“Shadow and Bone” Review
Long awaiting book to film adaption “Shadow and Bone”
Overview
On April 23rd, the book to screen adaption of “Shadow and Bone” was released on Netflix. Fans all over the world have been anxiously waiting for the shows release as soon as it was announced.
The new TV show “Shadow and Bone” is based off Leigh Bardugo’s series, “Shadow and Bone” and “Six of Crows”. While both book series are in the same world, they were set in different times, with different characters. Before the release, many fans were curious how they would combine both series into one show.
The biggest fear readers have when a book is put on screen is the accuracy; many readers tend to get disappointed by the outcome of the film, myself included.
While the base and plot of the book “Shadow and Bone” stayed the same in the show, the entire plot of “Six of Crows” was non-existent.
Besides the personalities of these characters remaining the same, it seemed as though everything else was changed.
The “Shadow and Bone” book was about Alina Starkov, the Sun Summoner, discovering she is Grisha, and is the only one who can defeat the shadow fold and the Volcra. She puts her faith into the wrong hands and learns the one she trusted was her enemy who she had to defeat along with the shadow fold.
“Six of Crows” is about a group of six; Kaz, Inej, Jesper, Nina, Matthias and Wylan, we only got to see Kaz, Inej and Jesper in this first season with a couple scenes between Nina and Matthias. The plot of this book starts when an enhanced drug, jurda parem, gave Grisha’s limitless power while simultaneously killing them. Kaz was offered a job to break into a high security prison and retrieve the creator of the drug.
During the time the crows were working on their heist, the war going on during “Shadow and Bone” was won, the shadow fold was gone, and the Darkling was killed. The crows never went through the fold, had to deal with the Volcra or ever meet the Darkling, Alina or Mal.
However, in the new TV show, Inej heard of a job that could get them 100 million kruge. The job was later discovered that they would have to cross the shadow fold and kidnap Alina Starkov. Besides the personalities of these characters remaining the same, it seemed as though everything else was changed. In the show, it appears that Kaz is the boss of all the Dregs, Inej still needs to pay her way out of the Mangerie, Inej has a brother (who remains to be shown), among many other differences.
There were many changes from the series “Shadow and Bone” as well, but not as heavily. The changes do not drastically affect the plot of the book, I would say the biggest difference was killing off Marie, who ultimately is killed in the series, but not until much later and killed by another hand.
By the end of the season, Kaz, Inej, Jesper, Zoya, Alina and Mal came together and “killed” the Darkling (later revealed he escaped with his new creatures the nichevo’ya), they split into three. Rumors go around that the Sun Summoner is dead, though the crows know she is just in hiding, biding her time to defeat the fold. In the book, this does happen, however it only happens after they kill the Darkling, and she goes on to live a normal life, only few people know she still lives, the crows not being one of the few.
Review
Despite there being such big changes, I did enjoy the show, overall. “Six of Crows” may be my favorite of the two, I love the idea of the heist and everything they go through and the connection they have together. I was disappointed in that aspect; they may still go after that plot later. For the show to work with a combination of both series, without spoiling major plots in “Shadow and Bone,” I see how this was the best way to go.
I did love how I was able to see the characters from both sides interact, it made my inner fangirl — — okay, my outer fangirl too — get overly excited.
I absolutely loved the way the volcra came out, I would have preferred the volcra to be shown more than it did, but they were made of darkness and nightmares and portrayed exceedingly well.
The actors had a strong chemistry, I just could not help but smile through each of their scenes.
The way the powers of the Grisha were portrayed, I found to be done well, the only complaint I would have is the Heartrender powers. They made it seem as though Heartrenders could control someone’s mind and convince them to do as they say and want. This is only true when they are taking jurda parem, and that drug does not exist, nor is it spoken of during the time the show is set in. The cut — a power only some grisha’s may use, which focuses their power to slice, almost like a sword — — was probably my most favorite power portrayed on the screen.
The way the scenes flashed between characters before they merged reminded me a lot of “Game of Thrones” since each of the characters’ perspectives were separate but all connected as puzzle pieces. We had three main story lines, Alina and Mal, Nina and Matthias and the crows. Within the “Shadow and Bone” series we only see the perspective of Alina, in the show we get to see more of the Darkling, his perspective when he tries to find Alina and the struggles he had/was going through. We were able to see Mal’s perspective while he was tracking the stag and finding his way back to Alina.
Out of all the perspectives and scenes, I would say Nina and Matthias was the best of it all. Besides slight differences, Nina and Matthias’ storyline was nearly exact. The actors had a strong chemistry, I just could not help but smile through each of their scenes.
I was pleased with the outcome of the first season, I felt the actors did a great job at capturing the characters essence. As any reader, I would have loved better accuracy, especially for the crows; I hope they will have been more accurate in their future seasons. For the time being, I am looking forward to season two, I cannot wait to see what the actors and the writers of the show have in store for us.
