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* EveryoneHasStandards: After Silas... ''acquires'' Dulcinea's keys Naberius responds with outrage, calling Silas a "callous bastard". Then again, Jeannemary then says he's just sorry he didn't think of it first, and he immediately threatens to kill her.
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* EveryoneHasStandards: After Silas... ''acquires'' Dulcinea's keys Naberius responds with outrage, calling Silas a "callous bastard". Then again, Jeannemary then says he's just sorry he didn't think of it first, and he immediately threatens to kill her.
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Edited the 'Everyone Has Standards' entry for Naberius Tern to make it more concise.
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* EveryoneHasStandards: After Silas... ''acquires'' Dulcinea's keys Naberius shouts "You callous bastard, you just went and heavied a nearly dead girl for her keys". Then again, Jeannemary then says he's just sorry he didn't think of it first, and he immediately says "Chatur, if you say one more bloody word I'll make sure you never get through puberty-"
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* EveryoneHasStandards: After Silas... ''acquires'' Dulcinea's keys Naberius shouts "You callous bastard, you just went and heavied responds with outrage, calling Silas a nearly dead girl for her keys". "callous bastard". Then again, Jeannemary then says he's just sorry he didn't think of it first, and he immediately says "Chatur, if you say one more bloody word I'll make sure you never get through puberty-"threatens to kill her.
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* GlorifiedSpermDonor: The Sixth have something of a reputation for this, which is [[InvokedTrope by design, as the Sixth desperately needs more genetic diversity]]. All children conceived by a Sixth parent are legally Sixth, and there's an entire division of notably attractive Sixth cavaliers who learn more about erotic poetry than swordfighting so they could go join the Cohort and...diversify the Sixth's gene pool.
* InTheFutureHumansWillBeOneRace: A deliberate invocation, despite not holding true for the rest of the Empire, as a result of their limited genetic pool; every character from the Sixth shown having brown skin and brown hair, and most even seem to have relatively similar facial features and expressions.
* InTheFutureHumansWillBeOneRace: A deliberate invocation, despite not holding true for the rest of the Empire, as a result of their limited genetic pool; every character from the Sixth shown having brown skin and brown hair, and most even seem to have relatively similar facial features and expressions.
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* GlorifiedSpermDonor: The Sixth have something of a reputation for this, which is [[InvokedTrope by design, as the Sixth desperately needs more genetic diversity]]. All children conceived by a Sixth parent are legally Sixth, and there's when Cam and Pal were children there was an entire division of notably attractive Sixth cavaliers who learn learned more about erotic poetry than swordfighting so they could go join the Cohort and...diversify the Sixth's gene pool.
* InTheFutureHumansWillBeOneRace: A deliberate invocation, despite not holding true for the rest of the Empire, as a result of their limited geneticpool; pool and small population; every character from the Sixth shown having brown skin and brown hair, and most even seem to have relatively similar facial features and expressions.
* InTheFutureHumansWillBeOneRace: A deliberate invocation, despite not holding true for the rest of the Empire, as a result of their limited genetic
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* LuckBasedSearchTechnique: Abigail jokes that he just might stumble into finding something important in the second book.
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** She appears as a disembodied voice in the short story "The Unwanted Guest", where she encourages and advises Palamedes, and ''still'' leaves it ambiguous. She certainly does care deeply for both him and Camilla.
--> You two were my best friends, and that was real. I loved real, ugly, unfinished things. Gracelessly uncompleted things. There's freedom, too, in not ever being completed.
--> You two were my best friends, and that was real. I loved real, ugly, unfinished things. Gracelessly uncompleted things. There's freedom, too, in not ever being completed.
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* AmbiguousSituation: The short story "The Unwanted Guest" reveals that his traits, memories, and opinions have been bleeding into Ianthe's since she ate him and so rather than existing seperately as fuel being burned he is comingled with her, to some extent indistinguishable.
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* ChildSoldiers: As a cavalier born to the role in a family that has provided cavaliers for millennia, multiple characters note that Naberius was likely handed a rapier the moment he left the cradle.
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* ChildSoldiers: As a cavalier born to the role in a family that has provided cavaliers for millennia, multiple characters note that Naberius was likely handed a rapier the moment he left the cradle. Ianthe confirms it, saying he was assigned to her at birth.
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* TheFightingNarcissist: He clearly takes great pride in his appearance and his swordsmanship, though because [[ButtMonkey of his personality]], nobody pays much attention to the former. As for the latter, in an unusual take on the trope, his skill isn't at all flashy, but comes from incredibly well trained and precise, though his arrogance hampers him greatly.
* ForgottenFallenFriend: Used with a variation in ''Harrow the Ninth''. Ianthe and Harrow rarely discuss Naberius except as brief asides or when Harrow is jabbing at Ianthe's murder of him, and Ianthe treats him as having been little more than a stepping stone. However, the SecondPersonNarration mentions Naberius more frequently, because Gideon is the narrator, and she often remembers the dead of Canaan House and is a fellow cavalier besides.
* ForgottenFallenFriend: Used with a variation in ''Harrow the Ninth''. Ianthe and Harrow rarely discuss Naberius except as brief asides or when Harrow is jabbing at Ianthe's murder of him, and Ianthe treats him as having been little more than a stepping stone. However, the SecondPersonNarration mentions Naberius more frequently, because Gideon is the narrator, and she often remembers the dead of Canaan House and is a fellow cavalier besides.
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* TheFightingNarcissist: He clearly takes great pride in his appearance and his swordsmanship, though because [[ButtMonkey of his personality]], nobody pays much attention to the former. As for the latter, in an unusual take on the trope, his skill isn't at all flashy, but comes from incredibly well trained and precise, though his arrogance hampers him greatly.
* ForgottenFallenFriend: Used with a variation in ''Harrow the Ninth''. Ianthe and Harrow rarely discuss Naberius except as brief asides or when Harrow is jabbing at Ianthe's murder of him, and Ianthe treats him as having been little more than a stepping stone. However, the SecondPersonNarration mentions Naberius more frequently, because Gideon is the narrator, and she often remembers the dead of Canaan House and is a fellow cavalier besides. "The Unwanted Guest" has Ianthe discussing him more and saying that she ''was'' quite fond of him, in her way, but has no regrets.
* ForgottenFallenFriend: Used with a variation in ''Harrow the Ninth''. Ianthe and Harrow rarely discuss Naberius except as brief asides or when Harrow is jabbing at Ianthe's murder of him, and Ianthe treats him as having been little more than a stepping stone. However, the SecondPersonNarration mentions Naberius more frequently, because Gideon is the narrator, and she often remembers the dead of Canaan House and is a fellow cavalier besides. "The Unwanted Guest" has Ianthe discussing him more and saying that she ''was'' quite fond of him, in her way, but has no regrets.
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* PeoplePuppets: In ''Nona the Ninth'', his corpse returns as a RemoteBody being piloted by Ianthe to get around the looming presence of Number Seven and the madness it induces in necromancers. Though this lets her walk around right beneath a Resurrection Beast, it also greatly hampers her powers, horrifies Coronabeth, and makes Nona mistake Naberius ''for'' Ianthe, leading her to conclude that "he's" Corona's boyfriend. Palamedes later hijacks him from Ianthe and spends several hours using him as his new body, until ultimately both he and Ianthe abandon it.
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* PeoplePuppets: In ''Nona the Ninth'', his corpse returns as a RemoteBody being piloted by Ianthe to get around the looming presence of Number Seven and the madness it induces in necromancers. Though this lets her walk around right beneath a Resurrection Beast, it also greatly hampers her powers, horrifies Coronabeth, and makes Nona mistake Naberius ''for'' Ianthe, leading her to conclude that "he's" Corona's boyfriend. Palamedes later hijacks him from has a BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind with Ianthe and that has her ceding Naberius's body to him, at which point he spends several hours using him as his new body, until ultimately both he and Ianthe abandon it.
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* UndyingLoyalty: Despite how they treat him, Naberius is unfailingly loyal to Ianthe and Coronabeth, but he becomes conflicted when the twins are quarreling with each other. The fact that he ultimately has to submit to Ianthe, knowing the truth of Corona's lack of necromancy, seems to privately makes him seethe.
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* UndyingLoyalty: Despite how they treat him, Naberius is unfailingly loyal to Ianthe and Coronabeth, but he becomes conflicted when the twins are quarreling with each other. The fact that he ultimately has to submit to Ianthe, knowing the truth of Corona's lack of necromancy, seems to privately makes him seethe. Ianthe tells Palamedes that Naberius was loyal to and worshipped Coronabeth even when it hurt him, but ''Ianthe'' was consistent.
--> I ruled him through fear and poison and he relaxed into it like a hot bath.
--> I ruled him through fear and poison and he relaxed into it like a hot bath.
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* WorthyOpponent: A subversion: while he praised Gideon's skill to Corona in private, he remains condescending to her in public, albeit too intimidated to fight her.
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* WorthyOpponent: A subversion: while he praised Gideon's skill to Corona in private, he remains condescending to her in public, albeit too intimidated to fight her. When Ianthe tells Palamedes what she thought of Gideon, Naberius's opinions bleed through without her noticing and she expounds on how ''he'' felt, and uses his speech patterns - he did ''not'' respect her the more for the fight.
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* WeakButSkilled: It's noted that he's incredibly technically skilled and well-trained as a duelist: however, it's noted that he hasn't seen much genuine combat and is extremely arrogant to boot, hampering his abilities in a real fight. In his match with Gideon, he wins the duel, but she still knocks him down and takes him off-guard: Marta notes that while Naberius is the better duelist, Gideon is the better fighter.
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* WeakButSkilled: WellTrainedButInexperienced: It's noted that he's incredibly technically skilled and well-trained as a duelist: however, it's noted that he hasn't seen much genuine combat and is extremely arrogant to boot, hampering his abilities in a real fight. In his match with Gideon, he wins the duel, but she still knocks him down and takes him off-guard: Marta notes that while Naberius is the better duelist, Gideon is the better fighter.
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* EveryoneHasStandards: Silas uses Colum as a LivingBattery for his necromancy, [[spoiler:but he's absolutely disgusted by the process of becoming a Lyctor and that Ianthe murdered Naberius to become one, and is horrified that Colum believed he would ever be willing to do that to him. Unfortunately, Silas promptly loses whatever points he gained when he siphons Colum against his will]].
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* EveryoneHasStandards: Silas uses Colum as a LivingBattery for his necromancy, [[spoiler:but he's absolutely disgusted by the process of becoming a Lyctor and that Ianthe murdered Naberius to become one, and is he's horrified that Colum believed he would ever be willing to do that to him.him, and he immediately tries to kill Ianthe for what she's done. Unfortunately, Silas promptly loses whatever points he gained when he siphons Colum against his will]].
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* EveryoneHasStandards: Silas uses Colum as a LivingBattery for his necromancy, [[spoiler:but he's absolutely disgusted by the process of becoming a Lyctor and is horrified that Colum believed he would ever be willing to do that to him. Unfortunately, Silas promptly loses whatever points he gained when he siphons Colum against his will]].
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* EveryoneHasStandards: Silas uses Colum as a LivingBattery for his necromancy, [[spoiler:but he's absolutely disgusted by the process of becoming a Lyctor and that Ianthe murdered Naberius to become one, and is horrified that Colum believed he would ever be willing to do that to him. Unfortunately, Silas promptly loses whatever points he gained when he siphons Colum against his will]].
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* EveryoneHasStandards: Silas uses Colum as a LivingBattery for his necromancy, [[spoiler:but he's absolutely disgusted by the process of becoming a Lyctor and is horrified that Colum believed he would ever be willing to do that to him. Unfortunately, Silas promptly loses whatever points he gained when he siphons Colum against his will]].
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* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler: He siphons Colum even when he's been warned several times not to do so ''and'' against Colum's will in this particular instance. Colum ends up possessed, and Silas is so secure in his own righteousness and abilities that he tries to return Colum to his body rather than fleeing; he ends up skewered through the throat]].
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* RoyalBrat: Naberius is petulant, and very insistent on his "prince" title.
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* RoyalBrat: Naberius is petulant, whiny, and very insistent on his "prince" title.
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* WeakButSkilled: It's noted that he's incredibly technically skilled and well-trained as a duelist: however, it's noted that he hasn't seen much genuine combat and is extremely arrogant to boot, hampering his abilities in a real fight. In his match with Gideon, he wins the duel, but she still knocks him down and takes him off-guard: Marta notes that while Naberius is the better duelist, Gideon is the better fighter.
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* PrecociousCrush: She's implied to develop one on Gideon over the course of ''Gideon The Ninth'', being impressed with Gideon's swordsmanship (and her [[AmazonianBeauty biceps]]) and coming to her for comfort after [[spoiler:the deaths of Magnus and Abigail.]]
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'''''NOTE''''': Due to the large amount of reveals about the primary characters, this page contains '''unmarked spoilers''' for all works in the series, including ''Literature/NonaTheNinth''.
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[[WMG:[[center:[-''[[Literature/TheLockedTomb The Locked Tomb Series]]'' | ''Literature/GideonTheNinth'' | ''Literature/HarrowTheNinth'' | ''Literature/NonaTheNinth''-]]]]]
[[WMG:[[center:[- [[Characters/TheLockedTombMain Main Characters]] | [[Characters/TheLockedTombSixth The Sixth]] | [[Characters/TheLockedTombSecondary Secondary Characters]] | [[Characters/TheLockedTombTheFirstHouse The First House]] | ''' The Nine Houses''' | [[Characters/TheLockedTombNonEmpire Non-Empire Characters]]-]]]]]
----
'''''NOTE''''': Due to the large amount of reveals about the primary characters, this page contains '''unmarked spoilers''' for all works in the series, including ''Literature/NonaTheNinth''.
----
[[foldercontrol]]
----
-> ''Two is for discipline, heedless of trial;''\\
''Three for the gleam of a jewel or a smile;''\\
''Four for fidelity, facing ahead;''\\
''Five for tradition and debts to the dead;''\\
''Six for the truth over solace in lies;''\\
''Seven for beauty that blossoms and dies;''\\
''Eight for salvation no matter the cost;''\\
''Nine for the Tomb, and for all that was lost.''
----
!! The Empire of the Nine Houses
[[folder:In General]]
* TheEmpire: Duh. In a bit of a twist, while the Empire rules over enormous swathes of territory, only the Dominicus system is actually considered part of it. The "shepherded" territories are just temporary sources of Thanergy that will burn out soon.
* GalacticSuperpower: Played with. On one hand, it's not clear just how far the empire extends (though a brief ImagineSpot from Gideon describes her fighting battles "galaxies and galaxies" away) and no other large interstellar civilizations ever get mentioned -- the rest of humanity seems isolated to the planetary level, if even that (aside from Blood of Eden, a decentralized insurgency). On the other, the Nine Houses have a combined population of mere millions, which doesn't make for much of an army, and it seems they only control a relative handful of planets across those galaxies, the populations of which are constantly being resettled to other planets as they become unlivable thanks to thanergetic poisoning.
* PlanetOfHats: An empire of several hats. Each of the nine planets making up its core provides a different specialized service for it, which in turn leads to them being stereotyped among other Houses.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Cohort]]
The military arm of the Empire, a vast galaxy spannning armed force that draws from the Nine Houses.
----
* ChildSoldiers: ''Very'' common. Some Houses seem to prefer fighters seek Cohort placement in their late teens or so but the Second and the Fourth take them very young. Isaac and Jeannmary were turned aside as too young at eleven, then for having mumps the next year, meaning they could have got in as twelve-year-olds. The Second takes them even younger, though into the "Junior Cohort Territorials" at first.
* MartyrdomCulture: To die in service and have your remains interred aboard the Mithraeum is considered possibly the highest honor one can receive. This goes double if you serve directly on God's flagship, leading to behavior that Mercymorn and even John himself find exasperating. This may be related to the fact that the Nine Houses makes mass death their starting priority during any invasion, to give their necromancers thanergy to work with; theirs or the enemy's, it doesn't really matter.
* SchizoTech: The Cohort gets around aboard spacecraft capable of orbital bombardment and then lands troops who fight with swords. Not even sci-fi swords, just regular steel.
* SkeletonMotif: Cohort starships are ''covered'' in real, human bones.
[[/folder]]
!! The Ninth House
-> ''Keepers of the Locked Tomb, House of the Sewn Tongue, the Black Vestals''
[[folder:In General]]
The Ninth House is a house of secrets, a cloistered tomb tended by silent nuns and skeletal thralls. Tasked with a dreadful duty by the Emperor, the Ninth are treated with fear and suspicion, but command respect.
----
* TheAlcatraz: The prison operated by the Cohort near the Ninth's surface is described as only holding the worst criminals of the Empire.
* ApocalypseCult: Ninth religion, practiced in the deepest, darkest hole of the Empire is an Inversion; despite being swathed in black, [[DemBones manipulating skeletons]], and even [[spoiler:prone to HumanSacrifice]], they worship fervently to ''stop'' the apocalypse, praying over the grave of [[TheAntichrist God's greatest enemy]] and treating its inevitable reawakening as the end of everything. [[spoiler:Ultimately subverted. It's actually just a very abstracted CargoCult, as their entire sect of Empire religion was based on a misconception from the very beginning, as the Tomb is impossible to open without the blood of God.]]
* CombatPragmatist: Despite being not as tied to the Cohort as the martial Second and Fourth, politeness and rules are something the Ninth has never paid attention to, and every fighter from the Ninth is shown being willing to rely on tricks, fighting dirty, and pressing every advantage to win.
--> For all its mouldering brittleness, the Ninth was hard as iron.
* DemBones: The Ninth is the only house to specialize in bone magic, and makes extensive use of skeletal constructs.
* TheDreaded: The whole "skeleton tomb cult" thing gives them a certain reputation, even in a galaxy spanning Empire of necromancy. The other Houses' reactions to being near a member of the Ninth in full religious garb generally ranges from off-put to openly fearful.
* DyingTown: The Ninth is on its last legs at the beginning of ''Gideon the Ninth'': impoverished and decrepit, populated almost entirely by the dead and the elderly soon-to-be-dead, and with their necromantic bloodlines down to a single family with no viable candidates to continue it. The Ninth House could, at any time, request aid from the other Houses... but that would mean publicizing just how bad things things have gotten, and by the end of it [[PuppetState they wouldn't be the Ninth House any more]]. The restoration of her house is part of why Harrow is desperate to become a Lyctor. [[spoiler:Of course, the Ninth is dying primarily because Harrow's parents murdered an entire generation of children to ensure Harrow's birth.]] She does get her wish at the beginning of ''Harrow the Ninth'', when the Emperor donates them several hundred healthy adults and teenagers he'd had in stasis since the Resurrection.
* EeriePaleSkinnedBrunette: The classic Ninth appearance is this, with dark hair and eyes so dark they're very nearly black. It also very visibly marks the dark-skinned redhead Gideon Nav as someone not originally from the Ninth.
* EvilIsDeathlyCold: Invoked aesthetically. The Ninth is a dark hole in a dead planet where everyone's obsessed with worshipping a corpse; the climate of the Ninth ranges from frigid to frozen over. However their evillness, [[spoiler: HumanSacrifice aside]], is more vague.
* ElementalMotifs: Darkness, which is both an intentional religious choice and a practical reality of where the House is located and its poverty.
* FantasticReligiousWeirdness: In contrast to the religion of the broader Empire (which can generally be described as [[InterfaithSmoothie Catholicism with some quirks]]), Ninth religion is treated as an entirely different sect, or even a blasphemous cult. Those adhering to the faith of the Locked Tomb worship God and the corpse within the Tomb equally, [[ApocalypseCult praying fervently that the Tomb stays shut forever]]. Those more devoutly drawn to the faith wear ceremonial facepaint to mimic skulls (with an entire canon of differing paints of subtly different meanings), and dress in all black, and conceal their faces. The whole effect only serves to make them [[TheDreaded excessively creepy]] in the eyes of the Empire.
* FounderOfTheKingdom: Downplayed. Anastasia, the Lyctor once from the Ninth and one of its first members, has a near mythical status in the modern day, with a monument to her reserved for the Ninth's greatest heroes. However, after an entire myriad, little memory remains other than the name and the monument, and Harrow is somewhat surprised and unsettled to find she existed at all.
* InnateNightVision: Downplayed. There's not any magical or biological component, but due to the Ninth's location and poverty meaning it is extremely dark at all times, Niners are consequently much better than others at seeing in near total darkness; both Gideon and Harrow describe scenes in dim twilight as being as bright as full day to them. However, they can't see in complete darkness, and [[DayHurtsDarkAdjustedEyes full sunlight takes them some time to adapt to]].
* TheParanoiac: At their worst, the Ninth is obsessed with keeping irrelevant secrets, suspecting everyone of treachery at all times, and prone to massively inflating their own sense of importance. In the broader Empire, those who look past their reputation as creepy shadow cultists often find them obnoxiously cryptic and judgemental.
* SealedEvilInACan: The Tomb is the Can from the unknown enemy of God that lays inside, and the Ninth sprung up to worship at the threshold, which others find to be a heresy.
* SmallSecludedWorld: While those of the Ninth were once more involved in the Empire it is a part of, the House itself is implied to have always been a lonely dark hole in a distant part of the Empire, only sometimes taking pilgrims and letting the Cohort operate a prison on its surface, which is part of why [[TheDreaded they are widely feared in the Empire]].
* TongueTied: The Keepers of the Locked Tomb are not known as the House of the Sewn Tongue for nothing. [[spoiler:The process entails magically replacing part of a Sewn Tongue's jaw, preventing them from discussing a forbidden topic completely]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Harrow's Parents]]
!!Pelleamena Novenarius & Priamhark Noniusvianus
!!! THE REVEREND MOTHER AND FATHER OF DREARBURH
Harrowhark's parents and the current rulers of Drearburh are little more than figureheads, having been dead for the better part of a decade by the time ''Gideon the Ninth'' begins, leaving Harrow to puppet their corpses around to maintain appearances.
----
* AbusiveParents: They raised Harrow to be intimately aware of what they did to concieve her, including leading her in 45 minutes of prayers every night [[spoiler:about how she was a necromantic abomination made from the souls of 200 dead children and that she had to prove herself "worthy" of the genocide.]] Their emotional and mental abuse nearly drove Harrow to suicide at the ripe age of [[HarmfulToMinors nine]].
* DrivenToSuicide: Hanged themselves when Harrow was ten years old, along with their cavalier Mortus. [[spoiler:Right in front of Harrow, too, and even meant for her to join them in the deed, because she committed the gravest possible sin by unlocking and entering the Locked Tomb containing this universe's equivalent to the TheAntichrist.]]
* MeaningfulName: Priam was the king of the Trojans, who was murdered after watching his city fall to the enemy. "Pelleamena" is a female version of Peleus, the father of Achilles, which is fitting as Pelleamena is the mother of an incredibly talented necromancer who is nevertheless hamstrung by emotional turmoil.
* OfCorpseHesAlive: Harrow used necromancy to preserve their bodies (at least from the shoulders up) and has been puppeteering them ever since. She tells her subjects that her parents have taken a vow of silence, are fasting, and so on. Gideon is appalled no one has caught on. Ortus, it turns out, does know but has said nothing.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler:While they never seem to have been ''pleasant'' people, according to Crux, they used to be different before they killed an entire generation of the Ninth. Harrow can only ever recall them as exhausted and distant teachers more than parents, and it's heavily implied the lingering guilt was a factor in their suicides.]]
* PuppetKing: Quite literally: see above. While they're still the rulers of Drearburh in name, Harrow controls them and everything else in practice.
* WouldHurtAChild: They were quite cruel to Gideon when she was young. [[spoiler:They also tried to kill her as an infant, and did succeed in killing the other 200 babies and children of the House in a mass HumanSacrifice. Not to mention the fact they expected Harrow to kill herself along with them.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Aiglamene]]
!!Aiglamene
!!! CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD OF THE NINTH
The last soldier of the Ninth is one of its oldest members, and still fully capable of defending the Ninth by any means necessary. Served as Gideon's sword-master, and is the only person in the Ninth to treat her with anything other than disdain.
----
* HandicappedBadass: She's an incredible swordswoman, but refuses to serve as Harrow's cavalier primary because she's also old as balls and has a not-quite-functional necromantic prosthesis replacing one of her legs.
* MasterSwordsman: She's an extremely talented swordswoman and despite her age, she is capable enough with weapons as different as the rapier and zweihander to make Gideon into one of the best fighters in the history of the Ninth.
* MeaningfulName: "Aigla" comes from French for "eagle", befitting a sharp eyed and dangerous woman with a harsh appearance. And like several other Ninth characters, her name is nine characters long.
* OldSoldier: She's in her 80s, wizened and scarred, and still the most (and just about only) capable soldier Drearburh has, and fully capable of knocking Gideon to the floor in only a few moves.
* ParentalSubstitute: Though she would laugh her ass off at the suggestion, she's effectively the closest thing to a parent that Gideon had growing up, as the only person who saw her as anything more than a burden and a nuisance. Gideon, for her part, actually listens to Aiglamene, and treats her with a respect lacking for any other member of the Ninth House. And beyond her skill with a sword, some of Gideon's sheer [[{{Determinator}} stubbornness]] seems to have come from her.
** [[spoiler: When Gideon returns to the Ninth as the corpse prince Kiriona, Aiglamene is furious that she's dead, and levels a DeathGlare at Nona, who she believes is Harrowhark. Not knowing the reason behind it, she clearly feels that Harrow didn't keep her promise and is unhappy that Gideon is dead.]]
* RuggedScar: Her whole head is comprised of "melty scars."
* ToughLove: She's the only adult in the Ninth House who cares about Gideon to any degree, but she's no softer for it. She treats her so gruffly that Gideon can't even conceive that Aiglamene could love her, and she at times hits or physically threatens Gideon. Still, it's clear she's invested in Gideon's wellbeing despite everything, and even stands up to Harrow on her behalf.
* UndyingLoyalty: To Harrowhark. As much as she cares about Gideon, she won't stand for anyone disrespecting her Lady.
* WithDueRespect: Aiglamene does, however, stand up to Harrow -- and even puts her own honor on the line -- to ensure Harrow will abide by her promise to set Gideon free after the Lyctor trials. [[spoiler: When Gideon returns home nearly 2 years later, ''dead'', she immediately prepares to tear into Harrow, until Kiriona informs her that Nona isn't the Reverend Daughter.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Crux]]
!!Crux
!!! MARSHALL OF THE NINTH HOUSE
Ninth to the core, the Marshall is an unbelievably old man, and yet is still quick to violence and even quicker to rage, especially against any slight or disloyalty to the royal family of Drearbruh who he serves without question.
----
* FloweryInsults: This and equally florid threats make up most of his dialogue.
* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler: Goads Kiriona/Gideon into killing him to open the Tomb to save Nona, and therefore Harrow's life, though he delivers a final parting insult to her in the process.]]
* {{Jerkass}}: He's rude to everyone but Harrow and absolutely delights in anything that makes Gideon suffer.
* KickTheDog: [[spoiler: Gideon died willingly to save Harrow and make her a Lyctor, lived anyways, and found herself Kiriona Gaia, the only child of God. Crux curses her with his last breath regardless, hating her even as she kills him by his own request]].
--> [[spoiler: "You remain--what you are. A worthless millstone hung about my darling's neck. You were born to make her suffer. You lived as you died Gideon Nav--a disappointment to me--''and'' to God."]]
* MoralityPet: His treatment of Harrowhark is the sole indication he's capable of things like compassion and gentleness.
* NumberTwo: To Harrow. He's left in charge when Harrow and Gideon leave Drearburh.
* OldRetainer: He is ''ancient'' and certainly gives off these vibes in regards to Harrow's family.
* ParentalSubstitute: Harrow has some fond memories of him taking care of her after the death of her parents [[spoiler:and the hallucination riddled fugue that she was in afterwards]]. In turn, Harrow used her magic to help prolong his life. [[spoiler: ''Nona'' makes it clear he views her as practically his own daughter.]]
* PunnyName: "Crux" literally means "Cross", and he's always angry.
* UndyingLoyalty: To Harrowhark, and the Ninth House in general. Harrow says he can't stand disloyalty, [[spoiler:to the point that he blows up the shuttle stolen by Ortus and Glaurica for their audacity to abandon their duty]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Ortus]]
!!Ortus Nigenad
-->[[Characters/TheLockedTombSecondary Listed with secondary characters]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Matthias Nonius '''(Unmarked Spoilers)''']]
!!Matthias Nonius
The greatest cavalier in the history of the Ninth, famous in death and immortalized, however poorly, in Ortus Nigenad's ''The Noniad''.
----
* BadassBoast: Prone to these in ''The Noniad''. The real Nonius has some of his own.
-->'''Abigail''': I speak your name, Matthias Nonius, cavalier of the Ninth House. I charge you to protect the Reverend Daughter of Drearburh, and to slay her enemies.\\
'''Nonius''': Waste not your breath. Such was my task when I lived; why now in my death would I need a reminder?\\
'''Harrow''': Oh, ''God.''
* BadassNormal: Not a necromancer or gifted in magical arts, but is a good enough warrior to best the Sleeper and help drive off a Resurrection Beast in the afterlife. When he was alive, he fought alongside and ''against'' Gideon the First. That’s right, he fought a ''lyctor''
* ExpectingSomeoneTaller: Harrow's surprised that Nonius is actually fairly short after 18 books of Ortus constantly praising him. He's every bit as capable as ''The Noniad'' makes him out to be though.
* FamedInStory: Even the other Houses recognize how legendary of a cavalier he was, and he's been literally worshiped within the Ninth in the past.
* GotMeDoingIt: Speaks mostly in Ortus' meter when he's resummoned, as The Noniad warps the conditions of Harrow's DreamLand. He repeatedly asks why he's speaking in verse.
* HonorBeforeReason: Part of the reason Harrow hates ''The Noniad'' is that Nonius is so tediously devoted to honor. The actual Nonius is as well, to a point. When the Sleeper's constant dirty fighting leads to his sword being knocked out of his hand, he stops trying to be honorable and quickly dismantles her.
* TranquilFury: When the Sleeper disarms him after he offers leniency to her, Nonius advances with a cold fury and completely destroys her.
* WalkingSpoiler: The very fact that he appears in person is a spoiler. He returns as a ghost in Harrow's DreamLand at the climatic moment, fending off the Sleeper along with the other revenants.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Locked Tomb '''(Unmarked Spoilers)''']]
!!"The Body" / A.L. / Alecto the First
-->[[Characters/TheLockedTombMain Listed with Main Characters]]
%% Character entry preserved to prevent spoiling the end of Harrow the Ninth
[[/folder]]
----
!! The Second House
->''The Emperor's Strength, House of the Crimson Shield, the Centurion's House''
[[folder:In General]]
The Second House is the militant strength of the Emperor. Deeply interwoven with the Cohort, they comport themselves with military rigor in all situations. Their fervent devotion to rank and order makes them prone to taking charge, often over the protestations of other houses.
----
* ChildSoldiers: Judith joined the Emperor's service at six and the Junior Cohort Territorials at eleven, Marta at ten. Unlike what's expected from the Fourth they appear not to be shipped out to the front lines without several years of training first.
* ColorMotif: Red and white, as a House of warriors.
* HufflepuffHouse: The least detailed of the Houses as of yet.
* MagicKnight: The Lyctor who founded their house was unusually physically capable, and while mortal Second necromancers aren't on his level, Judith notes in ''As Yet Unsent'' that necromancers of the Second aren't as physically frail as those of other Houses.
* ProudWarriorRace: Their [[PlanetOfHats hat]]; while most Houses have strong ties to the Cohort, the Second ''is'' the Cohort. It's routine for children to join the HomeGuard, and many ship out well before puberty, and [[spoiler:they don't seem to have a formal heir, instead selecting Judith due to her suitability for the mission]].
* YourSoulIsMine: The Second's necromancers specialty is draining the thalergy of the living, which they can then use to bolster the abilities of a cavalier.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Judith]]
!!Judith Deuteros
-->[[Characters/TheLockedTombSecondary Listed with secondary characters]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Marta]]
!!Marta Dyas
!!! CAVALIER PRIMARY OF THE SECOND, RANKED FIRST LIEUTENANT OF THE COHORT
A cavalier with a fearsome reputation and a long partnership with her necromancer, Marta Dyas is the epitome of a Cohort cavalier, as decorated as she is dangerous.
----
* BraidsOfAction: She has the same braids as her captain.
* FlatCharacter: Marta is a disciplined soldier who follows Judith's every order without question. Her few notable differences are a greater inclination to work with others, a strong sense of honor, and a keen eye for combat. [[spoiler:Even returning in Harrow's DreamLand, she's still mostly devoted to her duty, though she does get a bit more chance to stand on her own. While she's still out of focus, she ''is'' very willing to work with others and put herself in danger and shows signs of a dry sense of humor.]] In ''As Yet Unsent'' Judith admits to having been in love with her and that Marta rebuffed her advances as improper.
* INeedAFreakingDrink: After her brutal combat with Camilla, Marta's only reaction was requesting a cold beer afterward, and held no grudges against the Sixth later.
* SenselessSacrifice: [[spoiler:Harrow explicitly says that Marta's death meant nothing, and the realization that this is the case hits Judith very hard. Marta herself finds some purpose after her death by going to fight the Resurrection Beast with the Saint of Duty.]]
* UndyingLoyalty: To her captain and the Cohort.
* TheWorfEffect: Rare take on the trope. Marta is a veteran of the Cohort who has seen actual combat in service of the Emperor, and the Cohort itself considers her one of the best fighters in the Empire. She's fast, reactive, and can push through a lot of pain, but she is quickly and brutally defeated [[spoiler:by Camilla, to show how skilled she is when she's not holding back]]. However, this is only relative to [[spoiler:Camilla, who also manages to best *Cytherea* multiple times.]]
** Downplayed in ''Harrow the Ninth'', [[spoiler:with her being defeated by the Sleeper before Matthias Nonius is summoned. But she is shown to be *faster* and more accurate on the draw than even the legendary Commander Wake herself, and is overall one of the more effective fighters in the battle]].
[[/folder]]
----
!! The Third House
->''Mouth of the Emperor, the Procession, House of the Shining Dead''
[[folder:In General]]
The Third House is the vanguard of trend in the Empire, setting fashion and sparking gossip with their every move. Not only do they spark rumors, they also diligently collect intelligence, both personal and political.
----
* TheBeautifulElite: Their reputation in the Nine Houses.
* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: Their less savory reputation in the Nine Houses is one of constant scheming and plotting.
* ColorMotif: Gold and purple, to match their nobility.
* HumanResources: Their necromantic specialty is being able to fully utilize the thanergy of corpses.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Coronabeth]]
!!Coronabeth Tridentarius
-->[[Characters/TheLockedTombSecondary Listed with secondary characters]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Ianthe]]
!!Ianthe Tridentarius
-->[[Characters/TheLockedTombSecondary Listed with secondary characters]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Naberius '''(Unmarked Spoilers)''']]
!!Naberius Tern
!!! CAVALIER PRIMARY OF THE THIRD, PRINCE OF IDA
Naberius the Third was born to a cavalier family of Resurrection purity, producing nothing but cavaliers for the past ten thousand years. Prince Tern himself is an almost peerless master of the rapier, but outside of formal duels between cavaliers, is brash and impulsive, used to a lifetime of royal treatment, and is almost inherently unlikable.
----
* AchillesHeel: While even Gideon acknowledges that he's extremely technically skilled at the rapier, he's actually one of the weaker fighters at Canaan House, as he's used to the structured fighting of tournaments and duels, while the serious cavaliers have no compunctions about [[CombatPragmatist fighting dirty and breaking any rules along the way]]. Judith's intelligence dossier explicitly notes this as his main weakness.
* BloodKnight: Basically the only thing he cares about aside from the Third and his ego is fighting, and he constantly tries to rope other cavaliers into debates and discussions about tournaments and fighting styles.
* ButtMonkey: He's constantly made fun of and humiliated by Gideon's narration, Ianthe, and Coronabeth.
* ChildSoldiers: As a cavalier born to the role in a family that has provided cavaliers for millennia, multiple characters note that Naberius was likely handed a rapier the moment he left the cradle.
* EveryoneHasStandards: After Silas... ''acquires'' Dulcinea's keys Naberius shouts "You callous bastard, you just went and heavied a nearly dead girl for her keys". Then again, Jeannemary then says he's just sorry he didn't think of it first, and he immediately says "Chatur, if you say one more bloody word I'll make sure you never get through puberty-"
* FightingFromTheInside: Comments from Ianthe and Cytherea indicate that what remains of his mind is fighting from within Ianthe throughout the finale of ''Gideon the Ninth'', furious over his own murder. However he seems to have lost by the time ''Harrow the Ninth'' takes place, going unmentioned.
* TheFightingNarcissist: He clearly takes great pride in his appearance and his swordsmanship, though because [[ButtMonkey of his personality]], nobody pays much attention to the former. As for the latter, in an unusual take on the trope, his skill isn't at all flashy, but comes from incredibly well trained and precise, though his arrogance hampers him greatly.
* ForgottenFallenFriend: Used with a variation in ''Harrow the Ninth''. Ianthe and Harrow rarely discuss Naberius except as brief asides or when Harrow is jabbing at Ianthe's murder of him, and Ianthe treats him as having been little more than a stepping stone. However, the SecondPersonNarration mentions Naberius more frequently, because Gideon is the narrator, and she often remembers the dead of Canaan House and is a fellow cavalier besides.
* InSeriesNickname: Corona and Ianthe call him "Babs."
* InTheBack: Ianthe stabs him in the back in order to absorb his soul and become a Lyctor.
* {{Jerkass}}: He is snobby, narcissistic, and perfectly willing to yell at the Fourth House kids.
* MeaningfulName: Naberius is a three-headed demon and alter ego of Cerberus from ''Literature/ArsGoetia''.
* PeoplePuppets: In ''Nona the Ninth'', his corpse returns as a RemoteBody being piloted by Ianthe to get around the looming presence of Number Seven and the madness it induces in necromancers. Though this lets her walk around right beneath a Resurrection Beast, it also greatly hampers her powers, horrifies Coronabeth, and makes Nona mistake Naberius ''for'' Ianthe, leading her to conclude that "he's" Corona's boyfriend. Palamedes later hijacks him from Ianthe and spends several hours using him as his new body, until ultimately both he and Ianthe abandon it.
* RoyalBrat: Naberius is petulant, and very insistent on his "prince" title.
* SmugSnake: He is supremely overconfident in his skills and his title, and is a jerk to everyone aside from Ianthe and Corona.
--> '''Judith''': "[Naberius] also has an extremely good opinion of himself and his swordplay, an opinion that Lt. Dyas notes occasionally aligns with reality."
* UndyingLoyalty: Despite how they treat him, Naberius is unfailingly loyal to Ianthe and Coronabeth, but he becomes conflicted when the twins are quarreling with each other. The fact that he ultimately has to submit to Ianthe, knowing the truth of Corona's lack of necromancy, seems to privately makes him seethe.
* WorthyOpponent: A subversion: while he praised Gideon's skill to Corona in private, he remains condescending to her in public, albeit too intimidated to fight her.
[[/folder]]
----
!! The Fourth House
->''Hope of the Emperor, the Emperor's Sword''
[[folder:In General]]
The Fourth House is the vanguard of the Empire, first over the line on every battlefield as the Emperor wages war across the galaxy. Noble scions of the Fourth often find themselves in the field well before their sixteenth birthdays.
----
* ActionBomb: While they prefer to use others' corpses, they are very capable of blowing themselves up if needed.
* CannonFodder: Their reputation among the Nine Houses is of reckless wild acts to establish a front line for the Cohort. It's not unearned, but Isaac notes they try to be smart about it, since a death that doesn't help anything is just stupid.
* ChildSoldiers: It's common for the Fourth to attempt to enlist as preteens. The Second accepts recruits even younger but then spends several years training them, while the Fourth are shipped out what seems to be quite fast.
* ColorMotif: Navy, a martial color that match their profinity in spirit magic.
* ContainmentField: The Fourth takes special care in crafting wards, and even goes so far as to ritually scarify them onto Cohort recruits before they're shipped out.
* FearlessFool:
-->'''Strengths''': Bravery unfettered by common sense.\\
'''Weaknesses''': Bravery unfettered by common sense.
* FleshAndBombs: They specialize in rapid thanergetic fission, turning corpses into bombs.
* HufflepuffHouse: The second-least detailed House after the Second. It's even discussed in-universe, with the other Houses viewing the Fifth's close relationship towards the Fourth as an inevitable prelude to the Fourth becoming part of the Fifth.
* MassiveNumberedSiblings: Large families are the norm in the Fourth, to go with their reputation as CannonFodder; Isaac is the first of eight children and Jeanne is the second of six.
* MauriceChevalierAccent: The Fourth are notably depicted as having stereotypical French accents in the audiobook versions of the series, presumably inspired by Jeannemary's name being French.
* ParentalAbandonment: Most kids in the Fourth have lost one or both parents to some brave, suicidal deed on the front lines of the Cohort. It's even enforced in the latter case: Isaac's father died years prior to any of his eight children being born.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Isaac]]
!!Isaac Tettares
!!! HEIR TO THE HOUSE OF THE FOURTH, BARON OF TISIS
The youngest of the heirs, being only thirteen, Isaac is one of the few characters to defy the stereotypes of his House, being very un-Fourth in his shy and reserved nature. Has a very close, sibling-like bond with his cavalier, doing nearly everything with her.
----
* BreakTheCutie: He and Jeannemary take [[spoiler:the death of the Fifth very badly, and spend the next few days on edge and exhausted, stalking the halls and paranoid of everyone but Coronabeth and Gideon, until they're the next to be killed]].
* ChildhoodFriends: He has been paired with Jeannemary since they were very young.
* AChildShallLeadThem: He's the Baron of Tisis and leader of the Fourth House, despite being only thirteen. Extra content states that there's a regent in place. [[spoiler: After his death, the title is presumably taken over by one of his younger siblings.]]
* ChildSoldiers: He and Jeannemary would have been enlisted already if Isaac hadn't gotten the mumps during the recruitment period, and they still intend to enlist the next year. He's thirteen. They would have enlisted even earlier, but Abigail forbade them and he had younger siblings to look after.
* CulturalRebel: The Fourth House is often regarded as reckless cannon fodder, but - possibly due to his close proximity to levelheaded Magnus and Abigail - Isaac is noted to be cautious and careful. [[spoiler:He tries, but after several extremely stressful days and a real scare his nerve shatters and his Fourth comes through, attempting to committ a HeroicSacrifice.]]
* DueToTheDead: While teaming up with the Sixth and the Ninth he says that the Fourth's first priority is [[spoiler: finding out who killed Magnus and Abigail. They also never asked for their facility key because Magnus told them to hold off, and never entered a Lyctoral study because Abigail told them to wait.]]
* EasilyEmbarrassedYoungster: He is constantly embarrassed by everything from [[TeamDad Magnus']] lame jokes and stories, to anything Jeannemary says.
* EmoTeen: Described as such by Gideon, eye makeup and all.
* LikeBrotherAndSister: He and Jeannemary bicker like siblings. It helps that Jeannemary's implied crush on Gideon and the extra content teasing him being engaged to a guy suggest that it's a case of [[IncompatibleOrientation incompatible orientations]] as well.
* MasculineGirlFeminineBoy: Downplayed example with Jeannemary. Isaac is a sensitive, cautious SquishyWizard, while Jeannemary is a reckless, violence-loving melee fighter.
* MeaningfulName: The notes in the back of the first book point out that [[spoiler: Isaac's early, violent death foreshadows Gideon's, just like the Biblical Isaac foreshadows the death of Christ by carrying the wood for his own sacrifice up a mountain]].
* PhraseCatcher: Gideon's narration almost exclusively refers to him and Jeannemary as "the horrible teens" and other variations.
* PutOnABus: [[spoiler:He and Jeannemary are hurried along by Abigail to whatever afterlife awaits them after she banishes them from Harrow's recreation of Canaan House, as Abigail believes their innocence will make their journey through the River painless. She briefly almost pulls them back before Abigail shuts down that {{Elseworld}} hard.]]
* SatelliteCharacter: In part due to his age and in part due to Gideon's narration connecting with Jeannemary more closely as a fellow cavalier, Isaac is usually treated as an extension of Jeannemary, tending to defer to her.
* TechnicolorFire: His unnamed necromantic specialty is conjuring ghostly blue-green fire that seems to be able to destroy physical objects.
* ThoseTwoGuys: Never seen apart from his cavalier [[spoiler: until his death.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Jeannemary]]
!!Jeannemary Chatur
!!! CAVALIER PRIMARY OF THE FOURTH, KNIGHT OF TISIS
The cavalier primary to Isaac, and a knight of Tisis.
----
* [[BigBrotherInstinct Big Sister Instinct]]: Is the recipient of this from Gideon, and has it in turn for Isaac, who's a year her junior.
* BreakTheCutie: She and Isaac take [[spoiler:the deaths of the Fifth very badly, and spend the next few days on edge and exhausted, stalking the halls and paranoid of everyone but Coronabeth and Gideon, until Isaac dies in the labs. Jeannemary absolutely loses it after that in the short time before she is killed as well]].
* ChildhoodFriends: She has been paired with Isaac since they were very young. She notes she hated him at first.
* ChildSoldiers: She and Isaac would have been enlisted already if Isaac hadn't gotten the mumps during the recruitment period, and they still intend to enlist the next year. She's fourteen. They would have enlisted even earlier, but Abigail stopped them.
* {{Corpsing}}: InUniverse. [[spoiler:In one of Harrow's {{Elseworld}}s in ''Harrow the Ninth'', she has difficulty keeping a straight face while saying the provided lines, and has to get Isaac to say some of them for her to get through it without cracking up.]]
* EasilyEmbarrassedYoungster: She is constantly embarrassed by everything from [[TeamDad Magnus’]] lame jokes and stories, to anything Isaac says.
* EmoTeen: Described as such by Gideon.
* {{Foil}}: Not only is she symbolically a foil for Gideon, being likewise naive and out of her depth at Canaan House, but Gideon herself recognizes the similarities on some level. Her narration always frames her interactions with the Fourth through her relationship with Jeannemary. [[spoiler:Jeannemary's murder is also the death that hits Gideon the hardest at Canaan House, as she feels directly responsible for it, becoming MyGreatestFailure]].
* LikeBrotherAndSister: She and Isaac bicker like siblings, and [[spoiler: she's absolutely devastated by his death]].
* MasculineGirlFeminineBoy: Downplayed example with Isaac. Isaac is a sensitive, cautious SquishyWizard, while Jeannemary is a reckless, violence-loving melee fighter.
* MeaningfulName: Jeannemary derives from Joan of Arc and the Virgin Mary, [[spoiler: and like Joan of Arc, Jeannemary is a warrior who dies young]].
* MuscleAngst: A very rare female example of wishing her biceps were bigger, after she asks Gideon to flex.
* PhraseCatcher: Gideon's narration almost exclusively refers to her and Isaac as "the horrible teens" and other variations.
* PutOnABus: [[spoiler:She and Isaac are hurried along by Abigail to whatever afterlife awaits them, after she banishes them from Harrow's recreation of Canaan House, as Abigail believes their innocence will make their journey through the River painless. She briefly almost pulls them back before Abigail shuts down that {{Elseworld}} hard, though Jeanne tells Magnus to tell Harrow to tell Gideon hi, in case she sees her before any of them do.]]
* ThoseTwoGuys: Never seen apart from her necromancer, [[spoiler: until his death, which completely shatters her in the short amount of time before she's killed as well.]]
* UndyingLoyalty: To Isaac. She refuses to leave him alone in any sort of danger, even if it means risking her life.
[[/folder]]
----
!! The Fifth House
->''Heart of the Emperor, Watchers over the River''
[[folder:In General]]
The Fifth House is the core of the Empire, especially if you listen to them tell it. With myriad years of tradition behind them, they have become a superpower whose gravity threatens to subsume any house that falters.
----
* ColorMotif: Brown; they're subdued bureaucrats and academics compared to the other Houses, and have a strong association with family.
* InterrogatingTheDead: Their necromantic specialty is in talking to spirits.
* SilkHidingSteel: Have a reputation for going to great lengths to appear highly civilized, but they have a subdued savagery beneath it, as they routinely deal with the insane hunger of feral ghosts.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Abigail]]
!!Abigail Pent
-->[[Characters/TheLockedTombSecondary Listed with secondary characters]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Magnus]]
!!Magnus Quinn
!!! CAVALIER PRIMARY OF THE FIFTH, SENESCHAL OF KONIORTOS COURT
The cavalier primary to Abigail, and seneschal of Koniortos Court.
----
* AmazinglyEmbarrassingParents: Jeannemary and Isaac are intensely embarrassed by his dad jokes and earnest friendliness. At one point he even begins recounting a story about something Jeannemary did when she was five.
* EndearinglyDorky: He is brimming with lame dad jokes and awkward courtesy, and his clumsy attempts to make small talk with the intimidating Ninth solidify him as this.
* HappilyMarried: To Abigail.
* MyFriendsAndZoidberg: In the narration for the second book, Harrow describes a group as consisting of "heroes, soldiers, poets, and Magnus".
* {{Nepotism}}: He claims that the only reason he gets to be cavalier primary is because he's married to the heir. The Cohort files back this up, and note this is relatively common among the Fifth.
* NiceGuy: He takes pains to make Gideon feel included despite being afraid of her, and is just a pleasant and nice person to everybody around him.
* NonActionGuy: Easily the weakest fighter of all the cavaliers; in a showmatch with Gideon he's [[CurbStompBattle defeated in three moves]]. He proudly tells the group the story of when five-year-old Jeannemary challenged him to a duel and [[SelfDeprecatingHumor would have beaten him if she wasn't using tableware]]. The Cohort's files on him call him a "schoolboy fighter" of no distinction. He looked into joining the Cohort when he was eighteen - much, ''much'' older than the minimum enlistment age - but never showed further interest.
* PapaWolf: The only time we see him get pissed off is when Naberius Tern starts messing with Jeannemary.
* ParentalSubstitute: To Jeannemary and Isaac, and has shades of this towards Harrow in the second book.
* PungeonMaster: He loves puns, and will make them every chance he gets, even if Coronabeth is the only one who laughs.
* TeamDad: Everyone likes him, and he's a very paternal figure to the Fourth; the one time he is ever shown as anything other than smiling is when Naberius insults Jeannemary's fighting style.
[[/folder]]
----
!!The Sixth House
->''The Emperor's Reason, the Master Wardens''
[[folder:In General]]
In their orbital Library, the Sixth House preserves and investigates the collective knowledge of the Empire. Masters of a thousand esoteric fields of study, they are often considered bookish, but are never to be underestimated.
----
* ColorMotif: Grey, befitting their drab exterior yet sharp intellect.
* DefectorFromDecadence: [[spoiler: Following directions left by Cassiopeia the First, the entirety of the Sixth defected from the Empire in the time span between ''Harrow'' and ''Nona''. However by the time ''Nona'' begins, the translocated Sixth is disconnected from the protagonists due to broken promises on behalf of Blood of Eden.]]
* DyingTown: While not quite as desperate as the Ninth, the Sixth has long had extremely strict compatibility limits as to who within the Sixth can have children with each other, as almost everyone is related to one another. (To give an idea of how strict, there are only six people Camilla is eligible to reproduce with, while Palamedes only has four options. And this is ''with'' having an entire division of their military whose primary objective is "get laid by foreigners". )
* {{Foil}}: As the most prominent characters from the Sixth serve as the primary foils to the protagonists of the Ninth, so too does the House as a whole serve to foil the Ninth in general. Both Houses are at the fringes of the Empire, and are secretive, small, and poor. However unlike the cultist Ninth, the Sixth, with their focus on research and preservation, are viewed more as odd and awkward than the feared and hated Ninth. [[spoiler: Much like the Ninth, the Sixth was also originally built around a mysterious 'installation', with currently unknown purposes.]]
* GlorifiedSpermDonor: The Sixth have something of a reputation for this, which is [[InvokedTrope by design, as the Sixth desperately needs more genetic diversity]]. All children conceived by a Sixth parent are legally Sixth, and there's an entire division of notably attractive Sixth cavaliers who learn more about erotic poetry than swordfighting so they could go join the Cohort and...diversify the Sixth's gene pool.
* InTheFutureHumansWillBeOneRace: A deliberate invocation, despite not holding true for the rest of the Empire, as a result of their limited genetic pool; every character from the Sixth shown having brown skin and brown hair, and most even seem to have relatively similar facial features and expressions.
* ParentsAsPeople: Exaggerated: the Library is a House of academics who have to be bought out to take parental leave and be at least marginally involved in their children's lives. It's also implied that relationships are often purely practical and not necessarily romantic, so they don't really have traditional nuclear families; Sixth reproduction is tightly controlled to prevent inbreeding, so while there is ''some'' choice, that choice is usually "these are the only five people on the planet who aren't your cousins, pick one". Palamedes' own mother has a cordial relationship with him, but treats him far more as a peer than a child, only rarely showing motherly affection.
* {{Psychometry}}: The House's specialty comes in the form of spirit magic that traces the signs that death and decay leaves on objects.
* SmallSecludedWorld: Much like the Ninth, the Sixth is at the fringes of the Empire, consisting only of a remote installation set in the polar region of a planet close to Domincus, with the outside world being completely uninhabitable. While not as cut off from the Empire as the Ninth, the Library is very much its own world, with visitors being infrequent to rare.
* SmallTownBoredom: The Library isn't exactly a thrilling place for Sixth children to grow up from Camilla's accounts of it. Watching skeletons get covered in orange gunge to do maintainence work on the outside of the station passes for fun simply because there's little else to do.
* UncertainDoom: Near the very end of ''Harrow'', [[spoiler:the Emperor is briefly killed, and being tied to Dominicus this might have affected the sun briefly]]. Since the Sixth House is the closest to the sun, they're the most vulnerable if something goes wrong, and the Emperor wonders if they survived or not.
** The beginning of ''Nona'' establishes that they did survive, but raises a new uncertain fate for them: [[spoiler: after the entire House defected from the Empire to Blood of Eden, broken promises on behalf of Blood of Eden has led to the House being stranded on another planet far from the Warden, their selected representatives, and Eden's negotiations. The arrival of Number Seven makes matters worse, as even the proximity of the Resurrection Beast within the same galaxy would drive all the necromancers mad, though ''Nona'' ends on a relatively optimistic note, as the Oversight Board independently determined that blinding themselves would stave off the worst effects of Number Seven's proximity.]]
* UterineReplicator: A offhand comment in ''Nona the Ninth'' reveals that they do "gravid carry" only for research purposes.
* VastBureaucracy: The Library is described as a vast academic bureaucracy full of infighting between similarily named departments, all covered in a flood of paperwork. There was a protracted interdepartmental battle over the titular room in the "The Mysterious Study of Dr. Sex", and forms (in triplicate) appear at every turn.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Palamedes]]
!!Palamedes Sextus
-->[[Characters/TheLockedTombSixth Listed in the Sixth-specific folder]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Camilla]]
!!Camilla Hect
-->[[Characters/TheLockedTombSixth Listed in the Sixth-specific folder]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Archivist Zeta]]
!!Archivist Juno Zeta
An Archivist in the Sixth House and Palamedes Sextus' mother, in that order.
----
* InnocentInnuendo: In "The Mysterious Study of Doctor Sex", much of her exposition regarding Dr. Donald Sex and his lost study room falls into this due to the good doctor's unfortunate house name.
* MeaningfulName: Juno is the Roman goddess of childbirth and marriage, while Zeta is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet.
* MotorMouth: Rambles at length to Palamedes and Camilla about office gossip before getting to the point when she picks them up for the unsealing of Doctor Sex's study. Palamedes and Camilla can hardly get a word in edgewise, and she doesn't remember to tell them where they're going until she's asked. [[spoiler: She's just as bad around Blood of Eden, which gets Palamedes worried someone will take offense and shoot her.]]
* ParentsAsPeople: Far more dedicated to her research as an Archivist than being a parental figure to Palamedes, though she still has a polite and friendly relationship with him.
* TeenGenius: Formerly; she made Scholar at 15.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Kiona]]
!! Kiona
Camilla's older half sister.
----
* TheQuietOne: Like her younger sister, she doesn't seem prone to talking unnecessarily; she says nothing at all in the sole chapter she appears in during ''Nona the Ninth''.
[[/folder]]
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!!The Seventh House
->''Joy of the Emperor, the Rose Unblown''
[[folder:In General]]
The Seventh House embody the particular beauty only found in dying things. They are the rose hanging lush with decay, the vines that pull down walls of stone, the bloom of color in a terminal patient’s cheeks. They draw out moments of beauty, preserving people, places, and times in amber for later dissection and delectation.
----
* ColorMotif: Seafoam green, which connects them both to the living world and the River.
* VictorianNovelDisease: Their necromantic line is prone to a form of blood cancer that the Seventh persists in maintaining throughout the generations because they believe it produces beauty in doing so, as well as facilitating necromancy without relying on external sources of thanergy. The two characters shown actually living with said cancer are not exactly thrilled with this line of thinking.
%% Necromantic specialty is listed as "The preservation of the corpse and the stasis of soul, prolonging the space between life and death and between death and decay." Find a trope that fits that
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Dulcinea '''(Unmarked Spoilers)''']]
!!Dulcinea Septimus
!!! HEIR TO THE HOUSE OF THE SEVENTH, DUCHESS OF RHODES
As an heir to the Seventh, Dulcinea Septimus has suffered from the [[VictorianNovelDisease Heptanary blood cancer]] of the Seventh's necromancer line since childhood, and has spent most of her life dying.
----
* AmbiguousSituation: Just how Dulcie feels about Palamedes by the time he's twenty goes unsaid. According to Camilla he proposed a year ago and she turned him down "but not on the grounds that she didn't like him"; it's left vague if she didn't view him romantically, if she was doing so because she expected to die soon, or if it was due to the limitations on intra-House marriage. At a minimum, Dulcie does view him as a friend, and was looking forwards to meeting him and Camilla in person at Canaan House before she was murdered.
* BloodFromTheMouth: Frequently coughs blood and worse. She's not expected to live much longer by the time she arrives at Canaan House.
* DeadAllAlong: She was killed by Cytherea before ever reaching Canaan House, and has been [[DeadPersonImpersonation impersonated by her]] ever since.
* DisabilityAlibi: Dulcinea Septimus is not seen as a viable suspect for the murders considering her advanced blood cancer barely allows her to walk two paces on her own without collapsing in coughs.
* DeadpanSnarker: When her ghost appears in ''Harrow the Ninth'', she reveals herself to have quite a dry sense of humor.
* TheDulcineaEffect: The Duchess of Rhodes is aptly named, thanks to her terminal illness. Gideon is compelled to protect her the second they meet, something deliberately invoked by Cytherea. And it turns out Palamedes Sextus has devoted his life to trying to rescue the real Dulcie from her illness ever since he began trading letters with her twelve years ago. He never even needed to meet her in person to fall in love with her.
* GrinOfAudacity: When planning to trap the Sleeper in Harrow's DreamLand, Dulcie grins almost ferally at the chance for revenge.
* ImpersonationExclusiveCharacter: In ''Literature/GideonTheNinth'', courtesy of Cytherea having killed and replaced her before her arrival at Canaan house. Zig-zagged in ''Literature/HarrowTheNinth'' when Harrowhark meets her ghost and observes that the ruse wouldn't have worked on anyone who'd met her before.
* IncurableCoughOfDeath: Terminally ill Dulcinea is prone to coughing [[BloodFromTheMouth blood]] and worse. The actual Dulcie becomes increasingly less visibly ill over time, thanks to already being dead. Cytherea says they have the same illness and Dulcie's is as advanced as Cytherea was.
* MeaningfulName: An idealized woman who doesn't really exist. The real Dulcinea goes instead by "Dulcie".
* TheNicknamer: Refers to everyone with nicknames, including herself as "Dulcie". Palamedes seems to have picked up "Cam" from her.
* SomethingAboutARose: Defied. While Cytherea used the motif as her, the real Dulcie is sick of roses.
* ThrowingOffTheDisability: Cytherea-as-Dulcinea, for all her helpless affect, is extremely physically capable. (Although she is sick, and vulnerable because of it, it doesn't impede her as much as she pretends.)
** When the real Dulcie appears in the second book she seems to be in better and better health as the book progresses, leaving her wheelchair and nasal shunt behind. However, she is still sick and does still sometimes have coughing fits and very little physical ability. As a ghost she, like the others, has all the limitations that came with their bodies -- it seems her image of herself was ill, just not in as bad of a shape as she was when she was murdered. Additionally, Harrow is unconsciously "scripting" many of Dulcie's symptoms--but she never saw Dulcie's real disability, she saw Cytherea's ''impersonation'' of it, which was based on Dulcie lying through her teeth. So Dulcie is also getting rid of symptoms she never really had in the first place.
* TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth: Played straight but lampshaded. Dulcie was genuinely an extremely nice woman who treated everyone well. Palamades notes that when he first wrote to her he was eight and she was fifteen, but she showed endless tact and sympathy towards him, a child who wanted to save her. On the other hand:
-->'''Dulcie:''' The only thing that ever stopped me being exactly who I wanted was the worry I would soon be dead ... and now I am dead, Reverend Daughter, and I am sick of roses, and I am ''horny for revenge''.
* WalkingSpoiler: The fact that she was DeadAllAlong and then still returns in ''Harrow the Ninth'' spoils major twists in both books.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Protesilaus '''(Unmarked Spoilers)''']]
!!Protesilaus Ebdoma
!!! CAVALAIER PRIMARY OF THE SEVENTH, KNIGHT OF RHODES
The cavalier primary to Dulcinea, a hulking warrior of few words.
----
* ChainPain: His offhand is a chain, something which is considered an extremely difficult offhand to master. Dulcinea even notes that he was indeed a very skilled cavalier before his untimely death; when he uses it to fight the Sleeper, he's able to deflect ''bullets''.
* DeadAllAlong: He died before ever reaching Canaan House, and has been [[OfCorpseHesAlive puppeted by Cytherea]] ever since.
* EmptyShell: He's noted as being often dead-eyed, compared to a sleep-walker, and rarely responds to much, though he is quick to help Dulcinea and defend her physically. Which makes sense, given he's dead, and his defense of Dulcinea was really just a way for Cytherea to prevent her cover from being blown.
* FlatCharacter: He is repeatedly called basic and boring. Which makes sense, considering he's not much more than a reanimated corpse. His actual reappearance in ''Harrow the Ninth'' subverts this, making Harrow wonder how any of them could've mistaken his empty body for a real person. She does however come to think of him as boring in a whole new way - he's just so dutiful and heroic.
* GentleGiant: He's absolutely massive and a tremendously skilled warrior, HappilyMarried with children, writes poetry and breeds flowers, and is devoted to Dulcie. The Cohort complains that they can't understand why he was paired with a dying necromancer and speculate that it was meant to be a short-term pairing scaffolding him to a new necro for the long term; Dulcie herself complains that he's too hopelessly noble to abandon her to pursue more prestige with a healthier necro.
* HeroOfAnotherStory: Judith's files mention Protesilaus joining the Cohort at eighteen, touring on three different front lines, and having an impressive reputation that's referenced by other characters in the first book, disappointed that he's not living up to it. He's also the oldest person officially traveling to Canaan House.
* ImpersonationExclusiveCharacter: In ''Literature/GideonTheNinth'', courtesy of Cytherea puppeting his zombie around since before his arrival at Canaan house. Zig-zagged in ''Literature/HarrowTheNinth'' when Harrowhark meets his ghost and is amazed that anyone could have fallen for the ruse.
* MeaningfulName: Protesilaus is the first hero to die at Troy, and here was dead before he arrived.
* TheQuietOne: He really doesn't say much. Even when he actually appears as himself.
* TheRival: He doesn't reciprocate it, but, as a far better poet and an actual warrior, he's the person Ortus wants to be, and Ortus hates him for it.
* WarriorPoet: He writes poetry and breeds flowers, and was, before his death, one of the greatest living cavaliers in the Empire.
[[/folder]]
----
!!The Eighth House
->''Keepers of the Tome, the Forgiving House''
[[folder:In General]]
Though all the Houses speak words of worship for their divine Emperor, the Eighth reach depths of devotion that approach zealotry. As the font of mortal forgiveness for sin, they take great pleasure in withholding mercy and pronouncing judgment.
----
* ColorMotif: Pure white and nothing but, evoking both their BlackAndWhiteMorality and the Emperor's own motif of iridescent white.
* DangerousForbiddenTechnique: Their necromantic specialty is soul siphoning, which even the Emperor has warned against using.
* HolierThanThou: The defining characteristic of the zealous Eighth House.
-->'''Palamedes:''' The Eighth House thinks there's right and there's wrong, and by a series of happy coincidences they always end up being right.
* IronicName: They're called "the forgiving house" but tend toward the KnightTemplar.
* LightIsNotGood: The Eighth's shtick; they dress in pure white and have austere living habits, but they also practice one of the most dangerous sub-disciplines of necromancy, soul siphoning, and treat their cavaliers as little more than human batteries.
* LivingBattery: What soul siphoning amounts to, sending a cavalier's soul elsewhere and draining the energy that flows into their empty vessel. [[spoiler: Where exactly the soul gets sent is unclear, but an incidental comment from Augustine suggests that it is Hell itself.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Silas]]
!!Silas Octakiseron
!!! HEIR TO THE HOUSE OF THE EIGHTH, MASTER TEMPLAR OF THE WHITE GLASS
The heir to the Eighth House, and master templar of the White Glass.
----
* DangerousForbiddenTechnique: Utilizes soul siphoning, which all the other Houses view unfavorably (from unease to outright contempt). It's not exactly banned, but even the Emperor warns against using it. Teacher warns Silas that siphoning in the haunted Canaan House is sheer lunacy. [[spoiler:He's absolutely right.]]
* DemotedToExtra: After being one of the most prominent necromancers in ''Gideon the Ninth'', [[spoiler:he appears only briefly in ''Harrow the Ninth'', throwing himself off the cliffs of the fake Canaan House to avoid Harrow's liminal space, with Abigail alluding to this having terrible consequences for his soul]].
* DisneyVillainDeath: [[spoiler:In Harrow's DreamLand, he's last seen jumping off the edge after killing the fake Corona. Given that he was an actual ghost, Abigail fears what became of him.]]
* {{Foil}}: To Harrow. They're both highly religious, wield outsized authority for their age, and have a distinctly parasitic relationship to their cavaliers. Silas always wears white, and his necromancy is associated with souls and light, while Harrow wears nothing but black, and her necromancy centers on bones. [[spoiler:Unlike Harrow, who deeply regrets the way she's treated Gideon, and eventually even tries to sacrifice herself to save Gideon, Silas overrides Colum's will constantly, and ends up getting them both killed due to his hubris.]]
* HolierThanThou: The Eighth House has a reputation for zealotry, and Silas embodies this. At Canaan House, he's of the opinion that he's the only "pure" person present and it's up to him to force the path of divine righteousness on everyone else. [[spoiler:It also ends up being sincere, and not merely manuevering for advantage. Despite everyone's assumptions, he ends up hoarding keys primarily to prevent others from studying the Lyctor labs, coming to view the mere existence of the Lyctor trials as blasphemous.]]
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: [[spoiler:People spend most of the book warning him about the danger of soul siphoning, which Silas repeatedly brushes off. When he starts siphoning Colum against his will to fight Ianthe, Colum's empty body ends up possessed, and stabs him through the throat.]]
* {{Hypocrite}}: There are several necromantic practices which Silas denounces as heresy, but Dulcinea notes that the only one the Emperor has openly cautioned against is soul siphoning, Silas' own speciality. [[spoiler:And the process of becoming a Lyctor, in which a necromancer devours their cavalier's soul and uses it as a renewable energy source (and which Silas ''also'' condemns as heresy) is basically just a scaled up version of soul siphoning. Multiple characters, including Colum, call him out on this as well.]]
* JerkassHasAPoint: While he's a haughty jerk quick to call anything he disagrees with blasphemous, [[spoiler:he's entirely right in his suspicion that the death of the Ninth's children was on purpose, and that the cover story of a "vent flu" didn't make any sense]].
** Two extend into ''Harrow the Ninth''. [[spoiler: He's the first of the revenants to become fully aware of the parameters of Harrow's liminal space, and treats both her and the fascimile of Corona with extreme disdain; not unjustified given Ianthe led to his death and Harrow's pulling him into her DreamLand.]] Additionally, in the first book he makes an explicit point that [[spoiler: swallowing and burning a cavalier's soul to become a Lyctor is a blasphemous sin and a crime punishable by death - and the Resurrection Beasts in the second are out to try to kill anyone who's committed that "sin", while everyone in the First clearly views it as utterly abominal.]]
* KnightTemplar: Silas does everything he does because he genuinely believes he's in the right in the eyes of the Emperor. Calling things blasphemous is practically his catchphrase. [[spoiler: Ultimately his warped morality ends in his and his cavalier's deaths when he decides to pass judgement on Ianthe's sin for becoming a Lyctor]]
* TautologicalTemplar: Most of his actions can be summarized as "since I'm right, I can do whatever I want." He insists that he is the only morally pure person in the trial, and therefore sees nothing wrong with confiscating keys and doing whatever is necessary to prevent the others from ascending. [[spoiler:When Colum promises Gideon her safety, Silas breaks that promise without a second thought, since a promise to an "honorless dog" is irrelevant. Colum, notably, refuses to cooperate with him on this.]]
-->'''Palamedes Sextus:''' The Eighth House thinks there's right and there's wrong, and by a series of happy coincidences they always end up being right.
* UsedToBeASweetKid: [[spoiler:Colum states that Silas used to look up to him as a child, and that he loved Silas then, but that he can't stand the man he's become.]]
* YoungerThanTheyLook: He's only 16, making him the second youngest necromancer at Canaan House, and much younger than most of the other heirs he lectures.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Colum]]
!!Colum Asht
!!! CAVALIER PRIMARY OF THE EIGHTH, TEMPLAR OF THE WHITE GLASS
The cavalier primary to Silas, and a templar of the white glass.
----
* AmbiguousSituation: [[spoiler:Unlike the other dead, he never makes any sort of appearance in Harrow's DreamLand. Given siphoning is said to operate by sending a soul "elsewhere", it's possible he never ended up in the River in the first place.]]
* BewareTheNiceOnes: At first comes off as only an ExtremeDoormat raised in the Eighth House ways, but eventually it turns out he is ''absolutely'' willing to chew Silas out when he thinks he really needs to, and is much sharper than he seems early on.
* DemonicPossession: Teacher warns early on that this could happen to him if Silas soul-siphons him in Canaan House. [[spoiler:This warning comes to fruition during the fight with Ianthe, and leads to both his and Silas' deaths.]]
* EveryoneHasStandards: Colum has given Silas everything except his sword and his honour, but when Silas asks him to break an oath he made to Gideon, Colum is absolutely appalled that Silas would ask him to do that and refuses.
* ExorcistHead: [[spoiler:His head turns 180 degrees while he's possessed.]]
* EyeColourChange: [[spoiler:After being possessed, his eyes turn completely black.]]
* HiddenDepths: Despite being born and bred purely to serve as a LivingBattery, Colum is actually a highly skilled and dangerous cavalier. He also has a sensibility and intelligence that surprises Gideon, and helps provide key insights into [[spoiler:the mystery of who was burnt in the incinerator]].
* IGaveMyWord: When he confiscates Gideon's weapons in the Eighth's quarters, he promises on his honor that no harm will come to her. He takes this very seriously: see below.
* LightningBruiser: Gideon expects Colum to be able to hit really hard; after all, he's a big guy. She is surprised at how fast he can move while doing it, though.
* LivingBattery: His primary role as cavalier to Silas, and something he was born to do even before Silas was concieved; it's also notably left him with a battered, aged appearance despite being younger than Magnus.
* MeaningfulName: His given name derives from a sacrificial dove (Columba), while his house name very blatantly refers to his usage as a LivingBattery. In the Nine Houses last names aren't inheritable and are given deliberately -- just as Ianthe and Corona both being Tridentarius indicates their father's desire to have them be a linked pair, Colum and his two brothers (who also have sacrificial first names) are all Asht, indicating both their purpose to be interchangeable depending on Silas' blood type, and the fact that they were all born to be consumed.
* ManySpiritsInsideOfOne: [[spoiler:After Silas siphons his soul to empower himself for the fight with Ianthe, multiple spirits possess Colum.]]
-->[[spoiler:He now moved like there were six people inside him, and none of those six people had ever been inside a human being before.]]
* MookFaceTurn: Colum silently abides by many of Silas' decisions that anger him, but he won't let Silas [[spoiler:attack an unarmed Gideon after Colum had promised their meeting would not be violent]].
* MyMasterRightOrWrong: Colum has lived in this trope for years, disliking the direction Silas has taken, but obeying him anyway out of duty. [[spoiler: He finally defies him when he tries to get Colum to attack Gideon after giving his word that their meeting would be peaceful.]]
* OddNameOut: His given name breaks the ReligiousAndMythologicalThemeNaming that almost everyone else in the cast follows.
* TooManyMouths: [[spoiler:While he's possessed, his eyeballs disappear and turn into mouths.]]
* WalkingTransplant: A fantasy version: he and his brothers were born purely so that Silas would have someone to siphon the soul from to power his necromancy, and he's been given antigens and antibodies since before Silas was born to make it easier for Silas to do so. He even mentions that the fact that he ''has'' brothers is purely because his parents wanted different blood type options depending on what would be easiest for Silas to use.
* YoungerThanTheyLook: Years of siphoning have taken a marked toll on his body; he's noted as having a washed out, jaundiced tinge to his skin and seems like a fairly battered middle aged man, despite only being in his early 30s.
[[/folder]]
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[[WMG:[[center:[- [[Characters/TheLockedTombMain Main Characters]] | [[Characters/TheLockedTombSixth The Sixth]] | [[Characters/TheLockedTombSecondary Secondary Characters]] | [[Characters/TheLockedTombTheFirstHouse The First House]] | ''' The Nine Houses''' | [[Characters/TheLockedTombNonEmpire Non-Empire Characters]]-]]]]]
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'''''NOTE''''': Due to the large amount of reveals about the primary characters, this page contains '''unmarked spoilers''' for all works in the series, including ''Literature/NonaTheNinth''.
----
[[foldercontrol]]
----
-> ''Two is for discipline, heedless of trial;''\\
''Three for the gleam of a jewel or a smile;''\\
''Four for fidelity, facing ahead;''\\
''Five for tradition and debts to the dead;''\\
''Six for the truth over solace in lies;''\\
''Seven for beauty that blossoms and dies;''\\
''Eight for salvation no matter the cost;''\\
''Nine for the Tomb, and for all that was lost.''
----
!! The Empire of the Nine Houses
[[folder:In General]]
* TheEmpire: Duh. In a bit of a twist, while the Empire rules over enormous swathes of territory, only the Dominicus system is actually considered part of it. The "shepherded" territories are just temporary sources of Thanergy that will burn out soon.
* GalacticSuperpower: Played with. On one hand, it's not clear just how far the empire extends (though a brief ImagineSpot from Gideon describes her fighting battles "galaxies and galaxies" away) and no other large interstellar civilizations ever get mentioned -- the rest of humanity seems isolated to the planetary level, if even that (aside from Blood of Eden, a decentralized insurgency). On the other, the Nine Houses have a combined population of mere millions, which doesn't make for much of an army, and it seems they only control a relative handful of planets across those galaxies, the populations of which are constantly being resettled to other planets as they become unlivable thanks to thanergetic poisoning.
* PlanetOfHats: An empire of several hats. Each of the nine planets making up its core provides a different specialized service for it, which in turn leads to them being stereotyped among other Houses.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Cohort]]
The military arm of the Empire, a vast galaxy spannning armed force that draws from the Nine Houses.
----
* ChildSoldiers: ''Very'' common. Some Houses seem to prefer fighters seek Cohort placement in their late teens or so but the Second and the Fourth take them very young. Isaac and Jeannmary were turned aside as too young at eleven, then for having mumps the next year, meaning they could have got in as twelve-year-olds. The Second takes them even younger, though into the "Junior Cohort Territorials" at first.
* MartyrdomCulture: To die in service and have your remains interred aboard the Mithraeum is considered possibly the highest honor one can receive. This goes double if you serve directly on God's flagship, leading to behavior that Mercymorn and even John himself find exasperating. This may be related to the fact that the Nine Houses makes mass death their starting priority during any invasion, to give their necromancers thanergy to work with; theirs or the enemy's, it doesn't really matter.
* SchizoTech: The Cohort gets around aboard spacecraft capable of orbital bombardment and then lands troops who fight with swords. Not even sci-fi swords, just regular steel.
* SkeletonMotif: Cohort starships are ''covered'' in real, human bones.
[[/folder]]
!! The Ninth House
-> ''Keepers of the Locked Tomb, House of the Sewn Tongue, the Black Vestals''
[[folder:In General]]
The Ninth House is a house of secrets, a cloistered tomb tended by silent nuns and skeletal thralls. Tasked with a dreadful duty by the Emperor, the Ninth are treated with fear and suspicion, but command respect.
----
* TheAlcatraz: The prison operated by the Cohort near the Ninth's surface is described as only holding the worst criminals of the Empire.
* ApocalypseCult: Ninth religion, practiced in the deepest, darkest hole of the Empire is an Inversion; despite being swathed in black, [[DemBones manipulating skeletons]], and even [[spoiler:prone to HumanSacrifice]], they worship fervently to ''stop'' the apocalypse, praying over the grave of [[TheAntichrist God's greatest enemy]] and treating its inevitable reawakening as the end of everything. [[spoiler:Ultimately subverted. It's actually just a very abstracted CargoCult, as their entire sect of Empire religion was based on a misconception from the very beginning, as the Tomb is impossible to open without the blood of God.]]
* CombatPragmatist: Despite being not as tied to the Cohort as the martial Second and Fourth, politeness and rules are something the Ninth has never paid attention to, and every fighter from the Ninth is shown being willing to rely on tricks, fighting dirty, and pressing every advantage to win.
--> For all its mouldering brittleness, the Ninth was hard as iron.
* DemBones: The Ninth is the only house to specialize in bone magic, and makes extensive use of skeletal constructs.
* TheDreaded: The whole "skeleton tomb cult" thing gives them a certain reputation, even in a galaxy spanning Empire of necromancy. The other Houses' reactions to being near a member of the Ninth in full religious garb generally ranges from off-put to openly fearful.
* DyingTown: The Ninth is on its last legs at the beginning of ''Gideon the Ninth'': impoverished and decrepit, populated almost entirely by the dead and the elderly soon-to-be-dead, and with their necromantic bloodlines down to a single family with no viable candidates to continue it. The Ninth House could, at any time, request aid from the other Houses... but that would mean publicizing just how bad things things have gotten, and by the end of it [[PuppetState they wouldn't be the Ninth House any more]]. The restoration of her house is part of why Harrow is desperate to become a Lyctor. [[spoiler:Of course, the Ninth is dying primarily because Harrow's parents murdered an entire generation of children to ensure Harrow's birth.]] She does get her wish at the beginning of ''Harrow the Ninth'', when the Emperor donates them several hundred healthy adults and teenagers he'd had in stasis since the Resurrection.
* EeriePaleSkinnedBrunette: The classic Ninth appearance is this, with dark hair and eyes so dark they're very nearly black. It also very visibly marks the dark-skinned redhead Gideon Nav as someone not originally from the Ninth.
* EvilIsDeathlyCold: Invoked aesthetically. The Ninth is a dark hole in a dead planet where everyone's obsessed with worshipping a corpse; the climate of the Ninth ranges from frigid to frozen over. However their evillness, [[spoiler: HumanSacrifice aside]], is more vague.
* ElementalMotifs: Darkness, which is both an intentional religious choice and a practical reality of where the House is located and its poverty.
* FantasticReligiousWeirdness: In contrast to the religion of the broader Empire (which can generally be described as [[InterfaithSmoothie Catholicism with some quirks]]), Ninth religion is treated as an entirely different sect, or even a blasphemous cult. Those adhering to the faith of the Locked Tomb worship God and the corpse within the Tomb equally, [[ApocalypseCult praying fervently that the Tomb stays shut forever]]. Those more devoutly drawn to the faith wear ceremonial facepaint to mimic skulls (with an entire canon of differing paints of subtly different meanings), and dress in all black, and conceal their faces. The whole effect only serves to make them [[TheDreaded excessively creepy]] in the eyes of the Empire.
* FounderOfTheKingdom: Downplayed. Anastasia, the Lyctor once from the Ninth and one of its first members, has a near mythical status in the modern day, with a monument to her reserved for the Ninth's greatest heroes. However, after an entire myriad, little memory remains other than the name and the monument, and Harrow is somewhat surprised and unsettled to find she existed at all.
* InnateNightVision: Downplayed. There's not any magical or biological component, but due to the Ninth's location and poverty meaning it is extremely dark at all times, Niners are consequently much better than others at seeing in near total darkness; both Gideon and Harrow describe scenes in dim twilight as being as bright as full day to them. However, they can't see in complete darkness, and [[DayHurtsDarkAdjustedEyes full sunlight takes them some time to adapt to]].
* TheParanoiac: At their worst, the Ninth is obsessed with keeping irrelevant secrets, suspecting everyone of treachery at all times, and prone to massively inflating their own sense of importance. In the broader Empire, those who look past their reputation as creepy shadow cultists often find them obnoxiously cryptic and judgemental.
* SealedEvilInACan: The Tomb is the Can from the unknown enemy of God that lays inside, and the Ninth sprung up to worship at the threshold, which others find to be a heresy.
* SmallSecludedWorld: While those of the Ninth were once more involved in the Empire it is a part of, the House itself is implied to have always been a lonely dark hole in a distant part of the Empire, only sometimes taking pilgrims and letting the Cohort operate a prison on its surface, which is part of why [[TheDreaded they are widely feared in the Empire]].
* TongueTied: The Keepers of the Locked Tomb are not known as the House of the Sewn Tongue for nothing. [[spoiler:The process entails magically replacing part of a Sewn Tongue's jaw, preventing them from discussing a forbidden topic completely]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Harrow's Parents]]
!!Pelleamena Novenarius & Priamhark Noniusvianus
!!! THE REVEREND MOTHER AND FATHER OF DREARBURH
Harrowhark's parents and the current rulers of Drearburh are little more than figureheads, having been dead for the better part of a decade by the time ''Gideon the Ninth'' begins, leaving Harrow to puppet their corpses around to maintain appearances.
----
* AbusiveParents: They raised Harrow to be intimately aware of what they did to concieve her, including leading her in 45 minutes of prayers every night [[spoiler:about how she was a necromantic abomination made from the souls of 200 dead children and that she had to prove herself "worthy" of the genocide.]] Their emotional and mental abuse nearly drove Harrow to suicide at the ripe age of [[HarmfulToMinors nine]].
* DrivenToSuicide: Hanged themselves when Harrow was ten years old, along with their cavalier Mortus. [[spoiler:Right in front of Harrow, too, and even meant for her to join them in the deed, because she committed the gravest possible sin by unlocking and entering the Locked Tomb containing this universe's equivalent to the TheAntichrist.]]
* MeaningfulName: Priam was the king of the Trojans, who was murdered after watching his city fall to the enemy. "Pelleamena" is a female version of Peleus, the father of Achilles, which is fitting as Pelleamena is the mother of an incredibly talented necromancer who is nevertheless hamstrung by emotional turmoil.
* OfCorpseHesAlive: Harrow used necromancy to preserve their bodies (at least from the shoulders up) and has been puppeteering them ever since. She tells her subjects that her parents have taken a vow of silence, are fasting, and so on. Gideon is appalled no one has caught on. Ortus, it turns out, does know but has said nothing.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler:While they never seem to have been ''pleasant'' people, according to Crux, they used to be different before they killed an entire generation of the Ninth. Harrow can only ever recall them as exhausted and distant teachers more than parents, and it's heavily implied the lingering guilt was a factor in their suicides.]]
* PuppetKing: Quite literally: see above. While they're still the rulers of Drearburh in name, Harrow controls them and everything else in practice.
* WouldHurtAChild: They were quite cruel to Gideon when she was young. [[spoiler:They also tried to kill her as an infant, and did succeed in killing the other 200 babies and children of the House in a mass HumanSacrifice. Not to mention the fact they expected Harrow to kill herself along with them.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Aiglamene]]
!!Aiglamene
!!! CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD OF THE NINTH
The last soldier of the Ninth is one of its oldest members, and still fully capable of defending the Ninth by any means necessary. Served as Gideon's sword-master, and is the only person in the Ninth to treat her with anything other than disdain.
----
* HandicappedBadass: She's an incredible swordswoman, but refuses to serve as Harrow's cavalier primary because she's also old as balls and has a not-quite-functional necromantic prosthesis replacing one of her legs.
* MasterSwordsman: She's an extremely talented swordswoman and despite her age, she is capable enough with weapons as different as the rapier and zweihander to make Gideon into one of the best fighters in the history of the Ninth.
* MeaningfulName: "Aigla" comes from French for "eagle", befitting a sharp eyed and dangerous woman with a harsh appearance. And like several other Ninth characters, her name is nine characters long.
* OldSoldier: She's in her 80s, wizened and scarred, and still the most (and just about only) capable soldier Drearburh has, and fully capable of knocking Gideon to the floor in only a few moves.
* ParentalSubstitute: Though she would laugh her ass off at the suggestion, she's effectively the closest thing to a parent that Gideon had growing up, as the only person who saw her as anything more than a burden and a nuisance. Gideon, for her part, actually listens to Aiglamene, and treats her with a respect lacking for any other member of the Ninth House. And beyond her skill with a sword, some of Gideon's sheer [[{{Determinator}} stubbornness]] seems to have come from her.
** [[spoiler: When Gideon returns to the Ninth as the corpse prince Kiriona, Aiglamene is furious that she's dead, and levels a DeathGlare at Nona, who she believes is Harrowhark. Not knowing the reason behind it, she clearly feels that Harrow didn't keep her promise and is unhappy that Gideon is dead.]]
* RuggedScar: Her whole head is comprised of "melty scars."
* ToughLove: She's the only adult in the Ninth House who cares about Gideon to any degree, but she's no softer for it. She treats her so gruffly that Gideon can't even conceive that Aiglamene could love her, and she at times hits or physically threatens Gideon. Still, it's clear she's invested in Gideon's wellbeing despite everything, and even stands up to Harrow on her behalf.
* UndyingLoyalty: To Harrowhark. As much as she cares about Gideon, she won't stand for anyone disrespecting her Lady.
* WithDueRespect: Aiglamene does, however, stand up to Harrow -- and even puts her own honor on the line -- to ensure Harrow will abide by her promise to set Gideon free after the Lyctor trials. [[spoiler: When Gideon returns home nearly 2 years later, ''dead'', she immediately prepares to tear into Harrow, until Kiriona informs her that Nona isn't the Reverend Daughter.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Crux]]
!!Crux
!!! MARSHALL OF THE NINTH HOUSE
Ninth to the core, the Marshall is an unbelievably old man, and yet is still quick to violence and even quicker to rage, especially against any slight or disloyalty to the royal family of Drearbruh who he serves without question.
----
* FloweryInsults: This and equally florid threats make up most of his dialogue.
* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler: Goads Kiriona/Gideon into killing him to open the Tomb to save Nona, and therefore Harrow's life, though he delivers a final parting insult to her in the process.]]
* {{Jerkass}}: He's rude to everyone but Harrow and absolutely delights in anything that makes Gideon suffer.
* KickTheDog: [[spoiler: Gideon died willingly to save Harrow and make her a Lyctor, lived anyways, and found herself Kiriona Gaia, the only child of God. Crux curses her with his last breath regardless, hating her even as she kills him by his own request]].
--> [[spoiler: "You remain--what you are. A worthless millstone hung about my darling's neck. You were born to make her suffer. You lived as you died Gideon Nav--a disappointment to me--''and'' to God."]]
* MoralityPet: His treatment of Harrowhark is the sole indication he's capable of things like compassion and gentleness.
* NumberTwo: To Harrow. He's left in charge when Harrow and Gideon leave Drearburh.
* OldRetainer: He is ''ancient'' and certainly gives off these vibes in regards to Harrow's family.
* ParentalSubstitute: Harrow has some fond memories of him taking care of her after the death of her parents [[spoiler:and the hallucination riddled fugue that she was in afterwards]]. In turn, Harrow used her magic to help prolong his life. [[spoiler: ''Nona'' makes it clear he views her as practically his own daughter.]]
* PunnyName: "Crux" literally means "Cross", and he's always angry.
* UndyingLoyalty: To Harrowhark, and the Ninth House in general. Harrow says he can't stand disloyalty, [[spoiler:to the point that he blows up the shuttle stolen by Ortus and Glaurica for their audacity to abandon their duty]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Ortus]]
!!Ortus Nigenad
-->[[Characters/TheLockedTombSecondary Listed with secondary characters]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Matthias Nonius '''(Unmarked Spoilers)''']]
!!Matthias Nonius
The greatest cavalier in the history of the Ninth, famous in death and immortalized, however poorly, in Ortus Nigenad's ''The Noniad''.
----
* BadassBoast: Prone to these in ''The Noniad''. The real Nonius has some of his own.
-->'''Abigail''': I speak your name, Matthias Nonius, cavalier of the Ninth House. I charge you to protect the Reverend Daughter of Drearburh, and to slay her enemies.\\
'''Nonius''': Waste not your breath. Such was my task when I lived; why now in my death would I need a reminder?\\
'''Harrow''': Oh, ''God.''
* BadassNormal: Not a necromancer or gifted in magical arts, but is a good enough warrior to best the Sleeper and help drive off a Resurrection Beast in the afterlife. When he was alive, he fought alongside and ''against'' Gideon the First. That’s right, he fought a ''lyctor''
* ExpectingSomeoneTaller: Harrow's surprised that Nonius is actually fairly short after 18 books of Ortus constantly praising him. He's every bit as capable as ''The Noniad'' makes him out to be though.
* FamedInStory: Even the other Houses recognize how legendary of a cavalier he was, and he's been literally worshiped within the Ninth in the past.
* GotMeDoingIt: Speaks mostly in Ortus' meter when he's resummoned, as The Noniad warps the conditions of Harrow's DreamLand. He repeatedly asks why he's speaking in verse.
* HonorBeforeReason: Part of the reason Harrow hates ''The Noniad'' is that Nonius is so tediously devoted to honor. The actual Nonius is as well, to a point. When the Sleeper's constant dirty fighting leads to his sword being knocked out of his hand, he stops trying to be honorable and quickly dismantles her.
* TranquilFury: When the Sleeper disarms him after he offers leniency to her, Nonius advances with a cold fury and completely destroys her.
* WalkingSpoiler: The very fact that he appears in person is a spoiler. He returns as a ghost in Harrow's DreamLand at the climatic moment, fending off the Sleeper along with the other revenants.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Locked Tomb '''(Unmarked Spoilers)''']]
!!"The Body" / A.L. / Alecto the First
-->[[Characters/TheLockedTombMain Listed with Main Characters]]
%% Character entry preserved to prevent spoiling the end of Harrow the Ninth
[[/folder]]
----
!! The Second House
->''The Emperor's Strength, House of the Crimson Shield, the Centurion's House''
[[folder:In General]]
The Second House is the militant strength of the Emperor. Deeply interwoven with the Cohort, they comport themselves with military rigor in all situations. Their fervent devotion to rank and order makes them prone to taking charge, often over the protestations of other houses.
----
* ChildSoldiers: Judith joined the Emperor's service at six and the Junior Cohort Territorials at eleven, Marta at ten. Unlike what's expected from the Fourth they appear not to be shipped out to the front lines without several years of training first.
* ColorMotif: Red and white, as a House of warriors.
* HufflepuffHouse: The least detailed of the Houses as of yet.
* MagicKnight: The Lyctor who founded their house was unusually physically capable, and while mortal Second necromancers aren't on his level, Judith notes in ''As Yet Unsent'' that necromancers of the Second aren't as physically frail as those of other Houses.
* ProudWarriorRace: Their [[PlanetOfHats hat]]; while most Houses have strong ties to the Cohort, the Second ''is'' the Cohort. It's routine for children to join the HomeGuard, and many ship out well before puberty, and [[spoiler:they don't seem to have a formal heir, instead selecting Judith due to her suitability for the mission]].
* YourSoulIsMine: The Second's necromancers specialty is draining the thalergy of the living, which they can then use to bolster the abilities of a cavalier.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Judith]]
!!Judith Deuteros
-->[[Characters/TheLockedTombSecondary Listed with secondary characters]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Marta]]
!!Marta Dyas
!!! CAVALIER PRIMARY OF THE SECOND, RANKED FIRST LIEUTENANT OF THE COHORT
A cavalier with a fearsome reputation and a long partnership with her necromancer, Marta Dyas is the epitome of a Cohort cavalier, as decorated as she is dangerous.
----
* BraidsOfAction: She has the same braids as her captain.
* FlatCharacter: Marta is a disciplined soldier who follows Judith's every order without question. Her few notable differences are a greater inclination to work with others, a strong sense of honor, and a keen eye for combat. [[spoiler:Even returning in Harrow's DreamLand, she's still mostly devoted to her duty, though she does get a bit more chance to stand on her own. While she's still out of focus, she ''is'' very willing to work with others and put herself in danger and shows signs of a dry sense of humor.]] In ''As Yet Unsent'' Judith admits to having been in love with her and that Marta rebuffed her advances as improper.
* INeedAFreakingDrink: After her brutal combat with Camilla, Marta's only reaction was requesting a cold beer afterward, and held no grudges against the Sixth later.
* SenselessSacrifice: [[spoiler:Harrow explicitly says that Marta's death meant nothing, and the realization that this is the case hits Judith very hard. Marta herself finds some purpose after her death by going to fight the Resurrection Beast with the Saint of Duty.]]
* UndyingLoyalty: To her captain and the Cohort.
* TheWorfEffect: Rare take on the trope. Marta is a veteran of the Cohort who has seen actual combat in service of the Emperor, and the Cohort itself considers her one of the best fighters in the Empire. She's fast, reactive, and can push through a lot of pain, but she is quickly and brutally defeated [[spoiler:by Camilla, to show how skilled she is when she's not holding back]]. However, this is only relative to [[spoiler:Camilla, who also manages to best *Cytherea* multiple times.]]
** Downplayed in ''Harrow the Ninth'', [[spoiler:with her being defeated by the Sleeper before Matthias Nonius is summoned. But she is shown to be *faster* and more accurate on the draw than even the legendary Commander Wake herself, and is overall one of the more effective fighters in the battle]].
[[/folder]]
----
!! The Third House
->''Mouth of the Emperor, the Procession, House of the Shining Dead''
[[folder:In General]]
The Third House is the vanguard of trend in the Empire, setting fashion and sparking gossip with their every move. Not only do they spark rumors, they also diligently collect intelligence, both personal and political.
----
* TheBeautifulElite: Their reputation in the Nine Houses.
* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: Their less savory reputation in the Nine Houses is one of constant scheming and plotting.
* ColorMotif: Gold and purple, to match their nobility.
* HumanResources: Their necromantic specialty is being able to fully utilize the thanergy of corpses.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Coronabeth]]
!!Coronabeth Tridentarius
-->[[Characters/TheLockedTombSecondary Listed with secondary characters]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Ianthe]]
!!Ianthe Tridentarius
-->[[Characters/TheLockedTombSecondary Listed with secondary characters]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Naberius '''(Unmarked Spoilers)''']]
!!Naberius Tern
!!! CAVALIER PRIMARY OF THE THIRD, PRINCE OF IDA
Naberius the Third was born to a cavalier family of Resurrection purity, producing nothing but cavaliers for the past ten thousand years. Prince Tern himself is an almost peerless master of the rapier, but outside of formal duels between cavaliers, is brash and impulsive, used to a lifetime of royal treatment, and is almost inherently unlikable.
----
* AchillesHeel: While even Gideon acknowledges that he's extremely technically skilled at the rapier, he's actually one of the weaker fighters at Canaan House, as he's used to the structured fighting of tournaments and duels, while the serious cavaliers have no compunctions about [[CombatPragmatist fighting dirty and breaking any rules along the way]]. Judith's intelligence dossier explicitly notes this as his main weakness.
* BloodKnight: Basically the only thing he cares about aside from the Third and his ego is fighting, and he constantly tries to rope other cavaliers into debates and discussions about tournaments and fighting styles.
* ButtMonkey: He's constantly made fun of and humiliated by Gideon's narration, Ianthe, and Coronabeth.
* ChildSoldiers: As a cavalier born to the role in a family that has provided cavaliers for millennia, multiple characters note that Naberius was likely handed a rapier the moment he left the cradle.
* EveryoneHasStandards: After Silas... ''acquires'' Dulcinea's keys Naberius shouts "You callous bastard, you just went and heavied a nearly dead girl for her keys". Then again, Jeannemary then says he's just sorry he didn't think of it first, and he immediately says "Chatur, if you say one more bloody word I'll make sure you never get through puberty-"
* FightingFromTheInside: Comments from Ianthe and Cytherea indicate that what remains of his mind is fighting from within Ianthe throughout the finale of ''Gideon the Ninth'', furious over his own murder. However he seems to have lost by the time ''Harrow the Ninth'' takes place, going unmentioned.
* TheFightingNarcissist: He clearly takes great pride in his appearance and his swordsmanship, though because [[ButtMonkey of his personality]], nobody pays much attention to the former. As for the latter, in an unusual take on the trope, his skill isn't at all flashy, but comes from incredibly well trained and precise, though his arrogance hampers him greatly.
* ForgottenFallenFriend: Used with a variation in ''Harrow the Ninth''. Ianthe and Harrow rarely discuss Naberius except as brief asides or when Harrow is jabbing at Ianthe's murder of him, and Ianthe treats him as having been little more than a stepping stone. However, the SecondPersonNarration mentions Naberius more frequently, because Gideon is the narrator, and she often remembers the dead of Canaan House and is a fellow cavalier besides.
* InSeriesNickname: Corona and Ianthe call him "Babs."
* InTheBack: Ianthe stabs him in the back in order to absorb his soul and become a Lyctor.
* {{Jerkass}}: He is snobby, narcissistic, and perfectly willing to yell at the Fourth House kids.
* MeaningfulName: Naberius is a three-headed demon and alter ego of Cerberus from ''Literature/ArsGoetia''.
* PeoplePuppets: In ''Nona the Ninth'', his corpse returns as a RemoteBody being piloted by Ianthe to get around the looming presence of Number Seven and the madness it induces in necromancers. Though this lets her walk around right beneath a Resurrection Beast, it also greatly hampers her powers, horrifies Coronabeth, and makes Nona mistake Naberius ''for'' Ianthe, leading her to conclude that "he's" Corona's boyfriend. Palamedes later hijacks him from Ianthe and spends several hours using him as his new body, until ultimately both he and Ianthe abandon it.
* RoyalBrat: Naberius is petulant, and very insistent on his "prince" title.
* SmugSnake: He is supremely overconfident in his skills and his title, and is a jerk to everyone aside from Ianthe and Corona.
--> '''Judith''': "[Naberius] also has an extremely good opinion of himself and his swordplay, an opinion that Lt. Dyas notes occasionally aligns with reality."
* UndyingLoyalty: Despite how they treat him, Naberius is unfailingly loyal to Ianthe and Coronabeth, but he becomes conflicted when the twins are quarreling with each other. The fact that he ultimately has to submit to Ianthe, knowing the truth of Corona's lack of necromancy, seems to privately makes him seethe.
* WorthyOpponent: A subversion: while he praised Gideon's skill to Corona in private, he remains condescending to her in public, albeit too intimidated to fight her.
[[/folder]]
----
!! The Fourth House
->''Hope of the Emperor, the Emperor's Sword''
[[folder:In General]]
The Fourth House is the vanguard of the Empire, first over the line on every battlefield as the Emperor wages war across the galaxy. Noble scions of the Fourth often find themselves in the field well before their sixteenth birthdays.
----
* ActionBomb: While they prefer to use others' corpses, they are very capable of blowing themselves up if needed.
* CannonFodder: Their reputation among the Nine Houses is of reckless wild acts to establish a front line for the Cohort. It's not unearned, but Isaac notes they try to be smart about it, since a death that doesn't help anything is just stupid.
* ChildSoldiers: It's common for the Fourth to attempt to enlist as preteens. The Second accepts recruits even younger but then spends several years training them, while the Fourth are shipped out what seems to be quite fast.
* ColorMotif: Navy, a martial color that match their profinity in spirit magic.
* ContainmentField: The Fourth takes special care in crafting wards, and even goes so far as to ritually scarify them onto Cohort recruits before they're shipped out.
* FearlessFool:
-->'''Strengths''': Bravery unfettered by common sense.\\
'''Weaknesses''': Bravery unfettered by common sense.
* FleshAndBombs: They specialize in rapid thanergetic fission, turning corpses into bombs.
* HufflepuffHouse: The second-least detailed House after the Second. It's even discussed in-universe, with the other Houses viewing the Fifth's close relationship towards the Fourth as an inevitable prelude to the Fourth becoming part of the Fifth.
* MassiveNumberedSiblings: Large families are the norm in the Fourth, to go with their reputation as CannonFodder; Isaac is the first of eight children and Jeanne is the second of six.
* MauriceChevalierAccent: The Fourth are notably depicted as having stereotypical French accents in the audiobook versions of the series, presumably inspired by Jeannemary's name being French.
* ParentalAbandonment: Most kids in the Fourth have lost one or both parents to some brave, suicidal deed on the front lines of the Cohort. It's even enforced in the latter case: Isaac's father died years prior to any of his eight children being born.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Isaac]]
!!Isaac Tettares
!!! HEIR TO THE HOUSE OF THE FOURTH, BARON OF TISIS
The youngest of the heirs, being only thirteen, Isaac is one of the few characters to defy the stereotypes of his House, being very un-Fourth in his shy and reserved nature. Has a very close, sibling-like bond with his cavalier, doing nearly everything with her.
----
* BreakTheCutie: He and Jeannemary take [[spoiler:the death of the Fifth very badly, and spend the next few days on edge and exhausted, stalking the halls and paranoid of everyone but Coronabeth and Gideon, until they're the next to be killed]].
* ChildhoodFriends: He has been paired with Jeannemary since they were very young.
* AChildShallLeadThem: He's the Baron of Tisis and leader of the Fourth House, despite being only thirteen. Extra content states that there's a regent in place. [[spoiler: After his death, the title is presumably taken over by one of his younger siblings.]]
* ChildSoldiers: He and Jeannemary would have been enlisted already if Isaac hadn't gotten the mumps during the recruitment period, and they still intend to enlist the next year. He's thirteen. They would have enlisted even earlier, but Abigail forbade them and he had younger siblings to look after.
* CulturalRebel: The Fourth House is often regarded as reckless cannon fodder, but - possibly due to his close proximity to levelheaded Magnus and Abigail - Isaac is noted to be cautious and careful. [[spoiler:He tries, but after several extremely stressful days and a real scare his nerve shatters and his Fourth comes through, attempting to committ a HeroicSacrifice.]]
* DueToTheDead: While teaming up with the Sixth and the Ninth he says that the Fourth's first priority is [[spoiler: finding out who killed Magnus and Abigail. They also never asked for their facility key because Magnus told them to hold off, and never entered a Lyctoral study because Abigail told them to wait.]]
* EasilyEmbarrassedYoungster: He is constantly embarrassed by everything from [[TeamDad Magnus']] lame jokes and stories, to anything Jeannemary says.
* EmoTeen: Described as such by Gideon, eye makeup and all.
* LikeBrotherAndSister: He and Jeannemary bicker like siblings. It helps that Jeannemary's implied crush on Gideon and the extra content teasing him being engaged to a guy suggest that it's a case of [[IncompatibleOrientation incompatible orientations]] as well.
* MasculineGirlFeminineBoy: Downplayed example with Jeannemary. Isaac is a sensitive, cautious SquishyWizard, while Jeannemary is a reckless, violence-loving melee fighter.
* MeaningfulName: The notes in the back of the first book point out that [[spoiler: Isaac's early, violent death foreshadows Gideon's, just like the Biblical Isaac foreshadows the death of Christ by carrying the wood for his own sacrifice up a mountain]].
* PhraseCatcher: Gideon's narration almost exclusively refers to him and Jeannemary as "the horrible teens" and other variations.
* PutOnABus: [[spoiler:He and Jeannemary are hurried along by Abigail to whatever afterlife awaits them after she banishes them from Harrow's recreation of Canaan House, as Abigail believes their innocence will make their journey through the River painless. She briefly almost pulls them back before Abigail shuts down that {{Elseworld}} hard.]]
* SatelliteCharacter: In part due to his age and in part due to Gideon's narration connecting with Jeannemary more closely as a fellow cavalier, Isaac is usually treated as an extension of Jeannemary, tending to defer to her.
* TechnicolorFire: His unnamed necromantic specialty is conjuring ghostly blue-green fire that seems to be able to destroy physical objects.
* ThoseTwoGuys: Never seen apart from his cavalier [[spoiler: until his death.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Jeannemary]]
!!Jeannemary Chatur
!!! CAVALIER PRIMARY OF THE FOURTH, KNIGHT OF TISIS
The cavalier primary to Isaac, and a knight of Tisis.
----
* [[BigBrotherInstinct Big Sister Instinct]]: Is the recipient of this from Gideon, and has it in turn for Isaac, who's a year her junior.
* BreakTheCutie: She and Isaac take [[spoiler:the deaths of the Fifth very badly, and spend the next few days on edge and exhausted, stalking the halls and paranoid of everyone but Coronabeth and Gideon, until Isaac dies in the labs. Jeannemary absolutely loses it after that in the short time before she is killed as well]].
* ChildhoodFriends: She has been paired with Isaac since they were very young. She notes she hated him at first.
* ChildSoldiers: She and Isaac would have been enlisted already if Isaac hadn't gotten the mumps during the recruitment period, and they still intend to enlist the next year. She's fourteen. They would have enlisted even earlier, but Abigail stopped them.
* {{Corpsing}}: InUniverse. [[spoiler:In one of Harrow's {{Elseworld}}s in ''Harrow the Ninth'', she has difficulty keeping a straight face while saying the provided lines, and has to get Isaac to say some of them for her to get through it without cracking up.]]
* EasilyEmbarrassedYoungster: She is constantly embarrassed by everything from [[TeamDad Magnus’]] lame jokes and stories, to anything Isaac says.
* EmoTeen: Described as such by Gideon.
* {{Foil}}: Not only is she symbolically a foil for Gideon, being likewise naive and out of her depth at Canaan House, but Gideon herself recognizes the similarities on some level. Her narration always frames her interactions with the Fourth through her relationship with Jeannemary. [[spoiler:Jeannemary's murder is also the death that hits Gideon the hardest at Canaan House, as she feels directly responsible for it, becoming MyGreatestFailure]].
* LikeBrotherAndSister: She and Isaac bicker like siblings, and [[spoiler: she's absolutely devastated by his death]].
* MasculineGirlFeminineBoy: Downplayed example with Isaac. Isaac is a sensitive, cautious SquishyWizard, while Jeannemary is a reckless, violence-loving melee fighter.
* MeaningfulName: Jeannemary derives from Joan of Arc and the Virgin Mary, [[spoiler: and like Joan of Arc, Jeannemary is a warrior who dies young]].
* MuscleAngst: A very rare female example of wishing her biceps were bigger, after she asks Gideon to flex.
* PhraseCatcher: Gideon's narration almost exclusively refers to her and Isaac as "the horrible teens" and other variations.
* PutOnABus: [[spoiler:She and Isaac are hurried along by Abigail to whatever afterlife awaits them, after she banishes them from Harrow's recreation of Canaan House, as Abigail believes their innocence will make their journey through the River painless. She briefly almost pulls them back before Abigail shuts down that {{Elseworld}} hard, though Jeanne tells Magnus to tell Harrow to tell Gideon hi, in case she sees her before any of them do.]]
* ThoseTwoGuys: Never seen apart from her necromancer, [[spoiler: until his death, which completely shatters her in the short amount of time before she's killed as well.]]
* UndyingLoyalty: To Isaac. She refuses to leave him alone in any sort of danger, even if it means risking her life.
[[/folder]]
----
!! The Fifth House
->''Heart of the Emperor, Watchers over the River''
[[folder:In General]]
The Fifth House is the core of the Empire, especially if you listen to them tell it. With myriad years of tradition behind them, they have become a superpower whose gravity threatens to subsume any house that falters.
----
* ColorMotif: Brown; they're subdued bureaucrats and academics compared to the other Houses, and have a strong association with family.
* InterrogatingTheDead: Their necromantic specialty is in talking to spirits.
* SilkHidingSteel: Have a reputation for going to great lengths to appear highly civilized, but they have a subdued savagery beneath it, as they routinely deal with the insane hunger of feral ghosts.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Abigail]]
!!Abigail Pent
-->[[Characters/TheLockedTombSecondary Listed with secondary characters]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Magnus]]
!!Magnus Quinn
!!! CAVALIER PRIMARY OF THE FIFTH, SENESCHAL OF KONIORTOS COURT
The cavalier primary to Abigail, and seneschal of Koniortos Court.
----
* AmazinglyEmbarrassingParents: Jeannemary and Isaac are intensely embarrassed by his dad jokes and earnest friendliness. At one point he even begins recounting a story about something Jeannemary did when she was five.
* EndearinglyDorky: He is brimming with lame dad jokes and awkward courtesy, and his clumsy attempts to make small talk with the intimidating Ninth solidify him as this.
* HappilyMarried: To Abigail.
* MyFriendsAndZoidberg: In the narration for the second book, Harrow describes a group as consisting of "heroes, soldiers, poets, and Magnus".
* {{Nepotism}}: He claims that the only reason he gets to be cavalier primary is because he's married to the heir. The Cohort files back this up, and note this is relatively common among the Fifth.
* NiceGuy: He takes pains to make Gideon feel included despite being afraid of her, and is just a pleasant and nice person to everybody around him.
* NonActionGuy: Easily the weakest fighter of all the cavaliers; in a showmatch with Gideon he's [[CurbStompBattle defeated in three moves]]. He proudly tells the group the story of when five-year-old Jeannemary challenged him to a duel and [[SelfDeprecatingHumor would have beaten him if she wasn't using tableware]]. The Cohort's files on him call him a "schoolboy fighter" of no distinction. He looked into joining the Cohort when he was eighteen - much, ''much'' older than the minimum enlistment age - but never showed further interest.
* PapaWolf: The only time we see him get pissed off is when Naberius Tern starts messing with Jeannemary.
* ParentalSubstitute: To Jeannemary and Isaac, and has shades of this towards Harrow in the second book.
* PungeonMaster: He loves puns, and will make them every chance he gets, even if Coronabeth is the only one who laughs.
* TeamDad: Everyone likes him, and he's a very paternal figure to the Fourth; the one time he is ever shown as anything other than smiling is when Naberius insults Jeannemary's fighting style.
[[/folder]]
----
!!The Sixth House
->''The Emperor's Reason, the Master Wardens''
[[folder:In General]]
In their orbital Library, the Sixth House preserves and investigates the collective knowledge of the Empire. Masters of a thousand esoteric fields of study, they are often considered bookish, but are never to be underestimated.
----
* ColorMotif: Grey, befitting their drab exterior yet sharp intellect.
* DefectorFromDecadence: [[spoiler: Following directions left by Cassiopeia the First, the entirety of the Sixth defected from the Empire in the time span between ''Harrow'' and ''Nona''. However by the time ''Nona'' begins, the translocated Sixth is disconnected from the protagonists due to broken promises on behalf of Blood of Eden.]]
* DyingTown: While not quite as desperate as the Ninth, the Sixth has long had extremely strict compatibility limits as to who within the Sixth can have children with each other, as almost everyone is related to one another. (To give an idea of how strict, there are only six people Camilla is eligible to reproduce with, while Palamedes only has four options. And this is ''with'' having an entire division of their military whose primary objective is "get laid by foreigners". )
* {{Foil}}: As the most prominent characters from the Sixth serve as the primary foils to the protagonists of the Ninth, so too does the House as a whole serve to foil the Ninth in general. Both Houses are at the fringes of the Empire, and are secretive, small, and poor. However unlike the cultist Ninth, the Sixth, with their focus on research and preservation, are viewed more as odd and awkward than the feared and hated Ninth. [[spoiler: Much like the Ninth, the Sixth was also originally built around a mysterious 'installation', with currently unknown purposes.]]
* GlorifiedSpermDonor: The Sixth have something of a reputation for this, which is [[InvokedTrope by design, as the Sixth desperately needs more genetic diversity]]. All children conceived by a Sixth parent are legally Sixth, and there's an entire division of notably attractive Sixth cavaliers who learn more about erotic poetry than swordfighting so they could go join the Cohort and...diversify the Sixth's gene pool.
* InTheFutureHumansWillBeOneRace: A deliberate invocation, despite not holding true for the rest of the Empire, as a result of their limited genetic pool; every character from the Sixth shown having brown skin and brown hair, and most even seem to have relatively similar facial features and expressions.
* ParentsAsPeople: Exaggerated: the Library is a House of academics who have to be bought out to take parental leave and be at least marginally involved in their children's lives. It's also implied that relationships are often purely practical and not necessarily romantic, so they don't really have traditional nuclear families; Sixth reproduction is tightly controlled to prevent inbreeding, so while there is ''some'' choice, that choice is usually "these are the only five people on the planet who aren't your cousins, pick one". Palamedes' own mother has a cordial relationship with him, but treats him far more as a peer than a child, only rarely showing motherly affection.
* {{Psychometry}}: The House's specialty comes in the form of spirit magic that traces the signs that death and decay leaves on objects.
* SmallSecludedWorld: Much like the Ninth, the Sixth is at the fringes of the Empire, consisting only of a remote installation set in the polar region of a planet close to Domincus, with the outside world being completely uninhabitable. While not as cut off from the Empire as the Ninth, the Library is very much its own world, with visitors being infrequent to rare.
* SmallTownBoredom: The Library isn't exactly a thrilling place for Sixth children to grow up from Camilla's accounts of it. Watching skeletons get covered in orange gunge to do maintainence work on the outside of the station passes for fun simply because there's little else to do.
* UncertainDoom: Near the very end of ''Harrow'', [[spoiler:the Emperor is briefly killed, and being tied to Dominicus this might have affected the sun briefly]]. Since the Sixth House is the closest to the sun, they're the most vulnerable if something goes wrong, and the Emperor wonders if they survived or not.
** The beginning of ''Nona'' establishes that they did survive, but raises a new uncertain fate for them: [[spoiler: after the entire House defected from the Empire to Blood of Eden, broken promises on behalf of Blood of Eden has led to the House being stranded on another planet far from the Warden, their selected representatives, and Eden's negotiations. The arrival of Number Seven makes matters worse, as even the proximity of the Resurrection Beast within the same galaxy would drive all the necromancers mad, though ''Nona'' ends on a relatively optimistic note, as the Oversight Board independently determined that blinding themselves would stave off the worst effects of Number Seven's proximity.]]
* UterineReplicator: A offhand comment in ''Nona the Ninth'' reveals that they do "gravid carry" only for research purposes.
* VastBureaucracy: The Library is described as a vast academic bureaucracy full of infighting between similarily named departments, all covered in a flood of paperwork. There was a protracted interdepartmental battle over the titular room in the "The Mysterious Study of Dr. Sex", and forms (in triplicate) appear at every turn.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Palamedes]]
!!Palamedes Sextus
-->[[Characters/TheLockedTombSixth Listed in the Sixth-specific folder]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Camilla]]
!!Camilla Hect
-->[[Characters/TheLockedTombSixth Listed in the Sixth-specific folder]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Archivist Zeta]]
!!Archivist Juno Zeta
An Archivist in the Sixth House and Palamedes Sextus' mother, in that order.
----
* InnocentInnuendo: In "The Mysterious Study of Doctor Sex", much of her exposition regarding Dr. Donald Sex and his lost study room falls into this due to the good doctor's unfortunate house name.
* MeaningfulName: Juno is the Roman goddess of childbirth and marriage, while Zeta is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet.
* MotorMouth: Rambles at length to Palamedes and Camilla about office gossip before getting to the point when she picks them up for the unsealing of Doctor Sex's study. Palamedes and Camilla can hardly get a word in edgewise, and she doesn't remember to tell them where they're going until she's asked. [[spoiler: She's just as bad around Blood of Eden, which gets Palamedes worried someone will take offense and shoot her.]]
* ParentsAsPeople: Far more dedicated to her research as an Archivist than being a parental figure to Palamedes, though she still has a polite and friendly relationship with him.
* TeenGenius: Formerly; she made Scholar at 15.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Kiona]]
!! Kiona
Camilla's older half sister.
----
* TheQuietOne: Like her younger sister, she doesn't seem prone to talking unnecessarily; she says nothing at all in the sole chapter she appears in during ''Nona the Ninth''.
[[/folder]]
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!!The Seventh House
->''Joy of the Emperor, the Rose Unblown''
[[folder:In General]]
The Seventh House embody the particular beauty only found in dying things. They are the rose hanging lush with decay, the vines that pull down walls of stone, the bloom of color in a terminal patient’s cheeks. They draw out moments of beauty, preserving people, places, and times in amber for later dissection and delectation.
----
* ColorMotif: Seafoam green, which connects them both to the living world and the River.
* VictorianNovelDisease: Their necromantic line is prone to a form of blood cancer that the Seventh persists in maintaining throughout the generations because they believe it produces beauty in doing so, as well as facilitating necromancy without relying on external sources of thanergy. The two characters shown actually living with said cancer are not exactly thrilled with this line of thinking.
%% Necromantic specialty is listed as "The preservation of the corpse and the stasis of soul, prolonging the space between life and death and between death and decay." Find a trope that fits that
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Dulcinea '''(Unmarked Spoilers)''']]
!!Dulcinea Septimus
!!! HEIR TO THE HOUSE OF THE SEVENTH, DUCHESS OF RHODES
As an heir to the Seventh, Dulcinea Septimus has suffered from the [[VictorianNovelDisease Heptanary blood cancer]] of the Seventh's necromancer line since childhood, and has spent most of her life dying.
----
* AmbiguousSituation: Just how Dulcie feels about Palamedes by the time he's twenty goes unsaid. According to Camilla he proposed a year ago and she turned him down "but not on the grounds that she didn't like him"; it's left vague if she didn't view him romantically, if she was doing so because she expected to die soon, or if it was due to the limitations on intra-House marriage. At a minimum, Dulcie does view him as a friend, and was looking forwards to meeting him and Camilla in person at Canaan House before she was murdered.
* BloodFromTheMouth: Frequently coughs blood and worse. She's not expected to live much longer by the time she arrives at Canaan House.
* DeadAllAlong: She was killed by Cytherea before ever reaching Canaan House, and has been [[DeadPersonImpersonation impersonated by her]] ever since.
* DisabilityAlibi: Dulcinea Septimus is not seen as a viable suspect for the murders considering her advanced blood cancer barely allows her to walk two paces on her own without collapsing in coughs.
* DeadpanSnarker: When her ghost appears in ''Harrow the Ninth'', she reveals herself to have quite a dry sense of humor.
* TheDulcineaEffect: The Duchess of Rhodes is aptly named, thanks to her terminal illness. Gideon is compelled to protect her the second they meet, something deliberately invoked by Cytherea. And it turns out Palamedes Sextus has devoted his life to trying to rescue the real Dulcie from her illness ever since he began trading letters with her twelve years ago. He never even needed to meet her in person to fall in love with her.
* GrinOfAudacity: When planning to trap the Sleeper in Harrow's DreamLand, Dulcie grins almost ferally at the chance for revenge.
* ImpersonationExclusiveCharacter: In ''Literature/GideonTheNinth'', courtesy of Cytherea having killed and replaced her before her arrival at Canaan house. Zig-zagged in ''Literature/HarrowTheNinth'' when Harrowhark meets her ghost and observes that the ruse wouldn't have worked on anyone who'd met her before.
* IncurableCoughOfDeath: Terminally ill Dulcinea is prone to coughing [[BloodFromTheMouth blood]] and worse. The actual Dulcie becomes increasingly less visibly ill over time, thanks to already being dead. Cytherea says they have the same illness and Dulcie's is as advanced as Cytherea was.
* MeaningfulName: An idealized woman who doesn't really exist. The real Dulcinea goes instead by "Dulcie".
* TheNicknamer: Refers to everyone with nicknames, including herself as "Dulcie". Palamedes seems to have picked up "Cam" from her.
* SomethingAboutARose: Defied. While Cytherea used the motif as her, the real Dulcie is sick of roses.
* ThrowingOffTheDisability: Cytherea-as-Dulcinea, for all her helpless affect, is extremely physically capable. (Although she is sick, and vulnerable because of it, it doesn't impede her as much as she pretends.)
** When the real Dulcie appears in the second book she seems to be in better and better health as the book progresses, leaving her wheelchair and nasal shunt behind. However, she is still sick and does still sometimes have coughing fits and very little physical ability. As a ghost she, like the others, has all the limitations that came with their bodies -- it seems her image of herself was ill, just not in as bad of a shape as she was when she was murdered. Additionally, Harrow is unconsciously "scripting" many of Dulcie's symptoms--but she never saw Dulcie's real disability, she saw Cytherea's ''impersonation'' of it, which was based on Dulcie lying through her teeth. So Dulcie is also getting rid of symptoms she never really had in the first place.
* TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth: Played straight but lampshaded. Dulcie was genuinely an extremely nice woman who treated everyone well. Palamades notes that when he first wrote to her he was eight and she was fifteen, but she showed endless tact and sympathy towards him, a child who wanted to save her. On the other hand:
-->'''Dulcie:''' The only thing that ever stopped me being exactly who I wanted was the worry I would soon be dead ... and now I am dead, Reverend Daughter, and I am sick of roses, and I am ''horny for revenge''.
* WalkingSpoiler: The fact that she was DeadAllAlong and then still returns in ''Harrow the Ninth'' spoils major twists in both books.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Protesilaus '''(Unmarked Spoilers)''']]
!!Protesilaus Ebdoma
!!! CAVALAIER PRIMARY OF THE SEVENTH, KNIGHT OF RHODES
The cavalier primary to Dulcinea, a hulking warrior of few words.
----
* ChainPain: His offhand is a chain, something which is considered an extremely difficult offhand to master. Dulcinea even notes that he was indeed a very skilled cavalier before his untimely death; when he uses it to fight the Sleeper, he's able to deflect ''bullets''.
* DeadAllAlong: He died before ever reaching Canaan House, and has been [[OfCorpseHesAlive puppeted by Cytherea]] ever since.
* EmptyShell: He's noted as being often dead-eyed, compared to a sleep-walker, and rarely responds to much, though he is quick to help Dulcinea and defend her physically. Which makes sense, given he's dead, and his defense of Dulcinea was really just a way for Cytherea to prevent her cover from being blown.
* FlatCharacter: He is repeatedly called basic and boring. Which makes sense, considering he's not much more than a reanimated corpse. His actual reappearance in ''Harrow the Ninth'' subverts this, making Harrow wonder how any of them could've mistaken his empty body for a real person. She does however come to think of him as boring in a whole new way - he's just so dutiful and heroic.
* GentleGiant: He's absolutely massive and a tremendously skilled warrior, HappilyMarried with children, writes poetry and breeds flowers, and is devoted to Dulcie. The Cohort complains that they can't understand why he was paired with a dying necromancer and speculate that it was meant to be a short-term pairing scaffolding him to a new necro for the long term; Dulcie herself complains that he's too hopelessly noble to abandon her to pursue more prestige with a healthier necro.
* HeroOfAnotherStory: Judith's files mention Protesilaus joining the Cohort at eighteen, touring on three different front lines, and having an impressive reputation that's referenced by other characters in the first book, disappointed that he's not living up to it. He's also the oldest person officially traveling to Canaan House.
* ImpersonationExclusiveCharacter: In ''Literature/GideonTheNinth'', courtesy of Cytherea puppeting his zombie around since before his arrival at Canaan house. Zig-zagged in ''Literature/HarrowTheNinth'' when Harrowhark meets his ghost and is amazed that anyone could have fallen for the ruse.
* MeaningfulName: Protesilaus is the first hero to die at Troy, and here was dead before he arrived.
* TheQuietOne: He really doesn't say much. Even when he actually appears as himself.
* TheRival: He doesn't reciprocate it, but, as a far better poet and an actual warrior, he's the person Ortus wants to be, and Ortus hates him for it.
* WarriorPoet: He writes poetry and breeds flowers, and was, before his death, one of the greatest living cavaliers in the Empire.
[[/folder]]
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!!The Eighth House
->''Keepers of the Tome, the Forgiving House''
[[folder:In General]]
Though all the Houses speak words of worship for their divine Emperor, the Eighth reach depths of devotion that approach zealotry. As the font of mortal forgiveness for sin, they take great pleasure in withholding mercy and pronouncing judgment.
----
* ColorMotif: Pure white and nothing but, evoking both their BlackAndWhiteMorality and the Emperor's own motif of iridescent white.
* DangerousForbiddenTechnique: Their necromantic specialty is soul siphoning, which even the Emperor has warned against using.
* HolierThanThou: The defining characteristic of the zealous Eighth House.
-->'''Palamedes:''' The Eighth House thinks there's right and there's wrong, and by a series of happy coincidences they always end up being right.
* IronicName: They're called "the forgiving house" but tend toward the KnightTemplar.
* LightIsNotGood: The Eighth's shtick; they dress in pure white and have austere living habits, but they also practice one of the most dangerous sub-disciplines of necromancy, soul siphoning, and treat their cavaliers as little more than human batteries.
* LivingBattery: What soul siphoning amounts to, sending a cavalier's soul elsewhere and draining the energy that flows into their empty vessel. [[spoiler: Where exactly the soul gets sent is unclear, but an incidental comment from Augustine suggests that it is Hell itself.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Silas]]
!!Silas Octakiseron
!!! HEIR TO THE HOUSE OF THE EIGHTH, MASTER TEMPLAR OF THE WHITE GLASS
The heir to the Eighth House, and master templar of the White Glass.
----
* DangerousForbiddenTechnique: Utilizes soul siphoning, which all the other Houses view unfavorably (from unease to outright contempt). It's not exactly banned, but even the Emperor warns against using it. Teacher warns Silas that siphoning in the haunted Canaan House is sheer lunacy. [[spoiler:He's absolutely right.]]
* DemotedToExtra: After being one of the most prominent necromancers in ''Gideon the Ninth'', [[spoiler:he appears only briefly in ''Harrow the Ninth'', throwing himself off the cliffs of the fake Canaan House to avoid Harrow's liminal space, with Abigail alluding to this having terrible consequences for his soul]].
* DisneyVillainDeath: [[spoiler:In Harrow's DreamLand, he's last seen jumping off the edge after killing the fake Corona. Given that he was an actual ghost, Abigail fears what became of him.]]
* {{Foil}}: To Harrow. They're both highly religious, wield outsized authority for their age, and have a distinctly parasitic relationship to their cavaliers. Silas always wears white, and his necromancy is associated with souls and light, while Harrow wears nothing but black, and her necromancy centers on bones. [[spoiler:Unlike Harrow, who deeply regrets the way she's treated Gideon, and eventually even tries to sacrifice herself to save Gideon, Silas overrides Colum's will constantly, and ends up getting them both killed due to his hubris.]]
* HolierThanThou: The Eighth House has a reputation for zealotry, and Silas embodies this. At Canaan House, he's of the opinion that he's the only "pure" person present and it's up to him to force the path of divine righteousness on everyone else. [[spoiler:It also ends up being sincere, and not merely manuevering for advantage. Despite everyone's assumptions, he ends up hoarding keys primarily to prevent others from studying the Lyctor labs, coming to view the mere existence of the Lyctor trials as blasphemous.]]
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: [[spoiler:People spend most of the book warning him about the danger of soul siphoning, which Silas repeatedly brushes off. When he starts siphoning Colum against his will to fight Ianthe, Colum's empty body ends up possessed, and stabs him through the throat.]]
* {{Hypocrite}}: There are several necromantic practices which Silas denounces as heresy, but Dulcinea notes that the only one the Emperor has openly cautioned against is soul siphoning, Silas' own speciality. [[spoiler:And the process of becoming a Lyctor, in which a necromancer devours their cavalier's soul and uses it as a renewable energy source (and which Silas ''also'' condemns as heresy) is basically just a scaled up version of soul siphoning. Multiple characters, including Colum, call him out on this as well.]]
* JerkassHasAPoint: While he's a haughty jerk quick to call anything he disagrees with blasphemous, [[spoiler:he's entirely right in his suspicion that the death of the Ninth's children was on purpose, and that the cover story of a "vent flu" didn't make any sense]].
** Two extend into ''Harrow the Ninth''. [[spoiler: He's the first of the revenants to become fully aware of the parameters of Harrow's liminal space, and treats both her and the fascimile of Corona with extreme disdain; not unjustified given Ianthe led to his death and Harrow's pulling him into her DreamLand.]] Additionally, in the first book he makes an explicit point that [[spoiler: swallowing and burning a cavalier's soul to become a Lyctor is a blasphemous sin and a crime punishable by death - and the Resurrection Beasts in the second are out to try to kill anyone who's committed that "sin", while everyone in the First clearly views it as utterly abominal.]]
* KnightTemplar: Silas does everything he does because he genuinely believes he's in the right in the eyes of the Emperor. Calling things blasphemous is practically his catchphrase. [[spoiler: Ultimately his warped morality ends in his and his cavalier's deaths when he decides to pass judgement on Ianthe's sin for becoming a Lyctor]]
* TautologicalTemplar: Most of his actions can be summarized as "since I'm right, I can do whatever I want." He insists that he is the only morally pure person in the trial, and therefore sees nothing wrong with confiscating keys and doing whatever is necessary to prevent the others from ascending. [[spoiler:When Colum promises Gideon her safety, Silas breaks that promise without a second thought, since a promise to an "honorless dog" is irrelevant. Colum, notably, refuses to cooperate with him on this.]]
-->'''Palamedes Sextus:''' The Eighth House thinks there's right and there's wrong, and by a series of happy coincidences they always end up being right.
* UsedToBeASweetKid: [[spoiler:Colum states that Silas used to look up to him as a child, and that he loved Silas then, but that he can't stand the man he's become.]]
* YoungerThanTheyLook: He's only 16, making him the second youngest necromancer at Canaan House, and much younger than most of the other heirs he lectures.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Colum]]
!!Colum Asht
!!! CAVALIER PRIMARY OF THE EIGHTH, TEMPLAR OF THE WHITE GLASS
The cavalier primary to Silas, and a templar of the white glass.
----
* AmbiguousSituation: [[spoiler:Unlike the other dead, he never makes any sort of appearance in Harrow's DreamLand. Given siphoning is said to operate by sending a soul "elsewhere", it's possible he never ended up in the River in the first place.]]
* BewareTheNiceOnes: At first comes off as only an ExtremeDoormat raised in the Eighth House ways, but eventually it turns out he is ''absolutely'' willing to chew Silas out when he thinks he really needs to, and is much sharper than he seems early on.
* DemonicPossession: Teacher warns early on that this could happen to him if Silas soul-siphons him in Canaan House. [[spoiler:This warning comes to fruition during the fight with Ianthe, and leads to both his and Silas' deaths.]]
* EveryoneHasStandards: Colum has given Silas everything except his sword and his honour, but when Silas asks him to break an oath he made to Gideon, Colum is absolutely appalled that Silas would ask him to do that and refuses.
* ExorcistHead: [[spoiler:His head turns 180 degrees while he's possessed.]]
* EyeColourChange: [[spoiler:After being possessed, his eyes turn completely black.]]
* HiddenDepths: Despite being born and bred purely to serve as a LivingBattery, Colum is actually a highly skilled and dangerous cavalier. He also has a sensibility and intelligence that surprises Gideon, and helps provide key insights into [[spoiler:the mystery of who was burnt in the incinerator]].
* IGaveMyWord: When he confiscates Gideon's weapons in the Eighth's quarters, he promises on his honor that no harm will come to her. He takes this very seriously: see below.
* LightningBruiser: Gideon expects Colum to be able to hit really hard; after all, he's a big guy. She is surprised at how fast he can move while doing it, though.
* LivingBattery: His primary role as cavalier to Silas, and something he was born to do even before Silas was concieved; it's also notably left him with a battered, aged appearance despite being younger than Magnus.
* MeaningfulName: His given name derives from a sacrificial dove (Columba), while his house name very blatantly refers to his usage as a LivingBattery. In the Nine Houses last names aren't inheritable and are given deliberately -- just as Ianthe and Corona both being Tridentarius indicates their father's desire to have them be a linked pair, Colum and his two brothers (who also have sacrificial first names) are all Asht, indicating both their purpose to be interchangeable depending on Silas' blood type, and the fact that they were all born to be consumed.
* ManySpiritsInsideOfOne: [[spoiler:After Silas siphons his soul to empower himself for the fight with Ianthe, multiple spirits possess Colum.]]
-->[[spoiler:He now moved like there were six people inside him, and none of those six people had ever been inside a human being before.]]
* MookFaceTurn: Colum silently abides by many of Silas' decisions that anger him, but he won't let Silas [[spoiler:attack an unarmed Gideon after Colum had promised their meeting would not be violent]].
* MyMasterRightOrWrong: Colum has lived in this trope for years, disliking the direction Silas has taken, but obeying him anyway out of duty. [[spoiler: He finally defies him when he tries to get Colum to attack Gideon after giving his word that their meeting would be peaceful.]]
* OddNameOut: His given name breaks the ReligiousAndMythologicalThemeNaming that almost everyone else in the cast follows.
* TooManyMouths: [[spoiler:While he's possessed, his eyeballs disappear and turn into mouths.]]
* WalkingTransplant: A fantasy version: he and his brothers were born purely so that Silas would have someone to siphon the soul from to power his necromancy, and he's been given antigens and antibodies since before Silas was born to make it easier for Silas to do so. He even mentions that the fact that he ''has'' brothers is purely because his parents wanted different blood type options depending on what would be easiest for Silas to use.
* YoungerThanTheyLook: Years of siphoning have taken a marked toll on his body; he's noted as having a washed out, jaundiced tinge to his skin and seems like a fairly battered middle aged man, despite only being in his early 30s.
[[/folder]]
----
