The variety of reactions to the twist and when people figured it out, if they had prior to the reveal, are one of the more fun parts of seeing people's reactions to HtN. Partly because there's such a wide variety of answers and partly because even if someone has figured it out they generally still lose their goddamned mind when Gideon shows the fuck back up with the first person. Speaking of variety of responses, I continue to be intrigued by how some people miss the sapphicness of the narrative. Some it seems are missing it because it's too cloying. Some are like my friend who missed that a lot of how Gideon is as a person is EXTREMELY sapphic. Woman's a butch and not just in the form of being a masc presenting woman who loves other women, but in the form of the kinds of anxieties she has and how she behaves. Butches I've seen and myself who is also butch have looked at the woman doing her pushups daily and looked at the way she reduces herself to A Function that can be used To Protect People and gone "oh fuck it's me". And HtN fucking breaks butches because the entire book is about how this one horrible rat girl lost her butch and she needed that butch and loved that butch so thoroughly that the loss drives her to fucking lobotomy and the creation of various fantasies wherein she provides Gideon with everything she could have wanted. Meanwhile Gideon is like "lol no i don't love nonagesimus fuck you i'm just here to be eaten by her and i failed at even that FUCK YOU". But my friend missed these aspects of the narrative because he isn't a butch and he isn't aware of the sorts of shit we get up to and deal with. I've seen other sapphics miss it too. And that's just kind of fascinating I think. Like I suppose it's not surprising. Not everyone is as involved in that specific area of lesbian culture as, say, my girlfriend is. But it is interesting that even other sapphics can miss an entire aspect of the sapphicness of the narrative due to not knowing the kinds of values and emotional struggles butches tend to have. Like media by its nature is always going to be dependent upon the contexts of those who are reading it, whatever kind of text it is. But TLT has resulted in some of the most varied and heated arguments with whether or not it is queer and to what degree if it is and how so if it is that I've seen from a popular explicitly lesbian narrative in a bit. Partly because Muir is using aspects of lesbian culture people might not be familiar with and partly because Muir is using aspects of queer coding in her explicitly lesbian book series. That use of coding, by the by, being something that I think makes the book Extra Queer, honestly. I dunno one day I found a dude who called Gideon "quite the tomboy" and my mind was blown and I just find it fascinating that the character can get such a diversity of readings.
i mean "tomboy" is very much baby's first attempt at being butch (literal) for a lot of people, isn't it?
In a fashion, though I wouldn't say I needed an attempt at being butch. I was simply a butch child who needed to learn the word for my gender. Anyway. What struck me about calling her a tomboy though is that it's...Wrong. She's not a tomboy. She's a butch. Calling her a tomboy feels like calling Gideon a child, because tomboy is very much viewed as a phase that little girls are meant to grow out of. Refusal to do so is met with being told you need to grow up. Either literally or through lovely statements like "But don't you want to look good for boys?" It feels like we're infantalizing her and subtly going "Well it's time to grow up kiddo and get some skirts and makeup on!" Which. No. And other butches who saw this comment were also just. Taken aback by it. Some were outright hostile about it. Others were more patient because they assumed, correctly, that he just didn't know. But everyone was very much agreed on that fact that Gideon Is Not A Tomboy and there was an air of offense in the room. And so explanations were given on just what a butch is and the proper words to use for someone like Gideon. And an explanation was given to how a butch's masculinity is distinct from that of a cishet man's. I am not sure if this makes sense. I do hope it does. But yeah like my thing with it all was just that, for me, is just so obviously incorrect. She's a butch and her masculinity is that of a butch's. But to some dude who doesn't even know what a butch is all he's got is his own perspectives about what masculinity is and the word tomboy. Which leads to a very different read on the character. One of the specific things I remember being that he had issues finding what was so queer about her behavior, while damned near every butch I've seen talk about these books has cried over the fact that the aspects of being butch beyond wearing flannel and liking women are captured in them.
i think part of the issue is that most people legitimately think that being butch = lesbian plus flannel plus masc physical characteristics, and are completely unaware of the internal aspects of being butch. like, im not butch and for ages i definitely knew very little about the sheer range of butches
Yeah it's definitely a lack of knowledge issue partly. Which I don't blame anyone for? Butches kind of keep to themselves, honestly, and adages like "A butch is steel covering velvet, a femme is velvet covering steel" require you to either be part of lesbian culture or to have studied it for some reason. I just find it neat that the character can read so differently based on what knowledge and experience you've got. That's the case for most art, really? But it's very stark with Gideon.
I just finished my relisten to the first two books in preparation to read Nona, and I wanted to wait and read the physical copy I bought, but I have an audiobook credit burning a hole in my pocket and 25 hours left of the work week, so probably that's not happening. I totally forgot about Pyrrha! so much happened in the last couple chapters and my memory is so bad, it completely slipped my mind lol. it occurs to me that audiobook listeners would have had an easier time guessing the twist in Harrow, because the reader sometimes drops into Gideon's voice and accent in the narration.
SLAMS open this dead thread i just finished gideon and harrow and my god. talk about HARROWING hachacha i cannot wait to devour nona and then wait with bated breath for alecto but let me fucking tell you something- Spoiler: spoilers for HTN having one of the pieces of flimsy have the fucking schoolyard S drawn on it took me out, as did "none house left grief". why would you make john such a goddamn millenial! i KNOW ill probably get my answer in nona but fuck!!! the threesome also took me completely off guard and i knew for a moment what it meant to be harrow john is one of my favorite characters but mostly in how people bounce off him. theres something so helplessly charming about God being just some fucking middle aged dude who goes fucking "eto...bleh X3" half the time completely and utterly seriously. and then the other half is. well. whoof. i want to marry him. you would have to pay me to marry him. i want him to be happy. hell probably only ever be happy dead. still percolating all my thoughts on the other blorbos but my god. i love em.
A friend lent me their copies of the audio books, and I have been enjoying the start of Gideon (now with Voices) I was planning on a reread of everything, but weirdly kept struggling with GtN. When I said the hell with it and decided to reread the start of HtN, I found myself just... reading through the entire thing? With only 2-3 spots where I had to take breaks and do something else? Truly, the power of 2nd person for lulling one into continuing to read is a fearsome power.
the last time I reread, I confess I did skip the start of GtN and go right to the arrival at the First House. So I want to get directly into the cool murder mystery, so sue me
Hilariously, I was fine with rereading the start - my stumbling started with Gideon finishing breakfast the next day.
GOD i know exactly what you mean. it took me a while to properly get into GtN and i think it was because i wasnt used to the writing style yet. but once canaan house hit i was devouring it in hours.
