 So, we're back to Red Queen. I just did a video on this last week. If you haven't seen it, go ahead and watch it. That one's much longer and bigger. But if you have seen it, you'll know that there were a lot of points in that video where I mentioned Red Queen has potential. You know, it has potential to do something kind of neat or unique or just better than what it is because it's not the worst series ever, but it's pretty bad. And it just refused to ever engage with any of that potential. So I figured, you know what? The world is neat. The story is not good, but it is appropriately large in terms of scale. The characters almost work at a few points, so we're just going to do a rewrite video. And if you haven't seen any of these before, basically it's me taking a story, leaving it more or less the same, but just tweaking it and making it better. You know, obviously it's easier to come in after the fact and say, oh, I would have changed this to make it better than it is to create something from scratch. But that's that's what these are. So this is going to be Red Queen except better. So before we get going and start talking about all of the specifics that I will be changing throughout the series, here's just a couple of things to keep in mind throughout all of this. Number one, remove all of the POV chapters except for Mayor and Evangeline, because the first two books are told entirely from Mayor's perspective. And then this third book brings in like five new characters. And the last book brings in a couple new characters. And none of them add anything. In fact, at a couple of points, they actively take things away with the exception of Evangeline, because getting to spend a little more time with her as a character getting into her head was genuinely good. I would spend a bit more time making her narrative voice distinct from Mayor's. But I think leaving all of her POV chapters there are fine. And other than that, the stuff that happens in the other chapters, we either will just cut out entirely or we'll hear about it second hand, because some of the stuff I feel would actually be better hearing about it second hand. Like for example, there's a battle in the third book where Prince Cal goes out and captures the city of Corvium or the fortress of Corvium. And I mean, we only hear about it second hand anyways, so it'd be more powerful if we heard about it from Mayor. Number two, we're going to make it so all the silver powers here have actual limits and rules of some sort, because the extent of the magic system in this series is that magic exists. Some people are born with it, some people are not. And if you're born with it, you have one power. And that's that's pretty much it. So the idea I came up with was, well, the silvers are people with silver blood and they have powers. And then the reds are people with red blood and they don't have powers. So what if in order to limit them and make them so they're not too overpowered, the silvers will have to power their powers. God, this sounds weird. They'll have to power their abilities by using their blood, like they'll have to cut themselves so they're bleeding, and then they can use their powers and as they use it, it like evaporates their blood. So eventually they will run out and if they push it too far, they can die. And like, there, there you go. Instantly, I just made the magic system here 50 times better. Number three, emphasize the cultural and religious differences between all the different nations because the books go into a little bit of detail about that, but not very much. So they all kind of feel like the same place with the exception of their governmental systems, which are admittedly quite a bit different from one another. But I think it would be a lot of fun if these countries, which remember have been at war for a long time, let's imagine their governments are putting out propaganda to their people, trying to make it seem like, look at those people, they're savages, barbarians, they worship weird gods and yada yada, and maybe also spend a little bit of time explaining how they have different languages or at the very least different dialects, you know, something to distinguish them a bit more than what we got originally. And number four, Mare, the main character has basically no personality in these books or not no personality, but very, very little personality other than a few moments where she gains one. So I've decided to take some of those moments and just make them bigger and make it so that, okay, the rest of her personality is kind of built around those few seeds we have. So long story short, we're going to make it so she has some serious anger issues. And she just absolutely despises silvers because they really, they seem to hint at that at the beginning of the first book, but they don't go into that much detail as the series goes on. So I think having her really have to work past all the rage that she has built up, all the indignation she has over her many years of mistreatment at the hands of silvers, that would be much more interesting. And also if she just, again, she just fucking hated them for it. And then she might realize, okay, some of them are good, but overall, they're all pretty shit. And just, you know, something, you know, give her an arc of some sort. And with that, we're going to get started. Also, I'm not going to go into a whole lot of detail when I'm summarizing the plot of the original books here. So if you feel confused or feel like there's gaps, again, just go watch my original video where I summarize everything. So book one, Red Queen. This one starts originally with Mayer going around stealing stuff because she is a thief. And then she meets her friend Killorn and they go to an arena to watch a silver fight. And I figured we could start similarly, but just combine those two things. You know, they go to the arena to watch the fight. And while they're there, you know, it's crowded, there's a bunch of people around. So Mayer just takes the opportunity to pick a few pockets. There you go. It's two birds with one stone. Or actually, there's more than two birds there. Because, you know, we're introducing the world, we're introducing the characters, we're introducing what type of people they are, we're showing off how powerful silvers are. Like, we're doing a lot of things at once if we combine those two things as opposed to having them be separate scenes. And also, while this is going on, make sure to showcase some abuses of power from the silvers. You know, we'll have them steal from people and the Reds are unable to do anything about it. Or we'll have them assault people, bully them, you know, show something. You know, because at the beginning of the books, they don't really have that much to make us hate the silvers. It takes a little while before they do anything truly awful. And just like originally, we're going to have Mayer spend a little bit of time with her family so we can get introduced to her home life. And originally, she has a younger sister, Giza, who is working on becoming a tailor. And then she has three older brothers who are all alive, but they're all off at war. And I think it'd be better to, at this point, just mention that one of her brothers was killed in the war a little while ago. Because in the original book, later on, they bring him home. But right before he gets brought home, he gets killed. And they're like, oh, no, it's so sad. I think it'd be better if, like, he just is thought to be dead from the beginning. Again, we're trying to emphasize how awful the silvers are, how awful this regime is and how terrible the war is and how nobody likes it. And then Killorn, just like in the original, is going to come in and tell Mayer, hey, my master just died. I no longer have a job. That means I'm going to be conscripted soon because he's 18 or he's about to turn 18. And then Mayer, who is also close to being 18, is going to decide, okay, I'm not going to let my best friend get conscripted so that he can go off and die. And then she just kind of decides to go along with him for the journey. In the original book, it's kind of weird. Like, she'd never thought about this. It had never crossed her mind that, hey, I'm going to be conscripted soon. So in this version, we'll have it be so that she already knows that she's going to run off. Because originally they like find a smuggler who is working with the Scarlet Guard, who are the rebels that want to overthrow the system. And Mayer just says, hey, smuggle us out of here. And they agree as long as she pays them and so on and so forth. But in this version, we'll have it so that Mayer already went to the Scarlet Guard and agreed to get herself out of there. And she has some money saved up for it. But now that Killorn is also going to get conscripted, she just goes to them and says, hey, can we also take my friend? And they're like, sure, but it's going to be a lot of money and Mayer just doesn't have enough. This will also make sure that Mayer already knows about the Scarlet Guard and she already knows Farley, who is the commander of the Scarlet Guard, in that area. And she will have it so that Mayer thinks their intentions are noble, but also they are still participating in smuggling and theft and stuff. So she doesn't think that highly of them. And she also thinks that their cause is completely hopeless. Like, she doesn't want to rebel against the system at this stage. She thinks that the system is impossible to defeat and she just wants to survive. Now we're going to follow what happened in the original book pretty closely for this next bit as well. Mayer is going to ask her sister Giza to help her get access to the palace, the area where the royal family and a bunch of other people are, so that she can steal a bunch of valuable stuff and get enough money to get herself and Killorn smuggled out of the country in time. And just like before, Giza is going to get caught while this is happening and she's going to get her hand crushed as punishment by one of the silver guards. And originally, like this just got healed off screen. Like they make it clear at the beginning that she's just going to be crippled the rest of her life and she will not be able to be a tailor and she will probably get conscripted when she's 18. And it's a shit situation all around. But then off screen later on, she just gets magically healed and it's all good again. In this version of the story, it'll be so that it's never healed. Like by the time they're able to actually get any sort of magical healer to look at it, it's already been weeks or months since the injury. And by that point, it's just too late. Like so Giza is just going to have to be crippled and Mer will have to deal with the guilt of knowing that she is partially responsible for her sister getting crippled. And also she will have to keep in mind throughout the rest of the series that even if she wants to rebel against silvers and overthrow the system and stuff, there will inevitably be some collateral damage to that. And just like before, Mer is going to run off to a pub and steal from a bunch of people there. And then she will run into Cal, who we later learn is the prince of their country, Norda. And she's going to like just pour her heart out to him for a minute. And then originally he just sent a bunch of soldiers to her house and they like come and collect her so that she can get a job as a servant at the palace, which is kind of nice of him. But also at first, Mer thinks that she's about to be murdered. So like her and her family are very upset by this. So in this version of the of events, Cal is going to come along with the soldiers and just say, Hey, I got you a job. Come on. And then she's like, Okay, I guess that's fine. And then they go with so it's less stressful all around and makes Cal look like less of a prick. It'll also be around this time that Mer realizes, Oh, okay, he's the prince. I just ran into the prince. That's kind of weird. And then after that, it'll be again, very similar to the original book, because at this beginning section of the series really isn't that bad. It just needs some polishing. And this new version will be similar, like she'll go to the arena, she will somehow cut herself because remember you have to actually cut yourself to activate your powers in this version of the story. And then she'll fall into the arena and unleash lightning. And then she'll realize, Oh, hey, I have special powers and everyone else is going to realize, whoa, hey, that red girl has special powers. That's crazy. And then she's going to try and run away, but she'll get caught. And the queen of Norda, Cal's stepmother is going to read her mind because she is a whisper, which is a silver that can actually reading control people's minds. And then she'll confirm that yeah, this girl's a red. I don't know what's going on. However, in this version whispers are going to be stupidly rare because in the original story, it didn't make that much sense that the people who can control minds weren't in control of the entire world. Like that just doesn't make sense. It's it's too overpowered for them to be in any other real position. So we'll have it so that whispers are just stupidly rare, either naturally, they're very, very rare, or years and years ago, everybody got paranoid and just killed almost all of them. But we'll have it so that Cal's stepmother, the queen, is the first whisper who has been born for like 100 years or something. So she's the only one that's alive as far as most people know. And the rest of the book is going to follow the same basic plot where Mare is forced to pretend that she's a silver girl who got raised in a red family. She's going to have to go to tutoring and stuff so she can learn to be a proper noble lady. She'll get her brothers brought home from war and so on and so forth. And she will also be engaged to Maven, who is Prince Cal's younger brother. Here are the main differences to keep in mind that will be changing. So it's not just Mare kind of wandering around the palace for 150 goddamn pages. Number one, Cal found her on purpose. Like, it didn't make much sense originally that new bloods that is reds who have powers are called new bloods. It didn't make much sense that they were just completely unknown even to the royal family. Because apparently the military had been finding some of them and was just executing them without any sort of fuss and they're just pretending it was for other reasons like desertion. So in this version, we'll have it be so that they're very, very secret and they've only begun popping up recently. But the king and a couple of others know about it. And because they're trying to keep it so hush hush, he specifically sends his son out to try and find one of the new bloods, which the nearest one that they could find was Mare. And so he's like, hey, son, just get her a job at the palace. She'll probably be grateful for it. And then once she's here, we can study her. And then the whole thing of her falling into the arena was an accident. That wasn't what they were planning on doing, but they just roll with it. Now, Mare also has a tutor named Julian at this stage, who is a singer who is also somebody that can control people's minds, but he can only do it while talking to them. I don't know. But we're going to have it be so that people think he has no powers. Like he is still a singer, but people think that he is a silver who was just born without powers, which is really rare and not talked about that much, but it does occasionally happen. And Julian is going to want to keep it that way because, number one, he just doesn't like controlling people unless he absolutely has to. Number two, if he could control people, then other people would not only be paranoid around him, but they'd be constantly asking him for favors. And number three, it's easier to manipulate people with his power if people don't know about it. So at first, people will just think that he is powerless. And then later, Mare will find out, oh, okay, he can control people. We will also have Mare legitimately bond with Maven in this version of the story because in the original, she just kind of is in love with him even after he becomes evil later. I don't know. But in this version, we'll have her bond with him over feeling inferior to their older siblings because Mare, remember, is a thief, so she's probably going to feel inferior to her brothers who, while, again, they had to go off to war, they were at least not screw-ups the way she was. And Maven is going to feel inferior to Cal, who is a great warrior and leader and everything. So the two of them will bond over that and then it'll make sense for them to have some actual chemistry. And finally, we will have it so that Mare actually gets along with Evangeline. Now Evangeline, remember, is the girl that winds up getting betrothed to Prince Cal and she was in the arena when Mare fell in and actually tried to kill Mare. But in this version of the story, we'll have Evangeline apologize and say, hey, sorry, I didn't know what was going on. I thought you were attacking me. Sorry about that. And the two of them will actually wind up getting along pretty well instead of being adversarial as they were originally because they'll bond over the idea that, okay, we're both getting married to somebody we don't know and don't particularly like, and we're both far away from home and everything. So they just, they get along. There's no need to have a rival character, especially when that rival character winds up just deciding that they want to be friends, or not even friends, but they want to be on the same side later on. So in the original story, Mare teamed up with the Scarlet Guard and helped them plan and execute a terrorist attack and try and kill some people at the palace, except Mare doesn't actually do anything in the original story. But whatever the point is, in this version, we'll have it so that the Scarlet Guard attacks the party all on its own. Like they attempt to assassinate the king and some other high-ups all on their own. They shoot at some people and then chaos erupts. Originally, there's a big explosion which actually kills several people. And we find out later that the Scarlet Guard actually shot a gas line and Prince Cal using his fire powers actually did the explosion. It was an accident, but he did do it. And then in this version, though, we're going to have it so that in the chaos, Mare is running around and, you know, trying to not die, maybe trying to grab somebody else and get them to safety. And one of the guards she sees running around trying to attack the Scarlet Guard is going to be the same guy that broke her sister's hand earlier. And at this point, she's just going to completely snap and all of the rage and indignation she's been feeling for years is going to come right out. And she's just going to unleash lightning on this guy immediately killing him. And then she's going to be the one that sets off the gas and causes the explosion. This will give her something to actually fucking do at this stage of the story and also give her, you know, a path to actual character development where she feels guilt over killing some of these people, but also that guy kind of needed to die or at least she feels that he needed to die. And then after that, her friend, Killorn, will be captured along with some other members of the Scarlet Guard, just like in the original book, because Killorn did join up with the Scarlet Guard. And she, along with Julian, is going to get them all free, just like in the original book. And then she'll join up with the guard, like she'll, at this point, she will rather than just looking out for herself, she'll decide, you know what, these people killed my brother, they've tried to kill my friends, they've done a lot of shit to me. The Scarlet Guard aren't perfect, but I think I'm going to work with them. Like this will be the moment where she finally decides to take a stand. And Mayor is actually going to get caught by Maven around this point, but he won't turn her in, he will want to help her. And so she will bring him in, which makes a lot more sense than how it was originally where the Scarlet Guard just trusted a prince for no good reason, and he had actually joined before Mayor did. And while this is going on, we're going to start getting news about how the Scarlet Guard is actually attacking all over the country of Norda. You know, there's bombings, there's assassinations, a lot of military equipment just goes missing, you know, things like that, things you would expect and insurgency to partake in. If you are unfamiliar with that sort of thing, just look at real world insurgencies for inspiration, but that's the basic idea of it. And that will cause the king to crack down really hard on the red population. And just like in the original story, the Scarlet Guard is eventually going to decide, okay, the only way we're going to be able to do this is by trying to pull off a coup. However, instead of deciding that they're just going to try and convince Cal to force his father to make the country better for reds in very vague terms, they decide, okay, we're going to actually kill the king and put Maven on the throne because they know Maven, while he is not the rightful heir to the throne, is on their side. Again, I don't know why they didn't think of this before. And it's going to go as it did before, it will fail spectacularly. However, when Mare and Maven get brought into the throne room, just like before, the queen will kill the king and blame it on Cal. And that's when we'll learn that Maven and the queen actually had this as part of their evil plan all along, like they are going to blame the Scarlet Guard for all the chaos. They're going to blame Cal for killing the king. Now Maven gets to be in charge, awesome. And then they're going to kill him and Mare by putting them into the arena and having them fight, and that's going to be their execution, which is still kind of stupid, but again, I have to change the story as little as possible. Just like before, Evangeline is going to be one of the people there that's sent to kill them. But unlike before, because Evangeline is nicer and actually likes both Cal and Mare, she's actually going to let them escape. Like she'll make it look like she's trying to prevent it, but she will let them escape. And then the two of them will run back to the Scarlet Guard, and then they'll meet Shade, who is Mare's brother who she thought was dead, and she'll realize, oh my gosh, my brother's actually alive and he has powers too. And they're like, okay, well, the rebellion is fully kicking off, let's do this. And then that'll be the end of book one. Then we go to book two, Glass Sword. This one is also going to start very similarly to the original, where the characters are fleeing, they go to a Scarlet Guard base, the Scarlet Guard base gets under attack by Maven's forces, they flee to a different, far off secret base. Now, Maven, however, during the sequence is going to be less cartoonishly evil, because the story really wants him to be sympathetic, but then they also have moments where he's just evil for the sake of being evil, and he's like cackling and taunting the heroes and stuff, and it doesn't quite work like that. So in this we're going to have him seem like he's more hesitant, but this is what he thinks the best thing to do is. When they get to the Scarlet Guard base, they're going to meet the Colonel just like before, and he's going to explain the situation, and he's basically going to say, look, the Scarlet Guard, we can't fight toe to toe with the Norton military. Like, it's not going to work that way, we can't stay out in the open, we are an insurgency. So even though Mare might just say, hey, why don't we have armies marching out there, he's going to say, well, we don't have the manpower or the firepower to do that. And so, like I was saying before, there's a whole campaign of bombings, assassinations, etc., across Norda, and they're also going to mention that the Scarlet Guard is the main rebellion group in Norda. However, in the original books, they mentioned that there are affiliated groups all over the place in multiple different countries, but they don't talk about them at all beyond mentioning that they exist. I don't even think any of them get named. So in this, we'll go into a little bit more detail about how, yeah, there's a whole complex web of alliances between various groups that just want to take down the current system right now. So there's going to be a bunch of different insurgencies and militias and just small armed groups that want the current regime gone. In the original book, this is where the Colonel just decided he was evil and the heroes ran off and then later he wasn't evil. So in this version, the Colonel is just, he's just going to be not evil for no reason. So he's going to tell Mare and the others, hey, there's a bunch of new bloods out there and we could really use the firepower, so we got this list. We want you to go out and gather up as many of them as you can, turn them to our cause and bring them back here. And while they're doing that, they're also going to be, you know, delivering weapons to various Scarlet Guard cells that are nearby and spreading propaganda to try and get the red population to join with them and rise up. Meanwhile, while this is going on, Cal is still being held prisoner and he's being horribly, horribly abused by the Scarlet Guard. And Mare is going to come in and protect him, like maybe sleep in front of his cell or something to prevent guards from going in and just beating him in the night or something because she'll be thinking, yeah, he's bad, but he's not that bad. He really doesn't deserve this, guys. And at some point, Mare is going to convince the Colonel to let Cal out and let him help them because by having him come out and say he's the rightful claimant to the throne, that will help destabilize Maven's regime. And so they will form a tentative alliance. And it's going to be pretty clear from the beginning that, okay, they're probably going to betray each other at some point, but now they have Cal on their side. And he's going to go out and help them gather up new bloods and stuff. And at some point, he'll probably save Mare's life or otherwise show himself to be a decent enough guy, at least in certain circumstances. And so that's when he and Mare are going to start connecting and eventually they'll still fall in love. Now we're still going to have it be so that while this is going on, Evangeline and Maven get engaged. Because, again, her father wanted her to marry the king of Norda. Now in the original book, they run into a guy named John who can see the future and he only shows up twice in this series. And his only purpose really is to tell them about the existence of Koros Prison, which is a horrible place where Maven is gathering up not only new bloods but also his silver political opponents. In this version, we're just going to have it be so that the Scarlet Guard finds out on their own. Like they have spies around, they have informants, you know, the sort of thing you would expect a rebel group to have. So they find out, okay, there's this secret black site prison. And they are like, okay, let's go and break some people out because it'll be a great propaganda boost to show Maven locking up his political opponents and we'll be able to get all the new bloods on our side. The breakout is going to go more or less as it did in the original book, where they get in, they free all the prisoners but then there's a big battle, Queen Alara winds up being there and Mare actually kills her with her lightning powers and also her brother Shade gets shot and dies. So we'll have all that happen pretty much the same and then afterwards they will do the broadcast where they're like, hey, look at this horrible prison and they show off the conditions and make it clear that the Silvers are not safe from Maven's regime either and they tell the Reds, hey, let's, you should rise up and then that's exactly what happens. Like all these Scarlet Guard cells as well as their affiliated groups just start rising up even more than they were before. Like the Scarlet Guard was mostly ignored up until this point, but after this internationally, they rise up and again, they start doing bombings, they start doing assassinations, there's riots, there's all sorts of uprisings all over the place, including in places like the Lakelands and Piedmont. So it'll be clear at this point that, oh yeah, this has been planned for a very long time. This is truly an international movement and Mare will still meet the ambassadors from the country of Montfort, which is an actual republic that overthrew its monarchy a while ago and has equality between Reds and Silvers and in the original story, Mare has like never heard of the idea of a democracy and also the actually educated characters like Evangeline haven't heard of it either, which is odd. So in this version, we'll have it be so that they have heard of it and they've heard that Montfort overthrew their monarchy a while ago, but they've heard that in the wake of it, it's just become a chaotic wasteland where it's constant war and there's just warlords all over the place taking over that no one can possibly live there. Like just the government is lying to them. It turns out it's actually a nice place, but that's the kind of propaganda that they spread in order to keep their population from getting any sort of ideas. And just like in the original book, because the ending of this book is admittedly pretty cool, they're going to be flying through the sky and then some people who can control metal grab it out of the sky, force it to crash, and then Maven is there where they land and Mare has to surrender so that all her friends can go free and then she's captured and then we'll go to book three. So book three is King's Cage and this one admittedly I did change the most out of all of them. I might be stretching the point of this whole rewrite exercise with this book, but also the original book just had fucking nothing happening for hundreds of pages. It's so pointless and I didn't like it. So sue me if you don't if you think I'm changing it too much, just sue me. In broad strokes, we're going to keep the beginning section exactly the same. Like Mare is going to be held prisoner for a couple of months and while that happens, her and Maven are still going to be chatting a bit and they will have some weird connection. She will learn about how Maven's mother abused him really badly and she actually went into his mind and removed the empathy and love that he felt for his father and brother in order to make him more ruthless. And she'll realize, oh, wow, this guy is truly just broken. You know, he's not evil. He's broken. I'm not going to go for a Maven redemption arc or anything, but it does help make him seem more sympathetic if you don't make him a cartoonishly evil villain before this point. And he will also still marry the princess of the Lakelands, which was the country that Norta was at war with before. So he will still bring an end to the war. And just like the original book, the Red Guard is going to attack the wedding and try to kill Maven and try to kill the Lakelander princess, but also try to rescue Mare. And Evangeline is going to be there and she will help Mare escape. Only this time, it's originally it seems like she's doing it out of spite for Maven and not liking him because she's tired of, you know, being broken up with all the time and getting passed around like a piece of meat almost. But in this version, again, her and Mare are going to be friends, so she's going to help her out just because, hey, you're my friend, here's the keys, go in the chaos, run. And here's where the big changes come, because in this version, instead of Mare just running back to the Scarlet Guard and going, getting to go back to their home base and everything, everything is great again, she is going to be thought killed in the fighting, you know, maybe there's a big explosion near her where Cal is nearby. And so he sees like a building fall on top of her or something. And he's like, Oh, she's dead, but she winds up surviving somehow. It's it's a near thing, but she winds up surviving. And then she runs off and she decides, okay, I don't know where any Scarlet Guard bases are. So I'm just going to trek really far away. Maybe she'll decide to go all the way to the base in the far part of the country where they were last time. Maybe she'll decide to go all the way to Montfort. Just she'll think of somewhere that is safe, but very far away that she decides she has to walk to now while also preventing anyone that she runs into from finding out who she is. And again, remember, the war is heating up all over the place. Like even though Norda and the Lakelands are no longer fighting each other, the insurgency is getting worse and worse. And it ranges all the way from people who are generally good at what they do and try to avoid civilian casualties to people who just don't give a fuck in our straight up terrorists and are bombing everything that moves. So it's a very dangerous time to be traveling and Mary's on her own. And at some point while she's traveling around, she'll run into another group of insurgents somewhere in Norda, like not the Scarlet Guard, but one of their affiliated groups. And then she will wind up helping them out. You know, maybe she'll help them blow up a railroad or destroy a police station or something. I don't know. Like just the sort of thing insurgents would do and she will help them out. But because they are only affiliated with the Scarlet Guard, they aren't actually the Scarlet Guard, they don't know how to get into contact with them so that they can tell her, hey, I'm alive. So they're just going to wind up traveling together for a while and Mayor is going to wind up becoming sort of a leader of them. Because in the original series, Mayor was like simultaneously the most important person in the world and she didn't fucking do anything. In this version, I think it'd be better to make her important, but she's still only one piece of a much, much larger puzzle. So remember how Mayor was a thief and how in the original series that's mentioned in Act One of the first book a couple of times and then it just never comes back up. In this version, we're going to bring it back up by having it be that by being a thief, Mayor winds up being really good at guerrilla warfare. Admittedly, that's a bit of a stretch. But I think some of those skills could translate, you know, being able to get in and get out undetected or get in, do the thing you need to do and then get the fuck out really quickly while people are chasing you. Like, you know, some of those skills could translate, I think. And so again, Mayor will start becoming like a leader of this small band of insurgents. And we will still have some chapters from Evangeline's perspective where her father decides to declare the rift an independent kingdom and split off from Norda. And we will also have her either witness or hear about second hand the capture of Corvium. And eventually, Mayor and her new insurgent friends are going to run into the Scarlet Guard and her friends are going to be like, oh my god, you're alive. And so they'll team up, they'll have a cheerful reunion. And we'll also have it be so that all of the insurgent bros that she, the friends that she made, the allies that she made, whatever you want to call that, along the journey, they're going to stay with her for the rest of the series. So she'll have like this elite corps of soldiers around her almost. Well, I say elite corps, it'll probably be like four or five guys. But either way, she'll have these people who are with her and loyal to her until the end of the series. And while Mayor is at the Scarlet Guard base, she's going to meet Dane Davidson, who in the original book series, he's the premier of Montfort, like he's the leader of the entire country, but he's just over here by himself talking to foreign rebel groups and helping them fight in their war, which is stupid. So excuse me. In this version, we'll have it be so that Dane Davidson is just a military advisor, like he's not the leader of the whole country. He's just going to be like a colonel or a lieutenant general or someone, you know, someone from Montfort. Montfort is still giving them aid, but they're not sending their president slash prime minister over there. Because again, that's just such a weird plot point. And in the original book, it ended with this big battle at Corvium because the Scarlet Guard already captured it. But now the Lakelanders and the Norton military want to take it back so that they can crush the rebellion and show them, Hey, you cannot defeat us, give up now. And so it'll be very similar to the original where they have this desperate defense, the Lakelander King is killed, but the Scarlet Guard is going to lose. Because again, Cal is going to be the one who insists on capturing Corvium. But that's going to be because he knows a lot about war, but he knows about regular open war, he doesn't know about guerrilla warfare slash insurgency. And so they might be able to capture the fortress in a sneak attack or something, but holding it against somebody with vastly superior numbers and vastly superior firepower is just not going to work very well. So the fortress falls and the heroes are forced to flee, that way they're actually at their low point before we get into the finale of the series. So then we go to book four, which is Warstorm and it's the final book. The heroes are going to flee to Monfort this time. And while this is going on, Mare and Cal are going to be falling more in love than they were before. And at some point during this, they are going to make their tentative alliance with Evangeline's father, who is now the self declared King of the Rift, because they realize, okay, we have the same enemy, but we have very, very different goals. So again, they're thinking they're probably going to betray each other at some point, but for now they're working together. And when Mare and company go to Monfort, Mare is going to decide, along with Dane Davidson, to force Cal to give up his throne. Like they don't tell him about it right away, but they make it clear to each other that, yeah, when we get Maven out of the way, we're going to tell Cal, hey, we're not going to have a monarchy anymore. We're getting rid of that. We're going to have a more democratic system. Now in the original book, there was this attack from a group of raiders who were like remnants of the old monarchy who just kind of hid at the edges of the country and occasionally came in and attacked. And it's not explicitly stated that they were paid by the Lakelander princess to cause a distraction so that she could come in and kidnap some people who she needed to kidnap. But I think that's what was intended to happen. But whatever the case is, in this version, it's still going to happen. There's still going to be a big attack. But rather than the raiders being outside of the country, they're going to blend in among the populace. You know, again, they're going to be like an insurgency except in the opposite direction. And we'll also make it clear that there are even some Reds who support a return to the old system for one reason or another. And Mayor and Company will still fight these raiders and still help them out and that will get them into the good graces of the Montport government. And now, while all this has been going on in both the original version and this changed version, the Scarlet Guard will have kidnapped the children of the leader of the country of Piedmont, which is in the American south. And so he will be helping them out in some small ways. But again, the Lakelander princess comes in and takes his children back. So now he's no longer on their side. And so that's going to stay the same from the original to this. And so now the Scarlet Guard and all their allies are in a much harder place because now they're being attacked twice as hard by the Piedmont government as well. And so the Montfort government will agree to help them out more. Like it's no longer just going to send clandestine support, you know, it's not just going to send weapons and advisors. It is going to send its full military force to help them take on Norda and the Lakelands and so on. And also while this is going on, Evangeline is still going to be there and she's still going to hear, hey, you and your girlfriend can come live in Montfort if you give up your titles and she's not going to say yes right away, but she's going to be seriously thinking about it for a while. In the original book, they just launched a massive attack on the city of Harbor Bay, which I believe is supposed to be Boston in the real world, or at least near Boston. And then there's a big battle and they managed to capture it. In this version, it's going to go pretty similarly, except the Montfort military like their navy and Air Force and such are going to be the ones to launch the actual head on attack, while Mare and the Scarlet Garden, them are just going to be there beforehand and even during the battle a little bit destroying infrastructure and stuff, just trying to make it so that the enemy can't properly fight back. Like if you're at all familiar with the way the French resistance acted before and during the invasion at Normandy during World War II, then it'll be things like that. You know, again, they're going to blow up railroads, they're going to try and kill important people, just keep the Norton military off balance so that it can't properly fight when the actual big guns come in and take the city. There will still be some stuff that's similar to the original books though, like we're still going to have Cal have his big fight with the Lakelander princess, which he will lose, but he will survive from it. And then afterwards they're going to offer to have a meeting with King Maven and they're going to go to a small island, have a brief negotiation. Maven doesn't agree to their terms, so they managed to capture him. Because it turns out some people on their side actually made a deal with the Lakelander queen and princess to hand over the people who killed the previous Lakelander king in exchange for Maven and they don't really like Maven anyway, so they agree to it and then the deal goes through. And now suddenly their biggest enemy is off the throne and Cal can just go to the capital and declare himself rightful king. Now just like before, the other countries, specifically the Lakelands but also Piedmont, are going to still be invading Norda at this stage, so the war isn't over. And originally it's just kind of vague, like yeah, they want resources and stuff which I don't know, it's not totally stupid but it was kind of weird in the original book. In this version we're just going to make it clear that they're still invading because they don't want Cal on the throne because if Cal is on the throne then they're afraid that Norda will become an ally to Montfort and an ally to the Scarlet Guard. And remember they are dealing with their own insurgencies back home while this is going on and they don't want their own regimes to fall. And don't worry, this version is going to keep the best scene from the original series where after Cal has declared himself king, all of the red allies he has, like Dane Davidson and Mare and all them, they tell him, hey you have to give up the throne and make Norda a democratic country or we walk, we're no longer going to be your ally. But at the same time Cal has to keep his silver allies happy too and if he does that they're going to abandon him so he just cannot keep his alliance together and he eventually refuses to give up his throne. And so Mare and them just leave and it's clear that okay he has no chance of staying on the throne now the Lakelands is going to take over. And in the original they eventually decide to come in and help him later because they just decide it's a better idea. Again kind of vague, doesn't really make that much sense if you stop to think about it but in this version we'll have it be so that they're leaving and then not long after like maybe just a couple of minutes later Cal will run in and say okay okay what if we just made this a constitutional monarchy so he agrees to have like an elected legislature and stuff that will limit some of his powers as king. And so nobody is totally satisfied with this compromise but they all agree to it and the alliance stays firm. And maybe it would make more sense for Cal to have thought about this beforehand and bring it up when they say hey give up the throne or else but also I really want to keep that scene where his friends have to split with him because their responsibilities are greater than their friendship because that is a really powerful scene. And just like in the original book they are going to defend the capital city against invasion. Evangeline's father is going to be still blamed for killing the Lakelander King so some other people are going to grab him and hand him off to the Lakelanders and while this is going on Evangeline is just going to decide you know what fuck this I don't want to be in war anymore I don't want to be seen as a tool or a token that my father can just bargain with I will give up my titles and I'm just going to go to Montfort with my girlfriend so the two of them are going to run off they will still get their happy ending. And just like in the original book the battle will be won by the good guys the day will be saved. Now Cal still will be King at the end of this but again he will be in a constitutional system so his powers will be limited and Reds will be granted much better rights so things won't be perfect but they will be better off. And the Lakelands and Piedmont will also partially have to withdraw not just because they lost the battle to take the capital city but also because their own insurgencies are still ongoing and they need to go back to uh damp that down let's say damp that down is that an actual term I don't know they need to put down the rebellion. And in the original series Mare just goes off to Montfort to live with her family in a new peaceful land while Cal decides to rebuild but in this version Mare is going to decide along with her insurgent friends and maybe Farley and some other members of the Scarlet Guard the war is not over yet as long as there are still monarchies where silvers are seen almost as gods and Reds are oppressed then our new gains in Norda and Montfort are not safe so Mare and them are going to go to the Lakelands to help the insurgency there and it's made clear that okay yeah their their fight is going to continue for a long time but her and Cal again will have connected and fallen in love by this stage and even though their responsibilities are pulling them apart they make it clear that maybe someday when all this work is done we can be together but not right now. And at some point during all of this Maven dies like I don't know what to do with him to be honest because after he's captured he ceases to really be the main villain of the story like maybe he could just be executed very unceremoniously maybe he could still escape and Mare could have a fight with him. I really don't know but just the way the ending of the story is written it's kind of clumsy and it just forgets that oh yeah your villain is supposed to be villainous and uh that'll be that'll be the end of this version of Red Queen. This ending will be similar to the original because it will acknowledge that there are a lot of issues with having monarchies and it's kind of a shitty system of government but also changing it is very difficult you know moving from one system of government to another is not an easy process ask a million people throughout history they will tell you that. But this version of the story makes the characters better it gives them like actual personality again Mare has an actual personality in my version just saying it makes them more defined as well and it makes it so that Mare does a lot more and contributes more to the success of the good guys without being the center of the entire world you know and that's really what this sort of thing should be like if you're going to write a story about rebellion make it so that the main character they contribute but they aren't the center of everything because it seems like too many stories go in one direction or another and it's always annoying but let me know your thoughts down below you know how would you change Red Queen to make it better what do you like and dislike about my version of it and also check out my second channel because I'm trying to get that one going off the ground a little bit more that's where I like rant about stuff that isn't really book related and just you know stuff that annoys me pisses me off and also just other random stuff that I feel like doing and that's about all see you later goodbye hey guess what well I mean you can probably already guess what you don't need to actually guess whatever uh all these names here these are my patrons these are the guys that send me money once a month over on patreon if you want to get access to stuff like early videos and occasional exclusive content then go ahead and go over there and help me out uh my ten dollar and up patrons are aposavalanan olivia rayan brother santotes buffy valentine carolina clay chibzahoy dan and seljevich dark king dio echo flax james m carcat kitsune lexy delorm liza rudakova lord tiebreaker microphone mist boy mitzimona peep the toad roby reviews sad martigan psych xs sillier the vixen stone stairs tesla shark vavictus vimex zole and wesley how could we ever forget wesley thank you all so much you're all the best i couldn't do this without you if you want to get your name up here go over to patreon if not subscribe to the channel like the video comment on it you know all the stuff that we are supposed to say at the end here i love you i don't actually love you i don't even know you but you know thanks goodbye