#I also think that she's killed many many people in between GtN and NtN to attain her BoE rank (which is positive) (I think she's hot)

[liesmyth]

My Coronabeth Dominant Twin manifesto is simple and it's as follows: there's no way the twins could have planned for Canaan House.

John requesting new Lyctors wasn't something anyone in the Houses would've expected to happen in their lifetimes with any meaningful probability. This means that when the Tridentarii started the double necromancer ruse, they expected to carry on for life. It was an arrangement that benefited Corona vastly more than Ianthe.

What Ianthe got out of it, as far as we know: Corona would rule Ida, which she isn't keen on (as per NtN). But it also meant that Ianthe signed up for a life in her sister's shadow, with everyone regarding Corona as the perfect heir and Ianthe as the lame spare. Worse, for Ianthe, everyone believed Corona was the better flesh magician (as per As Yet Unsent). There's a lot more in for Corona in this arrangement and a lifetime of mild humiliation for Ianthe. As we see during the reveal in GtN, she was just dying to tell anyone that SHE is the necromantic genius of the pair, actually.

On their relationship with Babs: in GtN, Gideon notices that Babs obeys Ianthe's orders over Corona's. She also notices that Corona looks shocked about this — to me, this means that it's NOT something Coronabeth is used to. Pre-Canaan House, they are equals in their ruse. At Canaan House, it becomes obvious that if Ianthe ascends she'll leave Corona in the dust, and their relationship has to change. I don't think the way they act around each other from Canaan House onwards is at all representative of their relationship back on the Third, and I don't think Babs deferring to Ianthe over Corona is something that has happened often before, if at all.

There's the bit where Corona routinely threatened suicide to get her way since they were teenagers. In NtN she's doing it to save Camilla's life, but she reminisces fondly about it like it was something she did often to get her way, like it was a fun mind game they played with each other.

You've also got Ianthe calling Corona a bimbo and insulting her and whatever, and me arguing that Corona pulled the few strings doesn't make Ianthe good but as things stand I'm much more inclined to believe that, before Ianthe attained Lyctorhood, Corona was the one in charge — and I’m also firmly convinced that she’s using BoE for her own ends, and we’ll see her Fuck Shit Up in AtN.

#re: Corona threatening to kill herself #in NtN they ARE in a life-or-death situation but I simply refuse to believe that the same circumstances ever applied before #no way Ianthe aged 15 was going around murdering people and virtuous Corona tried to stop it. OCCAM'S RAZOR GIRL #I also think that she's killed many many people in between GtN and NtN to attain her BoE rank (which is positive) (I think she's hot) #but Ms. 'I am Interested In Imperial Economic Policy' isn't doing it for freedom fighting reasons <3 #tlt thought #tridentarii #to be clear: I choose to believe in Worsetwin Coronabeth bc it's so much sexier. to me #ianthe #coronabeth #tlt

[theygender]

I've got some theories about who Nona is and I would like to share them here

This is something I've been thinking about for a while. My original theory hinged off of the idea that Nona was possessing Gideon's body and it followed the logic that for one thing Cam and Corona already have access to Gideon's body, and for another, well... Gideon's body has been empty for a while right? And Muir has already told us that bad things happen to empty bodies. In GTN Teacher warned Silas not to drain Colum's soul in the depths of Canaan House because there were spirits there who could possess his body, and in HTN John warned Harrow and Ianthe to be careful passing through the River because if their soul became disconnected from their body then their body could be possessed by spirits which could do a lot of damage with lyctoral power. So bottom line here is that we know that empty bodies are vulnerable to possession, and Gideon's body has been empty (without rotting) for a long time. I was originally under the belief that Nona may be someone who died on the planet BOE is stationed at and just jumped to the nearest vessel, but it's unclear if revenants can actually be formed on thalergy-based worlds. Further discrediting this theory is that the NTN reveal shows us pretty clearly that Gideon's body is NOT on the cover. I have seen one theory that Nona could start out the series in Gideon's body and then switch to her own, but after turning it over in my head for a while I've come to a new theory:

The body shown on the front of the cover is The Body (assumed here to be Alecto) and it is currently being possessed by one of the reincarnated souls that were sent to the Ninth

First I'll cover what we know about the body shown on the cover. The editor has told us that we've seen this body before. The cover character appears to have pale skin, which rules out many of the main characters we've seen. Harrow herself is described as having brown skin, but even if the difference could be due to lighting Nona does not seem to have the same proportions as Harrow. Nona has also been confirmed to have black hair and gold eyes. We know The Body has dark hair (at least in ice) and we also know that Alecto is one of only two people in the series to have gold eyes—a feature so rare that Mercy and Augustine were instantly able to work out the lies John had told them for 10,000 years just from seeing Gideon's eyes alone. An argument could be made that this could be Gideon possessing someone else's body (Anastasia's perhaps?) but so far it has not been shown that a body's eye color can change simply from being possessed by a revenant; the only thing that we know for certain changes eye color is the lyctoral process. If the body Nona's inhabiting is Alecto's this would also explain why the leaders of BOE want her to be "the weapon that will save them from the Nine Houses." She is inhabiting the body of the only thing that can kill God, a literal weapon against him. But who is Nona? This brings me to some other theories

Could this inhabitant be Alecto herself? I don't believe so. For one thing, I think Pyrrha would recognize Alecto. For another, I think from a narrative standpoint this would make the distinction between Nona the Ninth and Alecto the Ninth unnecessary. Besides that, the summary also tells us that Nona wakes up in someone else's body. Alecto's soul can arguably be stated to have last been seen with Harrow's body (currently possessed by Gideon) in the River, so I believe it's likely she's currently not housed within her own body. And if this is true, it means her body is vulnerable to possession...

Could she be possessed by Harrow? She took herself to the Tomb after she left her body right? I'm also not moved by this theory. We know that Harrow needed to attach herself to something important to her in order to survive as a revenant without going mad (as Palamades did with his own skull fragment) and it seems that Harrow thinks the thing she's holding onto is the Tomb. But I think she's actually holding onto Gideon Nav. When she enters the River at the end of HTN the first thing that she thinks about is Gideon, specifically the pool scene where everything changed and where she said that it felt right to die in Gideon's arms. Immediately following this memory she returns "home" to what she believes is the Tomb, but instead of finding The Body there she finds Gideon's two-hander and a Frontline Titties of the Fifth magazine. In the last sentence she narrates Harrow states that she falls asleep or drops dead "lying in the tomb that had claimed her heart, faraway in a land she had never traveled." The first part of that could refer to either the tomb itself or—perhaps more romantically—Gideon. But the line "faraway in a land she had never traveled"? Harrow has traveled to the Tomb before. But a land she hasn't traveled to is the world where BOE is keeping Gideon's body. I believe this line and the symbolism of the sword and titty mags mean that Harrow has anchored herself to Gideon's body, and the consequences of that are so far unclear

Finally then we come to the theory of The Body being inhabited by a resident of the Ninth, and to me the only thing that makes sense is that the soul in question belonged to one of the people who were being sent to repopulate the Ninth. What do we know about Nona so far? The summary tells us that "In many ways, Nona is like other people. She lives with her family, has a job at her local school, and loves walks on the beach and meeting new dogs." This does not match what we know of any other character so far. The summary continues "But Nona's not like other people. Six months ago she woke up in a stranger's body, and she's afraid she might have to give it back," and Muir's recent interview tells us that her newest book "takes place over less than a week, although it also takes place over 100,000 years." I believe that Nona is the resurrected soul of a pre-resurrection human (possibly why her story has such conflicting timeframes, she was born and died many thousands of years ago but to her it just seems like waking up), misdirected somehow during the process into the wrong body at her new planet of residence—and that body just so happens to be the empty shell of one of the most important bodies in the entire universe, ripe for possession

How did Nona-in-The-Body end up with our B team? My original theory hinged on them already having Gideon's body, so this makes things a bit more complicated. However, Pyrrha is with Cam, Corona, and Pal now. It's still not clear how she finds them, but joining forces with them likely means she is now working against John, and who better to break out the Death of the Emperor than the lyctor who spent many years working in turns with and against the commander who hatched the plot to open the Tomb in the first place?

Tldr; Nona's appearance matches what we know of The Body/Alecto and it would make narrative sense for her to be The Body. Pyrrha would know how to get to The Body, which means she could logically end up with our B team. Nona's personality and stated history do not match what we know of any other character, and the ending of HTN suggests that The Body would not be inhabited by Harrow, Gideon, OR Alecto herself. However, if The Body was possessed by a resurrected soul this would align with what has been said so far about Nona waking up in a new body as well as what Muir said about her story taking place over both the span of a week and thousands of years

#the locked tomb #nona the ninth #harrow the ninth #gideon the ninth #locked tomb theories #gideon nav #harrowhark nonagesimus #alecto the first #pyrrha dve #john gaius #blood of eden #rambling