Broadcast over Book: What Netflix’s Shadow and Bone Did Right
Like many young girls who grew up reading YA-Fantasy, I was extremely hyped for Netflix’s latest book to TV adaptation based on Leigh Bardugo’s New York Times’s Best Selling Grishaverse series. With a couple of weeks to sit with this show, I am very happy to report that I am a satisfied consumer and dare I say, the TV was better than the book (gasp!)
Set in Ravka, a Tsarist-based country scarred by war, we follow Alina (Jessie Mei-Li), an orphan caught in the front lines. She discovers her hidden powers when faced with sudden danger, revealing that she is a Grisha (an elite magic user who serves the Kingdom’s army). But she’s not just any Grisha, she is the mythical Sun Summoner, whose legendary magic could end the ongoing war. Separately, we also follow the Crows, a heist team from a neighbouring country who are hired to kidnap this legendary Sun Summoner.
While newcomers to the TV show might lose interest due to yet another stereotypical Chosen-One type story, along with the dense lore and info-dump from the first couple of episodes, the main characters carry the perfect amount of intrigue and charisma for viewers to hit the ‘Next Episode’ button. For book fans, it holds even more attraction since the series makes some changes while staying faithful to its predecessor.
But what did this adaptation do to entice new fans but retain the existing fans of the book series?
- More Inclusivity In Racial Diversity
For instance, Mal (Archie Renaux) and Alina: if you’ve lurked around fan spaces, you’ll know that not many readers are fans of Mal, Alina’s best friend from the orphanage whom she’s pined over for a long time. Mal and Alina’s dynamic appealed to few due to the unnecessary angst of a one-sided girl-next-door’s pining for her childhood friend. However, it is on screen that their relationship blossoms. By freeing themselves from the confines of Alina’s first-person POV in the books, we get to see Mal’s side of the story — he’ll do anything it takes to be reunited with Alina, and that is how we buy that Mal and Alina truly love each other. The added layer of both of them being ethnic minorities, growing up in a world that views them both as outsiders, we can see another reason why Alina has a difficult time getting over the only person who understands her.
This leads to another decision that I enjoyed: The change to Alina and Mal’s backgrounds. The decision to make white characters like Mal and Alina from the pages to POCs on-screen (they are half Shu; ethnically coded as East-Asian) is a very delicate balance. Alina, not feeling like she fits in, is now less of a Mary-Sue ‘I’m not like other girls’ narrative, but one that can be empathised with many girls of colour, making her loneliness in an unfamiliar world feel even more powerful.
But on the flip side, the show wasn’t careful in the way they could’ve handled race. I mentioned on the RemoteWatch podcast, that I was pretty sick of seeing racial trauma on screen. While I was over the moon with an Asian lead carrying a #1 Netflix Series, witnessing her bear the brunt of insults such as “rice eater”, and requests to make her eyes “look less Shu” made my skin crawl. In the recent months of intense vitriol towards Asians for merely existing in the West, the creative decision to include this comes off as incredibly tone-deaf.
Especially since in the books, there wasn’t much to balance out why Ravka hates the Shu Hans; the material and lore about the Shu Han and their people and territories barely exist. You don’t need me to tell you that an onslaught of abuse towards Asians being only seen as “other” and “bad” in this fantasy world created by a white woman and helmed by a white showrunner is a bad look.
2. Additional Material, But Still Relevant To The Main Story
One major departure from the source material would be the very welcome addition of the Crows, based on the Six of Crows duology, set in the same universe. But chronologically wise, our story technically takes place years before the duology, meaning to say that Netflix gave us an official prequel to introduce key characters such as Kaz (Freddy Carter), Inej (Amita Suman), and Jesper (Kit Young) and not only was a wonderful opportunity to give us more time to love this crew before we get to our real heist, it seamlessly ties them firmly into the main Shadow and Bone story.
Putting the Crows in this place makes sense and fills in the gaps of our questions of ‘who were the crows before we met them in the books’: To me, Jesper shines brighter than his book counterpart who was already a fun character to follow to begin with. The groundwork laid out for Inej and Kaz’s individual characterizations and relationship dynamics with one another of mutual respect and it’s all topped off with amazing performances by the respective actors.
The caveat I will give is that, while I was a book reader understand the necessity of fleshing out the two Crows-to-be, Nina (Danielle Galligan) and Mattias (Calahan Skogman), for non-book readers coming into the show it can feel like we’re getting side-tracked from the main plot. That said, the chemistry between these two makes their survival tale hard to look away from. Overall, I’m too excited for the Crows to have their own season of heisting adventure without Alina and the Darkling to worry about.
3. Perfect Casting
Speaking of the Darkling, General Aleksander “The Darkling” Kirigan played by Ben Barnes is the true highlight and cherry on top. Where do I even begin? A Tumblr fan-casting made true, Ben Barnes’ is magnetic in his scene-stealing, compelling performance. Personally, as someone who has been watching Ben Barnes’ filmography over the years, his transition from portraying the boy you’d take home to meet your parents (The Big Wedding) and the noble Prince Caspian in the Narnia films, to TV’s dark-haired jerk who you’d love to hate (Westworld; The Punisher). Ben Barnes settled perfectly into this role. And looks so good in it too, my god have you seen his face???
All in all, while it has its flaws, I had a very fun time with Shadow And Bone. As it joins Netflix’s slate of adaptations, this fantasy series could be on one of Netflix’s top promotional materials alongside The Witcher and Stranger Things. Leigh Bardugo has also finished her stories, so unlike Game of Thrones, we have a direction of where we’re headed, and I can’t wait to see what comes next.
Shadow And Bone is available now on Netflix.
