier that held the child god killed him fOR aaaa i love horrible morbid character torture im sorry
my sacrum is sore today and i sat down and was like “uhg save me samael” and now im just imagining all the different ninth saints who died in various ways or just were known for certain injuries being invoked every time and of the many elderly had an ache.
this one goes out to the griddlehark cosplayers i met at mcm london comic con that were quite frankly SLAYING… i believe the right are @/takemetothedark and @/th3.mane.attraction on instagram and i’m not sure who the left are :(((( i thought i had their instagrams but i was wrong!! if anyone knows please lmk!!!!
cassie visiting random planets (to flip, cohort settlements, w.e.) and bringing back random ass chunks of alien meat or eggs n plants n trying to cook them just to see what happens and letting the lyctoral healing figure out how poisonous it is
please assume that between the hours of 8-4 mst i am extremely fucking bored at work and you should drfinitely sebd me tlt headcanons and theories and draeing prompts and whatever else. even if im busy that day and dont respond (i probably will tho) i am DYING in my enclosure please enrich me
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