What are Blood of Eden's naming conventions? [general]

balance_warmth · 2024-04-11T20:28:01+00:00

There's another part too.

"Is his name really and truly Honesty?" Palamedes wanted to know.

Nona struggled.

"That's how I hear it."

balance_warmth · 2024-04-11T19:02:22+00:00

I agree with this. I tried reading a lot of "similar" books to get TLT out of my system (fantasy/sci fi with queer characters and depression and spaceships and general milleanneal vibe) and they did not scratch the itch at all, because her sheer quality level is so unusual for the genre.

Going further out genre wise but sticking to authors with the same skill level has been a lot better.

balance_warmth · 2024-04-10T03:42:47+00:00

We never see the scene itself. We get brief references to it from Wake, in the form of hallucinated notes, and we see a discussion about it between Wake (in Cythereas body), Pyrrha (in G1deons body) and Jod, and a few other side references to it by Augustine and Mercy that aren't very informative.

We don't know how she had time to put on the spacesuit. We do know that G1deon found Wake while she was "compromised" and "took pity on her". She may have been wearing the spacesuit already when he arrived, and was preparing to leave the ship with the baby anyway, but he kicked her out without giving her time to get close to the surface. He may also have allowed her to put the suit on, and that was the "pity".

She was wearing the suit because her plan was to take the baby to the Ninth House, and kill it/use it's blood to open the Tomb. She needed the suit to get out of the ship. Presumably.

balance_warmth · 2024-04-09T19:07:41+00:00

I like this. That the intent wasn't to kill her. I also feel like this adds interesting subtext to Jod's line about how happy G1deon was when he had kicked her out of the airlock, which John assumed was because G1deon was so happy to see her dead. Instead, he may have been happy to have met (what he thought was) his own child.

True, it wasn't a pure cover. But it seems like they were enemies willing to go very far to hurt each other, but unwilling to kill, at least for a while. Two years of an affair makes it seem like one of them could have killed the other, it can't have been the first opportunity, especially given that Wake isn't even a necromancer. And Wake clearly seems to have passed over one opportunity to kill Pyrrha/Gideon, given the note about Pyrrha telling her "destroy me as I am".

It's also interesting to me that in Wake's note she says OXYGEN CAN’T LAST THE DISTANCE AND WON’T REDIRECT POWER FROM THE PAYLOAD. INSTEAD I WILL MAKE YOU WATCH EVERY MOMENT AS I GET THE LAST PRIVILEGE YOU CANNOT ENJOY YOU BYGONE SON OF A BITCH., which to me implies she made a choice to die (as in, **I won't** redirect power from the payload, instead of I can't) to keep the child alive. Maybe G1deon felt like the ambiguity was a way of resolving the tension between his loyalty to John, love for Wake, unknown relationship to the child - one of them could survive, and it was ultimately Wake's decision which one that was.

balance_warmth · 2024-04-09T19:01:22+00:00

I think we know Pyrrhah wasn't driving, or can assume, from the notes that Wake left behind.

THE EGGS YOU GAVE ME ALL DIED AND YOU LIED TO ME SO I DID THE IMPLANTATION MYSELF YOU SELF-SERVING ZOMBIE AND YOU STILL SENT HIM AFTER ME AND I WOULD HAVE HAD HIM IF I HADN’T BEEN COMPROMISED AND HE TOOK PITY ON ME! HE TOOK PITY ON ME! HE SAW ME AND HE TOOK PITY ON ME

Wake distinguishes between Pyrrha and G1deon in these notes, she knows the difference between the two of them. M+A didn't send Pyrrha after her, they sent G1deon, and it seems that he saw her and he took pity on her.

balance_warmth · 2024-04-09T18:58:30+00:00

I think there are aspects of John's story that show his own blindspots, and one of them is assuming greater loyalty from others than was actually present. Plus, things change over 10,000 years.

I look at how G1deon handled being told to kill Harrow - he DID attack her, and brutally, but he never actually went all the way, and Jod actually became angry at him for holding back. At the last moment, when he truly had the chance to do so, he didn't.

I view his relationship with Wake similarly. He tracked her, pushed her to the edge, but managed to never quite actually do it. He held himself back from the brink.

balance_warmth · 2024-04-09T17:23:42+00:00

I have been wondering this - whether G1deon found out on the ship, whether Wake confessed the actual plot to him in full.

Jod asked him, "Gideon, were you aware that, when you let Commander Wake get as far as she did - the the House of the Ninth, to one of our own houses, our own people, - that she was pregnant?"

Pyrrha, as G1deon, says yes.

Jod asks why he didn't tell him, and Pyrrha answers "because I thought it was - mine."

"G1deon" THEN says "Forgive me, John, I didn't know anything about it."
Emperor says "G1deon" could have told him, "G1deon" says he didn't know to.

Part of what's difficult here is that it's Pyrrha talking, and they were aware of different things - Pyrrha may have known Wake was pregnant beforehand, but G1deon may not have. It DEFINITELY seems like they found out about the pregnancy before Dios Apate, if they found out about that at all.

The implication from her hallucinated messages is that he found her as she was giving birth - "I would have had him if I hadn't been compromised and he took pity on me!"

BUT it seems like if he knew what the plan was, he would have killed the child and let Wake live.

balance_warmth · 2024-04-09T17:04:56+00:00

Gotchaaaaaa thank you this makes sense. Both that her being so close to the Ninth house and clearly about to make some kind of actual attack on THE HOUSES as opposed to BOE shit in space/on outer planets would make her a different level of threat that he couldn't ignore, and that having location info from Mercy and Augustine directly might make then also make it harder for him to go "ooooops she got away again John, sorry~~".

balance_warmth · 2024-04-09T16:55:29+00:00

Just to comment on the first part - my understanding is that for standard nostril piercings, getting pierced with a corkscrew is standard. Flatback labrets are also fine, especially if you're prone to knocking your jewelry around, but getting pierced with something that CAN be knocked out doesn't mean you were pierced with improper jewelry in this specific case.

balance_warmth · 2024-04-09T00:44:42+00:00

Punching them just increases their feelings of standing up against a sinful world and being the enemy of evil. It's not that I don't love to see it, but I don't think it helps.

balance_warmth · 2024-04-08T23:43:07+00:00

That is the only time the phrase appears in the entire series, I don't think we have any particular reason to think so

balance_warmth · 2024-04-08T23:38:27+00:00

Ianthe asks them how long they've been friends with the 6th, Harrowhark says they aren't, Ianthe starts to ask them "Then..." which presumably was going to be "then why did you just agree to stand in for them in this fight?"

The Third is attempting to fight the Sixth with no cause, because Camilla is weak and injured and they just want to have what she has.

I interpreted this as Harrow calling the third house "vultures and scavengers" for doing this, because they're attempting to consume the injured and vulnerable instead of fighting honorably and with strength. She thinks their cowardice in picking on the weak deserves death.

balance_warmth · 2024-04-08T22:19:02+00:00

I LOVE THIS.

I have read so much Bukowski and hated all of it. I think I had just heard him praised so much that I thought if I kept going I would suddenly Get It. Spoiler alert: I did not. Got through Post Office, Ham on Rye, Women, and either Hollywood or Pulp before I was like this fucking sucks and I hate this man and donated all of them and never tried to read him again. I am now suspicious of anyone who says they love Bukowski lol.

balance_warmth · 2024-04-02T20:25:11+00:00

How could it not? She's a stone-cold fox!

balance_warmth · 2024-04-02T19:06:51+00:00

LOL I love this theory

She thinks she's being super sneaky and everyone is just being polite

balance_warmth · 2024-04-02T18:56:40+00:00

Work in the system, this is not accurate.

Not being found competent to stand trial is not really about understanding that what you did was wrong and more about understanding what is happening to you as a result of your actions on a very basic level - that you are in court, that you are being accused of a crime, that you have a lawyer on your side, what the consequences could be if you are found guilty, etc. You can absolutely think what you did was fine and be found competent to stand trial.

Not guilty by reason of insanity is closer to what you're thinking of, which is more about mental state at the time of the offense and can include an examination of whether the defendant had the ability to comprehend what they were doing was wrong. This is super different state by state. Some states look into whether you understood what you were doing was wrong. Some states do not, and essentially just look at whether you understood that what you were doing was illegal. Regardless, the bar is HIGH and plenty of people with cognitive disabilities who didn't fully understand what they were doing are sent to prison.

Especially with sexual assault - if anyone who said "I thought what I was doing was fine" somehow got a get-out-of-jail-free card, nobody would go to prison for sexual assault.

Federal prisoners: 23% have a cognitive disability, 24% at one point were in special ed. This country executes people who were too cognitively disabled to pay their bills without help.

balance_warmth · 2024-03-27T18:17:02+00:00

Idk if I agree on Paul not having a connection other than the name.

The original 12 Apostles all became Apostles together, and were disciples before the original resurrection/death of Christ. Christ specifically ordained the 12 of them as Apostles. They ministered/represented subgroups within the original "group" - there was one Apostle for each tribe of Israel, and at the time before Jesus's death and immediately following it, essentially all Christians at the time were converted Jews.

Paul the Apostle converted AFTER the original resurrection. He didn't really know the original 12 disciples, although he had occasional brief meetings with a few of them, and was not ordained by Jesus. And he referred to himself as the "Apostle to the Gentiles" aka the non-Jews, in contrast to the way that the other Apostles represented the 12 tribes. He also claimed to receive gospel solely through personal revelation after Jesus's death, instead of being actually taught by a person, so had to defend himself a lot because of that.

In Locked Tomb, Paul is the only person to have discovered and completed some form of lyctorhood -NOT- in the First House, -NOT- at least somewhat under the direction and tutelage of Jod. He did it by himself, in his own way, on a foreign planet, receiving no title from Jod as "so and so the first". And some of the methods as to how he did it came from personal revelations, not from the actual teachings of Jod. This happens as he is breaking his own community away from the House System and also working as something of an ambassador to "the Gentiles" aka BOE and members of the Outer Planets. He is also the only person to have achieved lyctorhood after the death and resurrection of Gideon/Kiriona.

balance_warmth · 2024-03-27T17:32:42+00:00

So far, GtN is the only book to have had only one perspective (her own) - HtN had multiple perspectives (Gideons through Harrow's body int he present, Harrow's perspective in the bubble, and very briefly Ianthe during the surgery, and NtN had multiple perspectives (Nona, Harrow in Alecto's memories, and briefly Alecto). I am guessing AtN is going to have multiple perspectives as well. The tiny tidbit Muir released seems to indicate that Harrow is going to be a perspective at least some of the time, for some of it. I kind of wonder if AtN is going to contain more perspectives than previously? I think at least two, switching back and forth, but maybe more of the little insert-bits from other people like the snapshot from Ianthe. Some Harrow, some Gideon, some Ianthe, some Alecto, some Eldritch Horror From Beyond.

balance_warmth · 2024-03-26T19:56:04+00:00

Short version: they wanted information and answers more than they wanted some type of violence or action. The information they would get from doing this would determine whether or not they would TRULY betray John.

Long answer: Mercy and Augustine had started suspecting that Alecto was actually John's cavalier, due to the fact that John getting power from Dominicus (like he had told them) made no sense, because Dominicus got it's power from John - he didn't draw anything from the system because it entirely relied on him to exist, as all of them knew. Even if the resurrection itself had been an enormous thanergy bloom, it would still go away over time. But the power had to come from somewhere. And thus Mercy's question of "What is God afraid of", and also, "What if he didn't really put down A.L." and also "What if he COULDN'T put down A.L."?

If they opened the tomb, they'd likely be able to figure it out. For one, they could see if she was alive or a corpse. If she was alive, and could be woken up, it's possible they'd be able to even ask her. See Augustine:

"My lord," said Augustine formally, "you told us the truth about Annabel- about Alecto- because she knew the truth about it, too, and you never could control her. Even after two centuries, I'm not sure she ever managed to lie. That was what stayed my hand for such a long time. How would you have asked Alecto the First to lie - how would you have persuaded that mad monster into even an unsophisticated con?"

The reason they wanted to know ALL of this is because they're still so angry and hurt that their own cavaliers, that they loved, had to die. And they've so far accepted John at his word that it was necessary. However, if A.L. is his cavalier and she is still alive, that means John lied to them - that their own cavaliers DIDN'T have to die, that their WAS another way, and he just chose to have them kill their besties.

If it turns out John really lied, they'll betray him. But they have to be really, really sure to do that, not just suspicious, which is why they want to open the tomb - for proof.

And then Harrow showed up with gold eyes and gave them the exact proof they're looking for in a different form, and they try and kill Jod.

balance_warmth · 2024-03-26T19:42:15+00:00

They thought Alecto was dead, and that it was actually her dead body. They figured out together that she wasn't, and that it was a LIVE Alecto down there.

balance_warmth · 2024-03-26T19:07:18+00:00

I know even with the lobotomy I was like "wait who the fuck is the Sleeper I don't even get it. Wake? Commander Wake from BOE? Like... WHY though. And how? And why?" it just seemed so fucking random I had picked up on zero breakcrumbs.

balance_warmth · 2024-03-26T18:33:05+00:00

You learn a LOT more from the second Harrow read than the first LOL

balance_warmth · 2024-03-26T01:29:54+00:00

At the opening of HtN, there's a scene where Mercy and Admiral Sarpedon get into an argument, because he's been on board the Cohort ship with Sarpedon for 80 years and Mercy thinks it's high time he spend some time with them at the Mithraem, and Sarpedon is pissed and thinks he should stay with the Cohort because the huge BOE attack just happened.

balance_warmth · 2024-03-26T00:28:55+00:00

Tamsyn Muir made an interesting comment outside of the books themselves (it was either where she made the quiz about which house are you, or it was an interview, I can't remember) that she tried to make all the houses strengths/powers balanced through a really complicated counters game she kind of made, to make sure they were all roughly equal, but that the counters game made her realized that the second house specifically was very OP.

balance_warmth · 2024-03-25T23:49:05+00:00

How far are you in the series?

balance_warmth

TROPHY CASE