My opinion on the ‘would modern au Harrow be goth or Catholic’ debate is that she would be both and it would throw everyone off. She goes equally hard on both of those things and no one knows what to do about it.
Harrow has no friends so she treats confessional like she’s venting with her besties.
The priest secretly hates her because she comes up to him after every mass with intense questions about the philosophical implications of the most obscure bits of scripture that he can’t even fully remember. She tries to not be insubordinate but can’t quite keep the condescension out of her tone.
When Gideon’s been hanging around for long enough she starts venting to her about what an idiot the priest is that he can’t even answer these simple questions.
Gideon suggests that she should just lead her own services if she knows so much more and Harrow, completely horrified, hisses at her “Don’t you know that would get me excommunicated??” and storms off to her room for the rest of the day to perform some sort of weird penance ritual she made up for herself.
After 20 minutes Gideon realizes she’s not coming back out and leaves.
So this gets at something that doesn’t often get discussed in the Locked Tomb fandom: imo, the Ninth House is very much inspired by/a statement about Marianism in the Catholic tradition. See, officially the Catholic Church generally accepts and encourages the veneration of Mary, above and beyond that of other saints. However, it’s always been quite leery about this veneration shading over into the territory of “Mariolatry” (worship of Mary as a goddess), especially in the historical heresies of Collyridianism, and in general giving women too many ideas. (Notably, a lot of Protestant theologians were not happy with Catholic Marianism, seeing it as idolatry.)
This brings us to Harrow and the Ninth. The Ninth in general is highly Marian-coded; they’re not considered heretical by anyone but the Eighth, they don’t think of themselves as heretical, as far as they’re concerned, they are a devout monastic society living in obedient service to a divine commandment. But Harrow is a heretic: she did the forbidden thing her family was charged to make sure was never done, and she has already transferred not just her veneration but her adoration to the Body by the time the series begins. She is, in this analogy, a Collyridianist.
And then Nona the Ninth comes around, and she goes a step further:
“I want to understand why she was angry—I want to understand the mathematics, now that I have seen them for myself. I want to know how many of the Resurrection are left, and how many you began with, and what the discrepancies are. I want to know where you put them. They didn’t go into the River. I want to know why she was angry … and why you were terrified.”
She looked away from him, and she said: “I want to journey to find God. Maybe, at the end of that road, I will find God in you, Teacher … the God who became man and the man who became God. Or, perhaps, the child of the Nine Houses will recognise a different divine. But I am the Reverend Daughter—I am the Reverend Mother, the Reverend Father—I must find God, or some aspect of God, and understand it for myself … even if she lies, right now, within the Tomb.”
Harrow’s conclusion is that John is probably not God, but that Alecto probably is, which is just the kind of thing that the early Church was worried about when they said Collyridianism was a form of Ishtar-worship.
It’s a very obscure heresy from the 4th century, which I know about only because I took a course on the Late Roman Empire where the professor insisted we learn every single heresy in the Late Roman Empire and how they related to surviving syncretic traditions (for example, there’s a reason why Marianism was very popular in Egypt, and why the Virgin Mary’s iconography is very similar to that of the goddess Isis) and their impact on the politics of the Late Roman Empire.
So I know my homoiousios vs. homoousios, and my monophysite vs. dyophysite, and my monothelite vs. dyothelite, and how it all led to the Arab caliphates getting a decent navy and winning the Battle of the Masts.
[ID: Image 1: tags that say: “#modern au where harrow goes to confessional and unloads all of her frustration about the idiot dyke’s latest antics #priest panics having never heard such gay shit in their entire life #but is legitimately confused because harrow has yet to say a single thing she needs forgiveness for #figures the best way to go is to prescribe several hail marys #but becomes increasingly concerned harrow is actually in love with the virgin mary as well”
Image 2: tags that say: “#the locked tomb #harrowhark nonagesimus #tlt modern au #sorry your tags activated the headcanon factory #love the idea of harrow being the most devout but also the most problematic member of the congregation #this girl is high-key neurodivergent and catholicism is her special interest as well as her religion #and she has negative social skills #shes trying so so hard not to be a heretic but unfortunately it just comes naturally to her”. End ID]
i love talking about the references and allusions in tlt and what it is influenced by and how. however i do think that sometimes the discussion in the fandom tends to get overly focused on how tlt is like other things and we can lose sight of the fact that it’s not just a conglomeration of influences. and of course putting a work in its context is a crucial part of literary analysis, and we can and should be examining the work for its influences, both for fun and in a serious way. but i think we should also make it a point to more frequently call out and celebrate specific ways that the characters and series are creative and original!!
so i propose that everyone reblog this and add your favorite element/s of tlt, big or small, that are pure tamsyn. your favorite line, a piece of characterization, a worldbuilding element, a joke, a cool moment, a bit that made you think differently about something, a thematic thread, whatever. im currently thinking about the way i went nuts my first time reading gtn and its revealed that harrow spent all night burying bone shards in the dirt because it so clearly sets up how insane about each other they are, and how hard i laughed at “but she’s only nine years old!” in htn.
Hi, not fucking dead, I’m dad <- I still believe part of Gideon’s backstory was built around this punchline. I can imagine Tamsyn cackling madly to herself as she wrote it down
Just like? The general concept of book one?
It’s a murder mystery in a house full of wizards who can reanimate people. This solves nothing. They all race against the clock trying a) solve the murders b) not get murdered and c) oh yeah, figure out the immortality puzzle literal god invited them to do.
Turns out the murderer is a 10 000 year old cougar who already did the puzzle, and then dies mad about it.
So many things.
I’ll say the little moment where Gideon thinks about her and Harrow’s fight after the dad reveal before returning to the action - her character voice is just so solid, and the moment is so well-constructed, and I can’t think of anything I’ve read like it. Also the “it’s complicated” joke when she sees Cytherea’s body, you can feel the lesbianism in that one. And the way Harrow’s share in the climax is mostly supporting secondary characters while literally reclaiming control over her own mind; it feels so momentus and so personal all at once. Everything in HtN Act V, really.
Nona. Because reading a loved child wasn’t what I expected when I first picked up GtN. Hell, we saw the opposite during two books. Nona made me appreciate dogs and I’m scared of dogs.
The soup scene!
It’s built up in a way that the reader wouldn’t have noticed (or at least I didn’t notice) exactly how the details would all come together, but it works to do so much. Aside from still managing to be a surprise while literally speaking from the point of view of the character enacting the plot (sort of), this shows just how out of it Harrow is at this point. We know she’s being hunted by [Ortus] and that she’s scared and tired out of her mind, and when Ianthe gives her the idea to make soup she latches onto it so hard. She’s putting her all into this soup, we just don’t know exactly why. Even when, during the dinner, it is stated that Harrow got scared of how thick the broth was and watered it down, we just chalk it up to Harrow being generally unstable. Then even as Harrow is about to enact her plan, she is STILL literally nodding off, focusing on her task with some grit that is beyond words at this point, and somehow manages to almost kill the Saint of Duty with her watered-down marrow.
In short, it’s an incredible, genius, and funny scene that I look forward to on each reread. :)
