#nahri and ali

[cozycoffeereads]

It’s been a year since I’ve read the Daevabad Trilogy and all I can think is:

I need more of Ali and Nahri

I need more of Ali and Nahri

Please give me more of Ali and Nahri

[eerna]

saw them holding hands in the marid river (scandalous)

[ujiuniversefactory]

Alizayd "the biggest simp" Al Qahtani 😆

Was reading the extra scenes of daevabad and my heart melted reading this Ali & Nahri short scene

[daevabadfanart]

Art print of Ali and Nahri in the royal library, made for Rosemary Creations. Drawn by allexandracurte on Instagram, 2023.

[jamesscarstairs]

finished the daevabad trilogy

[thestarsandnightskies]

things to do alone with dara: kill him

things to do alone with ali: kiss him (maybe not it would scare him)

[winteryapothecaries]

@leafy-m Yeah you got it. Admittedly EoG has issues, but a huge part of the review divide is from upset Dara stans. (it probably doesn't help that the author never expected there to be Dara fans in the first place, so when she made his ending better than it should have been to help appease them, it wasn't enough because they expected him to be the top dog/first love interest wins & all that. Which completely fails to understand what the series is about, but what else is new).

Thanks for the reply bc I was itching to speak with someone who read the books as they came out. I really want to know what went down bc from my brief research the author was subject to abuse bc of Dara stans, and publishers neglected printing merch of Ali??? Honestly, it's as if those folks were reading a completely different series because HOW? how can they treat the second largest main pov character of the series like this? No kidding Shannon was confused and I'M CONFUSED bc she laid the red flags on thick right from the beginning. Like Shannon wrote books based on Islamic mythology so she could be free to write and headline a character like Ali for Muslim readers, not bc she wanted she wanted to pump out yet another genocidal xenophobic edge lord for ppl to thirst over. Unfortunately, large parts of her audience are shallow and honestly lack reading comprehension skills.

[eyelashesandentropy]

no okay listen

even if the entire series was foreshadowing it, i still don’t ship nahri and ali together

i just think he’s boring. a deeply devout prince who loves math for a fiery, whipsmart con artist? mmm no

give me a (mostly unwilling) genocidal ancient warrior any day

[leafy-m]

alizayd for character opinion bingo 🧍🏽‍♀️

Thank you! 💖

Alizayd al Qahtani is the fucking best. There is no contest. He's empathetic, he's a sass machine, he's got a backbone made of righteous steel, he's a nerd raised to be a jock and was the best zulfiqari of his generation through sheer determination. He's the smartest (and tallest) man in the room that loves to help people and is also an oblivious social loser. He's a math genius and an economic wizard that outsmarted the Royal Treasury's best accountants as a teenager to secretly fund and make the Tanzeem's illegal transactions untraceable, and *During a Recession* got a millennia-old decrepit hospital to be completely rebuilt and functional in like 6 months. He also actually listens to people, and did possibly the most romantic thing in the series by building Nahri her private Cairo-themed office. He's self-sacrificing and self-denying to a fault and all he wants to do is fix things (and swim, and read), and he perfectly fits into soldier life and civilian life.

My man has the best character arc of the trilogy as he learns and grows past his early prejudice and indecision while sharpening his best traits. He is constantly reevaluating himself and his actions while still holding on to what matters to him, like his faith and his idealism that Daevabad can be improved. Even in the depths of his bitterness or grief, he always returns to trying to do the right thing, and not holding unrelated people responsible for the actions of others. He has the best motivational speeches in the series. His great grandpa is a crocodile and their scenes together are hilarious.

My man Alizayd has some Lord of the Rings: Return of the King-level epicness, in how he is descended from both Zaydi al Qahtani and the marid-blessed Armah. Zaydi, who rallied the djinn world against the genocidal Nahids and overthrew them to take Daevabad 1400 years earlier; and his ally Armah who commanded the marid to help take the city and Suleiman's Ring, and made the ultimate sacrifice by staying allied with the djinn. Ali is constantly compared to Zaydi in City of Brass and Kingdom of Copper, but there's this steady transfer of similarities to Armah in Kingdom of Copper and Empire of Gold, until Ali is truly representing both sides combined as he aids Nahri and a global army that he put together in three days to once again take back Daevabad from a genocidal Nahid. The man is a fucking legend, and with any other author or director it would unquestionably be at the forefront of the story. Instead it hides in background details foe readers to piece together, like it's barely worth mentioning.

This is because my man Ali also has the self-confidence/self-esteem of a shy beetle hiding six feet under the earth, and the author's subtle/vague writing style and inability to stand up for what she's trying to say when people misunderstand has created... how do I word this... A lot of wiggle room for bullshit?

Ali gets dragged a lot for being self-righteous and a fanatic, because characters that are threatened by him in the book call him that, and readers parrot it without any consideration or critical thought. Is it self-righteous to be against slavery? Or to create personal boundaries regarding drinking and premarital sex? Is it fanaticism when he argues against corruption, or practices his religion *in a completely normal way?* I dare say no! But Ali is both black and muslim, so he gets a shit load of shit from every corner, and with the author unable to really clear things up and too cowardly to even admit that Ali is her favorite character without immediately asking everyone to forget she said that (Oops. Also: no), it makes me very, very concerned for whoever ends up playing Ali in the Netflix show. Because if past is any pretext, he's definitely not gonna get paid enough for all the harassment he'll face. And if the author can't stand up for her characters and book themes now, how will she do it when the audience is much, much bigger and louder? :/

As much as I love Ali and his countless parallels with Nahri, and have a thousand headcanons for him (and a thousand fic & art ideas/wips), the series itself (or rather how it undid all its narrative themes in the end to appease loud fans who never understood what the series was trying to say in the first place, along with the author's blindspots regarding the Nahids/Daevas), has made me incredibly bitter. 🙃 I am someone who worships canon encyclopedically and remembers everything, and have come to the unfortunate realization that I cannot in good health ever read this series again.

So my beloved blorbo Ali exists for me in a weird dimension that I cannot really interact with anymore. Made worse because I still desperately want to see fandom stuff, but then also viciously tear apart everything I find. 💀

Idk how to end this. Thanks for the ask! ☺️

[sudaca-swag]

i love picking up fantasy series to read bc you have to read at least 3k pages to get either a mildly goodish ending for your characters or an utter traumatic ending no in between

[andromeda3116]

oh my GOD

this is SUCH a niche revelation but like

nahri and ali in the daevabad trilogy, as i'm reading river of silver, are exactly how i picture zuko and katara post-such selfish prayers

the quiet support, the gentle teasing, the mutual understanding of their pain and fears, the lamenting about boring council meetings as they try to rebuild and change the world together, the "ooh sorry not sorry but i'm hunting you down and making you celebrate your birthday with me" kind of relationship?

that's my post-series zutara, that's exactly the relationship i want zuko and katara to have, one that brings out the best in both of them as they work together to build a new world

[eerna]

Begging you to draw Ali and Nahri

Me @ my own hands

I HAVE DRAWN THEM SO MANY TIMES BUT I AM NEVER HAPPY WITH HOW THEY TURN OUTTTT T.T

[perfectly-uncapable]

i said i was over her but i am so not

[ultraturtleduck]

So I read the Scholomance series in like 4 days and now I'm blitzing the City of Brass trilogy and wow these are really starting to blend together in my subconscious.

[a-menaceinpink]

just finished kingdom of copper and i’m so sorry but i am notttt feeling the Ali/Nahri ship 😭 i need her to be a lesbian with Zaynab or by herself like these men just keep continuously ruining her life

[timeiswriteiguess]

Finished the Daevabad Trilogy last night and:

Rip Nahri, you would have loved WebMD

Rip Ali, you would have loved Microsoft Excel

Rip Dara, you would have loved Brexit

Rip Muntadhir, you would have loved Ryan Gosling’s performance of “I’m Just Ken” at the Grammys

Rip Jamshid, you would have loved Heartstopper