#the fact that gideon has spent all those years not only thinking she killed harrow's parents -- she thinks she made harrow want to die

[vaguely-concerned]

It was worse, when I was a kid. I remember the time you caught me telling her 'I love you'. And I can't even remember what you said, but I remember that I had you on your back -- I put you straight on the fucking ground. I was always so much bigger and so much stronger. I got on top of you and choked you 'til your eyes bugged out. I told you that my mother had probably loved me a lot more than yours loved you. . . . Were you ten, Harrow? Was I eleven? Was that the day you decided you wanted to die?

You remember how the fuck-off great aunts always used to say, 'Suffer and learn'? If they were right, Nonagesimus, how much more can we take until you and me achieve omniscience?

I'm never not thinking about this part of harrow the ninth. what a fucking perfectly distilled microcosm of gideon's and harrow's childhood. two children clawing at and choking the life out of each other over the entirely fictional premise that either of their mothers ever loved them.

#the last fourth of harrow the ninth has probably the greatest concentration of moments that permanently changed my brain chemistry #of any work of fiction ever made. it's just like getting profoundly punched in the face over and over again #the locked tomb #griddlehark #harrow the ninth #the fact that gideon has spent all those years not only thinking she killed harrow's parents -- she thinks she made harrow want to die #the simultaneous horrified guilt and... intimacy? care? of 'I was always so much bigger and so much stronger'. #any time either of them thinks of any power they had in their relationship it's so achingly interwoven #with how they only ever used that power to hurt each other #even the rare times when they didn't really mean to #I mean. man. well. what do you. what do you do with this. hurt and grieve forever probably

[alarajrogers]

Locked Tomb, so many questions

I read the additional material at the end of Gideon the Ninth and now my host of questions has spawned even more. I can’t figure any of this out.

Contains spoilers, so if you haven’t read Harrow the Ninth proceed at your own risk.

-          John claims humanity died of something that sounds like climate change and nuclear war (“Rising sea levels and a massive nuclear fission chain reaction”), but that should only have affected Earth. How were the other planets and the sun killed?

-          It’s pretty obvious that the Nine Houses are supposed to be our solar system, but Sol cannot become a black hole. (https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2019/why-the-sun-wont-become-a-black-hole) So why will Dominicus become a black hole if John dies?

-          There’s something unusual about the system of the Nine Houses – necromancers can only be born there, and in no other system. According to the notes at the end of Gideon the Ninth in paperback, the system of the Nine Houses is in a stable thanergetic condition, which means things can still be born on those planets and the planets aren’t dying; but this cannot be replicated anywhere else. why not? John, what did you do?

-          Augustine claims the power levels don’t add up… he can’t figure out where John’s power comes from aside from being a perfect Lyctor. But if A.L. was one of the resurrected, John could not have been a perfect Lyctor when he resurrected her. How do you take the thanergy generated by nine planets dying and use it to make nine planets live again? In nature, there are no perpetual motion machines; it always takes more energy to undo entropy than to speed it along. John would have needed more energy than was given off by the massive die-off to undo the massive die-off.

-          Some people weren’t resurrected until now, or still haven’t been. Was John using necromancy to keep them stabilized before the invention of some kind of mechanical stasis? How much power did that use?

-          Lyctor power levels don’t make sense either. Harrow is the product of the thanergy of 200 children dying, but is just a powerful necromancer, not an immortal regenerating entity. Lyctors consume one soul and it powers them for 10,000 years. How? Does this mean that if a Lyctor-to-be killed more than one person they would be more powerful, or is it only possible to absorb one additional soul?

-          Where does the power come from if instead of consuming the soul the two souls co-habit, which is implied by the concept of perfect Lyctorhood and the fact that Harrow’s thumb regenerates while Gideon is in there? If a living soul could provide more power than a dead one, Lyctorhood wouldn’t be a thing, it would have stopped at power siphoning.

-          Shouldn’t this have meant that Gideon the First would have regenerated notably faster and better than his fellow Lyctors?

-          If Resurrection Beasts are the souls of the dead nine planets of Sol System, now Dominicus and the Nine Houses… what is serving as the souls of those planets now? Reproduction can’t happen on soulless planets.

-          Why would the Resurrection Beasts particularly hate John? Was he responsible for their deaths? If he’s found perfect Lyctorhood with A.L., why would they have ever gone after him at all?

-          “And when the cost of Lyctorhood was paid, when the emotions were at their peak … we found out the price for our sin. The monstrous retribution. To be chased for our crime to the ends of the universe, to have our deed stain our very faces and follow after us like a foul smell.” – but this makes no sense if the purpose of creating Lyctors was to fight the Resurrection Beasts. (Wait, is that actually something the Emperor said? I can’t find the reference, but I could have sworn he claimed the Lyctors were necessary to fight the Resurrection Beasts.) If that’s not the case, then what was so important as to justify everyone murdering their cavaliers?

-          Teacher claims the purpose was for the ten original disciples (only 10?) to live forever without the Emperor’s power having to keep them alive. That does not sound like a good reason to kill half of them. But the cavaliers died willingly, so there was something important enough to be worth dying for.

-          “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.” Purely symbolic retribution against who? John claims to be running from the Resurrection Beasts because they’re in constant pursuit, and certainly Augustine, Mercymorn and Gideon, and the dead Lyctors, don’t/didn’t behave as if their fight against the Resurrection Beasts is purely symbolic retribution.

-          We’re told there were gaps, and that Cytherea came later (generations later). Alfred and Augustine were the first, apparently, and Mercymorn is now one of the oldest. Does that mean that Gideon and Cytherea both came in late? But Cytherea was there when the Lyctoral process was discovered, so why does Teacher claim there were 5? Is this because only dead people are real in Harrow’s simulation in the River? But Gideon the First isn’t dead yet; Pyrrha says he was killed fighting the Resurrection Beast in the River, after Ortus, Nonius, Dyas and Protesilaus went to help, which happens at the end of Harrow’s bubble long after Teacher claims there were 5 necromancer/cavalier pairs in the beginning. Maybe he can only detect entities in the River, and Gideon’s been in the River fighting since the start of Harrow’s bubble?

-          Where is the ninth Resurrection Beast?

-          Not really the same kind of question as the others, but why does Gideon Nav think the Emperor should have been sucked down a stoma when she knows that this would turn Dominicus into a black hole and kill everyone in the Nine Houses? Dude may have lied to everyone, but if his life protects the life of everyone in a solar system, I kind of think that counts higher. She is very disappointed when Ianthe rescues John rather than Augustine, but she was there when Mercy killed John the first time and she and Augustine discussed how Dominicus was about to turn into a black hole.

-          Also, once again, I’m sorry, how does being attached to one other living soul give you the power to keep a star alive?

-          Necromancy only seems to work on things that are alive. Does this mean that stars, like planets, have souls? If so, why weren’t there ten Resurrection Beasts?

Ugh, so many questions and I have to wait until 2022 for any canonical answers to any of them...

#locked tomb #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth