Ramblers Rising - Red Rising Chapters 11-15

[00:00:19] Hello, and welcome back to another new episode of Ramblers Rising. I'm your host, Richard.

[00:00:25] And I'm your other host, Aaron. And today we're going to be going over chapters 11-15 of Red Rising.

[00:00:32] Ooh, now Aaron, this is a pretty good set of chapters. I know we left off on a pretty big cliffhanger last week. Are you excited to dive in?

[00:00:40] I'm very excited to talk about this. This is sort of getting into the grosser parts. It's kind of nasty when they talk about what Darrow goes through here, I would say.

[00:00:52] Yeah, I kind of skimmed on the details in the outline because I don't want to talk about it in detail, bro. It's fucking nasty.

[00:01:00] I mean, a lot of nasty stuff happens in this series and there are definitely going to be some parts in later books that I'm not...

[00:01:08] We're just going to say something happened. We're not going into detail at all.

[00:01:13] But this is definitely one of those moments. I mean, yeah.

[00:01:17] Yeah, and I think that I mentioned this last week that I always think about Mickey as one of the cyberpunk ripper dogs.

[00:01:26] And just that image in my head always freaks me out of getting cut up and replacing pieces of himself.

[00:01:36] And anyways...

[00:01:38] I mean, yeah, he kind of goes through an identity crisis in this.

[00:01:40] But before we get started, you know, gotta check in. How you been? It's been a minute.

[00:01:45] It has been a minute. We're recording this a little bit later than we usually do.

[00:01:50] But I've been pretty good. I've had some midterms going on that I'm finally past them.

[00:01:56] So I've got more time now than I did before, or did last week at least.

[00:02:01] How about you? What have you been up to?

[00:02:02] Well, I finished book three of the Stormlight Archive and that was a pretty good book.

[00:02:07] I highly recommend the Stormlight Archive to anyone who's in the high fantasy.

[00:02:11] Aside from that, I'm really hyped for Terrifier 3.

[00:02:15] I mean, that's all I got, really.

[00:02:19] And then work's been fun, of course.

[00:02:21] Oh, I should also mention, I finished Vinland Saga Season 1.

[00:02:25] Oh my god. Such a good show.

[00:02:27] I am so happy that you finally finished it.

[00:02:29] Because, like, we gotta talk about some stuff one of these days.

[00:02:33] I mean, ugh.

[00:02:34] Absolutely. I'm not typically an anime fan, but that show is... it's very good.

[00:02:39] I think that Season 1 and 2 are both amazing, but they're amazing for very different reasons, of course.

[00:02:45] And I'm not sponsored in any way, but everyone should go read Stormlight Archive and watch Vinland Saga.

[00:02:52] Yep.

[00:02:52] Both great series.

[00:02:53] I could not agree more.

[00:02:55] So, let's start off with Chapter 11, Mad.

[00:02:59] And this picks up right after we see the Sons of Ares asking Mickey to turn Darrow into a gold.

[00:03:08] And Mickey has one response for them.

[00:03:10] And what is it, Richard?

[00:03:11] He calls them mad.

[00:03:12] He kind of crashes out a little bit.

[00:03:14] He's like, what the fuck?

[00:03:15] Like, it's impossible.

[00:03:16] It could never be done.

[00:03:18] And even if it could be done, I wouldn't do it.

[00:03:20] Because it's gross and horrible and evil.

[00:03:23] And then, of course, Dancer, my guy, says that they'll give him a lot of money.

[00:03:29] And this is kind of implying that Ares has some pretty deep pockets.

[00:03:32] It makes me wonder.

[00:03:34] Now, I don't know who Ares is because I'm not far enough in the series yet.

[00:03:38] You are like 10 chapters away from it, by the way.

[00:03:42] Oh, okay.

[00:03:43] You're close, yeah.

[00:03:45] It makes me wonder if maybe he's a gold or someone in high society,

[00:03:50] the way that he has those deep pockets.

[00:03:52] You know, I wonder if he's actually something a little bit more.

[00:03:56] He could be, you know.

[00:03:58] I will say we do meet Ares by the end of this book.

[00:04:02] We just don't know that we met Ares, you know?

[00:04:04] Wait, really?

[00:04:06] Yeah.

[00:04:06] Yeah, I'm still surprised you haven't guessed it.

[00:04:09] But that's all right.

[00:04:11] Okay, okay.

[00:04:12] Well, now I need to do some thinking.

[00:04:15] Let me just end the podcast right here and go contemplate who Ares might be.

[00:04:18] Right, yeah, of course.

[00:04:20] Okay, buddy.

[00:04:21] We do find out also that this whole process of turning someone into a gold,

[00:04:27] it's been done successfully before.

[00:04:29] Yeah, there was one other person.

[00:04:31] And we do meet said person.

[00:04:33] I'm sure you remember.

[00:04:35] I do.

[00:04:36] Who it was and what happened with them.

[00:04:38] Yep.

[00:04:38] And so what's their whole goal here with Darrow to turn him into a gold?

[00:04:43] What do they want out of this whole process?

[00:04:45] So they want two things.

[00:04:48] One, they want him to be like a Messiah character for Reds.

[00:04:52] You know, they want to show like,

[00:04:53] we took this Helldiver and we turned him into a gold.

[00:04:56] And now he's one of the best, most goaded golds of all time,

[00:05:00] which Darrow kind of is.

[00:05:01] I'm not going to lie.

[00:05:02] And then the other thing, you know, the process of getting him to be goaded is they want him to go to the Institute and become a sleeper agent within the peerless scarred.

[00:05:12] That's a pretty tall order for someone who wasn't even born into gold society to send them off on their way and be like, become a peerless scarred.

[00:05:20] Like that's the most difficult thing to attain in this society.

[00:05:26] Yeah.

[00:05:26] And they don't even just want him to be like a rank and file peerless, which I understand that sounds like a weird way of putting it,

[00:05:32] but there are rank and file peerless that are just sort of on the front lines.

[00:05:36] They want him to be like an imperator, like leading fleets of ships.

[00:05:42] Yeah.

[00:05:43] Yeah.

[00:05:43] Before he, you know, does his thing and reveals who.

[00:05:48] Yeah.

[00:05:49] No, I'm, I think it's really interesting the way that they're setting him up to be that messianic character,

[00:05:56] almost like Paul, Paul Atreides in Dune, where he's leading the people.

[00:06:05] That's, I feel like that's sort of where they got that inspiration from a little bit.

[00:06:09] And, you know, I think that it's very cool that they're sending him in as this sleeper agent and eventually he'll reveal himself.

[00:06:18] But he's got to, he's got to rise up among the ranks first before he can actually reveal who he is and what his actual goals are.

[00:06:27] Yeah.

[00:06:28] And, uh, you know, then Mickey's kind of like, why, why this guy?

[00:06:32] Like, why the, why the fuck are we doing it with this random ass red guy?

[00:06:36] And Darrow, uh, Mickey's been like fiddling with this futuristic Rubik's cube since we met him and he can't figure it out.

[00:06:44] Keep in mind, he does have 14 fingers.

[00:06:46] So he really should be able to like quickly do it, like solve the patterns and stuff.

[00:06:53] And of course, Darrow, you know, my goat takes the cube from Mickey and he solves it.

[00:06:59] And then he solves a different form of it.

[00:07:01] And then he solves another form of it.

[00:07:03] He solves it like four more times.

[00:07:05] And that's when Mickey is a hundred percent on board because he realizes that Darrow is built like that.

[00:07:12] Yeah.

[00:07:12] And let's not skip too quickly over the 14 fingers detail is, is that like a normal thing for people in Mickey's color to have 14 fingers or.

[00:07:24] Yeah.

[00:07:25] So violets have 14 fingers, you know, seven on each hand.

[00:07:28] And then obsidians have eight fingers on each hand and they are scary.

[00:07:35] I believe that's it.

[00:07:36] Godric the Grafted.

[00:07:36] Oh my God.

[00:07:37] It is not Godric.

[00:07:38] It is.

[00:07:39] Cause like they're, it's natural.

[00:07:41] Like they're born with eight fingers or seven fingers.

[00:07:45] They are born with it.

[00:07:46] They're not like getting ripper docked up to have 14 fingers.

[00:07:49] No, I think later in the series, there are a few like grays and reds who have extra appendages and get ripper docked up.

[00:07:57] But they're more minor characters.

[00:08:01] This whole like genetic engineering, each of the colors.

[00:08:05] I like that.

[00:08:07] We're starting to get more details on how each one is genetically different.

[00:08:12] Like they've each been given traits that help them with their specific professions and put them into a certain box.

[00:08:22] Yeah.

[00:08:22] That's why like, it's great to remember like Daryl is a short King right now.

[00:08:28] He is tiny.

[00:08:29] And then the gold, you get them.

[00:08:30] They're, you know, the same size as obsidians.

[00:08:33] They're good.

[00:08:33] Two and a half, three meters tall.

[00:08:35] Like that's, that's scary.

[00:08:37] That is scary to think that there are these massive hulking individuals, each and every one of them just by nature is it's wild.

[00:08:49] Yeah.

[00:08:49] Like I'm, I'm a pretty tall guy.

[00:08:51] I'm six feet tall.

[00:08:53] I would be shit.

[00:08:54] I would be scared shitless by a peerless scarred.

[00:08:57] Yeah.

[00:08:57] I am not a tall guy.

[00:08:59] So I would definitely be.

[00:09:02] Yeah.

[00:09:02] You're a red.

[00:09:03] I am a red.

[00:09:04] I'm like five, five, five, six on a good day.

[00:09:08] On a good day.

[00:09:09] So how does that, how does that happen?

[00:09:11] How do you get taller on a good day?

[00:09:13] Um, I go to the stretcher and, you know, medieval torture device.

[00:09:18] And then maybe I, I'll be five, six that day.

[00:09:23] But that's only if I really feel like hopping on the stretcher.

[00:09:27] Then we move on to chapter 12, the carving.

[00:09:31] And this is where we get into the meat of it.

[00:09:33] Isn't it?

[00:09:34] Okay.

[00:09:35] Darrow's.

[00:09:35] Why would you, do not say Darrow's meat.

[00:09:38] I get into Darrow's meat.

[00:09:40] All right.

[00:09:40] I love Darrow.

[00:09:42] Um, yeah, he's, he's basically completely ripped apart.

[00:09:46] Like his bones are replaced.

[00:09:47] His muscles are replaced.

[00:09:49] His organs are replaced.

[00:09:51] Everything that is not his heart and his brain gets fully replaced.

[00:09:56] His eyes, um, get replaced.

[00:09:59] And he realizes that like, oh my God, red eyes suck.

[00:10:04] Cause he could see everything in finer detail and he could see farther.

[00:10:08] Like everything about him is now superior.

[00:10:12] And this is just like, he hasn't acclimated to this new body at all.

[00:10:16] So it's kind of crazy.

[00:10:17] I think it's interesting that it's even heightened senses.

[00:10:22] Like he's got better vision, better hearing, all of that.

[00:10:25] It's, it's not just the physical attributes.

[00:10:28] Like he's stronger.

[00:10:31] Literally everything about him is just replaced and improved in this process, which is crazy.

[00:10:38] Yeah.

[00:10:38] And also, uh, I mean, I know, you know it because it was, it's, it's like a pretty good,

[00:10:43] like thought problem, I guess you could consider it.

[00:10:45] Uh, it's, it's very like ship of Theseus.

[00:10:48] Yeah.

[00:10:49] Core.

[00:10:49] Yeah.

[00:10:50] I think we mentioned that, uh, last week a little bit that like what, what's actually

[00:10:53] left of Darrow at the end, just his heart and his brain.

[00:10:57] Yeah.

[00:10:58] And it, I mean, he, he definitely does change throughout the course of the series a lot.

[00:11:04] I mean, over the course of this book, he drastically changes, but it's definitely a good thing to

[00:11:11] keep in mind as we, as he develops throughout the series.

[00:11:15] I think it's interesting that Mickey says he doesn't want to make a man, but a God of war.

[00:11:21] I mean, that's essentially what the peerless scarred are, are these gods of war that have

[00:11:26] gone through the Institute and come out the other side as these tactical and ruthless

[00:11:33] killers.

[00:11:35] Yeah.

[00:11:36] I mean, they are, you think about just the snippet of one peerless scar we've gotten.

[00:11:42] And that is Nero Al Augustus, the arch governor.

[00:11:45] He, he saw EO singing a silly little song and he was like, you know what?

[00:11:49] I think the direct, the exact quote on this was let the bitch hang.

[00:11:55] Like that's fucking crazy.

[00:11:57] That is an insane thing to say.

[00:12:00] Because you're, you think about it from his perspective.

[00:12:02] He is the pinnacle of his society.

[00:12:04] He rules the planet.

[00:12:06] And he is such a ruthless motherfucker that he decides to kill a singular red woman.

[00:12:14] Yeah.

[00:12:14] Like a 16 year old too, like on top of all of it.

[00:12:19] Yeah.

[00:12:19] And we find out later, like this is minor spoilers, but it's kind of like more world building.

[00:12:24] So I wouldn't, it's not like a plot thing really.

[00:12:26] The reds don't have like, they're not listed as people to the gold.

[00:12:33] They're literally all just numbers kind of grounds it more in reality.

[00:12:37] I mean.

[00:12:38] For sure.

[00:12:38] Yeah.

[00:12:39] I think that, you know, he taking inspiration from real world atrocities and things like that.

[00:12:48] And it's just, it's awful.

[00:12:52] And this is where we learn a little bit more about the whole process of him going into the surgery,

[00:12:59] coming out stronger, what he keeps, what he doesn't.

[00:13:01] You want to tell us a little bit more about that?

[00:13:04] Oh yeah, sure.

[00:13:05] He, you know, in between surgeries, of course he is, he can't really move much.

[00:13:10] So what they do is they train him in like mind games and stuff so that he can keep, cause you

[00:13:17] know, he's physically got the body down of a peerless scarred.

[00:13:21] He, he can do all of their physical stuff, but his mind is just not on the level of these,

[00:13:27] like you said earlier, master level tacticians.

[00:13:30] Not that it would be at the start of the Institute, but he needs to pass the test.

[00:13:35] To get into the Institute.

[00:13:36] So obviously he's really got to kind of lock in.

[00:13:39] He becomes an academic weapon in this chapter.

[00:13:42] Yeah.

[00:13:43] I really like the idea that they have to essentially just catch him up on his education and his mental

[00:13:50] fortitude.

[00:13:51] Yeah.

[00:13:52] And he does learn obviously like all the history that he's missed.

[00:13:55] He learns about one of my favorite events.

[00:13:58] Uh, well, I shouldn't say favorite cause that sounds terrible.

[00:14:01] And that is the moon Lords rebellion in, uh, so that's like the outer rim of the solar system

[00:14:07] past the asteroid belt.

[00:14:09] And they all rebel because they, they didn't like being controlled by the society.

[00:14:13] And so this guy, Magnus out grimaced the ash Lord said, fuck you guys and obliterated the moon

[00:14:21] Rhea.

[00:14:22] Damn.

[00:14:23] The ash Lord is such a cold title.

[00:14:26] I love the ash Lord.

[00:14:27] Personally.

[00:14:28] We get about, I'm trying to think we get maybe an hour of him speaking in the audio book.

[00:14:33] Like he doesn't do shit, but he's got that threatening presence down, which I love.

[00:14:39] Yeah.

[00:14:40] I mean, how can you not have that larger than life presence as someone named the ash Lord?

[00:14:45] It reminds me of a dark souls a little bit.

[00:14:49] Yeah.

[00:14:49] Yeah.

[00:14:50] And his, um, I'm pretty sure they explained that, but in case you didn't know, you know,

[00:14:55] like the, uh, three fury nights, like the, the top nights of the society.

[00:15:01] Yeah.

[00:15:02] Those are his daughters.

[00:15:03] Damn.

[00:15:05] Okay.

[00:15:06] That's the lineage there.

[00:15:07] Uh, for context, the furies are the three strongest nights of the, the society, uh, just

[00:15:15] for listeners.

[00:15:17] And we'll definitely be, uh, exposed to them later on in the series.

[00:15:22] I'm sure.

[00:15:23] Oh, we will.

[00:15:24] I mean, I don't, I hate the furies, bro.

[00:15:27] I mean, I like them.

[00:15:28] They're well-written characters, but I hate their personalities.

[00:15:31] No.

[00:15:31] Yeah.

[00:15:32] There's a lot of evil people in this society.

[00:15:34] You've got Nero, Augustus, you've got the furies.

[00:15:37] You have the, um, the, how many nights are there that have the-

[00:15:42] Twelve.

[00:15:42] Twelve.

[00:15:43] The Olympic nights?

[00:15:44] Yeah.

[00:15:44] Yes.

[00:15:44] There's twelve.

[00:15:45] And then the head Olympic night is the Protean night.

[00:15:49] And that is one of the furies as well.

[00:15:52] So there is overlap between the furies and the Olympian nights.

[00:15:56] Yes.

[00:15:57] Not much, but yeah, at least that one.

[00:15:59] I love, I love the Olympic nights though.

[00:16:01] Like it's such a cool concept.

[00:16:03] It is a really cool concept.

[00:16:04] It almost reminds me of like the King's guard from game of Thrones, the way that there's

[00:16:09] always seven, uh, King's guard for the seven gods, the 12 nights for the 12.

[00:16:16] For the 12 gods.

[00:16:17] Yeah, exactly.

[00:16:18] I, I don't know anything about game of Thrones.

[00:16:21] You know me.

[00:16:22] Um.

[00:16:22] Yeah.

[00:16:22] I mean, they're not like specifically the nights in game of Thrones don't have titles

[00:16:28] that lead them to one, like one of the seven gods or whatever, but there are seven of them

[00:16:34] for the seven gods.

[00:16:35] And then reminds me like nights of the round table though, for sure.

[00:16:39] Exactly.

[00:16:40] Yeah.

[00:16:41] And we get a little insight into Darrow's strong heart that has that pit viper venom in it.

[00:16:48] I think we talked about this a little bit last week, so I, I won't spend too much time

[00:16:52] on it, but, um, yeah, the, the idea that he, his heart is even stronger than the average

[00:16:58] gold's heart because of that pit viper bite and his heart had to work extra hard to get

[00:17:04] the poison out or like just function, just function with the poison in it.

[00:17:09] Cause, uh, we do learn you cannot suck the poison out, which they thought they could.

[00:17:14] And so narrow tried it, but apparently doesn't work at all.

[00:17:17] It's a whole, it's a lie.

[00:17:20] I wonder if him still having that pit viper poison in him is going to be a tell for people

[00:17:29] later on that he's a red, like, is that going to kind of out him as having worked in the

[00:17:35] minds, the fact that he has pit viper venom in him, or is it just kind of a detail that

[00:17:39] doesn't get discovered?

[00:17:41] It's just a detail that, I mean, we're going to discuss it in two chapters, so I don't feel

[00:17:46] like it's spoiler territory, but, um, nah, it's, it's nothing.

[00:17:50] It's, it would be cool.

[00:17:52] Don't get me wrong.

[00:17:53] And I like where your head's at.

[00:17:54] That's where I was at when I was reading through, but no, it, it doesn't come up really.

[00:17:59] I mean, fair enough.

[00:18:01] It's unfortunate, but yeah.

[00:18:03] Yeah.

[00:18:04] And Dero is just completely physically different.

[00:18:07] I think that he remarks in this chapter about how, uh, EO would not recognize him if she

[00:18:14] saw him.

[00:18:14] That's gotta be sad for him.

[00:18:17] It is sad.

[00:18:18] It does create some very interesting moments later on.

[00:18:23] I fucking hate this cause I can't, I can't elaborate on what I want to say, obviously, but it creates

[00:18:29] some really interesting moments later on in the series.

[00:18:32] Moments that someone would be on if they were reading.

[00:18:36] Listen, I'm taking a break so that I'm not too far ahead.

[00:18:39] So I don't have spoilers in my head when we're doing this.

[00:18:42] I, I just refuse to not dog on you every time.

[00:18:46] I'm sorry.

[00:18:46] It's just.

[00:18:48] I've, I own the books.

[00:18:50] We'll get to them.

[00:18:51] I mean, we're making pretty good progress through this one.

[00:18:53] I would say.

[00:18:54] Yeah.

[00:18:54] We're covering four chapters and the next week is going to be another four leading

[00:18:59] us to the end of part two.

[00:19:01] Two peak ending too.

[00:19:03] I, I love that.

[00:19:05] Yeah.

[00:19:06] I mean, half or I'm sorry.

[00:19:08] The end of part two is halfway through the book.

[00:19:11] Right.

[00:19:12] Just about.

[00:19:13] I'd say it's a little less cause parts one and two are like, they're definitely shorter

[00:19:17] than three and four.

[00:19:19] Cause I mean, you think about everything that happened in three and four.

[00:19:23] I mean, yeah, they're packed.

[00:19:25] It's a bit crazy.

[00:19:27] Yeah.

[00:19:30] And what, what comes up next, Richard?

[00:19:33] What comes up next?

[00:19:35] Uh, they're, they're, they're training, you know, he's on his training arc right now and

[00:19:38] he and harmony.

[00:19:39] They're just in this gymnasium with the gravity turned up super high so that he's not, he's

[00:19:46] not just training in like Mars's gravity, which as we know is too low to even hang someone

[00:19:52] crazy lower pole there.

[00:19:53] Uh, and so this makes him a lot stronger than just the average gold on Mars would be not

[00:19:59] that obviously like, yes, richer families have access to the same thing that he's doing,

[00:20:05] but not everyone wants to because they're, they're pixies.

[00:20:09] Yep.

[00:20:10] Pixie golds.

[00:20:12] Just want to live the high life.

[00:20:14] Yeah.

[00:20:14] Unbelievable.

[00:20:15] We meet a few pixies in this, uh, this, this episode that we're doing.

[00:20:19] One of them is my favorite though.

[00:20:21] I will be yapping about him.

[00:20:23] Uh, Darrow threatens Mickey a little bit and tells him that he should be kind to the pink

[00:20:29] that has acted as Darrow's nurse, which really shows to us as the audience that maybe the

[00:20:37] sons of Ares have picked the right guy to, to be the Messiah for their movement here.

[00:20:43] Yeah, because it shows that he doesn't just care about reds rising.

[00:20:48] He cares about all of the low colors.

[00:20:50] And we do see that moving forward a lot, that he just, he doesn't like how the society treats

[00:20:58] any of the low colors.

[00:20:59] I mean, he befriends one of the fucking stained for God's sake.

[00:21:05] Yeah.

[00:21:06] Uh, it goes back to that idea of none of us are equal until all of us are equal.

[00:21:11] And I think that Darrow definitely understands that.

[00:21:15] Like they say in transformers, all for one and one for all.

[00:21:19] You and your transformers.

[00:21:21] I love transformers.

[00:21:22] I wish Jason, I would do a fucking episode or two on some stuff.

[00:21:27] I've told you guys go, go record a transformers episode and I'll edit it.

[00:21:32] But I believe it.

[00:21:34] I just, I'd have to like watch the movie again and write a script out for it.

[00:21:38] And that's a lot of work.

[00:21:40] That is a lot of work.

[00:21:43] And you know what?

[00:21:47] What?

[00:21:47] What do I know?

[00:21:48] I don't know where I was going with that.

[00:21:50] Yeah.

[00:21:50] Unbelievable.

[00:21:52] I do know where this story is going and it's onto chapter 13, bad things.

[00:21:58] Wow.

[00:21:58] What a good transition.

[00:22:00] This is where we meet Mateo.

[00:22:02] He's kind of silly.

[00:22:03] He's another pink and, uh, he teaches Darrow all of the gold etiquette.

[00:22:08] We are going to skip about the majority of this chapter because it's, it's just a lot

[00:22:13] of stuff that's like, Oh, hold, use this fork to eat this.

[00:22:17] Don't eat too much of this or else people will call you a pixie.

[00:22:21] Like I get, we can cover it all, but we're not going to.

[00:22:26] Yeah.

[00:22:27] It's detail.

[00:22:27] That's kind of fluff.

[00:22:29] It's interesting to read and learn about how gold etiquette works, but yeah, it's a lot

[00:22:34] of filler material in this chapter and like background information on gold society.

[00:22:40] Yeah.

[00:22:40] Think about like proper British people that, that, that's what you got.

[00:22:44] Um, the one thing that we do find pretty important is slang.

[00:22:48] He cannot say things like slag or bloody damn because those give him away as a red.

[00:22:55] That's red subculture vernacular.

[00:23:00] I really, I enjoy that.

[00:23:02] I enjoy the whole idea that the different colors have specific, uh, language and sort of, they

[00:23:12] have things that differentiate them culturally, not just physically.

[00:23:17] And I, I think that that's really good writing.

[00:23:20] Yeah.

[00:23:21] Yeah.

[00:23:21] I love Pierce Brown's writing.

[00:23:22] I'm not glazing either.

[00:23:24] It's amazing.

[00:23:25] And after this, we learn a little bit more about, uh, razors.

[00:23:30] Now, Richard, I won't take your thunder.

[00:23:32] Tell us all about razors.

[00:23:33] I love razors.

[00:23:34] Thank you so much for this opportunity.

[00:23:39] So razors are these, um, they're harder than diamond.

[00:23:42] I'm kind of going to like bounce around on what they are because I'm a little crazy about

[00:23:45] them.

[00:23:45] Uh, so they're harder than diamond.

[00:23:47] They can shape shift.

[00:23:49] They've got two like main forms though.

[00:23:51] And that is a whip and a sword.

[00:23:53] But then on top of that, you can kind of make the shape, whatever you think of by pressing

[00:23:57] this funny little button and it'll, it'll kind of do whatever your brain says.

[00:24:02] I don't know the science.

[00:24:03] That's I'm a dumb old weather.

[00:24:05] All right.

[00:24:06] Take it easy.

[00:24:07] I mean, 20 years old, I feel very old sometimes.

[00:24:11] All right.

[00:24:12] But, uh, yeah.

[00:24:13] So razors are sick as hell and I can't really speak on what Darrow does with his razor because

[00:24:23] fuck spoilers, man.

[00:24:25] Yeah.

[00:24:25] It would be a little bit spoilery, but you've, um, if you've been paying attention to the

[00:24:30] story so far, you can, you can maybe take a guess or two at what the razor is going to

[00:24:36] be like.

[00:24:37] Yeah.

[00:24:37] I love razors, dude.

[00:24:39] It's such a cool system too.

[00:24:40] Like Pierce has a few models.

[00:24:43] I follow him on Instagram.

[00:24:45] He posted a model of the Minotaur's razor and like, I love that thing.

[00:24:50] It looks so cool.

[00:24:51] Obviously he's posted Darrow's razor.

[00:24:54] I am considering getting, I think I told you about this, a quote of Darrow's that I

[00:24:59] can't say, um, tattooed on me with the, with the razor behind it because it's just, it's

[00:25:06] a very important quote to me.

[00:25:07] I'm a huge overthinker and it basically says, don't do that, but it's kind of poetic.

[00:25:13] That's awesome.

[00:25:14] I almost included, uh, Darrow's razor in the cover art for, uh, this podcast series when

[00:25:22] I was making it, but I couldn't find a way to include it that didn't look ugly.

[00:25:26] Unfortunately.

[00:25:27] Yeah.

[00:25:27] No, I get that.

[00:25:28] I remember when we were designing it, well, you were designing it and I was just kind of

[00:25:32] fielding suggestions.

[00:25:33] It's a good process though.

[00:25:36] I like, I like how it came out.

[00:25:37] You got the, the wolf.

[00:25:39] That's obviously a huge symbol as we get further into the books.

[00:25:43] Yep.

[00:25:44] And the laurel.

[00:25:46] Yeah.

[00:25:46] I tried to, tried to include a few things that were relevant to the story and we do

[00:25:54] get a little bit of a renaming or a suggested rename for Darrow and dancer wants him to become

[00:26:01] Caius.

[00:26:02] Oh, and Dramatis, but he refuses to give up his first name and lose his entire identity

[00:26:08] as a red.

[00:26:09] I, I love this.

[00:26:11] This is so perfect.

[00:26:12] The fact that Darrow refuses to completely sever himself from red society is, it's fantastic.

[00:26:20] Yeah.

[00:26:21] And I, I think it's really cool too, or really interesting because it's, it's seen as a very

[00:26:27] off color name.

[00:26:28] Like you think about, I know we've only met like two golds so far, prominent golds and

[00:26:34] they're both, uh, no, actually like one prominent gold, but we've got two gold names so far,

[00:26:40] Caius and Nero.

[00:26:42] Oh, and then Octavia.

[00:26:43] Octavia, that's who I was thinking of.

[00:26:44] Like they're very regal sounding names.

[00:26:48] Whereas Darrow, he, he's the local Irish man that's going to overthrow the government.

[00:26:53] Like he's not.

[00:26:54] Exactly.

[00:26:56] It's not a regal name.

[00:26:58] No, it's not.

[00:26:59] It's not one of those Roman or Greek esque names that evokes the old timey kings and conquerors.

[00:27:08] It's just Darrow.

[00:27:10] Yeah.

[00:27:11] Just, just Darrow.

[00:27:13] Uh, you'll be eating those words later.

[00:27:15] Don't you worry.

[00:27:17] And he has to keep up a British accent to have the proper etiquette of a peerless guard.

[00:27:23] I think that's so funny imagining him doing like a fake British accent.

[00:27:28] See, you know, us audio book readers, we don't have to imagine it.

[00:27:31] We get it.

[00:27:32] But it's, it's so good too.

[00:27:35] Cause like you can tell his internal monologue versus his external dialogue so much easier

[00:27:42] than like some other books because he switches the accent.

[00:27:46] I mean, it's amazing.

[00:27:48] It's really well done in my opinion.

[00:27:51] And, uh, it's also how you can differentiate who's talking if like, cause you know, you get

[00:27:57] those conversations where it's very quick and they don't always say like dancer says, then

[00:28:02] Mateo says, then Darrow says, then Mickey says, you know, it's, it's definitely a good

[00:28:08] way to differentiate.

[00:28:10] Yeah.

[00:28:10] I think that's really cool that they would include that detail in the audio book.

[00:28:15] Yeah.

[00:28:16] Plus the voice actors just goaded.

[00:28:18] I mean, I know I've sent you some TikToks with like the sounds over them.

[00:28:23] Kind of crazy.

[00:28:24] Yeah.

[00:28:25] And we get a fun little metaphor, uh, that gold kids in the Institute are just like baby

[00:28:32] pit vipers, less venom, but they have no control over using it.

[00:28:37] And this is, um, kind of tying back everything both with Darrow keeping his first name and

[00:28:45] this whole pit viper analogy.

[00:28:47] It's just all meant to ground him in his redness and sort of set up a way for him to not forget

[00:28:57] about where he comes from, I guess.

[00:28:59] Yeah.

[00:28:59] He definitely does a good job like maintaining his connections to home.

[00:29:04] And it's just, it's very interesting to see how that develops as we move forward with just

[00:29:11] everything that happens.

[00:29:12] I can't get into specifics as I, as I keep saying, I'm going to stop saying that.

[00:29:17] I swear.

[00:29:19] One of these days.

[00:29:21] Yeah.

[00:29:22] Eventually.

[00:29:22] And we get a pretty banger quote this chapter.

[00:29:25] You want to read it off for us?

[00:29:27] Oh my God.

[00:29:28] I love Darrow quotes.

[00:29:30] So of course I'd love to read this one off.

[00:29:32] And this is also part of the chapter named bad things.

[00:29:35] Uh, he says he and dancer are talking or no, not dancer.

[00:29:38] He and Mickey are talking and Mickey is kind of like pushing him to say like, Hey, you need

[00:29:45] to be a bit more ruthless, but you're a good man.

[00:29:48] I can like see that.

[00:29:49] And Darrow says, see, that's what I don't get.

[00:29:52] If I'm a good man, then why do I want to do bad things?

[00:29:54] And I'm kind of butchering the delivery because the delivery for the audio book at least was

[00:29:59] fire, but that's, that's an insane quote.

[00:30:03] I mean, we really do see him do some bad things too.

[00:30:07] He, he kind of is crazy.

[00:30:10] He does.

[00:30:11] He's got that streak in him where he's willing to kind of sully himself and do some pretty

[00:30:20] terrible things in the name of his goals.

[00:30:22] And we, that's sort of where him as a real character with flaws comes in.

[00:30:30] If he was just this perfect virtuous guy that never did anything wrong and had a strong

[00:30:38] heart and a really intelligent mind and now has this amazing like gold body.

[00:30:45] And I think that it's a good way of adding some complexity, complexity to him that he

[00:30:51] has this darkness to him that he has to fight.

[00:30:55] Yeah.

[00:30:55] I would definitely consider, and I want to get your thoughts on this is given how far

[00:30:59] you're into the series, I would consider him to be a really like almost a perfect example

[00:31:05] of a morally great character.

[00:31:08] Hmm.

[00:31:10] See, I would put him still, uh, from what I've read so far, I would still put him in the morally

[00:31:18] good rather than morally gray.

[00:31:21] I can see from where I'm at in golden sun, I can see how he would develop into a very morally

[00:31:28] gray character, but.

[00:31:29] Ooh, I'm glad you could see that.

[00:31:31] Cause, uh, that, that might happen just a bit.

[00:31:35] Yeah, no, I can definitely see it on the horizon, but I think I'm still in a place where

[00:31:42] he's a little, I don't want to say goody two shoes cause he's done, he's done a lot of horrible

[00:31:47] things already, but, um, I don't want to spoil it too much, but he definitely, he has his moments.

[00:31:54] I would still put him in the morally good category for the point of the series that I'm

[00:31:59] in so far.

[00:32:00] Yeah.

[00:32:01] I would say he's like, you know, if I'm going to do it on a scale of one to 10, like 10 being

[00:32:06] good, uh, one being bad or zero being bad, whatever, I would put him at like a six and

[00:32:10] a half total.

[00:32:11] But like, I'd still consider that like four to seven zone to be gray.

[00:32:19] Yeah.

[00:32:19] Just like varying degrees of it.

[00:32:22] Yeah.

[00:32:23] Yeah.

[00:32:23] I would imagine that the audience is going to be hit with a lot of, do the ends really

[00:32:29] justify the means type of, uh, situations with Darrow later on.

[00:32:34] Oh, for sure.

[00:32:35] And I, I love those because they really do give you kind of a different perspective based

[00:32:41] on like, cause you think about it, like if you're reading from a different POV, say you're

[00:32:46] reading from narrow's POV, which we don't ever get obviously, but say you're reading from

[00:32:52] someone else's POV, like it would make Darrow seem to be a villain.

[00:32:55] I've been thinking about that a lot recently with, uh, stormlight just cause the, the main

[00:33:01] character of book three, he, he would be the villain if it was from someone else's point

[00:33:07] of view because you wouldn't see all of the internal changes he's making.

[00:33:11] So like, I always think that that's huge to keep in mind with these books.

[00:33:15] Absolutely.

[00:33:16] That's a really good point.

[00:33:18] And to take it onto a bit of a lighter note in the next chapter 14 Andromedus, Darrow

[00:33:26] learns some gold dances from Mateo.

[00:33:28] He's doing, um, the hokey pokey.

[00:33:31] He learns that one.

[00:33:32] He actually, he did do the hokey pokey.

[00:33:34] Did you know he did the Macarena in this chapter too?

[00:33:37] He did.

[00:33:38] I, I do remember that.

[00:33:40] Yeah.

[00:33:41] And then he, um, he did the drunken Irish dance too.

[00:33:44] Of course.

[00:33:45] Uh, do you think that Darrow knows the stanky leg?

[00:33:49] Oh my God.

[00:33:51] I think that that is the most refined dance in the gold culture.

[00:33:54] Probably.

[00:33:55] I, I genuinely believe that that's only reserved for like praetors and imparators.

[00:34:02] No, no one lower.

[00:34:03] I might have to edit this out.

[00:34:05] That might be one of the dumbest things I've ever said.

[00:34:08] I think you need to leave it in because the audience needs to see that you, like Darrow,

[00:34:12] are flawed.

[00:34:14] You just asked if he did the fucking stanky leg.

[00:34:17] You are insane.

[00:34:18] That that's very, I did say that out loud.

[00:34:22] Um, and Mateo lays into Darrow.

[00:34:28] He says out loud that he needs to take all of this very seriously and that the golds will

[00:34:34] obliterate his family if they find out what he is.

[00:34:37] Yeah.

[00:34:37] To be fair, it's a obliterate.

[00:34:39] I just love using that word.

[00:34:41] He did say something nastier.

[00:34:43] He said they were going to get him with flesh peelers.

[00:34:46] So I figured, I figured we'd take a lighter note.

[00:34:49] Now what are, what are flesh peelers?

[00:34:52] So I don't know.

[00:34:53] I just imagine a big, like, uh, like, you know, like the peelers you use for like veggies

[00:34:59] and shit.

[00:34:59] I imagine just a big one of those maybe automated.

[00:35:03] Okay, great.

[00:35:04] Yeah.

[00:35:05] I mean, I don't know.

[00:35:06] We, Pierce doesn't like to write torture scenes.

[00:35:09] Uh, and I'm very grateful for that.

[00:35:11] However, he does write torture scenes and they are, they're grody.

[00:35:15] So I'm glad he doesn't, uh, do too much of that.

[00:35:18] Yikes.

[00:35:19] I'm imagining the flesh peeler is like a flaying device kind of.

[00:35:24] Ooh.

[00:35:24] Okay.

[00:35:26] Yeah.

[00:35:27] So got another banger quote here.

[00:35:30] Can I do the honors?

[00:35:31] Oh my God, please.

[00:35:32] And this is Mateo.

[00:35:33] Mateo.

[00:35:33] I wish Mateo had more quotes like this.

[00:35:36] There are constant.

[00:35:38] Holy shit.

[00:35:39] I already fucked it up.

[00:35:40] Butchering it.

[00:35:40] Butchering it.

[00:35:41] Yeah.

[00:35:41] You can't cut that one out, buddy.

[00:35:43] I'm cutting that one out.

[00:35:44] Oh my God.

[00:35:46] These are the consequences when the rulers of planets are your enemies.

[00:35:51] That's cold.

[00:35:52] That's cold right there.

[00:35:53] That is cold.

[00:35:54] And I like that it really sets up the scale of like, what the hell is happening?

[00:35:59] Like, what the fuck?

[00:36:01] Yeah.

[00:36:01] I, it really does put it into perspective that you're fighting these monoliths.

[00:36:08] And if you fuck up even once, it's over.

[00:36:13] There's no, no room for error here.

[00:36:16] You have to be perfect.

[00:36:17] Think on your feet.

[00:36:19] Improvise.

[00:36:20] You just really, you gotta be on fucking top of it in order to take down any of these people.

[00:36:26] Yeah.

[00:36:27] Otherwise, they'll send you to the flesh peelers.

[00:36:29] The flesh.

[00:36:31] What if the flesh peeler is like a leech, like a big leech that takes your skin off?

[00:36:37] Now think about that one.

[00:36:39] Okay.

[00:36:40] So Aaron, shut the fuck up.

[00:36:44] That's crazy.

[00:36:45] Yeah.

[00:36:48] And to transition over to some lighthearted.

[00:36:53] What?

[00:36:54] No, this is not lighthearted.

[00:36:56] Fucking Darrow and Mateo are studying golds.

[00:37:00] Well, Darrow's studying golds.

[00:37:02] Mateo's like just his teacher, you know, because he knows everything.

[00:37:06] Because Mateo's awesome.

[00:37:07] Pretty good character, in my opinion.

[00:37:09] They're watching recordings of golds, though, as they fight through wars.

[00:37:14] Some clips are actually from the burning of, well, before the burning of Rhea.

[00:37:20] But, you know, right before.

[00:37:21] They observe HC recordings of gold warriors fighting with their razors.

[00:37:27] And we learn that they fight in pairs, mostly.

[00:37:29] And they have a very artistic, flowing way of fighting.

[00:37:35] And I'm going to say the name.

[00:37:37] The name of this fighting style with the razors is called the Willow Way.

[00:37:42] It's kind of fire.

[00:37:43] I'm not going to lie.

[00:37:45] I was just going to say that I think it's really cool that the golds put a lot of stock into dancing.

[00:37:53] And also their, like, fighting style is very dance adjacent.

[00:37:57] Yeah.

[00:37:58] Like, it's very fitting that they have this elevated sort of, this way of fighting that almost feels like it's more of a sport than it is just for killing.

[00:38:11] Like, they've got some flair to it, some style, all of that.

[00:38:15] Yeah, we definitely learned more about that throughout the series, given, like, how Olympic knights ascend to being Olympic knights.

[00:38:25] There's two different ways.

[00:38:26] Obviously, they could just win a war and be awesome and cool.

[00:38:30] And everyone's like, oh, my God, that guy should be an Olympic knight.

[00:38:33] Then the other way is they go through a dueling circuit and they win all their duels and boom, they become whatever Olympic knight.

[00:38:44] And so dueling is a huge thing.

[00:38:46] There is like, there's almost like a religious vibe to it with the golds.

[00:38:52] It's kind of weird.

[00:38:54] Yeah, it very much feels like a ritual more so than just some kind of martial event that they have going on.

[00:39:02] It's definitely, it holds some spiritual significance for the golds.

[00:39:06] Yeah.

[00:39:07] I mean, and that's crazy because we don't really see a lot of, like, religious ties with the golds.

[00:39:14] You know, they're a lot more secular.

[00:39:19] Yeah.

[00:39:19] Is the term I'm looking for?

[00:39:21] Yeah.

[00:39:21] Yeah.

[00:39:23] They don't have reverence for a god, but they have reverence for power.

[00:39:27] And that's kind of where it comes in.

[00:39:29] And I think that the idea of these golds putting so much stock into their honor and the way they're perceived,

[00:39:39] and then the fact that they run a slave society,

[00:39:43] it's just, it's such a good contradiction in showing what hypocrites all of them are.

[00:39:51] Yeah, it's, it's something.

[00:39:54] I mean, shit, I don't, I don't know.

[00:39:57] Yeah.

[00:39:59] And we get a pretty funny scene here where Mateo is teaching Darrow to ride a horse and Darrow falls off.

[00:40:06] And then what happens, Richard?

[00:40:09] Oh my god.

[00:40:09] Thank you so much for this.

[00:40:11] So, very minor interaction, but one of my favorite characters in the series laughs at him and calls him a pixie.

[00:40:18] Totally fair because he fell off a pony.

[00:40:21] I should have, instead of saying horse, he falls off a pony.

[00:40:25] And she laughs her ass off at him.

[00:40:28] And I love her so much.

[00:40:30] But I can't say her name or anything right now for another, like, ten chapters probably.

[00:40:36] Yeah.

[00:40:37] She's goaded though.

[00:40:38] Like, Aaron, is she goaded?

[00:40:40] She's goaded.

[00:40:42] I would say she's top five character for me.

[00:40:45] She is my number four right now.

[00:40:47] Yeah.

[00:40:48] She, she beat out, she beat out Goblin.

[00:40:51] Unfortunate.

[00:40:52] Damn.

[00:40:53] Okay.

[00:40:54] I see.

[00:40:55] I see.

[00:40:55] That's actually, yeah, I might put her above Goblin, I would say.

[00:41:00] I would put her above Goblin for sure.

[00:41:02] Yeah.

[00:41:03] We sound crazy right now.

[00:41:04] It's very close.

[00:41:05] Yeah.

[00:41:06] Everyone, if you haven't gotten that far in the book, you're probably like, what, what the hell are these two idiots talking about with mystery women and Goblin?

[00:41:16] Yeah.

[00:41:17] Yeah.

[00:41:18] And so that's, that's the end of the chapter.

[00:41:20] I mean, kind of a lighthearted wrap up.

[00:41:22] I kind of fuck with it.

[00:41:23] Yeah.

[00:41:24] I do too.

[00:41:24] We don't get a lot of moments like that in this series because the, just the material gets very heavy, but it's nice to see them.

[00:41:33] Yeah.

[00:41:33] The horrors that await Darrow are not kind.

[00:41:36] No, nothing that's awaiting Darrow is going to treat him very well.

[00:41:39] I, I fear.

[00:41:41] I mean, I mean, she might.

[00:41:44] Yeah.

[00:41:46] But yeah.

[00:41:47] But, uh, the, the world at large, not so much.

[00:41:50] No.

[00:41:50] In chapter 15, the testing Darrow trains his mind in extrapolational.

[00:41:58] Holy shit.

[00:41:59] Wait, did I just do that first try?

[00:42:02] Holy.

[00:42:02] Holy.

[00:42:03] Okay.

[00:42:04] Round of applause.

[00:42:05] Yeah.

[00:42:06] Uh, extrapolational thinking.

[00:42:08] Just like when he ate that scythe card, which we talked about in our last episode.

[00:42:13] Yeah.

[00:42:14] That sort of thinking outside the box, being able to adapt and, um, you know, have these situations where he's going to come out on top because he's goaded like that.

[00:42:27] Yeah.

[00:42:28] Yeah.

[00:42:28] Yeah.

[00:42:28] The, they give us an example.

[00:42:30] I just didn't want to type it out.

[00:42:31] A lot of work.

[00:42:32] Uh, the example they give us for this chapter is that the, it's like a fish has, you know, I'm just going to go with a fish has 10 scales on one side and 11 scales on the other side.

[00:42:43] Which side has the most scales?

[00:42:45] And the answer is the outside.

[00:42:48] It's so good.

[00:42:49] That's a dad joke.

[00:42:50] That is a dad joke right there.

[00:42:52] That is so stupid, but I love it.

[00:42:55] It really is.

[00:42:55] No, I love that they're using these ridiculous examples to show his outside the box thinking, like eating a fucking card and then telling a dad joke.

[00:43:08] Like, it's just, it's so good.

[00:43:10] It's so funny to me.

[00:43:11] Yeah.

[00:43:12] And so he's taking this test and the girl next to him is like smacking her writing stylist against a bracelet.

[00:43:18] It's really pissing Darrow off.

[00:43:21] So he steals the fucking stylist.

[00:43:24] She asks for a new one.

[00:43:25] They say, nope, can't have one.

[00:43:27] And she runs out crying.

[00:43:29] The proctor looks at the recording of Darrow stealing it and smiles at him as if that's a good thing.

[00:43:38] What the fuck?

[00:43:39] And yeah, this is really our first glimpse at how the golds going after each other and being cutthroat and really just like fucking each other over constantly.

[00:43:52] That's a part of their society.

[00:43:55] Like the constant rivalry with one another.

[00:44:00] They see it as keeping each other sharp and the strong rule in this universe.

[00:44:09] And that's, that's how they sort of determine it.

[00:44:12] Whoever's willing to go the lowest and take a shot.

[00:44:17] That's who comes out on top.

[00:44:19] Yeah.

[00:44:20] They really do like that whole social Darwinism.

[00:44:23] It's, it's crazy, but it works.

[00:44:25] It's really done tastefully in this series.

[00:44:29] Yeah.

[00:44:29] I think that they, they do a fantastic job just to echo what you said.

[00:44:33] They do a fantastic job of it.

[00:44:35] And a girl calls him a cutter and a young man torn from Greek verse.

[00:44:42] It was, that's, that's a direct quote.

[00:44:44] That's a direct quote from Pierce Brown.

[00:44:46] Yeah.

[00:44:46] It says it's a compliment.

[00:44:48] And do you want to tell us what is?

[00:44:50] Oh my God.

[00:44:51] A cutter.

[00:44:51] Yeah.

[00:44:51] Uh, so basically just being a little, well underhanded, a little silly and cutting, like

[00:44:59] clipping someone's wings, you know, stopping them from being who they want to be.

[00:45:06] What do we got next, Aaron?

[00:45:08] Who do we meet?

[00:45:09] Well, before we go on to this introduction, young man torn from Greek verse.

[00:45:14] I feel like that is a descriptor that's used later on as well.

[00:45:17] Isn't it?

[00:45:17] To describe, um, this character.

[00:45:21] Yeah.

[00:45:21] This wonderful character.

[00:45:22] Yes.

[00:45:23] It's used a lot to compliment him.

[00:45:27] And this is, I believe your favorite character.

[00:45:31] This is my favorite character in the series.

[00:45:33] Well written and most liked.

[00:45:36] Cause you know, you got to separate them like that.

[00:45:38] He's my number one character for the series as of right now.

[00:45:41] That could change with book seven, but I don't know.

[00:45:45] It depends on what happens with him and what happens with Daryl.

[00:45:47] Folks, let's give a hand to Cassius.

[00:45:53] Oh, bro.

[00:45:55] So are you a Cassius?

[00:45:59] His name is Cassius, bro.

[00:46:01] Cassius Albalona, the heir to one of the largest iron gold dynasties in the society.

[00:46:09] Now, I think that we should take a moment.

[00:46:13] What, what is iron gold?

[00:46:14] What is the, the story behind that?

[00:46:16] Cause we've heard of the, uh, pixies, the peerless scarred, uh, is iron gold.

[00:46:24] Yeah.

[00:46:25] The bronzies.

[00:46:25] What is, what does iron gold mean?

[00:46:27] Exactly.

[00:46:28] Iron golds are, so this is going back into gold society, hundreds of years.

[00:46:34] Iron golds run all the way back to the conquering when Selenius Aulun took over, you know, they,

[00:46:41] they, they killed the old society before them.

[00:46:44] And so anyone who's an iron gold comes from the dynasty that stood with Selenius Aulun or with, um, Akari Al-Ra, who's like the rim version of Selenius.

[00:46:58] Yeah.

[00:47:00] I think that that's really cool.

[00:47:02] And it's also another sort of mini allusion to, uh, real life Roman society where a lot of the important families in, in Rome, they claim to descend from like ancient Roman and Greek heroes.

[00:47:18] So I feel like that's kind of an homage to that facet of real life.

[00:47:24] Yeah.

[00:47:25] It's, again, a lot of inspiration from Greek and Roman, both mythology and history is in these books.

[00:47:33] I love this whole dynasties aspect too.

[00:47:38] Of course, one of the other greatest ones on, in the society is the Augustus dynasty, Nero Aul Augustus, the arch governor.

[00:47:46] So we kind of get that sense that like, these are as they, these are huge dynasties.

[00:47:53] I mean, they're insane.

[00:47:55] So we know that the, uh, Augustus family, they're the arch governors of Mars, the Aul Bologna.

[00:48:03] Uh, do we want to talk about what their like position is or do we want to wait until it's revealed later on?

[00:48:09] It's revealed in this chapter.

[00:48:10] I just didn't feel like typing it all out.

[00:48:12] I'm lazy.

[00:48:13] You know me.

[00:48:14] So what are they, what's their whole deal?

[00:48:16] What's their claim to fame?

[00:48:17] Uh, they have a massive fleet.

[00:48:21] I think they have the biggest fleet on Mars actually.

[00:48:24] And Tiberius, crazy name there.

[00:48:27] Tiberius Albalona, Cassius's father is the imperator of that fleet.

[00:48:34] Okay.

[00:48:34] It's also just like an insanely advanced fleet, not just like the size, but the quality of each ship is crazy.

[00:48:42] Cool.

[00:48:42] So they've got like military power.

[00:48:45] That's their whole thing is they've got this massive fleet and they've got political capital because of it.

[00:48:53] Oh, they have political capital just because, uh, Tiberius's wife, Julia Albalona, she is a fucking cutthroat politician.

[00:49:03] Like she's crazy.

[00:49:04] Yeah.

[00:49:05] She, she gives, um, like Lady Macbeth energy big time.

[00:49:09] Yeah.

[00:49:10] Yeah.

[00:49:10] Yeah.

[00:49:10] Yeah.

[00:49:10] For sure.

[00:49:11] Yeah.

[00:49:12] No, the, the, uh, Bellinas are awesome.

[00:49:15] I love that.

[00:49:15] They're, it's such a cool family.

[00:49:17] They, with so much depth written into them.

[00:49:20] Um, each one of those characters is talented there.

[00:49:26] When you see them, you're like, this is the cream of the crop in a way that the Augustus family is sort of not.

[00:49:35] I feel.

[00:49:37] Yeah.

[00:49:37] Well, Augustus is more like, yes, I called Cassius's mom cutthroat, but Augustus is more violent in being cutthroat.

[00:49:48] You know what I mean?

[00:49:48] Like Julia will levy more taxes to the point where like, you're gonna, your family is going to have to succumb to the Bellonas.

[00:49:59] Whereas Nero is more, I'm going to lop your fucking head off.

[00:50:03] Yeah.

[00:50:05] And that cruelty is, uh, it's a, a hallmark of, of his family.

[00:50:13] Unfortunately,

[00:50:13] I wonder if he fucking passes those traits down any of his children.

[00:50:17] Got some generational trauma going on.

[00:50:20] Absolutely.

[00:50:22] And we, uh, see that the girl who sneered at him, her name is Antonia.

[00:50:30] And she's a pretty, I would say a pretty significant character during Dero's time at the Institute.

[00:50:38] Oh, of course.

[00:50:39] That's the only reason why, like, I don't know.

[00:50:41] I, we can't talk on her much right now, but that's the only reason why I really put her in this outline.

[00:50:48] Cause I wanted to make sure we just touch on that.

[00:50:51] Antonia is from a smaller gold family, but still pretty like,

[00:50:55] they've got some presence on Mars.

[00:50:57] And so she'll be important later on.

[00:51:00] Really just want to make sure we get the name like out there so that people know, like that one's important.

[00:51:06] Yeah.

[00:51:06] We want to make sure that we're recognizing these notable introductions of these characters.

[00:51:12] This is a big chapter for introductions.

[00:51:14] Yeah.

[00:51:15] I'm an Antonia hater.

[00:51:16] I love her sister, but I hate Antonia.

[00:51:19] That's fair.

[00:51:21] And Cassius invites, uh, see how I, I adapted to.

[00:51:25] Yeah.

[00:51:26] You better.

[00:51:27] Invites Dero to go clubbing and Dero declines.

[00:51:31] He doesn't want to go out clubbing with him.

[00:51:33] Yeah.

[00:51:33] That was some scarless pixie bastard.

[00:51:37] Yup.

[00:51:38] I, I hate Cassius in this book.

[00:51:40] He sucks in comparison.

[00:51:43] And I'm sure, you know, like somewhat, I don't know if you could see where he's going, but he has my favorite arc in this series and I will never stop talking about it.

[00:51:52] So I'm going to, I'm going to shut up now.

[00:51:54] Yeah.

[00:51:54] I think that Cassius is definitely like kind of a spoiled kid in, in this book.

[00:52:01] And he's got a lot of, uh, a lot of character development ahead of him.

[00:52:05] So we've got that to look forward to.

[00:52:08] He realizes, or Dero realizes specifically, not all golds are evil scumbags claiming that most besides Cassius and Antonia are, you know, pretty unimpressive.

[00:52:18] They're not all that crazy.

[00:52:22] A lot of them are more belonging to the pixie classification.

[00:52:28] Uh, a lot of them don't have that, don't have the drive in them.

[00:52:32] I was about to say they don't have that dog in them.

[00:52:34] They don't have, well, yeah.

[00:52:37] And of course they aren't as beautiful as Cassius Albalona.

[00:52:40] The way that Pierce glazes this man, like there are, I could probably pull 30 or 40 quotes from characters meeting Cassius for the first time, just calling him the most beautiful man they've ever seen.

[00:52:53] Stuff like that.

[00:52:54] We could do a whole episode on that one.

[00:52:56] See, I could do a whole series on Cassius Albalona.

[00:53:01] That sounds like you're the glazer.

[00:53:03] I am, I, so there's an account on TikTok that's Dero's number one glazer.

[00:53:08] I am Cassius's number one glazer.

[00:53:13] That, that's funny.

[00:53:15] Yeah, that's me.

[00:53:16] Yeah.

[00:53:17] I haven't gotten sucked into Red Rising TikTok yet, but I'm sure that that's coming in my future.

[00:53:23] Look at any of my reposts and you'll, well, like my reposts and then it'll, it'll transfer to you.

[00:53:31] You're about to get 400 notifications of me just liking all of your reposts.

[00:53:35] I've, see, I haven't posted that many, but like, I would also believe that I've posted 400 Red Rising related things.

[00:53:44] Cause I repost like every Red Rising TikTok I see.

[00:53:48] Cause they're just so good.

[00:53:49] And I love the series.

[00:53:51] They're always so well done and they're so rare to see like a Red Rising TikTok.

[00:53:55] Cause it's a little, I feel like it's not as big on social media as it could be.

[00:54:01] As it, not even as it could be, as it should be.

[00:54:04] Should be.

[00:54:05] Yeah.

[00:54:05] Agreed.

[00:54:07] And they put, uh, they put these guys through a lot of physical tests and Darrow breaks some of their metrics.

[00:54:15] Cause he's just like that.

[00:54:16] He, um, there's two big ones that we know that he like actually broke the tests.

[00:54:22] Uh, one of them is like a G force simulator basically.

[00:54:26] And he does not black out.

[00:54:28] He doesn't vomit nothing because he's used to writing a fucking, you know, he's used to writing a claw drill and their machine just can't.

[00:54:36] He does not break him.

[00:54:38] Then Darrow would love six flags.

[00:54:41] Uh, he would not, it would not be enough for him, unfortunately.

[00:54:45] But, um, then after that one, there's one where they've got like a machine launching tennis balls at him really hard and he's catching them all because he was a helldiver.

[00:54:54] They bring in a green technician to overclock the machine to the point where it starts throwing like, as he calls them rockets.

[00:55:03] It starts throwing them that fucking fast.

[00:55:06] And he still keeps up with it for a minute or two.

[00:55:09] And then one hits him square in the forehead and he blacks out.

[00:55:12] But I would consider having someone overclock the machine breaks the test.

[00:55:17] I'm going to do that to you the next time I see you.

[00:55:19] I'm bringing a tennis ball machine with me and just overclocking it.

[00:55:23] Who do you know that could actually successfully overclock it?

[00:55:25] I know it's not you.

[00:55:29] Um, well, I'll figure it out.

[00:55:32] Yeah, that's what I thought.

[00:55:33] I'll figure it out.

[00:55:35] And so they're in the changing room and Darrow hears someone humming the Reds Forbidden Song.

[00:55:43] Oh my god, how could that be?

[00:55:45] Spoiler alert, it's the girl who was laughing at him for falling off the horse.

[00:55:49] And his first thought is that she's absolutely beautiful.

[00:55:56] I wonder, this is our introduction to Mustang, by the way.

[00:56:00] Yeah, I misspelled it in the Google Black, that's my bad.

[00:56:04] I wonder if part of the reason why he thinks she's so beautiful is because she's humming that song.

[00:56:13] I wonder if that's sort of subconsciously linked to EO in his mind.

[00:56:21] And that's a part of the reason.

[00:56:23] I don't know if that is subconsciously linked to EO, idiot.

[00:56:28] Oh my goodness.

[00:56:29] I'm a supremacist, what can I say?

[00:56:31] But, um, an audiobook supremacist, I need to specify on that one.

[00:56:36] Yeah, thank you, thank you.

[00:56:38] Yeah, my bad.

[00:56:39] Because Aaron will clip that out of context.

[00:56:41] He loves doing that to me.

[00:56:43] I do.

[00:56:44] Yeah.

[00:56:45] I love clipping it out of context and then sending it to our friends.

[00:56:48] Sending it to Chase, and then Chase sends it to me.

[00:56:51] And he can text me directly for that, but he has to have you text me to ask if I want to play video games with him.

[00:56:59] That's so crazy to me.

[00:57:00] He and I were sitting at our kitchen table having a cup of tea, I think.

[00:57:06] And he was like, text Richard, get him to see if he wants to play video games with me.

[00:57:10] And I'm like, why am I doing this?

[00:57:12] Yeah.

[00:57:13] And I did not give you an answer because he needs to do it himself like a grown man.

[00:57:19] Yep.

[00:57:22] Before we veer too far off track, Darrow and Mustang, they're naked in the locker room and they blush at each other and he bolts away and he's embarrassed.

[00:57:36] Yeah.

[00:57:37] This is kind of a cute moment, though.

[00:57:38] I love them.

[00:57:39] I'm sorry.

[00:57:40] It is.

[00:57:41] It is a cute moment.

[00:57:42] No, you're good.

[00:57:42] And I do think that it's a little bit of a tell that he's a red, though, because golds aren't supposed to have any sort of embarrassment or any kind of social stigma against their naked bodies, if I remember correctly.

[00:57:58] That is exactly what it is.

[00:58:00] And another one of those things, I didn't feel like typing that out.

[00:58:04] I'm glad you remembered it, though.

[00:58:06] Yeah.

[00:58:06] That was the first thing I thought of when I was reading that is, oh, he just let himself a little bit of his original self show here.

[00:58:17] Now, I don't remember exactly.

[00:58:19] Is Mustang also kind of embarrassed?

[00:58:21] I'm not trying to reply.

[00:58:22] Yes.

[00:58:23] They are both blushing at each other a little bit.

[00:58:25] And like, weird, weird ass fucking situation for them.

[00:58:30] But I love Darrow and Mustang.

[00:58:32] If you can't tell, yes, she's the love interest.

[00:58:35] Fuck off if you're mad at me for spoiling.

[00:58:37] I love them so much.

[00:58:39] You can cut that.

[00:58:40] No, I feel like it's pretty obvious at this point, even this early on.

[00:58:46] The fact that they're blushing at each other and getting embarrassed and running away doing the whole teenage romance thing.

[00:58:53] I think that it's pretty obvious that's where that's going.

[00:58:57] And they don't really know shit about the Institute, Richard, do they?

[00:59:02] No, they know that gold society, obviously, is very based in power and conquest.

[00:59:08] But when Darrow, Matteo, and Dancer are talking about it, they have no fucking clue what's about to happen to Darrow.

[00:59:17] Yeah.

[00:59:18] And that's very, it's a little scary, but it's exciting for us as the audience because there's just so much potential of what could happen next.

[00:59:27] And boy, oh boy, some shit's going to happen next.

[00:59:31] I think that, honestly, this is one of the parts of the book of all time where shit happens.

[00:59:38] So eloquently put by the two of us.

[00:59:40] I know, right?

[00:59:42] We're modern day poets, indeed.

[00:59:45] Oh my God, we are not Roke Al Fabii.

[00:59:49] Oh my God, I forgot about that guy.

[00:59:51] Yeah, you suck, idiot.

[00:59:53] I forgot about that guy.

[00:59:54] I don't like him.

[00:59:55] He's like, I don't think he breaks my top 20.

[00:59:59] I'm not going to lie.

[01:00:00] Really?

[01:00:00] You don't like Roke?

[01:00:02] I do not.

[01:00:03] I think that he's an interesting character.

[01:00:05] He's an important character.

[01:00:07] But he might crack 20.

[01:00:09] He might, but not 10.

[01:00:11] Yeah.

[01:00:12] And we're already at over an hour in this recording.

[01:00:15] So we should probably, now that we're finished with this chapter, start wrapping things up a little.

[01:00:21] So as far as feedback goes, we have a healthy amount of messages in our Discord channel.

[01:00:29] So I think that what I'm going to do is, even though we haven't gotten any emails, I might try and compile some of the Discord messages.

[01:00:38] And, you know, include that in the next episode.

[01:00:43] So we'll have a little bit of feedback next time.

[01:00:45] And if anyone has an email they want to send or they just want to chat with us in the Discord server, Richard, you want to let them know how they can do that with us?

[01:00:55] Oh yeah, of course.

[01:00:56] So obviously, as Aaron said, we have the Discord server, the Discord channel set up in the server where you can let us know what, you know, if you want us to stop talking about how beautiful Cassius is, that's the place to send us a message.

[01:01:12] Unfortunately for you, I won't listen to that.

[01:01:15] But other valid criticisms, such as why isn't Chase on this episode, are acceptable because he needs to read the series too.

[01:01:24] And you can send that to us at radioactive at thelorehounds.com for our email.

[01:01:31] Again, the Discord channel, Radioactive Ramblings, will work.

[01:01:35] And then there is a contact form where you can either just type us a message or leave a voicemail at thelorehounds.com.

[01:01:43] We also do have a Twitter at Radioactive141.

[01:01:46] And of course, we'd appreciate a rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or the other podcast services that you could listen to us on.

[01:01:54] It helps other people find us and also tells us if we're doing a good job, bad job.

[01:02:00] You know, great, great feedback for us.

[01:02:03] And I just want to say thank you guys for listening.

[01:02:07] Yeah.

[01:02:07] And before we let you guys go, I just also wanted to say thank you so much for tuning in today.

[01:02:14] This series has been probably one of my favorite that we've done so far.

[01:02:18] I'm really enjoying talking about this, these books.

[01:02:22] And before we let you go, I do want to tell you a little bit about the Barovian Broadcasting Network.

[01:02:29] So we are proud members of this podcasting network that is run by the Lorehounds.

[01:02:35] And they were kind enough to give us this platform.

[01:02:40] And right now they're covering Agatha all along.

[01:02:43] They just wrapped up their Rings of Power coverage.

[01:02:45] They've got a lot of really cool stuff going on over there.

[01:02:48] So go check out their podcast.

[01:02:50] In addition to that, there are a lot of other affiliate podcasts just like ours.

[01:02:57] And a few of those are Rings and Rituals, which is a Tolkien podcast looking at the rituals in the Rings of Power.

[01:03:04] We've got Wool Shift Dust, which is run by one of the chief three Lorehounds, Alicia.

[01:03:11] And over there, she's going to be covering season two of Silo pretty soon because that's coming up.

[01:03:16] And it's just a really great show.

[01:03:19] Check it out.

[01:03:20] Properly Howard movie review dropped a little surprise penguin review.

[01:03:24] So if you want to hear what Steve and Anthony have to say, they're an academic and a stand-up comic.

[01:03:30] They're hilarious.

[01:03:31] Go check out their past seasons as well because their movie reviews are just absolutely, they're a great time.

[01:03:38] And the Star Wars Canon Timeline podcast is also one of Alicia's projects.

[01:03:42] And I believe that they have some episodes coming out pretty soon.

[01:03:48] And can't forget about the newest affiliate, Nevermind the Music.

[01:03:53] Mark and Nicole over on Nevermind the Music have just started their season.

[01:03:57] They've got six or seven episodes out by the time that this episode is going to be releasing.

[01:04:02] And I just can't recommend it enough.

[01:04:04] They're these about 20 to 30 minute bite-sized music podcasts that they're just fantastic and entertaining.

[01:04:13] And I can't recommend any of these podcasts enough.

[01:04:17] The community is fantastic within all of these Lorehounds podcasts.

[01:04:21] And we all like to bounce off of each other and go on to each other's podcasts.

[01:04:26] And it's just, it's a fantastic community.

[01:04:29] So links to all of these podcasts are going to be in the show notes as well as information on how you can get a hold of us.

[01:04:37] Thank you guys so much for tuning in this week.

[01:04:39] And we will see you all in the next episode.