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do you think cassius loved virginia? he talked about her pretty awfully at the gala
Hello, friend! This is a great question, and I don’t have a definite answer. Here’s some thoughts, though. It’s probably much more than you want, lol.
First, I honestly think Cassius said those things just to get under Darrow’s skin. He’s an idiot sometimes, but it seems like a dumb young man thing to do. Definitely doesn’t excuse it. But– and maybe it’s simply wishful thinking on my part– I’d like to think that in the chaos of what happened after, he found time to feel really guilty about what he said. Cassius has Big Himbo Energy (I believe I am using the term correctly), but he’s also Peerless Scarred and smart as the rest of them. He knows what to say and do to make Darrow angry.
I can’t say for sure if Cassius loved Virginia, but it’s obvious he had very strong feelings for her. I thought that they were just together in Golden Son for the politics of it all, and Cassius may have done it– in part– because he knew it would hurt Darrow. Up until Iron Gold, my impression was that he probably did like her well enough, but there was no strong attachment.
But in Iron Gold we learn that he got drunk and was really torn up when he learned that Virginia and Darrow married. So. Was he really in love with her? Is he still in love a decade later? Or is he merely mourning the loss of a life he could have held?
I definitely think it’s possible that the marriage was the final nail in the coffin, the last event in a long and probably painful fall for Cassius. He went from being the heir to one of the most powerful houses, having a strong family who did seem to care about him, achieving a powerful position himself as an Olympic Knight, and he was in a relationship with an amazing woman. Then civil war breaks out. Then his family is decimated. Then things fall apart until all he once knew and stood for is gone, and he’s alone with a kid trying to figure out how to survive in a world that would skin him alive if they ever knew his name.
I don’t know what kind of dreams or expectations that Cassius had for a relationship with Virginia, but her marriage is kind of the last thing in a long line of other things that have be irreparably broken or taken away from him.
I’m not totally convinced of this theory, but tbh it sounds more plausible than Cassius falling in love with Virginia and holding onto her for that long.
TL:DR I think he might have been in love with the idea of her and the idea of what a relationship or marriage or alliance with her could have been. Definitively, I can only say that he had a lot of strong emotion tied to her. That, at least, was real.
I think this is on the nose, or at least a big part of it. I’ve never really thought about it that deeply, but it always felt off to me that Cassius was still so cut up about losing Virginia 10 years later, even if he did love her back then. This explanation makes a lot of sense!
Hello Howlers! I've updated my character chart to reflect new information from Dark Age. Includes family trees, kills, relationships, etc. Please let me know if you see any discrepancies or if there is something I missed! This time, I excluded any characters who weren't connected in some way to the main web.
Link below; be warned, this contains pretty much EVERY SPOILER from Dark Age!
https://imgur.com/a/QY248Sc
edit: Want to shout out a thanks to the folks on reddit who helped me find some of the errors in my original chart posting. There could definitely still be some, so please let me know if you find any!
hello, I have just finished GS. that was a hell of a ride, fortunately tomorrow comes MS. can hardly imagine how it was for the people who had to wait a year for this book. But one question still bothers me, did Mustang have feelings for Cassius? she says no Darrow thinks yes. What do you think ?
oh, lovely, I’m so happy that you only have to wait a day for Morning Star! I was not part of the fandom when the original three books were coming out, but I imagine the agony was worse than what I’m feeling right now after Dark Age. Let me know what you think about EVERYTHING as you read Morning Star!!
As for Cassius and Mustang. Complicated.
What are their interactions? The first time they met must have been at the Institute, and there they didn’t really spend much time together. Then the cat’s out of the bag, Cassius is Bellona, Mustang is Augustus, and so in the years between Red Rising and Golden Son, they aren’t interacting until Mustang puts a plan in motion. From the moment she’s on Luna, she is plotting.
The next time Darrow (and the audience) sees them together, they are, well, together. But Mustang is using Cassius. So. What’s the truth?
I honestly don’t think Mustang ever had real romantic feelings towards him. She may have liked him as a person and saw his potential as a friend, but I don’t believe that she ever felt the same way Cassius did. The dude fell head over heels, but really, who wouldn’t?
I also think that, if Mustang ever found herself inching towards true romantic feelings, she would shut it down. She’s ruthless and smart, but she’s not an idiot. If the plan was to use Cassius, things become a lot more complicated once feelings are thrown in. She’s not sentimental. She’s not going to hope that things work out. Feelings would complicate her plans, so she would adjust.
I hope that answered the question? You’ll learn more as you read the next few books. I definitely almost put a HUGE Morning Star spoiler in here so like. Beware of me, lol. But I definitely want to hear what you think once you finished Dark Age (and read that Mustang POV *chef’s kiss*)
Great analysis! I mostly agree with this, the only thing I’d say is that I’m not sure whether Mustang would have been able to simply push aside any growing feelings for Cassius; I really think she just never had any. After all, if she was able to do something like that, wouldn’t she have shut down her feelings for Darrow long before that point? Maybe by the time she realized trying to be with him (Darrow) was going to be a mess it was too late. But it also seems like Mustang is the type who doesn’t develop feelings or even necessarily feel real attraction easily (some tidbits from her POV in Dark Age reinforce this for me). I also feel that, whatever else she may have thought about Cassius, she didn’t really respect the degree to which he couldn’t control/distance himself from his emotions. In Golden Son, she describes him as a “walking wound,” and it seems like her tone is one of pity and/or contempt (neither of which is very conducive to attraction). Darrow is obviously a different story; though he feels his emotions very powerfully, like Mustang he’s quite good at keeping them under his control, which I think is one of the things that attracts him to her.
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I just reread Dark Age (much slower this time!) and picked up on some things I didn't really catch the first time around. A few questions and topics for discussion:
1. Obviously we didn't get much of the Rim in this book. There's been a lot of talk of Diomedes and some of Dido -- I'm curious about Marius and Pandora, who were introduced in IG but weren't mentioned at all in DA. What do you see their roles being in Book 6?
2. Is Pytha really going to stick with Lysander? Based on Lysander's last chapter monologue about "honor and cruelty in moderation," I'm expecting we're going to see him getting even darker in Book 6. Will Pytha have his back no matter what, or will her affection for Cassius get in the way? I think we're likely to see her betray him.
3. Who poisoned Kalindora? I think we can be reasonably confident it wasn't Darrow, as he never made any mention of poisoning his blade and has never done so in the past (wouldn't Lysander have checked the remnants of his slingBlade for poison after picking it up? What a dumbass). The obvious answer is Atalantia, but it almost feels so obvious that it might be a red herring. But who else could it be? Atlas?
4. What's the whole deal with Figment? The Fig we knew mentioned that she stole something from Quicksilver. Was it the parasite? The orb? What can we learn from what little the parasite has told Lyria? It mentions new protocols being implemented for "Énatos Figment" and "Sfaíra Access granted." Anyone know the etymology of those words, and what they may hint at? They seem like they might be Greek. Where is The Womb (Somewhere on Oculus presumably?) and who is Astarte? The parasite tells Lyria "She was you." Does that mean she was the original Figment? Was she the Brown, or someone who came before? Lots of questions surrounding this plotline that I'm excited to see answered.
5. What happened to Rhonna and Colloway? I think the last we heard about them, Darrow was wondering if Rhonna made it to the Morning Star, and then speculating that it was bound to be a tomb anyway, and implying that their survival was all up to Char. Are they alive? Did they escape, or were they captured by Society forces?
Also, a few observations/predictions
1. I actually wrote a whole post about this one, but - Volga, as mentioned in her letter to Lyria, has Situs Inversus, a condition where her organs are all on the opposite sides of her body than they would normally be. This means, among other things, that her heart is on the right side of her body, not the left. It seems unlikely to me that this is going to be throwaway information. I think we're gonna see that discrepancy save her life next book.
2. There seems to be some history between Rhone ti Flavinius and Holiday ti Nakamura - if I have their history right, the Nakamuras were protegés to Rhone, and were in the Dracones legion with him (would that put him on Attica with them when they rescued Darrow?). I predict a confrontation between the two of them in Book 6. Coincidentally (or maybe not), they are now both the Dux to Lysander and Virginia respectively, the leaders of their factions.
3. We very likely met Lyria’s brothers. In one of the later chapters, when Darrow is preparing for Lysander’s attack, he sends three Red snipers to try to take Lysander down. He asks if they are brothers, and they say yes (since Lyria has only two living brothers, one of the three is probably Varon, Liam’s father and Lyria’s brother-in-law). There was a “dour” one (Likely Dagan) and a handsome one (probably Aengus or Varon). At least one of them made it to the Mound with Darrow (with a head wound) and probably survived. Seems like too much attention was paid to them at a climactic moment for them to be just random Reds.
4. In one of the final chapters, Lysander notes that the Archimedes escaped with Darrow, Cassius, Thraxa, Harnassus, and "the core of the Howlers" onboard. I think we can assume that that includes Screwface. I missed the fates of Thraxa and Screwface after my first read, but now it seems they are all alive, which is good.
5. On the topic of Rhonna - I think she's alive (unlikely to be killed offpage after surviving Lysander), and my dark horse prediction is that she is going to be the one to kill Lysander. There are a few others who are probably more likely (best odds on Cassius, then Atalantia, then Darrow or Ajax), but I think dying by Rhonna's hand would be very satisfying and earned after his murder of Alexandar and general racism towards her. Double points if she just pops him in the head.
Rereading Dark Age for the first time and was reminded of something that caught my attention the first go around. In Chapter 47, in one of the letters she wrote to Lyria, Volga remarks in passing that she (Volga) was born with her organs swapped around, putting her heart on the right side of her body. It’s never mentioned again. I’m predicting right now that this is gonna come up in book 6 - someone’s gonna stab or shoot her in the chest, and she’s gonna live cause they got the wrong side. Or something like that. You heard it here first!
I gotta say I’m pretty pleased that we finally got to see some solid female friendships develop in Dark Age. The obvious example is the Victra/Volga/Lyria trio, which was one of the best parts of the book for me. They’re all from super different backgrounds, but they’re all tough as shit and extremely loyal to those who earn it, and it was really great watching them all “earn it” from one another. I’ve seen some speculation about a potential Lyria/Volga relationship, which I’m all for after Dark Age.
The other one I noticed was Virginia and Holiday. I wouldn’t have really thought to put the two of them together, but I really enjoyed their dynamic. Virginia’s got a manipulative streak, which she needs in order to survive at this point, but I think given how much she worries about becoming her father it must be grounding to have a straight shooter like Holiday having faith in her. And for Holiday, who’s been so loyal to the Rising in spite of all its... uh... hiccups, I imagine it keeps the hope alive a bit to get close to and have the respect of the Sovereign, and to realize that she’s the real deal.
Anyway throughout the trilogy there’s been great development of romantic relationships and male/male or male/female friendships, but I’m glad that opening up the POVs to include more women has led to an increase in more well developed female friendships. Cheers to passing the Bechdel Test!
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“I was jealous of my sister, but I never wanted a husband, not me. Maybe I thought I wanted one. But that was just because it said something that I didn’t have one. That I got skipped over at WedAge.”
So am I alone in thinking that Lyria isn’t straight after reading this? Like, I’m sensing a pattern here:
Iron Gold has Ephriam bringing up to Lyria the heteronormativity of the mines, and when she meets Mustang for the first time, her reaction is basically “she’s gorgeous. No wonder the Reaper fell in love with her.”
Dark Age has the reveal that Dancer is gay and his whole backstory. Lyria bonding with Volga in a way that’s different from the bonding with Victra. This line, where she basically says the only reason she ever thought she wanted a husband was because of social stigma associated with not having one. And then, at the end of the book, her motivation to do something about the parasite inside her is motivated by a desire to help Volga.
Like, call me crazy, but I’m starting to ship Volga/Lyria. For their ship name, I propose Volyria (I apologize to Game of Thrones fans for the pun)
Ok but the album Doolittle by The Pixies has the most unbelievably massive Sevro Energy. It’s manic, angry, tongue-in-cheek, gruesome. They’re slicing eyeballs, they’re howling, they’re hype-manning for the god of death... Give it a listen and tell me I’m wrong
ok so I finished Dark Age today and wanted to give me thoughts. Lemme tell you, I had miiiiixed fuckin feelings. Spoilers below the line
I couldn’t put the damn thing down, but jesus christ I felt so stressed and awful the whole time I was reading it. Too bleak and brutal for my taste personally. I know the books have always had a streak of that in them but this was too much for me. So to start off, here’s what I didn’t like (feel free to skip this chunk if you don’t want my whining - positive stuff and general thoughts to come after!):
I felt like there was too much rape and torture in this one, especially the former. It’s discussed waaaay more frequently and openly than in any of the other books, and after a while it’s just like... we get it. It’s war and these guys are bad guys. Can we talk about something else pls
Nothing good happened to... anyone we like? For the whole book? With a few minor exceptions. But a brief synopsis of the book could go like this: Darrow’s fucked, Orion’s fucked, Alexandar’s fucked, Dancer’s fucked, Daxo’s fucked, Mustang’s fucked, Lyria’s fucked, Volga’s fucked, Mustang’s fucked again, Sevro’s fucked, Pebble and Clown are fucked, Victra’s fucked, Darrow’s fucked again, Alexander’s fucked again, Screwface is fucked, Sefi’s fucked, Ephraim’s fucked... You get it. Practically the only good thing that happened to anyone was “somehow didn’t die in the face of certain extermination,” which is less satisfying than it is mildly relieving.
Very few of the quiet moments that I loved so much in the first trilogy. Conversations between Mustang and Darrow (I was gunning for a reunion at the end, didn’t even get that), Darrow and Sevro, etc etc. We got a few with Mustang and Kavax and Pax and Ephraim (who I like now??? and also rip? more on that later). Just everyone I love getting fucked
I feel like the Adrius clone thing is a cop-out. Adrius was one of my favorite characters from the original trilogy, but his arc was completed, his death was immensely satisfying, and bringing him back now seems cheap. It’s not like the book was lacking in villains
Which brings me to my last complaint: too many villains! Too many! Too much going on! The Society, which is itself fractured into different ‘groups’ (Atalantia vs. Ajax vs. Atlas vs. Lysander), the Red Hand, the Syndicate and the Boneriders (not enough for it to be Lilath, also have to have Clone Adrius), the Rim (and where the fuck was Dido, btw?), the Vox, the Ascomanni, Apollonius... Felt a bit all over the place
The bleakness was such that any victory by our folks that may come at the end of book 6 seems like it will just be insanely unrealistic
All that said, I think I’ll have to wait to see how 6 ties some of this stuff together to form a full opinion. I can see myself changing my mind about some of this stuff. Maybe a book 6 victory will be all the sweeter for how utterly depressing this book was. Ok! Whining over! Here’s are my neutral and positive thoughts!
Darrow, Virginia, Victra and Sevro are alive (for now). So are the kids, and so are Cassius, Lyria and Volga. And let me tell you, Pierce deffo did a good job of convincing me that anyone could die this time around.
Cassius lives! I know we all kind of called it, but still... nice to be right. At the end there, I kind of figured that either Darrow was toast, or Cassius was coming. I’m glad it was the latter
I WAS FUCKING RIGHT ABOUT LILATH! Right after reading IG I called that she survived the crash and became the Syndicate queen! All hail my powers of prediction. Definitely did not suspect a thing about clone Adrius though (was there any foreshadowing to that at all? Hit me up w/ those receipts if you have em)
I read the Day of Red Doves at work and felt so upset for... hours. Honestly how dare they.
Speaking of, I loved the Virginia POVs in this book, they did not disappoint! Still my favorite character by far, and I was happy to see things end on a hopeful note with her and Victra and Kavax and Pax
Ephraim and Lyria really came into their own in this book. I hated Ephraim in IG, and I was super bummed to see him go at the end of DA. Loved his friendship with Pax, TG for that kid taking his Zoladone away. Lyria turned into a badass, I loved seeing her almost singlehandedly take down the Red Hand, and I’m super interested to see where the Figment thing is going. Also love her and Volga and Victra’s bonding
Fuuuuuuck Lysander, fuck that stupid self-righteous prick. Fuck him especially for killing Alexandar. I know there’s more growth and story arc coming for him with the whole “erased memories/my lover of political convenience killed my parents and I hate her” thing, but I’m not here for a redemption arc rn. Put him in the ground. Lysander is the new Roque. Cassius says you’re welcome for keeping you alive, thanks for nothing, you absolute jackass.
Volga’s gonna be a power player in Book 6. She’s gonna win over the Obsidian and save everyone’s ass when all hope seems lost, and that is the one and only prediction I have for you at the moment.
I’m really hoping that book 6 will be a more focused conflict, and that for much or most of it, our faves will be together making their stand on Mars. I love the OGs (Darrow, Mustang, Sevro, Victra, Cassius), but they’ve always been at their best when they’re together, and I think it’d be a shame if we don’t get a big fuckin heap of that in book 6 after what we went through in Dark Age.
Thoughts? Predictions? Theories? Pushback on my complaints? Send it over. This goddamn book is all I’ll be thinking about for days.
I just finished a readthrough of Iron Gold in preparation, and I have some updated thoughts/predictions/hopes/fears! (Mild spoilers for the Dark Age excerpt below the line)
I’m still very intrigued by Lysander and where his story is going. He’s much more likable in the first half of IG, before he starts buying in to all the Iron Gold bullshit. He’s clearly had his memories of his mother tampered with, as evidenced by the piano scene with Gaia. Something in the Dark Age excerpt caught my eye w/r/t this; the bit about Atalantia being good at something called neural extraction. Could Atalantia have had something to do with those memories being gone? Where’s that all going to lead?
Still on the topic of Lysander, I’m really hoping to see him interact with Mustang, either in DA or book 6. From his flashbacks in IG, he seems to have had a good relationship with her back when she was on Luna, even being a bit awestruck and wanting to impress her. Lysander seems more sympathetic to lowColors than many golds, and he’s got compassion in him. If Mustang had stuck around Luna and the Rising had never happened, I can see her having influenced him to become a political reformer as well. As it is, she kidnapped him and then sided with Darrow, which I’m sure felt like a betrayal to Lysander. I’d really love to see them interact again.
Diomedes is by far my favorite Rim character, and I’m really fascinated to see where his story goes. He almost certainly let Cassius go, and he’s probably in love with Aurae, the Pink. His honor binds him to his remaining family’s cause for now, but I think his story has some twists incoming.
I liked Lyria even better this time around (this is my second, or maybe third readthrough?). I really liked her scenes with Mustang in particular (okay, maybe that’s just because I was desperate for any Mustang scenes in IG). I am optimistic that her situation with Victra will get sorted out soon, but I have no idea what Lyria’s future looks like now. I guess we’ll see.
I disagree with the notions flying around that Darrow is going to be the main villain of this series. He’s going through a “rough patch” right now, but he right to ignore the peace talks bullshit, and if he’d had the Senate’s support none of them would be in this mess right now. I think Dark Age is gonna be a tough slog for him, but he’s still got Mustang on his side, and now (via DA excerpt) everyone knows the peace was a lie, so they’re gonna have stronger ground to stand on politically at least.
I love Rhonna, I would die for her. Darrow and Kieran need to stop coddling her and let her prove her worth. Alexandar is a smug little shit but I kind of love him too, and I like their dynamic together. Here’s hoping they don’t die.
Deeply pumped to have the only thing I’ve ever wanted, a Mustang POV.
That’s all I’ve got for now, can’t wait to feel my soul leave my body tomorrow!
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