#but post ep. 5 Alina made me miss book!Alina so much!

[where-theres-smoak-2]

The Bonesmith, Baghra and Aleksander

So here’s the next instalment of I noticed something interesting during my rewatch of S&B that nobody else likely cares about but well I’m sharing it with you all anyway. Also there are some book spoilers in here so tread careful if you haven't read them and don’t want to be spoilt.  

So whilst rewatching ep 3 I caught onto something the Apparat said that I thought was kind of interesting about the Bonesmith, something that I think can tell us alot about Aleksander and Baghra’s relationship but also Baghra’s motivations for separating darklina in episode 5.

 Anyone who has read the books will know that the Bonesmith is actually Ilya Morozova who is Aleksander’s grandfather. He was one of the first grisha and a very powerful fabrikator who created the amplifiers. What I thought was interesting was that the Apparat explains why the Bonesmith created the amplifiers in the first place which I don’t believe this is explained in the books but correct me if I am wrong as I am only half way through the third book. The apparat says ‘He (the bonesmith) knew that the grisha would always be prosecuted and so he worked on a plan to magnify their power.’ This obviously suggests that Ilya Morozova saw the grisha’s suffering and wanted to do something about it, in fact he becomes obsessed with it, with creating the amplifiers. I can’t help but wonder if this is why Aleksander is so convinced that its Morozova’s amplifiers that will help make grisha safe. Why he is so obsessed with them and finding them because he knows that protecting the grisha is exactly what they were made for in the first place.

 It could also explain why Baghra is so against Aleksander finding them and his obsession with them, also why she is so against Aleksander wanting to help the grisha and why she has much more of a just leave them to it you’re more important anyway, kind of attitude about the grisha’s plight. Her father’s obsession with the amplifiers is what lead to Baghra feeling so isolated in her childhood and also what lead to her family being torn apart. Baghra’s story is just as tragic as Aleksander’s and has some eerie similarities. She grew up feeling ignored and neglected by both her parents, her father was too obsessed with creating the amplifiers to pay his family much attention and her mother was so afraid of Baghra’s powers that she kept her distance and paid alot more attention to Baghra’s younger sister. Until one day her sister broke one of her toys and in anger and jealousy Baghra lashed out with the cut and killed her sister. Her father was able to use his fabrikator abilities and merzost to bring her sister back from the dead. The villagers upon seeing this miracle decided to chain up her father and sister and throw them both into the river to drown. Baghra and her mother flee but her mother was too traumatised by the events to keep going and in the end Baghra abandons her in the woods out of desperation to survive and finds her way to a farm. The people there took her in and put out a search party for her mother but they never found her and it is assumed she starved to death in the woods. Even with her feeling neglected by her family this is still a very traumatic thing for Baghra to go through and it all happens when she is a young girl. Unfortunately I do believe she passed her trauma onto her son and in the end she ends up becoming the neglectful parent herself and makes her son feel as isolated and alone as she did growing up. Also don’t know how relevant it is but both Aleksander and Baghra used the cut for the first time as a child and in both instances it was against another child/ children which you know tragic, just loads of tragedy in the lives of the Morozovas. 

I really do think that alot of the reason why Baghra acts against Aleksander so much in his pursuit of saving the grisha is because of her experiences with her father. In episode 7 when Aleksander talks about using merzost to create an army to protect the grisha from the old king just like Morozova used merzost to create, Baghra tells him he’ll die just like Morozova did. This is obviously something she fears. If you look at it from her perspective at this time she was watching her son being hunted by the king, a king who wanted her son dead because he was afraid of how powerful Aleksander’s powers were. This is very similar to what happened to her father, the people feared his power and they killed him for it. In R&R she tells Alina ‘Ravka was different then. Grisha had no sanctuary. Power like ours ended in fates like my father’s.’ Whilst Baghra was often cold towards Aleksander I do think she loves him and he is the most important thing to her so seeing her son seeming to follow in her father’s footsteps terrifies her and so she decides to do everything in her power to stop him.   

However this just drives a wedge further between them. Protecting grisha is something that Aleksander cares deeply about. Whilst Aleksander might be the most important thing to Baghra, the grisha are the most important to Aleks. And Aleksander believes two things, that the answer to protecting the grisha lies in Morozova’s amplifiers and Alina. They together are the key. I do find it very interesting that Morozova’s and Aleksander’s goals were very similar, they both want to make things better for the Grisha. They both also become obsessed with this goal and the amplifiers as a solution. Aleksander has that added level of obsession with the sun summoner, maybe he believes this was the missing piece to the amplifiers, the amplifiers have been created and now they need someone to wear them, the sun summoner. I think Aleksander sees him being the one to find the amplifiers and along with the sun summoner using them to protect the grisha as a way of completing his grandfather’s work. Also its worth noting that Aleksander never knew his grandfather who died before he was born and he also never knew his own father, his mother never even tells Aleks his father’s name the only thing that is known about him is that he was a powerful heartrender. From reading Demon in the Woods its obvious that Aleks feels this void of his absent father. He never really has a father figure in his life. Back then sons would often following in their father’s footsteps, would go into their father’s trade, inherit their farm, or blacksmith shop etc. Those same trades were likely the trades of those boys’ grandfathers as well and so those boys grow up to continue on the family legacy. But Aleks has no trade or skill to inherit because he has no father. That is until he learns of his grandfather's plans. I think Aleksander sees his search for the amplifiers and making sure they are used for what they were intended to be used for as him kind of going into the family trade. Its a weak link but it is still a link to a male family figure and that makes him feel more like the other boys he grows up around. As isolated as he is from them, as different as he is from them, in this way he is the same because he too is continuing his family’s legacy. Also slight side note here but another thing I noticed that I thought was quite telling is that there are two grisha that Aleks seems to respect and admire for their skills and who he kind of defends against others, Ivan and David. When he senses disdain from Alina towards Ivan he makes that joke about how he is actually quite funny when you get to know him, essentially defending him and it is obvious that Ivan is Aleksander’s righthand man and that Aleks has alot of respect for him. Also when David says he can track Alina using the ring, Aleks says he’s proving the many uses of a durast. More so in the books than the show but the other grisha do consider fabrikators to be somewhat useless and the weakest of the grisha a view that Aleksander doesn’t seem to share. What I find interesting about this is that the two grisha he seems to admire (outside of Alina obviously) are a heartrender and a fabrikator the two ‘trades’ of his father and grandfather.    

But I also think  Aleksander has some complicated feelings about his grandfather. I do think he admires Morozova but I think a little part of him also resents being his descendant. I said in my Darkling Analysis post that when Aleks was talking at the fountain about being the descendant of the most hated grisha in all of Ravka he might not have been outright lying to Alina. That he might have been talking about someone else not the black heretic (obviously because he is the black heretic). At the time I wrote that analysis I hadn’t read the books but now that I have I think I might have been on to something. I think in that moment he was talking about his grandfather who before the black heretic was the most hated and feared grisha in all of Ravka. It’s because of this and because of the nature of their powers that Baghra forces Aleks to hide his true identity to the point where he begins to worry he’ll forget his own name. I can well believe that as a boy he would run away and hide there and throw a coin to wish he could be anyone else, someone who wasn’t Ilya Morozova’s grandson, someone who didn’t need to hide all the time and could just be a normal boy. 

Next I want to talk about episode 5 and Baghra’s motivations for separating Aleks and Alina. As I’ve mentioned above I really do think that Aleks believes Alina is the key to the amplifiers and that they were meant for her. I also think that Baghra knows this too. But I also think the books can give as another clue into her motivations. In S&S when Alina meets Baghra again Baghra is very angry with Alina because instead of running and getting on the ship Baghra organised for her, Alina went after the stag and got caught and collared. Obviously in the show it happens slightly different and the thing that Alina does differently is running on her own instead of waiting in the store room for others like Baghra told her too, but its still the same idea of Alina not following Baghra’s plan. But the reason why she is angry is because she feels like because of Alina he has lost his humanity. In the books Baghra explains her actions by saying: 

Baghra pounded the floor with her stick. “I wanted to keep him from becoming a monster! It’s too late for that now, isn’t it? Thanks to you, he is further from human than he’s ever been. He’s long past any redemption.” 

“Maybe,” I admitted. “But Ravka isn’t beyond saving.” 

“What do I care what happens to this wretched country? Is the world so very fine that you think it worth saving?”

Baghra’s goal was to stop her son from becoming a monster and I again think this stems from what the villagers did to her father and just the attitude others, including other grisha, have had towards her and her son because of their powers. The villagers saw her father as a monster because of the power he possessed and how he was able to bring his child back from the dead. Pretty much everyone saw her and her son as monsters because of their powers, including Baghra’s own mother. I do think because of her trauma she has come to associate being a monster with their powers or having alot of power. Also the passage above shows that she doesn’t really care about Ravka so that’s not what is driving her. I think she has been let down and mistreated so many times by the people of Ravka, both otkazat'sya and grisha alike, that she has the attitude of they never helped me so why should I want to save them. I think her experiences have made her very angry at the world and so she doesn’t think it is worth saving. So in episode 5 when she says that they cannot let Aleksander obtain that kind of power I don’t think its because she is worried what it will mean for the world. It’s because she fears two things, one that if he obtains that power people will become more afraid of him and want to kill him like the old king did in the past and like the villagers did with her father. The other fear is the one she talks about above, she’s afraid he’ll become a monster and that he will lose his humanity. I think she fears this because on some level she feels like that’s what happened to her. That she became so detached and angry at the world that she stopped caring about anything but Aleksander. I mean she has done some monstrous things in her life, for example in Demon in the Woods she helps slaughter an entire village of innocent people including woman and children because she wants to protect her son. I think she knows how good intentions can lead you down a dark path and she doesn’t want that to happen to her son. Ironically I would actually argue that its her interference in separating Alina and Aleks that helps push him down that path. 

We know that Baghra thinks its Alina that is pushing Aleks further from humanity and I can’t help but wonder why she would think this. I mean in my opinion Alina is what pulls him back to his humanity and I’m pretty sure this is book canon too. I haven’t read it but I’ve seen this quote from ROW going around “Why did you go to her?" Because with her he was human again.’  I think the reason why Baghra thinks Alina will push Aleks away from his humanity partly stems back to this idea Aleks has of using the sun summoner and the amplifiers together to expand the fold in an attempt to keep grisha safe. I think she fears that Aleks will keep doing more and more monstrous things in an attempt to reach his goal because she knows that teaching him that he was the most important and the only one that matters and by teaching him to stay isolated and separated by society she has made him less caring, less empathetic and therefore less human. She also knows that Aleks believes the sun summoner is the key so she thinks without Alina he can’t go through with his plans and so she attempts to remove Alina from the equation by convincing her to run. 

Obviously Baghra’s version of how and why the fold was created is very different than what happened and I think the reason why is because she knows that Alina cares about Aleks and so in order to convince her to leave him she decides to try and scare her in to it. If she tells Alina that Aleks accidently created the fold whilst grieving for his lost love and trying to protect his people who are being hunted and killed and now he wants to expand the fold because he thinks that will scare their enemies into not killing and torturing grisha, well it might not be enough to get Alina to leave. Alina might decide that Aleks’ aim is a sympathetic one and that there is still enough humanity in him to try and save him. Instead she tells Alina that her son is a power hungry monster who created the fold for his own gain, who is going to enslave her and expand the fold, who doesn’t care about Alina at all and who has spent an eternity manipulating girls to his scandalous whims and dark desires. The image she paints of Aleksander is much more frightening and plays into all of Alina’s fears and insecurities. Look I really hated that Baghra did this but I also think it is important to remember that Baghra really does believe that she is protecting and saving her son. I don’t think she’s doing it out of maliciousness or because she wants her son to fail and doesn’t want him to be happy. She just believes because of her own experiences that if he continues the path he’s is taking then the world will turn against him again and he’ll be brutally killed. She knows that Alina is a powerful weapon and so to her the logical step in preventing her son from going down this path is to take Alina away from him. 

As to whether Baghra knew how much Aleks cared about Alina before she intervened, I’m not sure. I’m in two minds on it to be honest because a part of me thinks she was really convincing when she told Alina that Aleks was manipulating her and had done so with other woman in the past, which makes me think maybe she really did think Aleks was just manipulating Alina and was only interested in her for her power. But then on the other hand during their conversation in episode 5 when Aleksander says that Alina is all that matters now and that she is the one, Baghra doesn’t seem surprised by this which would suggest that she knows that Aleks’ feelings run deeper. I will say that even if she did know that Aleks cared deeply for Alina, I mean personally I think it was pretty obvious that by the time of the winter fete he’s head over heels in love with her, it wouldn’t have mattered a great deal in regards to her plan. In fact I think it might even have made her even more determined to separate them and I think this is because of Luda. As mentioned above Baghra fears her son will lose his humanity and become a monster. Aleks loved Luda very much and it was losing her that was the catalyst, or part of it, that lead to the creation of the fold. Therefore I think Baghra would consider Aleks loving anyone a danger. It’s all very good and well her son knowing the delights of love but what if he loses that person? What monstrous thing will he create next? Baghra has always believed that keeping her son isolated and hidden is what will keep him safe which is why she tells him to run and hide and get a new name in the flashback in episode 7. Just as protecting the grisha is what drives Aleks, protecting Aleksander is what drives Baghra.             

So yeah that’s my I've thought waay too much into this analysis of the Morozova family and its effect on why darklina were torn asunder. At least until the next instalment of ooh that’s interesting I never spotted that before. 

#the darkling #baghra morozova #aleksander morozova #darklina

[teacup-tyrant]

SHADOW & BONE REVIEW: EP 8

On this episode: Parting the Red Sea of Doom, off-camera mass death, and the Inejiest line we've gotten.

And final thoughts!

- Zoya: Alina you had one job!

- Suddenly back to Nina again? At a time like this?! I mean they’re really cute together in this scene but everything with them still feels so rushed and out of place. They're talking about waffles and book readers must be overjoyed, but show only's must be like wtf is going on here, we don't understand this, why are they eating Eggos???

- But I do love Nina's skirt and blouse. I have a skirt just like it! Kinda Edwardian looking.

- Killing Matthias would be a waste of 20k kruge! I concur, my good man, take him away and clap him in irons.

- And this Alina parted the Red Sea, err, the Fold. Really though, WHY are all these passengers here? They should be idk, below decks where it's safe, at the very least.

- "A man consumed with vengeance." "See it enough in the mirror do you?" Hahahahahahaaaaaa

- And that was how Mal became an honorary Crow. Ok.

- Time for some mass death! Well, they didn’t really show much of it so it was a little anticlimactic. ...Is it bad that I wanted to see the mass death? O.O

- Ah man time for more Mal spitting blood. And old classic.

- Is this a Suli team-up?!

- YAAS SANKTA ALINA DO THE THING

- What a money shot of Kaz walking alone in front of the Fold. Great shot. I want it as my desktop.

- Omg the Sankta Alina dagger. Kaz is like, fuck, Inej definitely loves Alina more than me, I have no chance now.

- "Have you found religion too?" Now THAT is a good Witty Kaz line.

- "The deal is the deal." *cries *

- Look at this height difference, excellent. Oh god. Kaz said he needs her. She said "AFTER THAT, WE’LL SEE." Yes YES that is exactly what Inej would say because she won’t settle for Kaz as he is even NOW in pre-canon fake-canon, but it is still the exact right thing for her to say, oh my god I’m so happy with that little exchange they just had.

- Ok yes Matthias sounds exactly like Bjorn from Vikings right now.

- Jesper did not just make a "the friends we made along the way" joke, are you kidding me.

- Well, how convenient your new heart render is sitting right there. You should spring Matthias from jail right now while you’re at it, it’ll save you a lot of trouble later on, trust me.

- Omg that smirk Kaz threw at Inej, I am deceased

- oh. ok. that's... it. omg it's over!

FINAL THOUGHTS

So, I don’t work in journalism or reviews anymore but my god has this ever been fun. Kind of makes me miss it, except not, because I’d rather have job security, hah hah RIP journalism careers.

Now here’s the thing. I’m a SoC stan first and forever. It’s been living on my bookshelf for 4 years and I could probably recite them in my sleep. So... the Crows' involvement here isn’t canon to me at all. But that’s NOT THE POINT. The point that the writers have said about involving the Crows is: are these characters believable in this situation? Is this heist something that these characters WOULD do? Am I buying into it? And my answer is a fat fucking YES. I treated this as a fun IRL fanfiction, just like LB said it was. And it’s all I ever hoped for. It’s everything I ever wanted and more. (Imma break this down later in another post probably. Probably specifically about Kaz and book writing vs. screenwriting, because that's what most people are taking issue with.)

The series was truly amazing. I am over the goddamn moon that it even exists in the first place and I can watch it whenever I want. Tbh, I will probably start rewatching it AGAIN tomorrow. Then I can actually concentrate on it and not pause every 5 seconds to write a reaction on my phone.

Well, that’s all for me. Thank you for coming. I hope someone enjoyed reading my thoughts as much as I enjoyed writing them.

Do feel free to reply or send me an ask with your own thoughts, your disagreements, or just tell me I’m a pretentious asshat. I'm a big girl, I can take it. See you next season (hopefully) or visit me on ao3 at teacup_tyrant for more of my ramblings. Spoiler: it's all kanej because of course it is.

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#pocketreviews #shadow and bone spoilers #sab spoilers #six of crows #grishaverse #kaz brekker #shadow and bone