Katakaluptastrophy

This post is a sequel to this one I made a few days back.

The Necro-Cav Dynamic as a stand-in for Marriage:

This one's pretty surface level. We have a union of two people, apparently bonded for life in a ceremony in which vows are exchanged. But we are talking "old-fashioned" marriage here. Not an equal partnership. The roles of a necro and a cav don't exactly map one-to-one onto those (traditionally) of a husband and wife. This is because they are heavily influenced by liege-and-knight dynamics. It is worth pointing out, though, that traditionally, both "husband and wife" and "liege and knight" can be seen as subsets of the broader category, "master and servant." This is why, as I've said before, trying to fully boil down necro-cav dynamics to "the necro is the man and the cav is the woman" will always fall short. That said, there still is plenty to be gained from reading the cavalier through the lens of wifehood, so long as we don't lose the thread of the cavalier's textual function: as their necromancer's bodyguard and champion, which is generally caught up in 'masculine' coding.

An interesting aside, when analyzing through the framework of marriage: In the Houses, it is acceptable (even expected) for a necro of a certain class to have more than one cav (having a primary and a secondary, etc.) - paralleling polygamy (the practice of having multiple wives). Meanwhile, it's a bit scandalous that the Tridentarii share a cav - from an outside perspective, Babs seems to be practicing the necro-cav equivalent of polyandry (having multiple husbands). Fun bit of subtext! I like it for Normal Reasons.

The Consent Problem:

Much like traditional marriages (esp. among the upper classes historically)--which may be a love-match, a social/political agreement benefiting one or both parties, or arranged entirely by a third party without either of the betrotheds' willing participation--the necro-cav pairings we see at Canaan House reflect varying levels of foundational consent. Some, such as Abigail & Magnus, as well as Palamedes & Camilla, we could call a love-match ("love" here not necessarily limited to the romantic variety). Others, like Judith & Marta, represent a professional arrangement (with an application process and all), but still were formed with the consent of both parties. The same cannot be said of Harrow & Gideon -- Harrow consented to the arrangement, but Gideon vocally did not.

Meanwhile, both Colum and Babs were literally made for the express purpose of being a cav to a necro who wasn't even born yet. Those arrangements were nonconsensual from the get-go. Yes, by the time the exchange of vows came along, all involved may have been convinced that this was indeed what they wanted, but crucially neither Colum nor Babs had the option to back out. Colum was Silas' only proper genetic match. Babs was the heir to a hereditary cavaliership, and an only child to boot. If either of them even considered declining the position, they would have known there would be Consequences. (The same was pretty much true for Ortus, too, though unlike the other two, he seems to have spent the last seventeen years acutely aware that he was being taken advantage of, and shirking his cavalier duties as a response to that.)

Importantly: the blame for these nonconsenual arrangements does not lie with the Tridentarii or Silas (or Harrow, in Ortus' case), as, again, none of them were even born when the arrangements were made, and all of them were children (and younger than their respective cavs, for that matter) when the vows were taken. All of this happened absent their freely-given consent, too. That fact does not, however, absolve them of responsibility for the abuses of power they commit within the bounds of these relationships.

Violations of the Flesh and the Soul:

The schools of necromancy practiced by the Third and Eighth Houses require routine, painful sacrifices on the part of the cavalier to a degree that seemingly none of the other Houses demand. Both are couched in extreme intimacy, yet much like with sexual violence, the end goal is an expression of power, not genuine human connection. Same can be said of, y'know, swallowing the soul of your cavalier to become a lyctor.

This isn't to say that soul siphoning your cav or cannibalizing bits them (or even their whole soul) is inherently analogous to the rape of that cavalier. Despite the non-con start to their necro-cav situation, we see that Harrow gets somewhat better about respecting Gideon's bodily autonomy as the book goes on, to the point that Gideon not only fully consents to being siphoned the second time, but in fact suggests it, and volunteers herself so completely to Harrow eating her soul that she sorta kinda steps on Harrow's ability to freely consent to the act (oops).

But in the case of Colum, who explicitly asked Silas not to siphon him that one time, only for Silas to view it as backtalk and to siphon him anyway to exert control, wrapped in the language of patriarchal moral authority?

And in the case of Babs, who was literally stabbed from behind, apparently without warning, his soul pinned, extracted, and consumed, entirely against his will?

But Bible references in TLT are usually from the Catholic Douay Rheims version of the Bible. And in Genesis 2, the Douay Rheims has "a help like unto himself". It's the Protestant King James Version that has "a help meet for him". And "helpmeet" as a single word is a shibboleth in more conservative interpretations of complementarianism. There is very much an inherent sense of submission in the idea of "helpmeet".

The favourite Bible verses of people with concerning views about women tour continues in the Sermon on Cavaliers and Necromancers at the end of GTN, which gives us something of the in-world theology of cavaliership. The Sermon draws heavily on Ephesians 5, the Pauline letter which gives instructions for proper behaviour in Christian families, and which also mentions the concept of "one flesh", instructing wives to submit to their husbands in the same way that the church submits to God.

There are some almost direct quotes from Ephesians: "So the necromancer and the cavalier are no different. They are one flesh. And yet that is only one understanding of the mystery that characterises us as a society"/"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery." (Ephesians 5:31-32).

As you can imagine, the kinds of theologies of marriage being drawn on here can, particularly in their most extreme interpretations, lend themselves to apologias for abuse, or the idea that consent is simply irrelevant within a marriage.

It's their day 🌷

“Ulysses Grant Dietz grew up in Syracuse, New York, where his Leave it to Beaver life was enlivened by his fascination with vampires, from Bela Lugosi to Barnabas Collins. He studied French at Yale (BA, 1977), and was trained to be a museum curator in the University of Delaware’s Winterthur Program in American Material Culture (MA, 1980). A decorative arts curator at the Newark Museum for thirty-seven years before he retired, Ulysses has never stopped writing for the sheer pleasure of it. Aside from books on Victorian furniture, art pottery, studio ceramics, jewelry, and the White House, Ulysses created the character of Desmond Beckwith in 1988 as his personal response to Anne Rice’s landmark novels. Alyson Books released his first novel, Desmond, in 1998. Vampire in Suburbia, the sequel, appeared in 2012. His most recent novel, Cliffhanger, was released by JMS Books in December 2020.

“Ulysses lives in suburban New Jersey with his husband of 45 years. They have two grown children, adopted in 1996.

+ these words from Abigail Pent (Ch 45, HtN):

“Something has gone terribly wrong in the River, Harrow, and I wish you’d find out what.”

Because Pluto can be another name for Hades, the god of the dead. But it's often one that's used to either euphemistically separate him from the fearful concept of the lord of the underworld (as in the Iliad - from which a number of Ninth names are drawn, including Harrow's parents), or to refer to a more complex or even positive idea of the god, particularly in relation to underworld-transcending cults such as Orphism or the Eleusinian Mysteries.

Which makes me wonder if there's to some extent a deliberate split between Harrow and Alecto's association with Pluto, and the way John is figured as Hades in HTN? Hades as death and control and coercion, vs Pluto as death and rebirth as natural yet potentially escapable cycles?

Muir has also suggested that ATN might start with something akin to the Harrowing of Hell - Jesus' descent to hell to rescue those who died before him. Though in Christian theology, the hell referred to is sometimes also called "Hades", to distinguish it as a liminal resting point of the dead, more akin to the neutrality of the classical conception of the underworld, rather than the place to which those judged sinners might be confined.

So we have Harrow - her very name referring to the idea of souls being rescued from some infernal waiting place - also associated with concepts of transcending the underworld. Which is, of course, Abigail's heresy: that one can cross the River. That there is something Beyond. Abigail is heavily figured as the classical chthonic psychopomp Hecate, who is also associated with underworld-transcending mythologies.

And it's Abigail who introduces the idea that there is something wrong with the River, that she has written notes about this, and that her brother might find them, which would rather seem to be setting us up for some kind of reveal, perhaps one that will connect to what the end of NTN suggested about where John has been putting souls and how that might be going rather wrong.

Jod calls Ulysses a hero, to which Augustine contemptuously replies…