#but genya does look like someone is threatening him so i guess its ok

[oemmio]

Happy b-day to Genya's dad🎉

[where-theres-smoak-2]

If Aleks was supposed to be this super evil big bad why didn’t he make Alina pretty much his prisoner from the get go? He could have readily lied and isolated her until finding the stag without attempting to seduce her or whatever and once the stag was in his hands he could have just forced her to wear it or better yet find a way to transfer all her power to him leaving her to die without her powers to keep her healthy. That’s what a true villain would have done instead of the parody of one we got,IMO.

(Trigger warning: mentions of abuse)

You're right that would make him more of a villain. But LB had that whole cautionary tale she was trying to tell of beware the hot charismatic men they be evil. Don't fall for the hot older guy they be evil. I also think she wanted that whole plot twist of the darkling actually being the bad guy so needed him to be a decent guy in the first half of the book so that it would be oh so shocking when it reveals that Alina was manipulated by him. There are couple of problems with this though. The first is that it is poorly written I mean I wouldn't call a couple of conversations and two kisses a master manipulation personally but hey that's just me. The second is that the cautionary tale very much like the secondary 'power corrupts' one that exists in the trilogy is outdated and overdone. Everyone knows that sometimes older powerful men manipulate women, particularly younger women, for their own ends. Like I don't feel like anyone needs to be told that manipulators are charismatic and charming, obviously they are, if they were antisocial and mean they would have a real hard time manipulating anyone. Also like how power doesn't always corrupt not every good looking powerful man is going to abuse and manipulate you. Then there is also the fact that if she really wanted to stick with the 'powerful men' cautionary tale then there were other characters in the book that were actually better suited to it then the darkling, like the king or prince vasily. This is just my opinion and I am sure there will be those who disagree with me but I think the problem with using the darkling as this character is that he is very much a fantasy character and the abuse he inflicts on Alina is often fantasy in nature such as a magic collar, or using shadow monsters and a magic shadow fold to threaten the ones she loves. The problem with that is when I think fantasy it takes me further from reality then say a character who is human and inflicts abuse that can and often does happen in reality. Not sure if I am explaining myself properly here but I guess what I mean is that a man is never going to force a magical collar around a woman's neck in real life but a man could beat or force himself on a woman in real life which is why I think the very human non-fantasy/supernatural character of the king or prince would have served better as the villain of that cautionary tale.

I also find it kind of funny when you have antis who in some kind of faux concern for the young readers talk about what if these young girls think this kind of relationship is ok and how they used to find so and so villain hot and sexy when they were a teenager and wish they could meet a guy like that but then they grew out of it and realised that a relationship like that is wrong. Which, exactly, you grew out of it. What on earth makes them think these other young girls won't grow out of it? As a teen we often are drawn to things that as an adult we no longer find attractive, its part of growing up. Also I feel like by the time you are at an age where you are seeking those kinds of relationships you are also at an age where you understand the difference between reality and fiction. Fiction is a way to safely explore forbidden desires or explore darker parts of human nature. Just because someone finds the darkling interesting or attractive does not mean that is something they condone or seek in real life. Your fictional preferences don't reflect your real life morals and I don't understand why there is this sudden morality policing going on in fiction/ fandom where if a character is even slightly problematic then anyone who likes that character is automatically the spawn of satan.

Anyway went on a slight tangent then. But I personally just don't think the cautionary tale was a necessary one and it was not one that I found interesting at all, especially when the backdrop for the tale has an even more important story to tell about the prosecution of minorities. I am much more interested in that story than one where they are warning me about something that I am already painfully aware of. I also, as I mentioned before, don't like the way the story was dealt with. I feel like Alina was very much shamed by the narrative for falling for the darkling and she's painted as being this stupid girl who fell for his manipulations and should have known better. I also feel like some people in the fandom treat darkling fans the same way, like they are just dumb hormonal girls which you know is really sexist and misogynistic. Also sometimes it doesn't matter how forewarned you are about attractive charismatic men you can still fall for them. That doesn't make it your fault or make you weak. You can come out of one abusive relationship and then end up falling into another and again its not your fault. I personally think we need to stop telling women that they should know better, its not as black and white as that. If a man manipulates and abuses a woman then the blame falls entirely on that man, not on his victim.

I understand that the story was personal to LB as she said in an interview that she wrote the trilogy when she had just come out of an abusive relationship and I have alot of sympathy for her, no one should have to go through that. And look I am no psychologist or expert but I do think you can see echoes of this throughout her work. I mean none of the relationships are healthy, they all have problematic elements in them and alot of them include the males trying to control their female partners in some way. Also there's the habit of quite a few of the female characters being made victims of men, Alina, Genya, Nina, you could even argue Baghra. They all are punished or used by men in various ways.

So I am not sure I really answered your question and instead kind of went on a bit of a rant but in my opinion the reason why the darkling wasn't written as a villain from the start who just took Alina captive and forced the collar on her without messing around with seducing her (if you could really call what happened in the books a seduction) is because it didn't fit what LB wanted for her narrative. She wanted this character who was a charming, charismatic manipulator to serve as a cautionary tale of how older men misuse their power to deceive younger women.

[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.