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
