#gideon the ninth

So with the Nona cover reveal on Thursday (so excited! What does she look like?) I’ve been thinking about the Locked Tomb. So perfect lyctorhood, theoretically, allows both necromancer and cavalier to survive, while still gaining lyctoral abilities. And if Jod is the norm for perfect lyctorhood, the lyctoral abilities are far beyond imperfect lyctors. But lyctorhood isn’t just getting a boost in the necromantic department. You also gain your cavalier’s skills, hence why cavaliers use rapiers, so the lyctor can lift a weapon with their wimpy necro arms. In a perfect lyctorhood, the cavalier probably gains necromantic abilities as well.

So, my theory. John Gaius is not a necromancer. He was Alecto’s cavalier. We already know they were the first necro-cav pair, but I think we’ve got who was the necromancer and who was the cavalier wrong. The story I’ve got in my head is that John is the only normal human to survive whatever wiped out the Earth. You can say Alecto was already there and somehow changed by the Earth’s destruction, but I think a better explanation is that she was created from whatever happened. We know from Harrow that large thanergy bursts at the time of conception create powerful necromancers, and the death of the ten billion would have created a lot of thanergy. So born from that thanergy burst, Alecto is the first necromancer. If John is responsible for the world ending, this would be why he says he created her, and calls her “My Adam” (I.e. Frankenstein‘s Monster).

Now Alecto’s a powerful necromancer, but even she can’t preform the resurrection alone. So she and John figure out perfect lyctorhood, to increase her power and give him the same power. So they do, and that’s great. They preform the resurrection as a team, and recruit some of John’s personal friends and their loved ones to become their disciples. (John mentions he knew Augustine before the Resurrection, so I’m assuming he knew all of them.) But Cristabel and Alfred are too hasty. They think lyctorhood requires a sacrifice to work. So they kill themselves to allow Augustine and Mercymorn to ascend. John doesn’t wanna say they were wrong and make their deaths pointless, so sacrificial lyctorhood becomes the norm.

Now Alecto’s not human in this theory. She’s a byproduct of the death of the ten billion. So she disturbs the other lyctors. John’s afraid of them discovering perfect lyctorhood, and also likes that power and doesn’t wanna share with Alecto, so into the tomb she goes. She was buried with the cavalier sword to sell the lie that she was John’s cavalier. Then the second generation of lyctors show up. What’s important is this theory is Anastasia and Samael. Anastasia and Samael figure out perfect lyctorhood, but don’t know John is a perfect lyctor. So they’re like “Hey God, we may have discovered a new method for lyctorhood. Wanna observe the process?” And John’s like “Yes, I would like to see that. (You can never know about that cause my empire would fall apart and if other people knew about perfect lyctorhood I wouldn’t be God-Emperor of Everything anymore)” Anastasia and Samael actually get the process right, but John kills Samael mid process, and claims they didn’t get it right. Anastasia is sent to the tomb, where she can do no harm.

Where’s my evidence? Well, first of all, we know John’s original eyes are uncommon, but not anything mystical, just a lipochrome mutation. However, nobody’s got eyes like Alecto. The white on black look with solid sclera? That’s magic baby! Also, necromancers are born with their abilities. Necromancy didn’t exist before the world ended. And why would you fear your partner so much unless your abilities that make you so special were stolen from her? Why can God defeat Alecto once, but never again? Because she knows his game now, and is equal in power. Anyway, there’s the theory, feel free to help me workshop it.

I’m so sorry for anyone who followed me for Not-Locked -Tomb content, but I keep having thoughts. So Mercymorn and Augustine call their plans Dios Apate Major (seducing John to conceive Gideon) and Dios Apate Minor (seducing John so Harrow can kill Gideon Prime.) These are very thematically appropriate names. Dios Apate refers to an event in the Iliad where Hera seduces Zeus to give an advantage to Greece in the Trojan War. So, plans that involve sex in order to accomplish a larger goal. My thought is, how the fuck do they know what Dios Apate is?

In the final showdown, John makes reference to the fact that pre-resurrection Augustine would have killed post-resurrection Augustine for saying that they don’t have to fight the Blood of Eden, and no one needs to pay for Earth dying. So they don’t remember anything pre-resurrection. So like, did John sit them down and read the Illiad? Did he just have story time in Canaan House so he could make literary references and have people get it?

Ok, since I’m now a locked tomb blog kinda now, and I Have Thoughts, I’m gonna share them with you. What would happen if Cytherea hadn’t shown up? I don’t mean like “everyone has happy fun times and works on necromancy together!” First of all, Silas Octikiseron is there, and he always gonna be No Fun. A non-Cytherea Canaan House would still be full of petty sniping at each other. What I’m saying is, the necromancers of Canaan house are some of the most brilliant to have ever existed.

We’ve got Ianthe , Abigail , Palamedes, and Harrow, who could all make claim to being the best in their respective fields. You honestly think these four couldn’t figure out perfect lyctorhood together? Hell, in canon Palamedes figured out Something that allowed Cam to both survive and get his eyes, and they had this planned out before his suicide attack on Cytherea. Ianthe figured out imperfect lyctorhood without any help, Cytherea killed Abigail first explicitly because her spirit medium abilities and knowledge of history could figure out who Cytherea was! And then Harrow, who managed to preform the lyctoral process while being attacked by a much older lyctor! If we get into Harrow the Ninth, she’s one of two people in canon who can manage theorems in The River! You honestly wanna tell me if they put their heads together, they couldn’t figure it out?

So my idea is that the Necromantic Dream Team over here figures out perfect lyctorhood, thinks “Oh yeah, this is probably how we do it.“ Then everybody who wants to be a lyctor becomes one, cavaliers intact, and they send a call to God like, ”Ok everybody’s done”. Could you imagine? Everybody just walking on the ship with their cavaliers like it was nothing? I can’t decide if it would be funny or absolutely heartbreaking. Funny from an outsider’s perspective, but Augustine and Mercy and maybe Gideon the First would just break. Pyrrha, Cristabel, and Alfred‘s sacrifice meant nothing, and these children figured out what they couldn’t! The angst potential here!

Thank you everyone who’s left interesting, lovely notes in my inbox, and I really hope I can respond to them all; I am currently only allowed short bursts of goofing off in a day and I am ashamed to say that I mainly spend them losing my life to the sea ice challenge in Rimworld.Here’s a wonderful question from @sensenoi about the book that I will put under a read-more due to spoilers –

What a lovely thing to say; thank you, everyone in my inbox is so great.

Let’s say everything had gone according to the Emperor’s plan and Cytherea hadn’t interfered

I will try not to be aggravating and expound loads on “WELL THIS IS WHAT I THINK” because death of the author etc etc who’s to say what’s canon, but this is very funny because I accidentally had this conversation with my editor just the other day. Fragment:

what follows instead is a years-long detailed refurbishment of Canaan House found families etc quiet slice-of-life slow burn romance between various people, only to end in tragedy when they all get botulism from a bad clam, and die

(I don’t think you can even get botulism from fresh clams, so this is even more tragic)

(my editor immediately speculated on what kind of new murders would take place; wow, I was only trying to give some gentle slice-of-life botulism)

In that particular exact scenario (lack of Cytherea, all else the same), which I cannot actually expound fully upon because there are facts from Harrow the Ninth which may prove useful here, I will give this answer on the understanding that I am not saying everything –

WHO WOULD HAVE STILL DONE IT

• Ianthe

WHO WOULD HAVE CHICKENED OUT

• Everyone else

SEABOUND! A LOCKED TOMB UNIVERSE SURVIVAL ADVENTURE AND HOUSE IDENTIFICATION TOOL

You and a couple of your friends, if you have any, are on a boat in the ocean. Why are you here? Is this even relevant in the universe? Who cares. This ocean’s purpose is to help you pick… your true House identity.

Luckily, on this magical survival journey you have the opportunity to pick items to help you. You may salvage five items of the fifteen I am about to list under the cut. These items will be the key to who you are, secretly, on the inside. You’re probably going to die, but at least you will know who you are, which has to be some kind of comfort, right

These items will score you points with one or more Houses. Once you have made your selection, read the guide, tally your points, and discover… Yourself!!!!

PICK YOUR TOP FIVE OUT OF…

• A sack  of mandibles
• A sack  of fresh human hands
  
• A  rolled-up flag of the Cohort, soldiers of the blessed Necrolord Prime
  
• Pen and  flimsy
  
• A bottle  of 160 proof rum   
• A  waterproof portrait of the Emperor, here portrayed as the Merciful Resurrector
• An empty  bottle with a lid to seal it
• An ancient flare gun of curious make
  
• A book  of antiquated Ninth House prayers
  
• A 25 litre container of BLOOD
  
• A single  sharp rapier
  
• A  shaving mirror
  
• A case  of absolutely disgusting army rations, hard and bad
  
• A case  of extremely glamorous luxe rations, but poisoned
  
• A  tinier, leakier fold-out raft, with a dubious motor
  

What’s that, you want it in image format??? 

WRITE YOUR TOP FIVE DOWN………..

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

It may be helpful to organise a tally sheet, like so…..

Don’t scroll down until you have made your choices…

No peeking past this point….

I mean it…………..

DO NOT LOOK BELOW UNTIL YOU HAVE SETTLED YOUR CHOICES, UNLESS YOU ARE A HUGE CHEATER, IN WHICH CASE GIVE YOURSELF AN EXTRA +10 THIRD HOUSE POINTS

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ITEM GUIDE

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A SACK OF OLD OSSICLES

+15 Ninth House points

Only a Ninth House necromancer would want this. Not even a bone necromancer would look in joy on a sack of ossicles. If it was a more useful bone or even a fresher bone, sure, or let’s say a whole skeleton, that would be arguably useful, but in the hands of most bone adepts the ossicle is simply an ossicle. You’re from the Ninth House if you ranked this highly, which means odds are good that you are 90+ and have kidney and bladder problems.

A SACK OF FRESH HUMAN HANDS

+10 Third House points
+7 Seventh House points
+6 Second House points
+5 Third House points
+5 Fourth House points
+5 Fifth House points
+5 Sixth House points
+5 Ninth House points

Fresh human hands are generally useful. Fresh flesh (say that five times fast) will carry a goodly amount of thanergy (death energy) andthalergy (life energy), which in the hands of a necromancer might be put to good purpose. Extra points to the Third and Seventh houses, places where you’re likely to find very talented flesh magicians; five points to the other houses as flesh magic is quite generally used, and if not, there’s a whole articulating hand in there for the bone magicians. The Ninth House don’t rate this quite as highly as the sack of ossicles because you have to get the flesh off first. The Eighth House does not want your sack of fresh human hands.

The Second House gets an extra point because we could always eat those hands. We’ve eaten worse.

A ROLLED-UP FLAG OF THE COHORT, SOLDIERS OF THE BLESSED NECROLORD PRIME

+15 Second House points
+5 Seventh House points
+1 point for every other House

Only a Second House denizen would think this was a must-have. It doesn’t even have a pole. You can’t fly it. You can just look at it and think patriotic thoughts about the Cohort. The only reason you get +1 from any other House is because you could maybe use it as shade. The Seventh House scores a cool five points off this one because it would be a very Seventh House thought to be found dead and draped in the Cohort flag. Symbolic… aesthetic…. Raw

PEN AND FLIMSY

+15 Sixth House points
+10 Fifth House points
+10 Seventh House points
+10 Eighth House points

Reaching for the pen and flimsy first is a very Sixth House thing to do, because you’re going to immediately try to form a committee, have a huge argument, split off on your own and do some kind of brainstorm of ideas, then maybe you’re going to write down a bunch of bullshit equations and jot notes on the back about ways in which this might contribute to your research. The Fifth House also may well reach for this, but it’s to write down everyone on the boat’s memoirs, and perhaps a group letter expressing regret at what a bish they’ve made of it and perhaps a small measure of buttoned-up, restrained feeling for their lovers back home.

The Seventh House have written a single, very beautiful and oblique sentence about the water. The Eighth House have written down a list of any moral crimes committed on the boat.

A BOTTLE OF 160 PROOF RUM

+15 Third House points
+5 Fourth House points
+1 Second House points

CUP OF ACE, CUP OF GOOSE, CUP OF CRIS

The good Third House citizen has resigned themselves to death, but to not go gentle into that good night. The Fourth House thinks they could light this on fire, or something? Who knows

The Second House citizen will surprise you by doing a generous shot of this before everyone starts playing Mercy Stab The Weakest Members Of The Boat So They Won’t Have To Suffer.

A WATERPROOF PORTRAIT OF THE EMPEROR

+15 Eighth House points
+5 Seventh House points
+5 Ninth House points

The Eighth House citizen will pray at this grimly until they die. The Ninth House citizen will also do a certain amount of praying at this grimly until they die, but get less points because they’ll also be praying to other things.

The Seventh House citizen may hope to drape the Cohort flag over one of their dead bodies, and this to be held by another, and then they’ve got a tableau so symbolic that their rescuers will set it up as an art installation.

AN EMPTY BOTTLE WITH A LID TO SEAL IT

+9 Sixth House points
+9 Fifth House points
+9 Eighth House points

There’s no water around, so what are you going to do with this EXCEPT use it to put your rolled-up memoirs, thought crimes, or the useful rebuttal to that one article you just thought up and hope someone will rescue and publish?

AN ANTIQUE FLARE GUN OF CURIOUS MAKE

+15 Fourth House points
+5 Fifth House points
+5 Sixth House points

This thing will blow your head off. It’s a gun. Don’t – don’t fucking fire it here (NOISE OF BODY PARTS HITTING WATER)

It is intensely Fourth House to take an unbelievably dangerous piece of kit you barely understand and bravely fire it in the hope of getting rescued. It is also intensely Fifth and Sixth house just to keep a museum piece around so you can look at it and admire it. How interesting our antecedents were, to be sure

A BOOK OF ANTIQUATED NINTH HOUSE PRAYERS

+15 Ninth House points
+5 Sixth House points
+5 Seventh House points
+1 Fifth House points

‘Nuff said.

The other points reflects different desperations in the Sixth and Fifth houses are for reading material, and the Seventh House might add this to the tableau as an Enigma.

A TWENTY-FIVE LITRE CONTAINER OF BLOOD!!!!

+9 Fifth House points

Nobody wants this and very few people are talented enough to separate the toxic iron stew from some drinkable plasma, or something. The Fifth House in its boundless optimism may take this thinking they might call a ghost, but otherwise, yuk

A SINGLE SHARP RAPIER

+10 Second House points
+9 Fourth House points
+9 Seventh House points
+2 Third House points

The Second House knows that the death of a colleague neatly stabbing you is better than a death by drowning. The Fourth House is going to fuck up an octopus. The Seventh House is going to have it present, centrally, on the boat, and cast down glances through their eyelashes at it but otherwise never mention its presence, tortured. The Third House just wants a sword for the delicious drama. Delicious, delicious drama

A SHAVING MIRROR

+6 Fourth House points
+2 Third House points

A mirror can reflect the sun, generating up to seven million candlepower in light. A mirror would be a very Fourth House idea: something that sounds unrealistic and stupid on first blush, but turns out to be a one in a million incredible idea that may even save your life.

The Third House just want to check their mascara, and also see over their shoulder before one of their boat colleagues sticks the single sharp rapier inside them. Drama

A CASE OF ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING ARMY RATIONS, HARD AND BAD

+9 Second House points
+1 to every other House

We can’t fault you for practicality.

A CASE OF EXTREMELY GLAMOROUS LUXE RATIONS, BUT POISONED

+8 Third House points
+5 Eighth House points

Fuck this noise and pass me the caviar, darling

The Eighth House are also ready to receive the poison, but they will try their damndest not to enjoy it.

A TINIER, LEAKIER FOLD-OUT RAFT, WITH A DUBIOUS MOTOR

+5 Fourth House points

This is not going to get you five yards on a free ticket, which is why hopping into it and getting that dusty, wheezy motor going, then sailing for help as the rest of the boat watches you sink into the ocean and get snapped up by a giant undead squid is the most Fourth House thing you could’ve done.

**************

FAQ

**************

WHAT DO I DO IN CASE OF A TIE?

Pick the House descriptor most like yourself, or most like the person you secretly wish you were, or with the colours you like best.

WHAT DO I DO IF I DON’T LIKE THE ANSWER?

We all have to live with pain. I have gotten sorted into Slytherin House every Sorting test I have ever taken. This is not correct. I am a muggle, and demand to be treated as such.

BUT I REALLY HATE MY ANSWER.

Then you’re a Firebender. Everyone loves being a Firebender.

CAN I BE IN THE FIRST HOUSE?

No, you cursed grandpa.

ARE YOUR HOUSES REALLY MADE UP OF NARROW STEREOTYPES?

No. You are just as likely to find a party-loving Second House member as you are to find a Fourth House deep thinker who always looks before they leap. These are simply the crude crystallizations, such as those used for soap operas and toothpaste advertisements.

SOMETHING ELSE?

Whatever your problem, you can always make up your own House, with the rider that you would have to make it up as though you were ten years old and were basing it heavily around whatever you were into at the time, which would mean that my House would be inspired entirely by the Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness manual

**************

COUNT UP YOUR POINTS, DIVINE YOUR HOUSE, AND THEN…

Congratulations, dullard/poser/fool/stodge/nerd/drip/zealot/weirdo! You’re in the Second/Third/Fourth/Fifth/Sixth/Seventh/Eighth/Ninth House!!!

For my birthday in 2018, my two first readers just sent me an email with the subject heading, “We have very good taste.”

This FST is quite possibly the most serious, transformative and thoughtful transformative work ever presented to any canon, ever.

TRACKLISTING FOR YR CONVENIENCE

VOLUME ONE: HOUSES

Ist:Warm Blood – Carly Rae Jepsen

2nd:Jiyuu No Tsubasa – Linked Horizon

3rd:Pour It Up – Rihanna

4th:Warrior – Ke$ha

5th:Getcha Head In The Game – High School Musical

6th:Young Adult Friction – The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart

7th:So Happy I Could Die – Lady Gaga

8th:Titanium – David Guetta ft Sia

9th:THAUMATURGIC REVELATIONS – THE REVERENT BROTHERHOOD OF THE ABYSSAL SHROUD

VOLUME TWO: BONUS TRACKS

Gideon:Good Girls Go Bad – Cobra Starship

Harrowhark:Love Like Winter – AFI

Palamedes:That’s What I Go To School For – Busted

Cytherea:Camisado – Panic! At The Disco

Final Boss: Save Yourself, I’ll Hold Them Back – My Chemical Romance

End Credits: Spaceship - Kesha

VOLUME THREE: BAD LYCTOR SHIPPING

Immortals – Fall Out Boy

Ghost Of You – Good Charlotte

Out Of My Head – Charli XCX

As threatened, before I let myself go nuts wallowing in cosplay and art, I muft acknowledge the gifts I was given when Gideon the Ninth did not even have a publication date. My three first readers gave me an FST, and the first FST I got was from paraTactician, to whom sharp-eyed readers following along from fandom may have noticed the book was dedicated to.

Obviously getting FSTs is the main reason why anyone actually writes a novel, let’s be honest with each other

1.introduction 

2.The Killers - ’Bones’
I don’t really like you

3. Supergrass - ’Kick In The Teeth’
you cut me down, but there ain’t no use in crying

4. The Lonely Island - ’Space Olympics’
we can’t really enforce a curfew / as there is no light or sound

5. Editors - ’Papillon’
if there really was a God here, he’d have raised a hand by now

6. Assemblage 23 - ’Let Me Be Your Armor’
let me help you with the trials you’re going through

7. Bad Lip Reading - ’Carl Poppa’
this whole thing where random dead people try to kill me’s gotta go

8. Puscifer - ’Indigo Children (JLE Dub Mix)’
no more need for the old empire

9. P!nk - ’Please Don’t Leave Me’
can’t you tell that this is all just a contest

10. Radiohead - ’Where I End And You Begin (The Sky Is Falling In)’
like a house falling in the sea

11. Grieves - ’October In The Graveyard’
mighty is the bitter blade / crimson beaded water falling out of your grave

12. Zedd feat. Foxes - ’Clarity’
you are the piece of me I wish I didn’t need

13. Gordon Lightfoot - ’If You Could Read My Mind’
a ghost from a wishing well / in a castle dark or a fortress strong

14. Suzanne Vega - ’The Queen And The Soldier’
your Highness, your ways are very strange

15.conclusion

Save yourself, I’ll hold them back

The Locked Tomb Tarot

The Sun

- Gideon Nav -

Upright:  joy, success, celebration, positivity

Reversed: negativity, depression, sadness