The critically acclaimed series from Netflix shadow and bone is back for its second season and continues to offer a fresh take on Leigh Bardugo’s best-selling novels, The Grishaverse.
The Grishaverse is the collective title given to Bardugo’s books, which currently consist of the shadow and bone trilogy, the Six crows duology, the king of scars duology and several short stories, all of which are news week Reporter has repeatedly read and enjoyed.
The Netflix series follows Alina Starkov (Jessie Mei Li), a Grisha who can summon sunlight and is determined to tear down the shadow fold that General Kirigan, aka Darkling (Ben Barnes), unleashed on Ravka centuries earlier.
Warning: This article contains spoilers for shadow and bone Season 2 and Grishaverse novels by Leigh Bardugo.
In Season 2, following the events of Season 1, Alina and Malyen “Mal” Oretsev (Archie Renaux) are thrown back into the fight against the Darkling, and for that they need new allies, including Nikolai Lantsov (Patrick Gibson).
Meanwhile, the Crows, Kaz Brekker (Freddy Carter), Inej Ghafa (Amita Suman) and Jesper Fahey (Kit Young), return to Ketterdam to find they have been falsely accused of murder.
Kaz decides to take on Pekka Rollins (Dean Lennox Kelly), with whom he shares a tragic past. They do so with the help of demolitions expert Wylan Hendricks (Jack Wolfe) and Nina Zenik (Danielle Galligan), who joins the Crows to rescue her lover Matthias Helvar (Calahan Skogman) from Hellgate prison.
Here are all the ways the new season changes the story from the books.
In the shadow and bone trilogy ends Alina’s journey with her losing her powers after acquiring the third enhancer after Mal’s sacrifice.
To show the consistency of Greed, Alina’s powers are transferred from her to several Otkazat’sya (those without Grisha powers), including her soldier Sol (Sun Soldiers), who use the powers to defeat the crease.
However, in the show, Alina keeps her powers and also uses merzost (dark magic) to bring Mal back to life, unlike in the books where Tolya and Tamar are able to revive him with their powers.
While Alina retains her powers, it’s not without consequences, as the finale’s final moments prove she and the Darkling might not be that different.
This isn’t so much a change as an overhaul of Bardugo’s books. The Crows’ plan to defeat Pekka Rollins is part of the narrative in the second book of the Six crows duology, named Crooked Kingdom.
What the show has done is take over the plot and reveal Kaz’s history with Pekka much sooner than book fans would expect.
Sankta Neyar is one of the saints featured in Bardugo’s book the life of the saints, which is also contained in the Grishaverse itself.
The book narrates various folk tales that explain how the saints were seen as such. Neyar became one after forging the blade Neshyenyer, which she used to save Shu Han by defeating an immortal army of Clockwork Soldiers.
Sankta Neyar never appears in Bardugo’s books. In the show, the Crows, Tolya (Lewis Tan) and Zoya (Sujaya Dasgupta) face off against Neyar as they try to steal Neshyenyer for Alina to use during her fight against the Darkling.
In siege and storm And ruin and rise, Alina sets out to find two more amps: the Sea Whip and the Firebird. The first creature she finds inside siege and storm, but she learns that the firebird is not actually a third enhancer after discovering the creature inside fall and rise.
During her encounter with the Firebird, Alina realizes that Mal was the last amp all along as he takes her wrist and she feels the power she needs.
In the show, it is the Darkling’s mother, Baghra (Zoë Wanamaker), who deduces that Mal is the Booster because she realizes he is descended from her sister, who killed her as a child, but who is descended from her father, Illya Morozova was brought back to life.
After Alina loses her powers and Mal comes back to life at the end shadow and bone Trilogy they leave the capital to live a normal life, they get married and reopen the orphanage they grew up in.
On the show, however, things take a very different turn when Mal decides to leave Alina and take the title from Nikolai’s Buccaneer alter-ego Sturmhond.
He explains that it is finding his purpose again, and if his journey brings him back to Alina, it means they chose to be together and weren’t forced by fate.
Season 2 adapts the two remaining books in Bardugo’s shadow and bone Trilogy, siege and storm And fall and rise. The first introduces readers to Nikloai Lantsov (Patrick Gibson), the second son of the Lantsov royal family.
In siege and storm, Nikolai suggests that he and Alina get engaged to show an alliance between Otkazat’sya and Grisha, and even if it’s not a love match, she agrees.
