100 pages • 3 hours read
Rick RiordanThe Red Pyramid
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2010A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 34-36Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 34 Summary: “Doughboy Gives Us a Ride”
Carter uses Doughboy to enchant his coat so it can drive a truck, and the group heads toward Phoenix. On the way, Zia laments about their situation. As punishment for her betrayal, the House of Life will banish or exile her, and the look on her face suggests that she “couldn’t figure out why she was rebelling” (427) in the first place. When she returned from the British Museum, Iskandar told her she was in danger, but she can’t remember what happened after that.
Zia knows Set’s secret name. Carter doesn’t understand how that’s possible, and Zia says she has “this voice telling me the name” (429). Carter concludes that Zia is hosting Nephthys. Zia says it’s impossible because the other magicians would have noticed the difference in her magic, but before they can argue more, the truck slows. Amos is out front on the road. He rejoins the group, and they drive toward the worsening storm in the west.
Chapter 35 Summary: “Men Ask for Directions (And Other Signs of the Apocalypse)”
Sadie takes a nap, and her ba travels to London. There, Isis shows her the destruction that will befall Earth if magicians and gods do not unite. Next, she shows Sadie a meeting of the gods and impresses the importance of Horus taking the throne. Sadie can’t picture Carter being pharaoh and asks why she can’t be pharaoh, to which Isis says, “Your power will not come from sitting on a throne” (434).
Zia wakes Sadie when they reach Phoenix. A storm blacks out the sky, and the city is shut down. Magic and technology are failing, and Carter and Amos stop at a gas station to ask for directions, which does not fill Sadie with confidence. Zia again tries to convince Sadie that Set could have control of Amos. Sadie argues that Amos isn’t possessed and says she trusts him, but she feels a sharp pain “in the spot where I’d last held the feather of truth” (437). Zia wants to tell Sadie Set’s secret name. Sadie doesn’t understand how she can have it when Nephthys claims to be in a sleeping host, but she agrees. Amos and Carter return before Zia can share the name.
Chapter 36 Summary: “Our Family Is Vaporized”
The group reaches the eye of the storm, where they see a nearby mountain glowing red from Set’s power. Amos turns everyone into storm clouds to approach unseen, and Sadie finds it particularly difficult to keep herself together with her “body replaced by dust and vapor” (440). They turn back into humans on a ledge that overlooks the chamber inside the mountain. Set’s pyramid is complete except for the pyramidion capstone, which is being flown toward the top of the pyramid by two airships full of demons. An army of demons waits below.
Using various types of magic, the group infiltrates one of the demon ships, shoots the other out of the sky, and sends the pyramidion plummeting. The demons attack, and Amos fends them off while Carter, Sadie, and Zia fight their way into the pyramid. At its center, they find a throne room with their dad’s coffin half-buried beneath the twisted throne. Amos drops from a hole in the ceiling and closes off the opening before dropping to his knees and convulsing. Red vapor rises from his body and reforms into Set, who ends the chapter by announcing that “Zia gets to say ‘I told you so’” (450).
Chapters 34-36 Analysis
These chapters lead to the final conflict of the book and include several signs of foreshadowing. Zia knowing Set’s secret name is proof she hosts Nephthys, as there is no other way she could have the information. The fact she can’t remember anything after Iskandar told her she was in danger suggests that the process of creating a shabti to replace a person creates a memory gap. It is not said, but it is possible that probing such a gap could unravel the shabti magic.
As in the previous section, Amos’s character is too convenient in these chapters. His arrival on the road directly in the path of the kids shows that he can still easily keep track of them. The storm cloud magic he uses is chaos magic, as evidenced by the storm raging around Set’s pyramid for most of the story. The fact that Carter and Sadie don’t believe Amos is controlled by Set after that shows how desperate the kids are to keep their uncle. Having already lost their parents, neither wants to entertain the idea that Amos is also lost to them. Their need for stability keeps them from seeing something obvious until it’s too late. Set’s proclamation at the end of Chapter 36 shows he has been listening in on their conversations and tracking them.
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