#but im a big character reader so ofc heartstopper's focus on their lovely characters is going to automatically top all else

[clumsyyhearts]

Literally cannot get over how much the show fucked up the crows' characterization. Especially since Netflix also adapted Heartstopper, and from what I've seen, it looks pretty good!?!? I just... can't get my mind around it.

It's been said before, but I really think Heartstopper benefits by having so much involvement from creators and so much love for their creation. The careful adaption of a small portion of the series at a time also really helps their case. There isn't an equivalent of dragging the Crows into the plot of Shadow and Bone in Heartstopper. There's just a whole lot of love and organic originality and real teenage charm!

Shadow and Bone could've gotten away with incorporating the Crows if they'd been careful and diligent but I just don't think they were. Preserving the spirit of that heistlike plot adventure was way more important and it shows! Instead of being treated like characters, they're just aesthetic decor to enhance the scenery. There are quite a few ways S&B could've worked the Crows into the show without being totally faithful to every letter of the books but that would've required them to understand the functionality of their characters beyond just an outsider's perspective. You can't understand Charlie Spring without understanding his past experiences with bullies and anxiety and a complicated relationship with his own body, just like you can't understand Kaz Brekker without understanding his own deep-rooted touch aversion and how he's had to grow up on the streets of the Barrel. To adapt characters on-screen is an act of love. Heartstopper is overflowing with it; Shadow and Bone feels more a feat of CGI glory.

Because it's not just the Crows that have issues in Shadow and Bone, it's Alina and Mal and the Darkling and Zoya, too! Those are rich characters with so much potential and inner strife in the books. Even if it's the first season of the show, you should be able to lay hints about those characters' depths and deeply personal backstories that contribute to why they are the way they are. I'm thinking about Zoya and how it's so vital to her story that you understand she is Alina's mirror, and how it's only barely perceptible in Shadow and Bone because they get so caught up in the depth of worldbuilding that is required to establish our basic understanding of Ravka.

Heartstopper has the advantage of not having to do that much worldbuilding but they still manage to give Charlie, Nick, Tara, Tao, and Elle rich inner lives and struggles in our short time of knowing them. Tao and Elle's relationship is organically built; Nick's struggle with his identity doesn't feel unnatural; Tara's coming out process is familiar.

I don't know. I'm a really character-based reader and consumer of media, so I'm always going to value a good character arc or development instead of plot, which is where I think I'm predisposed to like Heartstopper more because everything that happens is driven by the characters and their chance to grow and change, whereas Shadow and Bone has elements of a dystopia and a revolution and those things dominate the storytelling method. It's why I like Six of Crows better, anyway - that plot is driven and enhanced by the characters as we find out more about their lives and personalities and watch them grow, whereas S&B just intrinsically relies more on Alina's growth being secondary to the actions of the series. And Heartstopper's value in their characters is where I think the adaptation really shines. There's so much love and care in the way they were handled, and I really appreciate that.