Not I, Said The Bird

This kid's out of his mind. But he's still blubbering on and on about it. It seems he's the only one of his kind with this mutant candy-red blood. An outcast. He thinks he was put on this planet covered in an ocean of his own blood to be taunted. Punished for something. Saddest story you ever heard. Got to do something to shut him up.

The child was afraid and said, My hands are too stained, and I am too lowly.

So Alecto, wearied of talking, kneeled upon the rock and offered up the sword to her, and placed the child's hand upon the blade, so that it received also the red blood of the child. This made the child exceeding faint, but it did not swoon of weariness.

The opposite of Thanergy (AKA “Death Energy”) in the Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir.

So you say, “ok so it’s just life energy?” to which you are mostly correct. Thalergy is exactly that but what’s interesting about this to me (and soon to you all as well I imagine) is the etymology of thalergy! The etymology? The Etymology.

Thanergy as death energy derives its name from Thanatos, the greek god of death (technically the personified spirit of non-violent death but modern perception of the name is usually edgier than that lol). So it would be normal for those unfamiliar with the myriad of divinities within the Hellenistic pantheon to justly assume the ‘thal–’ in ‘thalergy’ comes from an opposite divinity of Thanatos that was a personified spirit of life. Except that doesn’t exist. Reading the first two books I knew that thalergy as a word wasn’t derived from any greek or roman words meaning “life” but I didn’t really dig any deeper on where it did come from because I didn’t think it was overly important. I Was Incorrect.

Because you see, the context for me to really connect the dots had gone over my head up until I had read Nona the Ninth. (I recall some meta posts pointing out that the Themes™ had in fact been present in the previous books just less obvious.)

What Themes? And Who The Fuck Is Thalergy Named For??

Thalassa.

Primordial Goddess Of The Motherfucking SEA!!!!

This is the energy we’re going for btw. Except like… more hands…

It's a scene that after I read it stayed impressed in my mind more than any other in the manga, I'm talking about the scene where the goat eats Mithrun desires

I think there are multiple reason why I find it so creepy.

The first is of course the goat itself.

While in the previous panels of the chapter we saw it grow until this point it always looked like a normal goat, so seeing it emerge as this giant monstrosity with humanoid hands without even knowing what it's going to do is dreadful.

The second is the setting.

Seeing it emerge from the darkness into the bedroom is evocative of a common childhood fear, and feels like a violation of what should be the safest of spaces.

The uncaring look on mithrun's lover face also adds to the creepy vibe, of the feeling of comfort and normal life being cut open to reveal it as being simply the spider web of a predator.

Finally is the act itself

The way a still living person is treated as a meal by the demon is creepy in itself, but it's made so much worse by the way the demon eats: entering inside mithrun as if eating from a soup, while grabbing his legs to prevent a struggle.

His way of eating is a mix of animalistic and perversely human, which only adds to the feeling that this thing is not a monster but something else, something unnatural.

THANK YOU FOR ASKING also i had an entire essay typed up for you and tumblr lost the draft. apologies because this re-do is Definitely Worse

my unhinged theory is this: Gideon has, and has always had, a fragment of Alecto's soul inside her, that lay somewhat dormant until it was "activated" by Harrow consuming her soul (and thereby also consuming the Alecto fragment).

bear with me: we know Harrow began to be haunted when a fragment of Alecto escaped into Harrow when she kissed her in the tomb at age 10. Harrow's individual fragment wasn't enough for the Body-vision to have sentience OR for her to, as a child, be sending out "I'm here!" signals that were trackable by the other RBs, so they were basically just hanging out.

HOWEVER. when Harrow ate Gideon's soul, two things happenened: 1) Alecto/The Body started speaking to her, protecting her, gained enough coherence to eventually becoming Nona, etc and 2) Harrow became a becon for the RBs, specifically Number 7, who immediately turned towards her to make a beeline to the Mithraeum.

This makes me think that Lyctorhood "activated" the Alecto-fragment in a certain way, and it makes sense to ME that the trigger would be that fragment getting bigger, via Harrow taking up Gideon's soul (including whatever fragments Gideon herself was carrying)

"evidence" (wild speculating) for Gideon having Alecto's soul under the cut!