56 pages • 1 hour read
Tamsyn MuirGideon the Ninth
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Gideon Nav
Gideon is the protagonist of Gideon the Ninth. She is 18 years old, openly lesbian, and an indentured servant to the Ninth House. The third-person limited narrator follows her perspective for the whole novel. Gideon is a prodigy with the sword and knows very little about the world due to her isolation in the Ninth. Gideon is irreverent and looks for opportunities to crack jokes; this is often a defense mechanism against her hopeless circumstances. Gideon’s mysterious origins of falling into the Ninth House as an infant with her dead mother allow Muir to explore Gideon’s character in subsequent novels, despite her death at the end of Gideon the Ninth and allow Gideon to remain a relevant character after her primary narrative has ended.
Gideon carries a crushing amount of guilt over the death of Harrow’s parents. She tattled on Harrow as a child, hoping to gain the approval that Priamhark and Pelleamena never gave her, and instead they killed themselves. Harrow uses Gideon as her “whipping girl” to express her own self-loathing (330). Gideon incorrectly interprets this as an expression of Harrow’s hatred of Gideon, which affirms Gideon’s own self-loathing. Because of this, Gideon’s character development depends on Harrow’s development. When Harrow allows herself to be genuine and vulnerable, Gideon is able to let go of the past and grow. At first, Gideon cannot move on when Palamedes tells her she is not responsible for the deaths of Priamhark and Pelleamena. Her dependence on Harrow’s acceptance implies that Gideon has always cared deeply about Harrow, regardless of how fraught their relationship has been.
Gideon’s character arc is that of a tragic hero. Tragic heroes are figures of classic Greek literature, which heavily inspired and influenced Gideon the Ninth. A tragic hero is a morally good person who comes to a bad end because of a mistake or flaw caused by their virtue. Gideon is a good person who remains good despite her abuse and hardships. She forgives Harrow for a lifetime of abuse when Harrow expects to be “ritually drowned” for her sins (330). Gideon is selfless and readily sacrifices for others or accepts pain on their behalf. For example, she readily agrees to experience excruciating pain and possibly death just so Harrow can complete a theorem chamber. Gideon’s emotional ties to Harrow and her selfless attitude lead to her death. Unlike the traditional tragic hero, she chose her death. Like the tragic hero, it was her virtuous qualities that killed her due to circumstances outside of her control.
Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Harrowhark Nonagesimus is the Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and its current ruler. She is 17 years old and the novel’s deuteragonist. While her parents, Priamhark and Pelleamena, technically rule the House, they are necromantic puppets controlled by Harrow. Harrow is the product of a mass infanticide orchestrated by her parents: They wanted to ensure that their child would be the perfect necromancer to restore the reputation of their House, which has been declining for centuries. Harrow hates herself deeply and carries the fate of the House on her shoulders while dealing her parents’ deaths by suicide and the fallout of her parents’ mistakes. She is the most powerful necromancer the Ninth has produced and surpasses all other Ninth necromancers.
Harrow would have joined her parents in suicide if she wasn’t obsessed with the girl in the Locked Tomb. Now, Harrow feels a duty to live and become a saint under the Emperor to atone for the sins that led to her existence. The duty to live and achieve greatness conflicts with her self-loathing. Harrow calls herself an “abomination” and that the “whole universe ought to scream whenever [her] feet touch the ground” (327). Despite her feelings of duty to her House, she does not think becoming a Lyctor will redeem the sins of her parents (327). Harrow believes the weight of the world is for her to bear alone because of the infanticide that created her.
Harrow’s inability to trust others causes tension and problems with the other characters. Many of Gideon’s problems are because Harrow does not trust her and tells her nothing. She leaves Gideon to wander Canaan House alone, which lets Cytherea and Silas try to use Gideon against Harrow. Harrow’s belief that she must do everything alone nearly kills her when she passes out alone in the lab facility.
Harrow needs Gideon’s forgiveness to grow as a person, but Harrow cannot ask for Gideon’s forgiveness because of her own self-hatred. Muir is interested in exploring codependent relationships in fiction, which shapes the dynamics between necromancer and cavalier (Grady, Constance. “How Gideon the Ninth Author Tamsyn Muir Queers the Space Opera.” Vox, 5 Feb. 2021). The Lyctor trials require Harrow to form a dependent bond with Gideon, and Harrow is forced to confess everything to Gideon in Chapter 31 because she cannot complete the Lyctor trials without a cavalier who trusts her. The requirement for trust and dependency opens up Harrow to Gideon’s love and affection.
Palamedes Sextus
Palamedes, 20, is the Master Warden of the Sixth House. Palamedes is the only other necromancer Harrow respects because they are well-read and favor science and rationality for tackling problems. Harrow cannot stand the thought of losing to Palamedes but allies her House with his in the trials. Harrow sees Palamedes as an equal.
Palamedes is friendly and relaxed despite his intellect and is a foil for Harrow. Palamedes is a reclusive and intellectual necromancer, and his cavalier, Camilla, is a brutish fighter like Gideon. They show Gideon an ideal relationship between a necromancer and cavalier who resemble her and Harrow. Gideon’s interactions with Palamedes help change her perspective toward Harrow (324).
Palamedes is the one who outs Cytherea because he has a history with Dulcinea. This puts him at odds with Gideon because they are attracted to the same woman. This places Palamedes in two triangulated relationships with Gideon: one with him, Gideon, and Harrow, and another with him, Gideon, and Dulcinea.
Ianthe and Coronabeth Tridentarius
Princess Ianthe, 21, is second-in-line for the crown of the Third House, and her twin, Coronabeth, is the Crown Princess. Ianthe is the only necromancer of the pair and is strong enough to maintain the ruse that Coronabeth is a necromancer as well. Coronabeth is radiant, charismatic, and beautiful while Ianthe is her off-putting pale shadow, frail and unassuming. Ianthe uses her position from the shadows to gather information and direct the Third House trio.
In the tradition of space opera motifs, Ianthe’s appearance marks her as inherently untrustworthy and dangerous. Ianthe is the kind of untrustworthy person Gideon mistakenly believes Harrow to be. When Gideon expresses that she thinks Harrow is capable of anything, Palamedes responds with:
If [Harrow] were capable of anything, in order to become a Lyctor—don’t you think she’d be one already? If she really wanted to watch the world burn—wouldn’t we all be alight? (320).
Harrow’s visual motifs of the black-robed necromancer are a red herring to distract from Ianthe’s motives. Muir plays with audience expectations to create uncertainty about how to read some of the characters. Ianthe has no morals and no issues murdering her cavalier to become a Lyctor, and Corona feels the same, despite her motifs of radiance, beauty, and goodness. The tropes of the space opera genre allow Muir to create surprise and dramatic tension with the Tridentarius twins.
Cytherea the First
Cytherea the First is a Lyctor of the Emperor from the Seventh House and is at least 10,000 years old. She is the main antagonist, orchestrating death and chaos while disguised as Dulcinea. She kills the Seventh, the Fifth, and the Fourth houses. Her actions also lead to the deaths of the Second, the Canaan House priests, and, ultimately, Gideon. Cytherea suffers from the same blood cancer Dulcinea had, which proves to be her fatal flaw: The blood cancer is cultivated by the Seventh House in their necromancers since a dying person is filled with thanergy, and the disease is passed down.
Lyctorhood has made Cytherea immortal, but it has not stopped the pain of her disease. Cytherea’s predicament fits neatly into the grimdark genre, where constant suffering and pain are staples. Cytherea’s torment and desire to destroy the Houses and the Emperor suggest that the Empire is dysfunctional and show that Lyctorhood is not a necessarily benign condition. The Emperor still considers Cytherea an excellent friend and Lyctor, complicating the relationship between the two.
Muir heavily relies on Gothic tropes within Gideon the Ninth, and Dulcinea’s reveal as Cytherea is the classic Gothic trope of revealing the monster behind the mask.
