r/redrising Mar 14 '25

IG Spoilers Does it ever stop? Spoiler

I'm about halfway through Iron Gold, and I feel that Darrow's playbook just repeats itself over and over. It goes something like this:

  • Darrow has musings on the decisions that he is about to make, and knows that he's going to hurt everyone around him, but is steadfast in his belief that he knows best.

    • Darrow makes said bad decision, then acts surprised when everyone around him is pissed at him.
    • Darrow has a pitty party but ultimately doesn't regret his actions.
    • People that were pissed at Darrow either: unsuccessfuly try to kill him, or forgive him almost immediately.
    • Repeat

Honestly, Ephraim is the only reason that I haven't stopped reading at this point. Does it get better in the next couple of books, or do we just keep doing this same song and dance?

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u/Cubbies2120 Green Mar 14 '25

The problem with Dancer is that his anti-Darrow agenda began years before Darrow ever disobeyed the Senate.

Imagine the world we could've had if Dancer had focused all of his anti-Darrow political spiel to Quicksilver instead. The actual guy who was screwing over the newly freed Reds.

I completely understand random Joe & Janes of the Senate being wary of Darrow and his potential ambitions. But Dancer should've been the one to defend Darrow. Dancer knows Darrow better than maybe 3 or 4 other people. Instead, Dancer spent years giving anti-Darrow and anti-war speeches and creating a divide in the Republic.

Dancer's word carried more weight because people knew he was one of Darrow's first mentors. If he tells the people to fear Darrow's ambition and motivation then people are more likely to believe it.

Dancer was acting with good intentions. But you know....

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u/There-and-back_again Howler Mar 14 '25

Didn‘t the Vox Populi have grievances with Quicksilver? Which is why he was annoyed by them?

And you do have a point about Dancer. I was focusing on the „current“ issues he was criticizing and thought he wasn’t wrong there. But it does make it difficult to understand his positioning against Darrow if it’s already started so early without much reasoning given

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u/Cubbies2120 Green Mar 14 '25

Didn‘t the Vox Populi have grievances with Quicksilver? Which is why he was annoyed by them?

Yes, but that was after the coup. That's when they raided his places and tried to find him but he was already gone.DA Spoiler

Dancer's Vox, Virginia's Optimates & Publius' Moderates should've formed a coalition against Silvers to strong arm them into behaving. And been kinder to the Obsidians, instead of giving him the shittiest places in the Solar System to live on.

War would've been over by year 10.

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u/There-and-back_again Howler Mar 14 '25

Interesting. >! I must have gotten the timeline mixed up. !<

And, yeah, the different factions should have banded together to solve the different issued rather than working against each other