 We are live and totally ready to talk about Red Rising. I've invited the president of the Severo Fan Club to join us this evening. Thank you. Would you like to say a few words on behalf of your group? I'm going to just talk now. Hi, I like Severo. Hello. I'm Alex. I do YouTube stuff sometimes, I promise. I'm not as active anymore, but I'm here to talk about Red Rising because it's amazing. Would you like to introduce yourself? What fan club do you represent, Angela? I don't know if I read this for a fandom. I read it more for the mess. I'm really a fan of the mess, like the drama, all of the chaos. I guess the one that annoys me the least is Mustang in this book, specifically. I don't know if that holds. I can't remember my opinions on Mustang. Did you guys know that Mustang is inspired by Pierce Brown's mother? No. No. I'm not as friends with him like you are. I feel like Freud would have something to say about that. Probably, like that's that's a thing. So she annoys me the least. I really love Pax. I was really sad because I forgot what happens to Pax. So this, by the way, everyone, this live will have spoilers for Red Rising. Pax, sprains and ankle. It is the most tragic ankle sprains. Beyond bed rest for a few minutes. But the entire time he's on bed rest, he continues. Pax, I'll tell him on us. That is the best thing about Pax is he's a Pokemon. He's Steve Holt from Arrested Development. He's who Steve Holt from Arrested Development. He's just such a great version of his archetype. Like there's no depth, but I just love that character and these types of dramatic situations. He's lovely. Well, another piece of information. Will you guys know about the like hat of death? Yes, only because you told me that, like, when I read books, I know nothing about the author. I don't read into their biography. I don't know anything about these people, but you attended an event or maybe I did already tell you. You told me. So like, he puts all the character names in a hat and then like, that's how he decides what characters die. He just pulls a name and whatever it says, that's who he kills. So he originally had planned like, like not planned because he's a pancer, but had in mind that he would have all kinds of lengthy, like buddy cop adventures of Darrow and Pax. But then he pulled Pax's name out of the hat and was like, the hat has spoken. So sorry. I don't like that because his name had he pulled initially, Leanna. What? Didn't he like pull several one point and was like, no. I don't think so, maybe. Or somebody has asked him, like, is several's name even in the hat? And he's like, no comment. As it was. No. I mean, I kind of like that because lately I've been reading a lot of series where it's very obvious when someone's going to die because the author's planning. It's like, why is this person getting so much page time when they normally don't, you know, whereas with Pierce Brown, it's like, I'm as surprised as you guys like I did not plan for this. Ain't that just the way? Or another series when it's like, oh, these people are starting to talk about kids or love. Oh, that person's definitely going to die. This came out of nowhere. You're talking about settling down here. Definitely not making it to the next book. At the most inopportune time you're discussing this. OK. I didn't realize that he didn't. I mean, I guess I don't keep track of when authors plan or don't plan because I figure as long as I don't notice your process, you did something right for you as an author. But I didn't know he was a pancer because it feels like he feels really like it makes sense. Well, he was complaining that he can't really be a full pancer with the new books because it's multiple POVs. So you kind of have to plan that. And he was like, this is new territory for me because I have entirely passed the original trilogy. So, yeah. So, yeah, Red Rising. How many times has each of us read Red Rising? Just two. Two and a half, because the first time I. Like I ended up restarting, I think, the first time around when I was DNF'd it, like I almost DNF'd it or like I temporarily put it down. I was like, this book is kind of shit because I really was not liking the compound words and like how childish he felt at some points with the writing and just how edgy certain parts of it felt. I was just like, oh, my God, why is it so bad? And then obviously going back and reading it now is I just love all of it. But yeah, the first time around, it was not great. This is my third time through. And I gave it four stars the first two times. And this time I gave it five stars. I don't know what I I don't know what I gave it on my old rating scale because my old rating scale. I don't know how it works with my new rating scale because I read it in like 2018 before I was on Book Two and back when I only read like 25 books a year. I feel like your rating scale is just really different when you read 25 books a year versus when you read like 140 books a year. Suddenly things get a little more granular, but OK with that little humble brag right there. Mine doesn't. Mine says exactly the same words like I liked it. I didn't like it. I don't know. I mean, I like it. I think as much as my first time. But like, I don't know, it's just so weird reading it because when I first read it, I obviously didn't know anything about any anything people didn't like about it. And this time I read it's like, I'm still having such a fun time. But yes, this is a very tired trope of just abusing women for the sake of showing like the patriarchal badness of the society. Like it is an abusing. It was pretty quick. I mean, I'm just kidding. So but I never actually had an issue with the writing style like you did either time because I think I mean, there are so many. There's a lot of extra people around. Yeah, I don't know. The that it definitely is a tired trope of, you know, protagonist, significant other needs to die to be the jumping off point for their entire existence for the rest of the series. It does happen on devices. Dara would have just perpetuated the system and then happy about it. Well, but also so the reason is like, I know a lot of people have a problem with. So obviously we're like full spoilers for it. I think I already did the warning by warning again. It's also happened really early, though. It's on the back of the book. Yeah, I do think it's like kind of a spoil the series by saying that yo dies. Like yo. Oh, no, they don't say die. It says his wife taken. She got taken and then. But so like the reason it doesn't bother me that or that like maybe I don't know if not bother me. So I work for the reason that like I don't regard it as a problem or forgive it or whatever is that I know that he said that the genesis of this whole story was that he was rereading Antigone for like the umpteenth time. And while reading Antigone thought to himself, what would it be like to love and be loved by somebody who chooses to be a martyr? Like, what does that do to you on a personal level that like someone is choosing a cause over you as a person? And so like since I know that that's like the genesis point for this entire story, then like that's who is is like it's exploring what it is to love a martyr. And so then like, yes, it is fridging. It's not not fridging, but like it's not just fridging. You know, like if I found he was just like, how do I make Darrow better? I know, kill his wife. No, like the entire genesis of this story is like EO. Like that's how this whole story started. And so for me, like that makes a difference. It's it wasn't a casual fridging of a female character. No, it's not Wheel of Time Episode one spoilers. It's not that level of fridging where it's just like, here's the person's wife and she's dead like there was more to it than that. I think for me, that one was fine, mainly because I didn't even know about the genesis. But if I'm going to get mad at Pierce Brown for doing it, I have to get mad at a lot of authors for doing it. And it got me into the story quickly. So it was unfortunately effective because I'm used to that trope a lot. But I think the complaints I heard and that I understood, but again, didn't phase me that much is when we're in the institute, like the the absolute abuse the female characters go through in the institute versus their male counterparts is like aggressive and like he chose to make this world patriarchal, I guess, even though the sovereign is a woman, even in their genetically manipulated. So it's a choice to make the females weaker in Pierce Brown's world. Like that was like an act of creative choice, which I don't necessarily care about, but I can see why people take issue with. Yeah, but I mean, to be fair, like men get treated horribly in this world, too. And especially at the institute where you have certain characters just like I mean, you brought up packs, packs can't stab like 50 times. Like, yeah, I guess I don't know. I just feel like there was a lot more just to get into it. Sure. But I mean, that's like a tyrant trope, right? Where it's like all these sci fi settings must have some kind of like medieval hierarchy built into them. And then that comes along like slaves. Otherwise it's just like reading women like shit. It's just nuclear bombs all the time. It's no like it's in all these books. I feel like that's because like fantasy does that so much too. Or it's just like, here's medieval Europe again. And we know what that looks like. There's the king and women get treated like shit. It's it's pretty tired. Well, I think that gets a lot better as the series goes on. But I also think like arguably and like this is giving him slightly too much credit because like I don't actually think this is fully the reason why it's that way. I think it was just like a by default thing that he wrote it that way. But again, another reason that it doesn't bother me that much is because arguably like this whole thing is about how this society is fucked and how like Darrow is taking it down and about how there's such hypocrites and there's such liars and they think that they've created the perfect society and Darrow is there to poke holes in every single one of their ideas. And the whole idea of Darrow's like rebellion is to bring about a more egalitarian society. And so having the society that you are against that you're taking down that you regard as like the bad way of structuring things like they have slaves, they belittle women. They like that all of their attitudes are the ones that we are fighting against. So like that's who has those attitudes. And so like while it is kind of tired and it is kind of like, of course, like how do you show their evil? You have them be abusing women. I mean, if they had if they had genetically modified everyone to be perfect, they'd be like, who are you overthrowing then? Like your life sucks. But like, if all these people are just genuinely great people, it would be like, well, why are you going to overthrow them? Like, you're just kind of being dick. Yeah, no, I think so. Yeah, for me, it's like it's not my favorite because it is, I think, kind of tired, lazy world building. But it doesn't bother me because like you said, it's like very obvious that like it's that bad because it's that messed up. Like it's very obvious, at least to me. It's like, although with the back of the book, I think it's Darrow too much credit driven by a longing for justice. I don't feel like Darrow is very driven for anything. I think he's just trying his best in this book. But he's pretty driven by anger. And this is where I mean, like so like going back to fridging briefly, like with most things in books, there is no thing that you should never do in a book, you know what I mean? So it's not like you can never kill a female character. It's like because that's what it comes down to. Sometimes it feels like anyway, when people are like, because that's what it sounds like, you're like, so I can never tragically film a kill a female character. Like, is it always fridging and like, that's not true. And so the fact that I think it is handled with intention and care and the fact that like it allows us to see something because like it's not like just Darrow is like, well, he's just tragic now and we move on. Like it's a real part of his character that like she represents his past. He questions like whether or not she even loved him because she did murder herself and the fact that he loved her more than she loved him and the fact that he feels that he's going to be disloyal to her memory if he has affection for anyone, let alone a gold. And then like we so rarely see a young protagonist have to go to through like being a widower and second love, you know, that like having that you can find love again. That just it's not that like you found her true love. That's it forever. You know, that like and then over the course of this, not really spoilers, but like, I guess spoilers for the series that like having to like work through the trauma of that and like what your relationship to that person was and how you've grown a person as a person past that because like it was so long ago and you were so young that like you don't even know what they would have been like to you now this many years on like. Yeah. Yeah. But also like you definitely made that choice. It was exactly Scott. Yeah. Yeah. She definitely chose that and Darrow, because there was literally in the audience like, ah, he's like, don't do it. And she's like, nope, I'm going to sing now. He's like, all right. So she definitely was like, yeah, I'm dying for this cause. Like this is my choice. But even before that, when she's like saying hi to him. Yeah, yeah. He's like, that's something even before, before that when she I mean, she shouldn't be killed for going to the garden. We all agree. But she also knew that going to the garden is a bad idea. Because the golds are insane. Golds are insane. Yeah. So I just, yeah, I feel like he hand, not that he handles everything perfectly, but in general, there feels like there's thought and intentionality with how he's handling things and what he's introducing into the story and how the characters react to it. Yeah. I mean, not every, yes, females in this story get treated poorly, but there's also like a couple of strong examples of at least like building blocks of his good female characters because they definitely do become badasses later in the series. Like just in general women in this world, like there's entire civil, I mean, like Leon already mentioned, the world's kind of run by a woman. There's not only human, like there's other things that are also run by women. And that's kind of like a, you know, a point through the entire series. So it definitely does get better. I would say that because the writing's less childish as you go on to the callback to EO from Mustang when she was singing the song shows how big an impact her death is. Yeah. But it's also like, it shows the impact of it. And also, like, if you're trying to move on from it and not feel guilty for feeling new feelings, that's hard to do when her ghost is in the room with you all the time, that like everywhere she's this martyr that you hear about, you're not allowed to move on. You're not allowed to forget about her because everyone keeps bringing her up and you're like, dang it. Well, also, like I have to imagine, well, he doesn't, it's odd how little Darrow thinks about his own emotions. Sometimes when we're in his head all the time, it's like kind of a weird part of his perspective. But also, like if he falls in love with Mustang, like, you know, this book, we're just talking in this context and I'm not talking about future books. It's like you are following love and love with the thing that EO hates. Like he's constantly grappling with that there, right? Because he realizes that they're not all just garbage people. Yeah. I forget love just feeling like friendship for any of them is like, because he really, I mean, he realizes through this book, he's like, shit, I'm friends with these guys now. And at the end of this book, when he realizes Mustang is, you know, who Mustang is, at least as far as we know at this point, and he's like, Mustang is EO's dream. Like that, like she didn't know it, but Mustang represents like the future that EO did dream of. And that's like hard to realize when she does, like on the face of it, she represents everything EO hates. But in reality, if you look past the labels, I mean, especially though, like when you, because I remember when I first read the book, obviously going back and reading it like none of the twists surprised me, which it's kind of silly that Pierce Brown definitely like hides shit from you when you're supposed to be in your main character's head. Like that's, I know that bothers some people a lot. It doesn't really bother me just because the books are fun and I enjoy them. Like the initial twist of Mars actually being populated. Like the first time around, I was like, oh, that's kind of tight because the entire just like lying to this entire race people and keeping them underground. Be like, yeah, we're terraforming the planet. Like we're going to live here eventually. And then he finally sees it and he's just like, wait a second. It's like people live here already. There's entire societies. This is crazy. And in the way that it like, it strips you of the like noble, like heroic martyr feeling you had when you were like, well, my life is hard, but I'm, it's for a noble cause. And to realize that it's been for nothing that like you did, like you suffered already. That was hard to deal with and you already hated goals for making you suffer. And then to realize that what little bit of dignity that you took from that has been taken from you. And that's when it's put to him too. Like when he's like, isn't it better to lie to you? Would you have been happier knowing the truth? I don't think so. I think you were happier. If you have to live that life of mining, you're happier not knowing the truth. Although I will say the twists make more sense me not getting foreshadowing for them now, now that I know he's a pancer. Like I wonder how often the twists show up for him before he even knows it. So he's just ready. He's just like, oh, just do this right here. I mean, they also didn't bother me. If I think about it too much, they probably would. But I find that these books are so like immersive in a way that I don't normally get in books where it's like I'm not analyzing it at all. I'm just here watching it. It's just a fun time and it's a very engaging time. Also if you hear a cat, it's because there is one over here. I mean, I feel like it definitely sticks out more in books that you dislike. And if you just sat down and really thought about it, you would be like, okay, this is kind of dumb. Like how would we not understand this if we're supposed to be in his head? But like there's other books that do a much worse job of just being like, hey, by the way, there's an army here now. Like that's just happening. You haven't heard of them for three books, but they're just here now. Like that feels a little bit worse than this. Well, like him having the grab boots or like forgetting that he had them on. It's just like, oh, I'm flying now. It's like, but shouldn't you already know that? Like why is that a surprise to us reading the book when you would have put the same time, though, because I knew to look for that. Like he doesn't not tell us or like he does hint at it because he's like when he's wearing the furs on his feet and he's like, it's way too hard to be wearing this, but I need to keep wearing it. And you're like, why do you need to keep wearing it? And like you did see him punch out Fitchner. So you're like, okay, between him punching him out and him saying, I got to keep where these pelts on my feet. You're like, because you're wearing his grab boots. I also think that like especially in this first book, the nature of how many time jumps we have where it's like, okay, something's happened. Some thought process has happened off page that I wasn't there for because there are so many jumps between scenes that it's just like, well, he did think about it, but right now he's hyper focused on a different thing. And that's what we're doing. It kind of worked for me how it was kind of like that kind of fragmented, jumpy, montagey nature, this entire book. Because I mean, it's at least like several weeks at the Institute, if not months, right? Like they're there for a while. It's months, because I think it's almost a year. I think it's like six or eight months because I think they have fall, winter, and part of spring. If we're assuming an earth year's seasons, which is a bad assumption, but I have nothing else. But also like, because like Daryl thinks to himself about how old he is, and it seems like, yeah, some time was, some of that time was like between him getting pulled out of the grave and getting carved and entering the Institute, but some of it is also the Institute. So I think it's, it's not a whole year, but it's like the better part of a year. He's definitely, I think like 18 by the end of this book, right? Like, can we start at 16? Something like that, yeah. Which also speaking of like the carving, I think I might have either in Instagram or maybe I just told him I was like, I forgot how creepy Mickey was. Like every single time he's talking, I'm just like, you're a freaking weirdo, bro. It's just uncomfortable listening to him talk. I have sirens. I don't know if you can hear that. Sorry. Yes, we can. It's out of matches. That happens all the time. Coming from my bed takes. They, so I, yeah, it almost never bothers me that there's some kind of like, you didn't know it even though Darrow knew it. So surprise. Because I'm always like excited for it because I'm like, I bet Darrow has a plan and I don't know what it is, but like, what's your plan, bro? I know you have one. So like, I'm just like excited to find out what it is. The thing that is kind of awkward to me, which is like, I find awkward in general and first person perspectives. But I think it's a little worse than this than it is a lot of the time. How like, Darrow has to brag in order to tell you how impressed if he is at something because no one else can do it. So he'll be like, but I'm faster than them. So he can't possibly beat me and I'm smarter than them. So they can't possibly beat me. And it's like, I know that like no one else can tell me that because you're the narrator and you are faster and you are smarter. But it just comes off so like. When he talks about how quickly he picked up those dances as someone who's good at dancing, you don't learn a new dance that fast. I'm just, I can't, but you don't because you're not because you're not number one on the roster. I'm not number one in his hands, his dexterous hands. Oh my God. Wish like to be perfectly honest when he talks about like that these are the hands of like a minor of Lycos. I'm like, but they're not like they were restructured completely. So I'm like, why would you have anything left over of what you could do as a red? It's all up in here. His hands are up in here. No, I mean, I'm totally okay with letting it go. And like, I kind of said this in my review. I actually don't care that he's a Gary stew sometimes. Like some things are earned, but there's a lot of things about him that it's just like fine, be the best, whatever. Cause like you were saying, Leanna, I kind of just want to see how he solves the problem. And it's just kind of it's usually violence. That's his go to. But yeah, I mean, it's like it's like both in space. Yeah. So it's basically the aim of the wind. Okay. Daryl does not annoy me or stress me out as much as quote. Well, cause quote is worse about just being like, I know this is a bad idea. It's going to get me in trouble. I will definitely have my ass handed to me if I do this and I'm doing it. You're like, oh, yeah, quote perpetually makes decisions where I'm like, we both know this is bad. Whereas Daryl, like, I mean, sometimes he's forced into bad scenarios. But I honestly do think most of the time he makes the best out of the bad situation. And he's making like a strategic a strategically calculated risk. Both is just like, I feel like this thing you off. And I'm gonna and you're like, but why? Nero does tell us when he messes up though, because like when he attacks the jackal and he's like, wait, shit. No, I miscalculated here. This is bad. Yeah. I didn't expect him to cut off his hand because to be fair, that's a lot. Well, and that's where like actually the fact that he is, I don't think he's actually smug. It just kind of feels smug when he has to be the one to tell you that he's the best. It's just like, but so then he's quite smug when he's like caught the jackal. And he's like, and I tell him this and I throw the knife down. And of course he, oh, he was parading. Oh, what are you gonna do? Cut your hand off. He's like, got him. Got him. Like, you know, he's like, wait a second. Shit, he's actually cutting his hand off. But like, I would that scene three times and every time it's chilling, the switch that happens when Lucius or whatever he's going by turns into the jackal and just goes his dead eye and is like, and when Dara was like, he looks too sane right now. Like that's what makes him look insane. And it's just like, like he's so creepy. No, yeah. And I actually forgot. So like, I knew some of the twists and I knew where we ended up at the end of this book, but I forgot a lot of the middle parts and I'm like, I know we meet the jackal eventually in this book. I know there's a moment where we don't know if Mustang's on his side, but it's fine. And then I totally forgot it was the scene with the fake drinking and stuff. That's just like, oh man. Yeah. That was a good scene. And yeah, that was another time that Dara definitely like head case was like, Oh no, I miscalculated because he's like, I just learned that their brother and sister and she has half my army and all of our equipment. He's like, Oh God, I'm screwed. And then she's like, I like that that didn't get dragged out though, that he would think that she had betrayed him for longer. But like, it's like two seconds later. She's like, Oh, did you think that I was and I like too that he didn't write a female character that would now be like offended and like how dare you think I would betray you that like, she's like, yeah, it's reasonable that you would have assumed that I would have betrayed you. I should have told you sooner and I didn't and like, we're good. I'm like, I mean, but in fairness, like she should have told him, but if I was related to the jackal, I might not tell people like, it's there. Yeah, there's just like a tendency sometimes. And I mean, female authors do it too, but they'll write a female that's like irrationally angry about something to create drama. And it's almost always the female that's irrationally angry. And I just like, I mean, I knew she wouldn't because I'd read it before, but the first time I read it, I was like, it's Mustang going to be mad at him that he assumed that she had betrayed him and be like, I thought we trusted each other, but apparently not. But instead she's like, nah, yeah, I get it. She also plays in this is Cassius. Yes. Cassius is our drama queen. But most thing also plays into the like, when Daryl is kind of accepted as the leader, she I think it was at one point. She's just like, oh, right away, Reaper. Just playing it off like, yeah, you're in charge here. I guess I'll just be my good little servant and go run along and carry your message. That is the thing that I wish isn't so drawn out is the Cassius stuff because it stresses me out every time I remember it and read it. I just like. Which part just when that he like takes him out into the middle of nowhere? All of it. Well, first of all, Daryl got taken out in the middle of nowhere like twice within four chapters that I'm just like, sir. It's like Hadrian getting arrested in Sun Eater, which you'll learn. He just gets arrested all the time. I'll look again. Stop. Is this where I tell you guys I DNF that book? I'm sorry. Oh, geez. I couldn't do it. It was more out of apathy than anything. So sorry. But to this point about Daryl being smarter than everyone and that being unbelievable, it is a bit because it does come off that way. But I do like that there's an effort made to distinguish between people being really smart and just being the right kind of smart. And Daryl is like, they all know more than I do. They are all possibly smarter than me. But it's like kind of like the LSAT is like a very specific kind of thinking. It doesn't mean you're smart. It means you're good at the LSAT. And so like when he talks about this like, what is extrapolation thinking or whatever? Yeah, it's like a trick question test. Yeah. And so then he's like, I'm not smarter than anyone, but I'm really, really good at this specific kind of thinking that which is what they are looking for. And so the fact that the book is like, he's not literally smarter than everyone all the time. In fact, there's a lot of things he's kind of dumb about. But like it's, he just happens to be specifically naturally gifted at that kind of thing. Yeah. And for some reason, that society really cares about backstabby, tricked, questioning, sort of things. Like that's a value to them. Yeah. Aiden, the, the length of the books do you get a little bit longer? But I feel like this... I mean by the time we're in Iron Gold, they are tomes. Oh yeah. I mean... Dark ages. I don't know if the thousand pitchers. Once you get to multi-pov, they're definitely chunky. But I think the first three are all about the same, right? They are, but I think... They get longer. They're all longer than Red Rides. The first one, I feel like was kind of short because of... It was basically just getting to the next part of the story where it's like, we have to like do all this stuff, but there's no need for this book specifically to be like 700 pages long, because people already think the Institute dragged on too long. Imagine if this book was twice as long. Yeah. Like, especially in a single pov. It would have been way too long. I would not have liked this book if it was 50 pages longer. I, I liked getting the cut. It's like watching a football game, but only the highlights. That's what this book was. And I was cool with that. Like... I think the only part that like could have taken longer and might be slightly improved for taking longer is him transitioning into Gold Hood. Because that's very fast. And like it's okay that it's a montage. I mean, that's why, because it works because it's a montage, but like you could flesh that out more and that would be a fine thing to do. But like, not I think about it, flesh it out in what way though. Like him trying to learn as he's getting carved or just like once he's carved learning how to be a Gold, instead of basically going straight to the Institute. Oh, and I guess for a while he's just getting carved for a long time and like horrible pain and recovering. But kind of like to like your point earlier just about generally in the book how like for a book that's from his POV we don't get his feelings a whole lot. And I think like we, the montage of him becoming a Gold, there's a bit of him being like, what does this mean? EO wouldn't recognize me. But like we don't get a lot of what it's doing him to him like mentally, this like complete like shift of everything he's ever known. So I think like we get the montage of like what's physically happening to him, how they're training him, how they're improving him, how they're like carving him and giving him the memory stuff he needs and like all that. But there's not a lot of like the mental strain of like going through that. So that could be fleshed out more. Sure. Yeah. And like a thing that is definitely something I wish we had a little bit more of but was out of the scope of this book and gets better in the series is just like he has such fleeting character connections with people. You know, and like in that moment we do see how he's sort of connected to this pink that's like trapped with him and she's getting carved in a certain way. And it's just like those are things that you miss out on in the montage format that this book kind of relies upon. And so if it were to be expanded those are the types of moments I would have wanted more of but also that would require more focus on any sort of character building outside of just like relying on space opera archetypes. Yeah. Expect to capture the flag to be 20 pages and then it was the entire I mean that's kind of I think I like I think I gave it five stars this time because it's kind of that where it's like I never liked the Institute before and the second time through I didn't I guess I kind of like when Alex was like I only read this two and a half times I feel like I should say I've read it two and a half times because I read it in its entirety the second time but it was kind of like a grudging skim because I wanted to reread the whole series and Red Rising was my least favorite and I was like well I need to get through this one so I could get to Golden Sun. So I was like Institute Institute Institute so like I read it but it was just kind of like not really engaging with it it was just to get I'm gonna like try to try to understand why people like the Institute and like this time through like I mean obviously like for it to be like an ideal book like I should have loved it the first time but this time because like I know it's going to be almost the entire book and I know how it's going to be and I know how violent it's going to be and I know how medieval it's going to be and like I just know how it's going to be and I'm like that's okay so accept it and then just engage with it on its own terms and because I did then I like I actually did quite enjoy it this time. I think the first time around when I read it I think I got halfway through the book and I was like are they even on Mars? Where are they? This just feels like they're out in like a field somewhere on earth just like cosplaying like what is happening? I was basically getting mad at the book at that point the first time around this time around though I was just remembering all the cool stuff that happens like the first time all the howlers are a thing and they're howling in the background as they're fighting or when Darrow like I think it's later on when they start to actually like take all the houses and Darrow is talking to the one proctor whichever one is Jupiter or the other one I forget but they don't realize that they can't hear anything outside and then Darrow is just like ha ha ha it should be about time that Sever is taking your keep and he's like what? And then you hear like all the howling like miles away and they just overthrow everything that's pretty sweet And I think also it's funny to me because everyone does say the second half feels like medieval fantasy war games to them but for me it actually reminds me courses and they have swords in castles but for me like it reminds me at least in terms of storytelling structure about a lot of like a lot of classic sci-fi like foundation and stuff like that where it's like we have a problem we need to solve it it's very truncated in that way of its storytelling and so yes it has no like sci-fi devices but it reminded me of like cultural world building sci-fi because we're also watching people like struggle with societal structures and figure out their version and that's more of a sci-fi question in my head I mean I don't know so like it's like medieval warfare except every so often like a spaceman on his graph boots floats down to be like hey piss heads what are you doing he equates himself while he's popping bubblegum because I it didn't bother me either time and I found him it was engaging to me both times both times I read the institute in one day it was like it's also not unfamiliar anymore especially with like sci fantasy books like whether it's Dune or Sun Eater or Red Rising like they will find reasons to have horses and swords and shields it's gonna happen regardless of what kind of fighting you're doing this version of sci-fi with horses is definitely better than Rise of Skywalker's horses charging across the top of a battleship whatever situation like there's that I mean that's a it can always be stupid the series also has gigantic horses because golds are like 10 feet tall I know it's like because it's normal because everyone is like the same size so it becomes like the new normal so it's like there's it's you only really notice size if there's a disparity and so it's like every so often when he like says something about their size and like reminds you like when he'll talk about how far they can run and how in like a space like how long he can go in a minute or something like that or like specifically talks about like height and length or whatever and you're just like Jesus you're enormous yeah because then there's like casually walking around being like nine feet tall and you're like wait that's way too large they're literal giants which is then and then Reds are like five feet tall but then at the same time then when he's like holding Mustang and like oh she's so thin and fragile and weak from fever and like but she's also like nine feet tall enormous yeah also like how much of Darrow is left in that carving when you are doubled in size like and some like this is another thing where it's like I can't just the hands of the minor I just can't do it hands in his brain but it's it's interesting it's just they're so big and have either of you you I know Leanna you have the red rise in card game but I don't know if you've played it what's a board game it's not just a card game well there's yeah okay okay it's runny with a board but it is it's most mostly a card game there's like cool little jeweled like little thing we also have the Kickstarter cards okay but I was always annoyed that they only have Darrow as a red they don't have Darrow as a gold and I don't get to see the chain it's a spoiler can't spoil it it's not a spoiler it's a spoiler it's the prologue it's the setup for the entire series yes I know also this prologue is pretty much 10 out of 10 it tells you exactly what this book is like it's melodramatic as hell like that's that's great so how did you not like Sunny there Hadrian is super melodramatic I actually thought about this because I was like it's not because he's melodramatic it's because Darrow is melodramatic from a place of poor angst repression and like oppression and stuff like he comes from being beaten down society a full version it's just like a rich boy with daddy mommy issues and I'm like well I always said that Sunny eater is if Darrow had been born a gold had been born a gold yeah and I think that's a great comparison not as interesting to me and I don't vibe with it as much yeah that's all Hadrian's father is Nero Al-Augustus yeah no his father yeah no I mean and also I know he's meant to be pretentious but I truly was just like sir that's how people feel about Darrow true and like I said for Darrow it's like yeah but you're like the person who doesn't realize you're being pretentious because you came from the ground up and you don't know because you weren't raised in that society I don't know it's just different maybe that is why that's how it is for you but I think the reason why Darrow works for people and perhaps not Hadrian is that Hadrian doesn't have a several that might be part of the two balance that out that's also probably he kind of got one at one point not definitely not to the I mean no switch is not several but I was like 150 pages in and I still didn't know who my other cast of characters was going to be outside of Hadrian and I was like uh we just keep hopping around and you're done don't because the thing about Suneater is like the entire first book is like a little bit of the red company but this is honestly this is one of my biggest problems with the side characters in that series is by the time you're like four or five books in when you start to lose people there were so many of them that I just didn't care about because they're not the focus of the story because it's not a multi POV space opera it's not like the expanse where you have this big cast of characters that you like like they're all kind of there but they're not like fleshed out characters often yeah but I think the difference also is that like at least in these books like Empire of Silence is thematically trying to do something and I respect it for that these books are also thematically doing things but they're also meant to just be a pulpy time like that's what these three books are just attempting to do this is a big dumb that's a different assignment yeah that's very true but Alex next time we do a senator talk you better not get mad at me if I bring up red rising because the amount that we're talking about pretty sure 100% of our Sun Eater talks have at some point mentioned red rising yes but you get mad at me for it I'm saying you're not allowed to get mad at me I mean I think this is an interesting comparison of character Sun Eater will come up in all of these chats does that balance us are we cool we can talk about Sun Eater every single time yeah you'll have to update me because I don't care if you spoil me but like I don't know anything past the first we'll just do that not in the live chat because if we're talking about Gold and Sun and I drop a Kingdoms of Death spoiler or something people are gonna be like what the honestly I feel like the Sun Eater series is so like wild that if you have a no contact spoiler you will be too confused to know I love those types of spoilers like yeah no there's you won't get to it obviously but like by book three even in book two there's certain things that you're just like what the hell it's like it's like weird out there sci-fi gobbledygook stuff happening I mean but so with this book there's so many characters that aren't in this book that like it's not that I didn't know they're not but it's just so wild to me that they're just like considered like staple Red Rising characters that are like they would be on all the merch everyone's top characters these are like the main characters and not even in Red Rising there's also a lot I was thinking that too because I was thinking of before this chat we were talking about a character and trying to figure out what house she was in in her Institute days and like it's from the board game by the way what'd you say it's because she's introduced in the next book and the house Institute thing is because of the board game that was the reference okay that's apparently that's a thing I don't know I mean I don't know I like the card game which is an unpopular opinion in the board game sphere that no one on booktube cares about but people didn't really like that board game I think it's a fun card game what do you think Severo is the not so cozy Samwise Gamgee um I mean well I don't know he's loyal like Sam I understand the comparison and he's definitely not so cozy version of most things because Severo is a not cozy but there's also something weirdly cozy about Severo I was about to say he's really good at breaking the tension yeah and like also when people love Severo which they do he's always everyone's favorite but it's a character that you can't overuse because like you need to use him sparingly and I like that Pierce Brown seems to know how to gauge how much Severo to use no that's true because I don't hate me I do not dislike Severo but he is not my favorite but I think you're wrong he's your favorite okay well we'll find out by the end of this where I've ended up on this reread but he isn't overused to me because he would be a personality type that I could be convinced to not like his perspective it's kind of like um Mistborn Era 2 a lot of people don't like Wayne because he's overused in their head or his point humor exactly and I think that type of balance could be done poorly with Severo's character but for me it hasn't happened and it's fine because he's important like he's an important character it's just he's not my favorite I'd say he's definitely in it more as the series goes on and there's certain books where he's like pretty heavily there but it's definitely like but like using him as that like that chaotic he's a wild card yeah and so like having a I'm honest but having that wild card element all the time would not make it fun anymore it's because you just like have him pop in unexpectedly doing something wild that it works if you did it too much because like people love it so I should do more of it that would ruin it like Wayne who's not funny and he's in the books entirely too much have you finished that series yet because I'm you should probably I didn't read the latest one which you you really shouldn't literally sitting right here oh I heard I think you should I asked people I was like is Wayne in it any less and they're like no he's not I'm saying you really should not unless you really have like 10 hours you don't care about spending any other way I mean I'll read it at some point but I hate when you haven't finished realm of the elderlings or first law so that's true that's part of what I'm trying to finish this year I get to continue realm of the elderlings soon because I am free of wheel of time which who what a time anyways back to red rising I guess yeah yeah no Sanderson talk on my channel what are you doing hey but I was disliking a book so that's all I was using a negative trait of a Sanderson character to bring up several we know where we're at Leona okay you're right you're right I'll allow it but yeah so like we've been pretty positive during this chat we've been like a red rising apologist but it's definitely not without fault so do we want to criticize it a bit I mean go for it go for it yeah you you start well like I was I mean I say that but I was about to like make excuses for it again honestly because it's like well because like a lot of the problems that it has like I also forgive them because he was like 23 and rage wrote this for himself because he was not being successful as an author and so he just wrote this for himself kind of like in frustration and it reads like a 23 year old man who was frustrated wrote this for himself you know so it's like when people are like oh it's like it read like a 15 year old but it's like oh Darrow's like wishfulfillmenty and it doesn't really make sense and it's like all this stuff it's like yeah I don't disagree but also what I know how the origin of how this came about and I'm like that's why it reads like that no and I mean oh gosh I want to like say something but then it's like taking away the negativity but it's like I also think sometimes it's fine to read like a pseudo fan fiction book and it's really engaging in a fun time and like this is better than that like it's a tier above just like finding good hunger games adjacent fan fiction with a space opera sleeve you know like yeah but I mean it also just comes onto personal enjoyment like we understand that there's issues with these books and not clearly like I disliked it a lot more the first time around I I like it now because I just love the series so like the problems I initially had definitely don't bother me anymore because it's just so much fun and I think the first time that I read through it I wasn't really on board until the end of this book and then when I read Golden Sun I was like okay now I kind of appreciate what he did in Red Rising because this book was so good and the Morning Star was also fantastic that was like all right I'm good like I love it yeah I think if it had stayed at the level that it is at Red Rising and then I wouldn't really like I don't know if I would have continued I certainly wouldn't respect it but because Red Rising is like the young the debut the first the meh like like it's that's the starting point and because it was clear that Pierce Brown was like oh this isn't for me anymore this is like I like okay put your like thinking cap on like write our proper series now and the fact that even after that then with the new books he didn't just like rest on his morals and was like Red Rising is popular or just slap the Red Rising name on something like it's clear that it's important to him to grow as an author and to like stretch beyond his comfort zone and to do more and do better and like I just so much appreciate an author that's not like well I don't know if you know this but I'm kind of amazing already at what I do and I don't need an editor and I don't need to be told anything that they're like no I know I can do better I know I can fix this I know this I would do differently the second time and so then keep trying to get better yeah I think my biggest complaint is probably still like the thing I would do to if I had to say yes this is an expanded book is like I truly am like the reason why I would read instead of watch something is like reading you get to have closer character interaction moments than you do watching on screen depending on I guess the acting and like I could easily watch this or read this and it would probably be a very similar experience to me because of its pacing and things like that so as a book like I don't have an adaptation to watch so this this is fine and it's fun and easy to read but I kind of wish it had more of the depth that I go to for reading as a reader myself like obviously reading is very personal and different but that's my thing is it's just like I have to do a lot of my own mental gymnastics to give personality to characters in this first book because they don't currently come with they come with their own quirks but they don't you know there's not a lot of there are so many names in this first one that like now when I read it I don't have trouble with that because I know who they all are from the later books the first time through I was like not only are there a lot of characters but they all have like 10 names because there's like the real name and the nickname and the family name and you're just like and then a lot of them start with the same like Titus and Tactus and like I definitely got Titus and Tactus confused even now I get confused sometimes like what oh no that was that was Titus no yeah is there even like a character page in this book I don't even think there is I don't there I think there isn't the new books but I don't think there isn't these I'm pretty sure they didn't add that until book two even because a lot of people not know the institute would be half the book though there's a whole map of it but it would be like I think it would be extremely spoilery to have a character list because it's like you're not supposed to know my staying as Virginia and like things like that yeah I mean there's probably ways around that but usually when things are spoilers for a book but you still want to reference it it's usually at the back that's what authors do at least I've read a lot of Wheel of Time now and that's what they do there so well Wheel of Time has 4,000 named characters so I'm Wheel of Time is proof that even if you have unlimited page time there's such things too many characters it's just true and when you run out of page count for characters just write more of them and if you're in the last book of the series add new characters create new ones who cares why not there are some more characters sorry I'm just I'm still bitter I still want to see this get an adaptation though I don't know if that's ever going to happen but I mean ever yes but like anytime soon what I mean who knows what is nice about it is like obviously we would want to see the whole saga as fans but the first book is like a complete arc in its own right and so even if it failed you could like kind of at least see the world visually and like it's it would sell like this is the type of stuff that sells people love this these tropes yeah for sure and since it is more medieval the special effects don't have to be as intense but I worry about how bad everyone's going to look because the coloring system like how it's their eyes and their hair and their skin like it's gonna look weird I feel like you'd have to do it fairly subtly yeah and then I don't know how you can not power ranger than that it's weird how you what how you would handle race because like even in their color it's supposed to be in their skin pigmentation but obviously like Lea said you can't quite do that there's a lot of bad art though of like characters of well different races being the different colors I mean on you for a cast thing you would just cast whoever and just give them blonde hair and gold eyes I mean yeah how's the dragon need an entire race of the larians black that weren't black so I mean you can yeah no I just meant more like it's I just worry about things looking like I get really weird it out when irises just don't aren't normal colors yeah like I get really like I think it's most I don't it's not really skin tone it's mostly just eyes and hair okay I thought when I was reading it this time but I'm a bad person I think it's just because they stress how much how tan the golds are and so he frequently uses words about how them looking kind of golden but like when Dara was a red he was like palea if he was like super white apparently you guys can correct me the audio books make them have an irish accent I haven't listened to it well because the reds are inspired the reds are supposed to be like irish okay but that's why I was saying that's also just the narrator like his voice just but that Dara it's not Dara Pierce Brown picked that narrator because he had the irish accent so there you go yeah I also wonder if it would be fun as animated because then you could like in the style of arcane that would be cool in my opinion I don't know I'm actually very pro doing animation for a lot of fantasy and sci-fi but everyone is very miss born pretty much anytime I read Sanderson I'm like this should be animated not like I would have so much fun like I love animated things I'm rewatching DC animated which is infinitely better than any live action DC they've ever put out that's a very low bar though but I have so much fun I mean I have the box set of the Batman animated series oh yeah yeah we're on the first season still it's been like our news we've been doing Saturday morning cartoons we're having fun so did you guys have some favorite characters that we're not Darrow since we haven't really talked about I mean everybody loves Severo for the most part but like I know you had mentioned Pax at one point we know I just thought he was oh tell him on us Pax is hilarious want because of something I won't say because it's later on but also he's just funny because he's a Pokemon and even to his dying breath he just keeps saying his name but like who else did you like as far as other characters whether it's like Mustang or did you like Cassius at all or anybody else Cassius is hard to talk about because we all know so much about Cassius so Cassius in this book is insufferable but maybe in so but like even in this book I like that even though and again it's not handled perfectly he improves with this in later books but I think even in this book it's easy to make a caricature of Cassius and he doesn't feel like a caricature like there is like it's really complicated how you feel about him because you get why Darrow befriended him but even from the beginning even when they're friends there's this like snobbery and classism about Cassius that like is always unforgivable his attitude isn't like great but all at the same time there you can't help but feel like there is a kind of nobility to him that you get why Darrow would like have his like it would break his heart to lose the friendship of Cassius yeah and like I I think I was probably more just like like Darrow was you know realizing at the beginning is like he was put in an impossible situation on purpose it's like oh we all killed people that these other people probably cared about and now there's this like tension and like even if Darrow had come clean right away being like Cassius I'm sorry I had to kill your brother like Cassius wouldn't have forgiven him right then like there's no well the whole time it's just like from the very beginning you know how hypocritical Cassius is being about the whole thing because like Cassius killed somebody in the passage but he's like someone killed my brother that's unacceptable and it's like because it's a one rule for the others and a different rule for me and that's the whole thing about the goals in general and he's just like there's like golds to everyone else is like one rule for us and one a different rule for you guys but then the top echelon of golds are like that two other goals well I think I do think he did make it well I don't think Cassius would have changed his mind of things for different because I think Cassius is a hypocrite but Cassius does make a point of saying it's not that you killed my brother it's when I saw the hollow how you killed my brother which I still think is harsh and unfair because they weren't giving any weapons or anything but you know like and I don't think if like but it's also like Cassius is there a way that I could have killed your brother that you would have been like oh okay well I've seen the hollow and actually the way you killed him is fine like that's what I'm saying one time and he died like that's all right he slipped and like actually knocked himself out you're like well you didn't even actually kill him he killed himself yeah but yeah I mean I am it is pretty uncomfy that Darrow and Tactus are like but at the same time well I do feel that way I also feel like Darrow hates all the golds he's there to use of every single one of them so like it behooves him to take Tactus under his wing for purely strategic reasons and so then like and the whole time Darrow is like what have I become what am I becoming what have I become okay with like the entire time is like what that's what's going through his head is like I've killed and he's like these people are monsters is what I killed someone in the passage we've all killed someone in the passage and he's just like where is my line now what is my line there are golds should I care and then like the fact that Tactus is like kill them all I don't care because they're all golds and Darrow's like well I think that's wrong but actually I'm here to do that right so like should I feel that it's wrong he's just like constantly like what is morality to me right now I don't even know well there's the morality issue and it's also just he immediately realizes that the golds are full of shit because it's not a perfect society and even within their perfect society they're all terrible to each other and they're still treating each other like there's tears like you said so it's like there's there's no real rules other than you have to be the prettiest strongest gold that's the best killing because even no Fitchner mentions that because he straight up just like look at me like I'm ugly this is this is my this is as far as I go here like I can't step beyond this position as a proctor and Darrow's just like yeah I'm gonna ruin everything can we talk about Fitchner I love Fitchner yeah of course we can yeah see your channel talk about whatever you want say your channel if he's in the book and we're here to talk about it I'm gonna mute everybody yeah I just like he's also a character like I could see people being annoyed with him but I feel like he's written well and I feel like it's hand like it's there for you to see it if you use it together that he is several's father without like it's not I mean it's a secret but like it's not like it's made in a way like you could never possibly guess that like even Darrow he's like how did I not guess that he's like it's actually really obvious yeah I just love the obvious but like still awesome reveal of several killing their number one candidate for the house that's always so fun pretty much everything I love to and like several is like when he tells them oh I buried the standard and I'm gonna go get there standing he's like what do you think I've been doing wanking in the bushes and they're like yes yes that's exactly what we thought you were doing I don't I guess I didn't have strong opinions about Fitchner I mean I guess I didn't get frustrated with him which I guess maybe some people do because maybe he could have done more or something but I guess I was just more like I don't know he's here just making comments he goes away it just felt like a weird video game avatar like I don't know I just he felt like he was there for occasional help and info dump and I was fine with it he was a quest giver Darrow also kind of over set boundaries too though being like you haven't done anything for me he's like shut up idiot but also like I just love too that the the realization that the game is rigged the entire time horribly rigged yeah I just like like how long it takes them to realize it even though it's so obvious from like step one like like Mars's house is so much worse set up than everyone else's right but that's not even how it's because it's like always set up like that because you get the resources of your like house god or whatever but like the way that even beyond that that when they're like oh you know it's like actually rigged though it's not just like oh there's an imbalance of what resources each house has it's like after that even like you're getting extra help and like I'm doing fine it's being taken away from me it's not even that they're not giving it to me they're taking away what I have like what they're literally sabotaging them and like poisoning their food like it's it's not fair yeah but yeah I mean I love that there's another red there and like I love love on the on that note as well the fact that at the very end when sever was like it was garbled whatever you said to Apollo at the end so I edited it out and that's all he says and I was like what does he know why does he know what why did he hear it did why did what does this mean several it pays way too much attention I do love how undervalued and underappreciated his observing skills are like like you were saying you know people just assume he is what he displays that's the point that is part of who he is he is that person well his super powers being underestimated man it's not just a facade like he is that creepy little weirdo but he's also like using that to dupe people it's so fascinating how I totally get why you don't like Wayne it's totally fine I'm not telling you to suddenly like it's not funny because Brandon Sanderson cannot write humor to save his life that's fine that's fine again I'm not here to defend Wayne but it's so funny how similar they are though I mean it's fair I see what you're saying because there's a lot more to Wayne than just being a dumb idiot that talks about hats all the time but he is also just at his core that dumb idiot like he's not it's not that's not a facade I don't know yeah really funny because it's again kind of like the Hadrian Darrow thing but sometimes there are things to just make even the same ish thing not work yeah for sure that's all that's just that's all I guess I'm not trying to make you like Wayne that's a I mean it's impossible so it's fine I really like Mustang I don't know but I'm a sucker for just like a smart person and she's the only smart one we get really in terms of like traditional smarts yeah no she's definitely smart level headed there's some other characters in this that are just like there to be followers so they're just kind of tagging along for the ride so somebody said thoughts on the jackal it's hard to talk about the jackal on reread why I guess I know more than I think I know well then just about I think the jackals terrifying I'm just like what I said earlier was that like no matter how many times I read the scene where he's like unmasked it's always chilling it's so well written I mean without any other like beyond this book you don't get a lot of him like you hear a lot about him being a crazy person and like there's a few scenes of hey like he's the crazy bad guy in this world and then obviously you learn more about like how he's being cheated for and then you get that moment at the end where he's just like fully insane and I think Pierce Brown does a really good job of like building up the tension and building up the like reveal of because like just throwing it the first time you hear about the jackal you're like huh and then you hear about it again and then you realize how rigged the game is and then you find out who the jackal is and why the game is rigged for him and then you finally meet in him and even this time when I was like well I know that this guy who's like seems to be a normal guy is actually going to be the jackal as opposed to the first time when you don't know that yeah either way though even like it's almost creepier when you do know it because you're like waiting for him to show it like I know you're not this normal guy stop pretending stop being nice you're the jackal and that like it's arrow arrow so and then like that that the tension of that scene when Mustang like walks in and she's like who's this and he's like oh just go outside she's like okay he's like we're gonna talk and she's like okay and then like when like because like Daryl had figured out that was the jackal but he hadn't pieced together why Mustang recognized him and that whole like and then obviously the moment when jackal turns and even then when like you think it's going to be this really satisfying moment to be like this game is rigged in your favor you're not even the best like how are you how can you claim to be the best I'm not gonna throw you down and he's like well you're talking about like you know like you're cutting off your hand and stuff he's like this is why we're different what's a hand I don't need a hand I'm my brain so like oh this is rigged against me like yeah idiot like because I'm intelligent I have resources and I'm going to use those resources because duh and the way he's so like calmly collected I'll get another hand moron how do you think I get this one and the fact that like it's not like embarrassing for him that he's had the game rigged in his favor because he's like and that would be so stupid to like not win the game with all the resources at your disposal like you plead like he's so well written I also really liked the um because you know Darrell I know Darrell loves his hands Darrell has told me many many times how much he loves his hands the hands of a red the hands of a hell-diver was allowed to be x-rated I don't want to know what his hands would be doing like he really loves his hands and like the fact that he couldn't understand someone chopping chopping up their hand though I think makes a lot of sense like I feel like a lot of people who like you know play instruments and stuff like when you define yourself by things you can do well and it's like so crazy and it's also like a really great moment of like character work because like people project on to others what they would do what they would think what they would suspect so Darrell was like if my if I was like plopped in that chair I would never cut my own hand off therefore they wouldn't either and the fact that like you have to be able to to not do that to like think how they would think give it that's the opposite of you I mean just beyond that it's it's like putting your head putting yourself in the head of a psychopath like you you literally can't because then that would probably mean that you're also a bit of a psychopath to be able to be on the beyond the level be like okay I get why he's cutting his hand off but it's also it's this moment where like you realize you've underestimated him in a way that's like but not just because so like the game was rigged in his favor so he's been lulled into this like this princeling who has the game rigged in his favor he has daddy's money and daddy's connections he actually is bad at this game he's having it all handed to him I'm gonna key things he's smart I'm gonna catch him and then you realize that like yes the game is rigged in his favor that doesn't mean that he's not smart like it just means he also had the game rigged in his favor you're like oh I I made a mistake I've made a huge mistake I do think this comment about gold culture is interesting and also probably why I can't think about this series to March because at least in the first three books although it's technically about changing society I actually do not understand how the society functions for more than like 50 years at a time like I actually have no clue I mean it's fair but also I think the series probably more so beyond the first three but like it definitely shows you that yeah it is always in flux and everyone is after power and everyone is pretty much willing to crush anyone else even if there are golds to get there so I mean it can still function you just as you peel back the onion you see how truly effed up most of it actually is and it's not like nothing about it is really very good but they're noble it's the top in the cream of society as the goals are so good at keeping everyone else down that they stay in power so that's kind of their own lie yeah that's like how they stay there because everyone else is just kept all the way down here yeah I also think it plays off a pretty common sci-fi thought experiment of like if your empire becomes too stagnant too calm then it will devolve like that's the whole premise of foundation that trilogy right it's like well they were just too stagnant for too long and then it be devolved into barbarism and so here it's like even part of their mentality is like we have to force evolution on ourselves right it's like so it's kind of I think it also maybe potentially keeps them from doing that but I don't know if I think about this society too much I will have less fun but it's also it's a lot of him being like inspired by like Sparta and things like that and like Spartans basically were doing that on a much like like lower you know smaller scale but the whole like we have to make ourselves tough like tough by sacrificing in the week you know that purposely doing that I like Matt's comment about waiting for the reveal that they're not the top yeah where's the platinum I mean in some ways obsidians are they're just kept you know they're kept in the chute but they're physically bigger than the gold I'm excited to relearn about the obsidians I've forgotten a lot about them but I remember them being well I totally forgot that Pax talks about the obsidians and Helga and he's like constantly talking about Helga like he's literally like Pax is like Tormund Giants Tormund he's the big lady he's a big woman here yeah yeah because obsidians are even larger they literally have more appendages like I don't remember how many toes and fingers they have but it's more than 10 but they're basically just kept in like warrior status and sort of like physical labor because of how strong and gigantic they are big and dumb yeah but I mean towards the once we do actually get through the institute because obviously that's you know the majority of the book the ending of it though did you like it did it make you excited for book two or were you kind of like because I remember reading the end of it I was just like okay this is where I'm kind of on board with the series because of Darrow kind of accepting being into that family and he's like all right like this is gonna expand way beyond this silly school institute thing that we did in the first time that I read it like the reason I gave it four stars even though I really didn't like the institute and that is most of the book was because I really really always enjoy the beginning both when he's a red and when he's getting carved and all the like pygmalion training like all of that I love it every time the institute I liked it better now but I didn't originally and then the way that it ends so the first time I gave it four stars because I was like if it if you had asked me to rate it in the middle of the institute the first time I'd be like three maybe and then I got to the end and I was like oh I'm kind of hyped and I remember the beginning was good so I'll give it four I'll give it four for me I remember on a first read that I still took a couple weeks before I picked up Golden Sun but this was back when I read series relatively back to back so I still read it within a month of I can't read it like a day or something it was back in the day when like I read one series at a time back when I read 25 books a year instead of 140 would you say if that's where it's at I don't like who I am now so even though we said it was a humble brag I don't enjoy it I want to go back my goal every year is to read less I'm gonna keep failing every year you don't actually want to your tbr doesn't even fit on your screen anymore but um I was curious enough to read Golden Sun although kind of like Matt I had no idea where it was gonna go I was like a little like oh you're gonna join the Jackals and Mustangs family interesting because I am someone who likes romance I'm like I guess that means maybe they'll get together like I was curious about those silly things but when I finished Golden Sun I instantly had to go buy Morningstar I couldn't wait for the library copy because I'm like I need to understand what's about to happen because the end of Golden Sun is wild have you read all the way through Dark Age yeah okay I do like at the end when like Dara was like you don't understand I've changed the paradigm I'm something you've never seen before it's never and Nero's like you're child like everyone who wins you graduated high school dipshit like that didn't mean anything I'm the captain of this football team you've never seen my likes before and you're like the Slytherin Jackal child it's also like I am the father of the Jackal like wool boy the guy who we rigged this entire thing for like are you are you understanding what happened here yeah and also like further aligning himself on opposite team Cassius which was already a fraught blood war situation so yeah I mean at that point like you know you're not going to make friends with Cassius so you may as well align yourselves with their most powerful enemy yeah the enemy of my enemy is my friend and I mean I was happy that like Dara remembered the assignment it's like yes this will put you as high up as you possibly can go which was the goal of your whole infiltration of society like he remembered the assignment and didn't get like so over his head that he like the I don't know his hubris didn't get away from him which I appreciated yeah yeah I remember the first time I read it through the I think the main reason that I was excited more for golden sun won the way this book ended but the people I was talking to at that time were like just get through red rising I promise it gets much better and that's why I was struggling so hard because I didn't like it at first and then golden sun like immediately gets more into like the space opera aspect of everything and even there is there is kind of like a school feeling to it again for parts of it but yeah you get a lot more of the politics you get space battles it feels more expansive it also feels less young because like everyone in this is in the institute so they're all like kids in the institute or it's like once you're not in the institute it's like the adults of the real world or who you're interacting with it's not just the kids yeah I'm just like remembering how when I first read red rising it was like at a pool like on vacation and I was just like having a great time and there was a lot of murder there is a lot of murder for sure oh yeah yeah I know that the cannibalism was interesting I love too when like Darrow calls the jackal a jackal and it's like one of the only times the jackal is irritated because he's like I don't really call the jackal like he didn't take that nickname and he's like I like yours better also like how it was so mask of Zoro the way they kept carving the the sling blade into like all the surfaces and did a fiery sling blade like on the hillside everywhere yeah so Zoro it's so fun and dramatic so great yeah but it is also like you know psychological warfare yeah like like the way he sneaks in not to steal anything not to do anything just to carve the the sling blade everywhere so they'd be like I've been here I can go wherever I want yeah you're like oh shoot and like it's it's not totally earned it's a little bit much but it does because it does enough of that it does feel kind of earned when people start being like it's a reaper the reaper has come and kind of freaking out about it and like the howling and like the because like no one told them to howl but they got howled at when they were on the receiving end so now that they're on your team they're like howling is what we do and he's like okay yeah I guess howling is what we do it definitely happens a little bit quick but it's so fun well and like it definitely is also like I suspended my you know disbelief when it's like when they came up with the brilliant idea of like well if we let them join us and don't make them slaves they will be better it's like yeah well yes but I can also kind of believe it just because golds couldn't fathom that probably like I get that but it's also just like you're also supposed to be very smart so even if you don't see the value like this shouldn't be like such a huge leap like you know it's like that barbarian brain still takes over they're just like I I'm a genius but Ooga Booga must hit with hammer like you know what I yeah it's just like it's fine though and I do like it because like there's a part of me that's like yes strive for anything better like anything live for more so I mean like yeah like that whipping scene with Tactus like because Tactus is like a creep and the fact that this is the only thing that gets through at him it does a little bit like the fact that okay my favorite part about that entire exchange is actually not that like it changes Tactus it's that like well I hope you are proud of yourself because Pax is traumatized and he's in the corner crying about having to whip you like that part of it that like the big man is like you made me whip Jero like so sad it's okay big guy sun's getting real low well that's like another thing it's like this is how the respect thing works you have to all share pain fine like like it's truly like so wild how high they are in their society but like you were saying like it has to be these really like extreme forms of like tribalism almost there is that kind of thing where like when for the passage when Dara was ripped out of his bed and like beaten and he was like oh I'm getting beaten no okay just take it because he's been beaten before and then he's like even though these goals have been like training for this whatever like how many of them actually have ever taken a beating so like the fact that when they show up here that like it is that like ivory tower kids like in college for the first time going wild but like the Lord of the Flies version of that where like they've had rules their whole lives and they've been pretty strictly monitored and now they're like that's so true though that's kind of how kids act and I mean teenagers are immature idiots like if they feel like they have no structure and no one's in charge of them like they're gonna do wild shit like that's just gonna happen but yeah to this the fact that like Dara didn't win he just took it to Olympus you know that he was like screw your game like I'm coming for you because you like you're not playing by the rules so I'm not playing by your rules but it reminded me of a little bit of like the Kobayashi Maru and Star Trek when he's like it's unwinnable so I'm gonna rig your thing and re-up like reboot it so that it's winnable because like you've set it up because in a way that it's unwinnable so yeah there's like going through Olympus the teachers are just like waking from their slumber like oh you can't be in here no one ever comes up here like someone's like having grapes right like I don't really know he has cheesecake on her nightstand yeah is specified she's like in like a night row she's like how could you be up here this is students can't come in here and he's just like shut up I'm changing the paradigm and like that's just like such fun melodrama it's like really bad butt rock but it's the butt rock you know you kind of like it's fun oh it's so good this is why I'm like I haven't said it this whole time I'm proud of myself but if you haven't done this then this is your time to do it when you read Red Rising listen to the soundtrack of Pacific Rim the original oh that would be so good I do it all like literally to the point I have like listened to the soundtrack of that movie while reading Red Rising so much in my life that last time I watched Pacific Rim I was like oh that's Red Rising music that's the music to the book I read I usually listen to Pacific Rim where I need to pump myself up when I have to do something I hate like write my dissertation I mean especially like the iron rain like the Pacific Rim soundtrack is just like that's the sound of the iron rain oh that's so good that's that's a good shout anyways that's great I approve I endorse that I've not even done it but it's that's great I don't know all the titles all the titles of the tracks for Pacific Rim also fit Red Rising because it's like the resistance and like we're cancelling the apocalypse and like gypsy danger and like all the names are like this all just sounds like it's from Red Rising anyway there's one that's like 3,010s of awesome or something it's like all the tracks so it's like this is Red Rising that sounds like a J. Christoff quote what you know it's true that's true I haven't read J. Christoff so I'll just take your word for it ever at all no I've avoided it I just like super like cringy edgy quotes like that I could just totally see being like this book is 3,000 pounds of awesome truth be told no like my experience with J. Christoff before booktube was going to the bookstore reading the blurb that the person at the book store wrote under his books looking at it and going nah and then feeling very validated ever since I've made that personal choice and Leanna it's 2,500 tons of awesome I added 500 there is canceling the apocalypse though no because that's the speech Edis Elba gives it's a very good movie I really like I mean it's good in the way that like monsters we created monsters Gerebel Zatoro understood what I wanted in that movie as soon as I said like the movie is good because it understands what it is it doesn't take it so seriously I meant 100% it was fantastic I keep taking it he took it seriously up to the exact point that it needed to be serious and then it was like no we're literally punching giant aliens with robots that we built like this is what this is and you have like Ron Perlman in it as like this like black market like oh it's perfect well because like Ron he worked with him for oh what's the tell boy yeah oh it was so good which again knows exactly what it is at least the first one I haven't just like anything I've watched with by Gerebel Zatoro who cares it doesn't need to be good it's fun really just the fact those kind of movies as long a lot of things that are bad as long as they like are self aware that's like half the battle as long as you know exactly what you are I mean it's like the definition of good on what scale like if I want a really good action movie that makes me feel things it met the assignment that's good it's on a scale of 2500 tons of awesome it's good for being an entertaining dumb movie like the world's best minds were like they're our giant monsters we are going to build gigantic metal suits that we have to mind meld with each other because that makes it even more complicated to go punch them in their faces of course we don't bring a woman we fridge his brother it's great there you go and then I guess all odds he has to what mind meld I don't remember what they called it well so even when even when they adopt Red Rising Rami and Juwadi should write the soundtrack because he would understand the assignment if anyone ever reads a book that you're like this is Pacific Rim can someone tell me because I'm also looking for that like platonic like tension like where they don't want to be friends and they become friends and I can't ever find anything that's quite Pacific Rim for me Red Rising no no they are not the same but they they feel a similar part in my heart in terms of pulpy time there's I mean there's Yager's in the series at some point you know just throwing that out there that's the thing that exists that's not like the thing I care about though I want the Idris Elba speech I want the friendship like I don't know not the grizzled veteran that's I have watched Pacific Rim more times than is reasonable I don't actually think you guys know this but I mean I mean I mean I mean double digits Charlie Hunnam could definitely be a gold yeah you anyways any other Red Rising thoughts I guess I'm so pumped for Golden Sun oh I need to finish my February TVR but the thing we want to do before we end the chat good point good point what happened giveaway oh yeah oh yeah have we decided what it's going to be the question not the items if anyone missed it what we're talking about we're giving away a mug and a pin I have them in my community tab like pictures of the mug and the the pin that are Red Rising related and to enter the giveaway whatever question we come up with right now you're gonna have to answer what is Charlie Hunnam's character's name in position I'm gonna open this book to a random chapter okay all right but that's something they could look up on a wiki I'm not gonna see the chapter number I'm gonna say everything is okay well you decide pick a question this is all chaos be like what what movie soundtrack should you listen to while reading Red Rising I'm fine with that question all right is that that's the question are you co-signing this Alex no veto muted we have a two-thirds majority we could make an amendment on the constitution so it doesn't really matter exactly I didn't agree with that to begin with so muted your rules don't exist I'm changing the paradigm there it is now we've come full circle all right so that's officially no the real question is how many paradigms gifted in the last hour and a half who's gonna count okay so if you're interested in entering the giveaway comment don't do it in the chat comment in the comments of this like live video the name of the movie movie soundtrack that you should listen to while reading Red Rising according to me and then also include your instagram handle so that if you win then we can contact you to get your like shipping details and then how long do we want to give people to enter 75 seconds no not it no um how about a week is that too long okay no I feel like that's definitely so um should we say until 7 a.m on Monday Pacific time 7 a.m Pacific time on Monday the 6th sure I won't be in the United States so I don't really care if you were here would it change things no but I'm just not gonna care it just seems like I don't really I just picked a week because it felt like enough time that people could watch the replay who cared so um Christy it's not the soundtrack you would choose it's what Leanna chose there is one and only answer to this question yeah our goal is to reward people who listened to us talk for way too long this is one of the shorter streams that I've been on you should see our song advice and fire chats they go on for days oh someone commented on on the feast for crow's chat telling me that they felt bad for Jimmy because I talked over him I mean you should stop interrupting people and I get comments like that all the time too yeah mute yourself Leanna feel bad quit being so rude uh once on a live someone in the comments said I feel so bad that um right for Angela's boyfriend because of how much I talk in lives people are rude yeah people are real mean at least he didn't talk about my vocal fry this is my cat his breath is really bad wonderful yeah they usually are they clean themselves with their tongues so it's not that it's the food it's not feeding him that unless you're allowed to feed them it's a different problem he's very old he's very chunky you apologize for saying go mama mia oh to our comment okay there you go sorry it's it's getting late if you didn't talk over people so much Angela you'd know what we were doing seriously it's it's my own fault and my own problem insert taylor swift meme here is that a red right no that's Simba sorry no i'm not that much of a diehard fan this is the lie it does look like the the sleeves that you could buy the the first three no I like red rising I'm wearing red rising well this is not a howler but it's close like it's a fox it's they're called cats of cats in the air that's Sophocles oh yeah I don't know I actually I feel like Angela has no idea what's happening no it was just on top Sophocles is the fox a little pet fox you don't remember Sophocles with the jelly beans I read this in 2018 no whatever well you're about to meet Sophocles and some jelly beans I'm pretty excited but yeah no it's been a minute since I've read the series when did dark age come out was that 2019 come on Leanna I think you have seven seconds okay because I think I read red rising the trilogy in 2018 and then I read iron golden dark age when dark age came out 2019 July 30th there you go those dust jackets are awesome they do look nice it's like uh these ones yeah it's there it is there it is with my other red rising books next to them how many special editions of red rising do you have well I have the dust jackets from Juniper and I have the sub press editions and then I have the the other red rising book the Barnes and Noble special edition that was just for the first book I have the arc that was like with the they came out with like four arcs that had the institute's names on them I have one of those and then I have special editions of like iron golden dark age okay because it wasn't there like a fairy loot or a lumicrate version too I don't remember they were just like plain hard covers that had oh oh yeah I have those they're behind me yeah the ones that like there's no dust jacket on it it's just like it looks kind of like the green bone ones got you yeah I have those two basically if there is a red rising special edition I have it when did you fall in love with the series again was it golden sun or did it take longer golden sun okay just curious yeah I was like red rising I don't even know if I would have read golden sun well I wouldn't say ever but like I wasn't like immediately going to be like I need to read golden sun but I was like I might read more and then there were some booktubers who had recently buddy read red rising together and I hadn't read it with them so they were about to read golden sun and they're like oh you just finished red rising right do you want to read golden sun with us and I was like oh I guess yeah I could read it now so I did and then I was like oh this was amazing that's so fun yes dark age is I mean all the warnings about it earned its name dark age is dark as much as I loved I'm super excited to reread it and I gave it five stars and I loved it but I was exhausted by the end of it like I felt it's also just very long yeah I mean it's it's incredibly long but also just like the material is dark it is not happy it's and it's also like basically whatsoever I'm excited to read light bringer because I knew the minute I finished dark age I'm like my opinion on dark age is going to depend a lot on what follows it you know like because it's yeah it's such a dark maybe like you guys said it earns its name because I think I actually gave it two stars my first time because I was really exhausted yeah I mean there's did you just say you gave dark age two stars correct I mean I don't agree with that but I mean I don't know if I knew that this is from so long ago I haven't reread it it could become better and I think the one thing I remember dragging from it's not a spoiler he gets very graphic in his descriptions by that point in the series that like some of it felt like dude like you could like not even that I was like grossed out by it but like reading certain descriptions I was just like do you even need this here like this is obnoxious how much your detailing like how much blood is coming out and like describing intestines I was just like why a lot of it but it's like when it's just blood and stuff it's like I've read so many books it's like okay someone's bleeding but he comes up with pretty creative ways to have people be miserable and they're like oh oh it's still going oh no I also do recognize that my a lot of my two stars was based off expectation versus reality because I kept wanting this second saga of Red Rising to be like the first saga in terms of like my vacation read book and it's no longer that at all but I brought the tome with me on vacation and it was the only book I brought and I was like you are not a fun time it's not but that's also why I respect them so much is because like instead of like again not just resting on laurels but just like oh this is what's fun about the series he's like realistically how would these characters be this many years on how would the society progress this many years on where would this world be what would this be like and if it's not fun to contemplate how realistically it would be sucks that's how it would be like oh it's not fun for you to consider this character isn't fun anymore well that's how life be sometimes like it's like yeah yeah I'm excited to read iron gold and dark age knowing it's project now because I do recognize my first time reading them it's like I wanted them to be something they weren't yeah and I didn't have booktube to tell me that I was just well so I think dark age is the most like quality thing he's ever written like his talent is way better yeah but like golden sun is still the most fun out of all of them to read so it's like my favorite but I think the best one is dark age golden sun also has under twists here just like oh my god this is cool and that's cool and this is cool the entire time reading golden sun the first time I was like what what no no no way I'm really excited because I've forgotten I know there are twists in golden sun but I have forgotten almost all of them like softocles and the jelly beans I don't know if that's a twist it's just an animal commando no one expects the red fox but also having red dark age and how dark it is the fact that he wrote an entire draft of the book after it and then scrapped the entire draft because he said it was too dark I was like yeah I think that's another thing and there's some pretty depraved shit that happens in that book I like I genuinely want to know what was in that draft that he scrapped that he thought was too dark join his patreon I actually don't know if he has one but if he does you should join it and ask Lit should escalate as the patreon that's like not directly for him but it's like for the merch that like they sell so it's not really like access to him but he does amas yeah I just remember everybody like as I was reading dark age when I was in discord with a bunch of people that had already read it it just kept sending me tree emojis and like pictures of trees and I was just like why are you doing this and then I finally got to the point of which I was like oh I okay that's messed up was not expected yeah yeah no so I'm excited for that although I'm is this a reference to Hyperion yes this has to be the only other sci-fi author who cares about the only sci-fi author who cares about John Keats is Stan Simmons but I feel like I usually hear people's favorite is Morningstar I'm always the one that that's not popular at all I think it's a really good series ender and people like series enders like I always feel like I'm the one with the rare opinion the golden sun I think I's better than Morningstar I think on booktube people say that more than I think what it is in real life does that make sense you know how booktube has like a weird filter like which way around like when people think that Twitter is like the world's opinion and then you walk outside and they're just like what's Twitter so you're saying book internet people like golden sun like the bookish internet likes golden sun but I think people who consume the series who are not on the bookish internet really like Morningstar the Vox populi likes Morningstar and we golds I see what you did there sure correct yeah I do remember crying a little bit at the end of Morningstar though so I'll just leave that there I don't remember if I had a favorite I mean to be quite honest the book I remembered the most of the three is Red Rising so I don't know what that says golden sun for obvious reasons that we'll talk about next chat reminded me of a song by Sapphire and some of the like big moments that happen where I was just like holy shit like this is what the series is doing there are so many tweets I did cry in golden sun the first time I don't think I have any like I didn't I don't think I did when I reread it and I doubt I will this time but the first time I did where are we doing chat number two I don't care either you want to which one do you want Morningstar or golden sun Alex I'll let you pick and I'll take the other one he's wearing blue so does that mean morning star because the cover choice means whatever you want it to mean it means I'll do golden sun that's fine okay then I will do morning star okay but you're wearing blue I didn't know the rules I'm sorry I'm very sorry okay cool when we do it for April's morning star we'll either have to do it the second to last weekend in April or like the first weekend in May because I think the other weekend I'm going to Chicago okay so now we know library language coming out this year when is red god coming out never never because he's gonna rewrite it three times okay every time I hear the name red god I get wrap god stuck in my head I don't like it well it was so hard not to start golden sun because I know there's books on my February TBR that I need to read and I'm like but I couldn't be golden sun I spent like half of this month wanting to just read golden sun because it was like the type of candy I wanted and I was just like I can't because I will then talk about golden sun at the live show February ends in two days Liana so I know I don't know how many books you're planning on reading but five one of them is the blackest heart my Brian leader good a nice short book that's like 1100 pages now it's like my last book I've only have 50 pages left of it and I can do what I want I'm reading like a novella I need to finish two towers and then I'm gonna read golden sun you're not screwed it's a TBR it doesn't it doesn't care but there's like lives and stuff well the lives back like we learned at the end of this book it it doesn't matter I just won't sleep it's fine I'm that's that's what I think you should move the lives you could just be like Alan and be like guys I didn't read the book I'm sorry I will not become the thing that I hate that that reminds me you guys are doing the it's the northern something series right with cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo the third book that you've been loving liana I don't remember the name how to say it the cuckoo yeah the cuckoo the end of the northern sky series because I want to really like it but I'm almost positive this is not where our Venn diagram is so I'm terrified you could just like take over from Alan because he's not going to read it how do I just sub in but you guys have already talked about the wolf haven't you yes you sub in at spider you're like a half time sub in I'm the only like well the end obviously but like of the other three that were part of this read along I'm the only one that's read the spider Jesse's read the cuckoo so she's like I'll join you for that and I'm like I don't know where we're ever going to get there one step at a time please well so my problem is my next big chunky series I'm I'm getting back into is dandelion dynasty so I just don't actually think it's happening I don't think I could do both because they're both kind of I'm sorry are they both like it stares at me every time it's at my bookstore and it's at the bookstore my bookstore has it on the shelves reward your bookstore I don't own the spider for this great decision I guess I have it on Kindle I guess that counts as that but I need to buy it physically it enables you to count the number of instances of upstart that's true I did it was a lot okay so golden sun on several fangirls channel also known as alexia vis yep where we will have a pre-prepared trivia question for the next giveaway nope no don't sign us up for that and if you didn't know any discord conversations happen on my discord which you can find on liana's community tab or in any of my video descriptions but you have to interact with the rulebot emoji or else you will not see the channels this is not hard you read books you can read the read that page no one reads rules I know but they could at least note that I don't even care if they're just like yes of course I accept you just have to click the stupid thing just go yell at Jimmy and Alan it's not my fault it is everything's your fault but for golden sun remember the pacific rim 2 soundtrack is not no pacific rim 2 is not pacific rim fine unless you mean pacific rim too meaning like also again listen to the pacific rim for golden sun oh fine well I'm gonna listen to the pacific rim soundtrack now have you ever you've listened to it right it's so good I've seen the movie at much time so I've never actually watched anything beyond the first one you don't need to this first movie is perfect in its own right pacific rim 2 now I just have the just right there I'm boy egg it was in this one Charlie day oh he's operating it but I remember why I didn't watch the second one because I knew too much about it and I was like I'm not watching that shit well the second one also doesn't like it's not and it's largely not the same creative team well it's not Guillermo del Tormo it's not the same actor as it's not Ramin Juwadi scoring it it's just like it's not the same creative team so it's definitely like a straight to dvd endeavor and yeah yeah not that we not that we have a straight to dvd culture anymore but you know straight to streaming yeah sometimes it doesn't even make it to streaming sometimes they make it and then it just never goes on anymore because streaming world's getting mean I really wanted to watch that Batgirl movie that they've already made I looked at the cancelled that they made that they were like they've already produced all the way I know and they were like yeah that's never coming out I was planning to finally catch up on rule of wolves because I saw the first season and I was going to watch the second season and then HBO decided to remove their own shows from HBO and I was just like I think we will get those when they do their free thing because they're going to set up their own like free Warner Brothers thing and they are going to put like some of their big shows on that to get people to use it but like it's still it's still crap I will continue to use HBO for House of the Dragon and then cancel it for two years and then re-up you're not watching the past of us I am watching that but then I'm going to cancel it because I'm not going to watch my backlog of HBO shows for the next two years the day after I started watching the last of us I found mold on my bread it was very interesting well I mean last of us makes you think that fungus is really bad but as I told Ryan it's like we actually do have anti-fungal medication it's okay no you have to bomb the city Angela there's no other way I mean like sandrupt is caused by fungus we're doomed I mean the entire premise is literally impossible so it's fine like that can't affect people so what was let's not go down the reality police it's just really funny because as someone in biomedical sciences I do usually turn my brain off but they just kept reminding me how possible this was in like very dramatic ways and I'm like and then Ryan was kidding with me being like it's because they ate the bread and I'm like what kid don't eat the bread and I was just really stressed in the first episode what I always find unbelievable about all those kinds of movies and shows including the last of us is like when the thing happens whatever the thing is it happens in like 24 hours and I'm like unless it's like an actual biological attack of like bombings and like this is like human being setting this off if you're saying nature is doing this which a lot of them are when it happens overnight it's like no like that's just not how that would happen it would happen not how distributions work yeah I know it's yeah no but that's okay because the last of us is not about the reality of the situations about falling the people gets that gets stuck and that is really good TV it's about fridging oh yeah that too multiple fridges at least two of them so now just every female that dies in anything was just the fridge just all they're all just refrigerators just change our name to smeg I hate that name all right well red rising this is great it's this book there's no funguses in it at least not a lot I feel like aren't there jokes about several having funguses growing in his shoes or probably because several is disgusting he is probably oh my funny Pierce Brown fact because apparently Pierce Brown is attractive which I didn't know because I he's on the back of the book when I first read this book I owned it and like but here's the thing his last name is Brown I thought of Dan Brown who's decidedly unattractive so I've just I thought this series was written by like a 40 year old like reasonably average looking Pierce Brown can't be attractive because he reminds me of Dan Brown who isn't Pierce Brown so therefore Pierce Brown I know it doesn't make sense okay but I will tell you that was the thought tree okay don't mention trees trees have been ruined by Alex yeah okay but so that was your fun fact about Pierce Brown that he's attracted that's not a fun fact no it's a fun fact about how messed up my brain is like I literally thought it was like just written by like a very average white author because like most authors who write sci-fi fantasy have a very average well on that note I have semi convinced Hillary from book born to give Red Rising another go because she thought he was like an older man and I was like he was like 23 when he wrote Red Rising and kind of rage wrote it for himself she was like this makes so much sense you know what actually I might keep reading it because like okay I can forgive that I this I understand she thought he was like some much much older man no I mean many books and like was Red Rising that's a lot of sci-fi authors they're like old white guys I just like Red Rising like Pierce Brown is kind of like internet like he's on the internet and like people always talk about how attractive and young he is it's just like it's always hard for me to believe that people don't know this yeah well and then like I guess also in a similar vein like Brent Weeks wrote Night Angel which is his first series and like I don't like that series because it's too like fan fictiony melodrama-y for me and so like this is like the perfect form of like that type of thing is Red Rising because I've read the other version where I'm like this is too edgelord-ish I can't handle you I don't know if either of you read any Brent Weeks no but then 80 feet to the right of edgelord is Jay Kristoff I have chosen already to not read great Kristoff you don't have to convince me I just have to jump in one more time I have to say hello for anyone because like not every author that has a good book is like an interesting person to meet or talk to you know it's like oh you want to because you like their book but it's like not necessarily just like not every author should read the audiobook of their book you know it's like specific like so like if anyone has the opportunity Pierce Brown is just a very fun person to meet like he's very like engaging and excited to meet you and has a lot to say so like if you ever have the opportunity to go to a signing I highly recommend it just as an entertaining experience because like he is an entertaining person and I sincerely do not understand where his energy comes from because he goes like a mile a minute like barely has breath to speak but just like nonstop and then does the meet and greet with each person where he shakes your hand and is so excited to meet you and who's your favorite character and like why are you here and you look so great to like meet the fans and like who should he sign it to and he's just like an energizer bunny it's absolutely insane man he's only 35 that's wild sorry I just like as someone who just turned 30 I'm like wow okay it's all downhill from there I don't know I've been thriving so far but I'm just kidding yeah some others are so cringe to watch but like you're sprouting he thinks he's cool and he's just a giant nerd and it just becomes very clear that he's a giant nerd as the longer he talks interesting I mean I don't know I have liked most author things I've gone to that I've chosen to but like I don't get to go to that many like I got to meet Ken Liu and he was fascinating but he was really fun to talk to he like talked about the law is like our best technology for like 20 minutes and like I was completely like I was there I was like wow I never thought of law as technology but sure tell me more like whatever just go ahead we are very off topic though so anyone who's still here crossed I was on topic talking about Pierce Brown and then you started talking about Ken Liu not my I mean Ken Ken Liu is pretty great he lives close to me so I get to see him because he comes to my books Pierce Brown lives close to me I was about to say he's like what in Colorado or something like he got the exact same like flood watch alert on his phone and after I got that flood watch alert I was on my phone all because I was reading Red Rising and I got my phone started buzzing with this like don't leave your house until 10 o'clock tonight it's flood watch and so I was like well I'm already on my phone so I open all my socials and I go to Instagram and Pierce Brown doesn't like post that much and I saw that he had a new story so I opened his story and he had a screenshot of the exact same flood warning watch and was like ah shoot I guess I'm gonna have to stay in and play cyberpunk he's like the rest of us he also gets flood warnings no he like lives close enough to me that it's the exact same like alert so did you find out where he lived then he uh he lives next door oh that's sweet why isn't he on a live you should invite him he's playing cyberpunk when we get to Lightbringer we should have a special guest so Leon is now signing out for that Pierce Brown will be on the Lightbringer live show honestly like if you ever got him like on an interview or like on a live it would be so easy for you because you wouldn't have to say or do anything you would ask him to introduce himself and two hours later you'd be like well thanks for showing up everyone goodnight because he would have just been sounds like you should do that for your channel like you've got some author interview stuff do it I'll just send him the link press record and be like see you in two hours okay all right well well and truly I think we're out of red rising things to say yeah yay get high until the next howler for life on this wow they don't say on this for a loop it's in red rising do they nope it's so weird because it's so like that's the red rising slogan and it's not even in red rising no get out of here Urza this is unacceptable Pierce Brown on the cuckoo live or he'd find things to say it's probably knows the history of the bird what does Alan does not like the series it feels like a series he might like but I'm unsure he says he likes the wall I like the wall I don't know because it's also underhyped and he's all about the underhyped book like I don't know it just feels like it's hyped by me and that's the opposite of what he likes because it's definitely not a very hyped book in any sphere like no just me Abercrombie was like a chatterbox no we almost went the entire time without talking about I didn't bring up Abercrombie yet oh that is there's always there's always a convenient excuse to talk about an hour and 48 minutes that's actually a record but yeah actually pretty good that's going to be the question of the next also Pierce Brown disagrees with me about where you should start with first law where does he think you should first book so okay well since we're talking about Brandon Sanderson and Abercrombie and Pierce Brown when I went to like this more like like a really small signing because it was like really last minute so it was like quite intimate and he could just kind of like dick around and talk to people instead of like this big like auto charm of people it was just like a Barnes and Noble like announced two days before it was happening and so people were asking him like oh like have you read Brandon Sanderson or like which is your favorite Sanderson here so I was like I don't really read Sanderson that's not really my thing he's like but Joe Abercrombie I really like Joe Abercrombie and then people were talking about like where to start with like do they need to start with first law or that could they start in the middle somewhere and like there was like me and a couple friends who were like towards the front and as soon as he said Abercrombie we were like yes Abercrombie and he turns to us he's like yeah Abercrombie he's like so like where should they start he's like I think he was like I think the heroes and we were like no Besser cold and he was like Besser cold he was like ah the heroes way better Besser cold isn't that good we were like you are wrong so then like the rest of the people there were just like uh are we talking about a first law now I mean honestly you can tell how much first law he read before he wrote iron gold and dark age which is probably why I was so jarred because I I wasn't picking up an Abercrombie and suddenly but I would just like you to know that I can even derail a Pierce Brown book signing with Abercrombie first law chatter nowhere is safe it's pretty good it's pretty good dedication to the craft I'm probably if I ever continue first law I'm going to have to skip the stand-alone temporarily it's it's just it's stopping me you don't need to though they're good books I've tried to read Besser cold like three times Alex it's hard I've gotten like a hundred pages in each time just do the audio that's what I did how do you like his voice for that woman it drives me up the wall which woman the main character yes the one on the revenge quest I think it's just it's I don't like it I mean most men doing women's voices aren't you just pretty good like I hate when Steve West does women's voices because he does this like weird like falsetto type thing and I'm like oh don't I mean it's more like I don't think anyone does it really well when they do their opposite gender voices per se it's just that I was consistently annoyed by it that's the problem right and it's it's just taste I feel like most male audiobook narrators though just like soften their voice and that's just what all women sound like and then I listen to the green bone saga like I did a mix of reading and audio and it's a woman narrator and every dude just sounds the same because she just she just kind of talks like this wait your green bone saga was a female narrator mine was yeah mine was a male what that's what's yeah no mine was decidedly a man wait no I'm thinking of Bobby Gore I think that makes more sense because green bone saga was not I read the first audio it was one of them but it was every every male character sounded identical but so would you say that Steven Pacey softens his voice for Pharaoh I didn't mind how he did Pharaoh because Pharaoh's you know Pharaoh and I didn't love did you just say Pharaoh sucks yes I did I hear us fine I don't have strong opinions about Pharaoh I think just else hysterical and I just like watching struggle just else I love to watch suffer it was the poppy war trilogy because it's narrated by Emily Wu Zeller so like Rin was good oh okay yeah no she does I like her as a narrator but not because she has good voices I just like her cadence so do I but like every male character just sounded like a gruff like like I'm just gonna talk about this I listened to Strange Beasts of China which was her as a narrator and I know what you're talking about yeah since we're talking about audiobook narrators like I like Tim Gerard Reynolds in general as a narrator but I don't I would never have picked him to be first person present tense 16 year old Darrow because he sounds like an Irish grandpa yeah and it's like he's 16 fix your freaking focus I look better blurred oh I got a camera that shoots in 4k and I am not enjoying editing footage of myself it takes so much longer to export and upload and it's a youtube video for about well I'm just talking about vanity and looking at myself in 4k and it not being great I don't need no I don't need to see all that I don't shoot in 4k because the canon m50 is terrible at 4k and it goes in and out of focus constantly but no um I just I think what I might do for first law is I might try the first book in the new trilogy and if I really really like it I'm like okay yeah I'm all in on the first law train I'm going to then not continue the trilogy go back to the stand-alones and then it's a terrible idea it's either that or I never continue in first law these are your options well then try very well I accept your terms like sometimes I just push through the entirety of Wheel of Time I'm being very picky right now I mean if you can push through Wheel of Time you can't finish Best of Cold get why are we friends get out of here you read Winter's Heart Crossroads of Twilight Winter's Heart is not bad because Rand asks for help Crossroads of Twilight you read the slog you can read Best of Cold the thing is is I didn't okay I read them but the audiobook was at like three time speed okay like it was so you do what most people do where they like let's just get this done like I retained I could tell you things that happened but was I like paying nothing happens in those books don't worry there's like a paragraph of stuff that happens in 3,000 pages of the slog no Crossroads of Twilight it's a big problem especially because of how much he still wanted to do I'm like then you should have put it in Crossroads of Twilight because there was nothing there same Matt same I think also it doesn't help that it's a revenge story that I know it's probably going to be subversive in some ways because it's the first law basic I mean I know Monza is technically the main character of Best of Cold I know it's all about shivers which is why I want to read them one day I understand you know you know that after Glockta my favorite character is shivers I understand shivers is important and I do like him it's just that like it's just it's so long it's like so big it is a big book I just really like the dice scene because like first law in general like he keeps it pretty tight his books aren't usually that very long I mean come here to their fantasy Best of Cold is the chunky boy but it's a standalone like the first law trilogy like is kind of like one book in three parts so like he tells the whole story in Best of Cold so I feel like I can forgive it for being a little longer the first law trilogy is a series I appreciate more than I like because I think it's a really fascinating project but and like I like the first book more on reread and the third book less which is the exact opposite of my first read experience yeah that's I feel like oh I don't know if that's common but that was certainly my experience because the third book feels so fulfilling on the first read and then on your reread you're like oh this is satire this is great all right but it's also the third book is the one where you get answers and the first time you're like oh but now that you already know you're like I mean I know these are the answers like I'm aware yeah so I like I do like that trilogy I don't think I need to ever consume it again right now I can't do what you do Leanna every year but every year she reads first law every year it's not like an actual commitment of mine but it kind of just works out that way like Mara she rereads it Mara has committed to reading first law now that she's done with Realm of the Elderlings so yeah because you finished that way earlier than planned because I saw Mara's video where she just read the entire last trilogy well like I read the one we were supposed to read for this month before she did and I was like I don't know if we could like wait until next month and then she shot ahead of me and finished all of it and I was like oh okay I will just then catch up as well I'm excited I get to rain wilds soon like April hey Alex I was mad ship treating you I haven't gotten to it yet how are you anyways I read Ship of Magic and then for no reason just didn't read I was gonna say I assume you liked it maybe it was fine I liked it I want to read more fits books more than Ship of Magic I don't like see fairing tales generally I I don't care about boats I don't like when you finish the live ships you're back to fits in the you're very back to fit so much fits geez I I learned in reading Connie Mann that I I put a lot on fits I put a lot of my own emotional trauma on to fits because fits was acting like did he not have enough he was acting like my own real life dad who I have to be tame around because I need a relationship with this man but I don't need a relationship with fits all right now fits is it's a really good trilogy you're you're gonna really like it when you get there I mean there's there's plenty of series that I've started and enjoyed and just ended up reading other things and just haven't gone back to it for no real reason but I will because I love her writing but just haven't gone back to it of course of dragons like I'm like halfway through the expanse and just haven't read a book in months because I feel like I read rising is the only series I can think of right now that doesn't mean it's the only one that obviously it's not the only one but like it's so rare to find not just first person but first person present tense I feel like it's so unusual I um recently read it's usually I think it's published more in young adult because recently I read The Cruel Prince Trilogy I think which also was first person present which was a time that was so boring I expected it to be way more fun than it was it's so popular I'm just like where's where's any of the fun props to it for me I was promised fun fun is not being had okay normally when young adult is very very very astronomically popular it's a dramatic time and like you know it's not good maybe but it's like at least like a page turner and this was like such a boring short series it was like 900 pages and I'm like I'm so bored why did you keep reading for that YouTube video I did about the Goodreads Awards because I had two of them were winners so I read two of them see this is why I don't sign it for projects that force me to read books I don't want to read enough people make me read books that I don't want to read as it is I don't have regrets mainly because Holly Black was a hole in like my knowledge and it was really quick like I read one of them in one night while doing a jigsaw puzzle because they are like really short books they're just really boring short books and also that video is doing really well so at least there's that get those sweet sweet views yeah I mean whatever it's YouTube right I mean we all do booktube for the money that's what the that's what people seem to think that's sweet sweet money sweet adsense revenue that food just pays for my cat's food that's how much money I get cat food money well that only that you can only afford the stinky kind apparently listen there's there's renal cat food and then it has to not have grain because it's a lot wait till your cat gets old and then you have to deal with things all right red rising we're at two hours red rising red has risen mines over there golden sun this is not mine this is my libraries this is not it's signed but Kaz knocked it off of like my bed or whatever so it's like gotta like fold it in now because the it's also loved by Kaz incorrect but would I'm just laughing at chat because that's so random anyway yeah that is random I don't know what's happening anymore chat's getting weird now I think this live is officially gone on too long which we already knew but they're literally telling us we need Jesus right now so we should rethink I was gonna say like Hadrian's in the chat and there's some things for a video game channel so like we're really out of our depth I am known to have played a video game yeah let's wrap this one up so bye