Does Alina Starkov Get Her Power Back? The Shadow and Bone Cliffhanger We're Obsessed With

03 Jul 2024

Jessie Mei Li Talks Bringing Alina Starkov To Life In

Let's be real: few things are as gripping as a chosen one losing their powers. It's the ultimate setback, the moment when the fate of the world—or at least a very elaborately-described fictional one—hangs precariously in the balance. In Leigh Bardugo's Grishaverse, that weight falls squarely on Alina Starkov, our sun-summoning, collarbone-graced protagonist. The question that has plagued readers since finishing "Ruin and Rising," however, is a complicated one: does Alina Starkov get her powers back?

To dissect this, we need to journey back to where it all began. Imagine a world shrouded in perpetual twilight, cleaved in two by a terrifying swathe of darkness known as the Shadow Fold. Enter Alina, a seemingly ordinary soldier who discovers she's anything but—she's a Grisha, a magic-wielder of extraordinary power, and not just any Grisha, but the legendary Sun Summoner. Her power? To banish the Fold, obviously. No pressure.

Alina’s journey is fraught with more trials and tribulations than a particularly dramatic season of your favorite reality TV show. There’s romance, betrayal, political intrigue, questionable fashion choices (okay, that last one might be more us), and of course, the small matter of battling a power-hungry, seemingly immortal antagonist called the Darkling.

By the end of "Ruin and Rising," the final installment in the original Shadow and Bone trilogy, Alina manages to defeat the Darkling (phew!). But victory comes at a price. Spoiler alert: she loses her connection to the source of her power, the mythical stag amplifier. Cue collective gasp, followed by frantic page-turning for a last-minute reversal that, sadly, never comes.

This ending, as devastating as it was brilliant, left readers with more questions than answers. What does it mean to be the Sun Summoner without the sun? Is Alina still a symbol of hope for Ravka, or is she just…Alina? These questions are further complicated by Bardugo's later works, like "Six of Crows" and "King of Scars," where the ramifications of Alina's sacrifice and the lingering presence of the Fold continue to shape the Grishaverse.

While Bardugo herself hasn’t explicitly confirmed if Alina regains her powers in the books following the original trilogy, she has hinted at Alina living a fulfilling life post-powers. This, of course, has done little to quell the passionate theories and fervent hopes of readers who long to see Alina bathed in golden light once more.

The beauty of Alina’s story, however, lies in its complexity. It challenges the traditional narrative of the chosen one, where power is often seen as the ultimate solution. Alina's journey, both with and without her powers, forces us to confront a more nuanced question: what does it truly mean to have power, to lose it, and to find strength and purpose regardless? And in a world obsessed with grand displays of magic, perhaps that's the most powerful message of all.