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 37-39Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 37 Summary: “Leroy Gets His Revenge”
Set has been controlling Amos since the night at the British Museum. He forced Amos to sabotage the protection spells at the mansion and faked Amos’s capture so Sadie and Carter would trust him. Carter asks why Set went to all the trouble and didn’t just have Amos kidnap them. An annoyed Set explains that Amos put up a strong fight. He couldn’t force Amos to do certain things without killing him, and Set “didn’t want to ruin my new plaything quite so soon” (453).
Set will imprison his four siblings within the pyramid to extend his power. He believes Zia hosts Nephthys, but Carter senses no divine energy from Zia. Set grabs Zia, but rather than triumphant, he is angered, demanding to know what trickery this is. Sadie goes to Zia’s aid and Set blasts the girls with power. In a flash, Carter realizes he has to work with Horus, not submit to the god. The two merge their power, transforming into the falcon avatar. Carter advances on Set, telling the god he will “crush you like a gnat” (457).
Chapter 38 Summary: “The House is in the House”
Set and Carter battle, demolishing the throne room bit by bit. Carter gets hold of Set and turns the god into a fruit bat, morphing himself into a falcon to break through the air vent and carry them out of the throne room before they hurt Sadie and the others. Outside, the House of Life’s magicians battle the demons but are losing badly. Set watches the House’s fall with satisfaction, knowing “they cannot prevail as long as my pyramid stands” (461).
A group of demons has retrieved the pyramidion and carries it up the pyramid. Carter renews the fight but Set has the upper hand. He sends Carter tumbling down the pyramid and places the pyramidion in its place, making the pyramid surge with red light. With 30 seconds until sunrise, Set proclaims his victory, telling Horus he can’t win in the desert—Set’s domain. Sadie, glowing with power, rises from the pyramid and slams down her staff with the threat, “We’re not going to fight you in the desert” (464).
Chapter 39 Summary: “Zia Tells Me a Secret”
Sadie tells what happened while Carter was fighting Set. Amos remained unconscious, and Zia gave Sadie Set’s secret name, which is “Evil Day.” Sadie touches the coffin where her dad is imprisoned and sees Anubis, Bast, and Iskandar, who implore Sadie to save order with Carter’s help. Finally, the scene resolves to her parents the night her mother died. Her mother shifts her coat, revealing Isis’s amulet, and Sadie realizes that her mother “had communed with Isis” (470).
Sadie rages at Isis until her father’s spirit appears and tells her not to blame the goddess. Her mother made the choices, not Isis. Sadie desperately wants to open the coffin and free him but doing so will only feed Osiris’s spirit to the pyramid and make Set stronger. To stop Set, they must destroy the pyramid completely. Sadie’s father tells her he loves her and then disappears. Sadie is still mad at Isis but realizes she can’t deal with that now. Instead, she pictures herself “merging with the soul of the goddess” (473) and turns into a bird to fly up through the air vent.
Chapters 37-39 Analysis
These chapters complete Sadie and Carter’s journeys to becoming heroes. Both siblings come to understand that they need the gods they host but also that such power would burn them up if used for too long. Since Carter and Sadie are so powerful themselves, they manage to partly merge with Horus and Isis, giving them the boost of strength they need to face Set on even ground.
In particular, Sadie undergoes an emotional transformation in these chapters. Chapter 39 shows her making the difficult decisions she’s been putting off. Anubis’s question about her willingness to sacrifice her father comes to fruition here, and though it pains her, Sadie lets her dad’s spirit go and becomes the hero she needs to be. The visions of her mother anger Sadie because they make her feel even more like she missed out on an opportunity to learn from her mom. Her mother’s connection to Isis ultimately lets Sadie feel a kinship with her mother through the goddess and gives Sadie the strength she needs to merge with Isis enough to fight Set.
These chapters offer the final foreshadowing about Zia. Sensing no divine energy from Zia coupled with Set’s outrage at having his plan thwarted, Carter confirms Nephthys is not in the version of Zia at the temple. Zia knows Set’s secret name, and passing it along to Sadie means that she has fulfilled the duty for which her shabti was created, foreshadowing Zia’s shabti going lifeless in the final chapters.
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