Let's face it, Gideon and Harrow are extremely messed up kids at the start of the series and the adults in their lives are extremely counterproductive at best.
Owl House / Infinity Train / Inside Job Fan
The Ninth House is just a toxic environment. Plain and simple. Jod should have introduced the concept of child protective services.
Edited by BigBadShadow25 on May 4th 2024 at 10:12:11 AM
The Owl House and Coyote Vs Acme are my Roman Empire.
Harrow, to her credit, realizes how terribly she's treated Gideon for basically her entire life, which is another core aspect of their conflict: part of the reason Gideon and Harrow have been unable to begin repairing their relationship is because they believe that the other hates them, that they're not wrong to feel that way, and that forgiveness is impossible.
Gideon blames herself for the death of Harrow's parents, which even Palamades and even Harrow call her out on - though Harrow admits she did blame Gideon for a long time - because of course she isn't responsible for that. She was eleven and wanted to get Harrow into the same trouble that she always was in, out of a misplaced loyalty to the Ninth. But Harrow was a monster towards Gideon for years, especially after the death of Priamhark and Pelleamena, and still doesn't think that she deserves Gideon's forgiveness. She already thinks she's a living war crime who doesn't deserve to exist, and she thinks she's earned Gideon's hatred.
It's a repeated theme with Harrow, in particular. The idea that she's terrible and that she doesn't deserve forgiveness or help. Gideon forgiving her breaks her down to her core, but she doesn't understand why Ortus forgives her too, or why all the ghosts she summoned to her River bubble are willing to help her fight the Sleeper. Aside from Silas, who jumped into the River, and the Fourth House kids, who were sent away against their wishes by Abigail.
Edited by SilentColossus on May 5th 2024 at 9:53:40 AM
This post says it best, I think.
let me paint you a picture.
harrowhark nonagesimus is seventeen years old. a young seventeen. a horribly old seventeen. she has known one home in her entire life. she exists wholly and completely to protect it, and she has never treated it with anything but complete and ardent love. these people are not good, they have not been good to her or for her, but they are her family and she is their gaurdian, and it is home. she is a creature of habits and routines, and drearburh is everything she's ever known. she is seventeen.
and she recieves a letter. it offers her everything she needs. a way to protect her family, to save her home, to ensure that everything she knows and loves is safe and prosperous, and that they will never again need as desperately as they needed her. but she has to leave them. she has to leave them for the first time in her entire life, and she may never come back.
she is permitted to bring one person from home. only one. she may not bring the man who raised her, or the woman who advised her, or the vulnerable elderly whose lives she has been carefully extending since she was a child.
she has a cavalier, though. he is the very model of a drearburh cavalier. he is precisely what her competition will be expecting, and he will do whatever she asks of him. she knows he will try to escape, of course, because she knows they've got a shuttle coming. he and his mother will try to steal the shuttle, inevitably, if it arrives.
the solution is simple. cancel the shuttle. bar ortus's mother from the room when the announcement is made. there's nothing the mother can do.
but harrow doesn't do that. she doesn't cancel the shuttle. she wants them to take it. she doesn't want ortus. instead, she spends an entire night wrecking her hands in hard dirt, doesn't even use a shovel in her desperation. she doesn't want ortus.
harrowhark nonagesimus is going to be alone, in an unfamiliar environment, for the first time in her entire life. she is going to be barred from her only home, perhaps forever. she is seventeen years old.
and she wants gideon nav.
Owl House / Infinity Train / Inside Job Fan
This is what happens when you kill all the babies to make your daughter a super Necromancer. She gets very bad at interacting with other kids.
Edited by BigBadShadow25 on May 5th 2024 at 2:44:43 PM
The Owl House and Coyote Vs Acme are my Roman Empire.
Harrow cannot imagine living in a universe without Gideon, and the thing is that Gideon won't let herself understand just how important she is to Harrow. As far as Gideon is concerned, Harrow loves the Body, and there is no way that Harrow could ever return her feelings.
Now, to be fair, Harrow does tell Gideon about the Body while they are having a romantic moment in the pool, and Harrow is obviously head over heels for said Body. So, Gideon is obviously getting some mixed feelings, but you can even read the exact moment when Gideon decides that she has no chance. However, Harrow seemed to be willing to let Gideon kiss her:
Edited by SilentColossus on May 6th 2024 at 8:39:28 AM
In particular, I'm remembering the moment in HtN when she tells Ianthe "I realized she can't love me." Neither of them saw Harrow's Elseworlds, where she's going insane trying to justify fanciful scenarios to get Gideon in her life.
I can't wait for her to wrestle with the fact that Gideon is God's daughter, just like in one of her deepest, darkest fantasies. And how it's differnet, because of everything she now knows about John.
And the state Gideon's body is in, and her being the saddest girl in the universe, as Nona puts it.
Edited by SilentColossus on May 5th 2024 at 7:18:20 AM
Owl House / Infinity Train / Inside Job Fan
“Harrow, my dad is Jod.” “Griddle, your dad wants to sleep with me.” “…You win. Yours is worse.”
The Owl House and Coyote Vs Acme are my Roman Empire.
Just started my Nona the Ninth reread.
Harrow dreaming about Alecto's memories: She sees the aftermath of John destroying the world, killing Earth, killing everyone, and then he tells Alecto why he did it. Sometimes Harrow and John talk to each other directly.
Nona dreaming about Harrow's memories: Gideon and Harrow are in the pool, and Gideon hugs Harrow.
Owl House / Infinity Train / Inside Job Fan
So what was to stop Gideon from demanding or getting another shuttle after Ortus and his mother stole the one she ordered?
The Owl House and Coyote Vs Acme are my Roman Empire.
Gideon ordered the fist shuttle by apparently falsifying documents, so all Harrow and Crux had to do was keep an ever so closer eye on her. She was also promised freedom shortly afterwards, so long as she pretended to be Harrow's cavalier at Canaan House.
There was no point in trying again.
Edited by SilentColossus on May 8th 2024 at 1:14:59 AM
So I've been trapped in Locked Tomb Tumblr. I blame you, SilentColossus. Summarizing the Gideon/Harrow relationship.
Harrow: my deepest darkest trauma is that my parents killed a bunch of children in order to make me into a powerful necromancer. they died for me. their blood is on my hands.
Gideon: that sucks dude. anyways I'm going to sacrifice myself to save your life. you'll be an even more powerful necromancer. pretty sick, huh?
Gideon: why are you so upset about this
Gideon: is it because you don't like me
Like I said, Gideon needs to have a chat with Coronabeth about how their necromancer doesn't like them enough to eat their soul.
And then they need to both realize that their necromancer likes them too much to eat their soul.
Edited by SilentColossus on May 9th 2024 at 5:46:54 AM
Owl House / Infinity Train / Inside Job Fan
Soul eating is not a love language!
The Owl House and Coyote Vs Acme are my Roman Empire.
Unless you're Palamades and Camilla, where you're against soul eating, but soul merging is the highest declaration of love! Even if you are both destroyed, because you made someone new.
It's no wonder Palamedes approved of Harrow's brain surgery so strongly! He isn't normal about his cavalier, either.
It needs to be said that Gideon absorbed so many toxic traits of cavlierhood, no matter how much she claims to hate Harrow and the idea of being her cavalier. She all but volunteers to be siphoned the first time, despite how dangerous and painful it is, even though Harrow herself is uncomfortable with both the ethics and the possibility of permanently harming Gideon. Among the cavs, only Gideon seems to be so down with the concept. And this is before their heart to heart. Saddle up, sunshine.
(It also provides a nice contrast to Silas and Colum)
On another note, rereading Nona is breaking my heart all over again. Doubly so, even, now that I know what happens; it's such a sad, sad book, no matter how cheery Nona is.
Owl House / Infinity Train / Inside Job Fan
None of these people are well. Nobody under the rule of the Emperor Undying is well.
The Owl House and Coyote Vs Acme are my Roman Empire.
Editor of Posts
Gideon has had a guilt complex regarding Harrow ever since causing the death of her parents.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
One thing that gets me is that the Nine Houses technically don't consider anything outside of Dominicus as "Empire territory." But at the same time they enforce their laws when it pleases them and relocate entire planetary populations because someone killed the soul of the world. "You get nothing from us until we decide we want something from you." It's like all the worst parts of feudalism, imperialism, and governmental negligence mixed together.
As seen from Harrow and As Yet Unsent, the Houses justify the planet flipping and resettlement because they claim it happens over the course of generations or centuries. But the reality seems to be resettlement occurs much more haphazardly, with some populations being moved constantly. And if the Angel is anything to go by, the populations might not notice that the animal life is mutating until it's far too late.
Practically, part of the reason the Houses don't consider the shepherd planets to be part of the Houses is because necromancers cannot be born on them, because they're either pre-flip thalergy or post-flip thanergy planets. Necromancers can only be born in the thanergenic Dominicus system.
The other reason is John. John hates the descendants of the FTL ship both because (in his view) they abandoned humanity but also because they abandoned Earth. As such he doesn't like the idea of them not being eternally punished, but he might also not like the idea of "his people" living outside of Dominicus longterm, even if they can no longer live on First House.
Edited by SilentColossus on May 19th 2024 at 2:56:35 PM
As much as I'm willing to talk shit about John, he is probably one of my favorite characters in the books. No matter how much terrible shit he has done (and continues to do), I still like him.
Really though. He represents all the themes about the "horrors of love" so well. He loves his friends so much that he wants to never let them go. Hence removing their memories (he is afraid they'd not forgive him for murdering ten billion people. Which makes sense), tricking them into killing their cavaliers, and help him fight in his imperialistic campaign revenge against the descendants of his enemies. And in the end they start turning against him because of how he manipulates and uses them.
I wonder if he'll continue to be a drunken sad sack in Alecto or if he'll perk up a bit now that Alecto and Harrow are back - assuming they're not separated during a time skip.
Edited by SilentColossus on May 19th 2024 at 7:21:23 AM
Owl House / Infinity Train / Inside Job Fan
Apparently Muir used Comic-Book Fantasy Casting of Taika Waititi for John. Can we see him playing the character in a potential adaptation?
Edited by BigBadShadow25 on May 19th 2024 at 7:19:25 AM
The Owl House and Coyote Vs Acme are my Roman Empire.
I know she apparently said she thinks he'd be a good actor for him, but did she specifically say she had him in mind when writing him? Sorry to be pedantic. But I think Taika would be perfect for the role.
If there ever is a live action adaption, I really hope the entire cast is Kiwi.
Edited by SilentColossus on May 19th 2024 at 8:24:30 AM
The problem with any adaptation of this series is that it risks losing the beautiful narration. Hell, our snarky main character spends most of the first book mute. No big deal when we're in her head, but it would be a problem in a movie.
Aiglamene also criticized Gideon for not being loyal, but really what did she have to be loyal to? It’s not like they ever gave her a reason to express loyalty.
The Owl House and Coyote Vs Acme are my Roman Empire.