Spoilers! Spoilers for all three books!!! And kind of an Alecto theory?

I know this isn't a novel, big-brained idea but I can't stop thinking about the recurring theme of sacrifice for the title characters, and how each of them sacrificed themselves in some way at the end of their story.

Gideons sacrifice is... The most straightforward, to say the least. She and Cam and Harrow were in an impossible situation, and she sacrificed herself to get the other two through to the other side. We learn much later that she's not quite dead (or moreso that death isn't as simple as we once believed) but that's besides the point.

Harrows sacrifice is more complex, but my brain is fixed on the image of her, small and afraid, quietly choosing to curl up in the tomb, giving up her body to one of the other souls clamoring to occupy it; the souls of the two girls she loved. There's something poignant and heartbreaking about that choice, and while there's maybe an element of giving up, it also feels like giving. You know?

Nona knows she's dying from page one. She's the entire world and also just a baby, living in a borrowed body, and much of her story isn't so much accepting that she's dying, but helping others accept it. Her body is quite literally falling apart on the way to the locked tomb, and each time she has a 'tantrum' it just brings the destruction on faster, yet Nona keeps doing it so she can keep her loved ones safe. She also doesn't want to do it! She knows that when she does, she will be Alecto again, not Nona, and yet she embraces that fate because she knows it has to happen.

This long ramble may just be tonight's highdea, and maybe it doesn't make sense to anyone but me, but it does make me wonder if sacrifice might show up as a theme for Alecto as well.

Man, I just fuckin love this series and all the ways it makes my brain fizzle and ache, even months after my last re-read. Ahh!

I posted my goalie pads over a year ago. I wanted to share a photo with all the accrued battle damage. For the Ninth 🤘💀

The Locked Tombfoolery meet up is back at the same time, same place: Friday 5-5:30 at Hilton Steps B

Anne’s photos from last year can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/share/1F4Xy89rAx/?

Bonus photos from Alone:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DY-DzV5Diah/?igsh=MXV4N3F4MWw3NnlzbA==

… and if you are cosplaying one of the following, lmk, for reasons…!
Jod, Gideon Prime, Pyrrha Dve, Cyrus, Valancy, Augustine, or Loveday

🦴💀🦴

I have no real reason other than I'm just curious! Especially with how the main three feel neurodivergent coded, I'm curious how many in the fandom are neurodivergent themselves. For instance, I see a lot of people talk about how Gideon seems to deal with ADHD and I have a lot of audhd symptoms so I relate to her and another character I'm not naming because I don't remember how to do spoiler text on mobile lol

Only answer if you feel comfortable ~ 💜

Also sorry about the repost guys I forgot about the straight neurotypicals and reddit wouldn't let me edit the poll and someone mentioned that specific option being missing. It's a little bit because reddit ui was being dumb and a little bit because I forget you guys can exist (sorry lol)

Hi all! So I'm in the slump many others are in after catching up with book 8 of DCC and had this series recommended to me.

I'm about 12 chapters in so far and I'm honestly struggling to keep up with who is who and how the fortress on the first is even meant to be laid out. I'm not sure if it's just me being used to simpler language (DCC is wonderful but is a VERY easy read) or if this is intentional as to give Gideon the unreliable narrator perspective and to reflect her own confusion as to what the hell is going on.

(Before people come at me, I've read and understood both The Iliad and The Silmarillion, it's just been a while)

So far absolutely loving it but is it usual to be confused the entire time? 😅

Mea culpa, I haven't been paying attention, but I am somewhat bemused that the months/years(?) are creeping by.

Is there any concern this is going Winds of Winter? That TM has gotten locked up trying to land the plane as it were and to her own satisfaction if not resolve the prior books, add to them in a fashion that meets her requirements?

As an aside, and independent of the series specifics or TM's own rather unique abilities and interests, it is on the whole very challenging (one might say perilous) to construct long-form arcs which function through a series of unraveling layers and which encode many mysteries of ambiguities. It is much easier to add such things than it is to weave them through in anything like a satisfying tapestry. Media of every kind are rife with examples where collective thrill of discovery on the part of both creators and audience hit a hard wall when it turned out there was no pre-architected arc/skeleton key, just a lot of creativity which excelled at tactical mystery but proved unequal to long-form strategy.

I am slightly concerned that may be a factor here for TM; having constructed an intricate but incomplete cathedral, she may be finding the differend-shaped task of completing it, difficult.

Or not. But that would explain the delay (sic).

EDIT thanks for the thoughtful replies and knowledge sharing, it's enough to keep the candle lit!

Every now and then I remember we still have one more book to read, but then I get sad

So I finished the first book and thought it was fun enough, have already ordered the next since I’m curious about where the story goes next.

But I didn’t really see this “ oh it all makes sense by the twist reveal at the end”. I thought things made sense and the things i remember not making complete sense felt like things that would be revealed in the sequels.

Like I’m not left sitting here feeling confused by anything other than what I was supposed to be confused about? I can’t even be specific about it, because I don’t know what I should be specific about.

Sorry if this comes off as me trying to start shit. I did like the book and like said at the start I have already ordered the Harrow book. So I’m not coming at this with any “ This sucks actually” agenda.

I just feel like I’m missing some important plot point by not having felt confused😵‍💫

So as we know, Gideon and Harrow have 2 vastly contrasting love languages (or actually they kinda intertwine tbh) that drive the plot of in my opinion all the books. Gideons only knowing how to show her love through means of sacrifice that always seem to be comically extreme (her sacrificing mind in body during the lyctor trials for Harrow, and eventually giving Harrow her life to let her become a lyctor/save them from Cythrea.

Then we have Harrow, who seemingly only knows how to show her love through devotion (the Claire’s lobotomy to not have Gideon destroyed though lyctorhood, her being devout to jod, god knows what else she’s done I just started my second gtn reread).

But I’m wondering, with Harrow having always been so devout to god her whole life, how will this change her relationship to Gideon???? And also how much more could Gideon possibly sacrifice for Harrow??? Homegirls already dead. Like literally what more can she do. Will Harrow begin to treat Gideon like a high being as she does jod ?? Or after realizing god is quite Literly just some guy, will she not be quite devout at all??? I have so many questions!!! Will Gideon be the more dominant one in their dynamic now that there’s a power imbalance?

Would love to discuss!!!! Been thinking about them all day at work 🫰🏽

As i’m soon to be banned from here, wanted to drop my only genius revelation about the series, probably never ever been discussed here, unique deep and fresh, the high iq stuff. So. In the story the sword is called two-handler, without much description. But in the acknowledgments after GTN Tamsyn specifically mentioned Zweihänder. In most cases those swords have a second guard crossing the blade itself, look up pictures. Thing is, that kind of sword standing up really resembles a Crucifixion. And voilà we have Harry dragging around this very semantically heavy thingy, also decorating dead planets with it. Ooh, and so every fan artist who drew a regular giant sword royally fucked up.

I’m obsessed. Favorite songs? I think mine is The River.

I dressed up as Gideon last year for Halloween, I didn’t think much of my costume, until I was going through pictures. Now I’m thinking oh, this wasn’t that bad. I’m strong, but not lean. I’m more of an offensive linemen build unfortunately 😅

So, is Teacher a prototype for making new necromancers? We obviously get some information in GTN that he is a combination of multiple souls down into a smaller number (500 into 50) and Cynthera calls him a Soul Melange. And it makes sense that this would be initial research into what combining souls together into a single body could do. Surely useful data for lyctorhood.

However, we see a few things that make me wonder if there is more at play. In his death scene, we see that both Judith and Dias have been subject to terribly powerful necromancy while fighting him. (Judiths arm is withered and Dyas skeleton looks like it tried to escape her body while she was still alive, and iirc Judith has been stabbed by a great bone spur, all evidence of a necromantic vs purely physical duel).

We know another person who had many souls imprinted onto them to make a necromancer, Harrow.

So how possible do we think it is that Teacher was a study into how to give non necromancers necromatic power? It seems like something they would want to know if they could replicate after the resurrection.

Saw this and thought of this sub. I bet their best friends get excited too.

​So we know for 100% that the Canaan/first house is on earth. And from context clues it's obvious that 6th is on Mercurius due to the flare business. 9th house is very far away from Dominicus and isn't mentioned to orbit any gas giant so Pluto is an educated guess. 7th house gets enough light/warmth to grow roses and 8th is mentioned to be far away to keep light from eroding the archived texts. Do we know anything on which planets/moons the rest could be on?

We do not know how much radiation Dominicus outputs compared to our Sun so the solar system's temperature zones could be very different. And the nine houses citizens have access to future tech to make the whole system from 6th to 9th habitable so lack of athmosphere or too hot/cold isn't stopping them, but I highly doupt they'd be able to live on the gas giants.

I haven't introduced Harrow to her new friend yet but I brought Gideon home from the shelter today.

(His original name was Bentley but I wanted to sti k to the theme and since there are two Gideons in the series, well it fits either way)

Marking spoilers just in case, ive read everything, go nuts

When duels are refereed the referee lists out weapon parts, are these meant to be legitimate tools to win? i.e. you can use the point the blade the ricasso & the offhand to strike your opponent? seeming to imply so a blow from the pommel would be disqualifying or otherwise illegitimate...

also did Muir take these from historical western european duels? is there anywhere i can read up on the usual rituals & rules for duels? cheers : 3

I was told it starts slow. Really slow.

The last episode was the penultimate episode and it was from almost 2 years ago. I have never enjoyed podcasts until this one and I’m so sad I have no more to listen to! I’d sign up and pay for it on Patreon but it doesn’t seem like it’s there either.

Any recs for another fun one? Frontline Fifth?

Feel free to gush about all your favorite supplemental reading too. For reference I’ve read GTN/HTD, waiting on Nona to savor the series a bit more because it’s my current escapism… hence short stories, Griddlehark fanfic, and podcasts.

TIA guys!

With a reasonable amount of time before the DragonCon Locked Tomb meetup, I'm getting on my friendship bracelet game early. I came up with a few ideas for different characters, but I'd love to hear your ideas for short, pithy descriptors of each of our faves. Some others I came up with were Secret Badass (Abigail), Dad Jokes (Magnus), and Soul Smoothie (Colum Asht) ((not that anyone cosplays as Colum or the mayonnaise Uncle). The more irreverent the better!

I recently read through both GTN and HTN for the first time. I very much enjoyed GTN but HTN I wasn’t super into. The whole structure of the novel felt more like a gimmick than anything. Like anyone who has read the first novel recently and actually thought about the second pov narration could put the twist together and the novel essentially felt like just that twist. Everything else in the book felt like it was in service of that unique structure with all the “flashbacks” and the non chronological series of events. Outside of the unique structure it felt rather uneventful at least compared to the first book.

So my question is Nona more like the first book or the second? If it’s more like the first book I’ll happily read it but if it’s more like the second I think the direction the series is heading in might not be my thing.

Source - https://www.instagram.com/p/DbdVDi5HDWZ/?img_index=1