Gideon is important to me for many reasons one of them is bc she’s butch representation but ALSO but also she is representation for girls who are very smart but are also thinking about other more important things like boobs and swords and so maybe don’t keep track of numbers as well as they should
Gideon is important to me for many reasons one of them is bc she’s butch representation but ALSO but also she is representation for girls who are very smart but are also thinking about other more important things like boobs and swords and so maybe don’t keep track of numbers as well as they should
HOW could I forget. she is also representation for girls who eat one and a quarter dinners until they are very full
it is so funny that the entire first book Gideon has this vibe that’s like, silent and severe skull-painted becloaked nun of the grim and grisly Ninth, and everyone is like :o she’s so silent and severe and becloaked :o
and then without fail every time someone hears her talk for the first time she’s like “lol sex pal. asshole. your mom” and everyone goes oh :/ i see
making my way through my gtn reread and having unexpected feelings about Colum Asht of all characters :’( he has one thing left and everything else he has devoted unquestioningly to Silas. his sword his soul his blood his body, all given over and over until he’s worn down into this dull faded shell of a man. he has ONE thing left, one thing that’s his, and it’s his honour. and when Silas tries to take that too because Silas is a slimy weasel, he says no, this is all I have. no, I made a promise
come to think of it, it’s also hilarious that for the first act, you’re allowed to assume that all the houses are equally culty and self-contained and full to the brim of weird ritual like the ninth is. and then harrow and gideon roll up to canaan house full of bones and prayer beads and like, alabaster facepaint, but everyone else is just dressed normal and they’re like omg look here come the bone cult weirdos in their weird bone cult outfits
ok so i’m sure other folks have said similar things, but here’s the Alecto theory i’ve been thinking about
Jod calling Alecto “Annabel Lee” is a direct reference to the poem by Poe, and the last bit of that poem goes:
And neither the angels in Heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea—
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
First of all, “dissever my soul from the soul” feels. noteworthy. but the part that stands out to me most is the very end, referencing Anabelle Lee’s “tomb by the sounding sea”. We’ll get back to that in a second, but there are a couple of things in both GtN and HtN that I can’t help but notice go unaddressed:
-Teacher insists over and over that there are horrible ghosts/monsters that haunt Canaan house. We assume this is what’s killing people, and when it becomes clear that its Cytherea, we dismiss it. But even if that wasn’t the cause of the deaths, Teacher was insistent that this place, which he had looked after for maybe thousands of years, was haunted by monstrous things, and that just goes nowhere?
-harrow and palamedes have two conflicting theories about what the lyctor trials are pointing them toward. palamedes is more on the right track, saying its leading toward a “megatheorem” (eightfold word), but harrow thinks that the trials are clues leading toward a thanergy source powerful enough to fuel the lyctor trials (in the way that a necromancer needs thanergy or a lyctor needs a cav or, crucially, Jod needs Alecto). We know harrow is incredibly clever, but when pal’s theory is more or less confirmed, harrow’s theory is more or less discarded, even though they’re not mutually exclusive. but what was fueling the lyctor trials in Canaan house? what thanergy battery?
-multiple times, its indicated that Canaan house is much larger than they have access to. there’s a part in HtN where Abigail says offhandedly that she thinks that the “lost chambers of the emporer undying” run sidelong to the facility (meaning Canaan house). This is a conversation in the river bubble, but it struck me as specific and detailed and out of place, especially for something that was never returned to
-we know that after Anastasia and Samael failed to ascend to lyctorhood, she was sent to guard the locked tomb and she founded the Ninth house
there might be more, i’m still mid-reread lol and i probably missed some stuff bc about half of my knowledge is from the first read, when i was considerably more confused by the goings-on. but my theory right now is that the tomb guarded by the Ninth house is a false tomb, and that maybe the person in it is Anastasia (there are some parallels between how she and Harrow look, namely the curve of the lips/philtrum that’s noted more than once in both of their descriptions). I think that Alecto is entombed at Canaan house, in Jod’s old chambers, a thanergy-battery for the lyctor trials and, remotely, for Jod’s power.
Tbh, I wouldn’t be surprised if the series doesn’t find its way back to Canaan house at the end, it would be fitting and circular, and I feel like there’s still a lot there that was dismissed or left unsolved
ok so i’m sure other folks have said similar things, but here’s the Alecto theory i’ve been thinking about
Jod calling Alecto “Annabel Lee” is a direct reference to the poem by Poe, and the last bit of that poem goes:
And neither the angels in Heaven above Nor the demons down under the sea Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride, In her sepulchre there by the sea— In her tomb by the sounding sea.
First of all, “dissever my soul from the soul” feels. noteworthy. but the part that stands out to me most is the very end, referencing Anabelle Lee’s “tomb by the sounding sea”. We’ll get back to that in a second, but there are a couple of things in both GtN and HtN that I can’t help but notice go unaddressed:
-Teacher insists over and over that there are horrible ghosts/monsters that haunt Canaan house. We assume this is what’s killing people, and when it becomes clear that its Cytherea, we dismiss it. But even if that wasn’t the cause of the deaths, Teacher was insistent that this place, which he had looked after for maybe thousands of years, was haunted by monstrous things, and that just goes nowhere?
-harrow and palamedes have two conflicting theories about what the lyctor trials are pointing them toward. palamedes is more on the right track, saying its leading toward a “megatheorem” (eightfold word), but harrow thinks that the trials are clues leading toward a thanergy source powerful enough to fuel the lyctor trials (in the way that a necromancer needs thanergy or a lyctor needs a cav or, crucially, Jod needs Alecto). We know harrow is incredibly clever, but when pal’s theory is more or less confirmed, harrow’s theory is more or less discarded, even though they’re not mutually exclusive. but what was fueling the lyctor trials in Canaan house? what thanergy battery?
-multiple times, its indicated that Canaan house is much larger than they have access to. there’s a part in HtN where Abigail says offhandedly that she thinks that the “lost chambers of the emporer undying” run sidelong to the facility (meaning Canaan house). This is a conversation in the river bubble, but it struck me as specific and detailed and out of place, especially for something that was never returned to
-we know that after Anastasia and Samael failed to ascend to lyctorhood, she was sent to guard the locked tomb and she founded the Ninth house
there might be more, i’m still mid-reread lol and i probably missed some stuff bc about half of my knowledge is from the first read, when i was considerably more confused by the goings-on. but my theory right now is that the tomb guarded by the Ninth house is a false tomb, and that maybe the person in it is Anastasia (there are some parallels between how she and Harrow look, namely the curve of the lips/philtrum that’s noted more than once in both of their descriptions). I think that Alecto is entombed at Canaan house, in Jod’s old chambers, a thanergy-battery for the lyctor trials and, remotely, for Jod’s power.
Tbh, I wouldn’t be surprised if the series doesn’t find its way back to Canaan house at the end, it would be fitting and circular, and I feel like there’s still a lot there that was dismissed or left unsolved
I’ve been thinking about this as well! A few other points of support: when we first get the Body’s description, she has black eyes, not gold (GtN). And, in HtN, Jod refers to the prison on the Ninth as a dummy site holding nothing, and seems bewildered at anyone heading for the Ninth itself, as what could be there? I also think about when he says to Harrow, What you think you have done, you couldn’t possibly have done (paraphrasing; but this is during her confession of having unlocked the tomb). During the same exchange, he describes the lead-up to the tomb as a series of death traps, which is also the way the introduction to Canaan House is given in GtN.
oooh good point! I hadn’t thought of the thing with the Body’s eyes but you’re so right, why tf wouldn’t they be gold if it was Alecto? And describing the Ninth as a dummy site too, good point. Although, when Jod says the whole “you couldn’t possibly have done” thing I assumed he meant because of the blood ward, bc if he didn’t account for the existence of Gideon there was literally no way Harrow could enter the tomb. but tbh he could have been referring to either. anyways these clues will fit perfectly on my bulletin-board yarn map of evidence
Thinking about how Palamedes Sextus killed himself to to save his cavalier’s life, in a direct inversion of the Lyctorhood process. And how he thought it would only take a week or two for someone to find his soul. And how he thought he was leaving Camilla with Harrow and Gideon, that they were all about to be rescued by the Cohort.
Instead Palamedes comes back and finds out they’ve been separated for the better part of a year. He finds out that Camilla spent months as a prisoner of war where she was interrogated and electrocuted and held at gunpoint. That she watched BOE torture Judith and watched Judith almost die. How the first time in their lives they are apart Camilla goes through months of traumatic shit and all the while she’s trying to super glue Palamedes skull back together.
That is already so much guilt to unpack and process and then the only way for Palamedes to come back is to literally hi-jack Camilla’s body, after everything else she’s already been through. He needs to survive so he can make amends, so he can save the world, but he cannot hug Camilla or look her in the eye or even speak to her directly.
The goddamn tragedy of Palamedes Sextus and Camilla Hect, I am UNWELL.
this is so sad and you’re so right
it also makes me think about some of the themes regarding power hierarchies and exploitation? lyctorhood is this fucked up, final form manifestation of imbalanced power dynamics- one’s purpose is to eat the other, and the other’s whole entire purpose is to be eaten. and I think it explores those power hierarchies a lot obviously via Gideon and Harrow, both of whom have been formed by this power dynamic and know nothing else.
I think tlt asks questions about how queerness (both actual queerness but also any non-normative or subversive interaction with those structures) complicate those harmful cultural hierarchies, but also how they sometimes unavoidably replicate it too. what is necessary to dismantle? what is salvageable? how do we do something different, something better, when this is all we’ve ever known?
and palamedes and camilla add an interesting facet to that argument- that often the nature of these hierarchies is that they are inescapable, and often trying to escape them leaves you trapped and punished by them. palamedes figured out the implications of lyctorhood like halfway through gtn but he refused to even consider it. Camilla is more his equal than most of the other necro/cav dynamics and he subverts the dynamic further by sacrificing himself to save her.
but despite all that, she still ends up being tortured and suffering, they still end up trapped in the same body, apart from one another, either of their consciousnesses a zero sum game. but it IS still subverted in a way- they’re in Cam’s body, not Pal’s, and neither of them is consumed completely by the other (so far at least lmao)
Thinking about Cytherea and the passage from Gideon the Ninth that was the moment I realized I wouldn’t be sleeping till I finished the book. The murder of the Fourth teens is a defining moment of horror in the series for me, but this especially:
The horror gets worse the more you think about it and the more you know: the message makes it clear it’s not just some necromantic construct as I’d first assumed but a person delighting in being cruel, that truly there is no place safe for Gideon here, the killer was able to do this without Gideon being aware at all so sleeping alone isn’t safe, and that message in blood just for Gideon.
There’s a dichotomy with Cytherea after the identity reveal in reconciling the absolutely brutal actions of murders she was committing with the tenderness she was showing Gideon, but then I realized both have a common thread of focus Gideon. Gideon breaks down after this and Dulcinea Cytherea comforts her, and on reread you realize how expertly played the manipulation is.
If people have more to add on please do, I find Cytherea to be really interesting.
something I still don’t quite understand was why the fuck was she so cruel? was she just furious at the new necromancers for wanting lyctorhood? was she furious and insane because she’d been mourning for ten thousand years? because she’d been dying for ten thousand years? she shows Gideon such sweetness, but why does she kill Jeannemary so brutally, and leave such fucked up messages for Gideon? I just wanna know what’s going on in her fucked up lyctor brain
When Gideon told Pelleamena and Priamhark about Harrow opening the tomb, she told them because she wanted to, for once, have the power over Harrow that Harrow had over her. But she hurt Harrow way, way more than she meant to when they killed themselves, and I think that’s the guilt Gideon has been beholden to for seven years. That’s the reason she’s never hit Harrowhark, because she’s already hurt her too badly to forgive.
And that guilt made it so they weren’t equals–until the pool scene. When Gideon points out that Harrow’s actions led to the deaths of the 4th house, Harrow says that she didn’t know what her choices would mean for them, and then she says,
“The Ninth House is deep in their blood debt and I am undone by the expense. I- I did not want to hurt you, Griddle!”
Does that phrasing seem familiar? What else is Harrowhark undone by?
I think the blood debt she’s talking about is not to the fourth house, I think she’s talking about the debt that she owes Gideon. She kept Gideon at arms length, even after the whole “I must no longer accept being a stranger to you”, and that’s what killed the 4th and, in turn, hurt Gideon with the guilt of their deaths.
When this comes to light in the pool scene, we understand finally that they owe each other in ways neither of them forgive themselves for. I think the pool scene is not only where Harrow confesses her family’s secret or her feelings to Gideon, it’s also where both of their shame is laid bare enough that they can see each other as equals.
if Gideon the Ninth is a high school romcom thriller murder mystery, then Harrow the Ninth is like you’re tuning into a bottle episode mid-season of a TV show where you don’t know any of the characters but then you realize that every character is uniquely insufferable AND every episode has been a bottle episode for ten thousand years. lucky for you though, the narrator also tuned in yesterday
I don’t know how I feel about it and I don’t know what it means but I think Cytherea was one hundred percent sincere when she held and comforted Gideon during the avulsion trial. I don’t think she was pretending at all
was thinking earlier about how a lot of my frustration with (most) contemporary queer lit (i was thinking specifically of trans lit but i think this applies in a broader sense too) is how interior-focused it becomes to the point of being tediously self-involved and never actually going anywhere besides a presumed catharsis that in practice never has a satisfactory landing. and how the landscape of contemp queer lit seems to shape itself around that, too; this preoccupation with ‘no homophobia’ universes in SFF as supposedly escapist, but in practice just being soulless and uncompelling because they have nothing interesting to say. anyway – i’m sure she’s not the only person doing this, ofc, but – that then got me thinking about how, like, the 'no homophobia’ premise in tlt works because muir uses the absence of homophobia + transphobia in immediate, recognisable formats to then move the narrative away from this interior-focused questions of 'feelings’ around gender, sexuality, and into questions of, how do these formations make sense of themselves under imperialism? what are the models under which particular gender formations are made legible (ie. like cavalierhood as a means by which butchness is made legible, for example)? what does imperialism do to our ability to conceive of and act upon our own desire? or others’? which is a far, far more interesting perspective than, like, what do i, the protagonist, personally feel about my gender?
i think it’s just part of why tlt belongs to my very very slim personal canon of contemporary queer lit that i find genuinely compelling and innovative, lmao. like, she uses the 'no homophobia’ premise as a means of abstracting these questions onto new planes (taps the cavalierhood gender essay) rather than just, doing away with homophobia + transphobia and pretty much anything that could give your narrative something of substance to say with it.
ok but the entire prologue of Harrow the Ninth and throughout the book, Ianthe telling Harrow that she’ll help “if only you’d ask” and of course Harrow doesn’t ask for help because that’s not what she does. And the prologue fits into the rest of the chapters right before Gideon wakes up in Harrow’s body (possibly the break in the prologue before “Hell spat you back out” fits in just as she’s seizing on the bed in the river bubble, about to remember Gideon? something like that). And that prologue ends with Harrow saying “three syllables she did not even understand” which, obviously in my opinion, is Gideon’s name.
Gideon comes because she asks! She comes because she asks her to! The whole time, everyone is all “I’ll help you if you ask for help” and the only person she ever asks for help, through the fucking murk of her own slipshod lobotomy, is Gideon. And when she does, of course Gideon answers
