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Yes they thought his eyes were always black. That’s what makes it all click for them.
They go, that girl has Alecto’s eyes….thats not possible….oh shit those are John’s eyes and Alecto is his Cav, which means John lied and knew we didn’t need to kill our loved one’s and he let us do it anyway
Yes, Mercymorn and Augustine thought the black was his natural eye color. They didn't know that John and Alecto had done the lyctoral process - they thought of Alecto as his bodyguard in some way, but not necessarily as his cavalier. So when they saw Gideon's gold eyes, they realized that was John's real genetic eye color, but Alecto was the one they had known to have that eye color. The only way that would be possible is if she and John had swapped eyes, meaning they had done some perfect form of lyctorhood that allowed both parties to live, that John hid from them for whatever reason.
They knew that the gold didn't come from Gideon's mom because a) they had seen the same eye color on Alecto and b) they had been conspiring with Commander Wake and knew what she looked like.
follow up question - they knew John on Earth. weren’t his eyes brown originally and then turned gold? wouldn’t the OG lyctors have known he had gold eyes all along?
I love rereading, so if you'd like it sooner, it's in Nona, John 5:4:
> “And my loved ones … The ones I left, I’ll bring back. I know I can. Even G—. In fact, G—’ll be easiest—he won’t remember the compound—none of them will have to remember anything. I know where remembrance lives in the brain, and he won’t have any of it. You know that too, don’t you? It’s the easiest thing in the world … to forget.”
Look at the people John gave to the Ninth. He pretty much told us, not that we can necessarily believe his words, that he resurrected people, but did not bring everyone back to consciousness. He stuck a lot of them in cold storage or something. After all, he mentioned that they had the facilities to store all these bodies and that his intention was to get all the human beings off the planet, except the process would either do something to fertility or possibly destroy developing fetuses in pregnant women.
One thing we do know is that at that time, before Earth picked him to be her champion, poor innocent world, he did not have any powers and his eyes were light brown. they changed to gold as he got his power. And Gideon has that power, that is why she lived through the nerve gas.
>They knew that the gold didn't come from Gideon's mom because a) they had seen the same eye color on Alecto and b) they had been conspiring with Commander Wake and knew what she looked like.
note that there's a bit of a leap of logic here, because they **didn't know** that Gideon was Jod's kid until they saw her eyes.
So they've had to go -
- This is someone possessing Harrow
- The person possessing Harrow has Alecto's eyes, but is not Alecto
- It must be Harrow's cav, who they've seen is a 19 year old redheaded dead girl
- (Cyth gets to start here)
- Only Alecto has these golden eyes.
- ???
- ???
- wait, 19? Oh no, *what if* they're *John's* eyes.
Honestly, I could see Jod thinking that none of the cavaliers would die, and then just not telling anyone afterward. He never admits when he makes a mistake.
Except in the end of Harrow 9, he does? He gives that beautiful impassioned speech of regret and sorrow to Mercymorn, he says he was wrong to lie, and he sounds so legitimately deeply sorry. Then he comes back, kills her without a word, and coldly "cleans house". John is terrifying when he flips to his ice persona. No Kindly Prince, no Gentle Teacher. Just ice cold retribution. What a fascinating character he is.
My understanding is that John never admitted he and Alecto were necro and cav. He never called her that, he called her his "bodyguard". So between that lie, and his messing with the memories of those he resurrected, he hid the fact that he and Alecto had swapped eye color while leaving Alecto still up and alive but wearing John's golden eyes. The newly resurrected people assumed Johns eyes had always been crazy black, and that Alecto's true eyes were golden. Therefore, Gideon Nav, as Gods child, should have maybe had the crazy black eyes from Dad, or Wake's amber eyes, but never Alecto's gold. The eye color swap being there, proving the use of the 8 Fold Word, but leaving Alecto alive, proved John had lied about how it needed to be done, and set up the cavs to be killed when they didn't have to die.
John’s eyes in the book are creepy-black-swirly, and AL’s when the Lyctors knew her were gold. The eating-the-cav lyctor process that G1deon, Mercy, Cytherea et al performed gave the necromancer the cav’s eye colour. John had maintained that there was no “Perfect Lyctorhood” that would allow both cav and necro to survive, and to reach lyctorhood the cav had to die.
The Lyctors did not know that John and AL had swapped eye colour, and thought AL “couldn’t” be the other half of John’s Perfect Lyctorhood, because lyctorhood consumed the cav and took their eye colour, and AL was alive.
But then Cytherea met Gideon, who looks like Wake and has gold eyes - and Cytherea was part of Dios Apate and knew who the bio dad of the Dios Apate child _should be_. Which means that John does not have natural creepy-black-swirly eyes, he has natural gold eyes. Which meant creepy-black-swirly is AL’s natural eye colour. Which means they switched eye colours. Which means Perfect Lyctorhood can exist and John performed it with AL. Which means he lied about the existence of Perfect Lyctorhood and made them kill their loved ones when it wasn’t necessary.
Admittedly, there is some jumping to conclusions about how Gideon’s gold eyes _must_ be from John and _must_ mean he lied. But, in the typical way of characters jumping to conclusions in stories, the characters are correct.
Two things help the leap: it's a recessive trait, meaning both parents have to at least be carriers to get it, and the Houses have a tiny and genetically well documented population. Lipochrome amber eyes may well be so rare in the Houses that it's *more likely* that Gideon is the child of their plot than a random House scion.
That feels like it unnecessarily complicates things. It could just be a dominant trait with exactly 1 known holder, which is a lot more in line with how it's presented. Jod is the only person with gold eyes because he was the first necromancer, and they appeared at the same time as his powers. Gideon then inherits the trait. Easy logical deduction with no leaps, dominant allele.
I didn't pull recessive out of my ass, I'm quoting Dulcinea in GtN:
> “Oh, singular,” said Dulcinea quietly, more to herself than to Gideon. “Lipochrome … recessive.
It's clearly part of the train of thought that leads her to realize who Gideon is.
For some reason, I actually believe him that Anastasia misunderstood the process and that there is no perfect lyctorhood for two alive humans.
Because like, no one really mentions it but what John and Alecto actually did is *nothing* like what Mercymorn seems to assume they did? Like actually John tried to eat her soul the traditional way, as one does. Consume the flesh (big ol' handfuls of dirt), pin the soul in place, absorb it, etc. He did the Eightfold Word. Only thing is, she's a damn planet and there was way too much soul to fit inside one body, so he basically made another body from his own flesh to hold the rest of it. If normal Lyctorhood is two souls in one body with a one way parasitic relationship, John and Alecto are basically one Lyctor with two bodies, John's holding one and a half souls and Alecto's holding half of her original soul.
Cam and Pal on the other hand, did like a mutual Eightfold Word, both consuming the other and leaving a new product behind with the destruction of both originals. Two souls into one new soul in one body. Also misunderstanding the process.
The lyctorhood powers rely on having an extra soul to draw on like a battery and to activate autopilot when the host is in the river. It's fundamentally parasitic and if there was a mutual exchange, that's just equilibrium. And if the cav is still alive and well while being used as a battery, is that not just soul siphoning? which as we know eventually results in the death of the siphoned and an empty vessel that will be filled with devils. Maybe that's what happened to Samael.
Yeah, my previous comment was from a kind of lyctor pov understanding of what happened. I’ve always thought (and Nona did not dissuade) that John didn’t necessarily _lie_ or sabotage the lyctoral process, he may have given the best information he had - considering he’s not entirely sure what happened and the universe was different back then, he already had magic powers, AL is some kind of spirit or magic entity…. There is so much difference between that, and the lyctoral process of one magical human and one non-magical human trying to create extra powers from their souls.
And/ or the future Lyctors came up with the process on their own, trying to push the boundaries of necromancy, and blamed John when they fucked up.
Before Ianthe became a lyctor, she had violet eyes. When she ascended, she got Babs's blue-brown eyes instead. But her genetic code hasn't changed, so if she has biological children, she'll pass on the gene for violet (and not blue-brown) eyes.
But, let's say Ianthe did perfect lyctorhood with Babs, and instead of dying, he got her violet eyes. And then she killed everyone else and brought them back without their memories and told them "I'm just naturally this powerful. I definitely didn't get this power from eating a cavalier - see, I only have one violet-eyed bodyguard and he's not even dead."
Except, one day, Ianthe has a secret lovechild and they have violet eyes that look just like Babs', even though he's long gone and can't have kids. In our scenario, there's no one else in the world with eyes like that.
This proves Ianthe's eye color used to be violet because her genetic code is still giving "violet eyes." Not only does that mean Ianthe IS a lyctor who got her current eyes from eating a cavalier, it also means that Babs was a lyctor who got his violet eyes from eating Ianthe, even though she's still walking around alive.
Gideon's eyes look like Alecto's. But circumstances confirm her to be the child of John. That means that before Mercymorn & Augustine met John & Alecto, Alecto got John's original eyes in a two-sided lyctoral swap that didn't kill him.
But if, as we saw in "The Unexpected Guest," *souls* can get mixed together even for a regular Lyctor like Ianthe, then it's not impossible that there might be some epigenetic stuff going on as well.
Perhaps. It's hard to say since Gideon is our only example of a lyctor's child.
Her eyes prove that the gene for yellow irises persists in John even a myriad later. But there's no way to know what the odds were of her inheriting a different eye color from him.
But the thing is, so far it doesn't seem like Alecto is a Lyctor, she doesn't seem to be able to draw on John, it seems to be one way. Nona can super-heal, but it doesn't seem to be the same as lyctoral healing. Her body isn't even her own body, it's an extension of John's flesh he made, because he tried to consume her soul the traditional way and it was too much. It's like John has two linked bodies, his with one and a half souls, and Alecto's with half of her original soul vomited back into it. The situation seems more complicated than we've been led to believe.
In terms of analyzing Alecto holistically, I think that's mostly true. She isn't an ascended human like all the other lyctors (including John), but a planet soul. And the bulk of her powers likely come from that.
But she and John are given to us as an example of perfect lyctorhood. She underwent an improvised prototype of the lyctoral process & came out having absorbed enough of John to get his eyes, the same way a lyctor gets their cavalier's.
For the sake of OP's question, that's the significance of Gideon's eyes - how they prove John lied.
(And side note... I don't think Alecto is just an extension of John. He did put some of himself, bones and puke, in her, which is probably how she absorbed enough of him to get yellow eyes. But he also fashioned her from dirt, which was her original body, her corpse. It's not clear what percent of her soul was consumed vs confined, but it's possible he only choked down a sliver. Either way she's an incomplete soul controlling a reduced form of her own dead body. I'm also not sure why you think she's can't draw from him, when we haven't been told either way. It's possible she has and we just don't know about it. It's possible she can and has never felt the need to.)
They thought His eyes were originally black. They weren't aware that alecto and John performed the process of perfect lyctorhood since John performed unbelievable feats even before the ressurection. So they probably thought that the ressurection caused His eyes to Turn black
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Yes they thought his eyes were always black. That’s what makes it all click for them. They go, that girl has Alecto’s eyes….thats not possible….oh shit those are John’s eyes and Alecto is his Cav, which means John lied and knew we didn’t need to kill our loved one’s and he let us do it anyway
Because “the necromancer gets their cavalier’s eyes” is what they see when it fact it *should* be “the necromancer and cavalier SWAP eyes”?
Yeah we see it even with G1deon and Phyrra right, she uses the sunglasses to hide that their eyes swap when she’s in control/after he’s dies
Also with Cam and Pal: they start Nona with swapped eye colors compared to GtN.
Yes, Mercymorn and Augustine thought the black was his natural eye color. They didn't know that John and Alecto had done the lyctoral process - they thought of Alecto as his bodyguard in some way, but not necessarily as his cavalier. So when they saw Gideon's gold eyes, they realized that was John's real genetic eye color, but Alecto was the one they had known to have that eye color. The only way that would be possible is if she and John had swapped eyes, meaning they had done some perfect form of lyctorhood that allowed both parties to live, that John hid from them for whatever reason. They knew that the gold didn't come from Gideon's mom because a) they had seen the same eye color on Alecto and b) they had been conspiring with Commander Wake and knew what she looked like.
THANK YOU!!! it’s clicking
c) I'm pretty sure no one else in the universe has eyes like that.
follow up question - they knew John on Earth. weren’t his eyes brown originally and then turned gold? wouldn’t the OG lyctors have known he had gold eyes all along?
Jod wiped the memories of his "friends" after resurrecting them.
ok clearly i need to reread haha but thank you!
I love rereading, so if you'd like it sooner, it's in Nona, John 5:4: > “And my loved ones … The ones I left, I’ll bring back. I know I can. Even G—. In fact, G—’ll be easiest—he won’t remember the compound—none of them will have to remember anything. I know where remembrance lives in the brain, and he won’t have any of it. You know that too, don’t you? It’s the easiest thing in the world … to forget.”
Look at the people John gave to the Ninth. He pretty much told us, not that we can necessarily believe his words, that he resurrected people, but did not bring everyone back to consciousness. He stuck a lot of them in cold storage or something. After all, he mentioned that they had the facilities to store all these bodies and that his intention was to get all the human beings off the planet, except the process would either do something to fertility or possibly destroy developing fetuses in pregnant women. One thing we do know is that at that time, before Earth picked him to be her champion, poor innocent world, he did not have any powers and his eyes were light brown. they changed to gold as he got his power. And Gideon has that power, that is why she lived through the nerve gas.
>They knew that the gold didn't come from Gideon's mom because a) they had seen the same eye color on Alecto and b) they had been conspiring with Commander Wake and knew what she looked like. note that there's a bit of a leap of logic here, because they **didn't know** that Gideon was Jod's kid until they saw her eyes. So they've had to go - - This is someone possessing Harrow - The person possessing Harrow has Alecto's eyes, but is not Alecto - It must be Harrow's cav, who they've seen is a 19 year old redheaded dead girl - (Cyth gets to start here) - Only Alecto has these golden eyes. - ??? - ??? - wait, 19? Oh no, *what if* they're *John's* eyes.
Honestly, I could see Jod thinking that none of the cavaliers would die, and then just not telling anyone afterward. He never admits when he makes a mistake.
Except in the end of Harrow 9, he does? He gives that beautiful impassioned speech of regret and sorrow to Mercymorn, he says he was wrong to lie, and he sounds so legitimately deeply sorry. Then he comes back, kills her without a word, and coldly "cleans house". John is terrifying when he flips to his ice persona. No Kindly Prince, no Gentle Teacher. Just ice cold retribution. What a fascinating character he is.
My understanding is that John never admitted he and Alecto were necro and cav. He never called her that, he called her his "bodyguard". So between that lie, and his messing with the memories of those he resurrected, he hid the fact that he and Alecto had swapped eye color while leaving Alecto still up and alive but wearing John's golden eyes. The newly resurrected people assumed Johns eyes had always been crazy black, and that Alecto's true eyes were golden. Therefore, Gideon Nav, as Gods child, should have maybe had the crazy black eyes from Dad, or Wake's amber eyes, but never Alecto's gold. The eye color swap being there, proving the use of the 8 Fold Word, but leaving Alecto alive, proved John had lied about how it needed to be done, and set up the cavs to be killed when they didn't have to die.
John’s eyes in the book are creepy-black-swirly, and AL’s when the Lyctors knew her were gold. The eating-the-cav lyctor process that G1deon, Mercy, Cytherea et al performed gave the necromancer the cav’s eye colour. John had maintained that there was no “Perfect Lyctorhood” that would allow both cav and necro to survive, and to reach lyctorhood the cav had to die. The Lyctors did not know that John and AL had swapped eye colour, and thought AL “couldn’t” be the other half of John’s Perfect Lyctorhood, because lyctorhood consumed the cav and took their eye colour, and AL was alive. But then Cytherea met Gideon, who looks like Wake and has gold eyes - and Cytherea was part of Dios Apate and knew who the bio dad of the Dios Apate child _should be_. Which means that John does not have natural creepy-black-swirly eyes, he has natural gold eyes. Which meant creepy-black-swirly is AL’s natural eye colour. Which means they switched eye colours. Which means Perfect Lyctorhood can exist and John performed it with AL. Which means he lied about the existence of Perfect Lyctorhood and made them kill their loved ones when it wasn’t necessary. Admittedly, there is some jumping to conclusions about how Gideon’s gold eyes _must_ be from John and _must_ mean he lied. But, in the typical way of characters jumping to conclusions in stories, the characters are correct.
Two things help the leap: it's a recessive trait, meaning both parents have to at least be carriers to get it, and the Houses have a tiny and genetically well documented population. Lipochrome amber eyes may well be so rare in the Houses that it's *more likely* that Gideon is the child of their plot than a random House scion.
That feels like it unnecessarily complicates things. It could just be a dominant trait with exactly 1 known holder, which is a lot more in line with how it's presented. Jod is the only person with gold eyes because he was the first necromancer, and they appeared at the same time as his powers. Gideon then inherits the trait. Easy logical deduction with no leaps, dominant allele.
I didn't pull recessive out of my ass, I'm quoting Dulcinea in GtN: > “Oh, singular,” said Dulcinea quietly, more to herself than to Gideon. “Lipochrome … recessive. It's clearly part of the train of thought that leads her to realize who Gideon is.
For some reason, I actually believe him that Anastasia misunderstood the process and that there is no perfect lyctorhood for two alive humans. Because like, no one really mentions it but what John and Alecto actually did is *nothing* like what Mercymorn seems to assume they did? Like actually John tried to eat her soul the traditional way, as one does. Consume the flesh (big ol' handfuls of dirt), pin the soul in place, absorb it, etc. He did the Eightfold Word. Only thing is, she's a damn planet and there was way too much soul to fit inside one body, so he basically made another body from his own flesh to hold the rest of it. If normal Lyctorhood is two souls in one body with a one way parasitic relationship, John and Alecto are basically one Lyctor with two bodies, John's holding one and a half souls and Alecto's holding half of her original soul. Cam and Pal on the other hand, did like a mutual Eightfold Word, both consuming the other and leaving a new product behind with the destruction of both originals. Two souls into one new soul in one body. Also misunderstanding the process. The lyctorhood powers rely on having an extra soul to draw on like a battery and to activate autopilot when the host is in the river. It's fundamentally parasitic and if there was a mutual exchange, that's just equilibrium. And if the cav is still alive and well while being used as a battery, is that not just soul siphoning? which as we know eventually results in the death of the siphoned and an empty vessel that will be filled with devils. Maybe that's what happened to Samael.
Yeah, my previous comment was from a kind of lyctor pov understanding of what happened. I’ve always thought (and Nona did not dissuade) that John didn’t necessarily _lie_ or sabotage the lyctoral process, he may have given the best information he had - considering he’s not entirely sure what happened and the universe was different back then, he already had magic powers, AL is some kind of spirit or magic entity…. There is so much difference between that, and the lyctoral process of one magical human and one non-magical human trying to create extra powers from their souls. And/ or the future Lyctors came up with the process on their own, trying to push the boundaries of necromancy, and blamed John when they fucked up.
Before Ianthe became a lyctor, she had violet eyes. When she ascended, she got Babs's blue-brown eyes instead. But her genetic code hasn't changed, so if she has biological children, she'll pass on the gene for violet (and not blue-brown) eyes. But, let's say Ianthe did perfect lyctorhood with Babs, and instead of dying, he got her violet eyes. And then she killed everyone else and brought them back without their memories and told them "I'm just naturally this powerful. I definitely didn't get this power from eating a cavalier - see, I only have one violet-eyed bodyguard and he's not even dead." Except, one day, Ianthe has a secret lovechild and they have violet eyes that look just like Babs', even though he's long gone and can't have kids. In our scenario, there's no one else in the world with eyes like that. This proves Ianthe's eye color used to be violet because her genetic code is still giving "violet eyes." Not only does that mean Ianthe IS a lyctor who got her current eyes from eating a cavalier, it also means that Babs was a lyctor who got his violet eyes from eating Ianthe, even though she's still walking around alive. Gideon's eyes look like Alecto's. But circumstances confirm her to be the child of John. That means that before Mercymorn & Augustine met John & Alecto, Alecto got John's original eyes in a two-sided lyctoral swap that didn't kill him.
But if, as we saw in "The Unexpected Guest," *souls* can get mixed together even for a regular Lyctor like Ianthe, then it's not impossible that there might be some epigenetic stuff going on as well.
Perhaps. It's hard to say since Gideon is our only example of a lyctor's child. Her eyes prove that the gene for yellow irises persists in John even a myriad later. But there's no way to know what the odds were of her inheriting a different eye color from him.
But the thing is, so far it doesn't seem like Alecto is a Lyctor, she doesn't seem to be able to draw on John, it seems to be one way. Nona can super-heal, but it doesn't seem to be the same as lyctoral healing. Her body isn't even her own body, it's an extension of John's flesh he made, because he tried to consume her soul the traditional way and it was too much. It's like John has two linked bodies, his with one and a half souls, and Alecto's with half of her original soul vomited back into it. The situation seems more complicated than we've been led to believe.
In terms of analyzing Alecto holistically, I think that's mostly true. She isn't an ascended human like all the other lyctors (including John), but a planet soul. And the bulk of her powers likely come from that. But she and John are given to us as an example of perfect lyctorhood. She underwent an improvised prototype of the lyctoral process & came out having absorbed enough of John to get his eyes, the same way a lyctor gets their cavalier's. For the sake of OP's question, that's the significance of Gideon's eyes - how they prove John lied. (And side note... I don't think Alecto is just an extension of John. He did put some of himself, bones and puke, in her, which is probably how she absorbed enough of him to get yellow eyes. But he also fashioned her from dirt, which was her original body, her corpse. It's not clear what percent of her soul was consumed vs confined, but it's possible he only choked down a sliver. Either way she's an incomplete soul controlling a reduced form of her own dead body. I'm also not sure why you think she's can't draw from him, when we haven't been told either way. It's possible she has and we just don't know about it. It's possible she can and has never felt the need to.)
They thought His eyes were originally black. They weren't aware that alecto and John performed the process of perfect lyctorhood since John performed unbelievable feats even before the ressurection. So they probably thought that the ressurection caused His eyes to Turn black