Iron Gold
- After 10 years of war, Darrow and his friends just can't catch a break.
- We may despise the fact that House Raa wants to bring back the oppressive hierarchy they deem as necessary. But losing Romulus au Raa to his own Honor Before Reason is truly heartbreaking. The Raa's LOVE each other so much and it hurts the soul to know that they will likely have to die in order for the hierarchy to never return.
Dark Age
- Thanks to Pax and Ephriam, we learn what drove Trigg to join the Sons of Ares: During the events of the original Red Rising novel, Octavia attempted a purge of reformers in the Society government. Trigg's unit was given orders to visit the Hysperia Gardens, an illegal torture house. Their unit's usual combat stimulants had been replaced with Zoladone -the empathy suppressing drug that Ephriam was addicted to in Iron Gold- and on Aja's orders, butchered seventy-five sex-slaves of all ages whose only crime was possessing compromising information on loyal members of Octavia's regime. Afterwards, the victims, including the children, were melted with hydraxic acide. When he came off the Zoladone high, Trigg was so horrified by what he'd done that he was nearly Driven to Suicide, only stopped when Holiday encouraged him to join the Sons of Ares to atone for what he'd done.
- Dancer's backstory of how he joined the Sons of Ares: Because the Golds engineered Red culture to be aggressively heteronormative, Dancer was castrated with fire for his attraction to men and left to bleed to death in a tunnel when Fitchner first found him. Fitchner helped Dancer learn to accept himself and helped fix him physically.
- The Death of Ulysses.
Light Bringer
- The Dramatic Irony of Darrow and Sevro talking about Sevro going back to Mars and how he has a new baby to take care of, while the reader knows that the baby has already been dead for months.
- How he finds out is a tearjerker in and of itself. When they're getting ready to fly back to Luna together, Lyria attempts to offer her condolences, thinking that Sevro had already been told. When Sevro expresses surprise at the fact that the baby is a boy, Lyria realizes that Sevro was Locked Out of the Loop and is now in the unlucky position of having to explain to Sevro what happened to his child.
