the more i think about alecto the ninth the more i feel like i'm gonna have an aneurysm

so Nona translates all the names she hears subconsciously & on instinct, I'm pretty sure, because she knows all the languages.

exhibit a: everyone calling Corona "Crown" might be the shortened version of her new BOE name, or people might be saying "Corona" which Nona then translates to "Crown." this is the one that holds the least water, i'm aware, which is why it comes first.

exhibit b: when Nona mentions Born in the Morning to Hot Sauce and Hot Sauce goes, "you mean Born in the Morning," and Nona says "that's what I said." i believe she translated some of the name back wrong or used a synonym, causing Hot Sauce to correct her.

exhibit c: when Palamedes asks if Honesty's name is truly Honesty and Nona squirms and says that that's how she hears it - she can't be sure, because she might be translating his name from whatever it is into Honesty as soon as she hears it.

which all brings me to my point! Kiriona is Māori for Gideon (see screenshot below). I wouldn't be surprised if Nona just... translated her name automatically. that does beg the question of why she didn't translate Gaia to Earth, but someone smarter than me is gonna have to figure that out. maybe Gideon didn't change her name, maybe we're just being led to believe that she did to increase our sense of alienation?

fascinated by this moment!! is nona channeling varun? or alecto? the latter i think is more likely given her not being able to stop and how she then goes ‘away from herself briefly’. also the (sea?) water that was the scream?? like how cool are the implications of that!! and makes me think more about how alecto is pretty much a resurrection beast stuffed into a barbie

oh my god PLEASE tell me that Hot Sauce is her Blood of Eden name and that the full version actually starts with “I got hot sauce in my bag, swag” quoting BEYONCÉ

i think Aim, the Messenger, has a medical implant that contains a message from Mercymorn or another OG Lyctor on how to defeat Jod.

- Mercymorn is a powerful flesh magician and would be the person of choice to insert an implant

- this message has been passed down through the generations, from Emma Sen to Aim, so it makes sense an immortal Lyctor is helping pass it down

- only a very important message would be passed down. Carrying this message is described as an honor. If a Lyctor is working with BOE then it makes sense the message is about fighting Jod.

- Aim knows about the “cradle creature” allegedly because she took a class on pre resurrection animals. Who has access to such knowledge? Mercymorn or another OG Lyctor. But Mercymorn was a scientist pre-resurrection so it makes sense she would have access to such knowledge

- Aim knows something is up when Nona draws the cradle creature and is clearly afraid of Nona or experiencing some other intense emotion (horror?) based on the way her reaction is described—she acts like “she’d been knifed”—hinting she can infer certain things about Nona, such as Nona being linked to OG Lyctors/Jod based on this knowledge

- Mercymorn was working with BOE semi regularly. She worked with them to open the tomb with Wake and she was visiting them during As Yet Unsent. Why? Because her plan to defeat Jod is on going. Perhaps as a fail safe? Could it involve inserting the Message implant? Was Augustine involved? Two best worsties against an incel Jod…

- if Our Lady of Passions is the Messenger’s bodyguard then the Message must be of vital importance. I vaguely recall that Aim is only carrying half of the Message, is this true? Does anyone remember? I wonder what the other half is and where, or who, it is

-NONA THE NINTH SPOILERS-

wait are we not all in agreement that kiriona is gideon who’s come back wrong. like that’s not G. she’s missing some parts of her soul. [in tamsyn’s words harrow ate the happy meal burger but where is the fries n drink. you know]

like yes a lot of that Is pure gideon and it’s gideon who’s been through unimaginable heartbreak and achieved everything she’s ever wanted and found that it is Not Enough, believes herself unlovable and rejected by the one person who could accept her [harrow] and subject to jod’s divine manipulation tactics. and is also still dead.

on the other hand though that prince’s soul is a thrift store board game [missing some pieces]

among many other vile things he has done, something that is currently sticking out to me is how john didn’t let gideon keep her name not only out of the desire to initiate her into his fucked-up space imperialism cult and to make her reliant on him, but also because he’s too much of a fucking coward to face the name of g1deon, who “kiriona gaia” was named for, who he loved, and who he mercilessly destroyed. what the fuck, man.

WAIT WAIT WAIT Gideon is in Harrow's body but Harrow didn't undo the necromantic brain surgery that made her body forget everything about Gideon. Harrow's body made Gideon forget everything about her own life and made it impossible for Gideon to think about herself and Gideon doesn't KNOW that's what happened and no one else does either bc Harrow wrote the letters in a code that only she could read. She physically can't remember anything about herself because Harrow set her brain up to delete all references to anything related to Gideon and Harrow's brain deleted Gideon from Gideon. NONA IS GIDEON HARROWBOD WITH AMNESIA

Is anyone else thinking after reading the latest nona except that The Blood of Eden are probably descendants of the trillionaires that left the earth. I hate that I’m starting to sympathise with John, I understand why he would continue to hate them and view them as the enemy. 10 thousand years tho…

I'm not sure about The Secret here, though I do have a guess

She told Hot Sauce the Secret.

Hot Sauce thought about it. She looked at Nona, and then she thought about it again. “There’s a clinic in town,” she said. “The Angel works there. Not always. Some evenings.”

[...]

Hot Sauce said: “Your problem. Talk to her.”

“It’s not going to help,” said Nona.

Hot Sauce flicked her nose thoughtfully. “There’s an organ market,” she said. “Sometimes they’re cheap.”

“No, no. Don’t worry, Hot Sauce. Please. And don’t tell the others my Secret,” added Nona in a hurry, alarmed.

I'll put my idea in the replies

CW for like, medical issues clearly

Gideon theory time

Okay, so I'm starting to think that Nona is Alecto (or potentially whoever else the soul in the Body is) Harrowbod (mostly because of the languages, but also because Pal mentioned eyes changing color due to some form of possession and not only due to lyctorhood).

Which means that Gideon's soul is currently unaccounted for. Hear me out for I have a theory.

Point A: The last thing we see from Gideon's perspective is her drowning in the River and waking up in a strange place with the Body looking at her and her being given a heart massage despite her shattered sternum. This could be:

1) Harrow's body surficing wherever she is and being resuscitated (her sternum shattered due to the pressure in the River) and the Body is either a hallucination or Alecto who proceeds to possess Harrow.

2) Gideon's body (her sternum shattered due to getting impaled) and the Body is a either a hallucination or Gideon seeing her coming for Harrow's body before she returns to her own.

3) Gideon's body after a timeskip being resuscitated by Nona (the Body seems to resemble Harrow + Harrow now has yellow eyes like the Body). I don't think this option is very likely because Gideon drowning and waking up seem to happen in quick succession, but this is the locked tomb we're talking about and stranger things have happened.

Point B: Toward the end of HtN, Abigail makes a big deal of unanchored souls wanting to return to their bodies if they're still operational. And since that doesn't seem to currently affect Harrow, it makes me think that it's foreshadowing for something.

Point C: In As Yet Unsent, we find out that Gideon's body is failing to rot, which suggests that it's still operational (and that if Harrow hadn't taken her soul, she would have just walked impalement off).

These three points put together make me lean toward option 2 being the most likely, which would mean that Gideon's soul has already returned to her body, which now resides in an unknown place (possibly with Judith and Corona, whereever they are).

I just know Nona is Harrowbod cause Ianthe gave Harrow fast growing hair and Nona got fast growing hair it’s the truth I’m calling it now

I'm pretty sure people from all the houses/solar system make pilgrimages to the Ninth House, so what if every language that Nona can understand was one spoken by children/teens who had lived on the Ninth and we're sacrificed for Harrows conception? That among those 200 souls to make Harrow a necromancer, there were enough kids who'd made pilgrimages from other planets, or their parents settled on the Ninth and birthed them there and had taught them whatever language they spoke on their previous homes? And like with Lyctorhood, whoever's at the helm of a body is supposed to be able to access the knowledge and skills of the soul(s) that power them, and all of the languages of the dead kids are just one of the things Nona can access from them.

(and Nona might be an amalgamation of all those dead kids+Gideon)

Ooh I wonder if the reason Gideon was such an asshole to Nona is because she, on some level, knew Alecto has possessed Harrow’s body and sees Alecto as a rival for Harrow’s affection. Gideon’s last scene in HtN was right after she had been pulled from the River and she sees Alecto standing over Harrow’s body. Gideon even says, “your bullshit dead girlfriend had come to claim you.” I wonder if Gideon remembers that the last thing she saw before dying was Alecto.

ok but where were the first lyctors’ cavaliers pre-resurrection 😤 if they were not also on the People Freezer 3000 research team i am suing muir for perpetuating jock/nerd stereotypes

So as far as I can tell 'the ninth' is typically a title for a cavalier, we get Camilla the sixth and Naberius the third and the classic, Gideon the ninth. And I wonder if that has something to do with how the title characters in each of the Locked Tomb books are positioned.

Gideon is a cavalier in Gideon the Ninth.

There's at least one line in Harrow the Ninth about how at times Harrow now feels more like a cavalier than a necromancer.

And I think one of the theories for what's up with Alecto is she's Jod's cavalier, right?

So something something, I'm curious to see if/how Nona gets set up as a cav in Nona the Ninth