2023-07-19 10:27:29 ¶ ●

so I started rereading GtN (as one does) and was struck by this passage where from the very beginning of the book, Gideon positions herself as more important to Harrow than the Locked Tomb:

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cut to the pool scene and Gideon learns that not only does Harrow love the corpse of the Locked Tomb, but that the corpse of the Locked Tomb was, in all her silent sleep, able to convince Harrow to live in a way Gideon’s (loud, active, constant) existance in her life was never able to

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and I think that is really, like, when Gideon truly starts her sort of… backslide wrt her perception of her relationship with Harrow – like, at this point in the story in the pool, she’s already well along in her corruption arc into the “Perfect Cavalier”. BUT like, we know from being inside Harrow’s head that Harrow would break herself and her duty in order to hold onto Gideon. she would & she did!!!! which is!!! something that Gideon KNOWS at the beginning of GtN but then forgets/is convinced out of, entierly unintentionally, but to the point where by the time she comes back in HtN she has a totally reversed perception of how Harrow feels. leading to, of course, this:

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anyway.