If there is ever a live action adaptation of Gideon the Ninth, the ONLY acceptable way to do it would be in the style of a competitive reality TV show. Each of them has a one line introduction like *from beneath the deep veil of a goth nun habit* “I am the Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus, the greatest necromancer of my generation, and I did not come here to make friends. I came here to win.” And then we cut to the creepy Eighth guy in an interview segment and he’s saying “those heretical shadow cultists? I can’t even eat with them around. Whether I win or loose, I KNOW I’m not letting that creepy bitch ascend to Lyctorhood.” And then Teacher starts narrating “it’s only day one, and the competition is already heating up, but we still have a long way to go to find who the Next Top Lyctor will be. Now let us pray.” There’s those dramatic zoom ins and those drum sound effect and someone gasping whenever a body is found. Whenever someone storms off it’s filmed like when a cameraman follows someone storming off the sound stage after a particularly bad fight going “I’m done, I’m fucking done.” Harrow keeps telling the cameras to stop following her. After Ianthe says something deeply fucked up at the worst time, it cuts to her in a confessional segment going “Listen, I just tell it like it is, and I’m not afraid to stir the pot.” Do you see my vision?
It slowly shifts style, following the darkening tone of the book, until eventually it’s basically a found footage horror movie interrupted by the occasional increasingly fucked up confessional from Ianthe, culminating in the big fight at the end which is all cloverfield style. The cameraman dies right before Gideon, with just her legs in frame when she jumps on the fence. The conversation between Harrow and John at the end is like the award ceremony at the end of the season, where she visibly goes off script to beg for Gideon’s life. John says no, and we cut to one last confessional which is just Harrow staring at the camera in silence for an uncomfortable amount of time while her eyes grow ever tearier, until Ianthe throws open the door behind her with a scalpel or a bonesaw or something and says some shit like “oh, there you are, Harry. Shall I get inside you now?”
Every so often it cuts to a commercial break that’s just propaganda for the armies of the nine houses, which feature rousing drum & fife music, plucky commentary, and arresting footage of teenagers getting bravely blown up in the name of their emperor. It cuts back to the competition without comment.