(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . The Locked Tomb Read: Gideon Postmortem and Dr. Sex [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-20 Gideon's cover image - one last time. So . . . what do you make of Gideon the Ninth, now that we’ve finished? It’s difficult to appraise the book while it’s still unfolding all around you, but now that you’ve got the shape and scope, are you glad you read it? Does it intrigue you enough to re-read it? What did you get from it? For a book that starts as a prison-break novel, morphs into a “clever student competition” and from there into a “locked door murder mystery” and finally into horror and a full-out love story, Gideon defies easy classification. Well, I have news for you: get ready. Harrow the Ninth is even more so. We’ll get there. One thing I wanted to note about Gideon is that the viewpoint character is the person in the whole situation who knows the least about what’s going on, and everything we learn is filtered through that perspective. It’s a technique that will continue in Harrow and Nona. It demands more of readers. This week I want to offer you a bit of breathing room and a fill-in of some details that don’t appear in the printed hardback of Gideon the Ninth but are things you may find interesting. Also, I want to point out the entertaining short story that Tamsyn Muir published at Tor.com, “The Mysterious Study of Doctor Sex.” So here goes: Notes from the Glossary These are things we covered in passing, but a more formal explanation will help you understand both how the magic system works and how the history got us where we are now. It’ll also help going forward. From Muir’s own notes in the glossary, she tells us that: A necromancer is “born with the ability to control thanergy (the energy of death) and thalergy (the energy of life), as well as the ability to convert the latter to the former.” A fancy way of saying that a necromancer can kill people and draw power from both their lives and their deaths. About thanergy: Thalergetic planets (living planets) can be converted into thanergy planets (dying planets), but only the solar system of the Nine Houses is “thanergenic,” meaning that they’re the only planets that run off death energy. All other planets simply die. “The Nine Houses came into being ten thousand years ago with the ‘Resurrection,’ a response to the mass dying-off of the system’s planets and sun that destroyed all life.” The Emperor, after becoming God, resurrected the planets and the people. “None Houses territory only comprises the system; planets and systems that the Empire ‘shepherds’ are not regarded as being extensions of home, especially because necromancers do not reproduce successfully outside the system.” Two points: 1) the only “citizens” of the Empire are the ones who live in the Nine Houses — everyone else holds second-class status (why, yes, there will be a critique of Empire) and 2) necromancers are born only in the Nine Houses system, not outside of it. This is presumably because of the difference between being on a dying planet and being on a resurrected one. Bone magic: manipulating (shaping, filling, etc.) bone, the only long-term storage of thalergy. Flesh magic: “preservation, imbuing, manipulation, creation and processing” of flesh. Spirit magic: “the school of magic chiefly concerned with the River, ghosts, and revenants, as well as with liminal magic spaces and nexuses.” The River is the place where ghosts go. It’s an ancient metaphor, complete with rivers surrounding the lands of the dead. Something happened, and the ghosts are not passing through or over the river, but getting stuck in it. From “A Sermon on Cavaliers and Necromancers Hilariously authored by a cleric named “M. Bias,” this segment is a hortatory encomium of the necromancer/cavalier relationship as being the perfect metaphor for the Empire and the Emperor, each supporting and completing the other. “The love between” the necro and cav “should be centred on duty. No matter the House, the vow is short — One flesh, one end.” Each is to be obedient to the other, to take each other’s needs into account before the self. It’s purpose is to be a military fighting pair. “The love [between the two] is not the love of a spouse. It cannot be libidinous. ‘Sword-marriages’ wherein a necromancer and their cavalier married to one outside party as dual spouses were almost certainly the invention of the fiction writer, or more likely, the pornographer who cannot see anything beautiful without wanting to make it lewd.” Keep this idea in the back of your mind; it comes into play not in Harrow, but in Nona. I don’t want to do anything more with it right now but to note that three-way relationships occur, at least in fiction. Bias spends a lot of time defining the love between cavalier and necromancer by defining what it isn’t: not a sibling relationship, nor a parent/child relationship, not a marriage (except in that stubborn Fifth House) and is never part of a “pattern marriage,” which gives Bias the chance to throw shade at the Sixth House sending its necromancers and swordsmen and -women out to the Cohort hoping to broaden their genetics, but that has nothing to do with the One Flesh, One End thingie. He ends with the ideal of the “One Flesh, One End” relationship between necromancer and cavalier as something holy and pure, a relationship dedicated to the Empire itself, and eternally perfect. Very sermon-y. And then there’s a note appended to the file, a Lyctoral note that’s ten thousand years old and kept in the Sixth House library: valency says one flesh one end sounds like instructions for a sex toy. can’t stop thinking about that so can someone stop cris and alfred before the sex toy phrase catches on, thanks Two bits to note: Chris(tabel) and Alfred figure in Harrow. They are two cavaliers of the original lyctor group who coined the saying “one flesh, one end.” Valency, another cavalier, has an, um, profane opinion about its connotations. Fast forward ten thousand years and we get pious sermons on the holy nature of the “One flesh, One end” vow. (And now I can’t stop thinking about Gideon’s “the land that shall receive me dying” speech from the book of Ruth, and how original meanings are skewed and mistranslated over time.) From the Cohort Intelligence Files These files were written by Judith Dueteros before arriving at Canaan House when she served as captain in the Dead Fleet, Dve (pronounced De-VAY) Territorials 12th Necromancer’s Unit — because military structure is eternal. The Dve Territorials are named in honor of Pyrrha Dve, cavalier in one of the original Lyctor trials. I mention this because the name will be repeated, and you’ll wonder where you heard it before. The files list name, education and aptitude of the necromancers and cavaliers of the Eight Houses. Judith believes that no other cavalier at Canaan House is equal to hers, Marta Dyas, who is, in her opinion, “easily the best and most promising.” She notes that Protesilaus Ebdoma is famous and highly ranked, but she thinks that having a family has made him soft. It’s a shame we never see Protesilaus in action; by the time we meet him, he’s a puppet. Judith believes that the Third House necromancer, Coronabeth, is by far superior to her sister, in addition to being beautiful and charismatic. Ianthe “is lesser than her sister in almost every way.” More of the willful delusion theme. Of Naberius, she notes that “he has maintained his very high duel ranking for years” but “is in danger of becoming more of a duelist than a swordsman,” and “He also has an extremely good opinion of himself and his swordplay, an opinion that Lt. Dyas notes occasionally aligns with reality.” This is important going forward — Ianthe has acquired mad dueling skills. Judith’s notes on the Fourth House are interesting. “As is normal on the Fourth,” Isaac and his seven siblings “were a mix of vat-womb and XX carry.” Their father had been killed before their births. Judith thinks he’s too young to become a lyctor [yay, Judith got something right!]. She also is suspicious of the closeness between the Fourth and Fifth Houses, and thinks that Abigail Pent harbors “anti-Cohort” opinions. “If Pent became a Lyctor, it might be problematic.” Here is evidence of the military thinking that everyone who “isn’t with us is against us,” which is a real-world sentiment in certain military circles. Judith notes that Palamedes Sextus is regarded as a genius by his own House, although she found him disappointing: “his demeanour inclines to the lighthearted rather than the dignified or ponderous.” She has never seen Camilla fight but sees little potential in a Sixth House cavalier. Judith is being true to form in her military intelligence capacity in underestimating those she thinks will be adversarial. Dulcinea Septimus is terminally ill, she notes and thinks that if she ever becomes a lyctor it’ll be because of Protesilaus’ abilities. “The Eighth House,” she writes, “consists of both safe guesses and absolute enigmas.” And the Ninth? Here things get interesting. Judith admits that no one knows anything at all about the Ninth heir and cavalier. The House itself is top secret: “Shuttles are still ordered regularly to the site, but the contents have been blanked out in the system. . . . After the Lyctor pilgrimage, suggest that the prison should be contacted to get a closer look around the perimeter and report findings back to us.” She sees the Ninth House itself as a threat, reasoning that the keeping of secrets from the Cohort automatically makes it adversarial. All of her observations are things to keep in mind when evaluating the Second House’s actions and attitudes throughout Gideon the Ninth. These books really do beg for rereads. And now, the main event: The mysterious study of doctor sex You’ve read it, right? So now we can discuss it, right? If you missed the link above, it’s here. We’ll wait. This stand-alone story is narrated by Camilla Hect, and features her and her cousin Palamedes, and Archivist Zeta, whom we eventually learn is Palamedes’ mother and Camilla’s first cousin once removed (I’d explain it but I’d need visual aids — ask a genealogist how it works if you care). Like Gideon the Ninth, it’s a locked-door mystery, but instead of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, we get Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes, as Camilla plays Watson to Palamedes’ Sherlock in solving a 460 year old mystery. At thirteen. As a short story, it holds up and is great fun without deep and hidden meanings. I want you to enjoy it for what it is. And of course, it holds clues that figure in Gideon and also, answers. So, without further ado, let’s get to it. We learn a lot about the Sixth House, its culture, conventions, and traditions. If you’ve ever worked in academia, the turf battles and administrivia are instantly recognizable and I won’t belabor them, but they’re funny. Even though Camilla isn’t an academic, she gets the culture and all the cues. The story opens with a letter we know is from Dulcinea (the real Dulcinea) to “my dearest pals.” Is “pals” a nickname for Palamedes, or is it written to both Palamedes and Camilla? I wonder about that, but strongly suspect it’s the latter. Anyway, Camilla is in “PRISON.” Despite Palamedes’ medical instructions, she’s not as well as she should be and is staying with Protesilaus and Mia and their family, where it’s obvious that she’s adored by all (we really do miss something by not meeting Dulcinea — damn Cytherea!). Anyway, the thirteen year old son, the only necromancer in the family (which makes him puny) is a “blessed creature” she’s “adopted...as a younger brother and outwardly delight in all offerings, mostly roses or cups of tea. I do not have the heart to tell him that I wish he were bringing me anything else, maybe extramural magazines and cigarettes.” Aside from the nod to Gideon and her dirty magazines, notice anything else? Like maybe, cups of tea? Recall that at the dinner party for Abigail and Magnus’ anniversary, Palamedes brings “Dulcinea” a cup of tea and she accepts it. Was this a test? Is it possible that this early in Gideon, Palamedes knew that something about her was wrong? If not, why would this clue be planted here? In addition to the Dulcinea’s letter, Palamedes is worrying over his academic accreditation schedule and trying to figure out how to become Warden early. “He said, ‘That’s six points I can’t afford. She doesn’t have time, Camilla.’” His entire reason for being the Head of the House is for Dulcinea’s sake, to try to cure her. If I think about how heartbroken he must have been when “Dulcinea” cut him dead at Canaan House, my appreciation for the fine person Palamedes is only deepens. He and Camilla are on the edge of an argument when Archivist Zeta summons them to come with her. I said, “Archivist, where are we going?” She clasped her hands together and said, “We’re going downstairs—to the study of Doctor Sex!” The Warden looked at me. I looked at the Warden. I recall that we decided not to. “Not to...” do what? Well, the guy’s name is Sex, and they’re thirteen. Hold that thought, because the joke comes back. We get some info about Sixth House bloodlines and the care the House takes to avoid inbreeding, the use of non-scholars and non-necromancers to recruit marriages and genetics from other Houses, as well as the levels of swordsmanship and their purposes, all background materials. Only two things counted within Swordsman’s Spire. The first was competency, and it was the less important of the two. It’s not like that now. The Warden was the first Master Warden to interfere with the Spire in half a myriad. It says nothing that back at twelve years old I was one of the best in the Sixth, though nobody knew it but me. They’d only know I was the best at fifteen. Even then, they’d have no idea. The other critical component in the Swordsman’s Spire (the Sixth House military training facility) was genetic potential. As things stood in the Sixth House, Camilla could have children with only four others, and Palamedes was down to two matches. In other words, the Sixth House is at risk of breeding itself out of existence. The mystery holds up well as a mystery: a room sealed for 460 years, containing skeletal hands around 200 years old. Without touching anything, Palamedes solves it, and his reward is a partial look at a 10,000 year old letter: Darling girl, Tomorrow you will become a Lyctor and finally go where I can’t follow. I want you to keep this letter when you are far away and think of me and want me and can’t have me, and know that no matter how far you travel, nor how long the years feel, the one thing that never stays entombed is A letter to one of the original group of Lyctors. I have to think it’s going to be important. The recipient was either Mercymorn, Cassiopeia, Cytherea, or Anastasia. At least one of those names is familiar — the others will be. We don’t know who wrote it, not yet anyway. Palamedes “always maintained it was a love letter. He should know. He wrote a lot of them, and never got any back.” Another reference to Dulcinea. Finally, at the end of the story, Camilla reflect on their relationship, and it’s bittersweet: I don’t have a copy any more. He and I burned the transcript to keep from getting caught with it. He didn’t need one anyway. Nor did I. Palamedes remembers everything: That was his problem. I always remember him. That’s mine. It’s a lovely little story that confused a number of readers who had not yet become acquainted with the world of the Locked Tomb. But if you are, it’s evocative and thought-provoking. Now we’re done with Gideon the Ninth. On to Harrow the Ninth! But...I’m taking next week off to give myself a chance to catch up. Feel free to read ahead. And don’t worry about being confused. You’re going to be confused. Just pay attention to the chapter heads, the time stamps, and the fluctuation between second- and third-person. And trust that, eventually, it’ll make sense. It will. Eventually. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/20/2152398/-The-Locked-Tomb-Read-Gideon-Postmortem-and-Dr-Sex Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/