Golden Son

“This is not just my victory. Each man and woman shares in it in their own way. That is the scheme of the Society. To prosper, your superior must prosper.”

The hierarchy of the Society dictates that lowColors find glory in supporting the highColor, Gold. By tying the lowColors’s worth to that of the Golds, the ruling class hopes to prevent rebellion and to reify their own power.

“I always knew his friendship was conditional. Yet still the wound gnaws deep, carving in me a loneliness I can’t express. A loneliness that I’ve always felt among these Golds, but tricked myself into forgetting.”

Since he was born a Red, Darrow feels isolated from the Golds surrounding him, yet he strives to forget the separation. His desire to ignore his deep loneliness stems from the human need for socialization.

“Eo would say this is the hell they’ve built their heaven upon. And she’d be right. Gazing up, I see more than half a kilometer of tenement buildings before the polluted haze makes a ceiling for the human jungle.”

The lowColors live in filth underneath the Golds on Luna—a physical manifestation of the Golds’s oppression of the lowColors. Darrow’s narration also includes an allusion to Abrahamic religion through his reference to heaven and hell. As a Red, Darrow was raised with religion in contrast to Golds, who are not taught to believe in anything that would challenge their own power.

“Now, seeing Theodora like that…it reminds me how fragile and complicated we really are. I don’t know why she cried. Some past trauma? Some sense of what’s to come? Not knowing reminds me of the depth to the people around me.”

Although he attempts to isolate himself, Darrow feels empathy for those around him, which becomes his defining characteristic. Throughout the course of the novel, the author posits that empathy and connection are the best ways to overcome oppression.

“I’m thinking too much. That makes a bad soldier. And that is what I am. A soldier for Ares.”

Darrow’s narration suggests that to be effective, soldiers must not think for themselves. He tries to suppress his own thoughts and to carry out the plan, but he struggles because he is an empathetic free-thinker.

“He knows he stands playing with matches on a powder keg. Yet his eyes glitter lustfully, hungering for blood and the promise of power as I hunger for air.”

The author defines Darrow and Augustus against each other—characters born to opposite circumstances, with competing motives. Darrow recognizes that Augustus is blinded by power. His only goals are to maintain and to develop that power, which allows Darrow to manipulate him—a risk he’s willing to take to coerce Augustus into publicly supporting him.

“Power they’re so drunk on, they can’t even remember how many lies they stand upon.”

Aja argues that the Sovereign and those close to her do not lie. Darrow recognizes the remark as hypocritical, knowing that the Golds lie and manipulate the lowColors to maintain their place as the ruling class of A Society Built on Oppression and Exploitation.

“So much of a ruler’s reign is a figment of the people’s imagination. My power isn’t ships. Isn’t Praetorians. My power is their fear. But they must have fresh reminders.”

Octavia admits that she wants to kill Augustus to refresh the fear among the Golds and utilize it to reify her own position. Her admission develops the theme of A Society Built on Oppression and Exploitation by demonstrating that even those at the top of the social hierarchy can be manipulated in the Society, and supporting the idea that the Society itself is the true antagonist of the series rather than the individual Golds.

“But we have the Vale to look forward to; what have the Golds? When they perish, their flesh withers and their name and deeds linger till time sweeps them away.”

In Gold culture, unlike in lowColor culture, there is no religion. This concept serves multiple purposes. First, it places the Golds at a god-like level within the Society—they have no God because they view themselves as gods. Secondly, it addresses the cultural and psychological importance of religion as both a source of hope and survival and a tool of control. The belief in a pleasant afterlife provides the lowColors with hope and a sense of legacy, but it is also weaponized against them to keep them from rising up and attempting to overthrow their oppressors.

“And though they die, I feel the flickering of rebellion as I give them permission to do what they’ve wanted to do their entire lives. It’s there, even if you never see it till the end—that spark of individuality, of freedom.”

The lowColors experience a moment of freedom when they are given the choice to fight against the Sovereign’s Golds. They have been enslaved their entire lives and never given a choice, and by choosing to fight, they get the opportunity to think for themselves and express their individuality. These lines suggest that it is human nature to desire freedom and individuality.

“The Golds have everything, yet they demand sacrifices even from their own. This place is sick. The empire is broken. It eats its kings, its queens, as hungrily as it does the paupers who mill its earth.”

The more time Darrow spends with the Golds, the stronger his belief that they are not the true enemy becomes. The Society is the real antagonist, and the Golds, while privileged beyond the other colors, are simply pawns of an oppressive system of power. The Colors are kept fighting amongst each other, so they will not band together.

“He’s right, there is no warmth in death. I cried like a child when I thought I was dying after Cassius stabbed me.”

Darrow refuses to glorify death or war. He dislikes fighting and killing and does so only when it is necessary to the mission or to protect his cover. His fear of death humanizes him as a character, making him relatable.

“My father thought there to be two evils in the world. Technology and culture.”

Lorn’s thoughts on technology and culture reflect common satirical tropes found in dystopian literature. The debasing of technology points to the trope of unchecked technological advancement creating oppressive conditions via a resource disparity in which the wealthy have access to advancements while those lower in the social order do not, reinforcing a sense of entitlement among the ruling class. In Golden Son, this sense of entitlement is reflected in the Golds’s outrage at Ragnar’s use of a razor—a technology reserved for only the Golds.

“There is no peace for great men. I would have had you be a decent one. I would have given you the quiet strength to grow old with the woman you love.”

Lorn suggests that a quiet life filled with love is better than a life lived for glory. He has experienced both lifestyles, spending much of his life fighting then retiring to live quietly with his remaining family members. His remark supports his characterization as wise.

“Now, Pax wasn’t as bright as Daxo is, but wisdom is found in the heart, not the head. Pax taught me that.”

Darrow’s brief remark efficiently characterizes Daxo as sharp-witted and Pax as caring and wise. It also acts as an adage that reflects upon the difference between wisdom and intelligence.

“We have languished in darkness. But there will come a day when we walk in the light. It will not come from their mercy. It will not come by fate. It will come when brave hearts rise and choose to break the chains, to live for more.”

By confessing that he is a Red to Ragnar, Darrow demonstrates that the only way to overcome A Society Built on Oppression and Exploitation is by working together. The Golds will never willingly give the other Colors freedom; they must take it. He treats Ragnar with trust and vulnerability and in return, Ragnar offers his loyalty.

“A tyrant for a tyrant. How do they find inspiration from this? Men always have.”

The author draws attention to the concept that craving power is part of human nature. Rather than supporting this tendency, the plot of Golden Son critiques it, asserting that humans can and should rise above such base desires.

“This is about freedom. Yet it seems like everyone just wants to follow.”

Here, Darrow recognizes a paradox in human nature—the rebellion he is leading is a fight for individual freedom, but everyone is following him. To him, it appears contradictory, but for his followers—particularly those among the lowColors—the choice to follow him is an act of individual will.

“War is chaos. It always has been. But technology makes it worse. It changes the fear.”

In Golden Son, technology enhances the setting and contributes to the world-building of the Society, allowing readers to imagine the advanced, fictional weaponry used in the battle. Here, Darrow’s sentiment also reflects Lorn’s earlier remark scorning technology and criticizing its use in war, resulting in more death and destruction.

“And what is the bloodydamn point of surviving in this cold world if I run from the only warmth it has to offer?”

Darrow’s feelings for Mustang provide a point of respite both narratively—in a plot filled with war, conflict, destruction and anguish—and personally, in Darrow’s emotional landscape. Throughout much of the story, Darrow avoids intimate moments with Mustang. However, after he nearly dies during the fight for Mars, his perspective changes. He loves Mustang and no longer sees a point in avoiding the comforts of love and intimacy.

“That’s what Society does—spread the blame so there is no villain, so it’s futile to even begin to find a villain, to find justice. It’s just machinery. Processes. And it rumbles on, inexorable till a whole generation rises that will throw themselves on the gears.”

Fitchner’s experience demonstrates that the true antagonist of Golden Son is the Society. The hierarchical organization of the Society is oppressive and exploitative, and the individuals living within the Society are simply reacting to their conditioning—a perspective that can also be interpreted as a satirical criticism of modern Western society.

“I’ve come to understand why all this spectacle exists. Why all these speeches and monuments. Tradition is the crown of the tyrant.”

Darrow’s observations suggest that those in power use traditions—norms, ceremonies, etc.—to reinforce the social order and control the lowColors. By holding ceremonies such as the Triumph held in Darrow’s honor, the Golds glorify themselves, and reify their position of power.

“Gold did not rise out of chance. We rose out of necessity. Out of chaos, born from a species that devoured its planet instead of investing in the future. Pleasure over all, damn the consequences.”

Augustus argues for the legitimacy of the current social order by criticizing the previous society—pointing to current, real-world similarities and concerns such as global warming, overconsumption, late-stage capitalism, etc. It also demonstrates the idea that societies are cyclical—they rise, succumb to corruption, fall, and are rebuilt.