Shadow and Bone is the new Netflix fantasy hit – a big-budget YA adaptation with a strong cast, strong numbers, and a captivated fandom eager for more. But the adaptation of the first book in the Leigh Bardugo Shadow and Bone series wouldn’t have worked without the decision to bring in characters from another Bardugo book, Six of Crows.
Bardugo, the author behind Shadow and Bone, has written seven books in total in what fans affectionately dub the Grishaverse. The Netflix show is an adaptation of her first book, titled Shadow and Bone, just like the show. It just so happens to combine the plot of that book, with characters from a later Bardugo book, Six of Crows. The book is originally set a few years after the events of the entire Shadow and Bone trilogy. The show doesn’t actually go into the plot of Six of Crows, though, it just borrows the characters and makes up an entirely new storyline for them.
At first glance, it shouldn’t work as well as it does. And it certainly shouldn’t be necessary, Shadow and Bone was a bestseller without the Crows. The show could have gone for a more straightforward adaptation of that book. But while Shadow and Bone is more straight YA fantasy, Six of Crows is basically a heist book, with some very interesting characters. And the heist element, also present in the adaptation, brings a much-needed change of pace to what is a darker, more stereotypical fantasy story.
Alina Starkov is a typical YA heroine. She’s got immense power, but she has no control over it – in fact, she doesn’t even know she has this power. She’s in love with her best friend, but he doesn’t know it. He also doesn’t know, at least not at first, that he feels the same way. Alina’s powers take her far away from Mal, the aforementioned childhood friend, and put her on a collision course with General Kirigan, aka the Darkling, the clear villain of this tale. The fact that the villain is played by Ben Barnes and dressed in black makes where this story is going fairly obvious.
The story beats, as explained so far, are a bit predictable, even if the show – and books – are set in a world that’s differentiated enough from most YA settings out there. Enter the Crows, morally grey characters at best, with a clear goal in mind. Kidnap the girl, get a reward. Simple as that. Kaz, Inej and Jesper, the three main characters from Six of Crows, whose stories end up intersecting with that of Alina, are not heroes. They’re not villains either. What they are is complicated, and infinitely interesting because of it.
Without them, the show looks a lot like so many other YA adaptations out there, indistinguishable from The Hunger Games, or even Divergent when it comes to story treatment. On the surface, there isn’t even a twist in this particular story. The good guys are the good guys, the villain remains the villain. This might be fun for fans of the main heroes, but it’s unlikely to bring in new fans. Introducing characters as dynamic as the Crows allowed the people behind the show to appeal to very different audiences, and make sure the show had something for everyone.
It also provided them with the opportunity for setup far beyond the Shadow and Bone trilogy. The seven main books in the Grishaverse seem firmly in play at this point. Shadow and Bone season 1 introduced not just Kaz, Inej and Jesper from Six of Crows, but also Nina and Matthias, even if those characters don’t cross path with the other three till the end of the show. For those counting, that’s five of the six Crows the book gets its name from. Only one character remains to be introduced, Wylan, and there are sly references to him already in season 1 of the show.
The climax of season one of Shadow and Bone involved a storyline that was mainly off-book, where characters from two different properties, that nonetheless existed in the same universe, came together in ways the books never allowed them to. It was a gamble, one that thanks to great writing and good planning, paid off. Shadow and Bone book 1 had, arguably, three main characters. Shadow and Bone the show has six, with Kaz, Inej and Jesper added to the mix. This means that, even if fans didn’t like one side of the story, they didn’t have to write off the whole show. If fans they didn’t like one main character, they had five more they could fall in love with.
If Shadow and Bone works as well as it does, it’s because of this gamble. Rarely do YA adaptations manage to present enough diversity in tone – not to mention actual diversity – to keep a wide audience entertained. Shadow and Bone doesn’t only manage that, it excels at it. And their unconventional decision to bring two books together into one adaptation might just end up being the thing that gets them not one, but multiple seasons going forward. There’s a lot of Shadow and Bone story left – and Netflix seems eager to tell it.