#grisha discourse

[serpenteve]

why we ship darklina

an essay literally no one asked for

Nobody needs a "reason" to ship Darklina. But considering this is a villain x hero pairing, it got me thinking about why we shipped it in the first place when the narrative and author so badly wanted us to root for the more sensible alternative pairing and why it became the most popular ship of the entire trilogy.

Personally, I find it really interesting (and low-key hilarious) that a lot of the reasons shippers gravitated towards Darklina can be directly traced back to how badly Bardugo bungled Alina's character arc, Mal's entire characterization and narrative role, Nikolai's wasted potential as an alternative love interest, and the noble intentions she gives the the Darkling.

Alina's Character Arc

Alina's character arc doesn't match who she is as a character. I've written more about that in this post, but a lot of readers were introduced to a passive and insecure protagonist who we were expecting to undergo a typical YA coming-of-age character arc where Alina acquires self-acceptance, confidence, and embraces the full breadth of her powers over the course of the trilogy. Instead, Bardugo gave Alina the kind of character arc that's usually deserved for power-hungry anti-heroines or tragic heroes with a fatal flaw to punish.

The plot offers a strange binary: either Alina suppresses and hides her powers and therefore stays away from descending into villainy OR Alina attempts to find Morozova's amplifiers in order to defeat the Darkling but then becomes corrupted by power in the process. Alina's journey to self-acceptance and exploring her own powers are unfortunately entangled with her relationship with the Darkling. The only way she is allowed to move forward through the plot is to succumb to the corrupting influence of the amplifiers.

For better or for worse, the first character to really embrace her powers instead of thinking she's a fraud or that she's weak or that she's an unholy abomination is the Darkling. He's the first person to recognize her power for what it is and accurately judge its potential and implications for the rest of the world. He advocates for her in front of the royal court, in front other Grisha who think she's weak, and even against Baghra who is initially a very ill-tempered mentor with little to no faith in Alina's abilities. He even rather ironically advocates for her even when the heroic person who's supposed to be supporting her (Mal) does not.

At the start of her journey, Alina is insecure and in constant need of assurance and validation. The Darkling's role as her mentor and guide into this unfamiliar world of Grisha makes him the perfect advocate not only for her powers but also to help Alina see her place in the world. However, once he is revealed to be the villain, Alina also fails to realize that it's time for her to advocate for herself and throws the baby out with the bathwater.

Mal's Characterization & Narrative Role

When Alina loses the Darkling as an advocate in S&B, Mal steps up to take this role. Alina is still rather passive for the majority of the first book and it's Mal who originally wants her to have Morozova's stag as an amplifier if it will mean being able to stand against the Darkling. Bardugo intended for him to be a heroic love interest as a foil to the villainous love interest and I believe she mostly succeeds for the first book.

However, because this is a story about punishing Alina's "evil ambition" (despite there being very little evidence of that) Mal is supposed to serve as a voice of reason in the narrative. Once Alina considers the necessity of acquiring more amplifiers to defeat the Darkling, it is Mal's role to warn her of the potential consequences, to remind her of her inner humanity, and to ward against the corrupting influence of Morozova's amplifiers. Mal's declarations that he wants back the old girl he knew without any power is meant to drive an ideological wedge between them, yes, but he's also meant to be Correct™ because, again, Bardugo is writing a story about a corrupted power-hungry heroine who goes too far and needs to be punished rather than the arc we were all expecting and the one that Alina's character needs: a coming-of-age story of self-acceptance and personal growth.

Some point after the backlash of Siege & Storm, Bardugo seems to have become aware of her mistake and attempts to scrub Mal's character to be more sympathetic. There is a bizarre exchange half-way through the third book when Mal finally declares:

"I wasn't afraid of you, Alina. I was afraid of losing you. The girl you were becoming didn't need me anymore, but she's who you were always meant to be."

This is an interesting line because it's a complete reversal of Mal's narrative role so far. He's supposed to be her voice of reason that opposes her at every turn but readers interpreted him as being resentful of Alina's powers and angry that she was no longer dependent on him. Bardugo is forced to retcon Mal's entire role in the narrative from being a voice of reason that opposes Alina's quest for power to a supportive friend who will fight by her side. But this was never her initial intention and I believe this change was brought on 100% by audience reaction because she failed to understand the arc her heroine needed and the kind of story her audience was anticipating for such a character.

Needless to say, having your heroine's main love interest actively resent her quest for power until half-way through the third damn book did not endear many readers to Mal. Because Bardugo failed to understand the kind of character development her heroine needed and failed to understand audience expectations, we hated Mal. He became the embodiment of every toxic chauvinist we'd ever met who can't stand the idea of his partner's success and feels entitled to be the center of her universe. He was not the voice of reason. He was an annoying gnat hellbent on dragging the heroine down and away from her destiny. We did not want to root for him. Even the villain was more sympathetic than him because he could bring her closer to achieving the self-acceptance the narrative was obsessed with denying her.

Nikolai's Wasted Potential as a Solid Love Interest

Nikolai plays several roles in Alina's journey but most importantly in our discussions for why we ended up shipping Darklina, his entire potential as a serious love interest is wasted.

When we meet Nikolai, we have hitched our wagons to the Darklina train because despite being the villain, the Darkling is the only one who will allow the heroine to accept her powers and come into her own. Her heroic love interest, Mal, is actively sabotaging her efforts and holding her back from her true potential. But then, in swoops Nikolai and we pause, wondering if there may be a better heroic alternative after all?

In a lot of ways, Nikolai and the Darkling alike: they are eager for Alina's power and see her as a solution to all their problems. They may want to use Alina to prop up their own agendas, but unlike Mal, Alina's summoning powers are a massive plus, not a burden. Nikolai is the heroic alternative to our villainous Aleksander. So we wait, wondering if Nikolai will be the one to fix this mess of a romantic subplot. His royal connections offer an easy path to upwards mobility for our heroine and we sense that an alliance between them (even if it's initially political in nature) may bring our heroine closer to obtaining more power, influence, and self-acceptance not only for herself, but also for the oppressed minority she is a part of.

But, again, Bardugo is still obsessed with that "punish the heroine for wanting power" agenda so while Nikolai exists as another mentor figure who offers Alina advice on how to rule, how to appeal to other people, how to charm, how to win people over, and Alina learns and applies much of what she learns from him, he is not treated as a real love interest.

Despite Nikolai being written as a fairy tale prince (handsome, charming, smart as a whip, brave in battle, etc) Alina never actually considers him romantically. They are friends and allies at best and the only time she considers kissing him is only when she's pissed about Mal.

Nikolai's proposal at the end of Ruin & Rising feels like one last saving grace, one last opportunity for our heroine to take control of her life and make a dramatic change to break from the past. But this too is rejected because Alina's arc will never let her access any power. She does not reject Nikolai because she wants to marry for love. She rejects him because she has been "punished" for wanting power and has internalized that she must not seek any more power for fear of angering the plot gods (and Bardugo). She must return to being nobody in order to remain a good and moral person.

(And, of course, we resent Mal even more because who in their right mind would choose him over Nikolai? Once again, he becomes a roadblock on our heroine's journey to power. We grow irritated that the heroine is failing to grasp an opportunity to elevate herself. We throw the book against the wall. Why are we even following this heroine?)

The Darkling's Motivations

Still, all of the above might still not have been enough to pull the reader to the villain's side. But the Darkling is the living embodiment of Villain Has A Point™. He is not pure unadulterated evil. He is not Lord Sauron or Voldemort or the Terminator.

He's more Magneto, Roy Batty, or Ozymandias---a man who is part of an oppressed minority who longs for justice and power but is absolutely unhinged in his methods.

Alina runs away because she does not want to be a non-consenting weapon in hands. But we always end up wondering what would have happened had Baghra not warned her. What would have happened if Alina gladly joined the Darkling's side? There's hundreds of fanfics written precisely about this situation because despite the villainy of his methods, we wonder if Ravka might not have been safer after all?

If the Darkling had used the Fold as a weapon against Fjerda and Shu Han, would any of the problems Ravka faces in the later books even exist? Would any Grisha fall victim to the khergud programs or be killed as witches? The Darkling wipes out Novokribirsk and kills hundreds of lives, but how many would he have saved with the Fold as Ravka's greatest shield and sword? 🤷🏽‍♀️

And therein lies the problem with the trilogy inconsistent moral landscape. The Darkling is an anti-villain that exists in a narrative that is very black and white, unlike the rest of the books in the Grishaverse where our protagonists are anti-heroes who kill, steal, and torture their way through the plot with nary a judgmental glance from the narrative. We long to see our heroine give in to her dark side and get her hands dirty because watching a naive, passive, scared little girl grow into a ruthless powerful Grisha would have made for a hell of a compelling story.

But that's not the story Bardugo wanted to tell.

The Greg Trilogy

Despite taking place in a fantasy Tsartist setting, the Grisha trilogy is oddly anti-Grisha. The narrative doesn't spend much time trying to examine the context or implications of an oppressed minority group fighting for power other than to say "magic powers = evil". Nikolai skates by on a throne of inherited wealth, privilege, and imperialism but it's okay because he's charming and witty and the only monstrous part of him is the Darkling's curse. Literally everything is worse for Ravka and their Grisha after the destruction of the Fold but Ravka must move forward into a new age without relying on Grisha power but putting their efforts into new muggle technologies. Alina must be stripped of her powers and returned to her "old self" in order to be purged of evil.

Basically, it's all one gigantic ✨ dumpster fire ✨ of mismatched character arcs, incompatible moral aesops, inconsistent characterizations, wasted potential, unexamined plot points but it's a a dumpster fire we lovingly and spitefully embrace in fanfic.

We don't ship Alina with the Darkling because we're stupid abuse apologists who somehow missed the giant flashing moral aesop of the books---and honestly, who could have possibly missed them when it's shoved in the reader's face every other chapter? We ship Alina with the Darkling because the entire ship is the embodiment of wasted potential (and wasted ✨aesthetics✨ tbqh 👀). We ship Alina with the Darkling because we're sick and tired of stories where female power is demonized. We ship Alina with the Darkling because the plot gave us literally no other alternative to see our heroine succeed except to give in to her alleged villainy.

But most of all, people ship Darklina because Leigh Bardugo utterly failed in writing the story she intended to write because had she succeeded, Darklina would not be the most popular ship of the trilogy.

[ssanktalina]

[seventfics]

A linguistic analysis of Ravkan and Ravkan names in SaB*

(*Written by a non-native who studied Russian, with respect, and grateful for any feedback)

Hi it’s me. Your friendly neighborhood bookworm (who studies linguistics). 

When I first read the SaB trilogy, I had been taking a year of Russian. The fantasy-lover in me instantly latched onto this grand magical world, and looking back, I remember getting so excited about the little hints of Russian throughout the book because, “Oh! I recognize that!! It means/references [X]!” That said, the linguistic student in me would stop in confusion at all the discrepancies, because...well...the language in SaB is not Russian. It’s fake/fantasy Russian. 

Russian is the obvious carbon footprint of Ravkan, just looking at its inspired Slavic myths, the straight-up Tsarist government, the architecture of the palaces. There’s other stuff too that adds to what is supposed to be “Ravkan culture” by being written with Russian words: kefta, sankt, kvas.

Even so, Ravkan is very distinctly assimilating Russian into something more English-native friendly. The names are wrong. The Anglicizied terms look off. The way characters refer to each other—in name, status, and formality—is completely Americanized. LB herself said that Ravkan is “inspired by Russian and Mongolian,” which. Doesn’t mean anything if actual Russian speakers can’t understand it.

Which is why I’m writing this, for my own linguistic interests and your curiosity (or peace of mind, I don’t know which one you came here reading for). I’m giving you my linguistic analysis of Ravkan, not as a badly-butchered Russian offshoot, but as a child of one of two possible linguistic phenomenon: relexification or creolization.

Relexification is the sudden rapid change of the lexicon in a language. Basically, one language adopts almost all of the lexicon of another language into itself:

Imagine, in this exercise, that the first speakers of Ravkan were originally nomads in what is now known as Ravka. Their tribe might have come into contact with the first settlers of the region (who, for the sake of our fictional linguistic analysis, must have been actual Russian speakers). As a minority, they could have adopted the majority-spoken Russian lexicon, but following the rules of their original language. Then powers changed. Ravkans became the majority. Russian went into obscurity while leaving a lasting linguistic imprint.

This, in theory, explains the discrepancies that exist in the use of Ravkan languages.

Personally, I don’t like the idea of relexification being the reason for Ravkan’s creation, since it doesn’t explain everything. A whole lexicon overhaul doesn’t explain the change in naming conventions. 

So, let’s talk about creolization!

Creolization is my favorite headcanon for Ravkan’s origins. It is a nuanced process that cannot be quantified just through lexicon, but is possibly just as dramatic in a short amount of time. I could write a whole paper on creolization and how most, if not all, languages in the world exist in a Creole spectrum-continuum based on language contact with other languages. However, this is a tumblr post for a dumb fictional world. Sigh, another day.

Let me elaborate with canon compliant reasons as to why creolization is a Thing That Definitely Happened in Ravka:

The creation of the Fold. With the creation of the Fold circa 400 years before the present time, language has had more than enough time to change in the aftermath of a drastic geographical alteration. 

The show even gives us more context by bringing up ‘Old Ravkan,’ which to our (read: Alina’s) ears, sounds pretty Russian. West Ravka also calls itself the ‘Old Country’, leaning into the idea that Old Ravkan (actual Russian) originates in the western side of the shadow border, and Ravkan can no longer be identified with it, as hundreds of years have passed in language isolation. So, Ravka developed separately from Old Ravkan? That’s not creolization. 

Well, what about the displacement of hundreds, even thousands of people, stranded east of the Fold? Those people and the languages they speak don’t just go away—they get integrated into the regional dialect. Fjerdans, Kerch, Shu Han, Suli, Ravkan tribes that each spoke their own variety of languages and used to live in different regions across Ravka. All of them pushed to share the same stretch of land, removed from sea paths. 

West Ravka probably underwent its own creolization because of the same reasons, but to a lesser extent.

Patronymics and diminutives have “vanished” from common usage. In both Ravkan and Old Ravkan, there once was an indicator of diminutives, as presented by the existence of Grisha coming from Sankt Grigori. Some characters also have diminutives as names. However, no patronymics seem to be in use, spoken nor in documentation. 

One reason for this “simplification” (a hot and loaded term to have in creolistics) is that since not every linguistic group stuck east of the Fold used them, patronymics and diminutives were dropped from usage completely, with some being preserved as first or last names.

(Sure, this is linked to how Russian patronymics and diminutives do not have a mirror form in English so Author worked with cultural bias, but the disappearance of them could tie directly with the next point, which is:)

The gender indicator of family names is, in some instances, completely flipped. This one is the strangest linguistic pattern I can point out, because of consistency.

Alina is Alina Starkov, despite standard -ov surname endings being masculine in Russian. Alright, everyone simplified Russian surnames even further so only masculine markers remained. Except, why are Ilya and Aleksander called Morozova, when -ova endings indicate a feminine marker? (Here’s where I say it would have been interesting to see if Aleksander calls himself Morozov, or what does Baghra call herself. They are literally from a different era, but alas). The gendered flip happens in multiple instances. Genya Safin (instead of Safina); Nadia Zhabin (Zhabina)... 

The only surname that doesn’t apply to this flipped rule is Lantsov, which could still be logical if we consider that the Lantsov name is inherited down a long royal line that can be traced back 400 years, possibly to Old Ravkan. With male rulers, the gender indicator froze and stuck to -ov.

Town/city names, preserved locations. To understand this point, we can look into places like England or the United States, where a lot of towns and villages have roots in the language of original settlers (see Gaelic in England; the many Native American languages in the US). Ravkan town and city names could have been preserved from Old Ravkan (Russian), though people in East Ravka no longer speak it. 

Fossilized words. Every language has these, and they are honestly really cool. They are antiquated/obsolete words that we no longer use in any context except in certain phrasing. The thing about fossilized terms, though, is that native speakers have no context or awareness of the original meaning of the word or phrase they are using—like when English speakers say “just deserts” (which comes from the Middle English desert, “to deserve”) and is often misspelled to be “desserts” (a different loanword from French, desservir, unrelated). 

Some Ravkan fossil words we could extrapolate: kefta (it has no translated equivalent in the text, it is exclusively used to mean the clothing Grisha wear, and in Russian, a kefta is a dish); kvas (simply because the actual Russian kva would not get anyone drunk, so it is a misnomer/fossilized term from something stronger), the term Grisha itself (frozen to indicate powered individuals, and nothing at all with the diminutive of Grigori), and otkazat’sya (at this point, Ravkan natives say it originates from ‘abandoned’, but it is used to signify non-Grisha humans in a non-pejorative way...and a majority, socially superior race would not call itself ‘abandoned’).

Pronunciation and spelling. Ravkan is not Russian. Not the way that characters speak or write it. 

1. The show invented its own alphabet which, while inspired by the Cyrillic alphabet, separates Ravkan from Russian even more. It’s not Cyrillic anymore, it’s Ravkan. 

2. The “mispronunciation” of what we know to be Russian words is apparently the correct pronunciation of Ravkan words. Russian nyet is Ravkan net. Moya should have been pronounced maya because of how the written -o- in Russian has two pronunciations, based on syllable stress. The same applies to koroleva, which phonetically should be /karaleva/ as the stress is in the /e/, and not in either /o/. In the show, this was a decision to pronounce. 

Casual native speaker bilingualism. This one is a bit of a cheat, but a big part of a lot of Creole societies. It’s Author’s choice to use a handy Russian dictionary while also making it known that the English narrative does have a word for it. (Quick examples: the use of da/net along with yes/no.)

A bilingual/plurilingual society is more likely to develop Code-switching jargon and Creole lexifiers, which can directly explain the shift in pronunciation, spelling, and even the expression of grammatical gender in Ravkan.

At the end of it all, I want to reiterate that I don’t have the means to question LB or SaB’s showrunners directly on why they made Ravkan the way it is (I wish). Everything I’ve written here is from a studying linguist’s perspective, attempting to make reason out of something that otherwise isn’t reasonable to Russian native speakers. My concluding piece of analysis: 

Ravkan is a Russian-lexifier Creole language with restructured rules and relexified jargon. 

If this post is of any help, I am glad to have been of service. Otherwise, take it with a grain of salt, or feel free to argument on the points I’ve presented!

[monarch-of-altamira]

Ok you, Darklina shipper, LOOK ME IN THE EYE and listen.

If the Darkling had met Alina when she was a child, he would’ve manipulated her like he did Zoya and David—by being a strong, authoritative figure they could rely on to protect them. He only presented himself as a love interest because he met her as an adult.

His objective was never her love but her power, and if being a lover wasn’t an option for whatever reason, he would’ve been a father, a general, an abuser or anything else he needed to be in order to manipulate her.

He is not a romantic character, he’s an abuser who presents himself like one. The second it doesn’t work, the charm and the “vulnerability” are gone and all that’s left is the ruthlessness and ability to cause pain and force people’s hands.

[rityrooroo]

The Darkling and the Phantom have the same vibe. Change my mind

[craiguntlnyttym]

Is cut something only Sun Summoners and Shadow Summoners do?

Or can other Etherealki actually use cut?

I'm only curious because in the Shadow and Bone trilogy of books, one of the characters says that is unique to summoners but I don't think we ever see Squallers, Inferni or Tidemakers use cut. Can or could they?

[i-queendom]

Wtf happened to the grisha plight after Alina looses her powers, goes to live the obscure life with her true north, after the darkling's death, and the crusade he spearheaded (I legit think he lost his mind after he found his soulmate Alina, and she is just selfish, obtuse, hell bent on playing on the archetype of hero and villain, refuses to see that now that she is apart of a persecuted minority she has a responsibility to help because she has the singular power to do so, and up her "best friend's" ass. And I will not read the duology for Nikolai because the fucks I give cannot be contained.)

Did the destruction of the Fold and the death of Aleksandr bring the peace that Alina harkened!?

I think not, the war with Fjerda and Shu Han continues, grisha are still burned at the stake, sold in slavery or indentured servitude, still experimented, and drained for blood. The only purpose grisha would have in Ravka would be to continue to fight Ravka's wars at both fronts, a war that is happening because Ravka has the audacity to not kill their grisha for sport. Its a pipe dream to want or expect grisha to have the choice to live an ordinary life when they do not have protection against those who will harm them i.e. Fjerda and Shu Han raiding Ravka for grisha quarry.

I'm curious at how long until the otkazat'sya (Otkazannye!!???) rebel, take up Zlatan's mission. The resentment at having to send generations of family members to the king's wars has to fester into a gaping wound that can't be fixed. Especially since one of the reasons for that war is because of grisha whom they resent and revile. I don't think Ravka is any better just because they don't kill their grisha, the bigotry is still there.

[fireandfolds]

kaz brekker is a he/him lesbian, argue with the wall