2026-02-08 08:00:49

[!danger] Spoiler Alert This note contains major spoilers for Red Rising by Pierce Brown.

I started Red Rising yesterday at the recommendation of three coworkers.

Within the first hundred pages the protagonist's wife is introduced, given the most sympathetic characterization possible, then summarily killed to motivate him to action. This is an example of fridging, a misogynist trope of lazy writing.

Darrow takes Eo's death far too gracefully, he doesn't mourn, he gets straight to action. He's characterized as hard, (he doesn't cry at his father's execution, either) but his immediate acceptance is so callous it legitimately makes me sick.

There are ways this could be recovered, especially if Darrow recognizes the emotions he's been bottling up, or that there's no way Eo would approve of his methods. (He flirts with the second but doesn't give a hint that it might change his actions) I am very dubious that the series will go that direction though. It seems more interested in being "fuck this dystopia" than in criticizing the male power fantasy roots that often underly such motivations.

I am also so tired of dystopian settings with caste systems that are begging for a Buzzfeed "Which Caste Are You?" test. It's a cruel world that Hunger Games is the best the genre has to offer.

[!aside] Digression If Suzanne Collins was unpopular online people would be doing the thing they do with Harry Potter now, where they point out bad writing (and there's no shortage) that always existed but that they only have a problem with now.

This book is almost too YA for me to bare.

Were I compelled to say something positive about the book, I enjoy that the narration is in present tense. I think it works well to invest the reader in the story, (I was able to read thirteen chapters in one sitting) and it's fun for its rarity besides.

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