#The lives of saints

[enchantedbook]

Illustration from Sankta Magda from 'The Lives of Saints' by Daniel J. Zollinger

#daniel j zollinger #the lives of saints #sankta magda #Illusration

[polis-fandom]

So, Leigh Bardugo had said yesterday that the writers of the Shadow and Bone used some ideas from her book "the Lives of Saints".

One of the stories is about saints from Shu Han, Saint Kho i sankta Neyar.

In short, saint Kho created unkillable soldiers, and Sankta Neyar created a special blade to slay them.

"A blade so sharp it could cut SHADOW "

"The sword was dubbed Neshyenyer, and still can be found in the palace of Ahmrat Jen" (capital of Shu Han)

I guess this is the thing the Crows and Tolya are stealing from Shu Han, and Inej wields it in this shot.

#grishaverse #shadow and bone #shadow and bone netflix #lives of saints bardugo #leigh bardugo #sab spoilers #shadow and bone spoilers #inej ghafa #the lives of saints

[yangvik]

so i recently finished the lives of saints and now it's time for my specialty; making everything about inej ghafa. the stories behind the namesakes of all her knives can be found here but the one that stood out to me the most was that of sankt petyr, her first knife. as the patron saint of archers it's likely she named the knife after her family's saying ("the heart is an arrow, it demands aim to land true"). but what stood out to me about it was how petyr died. i've seen a lot of analysis about the water imagery in the series and so i couldn't help but notice that petyr was martyred fighting a demon possesing a body of water, as inej fights slavers on the water. i know she didn't know that she would end up there when she named it but whatever it's symbolism you get it!!

while i was searching tags to see if anyone else noticed this i came across this post that highlights a possible parallel between petyr and kaz which is so delicious since it's known he gave the knife to her. one thing the grishaverse series is gonna do is eat the fuck out of symbolism. it was also not lost on me that sankta margaretha patron of thieves and lost children was kerch that was a nice touch. maybe a future knife name idk a girl can never have too many!

and ps sankta marya being a suli girl and the patron of those far from home made me want to eat the book. what the hell. what the hell.

#grishaverse #six of crows #the lives of saints #inej ghafa #kaz brekker #is this kanej posting #i'll count it #kanej #sankt petyr #sankta marya

[aesthetic--mood]

Alina Starkov Dark Aesthetic

#alina starkov #sun summoner #light #sankta alina #soldier #maps #ravka #little palace #the darkling #aleksander morozova #baghra morozova #cartographer #general kirigan #white stag #the lives of saints #malyen oretsev #grishaverse #the grisha trilogy #the grisha series #shadow summoner #shadow and bone #books #tv series #netflix #netflix shadow and bone #aeshetic #dark aesthetic #jessie mei li #leigh bardugo #netflix tv shows

[daughterofprofit96]

On Instagram ( rescatedelgrishaverse) I've been comparing Grishaverse to mythological deities. Zoya was my latest!

Before I go on, remember to sign and share the petition!! You can Google it as "Save Shadow and Bone". Today we reached 200k signatures!!

Zoya Nazyalensky|| Bellona

You know why I love Zoya? Because in a society where us girls aren't allowed to be bad, to be tough, to be unforgiving without someone making us feel guilty, having characters like her, characters who defy those stupid enough to tell them what they're supposed to be, it's an honour.

Bellona it's one the Roman deities of war. Bellona was a personification of the most violent aspect of war, but someone who the Romans prayed for victory to. It was in her temple where they held the war counsels. It's in her temple where war was declared, by throwing a spear onto the land "designated" as enenmy; and where the victorious soldiers were received.

Zoya is a little bit like that. She's somewhat unpleasant at times. She can be violent. She can be intimidating. She can be terrifying. And you know what? That's completely fine. Zoya is a born leader, one of the best warriors and someone fiercely loyal to her friends and beliefs. Therefore, she's the best person to command an army.

Sometimes, it's good to have an armour.

#save shadow and bone #shadow and bone #six of crows #inej ghafa #kaz brekker #sombra y hueso #leigh bardugo #amita suman #freddy carter #grishaverse #grisha #the lives of saints #zoya nazyalensky #zoyalai #fantasy #bellona #mythology

[outletcrash]

sankt illya in chains

#ilya morozova #shadow and bone #i just read #the lives of saints #like an amazed illiterate toddler reading picture book #i just cant do big paragraphs n shit rn #sab #grishaverse #might learn ravkan #i know 2 language scripts that i exclusively write in #why not a third #the sea whip #rusalye #morozova's stag #the firebird #or is it.... #the grisha trilogy #is his name spelled with 1 L.. oops... #sankt ilya

[lifeinpoetry]

I check my phone for notifications, but everything

is quiet as an empty bathtub. I check the sky for a sky and find no sign,

                           feel only the skyness one feels during twilight. God knows I am a cavern that refuses to be filled.

— Marianne Chan, from “The Lives of Saints,” All Heathens

#quote #Marianne Chan #poetry #All Heathens #out of my collection #The Lives of Saints

[doyouknowthis-grishaverse]

#grishaverse #shadow and bone #my polls #fandom polls #grishaverse polls #king of scars #rule of wolves #the lives of saints #istorii sanktya #sankta lizabeta #sankta lizabeta of the roses #elizaveta #sankta elizaveta

[generalstarkov]

"for three days and three nights, neyar fought the unstoppable soldiers, her blade flashing so brightly the people watching swore she had lightning in her hands"

the lives of saints, leigh bardugo

#taking advantage of the shadow and bone hype to post the redesign of this panel #not to be pretentious but #this also makes much more sense than the show version #choices were made #sankta neyar #the lives of saints #leigh bargudo #grishaverse #sab netflix

[themelodyofspring]

JOMP Book Photo Challenge

February 06, 2023 - Red Books 🌹

#jompbpc #the hollow heart #the lives of saints #marie rutkoski #leigh bradugo #booklr #mypics #books #books and flowers #bookblr #read

[savethegrishaverse]

Our next twitter party discusses #TheLivesOfSaints! Join us as we talk about the book, Dan Zollinger's art, and the lives of Saints - both living and dead! Come prepared with your best tweets, questions, comments, gifs, memes, and more. Let's make some noise! 🗣️

#SaveShadowAndBone and #SixOfCrowsSpinoff TWEETING PARTY 1/14 at 12PM! Come check it out here!

Remember to:

Only use three hashtags.

Enjoy and be engaging with your tweets! Keep sharing! Timezones under read more.

If you cannot attend, you can always schedule tweets ahead of time on desktop in order to help out still!

ALL TIMEZONES: Sunday, Jan 14: 9am PST 10am MST 11am CST 12pm EST 2pm -03 5pm GMT 6pm CET 8pm MSK 9pm +04 10:30pm IST

Monday, Jan 15: 1am CST 2am JST 4am AEST 6am NZST

#saveshadowandbone #six of crows #grishaverse #shadow and bone #netflix shadow and bone #netflix #sab #soc #six of crows fandom #soc and ck #six of crows spin off #six of crows spinoff #sixofcrowsspinoff #no mourners no funerals #emmy nominated #save the grishaverse #third army #sankti istorii #the lives of saints

[jessread-s]

✩🕯️📜Review:

“The Lives of Saints” is the perfect companion novel to Bardugo’s Grishaverse series!

I absolutely adore the Grishaverse, so it should come as a surprise to no one that I picked this one up and thoroughly enjoyed it. Many of the tales of the saints, like Sankta Lizabeta of the Roses and Sankt Ilya in Chains, are alluded to in the Shadow and Bone trilogy, Six of Crows duology, and King of Scars duology, so I loved learning more about them by reading their full stories. I also came across new saints I had never heard of, which served to widen my view of Bardugo’s complex world and contribute to my understanding of its lore. In addition to the stories, beautiful illustrations graced nearly every page and they took my breath away. Those turning to this book to read more about this universe will be far from disappointed.

Cross-posted to: Instagram | Amazon | Goodreads | StoryGraph

#the lives of saints #lives of saints #leigh bardugo #dan zollinger #the darkling #aleksander morozova #alina starkov #sankta lizabeta #sankt ilya #grishaverse #shadow and bone #shadow and bone trilogy #shadow and bone series #six of crows #six of crows duology #king of scars duology #companion book #short story #short stories #ya fantasy #book review #booklr #book blog #book blogger

[the-starless-reader]

Death by a Thousand... Stars?

I've been going through my notes on Siege and Storm, and one particular detail stood out. It's an excerpt from the prologue:

[...] they stood together on deck, picking out constellations from the vast spill of stars: the Hunter, the Scholar, the Three Foolish Sons, the bright spokes of the Spinning Wheel, the Southern Palace with its six crooked spires.

The note says: Double-check the constellations! Alina's bedchamber has a star-speckled dressing screen! The Darkling's bedchamber has constellations on the ceiling!

And then I remembered my notes on Ruin and Rising. And guess what? The monastery of Sankt Demyan, otherwise known as the Spinning Wheel, was turned into an observatory 'a few hundred years ago'. Double-check the constellations!

[...] the bronze columns were constellations—the Hunter with his drawn bow, the Scholar bent in study, the Three Foolish Sons, huddled together, trying to share a single coat. The Bursar, the Bear, the Beggar. The Shorn Maiden wielding her bone needle. Twelve in all: the spokes of the Spinning Wheel.

It's been abandoned 'for over a century'. This version of the Darkling is approximately 120 years old. Coincidence? I think not. Sugar had been rationed in Ravka for the last hundred years, which can only mean that the current war had started around the same time he'd made himself known again.

But what about the monastery? I think that the Darkling was the one who'd turned it into an observatory. My only proof is a tale found in The Language of Thorns. It's a story about his half-sister Ulla, titled When Water Sang Fire. Our Youngling was the seer's apprentice in the lost city of Söndermane, a scholar cloistered in the Prophetic’s Tower. A stargazer!

At each level the apprentice named another subject: history, augury, geography, mathematics, alchemy. Ulla hoped they’d wind all the way to the top of the tower, where she knew they’d find the famous observatory.

However, stargazing wasn't his only preoccupation there. But we'll come back to that later. Double-check the constellations! Let's get back to the twelve spokes of the Spinning Wheel.

The Hunter with his drawn bow? That's Sankt Petyr, with his still-burning arrows. The Scholar bent in study must be Sankt Dimitri. The Bear is obviously Sankt Grigori. The Shorn Maiden wielding her bone needle is probably Sankta Vasilka, the first firebird.

What about the others? Thirteen Saints were shown on the massive triptych behind the altar in the original Lantsov chapel, where the first Ravkan kings were crowned. Thirteen Saints were featured in the original version of the Istorii Sankt’ya. But there are only twelve spokes, twelve constellations. Who's the odd one out?

Sankt Demyan is most certainly not, and here's why.

According to The Lives of Saints, the site of Sankt Demyan's death is the tallest mountain in the Elbjen. He was the nobleman who owned the land upon which a cemetery stood; and when the birches started to obscure the path, he had his servants cut a new one. When the rains came to disturb the cemetery, Demyan designed the aqueduct around the graveyard, diverting the water to irrigate the fields. But the people still complained.

He was desperate to please them. He asked the Saints to raise the cemetery up to the sun itself, so it would no longer be obscured by the shade of his previous creations.

He laid his hands upon the soil, and the earth began to shake. The ground rose higher and higher, until the highest mountain was made. The cemetery was intact, but his own family crypt was broken. The people accused Demyan of disrespecting his family name by using dark magic, and the angry mob stoned him to death. He became known as the patron saint of the newly dead.

Sankt Demyan's miracle was the creation of the highest mountain in the northern Sikurzoi.

But why is this important? Because the Sikurzoi mountains cover most of Ravka's eastern and southern border with Shu Han. And the Spinning Wheel is located in the Elbjen, which is the Fjerdan name for the northern range of Sikurzoi. More so, it's the place the first firebird came from. And that firebird is Ravka.

But what if I tell you that the first Taban queens also come from the highest mountains of the Sikurzoi range? The palace of the Taban dynasty has the Court of the Golden Wing. You know who else has golden wings? Sankta Vasilka, the first firebird.

It's said that the borders of Ravka were sketched by the firebird's flight. Its rivers run with the firebird's tears. And when one of her feathers fell to earth, the young warrior picked it up and carried it into battle. No one could defeat him, and so he became the first king of Ravka.

But where are the stars? The old Taban queen resides in the place called the Palace of Thousand Stars. Even before the first Taban queens have come to their rule, Sankta Neyar was already one of the Six Soldiers, the sacred protectors of the Shu Han.

Remember the constellations? The Southern Palace and its six crooked spires? The Spinning Wheel? It's all there, written in the stars.

And the Starless Saint knows that.

His bedchamber is built on a hexagonal plan, like the temples of Ahmrat Jen. His dark wood walls are carved into the illusion of a forest crowded with slender trees. The birch trees, like the ones growing around the cemetery. He almost died there, once.

Demon in the wood. Demyan in the wood.

The domed ceiling above his bed is spangled with chips of mother-of-pearl laid in constellations, to create the illusion of the Spinning Wheel. The ebony screen in Alina's bedchamber is speckled with mother-of-pearl stars, too. It was probably brought from his rooms, as only his chambers are furnished in ebony.

It's death by a thousand stars...

#shadow and bone #shadow and bone meta #grishaverse meta #shadow and bone worldbuilding #sankt demyan #sankt demyan of the rime #aleksander morozova #the darkling #the starless saint #grishaverse #the grisha trilogy #the lives of saints #leigh bardugo #parallels and references #a searing burst of thought

[just-1other-nerd]

About "The Language of Thorns":

Our queen Leigh subverts common fairy tale tropes in her own ones, and I love this modern twist, I also recognised which fairy tales hers are based on. So I'll tell you my conclusions.

Btw I'll refer to fairy tales as Märchen from now on because I'm German and it's just the better word ("fairy tale" just doesn't feel like it includes all the tropes, creatures and characters, it feels like the stories only revolve around fairies and I think that doesn't do the genre justice).

Spoilers for the entire Grishaverse ahead.

Ayama and the Thorn Wood: This is basically a "Beauty and the Beast" retelling. The major subversion is that she is never really regarded as a beauty, and in the end, she also chooses to become a monster instead of him becoming human because that doesn't need to be fixed. Also every story she tells him is subverting tropes: the 1st one is about how unlikely a true happy ending is, the 2nd one is about how the things that seem like a threat can actually be a blessing and about how evil often disguises itself, the 3rd one is about how you shouldn't trust a stranger even though what he offers seems better than what you currently have and that you shouldn't be safed by a prince. The first of her stories is confirmed to be inspired by Tarrare's "Polyphagy".

The Too-Clever Fox: This is inspired by all of those fables where a fox is the main character. In those, he is normally a natural trickster and very smart. Oftentimes, it's about foxes utilising their wit to get what they want or escape a trap by using others and their flaws, and they normally succeed. The main subversion is that the too-clever fox isn't clever enough, he is trapped and was tricked, he didn't see that the girl was the hunter all along, he is stripped of his wit and the only way he survives is by the help of his friend Lula. Leigh wanted to show that hunters come in all shapes, they aren't always loud or muscular or male.

The Witch of Duva: This is (confirmed by author's note) based on "Hänsel und Gretel" by the Gebrüder Grimm (brothers Grimm). Btw I immediately knew that Magda was going to appear in this tale because of the opening and because I read "The Lives of Saints" just a few weeks prior. The subversion is obviously that neither the witch is the villain nor is the stepmother. Instead, they even help our main character. The real evil is closer than she ever thought. In the author's note, Leigh even confirmed that she did this because it always didn't sit right with her when Hänsel and Gretel returned home because the father who seemingly had no problem with abandoning them wouldn't protect them in the future.

Little Knife: This is inspired by all those tales where the guy (be it a prince or a commoner with a golden heart) has got to go through 3 trials to win the girl (be it a princess, a nobel woman or a very pretty commoner), the Gebrüder Grimm alone wrote many of those for example "Das tapfere Schneiderlein" (The bold Tailor). Leigh thought that trials are a weird way to find a fiancé. The subversion is that the poor guy with the supposed gold heart is just another man who doesn't love Yeva for herself, doesn't care what she wants and doesn't even deserve her because the river did all the work for him. This results in the river who won all the trials asking Yeva to leave those who are unworthy of her and only see her beauty, to which she agrees. Also they are sapphics and nobody can tell me otherwise.

The Soldier Prince: This is 100% based on E. T. A. Hoffmann's "Nussknacker und Mäusekönig" (Nutcracker and Mouse King), and yes, I googled he is the original author Tschaikowsky only adapted and changed the story. The subversion is that he doesn't want a romance, that's just what everyone expects of him. He wants to live a life of his own, and the Mouse King isn't the antagonist but rather helps the soldier accomplish what he already did. I loved the existencial crisis angel of this Märchen and Leigh said in her author's note that this was added because of her childhood trauma caused by "Velveteen Rabbit" (I don't know what that's about but I still can relate because like the amount of childhood trauma "Pinocchio" - especially the whole island plotline - caused in my case is so huge that I'm actually crying right now).

When Water Sang Fire: The author's note confirmed that it's based on Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid" and it is basically an origin story for the sea witch. The protagonist Ulla undergoes a corruption arc (set in motion by her ambition and loyalty towards Signy), instead of how Märchen usually deal with outcast protagonists. Normally, those proof themselves worthy of love, friendship and glory by doing something that was regarded as impossible (once again the trials trope). Leigh wanted to show that princes can be cruel and dayum that betrayal hurt (I audibly gasped in public like 4 times even though I did see it coming). Do you think her brother spread the rumours that led to her becoming Sankta Ursula?

Thanks for reading.

#grishaverse #language of thorns #the language of thorns #leigh bardugo #the lives of saints #fairy tales #fairytale #brothers grimm #gebrüder grimm #märchen #subverting tropes #signy #sankta ursula

[daughterofprofit96]

✨ I'm baaaack ✨

When I saw the announcement for today's #tweetparty, first thing I thought of was Kaz ("No Saint has ever watched over me. Not like you have.")

And that's a big deal, right? Who do we believe in when we believe in nothing? Who inspires us and empower us to keep fighting when the stories of the saints don't summon us? Why would we not believe in this other saints, when they are so much closer than the other ones?

A few days ago I saw a movie in which a guy said he had a lot of faith but not in a God, but in his friends, those who gave him strength to go on. The stories of the Grishaverse saints are wonderful, epic and 100% moving. However, I'm a firm believer that there are several types of saints and this can be seen in the Grishaverse - in the friendships that transcend time, space and screen.

I'm a little bit like Kaz. I don't believe in a higher power except for that of my friends and siblings. They have always protected me. They have always been here, in the most real way possible 🤍

Who is your favourite Grishaverse Saint? Let me know in the comments!

Also, remember to sign and share the petition to save Shadow and Bone! You can Google it as " save Shadow and Bone"

My Instagram: rescatedelgrishaverse

My twitter: barrelboss96

#save shadow and bone #shadow and bone #inej ghafa #six of crows #leigh bardugo #kaz brekker #sombra y hueso #freddy carter #grishaverse #amita suman #the lives of saints #Grisha #seis de cuervos

[stromuprisahat]

That day, half of Novokribirsk was lost when the Darkling expanded the Fold. Many cursed the man responsible for this cruelty and celebrated his death when it finally came. But there are others who worship him still, the Starless One, patron saint of those who seek salvation in the dark.

The Lives of Saints (Leigh Bardugo)

... more like the Patron Saint of Getting Shit DONE...

#Grishaverse #grishanalyticritical #The Lives of Saints #ch: The Starless Saint #The Darkling #Starless Saint #The Cult of the Starless Saint #Cult of the Starless Saint #V #books #quotes #Leigh Bardugo #Btw it's HALF of Novokribirsk again... #*eye rolls so hard they get stuck staring into the back of the skull*