The Locked Tomb: Lyctors & Gender Dysphoria I

Tamsyn Muir’s dark and fascinating exploration of queerness and personhood

Welcome to the Gender Zone

Tamsyn Muir's Nona the Ninth offers intrigue, espionage, politics, sword fights, funny t-shirts, a six-legged dog, conversations between planets, a God on a bender and more besides. But among its most exciting aspects through both of my readings is how the book (and, retroactively, the series as a whole) portrays and plays with ideas of gender, bodies and pronouns.

In an interview with Reactor prior to the novel's release in late 2022, Muir shared:

My early readers have told me that this book has a serious case of gender. I think ALL the books have a serious case of gender; I consider my lesbianism to have a serious case of gender, and I’m not alone in… the lesbianism of gender (these words have stopped having meaning as I type them).

I find this especially profound both because it reflects the experiences of people I know and because lesbianism is intrinsic to this series (arguably even more than it is to This is How You Lose the Time War and The Masquerade novels, though it probably ties The Unbroken). Arguably the series is better known for being about lesbians than it is for being about necromancy, though the two tend to go hand-in-hand in descriptions.

Where my previous post explored the secret moral upon which The Locked Tomb is founded, today I will discuss the massive, bitter truth around which the series’ plots and characters orbit. Heavy spoilers ahead!

The official covers for Gideon the Ninth, Harrow the Ninth and Nona the Ninth, art by Tommy Arnold

The Eightfold Word

As discovered by the dwindling survivors of Gideon the Ninth’s cast, becoming a lyctor grants immortality and (potentially) infinite necromantic power through the process of eternally consuming another person's soul. This flawed process, called the 'Eightfold Word' and 'lyctoral megatheorem', was devised by John Gaius' companions post-Resurrection in hopes of imitating his relationship with Alecto (Earth).

These sixteen paired off as necromancer adepts (some people received traces of John's power post-Resurrection, and some continue to be born with it a myriad later) and non-adepts, with the latter eventually being consumed as the eternal fuel of their partner's lyctorhood. Thus were born the seven Saints (John says he aborted the attempt of one pair out of mercy, but there is certainly more to the story) and the tradition of necromancers-in-training being paired with bodyguard-and-potential-fuel cavaliers.

Necromancer Palamedes Sextus and Cavalier Camilla Hect, by HaileyRoseArt

In that same interview, Tamsyn Muir discussed how lyctorhood is partly based on The Dream of the Rood, wherein the Cross is personified and plays a role in humanity's salvation. (Because these books weren't enough of a reminder of Muir's brilliance.) Like the cross' eternal association with Jesus, in most cases the cavalier is remembered by their eye colour forever replacing their necromancer's. (Their fighting instincts can also act as a kind of autopilot for the lyctor's body while performing out-of-body necromancy.) Beyond that, they are chicken soup for the lyctor soul.

That is the understanding of lyctorhood we get in Gideon the Ninth (minus the insight about emulating John & Alecto). But as with so many concepts introduced in speculative fiction, it's the faults, exceptions and derivations to the rule that make lyctorhood such a stark focal point of the series.

Bodies & Minds

The simplest of these details, hinted at throughout the series but raised outright in The Unwanted Guest, is that consuming a person's soul does in fact have a greater influence than those described above.

By all previous understanding, Ianthe Tridentarius achieved the established and accepted version of lyctorhood by consuming the soul of her cavalier, Naberius Tern, at the end of Gideon the Ninth. Yet while fighting Saint Ianthe for control of Tern’s body, keen Palamedes discerns that the cavalier’s supposedly subsumed soul is influencing both of them. 

Tower Prince Ianthe Naberius, by Caio Santos

Here is also the first of the genderfuckery, as Muir so astutely put it. Ianthe retains her pronouns both having consumed the soul of her male cavalier and while remotely puppeteering his corpse. There is no question of the body's genitals being a part of this determination: Ianthe is a woman and continues to be so while happening to inhabit Naberius' body. If that makes sense, congrats! You are now a transgender ally <3

Of course Saint Ianthe's identity is a rabbit hole without a bottom until – and perhaps beyond – Alecto the Ninth's release. Both she and Kiriona use the title Tower Prince alongside female pronouns (despite having lived her life as Princess Ianthe), and it remains to be seen whether she will attempt to embrace or crush the influence of Naberius' soul on her.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, by Elena M. Benítez

Harrowhark Nonagesimus is potentially in a similar situation, and not as a result of her strange version of lyctorhood. Her parents saw Harrow as the last hope of for the declining Ninth House, and sacrificed every other child in their home (likely on Pluto) to necromantically empower her. Fans speculate that Harrow's impressive abilities stem from a complex relationship with those 200 souls, and that have partially shaped her personality and experience of gender.

Into the River

Turns out trying to explain enough detail to effectively convey an important message takes a while – many would argue it takes a full-length book! I'll wrap this up with Part II in a few days, exploring the genderfuckery of other strange versions of lyctorhood in the series, and hyperlink it here. Until then <3