Ranting About The Red Rising Trilogy

Am I late to the party again? Yup. But I've finally read it. The first Red Rising trilogy by Pierce Brown. The whole series was a ride. From the moment I picked up the first book, I leapt into the cart and prepared for the journey. I was strapped in and determined to love the series.

Spoiler alert, I was in no way prepared for what the series gave.

Here's a list of my jumbled feelings on Red Rising. Be ye warned for spoilers.

Let's get to!

1. Darrow

So I have a thing against the mainest of main characters. It's an irrational bias, I know. But I enjoyed Darrow. For one thing, he's not as cliche as I thought he would be. I expected him to be something of a special snowflake who becomes more powerful than the Golds. He still got a load of sweets, but it wasn't enough to make him pretentious in my eyes.

He has a wife. He starts out already married and without the usual teenage angst. He's settled down through and through. That's something I haven't seen before. While that didn't last for long, it was a great change. He ended up with a child, so that's a plus.

Main characters tend to be the leader by default. Forget their actual qualities, being the boss is handed to them in a silver platter. Not so with Darrow. I thought that would happen to him, but I felt like he earned his position. There are three moments, technically four, moments that I particularly loved.

In the first book, two characters commit sexual assault. Darrow is the one to enact justice on them. With the first character, he gets murdered. That was a bad call by Darrow, and he realises this. With the second character, he gets tried, whipped and Darrow takes some punishment too. Brilliant.
The power grapple with Sevro was interesting. Darrow blindly submits to following Sevro's lead, then sees that Sevro is making hard choices, so he takes command again. The following sequences because of that were anxiety-inspiring. I was legitimately terrified that Sevro would turn to the dark side, but thank goodness he didn't.
At the end of the third book, Darrow isn't the one who takes the overall command. Mustang is. Sure, that's his love interest, but it's a refreshing change. I thought Darrow would be the boss, but he's one step behind her.

2. Sevro

Ah, Sevro. He's my favourite character. How could he not be? His voice is great, his humour is fantastic, he's competent. The best part is his odd sense of nobility. He's not a good person. He does terrible things, but this is also a terrible world.

He's a true ride or die friend. His utter loyalty to Darrow is seriously cool. In my books, Sevro is pretty great. In Red Rising, he wins the banner but accepts that he would never get the credit he should have got. He loses an eye to find Darrow. He was quiet and deadly, and that's what first made me invested in him.

In Golden Son, there's one moment where he tells Darrow that if Darrow doesn't start trusting him, he's out. That scared me more than it should have, and I was begging Darrow to make the right choice. I loved the all or nothing attitude in this specific moment because Sevro's right about the trust issues.

In Morning Star, there are three moments I have many feelings about.

The mob calls for Cassius's death and Darrow tries to talk them out of it. But Sevro shoves Cassius off to hand him. Then he goes and proclaims that he committed the same crimes as Cassius. And backflips with a noose around his neck.

He had me in the first half. I was silently going "oh no" for Sevro. And then he backflips. See, there's a lot of death in this series. It's brutal. I thought he would die. But he was okay, so I'm okay.
Romance is all well and good, but I love it when they finally get married. And Sevro did it! I love Victra. She's an all round great character. I was rooting for them as soon as I sniffed the relationship. That was intensely satisfying.
Remember the whole thing about death and brutality from two paragraphs ago? So Sevro gets shot in the chest several times. I was this close to throwing my book at the wall. Instead, I trudged around the room in a funk.

But Sevro didn't die! Well, he did. Then he was brought back. I'm not sure how I feel about that, because Darrow specifically calls Sevro dead and it's narrated in first person, so there's no reason to hide it. There were hints I found in hindsight, so that made me relent a little. The fact that Sevro was resuscitated in a sense also made it more bearable for me. Either way, it's a good scene, even if I aged roughly 10 years in one second.

3. Other characters

Roque the Poet has a soft spot in my heart. He may have turned against Darrow, but he was one of my favourites. I can relate to him in a lot of ways. I love that he still sides with the one he thinks is right, even though he knows he isn't appreciated as much as he deserved. He's honest in a strange way, and I like that. His suicide at the end was so Roque of him. I wished he lived. Good or bad, he was an interesting character. But I think his death was a fitting end for him, even if reader me hated it.

Tactus wasn't a huge character. I didn't care much for him, but I did like certain parts. My favourite part was at the end of his spotlight. He betrayed Darrow and is about to kill a bunch of children Anakin-style. Words bring him back to Darrow's side, and Tactus breaks down. Ugly crying, beautiful scene. He died moments after that, which was so sad.

Mustang, Mustang, Mustang. She's an interesting character. I don't have much to say about her, but I like her wits. She's intelligent and capable. A good match for Darrow and a good leader. I'm so glad she ended up with leadership, because she deserved that.

Eo didn't last long, unfortunately. I thought she would survive in my naive ignorance, and immediately decided to attach my heart to her. Then she died and I bid my heart goodbye. (Whereupon it attached itself to Sevro and the other characters who died.)

The Jackal is one giant prick. He's smart, which I appreciate. And competent, which I also appreciate. He's a cannibal, had no right to kill Quinn, and is a backstabber, which I hate. But appreciate. The brutality of the whole series is something I (personally) don't see often, especially in characters. My favourite scenes include: The Jackal sawing off his own hand, having his tongue ripped out of his mouth, and his hanging. They were...*shudders*

Chilling.

Shoutouts to Ragnar, Sefi, Cassius, Mickey and Dancer for being cool, but not paragraph worthy.

4. Worldbuilding

I enjoyed the whole, giant universe. I'm not usually a fan of space travel in fiction, but Red Rising felt grounded enough for me to enjoy it.

The coloured caste system was an interesting one. The only problem I had with it was that physical traits seemed to tie in with their colour. Most of our time was spent with Golds and a couple Obsidians. That meant less diversity, which was not ideal.

The expansive cast was primarily male. A couple more females would be nice. I think some characters could easily be females instead of males.

History, lands, cultures. It felt full of depth. The war, the aftermath. There's so much Brown can explore. It makes me excited to get into the Iron Gold trilogy!

5. Iron rain

This term.

Just that.

It's beautiful.

Thank you for listening to my Ted Talk.

(The prose in general was schmick. It has my seal of approval.)

~

So that's all my scattered thoughts on this outstanding series so far. I give it a solid re-read mark for the future. In the meantime, I'll be searching for the fourth and fifth books. I'm definitely a character focused reader, and I loved pretty much every character.

Let's chat about the books in the comments below! Until next week, happy authoring!

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