#dk's s&b tv analysis

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I can't explain how much it upsets me that we don't know what the intended plotline for Inej's brother was in the show, since he wasn't in the books. Like were we going to meet him in season 3? In the spin off? Is he still alive? Is she going to save him? There were so many ways it could go; what if she hunts slavers for months without find him and starts to give up hope only for an offhand mention or some kind of lead to get her to him? What if he's Grisha and gets brought in for the parem plot line? What is she finds him after so long only to have him taken away again? Or what if they one day sail and hunt slavers together? It makes me so sad that there's practically endless possibilities and we don't know what the plan was

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Thinking about how cool it would’ve been if the Soc spinoff used Wylan’s knowledge of Fjerdan to expand on his friendship with Matthias, like when Matthias didn’t know the Kerch word for snow goggles in the book and he didn’t want to ask Nina he just pointed to them and said “keep your eyes covered” instead, but we could have had him turn to Wylan and say:

“Lamb. How do you say snow goggles in Kerch?”

And then Wylan would say “snow goggles” in Kerch (/English for audience purposes) and then Matthias would tell everyone to put their snow goggles on and we would see both Nina and Jesper seething right up until their eyes were covered - especially because Nina would understand what Matthias had just said.

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Ok y’all it’s time for a grishaverse world-building rant (mainly linked to soc/ck) and there’s a good chance this is gonna turn into a long and rambling post but bare with me.

*CONSISTENT GRISHAVERSE SPOILERS AHEAD*

In the Netflix show, why did they replace Alby’s lion toy with a toy train? I wanna talk about the absence of the lion, but also of all things why did they choose a train?

The train really stuck out to me when watching season 2 and at first I wasn’t my sure why, and just struck it up to the fact that I was expecting a plush lion. I think it’s absolutely notable that they exchanged the lion for a different toy, because the TV show didn’t give us as much opportunity for the foreshadowing surrounding Alby Rollins’ existence as we had in the book, since Van Eck is the key to a lot of the passages that foreshadow Rollins having a child. The fact that Kaz was able to present the lion was what served as “proof” for his attack on Alby, and is one of the best scenes showcasing Kaz’s incredible intellect. Since Kaz had never seen Alby, in fact had no concrete evidence of his existence whatsoever, he based the entire presence of the toy lion on Pekka’s pride in his gang, the Dime Lions. But since the show doesn’t have the opportunity to explain the gang culture of Ketterdam in as much detail as the books, which is obviously understandable and it’s the kind of thing I would expect to be lost in the transition from source to adaptation, they can’t make the assumption that the audience will associate the lion with the Dime Lions, particularly since they haven’t explored the gang tattoos (as a side note the meanings behind the tattoos are just *chefs kiss* but anyway-) So unless they were making specific effort to try and include more references to the lions earlier on, it makes sense to change the toy. It also leaves open the option for later in the show (fingers crossed, I’m praying for good news right now) to bring the lion in for different schemes and to create more anticipation and build up for the absolutely iconic Inej move of replacing the lion with a crow in the last chapter of Crooked Kingdom. So I understand the choice to change the type of toy that Kaz takes from Alby, especially since we already know that it’s Alby being used as the threat in this scene and in the books we didn’t, but of all the options why would they choose a toy train? My best guess is that it’s a nod to the Conductor and the train across the fold in season one, but it kind of annoys me because, other than the train that was added for the show and the tank in ck that is explained as amongst the first of its kind, THERE ARE NO MECHANICAL VEHICLES IN THIS UNIVERSE YET. None!!

We have to remember that the development of a constructed world is based on its needs and it’s understanding of it’s resources, not on mimicking the development of our own world; so although some people are probably thinking ‘well they recently developed flying vehicles, it makes sense for trains to exist before that’ I would genuinely argue that in this world it makes no sense whatsoever. We know from explanations in soc and ck (in Retvenko’s chapter mostly, but also in Joost’s and a few other references) that there has been no need to develop engines for boats because the winds can be calmed or summoned by Squallers; they fill the sails or fend off storms to keep the ships moving, there is no need for development thus far because grisha possess the natural resources to maintain the power they need. But in Ravka the presence of the shadow fold meant it became necessary to develop other options, so progress came about and Nikolai developed the Hummingbird. But it’s very important to note that (to my understanding at least, if you happen to know I’m wrong please feel free to correct me) the Hummingbird is still entirely dependent on Squaller power to maintain its flight, because development is always based on the previous model. Similarly, the tanks being the first motorised vehicles we’re introduced to makes perfect sense in the world we’ve come to know and understand, especially since we’re learning from the perspective of mostly Kerch-born or Kerch-living characters. Jesper tells us that there are very few carriages on the streets of Ketterdam, that horses are a luxury because the space to keep them is a luxury, not because they open up further modes of transportation - this is also emphasised by the knowledge that one of the greatest signs of prosperity in Ketterdam is a house with its own dock. This is because canals are the main way of moving, and since the boats and their squallers are a time-proven method of travel there’s no current need to develop engine mechanisms for boats, and cars aren’t needed because no-one would use them to travel. I’d also like to add that I realise not everyone has access to Squaller power, but the rich of Ketterdam do and they live in an incredibly classist society. In the Barrel, most of the boats are moved by rowing and/or punting, as is made clear at the end of soc when the crew row to meet Van Eck and he is brought by Squallers, and the theme is continued throughout ck.

The most likely place for cars to crop up first, based on what we’ve seen of the different countries, is probably Ravka; the country is a hub of innovation and the fabrikators there are the most free to practice their craft. However, Ravka is also a country that has been at war since it was founded, there is no room for any type of development that does not further their chances of survival against Fjerda, Shu Han, or their own civil war. Other places we might have expected to see motorisation pop up faster could be the farming provinces of Kerch and Novyi Zem, since they could be utilised for tractors and ploughs. But most innovation in Kerch is centralised around Ketterdam, where the engines are currently unecessary, and although I don’t know enough about Novyi Zem to argue either way the auction in Crooked Kingdom may imply that their government’s budget is lower those of Kerch, Fjerda, and Shu Han. (But again, we don’t have bundles of information about the Zemeni government so I’m not super confident there). We do, however, know that Jesper was the only one other than Matthias who already knew what a tank was when they got to Fjerda, and so it’s fair to predict that there’s been at least some development in that area in Novyi Zem, or at least enough interest for news of them to reach the gunsmith Jesper worked with. But let’s assume that the invention did come from Fjerda itself, at least for the time being. This makes perfect sense!! It was mostly likely developed, unbeknownst to Matthias, by the parem-drugged fabrikators being held at the Ice Court. Now that they have access to this power, Fjerda achieves all of the same tickboxes to be the initial place of engine development as Ravka does. Of course, Fjerda is also at war or under threat of it, but I think it’s important to remember that the Fjerdan government doesn’t really see war with Ravka as a threat at all. They see it more as an opportunity to prove themselves, to properly cement their position in the world economy and as a global power, which we know Kerch - or at least the general population of the country, if not the government - does not currently see it as. So it makes sense that their developmental focus would not be on ease of travel for the majority of its people by developing cars or flight machines, but on engines that can be used for dominance: tanks.

I’m hoping I’ve kind of got my point across here even if in a slightly convoluted way, but I want to add Inej’s quote from the scene with the tank to really cement the idea that this was development on a scale they had never experienced before: “They were moving - and not a horse in sight!” Someone who has seen a train at any point in her life, or who has any understanding that trains exist and work, is not going to be absolutely blown away by the concept of moving without the aid of horses. So why pick a train??? I don’t know, I’m clearly thinking far too much into it but I just… I dunno, it bothered me, there were so many other things to choose. I didn’t really mind the train in season one because it was set up like a one-of-a-kind contraption, but the idea of there being toy replicas of steam trains implies a very different level of development in a world clearly implied to be pre- its industrial revolutions.

Anyway, thanks for reading my mad ramblings! I have SO MANY thoughts about world building and structure in the Grishaverse, and world building as a browser topic as well, so if you want to hear anything more please let me know!

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*SPOILER WARNING FOR SHADOW AND BONE SEASON 2*

Ok I am absolutely buzzing to talk about the drugged grisha at the end of e8, and I know that sounds like a weird place to start - the very end of the show with a woman we’ve never met before who immediately dies - but there is so much going on here that really excites me. Now there’s LOADS of brilliant stuff to unpack in this scene, and I have thoughts about Alina, Nikolai, and the Crows as well, but right now I want to focus on the drugged Fjerdan grisha herself.

First of all, this scene was done FANTASTICALLY. I wrote down in my notes when we saw the newly amplified grisha that I was concerned it would be difficult to portray a clear difference between the power they have and the power that parem gives, but this scene immediately alleviated all of my fears.

In the brief time she’s on screen, the woman sits in the pews at Nikolai’s coronation, takes a dose of jurda parem, and attacks the congregation. We can assume that she’s heartrender based on the type of attack that she uses, and I think that we can also assume this was not her first dose of parem. She doesn’t stand when the rest of the congregation do, and although this could be interpreted as an act of defiance against the new king, she is also shown to be pale and struggling to breathe before she takes the drug. After taking it, we don’t see much of a physical change undertake her, only a massive amplification of power, which I think is reflective of the way that the initial high and power of the first dose can never be replicated. It could also hint that her drug has been mixed with a sedative to make her easier to control, which is what the Fjerdans do to their enslaved grisha. I think it’s safe to assume that the Fjerdans have spies deep in Ravka to be able to complete this action, and there are probably Drüskelle nearby as well to control her. This brings to what I think is most interesting about her character: the exclamation. When she steps up attack she shouts “Strymaktfjerdan!”, which translates to “Fjerdan might”. As a plot device this is to tell the audience that she was sent by Fjerda and that Fjerda have access to jurda parem, but from a character point of view this is an absolute goldmine of information about her. We can assume she grew up in Fjerda, meaning she’s lived most of her life hiding her power and probably has little to no training surrounding it. This should be immediately frightening: with no training she could attack an entire chapel of people, very nearly succeeding in killing them all within moments, and she didn’t even need a clear line of sight since there were plenty of pews behind her where the people were still affected, so what can we expect from trained grisha? But we also know that she’s grown up in a country that despises her, where she will only have survived this long by desperately lying to hide her identity, and could only be sent here by the Fjerdan government if she’d been caught - and yet she still believes in her country and exclaims its might. She is praising a government that has literally enslaved her and led her to her death, as they have done with thousands of other grisha. My personal headcanon here is that she is deeply indoctrinated by the Fjerdan government and has grown up to hate herself because of the world she is surrounded by. When she was eventually caught, she was offered to go to Ravka and serve her country in this way instead of going to trial and death, so she agreed. I imagine that she was only offered this because the experiments with parem meant the Fjerdans knew she would die anyway, and even if the parem itself (or Alina) didn’t finish her off, then she would be killed or tortured on her return in the Ice Court laboratory. My headcanon is that she was offered this proposition by Jarl Brum, and this is how they intend to write him in ready for the Six of Crows spin off show

(Also, if you happen to be familiar with my tumblr then it might not surprise you to know that I’ve (so far) filled 28 pages of my little notebook whilst watching the new season, and I only started making notes in episode 6, so believe me when I say that if you like these posts I have plenty more to come)

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*Shadow and bone season 2 spoiler warning!!!*

It’s time to talk about the costumes in season 2. I did not think that it was possible to top what the costume department pulled of in season one but damn if they didn’t outdo themselves!!!!

Miracles were performed.

First of all, the Kefta redesigns for the Darkling’s grisha were absolutely brilliant. The costumes featured mostly the same colour choices to represent each order, but in darker tones and with different styles of embroidery to their Little Palace counterparts. This is a physical representation of their allegiance to the Darkling, creating a clear divide between his grisha and those loyal to Alina, but I think it could possibly also represent the fact that their power has been warped by an amplifier from someone born of merzost, since it means they no longer fit in with the other grisha. This could possibly even be foreshadowing the way Nina feels that she can no longer fit in with other grisha after her power is changed by parem, since she believes her new abilities to be closer to merzost than the small science. The new costuming for the Darkling’s grisha also includes a tattoo on their hands, and although I don’t want to talk about it in too much detail here because I’m planning a post with specific focus on that tattoo, I did want to mention it as a very interesting aspect of their appearances that once again separates them from the other grisha. The Darkling’s own Kefta has also been redesigned, I don’t have anything to say about it that hasn’t already been talked about by Ben Barnes and Jessie Mei Li in interviews and the costume department tour video, but basically they said that the gold detailing represents the tether and the way the Darkling and Alina now share some of each other’s powers and I absolutely love that detail!

What’s interesting about Genya’s costume is that she never gets a redesigned Kefta when she’s still with the Darkling, but returns to the red and blue she wore at the end of season one. This represents her allegiance not fully lying with the Darkling, or by this point not at all, but it’s also the Kefta she was wearing when Alina felt she had betrayed her; creating a painful and permanent reminder to the audience of the way Genya has been manipulated and abused even through the control of her friends so that she had no-one left to trust, or who she believes will trust her. No-one except David, who also never wears a redesigned Kefta. One of my favourite things about Genya’s costuming, however, was that they put her in her civilian clothes when she was attacked by the Darkling and the nichevo’ya. This was incredibly powerful, because it highlighted her complete lack of power: in this scene she was not a soldier, she was not a member of the Second Army or any kind of rebellion, she was not even a Tailor. In this scene she was just a girl who had been hurt, manipulated, and abused, and who had run out of places to hide. For me, it made this moment even more painful and even more powerful because it was her renouncing what she said to Alina - “I am his soldier” - and forcing the audience to witness her pain as exactly what Alina replied: “We are his pawns. Nothing more”.

The only thing I would change about Genya’s costuming, is that I would have given her a veil after the attack. For me reading the book, Genya’s veil became a brilliantly important symbol as a physical manifestation of her psychological progress. When she eventually sheds the veil, it is because she feels that she is safe to do so and it’s Alina that helps her come to that conclusion. Both seasons have proven to us that the costume department are FANTASTIC at bringing symbols and little details to life, and I think they could have had an absolute field day with this.

The only other thing about costumes written in my notes is “whoever gave Jesper a skirt deserves a raise, but could they have given him a skirt that went with the rest of the suit a bit better?” but honestly I’m rewatching right now and the combo of that suit and that skirt is growing on me.

…Sorry for yet another massively long post. I’m very excited.

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I just found the notebook that I made my notes in the first time I watched season 2 of Shadow and Bone; I shared most of the analysis in here at the time but I talk to my notebook as if I’m texting someone and some of this is quite funny (and some of it is some interesting stuff I don’t think I’ve shared yet) so enjoy a few gems from the very messy handwritten scrawls I was making as the show played in real time:

(I should also note I only started around episode 6 and then went back to do the others, it was the hallucinations that made me realise I wasn’t going to be able to keep these thoughts in my head and I needed to put pen to paper lol)

“Ohval link to parem????”

“I already miss Baghra :(”

“I want to know why they got rid of the Apparat & cult storyline, as much as I hate him”

“I assume the reason Ohval appears so much younger than the Disciple is because she’s grisha, but in that case how powerful is she -

Ohhhhhh never mind, I got it.

Beautiful Zoya foreshadowing!”

There are 4 full pages in here about Inej’s hallucination…

“Why does Inej give Kaz his butterfly last?

[…]

I think she’s scared of being the one who makes him suffer”

“The Darkling saying “I have always known your worth” to Tidemaker girlie is very reminiscent of Heleen in the books saying “I know what you’re worth, little Lynx, right down to the cent” when talking about selling Inej. Very creepy, brilliantly done, the implications are genius but also very sad”

‘ “Deserve her” <- cryingggggggggg’

“THE PARALLEL BETWEEN THE DARKLING AND ALINA THROUGH THE AMPLIFIERS FROM BAGHRA AND MAL OMG”

I’m assuming this was when he died, but there’s literally no context it just says:

“DOMINIK!!”

“Whose cut hit Mal??????”

“DID SHE ACTUALLY JUST KILL MAL ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME OH MY GOD”

Bottom of page: “We still don’t know what happened to David”

Top of next page: “So, I was absolutely right to be scared for David. I really wasn’t prepared for this”

Partway through the last episode I stopped writing in real time and decided to just focus and then gather all my thoughts afterwards. Once I’ve written a note saying that, there are then 12 pages of writing from when I’d finished the episode, immediately followed by 2 pages about costumes

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Fruzsi and the Importance of Her Character in Season 2 of Shadow and Bone

Okay I feel like I have been continuously teasing this post for a ridiculously long time and I have finally gotten around to writing it, I also feel like the fact that I talked about it so much might have built it up to sound bigger than it is but honestly I think that Fruzsi is a FASCINATING character study; I'm very excited to talk about her and have finally found the time (yay!) so hopefully you guys will find this at least a little bit interesting too

Tagging people who registered their interest here but please don’t feel pressured to read <3 @merlinxmagic @girasoljpg @atmosphericwrites @naushtheaspiringauthor @lunarthecorvus

SHOW AND BOOK SPOILERS AHEAD + TALKING ABOUT GRISHAVERSE SETUP & THE CHARACTERS' BACKSTORIES/EXPERIENCES (Mostly Zoya, Genya, Alina, Fruzsi, and Inej)

Super quick recap since of her story so we're on the same page as we begin: Fruzsi first appeared in Season 2 Episode 2 of Shadow and Bone and is a Grisha Tidemaker loyal to the Darkling. Her parents sold her to the Darkling when she was a child, its unclear how old she was, and we should take into consideration in this matter that there is no indication whatsoever that she was ever at the Little Palace since none of the other Grisha seem to recognise or know her and vice versa. She is instrumental in the Darkling's army and receives one of the amplifiers made from Baghra's bones, subsequently learning to manipulate water molecules into ice shafts that she can use as a weapon. She is responsible for Dominik's death towards the end of the season and is subsequently killed by Nikolai.

So right off the bat whenever anyone talks about Fruzsi I tend to see two things: "wannabe Zoya" and “the power of her amplifier was a problem because it will be too difficult to differentiate between amplifiers and parem". I've taked before about my thoughts on amplifiers and parem and why I didn't think it was going to be a problem for the Six of Crows spinoff show (*sobs*) but the general consensus seems to be that not only was Fruzsi an unlikeable character because of her actions, but because she was seen as a only being there to provide an enemy and a hand of the Darkling, and I think that's a real shame because she is a fascinating character and she tells us SO MUCH about the Darkling and other major characters. My personal favourite details about Fruzsi are her parallels with Zoya and the point from which they run opposing, the parallels she has to Genya and Inej and the subsequent parallels that her introduction creates between the Darkling and Heleen Van Houden, and the setup of Fruzsi, Vatra, and the Darkling's other Grisha to create genuine empathy for villainous characters for the reflections of the protagonists we can see in them.

Fruzsi's introduction in episode two begins with the Darkling arriving to see her and saying that she made it in good time - now we don't know where she travelled from, so yeah it could be the Little Palace (he was travelling from the base he set up in episode 1) but personally I don't think that there's much implication she ever lived there considering she doesn't know any of the other Grisha and she doesn't wear a kefta until the Darkling has new ones created for his new army. She's wearing pretty typical clothes that we see of the Ravkan population when we first meet her; a blouse and ankle-length skirt with a long coat, and from the very start is in dark shades that visually connect her to the Darkling in the audience's eye. Although she isn't hesitant to speak to him she shows consistent discomfort around the Darkling, making small steps away from him when he raises his hand and acknowledging non-verbal orders from him with immediate effect, as well as confirming that she never broke her promise to not open the Journal of Morozova without prompting and somewhat hurriedly. The Darkling is actually pretty quiet throughout most of this scene, cutting of Fruzsi's sentences and instructing her but not following any attempts she makes to initiate real conversation. When he tells her to reveal Baghra from behind the waterfall she asks him if he's sure, one of few instances in which she questions him, and after barely a second of maintained eye contact between them she turns away, physically bunching her shoulders and seeming to shrink in on herself, before turning to the waterfall and completing the task in silence. Everything we see of Fruzsi in this scene seems to contradict Baghra's later description of her as "deranged" and I think that this is really very noteworthy, because we start to develop this idea that Fruzsi's actions are different in front of the Darkling than when he isn't present - particularly since we know in this scene that Baghra has not seen the Darkling in weeks and has been alone with Fruzsi during that time. We actually don't see Fruzsi without the Darkling until very late in the show (episode 7), when her anger at the world and her easy ability to command the other Grisha are revealed ("First Army did this [...] If they wear the uniform they are all the same. Kill them all!"). We get this brilliantly foreboding image of her marching so confidently through the carnage with soldiers of both sides running and shouting and fighting and dying all around her while she barely shows any kind of response but to calmly begin her own method of very direct attack against Nikolai after walking through the battle completely untouched. If anything, Fruzsi seems quite unbothered by the entire thing until she fails to kill Nikolai, killing Dominik and several others instead, and screams her frustration before being forced to run for cover from approaching soldiers. After this her attacks are arguably much more emotional because she feels challenged and as though she has failed (relevant as I'll cover later because of the way the Darkling manipulates her), but all of this seemingly culminates only when Vatra dies, and in that moment we get this wonderfully clever shot of them holding each other's hands so that we can see the tattoos (I'm going to rant about the tattoos in this post) and then we see Vatra smiling in her final moments (that's gonna come up again as well). This moment is the most emotional we ever get to see Fruzsi; she looks down at Vatra, sheds a silent tear, and begins to exhibit more power than we have ever seen in her before. It is bare moments after this that she loses her fingers in an attack from Jesper and mere minutes afterwards that Nikolai shoots her in the throat and she dies.

It's confirmed in s2e7 that Fruzsi's parents attempted to sell her to the Darkling and arguably this is where her parallels with Zoya begin - "You remember when your family first brought you to me? The price they demanded when they discovered you were Grisha?" "Perhaps now I can repay the debt" "I would have paid it 100 times over". Ugh this angers me so much. He bought her and she believes, she genuinely believes, that she owes him for that. I'm going to talk about the structure of this relationship really strongly echoing Heleen Van Houden later on but particularly in this moment we understand that there is something here very similar to the Kerch indenture system that I'm actually really glad to see included as part of the worldbuilding and development in the show since we didn't get the opportunity to explore it as much in Kerch (*screams frustrations into the wind*)

Although we sadly didn't get the chance to explore Zoya's story in the show (*cries in cancellation*) it's explained in the final duology of the book series that her mother attempted to sell nine-year-old Zoya as a bride to 63-year-old, very rich, and twice-widowed Valentin Grankin. When Zoya's aunt, Lilyana, attempted to stop the wedding Grankin attacked and nearly killed her; in fear for herself and her aunt Zoya experienced a massive, terrified outburst of power, which was how she discovered she was Grisha, and Lilyana was able to rescue her and take her to Os Alta. My absolute favourite take on Fruzsi is that she is Zoya's Shadow, which is an idea that my friend voiced whilst we were watching the show and we discussed together at length at the time, but that I have never seen anyone talking about online.

The idea of having a Shadow comes from Suli culture and is explained to us in Crooked Kingdom by Inej; whenever a person does wrong it gives life to their shadow, with every action making the Shadow stronger until they are stronger than the original person and the person is defeated by the wrongs they've done - or learns to overcome them and defeat the Shadow. Inej's believes that her Shadow is Dunyasha and she fights her in Crooked Kingdom. I FREAKING LOVE the theory that Fruzsi is Zoya's Shadow because their stories parallel each other very well; both are abused and sold by their families only to be taken in by the Darkling and manipulated into believing that he is their saviour. The Darkling very much works by making others feel that they owe him something for any action he completes, just as we see in his manipulation and abuse of Alina, and Fruzsi and Zoya are prime examples of this. We even have two very similar scene setups between season 1 and season 2 that show us just how similar the Darkling and Zoya are in terms of the pent up rage that they keep private - in season 1 where the Darkling leaves Zoya alone in his room whilst she is trying to initiate intimacy because he is manipulating her and Alina against each other and wants to make Zoya feel like she has been abandoned in favour of a newer, shinier toy and once he's left Zoya screams her frustration and releases a gust of Squaller power that disrupts his chamber, and in season 2 when Fruzsi, in her second appearance (now wearing the new dark kefta design) hesitantly informs the Darkling that David stole Morozova's Journal and is immediately dismissed before the Darkling screams his frustrations and uses the tether to find and haunt Alina. Although this comparison between the Darkling and Zoya is of course more obvious it also gives us an idea of similarities between Zoya and Fruzsi because it extends this implication we have that Fruzsi acts very differently out of the Darkling's presence than in - and considering that at this point we have never seen her without him we have this gathering sense of intrigue about her backstory and her character. In a similar-ish manner we also have the scene in s2e5 when we get another example of the few times Fruzsi attempts to stand up to the Darkling, in this case openly telling him that they would do better to redirect their efforts North because it would be "the more strategic move"; the Darkling's response is to threaten her with his Nichevo'ya and manipulate her in a similar way that he does Zoya by replying "Alina Starkov is worth more than any army. So at the risk of sounding repetitive... find her", actively diminishing Fruzsi when he's been purposefully making her feel important and like she matters to him so that she feels she must redouble her efforts for him to notice and appreciate her and therefore desperately hopes to do a better job of bending to his will, especially since he's basically turned her entire purpose and usefulness to him into brining Alina back to him. Ugh this man i swear. I'm going to go on to talk about parallels between Fruzsi and Genya pretty soon so in this respect as well I want to add emphasis to the fact that when she disagrees with him on a point - and mind you not that she makes any suggestion of betraying his cause but only that she thinks they should take a different tactic to be more successful in it - he uses the presence of the Nichevo'ya to scare her into submission. The next time he gives her an order (to take down the First Army encampments) she agrees immediately and barely speaks to him except to ask "And what of the Sun Summoner?" - And note this is after she has taken Genya to the other Grisha because she was told to show her off as an example.

I have to say that at this point in time I was not expecting her to be the gold mine she became, and it's looking back on it knowing more about her backstory that I notice a lot of smaller details in the way she acts around him that consistently suggest she is afraid of him and I think that is shown really well in Reford's performance, I don't see her getting enough of the praise that she deserves - she was great!

Am I even making sense? Anyway

Fruzsi and Zoya are consistently presented with these similarities and I really love the idea that she represents what Zoya would have become without the influence of our other main characters, particular Alina and Genya. I really like the idea that she's Zoya's Shaodw and a literal, living embodiment of the wrng that Zoya did under the Darkling's command, but the only place that I think this theory falls short is in Fruzsi's death. If Fruzsi was truly Zoya's Shadow then they would have to face each other for one of them to die, but Fruzsi was killed by Nikolai in the aftermath of Dominik's death. However, I also think that there was standing there to start developing something truly, truly poetic in Nikolai killing Zoya's Shadow and Zoya later killing Nikolai's (or maybe even metaphorically doing so in trying to help rid him of the demon??) BUT I GUESS NOW WE'LL NEVER KNOW (*screams*) (*cries*) (*curses Netflix’s name*)

Now moving on to her parallels with Genya and Inej. I think that the loss of Heleen from season 2 (which I’ve shared my thoughts about a bit in the past so won’t go on about now) left a hole that was, in a way I didn’t quite expect, filled more by the Darkling than it was Pekka Rollins. There are multiple quotes from the Darkling this season, mostly directed towards Fruzsi and Genya, that I find to have very specific reminiscence of some of Heleen’s quotes from the the Six of Crows duology and this was the most obvious one for me, and the one that originally made me think of this particular comparison:

"I have always known your worth. Now show me," - the Darkling, s2e7, in the conversation where he specifically states that he bought Fruzsi and she specifically states that she owes him a debt for that

"I know your worth, little Lynx, right down to the cent" - Heleen, Six of Crows, to Inej when torturing Inej with the implication that she intends to find a way to bring her back to the Menagerie ("You'll wear my silks again, I promise")

(Also as a quick addition I think that so much can be said about Rachel Redford's acting in this specific moment of season 2 episode 7 after the Darkling delivers that line. She looks up at him, and the proxemics + their actual heights I must admit have a brilliant added effect to this, with what starts as such genuine sorrow but so quickly turns to such fierce determination before she shows him what she's capable of now that she has the amplifier. After her demonstration she is almost in shock at the revelation of what she was able to do but the pure exultation, the relief, the triumph in her expression does not even come close to existing until the moment that the Darkling says "extraordinary". He's not even looking at her - in fact, I don't doubt it possibly that he wasn't complimenting her herself but simply the creation of the amplifiers and their strength - but the expression on her face then is absolutely unmatched and it speaks VOLUMES) (I genuinely recommend rewatching that moment with this in mind because I cannot stop thinking about it)

And then layered on top of this, we have the tattoos. THE TATTOOS.

I made a specific post about the costuming in season 2, which you can read here if you’d like to, and that covers my thoughts on the new keftas but I didn’t go into detail on the tattoos at the time and I have a lot of thoughts about them. The Grishaverse, mostly the Six of Crows duology, uses tattoos incredibly symbolically and places particular emphasis on choosing to take the mark, creating a massively important bond to something that you deeply care about and will never want to break (gangs, Kaz’s ‘R’ for Rietveld), and being forced to take one on (the pleasure houses, of course most primarily Inej’s Menagerie tattoo). Although we don’t get as much emphasis on this since the show didn’t get the opportunity to explore the gang tattoos yet thus far (and I guess now it won’t *shakes fist at Netflix*) we did have focus surrounding Inej’s Menagerie tattoo and it’s removal in this season and, as much as I wish we’d been able to see her book canon tattoo removal (cut off by a butcher), this side by side comparison of the Grisha being given no option but to take on the amplifying tattoos and Nina using her Grisha power to remove Inej’s tattoo is absolutely fascinating and really well done.

So this for me creates an ongoing comparison between Fruzsi, Genya, and Inej - and taking on what I said about Fruzsi’s apparent absence from the Little Palace despite clearly having an established relationship with the Darkling and having been with him for some time, we can consider the earliest pieces of information we have about Genya’s life. Now it’s a long time since I read the S&B trilogy so I can’t remember if this specific detail is true to book canon but in the show Genya states that the Grisha testers found her when she was seven but that she was gifted to the Queen when she was eleven. We have no information about what happened to her during these four years, and yeah maybe she was at the Little Palace training but we don’t have confirmation of that and I wouldn’t trust the Darkling as far as I could throw him (which probably wouldn’t even crack a metre let’s be real). This also adds a really interesting layer to things with Fruzsi being the one instructed to show Genya off to the other Grisha as an example of what will happen if they try to betray the Darkling because we get this moment when she kneels down to take hold of Genya's chains and they are both sitting in the cage together that I think is really powerful in everything it says about how easily either of them could be in the other's position in that moment but we're also still very aware that Fruzsi has the far more power - or at least an illusion of it. In this same scene Baghra, about Genya, states "she served you loyally since she was a child, endured years of abuse on your orders, and you reduce her to an example? Oh Aleksander, where does this stop?" and honestly that is so brilliantly written (and so brilliantly delivered in the scene) that I don't think I need to say anything on top of it but when we consider this side by side with Fruzsi's position I think that this really is a very powerful parallel and a constant reminder that no-one who places their trust in the Darkling is ever safe, and that pretty much everyone on his side is there because of manipulation and because of abuse - be that abuse from the Darkling or abuse from others that the Darkling has so well learned how to manipulate in ways that are very, very similar to the way Jarl Brum manipulated and abused Matthias (I have written a lot about that too. I have strong feelings.)

I have so much fascination and I feel so much sympathy for Fruzsi and I think that this is one of the things that the show did so fantastically well in her and in the other Grisha on the Darkling’s side who are all manipulated and controlled by him in just the same way our protagonists were, who were ultimately still all very young people who had been attacked and threatened and made unsafe in their home for who they were and who were offered what they believed was the only solution. I think one of the greatest examples of this, other than Fruzsi, is seen in Vatra, the amplified Inferni who is so proud of herself when she brings the Hummingbird down - "Yes! I did it" and btw she says this with such an expression on her face I don't even have the words I would just genuinely recommend you rewatch the scene to get what I'm saying it's s2e7 around 24:30-50 she actually looks so proud of herself she's like a little kid and it's so soul-crushingly clever and incredibly well done and it breaks my heart she's been so successfully manipulated - because she so genuinely believes that she is doing the right thing and she is making a difference for her people, and even when she dies with her hand clutched in Fruzsi's she dies smiling. That girl breaks my heart every time I rewatch, and honestly even though she is presented in a more unlikeable way Fruzsi breaks my heart as well because I can see so much of our beloved characters in her and effectively what could have happened to them and what could have become of them if they hadn’t managed their escape. This duality and constant cause to question the morality of the characters is so brilliantly done and one of the biggest successes of the adaptation considering how well it was done in the books as well but could have been something difficult to translate between medias where exposition is concerned, and I think that Fruzsi was an incredible example of this and that we really should talk about her more

Thanks for reading my nonsense ramblings if you got this far, I hope that it made sense and was at least somewhat interesting <33