Ohhh it makes me so mad how John treated Mercymorn. How almost everyone treated Mercymorn, by the sounds of it. Mercy who did not live up to her name, unloveable, unfeeling Mercy — G1deon was literally trying to murder Harrow, he was driving her crazy, and no one suggested he was incapable of empathy. Augustine was just as uncaring most of the time, but no one commented on his callousness. Mercy was labeled defective because she failed to meet expectations of femininity, she failed to be maternal and sympathetic and quiet. Cytherea —before, well, you know — was able to fool John and the other lyctors because she made herself fit the mould, she was gentle and caring and delicate. But the real Cytherea is the one we see after Palamedes’s confrontation: cold and bitter after many centuries of pain. John was fooled by Cytherea because he believed her facade of femininity, and he was fooled by Mercy because e believed her too defective to ever fool him. Ohhh John Gaius when I get my hands on you