Hot Take Monday...

Red Rising series, while a more than ingenious story with interesting characters, themes, and storylines...

It teaches us some interesting, true ideas with awful lessons.

The characters start the series committing violence, they end the series committing violence.

All three books in the new trilogy are filled with the characters wallowing in their and others suffering they caused, while immediately staying attached to the notion of killing for peace. The books are an endless cycle, and the characters learn close to nothing. It reminds me of how ex-military talk to people about how traumatic it was take another's life but forget that's what they signed up for.

To a war-believer, inaction looks like cowardice. For a peacekeeper, war looks idealistic.

Red Rising barely scratches the surface of this idea practically in the characters' actions, only in dialogue does it.

They preach the notion that one can't attain world peace without needing more violence and support of it. The philosophy is demeaning to those who choose to not fight, and those who do either call them a coward or they are weak or both. It's hypocritical, plain and simple.

Lorn au Arcos was robbed of his life of peace in Golden Son because of Darrow's own needs. Quicksilver was hunted down because of his association with past doings.

If anything, he and Daxo are some of the folks I associate with the most.

War is a product of a false sense of evolution. There are no sides in war, for there is no idea except kill the enemy who started it.

Terrorist organizations and fascist governments arise because of the past examples set in order for otherwise "good" or "effective" change; therefore forcing the opposing side to adopt it, not counting the ones who wish to walk away.

So as an alternative? What should Darrow and his gang of murderers do instead?

What do you think? What are some examples in literature or real-life history that has had an otherwise "massively influential" effect on a greater conflict between sides?