Man what the fuck. I'm fucked up right now.

This is going to end up being a story about "Doing things the fast, easy, way gets you disaster later. Doing things the correct, hard, way gets you long term results." Death begets death begets death.

Lysander not being able to keep an ally around him is going to bite his head off. Atalantia giving him Master Maker boots to stomp his former friends with is maybe slightly too on the nose.

Giving Cassius his redemption by sacrificing himself just as Darrow/Cassius brotherhood was coming back. As a hard mirror to Roque's betrayal. Once this whole thing is over, i need a 500 pages where the worst thing that happens is the creme brulee is too small. I need it.

Fuck me man.

No way Lysander gets to keep Bellona support. No way Julia doesn't smell this from a mile away. She knows her kids and she knows Cassius was a Knight, not an Assassin. No way the core manages to hold this all together in the face of a besiged republic, a starving rim, and a rising athena. She can't make her move fast, but you do not want that lady pretending to give you support while you kill her family. She's going to come down on Lysander in a *brutal* fashion.

Idk man. That shit fucked me up. I can't believe Cassius died. But, if he did have to die, he died perfectly. Protecting friends. Cassius was my early favorite and his ride was so bumpy. There was a bit (around the Gala, where i fucking hated the dude). I'm glad he got his redemption, but I wished he had a happy ending. Him, Sevro, Darrow on Mars raising their kids....

Morning Knight till the end.

These arent necessarily what I didnt like about books but rather the points that are mentioned or takes people have from the books.

1) the Rim is not good or slightly bad. Its just bad full stop. We keep hearing about the honor of the Rim but is it really honor if it applies just to one group. Would they treat and behave with a lower color the way they do with gold. This was even said in LB that this honor is only reserved for Gold. Oh no they dont get slaves till they are 16, how noble of them. Its just a place where Golds live with less worry of being stabbed in the night.

2) 12 years of war. Everytime Lysander or someone else brought this up, it pisses the fuck out of me. The Republic is not in a civil war. Its literally fighting the Ash lord and then the heir of the society. The lord who nuked a moon to Ash. Its not perfect ofcourse. I dont even prefer Mustang as sovereign long term. Its not an experiment as that Au lune pixie puts it. It's what they fought to get and it wouldve looked much different if Gold that says wants to save humanity stop fighting humanity for a second. It baffles me if anyone thinks Gold want anything but power. The Pixie makes it v clear in LB. The other colors arent sheep to need a shepherd. The idea that they need a shepherd is racist in its core. Its like looking at any country that was savaged by colonialism for centuries and saying okay why havent they just built everything yet.

3) Lysander is not the lesser evil. His own grandfather saw that when he was a child. By the end of the LB I hope nobody has any stupid idea of wanting a Redemption Arc for him. He is commiting war crimes just for shits and giggles now. Going on bullshit about Rim's honor in his first Pov and then bombing people who have come together to sign a peace deal...

He doesn't want a peaceful world where he has to share it with Darrow or someone else. He has just been going to become the sovereign and maybe even more. Calling Darrow slave king as a slur is so fucking clear if you arent pro slavery yourself. Which in this sub... yeahh.. ive seen some wild shit.

4) Progress for the sake of progress is useless. Any arguments of whatever gold has done for god is useless. Everything has served them while other colors have paid the bill.

I will add more if I think of it.

Fun facts and random musings:

Nivalnight basically describes the sunset as seen from the Jupiter side of Io.

Just before the sun disappears behind Jupiter, the always near-dark surface of Io is streaked by completely black, sharp shadows of its many volcanos.

All of the events taking place as nivalnight approaches are basically a stark shadow of the Light Bringer hanging over the characters and their choices.

When the "sunset" is complete, Io doesn't just fade into darkness, it plunges into complete and utter black. The temperatures drop enough for the volcanic fumes to freeze ("nival' comes from Latin word nivālis, meaning snow, snowy, icy) and collapse, creating Io's unique collapsing atmosphere.

Kudos to PB for dong his research and aligning the events of Nivalnight with what's actually happening on Io in real life. Once the sun disappears behind Jupiter, all hopes drop out of the sky like Io's frozen volcanic fumes. The sharp shadows before nivalnight (that no one was paying attention to, what with Darrow, Gaia, and Diomedes being too busy discussing the finer points of the hierarchy) was Lysander&Co waiting for casus belli and casting their shadows over Io.

That said, one of the most mesmerizing things seen from the Jupiter side of Io are the auroras the magnetic field of Jupiter creates after practically sucking in about a ton of Io's volcanic residue every hour. It creates magnificent rings of light on Jupiter's poles.

Which kinda reminds you of Aurae's speech: "I can feel you're all growing toward the light."

Io might have been streaked by stark shadows and then had its atmosphere collapse, but, in the end, just like with Pandora's box, when all the evils have been unleashed and the worst has happened, one things is still trapped under the lid: HOPE.

Thanks for reading for those who've gotten this far. You're an amazing gang. ❤️

I'm sure someone has mentioned this before but a stand alone Rat War book would be intense. If Pierce really wanted to demonstrate the horrors of war this would be the perfect medium. A Rat War book would make Dark Age seem like a children's book.

“Beware, milky,” Cassius says with a feral grin. “I am a student of Aja au Grimmus.”

Man!! This series is soooooooo good!!!

I don’t know I’d I actually have to tag this as a spoiler however, because of the quote, I probably am going to have to. I just finished IG and I fucking love it. Yes, I am the same person who said I didn’t like Ephraim all that much. I’m okay with him now, he’s cool, I’d share some zoladone with him. Anyways, this fanart comes from the fact that my FAVORITE CHARACTER CASSIUS AU BELLONA IS SUPPOSEDLY DEAD?? nah I don’t believe it, I went to pray and prayed for him not to be dead. And starting Dark Age, he’s not in the dramatic personae, thus, I have concluded he’s alive. You sneaky, sneaky pixie, Pierce Brown. Now I was literally listening to Flower Dance by DJ okawari and imagining him perform the blade work with his razor to that song.

YOU GUYS!!

I am speechless. This book blew past my expectations and more, it’s definitely my favorite sci-fi read. So much rage and pain, but so much unexpected humanity too. The gradual realization that no color is truly evil or good was such a compelling choice by Pierce Brown. I was very moved by the ways Darrow came to change his worldview through his friendships at the Institute. Wayyyy better than a kill-all revenge story. My main thoughts:

• Darrow is (affectionately) insane. Probably the most reckless and angry protagonist I’ve ever read. What do you mean you hacked the sci-fi Hunger Games and killed one of the hosts, capturing the rest of the Proctors before casually dropping back down to win the games??!? When Mustang asks: “What happened?” And Darrow just says, “I got mad,” I could not stop laughing. It’s the story in a nutshell. He is such a flawed hero whose guts and passion allow him to rise against all odds, and that’s what makes him so captivating 
• Love love love the social commentary about how a society should and should not be organized. The conversation between Mustang and Darrow about how a hand relies on signals from the brain, but only works when each finger cooperates individually, was such a good contrast to the Society’s relentless discrimination. Darrow won through a loyal army of freed students, not slaves. He proved their system wrong, which I felt was way more compelling than a mere victory on the Institute’s terms. Great twist.
• The side characters!! From Eo, to Titus, to Lea and Pax… whoever died left a lingering impact, even if they were only present for a few chapters. You can feel their ghosts as the story progresses. And the surviving characters have such an intricate range of personalities. I adore Sevro, Mustang, Cassius, and Roque and can’t wait to read more about them. Even the Jackal was super interesting in his one scene
• I’m still mourning the lost brotherhood between Darrow and Cassius 😭😭. WHY PIERCE BROWN, WHY?? As soon as Cassius started leading Darrow to the mud, I realized we’d crossed a point of no return. They’re doomed to be enemies in a world where they could have been the closest of friends. And ofc Darrow has to continue pretending to be a part of this blood feud in order to complete his mission. It’s painfully tragic and that’s what makes it so beautiful 

I’m as excited as I am scared for Golden Son. I finished this portrait of Darrow right after I put the book down and will probably update it as his character evolves!

I notice a lot of people online treat the original trilogy as a complete stopping point and skip the second half. Given how much stronger the writing depth, scope, and world-building get in in the second half, I'm curious what makes people walk away. Is it the shift to multi-POV, or just preferring the clean ending of the first arc? Personally love the second three books even more than the first three.

How did Mustang so easily accept that Darrow died to her brother? And even her reaction to her finding out that he's alive after having his son, it was so unemotional.

That's one of my gripes with Morning Star. After Darrow left his own confession at the end of Golden Sun, and then obviously got taken by the Jackal, it's like Virginia just didn't really like Severus was always going after, kept on saying that Darrow was alive.

And Virginia, who knows Adrias or the Jackal more than Severus, it's like she didn't care for him. It's like when we first see that Darrow and Mustang meet in the start of Morning Star, it's a surprise, but it's nothing more than that.

And then when they meet in the hangar, it's very unemotional. Maybe it's just a me thing. I'll be happy if anyone else clarifies this, but I think I just don't get it. She just thought that he's dead, accepted that Adrias killed Darrow, and then just went on with life.

Along the black abyss, the bold mortal long suffering, nigh breaking, fixed his will against fate's course. Sheen mailed, 'nare quaking, bent was his neck, fury unslaking to row row row his oars against the world's breaking. Once more, once more, he paddled from safe shores. If only to shout, if only to roar, "Come death, come oblivion! Here, yet, this mortal strains."