#but instead he makes very unbright decisions

[ofbreathandflame-archive]

The plot was hideously lost with the replies to your Darkling post. I agreed with the point you made in the initial. Not sure how it turned into that…

Hi anon!

It was jarring, but It proved the point I made about fictional racism and fictional revolutionaries. The entire problem with Aleksander and the whole Grisha problem is that people have linked real-world morality to the Darkling as a character. And while real-world morality absolutely applies in some ways (this is a story that deals with race-adjacent themes) it is used to set the precedent that hatred of the Darkling (or introspection of the Darkling) equals a hatred for the cause as a whole. That was the carrying point for all of the following responses: the idea that the cause is somehow triumphant over self-hood. That the Darkling and the cause act as disembodied entity that ignores the personhood of the Darkling. It is why I said a character like Magneto will always work better because his cause and his personhood are not linked. Magneto being a questionable guy doesn't negate the validity of his claims or like the trauma of his background.

The fact that I can make a point saying that somewhat agree with the surface-level ideology of the Darkling, say he is the best character of the trilogy and still have people trying to prove a point I did not hint at in my initial point proves to me that the people are less mad about the politics of his character and more swooned over the dark bad boy he is...which is fine for their personal preferences but...is weird when their argument hinges on the person on the other side not understanding the intricacies of racism, revolutionaries, and politics around oppression.

And all of this is moot bc in my initial post I gave real-world and literature-based examples of better renditions of Darkling's character. I ended both responses by talking about how his character has been replicated a bit more successfully. All that was ignored to make a point that must be a hot topic in extra pro darling circles. As if I would ever hate a revolutionary who used violence to get freedom. The reason I am free today -- why most black people are free today -- is because of the violence and perseverance of the Haitian Revolution. Do you know how many riots happened that brought us the Civil Rights bill? Do you know how much we looted, and torn down and raged to get that bill passed??? It's just wild to have this much energy for a fictional revolutionary who has 500 years and one brain cell. And whose plans hinged on the backs of teenaged boys and girls who were thrown to wolves the second they made a wrong call and not putting that energy on better written, better comparable characters from literature and real life. I do not believe fandom = activism. If you want to fuck a fictional character thats your imagination, but like trying to justify EVERYTHING about this man to prove the non-comparable point about generic fantasy racism for this fictional white bad boy villain is certainly a choice.