#to protect her children or her. he woukd never do anything

[alicentsaegon]

Alicent was ready to gouge out Lucerys' eye after the aftermath of episode 8 eye why the fuck would she be praying for him post his death? Where's my "so what it's bastard blood shed during war" book jaded Alicent whereeee.

[darrowsrising]

My favorite couples are Servo and Victra. These two psychopaths go well together. With Darrow from the picture, I think Virginia and Cassius would have fit well together. They would have been the cliché of lovers in feuding houses. 🤓

I also love Sevro and Victra, they work well together. I find their passionate and ride or die love very interesting, because as individuals they subvert a lot of stupid sexist tropes, but together they subvert even more. I love their family relationship a lot too. I am quite happy that Sevro and Victra found together all they lack as children and I loterally cried when Victra called his name when Ulysses was born.

But I disagree with Cassius and Virginia, because the cliché of lovers from feuding houses was explicitly subverted in Red Rising - firstly, Virginia used Cassius to keep an eye on her family's enemies and even use a marriage to stop the fued if necessary, and secondly we have the reverse Romeo and Juliet in the form of Dido and Romulus who went against the vity that hated their relationship, but ended uo resenting each other.

If anything, Daxo and Virginia would have made a good couple if Darrow wasn't in the picture. Because Daxo matched Virginia's ambitions for change with his ambitions for power and they also had quite a lot in common, beside their love for politics. Cassius, even without Darrow in the picture, always wanted to preserve and protect the status quo and considered it an honor and that would have clashed with her agenda. House Telemanus are quite the Reformers, while House Bellona is not only not one of Reformers, they are direct enemies.

At most, Virginia would have moved on with her plan of settling the feud with a marriage, but not out of love, because she never loved Cassius and I doubt she would have, even without Darrow in the picture. Darrow did not steal the attention away from Cassius for Virginia. Even if he did not exist, I doubt Virginia would have come fall for him at the Institute or something. Because what made her fall for Darrow was that he was different - he conquered her house, he outsmarted her, yet he let her go, because he refused to sacrifice her to win, even though all he wanted to do was win. And at that time, Cassius wasn't on his best train of thoughts. There is also the issue of - does Julian die or not? Because if he doesn't, there is the little problem of having a broken Cassius to make Virginia his entire world or something along those lines. Because a Cassius that suffers little to no changes at the Institute is a Cassius that will keep being like he is in RR.

Also, I know Cassius is more than a pretty face and talentated duelist, he is also clever and sly, there is absolutely no contesting that. He was the only one who always knew how to find Darrow, because he knew how he shifted paradigms. And look at the entire IG plot for Lysander - Cassius knows things! But it takes more than smarts for Virginia, otherwise she would have been with Roque.

Besides, Virginia is her father's daughter...if Octavia would have killed her family at that gala as she planned - she wanted Cassius to lick Virginia's wounds and marry her and thus please both Bellona and Augustus with the ArchGovernorship of Mars without much fuss - but Virginia would have killed the Bellona heir and take Mars for herself in response to her dear mentor and Sovereign. She had alliances with the Moon Lords and her twin beside her (if he survived, although I am quite certain that he would have), so in the case where there is no Darrow and Nero was killed, she wouldn't have just let it slip. And sticking it to House Bellona who lied to her and facilitated her family's death hoping that she would marry Cassius and all will be a-okay, would have been first on the list. Because we all know it now, Nero was ambushed in the Citadel, because he wanted to make Anastasia Sovereign. Virginia wouldn't have just perpetuated the feud, she would have tried to dethrone a tyrrant. And we all know that even by Gold standards, Octavia was a tyrrant. So, getting renvenge and going against Octavia woukd have been valid on her part, not just petty revenge

And no offence to Cassius either, but he does deserve someone who actually loves him. He is more than a mean to an end, because even though Virginia felt guilty about using him like that, I trust she would put his head in a box herself if push came to shove. I mean - killing him, getting him tortured was just that - means to an end. She didn't intentionally want to hurt him, but if necessary, she would have done it.

Sorry for the long post, I was just trying to explain that Darrow isn't just some sort of obstacle between Cassius and Virginia. His lack of existance wouldn't directly result in their romance, because of the aforementioned factors.

That being said, if you want to ship them, be my guest! I do respect other people's opinion or ships (canon or not) as long as we can keep the respect thing on all sides.

Howl on!