tenebris

The whole Grishaverse is basically one long "Will anyone think of poor bigots?" plea.

It's hard for them, you know! Those Grisha are damn witches, so poor bigots can't even hurl abuse at them without fear of being cursed! They have to walk on eggshells every time they feel the need to scream "dirty bloodletter" at a Grisha passing by! In addition to that, Grisha have the audacity to be naturally healthier and better-looking than poor ordinary people, which makes our virtuous heroine go green with holy righteous envy.

How dare those dirty demons isolate themselves from nice ordinary people who want to burn them at the stake? They live in the palace! They have nice things, which they do not want to share with their bigoted compatriots for some unexplicable reason. They should be bending themselves backward to please the oppressive majority, and instead they act like standoffish snobs and leave poor otkazats'ya no choice other than to oppress them further! That's why our righteous heroine is going to fix that horrific injustice and make sure that no bigot is left without a bunch of Grisha goodies! She is not even above looting corpses for that; that's how determined she is to provide for her fellow chauvinists!

And it's not like otkazatsya hate Grisha for nothing! Five centuries ago one of those damn evil demons created a big and scary shadowy wall, which is a totally valid excuse to hate all Grisha forever! Instead of adapting to their new landscape, Ravkans could only sit on their asses and shake with impotent rage towards the man who was officially dead when their great-great-great-grandparents weren't even born. I guess it's fair to assume that Ravkans do not own umbrellas; they just shake their fists at the sky when it rains and curse the name of whoever invented precipitation.

And poor Mal! Everyone is hating on him, and nobody wants to understand that he just learned that his friend belongs to a minority he considers disgusting and unnatural! Can you imagine how difficult it is for him to have his bigotry triggered in such a brutal way? Besides, in the end he magnanimously accepted Alina's power! Sure, the power was later removed anyway not to traumatize the poor boy further and give him a powerless unassuming wife he always wanted, but he was ready to tolerate that horrible grishaness in his girlfriend, and nobody appreciated his heroism!

And can you imagine, after centuries of genocide, those cursed Grisha decided to use violence! Once again, poor otkazats'ya had no other option but to take their righteous fury out on all Grisha regardless of their participation in the violent act. That's totally understandable; poor babies are scared and confused; they thought violence was their prerogative! Whoever told the victims of persecution they can fight back? That should be illegal. Violence is not the answer, which is why all Grisha who use violent methods should be killed! Why couldn't they just explain to otkazats'ya that they are nice people and want no harm? That always works so well with marginalized minorities! Because people who form genocidal cults and built whole systems on oppression and subjugation are just poor scared kids who need to be reassured that the monster under their bed is not real.

The right way for the oppressed to fight for their rights is obviously to wait until a privileged royal spawn feels the urge to play a white savior and hands them a bunch of empty promises. And then a village idiot whose only value is the light shining out of her ass (and even for that impressive feat she had to skulk around the country and kill a few magical animals) will appoint her equally unqualified friends to represent the interests of the oppressed minority. This is the only way!

The way he devalues the heroine and makes her feel small and worthless.

The way he cannot stand her being happy and confident without him.

The way he makes demeaning, offensive comments about her.

The way he ignores her misery and obviously thrives when she is weak and helpless.

The way he gets jealous and aggressive every time she looks at another man.

The way he tries to control her and speaks over her, not letting her make her own decisions.

The way he tries to blame her for his wrongdoings.

The way he leaves her alone in the state of obvious distress because he is too preoccupied with his bruised ego.

The way he resents her being more powerful and important than him and makes ugly scenes every time she doesn't pay him enough attention.

The way she feels guilty and ashamed and starts second-guessing herself when he is in a bad mood.

The way he guilt-trips her and manipulates her into feeling sorry for him.

The way he conditioned her to believe that her self-worth depends on him and her happiness is impossible without his presence.

The way he claims he only wants what's best for her, which makes his abuse even more insidious.

The way she never realizes what damage he's done and keeps doing to her because she believes she can trust him.

The way he gets everything he wants in the end: he is a rich, handsome, popular guy, and she is his nameless, quiet, unassuming, socially ostracized wife.

The way their relationship mimics a toxic, emotionally abusive relationship with eerie accuracy.

He is not evil in an appealing, sexy, fantasy-villain way. He doesn't need a big black cloak, shadow magic, or world-conquering ambitions. He is vile in the most mundane, suffocatingly mediocre sense of this world.

Haha, those ridiculous people assuming that Zoya is cruel because she was a victim! That she is secretly soft and just learned to hide it due to her trauma! Fools!

AkShUaLlY, Zoya is Suli, which makes her twice marginalized! And her own mother tried to marry her off to an old pervert when she was nine! And the Darkling ignored her, which is obviously grooming and manipulation! And she only sought power because she wanted to feel safe uwu! And she always wanted to plant a garden because deep down she is just a soft girly girl who luuuuvs flowers like every girly girl in existence!

How and why he created the Shadow Fold

How he created the Second Army and the Little Palace and how they actually function

What he has been up to for literal centuries

What his actual political and ideological views are and how he envisioned the future for Ravka and Grisha.

What I learned about the Darkling from the books instead:

The color of his eyes. They are grey, which is stated about 250 times in case someone is still not sure what color grey looks like.

the state of his hair at any given point in time.

He has a bEaUtIfUl face. Yes, it's also repeated 250 times in case you suddenly forget that he is handsome.

His laugh sounds sexy

His bare chest is irresistibly hawt

The books are cursed with a shallow, ignorant protagonist who keeps focusing on wrong things.

No, being sexually attracted to a "bad" guy and berating herself for it doesn't make the heroine complex. Moral complexity would require her to actually engage with the political climate around her, consider the actions of her enemies and allies and their impact on objective reality instead of how they make her feel, and, most importantly, reflect on her own choices rather than judging someone else's. Emotional complexity would require her to be torn between her lingering attachment and empathy for the antagonist and her judgment of his methods and actions. The closest she gets to empathizing with him is noticing that he sometimes looks "like a boy," which is purely visual.

Salivating over the guy's chest and feeling bad because of it doesn't make her a nuanced and morally complex protagonist. It makes her a horny prude.

Sexual frustration doesn't equal complexity. Sexual attraction doesn't have anything to do with morals—it's morally neutral. It's just hormones. The fact that Alina was tempted by his body is not a moral failure. Being attracted to a handsome man is one of the things she shouldn't feel guilty about. She'd do better if she felt guilty for her bigotry; her supporting rapists, oppressors, and various hateful violent bigots; her committing a mass murder and other war crimes; or her tendency to abandon everyone and care only about herself and her dishrag friend, or at least for being a cunt towards everyone who is not the said dishrag friend.

Also antis: But of course she wasn't really in love with him! She would never! Mal was her one true love, and the Darkling was just a distraction!

Antis: Zoya was groomed and manipulated by the Darkling; his abuse fundamentally changed her as a person!

Also antis: Pfff, Zoya didn't really care about the Darkling! She wanted power, and he was just a distraction! She left as soon as she realized he's bad!

It's adorable how they want the poor girlies to be victims but squirm uncomfortably if the implications of being the victim of an abusive relationship involve something other than righteous, full-throated outrage and immediate rejection.

A decent tyrant would have made them terrified to even think poorly of Grisha.

That's what Alina thinks after her kiss with Aleksander at the fete. "he wanted me, and maybe that was enough." She doesn't mention whether or not she wants him, as if it wasn't crucial for this particular situation. She is not used to expressing her sexual agency and acknowledging her desires, which is understandable given her upbringing.

My arms glided up his back and twined around his neck. He kissed me again, and I sighed into the welcome press of his mouth. I felt his weight slide over me and ran my hands over the hard muscles of his arms. If Mal was still with me, if he could still love me, then there was hope. My heart was pounding in my chest as warmth spread through me. There was no sound but our breathing and the shift of our bodies together. He was kissing my throat, my collarbone, drinking my skin. I shivered and pressed closer to him. This was what I wanted, wasn’t it? To find some way to heal the breach between us?

If Mal wants her, that's enough. Again, there is no acknowledgment of her own desire. The phrase about "healing the breach" is also interesting. She sees their potential intercourse as a way to fix their relationship, not as an expression of their mutual desire. It's not "I want him", it's "I want to heal our relationship, so if that what it takes, so be it" Her sexual agency is once again treated as something irrelevant.

Their sex scene with Mal is no better:

“You are all I’ve ever wanted,” he said. “You are the whole of my heart.” I saw myself then—sour, silly, difficult, lovely in his eyes. I drew him to me, felt him shudder as our bodies came together, skin against skin, felt the heat of his lips, his tongue, hands moving until the need between us drew taut and anxious as a bowstring waiting for release. He clasped his hand to my wrist and my mind filled with light. All I saw was Mal’s face, all I felt was his body—above me, around me, an awkward rhythm at first, then slow and steady as the beat of the rain. It was all we needed. It was all we would ever have.

Again, a bunch of insecurities, some sensory descriptions, awkward rhythm, and the resigned "it was all we needed. It was all we would ever have." Mal stated that he wanted her, and her desires don't get a mention. She reacts to his actions and settles for whatever she got, which, judging by an unenthusiastic description, wasn't much.

She never learns to acknowledge and express her desires, to be an active agent of her sexuality instead of a passive recipient. And that's treated as normal.

When evening fell, the boy would bring the girl a glass of tea, a slice of lemon cake, an apple blossom floating in a blue cup. He would kiss her neck and whisper new names in her ear: beauty, beloved, cherished, my heart.

Darklina cannot be a depiction of an abusive relationship because Alina and the Darkling have never been in a relationship. They talked five times and kissed twice, Alina had no emotional involvement (as you noted yourself) and literally referred to him as "near strangers". Their interactions after her escape were interactions of two enemies on opposite sides, not ex-lovers.

Meanwhile, a lot of people noted that Mal reminds them of their abusive/toxic ex and listed specific examples. He is jealous and aggressive and insecure about her power; he cheats on her and blames her for that. He leaves her alone when she needs emotional support to nurse his fragile ego. She feels guilty over his every mood swing and is ready to forgive him everything as long as he comes back. But I guess their experiences are invalid because Bardugo chose to depict that toxic swamp as a wholesome relationship?