[ SECRET POST #5288 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5288 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 20 secrets from Secret Submission Post #756.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

The Netflix show did some interesting things with race and culture; perhaps if it gets as far as these two books, they'll delve into things in more detail.

Also: Zoya. My God, I hope they do these books for her sake.

[(Anonymous)]

Eh. If by "interesting" you mean that the show made a weird token effort to make racism a thing for mostly the heroine in a way that didn't make sense, then yeah, the show did interesting things with race and culture.

[(Anonymous)]

Is that better or worse than keeping it as white as the books? Just curious.

[(Anonymous)]

If you're asking for my personal opinion, I'd say it's worse. Would it be great to have had more diversity in the books? Sure! But lack of diversity wasn't a dealbreaker for me. I wouldn't have minded changing that in the adaptation, but the way they went about it suggested that nobody put a lot of thought into it beyond, "Hey, let's make Alina mixed race so she can be a victim of racism, that's woke!"

The problem is that they're trying to shoehorn racial issues into a story that didn't previously address them in this specific context, and they didn't seem aware that you can't do that without also revising the context. "Alina doesn't look Ravkan" doesn't make a lot of sense when... well, look at the Ravkans. They're a racially diverse group, so what does it mean to "look Ravkan"? Do we actually learn anything about Shu Han culture, or see other people of Shu Han heritage, or does this racial issue ONLY manifest in Alina getting some nasty comments thrown her way? If people are being awful because Ravka is at war with Shu Han, why aren't they also nasty to blond-haired, blue-eyed people who look Fjerdan?

In the books, Alina is a target of discrimination from other Grisha, but for reasons that made more sense in the context: she is, in their eyes, a weakling who's inexplicably avoided developing "proper" powers, she comes from a peasant background and hasn't been educated in the Little Palace like the rest of them, she can't physically fight, nor can she use her powers in the beginning, yet she's somehow attained a high rank in the blink of an eye. THAT makes sense, that those conditions would foster resentment among her peers.

I think Bardugo does a better job of diverse characters later on in the series and it works better because those themes are more integrated into the story itself. But honestly, there's still a lot of room for improvement.

For the record, I'm not white.

[(Anonymous)]

A day late for this but by interesting I meant in relation to Alina being the standard Chosen One (like, the people are treating her like a literal saint) but also someone that the population of Ravka generally treats with suspicion and prejudice. I liked her conversation with the two guys in the carriage and they were telling her how special she was and she pointed out somewhat bitterly that she was *already* special.

Perhaps I should have said *gestured* at something interesting. It wasn't great, but there's stuff there to build on.