What do you think, will Harrow & Gideon actually end up together in Alecto? Because it's very obvious that they love each other, but is it romantic? And if not, will it become? Also, there's the Body and them generally being very repressed, and there's a lot of things that still have to happen in book 3... (this is me basically begging you to tell me they're gonna be together lol)
Dear Anon:
There are no guarantees in this wretched world, but I would be deeply, deeply, surprised if Gideon and Harrow were to not end up together in Alecto. I feel so confident about this that the question I’m in fact asking my friends about is whose POV various relationship milestones are going to occur in (we think we’ll get a first kiss from Gideon’s POV! We just feel this way!)
Since this is a very nine-themed piece of literature, I shall provide you with nine bulletpoints of arguments! The first two above and the rest under the cut.
1) Is Harrow going to end up with Alecto?
No. I really do not think so. Alecto is like, 10,000 years old (ok she’s been asleep for a lot of that but she was still alive for probably 200 years or something?) and Harrow fell in love with her when she was TEN and she saw her CORPSE. ONCE. that shit cannot possibly be healthy.
i just don’t think it’s a good message or coherent to have harrow end up in a relationship with someone she’s been fixating on without knowing them, instead of someone (GIDEON) that she actually has a meaningful relationship with that has been developed for two going on three books.
super excited to see what’s up with alecto! want to see what’s up with her personality, feel confident that God majorly screwed her over somehow. i’m sure she’s going to have compelling relationships with gideon and harrow and the rest of the cast! but i do not think that ending up with harrow is how it’s going to go down.
2) Is it romantic for Gideon? I absolutely think that Gideon at least is explicitly framing their relationship/her desire for harrow as romantic, as seen by: tons of shit after she wakes up in Harrow. You can basically open up to any page of Gideon POV in Harrow and see this happening, but here is a grab bag of examples:
“I was so dumb to think a tub of ancient freezer meat was my girlfriend. Please show me how to do a press-up. Also, I’m very obviously attracted to y--” and then gideon cuts off because she’s too embarrassed to finish. THIS IS NOT PLATONIC.
“I’d touched your intestines, which is usually what, fourth date”
the fight she gets in with Ianthe, which is for many reasons, all of them harrow related, some of them clearly rooted in romantic jealousy. “like she’d never put her hands on you, never made you want her, and never imagined there’d ever be a reckoning.” hello?
ianthe EXPLICITLY argues to gideon that harrow is not in romantic love with her, (with the implication that that’s what gideon wants from harrow), and instead of denying this normally gideon basically says “ACTUALLY, you fool, my love for harrow has transcended romance, due to being convinced she could never love me back” none of which is much of an argument she isn’t in love with harrow if you think about it for more than two seconds.
3) Is it romantic for Harrow? Okay, I am not sure if Harrow has consciously realized it is romantic for her. I am actually kind of leaning towards yes right now, due to this quote. However, it is at least like, subconsciously romance that is happening here. the nail in the coffin piece of the argument to me is:
her AUs. they were all like, tropey romance AUs. i’m partial to cavalier!harrow AU but the other ones are more obvious to be fair. one of them was literally about meeting Gideon at some sort of... ball for her hand in marriage... in the other she literally has a barista meet cute with Gideon where she sees her for the first time and starts blushing. why would you come up with this for someone you aren’t romantically interested in. it does not make any sense.
“there’s a difference between saving a shred of dance card and saving the last dance” which i will remind you was from an anecdote about MAGNUS AND ABIGAIL who are married.
also, god, she loves Gideon SO MUCH. all the suffering she undergoes in the second book she basically went into eyes-open because she wanted to save gideon’s life at any cost.
4) The ending of the second book doesn’t make sense if Gideon doesn’t get resurrected and she and Harrow don’t meet again.
I talk about this here pretty extensively!
Basically, Harrow ends the book by having, after Dulcinea tells her Gideon is probably alive in her body, decided to totally fuck the rest of her life and responsibilities and stay in the river in a bubble indefinitely... why? for gideon, because she’s saving the last dance for her, because she wants for them to be together again.
And she’s stuck there with “Frontline Titties of the Fifth” lmao which i think parallels Palamedes being stuck in his bubble with one book from who? Dulcinea, who he’s hopelessly in love with. hmmm.txt.
Gideon ends the book, after having spent the whole ten months and all of act 5 hoping that Harrow will permanently eat her soul, getting finally angry about all the shit’s that’s been happening to her and trying desperate measures to survive instead of just passively die.
5) gideon’s character arc seems headed that way by necessity!
I also talk about this a bit in the above-linked post. But Gideon spends all this time, starting in the first book, primarily motivated by being useful to harrow, and getting harrow’s attention. this is obviously self-destructive and unhealthy as seen by her repeated desire to die for harrow. why is she doing this?
“I died knowing you’d hate me for dying; but Nonagesimus, you hating me always meant more than anyone else in this hot and stupid universe loving me. At least I’d had your full attention.”
ok, so it’s because she thinks that harrow doesn’t love her the way that she loves harrow (i.e. romantically) and she thinks that this is the next best thing. but we know that harrow DOES love her as much as she loves harrow. so the only place it makes sense for her to end up is accepting this love.
6) Same with Harrow’s!
as you say, harrow is like, really repressed! and she has this clearly unhealthy fixation on the body! she spends so much agonizing time being in danger and suffering from people who don’t care about her, and carrying around so much baggage, staring from the 200 dead kids to the fate of the ninth...
i think about the line where gideon’s like “you could always leave everything else behind, but you never got rid of being so absolutely fucking goddamn sad.”
harrow getting her happy ending and being surrounded by people who love and are for her (s/o camilla and palamedes) and no longer pledging her heart to some random corpse she saw once when she was ten and getting over her repression of her love for gideon and like, actually being in a relationship with gideon seems like the only way for this to go, you know.
7) What is the point of the second book otherwise?
The plot of the second book is like. Harrow fucks up her brain to save gideon. we are all confused about what’s happening. people keep attacking her and she almost dies a bunch of times due to her brain/lyctoral powers being fucked up. she regains her memory but has to solve more problems caused by her brain having been fucked (in order to save gideon). we get some explanations of past plot mysteries (mostly having to do with gideon).
(as explained above) gideon and harrow both decide that gideon should live and finish the book on strong gideon-nav-life-rights moments.
i feel confident other plot points relating book 2 to the greater arc will probably be revealed, such as harrow knowing about some blood of eden shit from before her memory wipe that she still doesn’t know about. but still genuinely why would you write like 500 pages or whatever of this unless they were going to get together, i simply don’t know.
8) Meta Time: They’re the protagonists and if anyone’s going to get their happy ending it’s probably them. Also, it would be kind of a con for the locked tomb to be billed as “lesbian necromancer series” if like, the main lesbian couple which like. . . tamsyn muir knows what she’s doing, she wrote fanfic for a long time. gideon/harrow is clearly one of the main draw of these books which the whole plot and emotional stakes run on. . . were to not get together.
actually, check out the fanmixes tamsyn has reblogged from various friends on her blog, particularly this one her husband (yes... tamsyn muir has a husband...) made for harrow the ninth. it clearly is mostly following gideon and harrow’s romantic arc, and songs like “what if i never get over you” by Lady A are on it.
9) Meta Time Part Two: In addition to being kind of a con for them to not get together i think if they were to not have a happy ending it would feel. . . kind of queerbaity and hm. Tragic Lesbians (tm) which Tamsyn Muir has also talked about not wanting in like, AMAs and stuff. so. in conclusion: i cannot tell you the future anon but i think you should not be afraid of it, at least as it relates to the canonicity of harrowhark/gideon. thanks everyone whose read through all this. i know its fucking long but i cannot shut up.
Here are all the different scenes of the DVD commentary I’m translating. I’ll try to update it after every new post ! A huge thank you to @bereaving who’s the one who makes ALL the gif sets here. A true hero.
Céline’s words of introduction on the DVD/Blu-ray
Céline comments on the very first scene of the film
Céline talks about the boat + jumping in the water scene
Céline comments on Marianne’s arrival on the island
Noémie talks about how her costume helped her to get into the character of Marianne
Céline talks about the castle
Céline explains the importance of the workshop set
Céline talks about her new challenge with the sound reconstitution
Céline explains how she used light and candles in her film
Céline talks about Sophie’s role and the creation of a new horizontal dynamic between the characters
Céline comments the discovery of the faceless portrait and the match cut with the headless dress
Céline talks about the role of the countess and her horizontal relationship with Marianne
Céline on creating Marianne’s workshop and the importance of the curtain
Céline explains why and how she created the desire to see Adèle/Héloïse’s face
Céline talks about the first exchange of glances between Marianne and Héloïse
Adèle explained how she prepared for the role of Héloïse and how she perceived her character
Noémie looking like a tired kid at Christmas
Céline and her desire to show the work of the painter
Céline talks about the scarves and Adèle’s gazes
The beach as the end of the world for Héloïse
Céline talks about the first time she heard Adèle’s voice as Héloïse on set
Céline talks about the sound work on the waves and the unexpected good weather in Brittany
Céline talks about filming the painting
Céline talks about the first real exchange between Héloïse and Marianne and about a key sentence of the film
Céline talks about the difficulty of not having a model and the art of self portrait
Céline and Adèle talk about the first scene of intimacy between Héloïse and Marianne
Marianne is the first character to burn during the piano scene
Céline commenting on one of her dreamed scenes, that was the “but I also felt your absence” scene
Céline talks about how the first portrait is presented to the audience
Céline explains how she wanted to resolve conflict differently from most other films
Céline talks about guilt and fire
Céline comments on the portrait on fire and its meaning
Céline explains how she created the delay of conflict
Céline explains how the film dynamic changes after Marianne shows Héloïse the first portrait
Céline talks about the arrival of a third character in the frame
Céline talks about the relationship between Héloïse and her mother
Noémie explains how she approached the role of the painter
Céline on filming desire in the “look at me” scene
Céline comments the representation of menstruation in her film
How Totoro has inspired Céline Sciamma
Céline explains her love for the kitchen place and its signification
Céline talks about the difficulty of the sequence shot of Marianne preparing to draw Héloïse and the importance of the candles
Céline talks about the technicality of the scene where Marianne draws Héloïse in secrecy
Originally, the “if you look at me, who do i look at” scene was the scene of the first kiss
Céline comments on Adèle’s innocence when shooting the card game scene
Claire Mathon talks about filming Adèle and Noémie’s faces
Céline talks about her desire to film the art of embroidery
Céline talks about the representation of sorority in the film
Céline explains the importance of the reading scene of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice
Céline Sciamma and Claire Mathon talk about the bonfire scene
Céline explains the thought and making process of the first kiss scene
Céline comments on the first ghost apparition
Céline talks about her tribute to Persona in the second kiss scene
Céline explains the scene of intimacy in the morning
Céline and her pockets obsession
Céline talks about the complexity of the abortion scene
Céline explains why it’s important to represent the abortion within the film
Céline and Noémie talk about their chemistry with Adèle and how the environnement created by Céline helped them
Adèle explains why filming the sex scene was something she enjoyed doing
Céline comments on the second ghost apparition
Céline Sciamma : “we hope to democratize this method of hydration”
Céline, Adèle and Noémie talking about the scene of conflict
Céline talks about the beginning of the end of the love story
Céline said they picked the most emotional take for the “forgive me” scene
Céline and her desire to talk about miniatures
Céline and Adèle talk about page 28 and the explanation behind that figure
Céline comments the mirror scene
Céline says she wrote the “don’t regret, remember” scene for the last audition of Noémie and how her chemistry with Adèle moved her
Céline comments on the last bed scene
Noémie being very moved (and pale) during Adèle’s last day of shooting
Céline commenting the exhibition/ Louvre scene, which was the last scene that was shot for the film
Céline reading the script of the final scene of Portrait (+ the audio)
“There’s a part in the new season where Adora continuously mispronounces things for a really long time. It’s one of my favorite runners that I think [Aimee] just made up one day, and we just kept making [her] do it. I’m really excited for everyone to see that.” -Noelle at the Q&A 😂
Let me tell you about this poem. This is the most accurate poem about being in love with a straight girl ever. Every time I watch this I almost cry. Every line in this poem is absolutely perfect.
“A boy called her weird yesterday and I wanted to tell her that I practice my shading to recreate the light in her eyes.”
When I was scared, I would imagine myself building a big wall all around me made of the strongest bricks in the whole world. And when I got scared, I would imagine myself putting another one on, one after the other, until that wall was so thick and so strong, I knew I’d be safe in there forever.
