#my ramblings consume my waking thought and I can’t let this annoying ass discourse about Mal go

[theweeklydiscourse]

Maybe Mal was just an unlikable character with a terrible resolution to his character arc.

Sometimes…the writing was just bad.

I’ve always disliked these sorts of explanations of Mal’s behaviour in Shadow and Bone. I find that there’s something reductive about framing Mal as a little hapless teenage boy who only ever got angry about justified matters and only wanted to help. It flattens him and makes him very boring to engage with. I find that this argument removes his agency and attempts to obscure the legitimate issues Mal has seemingly by characterizing him as just a “boy” who’s actions are less severe as a result of that boyishness.

Additionally, I don’t like how the commenter intentionally revises their summary of the book’s events. Mal was never bullied at the Little Palace (quite the opposite actually) and implying that Alina made him feel worthless during that time unnecessarily vilifies Alina for putting more effort into saving Ravka than her sulking boyfriend. It uses Mal’s youth as a pass for his meanness and pettiness’s towards Alina in Shadow and Bone while masquerading as a defence of a character being unjustly criticized.

In the text, it seems clear that Mal acting out is an immature response to an unfamiliar situation. He acts childish, but the issue is not the childishness itself but is instead with the way the narrative addresses it. Mal’s bad attitude towards Alina’s powers and her connection to the Darkling are validated by an ending where Alina is stripped of both as a punishment for her greed. It validates Mal’s discomfort with Alina’s new identity and somewhat justifies his cruel words to her during their arguments in Shadow and Bone and Siege and Storm. This is in conflict with the actual arguments themselves because Mal’s points in those scenes are immature and flawed but aren’t confronted in a manner that shifts the status quo.

I’d also like to add that this appeal to Mal’s youth and inexperience approaches Mal as though he is not a fictional character. As a fictional creation, Mal’s actions and words influence the overarching themes of Shadow and Bone and thus, require a resolution that addresses them. It’s not surprising that readers had such an adverse reaction to Mal when he acted like an asshole for at least 2/3 of the trilogy.

I view Mal as a character with a botched arc. I believe that his character could have been something truly compelling if we had seen his journey from a petulant and selfish boy into a self-assured young man. Mal is challenged by the revelation of Alina’s Grisha identity because it confronts him with a version of the future that reveals a diverging path. Therefore, coming to terms with his codependency and becoming his own person would allow him and Alina to reconcile and find identities outside of one another. But because this never happens, I can’t really buy into Mal’s youth being a legitimate factor in his assholery because it isn’t supported in the text and is never fully understood.

So once again:

#shadow and bone #lb critical #my ramblings consume my waking thought and I can’t let this annoying ass discourse about Mal go #alina starkov #s&b critical #s&b netflix #s&b salt #anti leigh bardugo #malyen oretsev #anti malina #fandom meta #grishaverse meta #anti mal #leigh bardugo critical