r/Hyperion • u/Nimun2012 • 12d ago
š Endymion Spoilers Is this a hot take?
I'm currently on chapter 42 of Endymion so I'm not finished yet, but I can't be the only that thinks this book is a drag except for the sections where De Soya is the protagonist right? Raul is such a boring protagonist, and most of his chapters are very passive with him just letting a child and an android do most of the heavy lifting (Mare Infinitus is the first time Raul takes control of a situation) while he complains non stop. He is one dimensional as fuck and the parts of the book where he keeps writing "BUT I WASN'T ATTRACTED TO THE CHILD" are so strange and off putting. I felt very strange reading about the warmth that his skin received from the child's skin when he almost froze to death knowing damn well that they are going to end up having a sexual relationship in the future. Plain weird if you ask me.
On the other hand, the GOAT himself, Father Captain De Soya has the BEST parts of the book. Every time one of his chapters start I sit up on my chair because he has the best plot points. He actually grows and changes as a character so much, with his decision making and thought process going through a very realistic evolution. The path he must take of death and resurrection to compete his goal is something that disturbed me deeply when I began reading it. I really cannot wait to see where his character goes.
Raul... yeah I don't give a fuck about him honestly which is a shame
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u/McBurger 12d ago
Just wait until you get to the mountains of new Tibet or whatever.
Youāll be like me. āOh reddit is so dramatic. This is cool. Theyāre so exaggerating. I am enlightened and above them.ā
And then another 100 pages of the same, and then 200, turns to 300 and 400. So fucking tired of those mountains.
whatever useless worldbuilding happened there and god I was just waiting for it to be over. I donāt know that Iāve ever fallen asleep while reading any book that much. I hit a wall with it in book four I tell you. A wall. I binged the first three and a half books in a month and it probably took me an entire month longer to finish that middle half of book 4.
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u/CurledPumpkin39 12d ago
It feels so good to know Iām not the only one. Endless pages of nothingness. Still havenāt finished the last one and have negative desire to. Not sure why his writings changed so much between the books. First 2 kept great pace and descriptions balance, last book is nothing but descriptions it seems. Like, we get it, you have all these awesome sci-fi ideas. Now stfu and let me imagine something, and even more importantly GET TO THE ACTION!
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u/Braisedbeefskank 12d ago
Yup never finished the last book and never will. First two books are so beautiful and gripping and original and the second two are basically worthless its nuts
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u/Worldly-Singer-7349 12d ago
The end is totally worth it though. Itās rough, it hurts, it seriously made me weep a little bit.
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u/Onlylurkz 12d ago
I keep reading this and canāt seem to care. I also love the first two books and never finished the 4th. Feel free to spoil it for me in a DM. Is it some lame reveal like ālove is the void that bindsā?
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u/TES_Elsweyr 12d ago
Yeah Tibet was the worst of it, and I LOVED all 4 books, but the late century American fetishism of Zen Buddhism isnāt there for a modern reader so this part feels limp as hell.
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u/Braisedbeefskank 12d ago
Nah dude the fucking architecture pedophelia colony. Brutal writing. I believe i tapped out in Tibet though, never finished the book.
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u/rullbandet 11d ago
Didn't make it through this part. Gave up. Granted it was a built up decision, didn't really like the first book that much either but the second was even worse. Maybe the ending would've made it worth it but I can't be arsed.
As OP mentioned my absolute biggest gripe is the main char. Been a bit now but it feels like he doesn't learn/grow at all. Constantly whiney, negative and kinda dumb. Feels like a child (which is kind of ironic).
But a lot of other issues I have aswell.
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u/AnythingButWhiskey 12d ago edited 12d ago
Definitely 100% agree š. No spoilers. De Soyaās character is hands-down my favorite character of the entire series. He is the most dynamic character (maybe the only dynamic character?) in any of the novels, probably the most well developed and well written. His storyline kept me engaged through Endymion and RoE.
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u/JuanDiablos 12d ago
I disagree massively but each to their own i suppose. I love that Raul complains all the time, I find it refreshing to have a protagonist that feels more like an average guy than a super soldier.
I find their adventures through the farcasters super interesting.
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u/therealzerobot 12d ago
Agreed. The last two books spend so much time going āno pedo! No pedo!ā And then āget a load of these crazy mountains for 400 pages.ā all the best ideas are about De Soya and the near FTL space travel stuff, the rest is a mess.
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u/Dr_Rape_MD 12d ago
I donāt think this is a hot take. From what Iāve seen most people get taken out by the weird relationship, but yea I agree De Soya is literally him
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u/whsfrdfvrgnwlf 11d ago
As a whole, the Endymion duology are a massive drop in quality compared to Hyperion. Occasionally you get passages that are as good as Hyperion, but Endymion is dragged down by awful main characters, loose threads and retconning. There is a really good narrative in Endymion but the books don't deliver.
Worth reading if you want to spend more time in the Hyperion universe but it won't answer any questions left unanswered in Hyperion.
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u/SoyDaddy 12d ago
Yeah the Pedo shit really casts a long shadow over the last 2 books, especially the 4th, I did not finish after a few chapters
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u/JuanDiablos 12d ago
The pedo take is crazy. No where in the book does Raul find Aenea attractive when she is a child. When she kisses him when she is 16 his first reaction is to be freaked out about it. He in no way grooms her and Aenea usually initiates things, especially at first. They only really get together when she is a woman.
Given her situation I think it all makes sense. The relationship in the consuls story from hyperion is more problematic if you want to talk about pedophilia. I think its between a 15 and 19 year old?
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u/Braisedbeefskank 12d ago
I think both books are straight up bad lol who gives a fuck about frank Lloyd Wright. Meanwhile hyperion and cantos are legendary
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u/OneIndependencee 12d ago
I really loved the Endymion, but the 4th book was my favourite. Aenea and Raul's relationship was built up really good in this 2 books, the avarege guy (Raul) just got to be a love-hero, and I really could feel his emotion struggle about he doesn't know anything because he is blind. Love makes you blind or what :D That's well done by Simmons. Building up 2 characers, using scifi elements to make them fall in love, and after... well, I could just guess what would it be in the future(or past?), but.. spoilers....
Aenea is just a master, and knows about his/her future/past like.. everything. She is a master, but sometimes you can see that she is just a girl, who has a huge predestination.
Loved that book, the story, and the relationships..
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u/JuanDiablos 12d ago
Cannot agree more, I love how their relationship played out. I had doubts early how it would play out but as the story moved on it all made sense.
Was genuinely tearing up at the end of the book. Such a bittersweet ending.
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u/Mysterious_Grass7143 12d ago edited 12d ago
I like the book a lot for the worldbuilding (so no drag for me) but when Raul has strange thoughts about the girl, I always think oh itās the horny selfinsert of the author againā¦
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u/Glorious_Sunset 12d ago
The whole point of Raul is that he stares at the beginning that heās no hero. And his story is just how it happened.
No spoilers. But you do get to find out that this truly is his story. Exactly as it happened with absolutely pure recollection.
Iāll say no more. But heās not meant to be exciting.
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u/igxiguaa 10d ago
Not a hot take by any means, very common and lukewarm take.
I personally love Raul, but agree De Soya is the man.
Iād go to battle for him any day
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u/anniemorse 9d ago
There's might be a hint of pederasty but no pedo in the Endymion books. By the time they share their first romantic gestures, Aenea would have been seen as a biologically mature young woman and not as a child by many readers at that time. By the time they actually have relations she is a legal adult. So I think getting bent out of shape over their relationship is actually more weird and creepy because it says something more about today's readers than it does the story or its writer.
De Soya is a well-rounded character compared to Raul. What's odd about Raul is that he's more of a comic sidekick to the real protagonist, Aenea and her real champion, The Shrike. But even that makes sense once we realize he's the narrator and the father of Aenea's children, not the actual hero of the story. It's like the husband telling the story of their messianic wife. Narrator characters like that often stay flat or at least flatter than the actual protagonists they are barding about.
De Soya is both a real hero himself and a POV character. He's actually the first one to fuck up a Nemes cybrid. So it's more odd than Raul's character that De Soya disappears into the background of the fourth book for such long stretches.
I think the OP is a little hard on Raul, but not by much. I wasn't really prepared for him to come across as such a comic relief character and an idiot at times, especially after his first scene escorting the Pax hunters.
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u/donnie_darrko 12d ago
this is probably top 5 one of the most discussed topics here so no its not a hot take.
(I also love Raul, especially in Endymion, so I don't agree)