Actually i think that the main conceit of the original grishaverse trilogy is that there Was in fact an assumption of An Amount of critical thinking and analysis skills that. not to stir up shit. are a bit rare in the circles of YA fandom and YA fandom enjoyers. ESPECIALLY regarding the darkling. Everyone is allowed to have one (1) tumblr sexyman style villain that they no holds barred hate and he is mine.
so the thing about the darkling. the Thing about the darkling is that hes absolutely a satirical and critical version of the sort of Immortal Hot Boy (antihero flavor) who is i think possibly best shown in Edward Cullen and Erik phantom of the opera. Hes powerful! hes hot! hes Deeply Fucked Up! he’s unavoidably an abuser!
ANYWAYS BOOKVERSE SPOILER WARNING since im putting this in the tag, also i don’t know how to format a read more so Long Post! sorry.
however Immortal Hot Boy trope is SO prevalent in early 2010s YA fiction that it genuinely does not occur to people to question even after you get shown a parade of his red flags. the fact that the darkling is a. of a comparable power to alina and b. seems to take her powers and autonomy seriously makes him PRIME shipping material especially if You, an enjoyer of early 2010s YA fantasy and fandom, are already used to this extremely specific parade of red flags being portrayed as hot and desireable. its an unavoidable cliche of the genre (spike from Buffy, snape, Rath Roiben Rye from Tithe, the list goes on) and he is absolutely set up as a love interest Would Be, narratively. but heres the thing:
Shadow and Bone (the books) fundamentally Are Not YA Fantasy and Romance books. theyre action/adventure tragedy books written for teenaged girls.
Alina Isnt the typical Strong Female Protagonist (Look At How Well We In The Writing Room Do Female Representation flavor) literally On Purpose. Alina does, in fact, just want to Go Home. however, she Is in fact a feminist character as honestly? the deciding metric for whether a book Respects Women is whether their characters are treated with respect and consideration (in the writing. books that portray misogyny do not become unfeminist by doing so) and Alina’s character (and zoya, genya, and tamar) is. Alina’s only stated goals from the beginning of the series is that she wants a. to go home and start an orphanage, b. to hang out with her best friend, and c. maybe be romantically involved with her best friend if he is so inclined. thats it. no this is not particularly GirlbossTM of her but GirlbossTM characters are not the only type of valid female character okay. but then it turns out that alina has actually God Level Powers, which, and I cannot be more clear here, she does not want.
It is therefore narratively important that alina has her choice of love interests throughout the series. in S&B, alina’s crush on mal appears unrequited and inopportune, something that has the power to ruin her current relationship with mal and not do much else. in contrast, the darkling is mysterious, attractive, and, most importantly, clearly interested in her, even if his interest mainly manifests in terms of interest in her power. he presents himself to her as the only one in the world who can understand her (which. red flag.) but in doing so, he assumes that her entire previous identity will be subsumed by being the sun summoner, which it never is. throughout the series, alina remains consistently alina. There is, throughout his expressions of interest, never any doubt that he would act exactly the same to another girl with the same power set, as he is, ultimately, not attracted to alina, but to the sun summoner. Even if this was his only problem, that’s still Not Ideal, since that’s absolutely objectification. this is not immediately evident on a cursory or first reading, both due to imperfect writing and the use of a non-omniscient and therefore semi-unreliable narrator.
Then he stops being a viable love interest as it is revealed that in fact he has a history of manipulating girls and young women under his power. The most egregrious example of this is Genya, who murders the king on what is revealed to be the darkling’s orders, and then reveals that the king has been raping her. Genya is the most beautiful girl in ravka, which can be and often is construed as a sort of power, but is one that she has no choice in. the Darkling’s manipulation of genya here cannot be overlooked either, since he does use her as a tool in his warmongering and then a scapegoat. there are Absolutely parrallels to be drawn here to alina’s situation: the darkling takes advantage of a young woman’s quest for power (or not even that— arguably, just the wish to get out of a bad situation) and then uses this to take her power from her. The darkling may not have had sexual or romantic intent towards genya, but this act Was an expression of his power and control. Genya is, by committing this act, forced to remain with the darkling, as this act, no matter how justified it was, is still treasonous. Alina, similarly, is manipulated into a quest for power that ends with power taken from her by the darkling, where he literally collars her with the antlers, which then allow him to control her powers without her consent, as if she were nothing more than an instrument. symbolically this is extremely significant, but this is a tumblr post and not a thesis. the important part:
The Darkling is not interested in Alina as a person, but in the power alina has and how it can be used to benefit him. even though the sun summoner may be most powerful with the darkling, Alina is ultimately a tool to him, and has no power in their interactions.
that’s horrifying! the darkling is unarguably a villain for that! not to mention that he knew what was happening to genya (and certainly dozens of other girls), had the power to stop it, and chose not to! and yet that is, when taken to its end, the ultimate conclusion of the Immortal Hot Boy With Magic Powers: controlling, manipulative, and genuinely? fucked up. the darkling IS meant to portray this as Actively Fucked Up, but a lack of narrative control and audience expectations did. well.
For the sake of it, though, i might as well get into the rest of alina’s love interests, because the implications and power balance in all of those relationships are fascinating to consider and write about.
second: nikolai, the spare royal, secret bastard, and Actual privateer. He’s not even a consideration until the second book, but, like the darkling, he also offers Alina power in exchange for the use of her own, but he, at least, is honest that his offer is not really romantically inclined, and explains it all for her: her power as the sun summoner will legitimize his reign (as. he is also the Only remaining legitimized member of the royal family). Nikolai’s honesty does put him over the darkling in terms of Alina’s romantic prospects, but he still wants the sun summoner, and not alina. nikolai represents a cause, not a romantic interest, and while their interests align for the duration of the war, alina Does Not Want political power, a life at court, or any of the things that a more permanent relationship with nikolai will unavoidably require. Alina’s goals and nikolai’s are fundamentally different, since alina is a commendably consistent character, who still just wants to run a countryside orphanage with mal.
finally there’s mal. He is Absolutely Nothing compared to A Thousand Year Old Wizard God and The Next King. But he wants Alina. He doesnt care if she has powers, and remains the Only one of her love interests who is Actually Interested in who she is, instead of what she can do for him. in any other book, the main girl character giving everything up to date a mediocre dude and run an orphanage is not, particularly, great. However, this Isn’t any other book: by dating her bestie and running away to an orphanage in the countryside Alina is fulfilling her Only Stated Goal. The sun summoner’s powers have only even been used to control her and arguably when her powers were strongest she had the least narrative agency as she was imprisoned and used as the figurehead of a cult. Alina was a living martyr even Before she faked her death. she Does Not Win and even symbolically loses by becoming powerful enough to fight the darkling: so she Doesn’t.
Alina’s agency comes from her choice, and not her powers, and her powers are intrinsically not her choice, which is why the final battle cannot be fought by her. if alina really Is the Only One powerful enough to fight the darkling, then the darkling is proven right, and the entire war does Not matter: if Only Alina can fight, then the war was over in book one, because the stag’s antlers mean that the darkling can control alina’s powers. and that’s nihilistic and depressing.
Even alina thinks that this is true, though: she thinks that everything comes down to an ancient and extended scavenger hunt, and she thinks she has no choices. yes, completing morozova’s trinity renders her Physically unable to fight, but mentally and symbolically she was unable to fight either chapters or books previous to the final battle. ironically, she regains the ability to choose after losing her powers, since her agency is not related to her power level, but to her choices.
It doesn’t matter what alina chooses to do, but it Does matter that she has the power of choice. Alina is, in this way, a better-written character than any of the sort of GirlbossTM Strong Female Character types that were really Very much her contemporaries.
and, as an addendum: no, it’s not particularly great writing. you can sort of see the loose strings, even if they’re not particularly important loose strings, but you can see the writing get Much better as you read, and, like, the themes Are more complicated than the writing can support. this is a subversion propped up by the bones of the narrative it subverts, and they’re not particularly strong bones. yes a great deal of it is expectations projected onto a narrative and a lack of critical analysis. however, the narrative actively welcomes projected expectations and only reveals that they’re being subverted twenty pages later. so.
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