HtN

Honestly I like Harrow less now than when I started. She’s surprisingly passive as a protagonist, when as a non-pov character she was a fucking firebrand. I get the feeling this is something the author struggles with, cuz it was a problem with Gideon too. Also she’s kinda just…. really colorless. You don’t get too much of her personality, what she feels or what she wants, and of course it must be by design since she’s such a repressed and calculated character, but without Gideon to push and prod her and bounce off her she’s both a bit boring and unbearable tbh. The one consistent thread I’ve enjoyed is her utter distaste for food. She just called pasta “flour-paste shapes in red sauce” and it was great, but oh man I would’ve enjoyed it so much more if there was someone (Gideon) to react to it with horror.

Also since this version of her hasn’t experienced/doesn’t remember the events of GtN it just kinda feels like she’s regressed, all that character growth and catharsis and vulnerability thrown away. She isn’t the Harrow who got hugged, twice, and had to reckon with her emotional ignorance and her need for connection and all the lies she tells herself. The payoff might be epic tho, here’s hoping.

Also hoping the relationships take center stage after we’re done with the fantasy thermodynamics lessons lol