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nonas-third-tantrum · 1 year

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I’m trying to figure out when exactly Pyrrha realized that Nona was Alecto. I had been thinking that it was after Kiriona woke up, because at that point Pyrrha would have understood that Nona’s eyes came from Alecto, not Gideon, but I think it may have actually been a bit earlier…

After the fight between Ianthe and Cam, when Pyrrha and Nona go off to find the corpse, Nona tells Pyrrha that she’s dying, and Pyrrha says, “‘Course you are…the soul longs for the body, Nona. Even a fucked up soul…even a soul that’s been changed forever. It takes a lot to acclimate a soul to a body it wasn’t born in, if that original body’s around for it to miss.”

Now, she could still be talking about Gideon. BUT something about the way she phrases this, with the “fucked up soul that’s been changed forever” …feel free to disagree but to me that sounds a heck of a lot like Alecto. I think it’s possible that Pyrrha has even worked out Alecto’s true nature, so when she refers to the ‘original body’ she could be talking about the planet earth itself.

Pyrrha goes on to say, “Kiddie, when you were yelling…” but she trails off and doesn’t get to finish her sentence. We know that Nona “screamed like the captain had screamed.” We also know that when the captain screams, Nona hears her speaking in varun’s voice, and it’s interesting that Pyrrha describes it as yelling, not screaming, which to mean indicates that Nona may have said something. Something that alerts Pyrrha to the fact that Nona is not who they’ve all been thinking she is.

Yes - Pyrrha does say within the next couple of pages that Gideon’s body “might be you, kiddie.” But I don’t think that necessarily means she doesn’t at least suspect that Nona is someone else. I know the rest of that scene heavily implies that Pyrrha still thinks Nona is Gideon…but I’m suspicious. I think what she wants to believe and what she knows to be true might not match up.

This post is getting away from me but I just have to add that after the roof incident, both Nona and Pyrrha know who she is, and Nona is desperate to keep herself in the dark. Pyrrha starts to call Nona “A…” but Nona stops her and begs her not to make her remember. And then Nona slips into her Alecto self, and mocks Pyrrha for playing house with her (hello, more doll references), and that must absolutely break Pyrrha’s heart, but she lets it go.

So when Pyrrha finally says her “what’s like except a love that hasn’t been invited indoors?” speech, she’s reckoning with her feelings towards both Nona and Alecto, has probably been wrestling with those feelings for a while, and it’s just. So devastating. Pyrrha loved Nona. Nona loved and was loved by Palamedes, Camilla, and Pyrrha.

But Alecto? Nona is terrified that when she realizes who she is, she won’t love anything. We know that John loved Alecto, and I think we can infer that Anastasia did too, and Alecto loved them back. But then Pyrrha tells us that she and Gideon liked Alecto, and for some reason that feels even more significant to me—maybe because there are all kinds of twisted love in these books and to like someone, while less intense, is more…mundane. There aren’t a lot of instances in these books where people just like each other, plain and simple. And I think that the love everyone has for Nona is a lot less complicated than the other types of love we’re shown. Truly a like that’s been invited indoors.

#does this make any sense #I just really need to know more about everyone’s relationship with alecto #don’t even get me started on ‘love is a revenant’#pyrrha dve please tell me what’s going on with you in this book #what does she know??#pyrrha dve #nona the ninth #nona the ninth spoilers #ntn spoilers #alecto the ninth #the locked tomb #tlt #tlt analysis #tlt meta

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paradoxcase · 7 months

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@turtletotem:

I actually don't think the exact nature of The Whole Alfred-and-Cristabel Thing is ever spelled out in the book. Smarter fans than me pieced it together, and once you know, a lot of things become a lot more clear. But don't feel bad if you need to have it spelled out to you in the end, because I sure did.

Well, I certainly don't have much of an idea right now, so I'll look forward to an explanation later if the actual books don't fill me in well enough

@wellhappybirthdaytomeiguess:

My favorite part in this chapter is the slowly growing horror on the part of Harrow and disgust on the part of Ianthe. Harrow ‘briefly contemplating atheism’ made me laugh way more than it should have…

Oh, yeah, I probably should have read that with a bit more weight to it than I did considering how strongly religious she is

Well, to be fair, Ianthe is only 22, and seems to be the type to think that anyone over 30 is too old to be worth anything.

That's fair, I could see her having that opinion

When it comes to Gideon the First, he IS using necromantic power. It’s how he drains all the thanergy from Harrow’s constructs. He just prefers to be a hands on type, and he seems to be the most physical of the Lyctors. And he and Pyrrha she establish the Second House. But good and interesting thinking on that duo!

That's true, the founders of the Second House would naturally be more physical/martial than the others, even the necromancers, but it's still pretty funny to me how little Mercy seems to align with the current focus of her House, so I'm not necessarily expecting all of the founding Lyctors to play to trope. But I think there is something going on with him

@eye-lantern:

I am very much not aroace but I gotta admit God fucking his Lyctors still took me by surprise. I knew they were being sexual between Lyctors but John had a responsibility and status that could have prevented this, but considering who he is, as soon as the shock passed I felt like of course he would.

I'm glad it's not just me! Honestly, I have very little idea of what is considered a normal/expected amount of sexuality, I think, I do actually add romantic and sexual drama to my sims neighborhood, but when I do that it winds up being wild chaos with everyone dating everyone else and/or large groups of people winding up in complicated poly relationships and I know that's not realistic but I don't know where the line is, really

@wandering-minx:

Small note that doesn't really matter, it was Cytherea that suggested the weeny construct as a way to bypass the siphoning challange.

Oh, you're right! I must have misremembered because of Harrow's line about not having worked with something as small as the key Palamedes got her to make during that other scene

#the locked tomb #harrow the ninth #turtletotem #wellhappybirthdaytomeiguess #eye-lantern #wandering-minx

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taylorrama · 7 months

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The Locked Tomb + mewithoutYou pt. 12/17

The sky, I'd been told Would roll up like a scroll As the mountains and islands moved from their place And the sun would turn black As a dead raven's back But there'd be nowhere hide From the Judge's face

Song: Rainbow Signs Album: Pale Horses

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This is our last stop in Pale Horses and the final song on this album. There are bonus songs and an entire EP from this era, but I haven't listened to them enough to find any TLT connections.

Musically and lyrically, we have a reprise of "Pale Horses," but it's not exactly the same as it was in the album opener, which makes perfect sense. In "Pale Horses," the apocalypse is about to start. In "Rainbow Signs," it reaches its grand finale.

So, if "Pale Horses" could be trailer music for season 1 of a TLT adaptation covering Gideon the Ninth, "Rainbow Signs" is the trailer music for the final season covering Alecto the Ninth. But that book isn't out yet so it's only a prediction, but a fairly accurate one, I think, as we'll see later on in the song.

Pale horse songs of a slow decline Sideshow words if the songs don't mind G-d gave Noah the rainbow sign No more water, is the H-Bomb next time?

The first two lines are the same as in "Pale Horses," but these second two lines give us a variation–an allusion to the Biblical story of Noah where the rainbow symbolizes God's promise to not flood the Earth again and kill everyone. In the understanding that most people have of this story, the rainbow is the nice, happy ending full of confidence that the world won't be destroyed again. But here, the suggestion is that, sure, God may have promised not to flood the world again, but what about a bomb?

Why not nuke everyone and start over, Jod?

So if we take these lines a bit out of their context and pretend that there is a direct TLT connection, then who is God? Who is Noah? And what is the rainbow sign?

In an obvious reading, God could be Jod, Noah perhaps Gideon the First or someone else in his inner circle, and the rainbow sign perhaps some aspect of necromantic powers that convey to the masses a hopeful miracle. But because the last line says, "the H-Bomb next time?" that invites a reading that God is someone/something else that initially gave John his necromancy. Unless I missed something in Nona the Ninth, which I probably did, there isn't a clear explanation of where John got his powers to begin with. This would then make John Noah, the recipient of the rainbow sign (necromancy, or put more nicely, life after death). Then, this question of "the H-bomb next time?" has an answer. Yes. The H-bomb.

Pale horse vows in a grave (I-do-yes-definitely) reply Smile for the camera at a 'church' nearby Threw a mute curse at the Boise sky For my fucked up Napoleon-of-St.-Helena-hairline

These lines ground themselves more in recurring themes throughout the album and personal details of lyricist Aaron Weiss (he started living in Idaho by the time the band was working on this album and he hates his hairline). But there are some general ideas we can connect to The Locked Tomb.

We once again have wedding imagery with vows, a church, and concern for appearances. "Grave" of course adds a dark tone to this scene which matches TLT quite well. And this idea of smiling for the camera implies putting on a performance, hiding the real truth of the situation. That can be applied to all sorts of moments and ideas in TLT, but perhaps most closely to the appearances Camilla, Palamades, and Pyrrha craft for Nona.

The fucked up hairline part is kinda funny in the song and really funny if you pretend it's Harrow talking about her own hair.

The last two parts of this section that expound on the black horse, then the pale horse, continue this sense of unraveling of faith and of expectations for how life plays out. We go from hearing that God gives Noah a rainbow sign to hearing that "Cloud" gives "no one" a rainbow sign, which in TLT easily fits with the aftermath of a nuke and some guy named John becoming God.

The music, which has been steady and calm this entire time, shifts into this slow, almost suspended section where Aaron quietly recites prayers in Hebrew and Arabic. This repeats in several cycles, the music slowly grinds to a halt.

And then the tomb opens, or the bomb drops.

(What I mean is, the song hits and hits hard).

With imperial crowns we were 'sent,' Riding out conquest-bent Daylight is breaking Wielding the sanctified sword For the army of the Scarecrow Lord Daylight is breaking Balancing scales at our feet Measuring out two pounds of barley, six pounds of buckwheat

Much of the imagery in this part alludes to Revelation, which is the entire vibe of the last few chapters of Nona the Ninth, in particular, the last chapter written from Alecto's old timey Biblical POV. In a TLT context, the first two lines can easily refer to John and the Lyctors killing Resurrection beasts and colonizing other planets for their empire. This gives John a new, interesting name: Scarecrow Lord. A scarecrow is a fake person that may look huge and terrifying from a distance, but up close it's just some straw.

Beasts of the Battersea Shield At the opening of the fourth seal The sky, I'd been told Would roll up like a scroll As the mountains and islands moved from their place And the sun would turn black As a dead raven's back But there'd be nowhere hide From the Judge's face After which message-less birds take flight without cause To the silence they've heard in the absence of laws Or imperial crowns: Unsent, unsigned--

More Revelation imagery that to me are the strongest matches in this song to the tomb opening and Alecto being returned to her body. I think there's a good chance that Alecto the Ninth's tone will in many cases match the tone of this part of the song: apocalyptic and terrifying with no escape from judgement or wrath. Yet because Nona exists, part of me wonders and hopes that we'll also get something beyond anger and wrath.

The song returns to the quiet it had before this breakdown section, and all the lyrics are very person to Aaron Weiss to the point where only he knows the real meaning behind it because it's based on an inside joke he had with his father that he's chosen not to explain to anyone else. Having seen a couple live performances of this song, I do remember how pained Aaron appeared singing these lines. I have a friend who would never sing this part at shows and instead stay quiet to watch/listen to Aaron because he felt it was disrespectful to Aaron's grief that he can't possibly share since Aaron has chosen to keep the meaning of these lines so private. A lot of this album is Aaron processing the death of his father, so due to those highly personal reasons, I'm not connecting anything in this final part of the album's final song to The Locked Tomb. Not to mention that I don't really see much there to connect anyway.

The next post will start looking at mewithoutYou's final album, an EP/LP release that to me seems like the shattered pieces that remain after this apocalypse of "Rainbow Signs."

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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

#the locked tomb #the locked tomb spoilers #tlt #tlt spoilers #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #nona the ninth #mewithoutyou

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