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After suffering from a severe bout of literary indigestion caused by cheap, disposable domestic thrillers, immersing myself in Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse was truly delightful. This rich world, which I discovered through the Netflix series Shadow and Bone, comprises a trilogy and two duologies, along with a handful of short-story collections and a graphic novel. A fictional world largely inspired by early 1800s Europe—particularly Tsarist Russia as the model for Ravka, where most of the Grisha trilogy takes place.
Grisha are considered sorcerers, although they themselves refer to their gifts—which they call Small Science—as extensions of the natural world, since they cannot create anything, but only use and alter what already exists. Both feared and revered, they serve the war-ravaged kingdom, fighting in the Second Army under the command of the Darkling, a Shadow Summoner. Ravka is cursed. It is split in half from north to south by the Shadow Fold (or Unsea), a swath of malevolent darkness populated by monstrous creatures known as volcra, which feast on human flesh.
While crossing the Unsea with her First Army regiment to resupply the eastern part of the country—which has been cut off from its shipping ports—Alina, a young orphan and cartographer, discovers her power as a Sun Summoner while trying to save the life of her childhood friend, Mal. A discovery that will change her fate—and that of the entire nation—forever. For what do we do when faced with something we don’t understand? We either fear it, fight it… or turn it into an object of worship. And in the Grishaverse, these three different responses can sometimes overlap.
Otkazat'sya and Grisha
Alina goes from being an ordinary citizen to becoming a Grisha and discovers what goes on inside the Little Palace, where members of the Second Army—regarded as an elite force by the Ravkan masses—are trained and prepared.
One thing did stand out to me: the word the philosophers used to describe people born without Grisha gifts, otkazat’sya, “the abandoned.” It was another word for orphan.
Certainly, the term Otkazat’sya, used by Grisha to refer to the ‘ungifted’, speaks volumes about how this minority views the majority. But this distinction works both ways, thereby creating a grey area that allows for a better understanding of the motivations and stakes of both opposing forces. For while Grisha consider themselves a class apart, their difference also becomes, in the eyes of others, a source of mistrust and fear, even as defects to be eradicated: “When they were in their cups, some of the nobles made it clear they think all of the Grisha should be rounded up and executed.”
Except for Ravka (and for a very specific reason that I cannot reveal without spoiling the plot), reactions range from rejection to persecution, including exploitation, slavery, and human experimentation, but the underlying mechanism remains the same: the other becomes a thing simply because they are different—a difference that inspires both fear and envy.
Most rogue Grisha ended up in Novyi Zem. Aside from Ravka, it was the only place where they didn’t have to fear being experimented on by Shu doctors or burned by Fjerdan witchhunters. Even so, they had to be cautious about displaying their power. Grisha were valued slaves, and less scrupulous Kerch traders were known to round them up and sell them in secret auctions.
The Fjerdan Drüskelle take this logic to the point of absurdity by justifying their barbarism in the name of faith, even though their behavior contradicts the moral principles they claim to defend: “There are witchhunters who don’t eat animals, won’t wear leather shoes or kill a spider in their homes, but they’ll burn Grisha alive on the pyre.”
The Lives of Saints
But faith isn't just about targeting enemies. It can also produce saints. And when Alina herself becomes the object of a cult, the line between belief, devotion, and manipulation becomes much harder to define.
Peasants love their Saints. They hunger for the miraculous. And yet they do not love the Grisha.
Once again, the polarising clichés of good vs. evil and light vs. dark are brought to the fore. Alina becomes the chosen one, the object of a collective projection of hope, fear, faith, and a longing for miracles: “There is a fine line between fear and veneration.”
Ultimately, deifying a person is not so different from demonising them. In both cases, the human being disappears behind the symbol. This is illustrated by the account of the martyrdom of Sankt Ilya, who was drowned in the river by the villagers for bringing one of their own children back to life after a tragic accident while ploughing: “Maybe it was not just horror or righteousness that drove them, but anger as well.”
Likewise, this so-called devotion to Sankta Alina is also beginning to take on predatory overtones: “The bodies pressed tighter, pushing and shoving, shouting at each other, each wanting to get nearer. My feet lost contact with the ground. I cried out as a chunk of my hair was ripped from my scalp. They were going to tear me apart.”
Faith does not merely produce saints. It can also become a powerful means of mobilising crowds, for good or for ill, ultimately transforming sacrifice into a virtue and death into a reward. As the Apparat points out: “They will make war without fear and die rejoicing. There is no greater power than faith, and there will be no greater army than one driven by it.”
The Black Heretic
What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men.
The lust for power does not stem solely from those who lack it. Those who hold it may, too, come to crave more, as illustrated by the Darkling’s journey—a man whom injustice transformed into a blind avenger, to the point of committing acts from which there is no going back. At the outset, however, his intention was both honourable and legitimate: he wanted to protect the Grisha, who had long been persecuted and forced to live in fear: “We would be Ravkans, not just Grisha. That dream was the seed of the Second Army.”
But in his determination to protect his own, the line between defence and domination eventually became blurred. And when power over matter was no longer enough, the temptation was to draw upon what is forbidden: Merzost.
In Ravkan, the word for magic and abomination was the same. Basic Grisha theory stated that matter couldn’t just be created from nothing. But that was a tenet of the Small Science. Merzost was different, a corruption of the making at the heart of the world.
However, it would be too convenient to reduce the Darkling to the embodiment of darkness in direct contrast to the Sun Summoner. His journey is also that of a man shaped by persecution, fear and anger, who ultimately ends up replicating some of the very violence he sought to combat. And here, we can clearly see the extent to which fiction mirrors the reality of the Matrix. Suffering may explain actions, but it does not justify them.
Shadow and Bone
Behind its apparent contrast between light and darkness, the Grisha trilogy ultimately questions our relationship with power, difference and faith. It is, however, a pity that the romantasy elements and the heroine’s endless dithering all too often prevail over the rest of the plot, at the expense of its narrative flow.
The Darkling would also have benefited from deeper characterisation and a greater presence in the story. But my judgement is probably biased by Ben Barnes’s excellent performance in the TV adaptation, which, for once, does the story justice, even if it doesn’t always strictly follow it to the letter.
I also think that combining the Grisha trilogy with the Six of Crows duology was a brilliant idea, even though Netflix ultimately decided to cancel the series after two seasons. Fortunately, Six of Crows—which I’m currently reading—fulfils all the promises that the Grisha trilogy failed to fully deliver.
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