A Review about “Shadow and Bone” (Netflix)
Where to watch: Only Netflix (because it’s a Netflix Original)
Published: 23. April 2021
Length: Currently only one season, but renewed for at least a second (based on the books there might be 3 seasons in total)
Genre: Fantasy, Action
Main place of action: A made-up world and different made-up cities, heavily inspired by Russia
What is it about?
In this world there are people existing who have different magical powers like bending the wind, controlling the water, and creating fire. They are called Grisha and in most countries, they are feared for their powers, isolated from society or even hunted down. Only in Ravka they are protecting by the King and serve in his army to fight a common enemy “the Fold”. It is otherwise known as the Unsea because it’s like the void of the ocean, but also not at all and it harbors all kinds of creatures, and everything that enters their world is their prey. Even the famous Grisha are not powerful enough to keep them at bay until a Sun Summoner is found. Her light is the only weapon capable of destroying the darkness… or is it?
Was it good?
“Shadow and Bone” is a book adaptation of the original trilogie and some other books from the Grishaverse by Leigh Bardugo. When I say “some other books” I mean that the Netflix Series does cover more than the Story of the original 3 books. You could actually say it’s more inspired by the books, than a real adaptation because they basically took parts of other books which take place in the same universe but a diffrent time and characters who never appear in the first Grishaverse trilogy and weaved them into their version of the story. Which made it more interesting actually 😉 If you want to know more about what they changed(with spoilers) you can read my other post about it *here*.
Since I loved the idea of avatar-esque element bending, I was really intrigued to watch the series! And I was pleasantly surprised about how good the series is, from a visual standpoint but also storywise. But maybe not because of the main storyline, which might be confusing to someone who has not yet watched the series. I try to keep this review spoiler-free, but very early on you will meet a set of characters that will immediately steal the show. They are called the crows a group of thieves who has their own series of books called “The Six of Crows”.
Without telling you about their role in the events unfolding, I can tell you they play a crucial part and they will be in every episode of the show. When following them on their journey you pretty much forget about the other stuff happening and you look forward to them appearing on screen again. I actually talked to multiple people about it and a bunch of thieves just seem to be more relatable than a Marry Sue character, who is part of a prophecy, you know will lead her to win in the end. Don’t get me wrong, her story is still somewhat interesting and it’s important to understand how the world around them is working, but it’s not the reason you will watch this show 😉
On top of these two different storylines, you will follow another set of characters on their journey and in every episode, you will switch between them. You will get to see different perspectives in totally different parts of the world, and meet a ton of new people. That must be very confusing, right? That was what I thought, but it actually is not like that at all. It’s fun and entertaining to see the different roads they take and it spices everything up a bit. I really like that they did it that way and I have not seen it done in any other series yet!
The show has intrigued me so much that I read the book series and so far they manage to adapt the story in a very good way and used their 8 episodes to cover book one completely. Season two will most likely be covering book two, that’s why I predicted that there have to be at least 3 seasons, to cover the 3 original books. Maybe more, since they created their own story on top of everything, and if all seasons are as good as this one, the more the merrier!
Final Verdict
As you might have noticed, I think the series is worth the hype it got and it’s great that it was renewed for a second season. I would want to give it 5-star rating for its excellent cast, the great visual effects, and the way they improved the narrative compared to the story of the books. But they also made some not-so-understandable decisions, which if you want to get spoilered, you can read about in my before mentioned post. Therefore I will give it 4 and a half stars or in this case popcorn bags, but I am still very much am looking forward to the next season.
