#is pyrrha white? am i stupid?

You're not stupid--it's not actually stated in the text. Canonical information we have on P-- is that she has soft green eyes and was a cop.

I believe, partially due to the way other characters discuss her and her previous position as a cop (though obviously cops don't have to be white, lol), that she was likely white, especially because of the reading I have about John as a character (and further, Augustine as a character as well). [Also, obviously she doesn't have to be white to have soft green eyes either, it's just one of the only other parts of her description we have besides her having been a cop].

I'm perfectly willing to accept Pyrrha as a nonwhite character should AtN reveal anything to refute it, but currently what we've been given, I read her as a white woman and my interpretations interact with that, especially since I like examining both how colorism and racism impact the text.

I think part of the reason so many fans perceive her to be nonwhite is a discomfort with her being in G1deon's body if she is a white woman, which is understandable but not necessarily textual evidence against her theoretical whiteness.

g1deon for the ask game <3 or if you've been asked abt him already then pash

send me a character [G1deon] and i’ll list:

favorite thing about them: He is the love of my life, he is my princess in a tower, he is my lost lenore. My favorite thing about him is probably that he is so quietly resistant--there are parts of himself he keeps for himself, that he holds close, and also that he may choose to share nearly silently. That moment of solidarity with Harrow will always eat me up inside. He has been suffering with these white folks [+ John] for thousands of year. Free him.

least favorite thing about them: Light of my life that he is, he needs to stop doing John's dirty work, he needs to reject the empire. He was also chasing that little girl around on John's orders. Unfortunate.

favorite line: Imma cry forever over how he experiences the loss of time when Pyrrha is present, or as already stated when he kind of tried to share a moment of solidarity with Harrow. Fucks me up.

brOTP: Him and Pyrrha. I always see her as in love with him, but I don't always see him in love with her, heheh. I do think he loves her, I just don't always view his feelings for her as matching hers exactly.

OTP: G1deon/Wake/Pyrrha, but especially him with Wake. That she's what he can't be, the way Pyrrha is an important aspect of the relationship between him and Wake, the tragedy in his affection for her not being enough to get in the way of his orders.

nOTP: G1deon/John. Can't stand it. That man is so colorist at him, and lets those white people talk at and treat him so horribly.

random headcanon: I see him having a preference away from white people (if he liked Pyrrha, to me, she was an exception). I also like to view him as being transfemme, tbh.

unpopular opinion: Apparently that he has a personality or that Pyrrha and Wake loved him/were attracted to him. Please, he's his own person and they each displayed their interests in him. Where's the tragedy in his loss if we the readers never saw him? No, we did see him. We should be haunted by the fact he's died and very few people even know, and even less who could remember him are even alive enough to respond if it comes out. Someone perform funeral rites for him, please.

song i associate with them: 'Beautiful Crime' by Tamer. Is it about him, is it about his feelings towards Wake, is it about his feelings for Pyrrha? Yes.

favorite picture of them: one day I'll answer this probably

the saint of duty + an iliad's hector of troy

An Iliad, Lisa Peterson & Denis O'Hare, p. 480 / Harrow the Ninth, p. 124, 133, 191, 193, 194, 204, 228, 267 292, 469 / Nona the Ninth, p. 30, 399, 402

ortus

send me a character [Ortus] and i’ll list:

favorite thing about them: Every moment of Harrow the Ninth he was there, I was for him. Favorite thing is hard to list because there's a few different things--I like his investment in Matthias and the Noniad in general, I like that he clearly has a lot of insight after his death on the Ninth, I like that he has this clear undercurrent of frustration and how it was bubbling out of him despite himself. I like how much of a person he is.

least favorite thing about them: Nothing I can say about him is anything he doesn't already know about himself tbh. I guess that despite everything he turned around to thinking maybe he should've been a cav or tried to be a cav, like the whole system is fucked, not that he's necessarily unaware it sucks, but it'd be cool to think a little bigger as well to how horrible the Houses are as a whole rather than live in the daydreams of heroics.

favorite line: Oh, there's so many I love him so much actually, truly: Ortus primly said he thought that nobody who read the Noniad would be the sort of churl who misread a simple and evocative collocation like bone frenzy; he went on to suggest that such a person probably didn’t even read in the first place, and would be more inclined to trifle with prurient magazines or pamphlets than to bother themselves with a complex epic such as the Noniad; he said that he wouldn’t want such a person to read his poetry anyway. or: “Nigenad,” she said, “I am what I am, and I am seventeen. Yet I assure you that I contain multitudes.” “I am fully aware of that, my lady,” said Ortus. Which was perfectly correct of him to say. But Harrow somehow did not like the way he said it. or: “Harrowhark—I don’t understand why you chose me.” Harrow said, “There was nobody else.” His mask slipped, and not the mask made of alabaster and black paint. Ortus looked at her with his steady dark gaze, and his heavy face flickered; she realised with electrified astonishment that he was exasperated. “You never did possess an imagination,” he said, and, obviously upset with himself, his mask reappeared as swiftly as if slapped back on with both hands. or: “You knew,” she said. “You knew the whole time that Mortus the Ninth died at their command.” Now Ortus’s face changed. It slid a second time into paint-splattered, black-irised, hooded contempt. He looked at her as though she were tedious. He looked at her as though he did not know who she was. His contempt made the doors she heard in her ears slam in an orchestra of unfathomable sound. He looked at her as though she were a squalling infant; as though she had not spoken, but rather opened her mouth and vomited. “Harrow,” he said curtly, “you are not the only person who can add up two and two, and arrive at four.” and finally, because I could keep going: Ortus dropped his book. He rose from the chair. He put his arms about her. The dead cavalier held her with a quiet, unassuming firmness; he petted her hair like a brother, and he said, “I am so sorry, Harrowhark. I am sorry for everything … I am sorry for what they did … I am sorry that I was no kind of cavalier to you. I was so much older, and too selfish to take esponsibility, and too affrighted by the idea of doing anything difficult or painful. I was weak because weakness is easy, and because rebuff is hard. I should have known there was really nobody left … I should have seen the cruelty in what Crux and Aiglamene encouraged you to bear. I knew what had happened to my father, and I suspected for so long what had happened to the Reverend Father and Mother. I knew I had been spared, somehow, from the crèche flu, and that my mother had been driven demented by the truth. I should have offered help. I should have died for you. Gideon should still be alive. I was, and am, a grown man, and you both were neglected children.”

brOTP: Honestly, him and Harrow, and it's tragic and it's horrible and neither would choose it, but also in the end there, I think they do see each other. If Harrow isn't an option or if I'm talking about a more equal friendship, him working out his beef with Protesilaus is fun.

OTP: I literally will die on the hill that Colum x Ortus is the best fucking ship for both of them, I will ride for them into fucking battle, I fucking love it so much please everyone open your hearts. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed AND ALONE. The PARALLELS when Ortus is Harrow's cavalier. Let me in, LET ME IN.

nOTP: I cannot imagine pairing him with Harrow or Gideon and meaning it. None of them would be happy there at all, ever.

random headcanon: Genuinely think that Gideon was being kept partially to have to have cav children with him and that's why she got even a little cav training and it makes me sick to think of and I think it's both part of her revulsion at him and also his avoidance of her.

unpopular opinion: I don't know why this is unpopular but he was ready to tear Protesilaus apart, he was so threatened and infuriated by him and it was so funny to me. "And that other dog, too, who is he," he was mad as hell. King.

song i associate with them: I know this is so strange, but legitimately 'Underworld' from Epic: The Musical. He has so many overlapping sentiments--guilt, rage, despair, loss, pride, longing, etc.

favorite picture of them: this piece actually

character game: our girl g1deon obviously because I'm obsessed, but if someone else has sent him, then I submit hot sauce

favorite thing about them:

augh what's not to love. im a massive fan of quiet and stoic characters in general i was a sucker for g1deon right off the bat. similar to wake, i love his loyalty — the way he never could choose between john and p—, the way he sticks with what he believes in, the way he does what he thinks is right no matter what the people around him think of him.

least favorite thing about them:

the fact that he's loyal *to john* LMFAO. 10,000 years of basically being in charge of the military of the violent imperialist empire for a man who doesn't even respect him. and then he died for him!! embarrassing.

favorite line:

"I sometimes forget." the sheer amount of horror contained in that one sentence. ten thousand years of occasional memory loss has to do a number on you.

brOTP:

g1deon and anastasia! in my heart i believe that both of them and cassiopeia were working together on a better form of lyctorhood. maybe g1deon abandoned the possibility of it working, or maybe his compartmentalization of pyrrha wasn't as accidental as she believes. also g1deon and matthias nonius i know they have something fun going on in the river.

OTP:

g1deon/pyrrha/wake once again. g—'s loyalty toward p— pre-resurrection really gets me (even if as with john he really does NOT know how to pick em) and i think all the time about g1deon and wake; what he must have felt when she kissed him not knowing that he wasn't pyrrha, and the fact that he pursued an affair with her after that speaking to a desperation to be seen and the passion of their attempts to kill each other. lives in my head 24/7.

nOTP:

g1deon/augustine that man is fully racist i do not see it even a little bit.

random headcanon:

i imagine he's a he/him transfem butch and i like to think that he was a climate activist pre-resurrection (even if i think the probability of that actually being the case, given what we know about him as an aerospace engineer on john's project, to be slim).

unpopular opinion:

everybody should care about g1deon way the fuck more! he's the most interesting lyctor! he was a genius of a necromancer! and frankly i think the fandom's total sidelining of him and the theories that he's the cavalier speaks to the fandom's racism.

song i associate with them:

funny you ask because i do have an entire playlist.

favorite picture of them:

oh god i can't choose. i love this g1deon's nose ring. and the shape of this g1deon's face. but notedchampagne is the only one going hard enough with the facial hair that i've seen.

Little cowboy Gideon warmup

g1deon for the ask game <3 or if you've been asked abt him already then pash

send me a character [G1deon] and i’ll list:

favorite thing about them: He is the love of my life, he is my princess in a tower, he is my lost lenore. My favorite thing about him is probably that he is so quietly resistant--there are parts of himself he keeps for himself, that he holds close, and also that he may choose to share nearly silently. That moment of solidarity with Harrow will always eat me up inside. He has been suffering with these white folks [+ John] for thousands of year. Free him.

least favorite thing about them: Light of my life that he is, he needs to stop doing John's dirty work, he needs to reject the empire. He was also chasing that little girl around on John's orders. Unfortunate.

favorite line: Imma cry forever over how he experiences the loss of time when Pyrrha is present, or as already stated when he kind of tried to share a moment of solidarity with Harrow. Fucks me up.

brOTP: Him and Pyrrha. I always see her as in love with him, but I don't always see him in love with her, heheh. I do think he loves her, I just don't always view his feelings for her as matching hers exactly.

OTP: G1deon/Wake/Pyrrha, but especially him with Wake. That she's what he can't be, the way Pyrrha is an important aspect of the relationship between him and Wake, the tragedy in his affection for her not being enough to get in the way of his orders.

nOTP: G1deon/John. Can't stand it. That man is so colorist at him, and lets those white people talk at and treat him so horribly.

random headcanon: I see him having a preference away from white people (if he liked Pyrrha, to me, she was an exception). I also like to view him as being transfemme, tbh.

unpopular opinion: Apparently that he has a personality or that Pyrrha and Wake loved him/were attracted to him. Please, he's his own person and they each displayed their interests in him. Where's the tragedy in his loss if we the readers never saw him? No, we did see him. We should be haunted by the fact he's died and very few people even know, and even less who could remember him are even alive enough to respond if it comes out. Someone perform funeral rites for him, please.

song i associate with them: 'Beautiful Crime' by Tamer. Is it about him, is it about his feelings towards Wake, is it about his feelings for Pyrrha? Yes.

favorite picture of them: one day I'll answer this probably

If you had one shot, or one opportunity To blow open the locked tomb via targeted infanticide One moment Would you capture it or just let it slip?

Weeping, Gideon would probably listen to the like Heartbreak era Kanye, too. King, put down Love Lockdown and Heartless and get a girlfriend who respects you.

gideon! (for the character thing)

send me a character [Gideon] and i’ll list:

favorite thing about them: She's so butch. I love how her butchness is so overt and presented throughout the text, that if you have any relationship to it or exposure to it, it's so integral to her and her motivations and her interactions.

least favorite thing about them: That she wants to join the Cohort/that she is participating in the imperialism of the Houses. King, get out of there.

favorite line: This is literally one of the hardest parts of this, besides the pictures, which I'll probably still come back to with Gideon/not fill out. But let's see... Maybe this line: It would have been neater, perhaps, if all of Gideon’s disappointments and woes from birth downward had used that moment as a catalyst: if, filled with a new and fiery determination, she had equipped herself down there in the dark with fresh ambition to become free. She didn’t. It just kind of summarizes several things about her and fills me with so much grief for her. She really is so sad.

brOTP: I like her friendship with Palamedes. They're both so dramatic and kind of silly about it. The way she reacted when she learned his history with Dulcinea lives in my head. If not Palamedes, then Ianthe, because they were so weirdly tender in certain moments with one another despite everything in Nona.

OTP: In the books, I do like her with Harrow, despite the worst elements of their relationship. It is well done and engaging.

nOTP: I cannot stand the idea of shipping Gideon with a man, for obvious reasons, lmao. If I had to pick something besides that very obvious one, Cytherea pretending to be Dulcinea and her. That cougar was using her. I've seen plenty of butches actually being manipulated and used and I actually do want her happiness.

random headcanon: That she's mixed with Black. I view Wake as Black/mixed with Black, and I guess it's not the most common headcanon, but canonically she is described as looking like Wake, and that also implies brown skin, a flat nose, and Wake's hair is described as almost floating around her head/above her shoulders in a way I read as textured curls.

unpopular opinion: She's really not a himbo? Her lack of interest in the technicalities of necromancy do not display a lack of intelligence or even curiosity. I don't think this should be an unpopular opinion, but it does seem to be.

song i associate with them: Throwback, I guess, but 'I Hate Everything About You' by Three Days Grace. Imagine the MMVs if TLT had been a thing in the mid-2000s. Alternatively: 'Always' by Saliva. Though I will say I could see Gideon listening to 'Ice Box' by Omarion in NtN if that was a thing.

favorite picture of them: N/A, because it will take me so long to figure out what to put here. Edit: found what it is actually.

for the character meme: pyrrha or a character of your choice if you've gotten her already! < 3

send me a character [Pyrrha] and i’ll list:

favorite thing about them: I love how much she loves disasters. I love her fixation on devotion and self-destruction, that she sees people willing to burn and she's weak to it, that it has trapped her in a cycle of agony but she can't seem to help that she's still drawn to it. That she maybe thinks she deserves to be in that cycle.

least favorite thing about them: Was a cop. L. Hate that for her. A super cop, in fact, and an absolutely hypocrite for it. Queen, please, stop playing FBI and put yourself full-force into putting your energy towards righting the wrongs you participated in very actively, lol.

favorite line: Spent a long minute and muled over many, including the way she talks about Wake/trying to make Wake love her, the way she clearly longs for Gideon as a child, the way she interacts with Nona, even the line where she's called out for playing family, but I settled with: "I've loved you two," she said. "Not well. Not even wholesomely. I don't have it in me. But I've loved you--in a better world I'd be able to say, 'Like you were my own,' but I don't know what that would even mean anymore. You've been my agents... you've been stand-ins for something I haven't had for longer than either of you can understand. Which is why I'm saying--don't do this. Please, don't do this."

brOTP: Tbh, I don't know if Pyrrha knows how to have this, lmao. She's always going to bleed weird boundaries across her relationships. I guess G1deon, honestly, because no matter how their relationship is, no matter if he reciprocates the way she is, it's very important to me that they have a bond that remains powerful despite its nature.

OTP: Together: G1deon, Wake, Pyrrha. I knows that's three, but again I actually don't know if I see Pyrrha being only in a "pair." I think she has a hunger that stretches a bit outside of that limit, though I will say Wake was so clearly so large and consuming in where she fit in there that Pyrrha's eyes were very fixated on her, but that fixation did not stop her from still entangling G1deon into it or focusing on how G1deon was a part of it.

nOTP: Sorry, queen, I don't support you chicken hawking. But at least that's canonical. Put her with Augustine or John and it's on sight, gives me the ick.

random headcanon: I think she has a habit of being drawn to men that figure out they're not men, but that she identified as bisexual even if it keeps happening. I just think it's funny to picture her being attracted to a man and then the man going "actually..."

unpopular opinion: Apparently that she's bisexual. Other unpopular opinion on her is that she in fact waits too long to act, that her actions are out of self-interest, and that her struggles with boundaries are not only destructive to herself but to all the people she has her confusing interactions with. This woman is an absolute wreck, love her.

song i associate with them: 'It Will Come Back' by Hozier.

favorite picture of them: I'm going to leave this unanswered. I've seen some I like, but since a specific one did not jump to mind and I've already spent a minute on this, I think I'm going to leave it before I spend another hour searching, lol.

send me a character and i’ll list:

favorite thing about them

least favorite thing about them

favorite line

brOTP

OTP

nOTP

random headcanon

unpopular opinion

song i associate with them

favorite picture of them

Mamuor Majeng by Luiz Alberto Rodriguez for Another Man Magazine Volume II

Gideon the Ninth Eye Colour/Descriptor Guide (Updated)

(Key: CH stands for Chapter; pg. stands for page; EP stands for Epilogue)

(Harrow the Ninth Guide) (Nona the Ninth Guide)

For more immediate, in-depth reference, the quotes themselves have been transcribed below the cut.

All quoted page numbers are per the paperback copy of the book. Quotes are (mostly) in order of frequency, but some characters are grouped together because I don't want to separate them.

Harrow (24 Entries):

Cytherea (18 Entries):

Ianthe (17 Entries):

(+ BABS) “Because they were in closest proximity, her first gaze after the fight fell on the overgroomed cavalier of the Third, Naberius: his eyes were taut, and his smile was unnerved. His eyes were blue, but this close she could see that they were stained through in places with a light, insipid brown that made Gideon think of oily water.” - Chapter 11, pg. 116 (paperback)

Palamedes (11 Entries):

Jeannemary & Isaac (8 Entries):

Corona (6 Entries):

Gideon (6 Entries):

Camilla (4 Entries):

Colum (4 Entries):

Teacher (4 Entries):

God/John (3 Entries)

“He approached her, and she saw that his sclera were black as space. The irises were dark and leadenly iridescent—a deep rainbow oil slick, ringed with white. The pupils were as glossy black as the sclera.” - Epilogue, pg. 440

“Harrowhark picked herself up off the floor and looked her Emperor dead in his dark and shining eyes.” - Epilogue, pg. 441

“He had a ridiculously ordinary face: long jaw, high forehead, hair a dull and leaden brown. But those eyes.” - Epilogue, pg. 443

Protesliaus (2 Entries):

“Protesilaus the Seventh stared at her with the empty eyes of someone who would watch with equal heavy disinterest if part of the wall were kicked out and she were punted down into the sea, but his adept was looking at her—wistfully.” - Chapter 10, pg. 108

“She had been gravely meeting Protesilaus’s murky stare, as though trying to find something out, and now she settled the head on her lap.” - Chapter 30, pg. 338

Characters With Only 1 Entry Each:

(CRUX) “Crux stared back at her with the hate of an exploding star: the empty hate of pressure pulled inward, a deforming, light-devouring resentment.” - Chapter 2, pg. 31

(ORTUS) “But Ortus said, with his big, sombre eyes and his squashed, disheartened voice: “I do fear death, my Lady Harrowhark.”” - Chapter 3, pg. 41

(MAGNUS) “Up close he had a strong jaw, the expression of the terminally jolly, and nice eyes.” - Chapter 9, pg. 93

(ABIGAIL) “Unlike Magnus, she also had the manner some necromancers and librarians developed when they had been working on dead spells for the last fifteen years and no longer worried too much about the living: her stare was far too intense.” - Chapter 15, pg. 169 & 170

(JUDITH) “The Captain of the Second rose too. Her intensely dark eyes settled on each of them in turn before ending on Teacher.” - Chapter 18, pg. 197

(SILAS) “Silas did not step away, but he turned his head a little from her, as though she were a bad breath. He had very brown eyes, startlingly framed by thick, whitish lashes.” - Chapter 26, pg. 298

Harrow the Ninth Eye Colour/Descriptor Guide (Updated)

(Key: CH stands for Chapter; pg. stands for page; PR stands for Prologue; EP stands for Epilogue; EPI stands for Epiparados)

(Gideon the Ninth Guide) (Nona the Ninth Guide)

For more immediate, in-depth reference, the quotes themselves have been transcribed below the cut.

All quoted page numbers are per the paperback copy of the book. Quotes are (mostly) in order of frequency, but some characters are grouped together because I don't want to separate them.

Ianthe (27 Entries):

John (24 Entries):

Mercymorn (15 Entries):

Alecto/Gideon (14 Entries):

Ortus (10 Entries):

Augustine (6 Entries):

Harrow (6 Entries):

G1deon, Pyrrha, & Cytherea (4 Entries Each):

Camilla (3 Entries), Palamedes, and Dulcie (4 Entries Each):

Magnus & Abigail (2 & 5 Entries Respectively):

Characters With Only 1 Entry Each:

(SILAS) “He looked at her: from their distance of about five bodies apart his eyes were umbrous in his white and stricken face.” - Chapter 26, pg. 237

(CORONA) “Ianthe Tridentarius’s features stared out of Coronabeth’s face—an aurora of a face, with deep lustrous skin and burnished hair, and eyes of genuine violet, like plums.” - Chapter 34, pg. 318

(JUDITH) “It was still the Cohort captain who silently approached, her dark eyes cold and level…” - Chapter 34, pg. 321

(TEACHER) “He caught her gaze on the bottle, and his very blue eyes twinkled a little madly…” - Chapter 35, pg. 328

(NONIUS) “His dark eyes were bloodshot, his hair was matted, and his split lip was swelling up.” - Chapter 49, pg. 454

Nona the Ninth Eye Colour/Descriptor Guide

(Key: CH stands for Chapter; pg. stands for page; J stands for John (eg. John 8:1); EP stands for Epilogue)

(Given all the eye-swapping happening in NtN, I’ve categorised eye descriptions in this section per who they currently belong to in this book’s canon, re: John’s original yellow eyes are filed under “Nona” (AKA: Alecto); Camilla’s are filed under “Palamedes”, and vice versa; Babs’ original eyes are filed under “Ianthe”; and so on.)

(Gideon the Ninth Guide) (Harrow the Ninth Guide)

For more immediate, in-depth reference, the quotes themselves have been transcribed below the cut.

All quoted page numbers are per the paperback copy of the book. Quotes are (mostly) in order of frequency, but some characters are grouped together because I don't want to separate them.

Camilla (13 Entries):

Corona (8 Entries):

Pash (6 Entries):

Pyrrha (6 Entries):

Palamedes (6 Entries) & Paul (2 Entries):

Kiriona (5 Entries):

Ianthe (5 Entries):

Nona (5 Entries):

John & Harrow (4 Entries Each):

We Suffer (4 Entries) & Wake (2 Entries):

Honesty & Hot Sauce (3 Entries Each):

Judith, Crux, & Aiglamene (2 Entries Each):

Ianthe <3