Claire (she/they) and Han (any pronouns) dig into Gideon the Ninth chapter 11, contrasting the duals between Gideon and the cavaliers of the Fifth and Third and exploring the relationship between Magnus and Jeannemary. Claire has a spectacular cosplay idea. There's quite a lot of sword fighting discussion in this one.

Content Warning: fatphobia, violence, child soldiers

Further Reading:

Roy Ward Baker (1981) The Monster Club

Susanna Ives (2023) How to Victorian Maid Servant

Joseph Brassey (2017) Skyfarer

Olivier Girard et al (2023) "Living High - Training Low" for Olympic Medal Performance

Annotated List of Historical [Swordfighting] Manuals

United Nations (n.d.) Child Recruitment and Use

Nun Pod With Left Grief is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International License. Find us at NunPod.com and get our attention with #NunPod.

If you’d like to support our show with your voice, share NunPod with a friend or leave a review on Apple Podcasts. If you’d like to use money to support us, we encourage you to think of the amount you’d like to send us on Patreon each month and then instead send it here. Let us know that you did!

Claire Beans (she/they) and Han Koehle (any pronouns) welcome Caro (she/they) to discuss Gideon the Ninth, Chapter 10. We dig into the seventh's claim that she never lied and what that means about the text. Speculations are made about possible animal agriculture (cannibalism??) in the Empire. Late in the episode we promise to share a link to this artist. We talk about in-world taboos and address which ships make us personally the most uncomfortable as readers.

Content Warning: death, calorie mention, cannibalism, necrophilia, war crimes, self-harm, addiction, ableism, murder, incest

Further Reading:

Volker H.W. Rudolf & Janis Antonovics (2007) Disease Transmission by Cannibalism: Rare Event or Common Occurrence?

Nicholas Fabiano (2024) Is Exercise a Form of Self Harm?

Susan Schweik (2010) The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public

[Jack] Halberstam (1998) Female Masculinity

Carolyn A. Day (2017) Consumptive Chic: A History of Beauty, Fashion, and Disease

Harry M. Benshoff (1997) The Monster and the Homosexual, from Monsters In the Closet

Nun Pod With Left Grief is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International License. Find us at NunPod.com and get our attention with #NunPod.

If you’d like to support our show with your voice, share NunPod with a friend or leave a review on Apple Podcasts. If you’d like to use money to support us, we encourage you to think of the amount you’d like to send us on Patreon each month and then instead send it here. Let us know that you did!

Gideon the Ninth Act II Chapter 9. Gideon encounters two trios as she explores Canaan House.

Claire Beans (she/they) and Han Koehle (any pronouns) are joined by (first ever!) guest Night (he/him).

Today’s cover art features our lovely guest Night as Ortus, photographed by Han.

Content Warning: death, mild abuse

Further Reading:

Daniella Mestyanek Young (2022) Uncultured

Jennifer Brubaker (2017) Antibiotic Resistance, Soap, and False Advertising

Yotam Rozin (2020). The Sociotechnical Imaginary of the Human Soap

Kimberly Twiner (2025) What is Bouffon?

Victoria & Albert Museum (2012) "That's the way to do it!" A history of Punch & Judy

Nun Pod With Left Grief is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International License. Find us at NunPod.com and get our attention with #NunPod.

If you’d like to support our show with your voice, share NunPod with a friend or leave a review on Apple Podcasts. If you’d like to use money to support us, we encourage you to think of the amount you’d like to send us on Patreon each month and then instead send it here. Let us know that you did!

Gideon the Ninth Act I Chapter 8. Teacher welcomes the scions and their cavaliers to Canaan House and lays down the ground rules. Claire Beans (she/they) and Han Koehle (any pronouns) discuss the weird vibes in the atrium, the very unusual sleeping arrangements, and Teacher's whole deal.

This week's cover art is a gorgeous illustration of the Canaan House atrium by Lorin Wendell. You can find more of their work here and follow them on Instagram. Lorin did an amazing job of capturing the colors and textures and lush emptiness of the space and we're really excited to share this image.

Content Warning: death, suicide, murder, genocide

Further Reading:

Samuel Moyn (2021) Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War

Ian G. R. Shaw & Marv Waterstone (2021). A Planet of Surplus Life: Building Worlds Beyond Capitalism

Douglas Adams (1981) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Brian Fagan & Nadia Durrani (2019). What We Did In Bed: A Horizontal History

Nun Pod With Left Grief is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International License. Find us at NunPod.com and get our attention with #NunPod.

If you’d like to support our show with your voice, share NunPod with a friend or leave a review on Apple Podcasts. If you’d like to use money to support us, we encourage you to think of the amount you’d like to send us on Patreon each month and then instead send it here. Let us know that you did!

Gideon the Ninth Act I Episode 7. Gideon has an exciting encounter with a bright new world and people who aren't cultists!

Claire Beans (she/they) and Han Koehle (any pronouns) dive into the possible reference behind the sunglasses, who knows what, and what exactly is meant by "blood flaw."

Today’s cover art was provided by Ninth Knight Cosplay. You can find more of Bailey's art on TikTok.

Content Warning: death probably

Further Reading:

Let's Read Homestuck

Nun Pod With Left Grief is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International License. Find us at NunPod.com and get our attention with #NunPod.

If you’d like to support our show with your voice, share NunPod with a friend or leave a review on Apple Podcasts. If you’d like to use money to support us, we encourage you to think of the amount you’d like to send us on Patreon each month and then instead send it here. Let us know that you did!

We're re-reading Gideon the Ninth Act I Chapter 6. We get a Gideon Nav training montage! Gideon gets a compliment (kind of). Harrow and Gideon leave home.

Claire Beans (she/they) and Han Koehle (any pronouns) dive into monastic life, revisit material culture on the Ninth, and talk more about sword sports. Han wants to watch Gideon and Claire wrestle. Claire wishes somebody would make this fan video that Han made in 2023. Han wants to know why Crux even has a "turn off the heating for Gideon specifically" lever.

Thanks Claire for this week's cover art. You can find more of Claire's art on Instagram.

Content Warning: death, torture, slavery, child abuse, infertility

Further Reading:

"Training Montage" (2022) The Mountain Goats

Destreza Part 3 - Footwork (2013) Martial Traveler

Don't Leave Your Friends Behind: Concrete Ways to Support Families in Social Justice Movements and Communities (2012) Victoria Law & China Martens

Childhood and the Monastery: Jigme's Story (2019) UNICEF

Discipline and Punish (1975) Michel Foucault

Ancrene Wisse (early 13th century) Author Unknown; Edited J. R. R. Tolkien

Nun Pod With Left Grief is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International License. Find us at NunPod.com and get our attention with #NunPod.

If you’d like to support our show with your voice, share NunPod with a friend or leave a review on Apple Podcasts. If you’d like to use money to support us, we encourage you to think of the amount you’d like to send us on Patreon each month and then instead send it here. Let us know that you did!

Gideon the Ninth Act I Chapter 5. Harrow and Gideon prepare for the challenges ahead.

Claire Beans (she/they) and Han Koehle (any pronouns) dig into Ninth monastic paint, the relationship between the Ninth and the other Houses, the extractive nature of necromantic war, Gideon's early childhood, and the role of propaganda.

Content Warning: death, addiction, war, suicide

Further Reading:

"Achille Mbembe: Necropolitics" (2020) Antonio Pele

"Necropolitics as Accumulation: Enforcement and Enclosure in Brisbane During COVID-19" (2023) Julia Caroline Morris

"Combat Cuties: Photographs of Israeli Women Soldiers in the Press Since the 2006 Lebanon War (2012) Eva Berger & Dorit Naaman

"Yank Magazine Created a Unique Record of American Soldiers' Roles in World War II (2022) Peter Zablocki

Nun Pod With Left Grief is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International License. Find us at NunPod.com and get our attention with #NunPod.

If you’d like to support our show with your voice, share NunPod with a friend or leave a review on Apple Podcasts. If you’d like to use money to support us, we encourage you to think of the amount you’d like to send us on Patreon each month and then instead send it here. Let us know that you did!

Gideon the Ninth Chapter 4. Harrow has a job for Gideon. Gideon is not into it.

Claire Beans (main gauche fist) and Han Koehle (main gauche additional sword) have a combined 25+ years of sword fighting and are excited to talk about the weapons systems of the empire and what they tell us about the world. Gideon's ambiguous status comes into play again. We get clues about animal agriculture and class differences in clothing on the Ninth.

Cover Image by Eerna.

Content Warning: brief discussion of injury related to abuse and combat, medical injustice, slavery, war, calories

Further Reading:

"Critical Theory for Political Theology 2.0: Refusal" (2022) Elisha Chi

"A million other factors killing us": Black women's health and refusing necropolitics-as-usual during COVID-19" (2023). Megan A. Carney, Debi Chess, Deyanira Ibarra, Kianna Dieudonne, and Michelle Rascon-Canales

A Feminist Theory of Refusal (2021) Bonnie Honig

The Art of Swordsmanship (1482) Johannes Lecküchner

"Hostess" (1951) Isaac Asimov

"Reconciling the Privilege of a Few with the Common Good: Sumptuary Laws in Medieval and Early Modern Europe" (2009) Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli

"Tetanus" (2025) Sawbones

Nun Pod With Left Grief is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International License. Find us at NunPod.com and get our attention with #NunPod.

If you’d like to support our show with your voice, share NunPod with a friend or leave a review on Apple Podcasts. If you’d like to use money to support us, we encourage you to think of the amount you’d like to send us on Patreon each month and then instead send it here. Let us know that you did!