How literally did John base Alecto's body on Barbie? A big complaint about Barbie dolls is how disproportionate they actually are. If Barbie's head is scaled up to that of a normal human, she's like 7 feet tall, an H cup, and has a waist that wouldn't support her being able to stand. And we know that Alecto is insanely tall. I'm wondering if when she said "you've made me a hideousness" she isn't mad strictly about being in a human form. She's mad that it isn't a human form. When Nona draws the frog, she talks about how she talks about how it would move. The functionality is inextricable from it being a good design. A Barbie made real would not function. If Alecto is dealing with those sort of proportions, it's only her endless regeneration that keeps her going. In contrast, even Harrow's sickly, fucked up body is an actual, functioning human body. Hence why Alecto might find it so much more beautiful and a comparative relief to exist in.
In Harrow the Ninth Mercymorn says “she never could act human. But you stand like a human - you gawp like a human - you are human” when she figures out that the eyes in harrows body were Gideons and not Alecto’s. This to me says a lot about how she struggled to maneuver her Barbie doll body especially since I don’t think there’s any remarks in Nona the Ninth about how Nona moves her body. She struggles at first with coordination (worm with problems) but she works it out and it’s not mentioned otherwise. The source of the issue there is probably being put into a new body rather than how Alecto instinctively moves.
I think Alecto struggled to act/ stand like a human because her body isn’t made like a humans and can’t move like a humans. So she is probably just a Barbie doll shaped human, which is definitely freaky.
