#casstang

I’ve talked about how nonsensical Casstang is before—on the subreddit, where breaching the topic is unfortunately seen as an invitation to objectify Cassius (which I don’t hate—I mean, far be it from me to ever say we should talk less about his rockin’ bod—but it’s reductive and y’all know I resent his himbofication) or misogynistically lambast Mustang for being a treasonous slut; they can disrespectfully fuck right off with that.

But the fact remains that their relationship, as presented to us, is a clusterfuck and we ought to hold Pierce Brown more accountable for it.

Although Octavia clearly wasn’t half as fond of the Bellona as she initially seemed in Golden Son, might she have encouraged their relationship; arranged it, even? Maybe. Might members of the Bellona family have desired an alliance with Mustang, a marriage that would end their longstanding rivalry and usher a new era of peace and prosperity between their Houses? Maybe. 

But, according to Mustang, no. Nobody pressured her into a relationship with Cassius. It was her design.

So, why? It would’ve made sense if her interest in Cassius was personal. Sure, Mustang loved Darrow by this point; it’s implied she nearly said as much before he left for the Academy and Pierce Brown confirmed they had a sexual relationship during that year after the Institute.

(An egregious retcon, but I’ll allow it here.)

But they broke up. A year ago. Why shouldn’t Mustang move past him? She’s under no obligation to the man who chose war over her—or any man, ever, actually. You’re right to say that she can do whatever the fuck she wants with whoever the fuck she wants—and Darrow agrees. 

But did she love Cassius? We get an emphatic no from her on that and, given her general indifference to him, I’m inclined to believe her.

So, if she wasn’t pressured into the relationship and wasn’t in love with him, was it lust? Again, this would be totally fair. There’s a virtual consensus in the Red Rising world that he’s a bloodydamn snack. If Mustang just wanted a fuckbuddy, nobody—especially not Cassius himself—would blame her for that. If that’s all their relationship ever was, it’d be perfectly understandable.

Again, Mustang denies this. She claims she wasn’t attracted to Cassius, at all; that she didn’t desire him or enjoy having sex with him; that their relationship was purely pragmatic. From Golden Son: 

“I sought out a relationship with Cassius for the same reason I let the Sovereign think she was turning me against my father: to protect my family.  “I’ve always been able to manipulate people. Men, women, it makes no difference. [🫵🏳️‍🌈?] Cassius was a walking wound, Darrow. Raw and bloody despite the fact that it has been two years since you killed Julian. I saw it in him in a second, and I knew how I could make him love me. I gave him someone who would listen, someone who would fill the void.  “I made him think he could not live without me. I knew it was the only thing that could keep the rest of my House safe. I knew it was the best weapon I could wield in this game.”

To what end, though? None of Mustang’s plans included Cassius or demanded that she be close to him. She was already intimate with Octavia, thriving as a Politico, familiar with Lysander, before their relationship began; she had an ancient name of her own to give her access and clout without using his.

And, if her goal was, as she heavily implies, to protect House Augustus, including Darrow, by convincing Cassius and the Bellona, generally, to spare them… well, that’s ludicrous. 

Because none of the Bellona, including Cassius, were ever going to stay their blades for her sake. I’m sorry, but Karnus? Cagney? Kellan? Julia, who was salivating for Darrow’s literal raw heart on her plate? Hell would freeze over first. They’ve been itching for his scalp for three years. No, they’d sooner ostracize Cassius for daring to choose his lover over their family. 

And, let’s be real, Cassius would never choose her—or anyone, for that matter—over Julian. No amount of lust or love or time or masterful manipulation could ever usurp (what Cassius perceives as) his obligation to Julian; to imply anything else betrays a serious misunderstanding of his character, tbh.

If Darrow couldn’t break Julian’s spell—if brotherhood with Darrow wasn’t enough to sway him or stay his blade, if Darrow couldn’t manipulate him into renouncing his vengeance or defying his family—Mustang certainly cannot.

(And it personally strikes me as slanderous to the Bellona, as well as deeply amatonormative, for Pierce Brown to say Mustang ‘filled a void’ in Cassius that his seven other siblings and over fifty cousins and aunts and uncles and niblings, many of whom are certainly also grieving Julian, couldn’t.

(He just needed to fall in love, y’all; panacea pussy from the daughter of the man who beheaded your aunt and orchestrated your twin’s death that’s in love with your rival and has a dozen ulterior motives in pursuing you is clearly the answer! He just needed someone who would listen—because, apparently, the Bellona do not have ears. 

(Apologize to my OCs right now. Hell, apologize to Kellan au Bellona right now. And this isn’t the only time that Pierce Brown casually forgets Cassius has… a family? A tightly–knit family. A fiercely possessive and protective and passionate family. But I’m digressing.)

And none of the Bellona, not even Julia, had any actual influence over Octavia, who had been planning on decimating House Augustus for years, if not from the very start of her alliance with Nero; he became a liability the moment she was secure in her power. Any Bellona grumbling against her schemes was sure to be silenced. 

If Cassius himself became a liability by opposing her plans to exterminate the Augustuses, well... he would be disgraced and replaced; he’s a Olympic Knight, after all, and supposed to show blind and unwavering obedience to the Sovereign—and you can be damn sure he would. He is not sacrificing the brand–new Cloak that he has fantasized forever about wearing and devoted his entire life to earning for a woman he just started courting.

So, it’s hard to imagine Mustang could believe that fucking Cassius was the answer to… anything. That she could accomplish anything by charming her way into his bed. He had negligible influence over his family, none over the Sovereign, and he would never betray either for her sake. Cassius genuinely had no value to her.

It doesn’t stretch credulity that she’d miscalculate this badly, though. It wouldn’t be the first or last time she committed an act of astonishing hubris that ultimately made her look stupid.

Did she underestimate House Bellona that much? More likely than not, they saw right through her and, at the very least, as you said, they would’ve been deeply suspicious of her intentions. Did she think so little of Cassius that she believed he was wrapped around her finger, enslaved to her will? 

She did take Octavia at her word that her family wouldn’t be slaughtered and she does admit this, so…

“Then you walked in at the gala, and... and it was like the ground had broken open to swallow me. I felt like a fraud. A wicked girl who’d contrived a reason to do something stupid.”

She really could be that blind, I guess. 

Even so, we are missing something here. She isn’t being transparent. Pierce Brown clearly implies there was more to their story, even though it’s criminally never revisited again. 

Naturally, it should go without saying that Mustang never needed to justify her relationship with Cassius to Darrow and it still bothers me that the narrative undermined itself here, dialogue asserting one thing and subtext implying another. Because their conversation in the cafeteria has the air of an obligatory explanation that’s summarily dismissive, too, of an aspect of this series that could’ve benefited from further exploration. 

I’m referring to the fundamental similarities between Cassius and Mustang. What the goryhell are you smoking, Vesper? you might ask. Well… 

I mentioned in an earlier ask that Mustang resembles Julia and how Cassius is both attracted to Julia, in the sense that he has mommy issues and needs a woman to fill his Julia–void, and overall bears more resemblance to Julia than Tiberius, which makes these relationships as harmonious as they are vain and self–destructive.

Here’s the thing, though: if both Mustang and Cassius are like Julia, to a degree, aren’t they alike, too? Yes, but it’s complicated, because Mustang is deeply in denial about herself and determined to misunderstand Cassius. She would have us believe that she’s like Darrow—and, indeed, the narrative reaches conclusions about her personality that aren’t supported by her actions. In a similar vein, there’s much distortion surrounding Cassius—the unreliability of both Darrow and Lysander’s perspectives surges with him—and dimensions of his personality that are never properly parsed. 

If we strip them down, though, we see two disarmingly beautiful, naturally derisive, and ruthless people that use charm and feigned innocuousness to bely their darker natures, dutiful to a fault and unconditional in their love for relatives that don’t reciprocate their affection or respect, patronizing and often sanctimonious, exceptionally cunning yet usually undone by their arrogance and tendency to overextend and overestimate themselves, painfully stubborn, ice–cold in their wrath.

I could go on. Darrow clearly has a type. 

That said, Mustang has more in common with Cassius than Darrow, imo. This does not necessarily translate into attraction or affection, of course, but there’s an interesting synthesis that could’ve occurred here: recognition of oneself through another that could’ve led both of them to a place of greater acceptance and understanding of themselves.

And their potential to have such a meaningful relationship was sacrificed, of course, for Golden Son’s vapid love triangle—when Mustang’s at the apex, at least. Because there’s something very compelling, to me, about the idea of Cassius and Mustang as rivals for Darrow’s affection, even if we leave him in the closet. This post encapsulates it. You see the vision. And it’s more–or–less the direction I take Casstang in Alis Aquilae.

But no—we had to go for the heteronormative cash–grab and manufacture some cheap tension to immediately dispel, because God forbid anything ever threatened the sanctity of Reaperstang and God forbid anything or anyone ever cockblocked Darrow aside from his guilt complex. 

😒

Don’t even get me started on Mustang’s boldfaced internalized misogyny—I’ll never shut up. But I hope it goes without saying that one can, in fact, be a frill–wearing tramp and a genius; intelligence, femininity, and promiscuity are not mutually exclusive. I have a personal vendetta against this line and it’s something I go out of my way to ridicule at several points in AA.

But, at the risk of sounding like an anti, I’ve always felt that Mustang’s intelligence is overblown. Told rather than shown. It’s a bad idea to draw unnecessary attention to characters by having them unironically claim to be geniuses, because it’s difficult to justify that statement without compromising your narrative—that is, creating idiot plots, dumbing other characters down to make them look cleverer, etc—and Pierce Brown doesn’t, imo.

What’s weird is that he doesn’t usually make this mistake. Most of his ‘genius’ characters are understated and don’t outright claim to be such (I’m thinking of Adrius, Atlas, Lysander, perhaps Octavia) or pretend to be stupid so they’ll be underestimated (most of the Telemanuses, Roque, Cassius and Karnus, perhaps Atalantia) and the ones that do claim to be geniuses are simply making a point (Fitchner, Darrow, and Daxo come to mind) rather than bragging. It’s a commonly acknowledged truth that it’s imprudent to flaunt your intelligence in their world.

But Mustang is supercilious about hers in a way that’s both conspicuous and must feel more than a little insufferable—to people that aren’t in love with her, at least. You’d also think it’d make her uber–vulnerable to criticism because, more often than not, she falls flat on her face.

And it’d be one thing if she learned from her mistakes, if they prompted some introspection where she was like, ‘Huh, maybe I’m not the second smartest person in the world. Maybe I’m wrong sometimes. Maybe I should be humbler from now on.’ Hell, I’d even take somebody else implying as much: that she’s not all that, that people can and do outsmart her, frequently.

But… no? Everyone has bought a ticket to her cabaret. 

😩

As for how I personally interpret Casstang, I’ve never taken her jumbled explanation at face–value. She’s clearly not in love Cassius, yes, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she loathed him or resented their entire relationship, as she claims in the cafeteria—to appease and reassure Darrow, probably, knowing all too well what a jealous and prudish creature he is.

In her PoV in Dark Age, she mentions that she’s unsure—that she’s always been unsure—about her feelings for him, which contradicts her confession in Golden Son where she insists she felt nothing, at all. And even Darrow, usually an easy mark for her, didn’t buy that. 

There’s a line at the beginning of her speech about how she is very much NOT in love with Cassius, thank you VERY much that’s perhaps more revealing than she intended: ‘My heart does not make my brain a fool.’

Which, contrary to what she goes on to say, implies that she did have feelings for Cassius, perhaps nascent and definitely conflicted, but suppressed them, because they were illogical and threatened her plans—and isn’t this exactly what she does with Darrow throughout Golden Son and Morning Star?

This is classic Mustang behavior. 

So, I think you’re right, anon: their relationship may have started as a scheme, but it snowballed into something more genuine than she intended.

There may or may not be some repressed and ambivalent romantic and/or sexual attraction lingering on her end, as her uncharacteristic humorlessness towards Cassius throughout Golden Son and Morning Star is suspicious and her admitted uncertainty and tentative warmth in the IGT, over a decade later, might be indicative of belated acceptance of these feelings. 

But there is certainly a bond between them, regardless, even if it’s platonic, and there’s likely a hint of truth in what she firmly and contemptuously denies at the beginning of her speech that even Darrow recognizes. 

“I’m sure you understand that I felt lost. One, because I thought I’d found someone special in you. Two, because I felt you were abandoning the idea that gave us the ability to conquer Olympus. Consider that I was vulnerable. Lonely. And that perhaps I fell into Cassius’ bed because I was hurt and needed a salve to my pain.”

In Part III of my series, which covers the intermission period between Red Rising and Golden Son, I’m obviously going to be exploring Casstang in excruciating and nuanced detail. We’ll also see external perspectives on their relationship from Cassius’ relatives in some of the supplementary fics.

But, up close and personal from Cassius’ perspective, it’s clear that Mustang is more ambivalent than she’d ever admit and there are several aspects of their relationship that she does enjoy—often, despite herself. Cassius is adept at making her feel more comfortable than she’d prefer to be. 

In Light Bringer, she describes him as the most distracting man that’s ever been made, which is the key word here, imo. Cassius was a massive distraction for her, simultaneously welcome and unwelcome in her life; an infusion of spontaneity and indulgence and levity and diversion from her driven course that she consciously rejected but unconsciously craved—not unlike Darrow, who also implies that Cassius distracts him more than he’d like, even as he relishes it. I don’t think their relationship was radically different.

In other words, Cassius is just… fun. He’s jocular. He’s a hedonist that’s really good in bed. He knows how to have a good time and refuses to take anything too seriously. The crux of his lifestyle is distraction, delay, and denial—and this bleeds into anyone he’s with.

He’s also a fabulous equestrian, Mustang’s favorite pastime. And I’ll remind you that she has a sensuous side, too; she prefers bourbon, which is almost certainly rare by Society standards, spent an entire summer reading poetry and attending opera and drinking fine wine with Roque, loves to dance and gossip and tease. She’s not half as ascetic as Darrow. 

Speaking of Darrow, he’s perhaps the most significant thing they share; the only person whose mind he was clearly living rent–free in more than Mustang’s is Cassius’ and Cassius, at least, certainly wanted her because of their mutual connection to him.

(He’s about as subtle as a sledgehammer about this, btw. Literally, the first thing he says to Darrow after two years of loaded silence is: ‘So, I’ve taken what’s yours. Thoughts? 😏’ 

(He’d been dreaming about that moment for months. He wants to fuck him so bad it makes him look stupid. )

There’s a high likelihood of proxy sex—on both ends—happening here; Him is canon to me.

Overall, I think people underestimate Mustang’s affection for Cassius, because there’s tenderness between them that isn’t the product of anyone’s imagination and it’s easy to understand why if you entertain the (gasp!) radical notion that Mustang is neither a prude nor a bore.

But they also overestimate Cassius’ attraction to her, imo, because there’s certainly more than just straightforward lust or love involved. I talk about some of his reasons for wanting her, at some length, here, but even that isn’t an exhaustive list. 

And there’s a tendency to oversimplify their relationship, often at Cassius’ expense, when he doesn’t seem to have ever been her fool. By his own admission in Light Bringer, he never truly loved her. (Which reeks of retcon and should be taken with several grains of salt, imo, but he does say it.) And there are ways to explain his behavior in Morning Star and Iron Gold beyond heartsickness. Lysander is the least reliable narrator in the series, after all, and nothing he says should be taken at face–value.

People are too quick to believe Mustang here; that she was able to manipulate him as easily and as effectively as she claimed. He’s too smart not to have suspected she had an ulterior motive—and not to have noticed how conflicted she was. Pretending not to notice, though… 

“When he put his arms around me, I felt like I was drowning. Like I was lost, suffocating under the weight of all I’d done, suffocating knowing there was a life ahead of me with someone I did not love.”

While she may be overstating her shame for Darrow’s sake, taken at her word, this is dramatic. Even if Cassius was somehow blind to this, which I deeply doubt, someone more perceptive in the Bellona family would’ve noticed how uncomfortable she was.

And they were together for several months, iirc. There’s little chance that she didn’t slip up, at least once, in a revealing and perhaps damning way that would’ve confirmed what must’ve been suspected by some, if not all, of the Bellona: that her interest in Cassius wasn’t sincere. 

She may or may not have been aware of it, but it’s likely that they were playing each other. Using each other to achieve their ends; he had just as many, political and personal, as she did. I reckon the manipulation and machination was reciprocated. And Cassius and Mustang are more evenly matched than anyone believes, including her.

He was at a major disadvantage, of course; between Julian and Darrow, he’d never been more vulnerable in his life and—in the canon, at least—it’s clear that Mustang won their game and the last laugh. But it’s a mistake and a disservice to both of them to assume that victory came easily to her.

And there’s something to be said about her choice of mythological allusion in the cafeteria, too, which has lived rent–free in my mind since the first time I read Golden Son. 

“I felt like the cruel witch snaring Odysseus, making him fall in love, keeping him for my own selfish aims.”

Comparing Cassius to Odysseus is… a choice. Although it’s Darrow that’s called ‘Achilles’ in the text, the subtext supports the conclusion that he’s actually Odysseus–coded and points to Cassius as the Achilles–coded character instead.

(There is something delicious about this, of course: that they are each explicitly likened to the figure that the other was clearly crafted to resemble.)

But it should go without saying that identifying Cassius with Odysseus is giving him a shitload of credit where cunning is concerned. I’m of the opinion that Cassius is much smarter than he seems and the majority of people, characters and fans, usually acknowledge, but for Mustang to imply that he’s anywhere near Odysseus’ level of deviousness and brilliance is frankly… insane of her. Even I wouldn’t go that far and my mind is mush. And she did it so unconsciously and dismissively, too. 

If Mustang wanted to convey the sentiment she expresses throughout her speech—that Cassius was an easy mark for her—she could’ve compared herself to… off the top of my head, Medea, also a witch from Greek mythology (Circe’s niece, actually) that infamously manipulates several simpleminded men into falling in love with her and uses them to achieve her ends.

But she didn’t—or, rather, Pierce Brown didn’t. 

By ‘cruel witch,’ she’s probably referring to Circe, the infamous enchantress that transforms Odysseus’ men into pigs, rather than Calypso, who’s actually a nymph—that is, a very minor goddess. But she might loosely be considered a witch, as she does have magical abilities, and she’s the one that ‘selfishly’ imprisons Odysseus on her island and tries to compel him to love her and renounce his home. Circe, on the other hand, is enthusiastically helpful to his quest.

I’ll speak broadly, though, so as to cover both of them. 

What’s significant about these relationships, in this context, is that they’re actually unreciprocated on Odysseus’ end. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that Circe is in love with him (it’s been a while since I’ve read the Odyssey, though, so maybe she does claim to love him and I’m misremembering) but she is one that’s attracted to him and he takes advantage of her attraction. Calypso is more dramatic, infatuated with Odysseus, and she holds him captive so obstinately that she has to be compelled by the gods to release him. 

But Odysseus is not interested in Circe and he certainly does not love Calypso; he’s unwavering in his determination to return home and misery over his inability to do so. Their wiles do not compromise his commitment to his family in the slightest, although he indulges them, particularly Circe, to manipulate her.

And I can’t help but think about what this deliberate choice of allusion on Pierce Brown’s part (and Darrow’s pointed comment about their relationship being more complicated than she claimed that’s uncharacteristically critical of Mustang’s verisimilitude; it’s unlike Darrow to suspect her of lying; dissembling and omitting, yes, but outright lying?) indicates about Casstang. Because it couldn’t be more different from what’s stated outright.

Mustang claims not to love Cassius—while likening their relationship to one in which a woman wanted to fuck a man so bad that her characterization did a 180° reversal from hostile to friendly the moment she saw him (Circe) or had such passionately unrequited love for a man that she imprisoned him on her island so he could never leave her (Calypso)?

Mustang claims that Cassius was easy to fool and seduce into submission—while comparing him to ‘Wily Odysseus,’ perhaps the most cunning and steadfast hero in Greek mythology? Mustang says that Cassius was part of her plan—while comparing herself to a witch whose fundamental purpose was to foil Odysseus’ plans?

It’s such a choice.

To be clear, I’m not arguing it’s some sort of Freudian slip, but you can see how the subtext is undermining the text here, no? Casstang, you clusterfuck!

And there’s a difference between clusterfuck (affectionate), where the relationship is just convoluted and toxic and therefore scrumptious, and clusterfuck (derogatory), where a creator botched a pairing more than you would’ve thought possible.

Genuinely, what the hell happened here. It’s like a ten–car pile–up on the freeway.

There’s always more to say... but I’ll set you free, lol. Thank you for the ask.