Posted by u/butchfeminist on August 15th 2022
Hello again my lovelies and lemongrabs - coming in hot and nearly tardy like a suspicious shuttle landing at Canaan House, I present the next installment of our Hot Tomb Summer. After this only FOUR weeks remain, postwise, before we get our hot little hands on copies of Nona, and then have to start the whole reread all over again!
I picked these chapters for one reason only: “none House, with left grief.”
Reader, when I first came across these lines in my library ebook, cradling my phone and my sleeping child, I knew fully and finally the meaning of “gobsmacked.” I texted my friend: “I am reading a really fucked up weird novel that I very much love” - I sent a screen cap. “No idea how this passed an editor’s eye. I am in awe” - blessings on the house of Carl Engle-Laird.
Okay. Let’s get down to business. Somebody help me out this with this tesseractive timeline.
Chapter 36
This chapter—one week before the Emperor’s murder—opens with a sweet sad memory of Harrow being hoisted in church by her father’s cavalier, and given peppermints by her great-aunts. “It had been the last assumption of immaturity you would ever enjoy.” Harrow had virtually no childhood. Wouldn't it be nice if she could somehow get to have one??
Then, a month earlier, the first sign of Number Seven’s arrival comes when Mercy spots a Herald. Everyone calls in over the communicator with initials—their own and then their cav’s—which makes Harrow “H.O.” *snerk* There’s a lot of colors to keep track of here. Seven is blue as Loveday’s eyes. The Body’s eyes go “death-mask gold.” So then Harrow tries to kiss her (the Body), but she phases out of existence—awkward. But is it more or less awkward than Harrow fouling off Ianthe’s kiss?
The rest of this chapter is devoted to attending lecture on the structure of the River, though not much is clarified. The Lyctors plan to fight the RB in the River, while the souls of their cavs defend their bodies from the Heralds on this plane. The plan for Harrow is basically uh, good luck. God calls the very bottom of the River, the stoma, “the mouth to Hell.” If only there were some religious doctrine foreshadowing Hell's relation to Harrow...
Chapter 37
Here it is - none House, with left grief. That’s how God describes the extinguishing of Dominicus, should anything happen to prevent God from keeping the sun fired. Harrow wants to know about A.L. (don’t we all?) and God is so uncomfortable he would rather talk about how babies are made. (“Are you and Ianthe being safe?” SCREAM) I’m not going to inventory what’s said about A.L. here because I have no idea what’s important (all of it??), but I do note that God says she died after the first assault by a Resurrection Beast. A.L. is an RB theorists, please defend your thesis!Then God says “the worst thing that had ever been said to you:” that he sometimes wishes Harrow had been his daughter. Harrow simply smashes a glass into a table and kneels on it in penitence. And she confesses to having opened the Locked Tomb.
But God contests her. He does not seem to believe it is possible for Harrow to have laid eyes upon the Body in the Tomb, because it’s his own blood warding the door. The last lines of the chapter describe Harrow’s mistrusting her own overhearing: “Damn it, John—damn it.” Is he chiding himself for not building a better rapport with Harrow? (Could it actually be someone else’s voice than God’s??)
Chapter 38
Are we feeling sane? Harrow’s not! The night before the arrival of the RB, Harrow drops a glove and when she goes to get it, uh, she sees Cytherea’s lifeless body tucked under Harrow’s bed. Knock on wood that I have not yet had a specific nightmare about this chapter! What the fuck is she doing there?? Perhaps Wake hid the body from G1deon, on the good side of Harrow’s fresh blood wards? But if so then where does it go next?? Harrow slaps some bone cuffs on her and goes to fetch Ianthe, who professes not to see the corpse. Do we believe Ianthe, or is she really so repugnantly hateful that she’s just messing with our girl?
It wouldn’t be the dawn of the final day if the Saint of Duty didn’t try to kill Harrow once again. Although this time, he orders her to draw her sword—no, no that one! The demand for the rapier is pretty strong evidence for the theory that God orders Duty to try to kill Harrow in an effort to activate her Lyctor powers.And disappointed in his failing, Duty admits the murders weren’t even his idea.
Chapter 39
The rain of Heralds begins. As someone with a wasp phobia who had to, on this very day, remove a wasp from inside my house, I understand all the screaming.
Epiparodos
What is an epiparodos? Definitely something Greek: the second return of the chorus. This one takes place 9 months and 29 days before the Emperor’s murder. (Remember chapter 19? 10 months before the Emperor’s murder?) The big revelation (but not the final one) is that Ianthe has helped Harrow perform brain surgery on herself. Ianthe has been prevented from seeing the whole thing, but that can’t stop her from peeking when Harrow’s asleep!—and hm, she spots “a few out-of-order bumps in the temporal gyrus that might have been there already.” And gives Harrow’s hair follicles a curse of speedy regrowth and near ceaseless haircuts (a curse that I share).
Ianthe, abominably appreciative of Harrow’s “destructive, romantic, ridiculous act,” simply thinks Harrow couldn’t stand anyone doing anything that exceeded her control. She’s not wrong. The threat of Ianthe’s exiting wistful promise to marry Harrow hangs over the remaining books in the series, as does Ianthe going “to see a man about a queen.”
Qs
At this point in my first readthrough, I had a pretty good idea of what Harrow and Ianthe had accomplished, but the big picture had by no means fully resolved. Any first time readers with us still? What’s your take on how things are unfolding? Or, how did the revelations hit for you on your first read?
The Body, the eyes, the River, the memes? The timeline?? I’m sure we’ll take all these up. But I most want to hear about: How do you view Harrow’s claim that Lyctors are “more beholden than ever” to their sacrificed cavs? Where's the moral center in TLT?
Rereaders: It seems like Harrow's plan to preserve Gideon is, at some level, working. Who's holding out hope that Gideon's soul finds its way back to Gideon's own body--and biceps?
Link to full discussion on Reddit with Comments