Welcome to Complexities with Khuffash, here we will be discussing a trope that I have seen many times throughout literature from Shakespeare’s Hamlet to contemporary novels such as Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo. The trope that we will be discussing is women and entrapment in literature. Entrapment can come in many different forms that being physical, mental, emotional, societal standards, etc; entrapping women in all forms means putting women in a box. The woman in contemporary literature that we will be discussing in this blog post is Alina Starkov from the trilogy Shadow and Bone. This blog post will contain spoilers for the Shadow and Bone trilogy.
Leigh Bardugo writes Alina Starkov with many tropes associated with her. Alina is the chosen one that will stop the darkness from ravaging the country of Ravka because she is the Sun Summoner, which means that she can summon light. She did not always know this about herself because she was an orphan who did not know anything about her family, nor did she attempt to find these powers. When faced with a life or death situation with her best friend Mal, she discovers that she can summon light. She becomes a person of interest for many people: The Darkling, the king and queen of Ravka, Prince Nikolai, and Mal. The Darkling is a shadow summoner who presents himself to be the general of the Second Army of Ravka, but is later revealed to be the man who introduced the darkness to Ravka in the first place. He planned to use Alina to expand the Shadow Fold and use it as a weapon for bordering countries. The king and queen want the Shadow Fold extinguished from their country, so they want to use Alina for that purpose. Prince Nikolai wanted to marry Alina because he planned to be king of Ravka. He believed with Alina by his side he would be able to unite the country and extinguish the Shadow Fold. Mal is ultimately confused as to why Alina is the chosen one and how he never knew she could summon light. He is also almost frightened of the person Alina slowly turns into because she now has more power and agency to choose what to do with the power she now possesses.
Throughout the series it seems as though Alina is being pushed into the arms of men who all have their own plans to use her or turn her into something that she has to become for them. For the Darkling it is a ruler who will help him destroy people who are against him, for Mal it is his childhood best friend without power who he always knew, and for Nikolai it is the queen that would help him unite Ravka. Alina is given very little time to adjust to her new living situation, yet she is tasked to save everyone with this power that she doesn’t know how to use. In the third book, Ruin and Rising, Alina grows into her power, and she knows exactly what she wants to do with it. She grows to love it, even, but by the end she is not able to keep that power for herself.
The Darkling pursues Alina and manipulates her under the guise of a man who only wants to help her use her powers. He makes it seem as though she is safe with him, and she in turn wants to help him destroy the Shadow Fold. She later finds that he wants to use her to expand the Shadow Fold, and rule Ravka with her (while also using his power for his personal gain). When she learns of his plans she runs, and she is able to find Mal. Mal wants to run away with her, but he also has reservations about the person that Alina has turned into without him. Yet, they are later found by the Darkling, and he is not giving up on his original plans. They are able to escape with Prince Nikolai’s help. Prince Nikolai has a plan of helping Alina only if she could help him.
In order to defeat the Darkling, Mal must die and in turn Alina loses all of her powers. When she kills the Darkling, her friends are able to bring Mal back to life, but even though his life is able to be restored, her powers never return. Alina decides that she should not marry Nikolai, and that it is for the best that the people of Ravka do not know that she survived the battle with the Darkling. Alina goes into hiding with Mal, leaving her friends, her powers, and her previous life behind.
There is this distinct connection to punishment for power as well for Alina and the way her story concludes. Alina must sacrifice her best friend and her power, yet when he comes back to life, she is not able to have any of powers back. She is punished for growing into her power and not conforming to the life that was originally laid out for her: being a “normal” girl. All that she had sacrificed and lost throughout her story is for nothing because she is not able to leave with the power that she had earned. Mal gets to have the “normal” girl he knew because Alina “chooses” to leave everything behind and leave with him. To Leigh Bardugo this is the happiest ending we get for Alina because she gets to be with the man that she loves by the end, yet everything she went through, the character development and loving her powers, being able to choose herself is now lost because she must leave that life behind to go back with Mal. She loses everything that she became, stripped away by violence, not even able to mourn what has been lost. The only “choice” that she had was to leave because there was nothing else left for her. She falls into an entrapment called “love” because that is the only thing that is left for her to possess.
Reading this book, I already knew the ending because of spoilers, but I wanted to read the entire series before the show adaptation came out in the spring of 2021. I remember reading and hoping that I got the spoilers wrong because I didn’t want her to be without her power by the end. I enjoyed a lot of Alina’s story for the most part. I loved her journey into becoming a powerful woman who was not afraid to use that power to her advantage. I was most bothered by the ending of her story, all the work and effort that she went through in her journey was taken away from her. I believe this is a writer’s choice, for Leigh Bardugo to have this be the “happy ending” for Alina. I did not love that this was portrayed as Alina’s choice to live somewhere quiet and be a “normal” woman again. Her normal had changed in more ways than one, yet she was put back into a box, and to me that didn’t seem fair. When I read books like these where a central woman is the chosen one, I feel as though I am constantly haunted by the entrapment trope because I am worried that any power the woman has will be stripped away.
It is hard to say that I’ll get any closure when it comes to this trope because it is still a prevalent theme today. The books in this series were still worth the read, and I think it is a good thing that we can discuss this trope because it brings more attention to it. Goodbye for now, next time we will discuss another woman’s story and how she falls victim to this trope of entrapment.
– Alyssa Khuffash, Prose Editor and Blogger
Alyssa Khuffash – Prose Editor & Blogger: Alyssa is a Senior at Lewis University majoring in English with a concentration in Writing. She is also minoring in Creative Writing and Theology. She enjoys walking her dog, taking care of her plants, reading, and listening to music. Some of her favorite authors include Katherine Arden, Holly Black, and Madeline Miller. She hopes to improve her writing while at Lewis and apply her skills to her future as a writer.