#gv crit

[kirsbataar]

white people listen to fans of color when they tell you something makes them uncomfortable challenge

[milfketterdam]

hi! i just wanted to know, why is leigh bardugo problematic? (feel free to answer to answer on your blog or send me a message if you'd prefer that!) (its okay if you dont want to answer either :) )

oh you’re totally fine asking here!! this is mostly gonna be focused on gv bc. thats all ive read by her kdsljsf

as much as i love the grishaverse series (like. a whole lot look at my url aksdjd) theres a noticeable difference between the characterisation and worldbuilding for white characters vs characters of colour, and im definitely looking up for rule of wolves considering im 99% sure shes having sensitivity readers for her writing regarding shu han, but even so, novyi zem and shu han have been hugely underdeveloped countries while the white countries (ravka, fjerda, kerch, but not so much the wandering isles lol) have been the focus of the series and have fairly developed cultures and respectable amount of time dedicated to this whereas shu han has had like. evil scientists?? and novyi zem just. doesnt have a culture in the series and is mentioned to have ravkan colonies there in siege and storm i think? my memorys fuzzy on the details and novyi zem was originally supposed to be based on america/australia i think but having your fantasy africa being colonised by the protaganists government and your fantasy asia have super smart and oppressive human experimentation just... isnt that good when thats almost everything shown for those countries. and in the s&b trilogy (i dont remember what book 😭 it mightve been s&s again) had alina and mal dress in suli costumes, imitate their accents, and give people fake fortunes and its shown as this cute funny thing they do when its Very Much Not. plus like. one of the two black women being dead (jespers mom aditi + leoni) and a lot of other more specific things in both the books and the fandom and a lot of other have talked abt it way better than what im saying rn. especially being a white passing latine person sinces latine ppl just. dont exist in the gv (which i am forever bitter abt but el oh el) whereas other races do and ppl of those races have talked about these issues as well and like. im not coming for u for asking me ur so fine but id def recommend reading through zemenipearls’ fandom racism and crit tags (crit is general crit so its not all gv but a solid portion of it is) as she talked a good amount abt it (also shes just a great account to follow in general) and i couldnt find like. a post/tag that would be easy to look through for crit focusing on shu han specifically but the fact that shu han being a country thats the Entirety of Asia kinda treats asian ppl as a monolith when they are very much not (compared to our multiple white countries) and like honestly theres probably more (any of my followers feel free to add anything!!) 

um yeah this is long and im a few days late answering sorry!! but i hope this. makes sense and if anyone wants to correct smn i said im down to edit anything to sound better/include extra stuff or clarify any point i made!!!

[pippims]

tbh there are a lot of valid criticisms to be made about the way that kaz’s disability is handled in six of crows/crooked kingdom. but if you’ve never experienced chronic pain you need to tread Lightly.

[evasjacks]

@ prev. anon: you are right, but we have a lot of sadness for the gv poc due to the amount of poor decisions made for them. zoya wasn't even a character of colour until kos and people still want to honour the half ravkan heritage that she has as an excuse to draw her or write her as white. alina wasn't a poc and she was announced as half shu for the sake of the show, a fact that is not canon but is accepted generally. but, it would have been better to have that stated in canon right? (1/2)

as for inej and jesper; inej is a great character. but her correct ethnicity is not specified and it seems like it is a mix of many cultures together (Romani, Arab and Indian) and that's just blatant disrespect because while these ethnicities and cultures have influences on each other, mixing them all up is just... not right. Jesper's heritage is barely even touched upon. Leoni does get an character arc but how much of it contains the due respect to Novyi Zem? very less. (2/2)

IM SO SORRY FOR RANTING IN YOUR INBOX :((

GO OFF !!

this is exactly it!! not only did leigh box together minority races and slap a new name on them, but she also thoroughly fucked over all her poc characters and is actively trying to make up for it now (too late) with the racial adjustments the show has brought as well as kos changing zoya's ethnicity when she was very clearly drawn white.

most of them have no culture, and the only ones who do are hardly considered their own race, just a "nomadic people" who's culture (which is already a melting pot of others) is actively mocked in the series, their beliefs belittled.

and that's aside from the fact that there are literally five canonically white countries and only two that are canonically non white. there is not balance in the books, and hardly any good rep.

I wish people would stop giving leigh so much credit where it is completely undeserved, as this type of representation is just bad.

[kirsbataar]

wait say more about the party scene post

absolutely, anon! for those of you unfamiliar with what this ask is about, here is the original post, and here is a post i made months ago explaining the problems in the scene i am referring to. 

essentially, i believe that the suli-themed party scene in siege & storm was handled incredibly poorly. however, it had the potential to be incredibly meaningful to mal’s character arc if things had been changed. here’s how i’d fix it. 

first, and the biggest change. mal’s character arc in siege & storm largely has to do with him feeling like an outsider in os alta, and feeling used by alina and nikolai for their political motivations. he’s looked down upon by pretty much everybody other than sturmhond’s crew. fans of color have pointed out that a lot of how he’s treated in this book can be compared to how a man of color would be treated, and coupled with his “border kid” heritage, that they could see him as being coded as a person of color. 

in rewriting this scene to make it work, mal should be a man of color, specifically with suli heritage. 

think about this. he’s snuck away with alina to what he thinks will be a fun party, an opportunity for them to relax and get some time to behave like teenagers should. when they get there, it’s rich, white people masquerading as his culture - wearing their traditional outfits, doing mocking accents, and treating sacred culture practices like fun games. 

mal is already exhausted with being treated like he’s lesser than, like he’s just a fun toy, by these same rich white nobles. and now they’re using his heritage for a fun night, when he’s living with it his entire life and has been treated differently by these same people for it. 

alina - who for this purpose we’re saying is implied to be white - can’t understand why mal is so upset, so angry. it’s just a party, everybody’s having fun, can’t he get over his vendetta for these people? she brings this up in canon s&s - how she can’t understand why he’s so unhappy.

now, the reader knows that this party is wrong, and that mal has a very valid point here. this immediately gives a better understanding of - and sympathy toward - mal’s anger through most of s&s, as well as why he targets some of that anger at alina. she doesn’t understand how he feels, she never will. even though he isn’t given a pov, the reader can see this go down and think “oh. maybe he does have a reason to be angry and unhappy.”

additionally, him finding solace with zoya makes so much more sense now. he’s frustrated with alina not understanding, not listening - he needs somebody who understands and recognizes the validity in why he’s so upset. and zoya is somebody who can do that, who is a half-suli woman who has grown up in this environment, and likely experienced similar things like he has at that party, but through her whole life.

TLDR: in making mal a moc in the grisha trilogy, the suli-themed party scene in siege & storm could have actually been really helpful to his character arc, as well as serving a purpose other than cultural appropriation.