i really enjoy that ianthe has clearly, after the death of augustine and mercy, decided that She’s In Charge Now. Shadow Leader is Back Baby. god and gonad are too mopey and weird so i have to keep the show going. Lights! Camera! Action! it’s time for Prince Ianthe Naberius to shine
ianthe in harrow was trying to adapt to lyctorhood and learn from her elders, augustine mostly, and try to fit into this new structure she’d found herself in. she spends a lot of it trying to create a relationship with harrow that resembles what she interprets as the older lyctors relationships to each other.
and then everything including several people explode and die and all she has left in the fall out are in her eyes a broken john gaius and a broken gideon nav. and she’s like okay, i got this, i’ve spent my whole life managing two idiots. and we see her try to replicate aspects of what she had with corona and babs. she goes matchy matchy with gideon, becoming her shadow instead of corona’s. she’s hiding that gideon is a corpse instead of hiding that corona isn’t a necromancer. she appoints herself as a sort of caretaker of john, sees him someone whose moods and actions she needs to track and monitor for his own good.