#anti sab

[malconnorsupremacy]

okay, as a brown girl with sexual trauma, Inej Ghafa is so so important to me because she represents resilience no matter what the situation as well as the faith I have in my own religion.

which is why I will NEVER forgive Shadow and Bone for disregarding her character to make a Wattpad version of "sexy badass knife wife" while centring her story completely around a white man whose trauma was (although not cohesively) explored on the show. the other crows got handed the same treatment but Inej's story was barely even alluded and it makes me rage inside to even think about it.

Honestly speaking, I couldn't find myself watching after the first episode when Heleen was just... killed off??? with no visible reaction from Inej?? once again making her story about a white man getting to murder people??

no. no I do not want an SOC spinoff. because I'm damn sure they're gonna make her story only about finding her "lost brother" instead of focusing on her own trauma which is irrevocably difficult to heal from (considering SAB just made her sorta... going to the Menagerie even after the Crow Club held her contract?? which is fucked up on SO many levels.) honestly my gripe with this show goes many lengths and I'm glad they couldn't ruin it any more.

[greensaplinggrace]

ppl really talk about the darkling like he's a real living person casting an evil spell to make readers like him huh

literally. and it's even worse because the reader can tell right away that he's the antagonist. he's the socially outcast charismatic leader that wears all black, has shadow powers, is part of an oppressed minority, and wishes to exact change. the fact that he so clearly falls into the vilified revolutionary trope long before he even betrays alina - and that even before that alina is suspicious of him and never actually completely falls for him - means that there is no real method for the portrayal of the darkling to trick readers anyways.

it's amazing how people laud the writing as subversive and bardugo as a genius for his character when he plays into every racist trope imaginable and can't even properly convey what a real abuser looks or acts like in reality. they think that liking him means the reader has "fallen" for him in the same way alina has. except that alina never does, and the writing never allows you to fall for him, and the tone of the series from the beginning marks him as unacceptable.

so what you get is a whole bunch of people linking a terribly written allegory with a cheap imitation of the insidious methods abusers use to control their victims and manipulate societal norms to the very real effect actually well written satirical criticisms of society have on the general population that reveal hidden prejudices and biases while shining a light on propagandized misinformation.

I'm sorry, but liking the darkling or darklina can't actually prove leigh bardugo's point when the point is so poorly written it basically walks backwards. in no way is this piece of literature subversive or impactful on society's views of itself and it's methods of control. there's nothing to fall for because the darkling doesn't actually accurately represent a real type of person, and his relationship with alina doesn't accurately represent a real type of dynamic.

[starlessmistake]

The problem with S&B S2's magic system

(And why it weakens one of the best moments of the series)

Before I start, I just want to preface with the fact that I am talking about the show only here as it's own entity. I know that some of my complaints can be said of the books as well. However from S1, the show substantially altered the concept of amplifiers, so clearly they're not above making changes to the way the magic system when it suits them.

Diving right in to my analysis...

S1 for all its faults does a solid job of setting up the magic system within Ravka. The grisha orders are presented as being very strictly defined with no suggestion that there is any choice involved in a grisha’s sub-order.

(This is in contrast to the books where it is established as early as Alina’s carriage ride with Fedyor and Ivan that a grisha’s sub-order is more of a specialisation that they have some choice over.)

This strict delineation has consequences for the plot of S1.

In S1E3 we meet Genya and are given a fairly comprehensive overview of her powers. As a tailor, her main power is in modifying an individual’s appearance. This includes being able to mend surface level injuries.

In S1E5 when Marie is attacked, Genya is unable to heal Marie’s wound and Marie subsequently dies. This in many ways is the trigger point for the whole second act of the first season. Marie’s death is what causes Aleksander to leave Alina alone in his War Room, and therefore what gives Baghra the opportunity to convince Alina to flee.

(The show then goes on to never mention Marie’s death again, but that’s a separate rant of mine.)

Genya not being a Healer (or at the very least, not knowing that she can heal) is important to the story of S1 and established concretely to the audience.

And then we have S2…

S2 makes the decision to expand on the magic system by blurring the line between the various orders. This is not necessarily a bad decision in its own right – many stories successfully add nuance to their magic systems as the audience grows familiar with how it works. However I would argue that the show does not manage to do this successfully.

We are first introduced to this change through Alina’s travels to Novyi Zem and aboard Nikolai’s ship. Characters like the librarian and Tamar tell us that other countries do not distinguish between grisha in the way that Ravka does. Which is fine in theory, except this is one of the many, many things that we are told and not shown.

None of the non-Ravkan grisha actually demonstrate any powers outside of their one specific sub-order. With the possible exception of Sankta Neyar who uses a form of blood-bending. However we are explicitly told that this is because there is iron in blood and not because she can control blood itself. Therefore her powers still fall neatly into what we might expect of Durasts.

So who doesn’t fit into a neat box…? You guessed it - Genya.

Genya gains all kind of powers this season. First of all is healing. In S2E4 Genya is able to easily heal Baghra’s broken wrist -  something that goes well beyond Genya’s established powers in S1. The show could have possibly explained this by having Baghra amplify Genya, but that’s not what happens as Baghra doesn’t touch Genya while she’s working.

The fact that Genya has the capability to heal is not in itself a problem – given what the show clumsily tried to establish earlier in S2. However, the problem is that Genya should not know that she has these capabilities. Because she explicitly didn’t know about them in S1, and nothing has changed between the seasons to give her this information.

Now that we have all that established, let’s talk about the scene I referred to back at the start of this rant.

In S2E5 Genya and Baghra find Alina’s underground hideout. In one of the best scenes of the series David asks Genya how she managed to find them, to which Genya replies that she was able to follow David’s heartbeat with the help of Baghra’s amplification.

This is such a powerful moment due to Daisy and Luke’s fantastic acting, but it’s undermined by the writing. This reveal about Genya’s Heartrending should have been a great shock – to the audience and to Genya – a discovery of an unknown power that she was only able to tap into in her most desperate moment to find the love of her life.

But because we have already seen Genya’s unexplained ability to heal, this reveal instead comes across (at least to me) like Heartrending is a power that Genya has always known about, she merely forgot to mention it earlier in the show.

And so a fantastic acting performance is hampered by weak writing. It’s far from the only such moment (believe me, I could rant for hours about S2’s writing). But this one particularly frustrates me, because it would be so easy to fix! All the writers would have to do would have Genya not heal Baghra’s wrist, or have Genya only be able to heal Baghra’s wrist with the help of amplification.

(rant over. thanks for reading)

[sainteda]

“we have two versions of wesper now! enjoy them both :)” we did not need two and no i won’t

[seed-rom]

I think a major part of the issue with the Shadow and Bone tv series is that it tries to tell the stories of both Shadow and Bone and Six of Crows at the same time. Sab is a completely different genre to soc, and trying to blend the two lessens the appeal of both.

Shadow and Bone is classic YA, with its teen girl protagonist who discovers she has super special powers and has to go on an epic journey and fight battles to save her world, while dealing with a love triangle. Six of Crows, however, is an imaginative heist-fantasy fusion with a morally grey ensemble cast. Those two stories should not be told in one go, because one tells a story utilising classic YA fantasy tropes, and the other subverts those tropes.

[endiness]

if i had a nickel for every time my fav was trying to stop an apocalypse and solve the problems of their world but they were labelled the villain antagonist for it while the hero protagonists never cared about any of the problems and never offered any viable solutions to them and only cared about stopping them... i'd have at least 3 nickels. which isn't a lot but it's weird that it's happened more than once.

[lovedbecauseitisknown]

This post on Reddit does an absolutely fantastic job at explaining why Inej’s trauma wasn’t erased in s2, and why the decisions made don’t necessarily ruin her character arc and I think more people need to see it

[sancastarcs]

shadow and bone netflix show canceled. life is good again. zoyalai are free.

[callum-hunt-is-bisexual]

ok im done i just needed to make sure yall knew this is a great day for me

[greensaplinggrace]

hold up guys… apparently disagreeing with the writing decisions for a female character means you don’t actually like her.

apparently having valid criticisms of the ways her development is regressed due to narrative shaming through her ties to one bad man means you’re a fake fan. apparently you can’t ever wish for her ending to have sacrifices that she chooses and a path that she chooses to walk down because then you’re a fake fan.

hang on guys! the literary criticism of how her complex character traits are used to hate and prop up the two men in her life may be seen as you caring more about the men! because god forbid you call sexist writing actually sexist when it comes to your repressed and regressed main female character who’s ending she didn’t choose and which she actively grieves ends up in her assimilation.

and apparently criticizing the way fandom talks about genya when they use all of her traumas and decisions and major character moments to hate a man instead of like her are faking it too. because god forbid you don’t treat all of these women like perfect paragons and perfect victims who’s every bad action or thought or major character moment can be attributed to one man. if you do, they might hypocritically think it’s fucking misogyny.

hold up guys, real critical analysis doesn’t exist anymore because I have to lick the author’s boots like all these fucking centrists do the government.

[girl-bateman]

not to be a negative nancy here, but the cringy dialogue, undeserved and speedrun relationship developments and choppy storylines, is almost making shadow and bone unwatchable. im pulling this face every 5 minutes

[starlessmistake]

Eric Heisserer: Of course I love all the crows equally. There's...

Kaz, the main and most important character

Kaz's girlfriend

Kaz's best friend, the walking bisexual stereotype even though as won't let him actually describe himself as bi

Kaz's best friend's boyfriend

Waffle girl

Shirtless guy

[ackermental]

My hatered for Shadow and Bone reminded me of my love for Twilight.

Gonna do a marathon this weekend.

[darkolaism]

in the honor of the latest twt m*tthias discourse on twt, ill just say. cut the cameras, deadass

[endiness]

i just cannot take the idea of the darkling being the villain seriously. it's like, ah yes, look how evil he is as he... *checks notes* frees the grisha locked up in cages like animals. like, the writing to make him into a mustache twirling, black hat wearing, cartoonishly evil villain is so bad and so, so obvious. it has to be. because otherwise how does it make sense he would be the villain when he's the one actually trying to solve the world's problems like winning a war and stopping the persecution of his people and preventing a civil war and doing away with a corrupt monarchy. all while repeatedly stressing the point that those problems are not ones that can be easily solved by staying morally pure and virtuous the entire time which he would know as someone who's been alive for hundreds of years and has already exhausted every other option. and all of that while the hero protagonists, who never cared about the state of the world in any capacity at all until, like, 5 seconds ago (and even then they only care to the extent of “the fold bad”), and who reduce everything to a completely simplistic black and white view, do nothing but try to stop him and never try to come up with any other answers and instead just blame him for all the evils of the world as if he is genuinely responsible for them (he's not) and somehow stopping him is going to magically fix everything which doesn't make sense because that's not how systematic prejudice that's existed for hundreds upon hundreds and hundreds of years—all of which predates his existence anyway—works.

[sancastarcs]

what the FUCK did that show did to Zoya and Nikolai...