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pessimisticpigeonsworld · 2 days

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The Demonizing of Change

A trend I've noticed in modern media is that many stories have the message of "protect the status quo". Whether it's a Marvel movie or a fantasy book, the fact that so often the villains are the only ones who fight to change society remains the same.

We all know the story: they were hurt by the system's flaw(s) and so they rose up to destroy that harmful system and in the process destroyed themselves. I'm not saying that this character type is wrong or bad (definitely overused imo), but the framing of the narrative and the protagonists is the issue.

The narrative typically shows the villain's first wrong doing to be the act of rebelling against the system. From the moment the person chose to reject the harmful system, they were in the wrong, or so the narrative frames it. Meanwhile, the protagonist may question and see injustice but they never fight it; it's just accepted and blindly defended. What's worse is the audience chooses to completely accept this telling and sides with the harmful regime the protagonist defends.

I find that some of the most drastic examples of these issues are Daenerys in GOT and the Darkling in the Grishaverse/SaB.

Daenerys Targaryen

One thing I want to specify before I go into this is that Dany's GOT ending is purely bad writing. It's not foreshadowed or justified in any way, so I'll be addressing how D&D tried to frame her past after S8e6 aired and how her antis interpret her.

According to D&D, we should see the beginning of Dany's "madness arc" from the very first season. Namely how she reacted to Viserys' death. While this isn't Dany rejecting a harmful system, her choosing to not defend Viserys (why would she??) is also her choosing to leave behind the cycle of abuse of her early life. It also sets the precedent of Dany killing/allowing the deaths of evil men.

Speaking of evil men, D&D also tried to paint Dany's campaign against slavery as a sign of her "megalomania and madness". This is where we get to the actual fighting against the system. Dany is leading a slave revolt and forcefully overthrowing the masters and the oppressive governments.

The way D&D tried to spin it was that Dany was wrong for using violence, and Tyrion's peaceful method was more successful. Except Dany did try peace in Meereen, it didn't work. She made concessions, she made agreements, she locked up her dragons and they weren't working. That's the whole point of her last chapter in ADWD.

However, the show chose to make it so Dany was failing because she was "too violent" and ultimately made the freedmen hate her. This choice, a clear deviation from the book, is the beginning of them trying to make Dany fall into the trope of "as bad as those you're fighting". In her fight to end slavery, she becomes as oppressive as the masters.

Which is just blatantly wrong. We see in the show that the freedmen are still free, they sit in her councils, they can come to her with their complaints and she listens. Dany is a queen, not a master. The show was already trying to gaslight its audience into believing the opposite of what they wrote. The same goes for her supposed violence. The violence she exerts is almost always towards the slavers, except when she executed Mossador for murder. That was her carrying out justice, why that was portrayed as a bad thing is beyond me.

The implications of the choices D&D made in adapting Dany's Meereen arc are very disturbing. They're basically saying that systematic and centuries old oppression should never be addressed with violence. The people who actively fight oppression are just as bad as the oppressors. If you can't magically fix a system that's been flawed for centuries immediately, you're a tyrant.

The choice to resolve the arc by having Tyrion come in with some great peaceful solution was plain stupid and sexist. We have seen in history that trying to unobtrusively phase out slavery doesn't work. By leaving the elite slave owners in peace, they are allowed to simply find ways to get around or wear down the changes. We see that in ADWD in Meereen by the way. Also the whole idea that a wise man had to come and fix the irrational woman's problem is so gross.

So basically: D&D took an arc about fighting oppression and learning that concessions only continue the cycle of violence and made it into a story about how violence is bad and you can actually just reason with slavers.

The disgusting ideas continue in season eight, where Dany torches KL for no reason and is put down like a rabid dog. Dany is the only character who wants to end oppression in this show. She's the only person to see and experience the suffering of the oppressed and chooses to do something about it. Season seven is full of her talking about leaving the world a better place and breaking the wheel. But in season eight "breaking the wheel" is turned into th deranged battle cry of her desired empire.

Let me restate that: the one character who fought to end systematic oppression is turned into the "true oppressor". Dany's desire to tear down the system that the entire show established as being unjust and awful is made into a sign of madness. Even in season seven, people were rolling their eyes at her talking about breaking the wheel.

Meanwhile, the protagonists of the show end it benefitting from the same system that tortured them the whole time. Westerosi society is shit, but the show ends glorifying the sexist, homophobic, classist, and feudalist kingdoms. They even laugh at Samwell Tarly when he suggests destroying the monarchy. All this sends the message that embracing the system is good, rebellion bad, and shut the fuck up if you're not happy.

Dany was reduced to a cautionary tale against fighting the system. I've seen people frame it as "seeking power is bad", but that doesn't make sense, as characters like Sansa actively seek power and are rewarded by the narrative. Dany's mistake was trying to change the world, rather than supporting it as it is.

The Darkling

The Darkling is a very different character from Dany; he's an actual villain. Aleksander is someone who has already reached the "become what you hate most" part of the trope, so he spends the whole story committing atrocities. The issue with his portrayal is the fact that the narrative and protagonists never address his very real reasons for fighting in the first place.

The grisha as a group are persecuted all throughout Ravka, they have been for centuries. The whole reason Aleksander begins his fight was to protect his people. By the time the series begins, the grisha are more protected, though only because they have become weapons of the state. That was only through Aleksander's mechanisations.

Aleksander became a villain in his attempts to save his people, making him a tragic character. So he has perfectly fallen into the trope, and, unfortunately, so do the protagonists. Alina and her allies all have seen and suffered under the cruelty of the Ravkan monarchy, however, they quickly dismiss just how awful it is. By the end of the story, the Darkling has become, in their eyes, the sole perpetrator of evil in Ravka.

There are no attempts made to rectify the constant damage done by the Apparat, in fact he's left to run free. Alexander Lanstov and Tatiana Grimjer are simply shipped off to a private island where they never are made to pay for the awful things they have done. There are no political reforms done to ensure the safety of grisha in the future; they're basically relying on the goodwill Zoya and Alina have bought with the people.

So basically, the minor villains who all had no reason to be completely atrocious receive basically no punishment from the narrative. Meanwhile, Aleksander, who had very valid reasons for wanting to overthrow the government, is ultimately given a fate worse than death. All his reasons for hating the Ravkan government and the power it has are ignored, even though the story set up that he's not wrong. The resolution of the story leaves the grisha just as, if not more, vulnerable to the prejudice and hatred of the world than they were before.

The narrative is communicating that Aleksander rising up for his people is worse than the centuries of corrupt Lanstovs. Aleksander is worse than the man who stirs up religious fanaticism and exploits the people through it. Yes, Aleksander did horrible things, but so did every other antagonist in the series, but he's somehow the worst because...well, he's grisha.

That's the only other difference between him and the others, aside from his motives. So either Bardugo is supporting the in-universe prejudice against grisha or she's saying rising up against an oppressive system is wrong. I don't expect her or any other author to have complex political and social commentaries in her story. However, she chose to create a world containing those elements and a main character who suffers from them. She chose to make the issues with the system have a prominent place in the story. And she chose to ignore them in the end.

Aleksander did awful things in the name of a just cause, this creates a complex moral issue that the story just never addresses. The established injustices and sanctioned atrocities by the Lanstovs are all ignored in favor of bringing down the dangerous rebel. That kind of message is pretty fucked up. Yes, Nikolai is a better man than his father, but what about his descendants? The propaganda of the Apparat and his church are extremely strong, it's only a matter of time before that propaganda once again starts turning people against grisha. The hatred of grisha is still embedded into Ravkan society.

Aleksander was the only character who was actually set on protecting and bettering the lives of the grisha. His original mission was still extremely important, no matter what he devolved to. The fact that the protagonists just blatantly dismissed just how dangerous Ravka still is for grisha is frustrating.

The treatment of both Dany and Aleksander by their writers and narratives show a hatred/mistrust of rebellion against the status quo, no matter how atrocious it is. The message of the trope is that people who fight against a system are worse than the system itself. I'm not saying that was Bardugo's intention (D&D I'm much less sure about though), but the way both the Darkling and Dany were written combined with the endings of the stories support that idea.

#daenerys targaryen #aleksander morozova #the darkling #pro daenerys #pro darkling #anti d&d #anti got #anti leigh bardugo #asoiaf #grishaverse #the grisha trilogy

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criminalamnesia · 1 year

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Dancing With Our Hands Tied

summary: Nikolai confronts you about unspoken feelings.

warnings: fluff, no use of y/n, not proofread, no gendered pronouns used (that I know of), grisha!heartrender!reader

author’s note: dancing with our hands tied by taylor swift inspired this! also listen I love zoya and nikolai but nikolai is just sooooooo ksjfjsjs I wanted to write a reader insert for him.

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What you had with your captain was something no one understood– not even the two of you.

Sturmhond– or Nikolai, as you knew him in secret– was your friend. Your captain. But he was also something more.

He was a rogue ship, and you were a lighthouse guiding him home. He was a dangerous sea, threatening to drown you if you tested your luck– and oh, how you were so close to seeing what would happen if you did.

You shouldn’t even know his true identity. But, as fate would have it, he needed a heartrender with a specific set of skills that you just happened to have, and you needed an escape.

You were his tailor– disguising his appearance and turning him into the infamous Sturmhond. That was the only reason you were allowed to see him without his mask– you were the one to put it back together.

“You’re not surprised?” He had asked you the first night your services had been requested.

The ginger hair of Sturmhond had faded. The crooked nose had straightened, but the same smug grin was still present.

“No,” you had said. “I know that heartbeat. I knew it was you a mile from your ship.”

That took him aback. How did you know his heartbeat?

You had laughed, your eyes twinkling with something he found mesmerizing. He didn’t know you– he was sure of it. He wouldn’t forget a face like yours.

One of your hands was on his shoulder, holding him still. The other roamed his face, fingers dancing across his skin as you worked.

“You’re staring,” you stated, your fingers moving to his messy blond hair. “Trying to figure out how I know you?”

“Yes,” he admitted, eyes watching your face intently. “Were you at the Little Palace?”

You nodded. “I was.” The blond of his hair started to turn red. “But I spent most of my time in the Grand Palace.” You paused, your hand leaving his shoulder to move to his chin, tilting his head to the side. You could hear his heart beat a tad bit faster.

“The Darkling gave me to your mother, as he did with Genya. I was her apprentice. She taught me how to tailor.” You told him.

“I didn’t suffer the same fate she did, if that’s what you’re wondering. Your father had eyes for her, not me.” You couldn’t help the bitterness in your voice. Nikolai flinched.

“You were rarely home– but I met you once, when we were both still small. That’s why I know your heartbeat. The only one of the Royal Family to have a good heart– not a sour one. It stuck with me, I guess you could say.”

“I don’t remember you,” he admitted, and you gave a small laugh. His blond hair was almost completely red now.

“I wouldn’t expect you to. You’re not the only one being tailored, Captain. The First Army can’t take me back if they don’t recognize me, now can they?”

“Are you listening?”

Nikolai’s voice broke you from your thoughts. He was sitting on the bed in his quarters on the ship. You stood between his knees, your hands on his face as you changed him back into Sturmhond.

“Mhm,” you hummed. You weren’t. This routine was something you could do in your sleep, and truthfully, you found your mind drifting off more and more whenever Nikolai required your assistance. It’s not that you found his company dull– quite the opposite, actually. But you didn’t want him to know that.

“No you weren’t,” he gave a small chuckle, one of his hands moving up to grab one of yours. He pulled it from his face as he intertwined your fingers.

“Nikolai,” you hissed, pulling your hand from his grasp. “Do you want me to mess up? I was in the middle of reforming your nose.”

He sighed, his hand falling back to his lap as you raised yours once more. You avoided his eyes, knowing you wouldn’t like what you saw in them.

Between the two of you, he was the more open with his feelings. For the past few weeks, he had continuously tried to corner you and get you to talk about whatever the two of you were. To try and figure things out. You had successfully avoided him thus far, but you knew you were dancing on thin ice.

It was only a matter of time before he recruited one of the twins to subdue you while he forced you to listen. You wouldn’t put it past him, and you knew for a fact Tolya would help him. Curse that hopeless romantic.

“You’re insufferable. And exhausting,” he told you as you grasped his chin gently between your fingers, turning his face this way and that to examine your handiwork.

“I know. You tell me quite often,” you remarked, nodding to yourself as you moved to focus your sights on his hair.

He sighed. Silence engulfed the two of you. It was almost smothering, full of unsaid words and the tension between the two of you. You were suddenly aware of how close you were to him– his knees caging you in as you stood between his spread legs. His face in your hands, his hands now on your waist.

“We keep dancing around this,” he said. You didn’t reply, choosing to focus more intently on the roots of his hair. “The whole crew thinks we’re sleeping together.”

That caught you off guard. You gave a snort, rolling your eyes. “Of course they do. You call me to your quarters in the night, every week. You always stare at me, especially when you think I’m not looking. And you’re handsy– you’ve always got a hand on my back or my shoulder or something.”

Nikolai chuckled. “Well, you’re one to talk. Every time you laugh at something I’ve said, you grab onto my arm and go ‘oh Sturmhond!’. And don’t act like you don’t stare, too.”

“I do not say ‘oh Sturmhond’,” you said, looking down at him. He grinned that same crooked smile.

“I know you’re thinking it. Probably thinking some other things, too. Like how you’d like to–”

“Shut up, or I’m going to give you a black eye.” You hissed, pulling his hair harder than you should’ve.

He laughed. “You wouldn’t. You like my face too much.”

“Im sick of it, actually,” you remarked. “I see it everyday.”

“If that were true, you wouldn’t be here.” He replied.

“You say that as if you’d let me leave. I’m the only tailor you’ve got.”

He shook his head. “That’s not the reason I wouldn’t let you leave, and we both know it.”

You dropped your hands as the last of his blond turned red. Your job here was done. There was nothing stopping you from bidding him goodnight and excusing yourself to your own cot. You knew he would drop it and let you go without another word, but you couldn’t bring yourself to say anything. You didn’t want to say anything.

“So now you’re keeping me prisoner?” You said, suddenly all too aware of his hands squeezing your waist.

“Maybe I am. At least until you admit you like me,” he said, and you scoffed.

“If I didn’t like you, I wouldn’t be here–” you began, but he cut you off.

“That’s not what I mean and you know it.”

He moved to stand. You tried to step back, but his hands on you kept you rooted to the spot. You looked up at him, heat rising to your cheeks. Your chests were touching now, and there were only inches between your lips and his.

“When are we going to stop playing this game?” He whispered, one of his hands moving from your waist to brush a strand of hair from your face.

“You like it too much to stop.” You retorted.

“I’d like honesty more,” he said, and you shook your head. “As much fun as playing cat and mouse is with you, I’m growing tired of chasing. And we both know you’re tired of running.”

His hands were on your hips as he swung you around the deck, a laugh on his lips as you clung to his shoulders. You couldn’t help but smile as he dipped you, your eyes meeting his. There were unspoken promises in his gaze– too many feelings, and you had to look away.

Others danced around you two as a few of the crew played some song you’d never heard on makeshift instruments. Laughter and conversation made it hard to think straight. Spirits were high– you’d all just succeeded in breaking through a Fjerdan blockade– and that called for a celebration.

“They’re all going to think we’re together,” you had told Nikolai as he grabbed your hand and pulled you to the dance floor. He had laughed, leaning in close to whisper “let them” in your ear.

He had kissed you for the first time that night, after the party had subsided and everyone was asleep but the two of you. You had been talking quietly, watching the stars and listening to the waves, and he had kissed you and you had melted.

“Nikolai..” you sighed, your hands moving to rest on his shoulders. “This isn’t a good idea.”

“I don’t care,” he told you, and his heartbeat was as steady as it had ever been.

“I do,” you told him, meeting his gaze. “You can’t play pirate forever. What happens when you go back to Ravka, back to your family? You can’t marry me. I’m nobody– not a princess, not a diplomat. I’m an escaped servant who knows too much and would be imprisoned or executed for escaping.”

“Privateer,” he corrected, and you rolled your eyes. “And I’m the second son– a bastard second son. I’m already a disgrace in their eyes,” one of his hands moved to the small of your back, his thumb rubbing circles into the fabric of your shirt. “I can’t disappoint them any more than I have.”

“It doesn’t matter what they think of you now, they still won’t let me anywhere near you.” You replied, and he shook his head.

“Why are we even talking about this?” He asked. “We’re not in Ravka. We’re in the middle of the ocean, and no one cares what we do.”

He was right. You were far from Ravka and his family and your pasts. You were someone new, and he was, too. You weren’t an escaped servant– you were Sturmhond’s first mate. You were his most trusted friend– besides the twins– and you were the one he wanted.

And you wanted him, too.

“I don’t care about details,” he said, his voice low. “I don’t care about families or consequences or rumors. I care about you, about that little smile you always get before you win at cards, about how you let me drag you onto the dance floor while the crew stares, and how you put up with me more than you should.”

You didn’t say anything, too stunned for words.

“I would do anything,” he began, his face slowly inching towards yours. “To dance with you again. To kiss you again. To not hide behind stolen glances and little jabs at each other.”

“Nikolai,” you murmured, your eyes flitting down to his lips.

“Yes?” He asked as your eyes found his once more.

“Just shut up.” You said, and you closed the gap between the two of you, your lips meeting his.

Maybe nothing he said would be true in the morning. Maybe he would realize this was all a big mistake, but you didn’t care.

He was right. You were tired of running, and you were so glad he was tired of chasing.

And as you kissed, that heartbeat that you’d remembered after all these years– that you’d always remember– soared.

And you knew he wasn’t lying.

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