Very brief thoughts on Malina in the books and why I think the show will help them.
However, in reality, I don't ship it. He manipulated her, threatened her friends, wanted to use her for her powers, and was all around a bad dude - hence why he's the villain. Don't get me wrong his motivations and his end goal are solid, that's what makes him compelling, but he's still very much a villain.
Obligatory warning, this does contain vague spoilers for the whole trilogy.
Conceptionally, I like Darklina. I love the whole Light vs Dark, they are each other's balance thing. Love the whole vibe they have going.
Not to be controversial possibly, but I liked Alina's ending for who she was. I would've liked for her to keep some of her power, sure, but aside form that I think it suited her perfectly.
Mal wasn't perfect and I stand by that, but I believe the real issue with Mal is rooted in the fact that the trilogy is in first person PoV. From Alina's PoV, Mal is pitched to us as, essentially, perfect because Alina already loves him, so we didn't get the chance to grow to like him in the same way as she did. I think he suffers because of this, as usually for myself at least, part of what makes a ship strong in my mind is getting to watch them fall for each other. ( Sidenote: if you haven’t already, I highly recommend reading Mal’s Letter which was included in some editions of bk1, I found it to be amazing and it helped me like him more)
This also got in the way of Mal's characterisation in Siege and Storm, where most people agree he's at his worst. Alina mentions multiple times that Mal is drinking a lot, smells of alcohol, looks like he hasn't been sleeping, but it's never fully addressed. These moments are brushed off and easily forgotten, mainly because Alina doesn't see much of Mal at this point and is so caught up in her own role, which is totally understandable, but does mean we don't see how Mal is doing. In Ruin and Rising though he does seem to accept responsibility and I genuinely liked him a lot more in it.
Essentially what this boils down to for me, is the main issue here is the first person PoV used in the trilogy. Obviously that's what was most popular in 2012, and of course I don't hold that against the series, but it does heavily influence how we see every single character.
This went on way longer than I'd planned, but my point here is that I liked Mal after I just finished my reread of the trilogy, and I genuinely think the show will do him a lot of good because we get to see what he goes through with the fighting and the deaths and everything he goes through in bk1 that we don't get to see. I also believe this could help the Darkling, because in the books we don't see what he's doing when he isn't around Alina, so we don't ever get to see what he's truly like, because with her he's always trying to win her over in some sort of way. And, of course, it doesn't hurt that the cast are all brilliant and all seem to have great chemistry with everyone.
Anyway those are my thoughts, obviously you don't have to agree or anything, I just wanted to get them out there before the show is released.
