tenebris

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?

Hi, anon!

Thank you! I'm glad to know it!

It's really depressing how reactionary and deeply conservative a lot of those stories are. "Here is a case of fantasy racism...but racists are actually right! Here is a fantasy version of colonization...but colonizers are actually good people and just want to teach those dirty barbarians their virtuous and progressive ways! These people were enslaved and kept in cages...so the solution is obviously to replace an old nasty slaver with a new, nicer one! And also give the slaves bigger cages!"

As to why the feelings of the leads are more important than anything - I suppose it has to do with the tendency to make the protagonist "relatable." A protagonist becomes a vessel for the readers to project their own feelings onto. The plot becomes a mechanism of wish fulfillment: an ordinary girl becomes a super special snowflake, reality obediently bends itself to her whims, everybody is infatuated with her, and those who are not are defeated, humbled, or turned into admirers. She gets power, authority, respect, love, and devotion from a hot and powerful guy with a huge...charisma. The wars, genocides, oppression, poverty, and other things are just set dressing to make the stakes high and the FMC's position important.

Correct.

He was right because he was the only one who assessed the situation realistically.

He was right because the world he inhabited was rotten to the core and needed a radical change, not a shallow refurbishment.

He was right because dismantling the Fold would not magically solve centuries of bigotry and oppression.

He was right because you can't appeal to the humanity of those who don't consider you human.

He was right because no matter how hard Grisha would try to accommodate otkazats'ya, it would never be enough because bigots didn't want Grisha nice, they wanted them dead.

He was right because another Lantsov monarch in the country that had been sucked dry by the Lantsovs in centuries is a catastrophe.

He was right because everything that happened after his death proved that there was no other way—everything only got worse.

He was right because he realized that genocide of his people is a more pressing issue than them having cliques in their community or them not wanting to share their tech with people who hate them.

He was right because he was the only one who made an effort to protect grisha and create a safe haven for them while numerous "saints" and other self-proclaimed "good people" were sitting on their ass.

He was right because only his actions helped Grisha in a meaningful, tangible way.

He was right because "the good guys" didn't manage to do a single useful thing while he was dead.

He was right because the story put Grisha in such a stalemate that the author didn't manage to come up with anything better than to solve racism with an absolutely idiotic dragon-shifting trick.

He was right because he was the only one who prioritized the collective survival of his people over his personal feelings and moral comfort.

He was right because he was the only character in the story in a morally defensible position and with a justifiable goal.

Zoya being an insufferable cunt, exhibit #1658393

Look at this smug arrogance: "Count yourself lucky." Mind you, she is talking to a much older and much more experienced person, and she acts like this all-enlightened bearer of the universal truth lecturing a silly child.

Also, if the Darkling "prized power above everything else", you'd think he wouldn't have discriminated by gender and would have "used" and "manipulated" every powerful Grisha equally. The fact that this kind of "warnings" is always leveled exclusively at women is pretty disturbing, if you ask me.

Here Elizaveta denies Zoya's assumptions and tells her she is not to be underestimated, and instead of shutting up like a normal person would, Zoya keeps insisting "But no, you don't understand! You are a woman, he would totally take advantage of your feeble feminine brain!"

She is a woman, so she specifically must be in danger of being used for her power because...what, exactly? Because women are easier to manipulate? Because they think with their lady parts and their hormones cloud their judgement? Because women are inherently more naive and trusting? Because women are gullible and lack reason?

Neither do I.

What fascinates me about that conversation is that, despite being from Alina's POV, there is no inner dialogue. She supposedly has a tense, emotionally charged confrontation with the man who, according to her, "used her, seduced her and enslaved her" and she doesn't have a single thought during that argument? I'm not even talking about reflecting on anything he is saying; there is not even a single emotion. Just white noise. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

Also, compare the length of the Darkling's remarks with hers. He speaks in full sentences with a clear message, and she just spits out random generic one-liners that don't even have much to do with his words.

"Don't pretend it's about Ravka, you lied to me!" - Does Alina think that Ravka is located up her ass and anyone who wrongs her cannot possibly care about Ravka?

"You didn't give me much choice!" A choice to do what? Consider the consequences of her actions? What choices has she been deprived of exactly?

"That's isn't fair!" What isn't exactly? That she turned back on her country? That she lied about not having a choice and was called out on it?

"And give them your tyranny in return" - since when did she become a political activist and an expert in the Darkling's ideology? She didn't have any problems with his tyranny when she believed he tortures his soldiers for doing their job poorly. How exactly did she draw this conclusion from Baghra's vague, demented ramblings? There should be some thought process, but there is none.

Remove her remarks from the dialogue entirely, and you won't miss anything. Put them into any other book when a "heroine" is talking to "a villain"—and you'll see no difference. That's not even a character; it's a placeholder.

It's especially funny that people try to find some proof of grand manipulation on the Darkling's part in this conversation. To trick someone's mind, they need to have a mind in the first place. Alina has a cymbal-banging monkey inside her skull.