#mal lb

[gammija]

me: alright let's see what's malevolent's all about

first sound: whimpering little guy

me: starting strong i see

[malinaa]

"you will die alone. and i will die in her arms." MY GOD THAT SHIT IS SO ROMANTIC AND ALSO THE SEXIEST THING TO EVER COME OUT OF MAL'S MOUTH

[ragnarssons]

“oooooh but nikolai gave his compass to alina because he has feelings for heeeer” meanwhile, nikolai:

[theweeklydiscourse]

Alina has always been hungry for more than what was offered to her in Keramzin

There’s a line in Chapter 17 of Shadow and Bone that if often discussed in Relationship to Malina. A scene that is sometimes interpreted as Mal shaming Alina for her perceived gluttony (or fat shaming) but I like to see it more as a metaphor.

I imagine this line is meant to come off as a lighthearted comment on Alina’s ravenous appetite during their search for the Stag, but it reveals something deeper about Mal’s feelings. The hunger Alina feels is symbolic of her desire for something more, perhaps the community she found at the little palace or the notion of ascending to a level of influence and status. After living her entire life in a state of repression, Alina is finally exposed to everything she had missed for her entire life. She never knew she was starving until she saw the great banquet that lay before her.

Mal understands this, which is why he makes this comment and in a sense he is right. Alina would be easier to satisfy if she was never exposed to the splendor of the Little Palace and Grisha life. Alina had subsisted on scraps of emotional validation for YEARS and suddenly she has friends, a community and a potential lover who encouraged her to embrace her true self so OF COURSE she can no longer be satiated by Mal alone.

Alina’s newfound appetite requires that she remains fed. She is more confident and sure of herself now that she has been able to bloom in an environment that does not ostracize her. Going back to a tenuous dependence on her friend is not something that she could easily bear as she once did.

Mal reacts so aggressively to seeing Alina’s happiness in the Little Palace because he knows it can offer her so much more than he can. He feels inadequate and powerless to stop his oldest friend from walking away from their relationship to join her true flock. The two of them tied their identities to one another and are so afraid of loneliness that they would rather resort to sabotage and repression than taking the leap of faith that might allow them to individualize.

So when Alina takes the first step in that direction, Mal reacts by mocking her and accusing her of being a sellout because he genuinely sees her happiness as a betrayal. He is furious that Alina dares to seek more because he has not yet found himself outside of their codependent relationship.

[greensaplinggrace]

highly specific pet peeve of mine when it comes to sab is that none of the characters act with any kind of wariness when they should. like the grisha would not be celebrating in the king’s court with genuine displays of emotion (and obvious shows of rivalry that can be exploited) for all of the otkazat’sya nobles to see. aleksander shouldn’t be showing so much genuine emotion in front of the king or any otkazat’sya (noble or not, they’re all threats to him after all). everyone should be tenser when they’re in court or around authority figures, and the ways they disregard authority are bizarre. that would have you flogged in any monarchy during that time period.

it feels like the writers don’t really grasp the setting or what it means to the characters. these people are soldiers, and even worse, they’re soldiers that are apart of a persecuted class. they should not be so comfortable in areas or around people where they would be thinking about their every little move and how it could be taken advantage of if it was shown. vulnerability should not be tossed around so carelessly by people who should be startlingly aware of life’s atrocities.

honestly, genya is the only character that even acts remotely like she should, in that she is always tense and wary and holding herself like someone who knows they can be hurt at any moment. and even then she’s loose in the king’s court (the king) when she would be at the height of her wariness and paranoia.

[intertexts]

relistened to 34 on my way home from work 2day.... genuinely fuckign started crying @ william's conversation w his parents and i HAVENT EVEN GOTTEN TO THE KEMURI PART YET. GOD . anyway hi ros my friend ros how has ur afternoon been :]

YEAG..... YEAH...... i also was relistening to the fucking. first hour or so of 34 today..... williams conversation with his parents..... if i think too hard about the wisp family i think i will actually dissolve into dust.... they love him so much. he is eighteen & so miserable he fucking needs a hug from his mom!!!!!!!!!!! :((((((((

anyway HII hi hi i have been good!!! hope u had a good afternoon too :] we r. back in the tranches babeey......!!! <- throws hardtack at u

[savebyhofer]

jake neighbours is so pretty i genuinely get a little distracted when they show him

[donnanobledefensesquad]

thinking about how leigh bardugo apparently had the actors for the darkling and alina read/watch wuthering heights as "homework" for their roles, thinking about the darkling "i will strip away all that you know, all that you love, until you have no shelter but me," thinking about how this is what heathcliff tries to do to cathy and it ultimately kills her. thinking??? insanity.

[maybe-seggy-will-be-our-always]

[gammija]

how does john instinctively know what a taxi is, but doesn't recognize a wheelchair on sight

[malinaa]

there will always be that sad insecure girl in alina and instead of choosing to be a queen or a saint she chose to heal that lonely little girl because she saw the world would be without mal, without the one person she felt like she really belonged to and with, and she couldn’t bear it. she wanted to be the girl again, the boy by her side, she wanted more than what the world gave her and she took it. yes at the cost of her powers and she’ll always grieve for it but the grief of that was better than the grief of losing mal

[ragnarssons]

kaz as an audience member i know you mean you can’t have her in your crew because SHE is your weakness, but saying it like that is ~mean *side eyes*

[theweeklydiscourse]

Maybe Mal was just an unlikable character with a terrible resolution to his character arc.

Sometimes…the writing was just bad.

I’ve always disliked these sorts of explanations of Mal’s behaviour in Shadow and Bone. I find that there’s something reductive about framing Mal as a little hapless teenage boy who only ever got angry about justified matters and only wanted to help. It flattens him and makes him very boring to engage with. I find that this argument removes his agency and attempts to obscure the legitimate issues Mal has seemingly by characterizing him as just a “boy” who’s actions are less severe as a result of that boyishness.

Additionally, I don’t like how the commenter intentionally revises their summary of the book’s events. Mal was never bullied at the Little Palace (quite the opposite actually) and implying that Alina made him feel worthless during that time unnecessarily vilifies Alina for putting more effort into saving Ravka than her sulking boyfriend. It uses Mal’s youth as a pass for his meanness and pettiness’s towards Alina in Shadow and Bone while masquerading as a defence of a character being unjustly criticized.

In the text, it seems clear that Mal acting out is an immature response to an unfamiliar situation. He acts childish, but the issue is not the childishness itself but is instead with the way the narrative addresses it. Mal’s bad attitude towards Alina’s powers and her connection to the Darkling are validated by an ending where Alina is stripped of both as a punishment for her greed. It validates Mal’s discomfort with Alina’s new identity and somewhat justifies his cruel words to her during their arguments in Shadow and Bone and Siege and Storm. This is in conflict with the actual arguments themselves because Mal’s points in those scenes are immature and flawed but aren’t confronted in a manner that shifts the status quo.

I’d also like to add that this appeal to Mal’s youth and inexperience approaches Mal as though he is not a fictional character. As a fictional creation, Mal’s actions and words influence the overarching themes of Shadow and Bone and thus, require a resolution that addresses them. It’s not surprising that readers had such an adverse reaction to Mal when he acted like an asshole for at least 2/3 of the trilogy.

I view Mal as a character with a botched arc. I believe that his character could have been something truly compelling if we had seen his journey from a petulant and selfish boy into a self-assured young man. Mal is challenged by the revelation of Alina’s Grisha identity because it confronts him with a version of the future that reveals a diverging path. Therefore, coming to terms with his codependency and becoming his own person would allow him and Alina to reconcile and find identities outside of one another. But because this never happens, I can’t really buy into Mal’s youth being a legitimate factor in his assholery because it isn’t supported in the text and is never fully understood.

So once again:

[nicollekidman]

genuinely fucking insane how badly they’ve bungled alina. she’s not a sankta, she’s not conflicted with the darkling, she’s not summoning or growing as a grisha at all…… how the hell did they manage to do her WORSE than the books. she better go INSANE in this last episode and a half and get a corruption arc (in the season three we’re not getting and they dont want to make) or i’m killing everyone involved. jokes on me tho bc this is just going to keep me obsessed with her in her defense.

[bellara-lutare]

mal being the third amplifier is still the most dumb and left fieldy decision ever 🙄

[blairwaldcrf]

"that's very valiant but I'm sure they printed more than one"