YMMV / The Grisha Trilogy

• Accidental Innuendo: A favorite pastime is trying to work out whether any dialogue between Alina and the Darkling is about war or sex. Considering the fair amount of Darklina shippers, there's lots of subtext to snicker about:
  • "I’ll be certain you hear it when I make her scream."
  • "But show him mercy, let him live, and I will serve you gladly. I will spend the rest of my days proving my gratitude."
  • "Did you tell him what I showed you in the dark?"
  • "I had a taste for you once."
• Alternative Character Interpretation: The Darkling is either an Anti-Hero, a Well-Intentioned Extremist, or just Ax-Crazy.
• Americans Hate Tingle: Russians criticized the series for the sheer amount of cultural and linguistic inaccuracies (the most egregious being the trilogy's name itself), and for indulging heavily in the drunken Russian stereotype. Many a Russian reader took to the internet after the first book was released to point out the mistakes and how poorly their culture was being represented. As of 2021 the reviews stabilized around 7/10 across many websites.
• Ass Pull:
  • Shipping aside, many readers weren't too pleased with Mal coming back to life after being stabbed in the heart, feeling it cheapened the emotional impact it was supposed to have and that it didn't even make sense in-universe.
  • Many felt that Mal being the third of Ilya Morozova's amplifiers, rather than it being the Firebird, was a massive copout. There had been almost no hint towards this revelation other than his excellent tracking skills, and it raises numerous questions, such as: How is it that the amplifier's power hadn't been diluted by the multiple generations between Mal and his ancestor, Ilya Morozova's second daughter? If the Darkling is far more closely related to Morozova and is himself a living amplifier, why wasn't he able to track the other amplifiers on his own? Why didn't Mal boost Alina's powers during the numerous times he touched her throughout the years, both before and after she was discovered to be the Sun Summoner, or the powers of any of the other Grisha whom he surely must have touched at some point throughout the trilogy (particularly Zoya, whom he kissed several times and slept with at least once)? Plus there's the issue of what the Firebird actually is, if it isn't an amplifier.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Malyen Oretsev. Hands down. On one hand, Mal does have a fair number of fans who see him as what Bardugo was going for with his character; someone flawed, but still a good person, and that his conflicts with Alina are meant to be a case of Both Sides Have a Point. On the other hand, many more readers see Mal’s behavior towards Alina as reprehensible, which is made worse by the fact that it seems like Mal’s faults are never called out on or reconciled. He all but calls Alina a whore for wearing the Darkling’s colors despite sleeping with several girls while in the army, constantly thrives whenever Alina suppresses her powers (making herself frail and weak as a result), moans about how Alina doesn’t spend time with him while she’s trying to keep the Second Army afloat and prevent civil war from breaking out, and kisses Zoya to hurt Alina over a perceived rejection. And considering what the Grisha are meant to represent, Mal's disdain towards her abilities and desire to turn her "back to normal" has undertones far more disturbing than just garden-variety male chauvinism. The matter is made worse by the ending of the trilogy. Some perceive it as Alina needing to make herself weak to spare her boyfriend of his insecurities at best, or straight-up bigotry its absolute worst.
  • The backlash has reached a point where some were hoping the Netflix series would ease back on Mal's worst tributes, if not remove them altogether. When Shadow and Bone did just that some book reader's went expressed a preference for the show's take on Mal for being a Nice Guy over the guy from the source material, while others found the removal of any of his flaws or less agreeable moments just made him boring. In addition, the conflict between him and Alina in the show stems from a misunderstanding rather than faults the characters meaningfully grow from.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Oncat, a stray cat taken in by Harshaw in Ruin and Rising, has a mass following for so minor a character.
  • Harshaw himself is also popular for his amusing lines and propensity for setting things on fire.
  • The Heartrender twins, Tamar and Tolya, are very well liked.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: There is disagreement in the fandom over whether Alina's ending is a happy one or not. On one side, we see that she got to live a peaceful life with Mal, and who wouldn't want that? To which the other side responds, it's the life Mal wanted, not Alina, at least not at 18 and not isolated from her friends or anyone her age. She mourns the loss of her powers and would have never willingly given them up as they made her not just happy but healthy. Thus it's a bittersweet ending at best.
• Fanon Discontinuity: A sizable portion of the fanbase refuses to acknowledge the end of Ruin and Rising due to Alina losing her powers and leaving all her friends at the Little Palace to live in isolation with Mal, in the orphanage she was so miserable in while growing up, and the Darkling dying.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Go to Tumblr or Archive of Our Own; The Darkling and Alina are the main ship by leaps and bounds, followed by Nikolai and Alina.
• Fans Prefer the New Her: Most fanart of Alina will likely be of her after her hair turns white. Especially when she's paired with the Darkling.
• Foe Yay Shipping: Due to some readers who find Mal to be an annoying manchild and combined with the Darkling's obsession with Alina, there's quite a bit of this.
• Les Yay: Some people head canon Alina as lesbian or bisexual, due to the fact that she spends multiple paragraphs ogling over how beautiful Zoya and Genya are (and partially in response to the quality of men in her life), which has brought about Zoyalina, Genyalina, and even Alinej shippers.
• Narm: Due to an error, several Russian names and words are misused to produce amusing results to those who know the language. The Grisha, and essentially the entire trilogy itself, becomes very difficult to take seriously when you realise that "Grisha" is the Russian diminutive of "Gregory." Essentially, this is an elite race of mages who collectively call themselves Greg.
• Ron the Death Eater: Mal gets this treatment often, with the more hardcore Darkling/Alina or Nikolai/Alina shippers painting him as some sort of misogynist abuser. While he is often insensitive and clueless about what Alina's going through, he also repeatedly proves himself to be devoted to her, and performs a Heroic Sacrifice to help her.
• The Scrappy: Very few readers can stomach Mal. Him being the one to end up with Alina only makes it worse.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: The Darkling already got this in the text proper due to the ambiguous nature of how he was written. But when you come to know that the Grisha were essentially the Ravkan equivalent of the Jewish community, he goes from a monster to a liberator of his race who is unfairly persecuted and pushed into villainy by an oppressive monarchy. Plus both in this trilogy and in later books in the series, we learn just how horribly other countries in this world treat Grisha, from vivisecting them or killing them for their blood to enslaving them or burning them as witches, and later developing a drug to further control and enslave them which makes the Darkling's desire to build a truly safe refuge for his people much more understandable.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: A large reason why Mal is so hated. To begin with, when they meet again at the Little Palace after being separated in the first book, he flips out at Alina for wearing the Darkling's colours and calls her a whore, even though he's slept with several people during their time in the army and was clearly attracted to Zoya the first time he saw her. As the story goes on Mal regularly complains about how Alina supposedly ignores him... while she’s trying to lead an army and keep a civil war from breaking out, making Mal come across as self-centered and petty. He sulks when Nikolai flirts with Alina, even though she's made it clear that it's not reciprocated on her part, and when he hugs her and she flinches, Mal assumes it’s a form of rejection, never letting Alina explain that she’s been seeing visions of the Darkling. He thus decides to cope by getting into fights with other Grisha while drunk, and kisses Zoya just to hurt Alina...right in front of her. By comparison, Alina has been in love with Mal since they were children but kept silent about it for several years before the story starts, watching Mal have trysts with several other girls, and never once resorting to sulking or unhealthy coping. Which is to say nothing of how often Mal complains and moans about the existence of Alina’s powers and makes it very clear he wishes she never discovered them; while admittedly becoming the Sun Summoner and everything it entails put both Alina and Mal through the wringer, not using said powers made her weak and frail, making Mal come off as someone who can’t stand that his girlfriend is stronger than he is. Worst of all, none of these issues are reconciled and the series ends with Alina Brought Down to Normal and Mal essentially getting everything he wanted. The knowledge that the Grisha are a stand-in for the Jewish community means that Mal's behaviour can also be interpreted as anti-Semitic.
  • In a 2020 livestream, Bardugo confirmed that the hate Mal receives is more a testament to her writing at the time than intentionally making the guy her protagonist ends up with unlikeable.
• Wangst: The reason so many readers disliked Mal. He often complains that Alina never pays any heed to him, and wishes they could go back to the way things were before... when Alina was sickly and quiet from not using her powers, and he regarded her as a sister while he had an active love life.

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