#because she’s standing up against the ‘evil’ darkling | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

serpenteve · 4 years ago

Text

why we ship darklina

an essay literally no one asked for

Nobody needs a "reason" to ship Darklina. But considering this is a villain x hero pairing, it got me thinking about why we shipped it in the first place when the narrative and author so badly wanted us to root for the more sensible alternative pairing and why it became the most popular ship of the entire trilogy.

Personally, I find it really interesting (and low-key hilarious) that a lot of the reasons shippers gravitated towards Darklina can be directly traced back to how badly Bardugo bungled Alina's character arc, Mal's entire characterization and narrative role, Nikolai's wasted potential as an alternative love interest, and the noble intentions she gives the the Darkling.

Alina's Character Arc

Alina's character arc doesn't match who she is as a character. I've written more about that in this post, but a lot of readers were introduced to a passive and insecure protagonist who we were expecting to undergo a typical YA coming-of-age character arc where Alina acquires self-acceptance, confidence, and embraces the full breadth of her powers over the course of the trilogy. Instead, Bardugo gave Alina the kind of character arc that's usually deserved for power-hungry anti-heroines or tragic heroes with a fatal flaw to punish.

The plot offers a strange binary: either Alina suppresses and hides her powers and therefore stays away from descending into villainy OR Alina attempts to find Morozova's amplifiers in order to defeat the Darkling but then becomes corrupted by power in the process. Alina's journey to self-acceptance and exploring her own powers are unfortunately entangled with her relationship with the Darkling. The only way she is allowed to move forward through the plot is to succumb to the corrupting influence of the amplifiers.

For better or for worse, the first character to really embrace her powers instead of thinking she's a fraud or that she's weak or that she's an unholy abomination is the Darkling. He's the first person to recognize her power for what it is and accurately judge its potential and implications for the rest of the world. He advocates for her in front of the royal court, in front other Grisha who think she's weak, and even against Baghra who is initially a very ill-tempered mentor with little to no faith in Alina's abilities. He even rather ironically advocates for her even when the heroic person who's supposed to be supporting her (Mal) does not.

At the start of her journey, Alina is insecure and in constant need of assurance and validation. The Darkling's role as her mentor and guide into this unfamiliar world of Grisha makes him the perfect advocate not only for her powers but also to help Alina see her place in the world. However, once he is revealed to be the villain, Alina also fails to realize that it's time for her to advocate for herself and throws the baby out with the bathwater.

Mal's Characterization & Narrative Role

When Alina loses the Darkling as an advocate in S&B, Mal steps up to take this role. Alina is still rather passive for the majority of the first book and it's Mal who originally wants her to have Morozova's stag as an amplifier if it will mean being able to stand against the Darkling. Bardugo intended for him to be a heroic love interest as a foil to the villainous love interest and I believe she mostly succeeds for the first book.

However, because this is a story about punishing Alina's "evil ambition" (despite there being very little evidence of that) Mal is supposed to serve as a voice of reason in the narrative. Once Alina considers the necessity of acquiring more amplifiers to defeat the Darkling, it is Mal's role to warn her of the potential consequences, to remind her of her inner humanity, and to ward against the corrupting influence of Morozova's amplifiers. Mal's declarations that he wants back the old girl he knew without any power is meant to drive an ideological wedge between them, yes, but he's also meant to be Correct™ because, again, Bardugo is writing a story about a corrupted power-hungry heroine who goes too far and needs to be punished rather than the arc we were all expecting and the one that Alina's character needs: a coming-of-age story of self-acceptance and personal growth.

Some point after the backlash of Siege & Storm, Bardugo seems to have become aware of her mistake and attempts to scrub Mal's character to be more sympathetic. There is a bizarre exchange half-way through the third book when Mal finally declares:

"I wasn't afraid of you, Alina. I was afraid of losing you. The girl you were becoming didn't need me anymore, but she's who you were always meant to be."

This is an interesting line because it's a complete reversal of Mal's narrative role so far. He's supposed to be her voice of reason that opposes her at every turn but readers interpreted him as being resentful of Alina's powers and angry that she was no longer dependent on him. Bardugo is forced to retcon Mal's entire role in the narrative from being a voice of reason that opposes Alina's quest for power to a supportive friend who will fight by her side. But this was never her initial intention and I believe this change was brought on 100% by audience reaction because she failed to understand the arc her heroine needed and the kind of story her audience was anticipating for such a character.

Needless to say, having your heroine's main love interest actively resent her quest for power until half-way through the third damn book did not endear many readers to Mal. Because Bardugo failed to understand the kind of character development her heroine needed and failed to understand audience expectations, we hated Mal. He became the embodiment of every toxic chauvinist we'd ever met who can't stand the idea of his partner's success and feels entitled to be the center of her universe. He was not the voice of reason. He was an annoying gnat hellbent on dragging the heroine down and away from her destiny. We did not want to root for him. Even the villain was more sympathetic than him because he could bring her closer to achieving the self-acceptance the narrative was obsessed with denying her.

Nikolai's Wasted Potential as a Solid Love Interest

Nikolai plays several roles in Alina's journey but most importantly in our discussions for why we ended up shipping Darklina, his entire potential as a serious love interest is wasted.

When we meet Nikolai, we have hitched our wagons to the Darklina train because despite being the villain, the Darkling is the only one who will allow the heroine to accept her powers and come into her own. Her heroic love interest, Mal, is actively sabotaging her efforts and holding her back from her true potential. But then, in swoops Nikolai and we pause, wondering if there may be a better heroic alternative after all?

In a lot of ways, Nikolai and the Darkling alike: they are eager for Alina's power and see her as a solution to all their problems. They may want to use Alina to prop up their own agendas, but unlike Mal, Alina's summoning powers are a massive plus, not a burden. Nikolai is the heroic alternative to our villainous Aleksander. So we wait, wondering if Nikolai will be the one to fix this mess of a romantic subplot. His royal connections offer an easy path to upwards mobility for our heroine and we sense that an alliance between them (even if it's initially political in nature) may bring our heroine closer to obtaining more power, influence, and self-acceptance not only for herself, but also for the oppressed minority she is a part of.

But, again, Bardugo is still obsessed with that "punish the heroine for wanting power" agenda so while Nikolai exists as another mentor figure who offers Alina advice on how to rule, how to appeal to other people, how to charm, how to win people over, and Alina learns and applies much of what she learns from him, he is not treated as a real love interest.

Despite Nikolai being written as a fairy tale prince (handsome, charming, smart as a whip, brave in battle, etc) Alina never actually considers him romantically. They are friends and allies at best and the only time she considers kissing him is only when she's pissed about Mal.

Nikolai's proposal at the end of Ruin & Rising feels like one last saving grace, one last opportunity for our heroine to take control of her life and make a dramatic change to break from the past. But this too is rejected because Alina's arc will never let her access any power. She does not reject Nikolai because she wants to marry for love. She rejects him because she has been "punished" for wanting power and has internalized that she must not seek any more power for fear of angering the plot gods (and Bardugo). She must return to being nobody in order to remain a good and moral person.

(And, of course, we resent Mal even more because who in their right mind would choose him over Nikolai? Once again, he becomes a roadblock on our heroine's journey to power. We grow irritated that the heroine is failing to grasp an opportunity to elevate herself. We throw the book against the wall. Why are we even following this heroine?)

The Darkling's Motivations

Still, all of the above might still not have been enough to pull the reader to the villain's side. But the Darkling is the living embodiment of Villain Has A Point™. He is not pure unadulterated evil. He is not Lord Sauron or Voldemort or the Terminator.

He's more Magneto, Roy Batty, or Ozymandias---a man who is part of an oppressed minority who longs for justice and power but is absolutely unhinged in his methods.

Alina runs away because she does not want to be a non-consenting weapon in hands. But we always end up wondering what would have happened had Baghra not warned her. What would have happened if Alina gladly joined the Darkling's side? There's hundreds of fanfics written precisely about this situation because despite the villainy of his methods, we wonder if Ravka might not have been safer after all?

If the Darkling had used the Fold as a weapon against Fjerda and Shu Han, would any of the problems Ravka faces in the later books even exist? Would any Grisha fall victim to the khergud programs or be killed as witches? The Darkling wipes out Novokribirsk and kills hundreds of lives, but how many would he have saved with the Fold as Ravka's greatest shield and sword? 🤷🏽‍♀️

And therein lies the problem with the trilogy inconsistent moral landscape. The Darkling is an anti-villain that exists in a narrative that is very black and white, unlike the rest of the books in the Grishaverse where our protagonists are anti-heroes who kill, steal, and torture their way through the plot with nary a judgmental glance from the narrative. We long to see our heroine give in to her dark side and get her hands dirty because watching a naive, passive, scared little girl grow into a ruthless powerful Grisha would have made for a hell of a compelling story.

But that's not the story Bardugo wanted to tell.

The Greg Trilogy

Despite taking place in a fantasy Tsartist setting, the Grisha trilogy is oddly anti-Grisha. The narrative doesn't spend much time trying to examine the context or implications of an oppressed minority group fighting for power other than to say "magic powers = evil". Nikolai skates by on a throne of inherited wealth, privilege, and imperialism but it's okay because he's charming and witty and the only monstrous part of him is the Darkling's curse. Literally everything is worse for Ravka and their Grisha after the destruction of the Fold but Ravka must move forward into a new age without relying on Grisha power but putting their efforts into new muggle technologies. Alina must be stripped of her powers and returned to her "old self" in order to be purged of evil.

Basically, it's all one gigantic ✨ dumpster fire ✨ of mismatched character arcs, incompatible moral aesops, inconsistent characterizations, wasted potential, unexamined plot points but it's a a dumpster fire we lovingly and spitefully embrace in fanfic.

We don't ship Alina with the Darkling because we're stupid abuse apologists who somehow missed the giant flashing moral aesop of the books---and honestly, who could have possibly missed them when it's shoved in the reader's face every other chapter? We ship Alina with the Darkling because the entire ship is the embodiment of wasted potential (and wasted ✨aesthetics✨ tbqh 👀). We ship Alina with the Darkling because we're sick and tired of stories where female power is demonized. We ship Alina with the Darkling because the plot gave us literally no other alternative to see our heroine succeed except to give in to her alleged villainy.

But most of all, people ship Darklina because Leigh Bardugo utterly failed in writing the story she intended to write because had she succeeded, Darklina would not be the most popular ship of the trilogy.

#darklina #sab meta #grisha meta #grisha discourse #wow im embarrassed by how fucking long this is #but you know i had to write it #anti leigh bardugo #its not really anti so much as it is just pointing out why her story flopped for a lot of readers #alarkling #viv metas

621 notes · View notes

aerkan · 3 years ago

Text

Am I the only one that is kinda weirded out by Bardugo not implementing any real conversations between the main characters and any of Aleksander's Grisha? Because except for the one time Alina heard Ivan's point of view, there is not a one instance where they talk to the opposing side without it just being Aleks. We as readers are never given the other side's reasons for following a ,,literal monster". And I fear that it might be, because we would be able to see them and by extension Aleksander as human, not just the enemy, but living, breathing, feeling humans. And my guess is that Leigh didn't want that. It's so much harder to hate humans than faceless minions standing before you on the battle field. Also, from what I gathered, for the most part the Grisha that followed Aleksander were the experienced ones, the ones that fought wars in the king's name and seen their friends die for that same reason.

I'm convinced that they trusted Aleks, because he promised something nobody else was capable of accomplishing - ending the wars, the persecution, the pointless dying and fighting. He was the only one that came out and said - okay, it's not gonna be pretty, it's gonna be wrong, full of death and innocent blood on our hands. It's gonna be desperate and monstrous and they may hate us just a little bit more, but it's gonna end the centuries of wars. It's gonna end with us in the seat of power. He promised them safety that neither of them ever really knew. Not even him.

I can't believe that he wanted to cover the whole world in darkness, because why would he? Why would he even need to, if his plan worked?

That's the whole problem here, at least for me. You cannot set up a military commander with centuries of experience and prejudice directed at him and his soldiers under his belt, that wants nothing more than safety for his kind (so what if he also wanted power? Would he be really such a bad ruler? Is wanting power really bad of someone that was powerless his whole life?), then create a geopolitical setting that even supports his way, and then mark him as nothing more than power hungry monster. Not when your heroes don't even try to fix the things the presumed villain was fighting against. It just doesn't work for me. Heroes acting stupidly in political situations and making decisions that don't even make sense are things that I can't get past.

The Darkling wasn't a good moral person, but the thing is - no general in the time of war is. They have to make decisions that will kill people and they know it, they are sometimes forced to sacrifice lives in order to keep an important harbor or even a street in a city. It's not a job a good person can do well. And when I apply this logic on the whole Fold situation I walk away with one question in my head: Is sacrificing one city worth the safety of a whole country and a whole species? My answer to that will always be yes. A good moral person would say no, that you can't trade lives for others. Maybe that makes me a bad person then, but I wouldn't hesitate to kill one thousand for countless more.

With this in my mind I also find that Alina was selfish. She cared so little for anything else except for the way she was hurt personally. It's absurd. I was screaming the whole time for her to stop thinking about herself and start acting in the name of the greater good, and she never did. She was obsessed with destroying the Fold and that was the only thing she did for the country. An act that put Grisha and Ravka in even worse position in the terms of power in the world.

So yeah... sorry, never gonna be able to see Aleks as the villain, maybe Alina's personal one, but never the ultimate one. He was not the evil here, Fjerda and Shuhan were.

#alina starkov #thoughts #aleksander morozova #grisha triology #let's rant shall we?#the Darkling anti's are killing me #apreciate the political master mind at least damn it #the darkling

136 notes · View notes

yesimwriting · 3 years ago

Note

Hi! Could I request a story or headcanons with Kirigan and a female reader? They are couple and reader do small cute things for our General to make him feel loved and appreciated? She is a good and kind person and even though she knows what he's doing/done bad things but loves him anyway? We all know he's a villain but we love our Alexander 🖤 Thank you! And If you don't feel like writing it, it's okay! Have a good night/day! 😊

a/n ahh excited for this one bc ive been THINKING about cute things that could be done bc yes he's brooding and evil but also loves the idea of not being alone and having someone care about them despite it all (even though he'd never admit it loll)

also the person that requested this seems so nice,, the gif was very cute :))

----

- ok first off i think it needs to be said that a relationship with Kirigan/the Darkling would have SO MANY ups and downs that getting to the point of being officially together would take so LONG--lots of resentful pining on both ends

- mainly bc youre like ‘i hate that his eyes are so warm, he’s literally evil’ and he’s like ‘stop looking at her like that, she’s too good to understand what you have to do, and even if she could care about you despite that, she’s a distraction’

- He also lowkey can’t stand you bc of how much he likes you. It makes him feel weak, and you’re just so good that it’s infuriating because he just can’t get himself to believe it. Especially when you don’t shy away from him.

- but both of you are SIMPS first and foremost, so slowly you and both start to ease up. You both end up getting tired of resisting what you want so you slowly start to allow small things.

- a veryyy slippery slope bc hand brushes turn into hand holding which turns into the occasional hug which turns into more open pining and then before you know it it’s weird if you two aren’t sleeping in the same bed like a married couple.

- i feel like he wouldn’t have an ‘official relationship’ talk or at the very least, he wouldn’t initiate one. When he has to think about how he feels about you, labels make him flighty bc he likes the freedom of being able to use the feelings of others for personal gain without directly hurting you (he’d never want to cheat bc he doesn’t want the way you look at him to change) but when he thinks of his relationship with you, he doesn’t feel trapped,,

- you two never start liking each other the way normal couples do,, you’re always snarky but still affectionate. You’ll make a joke about how his late nights working serve him right for scheming so much while he crawls into bed, but you’ll make the joke while pulling him to your chest and combing your fingers through his hair. He’ll tease you about your goodness while tracing idle pattens into your skin.

- anyways i feel like a relationship with the darkling would definitely be intense,, but like an intense unspoken thing. The closest he ever comes to saying anything about a relationship is when he randomly says something that’s really romantic for NO REASON,, literally always out of normal

- you’ll be half asleep or waiting for him to react to a story you’re telling him about and he’ll just say something about how he doesn’t understand how he went so long without you or that you’re the only good thing he believes in and then moves on like it’s nothing.

- anywayss,, i kinda rambled but the complexities of the relationship are important to understanding how you cheer him up.

- Kirigan is definitely has a thing for gentle, casual touch. He’s an amplifier so he’s used to seeing touch as more than just touch. He always has to look at it tactfully, thinking of what he’s giving.

- so sometimes, if he’s clearly upset over something, the best thing you can do for him is squeeze his hand or run your fingertips against his bare back. You know he’s furious when he vaguely attempts to resist your reach for him. He always takes it back after,, but it’s not personal. It’s that you soften him so much and when he’s that angry he wants to hold onto it.

- Speaking of softness, most of your attempts to comfort him are extremlyyy soft so normally you wait to try to comfort him until you’re alone. You’ll normally notice his mood shift the second he enters the room, but you know to wait.

- sometimes the way you ‘comfort’ him when he seems upset in public, you’ll give him a look that offers so much. It offers silent support (even though you rarely agree with what he wants), it offers to provide him an excuse if he needs to leave, it offers so much warmth that for a moment he forgets the coldness around him

- I think sometimes the best thing you can offer him is your presence, especially if your views don’t align. You’ll just sit/lay with him, holding hands or resting on each other.

- Sometimes though, he finds a lot of comfort in your voice. You can always tell when he wants you to speak because he’ll ask you questions until you either end up telling him about your day or reading to him.

- If he’s the emotional kind of upset, like the really touchy, burring his face in the crook of your neck, upset--you’ll comfort him by telling him how much you care about him. He also seems to ease when you remind him that you’re not going anywhere,, no matter what.

- remember earlier how i said the relationship would be intense and start through mutual, unwanted pining? i think its bc he’s so focused on his goals he’d only let himself be ‘distracted’ if he just couldn’t deny you as the one, bright, comforting thing he has and at one point he just couldn’t deny it anymore

- so a lot of what you do for him centers on letting him soak up your presence bc its his favorite escape

336 notes · View notes

incorrectquotesconaisseur · 4 years ago

Text

SO GUYSSSS I JUST FINISHED READING RULE OF WOLVES AND WHAT THE HELL???? I am a MESS

(so here are my thoughts that I had while reading it)

❗❗RULE OF WOLVES SPOILERS❗❗

• Lol Nikolai has a horse named Punchline, I love him so much

• Sankta Zoya Y E S

• Nina is sooo badass I love her - Brum needs to die btw

• Fjerda is a little shit

• "If not for Nina, their blessed termite eating at the heart of Fjerda’s government" - did I mention I love Nina?????

• Nikolai is a freaking mastermind and I love him

• OMG THEY HAVE AN ANTIDOTE FOR PAREM NOW???? HELL YEAH take THAT Fjerda!!!!

• Nina adopting Kaz's mindset when back at the Ice Court is what I live for

• UGH THE APPARAT

• Nikolai is soooo in love with Zoya I AM GOING CRAZY

• Zoya's "you forget that in Kerch greed is a virtue" gave me MAJOR Kaz vibes... I miss my crow babies

• Maybe it's an unpopular opinion, but I don't really like Ehri

• ZOYALAI NATION, HOW ARE WE??? ARE WE CRYING?

• I just REALLY love the found family trope and seeing everyone gathered in Zoya's rooms and Zoya curled up on the couch next to Genya I just AAAAAAAAA

• I absolutely adore the whole concept of the Darkling's prison and the CONSTANT sunlight he has to face HA - Alina vibes

• OMG "bring me Alina Starkov" WHAT THE FUCK I have literal chills ESPECIALLY after seeing the S&B trailer:)

• Nina being so confident in everything she learned from the Crows gives me so much serotonin I WANT MY BABIESSS

• Oh my god... I like prince Rasmus, he gives me major Nikolai vibes

• I draw immense satisfaction from Kaz and Zoya using "podge" as their preferred curse word :))))

• NIKOLAI CAN SEPARATE HIMSELF FROM HIS DEMON???? King behavior

• HOLY SHIT ALINA AGREED TO THE MEETING here we go again, fam

• I'm seeing Nikolai talking a lot about accepting his death and being undisturbed by the prospect of it and it feeaks me out - if he dies, I die with him

• Random, but: they need to get the thorn stuff from the Order of Sankt Feliks or whatever, right??? Maybe they have to steal it... and they would require expertise... MAYBE SOME CROWS PLS???????? (I am such a clown)

• Okay wait... so the letters that prove Nikolai is a bastard are in the druskelle sector... PLEASE TELL ME NINA HAS TO BREAK IN THE ICE COURT the fact that she is back there ALONE makes my heart clench so hard... I MISS MY CROWS

• FUCK ALINA SHOWED UP (also Oncat apparently and now I want to cry about Harshaw again)... AND MAL I can't take this I AM HYPERVENTILATING

• I AM LEGIT ON THE FLOOR Yuri is still there FINALLY understanding that the Darkling is evil AND NOW MY MAIN MAN GOT HIS POWERS BACK oh, I love the chaos

• NIKOLAI FUCKING CARRIES ZOYA'S RIBBON IN HIS POCKET nobody fucking touch me

• THE WEDDING IS FOR GENYA AND DAVID????? I AM SOOO CONFUSED what the heck

• Nikoali is the most fucking badass amazing cunning freakishly intelligent idiot I have ever seen in my entire life, my love for him is immesurable, I cannot put into words just how awesome his awesomeness is TAKE THAT MAKHI YOU BITCH

• OH HELL NO the demon is trying to escape SMACK THAT BITCH NIKOLAI BABY

• Oh wow, Rasmus is crazyyyy af he isn't anything like Nikolai my perfect boi SORRY

• OMG Nikolai's dad us a good guy??? I feel so sorry for him... SO NIKOLAI WAS RIGHT TO BE A ROMANTIC huh

• FUCKING HELL again with the nichevo’ya???? Darkling bby, what the HECK

• Nononononooo NO NOOOO NOT DAVID WHAT THE FUCK LEIGH

• "This is what love does" one of the most powerful quotes tbh

• Wait... they want to???? STEAL??? titanium from the Kerch??? .... DOES THIS MEAN.... C R O W S?????

• Okay but... the Darkling's POV? POWER MOVE I love it!!! And the fact that he uses Aleksander as his name with zero reticence now is just *chef's kiss*

• I'm sorry but... I don't like Mayu's chapters I AM SO SORRY I DON'T

• Nina is my badass queen STEP ASIDE PEASANTS

• All these SoC Easter Eggs and mentions are driving me insane

• Idk why but imagining the Darkling drinking beer is sooo funny to me

• I AM LOSING MY SHIT they are in Ketterdam KETTERDAM does that mean ....DOES THAT MEAN ....I better see my Crows or I am throwing hands

• The Zoyalai conversations in this book are KILLING me

• OH MY FUCKING GOD so Kaz took the Emerald Palace over and renamed it THE SILVER SIX???? LIKE???? I AM LEGIT CRYING???

• Ummm...Zoya, honey, WHY do you want to VOLUNTARILY stay away from Nikolai, HUH?????

• THE ONLY REASON HE AGREED TO HELP NIKOLAI WAS BECAUSE HE GUARANTEES INEJ'S PROTECTION if that's not L O V E idk what is YAAASSS KANEJ

• FUCKING SHIT JESPER!!!! IT'S JESPER!!!! WYLAN!!!! I AM FAINTING MY BABIESS

• The Crows' banter is WHAT I LIVE FOR

• Kaz is the most cold, badass and calculating motherfucker on the planet, I love him soooo much

• No NO NOO JORAN IS THE ONE WHO KILLED MATTHIAS????? HOLY SHIT I am sooo scared LEIGH WHYYYY

• Kaz's reaction to Nikolai's demon is legit the funniest shit ever

• Kaz and Nikolai are bffs - THIS IS HEADCANON LEAVE ME BE

• Queen Leyti has severely disappointed me

• I am having waayyyyy too much fun reading about the Darkling among blindly faithful monks - this is the stuff of sitcoms

• (I know the Crows only had a cameo and they won't pop up again, but I can't help desperation wanting to see Nina reunite with them and PLEASE GIVE ME INEJ!!!)

• Honestly, it's pretty cool getting to have a look in the Darkling's head - it's SUPER fucked up

• OOOOO the blight vs the Darkling = the only confrontation I want to see

• FATHER AND SON REUNION

• I don't care much for Hanne x Nina, but I have to admit that they make a very cute couple

• FUCK THEY BROKE STURMHOND'S BLOCADE FUUUUCK

• WAIT NO it was their plan all along HOLY SHIT electricity RULEZZZZ who knew physics would prove THIS useful???

• UUUGHH FUCK THE APPARAT I am so sick of this guy - Zoya was right, they should have killed him

• I am really pissed at the Darkling- YOU FUCKING ACKNOWLEDGE HOW MUCH RAVKA NEEDS YOUR HELP, YOU SEE NIKOLAI'S BRAVERY, YOU KNOW YOU CAM HELP, AND YOU DO NOTHING??? BRO WHAT THE FUCK

• HELL YEAH ZOYA IS A DRAGOOON fuck some shit up sweety Y E S

• MY SKIN IS CLEARED AND MY CROPS ARE WATERED BY THE DARKLING RAISING A MOB TO CALL ZOYA "SANKTA"

• Also... the Darkling winking at Nikolai? FLERT

• WHAT THE FUCK???? HANNE DIED??? holy shit, why???? WHY CAN'T NINA BE HAPPY???????

• Nikolai is an absolute SAVAGE in a debate

• Idk what to think abt Rasmus... he was kinda badass for standing up against Brum

• SOLDIER. SUMMONER. SAINT. slap me and call me a hoe I SCREAMED WHEN I READ THAT

• ZOYA AS QUEEN, SIGN ME THE FUCK UP

• Okay I stan the Darkling again

• ZOYALAI IS CANON I REPEAT ZOYALAI IS CANONNNNN

• OKAY WOW HANNE IS A FULL-ON BADASS yep, I stan

• I really???? LOVE??? this ending for the Darkling??? Idk but it is VERY fitting

• ALINA!!!! AT ZOYA'S!!!! CORONATION!!!! my life is complete

• FUCKING SHIT INEJ!!! INEEEEEJJJJ my queen my love AAAAAA

• The conversation at the end between Alina, Zoya and Genya DESTROYED ME

• STEALING THE HEART OF SANKT FELIKS yes please BRING THE CROWS BACK!!!!! I NEED ANOTHER CROWS SEQUEL!!!!

• I fainted, I ascended, I DIED at the last page

• NOW I NEED A SEQUEL!!!

• Leigh, you ARE goig to write what happens next, right? RIGHT? RIGHT????

#rule of wolves #row #row spoilers #rule of wolves spoilers #leigh bardugo

379 notes · View notes

night-will-fall · 4 years ago

Text

ok i have a quick rant on the Darkling/Darklina/Shadow and Bone trilogy i have to get out. i genuinely feel she let down his character, alina’s character, and in general the whole arc of the narrative.

**i want to clarify first that I am not anti Leigh. i’ve tagged that per someone’s request, but the truth is i simply feel that anybody who decides to put a story out there in the world, or any kind of writing, will be subject to criticism. that’s part of writing, it’s part of art, and it’s just part of creation and the real world, no matter your intentions or motivations for your piece. just like this post—it should be subject to criticism, too. that’s how discussion happens and people learn. it’s not an attack on the original writer because the writer is not their work. i love Leigh and her choice to put her stories out in the world, even if i disagree with some of the choices she made. it’s only because of her that we get to have these conversations about our favorite characters in the first place. (I also don’t think it’s fair to her and all the work she put into SEVEN novels to reduce the decisions she made about her characters and plots to ‘coping’ — just my two cents. I’m sure her trauma influenced her work, it’s hard to imagine otherwise. but I doubt she or anyone else would vouch for people refusing to critique their work because of something she went through that does not define her.)**

the problem i have with Leigh’s writing of the Darkling is that after Shadow & Bone, it was so forced. she wrote him doing all of these implausibly horrible things after the fans started to like him to force it down our throats that he was the irredeemable villain. and yet when he was first introduced, i was so hopeful that this character called ‘the Darkling’, a shadow summoner and master of darkness, wouldn’t fall into the predictably, disappointingly easy trope of evil as darkness and good as light. so when she did exactly that, it felt like a betrayal of the character after he had already begun to take on a life and heart of his own. we connected to him. and she did her very best to sever that connection in favor of an emotionally manipulative boy who did almost nothing to help alina grow. Mal actually hindered and harmed her growth, constantly guilting her for having wants, desires, and feelings of her own that didn’t revolve around him, whereas the Darkling never wanted her to be anything but herself. he, like her, was capable of seeing the bigger picture, whereas Mal was an absurdly selfish and bizarre character that cared about none of that (and didn’t even “want” alina until she was famous and desired ?!! like come on). i sincerely can’t believe he was intended to be the love interest we connected with and rooted for.

and i know she likely had personal reasons for characterizing Aleksander the way she did, possibly attempting to embody anecdotal experiences with a specific person who did her harm in her own life, but with this character it felt unnatural and forced. she basically ignored of all of his character’s potential as a complex, nuanced human tortured by watching generations of his people’s pain, trauma, exploitation, murder, etc. (even if it was true that he had eroded morally/emotionally because of the mervost and centuries of standing witness to these atrocities), ironically dismissing his potential to grow in a story that was supposed to be all about growth (another narrative failure i won’t get into here). not to mention that his mission’s intent wasn’t even inherently evil (morally grey at worst, which is so much more compelling than pure evil anyway, which makes it extra disappointing that she bungled this), and by the end of the series all of his completely valid points just went unaddressed and people continued to suffer for it. his attempts to solve that problem were simplistically reduced and deemed as plain ‘evil’, with very few people recognizing the deep empathy and collective pain that drove his actions—something that alina actually did understand.

i feel bad for him. that’s why i like him and that’s why i like Darklina. he deserved better, and so did alina. their chemistry was so eloquently written (and portrayed in the show) and i truly believe they could’ve helped each other grow. but we never got a chance to see or explore that because of how Bardugo’s personal feelings obscured the natural direction of her characters’ development, ultimately doing a serious disservice to her narrative (she does this a few times — prioritizes certain plotlines and actions that she wants to include even if they don’t align with the natural progression of the story). she tries to make us believe certain things and feel certain ways about her characters and plot points in opposition of the simple truth that they just don’t fit. alina’s character essentially ends up right where she started with only a few slight differences, one of them being the loss of power, which was something that made her uniquely, intrinsically her, and was cruelly ripped away in a nonsensical punishment for what? daring to trust? daring to break away from the insecure hold Mal had over her, and constantly used against her? daring to grow and learn? daring to delve deeper into her own power as a Grisha? daring to connect with the Darkling and the nobility of his motives? it was all around just a sad and disappointing direction to take a story that had so much potential to be powerful and different.

[not to mention all of the beautiful balance in the light/shadow trope, the star-crossed lovers torn apart by situational and ideological conflict, the novelty of their powers and their mirroring inabilities to “fit in” or find others like them, like. come ON, that could have been so great. ugh. just to abandon it all for dusty, insecure Malware. pls.]

ok end rant. thank you if you read my heated word vomit.

#rant #shadow and bone #sab #darklina #the darkling #alina starkov #the darkling x alina #the darkling x alina starkov #thats why i spend so much time writing him emotionally in my own fics #and i try to give alina more agency and more room to grow #because theyre just OWED that #in my opinion #ok im done #anti Mal #anti Malina #anti Leigh Bardugo

144 notes · View notes

winelover1989 · 3 years ago

Note

Since u seem to like to pick apart Bardugo's writing- idk if uve read it (u can easily find a pdf online), but i was recently thinking abt the demon in the woods (darkling prequel) for a fanfic im writing, and like, in the story the Ulle is supposed to be this Big Upstanding Guy (he's the only elder who stands up for Baghra against the misogynistic elders), but his son is supposed to be this shitty toxic masculinity guy. Like it doesnt add up

I actually loved demon in the woods. It's the only time by Bardugo that I could actually read and didn't had to switch to audiobooks for. Really made me wonder if a ghost writer had written it. It has an uncharacteristic amount of nuance to it.

I found Ulle interesting because he's more powerful AND WARY than what he presents

“Some of them object to having a woman at a council meeting,” he admitted. “But they were outvoted.” [...] “They are set in their ways, and you are not only a woman, but”—he cleared his throat—“they fear you are not entirely natural.”

“The first men to see bears thought they were monsters. My power is unfamiliar, not unnatural.”

“A bear is still dangerous,” noted the Ulle. “It still has claws and teeth to maul a man.”

Little darkles observes as much

“He lied about the elders.”

His mother cocked her head to one side, her black eyes glittering. “Did he?”

“None of them voted to have you at the meeting, but the Ulle demanded it.”

“How do you know?” He hesitated, less sure now. “It was the sound of the Ulle’s voice, the way the elders stood apart from him as they watched us come down the hill.”

She rose and brushed the hair back from his face. “You read the flow of power the way others chart tides,” she marveled. “It will make you a great leader.”

He's right. People who are the most loud and domineering and who engage in a lot of posturing usually hold the least amount of power. And people who do hold the most power tend to downplay it or play the "i have people to answer to" in order to keep the favors people ask of them in check.

I really like this character. He holds a lot of power. Downplays it. Advocates for her, yes, but also ensures she knows who to be grateful for for the roof over their heads.

And he has his prejudices as well 🤷🏽‍♀️ He brings with a subtle touch of the ambiguous THEY think you're unnatural. But it's established in the story that this sentiment is shared among grisha. There's gatekeeping within the community. General public might treat grisha and unnatural and evil to justify hunting them. But darkles and his mom face the same prejudices in the community, and he's told literally never to touch anyone, because the instant that one girl finds out darkles is an amplifier, he's lured in for murder that very night.

So yeah this guy invites them and advocates for them but he's more complex than an upstanding guy. As for his son, he's the privileged rich kid in this little community 🤷🏽‍♀️ and kids tend to be honest reflections of their household's belief system while lacking all the social skills, manners, and politeness their parents mastered over the years.

Such a short story and so much nuance that too in background characters...hot damn...how did bardugo even write this?

#Shadow and bone #Demon in the woods #Aleksander morozova #Ulle #Meta

22 notes · View notes

where-theres-smoak-2 · 3 years ago

Note

There are times when I get tried of the Alina-hate in the Fandom, especially since S&B Alina is very different from Book Alina, same as SB Darkles is from Book Darkles. One thing I don't get is when critics claim Alina didn't respect Aleksander as a lower-ranking soldier. With all due respect, Aleks never treated Alina like a subordinate. She was always his equal and he expected the other Grisha to respect her. He even insisted she call him by his first name rather than "General."

I mean you make some really good points here. Technically Alina wasn't a lower ranking soldier, she was the sun summoner and Aleks made it very clear that she was of the same level as him in many ways, the fact that when they walked into the hall together for her demonstration to the king, she didn't walk behind him with the other grisha she was at his side, at his level. There was the fact that he gave her the black kefta a colour which only he was permitted to wear up until then, again showing she is of the same rank as him. Even him sending Zoya away for disrespecting Alina during training was sending a message to the other grisha that any disrespect directed at Alina would not be tolerated because she was above them. There's even a moment where he places her above him during her demonstration at the winter fete. When he first introduces her to the audience he is standing on the platform with her just in front of her, but then he steps down so that he and everyone else in the room were below her as she stood on the platform.

However the frustration comes in because Aleks has an advantage that Alina doesn't and that is his experience. When it comes to this they can't be equals because Aleks has lived a much longer life than Alina and has been in a position of power longer. He has that knowledge of how the world works and of politics etc that comes with that life experience. So when it comes to some of the bigger events in the story, like expanding the fold and using it as a weapon against Zlatan, Alina ends up coming across as very naive and righteous because she hasn't lived as long and still has alot of that innocence that younger Aleks had that things could and should be resolved with no violence and no political games. Just be honest and true and everything will work out in the end kind of attitude. Unfortunately its not likely to work out the best for you to have that kind of attitude in the world that they live in. If Aleks had just politely asked Zlatan not to rebel, or asked the Shu Han to please stop experimenting on grisha, or the Fjerdans if they could possibly, maybe not burn the grisha at the stake, it was unlikely to have any effect at all. However stop or I'll use the fold as a weapon to engulf any of your cities is very likely to catch their attention and get them in the negotiating mood.

Of course its not helped at all by the fact that Aleks never takes the time to explain any of this to Alina and there is a huge breakdown in their communication. I do think alot of this though is down to bad writing/ the writers being constricted by what happens in the books and trying to keep as true to the books as they can, I mean there was no reason why Aleks couldn't have told Alina the truth about Luda and how the fold was created, although that does I suppose raise the debate about whether Alina would have believed him at that point.

I think what adds to the frustration is the show does seem to try and convince you that Alina is the one in the right and her way is the better way of doing it and that Aleks' actions are pure evil. However I think alot of viewers felt that Aleks was just acting as a general would in that situation and that Alina and co just seemed naive and ignorant. However having rewatched it a few times now I don't think her being naive or having that ignorance and innocence are necessarily bad things depending on how they handle it in season 2. I would be really pleased to see a situation where whilst travelling to different places outside of the first army or the little palace, she sees the truth of how the grisha really live and what they face. I mean if you think about it she has had something of a sheltered view of the grisha up until now. When in the First army she adopted their view that Grisha were privileged and treated better than them. Then she was at the Little Palace where she saw the grisha flourishing under Aleks' care. She got a small glimpse of the violence the grisha face when the druskelle attacked the carriage but then she was told they were looking for her so its not unreasonable to think maybe she assumed it wasn't a regular occurrence and just happened because the rare sun summoner was with them. There are only two other times where she is told about the grisha's plight one is in the carriage with Ivan and Fedyor and they tell her about needing high walls, though it is worth noting that during most of this conversation they are talking in the past tense. Ivan says 'For years being grisha was a death sentence. At least now, thanks to General Kirigan, we are protected, feared.' To be fair to Alina this does sound like Ivan is saying that they used to be killed but now they aren't because they are protected. The other time is when Ivan reads out the list of casualties in ep 3 and then berates Alina for not training every minute of the day. In this moment we learn that there are many casualties from the first army though we are not given a specific number. Many have pointed out that Alina seemed to care more about the mention of the 36th than about the dead grisha. But again playing advocate to Alina here that makes sense for her character, at this point she's only been amongst the grisha for like a day, she wouldn't have known any of those grisha who died. However M*l is in the 36th so of course she is going to be worried about her friend being amongst the casualties as that is someone she knows and cares about. Also I do think she looks like she cares, there is a certain feeling of guilt there like she isn't doing enough, she understands the weight of the responsibility on her to tear down the fold and unite ravka. I think the point I am trying to make is that Alina is sort of living in this fantasy world within the Little Palace that is glamourous and where the grisha are protected and happy, and whilst she has been told a couple of times that this isn't the norm and that most grisha are dying in the wars in horrific ways at the hands of their enemies, its very different to be told something and to see it. I think whilst at the Little Palace it was difficult for her to picture grisha suffering. I could see Alina getting that world view in season 2 though if she is travelling undercover and I would be interested to see how that effects her views and opinions on things, whether she might lean more into Aleks' way of thinking when she gets tired of seeing just how much grisha suffer. I know Jessie said she wanted to explore Alina's darker side. This could be a way for them to do that if her desperation to save the grisha leads her down a darker path. I would like to see a less naive and more educated Alina in season 2.

I also think you are right about how Book Alina/Aleks is different from Show Alina/Aleks. I myself have been very critical of Alina's character in the book, alot of my issue with her though is how the character is written with having no agency of her own. This is something they thankfully changed in the show and I actually love Show Alina, despite there being some choices she makes that are questionable or don't make that much sense. I think in some ways her mistakes makes her a more human and interesting character even though some aspects of the writing for it could have been improved. Show Alina is a fighter, and she is shown to grow into a confident and passionate woman during her time at the Little Palace, unlike book Alina I do feel like show Alina does care about the grisha and wants to help them, but I also think show Alina is used to having good things taken away from her, she had a good thing at the Little Palace and with Aleks so I think when Baghra reveals the 'truth' to her Alina is just like well of course its true because I don't get to keep nice things. For her its just the way her life always goes, she expects things to go wrong. Show Alina like Show Aleks is much more nuanced and detailed character than in the books. I think its the same with their relationship too. In the books it all felt very one note whereas in the show its more complex and just more interesting as a whole.

#alina starkov #darklina #answered

3 notes · View notes

une-nuit-pour-se-souvenir · 4 years ago

Text

Aegon VI Targaryen = Viserys

When she opened it, she found piles of the finest velvets and damasks the Free Cities could produce … and resting on top, nestled in the soft cloth, three huge eggs. (...) Another was pale cream streaked with gold.

Hypothesis: Aegon VI Targaryen = Viserion

“The cream-and-gold I call Viserion. Viserys was cruel and weak and frightened, yet he was my brother still. His dragon will do what he could not.”

What Viserys couldn’t do? Be crowned as the Kng of the Seven Kingdoms. In the show, Aegon VI does not exist. However, Cersei was crowned as the Queen of the “Seven Kingdoms and she employs the golden company. It is likely that Cersei’s story was based on Aegon’s.

Viserys was “crowned” though... a golden crown.

"You cannot touch me, I am the dragon, the dragon, and I will be crowned!"

Khal Drogo unfastened his belt. The medallions were pure gold, massive and ornate, each one as large as a man's hand. He shouted a command. Cook slaves pulled a heavy iron stew pot from the firepit, dumped the stew onto the ground, and returned the pot to the flames. Drogo tossed in the belt and watched without expression as the medallions turned red and began to lose their shape. She could see fires dancing in the onyx of his eyes. A slave handed him a pair of thick horsehair mittens, and he pulled them on, never so much as looking at the man.

Viserys began to scream the high, wordless scream of the coward facing death. He kicked and twisted, whimpered like a dog and wept like a child, but the Dothraki held him tight between them. (...)

When the gold was half-melted and starting to run, Drogo reached into the flames, snatched out the pot. "Crown!" he roared. "Here. A crown for Cart King!" And upended the pot over the head of the man who had been her brother.

The sound Viserys Targaryen made when that hideous iron helmet covered his face was like nothing human. His feet hammered a frantic beat against the dirt floor, slowed, stopped. Thick globs of molten gold dripped down onto his chest, setting the scarlet silk to smoldering … yet no drop of blood was spilled.

He was no dragon, Dany thought, curiously calm. Fire cannot kill a dragon.

Viserys is held down by the Dothraki preventing him from escape, while Drogo uphends the melted gold upon his head. Similarly, Cersei was held down in King’s Landing by the Dothraki preventing her from escape, while (Danerys upon) Drogon burned the castle upon her head.

Danerys usurps Viserys, despite him being the rightful king. More, she doesn’t believe Viserys is a true dragon because he was killed by fire. It’s safe to assume she’ll justify her actions the same for Aegon. He burns with the rest, he’s no true dragon either.

Its in the House of Undying prophecies as well...

three treasons will you know . . . once for blood and once for gold and once for love . . .(...) Her silver was trotting through the grass, to a darkling stream beneath a sea of stars. A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness. . . . mother of dragons, bride of fire . . .

There’s the gold and there’s the corpse... but also, a bride of fire.

She had sensed the truth of it long ago, Dany thought as she took a step closer to the conflagration, but the brazier had not been hot enough. The flames writhed before her like the women who had danced at her wedding, whirling and singing and spinning their yellow and orange and crimson veils, fearsome to behold, yet lovely, so lovely, alive with heat. Dany opened her arms to them, her skin flushed and glowing. This is a wedding, too, she thought.

Danerys turns King’s Landing into Aegon’s funeral pyre. Evil.

What else? All of Viserion’s mentions are listed below... and some of them fit what we saw in the show.

A Clash of Kings

“The cream-and-gold I call Viserion. Viserys was cruel and weak and frightened, yet he was my brother still. His dragon will do what he could not.” (ACOK ~ Danerys I)

As said, Aegon will be crowned King of the Seven Kingdoms, doing what Viserys could not. If show!Cersei took over book!Aegon’s role... this fits.

How long the city had been deserted she could not know, but the white walls, so beautiful from afar, were cracked and crumbling when seen up close. Inside was a maze of narrow crooked alleys. The buildings pressed close, their facades blank, chalky, windowless. Everything was white, as if the people who lived here had known nothing of color. They rode past heaps of sun-washed rubble where houses had fallen in, and elsewhere saw the faded scars of fire. At a place where six alleys came together, Dany passed an empty marble plinth. Dothraki had visited this place before, it would seem. Perhaps even now the missing statue stood among the other stolen gods in Vaes Dothrak. She might have ridden past it a hundred times, never knowing. On her shoulder, Viserion hissed. (ACOK ~ Danerys I)

Vaes Tolorro, the city of bones , a city sacked by Dothraki and that they think is filled with ghosts. Six alleys coming together at an empty marble plinth. A city beautiful from afar, cracked and and crumbling up close. Similarly, King’s Landing, the city of ashes, after Danerys and the Dothraki are finished sacking it. Six dragon roads coming together at the capital. A city that Danerys believes to be beatiful from afar, but she’ll reduce to ruins once she comes close. Fits.

She wondered whether Aegon's Red Keep had a pool like this, and fragrant gardens full of lavender and mint. It must, surely. Viserys always said the Seven Kingdoms were more beautiful than any other place in the world. The thought of home disquieted her. If her sun-and-stars had lived, he would have led his khalasar across the poison water and swept away her enemies, but his strength had left the world. Her bloodriders remained, sworn to her for life and skilled in slaughter, but only in the ways of the horselords. The Dothraki sacked cities and plundered kingdoms, they did not rule them. Dany had no wish to reduce King's Landing to a blackened ruin full of unquiet ghosts. (ACOK ~ Danerys I)

Not even subtle... Fits..

[Robert Baratheon] sent me poisoned wine, yet I live and he is gone. "What was the manner of his death?" On her shoulder, pale Viserion flapped wings the color of cream, stirring the air. (ACOK ~ Danerys II)

In the show, Varys tried to poison Danerys because she’s crazy. In the books, Varys is #TeamAegon. It’s likely Varys will try to poison her on his behalf. Fits, though the motive will most likely be another.

Drogon was curled up beneath her arm, as hot as a stone that has soaked all day in the blazing sun. Rhaegal and Viserion were fighting over a scrap of meat, buffeting each other with their wings as smoke hissed from their nostrils. (ACOK ~ Danerys III)

Aegon and whoever stands in for Rhaegal (Jon), fighting over something. It’s likely they’ll fight over north / vale / riverlands. This happens while Drogon (Danerys) soaks beneath the sun (Slaver’s Bay, Volantis, you know the warm places, etc). Speculation for book only, most likely Jon and Aegon will naturally clash in TWOW / ADOS, while Danerys is terrorising beyond the narrow sea.

A STORM OF SWORDS

Rhaegal and Viserion were the size of small dogs, Drogon only a little larger, and any dog would have out-weighed them; they were all wings and neck and tail, lighter than they looked. And so Daenerys Targaryen must rely on wood and wind and canvas to bear her home. (ASOS ~ Danerys I)

Most likely, just an introduction. Could indicate Danerys’ forces will outmatch Jon and Aegon separately though. In the show, this fit for #TeamJon.

"Well, how long does a dragon live?" She looked up as Viserion swooped low over the ship, his wings beating slowly and stirring the limp sails. (ASOS ~ Danerys I)

A dragon lives until you kill them. A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly.. Fits.

So I see. Dracarys?"

All three dragons turned their heads at the sound of that word, and Viserion let loose with a blast of pale gold flame that made Ser Jorah take a hasty step backward. Dany giggled. "Be careful with that word, ser, or they're like to singe your beard off. It means 'dragonfire' in High Valyrian. I wanted to choose a command that no one was like to utter by chance." (ASOS ~ Danerys I)

All three dragons are eager to fight. “three heads has the dragon”. The Dance of Dragons II.

"The warlocks in Qarth told you that you would be betrayed three times," the exile knight reminded her, as Viserion and Rhaegal began to snap and claw at each other. (ASOS ~ Danerys I)

Not even subtle. “three treasons will you know . . . once for blood and once for gold and once for love . . . (...) Her silver was trotting through the grass, to a darkling stream beneath a sea of stars. A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness.

Aegon and Jon, fighting over something. It’s likely they’ll fight as a north faction versus south faction. Either against each other for the land, or against Danerys to defend each of their factions. Either way, these must be the root of their betrayals. This is speculation for book only, for TWOW / ADOS.

Her sudden laughter made Drogon hiss, and sent Viserion flapping to his perch above the porthole. "The ploy worked well."

The exile knight did not return her smile. "These are Illyrio's ships, Illyrio's captains, Illyrio's sailors . . . and Strong Belwas and Arstan are his men as well, not yours." (ASOS ~ Danerys I)

Viserion turning away from Danerys, once he hears her laugh and Drogon hiss. Similarly, Aegon turned away from Danerys, once Tyrion implies that Danerys wouldn’t take him seriously because she’s more powerful than him (Drogon is bigger than his siblings, he bullies them often). So Aegon takes Illyrion’s ships, captains, sailors, what have you, they are his and not hers. Illyrio is invested in Aegon, not Danerys. Much later, we have this...

I know she is strong. How not? The Dothraki despise weakness. If Daenerys had been weak, she would have perished with Viserys. I know she is fierce. Astapor, Yunkai, and Meereen are proof enough of that. (...) Now, how do you suppose this queen will react when you turn up with your begging bowl in hand and say, 'Good morrow to you, Auntie. I am your nephew, Aegon, returned from the dead. I've been hiding on a poleboat all my life, but now I've washed the blue dye from my hair and I'd like a dragon, please … and oh, did I mention, my claim to the Iron Throne is stronger than your own?' "

Aegon's mouth twisted in fury. "I will not come to my aunt a beggar. I will come to her a kinsman, with an army."

"A small army." There, that's made him good and angry. The dwarf could not help but think of Joffrey. I have a gift for angering princes. "Queen Daenerys has a large one, and no thanks to you."

Aegon will not beg.... Viserys bristled. "Guard your tongue, Mormont, or I'll have it out. I am no lesser man, I am the rightful Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. The dragon does not beg." I’m not saying Aegon’s like Viserys. I’m saying Aegon is the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. It is his by right, not hers. Fits.

Drogon raised his head and screamed, pale smoke venting from his nostrils, and Viserion flapped at her and tried to perch on her shoulder, as he had when he was smaller. "No," Dany said, trying to shrug him off gently.

"You're too big for that now, sweetling." But the dragon coiled his white and gold tail around one arm and dug black claws into the fabric of her sleeve, clinging tightly. Helpless, she sank into Groleo's great leather chair, giggling. (ASOS ~ Danerys II)

Viserion’s behaviour is interesting. Might suggest Aegon tries to seek an alliance later after all. Speculation.

"They have been wild while you were gone, Khaleesi," Irri told her. "Viserion clawed splinters from the door, do you see? And Drogon made to escape when the slaver men came to see them. When I grabbed his tail to hold him back, he turned and bit me." She showed Dany the marks of his teeth on her hand.

"Did any of them try to burn their way free?" That was the thing that frightened Dany the most.

"No, Khaleesi. Drogon breathed his fire, but in the empty air. The slaver men feared to come near him." (ASOS ~ Danerys II)

Viserion tried to escape again. Fits.

"Remember. To go north, you must journey south. To reach the west, you must go east. To go forward you must go back, and to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow.

"Quaithe?" Dany sprung from the bed and threw open the door. Pale yellow lantern light flooded the cabin, and Irri and Jhiqui sat up sleepily. "Khaleesi?" murmured Jhiqui, rubbing her eyes. Viserion woke and opened his jaws, and a puff of flame brightened even the darkest corners. There was no sign of a woman in a red lacquer mask. "Khaleesi, are you unwell?" asked Jhiqui.

"A dream." Dany shook her head. "I dreamed a dream, no more. Go back to sleep. All of us, go back to sleep." Yet try as she might, sleep would not come again. (ASOS ~ Danerys III)

No idea.

Drogon flew almost lazily at Kraznys, black wings beating. As he gave the slaver another taste of fire, Irri and Jhiqui unchained Viserion and Rhaegal, and suddenly there were three dragons in the air. (ASOS ~ Danerys III)

A three way battle “the dragon has three heads”. The Dance of Dragons II.

"Yunkai will have war," Dany told Whitebeard inside the pavilion. Irri and Jhiqui had covered the floor with carpets while Missandei lit a stick of incense to sweeten the dusty air. Drogon and Rhaegal were asleep atop some cushions, curled about each other, but Viserion perched on the edge of her empty bath. "Missandei, what language will these Yunkai'i speak, Valyrian?" (ASOS ~ Danerys IV)

In this chapter, Danerys threatens Yunkai, the yellow city, whose thematic are a lot of betrayals for... yes, that’s right... gold. The Wise Masters try to bribe her, Danerys steals their gold, Daario kills his boss for beauty (but he’s a sellsword, they only care about gold, and accordingly he dresses in... gold!). There are betrayals... for gold.

Drogon and Rhaegal keep together (alliance) but Viserion breaks away and goes to perch on the edge of the empty bath. Considering what the show did to “Aegon” (Cersei) and considering this, it reminds me of the King’s Landing summit where they agree to fight the Others together but then Cersei breaks faith and never shows up north. Fits, somewhat.

Something similar may happen in the books. The three dragons call a cease fire, but then Aegon shows them the middle finger and conquers King’s Landing (the empty bath) instead. Interestingly, the bath is empty, suggesting there’s nobody in power (maybe the Lannisters / Tyrells finally defeat each other and Aegon seizes the opportunity). Would fit perfectly. Aegon “betrays” for a gold, the golden crown of the Seven Kingdoms (Joff and Tommen’s crown is gold).

"Wise?" Dany sat crosslegged on a cushion, and Viserion spread his white-and-gold wings and flapped to her side. "We shall see how wise they are," she said as she scratched the dragon's scaly head behind the horns. (ASOS ~ Danerys IV)

This is all in the same “betrayal for gold” chapter, so it’s interesting. Maybe after that trolling, Aegon attempts a new alliance. After all...

Griff put a black-gloved hand upon Prince Aegon's shoulder. "Spoken boldly," he said, "but think what you are saying."

"I have," the lad insisted. "Why should I go running to my aunt as if I were a beggar? My claim is better than her own. Let her come to me … in Westeros."

Aegon grows bold, just like the dragons grow bold (this word is used) when they’re chained in the pits, and refuses to be beg. A dragon does not beg.

"When all the slaves have departed, you will open your gates and allow my Unsullied to enter and search your city, to make certain none remain in bondage. If you do this, Yunkai will not be burned or plundered, and none of your people shall be molested. The Wise Masters will have the peace they desire, and will have proved themselves wise indeed. What say you?"

"I say, you are mad."

"Am I?" Dany shrugged, and said, "Dracarys."

The dragons answered. Rhaegal hissed and smoked, Viserion snapped, and Drogon spat swirling red-black flame. It touched the drape of Grazdan's tokar, and the silk caught in half a heartbeat. Golden marks spilled across the carpets as the envoy stumbled over the chest, shouting curses and beating at his arm until Whitebeard flung a flagon of water over him to douse the flames. "You swore I should have safe conduct!" the Yunkish envoy wailed.

The dragons go cray cray at Daniella’s “madness”. Maybe they rebel against her once she threatens to burn King’s Landing, unless Aegon surrenders. Speculation, but somewhat fits (Jon shanked her when she burned KL).

There’s something here for sure though, Danerys behaved abhorrently here with the Yunkai masters and at the show’s rendition of the dragonpit, trying the same dragon intimidating tactics and breaking safe conduct.

Daario upended the sack, and the heads of Sallor the Bald and Prendahl na Ghezn spilled out upon her carpets. "My gifts to the dragon queen."

Viserion sniffed the blood leaking from Prendahl's neck, and let loose a gout of flame that took the dead man full in the face, blackening and blistering his bloodless cheeks. Drogon and Rhaegal stirred at the smell of roasted meat.

"You did this?" Dany asked queasily. (ASOS ~ Danerys IV)

Daario IS NOT a precious cinnamon roll in search for love. Danerys is stupid.

Her captains bowed and left her with her handmaids and her dragons. But as Brown Ben was leaving, Viserion spread his pale white wings and flapped lazily at his head. One of the wings buffeted the sellsword in his face. The white dragon landed awkwardly with one foot on the man's head and one on his shoulder, shrieked, and flew off again. "He likes you, Ben," said Dany.

"And well he might." Brown Ben laughed. "I have me a drop of the dragon blood myself, you know." (ASOS ~ Danerys V)

Ben is a sellsword who betrays Danerys for... gold!, then reveals that he never betrayed her. Yeah right, LOOOL. As I said, Aegon might seek an alliance later, so Ben’s twice turncloak might alude to that. Would fit that scenario.

I was going to take you home! Her dragons sensed her fury. Viserion roared, and smoke rose grey from his snout. Drogon beat the air with black wings, and Rhaegal twisted his head back and belched flame. I should say the word and burn the two of them. Was there no one she could trust, no one to keep her safe? "Are all the knights of Westeros so false as you two? Get out, before my dragons roast you both. What does roast liar smell like? As foul as Brown Ben's sewers? Go!" (ASOS ~ Danerys V)

Dance of Dragons II. Seems to suggest the Jon and Aegon take arms against Danerys once she shows her true bitch colours. Again, suggested before.

There was no sign of Viserion, but when she went to the parapet and scanned the horizon she saw pale wings in the far distance, sweeping above the river. He is hunting. They grow bolder every day. Yet it still made her anxious when they flew too far away. One day one of them may not return, she thought. (ASOS ~ Danerys VI)

Viserion running away from Danerys. Aegon turned away from Danerys once he grew bolder (a good word to use). Fits.

A DANCE OF DRAGONS

Viserion sensed her disquiet. The white dragon lay coiled around a pear tree, his head resting on his tail. When Dany passed his eyes came open, two pools of molten gold. His horns were gold as well, and the scales that ran down his back from head to tail. "You're lazy," she told him, scratching under his jaw. His scales were hot to the touch, like armor left too long in the sun. Dragons are fire made flesh. She had read that in one of the books Ser Jorah had given her as a wedding gift. "You should be hunting with your brothers. Have you and Drogon been fighting again?" Her dragons were growing wild of late. Rhaegal had snapped at Irri, and Viserion had set Reznak's tokar ablaze the last time the seneschal had called. I have left them too much to themselves, but where am I to find the time for them?

Viserion's tail lashed sideways, thumping the trunk of the tree so hard that a pear came tumbling down to land at Dany's feet. His wings unfolded, and he half flew, half hopped onto the parapet. He grows, she thought as he launched himself into the sky. (...) She watched Viserion climb in widening circles until he was lost to sight beyond the muddy waters of the Skahazadhan. (ADWD ~ Danerys I)

Fits. Bye bitch. The Martells send their regards.

Dany did not want to talk about the dragons. (...) Down in the pit, Viserion had snapped one of his chains; he and Rhaegal grew more savage every day. Once the iron doors had glowed red-hot, her Unsullied told her, and no one dared to touch them for a day. (ADWD ~ Danerys IV)

The dragons craned their necks around, gazing at them with burning eyes. Viserion had shattered one chain and melted the others. He clung to the roof of the pit like some huge white bat, his claws dug deep into the burnt and crumbling bricks. (ADWD ~ Danerys VIII)

Viserion running away from Danerys’ shackles, likewise Aegon turning away from Danerys’ entrapments and going his own way. Fits.

"The white one is Viserion, the green is Rhaegal. I named them for my brothers." Her voice echoed off the scorched stone walls. It sounded small—a girl's voice, not the voice of a queen and conqueror, nor the glad voice of a new-made bride.

Rhaegal roared in answer, and fire filled the pit, a spear of red and yellow. Viserion replied, his own flames gold and orange. When he flapped his wings, a cloud of grey ash filled the air. Broken chains clanked and clattered about his legs. Quentyn Martell jumped back a foot.

A crueler woman might have laughed at him, but Dany squeezed his hand and said, "They frighten me as well. There is no shame in that. My children have grown wild and angry in the dark." (...)

They’re not fans of Danerys anymore, not even ��sweet” Viserion (he’s the nicest of the three dragons). Rhaegal especially never was, since he’s been biting her hand since before he could fly. Hopefully, they have become fans of each other. Me wants some quality time between the dragon bros, complaining about their shitty father mother.

"All I know of dragons is what my brother told me when I was a girl, and some I read in books, but it is said that even Aegon the Conqueror never dared mount Vhagar or Meraxes, nor did his sisters ride Balerion the Black Dread. Dragons live longer than men, some for hundreds of years, so Balerion had other riders after Aegon died … but no rider ever flew two dragons."

Viserion hissed again. Smoke rose between his teeth, and deep down in his throat they could see gold fire churning.

"They are … they are fearsome creatures."

No idea. Reminds me of that dumb cliff talk in the show tho. Instead of Quentyn being afraid and (later) being killed by Rhaegal, Jon was brave to pet the lizard.

I leave outside this post Barristan’s and Quentyn’s chapters, which have a lot of description. They’re basically about Viserion and Rhaegal breaking free. Of note, Viserion tries to run away from Quentyn (he just wants to be free :<) and Rhaegal kills Quentyn after he raises the leash against his brother (oooh).

#i stan these two dragon bitches #anti daenerys #anti daenerys targaryen #anti aegony #anti jonerys

90 notes · View notes

nothewraith · 4 years ago

Text

Shadow Business:

I’m bored, so here’s Part 1 of the unedited “kaz and inej as sun and shadow summoners” fic I started in December. When I actually post it with chapter 2 at some point it will probably be somewhat different.

Summary: Contrary to popular expectations, Kaz Brekker is a sun summoner and Inej Ghafa is a shadow summoner. This doesn’t change their stories much, but it does change the stories that people tell about them. And now, there’s like, implicit moral implications to their actions.

//Inspired by discussions of who should have shadow or sun summoning powers, and how my mind was firmly changed from shadow summoner Kaz to sun summoner Kaz. This takes place briefly before the events of Six of Crows.

Notes: We don’t hear a lot about how the Darkling’s powers actually work (besides the murder) so I had fun reimagining shadow summoning. I thought a bit about how Alina uses the power, and how that would translate to Inej- e.g. more passive but still critical use of the ability. I also think Inej would use it to avoid killing when possible. I want to be careful to not undermine Inej or Kaz’s non-Grisha skills or the Inej’s sentiment in CK about ‘the rest of us, the nobodies and the nothings, the invisible girls’ which I think is so key to the narrative, so I tried to incorporate the powers in a way that makes sense

There’s also a little reference to my struggle to figure out what to call shadow summoning without mentioning the D*rkling. The names of the guards are borrowed from Joost’s chapter (may his memory be a blessing :/ ).

Chapter 1

Kaz Brekker didn’t need a reason. That’s what everyone in the Barrel whispered about Dirtyhands, and the other corners of Ketterdam, too. Inej never really believed this. Kaz was skilled at devising complicated schemes and weighing all of the possibilities at each step. You can’t be a strategizer and not need a reason. That just didn’t make much sense.

Regardless, Inej knew she certainly needed a reason. She was a bit weary of being told half of the plan. The rest would always reveal itself- just in time. Did Kaz trust her too much, thinking she would understand more than what he said out loud, or did he not trust her enough? Inej did what she had to as a member of the Dregs, but she hated being expected to kill without cause. He could’ve at least told her why they had to meet here, at Third Harbour. This was where the upper ranks of the merchers received and sent out shipments of expensive goods. It was bound to be crawling with both the stadwatch and stakeholder’s private guards. It wouldn’t be worthwhile to steal anything- there was no way they could bribe or blackmail so many individuals, and there would be no point to do it here anyway.

So of course there must be a deeper reason. Inej knew the secrets of half of the stadwatch and plenty of the Merchant Council’s staff. It was a given she would be able to identify the majority of the personnel present tonight. Did Kaz expect her to figure out the purpose of all this on her own? If so, he would be disappointed in her. Inej just sat perched on the balcony of an office building, with the dock in clear sight. She had had trouble finding a place to wait where she wouldn’t be visible, even at this time of night. Near the Harbour, bonelight illuminated a wide swath of space with a greenish glow. Typically, Inej had no problem concealing herself with the natural shadows found in the contours of the city, but she wanted to be cautious tonight, when she was uncertain of her purpose. Inej opened her palms, allowing a darkness, hazy as the bonelit air, to pool in her hands. As she spread her fingers, she cloaked herself in the shadow. Inej imagined her silhouette blended seamlessly with the night.

Sometimes, she wondered what her family would think of her power. Most of the techniques that Inej utilized in the streets of Ketterdam had been learned on the tightropes and swings; shadow summoning was simply a tool to assist with these skills. When Inej imagined seeing her family again and telling them all the things she had to do here in Ketterdam, the use of her power didn’t really stand out from the rest. She had been forced to become a different girl in the city, and the discovery of her power was just one facet of that other girl. Would her family even recognize her? They would probably be worried at first, maybe even suspicious, for they knew the previous shadow summoner was the cause of so much misery, but Inej would reassure them. That was, if she ever saw her family again- right now, with the possibility so distant, she couldn’t think about what she would say to them.

A few figures paced below along the perimeter of the Harbour. They were clearly stadwatch. Kaz had yet to make an appearance. It seemed like by this point, there should have been a change of shifts- the same stadwatch guards had been patrolling this area for quite some time. Usually they changed rounds on the half hour. Inej watched as three men decked out in the livery of various merchers joined them. They were talking- Inej couldn’t quite hear them from her position on the balcony. She slid down along the gutter soundlessly, until her feet made contact with the ground. Here, she was less than ten feet from the nearest guard. It would be nearly impossible to remain hidden here, if not for the inky darkness that Inej wove around herself.

It became obvious rather quickly that they were talking about Kaz.

“The whole Dirtyhands thing is bullshit, of course,” a stadwatch guard with a grizzly beard was saying. “I’ve heard, from very reputable sources, that he’s actually a sun summoner.”

A guard in crimson livery guffawed. “I think that’s bullshit. If anything, ‘dirtyhands’ would be a reference to being like the Darkling- you know, all dark and evil and whatever.”

Inej shook her head at this. She knew real darkness; she had experienced the worst of human depravity. In her time in the Menagerie, Inej had seen the embodiment of cruelty wrapped up in a beautiful blonde woman dripping with diamonds and clothed in the brightest of fabrics. She was not such a fool to think colors meant morality. Things were not so simple.

“Not sure what that sort of Grisha category would be,” the guard added. “I’ve only ever heard of Darklings having the power- darkness summoning? Anyway, I’m pretty sure the only sun summoners were those folks who were around in the Fold, and their power faded after a day or so. And like I said, only Darklings get Darkling powers so this Brekker couldn’t have it. ”

“There was only one Darkling, I thought we all knew that by now,” the first man interjected.

The guard in crimson ignored this correction and continued. “How would there even be another Sun Summoner? Would he have to be Alina’s kid then? So much for the ‘bastard of the barrel’...”

Another stadwatch guard, a young man with a crisp new uniform and a thick mustache, furrowed his brow. “He would still be a bastard. She wasn’t married before she died. Technically that’s illegitimate, right? But the logistics wouldn’t work out. Brekker is what, seventeen or eighteen, and Alina was probably the same when she died. That doesn’t make sense.”

This discussion of her saint was making Inej’s stomach turn. And, regardless, their parentage didn’t matter; this kind of power wasn’t necessarily inherited. Alina had been an orphan from a nameless village, not the daughter of some mighty Grisha. Inej didn’t know Kaz’s family, but she was certain his background wasn’t much grander than that of his predecessor. Inej herself had come into her power not long ago. Nina would say that she had always been Grisha and had always had this power, and perhaps that was true. Or perhaps it was different for those with her abilities. All Inej knew, was that one night in the Menagerie, she had prayed for darkness to swallow her, and her prayers had been answered.

The guard in crimson made a sound of agreement. “Exactly, thank you Rutger.” He turned to the first stadwatch guard. “Your sources are bullshit, Henk.”

Henk threw up his hands. “Why does it even matter? I don’t even know why you all are talking about some Barrel teenager.”

“Because if we’re going to deal with this Barrel teenager, I want to know whether he’s going to hit us with shadows, light, or nothing at all.” Inej’s stomach sunk. It had also become obvious rather quickly that they were expecting Kaz. Did he know? Could she warn him?

“I think at the least he’ll hit you with his cane,” said a new voice. Inej peered through the thick darkness to look at the man’s face. He seemed familiar.

Rutger greeted the man with a nod. “Eamon.”

Oh Saints. Eamon was a member of the Dime Lions. What was he doing here? How did he know Kaz was supposed to come to the Harbour tonight? There must’ve been a leak.

Inej inched further, as close as possible without brushing against the guard before her. She wrapped darkness around herself more tightly and gripped the handles of her knives.

She didn’t know that much about Eamon. Inej knew the identities of every Dime Lions member, of course, but he was a fairly recent member. Not that Inej could see how his secrets would be particularly useful in this situation.

“Thanks for meeting me here, gentlemen,” Eamon said. “I’m not expecting Brekker for a while- we have a distraction prepared.” Inej tried not to think too much about what the distraction could entail; Kaz would want her to focus on the valuable information she could gather. Already, she had identified every person present and knew that they were working with the Dime Lions. “Now, what do you have for me.”

Henk took out a piece of paper and passed it to Eamon. It was too dark for Inej to read it. “These are all of the expected shipments at Third Harbour for the month. Plus when the jurda’s coming in at the other Harbours- still not sure why you all care so much about jurda, but that’s not my business.”

Eamon flashed a dimpled smile. “Not mine either. Boss’s orders, you know how it is.”

The guards chuckled in agreement. “Do you know what he wants with Brekker?” Rutger asked.

Eamon shrugged. “I figure the same as all of us- to get him out of the way. It was lucky that Doughty overheard Big Bollinger talking to Kaz about coming down here tonight. He told Pekka, and it just came together. Two birds, one stone; I get the shipping plans, you get your money, we all knock the Dregs down a few pegs.”

It was like it always was. The pieces of Kaz’s plan started to piece together. There was no reason for him to chat with Bollinger about meeting Inej. The information had been leaked intentionally. Kaz wanted her here to collect information about this exchange, then to help him with whatever set up he had prepared. Or least that’s what she thought.

Inej waited a few more minutes to see if she could glean any more valuable information. However, it seemed that anything they wanted would be on the shipping papers Eamon had. In the meantime, waiting to ambush Kaz, the men had resumed their conversation theorizing on whether Kaz was Grisha. She unsheathed two knives. Sankta Petyr in her left hand. Sankta Alina in her right hand. Inej wondered if her saints would find it ironic.

Inej padded through the shadows, until she was directly behind the nearest guard. The darkness expanded to encompass him, isolating the pair of them from the others. His breathing hitched as he opened his mouth, asking ‘What’s-”

“Shhhh,” Inej murmured. She held a knife to his throat. She was close enough to feel him trembling. “If you want to live, stay quiet.” The darkness was heavy in a strange sort of way, muffling her voice to keep it from escaping the shadows. She pushed the man to the floor, where he was helplessly stuck with no sense of direction, then continued wading through the darkness.

Inej wasn’t sure how long to wait for Kaz. She didn’t know if he expected her to incapacitate or kill all the men- he might be planning to question them. Or did he want her to take out all of them now, and he wasn’t planning to show up at all? It would be so much simpler if he would just tell her the plan!

She just had to go by her own judgement for now. And she preferred not to kill when possible. Instead, she spread her hands, and let a thick darkness sink in, as if it was mist from the water. Inej had succeeded in concealing her power from common knowledge by taking inspiration from her environment, as she did now. It was better if this was kept a secret. Kaz had never said that explicitly, but he would have no authority to control her like that anyway. It was her choice, and Kaz’s suggestion. Kaz himself didn’t strictly hide or flout his power. People had their suspicions, though, about both of them. Inej was fairly certain that she was the only person Kaz casually used and talked about sun summoning around openly. Maybe she was flattering herself.

The guards looked around, confused. The darkness was fog-like, not dark enough to completely extinguish their vision, but surely it was disorienting. Inej herself didn’t experience the effect. They stood tensely, waiting for a fight to arrive.

And the fight arrived, with the steady beat of a cane. Kaz, finally. He stood at the border of the darkness. “I see you all waited for me,” he said.

Rutger cocked his gun, but Inej reached him before he could aim. The darkness gathered to an edge, an extension of her knife, and she Cut his hand. He shrieked as his hand fell to the cobblestones below with a dull thud. He was the one who had spoken so disrespectfully about Sankta Alina. Inej didn’t feel much sympathy for him.

Another guard drew his gun, and Inej’s blade found his throat. She spun a thread of shadows before the eyes of a third man, temporarily blinding him, and pushed him to the ground.

It was only a minute before she felt Kaz’s back against her own. He must’ve navigated through the darkness with only a wisp of light- she hadn’t noticed any brightness in the fog. Together, they faced the reality of being vastly outnumbered. Typically, they never fought side by side; Inej rarely had her feet on the ground. There was a rhythm to it, as if they shared a heartbeat.

Rhythm or not, they were only two people. Even Grisha have to yield to sheer numbers, at least when they’re untrained. Eamon had made his way through the shadows, and his gun was pressed to Kaz’s forehead.

“Who do you think will be the lieutenant after I kill you?” he asked. “Not your Wraith, of course- she’ll be dead, too. I just want to get the exclusive for Pekka and all that.”

“Good question.” Kaz’s raspy voice didn’t waver. “I’ll have to think about it, at another time, of course.”

“Doesn’t matter who it is. Dregs won’t last an hour without you.” Inej had to agree with that. They would be lost without Kaz.

“I’m flattered,” Kaz said drily. Inej desperately searched for clues of what to do next. They were stuck; certainly if she made a move, Eamon would shoot Kaz. Then, Kaz flexed his gloved hand, and as he gestured, there was a quiet click.

Inej knew what that meant. She quickly tucked her head into her arms. Even behind her hands, there was a flash of brightness.

“Oh fuck!” she heard Eamon say as Kaz shone a stream of light directly into his eyes. The light reflected off the special Fabrikator-made mirrored gloves, resulting in an intense beam that would probably blind the man for a significant period of time. Uncovering her eyes, Inej witnessed Kaz smoothly liberate Eamon of his bag, which she knew to contain the shipping information.

There were still men surrounding them. Kaz turned to her. “Let’s go.” They hurried to the edge of the fog. Inej summoned a swath of shadows, wrapping a deep darkness around the guards. They would stagger around until sunrise, at the least.

Inej followed Kaz into the maze of buildings outside the Harbour. She cloaked them in shadows, in case anyone was tailing them.

Finally, Kaz turned around to face her. “That was messier than I wanted it to be.” He was bleeding from his forehead, but Inej was certain the blood on his knuckles was not Kaz’s own.

“It wouldn’t be so messy,” Inej responded, “If you would’ve told me the plan!” Kaz Brekker always had a reason. That much was clear. Inej just never knew what it was.

Kaz laughed at her exasperation. “You think Kooperom is still open? I could use some waffles after that.”

They got waffles.

#yes this is a disaster part 2 was looking better before i forgot to finish writing it as always #shadow and sun kanej #my fic #soc #six of crows #shadow and bone #kanej #kaz brekker #inej ghana

27 notes · View notes

atlas-of-a-human-soul · 4 years ago

Text

Draw your swords, pt. 8

Summary: Forced to face their feelings, neither the Darkling nor his wife dare to speak them out loud. Influenced by Genya’s words, Y/N starts to wonder about her husband’s past.

Warnings: angst, swearing, mentions of alcohol, sexual content

Part one // Part two // Part three // Part four // Part five // Part six // Part seven

=================================

As a young girl, Y/N often daydreamed about her first time. She believed it would be with a kind man who’d move mountains to find her if she called his name. Reality was quite different – this man wasn’t kind, but he’d burn the world for her.

Whether he realized it, she saw through him easily. The Darkling is a symbol, the fear surrounding his name is all for show because he’s not evil. In fact, she’d go as far as say he’s redeemable. Anyone capable of love is capable of being saved and while she didn’t know what he needed saving from, her heart told her he’ll need her. And she knew he cared, she felt it in the way he held her in that tent, and again in the way he’d touch her when he had all the power just the night before.

Moving her head toward the other side of the bed, Y/N looked at her sleeping husband. His lashes are long, thick and dark, a beard that tickled her neck adorning his face. Asleep, his cheekbones were not as sharp, his face much more welcoming and relaxed. He didn’t seem as the formidable foe she imagined him to be.

Aleksander laid on his side, facing her. Pursing her lips, Y/N allowed her eyes to roam over him. His broad chest had a small area of dark, curling hair. His muscles are made large, shapely mounds. His arms are capped by a round, firm muscle. Biting her lower lip, her eyes continued down to his hard, flat stomach with faint lines forming separate areas of muscles, making her swallow thickly. It was only after a moment that her eyes went lower. What she saw did not seem so powerful as it felt the previous night, but as she watched, his manhood began to grow.

She gasped and her eyes flew back to his. He was awake, watching her intently with a smirk, his eyes growing darker by the moment. No longer was he the gentle man she had awakened to, but a man of passion, the general who showed her he was just as capable of leading a woman in the bed as he was of leading an army on the field.

Y/N tried to move away but Aleksander still held her trapped by her hair that strayed on his side, under his back. What was worse, she didn’t even want to fight him. Y/N recalled her plans for him clearly; but this was more than a plan she carelessly implemented. Everything was different now when she had the memory of his body and the pleasure he infused her with when he made love to her. Could that term even be applied to them, she wondered. Did he see it as making love or simply satisfying his needs?

“Stubborn wife,” he whispered and the tone of his voice made chills run along her arms. It’s more than the tone he used or the look of his dark eyes that had her insides turning, but the words he had spoken…it almost felt like a term of endearment coming from him.

Grimacing, she rolled her eyes at him, “Dreadful husband.”

Pursing his lips, he seemed amused rather than insulted.

She was right, their relationship has changed.

Irrevocably.

Last night she had thought she learned all there was to know about love between a man and a woman, but now she thought, perhaps she knew very, very little. There was much more to learn from this man and of this man and how to use that knowledge for her own gain, but right now? She just wanted to let herself go. She wanted to enjoy his company. For once, he was good-natured, playful even. She felt genuinely happy in their little bubble.

For a moment, Y/N wished to stay there. She wished he could always look at her as he is now.

She looked at him, his hair still a mess in the bright morning sunlight. She watched him intently, perplexed how he could look more handsome and more human than she’d ever seen him.

His eyes are nearly black as he pulls her to him again. He runs his tongue along her lips, touching the inner corners especially. She parted her teeth for him, desperate for a taste of him. He’s better than the richest honey; hot and cold, soft and firm. She explored his mouth as he had explored hers, no longer shy or reserved with him. How could she be when his fingers have delved lower, pushing inside her?

Gasping, she smiles against his lips. “Genya will be here soon”, she warns him.

"I don't fucking care", he insisted as he crashed into her, his arms wrapping around her like a cage she never wished to escape from. He brought his mouth on hers, inhaling her, "Do you even know what it feels like to be around you?! I can't", he paused as his arms drew away from her and she shuddered as he took the warmth they provided. With bruised lips, she watched as he ran his hand through what used to be perfectly tousled hair. Disheveled, he turns to her, "I can't breathe around you."

She chuckles at him, "Well, I am breathtakingly beautiful."

Rolling his eyes, the Darkling shakes his head, "Well, you're not unattractive. I'll concede on that."

She ran her hands over his back as he lowered his head to her neck, running his tongue along the pulsating beat of her carotid, the only friend he had in her – her pulse couldn’t hide how enamored or exhilarated he made her feel. Instinctively she leaned her head back, her breathing turning deeper, quicker.

When his lips and tongue touched her breasts, she nearly cried out. She thought perhaps she might die under such torture. Trying to pull his head back to her mouth failed as he gave a deep, guttural laugh that made her shiver, her insides turning with the sweet melody and her heart? Her heart felt warm, big and incredibly full.

Maybe he did own her.

A knock on the door had interrupted their bliss as Y/N stiffened, looking at the door in slight panic. If someone saw them right now, no one would doubt their marriage was a successful love match. They seemed happy, truly in love. That’s not how it was meant to be.

“Someone doesn’t value their life”, he grumbled under his breath. “GO AWAY!”

Clasping a hand over his mouth, she chuckled. “Who is it?!”

“General?” Ivan’s voice faded her smile instantly.

Even with Aleksander’s hands cupping her bottom, his body covering her and the door being shut, Y/N felt ashamed as if she was bare in front of the entire world.

“Unless the world is burning, leave me alone!” Pecking Y/N’s lips, he smirked, “I never get a peaceful morning anymore.”

Come to think of it, Y/N never found him in the bed when she woke up. This was the very first night they spent together and he stayed by her side. Considerate was never a word she’d use describing him before, but he is considerate, kind and incredibly cautious when it comes to her. It made her heart sink.

Hearing no word from Ivan, Aleksander’s hand moved. Caressing the inside of her thighs, he made her shake in desire. Holding her breath, she bit her lower lip. Still sore from the night before, she felt her stomach twist as he lined himself up with her entrance once more. Pushing himself inside, he captures her lips as she cries out. The pleasure is undeniable, but she couldn’t deny there was pain too. She clutched at him, her legs pressing around his waist as she rose to meet each thrust. Sweet torment he had inflicted felt as if it would split her in two - one Y/N to plot his demise and the other who’d never let him leave her bed.

Finally, when she was sure her heart would explode, she felt the pulsing throbs that released her and soon after, Y/N felt him speed up and his own release followed. Collapsing on top of her, Aleksander held her so close that she could hardly breathe. In that moment she didn’t really care if she ever did breathe again.

Aleksander didn’t move, still buried deep inside her as if she is his saving grace. It’s insane to think he could fuck her into submission and feelings. It was impossible to ignore the fact that she developed feelings for him, but that realization created doubts. Eventually, something will have to break – and the thought of hurting him suddenly felt too much to bear.

“Are you alright?” He moved her hair out of her face, remaining on top of her as if she’s a conquered territory he refused to leave.

Swallowing thickly, she nods. “Why aren’t you moving?”

Eyes widening, the Darkling felt heat rush to his face. He was trying to be sweet, to show her it was more than a quick fuck. It was indescribable for him – a dawn after a long night he’s lived in. No woman ever lessened the loneliness inside his heart and then she waltzed into his life. He couldn’t imagine living without her again. She was the northern star in his dark sky and he never wanted to leave.

“I should see Ivan about earlier”, he murmured, nearly wincing as he pulled out. She wrapped herself up in the sheets again, her eyes wide as she stared ahead, thinking about how badly she’s already failing her mission.

Frowning as she shifted, Y/N felt Aleksander’s semen leave her. She cleared her throat, her eyes watering. She felt disgusted with herself, like she needed her skin rubbed off with scalding hot water and peeled off if that didn’t work. She could feel him, smell him on every inch of her skin and the worst of it all? She loathed just how cold she felt when his arms weren’t wrapped around her. She absolutely detested how giddy her heart felt when she saw the shit-eating grin on his face as he brought her to climax.

“When will we visit the armies by the fold?” She asked, switching into the woman she is instead of the woman she’s molded into by his lips.

Impassive, he looked back at her as he worked on the buttons of his shirt. “Why? Don’t believe I’ve kept my word?”

It unnerved her just how cold his voice felt, how impersonal. Standing, she wrapped the nightgown around her body. Taking his kefta in her hands, she held it open for him to slip into.

His eyes flicker from the kefta to her, as if he’s confused as well. It felt odd not knowing their place now. Their previous dynamic was easy to settle into, bickering felt like second nature. Conversing without spewing venom brought unfamiliar discomfort mostly because they’d much rather return to the bed behind them. Leaving that room carried an unspoken possibility of their time together being nothing but a fluke – a onetime deal. The outside world carries responsibilities, the kind that places them on opposite sides of the war.

“Thank you”, he turns around, allowing her to help dress him. Wives do that, he realized. Loving wives help their husbands dress just as often as they help them undress. Husbands do the same for their wives – though he much preferred the undressing part.

He kissed her brow unexpectedly, eyes flickering to her trembling lips as they passed a surprised gasp. “I know you want to see the results on a field, but rest assured I’ve kept my word.” Licking his lips, he reached for a glass from behind her. Pouring himself a glass, he watched her gnaw on her lower lip. For once, the ice queen showed there are emotions inside her capable of more than just disdain.

Breaking out of her daze, she cleared her throat. “I prefer to have confirmation”, she remarked.

Snorting, he looks up in frustration. He wanted to grab her by the throat as he would with any other human who’d dare challenge him, question him. In his mind, he pinned her to the bed, his hands wrapped around her delicate little wrists. ‘Don’t play games with me’, he’d say, ‘Don’t ever think you’re capable of that.’ He wanted so badly to treat her the same, as an enemy, but she had done something to him. No matter how hard he wished he could fight it, something inside him came to life – his heart beats unburdened by the shadows, for her. It was always going to be her.

“I guess I’m asking you to trust me”, he looked at her with a softness he visibly struggled with. His hand griped the glass far too tightly for it to fool her. He was hurt by her insinuation and she didn’t know how to respond.

“Aleksander.” Calling him by his first name for the first time felt so natural, but terrifying as his eyes lit up when it crossed her lips.

He shuddered. “Say it again”, he commanded, his eyes darkened as he pressed his lips together.

The look on her face would surely haunt him for an eternity. She was shocked, maybe even frightened. She didn’t mean to call him by his name, she had made a mistake and he could read it on her face.

She spun, fleeing into the bathroom. She ran from him like he had come to steal her soul. He thought about chasing after her, but it would be futile. She would return on her own. She lost the game, she was his. He swallowed his whisky and smiled. Perhaps the way his heart fluttered at the sound of his true name passing her lips should have been a sign he lost the game too, but he didn’t give it a second thought.

She is his.

Once he left, she did exactly as she wished – she scrubbed herself clean of any remainders of him. He’ll walk around with her scent clinging to him, but she will not be branded his. Though her hips bear his markings, she felt satisfied they were easily covered with a kefta.

“You don’t have to say it”, Genya raised an eyebrow at the shadows of Kirigan’s fingertips across her friend’s hips.

“Say what?” Y/N narrowed her eyes, her heart picking up pace.

Smirking, Genya lowered her voice, “You enjoyed it, didn’t you?”

Rolling her eyes, Y/N, exhaled audibly through her nose. “It wasn’t terrible.”

“Ha!” Genya clapped her hands, “We are winning today!”

Raising her eyebrows, Y/N turned her undivided attention to an overly excited Genya. “Care to explain?”

“Well”, she shrugged innocently, “I may have found us a new ally.”

Stunned, Y/N sat on the edge of the bathtub. “Who?”

“David”, Genya exclaimed.

“Isn’t he Kirigan’s little…pet?”

Knitting her eyebrows, Genya huffed, “No! He’s a brilliant man and he believes in equality and a brighter future.”

“But can we trust him with the secret?”

Swallowing thickly, Genya paused. Inhaling deeply, she nods. “I’d vouch for him.”

“I need concrete proof”, Y/N sighs, “This isn’t going to end well for us if he decides to spill everything to Kirigan!”

Rubbing her temples, Y/N felt as if the pressure inside her head would cause her brain to burst. It’s pressing in, choking every good idea she’s ever had.

“What would happen if he did know?” Genya crouched before her. With her hands on Y/N’s knees, Genya sighed. “Maybe he’d be receptive too.”

Snorting, Y/N couldn’t believe how naïve Genya is. “No. He’d be too angry to see the big picture.”

It didn’t matter that he’s begun colonizing Y/N’s heart or that every inch of her skin craved the touch of his hand. It felt as if she were invincible when he stood beside her, as if he had made her fireproof. No scar hurt when he kissed her, no grief was too difficult to bear when he looked at her.

“Damn it”, Y/N covered her face, “I want to believe in him, I do.” She couldn’t help but wonder if her feelings are the aftermath of the night he saved her life or the night of ecstasy he had given her. Is it really genuine emotion or did her heart move to her vagina?

“So believe”, Genya encouraged. A sympathetic smile adorned her full lips, her eyes kinder than before.

“How can I ever trust him when he’s got a superiority complex regarding humans? He’s never going to willingly protect one!”

“He did with you”, Genya pressed her lips into a thin line. “You’re paranoid because you are afraid allowing yourself to see the good in him might actually make you love him.”

And she is. She’s afraid to love him or let him love her. What would be the point? In the end, they’re too different.

“Talk to David again”, Y/N stood, sniffling. “I’ll head to the library.”

Genya raised an eyebrow. “Library?”

The first casualty of war is innocence and Y/N had none left. She was once called ‘angel’ by her father, by her comrades in the army too. She was the epitome of a pure heart who would sacrifice itself for others. She didn’t feel like an angel anymore, but she will play the part. No one expects an angel to set the world on fire.

“Yeah”, Y/N breathes out. “I want to look for something.” Truth be told, she wanted to research Aleksander and his lineage.

If the dark heretic is from his bloodline, she needed to know everything about him, about the hearts of those he came from. If she’s ever going to consider her husband as an ally, she has to know him – all of him. If she asked, she worried he’d cover up the darkest parts of him. He’d deem her too human to understand, too fragile to know all the horrors that tie into who he’s become.

It was time to find out if she could trust Aleksander.

=============================

Tags: @bruxa0007 @rangotangomango @kaitlyn2907 @thestoryofmylife9 @shelivesindaydreamswme @hxrgreeves @safetyhtom @kaqua @savannah-elliott @all-art-is-quite-useless @azure23x @girlmadeofavocados @ashdab2611 @acciorudolphx @ladyblablabla @wckedheart @xceafh @sanna2020 @tarkanelima-blog @takethee @mellifluous-cosmos @marvel-ousnesss @tea-effect @starlightofsolaria @p3nny4urth0ught5 @blackbirddaredevil23 @sarcastic-and-cool @slytherinsbiggestproblem @within-thehollowcrown @notthatchhavi @musicconversedance @freakytillthemoon @lgkoval @honeyofthegods @queenmalhinewahine @misselsbells06 @whatthefluffrichard @aami98 @britriestbr @itsfangirlmendes @padme-parker @readingsssssssss @runawayolives @thehighladyofasgard @emlynblack @keithseabrook27 @dailydoseofchoices @deceivedeer @olympiacosplay @pansysgirlfriend

Part 9

#the darkling #the darkling x reader #aleksander morozova #aleksander morozova x reader #general kirigan x reader #general kirigan #shadow and bone

773 notes · View notes

serpenteve · 4 years ago

Text

what did alina starkov want, anyway?

People have been arguing for ages about the ending of Ruin & Rising. One faction says Alina losing her powers was misogynistic and needlessly cruel while the other says the ending is fitting because Alina always wanted to live an ordinary life with Mal.

I would argue the problem lies with Alina's mess of a character arc.

For the majority of S&B and the first half of S&S, Alina is a very passive character who wants nothing more than to run away with Mal. Though they changed it in the show, it was originally Mal who wanted to go after the stag and who wanted Alina to have the stag's amplifier because he thought it would give them a fighting chance against the Darkling. In S&S, Alina is terrified of taking a second amplifier because it goes against all the Grisha theory she knows, echoing the arc words of the trilogy: What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men.

It is only when Alina takes the second amplifier that she's allowed to grow a backbone. This is truly a bizarre writing choice because it all but forces the narrative to frame every active step Alina takes to forward the plot and her own character arc---whether that's deciding to rebuild the Second Army, or form a political alliance with Nikolai, or search for the third amplifier, or simply stand up for herself against bullies---as being manifestations of her creeping villainy.

Meanwhile, on the opposite end of the spectrum, there is her Muggle boyfriend who is there to remind us that this is not who she is, that Morozova's amplifiers are corrupting her, that he wants her to go back to the girl she was when she was more passive, vulnerable, and dependent on him.

Surely, there is a line between the heroine learning to trust herself and gaining confidence in her abilities versus the heroine giving in to corruption and becoming more power-hungry and evil? However, the narrative does not distinguish between these two very different arcs. Consequently, the reader is left in a bizarre place where we cannot watch Alina's character arc grow from passivity to maturity without being reminded of how ~evil~ she is becoming, despite there being very little textual evidence to back this up. We also grow to resent Mal because instead of him being a supportive boyfriend who is trying to help Alina navigate her own character arc, he is holding her back from her potential---not just in her powers but also in her personal autonomy.

At the same time, there are sprinklings of Alina's call to her dark side through the Darkling's offer of a throne. Ignoring how sincere his words may or may not be, Alina still feels tempted to join him and frequently thinks about the truth of his words---that she is no ordinary Grisha, that is useless to fight what she is, that she is capable of more than an ordinary mortal life, that he is the only one who can understand the eternity before her. Because readers expect to see a character arc where Alina grows from a scared passive girl to a strong independent woman, we grow to associate her longing for power as a natural evolution of her character development. However, the narrative wants you to believe Alina's development is not a natural progression of her character but rather a corruption due to her greed from the influence of Morozova's amplifiers.

Bardugo completely fails to set up an alternate character arc for Alina where she may grow in power and strength as a character, but does not become evil along the way. Her heroine's arc is completely strangled by the moral panic of the narrative. This is doubly emphasized by the plot: in order for Alina to defeat the Darkling, she must seek out the amplifiers out of necessity. This is framed as greed. In order for Alina to triumph, she must use all three amplifiers, but when she does, she is punished by the plot. But what other choice did the heroine have? It is not like there was some non-evil alternative for Alina to embrace and she deliberately chose the path of most greed. She is not punished for her actions like her male counterparts who seek power. In fact, you could argue, she can't be punished for her actions because her actions are not coming from a place of choice.

At the end of R&R, Alina is stripped of her powers and lives an ordinary life with Mal. As this is the epilogue, one must assume Bardugo meant for Alina's character arc to end in this way. Her character arc is meant to be a cautionary tale against the evils of seeking too much power. This moral aesop falls flat for a number of reasons:

"Power corrupts" is a popular moral message that it's gotten fairly cliche at this point

It's also so heavy-handed, I don't blame readers for expecting it to be subverted because of how much we were hit over the head with it

The strangely gendered way this moral lesson is delivered raises some eyebrows. Are male characters who are actually power-hungry such as Nikolai, the Apparat, and the Darkling not subject to the same punishments the narrative deals out to Alina?

Most importantly, this aesop clashes with Alina's character

In order for this greed corruption arc to make sense, the heroine really should have been an entirely different character who starts off the series with ambition and a need for power. We needed a heroine like Jude Duarte, Kestrel Trajan, or Aelin Galathynius. Someone who is already established as being capable, ambitious, and ruthless. Granted, I still think this would be a shit character arc because of the long history in which female power is demonized, but at least the arc would make sense for the character in the tradition of tragedies.

However, because Alina starts off the series as being insecure and not yet accepting of herself, we expect to see a character arc where she becomes more confident, emotionally mature, and maybe even a little ruthless. We don't expect her to suddenly become corrupted by greed (a character trait she never had to begin with, especially when she would rather run away and hide with Mal than deal with a geopolitical situation) and get punished for being "too ambitious".

To add to this confusing mess of an arc, Alina suppressing her powers leads to her being weak, fatigued, and malnourished. So she must use her powers in order to be healthy, but using her powers is what directly contributes to the rest of her character arc. The heroine cannot win.

In conclusion, Bardugo wrote a book where a naive scared girl gets manipulated into wearing an evil MacGuffin that turns her "greedy" and then gets punished for it, even though the plot offered her no alternative. Alina never wanted power but because a positive character arc meant a complete descent into villainy, we are left with a regressed version of the character by the end of R&R and a whole bunch of readers left scratching their heads about what the hell we are supposed to take away from this mess of a story.

TL;DR: Alina's character arc does not match who she is as a character. She was given an arc that is usually reserved for anti-heroines and tragic heroes with fatal flaws.

#alina starkov #leigh bardugo #ruin and rising #grisha discourse #anti leigh bardugo #darklina #long post #tgt spoilers #the grisha trilogy #why leigh why #viv metas

520 notes · View notes

sweetsassymusic · 4 years ago

Text

The Long Kaz Rant I Told Myself I Wouldn’t Write, But Here We Are

This is probably an unpopular opinion. And I hope it doesn't come across as confrontational or anything because I don't mean it that way. But I've always been super confused by the way Kaz is accepted, basically across the entire fandom, as either morally gray or straight up villainous? He doesn’t really seem like either of those things to me. On a surface level, obviously there are things he’s done that are normally considered evil. He’s stolen, he’s killed, he threatened a child, he gouged out someone’s eye. And that’s all pretty bad, right? But it completely ignores the context given in the books. (More after the cut because this got too long...)

There’s a difference between doing something evil and doing something that’s shocking, “dark,” or difficult to watch.

Before I read the books, I heard fans discuss all the horrible things Kaz does. And the way people talk about him, I was expecting him to be… Feral Kaz – someone who delights in doing horrible things because he’s just so twisted and angry. The author herself even referred to him on her blog as being utterly despicable. Wow! This guy must really go out of his way to hurt innocent people, huh? So when I sat down to actually read it, I was so surprised. Most (if not all?) the killings were done on some level of self-defense. His “murder victims” were actual evil people trying to kill him or someone he loved. And the reason he threatened a child was because the only alternative was killing her – something he would never want to do. You know, because he’s not evil.

I don’t know if I just have very different definitions of these terms than most people? But to me, the idea of Kaz being “utterly despicable” should not even be on the table to begin with (Leigh Bardugo, you good?) and even the idea of him being “morally gray” is questionable.

When I think of a morally good character, I don’t think of someone who never does anything questionable or always perfectly makes the correct choices. I think of someone who is on a mission–either to protect the world, a loved one, or simply pursuing a personal goal–who at least tries to conduct his mission in a way that either does no harm to others, or (when that’s not possible) does as little harm as necessary to get the job done.

Whereas, when I think of a villainous character, I think of someone who has no regard for others at all. Someone who either relishes in harming the innocent, or pays zero consideration to whether he harms innocents while pursuing his goals (which are usually, in themselves, harmful to innocent people).

And finally, when I think of a morally gray character, I think of someone directly between these two. Someone who is a little bit evil, a little bit sadistic, but not entirely evil. He’s got a few good points too. Maybe he’s someone who keeps switching sides, unsure if he wants to be a hero or villain. Maybe he has hurt a lot of innocent people unnecessarily, but he joins in with the good guys for personal gain, and people don’t mind him there simply because he doesn’t interfere with the protagonist’s goals. Or maybe he’s the “Bad Cop” to someone else’s Good Cop: someone who uses more violence than is necessary, just for fun, but still helps the good side in some capacity, so everyone chooses to look past it.

Under these definitions, Kaz (to me) seems more like a good character. While pursuing his personal goals, he protects people he loves, and yes, he does do “dark” things. But he doesn’t relish in doing them (despite his reputation in-universe of being a chaotic sadist. His reputation is not accurate; he invented it for his own protection). He does them because he has to. If he can get the job done right without hurting anyone, that’s the route he’ll take. But that option isn’t always available. And he’s not the type to lie down and die just to avoid getting his hands dirty (nor should he, imo).

Again, maybe I just have a different idea of what constitutes being morally gray. But I always thought it was meant to be a judgment on the choices you make when you actually HAVE a choice? A morally gray character has the choice to be good or evil, and they choose to do both (which one depending on how they feel that day).

Whereas, if you do something “bad” because circumstances force you to do it–because you or someone you love will die otherwise–that’s pretty much the same as having a gun to your head. You’re not morally gray. You’re doing it under duress. It’s survival, not a reflection of where you stand on moral topics. Like, if you trap a vegan in a room with only a piece of meat, and you leave them there for days, weeks, that person doesn’t suddenly become a “fake vegan” if they eat that meat to avoid literally starving to death. You forced them to do it. When it comes to their moral beliefs, they would still be a vegan if they had the freedom to make that choice. You just put them in a situation where those choices aren’t available to them. Your lack of freedom in a situation shouldn’t define you.

The same can be said for placing a starving, homeless orphan boy alone in the dog-eat-dog world of Ketterdam. The option of being a sweet little law-abiding citizen is not available to him. So is it really fair to define him by something in which he had no choice?

I’ve come across so many GrishaVerse fans who, while sipping on their Starbucks in the comfort of their own home, go “Ugh, Kaz. He’s so DARK, so EVIL!” (Fun fact: while my mom was watching the show, she said Kaz is evil because “he seems to always have a plan.” Oh no! Not PLANS!) “He must be some kind of monster to be able to do the things he does and still live with himself! I could NEVER do those things!” Well…you’ve never actually had to do those things? Your life has never depended on it? Idk, to me, it’s just a very privileged take. And I’m not trying to make this into a big social issue. It’s not like criticism against a fictional character is anywhere near the same level of importance as the issues marginalized people are facing in real life. I’m just saying, it’s very easy to condemn activity you’ve never been forced to engage in for your own survival.

One of the biggest reasons people have given me for why they think Kaz is evil is that he is “for himself.” Even the author said she thinks Kaz is worse than the Darkling (who, I’ve gotten the impression, she believes to be irredeemable) because the Darkling has communal goals (he wants to bring positive change for other people/the world at large) while Kaz’s goals are just personal (he wants to bring positive change for himself and only himself). And for one? It just isn’t true: many (if not most) of the things Kaz does is either for his Crows or for his late brother; he just disguises it with supposed self-interest for the sake of his reputation. And second? It’s…not actually wrong to have personal goals or to act in self-interest. Bettering your own life is a valid desire. It’s not the same as being selfish. Not everything you do has to be for other people.

(And, tbh, this is something Leigh Bardugo seems to have a problem with in general, not just in this scenario. I could write a whole separate rant about other characters that were demonized in-narrative for engaging in “too much” self-care, and how her unforgivingly black and white morality ruined the Shadow and Bone trilogy for me. Worst of all, she even seemed to imply recently that the only reason real-life antisemitism is wrong is because “the Jews didn’t fight back”? [Like, if they had met her criteria of “fighting back”, would that make antisemitism somewhat justified to her? What? Idek, but she should really clarify.] Basically, she seems to take “non-selfishness” to an extreme. I don’t know her personally, I don’t want to make assumptions, I don’t have anything personal against her, and I’m not trying to get her cancelled or anything, I promise. But please, when you read her books, please don’t accept all her ideas at face value, because there’s some Weird Shit™ in there sometimes.)

Anyway, another reason people say Kaz is bad or morally gray is that he wants revenge. “Revenge is a bad coping mechanism! You should want JUSTICE! Not REVENGE!” And again, this argument is wild to me. I mean, yes, there are situations–especially in real life, modern, western contexts–where revenge is a bad coping mechanism someone has developed, and transforming their anger into a desire for justice is a way for them to overcome that and express their anger in a healthier way. But that’s a very specific scenario. When we’re talking generally, the line between revenge and justice is a lot thinner than people think (and in some scenarios, there is no line at all).

For example, real life victims and their families often say they can’t wait to see the perpetrator rot in prison, even wishing (sometimes even fantasizing) that the guy gets abused in prison by fellow inmates. For them, justice and revenge are wrapped up together in one big court-issued sentence. And while some people find that disturbing or take issue with it, it’s…generally considered valid outrage? This guy is evil and hurt them, so it’s okay for these people to want him to suffer. And most importantly, these people called the cops instead of taking matters into their own hands, therefore they’re Good, right? They’re good citizens who obey and rely on the established authority, therefore they are handling their anger in an Acceptable™ way?

But in the world of Ketterdam, if someone has victimized you, or is trying to kill you or someone you love, you can’t just call the fucking cops (and let’s be honest, looking at irl cops, it’s a questionable idea here too sometimes). If we’re analyzing Kaz’s outrage and how he handles it, we have to analyze it in the context of where he lives, not where we live. We have options in our lives that Kaz doesn’t have. So we have to ask, what are the most productive steps he could realistically take in his world?

I see activists and bloggers on websites like this, publicly fantasizing about gouging the eyes out of certain politicians and right-wing figureheads. And they would probably do it for real if they could. On Tumblr and Twitter, this is generally considered righteous anger. The politicians are evil, so it’s okay to hurt them, right? That’s how the logic goes, anyway (I know some will disagree, but it’s a common take here). Well, imagine if, instead of just being a bigot, one of these evil people personally stabbed–possibly killed–your girlfriend. And there were no cops to call, no news stations or social media to turn to, to show people what this guy did. No authority or community on your side. No way to ensure this guy faced consequences for his actions. There’s just you, your dying girlfriend, your helplessness, your anger. What would be the appropriate way to handle this situation, so you were acting out of justice instead of revenge? What does “justice” even mean in a world like that? It’s a world where either you hurt others or you lie down and just let others keep hurting those you love (which, in itself, would be evil). I can’t think of any “appropriate” response Kaz could take. Which, for better or worse, is probably why he just went for the eye. You probably would too in that context. Are you morally gray? I doubt it.

It’s really weird to me how people seem to hold Kaz to this high standard of absolute Moral Purity, but they don’t hold other characters to it. Like, was the dad on Taken being “feral” or “morally gray” when he told his daughter’s kidnapper that “I will find you and I will kill you” and then pursued him with fury? His motivations were personal and not communal. He was coming from a place of revenge, just as much as justice. But most people consider him a hero. He’s not controversial or “dark.” There are plenty of other heroes who do terrible things (sometimes to innocent people! Even when it’s not even necessary!) for the “greater good” or just because it’s convenient. People call them a “badass” and then turn around and say Kaz is just “bad.” Idk, it just seems really arbitrary the way people draw these lines.

If we’re expanding the definition of “morally gray” to include anyone who’s ever done anything questionable, made a mistake, been forced to do something they wouldn’t normally do, done something for personal reasons instead of for the world at large, or wanted revenge for something, then there literally are no heroes in fiction (except maybe a few cardboard cutouts) or in real life.

(Ironically, the most morally gray thing Kaz does, imo, is something most people don’t even have a problem with: the fact he runs a gambling house to “take money from pigeons.” And even that is really mild [no one is forcing the “pigeons” to gamble their money away]. But yeah, that’s one of the few instances I could think of where he actually hurt innocent people unnecessarily. That and the time, as a kid, where he stole candy from that other kid...and even that might be mostly-but-not-entirely excused by the fact he was starving to death. But yeah.)

#Kaz Brekker #Shadow and Bone #grishaverse #tw: antisemitism #Grisha #my meta

17 notes · View notes