The reason I finally put it together is that Tamsyn smashed it in our faces in Nona:
“But that’s the grace of it, Harrow. If I’m God, I can start over. The flood, you know? You can wash things clean. That’s all the end of Earth was … making things clean. It gets dirty again, you clean it again. Like those old power-washing ads. Spray and walk away, right? (“John 5:4”)
So let’s pause here and notice that he’s styled a lot of Imperial things with rainbows, which are a reference only he understands. He went to church camp, even if it was only for the underage drinking, he would know this. Rainbows are supposed to be a promise not to flood the world again, but it’s a promise nobody else can hear and he doesn’t seem to feel bound by it.
The other thing about the rainbows is that Tamsyn also describes a lot of things as both rainbowed and oily, for instance the steel of the space ships and Jod’s eyes (“The irises were dark and leadenly iridescent—a deep rainbow oil slick, ringed with white”). I went into this a bit more in the post linked above but we’re getting farther from Noah. I don’t feel like I fully understand this, other than a connection between rainbows and pollution.
The other big Noah connection comes at the end of Nona the Ninth when Alecto finds Jod:
Afterward Alecto went down to the ship and stood before John, purposing to travel through the River, and was grieved to find it yet dead. John was asleep, and not in his garments, unshaved and still drunken.
Noah was also drunk, asleep, and naked at one point after the flood. He got drunk on his own wine. He was in his tent, his son Ham saw him in the raw and said so to Noah’s other sons Shem and Japheth. Shem and Japheth devised an elaborate way to cover up his tra-la-la without having to see it. When they did so, Noah awoke, intuited that Ham must have seen his ding ding dong, and therefore immediately cursed Ham and his descendants (the Canaanites) forever.
I honestly don’t see the connection other than the image. Maybe there are other drunk naked asleep guys in scripture. But we’ve had so much Flood stuff.
He’s at war with the people who did make the ships and escape the flood
He left the flood in place for 10,000 years instead of one year and a few days
His wrath was not extinguished by killing everyone (because he missed the ones he wanted to kill, in the ships)
He didn’t cause the flood directly? He preempted it by killing everyone?
Apparently the mythological Pyrrha, along with her husband, survived the flood in Greek Myth and used rocks (“your mother’s bones”) to recreate humanity. So there is… also that.
Mother Gaia… bones… and Pyrrha is supposed to have had red hair…
This is extra interesting in the context of the theory that Pyrrha retained her pre-Resurrection memories. Most of the evidence for that theory is pretty equivocal IMO — the Bureau could as easily have been a House intelligence org — but the vibes are right.
I think when she talks about the Bureau she’s actually talking about the Cohort! (The Emperor’s Intelligence she brings up with Aiglamene). Pre Resurrection P— had a good career but she definitely wasn’t leading intelligence agencies.
The theory that she might have retained her memory is based on her calling Nona Hairy McLean (character from a NZ children’s books series) her joke about the Cohort uniforms looking “disco”, and calling Gideon “G—”
But yes I believe her name is 100% intentional. Greek mythology Pyrrha of Thessaly recreated humanity from rocks. TLT Pyrrha loves Alecto. There’s so much going on here!
ALT