#anti-leigh bardugo

[the-hype-dragon]

"oh don't read THIS mediocre fantasy series, try THIS one instead, it's the best the genre has to offer!" *recommends something even worse*

[theweeklydiscourse]

We’re going through this phase of fandom right now where people willfully ignore the sexist implications of female characters being shafted into housewife/mother roles or disempowered by the end of their stories. If you dare to criticize such writing decisions, you will be accused of sexism and be hounded for not “respecting their choices” as though these characters are actual people and not tools of storytelling. As if the cliche of female characters “sacrificing” their powers or having them stripped away exists in a vacuum and isn’t influenced by any larger cultural factors.

They’ll say: “Not every character has to be a girlboss!!” Or “Let women be soft and traditional!!” As if that’s some revolutionary way of thinking and not the norm. It’s an extension of choice feminism, dismissing any dissent about the quality of the narrative to make it make sense and avoid the uncomfortable truth. Diminishing the agency of female characters and cramming them into traditional roles is a common occurrence in many stories, and we should be allowed to criticize them without being silenced.

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

Something something the volumes it speaks that the Darkling felt the need to put Zoya and Alina in competition with each other and put them against each other from the moment they met so that they wouldn’t be able to immediately acknowledge what was being done to them and unite against him something something

[aleksanderscult]

Leigh Bardugo should become universally criticized just for the fact that she presented a victim of persecution and his actions as worse and more important to deal with than the genocide that takes place in that world.

She really said: "It's not the genocide we should worry about. It's that man and his efforts to stop it".

And people applaud her for it instead. Wow. You're all seriously fucked up.

[stromuprisahat]

Love the notion that there's this tightly-knit group of elite, heavily xenophobic soldiers, who won't notice a mole right in their midst:

Who's barely old enough to be a fully-fledged member of their order.

Walks with a limp even though their members seem to be the perfect specimen of their nation.

Doesn't speak a word in Fjerdan.

All during the no. 1 event full of foreign visitors, therefore possible spies.

The most serious alarm just sounded, an explosion blew off a chunk of the inner castle and they've found a traitor kidnapping their most important secret asset.

But hey- I get it. Someone had to fix Helnik's total failure to act as soldiers mid-action, and save them from conveniently distractable losers in fancy uniforms...

[sad-outsider]

The ending of R&R was rewritten

I'm not the only one who, when rereading R&R, thought that the ending was originally supposed to be completely different and was later rewritten?

I just keep looking at Alina's story and her ending with Mal in the orphanage without her powers doesn't fit into the plot at all. The ending looks alien, the puzzle doesn't fit.

1) Alina never said that she wanted to work with children and run an orphanage, Mal too.

2) Alina loved her powers, damn, half of the first book was dedicated to Alina accepting her powers and rejecting Mal, and what was the point of all this if in the end everything returned back to the same point?

3) The ending looks completely illogical because everything slides into Alina's regression as a heroine, the message is lost. What is this story trying to tell me? Never grow up? Stay in childhood forever, because you will not have anything better?

4) Some scenes lose their meaning, for example Alina's dream and most of the S&S in general do not make sense with this ending.

This is just my opinion, but Alina either had to stay with Nikolai and become his queen, or join the Darkling (I hardly believe in the second, to be honest), only then will this story make sense.

[louhilainen]

I would have liked the ending of the trilogy better, if Alina had something else going on with her life than Mal.

It seems like she has no passions or interests other than Mal. At the very beginning of the SaB she’s described as average at cartography, having no special interest or skills, or even strong friendships other than Mal (if it can be called that, as Alina has pick-me up attitude toward him). All Alina has is wry humor and her love for Mal. In the Little Palace, for the first time in her life, she has something of her own. Her power as the Sun Summoner. She finally has something she can excel at. 

In S&S and R&R Alina is busy surviving, trying to negotiate her new life in politics and as the leader of the Second Army, trying to stop the Darkling etc. etc. So I can see it really isn’t time for self discovery.  But couldn’t Bardugo in the first place have made her have dreams or interest outside Mal? Anything would have been fine. Like weaving, drawing, cooking, making cheese, anything! 

The ending with the orphanage and Mal is portrayed as sweet, domestic bliss, with a hint of sorrow and loss, but ultimately hopeful. But to me, Alina’s life just seems… sad. It seems to suit someone over 30+, not someone who’s about 20-years old. If Alina had shown some kind of interest in caring for children before I could get behind that. The only things of her own are the paintings and other art projects she does. The ending would have been more tolerable if losing her powers had given her a change to pursue her own dreams and goals.

It just seems Alina had something for the first time in her life, a piece of herself that made her complete, and then she lost it. Then she went back to Mal because Bardugo cannot allow her to have anything meaningful in her life except him.

I just think that this is a weird message to have, especially in an YA-book.

[is-today-tomorrow-in-nz]

Uprooted vs Grishaverse

I finally finished uprooted and I wanted to share my two cents on where Naomi Novik delivers while LB fails.

Warning: spoilers

Backgrounds:

1) Both the stories were written in first POV of the protagonist.

2) Both are dealing with an immortal, youthful looking male wizard(/grisha) and a reluctant, low self-esteemed, female protagonist.

3) Both are set up in a war torn country with an expanding evil element threatening to swallow the country whole.

However the similarities end there.

1) First POV:

Although Noami uses First POV for Agnieszka, it is not restrictive like Alina's. We can see the universe clearly through her eyes and how she views the magic system. We could also read the other characters and see their strengths and flaws through her eyes. This is completely lost in the Grishaverse. We only see Alina's low self-esteem rambles, her unhealthy attachment to Mal and her judgemental censure of others characters We don't understand the universe, or the true nature of the characters. This makes the Grishaverse restricted universe, although we know how vast it is.

2) Strong female lead:

Agnieszka is a village born, free thinker and an independent girl. She is passionate and compassionate. She cares for her family, her best friend, her village and its people. Although she did not expected to be picked she does not stagnate as the story unfolds. At first she is reluctant and useless in learning magic but once she understands why she needs the magic, she pulls the magic by its horns and masters it. Unlike Alina, she practices and fails and yet she does not give up. Nieshka is by no means a girlboss but she knows what she wants and is unafraid to seek it. She knows when to standup and seize her power and when to let go. Naomi handles her beautifully that we want to know more about what's going on in her mind. Nieshka's life is lived by her rules. When Sarkan flees from his tower she does not run after him. She lets him go. She understands his nature and she also understands hers. She chooses to stay behind and heal the forests around her. This, right here, is proper feminism. Not Alina's ballerina farm.

3) Strong characters:

Sarkan, Solya, Kasia, Alosha, Marek, Vladimir and many others. We see them all through Nieshka but Naomi has portrayed each one of them beautifully. They are not one dimensional. We see how Sarkan is withdrawn from the world with the weight of immortality, choosing to surround himself with books and magic instead. We can see Kasia's pain, her love for Nieshka, her jealousy and the hurt of her mother's betrayal. We can see Marek's boarish nature, his hot headedness and love for his mother which ultimately led to his downfall. Every character has a story arc and a journey to fullfil on their own and Naomi does it wonderfully. We see them through Nieshka's eyes but we see the whole person not just her characterization. LB fails in this aspect. After book 2&3, we see many characters simply as an extension of Alina. They all profess their fealty and choose to stay with her even when she does not show them the same respect. Alina is labelled as virtuous although we see no evidence of it. In other words, the characters in Grishaverse are mere mindless, plot devices that are supposed to love Alina because she is the protagonist. They seize to exist outside of Alina which cripples the story telling in Grishaverse.

4) Vastness of the universe

One of the key nature of a fantasy story is the vastness of the universe. The reader when journeying through the story must feel the endlessness of the universe. Eg. The Lord of the Rings. This offers the readers a real submersive experience. We see it lacking in the Grishaverse. Although there are different countries and people, we can feel the boxed nature of the universe. This when combined with Alina's restricred POV, one dimentional side characters(spanning across different countries) and blatant favouritism shown to some characters we feel suffocated inside the Grishaverse. Naomi's universe feels vast, unexplored and unending making it a true fantasy experience.

5) Sarkan

We can see plenty of similarities between the Darkling and the Dargon. A lonely wizard, fighting alone against evil(/corrupt government). The people and the Royal family don't like him but keep him around as a neccessay evil. However, we can see the stark contrast in how Naomi handles Sarkan. For one, she does not think a seventeen year girl knows better than an age old wizard. Sarkan and Nieshka's magic are different but Naomi finds a way to blend them and makes them work with each other. She lets Nieshka form her own judgement of Sarkan instead of force feeding it like LB did to Alina. She gives a chance to the Dragon to tell him his story which gives us an additional understanding. Naomi shows and tells while LB just tells.

There are so many other intricate details which made Uprooted more enchanting to read. Naomi as a writer made me want more. Her universe has potential and Naomi handles it very effectively. The same, however, could not be said about the Grishaverse. The Grishaverse had immense potential compared to Uprooted but due to LB's restrictive story telling, it leaves the readers with a huge disappointment and fails to live upto it's potential.

[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

[daughter-of-lethe]

Aesthetic: Zoya Nazyalensky

Αrt Credit: @kolarpem

[pessimisticpigeonsworld]

The Demonizing of Change

A trend I've noticed in modern media is that many stories have the message of "protect the status quo". Whether it's a Marvel movie or a fantasy book, the fact that so often the villains are the only ones who fight to change society remains the same.

We all know the story: they were hurt by the system's flaw(s) and so they rose up to destroy that harmful system and in the process destroyed themselves. I'm not saying that this character type is wrong or bad (definitely overused imo), but the framing of the narrative and the protagonists is the issue.

The narrative typically shows the villain's first wrong doing to be the act of rebelling against the system. From the moment the person chose to reject the harmful system, they were in the wrong, or so the narrative frames it. Meanwhile, the protagonist may question and see injustice but they never fight it; it's just accepted and blindly defended. What's worse is the audience chooses to completely accept this telling and sides with the harmful regime the protagonist defends.

I find that some of the most drastic examples of these issues are Daenerys in GOT and the Darkling in the Grishaverse/SaB.

Daenerys Targaryen

One thing I want to specify before I go into this is that Dany's GOT ending is purely bad writing. It's not foreshadowed or justified in any way, so I'll be addressing how D&D tried to frame her past after S8e6 aired and how her antis interpret her.

According to D&D, we should see the beginning of Dany's "madness arc" from the very first season. Namely how she reacted to Viserys' death. While this isn't Dany rejecting a harmful system, her choosing to not defend Viserys (why would she??) is also her choosing to leave behind the cycle of abuse of her early life. It also sets the precedent of Dany killing/allowing the deaths of evil men.

Speaking of evil men, D&D also tried to paint Dany's campaign against slavery as a sign of her "megalomania and madness". This is where we get to the actual fighting against the system. Dany is leading a slave revolt and forcefully overthrowing the masters and the oppressive governments.

The way D&D tried to spin it was that Dany was wrong for using violence, and Tyrion's peaceful method was more successful. Except Dany did try peace in Meereen, it didn't work. She made concessions, she made agreements, she locked up her dragons and they weren't working. That's the whole point of her last chapter in ADWD.

However, the show chose to make it so Dany was failing because she was "too violent" and ultimately made the freedmen hate her. This choice, a clear deviation from the book, is the beginning of them trying to make Dany fall into the trope of "as bad as those you're fighting". In her fight to end slavery, she becomes as oppressive as the masters.

Which is just blatantly wrong. We see in the show that the freedmen are still free, they sit in her councils, they can come to her with their complaints and she listens. Dany is a queen, not a master. The show was already trying to gaslight its audience into believing the opposite of what they wrote. The same goes for her supposed violence. The violence she exerts is almost always towards the slavers, except when she executed Mossador for murder. That was her carrying out justice, why that was portrayed as a bad thing is beyond me.

The implications of the choices D&D made in adapting Dany's Meereen arc are very disturbing. They're basically saying that systematic and centuries old oppression should never be addressed with violence. The people who actively fight oppression are just as bad as the oppressors. If you can't magically fix a system that's been flawed for centuries immediately, you're a tyrant.

The choice to resolve the arc by having Tyrion come in with some great peaceful solution was plain stupid and sexist. We have seen in history that trying to unobtrusively phase out slavery doesn't work. By leaving the elite slave owners in peace, they are allowed to simply find ways to get around or wear down the changes. We see that in ADWD in Meereen by the way. Also the whole idea that a wise man had to come and fix the irrational woman's problem is so gross.

So basically: D&D took an arc about fighting oppression and learning that concessions only continue the cycle of violence and made it into a story about how violence is bad and you can actually just reason with slavers.

The disgusting ideas continue in season eight, where Dany torches KL for no reason and is put down like a rabid dog. Dany is the only character who wants to end oppression in this show. She's the only person to see and experience the suffering of the oppressed and chooses to do something about it. Season seven is full of her talking about leaving the world a better place and breaking the wheel. But in season eight "breaking the wheel" is turned into th deranged battle cry of her desired empire.

Let me restate that: the one character who fought to end systematic oppression is turned into the "true oppressor". Dany's desire to tear down the system that the entire show established as being unjust and awful is made into a sign of madness. Even in season seven, people were rolling their eyes at her talking about breaking the wheel.

Meanwhile, the protagonists of the show end it benefitting from the same system that tortured them the whole time. Westerosi society is shit, but the show ends glorifying the sexist, homophobic, classist, and feudalist kingdoms. They even laugh at Samwell Tarly when he suggests destroying the monarchy. All this sends the message that embracing the system is good, rebellion bad, and shut the fuck up if you're not happy.

Dany was reduced to a cautionary tale against fighting the system. I've seen people frame it as "seeking power is bad", but that doesn't make sense, as characters like Sansa actively seek power and are rewarded by the narrative. Dany's mistake was trying to change the world, rather than supporting it as it is.

The Darkling

The Darkling is a very different character from Dany; he's an actual villain. Aleksander is someone who has already reached the "become what you hate most" part of the trope, so he spends the whole story committing atrocities. The issue with his portrayal is the fact that the narrative and protagonists never address his very real reasons for fighting in the first place.

The grisha as a group are persecuted all throughout Ravka, they have been for centuries. The whole reason Aleksander begins his fight was to protect his people. By the time the series begins, the grisha are more protected, though only because they have become weapons of the state. That was only through Aleksander's mechanisations.

Aleksander became a villain in his attempts to save his people, making him a tragic character. So he has perfectly fallen into the trope, and, unfortunately, so do the protagonists. Alina and her allies all have seen and suffered under the cruelty of the Ravkan monarchy, however, they quickly dismiss just how awful it is. By the end of the story, the Darkling has become, in their eyes, the sole perpetrator of evil in Ravka.

There are no attempts made to rectify the constant damage done by the Apparat, in fact he's left to run free. Alexander Lanstov and Tatiana Grimjer are simply shipped off to a private island where they never are made to pay for the awful things they have done. There are no political reforms done to ensure the safety of grisha in the future; they're basically relying on the goodwill Zoya and Alina have bought with the people.

So basically, the minor villains who all had no reason to be completely atrocious receive basically no punishment from the narrative. Meanwhile, Aleksander, who had very valid reasons for wanting to overthrow the government, is ultimately given a fate worse than death. All his reasons for hating the Ravkan government and the power it has are ignored, even though the story set up that he's not wrong. The resolution of the story leaves the grisha just as, if not more, vulnerable to the prejudice and hatred of the world than they were before.

The narrative is communicating that Aleksander rising up for his people is worse than the centuries of corrupt Lanstovs. Aleksander is worse than the man who stirs up religious fanaticism and exploits the people through it. Yes, Aleksander did horrible things, but so did every other antagonist in the series, but he's somehow the worst because...well, he's grisha.

That's the only other difference between him and the others, aside from his motives. So either Bardugo is supporting the in-universe prejudice against grisha or she's saying rising up against an oppressive system is wrong. I don't expect her or any other author to have complex political and social commentaries in her story. However, she chose to create a world containing those elements and a main character who suffers from them. She chose to make the issues with the system have a prominent place in the story. And she chose to ignore them in the end.

Aleksander did awful things in the name of a just cause, this creates a complex moral issue that the story just never addresses. The established injustices and sanctioned atrocities by the Lanstovs are all ignored in favor of bringing down the dangerous rebel. That kind of message is pretty fucked up. Yes, Nikolai is a better man than his father, but what about his descendants? The propaganda of the Apparat and his church are extremely strong, it's only a matter of time before that propaganda once again starts turning people against grisha. The hatred of grisha is still embedded into Ravkan society.

Aleksander was the only character who was actually set on protecting and bettering the lives of the grisha. His original mission was still extremely important, no matter what he devolved to. The fact that the protagonists just blatantly dismissed just how dangerous Ravka still is for grisha is frustrating.

The treatment of both Dany and Aleksander by their writers and narratives show a hatred/mistrust of rebellion against the status quo, no matter how atrocious it is. The message of the trope is that people who fight against a system are worse than the system itself. I'm not saying that was Bardugo's intention (D&D I'm much less sure about though), but the way both the Darkling and Dany were written combined with the endings of the stories support that idea.

[timbermeshivers]

The amount of ppl I’ve seen post shit like “😡😡😡 I can’t believe Leigh Bardugo would portray the Darkling like that!! She made it seem as if he’s some terrible person whose actions were completely unjustified!! She SO misunderstood his character🙄 #pro darkling” is WILD. Like you sound stupid. Very

[theweeklydiscourse]

I don't understand WHY Bardugo wrote Alina's ending the way she did. Did she think it would make for a bittersweet, satisfactory ending? (It did not.) Did she think it would be sharp and realistic? (It unfortunately was a bit.) Did she think she'd be subverting expectations?? Did she love Mal so much she went insane?? I just don't get it. I just don't get it. If by the end of the series she forgot to add in more love interest for Alina (because she obviously didn't want to consider the other two despite being fascinated with Aleksander) she could just have. Let poor Alina be alone. Why condemn her to such a fate? I think everyone I've talked about this has unanimously agreed they'd cease to exist if they were in her place. It's so. So strange

It’s all a consequence of the underlying conservatism and misogyny of the series. This is best illustrated through the fact that even in Alina’s “happily ever after” she is still regarded as a weird outsider while Mal is beloved by their new community. It isolates Alina in a way that the Darkling never could, it’s representative of Alina’s permanent dependence on Mal as a consequence of their marriage. Mal is allowed to have a life outside of his marriage, while Alina has to depend on him for emotional connection. She can only find fulfillment in her husband while Mal is afforded the freedom (and means) to seek fulfillment from other places.

What I imagine Bardugo thought, was that it would be heartwarming and pleasant for the “boy and the girl” to return to simplicity and live happily ever after. Hence the line: “They had an ordinary life, full of ordinary things—if love can ever be called that.” In isolation, it’s certainly a sweet sentiment that one might smile at in a different story. However, in this story, it’s a clear attempt to romanticize the dire (and downright depressing) circumstances of Alina’s so-called “happily ever after”. It looks like a happily ever after, but readers with a critical eye can see it for what it truly is. They are able to see the way Alina is disempowered at nearly every level, that she had been relegated to this role because she dared to want more out of life.

This gestures towards the fundamental reason why Malina is far more disturbing than the likes of Darklina. It’s disturbing because it reflects the ways women are pushed to settle down and sacrifice themselves for their man and glorifies that sacrifice as the healthy alternative to “greed”. Sure, the Darkling is villainous, but his actions are so beyond the normal scope of everyday relationships that they fail to land the same impact as Mal’s mundane assholery. Alina is considered greedy for wanting to excercise her power and influence for a noble cause, but somehow Mal isn’t greedy for wanting Alina’s full undivided attention despite her many other responsibilities? The narrative validates his unreasonable requests by presenting the ending as something wholesome and heartwarming. Mal’s selfishness and greed is validated by the text because it is societally acceptable and encouraged men to have those traits. He has to be the more powerful one in the relationship for this traditional happy ending to work.

Bardugo condemned Alina to a depressing fate because she was so fixated on the image of a fairy tale happily ever after that she ignored how Alina would be impacted by it. I think this reveals Bardugo’s strange affection for Mal, but it also shows how she failed to see how the realistic mundanity of Malina would not work in her favour. Because…yeah it’s realistic all right, realistically misogynistic that is.

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

It’s a while since I was outrightly anti-Darkling on here but I’m currently trapped on Darklina TikTok I don’t know how I got here but I’m scared someone please come rescue me

[aleksanderscult]

Every time I see someone call us "misogynistic" because we hate on Alina and Zoya I roll my eyes.

Girl it's not even about the gender. It's about my distaste over protagonists who can't do shit and have the backbone of an eclair.

[stromuprisahat]

The Great Love Story of Grisha Trilogy in a Single Sentence:

She almost realized she has other options, so they were taken away from her.