#leigh bardugo crit

[declanisms]

why do some authors never get better at writing like why r u somehow worse at writing than you were 5 or even 10, 20 years ago like. hello?????? can u stop being terrible to these characters did your memory get wiped or sm why can’t u remember your own characterizations

[words-after-midnight]

I'm currently studying booktok. Some things I've observed so far:

- at least 4-5 videos recommending one of the worst thrillers I've read in recent years

- someone unironically recommending the weird stepfamily romance I saw a lengthy youtube crit of the other day

- a video of a girl reading the end section of a little life on an airplane (?!?!) and having my EXACT reaction (ugly snot sobbing)

- soooo much coho, sjm, ali hazelwood and leigh bardugo, which is more or less in line with the #booktok table at yours truly's local indigo

- a few trend formats that actually look kinda fun and a decent way to get recs (eg. "5 most [insert here] books I've read this year")

[kirsbataar]

white passing zoya probably being canon ?

[milfketterdam]

hi! i just wanted to know, why is leigh bardugo problematic? (feel free to answer to answer on your blog or send me a message if you'd prefer that!) (its okay if you dont want to answer either :) )

oh you’re totally fine asking here!! this is mostly gonna be focused on gv bc. thats all ive read by her kdsljsf

as much as i love the grishaverse series (like. a whole lot look at my url aksdjd) theres a noticeable difference between the characterisation and worldbuilding for white characters vs characters of colour, and im definitely looking up for rule of wolves considering im 99% sure shes having sensitivity readers for her writing regarding shu han, but even so, novyi zem and shu han have been hugely underdeveloped countries while the white countries (ravka, fjerda, kerch, but not so much the wandering isles lol) have been the focus of the series and have fairly developed cultures and respectable amount of time dedicated to this whereas shu han has had like. evil scientists?? and novyi zem just. doesnt have a culture in the series and is mentioned to have ravkan colonies there in siege and storm i think? my memorys fuzzy on the details and novyi zem was originally supposed to be based on america/australia i think but having your fantasy africa being colonised by the protaganists government and your fantasy asia have super smart and oppressive human experimentation just... isnt that good when thats almost everything shown for those countries. and in the s&b trilogy (i dont remember what book 😭 it mightve been s&s again) had alina and mal dress in suli costumes, imitate their accents, and give people fake fortunes and its shown as this cute funny thing they do when its Very Much Not. plus like. one of the two black women being dead (jespers mom aditi + leoni) and a lot of other more specific things in both the books and the fandom and a lot of other have talked abt it way better than what im saying rn. especially being a white passing latine person sinces latine ppl just. dont exist in the gv (which i am forever bitter abt but el oh el) whereas other races do and ppl of those races have talked about these issues as well and like. im not coming for u for asking me ur so fine but id def recommend reading through zemenipearls’ fandom racism and crit tags (crit is general crit so its not all gv but a solid portion of it is) as she talked a good amount abt it (also shes just a great account to follow in general) and i couldnt find like. a post/tag that would be easy to look through for crit focusing on shu han specifically but the fact that shu han being a country thats the Entirety of Asia kinda treats asian ppl as a monolith when they are very much not (compared to our multiple white countries) and like honestly theres probably more (any of my followers feel free to add anything!!) 

um yeah this is long and im a few days late answering sorry!! but i hope this. makes sense and if anyone wants to correct smn i said im down to edit anything to sound better/include extra stuff or clarify any point i made!!!

[algumaideia]

Since I talked a lot of bad things about Shadow and Bone, I wanted to make a post about the things I liked about the book. However I realized that I don't like anything about the book. It is not that I dislike everything, but the things I don't dislike are the things I just don't care, I have no opinion about it. They are just there. I don't like them and I don't dislike them. They are a whatever for me.

[evasjacks]

@ prev. anon: you are right, but we have a lot of sadness for the gv poc due to the amount of poor decisions made for them. zoya wasn't even a character of colour until kos and people still want to honour the half ravkan heritage that she has as an excuse to draw her or write her as white. alina wasn't a poc and she was announced as half shu for the sake of the show, a fact that is not canon but is accepted generally. but, it would have been better to have that stated in canon right? (1/2)

as for inej and jesper; inej is a great character. but her correct ethnicity is not specified and it seems like it is a mix of many cultures together (Romani, Arab and Indian) and that's just blatant disrespect because while these ethnicities and cultures have influences on each other, mixing them all up is just... not right. Jesper's heritage is barely even touched upon. Leoni does get an character arc but how much of it contains the due respect to Novyi Zem? very less. (2/2)

IM SO SORRY FOR RANTING IN YOUR INBOX :((

GO OFF !!

this is exactly it!! not only did leigh box together minority races and slap a new name on them, but she also thoroughly fucked over all her poc characters and is actively trying to make up for it now (too late) with the racial adjustments the show has brought as well as kos changing zoya's ethnicity when she was very clearly drawn white.

most of them have no culture, and the only ones who do are hardly considered their own race, just a "nomadic people" who's culture (which is already a melting pot of others) is actively mocked in the series, their beliefs belittled.

and that's aside from the fact that there are literally five canonically white countries and only two that are canonically non white. there is not balance in the books, and hardly any good rep.

I wish people would stop giving leigh so much credit where it is completely undeserved, as this type of representation is just bad.

[zemenipearls]

YA ensemble books be like

*scheming white boy* *sexualized brown girl* *white gay boy for shipping* *white girl* *black girls don't exist* *flirty black boy disconnected from any culture* *former hitler youth* *casual antisemitism* *skinny dark aesthetic white boy* *casual racism* *white-

[lispectore]

OH i haven’t read that one i read chloe gongs tvd oops 😵 that one’s a good read u should try it out and redeem the title for urself. yeah bardugo is. interesting. i like her characters but i kept getting the vibe that she didn’t like some of them herself 😭 like alina was such an interesting character because she wasn’t the stereotypical golden protagonist and had grey goals, but everytime she was acting on them it felt like the author was like. punishing her for it rather than exploring it? maybe i’m crazy LOL. the way she wrote the darkling was weird too it’s like she tried to make him a 3d villain and then changed her mind halfway and made him a disney villain. her worldbuilding felt sloppy and. American. to me too, the way she takes a lot of inspiration from slavic culture but americanized the language or straight up changed the definition of preexisting words was so weird to me LOL. unprovoked leigh bardugo crit sorry

dfbbajdkas,dajkfdfidjas unprovoked leigh bardugo crit i'm crying you were like

// leigh bardugo neg

i think she is great at working w character development even if i don't think she's the best, but i heard a lot of slavic friends talk about how they didn't like the grishaverse because it felt like it was appropriating slavic culture at some points and i can totally see that. about alina all that i have to say is that how can someone write three books about a character that is so Boring ? like even in the first book i already was like, so we're going for the this trope, huh? i hate the word, i have powers but i don't want them because the guy that i like doesn't like it therefore i won't be powerful bc of him ? i know that this is not what happens by the end of the books, but it was what i thought and mal was one of the most bland and uninteresting lovve interests i've ever read, i would sit him down with gale from thg and set that table on fire ^_^

[suyins]

hi i just wanted to ask, i read your dni and did rick/sarah etc do smth. i havent actually read any of the authors you mentioned but i wanted to make sure i dont indulge in problematic material/creators? and if its not too hard could you explain which authors? im so sorry if this inconveniences you all the love

hi! thank you for reading my dni and for expressing your concern about reading problematic material. to be honest, i won’t have all the information, so doing a google search as to why authors like rick riordan and sarah j maas are problematic will be more helpful than me. also, you can search the tumblr tags with #anti [author initials] or #[author initials] crit ! and for the future, if you are truly worried about why certain books have harmful content, then it should fall to you to search up as to why they are problematic, rather than looking to others.

that being said, i included a few links that might be helpful!

rick riordan: x  leigh bardugo: x sarah j. maas: x , x

also in terms of v.e. schwab and holly black, they both condone incest ships, and v.e.schwab supports the captive prince (you can look up why this is problematic). i don’t think i have to explain jkr and cc. because you should know by now :)

[heroineaddicted]

OP, I just want to initially note that I absolutely 1000% agree that the writing choices and themes of Alina’s story are terrible. They’re dark, devastating and depressing -- a young woman finds her light and is made to suffer for it, becoming a part of a persecuted minority only to resolve that plot point by no longer being part of that minority? It’s a mess and it’s why odds are bloody good that I won’t read the books. Which I had initially looked into due to adoring Alina in the show. She’s my sunshine girl with so much potential, and I’m intrigued with the world building...

That said, I’m really uncomfortable with the deeply personalised tenor of this and other criticism I’ve seen directed at LB. I’m not trying to target you personally, but this post just crossed my path most recently...

Leigh Bardugo has absolutely made some writing choices I disagree with. Many writers do the same thing, and are criticised for their writing, which is absolutely fair. However, I can’t think of a single other fandom (and I’m a fandom-old) where the tenor of the crit is directed into ad hominem attacks on the author. Who happens to be a disabled Jewish woman. That’s part of what’s making me very uncomfortable about this tendency I’ve seen in fandom.

That said, I suppose fandoms are getting more aggressive in general, and we live in a world where Kelly Tran, Daisy Ridley and others were bullied off twitter?

Anyway, just my two cents. Alina absolutely deserves better. But so does Leigh.

I have a problem with Alina Starkov.

I have a problem that I fucking love Alina Starkov. But… and here’s that big “but….”

I can’t stand Alina Starkov… because of what the author did to her.

(TW: talk of suicidal ideation)

Alina is warm, sarcastic, witty, and loyal to a fault. She’s kind, open and accepting of others. She’s naive— yes, but also forgiving and incredibly stubborn— but she still believes in the goodness of people despite their past behavior or bad decisions.

Yet what LB did was make her weak, and furthermore, made Alina’s weakness the driving force behind her actions, made her the type of person that thinks ending her life would be a better solution to her problems instead of just embracing change and believing in herself.

Now, I understand that LB is writing this for young audiences, but I hate her for relying on self deprecating and insecure-snarky-teenage-girl tropes to create a “complex” main character. Fantasy and sci-fi books are meant to be an escape for the reader, not a reflection of our own depressive thoughts and feelings. I struggle enough with my own depression; I don’t want to read about a main character’s suicidal ideation. I hate the choices LB makes in creating this amazing protagonist, only to restrict her agency and force us to read (in first person no less!) about suicidal thoughts rather than develop a truly multidimensional character worthy of this story.

Whenever true challenges arise or decisions need to be made, Alina gives in to her self-hatred and refuses to act. Instead, she lets others make the choice or decision for her— often at the cost of her free will. This is all forced on Alina by the author. Alina struggles with using her powers? The author makes Alina think she’d be better off dead. Baghra (of all people) tells her a scary story and provides no evidence to back it up? Alina believes her and just runs away into hiding. Alina has to choose between Mal and embracing her destiny as the Sun Summoner? “Oh here’s a dagger to kill me!”

I feel like the real theme or message of TGT is you should embrace change and personal growth because if you don’t, shitty things will happen to you. But all of this was constructed by the hands of the author and I’m not sorry that I openly despise LB because Alina Starkov deserved so much better.

[declanisms]

ecstatic to hear the s&b show was cancelled I now move on to hoping she never releases another book in the franchise

[johannacantsing]

i’m really excited for my classes this semester!! 

i’m taking graphic design (which i love, so i’m glad i’m taking another class for it) and independent projects in digital media (which is gonna be so awesome!)

and i’m super excited bc i’m doing a redesigned book jacket for “shadow and bone” by leigh bardugo bc i actually really like the original cover but it looks like a historical fiction novel to me and not what it should be for that particular story

and i’m also gonna design some like hype posters and shit- which is also super fun and exciting (especially bc i noticed that like all “Author Signing” posters are totally shit!!  like just really nasty looking, awkward, boring-ass design,,,, so i’m hoping that maybe if i make something cool and effective that they can help me get an internship or even job soon!!

ALSO!

i was talking to my friend and we agreed that our school’s art dept was like really shitty (in a lot of ways- it’s been discussed before) but like especially how they handle criticism

like the head of the entire fucking dept won’t listen when students are casually like “i wish there was more of x taught in the foundations classes” [the foundation classes are a fucking joke! they don’t even have a color theory class!! thank god i transferred with my foundations!] and the head was literally so defensive like “we definitely teach that!!” and like wouldn’t listen to anything........... bc she’s ridiculously unprofessional tbh

and there’s like barely any formal critiques in classes and like no casual critiques!???????

and most of the critiques are like only focused on what u did well and it’s so unhelpful- like i know i’m good at drawing that’s not like an issue i’m working thru just tell me if my composition is wonky or my saturation is too high bc that’s hard to see from the inside!!

and people get so protective and personalize they’re work so fucking much, which is annoying and also not gonna really work in the real world if u can’t even handle respectful constructive criticism bc i never say shit that isn’t like a suggestion or something that the person could actually work on! and people are still???? like acting like i’m attacking their personality??

and one of my profs actually brought this up on fri and i was like!!! YES!!! give me some goddamn constructive, respectful crits!!!

so at least i know one prof will legitimately give me helpful criticism- girls hit ya hallelujah! 

[kirsbataar]

wait say more about the party scene post

absolutely, anon! for those of you unfamiliar with what this ask is about, here is the original post, and here is a post i made months ago explaining the problems in the scene i am referring to. 

essentially, i believe that the suli-themed party scene in siege & storm was handled incredibly poorly. however, it had the potential to be incredibly meaningful to mal’s character arc if things had been changed. here’s how i’d fix it. 

first, and the biggest change. mal’s character arc in siege & storm largely has to do with him feeling like an outsider in os alta, and feeling used by alina and nikolai for their political motivations. he’s looked down upon by pretty much everybody other than sturmhond’s crew. fans of color have pointed out that a lot of how he’s treated in this book can be compared to how a man of color would be treated, and coupled with his “border kid” heritage, that they could see him as being coded as a person of color. 

in rewriting this scene to make it work, mal should be a man of color, specifically with suli heritage. 

think about this. he’s snuck away with alina to what he thinks will be a fun party, an opportunity for them to relax and get some time to behave like teenagers should. when they get there, it’s rich, white people masquerading as his culture - wearing their traditional outfits, doing mocking accents, and treating sacred culture practices like fun games. 

mal is already exhausted with being treated like he’s lesser than, like he’s just a fun toy, by these same rich white nobles. and now they’re using his heritage for a fun night, when he’s living with it his entire life and has been treated differently by these same people for it. 

alina - who for this purpose we’re saying is implied to be white - can’t understand why mal is so upset, so angry. it’s just a party, everybody’s having fun, can’t he get over his vendetta for these people? she brings this up in canon s&s - how she can’t understand why he’s so unhappy.

now, the reader knows that this party is wrong, and that mal has a very valid point here. this immediately gives a better understanding of - and sympathy toward - mal’s anger through most of s&s, as well as why he targets some of that anger at alina. she doesn’t understand how he feels, she never will. even though he isn’t given a pov, the reader can see this go down and think “oh. maybe he does have a reason to be angry and unhappy.”

additionally, him finding solace with zoya makes so much more sense now. he’s frustrated with alina not understanding, not listening - he needs somebody who understands and recognizes the validity in why he’s so upset. and zoya is somebody who can do that, who is a half-suli woman who has grown up in this environment, and likely experienced similar things like he has at that party, but through her whole life.

TLDR: in making mal a moc in the grisha trilogy, the suli-themed party scene in siege & storm could have actually been really helpful to his character arc, as well as serving a purpose other than cultural appropriation. 

[zemenipearls]

LMAO was it a requirement to pass the paper bag test to be cast in Shadow and Bone? Colorism strikes yet again.

[zemenipearls]

This is what we call a bad take

1. Australian has black people. Black Australians are aboriginals.

2. This entire train of thought is based on the idea African coded people cannot exist without the presence of some sort of slave trade. Do you know how insulting that is?

3. This is a piece of fantasy. There is no premise for enslaved black people.

4. The Zemeni exist without any cultural significance. Black people throughout the diaspora have many traditions that have been passed down. There is none of that in Leigh's universe despite the cultural significance in every single other country. As a black reader, the only part that assured me they were black was when Leoni braided her hair.

5. The homogeneity of Novyi Zem? Like that doesn't apply to literally all the others?

6. Does no one else see the problem of assuming the Zemenis are only farmers? No one?

7. All the names on Novyi Zem and it's cities are English or Ravkan. Why? Is there no culture the Zemenis have or a language worth noting?

8. Remember when Nikolai called Zemenis "barbaric little bastards"?

I'm SO ANGRY over this EXTREMELY BAD TAKE.

[zemenipearls]

Oh! What I was trying to say is that I’m not very fond of retcons! Like, I get your point in her race not being explicit, and there’s east asian population in Russia, but if she was written as half shu, she could have talked about her feelings about her heritage, and how people treated her based on it.

Oh okay this makes a lot more sense now. Sorry I was curt before but as you can see, the fandom has been bonkers lately. Been suspicious.

I have a couple trains of thoughts on retcon and if it's canon. The first is that when authors don't make characters explicitly white AKA assume white is the default, they can't be mad when people and fans of color headcanon them otherwise based on circumstances and other marginalizations. I personally don't think white Ravkan Alina is any more canon than ethnically Shu Ravkan Alina. You get what I'm saying? White authors need to start realizing that they have to be more explicit about the races of ALL characters and not assuming white is the default. Especially when Malina are border kids without privilege and Mal is constantly described as "bronze".

Now onto Zoya. In the hands of a more intersectional and brown author I think it has the potential to be good. I personally am mixed race and there's a genuine precedent for Zoya being disconnected from her heritage and having complicated feelings about her dad. But coupled with the fact we don't learn anything about him, so he's implied to be deadbeat, and the stereotypical of Roma child bride storyline, it's a mess. Zoya being estranged from her Suli half would be potentially interesting. But, again, in other hands. And if she wasn't also in charge of the Second Army in a country that oppressed half her heritage, with a King who doesn't seem too bothered that Suli girls are sex trafficked.

As for TGT, that was a huge gaffe. I hated that part, and it was far from Leigh's only gaffe. She also had Nikolai call Zemenis barbaric little bastards, and never addresses the fact ethnic minorities in Ravka are oppressed. She needs sensitivity readers of color, and who aren't her friends.