nina zenik

I’ve seen a lot of people misunderstood this interview from Jessie Mei Li. Lets start from the books and list down every characterization from The Darkling and Alina Starkov. 

From the books, it is obvious that The Darkling had been the one torturing and killing people. He killed his own people (the grishas) when they sided with Alina. Along the way, we could see that The Darkling had been lying because he was the one created the fold (he told everyone that it was his ancestors). What he did to his own mother was unacceptable too. 

Alina, on the other hand was a fragile 17 years old teenager who found out that the world needed her and her power was as equivalent as The Darkling. She was happy, excited and confused at the same time. What would a confused, scared teenage girl do? A teenager with an insane amount of power and suddenly being thrown into politics would definitely listen to the experienced adult. She depended on The Darkling. 

So, in this article, Jessie stated that “There was a big little big conversation about for me and for Ben we've talked a lot about consent.“ 

It pissed me off that they would even consider consent in the relationship of both Alina and The Darkling. It is absurd. Erasing abuse is fucked up because it is one of the main characteristic of The Darkling. But so is manipulation. Consent happened when the person itself allowing certain things to happen because of how right they feel and how comfortable they are around that certain person. And at the same time, at a certain extend, feel safe - until they don’t, of course.

From here, we know that The Darkling is a manipulative son of a bitch. How can The Darkling manipulate someone without having to establish trust? Manipulating involves persuasion, validation and assurance. The Darkling gave all of that to Alina and hence, even if Alina wasn’t equipped or mature enough to make that decision of consent herself, she felt that it was right. She felt like she was making the decision herself. She thought she had the power of her own freedom. And that is how this sentence make sense:

“That “I want this” and it's not being forced upon her.”

The Darkling is hundreds of years old. He managed to fool the entire Ravka, the people, the Lantsov family and The Apparat that the fold wasn’t his fault. If he could do that in a huge scale, fooling Alina is a piece of cake. 

This article gave an insight of The Darkling and Alina. The character build up is progressive. From a saviour to a villain and they couldn’t possibly be showing Alina that he’s the villain. That is the point of The Darkling himself.