the importance of pov and kiriona gaia as gideon nav’s imperialist aspect
others have already made some really smart posts about how kiriona is gideon when she’s lost everything and everyone that made her who she was, and how even in the first two books, gideon was this terrifically sad creature who was disguised by the fact that she was her own narrator.
but I want to expand on that last bit, because yes. kiriona is a gideon who has lost everything, who has had to make tough decisions to survive, who has had to adapt to being primarily around her father (a manipulative asshole) and ianthe (ianthe). but this is also the first time we’re getting to see gideon from a perspective other than her own.
we’ve always known that gideon is a beautifully unreliable narrator - see her complete understatement of the fight before harrow opened the tomb, where she neglects to tell us that she almost killed harrow with her bare hands - but I think that for a lot of us, the introduction of kiriona was when we first felt that.
now, nona is not an objective narrator either (lmao). and she does actively dislike gideon (which is fascinating, and which I could go on about for several posts). but she does offer an outside perspective on gideon that we have, up to this point, been lacking.
because… yeah. sometimes, like anyone, gideon’s kind of mean. we know she’s a good person - her goodness is in many ways one of the central drivers of the plot - but that doesn’t mean she’s nice all of the time. it’s just that when she’s being mean to crux, or ianthe, or even harrow we can say, well that person deserved that. but the truth is, gideon has lived through the kind of hell that very few people could survive with any kind of goodness and softness left intact. she didn’t live through it, in fact. she’s just kind of… existed through it.
I saw another post point this out, and I want to reiterate: gideon’s goal, her whole life, has been to join the cohort. when we first meet her, we’re like, ok, makes sense, that’s the only ‘out’ available to her. and we kind of forget, even as we learn more about the empire, that what gideon wants to join is this actively and horrifically violent imperialist force. when we get to nona, and we meet hot sauce and her gang and joli and the angel and even the edenites, we expect gideon to have kept up with us somehow, to reject the empire. we want her to be one of the “good guys” (goodness in the tlt universe is another longass post I want to write…).
but gideon doesn’t reject the empire. because, crucially, she IS the empire - she is its heir, never mind the fact that that doesn’t really mean anything when the current emperor is immortal.
what I am trying to say is this: kiriona is gideon when you take everything from her, and then replace it with her father and everything he represents, and then take a step back.
that step back is crucial. it is what allows us to remember how imperialism - and by extension, or by metaphor, cruelty - works. gideon becomes cruel because she is in proximity to cruel people, AND because she is not in proximity to us.
THAT is what Muir is saying with kiriona. even the most kind, good, earnest protagonist can become a tool of evil in the right circumstances: and those circumstances include perspective. gideon, like it or not, is currently actively choosing to be a tool of empire. and if we were in her head, we might be able to - or we might be tricked into - accept her justifications for why she’s doing it.
the perspective shift is what allows us to see gideon as she - currently - truly is. it is no accident that this is when we get the outside pov. Muir allows us nowhere to hide; we have to confront what gideon has become and by extension what she always has been.
gideon nav is a good person, and I fully believe that in alecto we will watch her reject her father; I fully believe she will get to be a hero. but in order for that to happen, she - and we - must first undergo radical change and growth in terms of her worldview and attitudes. kiriona is not gideon’s final form. but in the same way that john is described by harrow as having aspects, kiriona is the aspect or facet of gideon that embraces cruelty, that perpetuates empire.
Muir tells us: even the most beautiful-hearted, trod-on girl in the world can become a tool of empire. but I have no doubt that in alecto she will tell us: this is how that girl can destroy it.
