Htn Spoilers - Tumblr Posts

My favorite thing about the gideon the ninth/tlt fandom is the way everyone talks about the characters.

In every other fandom it's like "ugh, my perfect child. They are so cute and wonderful and I will always protect them."

But in tlt, it's like "oh no, my sopping wet bundle of overused pipe cleaners is in psychosis again. She's sweating blood and hasn't slept in 4 days. And look, over there, it's my traumatized butch lesbian corpse with literal god-tier daddy issues once again fumbling the bag with a beautiful woman. She's a complete gay disaster. They both have never and maybe will never know peace. They desperately need therapy. Shipping them is like standing in the middle of an active nuclear explosion with your mouth open and arms spread. Yes, they are my comfort characters."

Featuring guest appearances by: "There's the gangly pale evil one. Whenever she's present on the page my skin feels too tight on my bones in a really unpleasant way. She's my favorite, and I think she's eating someone's earlobe right now."

I love it I hope we never change.

I was vividly imagining the world ending and I imagined the lyctors came and said “you fucked it up” and they came up like flying on little saucers and wearing helmets and it really fucked my mind like think about that situation

ah yes, the sixth language of love: getting a lobotomy to forget your unhealthily co-dependant partner whose soul you have absorbed because life without them while being aware they had once existed was pointless

you finish harrow the ninth.

you stare around, lost. the review remains unwritten, untouched. your thoughts run wild and your heart violently sobs. your chest tightens painfully. you have no idea what just happened. you love it. you are in excruciating pain. you wish to reread it for an eternity. gideon and harrow haven't spoken. ianthe and corona. camilla and palamedes. nothing's alright. it hurts. and you'd do it all over again. there's a hole inside of you, which perhaps only one thing can fix.

you get up and make yourself soup.

I'm really on a (spiked, iron) fence about this. I definitely see the logic, but also… I'm so fucking glad I wasn't spoiled for HtN.

So much of my emotional reaction to that book depended on not knowing who the narrator was. So much of my tension and excitement came from collecting little fleeting moments I found to nurture my suspicion that there was a first person narrator, my hope that it could be Gideon. I remember freaking out at the first solid confirmation in "You didn't know Palamedes saw me."

And that moment when I started chapter 44, surer than I'd ever been that it was indeed Gideon but also terrified of getting my hopes up… then shifted to that thrill of certainty… that's my fucking favorite reading experience of all time, bar none. Even re-reading can't capture the utter shock of relief and delight of that first time. I think I jumped up and pumped my fists I was so overcome.

I'm sure the book is still well worth reading without it, and there's tons to enjoy. But I'm really glad I didn't miss out on that.

Weirdly, I did get spoiled a bit for Nona and I don't feel like it affected me to go in knowing she wasn't either of them (though I didn't have a solid idea of who she was). But maybe someone who didn't know at all felt the same about all sorts of little moments in NtN as I do in HtN.

I honestly am kinda happy that I was minorly spoiled on a few things going into harrow the ninth and Nona the ninth. Like going in:

I saw a post that kinda made it seem like the second person chapters in harrow were actually a Gideon pov and I think knowing that ahead of time almost made my reading of it make more sense? Like I wasn’t very confused during the book because I assumed that harrow had done something to erase her memory of Gideon (I’d seen lobotomy fan art and assumed it was that) and that these chapters might be all we get of Gideon during the book, but it was SO cool to see it all happen and catch the tiny Gideon moments in the narration.

For Nona I knew about kiriona bc of fan art but I didn’t know how she came about. And I assumed based on posts on here that nona was Alecto and that Alecto was maybe?? the soul of the Earth. I think that made me much more interested in nona during the book cause its her! It’s the Earth! I know her! She and I are buddies! (But also I was only kinda sure of that theory so I still had a decent amount of “wait is she? Or who is she? What’s going on?” while reading).

Anywho I think that because these books have a lot going on and a lot of complex elements it kinda helped my reading to have a few spoilers that I was unsure about their validity going in.

(One thing I’ll say though: I thought there was just a really good barista fic out there that all the fan artists loved and did NOT expect that to be canon in the book)

It's funny because when you start HtN, Harrow's mysterious plan seems so intricate and elaborate - 22 letters, and all those guidelines and rules -the sewn tongue.

But then when you get to the end, the whole thing is just...

1 Hit Pause

2a-2v Make sure no one hits play

And that's it.

Her whole plan is just to hit pause on the lyctoral absorption process and leave it that way for myriads. There's not even a hint of hope that someday she'll come up with a way to get Gideon out. Just "hit pause and don't let anyone hit play."

Reading HtN I was like: “aww, I see! This is all part of a clever scheme Harrow! What is your masterful endgame I wonder?”

And then it’s literally just:

Think about Harrow's AU Bubbles

Thinking about Harrow's AU bubbles, not as fanfic references, but as expressions of her subconscious fears and desires, is so fascinating.

The Harrow Nova one is pretty obvious. Harrow's parents were obsessed with her being a necromancer, were willing to kill for it. It's only natural she'd wonder, "What if I hadn't been?"

And the answer Harrow gives herself is: Your parents and everyone would reject you (except, wildly, for Crux). Also they'd be alive cuz you'd never opened the tomb, and you'd be an unpopular orphan they'd abuse (Just Like Gideon). And you'd still be just as devoted to serving the Ninth with a blade. There's a lot there. But the other really telling bit is her relationship with Gideon. Harrow Nova professes to hate the reverend daughter even as she seeks to (re) create the necro-cav bond with her. But that hatred doesn't seem to be mutual. And the bit about the daughter intervening when Harrow was whipped…

That's Harrow's subconscious saying if their roles had been reversed, "Gideon would have treated me better than I treated her. Gideon would have protected me."

The Ball AU also seems like a reasonable extension of Gideon's childhood query: "What if my other parent is the most important guy in the universe?" Answer: Emperor Dad would throw a big party.

But also… it's a bride-finding ball! That's so very telling. It could have been anything, but Harrow invents another scenario where she's fighting, competing to get to Gideon, to be awarded the role of her sworn partner (first cav, now bride), while outwardly claiming not to want it.

Now The BARI Star AU often gets described as a "coffee shop" one, but it's actually set in a cohort cafeteria. And normally I wouldn't split hairs over that, but I think the cohort setting is actually really significant. The Cohort was Gideon's dream, and also Harrow's rival for Gideon's attention. It's what she kept trying to leave Harrow for.

So now Harrow dreams that she's left Drearburh to join the cohort and will meet Gideon there. Not fight or compete for a role where they're bound to each other, but just meet her there. That feels like yielding. Like compromise. It makes me think Harrow's subconscious has matured past trying to keep Gideon with her always and is instead looking for ways that SHE can be with Gideon. Meet Gideon where she is.

(Also this may be a stretch, but I always find it low-key funny that Harrow imagines Gideon in the cafeteria… I like to think her brain is skimming lists of hypothetical military jobs like... what sees the least action... ah, coffee-adept, she'll be perfectly safe there...)

Last night I had a very vivid dream in which Nona and her friends started a band called The Nonas and there was a skeleton rave also Ianthe got turned into a flamingo.

Great! So the main thing is that I am in literal awe at how well this piece works as a representation of Harrow's memory in the second book, despite the fact that you HADN'T READ IT YET?!?!

Putting the read more here for anyone who hasn't read Harrow the Ninth yet, because the entire rest of this post is major spoilers for that book 💚

Like okay first level, Harrow is suspended in the water of the pool, separated from Gideon only by the surface of the water. As a metaphor for Harrow's memory block, it's a pretty incredible one! All she has of Gideon in that book is an unreachable mirage that ripples and shifts away from her! It would also imply that the innermost parts of Harrow's mind are represented by the pool! (which is breaking my heart into little pieces so we'll move on)

Second level, we compare what's actually happening here to the events of the first book, keeping in mind how Harrow's memory of them is warped by the events of the second. In GtN, Gideon is an active participant in this scene. She's holding Harrow, and she dives both of them beneath the surface. Harrow thinks Gideon is going to drown her, and only panics when she realizes it's a hug instead. Then HtN happens. I don't in a million years believe that Harrow could convince herself that she shared this scene with Ortus Nigenad. Even if she could, he would never have progressed it in the way that Gideon did. So here, Harrow is beneath the surface alone. Gideon only watches from outside the pool (wow kinda like she's doing in Harrow's body in HtN!) and there's no hug to pull Harrow from the water and the drowning that she thinks she deserves.

And finally, the third level. Harrow's upbringing and culture. In the first book's pool scene, it is the first time (literally ever!) that Gideon has seen Harrow without her face painted. It's a very visual reference to the barriers that Harrow puts up to protect herself from others. But that can't be the case in the pool, which (by her family's rituals!) is the vehicle by which you see the absolute truth. And what's the absolute truth in HtN? Harrow's barriers are up the whole time, reinforced by her own blood, and she is drowning. Gideon is kept out by the thinnest of barriers, yet she is separated all the same. All Harrow would have to do is reach out and they would both be destroyed together! But Harrow has ensured that she will not, cannot reach out, and all Gideon can do is watch the part of the scene that she once led.

"I've lived my whole wretched life at your mercy, yours alone, and God knows I deserve to die at your hand. You are my only friend. I am undone without you."

-

i finished Gideon the Ninth yesterday, and oh boy. that ending 😭 please no spoilers for the rest of the series, i am going in blind and i'm very excited