#grisha meta

[ignitesthestxrs]

Crying because I don't know whether you mean the 'darkling would have made the world a better place and have a wholesome relationship with alina' side of fandom or 'darkling has never done any good thing ever, is a mentally stable mastermind who enjoys selling kids and felt totally nothing for alina ever' side of fandom.

both, i mean both. crying like i am not an active participant in this fandom anymore, but my residual irritation at both of these sides of the darkling coin remains.

the darkling was fundamentally incapable of making the world better because that's not actually what he wanted, and also he was legitimately obsessed with alina in a way that got in the way of his own plans for global domination.

i don't like where the author ended up taking the character in subsequent books because it feels like pandering to a particular subset of fandom who have a poor understanding of his function in the narrative (yes i am essentially saying bardugo sold out lol good for her igss).

for me the point of the character, and the most interesting thing about him, is that he is firmly convinced he's doing one thing (making things better for ravka, because he believes he is the only person capable of doing so), and he promptly shoots himself in the foot the second he's on the brink of succeeding, because he can't cope with the agency of another person (alina).

were he actually the mastermind that one subset of fandom thought he was, alina would have ended up on one of those thrones with him because he wouldn't have gotten impatient and, you know, threatened everything she loved on multiple occasions because he couldn't handle her not being 100% devoted to him. like literally all he needed to do was wait for mal to die and he would have been home free! he outlined what he could have done to bring alina to his side and then didn't do that!

and were he actually a guy who was doing reasonable moral calculus and who would have treated alina well/had a loving relationship where she was a queen that she worshipped etc, he probably wouldn't have put a collar on her and burned down an orphanage LMAO

'i'm not an active participant in this fandom' 'discourses on the darkling at the drop of a hat' LOOK. some of us have a disease and that disease is tl;dr. i can't shut up. it is what it is.

#taking a real brave swing and actually tagging this lol #grisha meta

[serpenteve]

why didn't baghra just kill alina?

I mean, her whole "plan" to have Alina escape the Little Palace was so poorly thought out and half-assed. How exactly was she hoping Alina was going to be able to cross the Fold on her own? She didn't even have many supplies packed and once the Darkling found out, he was bound to find her (which he did).

So doesn't it make more sense just to kill her? We see on the show that she has no qualms about straight up attempting to murder Mal and that never felt out of character for me. Leaving Alina alive would be a massive liability if she really is concerned with her son gaining a new glowstick slave.

There wasn't exactly any maternal or warm elements to Baghra and Alina's relationship. She already hated Alina from day one, so why she going out of her way to help her stay alive? It just doesn't make any sense.

I also don't think of Baghra as being a stupid character so I've just headcannoned that she told Alina to run but secretly had a hit squad following her or had hatched up some other assassination plan that just flopped for whatever reason.

/grisha shower thoughts

#sab meta #baghra #grisha meta #this was a dumb post but i couldn't stop thinking about it

[callstolike]

i'm suddenly confused as to why there's such a huge rush the make alina ready to destroy the fold when most grisha spend years of their lives learning to harness their powers for much less difficult purposes. obviously there's plenty of reason not to drag their feet, but it seems unreasonable to expect this to just miraculously take no time at all. it's not in line with any of the wordlbuilding for other characters to make these assumptions about alina's power beyond her being the Chosen One and adding urgency to the plot.

from this point of view it seems even worse that baghra treats alina so badly in trying to force her to grow into her powers and all the more reasonable for alina to use the strongest amplifier possible to make things happen. once again aleks is right lmao.

#sab reread #m #sab meta #grisha meta #my meta

[theweeklydiscourse]

This is an interesting line for several reasons, the biggest of which is Mal’s choice of hyperbole when expressing his love for Alina. The implications of this passage are sexual in nature, this is made most obvious by the imagery of “dancing naked” and Mal isolating aspects of Alina into “parts”.

He says “even the part of you that loved him” which to me, indicates a certain level of discomfort Mal still has with Alina’s sexuality and attraction towards the Darkling. This discomfort informs his division of Alina into parts, distinguishing his perception of Alina from “the part” of her that stepped outside of that role. When this is placed alongside his insinuation of Alina’s sexual attraction, it becomes clear that Mal has difficulty reconciling the two versions of Alina that have appeared.

It’s not a coincidence that the most exaggerated example he can conjure is dancing naked on the rooftop of a palace. Referencing the Little Palace functions as a symbol of Mal’s perceptions of Grisha, where the palace is a grand example of their perceived decadence and priority to the monarchy. Throughout the book, readers will see ordinary folk expressing resentment towards the seemingly better treatment that the Grisha get. Sometimes, the Grisha are portrayed as overtly spoiled and haughty individuals as well (even though they have less freedoms and are at a great disadvantage) To Mal, Alina dancing on top the Little Palace is meant to evoke a sense of careless hedonism and excess that he resented her for earlier in the book.

The “dancing naked” part is obviously a euphemism for sex, and it predictably aligns Alina’s relationship with the Darkling with her sexuality. The Darkling comes to be associated with maturity and sensuality, he fits into the archetype of the “dark older lover” who awakens Alina to a new world. Despite the fact that they never have sex or confirm their relationship under any title, the erotic nature of their relationship is in stark contrast with the comparatively chaste and childlike relationship Malina represents (Pretty ironic considering that Mal and Alina have sex in R&R)

This fits into the narrative of purity in Shadow and Bone. Alina aligning herself with the Darkling would mean embracing pleasure, power, and sexual desire, and that is something that the narrative deems as immoral or “greedy”. Inversely, going with Mal becomes the “pure” and humble option where she forgoes power and fame for Mal’s sake. This is where Alina is divided into two halves (in Mal’s view) there is the Repressed Alina, who he knows from childhood and wants to stay with, and the Sun Summoner Alina, whose maturity and newfound strength draws her further away from him.

The former was committed to staying with Mal at the expense of herself, while the latter found fulfillment and realized desire elsewhere. Repressed Alina is characterized as a sort of virtuous and humble person (even when that is quite the opposite) whereas Sun Summoner Alina is characterized as greedy and prone to corruption. This serves the narrative of purity culture in the trilogy by eventually framing Mal as the voice of reason in response to Alina’s supposed corruption.

According to the narrative, the worst thing Alina could be is similar to the Darkling. She can’t desire power or sexual fulfillment (from anyone other than her predetermined husband) and is left in a state of immaturity once she loses her powers. She will stay in the garden of childhood with a man that could never truly recognize the multifaceted nature of her identity.

#shadow and bone #Darklina #alina starkov #the darkling #s&b critical #lb critical #grishaverse #aleksander morovoza #anti Malina #malyen oretsev #the grisha trilogy #grishaverse meta #ruin and rising #darklina meta

[is-today-tomorrow-in-nz]

I carry a deep admiration for Aleksander and his unbreakable will.

Human beings are creatures of comfort. We crave familiarity. While change is inevitable, most of us tend to stick to a routine to keep us grounded. It breaks my heart so much to think that the Darkling could not afford to have even such basic comforts. With every rebirth he had to breakfree of the habits of his past life and reinvent himself as a new person with a different set of likes and dislikes. Even his mannerisims has to be scrubbed clean to avoid suspicion. By the time we meet him in the Grishaverse how much of him is the real him? How many of his habits are his and not something he cultivated for his new persona?

He is a singluar fixture in time and eternity passes through him. The language he once spoke is dead, the music he once loved no longer exists, the places he once travelled are long gone, the people he once knew are nothing but a distant memory. With each turn of the Earth, everything he grew to like again is chipped away along with remains of his soul.

And yet he persevered. Even when he had nothing or no one to anchor him, he carried on through war, genocide, loss, grief and pain. He kept fighting till his last breath and sacrificed himself once again for the greater good.

He deserves so much better than the indignity that LB put him through.

#the darkling #aleksander morovoza #pro darkling #pro aleksander morozova #the grishaverse #lb critical #grisha critical #he deserves so much better #shadow and bone #demon in the wood meta #demon in the wood

[lassieposting]

Oh fuck it's just occurred to me that like

1) The Little Palace was designed by a very old, very paranoid Grisha who's spent his entire life being hunted and persecuted for existing

2) The Little Palace was built with at least one secret passageway Alina didn't know about, which brings her out into the grounds somewhere. There are most likely dozens of these hidden tunnels - they're escape routes for when the otkazat'sya inevitably turn on the Grisha and Kirigan finds himself with a school full of kids to evacuate.

3) In S2 at the Spinning Wheel, Nadia says that the First Army raided the Little Palace, and Nikolai is sheltering the survivors. There's a decent number of them, by the looks of it. More than a handful. Probably all those who were close enough to an exit passageway.

4) Kirigan wasn't there to open up the tunnels and lead everyone out, and neither was Baghra. So the tunnels can't be truly secret. Enough Grisha knew about them to vanish under the First Army's noses and escape. I'm picturing that one scene from Ye Olde X-Men 2: most of them got out through tunnels that weren't on any of our schematics.

5) This means it's likely that the Little Palace has its own version of those fucked-up shooter drills they have to do in America. The procedure for something like that would have to be drummed into these kids from as early as possible, just like they train you to respond to the fire bell, because otherwise in the rush and the noise and the confusion, they'd just panic, and that would cause chaos. They all need to know where their closest emergency exit is, how to open it, where it leads, how to check for nearby soldiers before emerging, where to go next. So that when they need that knowledge, it's become second nature. Instinct. Like young prey animals - just as Baghra taught him.

And this is the kind of fear and constant hypervigilance Kirigan and Baghra have been living with their entire lives, without even the benefit of a relatively secure, long-term home literally built to protect them. It's no wonder the pre-Little Palace Grisha are so messed up.

And he's probably had older Little Palace Grisha over the years, people like Fedyor, questioning whether it's really necessary to still be making these kids think they're at risk like that. The Grisha have been at peace with the crown for over a century! This is a relic from a crueller time, surely. And he brushes it off every time, because at some point in his history, he learned better. He's learned from his failures.

6) After Anastas put a bounty on his ambitious General's head and named him heretic, the guards say, "Thought you [and Luda] could quietly train witches under our noses, did you?"

So he's already helping teach other Grisha, even then, and we know from Luda that the king is now having said Grisha rounded up. And there's nothing he can do. If he goes back, the king will have his head. So when he next aligns himself with the crown as his own descendant, he's learned that unless he puts safeguards in place, it will be the Grisha he's protecting who will suffer whenever he butts heads with the monarchy.

And he turns out to be right. Pyotr and Vasily have neither the balls nor the strength to meet him on the battlefield, so instead they target whatever Grisha they can get hold of - the half-trained students, the researchers, servants like Genya - and blame them for whatever treason they're accusing him of this time. The escape routes were still necessary. They've always been necessary.

It just? Really hit home how fucked up this world is for them, like. Even within the 'safety' of the Little Palace, the Grisha kids would never truly be able to avoid or forget the fear and hatred the world at large has for their kind, or the danger being Grisha might place them in if their protector falls out of favour with the royals. Ravka might not experiment on them or burn them alive, but they're not safe. They never really were. They've only ever been used.

Convenient weapons, or convenient scapegoats, and with no say in any of it.

#dont mind me that realisation just fucked me up for a moment there #sab meta #aleksander kirigan #baghra morozova #i have a lot of feelings about how they had to live and the trauma it left on them good god #and? how alina would never be able to understand because she didnt grow up grisha #it is a fucking miracle aleksander lasted as long as he did playing nice #sab

[howtostandinsilence]

Alina's sun summoner ability cannot be a metaphor for her escaping the cycle of abuse and living her own peaceful life when its very presence indicates something entirely different about her character. When her abilities are tied more closely to her identity and her growing path to self discovery, any framing of their presence in her life as only a fight against abuse comes across as cheap and shows a spectacular misunderstanding of her character.

Alina losing her abilities doesn't show a need to no longer fight. It doesn't show freedom or liberation. It shows instead brutal oppression and cruelty. 'She can be on her own and the darkness cant get to her anymore' is a funny way of describing the loss of a light power that could by nature repel the darkness and bring her kinship. In fact, it is almost a direct misinterpretation of the events that took place, and through its very wording contradicts itself.

Alina losing her powers cannot be a big metaphor for letting go of the past and moving onto internal peace when it drives her into a horrific regression and throws her into an eternal misery and grief stricken state. Where her very being is repressed so that she may conform and assimilate to her oppressors.

You cannot state that this hatred of her ending is only because it has been done terribly to other female characters before as if this is all some transferred bias. Alina's story is itself regressive through it's own path throughout the books. Her repression and the championing of her internalized bigotry through a narrative that structures itself around restrictive and puritanical morality can be easily tracked, picked apart, and analyzed as itself a story that rejects any real liberation or character progression to force the main female character into a box of conformity.

While Alina strives to be loved and cared for, she states multiple times what she truly wants. Which is the ability to accept and love all of herself in every way, with the freedom to love who she wants and to craft an ending that she wants, where she does not have to give up any of this. That Alina's very desire to have an ending where she can live freely is rejected so that fans can pat themselves on the back for liking her canonical regression feels grotesque. She did not actually want her ending. She could barely stomach it.

Alina's powers did not only represent her fight against abuse. They represented something more to her fundamental character and her arc of self actualization. There is no peoticism in her losing her powers except that of a greek tragedy and it's unfortunate protagonist. Alina didn't even choose to lose her powers. They were stripped from her against her will. In every way, her agency and pershonhood and very wishes are violated. But this is ignored in favor of championing some "subversive" and "enlightened" and apparently feminist story that simply does not exist.

#shadow and bone #sab salt #alina starkov #siege and storm #ruin and rising #the darkling #sab meta #the grisha trilogy

[metvmorqhoses]

Hi! I never read the original trilogy before watching the show, only the crows books, but I agree with a lot of what you’ve said about Alina & Aleksander. It’s obviously a cruel and poorly fitting match. May I ask what kind of person you think would truly match Aleksander better?

So, here is the deal: while the right answer to this question might appear pretty obvious, since pretty much everyone in the fandom agrees that Aleksander deserves an equal, I have to confess that I've always found a big flaw in this otherwise, well, flawless reasoning.

Albeit I obviously agree with everything you said about Alina's (especially show!Alina) lack of... personality (to express it kindly), I think dismissing the general concept of book!Alina, at least in the way she should have been written had her writer any sense of artistic potential, might actually be a dire mistake in the proverbial grand scheme of literary things.

I'll explain.

It's indeed pretty easy to sketch out Aleksander's ideal match. He himself would tell you he'd need a mirror image of who he is in order to finally, finally, feel complete: someone to match him in power, but above all in his understanding of power; someone to match him in immortality, but above all in his experience with it; someone who shares his predatory eagle-view on existence and therefore sharp-sighted enough to look in his same direction and see the same clash of colors in dawns and sunsets turning morality and philosophy unforgiving black.

In short, Aleksander would need someone who shares his unique condition, but most importantly having already lived through each and every single stage of it (the same despair, the same fear, the same loneliness) and therefore being someone who just gets what it means, what it feels, to be him.

There's no doubt in my mind this is what the Darkling dreamt about in the dead of night, what he prayed for before actually finding the Sun Summoner. He prayed she had been out there all along somehow, each year he himself had existed, going through the same centuries of unforgiveness, of solitude, of horror, through the same desperate quest for an equal, for him, just as he had been looking for her, all that time, all along.

I've seen many amazing people believing this very same thing while exploring the possibility in both meta and fanfiction, and I absolutely get where they are coming from. But I'm afraid I have to disagree. As poets say, there's a huge difference between what someone thinks they need and what they actually do need.

Aleksander's perfect match should indeed be his mirror image, but the mirror image of the boy he once was (the boy who was in love with "all the colors one cannot see in the dark", the one who was moved by the mere idea of companionship and intimacy, who was brave enough to risk his own life for the sake of a little girl he had just met), and not of the eternal and lost creature he had become, no matter how shocking the mere notion would be to him.

Aleksander would need a person who reminds him of the unspoiled self that was torn away from him, of his original unmarred idealism, his profound appreciation for living before he became a mere stubborn and bitter habit, of the humanity he was forced to shed. And, above all, Aleksander would need to be able himself to perform this act of saving, protecting and cherishing this twin heart for the sake of that heart of his no one had cared to save in time.

I think seeing himself, his truer, unspoiled self, in his equal and being able to shield her from everything he endured, as a single beam of light in endless oceans of darkness, would be virtually the only thing able to save him in turn, finally giving his life a meaning no war nor time could steal away from him.

And this is precisely why I think the concept of Alina had real literary potential, had it been used wisely, because Alina was supposed to be exactly that - an Alexander who can still, materially, be protected, saved, someone with the strength of not treding her own humanity for comforting numbness and disillusion, not even while crushed by the weight of eternity, and, in doing so, allowing him to be human and bearably so for the first time in his eternal detached yet still excruciating exististing.

It's a pity, because at fleeting times both books and show did touch on this very topic, almost giving in, only to idiotically shy away from it for reasons that will always be beyond me.

#and instead we had this dumbness galore #darklina #shadow and bone #the darkling #the grisha trilogy #aleksander morozova #sab metas #one and one thousand stories lis told

[greensaplinggrace]

lb was really out here like ‘i’m going to create a message about the dangers of power and corruption!’ and then proceeded to create the least nuanced breakdown of the way power is alloted by a system and the impacts it has on both the masses and the individual that I have ever seen in my life

#myramblings #sab salt #sab critical #grishaverse #sab #leigh bardugo critical #aleksander morozova #the darkling #sab meta #shadow and bone #the way she writes the darkling is so ridiculously stupid #she should have made nikolai an antagonist as well #she should have gone more into the workings of the royal family #she should have shown a diverse cast of grisha members with differing opinions on how to fight for their rights #but who all still worked towards fighting for their rights #instead we got evil power corrupted guy is the only member of the persecuted minority fighting for his people's rights #and everybody else is Good Actually #except for the king who gets barely any actual discussion #and who's presence is so indicative of the way power harms others #much more than the darkling's #but the discussion around the king is of course so un nuanced that he hardly matters #like come on lb #your story is a disaster and your themes lack consistency and your message isn't even clearly conveyed

[bitchthefuck1]

The fact that Jesper is like. a mid-tier fabrikator at best is actually so important to me.

So much of this story centers around the fact that these people are not chosen ones, that they have no sacred destiny or otherworldly power, but that they're children doing the best they can in a system that doesn't care about them, and all they have are their wits and each other. Jesper isn't an especially gifted grisha, and he has no formal training, but he takes that teaspoon of unremarkable talent and applies it to a skill he spent years perfecting to make something even greater and wholly his own. He isn't special because he was born that way, he's special because he made himself special.

#i could literally talk about this forever #this also applies to every other character btw #but jesper is a great example #i love him so much #this is lowkey why i don't love all the meta ppl write about him going to the little palace to learn #also i think its super important to note that wylan doesn't encourage him to embrace his abilities to 'get more powerful' or whatever #he specifically wants him to do it because repressing that side of him is actively hurting him and he can't spend his life ignoring part of #who he is #wesper #jesper fahey #six of crows #crooked kingdom #soc #six of crows meta #also like. the fact that he learned this not from an institution or a grisha specialist but from his mother. it's just v important to me #rip aditi hilli you were a real one

[ignitesthestxrs]

it is funny that I think i would have fully agreed with you if i had only read the grisha trilogy but the first book i ever read of the entire grishaverse was demon in the wood lmao. then i read the trilogy and then kos too. but i still agree with the 'he was incapable of making the world a better place' argument but disagree with the 'he never wanted to' because i think he did but not in the heroic 'i will give up anything to make the world better' but in the 'i will make the world better by ruling it and sometimes when i make choices so selfish that they don't align with the make world better thing at all i will explain them away as necessary and go by my day'. i also think his psychology kinda has a right to be fucked up (as his initial motivation has been set up to make a safe sanctuary for grisha and then he saw persecution for so long and all of those things with kings and what not would make most people fucked up) but that doesn't mean anyone else has to carry that burden. alina had full right to defend herself and the people and did right by not making aleksander more powerful because the result would have been even more destruction. i think he did some things with double motives: the second army was for the benefit of grisha as well as his own. he also wanted people's love because he thought he deserved it for all of his sacrifices for them.

it does seem that you have misinterpreted what i've said.

obviously i don't have an eidetic memory of every post i've ever made about the darkling over the years, but in the post i reblogged today and the ask i answered, i didn't say that he never wanted to?

the interesting point of tension in the character is the difference between what he says he wants, and what his actions show he wants. the man is lying to everyone, including himself. do i believe that when he was a teenager being persecuted for his power, he wanted to make the world a better place for grisha? sure, but 800 years have passed since then and he is literally the most powerful grisha in the world. he can cut people in half with his willpower. he has actively made the world worse - he has certainly made ravka worse.

he is not interested in saving grisha, he is interested in bending the world to his will in the name of saving grisha. this is the excuse he uses for himself, and it's the thing he tells alina, and also the world, in order to try to convince people that his atrocities are justified. but he will discard and kill any grisha who stands against him, he will cause a civil war between grisha within ravka because he can't stand the idea of grisha have safety, power, or agency without him.

he doesn't want to save the grisha, he wants to own them. i do think you can say that he wants to create a place where grisha can't be persecuted by non-grisha, but also he had 800 years as the darkling to implement a strategy, and the idea he came up with was 'weaponise the fold so the world is so terrified of my superweapon that they'll do anything i say'.

a really important part of reading comprehension is parsing the difference between what a character says and what they do. another important aspect is understanding that a well-written character will like, change. the events that motivate the darkling in Demon in the Woods are different then what is motivating him in the original trilogy, because in that time he has gone from being a persecuted teenage boy, to being the power behind the throne who has devastated his kingdom and is in control of an entire army. yes, his childhood trauma informs and animates a lot of his decision making, and obviously forms a core part of his character, but the character has had other experiences since then that have formed additional aspects of his character. Demon in the Woods doesn't rewrite what he did in the trilogy, it adds additional context to show us how he got to be the particular type of dude he is when we see him in the books.

i would also push back against the idea that he wants 'love'. he could have had love! alina loves him, such as she is able to when he's trying to destroy everything she knows lol. he doesn't want love, he wants devotion. he wants unwavering loyalty. that's why he put a collar on her, and why he ultimately loses his mind over her opposing him instead of just holding out for another human lifespan.

like sure you can make the argument that his understanding of what love is is flawed, which, sure. i think he can want love ambiently, in the 'it would be nice to be loved' sense. but his own actions show that, when asked to choose between love and power, he'll choose power every time. so like, does he want love? maybe, i guess, but not more than he wants power. not more than he wants to be able to control alina, and his mother, and ravka, and the world.

again, that tension is the interesting thing about the character. he says one thing, but does something that disproves the thing he says. that's the manipulation, not only of alina, but of the reader. he wants so badly for everyone to believe that he's righteous and good and the only person who knows what the world really needs, he's even convinced himself of that to a degree. but the second things escape his control even a little bit, he proves himself a liar, because his goals immediately pivot to getting that control back.

a villain doesn't have to believe he's a villain to behave like one. the darkling is a pretty classic manipulative, abusive kind of character who will make every bad thing he did a reasonable action that someone - typically alina - pushed him into. she made him burn down that orphanage. he never would have attacked the prince's birthday party if she had just come with him quietly. if she hadn't run away from him, he never would have collared her. if she didn't love mal, he wouldn't have tried to kill him. if she would just behave then he wouldn't have to hurt her like this. he's doing this for the sake of the world, don't you see? you don't? fine. make him your villain. he'll make that sacrifice if it means getting his way saving ravka. he's the only person in the world willing to do what it takes.

eventually you'll see.

#grisha meta #what year is it

[the-dolphin-queen]

Alright Meta Post

My friend @chethaunts told me about a character from Critical Role, Percival de Rolo, who invented and wields the first gun in the CR universe. I asked "Who would win between him and Jesper." We agreed that Jesper would win because Jesper never misses, and then I got to thinking. Jesper is overpowered and broken. This is brilliant in terms of Grisha because Jesper is extremely unorthodox. The Second Army is restrictive for Grisha, and by never joining the Second Army in-series, Jesper has more freedom. The Grisha have their orders and the colors they wear, but Jesper exists entirely without the structures of the second army. In the first trilogy, the Durasts and Alkemi didn't even fight on the front lines, being relegated to laboratories at the Little Palace. Jesper, a rouge Durast helps Wylan create a drill out of a diamond necklace. Jesper, a rouge Durast controls bullets with his mind. Grisha wouldn't even be an appropriate term at this point, as Jesper is free from the rigidity of the structure of the Second Army. He's not just a rouge Durast, he's zowa, blessed. Blessed by not being in the Second Army and all its restrictions. Jesper has incredible potential because he's free.

#grishaverse #jesper fahey #wesper #shadow and bone netflix #grishaverse shitpost #shadow and bone season 2 #shadow and bone show #shadow and bone tv #shadow and bone s2 #netflix shadow and bone #shadow and bone #wylan van eck #six of crows duology #six of crows #critical role #percy de rolo #percival de rolo #grishaverse meta #grishaverse theory #grisha orders #the grishaverse #comparison

[fantastic-nonsense]

one of the things so many people miss is that the Ravka-Fjerda war is a terrible parallel to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust because it's a fundamental misinterpretation of the Grisha's role in the conflict

The Holocaust was a genocide perpetuated against innocents; there was nothing except blind hatred and political opportunism spurring that persecution. But the Fjerdan obsession with persecuting Grisha, while partially out of blind hatred and prejudice, is also at least partially happening because they're in an active war against a country that uses Grisha as soldiers...soldiers who are uniquely destructive, use that destructive capability to kill Fjerdans, and are canonically praised for doing so. Soldiers who are recruited to come to the Little Palace from all over the world based on the premise that they will be safe...as long as they fight for Ravka in the Second Army. Remember that Ravka largely doesn't care about the Grisha's wellbeing either until after the civil war is over and the Triumvirate is in power; their interest in 'protecting' Grisha lay in their ability to use them as soldiers in their ongoing wars against Fjerda and Shu Han.

You CANNOT do a one-to-one comparison to something like the Holocaust when the whole point of the Ravka-Fjerdan conflict is that there's massive suffering and war crimes being perpetuated on both sides. Nina and Matthias's chapters hammer home the point that they both have very good reason to be terrified of each other due to the situation they've been forced into, but that the hatred and prejudice they were both raised with is wrong. We mostly focus on the persecution of the Grisha becasue we're already primed to identify and sympathize with them, but there's several instances where we're explicitly shown that there's more to this war (which is principally a territory/border dispute) than just a senseless genocide.

The bit where Nina realizes that Zoya, her mentor, is to Matthias what Jarl Brum is to her. Nina forcing Matthias's heart to speed up on the Ferolind for no reason other than to scare him. Learning that the whole reason Matthias ended up as a druskelle in the first place was because his village was burnt to the ground and his family (including his "baby sister") were murdered by Inferni soldiers. Nina effectively murdering a couple hundred druskelle while on parem at the Djerholm harbor. "We are all someone's monster." And so many more.

Matthias is not a Nazi (the druskelle are much more analogous to a fundamentalist religious cult than anything else, especially when you consider the specific indoctrination Matthias was subject to). Leigh Bardugo (a Jewish woman born in Israel with direct family members who died in the Holocaust) has firmly stated that she "would never write a Nazi-Jewish romance," and we as a fandom need to be extremely careful when drawing real-world parallels to fictional conflcits. Nina and Matthias are both soldiers caught up in a centuries-old war, not an oppressor engaging in mindless ethnic persecution against a helpless victim. Matthias has a lot further to go than Nina to unpack and grow out of those mutual prejudices, but they're very clearly present in both characters.

Yes, there are parallels between the Grisha experience and the Jewish experience, and we should talk about that! It's an interesting discussion to have. But Leigh has explicitly cautioned people not to say "this is a mirror to a real-life conflict" because she purposefully built into her world that in some respects, many Grisha (especially Ravkan Grisha) have power and privilege and are actively utilizing it. It's dangerous to try and say something like "the Fjerdans are Nazis and the Grisha are Jewish people" when discussing that conflict because it can unintentionally perpetuate the idea that the Jewish people deserved what happened to them, which is something we obviously should categorically avoid even implying in our discussions.

#six of crows #soc meta #matthias helvar #nina zenik #helnik #tw: holocaust #tw: genocide #long post #the Ravka-Fjerda situation is honestly much more analogous to how Fullmetal Alchemist utilizes state alchemists in their border wars tbh #not all Grisha are Ravkan or Second Army but the ones who are are frankly terrifying

[theweeklydiscourse]

Alina is unable to confront her anti-Grisha bias

So there’s an interesting line I came across while reading Shadow and Bone. At first, it seemed insignificant but for some reason I felt the urge to investigate why it had caught my eye. The line in question is the last line in the passage below. It stuck out to me because I feel it is an example of Alina’s self-centered attitude as well as her lack of awareness regarding the position she’s in.

The Darkling opens by trying to explain, but Alina dismisses his words entirely and accuses him of pretending to care about the greater good of the country. While this is understandable on Alina’s part considering she has received shocking news paired with Bahghra’s manipulative framing of the truth, this scene reads as Aleksander trying to reason with a brick wall. Alina says “Don’t pretend this is about Ravka’s welfare. You lied to me.” But I have to ask: what on earth do those subjects have to do with each other? As if him lying automatically means that he must have been up to something. But the connection Alina makes in this quote demonstrates her tendency to fall back on her prejudice in order to avoid confronting the larger issue.

I believe what Alina means to say is “Don’t lie and pretend this is about Ravka’s welfare, if it were truly about Ravka’s welfare you wouldn’t have had to lie to me for months.” However, the irony of her statement is that Alina seems to be under the impression that had the Darkling just told her the truth, she would’ve had a more favourable reaction to the coup. But based on her previous responses to the mere suggestion of treason, it becomes clear that Alina falsely assumes that she is trustworthy enough to handle that kind of information. But she believes that because she still cannot reconcile her anti-Grisha prejudice with her new Grisha identity.

The Darkling puts it very plainly why he couldn’t tell her. The future of Ravka, the future of GRISHA depended on his plan going forward without a hitch. There is so much that could go wrong with the coup, and when they’re being attacked on all fronts, The Darkling would have to be extremely foolish to risk everything on the feelings of a girl he’s only known for a few months. The fact that Alina never reflects on this conversation is so baffling to me, but I imagine the reason for that is because doing so would require her to delve deeper into the plight of Grisha.

Alina cannot take a single second to look outside of herself and consider why the Darkling hesitated to trust her with such a huge secret. She focuses solely on how his deception affected her and makes the issue about her own feelings instead of considering the large-scale implications of what this coup would mean for Grisha.

This passage is one of my favourites, because it really captures the way the Darkling’s patience slips away as Alina continues to childishly deny her culpability in this conflict. He calls her out so succinctly in this moment, that she acted recklessly and thoughtlessly because of her underlying fear of her own identity. It only took Baghra a few accusations because it was the excuse Alina had been waiting for since the beginning. Baghra took advantage of Alina’s prejudice and doubt, validating what she had secretly felt all along. That Alina was afraid of her powers, that she believed that the Darkling was evil, that she wasn’t responsible for the future of the country.

For once, we get a glimpse of the true extent of his frustration and hint of resentment towards Alina. Here is a girl who has the kind of influence that could change the fate of Grisha and rescue them from the exploitation and prejudice they are subjected to. A girl who has everything he ever needed to get his plan through the door, yet refuses to move because of her one-sided dependency on some guy and her crippling fear of being an adult. Alina is literally worshipped by the common folk and Grisha alike, she inspires awe and respect in others by virtue of being born a sun summoner and yet she cannot see past her own self interest. She childishly complains that she never had a choice and that it isn’t fair, falling back into a childlike helplessness and oblivious to her immense power. She refuses to take responsibility which is exactly what sends the Darkling over the edge.

While I know that much of Alina’s reaction to the “Darkling Disney twist villain reveal” is coloured by her fear and insecurity in her new role, this frustrates me so much because it never culminates in anything meaningful for her character. It’s no coincidence that the Netflix show decided to omit this conversation completely, because it presents a character conflict that actually challenges the viewer’s perception of the conflict. The Darkling actually makes a ton of sense in his reasoning and it’s so good that they had to remove it to turn him into a cardboard shadow man that could be killed off in a #girlboss #girlpower moment.

#shadow and bone #lb critical #s&b critical #alina starkov #the darkling #s&b netflix #s&b salt #darklina #aleksander morovoza #anti leigh bardugo #anti baghra #baghra morozova #grishaverse meta #the grisha trilogy #pro darkling #shadow and bone season 2 #aleksander morozova #grishaverse

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

What would he have made his priorities after being the king? I mean politically? If he had worked at all that is.

GREAT QUESTION it frankly drives me kind of insane that we never get any hint whatsoever about how he’s running the country while he does briefly take over from S&S through R&R. Like what are his POLICIES!! What is he DOING??

But also, realistically, he is not going to cancel wars with the Shadow Fold threat lol. Like that is only the beginning of a really long and drawn out foreign relations catastrophe. I talked about this a little bit in a different context awhile ago but he doesn’t strike me as a character with a firm end goal… ever. There’s always going to be more to do.

But like a civil war is going to fuck up the country no matter what. So I’d assume, regardless, there’s going to be a fair bit of immediate picking up the pieces economically. He doesn’t at all seem like he cares about public opinion, beyond being scary enough so people know not to fuck with him. So he’d probably have no qualms with making drastic and highly unpopular reforms lol.

We really don’t know enough about his stances but he seems to be primarily: a nationalist, an autocrat, prioritizing military strength, distinctly favoring Grisha interests, and also shdhfgfd against industrialization and technological advancement. He also favors the perceived good of the many over the interests and well being of any individual, and is very happy to make sacrifices of many, many lives to achieve fairly petty goals. He's a fantasy fascist basically.

The books somewhat superficially equate him with Russian revolutionary figures. But I don't think there's enough... actual ideology to back that up very much. And rapid industrialization and transitioning the Soviet Union from a primarily agrarian based economy was itself a key part of it? So... he's not much of a Stalin. If we're trying to sus out his policies I could see him being something of an anti Peter the Great, where instead of forced Westernization, you have an incredibly set in his ways immortal autocrat trying to drag everyone back to the values and traditions of his youth. (Which would also make narrative sense, considering Nikolai, as the Darkling-lite foil, seems to have def been based on some aspects of Peter the Great's youth and interest in innovation, if not his personality)

So for example, he seems like he'd favor isolationism. His idea of "peace" is "don't fuck with me or I'll make my monster filled interdimensional rift eat you." And we know Ravka is in intense debt! I could easily see him seizing the nobility's wealth and using it to pay off any debts owed to foreign countries. And then if anything's left over to stockpile resources towards making Ravka more self sufficient. Maybe even melt the gold and silver out of churches to that purpose.

(I forget which historical figure literally melted down church crosses dfghj but that was a thing! iirc incidentally he also stripped the silver from the currency, absolutely destroying its value...)

By RoW he seems to have embraced the entire like religious propaganda side of things. But in the trilogy proper he seems to hate the church. So resources going to it in any way will probs be diverted. And I could even see him gradually trying to repurpose the buildings for other things. They're on the tail end of a civil war, there's probs a lot of displaced people that could be put there for a start.

S&B meanwhile establishes that he has some pretty distinct opinions about how all the Grisha need to pretend to live like peasants so as not to forget their roots or whatever. I think he *would* enact really harsh regulations and reforms on court life just because he hates it so bad lol. Taxes on parties, insane sumptuary laws for everyone but his favored Grisha soldiers. He's had centuries and centuries to hate changing social norms. I think he'd go nuts if given the opportunity to dictate everything. Generally I think there would be a mix of skyrocketing taxes and reforms to an actual purpose (bolstering the economy and stripping material power from the nobility) but also just to be a petty, temperamental autocrat.

Def also criminalizing dissent and making examples of any opposition immediately. Can't have another revolution threatening his revolution. Again, here I'm annoyed by how little the world is fleshed out, because we get nothing about the nobility. Noble families with any sort of longstanding ties or known friendship with the Lantsovs would probs get executed day one. Stripped of titles and lands etc and then taking those and giving them to his own supporters. (Who are they? Good fucking question! He has one Ivan and then even he fucking dies. But realistically... he would have... supporters?)

He'd probs want to get a firmer grip on West Ravka stat, and maybe invest in some military expansion to control more ports. An issue I forever have with the Grishaverse worldbuilding is that it's just so small? There are only like five countries? Trade and foreign policy just aren't going to Look Like That or mimic a nineteenth/twentieth century vibe if there are only five fucking countries dfghjkl but whatever. Whatever.

I could also see him favoring exports over imports. Stopping all trade seems destabilizing af so I doubt he’d go there but seems likely he'd try to decrease any dependency Ravka has on other countries in favor of self sufficiency and isolationism. Maybe taxing imports so bad that it's just not worth it. Regulating the exact details of what can be imported, when, why, etc.

Speaking of the earlier impending foreign relations catastrophe. I think if he’s scary enough he might manage to avoid an all out war on all fronts? Might. Because there’s also a really good case to be made for attacking Ravka while its still weak and reeling from the civil war. But if he’s lucky, the surrounding countries will take a “wait and see” stance. But like there will be consequences eventually. Consider the Shadow Fold an in-universe fantasy nuke in the hands of a power hungry ruler who has zero qualms with any scale of loss of life or just murdering civilians for the lols. He’s proven himself to be unstable and unreasonable so even if there isn’t an immediate declaration of war there is going to be a response to that. No one’s going to be chill!! And like SoC and KoS context tells us that there is parem on the horizon, along with the Grisha super soldiers in Shu Han, the druskelle getting wayyyy more sophisticated and a general trajectory of rapid military industrialization and advancement through out the world. Those are playing pieces that would be on the board regardless, but it’s just going to get so much uglier under those circumstances. And especially with the knowledge and context that the Darkling is completely fucking unreasonable and ready to war crime anyone who looks at him funny.

I guess siding with Fjerda in S&S could hypothetically be advantageous to him here actually? Like we do not know the terms of that alliance at all, and I doubt it would hold for long. But it breaks up the framing of everyone vs Ravka. And opens things up for anyone else to respond by trying to get on his good side against their own enemies. And once again. There are only five countries lmao. So a tense balance of powers situation might be feasible, but I think it would hinge on him not looking like he’s completely insane. Possibly ironic, but the fact that he seems to have only war crimed his own damn country is likely also useful here. Other governments typically don’t care/won’t get involved to a degree of outright declaring war over that. And it leaves some room for arguing that he’s capable of some restraint. So how quickly things go to hell probably depends on whether he goes back on any alliances or makes good on/is cornered into making good on his Shadow Fold threat.

So I don't know, basically I think there's a ton you could extrapolate from his personality, actual world history, and like fascist takeover 101 sdfghj but it's also somewhat unsatisfying to speculate about because it's impossible not to constantly run into thin points in the worldbuilding. But basically I think he would probably rule with an eye for sweeping, harsh reforms, consolidating power, and chipping away at any opposition or potential adversary, with a general decided disinterest in the popularity or lack thereof of any of his policies. And I also think unless someone got him to take a deep breath and chill out for five minutes and relearn the value of diplomacy things would get. how you say. really fucking bad.

This was incredibly unorganized I hope it answered your question at all sdfghj

#every day I am annoyed with myself for having this many opinions #but russian history specifically and general discussions of politics and governance and worldbuilding are unfortunately interests of mine #so. #grishaverse #shadow and bone #grisha trilogy #meta #aleksander morozova #the darkling #I ramble sometimes #all the bendy punctuations #a mysterious stranger has appeared #one day I’ll get better ask tags #I decided on these like ten years ago and have been too lazy to change them since #long post

[moonlightmoors]

The Darkling's just a repressed theater kid fr

#the darkling #grishaverse #the grisha trilogy #aleksander morozova #i speak about bookling #all hail the iconic gray eyed menace #There Is No Kirigan In This Blog #anyways bookling supremacy the show guy sucks #i should meta about this one day