YMMV / The Locked Tomb

• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Naberius and Silas are almost always referred to negatively by Gideon's internal narration and designed as intentionally unlikeable but even Gideon feels pity at Naberius' fate to be burnt up inside Ianthe forever and Silas being killed by his own cavalier.
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • At the end of Harrow the Ninth, Gideon is disgusted by Ianthe's decision to save the Emperor and let Augustine die, commenting that it's just like Ianthe to make the worst possible choice. But considering that Augustine and Mercy made it clear that upon the Emperor's death, the Nine Houses would all die as well, it's possible that Ianthe simply took the only option she had to save the Empire.
  • As of their unsettling reunion in Nona the Ninth, readers came away with differing interpretations as to whether the Tridentarii's relationship is merely extremely unhealthy and codependent or outright Twincest.
  • Throughout Nona the Ninth, we see flashbacks to the days right after all life on Earth was extinguished, leaving John as the only human survivor. His explanation of how this apocalypse came to be and his justification for how the Empire is structured and its overall purpose leaves one to wonder how much he's lying. Is John an average guy who snapped under tremendous pressure and made the worst mistake in human history, only to spend the rest of his days fixing it with necromancy while trying to cover it up to avoid facing his guilt? Or was he always a petty narcissist who, when he wasn't allowed to be the hero after being selected as earth's champion, lashed out in millennia-long rage at those who spurned him while taking the chance to rebuild society with himself worshipped as a god? Or is the truth somewhere in the middle?
    • Similarly, how much is John lying about what he knew about the Lyctoral process as the original Lyctors researched it, and what is his motivation for lying? Is Petty Lysis riddled with imperfection and unnecessary, traumatic sacrifice because John wants to stand alone in power or because he wanted to encourage the Lyctors to consume their cavaliers so they'd get rid of people they loved more than him? Did he intentionally sabotage Anastasia when she tried to achieve a more perfect Lysis, or was her failure really an accident he had to save her from?
  • In Nona the Ninth, Coronabeth has a high opinion of her sword abilities, and while Gideon didn't get to see that much in Gideon the Ninth, she described what she saw of Corona's talents as being quite good. Meanwhile, in The Unwanted Guest, Ianthe says that Coronabeth isn't nearly as good as she pretends to be, to the point that she'd lose to the long-deceased Magnus Quinn. Did Gideon just not see enough to correctly assess Corona's skills, or was Ianthe intentionally doing Corona down so she wouldn't have to admit that Corona would have been a valid choice as a second cavalier?
• Contested Sequel: Nona the Ninth had a much more divisive reception from fans than Gideon or Harrow did for several reasons: Nona, the protagonist, spends most of the book completely clueless about what's going on around her and thus many readers are left completely confused by the book's events alongside her, Gideon and Harrow are (almost) completely absent from the book except via mentions from other characters, and structurally, the book is much slower-paced than previous installments, with most of the important events happening in quick succession in the last few chapters. However, it's well-regarded by many fans due to how enjoyable of a character Nona is, the world-building in it that had previously been lacking in the series, the focus on fan-favorites Camilla and Palamedes, and the fascinating dual-narrative showing Nona's life alongside the events that led to the founding of the empire (something that many fans had been eagerly awaiting).
• Draco in Leather Pants: In those exact words, the Intended Audience Reaction for Ianthe, according to Word of God in her AMA on Reddit. Ironically, many in the fandom defied this, fully embracing Ianthe's weird, creepy, and morally ambiguous qualities as their favorite parts of the character. (Ianthe fans don't decide she's done nothing wrong because they love her; Ianthe fans love her because she's done everything wrong.)
• Epileptic Trees: The identity of the mysterious person in Harrow the Ninth's epilogue, who's presumed to be the enigmatic Nona from the third book, has been subject to much speculation. General consensus is that she's a character we already know, suffering Identity Amnesia, but who exactly it was caused the fanbase to fall into an endless slog of theories. Gideon's body possessed by someone else was a popular guess, until the cover showed that Nona looked nothing like Gideon, and more like Harrow if anyone. (It's extremely difficult to tell, as Harrow has henceforth only been illustrated with facepaint that confuses her actual features.)
• Fan Nickname:
  • Palamedes is often referred to as "Sex Pal", based on the joke Gideon makes about his name. The heavily implied perfect Lyctorization combo of him and Camilla shown in the Harrow epilogue is hence "Sex Cam".
  • The Saint of Duty is sometimes referred to by fans as G1deon, as a reference to him being of the First House and Gideon Nav's namesake. Also, "Gideon Original Flavor".
  • The Emperor is often affectionately (or unaffectionately) called "Jod" (portmanteauing his name with "god").
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Palamedes' awkward interactions with "Dulcinea" become this after the end of Gideon the Ninth reveals that he's been in love with the real Dulcinea for over a decade, and doesn't understand why Cytherea (who's impersonating her) is treating him like a stranger.
  • Gideon's love of her two-handed sword is played as a joke throughout Gideon the Ninth, but in Harrow the Ninth it's heavily implied Gideon refocused the natural impulse children have to desire love into her sword as a consequence of her terrible, abusive upbringing, made worse by the fact that the entire time it contained the soul of Gideon's mother, who planned to murder her as an infant.
  • At first, Sister Glaurica's possessiveness and fussing over Ortus just seems like a ridiculously overprotective mother. Then you recall that almost all of the Ninth House's children are dead, and Ortus is one of two survivors. And then you find out that the children were murdered, and Ortus was likely only spared so he could be Harrow's cavalier. Additionally, dialog in Harrow the Ninth seems to imply Glaurica was at least somewhat aware of the circumstances of her House Cavalier husband's death, which was a suicide ordered by his necromancer. It's likely Glaurica saw history repeating itself when Harrow tried to order Ortus to follow her into a dangerous situation as her cavalier. Glaurica might have been right, too - Harrow's brain re-write of Gideon the Ninth casts Ortus as "[dying] thinking it was the only gift he was capable of giving" in the course of her Lyctoral ascension.
• Hard-to-Adapt Work: While many fans would love to see The Locked Tomb in a visual medium, doing so in practice is next to impossible due to how reliant the books are on Unreliable Narrator. In the first book, Gideon's limited perspective and general disinterest in what's going on means that she misses out on a lot of details that would be glaringly obvious in a visual medium, while in Harrow, the fact that the narrator is diegetic and Gideon would be immediately obvious in any visual medium, and even an audiobook has a hard time not spoiling things immediately.
• He's Just Hiding: It's a widely-held opinion in the fandom that Gideon can't possibly be dead for keeps, though there's a division between those who believe her resurrection is a goal that characters will work towards or whether she somehow survived. To a lesser extent, this also applies to Palamedes. This ended up being correct for both of them.
• I Knew It!: Harrow the Ninth's preview of Act One had sufficient hints that fans correctly guessed Gideon's mother was the mysterious Rebel Leader and that her father was the Emperor as well as expecting both Palamedes and Gideon to return. Likewise, many fans called that Gideon's mother's ghost wasn't referring to the baby when she screamed "Gideon!", and whoever she actually meant would turn out to be important.
• Jerkass Woobie: At the start of the book, Gideon bluntly calls Harrow a psychopath, and we don't have much reason to disagree. She's ruthless, arrogant, and seems to take sadistic pleasure in making Gideon's life as painful as possible. She doesn't exactly grow more personable, but it's hard not to want to hug her anyway considering how absolute shit of a hand she's been dealt. Her parents murdered all 200 children of their House for a ritual to ensure Harrow would be born a necromancer. Now her House is on the verge of extinction and it's up to Harrow alone to secure the Ninth's future and make the sacrifice of a generation worth it. Only she knows nothing she does can ever quite redeem what her parents did to create her, so at 10 years old she made a plan to kill herself, but accidentally drove her parents to suicide instead. They tied a noose around her neck and intended her to off herself alongside them, but she couldn't go through with it and has spent every day since then disgusted with herself for still being alive. And that's all before the books begin. By the end of book one, not only has she had to watch Gideon kill herself to save Harrow, she also had to eat Gideon's soul on top of that. All this before she turns eighteen!
• LGBT Fanbase: The series has proven to be explosively popular among the LGBT community, particularly for featuring a Butch Lesbian protagonist, which is uncommon even in more overtly queer media.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Charles Stross' review quote, shown on the cover of Gideon the Ninth of "Lesbian necromancers [...] In Space" has gone on to become used to refer to the entire series laconically, both sincerely and ironically, including on our own Laconic Wiki page.
  • After the reveal of Nona the Ninth, jokes about a necromantic version of Strega Nona quickly spread.
  • The fact that Alecto's human form was based on a Barbie John once had has lead to a cascade of jokes and fanart depicting her as a yellow-eyed Barbie juxtaposed against necromantic murder and mayhem.
  • Tagging fanfic and Tumblr posts involving Ianthe as "cw [content warning] Ianthe" to jokingly imply that her very presence is disturbing and not safe for work.
  • "Chussy", referring to Kiriona's chest wound and the potential depraved sexual uses thereof. Tamsyn Muir was somewhat horrified to discover this one.
  • Cow Facts/“cows watch the sunset” became memetic due to its complete mundanity out of context despite it being extremely important to the backstory of the series as a line used by the media to dismiss John’s attempts to save the Earth.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Harrow's parents crossed this long ago when they sacrificed 200 children, an entire generation of their House, in a ritual to ensure Harrow would be born a necromancer. Harrow says she's aware nothing she does can ever justify the crime of her existence. As far as her parents are concerned, Harrow herself crossed this by entering the Locked Tomb, so much so that they were Driven to Suicide and fully expected her to hang herself too.
  • Nona the Ninth reveals how John crossed it: he set off the nukes that destroyed Earth and, using necromancy, killed everything in the solar system in what was by his own admission a vain effort to punish the rich elites fleeing in the first FTL ship. This includes all his friends and supporters, who he not only brainwashed but also forcibly renamed when he resurrected them, and the earth itself, who gave him the start of that power to begin with because of his desire to save the world, only for him to use it to kill everything and force her into an existence she couldn't bear.
• One True Threesome:
  • Given the long standing love Palamedes has for Dulcinea, and Camilla being an Unlucky Childhood Friend towards her necromancer, and Dulcie herself viewing both of them as dear friends, Camilla/Palamedes/Dulcinea is a very popular grouping in fan works.
  • To a lesser extent, due to the Belligerent Sexual Tension she has with both of them, and the fight they get into about Harrow's attraction or lack thereof to both of them, Harrow/Ianthe/Gideon is also a popular grouping.
• Signature Scene:
  • Gideon the Ninth Chapter 31, aka "the pool scene", the pivotal moment where Gideon and Harrow finally reconcile, is the scene that people reference when discussing the series as a whole and the first book in particular. In some ways the entire series pivots on the scene as the moment where Gideon forgives Harrow, being symbolically repeated and referenced later in the series
  • To a lesser extent, Chapter 25 of Harrow the Ninth serves as one for the second book, because of the Running Gag of Lyctors being terrible cooks culminating in Harrow weaponizing soup.
• Spoiled by the Format: In Harrow the Ninth, although it's not hard to guess that the second-person narrator is Gideon, the audiobook narrator leaves us in no doubt by using her Gideon voice throughout especially if you're listening to the first two books in quick succession.

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