shadow and bone Season 2 doesn’t exactly follow the course of Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse novels, but certain changes were necessary, showrunner Eric Heisserer said news week.
In the new season of the Netflix hit, Alina Starkov (Jessie Mei Li) and Mal Oretsev (Archie Renaux) team up with their ally Nikolai Lantsov (Patrick Gibson) to find the last two boosters she needs to restore her powers increase to defeat General Kirigan. aka The Darkling (Ben Barnes) and tear down the shadow fold.
As she does so, the Crows – Kaz Brekker (Freddy Carter), Inej Ghafa (Amita Suman) and Jesper Fahey (Kit Young) – plot revenge on Pekka Rollins (Dean Lennox Kelly) with the help of Nina Zenik (Danielle Galligan). and Wylan Hendricks (Jack Wolfe).
But Alina’s story takes an unexpected turn in the finale, and Heisserer agreed news week about the decision and why other important changes were made to the original books.
Warning: This article contains spoilers for shadow and bone Season 2.
Season 2 of shadow and bone adapts the last two books of the title trilogy named siege and storm And fall and rise respectively, and it takes items out Six crows And Crooked Kingdom while also building the story for them king of scars Duology from Bardugo’s series.
Heisserer explained that rationalizing the story to incorporate storylines from multiple books “ran down to necessity” given the show’s large cast.
“The discoveries we made in the first five weeks of the Writers Room as we watched Season 2 were big tectonic shifts for us as we recognized so much of it siege and storm—because it’s solely from Alina’s point of view – didn’t give us much interaction […] with other main characters,” said Heisserer.
“And when you have such a large and exciting cast list as ours, we knew right away that we had to find the most aerodynamic story possible that would allow us to hit the moments with Alina’s development and her arc […] but then allowed us to move on to either of Nikolai’s team or the Crows or any number of other new characters we introduced here. So it was about feeding a lot of mouths.”
Such an important plot involving Alina is a complete departure from the books as the character does not lose her powers when Mal sacrifices herself so she can obtain the third enhancer as written in the trilogy. She also brings Mal back to life with merzost (dark magic), something not featured in the books.
Instead of the character losing her powers as punishment for greed, Alina’s fate could be much darker. This is due to her shadow wielding and using The Cut in the final moments of the season, a power she apparently took from the Darkling after killing him in the final battle.
The idea that the Darkling might not be gone forever is an idea that will be familiar to book fans since Bardugo introduced a character named Yuri into the book king of scars duology and he plays a major role in the villain’s return to the novels.
When asked directly if Alina could take on Yuri’s storyline instead, Heisserer said that “there are some things I can’t talk about right now,” but the writers were excited to show a darker side of the character.
“What I can say is that we definitely wanted to capture Jessie with our entire lives,” he said. “We didn’t want to retire Alina here at the end of this season. There’s just so much more to do with her and enjoy with her.
“And I don’t think any of us were keen on taking her powers and essentially portraying her as Otkazat’sya [a person without Grisha powers] go forward.
“It’s good to have her as a power figure in the story, especially now with her position and relationship with Nikolai.”
He continued, “And yet there had to be a price for using Merzost to bring Mal back and we ended up with what you saw for the last scene as a way for her to face all the things that Kirigan may have warned you about and where we’re going next season, we’ll be sure to address them.
“It seems that at the end of each season we do our best to figure out what the main internal conflicts of the next season will be, and those ending episodes are the ‘F*** Around’ chapter and the pinnacle of what next season will be be the chapter “Find out.”
shadow and bone makes other noticeable changes from the books. For example, because Alina keeps her powers, her relationship with Mal is different by the end of the season and they don’t marry and reopen the orphanage they grew up in. Instead, Mal chooses to take the title of Stormhound from Nikolai in order to rediscover his destiny.
“We had to be honest with ourselves about where that relationship ended, and the conversation Mal and Alina have just comes from the emotional transparency they’ve built together.
“If we were in Mal’s shoes, each of us would think the same thing: ‘Am I just here because there is a greater force at work, or is it a choice? And how can I prove it to myself? And how can I prove it to her?’
“And so, for Mal, that decision is to do that and hope with all my heart that he can come back with a safer sense of self. […W]When he returns, he can make them both feel better about their future together.”
Alina chooses to stay at the Ravkan court with Nikolai, to whom she is still engaged, to demonstrate the political alliance between Grisha and Otkazat’sya.
Heisserer said it was “very” important for Alina to get such a position of power: “First, because she deserves it [through] all the things that she has done. To end up depriving her of all this power and keeping Jessie with her felt criminal. Second, someone like Nikolai will continue to see them as equals.
“They both have a not-so-secret thing they’re wrestling with, and it’s possible that only a mess can resolve it, creating a stronger bond between the two of them.”
