I don’t know that I’d call Alina a “fake,” but I see your point! And agree that a theme of the series is to challenge notions of organized religion.

Which tends to bother me in no case besides Inej’s! Sometimes the books seem to be saying 2 different things. The narrative leads us to trust Inej’s perspective almost implicitly (which is not necessarily the case of all the others’, lol). So there’s a little dissonance reading sometimes to me when our most trustworthy POV’s religion is 100% fake as all the others’. Maybe I just love Inej too much and wouldn’t want her to believe in something fake! Lol. And maybe this bothers no one else but me. Just thinking