Ramblers Rising - Red Rising Finale & Wrap-Up

[00:00:04] Hey everyone, David here. The wait is over, Severance is back. The Lorehounds are teaming up with Properly Howard to bring you comprehensive coverage of Season 2. Join John, Anthony, Steve, and myself each week as we dive into this amazing show.

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[00:00:46] Plus, exclusive access to our upcoming bonus episodes that we'll be announcing soon. The early reviews are incredible. Apple's marketing push is huge, and we cannot wait to explore this season with you. And unlike the music dance experience, you don't need Mr. Milchick's permission to join us. Don't forget, you can find the feed link in our link tree in the show notes, or just search Severance Lorehounds wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:01:15] Join us for what's shaping up to be an incredible season.

[00:01:19] And welcome back to Ramblers Rising, the podcast where two longtime friends talk about the world of books. I'm your host, Richard.

[00:02:04] 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. Today, we're going to be going from chapter 43 until the very end of Red Rising, which I believe is just chapter 44. Yeah, it's just one more chapter, but more dramatic that way. Very dramatic. So, Richard, before we get into how people can contact us all that, how are you doing today? I'm doing fantastic.

[00:02:31] You know, I got this outline done early by my standards. It was only like 1.30, not 3 in the morning. That is pretty incredible. I was a little bit surprised when I woke up to the outline and saw how early it was in. Yeah, and I wasn't really tweaking as much, although there is some random stuff in there. But that's, you know, you know, that's whatever. How are you doing though, sir? I'm doing pretty good. I am back in Washington, D.C., longer in Buffalo. Yeah. In the land of Richard.

[00:03:00] Yeah, just say you hate me. I get it. Yeah. Well, that's obvious. Anyone who listens to this podcast knows we all hate each other here. Especially that Chase guy. Unbelievable. No, no, he just hates on you. I hate on him, too. Dude, last night he texted me before I went to work, too, asked if I had to go to work. I said yes, and he's like, I want to get on and play Marvel Rivals with you. And I said, okay, I'll be on after I get out of work. And this guy was not on.

[00:03:30] You know what? I'm not surprised. He's always pulling some bullshit like that. He really is. And he never read Red Rising, so he can't be on the podcast with us. That's very true. He never did, did he? He's a dirty rat bastard. He really is. But if you've read Red Rising, say that five times fast.

[00:03:50] If you've read Red Rising and you want to get a hold of us and let us know what you thought about it, since Chase is not here to let us know what he thinks about it, Richard, what are some ways people can do that? Oh, we've got a slew of ways, of course, as always. The first of which is going to be our email, which is radioactive at thelorehounds.com. We also have a channel set up for radioactive ramblings in the Discord server for the Lorehounds, where you can send us a message, chat about the show.

[00:04:17] Use the contact form or leave us a voicemail at thelorehounds.com. And consider giving us a follow on Blue Sky at Radioactive141. And we'd appreciate a rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, whatever else you might listen to us. It helps other listeners like you find us. It does. And if you are a fan of our Red Rising content or any of our other stuff, please consider supporting us on Patreon, which is patreon.com slash radioactive ramblings. You don't have to memorize that.

[00:04:46] It's going to be right in the show notes. But for as little as $2 a month for early and ad-free podcasts, exclusive content, including coming soon, Fallout Lore episodes. So we're going to be getting on that probably during the lull between Castlevania and the start of Invincible. So, yeah. I'm excited for those. I love Fallout Lore and I miss doing them. I also miss doing them. Those were a lot of fun. Yeah.

[00:05:13] But, Richard, we're at the end of Red Rising. This is a little bittersweet. Oh, it's bittersweet. All right. This is some crazy stuff going on. It's well, you know, we left off on such a such an insane moment of Darrow taking Olympus. Like. What the hell? It was pretty crazy. I think that 90% of why I read these books is to see Darrow executing Mustang plans. I don't like it.

[00:05:41] Well, I like Darrow executing Mustang plans, but I like Darrow executing Darrow plans. Darrow plans are better than Mustang plans. They're so out there and wild. Yeah, they are. But Mustang just. She's got it down. She's got it down. She knows what she's doing here. She does have it down, but she never would have had a bunch of kids sleep inside some dead horses. So, I mean, you know. That's true. Mustang couldn't do that. Couldn't even imagine that. Would you have imagined it?

[00:06:11] No, that's fucking gross. You wouldn't have thought about Star Wars for a minute and been like, oh yeah, Han Solo slept inside the Tauntaun from Warm. You can sleep inside a horse. They weren't doing it for warmth, though. It's like I wouldn't have thought about it in that frame of reference. You're telling me that you wouldn't have thought sleep inside or not even sleep inside. Hide inside dead animal. That wouldn't have been something that came to mind for you. No, that wouldn't have, dude. That's fucking nasty.

[00:06:38] I guess that's where we find ourselves with a difference of opinion. Clearly. Well, Mustang didn't think of it either because she was surprised as hell. But dead animal hiding aside. Yeah. Chapter 43, The Last Test. Richard, do you want to start us off? Do you want me to start us off? What do we want to do here for our final episode? I don't know. Up to you. All right. I guess I'll start us off since you put in all this wonderful work on the outline.

[00:07:05] Now I can tear it apart and make sure that I read it in a way that ruins all of your hard work. Oh, right. You are an expert at that. I really am. Yeah. So Dara finds and wakes a sedated Mustang in the bedrooms of Olympus, feeling guilty about his betrayal of Eo. He explains what has happened since she was taken and she responds, taking him up on his offer to take their army and finish the jackal off, remarking that he shouldn't be so trusting.

[00:07:34] But he bats it away with a kiss. I'm not reading that. I'm not reading what you just put. You want to read it out to the people? Yeah. It says the Rizzler of Mars because Dara has that rizz. If you're in the audience listening to that, I wouldn't blame you if you just unsubscribed from the feed and we'd learn separate ways. I wouldn't either.

[00:07:58] The Reaper's army, they loot Olympus and Darrow has several take control of the HC transmitter so that they can splice different clips together telling the story that Darrow wants the drafters to know. So Darrow's kind of controlling the media here. Yeah. And that's super awesome and epic, right? I mean, no one has ever abused that in real life. Yeah. I mean, he's decided that he wants his story out there.

[00:08:24] And Richard, do we have any idea what exactly he wants the message to be? We do. But the thing is, we're going to talk about that. It comes up in the last chapter. So like, okay, I would be fine talking about like what you thought and what I thought was going to happen at this point because that's fine. But I don't want to just confirm or deny, you know? So when I first read this, what I thought was going to go over the HC transmitter, I thought it was going to be pretty basic.

[00:08:51] He was either going to release information about the cheating that was going on or he was going to release just straight up footage of the siege on Olympus. Which either way, it would have shaken their trust in the system to see this going on, right? Yeah. To see someone completely breaking the system. Yeah. From its core form of school. So sort of breaking and shaking the trust in the system. Yeah. That would be my main thought of what they were trying to do here.

[00:09:20] But I'm curious, what were you thinking at the time that you read this? Pretty much the same thing. Like, I feel like that's the only way it looked like it would have gone, right? Is he releases that the arch governor was helping his son cheat and that he took over Olympus because he's that fucking guy. I mean, he is that guy. That's undeniable. If you had the power to be broadcasting anything, what would you be broadcasting out there? Um, probably like a podcast where me and a couple of my friends just yap about stuff.

[00:09:49] That would probably be it, honestly. See, I don't think that's true. I think that you would be out there broadcasting Cosmere lore to the universe if you could. Well, true, true. I love Cosmere lore, dude. It's so beautiful. It would be a 24-7 Cosmere lore broadcast on the HC. Yeah, I'd be talking about Hoyd for days on end. Dude, I love him. He's so silly and he literally killed God. So, you know, there's that.

[00:10:19] I think that as of today when we're recording, this is completely off topic, but I think as of today when we're recording this, the new season of Severance is starting. Some pretty good sci-fi. Oh, you know what starts tomorrow? As of today when we record? New season of Nocturne. New season of Nocturne. And we will be covering that. Are they releasing all the episodes at once for Nocturne? Have we talked about this before? I would assume so. But if they don't, then whatever. True. I would almost rather have them split it up. True.

[00:10:47] I like when they do a part one, part two, where it's the first four episodes or whatever, and then the second four. Because then we could cover, you know, since they're shorter episodes, unlike Invincible, we could cover two, three, four episodes at once. Whereas Invincible, since they're like an hour long. But yeah, I think that the week to week episodes are not even week to week necessarily, but just a multiple drop season is so much better for us as podcasters because it keeps the conversation alive in the community.

[00:11:15] Maybe people are talking about it from one time frame to another. And we get a little bit more time to get coverage out and we can talk about it in more depth. So I personally like that set up more than just a straight up drop. But considering it's a Netflix show, it probably will just be a drop. Yeah, I'm hoping that they learn from the fact that Arcane was one of their best shows, though. And maybe they keep going with that system of dropping where they drop it in parts just because that really worked, in my opinion.

[00:11:43] I don't think a single person thinks it didn't. And that way, when we're doing like our first part wrap up, you know, it's not like everyone's watched all eight episodes or all ten episodes, you know, whatever's out. In addition to that coming out, we watched Nosferatu the other day. Did watch Nosferatu the other day? What a movie. What was your main takeaway? Freaky. It was freaky. It was freaky as fuck. It was not a love story like that guy, like two seats behind us said.

[00:12:13] That was crazy. And it was not boring enough to sleep through the entire way like the guy two seats away from us was also doing. Snoring the entire movie. It was a great movie. You know, freaky. But Bill Skarsgård's portrayal of Count Orlok was amazing. I mean, I thought he did a great job. I enjoyed the character redesign that they did from the original. Yeah. Obviously, Nicholas Holt, he's always great. I think this is like his second vampire movie in the last year because I know he was in the Nick Cage one.

[00:12:43] Oh, was he? Yeah. I think Nick Cage was Dracula and he was Dracula's assistant. But it was a comedy. It looked funny. I just never saw it. Are you a Nick Cage fan? We're not talking about Nicholas Cage right now. No way. Are you a Nicholas Cage fan? Just it's a simple question. I think he's a silly guy. I do want to see whatever that horror movie was that came out in the last year that he was in. The Five Nights at Freddy's like ripoff. No, not the Five Nights at Freddy's ripoff. I can't think of what the hell it was. Long legs.

[00:13:13] Long legs. That's what it was. Oh, where he's playing the rock star with all the plastic surgery. Yeah. And he's like insane. Yes. I want to see that one as well. I think that Nicholas Cage is such a 50-50 actor. There are some movies that he's in where I'm like, wow, he was really something in this. Like he was good. And there are other movies that I see where I'm like, this is a Nicholas Cage film. Yeah. I really liked The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. That one was fun.

[00:13:42] That was the one with Pedro Pascal. That was a good one. I can't remember the name of the movie, but I enjoyed his performance in the one where he plays an arms dealer. It was a little bit more serious. I don't know if I've seen that. Yeah. It came out a while ago. It's not a recent movie, but he plays an arms dealer and he's pretty good in that. Yeah. Nicholas Cage kind of is like the Weird Al Yankovic of movies. I would say that's true. I mean, he was Ghost Rider for God's sake.

[00:14:13] He was. I always forget about that. Ghost Rider. He stole the Constitution or the Declaration. What did he steal? The Declaration of Independence? He stole the Declaration of Independence, which had a secret map on the back. And it was a movie. I hear that they're going to have him starring in the Red Rising. Oh my God. Shut up. Yeah. He's going to be Lornau Arcos. No, he's going to be Darrow. Oh, he's going to be. I thought it was going to be like Tom Hollander, Chris Pratt. I was hoping for that, honestly.

[00:14:44] I mean, he could be. It could be one of those. Wait. Dwayne The Rock Johnson as Darrow. No. The Rock is Severo. Oh, The Rock is Severo. Okay. Actually, yeah, that makes more sense. Since Severo is bald. Severo's not bald, you fucking lying piece of shit. Severo is bald. How dare you talk about not only my, but also your goat like that? Well, he can be my goat and still be bald. But you're telling lies.

[00:15:14] Darrow is bald in book six, though, at the start. That's just not true. You haven't read book six. No, it literally is. It literally is. He's got radiation poisoning, so he has no hair. I just wish you would stop lying on our podcast. I'm not lying on Darrow's name. I would never lie on Darrow's name. My honor remains. Okay. Mr. Olympic Knight over here. Yeah. Hell yeah. They.

[00:15:42] I forgot that we were even doing a structured podcast at this point. We've been talking for a while. It's just Yapathon. I got the next one, though. Don't worry. Can't trust you to not mess it up. Take it away, Richard. Oh, I'm going to take it away. All right. We get to talk about Fitchner. They let him out of the dungeons and they fill him in. And this is where he tells them that they need to meet three conditions before he really. Before Darrow gets the victory royale. And first off, he has to deal with Cassius.

[00:16:13] Wait. Nope. Nope. Keep going. Just gloss over that. We're going to talk about this later. I know we're going to talk about that later. So they need to deal with Cassius, whether that's like kill him in a duel, which we learned last time ain't going to happen. Or, you know, he could just imprison Cassius, something like that. You know, he needs to be the primus of House Mars for it to be considered a win. Second off, they need to see how the HC recordings are received because Fitchner doesn't know what Darrow did.

[00:16:44] And, you know, he could completely like upheave gold society, depending on what he puts out. Could even take the Arch Governor out of his position, which would be kind of crazy. And the final thing that he needs to do is deal with his army that Darrow just sent off with the Jackal's twin sister, Virginia O. Augustus. Now, now what the hell? What a plot twist. Am I right? Yep.

[00:17:13] This is quite the plot twist. Learning that they are indeed twins. Yeah. And what a good reveal. Yeah. So real quick, I know it's like in the big trunk, but we got to talk about just this. What was going through your head at this point? Like what? What did you think was going to happen? So at this point, I was like, shit, Darrow is about to be betrayed. Yeah, I really.

[00:17:39] I thought this book really likes to not even just this book, but all of the Red Rising series really likes to make you think, oh, shit, Darrow is about to be betrayed by his. Insert his special relationship here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's about to be betrayed by her. Yeah. And then it turns out it wasn't like that.

[00:18:03] So at this point, it hadn't happened enough times for me to recognize that pattern and be like, oh, no, he's got this. It's fine. But we're early enough on in the story to know that or for me to think that there's still a possibility that Darrow is going to be betrayed. Yeah. For me, my biggest thing is as an audiobook listener, I wasn't looking to see how much time I had left in the book. So I didn't know if there was five chapters and shit goes crazy.

[00:18:31] Shit didn't go crazy, unfortunately. But I mean, I didn't know. I was kind of expecting Mustang to betray him, honestly, just because it seems to be the way of gold society. Yeah. So what are you doing if you find out that your girlfriend slash lover's father is actually the man who killed your wife? I mean, Darrow does not quit it. Darrow stays. He does not care because she's different.

[00:18:57] Not only that, but her brother has engaged in cannibalism. And killed one of Darrow's closest advisors. Yes, yes, yes. The jackal is a bastard. Yeah. Now, I can say with absolute certainty that I don't know anyone in real life whose brother-in-law has committed cannibalism and whose father-in-law murdered their first wife. So I don't have any real life experience to draw on.

[00:19:24] But if I were to put myself in Darrow's shoes, I would say it might be a deal breaker for me. You just haven't lived enough, clearly. I would say since she's just so awesome and cool, you got to stay with her. I mean, this is Mustang we're talking about. Come on. She's super based. You show up to the family barbecue and you got those two there.

[00:19:54] I don't know. That just might ruin it for me. Damn, that sucks for you, I guess. Yes. So you're... I'm thugging it out. I mean, it is what it is, you know? Well, I guess, again, difference of opinion between Richard and I. Richard has the wrong opinion and I have the right opinion, as per usual. Oh, is that true? Okay. My bad, guys. This is when Darrow, though, you know, he flees Olympus and the surrounding area with the Howlers in tow.

[00:20:21] They make a desperate attempt to get to Mars Castle before Virginia can meet up with the Jackal and give him, you know, weapons of technology. She's got people armed with razors and grav boots and armor. And as Darrow returns, his former armies are sobbing just at the sight of him, descending from Olympus, wreathed in golden armor with a razor at his side, born out of myth, essentially. They're sobbing? That's a little much.

[00:20:50] That's the way that Pierce Brown puts it in the book, Aaron. So take that, idiot. That's a little much. It's a little much, don't you think? No, he's the Reaper, dude. He's that guy. They thought... Okay. Think about it from their perspective, right? They think that Cassius has run him through with a sword at this point. Like now, you know, people talk. It's not public knowledge, but most people, like, kind of can figure it out. So they think that he died.

[00:21:19] And he has essentially come back to life, descending from the sky with golden armor and a razor. Like, come on. I guess you could say that it makes a little bit of sense, but... No. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I'll give him that. I'll give him that. Yeah. They can cry at his return. But... Again, he's built up, like, a mythical reputation in the Institute. I mean, he's the gory damn Reaper of Mars. I'll buy it for now.

[00:21:49] But if I see one more thing that sort of shakes my belief in what's going on, you'll be hearing from me. Oh, I bet you will. Loser, lameo, wannabe. God. All right. Continue on. After he descends like a god from the sky, because he is one, he reunites with Roke. And he also meets with Pollux, who begs him not to kill Cassius. And says, even though they had it in the Institute, it could be worse. At least we're not Reds, right?

[00:22:19] And that's crazy. But Cassius and the Reaper meet one final time for this book. And Cassius walks out after declaring a blood feud against the Reaper, spinning blood in his face and ceding control of House Mars to the Reaper. That's chapter 43. Shit was kind of crazy. It was kind of crazy. Cassius calling a blood feud. Yeah, his family's already in, like, a big one. I feel like they should just calm down with the blood feuds. I mean, what's one more?

[00:22:48] If you're already in one blood feud, just adding a couple more on. Which, by the end of this book, I feel like we're about to get to it, so it's not that big of a spoiler. The blood feuds kind of merge. Yeah. Darrow gets in good with the Augustus House. And the blood feud, I would say, gets worse at that point. Just a little bit. I mean, not only did he kill Cassius' brother, but now he's working for the guy who has had an intergenerational feud with his father.

[00:23:18] That seems like a lot, keeping up an intergenerational feud. How much of a hater can you be? Like, what the fuck? Yeah, how much of a hater? It makes me wonder, what would someone have to do to me that I and all of my descendants would hate on their line forever and ever? Honestly, just be yourself, Aaron. It'll happen one of these days. Oh, really? Yeah, I'm getting ready to declare a blood feud. Don't worry.

[00:23:44] And what would be the final straw that would cause you to declare the blood feud? Oh, that's a good question. I don't know. Something involving hit-a-lick-bob crash-out pants for sure. I mean, you are kind of hit-a-lick-bob crash-out pants. Yeah, I'm driving down there right now. Blood feud time. I'm ready. Does spitting blood in someone's face, is that required for the blood feud, or did he just do that for dramatic effect? I mean, it might be- like, we don't know the lore on blood feuds in the Red Rising Burst, so I'll give you that. So maybe.

[00:24:14] But also, Cassius is a drama queen. I mean, this guy loves creating shit. You know, I don't think his honor really remains in this moment. That was kind of dishonorable. Well, this is before he became the GOAT, alright? You don't understand. Cassius, that was a little bit of a dirty play there, spitting blood in someone's face. Well, he becomes the GOAT in book three, so I- you know. You wouldn't know, though. You're not at that part where he becomes the GOAT. I'm not at that part.

[00:24:43] He is a very kind individual in the part of the book where I'm in. Oh, I think I know where you're at. Oh, wait, yeah. Never mind. I know exactly what you're talking about. Holy shit. So, even though Cassius is making lots of dishonorable moves, Richard still seems to think that he's an honorable guy. And, yeah. That's all I really have to say about that. What do you have to say about Pollux? Pollux is a loser, dude. I hate him. I've hated him the entire series.

[00:25:14] I don't think that he's that important, though, right? I mean, it's been a minute since I read the first trilogy, so you're going to have to- I don't think he shows up even once in Golden Sun. Oh, my God. And I don't think he shows up at all. He might show up in the second era for a few scenes. What do you think that him descending from the sky, his people are weeping for him. He's in his golden armor. He's got his all of this fancy technology, fancy stuff.

[00:25:41] Do you think that this has created even more of a cult around him? Oh, of course. The Reaper using his- Okay, I called Cassius a drama queen. The Reaper is so much more of a drama queen. I mean, because he could- He didn't have to do it this way, right? He chose to descend from the clouds, and he didn't have to be wearing the armor. He was just coming back to reclaim his castle, essentially.

[00:26:07] But the way he did it was full of drama, and the way he has his howlers following him in the same fashion, it just makes for a very mythical scene. If you're going to be doing all that, I feel like you have to do it with some dramatic flair. Either do it with dramatic flair or don't do it at all. Yeah. That's my philosophy. That's so real, and Severe takes that and runs with it later on, as we know. Yeah, he really does.

[00:26:35] Do you think that Severe's whole howler-howling thing, is he doing that for shits and giggles? Or what do you think the thought process behind howling is? Well, at the start, it was more for shits and giggles, but now that it's become a trademark thing, that when you hear the howlers, you should probably just fucking run. Yeah. Now it's become something that they have to do, and they have to keep feeding into the myth, like how Reaper keeps feeding into the myth of the Reaper.

[00:27:04] Whenever I read stuff like this, I always think, where does the line get drawn between goofball behavior and genuine, like, myth starting? Um, I don't think there is a line, honestly. Because if I went outside and I started howling, that would be goofball behavior. I feel like you already do that. Oh, do I? I heard it from my apartment back when you were up here. So, when I do it, which is apparently frequently, uh, it's just goofball behavior. But when Severo does it, he's creating...

[00:27:33] Yeah, it's super awesome, and he's creating a myth. So, I'm just a little miffed at that. Yeah, you haven't gone on, like, quite as much of a generational run of, uh, I guess there's no other way to put this, murder in the cool way, though, because Severo's awesome. You don't know how many dead horses I've hidden in. You don't know that. Okay, but you didn't march across the valley, lose an eye, fuck up your leg really bad, all to get Darrow back. So... You really don't have any understanding of what I do on Saturdays, do you?

[00:28:03] All right, buddy. Fuck you. Seeding control of Mars to the Reaper. It's interesting to me that Cassius isn't a deather or dishonor kind of guy. Like, he gives it up. He does. And that's kind of surprising to me. I think that given his character development, given what we know about him, he seems like the kind of guy who would rather die than give up. And he becomes that person. He just hasn't had the time yet, you know? Yeah.

[00:28:32] I'd say he's that person by, by the end of Golden Sun. Like, he's that person now. I do think about the fact that at the end of the day, this is a game inside of a controlled environment at school. So even though us as the readers, we're kind of looking at it and the stakes are really high. But I wonder if Cassius and a lot of the other people involved in this who aren't sort of swept up in what the Reaper is doing.

[00:29:00] I wonder if they're still thinking about it as like, holy shit, how did this get so out of hand? This was supposed to be like a school assignment, basically. Yeah, I'm sure there are people who think it's out of hand, but I don't think they're showing it as much because they gotta act like they're not pixies. Yeah, true. Yeah, that's what I was getting at. I mean, a peerless scarred is dead. In and of itself, that's crazy. Yeah, Darrow stabbed him right in the eye.

[00:29:29] Yep, that's a first for anything in the Institute to have one of the Proctors be killed. So the stakes of everything are so shifted. What Darrow does here in the Institute, it's going to live on forever because there's no one who could come even close to pulling off what he's done in this short amount of time.

[00:29:50] We even see when he meets Lysander Alune for the first time in Golden Sun, the kid is idolizing Darrow. He's like, oh my god, you're the Reaper. You're the guy who did this, this, this, and this at the Institute. And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he is, oh my god, he's such a fanboy. It's crazy. I mean, aren't we all? I'm a Reaper and Goblin fanboy.

[00:30:17] However, then it's crazy given everything that Lysander does. He's a bastard. I hate him. Yeah, I mean, Reaper, Goblin, it seems like you just really like bald characters, which makes sense since you're bald in real life. Oh, okay, buddy. That's what all bald people say when they know that they're wrong. I'm actually not bald. I'm a fire risk at work. I am surprised no one's lit your hair on fire with a blowtorch on purpose.

[00:30:46] Well, we don't really use blowtorches. But this sparks from the well that are hot enough. Yeah, I don't know how it hasn't happened. Honestly, it happened to this one dude. Now, if it happens to me, it'll be known as pulling a Richard. But until then, it's pulling a Tom. I am going to light your hair on fire while you're sleeping tonight. I hope you know that. Well, it's not at work, so it won't count. It doesn't matter. You'll be bald and your hair will be burnt off. Don't make me bald, dude. I'll be able to sleep happily that night.

[00:31:15] Right. Yeah, you would. You fucking sicko. Knowing all is right in the universe. You know, it's not right just because you spoke it into existence with your lies. I'm just trying to correct a cosmic wrong. And you don't understand what I'm trying to do here. You think you're Sauron the way you're lying about me? I'm not the deceiver. I'm the truth teller. Yeah. Biggest lie I've ever heard. All right. I don't have anything more to say about Chapter 43. What about you? Yeah, I don't have anything more to say to you. So.

[00:31:45] I guess we can just end the podcast right here. I'll get AI Richard in here for the rest of it. Oh my God. AI Richard is not real. No one could recreate me. You, on the other hand, it's really. You're quite easy to recreate. Actually. Yeah. But he's lying on my name. But we're going to take a quick break before Chapter 44. So we'll be back. And we're back for Chapter 44. Richard, you want to start us off?

[00:32:14] The rest of Darrow's still loyal army returns with Tactus at the head. They've taken 90 new slaves. And the Reaper's defending armory is bolstered pretty heavily by that. They've got a few trusted soldiers scouting for the Jackal and Mustang. And they're wearing ghost cloaks so that they're invisible. And Darrow restructures his army completely to make Mustang's inner knowledge completely obsolete.

[00:32:39] And they stand on the ramparts, braced for an assault as Mustang and some of the army fly over with a bound, disarmed, and gagged Joker. Or not Joker. Joker. Holy shit. Jackal. I refuse to believe that wasn't on purpose. It actually was an accident, unfortunately. It'd be funnier if it was on purpose, because holy shit. I saw the J in the CK, and it just fit in my brain for a sec. Is there a C in Joker?

[00:33:09] Oh no! No, there isn't! So, I... I just feel like you're deliberately doing everything you can to try and bring up the Joker. I'm not committed to the bit on this one. I do think that you are just trying to get across to the audience that you loved Joker 1 and Joker Foyadu. So, I didn't actually see the second one. I thought the first one was pretty good, but I did not see the second one, so...

[00:33:39] You're not enough of a Gaga fan? Okay, listen, I am bumping Judas any chance I get, and a few other Lady Gaga songs, but I am not watching that movie. I'll watch it just for her. I'm not watching that movie. I suppose I'm just different. I feel like it's worth at least one watch, even if it's bad. Maybe. We'll see. Anyways, let me finish. God, I have like five more words to say. Okay, Joker boy. So, you know, they drop off the Jackal. The Jackal.

[00:34:09] Not the Joker. Okay, I know you guys all got really confused, because the Joker obviously is a huge Red Rising character. But no, we're talking about the Jackal. And she has delivered him as a gift to the Reaper. All right, there we go. I'm done with my part. Once again, Mustang proving that she is the most loyal and capable person that Darrow could possibly hope to have in his corner. Yeah, they call her the goat.

[00:34:36] Even betraying her own twin brother for him. Okay, he's kind of a loser, though. The twin brother is kind of a loser. We hate the Jackal of Mars. Adrius Al Augustus is a little bastard. Yeah, the Joker of Mars is a little bit of... He's not the greatest, and he has an interesting... The whole Augustus family, they've got a weird family dynamic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We...

[00:35:05] I really hate the Jackals' relationship with Mustang. It's so... It's really gross. He's a fan of his sister. I know he's a fan of his sister. That's why it's weird. It's nasty. His sister is not so much a fan of him. It gets worse, too. Like, I don't know how, but they make it so much worse. In a good way. Like, it's fitting for his character. Yeah.

[00:35:35] But it's worse. I... So, if you... Never mind. No, no. Continue. Come on, let's hear it. If you had to pick one character from Red Rising, from just the first book, just the first book, right? Uh-huh. And... Come on.

[00:36:03] And completely remove them from the story, who would you choose? So, like, are there consequences? Because there are characters that I absolutely despise that I would... Yes. There's going to be a butterfly effect if you remove the character. Like, the whole story gets changed to accommodate that character being gone from the story. Who would you pick to be gone? That's not an easy question. God dang. Uh... Do you have one that you would like to mention?

[00:36:32] Because I'm thinking for a while on this one. I think that if I were to remove a character... Tactus. Tactus, that's mine. Interesting Tactus. That'll have a lot of effects on Darrow. I would remove... Probably... This isn't going to make sense. And I can't really expand on it at this point. We can... Right. Maybe bring it back up when we're talking about Golden Sun. Yeah. I would remove from the whole story Lorna Alcar... Oh, Al Arcos.

[00:37:02] That's crazy. That actually would be a crazy what-if scenario. Oh my god. I think that it would be really interesting. I mean, even in the third... Not the third book. Like, the fourth and fifth books. And even, I want to say, in Lightbringer. He takes a lot of Lorne's teachings to heart. That's a crazy thing to take out of the story. I mean, that's a mentor. Yeah. But Richard. But Aaron.

[00:37:29] As dropships descend to the Institute, we learn that Mustang's older brother was killed by Carnus Aobolona. Another casualty of the blood feud between the Bologna and the Augustus. Severo then tells Darrow that they couldn't make out Darrow's last words to Apollo, which included bloody damn. And Darrow ponders what Severo might make of that, as he deleted the audio files anyways. Darrow.

[00:37:57] He's met by the Arch-Governor Augustus. And Darrow hints that he left no proof of foul play in the released recordings. And this is when Augustus offers him a spot in his family, one that would bring Darrow into the upper echelons of the society, making him an apprentice of the most powerful orient on Mars. As long as Darrow can swear that the rigging of the Institute is going to stay quiet. The two, they start talking about politics, morals, philosophy.

[00:38:26] And they both seem to almost play with each other during every exchange. Richard, what was going through your head at this moment? You know, obviously I was thinking like, is Darrow going to take this? Because obviously it would go so well for the Rebellion if he was in the Arch-Governor's retinue. However, he fucking hates this guy because he killed his wife. Only a slightly valid reason to hate someone. Right. That's, you know. Only slightly, yeah. Only a little justified.

[00:38:54] I mean, granted, he only knew EO for, what, 15 years? Like, whatever. That's true. I wonder, when Mustang's older brother was murdered, what do you think the price of silver was at the time? Shut the fuck up, dude! You're not talking about the... You know when they say the silver markets, they're talking about the color, silver. Not the markets of the ore, silver. Oh.

[00:39:22] Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. Like, the exact conversation, too. But not that kind of silver, when they say the silver markets. Well, interesting. I'm sure someone was investing in the silver market, though. I do wonder, yeah, how the silver market was going at the time. I wonder how the media companies are doing in Golden Sun, too. That'd be crazy if something happened. At this very moment, I really like the dynamic between Nero and Darrow.

[00:39:52] Darrow has to try so, so hard not to let his real emotions come through. And I just love the idea of him seething and trying to keep a calm, steady, emotional state so that he can move up the ranks a little bit in the world. Yeah. It's just, I would love to see it depicted on screen. Dude, I know.

[00:40:15] A Red Rising, I would say a show, honestly, just because I feel like movies for books don't ever get all the detail into it. But I think that a show of, especially the series, would be phenomenal. I mean, please, please give us a Red Rising show. I know he teased that there's something on the way. Please. It's just like Hollow Knight's Silksong. It'll never actually come out. How dare you bring up Silksong? Dude, I...

[00:40:45] We're talking about that game if it ever comes out. All right? I don't care. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. So in like 10 years, I guess? Yeah. If the... If... If Radioactive Rambling is still going 10 years from now, we'll talk about Silksong. Yeah. I don't know if you're going to be on it, though, bud. Anyways, Nero, he prods at Darrow for an answer and deciding that it's best for the Rising, Darrow renounces his fake family name and becomes a Lancer of House Augustus.

[00:41:16] Richard, what do you think about Darrow abandoning his fake dead family? You know, it's... What a choice. To abandon your totally real family that you were super close with for some random arch governor? That's crazy. I mean, why would you do that? After all that work that he put in for the sake of House Andromeda, now he's not even an Andromeda.

[00:41:46] So sad. Andromeda... Wasn't it Andromedus? Andromedus? Is it Andromedus? I don't know. It's not important like ever again, I think. Very true. Like, I'm not going to lie, but yeah. No, it's Andromedus. Okay. Andromedus. Poor guy who's forced to leave behind his Andromedus family name. Yeah. But he's also going to be a Lancer of the House Augustus, and that's pretty high up there.

[00:42:16] It is pretty high up there. Getting that kind of offer right out of the Institute, you know that he's made a name for himself. That's like going from college football straight on to the Bills. It's all about the Bills, baby. Well, the Bills aren't a very good team, so maybe it's more like... The Bills are in the playoffs right now. Don't even... Like, you actually can't justifiably slander the Bills right now. I can justifiably slander the Bills because they always... No, we're doing good.

[00:42:46] They always fuck it up, Richard. They're going to fuck it up. Shut up. We got it this year. That's what we say every year, and then at some point they forget how to play. I think it's this week is the deciding factor on the Super Bowl. I'm pretty sure. I don't know all of the stuff, though. I'm a casual Bills fan. Once the stakes start to get high, they stop playing well. I think this is the farthest they've made it, though.

[00:43:13] And this is like the best win record they've had since 92? Yeah. I think so. Something like that. We've got this, Aaron. Stop hating on the Bills. Josh Allen. Josh Allen is our Reaper of Mars, all right? You know, there are some days when you really piss me off, Richard. That's fair, but I'm right. I'm right.

[00:43:41] Josh Allen is the Reaper of Buffalo we're going to go with. He's the Reaper of... I don't think that Pierce Brown, Josh Allen, or anyone ever, has thought to say those words in that order. And I'm the first. I'm a visionary, I know. You're a pioneer. Some would say you're a herald of stupidity.

[00:44:08] I'm the herald of Second Trance, actually. Like my goat from the book. Oh, Richard. Oh, Aaron. You know what? What? If they ever do a live action Red Rising series, I think that you should petition for Josh Allen to play Darrow. I would. I could see it happening. And then Haley Steinfeld can be Mustang and it would be real.

[00:44:37] This is... You're really setting things up to be fantastic, aren't you? I really am. Because Josh Allen, as we all know, has some great acting ability. Has he ever acted before? No! I don't know. Sometimes... He's in commercials and stuff, obviously, but he's not acting. He's just being a goofy guy. Yeah. Sometimes people are double dipping into sports and the acting industry, so you never know. Yeah, like Terry Crews.

[00:45:05] That's all I really have to say about chapter 44. It was a pretty straightforward way to wrap up the book. So, Richard, do you have anything else to say before we move into our final thoughts, feelings, character, whatever's favorite moments of this episode? No, that's all I got. I mean, I liked the chapter, obviously. It was great. But... Ready to do our wrap-up of this book. Awesome. Richard, you want to start us off? What did you think about the end?

[00:45:35] I mean, when I read it, I was like, holy fuck, how is this happening? And now, not even just knowing what comes of it and everything and being further at the series, but now just based on all of the different books I've read that have some what-the-fuck moments, I'm not going to lie. It's a bit underwhelming to me. But it was great. You know, at the time, I thought it was one of the best book endings I've ever read. And I still think it's up there.

[00:46:03] Having just come off the back of reading the ending to Golden Sun, I can say with certainty that the ending to Golden Sun is a lot better than the ending to Red Rising. But I still like the ending to Red Rising. Yeah, this is widely considered to be the weakest book in the series, with book four following up. And then everything else, you can make a case for top four, like being any order, really.

[00:46:29] And I think it's a crazy thing to say that this is the weakest book in the series, because I mean, they're all amazing. And this is an amazing book. And I mean, obviously, one of them's got to be the weakest. And it's this one purely because of the scale isn't as great. And also his writing just, you know, he his writing evolved as he kept writing about these characters. Yeah, I would agree with that. His writing skills from one book to another really show improvement.

[00:46:58] Definitely. I don't know what he wrote other than the Red Rising series. I'm not super well versed on Pierce Brown's work, but you can tell he's gaining a lot of really critical writing skills as he goes through the series. And seeing that growth is I like seeing that. I'm with you on that. Any other thoughts? Not really. You know, like I thought it was a good ending and it definitely set up some crazy shit, though, of course, for the next book.

[00:47:24] And I'm glad that they skip the the Nate like the the ship battle institute for the most part. Yeah, they anything in the rest of the institute and the rest of his schooling gets kind of cut out. Yeah. And that's great. I think if we had another book of him going through essentially the exact same thing, but they're on spaceships would have just been redundant. Yeah. We don't need Harry Potter learning spells at Hogwarts for three books.

[00:47:54] Yeah. Yeah. I thought it was really interesting that Darrow is going to be working for his wife's killer. That's just got to eat at him. There's no way that he doesn't get up and start working and immediately think of that. That just has to be an all consuming thing for him at every every turn, I would imagine.

[00:48:15] Yeah, because I mean, you turn back the clock and remember all the all those weeks ago when we were talking about Darrow about EO's death. I mean, the guy just like ordered her to be hung. No emotion, no anything. Having to look at him and have probably a flashback to that moment every single time that you're looking at your employer. It's it's not a good situation.

[00:48:44] But another thing that I found interesting was Augustus and his son obviously don't want to be caught cheating. It seems like in gold society, cheating is OK as long as you don't get caught. Yeah, that's pretty much the vibe. Yeah. So it doesn't matter how much screwing over and cheating you do. You can pretty much just as long as you have a way of getting away with it.

[00:49:10] You're good to go, which I think is a pretty interesting idea. It almost reminds me this is kind of getting into where genre or not genre hopping, but we're franchise hopping a little bit. Are you familiar with how dark elf society works in the Elder Scrolls lore? No, but I'd like to be. So basically the great houses of the Dunmer, the dark elves.

[00:49:36] Are legally allowed to commit espionage and assassinations against each other to gain power. Oh, that's cool, I guess. Yeah. So it's like all part of the political process of the dark elves is to be carrying out political assassinations, like takeovers of of different companies or different places. So it's kind of interesting.

[00:50:05] And the way the golds operate reminds me a lot of the of the way that they operate. And the dark elves in the Elder Scrolls also have a very strict caste system with Argonians who are like lizard people as basically slaves in their society. Kind of an interesting parallel there. I would give this book like a seven. Yeah, fair enough. I think that Golden Sun was a solid nine.

[00:50:34] I don't know that there's been a 10 out of 10 in the series so far. I think that from what I've read, these are some pretty fantastic books. Yeah, I have my issues with a few like small details in them. So I will have to dock a few points. I think that the kind of Hunger Games, the young adult aspect of this book is what brought it down a lot for me because the other books aren't like that.

[00:50:58] Yeah, but it is an interesting development the way that Pierce Brown writes this book and he writes all of the other books as these massive political dramas. So it's yeah, it's a cool case study of how to change genre. Almost. You know, you got to get through the first book. It's it's not a slog necessarily, but it is definitely the roughest of the six that are currently out. As far as books being, you know, other books in the series being 10 out of 10s.

[00:51:26] There are two in my opinion, and that would be book five and book six. They just break the metric for me completely. I mean, Dark Age has some phenomenal political stuff going on and also some of like the most violent scenes he's ever written. And Lightbringer has all that combined with one of the most emotional, like gut-wrenching deaths I've ever read. And I will never forgive Pierce Brown for that.

[00:51:53] There's a lot that we can't forgive him for, including the death of Pax chapters later. And I'm still thinking about it. When I get you, Adria Salagustis. Oh, my God. He's he's dead. It's on site with Adria. He's one of my confront characters. It's him, Lysander Alune and Moash from Stormlight. That's that's my my murder list right now. Lysander. I can't believe you want to fight a little kid. Well, I don't want to fight. I don't want to fight books one, two and three Lysander.

[00:52:22] I want to fight books four, five and six Lysander. I just the same age as me. Everyone in the audience heard Richard say he wants to fight a child. You know what? If it prevents what happens in Lightbringer, I'm happy with that. I think that that's all I really have on this book. I really enjoyed it. Yeah, that's pretty much. And I'm looking forward to when we get to Golden Sun and looking forward to our new format where we go part by part. Yeah, I'll be better. Yeah.

[00:52:51] Richard, any final thoughts before we get into our outro? Siege of Olympus was goaded. The Cassius betrayal was crazy. You know, I've already talked about those at length, though. So I'm I'm good. Anything for you? Just that I think that the strongest part of this book was the character development. True. Severo and Darrow's bond also goaded. Yes. The relationships, the character development. Pierce Brown does really great character work. He does.

[00:53:19] We'll say that between that and the world building, a lot of great setup in this book for what's to come. You get a good idea of the universe, the stakes. And now we're going to be getting into the real meat, into the real interesting stuff when we come back from our Ramblers Rising break. So, yeah. Yeah. Without further ado, Richard, you want to get into our outro here? Yeah. I had some closing remarks to make.

[00:53:48] As this is the last episode of our first, we're going to go with season of Ramblers Rising. I just wanted to say thank you to our amazing community. And, of course, thanks to the Lorehounds for bringing us on. We get to talk about our favorite shows, books, games, movies, really just whatever. I mean, we ramble. That's what we do. And it's been, I mean, I've enjoyed doing this. It's been a great few months.

[00:54:13] And we are super excited to continue with coverage of Pierce Brown's series and maybe some other books down the line after we take our brief hiatus. We're going to cover some amazing shows. Our Invincible coverage is going to start back up with season three, which launches on February 6th. And, of course, as we talked about earlier, we're going to cover Castlevania Nocturne season two, which starts, I mean, we're recording on January 15th. And season two starts tomorrow.

[00:54:44] So we're, I mean, we're going to have our season one recap out hopefully by the end of this week. And then we're going to start covering season two. And we're just super hyped to bring you guys more content this year than we did last year. I think we've gotten into a pretty good rhythm of it. And thanks again for listening. Thank you all. Just echoing what Richard said. And also, before we let you go, I did want to give a quick shout out to all of the other podcasts in the network.

[00:55:10] First of all, to the ones who make all of this possible, our parent podcast, The Lorehounds. They right now are going to be doing some joint coverage with the Properly Howard movie review podcast, who's also in the network. They're going to be covering Severance together, which if you haven't checked out Severance on Apple TV+, it's a pretty fantastic sci-fi series.

[00:55:31] And I did just want to make you all aware that if you're subscribed to either the Lorehounds feed or the Properly Howard feed, you're going to have to go and find the Severance feed, which is going to be linked in the podcast or the show notes here. So if you want to find that, go and subscribe to that feed because they will not be posting it on their individual feeds, only the joint feed. So they've got some really great coverage. David and John from The Lorehounds, as well as Stephen Anthony from Properly Howard, are hilarious together. And I can't wait for their coverage.

[00:56:00] And I can't wait for the new season of Severance. So go check that out. Also in the network are excellent podcasts like Wool Shift Dust, who's going through the second season of the Apple TV series, Silo. And that's another sci-fi show on Apple TV+. Alicia and her co-host Luke are going through all of the episodes doing breakdowns. And Alicia has all of this great book knowledge. Luke has a fresh perspective. So go check them out. It's a really fantastic podcast. Rings and Rituals is on a bit of a hiatus right now.

[00:56:30] But if you want to go back and listen to their season one coverage of The Rings of Power, I would recommend going and doing that. It is a really fantastic show. Dr. Sarah Brown and Marilyn Arpikila go and talk about Ritual in The Rings of Power. And it's a very entertaining and thoughtful podcast. Properly Howard, in addition to the Severance feed, is going through on their new season, which is A Few Good Films. All films based off of the main cast in A Few Good Men. And so go check that out. They're super entertaining.

[00:56:59] And the newest affiliate, Nevermind The Music. And Mark and Nicole are going really strong on their new podcast. And they're just super entertaining. They make everything really accessible. And links to get to all of these, as well as info on how to get a hold of us, will be in the show notes. Once again, thank you all for listening. It's been a really fun journey going through Red Rising. And we hope that you'll join us next time when we cover Golden Sun.

[00:58:08] Hey, everyone. David here. The wait is over. Severance is back. The Lorehounds are teaming up with Properly Howard to bring you comprehensive coverage of Season 2. Join John, Anthony, Steve, and myself each week as we dive into this amazing show. Here's what you need to know. We've set up a dedicated feed for our Severance coverage. To join us, just search for Severance Lorehounds in your podcast player.

[00:58:37] Or click the feed link in our link tree. You'll find that in the show notes below. If you're already a Patreon or Supercast subscriber, don't worry. You'll get the ad-free versions automatically in your regular feed. Plus, exclusive access to our upcoming bonus episodes that we'll be announcing soon. The early reviews are incredible. Apple's marketing push is huge. And we cannot wait to explore this season with you.

[00:59:05] And unlike the music dance experience, you don't need Mr. Milchick's permission to join us. Don't forget, you can find the feed link in our link tree in the show notes. Or just search Severance Lorehounds wherever you get your podcasts. Join us for what's shaping up to be an incredible season. We'll be right back.