harrowharks-iliac-crest

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

2

I've just realised! We have new chapter intro pics. This one is a stylised Locked Tomb:

We also had the same one last chapter.

Let's dive in.

PYRRHA worked for Nona, Camilla looked after Nona, and Palamedes taught Nona, all on the understanding that she was not simply a person, but probably one of two people. Nona did not know either of her real possible names.

We're starting with a banger. A quick explanation. This is, someone in Harrow's body, and the three she lives with seem to assume she is either Gideon or Harrow. She hasn't seemed much like either so far.

Nona talked to herself in the mirror even now. When she had been earlier born, and less self-conscious, sometimes she would rest her face against the mirror’s face, and try to reach her reflection. Camilla had caught her kissing it once, and had written about six pages of notes on that, which was humiliating.

This is funny and sweet and sad. Nona clearly loves herself so much more than either Gideon or Harrow ever loved themselves.

I don't think she is Gideon or Harrow. She could be Alecto, having left her memories behind with Harrow in Alecto's body, coming into Harrow's body nearly newborn, completely innocent. She could be some random revenant clinging to Harrow's body.

I suppose she could still be Gideon - reeling from Harrow's soul not being in her body, and working with Harrow's brain damage that is specifically designed not to remember Gideon at all. Therefore, she is now stuck in Harrow's body, unable to remember herself.

I suppose if that's true, even just getting a bit of tenderness from Camilla and Palamedes and Pyrrha is enough to make her love herself?

I suppose we will find out.

If Camilla had six pages of notes on her kissing herself she had about twenty regarding eyes. Nona’s egg-yellow eyes belonged to the other person —the other girl; that was how all of their bodies worked, not only hers.

Lending more weight to the Nona is Gideon theory; the only time we've seen Harrow's body have Gideon's eyes is when Gideon took over, when the Resurrection Beast attacked the Mithraeum.

Also this:

“So someone’s inside me, then? I mean—I’m that somebody?” She always stumbled over this.

Stumbling over Gideon's mere existence indicates this could be Gideon still struggling with the effects of Harrow's lobotomy.

Or Nona isn't Gideon but struggling with the existence of Gideon, thanks to the lobotomy.

Oh Harrow, I mean we knew you fucked up your body big time, but man, this kinda sucks, huh?

(Makes for very compelling storytelling, though.)

“They wanted to see me naked,” said Nona. “It was a sex thing.” Camilla had made a sound, and then pretended it was a cough, and drank a whole glass of water. After the glass of water, she said, “How did you know?” “That’s just the way people look when they want to see you naked and it’s a sex thing,” said Nona. “I don’t really mind.”

This made me chuckle. And points towards Gideon, again, I think.

But Nona couldn’t shoot or fight or think. All she had was a good nature —that wasn’t true all the time, but Nona didn’t want it bruited about that she had a bad temper when she had only ever thrown two tantrums in her life and couldn’t remember either of them.

She can't remember her "tantrums"? Interesting! Interesting indeed. What were they about? At least one of them was about getting stuck in clothes.

Every day she held a sword until she seriously didn’t care about swords anymore, but she still couldn’t fight with one, no matter how big or thin it was. Camilla had wanted to teach her properly, but Pyrrha said not to, that they wouldn’t be able to tell if anything suddenly came back. Nona couldn’t do the forbidden bone tricks either, even though Palamedes did nearly the exact same thing with big grey lumps of bone as Camilla did with the sword.

But Nona is weak, and doesn't seem to have either Harrow or Gideon's skills. She does have a very, very sweet nature.

Nona was good at: 1. touching, 2. wiping dishes, 3. running her hand over the flat cork carpet in a way that got all the hair out of it, 4. sleeping in lots of different ways and positions, and 5. speaking any language that was spoken to her, in person, so she could see the person’s face and eyes and lips.

That's a pretty good skillset, tbh. I love the languages thing. How??? It's so cool. I'm jealous.

Nona understood everybody, and could speak back to them so that they understood her, and nobody ever said she had an accent. This confounded Palamedes. When she first said that she could speak back by watching them talk and making her lips look like theirs, it confounded him so much more that it gave Camilla a headache.

That is pretty confounding!! Very cool, very mysterious. This isn't anything Gideon or Harrow could do, to our knowledge, and honestly languages never have been mentioned very much so far, so it's certainly very strange.

Was this one of Alecto's skills?

Many people had lived through at least one bad resettlement already. Everyone was crammed on one of three planets now, and they all agreed that this planet was easily the worst, though this always made Nona feel a little bit offended on the planet’s part.

"Everyone"?? All of humanity, presumably minus the Nine Houses, who live at the Nine Houses, and the Cohort, who seem to mostly live on spaceships? Who is "Everyone" referring to here?

You were not allowed to say the words zombies, necromancers, or necromancy outside her house, or really inside it either.

Okay, okay, so these are not necromancers, nor do most of them see necromancy in a positive light. Random civilians, people caught up in Blood of Eden stuff, or both?

Interesting that Zombie is used to refer to necromancers.

Nona was so grateful to have had a whole six months of this. It was greedy to expect much longer.

:(

Another girl, another teenager who's expecting to die by the end of the book. Haven't we had enough dead kids around here?

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[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

Amazing, this is one of those Net Zero Information things that people talk about lol. (Well, not quite net zero, the Cytherea being second gen is interesting and I didn't remember that one.) Anyway, I was considering whether it might be Cristabel. Who else do we have with C... Cassiopeia? That was one of the original Lyctors, right?

Anyway thank you both for your comments.

John 20:8

The title obviously suggests that this has to do with John Gaius, and it seems long, long ago, in the time before the resurrection, in the time before any of the world we know from the other books were built.

He said: We just wanted to save you. You were so sick. He said, It was me and A— and M— at the start.

Speaking to Alecto - she was sick before John "resurrected" her.

A-- Augustine, M-- Mercymorn. All of the only-letters in this are the old Lyctors, from before they were Lyctors; C is most likely Cytherea, G is Gideon.

I don't understand a lot of this, but they were preparing for some imminent catastrophe - preparing to cryofreeze eleven billion humans, planning to get everyone out, into space, trying to convince the rich people to fund this so they could get everyone out alive. No mention of necromancy here - science this, science that. No magic yet.

M— said that she didn’t like it, she smelled a rat, and you know what I said? You know what I told her? I said, Don’t let it get to you and I said, Don’t get paranoid!

Mercymorn was always right to be paranoid.

I always kind of assumed that the Lyctors joined with John after the resurrection, but it seems they were around long before, before any of them even knew about necromancy. Before any of them became Lyctors.

This has proven me wrong so far, if - if this is what really happened.

It is a dream, it is John telling a story, so we don't know how reliable this is. I'll cautiously believe it, for now.

In the dream they were sitting on the beach. He had made a fire from damp driftwood. The smoke made a black mark where it touched the tarpaulin, at the top, where it was stretched over their heads. The ash was still falling. It made them sick, but only ever for a little while. Anything that hurt them only ever hurt them for a little while.

This, now, is different; after the cryo project, after the resurrection.

You know the worst part? She cried. She and A— both cried. In each other’s arms, like babies. They were so fucking scared. And I was right there, and I couldn’t do piss. Everything I was and everything I had done, and I couldn’t do a damned thing.

Mercy and Augustine didn't start out hating each other. I'd suspected this before. They held each other like children, even when Mercy tried to kill the Emperor, like children who'd woken up from a nightmare. They went through all of this together.

I'm having feelings about these two.

She said: When is the part where you hurt me? He said: Soon. It’s coming up. She said: I still love you. And in the dream he rubbed his temple with his thumb and said: “You always say that, Harrowhark.”

A callback to the poem at the start -

But when he addresses her, he calls her Harrowhark.

Harrow's last scene in HtN was her lying down in Alecto's tomb. Is she in Alecto's body, dreaming Alecto's memories?

That's the best theory I have for this right now.

Overall, a great start. I love that I have some idea of what's going on, unlike at the start of HtN, but I might also be completely off, and I still don't know about plenty of things. This will be fun.

#not liveblog #replies

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

Day One

Regarding Nona—Hot Sauce is watchful—The City has a bad day—Nona gets a bedtime story—Five days until the Tomb opens.

Some kind of log. Some kind of countdown. The tomb will open! Is the whole plot of this book (well, Nona's part, anyway) just over five days?

Because, I assume, Alecto the Ninth would start when the tomb opens - I think it said so at the end of Harrow the Ninth.

Let's see.

1

“I like it. I like the water, I like her hands.” “Her hands?” “They’re the things around me—maybe they’re my hands.” The pencil scratched loudly on the paper. “How about the face?” “It’s the picture face.” The sketch they’d made for her, the one locked in the secret drawer where they put all the really interesting things,

Nona is recounting a dream, or a vision. The water could be water from the River, or water surrounding the Locked Tomb - the person whose hands and face she sees is the person on the picture. Whose picture?

Gideon? Harrow? Wake? Alecto?

I have nothing to go on here, so it remains open.

Being the worm with problems did not worry her. Just being able to dress herself was charming. In the bad old days she used to have to be helped even with the nightshirt, because she couldn’t be trusted not to get stuck with it halfway over her head and get all hot and upset from claustrophobia. It was incredibly important that she not get upset like that again. She had only ever had two tantrums in her life, but it would be humiliating to have a third.

They weren't wrong. I fucking love Nona already. Worm with problems? Getting stuck in clothes and having a meltdown? I relate.

But all Camilla said was, “Don’t hyperextend,” crushingly, and worse, “Go see if Pyrrha needs help with breakfast.”

Okay, so we have Camilla and Pyrrha - there were three mentioned in HtN's epilogue, and I assumed it was Camilla, Coronabeth and Judith, since those three stuck together for the duration of HtN. Apparently, I was wrong.

She hedged cunningly. “At least please can you write down, I love you, Palamedes, please, from me? At least write, I love you, Palamedes, from Nona.”

Palamedes! Is Camilla writing things down for him...? For the future?

There was thin blue light coming through the joins in the curtains, and an orange glow from the worn-out hot plate mostly blocked by the other person she lived with.

Pyrrha. "The other person"... does that mean...??

She counted up the tally marks and said, “That’s the seventh one this month. But that’s not fair when you keep making them. Palamedes will say you’re skewing the data.”

Palamedes is here referred to as an active resident...!!...

Nona ate while Pyrrha brushed out her hair in short, brisk strokes, letting its fine black sheets fall over Nona’s shoulders.

Noting the colour black here; not red, like I'd theorised from just seeing the cover. Black hair opens up a whole new other realm of possibilities. Could Nona be living in Harrow's body? Pyrrha's presence suggests this might be the case - as she was with Harrow's body at the end of the last book; or, once again, it could be someone entirely different. Perhaps they're even dyeing her hair.

Camilla said unhappily, “Eggs? Have we not invented a new protein?” which meant it wasn’t Camilla at all. The easiest way of telling who was who was in the eyes.

And there it is - confirmation of what I was suspecting! Camilla and Palamedes have achieved some form of Lyctorhood, Palamedes is alive in Camilla's body!!

Yaaaaay!! My boy is BACK and I predicted correctly! Didn't think it would have already happened at this point, but hey, I'm not complaining.

Oh, but this bit is interesting as well, right after:

Palamedes had soft cool eyes of brownish grey, like bare ground in the cold mornings when Nona had been little,

So Nona has some childhood memories - are they hers, or her body's? Does the distinction matter? Yeah of course it does - if Nona has her own life and her own memories, it shouldn't be that hard to figure out who she is - they still don't know. If she's hijacked someone else's body, doesn't know who she is and is remembering someone else's childhood, that would be a very different story altogether.

Moving on:

“Then this is our last chance to make a difference. Give us orders, Commander.” Pyrrha was audibly chewing. “Stopped being that when I died, Palamedes. It was a courtesy title, anyway, and there’s an embarrassment of commanders here if you want ’em.” “Pyrrha,” he said, “why are they running now? Why would Blood of Eden run when they have the best hand they were ever dealt? Why would they run when common sense, good tactics, and foreknowledge must tell them all that this is the best moment to make a stand? The time you’ve spent—the insights you’ve had that nobody else has been privy to—and you’re truly telling me you don’t even have an inkling?”

This is really interesting - are they with the Blood of Eden or not? They are discussing tactics, as the area they're living in is clearly being fought over. Pyrrha wants to run away, Palamedes wants to save people - a bit of a deadlock.

Pyrrha balanced a mirror on the table and shaved her face. Nona loved the clean, bright smell of shaving soap, and to see Pyrrha swiftly and expertly scrape the dark russet-brown stubble off her cheeks and from around her mouth, and the little wet red marks that appeared. When she reached over to touch one freshly smooth cheek, the marks were already wrinkling up and disappearing.

Interesting - not only the gender stuff going on here, but that Pyrrha clearly still has some Lyctoral powers despite Gideon having perished in the River. Do Camilla and Palamedes have the same?

That was the whole problem, wasn’t it? Nona wouldn’t cough even if the wind blew the smoke straight into her face, and Pyrrha wouldn’t burn any colour other than her deep cool brown.

Points for Nona being in Harrow's body, also with Lyctoral powers. Where's Gideon Nav in all this?

They have protocols for going out - hiding, waiting, code words. Camilla wants to fight - Heralds? Are the Resurrection Beasts still after them? I suppose they would be, if they hunt Lyctors, and there's three right here, even though none of them are "standard" Lyctors.

What a great chapter, a great start. I can't wait to read more.

#nona the ninth #nona the ninth liveblog #ntn liveblog #tlt liveblog #ntn spoilers #nona the ninth spoilers #tlt spoilers #the locked tomb #the locked tomb liveblog #the locked tomb spoilers

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

John 20:8

The title obviously suggests that this has to do with John Gaius, and it seems long, long ago, in the time before the resurrection, in the time before any of the world we know from the other books were built.

He said: We just wanted to save you. You were so sick. He said, It was me and A— and M— at the start.

Speaking to Alecto - she was sick before John "resurrected" her.

A-- Augustine, M-- Mercymorn. All of the only-letters in this are the old Lyctors, from before they were Lyctors; C is most likely Cytherea, G is Gideon.

I don't understand a lot of this, but they were preparing for some imminent catastrophe - preparing to cryofreeze eleven billion humans, planning to get everyone out, into space, trying to convince the rich people to fund this so they could get everyone out alive. No mention of necromancy here - science this, science that. No magic yet.

M— said that she didn’t like it, she smelled a rat, and you know what I said? You know what I told her? I said, Don’t let it get to you and I said, Don’t get paranoid!

Mercymorn was always right to be paranoid.

I always kind of assumed that the Lyctors joined with John after the resurrection, but it seems they were around long before, before any of them even knew about necromancy. Before any of them became Lyctors.

This has proven me wrong so far, if - if this is what really happened.

It is a dream, it is John telling a story, so we don't know how reliable this is. I'll cautiously believe it, for now.

In the dream they were sitting on the beach. He had made a fire from damp driftwood. The smoke made a black mark where it touched the tarpaulin, at the top, where it was stretched over their heads. The ash was still falling. It made them sick, but only ever for a little while. Anything that hurt them only ever hurt them for a little while.

This, now, is different; after the cryo project, after the resurrection.

You know the worst part? She cried. She and A— both cried. In each other’s arms, like babies. They were so fucking scared. And I was right there, and I couldn’t do piss. Everything I was and everything I had done, and I couldn’t do a damned thing.

Mercy and Augustine didn't start out hating each other. I'd suspected this before. They held each other like children, even when Mercy tried to kill the Emperor, like children who'd woken up from a nightmare. They went through all of this together.

I'm having feelings about these two.

She said: When is the part where you hurt me? He said: Soon. It’s coming up. She said: I still love you. And in the dream he rubbed his temple with his thumb and said: “You always say that, Harrowhark.”

A callback to the poem at the start -

But when he addresses her, he calls her Harrowhark.

Harrow's last scene in HtN was her lying down in Alecto's tomb. Is she in Alecto's body, dreaming Alecto's memories?

That's the best theory I have for this right now.

Overall, a great start. I love that I have some idea of what's going on, unlike at the start of HtN, but I might also be completely off, and I still don't know about plenty of things. This will be fun.

#nona the ninth #nona the ninth liveblog #ntn liveblog #tlt liveblog #ntn spoilers #nona the ninth spoilers #tlt spoilers #the locked tomb #the locked tomb liveblog #the locked tomb spoilers

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

You told me, Sleep, I’ll wake you in the morning. I asked, What is morning? and you said, When everyone who fucked with me is dead. When everyone we loved has gone or fled, That’s morning. Empty’s just another word for clean. Let’s put this first-draft dream of mine to bed. In the appointed hour I’ll pull up your sheets. I’ll kill the light, Lie down beside you; die; and sleep the night. This time will be the time we get it right: Forgiveness not so hard, nor anger long; Our graves will be less deep, our lies less true. You held aloft the sword. I still love y

On first glance, it seems kind of obvious that this is from Alecto's perspective, and the person she's speaking to is John.

The words John says appear to be heavy with feelings of guilt, and grief. They seem to imply that John and Alecto's "perfect" Lyctorhood was some kind of grave mistake, that will be rectified by John "dying", sleeping.

"This time will be the time we get it right"...

There's something rather ominous about this. "Our lies less true"... John, when have your lies ever been anywhere near the truth?

Also implying that untruth is something to be desired.

This whole thing seems to be the moment John locked Alecto in the Tomb.

The cut-off line, finally, makes me weep for Alecto, if I'm right about this being her. He sent her to sleep with a confession on her lips, not even allowing her to finish her sentence. Wielding the sword like he was about to kill her.

Which, in fairness, he was. As dead as I could make her.

We'll revisit this later, I'm sure. Let's get to actually reading!

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[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

Okay, I guess it's time to finally start on Nona the Ninth!

Nona the Ninth: Dramatis Personae - Guest List, transcribed by Camilla Hect

Just like with the previous books, we get an insight on who's all gonna be here.

A list of dogs, that's so fucking precious. One of them has six legs? Interesting. I love it.

People are named as Hot Sauce, Honesty, Born in the Morning, Beautiful Ruby and Kevin. Some of those could be Blood of Eden names, but there is a whole section specifically for Eden right after, so it's either people who aren't (currently) with BoE, or never were. I love the names.

Also love Camilla's annotations for the BoE invitees. Clearly, none of them will be making it to the party.

And who is The Angel?

Let's move on!

The first poem is the same we've seen before - possibly in Gideon the Ninth; the second one is different, and deserves a bit of a deeper dive.

I'm excited for this!

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[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

Who is Nona?

Plot/Characters

<< Previous: Plot Predictions | Masterpost

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From what I've seen, I'm certain she's the girl from the epilogue. The last line in HtN's epilogue suggests that they don't know who she is. Does anyone? I assume the three who live with her are Camilla, Corona and Judith. Did they "escape" the Blood of Eden? Did Eden give them a charge? Decided they were trustworthy enough to look after a questionably powerful girl? woman?

A peek at the cover reveals a confidently smiling girl or young woman, with a long (red?) hair in a plait, not particularly buff but also not particularly pallid. The epilogue already is set in a much more familiar environment, quite the contrast to our previous settings - Ninth House, Canaan House, Erebos, Mithraeum, The River. Here, in the epilogue, there are cars, hot afternoon heat, apartment vibes; they have sausages at the local food place, one of them goes to work. There are obviously many people around, but also a war of some kind. Maybe this isn't the Sixth after all - mentions of a planet in the sky, so on a moon?

And who is Nona? Her hair looks red and the hinted-at powers make me go a bit wild with theories. Here's some of them, in no particular order.

1. Gideon. She's strong, red-haired, and confident. I rate this extremely unlikely, as Gideon is still a corpse. Unless they found a way to pluck her soul out of Harrow's body and make her lose all her memories, (theoretically possible, but... why?) I just don't see this one. Would her hair have grown that much in a short time? Did it grow while her body lay undecomposing? Still dead, though, and dead hair doesn't grow. Even if they alived her again somehow - or did a revenant move in? - six months after the Emperor's murder is when the Epilogue is set; it can't have been much more than that in time. Not long enough to grow a waist-long braid's worth of hair. (Unless there was necromancy involved of similar type as what Ianthe did to make Harrow's hair grow faster.) It all just seems like so much effort, and for what? No, I don't think this one is very likely.

2. Wake had another child?

2.a. Gideon's twin? She realised she was having twins (or somehow manipulated the process in order to have twins) and decided to leave one baby behind - with Gideon the First, or the Blood of Eden, or just adrift hoping someone would find her?

2.b. Gideon's sibling? Wake had another child before Gideon, perhaps actually Pyrrha's/Gideon the First's?

2.c. Gideon's clone? Somehow managed to clone baby Gideon from material taken within the first hours of her life and got Eden to grow another baby from the genetic material somehow?

3. Another one of God's children - perhaps there was some "sample" left and someone from Eden decided to just. Yknow. Grow another baby to have a "backup" of sorts?

4. Alecto's child? It's questionable whether Alecto could have reproduced with humans - Mercy says it's questionable whether she even had genetic code - but what if she could reproduce, and somehow got wind of the plan to lock her away, so managed to somehow get some genetic material saved outside the tomb, and for some reason it's taken all this time to grow a child from it?

5. Actually Alecto, somehow??? (Rated unlikely.)

6. A random revenant who moved into Gideon's body somehow, and doesn't know who they are, and for some reason the hair's just very long now? (Doubt it.)

7. Some poor random girl with memory issues who they just happened to picked up??? (Also unlikely.)

So yeah, I cannot tell you which one of these is actually the most likely to be it. I have been very disciplined in not reading the blurbs or summaries or feedback found on and in Nona the Ninth, so I can go in with as little information as possible.

It is very likely that Nona is important somehow, though, which is why I doubt she's just some random girl. She looks like she could be about Gideon and Harrow's age.

I'm very excited to find out more.

>> Next: Starting my Nona the Ninth liveblog!

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[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

Plot Predictions

<< Previous: Alecto | Masterpost

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I think it's going to come out that Blood of Eden are right, actually, and necromancy shouldn't exist, the Resurrection should have never happened. I think Alecto can find a way to commune with the Resurrection Beasts and somehow make a pact. There's gotta be some way to deal with this that doesn't require widespread genocide of necromancers.

I think we're gearing up to a three-way Lyctor in Alecto; incorporating both Gideon and Harrow into her. This is going to make them sooooo powerful, we cannot even comprehend. From the final pages of HtN, it looks like they will be using Harrow's body, at least at first. Harrow's spirit was seen going into the tomb - are we going to get Gideon and Alecto, in Harrow's body? With Gideon finding a way to wake Harrow?

I think Camilla is going to find a way to incorporate Palamedes into her body, completing Lyctorhood but "in reverse". I've touched on this one already, the writing is on the wall.

There is a slim chance that Judith and Coronabeth will end up Lyctoring together, though I mostly doubt it. But I fully support Corona's cavalier dreams. She deserves it.

I think that maybe, Alecto, Harrow and Gideon - with help from others - are going to figure out how to reverse the Lyctor process, somehow, and they're all going to end up back in their own bodies and able to hug and kiss and be a happy polycule forever. (Hey I can dream right?)

One thing I want to examine in detail now is Nona - the protagonist of Nona the Ninth, the girl in the epilogue. Let's dive in.

>> Next: Who is Nona?

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[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

Alecto

Characters

<< Previous: John | Masterpost

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Alecto, the most important character who we know the least about.

Here are some theories:

She was an alien of some kind: she's been described as "not human", and a "monster". Monsterhood can take on different forms, so it's fairly nondescript. But she was certainly exceptional in many ways.

She could have been a genetic anomaly, human but not, and it gave her powers.

Was she already this wild, angry, powerful, nonhuman monster before John resurrected her? None of the other Lyctors knew her before John resurrected her, and fused with her via perfect Lyctorhood. At this point, she would have been enormously powerful, and possibly using this power willfully; she wasn't just herself, she was an amalgam of her and John.

Here's how John describes her:

He said, “It stood for a couple of things. A joke, mostly. I often called her Annabel Lee. Annie Laurie. When I first met her I just called her First, One. She had a real name, but I buried it with her, and nobody says it anymore. “She has been dead for nearly ten thousand years, but she keeps her vigil with me, as a memory, if nothing else … Annabel Lee was my—what do I call her? Guide? Friend? I’d hoped so…” You did not know how to respond to this. He did not seem to need a response. God said, “She was the first Resurrection. She was my Adam. As the dust settled and I beheld what was left and what was gone, I was entirely alone. The world had been ended, Harrowhark. One moment I was a man, and then the next moment I was the Necrolord Prime, the first necromancer, and more importantly, a landlord with no tenants.”

No lie, John knowing Alecto as "First", and "One", to me creepily suggests that she was a specimen. That John was some kind of scientist studying her. (Yuck.) Perhaps even a genetically engineered fetus he created and grew himself. I could be misreading this of course. She could be an alien with alien powers. She might not have been human at all, though compatible enough with humans to Lyctor with them and possibly even reproduce.

John says she was his first resurrection. The way he describes the event makes it sound like he needed all the energy in the whole entire universe to do it, and that this was what killed the First House, and all the other Houses that existed at the time, and the planets, and the sun.

Then there's this:

The dead corse of the Locked Tomb—the death of the Emperor—the maiden with the sword and the chains, the girl in the ice, the woman of the cold rock, the being behind the stone that could never be rolled away—said, in half-confused tones she had never taken with you: “I don’t know. I died, once … no, twice,” but then she had said no more.

(Hinting at Alecto the Ninth - the future book - continuing the trend of being told from the perspective of the person who knows least about what's going on.)

But she died twice - once presumably before John resurrected her (allegedly), and the second time - when she got locked away? Or was there another one? (Still convinced Alecto isn't dead currently.)

Was Alecto's resurrection the same incident, or a different one, to John and Alecto's Lyctoral Ascension?

And who was Alecto... before she died the first time?

The Alecto we see in Harrow's "hallucinations" is quiet, protective of Harrow, secretive. She betrays little emotion, but when she does, it's never... vicious, her spirit so different from Wake in this respect. She seems genuinely sweet, far from the monster we've heard described. Her presence is comforting for Harrow.

We've also heard Augustine say:

“My lord,” said Augustine formally, “you told us the truth about Annabel—about Alecto—because she knew the truth about it too, and you never could control her. Even after two centuries, I’m not sure she ever managed to lie. That was what stayed my hand for such a long time. How would you have asked Alecto the First to lie—how would you have persuaded that mad monster into even an unsophisticated con?” God said, “Don’t call her that.” “A monster, John!” Augustine barked. “She was a bloody monster in a human suit! She was a monster the moment you resurrected her, and you went and made her worse!”

So she couldn't lie, but still "a monster" who John managed to "make worse". But also maybe not the brightest? Excepting the Monster part, she sounds like almost more of a himbo than Gideon.

What powers did she have then, to be so frequently called a monster?

It's very difficult to tangle apart what's actually Alecto, which of John's powers are actually her powers, and which of her post-resurrection/Lyctorhood powers are John's.

I think John's tangy type of magic which heals instantly and puts him back together again from atoms after Mercymorn "kills" him, the power which makes people so compelled to talk and tell him the truth, that's actually Alecto's powers - as discussed in the previous post.

Her powers - hers, not John's, or hers being used through John - post-resurrection and pre - are not very defined, at all, but it is safe to say that she must be very powerful. If I'm right and the citrus instant-powers John uses are actually Alecto's, then she is quite close to being a necromancer herself. I don't think her and John correspond neatly to the necro/cav dichotomy.

The whole thing with Ortus and Nonius shows that words are powerful in the River and possibly outside. I think Alecto's powers are as such that even saying her name can invoke her spirit - which is why John doesn't want her name to be said, ever. I think she is still alive - and the ice and tomb and wards are there to keep her out, and keep her spirit from attaching itself to people and things. I think that's what happened with Harrow when she opened the tomb. Alecto doesn't need a connection to something, or someone, to attach herself to them. Or maybe Harrow's instant love for her was enough. Or maybe the love itself is a manifestation of Alecto's powers? Either way, she did not have to be related to Harrow, or attached to Harrow, to hitch a ride with her. An impenetrable ice cave warded to all hell - not even a mouse would have been able to get in. Probably, Alecto would have been able to possess a mouse and get her spirit, at least, out that way. This is why it was important to keep everyone and everything out of the tomb and lock it forever. Alecto's powers are on the same level, if not higher, than God's.

I think Alecto must have figured out first that resurrection and necromancy was an awful, horrible thing to do that would draw the wrath of dead planets and souls.

I think a lot of the plotting against the emperor is by her design, somehow. That when she "went away" from Harrow in the last few weeks of HtN, she was Doing Something, her soul connecting to the Blood of Eden, or the Resurrection Beasts, or something. It's been established by now, quite formly, that just cus someone's dead - or incapacitated - this doesn't keep them from having influence on the plot. At least for the past eight years, Alecto has been with Harrow, and therefore much freer in how her soul would roam.

I'm hella excited to find out what will happen with Alecto.

This concludes the character section; I'm going to briefly attempt to predict some plot and theorise about Nona before actually getting this liveblog back off the ground!

>> Next: Plot Predictions

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John Gaius, The Emperor Undying (etc)

Characters

<< Previous: Camilla and Palamedes | Masterpost

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John

I'm drawing the distinction between John and God because I don't think John would have had his powers without being part Alecto, and that pre-resurrection and pre-Lyctorhood with Alecto, he really was Just Some Guy.

As far as we know, he was the first person to pull off any kind of necromancy or resurrection, with Alecto as his First. John was probably a studious guy who found out some deep knowledge about the nature of the universe, and was able to harness it.

That is, if we can rely on his testimony, which - as shown in many, many examples - we really can't. He was the only one there; none of the first Lyctors joined until after the Resurrection.

I don't think John was a necromancer before he resurrected Alecto. He was just some guy - a researcher, probably. He may have uncovered the secrets to necromancy, but the exact way it happens is infuriatingly unclear. I'm pretty convinced that Alecto died; John was able to resurrect her by becoming Lyctors with her, for the low, low price of the entire solar system and every living thing in it; and then, with their combined power, he became God and resurrected All.

God

God is clearly a skilled necromancer - his powers include, but are not limited to: Total body healing, body analysis - he can sense even Lyctors at least upon touch, as he noticed Harrow's Lobotomy; Stopping decomposition - as shown with Cytherea and the people he sent to the Ninth; and, ostensibly, resurrection.

His powers are described as very different to ordinary Lyctors' powers, which are just a scaled up version of their already inherent necromancy. His powers are described as a tangy feel - citrussy smell, taste - they're instantaneous, they are vast. He's able to control living bodies - making people still, unable to move; he's able to compel people to be truthful when questioning them.

Some of these powers are similar to necromancer powers - the healing; the analysis; the control, to an extent - but are still described as instantaneous, which no necromantic powers we've otherwise seen can do. The lemony tasting powers are almost certainly Alecto's. As for how many of God's powers are actually John's, well, it could be none, or it could be all of them as just a sped-up/massively scaled-up version of necromantic powers. I highly doubt the latter. John probably found out a whole lot about the theory of the science/magic of necromancy pre-Resurrection, but I doubt he was able to wield it without...

>> Next: Alecto

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Camilla and Palamedes

Characters

<< Previous: Ianthe, Coronabeth and Blood of Eden | Masterpost

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I'm heavily rooting for these two. I never cease to be amazed by their capabilities. I'm realising now that Camilla must have asked to bring Gideon's body aboard - because Palamedes exploded into her, and therefore lots of tiny bone shards would have been lodged in Gideon's body and clothes - which Camilla must have, absolutely meticulously, gotten out of the body and puzzled together to form the square-inch or so of skull that she shows to Harrow.

The knowledge, patience and dedication Camilla shows in this single act... wow. I'm not sure I agree with Judith's absolute dismissal of close cavalier-necromancer relationships. I'm sure it's what was right for her and Marta, but that's not the case for everyone. Cam and Pal are very close and have been for years. They planned for this.

I'm pretty sure Camilla's intention is to become a Lyctor by incorporating Palamedes into her. And I reckon it'll work, too. These two are too good at this.

Though for now, Camilla is looking after Nona.

>> Next: John

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Ianthe, Coronabeth and the Blood of Eden

Characters

<< Previous: Harrow | Masterpost

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I gotta be perfectly honest here, I'm not overly fond of Ianthe. I can see why people love her. I appreciate her as a character construct. I don't like her though. Her attachment to Coronabeth is her one (1) redeeming quality, in my eyes.

And Coronabeth is now with the Blood of Eden.

Again I find myself really wanting to be a fly on the wall in that crucial little time at Canaan House between Cytherea's death, Blood of Eden arriving and taking all survivors sans Lyctors, and the Emperor arriving to collect Ianthe and Harrow.

Ianthe and Coronabeth have been plotting with each other their whole damn lives. There's no way they didn't have some kind of agreement with each other before splitting up. Something perhaps communicated in code, so neither Harrow nor BoE would have known what they were talking about. Perhaps they both decided then and there to join Blood of Eden, and that Ianthe would be a spy for Corona. Perhaps they've both been with them, or at least sympathetic, since before Canaan House. No idea if/how they would have kept up communication while Ianthe was at the Mithraeum, but maybe she was meeting Corona in secret while out killing planets? We know that after a while the old Lyctors didn't supervise their charges all the time when out killing planets, and there were lots of planets to kill.

Alternatively, could Ianthe have somehow managed to form some kind of BrainRiver Necromantic connection? That would be deep spirit magic almost akin to Lyctorhood - perhaps she did take a tiny bit of Corona without killing her, and then took Naberius instead - maybe she wanted to take Corona, but realised this would have killed her beloved sister, and killed Naberius instead? Maybe she figured out the secret to perfect Lyctorhood, and it is only taking a minuscule amount of your Cav - letting her take a minuscule amount of you - and as such, you can communicate with each other even when apart?

Would be a banger if so. Mad props to Ianthe if this is true. Might even be her 2nd redeeming feature.

Actually, no, it's still just the love for Coronabeth. If Ianthe had cared about Corona a little bit less, she could have taken and killed her. But she wouldn't.

So anyway I'm deeply sure that Corona and Ianthe are either already communicating, or both working very hard to get back together again.

Are they with the Blood of Eden, though?

Coronabeth, at this point, seems to have been taken in by them, according to Judith's journal; she could be a double agent type, or just doing whatever will keep her alive with the best chances of seeing Ianthe again. She also gets to keep Judith and Camilla alive. Coronabeth actually cares about people other than Ianthe, or at least it seems that way.

The epilogue suggests that either the three of them escaped from BoE alongside this random girl, or found her after escaping. Either that - or they're in BoE's network and maybe even under their protection while the three of them are off on a little side quest involving this girl. Either way, they're a united front of sorts, working towards the same goal (looking after this random kid, and finding out what her significane is, probably).

One who looks after her, one who teaches her, one who goes to work for her.

Camilla is revealed as the one to look after her. Teacher must be Judith, and Coronabeth got herself some kind of job to sustain them. Is it enough? One income for four adults? What kinda economy is this please? I guess she's a princess so she's probably demanding damn good pay, but still.

(Wait, is there money? I don't remember ever seeing any references to it - which would have caught my attention...)

Just checked -

(The nice thing about having the pdfs is that I can ctrl+f this stuff)

"Pay" is only really used metaphorically,

"Money" is Gideon hoping to be given some, Harrow imagining some in the Cohort being paid for someone's rank, and the idiom "[giving x] a run for its money" a couple times. No direct references to money as far as I can tell - there doesn't seem to be any needed in the Ninth, Canaan House, or the Mithraeum. The concept of money seems to be around. Maybe it's something only non-necromancers have to worry about?

"Loan" is mentioned only once, as something Harrow could have gotten to keep her house alive, so money in some form is around, or debt at least, but there's very little idea of what form it takes.

Sorry, let's get back on track. We were talking about the Tridentarii and Blood of Eden. And actually, I think I've said about what I can on them. I wanna move on!

>> Next: Camilla and Palamedes

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Harrowhark Nonagesimus

Characters

<< Previous: Cytherea | Masterpost

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The legend herself. I still love her so much.

I also have some questions, and some answers. This is gonna be a long one.

How did she open the tomb?

I puzzled over this for most of the book. Always assumed that John was lying when he said it was impossible - but then again, Gideon was around, so did she get Gideon's blood somehow? Or was it something else?

The proof was right here - right after John was revealed to be Gideon's dad:

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 till your eyes bugged out. I told you that my mother had probably loved me a lot more than yours loved you. You clawed my face so bad that my blood ran down your hands; my face was under your fucking fingernails. When I let you go you couldn’t even stand, you just crawled away and threw up. Were you ten, Harrow? Was I eleven? Was that the day you decided you wanted to die?

Harrow was ten; she had Gideon's face under her fingernails. Harrow opened the blood ward when she tried to kill herself. This makes a lot of sense. Mystery solved.

Is Harrow actually insane? Is the Body more than a hallucination?

Simply put: No, and yes. The Body is the manifestation of Alecto herself. She hitched a ride with Harrow's body when Harrow opened the tomb. She's been "haunted" by Alecto, the same way she was haunted by Wake for most of HtN.

I realised that this must be the case when I read this, after Harrow tries to kiss Alecto's ghost on the mouth.

As though you had crossed no boundary, and above the soundless rough shouting in your ears, the Body said: “I have to go away for a while,” and you regretted everything. “I have done wrong,” you said. There was the tiniest suggestion of a furrow in that cool unbreathing brow, and she said, “How?”

Alecto isn't upset that Harrow kissed her. She simply has to go away for a while. I thought about this. I read it as upset in my first read, but now it doesn't feel that way at all. "As though you had crossed no boundary", questioning why Harrow would think she'd done wrong. Alecto isn't upset at the kiss. She just has to go do Important Alecto Business.

Harrow interacts with Alecto throughout HtN. The Body is always there, until it isn't. Picking up on what we learned about Revenants from Wake, Harrow is haunted by Alecto in the same way. Dulcie, in the bubble, confirmed that she could sense someone other than Wake. Alecto came forward to Gideon when Harrow's sternum was shattered, her tomb was empty in Harrow's final vision.

Alecto isn't a revenant. She may not even be a ghost. Some essence of her, however, managed to cling to Harrow and infiltrate her mind. Alecto's powers must be strong - did she have enough of a connection with Harrow to adhere to her body? Wake needed Harrow to die to come forward - Alecto may have no such limitations. She's there, in Harrow's peripheral vision, most of the time. I don't think she had the limitation of needing that connection. Anyone or anything would do, hence the locked in an ice cave behind a million wards. Not exactly a revenant, as Alecto's body is almost certainly still alive, but an ability to cast her spirit and let it cling on to something, anything that moved in there.

Is Harrow actually insane? Well, on one hand, yes. She's Harrow, after all. She's had to live with what she thought were hallucinations all her life. She's been hearing things like the Secundarius bell and doors closing/banging as well, which might also be Alecto's input - some sound comes in even through the ice?

Alternatively, well, Harrow has 200 souls inside her, from the kids that were killed. (How did the Ninth, a house of mostly decrepit elders, get 200 children anyway?) Those kids will have left some kind of mark on her soul, and they all would have heard the bell and doors during their short lives. Maybe it's just a reflection of this.

This means that the hallucinations we've seen Harrow have, are all likely caused by souls hitching a ride with Harrow. Wake, Alecto, the unnamed 200.

Doesn't mean Harrow hasn't been hearing things and seeing things that were ostensibly not there, though. All throughout her entire life! That kinda stuff would drive anyone a bit mad.

Mind you, Cytherea under her bed was absolutely real. Ianthe took advantage of Harrow's vulnerability in that moment.

I'm still convinced that Ianthe is with Eden in some way. Eden came to Canaan House first, retrieved Camilla, Coronabeth and Judith, along with part of Palamedes's skull. Cytherea somehow managed to call BoE to the scene before she died. Harrow wiped some memories - maybe she strategically also wiped this memory? I really wanna know what happened at this point in the story.

Okay well I think it's time to talk about what and who we know.

>> Next: Ianthe, Coronabeth and the Blood of Eden

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Cytherea

Characters

<< Previous: Wake | Masterpost

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A few things strike me about Cytherea.

First, her personality as described by the other Lyctors (including John) doesn't seem to match what we saw in Canaan House. She was sweet, self-sacrificial, hardworking. Hardly about to spear a teenager through with bone.

There's one section when they're discussing how to take down a Resurrection Beast, this is said:

“Send a Lyctor to penetrate the layer, plant the bomb close up. I’ll do it, if courage fails in the hearts of my elders.” Ortus said, “Tried that,” and Mercy said, “Cytherea was mad for weeks. And I do not mean mad cross, I mean mad insane. She didn’t even touch on the surface.”

Even looking at Resurrection Beasts hurts Lyctors:

It is here! The Resurrection Beast is come! The seventh colossus, brood of that which murdered Cyrus the First, packmate of that which murdered Ulysses the First, the one and the same that Cassiopeia died for. Oh, God, John, sometimes I wish I were capable of dying—I saw it! I saw it, and it is blue like Loveday’s eyes! It knows what you did to its kin, and it sees my cavalier’s mortal soul burning in my chest!”

-Mercy, upon looking at the RB for like a second.

Blue like Loveday's eyes - Cytherea's cavalier. (Neptune?)

We don't know which RB Cytherea tried to get to the centre of. It could have been this one, or another one. She was "mad for weeks". The Resurrection Beasts hunt those that have committed the "indelible sin" of Lyctorhood, most prominently God himself. They impress upon Lyctors the weight of their guilt.

What if Cytherea went too close, saw the weight of her guilt, and went mad from the cognitive dissonance between what she'd been told her entire life, and the deep, universal knowledge that resurrection, Lyctorhood, and basically everything John and the Empire were doing was wrong? What if she came out of that firmly believing in the mission of Blood of Eden, deeply understanding of their inherent bigotry against all necromancers?

How long ago was this? Did it kickstart the cooperation between Lyctors and Eden, or was it already established at this point?

Is this why she turned up at Canaan House, with the aim to kill the would-be new Lyctors?

(Nobody here seems to care about not killing children very much.)

Speaking of, let's talk about some more of the kids. Harrow's next.

>> Next: Harrow

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Awake Remembrance of These Valiant Dead Kia Hua Ko Te Pai Back to Reality Oops There Goes Gravity

Sorry, you know I had to do it.

Characters

<< Previous: Gideon Nav | Masterpost

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Wake deserves an honourable mention, at least, because through her we get a bit of an insight into how Revenants work, as well as how the Blood of Eden work. I wonder, was it just her who talked to the Lyctors? Did she have to hide their involvement from her fellow Edenites? To pull off Deus Apate, Mercymorn said it took them five hundred years of planning. How old was Wake? Surely an operation of this magnitude couldn't just be a few Lyctors and Wake - the Blood of Eden have existed since shortly after the Resurrection, presumably some information must have been passed down families of sorts.

Wake, as we met her, was a revenant. A spirit of the dead. She attached herself to the sword, to Harrow, and Cytherea's body. Harrow could interact with her in the River bubble. Wake's revenant can attach herself to things that were meaningful in her life. Presumably, she could go back to the Blood of Eden as a revenant, and plot with them. In the Glossary, it says:

On Wake's death, Blood of Eden withdrew somewhat out of the eye of the Houses to regroup, but were enlivened by the reappearance of their legendary commander in the form of a revenant.

So revenants can move, if they are strong enough, between bodies and objects. Could you talk to the revenant without a necromancer, though? Is this what Eden are keeping Judith for - is that how she knew that the Mithraeum had been infiltrated? (Oh wait, she "met" Mercymorn, she was barely present but still able to recognise a Lyctor.)

Does she need a dead body of someone she kn...

... Gideon. Could she be using Gideon's body? Who was it who got them to take Gideon? Camilla - it says so in As Yet Unsent. Why did Camilla suggest it?

There are other explanations of course. Let's not dwell on it too much.

Instead, let's talk for a second about who she was. She was a commander, who brought some order into their chaos. She was a fierce fighter, and a passionate lover, if she managed to seduce both Gideon and Pyrrha. She was someone who would have been perfectly happy killing a baby, even one she grew in her own womb. She saw pregnancy as nothing but an inconvenience. She was someone who was willing to die for this plan, and still managed to keep the baby alive. It's unclear whether she ever had any kinds of feelings towards baby Gideon, aside from calling her Bomb, and Payload. The baby was only ever a means to an end, and should have died upon arrival at the Ninth. It's not clear whether these feelings, or lack thereof, are just a front.

She wanted Harrow to die, so that she could inhabit Harrow's corpse. Kids not dying doesn't seem high in her priorities.

She managed to plot involving basically every Lyctor. It's said in As Yet Unsent that Eden has had House spies for millennia; were all Lyctors involved with them at some point? All the ones we've met were - Mercy, Augustine, Gideon, Cytherea. Were their cavaliers involved in that?

Actually, let's talk about Cytherea, because I wanna say things.

>> Next: Cytherea

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Gideon Nav

Characters

<< Previous: The River | Masterpost

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I don't have thaaaat many questions left with regards to Gideon, which is why she is first, and this post will be fairly short. (I love her though. Her bits in HtN are just so lush. Looooove Gideon.)

During re-reading, I sometimes questioned whether Gideon was really Wake's baby. It's made clear by Wake that she was. She could have been lying, but their physical similarity is stated, so I'll believe it.

For a moment though, I was gung-ho on the idea that she might have been Alecto's genetically, that somehow BoE/Lyctors had gotten a hold of Alecto's eggs. It would explain... some things.

But the red hair. Is Alecto's hair colour ever mentioned?

But the fact that she's frozen forever and only Harrow ever opened the tomb, as far as we know. Though they could have had eggs extracted and preserved somehow - before Alecto went into the tomb? She's immortal; God's sperm was immortal; if there were eggs, they would easily survive a myriad years. Still kiiiinda a theory, just one I find very unlikely at this point.

Gideon's body doesn't rot, ostensibly, cus she's part God. Though I have found myself wondering if God's perfect-preservation power is John's, or Alecto's? We'll get to that.

I was also wondering if a part of Gideon died, back when she was nerve gassed with the other kids. A part which would have gone on to live in and as Harrow. Perhaps this explains Harrow's unwillingness to ever die.

I have a feeling that Gideon's soul and body will stay relevant, even though I don't know exactly how.

>> Next: Wake

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The River

Worldbuilding/Lore

<< Previous: Lyctorhood | Masterpost

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So, okay, bear with me here. I think these people's brains are fundamentally different from ours. And I think their brains are spiritual matter, contained in a brain-shape and perhaps even anatomically so. There was talk of a temporal lobe, after all.

Mind you, memories don't just get stored in one place in the brain. The hippocampus is crucial for formation of memories and storing them short-term - for a few months, maybe. After that, I was told in my studies we don't quite know where they go - likely stored in different parts all over the brain, connected to associations.

One thing I do know, however, is that you can't physically see which parts of the brain relate to which memory. Knowing this from necromantic ability should be a skill even Mercymorn would struggle with. Harrow, a bone magician, knows she is not the best flesh magician, so she enlists Ianthe's help for her lobotomy. Ianthe, allegedly the best necromancer in her generation, is actually able to do an alright job, except for one part where Harrow does some herself. Have they found ways to look at memories through the brain? By all current available science, I would rate that fairly impossible. Either science has progressed wildly in this (possible, given the whole ass myriad and then some), or these brains are not the same.

I actually think brains in this are made from much the same matter that The River is. The River is clearly not of Alecto or John's invention. It was discovered somehow, and when they resurrected everyone, they basically found the revenants for the bodies, and just stuck them back in, literally; pockets - or bubbles - of River, containing the revenant exactly, replacing the goopy mess of dead brain in the body.

Now your brains are goopy messes of river, made to look like what you expect the brain to look like. Your perceptions, expectations and rules are important in the River - it makes sense that River/Revenant-brains would still be brain-shaped. It means the brain is more fluid than that, though; in the Lyctor's cases, one soul - one brain - "takes over".

(Doesn't really explain why Lyctors like God, Augustine and Mercymorn consistently have their cavalier's eyes - other than maybe it was just that that's what they were expecting.)

Ok, so I kinda think brains are parts of The River. Coherent as revenants, living in bodies. This would have been the case for the first people who were resurrected a myriad ago - so when they create babies, the baby's brain is also River water, for want of a better term? Therefore everyone's is? And Death, in this post-resurrection world, is just returning to the River proper?

It's a working theory.

The River is a physical place, and also kind of like sub-space. You can enter it, you can form pockets of meaning in there, you can hunt things in there and make wards. You can use it to travel quickly to destinations many lightyears away. It is a physical place, but also a spiritual one. It is, essentially, the brain matter of billions, jumbled together, increasing in entropy with depth, all the way down to the stoma, where you can enter full entropy and be reduced to particles, as I understand.

Did you know that some scientists use entropy to describe brain processes? Entropy increases in the brain as it responds to stimuli. The concept of entropy is necessary for explaining what goes on in the brain, an organ of trillions+ of possible configurations, changing moment by moment. And what happens physically in the brain is perceived by us through a range of associations and thoughts and feelings, which all look and feel very different to the electric charges zipping along nerve axons and synapses releasing chemicals to trigger a reaction in the next nerve along. Which is (a gross oversimplification of) what actually physically happens inside our brains, millionfold, every millisecond.

Hey wait a second though. The Central Nervous System also includes the spinal cord. Is this included in the RiverBrain package deal? What about peripheral nerves? Right, I'm gonna stop this here, it's already one hell of a rabbit hole.

So if I'm right, then brains are made of River, and River is made of Brains. Sub-space, physically traversible brains. If planets, if stars have a soul, the whole Universe has a soul. The River could a manifestation of the Universe's soul, its collective Brain, and it encompasses all once (and future?) living things. It's not in our plane of existence, but can be accessed physically and mentally.

The River might be the source of necromantic ability, and I think either John or Alecto figured out how to access it. I Just Don't Think You're Supposed To.

Ok, let's get into Characters next. Blorboposting incoming.

>> Next: Gideon Nav

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