#i kinda NEED to know how the fuck they filled those 168 pages

[psycho-linguist]

#deutsch #german #technology #meme #fun #Das Boot ist NICHT mehr da #Das klären wir morgen! #i kinda NEED to know how the fuck they filled those 168 pages #164 sorry

[draggingthedregs]

as i said earlier, it is an ungodly length but i hope you can enjoy my late night, book-drunk opinions anyway!

***

guess who just finished “ruin and rising”?

i’m seriously not okay. someone send help. i got lots of thoughts, none of which you are obligated to read but this seems like the best place to share.

oh and spoilers, duh.

for starters. woah.

i can’t say it was what i expected but i had known that what my heart really wanted was kinda far out of reach. the ending felt real and feasible, complete with love and loss.

in terms of “ruin and rising” alone, i think it was possibly the strongest of the three books. the pacing was good, nothing felt like it dragged on too long or went too fast for its own good. i think that was really important as well, considering the fact that there was always something going on. literally,, always. no one ever got a damn break.

mal’s “death” hurt me more then i had expected. which honestly leads back to one of my main gripes with this story. the love square (which i elaborate on later in this post, just hold on a bit). i’m not going to lie. i hated mal. through the middle of “siege and storm” up to page 168 of “ruin and rising” (and even then it was a long road from hate to crying over him). he was an ass, i think we can all admit that. for awhile there, i even jumped on the “fuck mal” train and had no plans to stop at any station anytime soon. for the longest time, the relationship with alina felt so fragile and forced, like the only reason it existed was because leigh had written it into existence. though, as i read on, i saw why it was so strained and saw the eventual resolution, which i will admit i was happy with. mal and alina, however annoying and troupe filled their personalities were, did develop as characters. and their relationship made some semblance of sense in the grand scheme of things. does that mean i forgive the “on-again-off-again”, “cold-shoulder”, “we-cant-be-together-in-this-lifetime” bullshit? no. does that mean i suddenly love mal? also, no. does that mean i ship them? ugh slightly. does that mean in a magical dream world where i got to chose what happened, they’d still end up together? impossible to say. BUT i can say, that they deserved each other. and i am happy that they got their peace together like they both always wanted (no matter how out of place it felt at any point), especially considering the fact that she literally had to kill him.

my dear dear darkling... i knew what fate awaited you and yet, when the time came... it hurt just the same.

okay,, that was a bit dramatic. but come on. leigh wrote a damn good villain with aleksander morozova. i meAN, thE lAYERS. he was a horrible person and yet, so many of us still love him. he killed for fun, manipulated no matter the cost, preyed upon the weak because he could, literally blinded his own mother and still! i can’t help but love him. there was so much human woven into his darkness. the moments of simple longing, of exhaustion, of loneliness. in all honesty, if there had been a way to humanize him, to erase or explain away his atrocities and have him just be aleksander again, i feel like i would do it. but, in the context of the story i do understand why it wasn’t possible. redemption for the darkling was off the table, no matter how much humanity still remained. but that’s what makes him such a good character. you want him to be different because you can see the good and all the potential for things to change, for them to rule ravka side by side, but at the same time, he’s the same man who is still actively creating more shadow demon creatures to eat whoever he wishes. you can’t resist him and that’s why he’s so wonderful, yet horrifying at the exact same time. (though don’t worry i am still a trash can and the darklina ship is still superior in the love square. again, i promise i will get there).

i feel like i have to talk about how much i loved the “secondary characters” (i struggle to call them that because they actually run this shit). i will say, at first, i hated zoya. i am not a big fan of the “mean girl” troupe or the “i’m-prettier-than-you-and-i-know-it” thing but... she really grew on me. i looked forward to zoyas comments and constant bitchiness, as did the characters in the books. and when she left the note and the blue kefta with alina in the epilogue,, oh god my heart. and the ragtag crew of grisha making up the remainder of the second army were amazing. their banter and dialogue were some of my favorite scenes to read in “ruin and rising” and i want books just filled with them and only them. david and genya deserve the damn world, adrik was so great, nadia and tamar are so precious, and i will miss harshaw’s weird ass more then you’ll ever know. don’t even get me started on misha and oncat. they are the true stars of this series, you cannot convince me otherwise. god i love them all so much, what a brilliant cast of characters. except the apparat. fuck the stupid ass apparat.

i know what you’re thinking. “you forgot nikolai.” no. i promise you, i most certainly did not. i just love him so much he gets his own chunk.

i mean, how could he not? he’s one of those rare, genuinely perfect characters that are impossible to not love. and i don’t mean perfect because he has no flaws or he’s written unnaturally, i mean perfect because of all of his flaws. he is arrogant and calculating, brash and unapologetic in his ways, but he’s also kind and caring, witty and charming and way too clever for his own good. i rooted for him more then i have ever rooted for someone in my entire life. he made everything ten times better. you can always count on his ass to pop up in a flying ship with a shiny pair of boots, a witty remark, a new plan, and too many ideas.

now, the important business... the ominous love square.

i think the words i used were “one of my main gripes with the story” which is true, but i think leads to a bigger issue with some of the characterization in the story. the “love square” was a term i thought of in relation to the many overlapping and confusing ships that center around alina (obviously being mal, the darkling, and nikolai). all of the ships were so entertwined and written over top of one another that there was no other way for me to describe it and the square seemed like a nice enough analogy. it just felt like way too much on everybody’s plates.

i love nikolai and alinas friendship. i mean, LOVED it. because i loved it so much, i found the little nods to a ship odd and unnecessary. their story line was very focused on the fact that ravka would need a king and queen, hence the scene where he gives her the emerald and all but proposes right then and there. however, that scene would have made scene and carried the same weight had there not been the splashes of romance both before and after. now, i understand why people ship them. and honestly, if under different circumstances, i probably could’ve and would’ve shipped them myself. they would have had one of the best marriages in a society where you didn’t get to marry for love. but it just made everything more complicated. people would’ve speculated on a ship had there been no kisses or pining, soley based on the possibility of a marriage and because of their close friendship so, why was the canon addition of it necessary? i just couldn’t get behind it when i loved their platonic relationship so much and when there were two stronger and more developed ships, waging war in the background.

now, my final bone to be picked... let’s be real for a second, alina in “shadow and bone” sucked. she was annoying and had no personality beyond being a sad, lonely, orphan in the darklings sparkly new grisha world. though i will say, in the later two books, i grew to like her. her character development did its job and i actually think she grew to be a pretty good protagonist. she did her best with the cards she was dealt and i think she did really well. however, her inability to pick a boy constantly bothered me. after being in love with her best friend for literal years, she is really ready to be be the first lady of the second army. and yes. sure you could justify it. she wasn’t getting letters in return, she’d been away for months, she was adapting to her new life, the darkling made her feel seen and wanted which is all a very new feeling to her. but then she goes right back to mal after he makes a confession that he didn’t realize he loved or needed her until she was gone for months (this was one of my biggest problems with mal. my problem only grew when he spent the entirety of “siege and storm” being a dick. but like i said,, we have reconcilied. we are fine now). there were times throughout the series where i genuinely didn’t understand why they were together, why i liked them together, or why i even wanted them to end the series together. alina even asks mal at the end of “ruin and rising” if there entire relationship was based solely on the fact that mal was the last amplifier and the fact that she even had to ask really says something. was their entire romance because of the amplifier? was it because of the “we-are-just-meant-to-be-together” thing? or was there actual chemistry? i really couldn’t tell sometimes. and the darklina ship was even more twisty and winding. he went from telling her deep dark secrets because he wanted to hear the girl he loved say his name to literally threatening everyone she loves because he wants her weak and all to himself. like,, whAt? (again,, layers) and don’t even get me started on the darkling and alina apparition interactions. those were a wild fucking ride. i felt like i was getting manipulated along with the both of them in those. but maybe that was the point of the darkling and alinas relationship. it was supposed to be so horrible yet so electric that you couldn’t pull away. but i doubt the same was meant to be said for mal and alina.

now i feel like i may be coming off in the wrong way. i loved more about this series then i didn’t. but me gushing about every fine detail and conversation that made my heart melt wouldn’t make for the most interesting read, if it was even coherent. all in all, i think it’s safe to say the grisha trilogy is great. does that mean it doesn’t have flaws? of course not. does that mean the flaws outweigh the good and the actual point of the story? absolutely not. my small complaints about a few things really do not take always from the fact that i love this series. i would love anything written by leigh bardugo, especially in the grishaverse.

if you’ve made it this far, that’s commitment. thank you brave soldier. don’t take anything i’ve said with anything more than a grain of salt. seriously. if this is your favorite series, don’t let my lil complaints ruin your day. because really, the good outweighs the bad here tenfold. i’m just a girl with a lot of opinions and a platform to share them at four am... it’s a dangerous game.

but, goodbye grisha trilogy. you have served me well and i will return to reread you soon. but for now i will do a lot of writing (i already have so many fic ideas brewing) and read all the fan fiction and tumblr posts i’ve been avoiding for fear of spoilers.

#grisha trilogy #grishaverse #shadow and bone #siege and storm #ruin and rising #leigh bardugo #grisha #sankta alina #alina starkov #aleksander morozova #the darkling #malyen oretsev #nikolai lantsov #genya safin #zoya nazyalensky #baghra morozova #grisha netflix #mal x alina #alina x darkling #darkling #alina x aleksander #darklina