"Do you know, I gave that thing a nickname, my whole pregnancy? I used to call it Bomb."[1]
Awake Remembrance of These Valiant Dead Kia Hua Ko Te Pai Snap Back to Reality Oops There Goes Gravity is the former leader of the insurgent organization the Blood of Eden. Driven by her hatred of necromancy, Wake has made it her life's mission to destroy the Emperor and the entire Nine Houses System.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Little is known about Wake's origins. In her young adulthood, she became the leader of the insurgent organization Blood of Eden. Under her leadership, Blood of Eden transformed into a formidable opponent and waged open warfare against the Emperor's Cohort—a genuine threat to the Empire.[2]
Among numerous military victories, Wake and her Edenites learned of the existence of the Resurrection Beasts who hunt the Emperor and his Lyctors. Managing to separate one of the Beast's Heralds from the hive, the Edenites succeeded in killing the creature and turning its various body parts into knives, axes, and bullets that retain the psychological effects of the Heralds themselves.[3]
Twenty-two years into her command, Wake begins a tumultuous relationship with both Gideon the First and, unknown to him, his cavalier Pyrrha Dve who has been living compartmentalized inside his brain for nearly a myriad. The precise details of this arrangement are unknown.[4]
The next year, Wake agrees to assist Mercymorn the First and Augustine the First in a plot, Dios apate, major, that she believes is a reconnaissance mission into the Ninth House and the Locked Tomb, aided by the blood of a child born the Emperor. Mercymorn and Augustine secure the Emperor's genetic material and Mercymorn's ova and pass the supplies to Wake. When Mercymorn's ova die, Wake inseminates herself.[5]
Upon hearing of Wake's mission, Gideon chases her through the galaxy and Nine Houses System. Scrambling, Wake induces labor in herself and gives birth in her shuttle in the atmosphere of Ninth House. Unable to defend herself from Gideon's attacks, she is at his mercy and Gideon chooses to push her out the airlock. As she falls, she routes her oxygen to the bio-container holding her newborn daughter and asphyxiates.[5]
Upon finding her body, the Ninth House sets season nun-adepts and necromancers to recalling her spirit. Wake refused to be lured by blood new or old and when tethered by force, her only words were "Gideon! Gideon! Gideon!"[6] Wake would remain as an active revenant for the next nineteen years, first attached to her own skeleton and then later, her daughter's two-handed great sword.[5]
Eight years later, Wake's skeleton is boiled, processed, and sent into the Ninth House snow leek fields for service.[7]
Harrow the Ninth[]
Nine Months Before the Emperor's Murder[]
The revenant of Wake begins her invasion of Harrowhark Nonagesimus's unconscious mind. As Harrow constructs a "bubble" version of Canaan House that exists only in the liminal spirit-magic world of the River, Wake's formidable mental strength begins to impact the world by leaving notes about eggs. Wake herself takes the form of the Sleeper, an entombed enemy of the postulants.
Following the funeral of Cytherea the First, Wake assumes control of Harrow's body and stabs the double-handed sword into Cytherea's corpse, creating a thanergetic link that her revenant can travel along, allowing her to live in the unoccupied body.
Six Months Before the Emperor's Murder[]
In Canaan House, Wake, as the Sleeper, wakes and ventures out into the Facility. She discovers Judith Deuteros who she shoots eight times with a Carbine rifle. After performing the murder, she climbs back into her coffin and closes the glass lid. Despite Marta Dyas's attempts to break in, she does not wake again.
On Mithraeum, the revenant of Wake begins to be seen moving around the ship in Cytherea's body. Harrow notes shifted positions in the face and arms, and Augustine snaps at Mercymorn for moving Cytherea, an accusation she claims she didn't commit—but no one suspects an invading soul. Though John claims that nothing is amiss, Harrow finally witnesses the body of Cytherea shambling through the halls.
Back in Canaan House, the Sleeper kills Camilla Hect and Palamedes Sextus unseen by any of the other postulants.
Four Months Before the Emperor's Murder[]
Harrow catches Gideon, potentially animated by his cavalier Pyrrha Dve, defiling the body of Cytherea, but doesn't note any presence animating it.
Following Augustine's dinner party, Gideon's body, again likely animated by Pyrrha, seeks out Cytherea, animated by Wake. Wake disarms Gideon and stabs him in the heart with his own spear. She then moves his body through the rings of the Mithraeum to the incinerator room. After loading him into the incinerator, she backtracks to the operating room and prepares to burn his body. At this point, Harrow interrupts, following the trail of blood and using her necromancy to break Gideon out of the closed incinerator.
As Harrow crosses an unseen barrier, the incinerator alarm goes off, alerting John, Mercymorn, and Augustine of her presence. As John bursts in, Wake escapes from the control booth and disappears. From this point on Cytherea's body is missing from her altar and cannot be sensed aboard the Mithraeum.
Two Months Before the Emperor's Murder[]
Wake, as a revenant, travels with Harrow into the River and Palamedes's "bubble." She enters with a lightning strike, appearing on the terrace of Palamedes's single room in a haz suit with a breathing apparatus covering her face. Harrow and Palamedes deadbolt the door and shove their bodies against it to keep her out, but Wake slams into the door three times and throws them back. She cocks her gun, and as she shoots, Harrow sinks back into the River—dragging Wake with her.
One Week Before the Emperor's Murder[]
The night before the Resurrection Beast is due to reach the Mithraeum, Harrow drops a glove under her bed. When she crawls underneath to find it, she finds the body of Cytherea laying passively on the floor. Harrow shackles her to the floor with pieces of bone and fetches Ianthe. They look under the bed together. Ianthe claims not to see anything, refuses Harrow's plea to touch the area in which Harrow still sees the corpse, and leaves. Harrow takes three minutes to recoup at the sink in her room, then returns to the bed and finds that the body disappeared from sight without any wards breaking. It is unknown how long the body was hidden there.[8]
The Night Before the Emperor's Murder[]
Above, on the Mithraeum, Wake roams the ship in the body of Cytherea amid the battle with Number Seven. She walks into a room and discovers Mercymorn about to kill Harrow, whose eyes have changed to the golden eyes of her former cavalier, Gideon Nav. She blows apart Mercymorn's chest with her gun, saving Gideon (now conscious from within the body of Harrow), and leaves before Gideon can ask her any questions.
Below, in the River, Wake, as the Sleeper, continues her assault on Canaan House. Organs and viscera grow through the House, worming out of cracks and across the walls and ceilings. Eventually, they become tentacles that reach out for the postulants inside. A collection of pipettes, containers of fluid, broken skeletons, and pills have appeared in the snow.
An Amount of Time Before the Emperor's Murder[]
Below, in the River, the revenant postulants finish their battle preparations. Abigail Pent notes that Wake's spirit is tied to two places and that its banishing in the River will not necessarily banish it on the Mithraeum. She pours a libation over the foot of the coffin and begins the summoning. A panel of the coffin shatters and Wake gives the postulants long enough to see that it is empty before emerging from the corridor and attacking.
She fires on Harrow, who blocks with a bone shield and is dragged to safety by Ortus. Protesilaus engages Wake and knocks her gun out of her hand. Before he can disengage his chain, she handsprings past him and shoots him in the back. She fires twice more, and Protesilaus is still. Wake demands that Harrow turn herself over and begins counting down from ten. Dulcinea breaks cover and Wake easily shoots her in the leg. Magnus makes his move, grabbing Wake and holding her in place. Marta picks up her gun and shoots her three times, but she does not bleed. Marta comes at her with a knife, and Wake kicks out dragging all three of them down. There is a quick struggle that ends with Magnus shot and Marta disarmed with a gun in her face.
Protesilaus rears up—exerting enough of his influence on the River "bubble" to ensure that he doesn't die from his wounds—grabs Wake, and wraps his chain around her neck. Wake causes two more guns to appear, shoots Protesilaus again, and knocks out Marta. Harrow tosses bone at Wake, but she shoots it out of the air and causes it to go inert—her anti-necromancy beliefs influencing the rules of the bubble and stripping Harrow of her power. Harrow asks what Wake wants, and she replies that she wants Harrow's death so she can take her body. As Wake reaches one, Ortus begins to recite poetry.
As he declaims from the Noniad, Abigail begins summoning again. Wake easily pushes her way through Harrow's shields, crumbles them to dust, and shoots Ortus. Harrow pushes Wake back with a wall of bone and sends skeleton constructs after her which are also dissolved. Harrow takes over for Ortus, finishing the lines as Abigail finishes summoning. Wake reaches Harrow and fires a shot into her head, but Matthias Nonius solidifies between them. Wake attacks, but Nonius counters with superhuman speed and manages to wound her.
The inclusion of Nonius and Ortus's years of hero-worship shift control of the bubble away from Wake. In the Noniad, there are no guns—so Nonius easily knocks away her bullets until the guns begin to malfunction and finally stop firing at all. Wake switches tactics, pulling out a baton and the duel continues. Nonius fights calmly, staying still and easily parrying away her attacks before lashing out in a decisive attack. As the fight presses on, Nonius begins to tire. Wake bludgeons his head with her baton, thrusts her knife into his belly, knees him, and cuts his sword arm.
Nonius questions Wake on her motives. She is nearly sucked into the conversation, but remembers the importance of intention in the bubble and refuses to play into his narrative. She hits him with the butt of her knife and presses in so that he cannot use his rapier. Wake disarms him and headbutts him into the coffin, but he gets up again. Bleeding, he grabs and breaks her arm before driving his dagger into her abdomen. She tries to choke him, but he pushes her into the wall. Protesilaus tosses Nonius his rapier, and Nonius drives it into her—destroying her in the River.
Thirty Minutes Before the Emperor's Murder[]
At some point during the battle, Commander Wake in the body of Cytherea the First finds the Emperor in his rooms. He disarms her and ties her to a chair. She makes him call her by her full name Commander Awake Remembrance of These Valiant Dead Kia Hua Ko Te Pai Snap Back to Reality Oops There Goes Gravity, and attempts to interrogate the Emperor and charge him with "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the human race." The Emperor interrogates her in return, demanding to know her mission and her business on Ninth House. They argue about her anti-necromancy and the use of dead children in their propaganda before Mercymorn and Augustine stride in.
Mercymorn and Augustine both appeal to the Emperor to come clean, saying "It's over, John. It's all come out ... it took ten thousand years, but it's all come out."[5] The Emperor asks if he is in trouble, and then directs their attention to Cytherea's body and introduces his Lyctors to Commander Wake. Mercymorn and Augustine draw their rapiers and the Emperor, puzzled that they have met, asks for clarification. Wake claims that Mercymorn and Augustine were working for her, which the Lyctors deny. The Lyctors and Wake argue over the details of the plan and whatever went wrong, but no one speaking clearly enough for the Emperor to understand exactly what they are talking about.
The Emperor silences them with a burst of necromancy. He again asks what Wake was doing on Ninth House and she explains that she was going to break into the Locked Tomb. Wake explains that she came armed with a baby that she had birthed herself, much to Augustine's horror, after Mercymorn's dummies and ova had died. The Emperor is explain exactly how the plan would not have succeeded when Gideon the First (though his body is currently occupied by his cavalier Pyrrha Dve) walks into the foyer, steals Gideon Nav's sunglasses, and walks into the Emperor's rooms. Gideon the First walks up to Wake and shoots her in the head.
Appearance and Personality[]
Harrow describes Commander Wake as thus:
"A bound-back mass of hair had been tucked into the collar, but some strands and wisps had escaped and plastered themselves in red whorls on the forehead and cheeks. That dead, proud, unforgiving face beheld them all until Nonius closed the sightless eyes."
[...]
"The chin was firm, the jaw stubborn in its lines, the nasofrontal angle of the nose barely present, with flared nostrils like a large cat's." [9]
Commander Wake is unwavering and dedicated to any given task she deems her responsibility to carry through, including her mission to use Gideon Nav's blood to open the Locked Tomb. She is fully willing and ready to resort to extreme violence in order to succeed in her goals.
Relationships[]
Gideon the First[]
Pyrrha Dve[]
The Emperor[]
Harrowhark Nonagesimus[]
Trivia[]
- John's nickname for Commander Wake is "Wake Me Up Inside," which references a popular real-world song "Bring Me to Life" by the band Evanescence.
- The first part of Wake's name, "Awake Remembrance of These Valiant Dead" comes from a piece of dialogue by the Bishop of Ely in Act I, Sc 2 of the Shakespeare play Henry V.
- The middle of Wake's name, "Kia Hua Ko Te Pai" means "Let goodness flourish" and is a Te Reo line from Aotearoa (New Zealand)'s national anthem, "E Ihowā Atua".
- The ending of Wake's name, "Snap Back to Reality Oops There Goes Gravity," is a line from real-world rapper Eminem's song "Lose Yourself" from 2002.
- Muir mentions that Wake's full name "works by Blood of Eden naming conventions, which have three separate parts to them."[10]
References[]
- ↑ "Harrow the Ninth," Act V, Ch. 50
- ↑ "Harrow the Ninth," Act II, Ch. 14
- ↑ Harrow the Ninth, Act III, Ch. 30
- ↑ Harrow the Ninth, Act V, Ch. 52
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 "Harrow the Ninth," Act V, Ch. 50
- ↑ Gideon the Ninth, Act I, Ch. 1
- ↑ Harrow the Ninth, Act V, Ch. 51
- ↑ "Harrow the Ninth," Act IV, Ch. 38
- ↑ "Harrow the Ninth," Act V, Ch. 49
- ↑ "I'm Tamsyn Muir, author of HARROW THE NINTH, second book of the Locked Tomb trilogy. AMA!" Reddit