#despite still having a ton of essays due i set the time aside to play because i didnt want to miss it

[neomedievalist]

theres no reason for every big run match NOT to have an automatic boss every time you clear round 3 or at least have the meter fill significantly more. i should not have grinded this shit out so much only to never actually beat horrorborous because of bad luck with weapons. they should not make it legitimately impossible to get silver/gold shells or the gold cohozuna badge like seriously

[danieyells]

Yo Danie, I wonder if you've got any ideas on this; in TAS, transients either get summoned to Tokyo because the app reaches out and makes pacts on people's behalfs with willing familiars, or they get summoned by having, like, a wish of some kind and they end up stumbling through a portal to Tokyo to see that wish fulfilled, right? And then they either get unsummoned, or stick around for whatever reason?

Here's the thing; when they get unsummoned, do they go home? The Red Oni in chapter 1 seems pretty convinced that he's going to die unless you make a Summoning pact with him, but Salomon says later that Shiro's familiar whose connection you cut will just end up going home. Further to that, Macan says about Oniwaka when he's vanishing into light that he's going back to his home world, and then when his strength recovers he'll pop right back in.

The thing is though, that there's a remark early on that Stray Transients, who are Transients without a Summoning bond by the game's definition if I'm remembering right, can only maintain themselves for a while by sustaining themselves on the land's energy. Even further, the actual Housamo wiki says that they'll be unsummoned from the game if they don't find a way to sustain themselves, usually by getting into a pact. Guilds I believe are also noted to be one way around this. Does that mean that if you just wait outside of a Pact, you'll go home? Or would you pop back in again after a bit, essentially trapped in Tokyo?

ALSO ALSO, Bathym says that, though this only applies to "his hella demonic self", demons need tons of emotional energy directed at them to survive, and a pact is the most efficient way to get energy.

But we don't see Sitri in a Guild or a Pact (unless you Pact him, but I'm pretty sure that's non-canon), and Sitri also has a family. They're all demons one would presume, so why does he not seem to need anything like Bathym does? We can derive from this that Bathym was either speaking about himself, and only himself, lying to try and get the Protagonist to make a pact with him, or that Sitri has a Pact he isn't chatting to anybody about, right?

HOWEVER. In chapter 4, we see that the Aoyama guild provides supplies for the enormous number of Stray Transients who have nothing and no prospects, but that those strays are unlikely to be guild members. Further to that, she mentions that the ninjas and many other strays are like, literally treated as the dregs of society. So, how come they're still around? Surely the Stray Transient population should be either dwindling all the time, or in constant flux? But I'm pretty sure there's a notable overpopulation issue in canon because of the sheer number of Transients! Not to mention, if they're treated like dirt and killed and traded, you'd think they'd just...WANT to leave, right? So they could just wait until their connection ran out.

AND ALSO, it's noted in the backstory that Transients started pouring through the gates one day in history, and that this generation has never lived in a Tokyo without walls, but the previous generation therefore presumably did; that means like, it's been at least 2 decades, possibly 3. How long could those Transients have stuck around without a pact going by the lore?

Lastly, the Protagonist has the power to rend Transients connections to Tokyo, canonically. How then, do those Transients come back if they've had their connection severed? And shouldn't the Protagonist offer to go to the slums and ask if anybody would like to go back to their homeworld if that were the case? Or will everyone literally just rebound to Tokyo completely?

Further to that, when people fulfil their wish, do they go home? When they've played their Role out completely, is that the end of their tenure in Tokyo?

Basically, I think the whole system is a little underexplained and I've seen you post thoughts here on stuff, so I was wondering as to what you'd make of it all! Am I missing something?

. . .holy shit anon this is an essay innit lol not that i'm complaining, I just was not expecting it when I saw the notification after I woke up. For the record I saw this at. . .7am or so. It is now 11:55 when I'm finishing it. HYPERFOCUS GO BRRRRRRRRR. OKAY LET'S SEE IF I'VE GOT SOME THOUGHTS FOR YOU.

DISCLAIMER: I'VE BEEN PLAYING THIS GAME FOR LITTLE OVER A MONTH AND I FEEL LIKE I HAVE FAR FROM ALL OF THE DETAILS. I haven't read three of the translated past events yet and I haven't read most of the untranslated content(including Chapter 11 although I'm super tempted you don't even know.) These are just my understandings of things, I suppose.

ALSO IDK HOW FAR YOU ARE IN THE STORY. . .I mean you mention them being sold so you're probably up to Chapter 10 at least since that's where we learn about Daikoku selling transients because it gets him off I guess, although they also could have mentioned it some other time and I just forgot lol BUT. YEAH PROBABLY GONNA MENTION SPOILERS.

TL;DR:

Red Oni: summoned to Tokyo without a pact. When rended from the land would disappear, possibly die. Likely this is because of whatever conditions are happening where they came from or having had already been dead when summoned. Possibly also just a false belief because they didn't know well what was going on to begin with. Possibly also just part of the game plan originally but retconned by the devs then never rewritten.

D-Evils: Shiro's Rule is Ressurection which causes an exception when clashing with Rending. The world of the Old Ones is gone, the D-Evils are familiars created by/living in Shiro's book. Entities, abilities, and artifacts from Old Ones are able to be used outside of the app/battle zones, so D-Evils can exist if Shiro just summons them. D-Evils don't go away when rended because they're part of Old Ones and Old Ones is gone--if they go away they return to Shiro's artifact where they came from. They also donct go away because rending them causes an Exception.

Oniwaka; Zabaniyya; Ophion: rended from EXCEPTIONS not from the world. Were likely sent back in order to resolve the exception after being rended and to recover the energy that sustained their physical forms in the first place, not because they had no means of being sustained in Tokyo. Returned due to pacts with MC, positions in Guild, unfulfilled pact, etc once their energy to maintain physical form returned.

Stray Transients: likely have outstanding pacts and thus do not disappear over time. However, some don't and those proper strays will likely return home after an amount of time, but we don't know how long. Alp has been in Tokyo for a few months but isn't disappearing despite arriving because he wanted to be loved/popular. So unattached transients stay around longer than a few months. They may also be attached to the school they were initially meant to go to to be monitored, or someone who works there. They may not want to go home due to poor conditions, being dead, lacking a home or people to return to, etc. Remember, even in real life people immigrate to places that treat them poorly--but that's because even that and the potential in those places is likely better to them than whatever they're running away from. If the transient arrived in distress it's because they wanted to be away from wherever they started out or because they desperately needed something. This new opportunity may be what they need--to find someone they lost, to find an answer, to simply start life over fresh. Even if they're being abused, looked down on, they may simply be happy to be alive. If they want to go home, they hopefully just have to wait--but you have to live if you wanna get home, don't you? Best to survive as well as you can.

Stray Transient Population: constantly increasing to sustain/grow the Game for the World Representatives. The overpopulation is deliberate. They do not care about the wellbeing of these people, they only want to create a stadium to fight in, and for that they need more transients and app users than humans not using the app in Tokyo.

Sitri: Aside from forming a pact with him, Sitri's Sacred Artifact is his wings/are his feathers, which cause people to fall in love with someone who touched them after the feathers that had been touched are attached to a second party. Sitri feeds off of the love directed to him. This is troublesome for him more often than not, but I'm pretty sure that's how he gets the emotions he needs to eat if not via pact.

Being around from the start?: The gates appeared in 1999--it's been at least 20 years, assuming the game takes place anywhere near the present year. Off the top of my head we don't know if any stray transients have stuck around for extended periods. How long someone's been in Tokyo rarely comes up. We know Yule has been in Tokyo for a few years because he went to middle(elementary? Idr) school with Ryota. Sitri is similar with Kengo. As such, given Sitri and Yule aren't in guilds as far as we're aware, assuming being attached to a school doesn't make one connected to Tokyo, we can assume they're stray transients. This means that they'd been here for years, as strays. Given we know stray transients disappear eventually, it's safe to assume that there have been stray transients who disappeared and went home. Assuming it isn't different per individual, stray transients can stay in Tokyo for several months to several years, but to my awareness there's no set number.

Going Home: in order to go home a transient who's been summoned must fulfil their summoner/pacted humancs desire. Surtr, Azathoth, and Babalon all disappear after fulfilling Arc's desire for them to be their family, leaving behind their sacred artifacts which contain their memories until they disappeared. So, yes, fulfilling the desire entrusted to a transient/playing out their role will cause them to fulfil the conditions of their pact, causing them to disappear. However, we don't know what happens when they do. Thus far, those three haven't come back despite the reset occurring. Arc was able to summon their artifacts but otherwise could not reach them. Their artifacts were taken by Breke who was able to channel the memories within and allow Arc to communicate with Azathoth's memories.

SLIGHTLY MORE FULL VERSION WITH A COUPLE SCREENSHOTS

(read the tl;dr anyway because I probably remembered things while Inwas writing it that I didn't remember to put in the 'full' version lol I WROTE MOST OF THE LONG ONE, WROTE OUT THE TL;DR, THEN FINISHED THE LONG ONE SO. PROBABLY WANNA READ BOTH.)

Transients arrive in Tokyo either by being summoned, by being summoned ACCIDENTALLY(someone wishes to have friends/meet someone new, etc), by being pulled in by the Rainbow Of Transient Light randomly(?) sucking them up when they're in distress/have a wish to fulfil, or some combination of those.

In Macan's character quest, MC and Macan learn that the one who technically summoned Macan was MC. The same thing happens in I think Xolotl's. They end up going to the collided past--or a collided memory?--and when past!Macan is in distress over being alone, MC approaches him and says they're there for him, however past!Macan can only hear them, not see them. He calms down and asks if they're searching for him and says he's going to find them--which causes him to disappear and be summoned to Tokyo in search of this person who wanted to be by his side. Macan realizes that's exactly what happened to him--he heard a voice saying that they were with him and, in his desire to no longer be alone, the transient light came along and took him.

(it's written as 'Magan' in Japanese hence why it's written that way here--this was likely translated before his English name was given.) (Such a request, perhaps, means that he's with MC until he's dismissed by them specifically.)

Xolotl was running from being sacrificed to Tezcatlipoca and MC and future!Xolotl protected him. Seeing himself be weak and seeing himself be strong enough to try and protect MC and seeing MC who refused to leave him and hearing what they had to say, he desired the strength to live with the people he loves and for there to not be sacrifices again. He may not have gone to Tokyo if he hadn't realized that desire through meeting himself and MC. In fact, he may not have survived at all(though maybe Quetzalcoatl would've protected him if not collided MC and present!Xolotl.)

SO. If you recall correctly, MC is implied to be a transient as well. There's also the possibility that they're not, and simply are some poor sob the Game shoved 23+ memories in at once, broke the memories of the host in the proccess, and thus we have MC coming to in a park confused about everything but their own name(of course if that were the case surely someone in Tokyo would recognize them beyond their being the trophy/exile from their home world, so it's not likely.) Lil Salomon says that as a summoned transient they can only go home if they find and fulfil the wishes of their summoner. However they neither know who or where their summoner is.

Transients can appear simply due to someone's desire for companionship. But they don't necessarily appear atop that person, hence not knowing their summoner. They just hear a voice, may not even hear exactly what's being said or asked for, and the light picks them up and drops them off with no further info or ceremony. So if someone is pulled into Tokyo this way they have a summoner even if they don't know it--even if the summoner themself doesn't know. So they won't just disappear over time unless that person unwills what willed them there or they die or something. Plus we don't know how long stray transients stick around if they have no pact/summoner--we just know that they disappear eventually. It's more than a few months, because Alp showed up a few months ago and hasn't disappeared yet.

Several characters are attached to guilds which may keep them from being Strays. However some, to our awareness, have neither summoner/master nor guild. At most they may be attached to schools. Sitri, as you mentioned, is one of them, as is Yule--whom Shiro refers to as a stray transient he sees every year without being corrected(although the situation wasn't exactly a good time to clarify that lol.)

Both of them have been in Tokyo for years without disappearing--and the app is a kind of but not super recent creation, so guilds likely didn't sustain them this whole time. Neither have disappeared. Of course someone may have summoned them or they may be part of guilds without it being stated or perhaps being in a school has the same effect as being in a guild. But we don't know that for sure, either.

(Japanese middle school is from 12-15 years old. Kengo's a second year High School student now, so 16-17 years old. Sitri was a first year while Kengo was a third year, so there's two grades between them. Sitri's been in Tokyo at least 2 years. I believe he mentions seeing Lucifuge in a magazine in Ghenna so he hasn't been here his whole life either. So a few years, but not 15.)

Transients that disappear don't have pacts but transients that come back probably do/have formed pacts/attachments to the world. Remember, Oniwaka, Zabaniyya, and Ophion say to call on them if you need them. They're attached to the player now, perhaps having formed a pact incidentally, assuming the situation that brought them there in the first place isn't still in effect(or they're not still bound by, say, their guild.)

Also, much like in real life, sometimes whatever is home is worse than the horrific things you deal with wherever you immigrate to. Or perhaps you've formed attachments somewhere you've arrived and are willing to endure suffering for them. It's rarely as simple as "we're suffering, we wanna go back to where we came from." Especially since transients likely arrived due to distress or wanting to be anywhere else but home. Some of their worlds don't exist anymore(Old Ones) or are collapsing(Yggdrasil; El Dorado.) Some people have no one and nothing back home and this is a new start for them, even if the start is bad. Also they could be waiting until they go home automatically, but what're you gonna do while you wait? Probably live your life as best you can. If you're gojna be stuck somewherefor a few months you may as well make yourself at home.

So why doesn't MC go around rending people themself?

Well, for starters, they're made to be a high school student most of the day. Where would they find the time lol. Second they're a bit busy trying to save the world and all. . .and if some teenager wandered up to you and said they could get you home if you had an app battle with them, would you really believe that when you've been told your best bet is to either find your summoner or wait out your incidental connection to the world? Sounds like a kid trying to stir up trouble, and not all transients have the app anyway. I mean really would you expect the local homeless population to have smartphones? Probably not.

Furthermore. Spoiler alert

This system of the game, the gates, the transients, it's no accident. It's intentional. Tokyo is the setting for this inter-world competition to prove which world is strongest or something to that effect--and the winner gets MC, the host of the exiles and perhaps some kind of powerful system. Of course what they do with MC is up to them. The Warmongers want to keep the game going so they can fight the powerful MV over and over again forever. We don't know what the Invaders want yet afaik but based on the name I'd assume they want to use MC as a super soldier to conquer other worlds. And the Rule Makers want to use MC to support one of their own worlds as its System. /smacks MC on the back) this baby can hold SO MANY rules and roles! Hold up a whole damn world apparently!!

So think of it this way. . .they could go around rending everyone until the transient light returns them home or to the deaths they desire. . .but would the World Representatives really allow that? They'd just keep bringing in transients. They need to fill Tokyo with them--until transients and app users outnumber the humans naturally belonging to Tokyo--so they can have their little contest.

MC alone would never be able to pull off sending everyone home as long as the Game is running. The worlds would not allow their contest to be ruined.

As for who goes where and does what when unsummoned. The Red Oni hadn't been there long. And perhaps wasn't summoned in the first place, nor had anyone likely explained much to them for that arrival. Also if you felt yourself disappearing, felt your connection to this world just torn off and uprooted and fading away, even if you knew better you'd probably think you're dying. That'd be scary. You'd want to avoid it.

Of course it's also possible the oni was dead or dying to begin with and their connection being severed would send them back to death--like Shino, who'd died long ago in the Land of Wa and when he died in Tokyo he went back to being dead.

The D-Evils don't have anywhere to go back to besides Shiro's book. The world of the Old Ones is gone. As such "home" for them is back with Shiro--and remember, their rules clash anyway. Rending and Ressurection don't mix. MC couldn't rend the D-Evils from Shiro properly because it causes an Exception. At best rending them will send them back to the book until Shiro summons them again. Plus, entities from Old Ones can use their powers without the use of the app--including those with Old Ones artifacts. Shiro can summon the D-Evils at any time, even outside of an app battle--so to send them 'home' doesn't really send them anywhere but back to Shiro since they both have no home to return to and were summoned to exist in Tokyo.

Demons needing to recieve emotions seems to be more of a feeding thing than a transient connection one afair. Like Alp eating dreams--he'll die if he doesn't. It's like "I need to external feelings or I'll starve" not "I need external feelings or I go back to Ghenna." Sitri likely survived thanks to his feathers--his sacred artifact which cause people they attach to to fall in love with whoever touched them previously--causing a constant stream of love towards him as he needs it. As such he doesn't need to have a pact to live, he only needs to make people fall for him to absorb that feeling and then take his feathers back to stop eating.

The canon-ness of MC making pacts with everyone is perhaps debateable. However events, character quests, special quests, etc have characters refer to Mc as Master or Summoner. And the story can sometimes reference events and such(see: meeting characters in events before they're part of the main story, meeting them in the main story, and being able to go "didn't I meet you in [season/holiday]?" And they go "yeah, we did! It's nice to see you again!" So technically events and the like are as canon as you make them. Also having a pact doesn't mean that person can't be your enemy or can't hurt you or is fully at your command, which means that it doesn't necessarily not make sense that characters can be in pacts with/summoned by the player while still being against them. MC likely has the ability to form pacts easily/unconsciously.

This is likely(and this part is speculation!) because of MC's role as the Wanderer--as the host of the Exiles of the many worlds, they're a system in and of themself(or they'e able to be one.) As such attachments to them are like individuals having 'faith' in them, the way Systems sustain worlds. Especially those who had some relationship with or attachment to an Exile they host. This may also cause a pseudo pact with people they meet and get attached to(and are attached to them in turn, not necessarily in a positive way)--like people believing in a faith. The attachment to them, love for them, hate of them, fear of them, is a sort of belief that causes them to be able to stay in Tokyo longer because they are now unwittingly part of MC's system. After all MC is a transient and transients, as far as I recall/understand, don't summon other transients to Tokyo, they only summon artifacts because bringing a whole person and their memories requires a strong means to bind them. Transients' connections are already dependent on someone/something else--which is already taxing as a pregnancy--and that'd be hard for them unless they were born into Tokyo.

In cases like Oniwaka and Zabaniyya and Ophion, they likely needed to disappear temporarily in order to resolve the Exception on top of regaining energy to sustain physical forms in another world. Think of it like closing a program on your computer. If the program clashed with another and an exception occurs you close the one of lesser importance. You can then maybe open it again once things have cooled down with your proccesser and it can handle them at the same time--thus, they come back to Tokyo even after being dismissed by fixing the exception.

So they pop back in because they're still bound to Tokyo. MC only rended them from the exception, not from the world itself. But transients who truly have no connection will go back and stay until summoned again. . . .

(Now that I think about it when someone fulfils the reason they were summoned to Tokyo they disappear and seem to disappear for good. We don't know if they die or what. They've been eliminated from the game. This happens with Surtr, Babalon, and Azathoth. After they successfully, properly became like Arc's family and that desire was considered fulfilled the pact was complete and they disappeared, leaving behind their artifacts.

Red Oni may have been summoned to be a tutorial for the player. But also a tutorial for the player character. Red Oni thus would go away completely after fulfilling that desire of whoever summoned them, thus giving them their fear they'd die because they'd served their purpose.

I just happened to remember/consider that lol ANYWAY.)

Basically it's a bit underexplained I agree.

But that's because you, as the player, as the MC, aren't supposed to know everything that's going on. You're supposed to learn as you go while also being denied information by the Powers That Be. You don't have your memories, you don't know what's going on here until you see/experience/hear about it. It's part of the immersive understanding/storytelling proccess. The characters don't tell you how things work because they only barely understand it themselves--and then when they learn 'this isn't just a game, this isn't just coincidence, there's something greater happening here' everything they know gets thrown into question. The people who do understand it aren't going to tell you much because they don't want you to ruin their game. You're just the final boss and the trophy to be won--and possibly the system upon which the game resides, resetting every time you die so you can struggle to be won someday.

You "can't win."

So you don't need to know how it works.

That doesn't stop you or anyone else from trying to find out, though, nor does it stop you from trying to change it.

. . .I hope that helped a bit! 8'D I don't think you missed much, really. You're right in that it's underexplained but That's Storytelling, Baby!

[legalist217]

Grisha Trilogy: in defense of That Ending

My hottest take: the end of Ruin and Rising, while shocking in the moment, is fully consistent with the themes of the book and the Grisha Trilogy as a whole. Further, to feel as though Leigh Bardugo did not tell the story she meant to tell from the outset (for whatever reason, be it executive meddling or chickening out at the last minute) is doing her narrative a disservice at minimum and might at most be missing the point of the series.

This is the part where my good sis @alskaichou and I disagree to disagree and I accept that. Also this essay thing is by and large directed at Tara, and is just being written out longform for efficiency’s sake. So if you disagree with it, it’s not personal. (Unless you’re Tara. And even then, it’s not personal; I just… disagree… with you...) I’d also like it known that I’m only consulting the text, my own notes, and my own thoughts for this analysis... so if these end up being common Hot Takes, welp. 

Also, mass spoilers directly ahead.

To make sure there’s zero ambiguity in what I mean, I’m saying that both the part where Alina gets depowered and the part where Malina is endgame feel like they were intended right from the start, and to argue that the author intended otherwise may be missing a thematic point.

Okay, so, where do I get off with this flaming hot take? There are two keys, in my opinion: Alina’s narration, and the character of Ilya Morozova.

When I was recapping these books, I spent a lot of time bemoaning Alina’s lack of ambition. Here’s this girl with all this OPPORTUNITY, and yet she keeps going for the lowest-hanging fruits of dangerous power, and that’s when she’s even bothering. But… here’s the thing. I’ve been reflecting ever since reading the ending on what Alina was actually saying in her narration. And I realized something: I am pretty sure Alina wasn’t looking for power, or even opportunity.

The problem for Alina is that for most of the series, she’s faced with two extremes. She can smother her Grisha gift and be extremely weak even for an otkazat’sya, or she can accept her Sun Summoner status… which comes with a ton of prestige, prominence, and responsibilities she never asked to have. For her, the options are being a saltwife or being a queen. And Alina just wants to be normal. Just wants to be physically unhampered and able to pursue the life an otkazat’sya may have.

I realize that’s disappointing. It does tend to go against not only what we want from our protagonists (which is in fantasy often “start ordinary but end up extraordinary”), but even more specifically it goes against what we want from a YA protagonist, particularly a female one. We want role models. We want strong female protagonists. We want them to make the right choices. But therein may have lain a trap we set for ourselves.

When I was reading the first book, I fully expected Mal to be killed off within the first fifty pages. I then fully expected him to become the Gale to Alina’s Katniss--the childhood friend who isn’t extraordinary like the protagonist and just can’t keep up with the life she’s destined to lead. The books do lean into this, with the pair of them breaking up over the course of Siege and Storm due to him being unable to understand the person she’s become and resenting that she’s no longer the girl he grew up with, and by the middle of Ruin and Rising, both of them seem committed to a permanent separation so that Alina can be the best Alina she can be and Mal won’t hold her back. 

But... here’s the thing: the reason Mal wouldn’t be a good match for Alina is, by and large, rooted in societal factors which insist that otkazat’sya will never bother to understand Grisha, so trying to build a life together is foolish. I mean, set aside all the prestige that Alina gets for being this unique Sun Summoner, and even then, there’s this artificial divide which the Darkling smugly predicted would occur between them. But if that hadn’t been there, would Mal have been deeply in love with her and likely an unambiguously suited match?

According to the books? Yep. Mal has never had eyes for any girl that isn’t Alina, and that’s something that started even when they were still living at the orphanage, which he suppressed because, well hey, that’s his best friend, he can’t be like that towards her. And when Alina asks him the question I had, which was whether their bond had been falsely forged by the amplifier inside him, the two of them end up having a very sweet conversation about all the human reasons why they love each other regardless of that magnetic draw. 

Does Mal have some growing up to do? Oh, hell yes. But so does Alina. And like it or not (and I know where you are on this, mate), I think they’re a couple who have the foundation and moreover the willingness to grow together. To weather those shitty arguments and those periods of maturation. Because they both care deeply for one another, and they share common interests and goals in the endgame, which lend them a common purpose beyond twu wuv.

I haven’t forgotten all those other aspects of Alina and this ending which I brushed off--not just her powers, but her prestige. How can I so quickly go from “wtf is this ending” to “nah you know what I’m happy for them”?

Enter Ilya Morozova. Him and his obsessive, ultimate love of “ordinary” people, the characters that we readers on a meta level are somewhat trained to disregard and to hope our protagonist ascends well past. I agree with what Alina posits on (of all pages) pg 394; Morozova probably did expect the amplifiers to be united by a Grisha older than memories of memory. And that would be because it would mean they could rest at long last. 

More of this is coming into focus as I sit here and write. Of course Ilya Morozova never finished what he started. He wanted to. Baghra knew him well enough to get that right. But she didn’t understand his love of otkazat’sya, be it his wife or his daughter, even if she pays lip service to believing he felt it for them. She doesn’t understand that feeling her father had because she never felt anything of the sort for them, and why would she after all the persecution, after seeing her father and sister thrown into the sea? 

Baghra understood that he wanted to finish his project. What she failed to realize was that it was not about creating the amplifiers. It was about uniting them. And how could this man do that to his daughter, or her child, or her grandchild? How long before he took his life rather than contemplate this non-choice, I wonder?

Morozova wanted a world where he and his wife would understand each other, where his family would not be cast out by the village. Hence the amplifiers. Hence their ultimate effect. Baghra’s Grisha gift, if you think about it, almost feels like a Newton’s Third Law situation: the darkness brought into being to counteract the newly created light. Balance, as the Darkling would constantly harp on about. But balance is a regular diurnal cycle. Neither Fold nor weird merzost angels (which never happened, boo). I wonder whether any Sun Summoners will have Darkling children. Balance.

I’m veering off my intended track here: by uniting the amplifiers, Alina at once loses her gift and grants Sun Summoning to what’s described as being all the otkazat’sya in range. I don’t think that ended up eliminating the concept of otkazat’sya, unfortunately, but it does two things:

it levels the playing field and likely kicks open the door to Grisha becoming citizens (because how are otkazat’sya supposed to argue that they’re abominations or whatever when the gift can just randomly get flung onto you well past the standard age? actually don’t answer that im sure humans can find a way)

it sets Alina free

I feel like that second one is going to cause Objections, but refer to earlier when I mentioned she was trapped between the two extremes. Saltwife or queen. And while she’s spent three books psyching up to ascending some form of throne or another, she still... really doesn’t want it. And that? Matters. 

To throw down a kind of low blow here, I’m linking a post you enthusiastically reblogged about a young person who, when told they can be anything they want to be, confidently replies they want to be a secretary. Not a CEO, not a scientist, not a lawyer, not a doctor. A secretary.

Alina visibly misses several things over the course of this series. Occasionally it’s cartography. Often, it’s Mal. But mostly, and despite all the trauma that she endured there, she misses her childhood home at Keramzin. I didn’t realize until the ending just how many of her thoughts stray back to the Duke’s house, to lessons from Ana Kuya, to the grounds and the rooms. It may not have been particularly happy, but Alina’s childhood was important to her. And the fact that it wasn’t happy shapes her motivation as she looks to the future, once there’s a future to be had. 

Of course it isn’t something she ever considers in the series, but then again, when would she have had the opportunity to imagine taking over the orphanage? She was the weakest link in the regiment, then training to be the Most Important Grisha, then preparing for all-out war with the Most Dangerous Grisha, then preparing to be a Queen while maintaining appearances as a Saint. She wasn’t really allowed to have her own idea of her future at any point (that I can recall--my brain is still very fuzzy on book one), and the few times that she’s fleeing all these responsibilities, it’s to do nothing more specific than live with Mal, because to survive is all she dare dream of doing. 

Other people want her to be a queen. Including us readers, because it would be a satisfying end to her arc. But, at the end of it all, I think she really doesn’t want to be a queen. And if it weren’t for how the power is so intimately tied to her life force that not using it makes her sickly, I get the sense she would give up the Grisha gift as well. Of course she misses it once it’s gone, because using Grisha power feels good and encourages further use. It’s self-fulfilling. But it was something that kept her separated from her favorite person (because like it or not Mal sure is that for her), and that made her unhappy. 

Sure, we want stories that encourage girls to do what’s best for them and not just to settle for whatever gross man just because. But I think enough happens with Alina where settling down with Mal isn’t, in her case, “settling.” Girl had options. She also knew what made her happy. In the end? No accounting for taste.