The way everyone in the little palace gaslit Alina into believing Mal never loved her or cared for her at all was always so obvious in the book but in the show you actually see how that coloured Alina’s view of Mal and her memories of him, because not only do we see what he’s doing now to get to her, including hearing his own letters that he’s writing to her, but we also see the memories.
We watch him get flustered and awkward when his friends rib him about her. We watch him light up as he sees her. We watch little him just love her, absolutely adore her. We see him almost kiss her on their perch at the camp. We know it’s not real, we know he does love her. And that makes what the Darkling and all of his followers are doing to her feel that much more sinister. The audience having that perspective of him allows us to see what’s happening to o
I think it shows different values of 1st person and 3rd person storytelling. In 1st person, the audience experiences it with the character personally, being equally unsure, confused, and upset because the audience is led believe as she does that he has forgotten her. It makes the reveal that he hadn’t, couldn’t, that much more impactful, and it also makes the audience feel the betrayal from The Darkling and people like Genya hit even harder.
But in 3rd, the audience is watching it happening. Instead of feeling it with her we’re watching from the outside, screaming at her that “no, Alina, he’s coming for you. He loves you, just look at how he looks at you! The LETTERS!”. We know something is up with the letters, because if they’re both writing them... It makes everything feel so much more sinister and just a little off because we know.
I personally like 3rd person more but i think it’s a really interesting how it changed the experience.
