#anti alina starkov

[is-today-tomorrow-in-nz]

Why Nikolai is more of a villain than Aleksander

This post is an inspiration from one of anon asks.

Time and time again antis have accused Aleksander of several hideous crimes without understanding the monarchy of 19th century Feudal Russia and what serfdom entails. Due to this lack of understanding(or willful ignorance), Aleksander is studied under a harsher light than Nikolai and other characters. I blame the author entirely for this, as she never gave Aleksander a voice until much later. In books 1-3, he is only projected to us through Alina who had nothing but disdain for him.

On the other hand, we see Nikolai, who was a prince and then a king, who did not do much for the country or Grisha. However, his actions are softened by LB and antis. He is considered a 'flawed' human who did his best. His manipulative actions are treated as an act of strategic brilliance while his mistakes are treated as an act of desperation/helplessness.

So, let me first start by explaining some of the vile accusations thrown at Aleksander and then contrast it with some of Nikolai's actions.

He sex-trafficked Genya.

In Book 1, the author herself says two key points 1) Grisha are no better than serfs and 2) After their training, Grisha are either posted in the borders or sent to serve in affluent households. So Genya was not a unique case. This, again, is the price Aleksander had to pay for the Grisha to live. Genya had to be sent as a child because an adult Genya could not get as close to the Queen as a child would and it worked for a while until the Queen turned on her. This were an understanding of serfdom is needed. A serf can be released only by the master not by anyone else. Aleksander cannot take her away and relocate her somewhere else. And if the antis had read the 'The Tailor' they would know that in spite of the challenges, Aleksander did give her a choice- to disappear forever or exact her revenge and it was Genya who chose to stay.

He committed genocide in Novokribirsk.

Even if we ignore Alina's unreliable POV, Zoya's POV tells us that only a part of the city, near the docks was destroyed. So what Aleksander did was just a warning and not a 'genocide'. Antis keep forgetting that Grisha's enemies were not just Fjerda and Shu Han but Ravka itself. Had the coup had succeeded, he not just wanted Fjerda and Shu Han to back off but the First Army soldiers as well. Book 2 shows how his paranoia were not unwarranted. Through Fedyor's story we learn how they were attacked in their sleep and how First Army conducted sham trials and slaughtered them. This alone shows how Ravka's sentiments about Grisha was not much different from Fjerda or Shu Han. So in the event of the coup, Aleksander had no choice but to issue a warning all of his enemies.

He is a predator/abuser.

This is the one that makes me laugh the most. Girl, he is an immortal. He has no choice. All his age-appropriate past lovers are long dead and buried. What is he supposed to do? Remain celibate? They often bring up the kiss near Baghra's hut as an example of his predatory nature. But what manipulation happened? That dummy fell for Alina and high-tailed from there.

Let me draw a comparison to show what actual manipulation and predatory behaviour looks like. (1) Nikolai who is about 7-8 years older than Alina, forcibly kissing her, against her will, in front of hundreds of people just to better his chances for the throne. (2) Mal who punishes Alina for flinching at his advances by getting it on with Zoya. (3) Baghra, who preys on Alina's fears/insecurities and turns her son's one true immortal companion, against him. These are actual manipulations, not the one Aleksander did.

A predator/abuser needs to have constant access to his victims. In LB, own words, Aleksander rarely stayed at the Little Palace. Compared to him, Nikolai, Mal and Baghra had more access to Alina and they did actually succeed isolating her.

The Stag amplifier

Then the stag incident is treated as a sign of his manipulation and perversion. This where we need to apply our critical thinking and ask the important question who benefits from this act? It certainly was not Aleksander.

Let's rewind the clock a bit, Alina who was the Sun Summoner and a key political figure ran away from the Little Palace. Aleksander did not know if it was an enemy attack or something more sinister. He lies to King, who would have his head for this mishap and, searches for her only to learn that she run away on her own violation. So the girl, he hoped to be his ally became a threat. He was forced to reveal his hand sooner and speed up the coup. People need to understand that Aleksander is not an ordinary, lovesick boy, he is a war general and Alina has proved herself to be unworthy of his trust. So he put a leash on her. This not a question of morality but a question of ethics, much like the trolley problem.

He turned on his own Grisha.

They were deserters for god's sake! and was fighting opposite him. They forfeited his protection the moment they joined hands with the enemy. So he was treating them as a normal enemy.

He stole Grisha children.

He did what Charles Xavier did in X-Men. Grisha powers were tied to emotions and are instinctive. Without proper training they are bound to hurt normal people. Not to mention, if the Grisha were born outside they were either killed or sold to pleasure houses. And considering Ravka's anti-Grisha sentiments, he did what he had to do to keep them safe from actual predators.

Now let's talk about some of Nikolai's actions and let's not forget that he was the King/Prince of Ravka.

Sent his father on a luxury retirement instead of punishing him for his crimes.

Used Genya's trauma to make himself the king instead of offering her justice.

Did not care or investigate the genocide of the Second Army soldiers even if the said soldiers were serving the crown. He punished none of the First Army soldiers and was happily brown-nosing them.

Was happy to start a Civil war even after knowing the kind of king his father was. For a 'peace-loving' person (we have seen him in KoS and RoW ass-kissing useless feudal lords instead of using his authority), he did not attempt to negotiate with Aleksander.

Starved his people so Aleksander would have no choice but to use his Grisha to cross the Fold to get supplies. Again for the antis crowing about Novokribirsk, what do you call this?

Stole Grisha inventions like corecloth etc in the name of unification and supplied it to First Army. Read point 2 once more to understand the cruel nature of this act. He felt Grisha were hoarding better supplies but did not question why the First Army were having subpar things because if he did then the blame would rest on his father and his corrupt noble supporters. So he chooses to steal using the unification propaganda. How noble!

Sent Grisha who were not of age to war fronts and missions. Why not send the First Army? Are there no highly skilled people in the First Army for such things?

Manipulated and used Alina to establish himself. Atleast Aleksander 'manipulated' her for the betterment of Grisha, Nikolai did it for himself.

Destroyed everything Aleksander did for Grisha in the name of unification. Or should we call it erasure? He erased centuries of progress and left them without protection.

He claimed Aleksander used his Grisha selfishly for 'his' wars and then shamelessly sends his minions to recruit them from other countries.

If Nikolai was indeed a just and kind king as the antis claim him to be, why didn't he announce Grisha as a protected class? Why didn't he offer them equal rights as a Ravkan citizen? Through his own spies he knows what is happening to them in Fjerda, Shu-Han and Kerch and yet knowingly he lets Zoya abolish the rule of finding and securing the Grisha children (which mind you, saved Zoya from child marriage).

Aleksander was not just a person, he carried the history of the Grisha that was rapidly being erased. He built a place to pass down that knowledge, their culture and practices. If Grisha were not tested and found, who would save them if they died from wasting sickness, who would offer them protection from slavers and Fjerdans? Once again in the name of 'liberation' Nikolai had truly pushed them into hiding. Without these laws what happens when anti-grisha sentiments raise again after a few centuries? He removed every true protection and erased a targeted group's shared history in the name of liberation.

In the end, Nikolai did not protect his country nor the Grisha. He is in no way the hero of this story nor is his echo chambers whom he calls friends. I could go on and on. Truth is, it is not my intention to minimize things like SA or genocide. These are heavy topics and should be treated as such. Readers or antis who throw around such words should know the weight of such words. I hope this sheds some light on the hypocrisy that resides in this fandom.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk!

[ackermental]

I swear to God, if original SW trilogy came out today, Luke would make peace with the Emperor and surrender to the not so subtle allegory for nazis, because of "nobody wins in a war", "if you do this, the cycle of violence will never stop" bullshit.

[obikonans]

Alina Starkova could’ve been badass revolutionary but chooses to be peasant(who the fuck would be peasant in a country that likely has serfdom) and be m*l’s donkey

[black-rose-writings]

TGT and the Nikolai books in a nutshell.

[sad-outsider]

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…

[stromuprisahat]

I've been reading a lot of criticism about Alina lately, and while I agree that she is a shitty protagonist, but the main problem I have with saying that she is the true villain of the story is that... no one told her? No one talked to her about Grisha persecution? Yeah, we hear about it vaguely in TGT, but it isn't until SoC when they find the burnt corpses and the kefta mural that it truly starts to sink in. It's not until you read DitW that you realize how desperate the situation was (and still is, in some ways). It's not until the Nikolai Duology that the true horror of the Shu experiments is brought to us. We see nothing of it in TGT, so maybe... Alina just doesn't know?

Yeah, sure, she has been around Grisha and is one of them now, but hear me out, it's like white people who say they don't have a problem with POC but they don't realize that it doesn't negate the fact that POC still face racism from others. Add to the fact that nowhere do we see newspapers and as an orphan Alina is definitely less aware of social justice situations than your average white guy- how is she supposed to know? All that she sees is the luxury of the Grisha- their tents their bulletproof clothes, etc.

Just a thought about how the story might have gone different if instead of the crows, it was Alina who found the three burnt bodies while chasing the stag and had to put one of them out of their misery. And how the story might have changed if Alina truly understood the situation.

I'm almost halfway through Siege and Storm, so I’ll talk from this perspective.

I’d say it’s the same issue as anything with Alina- she doesn’t want to know.

She’s almost murdered by a guy yelling “witch” in her face. Funnily enough- at this point it’s still in English (Ravkan), not drüsje, but witch:

I twisted and kicked as the yellow-bearded man grabbed hold of my legs. I looked desperately down to the glen, but the soldiers and Grisha below me were fighting for their lives, clearly outnumbered and unable to come to my aid. I struggled and thrashed, but the Fjerdan was too strong. He climbed on top of me, using his knees to pin my arms to my sides, and reached for his knife.

“I’ll gut you right here, witch,” he snarled in a heavy Fjerdan accent.

She gets safely to Little Palace, mentiones this whole experience twice and that’s it. It wouldn’t even take that much to get back to this topic- next chapter she learns such attack isn’t anything unusual for Grisha:

“ ... Other countries don’t treat their Grisha so well as Ravka,” he said grimly. “The Fjerdans burn us as witches, and the Kerch sell us as slaves. The Shu Han carve us up seeking the source of our power. ... ”

Alina sees there’s a difference made between Grisha and other Ravkans, but never connects the dots. It doesn’t concern her, she’s doing the same after all.

She isn’t interested in situation, not only the wide picture, but more personal perspective- we don’t see her ask her “not-friends” anything about them. Their lives, families... You won’t hear a scary story if you won’t ask or listen...

She got study materials on Grisha history, but that's just that. Words on a paper. Something she repeats when she remembers she's supposed to be hunted, although the reasons don't quite click.

She goes from being prejudiced herself to staying that way. Why would she change? She went from denying being Grisha to being Saint and that’s a completely different thing. The only person she truly cares about is an otkazat’sya, so why would she consider wrongness of slurs and disdain?

She was told, but the Darkling "never tells the truth" and she doesn’t feel the need to ask anyone else.

She hears First Army soldiers insult Ivan for refusing to share information with them, and doesn't blink an eye.

She hears about First Army slaughtering Grisha, and thinks "good, I'd do the same".

She only cares about Grisha being potentially mistreated as long as it's the Darkling harming them (Genya's punishment, Grishenka in R&R).

When forced to face other harm partially caused by Grisha status of slaves in Ravkan society, the circumstances allow her to ignore that aspect (Genya's abuse).

I don’t think she needs anything more explicit. She’d just find the way to blame the Darkling, or forget it ever happened as soon as it was out of her sight.

Burned Grisha corpses?

Some foreign tradition. Or barbecue gone wrong...

Just look at her reaction to Harshaw's story in R&R:

I thought of the dream the Darkling had once had, that we might be Ravkans and not just Grisha. He’d tried to make a safe place for our kind, maybe the only one in the world. I understand the desire to remain free. Was that why Harshaw kept fighting? Why he’d chosen to stay? He must have shared the Darkling’s dream once. Had he given its care over to me?

Zoya's the one, to note how fucked up it is. Alina's concern is possible responsibility. There's no horror, there's no resolution to take over Aleksander's efforts. The goal remains the same- hunt down the Firebird, kill the Darkling, destroy the Fold.

Even when talking as Grisha, Alina doesn't act like one.

[darklinaforever]

Me thinking about the fact that Alina never knew about the death of Marie, her so-called friend, who died because of the Crows, with whom Alina calls herself friends today...

[illicthearts]

They honestly murdered Nikolai’s character. This character is being the only monarch who cares about his country and his people. The whole reason he created Sturmhond, the whole reason he’s a privateer, the whole reason he works for the Darkling and kidnappings Alina. This entire character is based on his love for his country and him doing anything he can to make it better for his people. It’s the whole reason I fell in love with his character, I love that he was an inventor and a strategist prince with military experience, everything you look for in a leader. And now you’re telling me that he has to be convinced to save Ravka?! It was Alina in the books who need to be convinced to save the country. Don’t ruin his entire character just to make Alina look better. No matter what you do you won’t make me like her and now they made me hate the only protagonist I liked. Fuck you.

He was the perfect balance between Alina and the Darkling. And the only hero I liked. He should be the one ruling Ravka not Zoya, he was the perfect man for it, I can’t believe LB threw away his life goal, the everything he worked for away just to have Zoya “can’t control her anger” Nazyalensky on the throne, it’s fucking ridiculous. Like Nikolai had a whole plan for democracy. 

[marvelmusing]

“You may have needed me, but I never needed you.”

Okay Alina sure you didn’t

You’d just be murdered by Drüskelle

Or by Zlatan’s assassin instead of poor Marie

[ember920]

What is Leigh Bardugo’s problem with writing women? She can’t seem to write (successfully write) a woman learning about her agency without shaming her in the process. She can’t let her female characters (notably Alina and Genya) find their way in the world and be independent. LB seems to barely be able to have a few female villains! I want an evil girlboss. I like the villains in fiction, I like how they are morally grey. It sucks that the Grishaverse has almost no villains that aren’t men. It does make one wonder… why? Is LB afraid of writing female villains? Shadow and Bone deals (or tries to deal) with complex themes of morality. She tries to show a young woman dealing with greed and attraction to power, but the narrative always seems to shame Alina in a very puritanical way. She must be loyal to one man (Mal, obviously). The Darkling (who seems to often represent sexuality and liberation) is evil and is corrupting our fragile main character.

With Genya, she was repeatedly violated by the King. She had an opportunity to exact her revenge, and she took it. She poisoned him. She stole years off his life. LB writes this in a way that makes it seem like she has committed some great evil. Later, she is obviously made to regret her choices and side again with Alina. Poisoning the King is bad. Getting back at the man who has hurt you time and time again is wrong. But it’s obviously not. Poisoning people is bad, but the story doesn’t seem capable to handle the fact that while poisoning people is bad, so is violating a young girl. The King of course faces no real punishment for his crimes and is sent on his merry way to live in the colonies.

Genya is made to feel bad in Siege and Storm for ever hurting Alina. Alina tells Genya that it was a betrayal that Genya sided with the Darkling. Maybe. But Alina also never acknowledges that this was the way Genya could get her revenge.

It’s another question of why would any Grisha side against the Darkling, but I won’t get into that.

So this brings me back to the question of why does LB not tackle these themes? She introduced these problems, and then she just ignored them. She could of written a wonderful, morally grey book series. Instead though she gives all her female character problems, but then has the characters simply be shamed and feel guilty for ever having these problems. This, at least to me, makes the entire thing look ignorant. Why can’t LB just… write female characters? Why can’t she do that? All these women are just shamed for ever having problems to deal with in the first place. Alina for greed. Genya for revenge. Both of them for daring to take agency and independence.

Sorry if this made little to no sense. Just a rant about LB’s weird writing choices.

[avengers-rule103]

"your obsession with the fold is naive, destroying it won't solve ravka's problems. they've hated us and hunted us long before the fold existed. i know. i was there."

i just love this quote. i love this quote so much. i want to marry this quote. and then i want to slap alina upside the freaking head for not listening to him.

[is-today-tomorrow-in-nz]

Why I cannot accept Alina Starkov as a protagonist

I have a love-hate relationship with Alina's character. Mostly hate though. I loved the few bright moments she had but I absolutely loathed the moments where she was came off as an utterly selfish, unsympatheic, sanctimonious brat which dried up the any pity I had for her.

When I think of Alina, the analogy that comes to my mind is elephants. When elephants are tamed their handlers use an interesting strategy. The handlers use the heaviest iron chains that are too strong for the young calves to break away to tether them. The young calves try as they might to break free, soon realise that the chains are stronger than them and give up. They slowly start to live within the limits of the chain. However as the elephants reach adulthood, the trainers switch to normal, lightweight chains to tie them up because, by now the elephants have been fully trained to believe that they are too weak to breakaway. So the elephants rarely ever attempt to test the strength of the chains or even attempt to escape. The elephants having forgotten the strength they posses, learn to live within the limits of the chains.

Alina is just like those elephants. She has the power of the Sun coursing through her veins and yet instead of raising up to the situation, she actively chooses to remain stagnant. She remains tethered with her one-sided affection for Mal, her crippling self esteem issues, her shame of having 'impure thoughts' and, her fear of becoming something more than she had imagined. Eventhough the chains does not help her realise her true potential or even give her room to breathe, she is unable to comprehend anything beyond it and remain fearful to breakfree.

Had she been a side character, then, all of these flaws would not have mattered. But she is the protagonist and the entire triology moves forward through her. I'm not belittling her fears but the problem with the Chosen One trope is that at one point, the Chosen One is supposed to break away from their shackles and overcome these fears as the story progresses. Because, the story is not about the Chosen One, it is about the cause they are representing. But with Alina we never see that growth and so the cause she represents remains unfulfiled. Rather than becoming the one moving the story forward, she becomes an elephant in the hands of her handlers- Nikolai, Mal, Zoya, Apparat etc. She goes where they direct her to.

We see her passiveness cause actual detriment to the story as she is directed to side with the 'good guys' instead of representing the suppressed people who sees her as a beacon of hope. And in the end her life or death did not impact the cause she represented.

People may say that she suceeded in killing the Darkling and took down the Fold. But neither was her true purpose. She was supposed to be the one who bridged the gap between the otkazats'ya and the Grisha. And so, her victory in the final battle does not satisfy the end goal as the person she killed also wanted the same.

By defeating the Darkling, she no longer becomes the Chosen One. Instead she becomes an instrument of the oppressor who actively wants to maintain the status of the monarchy which in turn thrived on the Grisha serfdom. From a passive protagonist she becomes a passive antagonist. And in the end of it all she serves no purpose to herself or the people she was supposed to uplift and goes back to her chained elephant life with Mal as her new handler.

And this is why I could never accept Alina as the protagonist.

[ackermental]

The pettiness and jealousy Otkazat'sya feel towards Grisha over them having cool powers, nice home and pretty clothes is absolutely disgusting. This show is disgusting. Alina is disgusting.

Oh, but if only Darkling took away their identity and made Grisha play with people who were mocking and harrasing them for centuries! With people who were only accepting Grisha's presence because they were isolated and used as tools of war by the Tsar.

If only Darkling thought about making peace with them during all those long centuries and it didn't kick him in the ass in the end. Oh, my mistake. It was his fault and Alina knows this for certain because... Some old, mad lady, that was beating and offending her for months, told her so.

If only Sasha married some Princess over those long years!

I'm sure it would've stopped the genocide and cured the racism! After all, it worked so well with Alina and her orphanage.

I'm certain that the point this show was trying to make in season one, was that a kid who called Alina 'rice eater' turned out to be a decent citizen and is now telling all Ravkans to lay down their arms and embrace Shu Han as any loving neighbour should 🙂.

Just wait, we will meet him in season three and he and Alina will become best buds, until he obviously also falls in love with her and they make a Grisha-Otkazat'sya baby, ending all wars for the rest of days.

Anyway, we should totally start the change by remaking the entire Grisha community. Beginning with the nomenclature, because this is twenty first century America, not a kingdom based on Tsarist Russia. Totally not by educating Otkazat'sya. They are not the actual problem 🙂. At all.

[piolhyna]

you know what, LB decided that Alina Starkov was going to be the "anti-Chosen One" and her character was designed to refuse and not fit in the Chosen One path, which would be a perfect doylist explication of why sometimes Alina is so frustrating to the reader: her character is literally designed to not embrace their chosen path. But then I think by the duology she kinda forgot about it lol

[sad-outsider]

Why I didn't like the ending of R&R. Part 2. Undeserved victory

The main character did nothing herself to win, except for killing Mal (whom I, frankly, wanted to kill myself most of the time) and her Twin Flame (the Darkling).

Seriously, we still need to look for a more passive heroine than Alina. In the plot, she is literally dragged along by everyone who is not too lazy (and even those who are too lazy I look at Baghra and Mal) - the Darkling, Baghra, Nikolai, Apparat, and even damn Mal (although the latter more often pulls her back, but this is the topic for a separate conversation)! What did she do herself? An army of fanatics was gathered to her by the Apparat, amplifiers were literally brought to her on a silver platter by the Darkling, Nikolai and Mal, she led the Second Army reluctantly with Nikolai’s light hand. By God, throughout the trilogy I wanted to poke her with a stick and say: “Finally, do something yourself, stop beating yourself up!” And the fact that she is only 17 does not justify her, because by the standards of the Grishaverse she is considered an adult, but she behaves all the way like a capricious child and this flaw does not change. But these are the problems of the entire trilogy…

Returning to the theme of the finale, Alina's main goal was to destroy the Fold. Well, there is no the Fold at the end, but this is not the merit of Alina, but of her fanatic followers (who, again, were not gathered by her). Great, because why do something yourself when you can dump all the work on others?

“But she killed the Darkling!” - someone will say. Yes, because killing a desperate person who is already dead inside due to the loss of his mother and his Twin Flame and probably might as well just commit suicide is certainly an achievement (no).

Here's meme for you, see you in part 3…

[stromuprisahat]

Aleksander: “Perhaps now you're getting an inkling of what it's like to be hunted. But you still have no idea what it means to fake countless deaths, to have to reinvent yourself after every rebirth, to lose every loved one to sickness, desperation, hate, and time.”

Alina: “Is this how you justify your actions? Your loneliness? A wound that won't heal?”

Aleksander: “You've yet to see the full shape of things. My Alina, you live in a single moment. I live in a thousand.”

Alina: “You're already dead.”

I might be getting old, but one of the qualities I appreciate most about characters is empathy. When you show me “villain”, who has plenty of it, and “heroine”, who has none, it’s an easy enough choice for me. And I WON’T be rooting for her.

Aleksander lived through countless horrors, but he doesn’t make it about himself, he’s telling Alina it’s awaiting her too. He’s warning her. She hears only excuses for perceived wrongs and doesn’t concern herself with future that far.

Alina’s the one to drag Darkling’s “actions” into conversation, but the fact those were designed with certain goal in mind doesn’t matter. Somehow the end of wars is about Sasha’s loneliness. I fail to see how...

Alina calls Aleksander “dead”, yet he’s the one who keeps sacrificing his lives for his people. If he were as heartless as she wants to believe, he could simply fuck off to trip over the world instead of dealing with blind, stubborn, entitled smartass.