When a beloved book series is adapted into a TV show or movie, it can be contentious among fans. Sometimes the adaptation is really successful, and other times the adaptation fails to capture the real essence of the story and characters. Luckily, the recent Netflix adaptation of Shadow and Bone was the former, and manage to translate the stories of The Grisha Trilogy to the screen seamlessly. However, the adaptation wasn't without its changes.
The show actually stayed pretty true to the books for the most part, with only slight diversions, specifically regarding the Crows (because the plot of their books hasn't started yet). One area where the show managed to make a change that actually improved the story was around the character of Malyen Oretsev. Mal is a hot topic amongst book fans, mainly because a majority of Grishaverse fans don't like the character. The crew working on the show likely knew this going into the writing process, and they managed to make some choices regarding the character that made his on-screen version much more likeable.
The character of Mal is a very gifted tracker, and Alina Starkov's best friend when the series begins. They grew up at the same orphanage and have been together for most of their lives. Mal is set up as a potential love interest for Alina, and he plays an important role in the series later in the books. It's clear that Mal is supposed to be liked, because he's so important to Alina, but the books don't really succeed in convincing the reader of that fact. So what did the show do to remedy this?
First of all, it helps that the show allows the audience to actually be in Mal's perspective sometimes. The books are written in first person, and so all the reader ever sees is Alina's thoughts, feelings, and actions. There's a large portion of the first book where she's separated from Mal and starts to get angry with him, and it's easy for the reader to also have these feelings when we never actually see what's going on with him.
The show takes the time to show Mal's journey and that instantly makes him more engaging. Getting to see his process of tracking the stag and what happens to him on that trip is infinitely more interesting than just hearing him tell Alina about it in passing. It's a lot easier to like a character when you actually get to see them do things and get inside of their head for a minute (as much as one can get inside someone's head on a TV show where there's no internal monologue).
Along with getting to see Mal's current journey, we also get flashbacks to his and Alina's time at Keramzin, the orphanage that they were raised in. There are occasional flashbacks in the books, but again, they're all from Alina's perspective and so we only get to see Mal through her eyes in brief moments, and we don't know what he's feeling in a given situation. A show allows for more third-person storytelling, and so the Keramzin flashbacks give the audience a chance to see how both Alina and Mal were coping with it.
There's one scene at the orphanage that shows Mal cradling a rabbit in his arms, and even something as small as this endears the character to the viewer more than the books ever did. We can see that he cares for animals, despite being very good at hunting them, and that though he puts on a much tougher facade now that he's older, there's a very soft side of him that was present when he and Alina were children, and it's likely that side of him is still there, buried underneath.
One of the other important elements to Mal's character is his relationship with Alina. In the books, it's clear that Alina has romantic feelings towards him, because the reader is in her perspective and aware of her thoughts. However, it's never clear in the beginning if Mal reciprocates or not, mainly because he's known for being a very big flirt within the army. They make it clear right from the beginning that he is attractive, and spends a lot of time around other women while seeming to treat Alina like nothing more than a buddy. He only starts to show clear feelings for her when the Darkling also begins to take an interest in her. It's supposed to be implied that he's always loved her, but the book doesn't make that clear enough, and it reads as Mal being strangely possessive.
In the show, however, they make it clear from the get-go that Mal is devoted to Alina. It's easy for the viewer to tell that he likes her (once again helped by the fact that we get to see his POV from time to time) and he's not interested in other girls in the way he is in the books. He has a scene with Zoya Nazyalensky where she flirts with him, and in the books, this results in the two characters sleeping together. In the show, however, he rejects her advances and is only focused on Alina. This makes it much more believable when he shows clear romantic interest in her later on, because it's been there from the beginning, and in general it makes their love story feel more grounded and believable.
Of course, credit should also be given to the actor portraying Mal in the show, Archie Renaux. He certainly had his work cut out for him, considering a large portion of book fans were not too keen on his character. However, he managed to portray Mal with a lot of pathos and charm and won over many of the book fans who were convinced they could never sympathize with Mal. He was a perfect choice for the role, and he did such a fantastic job portraying the character that it will be interesting to see what he does with it in the future.
In general, Mal's future trajectory in the show will be interesting to watch. They managed to make Mal from the first book more interesting, but will they be able to keep it up in the rest of the series? Mal certainly has some contentious moments later down the line, so it will be fascinating to see if the writing of the show manages to keep this character as likable as he's been so far.