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#the grisha triumvirate
a-taken-url · 1 year
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GUYS LOOK IT'S THEM
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stromuprisahat · 2 months
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I keep insisting that while a lovely idea, appointment of the Grisha triumvirate is more of a joke and recipe for disaster, than a political step forward.
Today, I’m going to question Genya’s part specifically.
At the beginning, Genya’s introduced as a unique talent with predispositions to work of both Corporanik and Materialnik. She chooses her kefta’s colours herself- blue on red (which still doesn’t make sense, since blue is established as Summoners’ colour- literally the only Order she DOESN’T belong to). At the end ot the trilogy, Alina picks her as a representative of all Corporalki.
The obvious favouritism aside, ignoring lack of experience in leadership, I’m asking- what does Genya know about her Order itself?
Due to the nature of her assignment, she spent most of her life away from Little Palace. While she would understand the inner workings of the Grand Palace, Second Army and the woes of its people isn’t something she’d be closely familiar with. She even admits there’s a distance between her and other Grisha.
More pressingly- what does she know about the work of her Order? I’d like to assume she got some sort of basic training, but she doesn’t seem to know about anything more advanced. Although she could’ve lied (or withhold), according to her tour in Shadow and Bone, she’s never even been inside Corporalki worshops (while she’s spending a lot of her free time with Materialki).
“We’re on the other side of the Corporalki anatomy rooms.”
“Don’t they need light to … do their work?”
“Skylights,” she said. “In the roof, like the library dome. They prefer it that way. It keeps them and their secrets safe.”
“But what do they do in there?” I asked, not entirely sure I wanted to hear the answer.
“Only the Corporalki know. But there are rumors that they’ve been working with the Fabrikators on new … experiments.”
How can she represent people she isn’t particularly close to, and whose work she knows virtually nothing about?!
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thecrxwclub · 1 year
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Go home and tell them what you’ve seen…tell them the demon king rules Ravka now and vengeance is coming.
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The Grisha Triumvirate
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multifandomconfusion · 11 months
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Genya: Hey, I’m getting in the shower. Wanna help me out?
David: ...Have you never taken a shower before?
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milosupremacy · 1 year
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No one:
Absolutely no one:
Nikolai: scared of a spider wearing a suit
Me (in my head): 🎼Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can🎼
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grishaverse-chaos · 1 year
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darkl!ng stans: he's an example of the vilified revolutionary trope, he wants what's best for grisha, he is powerful + competent + a visionary
the darkl!ng: separates ALL grisha from otkazatsya society entirely which creates alienation, murders innocent people, seemingly does not know the meaning of the word "negotiation", decides that an eleven year old child is his best option for a spy, murders more innocent people, ignores and even encourages divisions between grisha, creates the fold (which kills people regularly and has basically destroyed ravka's intranational relations), murders even more innocent people, grooms a seventeen year old girl (even worse if you believe he genuinely loved her! aleksander that is a Child!), tortures people who disobey him - oh yeah, and my personal favourite, literally murders 95% of ALL RAVKAN GRISHA purely because they..... didn't think he should murder hundreds of innocent civilians by using the fold as a weapon.....
darkl!ng stans: yeah but he wanted what was best for grisha!!!!!!1!!!1!1!1!1
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six-of-velcrows · 1 year
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I loved season 2, but I have to say it, we were robbed of the Grisha Triumvirate!!
It was one of my favourite parts of the King of Scars duology, and with David gone it's not gonna happen now! 😭
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barrel-crow-n · 5 months
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The Darkling trying to weaponise the Fold was an understandable course of action for him to try and take but I don't think some of you guys are ready for that conversation
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eclipsed-sunn · 1 year
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i think we don’t talk about daisy head as genya safin enough; she’s literally PERFECT
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toohaughthotdamn · 11 months
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a WIP animation of Zoya Alina and Genya to Son Lux
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stromuprisahat · 3 months
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(I only read TGT once so if I get any details wrong here, feel free to correct me. Same for the historical reference I'm discussing here). I never understood why Nikolai was considered to be a better character than the Darkling when it came to helping the Grisha. I know Leigh Bardugo presents him as the "nicer" option but Nikolai always kind of reminded me of Tsar Nicholas II, who, from what I remember learning in school, was considered to be a nice man who clearly loved his children, but a rather incompetent ruler. He didn't always make good decisions which made relations with the government worse, and increased hardships for civilians and soldiers. He also was really detached and out of touch with the plight of the Russian people and I believe some of his policies ended up alienating people from ethnic minority groups. I brought him up, because Nikolai is also kind of like this, he's not an exact parallel obviously but like, it's kind of there. The only reason really that he's considered effective in the books is because Leigh can't really write politics that well. Like, even the way the nobility would behave is something she didn't really write well, as well as how the public would react to the things that happen in the story. Idk. Did this make any sense? What do you think?
Absolutely.
I can't speak about the historical Nikolai- I've read very little about him, and it's been years-, but while book!Nikolai's ideas aren't bad per se, he's been greatly helped by gross simplification of politics and LB's clear favour.
Nobles are either supportive, or stupid and gullible.
Inclusion of Grisha works 100%. Sure, the soldiers for Nikolai's elite inventors would he handpicked, but either there is no longer hatred for Grisha among the First Army, or the Tsar's too high to see it.
The only peasants we meet are enlightened enough to immediately understand and ADMIT they're faring better (Read the link. OP's no longer on tumblr, but her posts are based on actual Russian history and literature.), which is... well, have you ever MET any real people, Leigh? RoW was published during fucking covid of all possible times! Huge chunk of population will rather die, than accept the unknown!
Making Nikolai visibly think with his cock leads to no trouble. No one's calling him weak, no one suddenly remembers rumors about Grisha girls "being able to put a spell on a man", Zoya's desired and respected, instead of being viewed as seductress or outright Witch Whore.
And one more about Grisha- there have been pogroms barely a few years back. First Army was slaughtering Second only because they've figured they're to blame for the Fold moving (and don't forget the only survivors aside from Malina were the Darkling's people). Am I to believe a new Tsar ascending with THREE Grisha publicly backing him up won't cause decent upheaval?
Sure, Kolya's nice, but he's too nice. Somewhere on his way from Sturmhond to Tsar Nikolai, he forgot how to cut fingers even though it might make him sick. And the situation should look accordingly.
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Can we talk about Jesper Fahey unintentionally being one of the most powerful Grisha in the Grishaverse? (Bear with me)
Okay, agreed, Jesper struggles with doing basically anything intentionally. Makes sense - he was never trained.
But if we consider what he can do; controlling the path of bullets. Taking tiny chunks of metal moving at ~120-370 m/s, and directing them. And not just a little bit. He literally managed to make his bullet curve 90° around a right-angle corner. This is a skill we see no other Fabrikator able to do, and you would have thought, if it was a common ability, or even ever seen before, the Darkling or the Triumvirate would have utilised it in the Second Army. They have not. The only people known to use it are Jesper and his mother.
(And let's just give an honourable mention to Aditi Hilli, who could extract poison from the bloodstream of another person. You remember how the tidemakers in the Ice Court needed to be on Parem to mess with a person's blood? But Aditi Hilli? ...I don't want to say no problem, because she did die, but she saved Leoni too, so... half-marks? I'm just saying Jesper has some serious badass genes.)
Actually, talking about the tidemakers on parem, Jesper, with no training and having all the blood in his body sucked out of him, still managed to kill them with dust. A rather dark trick, but one we've never seen David Kostyk, or Leoni Hilli, considered the two most powerful Fabrikators alive during canon, replicate.
But the real reason Jesper is so powerful has very little to do with that, so much as HOW he does it. Every grisha alive used their arms to direct their abilities. After being captured by the Darkling in S&S, Alina has her hands bound, and says something about how she can summon, but not direct light without her hands, so she's basically powerless. It's obviously a common tactic, because the Druskelle do the same thing with Nina and the other Grisha they captured, and only after they get their hands freed on the sharp edge of a broken cup can they use their abilities again.
The only people we see not using their hands for the small science, in fact, are Adrik, who has to relearn his technique after he loses an arm, and, of course, Jesper Fahey, who can direct bullets with his mind - no hand movements required.
If anything, it's probably this ability that makes him so good at directing bullets. After all, at the speed a bullet is going, you don't have time to be waving your hands around to control it. What's especially funny to me is that before Wylan pointed it out, he had no idea he was even doing it. He was using an ability no other Grisha can, and Didn't Know. Can you imagine him mentioning that to Nina... or basically any Second Army Grisha.
("You can control bullets?"
"...you can't?"
"...how?"
"I'm not sure. I mean, my mother sort of taught me, but also I didn't really realise I was doing it until my boyfriend pointed it out, you know?"
"...YOU WERE ACCIDENTLY CONTROLLING BULLETS?!!!")
This is, of course, all book canon, but somehow the show takes it even further. It hasn't been officially revealed Jesper's Grisha in the show, but there are enough clues - Jesper repairing Kaz's cane, Ivan's cut-off comment after their fight, not to mention the fight itself - that I'm taking it as canon. In this, it is accepted NO ONE can use their grisha abilities, except merzost, without first touching their hands together. Not The Darkling, not Alina, no one. Except, of course, Jesper Fahey, who can shoot his bullets and direct them to the exact same point on a kefta, after deflecting them off random objects first.
Tl;dr: Jesper Fahey is amazing and crazily powerful and should be appreciated.
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heliads · 1 year
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req with nikolai lantsov x reader. they are married for convenience but are friends and support each other until they fall in love and everyone notices but them. reader and nikolai kiss a few times and sleep together but never talk about it. when zoya becomes queen nikolai asks reader if she will want to stay married to him and reader says she loves him, with or without a crown. angst with a lot of fluff at the end please!
anon i love the way you think (also all hail dragon queen zoya)
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Your husband may be joining you shortly.
It’s still strange to be saying that. Your husband, your king, your friend above all. Nikolai Lantsov has always been a great conspirator, a wonderfully clever thinker, so you trusted that he wasn’t merely making a drunken mistake when he asked for your hand in marriage over too many drinks one late night. Nikolai doesn’t do drunken mistakes. In fact, you think he gets drunk on purpose when making difficult choices to twist his enemies into thinking that they’ve got the upper hand, all so he can trick them when their eyes are closed in self-congratulation.
It might be a habit left over from his time burning the seas as Sturmhond, or it could just be Nikolai himself. Always the schemer, him; always the planner, the one with the ideas. His eyes glint like ice, his hair shines like metal. Both can cut if given the chance. No Lantsov would ever let themselves go into the unknown vastness without a weapon, even if the only one left is their own physical flesh and bone.
No, Nikolai wasn’t kidding when he asked you to marry him. By all accounts, it was a logical choice. The other nations had been clamoring for him to wed one of their daughters for quite some time now, and marrying you gave Nikolai an easy way out. You were a Ravkan noble, and well-connected to the independence cause while the Darkling was still in power. Having you as his bride would alienate no foreign powers just as it would connect him even further to his own people.
That’s the reason he gave you at least, his fingers tented in the shadow of a half-empty glass of champagne. The two of you were somewhere inside one of the Grand Palace’s mammoth rooms, far from the slippery wastes of the shadows outside. Nikolai always gambled best when his feet were on his own ground, when he didn’t have to fear anything or anyone interrupting his flow of thought. He could trick you into pledging your loyalty regardless of where he stood, of course, but it could never hurt to get the odds all in his favor.
You had said yes. Of course you had. You are Nikolai’s best friend, or so you like to claim. You think it could be true at one point. Maybe that will come after the veil descends over your eyes and a ring appears on your finger. Still, you think you’ll remember the way Nikolai’s gaze had sparked with triumph upon hearing your answers for years to come, as well as how he’d finally allowed a tipsy flush to descend upon his cheeks. Perhaps it wouldn’t be a terrible mistake after all.
The wedding served its political purpose. The biggest change the marriage gave your life was that it handed you a permanent spot in the Grand Palace. Before, you were always temporary, forever having your terms of service extended as your help was needed more and more in the war effort. Now, you’re a fixture for real, never having to worry about being gradually cut out again. It certainly allows you to make it to meetings on time with that much more certainty.
Also, you’re not alone anymore. You never were, not really; Ravka is a cramped sort of annex, the kind of place in which you can hardly go down the length of a street without bumping into at least half a dozen people. The palace is on a whole separate level, however. Here, there are guards stationed everywhere, First and Second Army alike, then all the Grisha there with the Triumvirate or having arrived to report from the Little Palace just around the corner. Factor in palace staff, random diplomats, and spies, and you’ve got an audience fit for any queen, no matter how recently crowned. 
No, hardly a dull moment indeed. Still, in the times when you need company most, those late nights when you’re certain that Ravka could never possibly come back from all the fights it has chosen to pick, you have someone there with you, someone who understands. When the moon has hung overhead for quite some time and the lights are off, Nikolai sits by your side, whispers that it’s going to be alright. Neither of you believe it, but it makes it better to hear someone you trust speak the foolish hopes aloud.
In all honesty, you think you’re growing to rely on him a little too much. At the beginning, you and Nikolai both agreed that this was strictly a marriage of convenience, that you had started this whole affair as friends and you would end it as such as well. Yet when Nikolai presents you to everyone in his path as his wife with that same giddy look on his face, it’s easy to pretend that his feelings could be elsewhere.
Elsewhere, just as yours are now. You had not intended to fall for him, but Nikolai does not make it a difficult task. He never has. There is another reason you agreed to his proposal, one you would not tell him in a thousand years:  you assumed that you would never get such a chance again. Nikolai is, after all, a royal, and you are not. If you had declined his offer, it would only be to watch him wed someone else. At least now you get to claim his heart. At least now it is halfway yours, even if he grows to love someone else. On paper, he is chained to you.
Some days, that is enough. Others, you won’t satisfy yourself until you know for sure. There are a few nights when both of you want to prove something, when you take kvas instead of water for too long and let yourselves pretend that your alliance is something more than mere politics. You have kissed him more than you thought you would, even when no one was watching and there was no audience in need of a ruse to be kept up. You did it because you wanted to, and he kissed you back because he needed it just as much as you.
You never offer up an explanation for those nights, and neither does he. In the morning, you both go about your business as if nothing had ever happened. In reality, it hasn’t. Small altercations involving both of you ignoring your duties have no place in the future. You are wed for Ravka and you’ll die for her too. Falling in love is only a distraction, and not one that will serve you well. You learn that soon enough.
Your husband may be leaving you shortly.
Nikolai is not a Lantsov, not really. The rumor mills have known it for some time, and you think Nikolai has as well. Of course it would all come to ruin at some point. Nikolai has had an incredible grip on his broken country for quite some time, but all those petty shards just sliced his hands to ribbon. It would all drop eventually, and no one could blame him for that.
The nobles wanted answers. They always do. What you did not expect, however, was to walk out of a conference in which Zoya Nazyalensky was named as ruler of Ravka instead of Nikolai. The general of the Second Army is a worthy queen, of course, and you easily hand your title over to her; the stress could gray your hair like a silver tiara, but it still leaves you wondering what comes next.
It also makes you think about Nikolai. Nikolai, who wed you to avoid political conflict. Nikolai, who is no longer in that same position. Nikolai, who has absolutely no reason to remain married to you at all.
Your thoughts race in a tumultuous rhythm all the way back to your quarters after that fateful meeting. It’s going to hurt. What will? And:  of course it will. What in this world doesn’t? You close the door behind you and walk halfway into the room before coming to a stop again. This has been your place for so long. It almost feels cruel to leave it.
The door opens behind you. You don’t have to turn around to know who has intruded on your shared space. You have long since been able to identify Nikolai by the turn of his step, the even rush of his breath, the quiet shuffle of his fingers in his gloves.
“Do you hate me for not giving you more advance notice?” He asks. Nikolai is careful to keep his voice neutral, but you hear the way his breathing hesitates as he waits for your response.
“No,” you say, although you do not turn around, “I knew you came up with it about thirty seconds before you said it. You didn’t have time.”
Nikolai exhales slowly. “We’ve had a lot of time.”
You close your eyes. This is the part you’ve been waiting for. This is when he ends it. Nikolai has no more use for you, not after he’s done his political maneuvering and finally managed to get himself out of the whole mess of kingship. You have always loved Nikolai for his mind, but Saints, if it doesn’t hurt sometimes to feel it used in the wrong direction.
“You could do it, you know,” you whisper, “No one would blame you.”
Nikolai had been starting to walk towards you, but his heels come to an abrupt click-stop on the floor. “What?”
You let out a bitter, quiet laugh. “End it. The marriage. People are already asking if you’re going to cut it off. We only made this agreement so you could fend off the other Ravkan nobles while you were king. You’re no longer king, why keep this around any longer? I won’t force you to stay with me if you love someone else.”
Nikolai is deathly silent for a moment, then two. You tense your shoulders, waiting for the blow to land, but it never does. Instead, he walks to your side and takes your hand.
“Do you always have to be such a martyr, sweetheart?”
Your lips part in a silent gasp. “What?”
Nikolai has the nerve to smile as if he hasn’t upset your entire world. “I know you didn’t just marry me for politics. I didn’t ask you just for politics, either. We wanted something. Maybe I still want it.”
He squeezes your hand; you squeeze it back, two beats of a heart. “You could marry Zoya, though. If you still wanted the crown.”
Nikolai laughs. “I don’t want the crown, and although I am certainly grateful to Zoya, I don’t want to marry her, either. No, Y/N, I want you. I want to wander through Ravka without having to worry about all the responsibilities of my office. I want to rent a rusted schooner and show you the sea. I want to get us in trouble and out of it again and again. I want to do a thousand things with you that we never could have done as king and queen. I want to die having loved you, and having loved you right.”
You smile, unable to stop for a second. “We can grow old without anyone needing us.”
Nikolai closes his eyes for a moment as if picturing it. “I think I’d like nothing more.”
You stand in a room that is no longer yours, in a palace that no longer calls your name. You think you have never been happier about it. You still have your husband. All else is a mere triviality.
grishaverse tag list: @rogueanschel, @deadreaderssociety, @cameronsails, @mxltifxnd0m, @story-scribbler, @retvenkos, @thatfangirl42, @amortensie, @gods-fools-heroes, @bl606dy, @auggiesolovey
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sad-outsider · 2 months
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Why I didn't like the ending of R&R. Part 3. The heroine fights not with the cause, but with the effect
Destroying the Fold and the Darkling was tantamount to trying to heal an open fracture by applying plantain to it.
Do you know why the Darkling is not considered a villain, despite everything he has done? Because he fights the source of the problem - the oppression of the Grisha, the wars tearing Ravka apart and the parasitic monarchs. Is he being cruel? Absolutely. But does anyone else in the trilogy struggle with the above problems? No. Draw your own conclusions.
Do you know how this could be fixed? Do you know how to make the Darkling the villain that the narrative so strenuously portrays him as? Make the Fold the cause of oppression and war, not its effect. But, again, this is a problem with the entire trilogy.
What do we actually see? At the end of the trilogy, the Fold, which, admittedly, was indeed one of Ravka's problems, but by no means the main one, does not exist, but at what cost? The Second Army, which, let me remind you, together with the Darkling himself was the main military power of Ravka, actually no longer exists, Ravka itself is in debt, like silks, the wars have not stopped, the Grisha are oppressed even more, if you believe the Six of Crows, and the country is led even though resourceful, but still inexperienced children. Nikolai and the Triumvirate might as well have sent Shuhan and Fjerda an invitation to conquer Ravka, because that's exactly what was supposed to happen in reality.
Alina not only didn’t help, but did even worse, destroying the only person who, although not by the most noble methods, could really change the situation in the world along with Ravka’s only effective weapon. After this, monuments should be erected to her in Shuhan and Fjerda, because the “noble” Sun Saint made their life so easy!
As for the Fold, it was not necessary to destroy it at all, just to make a passage through it in order to open a free path to West Ravka. The Fold itself could be used as a defense. How? It's simple - expand the Fold to the borders with Fjerda and Shuhan. With a high degree of probability, this will stop the war, because sending your soldiers through a death trap inhabited by cannibal monsters in order to kill or dissect a couple of Grisha is political suicide no matter how you look at it.
But hey, this is a fantasy for teenagers, here the “bad guy” must be punished, and all the heroes will undoubtedly be fine in the end because they are so good, what am I even talking about?
To be continued in part 4…
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grishaverse-chaos · 11 months
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shit I remembered this too late to add to the post I was replying to, but: people (and by "people" I mean darkl!ng stans and nikolai antis) will call nikolai an example of the White Saviour trope, and they're kind of half right in that he is a SUBVERSION of the trope
so yes, he's initially presented as that archetype - a member of the majority group, who sympathises with the minority group and uses his institutional power to improve the lives of that group
(of course, this is subverted right off the bat because he is CONSTANTLY offering to share his institutional power with Grisha: proposing to Alina, creating the Triumvirate, even the Nolniki to an extent)
but the trope is FULLY subverted at the end of RoW, when he literally addresses the question of whether he is the right person to "save" Ravka, and decides to literally GIVE all his institutional power to a Suli Grisha woman (Zoya)
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