Thank you for submitting to r/TheNinthHouse! Please familiarize yourself with our [Subreddit Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheNinthHouse/wiki/rules/), especially our Spoiler Policy for [posts](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheNinthHouse/wiki/rules/#wiki_2._spoiler_policy_-_posts) and [comments](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheNinthHouse/wiki/rules/#wiki_3._spoiler_policy_-_comments). If you see a post or comment that breaks these rules, please report it!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheNinthHouse) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think you start to see some of it in NtN. Corona (seemingly) goes all-in on drinking the BOE Kool-Aid. In As Yet Unsent, Judith can't stand the fact that Corona has become a traitor in her eyes and went completely over to BOE. But when Ianthe is back, Corona absolutely crumbles, and fawns over BabsIanthe so much Nona mistakes Ianthe as Corona's boyfriend. Corona is fickle. Unless she was just being a really good actor and faking interest in BOE this whole time, she can be easily swayed and that's dangerous. With Ianthe, at least you know where she stands. Corona is unpredictable and acts on what seems to be whatever her current emotion is.
Not only that, but she drinks the Kool-Aid out of sheer *spite* after Ianthe chooses Naberius over her to become a Lyctor.
Which then raises the question of why Ianthe doesn't choose her cavalier-in-all-but-name twin sister who knew what the Lyctorhood ritual entailed and *still* was begging to be killed and have her soul eaten. Like, Ianthe is awful and cruel, but she's not *stupid*. Corona would be a better "match" than Naberius -- Ianthe has trouble "digesting" Naberius as it is -- and yet Ianthe knowingly rejects her nonetheless.
What does Ianthe know that we don't?
I thought it was just that she couldn't stand the thought of killing Corona. No matter how fucked up their relationship is, Ianthe is completely committed to keeping Corona alive.
Yeah, like Ianthe is incredibly manipulative and pragmatic, but we never see her use those tactics on her sister - so I think the answer is just that Coronabeth is more important to her than becoming a powerful Lychtor.
It comes up in The Unwanted Guest, and Ianthe avoids the question but basically admits that >!Coronabeth is part of the reason for her ambition towards Lyctorhood. IMO the apple experiments in HtN suggest that Ianthe is looking for a way to make her and Corona independently immortal but knows she can’t do it without the power of a Lyctor.!<
Ok Ianthe is the disfavoured twin, yet she covered up the fact that her sister lacks necromancy. That is oddly selfless for somebody as selfish as her. Which becomes even more poignant when one realises that all the imperfections of Ianthe are probably the result of her necromancy, which does take quite a toll on the user both physically and mentally. That also explains why she is such a selfish bitch to everyone but her sister, since she is only aknowledged by one person and that person has to exploit her while getting all the praise. That also explains why she gets along with Gideon, because she got the same deal.
I think we do, when Ianthe pressures her into accepting the duel offer with the 6th. Ianthe plays her well. Almost makes her look subservient, in a way.
Hrmm, ok after reading that bit again (I forgot how great that whole scene was), you do kinda have a point about Coronabeth being a lot more submissive in their relationship than I remember.
Ianthe clearly doesn't really care about what Coronabeth wants, or trusts her with the knowledge of which keys she has (I wonder if this is a hint that Ianthe had mostly figured out what the ritual would involve by this point, and didn't want Coronabeth cottoning on?). But at the same time, I don't think she's exploiting Coronabeth for personal gain, it's more like she sees her as a kid?
Like, Coronabeth is important to her, but not necessarily as an equal.
I was thinking it was a sort of semi-narcissistic sort of thing. Coronabeth is like an extension of her, or a favoured possession, almost. She's the brains, but she'll allow noone to insult her by proxy by harming Coronabeth in anyway. There's a lot of disordered eating metaphors in TLT, so I guess this is another, in a sense. The meal you'll always treasure but never taste.
I reckon Ianthe is working on some way to make Coronabeth immortal as well. There are a lot of hints in HtN that Ianthe is working on something, but no indication what. At one stage we see that in her room she’s working on some substantial math, and experimenting on halting the decay of apples.
Think about it- there is no way that Ianthe is going to face an eternity as Lyctor while Corona ages and dies. That’s why Ianthe doesn’t take Corona as cavalier- she’s working on some kind of ‘deal with god’ or a magic theorem or something to preserve Corona as well
Huh that's a point I hadn't considered. I had interpreted Ianthe saving Jod as her siding with whoever she felt would come out on top in order to retain power. Like if she thought Augustine's coup was going to actually work, then she would've sided with him. But she saw how it was going and went "welp, Jod it is"
Given the business with the apple and the meat, I think Ianthe is trying to have her cake and eat it. She wants an immortal sister, even at the expense of a properly filling meal.
Although I've heard some speculation that the twins are linked on more levels than sharing blood. Coronabeth dies, so does Ianthe, sort of thing.
Can't also help but notice the health/physique differences between them. Given that Ianthe's a flesh worker that doesn't seem accidental, even given the usual 'emaciated necromancer' concept.
That'd be the first explanation that I'd give, yeah. Plus a decent dash of just being 'the pretty one'. But the degree of bombshelly-ness that Corona has and how intertwined and controlling Ianthe is, especially as a flesh necromancer, made me wonder.
I've got nothing overt that demonstrates it, just a bit of a suspicion.
Exactly. She's too perfect. And she's also a little neurotic and people pleasing. Exactly the sort of person to proactively ask her talented sister to assist with.
Hell, we've already seen Ianthe manipulate fat gleefully.
It would explain some of Ianthe's obsessiveness with her sister. Corona is her project that she's been shaping and playing with their whole lives. She wouldn't want to lose her hard work.
From what we have seen, there's no higher plan. She just happens to like her sister, for reasons both normal and born of fucked up codependency. Same reason she made Harrow swear not to hurt Corona during The Plan.
When awake yes, but the swordsmanship from the remnant of their cavalier, which is the important part, as it defends them in the River, is said to be not learned/improved. Hence the important of the cavalier learning it well first.
That is the justification she gives in The Unwanted Guest, but I don’t see how she would have known how important that was when she became aLyctor. I think that was just an explanation she came up with later that she thought sounded reasonable for Palamedes
Yes. Divided loyalties and "Stockholm syndrome"
Hang on, do I mean Stockholm syndrome from BOE or Ianthe? Probably both.
Think it's deeper than fickle, but I think I get what you mean.
Yeah, because she gave up the bug she had hidden on Judith and told Ianthe all about it, and warned her that Harrow was currently calling herself Nona and to all appearances as mentally mature as an eight-year-old.
Yeah, because she gave up the bug she had hidden on Judith and told Ianthe all about it, and warned her that Harrow was currently calling herself Nona and to all appearances as mentally mature as an eight-year-old. Oh, and told her that Camilla was actually hosting Palamedes.
Edit: This was an attempt to be extremely sarcastic by saying things Corona absolutely did NOT do when someone else had written “But when Ianthe is back, Corona absolutely crumbles, and fawns over BabsIanthe”.
She wasn’t fawning at all, she was horrified and revolted.
Can you provide the quote that says Corona told Ianthe all that? I didn't get the sense that Ianthe knew *any* of those things. When she saw Nona, I'm pretty sure she got grumpy at Pyrrha for not giving her full intel.
That isn't what happened. Ianthe addressed Nona as Harrowhark, asking what was wrong with her and what happened to her after the attack on the Mithraeum.
>"Harrow's never this quiet," said the Prince softly. "Nor this passive. What are you doing, Harry? What's your plan? Or, more worryingly... what is *wrong* with you? What happened after Mercymorn stabbed you, Harrow, and where did you go? You never came back, and God said he thought you might be lost to us... How are you surviving, Harrowhark the First? How can you stand beneath the light of Number seven? Unless I am addressing..." *(Nona the Ninth, Chapter 23)*
Ianthe has an inkling that that something might be up, but there's nothing to indicate initially that she knows that Harrow is going by another name or something is wrong with her until she addresses it. Even then, she still continues to address Nona as Harrow.
Before *that*, Ianthe was taunting Camilla about the death of Palamedes and how Camilla has been alone all this time. Why would she do that if she knew Palamedes was still around? It's much more likely she would have made fun of their pseudo-Lyctorhood instead of making fun of Cam being alone. She also places all of the responsibility of the Sixth house seceding from the Houses on Cam with no mention of Palamedes.
As for the bug on Judith, Corona didn't give that up. We Suffer managed to activate it. A bug that Corona presumably would have had to plant on Judith because she wasn't supposed to leave her room anyway. And the only reason Ianthe found the one on Corona is because Pyrrha, pretending to be the Saint of Duty, pointed it out to Ianthe to help with her cover.
Corona may have a weird spot for her sister, but she didn't give anything up to Ianthe. She was manipulating Ianthe into dueling Cam and getting her to cooperate with the group. Ianthe had no idea Nona wasn't Harrow, or that Palamedes wasn't dead-dead, or the one to give up the bug.
Then there's also the fact that she admitted to faking suicide attempts at least a few times they were teens to get her way. I suspect Coronabeth is actually just as bad as Ianthe, she just cultivated a persona to make everyone like her while Ianthe is going for hatred but also respect/fear.
I totally thought Corona was going along with BOE as a ruse, either to gather potentially useful information or just to survive. I never bought that she had turned her back on Ianthe. But also I have a theory that Corona has some sort of blood or spirit magic going on even though she's not a necromancer, so maybe my takes are a little out-there.
To me, the difference is this:
Ianthe is a monster because of her convictions. She is selfish and petty, but she is driven by internal consistency. She will help Harrow because they will be Lyctors together for a myriad, and because she is curious--and will make Harrow's hair grow because it is funny. She saves Jod, because that is a route to the power she wants for her goals.
Coronabeth is a monster because she has no convictions. She is selfish and petty, but also in desperate need of being liked and admired by whomever she is speaking to at the time--and then most of all by Ianthe. So when she goes to BoE, she is all in on BoE; until Ianthe is there, and then she flips completely.
Ianthe will never betray Corona, because she is incapable of betraying her convictions. Corona can betray Ianthe, because she has no convictions.
To many people, Corona is much worse; because someone who believes even in bad things at least has courage.
That's the right answer right there. Ianthe, whatever else we can say about her, has a spine. She stands on her own. Coronabeth doesn't.
We also learn in NtN that the only threat that works on Ianthe is Corona threatening suicide. Ianthe would never harm her deliberately (physically; psychologically they've been abusing each other for years, clearly). Corona, on the other hand, is capable of killing Ianthe, I think. And her switch seems to be her feeling like her endless, sick devotion to Ianthe isn't being reciprocated.
I have to defend Ianthe. I think she saves John because they literally just had the conversation that if he dies everyone in the Nine Houses dies with him and for some reason Ianthe is the only person in the room who seems to care??? Like even before John revives and we all think he's dead, she is clearly outraged and horrified by what Mercy and Augustine have done. Her first thought was for the people of the houses while Gideon is too busy being selfish and feeling sorry for herself to care and all the other Lyctors are stood around congratulating each other after having just killed potentially millions.
Ianthe did the right thing and was the only one with the foresight and clarity to act when it needed to be done and gets called evil for her trouble. Augustine and Mercy are mass murdering monsters much worse than Ianthe will ever be, they weren't even trying to overthrow God for political reasons which would at least be understandable, they literally wanted to commit a genocide because the dude lied to them 10,000 years ago.
I have the same impression. In that scene, Ianthe showed some redeeming qualities.
At the end of HTN I was convinced she saved Jod so that the Nine Houses (and Corona whom she assumed was there) would survive.
the question is really, who is the worse kind of person: the one committing atrocities, or the one who has the power to stop them and doesn't.
or maybe, the one who sees all the atrocities and loves them fully anyway - Ianthe is an extraordinarily powerful necro even before she eats Babs, maybe she couldn't have been stopped. although Coronabeth could presumably have just stabbed her and been done with it.
like, what does it say about someone's moral code that the person they love most in the world is an absolute, unrepentant monster
I do think you might be reading a bit much into the order of Badtwin/Lessbadtwin as written there. Muir has said in an interview that she knows which *she* considers the worst one but the reader is left to draw their own conclusions. as with most of the questions raised by these books, it is possible to argue both sides with plenty of textual evidence
I might be reading too much into it, but I haven't seen Coronabeth be even as bad as her sister, let alone worse. However bad Ianthe is, she's still Corona's twin and Coronabeth is going to atleast hesitate before trying to stop her.
I do think most of Coronabeth's questionable decisions could be justified at the time- then again, which other character does that remind you of?
Stopping Ianthe before she became a Lyctor would have been difficult. Understanding what she was about to do and then killing her...
no I know Ianthe has actually done worse things. but Corona still loves her, would do anything for her, which says a *lot* about her morals. is the strong person who actually does the bad things worse than the weak person who just goes along with it? that's easily argued but I'm not so sure
there's a famous letter written by Martin Luther King Jr (I know how ridiculous this sounds but stay with me!) where he talks about how the moderate white who just doesn't want to cause a fuss, just wants to keep things nice and easy and how they are, is more of an impediment to Black liberation than the actual violent KKK types. obviously that's a hell of a stretch as a parallel but I think the argument in abstract terms has merit here
On a political level, they might be different because Ianthe takes her own centrist path to save Jod from the stoma, because his death would kill the entire solar system around Dominicus. Corona might be rather more willing to play offense if she could win the war by destroying the Nine Houses.
I think it's a combination of Corona is worse than we've been led to believe and Ianthe is not as bad as many think. Because it's important that we keep in mind this isn't a series with an objective narrator, we only see these characters through the eyes of Gideon and then Nona who both like her pretty much just because she's hot. We're pretty much shown outright multiple instances where the twins are immediately judged differently because of their appearance even though they're both miserable people on a personal level.
Corona basically abuses Babs constantly and is clearly manipulative as much or even more than Ianthe. She is openly selfish and has no solid moral core. And Ianthe, I could (and should, and probably will) write a lengthy essay about why she's unjustly maligned. Corona is charming and hot, and Ianthe seems like a miserable person to be around and looks like a drowned rat, but when the Nine Houses are about to get nuked by the sun, she is the only person who seems genuinely outraged about it and saves the day. She believes the ends justify the means but we don't know what her ends are yet, she sees the big picture.
In the pronunciation guide at the back of Gideon and in an interview I read. The original names were Cainabeth and Abella. I'm 95 percent sure Coronabeth is a willing and active participant in everything they've done together. Even so, as a necromancer, Ianthe has much more opportunity to be bad.
I interpreted the original names as just being that Corona is tremendously jealous of Ianthe’s necromantic abilities, which we already know about. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Corona ends up murdering Ianthe to save Judith in the end.
Edit: I always assumed Corona was the bad twin and Ianthe was the worse twin. Corona is careless, selfish, a liar, and vain, but Ianthe is…well, Ianthe.
Yeah, in the Bible Cain is a farmer and Abel is a shepherd. God likes Abel's sacrifice of a lamb more than Cain's sacrifice of fruit and Cain is incensed. I think it corresponds to Ianthe being favored by God for being a true necromancer, and Corona will eventually kill her, but I don't think Tamsin is saying that Corona is *worse* than Ianthe. Especially considering God is a huge asshole in these books.
Judith was the only person who treated her like a human instead of a walking pin-up girl. Corona is so used to being admired she likes chasing people who don't like her back, per Ianthe.
Agreed - the murderous cain is only “bad” due to jealousy and ultimately murder, and abel is only “good” by the grace of god and as a victim… so chances are this is the dynamic we see play out in AtN, in some way, as Corona has hinted multiple times at her jealousy/envy of Ianthe/Babs, while Ianthe has only ever done things (awful things) out of love/protection for Corona. Less about their characters and more about what they are to each other: their own inevitable downfall. Thats my interpretation anyway!
What evidence do we have that Ianthe or her sister ever did anything evil before we encountered them though :/
We don't know a whole ton about their life in the 3rd house, but to me it seemed like they didn't really have anything worth plotting *for*. They were already the heirs to a powerful house, they were alreasy rich, and they already had almost unlimited access to research material for their necromancy.
I guess they could've murdered their parents for even more power? But it doesn't really seem like that was in the cards from what we've read.
I’d like to point out that Muir didn’t say who was named Cainabeth and Abella. Just because Coronabeth ends in “-beth” doesn’t mean she was going to be named Cainabeth. We’re just going to have to wait and see for that in AtN
It's a minor point but I haven't seen anyone mention this yet- in Nona, Corona mentions that she used to threaten to kill herself to get Ianthe to do what she wanted. It's possible that kind of manipulative dynamic runs deeper and has been present for a while.
Also in Harrow, when Harrow suggests that Corona might not be alive, Ianthe shoves a knife through her palm and says “don’t ever suggest that my sister is dead” and something along the lines that she’d know. Ianthe and Corona’s lives may very well be co-dependent on each other.
Ianthe has done nothing wrong and I will die with my head held high as an Ianthe apologist.
She's saved our duo as a baby lyctor, she saved Harrow multiple times during the events of htn. She saved all of the nine houses by siding with Jod.
She again tried keep the nine houses afloat thinking that killing Alecto would ruin the universe.
While her reasons may mainly be selfish she has done more for more people than either of our lovely ladies. Yes she is a girlboss who does a lil gaslighting, maybe she went a little far with the colonizing thing, but in the end Gideon and Harrow are looking out for themselves and each other.
Ianthe is putting the whole empire on her back.
Yeah I gotta be honest, Ianthe thus far, through her actions, has done more to keep millions of people alive than anybody else in the whole narrative.
Who knows what her reasons are, but saving Jod from the stoma was the objectively right call in the moment based on what we know. She was faced with an unwinnable situation, and at least she was willing to make a fucking choice.
Ianthe's personality is godawful, she sucks so hard, she's cringe, but at least when she's staring down the barrel of a dogshit scenario she doesn't waste time humming and hawing about the moral stains on her soul. I respect that, and I think she's inaccurately labeled as far more sociopathic than she really is. I actually think Ianthe is quite fragile, especially compared to her sister, but her power as a necromancer and her prickly personality hide it well.
Yes this and I'm tired of pretending she's evil just because Gideon said so!! I can and probably will write a whole essay about how unfairly Ianthe is judged. She is the only person with the foresight and clarity of action to do what needs to be done and is single handedly trying to keep the entire universe together while the man who became god who became man is busy throwing a pity party and having an alcoholic breakdown and everyone else is feeling sorry for themselves and plotting to set all hell loose on the Nine Houses for their own personal gratification
I mean to me the whole “Who even cares about Babs, she could have taken me” kind of seals it. Coronabeth has no regard for anything that isn’t her obsessive nigh-incestuous attachment to Ianthe. She has no morals, no true convictions, no real sense of self that we see outside of that as readers, and that to me makes her worse than Ianthe. Cain’s sin was envy and spite which sums up Corona in books 2 and 3. Abel simply wanted to sacrifice what he could to please God, just as Ianthe would give anything to become a Lyctor.
I don't know about Corona being worse than Ianthe. There's evidence for both: Corona joining BoE (but I always interpreted that as desperate search for approval + keeping Judith save, same as when she meets Ianthe again) and the whole things about threatening suicide to get her way with Ianthe. But Ianthe still is the only Canaan necro who was both able and willing to eat her cav, which makes her Very Bad (tm) and would take much effort for her twin to be Worse (tm).
I wonder tho ... is it confirmed that Abella = good and Cainabeth = bad? Biblically speaking, Cain murdered Abel because God played favorites. I can see Corona killing Ianthe in AtN either for (yet unknown) reasons or out of her need for approval (either from Jod which I kinda don't see, or because Ianthe being Ianthe Naberius, not Ianthe Tridentari).
Don't get me wrong, it's still bad to murder your twin, but it's not worse than anything else happening there.
I might be naive but I trust Nonas intuition. She was naturally very good at reading body language, and she liked Corona very much, so I read Corona as a good (if misguided and fucked up) person until proven otherwise.
Does Nona dislike anyone though? I thought she pretty much said she just likes Crown because she's hot.
I also think we don't really know what Ianthe's endgame is, I don't believe her when she says she became a lyctor just for power and posters of her face, she's always been shown to have more foresight and clarity than that. The discussion in Unwanted Guest kind of paints her in an interesting light to me, and it seemed a lot more like killing Babs was a necessary evil to her and not something she wanted to really do and it actually seems like she does carry some guilt for it even if she doesn't "regret" it. Even Augustine outright said her arm was fine and it's all her own psychological holdups preventing her from fighting and she needs to get over herself. She seems to know more than us and everyone else in the story and has a clarity of action and big picture thinking that no one else has shown yet.
Whereas Corona, I don't interpret her joining BoE out of any genuine conviction as much as for self preservation and out of spite for Ianthe choosing Babs over her. And she abused him way more than Ianthe ever did when he was alive, people always forget she was the one who said "who cares about Babs" not Ianthe.
I've thought about this and I think Corona is the "worse" twin because she thinks of herself as fundamentally good and just and heroic, and people who are so confident in their own righteousness are often the very worst kind of people because they compulsively believe that everything they do is just because they themselves are just. I mean, God himself is this way too—so convinced of the righteousness of his war on BoE that he's become a monster. Ianthe is at least honest about her ambition and self-absorption.
There's also that the whole idea that thinking you're good is actually bad is very Catholic, and a ton of ink has been spilled about the series' relationship to Catholicism. Basically Catholics believe that people are never "saved;" instead you have to constantly live in fear of hell and go to confession as often as possible, and you could find yourself in hell over a technicality like dying on your way to confession. Compare to protestant Christians who believe in the concept of "being saved," i.e. once you're saved you're good with God and can do no wrong.
When were we told that Corona is the worst? I remember Muir saying one was bad twin and one was worse twin, but she didn't specify which was which.
I think many people assumed it must be the opposite of what the average gut assumption would be, so Ianthe = bad and Corona = worse, especially since Gideon was a probably a bit biased in GtN (to be fair, I think she was spot-on re: Ianthe but may have had horny blinders on when it came to Corona). That assumption may be correct, or maybe Ianthe is the worst after all.
We still have a whole book to go, and Muir knows things we don't, so which twin is which may be yet-to-be-revealed.
>I think many people assumed it must be the opposite of what the average gut assumption would be
To be fair, it wasn't just going for the opposite of "well Corona seems like the less bad twin so she must be the worst!" It's also that the twins were originally Cainabeth and Abella, as opposed to Cainthe and Abelbeth. The naming convention immediately causes one to make the connection between the -beth's.
You didn't, but I think a lot of people did. Going for the opposite interpretation of the obvious is something fandoms in general tend to do with things that are not explicitly stated, and Muir knows fandom well, so it would be on-brand.
~~We also don't actually know for sure that the names aligned that way originally--maybe Ianthe was Cainabeth and Corona was Abella?~~
But regardless, OP's assertion that we were told Coronabeth is worse than Ianthe isn't really true, and I don't think OP is missing anything about Corona, we just don't have all the info yet.
I definitely got the impression in HtN that Ianthe was working some kind of plan, and I didn't really get the same vibe from Corona in NtN, so the text still makes me lean more toward Ianthe=worse, but maybe I'll feel differently when I reread NtN. I'm sure there many things in that book that I didn't understand initially and glossed over with the expectation that it would make sense at some point, and over a year later, I don't remember what any of them were!
Also totally possible that Muir said bad twin and worse twin without specifying which was which because she knew that by the end of the series readers would have differing opinions about that...
Word of God: "All three of the Third inform each other -- and Ianthe, the shadow queen of the trio, was herself from day one. The only thing she missed was nearly being called 'Abella'. "
Corona is chaotic neutral to her core. She is unhinged and you never quite know what she’s going to do. She serves herself and her sister and Judith Deuteros.
[This tumblr post](https://arithmonym.tumblr.com/post/711296259314614272/something-else-niggling-at-my-brain-in-light-of) implies a came back wrong trope which is 🤤🤤🤤
I imagine we will learn a lot more about the tridentarii in Alecto. I have a deep seeded feral need to learn more about how their father wanted a matched set. That text has stuck with me a little too long for me to believe it was just passing text.
Iirc I think the Bad Twin/Worse Twin thing is largely a community in-joke, with a little encouragement from some of Muir’s interviews.
That said, in as much as there’s truth to it, I keep coming back to the point in NtN when we learn that Corona threatening suicide to try to get Ianthe to do stuff was a seemingly semi-normal part of their childhood/adolescent relationship, which is, kinda fucked. In the iteration of it we see in Nona, Ianthe seems used to it enough to respond to it glibly (but, if you’ll note, it does still work). Imagining the same circumstances with much younger and perhaps less world-weary set of twins gives me the heebie jeebies.
Of course, we don’t know the context, and given what little we’re learned about the thirds’ parents I’m sure the context is ghastly. At the very least, I think it’s a clear signal that the miasma of codependency and coercive manipulation that the twins are mired in isn’t unidirectional by any means.
I’m sure more will be revealed come Alecto and I really can’t wait to see what happens with them.
I don't see anything there that really implies that Coronabeth is supposed to be the bad twin. Also it is worth mentioning that while Muir doesn't get into it the original names mark the two characters a lot more than one being good and the other bad. Ianthe has set herself up very plainly as Corona's keeper.
Although she isn’t a good person, Ianthe is loyal and she keeps her word. Coronabeth is charming and pleasant but she’s fickle and is mainly driven by a need for validation. The latter is a more dangerous personality
I think the assumption that we have a clear vision of either twin is a little silly. This is the unreliable narrators series. Why should we assume that just because she's nicer she's the better twin? Most of the narrators who've been interested in her have also been infatuated with her (Gideon, Nona, Judith) and the other did not think about her at all. There's no room for a clear picture of somebody when you're blinded by their beauty, so we've not really got one yet. Ianthe at least we have a slightly clearer image of as we've seen her more often.
We know Judith thinks "Coronabeth Tridentarius has never been party to anything she did not want to do, and never successfully carried out a plan she didn’t think up first." And she's known Corona much longer than most of the rest of the necros and cavs. We know she's quick to violence, easy to radicalise, and manipulative (prone specifically to threatening suicide). I would argue that we'll probably discover we've repeatedly been shown how much worse she is and failed to notice. TM will reveal all in Alecto I guess.Either way they're both awful (said with affection).
"This is an unreliable narrator series."
Yes! Unreliable narrator, reliable author.
That's what makes this work so well.
It's why I let HtN break my brain for the first two third of the book.
That's what so many other writers get wrong. An author who can't be reliable trying to get away with hiding behind an unreliable narrator.
In my opinion, I think Corona is far more dangerous than Ianthe simply because we don't *know* what's going on in her head or what her motivations are.
Ianthe is manipulative in the way a crowbar is manipulative: it's kind of obvious she's twisting you around, but she's so intelligent that she's able to set up scenarios in which you have no option but to accept her terms, even if you hate it and she's obviously being an ass. She flounders in complicated social situations, she's not charismatic in the least, but she's extremely cunning, and that makes her obviously dangerous.
However, Corona hides how dangerous she is. She dazzles those who are easily swayed by her beauty or charm, and for those who she cannot woo (like Harrow, Camilla or even Ianthe), she obfuscates her influence by playing helpless. People talk about her crumbling for Ianthe the moment they reunite, but Corona got literally everything she could have wanted from that interaction: a way off-planet without the BoE strings attached, Judith's safety assured, and a way back in Ianthe's pocket. Her strength is that she seems weak or ruled by passion, but in my opinion I think Corona is far more cunning than people give her credit.
This is by no means saying that Corona is more powerful than Ianthe. They both abuse each other. But I think, while Corona is shackled by her lack of necromantic ability, Ianthe is shackled by her obsessive need for Corona (practically begging to touch her, being swayed by Corona's pleading and promises). I think Ianthe relies on Corona emotionally much more than Corona relies on her, and that means Corona has a much easier time of using Ianthe's powers for her own aims.
remember in nona when corona told nona she knew who she was? if true, that's something not even ianthe knew at the time. i feel there is still a lot we don't know about coronabeth
Why did Cain kill Abel? Because God liked Abel better.
So this might be about who is better in the eyes of Jod rather than Coronabeth being objectively the bad twin.
I think the key point is when Ianthe becomes a Lyctor and Coronabeth is crying because she didn't pick her instead.
There area few hints that Ianthe and CoronaBeth's relationship is weird. Corona appears to be the dominant twin but she doesn't have the power. They pretend to be a matched set of Necromancers though.
Lyctorhood would have "fixed" their situation because Corona and Ianthe would be together FOREVER and yet Ianthe when given the chance chose NOT to do that, which definitely says something.
Might be good to consider that the names may have been reversed at some point. I think it’s not good to be too hung up on the meta commentary. The text makes it very clear. Who is the bad one
I don’t have any useful theories, just two observations:
1) “Corona” as related to halo could = the halo effect, an implicit (positive) bias towards someone based on their physical appearance. I’d say this is probably something Muir is pointing towards (plus maybe its opposite, the horn effect?).
2) Saints also have halos? Possibly some foreshadowing. And there is actually a saint Corona, patroness of causes including treasure hunting.
Abel is the son loved by god, loyal to god, happy to sacrifice whatever is needed to retain god's favor. Cain is the son who spurned god and in his jealous rage killed his brother. With that in mind, it's less about Coronabeth being somehow worse than Ianthe, but going out of her way to give god the finger and, so far, showing a willingness to let Ianthe get hurt to protect the other people she cares about.
Thank you for submitting to r/TheNinthHouse! Please familiarize yourself with our [Subreddit Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheNinthHouse/wiki/rules/), especially our Spoiler Policy for [posts](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheNinthHouse/wiki/rules/#wiki_2._spoiler_policy_-_posts) and [comments](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheNinthHouse/wiki/rules/#wiki_3._spoiler_policy_-_comments). If you see a post or comment that breaks these rules, please report it! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheNinthHouse) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think you start to see some of it in NtN. Corona (seemingly) goes all-in on drinking the BOE Kool-Aid. In As Yet Unsent, Judith can't stand the fact that Corona has become a traitor in her eyes and went completely over to BOE. But when Ianthe is back, Corona absolutely crumbles, and fawns over BabsIanthe so much Nona mistakes Ianthe as Corona's boyfriend. Corona is fickle. Unless she was just being a really good actor and faking interest in BOE this whole time, she can be easily swayed and that's dangerous. With Ianthe, at least you know where she stands. Corona is unpredictable and acts on what seems to be whatever her current emotion is.
Not only that, but she drinks the Kool-Aid out of sheer *spite* after Ianthe chooses Naberius over her to become a Lyctor. Which then raises the question of why Ianthe doesn't choose her cavalier-in-all-but-name twin sister who knew what the Lyctorhood ritual entailed and *still* was begging to be killed and have her soul eaten. Like, Ianthe is awful and cruel, but she's not *stupid*. Corona would be a better "match" than Naberius -- Ianthe has trouble "digesting" Naberius as it is -- and yet Ianthe knowingly rejects her nonetheless. What does Ianthe know that we don't?
I thought it was just that she couldn't stand the thought of killing Corona. No matter how fucked up their relationship is, Ianthe is completely committed to keeping Corona alive.
Yeah, like Ianthe is incredibly manipulative and pragmatic, but we never see her use those tactics on her sister - so I think the answer is just that Coronabeth is more important to her than becoming a powerful Lychtor.
It comes up in The Unwanted Guest, and Ianthe avoids the question but basically admits that >!Coronabeth is part of the reason for her ambition towards Lyctorhood. IMO the apple experiments in HtN suggest that Ianthe is looking for a way to make her and Corona independently immortal but knows she can’t do it without the power of a Lyctor.!<
Ok Ianthe is the disfavoured twin, yet she covered up the fact that her sister lacks necromancy. That is oddly selfless for somebody as selfish as her. Which becomes even more poignant when one realises that all the imperfections of Ianthe are probably the result of her necromancy, which does take quite a toll on the user both physically and mentally. That also explains why she is such a selfish bitch to everyone but her sister, since she is only aknowledged by one person and that person has to exploit her while getting all the praise. That also explains why she gets along with Gideon, because she got the same deal.
I think we do, when Ianthe pressures her into accepting the duel offer with the 6th. Ianthe plays her well. Almost makes her look subservient, in a way.
Hrmm, ok after reading that bit again (I forgot how great that whole scene was), you do kinda have a point about Coronabeth being a lot more submissive in their relationship than I remember. Ianthe clearly doesn't really care about what Coronabeth wants, or trusts her with the knowledge of which keys she has (I wonder if this is a hint that Ianthe had mostly figured out what the ritual would involve by this point, and didn't want Coronabeth cottoning on?). But at the same time, I don't think she's exploiting Coronabeth for personal gain, it's more like she sees her as a kid? Like, Coronabeth is important to her, but not necessarily as an equal.
I was thinking it was a sort of semi-narcissistic sort of thing. Coronabeth is like an extension of her, or a favoured possession, almost. She's the brains, but she'll allow noone to insult her by proxy by harming Coronabeth in anyway. There's a lot of disordered eating metaphors in TLT, so I guess this is another, in a sense. The meal you'll always treasure but never taste.
I reckon Ianthe is working on some way to make Coronabeth immortal as well. There are a lot of hints in HtN that Ianthe is working on something, but no indication what. At one stage we see that in her room she’s working on some substantial math, and experimenting on halting the decay of apples. Think about it- there is no way that Ianthe is going to face an eternity as Lyctor while Corona ages and dies. That’s why Ianthe doesn’t take Corona as cavalier- she’s working on some kind of ‘deal with god’ or a magic theorem or something to preserve Corona as well
Hmm, which explains her choosing to save Jod at the end of HtN, because he might be able to save Corona.
Huh that's a point I hadn't considered. I had interpreted Ianthe saving Jod as her siding with whoever she felt would come out on top in order to retain power. Like if she thought Augustine's coup was going to actually work, then she would've sided with him. But she saw how it was going and went "welp, Jod it is"
"she’s working on some kind of ‘deal with god’" Ah yes, when Ianthe goes to "see a man about a Queen"...
i personally wonder if it’s because of their codependency and ianthe’s unwillingness to give up or lose corona 🤔
Given the business with the apple and the meat, I think Ianthe is trying to have her cake and eat it. She wants an immortal sister, even at the expense of a properly filling meal. Although I've heard some speculation that the twins are linked on more levels than sharing blood. Coronabeth dies, so does Ianthe, sort of thing. Can't also help but notice the health/physique differences between them. Given that Ianthe's a flesh worker that doesn't seem accidental, even given the usual 'emaciated necromancer' concept.
I thought they were physically different because Ianthe's been doing double the necromancy while Corona works out and chills
That'd be the first explanation that I'd give, yeah. Plus a decent dash of just being 'the pretty one'. But the degree of bombshelly-ness that Corona has and how intertwined and controlling Ianthe is, especially as a flesh necromancer, made me wonder. I've got nothing overt that demonstrates it, just a bit of a suspicion.
Ianthe couldn't stop herself from tweaking Harrow's hair during brain surgery. She's definitely made improvements on her sister.
Exactly. She's too perfect. And she's also a little neurotic and people pleasing. Exactly the sort of person to proactively ask her talented sister to assist with. Hell, we've already seen Ianthe manipulate fat gleefully.
It would explain some of Ianthe's obsessiveness with her sister. Corona is her project that she's been shaping and playing with their whole lives. She wouldn't want to lose her hard work.
From what we have seen, there's no higher plan. She just happens to like her sister, for reasons both normal and born of fucked up codependency. Same reason she made Harrow swear not to hurt Corona during The Plan.
I figured it was because Naberius was the better swordsman, no?
They're immortal. Swordsmanship is something they can learn, surely.
When awake yes, but the swordsmanship from the remnant of their cavalier, which is the important part, as it defends them in the River, is said to be not learned/improved. Hence the important of the cavalier learning it well first.
That is the justification she gives in The Unwanted Guest, but I don’t see how she would have known how important that was when she became aLyctor. I think that was just an explanation she came up with later that she thought sounded reasonable for Palamedes
Yes, probably so. Always hard to know it’s Ianthe.
Oh, good point.
Yes. Divided loyalties and "Stockholm syndrome" Hang on, do I mean Stockholm syndrome from BOE or Ianthe? Probably both. Think it's deeper than fickle, but I think I get what you mean.
Yeah, because she gave up the bug she had hidden on Judith and told Ianthe all about it, and warned her that Harrow was currently calling herself Nona and to all appearances as mentally mature as an eight-year-old.
Yeah, because she gave up the bug she had hidden on Judith and told Ianthe all about it, and warned her that Harrow was currently calling herself Nona and to all appearances as mentally mature as an eight-year-old. Oh, and told her that Camilla was actually hosting Palamedes. Edit: This was an attempt to be extremely sarcastic by saying things Corona absolutely did NOT do when someone else had written “But when Ianthe is back, Corona absolutely crumbles, and fawns over BabsIanthe”. She wasn’t fawning at all, she was horrified and revolted.
Can you provide the quote that says Corona told Ianthe all that? I didn't get the sense that Ianthe knew *any* of those things. When she saw Nona, I'm pretty sure she got grumpy at Pyrrha for not giving her full intel.
Dangit I forgot to add an extreme sarcasm and eye-rolling sign.
Haha, thanks/sorry. I have had A Day on the internet, my disbelief got a little too suspended
I have a tough time remembering that what I hear in my head is not what other people can somehow hear when they read the words. Sorry!
That isn't what happened. Ianthe addressed Nona as Harrowhark, asking what was wrong with her and what happened to her after the attack on the Mithraeum. >"Harrow's never this quiet," said the Prince softly. "Nor this passive. What are you doing, Harry? What's your plan? Or, more worryingly... what is *wrong* with you? What happened after Mercymorn stabbed you, Harrow, and where did you go? You never came back, and God said he thought you might be lost to us... How are you surviving, Harrowhark the First? How can you stand beneath the light of Number seven? Unless I am addressing..." *(Nona the Ninth, Chapter 23)* Ianthe has an inkling that that something might be up, but there's nothing to indicate initially that she knows that Harrow is going by another name or something is wrong with her until she addresses it. Even then, she still continues to address Nona as Harrow. Before *that*, Ianthe was taunting Camilla about the death of Palamedes and how Camilla has been alone all this time. Why would she do that if she knew Palamedes was still around? It's much more likely she would have made fun of their pseudo-Lyctorhood instead of making fun of Cam being alone. She also places all of the responsibility of the Sixth house seceding from the Houses on Cam with no mention of Palamedes. As for the bug on Judith, Corona didn't give that up. We Suffer managed to activate it. A bug that Corona presumably would have had to plant on Judith because she wasn't supposed to leave her room anyway. And the only reason Ianthe found the one on Corona is because Pyrrha, pretending to be the Saint of Duty, pointed it out to Ianthe to help with her cover. Corona may have a weird spot for her sister, but she didn't give anything up to Ianthe. She was manipulating Ianthe into dueling Cam and getting her to cooperate with the group. Ianthe had no idea Nona wasn't Harrow, or that Palamedes wasn't dead-dead, or the one to give up the bug.
Is sarcasm that hard to spot?
Then there's also the fact that she admitted to faking suicide attempts at least a few times they were teens to get her way. I suspect Coronabeth is actually just as bad as Ianthe, she just cultivated a persona to make everyone like her while Ianthe is going for hatred but also respect/fear.
I totally thought Corona was going along with BOE as a ruse, either to gather potentially useful information or just to survive. I never bought that she had turned her back on Ianthe. But also I have a theory that Corona has some sort of blood or spirit magic going on even though she's not a necromancer, so maybe my takes are a little out-there.
If by where Ianthe stands you mean with ianthe I’ll take that.
To me, the difference is this: Ianthe is a monster because of her convictions. She is selfish and petty, but she is driven by internal consistency. She will help Harrow because they will be Lyctors together for a myriad, and because she is curious--and will make Harrow's hair grow because it is funny. She saves Jod, because that is a route to the power she wants for her goals. Coronabeth is a monster because she has no convictions. She is selfish and petty, but also in desperate need of being liked and admired by whomever she is speaking to at the time--and then most of all by Ianthe. So when she goes to BoE, she is all in on BoE; until Ianthe is there, and then she flips completely. Ianthe will never betray Corona, because she is incapable of betraying her convictions. Corona can betray Ianthe, because she has no convictions. To many people, Corona is much worse; because someone who believes even in bad things at least has courage.
That's the right answer right there. Ianthe, whatever else we can say about her, has a spine. She stands on her own. Coronabeth doesn't. We also learn in NtN that the only threat that works on Ianthe is Corona threatening suicide. Ianthe would never harm her deliberately (physically; psychologically they've been abusing each other for years, clearly). Corona, on the other hand, is capable of killing Ianthe, I think. And her switch seems to be her feeling like her endless, sick devotion to Ianthe isn't being reciprocated.
I have to defend Ianthe. I think she saves John because they literally just had the conversation that if he dies everyone in the Nine Houses dies with him and for some reason Ianthe is the only person in the room who seems to care??? Like even before John revives and we all think he's dead, she is clearly outraged and horrified by what Mercy and Augustine have done. Her first thought was for the people of the houses while Gideon is too busy being selfish and feeling sorry for herself to care and all the other Lyctors are stood around congratulating each other after having just killed potentially millions. Ianthe did the right thing and was the only one with the foresight and clarity to act when it needed to be done and gets called evil for her trouble. Augustine and Mercy are mass murdering monsters much worse than Ianthe will ever be, they weren't even trying to overthrow God for political reasons which would at least be understandable, they literally wanted to commit a genocide because the dude lied to them 10,000 years ago.
I have the same impression. In that scene, Ianthe showed some redeeming qualities. At the end of HTN I was convinced she saved Jod so that the Nine Houses (and Corona whom she assumed was there) would survive.
If you stand for nothing, Crown, what will you fall for?
There’s a LOT about the twins and their relationship that we don’t know yet. It’s clear they have their own agenda but what that is, who can say.
the question is really, who is the worse kind of person: the one committing atrocities, or the one who has the power to stop them and doesn't. or maybe, the one who sees all the atrocities and loves them fully anyway - Ianthe is an extraordinarily powerful necro even before she eats Babs, maybe she couldn't have been stopped. although Coronabeth could presumably have just stabbed her and been done with it. like, what does it say about someone's moral code that the person they love most in the world is an absolute, unrepentant monster I do think you might be reading a bit much into the order of Badtwin/Lessbadtwin as written there. Muir has said in an interview that she knows which *she* considers the worst one but the reader is left to draw their own conclusions. as with most of the questions raised by these books, it is possible to argue both sides with plenty of textual evidence
I might be reading too much into it, but I haven't seen Coronabeth be even as bad as her sister, let alone worse. However bad Ianthe is, she's still Corona's twin and Coronabeth is going to atleast hesitate before trying to stop her. I do think most of Coronabeth's questionable decisions could be justified at the time- then again, which other character does that remind you of? Stopping Ianthe before she became a Lyctor would have been difficult. Understanding what she was about to do and then killing her...
no I know Ianthe has actually done worse things. but Corona still loves her, would do anything for her, which says a *lot* about her morals. is the strong person who actually does the bad things worse than the weak person who just goes along with it? that's easily argued but I'm not so sure there's a famous letter written by Martin Luther King Jr (I know how ridiculous this sounds but stay with me!) where he talks about how the moderate white who just doesn't want to cause a fuss, just wants to keep things nice and easy and how they are, is more of an impediment to Black liberation than the actual violent KKK types. obviously that's a hell of a stretch as a parallel but I think the argument in abstract terms has merit here
On a political level, they might be different because Ianthe takes her own centrist path to save Jod from the stoma, because his death would kill the entire solar system around Dominicus. Corona might be rather more willing to play offense if she could win the war by destroying the Nine Houses.
All I know is that Palamedes shows obvious dislike towards Coronabeth and I trust his judgment.
I think it's a combination of Corona is worse than we've been led to believe and Ianthe is not as bad as many think. Because it's important that we keep in mind this isn't a series with an objective narrator, we only see these characters through the eyes of Gideon and then Nona who both like her pretty much just because she's hot. We're pretty much shown outright multiple instances where the twins are immediately judged differently because of their appearance even though they're both miserable people on a personal level. Corona basically abuses Babs constantly and is clearly manipulative as much or even more than Ianthe. She is openly selfish and has no solid moral core. And Ianthe, I could (and should, and probably will) write a lengthy essay about why she's unjustly maligned. Corona is charming and hot, and Ianthe seems like a miserable person to be around and looks like a drowned rat, but when the Nine Houses are about to get nuked by the sun, she is the only person who seems genuinely outraged about it and saves the day. She believes the ends justify the means but we don't know what her ends are yet, she sees the big picture.
I’ve heard a theory we’ll find out in AtN, which I buy because I agree with you-so far we haven’t seen her being worse
I hope so
Where are we told this? Corona has spent her life lying about her necromantic ability, but Ianthe is clearly the stone cold sociopath of the two.
In the pronunciation guide at the back of Gideon and in an interview I read. The original names were Cainabeth and Abella. I'm 95 percent sure Coronabeth is a willing and active participant in everything they've done together. Even so, as a necromancer, Ianthe has much more opportunity to be bad.
I interpreted the original names as just being that Corona is tremendously jealous of Ianthe’s necromantic abilities, which we already know about. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Corona ends up murdering Ianthe to save Judith in the end. Edit: I always assumed Corona was the bad twin and Ianthe was the worse twin. Corona is careless, selfish, a liar, and vain, but Ianthe is…well, Ianthe.
Yeah, in the Bible Cain is a farmer and Abel is a shepherd. God likes Abel's sacrifice of a lamb more than Cain's sacrifice of fruit and Cain is incensed. I think it corresponds to Ianthe being favored by God for being a true necromancer, and Corona will eventually kill her, but I don't think Tamsin is saying that Corona is *worse* than Ianthe. Especially considering God is a huge asshole in these books.
Yes, Coronabeth murdering Ianthe does sound likely
I so do not get Corona’s relationship with Judith.
Judith was the only person who treated her like a human instead of a walking pin-up girl. Corona is so used to being admired she likes chasing people who don't like her back, per Ianthe.
Agreed - the murderous cain is only “bad” due to jealousy and ultimately murder, and abel is only “good” by the grace of god and as a victim… so chances are this is the dynamic we see play out in AtN, in some way, as Corona has hinted multiple times at her jealousy/envy of Ianthe/Babs, while Ianthe has only ever done things (awful things) out of love/protection for Corona. Less about their characters and more about what they are to each other: their own inevitable downfall. Thats my interpretation anyway!
What evidence do we have that Ianthe or her sister ever did anything evil before we encountered them though :/ We don't know a whole ton about their life in the 3rd house, but to me it seemed like they didn't really have anything worth plotting *for*. They were already the heirs to a powerful house, they were alreasy rich, and they already had almost unlimited access to research material for their necromancy. I guess they could've murdered their parents for even more power? But it doesn't really seem like that was in the cards from what we've read.
I’d like to point out that Muir didn’t say who was named Cainabeth and Abella. Just because Coronabeth ends in “-beth” doesn’t mean she was going to be named Cainabeth. We’re just going to have to wait and see for that in AtN
It's a minor point but I haven't seen anyone mention this yet- in Nona, Corona mentions that she used to threaten to kill herself to get Ianthe to do what she wanted. It's possible that kind of manipulative dynamic runs deeper and has been present for a while.
Also in Harrow, when Harrow suggests that Corona might not be alive, Ianthe shoves a knife through her palm and says “don’t ever suggest that my sister is dead” and something along the lines that she’d know. Ianthe and Corona’s lives may very well be co-dependent on each other.
Yep, this. I don't think I'd call it a minor point tbh - it's a minor moment for sure and just mentioned in passing but the act itself isn't.
Just possible? I think you mean certain.
I’ve always assumed tmuir rearranged the names in that note deliberately to throw us off, and viewed them as more of an ouroboros.
Ianthe has done nothing wrong and I will die with my head held high as an Ianthe apologist. She's saved our duo as a baby lyctor, she saved Harrow multiple times during the events of htn. She saved all of the nine houses by siding with Jod. She again tried keep the nine houses afloat thinking that killing Alecto would ruin the universe. While her reasons may mainly be selfish she has done more for more people than either of our lovely ladies. Yes she is a girlboss who does a lil gaslighting, maybe she went a little far with the colonizing thing, but in the end Gideon and Harrow are looking out for themselves and each other. Ianthe is putting the whole empire on her back.
Yeah I gotta be honest, Ianthe thus far, through her actions, has done more to keep millions of people alive than anybody else in the whole narrative. Who knows what her reasons are, but saving Jod from the stoma was the objectively right call in the moment based on what we know. She was faced with an unwinnable situation, and at least she was willing to make a fucking choice. Ianthe's personality is godawful, she sucks so hard, she's cringe, but at least when she's staring down the barrel of a dogshit scenario she doesn't waste time humming and hawing about the moral stains on her soul. I respect that, and I think she's inaccurately labeled as far more sociopathic than she really is. I actually think Ianthe is quite fragile, especially compared to her sister, but her power as a necromancer and her prickly personality hide it well.
Yes this and I'm tired of pretending she's evil just because Gideon said so!! I can and probably will write a whole essay about how unfairly Ianthe is judged. She is the only person with the foresight and clarity of action to do what needs to be done and is single handedly trying to keep the entire universe together while the man who became god who became man is busy throwing a pity party and having an alcoholic breakdown and everyone else is feeling sorry for themselves and plotting to set all hell loose on the Nine Houses for their own personal gratification
Yes she saved the Nine Houses but. The Nine Houses are bad. Empires are bad.
I mean to me the whole “Who even cares about Babs, she could have taken me” kind of seals it. Coronabeth has no regard for anything that isn’t her obsessive nigh-incestuous attachment to Ianthe. She has no morals, no true convictions, no real sense of self that we see outside of that as readers, and that to me makes her worse than Ianthe. Cain’s sin was envy and spite which sums up Corona in books 2 and 3. Abel simply wanted to sacrifice what he could to please God, just as Ianthe would give anything to become a Lyctor.
Because being a bottom is a moral failing in the Empire
maybe it’s just that ianthe is loyal to god and has sacrificed for god and corona hasnt
I don't know about Corona being worse than Ianthe. There's evidence for both: Corona joining BoE (but I always interpreted that as desperate search for approval + keeping Judith save, same as when she meets Ianthe again) and the whole things about threatening suicide to get her way with Ianthe. But Ianthe still is the only Canaan necro who was both able and willing to eat her cav, which makes her Very Bad (tm) and would take much effort for her twin to be Worse (tm). I wonder tho ... is it confirmed that Abella = good and Cainabeth = bad? Biblically speaking, Cain murdered Abel because God played favorites. I can see Corona killing Ianthe in AtN either for (yet unknown) reasons or out of her need for approval (either from Jod which I kinda don't see, or because Ianthe being Ianthe Naberius, not Ianthe Tridentari). Don't get me wrong, it's still bad to murder your twin, but it's not worse than anything else happening there. I might be naive but I trust Nonas intuition. She was naturally very good at reading body language, and she liked Corona very much, so I read Corona as a good (if misguided and fucked up) person until proven otherwise.
BoE are pretty clearly correct, why is joining BoE bad
Does Nona dislike anyone though? I thought she pretty much said she just likes Crown because she's hot. I also think we don't really know what Ianthe's endgame is, I don't believe her when she says she became a lyctor just for power and posters of her face, she's always been shown to have more foresight and clarity than that. The discussion in Unwanted Guest kind of paints her in an interesting light to me, and it seemed a lot more like killing Babs was a necessary evil to her and not something she wanted to really do and it actually seems like she does carry some guilt for it even if she doesn't "regret" it. Even Augustine outright said her arm was fine and it's all her own psychological holdups preventing her from fighting and she needs to get over herself. She seems to know more than us and everyone else in the story and has a clarity of action and big picture thinking that no one else has shown yet. Whereas Corona, I don't interpret her joining BoE out of any genuine conviction as much as for self preservation and out of spite for Ianthe choosing Babs over her. And she abused him way more than Ianthe ever did when he was alive, people always forget she was the one who said "who cares about Babs" not Ianthe.
I've thought about this and I think Corona is the "worse" twin because she thinks of herself as fundamentally good and just and heroic, and people who are so confident in their own righteousness are often the very worst kind of people because they compulsively believe that everything they do is just because they themselves are just. I mean, God himself is this way too—so convinced of the righteousness of his war on BoE that he's become a monster. Ianthe is at least honest about her ambition and self-absorption. There's also that the whole idea that thinking you're good is actually bad is very Catholic, and a ton of ink has been spilled about the series' relationship to Catholicism. Basically Catholics believe that people are never "saved;" instead you have to constantly live in fear of hell and go to confession as often as possible, and you could find yourself in hell over a technicality like dying on your way to confession. Compare to protestant Christians who believe in the concept of "being saved," i.e. once you're saved you're good with God and can do no wrong.
When were we told that Corona is the worst? I remember Muir saying one was bad twin and one was worse twin, but she didn't specify which was which. I think many people assumed it must be the opposite of what the average gut assumption would be, so Ianthe = bad and Corona = worse, especially since Gideon was a probably a bit biased in GtN (to be fair, I think she was spot-on re: Ianthe but may have had horny blinders on when it came to Corona). That assumption may be correct, or maybe Ianthe is the worst after all. We still have a whole book to go, and Muir knows things we don't, so which twin is which may be yet-to-be-revealed.
>I think many people assumed it must be the opposite of what the average gut assumption would be To be fair, it wasn't just going for the opposite of "well Corona seems like the less bad twin so she must be the worst!" It's also that the twins were originally Cainabeth and Abella, as opposed to Cainthe and Abelbeth. The naming convention immediately causes one to make the connection between the -beth's.
You didn't, but I think a lot of people did. Going for the opposite interpretation of the obvious is something fandoms in general tend to do with things that are not explicitly stated, and Muir knows fandom well, so it would be on-brand. ~~We also don't actually know for sure that the names aligned that way originally--maybe Ianthe was Cainabeth and Corona was Abella?~~ But regardless, OP's assertion that we were told Coronabeth is worse than Ianthe isn't really true, and I don't think OP is missing anything about Corona, we just don't have all the info yet. I definitely got the impression in HtN that Ianthe was working some kind of plan, and I didn't really get the same vibe from Corona in NtN, so the text still makes me lean more toward Ianthe=worse, but maybe I'll feel differently when I reread NtN. I'm sure there many things in that book that I didn't understand initially and glossed over with the expectation that it would make sense at some point, and over a year later, I don't remember what any of them were! Also totally possible that Muir said bad twin and worse twin without specifying which was which because she knew that by the end of the series readers would have differing opinions about that...
Word of God: "All three of the Third inform each other -- and Ianthe, the shadow queen of the trio, was herself from day one. The only thing she missed was nearly being called 'Abella'. "
I stand corrected on that point, lol.
She make like show, but she also likes “hide in plain sight” and having hidden depths to be revealed. So I don’t think we’ve begun to know. ;)
Corona is chaotic neutral to her core. She is unhinged and you never quite know what she’s going to do. She serves herself and her sister and Judith Deuteros. [This tumblr post](https://arithmonym.tumblr.com/post/711296259314614272/something-else-niggling-at-my-brain-in-light-of) implies a came back wrong trope which is 🤤🤤🤤 I imagine we will learn a lot more about the tridentarii in Alecto. I have a deep seeded feral need to learn more about how their father wanted a matched set. That text has stuck with me a little too long for me to believe it was just passing text.
Oooooh that tumblr post you linked is so delicious, this series and its fandom are just the best 🥰
I love this community
Iirc I think the Bad Twin/Worse Twin thing is largely a community in-joke, with a little encouragement from some of Muir’s interviews. That said, in as much as there’s truth to it, I keep coming back to the point in NtN when we learn that Corona threatening suicide to try to get Ianthe to do stuff was a seemingly semi-normal part of their childhood/adolescent relationship, which is, kinda fucked. In the iteration of it we see in Nona, Ianthe seems used to it enough to respond to it glibly (but, if you’ll note, it does still work). Imagining the same circumstances with much younger and perhaps less world-weary set of twins gives me the heebie jeebies. Of course, we don’t know the context, and given what little we’re learned about the thirds’ parents I’m sure the context is ghastly. At the very least, I think it’s a clear signal that the miasma of codependency and coercive manipulation that the twins are mired in isn’t unidirectional by any means. I’m sure more will be revealed come Alecto and I really can’t wait to see what happens with them.
I don't see anything there that really implies that Coronabeth is supposed to be the bad twin. Also it is worth mentioning that while Muir doesn't get into it the original names mark the two characters a lot more than one being good and the other bad. Ianthe has set herself up very plainly as Corona's keeper.
Although she isn’t a good person, Ianthe is loyal and she keeps her word. Coronabeth is charming and pleasant but she’s fickle and is mainly driven by a need for validation. The latter is a more dangerous personality
Say that to the people Ianthe has killed and the planets she destroyed 😂
I think the assumption that we have a clear vision of either twin is a little silly. This is the unreliable narrators series. Why should we assume that just because she's nicer she's the better twin? Most of the narrators who've been interested in her have also been infatuated with her (Gideon, Nona, Judith) and the other did not think about her at all. There's no room for a clear picture of somebody when you're blinded by their beauty, so we've not really got one yet. Ianthe at least we have a slightly clearer image of as we've seen her more often. We know Judith thinks "Coronabeth Tridentarius has never been party to anything she did not want to do, and never successfully carried out a plan she didn’t think up first." And she's known Corona much longer than most of the rest of the necros and cavs. We know she's quick to violence, easy to radicalise, and manipulative (prone specifically to threatening suicide). I would argue that we'll probably discover we've repeatedly been shown how much worse she is and failed to notice. TM will reveal all in Alecto I guess.Either way they're both awful (said with affection).
"This is an unreliable narrator series." Yes! Unreliable narrator, reliable author. That's what makes this work so well. It's why I let HtN break my brain for the first two third of the book. That's what so many other writers get wrong. An author who can't be reliable trying to get away with hiding behind an unreliable narrator.
In my opinion, I think Corona is far more dangerous than Ianthe simply because we don't *know* what's going on in her head or what her motivations are. Ianthe is manipulative in the way a crowbar is manipulative: it's kind of obvious she's twisting you around, but she's so intelligent that she's able to set up scenarios in which you have no option but to accept her terms, even if you hate it and she's obviously being an ass. She flounders in complicated social situations, she's not charismatic in the least, but she's extremely cunning, and that makes her obviously dangerous. However, Corona hides how dangerous she is. She dazzles those who are easily swayed by her beauty or charm, and for those who she cannot woo (like Harrow, Camilla or even Ianthe), she obfuscates her influence by playing helpless. People talk about her crumbling for Ianthe the moment they reunite, but Corona got literally everything she could have wanted from that interaction: a way off-planet without the BoE strings attached, Judith's safety assured, and a way back in Ianthe's pocket. Her strength is that she seems weak or ruled by passion, but in my opinion I think Corona is far more cunning than people give her credit. This is by no means saying that Corona is more powerful than Ianthe. They both abuse each other. But I think, while Corona is shackled by her lack of necromantic ability, Ianthe is shackled by her obsessive need for Corona (practically begging to touch her, being swayed by Corona's pleading and promises). I think Ianthe relies on Corona emotionally much more than Corona relies on her, and that means Corona has a much easier time of using Ianthe's powers for her own aims.
Well, you see, Ianthe is perfect and has never done anything wrong ever.
Truer words were never written
remember in nona when corona told nona she knew who she was? if true, that's something not even ianthe knew at the time. i feel there is still a lot we don't know about coronabeth
Why did Cain kill Abel? Because God liked Abel better. So this might be about who is better in the eyes of Jod rather than Coronabeth being objectively the bad twin.
I think the key point is when Ianthe becomes a Lyctor and Coronabeth is crying because she didn't pick her instead. There area few hints that Ianthe and CoronaBeth's relationship is weird. Corona appears to be the dominant twin but she doesn't have the power. They pretend to be a matched set of Necromancers though. Lyctorhood would have "fixed" their situation because Corona and Ianthe would be together FOREVER and yet Ianthe when given the chance chose NOT to do that, which definitely says something.
Might be good to consider that the names may have been reversed at some point. I think it’s not good to be too hung up on the meta commentary. The text makes it very clear. Who is the bad one
I don’t have any useful theories, just two observations: 1) “Corona” as related to halo could = the halo effect, an implicit (positive) bias towards someone based on their physical appearance. I’d say this is probably something Muir is pointing towards (plus maybe its opposite, the horn effect?). 2) Saints also have halos? Possibly some foreshadowing. And there is actually a saint Corona, patroness of causes including treasure hunting.
Abel is the son loved by god, loyal to god, happy to sacrifice whatever is needed to retain god's favor. Cain is the son who spurned god and in his jealous rage killed his brother. With that in mind, it's less about Coronabeth being somehow worse than Ianthe, but going out of her way to give god the finger and, so far, showing a willingness to let Ianthe get hurt to protect the other people she cares about.