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dreamsatdusk · 3 years

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Analysis: Baghra and the Apparat

I received an Anon ask a while back and accidentally published it before it was done a while back. Privated the post but decided to have the final product as a new post just in case; I don’t want it buried in tags from way back.

The Ask:

Hello! Can you do a breakdown on Baghra's character and the Apparat's? I'm interested in reading your thoughts about them

Thank you for the ask! And apologies for the delay in response.

Baghra

One of the first Grisha meta posts I wrote years ago was about how the way Baghra and her hut are portrayed evoke the impression of Baba Yaga. Her appearance, hut in the woods (likely amidst birch trees), and something of her attitude all lend themselves to it. Since then, I’ve also come to think there might be a bit of tie in to the tale of Vasilisa the Beautiful, who was forced to go and bargain with Baba Yaga for a light against the darkness.

Looking past that surface, in the trilogy we are presented with Baghra as a figure both ascetic and penitential, as well as bitter and unkind. The latter traits are well explained by what we learn of her history: she has had a long life filled with a great deal of loss, with countless threats to Grisha and particularly to she and her son, different as they are even from other Grisha. Her childhood was a sad one brimming with trauma and what she recalls of her parents to Alina causes me to think that she did not feel truly loved by either one of them. I think their treatment of her and behavior toward each other shaped her perspective on life in profound ways, ones she never got past.

But the former traits don’t have so obvious a cause on page if you look more deeply. Her lifestyle is very austere despite the fact there is no need for it - she is not on the run and in hiding any longer as she was in the Darkling’s youth. Her conversations with Alina in regards to her son are couched in religious terms: she is worried about his being beyond redemption, she speaks of merzost as abomination, and so forth. In R&R, she has Misha read religious parables to her to pass the time.

This clashes with what we know of contemporary Grisha. It is said at one point in S&B that Grisha don’t put much stock in religion and we see the Darkling does not seem to either. Not to mention the fact that he and his mother knew at least several Grisha who later became considered saints. I find it likely they suspected other saints could also have been Grisha - Grisha and martyred for it, their true identities obscured so later people could pray to them and not have to consider the ‘unnatural’ people they were. It makes a lot of sense that neither Baghra nor the Darkling would invest much consideration in Ravkan religion as it is presented on page. In fact, it seems like they’d find it more infuriating than anything. And yet.

The Second Army has no need to lead lives of deprivation. Yes, they eat ‘peasant-style breakfast’ and such, but their rooms are gorgeous, they have beautiful clothing, sugar for their tea and so forth. Baghra surely wouldn’t be living in a tiny dark hut in the trees unless that is what she wanted.

There’s also the fact that she shows signs of not using her summoning powers. Even before S&S, she’s apparently quite chilly a lot. It makes sense she wouldn’t show she could summon shadows where other Grisha could see. But the indication is she isn’t using her powers at all. That is another way she seems to have chosen to deprive herself, to the point of impacting her health. Perhaps she even hoped that it would lead to her death, but apparently it has not been enough to override the impact of her amplification talent.

Looking back at the woman seen in Demon in the Wood and was glimpsed in the tale she tells Alina of her past, it very much seems to be something happened to turn who Baghra was into who we see in the trilogy.

I suspect much of the true reason is that she is pretty much a plot device in the story. She needs to spook and horrify Alina into running. Her talk of ‘redemption’ and ‘abomination’ are peculiar in terms of many other elements we see in the books. I’m writing a meta on the amplifiers and merzost and such that goes into this further, but I’ve also written some in the past about how there’s no real reason to believe merzost is inherently bad. Baghra has clearly decided it is though and speaks of it and her son’s actions in absolutist terms. Because she needs to in order to have the narrative run how it does, more than once.

And again, what reason would this character really have to put so much faith in Ravkan religion?

What’s a possible in-universe explanation for this? I think the creation of the Shadow Fold works well for that. We find out that what the Black Heretic was actually trying to do was recreate Morozova’s amplifier experiments and something went wrong. (This is the focus of the upcoming meta I mentioned above.). The Fold happened and all of the people within its bounds were transformed into volcra. All in all, a horrific situation, however much an accident. This could have functioned as such a systemic shock to Baghra’s worldview that she sought solace and perhaps forgiveness in religion. I suspect she felt guilt, which is pointed to in things she says in the trilogy. Also, she’s the reason the Darkling even had Morozova’s journals - she went back to the village she was born in and found them, per R&R.

I still think her being invested in the Ravkan religion itself is a weak point, but could be generously explained by just how traumatized she was by the Shadow Fold situation. She may have desperately wanted something to believe in. That said, the lack of any sign in the books of what more lies behind Ravkan religion than Saints and the fact that Baghra knows that at least several of those Saints were actually Grisha, doesn’t make this the strongest argument to me.

I also wrote some weeks back on how Baghra was portrayed as emotionally and physically abusive to Alina and according to their own accountings in R&R, other Grisha as well. In the early days of the fandom, I never really saw that acknowledged, though it has gotten far more recognition this year with new people reading the books since the release of the tv show.

Overall, she is a very bitter person and I think a lot of what we see of her is driven OOC by her being largely a plot device and IC by guilt. She feels guilty about the Fold’s creation and so forth and lashes out at others in misdirected anger.

I think this also relates somewhat to her treatment of Alina in S&S and R&R. She blames Alina for not ‘adequately’ running away (went after the stag instead), blames her for the Darkling putting himself beyond redemption (in Baghra’s mind - like too many people IRL, she seems to not understand what redemption actually is), blames her for the sea whip, for wanting to find the third amplifier. She blames Alina for these things, but it is likely a mask for further personal guilt. Of all people, Baghra is likely the one who would have been most successful in stopping the Darkling before things took the path they did. He trusted her.

But her nasty treatment of others obscures that Baghra is largely a passive character in the trilogy. Whether out of love or some variety of religious concern, she doesn’t try to kill her son. She doesn’t remove Alina from the situation in a more final way, only tells her to run. And in the end, she commits suicide rather than more directly confront the Darkling.

The Apparat

Okay, after all that, I don’t have near as much about the Apparat. *L*

If Baghra’s surface details are meant to evoke Baba Yaga, then I think the Apparat’s point to Rasputin. His physical description was practically a caricature (if you’ve only seen the show, he looked far less revolting in that than he was described in the books) and he starts out as a trusted advisor to the Ravkan royal family.

One of the big questions about the Apparat is about what he truly believes. He was in cahoots with the Darkling around the coup against the Lantsov dynasty in S&B, but he later swung his support behind the Sun Summoner. I think it would be a believable reading of the text to suspect he may have planned to do so since learning of Alina’s existence. There’s no real reason to think he truly supported the Darkling’s cause or cared much for Grisha themselves; on the latter point, I think the greater support is for the idea that he does not care about the Grisha and just used them to get what he wanted.

His presentation is a mix of True Believer and power-seeker and a great deal of the questions around him relate to where one thinks he falls most strongly on that spectrum. Alina’s interactions with him in S&B have the hallmarks of a fanatic, but then, these signs are also seen through Alina’s eyes and you have to consider whether she is seeing reality or a careful act. I think the case could be made for either. But either way, I also think he wanted power. I suppose you could argue he wanted power on behalf of Sankta Alina, but I think his actions in R&R show that an Alina who wasn’t going to comply with his wishes was deemed more trouble than she was worth. If she had died, I don’t think he fundamentally would have cared. She had established enough of a reputation, was known to enough people, that he could have exploited her as a martyr without having to deal with the reality.

The Apparat was the sort of character I tend to really dislike (religious manipulation, etc.). Something that struck me in all the books is how more than one character was strangely...tolerant of him. He backstabbed people more than once and yet nothing was every truly done about it.

#Grishaverse #Grishaverse Meta #Baghra Morozova #Baghra #The Apparat #The Grisha Trilogy #Shadow and Bone

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firelxdykatara · 3 years

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kitty i can't wait for your thoughts of Shadow and Bone asdfasfaw

Ok well I just finished and I have so many fucking thoughts. Most good! Some, less so. Part of it may just be my bias because I’ve only read the Six of Crows duology and have little interest in actually reading the original trilogy, because I know how it ends and Leigh clearly hates me personally and doesn’t want me to be happy (/j), so I was already predisposed to be far more invested in the Crows and Darkling/Darklina segments (genuinely, the Mal/Malina scenes/storyline bored me to tears, and while I appreciate that the show went out of its way to change Mal’s character to make him much less of a toxic douchebag [I’ve read enough excerpts and explanations of his actions in the books to really loathe book!Malina], it isn’t enough to make me ship them when Darklina is right there), but I also don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the Crows absolutely stole the show.

It’s actually kind of funny, because I’d assumed they were only being so heavily marketed to hype the show up even more, since while there’s a lot of TGT/SoC fandom overlap they are also two fundamentally different genres and I’d wager there are a lot of people who are massive fans of one but not so enthused with the other, while remaining fairly insignificant to the overall plot. Turns out, they make up fully half of the show’s runtime (much to my delight). Which is part of what I think will help this series stand on its own, both as a book adaptation and simply as a fantasy TV series.

I’ll put more of my story-specific thoughts under a cut, so there’s lots of show spoilers to follow!

I know that a lot of early reviewers were saying that Alina’s motivations and storyline revolved too much around Mal, and that really held true for me. It made sense in the beginning--he was the only constant in her life, she was thrust into something new, terrifying, and completely unfamiliar, and they’d developed an unhealthy codependence as a coping mechanism for their childhoods and the traumas they faced, the lives they lead growing up in a war-torn country. But she started coming into her power, falling for the General--not just his power and charisma, but what she felt when she was with him. The way he helped her summon the sun, the way she felt free in a way she never had before.

Until it all went to shit--but the Darklina make-out scene in episode 5? Fucking iconic. Poetic fucking cinema. The way they were quite literally about to have sex on that wartable (and someone better write fic of that moment, what if they hadn’t gotten interrupted), and the General left, but then he ran back just to kiss her one more time... this is what OTPs are made of ok.

I think what really bothers me overall is that Alina ultimately lacked agency in her one storyline, pretty much the entire way through. She did make a few choices, but they were mostly incidental, and a lot of it was Alina desperately trying to get back to Mal rather than seizing her own power and destiny and running with it. The most prominent example is the end of episode 5--Alina is having happy make-outs and almost bones the General in his own war room, and then he leaves, and Baghra comes in and infodumps to her about how evil he is and how he’s only using her and she needs to escape.

I recognize that a lot of this is probably because that’s essentially what happened in the book and Leigh is an executive producer for the show so she has a lot of shot-calling power. However, I really think that even in the book this plotline would’ve been better-served by having Alina make these discoveries on her own.

For example, imagine that the letters which were used as framing devices for episodes 2 and 3 were vitally important to the plot, rather than being one-offs that are mentioned a few times but not really affecting much of anything. Alina begins to get suspicious when she doesn’t receive word from Mal, and she starts wondering if her letters are even reaching him--so she starts snooping. She finds ashes in the war room hearth, late at night,, and recognizes a fragment of Mal’s signature and larger piece of her own. She now knows that someone--possibly the General, but maybe that creepy priest guy, or someone else in the palace--is keeping her and Mal from contacting one another. So she starts snooping around even more. She asks the General leading questions, trying to figure out what the truth is of his intentions. She still feels this pull--this connection to him, and she hopes she’s wrong, but she’s not willing to just sit around and wait for the other shoe to drop.

The Winter Fete still happens, she still gets the hot make-out session with the General, and then when he’s called away, she snoops through his papers, looking for anything that can tell her the truth. She finds a hidden compartment filled with journals.

She reads about Aleksander’s past (and, incidentally, wasn’t that supposed to be a huge moment in the books, him revealing his true name to her in private? kinda wish it had been kept that way in the show but who knows where they’ll go with it in the future)--that leads to the flashbacks in episode 6. She feels for him, but she also reads further--she gets a firsthand look at his desire for power, something that began as a noble desire to save his people, but was twisted by a lust for vengeance (for his lost love and all the Grisha who were killed) and shot through with greed, the realization that if he found the Sun Summoner he could control the Fold, rather than just destroy it. He could create a new world where Grisha could live without fear--where Grisha could rule.

Alina is terrified. Whoever the General used to be--whatever humanity she saw flickering in his eyes, the way his heart fluttered when they kissed--she can’t trust that it’ll be enough to save her from plans centuries in the making. So she goes to Baghra, the woman who helped her discover her power, learn to channel it--the woman who always seemed to know much more than she ever let on. Baghra gives her side of the story--Alina got it from the General’s perspective first, now Baghra is telling her something framed much differently. She isn’t sure what or who to trust, but she knows that Baghra seems willing to help her escape--but rather than trusting her ‘loyal Grisha’, she makes the choice she made in the show, to choose the other path, and winds up with the Crows.

Idk how Mal and the Stag thing would fit into this (if it isn’t obvious by now, Mal just... doesn’t interest me), but Alina’s story and her character arc would be so much stronger for it. And she’s supposed to be the central character, so her story being weak and her agency so frequently being compromised ultimately hurts the show as a whole.

I know I’ve gone on and on about Alina and the Darkling (look, I’m a slut for enemies-to-lovers, and also lovers-to-enemies-and-back, so Darklina and Helnik are where so much of my investment is rooted--plus Kanej, but that almost goes without saying), but the true standouts of the series were the Crows. Inej, Kaz, and Jesper, and Nina and Matthias in their episodes, stole the show (along with the Darkling, Ben is far and away the best actor in the cast and I love that for him, but Freddy, Amita, and Kit are also amazing, and Danielle&Calahan were fucking phenomenal as Nina and Matthias--I do have to say, though, that the whole cast is really solid and has amazing chemistry).

They worked together so perfectly--Freddy and Amita communicated so much with their eyes alone, especially together, and a whole lot of their relationship dynamic is rooted in how they exist together, which really came through. The show altered the Crows timeline considerably (I’m pretty sure Kaz would’ve been 14 during the original trilogy lol), so Inej is still at the Menagerie, but things like Kaz putting up the Crow Club for Inej’s freedom, the way Kaz needed her but could never bring himself to say it (until the end of the season dklhfgdkjfgh i SCREAMED)--the way Jesper played off the both of them, and it’s so obvious they all love each other even though they’re criminals and thieves and murderers, and Kaz would never admit it (out loud--which actually feeds into my theory that his love language is acts of service; Kaz does things for the people he cares about, he never announces it and he will almost always try to downplay it, but the way you know he cares is if, for example, he puts his entire life, everything he built, up as collateral for your freedom), but they’re a family.

One thing that I was kind of iffy about was Inej’s refusal to kill--but I thought it might be something they were planning to work into her overall character arc, and they did. It was the one line she hadn’t crossed--in the books, I’d imagine that it took a while for Inej to wind up at that point, being willing to kill on top of everything else. So I actually like that they worked that into the Crows plotline, and Inej killing for the first time was to save Kaz’s life.

Just like Kaz’s first selfless act was to save her.

(He’d deny it, of course. He protects his investments. He needed her for the job. But the truth is, he did it for her. And he’d do it again. Even if he’d never admit it.)

Meanwhile, Nina and Matthias’ storyline was pretty much note-for-note according to their backstory as it was revealed in Six of Crows, and I loved every second of it. Their chemistry was perfect, their journey from enemies to begrudging allies to friends to maybe something more (Matthias’ stomach cockblocking them when they were about to kiss had me fucking SCREAMING AT THE TV, and then of course the whole ‘betraying him to save him’ thing happened and I sobbed), and then suddenly right back to enemies.

Because from Matthias’ perspective, he trusted a witch--believed in her, liked her, wanted her--and she turned on him. He has no idea that she wasn’t the one who knocked him out in the first place, and no reason to believe her, because as far as he knows, she just confirmed everything he’d ever been told about Grisha. That they are deceitful and treacherous, would turn on you as soon as look at you, that they are dangerous and not to be trusted. It wasn’t revealed in-show but I imagine Matthias’ backstory is largely the same, which means that his entire family was slaughtered by Grisha when he was a young boy, and then he was turned into a brainwashed child soldier by the witch hunters and never knew anything else.

They are perfectly primed for their SoC arc next season and I, for one, am so stoked to see the rest of their journey. And if I slip Netflix a couple twenties, maybe they’ll let Helnik have a happy ending please please please.

Anyway, yeah! I have a lot of thoughts but things are still percolating in my head so I’ll probably float around the tags for a bit and let things settle. This is just a preliminary overview of my thoughts in the immediate aftermath of bingeing the entire show in one night kldfjghdkjfhgkjgf

EDIT TO ADD: I CAN’T BELIEVE I FORGOT ABOUT THE TRUE STAR OF THE SHOW, M I L O

MILO BEST BOY. MILO THE MVP. MILO DESERVES ALL THAT IS GOOD IN THE WORLD AND I HOPE HE LIVES A HAPPY AND HEALTHY AND FULL LITTLE GOAT LIFE.

#shadow and bone #kanej #helnik #darklina #sab spoilers #alina starkov #the darkling #inej ghafa #kaz brekker #jesper fahey #malina salt #asked #cobraonthecob

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