Red Rising

“Nothing is worth the risk of changing the hierarchy. My father found that out at the end of a rope.” 

The Society’s militant hold on the Reds dissuades transgression of any kind. Darrow’s father participated in a peaceful protest against his oppressors and was publicly hanged. Darrow will later adopt his father’s wish for liberty at any cost, which he shares with his wife Eo. 

“You brave Red pioneers of Mars—strongest of the human breed—sacrifice for progress, sacrifice to pave the way for the future. Your lives, your blood, are a down payment for the immortality of the human race as we move beyond Earth and Moon. You go where we could not. You suffer so that others do not.” 

On holoCan screens throughout Lykos, Darrow sees the Society’s highest ruler, Octavia au Lune, spreading propaganda. Magnanimous and authoritative, she celebrates Red strength and sacrifice in their daily mining work on Mars. Darrow later learns that she is lying and that highColors have inhabited Mars’s surface for hundreds of years. 

“‘What do you live for?’ I ask her suddenly. ‘Is it for me? Is it for family and love? Or is it for some dream?’ ‘It’s not just some dream, Darrow. I live for the dream that my children will be born free. That they will be what they like. That they will own the land their father gave them.’ ‘I live for you,’ I say sadly. She kisses my cheek. ‘Then you must live for more.’” 

Darrow and Eo, though deeply in love, find during this important conversation that they see life differently. Eo wants her people to thrive and resist their captors, while Darrow wants to share life with her. After she dies, Darrow takes her dream into his journey on Mars’s surface and sacrifices himself to see it realized.