#shadow and bone critical

[greensaplinggrace]

aklsdjf imagine hating your own characters and the people who like those characters so much that you wont even speak to a fan of your work about them. girl this is embarrassing for you

[thereisnolumos]

darklina thoughts: I wanted to get into the shadow and bone Fandom(books and show) because of the amazing gif set of the darklina kiss I saw

Like who are these two that are sharing such a beautiful kiss. And look so aesthically pleasing together with the darkness and light vibes. I was so excited to find out who these two were because these kind of ships are my everything. Than I find out and 😨😱😤😠🤬!!!!! It was like running full steam a head with tons of excitement and crashing face first into a wall when I find out everything about this Fandom. Both about the books and show. The author and this beautiful ship. And I'm like God why do authors do this ship. Tease us with everything we want and the full potential. But than do a completely one 80 and waste are time on things we don't care about, or find insulting or toxic, and tells us are tastes are dumb and toxic. So now I just read fics and look at beautiful art of Darklina and the potential they could have been. It's just so annoying because this stuff happens all the time!!! And don't get me started on what I heard about the author. I don't know if their true. And wish I could find out real stuff about her. But if it is. God she is so messed up for doing this to us.

I only got in the fandom bcs I randomly saw a teaser for the first season and Ben Barnes was there in all his dark glory. I knew nothing about the books, but the way that show was promoted I was expecting the epic dark romance, villain who’s not really a villain gets the girl all the vibe. Plus cool world build and complicated detailed story overall.

I got none of that.

That show was interesting and hopeful for the first 5 episodes (we will always have 1x05🖤). It wasn’t as detailed and complex as I expected, but it had potential and the main pair - the one they based THE ENTIRE promotion on by the way - was having one of the most fiery and spark inducing chemistry I’ve ever seen on the screen, so I kept my hopes up for the overall plot and focused on them. And then… then they backpedaled SO HARD on everything that made that show interesting for the broad audience, I wonder how they didn’t give themselves a whiplash… though considering the horrible quality of s2 they probably did

Though I didn’t like the way s1 ended, I still thought there is hope, and “we need a conflict for our main pair, I guess”. I truly, wholeheartedly believed that creators and writers of the show are not complete idiots and know how to read the room and what the most of their audience is there for, so that’s what they’ll deliver. But oh my, how wrong I was.

The second season is downright unwatchable with how horrifyingly terrible it is. I only suffered through the entire thing for Ben, who, bless his heart, tried his hardest to deliver the complexity and depth of his character, who he only agreed to play if they “won’t make him a cardboard villain”. And they did exactly that in s2, or tried to, bcs Ben Barnes and his talent didn’t let them, despite all their efforts. The rest of the cast I guess didn’t have enough experience to fix the worst writing imaginable with their acting, so most of the characters became absolutely bland and uninteresting and SO IDIOTICALLY STUPUD, I yelled at them constantly, scaring my cat the entire time.

Also, as much as I understand it from exploring the fandom, the creators and writers of the show are die hard fans of the Crows, and they don’t actually like Alina’s trilogy at all. So… why didn’t they just do the books they wanted I’ll never know. Instead, they forced the Crows in the plot they were never a part of (making all of them okay with selling a girl to slavery in the process. Despite one of them being the former slave and the other one being the one who got her out of it… make it make sense, I beg of you), in the second season they wasted SO MUCH time on their plot lines that 1)didn’t matter one bit for the overall story, 2)were absolutely uninteresting to everyone who isn’t the Crows fan beforehand. In the end we got half-assed Alina and Aleksander’s story with half-assed Crows’ story. They should’ve just made the Crows show, without touching Alina and Aleksander

I haven’t read the books, but from what I gathered in the fandom, though still committing the same sin of putting all the promotion and marketing into the Dark romance trope without actually delivering on it, and force feeding the fans one of the worst and most toxic pairings ever with Malina, at least Alina and Aleksander’s characters weren’t made so cardboard and stupid, and there was tragedy in their story, not the shit that they gave us in s2. Though I absolutely DESPISE the fact that Alina looses her powers in the end and goes on to live Mal’s dream life… Like WHAT THE FUCK?? What levels of internalized misogyny do you need to have as a woman, to write this plot line for your female protagonist???? I can’t.

On Mal’s toxicity: at least that made him a fleshed out character in the books. Absolutely horrible one, how could the author make him “get the girl” is beyond me. But at least he had a personality, however terrible one. In the show, I guess understanding, that no one would root for that asshole, they removed his toxicity almost completely, but that made him as bland as stale porridge. There wasn’t ANYTHING left on his character. At all. How anyone could’ve rooted for him I absolutely refuse to understand. Any woman deserved better than Blade😈

I don’t know anything about Leigh Bardugo, except for the fact that she butcher my native language and makes me furious. If you don’t know the language at least on a medium level, perhaps don’t use it in your books. Or at least hire someone who does. The way she butchered it, I’m not sure she even used Google translate…

So yeah, I’m with you on only reading Darklina fanfics and admiring fan art. I’m not at all sad that they cancelled the show, and I’m even giddy that those creators and writers didn’t get their wet dream of the Crows spin off. They didn’t deserve it after the shit they pulled in the second season. I do hope that they won’t ruin any other shows in the future. I am sad for the actors, who deserved much better and who were actually good at their parts, while the writing was okay. Poor Archie Renaux suffered the most, his character didn’t have good writing at all, not for a single scene. I hope we’ll see more of all of them.

And we need Ben and Jessie to do a film together. Preferably a rom com, but I’m not picky. Just that their characters are together. Such chemistry can’t be wasted

[jebbifurzz]

Watching episode 1 of Shadow and Bone season 2:

Okay, let me get this straight...

The protagonist, whom the narrative says is soooo good and pure and morally upright: is on a quest to kill a bunch of ancient sentient animals so she can steal their power.

The antagonist, who we are told again and again is SUPER evil: is freeing his people, who are being imprisoned and killed due to how they were born, and fighting against the oppressors.

The cognitive dissonance is killing me. I don't know if I can bring myself to watch more.

[lilisouless]

So, the show handled Nina and Kaz terribly in diferent ways , but both were a complete waste

Inej and Jesper were on the "more of less" scale , some things were great, some things are rage inducing

Therefore, If Matthias was fine, by symetry it means that Wylan has to be portrayed fine too, right ...RIGHT?

Of course there is the option to fix Nina, Inej and Jesper (for Kaz is too late) but that would be asking Netflix to make an effort

[starlessmistake]

The problem with S&B S2's magic system

(And why it weakens one of the best moments of the series)

Before I start, I just want to preface with the fact that I am talking about the show only here as it's own entity. I know that some of my complaints can be said of the books as well. However from S1, the show substantially altered the concept of amplifiers, so clearly they're not above making changes to the way the magic system when it suits them.

Diving right in to my analysis...

S1 for all its faults does a solid job of setting up the magic system within Ravka. The grisha orders are presented as being very strictly defined with no suggestion that there is any choice involved in a grisha’s sub-order.

(This is in contrast to the books where it is established as early as Alina’s carriage ride with Fedyor and Ivan that a grisha’s sub-order is more of a specialisation that they have some choice over.)

This strict delineation has consequences for the plot of S1.

In S1E3 we meet Genya and are given a fairly comprehensive overview of her powers. As a tailor, her main power is in modifying an individual’s appearance. This includes being able to mend surface level injuries.

In S1E5 when Marie is attacked, Genya is unable to heal Marie’s wound and Marie subsequently dies. This in many ways is the trigger point for the whole second act of the first season. Marie’s death is what causes Aleksander to leave Alina alone in his War Room, and therefore what gives Baghra the opportunity to convince Alina to flee.

(The show then goes on to never mention Marie’s death again, but that’s a separate rant of mine.)

Genya not being a Healer (or at the very least, not knowing that she can heal) is important to the story of S1 and established concretely to the audience.

And then we have S2…

S2 makes the decision to expand on the magic system by blurring the line between the various orders. This is not necessarily a bad decision in its own right – many stories successfully add nuance to their magic systems as the audience grows familiar with how it works. However I would argue that the show does not manage to do this successfully.

We are first introduced to this change through Alina’s travels to Novyi Zem and aboard Nikolai’s ship. Characters like the librarian and Tamar tell us that other countries do not distinguish between grisha in the way that Ravka does. Which is fine in theory, except this is one of the many, many things that we are told and not shown.

None of the non-Ravkan grisha actually demonstrate any powers outside of their one specific sub-order. With the possible exception of Sankta Neyar who uses a form of blood-bending. However we are explicitly told that this is because there is iron in blood and not because she can control blood itself. Therefore her powers still fall neatly into what we might expect of Durasts.

So who doesn’t fit into a neat box…? You guessed it - Genya.

Genya gains all kind of powers this season. First of all is healing. In S2E4 Genya is able to easily heal Baghra’s broken wrist -  something that goes well beyond Genya’s established powers in S1. The show could have possibly explained this by having Baghra amplify Genya, but that’s not what happens as Baghra doesn’t touch Genya while she’s working.

The fact that Genya has the capability to heal is not in itself a problem – given what the show clumsily tried to establish earlier in S2. However, the problem is that Genya should not know that she has these capabilities. Because she explicitly didn’t know about them in S1, and nothing has changed between the seasons to give her this information.

Now that we have all that established, let’s talk about the scene I referred to back at the start of this rant.

In S2E5 Genya and Baghra find Alina’s underground hideout. In one of the best scenes of the series David asks Genya how she managed to find them, to which Genya replies that she was able to follow David’s heartbeat with the help of Baghra’s amplification.

This is such a powerful moment due to Daisy and Luke’s fantastic acting, but it’s undermined by the writing. This reveal about Genya’s Heartrending should have been a great shock – to the audience and to Genya – a discovery of an unknown power that she was only able to tap into in her most desperate moment to find the love of her life.

But because we have already seen Genya’s unexplained ability to heal, this reveal instead comes across (at least to me) like Heartrending is a power that Genya has always known about, she merely forgot to mention it earlier in the show.

And so a fantastic acting performance is hampered by weak writing. It’s far from the only such moment (believe me, I could rant for hours about S2’s writing). But this one particularly frustrates me, because it would be so easy to fix! All the writers would have to do would have Genya not heal Baghra’s wrist, or have Genya only be able to heal Baghra’s wrist with the help of amplification.

(rant over. thanks for reading)

[tangyyrine]

Controversial opinion but I’d rather Shadow and Bone be cancelled than have to see what kind of mess Season 3 would have been

[scentedmiracleobject]

[rotzaprachim]

ok going to be mean. i think part of my interest in show helnik also comes from danielle and calahan being perhaps two of the only actors who do not wildly overact everything and like... actually chew their scenes (which the show gives matthias a little more leeway to do) 

[confusedbookworm]

So you know how the writers said that Alina using shadow powers at the end was a sign of her corruption, right, and if they are a corruption then doesn’t that mean Aleksander never stood a chance since he’d be corrupted since birth?

[magneticflower]

I try to just take the show for what it is, but the way s2 had Kaz openly ask for Inej to be there and then purposely make sure she wasn't there/have her blow it off just so they can have Kaz throw a fit irks me to no end. They shouldn't have speedrun the Pekka Rollins plotline in the first place but to entirely exclude Inej from that scene was... an incredibly poor choice for the sake of setting up unnecessary conflict so they have a reason to send her off on a ship.

[kallypsowrites]

I hope another streaming platform or TV channel will someday make a new adaptation of Shadow and Bone from scratch and give these characters the depth, complexity, and development they deserve. Slow burn would have been the way to go. Cramming multiple books into 8 episodes was never a good idea and I cannot believe the writers think they can trick Netflix into approving a spin-off by asking the fans to generate fake views through background streaming.

Ya know, I'm not holding out too much hope for a "more complex" adaptation, simply because the trilogy itself isn't what I'd call super complex. The fandom often finds complexity in what it could have been, but other than the Six of Crows duology, I think that the books are rather lacking.

That being said, the show could have been WAY better than it was and does make me wish for the emotional levels of the books lol.

[greensaplinggrace]

Do you not like Leigh? Did you enjoy the books?

overall, i found the books fun and enjoyable, in the way i find many pieces of literature and media that aren't masterfully crafted enjoyable. the writing grows weary at times, and the worldbuilding is messy. often, the books discard tone and consistency to force the reader in a certain direction or thought process. this happens many times, and in many ways - the least appealing of which to me is the obvious retconning later in the series, where other methods could have been employed to convey the desired messages without manipulating the reader.

i don't find leigh herself personally unpleasant (although i do have issues with a lot of her statements on certain things), and i think her later writing is passable. but shadow and bone suffers from being her first, and it shows. her lack of experience isn't the only thing to show, either, considering how bluntly she breaks apart her narrative to push her own biases through.

shadow and bone is largely appealing to me as a work of potential. there are some shining moments within it that captured my interest and elevated it in my eyes. leigh has a habit of striking real gold, and then selling it as fool's. i enjoyed the books in some aspects, and didn't like them in others. i also love the concept of them so much and adore the parts that i do like so severely that a lot of my criticism is done out of affection and out of a certain type of grief for what could have been.

i also have extremely heavy criticisms of the implications wrought throughout the story, and the ways leigh handled the characters and world-state she created. sometimes, my ability to separate my offense at many of her messages from my appreciation for her writing gets too weak. it's hard to appreciate a certain line, no matter how much it feels good, when one has spent so long considering the larger implications of that line and the terrible stereotypes and propaganda it's supporting.

so overall - sorry for the ramble lol - i do like the books when i'm just reading them for fun. because they are fun and they do often have good moments, plus a wealth of really interesting potential. but i do have issues with the messages as well as the writing, and honestly i think it's bizarre that people laud the series as something more than it is. it's middling fantasy with shoddy worldbuilding and characters that possess sparks of potential that carry them into success, written by someone who clearly doesn't understand the finer workings of a lot of the things she tries (and fails) to tackle.

that doesn't make it bad, certainly, nor unenjoyable. but i am also the type of person that finds enjoyment in deep literary analysis and heavy criticism. it's a love language to literature, really.

[mentallydatingahotcelebrity]

So sad Netflix canceled Shadow & Bone after only one season. So sad we never got to see the conclusion to such a promising series. It’s always so tragic when a show is never given the room to reach its full potential. So sad…

[lilisouless]

this are the winner of previous polls

[micarps]

Me watching the last episode of sab (it’s very messy but overall I love it but not because of the writing)

[midnightlyquill]

A Shadow and Bone Season 2 rant

It’s like the writers have forgotten whose story the show is about. Because Alina feels more like a supporting character, or worse, a plot device, in her own show. We are not allowed to see her feelings. We are not allowed to see her struggles. We are not allowed to see her having any sort of conflicts whatsoever. She’s become so passive and reactive this season that I really wonder if the writers just didn’t know what to do with her. 

I understand that the writers THINK Six of Crows characters are more popular and probably enjoy telling those stories better but it’s actually so disheartening to see them actively sidelined Alina’s narrative for the benefits of the Crows. I’ve read the interviews and the showrunners said that Netflix asked for the Crows to be integrated into the season similar in season 1. But here’s the difference between the way the show handled the Crows in season 1 and season 2: they were obviously playing a supporting role in the first season yet the show seems to treat their storyline as equal or even more important in season 2 (which doesn’t really make sense because in terms of scope, the Crows is doing a heist whereas Alina’s trying to take down the villain AND in terms of screentime, it does a great disservice for the SaB characters because there are a lot more of them as well as more subplots: Alina’s plot, Court intrigue with Nikolai, Genya’s ordeal, Darkling’s villainy, whatever it is that was happening with Vladim, etc. Thus, SaB characters get pretty much the short end of the sticks). 

So I’m actually very conflicted about whether or not I want a season 3. Because season 2 has destroyed my trust in the writers and given the way they’re so enthusiastically promoting the yet-to-be greenlit Six of Crows show, I’m wondering if the next part of Alina’s story is even something that they want to explore. Alina becoming Queen and keeping her power is the one thing I love about her ending in the show. But honestly, I don’t trust them to be able to give her a satisfying and deserving character arc where she gets to explore the ramifications of using Merzost and having a grey morality.