What if Alecto adored her reflection as the descendent of Anastasia?
“When she had been earlier born, and less self-conscious, sometimes she would rest her face against the mirror's face, and try to reach her reflec-tion. Camilla had caught her kissing it once, and had written about six pages of notes on that, which was humiliating.” —Nona the Ninth
you guys ever think about how "alecto the ninth" being a title in-universe would mean alecto is the sworn cavalier primary of the ninth house? alecto, who canonically swore herself to anastasia's service?
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do you think that alecto was scared of being locked away. do you think anastasia held her hand while she put alecto to sleep. do you think anastasia promised to be there when she woke up. do you think that the ninth house exists to make sure that alecto wasn't alone when she woke up.
Anastasia not being allowed in her god’s religion and effectively banished, so she invented a whole other religious sub-sect that worships the people she loved and immortalizes them in the practices of an entire planet. Yes, I am talking about Alecto, Samael, and Cassiopeia.
(side note before anyone decides to read this that this is 100% me speculating about probably very insignificant detail, based on very spurious evidence for anything, simply because I can’t quite get it out of my head.)
I’ve seen a couple people saying that Alecto’s “kiss” was her attempting to show affection to Harrow but my interpretation was a little different.
Here’s the passage:
Alecto is angry. Alecto is angry at John, who killed and ate her, and at his disciples, who killed and ate each other. My interpretation of what she’s saying is this: “You love me? Well this is how your kind love each other.”
However, I’m not exactly sure how to parse “for Alecto knew not how…”, since it seems to imply that she would have kissed Harrow properly had she known how. To me it stands in contrast with how the kiss is presented as a direct continuation of Alecto’s anger: “Alecto was angry, and raised her up, and kissed her.”
Alecto also doesn’t seem to have much affection for Harrow at that point. She “stays the sword” for Harrow because she recognizes her from her dreams, but her anger awakens again when Harrow says she loves her. She only truly softens to her once she realizes she’s Anastasia’s descendant.
I will say that I think it would be cool conceptually if Alecto's love had some bite to it. Her children have been devouring each other for billions of years, after all. I’m just not sure that’s what’s happening here.
thinking ab anastasia showing up for just a single instant in the last chapter of ntn….a skeleton that quietly died in that tomb, tucked where no one could find her because god told her she was saving the world when really he was just punishing his enemies. the way she does for nothing but is the only lyctor whose name and memory survived them. the fact that alecto made a cav oath to her (in the absence of anastasia’s own murdered cavalier), the vow she repeats to harrow. “all he has done is teach me how to die” just the two of them in there forever and ever. augh
anastasia and alecto's vow, ninth house mythology, and a 10,000-year-old angry voicemail
alright get ready for a long post because i think i may have figured out something related to anastasia and alecto's vow. but also maybe this is very obvious and everyone else has already been thinking this way and it only just clicked for me. if anyone has said any of this before please direct me to it i'd love to see it!! contains spoilers for the whole series so far.
so rereading the passage in gtn where harrow describes the mythology of the ninth, the house's understanding of what is in the tomb seems very different from how john feels about alecto. now it could totally just be that the original meanings weren't retained over 10,000 years and new interpretations emerged (that's twice the length of recorded human history after all), but i don't think that's the case. i don't think the ninth house has different religious practices from the rest of the houses only because of their isolation, i think their unique understanding of the resurrection was something intentionally communicated by anastasia.
we know the ninth house wasn't meant to exist, that john killed samael during anastasia's ascension and then essentially banished her to die, and that anastasia probably holds a lot of ill will towards him. we also know she cared about alecto. i think there is something to be said for the disconnect between ninth house mythology and how john presents his relationship with alecto; that when anastasia survived she did not pass on the history of how john felt about alecto but how anastasia and/or alecto felt about john.
in the pool scene harrow says: "The Locked Tomb’s meant to house the one true enemy of the King Undying, Nav, something older than time, the cost of the Resurrection; the beast that he defeated once but can’t defeat twice. The abyss of the First. The death of the Lord."
john never saw alecto as his enemy! john never saw her as a beast he had to defeat. he loved her, she was a weird combination mother/daughter/wife figure to him, and he didn't want to put her in the tomb. (this is the part when i'll point out that all of this depends on john not lying about his dynamic with alecto, but based on his chapters in ntn and the way the other lyctors talk to him about her i don't think he is.)
BUT! maybe a furious and vengeful alecto would see herself as his enemy. maybe with the help of anastasia she wanted to preserve a message for john, a warning, something like "get ready because you cannot kill me and i will come back to be your destruction." and this is where we get to the most interesting thing to me about the ninth's mythology around her, it implies knowledge of alecto's perfect lyctorhood with john.
this is the crucial turning point of htn that not even the lyctors knew, they only figured it out when they saw gideon's eyes in harrow's body! but why would the ninth house pray for the thing in the tomb, the death of the lord, to LIVE and SLEEP. why wouldn't they just pray for it to die? why would they say that alecto is a beast that god could not defeat twice? because as we know alecto holds part of john's soul in her and therefore has to live for him to survive. she needs to stay alive locked away because he cannot kill her without killing himself and therefore making the sun go dark and destroying the empire. so here is my theory about the vow:
alecto told anastasia the truth about her and john. i don't know how exactly this relates to the vow alecto made to her, but i think anastasia knew about their lyctorhood. maybe part of it was something like alecto would help avenge samael for anastasia if anastasia preserved some of the truth about john and passed down the threat that alecto was coming for him. i think the overall vow is much more consequential than that but anyways my point is - it's not a coincidence that the ninth managed to get so many subtle details right. it does seem to be implied that the lyctors know alecto is the earth, so the "something older than time" line in harrow's description makes sense, but "the cost of the Resurrection," "the beast he defeated once," to me both of these imply that john is the one who destroyed the earth. the latter example is clear but the former i think is speaking to how the resurrection couldn't happen without john killing and absorbing everyone's souls and then eating part of the earth herself to become powerful enough to bring the solar system back to life. it's not clear how much the lyctors' memories were wiped and if they know about the exact cause of the apocalypse, but if they didn't know it was all john's fault, it's very interesting that ninth house beliefs kind of are implying that it was (even if the people of the ninth don't understand it). maybe alecto told anastasia all of that as well.
finally, the biggest point of disconnect is that the ninth house sees the thing in the tomb as a threat, as something that would destroy god if it got out. john probably knew alecto wouldn't be happy if she woke up, but i don't think he ever tries to frame her as a threat to himself. at the same time i don't think "the death of the Lord" only refers to the fact that if alecto dies john dies, i think it's also a message from alecto that she will be after him. and guess what alecto does the second she wakes up - finds god and stabs him through the heart! (which would have put out dominicus if it had killed him so tbh maybe harrow's parents were kinda correct in their fears.) anastasia sent that threat for her.
so anyways! i think the entire religious beliefs of the ninth house are alecto's "I'm coming to fuck you up I promise you that I promise you I'm coming to fuck you up" moment, and anastasia knew about alecto and john's perfect lyctorhood. (maybe because, as a lot of people have theorized, she almost figured out how to do it herself before john stopped her? but that's another post entirely.) excited to see if alecto carries out this myriad long threat in atn <3
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