#“But...but...what he did to Alina...”

[ilargizuri]

Don't remember the lore of that Family Tree, but they still could be half siblings. We are talking about a Country that has vast rural areas. In an enviroment where the medical care is pretty much non existent, death during childbirth is a more common and very likely occurance.

And the Farmers with small Land and less money won't be able to pay for a wetnurse. And that Person would be expected to take care of the House too, all in all it is easier and cheaper to find a New wife in less than a week. Find a single woman tell her what you expect from her, what you can offer and if she has a dowry, perfect, if not and she agrees, also perfect, we meet in three Weeks in the Church with witnesses. After that consumating the marriage, which sometimes results in a New pregnancy, bam Child one and two are only 9 months away from each other.

And Stories like that happened a lot in Rural Areas and if the law allowed Cousin marriage, it also happened inside one family. My own Family Tree has such a Story, my Great-Great-Grandfather on my Grandmothers side was married 5 Times had 12 Children (2 of them were my Great-Grandmothers) by 4 of his wives , and my 2 Grandmothers were cousins because of that. And according to that Family Tree my Great-Great-Grandfather always married one month after his last Wife died. That wasn't because he needed Sex or because he was in love, it was because he needed a mother for a Baby, a Wife for his Household and a Partner in life to work with them towards a nice and safe life. We know from the family stories of his Children that he always respected his Wives never talked into her work, which was managing the shared household, except if the moneysituation didn't allow certain things, etc. It was never what we call today a romantic relationship, but they respected and trusted each other. Bad husbands did exists even than, but my Great-Great-Grandfather wasn't one of them. He never married out of love, but mostly for practicality and he was the rule, in case of how marriage was viewed back than. Marriage was a contract to share a life long effort towards a long and maybe happy life.

So just because Mel's Family Tree didn't mention a Sister doesn't mean he and Alina can't be siblings, it just means that the surviving and later shared parent of Mel and Alina is not the Descendant of Bagrahs Sister. Especially in a rural Area during a time when Marriage isn't a matter of love, but a matter of practicality.

In the begining of Shadow and Bone, Ana Kuya tells the Grisha examiners that they think Alina and Mal are around 8 and they can’t be sure because both are orphans, but literally in the next page she calls both of them by their full government names. How to they know that. The only possibility I can think of is that when they came to the orphanage they knew their full names but not their ages, which makes no sense to me

[aleksanderscult]

Today I will rant because I want to about that character and how he's treated by some

Lately the rapist comments about him and how he was selfish are getting multiplied which makes me both angry and sad.

When you have the author itself say that she saw the King and Queen as the real villains and that we can make a case about the Darkling's worst crimes then how do some people indirectly call him the worst thing that happened to Ravka and to Alina?

They only treat Aleksander as a villain, emphasizing his sexually creepy moments and selfish motivations and completely disregard the human side of him or his traumatic past.

The Darkling did not spend 500 (and possibly more) years of his life to protect his people and stop the wars for you to call him a selfish evil man. If you want to call someone selfish then look at Baghra that stays warm in her hearth and not giving a single fuck for Ravka. If you want to call someone selfish then take a look at the King and Queen who grow fat and rich while their people and starving and think that being orphaned is "marvelous". If you want to call someone selfish then look at Mal who wanted to leave Ravka and never look back (and in the meantime, it was his country that was in danger) or even Alina.

The Darkling was quite literally the only person that decided to take action for a persecuted group of people without wavering once.

You don't give a single glimpse at his tragic elements. You ignore them. But his isolated and traumatic childhood, abusive mother figure, near-immortality that made him witness people he loved die, rare powers that have isolated him further and desperation to see the Grisha being respected and accepted says hello 🙋.

You call us fans of the category "The Darkling did nothing wrong". Well, just because we don't talk about his crimes every day does not mean we don't know about them. We just decide to talk about the Darkling in our blogs as a human, tragic figure that was much more complex than his "evil" actions. If we wanted to read about the Darkling and his evilness we would read KoS and RoW everyday. Zoya, Tolya and Genya were orators of that. But maybe we just decided to look deeper than this. To cast light to the parts he kept hidden and were so human and still valid.

Some call us even misogynistic for judging Alina. I didn't know that just because we judge one fictional, female character means that we hate all women. Wow. For your information, most of the times we judge the way she was handled by the author more than the character herself.

But having people making the Darkling a simple villain with no humanity is probably one of the worst butchering of a character I've ever seen.

Some people literally took an intriguing, complex character with selfless motivations and turned him into a power-hungry tyrant. Bye guys 💀

I don't know. If you expect from me at least to post about how the Darkling was evil, a tyrant and a rapist then you are on the wrong page. I only write about the Darkling as human most of all. With tragic elements and human emotions and vulnerabilities that were actually there. But some people cannot read past the word "villain".

[girls-againstgod]

...why the fuck do i keep getting darkling apologists on my dash

[makeitlookdecent]

local silly is learning so much guys...<3

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

Scorched sea verse for the title game!

This is a doc where I’ve jotted down several supplementary ideas for the Darklina Roleswap AU where Nikolai is just hanging out as their third lol

There was a lot of backstory lore that didn’t make it into the fic proper that seemed fun to explore. The entire segment where the Apparat builds her up as a saint before Grisha are at all accepted in Ravka and the higher stakes of that. Then things going south, Mal dying and her turning to Ilya Morozova for help. And the vague Baghralina that happens then falls to pieces after the falling out with her father lol.

I also had ideas for two future separate scenes, that would probably be one shots in a collection. Alina being driven to tell Nikolai that she’s not actually going to human sacrifice herself in the next couple of years, can he please stop being so damn melodramatic about it???

The main fic wrapped up before the actual collaring so I also had some loose ideas for that. Here’s a snippet of it!

[greensaplinggrace]

anyways the show removed one of the best parts of the books, which was that alina was fucking haunted by the darkling. there is nothing more interesting about their relationship than his existence as a ghost inside the halls of her mind

[orniithology]

i am going to shake all the darklina shippers so hard until their brains fall out. Stop It

[grishaverse-chaos]

Also what are your overall opinions on the Darkling?

honestly I'm suchhhhh a darkling anti sorry bestie 😭😭

if you've looked through my tag I'm sure you've seen some of these thoughts before, but imo he's not only a terrible person but also a failed revolutionary

like you say his methods worked a lot of times, but in canon he basically achieves NONE of his aims - by the time of the books, he's had over 300 years of power, and grisha are still being persecuted etc. obviously this isn't entirely his fault, but it does prove that whatever he's been doing isn't particularly effective

politics is one of my fav topics tbh and one that I've talked a LOT about especially with regard to the darkling, and my general point is that there are so many other ways he could have achieved his goals more effectively, and that his actions in canon actually damaged ravka considerably more than they aided it

[barrel-crow-n]

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

[honeyxmonkey]

Could I have an incorrect quote with Alina and Carter? XD

Alina Foley, I assume

And yes I did just realize I chose a name for a side character thats also the name of a highly popular book character

Anyway-

Alina: Why can't you and Joel just get along?

Carter: it's not my fault your husband is the worst person i know

[aleksanderscult]

Was Aleksander power-hungry or wanted power to use it for the protection of his people?

This question is one of the most hotly debatable in this fandom and I decided to clear this out not by analyzing his words through the POV of other characters (who don't believe him and therefore the reader finds him a liar) but through his own perspective in "Rule of Wolves".

So let's take an objective look inside his own thoughts and find out.

His very first thoughts were how could he reclaim his powers, describing the whole experience as somewhat painful and confusing to him. His second were about Alina.

And these are his third ones. He explains how utterly worthless Nikolai and Zoya are to save Ravka. How immature and weak. Aleksander finds himself to be the only one able for this task. His powers, experience and general abilities are testament to that.

But note how he calls Ravka "his country". From the carved woods decorating his bedroom to his knowledge of "every pebble and branch" of it, this country is special to him. He loves it, feels a connection to it and wants to protect it.

(You just can't call the Darkling "unpatriotic")

He displays bitterness for his loss and Ravka's new state just verifies to him that his plans would only prevent this decaying fate.

Yuri: "Sankta Alina who gave her life for Ravka"

Aleksander: "Am I a joke to you?"

And indeed is he?

Aleksander displays a very strong resentment for the lack of recognition he has gained. His statement: "I gave my life for Ravka" probably doesn't only allude to his death from Alina's hands but also his total commitment in the protection of the Grisha and Ravka that lasted for centuries. He gave his life away by pushing his personal happiness and well-being aside and wholly dedicating his life and skills to a selfless goal. He wasted years, allies, soldiers, endured otkazat'sya Kings that rule him, a bitter mother and his own immortality only for others to hurriedly erase any memory of him once he's gone.

So it seems that his desire to be seen only stems from his long-awaited and secret wish for his actions to be recognized.

Based on the last screenshot, he views his actions as justified not because of a "power-hungry nature" but out of his efforts to help others. Whether these actions are justified or not depends on the reader.

I believe this is one of the most concrete evidence that Aleksander truly cared about the Grisha.

He felt intense anger for those who were ignorant and apathetic towards the Grisha's fate and he himself cared about who was gonna sit the Ravkan throne.

No matter how much humanity he shed as the years passed, it seems that he didn't shed all of it by the time of these books.

Apparently Aleksander had two main goals in this book:

- To protect his people and country as he always strived to do.

- For others to finally give him some credit and have their acknowledgment that yes, he has done something for this country all these years.

In order to help the Grisha and change their fates he needed to be in a position of strength, hence his desire to take the throne. He views himself as a fatherly figure towards his people. A protector and guardian.

But he also wants to become a Saint and king. For people to look up to him. So many Saints had done less than half in comparison to Aleksander and they still won people's love. Now it's his turn and he thinks he deserves it.

I'm adding a short parenthesis here.

His concern didn't only extent to the Grisha but to his blind, otkazat'sya followers as well.

He cared about what would happen in the battlefield and seemed ready to create nichevo'ya to protect them. Merzost is extremely painful but this "selfish" villain is ready to use it to protect his naive but innocent army.

A hundred of years ago Aleksander refused the King's gold as payment for his services. Instead he opted to plead for the construction of a palace. A home and haven for all the Grisha that were hiding out of fear from the persecution against them.

He saw his chance and took it to make the lives of his people a little better.

So this whole "the Darkling created the Fold out of his desire for power" was bullshit after all.

He wanted power but only to use it to end the wars. Ironically, the result of it (aka. the Fold) only aggravated the problem.

And the Darkling's dream never came entirely true. He gave them a home but never a safe life. Ravka was almost always at war, Grisha were never accepted, the Ravkan kings never paid much attention to the Grisha's problems regarding their role in society which placed them almost at the bottom of the food chain.

All these things worried Aleksander and pushed him to action both when he created the Fold and when he started the Civil War.

The Darkling has a very different mentality than those who don't have the burden of immortality on their shoulders.

Aleksander uses time as an advantage and has a remarkable patience. He bides his time and strikes when he sees the opportunity, leaving other people to die since they're only just a part of a whole. He probably thinks: "Well, I'll meet plenty more new otkazat'sya in the future so why should I be concerned for this bunch here?"

But the bleak future of the Grisha make him stop and think. They're the only reason why he stays and fight and why he proclaimed Zoya a Saint.

So it's obvious that Aleksander only used power for the benefit of his people and country.

- When king Yevgeni offered him a handsome reward, Aleksander turned it down and chose to appeal for a better future for the rest of the Grisha.

- When the wars didn't stop coming and Grisha were again getting killed, he tried to use merzost to augment his powers and put a stop to it.

- When he tried to use the Fold as a weapon with Alina at his side, he did it to place Ravka in a stronger position in comparison to his enemies.

- He viewed Nikolai and Zoya dangerous to the rest of the country.

- He was concerned of what would happen to the Grisha if Demidov became king.

- He was determined to save Ravka and lead it as their king and protector.

- Even though he thought of leaving, he stayed out of concern for the Grisha (again).

Contrary to the people who say that the Darkling began selfless but by the time of these books became selfish, it seems that he never lost his selflessness. He still kept thinking about others and his last moments he was unrepentant for his crimes since he did them for others not for himself. It's true that he had pride and an ego but rightfully so. No one else was as powerful or as capable as him to make a change and, honestly, no one else made a decent effort but him.

He also displayed a strong bitterness for the fact that others were so quick to forget him and his actions. He felt wronged that after all he had done, none wanted to acknowledge his own part in the protection of Ravka. He wanted to be seen and appreciated. His anger and indignation came from a place of injustice as he saw it. Whatever he did was labeled as wrong and people only feared him, never feeling gratefulness or love towards him. The Darkling wanted others to give him his due for what he went through, did and tried to do. Recognition after so many years of feeling invisible and hated.

It was something that even his enemies admitted about him:

The strongest evidence of his yearning to shield his country is how he willingly gave his life for it at the end. He would be tortured forever but at least his people wouldn't forget him and he would have fulfilled his desired role as a protector of his country.

[babaroqa]

but literally the darkling saying that he accepts alina as she is and asking her if mal can say the same makes noooo sense in the context of this show where mal has continually been vocal about his support to the point that alina has never ever had any doubts about him, she never struggled with losing her power or becoming unhinged because of it and mal was never shown worrying about what that power and amplifiers were turning her into. of course show mal can say the same, he has never once turned away from alina

[nicollekidman]

darkling scene smash cutting to kaz saying "when the chips fall....it'll give me some comfort to know that you're with me............In The Shadows" to inej

inej replying with "wouldn't miss it sexy also i'll destroy the man who wronged you bad one (1) time"

abby im banging pots and pans im gnawing the walls. kanej is their own thing but they're darklina if leigh or the show would just LET ALINA GET NASTY

there's a lot of overlapping imagery with the four of them that i find compelling even though the show doesn't have a handle on either of those pairings or what it wants them to be at this point much less how it intends them to thematically overlap or diverge but. one of the things that's very baked into the grishaverse is worship as love, devotion as friendship, the everpresent specters of saints and gods in the lives of people who live amongst filth and violence.... naturally kaz and inej and alina and the darkling all have their own versions of being Devoted and Being Violent they're working through as well as like. light/dark/fate/eternity.... and yknow. knives and blades (the cut is a blade). in a more coherent story there would be a lot to dig into but even now like. it's yummy! there's a lot to excavate from this if you care enough!

[uchiyaandeewaran]

Listen. I like toxic fictional relationships. I don’t like toxic toxic fictional relationships.

Hope that clarifies it.

[lingeringscars]

I could probably actually get behind mals ending hm.

[fullmetal-angelgrace]

well damn, they sure shoved a ton of bullshit into the last 30 minutes of shadow and bone season 2.....