Show notes
Darrow is a sixteen-year-old Helldiver mining helium-3 beneath the surface of Mars for a civilization he doesn’t know exists above him. Then, his wife, Eo, forces his hand. Full spoilers throughout.
Alex and Lindsey get into the color caste system as both world building and argument, and whether the Golds are genetically superior or whether the whole hierarchy is a myth propped up by engineering. They work through what Darrow’s real flaw is, given that everyone calls him naive and he keeps being proven right, and land on the idea that his arc is about recognizing the system rather than his competitors as the enemy. Plus the Institute as a compressed run through human history, and Sevro as the argument that loyalty beats power.
One of them disagrees with the book’s premise more than the other. Both are uneasy about a story that asks a sixteen-year-old to give his life to a cause, and about the adults arranging it.
Also: Mustang puncturing Darrow’s messiah moment, a theory about Eo that gets increasingly unhinged, the Judeo-Christian naming that gives away a Trojan horse, comparisons to Dr. Tom Holland’s Dominion, and how this reads against Sunrise on the Reaping.
Cry count and ratings at the end.