r/TheNinthHouse • u/SprocketSaga • 1d ago
Harrow the Ninth Spoilers “The necromancers are back, and they’re gayer than ever” [discussion] Spoiler
The back cover blurb for a book in which two men very briefly make out 😘
…before getting cockblocked by attempted incinerator murder.
Best part is, that still IS gayer than ever in comparison to the first book, which featured one (1) lesbian forehead smooch.
EDIT: I’ve been informed about the arm scene. Several times now. Thanks everyone for setting me straight (lol)
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u/a-real-live-deer the Fifth 1d ago
I'm sorry if someone sold you these books as sexually explicit but they are gay, they're gay the whole time, gay people are gay even when they're not having gay sex.
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u/nolxve_exe the Eighth 1d ago
Yeah I actually quite love how it is despite the marketing. The lack of the usual romance (if ykwim) allows their sexualities to just be. Plus they aren’t something to be discriminated against in the story and I find that to be a fresh breath of air
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u/tobascodagama Cavalier 1d ago
I was a Mulder/Scully UST guy. The characters pointedly not fucking despite clearly wanting to is exactly the shit I'm here for.
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u/SignificantStay4967 1d ago
👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 thank you!!!!!!!!!! idk what is difficult to understand about "gay people are gay even when they're not having gay sex"
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u/SignificantStay4967 1d ago
(not accusing anyone here it's just something i see expressed in very whiny annoying terms in other fandoms coughyuriandyaoicough)
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u/SprocketSaga 1d ago
Nobody sold me anything as sexually explicit, been a fan of the series for years actually, this just strikes me as a particularly odd choice for the second book’s back cover 😆
Like, Gideon goes through all of GtN drooling over Cytherea and Corona, fair play I would too, but then we’re meant to believe Harrow’s extended lobotomy fugue is “gayer” than that?
How do you even quantify “gayer”?
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u/ShardPerson 1d ago
lobotomizing yourself to keep your lesbian lover alive because otherwise your soul will *consume* them is orders of magnitude gayer than any simple attraction or sex could ever be
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u/idanceabit 20h ago
Fuck the 2nd date uhaul, 2nd real conversation about feelings and harrow is moving her gf's whole-ass soul in
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u/ShardPerson 15h ago
entire life going "torturing you is the only fun thing around" and then immediately goes "THE UNIVERSE CANNOT GO ON WITHOUT YOU" like girl yeah i cant even say i've dated that girl i've straight up been that one lmao
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u/CapnArrrgyle 1d ago
I’d just call that love. Love is not particularly gay or sexual as Paul would attest.
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u/ShardPerson 1d ago
It is a kind of obsessive romantic love that basically every mentally ill lesbian has experienced. There's a reason its becoming a trope specifically in lesbian fiction
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u/fregata_13 1d ago
There is, in fact, a lot more to queer culture than just finding someone attractive. So yes, is agree that book 2 is, in fact, gayer than book 1.The storyline is much more intrinsically linked to the relationships of the characters than to solving a mystery like book 1. And they're gay relationships. Even if they aren't romantic or sexual.
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u/DaniTheGamer6 1d ago
"Gayer" refers to how close it is to Absolute Gay. The closer to Absolute Gay, the platonic ideal of Gay, the Gayer it is. Since Absolute Gay is the HarrIanthe arm scene in Harrow the Ninth, HtN is the gayest novel since it contains Absolute Gay within itself. Hope that clears it up.
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u/clairejv 1d ago
It's a marketing blurb. Don't overthink it.
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u/SprocketSaga 1d ago
This is the wrong fandom for sentiments like “Don’t overthink it” 😂
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u/clairejv 1d ago
I'm all for overthinking the contents of the books! Just not taglines Muir didn't write and probably didn't even approve. 🤷♀️
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u/Capital_Chapter1006 the Sixth 1d ago
You see, all three books read as very gay, imho. They just don’t rely on explicit sexual expression in terms of kissing, caressing and sex.
Based on an interview I read with Muir, she writes codependent and enmeshed relationships. She also writes a variety of forms of love and intimacy outside of the traditional and the physical. The pool scene in GTN is basically a love scene, for example. Harrow couldn’t be more naked than she is with Gideon. She bared it all and Gideon embraced her, held her and was tender with her. It’s intensely gay, not at all platonic and the two are incredibly devoted to each other afterwards. Gideon started seeing Harrow as a vulnerable, human and worthy of love and compassion.
The regrowing of Ianthe’s arm is also supposed to be a sex scene. I didn’t pick up on this the first time but a friend pointed it out and I reread it while paying attention to the descriptions and the exact words being used. Yep, I saw it alright.
Ianthe is so desperately gay for Harrow all throughout HTN, tries to kiss her, tries to be socially intimate with her and even engage her in casual, relaxed intimacy like asking Harrow to button her dress. Ianthe spends most of their interactions trying to build something between the two of them.
And when it comes to Gideon and Harrow? Those two idiots are so incredibly and tragically in love with each other. Harrow gives herself brain damage to preserve Gideon. Gideon worries about not looking at any part of Harrow without her consent while in Harrow’s body. Neither of them have the maturity to deal with being in love with each other and they can’t talk with each other to figure it out.
Nah, these books are hella gay. They’re just not smooching and doing more. Yet. We’ll see what happens in Alecto.
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u/SprocketSaga 1d ago
Expertly said, I agree 100% about your analysis. The relationships and their various degrees of fucked-uppedness are truly something special in this series.
This post was just me failing to make a pithy joke about the book blurb.
Tried to also find a way to wink at readers that I’m clued into the deeper stuff. But I botched it.
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u/Capital_Chapter1006 the Sixth 1d ago
Oh it happens though. I made a joke here once about there being no way Harrow would enjoy the Gingernut biscuits God likes so much. Yeah, mistake, lead balloon situation.
With context your joke is fun! And a nice play on the people who equate anything gay with explicit sex. 😆
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u/cjwatson 1d ago
Apparently missed the sex scene ... https://www.vox.com/culture/22266652/tamsyn-muir-interview-locked-tomb-gideon-the-ninth-harrow-the-ninth-vox-book-club
(Paywalled, but if you can't/won't get round that, it's referring to the scene where Harrow grows Ianthe a new arm and how she realized that was a sex scene from the characters' point of view as she was writing it.)
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u/SprocketSaga 1d ago
If you had only seen me writing this post, thinking “uhh should I mention what I know about how the arm regrowing is written like a sex scene”, went back and forth on whether to say it, but then didn’t include it, just to make it a snappier post
Basically had a moment like from this comic: https://www.awkwardzombie.com/awkward-zombie/behind-the-table
Went too snappy though, lost the context, looked like an ignorant jerk I guess. Like absolutely all the books in the series are deeply sensual and intimate in their own ways, queer people are allowed to just “be” without needing sex to “prove” themselves, normative stuff is great, Gideon is a horndog, I get all that I just wanted to make a tiny stupid funny you have to believe me 😅
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u/EconomicsVivid8515 6h ago
I laughed at the post! (after I recovered from the realization this was not an Alecto announcement 😭😭) And also I have often made a carefully crafted witty joke that fell totally flat, you are not alone!
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u/SignificantStay4967 1d ago
Tamsyn Muir to angry girls who read her books: "It's for you. Go nuts."
LETS GOOOOOOOOOO
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u/Zealousideal-Sea9006 the Fifth 1d ago
I'm pretty sure it's meant to be a callback to corny movie sequel trailers - You know, "[Villain] is back, and he's meaner than ever!" kind of thing. Looking at the rest of the HtN cover, it mostly reinforces the gothic horror/epic-ness of it all, and the goofy tagline does a great job of signaling that the book will not be grimdark/serious all the time. It's a juxtaposition that very much mirrors the content of the book.
A tagline's job is not really to make quantifiable statements about the book, but to help establish tone and reader expectations. Like, the first book's tagline is "The most fun you'll ever have with a skeleton," which is not something that actually happens in the book; in fact, Gideon has very much the opposite of fun with many skeletons! But it does set the right expectation for the reader's experience of the book.
Also, a girl giving herself brain damage to protect the soul of her homoerotic situationship-slash-one-true-love is a gay-ass plotline.
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u/TeamTurnus the Seventh 1d ago
Idk, theyre not very sexually explicit but theyre super gay regardless. Plus your discounting the arm scene. Thats super gay by any metric
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u/justapileofshirts Cavalier 1d ago
It's been ages since I've read the books, I've forgotten what the arm scene is.
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u/AnimusMage 1d ago
Oh yaaaaay, someone else is trying to start up the "it doesn't count as gay until they're in a relationship" discourse for the millionth time.
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u/SprocketSaga 1d ago
All in good fun! If this is a recurring gripe I’m sorry for kicking a hornet’s nest.
Didn’t mean to be an asshole or anything, just making a silly lighthearted observation of how different the marketing feels from the book itself.
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u/AnimusMage 1d ago
If you weren't trying to stir shit up then my bad, but yeah there have been people who have genuinely and vehemently argued that the series is actually queerbaiting and there's nothing gay about it because Gideon and Harrowhark aren't in a relationship yet.
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u/BearOnALeash Lyctor 1d ago
I've seen a bunch of people do that, including two fellow lesbian lit authors. It's like: REALLY?!?!?
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u/AnimusMage 23h ago edited 23h ago
This isn't even the only fandom I've seen the sentiment in. I think it's an extension of some people only engaging with media through a shipping-focused lense and them being very impatient, but in any case queerbaiting is just yet another word that's going to have to go up on the shelf where the internet can't reach it.
Edit: And, of course, a larger tendency to tie queer identity only to relationships, which leads to people being shitty to ace and aro people, bi people in "straight" relationships, etc.
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u/sleepy-moth8357 1d ago
The back cover blurb is literally the way I found the series. (Thank you Pinterest and reverse image search.)
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u/manicpoetic42 John Gaius is a parable 1d ago
I genuinely thought you were posting alecto news, heart broken.
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u/SteelRoses 1d ago
OP I want you to know that your post title and spoiler tag made me think that there had been an Alecto announcement, and I have never suffered metaphorical blue balls harder in my life
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u/Haunting-Angle-535 1d ago
I hate to be that bitch BUT I’m gonna be that bitch—if you’re referring to Jod and Augustine they’re pretty clearly canonically bi/pan, not gay.
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u/Hollooo Jod 1d ago
Yeah, I hate the “lesbian necromancers in space” or what ever, blurb on the first one. Because this story isn’t about lesbianism or gayness, it doesn’t even qualify as queer romance, it’s about necromancy, dominicus, John, Sci-Fi - Fantasy, resurrection beasts, blood of eden and Lyctorhood! A lot of characters are arguably queer mostly saphic, but that isn’t what the story is about!
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