#and then going 'cool well that's solved now instead of that we've given inej a brother'

[atalana]

@inhumansandwiches stealing your tags bc you're absolutely right!

(also yes on nina being indentured! bc again! that ties into jesper's issues! bc there are legitimate reasons he doesn't tell anyone! and it's because jes does not want to be kidnapped and sold. like every other grisha in ketterdam. which is understandable. it just makes his concerns look childish if nina is absolutely fine)

like. i think the most frustrating thing about all of this is not that they mangled the story, or moved things around, or haven't left room for some of my favourite character moments

its that they seem to want to resolve everything, even when a resolution is an active detriment to the story

six of crows, as a duology, very much leaves off unresolved!

the puzzle of how they're going to get out of this situation, that's tied up (far neater and more satisfying than the show can do), but everything else just leaves off on a promise. kaz and inej have not solved all their trauma, because that's going to take time, and so far they've failed more than they've succeeded. but kaz promises to try and inej promises to always come back, and that's enough

and jes still struggles to admit he's grisha, bc he's spent years under the assumption that saying that out loud will get him killed or worse. he still hasn't solved his gambling addiction. but he's promised to start training with a fabrikator, and he leaves his share of the money to his dad, until he can responsibly spend it

and that's something i loved about the books! it's what made them interesting! and like. i think in theory they could do the bathroom scene again in the show, so i'm reserving judgement on that, but i definitely wasn't happy with them folding "pekka rollins killed my brother" and so many bathroom scene moments into one interaction

bc the former is honestly one of the better moments kanej have. it's one of the few times kaz lets himself be emotionally vulnerable, bc he says it too quickly to overthink. and had they left the show scene there, it would have been fine, that scene resolves (mostly) in the book too

but they wanted to do the bathroom scene too. the bathroom scene doesn't resolve. in any other ya story it would, that would be the moment where kaz has a breakdown and finally tells inej everything. but kaz is a very realistic portrayal of trauma, and he can't. inej pushed too far. he was already tired and vulnerable and about to walk into a situation where he couldn't be kaz, he had to be dirtyhands, there was no space for more vulnerability. and so he lashes out, because that's what people do when they're afraid and backed into a corner

to me it's not the bathroom scene if it doesn't have kaz trying the hardest he ever has despite the trauma (and inej knowing that it's a problem and being able to relate to it and talk him through it), only to ultimately fail. because the important part is he can still try again

but i get the sense that the writers are kinda, censoring parts of the books? like you said, a gambling addiction might be too difficult for them to explore

and the same with kaz's backstory, like. i don't know if show only fans even know the whole story? because sure you showed him on the reaper's barge, but you didn't show how he got there, or more importantly, how he got away. because those are the things that are truly traumatising, and apparently there's only so much we're willing to show a fictional nine year old experiencing

and it's a shame bc these are some of the things that make the crows unique and compelling characters

honestly though like. as a jesper fan, i am baffled by the choices they made with his character arc this season

like i was definitely surprised they just threw the grisha thing in immediately after it was such a secret last season, but that's not inherently bad, i can roll with that

two things though

1) i am absolutely thrilled to get that scene with aditi, she was the number one character i wanted to see in s2 and it was everything i wanted and more. but attributing jesper's denial of his powers just to her death... yes, that was what pushed colm over the edge in terms of paranoid protecting

but he was terrified before she died. and that's because he's kaelish, not zemeni, and he knows the world. novyi zem may be relatively safe for zowa, but at least as far as the books are concerned, nowhere else is. the wandering isle has far too many superstitions, ravka has a compulsory draft for grisha, the fjerdans will kill you, the shu want to experiment on you, and one thing the show really does not cover is that pretty much every grisha in ketterdam is an indenture, nina included. every grisha in the city is owned by someone. your options outside of novyi zem are death, war, or slavery. jesper's dad kinda had a point

and i'm surprised they didn't even try to touch on that, because that could actually be really interesting in this crossover au! why? because that's the darkling's point of view. he's kind of a magneto here, doing wrong things for valid reasons - and jes has the most experience with those reasons. in the books he's nowhere near as okay with his powers (nina's narration at one point mentions how jes continually talks about grisha like he's not one of them, even in a room where everyone knows his secret. and he can't even say the word grisha, nor can his father, if they have to discuss it they coat it in several layers of vague language)

you're going to make a much stronger debate and a more interesting antagonist if one of your protags agrees that yeah, there is nowhere in the world that is safe for any of them, even if the war is over

2) where, are they intending to take jes' character arc from here? bc they kinda went right for the root of it, which doesn't make a lot of sense if you wanna keep this character around

like, if you haven't read the books, grisha stay healthy by using their powers - they can live longer, yes, but it also keeps them from getting sick, and so on. the inverse, however, is also true. one of the ways the shu government identifies grisha in hiding is that they can't go long without using their abilities, it makes them tired and weak and sickly

and crooked kingdom really digs into the fact that staying in hiding since he was a kid has been having a severe impact on jesper's health - not physically, for him it manifests mentally. sort of fantasy adhd, but the worst traits of it. he's always restless, nothing ever feels okay, he keeps pushing his emotions down because he doesn't know how to deal with them without them exploding. he's a serious adrenaline junkie because of it - he has a legit and debilitating gambling addiction that forms the heart of his character arc, and the same with danger, the only time the world feels right is when he's in the middle of a fight and probably about to die

jes can't quit gambling because he can't admit to himself there's anything wrong. he can't admit what he is and he can't admit that it's hurting him really badly

he only makes progress on the grisha thing right at the end of the last book, and he's working on the gambling addiction, though that's something implied to be fixed in the future rather than seeing it on the page

but he seems to be much more okay with who he is now than he ever was in the books. and, if he's okay with it now, how are you ever going to dig into the rest of the interesting stuff, that's all only happening because jes is hiding from himself?