#sab meta

[eggsaladstain]

the darkling said i have loved and lost and i can bear it no longer, i will close my heart to anyone who is not like me, love is weakness, love is heartache, the joy of loving them is not worth the pain of losing them and i would spare her from this pain even if she hates me for it

and alina said i have loved him and i will lose him but not today, i have sacrificed everything but i will not sacrifice him, not again, i will bring him back to me no matter the cost, even if i have to let him go in the end

and mal said i have loved her my whole life but i don’t know who i am without her, i want a life of my own even if it means i have to leave her, but i will go trusting that i will be able to find my way back to her as i always have

and genya said i have loved him and i do not regret saving him but it came at a terrible cost, i have wandered underground in the dark with only the sound of his heartbeat guiding the way, i have survived unimaginable horrors and i am strong enough to survive losing him too

and david said i have loved her without knowing how to show it but i would like to try, i know metal and she is stronger than steel and more beautiful than rubies or emeralds, i have never known anyone braver and i regret leaving her side before, but i will do it just once more if it means i can save her

and wylan said i have loved him even knowing it might never be anything more, i left him the first time but i’m not leaving now, i want to hear about his day and i want to tell him about mine

and jesper said i have loved him all while hiding a part of myself but i will hide no longer, i do not know where this journey will lead us but i would like to find out, i have spent my life gambling and i will take a gamble on this

and nina said i have loved him even as he hates me, i have condemned him to save him and i will not rest until i am able to free him

and matthias said i have loved her despite a lifetime at war against her people, i should have known better than to trust her but i let myself anyway, she betrayed me and i should hate her but it’s not just hatred that i feel when i dream of her in the night

and inej said i have loved him as his shadow, close enough to be near but never touching, i want more for us and i will not settle for less, i will have him completely or not at all and i will not wait, i will live my own life with the freedom he gave me and we will meet again one day when i choose to return

and kaz said i have loved her when i could not love myself, i do not believe in saints but i believe in her, i have lost my brother and i would do anything to make sure she doesn’t have to suffer the same, i have given everything so she could have her freedom and i would rather watch her walk away than ever hold her back, i will wait for her and i will miss her every moment she’s not beside me, but i will try to make myself a better man by the time she returns

and sankta neyar said i have loved and lost and i will gladly do it again, i once closed my heart but no longer, i will endure the pain of losing my husband by cherishing the memories of the life we shared, may you all find a love that brings you joy that will outlive the pain, my love is my strength and my universe, i have lived for hundreds of years and what i have learned is this: there is only love, it is the only thing that matters and it is enough

#sab meta #shadow and bone #six of crows #kanej #malina #darklina #wesper #helnik #danya #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #alina starkov #mal oretsev #wylan van eck #jesper fahey #nina zenik #matthias helvar #grishaverse #sankta neyar #meta

[greensaplinggrace]

“Character A didn’t love Character B because they hurt them” discourse is truly terrible because it assigns a moral value to love that simply does not exist. love doesn’t actually mean anything about someone’s character. it doesn’t make someone’s actions toward another any better or any worse, it doesn’t prevent atrocities, and it doesn’t prevent abuse.

love is a worthless emotion when it comes to morals because it simply holds no bearing on them. true love doesn’t exist. there is no better or more pure version of love. in the end love doesn’t mean anything. it’s a non-emotion. it’s the child of passion and affection and dedication. doing something bad doesn’t preclude a feeling of love, because a lack of love isn’t a requirement for immoral actions, and morality isn’t a requirement for feeling love.

#like there's no moral high ground saying the character loved or didn't love the other charater #because its irrelevent #it's a driving factor like any emotion is a driving factor and that's about it #it's not a sign of morality or immorality #it's literally just love #love as an emotion is an ENTIRELY separate entity from a healthy relationship #shadow and bone #grishaverse #aleksander morozova #the darkling #alina starkov #darklina #hannigram #lawlight #spuffy #sab meta #sab salt #sab discourse #i mean kinda lol #just to be safe #myramblings #negative #fandomcourse

[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

[juneisafantasyaddict]

“the darkling is a monster” yeah?? why was he going around freeing grisha that the first army locked up??? what would’ve happened to them if he hadn’t shown up?? would it have been better for them to die locked up in cages like their lives meant nothing??

the more i think about it, the more i wonder why nikolai’s side of the war never tried to negotiate with the grisha that sided with the darkling. this is probably a crazy thought, but follow me for a sec. so one of the things we’re told time and time again is that the darkling is manipulative, if that’s the case and one of his sins is that he manipulated alina, genya, zoya, nina (you know, all the grisha on the hero’s side), then why aren’t they also concerned than he manipulated all the other ones?? i mean, they all grew up together in the little palace, how come no one ever said “hey, these are our friends/family that we grew up with and fought with, how about we try to make them see this guy is manipulating them?” or am i crazy?? i don’t know, but it just felt like the heroes were all too happy to kill the other grisha?? and these aren’t strangers to a lot of them, these are people they know, people they lived and fought and trained and ate with, etc etc.

but anyway back to the original point of this rant, what would have happened if the darkling wasn’t going around freeing the grisha the first army had locked up in cages?? yes i know they were doing it on vasili’s orders, but you can’t deny that a lot of them were all too happy to lock up and torture these people they already hated.

i guess i’m wondering why this wasn’t something nikolai was concerned about as someone who was presenting himself as a benevolent pro grisha guy. i just find it interesting that at a time when the darkling was probably the most hated/hunted person in ravka, he was still like “i still won’t let them lock my people up in cages.” and yes, i know one of his motives was definitely to build back his army, but like the heroes were building an army too?? it’s a war, both sides need all the soldiers they can get, so why wasn’t that something they thought about??? is it crazy that i’m thinking about this??

#shadow and bone #alina starkov #aleksander morozova #the darkling #nikolai lantsov #shadow and bone season 2 #sab s2 #sab meta #can a rant be called meta? #random thought I guess

[seventfics]

in a world where no Sun Summoner is ever discovered, Genya would be the Darkling's foil. of all the characters that LB develops across books, I stand by Genya being the most like him, and not Zoya

this is not to say that Zoya isn't a foil for aspects of the Darkling, because she is. so are Alina and Nikolai, dominantly! But Genya?

-she acts principally by her self-imposed duty to Grisha

-she is aware of the critical roles she has to play. as agent and servant. as a uniquely gifted Grisha, isolated by the rest. as someone staring up at the glass-ceiling made by the Grand Palace court

-she is willing to sacrifice her personhood and individuality (and similarly to the "price of Merzost," her body) for Grisha to break that glass-ceiling, so that they may rise as a cast from social oppression

Genya is who the Darkling once was: younger, less experienced, morally gray and aware, and still seeking connection with others

what distinguishes them from each other (in the S&B trilogy in particular) is that while the Darkling is at a point where he craves power by any means gained, Genya doesn't: she wants friends. she wants belonging. what she wants of power is to protect herself

he's far outgrown that feeling from an eternity of never having enough power to change what matters. and yet, what do we see happen in S&S and R&R? the Darkling's close relationships slowly fall apart to ruin as Genya instead builds new ones. David, Alina, the surviving Grisha. she thrives, while he dies

I just really wish we had seen more of Genya being one of the only people who understood the Darkling’s mind. her point of view into his decision-making. she should have made an incredible Second Army General, or a hidden-morally-ambiguous-left hand of King Nikolai

(I'm trying to convince myself not to start side-project-writing again by talking about it here) ((or maybe I'll fail miserably after a week and cave in with another writing wip))

#tt #sab meta #idk i just lose my mind when i think about genya too long #and then thing about the darkling juxtaposed #the darkling #genya safin

[darjeelinh]

Was rewatching the Wesper deleted scene and something about this janky ass key Jesper made really got to me. He genuinely seemed surprised and disappointed at how bad his product turned out. Yes yes, he’s an untrained durast, but that’s definitely not all the reasons why.

Because turning coin into key is something he’s a natural at.

Turning coin into key is something he has been able to do under stress before. A good one at that.

(see episode 1 season 2)

So this impulse decision (proposal) he made to Wylan was something that made him so nervous that he failed to produce a functional key. It mattered to him that much.

Not to mention he immediately jumped out of bed itching to run away at the prospect of Wylan saying no because this is important and precious to him. Wylan is important and precious to him. And he didn’t want his impulsiveness to ruin it (like everything else in his life).

And when Wylan did say yes, Jesper Fahey, notorious flirt and smooth-talker, tried to crack a joke to make it less serious (as he does) but ended up stumbling over his words because he was also an emotional mess after Wylan said yes.

Until Wylan kissed to shut him up, of course.

#just something about a confident character getting flustered when it comes to his special person #yes i am still obsessed about this deleted scene #yes i am hyper analysing it #and i’ll do it again #they mean so much to me #wesper #shadow and bone #six of crows #jesper fahey #wylan van eck #wylan hendriks #netflix shadow and bone #sab spoilers #wylan x jesper #jesper x wylan #sab s2 #kit young #jack wolfe #sab meta #shadow and bone season 2

[crimeronan]

these shadow and bone cast interviews (which dropped less than a day ago) are more serious about season 2's themes and storytelling than silly promotional content AND THEY'RE SO FUCKING GOOD I'M SO EXCITED I'M GONNA THROW UPPPP

HIGHLY recommend watching if you like narrative meta and want some info about the emotional arcs coming up. here are some key highlights:

ben barnes talking about how the darkling is a scorned incel with nothing left but rage (and also not knowing what reddit is)

daisy head talking about genya's chronic pain arc and how she manages pain and trauma and suffering

jack wolfe talking about how you see more dynamic arcs and character choices in wylan because of how he interacts with plot points and people he never meets in the books

danielle galligan talking about nina feeling unmoored from her purpose and never having had a home and having put her home into matthias and needing to reckon with that

amita suman alluding to negative character development for inej (🥵)

freddy carter alluding to EXTRA negative character development for kaz (🥵🥵🥵)

KAZ/JESPER/INEJ DIVORCE ARC

i repeat

KAZ/JESPER/INEJ DIVORCE ARC!!!!!

#video #shadow and bone #shadow and bone cast #shadow and bone spoilers #shadow and bone cast interviews #sab cast #shadow and bone meta #sab meta #grishaverse #DIVORCE DIVORCE DIVORCE DIVORCE DIVORCE #soc #six of crows #Youtube

[purpleyin]

Today I'm thinking about show Wesper & how Wylan brought Jesper stroopwafels when they met before. The same Wylan who Kaz asks "when was the last time you ate" in 2x01. Maybe stroopwafels are really cheap there? But it feels notable a struggling Wylan made that effort for Jesper.

#shadow and bone #sab season 2 #grishaverse #wesper #wylan van eck #jesper fahey #jesper x wylan #jesper fahey x wylan van eck #slash #sab meta

[wylanslcve]

Something I don't see anyone speak about (if you have and I just haven't seen it... I'm sorry :( ) is how Wylan not only reclaims his identity by the duology's conclusion, but he also reclaims Marya's. I feel like we as a fandom overlook just how much J*n put Marya through in an attempt to erase Wylan from the public memory: he had her declared insane as a grounds for divorce and institutionalised her, leaving her "abandoned along with her defective child" in order to "forever rid himself of any evidence that Wylan had existed". This transcended to J*n not allowing Wylan to grieve his mother's 'death' because, as he put it, "it didn’t pay to dwell on the past" - and Wylan tells Jesper that J*n never brought Marya up after breaking the news of her finality to his son, confessing "we just stopped talking about her".

What we also need to remember is that the Van Eck mansion "had belonged to Wylan’s mother’s family for generations before Van Eck had ever set foot through the door". (Edit: I didn't mean to write that the mansion belonged to the Hendriks - it was part of the property under the Van Eck name. Sorry about that!) Just like how J*n separated Wylan from his mother, he simultaneously took so much from Marya - first her home, then her name, her fortune, her own child. This is why Marya was admitted as Marya Hendriks, not Marya Van Eck: this is J*n quite literally stripping her of her name to permanently erase her from the public memory. The nurse addresses Marya as "Miss Hendriks", to which Marya mutters "Van Eck" in response, because "she was not Marya Hendriks, she was Marya Van Eck, a wife and mother stripped of her name and her fortune." So why is it that Wylan says, "I am Marya Hendriks' son" if Marya Hendriks is the woman who's left after Marya Van Eck had her name and her life taken away from her? Because this is Wylan reclaiming his mother's identity.

If we examine the moment Wylan visits his mother at Saint Hilde, Marya's first words to him are "did you come for my money? I don’t have any money" to which Wylan replies that he doesn't have any money either. The money neither of them have comes to signify the lack of autonomy they have over their identities, which have spent so long confined by J*n's contempt as he gradually works towards making them vanish entirely. J*n tried desperately to erase Marya's memory as a means of gradually erasing Wylan's - however, Wylan is the only one who keeps his mother's memory alive, just like how Marya keeps her son's alive. Upon arriving in the Barrel, Wylan detaches himself from his father's name and, instead, uses his mother's maiden name. Yes, he's doing it to not draw attention to himself (because what would the child of one of the richest men in Ketterdam be doing in a place like the Barrel?), but he's also preserving Marya's memory, clinging to it like a lifeline without even realising it. In a way, it's saving him.

Before I go on any further, I'm taking a brief detour to discuss the transition in Wylan's motivations upon discovering what really happened to his mother (it's relevant, I promise). Wylan completely breaking down when he realises that his father is indeed evil is such a pivotal moment that marks a major transition in his motivations. Jesper comforts Wylan during his breakdown, assuring him that "Kaz is going to tear your father’s damn life apart" - a sentiment that "felt like cool water cascading over the hot, shameful feeling of helplessness he’d [Wylan] been carrying with him for so long". His continued contribution to the Dregs’ mission is no longer about making the money to “get out of town and never speak the name Van Eck again” - now, he's "here for her". Now, it's about punishing his father, saving Marya and returning all J*n took from her: “what am I doing here? But he knew the answer. Only he could see his father punished for what he’d done. Only he could see his mother free.” He realises that J*n's life falling apart means that, with his money, "he could take his mother from this place. They could go somewhere warm. He could put her in front of a piano, get her to play, take her somewhere full of bright colors and beautiful sounds. They could go to Novyi Zem. They could go anywhere." He could save her, liberate her from the confines of J*n's contempt - and only he can do it, because who else would?

Meanwhile, Marya clings to the memories of her child even though J*n took him away from her. While institutionalised, Marya would paint - and in her paintings, "repeated again and again, was the face of a little boy with ruddy curls and bright blue eyes". We know that J*n wanted Wylan to disappear "the way he’d made Wylan’s mother disappear" - what we don't know, however, is what J*n told Marya during the time she was institutionalised. Did he visit her after sending Wylan away, supposedly to study music in Belendt, to tell her that Wylan is dead? Did he ever visit her before then and tell her that her son is dead to expunge his memory from Marya? We can only speculate - but what we do know is that, regardless of whether or not she thinks he's dead, Marya is grieving the loss of her child.

Something that Wylan fears if the Dregs’ mission is unsuccessful is that he’s “going to die and there will be no one to help her. No one to even remember Marya Hendriks” - and the same could be said about Marya’s feelings of responsibility for preserving the spirit of her child. Amidst her grief is the strive to save him and his memory, because she’s really the only one who’s willing to remember him. At the asylum, her paintings are thrown out “every six months” because “there just isn’t enough space for them” - but that doesn’t stop her from continuing to paint the face of her child and, thus, remembering him, making sure he doesn't disappear. Wylan confesses to Jesper that his parents “fought all the time, sometimes about me”, revealing how Marya has always fought for Wylan - and her being institutionalised, having her paintings thrown out every so often, won’t put an end to her fighting for him. She's hellbent on ensuring he doesn't vanish, because there’s no one else who would. (Think of this in relation to the meaning behind “no mourners, no funerals” - if Wylan disappeared, “no one would come looking”, as is the case with the rest of the Crows.)

Now, let's examine how, by the end of the duology, Wylan not only liberates himself from the pain caused by his father's wrongdoings, but also saves his mother. He'd "chosen to use a portion of his newfound wealth to restore his home", exemplifying how inheriting his father's fortune represents him reclaiming his identity from the pain and abuse J*n's contempt inflicted upon him. However, I mentioned earlier that the Van Eck mansion didn't actually belong to the Van Ecks in the first place - it belonged to the Hendriks. (Edit: again, not the mansion, but part of the property under the Van Eck name.) Thus, Wylan's position by the end of Crooked Kingdom also comes to represent him reclaiming his mother's identity as he returns everything J*n took from her. By "restor[ing] his home", he's also restoring Marya's.

#who am i if i don't write essay-length analyses of these books #more specifically #who am i if i don't write essay-length analyses of wylan van eck #also hardly anyone talks about marya and it physically pains me #wylan my beloved #wylan my boy #wylan van eck #wylan hendriks #wylan van sunshine #jack wolfe #marya hendriks #marya van eck #meta #soc meta #sab meta #six of crows duology #six of crows #crooked kingdom #grishaverse #shadow and bone #seige and storm #ruin and rising #shadow and bone season 2 #shadow and bone season 3 #six of crows spin off #soc spinoff #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #jesper fahey

[eggsaladstain]

so i thoroughly enjoyed season 2 even if it was extremely rushed and the fact that it’s not a 1:1 adaptation is genuinely so fun to me.

like i get it, things are different from the books, the characters have developed in way they did not in the books, but the books still exist. the show canon does not negate the book canon in any way - we just have twice as much canon now and honestly i fail to see the downside to that.

book/show spoilers under the cut.

let me start with the not so good before i get to the good.

the crows really got shortchanged this time around and most of their storyline definitely felt more out of place this season compared to the first. and as satisfying as it was to see kaz beat pekka, all the wesper and kanej moments, and have 5 of 6 crows all together (sorry matthias, better luck next time buddy), the show was not nearly as successful integrating the crooked kingdom plot points as it was the storm and siege and ruin and rising ones. but i get it, the crows were always going to be secondary to alina.

that said, i do love the idea of taking this heist most of us are already familiar with and turning it on its head with these new character dynamics. imagine an empowered and free inej returning to ketterdam to help a less burdened, less haunted kaz plan the heist. imagine jesper in his element, confident and proud of his grisha abilities now that he’s made peace with his past. imagine wylan and jesper openly flirting at the most inopportune moments. imagine nina and matthias presumably actually getting some screen time together?? the possibilities are endless and i can’t wait to see where they go with this.

now, onto alina’s storyline, which has the biggest departure from the books.

the show ends with alina killing mal, amplifying her power to singlehandedly destroy the fold, bringing mal back to life with merzost, and then killing the fjerdan intruder with the cut summoned from shadows instead of light and seeming to enjoy her newfound shadow power. this is the story of a savior who becomes a saint who finds herself turning into a heretic - dark alina arc let’s go!!

i love this direction for the show because it’s incredibly consistent with alina’s journey and the way she is constantly presented as a foil for the darkling, following in his footsteps even without realizing it. she has tremendous power and a desire to protect those she cares about, and she’s clever and cunning and willing to do whatever it takes to reach her goal, whether that’s burning a set of maps so she can join mal in his trip across the fold or agreeing to a political engagement to give ravka hope for the future. though she has mal and nikolai and her other allies, this is really her journey and hers alone - her journey of discovery to embrace her own power, even as she becomes that very evil she worked so hard to destroy. the message of the show is that power corrupts, and it corrupts even those with the best of intentions, perhaps especially those with the best of intentions.

in contrast, the book ending is pretty much the exact opposite - alina fights the darkling’s forces inside the fold alongside both the first and second army. she kills mal to amplify her power but ends up losing it altogether. instead of amplifying her, the amplifier gives her power to the first army soldiers and other non-grisha around her and they, an army of sun summoners, destroy the fold once and for all. alina then kills the darkling, mal is resurrected using regular grisha-means, and alina and mal live a quiet life running the orphanage in keramzin. this is the story of a savior who is allowed to die a saint and live a quiet, happy life afterwards - poetic cinema, beautiful in its subtlety and restraint.

there’s a lot of criticism about the way ruin and rising ends and i get it, i really do. was it necessary for alina to lose her powers in order for the other sun summoners to gain them? why is her love for her power seen as something greedy, something to be punished and taken away? god forbid women do ANYTHING. but i will defend this ending with my last breath because it’s such a wonderfully subversive way to conclude alina’s story and i really don’t think it deserves most of the hate it gets.

the original trilogy started out as a pretty generic story about a chosen one who was destined to defeat a great evil and ended instead with a group of ordinary soldiers and orphans being the heroes instead. call me sentimental, but i ADORE how it comes full circle - alina was, after all, an ordinary soldier and orphan when we first met her. throughout the books, we see how she struggles under the weight of her power and the burden of her responsibilities, and i just really love the way ruin and rising said no, you do not have to do this alone, you are not the only light in the dark, here are your fellow countrymen to support you in your greatest hour of need. so often, these stories end with the heroine saving the world and then being expected to continue keeping watch with the knowledge that they will be called upon again the next time the world needs saving. and ruin and rising again says no, you have done your duty, let someone else stand guard, you have earned your rest and you deserve it.

all this is to say that i loved alina’s ending in the books, and i love that it’s different in the show. we get to explore the other paths her story could have taken, we are not just limited to the one. i love the crows as they are in the books as well, and i don’t entirely mind how different they are in the show for the same reasons.

this is an adaptation that knows when to pull from the source material and when to create something entirely new. it was never meant to replace the books, it was created in addition to them, and i hope we get many more new stories after this.

#sab meta #shadow and bone #sab season 2 #six of crows #grishaverse #alina starkov #kanej #wesper #helnik #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #wylan van eck #jesper fahey #matthias helvar #nina zenik #malina #meta

[greensaplinggrace]

the darkling says “fine, make me your villain” because he is. what’s not clicking

#shadow and bone #grishaverse #sab #aleksander morozova #the darkling #pro darkling #sab meta #‘he acts like he isn’t the villain’ like yeah I guess if you want to examine it without any deeper analysis #when the statement itself is actually fascinating to put into a narrative context and analyze the means by which certain steadfast roles #are enacted throughout the books #and the larger implications of character want/desire and leading goal vs world state and perceived morality #largely due to prejudice and war time sentiments #as well as the individual harm caused and the way it’s significance becomes questionable when placed in stark contrast #to the broader political and socioeconomic climate #which doesn’t even take into consideration individual character roles and the doylist analysis of their relative functions as ideas #instead of entire personalities with depth #when you give an idealistic character a goal larger than life with a tactical relevance over a moral one #within a story that also centers around a broader goal of ‘saving the world’ as well as personal trauma #and attempt to liken both to the same moral equivalence and significance #then try to pit them against each other #especially when your narratively condemned villain desires more than anything to protect the masses and be loved for it #showing a fascinating level of genre unawareness. yet displaying a relative awareness to the role he has been unwillingly cast as #because he is both at odds with the genre but not with the general moral tone of the story and it's discordant messages #that rely on the pov of a character that fundamentally cannot understand him #because of his place in the story #and cannot understand the world state #because of her place in the story #you are going to get statements like this #sure yes. he ‘says it like he isn’t the villain’ #but come on. we can do better

[lassieposting]

God though do you ever think about how, at least in the show, Kirigan creating the nichevo'ya was probably not even a conscious choice?

We see him get attacked in the Fold. That volcra absolutely slams into him - and, since he's clutching his ribcage when he crawls out of the Fold even though his kefta doesn't seem to be damaged there, it's entirely likely that impact broke ribs. And that first volcra isn't alone. They're either pack hunters or opportunistic enough to attack in a swarm, and now he's down - the easiest prey.

In that moment, he would not be thinking clearly. He'd be stunned, winded, panicking, in pain. If he's landed hard - or wrong - on a shoulder, elbow or wrist joint, he could easily have briefly lost the use of that arm, and briefly is enough to kill him. He knows he's about to die, and die horribly - assuming they're like other predatory animals he'd be familiar with, they're most likely going to fight over him, pull him to pieces, and possibly start eating him while he's still alive. Conscious thought shuts down. Instinct would take over - the instinct every single living thing has to fight for its life. Even if he can summon, his shadow summoner ability is a "beacon for the volcra", so he only has one weapon left to protect himself, and that's merzost.

He's not thinking about the price he'll have to pay. He's not thinking about how much independence to give his creations, or how he could maintain control over them. He acts in that instant because he's got no other choice. He doesn't know how badly it will hurt to make them, or that they'll keep feeding on him long after he doesn't need them anymore, long after he's started to fear them and their increasing aggression towards him. He doesn't know how creatively they're going to interpret the vague purpose he gives them in that moment: protect me.

Like. He's not stupid. He fucked around with merzost once and got burned, very badly, for hundreds of years. Relying on it again deliberately, out of pure spite, would be absurd for a man who's been playing the long game for so many centuries against people who've wronged him far worse. That he used it implies fear, and desperation, and animal fucking instinct.

(And he suffers so much for that split second of self-preservation. Buying himself time to get out of the Fold while his monsters drive the volcra away from him. He's irrevocably scarred - which show!Aleksander seems to find distressing, given how many times he reacts badly to seeing his own reflection - and he's sick, and he's in pain all the time, and he's also still just as overtaxed and exhausted as he's always been. The monsters he created to save him from a vicious and agonizing death are killing him too, just slowly, drawn out. Like. The amount of fear and stress and pain he must've been battling the whole season and nobody even noticed. And even though he's clearly struggling on a personal level, he still takes the new weapons he can't get rid of and uses them on the front lines, because above all else he is a soldier and he has always been the one to make personal sacrifices for his people as a whole.)

Anyway cuddles for darkles for one thousand years, he deserved better

#sab meta #aleksander kirigan #anyway sab to me is like. the epitome of History Is Written By The Victors #this show looked at its compelling freedom fighter antihero and was like 'lmao nah he eViL' like. sigh. how disappointing #sab

[howtostandinsilence]

Shadow and Bone and Nimona have striking similarities, especially where the Darkling and the Grisha are concerned. I love seeing an allegorical piece of work that actually properly addresses the corrupt power structures instead of inadvertently supporting them at the cost of vilifying and stereotyping an entire race of outcast people considered monsters. Especially because it really delves into what such prejudice does to a person, like Nimona and the Darkling - and Ballister as well. Where Shadow and Bone failed, at least Nimona succeeds. 

#shadow and bone #the grisha trilogy #sab critical #the darkling #aleksander morozova #sab meta #leigh bardugo critical

[ragingstillness]

I have so many thoughts and feelings about the name Darkling and some of them are even opposites.

Like, it’s canon that the Druskelle pre-date the Darkling’s birth, and we never hear Baghra called Darkling so it must be specific to him. Given his birth in northern Ravka, the fact that there is a Fjerdan word just for him isn’t exactly unexpected but like, how did that come about? Was it created by a druskelle? Or just a random Fjerdan? Was it an affectionate nickname or a slur?

Alternatively, we know that the Darkling has been trying to make himself and the Grisha seem relatively harmless to the tsar (as in, harmless to him not harmless to everyone) so maybe he came up with the name himself? It sounds vaguely cutesy, maybe a way of humiliating himself by giving the tsar something to chuckle about privately, make him seem less threatening? Or did the tsar (any tsar) come up with it as a derogatory nickname given his connection to the Fold? Does the nickname predate the Fold?

Alternatively, was the name one Aleksander gave himself? To solidify his identity, a child of the dark, a man shaped by the fold, a child raised in the dark and dark spaces, a child raised by the dark when his mother left him at times, a man coming into and taking possession of his powers? A self-reflective critique of his nature? A representation of his being born of dark magic from when Ilya modified Baghra genetically? An identity meant to reflect his operating in the dark and behind the scenes?

So many questions and headcanons so little time. There isn’t really a point to this post just wanted to write my thoughts out. Everyone is welcome to interact with this post if you like.

#sab #s&b #shadow and bone #the darkling #aleksander morozova #sab meta

[zaritarazi]

i actually didn’t know what to expect with this season but i really liked the bits of matthias we got. when we meet him at the beginning of six of crows we have no idea what hellgate is actually like for him, just that it’s taken a very critical piece of him away, which we see when he has to kill the wolves at the hellshow. them changing it in show to him actually getting the wolves to yield for him and fighting with them and then calling for nina at the end of the season was interesting bc i really like the in-show idea that he has now come around to himself again and realizes he can’t let this place separate him from what matters to him. 

like obviously, if they’re going to have him in the show for a season, and he’s in hellgate, he needs to undergo growth or it’s not interesting. the growth we see for him in the books is able to take place outside of hellgate bc that’s where his story is starting. i think it was a smart thing to do for an adaptation i think calahan did a lot with the very pointed sparseness of hellgate and showing matthias really at the depths of his own personal darkness. also he looked good and we all know how much that matters to me

#sab spoilers #matthias helvar #six of crows #helnik #shadow and bone netflix #sab meta