Like Calls to Like

I recently returned after a multi-year hiatus and the fandom may as well be Fangorn Forest for its stifling, embittered gloom. Is it a perfect series? By no means. Is all the meta in the world going to transform 2010s YA into a GRRM novel? Also no.

What drew me back to the Grishaverse was the fact that there are many elements I do enjoy and I want to squee about those, not fight with other fans on the internet or wade through endless critical posts that make one wonder if all that is left of the fandom is a few exhausted soldiers who have yet to realise the war ended years ago.

Personally, I regret any flames I fanned in the past, and wish I had spent more time on zany headcanons and discussing the characters that I love.

And I am not suggesting we should all take up toxic positivity. There are writing choices I vehemently disagree with, even while understanding some were made to appeal to the books' intended audience, and that what I really want from the Grishaverse is to transform it into the kind of adult, philosophical series its topics deserve. I will always lament the wasted potential of this story.

But! If I am going to discuss the series publicly on the internet then I want my posts to do something other than rouse anger. If I am going to be critical, I would rather do so in a productive manner like an AU.

We are presented with a young woman whose parents betrayed her, and yet one who was shown in the original trilogy to value her position and Aleksander's regard very highly. One could argue that he fills the role her parents should have by giving her an older figure to respect whose approval is worth earning.

Only after the trilogy does she completely reframe the events as not only another betrayal, but also some sort of abusive relationship in which Aleksander was selfish and only thought of his fellow Grisha as tools. Sound familiar? It should as it is the actual abuse Zoya's mother subjected her to.

I think Zoya's newly expressed opinion about Aleksander is the result of her rejection complex at work. She wasn't brought into Aleksander's confidence and that is easily viewed as a form of rejection. He also didn't come for her specifically the way he tries to claim David. I honestly think her pride is stung more than anything, and as a defense mechanism she has transformed him into a monster in her mind. People do such things all the time after break-ups be they romantic or otherwise.

This would be a dream come true.

First of all, that doesn't make any sense if you remember how ridiculously little he gained for himself for centuries—he doesn't have any influence outside the little palace, any titles, lands, or even love and respect from the Ravkan population. You would think that the master manipulator aspiring for grandeur would have organized a cult of personality around himself and turned the whole country into a place of worship for himself, but no. He still serves the king, still fights in wars, still provides for his grisha, and is still considered an unnatural monster. I don't know about you, but if I were an immortal, super-powerful megalomaniac with otherworldly manipulation skills, I'd have everyone eating out of my hand and thanking me for allowing them to live in my majestic country. And if I came across a sun summoner, I wouldn't tell anyone. I'd simply lock her up, use her powers, and take credit for them.

But even if we forgot about it for a second and accepted that he did want power, glory, sainthood, or whatever—so fucking what? The fact is that he is the only person who bothered to build a safe haven for Grisha and had a strategy to liberate them. Not a single morally pure, selfless wanker apparently has lifted a finger to do anything similar.

A member of an oppressed minority running away from armed bigots or slavers will not give a single flying fuck about whether the guy offering him a shelter does it for himself. "I would rather starve, freeze, and risk getting lynched than accept help from someone whose motives are not 100% pure and selfless!!" said no one ever. The material outcome of your actions is way more important than your motives.

A person who donates to charity for clout still helps more than a person who doesn't donate at all. Moral purity doesn't pay the bills. Historical political figures, military leaders, and revolutionaries who brought about change also weren't saints and didn't have purely selfless motives, and people, driven to desperation by oppression, injustice, and indignity, didn't give a fuck.

I would only like to add that Nikolai is not given a free pass for his ambition, but is criticized for it and compared to the Darkling on more than one occassion. It leads to delicious narrative parallels that I hope to write an essay about someday.

But in brief, this is one of my favourite excerpts:

And this one:

look. listen. they can make rainbows. what more do you want from me

+bonus: 

질량의 크기는 부피와 비례하지 않는다 the size of the matter is not proportional to volume 제비꽃같이 조그마한 그 계집애가 the little girl who is like a flower 꽃잎같이 하늘거리는 그 계집애가 the little girl who is like a swaying petal 지구보다 더 큰 질량으로 나를 끌어당긴다. the girl who is a greater mass than earth pulls me. 순간, 나는 in an instant, I 뉴턴의 사과처럼 like Newton’s apple 사정없이 그녀에게로 굴러 떨어졌다 without a reason, tumbled towards her. 쿵 소리를 내며, 쿵쿵 소리를 내며 thump, thump thump

심장이 my heart 하늘에서 땅까지 아찔한 진자운동을 계속하였다 like a pendulum movement, continuously moves from heaven to earth