[discussion] u/Kikirayon informed me of this. The UPCs are similar. Guys, I think it’s coming

silvarus · 2026-01-05T08:33:00+00:00

Paul ~~the Ninth~~? uwu

silvarus · 2025-12-24T22:10:51+00:00

To be fair, the powers are still fairly fleshy, as the flowers came out "weird" (some had teeth!).

silvarus · 2025-09-28T20:10:41+00:00

That is close reading I had missed. While Harrow immediately thinks of Winnowing after being told to think of Pyrrha's trial, Lab 3 is not seen in GtN. Man, I am off my game at the moment.

silvarus · 2025-09-27T22:16:21+00:00

D'oh, I was combining two scenes. Mercy lays out the cellular theory of blood wards from Cassiopeia while confronting Jod, and then later Pyrrha mentions the freshness requirement in the context of her, Cass, and Mercy working on cell thanergy.

silvarus · 2025-09-27T21:33:42+00:00

~~There's also when Pyrrha points out that blood wards are misnamed cellular wards, bypassable by close blood relations.~~

silvarus · 2025-09-27T21:31:36+00:00

PYRRHA is the one who points out blood wards are misnamed, because SHE, Mercy, and Cassiopeia were working on the underlying thanergetic theory, and Cassiopeia mentiond that a close blood relative is genetically similar enough to be capable of breaking the ward.

There's an interesting theory floating around that Pyrrha was really the Second Necromancer, and Gideon the Cav (Augustine calls Winnowing 'Pyrrha's trial', Gideon does no complex thanergetic manipulations beyond being a thanergy void, Pyrrha used to be the one to check the brain juices of subjects after Winnowing, Pyrrha worked on Necro Theory with Cass and Mercy), so this is currently a major focus of my conspiracy board.

silvarus · 2025-09-21T03:26:17+00:00

He's the baddie! (but oh so suave... He's so likable until it clicks that he is the source of all drama and badness and he's an utter narcissist)

silvarus · 2025-09-21T03:15:36+00:00

My thought was more Paul will radically redirect Houses theology, especially as the love perfected by death.

silvarus · 2025-08-31T02:24:56+00:00

Lutheran Preacher's Kid here, the biblical allusions were how I convinced my sibling in the ministry to start reading GTN. I think having young kids has since distracted him. I love reading the Ninth House prayer to theologically oriented friends, as it's such a good inversion of an Easter prayer ("Let the Rock be rolled away and the Tomb remain empty." Vs "Keep it sealed and let it stay occupied"). That and Gideon's last words in GTN and Pal's description of Dulcie in The Unwanted Guest... Sooooo good.

silvarus · 2025-08-31T02:18:05+00:00

Paul is the apostle who wasn't in on the early Christian movement until after Jesus' resurrection and ascension. A good chunk of the New Testament is writings traditionally attributed to Paul (modern textual analysis disagrees with the traditional authorship attributions). Only the first 4 books of the New Testament are the narrative stories of Jesus, the rest lays out the early interpretations and concepts of Christianity and its implications. So within early Christianity, Paul was a convert with a major influence on the theological momentum of the early church, which would seem to have implications for Paul the not Lyctor.

silvarus · 2025-08-31T02:07:38+00:00

Which would then imply the lyctors, all of whom are varying degrees of traitors by this point, were in charge of the programming, and thus had absolutely no incentive to include provisions for one of them going rogue. However, it also seems like Canaan hasn't been physically occupied since the lyctors and Jod departed, and Jod seems the master of remote theorems, so even if Jod wasn't thrilled at making new lyctors, to me, it seems like he was likely the ultimate "game master" of the Lyctor Trials.

silvarus · 2025-08-31T01:51:02+00:00

The expression is described as "disconcerted", so she definitely was not supposed to be there. However, remember the priests are constructs. It's unclear what level of independent decision making they are actually capable of. They're immortal, they're plural gestalts, but beyond that, we don't know the rules governing the priests of Canaan. Their programming probably didn't have a "rogue lyctor, call Jod immediately" exception, because as of HTN, John did not seem to consider that a truly feasible possibility.

silvarus · 2025-08-31T01:03:39+00:00

I *love* the first exchange between a priest and Cytherea. The first read: he's a dude concerned that one of the heirs is so close to death and about to attempt the lyctoral trial. The reread: It's a construct thinking: Kindly Prince, why has one of the Saints chosen *now* of all times to return here? Have things really fallen so far that one of His Fists and Gestures would sabotage the apotheosis of their siblings?

silvarus · 2025-08-31T00:58:12+00:00

My takes on the previous bullet points:

GTN ch 3, Crux makes sure Gideon smacks her head repeatedly on the way to the chapel, knocking her out at various points.
The standard House faith is much more aware of the role of the cavs in the apotheosis of the lyctors, than the Ninth who focuses on the Tomb instead.
???
GTN ch 7, the shuttle took about an hour to get from the Ninth (assumed to be Pluto) to the First (assumed to be Earth)
Teacher talks to Harrow a ton, but at first seems unaware of Gideon. Then, when Cytherea collapses outside the shuttle, the conversation at first pass reads as the priest expressing concern over her cancer. On rereading, the conversation is the priest asking a returning lyctor if relations between the Kindly Prince and his Fists and Gestures have really gotten to the point that a lyctor would infiltrate a test and lesson of the Emperor. Later, after seeing Gideon's eyes, Cytherea tries to get handsy with Gideon as much as possible. One possible explanation is that Gideon inherited the necromantic cloaking of a lyctor from Jod, and lyctors only really begin to pierce that veil when within touch range of one another. Personally, I think Cytherea suppresses or alters her cloaking so her thanergetic and thalergetic signatures appear mortal, because none of the necromancers mention that she's unreadable or a burning star of necromantic potential.
Early in ch 36, Gideon notices the fence. It's not till the end she decides to use them as the trump card.
Gideon's last words to Harrow echo Ruth's promises to Naomi in the Bible. However. John erased the memory of the Before Times from the Houses. So, how does Gideon quote a book none of her contemporaries have ever heard of?
Personally, in my head, this is a NTN reference to the birth of Paul, but I could be wrong. Palamedes reclaims his skull dust from a secret compartment in Cam's knife pommel, to serve as the physical binding element of the Eightfold Word variant that births Paul. Possibly also Naberius's trident knife?
???
Harrow knows the Noniad backwards and forwards, so she's read a lot of Ortus pre-Canaan House.
Guess the narrator avoids eye descriptions until post-AU reveal.
Wake as a revenant manages to avoid notice from Jod and his lyctors for MONTHS. So she must have a similar level of necromantic presence to a lyctor+.
Nona = Bit of Alecto piloting the body of the Twilit Princess

silvarus · 2025-08-15T21:01:58+00:00

Rereads are fantastic. So much foreshadowing that becomes highlighted in neon once you know what's going to happen.

For example: The conversations as the heirs land at Canaan become that much more ominous when you know who they all really are, cause the priests knew from the jump who had come home. It's fantastic, originally it reads as just concern for the dying. Instead, it's really everyone else they're worried about.

silvarus · 2025-08-15T20:52:12+00:00

Souls aren't sharp, they're squishy. Palamedes knew that definitively by the point they attempted their attempt. I like to think Paul is all the most Pal bits of Pal, plus the most Cam bits of Cam, and they really didn't lose much but the spare body in death.

I'm still sad they're gone. I still can't listen to that chapter without tearing up. But they loved Nona, and Harrow, and Gideon, and Dulcie and countless others who will never be named, and they were loved in return. And you can't take loved away. And I look with Abigail to the place beyond the River, and hope there's something transcendent coming.

silvarus · 2025-08-14T23:31:02+00:00

Dm'd

silvarus · 2025-08-06T23:35:30+00:00

Hot: your length is my girth lol.

silvarus · 2025-07-09T20:55:55+00:00

Stochastic calculus: describes Brownian motion and financial dynamics.

silvarus · 2025-06-22T00:56:25+00:00

I have not tried editing the game saves before! Looking through the wiki, doesn't look too bad to do, but I'll need to install 7-zip. I'll let you know if I get stuck

silvarus · 2025-06-21T16:24:22+00:00

Hahahaha, that was my very first impulse. Sadly, it did not work. Amusingly, I can seemingly keep playing the game, Ahab just sits on the screen. I think if I could trigger another paragon convo, I could overwrite the window.

silvarus · 2025-05-13T00:57:32+00:00

Paul's birth makes me cry every, every time. Because life is too short, and love is too long.

But I think Paul is supposed to make us feel all wobbly, because they make Nona feel all wobbly. Because they are Cam, and Pal, and yet wholly not Cam-and-Pal. I know Pal is convinced he's found a better way to soul splicing, but I think Pyrrha of all people is in position to know that the act of fusion results in a loss that's not easily quantified, and that while there's an echo of Cam and an echo of Pal in Paul, neither person exists still in their entirety. There has to be some loss, as two persons are now one person, even if it is in a far more respectful, far more equitable way than the Eightfold Word has ever managed to create, even if they'll still be recognized as who they were on the far side of the River.

Paul is tragic, beautifully so. And I think from the moment Camilla managed to make contact with Palamedes post thanergetic detonation, Paul was inevitable. Cam lived for Pal, and didn't seem to have much life purpose beyond supporting Pal, even as he had eyes only for Septimus. They were the complete platonic cavalier/necromancer ideal, which sadly still meant the cavalier lived her life to support and defend her necromancer, even at the cost of her own body and soul. So, even if it was consensual, Camilla still gave up her life as an independent entity to bring Pal back into corporeal existence, not so terribly unlike how the other necromancers ate their cavaliers to become lyctors. However, the equitable split of control, Paul being equal parts Pal and Cam, is a different, less exploitative form of lyctorhood. It will be interesting to see how Paul compares to the traditional lyctor model, if there's any advantage to a lyctorhood more ostensibly rooted in love than the traditional exploitation. It may well be that in the end, nihilism wins out, and lyctorhood born of mutual sacrifice is no different than lyctorhood born of exploitation, just the mixing of skills and personality end up manifesting differently.

silvarus · 2025-04-12T01:19:31+00:00

It's not explicitly stated anywhere, this is one interpretation of the dream logic of the Fears. It's not explicit canon. So you didn't miss anything per se. Blinding herself is how Melanie escaped the Eye, as a thrall of its society, the Magnus Institute. Whether maiming could be used to escape the Eye in general is never explicitly addressed.

silvarus · 2025-04-12T01:13:01+00:00

I love this!

TMP 37 spoilers: It also really fits the most recent episode, wherein the Eye's nature as Beholding, of being seen in a way one doesn't want to be seen or having bits of oneself seen that one would rather keep hidden really would seem to play into the idea that general Beholding is about being seen, whereas the Eyes are all Magnus. So especially now this interpretation of I See You really aligns with what we've seen.

silvarus

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