Inej Ghafa | Give Up The Fight

"Now all the indentures in Kerch have a Wraith."

instagram:   / xxbludger  
website: https://ninareels.carrd.co/

I'm excited to come back with a proper full length video that Inej deserves. This was an interesting one...a huge question was how to tell the events of Season 2 without (1) focusing too much on Kaz, and (2) retelling the events of Season 1? So I tried to think about the how easily she kills others in this season, how characters continually question her values but it feels like her faith is slipping away at the cost of serving Kaz. In my last video I slightly brushed against the idea of Kaz's Crows being another form of ownership and control over Inej's body - in both settings, she's valued for her skills and not for her inherent humanity. Personally, I felt like this season made that theme more concrete, and so I think the question of autonomy became a more important one.

And then I also felt like I was ignoring the elephant in the room, which was how visible of a presence Alina is in Inej's life. A litral living Saint! A living manifestation of Inej's faith! So I thought about positioning Kaz and Alina opposite each other, how one person represents her bondage and the other person gives her the strength to walk away. Like, isn't it interesting that Inej spends all of Season 1 fighting for her freedom, and then in Season 2 she gets it in such underwhelming and confusing circumstances? And isn't it interesting that Inej's form of "freedom" is dedicating her life to serve someone else? It makes you wonder what she's really fighting for...what she's willing to admit about herself and what she's still unable to come to terms with...I'm really hoping for an Inej-focused Season 3 because if that doesn't happen me and the writers are gonna have a problem 😤 I need a glamorous Suli heist!!!

What I also found interesting was that, despite Inej not having much "plot" in Season 2, the ability to tell her story shrunk dramatically when I started chopping up themes and pairing them with songs. This style of editing forces me to pick one quote that represents many quotes at once, and all their nuances. So once again, lots of stuff left on the cutting room floor. Like ahhhhhh why couldn't I fit more of that PIVOTAL deleted scene in?!?!?!? I loved that "Revolution" had two violins that seemed to duel each other; I thought that represented these sides of Inej that are trying to keep her alive but can't make sense of the situation she's trapped in. And "Diya" is a really beautiful song (with a counterpart that I'd like to meaningfully use in a later video), and the term ITSELF has religious significance in different South Asian cultures!! :))) Drafting is also a new skill that has really helped me plan out the stories I want to tell - this video on my Instagram (  / cq4rpftv9dn  ) for example is an early version of the direction that I wanted to take this video in.

I've been toying with the idea of a longer Inej video that really tracks her story so far, because there are lots of conversations that I want to bring back but simply did not have the time for. Maybe if I have some time later this year, I'll do it! This video has a lot of personal interpretation because I think we deliberately are asked to live outside of Inej's head in this show so far. Like, she has a point of view, but I think some of those deeper core questions have yet to bob to the surface. So did I do her justice? I really hope so!!! And I'm excited to see where she goes in Season 3! TO FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Fandom: Shadow & Bone
Song: Eternal Eclipse - Revolution (   • Eternal Eclipse - Revolution (Officia...  ) & Christian Reindl - Diya (   • Diya  )
Program: Final Cut Pro X

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