Ramblers Rising - Red Rising Chapters 41-42

[00:00:17] Hello, and welcome to a new episode of Ramblers Rising, the podcast where two long-time friends talk about the world of books. I'm your host, Richard. And I'm your other host, Aaron, and we are your guides to the many emotional gut punches of Pierce Brown's book series, Red Rising.

[00:00:44] And today we're going to be going over chapters 41-42 of Red Rising. We are only doing two chapters this week because it's some shit, alright? I mean, I know we left off with Darrow sitting across from the Jackal, but like, this is an episode, you know? Like, there's a lot of stuff in these two chapters, and then we got two more chapters that are pretty, like, small, and then, uh, that's it. This is our second-to-last coverage of Red Rising.

[00:01:14] If you missed it on our last podcast, we are going to be taking a break from these books for a little while until, I think, after Invincible is what we said. Yeah. Yeah, because I think Nocturne's dropping all at once, so... Yeah, and that's coming out on January 15th, so I think we would like to do our recap of season one and then figure out how we're going to do the coverage for Nocturne season two.

[00:01:40] I think we have to watch it first to see if it's going to be a one-parter or a two-parter, but... Yeah. Yeah. We're excited for that. If we can split it into two parts, ideally, we'd be able to split it, like, five and five, because I think it's going to be ten episodes. Yes. I could be lying through my teeth right now. I have no idea. Yeah. Season one of Nocturne was only eight episodes, and I don't know, because it's weird.

[00:02:03] For the original Castlevania series, it was four episodes in the first season, and then the rest of them were ten, I think. Yeah, something like that. I don't know. I mean, I watched Castlevania forever ago. And I just watched it last week, and I can't even tell you, so... Yeah, I know. And I'm so glad that we finally got you on it, dude. I know. No one has been trying to put me on, though. Okay. Well, we've been trying to put you on, like, Attack on Titan and other shit, and maybe you should watch it?

[00:02:33] Yeah, maybe. I saw the Nocturne trailer, and that's what put me on. I was like, this is something that I need to experience. I need this injected into my bloodstream. Well, how about some, like, insane parallels to real-life history, huh? How's that work for you? And moral struggles. Yeah. I mean, you could be talking about Red Rising, or you could be talking about Castlevania with that one. I was talking about Attack on Titan with that one. Oh, wow.

[00:03:01] I guess you could just insert any media in there, couldn't you? Well, true. Insane World War II parallels, though. That's the whole thing of Attack on Titan, and that's why it's such a good anime. Yeah. Speaking of World War II parallels, we were watching Lord of the Rings the other day. We watched The Two Towers together. And then we actually also, the other day... Watched War of the Rohirrim. We did.

[00:03:27] We watched War of the Rohirrim together, and that was a pretty fantastic movie. I liked it a lot. I... Obviously, it ranks fairly low in terms of the Lord of the Rings movies, but the Lord of the Rings movies are... I mean, that trilogy is unbeatable. Yeah. I would put it maybe under the first Hobbit movie, which I know you haven't seen. But I would put it above the second and third Hobbit movies, maybe below the first one. Right.

[00:03:55] From what I understand, the Hobbit movies got stretched out too far. Yes. The first one did have the essence of the books in it a lot, and it was very kind of... It had that sense of adventure in it, and as well as that, all of the actors are really well cast in their roles. I don't think that there was anyone who was out of place. But anyways, we're getting off topic. Richard, you want to let people know how they can get a hold of us if they want to send us in some feedback about Red Rising or anything else we're covering?

[00:04:25] Oh yeah, of course. First off, we have our email, which is radioactive at thelorehounds.com. We do have a channel set up for radioactive ramblings in the Lorehounds Discord server. You can send us a message, chat about the show. You could use a contact form or leave us a voicemail at thelorehounds.com. And consider giving us a follow on Blue Sky at Radioactive141. We also would appreciate a rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, wherever else you listen

[00:04:54] to us. It just helps get us out there for other people who want to hear us ramble. Yes. I recently realized that the Amazon thing is Amazon Podcasts, not Audible. So that's my bad. I have not corrected that one yet. I thought it was Audible because I'm, I mean, you know me, I'm an Audible user. Is it on Audible? Let me, I got it on my phone.

[00:05:22] Give me like two radioactive ramblings. Yeah, guys, we don't even know what our podcast is on. It is on, it is on Audible. I'm looking at it. It is on Audible. Okay. Well, nevermind. I'm just a straight up liar. You really are. I am. I do love to lie. As Richard can attest. We know. We know. I do. I like to make things up.

[00:05:48] But if you're a fan of our Red Rising content, please consider supporting us on Patreon, which is patreon.com slash radioactive ramblings for as little as $2 a month for early and ad free podcasts and exclusive content, including new Fallout lore episodes. Now that we're back on schedule a little bit, those early podcasts are going to be coming out a day or two early in most cases. And it'll be a month early in terms of the Studio Ghibli content. Fallout lore is going to be there exclusively pretty soon.

[00:06:17] So lots of good stuff cooking that'll be on the Patreon. What else is going to release a month early? Um, what did I say is releasing a month early? You forgot to mention that show that you haven't fucking edited yet. Oh, Elden Ring. I'm on your shit about this, dude. I swear. Come on. Well, that's not so much. That's not a month early. I'm releasing it six months late, actually. Oh, okay. I think we're past six months at this point, though. Yeah.

[00:06:47] Well, for the original recording that like didn't take. But for our second recording, we did that in. You're right. It might be longer than six months. Uh, but. Yeah. Yeah. We were talking about it for forever, bro. Come on. I remember I texted you about it when you guys started doing the podcast. When you and Chase did with Fallout. Yeah. Unbelievable. It'll come out at some point.

[00:07:17] I feel like Elden Ring is going to be one of those things where if we ever have a week that we're out of content, we'll have, we have supplementary content and that'll be Elden Ring. Right. Right. We're going to be talking about Elden Ring until we are like not doing this podcast anymore and it'll still not be out. But Richard, how are you today? I am fantastic. I'm eating my Pop Tarts and I'm, I'm excited to talk about some Red Rising. You know. Yeah.

[00:07:46] You got some great chapters ahead of us. How about you? I'm also really excited about these two chapters and I just had my breakfast and now I'm drinking my coffee. Got my dog laying next to me. So. Oh my God. Things are looking up. I want to put the dog. He is very soft right now. I'm, I'm sure he is. I've, I've seen Galleon before. Galleon the golden doodle. Galleon the golden doodle. He's giant.

[00:08:16] He's like over 110 pounds now or something. He weighs almost as much as I do. I was going to say he might be bigger than you. You're basically just Severo. I listen. I think that Severo has me beat by a little, by at least a few inches. Well, true, but like relatively, you know? Yes. Yeah. I, I would agree with that. Like, like I'm Daryl and you're Severo. Cause I'm, I'm. Oh, bro thinks he's Daryl. Okay. Let's not. I am not the Reaper of Mars.

[00:08:45] I wish I was the Reaper of Mars, but I could never. You can call me the Goblin, but we can't be calling you the Reaper. Well, without further ado, these chapters are pretty damn packed. So we should probably get right into it. Do you want to start off or do you want me to? Oh, I would love to start off. So this is as, as we said last week, Darrow spots a Pluto, a house member right across and surprise, surprise. It's the Jackal.

[00:09:15] And so this chapter starts with Darrow slamming a knife into his hand. You know, they converse a little bit and Darrow, Darrow says he knew all along. They all were drinking grape juice last chapter. And that, so it was really weird for them to act as drunk as they were, but it was that placebo effect that they were trying to hit on the Jackal and packs, you know, he, he got sent away. He's tearing the castle apart, looking for the Jackals hidden reinforcements.

[00:09:43] And Darrow, you know, seeing this guy kind of in a corner realizes that he and the Jackal are very similar. The Jackal is very unwavering in the tone of his voice. He, he's full of rage, but he's pretty calm about it. And he's just kind of unhurried. You know, he's, he's just kind of sitting there knife through his hand chilling.

[00:10:09] And so Jackal offers the Howlers rewards for betraying and killing the Reaper. And they, they don't take that shit. I mean, it's the Howlers. They would never. And then he offers Reaper a very similar deal. Uh, and he would give Reaper, you know, like an internship with his father, basically the arch governor. And all he has to do is set the radical free and not win.

[00:10:34] And Darrow does not take the deal, even though it's probably the best thing for Dancer and the rising. Yeah. If you were in the Jackal situation, uh, this is something I always wonder. Do you think that any one of these golds really cares about physical damage to them? Because they can pretty much just get any body part replaced. No, not one bit. They, I'd say eyes are a bit different. Yeah.

[00:11:04] And besides that, I think that's really it. Yeah. And in most cases, even your organs are replaceable. Darrow has that super strong heart. So he's kind of Darrow's been stabbed through both lungs before. Like he's proven how replaceable everything, everything about his heart is replaceable. Yeah. I'd say, I mean, he's already gone through a pretty complete replacement already once, but

[00:11:32] he's, he's going to, he's going to have his little ship of Theseus. I, I, I can't. No, no, I, I, you're, you're right. I was, it's a good, um, thing to bring up when we're talking about this. Cause he already did get taken apart completely. I think we talked about it when we covered it. Yeah. Yeah. So the howlers, do you think that every single one of them is really that loyal?

[00:11:57] Like, is there any chance that even one of these howlers would betray Darrow at this point or in the future? Like, is that something that you foresee is just complete loyalty from them? Well, I mean, shit. So there are spoilers involved in that question. So I'm going to try and keep it on the low.

[00:12:24] What I'll say is that several, several would never betray anyone. Several is the goat. Okay. All of the other howlers. I mean, they're all still goaded, but there might be a snake in the grass. Who knows? Yeah. Um, did they give the jackal actual wine? No, no. They gave them all very placebo effect style. I see. I thought that they were just drinking grape juice and they maybe gave the real wine to

[00:12:53] them so that they would actually get drunk. That'd be smart, honestly, but I don't even think they had any wine left. Yeah. Uh, so is the jackal, do we get any kind of at this point, a physical description of whether he is a built like strong gold? Is he a little bit more lanky? Cause I always picture him as lanky. Yeah. That's how I picture him.

[00:13:21] He, he doesn't like give a, we don't get like a, uh, uh, an in-depth description, but the guy, the guy sitting in the office pulling the strings. Yeah.

[00:13:45] And not knowing anything that happens to Darrow moving forward from this point, just looking at his character in this very moment, he gets this offer. Should he take it? No, he is. He's building his legend and he's already proven that he can, he can outsmart the smartest

[00:14:12] guy in the Institute as far as they know. Interesting. See, I think that without knowing what comes after this, it's an opportunity that I think he should have jumped on. Obviously things work out for him in a different way, but just seeing his character at this point in the story, I do think that it probably would have been the smart move for him to take that deal.

[00:14:41] So I can see the, the reasoning, my, my counterpoint is that the Jackal, he has proven himself to be a scumbag and who knows if he's actually telling the truth, you know, it's not like they're really bound by oaths, you know, he can, he could definitely switch up on Darrow the instant he's freed or after they get out of the Institute, you know, there's always that possibility of assassins in the night.

[00:15:10] That's very true. Um, all right. So next up Pax enters and tells Darrow that they've rounded up all of the Jackal soldiers and Darrow continues to prod at the Jackal wondering why he let the Proctors cheat the system. And that's when the Jackal responds, cheat or be cheated, which is a very familiar line. Darrow heard it from Mustang just days before, uh, which is very curious that he heard that from Mustang.

[00:15:36] Uh, Darrow then offers him a deal, cut his hands off and he can walk out the door. Protected from further harm, which is a deal that Darrow knows that no sane person would take. But Richard is the Jackal saying. Fuck. No, he is a crazy bastard. And he, well, I mean, we've proven it, you know, he got his nickname because the whole thing about Jackals is that they will eat their leg off when caught in a trap. Yep. I mean, a leg, a hand, basically the same thing, right?

[00:16:07] Yes. Yeah. That's when this is, this is, this is when it gets a little nasty. The Jackal crazy bastard that he is just tears into his arm with a knife that, uh, they give him just a normal one though. And Pax cannot take the sound or the sight. So he gives him an ion blade, which will just, you know, it'll slice right through. It'll cauterize the wound. And he calls the Jackal a gory mad. I want to say he calls him a gory mad bastard.

[00:16:36] I'm not opening my book. That's, that's a lot of work, but gory mad bastard has a good ring to it. If Pierce Brown didn't write that word. And I mean, I would hope Pax says something like that because, um, some stuff's about to happen. The proctors toss a sonic detonator into the room. The Jackal takes it and in the same motion stabs, I hate talking about this stabs Pax in the throat with the ion blade and then detonates the device.

[00:17:06] After the blast, the Jackal escapes and Darrow is forced to grapple with the death of everyone's favorite gentle giant Pax, uh, mourning, you know, the death of his true, a true friend of him and Darrow and the howlers vow to kill the Jackal in vengeance. Richard Pax is dead. I, I know this is a real gut punch.

[00:17:33] I got, I dude, I felt more bad about this than, uh, Julian or yo like, yeah, I just get so much character. Sorry. I was just going to say we get so much more of Pax than we get of either of those two. Like their deaths are sad, but this is a guy that we've had, we've gotten to know him. And I think that this is the first real character death in red rising.

[00:18:02] That's kind of an emotional gut punch to the readers in that kind of way. Yeah, this was, this is evil. And of course the fucking, you know, the proctors helped him cheat. Darrow does do some crazy shit afterwards, but like it is fucked up. I mean, Pax deserved to live. He was such a, as we've been saying, gentle giant. Luckily, Pax's family, minor spoilers.

[00:18:28] Pax's family is in all of the later books, like all five of the next books. We love the telebonus clan. Kavex is goaded. Daxo is cool. They got a Fox that they've cloned for 20 something generations. And I love soft please. He eats jelly beans. I was going to say, you can't bring up soft please without bringing up the fact that he eats jelly beans. Yeah. No, I love soft please. And I love that.

[00:18:56] They like, they have really good sleight of hand and they, they put jelly beans in people's like pockets and whatever. If they like the person to then claim that when soft please like likes them and finds the jelly beans that like, that means they're a good person. I love them. They're so cool. They've got so many fun little quirks and you can see how Pax ended up the way that he ended up. He came from a genuinely loving and stable family, which is something that.

[00:19:26] You can't really save too many golds. No, not one bit. I mean, look at several. Are you eating your pop tart? I am eating my pop tart. Several is goaded though. I'm going to kill you. Dude, I got to eat. Richard, Richard, what are we going to do with you? I don't know. I mean, I might deserve to just go to the Institute. I might die in the passage though.

[00:19:55] Yeah, that's true. You want, you want me to put this out there with you eating a pop tart on the air. That's crazy. Why not? Why not? I think, you know, why not? No, no, no. Why not? Let's hear it. That's just unprofessional and we are nothing if not professionals. I am a very unprofessional person. All right. Is that so? Hell yeah. You don't even know what goes down at work.

[00:20:23] Let's go back to the cheater be cheated thing. That's a big thing for the golds. I, especially people like the jackal. I, I feel like there's a lot of politicos in the gold class and they all have that sort of mindset that you got to screw someone over or you're going to get screwed over, which

[00:20:46] is a very, it's a lot like modern corporate, like capitalistic. Um, systems where, you know, you got to outperform the, the rival company. You have to buy them out. You have to do some underhanded shit. Underhanded shit. Exactly. It. And I think that that mindset is very relevant to what we see today in the corporate world.

[00:21:16] So. Yeah. I'm a corporate slave. You're a welder. I am. And. Are you a corporate? Oh yeah. Kind of. Do you have Amazon prime? Do I have? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't pay for it. So. Yeah. I pay for Amazon prime. Unfortunately. My mom gets it through work and you know, why would I, why would I buy my own account if I can just. Leech. Amazon.

[00:21:43] If you're listening, we love you and you should give us invincible screeners. And like a million dollars. And a million dollars. We'll take a mil. Each. Of course. I'll take a mil. Yeah. I mean, it's only fair. Yeah. But. And also with this whole jackal ripping into his arm section, it kind of brings me back to what I was saying earlier about their bodies being really replaceable.

[00:22:11] So as long as you can stand the pain of what's happening, you pretty much can get out of any situation by way of cutting off a limb or doing this, doing that. You just have to make sure that you're not going to bleed out or something before you can get a new limb. Yeah. I mean, even then they kind of pull some, like I've said it a few times, Darrow walks

[00:22:36] away from a battle with a razor hanging out of his chest and it's, it's piercing through one of his lungs. Like they, they handle shit that they really shouldn't be able to, but they, they find a way and who it is some nasty shit sometimes. Would the ion blade that packs was using, would that have like self cauterized? Yeah.

[00:23:03] Cauterized like most of the wound except for where he cut with like the normal knife. Granted, I feel like he should have just cut slightly up his arm to, to cauterize the whole thing. Like, yeah, he'd be cutting into himself more, but then he wouldn't bleed at all. That's very true. Uh, so we have this vow of vengeance for Darrow and the howlers to kill the jackal.

[00:23:30] So that's, uh, I'm assuming that's going to be a very important thing moving forward. And it's, it's going to place the jackal in this position of maybe being a, a bigger villain at the end of this book where perhaps they'll get that vengeance by the end of this book, or maybe it's going to be a longer feud between Darrow's clan and the jackal.

[00:23:59] So we don't really know at this point in the book, but we'll see. It definitely sets him up to be an interesting antagonist to Darrow and his friends. Yeah. The jackal, he is one of my favorite antagonists in this series. Uh, he's probably number two because the, the, the damn, this is a, it's a hard ranking

[00:24:25] because I can't even explain why any of the other ones would, would take that number one spot, but trust Pierce Brown writes his villains. Well, I mean, they're phenomenal. And yeah, that's, that's all I can really say, but I love the jackal. He's a great villain. He was scary as hell in the first book. And there's some interesting stuff coming forward or moving forward. Yeah.

[00:24:52] There's something really terrifying about a villain who has no limits and is willing to do almost anything to achieve their goals. Cause you just, you don't know what they're going to do next. They could stab you in the chest or they could like give you a gift. You just don't know what this guy has. Give you a gift is a crazy pole. Oh, that's an ox. Yeah.

[00:25:18] But as Darrow and the howlers leave Apollo, who is cloaked in his recoil armor, detonates another sonic device and starts wailing on Darrow with a pulse fist. Darrow tries to attack, but the proctor, uh, also wears a pulse shield, which can only be penetrated by razors. Yeah. I got to make a note. I made a note real quick. I'm just going to explain. I know Sunday you asked me what pulse armor was. I fucking lied, dude.

[00:25:45] So pulse armor can be broken by pulse weapons, you know, obviously like large scale artillery and razors. Whereas pulse shields are what I was thinking of that can only be penetrated by razors. Okay. Yeah. All right. Gotcha. So I know not to ask you any more questions cause. Right. Cause you know the answer. Right. Exactly. And. Well, thank you for the correction.

[00:26:11] I'm sure that if the episode had been out, we would have gotten some people telling us. Well, it'll be out today. Yes. It will be out today. Which if you're listening to this episode was one week ago. Yeah. Yeah. And as Darrow's flown into the air by the Proctor's grab boots, he starts to tell Darrow that Mustang is a captive on Olympus. And Darrow realizes that the Proctor's pulse shield is down momentarily, which gives him an

[00:26:40] opportunity to stab Apollo in the eyes several times, killing the man. And as Darrow lands using Fitchner's stolen grab boots, he proclaims that house Mars is to assault Olympus next. This motherfucker goes straight from playing a game in a school to being like, I'm going to assault a floating castle in the sky. That's never been assaulted before. Never been done before. A Proctor has never been killed by a student before.

[00:27:09] Darrow is just out here breaking records. And the crazy part is, he's a red. He's a filthy roster compared to these golds. And he's just tearing through them. Yeah, exactly. And you have this society that values strength above all else. So the fact that no one has thought to pull off a gambit sort of like this is interesting. But at the same time, they also really value tradition and doing things the proper way.

[00:27:37] So they don't like to break out of their molds a lot either. Yeah, they walk a really weird line. And this is crazy. This act, though, definitely helps Darrow rise through the society. I mean, he's a pretty popular dude. And it's crazy. But like, oh my god, this chapter for me was one of... I would say this is my favorite chapter in the book. Just because you get...

[00:28:06] I mean, unfortunately you get the death of Pax. But you get the jackal. You know, he's menacing as hell. He cuts his hand off. You get Darrow who kills a Proctor. This is a full-grown, peerless scarred. He's like, wreathed in armor. And he should be smarter than he is. But his petty vengeance gets in the way. Yeah. So I don't remember exactly.

[00:28:34] Why was his pulse shield down temporarily? Was it so that he could use the grab boots? He could pick Darrow up. Because if he tried to touch him, it would just like fry Darrow's nerves. So he wanted to pick him up. And that's what I mean when I say like he's blinded by his vengeance. He was so pissy that Darrow beat down his house that he made himself completely vulnerable. Yeah. And died. Like an idiot.

[00:29:03] I mean, with Darrow as the student and him as the Proctor, he probably had this mindset that he was completely untouchable. And that was obviously proven very wrong. Yeah. And this only, you know, I know we talked about the myth of the Reaper spreading. This only helps. I mean, he gets known as the God Slayer or the Sun Killer after this too. On top of also just the Reaper. Yeah. And I have a question about how the Proctors work.

[00:29:32] When they're given these different titles, like he's Proctor Apollo. Obviously, he didn't start off. His name is not Apollo. Is that a title that they keep moving forward? Like they continue to be Proctors? Or is it just... It depends. So like, as you know, certain Proctors get promoted in the society. Some don't.

[00:29:58] If they don't get promoted, but they also don't get demoted, then they stay Proctor, obviously. And that's like their title, I guess. But if they, you know, if they don't become Proctor anymore, then they don't have that title. You know? It's kind of just their job, I guess. It's weird to explain the Red Rising like the system. Yeah. It's kind of like a stepping stone in their career more than anything.

[00:30:27] Like you don't want to end up as a Proctor. That's not like the most prestigious job for someone. You want to be a Proctor and you want your house to win. And when your house wins, you get stuff. Yeah. Interesting. All right. What did you think about Daryl proclaiming this assault on Olympus being next when you first read it? I thought this was absolutely batshit crazy. It reminds me a lot of...

[00:30:53] This is just a different connection I made because I'm a pretty big metal fan. It reminds me of the Bring Me the Horizon song called Kingslayer. And in the song they keep bringing up like Destroying Castles in the Sky, it just flashes through my brain whenever I listen to that song. I see Darrow flying up to Olympus and doing his shit up there. Yeah.

[00:31:15] I think that this is the part of this book that really got me familiar with how good Pierce Brown is at doing these insane plot twists or subversions of our ex-girlfriend. Expectations in such a skillful way. I think you can really easily do a plot twist or an expectation subversion in a way that's going to be...

[00:31:42] It kind of feels like it comes out of nowhere and it doesn't really make sense. But everything that he does in that vein, it just feels so well done and it just brings the stakes of the story up tenfold. And I love the way he does it. Right. I think in terms of the subversions, while this is a great one, my favorite one in this book though, it was the horses, dude.

[00:32:09] Because that was just so out of left field and we didn't have any precedent for it yet, you know? That's true. That's very true. The horses were a really great surprise. The information that Pierce Brown shares with the readers and withholds is really interesting to me. I think that he's very good at sort of getting a sense of what he should be telling us and what he needs to keep hidden for a little bit later. Well, yeah.

[00:32:38] Like, think about in the chapter before this, you know, he... Daryl goes through and he's like... In his internal monologue, he's like, uh, Pax and his soldiers are... You know, they're drunk as hell. They're tearing through our wine stores, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he like... I like when even the internal monologue is not like lying to the... Well, lying to the reader, I guess. Hiding information.

[00:33:02] Because it makes it just a better shock when like, oh shit, they knew what they were doing all along. Yeah, you don't always see what's going on in Darrow's head, which... It's a boon in a lot of situations.

[00:33:18] And I appreciate the fact that we're put in this position as readers in an observatory position more than watching the story unfold from Darrow's perspective. All the time, we get a lot of things withheld from us that make the story hit that much harder. So, great job, Pierce Brown.

[00:33:42] And I can say with certainty that these types of things are going to be a lot more prevalent in the future books in Golden Sun and Morningstar. And he just gets better and better at it. You can see that where he started in this book, he was really picking up a lot of those skills that he was going to use later on. And he just gets better and better with each iteration. But that's all I really have to say about chapter 41. Should we move on to 42?

[00:34:12] Yeah, I'm ready. I'll start us off. Sweet. And starts us off. Chapter 42, A War on Heaven. What a name. It's almost like they're going to go fight people in the sky or something. I don't know. But the chapter opens up with a confused Severo asking Darrow, where the hell you got these grab boots? And he laughs his ass off as soon as he finds out they're from Fichner and that Fichner's like tied up in the dungeons of Apollo's castle.

[00:34:40] You know, they have a relationship. That's for sure. And Darrow, wreathed in Apollo's recoil armor, pulse fist, razor, helmet, and pulse shield, decides to tie the Howlers and Severo to him. And they fly up to Olympus together. All eight of them, I think. I can't remember how many Howlers there are at this point, so I might be lying. But Darrow tells them, you know, they're prioritizing Jupiter.

[00:35:09] But they land to meet Proctor Venus. And she's like half naked because she's waiting for Apollo to come up because they're having an affair. And so, you know, in true Darrow fashion, they tie her up, gag her, and leave the window open so she can deal with the cold. Next up, they find Juno in the baths. They stun her with a scorcher. After that, they find Vulcan. And they interrogate him and Juno for information on Jupiter's location.

[00:35:37] And they move forward with the tied up and gagged Proctors in tow. It's got to be pretty cold up there in that castle with the window open. I mean, they're high up in the sky. Yeah, I mean, it's still like... Well, I guess it's like spring now, but it's still like in the colder parts. And then, yeah, being, you know, 1,000, 2,000 feet in the air, it's going to be just a bit chilly.

[00:36:06] Just a little frigid. No, I'm sure they've got some nice heating going on. They've probably got the heated floors, fancy shit going on. But once you open that window, all bets are off. Yeah, I mean, you're letting all the hot air out. Come on. You are letting all the hot air out. It's kind of ridiculous. You know what? The heating bill has got to be crazy after Darrow left that window open. Honestly, I think it might be the craziest heating bill anyone's ever seen.

[00:36:36] It very well could be. I mean, just think about how much energy it takes to keep that thing in the sky, too. It can't be worth it. No, they're literally doing it because it looks cool. That's it. You got to respect that they're doing it for the drip. Yeah. I mean, we are talking about the Reaper of Mars. He does everything for drip and aura. Okay. He is. And I hate to use this term, but he is aura farming this whole series. Okay.

[00:37:06] Yeah. Dude. Okay. I hate using brain rot terms, but like, it's true. It's what he does. We both need to get off of TikTok. It's ruining us. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Steve keeps sending me even worse brain rot on Instagram. So I just need to destroy my phone. Cast it into the fire. You cast it into the fire. Exactly. No. You know. Shut up. Shut up. That's mine. I found that.

[00:37:35] You did find that one. Did you know? Even though it's Isildur's face saying it, it's Elrond's voice saying no in Fellowship. I found that out on TikTok the other day. Hugo Weaving did the voiceover for that, which is really funny. Yeah. Kind of silly. Because they said Isildur's... I don't remember the actor's name. I'm not going to lie. But they said that he, like, the voice just wasn't right for the line for how it was supposed to be, I guess.

[00:38:05] I don't know. Really weird. Imagine getting hired to a role and you only have one, not even just one line, but one word. And they're like, sorry, that sounds bad. Yeah. And they give it to someone else. That's crazy. It's really crazy. Yeah. What do you think about them tying up all these Proctors? I was surprised that they didn't just murder all of them. Okay, you bloodthirsty fuck. No, I don't think that they should.

[00:38:33] I was also surprised because Darrow has been on an absolute rampage these last few chapters. I mean, he already killed one Proctor. What's ten more and leave Fitchner alive because he's silly? Yeah, I guess killing all of the Proctors changes him from being an ambitious and skilled person into being a bloodthirsty monster, which there's a very fine line there. Very fine.

[00:39:01] But I think that it's a distinction that kind of matters to gold society. Yeah, and Darrow is definitely known to straddle that line. He's on both sides here and there. He's really on the murderer's side in some of these books. It's crazy. Yeah, he is a little bit of a monster at points in this series. Can't lie. Yeah, yeah. I love Darrow, though. He's such a great guy.

[00:39:28] Yeah, but as we get further in these books, we're definitely going to be talking more and more about the moral complexities of Darrow's actions and whether or not he's justified because there's a lot of points in the series that makes you kind of wonder, is Darrow doing the right thing? Which obviously his end goal is the right thing. It's also kind of crazy to me that they've got the Proctors, like they're just dragging them along with them. It's really interesting that they're not just tying him up and throwing him in a closet somewhere.

[00:39:59] I think it's definitely a move. I guess there's a few different ways that they could use it, though. They've got hostages and also it just shows that he's smart. I guess it's tactically sound to bring them with him because what if they escape? That's true. Yeah.

[00:40:45] That's true. It's also a little bit more theatrical. And then he's in a hole. And after Mercury takes down most of the soldiers non-lethally, he and Darrow engage in a duel that ends instantly with Darrow stunning him with the use of his pulse fist. And as soon as they drag Mercury away, Jupiter and Minerva come marching in, sending Darrow's people into walls, and the Reaper readies his sling blade and his razor. So this guy, this is just the moment where he's dripped out, ready to take on the world in this book.

[00:41:15] Yeah, the armor he's wearing, the recoil armor, I didn't put it in because last night I didn't think it was valuable. But now that I'm talking about it, if we're talking about the drip, I mean, wearing all gold armor, that's pretty drippy. I mean, Darrow knows what he's doing. He does. He I mean, he literally took Apollo's armor and that's got to send a strong message to the

[00:41:44] Proctor's too, being like, I literally killed one of your coworkers and now I'm wearing his clothes and I'm using his weapons. And I'm coming for you next. Yeah. It's really funny to think about them as coworkers and not as coworkers. I mean, they are, they are, but it's just kind of a, it's funny in my head. Yeah. Why do you think that Mercury takes down them?

[00:42:10] The who, why do you think that Mercury takes down most of Darrow's soldiers non-lethally? Well, um, one, he just doesn't want to be the bad guy. Like he doesn't want to get demoted or be punished by the higher ups of the society for like killing kids. Even though, I mean, they kind of allow a lot of crazy shit to happen, but that's beside the point.

[00:42:36] The other thing though, is that Mercury was the Proctor at the very, not the very start, I guess, but the start of the Institute who wanted to pick Darrow as his first pick for house Mercury. So I feel like there's also just that mutual respect. And that's why Darrow is like about to engage in the duel and then has mercy on him. Um, I shouldn't say has mercy cause Darrow would probably lose a razor fight with Mercury purely cause he doesn't know how to use a razor. Yeah.

[00:43:06] He hasn't had any formal training with the razor. So he doesn't as skilled as Darrow is naturally beating a trained expert is not necessarily something he's capable of. He was only really able to kill Apollo because of the mistake that he made. I don't think that in a one-on-one fair fight, he would have beaten Apollo at this point in the story. I think that he would have gotten his ass handed to him. Yeah.

[00:43:30] It's not something he can replicate until later on in the series when he's been trained and he's, he's done some shit. Yeah. He gets some training from, uh, someone who's decent with a racer, a little Jay nasty with it. You could say, yeah, he goes from rusty Susan to Jay nasty with his razor skills. All right. This is insane. Are we done?

[00:43:58] Can I, can we move on to the next thing after that one? Yeah, you can move on. Okay. I would like to thank you. So the Reaper, you know, go that he is tackles Jupiter and they, I mean, they have like a little bit of an exchange in the hallway, but I'm not going word for word on a sword fight in this. It's not too detailed. He tackles him. They go out flying out the window and Korean down about a hundred feet onto a mountaintop.

[00:44:26] And you know, the snow's blowing, they can't really see each other, but Jupiter is yelling at him and Dara yells back, you know, Jupiter's making threats that the arch governors obsidians also known as the stained will be coming soon to end the Reaper and Reaper notices a howl nearby. And you know, that's, that's gotta be something. But Dara, Dara tells them that the whole conversation is going to reach the drafters who are like the,

[00:44:56] the committee above the proctors for each house. And there's no one left to edit the HC recordings of the fight. So, you know, they're seeing everything completely raw as it's happening. And Dara, who realizes he can't beat Jupiter, as soon as the snow clears, you know, he tosses his sling blade and razor at Jupiter's feet and Jupiter, he's yapping, he's monologuing, whatever. And Dara interrupts him telling Sever to do it.

[00:45:26] Suddenly the razor is picked up by invisible hands and slashes Jupiter's hamstrings. Dara won Olympus, the armory, which is filled with pulse weapons, armor, and razors has been secured. They've won the day. Wow. All right. Dara might be him. I would say that this is definitely the point where he becomes that guy. I mean, he, what a plan.

[00:45:54] I mean, throwing down your weapons, acting like you're a beat just to have your, your little goblin slash the guy's hamstrings with a razor. What a, what a move. Yeah. Sever always comes in clutch, whether it's him jumping out of a horse or slicing Jupiter's hamstrings. He's always a integral part of the plan. Yeah. I don't think the Reaper would, uh, do all the stuff he does without, without Severo of the goblin.

[00:46:24] Yeah. This is the first introduction that we get to the idea of the stained, correct? Yes. Yeah. They're going to be very important later on. They're the best of the best when it comes to the obsidians. They are, they're basically, uh, imagine obsidians who have gone through absolute hell and came out the other side and are now these elite forces, even more elite than a typical obsidian, which is pretty crazy.

[00:46:54] Uh, they're absolutely insane. And there's one particular stained who we get to spend a lot of time with in golden sun. And he's one of my favorite characters in the book. So we'll be talking about him when we come back from our break. Yeah. He's pretty awesome. Great. I love talking about him. Absolutely. And Jupiter's death or not death. Does he die? No, he survives. Okay.

[00:47:23] Proctor, even though Daryl goes on an absolute, like, it seems like he's going on a killing spree. He, he knocks most of them out, you know, obviously Jupiter's going to be on a bit of a recovery with missing his hamstrings now, but he'll he's alive. I want to say he at least is mentioned in book three. Okay. That was going to be my next question is if he survived this whole endeavor, does he ever come back?

[00:47:53] Because I have not seen him yet. And it seems like he would have a bit of a vendetta to say the least against. I think it is in book three and I, I can't tell you the context, but yeah, I want to say you're close to it. Okay. Um, it's, it's, it's something because now that I'm remembering like more, cause it's obviously been a while. I've read, you know, 15 books since the red rising series.

[00:48:21] And now it's kind of, it's far back in my brain, but this is, I want to say he fights him in book three. The only proctor that is super important and integral to the story is Fitchner. Yes. Fitchner is a very important guy. And now that they've got all the pulse weapons, the armor, they've got razors.

[00:48:45] Darrow's people are just completely stacked with every possible advantage that they could get. And the only question that I had at the end of this chapter is what's Mustang been up to Mustang. Um, she is in the castle. She was kidnapped. I know what you're thinking. That's next chapter. Yeah. So some interesting things are going to be happening.

[00:49:14] Um, yeah. And that's, that's all I want to say about that. But once again, the howlers doing their howler thing, um, howling, howling. Howling. They do howl just a bit. It's kind of crazy. Just a little bit. But I do like the fact that Darrow is mostly just incapacitating people and not actually killing them. Yeah.

[00:49:41] I like the use of this, the pulse fist, which I don't know if I, if we explained it on here, basically think of like the Mandalorian gauntlets. That's, that's the easiest way to imagine a pulse fist in my eyes. Okay. Okay. Cause you know, they can like, you know, they got like the little missiles that they can shoot out and I'm, I'm sure there are other uses. I know there are other uses, but I'm trying to think of ones that are close to this. Yeah.

[00:50:09] Well, like he can shoot like little stun bullets out. So I'd assume he can shoot lethal ones. Yeah. It's been a minute and Darrow doesn't use pulse weaponry too much. He's a big fan of his razor. He loves his sling blade razor. Richard, what were your overall thoughts on these two chapters? Um, two of my favorite chapters in the book. It's crazy. It's batshit insane.

[00:50:39] It's not what I was expecting one bit, but it, I mean, it worked clearly. I think this is what, this is what made me say, yeah, I'm a hundred percent going to read the next five books. Yeah. And I think each book has moments like this. I think they're a bit more spread out in later books, like golden sun. You'll hear me talk about the gala extensively. I love the gala.

[00:51:06] It was peak, but there's like three other things that are that level that happened in that book. Morning star, maybe less so iron gold, less so, but dark age and light bringer are, I would say light bringer is his best book so far. Interesting. Okay. So you think that the second trilogy gets even better? Yeah. Iron gold is a lot of setup, but it's also like, it's going over what the hell has happened

[00:51:35] since morning star. It's like a 10 year time skip. So there's obviously some, some information to be covered. Yeah. Interesting. All right. Well, I think my favorite thing about these set of chapters was getting to spend a little bit more time with the jackal because he's one of the more interesting characters to me in this whole story. Yeah. I think his, what he does in the next two books are crazy.

[00:52:04] I mean, his stuff in the second trilogy is also wild, but he's more of a force in books two and three and he gets a lot more, uh, not screen time, I guess page page time. Yeah. Yeah. Invest a lot in the silver market. He, he does invest a lot in the silver market and he doesn't shut up about it, but that's all right. I mean, he's, he's a smart dude. He's just evil is the problem.

[00:52:34] Yeah. He is really evil, but you can, he's got a very cunning mind and he's able to outmaneuver a lot of the characters in these books. And he also has a really interesting position within the story. He plays a lot of parts. Yeah. Yeah. I'm with you on that. He definitely, I'd say he peeks out sometimes I shouldn't say sometimes, but he peeks out

[00:53:01] as like a bit of an unlikely ally in certain situations, which is weird and very unexpected. Yes. He, like you said, he's a force, not only in the way that he's like powerful, but he's a force. Like he can, he can move things along. Like he, he knows how to get shit done. So yeah. Yeah. And he's like, I'd say he's obviously we've drawn a lot of parallels, but he's like the anti Reaper.

[00:53:31] Yes, he really is. He's got, he operates a lot more in the shadows. Whereas Darrow is kind of out in the open and making moves. And Jackal is just pulling the strings with a lot of stuff. So they do have that relationship where they're kind of complete opposites, but they're, they both have power in their own specific ways. Yeah.

[00:53:59] Um, that's all I really had. Yeah. I think, um, honestly, I think that's all we got. It was a pretty, I feel like for only being two chapters, it's about the same length as our normal episodes. So that's, yeah, there's definitely a lot of information to cover, but I'm, I'm glad that I didn't extend it last night because it would have either been, we go to 43, but then it

[00:54:27] wouldn't be a great place to leave off on. Um, and also we'd only have one chapter for our final episode. So I feel like this is a better way of organizing it a little bit. I agree. Um, well, thank you everyone for listening. And before we let you all go, I just want to give a quick shout out to all the other podcasts in the network. First of all, to the ones who make all of this possible, our parent podcast, the Lorehounds. They've got a lot of great coverage going on right now.

[00:54:56] They wrapped up their Dune Prophecy coverage a little while ago and they're releasing some new stuff. They've always got great content coming out. There's never, never really a dull moment ever on their channel. Their feed always has new and exciting content. Most recently they released a Wicked part one review. They did a Joker Foilie Adieu recap, which I was listening to that.

[00:55:23] And Alicia and Jean were really hilarious on that. They're talking about it and critiquing it quite a bit. And they're going to be doing some coverage pretty soon with Properly Howard movie review on the show Severance, which is going to be on its own feed. So if you're on the Lorehounds feed, if you're on the Properly Howard feed, you're going to need to follow the Severance podcast feed, which all of these shows are going to be linked in the show notes. So don't worry about trying to go and find those on your own. They're just going to be right in the description.

[00:55:54] Also in the network are excellent podcasts like Wool Shift Dust, where Alicia and her co-host Luke, they are covering the new season of Silo. And it's the season is really awesome. I've been enjoying it a lot and I've been enjoying Alicia and Luke's coverage. They've got a lot to say. Alicia's always got connections to the books and just a little bit more insight than I would ever have on the story. So they're really entertaining. A really great duo. Go check them out.

[00:56:21] Alicia's also got her Star Wars Canon Timeline podcast, which I believe is on a hiatus at the moment, but should be coming back very soon. Rings and Rituals, also in the network. And on that podcast, Marilyn Arpikila, the Tolkien scholar of this network, she and her co-host Dr. Sarah Brown, they went and they covered all of the Rings of Power season one, looking at it through the lens of Ritual.

[00:56:48] And I know that they've got some plans to do season two at some point. I think that they are just waiting for a time when both of their schedules are going to allow for them to cover that because they put a lot of effort and thought into that podcast. Properly Howard movie review is still going strong on their new season, which is a few good films, which they're all movies that star the cast of a few good men, I believe is the premise. It's really funny. They did the Batman.

[00:57:17] They are doing a few other movies. So go check them out. And they're going to be on the severance podcast feed as well. And last, but certainly not least, the newest affiliate, Nevermind the Music. Nevermind the Music is going through lots of different songs and genres of music. Mark and Nicole go over the technical aspects, the psychology behind the lyrics. And most of all, I think that the two of them are a really funny duo and they're able to make things accessible for the listener.

[00:57:46] I don't know anything about music or psychology and I still have a great time listening. So go give them a listen. And all of these podcasts are going to be in the show notes, as I mentioned before. So thank you all for listening. And we will see you one last time in the Institute.