#when i read the locked tomb series i was literally emotionally destroyed for a whole ass month | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sewingmonster · 1 year

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Since “Kiss me son of god” by TMBG is my favorite song and The Locked Tomb is my favorite book series it only made sense to me to combine them. So here we go! The lyrics are in the fancy font with an analysis/explanation below in regular font. Under a read more cause it’s kinda long.

I built a little empire out of some crazy garbage

Called the blood of the exploited working class

This one’s fairly obvious. Basically, it’s just John killing the world- which is just working class people- and making an Empire out of them.

But they've overcome their shyness

Now they're calling me Your Highness

Exhibit one- the lieutenant who literally kills herself for him. Also Sarpedon.

And a world screams, "Kiss me, Son of God"

Also fairly obvious, every repetition of this is Alecto towards John, of course, but I like to think this instance specifically parallels when John says he can’t find the soul because Alecto is screaming in the background.

I destroyed a bond of friendship and respect

Between the only people left who'd even look me in the eye

I mean, could this be anything other than the lyctors?

Now I laugh and make a fortune

Off the same ones that I tortured

And a world screams, "Kiss me, Son of God"

I look like Jesus, so they say

But Mr. Jesus is very far away

Gideon, our Jesus parallel is literally far away- she’s all the way in the Ninth house- but she’s also emotionally far away, particularly in Nona.

Now you're the only one here who can tell me if it's true

That you love me and I love me

Alecto and John, yet again. She’s the only person left from the original Earth. Also there’s the whole bit with, “You held aloft the sword. I still love-.”

I built a little empire out of some crazy garbage

Called the blood of the exploited working class

But they've overcome their shyness

Now they're calling me Your Highness

And a world screams, "Kiss me, Son of God"

Yes a world screams, "Kiss me, Son of God"

Yeah, yeah, “this is just Alecto and John again, why is there more text here?” Because it’s not just about Alecto and John! It could also be about Alecto kissing Harrow- who could be interpreted as a child of god, particularly if we’re leaning into the Catholic influences in The Locked Tomb series. It could also, very flimsily, be about Harrow- who is an entire generation and often referred to as the Ninth House, making her a world- and Gideon who’s just literally god’s kid.

#Please let me know if the fonts mess with any accessibility stuff! 👍#The locked tomb #dino roars

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necromancy-savant · 2 years

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Ok here are my thoughts on Nona the Ninth:

- Nona is really relatable to me in some ways, like how she thinks, communicates and processes things, and how she has some challenges but is still an adult and wants to be respected as one. And she has intense "tantrums" when she gets emotionally overwhelmed. I actually like the thought that if the Earth could be embodied as a human, she would be a bit like me. - Still emotional about how much everyone loves her and honestly how respectful and kind everyone in Nona's life is to her. Presumably the people of all those other planets outside the solar system are the descendants of the trillionaires that got away and that's why John wants to conquer them, and they are lovely to Nona. I'm interested to see how the final book resolves the conflict between the Nine Houses and everywhere else and what it ends up saying, intentionally or not. - Ianthe has suddenly gotten a lot cooler. I'm not sure what it is. Did she do something with her hair? I think it's that her dialogue is so good. I just had to read most of her lines out loud. I'm still laughing about "duplicitous sluts." She's also even more pathetic now, which only makes her more appealing. Like she's not even competent at being an evil villain and I love her so much more for it.

-While reading, I was thinking about how Ianthe and Naberius are a perversion of everything the adept/cavalier relationship is supposed to be, but given that the whole thing is based on a misunderstanding and maybe not such a great thing anyway, I haven't decided yet what the implications of that are (will probably need more data from the last installment.) - Being risen in undeath as a revenant seems to have turned Gideon into kind of an asshole, but on the other hand, I think she and Nona just instinctively don't like each other and are clearly both super jealous of each other, and I'm guessing the in-universe reason is because Gideon is related to John. And she's really only mean to Nona, who is also admittedly a dick to Gideon even before she meets her, and otherwise mostly just seems hopeless and depressed. She's a lot like her father, actually: she tries to get revenge and deal out justice in the form of punishment only to find that it doesn't make her feel any better.

-Is anyone going to tell Ianthe and/or John that the princes in the tower got murdered???? - I wonder if John would take it as a compliment how attracted Harrow is to Alecto since he purposely made her to be as attractive as possible. I think he would because when I was like 14 on RuneScape, a girl told me I was hot, and I thought it was a very nice compliment since I had made my character as handsome as I could. - For that matter, I wonder if Harrow would be pleased to know that The Body thought she was pretty. - I'm kind of surprised that apparently people think John Gaius is like some evil mastermind??? I totally see him as a normal person with a lot of big feelings who is scared. I actually can imagine being angry enough at an injustice to feel like I want to destroy the solar system to erase even the memory of it, and don't think I could promise that I wouldn't if I had the ability to while also experiencing the most intense trauma and grief of my life. - I'll come back to the Biblical references, but in a few places Palamedes seemed to me to be a bit too Christlike for my personal liking. - I'm interested in how perfection in this book and in the series as a whole is presented in the literal sense of the word as something finished. Towards the ends of this novel there's a lot about love as something perfect and finite, but I think more broadly the highest aim in The Locked Tomb is to finish something. - I was also thinking today about Crux. When Gideon says she wants him to know she's the child of the emperor, it reminded me of that line from the Bible where Jesus says "whatever you did for the least of my brethren, you did for me." What strikes me is that when thus accused, Crux doesn't give a shit. He basically says, I don't care if you're literally God, to me you will always be worthless and will always be inherently inferior due to the social position you were born into. He is the exact kind of person the entire Resurrection was supposed to eliminate from the universe, and here he is 10,000 years later making John's own daughter's life hell.

-I'm so glad everyone else is just as fixated on the Barbie thing as I am.

-WHEN NONA LOSES THE WILL TO LIVE UNTIL SHE REMEMBERS ABOUT NOODLE

I still have a few questions about how certain things happen or work, and that's something that's been an issue for me with all three books so far. I don't need an in-depth explanation, just a simple how did they do that. But in short, this one was definitely my favorite so far, and I intend to immediately re-read the others to see what I can pick up on knowing what I know now. After that, I can take inventory of any questions I still have. Nona really contextualized Gideon and Harrow for me and brought them together in a way that's allowing me to tease out the big themes in the series. The recurring characters are now established enough to really have fun with them, but the new characters are also interesting, endearing, and feel real through the little details about them.

#nona the ninth spoilers #nona the ninth

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zenosanalytic · 4 years

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Harrow the Ninth: Wordplay and Implication

So I started reading Harrow the Ninth last night(haven’t gotten far; I’m only on page 47), but some interesting stuff cropped up I wanted to yack about. Explaining it requires some Serious Spoilers tho, so don’t read past this point if you haven’t reader further than me and are also avoiding ...spoilers... X|

Ok so: Harrow is obvsl going through some Things. To begin with she seems to be having some manner of psychological break exacerbated by(possible caused by) the Lyctor transformation? A huge part of it is obvsl grief over Gideon -she seems to be avoiding any memory or thought of her and this mental block seems to be impacting her ability to access Gideon’s soul and thus her full Lyctor capabilities- but she’s also overwhelmed by her new senses and her inability to feel physical pain, and a bit unstuck in time? Some of that just might be her grief-driven illness, but so far there’s been some jumping around in the timeline/her memories so it’s possible this is also a side-effect of the Lyctor transformation and existing on both sides of life and death.

Anyway, there’s some nifty wordplay associated with all of this :>

the first one is in an edited memory, and it’s right at the start of it, in the chapter-title for said memory: “Parodos”.

Now most obvsl, that looks&sounds allot like “parody” and, while they aren’t directly related, the connection btwn the two is STILL intriguing: “parody” comes from para(side/beside/parallel) and oide(song), in the sense of a comical/mocking “parallel” to another song; parodos literally means entrance, though specifically it’s the name of a SIDE-entrance in greek theater-design which gave actors access to the stage, or the chorus access to the orchestra, BUT ALSO it was the name of the song(oide) the chorus sung upon first entering the play, coming after the prologue. The connection to an actual side-entrance makes me suspect the “par-” phoneme is from “para”, but I can’t find a constituent breakdown of “parodos” so it’ll have to remain a suspicion :T

Regardless: it is, in the manner of a proper parodos(even IF Harrow, here, is her own Chorus; this is a 3rd person perspective section), seeming to introduce us to the central conflict of the tale; Harrow is censoring Gideon from her mind, altering her perceptions and capacities in response to her grief, struggling with feelings that she is LOSING her mind(associated with, possibly embodied by, her “hallucinations” of The Body[1]), and clinging to this expression of control as a life-raft among all this trauma. At one point The Body even appears in this memory just to tell her it didn’t happen like this which “gave Harrow a curious strength”.

IntriguinglyER(and this is more of a stretch and idk if Muir really intended this implication) parodos is often popularly confused with/assumed to be related to “parados” which is a fortification embankment built to protect the rear of a military position(it’s basically the backside equivalent of parapet. Parapet=forward, parados=behind). What makes this intriguinger to me(aside from the fun of a FALSE pun for a FALSE memory :p), is that the false memory is part of Harrow’s mental DEFENSES, and in it she asks Ortus Nigenad to PROTECT her by keeping the secret that she is “insane” because, since opening the Locked Tomb and seeing the girl trapped there, she’s been experiencing full-spectrum sensory hallucinations of said girl(ie: seeing her, speaking with her, feeling The Body[the girl] touch her, the whole hog, etc etc). I feel like this is MOSTLY symbolic though, and the REAL secret she’s asking him to protect her from is Gideon’s death(and her “consumption” there of; since becoming a Lyctor The Body has had Gideon’s amber-colored eyes). Of course there’s another aspect to this and one of two OTHER potential secrets; Gideon’s body wasn’t recovered from Canaan House, Harrow does not seem to be in “possession” of her soul(though she does have SOME aspects of Lyctor abilities, so perhaps it’s partial or a connection?); so

it’s possible the SECRET Harrow is actl using Ortus to protect is that Gideon isn’t dead, that they healed her after defeating Cytherea and somehow undid the Lyctor process. OR

They’re keeping Gideon’s existence a secret for some reason

Now I think these are a bit out there theorywise because, while I’m not far into the book, I’m fairly certain that it’s only Harrow who is thinking Nigenad was her cavalier at this point. I mean: the Emperor would have spoken to Ianthe, and there’s no reason why she’d keep Gideon’s existence secret(also everytime the Emperor says Ortus Nigenad it’s attached to a description of his mouth moving oddly, so I’m fairly certain he’s actl saying Gideon Nav and her brain’s editing it to Ortus Nigenad to spare her facing Gideon’s death). Also and SUPER tellingly there’s this passage:

The Resurrecting King took on the expression of a man working out a very difficult and emotionally taxing anagram. He said, “Ortus,” again, but the bile was sputtering up into your throat...”

Now that just seems like an INVITATION to see what Ortus Nigenad can be an anagram of, doesn’t it? And, INCREDIBLY OBVIOUSLY it’s a partial anagram:

Ortus Nigenad

Gideon

Of Gideon’s name. Partial, because it doesn’t include “Nav”, and also there are these left-over letters

rtusna

Hmmm... What can THAT be an anagram of?

rtusna

Saturn

Well flog me with a spoon! I have NO IDEA what this, GIDEON SATURN, could POSSIBLY mean in the context of this convo or of the larger story(also: maybe this anagrams to other words? I honestly didn’t try too hard after this very obvs one. AtRSun??? Taurns?? OF COURSE Harrow would play Horde if she played WoW, but I’d imagine she’d’ve been a Forsaken Warlock, or Orc one at the very least :p), but that we have a character’s name being called an anagram by the narration and then that character’s name turns out to BE AN ANAGRAM of the first book’s, now(mysteriously[2]?) absent, protagonist plus the planet Saturn[3], seems an awful coincidence. Of course that doesn’t mean it ISN’T a Coincidence, nor that it means anything in relation to the story even if it IS intentional; it could be meant to throw off theorycrafters, or just as something Muir thought would be fun to do(making Gideon Nav, “the greatest cav the Ninth ever produced”, a near-anagram with Ortus Nigenad, one of it’s worst). Of course, it could also be a hint to Gideon’s origins, or where she/her body is now. For what it’s worth, I seem to recall the big contenders for her origins were Third through Fifth House, and those seem to be the most likely to be the Gas Giants&GG Moons(Third’s the wealth-house, and there’s probably more concentrated resources in Jupiter and Saturn than on any other planet in the solar system. And, for whateverMORE it’s worth, Saturn WAS the Roman god of wealth&the harvest. If Mars’s ...Martial[X| X|]... associations are a firm enough basis for its guess in the order, then why not Planet Fucking Saturn? Of course the trident theme suggests Neptune, but why in the cosmos would THAT be the third colonized planet in the system? Makes no damn sense |:T |:T).

The last thing(two things?) that I wanted to bring up, though it’s not really related to any of the above, is Alecto, the name for the next book. Presumably, this is The Body/The Girl. Alecto means “Implacable/Unceasing Anger”, and it is the name of one of the Erinyes; the Furies; the goddesses and purveyors of Vengeance. The Furies, according to Hesiod, were born from the blood of Ouranos spilled when Kronos castrated him. Interestingly, the way Necromancy works in this universe(as explained in these early pages) is that the Cohort “breaches” a planet, after which point its “thalergy”(life energy; presumably metabolism-produced energy since necros aren’t snacking on ambient heat&light) begins converting to “thanergy”(death energy, tho it’d be more precise to call it the energy generated by the detachment of a soul from a body), which Necros can use to do Necromancy. The microbiology within a planet’s soil can similarly be drained, as can the animals and plants, and the process of “breaching” allows Necros to draw on the thalery/thanergy of all of these. So Necromancy is a metaphor for environmental/planetary destruction&exploitation. Kronos is a harvest-god(his name is obscure, but probably means something like “the cutter” or “the striker”); Ouranos is the sky(probably a raingod with a name related, hilariously, to the verb for “to piss” :p :p), but at the same time still a planetary deity. Coincidentally, the primary antagonists so far in the book are “Resurrection Beasts” which seem to have been created by The Emperor Necrotising the Nine planets of Dominicus, and who have been pursuing him and his Lyctors to destroy them for this/for becoming Lyctors(Lyctordom is legit called “the indelible sin” by the Emperor himself) ever since. Sounds allot like the Furies, doesn’t it?

In this context, the Kronos Ouranos myth can be read as a story of planetary exploitation/injury(caution: I am NOT saying that’s the intended meaning of the myth originally, just that it is a possible application of it as a lens of analysis[it being referenced by the series through Alecto] to this story), and THAT suggests that Alecto, the Fury, may have been associated with this initial Necrotization(The Resurrection/Nine Resurrections, which SEEMS given what little I’ve read so far to be what they call the initial Necrotization of the Nine planets of the Sol System? Though maybe they were already Necrotized&all used up, and the Emperor revitalized them somehow?? I’m not sure yet), may be something instanced to stop it, or may be a “Resurrection Beast” herself; perhaps the initial form they took before 10k years of thwarted rage pushed them to become more monstrous. Alternately, I wonder if Alecto might be a manifestation or servant of Death? There’s a repeated focus on the Emperor having “defeated” Death, and The Body in the Locked Tomb is repeatedly referred to as a foe he defeated once but could not defeat again, so there are good reasons to disregard all the mythological trappings and focus on the clearer, less metatextual possibility.

Of course: it’s probably none of this and I’m just spinning Fantasy wholecloth from between my entirely metaphorical ears :p :p :p

[1]The Body is The Girl in the Locked Tomb which Harrow fell in love with. I’ll get to why this is relevant very soon after this footnote

[2]I mean we watched her force Harrow into Lyctorship by killing herself, so I’m still more convinced this is all trauma response. Her corpse IS MISSING, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t super-dead. Though: Camilla and Palamedes DID have a contingency, and Gideon DID wink at Harrow post-Lyctoring, and it was ambiguous if this was her impaled body or her spirit/hallucination doing the winking, so I can see ppl running with this theorywise...

[3]which is one of the Houses, obvsl(or at least it’s moons), though I’m only really confident on Sixth House(Mercury), Ninth House(Pluto), and 2nd House(Mars) at the moment. Seventh House is PROBABLY Venus, giving all its connections to poison, wasting disease, and Aphrodite(Cytherea is another name of the goddess), but that’s all just thematic suggestion. Oh also, I figured I should throw this in here given the large digression on Kronos and Uoranos, Kronos is Saturn’s Greek equivalent(or at least, the Romans considered him so).

#Tamsyn Muir #Harrow the Ninth #Harrow the Ninth Spoilers #TLT Theories #The Locked Tomb Series #HtN Analysis #Greek Myth #analytic posts #zA's Wildeyed Guessings

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