THIS IS IT. MY THOUGHTS IN WORDS.

THIS IS IT. MY THOUGHTS IN WORDS.

Look look look look look look. look. Here’s the thing, 90% of the time I couldn’t give a shit about villains and their tragic backstories. BUT FOR SOME REASON, Aleksander Morozova makes me absolutely feral. I am obsessed with the fact that he, the Darkling, the Black Heretic, was a hero. He was nearly killed by his own kind when he was a child and it made him PROTECTIVE of Grisha. He knew it would have never happened if Grisha could have a safe place in the world and he wanted so badly to create that. 

He fought and won wars for kings to put Grisha in a better light, he fought against a king to try and save Grisha. Episode seven showed how he was practically the leader of a rebellion, the role so many book protagonists have. And he watched as people he cared about, the people he fought for, were killed through years and decades and centuries while he lived on. He was the hero that had been pushed over the edge, that became a villain because trying to save his people the “right” way had failed him one too many times. 

Of course his intentions warped but he can’t stop because he’s so close and he’s lived too long to believe that any other way could work. But that core desire of Grisha no longer having to be afraid shines through even in his cruelty and it makes you feel like he could have been saved, could have been redeemed if things had turned out differently.