Necromancer goes to Kindergarten | NONA THE NINTH by Tamsyn Muir

[@eliasapollo4131]

Was so excited when i saw you guys continued doing the tlt books! NtN isn't my number one fave (that would HtN), but the John chapters are hands down some of my favourite parts in the whole series

[@YourFavoriteBook]

We will never not read a Tamsyn Muir book. We're so glad you're enjoying the series! The John chapters were so utterly fascinating. I wish we had talked more about all the juicy little scenes like when John built a massive wall out of cow guts and bones to protect their compound, and about how Ulysses and Titania came "back to life".

[@eliasapollo4131]

@@YourFavoriteBook John is THE unreliable narrator to me, I love how he paints himself as this tragic suffering hero, who's oh so sad and feels so sorry. What stuck out to me was the scene was where he says it was an accident, and he didn't mean any of it, and then literally in the next paragraph "come on, my dear. Guys as careful as me don't have accidents."

[@eliasapollo4131]

Btw for clarification: John talks to Alecto/Harrow. Sometimes, he addresses her as Harrow, sometimes as "you" (as in the earth). I think its supposed to be ambiguous, since in the end of those chapters, its clearly harrow, but earlier on, theres some lines where's definitely alecto talking (i.e. "is this the part where you hurt me (earth)?") EDIT: ianthe still goes by she. She's puppeting Babs' body remotely, and the characters who don't know who ianthe is, and only see babs (for example nona), sometimes default to using he just based on appearances. When we see ianthe in the flesh at the end of the book, she's still very much herself (though babs' soul has definitely influenced hers, I recommend reading the short story "the unwanted guest" for more content on that) EDIT 2: SPOILER BOGALOO Nona is Alecto. She is Alectos soul who came into Harrows body after harrows soul went to rest in Alectos body. Specifically, an Alecto who shut out her memories as a sort of defense mechanism

[@YourFavoriteBook]

Oh my god, you have no idea how happy it makes us that a locked tomb lore master watches our little videos. Thank you so much! This helps a ton. We figured that it was Alecto/Harrow that was speaking with John, but like you said it's pretty interpretive. One theory Malorie had (SPOILERS) that I don't think we mentioned in the podcast is that those chapters are Harrow experiencing Alecto's memories of how the world ended (the memories Alecto shut out of Nona) and that's why they feel so dreamlike.

[@eliasapollo4131]

@@YourFavoriteBook that's also how I interpreted it! Fun fact, after a lot of the John chapter, we get a nona chapter which starts with nona waking up. And the John chapters are framed as "in the dream...". Make of that what you will 👀