have a look at the illustrations by my fellow materialki: @crownofnight(x), @aureatepaper (x) and @nataliert(x) and check out our corporalnik @purns-art
i know that the crows (other than nina) probably won’t show up in rule of wolves but i’m hoping that they appear
(also i haven’t read king of scars yet so i can’t make any predictions about how this is going to work within the plot)
while the ending of crooked kingdom was satisfying, i really just want to see more of kaz’s development, how he’s learning to work through his issues, i just want to see him happy PLEASE
i know inej and sturmhond have already met but i feel like there’s so much more potential for funny interactions between them because now inej is technically a pirate
also inej and nina friendship representation, do i need to say more
and i need more kanej, literally anything i’ll take anything, i don’t care if all they do is look at each other or stand in the same room
i really want wesper banter too, they’re so adorable and i love their dynamic
especially since this is probably going to be the last grishaverse book (at least for a few years depending on how the show goes) i’m holding onto the hope that they will appear
i know that this duology is focused on nikolai and i love love love love him so even if we don’t get them at all i think nikolai is perfect enough to fill that hole in my heart for now
it is a privilege to brush the sand from your skin, to see the way you go golden in the sun and are one with her rays. the winds at home in your heart sir the seas in mine, and it is everything to gaze at the waves on the infinite horizon and talk of tomorrow.
but though the season itself is lovely, i wish your days full of nothing but the sunshine you bring to me every second of the year.
the first line above is excerpted from “rule of wolves”, the rest is word vomit :)
zoya nazyalensky & nikolai lantsov belong to leigh bardugo. please do not repost or edit caption, but do find me on instagram!
If I made a video essay about the way Leigh Bardugo capitalized on Zoya Nazyalensky’s race without any meaningful representation of South Asian culture, would desi folk be interested in contributing? Non desis please do not comment.
I have a lot of thoughts, so bear with me.
I’m not really sure if this is “bad” representation, but other than physical descriptions there is little to nothing connecting either Zoya, Inej or the Suli to Desis. When I read the books I read the characters as Romani/ Ashkenazi Jewish. I was shocked to find out that people on tumblr and twitter were making fan art of them that looked like….well me.
Tbh I think it was pretty problematic for her to mash both cultures in the first place. Sure, it’s probably true that some Roma can trace their origins back to India (rajasthan in particular ) but they supposedly migrated out of India a long, long time ago. Some Roma might look very Desi but they’ve since mixed with other ethnicities and formed their own, unique culture that’s absolutely worthy of accurate, non- stereotypical representation, but I’ll get to that later. Any Roma person I’ve come across on the Internet is pretty adamant (and rightfully so) about the Romani being seen as separate from desis.
My point is that if Leigh’s intention was to represent two different cultures then she could’ve easily represented us as ….. two. different .cultures. She could’ve sneaked in a nation that was loosely based on South Asia and I would’ve been fine with that . Instead she kind of pulled an aladdin when it comes to the Suli.
Also I should mention that I don’t think it’s really all Leigh’s fault. I know that leigh is ashkenazi Jewish/ part Roma herself and she probably just decided that making Inej darker skinned would be good representation for darker skinned romani ? I feel like some readers probably headcannoned the Suli as being 50% desi and then just ran with it. I can see why the early readers thought of it this way, fan art of inej shows her with peacock feathers and that’s something we’ve historically associated with Desi culture.
But idk, there just wasn’t anything that lept out to me as being overtly “desi” in the books. I feel so seen in Amita and Sujaya, I just didn’t have that experience reading the books. It makes more sense that a Russian- centric book has characters based on the Roma than characters based on South Asians, who they had little interaction with. Shu Han being based on Mongolia and China makes sense to me too, because Russia shares borders with those nations.
If leigh had to have made a “south asian” nation, had inej (who could’ve still been the Grishaverse equivalent of Christian)be abducted from there and then mistaken for Suli in kerch, I would’ve bought it. Its entirely plausible that this European based nation sees all colored people as one. From there our “actually desi” inej could’ve dealt with the repercussions and developed an understanding of the plight of the Suli . But that didn’t happen.
I love these books and leighs writing, but I acknowledge that every culture/nation/people group represented in the GV are a stereotype of a real-life place or ethnicity. There are many things she could’ve done better. Making the one canonically east- Asian nation “technologically- advanced people who might take over the other nations and experiment on people in their secret labs and carry out secret torture” just doesn’t sit right with me . Neither does Novyi Zem, where the characters who are phenotypically described as dark skinned and curly haired are the ones that farm and work on plantations. But those aren’t my battles to wage so I won’t say anymore of it.
I just finished King Of Scars, i know I’m late to the party but did anyone else feel like we were robbed of Nikolai??!! I really thought and hoped that KOS would be solely focused on him as he is that complex layered character that we could see him unwrapped and understand him more. Focusing on Nina’s loss and not mentioning Nikolai’s loss over the last three years as much as mentioning Nina’s really infurated me. There is soo much to him we should’ve and deserved to see but we were honestly robbed!!
ms bardugo really snapped with king of scars. she just sat down and was like “okay, you fucking heathens, you goddamn monster fuckers, you wanna fuck a monster so bad? here’s nikolai. go. fetch. free me.”
