Nun Pod With Left Grief

Claire Beans (she/they) and Han Koehle (all pronouns) dissect chapter 21 of Gideon the Ninth. The scions make an unsettling realization. The Third and the Second attempt to bargain with the Sixth.

Content Warning: death, cannibalism,

Further Reading:

Peter Jackson (2001) That Scene from Fellowship of the Ring

Guy Gavriel Kay (1984-1986) The Fionavar Tapestry

Pierre Bourdieu (1984) Distinction [Note: I absolutely butchered the pronunciation]

Shawn Tribe (2020) The Sedlec Ossuary Chapel in the Czech Republic

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 back Caro (she/they) to dig into chapter 20 of Gideon the Ninth. The Ninth and Seventh team up for a tricky challenge deep in the Facility. It's rough.

Today's cover art features guest Caro as Cytherea. Check out Caro's cosplay on TikTok and Instagram.

Content Warning: injury, degloving, death, torture, pain, childbirth, intimate partner violence

Further Reading:

Julie A. Patterson Fago (2000) Physical Aspects of Dying

George Miller (2015) Mad Max: Fury Road

Ulla Waldenström and Lars Irestedt (2006) Obstetric Pain Relief and Its Association with Remembrance of Labor Pain at Two Months and One Year After Birth

Martine E. Lokker et al. (2012). Awareness of Dying: It Needs Words

Philippe T. Gilchrist and Blaine Ditto (2015) Sense of Impending Doom: Inhibitory Activity in Waiting Blood Donors Who Subsequently Experience Vasovagal Symptoms

Anonymous (2025) Thoughts About Community Support Around Intimate Violence

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 (she/they) and Han (any pronouns) welcome Kit (she/they) to dig into chapter 19 of Gideon the Ninth. Harrow experiences a positive emotion. Gideon finds a weird note. All of us remain confused about the symbols outside X-203.

Today’s cover art is our lovely guest Kit as Harrowhark. You can find Kit on TikTok, Instagram, Tumblr, and Twitter.

Content Warning: COVID-19, child abuse, death

Further Reading:

Tamora Pierce (1983-1988) The Song of the Lioness Quartet

Guy Gavriel Kay (1984-1986) Fionavar Tapestry Trilogy

Carl Lungman (1991) Dictionary of Symbols

Ghost in the Shell

An Sionnach Fionn (2018) The M1921 Thompson Submachine Gun, the IRA and the War of Independence

Emmeline May and Blue Seat Studios (2015) Tea and Consent

MSPA Wiki (n.d.) Quadrants

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 (she/they) and Han (any pronouns) examine Gideon the Ninth, Chapter 17 with hard-hitting questions like what's happening with inter-House rankings? Why can't dead people do murder? Can we commission fan works in the middle of our podcast?

Content Warning: murder, child soldiers, torture, criminalization of children under occupation, slavery

Further Reading

Kinka Usher (1999) Mystery Men

Mikko Joronen (2016) Minor(s) Matter: Stone Throwing, Securitization, and the Government of Palestinian Childhood Under Israeli Military Rule [Note: we normally make sure scholarly work that we share is open-access. Don't pay to read this! Ask your library for access if you don't have a relationship with a university.]

R. F. Kuang (2018-2020) The Poppy War Trilogy

Kathleen Stokker (1995) Folklore Fights the Nazis

Claire Beans (she/they) and Han Koehle (any pronouns) dig into Gideon the Ninth, Chapter 17. (Almost) everybody tries to call back the ghosts of absent friends. The Eighth get weird. The third also gets weird. Actually Necromancers generally are weird.

This week's cover art is

Content Warning: murder, grief, blood, self-harm, cannibalism, abuse, child soldiers,

Further Reading:

bell hooks (2004) The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love

Posh Painter (2024) European Noble Titles Explained [note: this is straightforward and contains interesting etymological facts, but it's also hardcore uncritical of empire and monarchy]

Naomi Novik (2020-2022) Scholomance Trilogy (A Deadly Education, The Last Graduate, and The Golden Enclaves)

Need a break after Act II? Us too. While Han embarks on a research trip, enjoy this peek behind the curtain, featuring outtakes, tangents, personal lore, extended cuts, canon confusion, and other deleted scenes from our season so far. Next week we'll be back with Gideon the Ninth, Act III.

This episode features Claire (she/they), Han (any pronouns), and guests Caro (she/they), Geddy (she/her), and Night (he/him).

Our cover art for this episode features Han and its wife as Gideon and Harrow.

Content Warning: unintentional weight loss, death, sex, abuse

Further Reading:

Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (1990) Good Omens

Note: We encourage you to source one in a way that doesn't give Neil Gaiman money, like borrowing a copy or picking a used copy at bookshop.org You can also make a donation to Our Voice in honor of his victims using the name "Calliope." Read more about that here.

Thomas Wharton (2004) The Logogryph: A Bibliography of Imaginary Books

Kaitlyn Vogt (2015) Being Nice is Lethal: Disciplining and Subverting Southern Femininity in Contemporary Southern Popular Culture

Alexander M. Maley and Jack L. Arbiser (2015) Gentian Violet: A 19th Century Drug Re-Emerges in the 21st Century

Cindy M. Meston and David M. Buss (2009) Why Women Have Sex

Han Koehle (ongoing) The Locked Tomb: Unauthorized Annotated Edition

T. X. Watson and Astrid Lundberg (2025) Academic and Ergodic Literature

Resting Glitch Face

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 (she/they) and Han (any pronouns) reread Gideon the Ninth Act II, Chapter 16. Gideon and Harrow enjoy their first major victory on the path to lyctorhood. Then, everything changes.

Content Warnings: death, child abuse, emetophobia, humiliation, mild cannibalism

Further Reading:

Gavin Van Horn, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and John Hausdoerffer (2022) Kinship

James Ashworth (2022). Neanderthal Extinction May Have Been Caused by Sex, Not Fighting.

Victor Hugo (1831) The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

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 (she/they) and Han (any pronouns) welcome Hannah (she/her) to re-read Gideon the Ninth, Chapter 15. The Ninth receive an invitation. All the Houses get together. Gideon gets to eat a dessert.

Our cover is guest Hannah. You can find her wonderful cosplay and commentary on TikTok and and Tumblr.

Content Warning: eating your cav, murder, infertility, slavery

Further Reading:

Catechism regarding priests acting in persona Christi Capitis

Aubrey Smalls (2025) Did You Know About Court Dwarfs?

Samin Nosrat (2013) Jeweled Rice

T. H. White (1958) The Once and Future King

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!

Note from Han: Sorry this is late! I have three major grad school deadlines coming up and I totally forgot, like, what day it was and that this podcast exists. My bad.

Claire Beans (she/they) and Han Koehle (any pronouns) re-read Chapter 14 of Gideon the Ninth. Gideon and Harrow face an interesting challenge and take their relationship to an awkward new level. Harrow takes a nap. Gideon lays down some boundaries.

Today’s cover art is by Han.

Content Warning: blood, pain, injury, eugenics

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) dive into Gideon the Ninth Act II Chapter 13. Gideon and Harrow negotiate. Han questions Harrow's understanding of the rules. Claire highlights other necro/cav models. Conversation gets unusually dark there in the middle.

Today’s cover art was provided by Claire.

Content Warning: Blood, genitals, sex, emetophobia, kink, slavery, use of human remains, genocide, Nazis, eugenics

Further Reading:

Arendse I Lund (2016) The People Who Became Book Bindings

Jim Crow Museum (2013) Human Leather

Alexandra Minna Stern (2015) Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America

Ghada Sasa (2022) Oppressive Pines: Uprooting Israeli Green Colonialism and Implanting Palestinian A'wna

John Pollack (2011) The Pun Also Rises: How the Humble Pun Revolutionized Language

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!