Fancasting Sevro au Barca
Richard Harmon, who plays John Murphy on the CW channel’s “The 100,” as Sevro au Barca.
Harmon as Sevro was the first fancast idea I got when reading Red Rising. Let’s start with the surface qualities. Like John Murphy on “The 100,” Sevro has an abiding love for knives. “He likes his curved knives too much,” Darrow thinks to himself at the Institute of Sevro. “I think he whispers to them.”
Sevro is undoubtedly one of the most beloved if not the most beloved character in the Red Rising universe. At the very least, it’s exceedingly difficult to find a reader who doesn’t like Sevro.
He is small, but quick and cunning. He is foul-mouthed and purposefully offensive, but funny. All in all, he is a supremely capable student at the Institute, proving himself time and time again. “You seem to have every gory skill required for this school,” Darrow says at one point.
Sevro is quite the realist, a necessity for survival in such a cold, cruel world. Yet like so many of the supporting characters, he is a creature of contrasts.
Though he can be and is brutal as required throughout Red Rising and Golden Son, Sevro loves the kindest of the Mars students at the Institute. His unrequited love for Quinn is wholly believable and endearing, thanks to the nuanced way that Pierce Brown writes their relationship. Quinn is the last of the Mars students to call Sevro by his name rather than by his nickname of “Goblin.”
The scene where Sevro, Darrow, and Roque react to Quinn’s death is a moving experience for all. The actor who plays Sevro will have to not only pull off the hard-edges of his character, but express how the sharp personality is in many ways a cover.
Sevro’s brusqueness is how he protects himself in a world that murdered his mother, a world where his only worth was to be a sacrifice in the Passage for a highDraft student, a world that if it knew his true parentage would see him as an abomination. Ultimately I believe readers love Sevro not only because he is smart and loyal and voices what the reader is thinking in the most vulgar ways, but because they see him for who he is: an outsider.
This is why Sevro and Darrow connect so well. They are both intelligent enough to see one another for who they really are, even though they initially do not know the full truth of each other’s identities. “He is ugly in a world where he should be beautiful, and because of his deficiencies, he was chosen to die. He, in many ways, is no better than a Red.”
When you watch Harmon’s performances as John Murphy on “The 100,” you quickly realize that he could actually do it. He could emote all of the contradictions and complexities that make up Sevro.
“Sevro does not move. Does not speak. His nostrils flare as a breath catches in his chest, a pitiful sob locked tight in the boy who never cries. He goes numb. Ghostlike. And I reach for him, but he pulls away not in anger, but in confusion, as though he was told the future once, and this reality is not what was promised.”
And as for the extensive mentions we have of Sevro and food throughout the series, well, have no fear–Harmon can manage that quite well, too.
“Lorn stares at Sevro’s dirty hand. The fingerless glove is covered with mashed potatoes and brown gravy.”
“He grabs a drumstick off the table’s spread and feeds it to Sophocles. Considering, he takes a bite himself, saying something quietly to the fox.”
All hail the Trash Lord, Sevro au Barca!
“Sevro waves from his perch as he examines the trash to see if it isn’t edible.”
As always, let me know what you think! I also considered Ezra Miller or Freddie Fox for Sevro, but Miller feels a bit too high-profile at this point and is physically larger than Harmon, while Fox seems like he’d actually be a good pick for the Jackal. (More on that later haha)
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Edit to add: Side benefit of casting Richard Harmon is that he seems like an adorkable person. Photographic evidence below:
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