#i mean its the same thing as putting alina in the army and somehow giving her none of the required mannerisms

[greensaplinggrace]

feels like lb made the darkling a general just to give him minions without like,,, actually considering how a real general acts

[sanktagenyas]

ok so i finally watched those last three episodes. i said buckle up it’s time to suffer and by the saints did i ever suffer. i just knew the darklina scenes were gonna be rough to watch. it was already rough reading the scenes as they were written in book one. i mean the darkling just shines with his intelligence in that chapter, doesn’t he? threaten the man she loves? well the other man she loves? check! tell her she betrayed you when the reality is you’ve been telling half truths all along and didn’t trust her to make her choices? check! 

buddy this isn’t how you apologize. in the show itself it’s pretty much the same back and forth that leads nowhere. you lied to me! you ran off because my mother told you i’m not who i say i am without giving me a chance to explain! you’ve been lying or bending the truth since we met! YOU TURNED YOUR BACK ON YOUR COUNTRY!

by that point i was just like chill the fuck out man you’re about to decimate many many countrymen and you know it. i loved that the stop they made was all about him getting revenge on the man who attempted on alina’s life, that was very unhinged of him and i was HERE for that shit but everyone else in that port? every other woman and child and man on that port? not all of them played a hand and he just went ahead and had them slaughtered without batting an eye. and it’s not like he has some kind of safeguard for grishas does he? how does he know there’s no grisha wherever he’s expanding the fold? some could be in hiding because they fled, because they didn’t want to serve the king. oh well he doesn’t really care about those people does he? we all saw how he spoke about those deserters to arken.

also he could NOT handle alina’s harsh truths about how his own actions are harming grisha close to him even though he claims that every choice he’s made was to protect them and empower them. when she brought up genya i was like yes you better look down you motherfucker! you did this to her, you delivered to her abuser over and over. 

we saw his backstory, some of it and he acted out of grief and rage. he toyed with magic he did not understand and of course he didn’t intend this but his reaction to the fold once it was all said and done was definitely foreshadowing what he was to become. i created something he said defiantly. you created something you don’t have control over. and now he’s done it again somehow, he’s got brand new creatures following him at the end.

i actually felt for young aleksander for losing the woman he loved but the arrogance and the recklessness he showed there is still the same arrogance he has now. he thinks he has thought his plan through but that’s just working off the assumption that no one opposes him ever otherwise he went ahead and put a target on grisha’s backs. he definitely put a target on alina’s back although i know that was never the plan. the fact that when he has a perfectly good remedy to the fold, a chance to actually fix his mistakes once and for all he turns its back and decides to make it ten times worse, chooses ruling via fear over hope is jusr a sign of how far he’s gone. and he didn’t waver once not even when alina was pleading with him that he could have made her his equal, that they could have stayed together and made ravka safe together if only he gave her a choice, he was still manipulative and lied to her face.

at this point i just don’t think his love for her outweighs his belief that he knows what’s best for ravka, what’s the best way to protect grisha. because he doesn’t care about anyone who isn’t grisha at all. he was persecuted like so many others. he won a war for a king centuries and that king turned on him. i’m sure he’s looking at the current one knowing that once grisha have exhausted their uses that king will turn on him too. the fold is just a different kind of war and if he wins that one for the king the darkling already knows what the outcome will be. 

so to summarize this whole darkling commentary here i understand where he is coming from, i understand the fear and the rage and the desperation. it’s not working out for him though. he’s feared but he’s alone. for every ivan there’s a zoya. for every man who’s blindly loyal to him there’ll be someone rising up to oppose him eventually. and if it’s not his own people it’ll be non grisha folks. he has the second army working for him still, but he is alone. and that’s no one’s fault but his own because alina was willing to work with him. 

speaking of alina i loved every second of her rising up to oppose him telling him she never needed him. she may have fallen in love with him but she never actually needed him to be powerful, she only needed to free herself of the restraints she’d put on her powers out of fear. i also thought that the way she freed herself of his control made more sense than it did in the books. 

i have hope for darklina still despite all that’s happened despite how positively full of rage ans resentment she is because she still loves him, she still listened when he pleaded with her that they needed each other if they wanted to deal with the fold. of course there’s the slight issue of him lying directly and manipulating her to do his bidding and of course the fact that he took her power from her. the only thing that was her and he perverted it for his own gain. i think it just might take more than a year for her to forgive him i’m afraid. i don’t necessarily see a path to redemption right now but reconciliation? alina can be merciful, she can be forgiving. i think all it would really take is just one selfless act, one show of good faith. if he keeps pursuing her and mal and keep trying to rob her of her agency however i don’t see them ever having any kind of closure.

i don’t think i need to expand much more on my thoughts on malina. i’m not feeling what the show wants me to feel. i’m not seeing them as these soulmates that belong together. to me they’d be better of as best friends. the darkling didn’t make her strong he tried to steal her strength for his own use but mal doesn’t make her strong either, she relies too much on him. mal actually was pretty damn resourceful when left on his own. i unfortunately couldn’t say the same for alina. co-dependant love is not better than toxic love and darklina’s toxicity (most of it) comes from the lies and from the darkling repeatedly choosing for alina. he’s not brave enough to just tell her what he intends to do and let her decide whether to align herself with him so he lies and he deceives instead. not much he can do to undo it now but he could help actually destroy the fold if he wanted to. i don’t know if he’ll ever come around to it though.

the darkling visiting mal with the sole purpose to rub it in his face that alina and he are immortal and so eventually mal will die and then he could just swoop in was just peak comedy. the way he delivered that line too you’d think he was talking to an insect not another human being. it was brilliant. mal echoing that same line but ending it with “the past will do it for me” was pretty good, nice quip i’ll give mal that but also terribly ironic when you see the ending.

team crows remains the highlight for me. kaz and inej and their unspoken love for each other is just killing me. i can tell there are personal traumas there that i don’t know about (gotta read those damn books and quick) what with kaz not being able to help tend to her wounds and the fact that there were moments were i could see there was maybe a kiss about to happen or an embrace (at the end when kaz let alina go free and made a deal not to rat her out) and it just didn’t happen. there’s a story there about kaz and his distaste for being touched/touching others. jesper is just here to look pretty, shoot shit and be the most charming person in any crowd. i’m in love. also someone give him his goat back for the love of god.

nina and mathias were entertaining for sure. with all that banter and all these jabs i should have really seen them falling for one another coming. i felt like it was perhaps a bit rushed but i guess there’s nothing like almost freezing to death together to make you reconsider your views. you know the whole saving of lives thing can really bond you. the waffle date was adorable. was not expecting nina to just brand herself a traitor for him and she’s damn lucky fyedor came on that mission because i’m pretty sure ivan wouldn’t even have offered to keep her name out of the report. she and mathias ended their story both heartbroken and separated. i really hate that he thinks this was all intentional. really hope she’ll join the crows on their next con job. and i also cannot wait to see the look on heleen’s face when kaz buys inej’s freedom.

i was not at all expecting zoya to turn against the darkling. that’s what happens when you turned down one of your fuck buddies, aleksander they get bitter and then they leave you to be eaten alive by volcras. ok but in all seriousness she did the right thing and i hope she finds her family even if they’re not alive so she can say her goodbyes. 

oh and completely unrelated but since i talked about heights of comedy before i really need more sassy! darkling in my life. he is everything. that quip about his speech. the way he said adorable like he was gagging on the word. him just letting david be his dorkiest self and raise his hand before speaking, that little put upon sigh. i love sassy! darkling almost as much as jealous and petty darkling which is saying a lot. just more of that. it humanizes him, i’m tired of villains who are forever stoic and stone face. 

i think i about covered everyone and everything that happened in those remaining episodes. all in all shadow and bone is an amazing adaptation, really faithful to the first book. they made some changes to the characters which in turn changed some dynamics (alina actually admitted she wanted to be with the darkling. out loud. to his face. book!alina would never and book!darkling would never cry in front of her.) but it made for surprising viewing. it also made me become even more attached to some characters (the darkling let’s be real) which made me care more which is why i was livid when they started making a lot of terrible no good choices.

i was just really blown away by this show and the way the grishaverse was brought to life and above all major props to the actors who all just seemed to be born to play their respective roles. 

[myriadnarratives]

Netflix’s Shadow and Bone: My Fangirling Thought-dump

Fair Warning: I’m a darklina, so leave now if you’re not going to be decent (I don’t bash on Mal, though, so you’re safe there)

So I binged Shadow and Bone without reading the books (judgmental people, leave now), and let me tell you, I love the show. True, there were some things I wish were different based on what I’ve been spoiled on about the books, but as a show in and of itself, it’s strong.

So here’s just a dump of my thoughts and fangirling (I use *chef’s kiss* a lot). And obviously, spoilers ahead.

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

WHAT I LOVED

- The storytelling, both narrative and visual, is exquisite. How the dialogue contributes to the storytelling, answering the audience’s questions and doubts clearly even before they’re brought up; how the visual arrangement contributes to informing the audience of what they need to know and how that timeline of knowing helps the audience in piecing together the story, the characterization, and the timeline; the tying in of characters’ storylines so audiences are not confused as to why we’re spending so much time watching the goings-on with a character. *super chef’s kiss*

The show is so organically unified in terms of characterization, visual media, dialogue contribution, and so much more that I just, uh, I cannot even! I LOVE THE ART OF IT!

- How the show dealt with race, identity, prejudice, politics, social acceptance, individual needs, personal wants, the desire for security and safety that mean differently for each character *raises both hands to the heavens in thanks* The show’s concepts hit close to home for me in terms of race, prejudice, mixed biological identity that informs social perceptions, the desire for belonging and safety and acceptance, and I think this show would hold a special place in my heart for its portrayal of these issues.

- How different sexualities and genders are portrayed so casually, as if it’s an everyday normal thing (as it should be).

- The Crows (of course) and how their story intersected with Alina’s, and how the storytelling (I’ll keep going on about the visual storytelling until I run out of breath) shows the intersections and develops the diverging stories to meld into each other

- How they showed how brilliant Kaz’s mind is. The visual storytelling of showing one scene without explanation, leading the audience to create their own assumptions on what Kaz was seeing, then having the scene turn out different once it has been explained later when things have unfolded *chef’s kiss*: the meeting between the Conductor and the First Army General, the hidden changing room, the lynx flush assignments 

- How Inej’s faith is portrayed neither negatively or positively; it’s just a thing that is not contrived but contributes to the plot, not some sort of moral policing inside or outside of the story.

- Mal! I heard he’s a jerk in the books, that’s why I didn’t want to read the books before watching the show. But god, his first scenes with the sparring, and the way Archie moved in that fight. Also how Mal’s overall storyline progressed, how his ties to Alina was shown, how his feelings got revealed to the audience even before it got revealed to Alina so the sincerity is not questioned. That True North thing! *heart eyes*

- How the issue of consent in the sexual sense is highlighted as important. The darkling literally asks “Are you sure?” before he proceeds. (Of course, this is very different from his take on non-sexual consent later in the show - like really, you literally put a control button on your hand to control her powers! Dude...)

- The exploration of Alina’s overall consent and agency. They even literally have her say her lack of it when she was in the final episodes. Even Kaz shoves it in the Darkling’s face that she doesn’t want to be a captive anymore. And throughout the show, the thought processes behind her decisions are clearly communicated, giving her agency a lot more weight as the audience can understand and sympathize with her decisions. And she’s not just a “victim” of the story; she pushes the story along with her actions, from her decision to burn the maps so that she could come with Mal, to her childhood decision to cheat the Grisha test, to something as visually simple (yet strongly narrative-affecting) as choosing the left or right path in Baghra’s escape route.

- The exploration of want. What each character wants, how one want like “security” could mean an entirely different thing for each character (i.e. the Darkling’s want of security for the Grisha, Alina’s want of security for herself, Inej’s want of security in the form of freedom, etc.). The show, being well-written, is a smorgasbord of academic analysis. Again, if I haven’t said it yet, I LOVE THE ART OF IT!

- NINA!!! God, I really like how the actress looks! There’s just something about her face that I really, really like. And then there’s Nina’s lines, the delivery, the attitude *chef’s kiss* One caveat though: I wish she wasn’t made to say “Please” when she was hanging off the ice ledge. Even though she had already warmed up to Matthias (and him to her), I would have wanted the scene to be a clash of his pride and her dignity: just like in the ship earlier, her not submitting even to his kindness (sincere or otherwise), and him having a moral crisis on helping a “witch.”

- Genya’s hand-to-hand fight *absolutely beautiful*

- The overall fight choreographies. It’s not just people punching each other and brawling; the jiu-jitsu locks and judo throws hold a special place in my practitioner’s heart, and the fights look really good, either it be for the women (Hello, Genya and Inej) or the men (Mal and Aleksander’s fight looked so different from usual brawls because of the throws).

- How the different Grishas, even the usually non-combat ones, can weaponize their abilities: Healers can, obviously, break bones; Heartrenders can stop your heart; and even the Sun Summoner can blind you.

- Jesper and Milo the goat. “Grab the goat. Hug the goat. Shut the fuck up.” And how Jesper tearfully parted with Milo LOL

- How Alina just climbed right into the get away carriage’s literal trunk. LOL!

- Kaz and the Darkling meeting. I know it’s not in the books (they’re not even in the same trilogy/duology), so having these two characters with so much gravitas meet and actually verbally spar is *chef’s kiss* 

- Inej’s first kill is to save Kaz *heart eyes*

- The Darkling’s humor! “Yes, David?” and “I’ll have to give that speech again” were hilarious!

Of course, there’s many more, generally because of how they contribute to, again, the visual and narrative storytelling and the characterizations and the plot progression and, ugh, I'll stop now or else I'll just keep going on about how much I love how this show was crafted.

NEUTRAL

- I heard that Alina was supposed to be funny in the books, but apart from the “No pressure” and “My tailbone is killing me” lines, there wasn’t really much of that humor in there--most of the humor came from Jesper’s scenes or Mal’s friends. Honestly, I think the show Alina fits the story, so I don’t really care if her humor is not as evident.

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE

- Gosh, Netflix and the showrunners really know how to market the show. They were right when they said the first step is to cast Ben Barnes. Then the focus on the General/Darkling and Alina’s story and relationship, that sort of dark and brooding archetype getting with the green and pure protagonist, is so delicious. But of course, endgame is not meant to be. The Darkling is a manipulative, controlling, toxic person, and should be nowhere near Alina if not on equal ground. I just wish they didn't put that much focus on it in the marketing (i.e. the extra clips distributed to media sources) to make it seem like darklina could happen, especially with the story changes the show was reportedly doing. Oh well, that’s what fanfiction is for. And I guess there’s a chance for redemption in the following season? *puts on clown nose*

MY QUESTIONS AND...WISHES?

So since the show has changed the story quite a bit from the books, I'm so stoked to see where the characters’ stories lead to. I’m sure there would be similarities to the books (Nikolai and Weylan would show up, for sure), but there would be a lot of changes, I'm sure (Alina’s a Saint now, so how would that affect her life on the run and her relationship with Mal? There’s no great reveal for Aleksander’s name, so perhaps he doesn’t die? At least not that way?).

- I wish we’d see more of that internal/thought connection the Darkling and Alina seemed to have. And I wish they’d highlight further the idea of balancing, of being the only two in the world, and of how each needs/complements the other in terms of power. I just really wish they’d explore more darklina, and perhaps have it open to have a darklina ending (I’m not holding my breath for that one at all, but hey, membership to clownverse is free). At the very least, would there be a change in the Darkling’s ending (does he get stuck in the tree)? Does he get a redemption arc? Would he utter the “I do not repent” line? Would Alina and him have the shared connection, I-can-see-you-even-if-you’re-far-away bond? Would Alina somehow forgive him (hopefully only if he has changed and is not controlling and toxic anymore)? Would Alina and him have a showdown as he tries to expand the fold and she tries to close it? He has command of even the volcra now, so what would that mean for Alina’s side? Does she get an army, too? Maybe there’d be creatures of light, too? Perhaps other animal amplifiers?

- Now that Mal and Alina have more or less confessed to each other and ended up together, what would be the next hurdle in their relationship? They can’t just stay static, after all, otherwise the story of their relationship won’t be a good narrative. Season 1 touched on Mal’s fear of the Grisha (with Alina literally asking him out loud), so perhaps as Alina’s powers grow, Mal’s discomfort with her powers would show more (I hope the show doesn’t make Alina do a Slip-into-the-Darkside trope, or at least not too much to the detriment of her agency and core characterization)? Or perhaps going from that conversation with the Darkling and Mal, when Aleksander seemed to have gotten under Mal’s skin when he pointed out that due to their immortality, Aleks and Alina are endgame: maybe Mal would have that rivalry with the Darkling again and, considering Alina’s kind of psychic bond to Aleks (if they add that in), would feel that Alina might choose the Darkling in the end? I just hope the characters aren’t reduced to stereotypes of 1-girl-2-guys-and-girl-can’t-choose love triangle. Even season 1 explicitly had Alina cut off ties with Mal first (because she mistakenly thought he didn’t want anything to do with her anymore since he’s not replying to her letters) before she went to the Darkling romantically.

- What’s next for the Crows? Would Inej eventually go to Sankta Alina? Perhaps the Ice Court heist is next for the Crows. Nikolai has to show up some time, right? How would that tie in with Alina’s storyline?

I have a lot of other questions on what happens to the characters and the overall story, and I'm really glad that the show has diverged from the books to an extent that a lot of things could be possible. I hope Season 2 does happen, and I hope it’s as good as Season 1, especially since COVID is still happening and filming and filming options are limited. If Season 2 does happen, I hope it gets release soon :P