“That’s where my heart used to be.”

crown prince kiriona gaia i will be thinking abt you for the rest of time...

bringing some of this out of previous tags, but something incoherent about the escalation of ‘dolls’ throughout the series, and the (obviously gendered) difference between ‘dolls’ and ‘puppets.’ including but not limited to:

john’s first forays into necromancy as puppeteering ‘Titania’ and ‘Ulysses,’ who are explicitly named as ‘extensions’ of john, which progress to the puppeteering of the world leader, which progresses to the apocalypse and john fashioning the parts of earth he doesn’t consume (alecto) a barbie-shaped vessel.  back in gideon the ninth, cytherea’s puppeting (explicitly called this, i believe) of protesilaus, to be contrasted with cytherea’s own doll-like position. both in her posturing as someone who needed to be carried, adjusted, coddled and in the broader uncanniness of pretending to be dulcinea septimus, of being a passable but undead ‘fake’ substitution of the living ‘real’ dulcinea.* all of the victorian energy also undeniably relevant. all of this progressing to cytherea’s body being a doll? a puppet? a weapon? for commander wake in harrow. the role she forced upon others and enacted being enacted on her own body in death.  rocking back up to nona, where images of dolls and puppets abound. though ianthe describes it as puppeting, naberius body is described, by others, in a way that’s much more suggestive of a barbie doll (“fashion hair” echoes the “hollywood hair barbie”). and naberius, furthermore, stands apart from the multitude of soldiers ianthe is also controlling from a distance. mixed with corona getting quite literally dolled up (hair refashioned, and ianthe’s fixation on the poor condition of corona’s hair, and put into a dress) once pulled back under ianthe’s control (to whatever degree we believe her to be). the doll as a particular extension of oneself, perhaps laced with intimacy? naberius as the conduit through which ianthe can (insufficiently) touch coronabeth; john’s romantic desire for annabel (and his occasional inability to sleep without her comforting him); even the fact that naberius becomes the vessel for palamedes and conduit through which he and camilla can become paul. (noting that camilla and palamedes sharing a body is framed outside of this language, possibly because camilla actively consents, for good or ill, to the process?)  (in dialogue with all of this, the way BOE encodes the lyctors as ancient weapons, and kiriona’s assertion that she is fulfilment of the nine house’s arts, stronger than titanium, faster than a speeding bullet: a weapon in the shape of a corpse, a prince, a girl. [to be a very dead weapon-body rather than a tragically alive one.] [also, as an aside, how her mother conceived of her: a bomb in the shape of a baby.] [also obviously related is that the out-of-house derogatory term for necromancers and cavaliers being, respectively, zombies and minions.])  i do not have a thesis statement, of course, but i think there is a clear development of a theme and some symbols and language that may be helpful to return to later or to unpick some of the various (and very gendered) ways agency is or is not present in necromancy.  * very known, but i think the fact that cytherea and dulcinea are both subjected to the same cancer-eugenics and arrive at a near indistinguishable state, that they are in some ways duplicates of each other, takes on a really compelling sheen in the wake of her comment that john, explicitly, is building a static society.  

Queer power dynamics, heteronormativity, and the subversion of the damsel in distress trope, as explored through my favorite queer fiction

Destin Karn and Evan Strangward from the Shattered Realms. Gideon Nav and Harrowhark Nonagesimus from the Locked Tomb. Tenjou Utena and Himemiya Anthy from Revolutionary Girl Utena. the main commonality between these three "couples" is i think complexity of queer relationships in terms of the protector/protected dynamic. Characters who want to be the protector (Destin, Gideon, Utena) despite the fact that they are not really and the people they are trying to protect (Evan, Harrow, Anthy) don’t need it in the way they’re giving it. it plays into a larger theme around the power dynamics of queer relationships that are complex to navigate. different than the gendered roles straight couples often fall into. These characters all start attempting at one dynamic but eventually realize that dynamic is not stable and will not bring them true happiness. More thoughts below.

so in each of these relationships there are a few things I see recurring. Each has a character who is more "wrong" or unconventional, has less actual power, and strives to be the protector of another character who is more powerful and "pure". All of these relationships also deconstruct that whole "purity" and "wrongness" binary throughout the narrative.

I think this binary is something that can stem partially from traditional fantasy heterosexual dynamics. The damsel in distress, the "pure" maiden and the man who rescues her. The construction of this binary also is in conversation with, or counter to, the broader narrative that queerness is "wrong" and "corrupting".

One Character's "Wrongness"

Destin believes internally that he is a monstrous person. He refers to himself as a sinner, his choices are sins no matter what he does. Externally, other characters also observe Destin as something alien. They remark on how he seems not to care for anything, and they are afraid of him and what he'll do. While many characters distrust each other, Destin is especially othered because of his position in the clandestine service and his demeanor. He is not conventional as a POV character or as a person in the Ardenine Court: this is because of a combination of his politeness, his refusal to show his true feelings, and his position as spymaster.

Gideon is first of all an unconventional cavalier. She does not have the same type of training as the others, and they can all tell this. Being from the Ninth makes her and Harrow both strange, but Harrow causes her to be estranged further when she's told to pretend to be taking a vow of silence. She is also strange in terms of who she is as a person, seeing as she's the daughter of God and Commander Wake. She is estranged on the Ninth House, she is estranged at Canaan House, she is even estranged in a different way when she becomes Kiriona, since there has never been a role for God's daughter to play before her.

Utena is very much looked down on by the teachers at Ohtori for her masculine uniform. Though she is adored by her classmates, she is definitely not like any of them. Her uniform, though it is called a boy's uniform, is different from anyone else, boys and girls. Even the student council, who have different uniforms, follow more of a pattern with each other while Utena's dark blue uniform stands out. She is a girl who wants to be a prince, which is abnormal and she's told that she will fail constantly.

The Other Character's "Purity" and Imprisonment

I need to think of a better word than purity - maybe holiness, maybe the worship or idolization of the other character? but yeah point stands and this is my post so.

There is a sense of Evan Strangward as a god-like figure. "Center of a stormborn cult" is how Evan refers to himself. He also can control the weather which is not a common ability in the Shattered Realms and so is seen as extremely powerful, maybe even godly. Yet he feels trapped by Celestine and by his own abilities. He's surrounded by people who literally want to drink his blood constantly.

Harrowhark is a literal saint. Beyond that she's also a Reverend Daughter, a leader of her own religious cult on the Ninth. She's very good at bone shit. But she, in Harrow the Ninth, is trapped by her mind and the surgery she does on herself. She's also trapped by God in her lyctorhood: she begs him to let her free, but he won't do it.

Anthy is the Rose Bride, and with her comes a promise of eternity for Utena and the other duelists. She has some shadowy amounts of power to manipulate things around her, as she does to mess with Nanami, Miki, Wakaba, and Mikage. Yet she is trapped within Ohtori by Akio and is trapped in her abusive relationship with him.

The Script is Flipped.

The dynamic portrayed in all of these relationships is a queer subversion of the typical damsel in distress fairytale. I've talked about how I think these characters fit into different roles as damsels in distress and their protectors, but now let's talk about subversion of this.

The main subversion present in these is the recognition of the autonomy of those "in distress" and the wrongness of the "protectors" being what gives them power.

This is least obvious in the Shattered Realms but bear with me here. Destin moves towards his goals throughout the series quite slowly at first. Towards the end of Deathcaster, however, he starts to lean into the fact that his actions are not ever going to be acceptable. He decides to become a traitor, to "commit his own sins". And then Destin, towards the end of Deathcaster, decides that he must be the one to go save Evan from Celestine. His last ditch effort amongst other failed efforts to save Evan from Celestine. And yet in the end Destin doesn't actually do anything. He is just there to comfort and to hold when the magemarked are finished destroying Celestine. He does not have to save Evan he's there to take him home and have a future with him. Their relationship does not have to be one of Destin saving Evan. It does not have to conform to conventional heterosexual relationship dynamics. Evan has the strength to destroy Celestine on his own or at least he has found the allies that have allowed him to have that strength. the important thing here is that love is not saving someone. Love is the future they have together when the situation is resolved and Evan has saved himself.

In Utena, Utena has the goal of saving Anthy for most of the show, because that is what will make her a prince. She does not really view Anthy as a person, rather Anthy is an object to be saved and a path to princehood. At the end of the show, Utena fails to save Anthy on her own, but Anthy is able to start to save herself. This continues in the movie where Anthy has much more autonomy and the two are eventually able to escape Ohtori for good, because Anthy has the strength to kill and dispose of Akio. (Bodily autonomy is also a major theme in Revolutionary Girl Utena, especially pertaining to abuse and how Akio takes advantage of Anthy's body both sexually and metaphorically through the swords. Utena does not know this but she does at first attempt to save Anthy from Saionji "owning" her. She realizes later that Anthy has given up on saving herself, but this changes through Utena's love for her, not Utena's savior-ness)

In The Locked Tomb, Gideon gives up her own life to save Harrow, but Harrow is not happy about this, does not want Gideon's sacrifice. She wanted Gideon to live. Bodily autonomy is a huge theme in The Locked Tomb as well. Gideon's soul is in Harrow's body, and Harrow wants to preserve it. She does not want the sacrifice Gideon gave her, she did not want to be saved. We don't know the ending of the Locked Tomb yet, so it's harder to connect all the dots here. But I can predict that if the ending involves Gideon and Harrow both living, it will involve a similar realization to that of the previous two pieces of media that I discussed.

In Conclusion... or, bringing it all together

All these characters are living under oppressive systems. Destin and Evan, the homophobia of Arden and the colonialist expansion of both Celestine's empire and Arden. Harrow and Gideon, the colonialist expansion of God and the Empire. Utena and Anthy, the transphobic and misogynistic systems of Akio and Ohtori. They all desire to break out of this system because of how these systems make their love impossible. Though we don't know about the end of The Locked Tomb, we do know the end of Utena and the Shattered Realms. Adolescence of Utena ends with the two kissing and driving into the real world, out of Ohtori and those oppressive systems through the power of being gay kissing girls and the power of Anthy realizing her own agency and saving herself, using Utena as a vehicle. Destin and Evan's story in the Shattered Realms ends with them kissing while Celestine's body burns in lava and then later making plans to leave Arden behind to live in Tarvos, a city that Evan has essentially built from the ground up to be an accepting place.

Queer love in these stories is the force that is able to subvert and break through oppressive systems, but only when the characters involved have the script flipped on them. Only when they realize that they as queer people are not meant to fit into heteronormative tropes. This is why queer assimilation is not the step forward many people think it is. The way to break free of oppressive systems of homophobia is to break free of the idea that we as gay people should fit into heteronormative ideals. We are different, we are othered. We should use that to our advantage. If one of us is being exalted, hailed as finally the "normal" one or as part of the system, that is something to be questioned and it is not something that will bring us happiness in the long run or futures as queer people.

Something I really liked sbout NtN was like, the casual Gender of it all. Pyrrha is a woman that Nona loves, a woman with strong muscular arms and a deep voice who shaves her face every day. Never once was it implied that there was anything... incongruous about it. (Of course, Nona never knew G1deon but she still could've wondered why she doesn't look like the many other women she knows)

The children call the Angel (who seems rather androgynous) "sir" not because they're confused by her presentation, but because its easier to call each teacher by different titles instead.

BOTH Kiriona and Ianthe use the title "Prince." Naturally it makes sense for the butch Kiriona, but Ianthe is very feminine and previously referred to as Princess. (Nona doesn't know this either, but its still A Choice on Muir's part)

Its subtle but noticeable. It shows this part of the world building without ever explicitly saying anything.

thoughts on nona the ninth chapter sixteen

this was a fucking chapter

okay so there's a bunch of stuff earlier on in it that i don't care to talk about because whatever

i was right that ianthe would be showing up, but that was obvious — it was easily the most interesting person it could be. they're being referred to as a Prince now, and they seem to have two eye colors — along with not really being gendered? we've clearly seen that lyctors can be in more funky arrangements than just "one is in control and the other is dormant" so maybe ianthe and naberius have come to more of an equilibrium?

their demands are a great way to get some plot movement despite nona's lack of awareness of things. stuff will progress within 24 hours.

Kiriona Gaia! again, a prince, though also a daughter. i guess we're just avoiding the word princess, but ianthe naberius's gender situation still seems like it might be more complicated right now. or it could just be nona not wanting to assume.

but anyway, that sure seems like Gideon's body! but the question is, who is inside? i mean, is the breakdown really as simple as, Gideon in Harrow's Body, and vice versa? i feel like it's gotta be more than that. but whatever is inside Gideon's body is allowed to act as Prince. god, i really wish i could see what their relationship with God is like. and I wonder how much God knows about what's going on inside there.

there's obviously been something going on with Angel for quite some time, but it really makes me wonder what, since like, it's not someone Camilla's group recognizes. there's definitely more fuel in the fire now. who is Angel's driver? it's careful about not giving us any direct clues. it's gonna be someone but i don't have a read on it.

and to top it all of, Pyrrha is missing.

wild chapter. i still need answers.

Crown Him With Many Crowns as Corona's new name honestly rattles so fast around my head it's mad. a) it's incredibly gender BUT the choice of song is just. So wild to me and has so many layers to explore.

Crown Him With Many Crowns the 1851 hymn obviously focuses very much on Christ as King, while also taking lines to explore his grief and pain as Christ the Martyr, which means it's incredibly John Gaius-coded through his own self-presentation and dashed with Gideon vibes through her presentation in the narrative... and both of those have me going mad thinking about them.

On the John Gaius front this is the least subtle song for him possible, even compared to most hymns of praise. The parade of titles- "lord of life/who triumphed o'er the grave", "lord of heaven", "lord of years" etc. are if anything more something he emulates than a reference to him, but for the reader it's more explicit than that - the theme of John subsuming the identities and loyalties of everyone around him has been key to the series so far, and the line "Hark! how the heavenly anthem drowns/All music but its own" reads as a crystallisation of that theme. For Corona, who grew up only knowing John as the real, original deal, there probably isn't the need for that additional confirmation - if she started reading through old Earth media and literature, she would read this and it would jump out at her as a song that reads like it's about the Kindly Prince, the King Across the River, etc etc.

I couldn't help wondering a) why she picked it and b)what the hell her new BoE pals thought of her picking a song with such House vibes, and I think the answer to the second is easy - this isn't a song about John. It's easy to think that biblical/religious references in tlt are for the sake of building the narrative, contributing to characterisation, and sprinkling in foreshadowing, but in-universe this is still a real song, and it's about God not Jod. To BoE she's saying "look, I know who my former god stole all his imagery from" - it's a rejection of her old allegiance. For Corona, though, I think it might go a bit deeper. I don't think there's any chance she grew up unexposed to heresy as a naive believer with Ianthe trying to obtain godhood on the other side of the bed; to her this can't represent some recent conversion. I honestly think it might just be "Corona=Crown", as simple as that, her clinging to as much of her past identity as possible while still fooling BoE (and Judith!) into thinking she's wholly with them, for her protection and for Judith's sake too. Assuming a false identity to survive is, after all, the story of her whole life.

On Gideon... well, you aren't going to get many songs about Jesus as a martyr without getting Gideon vibes, but in particular "Who every grief hath known/That wrings the human breast" makes this song look deliberately chosen to correspond to the saddest girl in the whole entire world, Kiriona Gaia. Do I have a fun interesting take on what this means? No, but if Gideon ends up becoming a new god in Alecto no one will be surprised.

ok i literally have to do my greek homework but im letting myself melt and post for a bit first. really really interested in the way naming works in nona with respect to consent and identity formation... this is VERY much just nebulous threads and not a fully developed thought, but:

major spoilers for all of nona

nona's name arising out of her negation/"no, no" (h/t @mercyisms by way of @gothicenjoyer telling me about it lol, extremely good point)

coronabeth's boe naming-renaming

kiriona being the māori form of gideon; john gaius being the one to (forcibly?) rename her, supplanting her european, biblical name with an indigenous one

prince ianthe naberius - which lyctoral naming scheme is adopted, and by whom

paul

the Angel (a Messenger, i.e. angelos); the angel's name as a message (and the way this intersects with angel's gendered experience in various contexts)

the way nona (person not book) interacts with names, language, and truth: the way blood of eden naming schemes are structured making us as readers more comfortable with "unusual" multi-part and multi-'word' names, followed by nona's calling born in the morning "born in the morning" and being corrected to whatever (presumably foreign/other-language) word hot sauce hears (presumably born in the morning's name is a NAME, whereas nona hears its meaning). so here also the overlap between language, culture... why is camilla's name camilla and not acolyte?

the extent to which names are object categories rather than discrete communications of information;

how this relates to gendered experience (cf. prince, angel as sir, nona's seeming confusion with others' confusion of pyrrha's gender and similar)

john renaming/refusing to deadname (ha) ulysses and titania

john refusing to directly name his lyctors in the dream

john consuming and renaming alecto-annabel

john naming himself necromancer

anyway like i said i fully don't have time to post about this i have to cram greek COMMA HOWEVER!!!!

is there cool stuff with gender? yes. is this the name feminine? no that’s literally just gideon in maori

thanks! that's my bad for making posts on only 3 hours of sleep and 7 hours of nona, so I edited the post. i will say I did mention her full name, Kiriona Gaia v.s. Gideon Nav, and Gaia is definitely a more feminine second name than Nav, which does (did? idk im totally in love with her now) contribute to my like, initial gut reaction of conflicted feelings I mentioned in the original post. I don't know what to make of it exactly but did discuss briefly here.

considering how intentional tamsyn muir is being about the genderfuckery in her books it was all definitely. intentional? like changing her solidly masculine-named butch lesbian to have a name with feminine components (Gaia) (but making her a prince) was definitely idk a choice that was thought about and that i am interested in reading someone else's analysis of. this is as far as I get honestly. i dropped out of a gender studies program and because i realized i was way better at rotating gender around in my brain than reading/writing theory/essays, so this is definitely like, not really in my wheelhouse lmao.

also. grats to ianthe n kiriona on the gender. being princes n all

Disjointed Nona thoughts under the cut because I just read it and desire to Speak About It

Fuckin.... wow

Pyrrha Dve is insane and I love her so much. 

Everything about Gideon/Kiriona made me unspeakably sad, its like... Gideon but not her at all, yanno? Like, there was no warmth behind any of the jokes she made and it just made her feel so bitter and lifeless and hollow. Great writing but so sad. 

Like I would pay a million dollars for a snapshot of her perspective when Nona kissed her. Also Tamsyn Muir owes me a million dollars for emotional damages for having fucking SLEEPING BEAUTY happen in the middle of all this craziness I s2g. So really the million dollars evens out.  Also everyone who ever gave a hot goddamn about palamedes/dulcinea owes me $20 because like lbr here how much love can you have for some lady you’ve never met vs. the person youve grown up with and depended on I mean come on people

Everything about Nona, but the fact that she has pica somehow gave me the most feelings. Her pretending to be Harrow was so incredibly hilarious and I am the first one in my household to read it so I can’t share with anyone how funny that was. 

Also speaking of palamedes and cam, this book really twists the knife wrt how fucking tragic gideon and harrow’s story is. Like, they are wedged so deep into an impossible middle ground, somewhere between the original Lyctors who did it super wrong and Paul who mostly(?) figured it out but just. The limbo they’re stuck in is ugh. 

The fact that Gideon even though she’s a hollow version of herself sTiLl was like “where’s harrow” @ nona I fucking cannot. 

Whoever called the fact that there would be a skeleton war joke, I salute thee

And speaking of the skeleton war, did anyone else really find Jod scarily relatable? Like he’s detestable obvs but in the exact same way I think any person is capable of being. In his situation I can’t say for sure I’d do anything differently, which is a very compelling thing for a very detestable character. 

Interesting how this book makes it preeeetty clear how immediately every single Lyctor was plotting against Jod. Like, the Sixth one whose name I don’t remember had it early, Anastasia clearly was doing something hella early, Pyrrha was hiding out... so many of them had their foot out the door its almost the literal opposite of the Jesus/disciples narrative. 

I also love how much and how little we really understand about the resurrection beasts. What the hell was one doing channeling Judith? I guessed in Harrow that they represented the nine planets, so I’m guessing that Nona/Alecto can understand them because she’s also a planet?

Speaking of all the “/”es going on there’s a fascinating undercurrent of like what the hell is gender in this whole book. Like... Paul but also Prince Ianthe Naberius and Prince Kiriona and Nona struggling with they/them for Aim and Coronabeth struggling with she/her for Pyrrha. I guess it goes hand in hand with the questions of identity and souls and body that is pretty central to the whole series

A friend asked if I liked the book cause I borrowed her copy and I don’t know if ‘like’ is the right word but like intensely compelling, enjoyable to read, I will be thinking about this for days so????????