So I wanted to talk about a post I saw earlier today. Usually I try to resist the urge to engage with these sorts of things, but I felt that it was demonstrative of an all too common argument in the shadow and bone fandom. More specifically, it is a great illustration of the rampant misinformation and hypocrisy that many fans display on a daily basis.
So let’s break things down.
First of all, I’d like to call attention to the framing of this user’s claim. What exactly is she gesturing at here, and what message is communicated from this tweet? Their argument seems to read almost as a defence of Leigh Bardugo’s status as an abuse survivor. This user’s point is derived from a rumour in the fandom that the Darkling was a direct parallel to Bardugo’s abusive partner and that Darklina was a fictionalized version of her real-life relationship. So, by shipping darklina or engaging with the Darkling in a positive or sympathetic manner is disrespectful to Bardugo because it perverts and distorts her personal abuse narrative.
Oh wow. That seems very serious doesn’t it? How could these misguided readers be so ignorant and terrible that they disregard the experiences of a victim? That would be terrible! Except for the fact that this rumour is not true in the slightest and is at best, pure speculation. The pathos of this false story appeals to the fans feelings of sympathy for Bardugo and causes them to feel enraged that Darkling stans would disregard her negative experience and romanticize the abuse she suffered. This gives fans the ammunition they so desperately crave, for ship wars and inane fandom discourse in which they can accuse darklinas of being abuse apologists under a pseudo-progressive guise.
This is exactly why they never actually acknowledge that this story is at best, a misinterpreted rumour and at worst, an opportunistic wielding of an abuse survivor’s story to bolster fandom wars.
This entire narrative of “The Darkling is an allegory for Bardugo’s abusive relationship” relies on fans being willfully obtuse. They insist that you cannot sympathize with the Darkling because of this story while ignoring the fact that a sympathetic reading of his character is baked into the trilogy (ex. Demon in the Woods).They ignore that Bardugo herself has expressed her love for the Darkling as a character and has engaged with darklina content MULTIPLE TIMES. They deny the symbolic resonance of darklina and are eager to flatten what little nuanced characterization they possess in the books.
The irony is that they claim to respect Bardugo by protecting her trilogy from people who “romanticize abuse” and misinterpret the text, but at the very same time use her abusive relationship as a weapon in INANE YA LITERARY DISCOURSE!!! How can you act like you’re doing something good for abuse survivors when you are using a person’s real life history of abuse to justify dunking on other fans? Not to mention the anti-intellectualism of discouraging people from engaging with the text in ways they arbitrarily label as “bad” and “harmful” no matter how much textual evidence there is.
What can I say? Where would antis be without their distorting of reality to suit their narrative and bolster their justifications for harassment and bullying.
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