i'm rereading shadow and bone, and i have a question: alina walks on the darkling and when they argue about amplifiers. why did te darklling even have to tell baghra that he's planning ti find the stag for alina? they are obviously not in a good relationship, and she doesn't need to know? that makes no sense to me.
Doylist answer:
The plot had to move forward, lore had to be established, the Darkling and Baghra's antagonistic relationship introduced to give the following "great reveal" weight and credibility to her "brave attempt to thwart his megalomaniac plans" (Peace! Can you imagine?!).
Watsonian one?
He's an idiot with too soft heart and/or Baghra's claws embedded too deep into his life to shake off the urge to include her, to come for advice, share his plans. He's too fixated on her to view her as the malevolent creature she's grown into.
He might stand up for Alina or object when she treats him like a misbehaving child, but he isn't able to cut her out like the parasitic existence she is.
He's the victim, who cannot bear the thought of leaving their abuser.
Not gonna lie, the first three gifs look as if Alina were wandering the halls of Little Palace, trying to remember what she wanted in the pantry.
Baghra was right. I’d thought I was making such an effort, but deep down, some part of me just wanted to go home to Mal. Some part of me hoped that this had all been a mistake, that the Darkling would realize his error and send me back to the regiment, that Mal would realize how much he’d missed me, that we’d grow old together in our meadow. Mal had moved on, but I was still standing frightened before those three mysterious figures, holding tight to his hand.
It was time to let go. That day on the Shadow Fold, Mal had saved my life, and I had saved his. Maybe that was meant to be the end of us.
The thought filled me with grief, grief for the dreams we’d shared, for the love I’d felt, for the hopeful girl I would never be again. That grief flooded through me, dissolving a knot that I hadn’t even known was there. I closed my eyes, feeling tears slide down my cheeks, and I reached out to the thing within me that I’d kept hidden for so long. I’m sorry, I whispered to it.
I’m sorry I left you so long in the dark.
I’m sorry, but I’m ready now.
Shadow and Bone- Chapter 12
So instead of Alina realizing (for like three paragraphs) her unreciprocated attachment to Malyen is futile, letting go, and embracing her powers she thus kept suppressed, we get Baghra offering one of her slightly altered wisdom she filled her son's head with.
I'm sorry, but "Needing anyone else is weak." is awfully crude, and much less iconic than frustrated "The problem with wanting is that it makes us weak.". Not to mention the meaning shifts with the change of verb and focus on other person.
Why would we pretend the heroine's capable of development, when we can stick with blatant manipulation?
Baghra never had any objections against the use of amplifiers, she even suggested Alina should get one in hopes Sasha will stop looking for the Stag:
“It’s not enough.” His voice made me jump. The Darkling emerged from the shadows onto the lamplit path.
“It might be,” said Baghra. “You see how strong she is. I wasn’t even helping her. Give her an amplifier and see what she can do.”
The Darkling shook his head. “She’ll have the stag.”
Shadow and Bone- Chapter 13
The thing about Baghra is that she's well-aware of Alina's mommy issues, but she doesn't draw attention to them. Why? Because people are much harder to manipulate if they're aware they're being manipulated. Pointing out that very tool she's about to use would be counterproductive, what's worse- were Alina not Alina, she might try to play Baghra instead.
Besides, Alina doesn't care about her (missing) mother enough to get angry about it. She's indifferent to her lost past.
A few dim memories flashed through my mind. A shallow dish of cooked beets, the slippery feel of them between my fingers as they stained my hands red. The smell of egg porridge. Riding on someone’s shoulders—maybe my father’s—down a dusty road. At Keramzin, even mentioning our parents had been considered a betrayal of the Duke’s kindness and a sign of ingratitude. We’d been taught never to speak of our lives before we arrived at the estate, and eventually most of the memories just disappeared.
Siege and Storm- Chapter 7
There was no hallucinogenic tea taking Alina on a trip through her past, conveniently EXACTLY to the right moment. Baghra is skilled enough to prod, and find the secret behind Alina's mental block without drugs:
“A thousand girls would sell their own mothers to be in your shoes, and yet here you are, miserable and sulking like a child. So tell me, girl. What is your sad little heart pining for?”
She was right, of course. I knew very well that I was homesick for my best friend. But I wasn’t about to tell her that.
I stood up, knocking my chair back with a clatter. “This is a waste of time.”
“Is it? What else do you have to do with your days? Make maps? Fetch inks for some old cartographer?”
“There’s nothing wrong with being a mapmaker.”
“Of course not. And there’s nothing wrong with being a lizard either. Unless you were born to be a hawk.”
“I’ve had enough of this,” I snarled, and turned my back on her. I was close to tears and I refused to cry in front of this spiteful old woman.
“Where are you going?” she called after me, her voice mocking. “What’s waiting for you out there?”
“Nothing!” I shouted at her. “No one!”
As soon as I said it, the truth of the words hit me so hard that it left me breathless. I gripped the door handle, feeling suddenly dizzy.
Shadow and Bone- Chapter 12
Although I'm not saying Baghra is against drugging her "students":
I spent long hours in Baghra’s hut learning breathing exercises and holding painful poses that were supposed to help with my focus. She gave me books to read, teas to drink, and repeated whacks with her stick, but nothing helped. “Should I cut you, girl?” she would cry in frustration. “Should I have an Inferni burn you? Should I have them throw you back into the Fold to make food for those abominations?”
Shadow and Bone- Chapter 10
The show version of Baghra doesn't seem interested in Alina's real issue, hell, she outright ignores it, when Alina finally voices it a few moments later. She just makes Alina angry, serves her faulty psychoanalysis, then pretends she suddenly cares about the disturbing number of Ravkan orphans. And Alina's breakthrough comes thanks to Ol' Bags' wisdom about the wonders of solitary life.
Where in books, Baghra failed as a demanding, yet fair mentor, in the show she completely lacks discernible motive AND strategy. The best I can do, is pretend she's aiming to isolate Alina, while boosting her self righteousness. If that's the case, it isn't done well.
What matters is what each man makes of it. Tell that to Zoya. Or the person, who wrote her sob story in KoS.
Look how loyal I am!
I know who calls the shots in this country!
Nothing like my errant son!
Baghra- of all people- should know very well how "uninhabited" such places truly are, spending the majority of her long, long life living as a nomad.
There's always someone, who might need to hide or look for those, who do.
Either she evaluated the risk, and deemed it acceptable or she's lying altogether to mollify Alina's performative gentle sensibilities.
Why not start some fireworks, when they're at it?!
HERESY!!!
Yeah, she's basically admitting once again that she was just manipulating you, when she acted as if the Darkling were insane for believing in the Stag's existence.
Shadow and Bone- Chapter 12
She's telling you that she knew useful stuff all along, but never bothered to share it.
That she's skillfully avoiding truth, and outright lying more than the man she likes to paint as the untrustworthy one...
That your whole crusade is based on faulty assumptions...
The Grisha claims the amplifier, but the amplifier claims the Grisha, as well. Once it is done, there can be no other. Like calls to like, and the bond is made.
Alina waits for specific conditions to even attempt to summon.
She has a ready-made excuse as for why it doesn't work.
She's never been one to persist.
She still views her powers as something separate from her.
“It isn’t something separate from you,” Baghra snapped. “It isn’t an animal that shies away from you or chooses whether or not to come when you call it. Do you ask your heart to beat or your lungs to breathe? Your power serves you because that is its purpose, because it cannot help but serve you.”
Shadow and Bone- Chapter 13
That's failing in basics of Grisha teaching. Her mindset is of the very same girl, who couldn't summon, because she "Isn't Grisha.".
It was time to let go. That day on the Shadow Fold, Mal had saved my life, and I had saved his. Maybe that was meant to be the end of us.
The thought filled me with grief, grief for the dreams we’d shared, for the love I’d felt, for the hopeful girl I would never be again. That grief flooded through me, dissolving a knot that I hadn’t even known was there. I closed my eyes, feeling tears slide down my cheeks, and I reached out to the thing within me that I’d kept hidden for so long. I’m sorry, I whispered to it.
I’m sorry I left you so long in the dark.
I’m sorry, but I’m ready now.
I called and the light answered. I felt it rushing toward me from every direction, skimming over the lake, skittering over the golden domes of the Little Palace, under the door and through the walls of Baghra’s cottage. I felt it everywhere. I opened my hands and the light bloomed right through me, filling the room, illuminating the stone walls, the old tile oven, and every angle of Baghra’s strange face. It surrounded me, blazing with heat, more powerful and more pure than ever before because it was all mine. I wanted to laugh, to sing, to shout. At last, there was something that belonged wholly and completely to me.
Shadow and Bone- Chapter 12
Alina forgot the Light is her, not the sun on the sky or amplifiers on her body. Since her summoning depends on her will, her powers act accordingly.
See?
Alina is great in self-gaslighting and guilt-tripping. She did something terribly awful- using the unnatural merzost-, therefore punishment has to follow. And what is the one thing making her feel only good? What could her subconscious easily take away?
Looking at the end of her story and her appearance in RoW- even if her powers were only temporarily exhausted, or could be regained somehow, she will never wield them again.
“I didn’t sacrifice my power. It was taken from me because I fell prey to the same greed that drove you. I paid the price for tampering with merzost. Just as you once did.”
