#darkolina

Cat!Aleksander being the Tired Grumpy Old Man™ tolerating the two young whipper snappers that beset him at all hours of the day (he loves them both very much don't let the flat ears fool you)

just a thought but i am forever mourning the potential of a nikolai/alina/darkling alliance. this trio should have functioned as an uneasy political coalition, a little similar like katniss, coin, and plutarch, though would be implemented differently. but that is like a much more appropriate way to handle the plot of TGT, and the fact that we didn't get it makes the entire series (even the later books) feel incredibly short-sighted to me. i find it genuinely hard to root for anyone in that world. alina’s team is essentially a group of people blinded by survivorship bias. because they’ve found individual safety by the proxy of a sun saint (and later places at the palace), they’ve stopped caring about the core problems between the grisha and the otkazat’sya. by focusing entirely on "stopping the darkling," they’ve allowed themselves to become apologists and enablers for the real villain: the ravkan absolute monarchy. it divides their attention too much that at the end, no one really won except for the few selected protagonists. i can’t side with the darkling either, but that’s because he’s not a well written villain. i’m told he’s this manipulative, calculative genius, but his plans constantly backfire and his methods are wildly inconsistent. (honestly i felt the same way with nikolai. i was still gagged when he said he'll just naively wait for vasily to give up the throne. baby, let's be so for real). if these three had worked together, we might have actually understood the darkling's intentions better. like i mean, he’s the only one making any actual progress for grisha rights after all these time, and it’s a terrifyingly low bar. people call him "evil" for killing traitors, which might not be exactly wrong but like… that’s how war is. you kill traitors or else your enemies find out your plans. (especially since alina’s team also killed people… some even hurt the innocents for no reason… idk why people can let this easily slides…). also there is no "ethical war.” war is wrong on the first place, so it’s never about what’s right or wrong, it’s about what’s necessary. especially with the fact that the grishaverse doesn’t have a UN pact or a set of international rules, there won’t be any ethical war because there’s no ethics to begin with. (BUT ALSO i don’t think a UN-esque organisation will work. grishaverse is too segregated, and look at the state of our world right now, UN ain’t shit. a grisha SRO though, i would say 50/50, but judging by the way these grishaverse countries are lead by literal kids, then no, that won’t do either. grisha needs actual representatives. like i hate how despite the books being written in 2010s - 2020s, bardugo still tried to rely on the great man theory as if it isn’t fucking backward. putting a "nice" (overpowered) grisha on the throne of a country full of "normal humans" and having "influential" friends isn't a solution. it’s just adding new elements to a flawed system instead of destroying and rebuilding the rot. and saying politicians will remain friends are so naive and stupid, because they can’t. they would have conflicting interests and issues. and OKAY let’s say they don’t, because all the protagonists shared the same one braincell the way the author intended to, then the people in the said countries WILL have too many differences (culturally, geographically, historically, etc etc), one of them being how different country will have different version and approach on what is considered human rights, what can be considered grisha’s human rights, and so many more. so creating a unanimous voice is too unrealistic given the nature of the said world.

but like idk, going back to the triumvirate, i just really think that nikolai could have represented the otkazat’sya and the first army (the reformist). the darkling could have represented the grisha and the second army (the radical; and yes, just because he isn’t “good” doesn’t mean he can’t be utilised to find the solution, or at least strengthen the cause), and alina could have been the grassroots for both. working together would have forced alina to shed her prejudice and force her to grow without having any rocks pulling her down to drown, and it might have also knocked some sense into nikolai’s head. he needs to see that it is the rotten system that is broken, not just "in need of a better Monarch.” if they had focused on tearing down the absolute monarchy first, they could have unified the country. and look, this can make the reveal of the darkling’s true intention to be more convincing and compelling. like if he still proved himself to be a monster (or secret secondary villain) afterward (since the narrative wants this), then alina and nikolai would have been strong enough—and their people unified enough—to take him down. and i feel like this frame of storytelling would have probably allowed the grishaverse’s worldbuilding to be better, too. idk man.

*Idc how but all Lantsovs, Mal, and Baghra are definitely dead, the Darkling and I are on the throne/if Nikolai is reasonable, he might join us.

(Genya, Zoya and others are not considered because Sankta Alina is too important as a political figure, but you can choose other, and pls be sure to share it in the reblog if you come up with a realistic enough explanation.)

Look, fanon!Nikolai makes my OTP with Aleksander.

He had the potential to be the less seasoned mirror of the Darkling. The less exhausted, disenchanted one. The more likeable idealist, who could balance his pragmatic General/co-Tsar.

What ruined him, is both LB's need to keep him blandly unproblematic, and/or unwillingness to treat him as the impotent fool she truly described.

Gods, I wish he were the opportunistic cunt Sturmhond presented himself as.

Or the conflicted, inexperienced diplomat with revolutionary tendencies...