The Darkling's obsession with Alina stems from her unique power as the Sun Summoner, making her the perfect balance to his shadow, a destined "light and dark" pair he believes will complete him and grant him immense power, but it also evolves into a genuine, complex attachment, as she becomes the only person in centuries to truly understand him, offer companionship, and rekindate his capacity for love and hope, even as his desire for control and power remains intertwined with his feelings.
He definitely had deep feelings for her. He was pretending for awhile, but eventually I think he came to care for her. SPOILERS FOR RUIN AND RISING AND NIKOLAI DUOLOGY: I think he was manipulative, and he did a lot for power, especially at the end with the orphanage and the hallucination visits and all that.
The Darkling is somehow in love with the idea that he is not alone and thought that Alina was made for her. He strongly believes that Alina is his complement -- that he is the Yin and Alina is the Yang. It was because of that thinking that he was attracted to Alina.
Ulla is a half-sildroher songcaster and the half-sister of The Darkling via their late mother, Baghra. She is also known as Sankta Ursula of the Waves. Ulla spent her childhood feeling like an outcast, having heard rumors of her being part human.
Squallers: Suborder of Grisha who can manipulate wind. Sun Summoners: A suborder of Grisha who can manipulate light. These are the rarest type of Grisha, which is why Alina (Jessie Mei Li) is so important.
Inej Ghafa is a 16-year-old Suli girl from Ravka known as the Wraith. She is a spy for the Dregs, and considered the best spy in Ketterdam. Her family were travelling performers and her act was the tightrope, so she is extremely agile and lightfooted.
Alina is automatically powerful just by being the Sun Summor. She destroyed the Fold, which was with the help of three amplifiers. Because of those amplifiers, she is in third place. Coming in at number two, we have the Darkling.
Zoya has long, black, wavy hair, brown skin, and dark blue eyes. She is half Suli through her father's ancestry.
After Alina finally accepted her powers, the Darkling visited her again during a training session. He had still not found Morozova's stag whose antlers he had promised her but he asked that she have faith in him, and then he kissed her to both of their surprise.
Despite not being as talented as her older sister, Morgana is almost just as evil as Ursula. She shows that she hates being criticized in the movie when she berates Undertow for comparing her to Ursula. Morgana is deceitful, baleful, and ruthless.
The only real difference in behaviour is that Mal doesn't sleep with Zoya when they meet in the first episode (episode 1 minute 17:59), which we are told that he does in the book. 5.
Following its success, Netflix renewed the show for a second season, which premiered on March 16, 2023, and adapted Siege and Storm (2013), Ruin and Rising (2014), and parts of Crooked Kingdom (2016). Despite growing fan support, Shadow and Bone was canceled after two seasons in November 2023.
Abilities Darklings possess both darkvision and, more pertinently, blindsight. Unlike many fey, they possess no great magical abilities; darkling elders can cast darkness once between each rest. Unsurprisingly, they have poor vision while in bright light.
In Leigh Bardugo's novel, Kirigan (Ben Barnes) stuns Alina (Jessie Mei Li) with an unexpected first kiss. Later, after they demonstrate Alina's abilities to the king's court, the two passionately make out and the narrative suggests they come very close to having sex before they're interrupted.
Alina and Nikolai Lantsov: In Siege and Storm, despite fleeing together, Mal and Alina begin to drift apart. Enter Nikolai Lantsov, younger son of the King of Ravka. He loves Alina, and even proposes marriage.
Sun Summoner. A powerful Grisha who can form and summon sunlight. Alina Starkov is the first and only known Sun Summoner.
Ruin and Rising. Alina has spent two months in the underground tunnels of Ravka. She is controlled by the Apparat, who leads a cult convinced that Alina is a saint. As a result of her battle with the Darkling, Alina's hair has turned white and she is weak from being away from sunlight and her powers for so long.
Ulla is a half-sildroher songcaster and the half-sister of The Darkling via their late mother, Baghra. She is also known as Sankta Ursula of the Waves.
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Inej is Suli and as such, has brown skin and dark brown, almost black, eyes. She has long, black hair which she usually keeps tightly bound in a braided coil.
By the final pages of the book, Nikolai's deep and abiding love for Zoya is clear for all to see. After voluntarily renouncing the Ravkan throne (long story), he immediately nominates her to lead their beloved nation as Queen Zoya. He can't imagine anyone doing a better job, simple as that.
Zoya tells Raghu to kill her so he and the kids remain safe. Raghu can't so she gives him the gun, places her thumb over his, and pulls the trigger. She dies in his arms. The police arrest Raghu for Zoya's murder while her dead body is laid to rest by the community.
Alina is able to summon light and is thus considered a Sun Summoner, a type of Grisha originally presumed to be a myth.
Alina's Grisha powers are first revealed when she rescues Mal from a volcra attack by emitting a blazing beam of light from within herself. Mal and Alina are separated after this when she is sent to live with the Grisha at the Little Palace. Mal is sent on an assignment tracking Morozova's Stag for the Darkling.
One half of the battle between good and evil, he is the inverse of everything that Alina stands for. He is cruel where she is kind, callous where she is empathetic, and confident where she is unsure. Fundamentally, the Darkling is obsessed with power and will do anything necessary to gain even more of it.