six of crows enthusiast

TLDR: s2 failed to keep the main idea of the books in the absolute worst ways possible and now i’m mad

i’ve read almost all the articles and newsletters on why shadow and bone s2 turned out so bad, and i can’t say they’re wrong. there were WAY too many characters, plots, subplots (neshyenyer?), and settings. i could barely keep up with all of it (as someone who read shadow and bone and six of crows) and the whole time it was PAINFULLY obvious that the crows had the favored storyline, despite being the secondary storyline. another thing i’ve read in multiple articles is that that due to the six of crows characters being the more well-loved in the book world, the writers wanted to speed up and set themselves up for a six of crows storyline. look, i get it. we all love the crows. we all want to see the ice heist. we all want to see jesper say “maybe i liked your stupid face”. however that doesn’t mean that we should just skip through two whole books, cherry pick what we luck from six of crows and king of scars, and call it a season. because that was not a season. the second half wasn’t, anyway. i could bitch and moan about the numerous inconsistencies and continuity errors of s2, but there’s a few i really need to address.

the lack of the Soldat Sol and minimal appearance of the Apparat

a really big theme in siege and storm and ruin and rising that are often skipped over is the consistent deification of a singular person and what it does to the public perception of leadership. the show barely touches on it at all, save for alina insisting inej call her alina and not sankta alina. the members of the Soldat Sol, or sun soldiers, are there for their saint, alina. they are willing to hide in a cave or risk their lives for her, all of which is seen in the book yet the show leaves out any mention of them. we see this continuity in history of religion being a uniting force for people, and in some cases the leader of said religion is made to be a living saint and therefore not seen as human. they are put on a pedestal higher than the common person and what they do is more easily excused, allowing for a corrupt leader absolved of responsibility.

alina bringing down the fold on her own

i’ve seen many others talk about this too, but alina brings the fold down all on her own. i have two issues here. in the books, there’s a whole fucking army in the fold. in the show, there’s five people. in the books, upon using the third amplifier, the other people (otkazat’sya) there end up gaining the power of alina as she loses it. the lack of the army and community and teamwork of grisha + otkazat’sya which we see in the book lead to the idea that alina, the sun summoner, the saint, can do it all on her own. there is no need for a united ravka, for why must the people work together if sankta alina can do it all on her own? tying into that idea of teamwork, in the books the otkazat’sya in the fold bring it down altogether. alina doing it all on her own disallows the notion of “we did it together”, especially when we consider there is a grand total of one (1) otkazat’sya there when show! alina brings the fold down.

alina keeps her powers, becomes queen, and stays betrothed to nikolai

my main thing here is that she kept her powers. alina wanted a normal, boring life with mal. no powers. and in the books, she got that. in the show, she ends up being the sun summoner queen of ravka betrothed to nikolai. not a normal life, if you ask me. many critique ruin and rising as an example of the female protagonist losing her powers to settle down and have children, and it’s a valid argument until you realize that this is what alina wanted all along. obviously she was made for great things. the thing is, she’s already accomplished most of this big and notable great things by this time in the books. additionally, her use of merzost in the books was her ambition that led her to use all three of morozova’s amplifiers, not to bring mal back to life. albeit one more honorable than the other, the use of merzost led the the consequence of the her losing her powers in the books. i’ve also heard the argument that many fans don’t agree with alina losing her powers and settling down with mal in keramzin, leading to the change in the show. and that is my biggest issue. to that, i say, too fucking bad. first off, to deviate so strongly from the source material is to do a disservice to the books and honestly, Bardugo. alina used merzost and paid the price. additionally, the whole fucking point was to show that the deification of a person whether grisha or not has consequences. alina had to lose her powers for the practicality of it all. to let alina keep her powers is to betray the integrity of the whole damn story and to take in a whole other direction. i realize that book to screen adaptations will unfortunately never be down to the letter, but to change the whole direction? to change the main idea and values of the book? really?

and here’s the thing: the story of the show itself is not bad. if you take away the pressure of keeping in accordance with the series, it’s very well told (save the 738 plot lines stuffed into eight episodes). however, this is an adaptation. adaptations have the obligation to honor the storyline and main ideas/themes of the original work. it’s actually a really good plot twist for mal and alina to not be together after he’s resuscitated, or for alina to have shadow powers in the show. of course, you would need to know the content of the original books to get the full magnitude, but nonetheless, smart. in the end, the main problem of the show is that it fails to stay true to the books, in so many ways. if it had been able to stay true to the books, even with some deviation, as long as it came back to the main plot, it might’ve been able to keep the essence of the books. unfortunately, it strayed too far, and it ended up falling flat.

i still love this show and the actors, but the direction the story took with its stark differences made the last 2.5 episodes unwatchable for me. we’ll see if i watch the next season, if it gets renewed. this last half of the season was a perfect example of “the book was better”.

many of my thought were really just expanded ideas of what have been wonderful articulated in this article that everyone should read!!