Red Rising - Book Club Review

Austin, Byron, John, and Matt join the Lakeview to review Pierce Brown's Red Rising. Does Darrow have what it takes to rise?

Recommendations:

Austin: Frieren: Beyond Journey's End
Byron: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
       Graphic Audio: Red Rising
John: Foundation
Matt: Dungeon Crawler Carl
Michael: Antosharpclips Instagram

Transcript

SPEAKER_07 0:05

I like you watching!

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Welcome to the Lake View podcast. This is Michael Lake. I'm joined today by a host of friends and family, and what we have as our group chat called The Book Club, which is uh pretty lame, but we're we're riding with it. Anyways, the book we read this week, and or I don't know, you've read like three books in a row, Matt, but Red Rising series, I should say, is what we've just finished. So, Pierce Brown, the first book. We're gonna be talking a lot about this, go right into spoilers basically. But before we do that, I'm gonna kind of introduce the group here. Uh John, I'll start with you, your most family, I guess. Now, yeah, yeah, welcome to you. Yeah, how's it going? Good, good. Matt, your second family.

SPEAKER_08 1:17

Hello, hello, good to be back. And for not a Sanderson book.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Yeah, true. Not a Sanderson book. Byron, welcome back. Hey, how's it going? And Austin, I know you're frustrated. I got introduced to you last.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

I give you belligerently drunk at a concert, and all of a sudden I'm last now. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Well, being Austin, you probably were often called first your whole life, so I thought it was fun to go family first here. And anyways, so Red Rising, Pierce Brown, like I said. So I finished this on my way home from Austin's house. I listened to it. This was my introduction to Pierce Brown. I've never read any of his writing. I was recommended to this by probably most of you guys. I know Austin's been pushing this for a long time. Uh, I really enjoyed it. I was a little nervous going into like a sci-fi type thing, but there was definitely a lot of fantasy elements of this, and I really enjoyed that. And after reading Sanderson, this was a nice change of pace, just how fast pace it was. And also with Darrow or Darrow, however you pronounce his name, depending on if you listen to it. Yeah, it's a nice Irish accent. Darrow.

unknown 2:27

Darrow.

SPEAKER_06 2:28

Oh, the Irish accent is so perfect.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Yeah, just in time for St. Patrick's Day, too.

SPEAKER_06 2:34

What the bloody jam!

SPEAKER_00 2:36

But yeah, it was cool. Like, so he didn't know anything about what's really going on. He's down in like the core of Mars, basically, just doing his hell diver stuff. And kind of as the audience, this was the same for me. I didn't really know what to expect aside from like a few things based off recommendations. So it's fun to kind of learn the world with Darrow and yeah, dive into it. And it got a lot more deep and harsh than I thought it was gonna go, and a lot of different directions than I thought it was gonna go too. I I really enjoyed a lot of those pieces. Uh Austin, why did you recommend this to me?

SPEAKER_01 3:12

So, like you know, I'm a big Sanderson fan, and what I did is uh I'm always looking on things like Instagram or Reddit or other uh websites where um I love Sanderson, but obviously like I do want to see other works and other people out there. So every time I would look up if I like Brandon Sanderson, who else should I like? And it's always the same few names, where it's someone like um a Joe Abercrombie if you want to go darker, uh Pierce Brown, if you want to go for that. Um, so I just pulled like one book out of like all of these guys, and or like the whoever wrote Malazon is always on there, but I don't like that book at all. Yeah, like there's always the same few names. So what I did is I ripped out like the first book and like all of their series. And whenever I read Red Rising, it was such a sharp contrast to Sanderson's writing style that I was like, this was a ton of fun. I tore through it, this is great. I'm gonna go ahead and read the second book, and then the second book was so good I would not shut up about it. And that's when I was like, okay, like no, this is it, this is goaded. And that's the point when I was just like, everyone go please read Red Rising, so that way you can go read the second and third books.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Yeah, you described that as maybe your favorite book ever, or at least contending with some of your favorite books ever. So that's pretty high compliment.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Yeah, the the the following books in this series, Gold of Sun and Morningstar, might be two of my favorite top five books of all time.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Nice, nice. John, you have read every book under the sun, at least that's in English. So what got you, what pulled you to this? Because you were on this well before I heard of it.

SPEAKER_05 4:44

That's not true. He hasn't read Emblark. I have not. Yeah, I've definitely I definitely get humbled quite a bit with with this kind of thing where I think I read a lot and then uh find out that there's a million, a million billion books that I haven't read. But yeah, it's with with um with Red Rising. I found it the same way Austin did, honestly. It was it was uh kind uh I started with Sanderson back when I first was getting back into reading after grad school. And uh after finishing Way of Kings and Words of Radiance jumped to a few like I used Goodreads as kind of my uh uh recommendation source of source of truth, basically. Uh and you're right, Pierce Brown constantly, con constantly came up as a uh as a as a recommendation. And at the time when I finally started the series, there were five, there were he was already five, five books in. So I uh I read uh I got Red Rising from the library way back in the day and finished it in for in probably about two and a half weeks or something like that. And then uh like three. Yeah. It's I mean it's it's I I honestly like it for it's kind of like it keeps things, it keeps things moving constantly, even though I I I have said I always hesitate to say this to people, but like Red Rising is probably my least favorite of the six, but it's still really good. It's it's still it's still it's still really, really uh seems like a high compliment.

SPEAKER_08 6:19

That's a that's a high.

SPEAKER_05 6:22

I completely agree of the ones I've read. I even liked I people uh only I don't think any of you guys read Iron Gold yet, but Iron Gold is always picked out as is is always singled out as the one peep people dislike the most. I loved it. I read it, I read the I listened to the whole series again before Lightbringer, the fifth, the fifth book came out, and um and I liked Iron Gold a lot more the second time when I when I listened to it. But uh Red Rising in general, like I feel like there's a lot of like the the whole series I would not put into I would not necessarily put into the YA genre or anything like that. Um maybe there's some YA elements, but I do think Red Rising in general is the most YAE of the six. That's the fit.

SPEAKER_08 7:15

It definitely has the trappings of it. And I'm not gonna lie, when I first started, like the first I think I had actually texted uh the book club about this. I was like, Yeah, the the first like three to five chapters, I was like, I don't know about this, guys. Like, this feels like I'm reading Hunger Games or I'm reading a YA book, and then it really led you in that direction for sure. And then even if if you were to describe the plot, it would even still be like, oh, they're they're at school, they're doing like the school things, but like it does not feel YA when you're reading it.

SPEAKER_05 7:48

It's and there's a big battle royale at the end, and you're like, Oh yeah, that's the Hunger Games, but it's like it has my first thought.

SPEAKER_08 7:54

So much more like like I want to say like sophisticated than it. Like it's it feels like it's not written, like Hunger Games is written to be a YA, and this has a similar premise, but is not written to be AYA.

SPEAKER_04 8:07

There's a lot of I I even similar plot mechanic, but it's it's in a lot, like there's a lot more depth to it, and the subtext of like what it's all around, I guess.

SPEAKER_08 8:18

There's also like that like that's about murder, but I feel like in YA is like you have like killing is okay, but this is like rape, murder, and pillaging, and that's like it's it definitely takes it a step further than I think any YA would really like comfortably go.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

What's the famous book with the uh kids who get stranded on the island? Um Lord of the Flies. Thank you. Um, I can't believe I couldn't think of that. I just lost my membership of the book club. Um, it's like, yeah, I had the same exact thought as you of you, this is Hunger Games, and I was like, okay, I was like, but actually, there's some Lord of the Flies elements to it of the society, like immediately devolves, and some Squid Game elements, I feel like. And a little bit of that too. And like, so it's like the first book to me kind of felt like an amalgamation of I could kind of point to some tropes here or there, but overall it what end up being a newer experience. Yeah, um, even too. Have you guys read Ender's game?

SPEAKER_08 9:08

No, no, see, I've seen the movie again, constantly humbled.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

I've read um and this feel this Darrow feels like the uh I think his name might actually be Ender. I don't know. Feels like John Ender from Ender Games. I don't know. Um I have those bodies too.

SPEAKER_06 9:24

Yeah, his name is Ender. Yeah, I forget his first name.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

It's been a few years.

SPEAKER_05 9:29

It's his game. I I even even ahead of this, ahead of this like uh this call, this, this uh podcast, I was like thinking, thinking to myself, if uh whoever Susanna, who I don't know who wrote The Hunger Games, I can't remember, but uh she if she took the Hunger Games in the directions that Pierce Brown takes Red Rising, like it would have been a I was like that would have made such a more interesting book, like to make to to more to put like to take the main character and instead of making her be making Darrow be a slave the entire book, immediately making her one of the elite uh uh like yeah, like she's like snuck out and she's trying to like rather than stop the Hunger Games from the inside, she's like one of the sponsors who's trying to like, yeah, that that would be really cool. And then instead of the resistance being this like thing that might may or may not be going on in the background, having that be the soul, the the soul focus the entire time, like you're like that that raised for for the whole series, that basically raises the stakes for Darrow the entire time. Because while he's you know attempting to amass it, you can't can't call it anything else, but amass a following in this book. It's not even like he's trying to he's trying to recruit people, it's it's like these people are treat him as like their fanatic fanatic leader uh and towards towards the end. Um while also maintaining the fact that he's not actually a goal. He's he's uh he's there to take down take down society as it stands.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Uh I think one interesting aspect of this that I still think is actually really cool is that a lot of times, obviously, the whole basis of racism is completely unfounded in that like you know, we're all just people and that's whatever. But in this case, Pierce Brown took the bold stance of the the leading race, the golds, are quite literally superior in every way.

SPEAKER_08 11:27

Yeah, they've like genetically modified people to be literally just like smarter, better, faster, stronger. Like they they literally are like objectively, like the even like the the lowest tier gold on average is just like to kill a road physically and mentally more accident fit than than like the normal person.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

That that made the story exciting too, because all the golds, which is essentially what most of the book was about, was them all being smart and them all having tactics. Like Titus wasn't a moron, he was a brute, and he I guess technically he was a red, so maybe he was stupider, and that's a bad example. But like Cassius and all these different people had their faults and Mustang, she seemed faultless, but you see, they're all different people, and at the end of the day, even though they're superior, like seeing that they're all so intelligent, it just it's so different than the beginning of the book when you were with the Reds and it was just so simple, like a little village life.

SPEAKER_08 12:28

And I mean the thing is they were kept that way, like they didn't even know.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Yeah, that was the big reveal for me that like changed my perspective on the book.

SPEAKER_08 12:36

Yeah, the the that was the big thing that I had been like, oh, is this all right? So he's gonna join the rebellion, I guess, because they're treated bad in the mines and stuff. And then like he gets to the surface, and it's or then you get he did like he dies, and you're like you kind of see it coming, like, yeah, he's not really gonna die. He's gonna like somehow survive or whatever. And then he gets out and they're like, Oh, the surface is colonized. Like, you guys are like they they literally lie to you about like everything. Like, it's not just like it's not just like oh, you guys are like maltreated, like mistreated. You are mistreated, but also like you don't know the extent to which, like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

It's it's the Dune reveal, too. Like, kind of the opposite. It's leading you to think, oh, we're terraforming this, we're mining this planet, all the suffering is for something, and then when you get up there, and like you said, it's just yeah, you're just a bug in their earth or in the Mars in this example.

SPEAKER_08 13:26

Yeah, it's this isn't like a struggling, burgeoning society. It is a like flourishing, like they've already colonized the entire solar system. Like, you are like the society has moved beyond what they've what you've ever imagined, it already has. All of the things, all of your hopes and dreams, the things that you're like, oh, like my children will one day, you know, inherit. Nope, that's all not true. Like, it's they've already done that, they've already they've already colonized the planets.

SPEAKER_05 13:55

And they all and for the whole first third of the book, you thought their biggest problem was was the that the gammas always win. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 14:04

Oh, the fucking gammas being like, oh, the laurel, it's a big law.

SPEAKER_04 14:08

That is like super arrival. That's like very textbook, like colon. Like, that is like blue blueprint, like what the British Empire would do in basically all of Africa and Asia, anywhere they colonize, they'd get like an ethnic minority, and be like, we'll make you guys the favorites, so you guys just fight each other instead.

SPEAKER_08 14:28

And it's the thing about it is that it's so stupid in terms of like there is so much evidence that like workers who are happy produce more. Like, it doesn't make sense to keep people in squalor, other than that you get to feel superior to them. Like to just like give people amenities and stuff, like it it sounds counterintuitive, like, oh, they'll get lazy or whatever, but like it doesn't. That's not true. There's no happy people tend to produce better.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

Like, so I think the society that they that Pierce Brown built is actually one of my favorite parts about these books is that like it's almost like it's I mean, it is racism, but it's also like again, the golds are quite literally superior, like the reds are kind of good at mining and that kind of stuff too. Like the um oh my gosh, what are they called? Obelisks? No, um, obsidians. Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 15:22

Um the obsidians are just big, nasty, like body garden.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Yeah, but it's like it's like okay, like so it's like they're they actually kind of wore Bournemouth breadfast, but it's like more about how do I dream out of my cast. And even too, I think one of the most interesting concepts of this book that he played with is that usually when you see this hoity torty society, they're like in this high tower with like you know, teacups and cakes and stuff like that, too. And it's like, oh, they're not suffering at all. Meanwhile, it's like, yeah, these golds are gonna be like the leaders of our society. We expect them to be fleet admirals and eventually lead us. Let's put them in a death cage match against each other. Like, no holds bar, let's see what happens. Like, you go better, get a scar on your face, otherwise, we won't take you.

SPEAKER_08 16:01

It is very interesting that they not only is it a book very much about racism, but that he's like, Yeah, like genetically, these people are better, but I'm also gonna take the stab that like it doesn't matter that they're just better, like all people deserve to be people. Like, it's it's fine. Like, even though they're yeah, they're smarter and better and stronger, that doesn't make them like more humans and deserving more rights. Like, that's yeah, like all of these different classes, like, yes, different people are better at different things, but like they they should probably still all like be allowed to have the same equity, like separate but equal.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

Is that what you're saying? No, just not quite just so about the same and equal, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 16:44

Um but communism uh but yeah, the uh that is the interesting take is that this whole first book, right? Like the the first like couple little bit you were saying, like, oh, they're they're mad at the gammas, they're mad at this other red faction, and then you find out, oh, actually they've lied to you, the the Reds are the the victims the whole time. And then the whole rest of the book is getting you to sympathize with golds and getting you to be like, yeah, like they put the golds through this like brutal, like they're like the society is not nice to anyone, like it's not this is bad for all people involved.

SPEAKER_05 17:16

It's it's kinda uh Austin. Sorry, go ahead. No, I think Byron said something.

SPEAKER_04 17:22

Oh Byron, sorry. That's all right. I think one of the things too that's that's nice about this book, and and this is like kind of like a theme in all of the books, and I don't think it'll give much away, but um like early on, like like early in the book, Darrow's just fucking like killing everyone. He's just like not necessarily killing, but he's just like he's just like kicking ass and taking names later. Yeah, and he's a raper. Yeah, and then he realizes like do I want like slaves or followers? Like, how's this gonna actually work? Oh and um I'm like no better than the gold if I if I operate that way, and and then like he gets to like Titus, and then uh I think his name's Victus, um right? Yeah um, and like you start to see like him have like empathy, like they they've been building it in the book, like you said, like they make you feel some sympathy for the golds, even though you might not feel like you should have any.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

There's not a lot of character depth, but they do make you feel something towards everyone, which is cool. Every character is different and has their own thing.

SPEAKER_04 18:34

Uh I think like um like at some point in this book, he comes to realization that like people have to be able to change for this to like to work. Like he doesn't want to just kill everyone. He's he has to believe people will be able to change, and that like this book is dark, and I don't think it's as like um I don't know, maybe like can't be as some Sanderson books. Not that they can't be dark, but like I feel like in Sanderson they're they're just much more pure in general. Yeah, not to say that bad things don't happen. Yeah, but like I think this is like somewhere between George R. Martin and Sanderson, and that like it's got darker tones, um, but there is like that underlying like heart that like at least for Darrow, he's fighting for the belief that people can change, and that includes golds, which I think is refreshing.

SPEAKER_08 19:27

I think it it has it also like as much as it has that, it is also sometimes brutally realistic where it's like, yeah, people can change and they need to change. Like the people you think are bad aren't always bad. But I think there are also times where it's like the character tries to be like, Oh, I want to have faith, and then someone like brutally betrays him, and it's like the realization that it's like, yeah, like you have to kind of give people the benefit of the doubt, but at the same time, there are people who are just evil and people who are just like they just don't care. I'm thinking about like uh what's her name? Vic Victoria, the the person who kills Victoria's sister, sister, uh where she just slits that girl's throat to like hunt him out of the way.

SPEAKER_04 20:14

Uh Antonia or yes, yeah. What a and then she gets crucified in the end, and then they let her down. I'm like, yeah, you're a better guy than I or who else?

SPEAKER_08 20:27

Um uh who's one of the other like Titus a little bit?

SPEAKER_04 20:32

Titus or and Victus. Um he raped someone, I think, and they just kind of like gloss over that. No, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 20:40

He was no, not Victus, uh uh uh the other teenage. It's Titus is the red brutal.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Titus definitely brutal. He was the other side of Darrow's coin. Uh Darrow went with I'm gonna try to leave society, and Titus or was the one who is like um, no, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna kill him.

SPEAKER_04 20:57

Titus was Darrow without like without what's his face, what's her face of the dream, and and like people that to care about the EO. He was all of the anger focus. Tactus, that's him.

SPEAKER_08 21:09

This is the other one who like they imply that he tries to rape someone and then like they kind of just like fight him all, so then he doesn't in the end.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

And it's this, Barrow takes the lashings in his place.

SPEAKER_08 21:20

Yeah, that was that was one of the moments where I was like, oh shit, that was that's kind of that scene.

SPEAKER_05 21:29

That scene in particular, like I I kind of touched on it before where it kind of like shows how ready and willing people are to like back someone like Darrow, especially the especially groups like the howlers and the um uh the other disenfranchised groups that got like basically abandoned throughout the um throughout the what is it? The I forget the name of the trial. That's the other people. The Oathbreakers, everybody, everybody kind of just rallies behind and Darrow is able to amass such a such a rabid following to by the end by the end of the book that he just takes he just takes over castles without with with ease towards the end. That's what Eo saw. Yeah. And it show it and it shows that by by the end he learns he learns a lot about being a leader, but it's like this rabid following and whatnot. He's gonna he f he kind of finds him I I don't know it it's it's eventually like you know it's like what kind of leader does he does he want to be ultimately does he want to be it like because it could easily be you could easily draw like comparisons between how he handles the fractors and all that and all that stuff and how the gold handle uh true uh stuff like that. Yeah so I will say I that that's this go that goes beyond the scope of this book a little bit but it's a uh it's it's once you once they go um once he amasses this cult like following it's a uh it becomes m less of an army and more of a religion that he's that he's uh that he's crafting here but that scene where he takes the last rings I think that was one of like my favorite moments in the book just because he keeps going like I don't know like I have to punish this person because like I can't just allow my people like he's testing me and I think Titus even later on in the book says like I was testing you or something like that.

SPEAKER_08 23:33

And it's like I Tactus tactis not Titus. Why are they they made it so close um but it's like he did this horrible thing and he's this guy is clearly like mean and nasty you can't trust this fucking dude like he is just given signs like I'll betray you whenever it's convenient for me and there's just you have but you have to trust me what are you gonna fucking do I have my own little like band of like guys and if you fuck with me like they'll all leave too and then and I was like I was sitting there as a person like I don't know like I I guess you kind of have to punish him right like you've got to give him the lashings you gotta like if not banish him or execute him like something's gotta happen. And then when he's like oh I'm gonna take the lashings too it was like wow that is that's not only like it was interesting because yes he's building this cult following but also like even as the reader I'm like that's like I might follow that person like that's crazy. Like that is like a level of that is a level of like leadership that is like actually legitimately inspiring.

SPEAKER_05 24:45

And especially if you you are part of one of these oppressed groups and stuff like that your entire your entire life like there are other Reds and uh there were other Reds and other obviously obviously the members of House Mars and uh and other people like Sevro and uh and the rest of the howlers and and whatnot that are looking for someone to kind of rally behind like this. And Darrow that is the point where Darrow basically basically secures himself as the um as like that as the undisputed out the undisputed like no one's gonna fuck with this guy.

SPEAKER_08 25:22

Right, right yeah exactly and the but the crazy thing about that is that you're saying like yo the the people who are looking for leaders like Reds and stuff but these are like golds like even the people who were you know they've been given everything with a silver spoon even they were like what the fuck like I I'll follow that person. That person just said like if I do wrong they'll take my punishment with me like that's crazy amount of trust and faith.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Yeah so we actually touched on the two reasons why I said that Red Rising was actually my least favorite book in at least the first trilogy um so coming from Sanderson where he does a great job of like flushing out characters albeit at a substantially slower pace like I love the action of Red Rising but I thought in this first book in particular um Pierce Brown didn't wasn't quite as good at like deepening his characters. Even though he overcame great hurdles I thought that he almost did it especially for the first book with like too much ease where like even the very end of take him out you're like this is an impossible feat. And he just kind of nailed it in one chapter first try and just like oh like I didn't think every now and then books things do seem to come together a little bit more simply so I thought that the first book in particular had a like the stakes were high but like it just felt so easy. Like it didn't feel like there's this big overwhelming challenge. And it was staring at you throughout the entire book but like it ended up becoming a little more trivial than I thought it should have been. And then yeah the characters needed a little bit more depth.

SPEAKER_04 26:52

I've thought the same thing I think that's partly the side effect of not having a 1400 page book to like kind of like make it more of a a journey also also to be very fair set that is like why Sanderson is super popular is because he like he like he's not just like wildly famous because he's like like he that is like he he is like a master in his craft and there are not a lot of writers that are like at that level of I don't want to say skill like that's just like that that is his bread and butter is like writing that like very difficult emotional struggle where those the characters like really have to earn every single win. I think I think part of the difference too and that makes this book very unique from any other fantasy or fiction book I've read is it's entirely just Darrow's perspective. And the probe the probe that is that it's super fast paced action like no bad chapters because there's no boring yes side character. Like there every book always has just by nature some character you just don't like find is interesting and then like that's the chapter you decide to go to sleep on.

SPEAKER_08 28:08

Or or it's even just that something uninteresting is happening in that chapter.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Yeah it's just a long at the really peak action part you're like oh here comes a climax and changes character respective so it's the dude who's like twiddling his thumbs there is just on a coked out ride the whole fucking and then we're gonna storm the mountains and then we're gonna kill him we're gonna storm the mountains and then we're gonna fucking hide in the bodies of horses and then we're gonna he's he's just fucking on speed the whole then I'm gonna just like hang out in the woods with my lady for a little while.

SPEAKER_04 28:38

Yeah when I come back I'm gonna be the most dangerous motherfucker in the world I'm gonna carve the Reaper into the fucking throne of my people just because I fucking can the downside though unfortunately is that you don't get to see like the characters as deeply because you don't see their perspectives.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

Yeah it's definitely true.

SPEAKER_05 28:59

I think I think the uh yeah I I was just gonna say I think that it's it's the that that last scene I know Austin I know you were talking about uh previously how sometimes it felt a little too easy that l that last that last scene where they go up to Mount Olympus and kit and and kill a bunch of the Proctors and and uh and all that stuff it see it the first time I read it I was like that felt very easy like that felt way too way too simple compared to this behemoth of that this behemoth that the society uh has been built built up to be but like after after reading after reading I think it clicked for the other books it really should have clicked the first time the first time I read it but it does show how despite the gold being ultra master manipulators and better than everyone at everything else and everything like that how fragile the society actually is like these guys aren't all powerful um I totally agree I did not think that was cheap I because like it caught me off guard when they were like it just felt like oh I'm just gonna break the rules or like the perceived rules like they said do this at all costs.

SPEAKER_08 30:12

The people on Mount Olympus are cheating for the enemy and they never said like they just said you know maybe don't kill people and if you get your slave or if you get your your uh flag touched you have to like join the other team basically or else you'll be shunned.

SPEAKER_04 30:30

That was the only rules they gave them so when he was like we're taking Mount Olympus like I remember reading that being like oh shit that was not what I expected either a little bit but then you eat a few people and and people lose their minds I don't know they're off the rules thing I just think that like uh he's a jackal jackal jackal I see what you're saying about how it was easy but I think like it was easy because it's like the golds are so like it it more speaks to like how complacent they are they they were just like no one would ever do that no one they would a gold wouldn't even think to do that.

SPEAKER_08 31:09

Why would it why would we like try to defend ourselves like they weren't ready for it and he completely like disrupted the entire fucking like test because he just decided that I'm not gonna play by the rules that they've like implied. I'm only gonna play by the rules that they've said and they didn't say this was illegal so I'm doing it.

SPEAKER_05 31:32

Their whole thing the entire book is we're we're like gambling on the winners here we've we've set everything up for uh for the jackal to win and everything like that. Like they you're right they this the the the leader golds in this society feel so you're complacent is a great word for it entrenched in entrenched in who they are they would never they would never imagine someone actually coming coming at them um with regards to this stuff and this and that the uh like you said the winning at all costs at any cost uh mentality uh you see that in Darrow you also see that in the jackal dude cuts off his hands to yeah that was that was the first time it was like I remember Darrow was like um which makes which makes the jackal a really good foil character for uh for Darrow especially like throughout the throughout all the books um because both of them are willing to are are are willing to do whatever it takes and it's uh and are and one yeah one is a little bit more of a psychopath but but then yeah that's the thing is that Darrow does it through instinct it's not a little Dar Darrow like inspires where the jackal manipulates a war criminal yes and is a war is is a war criminal for sure. Yes yeah he uh um yeah it's a matter of it like always wondering like whether it's better to be do things the right way or the efficient way I guess to a large to uh to a large extent and that's uh it's it's for Darrow like like doing it the right way would have been to defeat the jackal and and uh and win outright and everything like that but the offici the efficient way was the way like thinking thinking outside the box with uh with that is is how he is how he ultimately ended up has how house Mars ended up victorious in this.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

Yeah yeah it's uh it does a great job too of like of setting up as a launch off point of because also too like I also do appreciate that just we like didn't really gloss over it but like there were so many twists in this book usually I feel like a way that a lot of books tend to be written is that like one if it's segmented into like five acts there'll be a small twist at the end of each act maybe or if there's like there might be like a big way like midway book twist this book is like eh it's been two chapters let's throw a twist in there dude I did all right did anyone see Titus being a red no that's not that's not that was a cool reveal and then what did they reveal by just being like accidentally says bloody damn and he's like wait what the fuck did you just say wait wait wait wait how about the very end of the book where it's like wait you sent Mustang out to go get the jackal and he's like yeah I trust her and it's like it's like that's his sister and it was like sister you dumbass. I remember reading that in a book and being like I I truly don't know what's going to happen.

SPEAKER_08 34:31

Yeah I yeah I remember reading that and being like oh my fuck is it really gonna is she gonna betray him and all this stuff and then he just like plans and does all this stuff like he goes to Cassius Cassius and is like oh I need to like get everything back together because I'm about to be betrayed and then she shows up and doesn't betray him and I was like Yeah the jackal tied up and naked.

SPEAKER_05 34:53

Yes you you do uh I'm uh you do have to assume that every ever like after everything that's been that that's been done you do have to assume that every gold has their own motives their own ulterior motives so it's and that they're all they're all you're gonna oceans eleven you at the end they're all gonna be like well actually and they're all they're all they're all super smarter than much smarter than him so any second I'm like expecting Darrow to be found out or something like that or for them like or for the Proctors to be like actually we found out that Darrow's red so uh yeah we knew the whole time we were just we knew the whole time yeah that's the that is always that that is they are always doing that shit like I've known for months and I've been leading you the fuck on about this or like I had this plan and I always knew I was gonna portray you right here.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

It's like Jesus like I said the the book pivoting very very early and being like okay like well welcome to the institute you can see here there's one like super crazy high almighty gold who's like the son of the oh the son of the moon or the moon bird whatever and then it's like wake up in middle night like hey there's another person here figure it out and just like right away it's just like it's like they start off with like the first night just like Julian everybody go kill each other. I want you I think they put the instant puts them in the mindset right away of you have to kill to survive. And like it is a it's uh like almost like you all those jokes online about like you know the group chat is like mutually assured destruction that's what that does too of that like every gold knows that they killed um at the very beginning at a minimum yeah and then uh Darrow got rather unlucky um did only house did only house Mars do that I could never no they they all implied they did I think but I couldn't remember I think it's very much like they never come out right and say it but I think it's pretty like safe to assume that like every house has to do that yeah because they they talk about the calling they talk about the the uh the bureau of um quality control how yeah which is so fucked but they talk about how the beauty of quality control like once like they were like oh they recommended that like uh 13% of all gold should just be like killed before they're born or something like that.

SPEAKER_08 37:13

And then they're like well we're not gonna do that but so we'll do this instead we'll just like cull them in the society.

SPEAKER_05 37:20

Oh yeah you forgot about that swamp and then my boy Sevro he comes out on top of our top the number one rank gold sevro dude severe's goblin boy to go wanking in the bushes for the first quarter yeah yeah and you you you basically figured you basically figured throughout the whole I mean like you knew that he killed his brother but you you I figured throughout the whole thing it was gonna be like like uh Darrow and Cassius were basically gonna be best it was gonna be like the frodo and Sam or the of the of the book or some of the book or something like that. But there was this slight uh detail that uh Darrow did kill his brother but well I thought that was gonna like I thought they were gonna come to a like that was gonna blow over a little bit or like come to like some kind of resolution. I kind of did too I did not realize that was gonna be like oh he runs a fucking problem it's gonna be an it's it's an issue I I Darrow is super manipulative.

SPEAKER_08 38:24

Oh my god yeah he's not a good friend no not at all well to be fair you know I mean I'm not sure if he's a good person either he's doing the gold enslave his entire people so it's like I kind of understand a little bit where it's like they do make you empathize with them and I think even Darrow has said a lot of times like I have to remember that like these people are not my friends like they are enslaving my entire race like that they are like straight up like even if they're not evil they are complicit in evil and so I kind of get where it's now like he's gotta like he can't actually be friends with these people.

SPEAKER_04 39:04

What would Sevro do to his family what would Sevro do had they never met like this or any of them like you said the gold I don't know man what would Sevro do what to the to the to Darrow's family never mind yeah I think Sevro well the thing with Sevro is that like he also was mistreated right like when in the beginning they call him goblin and no one is that like he's a bronzy or something the the fact that he it's the it's the dark colored golds like they're like the the bronze colored gold i can't remember I think they're called bronzies but like uh yeah he's like a again he's in a tier below he he was brought in as a sacrificial lamb he was supposed to be killed and he the fact that he did a 16 seed mad respect dude oh yeah fitchener oh I think it would be a 16 seed but he was the UMBC of this tournament he was the voice yes the voice of Fitchner in the audiobooks is hilarious oh hey boy oh yeah that's uh I thought um I was a little every now and then um I I was a little annoyed that Cassius to like I mean I understand that's his brother but like at the same time like it was a little annoying that like he was so like like indignant yeah yeah that like someone would do this as if he didn't just do it to someone else's brother and then like and like they had they knew like what this was his parents knew what this was they've been in it and his parents he's like oh I knew that he was gonna die and that's why he was kicked I knew that's let their kid go to this institute if they know he's a softie like yeah I mean they kind of have to society person if they try to hold the kid back there will be consequences and some of the things like again well they couldn't he could have not applied was the thing like they've always been a non view if you get accepted if you get accepted you have to like it it's like a horrible look to say no but not everyone goes to the institute like you didn't he you only have like have to say yes by societal pressure if you get accepted he could have just not applied and they had to have known that like since like House Augustus was like running this that they'd pin him up against like someone tough yeah I mean it was literally Darrow was ranked what like 10th yeah yeah it's not so so Julian like 90th yeah so it's uh I mean Cassius you're right Cassius went through the exact same trial that Darrow did and he had to kill somebody and Darrow had to somebody had to be the one to kill to to kill Julian and that's the thing that really pissed me off in that like they they have that whole fight where where Cassius ends up like fucking gutting Darrow and it's like I he even says during that fight like you had to do this too and like what did you want me to do?

SPEAKER_08 42:07

Just fucking die and Cassius just just like yeah it's the oh yeah it's the way you did it and then lied to me. He's like what did you want me to show up and be like by the way I killed your fucking brother next to brother bro that was your brother it was like I knew you I knew you for all of like a week at that point like I of course I didn't know how you would react to that I wasn't gonna lie and then like I don't know it's just like that that to me makes me hate Cash as his character so much because I'm just like you're just so unreasonable. Like to be honest you're so unreasonable.

SPEAKER_01 42:44

It's like I said earlier that like how I said Malimpus Conquering is too easy and goes well actually they were unprepared it's actually a statement on how they were I think it's a statement on like gold society of like yeah I don't care when other golds die as long as I don't know them. Yeah it's it's supposed to be it's supposed to he's supposed to be a jerk about it. It's supposed to be in the wrong about it. It's supposed to like show you that like you know like we have our time might as well it doesn't it doesn't it doesn't matter as long as it doesn't affect me.

SPEAKER_08 43:09

He should be mad at the society. And instead he's just mad at Darrow. It's like but Darrow did like Darrow did that because the society is the people that put him in this life or death situation where they were like kill or be killed there's no only one person leaves this room and then you're gonna get mad at the winner and and like not only that but they rigged it like they they they put the weak people against the strong people knowing the strong one would come out alive. So it was like it was like that's a very realistic trophy not his fault and they're just like oh I'm gonna blame you instead of the situation that they put me in.

SPEAKER_05 43:44

I think that's a realization that uh Cassius never came to but it is a realization that Mustang came to and that's why she ends up signed m Mustang. No no I said oh I was I was yeah uh that that you know it because because of she I mean she sees the monster that her brother is and everything like that. Yeah, that's true. And that's why she ends up that's why she ends up siding with Darrow at the end. Um even though she's an Augustus. She's she's uh like the whole thing was the the whole thing was rigged for for Adri his name's Adrius Adriet the Jack the Jackal to win. He's the jackal jackal. He's the jackal through the whole series. That's that's it.

SPEAKER_08 44:27

I love that his dad does not like that his name is the jackal.

SPEAKER_05 44:30

Yeah, it's a running thing. Him and him and Darrow are the only ones to get cool nick. Well, Mustang is a cool nick, but technically is called Doblin.

SPEAKER_08 44:42

Yeah, I everyone he like doesn't oh well okay. Also the Howlers. The Howlers is the coolest name. Those guys are awesome.

SPEAKER_01 44:49

Yeah, they are awesome. Those little dudes are red, but they're also having the name the Reaper. Like, oh that's such a ball in the name, and he has the sickle as a symbol too.

SPEAKER_08 44:58

It's just like that's why they call him the Reaper, is because of the because he just had he's they're not like the Reaper, like the Grim Reaper. Like they're like the Reaper, like you you reap the wheat in the field.

SPEAKER_01 45:09

Yeah, it's it's it's cool.

SPEAKER_04 45:12

He fights with his uh blade, like a sling blade, like yeah, it's like more like his hell diver tools.

SPEAKER_03 45:21

I do, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:22

Helldiver tools it is. I think um helldiver is hell diverse.

SPEAKER_08 45:31

It's not a hell diver, it's a hell diver. Um what the bloody damn.

SPEAKER_04 45:38

I I feel like it it was also really sad when Pax died. Yeah, that was that was that was hard.

SPEAKER_06 45:46

Oh, Tellomanas!

SPEAKER_01 45:48

Pax Oh Tellemanus! It's like five actually good people in this book, and he's like one of them whenever he announced it too. Like, I do appreciate like just the impact of that, and like no spoilers, but like Pax is yeah, the Pax's impact has felt.

SPEAKER_08 46:04

Well, yeah, that is a touching part of the thing. Because he's introduced with Mustang, and he's introduced as this like big ass brute of a man, you know. He was like, Oh, he was raised to break cult with obsidians, and like he's this just motherfucking monster, and then he shows up and he's like opposed to Darrow, so he's the villain, he's like a villain, and he's kind of like at first, I was like, Oh man, it's like it reminds it makes me think of um Titus, not Titus, not yeah, Titus, where I was like, Oh, it's just another one of these big fucking brutes, and he's just gonna be this brutal asshole. But he kind of is like jovial about it almost. It's like, yeah, he is a mountain of a man, but like and he is trained for combat and war, but at the end of the day, he's also like kind of a decent dude. And when that oh, I wanted to mention this earlier that whipping scene where where uh Tactus is getting whipped, and Daryl's like, I'll take your punishment too, hands the lash to Tactus and is like whip me, and then it's like you're too fucking weak, and hands it to Pax instead.

SPEAKER_03 47:08

And it's like if you don't do this as hard as you can, I'll break your other nut.

SPEAKER_08 47:16

And it's just like, oh man, and then Pax is just after that, like, not only did he gain the loyalty of everyone, but also like Pax is like, Jesus fuck man, like I'll literally follow you into hell itself.

SPEAKER_04 47:30

Like Pax was just like he died such a senseless death, too. Yeah, yeah, fuck the channel. And if you think they don't really talk about it in this book, and it's not really a spoiler, but like his house and Pax's like their parents are friends, so that's like oh yeah, the the telemonises and the Augustuses are like they implied that they implied that actually.

SPEAKER_08 47:55

Mustang mentions that the reason him, her, and Pax were friends were because they grew up together, and she is an Augustus, she is the Jackal's son who is the you know the emperor the ruler of Mars. So like the the telemonases and the Paxes were like very close, and it's so fucked.

SPEAKER_04 48:15

Like the jackal like knew that kid, like like he killed him for a 1% chance of getting away. Yeah. I mean what a beast jerk.

SPEAKER_05 48:26

They uh I mean the jackal is is just constantly a total, absolute, like I mean, he's he's out of all the gold that the golds are kind of like defined by their um by a you know just being generally better than everything else, than at everything than everybody else, but also their conniving uh yeah, they're just they're just constantly thinking about thinking about how they can how they can yeah, under undermine one over somebody undermine somebody.

SPEAKER_00 48:59

And I guess that's part of their their flaw, right? Is they never assume someone beneath them could do the same to them because they think they're better than that.

SPEAKER_08 49:07

They never assumed they never assumed a red could be carved into a gold.

SPEAKER_00 49:11

Yeah, that's impossible.

SPEAKER_08 49:13

They didn't even really think about it.

SPEAKER_00 49:14

I didn't know that was possible either.

SPEAKER_05 49:20

Not until this book. That's um, but yeah, and they I mean if they I mean they think nothing about killing 50 50 students right off the bat, right off the bat that are already have already established themselves as better than other golds out there. Um is that a what is that? Uh Jacklin the Destroyer. Jacqueline the Destroyer. The that's his cool that would be his cool Red Rising nickname as a uh like Reaper or what did you uh what did you guys think of the ending?

SPEAKER_04 49:57

Because like so much of the book is like, you know, is Darrow gonna use like is like it's like a the Darrow revenge tour for a significant part of the book, and then he is like literally face to face with like the man who ordered the death of his wife. Yeah, yeah, and he like swears like not even just fealty, but like basically like is gonna be like his like adopted son at the very end. Over over a guy that they strongly imply would be like a father figure to him, the the rage knight who like born owl arcos, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:35

Whenever I read Red Rising, he's just like, Yeah, I'm gonna join you. It's just like, wait, what? I uh you're doing what?

SPEAKER_08 50:40

I will say, well, he talks about it, he's like, or the person who could possibly give me a fleet, and that was the whole point with like you're gonna be a gold and you're gonna get us a fleet.

SPEAKER_01 50:48

It didn't make sense.

SPEAKER_08 50:49

I'm not arguing that it made so much sense, but it did not feel good. Like when he says it and he's like, I I pledge or whatever. I'm like, that feels terrible.

SPEAKER_05 51:00

I love when there's drama and realism in a scene, and that I think that I both that also harkens to another instance of where Darrow's Darrow's not is absolutely willing to put his own values aside to undermine uh to to to work through to work towards the greater goal. He's not he's not gonna sit there and be like, I'll never swear fealty to that monster, even though he hates the dude.

SPEAKER_08 51:27

Um he's he's it literally the line is literally I sat there, or like I so I kneeled down in front of my wife's killer and swore like he like thinks about it while he's doing it.

SPEAKER_07 51:39

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:40

That's crazy. Speaking of which, how would you guys rank as absolutely saddest ways someone can die with being hung in front of you, but you have to pull their legs down to actually break their neck and kill them because the gravity is too low?

SPEAKER_08 51:53

Fucking terrible.

SPEAKER_00 51:54

And then if you bury them, then you get killed.

SPEAKER_08 51:56

Oh, yeah, and you're not you have to let them stay there and let their body rot. Yeah, pretty horrible.

SPEAKER_01 52:02

Yeah, like hangings are sad and cruel, and you're like, this sucks, but like having to physically walk over and like drag them down to kill them, it's just like probably that for Maria or not.

SPEAKER_05 52:12

I'm just not sure. That's a that's a mercy to do that too. It is, otherwise they die slowly. Come on, you know, humans work at some point at that time.

SPEAKER_01 52:20

I killed her too, kind of, but you had to, but like, yeah, it's it's sad. It's it's brutal. It's much more brutal than a normal hanging.

SPEAKER_05 52:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:29

Pierce Brown's messed up for that one.

SPEAKER_05 52:32

The fact that the golds frame it as a mercy to walk over and and uh to allow a little pull their legs down is is just wild, is wild. But yeah, it does a great job of setting setting the golds up to be just these these monsters.

SPEAKER_00 52:50

Um and they do have all the propaganda with like editing footage, all that stuff, which comes back into play and Darryl uses the game. Which they're able to do.

SPEAKER_05 52:58

Yeah, yeah, they're able to edit them destroying those proctors.

SPEAKER_08 53:05

Oh the scene, oh, the scene where the proctors show up in the ghost cloaks and they're like talking to the gang, and it's like clear they're like, we're gonna, yeah, Apollo and Minerva and all them are like, we're gonna kill uh like they're basically like we're gonna kill you, and they're like, huh. Well, that's interesting because uh at this moment I'm pretty sure we're killing the only thing that's keeping you guys alive because he had the rest of his army like invading the jackals place, right? Yeah, and they were like, Oh shit, wait, what wait, we can't hear anything, and they like leave and they hear like the sounds of fighting, they're like, Fuck it was so the game was fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 53:44

Like it was always like there's always like whenever a move would get presented, there's always another move, and always another move, and so on and so forth.

SPEAKER_08 53:50

Like it was at all times, everyone in the game was playing some kind of heavy level of chess, but then and then it makes it hit when it's like a move gets played that he didn't prepare for, and he just like gets totally fucked.

SPEAKER_00 54:04

Yeah, like Casa stabs him and then he just dies.

SPEAKER_05 54:07

Yeah, it's like oh you literally just dies everything. Darrow dies a bunch of times in this book, yeah. He dies at least twice.

SPEAKER_01 54:14

Those are gold bodies or something, man.

SPEAKER_04 54:16

Yeah, yeah. Uh when he's got the blood, the pit viper strengthened heart, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 54:24

Yeah, well, also they did describe them as like, oh, like I can crush rocks with my hand. Like they are like genetically, like they're not human, they're like a they could break a red in half if they wanted to.

SPEAKER_00 54:38

Um yeah, just beasts. It's like a gorilla versus human. Which taking of the castle did you guys like the best? Because I thought that was just so fun with the 12 castles going around the map. Okay, it was awesome, and then obviously it was a divided castle amongst themselves, too, which was just a nice layer to it. Like that, just the realism with the different factions and having to get people either lead through fear or whatever. But yeah, I thought the different taking of the castles was fun.

SPEAKER_04 55:06

I liked the part this is tangentially related. I like the part where they're like trying to get into the one I forget, I think maybe Minerva that had like the bakery that could make like fresh bread. Yeah, and they put they put bread out with shards of glass in it. Oh my god, I forgot about that.

SPEAKER_05 55:25

Yeah, I did too. It's very clever.

SPEAKER_08 55:27

I I also like props to them for like he they could kind of talked about like, oh well, like he even mentions I the first test is like the civil war, like overcoming a civil war and like someone taking charge in a in a place where everyone is like bred to be like, I'm the nobility, I'm the leader, like I'm the person who takes charge. Like they're all like that. So who is actually gonna be like the one to lead? But he never really gets control of the house. Like he's in control for like an hour before he gets before there's like the coup basically, where they like overthrow him and then he gets stabbed by Cassius. Like he never actually like they like imply like yeah, he's probably gonna be like the what do they call it? The not the alpha, the the primus.

SPEAKER_00 56:12

Well, rogue even says like that was a bad decision there. He's not making great decisions, he's just trying to appease people, so he's kind of a bad leader, and that's what he has to learn. I like rogue a lot, so don't spoil anything with like whether or not in future stuff, but I thought that was cool. I'd rather die and have a spot. But like the rogue and Leia, I think her name was that he told them, like, go find a spot that like means a lot to you, and that was really cool. And that's how the betrayal happened, and then you just don't hear from rogue again and assumed he's dead. I didn't think he was because we never saw the body or anything, but good call. He like came, yeah, he came back up and he was like emaciated and all that. So that was just neat, and like he seemed to be a good character the whole time, like the warrior poet dude. So that was neat. I like that.

SPEAKER_04 57:00

Yeah, he's definitely like the the heart and soul of the team for a while. Like, yeah, yeah, there was a lot of things. He was the one that sold Darrow after after he kills um what's his face, Julian. I I think they imply that and I think they imply that like he figured out before a lot of people that he was the one that killed Julian, but didn't really say anything.

SPEAKER_08 57:23

Yeah, wow, yeah, because they were talking about it, and he's also he's also like uh they that's also when they figured out that uh what's his name? Sevro probably is the one who killed the uh the moon lord.

SPEAKER_04 57:39

The Primus.

SPEAKER_08 57:40

The kid that like they talked up in the beginning is like, oh, he's gonna be super important, then just doesn't show up, and you're like, Oh, it was cool.

SPEAKER_04 57:46

I I remember thinking that guy seemed pretty chill because he was like, like, let's be nice to the people that are like the low levels here, like you know, we gotta all gotta work together. And I was like, okay, this guy seems pretty reasonable.

SPEAKER_08 57:59

Which um then they off that guy off screen.

SPEAKER_01 58:03

Yeah, because it just shows like it's not about always who's reasonable, it's like there were times every pretty much there was like half the time Darrow showed like mercy instead of like that. It came back to bite him in the butt. Not every time, but sometimes it did. So it's like, yeah, it's like that guy was like, you know, prime and like okay, we don't have to do this. And Severos like, F it, I want to live.

SPEAKER_04 58:23

What's the Lornell Arcos quote that he says at the beginning of one of the chapters? Uh, like, mercy, something it's not really a spoiler.

SPEAKER_08 58:32

I do know, yes. Um fuck. I literally I just was they just re-quoted it.

SPEAKER_04 58:39

Yeah, they say it a hundred times. Yeah, they do.

SPEAKER_08 58:41

It's like one of the other, I don't know, but one of the other Lorne Arcos quotes they always say is uh fly so high and mud you lie. I like that one.

SPEAKER_05 58:52

Mercy emboldens evil men. Yeah, something like that. That's what Google, that's what Google AI is saying. It is something to that effect.

SPEAKER_00 59:00

That's disturbing that AI told you.

SPEAKER_05 59:03

What a weird shade. I asked Vorn Al Akar's mercy quote, and that's what it gave me.

SPEAKER_08 59:11

But that's a uh try it worn out's traitor quote.

unknown 59:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 59:16

So either way, yeah, a lot of quotes. Um, yeah, actually, even two. I think I have to point out some of the things.

SPEAKER_04 59:23

Most of the chapters begin with a quote from him.

SPEAKER_05 59:26

Yeah. I'll be honest, that part of the reason that I maybe I guess I was disappointed. I was disappointed that he didn't uh offer to get trained by Lorna Arcos is because we don't get to see more of Lorna Arcos.

SPEAKER_01 59:39

Yeah, yeah, you hear about this.

SPEAKER_08 59:41

Like the best fighter to ever exist, and you're like, I want to see that guy, and he's like, I'm gonna see I'm gonna go the political route, and you're like, oh, the wild thing about the end is that yeah, it makes sense, but the wild thing about him accepting uh Augustus' uh like offer at the end is that Augustus is essentially who is framed as like the true like villain pulling the strings the whole time because he's Jackal's dad, and they don't know he killed his wife, yeah. They don't know that it was like the the mom necessarily who was the one who like pulled the strings to get that paid off like the the proctors, but he's just like, Well, like the Jackal's parents did it, and then at the end he's like, Well, you defeated my son, so accept this. And he's like, Yeah, but you're kind of the guy that I was like fighting this whole time, and you killed the well.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:29

Your one stipulation be not to marry my daughter. What? No, I didn't say that.

unknown 1:00:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:36

Well, hey, it's not good crazy now.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:38

Yeah, I know. I'm just yeah. It's I thought it was interesting too. Like, I don't know, how did you guys feel about the romantic aspects of things? Obviously, work and Leia had their cute little thing, but obviously, seeing him struggle with um AO versus Mustang, and he was getting feelings for her, obviously. And like, obviously, again, the golds are the enemy, however, like some of them are in fact humans. Um, well, it's some of them, not all of them, some of them are monsters.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:08

Is is that it those parts constantly did remind me how young they were.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:13

Where he's like, Oh, like I love these people, and then he's thinking about it, he's like, Yeah, but I guess I was only like like I married her when I was like 14. Like, I was like, we were literally children when we were married, and like I loved her, but like now at this point, like I've known fucking Mustang almost as long as I was married to EO. Like, and it's still like it doesn't necessarily change what that means to him, but it does put into perspective like like that like Reds die young. Like that was he was like in his prime, like 14 was like in his prime. That's like getting like you know, he's only got like 10 years left in him, probably.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:50

Like, legitimately, yes, you're correct. I think there'd be times where like the men were like there was like I think it was his oh it was some weird like if you look at his family tree dynamic, it was it was really weird because I think his brother like died, and then so then his sister-in-law married his something else, and I don't know. It's I guess because that's what they should do, and they'd have like as many kids as they could when they can, and then they'd just die. Yeah, it was a very short life, so yeah, it was it's it's not yeah, don't not take away from it, but it's more a little bit more shallow because they're not really looking too far towards the future. You get bit by snake anytime.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:27

I I I never I never really thought that the uh the romance between uh Darrow and Mustang like like under undercut the EO or anything like that. That's that's a uh yeah, it's it's uh that never really happened. He was resisting, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:46

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:48

Yeah, it was the interesting to see him like, you know, he's this he's doing all these brilliant tactical moves and stuff, and then it like comes to like the matter of this girl, and he's like, uh, well, I don't know. Am I betraying someone? And you're like, oh, you are just like a kid. Like those were like the moments where it was like, oh shit, like you're just like a fucking kid doing all this.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:06

Yeah, that's one of the best differences between books and like movies is that you can get into a character's head. It would be so hard to portray stuff like that, like to the same extent that a book like this was.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:16

It would just seem in a movie, it might come off as just like, oh, Darrow's the main boy character, Mustang's the main girl character, they need to get together.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:25

Yeah, and there'd be like one scene of Darrow going, Oh, I shouldn't, and then he does.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:30

Yeah, and then like you don't get any of the has to be done with symbolism into them just looking moodily, like you don't actually get him like thinking about like fuck, am I betraying her, or being like like I I've literally known this girl as long as I was married to EO, but like I hold Eo in this place of like she's so perfect because it was like short and taken from me when I like thought the world was something other than what it is, like but that all that context gets lost, especially for Darrow, because he has no one to talk to about any of his like inner thoughts because he's a spy, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:14

So, like I in terms of like portraying that aspect, like a lot of this I was imagining. I like I could definitely see this being like a show or a movie, yeah, but like that aspect would be challenging to do because there's a lot going on, like internal monologue-wise, for him. Yeah, that would be difficult to come across.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:33

Is that one of the biggest flaws of the Hunger Games? Was that like people were saying the books were better because you get into her mind and know what's going on? So, like by taking that out, everything is the movies got substantially more shallow.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:43

Yeah, from Katniss's catnus's perspective. So you get uh uh you get everything as it's cut as it's coming, basically. But yeah, and in in the Hunger Games movies, you're right. It's it's it does cut it does come off shallow at times when you're just like, okay, I guess the main characters are getting together because they're the main characters.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:04

It's uh a huge aspect of this book is the internal monologue and how he's thinking because it's like again, this book is a very violent but very for chess game. So like the fact that like his thoughts are the majority of the book, like a lot of part of him planning and then executing that plan.

SPEAKER_08 1:05:19

Like, and I I will say the uh the author does a fantastic job of in the moments where he hides information or he skips stuff where he just like jumps ahead and he's like, I'm gonna skip all the planning so I won't tell you, so that you can have that like heist style reveal. It is very well done. Like, there's so many moments that are just like, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, and then he's just like, and then I pop a smirk as my fucking howlers like crash in from the side, like cut themselves out of fucking uh the stomach.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:56

Yeah. I don't know beyond that.

SPEAKER_08 1:05:58

Yeah, the Procter thing, right? He was wasting time.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:02

Going back to uh Brian, what you were saying about the like turning this into a movie or TV show. I think I think it so it's already like a comic book. I like there there's these uh well it's it they're they're they're interlude stories, kind of like how Brandon Sanderson does did like Edge Dancer and um but they're called like the Sons of Aries uh comic books. They're they're essentially comic books, but I think that they made uh like just regular written-down versions, they might have even made it into audiobooks or something like that, but um, but anyway, it's all it it has been like officially illustrated, like Pierce Brown wrote the wrote the books and everything like that. It's just like the illustrations obviously were done by somebody else. I think animated-wise, it would fight really well, like that's a lot of people, yeah. It would, it would do, it would be extremely, extremely good. I uh as opposed to Sanderson, it sounds like it sounds like Sanderson's uh don't they have actor fingers and stuff too?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:07

Like I feel like that would get weird in live action. Yeah, some of them do.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:11

I think the the issue is the colors of the people, yeah. Like obsidians have six fingers, obsidians and I think greys maybe have six fingers instead of five.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:21

Um did not do that. It's a lot a live action would probably just take the root of like the colors you wear, the you your clothes are just the color of you are or something like that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:32

That's I think it would be hard for them to really convey like the str like, for example, golds, where they're like at one point in the very beginning, like after he gets turned, he hugs Dancer, and Dancer's like, You're gonna fucking like break me. Like, you need to like you literally can't hug me. Like, you you're superman now.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:48

Like the golds are quite literally like I think they're like they're like seven feet tall. Like yeah, like quite literally like seven feet tall in a few. Seven feet tall, four feet tall, five feet tall.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:58

They're like seven feet tall, and they're like around like ten times stronger because they said that their bone density is designed for like to withstand like ten times Earth gravity, and also they're on Mars, so it's one sixth or yeah, I have no idea.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:12

I feel like it would be a very hard movie to do in live action with current.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:16

Yeah, I think a lot of things like would look goofy because they do talk about how like in like different levels of gravity they do things. I think in live action some of it might look a little silly.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:28

No, um that's one thing that I actually thought was a bit immersion-breaking for me, which sounds stupid, but like they the fact that he references like in the low gravity a lot, it's like, yeah, but that's the only gravity you ever know, like you've ever known. You've never been outside of like Mars's gravity. Like, why would you reference the low gravity? Like, that's to you, that's just the gravity. I know that's a really minor nitpick, but like he says it a lot in the book.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:57

Like, oh, I tossed the process in the low gravity, and I'm like, Yeah, like I'm talking to my coworker, like, oh yeah, on Earth's gravity.

SPEAKER_08 1:09:04

This is it's like I know that you know about other planets, but like you you've lived on Mars, you've never left Mars, you're currently on Mars. Like, why do you keep calling it the low gravity? Like, to you, that is just uh gravity.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:15

Is the institute not hold on? This might be wrong. Is the institute actually not physically on Mars? Isn't it like on like uh like a moon or like a uh or like a different like no? I'm pretty sure it's on Mars. Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:28

Although I think they also learned the whole history of Earth, though. So maybe everything he's learned is just maybe I mean this is just respective to Earth, exactly. So it's like the every time I don't know Austin.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:43

It's it is on Mars. Uh uh it it's it's in a remote, terrifying. They were the home team upper arm, yeah. House Mars. They are, yeah, always in Mars. Oh, yeah, yeah. Maybe it's like the World Cup where they're no the Institute.

SPEAKER_08 1:09:56

They said they said uh at one point that there is like a school on everything. When they actually talked about them being the home team, they're like, You're not special because you're in house Mars and we're on Mars. Like, there's an you know, you you could be in the institute on Venus and it'll be House Venus and you're not gonna get any special treatment.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:15

All right, but um actually I think it's funny too. I think that besides this the skin color part and like the physical size part, I would argue that it would look it. I think that a live action Red Rising would look better than a live action Stormite Archive.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:35

I agree with that.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:36

I agree with that too, yeah. And so like in Mistborn, I'm kind of iffy on because like I'm not gonna lie, I think that like some of the Mistborn powers could I don't know how you actually make that look good in live action.

SPEAKER_08 1:10:47

I think you could do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:48

The Red Rising's based on real life, but in the future, sort of exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:53

So like you can have laser swords and like hover cards and stuff. So it's like the to me, the only issue is like really maybe the skin color. I think the physical size. So like I really think I'm surprised that you guys are pushing so hard back on like the the live action version. I think that compared to Sanderson's works, I would argue Red Rising would be easier to implement.

SPEAKER_08 1:11:10

I think portraying like think about like the average scene in in Stormlight, right? Like, yes, there are fantastical yes, they're okay. With the parshendi, but the thing is with the parshendi short, but the thing is that every single character in this book is inherently a different color, like to the point where they look like a different species.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:34

Like, imagine like to be fair in Red Rides with 90% gold or like like you don't see them intermingle much, you know, but it's not about them being different, it's that like they all would have to have like the prosthetics and makeup and stuff.

SPEAKER_08 1:11:47

Like, it's not like just the Parshendi do in the Parshendi scenes or when they're fighting, it's like every single major character in every single scene.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:55

But still, when they're fighting in full makeup, it's not just like Calden's flying, it's like he's you know changing the direction of gravity, and all these other effects have really weird things and challenge little like uh like uh illusion, stuff like that, too. Like, I would argue that then the average don't spoil the thermal archive, guys.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:10

I'm fighting with a super chart from the beginning, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:12

Yeah, it's a different series. Yeah, I'm fighting with a different topic. Like that is substantially easier to do in live action than I have magical powers to find some kind of like you know, law-based magic system, but it doesn't look right, or unless again misborn to it's like I can see the vectors taking me to nails and stuff like that. And oh yeah, actually, I have a uh smoke screen up, so you can't see my powers. Also, I'm pewter strong, I don't grow bigger, I'm just M stronger.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:38

Yeah, but I don't think that those things I mean I don't necessarily know if those things are that much harder to like they're they're con like that's superhero, like that it's constantly portrayed in like superhero movies and shows and stuff like that. Like just being stronger isn't that hard to like show in Hollywood necessarily. Low gravity is definitely harder. They were just talking about that with um with uh Project El Mary coming out. Not that no gravity is hard, but specifically low gravity, because Andy Weir's second book take place takes place on the moon, and they struggled to adapt it for a while because they couldn't figure out how to like portray low gravity on the moon effectively without it just being like no like you're not floating, but you're also not just like in normal gravity, and they could they uh have just started like thinking they're gonna start doing it because they've figured out a way to do just sit like have normal gravity, then every now and again just chuck a dude really far.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:36

Just do the do film it where they fake the moon landing, and then it's easy.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:41

Yeah, that's yeah, absolutely. That that's perfect. Just use their special in the 60s.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:47

Just call it NASA.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:48

Isn't PS Brown actually in? I I can't remember if like his movie got dropped or if he was actually in talks to have a movie TV show, but I can't remember. There, I there's some news recently.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:57

Someone someone probably bought the rights to it um a while they a while ago and and now it's probably in in development hell. Um to what? To Red Rising. I think that's what you said, right? Yeah, yeah. Um yeah, it's it's I mean, whenever one of these whenever one of these series takes off, somebody buys the rights to it, and then it just gets tied up for eight years or something like that, and then it's and then finally finally released, which is what happened with Sanderson. Yeah, I was gonna say all of this all of his stuff finally got finally got released from whoever had it, and Apple TV picked it up. I think I think honestly, all three should probably be animated. Mistborn, Storm Light. I actually completely agree with you and Red Rising. Like that's that's uh I think that would be the best way to illustr to illustrate because it's not just it's not just the flying it for Stormlight, it's not just the flying and no, that's just the first one I thought of.

SPEAKER_08 1:14:53

Um I'm thinking Mistborn it's more doable because of the fact that they have like a very like for example the steel uh iron push and steel pushing.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:09

A little bit, but if you made if you made one, if you made just uh put a button on it, is uh if you made Stormlight animated and missborn live action, then what would like a crossover be like? Space jam? Yeah, in no context, they just like it's like it's like space jam, but they don't acknowledge that they're that they're animated at all. That's yeah, that's uh I mean that would be dope. I would love that.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:43

Besides the in the Laman thing, which might kill it, but like there's so much action, there's so many plot twists. Like I think it'd work really well, and even too, the books are shorter, so like it's not like it's like okay, if we try to turn a big Sanderson novel down into a single movie, it's like you're cutting out a ton.

SPEAKER_08 1:15:57

Like, yeah, I mean, I'm certainly I'm not opposed to it. It's not like I would I wouldn't be sad if they made this into a movie.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:04

I've seen Siries address inner monologues by like talking to like a horse or something like that, and just kind of when no other companies are around.

SPEAKER_08 1:16:12

Yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:14

Yeah, you could in a sense do that like while she's unconscious and he's taking care of her in the cave in the cave. He's just yeah, like, man, I'm a red and I'm so sad because I'm all alone.

SPEAKER_07 1:16:24

Man, I'm a red. Maybe she sang that song.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:28

How did she know that song? She said that song is pretty, and Eo sang that song, and then it's like, all right, well, now we know his inner monologue, so we know his he doesn't want to sleep with her, but she is certainly.

SPEAKER_07 1:16:40

But she's really hot.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:42

Yeah, my god, she's gold. She's red and smart.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:46

Also, she like was a his caretaker, so like it's it's hard. Like, I don't think it's also he's like what, like 18 in this book or something. I I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:54

Yeah, yeah, they do bring that up a couple times. So yeah, like Andy might be 18 or something.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:58

I don't blame him for a second, like it's like, yeah, he's 18. I like I was like, I was a complete idiot till 25.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:05

That's when 18-year-olds do, yeah. 25? What?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:08

Yeah, it's a 40.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:09

They kill people and then they fuck each other, but they're sad about it. That's what I was doing at 18.

unknown 1:17:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:16

I thought um one thing that I enjoyed about this is that the um the setting kind of gave me Dune vibes in the sense that it was like technically sci-fi, but it was like rooted in like more like kind of like classic style, like fantasy style combat. Yeah, that's a good point.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:37

I yeah, with the swords and the razors, yeah, and like the society itself, um, not literally this.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:43

Well, I guess the literally the society, or just like the way that government has organized itself has been very like archaic, and like you would think humanity would be like so much further along in the year, whatever it is. It's like, uh no, this is basically just like space feudalism, and yeah, I guess you're not wrong there.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:02

There's there's a distinct difference between this and a lot another sci-fi series. I love the expanse. Um the expanse feels like uh not, I mean, uh there's a lot of stuff that's fantastical and magic about it and everything like that, but the um but the uh the setting feels like something that could be potentially in the thousand in a thousand years or something like that.

SPEAKER_08 1:18:28

We've colonized the asteroid belt and it feels believable, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:33

Whereas this this one feels a little bit like this this feels like you took a fantasy universe and shoved it into the solar system.

SPEAKER_08 1:18:42

Yeah, even even to the point where there's like carvers and they're like, Well, they you know, fantasy creatures don't exist, but also carvers and sea creatures and dragons and shit, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:18:53

Yeah, exactly, exactly. That's uh yeah, it's definitely has a it definitely has fan for I think this is a really good series for people who are normally huge fans of fantasy to jump into science fiction. Yeah, that's where it's an excellent point.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:08

People are psychous, you might say. Yeah. Exactly. Um yeah, and like even like like the there's like a lot of allusions to like Greeks and Romans and that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:25

Like yeah, I loved all that, all all like the god names and everything, and it that worked for me so well.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:30

I can't turn it back to like Earth too in the future books. It doesn't really spoil anything, but like they'll talk about how each house is like descendant from different regions of like modern day earth, like the Al-Raw family's like a blend of like South Africans and Japanese, I think. It's like that's just how neat, and then you see that like blend into their culture, just like how you see like the Irish stuff in the in the reds. And I think are the Greys Scottish or are they Irish too? They have to probably Americans. They talk about Americans every now and then in the later books, and it's funny. But I don't even remember that in the American general that was like given the given the iron gold's problems, and then like he stuck somehow.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:22

Yeah, that's uh but yeah, won't won't delve too deeply into won't delve any deeper than that, Mike, and everybody else who hasn't read who hasn't read the other three.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:34

I do like like I said, Byron said I like the lineage of going back to like it takes from really old school Greco-Roman culture, and it has some small pointers towards like you know the earth culture that we live in, kind of stuff. Like it's it's it's really fun. Yeah, it's it's like sci-fi light. It's like all right, it's a light, it's a lightsaber, but it's but it's just a sword. It's also a whip, though. And a whip. And then like oh, we have graves and we can turn invisible. It's like what other crazy stuff do you have?

SPEAKER_08 1:21:02

Oh, yeah, like ghost cloaks. They're like, oh yeah, we can just go invisible.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:06

Anything else? Like, no, that's really it.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:08

We still shoot each other. Yeah, not much has changed among the people, just technology's changed a little bit.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:14

Most of the killing in this in the whole series is still done by shooting each other. That's that's it. Or turning each other up with some of them. Or stabbing, yeah. There's a lot of stabbing.

SPEAKER_08 1:21:24

Um, but if it's someone you care about, they probably die by stabbing.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:30

So honestly, um I kind of want to reread it now because I think that after this discussion, I love having these talks with you guys because I always think about the book in a new light. In this case, what I'm realizing is that there's a lot of different foils that I didn't realize existed in the first book. There's some obvious ones, um, like Jackal and Darrow. But even too, we already mentioned how there are foils like how um Cassiant Titus. Pax and Titus, uh Cassius and Mustang. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:58

Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:59

About that kind of stuff too. And like um it's like there's ones I weren't thinking, because the obvious one is oh, Jackal and Mustang. They're both siblings. Like, no, it's like they're they're siblings, but like, yeah, it's like Cassius saying, and Jackal.

SPEAKER_08 1:22:12

Arguably also Sevro and Julius. Actually, kind of Julian, Julian, yeah. Sorry, Julian. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:20

I think Sevron is one is they were both weak and but yeah, but one is willing to fight and survive, and one is just soft.

SPEAKER_08 1:22:25

But also, I mean, soft, but also like still I think Sevro is like kind of like a hard ass, but also he believes in Darrow, and I think has a lot of those things. It's just that he also is like, I will kill to stay alive. Like, I'll do what I need to. And Julian really just like didn't even put up a fight.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:46

Yeah, yeah, so he didn't even attempt to, and you know, so horrible it was reading about Darrow killing him.

SPEAKER_08 1:22:54

Yeah, that was terrible. I did not like that part.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:57

Like, he did, yeah, that it felt dirty. He's like, and then I just smashed his skull. Like, it felt so like deliberate.

SPEAKER_08 1:23:04

Uh it was very brutal. Well, they were just like literally naked in a room, and they were like, You kill one of you, you one of you kill the other.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:12

And like he was weak and all, but like he was like a well-trained fighter. It's just he wasn't a match for Darrow. And he didn't really even fight back because he was like, No, like, no, no, surely. This isn't going for this. Isn't this a joke, right? Yeah, it's like haha, yeah. What do you think of this one?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:33

What did the skull say to the ground?

SPEAKER_04 1:23:36

Squat. But um, yeah, it's oh yeah, they gave you the heebie jeebies.

SPEAKER_08 1:23:43

I did not like that part. There are many parts in this series that I'm like, I did not like that. I did not like that at all. I did not like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:51

Would you rather have to climb into a dead horse or up through like the sewage? Dead horse. The horse, probably.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:59

It'd be nice and warm.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:00

Yeah, there's like a it's like Star Wars, the Tauntaun.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:03

Yeah, exactly. So cozy.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:06

Yeah, that looks cozy. I can't remember if it was this book or another one, but they they snuck in. There's definitely, I felt like it was an overt Star Wars reference and a Dune reference, and a maybe a Lord of the Rings one. I truly have no idea what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_08 1:24:25

I also agree.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:27

Okay, Matt agrees, so I feel vindicated.

SPEAKER_08 1:24:29

No, no, no. I meant I agree that I don't know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:32

Oh well, that's just the teaser for the next episode.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:43

I mean, and yeah, it's uh Austin reading rereading it is probably a good time to reread it too, because red uh or like you know, get through as you're getting through the whole series, because this the final book is supposed to come out this year.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:57

Oh wait, it's not done. You fuckers have me read this, it's not done.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:01

Oh no, it's there's the seventh book in the series that's supposed to come out.

SPEAKER_07 1:25:06

Oh my god. Oh my god. I'm going through this like a book a week, and you're telling me that in a couple of not gonna be done.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:16

Um supper with me. You'll you'll love the end of of Lightbringer. It's it's uh it's it's a um yeah, it's definitely it definitely it hurt and the fact is it took like I think it took like four years between the fifth and sixth books for Pierce Brown to get it done. So it's not an absolute done deal that he's gonna finish it in the last book this year.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:38

So we'll see. Oh my gosh. I can't, yeah. I I took a break from him just because like I'm trying to get through the Cosmere. And I hate to say it, but it does feel that way. I'm just trying to get through it. Um but I I can't I I'm after this book, I'm gonna finish up a Lantris, which I actually do really like. Um I'm going to it is, it's so cute. Um but then but then uh I can't wait to get back into Iron Gold. Um I'm I'm dying to read more and a knight of the seven kingdoms. I also have to read that so I can return the book to you. But oh you might you know I said like the heebie jeebies, like my so my scale is obviously extra exceptionally different than yours for like violence, where like so you said like it's between George R. Martin and Sanderson, where Sanderson's like, I don't know, he's like a three out of ten on the graphic scale. Like George R. Martin to me is somewhere like a maybe like a six or seven. This is probably like just like just below him at like a like five or six. But like when I read like Joe Abercrombie, that dude's like a nine. Yeah, he has pages of just brutal, brutal stuff. And I'm like, I'll be sitting there reading like like come on.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:49

Like, yeah, like yeah, I did not like his books.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:55

Going for the jail.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:58

I did not like his books. I I I loved his I loved his books for because it's almost told it is brutal, but it's almost told in like a sarcastic way that makes over the top of this brutalness, almost lighthearted, but it's it's and it and he has really really good characters, but that's it.

SPEAKER_08 1:27:16

I I just don't like when in any media when I'm just like I hate all of the characters, not like because they're poorly written, but because they're like bad, right? Like oh yeah, like think like Umbridge from Harry Potter, right? Like you're not meant to like her, but she's a well-done character, and like the actor killed it, or like uh Joffrey from Game of Thrones, like well done character, like well acted, well written, but like you hate him. The thing is, when all the characters in your book are one of those types of characters, it's just like, yeah, actually, nah.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:51

This is just unpleasant. I don't want to, I don't want to just uh book. Book four has a character that I'm enjoying hating.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:00

Is it Ephraim?

SPEAKER_04 1:28:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:03

Oh, no spoilers. No spoilers. He's not even in the first three books, but he's that's a uh I don't want to know how you guys feel about anything.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:11

I want to make my own feelings.

SPEAKER_08 1:28:13

But I'm talking about the Drew Evercrabie character. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:16

They're monsters.

SPEAKER_08 1:28:18

The fucking like torturer guy. Like literally, like he introduces himself. He's like, Oh, I'm I'm I'm a torturer and I don't really give a shit about anything. And it's just like, oh, you're so awesome. I love you.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:29

Literally, the closest thing the book has to a main character is just this guy whose job it is to torture for the tor and he's so not good.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:37

Yeah, apparently evil. And then one of the other characters are torturing or oh, he's amazing at torturing.

SPEAKER_08 1:28:44

That's the problem. One of the other characters in that book, The Blade itself, was like, I I didn't finish this book because they like went, I went through all of the intro chapters, like, all right, when are we gonna get to like the character that I'm rooting for? Like, when are we gonna get to the character that's like this is the MC and stuff? And it was like it was like they introduced the torturer. Uh, I don't they introduced a third character, I don't really remember that well. And then they introduced like, what if Aragon was just like kind of fucking sucked? What if he was just like a real shitty shit Aragon who was like, actually, I don't care about the Hobbits, I left them at the Prancing Pony to die to the NASGOL, and now I'm just out in the woods, kind of like being sad. It's like I'm done. That's I was just like, I put that book down and stopped reading.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:28

That's absolutely fair. It's like it's this isn't fantasy, but like the show Succession, like everyone in that show is the worst, is just the absolute worst, and so it took me forever to get to actually to actually get into that show, like despite the fact that my friends would be like this is the greatest show ever, or something like that. And finally, it did click for me, but I was just like, I hate everyone in this show so much. And I don't guess that's part of it. Like, you're supposed to hate them, but it's like a weird and with Abercrombie, I know we're off Freddy's. Oh, now we're okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:04

Yeah, let's circle back to yeah. I like Darrow. I like Sevro. He's a good guy, I like Mustang. All those are good people. I think the jackal's a great villain too. Yeah, or at least a great, at least a great foil.

SPEAKER_08 1:30:16

I didn't hate the jackal until he killed Pax. And then I was like, I hate you a lot now.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:21

So you're okay with the cannibalism?

SPEAKER_04 1:30:23

Did um did the whole like the whole like I'm talking about? The whole idea that Jared figured out he was the jackal by having the missing ring thing, like, did that did I miss something, or did that feel like kind of like I don't know. That kind of confused me.

SPEAKER_08 1:30:41

It was a little bit confusing. I d I think it like made sense in context.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:46

It might have made more sense if I had read it rather than listened, and I could like kind of like go through and read it again, like a little more closely.

SPEAKER_08 1:30:54

It was like a little weird.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:55

It definitely felt a little bit sudden, but I think it's also felt like he was also jumping to conclusions. Like like there could have been like a he's like, he doesn't have the ring stabs his hand.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:09

The ring doesn't fit him.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:13

Like ring don't fit.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:16

Yeah, I mean I'm I don't know, maybe I'm just stupid, or I think Darrow jumped to there's a lot of just convenient things in this book where it's like, all right, well, we're just gonna figure this out right now, and this'll be it.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:29

Actually, that was like one of my qualms with the book is that like, yeah, like it was it was too easy at times because I jumped to this extreme, especially for a red Kelsey the smart.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:38

Yeah, I don't think anyone is necessarily dumber than the gold.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:42

Like, I think the golds are like well learned, but I don't think I don't know man, they're like manipulators, they're they're intelligent to serve their own, to serve their own ends, but their brains aren't superior.

SPEAKER_08 1:31:54

I think I think it's like just generally on average, they're smarter, but it's just like you know, modern humans, right? There's like people that are just like geniuses and prodigies and whatnot. And like they did talk about how like Darrow was like one of the best hell divers they've ever seen, and how it's really complicated machinery he had to operate. So it's like even when he goes to Mickey, and Mickey's like, you're a fucking stupid ass red, like you can't possibly pull this off, and then he's like, he like solves Mickey's puzzle and stuff. It's like I think he just is a bit of a prodigy and a genius, which is sort of why they picked him, because he like unironically, like is high enough, good enough to compete. But on average, I think probably the average red isn't as smart, if only because they're not as educated.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:37

Well, also, too, like the other other side up, besides he's a quick learner and a very hard worker, is that like again, between the time he got cut up and then or carved, and then by the time that that happened, like he was just cramming non-stop every single day, every single thing, even to they. I remember I'm almost positive this happened in the book. They were they said that they taught him how to think and taught him how to problem solve. So they just teach him like, here's history, here's facts. They taught him about like critical thinking and problem solving skills, like they developed his brain so hard. We're like, again, I think it's that classic trope of like people with a silver spoon in their mouth, they're like, I'll study it, I know it, I'm already so smart, I don't need to be any smarter. But like Darrow had to apply himself, and so like because of that, then he was able to like through very hard work and dedication, he was able to get to that level of like yeah, he's yeah, just yeah, it happened fast, but yeah, you're right. There was on the test, uh, Darrow's time spent. He was it was months and months and months, I think, or maybe even years. I can't remember.

SPEAKER_08 1:33:30

No, no, no. It was only it was only months.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:32

All right, I think uh the written test like is implied that a bunch of the other golds cheated. Yeah, because they asked him, How did you cheat?

SPEAKER_08 1:33:40

He's like, I fucking didn't.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:42

Yeah, I just and then he like realized that made him look conceited, so he's like, Oh yeah, just kidding.

SPEAKER_07 1:33:47

I totally actually they just couldn't figure out how to I cheated by studying you fucks.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:58

The ultimate cheat. I memorized the answers.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:03

What a what a conniving mastermind you are to actually Oh, what a gold you are. Right. I uh I mean, yeah, it going back to what you guys were saying about him. I mean, it maybe not feeling earned, like you're right, because it was done in kind of a montagey way, uh, it might seem like he's it's this old the old trope of the Mary Sue character or something like that. Yes, I agree.

SPEAKER_08 1:34:30

I think I think to be fair, I don't want to watch him learn all this shit. Yeah, right. I don't want to learn who have to do that.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:37

I don't want to like watch Jason would have walked us through that for a while.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:40

Because even too, like you even see him at conquer house after house after house, and you realize, like, oh yeah, months passed between these conquering they were in the wild for like a long time, but like the way that uh Pierce Bangaro, he's like, eh, nothing happens for a while. I'm skipping that part.

SPEAKER_07 1:34:53

Yeah, there's oh, the winter happened, like the whole thing Mustang.

SPEAKER_08 1:34:57

Winter passed, uh, and we kind of like we met up with the howlers, and then now the howlers are on our team.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:04

Anyway, it's me, Mustang, and the howlers now, and it's like, what that's also a very dune-like thing where a lot of stuff happens off page and with Frank Herbert.

SPEAKER_08 1:35:14

Yeah, they regularly are just like, um, uh, and then like there, I'm pretty sure there was like an entire thing where he's like, and we took that other castle, um uh anyway, and then like now we're doing something else. It's just like, all right, I guess I guess he didn't want to describe that. That's fine.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:29

So I think that is part of Mike's because I guess yeah, he didn't like he perps he skipped over like a lot of the build, and like so like again, I've say it again. This was probably like I say it's my least favorite book in this series. I still absolutely adore this book, and I adore Pierce Brown, but just like it's just compared to the other two, or like those two are nuts. Um this first one is just like he's yeah, like he skips a lot of like rising action stuff, like he doesn't he hasn't gotten quite good at flashing out those characters yet. To be fair though, you actually going through a lot of them, but like it's still like I still cared about the characters, still love them. I'm so interested in them, and like it's a great jumping off point.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:05

He is he it was his first book, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:36:07

Yeah, exactly. I and it feels like it.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:09

Yeah, it does, it does. That's uh and and the fact that Golden Sun goes in such a sharp right turn from what I was expecting.

SPEAKER_08 1:36:20

Oh, yeah. The the beginning of it is very much that same thing of just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, a bunch of stuff has already happened, but we're beyond that now, right? The second book is just like the second book is just like there was a book that you missed, but we're you you I'm not gonna write that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:36

That's uh the clone wars happened in between, but we'll skip over that.

SPEAKER_08 1:36:40

I mean, a little bit unironically, the second book feels like it starts off, and I'm like, all right, I think I know what's gonna like literally like chapter one, like not spoilers, it's stuff that like doesn't happen. You think you might have an idea of where it's gonna be, and it's just like, yeah, just skip ahead like a year, and like that's where book two is. You're like, what?

SPEAKER_05 1:36:58

And it's funny, it's funny you say you bring up, I mean, the clone war is pretty good uh analogy, Mike, because those those comics that I was talking about are what happened or are kind of what happens between uh between Golden Sun, between Red Rising and Golden Sun, and between Golden Sun and Morningstar.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:16

Oh no, I need those books now.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:18

Yeah, now now I need you're talking about language. There are like there I feel like there's six, there's like six of them. Um but they're they're pretty good. They're they're like, you know, they're they're uh they're absolutely not necessary. Like they're they're a lot like uh Edge Dancer and um Dawn Shard.

SPEAKER_08 1:37:37

Like that's that's uh Dawn Shard seems like it might be uh pretty necessary eventually.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:42

Because you wouldn't know what a Dawn Shard is in Wind and Truth if uh if you didn't read Dawn Shard.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:47

Oh hey, some of us are figured out through context clues.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:49

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_08 1:37:51

Edge Dancer objectively not necessary.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:54

Studied.

unknown 1:37:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:56

Edge Dancer is the character that you already have an introduction to, and yeah, if you edge dancer is like uh if you feel like it.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:04

I will say edge dancer. Well, I don't want to give too much away, but I've I felt like it made a significant plot point of Wind and Truth more satisfying. Yes, that's fair.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:17

I think Sanderson does that a lot, like because even to okay, I'm gonna couple dots a little bit more. I'm not doing this now. We're the Sanderson has like six other podcasts. Not going in, no, I'm done. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:26

All right, so I think I think he just wrote that because he really likes writing um yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:32

But these if I had to rank authors based off of how much cocaine I think they do, Pierce Brown's at the top of my list.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:39

Oh yes, 100% problem.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:42

Everybody's looking like he used to do a lot. Yeah, he's like I he's like Isaac, mmm. I hate this boring rising action stuff. I love climaxes. What if it's just nonstop twists, non-stop turns? Like two of them just don't have a falling action, whatever it's called. Like, let's just like let's just go.

SPEAKER_07 1:38:57

What if I wrote a book that doesn't stop coming?

SPEAKER_01 1:39:01

It feels like maybe to see a doctor. It was the Rick and Morty sketch with the two brothers where it's like just one thing. It's just two brothers, it feels like it's like, and then the moon falls down on them. There's ancient alien grandmas, and it's called two brothers, two brothers. That's Pierce Brown, where it's just like it's like he gets the castle, but then Olympus comes down, and then the jackal comes out.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:31

And maybe the jackal's not even figured out.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:34

He's like narrow gusts coming, and you you know that's coming sometime soon.

SPEAKER_08 1:39:39

Yeah, I like at one point in the book, they're like at one point in the book, they're like, Oh, I've heard the name the jackal, and they like start hyping up the jackal, and then people are like, I don't even think the jackal's real. And he's like, Oh, I don't know. Is the jackal even real?

SPEAKER_01 1:39:55

Yeah, just like it kind of felt like that though. It's just like it was literally one thing after the other. It's so much fun to read, man. It's it's really like it's a really, really fun book.

SPEAKER_08 1:40:03

I think it doesn't let you get bored. It very much does not let you get bored. Every time that I was like, uh, all right, like I kind of don't care, like towards the beginning of the books, there's some of it, and like now that I'm on the third one, and I'm like, I don't, but it never lets you like rest easy for longer than like a couple of pages, or like at most a chapter, before it's like, oh shit, oh fuck, what's happening?

SPEAKER_01 1:40:28

Like, yes, it's it's crazy how like yeah, I guess there's a small rising action at the beginning of every book. Maybe like the first not even tenth of the book, like the first chapter of the book uh would just be like, Oh, here's like what you missed and the stuff I just choose not to tell you about. And then um it's just like okay, the climax, and it's like okay, halfway through the next chapter, guess what? Everything's going wrong again. Yeah, and now this is the right thing.

SPEAKER_08 1:40:49

Or I will say he does do a good job of like sometimes everything's going right. Like in this one when Darrow is like first like making his comeback after like being in the woods with Mustang. It's so badass when he's like, Oh, yeah, we were watching House Mars and House uh Jupiter or whatever, they were starting to war. And then like me and the howlers were just like ambushing them, and we just came out of the fucking woods and like tackled them off their horses, and we're just being fucking monsters, and like started to like build the legend of the Reaper, and then he's like, I fucking broke into their castle, and then we burned a giant reaper sigil outside of their castle, like in the fucking grain, and it's like that shit was in the casters' door, yeah. They like carved it in the door, and like, yeah, oh man. They he knows when to make it like all right, we're gonna let the like MC like have a little bit of a glow up, like oh definitely, and then we'll salmon back, but first glow up.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:51

Yeah, it he he does overcome a lot, but when he does it, sometimes it's really, really cool.

SPEAKER_08 1:41:56

Yeah, fly so high in mud July, gentlemen.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:02

Do we have anything else on Red Rising?

SPEAKER_01 1:42:05

No, uh finish Golden Sun. I can't always be back here for Golden Sun. Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna bring a pack of cigarettes. You're gonna need a cigarette after that.

SPEAKER_08 1:42:17

I'm gonna need uh I'm gonna I don't smoke. I'm gonna start because of that to talk about it.

SPEAKER_05 1:42:23

I feel like we're hyping this up so much, and Mike's gonna be like, I didn't really like it.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:28

I hate this. I might just stop reading altogether. We'll see, we'll see. Yeah, all right. Well, we're as always, we're gonna transition over to our recommendation section. I hope everyone came prepared. Austin, do you want to go first? Sure. You could go first. Full circle.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:46

I don't have anything crazy to recommend this time. Like, usually I'm very passionate about something I'm doing, but like I'm not really this time. Um, so what I'm gonna recommend is speaking of animation, if you want to give uh an anime a try, I'd recommend to anybody is a Freerin Journey Beyond Journey's End. If you like anime, you've already watched it. But if you're new to it and you want to just dabble in it and you don't want to necessarily be like really cheesy and corny, like Freerin is gorgeous. It is an absolutely incredible anime. Uh it's heartwarming, the action scenes are absolutely incredible. You fall in love with the characters, they're people you can easily root for. Um, if you're trying to like get into anime, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:25

Like I that is that is a problem I often have with anime, is that I feel like it's cheesy and often boring, yes.

SPEAKER_08 1:43:32

So there is there's definitely anime is kind of weird to watch because you also almost have to like learn to watch it. Like you have to learn to just kind of like there's a gonna be a bunch of like weird, cheesy stuff, or like some stupid, stupid, tropey stuff that you kind of have to just be like, they all just do it, and like there's greatness in like in there, but you do have to look past some of the like just like anime like tropiness frills that are around it, just be like, all right, like what story are you trying to tell? Not like what fucking fan service or whatever are you trying to have. Absolutely. But Freerin does not really have a lot of that. Freerin very much it like does do a good job of trying to like stay away from those like campy, tropey moments.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:15

Heavily story driven, heavily character driven. It is action well done. So if you do want to try out anime and you don't want to watch one of those insane weeb things, like give give freerin a shot. It's just an amazing TV show.

SPEAKER_08 1:44:28

What is it called again? Freerin Beyond Journey's End.

SPEAKER_05 1:44:35

I typed in Free Rain in a movie about a horse girl.

SPEAKER_06 1:44:38

Very basic pre.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:46

Like a centaur.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:48

No, no, like just a girl who's gonna be.

SPEAKER_05 1:44:52

I've never seen a girl centaur. Have you it's a good point? Yeah, I've never seen yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:44:58

Because they usually show them shirtless.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:00

Oh, true.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:01

All the all the more centaur one time, and uh missed opportunity. Gotta go to those weird websites for that. There's girl centaurs. There's some mark.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:12

Who are you to say what's weird?

SPEAKER_07 1:45:13

Yeah, I was gonna say weird. I've got it on bookmark.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:17

You have your parts. Only centaurs, female centaurs.

SPEAKER_08 1:45:22

Oh, it's not it's not actually only centaurs, it's only half people is is the name. Um teens. Um, no, but but but Freer's it's like a basic premise is like the the an elf, like classic fantasy elf, you know, lives thousands of years. Um adventures with the heroes party, like you know, a swordsman and a dwarf and uh like cleric to kill the great demon lord. And that they do it, all already happened. They did it, they killed the demon lord and they ushered in an age of peace. And then the elf is like, all right, guys, love y'all. I'll see you in 50 years, right? Like, uh, there's this cool meteor shower that happens every like hundred years, and in the next 50 years is coming, and they're all like, Yeah, wait, what? We're all like gonna like we're not gonna be alive for like that long, probably. And then she comes, she's like, What? Whatever, and comes back and they're all like old and dying, and she's like, Oh fuck, mortality, I didn't realize, and then the rest of the so the whole show is her like kind of re-traveling the journey with like their sort of dislike descendants or like their like pupils and apprentices, and like kind of reliving the journey she had with them and discovering like how their journey was like what it actually meant to those people, and kind of like coming to terms with like she discovered what it meant to her because she just like never really processed like she's like I have 10,000 years to process my emotions, why would I do it now? And so it's like her starting to like understand like maybe I loved these people, and like maybe like that should have meant something more to me, and it's this very emotional, like yeah, it's her like taking in life for the first time, really, because she's like, Okay, yeah, like time is not arbitrary to everyone, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_05 1:47:17

Yeah, yeah, that seems fantastic. That seems super cool. I will absolutely check it out.

SPEAKER_08 1:47:23

Also, she's a badass wizard, like she's like a badass mage because she's been alive for 10,000 years. So what when push comes to shove, she's like, I will summon like a fucking black hole on your head, and everyone's like, What? Everyone's like, I I shoot fire sprout, and she's like black hole of the immortal abyss, and they're like that is awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:51

All right, Byron, you're next.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:53

We're gonna go next. All right, thank you for texting me beforehand. Sorry, remember. That was that was definitely solid. I have two, I'm so prepared. Um, one related to this and one not. Um, one this has probably been recommended. Um, but if you haven't played um the Claire Obscura 33 XP, that game is really cool. Um you want to try during a prologue? Yeah, it is I usually don't care about the story of a game at all unless it's like something that I already know, like Star Wars or like something like that. But um, no, but like I actually want to think the game like invested in the story, which is I haven't felt like that in a game in a very long time. Um totally agree, and it's cool, it's like Final Fantasy if you played any of those games with some some neat twists. Um I usually don't play those kinds of games, but I heard good things about it, so I'm enjoying it so far. Um, my other recommendation, and it's French. So you get so French, it's super French, extremely French. So fucking French. It is like Frencher than fries.

SPEAKER_08 1:49:10

Yeah, there's literally there's literally uh every single character in the game you can fight a hidden mime boss to get a French outfit for them where they have a red scarf, like a red like bandana scarf, and a striped shirt, like a mime would wear, like and probably a beret.

SPEAKER_07 1:49:30

And a beret, yeah. It it is lots of accordions.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:32

They're like literally like accordion blittering the ground. Yes.

SPEAKER_08 1:49:37

In the main city of night, rifle tower is like in the background, just like all fucked up and warped.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:44

Um, did you guys play it in French or English? English. Yeah. I played it in English, but if I play it again, I might play it in French with subtitles just for the voice.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:54

You took French in high school, didn't you? Apparently, I did.

SPEAKER_08 1:49:56

I remember don't don't look up the lead. Lyrics to the song. The the the theme song apparently explicitly describes the entire plot of the story.

SPEAKER_05 1:50:08

But it's all in French. The mystery, at least until you beat Act Two of the story.

SPEAKER_08 1:50:13

That's that's uh uh do not uh yeah apparently the lyrics of that song are just like they just like tell you the music is that I was um I was playing the other night. Listen to that like one song by it, Mike.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:30

You'll be like, Yeah, you will listen to this is like very much like your vibe of like that song. There's very much like music you would enjoy, but anyway. Um my other recommendation for this podcast is that there's a graphic audio version of all I think almost all the Red Rising books where they split it into two, so it's narrated by a full cast rather than just the one narrator who does an excellent job, but and it has like sound effects and more like immersive like like music and stuff. So if you're into that, my I know my brother's really into that. Um so I got him those two the first two parts of Red Rising and the graphic audio for his birthday. He said it's it's pretty neat, but um yeah, so I recommend that if you're into those kinds of audiobooks or if you want to just try it differently, or I don't know if I can listen again without that beautiful man's sexy voice. He might be he might be in it, and well, yeah, I don't know if he's one of the narrators or not, but he the the narrator is excellent and he does a great job with the voices.

SPEAKER_05 1:51:42

I listened to uh the Star Wars uh the novels that came out in the 90s, they had graphic audio versions of the versions of those, and I listened listened to those, and it was it was it was it was really cool. You they have basically just like blaster shots going off in the background as you're listening, and and my brother got me one a Star Wars one recently.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:04

It was like um some Dr. I don't know. I wasn't like super enthusiastic about it, but I read it because he got it for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:13

It was like yeah, it was a four out of five.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:16

I don't know if it invented or something.

SPEAKER_05 1:52:19

Never even heard of it, man.

SPEAKER_08 1:52:21

I don't know if it invented Doctor Who, but they do some Doctor Who plays like that, like audio plays that are like actually have the cast, like they'll like David Tennant's done it, like all of the all of the like major doctors have done at least a couple.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:34

Um and they're just like Batman Unburied, where it's like voice actors and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:42

Um I I know some of the Star Wars like High Republic audiobooks are similar in that they uh the n I really like the narrator for the Star Wars books, and then they'll have like this lightsaber sounds and blaster sounds, and they don't do too much like because it can be a little distracting, um, but like during key moments, they'll play like music to like emphasize like a cool part. I like that when it's used that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_08 1:53:09

If appropriately if anyone likes uh Harry Potter is acting, I think they're still currently releasing them. They have them all done, but they're they've been releasing the audio, like an audio play like that. Uh that's been currently coming out. Sounds good. My friend's been reading them and has said that they're awesome. Actually, uh what's his name? Jon Snow. Uh uh Kit Harrington plays uh what's his name? Um Dobby? No, no, plays a lot of famous actors are in it, but Kit Harrington plays. Serious Squack? No, no, no. The guy who he was Harry Potter? It he was one of the uh dark arts teachers, the guy who was like really stupid. Gilroy Lockhart, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um I'm trying to think. They have a bunch of other like famous British actors playing a lot of the uh teachers in it.

SPEAKER_05 1:54:00

Yeah, the guy from the guy from Succession is one of the guys from Succession is is Voldemort. That's uh Matthew McFaddian.

SPEAKER_08 1:54:10

Um and they have like cast for like Harry and Ron and Hermione because they start off as kids and transition into adults, like the they have like different actors for when they're kids versus adults in it um to make it actually like sound like they've grown up.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:29

Makes sense.

SPEAKER_08 1:54:30

Yeah, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_05 1:54:32

All right, John, you're up next. I think Austin went to bed. Um I'm here. Okay, he's eating off screen. Okay, gotcha. Um, so I spent the last uh two, three and a half weeks or so uh on the treadmill watching the show Foundation on Apple.

SPEAKER_07 1:54:53

We've been watching it too.

SPEAKER_05 1:54:54

Really? That's like literally the last couple weeks, yeah. Oh my god. That's yeah, it's I read the first two books. I've read all the books. I've actually not read the books ever. I I and I heard the books are way different than the than the actual show. Um and the first like so I started watching it forever ago because I was like, I wait, fucking same.

SPEAKER_08 1:55:15

That's a while. Yeah, that's we watched like we watched like four or five episodes like over a year ago, and literally just like last week we finished season one and watched season two.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:27

You guys are more similar than you realize.

SPEAKER_05 1:55:29

Yeah, yeah, that's almost exactly what I did. I I lost the first few episodes. I'm like, this isn't this isn't really clicking for me. Uh, but it's definitely it's it looks um it looks amazing.

SPEAKER_08 1:55:42

It's just uh it's just Dune had just come out when we first started watching it, and I was looking for something to like fill the Dune gap, but it doesn't have the same like gromatas as like the Dune movies.

SPEAKER_05 1:55:52

Yeah, exactly. It's and I didn't really I didn't really love the main character the main character. Uh what's Gail is it is Gail? I was I want to say Gail.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:02

I was like Gail Dornick.

SPEAKER_05 1:56:04

Gail Dornick, yes. Uh even though Jared Harris's character, uh Harry Selden was is is incredible is fantastic throughout the entire thing.

SPEAKER_08 1:56:14

He's Harry, the actor they picked for Harry Selden is perfect.

SPEAKER_05 1:56:17

Jet Jared Jared Harris, who is the son of Richard Harris, the original Dumbledore. Wow. And uh in Harry Potter, yeah. That's uh interesting. And he's in he's in the expanse TV show and uh Chernobyl. Like I've seen him in a few things, I've seen him in in a few things, but he's he's awesome in everything he does. And they so and the first the apparently a lot of people say the first season it can be really slow at times. Um and it can be, but the second season, it just absolutely knocks it out of the park. Oh, the second season is is absolutely insane.

SPEAKER_07 1:56:54

And Lee Face the last couple episodes of that are mind-blowing.

SPEAKER_05 1:57:00

Absolutely nuts. Yeah, and uh uh the the three people who play uh brother Day, Dawn, and Dusk in that show are also excellent.

SPEAKER_07 1:57:09

Um why is Day so fucking hot? They did not need to do that.

SPEAKER_05 1:57:14

Leap Ace.

SPEAKER_08 1:57:15

He's uh he's like always walking around like half shirtless, and it's just like he looks like a like actually like a fucking Greek Adonis. Like it is wild.

SPEAKER_05 1:57:24

Those actors actually have it kind of tough to a certain extent because they basically all have to play different characters each season.

SPEAKER_08 1:57:32

Yeah, they they have to play the same person, yeah, but also completely different people.

SPEAKER_05 1:57:38

The the whole idea behind this this emperor in found in in Foundation character is that he he's cloned, he's cloned himself, and he has three different versions of himself alive at all times, at different at different ages. So Dawn is like 17 or something like that. Uh I don't remember that in the books at all.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:02

It's not really that's the oh it's not it's definitely I can almost guarantee it isn't. Really?

SPEAKER_05 1:58:08

Dawn is like 17, Day is like 30s, 35, and Dusk is like 60.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:15

It's a fun premise. Like I like the idea. Yeah, it sounds like a wild change from the if that's not in the books.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:20

It is don't go into the emperor at all.

SPEAKER_05 1:58:22

Like that the emperor is not a factor.

SPEAKER_08 1:58:25

Super main character.

SPEAKER_05 1:58:26

He's like, he's like, and his parts and Harry Selden's parts are like the best parts of the show.

SPEAKER_03 1:58:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:32

And uh there are prequels to the foundation, so maybe they draw upon those. No, I read those two, but not in them.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:39

Okay. Never mind. That's shocking because the show moved substantially away from the books.

SPEAKER_08 1:58:48

That's shocking because some of his parts are like uh he has. I mean, he it's not just like a side perspective, it's like there are like two or three main perspectives, and his is one of the main perspectives of the show.

SPEAKER_05 1:59:01

Especially in the second season with the the the religious uh his his interactions with the um with the religious folks are just yeah, like if that was I couldn't imagine the story without that.

SPEAKER_08 1:59:14

He has that whole plot line. Oh, yeah, with the spiral, the great spiral that he walks down. Like that literally, that whole episode is just about him.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:21

Just him walking in a circle, basically. That's it. But the prequels are only follow Harry Selden and they talk about his invention of psychohistory. Um, then I don't want to get into what the main books are about because it's gonna maybe spoil things, and then the sequel series will also very much spoil things.

SPEAKER_08 1:59:38

One of the I think the biggest draw that's interesting for the TV show is that it does something really unique, and it is not just following like one character during a big moment or like during the same time period. The entire show takes place like over hundreds and hundreds of years. Like characters keep going to like cryo sleep or whatever, so you're constantly like every season, or even like part way through seasons, it's just like hundreds of years later, and you're like, Oh, everyone from the previous season pretty much is dead, like off screen. Like, it's just like they didn't die in a bad way or something. It's just like now you're you're like following their descendants, and there's a couple of characters that are like either they've they keep going to cryo sleep, or like the um the emperor, he keeps cloning himself, so it's he looks the same, he always is identical, but it's like not the same person like that you meant met. It's like his like technical, like pseudo-descendant.

SPEAKER_05 2:00:40

The the it that absolutely like makes it challenging for the show because they basically have to re recycle, reintroduce 90% of its cast every sing every single season.

SPEAKER_08 2:00:52

Every like half season sometimes, like yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:00:55

Every well, the first season there's a there's a 50-year time jump or something like that, right in the middle of the season. Yeah, um, and the second and third seasons are are mostly contained, but they um uh but yeah, it's they do such a good job with it.

SPEAKER_08 2:01:11

Like they keep it, it's so interesting. The fact that they like it's very cool to to watch that level of time pass and you start to like get invested in the whole universe rather than just like this one cast of characters.

SPEAKER_05 2:01:25

Yeah, it's it's almost like it's it's not an anthology series or anything like that, but you gotta you gotta be ready. Every every season is gonna have certain characters, but then the rest of the cast is totally different. That's that's that's it. So yeah, highly, highly recommend. It's it looks it's it's beautiful it's a beautiful show. Uh especially the second and third seasons are very um are very like fast, very fast-paced, sci-fi action oriented and stuff like that and and stuff like that. It can get kind of uh trippy at times for sure.

SPEAKER_08 2:02:00

But I will say uh if there's one word I could use to describe it, it is ambitious. Like it really fucking takes a shot for like I don't think any any TV show has ever tried to do anything to the scale of that before.

SPEAKER_05 2:02:14

I think I think the whole show has spent half a millennium so far, so it's it's uh and they're gonna do a fourth season. I don't know if that's gonna be the end, but that's uh I think four or five.

SPEAKER_08 2:02:26

We just looked it up because Alina was stressed about it.

SPEAKER_05 2:02:28

Okay, gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, that's uh, but yes, that's my recommendation.

SPEAKER_08 2:02:34

All right, there we go. Yeah, Matt, you're up. Can I just ditto theirs? Um well, it's tough because I also have just been watching Foundation would highly recommend that, and also Free Rin, and I would highly recommend that. Um I do one thing that I haven't read, but that I have had recommended to me, and that Alina has been reading, and she has been absolutely loving and has been plowing through, is a book called Dungeon Crawler Carl.

SPEAKER_04 2:03:04

That's next to me. I get that recommended to me all the time. Um I vaguely like not by humans, but by like the algorithm.

SPEAKER_08 2:03:14

I I thought like that's it. Sounds silly. That sounds like a kind of like comic, like funny. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to like take that seriously kind of book.

SPEAKER_04 2:03:25

Is it like a choose your own adventure kind of deal?

SPEAKER_08 2:03:28

No, no, it's like very much like just a serious book, but it it has kind of anime sounding, some anime sounding stuff, like if you've seen solo leveling, um, where it's like uh I'm going based off what she has kind of told me, but it's something about like people kind of have magic and powers and stuff, but it's sort of like an alien, like like dungeons and goblins and stuff have sort of like come to earth, and so there are now people whose job it is to like fight them back.

SPEAKER_05 2:03:57

Um I did I I did read the first the first two the first in this series. I did, yeah. Okay, I I I didn't I didn't stick with it mostly because I mean I probably just got distracted with other things. I have other friends who absolutely abuse me. Yeah. Uh but it's it's like it's almost sillier than you than you explained because it's like these aliens come these aliens come to Earth, kill everyone who happens to be outside, who happens to be inside. They just flatten all the buildings all at once. And everyone who's outside gets shuffled into gets shuffled into these dungeons, this or this dungeon, and they have to essentially play a real life video game, um, where you're leveling, you're you're leveling up, you're casting magic like you're in Dungeons and Dragons or something like that. And uh and the it just it just so happens that the main character and his cat are outside at the time where they they they get they get flattened, and the cat becomes this intelligent, this this intelligent, super intelligent being that they travel, they then travel together and travel together to take part in this. And apparently this this whole thing is like this this intergalactic soap opera that everyone turns in and watches, and uh, and you can choose to team up with people or whatever. It's it's it and it's got like super random humor. Like it's it's uh it's it's funny, but it's like it's like uh, you know, he's fighting mole men at first and stuff like that, and then but what but like like the constant uh learning of what they can do and whatnot, it's like trying to teach a cat to play a video game or something like that, is is is uh is just completely just completely off the wall. It's cool. It's very it's very and that is very ambitious as well, but I just I have to get back to it. It's it's yeah, and it's easy, it's an easy read. I'll say that too.

SPEAKER_04 2:05:53

It's it's not uh really so that's it's very silly.

SPEAKER_01 2:05:59

It is very silly. I tried Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy like a decade ago and I didn't finish it.

SPEAKER_08 2:06:04

Book book one, book one, very good. I loved Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, book one.

SPEAKER_01 2:06:10

Okay, yeah, I got to after that.

SPEAKER_08 2:06:12

It much like a lot of old sci-fi goes off the rails, and it's just like you you gotta stop doing acid, man. Like you've done too much, like you've done too much cocaine and acid. It happened in Dune, it's like dune one, yeah, it's great, and then like Doom Asia's like, all right, and then it's just like all right, let's stop doing drugs now, guys. Like and like there's a lot of a lot of old fantasy is like that where it's just like okay, like you really you really nailed the first one, and then the drugs hit a little too hard.

SPEAKER_05 2:06:46

I'm pretty sure that's what that's what Dune became based on. I've had I've had the plots explained to me of the sequels to Dune, and I'm just like Byron's read all have you read all of them or most of them?

SPEAKER_04 2:06:56

I've read all the Dune books, and yeah.

SPEAKER_07 2:07:00

It is very much I mean drug inspired.

SPEAKER_04 2:07:03

A lot of people were there's parts where I was like listening to like I I did um I read the first three or four in paper, and I did the rest, and I think Dune God Emperor might have been like the first one that did audiobook and thank god I did, because um yeah, it it was just very yeah, it was very unique. I'll put it that way.

SPEAKER_08 2:07:26

Um there was the the amount of drugs going around back then was crazy. I remember my uh one of my physics professors was talking about how he's like yeah, he was teaching us about like quirks and stuff, and he's like, Yeah, the people who like did all this science to find the shit were on so many drugs because they were like they were naming them like the beauty quirk and charm quirk and stuff like that. It's just like they were like they were on a lot of fucking drugs, guys. Like 60s and 70s were a wild place.

SPEAKER_05 2:07:58

Maybe that's just what you need to get the creative juices fly. That's it.

SPEAKER_04 2:08:02

Yeah, yeah. I guess I would just go do a buttload of acid and try and write a book and write know how it goes.

SPEAKER_05 2:08:09

Write the next great science fiction. Is that your recommendation? Yeah, cocaine.

SPEAKER_08 2:08:13

That is, yeah, cocaine, cocaine and confidence, guys. Cocaine and confidence.

SPEAKER_00 2:08:17

Okay, come prolific author just through cocaine, but you gotta have confidence too.

SPEAKER_05 2:08:23

Right. Fair, good point, good point. Cocaine might give you confidence too. I don't know. I don't know how cocaine.

SPEAKER_00 2:08:30

Yeah, that's that's fair. My recommendation's pretty lame compared to everything all of you guys just said, but it's just uh Instagram page, Anto Sharp clips, also and I pregame to this last weekend. So we were supposed to record this last night, but it's basically AI cover, so that's kind of lame in general, but of popular songs, and making like any song an Irish folk song just makes it extremely fun. So we were listening to uh what's it tipsy by Shabuz?

SPEAKER_05 2:09:01

Oh, you did you send me this?

SPEAKER_00 2:09:03

I think so, yeah. Yeah, that's uh yeah, because I definitely pre-game song, and it was St. Patrick's Day this week, so it was a lot of fun. So that's my recommendation.

SPEAKER_05 2:09:14

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 2:09:17

Well, with that, I appreciate you guys all coming on tonight. This was awesome. This was a great book. I'm glad we got to review it together. Like we said, until Golden Sun.

SPEAKER_01 2:09:27

Yeah, we also could do Sanderson tier rankings, or we could do uh five other non-Sanderson books recommendations.

SPEAKER_04 2:09:38

Let's not jump to conclusions.

SPEAKER_00 2:09:41

Good point, good point. But yeah, thanks guys for coming on. And uh, if you've listened this far, please give us five stars and follow us on X at the Lakeview Pod or write to us at the Lakeview Podcast at gmail.com. And thank you.