#not gonna lie i had a pretty different mal and alina in my head when i was reading the books | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

stephanythedramaqueen · 3 years

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See I would someone believe them maybe changing the endgame if the author who's heavily involved with the show didn't hate them so openly I saw someone say the tagline for the first book was something akin to "darkness pure light a love that lasts forever" and she wasn't expecting people to ship them what??? I'm so confused was she planning for it to be the endgame and then she swerved for some unknown reason .Ben barnes is a huge draw and I'm sure they respect him but he wouldn't be the first veteran in a show to play the villain and nope out of there after a couple of seasons also the way they ADMITTED they changed things about mal that people found annoying they made him perfect and hit us with that meadow scene every 5 seconds bc they're doing a malina slowburn and making sure everyoneeeee knows that they're the OTP as much as I would love for us to get a redemption arc or even have alina turn dark like people said he's a mess but he's trying to fix a problem and protecting the grisha what the hell are the heroes actually doing even at the end of the books they do nothing.... There is no way it's gonna happen and I don't want to set myself up for years of disappointment

I wanna disclaim first and foremost that I have *not* read the books.

At least you know from the get-go that Malina is supposed to be endgame. And I also heard that the author is pretty much as allergic to darklina as anyone else, the same author that, yes indeed, is a producer on the show. I keep my hopes up though, but not by much, that there could be changes made to the ending if the fan reaction is loud enough. It isn’t unheard of, as I’m sure you’re aware. Like we aren’t still reeling from that atrocious Game of Thrones ending as a whole, despite that the author of the series had also been a producer and a writer of the show. And that was coming from an author who was so staunchly adamant that the right kind of people adapted his work. Netflix, on the other hand, has retconned endgame pairings from their source material to the adaptations before. Riverdale comes to mind, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina as well. Over at CW, The Vampire Diaries had a drastic overhaul when it came to pairings. Netflix has done it before that they would follow through with the popular ship to cater to the fans.

And I mean, darklina seems to have been the more popular ship *before* the show came out, I’m scarce to think of the standing of the ship now after said release. The fact that the show pushed hard with Ben Barnes’s face is *not* helping the fact. I wasn’t aware there had been a rival ship to General Kirigan x Alina at all until I’ve seen the show. Like there was an obvious baiting here. The show runners knew what they were doing when they cast Ben Barnes - let alone the baiting in the original source material as well.

So I’m not holding up a lot of hope, lmao I ain’t walking around with Booboo the Fool stamped on my forehead all the time, but I am enjoying the ship for as long as we have it. And I know the detractors would say differently but Ben Barnes is the face of the show right now. And he’s real excited about it, about his character, and the darklina ship as well. Like he put all his passion into the role. All these tiny tidbits we seem to enjoy the most in the show are being revealed that Ben improvised them to bring nuance to his character and the pairing. Whatever will happen down the line with the darkling and for Ben, I feel we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. The adaptations changed enough, from what I heard. Who’s to say they won’t change more?

As for the author within her own work I cannot speak too much on it, simply bc I have not read them. From the looks of it, it sounded like she used darklina quite as a shipbait, if even the tag line on her (first) book alluded to some kind of eternal romance between Alina and the Darkling. I am absolutely not gonna lie; if I read that tagline on the first book before I even opened the cover, only for the books to do a 180 on me, then yeah I would sincerely feel baited too. And I feel like she restricted the possibilities of her characters just to allude to her own personal life. I see a few people defending the author for such which, a lot of the times In The Real World, I tend to disagree, especially when it seems that she’s purposely prohibiting the organic flow of where the story and the characters are heading, like allowing the Darkling a worthy redemption arc, just to fit her personal issues in her work. It’s not that I’m saying she shouldn’t— it’s her story, she’s allowed to write it per her whim— it just feels less satisfying to the general writing of the tale she’s telling. And that could factor to weak writing.

#shadow and bone #darklina #ben barnes #the darkling #netflix

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ilikebigbooks-and-icannotlie · 7 years

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Lol sorry guys...

Not that I have many followers to start, but those that I do have I love dearly!!! And those of you may have noticed that I have gone on a slight Leigh Bardugo craze… And by slight I mean extreme… So, I would like to take this moment to apologize, but also to discuss the amazing masterpiece that is the Grisha Trilogy and the beautiful soul that is Leigh Bardugo.

I pressed the text post button with gazillions of things I wanted to say about this series sitting in my head, so I will begin with my sudden never-ending love of Leigh, and go from there!

I read these books in 4 days. I began, and I could not stop. I bought the first one, read it the next day in one sitting, bought the other two the next day, and read them in the following 2 days. I devoured them whole. The artistry. The literary magic. The plot twists that I did NOT see coming. The effortlessly beautiful and casually placed LGBT secondary characters who no other character batted an eye about. The amazing brother sister relationships. The love story I did NOT see coming??? The multiple unbelievably well-done (and lack there of) love stories I did not see coming. Unbelievable pain in the form of my beautiful child Nikolai. The unrelenting complete destruction and death of characters, that many authors are afraid to accomplish. (Lol this is going to be a long ass post as I cover each of those topics #sorrynotsorry…) The amazing feminists and glorious female characters who easily went head to head with the men. The low key shade thrown on religion and the fanatics of the supposed Saint. I loved every second of the beautifully well-defined world this amazing woman created. And I cannot express that enough.

One of the things that has been difficult for me to wrap my head around is the general lack of fan art in this fandom, I feel like? I come from the Sarah J Mass and Rick Riordan squad of decorative pillows and official rings and candles and fancy tattoos of quotes, on top of piles and piles of fan art, so what feels like the lack of that for the Grisha Trilogy is strange? Or maybe it’s just me and I’m not finding it?? Idk, that’s kind of irrelevant, but maybe someone else has some input???

I REALLY want to talk about the plot twists, but I don’t know how to without spoiling them, but I will try my best? But just in case, be aware, spoiler alert! I did not expect a single one of them, to start. Where I did expect plot twists, there weren’t any. And where I didn’t, BAM there they were. The only time I expected it was in the second book when Alina and Mal returned to their small inn and the owner guy was being really shifty and I had a feeling he had totally given them away, but did not expect the Darkling himself to be there and I 100% did not expect the roof with the shadows. I also knew Mal would follow Alina in Shadow and Bone when she Ran away, but I didn’t expect her to actually run. Literally EVERY other plot twist, 100% was shocked. There are also the plot twists I expected to happen that didn’t?? I was 100% ready for Alina to be proven to be related to the Darkling. I was ready for her to be super special and keep her powers somehow and defy logic. I was ready for Mal to die. Literally from the first book I was ready for the Darkling to pull a Warner (from Shatter Me) and prove to have been a misunderstood good guy all along and for Alina to end up with him, or for Alina to give herself to Nikolai in the end, or for her power to be the thing to 100% fix Nikolai, and literally none of that happened??????? And what did happen both infuriated and pleased me because while yes childhood friends being together is cute, I was 100% team Nikolai all the way not gonna lie… He is my everything, and he understood her in a way I feel like Mal never can. Same with the Darkling. From the very beginning it was very clear that her and Mal were VERY different. And while you can say opposites attract, or they belonged together from the beginning, or they got each other because they both lost pieces of themselves, or if your argument is “psh whatever, he was willing to die for her” I feel like none of that cuts out for me? There’s opposites attract and then there’s literally being completely different people with entirely different purposes and world views. And of course, the entire concept of the novel is “Like calls to like,” of which Alina and Mal have nothing in common, other than attraction and upbringing. And you can say they belong together from the beginning, but just because they have known each other the longest doesn’t really mean they’re meant to be?? Also the fact that they both lost pieces of themselves is kind of moot, because Mal’s piece wasn’t really something he felt on the same level as Alina’s Grisha power? Only the Darkling matched her and understood her in that sense and he was right about the fact that Mal would never truly understand. Like calls to like. On top of that, there is Nikolai. The perfect Prince, who always had the right retort, who was always more friend than lover to Alina, but who she would have been the perfect Queen for. Grisha and otkazatsy'a (preeeetttyyy sure I spelled that wrong) would have been united as Alina and Nikolai took the throne. He understood the darkness that took hold in her and she understood that in him. She connected to him. He knew her when he was in his darkest form, he recognized her, he fought his instincts to spare her. They were drawn together. And instead, she chose Mal. And you can say it was because he was willing to sacrifice everything for her. But to be honest, there were hundreds of people willing to do the same. He was not special. He was not unique, in that sense. If the twins had been the amplifiers, if it had been Genya, or any of the Soldat Sol, or pretty much anyone else in Alina’s squad, honestly, they all would have died for her. So for me, idk, I just didn’t see Mal coming, and for me, he wasn’t the logical choice. But, I loved their banter, and I liked him, and I cried when I thought he was going to die, and his sadness broke my heart, and every single line of his declaring love for Alina definitely made me long for a love like that, but realistically, I don’t know, I still feel like Nikolai was the better choice? I don’t know :/

Tamar and Nadia was everything I needed and never knew I wanted from this book, and how easily it was added and how easily everyone accepted and moved past it and treated neither of them differently, and how neither of them died, oh my god I love these books for it. So so so so amazing and important and wonderful. So comfortably and casually added and just Aaahhhhhhh so precious I love them dearly.

Speaking of those two wonderful ladies, both of their relationships with their brothers were just so unbelievably wonderful and sweet and wholesome and as a sister to a younger brother (who is also currently reading these books) I loved every minute of it. I love these siblings’ undying support and love of one another. Tolya and Tamar’s banter and never ending trust and faith in one another and distant protectiveness. They begrudgingly split but knew when it had to be done and had faith in each other, and that hug when they reunited in the freaking third book made me cry because they are so precious. Also Nadia’s support of her brother, and her control when his arm was being cut off, and that kid’s bravery, and the fact that he saved them when the cave in occurred, I loved their relationship so much as well.

I already addressed the fact that I didn’t really see Mal and Alina coming, partly because I didn’t really expect the love square to end that easily, as Alina stayed with the guy she started with in the beginning, but it did?? And I just addressed Tamar and Nadia which I LOVED. But I want to take a sec to talk about David and Genya. Which just. I could go on and on about this duo. But I just want to say I loved it. Because they have barely anything in common. All of David’s interests lie in engineering and science. And Genya’s not all that about that life? And she was beautiful, and then she was scarred. But he didn’t see that. He did not worship her beauty, he did not pity her pain. He loved the gentle yet strong unyielding woman beneath, and I love him for it. And I love her for loving him. She could have had anybody. Picked anybody. Gone for anyone else. But she chose him. And when it came to his strangeness, his shyness, and his undying love of learning, she loved him all the more for it. And I just loved that. That complete acceptance from both parties was just incredibly beautiful.

As far as the “lack thereof” goes, I was really happy to see Zoya single. Not in like a “ha ha suck it I hate you” way, because I actually really really liked Soya in the end. In the sense that, she didn’t need a man. She chose who to be with. She had offers that she didn’t want. She was strong. She was beautiful. And she was perfectly okay being her own person. And she was also a great ally, and turned into a great friend (oh god that scene in the After of the last book killed me), and all of that happened as she stood on her own, a great beauty contained by no one and content with herself, and I loved that. She had standards and she was strong and she was just lovely.

I loved the girls. I loved Genya, and her fierce destruction of the king. I loved Nadia and her role with her brother and with Tamar and as a powerful squalor and her strength I just loved her. I loved Zoya and her sass and her strength. I loved Tamar, kicking ass and taking names and giving no apologies for who she was. I actually had mixed feelings about Alina if I’m being honest, but in the end, I felt like she also had mixed feelings about herself, and I appreciated that. I loved that she had no fear when it came to punching both of the royal princes and going toe to toe with the king and the Darkling. I loved the Darkling’s mother, who was just the ultimate sass master. I loved them all and their unflinching strength and bravery and aaahhhhhh strong women, man, 10/10.

I both loved and hated how many people died? I will say that it takes a strong and brave author to kill as many characters as unrelentlessly as Leigh did. But I can’t say I enjoyed it, for obvious reasons, because my precious babies died and almost died waaaay too much (don’t even get me started on the hell I went through with Nikolai). However, in the end, it was amazing. The sacrifice of the Darkling’s mother. The death of Ivan. Of Marie. The impact on Sergei. The death of Sergei. The deaths of sooo many others in the armies and soldiers. The deaths of those hung on the tree by the Darkling. The sacrifices made. The death of the Inferni whose name starts with an H and that I will 100% butcher if I try to spell it actually really pissed me off. Not because I was so mad he was dead, but because he didn’t even get an actual full death that we got to see, he was just gone. And I get it, it makes sense, it’s a war and people die and faces blend together and that was part of all of the death, the misery and the pain and the impact and all we got of him was the leftover cat from a death we didn’t even get to see, and that was part of the whole image of how awful it all was, but it just ugh man it bugs me he deserved more than to be some metaphor, some body in a pyre. But, that’s probably the point of it all in the long run.

I also forgot to mention Misha but like shout out to that kid, loved him so much, what a precious little puppy, he was just a cutie pie I adored him!!!

Last but not least, I kind of really appreciated how this book low key took a pretty big dump on religion, in my opinion. The concept was hope, was the people believing in something even though it wasn’t real, because they needed to and wanted to, and in the end, receiving their martyr, as they watched a fake Sankta Alina die, and I loved that. Because Alina changed history based on how it was convenient for her, and that’s the story that will be told, it’s how the saint will be remembered now that she’s dead, except she never died, and she was never a saint, and people would cry and touch her and hold her and get their tattoos on their faces and part of that was happening while she didn’t even have powers, it was all just nice parlor tricks done in a derelict, thrown-together kefta, and I loved that. I loved that blind ridiculous faith being called out and brought forth as countless people died for the Sankta Alina who just wanted to chill with her friends and acquire more power and was honestly no saint at all. I loved the selfishness of the Apparat and his ability to persuade people into whatever he wanted and his convenient decisions that staying underground and protecting people was what was best for everyone because it was best for him and I loved his manipulation of Alina in “the name of her safety” and just the complete destruction of religion in this book, intentional or not, just really rung true with me. Because I have always been someone who felt like faith was a silly thing. Because there is proof Alina existed, and in the end Nikolai was definitely alive, but how Alina died, what Nikolai was, and everything that happened in between, was conveniently erased and forgotten, and that can JUST as easily be the tale of a lot of our own history, and religion and I just really really appreciated the seeds of those concepts in this book.

However, all of that said, the romanticism of Tsarist Russia by other fans is kind of ridiculous??? Anyone who wants to step into the world of Racks is kind of fundamentally wrong, in my opinion??? I know that in interviews Leigh has said that she’s happy people want to step into her world, but seriously guys???? I am Bulgarian, and I speak Bulgarian, which is a Slavic language, and I know the Cyrillic alphabet, and I took 4 years of Russian and was obsessed with Anastasia and the Romanovs, so to see Russian culture, and to understand the language and where it came from in the books, and to appreciate it and feel a connection to it was really really cool for me, and I loved connecting to it in this way. But Tsarist Russia was a time of poverty, and serfdom, and suffering, and on top of that in Leigh’s version you add evil monsters, a crazy dictator, an absolute trash king, a country divided in half, and even in the best case an aftermath of destruction, with orphans at every turn and death all over, and THAT is the world you want to step into?? And if your argument is “yeah, but I could have special powers,” at what cost????? The Grisha went to the Darkling, and by the end of it all the likelihood is you would have been dead, or severely traumatized. Post Ruins and Rising Ravka, maybe. Maaaaaaybe it’d be tolerable. But personally, everyone praying to Sankta Alina would probably drive me insane, if I were to step in now, knowing everything I know as a reader. So, in conclusion, all of you saying you want to step into this world, I feel like you missed the point? And I definitely feel like you’re seriously lacking some information regarding Tsarist Russia.

In the end, I loved these books. I loved their characters, I loved their concept, I loved their setting, I loved their twists and turns, I loved their deaths (even when I hated them), I loved their artistry and how brilliantly they were crafted, and I love Leigh. I love the adorably kind-hearted queen who put them all together. Who takes time out of her day to answer fan questions and run her own tumblr blog. Who is just precious, in every interview I read. I discovered her and her world literally less than a week ago but I swear to god I already want to be her best friend forever and ever and hold each other while we cry over dear sweet precious baby Nikolai who is too good for this world :’(

Leigh, a million thank yous for the magical world you have opened up for me, and I’m really sorry I would 100% rather not step into it…

Lol guys really this post was really long I am so sorry and I am also really sorry that it’s only going to get worse because I’m going to buy Six of Crows tomorrow… oops… also really sorry about any typos, 0 effort was made to edit this really long post…

#lbardugo #the grisha trilogy #tgt #alina starkov #sankta alina #the darkling #aleksander morozova #nikolai lantsov #mal oretsev #zoya nazyalensky #genya safin #tamar kir-bataar #bataar twins #shadow and bone #seige and storm #ruin and rising

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