It isn't enough that cavaliers in the Locked Tomb series must train to be excellent knights and defenders of their necromancers, but they don't even find rest in death.
Should one be consumed by their necro, they're just trapped in a cycle of defending and protecting (without voice or agency) that could last for thousands of years.
Neither Naberius Tern nor Gideon Nav had any idea what Lyctorhood would do to them. Gideon, in particular, resented being an indentured servant to the Ninth and sought escape. In falling on a fence, she had no idea she was about to indenture herself forever, with no escape (her unacknowledged love for Harrow made any qualms moot). Tern, on the other hand, had no idea his death would not be the "end." and we see him struggling against Ianthe in their shared body. He's not happy.
That Gideon was given a way out (an act of love she had no idea about), only to be forced back into service by her father, is a shattering psychic schism, while Tern and Ianthe are basically becoming a new person that Ianthe refuses to acknowledge.
Did any of the Lyctors who successfully absorbed their cavaliers realize they were no longer themselves after a time?
As a cavalier who escaped the process, how much of Gideon's soul *was* absorbed by Harrow and how will this affect Harrow in the future?
Further, in witnessing Camilla/Palamedes "suicide," does Gideon think of Harrow's parents and what *their* suicide made of their daughter? Paul is, for some intents and purposes, the child of Camilla and Palamedes and still an unknown quantity. They did it, much like Gideon falling on a fence, to save lives (getting everyone through the River required a Lyctor). Harrow did not call Gideon's sacrifice a suicide; I doubt she would have seen Cam/Pal's sacrifice as one, either.
But what about Gideon who has always sought escape and revered a violent death as her likely end (thanks to those Cohort comics)?
So many people had knowledge she didn't; an understanding of the world that she didn't; Gideon had no time to really learn much of anything and for all her struggles to be *herself* that person never got to emerge, fully. Like Tern, she was simply expected to obey and do her job.
If we could separate Tern for a moment, what would he say about it all?
There's a built-in cultural cruelty some of these folks are only now realizing or acknowledging, while someone like Wake has been fighting it all of her life. No wonder Augustine and Mercy joined her, ultimately. The grief and horror of understanding what they had helped build was a devastation that they couldn't ignore.
The lessons of this story, though, means John's reckoning cannot resemble John in any way.
What will justice look like?
It can't be the violence John and Wake have produced; maybe it will look more like the ease of forgiveness Gideon once offered Harrow.
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