Gideon the Ninth

The final act is the falling action and conclusion wrapped up into one. It is also the shortest act by far. The act focuses on Harrow’s perspective after she has absorbed Gideon’s soul. Harrow, who began the novel by telling Gideon to die, now says to Gideon that she “cannot conceive of a universe without you in it” (401), showing the vast arc of her character development. Gideon replies with humor to cope with the trauma of death: “Yes you can, it’s just less great and less hot” (401). The only thing that changed between Harrow hating Gideon and needing her was confessing everything that was kept hidden from Gideon. Harrow’s own paranoid secrecy because she views herself as an “abomination” has sabotaged her from the beginning. This is evident in Harrow’s pool confession, where she says to Gideon, “I’ve lived my whole wretched life at your mercy, yours alone, and God knows I deserve to die by your hand” (330). The statement is an excellent use of paradox, or the presentation of contradictory elements, that allows Muir to demonstrate Harrow’s feelings without directly stating them. Gideon has never once had the power to hurt and abuse Harrow the way Harrow has hurt Gideon, and in that sense, Harrow has never really been at Gideon’s mercy. The paradox, however, reveals that Harrow has always felt this way. Her confession of these feelings shortly before Gideon’s death is part of the grimdark tragedy of Muir’s world.

In the Epilogue, Muir presents the loop of love, duty, sacrifice, and guilt as a kind of inescapable string of emotions. Harrow disrespects the Emperor, hoping that he will “render her down to a pile of ash” so she doesn’t have to live with the grief of Gideon’s death (405), but Harrow does not get an easy way out. Her love for Gideon compels her into a paradoxical duty to live and serve the Emperor while hoping for death. Mulling over the Emperor’s offer, she thinks, “So the universe was ending. Good. At least if she failed here, she would no longer have to be beholden to anybody” (408). Harrow wants to die in the line of duty because of Gideon’s death; she is pushed into sacrificing her life for the Emperor’s cause for reasons completely unrelated to him. Harrow cannot escape this thematic loop of emotions and pledges herself to the Emperor, keeping her wish for death for herself. Muir tangles her motivations together and makes it difficult to discern what emotion or concept compels her action.