2022-09-20 4:08:18 ¶ ●

in a way, nona is harrow AND gideon AND alecto. i feel like nona is the childhood (in the case of gideon and harrow) and straight up LIFE (the collective life of the world, in the case of alecto) that was taken from each of them, one where she was loved and cared for and had adults in her life that did right by her. and just like them, that life was taken from her, but at least she got to have it and love it for six sweet months :’(

and this series keeps pulling this move where it gets us, as the audience, to dismiss a dead character as not being relevant to the plot, as their death being a tool by which the story moves forward with minor amounts of sadness, but THEN turning around and making us care about them utterly, so that their absence leaves a hole in the narrative that can’t be dismissed or forgotten. abigail, magnus, dulcinea, protesilaus, ortus, wake, cristabel.

and nona is just the same!! gideon and harrow had horrible childhoods, that’s the loss we initially dismiss. it’s a sad backstory and all, but we can move on. all those lives that god destroyed when he killed humanity, sad and atrocious of course, but its not like we knew them.

but that’s what nona is! the series is saying, these people deserved better, and they live in a world that took that away from them, and that’s no small loss. its not just a sad backstory anymore, its a hole left where nona should be