r/TheNinthHouse

Sorry if this is a dumb question/has an obvious answer/has been asked a bunch of times, but I can’t find anything about it. What does “Nav” mean and why was she given this name? Who would’ve given it to her? Is it just the generic surname given to indentured servants on the Ninth?

Where is the Moon? I was suprised, knowing that the First House is Earth and Gideon/Harrow both are very struck by how different the sky/planet is to them, that they never mention Earth's Moon, either approaching in orbit or once they're outside at Cannan house.

So given how *messed* up the rest of the planets are, what do we think happened to it? Does Muir just not care about the Moon or is there a greater signifcance?

Personally, since we know the first RB to arrive showed up 'unexpectedly'(well at least to the lyctors, It seems like John may have had an idea), I wonder if one of them *ate* it and added it to their Corpus. Is the man on the Moon now juat a leering skull poking out of some RBs head?

Thoughts?/theories/speculation/memes welcome, is it safe John? What did he do to it?

First, both Corona and Gideon showed up at the first house pretending to be something they are not.

Corona showed up pretending to be a necromancer with the intention to be Ianthe's cavalier, and Gideon showed up pretending to be a cavalier with the intention to fuck off after all of this is over.

Then when Babs died Corona was not heartbroken that Ianthe killed Babs.

It was that Ianthe didn't pick her. She was devastated that all her efforts to be a cavalier were for naught. She was 100% mentally prepared to be Ianthe's cavalier.

Gideon, similarly, did everything in her power to make Harrow a full-fledged lyctor. Threw herself onto spikes to literally die for Harrow. Then Gideon suffered in the back of Harrow's mind knowing that no matter how hard she wanted to die for Harrow, Harrow would never let her.

I don't know where this is leading but I just thought it was interesting.

warning: this will be long and disorganised and SOOOO spoilery for Harrow and Nona. If you've only read Gideon prob spoilers too but more likely this just won't make any sense to you. i am working on an assignment for a theology class and was reading the chapter on revelation/apocalypse from Marcus Borg's 'reading the bible again for the first time: taking the bible seriously not literally' and was struck by how locked tomb it all got really fast. i have some very messy notes and excerpts from the chapter compiled, but would be so keen to know if anyone else has looked into this kind of stuff and has thoughts about what it might mean for alecto bc i think that it's been said that AtN is gonna really lean into the biblical themes already explored in the series. maybe people more familiar with revelation will find this all super obvious but i thought it was pretty interesting to read and it fed the little worm in my brain that is experiencing alectopause.

anyway. here are my notes.

Borg at 268:

-            ‘because revelation was written by a person named John, the book is often known more fully as “the revelation of john” or “the apocalypse of john”’

-            ‘as a literary genre, an apocalypse is defined by both content and style. Its subject matter is one or more visions disclosing or unveiling either the future or the heavenly world or both. Commonly, the present age is seen to be under the rule of evil powers who will soon be overthrown and destroyed by god, ushering in an age of blessedness for the faithful.”

-            ‘stylistic features of apocalyptic literature include luxuriant imagery, fabulous beasts, and symbolic numbers.’

o   This is all very ninth house.   

-            ‘though revelation is an apocalypse, it is also a letter addressed to 7 christian communities in seven cities in asia. John of patmos was apparently known in these communities and may have been an itinerant Christian prophet and charismatic authority figure.’

-            Frequent use of the Hebrew bible though never formally quotes a single verse

o   The locked tomb chock-full of biblical references/allusions >!but again John never explicitly references Christianity I don’t think? Maybe does in Nona.!<

269

-            Heard by original authors not read – “hearing revelation all at once would convey the cumulative effect of John’s visions in a way that the private reading of individual texts in isolation from the broad sweep of the book does not.

-           >! Harrow actually = John, having the visions in Nona. Subverting cumulative effect of visions as would have been in Bible by being fragmented throughout Nona.!<

>! !<

271

-            Emphasis on the number 7 in revelation = parallel to emphasis on the number nine. But also could be alluding to seven in terms of John G’s intentions.

-            The nine houses, >!nine resurrection beasts!<, nine necromancers / seven churches, series of seven beatitudes, seven hymns, seven references to the altar

o   + if we take out >!the first/john and the ninth (bc that was never supposed to be its own house & Anastasia and Samael messed up the lyctoral process, !<we are left with 7 houses/7 full lyctors.

§ >! Gideon/!<Pyrrha

§  Cyrus/Valancy

§  Ulysses/Titania

§  Augustine/Alfred

§  Cassiopeia/Nigella

§  Cytherea/Loveday

§  Mercymorn/Cristabel

-            Ch 2 and 3 letters to the 7 churches. Nothing bad about Smyrna and Philadelphia, nothing good about sardis and Laodicea. ephesus, Pergamum, and Thyatira get mixed verdicts

-            Issues: persecution, false teaching, accommodation to the larger culture

 

-            ‘continues with a vision of the lamb that was slain but that now lives and is worthy to open the seven seals of the scroll of judgment’

-          >!  Parallel to Alecto??? Opening the tomb!< = opening the seven seals?

 

 

272

-            After ch 13, “then seven angels pour out upon the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of god, and we are shown the judgment and destruction of the “great harlot” or “great whore” who rides upon the beast and whose name is “Babylon the great”

o   >!Seven angels = seven full lyctors!<

>!o   Babylon the great – Alecto!<

>!o   The beast = varun / other resurrection beast!<

-            ‘the dragon, now named “the devil” and “satan” is cast into a bottomless pit for a thousand years, during which christ and the saints rule. after a thousand years, satan is released, and with gog and magog he fights a final battle and is again defeated. Then the last judgment occurs: all the dead, great and small, are raised, the book of life is opened, and all whose names are not in it are cast into the lake of fire, along with the devil, the beast, death, and Hades.’

o   >!Alecto, renamed “the body” or “annabel lee” cast into THE LOCKED TOMB for 10 thousand years, during which John and the lyctors rule.!<

-            ‘concluding vision. The new Jerusalem, >!adorned as a bride for her husband!<, descends from the sky – a city in which there will be no more tears, no pain, no death.”

282

-            Discusses ‘Cosmic combat myth’

 

-            Revelation and empire – starts at 283

 

o   ‘john echoes the story of apollo’s bird and reverses the imperial version of it in the vision found in revelation 12’…

§>!  Woman is about to give birth to a son who will rule the nations. A great dragon waits to devour the son, but the child is delivered by being taken up to the throne of god. For john, the child is jesus of course!<

>!§  Gideon = jesus. Great dragon = Cytherea (fallen lyctor/angel/satan-esque) but great dragon could also be Alecto or the ninth or some other resurrection beast!<

>!§  Gideon delivered by john claiming her as prince kiriona gaia after she dies and then she is resurrected!<

o   Scene in heaven in which Michael and his angels fight against the dragon and defeat him

§  >!Scenes at the end of Harrow with battle on the mithraeum between lytors, resurrection beast, river etc.!<

§  ‘though the war occurs in heaven, the means of the dragon’s defeat is an event that happened on earth; he has been conquered by the blood of the lamb i.e. by jesus’ death. Result – dragon cast down to earth and gives his authority, power, and throne to the seven-headed “beast from the sea”

o   284: “rome is the opposite of what it claimed to be: the empire that claimed to bring peace on earth, and whose emperors were spoken of as lord, saviors on of god, and even god, was in fact the incarnation of disorder, violence, and death’

§  >!Instead of john = john of patmos, John gaius = Caesar-like figure, ‘new rho’ an allusion to rome?!<

>!§  John calls rome the beast – seems similar to how john gaius viewed the billionaires/society on earth before the resurrection. May also feed into theory that the people on new rho are the descendants of the billionaires. Also could just be a resurrection beast thing.!<

 

So I'm almost through with my first read of Nona (Just finished >!John 1:20!< so about 50-ish pages till the end of the story) and something I've been thinking about is the skull placement in each chapter. Obviously the >!John chapters lack those skulls!<, which is intriguing enough in it's own right but with an explanation that makes a lot of sense, but the thing I find most interesting is that Muir decided to utilize the cracked >!skulls from Harrow!< at certain points as well.

Now in Harrow those made a lot of sense and were used in a very specific way, but that context no longer applies in this book. Even reading through the chapters that utilize the broken skulls, they seem mostly there for style points or because they thought the other skulls would be too boring. There's really only one case I can think of where it would make sense >!(the chapter where Nona and Judith talk on top of the bus)!< but that obviously alters the context from how they appeared in Harrow (unless there's a reveal that >!Nona was in the River the whole time or something!< but I really doubt that that's the case).

There's already a lot of interesting iconography with the chapter headings in Nona (it being the only book so far to have more headings than just the standard skulls) but I'd love to hear some thoughts about what people think the point of including >!the cracked skulls!< might have been.

I'm rereading HTN and I was wondering whether Muir has made comments about whether she did in fact write all 24 of Harrow's letters. ​​​

TL,DR: What are some things that you loved about GtN (or the series overall, without spoilers for HtN or NtN)

I finally convinced a friend to read GtN, and I’m slightly disappointed in his response. His main takeaway was “They have FTL space travel, but fight with swords? Lame.”

Our book group will get together soon to discuss the book in-depth, and I was hoping to get some help. What are some things you loved about Gideon the Ninth, and what are some things you loved about the series overall? It’s not a *perfect* book, I’m sure, but it managed to reignite my love for reading after a few stagnant years, and I want to present the best possible case for it being truly great.

My thoughts so far are these:

1. The PR tagline is that the series is about necromancers in space, but for me, the more intimate character work is what made me enjoy it so much. GtN was a story about two traumatized young girls who found a way to care about each other even though they were awful to each other. The way Muir realized this paradigm was beautiful and deeply entertaining. I also loved Cam and Palamedes from the very beginning. She really managed to make each character bloom in their own way (even Octachizaron, though I wasn’t able to gain an appreciation of him until my second reading)

2. The prose, and the way Muir described the settings and people enthralled me, though sometimes it bordered on being purple.

3. I loved the way she used the 3rd person POV. She would start a sentence/phase as an omniscient narrator and then turn the phrase by spinning it with Gideon’s childish perspective. Here are some examples:

*It was as though the second girl were the starved shadow of the first, or the first, an illuminated reflection. The boy just looked a bit of a dick*

*The Lord and lady should have taken charge of the sacred ritual, but they couldn’t, because they were mega dead*

There are probably other, better examples, these are just the ones I made note of

4. Muir revealed very little of the plot throughout the book, and also did very little world-building. The story’s focus was microscopically centered on Gideon and her perspective, sometimes maybe to a fault. This was one thing my friend had a lot of trouble with.

Muir seems to have done this with two goals in mind: to keep the mystery alive and to force the reader to focus on the story she wanted to tell as it unfolded. She committed to withholding plot/world-building to such an extent that it almost felt oppositional, obstinate. It’s like she was saying to the reader, “I can feel your compulsive need to have your questions about this world answered, and I reject it. I will reveal what’s necessary as it becomes necessary, but for now focus on what willing to give you.”

I’ll admit, at first it was hard to trust her, but once I let go and just focused on the story, the experience became something incredible.

I’m looking forward to hearing everyone else’s thoughts. Thanks in advance.

On my umpteenth re-listen of the NtN audiobook this week, I noticed Moira Quirk uses a speech pattern for both >!John and Nona that she doesn't use for anyone else. In the middle of a sentence, she'll take a tiny pause and breathe out. A Nona example is, "which Nona knew was a [tiny pause with exhale] rude word." A John example is, "and when we [tiny pause with exhale] argued back, they reminded us that cows had best friends." I don't think she has any other character do this, and I LOVE that both John and Nona (at least in Nona's internal monologue) do it.!<

This is my first time posting a theory, and my thoughts on this are a bit scattered. I’ve done my best to include textual references for parts of the story used in my argument. I’ve been sitting on this one for a very long time, so I hope you enjoy and also share insight!

As is mentioned in a recent post, the beginning of Gideon the Ninth foreshadows most of the series that follows. Based on what we read in the first 100 pages of Gideon the Ninth, I believe that Crux and Aiglamene are actually Samael and Anastasia.

I will talk about Aiglamene first, since it feels like a bit more of a stretch for her to be Anastasia. The first and largest hurdle for this theory is that the end of Nona we see Anastasia’s skeleton

“She looked back beyond, and she saw Anastasia, tucked where nobody would find her: Anastasia, all bones. Not really Anastasia. But Anastasia’s body without the 	meat on it, snuggled right into the curve of the rock, ready to close the door whenever it was opened. She remembered Anastasia.” NtN, page 474

This is mixed evidence to begin with, as Nona very clearly describes the skeleton as “not really Anastasia.” Considering it is the second to last thing Nona thinks before Alecto wakes up, it may be that it is a delirious thought, or it may point to some falsehood in the skeleton. The very first description of Aiglamene may give some clues here

“The captain of the House guard had a head of melty scars and a missing leg which an indifferently talented bone adept had replaced for her. It bowed horribly and gave her the appearance of a building with the foundations hastily shored up. She was younger than Crux, which was to say, old as balls: but she had a quickness to her, a liveliness, that was clean.” GtN, page 20

We see that Aiglamene is missing her original leg. For the first bone adept, it is not inconceivable that she could have created a fully formed skeleton from her leg to leave in the tomb. This may account for Nona’s description of the skeleton as “Not really Anastasia.” Additionally, the line “gave her the appearance of a building with the foundations hastily shored up.” May point to the hasty altering of the lyctoral process we hear about in John’s account.

“She panicked midway through. She hadn’t got his soul inside her all the way - if she hadn’t, Samael dying would have killed her too… they were both in danger. I 	killed him for her benefit, and she knew that at the time.” HtN, page 482

Obviously this came out of the lips of the necrolord prime, so, huge grain of salt, but what does seem clear is that John interrupted her lyctoral process, and she had to change it on the fly.

Of note also about Aiglamene is that she is able to consistently best Gideon in a fight. On a first read this seems normal, as she is Gideon’s teacher, but after the first book we know that Gideon is an unparalleled swordsman. It would not make sense for a woman who is meant to be past 80 with a bad leg to so consistently thrash her.

The last piece I’ll say about Aiglamene is a trait she shares with Crux - they are both missing an eye. On pages 22 and 19 of GtN respectively, we learn that Aiglamene and Crux are both one eyed. Considering the heavy use of eyes as indicators of lyctorhood throughout the series and the uniqueness of missing one eye in the books, I find this to be one of the most compelling pieces of evidence connecting Aiglamene to the lyctoral process.

Now for Crux, and hoo boy is there a lot here. One of the first things that Alecto says to Harrow after reawakening is

“Alecto said, I am very sorry about Samael.” NtN, page 477

That is very odd coming from Alecto, particularly when we previously have from John that he was the only one present, and the one who killed Samael. What would Alecto have to apologize for? Returning to John’s description of Samael’s death,

“She hadn’t got his soul inside her all the way…” HtN, page 482

To fully understand this, its necessary to look at Harrow’s dream sequence as well: here we see Crux as a lucid character, the only “living” soul to exhibit this trait in Harrow’s bubble in the river. The fact that Crux exists in the real world and in the river, and John claims that Samael’s soul was in a partial state when he died, may indicate that a part of Samael’s soul did die and is in the river, and the other part was returned to his body out of sight of John. It is a bit of a stretch, but there is evidence in Gideon’s initial description of Crux.

“Gideon suspected that - even though he had not a whit of necromancy in him - the day he died, Crux would keep going anyway out of sheer malice.” GtN, page 19

Then perhaps Alecto is apologizing not because Samael died, but because he came back some kind of revenant partial soul, similar to what we see happen to Kiriona in NtN.

The last bit of evidence I’ll offer is the one that convinced me to write this post. When Gideon is agreeing to duel with Harrow before the muster call, she notes

“Crux stared back at her with the hate of an exploding star: the empty hate of pressure pulled inward, a deforming, light-devouring resentment.” Gideon, page 31

This description feels so deeply paralleled to what we know of John that it jumped out at me as I reread. I think this line foreshadows a deep relationship between Crux (Samael) and John, and may have foreshadowed Crux using his death to open of the tomb, or perhaps even something beyond in the next book.

TLDR: I am pretty sure Crux is Samael, and Aiglamene may be Anastasia who spoofed her own skeleton.

https://youtu.be/5i1-N2\_vZmg?si=HCba5mMjWBz\_zrHh

I found the above video in a random YouTube binge. Then downloaded them in audio format

I really think seeing that video plus hearing the books first. Was good. I have relistened a few times and found more.

I always wonder if seeing the two and the plot for Gtn in the video

Or how Moira does a great Jod may skewed me lol

Just finished NtN, and I had a few thoughts about John/God. This will contain a lot of spoilers!

Given that he >!absorbed a significant amount of the earth’s soul!< and then made Alecto >!a Lyctor!<, is John himself basically a resurrection beast?

Throughout the series, the RB’s are presented as the dangerous enemy that the Lyctors must fight. But the beasts themselves >!don’t seem bothered by anyone that isn’t a necromancer!< (the blue circle left New Rho alone until the very end of NtN).

Then at the end of the series we are >!reintroduced to the devils!<, which are decidedly evil. For me, this put into perspective that maybe the beasts themselves aren’t all that bad, they just >!don’t like John or anyone with his powers (because of what John did)!<.

The Lyctors describe Alecto as being a monster that John had to destroy, but in the NtN flashbacks she doesn’t seem like that. She even >!hides her memories to protect Harrow’s body. John reveals that he locked her up to protect himself.!< So I don’t think Alecto is the villain the Lyctors make her out to be.

If John is an RB, that also explains why >!he can’t die. He’d need to be destroyed in the physical and in the River at the same time.!<

Basically, I think John is the final antagonist, and the series can only end by him being entombed the same way as Alecto, otherwise Dominicus will die.