#the darkling was able to *try* to recreate his experiments at all? like obviously it went poorly hence shadow fold

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

That other ask made me think of the possibility where he got the Sun Summoner after he/she already died. Would he lower himself to the level of Shu Han and experiment on them to know more about their powers? I doubt an obsession of centuries would end with "oh no dead :(". He would still want to know about those powers as much as he could.

I agree that he probably wouldn’t be placidly accepting of that outcome, but I disagree that he would necessarily think of it like that, or have that sort of hang up to begin with.

Like there is the pre existing Mad Science TM aspect to merzost/Morozova’s research, beyond even the amplifiers, that the Darkling apparently obsessed over? The journals have a Lovecraftian lite quality in terms of “ravings” with forbidden knowledge no one can make sense of. I really wanted the books to further develop that aspect. Which is why I was annoyed when the answer in KoS was more like “eh merzost isn’t really a thing.”

Anyway I had a pretty firm pre duology HC that if he hadn’t died when he did, his next mad quest would probably be trying to get Alina’s powers back somehow.

If she died or he only ever encountered a dead sun summoner, I think his main goal would be to first preserve the body indefinitely and then to find a way to resurrect her. Which is, again, something we already have some precedent for, considering Baghra’s sister.