#shadowandbone

So we can all read the minds of teenage girls now? We expect them to be passionate, curious, rebellious, and socially conscious, but only in the ways we find palatable. Apparently, if a girl is orphaned, ostracized, and raised in a war-torn country with no family, no stability, and no guarantee of tomorrow, she should still be able to shake off all her trauma responses and become a flawless war heroine overnight. No fear, no resistance, no hesitation, just instant savior mode.

But Alina Starkov doesn’t exist to meet your modern-day generalizations of how a teenage girl should behave. Personality isn’t one-size-fits-all. It’s shaped by lived experience. Alina grew up in survival mode...small, quiet, and inconspicuous, because drawing attention could get her hurt or killed. Her so-called passivity isn’t laziness, it’s trauma doing its job. And the point of her arc is that she learns to grow beyond it.

What really annoys me is how quickly people dismiss her as “that whiny girl obsessed with Mal,” as if her emotional dependence is petty or immature. Mal isn’t just her childhood friend—he’s the only tether to a life before sainthood was forced onto her. He’s her anchor in a world that sees her as a weapon. Imagine being told the one person who makes you feel human is a distraction. Imagine being called weak for refusing to sever the last thread that connects you to who you are.

Judging Alina through modern expectations completely misses the point. Her story may be fantasy, but her struggles are metaphors for real emotional truths. Her supposed "privilege" as the Sun Summoner is anything but it's a curse that makes her a target for the Darkling’s manipulation, the royal court’s exploitation, and the Grisha’s resentment. Her “whining” about the weight of it all isn’t entitlement, it’s human. Her arc from self-doubt to self-possession reflects the internal battle of someone carrying a burden no teenager should have to bear.

You see this pattern again with Genya. On the surface, she “had it easy”....pretty dresses, royal access, life in the Grand Palace. But her beauty was a weapon she never asked for. Her loyalty turned her into a pawn. And her so-called privilege left her isolated, objectified, and abused. Her trauma, especially the sexual violence she endured deserves every ounce of sympathy.

But it raises a question: why does that sympathy seem to stop with Genya? Why is Alina, who was collared, controlled, and turned into a weapon, so often dragged for being emotionally affected? Their trauma isn’t the same and shouldn’t be equated, but both girls were exploited, both fought to reclaim their autonomy, and both bore the weight of power they didn’t choose. So why is Genya praised when she breaks from her oppressors, but Alina is mocked for taking longer? If one is worthy of empathy, why not the other?

Like Alina, Genya’s “advantages” were just trauma wrapped in silk. Gilded cages are still cages.

And that's why Alina’s arc does mirror real teenage resilience. Her journey from hiding her power to choosing to lead is a fantasy translation of universal coming-of-age struggles: insecurity, identity, growing pains. Real teens don’t battle shadow monsters or have mythical amplifiers for best friends, but they do experience emotional whiplash when relationships evolve. They do fear abandonment. They do wrestle with expectations they never asked for. The magic doesn’t trivialize her pain, it amplifies it. Power doesn’t equal privilege. And resilience isn’t about being fearless, it’s about surviving in spite of fear.

The critiques of Alina’s “passivity” ignore the fact that it’s the starting point of her arc, not the destination. She hides her power because being different is dangerous. She clings to Mal because he’s her only family, and orphans in Ravka don’t get the luxury of being emotionally independent. Her dependence isn’t weakness, it’s honest and real. It’s what trauma looks like.

As for the so called “trivial complaints”? The herring thing is laughable when even battle hardened soldiers like Zoya have food preferences. Alina’s grief over the stag? It’s not some vegan protest, it’s a soul deep response to the death of a magical creature she was bonded to. Her distress over Mal’s silence? In a world where letters are the only form of communication, her anxiety reflects fear of abandonment, not petulance over not getting a text back. These aren’t signs of being out of touch. They’re evidence of her being human.

One of the most tone-deaf criticisms is that Alina should be grateful to be Ravka’s Living Saint. Grateful for what, exactly? Being labeled the country’s only hope while being collared, controlled, and used as leverage against the one person she loves? That’s not destiny, it’s a carefully disguised prison. Her so-called “whining” is fear, plain and raw, the kind that hits when you realize you’ve been handed a live grenade and told to smile for the crowd. And real people would crumble under far less.

By Ruin and Rising, Alina does completes a powerful arc: she leads an army "I’m going to fight", defies the Darkling "I won’t be your pawn", and sacrifices her power "I had wanted to be whole". Her arc from self-erasure to agency proves she’s resilient, not a “wilted potato.” If this growth from a traumatized orphan to someone who makes these choices is "spineless," what exactly counts as bravery?

Watching the show left me with many reflections about leadership in Ravka, and I cannot help but see Aleksander as the only one who truly acted like a sovereign, while the others revealed from the very beginning that they were not suited to rule.

The destruction of the Fold was already a mistake. Whatever one might say about it, the Fold had been a shield that protected Ravka from Fjerda and Shu Han. It was dangerous and tragic, but it was also a strategic barrier. By destroying it without having any real plan for Ravka’s survival, Alina, Zoya, and Nikolai made their first fatal decision. Aleksander understood better than anyone that the Fold was not simply darkness, it was also power, and in the harsh logic of geopolitics power could not be thrown away lightly.

Alina acted from compassion and hope. She wanted to free people, to erase suffering, and it was beautiful, but she failed to see the larger picture. Ravka could not afford a ruler who placed personal feelings above the survival of the state. That choice revealed her as a symbol rather than a sovereign.

Zoya showed the same lack of strategic vision. Her ambition went hand in hand with aggression and a desire to prove herself, not with foresight for the country. Her hostility towards Alina carried tones of racism, and her jealousy and obsession with Aleksander influenced too many of her decisions. Instead of offering discipline and long-term strategy, she leaned on pride and division. With her, leadership always served her own need for dominance rather than Ravka’s survival.

Nikolai was perhaps the most disappointing of all. He looked the part of a monarch, and at first his diplomacy and charm seemed convincing. Yet the moment he stood before Alina at the end and told her that Ravka and Fjerda had to forget what happened between them, he revealed complete naivety. To me, that speech showed he did not grasp the brutal truth: Fjerda would never forget, never forgive, and never stop attacking. A ruler who began with illusions about reconciliation was already setting the country on a path to disaster. Unlike Aleksander, who recognized that Ravka was surrounded by enemies who respected only strength, Nikolai spoke like a dreamer, not a leader.

Aleksander, in contrast, never shied away from the weight of power. His choices were harsh, but they were made with survival in mind. He knew that power and fear could protect Ravka in a way empty words never could. When I think about him, I see echoes of history, of leaders who stood their ground when everything was at stake. I am reminded of Leonidas at Thermopylae, who held the line against overwhelming force because he knew that his stand meant survival for his people. Aleksander was the same kind of figure: someone who accepted that his role was not to be loved, but to ensure that Ravka endured, no matter the personal cost.