The Ritual: A Dark College Romance

Content Warning: This guide describes and discusses the source text’s treatment of sexual offenses and sexual violence, sexism and sexist slurs, stalking, graphic gun violence and torture, and drug and alcohol use disorders. This guide also refers to the novel’s explicit depictions of sexual practices, including ones that mimic acts of sexual violence. Examples include consenting nonconsent or prearranged “rape” fantasies (the text uses the term “forced sex” fantasy, which is replicated in this guide), breath play/erotic asphyxiation, and degradation during sex. In addition, The Ritual features scenarios that it frames as “dubious consent” or “dubcon,” which are controversial terms developed in fanfiction communities to refer to supposed instances of questionable consent.

Ryat Archer is one of the narrators and protagonists of The Ritual. In the novel’s early chapters, readers see him undergo various rituals and tests to become a member of the Lords, a secret society that operates at Barrington University. Though these tests typically involve violence done to or by Ryat (including being branded and committing a murder), Ryat is unbothered by the group’s demands and willingly volunteers to commit violence in the name of the Lords. He has been raised to expect that he will become a member of the secret society, though he does not know the details of what initiations or assignments will entail.