#s&b critical

[theweeklydiscourse]

We’re going through this phase of fandom right now where people willfully ignore the sexist implications of female characters being shafted into housewife/mother roles or disempowered by the end of their stories. If you dare to criticize such writing decisions, you will be accused of sexism and be hounded for not “respecting their choices” as though these characters are actual people and not tools of storytelling. As if the cliche of female characters “sacrificing” their powers or having them stripped away exists in a vacuum and isn’t influenced by any larger cultural factors.

They’ll say: “Not every character has to be a girlboss!!” Or “Let women be soft and traditional!!” As if that’s some revolutionary way of thinking and not the norm. It’s an extension of choice feminism, dismissing any dissent about the quality of the narrative to make it make sense and avoid the uncomfortable truth. Diminishing the agency of female characters and cramming them into traditional roles is a common occurrence in many stories, and we should be allowed to criticize them without being silenced.

[is-today-tomorrow-in-nz]

Let's talk about Mal

Malina is a ship that I absolutely loathe. It is one of the worst possible ships to exist and it should not have been in the canon. This does not mean I hate friends to lovers as a trope. But Malina is toxic on so many levels and Mal's traits should not be portrayed as an act of love, in a YA novel no less.

Character Breakdown:

Characteristics/ Background Info:

Gifted First Army Tracker/ Third Amplifier.

Conventionally handsome.

Driven.

Opiniated(Considering the century the story takes place in.)

Beds other women often.

18-19 years old.

Orphan.

Was raised together with Alina.

How Alina sees Mal till she is taken away

Alina has an unhealthy codependency with Mal. She follows him around not just in the orphanage but in the army as well. She pictures them as husband-wife since they were children. She is extremely jealous and is just waiting for Mal to see her and pick her. But she is discovered as the Sun Summoner and taken away to the Little Palace.

How Mal sees Alina till she is taken away

A childhood friend who he thinks he has outgrown. He explores life beyond what the orphanage has offered him. He carries no romantic feelings for Alina(or going by the trope he has not realised his feelings for Alina). But till Alina is revealed and taken away to the Little Palace, she is not someone whom he associated with love or dreamt of sharing his life with. She was just a remanence of his past life.

How their relationship evolves after Alina becomes the Sun Summoner

After Alina was taken away, Mal 'realises' his feelings for her. And with no response to any of his letters, Mal is worried for her 'safety'. In an attempt to reconnect with her, he risks his life to locate the Stag. All noble and admirable so far.

Finally he sees her, he is more angry than relieved. Not to mention, it was her big debut. She had finally embraced her powers, had become healthy.

He claimed to be worried about her safety and was angry that she was safe(?). Once he realises his heroic act to rescue her is not needed he verbally bashes her for becoming who she was supposed to be(?) Practically calls her the Darkling's whore. See, I was a teenager once. I know that teenagers can be incredibly selfish sometimes. But if your bestie, whom you believed was being tortured, is safe and healthy, you don't bring them down, especially when you claim to love them. You will feel relieved. Yeah, it might sting a little to know that she has moved on without you and she is no longer the childhood bestie you grow up with. But, you support them and wish them well. However, Mal acts incredibly jealous and verbally lashes out unable to face his own inadequacy.

From here on it's red flag nation and classic abuser techniques and traits.

He finds runaway Alina. When you find your bestie whom you accused of being a cossetted princess a few days ago on the run, you become worried. But Mal is all 'I told you so'. His ego is soothed . The Darkling is bad just as he said.

He comments about Alina having an appetite. He has seen his friend sickly thin, with breathing issues, cold, hungry and suffering with an unknown illness for 8-10 years. And now he sees her finally healthy and eating and comments on it as if it is an inconvenience for him. This is were Alina should have had an awakening and walked away from him. But LB thinks this is cute and a healthy love. So Alina remains.

We skip to Siege and Storm, they are in incognito. Alina has wasting sickness again. But not a single concern from Mal. He doesn't question why she became healthy or why she becomes sick again. He is just happy that he got the girl he grew up with back.

When Alina is back in Ravka and with a prince no less. We see the absolute worst of Mal. He is jealous, once again of his own inadequacy, and takes it out on Alina. She is being thrust into a world of politics, in a country literally on the verge of civil war and all he can think of are ways to make Alina's new position about himself.

He throws tantrum anytime Alina has thoughts other than him. He doesn't allow her to focus on the war or grow into her new role. He hates that she is no longer the girl he grew up with. He hates that Nikolai is actually making her better, giving her autonomy, coaching her to the life of politics. He picks constant fights with her. Suffocating her more when she was already struggling under the pressure of leading an army.

Alina tries to establish herself as the leader and commander of the Second Army and he thwarts her attempts by telling the guards and soldiers under her direct command embarrassing stories from her childhood to 'humanize her'. She is the Sun Summoner, a living saint, someone who is being courted by a prince. But he cannot have that can he? He cannot let her raise to glory. He has to bring her down to his level to show her that she was no better than him. He does not want Alina to have anything that was not him or given by him. He punishes her for his inefficacy.

When Alina backs away from a kiss, he goes on to kiss Zoya and cheats on Alina and tells Alina she made him do it. This, right here, is how an abuser behaves.

I don't buy his redemption arc in Ruin and Raising. It was a switch up after the negative feedbacks to his characters and nothing more.

It doesn't matter in the end because, Alina's powers which were an integral part of her was ripped out and she ends up with Mal to become his wife. Mal gets his girl he grew up with, who has always been beneath him.

Mal was an anchor who did not allow Alina to move upward and succeeded in his attempts to sink her with him under the disguise of love.

Conclusion

LB portrays the Darkling as the evil guy and retcons the trilogy to show us how bad he was in the duology. But for an author who is so concerned about young girls falling for abusive men, she literally ignores the glaring, mile-long red flag in Mal and packages them as a destined lovers. For an author who is all about morality and opening young girls eyes to the viles of men, she is doing a disservice to her own readers. The chances of me as a woman, coming across an 'evil' shadow man like the Darkling or a literal Prince are zero(not even near zero.) But Mal is a regular guy. A guy whom we see in our everyday lives. You can see him in a friend who grows jealous of your growth and tries to sabotage your career or in a friend who carried torch for you and spreads rumours about you when he sees you with better men than himself or you can see him in a boyfriend who strings you along for a decade while he waits for his dream girl to come. My point is, men like Mal exist in the real world and the author cannot claim a moral high ground with the Darkling and ignore all the abhorrent things Mal did to Alina. I don't care if people reading this are pro Darkling or not but I care if someone calls Malina as a healthy ship.

Note: Please read books like 'Why Does he Do that?' by Lundy Bancroft or please watch the show 'Kevin can f* himself'. You will see the parallels and understand who Mal really is.

[xalonelydreamerx]

I think I'm gonna write an analysis as soon as I finish rereading the trilogy but yeah s2 was fucking terrible.

I've seen many people saying they're happy about Alina, and while yes, I'm glad she didn't lose her powers and didn't end up with Mal, there are so much bigger problems with this season

Aside the costume still looking bad, pacing being all over the place because there are simply too many characters and the annoying repentance of the flashbacks, Alina comes as extremely annoying, stuck up, tone deaf and overall a bitch.

Unlike some, I do love book!Alina because she's a very flawed character but lots of her mistakes actually do make sense if you're able to let go of the grudge that comes from reading a YA 2010 book.

Show! Alina was intentionally supposed to be portrayed as strong, bold, confident and smart since s1. She's not supposed to be naive, ignorant, selfish and emotional like book!Alina but somehow she ends up coming across as so much worse.

The Darkling is no better. He comes off as extremely pathetic. He already was in s1, but I was hoping he was gonna have an arc in this season and become more like his canon self. Sadly, that wasn't meant to be.

Show!Darkling has no personality other than wanting Alina in such a desperate way that is hard to look at. I know the girlies gash over him being a ✨ simp ✨ but there's a difference between pathetic (affectionate) and pathetic (degoratory). He wants to keep the grisha safe but even that a aspect suffers from a very detrimental alteration they did on the show which I will now mention.

Apparently, grisha aren't the oppressed group we know in canon. On no, the season hits you with the hammer about how it's the fold and everything that happened in s1 that made everybody turn against grisha. Not that they've been capturing them, enslaving them and burning them for hundred of years, na-ah.

I have no comment on the crows since I hardly ever cared for them. Some scenes were good, but they suffered with how much the story was rushed.

The ending was shit, because while it's cool that alina kept her powers and an arc of her becoming basically a new antagonist is interesting on paper, it doesn't work here because it wasn't built up well and as I mentioned Alina came off as incredible unlikable and darklina was extremely one-sided.

The script was very poor and this isn't a hate towards the actors because they don't really have any control of it.

While I'll continue shipping darklina they were both done very dirty because they were ooc since the first season and the second one reduced them both to something beyond recognition.

[kallypsowrites]

I hope another streaming platform or TV channel will someday make a new adaptation of Shadow and Bone from scratch and give these characters the depth, complexity, and development they deserve. Slow burn would have been the way to go. Cramming multiple books into 8 episodes was never a good idea and I cannot believe the writers think they can trick Netflix into approving a spin-off by asking the fans to generate fake views through background streaming.

Ya know, I'm not holding out too much hope for a "more complex" adaptation, simply because the trilogy itself isn't what I'd call super complex. The fandom often finds complexity in what it could have been, but other than the Six of Crows duology, I think that the books are rather lacking.

That being said, the show could have been WAY better than it was and does make me wish for the emotional levels of the books lol.

[theweeklydiscourse]

This is an interesting line for several reasons, the biggest of which is Mal’s choice of hyperbole when expressing his love for Alina. The implications of this passage are sexual in nature, this is made most obvious by the imagery of “dancing naked” and Mal isolating aspects of Alina into “parts”.

He says “even the part of you that loved him” which to me, indicates a certain level of discomfort Mal still has with Alina’s sexuality and attraction towards the Darkling. This discomfort informs his division of Alina into parts, distinguishing his perception of Alina from “the part” of her that stepped outside of that role. When this is placed alongside his insinuation of Alina’s sexual attraction, it becomes clear that Mal has difficulty reconciling the two versions of Alina that have appeared.

It’s not a coincidence that the most exaggerated example he can conjure is dancing naked on the rooftop of a palace. Referencing the Little Palace functions as a symbol of Mal’s perceptions of Grisha, where the palace is a grand example of their perceived decadence and priority to the monarchy. Throughout the book, readers will see ordinary folk expressing resentment towards the seemingly better treatment that the Grisha get. Sometimes, the Grisha are portrayed as overtly spoiled and haughty individuals as well (even though they have less freedoms and are at a great disadvantage) To Mal, Alina dancing on top the Little Palace is meant to evoke a sense of careless hedonism and excess that he resented her for earlier in the book.

The “dancing naked” part is obviously a euphemism for sex, and it predictably aligns Alina’s relationship with the Darkling with her sexuality. The Darkling comes to be associated with maturity and sensuality, he fits into the archetype of the “dark older lover” who awakens Alina to a new world. Despite the fact that they never have sex or confirm their relationship under any title, the erotic nature of their relationship is in stark contrast with the comparatively chaste and childlike relationship Malina represents (Pretty ironic considering that Mal and Alina have sex in R&R)

This fits into the narrative of purity in Shadow and Bone. Alina aligning herself with the Darkling would mean embracing pleasure, power, and sexual desire, and that is something that the narrative deems as immoral or “greedy”. Inversely, going with Mal becomes the “pure” and humble option where she forgoes power and fame for Mal’s sake. This is where Alina is divided into two halves (in Mal’s view) there is the Repressed Alina, who he knows from childhood and wants to stay with, and the Sun Summoner Alina, whose maturity and newfound strength draws her further away from him.

The former was committed to staying with Mal at the expense of herself, while the latter found fulfillment and realized desire elsewhere. Repressed Alina is characterized as a sort of virtuous and humble person (even when that is quite the opposite) whereas Sun Summoner Alina is characterized as greedy and prone to corruption. This serves the narrative of purity culture in the trilogy by eventually framing Mal as the voice of reason in response to Alina’s supposed corruption.

According to the narrative, the worst thing Alina could be is similar to the Darkling. She can’t desire power or sexual fulfillment (from anyone other than her predetermined husband) and is left in a state of immaturity once she loses her powers. She will stay in the garden of childhood with a man that could never truly recognize the multifaceted nature of her identity.

[xalonelydreamerx]

I dislike s2 of s&b like any other person. Hell, s1 had a bunch of problems that people aren't ready to face yet. But the sudden anti Alina hate i see e v e r y w h e r e is beyond frustrating. Because every character was butchered and people will criticize the writing, but somehow Alina is a special case and deserves bashing.

Same goes for book readers who very obviously are reading the books recently. s&b writers/ showrunners aren't the only misogynists here, the fandom - and that include's darkling/pseudo darklina fans are also sexists and they mask it as "criticism"

[dragonpyre]

Too impatient for animated Mighty Nein. Gonna do it myself

Commission info / ko-fi

[theweeklydiscourse]

Their choice to frame Alina's attempt on his life as suicide makes it seem like Alina was languishing in despair in some deep, dark dungeon. She was cornered (both physically and ideologically) and decided that her only escape was to eliminate both of them. The suggestion that the Darkling's treatment of Alina turned her into some kind of wilting flower is laughable.

His existence threatens the childish status quo that Alina wants to uphold; that much is clear from the way they clash with one another. Alina attempted to pull a Baghra and failed, but people take that scene out of context to make things more dramatic than they actually were.

I've blocked an anti yesterday, who claimed the Darkling abused Alina so badly he forced her to attempt suicide to escape him.

And just... No honey, how did you read that book?

Alina didn't try to kill herself to get away from the Darkling. She tried to kill them both, because she was forced to face the fact he's right, and they're truly alike in some aspects. That she loves her power and the power it brings her over others. She doesn't want to live in shadows of obscurity.

She wasn't some poor desperated teen victim, but a young woman avoiding unpleasant truths no matter the cost.

“I want this.” I need it. Sacrifice or selfishness, it didn’t matter anymore. ... “There isn’t any choice to make. This is what was meant to be.” It was true. I felt it in the collar, in the weight of the fetter. For the first time in weeks, I felt strong.

Siege and Storm- Chapter 23

And Aleksander isn't only a representation of her not being the perfect, nice, saintly nobody, he will never let her hide and forget it.

[theweeklydiscourse]

The Darkling and Alina’s reunion in Rule of Wolves is crazy. Alina does the literary equivalent of looking into the camera in a desperate attempt to convince the reader that her ending wasn’t incoherent and totally disappointing. The Darkling questions why she gave up her powers and her response is just: “ACTUALLY, I had even LESS agency in deciding my fate 😤 and was more passive than you thought! So take that!”And then proceeds to go on a tangent about how she’s abandoned her life of sin and greed, like some kind of guilty religious person.

[thereisnolumos]

darklina thoughts: I wanted to get into the shadow and bone Fandom(books and show) because of the amazing gif set of the darklina kiss I saw

Like who are these two that are sharing such a beautiful kiss. And look so aesthically pleasing together with the darkness and light vibes. I was so excited to find out who these two were because these kind of ships are my everything. Than I find out and 😨😱😤😠🤬!!!!! It was like running full steam a head with tons of excitement and crashing face first into a wall when I find out everything about this Fandom. Both about the books and show. The author and this beautiful ship. And I'm like God why do authors do this ship. Tease us with everything we want and the full potential. But than do a completely one 80 and waste are time on things we don't care about, or find insulting or toxic, and tells us are tastes are dumb and toxic. So now I just read fics and look at beautiful art of Darklina and the potential they could have been. It's just so annoying because this stuff happens all the time!!! And don't get me started on what I heard about the author. I don't know if their true. And wish I could find out real stuff about her. But if it is. God she is so messed up for doing this to us.

I only got in the fandom bcs I randomly saw a teaser for the first season and Ben Barnes was there in all his dark glory. I knew nothing about the books, but the way that show was promoted I was expecting the epic dark romance, villain who’s not really a villain gets the girl all the vibe. Plus cool world build and complicated detailed story overall.

I got none of that.

That show was interesting and hopeful for the first 5 episodes (we will always have 1x05🖤). It wasn’t as detailed and complex as I expected, but it had potential and the main pair - the one they based THE ENTIRE promotion on by the way - was having one of the most fiery and spark inducing chemistry I’ve ever seen on the screen, so I kept my hopes up for the overall plot and focused on them. And then… then they backpedaled SO HARD on everything that made that show interesting for the broad audience, I wonder how they didn’t give themselves a whiplash… though considering the horrible quality of s2 they probably did

Though I didn’t like the way s1 ended, I still thought there is hope, and “we need a conflict for our main pair, I guess”. I truly, wholeheartedly believed that creators and writers of the show are not complete idiots and know how to read the room and what the most of their audience is there for, so that’s what they’ll deliver. But oh my, how wrong I was.

The second season is downright unwatchable with how horrifyingly terrible it is. I only suffered through the entire thing for Ben, who, bless his heart, tried his hardest to deliver the complexity and depth of his character, who he only agreed to play if they “won’t make him a cardboard villain”. And they did exactly that in s2, or tried to, bcs Ben Barnes and his talent didn’t let them, despite all their efforts. The rest of the cast I guess didn’t have enough experience to fix the worst writing imaginable with their acting, so most of the characters became absolutely bland and uninteresting and SO IDIOTICALLY STUPUD, I yelled at them constantly, scaring my cat the entire time.

Also, as much as I understand it from exploring the fandom, the creators and writers of the show are die hard fans of the Crows, and they don’t actually like Alina’s trilogy at all. So… why didn’t they just do the books they wanted I’ll never know. Instead, they forced the Crows in the plot they were never a part of (making all of them okay with selling a girl to slavery in the process. Despite one of them being the former slave and the other one being the one who got her out of it… make it make sense, I beg of you), in the second season they wasted SO MUCH time on their plot lines that 1)didn’t matter one bit for the overall story, 2)were absolutely uninteresting to everyone who isn’t the Crows fan beforehand. In the end we got half-assed Alina and Aleksander’s story with half-assed Crows’ story. They should’ve just made the Crows show, without touching Alina and Aleksander

I haven’t read the books, but from what I gathered in the fandom, though still committing the same sin of putting all the promotion and marketing into the Dark romance trope without actually delivering on it, and force feeding the fans one of the worst and most toxic pairings ever with Malina, at least Alina and Aleksander’s characters weren’t made so cardboard and stupid, and there was tragedy in their story, not the shit that they gave us in s2. Though I absolutely DESPISE the fact that Alina looses her powers in the end and goes on to live Mal’s dream life… Like WHAT THE FUCK?? What levels of internalized misogyny do you need to have as a woman, to write this plot line for your female protagonist???? I can’t.

On Mal’s toxicity: at least that made him a fleshed out character in the books. Absolutely horrible one, how could the author make him “get the girl” is beyond me. But at least he had a personality, however terrible one. In the show, I guess understanding, that no one would root for that asshole, they removed his toxicity almost completely, but that made him as bland as stale porridge. There wasn’t ANYTHING left on his character. At all. How anyone could’ve rooted for him I absolutely refuse to understand. Any woman deserved better than Blade😈

I don’t know anything about Leigh Bardugo, except for the fact that she butcher my native language and makes me furious. If you don’t know the language at least on a medium level, perhaps don’t use it in your books. Or at least hire someone who does. The way she butchered it, I’m not sure she even used Google translate…

So yeah, I’m with you on only reading Darklina fanfics and admiring fan art. I’m not at all sad that they cancelled the show, and I’m even giddy that those creators and writers didn’t get their wet dream of the Crows spin off. They didn’t deserve it after the shit they pulled in the second season. I do hope that they won’t ruin any other shows in the future. I am sad for the actors, who deserved much better and who were actually good at their parts, while the writing was okay. Poor Archie Renaux suffered the most, his character didn’t have good writing at all, not for a single scene. I hope we’ll see more of all of them.

And we need Ben and Jessie to do a film together. Preferably a rom com, but I’m not picky. Just that their characters are together. Such chemistry can’t be wasted

[zazikels]

welp since some of those shitty leaks turned out to be true, those rook's rest leaks are going to end up being true and from the very bottom of my heart i wish c*ndal a very never get work adapting anything again i hope by the end of this your reputation is worse than benioff's and weiss's because it's all you deserve.

[theweeklydiscourse]

I’d also add that it allowed her to wash her hands of any responsibility she had as a sun summoner and let her retreat into the shadows of passivity just like Baghra did. The natural conclusion of Alina’s arc should have been an acceptance of an intrinsic aspect of her identity that would mend the damage dealt by years of repression. Furthermore, this repression is directly connected to her attachment to Mal because her resistance to the Grisha test was an effort to remain by his side…and look how that turned out. She was weak, sickly and an ugly duckling waiting to return to her true family of swans.

People will retort with “Well Alina never wanted power, all she wanted was a peaceful life!” Correction: Alina wanted a humble life because that was what MAL wanted and her resistance to destiny in favour of a life of irrelevance is not AT ALL a satisfying conclusion to a journey that began with a theme of self acceptance = good. If Alina kept her powers, she would have no choice but to embrace herself for who she truly was and stay with her once lost community to help them rebuild a broken country. Keeping her powers would necessitate shifting the status quo and choosing to make the bold decision of choosing responsibility over passivity.

Losing her powers provided Bardugo with an easy way out that practically forced Alina to choose Mal and thusly isolate herself from her newfound community to be…a young wife…ugh. Alina is not challenged by this ending whatsoever and it truly is such a cop out that really says “ Power and ambition is evil and will corrupt your pure soul!! That’s why you need to suppress all your deviant qualities and be a passive observer in the face of injustice!”

Let’s be real, Mal could never accept Alina’s powers because that would connote a sort of authority and power that would shift the gender dynamics in their relationship. He needs to feel big, which is why Alina must shrink.

Going to be controversial but the only reason Alina lost her powers was because otherwise she wouldn't have ended up with Mal. Mal wanted to live a quiet simple life and if Alina had her powers she would be "too powerful" (ugh) to justify living in the middle of nowhere instead of using her power and having a powerful role in the Grisha society. Leigh had to reduce Alina's identity and make her small enough in order to fit her into Mal's perfect quiet life.

[gay-jewish-bucky]

can we talk about the ableism/sexism of people having the serum change steve's sexual preferences?

so many people cannot fathom a disabled/chronically ill man who doesn't fit the masculine ideal (due to said health issues) being a dominant and/or a top, especially with a partner who is closer to normative masculinity, and must automatically be a bottom and submissive

yet once he gets the serum and becomes the perfect example of the masculine ideal there is no possible way that he could be a bottom or be submissive because that's not "manly" and magically turns into a dominant top

the serum amplifies what's already there, it wouldn't change what he likes in bed, it would strengthen it.

[ragingstillness]

Gotta love how S&B season two completely forgot that Baghra tried to kill Mal in the first season.

[halohalona]

BTW I finally watched the re-animated series last night with my friend. And I love how they address a lot of stuff about boundaries but come on. That one episode with Dae, are they just allergic to addressing Addison's flaws? Her being pushy I agree is a flaw of hers but she still brought up the whole "I'm an outsider because I have white hair" thing. I was, not gonna lie, fully expecting Dae to be like: Well it's different with me. I do love the fact that bucky was right in the episode. I just feel like addison needs more growth to her character.

[scentedmiracleobject]

Alina doesn't even know her exact age ( she said it herself) since she couldn't remember her age and her birthday date was given to her by the orphanage (the same date was given to every other child in Keramzin) but the antis settled for 16 for whatever reason.

This is why I say this fandom is full of shit. If Alina ended up being immortal anyway while the darkling was dead, those same people won't mind or come at old Alina for having a go at younger men the way they do with the darkling.

Coming to think of it: Baghra probably was already an immortal when she had Sasha because at that point she was desperate to have some company, she was probably few centuries old when she slept with whoever that mortal dude was and yet no one call mama Baghra the p or the g word smfh.

Would they keep the same energy with immortal Zoya taking lovers to her bad after everyone else she knows die??

Darkling antis stay consistent with their inconsistencies? I'll give them that

It's rant time

I swear every time a person says "Alina was a little girl/teenager" and "the Darkling was a weirdo for wanting her" my peace is replaced by an immense annoyance.

So just because the Darkling is immortal he's not....allowed to have a relationship?? So what, he must remain single and alone forever otherwise he's gonna break your white moral code? Do all immortal creatures must remain single and not have a partner?

Since when was Alina a "little girl"? She was seventeen, a certified adult by the Grishaverse standards since people are considered adults by the age of sixteen. So where did the "teenager" term came from?

And bold of you to assume that the word "teenager" even exists in this universe. In the Grishaverse you're a child and then you straight up become an adult at the age of sixteen. There are no teenage years for them.

And these passages from "King of Scars" prove it:

"She's barely sixteen" - which probably means that sixteen is also the age where girls begin to get married. In this case, Elke Marie will get married even sooner and no one bats an eye (everyone except Nikolai who tries to find an excuse to not get married).

And let's not forget the fact that Alina was immortal while she still had her powers. So if she had never lost them, sooner or later she would inevitably end up with Aleksander. The only other creature who could be with her.

Literally no Grishaverse character was disturbed or raised eyebrows for Alina's age. They all chastised her for wanting the "bad guy". Because it was the choice that made them revolt not the age, since she was an adult by then. They expected much from her (to rule, to lead, to fight) because quite simply she wasn't a child.

This babyfication of female characters in every piece of media has become a trend and I don't like it. You people will never accept other fictional universes' rules and you will never allow female characters to have depth and complexity. Alina had a sexual desire for the Darkling, she had feelings for him, she wanted power and she had her own darkness inside her but you will never get her out of the "she was just a little girl" description. You make her even worse than how she was written.

And it's evident how you have no problem with Nikolai proposing to Alina and even suggesting that he wanted children with her but everyone raged when the Darkling showed interest and sexual desire for her.