forgive me if i’m the only person this makes any sense to but i’m so confused about the popular theory for the locked tomb being that augustine doesn’t REMEMBER life pre resurrection because of the “thanks for confirming that” line. i immediately interpreted that as him saying he also thought his younger self would be horrified at his change of heart, but wasn’t totally sure because it was OVER 10,000 YEARS AGO and even these magic mystical corpse fuckers probably don’t have eidetic memories as one of their jod given superpowers. even if super good memory WAS part of being a lyctor, pre resurrection means pre lyctorhood, so obviously it’s he’s gonna remember it similarly to how a vampire would remember their mortal life, only even fuzzier because it’s fuckin ten thousand years instead of like 1-3 thousand like older vampires are usually portrayed.
like i don’t think this at all implies that he’s literally an entirely different person with an entirely new personality OR that he can’t remember anything pre resurrection like most of the fandom seems to have just. decided is true. all that this line/exchange (“if the man you were before could hear you now blah blah blah””thanks for confirming that”) really tells us is that however augustine felt about the extinction event right after it happened is not how he feels about it by the time we have met him, but that john still feels the same rage he always did.
also i could be wrong bc i don’t remember his exact phrasing, john might not even be referring to actual pre resurrection augustine here. john says he and alecto were the only on planet survivors of the extinction, so that means augustine and any other lyctors who lived pre resurrection werent around be to mad about said extinction before john resurrected them. if all he says is “the man you were before” then we really can’t say either way.
anyway i’ve just seen literally every single blog that theorizes about the locked tomb going along with this theory that, to me at least, is kind of a really big extrapolation without much evidence.
What he says exactly is
“Augustine,” he said, “if the man you were—the man you were before
you died, before the Resurrection—could hear what you just said to me, he’d tear your throat out.”
Augustine said, “Thanks for confirming that.” And he was silent.
But its not this quote that is what makes me think Augustine has no memories of who that person, the Augustine prior to the Resurrection, was. This quote is significant to me because it confirms that John knew his Lyctors, or at least the oldest of them, before the Resurrection. This is the first and only indication that he resurrected specific people whom he knew, and it’s surprising because Augustine has never indicated that he remembers pre-Resurrection society.
That’s the reason I think Augustine has no memories prior to his resurrection; because neither he nor Mercy ever once mentions the world that came before. John is obsessed with it, but he never reminisces about it with Augustine or Mercy. When they’re sloshed and nostalgic and talking about ‘the old days’ it’s about the space of time post-Ressurection and pre-Lyctor. When everyone is confronting John in the finale, John and Wake are the only ones to reference anything that happened before the Resurrection.
It’s not postitive proof that Mercy and Augustine don’t remember, but it’s compelling enough circumstantial evidence for me. If Augustine, John, and Mercy all remembered having experienced the end of the world together, I would expect Augustine or Mercy to mentioned the world they lost. Maybe I’m wrong and it’s meant to indicate that Mercy and Augustine are better at processing their grief than John is, and he’s the only one still running on nostalgia for their lost world. But given how Augustine and Mercy are about Alfred and Cristabel, I doubt it. No one on the Mithraeum ever learned to process grief.
I also tend to think that Augustine and Mercymorn don’t remember the pre-Resurrection world, but one piece of counter evidence is the fact that they came up with the phrase “dios apate” to describe their plot against EJG, which is a deliberate allusion by the characters to the Iliad; the way they use it shows that at least one of them knew not just the phrase or even its literal meaning but the context of the story it comes from. As far as I can remember, EJG is the only character who has that allusive ability with pre-Resurrection references. Wake knows quotations, but only as artifacts, not as allusions with particular meaning. Even when Gideon quotes from Ruth, we don’t get the sense that she is consciously quoting, let alone that she or Harrow knows where the quotation comes from. But either Augustine or Mercymorn (or both) know the Iliad. Was Canaan House’s library originally filled with pre-Resurrection books?
On the other hand: dios apate major is such an awesome and wickedly funny joke that no one could hold it against Muir for breaking her own “rules” about which characters know about what things in order to make it.
ianthe and gideons interactions are sooooo funny bc ianthe is like “if you love someone u keep random crap of theirs so obviously harrow doesnt love you” and then, worse, gideon believes her while holding her sunglasses harrow kept and her sword harrow slept and bathed with even though it gave her aneurysms
Gideon has the vocab of an English major EXCEPT when it comes to necromancy
omg, of course she does! There’s no way she’d give Harrow the satisfaction of acknowledging that she knows what she’s talking about. It’s like those guys who talk about ‘sportsball’ when you know for a fact they were first team rugby in high school.
Gideon: bone gunge
Harrow:
Every time Gideon uses the correct name for a bone I’m like ‘I bet she hates that she knows that’
Gideon knows exactly what she’s doing:
She knows enough about skeletons and reanimation to see that the servants are incredibly well animated, but not quite enough to determine the truth (to be fair even Harrow wasn’t 100% certain). And she knows enough about
necromantic theory
to be able to teach it, even without the ability or talent or flaw or whatever is required to be able to actually use it.
PLUS! when they are fighting the construct, Harrow gives her the names of the bones to hit as they go through the sequence - and Gideon follows along perfectly… which means that Harrow is fully aware Gideon is just pretending not to know things in order to annoy her.
Gideon Nav, the calculatedly trolling pseudo-himbo. Again and again, just when it seemed maximum sexy had been achieved…
She uses the word “lahar” in the same sentence as “hot bone gunge”, of course it’s on purpose.
I mean, and Harrow was in her head while fighting the construct, which means she would’ve felt Gideon knowing exactly which bone to go for. No wonder she slipped up and complimented Gideon afterwards, she’d never been so hot in her life
So I can’t really do justice to the mental image I just had, of a rapturously happy Cristabel Oct, in a cottage, with Mercymorn, and also a flock of geese.
Because this is a woman who looked at Mercymorn and said “I want that one! On purpose!” so what other farm animals could she have?
An important fact I know about Canada Geese is that they are monogomous, and each pair sings a song together, but if one of the pair dies, the surviving goose will sing the whole song by itself.
Everytime i remember gideon did the Thing with her gauntlet i just kinda
This is fine
[ID 1: The 😳 emoji with two hands pressed to its temples. End ID 1
ID 2: A person sits in front of a laptop, covering their face with their hands. End ID 2
Text ID 3: This gave Gideon time to stand, to ready her sword and slide her gauntlet home, biting the straps tight with her teeth. End text ID 3]
[ID: Screenshot of a set of Tumblr tags reading “not to be a lesbian but oh my fucking god. oh my god. jesus fucking christ. oh my god. fucking shit jesus fuck oh my fucking jesus fucking christ. god in heaven. holy fucki ng shit.” End ID]
forever going to be emotional over the tenderness in gideon’s narration at the end of htn. telling harrow she’s proud of her for the calluses on her hands, telling her how bad it hurt to be there and not hear her voice, telling her it’s okay and that she’ll keep the home fires burning…. gideon telling harrow it was easy to die because at least it meant she wouldn’t need to watch harrow do the same…. i’m unwell
i know i’m in deep with gideon nav bc i just pictured her in my head as an older butch with some chub on her and gray streaks of hair at her temples and laugh lines and crows feet and genuinely got choked up.
GIDEON RLY THINKS HARROW DID THAT TO HER BC SHE DIDNT WANT SOMEONE ELSE IN HER BRAIN BUT RLY SHE DID IT TO SAVE GIDEON IT WAS HARROW FINALLY FUCKING LOOKING OUTSIDE HERSELF AND GIDEON SEES IT AS SELFISH THIS IS SO FUCKING BAD. SHE DOES WANT UR LIFE U IDIOT SHE WANTS IT SO BAD SHE’D DESTROY HERSELF FOR U SHE WANTS IT SO BAD SHE’D GO ALL WANDAVISION ON A BUNCH OF PPLS GHOSTS JUST TO KEEP U ALIVE JUST FOR A FRACTION OF A CHANCE TO GET U BACK. SHE MET GOD AND ALL SHE ASKED WAS TO GET U BACK. SHE WDNT LET ANYONE TAKE UR SWORD EVEN THOUGH IT MADE HER FUCKING SICK. OH MY GOD
Jesus Christ, the one and only Son Of God The Father, died on the cross for your sins. He was not sent here to condemn us, but to save us(John 3:16-17)! He knows you more than anyone else! You are wonderful and loved by Him. Let Him lead your life, and love Him with all that you are.
ONCE AGAIN I am thinking about the fact that Harrow gave up her safety and lyctorhood to preserve Gideon and Gideon still thinks Harrow doesn’t love her!! I suffer!!!
Now here’s a thought: Mercy was always the first to betray God. Way back when they set up their labs as trials, before leaving the First House, presumably very soon after ascending—John asked them to make the trials so that someday somebody else could follow in their footsteps and Mercy intentionally made hers impossible to complete. It is after all acknowledged by Harrow and Cytherea that the trial is a work of extreme skill and precision, but Palamedes believes it’s impossible and I believe him; it’s hard to imagine Mercy getting the math wrong. If it wasn’t for Gideon’s supernatural resistance to dying, the avulsion trial would bar all who attempt it from the eighth piece of the work and ensure that no lyctors came after. Indeed, it would kill all those who attempted it but I’m sure she considered that a…mercy (boo).
