#nona speculation

[mayasaura]

Wouldn't it be funny if John isn't even a major antagonist in the second half of the series. I hope he's not. I hope the finale of Harrow the Ninth broke him, and he spends the rest of the series being infuriatingly useless and sobbing into a pillow about how it's too late and he doesn't know how how to fix it.

When Harrow the Ninth ended, the only person he had left in the world was Ianthe. Ianthe. He doesn't even like her, and he knows she doesn't like him. Harrow is missing, and would hate him if she knew the truth. All his friends hate him and are dead. His daughter is both dead and hated his guts from the moment she met him, and he deserves it. There is no one else in the universe who remembers his name. He's still God but he's nothing, he's no one.

Instead of defeating the bad guy, the conflict can be about the much more difficult challenge of finding a path forward for humanity that isn't written and paid for in blood.

[lookserratic]

Can we establish a chain of custody for Gideon’s body? By the end of As Yet Unsent, the incorrupt body is chilling in BOE custody with Judith, Cam, and Coronabeth. Then Judith gets roped into operating a stele to travel off planet, presumably with the body in tow.

Next time Gideon’s body shows up is when Kiriona Gaia rolls up with Ianthe Naberius, sporting a slit throat she acquired offstage somewhere(!?!) and a chest wound that has sprouted teeth, apparently having spent the last while hanging out for John’s sad girl summer and arts & crafts with Ianthe.

Gideon’s soul finishes HtN in Harrow’s body, imploding in the river. This was in proximity to John escaping from the stoma, so he might feasibly have gotten her soul then if it wiggled loose when Harrow’s body died. But how would John have gotten ahold of Gideon’s body?

[boysonfjilm]

Getting deep into the Alecto-as-Resurrection Beast theory and just had a massive forehead slap moment.

So, you know how the Lyctors' call signs are the first letter of their name and the first letter of their cavaliers' name? AA, Augustine Alfred, MC, Mercy Cristobel.

JG, John Gaius. Gaius a la Gaia.....the Earth.

Alecto, his Lyctor, was the Earth. He assumed her name as his last name in the same way that Cytherea took Loveday's name as her last name.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

[intrepidscholar]

Fine.... I guess it's time for my Nona theory. With the new chapter released- this is a long one so buckle up.

I think that Nona is Alecto AND Gideon in Harrow's body. This is because there are some sections of the text that have a weird hyphen between words and the style of the narration changes slightly.

Additionally, I think that Alecto is a resurrection beast in a human form thus her feeling presumably more in common with the planet (as highlighted in blue) than with the people. The section between "be-cause" and "al-ways" seems to be more concerned with the feelings of the people on the planet rather than kind of just existing and enjoying the moment with Camilla, Palamades, and Pyrrah

With Camilla taking so many notes about Nona's eyes, perhaps since Gideon and her father share the same eye color there could potentially (not certain because we only have two chapters) be a subtle change in the iris pattern and/or shade indicating that they are switching places. In this section we also see Camilla taking notes about Nona kissing herself and perhaps that is Alecto reenacting her last interaction with Harrow. Trying to reassure her reflection that it was real and that it was okay.

In the green highlighted section we see what actually happened and in the purple we see Harrow - through Gideon's understanding- doubting her own perception. In the blue section we see Harrow feeling that she did wrong and drove Alecto away with her actions, but we see Nona, perhaps reassuring the image of Harrows body that it's okay that she did that and she isn't going away- she came back for her as we see in the text below.

While there is an argument to be made for Harrow's body chemistry being what causes her body's hallucinations- we see that the Lyctor's bodies don't retain necromantic ability without the right soul in the right body so it could stand to reason that because Gideon's soul does not experience schizophrenic hallucinations. Gideon is actually seeing Alecto's soul returning in whole to Harrow and that Alecto may never have been a hallucination at all for Harrow. Harrow just assumed that it was a part of her condition rather than a revenant projection of at least a part of Alecto's soul.

The trauma of escaping the river may have been enough to damage Gideon's soul. Along with the modifications to Harrow's brain and skull, this would make recalling her soul's identity difficult. I feel though that a subtle difference in the eye shade/pattern is possible not only given the example above with Camilla's note taking, but also from the Epilogue of Harrow the Ninth.

So because Camilla knows what Gideon's eyes look like this could suggest that she is not seeing Gideon's eyes, but rather Alecto's eyes and/or the eye colors may be shifting periodically at random.

That's what I think is going on with Nona, but while we're throwing out theories left and right- where's Harrow?

That's a much more tricky question to answer because in the last section of Harrow the Ninth we see Harrow's revenant end up in a projection of all her attachments representing her life, death, and love. I know I highlighted practically everything in the text below, but bear with me as I explain please:

We'll start with the blue and yellow. In the yellow text I think at least part of Harrow's soul attached a revenant link to the Tomb. We see in the blue that Alecto's physical body has actually escaped the Tomb and part of Harrow's should now occupies Alecto's place. This represents her life that she dedicated to her people and her home.

The purple is a revenant link to the sword that housed Commander Wake/the Sleeper's revenant who intended to kill Harrow and, in life, had intended to destroy Harrow's home and purpose. This is her death that she now freely embraces.

Lastly and I continue the red highlighting from above to the continued passage below:

This passage is representative of her link to Gideon, who I would argue is her love. It is unexpected and it vexes her and makes her happier than the cold, familiar comfort of the Tomb.

The blue again represents Alecto vacating the Tomb, but let's focus our attention on the green section. Harrow is actually feeling the movement around her and while she is her home she is noted to be "in a faraway land she had never travelled." With Gideon's body being in the possession of Blood of Eden, it could stand to reason that at least part of her soul is in Gideon's body that could be on a planet where the war is being actively waged.

So to summarize my Harrow section: I think that Harrow's soul is split into three pieces. One is actually in the Tomb, the other is in the sword that housed Commander Wake's revenant, and the last is in Gideon's body. Or Harrow's whole soul is in Gideon's body and what she is seeing is just a projection of her mind like what Palamades did in his river bubble.

Am I reading too much into these probably yes, but I'm having fun with it and that's what matters.

[needlefag]

i think the names of the schoolkids ("born in the morning," "honesty," "beautiful ruby," etc.) are translations of their names' meanings? not sure yet, as hot sauce is the outlier, but since nona can just. speak all the languages ever. maybe she doesn't even realize it. we know she calls corona "crown" which is a direct spanish translation.... so. hmm.

[bullshitdeadgirlfriend]

It’s NONA SPECULATION TIME forgive my formatting I apologize

*this is informed by tommy arnold’s patreon post about illustrating the Nona the Ninth cover; quotes are noted, the rest is my speculation! highly recommend becoming a patron for his full post and all the artistic stuff that i appreciate even though i don’t understand. ok on to my guesswork*

first thing to notice is the number of redactions!!! I think in context these can potentially tell us a lot; i’ll get to those as we go.

[first brief]

“she has long, plaited black hair”

this could point to Harrow, because of Ianthe’s petty little finagling (so now her hair is long), but the black hair could really refer to anyone Ninth. or lots of other non-Ninth people. but imo top contenders are Harrow, Anastasia, or Alecto. (which narrows it down not at all.)

I don’t even know how to speculate on the planet appearance, with the red dunes and skeletons and blue sky. but the bright blue light, as people have mentioned on here before, could be an RB. it could also be the Mithraeum, I think. or a comet. or a weird modified sun. others have also speculated about the River. I’m leaning Mithraeum for no reason other than I think the characters will come together over NTN/ATN.

NOODLE!

“Nona spends a lot of the book at a school.”

This made me think 4th house for some reason, maybe only because teens go to school, but 4th teens actually go to war, so I think that’s a no-go. the HTN epilogue made me think they’re on some version of our Earth, sort of. like if the survivors of the mass killing that caused necromancy went to another planet, and did basically all the things they were already doing (making fried food, polluting the atmosphere, building high-rise apartment buildings). i have no clue what this school would be unless this is one of tamsyn muir’s comments that in retrospect makes sense (e.g., HTN being about church camp). maybe school is just a reference to Cam, SexPal, and Pyrrha attempting to teach Nona to wield a sword and raise bones. ??

in the next section of explanation, he redacts something about her skin. more later.

[feedback]

“bring a bit more of the gothiness back in”

I think this is a reference more to continuity in the series than anything else.

“the editor would prefer if the character had covered arms, legs, and torso because [REDACTED]”

then another [REDACTED] that seems to be about the arm coverings

something is redacted also about the cloak/duster

SOMETHING is significant about her skin. it might be about how much she’s showing — in which case, I lean nunlet because of the references in GTN and HTN about Harrow being extremely modest about showing her skin. even the “amnesiac Harrow” or “amnesiac Gideon in Harrow” could potentially hold here, since Gideon was even concerned about showering with Harrow’s clothes on while in Harrow’s body… though I’m not sure how amnesiac she’d be, if she remembers to be that conscientious about showing Harrow’s body. regardless, nun-like/modest behavior could still point to Anastasia, our first tomb cultist. it could also point to Alecto/the Body if she’s covering up marks from being chained in a freezer for 10,000 years. it could also just be a reference to skin tone, which I won’t get into because others have been more eloquent than I would be about perception of skin tone on the covers.

the redacted bit about the cloak/duster could refer to covering her arms, but in that case, idk why it’s redacted (unless it specifically said “covers her scars from the chains”).

(I have realized that my speculation is mostly about the redacted sections. there’s much more to tommy arnold’s post. plz read it. but this is what i’m focusing on rn.)

“The character’s stance looks a little too athletic. [Explanation REDACTED].”

to me this SCREAMS “Nona is a necromancer” or at least “Nona is in a necromancer’s body”. it’s well-established that necros have a smaller, somewhat unhealthily-skinny build (also see tamsyn muir’s interviews about necromancy having a high cost for more on this topic).

[feedback 2]

more about covering up her legs and arms, more about the colors (more muting, no pink - I’m thinking to stay in line with gothiness of other books).

“…make her look slightly more serious. Yes, she is [REDACTED].”

she is WHAT?? she is… depressed? a necromancer? a student? or is this just a comment on her personality/state of mind? “yes, she is having a better time than harrow or gideon or alecto, but she’s still in a dystopia and the world is ending”??? idk.

[correspondence]

so now he talks about Nona as a CHARACTER. love this bit. the brief describes her as “open, vulnerable, and happy” (he says that those “line up with my own reading of the book” which made me want to cry). but basically they end up going with “bittersweet” for the tone. and that she is “too ‘spunky’”. then they also mention that “keeping her covered up in some capacity is [a change] that we think helps with bringing the tone back into alignment.” but i don’t think that that’s the only reason to keep her covered up, because why would it be redacted earlier?

[ok last tidbits]

some of his descriptors: “more tentative expression”, “childish and wonderful” (referring to the wearing of the coat), “more subtly beseeching” (referring to wrist position)

i think these speak a lot to what we might see of Nona, how she’s approaching the world. which also doesn’t necessarily push us in a direction of “who is Nona” but is interesting because I would not really use those descriptors for a memory-intact Gideon or Harrow. except maybe Gideon being childish. of course. now I’m thinking of Gideon being “subtly beseeching” to Harrow and getting teary. but anyway! maybe those descriptors would fit better for someone who just woke up after a VERY LONG (maybe ten thousand year) sleep?

I think it’s time to be done with this post, so thank you to the literal single person who asked for it!!! so excited to hear all the other theories and speculation and little details I missed

[cryptid-coyote]

how fucking funny would it be if Nona was a completely separate character who got bonked on the head and then abducted by camilla and co

[ovrgrwn]