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kate_nepveuI did a very slow reread of Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth in anticipation of the release this coming Tuesday of Nona the Ninth. (Plus the short stories: "The Mysterious Study of Doctor Sex" (Tor.com); "As Yet Unsent" (Tor.com).) Gosh I love these books, even more so on reread.
Anyway I took a bunch of notes and I'm dumping them behind the cut. These are just things that I consider unresolved, not parallels or setups or theme or characterizations or anything like that, because otherwise I'd have an entirely unmanageable number.
I have read the extended preview of Nona but I'm pretending I haven't for these purposes, I promise; I even deleted some notes that I initially flagged as "oh that sets up this thing." No Nona spoilers, please, either from ARC readers or for anyone coming here after the release date.
However, this is ALL THE SPOILERS for the pre-Nona stories.
Gideon the Ninth
Only a few notes, as so much of this is resolved by subsequent revelations—though I suppose we may be finding more things to reread it for shortly (see this Tumbr post about proper reading order).
Okay, and also technically "the Body is Anastasia and Alecto's Tomb is in the First House" is unresolved, but it's been thoroughly documented elsewhere, e.g., this Tumblr post, which I don't fully agree with in every detail, but which I find very convincing overall.
So:
1.
An open worldbuilding detail: the prison above the Ninth (chapter 1: "used only for those criminals whose crimes were too repugnant for their own Houses to rehabilitate them on home turf").
2.
The question of when the novels are being narrated is an interesting one—especially with regard to Harrow, obviously, but Gideon is also explicitly retrospective. Chapter 21: "Camilla, who had finished most of hers, rolled her eyes and pushed her leftovers to Gideon. This was an act for which she was fond of Camilla forever after." Chapter 26: Gideon has nightmares, Harrow tells her to wake up, and "She could never decide if she had dreamed that into being." It's not particularly significant to those quotes, but we do have at the end of Chapter 32:
The last Gideon ever saw of Captain Judith Deuteros was her propped up on the armchair, sitting as straight as she could possibly manage, bleeding out through the terrible wound at her gut. They left her with her head held high, and her face had no expression at all.
We know Judith is alive in Harrow; will Gideon never see her or is this retrospective POV from sometime relatively early?
(We know when "As Yet Unsent" is narrated; "The Mysterious Study" is sometime when Camilla is talking about Palamedes in the past tense, which I hope means it is from before Camilla finds Harrow in the second book.)
3.
Anastasia's note about testing part of the Lyctor megatheorem on Teacher (chapter 32) says "ASK E.J.G." We know from Harrow that God calls himself John Gaius; if she refers to him as "Emperor John Gauis" on Post-Its ("a faded note that had once been yellow"), I don't know exactly what that says about their relationship, but I do think it says something.
Harrow the Ninth
4.
What happens to Gideon and Harrow at the end of the book?
Here's what we know:
Gideon's body, as of "As Yet Unsent" (which takes place before Act Four), is with the Blood of Eden, lying around being incorruptible. Harrow's body is rescued by Camilla (and Palamedes, in her body) at the end of chapter 52 and is living with them and "the person who went to work for her" in the Epilogue; it still has the regenerative capacity that it obtained when Gideon took over in Act Five (see: regrowing thumbs, which Ianthe tells Harrow that Lyctors cannot do; possibly this is a limitation caused by not doing the process perfectly, possibly Harrow's ability is because of her and Gideon's special characteristics).
I don't think we know anything about the state of Gideon's soul other than that she says "We died" when Harrow's body is rescued—and, of course, she's narrating retrospectively. As for Harrow's, here's what Abigail says about going into the River (chapter 49):
“[…] Your soul longs for your body, and without something else to inhabit, I could not even promise that in your madness you wouldn’t somehow find your way back, rendering all this moot.”
Even with her feelings schooled, Harrow’s voice sounded feeble and childlike and plaintive. “Is there nothing I can do before entering the River that might mean I stay put?”
“No,” said Abigail. “It’s the River. It moves. You’d have to pick the revenant’s path and travel along a thanergetic link, and that’s just madness again: sitting inside—I don’t know—a teapot, clinging on without sense or understanding, going slowly insane. And as I said, your soul longs for your body. What if you lose yourself to eventual madness and are reabsorbed, leading to some kind of melange—you know what Teacher was—a patchwork fusion between your soul and fragments of Gideon’s?”
And here's the end of Chapter 53:
Harrowhark had come home, and she was not afraid. She did not know why she did it, but she climbed inside that empty coffin, and she took the sword within her arms. She was filled with a drowsy, comfortable certainty, as though rather than an icy tomb she had been tucked into a bed with a pillow fluffed beneath her. Her eyelids felt as heavy as the chains that lay broken around the outside of the bier. The sword she embraced shamelessly; those six feet of steel held no fear for her now.
[...]
“Frontline Titties of the Fifth,” she read, and found she was smiling helplessly to herself. She murmured: “Nav, you ass, that’s not even a real publication.”
Then there was a huge, side-to-side rocking, in the manner of an explosion, or a cradle. Her eyes closed. Lying in the tomb that had claimed her heart, faraway in a land she had never travelled, Harrowhark Nonagesimus fell asleep, or dropped dead, or both.
So she's someplace like Palamedes' study, because she's got an imaginary magazine with her. I would be concerned about Harrow using the sword as a link, because it was previously used by Commander Wake, but Harrow was able to sense Wake in it before and finds it a comfort now.
Which leads into:
5.
When is Gideon telling all this to Harrow? Evidence:
Chapter 44:
I burst into the nearest room. The bedroom. I kind of knew the layout, but I’d never really been able to use your eyes. Living inside you—if I start I’ll never stop, so we have to move on—was like living in a well, and every time I bobbed to the surface I kind of got clotheslined back down to the bottom. I’m not complaining, I just want you to know.
[...]
Your memory hadn’t happened to me, and even if I’d had a front-row seat for most of it, it was like watching a play through a blindfold. If I wanted to know something, I had to deliberately go looking through your shit.
Chapter 4, immediately after Harrow reads her past self's instruction to examine Ianthe's jaw and tongue:
You found your mouth and eyes screwing up, as though against the light, or a sour taste; you could not help it. But the vile course of action was obvious. You leant down and—holy shit—kissed her squarely on the mouth.
This, at least, she hadn’t expected—how could she, what the fuck—and her mouth froze against yours, which gave you time to work.
My conclusion: Gideon goes through Harrow's memories to tell her what happened after the fact to heal the damage done by "clinging on without sense or understanding," presumably during Nona, commenting as she goes (see also: pommel, which is funny every time).
(I note that the end of the TPB of Harrow says, "Gideon will return in NONA THE NINTH." (I don't know why the strikethrough.) It doesn't say anything about Harrow. (The original end text was, "The tomb will open in ALECTO THE NINTH."))
It's tempting to say that Nona in the epilogue is the resulting "patchwork fusion between [Harrow's] soul and fragments of Gideon’s," but I feel that might be too obvious?
6.
Resurrection Beasts.
I think the theory is pretty solid that Alecto was one. In Chapter 2, John says that there were nine, there are three left, and they killed five. Alecto is his first Resurrection, "not a normal human being," and "Anger was her besetting sin" (Chapter 37). In chapter 52, John says Resurrection Beasts can't kill him, and Pyrrha notes that the stoma thinks he's one. Their perfect Lyctorhood could be a reason for both of the latter.
7.
What the fuck is John Gaius up to, besides being the literal worst? (Seriously, rereading is such a good way to hate that guy on so many axes.)
Chapter 2: he resurrected many people and then just kept them on ice for 10,000 years "as insurance."
Chapter 14:
“Blood of Eden,” he’d said, slowly.
“Who is Eden?”
“Someone they left to die,” said God wearily. “How sharper than the serpent’s tooth, et cetera … Harrow, if you bother to remember anything from my ramblings, please remember this: once you turn your back on something, you have no more right to act as though you own it.”
At the time, that had made perfect sense to you.
Augustine in Chapter 16 (to Mercymorn):
But don’t forget that he’s spent the last ten thousand years on a perpetual search-and-destroy mission out of, as far as I can tell, purely symbolic retribution. John is never as sentimental as you think.
And in Chapter 51:
“Stop your mission, John. Give up on the thing I know you’ve been looking for since the very beginning. Stop expanding. Stop assembling this bewildering cartography, this invasion force. I’ve puzzled over it for five thousand years, and I don’t believe I truly understand it now. But let it go. Let them go. Nobody has to be punished anymore for what happened to humanity.”
So we know what Augustine thinks, which is lightly supported by the prior quotes.
Is this related to why he doesn't tell anyone about perfect Lyctorhood? In chapter 51, he says,
“I lied to you,” he said. “They’re dead because of me—I let them die because I thought that was easier … and I have regretted it for nearly ten thousand years.”
Easier how? Just a lack of rivals?
8.
The River, and what is beyond it.
Chapter 36, John about stoma: “It is a portal to the place I cannot touch—somewhere I don’t fully comprehend, where my power and my authority are utterly meaningless.”
Chapter 45, Abigail:
“A spirit can be trapped,” said Abigail, “trapped as every spirit in the River is trapped … I know it must sound puzzling, Harrow, so I’ll elaborate. The River is full of the insane, who attempt to cross—”
Magnus coughed in a genteel Fifth House way, and said, “Who wait for our Lord’s touch on the day of a second Resurrection.”
“Who attempt to cross, my love,” said his wife patiently, “to get to what lies beyond; who throng in their great and endless multitude, mad, directionless; or worse, have been trapped at the bottom, about which I know very little but fear all I know. […]”
[Harrow:] “It has been thousands of years since anybody bothered to believe in the River beyond.”
“Yet I believe more than ever, now that I am dead,” said Abigail, smiling.
“But God—”
“I firmly believe that the Kindly Emperor knows nothing of that undiscovered country. He never claimed omnipotence. I longed my whole life to give him my findings,” she said meditatively. “I think there is a whole school of necromancy we cannot begin to touch until we acknowledge its existence—I think these centuries of pooh-poohing the idea that there is space beyond the River has stifled entire avenues of spirit magic, and I believe the Fifth House was waning entirely due to us reaching a stultified, complacent stage in our approach … Oh, I hope so desperately that my brother found my notes! Something has gone terribly wrong in the River, Harrow, and I wish you’d find out what.”
9.
Commander Wake.
After Pyrrha shoots Cytherea in chapter 50 (taking pains to masquerade as Gideon the First), John says, “Damn it, Gideon, her ghost’s completely gone.” Is that gone as in fled, or destroyed?
The Glossary says, "On Wake’s death, Blood of Eden withdrew somewhat out of the eye of the Houses to regroup, but were enlivened by the reappearance of their legendary commander in the form of a revenant." In this instance, "enlivened" likely means 18,000 dead on three warships, the first to be destroyed in 1,000 years (Chapter 6); will it mean anything else?
I really don't want her to show up in Gideon's body, haven't we had enough of that?
10.
What happened with Alfred and Cristabel?
Chapter 30:
“You know what I feel … you know I don’t think she was the best influence on Alfred … you know I thought they brought out the worst in each other, and I don’t think you disagree.”
God said, “They were very similar people.”
“No,” said Augustine. “They weren’t, John. She was a fanatic and an idiot—yes, she was, Mercy—and he … was a man who regretted that he wasn’t. It took surprisingly little to lead my brother astray.”
“Nobody could lead him where he didn’t want to go,” said God, and his patience took a solemn edge. “You know that.”
“Lord! Don’t tell me that,” said his Lyctor, faintly smiling. “I have built an entire myriad on the idea that I could’ve made him come around, given five minutes.”
Chapter 52:
“It’s done—as you chose to stain your hands so mine could be clean, you’re going to have to put up with the fact that you picked the wrong man to enter into a suicide pact with. I hate ’em. Cristabel might have undone all my good work with Alfred, but here comes the reckoning. We’re going to go round up the ships—everyone who’s left—sue for peace as best we can—get the Edenites on side. And then we’ll find a place to fulfil the old promise … Somewhere out there exists a home not paid for with blood; it won’t be for us, but it will be for those who have been spared. Babies always get born. Houses always get built. And flowers will die on necromancy’s grave.”
(This whole sequence is so good.)
Did Cristabel convince Alfred to become a Lyctor?
11.
Two random Gideon the First & Pyrrha questions:
Why did Mattias Nonius fight the Saint of Duty? (Chapter 49.)
Chapter 52:
“Augustine’s dropped the whole station in the River,” he said. “We’ve crossed over physically—body, soul, everything.” And, irrelevantly: “Wish he’d given me the packet.”
Like Gideon, I say: packet? What?
I think that's all for now, but consider this a free-for-all for pre-Nona discussion!
+1 (thumbs-up, I see you, etc.)?
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Date: 2022-09-11 07:09 pm (UTC)they aren't for everyone but I think they're great!