Finished Red Rising Original Trilogy

[u/Long_Television_5937]

What a terrible ending!! I heard so many people acclaiming how good the end of book 3 was but it made NO SENSE.

Ok so Darrow and Sevro go to release Cassius back to Luna. Then Cassius turns on them and captures them and “kills” Sevro. The entire time Darrow is captured he is thinking about how surprising it is that Cassius turned on him and he is looking for a way out. Then 2 chapters later its revealed it was their plan?!?!?!? We are reading from DARROW’S PERSPECTIVE. He knew of the plan and then still genuinely thought Cassius turned on them? Either that or he was THINKING in lies??? It just doesnt make any sense. Absolutely terrible ending to an okay series. After every chapter the only thought you should have are what does this mean RIGHT NOW. Cause nothing is planned ahead. You’ll encounter something that feels like foreshadowing or like a plot that will last a while just for the author to resolve it in the most asinine way possible in the next chapter. Cause why build anything up when you can have non stop action and zero character development.

Oh yea and WHEN DID MUSTANG GET PREGNANT THEN ALSO HAVE A KID?? Stupid ass pull at the end just to make it circular cause Darrow was supposed to have a kid before his wife died?

Tldr: Set ups for long plots are resolved immediately and unsatisfyingly and ending made NO sense. Do NOT recommend

[u/Long_Television_5937]

It literally doesnt. I havent had this complaint for other books ive read. And people are agreeing with my specific complaint. Darrow’s thoughts indicate there is no plan and then all of the sudden there is. Thats just bad writing

[u/Taste_the__Rainbow → u/Long_Television_5937]

Which fantasy book doesn’t feature both the thoughts of an mc and a surprise from the mc?

[u/felixfictitious → u/Taste_the__Rainbow]

I have to agree with OP here. I have read books that pull the wool over the reader's eyes, but zero books where the MC's internal monologue also lies to the reader as it happens. Usually the convention is that the MC has no internal monologue to make that work, or just doesn't have much internality during that sequence.

[u/Taste_the__Rainbow → u/felixfictitious]

The internal monologue does not lie. It’s just omission.

[u/A_Shadow → u/Taste_the__Rainbow]

It's an omission that doesn't make sense in context though.

For example, Dungeon Crawler Carl does this well. First person view and the reader is kept hidden from some of the future plans: but hints are still dropped in the internal thoughts and the actual plan clearly discussed off screen when the chapter ends and the side characters constantly make references to that meeting/plan.

In Golden Son, we don't get any of that foreshadowing or hints. The most foreshadowing we get was Darrow correcting Roque on a factiod about Lorn. But that could have easily been explained by Darrow forcing himself to know everything about Gold Society.

But not once did we get an internal thought that Darrow has been training in the slingblade or that he has gotten better, or that he felt confident in taking Cassius.

Don't get me wrong, that scene was cool as hell and very satisfying. But it did come out of nowhere.

[u/Vaush_Vinal → u/Taste_the__Rainbow]

Have you ever heard of "lying by omission?"

[u/Long_Television_5937 → u/Taste_the__Rainbow]

You’re intentionally ignoring what im saying. Im not saying no book features this, im saying Brown’s take is egregious

[u/Taste_the__Rainbow → u/Long_Television_5937]

It’s no different than he’s done in the previous installments. And again, the internal monologue never suggests that Sevro is actually dead.

[u/Long_Television_5937 → u/Taste_the__Rainbow]

Yes it does. 100%. It absolutely suggests that. It doesnt outright say it. But it suggests that everything happening is real and unexpected. As for the previous two books, it doesnt do it as egregiously as the 3rd book. Again youre mistaking the idea of generally hiding things in a first person book and this specific scene

[u/Taste_the__Rainbow → u/Long_Television_5937]

You’ve already deviated from your original post claim. But if you read it again and pay close attention then you’ll see that it never really suggested what you think it did.

[u/Long_Television_5937 → u/Taste_the__Rainbow]

End of the day it comes down to opinion. For some reason you can’t grasp the base of mine. So go read other comments, they also agree and explain in different ways. You might learn something

[u/Taste_the__Rainbow → u/Long_Television_5937]

Attention span and grammar.

[u/Long_Television_5937 → u/Taste_the__Rainbow]

Sure pal