Shadow and Bone – Netflix’s New Young Adult Fantasy World of Powerful Beings
Ever since the end of Game of Thrones viewers has been waiting for the next astonishing fantasy series, Netflix already had a winner as The Witcher but now they have aligned themselves with the Shadow and Bone adaptation of the Grishaverse series by Leigh Bardugo which is most likely a successor with the extensive world-building, strong characters, and cynical humour just like the Game of Thrones.
Alina Starkov (Jessie Mei Li) is a teen orphan and now works as Cartographer for the First Army in East Ravka, which is an isolated side of the Fold, an obscure stretch of land and water where people who try to cross it rarely survives.
She is best friends with Malyen Oretsev (Archie Renaux) since they lived in the orphanage together. He is a tracker in First Army and boxes on the side for a little bit of cash. Mal and Alina were expecting to stay together for a while until a mission to make a supply run across the Fold comes up and Mal has been assigned on it. To be with him, Alina destroys some maps and gets assigned to the mission.
As they are going through the Fold, they are attacked by vicious creatures named Volcra and the Grisha on the ship is no match to them. While trying to save Mal from them, Alina unexpectedly discovers that she is a Grisha. Alina’s power allows her to summon light at her will which makes her the prophesied ‘Sun Summoner’ a powerful saint who can destroy the Fold and that obviously makes her the biggest target.
On the other side of the Fold, in West Ravka, The Dregs – the stunning Kaz Brekkar (Freddy Carter), the Wraith Inej Ghafa (Amita Suman), and the Sharpshooter Jesper Fahey (Kit Young) are assigned to kidnap the saint ‘Sun Summoner’ for 1 million Kruge.
Shadow and Bone is a High Fantasy series, set in a fictional world. It has also got a solid and diverse cast with high-budget graphics and action scenes. It is also juggling multiple storylines across eight tight episodes.
Alina played by Jessi Mei Li is a strong protagonist with a well-established backstory. Another welcoming grey area is General Kirigan aka Darkling played by the handsome Ben Barnes who becomes more ambiguous and magnetic as the show goes on. Barnes and Mei Li have done exceptional jobs portraying the characters. The three Dregs Kaz, Inej, and Jesper are delightful to watch and share a great bonding.
People who are not familiar with the novels would take a little more time to adjust to the slow-burning, multiple fronts world-building, but there are many tutorials about the book series available online which can help to get a clearer picture. But once that period is over, you will be hooked to the storyline till the end.