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taylorrama · 6 months

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The Locked Tomb + mewithoutYou pt. 14/17

Lonesome offspring of which still resound With the victimless sins of their authors passed down And the remnants of loathsome, disjointed worlds

Song: August 6th Album: [untitled] e.p.

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Maybe it's the fact that August 6th of this year coincided with when I was reading Nona the Ninth, but this song was one of the reasons I started thinking about how mewithoutYou connected to The Locked Tomb. In my mind, this song is the trailer for Nona, even though much of the imagery is rooted in the real world. The main reason is that "August 6th" has this creeping quality to it, starting very quietly and progressing without much of a break until the end of the song. This makes me think of how, as a book, Nona unravels slowly yet has this ticking time bomb with the countdown to the tomb opening. "August 6th" builds up in a similar way.

Aug. 6th, carved in desks with old knives:

Right away, we're starting with an interesting TLT connection because I swear I remember a moment in Gideon the Ninth when they're in that one office/library part of Canaan House and they find artifacts that are very clearly pre-Resurrection and I feel like there was actually something carved into a desk with a knife. Plus, I think I remember a scene like this in Nona, but I might be making that up.

“Back when our common cause was alive And--let’s say--the hyacinth fields were in bloom Children watched as the soldiers marched by All the birds fell like frogs from the sky Prostrate in the streets every crescent moon

We're placed in this scene that, at least according to the Genius notes, is likely World War II, but some of the ideas and images also apply to TLT, specifically Nona the Ninth. Lines 3 and 4 in this segment fit the best–the kids in this book have seen soldiers tons of times, and near the end of the book, all kinds of weird shit falls from the sky.

Lonesome offspring of which still resound With the victimless sins of their authors passed down And the remnants of loathsome, disjointed worlds

These lines may be symbolic in the song on its own, but in a TLT context, they can be quite literal. "Lonesome offspring" could easily describe so many characters in this series, but in sticking with this song applying to Nona, the obvious reference is to Nona's school friends. "Victimless sins" is an interesting and intentionally contradictory image, since a sin must have a victim in order to be called a sin. That said, there are many ways in which we don't see victims in our actions, but they could still be sins anyway.

It seems that the authors of the lonesome offspring passed the victimless sins down to them, which in a TLT context works on so many levels if we take "victimless sins" to be the justification for the atrocities that make this universe function. The Ninth House children are victims of Harrow's existence, but her parents clearly didn't see them that way because they felt justified in using them to create her in the first place. Similarly, we could say that Jod had similar logic in nuking Earth. It's not a sin, not the wrong thing to do, if there are no victims–or rather, if he doesn't perceive that there are victims.

"The remnants of loathsome, disjointed worlds." I mean, is this not what the entire Resurrected universe is? Is this not also the planet Nona lives on? Does Harrow not induce and experience her own disjointed worlds in book 2?

Along the short path round the lily pad pond With off-white deerskin wedding dress on

Look, it's a wedding dress. Kiriona or Alecto, take your pick LOL.

The song begins to take on a sense of urgency as the dynamics increase and the lyrics paint more dramatic images.

And sometimes when it’s quiet my heart feels like Guernica [scenes from old air raid] on screens in blue dusk Perfumed neighborhoods/graveyards the breath feels like Flies in my lungs, voice like ambulance Sirens whose light floods the ground

The chaos of Nona the Ninth happens slowly and then all at once. These lines depict a "blue dusk," likely a bomb but also in Nona we have that blue light in the sky for much of the book. When Nona is on the verge of her third tantrum, and then in the midst of having it, I think disturbing images such as "flies in my lungs" and "voice like ambulance sirens" easily fit what she experiences.

Skyline shifting like clouds Became “airplane descends” [fade to scenes on the ground] Human foreheads all smashed Foreign cars upside down

These lines fit really well with the part of Nona the Ninth where the Empire invasion is happening. Shit's descending from the sky. Blood of Eden is resisting. People are trying to escape.

I stared down a huge insect Bright red-glowing eyes [does it feel wrong to say a thought “metastasized”?] Legs on both highway sides

Sometimes, mewithoutYou writes literary sci-fi. There's a giant insect, probably a praying mantis based on an earlier line I didn't include in this post. Though there isn't a giant insect that's part of the Empire's invasion near the end of Nona the Ninth, there is this huge force that's upturning an already desolate life on this planet. The last two lines in particular have some interesting TLT connections. The "thought 'metastasized'" is easily that entire section when Nona realizes that there's a thought above and a thought below and she has to stay in the middle or else bad things will happen.

After "legs on both highway sides," the song finally takes a proper pause, which to me feels similar to finally getting to the part of Nona when the tomb opens. But the song isn't quite done, telling us that

S a i d i n s e c t w a s m e c h a n i z e d ! ! ! ! ! ! (Said insect was mechanized!)

This cements the sci-fi angle pretty well, and though there aren't actually mechanized insects in TLT, there are plenty of other mechanical things. Emotionally, this part of the song feels like a huge revelation and that's obviously how we feel by the time we reach the end of Nona the Ninth.

--- TLT + mewithoutYou pt. 1; TLT + mewithoutYou pt. 2; TLT + mewithoutYou pt. 3; TLT + mewithoutYou pt. 4; TLT + mewithoutYou pt. 5; TLT + mewithoutYou pt. 6; TLT + mewithoutYou pt. 7; TLT + mewithoutYou pt. 8; TLT + mewithoutYou pt. 9; TLT + mewithoutYou pt. 10; TLT + mewithoutYou pt. 11; TLT + mewithoutYou pt. 12; TLT + mewithoutYou pt. 13; TLT + mewithoutYou pt. 15

#tlt #tlt spoilers #the locked tomb #the locked tomb spoilers #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #nona the ninth #mewithoutYou #said insect was mechanized #Youtube

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