#fabrikators

Okay, agreed, Jesper struggles with doing basically anything intentionally. Makes sense - he was never trained.

But if we consider what he can do; controlling the path of bullets. Taking tiny chunks of metal moving at ~120-370 m/s, and directing them. And not just a little bit. He literally managed to make his bullet curve 90° around a right-angle corner. This is a skill we see no other Fabrikator able to do, and you would have thought, if it was a common ability, or even ever seen before, the Darkling or the Triumvirate would have utilised it in the Second Army. They have not. The only people known to use it are Jesper and his mother.

(And let's just give an honourable mention to Aditi Hilli, who could extract poison from the bloodstream of another person. You remember how the tidemakers in the Ice Court needed to be on Parem to mess with a person's blood? But Aditi Hilli? ...I don't want to say no problem, because she did die, but she saved Leoni too, so... half-marks? I'm just saying Jesper has some serious badass genes.)

Actually, talking about the tidemakers on parem, Jesper, with no training and having all the blood in his body sucked out of him, still managed to kill them with dust. A rather dark trick, but one we've never seen David Kostyk, or Leoni Hilli, considered the two most powerful Fabrikators alive during canon, replicate.

But the real reason Jesper is so powerful has very little to do with that, so much as HOW he does it. Every grisha alive used their arms to direct their abilities. After being captured by the Darkling in S&S, Alina has her hands bound, and says something about how she can summon, but not direct light without her hands, so she's basically powerless. It's obviously a common tactic, because the Druskelle do the same thing with Nina and the other Grisha they captured, and only after they get their hands freed on the sharp edge of a broken cup can they use their abilities again.

The only people we see not using their hands for the small science, in fact, are Adrik, who has to relearn his technique after he loses an arm, and, of course, Jesper Fahey, who can direct bullets with his mind - no hand movements required.

If anything, it's probably this ability that makes him so good at directing bullets. After all, at the speed a bullet is going, you don't have time to be waving your hands around to control it. What's especially funny to me is that before Wylan pointed it out, he had no idea he was even doing it. He was using an ability no other Grisha can, and Didn't Know. Can you imagine him mentioning that to Nina... or basically any Second Army Grisha.

("You can control bullets?"

"...you can't?"

"...how?"

"I'm not sure. I mean, my mother sort of taught me, but also I didn't really realise I was doing it until my boyfriend pointed it out, you know?"

"...YOU WERE ACCIDENTLY CONTROLLING BULLETS?!!!")

This is, of course, all book canon, but somehow the show takes it even further. It hasn't been officially revealed Jesper's Grisha in the show, but there are enough clues - Jesper repairing Kaz's cane, Ivan's cut-off comment after their fight, not to mention the fight itself - that I'm taking it as canon. In this, it is accepted NO ONE can use their grisha abilities, except merzost, without first touching their hands together. Not The Darkling, not Alina, no one. Except, of course, Jesper Fahey, who can shoot his bullets and direct them to the exact same point on a kefta, after deflecting them off random objects first.

AA thank you!!! I was surprised more people haven't though about it!

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I have a couple other ideas;

Heartrenders controlling a volcra (Here)

Volcra kill because they remember the want (Here read tags as well)

Specifically with the body horror aspect I would love to see it more casually brought up, I know I went extreme in the original post( and ended up going extreme here too)

Tailors who's skin is warm and soft always, their beauty a little too blinding, they never keep a steady appearance as they appeal to what the viewer wants most, in order to gain their trust. Sometimes that backfires, someone wants to see scars, or fangs, or a monster, and what Grisha to better satisfy that then one that can be what they need. They can make wounds or hide them, they can create scars, they can give someone who wants to hurt, to see others hurting what they want and no one has to suffer, do they?

Squallers who offer comfort through the constant feeling of a warm breeze surrounding someone, the soft sound of wind through chimes or leaves. They can control music just as much, crafting songs and sounds from instruments that never existed in the first place. They become sirens, pulling people in, deafening them with sounds before they even realize they can't hear beyond the wind whistling in their ears.

Tidemakers who's body's move fluidly, their ability to dance, their flexibility is unmatched, they move like water and most feel refreshed after they talk to them. They can bend and twist their bodies so easy, it's muscle memory to show others, to force the bones to bend and break under the pressure from them and their water. Some spend too much time with it, they become similar to a deep sea creature, unblinking and adapted in ways others could never live with.

Inferni who are always the perfect temperature, who can keep a group calm, lowing their body temperatures so they're forced to settle, they can take heat as easily as they can bestow it. The can keep the others comforted, complacent on missions with only each other for comfort; heat fills the space, heat can be the phantom memories of those gone. If there is a death on the field, often an Inferni will keep the bodies warm, to not spook others. They mimic the body heat of someone next to you, a phantom partner or lover in all the wrong ways.

Heartrenders who can manipulate the chemicals and neurotransmitters in a persons brain, even if they don't know what they're doing, people always feeling happier around them, feeling calm, feeling safe. Too much of a good thing is equal to bad. They become addicted like anything else, they become desperate, even the heartrender cannot control it, and often they succumb to those they subdued if not kept safely away from others, or if they use their powers sparingly.

Fabirkators that can breathe life into inanimate things. They create toys, things to comfort young Grisha, to comfort anyone who has lost something. If they focus, if they bargain and find help in other grisha, they can bring a loved one back for a moment, they can twist and warp the corpses before burial, to give comfort to those grieving, to take from those already dead. They often forget, creating things from nothing can lead to viewing everything as a tool. How can things be combined, how can they be taken apart. Fabrikators who pull at flesh a little too easily, after all it's only components, and those that volunteer, well they never have a reason to fear their friend who made their teddy bears dance when they were scared.

Amplifiers that find themselves connected to Grisha in ways they cannot explain. They can sense pain, fear, happiness, they can sometimes sense before the Grisha know themsevles, the whispers of power from under small fingers. They push too much into some, exhausting their power when they pull back, leaving material for the Fabrikators to take apart. Whispers of Grisha killing their own is what the Amplifiers bring. They find the ability to comfort, showing Grisha that their powers are not to be feared, that they can stop too much power leaking out. Small hands reaching for them, crying out for parents who cannot stay, the amplifiers find themselves drowning in both grisha power and human emotions no heartrender can hope to break the bond of.

Sun Summoners, Lightbringers, who always shine. They excel in anything they try, learning, power control, it comes easy to them because praise, love is light. Grisha find themselves blinded, the way sunlight is too warm, the way light trickles into the cracks. Even those that hate find themselves warmed and drawn into the light, moths to a flame. They can blind as easily as they comfort, creating blisters and welts, sunburns and heatstroke, photosensitivity can burn into someone's eyes and brain and leaving them with a body that jerks beyond their command.

Shadow Summoners, Shadowbringers, that keep those that are forgotten. They pull those that are lesser, Grisha who can't keep up with the training, grisha who's powers do not follow the strict pathways they army wants. They take those that slip through the cracks. They spends hours training in pitch black until themselves and the grisha no longer need their sight to kill. They use the shadows to move around, creating shapes and monsters, creatures and enemies not only to scare but to protect each other. They take the absence of light and create the world within it. They plunge anyone who goes against them in the lack of, sensory deprivation at it's strongest. They either slowly let the senses come back or flood them with the removal of shadow all at once, neither are survivable

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okay so let's start with the very basics: the Grisha. although the concept of Grishas is nothing new, as the idea of people controlling elements has been seen before, there is certainly something fascinating about them. Afterall, they are an elite section of the army with incredible powers, that dresses differently and sophisticatedly and is trained from a young age in a place called the Little Palace. That's really cool! Who would not want to be part of that! One of the things that Bardugo introduces in an attempt to distinguish the Grisha from other magic world systems is the idea of Small Science. Small science basically explains that what the Grisha do is not magic, but manipulation of matter in its most basic form. It's not any different than what a chemical reaction does or what happens inside stars or our bodies: matter is manipulated. There are multiple attempts by the author to push the science narrative. An example is the mirror gloves that Alina has to wear to better redirect her light rays by using reflective surfaces. Another attempt is in R&R when she tried to turn a boot invisible by reflecting light away from the boot surface As the act of seeing is nothing more than light rays bouncing from an object inside our eyes, if light never bounces in the first place on the object, it is as if it becomes invisible. This is, of course, all very cool and it fits with the science narrative, however, it is much more common throughout the books that the Grisha powers seem more like magic than anything else. Of course, there is nothing wrong with that, who doesn't love magic, but then don't try to spin it off as science. For example, what differentiates a Heartrender, a Healer, and a Tailor? Talking about small science they all work on cells, heartrenders harm cells while healers cure cells and up to here everything makes sense. But the actual processes through which they heal and harm are never explained. Is it a matter of energy taken away or inserted? Does one block the processes necessary to the life of a cell or is it something else? Do healers incapacitate bacteria to prevent infections or do they just recreate cells or what? Do they simply mend ruptures between cells (wounds) or more? and tailors, can they only work on the skin and surface-level cells? could they possibly cure skin cancer as it is also surface leveo? Also, talking about cells, is it the same for animals and plants or are these powers limited to human cells? If these things had been explained, talking about small science would have made more sense.

I know that probably Leigh Bardugo did not want to ruin the fantasy feel to it, as there was a risk of the story becoming too much like science fiction, but still, throughout the trilogy it has been many times pointed out that the grisha are not witches, so this kind of details should have been explored more.

Then let's talk about the Summoners. While Inferni fit in the idea of manipulating matter (they work with inflammable gasses and still need a spark to manipulate fire), tide makers and squallers basically deal with energy and energy is not a particle (sure you can think of energy = mass and matter has mass so maybe somewhere there is a connection but honestly I don't think Leigh Bardugho really delved in E = mc^2) For example, squallers work with air pressure to manipulate the weather. Pressure can be changed by either adding or removing molecules or also increasing or lowing temperature. If it's by manipulating molecules their powers do fit with the idea of small science, however one has to wonder what kind of molecules they can exactly manipulate as the atmosphere is composed of many elements (among which water vapor, so can they also manipulate water?) Tidemakers on the other hand manipulate temperatures so to obtain ice or liquid water from the atmosphere, but that has nothing to do with matter manipulation and more with energy.

Now as you can see I could rant about this for a while, as a science geek all these details fascinate me, but the overall point is that some parts of small science clearly don't make sense or are just not explained in a way that truly fits with the idea of science, where everything can usually be categorized in terms of processes.

Let's talk about the Darkling. As a shadow summoner, he summons shadows (pretty neat huh), however shadow molecules aren't really a thing. As others have said before, a shadow is the absence of light. As a sun summoner, Alina controlled photons (or so I suppose as they are the particles that compose light waves), so that makes sense, but summoning shadows does not. One thing that could have been cool is to have made the Darkling a type of sun summoner, who rather than using light as a primary weapon, preferred to use light to indirectly control shadows. That would have also rendered all the moments in which he compared himself to Alina much more powerful and would have explored the possibility that the Darkling sort of decided to be a villain ("make me a villain") because he thought it was the way to go to save ravka, not only because his shadow powers immediately make one think of evil.

Overall, although it may seem the opposite, I do quite like the system and the idea of small science, however, I do not think it was well executed, or at least not as well as it could have been. If Bardugo had just called it magic then there would have been nothing wrong with it, but calling it small science honestly did not add anything as this notion and its implications weren't even fully explored. A book that I think does a better job at comparing science and magic is The Worldwalker Trilogy by Josephine Angelini, which I definitely recommend.

@grishasworld mission 1: order pride -- fabrikators