Iron Gold

“Men call him father, liberator, warlord, Slave King, Reaper. But he feels a boy as he falls toward the war-torn planet, his armor red, his army vast, his heart heavy.”

This passage emphasizes the impact of war and leadership on Darrow’s personal life. The self-doubt that he experiences in the novel as he struggles with a fragmented identity is foreshadowed through his various titles: “father, liberator, warlord” etc. His view of himself as a “boy” illustrates his personal conflict with the titles given to him, setting up his character arc.

“With our victory on the first planet from the sun, the Ash Lord has been pushed back to his last bastion, the fortress planet Venus, where his battered fleet guards precious docks and the remaining loyalists. I have come home to convince the Senate to requisition ships and men of the war-impoverished Republic for one final campaign. One last push on Venus to put this bloody damn war to rest. So I can set down the sword and go home to my family for good.”

This passage establishes crucial background information about the state of the war at the novel’s beginning. Iron Gold begins 10 years after the conclusion of the Red Rising trilogy and takes place in the same world, and the first sentence summarizes the status quo with which the novel begins. In the next sentences, Darrow, the narrator, introduces some of the novel’s major plot points and his character’s main objective.

“‘Odin’s fortune with the togas, Darrow,’ Wulfgar says to me as he motions for us to continue upward. ‘You will need it.’”

This quote develops the theme of Verisimilitude Through Mythological and Historical Reference. Wulfgar, a Howler with a Germanic name, invokes Odin, the Norse god of wisdom and war. This reference evokes the heroism of Norse sagas and adds a sense of historicism to the character’s heritage to contrast with the highly futuristic setting.

“My wife is not as fickle as a flame. She is an ocean. I knew from the first that I cannot own her, cannot tame her, but I am the only storm that moves her depths and stirs her tides. And that is more than enough.”

Darrow explains his relationship with his wife Virginia and develops her character. The ocean metaphor emphasizes the Sovereign’s strength and independence. She and Darrow are equals, but he recognizes that although she loves him, she will act according to her principles. This foreshadows their later disagreement over the fate of the Republic and Darrow’s decision to leave his family to go on an unsanctioned mission.

“The room is as domineering as its subjects. Built by enraptured Golds to honor their psychotic ancestors who conquered Earth, it is grand and brutal, and unchanged by the Republic except for a few modifications. They’ve included a list of the conquered amongst the conquerors. Representations of pre-Color humans stand beside casualty statistics. One hundred and ten million died for Gold to rule. Then their bombers dropped solocene into the troposphere and neutered an entire race. Didn’t even have to convert them to the Color hierarchy. Just had to wait a century for them to die out. Bloodless genocide. Give one thing to the Conquerors. They were efficient.”

Ephraim’s description of the Museum of Antiquities provides information about the birth of the Color-dominated Society after colonizing Earth and exterminating humans. The narrative is framed as a plausible, although highly fictional, continuity of contemporary history. This adds a sense of verisimilitude and historicism to Pierce Brown’s worldbuilding.

“My memory is a formidable thing. In many ways it is my grandmother’s great legacy, her teachings preserved in me. Despite that, my mother’s face is a night shade in my mind, always roving in the chasms, slipping beyond my grasp. I’ve heard she was wild, a woman of vast ambition. But history is so often molded from tainted clay by those who remain.”

Throughout the novel, Lysander is characterized by his deep connection with his family legacy, which is illustrated in this passage, developing the theme of The Tension Between Family and Duty. In addition, his comment that history is generally told by the survivors underlines one of Iron Gold’s major thematic elements. By exploring different narrative points of view (i.e. Darrow, Lyria, Ephraim, and Lysander), the narrative reveals how individual biases and experiences can shape one’s perspective of the same event.

“My name is Lysander au Lune. I was named for a contradiction: a Spartan general who had the mind of an Athenian. Like that man, I was born into something that is both mine and not-mine, a heritage of worldbreakers and tyrants. Seven hundred years after my ancestor Silenius au Lune conquered Earth, I was born the son of Brutus au Arcos and Anastasia au Lune, heir to empire. Now that empire is a fractured, sick land so drunk on war and political upheaval it’s likely to devour itself in my lifetime. But that is no longer my inheritance. When I was a boy, the day after the fall of House Lune, Cassius bent on a knee and told me his noble mission. ‘Gold forgot it was intended to shepherd, not rule. I reject my life and honor that duty: to protect the People. Will you join me?’”

Tying into the theme of verisimilitude through mythological and historical references, this passage draws a connection between Lysander’s futuristic upbringing and Ancient Greek history. In addition to grounding Lysander’s character in a long legacy of nobility and leaders, the narrative also hints at his character’s emotional arc. Over the course of the novel, Lysander struggles to find his place in the world, but he eventually reconciles both sides of his identity as a leader and a protector.

“We remove our razors from their holsters on our hips. A pair of lazy silver tongues of metal float in the air, two meters long, stiffening to just over a meter of sword as we toggle them to their rigid state. His is straight. I prefer mine in the slight crescent of my house.”

This passage provides a description of the razors, the sword-like weapons that many characters wield in Brown’s series. Like some real-life historical swords, razors can be customized, bear heroic names, or grow into artifacts of legend. Ephraim, for instance, steals a razor from the Museum of Antiquities that belonged to Earth conqueror Silenius au Lune, a weapon named “the Lightbringer” (51).

“‘So as long as Mars is free, you’re content to call it a day? Leave the others to rot?’ I ask.

He looks me in the eyes. ‘Is Mars free? Ask a Red from the mines. Ask a Pink in Agea’s ghetto. The yoke of poverty is as heavy as that of tyranny.’”

This conversation between Darrow and Dancer develops the theme of the ethical challenges of power and governance. One of the novel’s most important plot points is Darrow’s struggle to balance ending the war against the Ash Lord with ensuring peace and prosperity in the Republic. Dancer’s comment confronts Darrow with this dilemma while reminding him that in both cases, the poor are still suffering.

“Thirty-seven Howlers stare at me through the smoke haze from their glowing burner tips. A savage’s miscellany of psychopaths and hooligans, my pack is a scattermash of rejects that Sevro and I have collected over the past ten years. After losing twenty on Mercury, our official number is one hundred and eleven, but most have been dispersed throughout the Republic by Sevro to carry out my directives. Those who do not have homes on Luna reside within the Den, an ink-black skyscraper I liberated from the ownership of the Shadow Knight.”

This passage provides context about the Howlers, a group of fighters loyal to Darrow and led by Sevro, who were introduced in the Red Rising series. The Howlers’ importance to Darrow heightens the impact of their loss over the course of the story, as some first refuse to follow Darrow and become outlaws and others later die in the final battle on Venus. The Howlers’ fate parallels Darrow’s dwindling confidence and power in the Republic until he eventually reclaims his identity as the Reaper.

“I see by the melancholy look in his eyes that we are united in understanding that something between us is breaking and neither one of us knows how to stop it. Even if we leave Io behind, we can never go back to the way things were, to the private world we shared.

I have outgrown it. I have even outgrown him.”

This passage depicts Lysander and Cassius’s realization that, despite their strong bond, they are growing apart and choosing different sides of the conflict. Lysander’s growth is illustrated as he begins to think independently of his mentor and foreshadows his eventual decision to join Dido’s war. This initial realization thus signals Lysander’s first step toward embracing his identity as a leader.

“She was tall, beautiful. But that’s not the impression she left on me. No, the Sovereign is tired. What would it be like, I begin to wonder, to be responsible for so many lives? Is that what you felt, Ava, when your children ran with you in the mud?”

For most of the novel, Lyria resents the Sovereign’s broken promises of a better life under the Republic. The divide between the Sovereign and the Martian miners illustrates the ethical challenges of power and governance and the seemingly inevitable hierarchies that ensue. In this passage, Lyria finally sees Virginia’s humanity and fallibility. She then compares the Sovereign to her sister, indicating that she is realizing that beyond being the Sovereign, Virginia is also as human as she is.

“His face falls and it feels good to see it, to know I can hurt too. I turn away from him, pulling Sophocles along on the leash. They all want a part of it. A part of pain that’s not theirs. Nod their heads. Wrinkle their foreheads. Now they want to pity it, gorge on my pain. And when they’re done or bored or too sad, they whisk themselves away to stare at a screen or stuff their fat faces, thinking How lucky I am to be me. And then they forget the pain and say we should be good citizens. Get a job. Assimilate. Maybe the Vox are right.

They planted us in stones, watered us with pain, and now marvel we have thorns. Slag them. Slag the lot of them.”

This quote illustrates the divide between Lyria, who has endured trauma, violence, and poverty, and the people in power who are not directly impacted by the war. At this point in the narrative, Lyria responds with anger and rejects Pax’s naïve compassion. This builds toward the conclusion of her character arc, as she eventually chooses to embrace human connection and work toward peace.

“‘Mm, into the mouth of the beast,’ Alexandar says from beside me on the bridge. ‘Then, even then, Cassandra’s lips unsealed the doom to come: lips by a god’s command never to be believed or heeded by the Trojans.’

To my other side, Rhonna sighs in exasperation. ‘Can’t we damn well go five bloody minutes without commentary leaking out your ass?’”

In this passage, Alexandar quotes Virgil’s Aeneid, an epic poem from Ancient Greece. This contributes to the theme of verisimilitude through mythological and historical references and, once again, explicitly frames the fictional world of Iron Gold as a plausible continuation of real-life history.

“The display does not warm my heart. It shows the vile, maggoty innards of this family. I feel tainted being here with them, breathing the same air, and want nothing more than to be done with this. To be home with my family, to feel real love, not this weird tapestry of domination and cruelty they’ve woven.”

In this passage, Darrow observes the dynamics between Apollonius and Tharsus, which builds into the theme of the tension between family and duty. The Valii-Rath brothers’ relationship is a corrupted version of love based on emotional manipulation. Apollonius values his legacy more than his brother, which contrasts with Darrow’s genuine love for his family and his self-sacrificing streak.

“‘The Syndicate…’ I repeat. Even on Mars we’ve heard of the Syndicate. Reds will pay three years’ wages for them to smuggle their families to Agea or Attica or even Luna. Many never make it.

‘It’s a criminal organization, a highly evolved one that ruled the underworld of Luna for years,’ the Sovereign explains. ‘When the Society fell, there was a civil war among them until a new leader bound the survivors together and then purged the rest of the gangs. She’s known as the Queen. The man you saw was likely one of her dukes. In all likelihood, it is the Duke of Hands, her prince of thieves. As far as I know, you’re the only person outside the Syndicate ever to have met him and lived. Your Philippe was likely a thorn.’”

This passage provides context for the Syndicate, the main criminal organization in Brown’s series, which operates on Luna. The Syndicate is ruled by a mysterious Queen and several dukes, such as the Duke of Hands, the Duke of Legs, or the Duke of Tongues, each named after a particular type of torture they inflict on their enemies. One of the Syndicate’s symbols is the black rose, which is why low-ranking members of the Syndicate, like hired thieves and enforcers, are referred to as “thorns.”

“I look at you and I weep. Such shame is upon me that only Lucifer himself would know the depths of my pain. We have lost our halos, my children, fallen from the grace of heaven through the fabled clouds and landed here in a boiling hell of debauchery and defilement while our enemies laugh at what we have let ourselves become.”

Apollonius’s motivational speech to his soldiers references the Christian myth of the angel Lucifer falling from heaven in disgrace. This contributes to the theme of the verisimilitude of mythological and historical references, adding depth and additional complexity to the narrative.

“‘I won’t let you down, Uncle.’ As I watch [Rhonna] run back to the ship, I wish I could say the same. But Sevro sowed doubt in me, and something else gnaws at the back of my mind. No one has seen the Ash Lord in three years. Why? He always led from the vanguard. What is he hiding behind that curtain of darkness?”

This passage takes place as Darrow is about to attack the Ash Lord’s tower to finally confront his nemesis. Darrow’s final questions create narrative tension and set up the novel’s climactic plot twist. Darrow’s questions at the end of the quote foreshadow his discovery of the Ash Lord’s condition and the revelation that he is not in charge of his armies anymore.

“[Holiday] points east to the New Forum on the far side of the Citadel grounds. The domed building is pale in the night and rises out of the trees around it like a hill of snow, stark in contrast with the brutal lines of the pyramid forum the Society used. ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ I nod. She stares on at it. ‘You think clean hands built it?’”

This passage takes place directly after Lyria questions the morality of Holiday’s emotional manipulation of Ephraim. Holiday, however, points out the hypocrisy of enjoying the benefits of the Republic, such as freedom and peace, while condemning the violence it is inevitably built on. This plays into the theme of the ethical challenges of power and governance and highlights the complex dynamics that underlie any large-scale institution or political system.

“Forgive her?

I don’t understand the idea. […] Her golden braids are even with my eyes. There’s loose strands. The faint, earthy smell of oil and the coffee from her breath. I hear the air enter her mouth and fill her lungs and whistle out her nose, see her shoulders rise and fall. The power is shed, her naked soul there in front of me. She’s just a woman. Just a mother with more children than any other. Maybe she does know my pain. Before this, she was a freedom fighter. A soldier. It’s easy to forget that. She’s seen mud, and now I think she remembers it.

I can’t hold on to the anger or the pettiness or the pain. I want only to help her, to protect families like mine. Letting go of that anger doesn’t spit on the memories of Ava or Tiran or the children. It honors them. And for the first time I can remember, I feel hope.”

Although she resents the Sovereign for most of the novel, Lyria eventually forgives her after witnessing Virginia’s humanity and fallibility. She realizes that there is more to the ethical challenges of power and governance than she knows and decides to abandon her grievances in favor of helping the Sovereign’s cause. Lyria’s decision to honor her family by working toward peace concludes her emotional arc and further illustrates the tension between family and duty.

“It’s admiration in his voice. It’s familiarity. How few people left breathing could understand this man? How many men know what it is like to give a command that kills millions? I swallow, my hatred for him quieted by the wretched thing he’s become, and my fear at heading down the same broken road.”

At the very end of the novel, Darrow points out the parallels between him and the Ash Lord, who openly admires his ambition and leadership despite the two of them being at war. Darrow’s character arc ends on an ambivalent note as he realizes that the ethical challenges of power and governance have led him to become the same type of leader he set out to overthrow. This sense of ineluctable fate paves the way for Darrow’s attempt to redeem himself in the following book.

“They need a protector. A shepherd.

I know who I am, or at least, who I want to become. And with that realization, I feel the culmination of the souls who have filled my life. I feel my father’s calm, Aja’s love, my grandmother’s brilliance, Cassius’s honor, and even the faint heartbeat of my mother; and I know that Romulus spoke wisdom I somehow already knew deep in the heart of me.”

Lysander’s character arc concludes with the young man embracing his heritage and joining Dido’s war. He resolves the tension between family and duty by embodying his role as a “protector,” and thus finds a sense of peace after struggling to find his place in the world. This sets up his character’s evolution in the rest of the series as he learns to lead and gains confidence and maturity as a “shepherd” of the Golds.

“A deafening roar comes from the back of the ship.

The door to the cockpit buckles inward. The ship pitches sideways and begins to spiral down as the gravity thrusters fail in stuttering gasps. Then they give out and we’re plummeting down, the city and sky whipping past outside the cockpit windows. As we careen down into the wasted, skeleton city landscape of one of the Jackal’s craters, I can’t help but laugh bitterly.

I knew this was gonna be a one-way ticket…”

Ephraim’s character arc concludes with a dramatic cliffhanger as he, Pax, and Electra are about to crash. The quote illustrates Ephraim’s characteristic cynicism and dry humor, and the final suspension points heighten the narrative tension. This seemingly creates an incomplete moment to be concluded in the next book.