thinking abt gideon’s corruption arc because for the longest time i didn’t believe that cytherea had killed issac&jeannemarie, because i didn’t understand why. killing dulcie&pro makes sense. killing abigail&magnus makes sense. but jeannemary? issac? it doesn’t make sense. they were kids, they didn’t even try the lyctor trials, and they absolutley would not have gone through with the process even if they had.

and THEN. in my most recent reread of GtN i realized that it was actually incredibly important for issac to die in front of jeannemarie and for gideon to fail in saving either of them, because this is the moment that gideon decided to die for harrow. right after issac gets skewered by like 500 bones, gideon has a personal epiphany that “nobody should have to see their necromancer die”.

i think that in a very big way the deaths of issac and jeannemarie were the tipping point for gideon’s corruption arc. the point of no return. other ppl have written about this more eloquently but the entire book, cytherea is shaping gideon into a Cavalier. because gideon isn’t initially. she’s pretending, and is not particularly skilled at it. during their time at canaan house cytherea basically instructs gideon in manners and servitude but what she really needs to teach gideon is sacrifice. what she needs to show gideon is what it does to a cavalier to see their necromancer die in front of them. what she needs gideon to see is a moment where a cavalier could have died to maybe save their necromancer, but didn’t. this is the moment where cytherea ties the noose.