#Sankt Juris

[kavaimika]

THE STORMWITCH

Zoya is really rocking it in the last book duology 🩵

[kolarpem]

KoS WIP: Some Lashes, brows, and eyes today! I really sprinted before and after work hours to try to get Genya’s hair completely done, but it’s a pretty complicated hairstyle and I try to acknowledge when I’m pushing myself too hard, so I’ll have to finish it next week.

Also played around with the amazing FlippedNormals Eye Kit in order to see if I could make a blendshape for Zoya/Juris’s silver dragon eyes! Kinda creepy to see just the eye animated, but I guess it’s kinda normal for me to weird people out at this point.

[awanderingtortoise]

One of the most haunting questions of YA fiction is 'what the hell does juris do in zoyas brain when she and nikolai are making out?'

[stromuprisahat]

Siege and Storm- Chapter 14 (Leigh Bardugo)

I'm sick and tired of this "motif". It's half-assed at best, shaming and restraining. It's a hurtful philosophy to both individuals and all of Grisha as a group. It's the dichotomy between noble poor suffering and greedy shameful thriving. Ravkan Saints vs. Aleksander's Second Army.

Not only Alina's ending validates it, the narrative doesn't bother to challenge such view as faulty even in later books.

Hell, if Leigh won't ignore her own previous writing, Zoya's power should come at the price of her own mind. While her arc's often described as "What should've been Alina's", she should pay for her undeserved Sainthood by becoming an unwanted guest in her own body. Grisha, punished for "greed" once more, although objectively it should be about her unwillingness to truly stand on her own two legs, inclination to hide behind others as soon as her temper isn't sufficient solution.

[flippityflaps]

🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️

🕯️🕯️ much much about our powerful and 🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️ magnificent dragon queen in season 3🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️

[wiwiurikawa]

I was reading alliance of enemies by storm_elf and....

aleksander- death

juris- war

elizabeth- famine

grigori- Conquest

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

[kavinskysdick]

“I have lived for eons,” Elizaveta intoned gravely. “And I will live for eons more. I have seen empires rise and fall. I have seen hundreds of Grisha martyred. I have seen everything there is and everything there will be. You are nothing special."

Folks, it's that time of year again... IT'S THE GRISHAVERSE (mini reverse) BANG!! and I'm here to try so hard once more. Here is my magnum opus, my "I have worked too many hours on this and so no longer know what time is" piece, my love letter to immortality, and the premiere of my Juris headcanon... sort of.

Accompanied by the fic of the absolute madman who came along for the ride, tysm to @wafflesandkruge for this gorgeous piece of saintly negotiation and malcontent, I love it SO much: two gods before there was a world

ty as always to the tides and co. at @grishaversebigbang who put with me every season, xoxo and STAY TUNED FOR... ANOTHER!

[zoyalaisobachka]

Do I name the dragon Zoya or Juris?

[tirkdi]

The Dragon and the Loneliest Boy in the World

Saw that, while the fandom has some Darkling/Juris fics, there were no Darkling/Juris/Zoya fics. I fixed that for you.

The Dragon and the Loneliest Boy in the World Rating: M Word Count: 3.7k Relationships: Darkling/Juris, Darkling/Juris/Zoya

Summary: Zoya takes Juris to visit his old friend. She learns more than she’d bargained for.

On AO3

[bestgrishaversequotes]

longer quotes under the cut!

"Please," Zoya said. She was the thing she'd always feared becoming: a lost girl, helpless, being led up the aisle of the chapel in Pachina. "Don't leave me. Not you too."

He nudged his broadsword with one hand. "Zoya of the lost city. Zoya of the garden. Zoya bleeding in the snow. You are strong enough to survive the fall."

(King of Scars, chapter 32)

--------

Wylan gestured to the guards. "Is it safe to leave them, you know -"

"Alive? I'm not big on killing unconscious men."

"We could wake them up."

"Pretty ruthless, merchling. Have you ever killed anyone?"

(Six of Crows, chapter 30)

[kavaimika]

I just HAD TO draw this sketch of Zoya after reading the first book of the duology! Damn she’s cool 😎

[kolarpem]

Morning Doodle: “They fought not as men but as all manner of creature—wolf, dragon, hawk, bear. The king had heard stories of these monks but hardly believed they were true until he saw these miracles for himself.” “Always with the miracles,” grumbled Zoya. (Bardugo’s KoS CH 9)

[awanderingtortoise]

zoya, power, and vulnerability (analysis)

came across a post earlier talking about how Nikolai's realization of how he feels for zoya began when he admitted he was jealous of juris and it got me thinking a ton about zoya's amplifier story and her character in general so get ready for a long ass post on that scene and how it shows 1. zoyalai and mutual understanding, 2. zoya being scarily similar to, but ultimately totally different from the darkling, and 3. juris vs the darkling. spoiler warning for the entire grishaverse

1. Zoyalai and Understanding

One of my absolute favorite aspects of Zoyalai is how they learn to be vulnerable with each other after putting up walls and facades for everyone else, and I think Zoya sharing her amplifier's story is really a major development towards that. Even this early in their development you see how much Nikolai understands her. Just looking at the Darkling's response to Zoya freeing the cubs and contrasting it to Nikolai's:

Where he basically praises her only for wanting power (which actually wasnt even the reason she freed the cubs but alright) and ignores/shuns the innate selflessness that led to her gaining that power in the first place. Nikolai, on the other hand, has such an understanding of that compassion that drives her, actually the same compassion that fuels her fear of not being strong enough to protect everyone because of how much of it he also sees in himself. The whole reason she feels safe enough to share the story with him (well besides the fact that he could have died the next day) is because they echo each other so deeply; never truly being known by anyone to protect themselves from being hurt. (i go more into that here)

2. Zoya and the Darkling

The Darkling, who i am struggling not to refer to as a little shit after reading the second excerpt, was really just another man who saw Zoya through his own biased worldview. Its true they're pretty similar, and I'd say Zoya definitely had the potential to go down the path he did. But surprise surprise, she's actually just a better person than he is.

Both of them are powerful, ambitious Grisha, and I think its fair to say that in his early life, both he and Zoya were motivated by protecting people. The main difference in their driving force is that Aleksander later wanted not only protection for the Grishas but an elevation of status, believing them superior to normal people. Even from that you can already see the main reason that he was corrupted and Zoya wasn't: his motivations had a streak of selfishness. He wanted to be the savior of the Grisha, he wanted to be the most powerful, he wanted to rule.

Zoya, in contrast, is motivated almost out of pure selflessness. In her younger years you can definitely see her as being selfish but so much of that was because of the way the Darkling had conditioned her. He made her so desperate for his approval that it was all that she cared about. In the amplifier story you see that need for his validation ("his disapproval was more painful than any wound..") and the way he turns her away from her heart and towards pure ambition. Like what the hell would make you tell a girl that was nearly killed for trying to save tiger cubs from death that because of her, they were going to die anyway? He all but ensured she'd view her compassion as a weakness, leaving the amplifiers and power as the only valuable thing she'd gained that day.

Liliyana's death is what turns the tide for Zoya's character arc, bringing her back to that core selflessness, showing her the flaw in the Darkling's ideals, making her realize that power matters only when its working towards the greater good. Though she changes and moves to fight alongside Alina, her grief remains with her until KoS and we only see it processed through Juris' teachings, bringing me to the next point:

3. The darkness and the dragon: Juris in contrast to The Darkling

The way I see it (which is apparently not how the Netflix show sees it), Zoya has had 2 father/mentor figures in her life: Juris and The Darkling. Both strong figures, both powerful Grisha. Her actual father unfortunately did not do his job well enough, failing to protect her from being married off, and I believe thats one of the factors that causes her to latch so strongly onto the Darkling as an-- idol?

When Zoya came to the palace she was just a scared girl who'd just had the world ripped out from under her and her father figure fail her. The Darkling then appears, and he is everything her father was not: strong willed where her father was compliant, mysterious where he was familiar, cold where he was warm, and ultimately cruel where her father was kind. Given that the approach of the latter didnt work out, coupled with her natural desire for approval (dont have much evidence but the peach stealing for Sabina? she wanted her mother to love her for sure) it seems only natural that she grab so strongly onto the Darkling as a figure and embrace the ideals he promised, all things that would be comforting to anyone in her situation. She had been helpless, then shown herself to be a Squaller, that manifestation saving her from a life of suffering. He promised their power made them greater and stronger, that there would be a future where they would have nothing to fear from anyone ever again. What was there for her left to do but to hold onto that promise and the man who had given it?

Of course, as we mentioned above, Darkles has a lovely tendancy to devalue compassion. She still had other examples of the power of love: without Lillyanna's compassion and heart, Zoya might as well have been married off anyway. But were talking misconceptions here, and Darkles' favorite one would have to be power > everything. He's a taker of power, he uses it, he takes what he wants. So of course compassion is nothing when it inhibits the power to be gained, like how he saw empathy as the weakness that led Zoya to save the tiger cubs. But through Juris we see Zoya learn the opposite: its her compassion that gives her her greatest strength. In a very literal way. And this contradiction to the Darkling starts the moment he enters her life and breaks exactly the thing the Darkling gave her that she values so much: her power, as he breaks her amplifiers.

Juris doesn't come into Zoya's life with a promise of safety and strength. Juris swoops in and breaks her world. He shatters her amplifier, scoffs at her understanding of Grisha power, throws her into vulnerability and upheaval when she least wants it. Because its what she needs. He wants to change her relationship with power, and still this makes her more powerful. Juris sends Zoya the caterpillar into a state of pupal goop and soup to become Zoya the avatar butterfly. I regret that sentence but I'm leaving it there. anyway.

claiming a piece of the power of creation, without giving anything of ourselves: The clearest illustration of how Juris and the Darkling differ is seen here. Again the Darkling always takes and with amplifiers thats no different: whether its the way he used Alina or just looking at the Grisha tradition he upholds of killing an animal to take its power, its all superiority, taking, domination and selfishness. Juris works in the opposite direction: merging, giving, surviving the fall, opening the door. He saw the dragon as not something to be taken or conquered but as an equal and felt a kinship with it. This so strongly echoes the like calls to like that is at the core of the Small Science. He goes beyond the act of calling into the act of merging, becoming one with that power by giving up the self. Selflessness versus selfishness. I doubt the Darkling could be capable of that merging, even if he wanted to be.

but still, you wept for the tiger. Just like Nikolai, the very compassion the Darkling devalued is the only thing that Juris finds value in. The amplifiers the Darkling so coveted are exactly what Juris scorns. And yet Juris' way is the one of greater power, ultimately. Compassion is power, that is what he wants her to know. Her love never made her weak. That is why he brings her back to her past, to the memories of her aunt that she locks away because of the vulnerability they make her feel.

She blames herself for the deaths she could not prevent, for falling for the Darkling's lies. She locks that hurt away. But he knows the capacity to feel so strongly that pain is what makes her so strong.

After all that pain, Juris does not ask her to stand up, to toughen herself, to fight. To do anything that she believed made her strong. He asks her to forgive. To forgive herself, most of all. And when Juris is dying and Zoya becomes the dragon, he echoes the theme he began to teacher her when he brought her back to her past. Stop punishing yourself for being someone with a heart. Love is strength, not weakness. To let your wounds heal is what allows you to grow.

Don't leave me. Not you too. Zoya, who spent her life building herself up, working so that she would never feel weak again. At the moment where she becomes her most powerful, she is returned to her weakest and most vulnerable. But she isnt here to fight it and conquer it. To live is to grieve. You are strong enough to survive the fall. Sometimes to let go is the most powerful thing we can do.

in essence:

At the end of the day, the Grishaverse is about the power of love. Look at the first trilogy. Alina and Mal's love is what destroys the fold. Six of Crows is not as grand, but its all about individual love saving individual people. Kaz and Inej as they learn to heal. Nina and Matthias as they break boundaries and prejudice. Wylan and Jesper and the way they teach eachother that they are worthy of love, that its unconditional, flaws and all. Zoya's arc is no different. Juris breaks her from the Darkling's lies she didnt know she was still holding on to, and teaches this girl who wanted nothing more than to be strong and to be safe, that it was this thing she had so desperately tried to tuck away that made her the strongest of all. That's it, really; thats the message of the entire Grishaverse to me:

To love is the most powerful thing we can do.

thakns for coming to my ted talk lmao

[stromuprisahat]

I don't even think it's Zoya's daddy issues tbh. It's arrogance. She is soooo beautiful and sooo hardworking and soooo 'smart', why wouldn't everyone want her and only her.

She despises her father for being weak, never fighting for her against her mother and her treatment of Zoya, then she goes to Little Palace, where she's trying to earn love the same way she did with her mother- by being the best, the hardest-working... and who's the highest-ranking figure there? Oh yes, the Darkling.

Surprisingly, she admits she wanted him to notice her. She wanted the Darkling's approval specifically. And once he "lets her down" too, who's the next older powerful male she becomes attached to?

Oh yeah, ancient dragon Saint she literally lets inside her head in a way she has to fight for reign over her own body...

If this doesn't spell unresolved daddy issues with catastrophic consequences, I don't know what does.

I'd agree with you about R&R!Zoya, but since LB decided to rewrite her as insecure and vulnerable inside, the arrogance is only an armour.

[flippityflaps]

Has anyone else thought about how appropriate and beautiful the union of Zoya and Sankt Juris is? Sankt Juris, the patron saint of the battle-weary and Zoya Nazyalensky, a girl who has been at constant war against the world and fought against her own heart ever since she walked down the aisle in tears at just 9 years old... Could there be anyone in this world more battle-weary than Zoya of the lost city, Zoya of the garden, Zoya bleeding in the snow?