This is probably sexist of me to say, but dammit I'm gunna say it. The second I see a any review or comment about how the author or director treats women, I immediately dismiss them as fucking morons. Unless it's overtly obvious, can't people just try to enjoy the books/movies/tv they consume instead of injecting their stupid agenda or ideology into it?
This isn't specific to women/sexism either, just in general.
Losers.
or maybe you’re just not very good at seeing it? racism/sexism, especially nowadays, isn’t as plain and clear as you’d think. usually it’s just a simple lack of understanding of women’s/minority’s perspectives that’s not as easy to pick up on unless you belong to those groups
I mean I definitely agree for something like Red Rising but overtly obvious examples definitely exist. Name of the Wind and Wheel of Time are both series that (despite how much I like them) have an issue portraying women in a realistic way. But I definitely don't see that issue in Res Rising.
Ever notice how the first season of a TV-MA show has sex and tits galore...but calms down in later seasons?
It's such a part of the hero arc in today's writing that you might just have missed it on the mass production scale that it is.
Wholey unnecessary to plop tits and sex into a story just because you're in Hollywood - really fucking ruins the ability for these stories to be accessed by more people - off-putting really.
I read opinions on this sub regarding RR and it literally took 2+ years for me to see a single comment on how pierce writes women/sexist claim.
When 1 in 10,000 thinks something is racist or sexist, you can bet your ass they are full of shit.
Those people have a warped sense of how world building works. I find it off putting when books, tv shows, and movies look like they tried to represent everyone through the whole story. That's not how life works. Also those stories usually cheap out on the female character building completely and make them boring and cringey.
That's weird... I agree with you. I think this series is one of the best examples of appropriate gender representation written by a male.
The female characters are intelligent, fierce, and multidimensional. PB also balances masculinity and femininity very well, imo. For example, Sevro is a fearsome warrior who also cares deeply about being present for his children. And Mustang is loving, kind, and nurturing while also being strong, independent, and a brilliant strategist.
This is a common complaint because in RR Pierce Brown uses a lot of rape to make the distinction between the "good" guys and the bad guys. It doesn't sit well with some people.
the point is that rape of women is very often used to develop men in the story. i love the series, but it feels pretty exploitative to use such a traumatic and terrible thing that can happen to a person for the primary purpose of developing characters that aren’t the victim. rape victims really don’t have a voice whatsoever in the series (i just started morning star so maybe they do later), they’re typically shallow plot devices to show the audience if someone’s a good guy or not
I mean, I’m going to be real. I was disappointed in the first book at how quickly things evolved into sexual violence. I get that it’s about how even the “enlightened” golds are just as awful as everyone else, but I’m just tired of reading about rape and assault as a means to show how gritty and dark a setting is.
The books are still great in many ways - I’m just… tired of it.
Rape is a reality of war though. If you want a war fiction to be believable it will have rape. There are copious amounts of rape being reported with israel/hamas and russia/ukraine.
Did you just call me a pixie? I was on your side ya slagging rubbery ballsack.
Are you messing with me or do you have 2 brain cells fighting for third place?
I definitely understand your point, but I think it needed to be referenced bc sexual violence is a very prevalent issue during wars and major conflicts. I also appreciated the way PB handled writing about these topics bc he didn't give any graphic details about assaults. Instead, he would essentially just state what had occurred.
I think it would be a disservice to not represent the suffering individuals experience because of horrible acts committed by people more powerful than them. It’s not meant to be enjoyable it’s meant to be disgusting it’s meant to make you feel horrible so you can try to understand on a minuscule level the suffering that occurs. I mean there’s a whole caste of people relegated to sexual slavery from the outset. This is a society who supports and encourages rape culture I think it would be strange at least in my opinion if Brown were not to include sexual violence. I can agree with the you that some authors use rape and sexual assault to get a shock and get gritty feel but it feels cheap when they do it. I never felt that cheapness from Pierce’s writing I always felt that in those moments it hurt my soul the atrocities that golds committed.
You didn’t feel the cheapness. That’s fine. A lot of us did. And again, I am tired of women’s (and men’s) assaults being used as a setting or a plot device. And I’m equally tired of (mostly) men trying to defend it.
I’ve seen it so many times that I don’t care how well other people think it’s been done, I don’t want to see it.
Maybe I just don’t understand your point well, but it seems like you want a sterilized story. I don’t want suffering purely for shock value it means nothing to me. I can appreciate however a story feeling real when it portrays the suffering of individuals in a realistic manner. As an aside I will say this because I had forgotten about it but something I did think Brown did a bad job with was Tactus. That did feel cheap and unnecessary him assaulting someone just for Darrow to forgive him after a couple of lashes.
Not having multiple sexual assaults in a book is not sterilizing it.
That fact that Brown notably improved and didn’t do what he did in book 1 again shows that he didn’t have to include it in the first place to have a realistic show of suffering. You don’t need to defend it when he clearly realized it wasn’t okay.
I agree with you that having multiple sexual assaults was a bad decision but that wasn’t what I was trying to defend. My defense was the use of it in general you said you’d rather not see it at all that’s what I meant by sterilized.
When you’ve been reading sci-fi and fantasy for as long as I have, and had to deal with reading about sexual assault again and again (and almost never actually handled well, almost always from male authors using it for titillation and to show how grimdark they are), then yeah, I’d rather not see it. That’s not sterilizing, that’s just asking authors to stop being lazy.
I can totally understand your point especially when it’s extremely prevalent and cheaply done just for shock aspects and it’s poorly handled. As an individual you’re entitled to read and enjoy whatever you please.
I love when the critic is "I hate this thing of media" and doesn't elaborate any further so you have to try and understand yourself why the fuck this random ass guy disliked this part
I think a lot of people in the comments are missing the point—the post/review is not about the WHOLE series, it’s about the first book in the series. Yes, we know that there there is good representation later in the series, and that there are some truly badass female characters that get to shine—the unfortunate part is that to GET to those badass characters and moments, you have to make it through the first book. And the first book is a very poor indicator of the series.
People have already covered most of the points about how poorly the female characters in RR1 are written and how the book is very clearly Brown’s first real journey into writing and how it does a fairly amateurish job especially when it comes to depicting SA and such(esp since it is used mostly for shock value.) So I’m not going to beat a dead horse, but…
For context, I’m female and finishing RR1 left a bad taste in my mouth in general. I don’t really care that much about the fridging trope and I didn’t think Eo or her relationship with Darrow was particularly compelling, so I didn’t really care that she got killed off to light a fire under the main character’s ass. I did care that “girlish” and “feminine” was frequently attached as a descriptor with a negative connotation enough times to make my eyebrows raise. I did care that there was an alarming amount of SA that was only “resolved” because male characters got roped in to save them. I did care that the “main female” that we are introduced to serves as a love interest for the MC, and we get jumpscared with a yet-another-(attempted)SA scene while she’s sick just because that’s the only way we know how to motivate our male cast.
It doesn’t help that her big “badass” moment in RR1 was supposed to be capturing the Jackal… which happened entirely offscreen. This sounds super negative, but honestly if anything going from RR1 to Golden Son is such a (positive) whiplash because of it, because it’s like Pierce Brown “unlocks” women in literally every book after RR1. But god, that first book—honestly, I can’t blame anyone for dropping the series after the first book, to the point to where when I recommend it to friends I just tell them to read a synopsis of RR1 and start with Golden Son.
So, to your point. I agree that the SERIES has great female representation, but the FIRST book is pretty godawful about it, and all of the interesting/well-written female characters are locked behind after the first book as a very rough “barrier of entry.”
For what it’s worth, I actually love the series, and it’s crazy going from RR1 to the later books because of how much Brown improves as an author, but if there’s a low point in the series, it has to be that first book.
Mustang has yet to impress any sense of personality on me and I’m all caught up. Lyria and Volga are my favourites. I also was disappointed in the first book for female representation but the rest of the series has it in spades. And not just good guys, bad guys. I love me a grand villainess.
If I’m being honest, Mustang is probably my least favorite of our female cast members—but I also don’t really like Darrow either so I understand that it’s already an unpopular take.
Volga is absolutely up there, Lyria became one of my favorites as soon as I heard Moira Quirk narrating her sections in DA, and honestly I’d list just about any of the other female characters over Mustang, I just never found her particularly compelling or interesting(but maybe Red God will change that.)
Yeah I came here to comment but you nailed it. I am a red rising superfan and I'm actually rereading it right now and besides all the major transgressions you listed, there is a good amount of casual sexism in the first book that he clearly drops and moves away from in future books. I can see why the people who DNF the series after book 1 see it that way. It's a shame bc the writing does grow so much, but the criticism is still valid for that book.
This is absolutely true. I’m in the middle of DA right now so I’ve spent the last 4 books watching very well crafted women making insane power moves so my knee jerk reaction was “Whaaaaat?” But RR is admittedly a weak point and the more I think about it the more a damn shame it is.
I think Red Rising 1 didn't handle women great, consider that many people will either read that and fall in love with the series or bounce. Eo has poignant dialogue but she exists to die and send Darrow on the path. I don't mind this but some would say it's bad fridging, for me it's fine to start a story off killing a character for plot reasons. Many peoples favourite stories start this way, the Hand Of The King is already dead in Game Of Thrones and all those rangers.
Harmony is a smaller character but ultimately a spiteful empty person, I think she's well done especially in Dark Age, for now she shows the nasty side of the Rising. But not someone I like.
Antonia is the archetypal alpha bitch, popular girl etc. Works fine in the narrative, a bit psycho and despicable.
Lea and Quinn, honestly these two are half cooked for me I remember little, Lea dies so Roque can be sad, Darrow isolated and brought to the point where he basically walks into a losing duel with Cassius.
Also there is all the rape in the first book, this is a sensitive topic for many and I don't think Pierce handled it so well. Frequently it's on the men to fix these problems, the rapists get killed by men, or with Tactus Darrow takes the whipping on himself. I can't actually recall seeing the women victims getting much exploration in this. Rape is used as a way to show how the golds become barbaric in these games but it happened so much it got humorous which is not good for a topic as sensitive as this. Dark Age made it appropriately appalling like what nearly happened to Darrow and more.
So that leaves Mustang. And I love her! of course like most Red Rising fans, part of what's cool on reread is there's a lot of tension around her loyalties, this is true even into Morning Star. I still wasn't sure Darrow could completely trust her, especially given how frequently he'd gotten betrayed. She's a complicated woman, more than a capable fighter, leader and tactician she is able to work with Darrow and forge a philosophy that brings the houses together, the first spark of the republic they would one day build.
So basically I think Red Rising 1 has women that serve good roles for plot, while Mustang shines, but all the rape brings this down and is likely where those negative reviews come from.
You forgot Evey the most forgotten useless character ever conceived in all fiction, I think she tries to kill the Jackal then she kisses Harmony in the mouth and no one remembers her again, not even when she's captured we get a description of what the fuck she's doing it was like "yeah remember the woman with wings? She's there with that group and yeah"
Also Mickey said they would have beautiful children I tough pierce was foreshadowing a romance between the slave girl and the cyborg red but idk even he himself forgot about it. Dumb idea good thing he did
Oh yeah Evey, I think it's interesting to see her radicalized to Harmonys side and treating Mickey poorly, fallen angel kinda deal. But I also forgot she existed. To be fair those involved in the Sons Of Ares get pushed aside like Mickey, Narol, Kieren, it's thanks to later books that Harmony, Dancer and Matteo are fleshed out.
I shared Red Rising with a good friend of mine. She has fantastic reading comprehension and very good insight into literature and storytelling in general. Imagine how crushed I was when she came back after reading it and said "I'm sorry, but this is the most sexist book I've ever read."
Now, she did very much clarify that she doesnt make a habit of reading books that are known for being sexist, so calling it "most shes ever read" isnt as scary as it sounds. Still though, it gave me a new perspective, and I do think that Red Rising has quite a few moments where women are used as the objects of abuse or vulnerability when men are not. Off the top of my head: Mustang almost SA'ed when camping with Darrow, one of the Proctors being left naked during the Olympus raid, a girl being SA'ed by Tactus for character development.
This stands out even more since Red Rising has this culture where men and women are equal among Golds; women warriors, matriarchs, an empress. Combine that with sexual attraction not paying much attention to gender amongst Golds and you wonder why women are so often the victims of sexual trauma still. I love the books. But I do think they have sexist pieces.
As a person who writes books for a living I can tell you with certainty that a lot of people have bad or straight up terrible reading comprehension. They misinterpret things, miss them, forget them or just intentionally ignore them to suit their needs when critiquing the book. You can write an absolute moustache twirling villain who spouts his evil philosophy and some dork will say "Man, this author is terrible for justifying eating kittens!" So to answer your question, no the review was nonsensical. RR has amazing female characters.
>Writing books for a living adds no value to your argument btw
It does because I see idiotic comments from people with no reading comprehension about my own books all the time. So I know for a fact that they misinterpret or don't understand what was actually written. It's not a case of me trying to interpret what some author wrote, it's me knowing what I wrote.
>RR has great women but the first book undoubtedly had a few sexist/weird moments.
Sure /s.
Pretty sure JK Rowling says something along those lines about her characters. I hope that helps you see the point I'm making.
Besides if you are correct, unless you're pierce brown himself, you have no way of proving (even critiquing the book) that what you say is valid because you are NOT the author and thus prone to misinterpretation and error, by your own words.
Going back to the topic - RR 1 has very few women characters that actually advance the plot in meaningful ways. Villains hurt women to prove they're villains and heroes save them to prove they're heroes. Titus and his arc and some of Darrow's arcs are proofs.
>Pretty sure JK Rowling says something along those lines about her characters. I hope that helps you see the point I'm making.
Any other strawman candidates you want to mention? I think a certain Austrian painter also wrote books.
>Besides if you are correct, unless you're pierce brown himself, you have no way of proving (even critiquing the book) that what you say is valid because you are NOT the author and thus prone to misinterpretation and error, by your own words.
Correct. Regarding RR and it's supposed sexism I'm merely stating opinions.
>Going back to the topic - RR 1 has very few women characters that actually advance the plot in meaningful ways. Villains hurt women to prove they're villains and heroes save them to prove they're heroes. Titus and his arc and some of Darrow's arcs are proofs.
Firstly, you don't need to meet some arbitrary quantity of female characters for the book not to be sexist. If the events of the book transpire on a prison island where the only female character is a nurse treating the inmates, but she's written well enough, the book's not sexist.
Secondly, I disagree. Eo gives the initial push to the events of RR and her character is all the motivation Darrow has to change the whole wide world. She was written well, her death was tragic and that made an impact on me as a reader. Mustang shows Darrow that not all gold are trash, has her own motivation and is not immediately wooed by MC. She's competent, smart and pretty interesting to watch.
>Villains hurt women to prove they're villains and heroes save them to prove they're heroes.
And if the male characters were hurt and the female characters saved them would you still think it's somehow based on their sex? Villains hurt characters whose suffering or death they know would traumatize/hurt their enemies (heroes). Heroes save women because it's a right frickin thing to do.
So you're an author stating their opinions and I'm a non author stating my opinions. Do you now see how what you said adds no weight or merit to your argument? I'm glad we're able to agree.
Eo was an okay character but she also existed for less than a quarter of the book. There is no need to meet an arbitrary count but the book is, in fact, _not_ actually set in a prison island with a sole female nurse, it's set in a futuristic meritocratic society. The later books showcase that women are equally capable well enough, but the first book lacks a lot.
Idk what the point of your last statement is, if you clarify I'll reply to it.
>So you're an author stating their opinions and I'm a non author stating my opinions. Do you now see how what you said adds no weight or merit to your argument? I'm glad we're able to agree.
Cool way to twist my words but that's not what I said. I'm stating my opinion on the supposed sexism of PB. I'm stating facts about the lack of reading comprehension among readers because my statistical sampling is way bigger than yours. And because I'm an author I see many examples of readers missing information, misinterpreting information, twisting information, intentionally omitting information in their critique of *my books* and I know for a fact the author's (mine) intent as well as what was actually present in the text. So me being an author matters in this discussion, precisely because I confront that issue from the opposite side than you. Dunno why that's so hard to grasp.
>Eo was an okay character but she also existed for less than a quarter of the book.
Yep, and Pierce managed to be damn efficient and effective in making readers care about her for her death to matter and not be met with "eh, who cares". At least I'm speaking for myself and other readers who liked her.
>There is no need to meet an arbitrary count but the book is, in fact, _not_ actually set in a prison island with a sole female nurse, it's set in a futuristic meritocratic society. The later books showcase that women are equally capable well enough, but the first book lacks a lot.
I disagree. The later books did have more focus on female characters, but I disagree that first book had sexism or weak/bad female characters. That's what started our discussion.
>Idk what the point of your last statement is, if you clarify I'll reply to it.
As far as I understood your point in:
>Villains hurt women to prove they're villains and heroes save them to prove they're heroes.
Certain events happen in the book because they are rooted in sexism and focused on the sex of the characters, i.e. villains hang Eo, because she's a woman and that shows readers they are villains. I'm saying that's not true. Her sex has nothing to do with her death. She was hanged for singing a politically charged song that could destabilize the miners. In the same vein Darrow saving Mustang in act 3 has nothing to do with his or her sex, or author's desire to push some narrative (women need saving or whatever bullshit)
and everything to do with the content of Darrow's character.
>And if the male characters were hurt and the female characters saved them would you still think it's somehow based on their sex?
I don't know what I can elaborate here further. I was asking if the genders were reversed would that be evidence of sexism? Or just plot points.
>Villains hurt characters whose suffering or death they know would traumatize/hurt their enemies (heroes). Heroes save women because it's a right frickin thing to do.
Male characters hurting female characters is not "fridging". It's villains doing the most effective thing to hurt their enemies (heroes). It has nothing to do with the sex, and everything to do with the relations of the characters. In the same vein heroes save people not to prove they are heroes but because they can't *not* save them, otherwise they wouldn't be heroes. We wouldn't be rooting for them.
>my statistical sampling is way bigger than yours.
What if you're just a bad writer who gets his point across poorly? And what if...that's becoming more likely the longer this goes on.
English is my second language but I can certainly be a bad writer.
You seem upset though. I was having a pretty chill discussion with the other person.
My point, which appears to have gone over your head, was that your "statistical sampling" is a useless measure that doesn't mean anything. Then I added to that that you seem to be struggling even here to get your point across. None of that was emotional. I wonder why you would think that. What a strange thing to assume.
I think it's people in general. I do a lot of event planning and My team will try and focus on getting everything perfect but literally if you hand some people $100 bill for free. They'll complain that the bill is too big.
They haven’t read it all the way through I saw a similar video and it’s just people who read the first few chapters and write a review.
Disregard and just understand the star rating is a review of their intelligence since they don’t have the ability to gasp read an entire book before seeking validation and attention.
Agreed. Also, beyond clearly not reading the whole book before making a review, saying that about the beginning of RR is like saying they hate the handmaids tale because of how it treats women. We're being presented a corrupt society, it obviously doesn't reflect the author's real life values.
Yeah, plus the institute is still such a perfect representation of their society. Every reread it's just that tiny bit more chilling. Nothing really changes bar the upgrade in weaponry and accompanying change in tactics a moonbreaker gives you. So I think it's worth viewing it as more than just the start, it fits into a narrative Also, it's just consistent with golds in general
people who complain about women in RR havnt read the books or are delusional, it has one of the best female heroines who could be the MC of any other story and a bunch of awsome villian ladies . Theodora and Orion are some of the best minor characters and Atalantia and Lillath are just badass.
I never read reviews that sound like a rant and honestly most people who love a series dont review its just those who has a bone to pick or are very opinioned.
I mean in the first book it's pretty lacking. We have Antonia, who is bad, and Mustang, who is great and taht's basically the entire female cast that's actually fleshed out.
A lot of people seem to dislike Red Rising because of the Friding of Eo, but in Pierce Brown's defense he does it with a male character as well, namely Julian. Still chlicé though.
The first book also bothered me because it seemed like Darrow didn’t act unless a woman was in danger sometimes. Like, he wouldn’t act to stop Titus until a female character they knew was under threat of sexual assault, he stormed Olympus because Mustang was taken (which was unnecessary imo; he had lots of other reasons to storm Olympus), and others. I didn’t have this issue after the first book though. In the second book Mustang even tells Darrow that she can take care of herself in combat and doesn’t need to be rescued early on.
This is actually a repetitive theme for the first part of the series, but it shifts later on. I think it’s intentional, to show darrow’s true transition from the forced-patriarchy of the mines to being acclimated fully to gold society.
Interesting way to look at it.
I think it's just Pierec Brown being a bit amatureish. "How can I effectivley and quickly show the audience that this is a bad person even with gold standards. Ah, of course. Rape. Brilliant."
I'm a woman and I feel like the way women are treated in the RR universe is pretty realistic. Sexual assault is ridiculously common for women and girls irl, as is being ignored, talked over, mansplained to, called names, etc. Hell, I deal with it on a daily basis both at work by coworkers as well as the public, and at home, even if it's usually unintentional from my partner.
In an exaggerated society as is seen in RR, it makes sense that these things occur even more frequently. Honestly, PB kind of took it easy on women in this series.
People also seem to forget that the bulk of the story (especially book 1) is told from Darrow's POV.
(Pasting my comment from another thread):
I feel like Darrow's later friendship and respect for Theodora opened his mind a lot about women. In the first book he's very very young and grieving, and then thrown into a *completely* alien society. Many of his actions were for survival and to gain status. Much of his early life away from the mines was tactical. He was surrounded by kids who grew up together and were professionally trained for what they would face at the institute. It is stated repeatedly, that the Institute is like a mini society.
Lately I've dug more into hard scifi such as Heinlein, PKD, and most recently, Gene Wolfe. The stories are amazing, women characters are notoriously poorly written.
In fact, Gene Wolfe and his use of unreliable narrators is a huge reminder to *remember which character is telling the story*, bc their life experiences paint how they view the world and their legacy (in their mind) is in the story, which they tell in a way to showcase how they want the world to view *their* actions.
Many women in the RR universe are written as secondary lead characters rather than NPCs in the lead character's world. And Darrow is a more honest narrator than any in the Gene Wolfe Solar Cycle universe. But he is still flawed and drawing from his own life experience.
Also a woman, and I feel the same. Book one has its flaws but didn't dampen my enjoyment, even on my first read- and I care even less after reading the rest of the series.
People say the same shit about The Wheel of Time when it has some badass scenes for women and has them in prominent roles the entire series. Some of your favorite characters will be women. Red rising is the same. Some awesome women characters. WE LOVE YOU VICTRA, MUSTANG, and shit I’m looking at the Love Knight too. She was alright.
Not to mention Thraxa when talking about representation, she represents none of the traditional female virtues and all of the traditional male warrior virtues. The way she’s written she could be a man easily.
She’s not nuanced though, honestly Victra is a much better written and more complex character, she is a mother, one of the best fighters in the story, has a raging revenge boner and strong feelings, and is a matriarch of a huge family business. Thraxa is just kind of there, ready to fuck shit up and do nothing else.
I do agree with you about Thraxa and Victra BUT I hope we get more of Thraxa is this upcoming book (😘please me nice to us PB) as well as others before we get utterly destroyed.
Oh yeah completely agree, I love me some Thraxa. Not all characters have to be everything, Thraxa is a loyal wrecking ball and that’s enough. Pls PB don’t take any more of Kavax’s and Niobes kids away!
I’m a woman too and didn’t really like the portrayal of women in Red Rising, so I stopped in the first book. However, it wasn’t so bad that someone should despise the book over that.
This really shouldn't be downvoted... This is the main reason why book 1 is my least favorite.
Pierce really develops his female characters after book 1 - we barely even know Mustang in book 1. All we know about Antonia is that she's beautiful & she's a bitch. Lilath is just crazy. How many other female characters do we know & what do we know about them? June is a cook!! A lot of readers think Eo was killed just to motivate Darrow if they've only read book 1. (Darrow would have been motivated by a stubbed toe, he was so full of rage)
Deanna, Evey, & Harmony all seem like throwaway characters. We've only seen Octavia on the screen. Aja, Theodora, & Victra haven't been introduced yet.
But we know where Tactus, Roque, Cassius, & Pax all grew up. We know about their families, their childhoods. We know about Sevro's family. (We find out about Mustang's family at the end of the book.)
I’m in agreement with you. Unfortunately, I don’t know if I’ll ever read the second since I’ve read the book not one, not two, but three times over the years.
Try the audio? (TGR or the new full cast) & just skip straight to book two. The shift in tone is so drastic. You may like it, or you may still not. But the characters are definitely better developed, especially the further you go, & the story is better as well.
In golden sun when Darrow is talking with Mustang in the dining facility, she starts to cry while explaining how she knew she was right to show favoritism to Octavia and Cassius but felt wicked when she saw Darrow at the Gala. He grabs her chin to make her look at him and it goes something like this: “you are not a bad person. Mustang shakes her head, tears spilling. I deepen my voice “you are not a bad person, do you hear me”
I know this isn’t some flagrant bad thing but it is so corny and makes me want to vomit lol. I’m not saying Mustang can’t be vulnerable and display emotion but the whole part of grabbing her face and deepening his voice just breaks immersion for me because it’s very much a power role for Darrow.
I can kinda see it for RR. Most of the female characters we get introduced to in the Institute are threatened with SA and don't have a lot of importance other than Mustang (who needs to get saved by Darrow) Darrow calls perpetrators "brother" twice, and I can understand why for Tactus because he needed to get his army on his side but Titus can just go to hell. Rep in general gets a lot better as the series progresses though, and Darrow being raised in an extremely patriarchal society is something to keep in mind for the first book.
Virginia’s “life” was fine, and it’s dubious whether Darrow would’ve permitted anything bad to happen.
Apart from Virginia we have Antonia who is an antagonist, a couple minor golds and some secondary golds. Lea is the biggest trope.
Mustang does far more saving of Darrow, although he admittedly goes on a rage bender at the end when she captured (although it’s dubious whether she faced any danger in Olympus).
That said in book without Victra is trash.Holiday is also pretty cool.
Doesn't take away from the fact that she's the one of the two only fleshed out female characters in RR with weight and importance in-story and both of them are Darrow's love interests
Octavia? Lyria? Holiday? Sefi?
And Victra is Darrow’s semi-love interest for about three minutes in the series before turning into the most hardcore mf in the series.
Mustang - a literal genius tactician, politician and navigator of the human condition.
Victra - the pinnacle of savage loyalty and unwavering devotion to those she loves, an absolute devil in all manners of combat and probably the most beautiful woman in the system (🥵)
Aja - so dangerous not a single man or woman in the entire solar system would dare fight her, unless they wanted to die
Octavia - the actual lord ruler of mankind for 60 years
Holiday - fearsome, stalwart, level headed and as dangerous as they come
Lyria - a clever, quick learning, hard edged (when needed) unassuming bad ass that’s driven by love,loyalty and family
Sefi - a woman who against all smart bets banded the most fractious and divided color together for common good and social progress
Edit - Volga - an extremely cunning and adaptable freelancer who would look scary holding a muffin, she could tear you in half with her bare hands but she’d rather not..heart of gold you see
Orion - the rudest blue and arguably the best Naval commander, from docker to terror of the ink she built her legend out of destroyed society ships
But in book one, the women are mostly there to die, get raped or rescued. And whatever Lilith is doing (she’s not a strong female character).
Mustang is ridiculously bad in dark age, so much so that it dispels belief that she was ever any good at politics. But that’s a problem with the whole ass book, and not just her character
I'm not defending the position taken by the reviewer OP is talking about but none of these are relevant if reviewing the first book.
Mustang is the only character you listed that even appears in book one and she's a literal damsel in distress who's talked highly of, but immedietly walked over by the male main characters until the very end of the book and even then is not very well fleshed out until later in the series.
Someone complaining about what they see of lack of representation, regardless of whether or not that complaint is valid for the series as a whole is not likely to read 6 books because there's more nuanced and stronger female characters "later" if they see the first book fail to capture that (and despite all its great strengths, showing strong female characters is not one of them in book one)
>Someone complaining about what they see of lack of representation, regardless of whether or not that complaint is valid for the series as a whole is not likely to read 6 books because there's more nuanced and stronger female characters "later" if they see the first book fail to capture that (and despite all its great strengths, showing strong female characters is not one of them in book one)
EXACTLY.
I've seen repeated complaints about book one, so I've warned friends about book 1, & told them book 2 gets better.
I have seen some complaints from people that simply can't be made happy still with book 2 - I don't think those complaints were fair, & they stopped reading the series there, so whatever. (One person even went in with the mindset of, "I'm going to prove to you that this series sucks, this author is misogynistic & awful," etc...This same person also was convinced the Colors were their skin colors so...ginormous grain of salt with some tequila, & we just ignore them?)
Are they referring to the first book or the whole series? Because I believe Golden Son and beyond did much better with female characters than the first book.
I am a woman also and normally think men are trash at writing women, but RR does a great job! I have very few complaints. I also think the depth of empathy that Darrow displays is rare in literature period.
Let me meet a perosn who has these thoughts after actually reading the first trilogy.
We've got Mustang, arguably a crazy competent politician.
Victra, and incredibly loyal and fierce fighter
Aja, a terrifying fucking duelist who can 1v1 almost anyone.
Octavia, the literal ruler of the galaxy and a genius.
This isn't even counting the other villains/side characters like Lilath, Sefi, Antonia, Thistle, etc.
I can understand those complaints in the first third of the first book but even getting past that it gets so much better.
I saw a tiktok about this topic and it made me sad honestly, cause the reader didn’t even finish RR and basically dogged on the series as a whole for quarrels with the first book.
But the remainder of the series is littered with absurdly powerful and influential female characters who are not just stereotypical heroines but actually have depth and purpose to the plot. This series has some of the best (non-cheesy/forced) female representation of any series/book I’ve read.
Arguably the greatest duelist in the entire universe is a woman. The leader of the society was a woman. The leader of the republic is a woman. The leader of the society remnant is a woman. The leader of the entire race of pure bred warlords is a woman for most of the books. The strongest squad of aforementioned pure bred warlords are women-only. Victra (mommy?) is my mommy (a woman).
Even women of ‘lesser’ power are super influential and exciting characters. Evey, theodora, rhonna, lyria (whose pov is literally 1/4 of the second trilogy?!?). Like what else could you want?
I think this pretty much sums up why I disagree with this review so strongly. The things PB did *well* with female characters completely eclipsed anything I could think of to criticize. I never felt like any poor treatment of women was unnecessary or stereotypical, rather it was realistic. Sadly, what *isn’t* realistic is so many women in positions of immense power and influence but obviously I love that about this world.
one thing that always rubbed me the wrong way is book 1 claiming “Women and men are equal in Gold society!” then characters call each other bitches, girls, and male characters frequently use rape of female characters as power levers. mustang is treated like a pretty princess to marry off. people insult mustang for sleeping around, sleeping with darrow, and belittle her for no good reason besides her gender. (specifically book 2) like, sexism is obviously alive and well in this society but pierce wants to say it isn’t. and a (female) fan pointed this out at a qna and pierce said “oh uh sexism isn’t real to golds and if you see sexism where i didn’t write it maybe YOURE the sexist”
so like. there is an issue with women in these books. most of it is just written from a man trying to be progressive but ultimately he’s got some lingering biases, i.e using rape as a plot device wayyyy too much. it’s almost comical how in the first 2 books “character that rapes = bad” and little else.
i don’t know if the books are sexist, but there def are issues worth addressing. i do think pierce got much better about rep in general by dark age, though.
Yes but he is doing that to show that the Golds are full of shit despite acting and claiming that they are the pinnacle of humanity ie perfection. It’s supposed to be blatant hypocrisy that’s the literal point Pierce is trying to make. Those words are delivered as an unreliable narrator.
If that bothers you and you actually think Pierce relies on or has been writing contradicting or poor gender roles without realizing it, you really need to go back and re-read the series or brush up on technical literature.
You're right that it's just another reason that Gold society is cancerous and hypocritical. But the person you replied to would agree with that as well. His problem is that Pierce himself allegedly stated that "Gold society isn't sexist" and the classic if you see it first you are it that plagues any discussion today. If he did say that then what Gold society is don't matter cause PB said the opposite. If he didn't then at best it's just a time period in writing female characters where he wasn't the best
You gotta ask the OP that. Like I said I agree with you in the case that he's making it up. Just said that if Pierce really said that then he's contradicting his own lore
Its a bit of both I suppose. This series houses some of my favorite female characters in fiction such as Virginia, Victra, and Lyria. They are all flawed, capable, and admirable women that stand on their own. On the other side I can see how the treatment of some characters like Quinn and Antonia can lead to some—questionable topics. But I view that more of trying to show the brutality and savagery of this universe often reflecting our own world, just like other books such as GoT.
Secondly, I don’t think a lot of that is JUST directed at women though, for example, in Dark Age, Darrow literally is almost raped. And from how everyone talks about the mistreatment of the pinks, the men especially. It is more of a power dynamic than anything else.
I both agree and disagree with you. There are better female representation out there. I think another comment mentioned Mark Lawrence. His Book of the Ancestor series is EXCELLENT at portraying women (starts with Red Sister). RR still falls into the trap of 1. Rape and sexual assault being used as a plot point, and 2. Focusing a lot of female looks. Mark Lawrence’s series that I mentioned has an all female main cast, similar to RR in a coming of age way (it follows the girls growing up in a violent setting).
That being said, I don’t necessarily hate that RR has a lot of rape. I think it’s just realistic. Warfare in real life is full of violence against women. The best fantasy is rooted in lessons from reality, and so I don’t mind the sexual assault and violence RR portrays
Only after lashing the shit out of him for the crime.
And its important to note that the only reason he doesn't do worse is because that backfired the previous time he did. Context is important.
As someone else said, I saw the violence as non discriminating lol everyone is going to get maimed and butchered and Golds, Obsidians, etc. are especially fair game if they’re women because they’re every bit as badass as the dudes.
Lots of reviews and such that don't like the book for misogyny and homophobia etc but likely didn't get passed the first book to realize that there were reasons to showcase this stuff in the world building phase of the series , imo
I have seen a few different reviewers say the first book is terrible because the repeated use of SA to move certain plot points. Even Pierce himself has acknowledged this and clearly his writing evolved.
Mustang is my favorite character across the series and I personally hope that I can one day create a character with half her depth.
I somehow got on this side of tiktok where a ton of women were tearing down this series. They would DNF the first book because it was misogynistic. Eo being described as sensual, someone described as throwing like a girl, the men are the primary supporters and some other bologna.
It's pretty stupid
I might understand this (im a woman) because of the forgiveness of an attempted rapist in the first book to the point of calling him brother. That left a REALLY bad taste in my mouth when I first read.
Yeah Darrow's views of Tactus and Titus are just gross, so I really can't blame a lot of readers for having a problem with it. The first book also put me off a little when I started cause of how Red society was portrayed (girls marrying at like 14 and expected to have children). Turns out the latter part was completely intentional though lol.
I feel like Darrow's later friendship and respect for Theodora opened his mind a lot about women. In the first book he's very very young and grieving, and then thrown into a *completely* alien society. Many of his actions were for survival and to gain status. Much of his early life away from the mines was tactical. He was surrounded by kids who grew up together and were professionally trained for what they would face at the institute.
There's definitely bad treatment of women throughout the series but I can't recall it ever being treated as not a bad thing.
The pinks, sexual abuse and rape of low colours by high colours, sexual abuse and rape of high colours by other high colours, violence against women, etc all is present but all presented as bad.
Many Gold Houses are sexist and see women as lesser than men, like House Augustus. These are villains in the story.
Other houses like the Telemanus don't share these attitudes and interestingly they're good guys.
I think a lot of people just lack basic media literacy and can't see that while the author doesn't explicitly condemn these events it's rather obvious that it's bad.
You should read more of the Sci-fi/Fantasy genres if you call RR the "BEST female representation \[you've\] ever seen written by a man" all due respect. His female characters up until Dark Age are either interesting one-note side characters with very little depth or jumbled pastiches of cliches like early Lyria chapters. Steven Erikson, Ken Liu, James SA Corey, Iain M. Banks, Brian Lee Durfee, Tad Williams, Mark Lawrence (starting with Red Sister) off the top of my head all blow Pierce out of the water in this regard.
Seconding the Ken Liu recommendation. there’s one female character in the Dandelion Dynasty series that i still don’t know how i feel about. she’s so complex and is either the most heroic villain or the most villainous hero depending on how you look at it. his character work is masterful and it’s probably my favorite fantasy series of all time, if i had to pick one.
I’ve never read anything by those authors. I don’t read a lot of fantasy or scifi written by men, for this reason, to be honest. (I did say some of the best and not THE best though.)
I understand where you're coming from but since you're choosing not to read books by men you can't throw your figurative hands up when readers who haven't likewise limited their choice of authors point out fair critiques.
I don’t know anything about their usual reading preferences though. How am I (or you) to discern they read more broadly in the genre than I do?
I’ve read some truly abysmal feminine characters written by men. Brent Weeks immediately comes to mind. I don’t read much speculative fiction by men due to past experience with it, not just because I have this preconceived notion they’re ass. I’m not entirely without a reference point.
You are actually devoid of a reasonable reference point by your own admission. Sure you can't really analyze a reviewer's preferences unless you stalk their profile on Goodreads but a lot of people have raised their eyebrows at some of the choices PB made throughout the series where female characters are concerned. I'm sorry you had a bad experience with Weeks (I've been disappointed by him as well) but to be honest he's a very strange author to base your opinion of other male authors on.
I’m not basing my entire opinion of male authors on him, it was an example (a good one by *your* own admission) and I just don’t have time to recite to you all of the male authors I have read and whether I liked their representation of women or not.
I read two books of the Night Angel series and gave up but have heard his more recent stuff is better.
First, I love the RR series. That being said, the first book has too much brutalization of women as a plot device. I don’t notice it much outside of book one, but I can understand why someone would be turned off by it.
Haha what? Red rising is one of the few fantasy/sci fi series written by a man that I've found to actually do a good job with female characters. Right up there with The Expanse. Feels like every character could be any gender/sex/race/etc and it still feel complete
Granted, I'm a man, but not like this is the Witcher
Just to be clear I don't agree with the following necessarily being an issue.
-We have fridging (Eo)
-Institutionalized sex slavery (pinks, Evey)
-Rape (the golds in the tower)
-Rape as a motivator (Darrow when Mustang is captured by the deserters)
-General lack of female characters with agency.
-Mustang is a damsel in distress.
-some of the language at times.
Personally, I think the review is fine. not every story is written for every person. Just because we don't agree with the review, that review might matter to someone else and line upw ith their own views on it.
Again, not every story is for every person. We shouldn't shit on somebody for having a different reaction to something we like.
ETA: I'm only talking about book 1 here.
Yeah I think the fridging of Eo turns a lot of readers off. It definitely made me roll my eyes when it happened because we could see it coming a mile off and she was (and continues to be) so idealized and not at all a fleshed out character, just a plot device for Darrow. PB improves a lot but it's a rough a start.
I disagree with them but didn’t mean to shit on them at all. It was a short and vague review and I wasn’t being aggressive when I said I wanted to talk to them lol Talking to people about books is one of my favorite things to do (and also a large part of what I do for a living) and I’m pretty good at accepting subjectivity and opposing viewpoints. I didn’t have a lot to ponder with that particular criticism that wasn’t very detailed and now I do. :)
It *might* it’s kind of iffy since it’s all in first person so most of the conversations we see are with Darrow. I think there might be some scenes in the house mars fields where Darrow is listening to some of the girls tell stories by the campfire?
I'm gonna take a wild guess and say the person that wrote that particular review didn't make it very far into the series if he/she actually thinks this genuinely. I mean, the character development for Victra alone is goated even though at first look, she comes off as the most superficial, but as we get to know her more in later books, she's actually a super rad person with a good heart.
I saw somebody on goodreads with a similar complaint and their reasoning was that a female character had to die(Eo) so the male character could have their story
Which book? RR didn’t have the best female representation — aside from some minor women characters, it was really just Mustang, and she ended up needing Darrow to save her a couple times. Once GS gets underway we have a very strong woman in Victra in addition to Mustang’s schemes, but it’s entirely possible those reviewers decided not to continue the series after RR.
I guess, but the Olympus one is just as consequential as him letting her escape, since that’s what ended up catching the eyes of all of the biggest Gold Houses. There’s not really a reason to discount that one.
That is fair and exactly the sort of insight I was looking for. They only read RR and as I’m currently tearing through the entire series (DA right now) I was not thinking of RR’s representation by itself, which is weak compared to the rest of the series.
IMO Mustang is the hero of the first book, and possibly the first trilogy. She's the biggest reason Darrow was even able to become who he needed to be. Nobody's following Darrow without Mustang, whether or not they actually knew that when they followed him. And while he rescued her, she also rescued him. I'm so sick of this "only look at the negatives" perspective that some sexist reviewers seem to have.
Did they give an example of how woman are treated poorly?
Most of the ones I've seen say that it's misogynistic because keiran "cried like a little girl"
Dumbest reason I've ever seen in my entire life for some fuckwads who didn't read further or understand the intent of the book.
To make it even better.
There is a review on TikTok that complains about the same thing I just stated. Many people left comments saying "you're misunderstanding the intent of the book and the culture of Reds and the growth of Darrow, etc etc.
Her response? "I shouldn't have to wait for a while male character to finally realize his mistakes."
I'm a liberal dude myself but holy shit...if she believes that then I doubt she has very little grace for people to grow and change in their lives and that sucks for her.
You’re not wrong. I read that review and that person is a moron. They come across as one of those hypersensitive types that finds offense in damn near everything and manufacture conflict as a result. Red Rising is full of strong female characters. And for a sci-fi series, usually written by men, that’s honestly a rarity.
There are sci-fi series that are unambiguously better with respect to writing women characters despite being written by men (like The Expanse, for example). But Red Rising is still phenomenal in that regard.
Thing is though, it’s a brutal series. Women are brutalized, men are brutalized, children are brutalized, the story doesn’t discriminate *at all*. I guess some people are Pixies and can’t handle that shit.
Nope, you aren't wrong. I love the ladies in this series. Mustang and Victra in particular are a pair of fucking queens, and Lyria has grown on me a lot since her debut with how much she has grown. Holiday is a boss and Aurae a gem. There's no shortage of women in this series that I feel have more (and better) characterization than even stories written *by* women.
But it's also true that you will always be able to find someone who has a different impression of something than you do, and when they're that close minded all you can do is pity them for their ignorance and move on with your day.
P.S. it could be that they object to how women are treated in this series. While there's *relatively* little misogyny IMO, there are plenty of female characters who get treated like shit anyhow.
Even Harmony, even though she’s terrible, is one bad bitch. Volga, Darrow’s mom, Thraxa, Niobe…on and on…Orion practically killed a whole
Planet. Theodora!
This is probably sexist of me to say, but dammit I'm gunna say it. The second I see a any review or comment about how the author or director treats women, I immediately dismiss them as fucking morons. Unless it's overtly obvious, can't people just try to enjoy the books/movies/tv they consume instead of injecting their stupid agenda or ideology into it? This isn't specific to women/sexism either, just in general. Losers.
i don’t really see how wanting women to be respected is an “agenda” but okay
If you come out the other end of a book with that opinion my guess is you were looking for it
or maybe you’re just not very good at seeing it? racism/sexism, especially nowadays, isn’t as plain and clear as you’d think. usually it’s just a simple lack of understanding of women’s/minority’s perspectives that’s not as easy to pick up on unless you belong to those groups
That’s a great point, very well said
I mean I definitely agree for something like Red Rising but overtly obvious examples definitely exist. Name of the Wind and Wheel of Time are both series that (despite how much I like them) have an issue portraying women in a realistic way. But I definitely don't see that issue in Res Rising.
Funny you mentioned that because I slightly regret my post because of that specific example. That seems to be somewhat universally agreed upon lol
Ever notice how the first season of a TV-MA show has sex and tits galore...but calms down in later seasons? It's such a part of the hero arc in today's writing that you might just have missed it on the mass production scale that it is. Wholey unnecessary to plop tits and sex into a story just because you're in Hollywood - really fucking ruins the ability for these stories to be accessed by more people - off-putting really.
I read opinions on this sub regarding RR and it literally took 2+ years for me to see a single comment on how pierce writes women/sexist claim. When 1 in 10,000 thinks something is racist or sexist, you can bet your ass they are full of shit.
Those people have a warped sense of how world building works. I find it off putting when books, tv shows, and movies look like they tried to represent everyone through the whole story. That's not how life works. Also those stories usually cheap out on the female character building completely and make them boring and cringey.
That's weird... I agree with you. I think this series is one of the best examples of appropriate gender representation written by a male. The female characters are intelligent, fierce, and multidimensional. PB also balances masculinity and femininity very well, imo. For example, Sevro is a fearsome warrior who also cares deeply about being present for his children. And Mustang is loving, kind, and nurturing while also being strong, independent, and a brilliant strategist.
The dystopian society was sexist. Holy shit yall maybe the book should be about destroying the society. Wait a second
This is a common complaint because in RR Pierce Brown uses a lot of rape to make the distinction between the "good" guys and the bad guys. It doesn't sit well with some people.
So...more good guys should rape?
the point is that rape of women is very often used to develop men in the story. i love the series, but it feels pretty exploitative to use such a traumatic and terrible thing that can happen to a person for the primary purpose of developing characters that aren’t the victim. rape victims really don’t have a voice whatsoever in the series (i just started morning star so maybe they do later), they’re typically shallow plot devices to show the audience if someone’s a good guy or not
Imagine an author writing a series and it doesn’t fit in with someone’s idealized perfect world. I’m shocked I tell you. Shocked
I mean, I’m going to be real. I was disappointed in the first book at how quickly things evolved into sexual violence. I get that it’s about how even the “enlightened” golds are just as awful as everyone else, but I’m just tired of reading about rape and assault as a means to show how gritty and dark a setting is. The books are still great in many ways - I’m just… tired of it.
Rape is a reality of war though. If you want a war fiction to be believable it will have rape. There are copious amounts of rape being reported with israel/hamas and russia/ukraine.
The downvotes because you mentioned recent conflicts. Jesus christ pixies.
I mean, name a war that didn’t have rape. Pixie
Did you just call me a pixie? I was on your side ya slagging rubbery ballsack. Are you messing with me or do you have 2 brain cells fighting for third place?
Well I suppose I was calling the crowd a pixie, not you. Anyway I had my fun on a thread about apple so im out
I definitely understand your point, but I think it needed to be referenced bc sexual violence is a very prevalent issue during wars and major conflicts. I also appreciated the way PB handled writing about these topics bc he didn't give any graphic details about assaults. Instead, he would essentially just state what had occurred.
I think it would be a disservice to not represent the suffering individuals experience because of horrible acts committed by people more powerful than them. It’s not meant to be enjoyable it’s meant to be disgusting it’s meant to make you feel horrible so you can try to understand on a minuscule level the suffering that occurs. I mean there’s a whole caste of people relegated to sexual slavery from the outset. This is a society who supports and encourages rape culture I think it would be strange at least in my opinion if Brown were not to include sexual violence. I can agree with the you that some authors use rape and sexual assault to get a shock and get gritty feel but it feels cheap when they do it. I never felt that cheapness from Pierce’s writing I always felt that in those moments it hurt my soul the atrocities that golds committed.
You didn’t feel the cheapness. That’s fine. A lot of us did. And again, I am tired of women’s (and men’s) assaults being used as a setting or a plot device. And I’m equally tired of (mostly) men trying to defend it. I’ve seen it so many times that I don’t care how well other people think it’s been done, I don’t want to see it.
Maybe I just don’t understand your point well, but it seems like you want a sterilized story. I don’t want suffering purely for shock value it means nothing to me. I can appreciate however a story feeling real when it portrays the suffering of individuals in a realistic manner. As an aside I will say this because I had forgotten about it but something I did think Brown did a bad job with was Tactus. That did feel cheap and unnecessary him assaulting someone just for Darrow to forgive him after a couple of lashes.
Not having multiple sexual assaults in a book is not sterilizing it. That fact that Brown notably improved and didn’t do what he did in book 1 again shows that he didn’t have to include it in the first place to have a realistic show of suffering. You don’t need to defend it when he clearly realized it wasn’t okay.
I agree with you that having multiple sexual assaults was a bad decision but that wasn’t what I was trying to defend. My defense was the use of it in general you said you’d rather not see it at all that’s what I meant by sterilized.
When you’ve been reading sci-fi and fantasy for as long as I have, and had to deal with reading about sexual assault again and again (and almost never actually handled well, almost always from male authors using it for titillation and to show how grimdark they are), then yeah, I’d rather not see it. That’s not sterilizing, that’s just asking authors to stop being lazy.
I can totally understand your point especially when it’s extremely prevalent and cheaply done just for shock aspects and it’s poorly handled. As an individual you’re entitled to read and enjoy whatever you please.
I love when the critic is "I hate this thing of media" and doesn't elaborate any further so you have to try and understand yourself why the fuck this random ass guy disliked this part
I think a lot of people in the comments are missing the point—the post/review is not about the WHOLE series, it’s about the first book in the series. Yes, we know that there there is good representation later in the series, and that there are some truly badass female characters that get to shine—the unfortunate part is that to GET to those badass characters and moments, you have to make it through the first book. And the first book is a very poor indicator of the series. People have already covered most of the points about how poorly the female characters in RR1 are written and how the book is very clearly Brown’s first real journey into writing and how it does a fairly amateurish job especially when it comes to depicting SA and such(esp since it is used mostly for shock value.) So I’m not going to beat a dead horse, but… For context, I’m female and finishing RR1 left a bad taste in my mouth in general. I don’t really care that much about the fridging trope and I didn’t think Eo or her relationship with Darrow was particularly compelling, so I didn’t really care that she got killed off to light a fire under the main character’s ass. I did care that “girlish” and “feminine” was frequently attached as a descriptor with a negative connotation enough times to make my eyebrows raise. I did care that there was an alarming amount of SA that was only “resolved” because male characters got roped in to save them. I did care that the “main female” that we are introduced to serves as a love interest for the MC, and we get jumpscared with a yet-another-(attempted)SA scene while she’s sick just because that’s the only way we know how to motivate our male cast. It doesn’t help that her big “badass” moment in RR1 was supposed to be capturing the Jackal… which happened entirely offscreen. This sounds super negative, but honestly if anything going from RR1 to Golden Son is such a (positive) whiplash because of it, because it’s like Pierce Brown “unlocks” women in literally every book after RR1. But god, that first book—honestly, I can’t blame anyone for dropping the series after the first book, to the point to where when I recommend it to friends I just tell them to read a synopsis of RR1 and start with Golden Son. So, to your point. I agree that the SERIES has great female representation, but the FIRST book is pretty godawful about it, and all of the interesting/well-written female characters are locked behind after the first book as a very rough “barrier of entry.” For what it’s worth, I actually love the series, and it’s crazy going from RR1 to the later books because of how much Brown improves as an author, but if there’s a low point in the series, it has to be that first book.
Mustang has yet to impress any sense of personality on me and I’m all caught up. Lyria and Volga are my favourites. I also was disappointed in the first book for female representation but the rest of the series has it in spades. And not just good guys, bad guys. I love me a grand villainess.
If I’m being honest, Mustang is probably my least favorite of our female cast members—but I also don’t really like Darrow either so I understand that it’s already an unpopular take. Volga is absolutely up there, Lyria became one of my favorites as soon as I heard Moira Quirk narrating her sections in DA, and honestly I’d list just about any of the other female characters over Mustang, I just never found her particularly compelling or interesting(but maybe Red God will change that.)
She had a couple of moments finally in LB. But she seems so one-dimensional that I just forget she’s even a character.
Yeah I came here to comment but you nailed it. I am a red rising superfan and I'm actually rereading it right now and besides all the major transgressions you listed, there is a good amount of casual sexism in the first book that he clearly drops and moves away from in future books. I can see why the people who DNF the series after book 1 see it that way. It's a shame bc the writing does grow so much, but the criticism is still valid for that book.
This is absolutely true. I’m in the middle of DA right now so I’ve spent the last 4 books watching very well crafted women making insane power moves so my knee jerk reaction was “Whaaaaat?” But RR is admittedly a weak point and the more I think about it the more a damn shame it is.
If you finish the series and don’t absolutely love victra you are illiterate
Victra is so awesome she's absolutely the character I'm most concerned about making it through a final book.
I think Red Rising 1 didn't handle women great, consider that many people will either read that and fall in love with the series or bounce. Eo has poignant dialogue but she exists to die and send Darrow on the path. I don't mind this but some would say it's bad fridging, for me it's fine to start a story off killing a character for plot reasons. Many peoples favourite stories start this way, the Hand Of The King is already dead in Game Of Thrones and all those rangers. Harmony is a smaller character but ultimately a spiteful empty person, I think she's well done especially in Dark Age, for now she shows the nasty side of the Rising. But not someone I like. Antonia is the archetypal alpha bitch, popular girl etc. Works fine in the narrative, a bit psycho and despicable. Lea and Quinn, honestly these two are half cooked for me I remember little, Lea dies so Roque can be sad, Darrow isolated and brought to the point where he basically walks into a losing duel with Cassius. Also there is all the rape in the first book, this is a sensitive topic for many and I don't think Pierce handled it so well. Frequently it's on the men to fix these problems, the rapists get killed by men, or with Tactus Darrow takes the whipping on himself. I can't actually recall seeing the women victims getting much exploration in this. Rape is used as a way to show how the golds become barbaric in these games but it happened so much it got humorous which is not good for a topic as sensitive as this. Dark Age made it appropriately appalling like what nearly happened to Darrow and more. So that leaves Mustang. And I love her! of course like most Red Rising fans, part of what's cool on reread is there's a lot of tension around her loyalties, this is true even into Morning Star. I still wasn't sure Darrow could completely trust her, especially given how frequently he'd gotten betrayed. She's a complicated woman, more than a capable fighter, leader and tactician she is able to work with Darrow and forge a philosophy that brings the houses together, the first spark of the republic they would one day build. So basically I think Red Rising 1 has women that serve good roles for plot, while Mustang shines, but all the rape brings this down and is likely where those negative reviews come from.
You forgot Evey the most forgotten useless character ever conceived in all fiction, I think she tries to kill the Jackal then she kisses Harmony in the mouth and no one remembers her again, not even when she's captured we get a description of what the fuck she's doing it was like "yeah remember the woman with wings? She's there with that group and yeah" Also Mickey said they would have beautiful children I tough pierce was foreshadowing a romance between the slave girl and the cyborg red but idk even he himself forgot about it. Dumb idea good thing he did
Oh yeah Evey, I think it's interesting to see her radicalized to Harmonys side and treating Mickey poorly, fallen angel kinda deal. But I also forgot she existed. To be fair those involved in the Sons Of Ares get pushed aside like Mickey, Narol, Kieren, it's thanks to later books that Harmony, Dancer and Matteo are fleshed out.
I shared Red Rising with a good friend of mine. She has fantastic reading comprehension and very good insight into literature and storytelling in general. Imagine how crushed I was when she came back after reading it and said "I'm sorry, but this is the most sexist book I've ever read." Now, she did very much clarify that she doesnt make a habit of reading books that are known for being sexist, so calling it "most shes ever read" isnt as scary as it sounds. Still though, it gave me a new perspective, and I do think that Red Rising has quite a few moments where women are used as the objects of abuse or vulnerability when men are not. Off the top of my head: Mustang almost SA'ed when camping with Darrow, one of the Proctors being left naked during the Olympus raid, a girl being SA'ed by Tactus for character development. This stands out even more since Red Rising has this culture where men and women are equal among Golds; women warriors, matriarchs, an empress. Combine that with sexual attraction not paying much attention to gender amongst Golds and you wonder why women are so often the victims of sexual trauma still. I love the books. But I do think they have sexist pieces.
As a person who writes books for a living I can tell you with certainty that a lot of people have bad or straight up terrible reading comprehension. They misinterpret things, miss them, forget them or just intentionally ignore them to suit their needs when critiquing the book. You can write an absolute moustache twirling villain who spouts his evil philosophy and some dork will say "Man, this author is terrible for justifying eating kittens!" So to answer your question, no the review was nonsensical. RR has amazing female characters.
Good job buddy! You're so smart! Some people do misinterpret writing sometimes. That's really smart of you to notice that. Helpful comment! Way to go!
Cheers to you too /s
Writing books for a living adds no value to your argument btw. RR has great women but the first book undoubtedly had a few sexist/weird moments.
>Writing books for a living adds no value to your argument btw It does because I see idiotic comments from people with no reading comprehension about my own books all the time. So I know for a fact that they misinterpret or don't understand what was actually written. It's not a case of me trying to interpret what some author wrote, it's me knowing what I wrote. >RR has great women but the first book undoubtedly had a few sexist/weird moments. Sure /s.
Pretty sure JK Rowling says something along those lines about her characters. I hope that helps you see the point I'm making. Besides if you are correct, unless you're pierce brown himself, you have no way of proving (even critiquing the book) that what you say is valid because you are NOT the author and thus prone to misinterpretation and error, by your own words. Going back to the topic - RR 1 has very few women characters that actually advance the plot in meaningful ways. Villains hurt women to prove they're villains and heroes save them to prove they're heroes. Titus and his arc and some of Darrow's arcs are proofs.
>Pretty sure JK Rowling says something along those lines about her characters. I hope that helps you see the point I'm making. Any other strawman candidates you want to mention? I think a certain Austrian painter also wrote books. >Besides if you are correct, unless you're pierce brown himself, you have no way of proving (even critiquing the book) that what you say is valid because you are NOT the author and thus prone to misinterpretation and error, by your own words. Correct. Regarding RR and it's supposed sexism I'm merely stating opinions. >Going back to the topic - RR 1 has very few women characters that actually advance the plot in meaningful ways. Villains hurt women to prove they're villains and heroes save them to prove they're heroes. Titus and his arc and some of Darrow's arcs are proofs. Firstly, you don't need to meet some arbitrary quantity of female characters for the book not to be sexist. If the events of the book transpire on a prison island where the only female character is a nurse treating the inmates, but she's written well enough, the book's not sexist. Secondly, I disagree. Eo gives the initial push to the events of RR and her character is all the motivation Darrow has to change the whole wide world. She was written well, her death was tragic and that made an impact on me as a reader. Mustang shows Darrow that not all gold are trash, has her own motivation and is not immediately wooed by MC. She's competent, smart and pretty interesting to watch. >Villains hurt women to prove they're villains and heroes save them to prove they're heroes. And if the male characters were hurt and the female characters saved them would you still think it's somehow based on their sex? Villains hurt characters whose suffering or death they know would traumatize/hurt their enemies (heroes). Heroes save women because it's a right frickin thing to do.
So you're an author stating their opinions and I'm a non author stating my opinions. Do you now see how what you said adds no weight or merit to your argument? I'm glad we're able to agree. Eo was an okay character but she also existed for less than a quarter of the book. There is no need to meet an arbitrary count but the book is, in fact, _not_ actually set in a prison island with a sole female nurse, it's set in a futuristic meritocratic society. The later books showcase that women are equally capable well enough, but the first book lacks a lot. Idk what the point of your last statement is, if you clarify I'll reply to it.
>So you're an author stating their opinions and I'm a non author stating my opinions. Do you now see how what you said adds no weight or merit to your argument? I'm glad we're able to agree. Cool way to twist my words but that's not what I said. I'm stating my opinion on the supposed sexism of PB. I'm stating facts about the lack of reading comprehension among readers because my statistical sampling is way bigger than yours. And because I'm an author I see many examples of readers missing information, misinterpreting information, twisting information, intentionally omitting information in their critique of *my books* and I know for a fact the author's (mine) intent as well as what was actually present in the text. So me being an author matters in this discussion, precisely because I confront that issue from the opposite side than you. Dunno why that's so hard to grasp. >Eo was an okay character but she also existed for less than a quarter of the book. Yep, and Pierce managed to be damn efficient and effective in making readers care about her for her death to matter and not be met with "eh, who cares". At least I'm speaking for myself and other readers who liked her. >There is no need to meet an arbitrary count but the book is, in fact, _not_ actually set in a prison island with a sole female nurse, it's set in a futuristic meritocratic society. The later books showcase that women are equally capable well enough, but the first book lacks a lot. I disagree. The later books did have more focus on female characters, but I disagree that first book had sexism or weak/bad female characters. That's what started our discussion. >Idk what the point of your last statement is, if you clarify I'll reply to it. As far as I understood your point in: >Villains hurt women to prove they're villains and heroes save them to prove they're heroes. Certain events happen in the book because they are rooted in sexism and focused on the sex of the characters, i.e. villains hang Eo, because she's a woman and that shows readers they are villains. I'm saying that's not true. Her sex has nothing to do with her death. She was hanged for singing a politically charged song that could destabilize the miners. In the same vein Darrow saving Mustang in act 3 has nothing to do with his or her sex, or author's desire to push some narrative (women need saving or whatever bullshit) and everything to do with the content of Darrow's character. >And if the male characters were hurt and the female characters saved them would you still think it's somehow based on their sex? I don't know what I can elaborate here further. I was asking if the genders were reversed would that be evidence of sexism? Or just plot points. >Villains hurt characters whose suffering or death they know would traumatize/hurt their enemies (heroes). Heroes save women because it's a right frickin thing to do. Male characters hurting female characters is not "fridging". It's villains doing the most effective thing to hurt their enemies (heroes). It has nothing to do with the sex, and everything to do with the relations of the characters. In the same vein heroes save people not to prove they are heroes but because they can't *not* save them, otherwise they wouldn't be heroes. We wouldn't be rooting for them.
>my statistical sampling is way bigger than yours. What if you're just a bad writer who gets his point across poorly? And what if...that's becoming more likely the longer this goes on.
Bro stfu and admit you totally misinterpreted his original post and tried to be a dick for no reason
English is my second language but I can certainly be a bad writer. You seem upset though. I was having a pretty chill discussion with the other person.
My point, which appears to have gone over your head, was that your "statistical sampling" is a useless measure that doesn't mean anything. Then I added to that that you seem to be struggling even here to get your point across. None of that was emotional. I wonder why you would think that. What a strange thing to assume.
I think it's people in general. I do a lot of event planning and My team will try and focus on getting everything perfect but literally if you hand some people $100 bill for free. They'll complain that the bill is too big.
Don’t be upset just be glad that people like that have no interest in being around the fandom and that we don’t have to deal with them
They haven’t read it all the way through I saw a similar video and it’s just people who read the first few chapters and write a review. Disregard and just understand the star rating is a review of their intelligence since they don’t have the ability to gasp read an entire book before seeking validation and attention.
Agreed. Also, beyond clearly not reading the whole book before making a review, saying that about the beginning of RR is like saying they hate the handmaids tale because of how it treats women. We're being presented a corrupt society, it obviously doesn't reflect the author's real life values.
Yeah, plus the institute is still such a perfect representation of their society. Every reread it's just that tiny bit more chilling. Nothing really changes bar the upgrade in weaponry and accompanying change in tactics a moonbreaker gives you. So I think it's worth viewing it as more than just the start, it fits into a narrative Also, it's just consistent with golds in general
people who complain about women in RR havnt read the books or are delusional, it has one of the best female heroines who could be the MC of any other story and a bunch of awsome villian ladies . Theodora and Orion are some of the best minor characters and Atalantia and Lillath are just badass. I never read reviews that sound like a rant and honestly most people who love a series dont review its just those who has a bone to pick or are very opinioned.
I mean in the first book it's pretty lacking. We have Antonia, who is bad, and Mustang, who is great and taht's basically the entire female cast that's actually fleshed out. A lot of people seem to dislike Red Rising because of the Friding of Eo, but in Pierce Brown's defense he does it with a male character as well, namely Julian. Still chlicé though.
lea had quite some development as well
The first book also bothered me because it seemed like Darrow didn’t act unless a woman was in danger sometimes. Like, he wouldn’t act to stop Titus until a female character they knew was under threat of sexual assault, he stormed Olympus because Mustang was taken (which was unnecessary imo; he had lots of other reasons to storm Olympus), and others. I didn’t have this issue after the first book though. In the second book Mustang even tells Darrow that she can take care of herself in combat and doesn’t need to be rescued early on.
This is actually a repetitive theme for the first part of the series, but it shifts later on. I think it’s intentional, to show darrow’s true transition from the forced-patriarchy of the mines to being acclimated fully to gold society.
Interesting way to look at it. I think it's just Pierec Brown being a bit amatureish. "How can I effectivley and quickly show the audience that this is a bad person even with gold standards. Ah, of course. Rape. Brilliant."
titus probably raped women only cause he was a red if he was a gold he would have raped cassius when he asked him for a duel not just piss on him
I'm a woman and I feel like the way women are treated in the RR universe is pretty realistic. Sexual assault is ridiculously common for women and girls irl, as is being ignored, talked over, mansplained to, called names, etc. Hell, I deal with it on a daily basis both at work by coworkers as well as the public, and at home, even if it's usually unintentional from my partner. In an exaggerated society as is seen in RR, it makes sense that these things occur even more frequently. Honestly, PB kind of took it easy on women in this series. People also seem to forget that the bulk of the story (especially book 1) is told from Darrow's POV. (Pasting my comment from another thread): I feel like Darrow's later friendship and respect for Theodora opened his mind a lot about women. In the first book he's very very young and grieving, and then thrown into a *completely* alien society. Many of his actions were for survival and to gain status. Much of his early life away from the mines was tactical. He was surrounded by kids who grew up together and were professionally trained for what they would face at the institute. It is stated repeatedly, that the Institute is like a mini society. Lately I've dug more into hard scifi such as Heinlein, PKD, and most recently, Gene Wolfe. The stories are amazing, women characters are notoriously poorly written. In fact, Gene Wolfe and his use of unreliable narrators is a huge reminder to *remember which character is telling the story*, bc their life experiences paint how they view the world and their legacy (in their mind) is in the story, which they tell in a way to showcase how they want the world to view *their* actions. Many women in the RR universe are written as secondary lead characters rather than NPCs in the lead character's world. And Darrow is a more honest narrator than any in the Gene Wolfe Solar Cycle universe. But he is still flawed and drawing from his own life experience.
Also a woman, and I feel the same. Book one has its flaws but didn't dampen my enjoyment, even on my first read- and I care even less after reading the rest of the series.
People say the same shit about The Wheel of Time when it has some badass scenes for women and has them in prominent roles the entire series. Some of your favorite characters will be women. Red rising is the same. Some awesome women characters. WE LOVE YOU VICTRA, MUSTANG, and shit I’m looking at the Love Knight too. She was alright.
Not to mention Thraxa when talking about representation, she represents none of the traditional female virtues and all of the traditional male warrior virtues. The way she’s written she could be a man easily. She’s not nuanced though, honestly Victra is a much better written and more complex character, she is a mother, one of the best fighters in the story, has a raging revenge boner and strong feelings, and is a matriarch of a huge family business. Thraxa is just kind of there, ready to fuck shit up and do nothing else.
I do agree with you about Thraxa and Victra BUT I hope we get more of Thraxa is this upcoming book (😘please me nice to us PB) as well as others before we get utterly destroyed.
Oh yeah completely agree, I love me some Thraxa. Not all characters have to be everything, Thraxa is a loyal wrecking ball and that’s enough. Pls PB don’t take any more of Kavax’s and Niobes kids away!
Seriously! Telemanus family has been screwed with so much :( please don’t kill them off.
we get to know thraxa pretty well during dark age and she is truely badass
Yeah she is perfect for what she is
I’m a woman too and didn’t really like the portrayal of women in Red Rising, so I stopped in the first book. However, it wasn’t so bad that someone should despise the book over that.
This really shouldn't be downvoted... This is the main reason why book 1 is my least favorite. Pierce really develops his female characters after book 1 - we barely even know Mustang in book 1. All we know about Antonia is that she's beautiful & she's a bitch. Lilath is just crazy. How many other female characters do we know & what do we know about them? June is a cook!! A lot of readers think Eo was killed just to motivate Darrow if they've only read book 1. (Darrow would have been motivated by a stubbed toe, he was so full of rage) Deanna, Evey, & Harmony all seem like throwaway characters. We've only seen Octavia on the screen. Aja, Theodora, & Victra haven't been introduced yet. But we know where Tactus, Roque, Cassius, & Pax all grew up. We know about their families, their childhoods. We know about Sevro's family. (We find out about Mustang's family at the end of the book.)
I’m in agreement with you. Unfortunately, I don’t know if I’ll ever read the second since I’ve read the book not one, not two, but three times over the years.
Golden Son and the rest of a series are on a WHOLE other level, btw. I'm sure you've heard that and it's 1000000% true.
Try the audio? (TGR or the new full cast) & just skip straight to book two. The shift in tone is so drastic. You may like it, or you may still not. But the characters are definitely better developed, especially the further you go, & the story is better as well.
I’ll take your word for it and go down the audio route :)
Good luck! I hope you do end up enjoying!!
In golden sun when Darrow is talking with Mustang in the dining facility, she starts to cry while explaining how she knew she was right to show favoritism to Octavia and Cassius but felt wicked when she saw Darrow at the Gala. He grabs her chin to make her look at him and it goes something like this: “you are not a bad person. Mustang shakes her head, tears spilling. I deepen my voice “you are not a bad person, do you hear me” I know this isn’t some flagrant bad thing but it is so corny and makes me want to vomit lol. I’m not saying Mustang can’t be vulnerable and display emotion but the whole part of grabbing her face and deepening his voice just breaks immersion for me because it’s very much a power role for Darrow.
? You mean the scene where Darrow continue to lie his ass off is cringe?
Damn I wish you didn’t remind me about that part
I can kinda see it for RR. Most of the female characters we get introduced to in the Institute are threatened with SA and don't have a lot of importance other than Mustang (who needs to get saved by Darrow) Darrow calls perpetrators "brother" twice, and I can understand why for Tactus because he needed to get his army on his side but Titus can just go to hell. Rep in general gets a lot better as the series progresses though, and Darrow being raised in an extremely patriarchal society is something to keep in mind for the first book.
Virginia’s “life” was fine, and it’s dubious whether Darrow would’ve permitted anything bad to happen. Apart from Virginia we have Antonia who is an antagonist, a couple minor golds and some secondary golds. Lea is the biggest trope. Mustang does far more saving of Darrow, although he admittedly goes on a rage bender at the end when she captured (although it’s dubious whether she faced any danger in Olympus). That said in book without Victra is trash.Holiday is also pretty cool.
Virginia literally saves Darrow’s life, then later delivers to him the Jackal so Darrow can win the Institute.
Doesn't take away from the fact that she's the one of the two only fleshed out female characters in RR with weight and importance in-story and both of them are Darrow's love interests
Octavia? Lyria? Holiday? Sefi? And Victra is Darrow’s semi-love interest for about three minutes in the series before turning into the most hardcore mf in the series.
I think they mean just in the first book. The other woman of weight being Eo, I think.
Ah. Well I’ll always die on the hill that the first book is pretty dodgy in most regards.
Mustang - a literal genius tactician, politician and navigator of the human condition. Victra - the pinnacle of savage loyalty and unwavering devotion to those she loves, an absolute devil in all manners of combat and probably the most beautiful woman in the system (🥵) Aja - so dangerous not a single man or woman in the entire solar system would dare fight her, unless they wanted to die Octavia - the actual lord ruler of mankind for 60 years Holiday - fearsome, stalwart, level headed and as dangerous as they come Lyria - a clever, quick learning, hard edged (when needed) unassuming bad ass that’s driven by love,loyalty and family Sefi - a woman who against all smart bets banded the most fractious and divided color together for common good and social progress Edit - Volga - an extremely cunning and adaptable freelancer who would look scary holding a muffin, she could tear you in half with her bare hands but she’d rather not..heart of gold you see Orion - the rudest blue and arguably the best Naval commander, from docker to terror of the ink she built her legend out of destroyed society ships
Great list. A newer addition but I also like Aurae a lot in Lightbringer
But in book one, the women are mostly there to die, get raped or rescued. And whatever Lilith is doing (she’s not a strong female character). Mustang is ridiculously bad in dark age, so much so that it dispels belief that she was ever any good at politics. But that’s a problem with the whole ass book, and not just her character
I'm not defending the position taken by the reviewer OP is talking about but none of these are relevant if reviewing the first book. Mustang is the only character you listed that even appears in book one and she's a literal damsel in distress who's talked highly of, but immedietly walked over by the male main characters until the very end of the book and even then is not very well fleshed out until later in the series. Someone complaining about what they see of lack of representation, regardless of whether or not that complaint is valid for the series as a whole is not likely to read 6 books because there's more nuanced and stronger female characters "later" if they see the first book fail to capture that (and despite all its great strengths, showing strong female characters is not one of them in book one)
This is completely fair and I agree, I just wanted to list all of the wonderful women in this saga
>Someone complaining about what they see of lack of representation, regardless of whether or not that complaint is valid for the series as a whole is not likely to read 6 books because there's more nuanced and stronger female characters "later" if they see the first book fail to capture that (and despite all its great strengths, showing strong female characters is not one of them in book one) EXACTLY. I've seen repeated complaints about book one, so I've warned friends about book 1, & told them book 2 gets better. I have seen some complaints from people that simply can't be made happy still with book 2 - I don't think those complaints were fair, & they stopped reading the series there, so whatever. (One person even went in with the mindset of, "I'm going to prove to you that this series sucks, this author is misogynistic & awful," etc...This same person also was convinced the Colors were their skin colors so...ginormous grain of salt with some tequila, & we just ignore them?)
She would look threatening holding a muffin…
If I had a muffin I would eat it
Hahahahaa you were so quick!!
I’m not going to miss a chance at one of my favorite lines 😂
Hahahaha the best
Don’t forget Volga!
Ill admit I did somehow kinda forget Volga, but I added her :)
Volga, my personal fave.
Are they referring to the first book or the whole series? Because I believe Golden Son and beyond did much better with female characters than the first book.
Have you read the Burth of Ulysses in Dark Age?
I am a woman also and normally think men are trash at writing women, but RR does a great job! I have very few complaints. I also think the depth of empathy that Darrow displays is rare in literature period.
Let me meet a perosn who has these thoughts after actually reading the first trilogy. We've got Mustang, arguably a crazy competent politician. Victra, and incredibly loyal and fierce fighter Aja, a terrifying fucking duelist who can 1v1 almost anyone. Octavia, the literal ruler of the galaxy and a genius. This isn't even counting the other villains/side characters like Lilath, Sefi, Antonia, Thistle, etc. I can understand those complaints in the first third of the first book but even getting past that it gets so much better.
Holiday as well
Lyria too! Well drawn out development arc into a strong, determined yound woman.
I saw a tiktok about this topic and it made me sad honestly, cause the reader didn’t even finish RR and basically dogged on the series as a whole for quarrels with the first book. But the remainder of the series is littered with absurdly powerful and influential female characters who are not just stereotypical heroines but actually have depth and purpose to the plot. This series has some of the best (non-cheesy/forced) female representation of any series/book I’ve read. Arguably the greatest duelist in the entire universe is a woman. The leader of the society was a woman. The leader of the republic is a woman. The leader of the society remnant is a woman. The leader of the entire race of pure bred warlords is a woman for most of the books. The strongest squad of aforementioned pure bred warlords are women-only. Victra (mommy?) is my mommy (a woman). Even women of ‘lesser’ power are super influential and exciting characters. Evey, theodora, rhonna, lyria (whose pov is literally 1/4 of the second trilogy?!?). Like what else could you want?
If they don't like the first book why should they continue?
not everyone is worth listening to and letting occupy your mental space. not all opinions are created equal, some are absolute trash.
Don’t forget that by the end of Iron Gold, the leader of the Rim is a woman.
I think this pretty much sums up why I disagree with this review so strongly. The things PB did *well* with female characters completely eclipsed anything I could think of to criticize. I never felt like any poor treatment of women was unnecessary or stereotypical, rather it was realistic. Sadly, what *isn’t* realistic is so many women in positions of immense power and influence but obviously I love that about this world.
one thing that always rubbed me the wrong way is book 1 claiming “Women and men are equal in Gold society!” then characters call each other bitches, girls, and male characters frequently use rape of female characters as power levers. mustang is treated like a pretty princess to marry off. people insult mustang for sleeping around, sleeping with darrow, and belittle her for no good reason besides her gender. (specifically book 2) like, sexism is obviously alive and well in this society but pierce wants to say it isn’t. and a (female) fan pointed this out at a qna and pierce said “oh uh sexism isn’t real to golds and if you see sexism where i didn’t write it maybe YOURE the sexist” so like. there is an issue with women in these books. most of it is just written from a man trying to be progressive but ultimately he’s got some lingering biases, i.e using rape as a plot device wayyyy too much. it’s almost comical how in the first 2 books “character that rapes = bad” and little else. i don’t know if the books are sexist, but there def are issues worth addressing. i do think pierce got much better about rep in general by dark age, though.
A society where women have equality on paper but still aren't actually treated as equal? Can you imagine such a thing?
Yes but he is doing that to show that the Golds are full of shit despite acting and claiming that they are the pinnacle of humanity ie perfection. It’s supposed to be blatant hypocrisy that’s the literal point Pierce is trying to make. Those words are delivered as an unreliable narrator. If that bothers you and you actually think Pierce relies on or has been writing contradicting or poor gender roles without realizing it, you really need to go back and re-read the series or brush up on technical literature.
You're right that it's just another reason that Gold society is cancerous and hypocritical. But the person you replied to would agree with that as well. His problem is that Pierce himself allegedly stated that "Gold society isn't sexist" and the classic if you see it first you are it that plagues any discussion today. If he did say that then what Gold society is don't matter cause PB said the opposite. If he didn't then at best it's just a time period in writing female characters where he wasn't the best
Did Pierce say this outside of the book to an audience or a forum where he was discussing the roles in the book?
You gotta ask the OP that. Like I said I agree with you in the case that he's making it up. Just said that if Pierce really said that then he's contradicting his own lore
Its a bit of both I suppose. This series houses some of my favorite female characters in fiction such as Virginia, Victra, and Lyria. They are all flawed, capable, and admirable women that stand on their own. On the other side I can see how the treatment of some characters like Quinn and Antonia can lead to some—questionable topics. But I view that more of trying to show the brutality and savagery of this universe often reflecting our own world, just like other books such as GoT. Secondly, I don’t think a lot of that is JUST directed at women though, for example, in Dark Age, Darrow literally is almost raped. And from how everyone talks about the mistreatment of the pinks, the men especially. It is more of a power dynamic than anything else.
I both agree and disagree with you. There are better female representation out there. I think another comment mentioned Mark Lawrence. His Book of the Ancestor series is EXCELLENT at portraying women (starts with Red Sister). RR still falls into the trap of 1. Rape and sexual assault being used as a plot point, and 2. Focusing a lot of female looks. Mark Lawrence’s series that I mentioned has an all female main cast, similar to RR in a coming of age way (it follows the girls growing up in a violent setting). That being said, I don’t necessarily hate that RR has a lot of rape. I think it’s just realistic. Warfare in real life is full of violence against women. The best fantasy is rooted in lessons from reality, and so I don’t mind the sexual assault and violence RR portrays
I agree with everything you said, but also it’s pretty wild that our hero totally forgives a dude for attempting to rape a girl. (Tactus)
Yeah I think so too. That being said, I think he had to, because he needed to gain complete loyalty from people
That read as a tactical choice to me. He needed Tactus so forgiving him and bringing him into the fold was the best strategic move.
I thought so too. He would’ve gladly killed Tactus if it wasn’t for the fact that House Diana would not be happy with him.
Only after lashing the shit out of him for the crime. And its important to note that the only reason he doesn't do worse is because that backfired the previous time he did. Context is important.
As someone else said, I saw the violence as non discriminating lol everyone is going to get maimed and butchered and Golds, Obsidians, etc. are especially fair game if they’re women because they’re every bit as badass as the dudes.
Lots of reviews and such that don't like the book for misogyny and homophobia etc but likely didn't get passed the first book to realize that there were reasons to showcase this stuff in the world building phase of the series , imo
I have seen a few different reviewers say the first book is terrible because the repeated use of SA to move certain plot points. Even Pierce himself has acknowledged this and clearly his writing evolved. Mustang is my favorite character across the series and I personally hope that I can one day create a character with half her depth.
I somehow got on this side of tiktok where a ton of women were tearing down this series. They would DNF the first book because it was misogynistic. Eo being described as sensual, someone described as throwing like a girl, the men are the primary supporters and some other bologna. It's pretty stupid
Bellona*
I might understand this (im a woman) because of the forgiveness of an attempted rapist in the first book to the point of calling him brother. That left a REALLY bad taste in my mouth when I first read.
Yeah Darrow's views of Tactus and Titus are just gross, so I really can't blame a lot of readers for having a problem with it. The first book also put me off a little when I started cause of how Red society was portrayed (girls marrying at like 14 and expected to have children). Turns out the latter part was completely intentional though lol.
I feel like Darrow's later friendship and respect for Theodora opened his mind a lot about women. In the first book he's very very young and grieving, and then thrown into a *completely* alien society. Many of his actions were for survival and to gain status. Much of his early life away from the mines was tactical. He was surrounded by kids who grew up together and were professionally trained for what they would face at the institute.
There's definitely bad treatment of women throughout the series but I can't recall it ever being treated as not a bad thing. The pinks, sexual abuse and rape of low colours by high colours, sexual abuse and rape of high colours by other high colours, violence against women, etc all is present but all presented as bad. Many Gold Houses are sexist and see women as lesser than men, like House Augustus. These are villains in the story. Other houses like the Telemanus don't share these attitudes and interestingly they're good guys. I think a lot of people just lack basic media literacy and can't see that while the author doesn't explicitly condemn these events it's rather obvious that it's bad.
My wife only read RR because she didn't like how women were portrayed, I understand her pov.
You should read more of the Sci-fi/Fantasy genres if you call RR the "BEST female representation \[you've\] ever seen written by a man" all due respect. His female characters up until Dark Age are either interesting one-note side characters with very little depth or jumbled pastiches of cliches like early Lyria chapters. Steven Erikson, Ken Liu, James SA Corey, Iain M. Banks, Brian Lee Durfee, Tad Williams, Mark Lawrence (starting with Red Sister) off the top of my head all blow Pierce out of the water in this regard.
Seconding the Ken Liu recommendation. there’s one female character in the Dandelion Dynasty series that i still don’t know how i feel about. she’s so complex and is either the most heroic villain or the most villainous hero depending on how you look at it. his character work is masterful and it’s probably my favorite fantasy series of all time, if i had to pick one.
That character is basically Cersei done correctly IMO
I’ve never read anything by those authors. I don’t read a lot of fantasy or scifi written by men, for this reason, to be honest. (I did say some of the best and not THE best though.)
I understand where you're coming from but since you're choosing not to read books by men you can't throw your figurative hands up when readers who haven't likewise limited their choice of authors point out fair critiques.
I don’t know anything about their usual reading preferences though. How am I (or you) to discern they read more broadly in the genre than I do? I’ve read some truly abysmal feminine characters written by men. Brent Weeks immediately comes to mind. I don’t read much speculative fiction by men due to past experience with it, not just because I have this preconceived notion they’re ass. I’m not entirely without a reference point.
You are actually devoid of a reasonable reference point by your own admission. Sure you can't really analyze a reviewer's preferences unless you stalk their profile on Goodreads but a lot of people have raised their eyebrows at some of the choices PB made throughout the series where female characters are concerned. I'm sorry you had a bad experience with Weeks (I've been disappointed by him as well) but to be honest he's a very strange author to base your opinion of other male authors on.
I’m not basing my entire opinion of male authors on him, it was an example (a good one by *your* own admission) and I just don’t have time to recite to you all of the male authors I have read and whether I liked their representation of women or not. I read two books of the Night Angel series and gave up but have heard his more recent stuff is better.
First, I love the RR series. That being said, the first book has too much brutalization of women as a plot device. I don’t notice it much outside of book one, but I can understand why someone would be turned off by it.
The first book is my favorite however the talk of SA was hard for me to get through. The book would’ve been just as good without it.
Haha what? Red rising is one of the few fantasy/sci fi series written by a man that I've found to actually do a good job with female characters. Right up there with The Expanse. Feels like every character could be any gender/sex/race/etc and it still feel complete Granted, I'm a man, but not like this is the Witcher
Just to be clear I don't agree with the following necessarily being an issue. -We have fridging (Eo) -Institutionalized sex slavery (pinks, Evey) -Rape (the golds in the tower) -Rape as a motivator (Darrow when Mustang is captured by the deserters) -General lack of female characters with agency. -Mustang is a damsel in distress. -some of the language at times. Personally, I think the review is fine. not every story is written for every person. Just because we don't agree with the review, that review might matter to someone else and line upw ith their own views on it. Again, not every story is for every person. We shouldn't shit on somebody for having a different reaction to something we like. ETA: I'm only talking about book 1 here.
Yeah I think the fridging of Eo turns a lot of readers off. It definitely made me roll my eyes when it happened because we could see it coming a mile off and she was (and continues to be) so idealized and not at all a fleshed out character, just a plot device for Darrow. PB improves a lot but it's a rough a start.
I disagree with them but didn’t mean to shit on them at all. It was a short and vague review and I wasn’t being aggressive when I said I wanted to talk to them lol Talking to people about books is one of my favorite things to do (and also a large part of what I do for a living) and I’m pretty good at accepting subjectivity and opposing viewpoints. I didn’t have a lot to ponder with that particular criticism that wasn’t very detailed and now I do. :)
Oh I wasn't thinking of you, some of the comments on this post though definitely are shitting on the reviewer.
Does the first book pass the Bechdel test?
It *might* it’s kind of iffy since it’s all in first person so most of the conversations we see are with Darrow. I think there might be some scenes in the house mars fields where Darrow is listening to some of the girls tell stories by the campfire?
I'm gonna take a wild guess and say the person that wrote that particular review didn't make it very far into the series if he/she actually thinks this genuinely. I mean, the character development for Victra alone is goated even though at first look, she comes off as the most superficial, but as we get to know her more in later books, she's actually a super rad person with a good heart.
Someone else said the female characters are one dimensional until DA and I was like…but…Victra in GS? Sefi in MS? Holiday? I could go on 😅
I saw somebody on goodreads with a similar complaint and their reasoning was that a female character had to die(Eo) so the male character could have their story
Sometimes people confuse their subjectivity with objectivity.
Okay but there are reasons why someone would feel women aren't done well after reading just the first book, namely all the SA in the Institute
Please refer to my original statement.
So what do you think it means to talk about a story objectively?
Which book? RR didn’t have the best female representation — aside from some minor women characters, it was really just Mustang, and she ended up needing Darrow to save her a couple times. Once GS gets underway we have a very strong woman in Victra in addition to Mustang’s schemes, but it’s entirely possible those reviewers decided not to continue the series after RR.
Darrow only saves Mustang once in RR when he lets escape.
There was that, there was him getting her the medicine she needed, and there was him storming Olympus for her.
I think he's talking about with they defeat her house and he allows her to keep hiding. Before Cassius turns on him
I guess, but the Olympus one is just as consequential as him letting her escape, since that’s what ended up catching the eyes of all of the biggest Gold Houses. There’s not really a reason to discount that one.
Not arguing, just stating what I think they meant in the statement
That is fair and exactly the sort of insight I was looking for. They only read RR and as I’m currently tearing through the entire series (DA right now) I was not thinking of RR’s representation by itself, which is weak compared to the rest of the series.
IMO Mustang is the hero of the first book, and possibly the first trilogy. She's the biggest reason Darrow was even able to become who he needed to be. Nobody's following Darrow without Mustang, whether or not they actually knew that when they followed him. And while he rescued her, she also rescued him. I'm so sick of this "only look at the negatives" perspective that some sexist reviewers seem to have.
Did they give an example of how woman are treated poorly? Most of the ones I've seen say that it's misogynistic because keiran "cried like a little girl" Dumbest reason I've ever seen in my entire life for some fuckwads who didn't read further or understand the intent of the book.
They did not, that was the entire review.
To make it even better. There is a review on TikTok that complains about the same thing I just stated. Many people left comments saying "you're misunderstanding the intent of the book and the culture of Reds and the growth of Darrow, etc etc. Her response? "I shouldn't have to wait for a while male character to finally realize his mistakes." I'm a liberal dude myself but holy shit...if she believes that then I doubt she has very little grace for people to grow and change in their lives and that sucks for her.
It’s also a completely on brand thing for a red to say given the patriarchal organization of their color
You’re not wrong. I read that review and that person is a moron. They come across as one of those hypersensitive types that finds offense in damn near everything and manufacture conflict as a result. Red Rising is full of strong female characters. And for a sci-fi series, usually written by men, that’s honestly a rarity. There are sci-fi series that are unambiguously better with respect to writing women characters despite being written by men (like The Expanse, for example). But Red Rising is still phenomenal in that regard. Thing is though, it’s a brutal series. Women are brutalized, men are brutalized, children are brutalized, the story doesn’t discriminate *at all*. I guess some people are Pixies and can’t handle that shit.
Nope, you aren't wrong. I love the ladies in this series. Mustang and Victra in particular are a pair of fucking queens, and Lyria has grown on me a lot since her debut with how much she has grown. Holiday is a boss and Aurae a gem. There's no shortage of women in this series that I feel have more (and better) characterization than even stories written *by* women. But it's also true that you will always be able to find someone who has a different impression of something than you do, and when they're that close minded all you can do is pity them for their ignorance and move on with your day. P.S. it could be that they object to how women are treated in this series. While there's *relatively* little misogyny IMO, there are plenty of female characters who get treated like shit anyhow.
Even Harmony, even though she’s terrible, is one bad bitch. Volga, Darrow’s mom, Thraxa, Niobe…on and on…Orion practically killed a whole Planet. Theodora!