Hello, all! I haven’t been posting as many reviews lately, but I wanted to give my opinions on the “Shadow & Bone” TV show taking the book world by storm.
For those of you who don’t know, “Shadow and Bone” is the miniseries on Netflix adapted from Shadow & Bone and Six of Crows, or the Grishaverse, by Leigh Bardugo. I’ve been a fan of the universe for years, so I thought I’d share my opinions on some of the changes that were made.
Because of the nature of this post, there might be a couple of spoilers ahead.
1. The Six of Crows Prequel Stories
Since Shadow and Bone takes place years before Six of Crows, the stories about Six of Crows characters in the TV show are prequels to what happens in the novels that are exclusively about them. One Crow doesn’t appear at all in the show, Wylan, and Nina and Matthias are very much secondary to the others, despite their story being the only one canon in the novels. In the show, Kaz, Inej, and Jesper are hired to kidnap Alina Starkov, the Sun Summoner, and deliver her to someone from Ketterdam for one million kruge.
What bothered me about this was that there are legitimate things going on in the lives of the Crows in the books. Nina’s story was the same, but for the three kidnapping Alina, it just doesn’t make sense. It also doesn’t make sense at all for Alina’s story, which we’ll touch on in the future.
Also, Kaz’s development was too early for me. He admits he’s been wrong, compliments others, and doesn’t seem as emotionally constipated as usual. That’s the kind of progress that he makes in Crooked Kingdom, and it just seemed like it definitely wasn’t meant to be made in a prequel.
2. Ages
An issue with many YA adaptations is that characters are aged up, which results in a different maturity level and sometimes more potential red flags. For example, most of the main characters are 16-18 in the books, but all of them look to be in their early twenties or very late teens now.
There are a couple issues that I had because of this, the first and most important being the romance between Alina and the Darkling. It just looked problematic. In the books, even thought the Darkling is hundreds of years old, he looks 17 like Alina, but in the show? Ben Barnes is almost 40 and Jessie Mei Li is 25. This makes for a romance that’s more than a little creepy (which it is supposed to be), but the show also focuses in on it more and romanticizes it.
The second age-related issue was the Crows. Between the age-ups and the timeline change with the prequel, it was just nowhere near canon. By the books, Jesper would probably be arriving at university, Inej would be in her early Menagerie days, and Kaz would have just gotten out of his final time in jail. I loved everything that happened in the prequel plot, but part of the reason why the Crows are so impressive and emotionally mature is because of their young ages and yet so many experiences, and I felt like having them in their late teens to early twenties before the Ice Court heist really took away from that.
3. The World
There were just a lot of small changes made to the world that I didn’t love. Not because they were horrible, but just because it seemed like attempts to make the show more adult. Amplifiers were embedded in the body, human amplifiers were only stories so Grisha testing involved sudden pain instead, etc. They weren’t bad changes, they just caught me off guard.
The Positive:
1. Milo.
That’s it, that’s the positive. Kidding, I loved a million aspects of the show, but Milo? Easily my favorite. Simply put, Milo is an emotional support goat. Kaz collects him, giving us a wonderful moment of Kaz holding a baby goat, and Jesper hugs him when he needs to calm down, and he’s Jesper’s best friend from then on. Milo is amazing and the best part of the series by far.
2. Archie Renaux’s Mal
Simply put, I despise Malyen Oretsev. However, I have never despised Archie Renaux, and he did an amazing job as Mal. Mal might be one of the single most unpopular characters I’ve ever seen, but Archie Renaux made him more respectable, likable, and overall better. I am become a Mal stan. 😂
3. Nina and Matthias
Theirs was the only completely accurate storyline, which I really appreciated. They had so much chemistry and I loved seeing their emotions for one another evolve. Their story is one of my favorite parts of Six of Crows, so I loved seeing it translated so loyally into the show.
4. Ivan and Fedyor
Even though Ivan was horrible, I loved the little glimpses of his relationship with Nice Guy Fedyor. Ivan’s unflinching commitment to the Darkling was intimidating, but the “sunshine/grumpy” dynamic with Fedyor humanized him a lot.
As characters, I also just really loved the two. Fedyor’s search for Nina and Ivan’s general terrifyingness were so great.
5. The Crows
Alright, so first of all, I don’t know why they needed to change the Dregs to the Crows and eliminate Per Haskel to make Kaz the leader, but everyone seems to be ignoring that so I will too?
Anyways, THE CROWS. Kanej was amazing, and even though some of the emotional development struck me as a little fast, they were AMAZING. Jesper is absolutely hilarious, especially in his interactions with Milo, and he’s easily my favorite part. Seeing Inej be such a badass was also so cool.
I love Six of Crows a million times as much as Shadow & Bone, and I really didn’t believe when they said 50/50 between the two, but it actually was, which was awesome!
6. Alina Being a Badass [Spoilers]
Damn. Just damn. Her going from pining after Mal to the tension with Kirigan to just being amazing on her own was so good. She definitely seemed to go to the dark side more than in the book, which I loved.
So those are some of my basic thoughts! I absolutely loved the show, but not a new favorite (7-8/10)! I absolutely need a season two immediately.
The Fiction Feature 