Do you think Aleksander managing to find companionship in any long living sibling would have changed anything at all? Eg Ulla lives for a long time.
Hmm hard to say because I think it would hinge on what his dynamic would be with the sibling and how that does or does not shake up his dynamic with Baghra.
Ulla is interesting because she didn’t grow up with Baghra, so she has wildly different values, which might be good! But also growing up separately means they don’t have much of a formative bond, and from what little of her personality we know about from the Language of Thorns, she seems prickly and independent. And she certainly didn’t jump at the chance of going with Aleksander when he offered! Therefore, even in a scenario where they interact as family, I think it’s just as likely they just randomly come across each other like once every couple decades lol so it’s not going to be much in the way of companionship. So I feel like he’d probably eventually wind up in the same place in that scenario?
Generally I don’t think he’s the sort of person where a single positive relationship would fix him. Both because Baghra already exists, and that didn’t solve anything at all, but also because he already has a pretty firmly entrenched “us unique few who matter vs those statistics on a page who’ll be dead in the blink of an eye” mindset. So a single sibling wouldn’t really alter that worldview, unless like very unique circumstance where they’re both older, and have had the opportunity to develop values outside of Baghra’s perspective, and they’re present during his formative years. And that’s still a toss up imo! But anyone who’s younger, also isolated, and either only has Baghra’s perspective, or like Ulla shows up way later, just isn’t going to meaningfully change his worldview, and therefore how things eventually end up.
(Unless you mean changing things in terms of him having an additional enemy or ally during the canon era, which, again, too many variables to even begin to consider.)
I’m very much not a Baghra hater, and I think Darkling stans get really weird about her! But it is true that pretty much most of his Problems (i.e. his personality) stem from how she raised him, what values she instilled in him, and the formative circumstances of them being so isolated and afraid of everything and everyone all the time. So I really think the only sort of relationship that would fix him is one found outside of his family unit, and preferably before he’s had centuries to calcify into uh… who he is.
Which makes the KoS introduction of other Saints really interesting! Because you’d think they would offer any sort of community for him. But a) KoS is not real to me, B) seems highly likely that the Saints were so fucked up and also so wildly uninterested in the rest of the world/the plight of Grisha that he eventually found them repellant.
Anyway, I think any sort of formative, actual community could’ve fixed him… DitW where Annika doesn’t try to kill him lmao. But also his character hinges on the concept of continued isolation, betrayal, and loneliness leading to insane ruthlessness of centuries. So like he’d need a string of good luck with people who might die eventually anyway, or at least some immortals that both don’t suck and aren’t Morozovas.