Though the Darkling may not have created the Shadow Fold intentionally, he never actually wanted Alina to destroy it. The only mistake that General Kirigan is seeking to fix is his loss of control over the Fold, and his true intention was to use Alina's power to expand and weaponize it.
Later in Season 1 it was revealed that rather than being a descendant of the Black Heretic, General Kirigan is the very same man. While he'd been claiming to want to destroy the Fold to make amends — enlisting Alina to help him — he really wanted to control the young woman and her powers.
Kirigan was undoubtedly manipulating Alina, but he never realized that he had fallen in love with her as well. Until his last breath in Season 2 of “Shadow and Bone,” he kept telling Alina how they belonged together.
Since learning of her powers, The Darkling has been obsessed with getting Alina on his side. Whether this is motivated by his fear of being beaten or, as he claims, by the fact that with her, he would no longer face eternity alone is unclear, but he didn't go about it in the best way.
The two go to find the stag before the Darkling can and grow close again before confessing their love for each other. Alina gets Mal to promise to her that he should kill her if they are about to be captured by The Darkling, as she does not wish for her powers to be used against her will.
The night before the big battle, Alina and Mal finally have sex and it's Alina's first time and they're worried about not making it through the next day and I am just so sick of seeing this. This sort of thing pops up in so many fantasy novels that it just annoys me now.
Rather than raping or assaulting women, the Darkling tricks Alina into falling in love with him, his goal being to take Alina's power for himself and effectively enslave her.
Mal was oblivious to Alina's love from before book one even began. He slept with Zoya and countless others before he realised who was waiting by his back door.
Did he have true feelings for Alina? Yes.
Between the novels Siege and Storm and Ruin and Rising, on which season 2 is largely based, Alina loses her Sun Summoner powers completely for a time after a fight with Kirigan. She also ends up gaining a piece of the Darkling's power and vice versa.
Type of Villain
Aleksander Morozava, also known as the Darkling or General Kirigan is the main antagonist of the Shadow and Bone book series and its 2021 Netflix adaptation of the same name, serving as the main antagonist of both seasons.
Ben Barnes is 21 years older than Alina. Ben Barnes is more than twice her age. Ben Barnes is old enough to be her dad.
She drove Inej's sword through The Darkling's heart to kill him. There was no way the two of them would end up together in the end. Alina would have had to go through some sort of head transplant to choose to be with that man. Instead, Alina chose Nikolai.
Mal leaves to take on the role of privateer as the new Sturmhond and Alina is left to fend for herself once again as Nikolai's future wife.
3. The Darkling. As skilled as Alina is, though, the Darkling has to place higher than her in terms of power rankings once you take a look at everything he was capable of across the Grishaverse books.
Shadow and Bone
It is revealed that Alina had been subconsciously suppressing her power when she was tested as a child in Keramzin for signs of Grisha ability. It was as though she knew that if she was found to be a Grisha, she would be taken away from her best friend, Mal.
While searching for the last amplifier, Mal and Alina find out the truth about Mal's heritage. He is descended from Baghra's sister, making him a great-nephew of the Darkling.
In the book, however, Alina uses merzost through her still-active connection to the Darkling in order to create her own nichevo'ya (shadow monsters like the Darkling uses) to fight back against him at the end of the second novel. As a result of her using the power that one time her hair turns permanently white.
In the Netflix show, Alina Starkov's mother was Shu, and her father was Ravkan.
Zoya was initially infatuated with the Darkling. Upon Alina's arrival at the Little Palace, Zoya instantly hates her for becoming the Darkling's new favorite, and expresses her jealousy by cheating during a duel and injuring Alina.
Nina first thought Hanne was a Heartrender, but it appeared to be that Hanne was a Healer. The two become very close, eventually working together at the end of King of Scars to begin to bring down Jarl Brum. Nina is in love with Hanne and they are engaged to be married.
As an ancient and experienced Grisha, Baghra possesses incredible power that allows her to use one of the most lethal abilities: the Cut. Being one of the rarest and strongest of Grisha, she lived a long life trying to make up for her son's mistake: creating the Fold.
In the end, Mal is magically healed and the Fold is destroyed, while Alina loses her powers and fakes her own death. She and Mal eventually marry and rebuild the Grisha orphanage. While Alina Starkov is not in the King of Scars, she appears in the second book of the King of Scars duology, Rule of Wolves.
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.
A picture of him in Baghra's cave reveals the man hasn't physically aged a day in centuries. The Shadow Fold was created roughly 400 years prior to the events of the series and the Darkling was already an adult by then. An estimate would put him at 500 years of age, if not a bit older.