@wellhappybirthdaytomeiguess:
Pash interacting with folks from the House is some of my favorite stuff in this book. I still love Corona's rejoinder of 'Boobs, and hair, AND a hell of a sword hand' to her. :-) As to the Fourth House skull, might it be because what amounts to child soldiers play a somewhat important role in the chapter, and the Fourth was known for child soldiers?
@forgetfulfish:
I feel like the skulls in Nona tie back to the poem at the start of the book. So four is for Fidelity.
All the ones that don't match a character make sense when matched to the poem but maybe I'm reaching
Ok, so:
Chapter 4: Seventh skull (Seven for beauty that blossoms and dies)
This was the chapter where Hot Sauce noticed someone watching the school and the Angel looked hung over. Hot Sauce also asked Nona to look out for people when she walked Noodle, but this wasn't the chapter where she pretends to radio Corona. Honesty also talked about getting his job to steal air conditioners. I'm not seeing it unless it's a reference to the Angel looking tired? Or maybe it's because Nona and the kids had a conversation about whether or not she was beautiful
Chapter 11: Fifth skull (Five for tradition and debts to the dead)
Nona acted out her pool dream with Camilla, Pyrrha told Nona she'd gone to the park (and killed the people in the cages, but Nona doesn't find this out until later) and seen Hot Sauce there, and BOE interrupted breakfast and took them to see We Suffer (which actually happens in the next chapter). Maybe the people who died at the park count as debts to the dead?
Chapter 15: Seventh skull again
The first appearance of the car with the grille, and Hot Sauce told everyone that the broadcast was happening. This was the day that Camilla failed to come get Nona, so she stayed and fell asleep and Hot Sauce told her about her past and Nona told Hot Sauce (presumably) that she was dying. I guess Nona herself is blossoming and dying here
Chapter 18: Eighth skull (Eight for salvation no matter the cost)
This was the chapter where Nona got shot in the head twice and Hot Sauce declared her out of the gang, and Pash killed a bunch of people and all that jazz. Nothing particularly religious seems to be going on here, and I'm not actually sure what "salvation" means in the context of John's necromancy religion, since it doesn't have a concept of someone dying for other people's sins and John doesn't believe there's anything on the other side of the River, so it can't mean getting there. I guess in the more practical sense of "salvation" of the lives of the characters who can still die, they had to take some risks to do that here?
Chapter 26: Fourth skull (Four for fidelity, facing ahead)
When Hot Sauce let Nona back into the gang again, so yeah, fidelity works here. Or child soldiers, although if I were picking a chapter to reference child soldiers, I would probably pick the one where Hot Sauce told Nona her backstory of being a child soldier (which had a Seventh skull)
Just looking at the chapter images and not reading ahead, it looks like all the other skulls are associated with characters who are actually in this book
