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"What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men."

The Grisha Trilogy is a set of adventure-fantasy Young Adult novels written by American author Leigh Bardugo. It is also the series that spawned The Grishaverse.

The three books are:

  • Shadow and Bone (2012)
  • Siege and Storm (2013)
  • Ruin and Rising (2014)

Additionally, Bardugo wrote the spin-off series Six of Crows, set in Kerch two years after the events of Ruin and Rising. She also wrote The Nikolai Duology which serves as a sequel to both this series and Six of Crows.

Set primarily in the fictional country of Ravka, there is a form of magic that exists known as "The Small Science". Those who can wield it are called Grisha, powerful practitioners considered to be a part of an exclusive class. Those who do not possess this power are called Otkazat'sya, and function normally as shopkeepers, laborers and soldiers.

In the first book, Alina Starkov is a young woman who lives the simple life of a mapmaker, travelling with the First Ravkan Army and charting The Shadow Fold, a mysterious dark region that splits Ravka into two and is considered to be uncrossable because of the monstrous Volcra that lurk within. Raised in an orphanage with no discernible magical abilities, Alina accepts this as her lot in life and the only way she can be useful to her country. Her only family is her best friend and fellow soldier Mal, with whom she has been secretly in love for years. Of course, Mal doesn't realize any of this and treats her like a sister.

When their regiment is sent into the Shadow Fold, it is almost immediately met with disaster. The company is powerless to stop the slaughter as the Volcra attack and feed on the soldiers. Mal is nearly killed, and when Alina tries to help she suddenly unleashes a blinding light that destroys the Volcra. Alina is immediately brought before The Darkling, the enigmatic leader of the Grisha and second in power only to the King. It is discovered that not only is Alina a Grisha, but that she possesses the rarest and most powerful ability of them all: That of a Sun Summoner, and the only one who can destroy the Shadow Fold.

In January 2019 it was announced that Netflix would be adapting the trilogy into a series (Shadow and Bone) overlapping with a prequel story for Six of Crows. Staring Jessie Mei as Alina Starkov, Archei Renaux as Mal Oretsev, Freddy Carter as Kaz Bekker, and Ben Barnes as the Darkling. The series was scheduled for a late 2020 release, but the COVID-19 pandemic slowed the work on post-production. It was released in April 2021.

Has a character sheet that needs some sweet lovin'.


This trilogy provides examples of:

  • The Ace:
    • Mal is handsome, an unbelievably good tracker, and makes friends very easily. Alina muses that you could drop him anyway in the world and before long he'd fit in perfectly. But he becomes a Broken Ace later on.
    • Nikolai is brave, clever, charismatic, hard-working, and creative. As shown in the second book, he does a much better job running the kingdom than his father or older brother.
  • Achey Scars: In Siege and Storm, Alina gets one from the Darkling's shadow soldiers. It itches whenever the Darkling is near.
  • Action Girl:
    • Part of Alina's character arc has her becoming this.
    • Tamar is definitely one of the biggest badasses in books.
  • The Ageless:
    • The Darkling states that he is 120-years old, but it's implied that he's much older.
    • All other Grisha are this to a lesser degree (see: Long-Lived).
  • Alas, Poor Villain: The Darkling
  • All Girls Want Bad Boys: The Darkling has this appeal for Alina, encouraged by her belief that Mal has forgotten about her. She comes to despise him after the events of the first book, but a very strong attraction is still clearly there.
  • Alpha Bitch: Zoya at the school.
  • Ambition Is Evil: The second book plays with this trope and the Darkling defines it.
  • Amplifier Artifact: Amplifiers are parts of animals that boosts the powers of a Grisha. Grishas can only use one amplifier for the rest of their life.
  • Animalistic Abomination: The Volcra are hideous winged-creatures that devour any living thing that enters The Fold.
  • Animal Motifs: Nikolai and dogs. Also applies in-universe.
  • Artistic License – Linguistics: Bardugo admitted in an interview that she used various Russian words and names in not-quite-right contexts for the Rule of Cool. As many reviewers have pointed out the books have completely botched Russian. Strictly speaking, Ravkan is a fantasy language but it borrows heavily from Russian:
    • Russian surnames are gendered so it should be Alina Starkova, not Starkov. Likewise, Ilya Morozova (a man) should be referred to as Ilya Morozov.
    • The magical elite army is referred to as the Grisha, which is just a diminutive form of the name Grigori. It's like naming a magical army 'Greg'.
    • The word otkazat'sya is used as a noun to mean 'the abandoned' but in Russian, this is actually a verb, which means 'to refuse'.
  • Beauty Is Bad: Ivan (described as a "handsome bully" and generally acts pretty rude) and The Darkling.
  • Beauty to Beast: Poor Genya at the end of the second book.
    • Also Nikolai, although he eventually returns to normal.
  • Bilingual Bonus: Though the author takes some artistic license and most words are Russian-like, there are a few actual words, including "Tsar".
  • Bittersweet Ending: In Shadow and Bone Alina breaks free from her enslavement to The Darkling and saves Mal's life, but in the process, she is forced to leave everyone on the sand skiff to their (more than likely) deaths.
    • In Ruin And Rising, both Alina and Mal defeat the Darkling, but she loses her Grisha abilities, and Mal his tracking ability. More sweet than bitter, in that they fake their deaths, allowing them to live a quiet life away from politics.
  • Book Ends: Each book begins and ends with a chapter told in third-person, whereas the rest of the book is told from Alina's first-person perspective.
  • Brought Down to Normal: Ulimately Alina's fate at the end of Ruin and Rising after the third amplifier is provided, freeing her up for Mal, while simultaneously breaking the hearts of most of the fandom.
  • Casting a Shadow: The Darkling's ability is to control darkness and shadows.
  • The Chosen One: Alina is the world's only Sun Summoner and the only Grisha with the power to destroy The Shadow Fold.
  • The Charmer: Nikolai has so much charisma that Alina is initially disturbed by how quickly and easily he gets large numbers of people to trust and admire him.
  • Consummate Liar: The Darkling. He tells Alina that he will use her power to destroy the Fold, when in actuality he means to expand it as a weapon.
    • Also, his age and his promise to Alina that he won't kill Mal. That last one is only true by technicality.
  • Color-Coded Castes / Color-Coded Wizardry: Grisha wear robes called kefta, which are color-coded depending on which class they belong to: Etherealki (blue), Corporalki (red), and Materialki (purple). Servants wear white and grey. The Darkling is technically an Etherealki, but only he can wear the color black.
  • Costume Porn: The above-mentioned kefta.
  • Crossover: Genya, Zoya and Sturmhond appear in Crooked Kingdom.
  • Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Magic - not what the grisha do, real magic - is considered an abomination and is really rarely talked about. It's also Power at a Price.
  • Deadpan Snarker:
    • One of Alina's most defining traits, but Mal and The Darkling have their moments as well.
    The Darkling: What are you smiling at?
    Alina: Myself.
    The Darkling: Are you that funny?
    Alina: I'm hilarious.
    • Later on, Sturmhond aka Prince Nikolai Lantsov takes the cake.
    Alina: The Darkling will hunt you for the rest of your days.
    Sturmhond: Then you and I will have something in common, won't we? Besides, I like to have powerful enemies. Makes me feel important.
    Mal: I can't decide if you're crazy or stupid.
    Sturmhond: I have so many good qualities. It can be hard to choose.
    • When Nikolai and Alina get together, prepare for feelings of frustration and amusement.
    Alina: Thanks for the rescue.
    Nikolai: Everyone needs a hobby.
    Alina: I thought yours was preening.
    Nikolai: Two hobbies.
  • Diagonal Cut: The Darkling possesses a rare magical ability called "The Cut" which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. He first demonstrates this power to save Alina's life just as an assailant is about to stab her through the heart. She is understandably horrified when the man splits in half before her.
  • Dirty Old Man: The king.
  • Droit du Seigneur: Defied by Nikolai who banishes his father the king for having raped Genya.
  • Drunk with Power: This happens to Alina when she combines two amplifiers early in the second book.
  • Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: The Darkling.
  • Elemental Powers: The etherealki.
  • The Extremist Was Right / Villain Has a Point: The following two duologies showcase much more than the original trilogy just how terribly and even violently Grisha are treated around the world. “The Witch of Duva” takes place in a time when Grisha even in Ravka were forced to live as fugitives. All of this serves to vindicate the Darkling’s cause to make a safe place for Grisha.
    • Also the King he attempts to depose, Alexander III, is genuinely awful.
  • Fairest of Them All: Genya is so goddamn beautiful it's ridiculous. Justified, in that she's a Tailor, a Grisha with the ability to, among other things, make small tweaks and alterations to a person's appearance, and she's been working on herself for quite a while.
  • Faking the Dead: In the end, after defeating the Darkling, Alina decides to fake her demise and stages her own burial to leave a peaceful live with Mal.
  • Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Tsarist Russia is this for the fictional Ravka. Shu Han appears to have taken inspiration from Imperial China and Fjerda has elements of Scandinavia.
  • Food Porn: Subverted at first. The Darkling insists that his Grisha eat simply as the common people do, though they still get to have real sugar. Played straight when Alina goes to the palace and describes the delicacies served there.
  • Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Crown Prince Vasily and his younger brother Prince Nikolai, respectively. Vasily is a lazy hedonist who contributes nothing to war effort. Nikolai is an ambitious soldier and innovator who's doing everything he can to keep the kingdom together.
  • Freudian Excuse: Ivan follows the Darkling because he believes that the Darkling can end the centuries-long wars that his brothers, uncle and father died fighting in.
  • Gratuitous Russian: Oh, so gratuitous. Many Ravkan words are actually Russian words in so totally wrong context, form and declension that it will make a Russophone cringe.
  • Healing Hands: Healers, obviously. Heartrenders invert this, despite also being corporalki.
  • Heroic Bastard: According to rumour, Nikolai might be this. As of Ruin and Rising, It turns out it's true. His mother the queen had an affair with an ambassador. Doesn't stop him from becoming the king though.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: At the climactic confrontation of Ruin and Rising, Mal, having realised that he's the third amplifier, guides a badly-wounded and utterly broken Alina into driving a knife to his chest, taking her power to its logical conclusion.
  • I Love You Because I Can't Control You: Heavily implied to be the source of the Darkling's continued fascination with Alina.
  • I'm Standing Right Here: Alina chews out both Mal and Nikolai when they butt heads in the second book.
  • Insistent Terminology: Strumhond isn't a pirate, he's a privateer. In real life at least, this would in fact be a very important distinction to make - as a privateer, he would essentially be "licensed" by a country to raid and seize the shipping of specific unfriendly nations, and as such enjoy a certain level of protection from them. An out-and-out pirate, on the other hand, would be at the nonexistent mercy of anyone who could catch him.
  • I Surrender, Suckers: At the end of Siege and Storm, Alina gives herself up to the Darkling in exchange for him letting the rest of the Grisha go. She then uses their connection to try to kill them both.
  • I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Hinted at when Nikolai asks Alina to stay with him, although it could be interpreted as a Marriage of Convenience for both of them. Later confirmed to be true in King of Scars where Nikolai admits that he was indeed in love with Alina but let her go.
  • I Was Quite a Looker: Alina sees some of this in the ancient Baghra.
  • King Incognito: Prince Nikolai, aka Sturmhond the Privateer.
  • Light 'em Up: Alina has the ability to summon sunlight.
  • Living Shadow: The Darkling's shadow soldiers, the nichevo'ya.
  • Like Brother and Sister: How Mal sees Alina, much to her silent torment. He comes around.
  • Locked into Strangeness: Alina's hair turns white at the end of Siege and Storm after she exploits her connection with the Darkling to take control of his nichevo'ya and create her own.
  • Long-Lived: Using their power feeds the Grishas' lifeblood, giving them very long lives.
  • Love Epiphany: Mal comes to realize just how much he loves Alina back while they are in hiding from The Darkling.
  • Love Triangle: Between Mal, Alina, and The Darkling.
    • In The second book, another triangle forms between Mal, Alina, and Nikolai. It's up in the air exactly how much of it is actually love on Nikolai's side, and how much is just his awareness of how politically useful being married to the Sun Summoner would be. Nikolai being who he is, it could easily be both.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Nikolai, but he appears like more of a Guile Hero as the book goes on.
  • Marriage of Convenience: Nikolai offers one to Alina since he could give her political power and she could give him the loyalty of the Grisha. She declines.
  • The Marvelous Deer: Amplifiers come from magical animals and can enhance a Grisha's power, and the antlers of the Stag would be one of the strongest possible. The catch: only the one who kills the animal can control it.
  • Meaningful Name: Otkazat'sya is translated in-universe as "the abandoned," although in real-world Russian it is the infinitive verb "to abandon."
  • Military Mage: Grisha are recruited into the military as soon as they are identified (which works because in the surrounding countries, Grisha are either burned as witches or vivisected for their organs), and serve in a separate, elite unit. They play a combination of support and combat roles depending on the nature of their powers. For example, some Grisha can heal, control the weather, or craft special fabrics and weapons. Others can shoot fire or kill people with their minds.
  • Motor Mouth: Stumhond, though this turns out to be an act. After revealing himself as Prince Nikolai, he speaks at a more normal pace.
  • Mr. Fanservice: Both Mal and The Darkling are described as very handsome men. Mal in particular turns heads wherever he goes, much to Alina's annoyance.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Come on. You don't name a character the Darkling and expect him to not be at least slighty shady
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The Darkling forces Alina to withdraw the light from the Fold with Mal inside it so that the Volcra will kill him. Hearing his screams sends Alina into Heroic Safe Mode and she reclaims the amplifier as her own, unleashing an even more powerful light and giving her the power of "The Cut," which she uses to help Mal and her escape.
  • "Not So Different" Remark:
    • At the end of Rule Of Wolves Nikolai muses that he and the Darkling had pretty much the same goal, trying to be Ravka's salvation; and he has the potential to go the same way as his nemesis if he doesn't take steps to right his course. He also mourns the young man that the Darkling once was, who was very similar to Nikolai himself in believing he could accomplish anything if only he was clever, strong and brave enough.
    • One of the main things The Darkling uses to try to convince Alina they belong together is pointing out how similar they are.
  • Oh, Crap!: Nikolai gets a huge one during Vasily's speech at his birthday ball. See Spanner in the Works below.
  • Please, I Will Do Anything!: Alina threatens to fight against The Darkling for the rest of her life if he harms Mal. But if he spares him, she promises to spend it "proving my gratitude". Make of that what you will.
  • Power is Sexy: In addition to his looks, many women in the palace are attracted to The Darkling because of this. The Darkling himself has this for Alina to the point of obsession.
  • Privateer: Sturmhond, a mysterious Ravkan privateer who uses his own fleet of ships to attack and steal from Ravka's enemies. He always gets very annoyed when people call him a pirate instead of a privateer. In the second book he gets hired by the Darkling (who is trying to overthrow the Ravkan king) to help him hunt a mythological monster that he hopes would give him more power. However after they found and killed the monster, Sturmhond betrays him. He steals the dragon, shoots the Darkling and frees his prisoners. It turns out that Sturmhond was actually prince Nikolai and he was not happy with the Darkling trying to overthrow his father.
  • Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: The Darkling and Zoya.
  • Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: After Sergei sells out Alina's location to the Darkling, the latter has him dismembered by his creatures.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: Prince Nikolai, the younger of the king's two sons. And he appears to be the only one.
  • Ruritania: Bardugo modelled the country of Ravka on Tsarist Russia, incorporating Russian names and terms into the story. The buildings described even have onion domes.
  • Say My Name: After the Darkling reveals his true name, Aleksander, he asks Alina to say it. When he is dying at the end of Ruin and Rising, he repeats this request.
  • Scarily Competent Tracker: It's said of Mal that he can "turn rocks into rabbits". He's so good he can even track a sea-serpent on the open ocean.
  • Sibling Rivalry: The two princes Vasily and Nikolai.
  • Silk Hiding Steel: Genya, while considered a lowly servant, is still one of the most gorgeous women in the series, and is fairly harmless in the first book, until it is revealed that she managed to poison the king for months with her own personal concoction, thereby making it impossible to locate and identify. Made more badass when she reveals how she suck in the poison for so long and what it did (see: Took a Level in Badass)
  • Skewed Priorities: Lampshaded by Baghra and by Alina during her "Eureka!" Moment. When Baghra calls Alina out on being miserable even when she's living better than any peasant in Ravka, Alina realizes that the reason she's so unhappy, and the reason she's had such a hard time using her own power, is because she's been subconsciously repressing it so as not to be separated from her childhood friend and crush Mal. After that, Alina swiftly gets her priorities in order for the most part.
  • Slave Collar: The Darkling has the stag's antlers made into one for Alina.
  • So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Genya is a really sad example. Her beauty and status as a servant causes the other Grisha to shun her...and the King to take full advantage of her.
  • Spanner in the Works: Prince Vasily is normally just useless, but then he announces that he arranged a treaty with Fjerda by allowing them free access to the roads in Ravka without interference from the First Army. While the Darkling and his army are looking for a way to invade Os Alta. On the night the most important people in Ravka would all be in one place celebrating Nikolai's birthday.
  • Special Person, Normal Name: In a world with names like Genya and Baghra, our resident Big Bad The Darkling's real name is Aleksander. Lampshaded by Alina in Ruin and Rising.
    The Darkling: Aleksander.
    Alina: (Laughs)
    The Darkling: What?
    Alina: It's just so ... common.
  • Stupid Evil: Once the Darkling has captured Alina and Mal and put the antler collar on the former, he then decides to execute the latter as punishment for his deserting the First Army and for Alina defying him (and also possibly because he's jealous of the affection the two have for each other)...despite the fact that keeping Mal alive would guarantee Alina's cooperation and good behaviour. His throwing Mal to the volcra just gives Alina the impetus she needs to break free from his control and ruin his plans.
  • Taking You with Me: Alina tries this with the Darkling at the end of Siege and Storm. It doesn't work.
  • Took a Level in Badass:
    • Alina, when she manages to get her priorities in order.
    • Genya created a poison that would not kill the victim, but cause a deterioration that would cut his life expectancy shorter, with the results being irreversible. More impressive when it is revealed that in order to give the King the correct amount of doses over time, she poisoned her skin (her lips, to be precise), knowing that he would take advantage of her multiple times. In order to remain unaffected by the poison, she would purge it from her skin and heal the burns it would leave. Every. Single. Time. Not bad for a lowly servant
  • Wham Line: Baghra to Alina about The Darkling
    Baghra: He never intended to destroy it. The Fold is his creation.
    Alina: The Fold was created hundreds of years ago by The Black Heretic. The Darkling—
    Baghra: He is the Black Heretic!
  • What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: invoked The Istorii Sankt'ya is a book of religious stories for children which contains extremely graphic illustrations of saints being martyred.
  • World of Snark: Try to count of the number of people who don't snark at some point in the series. $5 says you only need one hand.

Alternative Title(s): Shadow And Bone, Ruin And Rising, Siege And Storm

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