Shadow and Bone: Review

🚨 SPOILERS AHEAD 🚨

The only thing keeping me going throughout all of 2020 and 2021 was the upcoming release of Shadow and Bone. Leigh Bardugo is one of my favourite authors of all time and the Grishaverse is one of my favourite book series so when I found out that it was getting a Netflix adaptation in 2019, I was over the moon.

However, I have several issues with the show. One of the most important aspects I expect from a film or TV show is characterisation. Complexity, growth… I would have to say, I am a little bit biased, I prefer morally ambiguous characters which is why I loved the crows and the Darkling.

ALINA’S CHARACTERISATION AND DEPICTIONS OF RACE (SPOILERS)

Alina is portrayed as the lead character and yet, after the end of the series, I felt like I barely knew her (which was also a problem in the books). I found that one of my biggest criticisms about the show was the way the writers wrote Alina’s character - her character is written around the men in her life. I know Mal, I know how much she cares about Mal, I know Malina but I don’t know Alina outside of her relationships (or potential relationships). Having a female lead in a big budget show is so empowering and even more so that she is a woman of colour. Growing up, I rarely saw fantasy TV shows at this scale at the forefront of a grand adventure and even less likely to see a Woman of Colour.

Unfortunately, I was quite disappointed. Not only in the way they characterised Alina but also in the way they depicted her race. I do acknowledge that they made the racial elements a little bit heavy handed as satire to show how ridiculous racism is - i.e many of the white characters referred to her as a “rice eater” - however, I would counter that argument without another: Leigh Bardugo’s main objective in writing the Grisha trilogy and the six of crows duology was always to tell the stories of young people. As an Asian myself, I found the depictions of racism to be so lacking in subtlety and nuance. The racism I face as an Asian immigrant living in what I would consider a “white” country (even though we are VERY multicultural and diverse, let’s not forget about the White Australian policy that was pervasive throughout 1900-1970s) the racism I experienced came in micro aggressions, in unfiltered biases, in benevolent prejudice. At times the show captures it well - i.e the scenes where the Ravkan (Russian) characters spoke of Alina badly assuming she didn’t speak the language even though she was born and raised in Ravka. I found that these scenes showcased my experiences clearly and explicitly. However, I believe that in order to explore racism towards Asians you should portray it in the way it exists in the real world. I do acknowledge that my experiences with racism do differ with other Asian people and there is no “right” way to portray the gross injustices we face as a community, but I’d like to acknowledge that most of the ways racism manifests in our everyday life do not take in the form of derogatory and explicit slurs but in subtle, intentional (and often unintentional) unchecked biases.

Another criticism I have is the differences between the books and the films in characterisation. It seems as though the writers took a lot of time changing Mal’s personality to make him more likeable - and props to them because I found myself liking Mal a LOT more in the show than in the books. But they forgot the most important character: Alina. Outside of Mal, we barely see her motivations, her aspirations, her interests, her hobbies. He is the centre of her universe. The underlying codependency is also quite unsettling… Everything she does in the series is to get back to him. All the flashbacks that were used to ~supposedly~ build up her character have Mal as the main reasons for her actions- i.e when they were tested for as Grisha. The reason why she goes into the Fold was to be with Mal - at the expense of her friends and comrades’ lives. Do we see her mourn the death of her friends? No. Even Mal is afforded this luxury when he loses his friends - Mikhael and Dubrov - we see him break down and mourn their deaths. THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN A GOOD CHARACTER BUILDER.

When a ship contains a very much surface level character with no motivations, aspirations, or motives outside of the love interest, it is a ship destined to sink. Please stop reducing female characters to love interests and having all their stories revolve around their relationships!!!

OVERALL THOUGHTS

Since promoting S&B, the show has been attracting a lot of comparisons to Game of Thrones. The comparisons were right… The writing is disappointing. However, where GoT gave us multiple seasons of wonderfully crafted characters, S&B barely manages to give us this in one season. I hope they do better with season 2 because I do believe that the cast and Heisserer are talented and promising. Fingers crossed they improve Alina’s characterisation in S2 rather than focusing on Nikolai and the upcoming and impending ship. I would, however, like to give credit where credit is due, Wendy Partridge’s costumes are so beautiful, they invoke an Imperialist Russian aesthetic that S&B is based on, Eric Heisserer did a wonderful job crafting the two stories together, although, I have some criticisms on this. I love the Crows, their presence in the storyline unfortunately, takes away from the main story of Alina, if they were to adapt a book into a show, they should commit to one series, otherwise it would not be doing the books justice.

rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐ . 5