"Shadow and Bone" By Leigh Bardugo
Podcast Transcript
Welcome to the Story Surgeon Podcast, I am your host Ektaa Bali, midwife, award winning fantasy author, podcaster and story enthusiast and this is the show where I dissect and break open novels, movies and tv shows and figure out what makes them work.
In news this week
My middle grade fantasy The Unicorn Princess won it’s second award, Not only did we win the silver medal in the Reader’s choice book awards, we also have won the Literary Titan’s Gold Award!
Two days ago, I released my first film analysis on my Youtube Channel. I explain Deadly Illusions a psychological mystery thriller that Netflix released last week. I’m pretty proud of that video so check it out if you’ve seen the movie and wonder what the hell happened on there.
And don’t forget you can watch this podcast on youtube as well. I do aim to post at least one podcast and one youtube video every week, in addition to writing book 3 of my middle grade fantasy.
If you’re interested in any of those, the quickest way to find them is on my website ektaabali.com
Alright, onto my superstar of the week!
Shadow and bone, Book 1 of the Grisha Triology renamed the Shadow and bone trilogy for the netflix show I’m assuming, is a debut fantasy adventure novel published in June 2012 by Macmillan Press.
American author Leigh Bardugo is also the author of the six of crows triology and the King of Scars Duology.
The netflix show comes out April 23 and is going to be a blend of both Shadow and Bone and six of crows, and we’ll going into the reasons why up ahead.
I’ll give you some background first, for those unfamiliar with it, and of course, in order for me to do a full analysis, I will be spoiling the entire novel.
The setting is inspired by Imperial Russia, a lot of our names, language, clothing is russian based.
We are in the country of Ravka and surrounded by enemy countries
Shu Han
Fjerd
So obviously thats Russia surrounded by a china like country and a nordic like country.
Separating Ravka is The Shadow Fold, a sea of darkness where vicious flying creatures called the Volcra live. The story centers around this location because it has caused a lot of problems for the last hundered years. To sail into it is basically asking for death so you can’t do it without a whole group of soldiers and magic using people.
The magic system has a cast influence. So the Grisha, those with magical ability form the upper class, and those who do not have ability are the lower class. Magical ability is specialised so each person has their own class of magic or speciality and corresponding ranking and Kefta colours. A Kefta is an elegant coat the Grisha wear everywhere so you know their order and designation.
Favoured Grisha have Amplifiers made ouot mythical creatures that elevates their power to make them more powerful.
I think one of reasons why this series is popular is because of this magic system, audiences tend to enjoy hierarchial structures and specific disciplines when it comes to magic. This society also labels their magic users using colour coded clothing which audiences also love because they can put out characters into boxes and then wonder about which box they themselves would fit in.
The magic users, the Grisha are divded into 3 categories which are then divided into 2-3 subgroups. Then there are outliers who have unique powers that no one else seems to have.
We have the Coporalnik the warriors, the Etheralki the summoners and the Fabrikators who are craftsmen.
So The highest ranking are the
Corporalnik- The Order of Warriors wear Red Kefta .
Heartrender- or blood letters, they basically kill people, Black Embroidery on their cuffs
Healer- Grey Embroidery on cuff
The Etheralki- The Order of Summoners wear a Blue Kafka
Squallers can raise and lower air pressure - Silver embroidery on their cuffs
Inferni- those can manipulate fire- red embroidery
Tidemakers- blue embroidery they shift water
The Darkling is a unique summoner of the dark, the only one of his kind, so he wears black.
The protaganist Alina is a summoner of the sun and the only one, so the darkling prefers her to wear black as well
The Lowest ranking are the
Fabrikator- Craftspeople who wear Purple
Materialki- works with cloth
So a short summary of the plot:
The story centers around orphan Alina Starkov and her childhood best friend slash crush Mal who work as a cartographer and tracker respectively, within the army.
As an orphan she is tested as a child and assumed powerless, but when Mal’s life is threatned on their trip over the Shadow Fold, her power is released and they realise she is a Sun Summoner, a rare kind of Grisha that has not existed before and the key to eliminating the darkness of the Fold and uniting the county.
The Darkling, a powerful Grisha leader of the county inferior only to the King elevates her to Grisha status and takes her to the palace where she is trained and has a minor romance with the Darkling
At our midpoint turn one of her teachers informs her that the Darkling is her son and he has been lying to her this whole time. He wants to give Alina an amplifier in the form of a mytical stag’s antlers and use her to control the world. He wants to overthrow the King and take control of the continent. Alina runs away. Mal finds her and they decide to go after the Amplifer together.
The Darkling Finds them just as they find the Amplifier Stag. The Darkling kills the Stag and enslaves Alina with her new collar made from the antlers.
He takes her to the Shadow fold where everyone thinks she is there to destroy the darkness with her light, except he uses her to threaten the envoys of the other countries and bring them under his control.
Alina realises that she is not enslaved by her collar and can control her own power. She traps the ship in darkness, leaving the Darkling and some of her old friends to be eaten by the Volcra and she and Mal escape.
We end with Mal and Alina sailing on the real sea, running away from the Darkling’s pursuit.
Okay our story is out classic chosen one story along the lines of harry potter, star wars etc.
Pretty straight forward, orphan elevated to powerful saviour.
So we have a pretty simple main plot that I can break down into 9 plot points.
1. Alina is an orphan and unknowingly hides her power
2. When she’s older her power explodes in a life or death situation on the Shadow Fold.
3. She’s taken for training
4. She discovers she has been lied to and a disastorous plot to enslave her is underfoot.
5. She runs away
6. She gets captured and enslaved
7. Her power is used against her will
8. She finds she has control over her power and uses it to kill everyone and escape.
9. Close with sailing into the sunset to a different land.
As for subplots, they are all romances, but quite small romances/brief.
1. Darkling romance
2. Mal romance
3. Rivalry between her and Zoya a Grisha at the palace.
Plot:
Now this is a pretty simple novel. When I say that, I mean that it has a simple primary plot and very little by way of subplot, making it feel to me, simpler than other novels in the same vein as this one.
In the Harry Potter episode we talked about how the subplots really make harry potter what it is, and that the actual plot in philosopher’s stone is quite simple.
In Shadow and Bone, I felt like I was looking for more depth and complexity and never quite got it, leaving me unsatified at the end.
I kind of went. Wait, What? That’s the end?
It felt a little simple, perhaps it was written for the younger YA audience, I’m not sure.
Now, for me as a reader that was a problem of my expectations,
Why did I have those expectations? Because of the promises I was made in the set up.
Shadow and Bone has all the trappings of something deep and complex like Hunger Games.
There’s a multicountry war going on, so the tone at the start of the novel set this large scale slightly more epic story than I got.
Stats
We are 90k words, making it 365 pages
There are 24 chapters total, made up by a prologue, 22 chapters and an epilogue.
Bardugo sets a good pace at the start, but I really felt it slow down in after she gets to the palace, I did get a bit bored from chapters 6-13 where the plot, the main thread dosen’t seem to be moving, we get a few minor, subplots and what feels like set up and context building to the scenes instead.
Then the pace starts back up again from chapter 16 to 22 where she leaves the palace we’re on the run and things are happening and there’s more narative drive.
Bardugo hits her milestones, a little pretty on point. She’s a bit looser with her midpoint turn as she has a sequence of 3 chapters that make up this.
We get two set up chapters the prologue and chapter 1
The inciting Incdient happens at 10%, in chapter 2
The first plot point at 14% Chapter 3
The first pinch point is at 18% Chapter 4
Chapter 6-13 are all her training in the castle.
At chapter 12 46% we do get a midpoint of sorts where she can use her power now.
But I think out real turn of events is Chapter 16, 60% where the context changes completly and she is on the run.
We get our climax at 87%
And the epilogue is a our resolution which is not really a resolution- more of a to be continued.
Which is clever, because it really made me want to reach for the next book.
To me if anything this story felt a little derivative and a little simple. So I needed to know why it was so popular, and in this analysis hopefully we can uncover those reasons.
We’ve already uncovered one, the magic system is quite enticing and I felt that the developement of the setting and the worldbuilding was really well done, I got a good sense of where we were and what kind of world we were in.
THe main characters are your straightforward main character, love interest, antagonist. There’s nothing too complex about the first two. The Darkling possibly has a deeper backstory, but the first book we don’t see that much of him really.
All well known tropes, borderline overused. There’s nothing really wrong about that, unless if you read a lot of YA, it comes across as derivative, and might not keep your attention.
I think audiences probably loved the clear straight forward nature of it all.
ALINA
She’s your classic chosen one character, starts off as a powerful lower class orphan and is then elevated to be all powerful saviour of the people. She comes into her own power, and at the end, we see her basically leave the people she once called friends and allies for dead. It’s pretty ruthless and appears out of character here, but we’re getting some much needed complexity from her, I just don’t know if the anti-hero route will pay off in a satisfying way here. Her actions at the end of the book kind of made me dislike her as the main character. So I’m interested to see where the next book goes with her arc.
MAL
Is a secondary character, Alina’s primary love interest and one arm of the love triangle. He’s shown as the type of guy all women swoon over, and men admire. He’s the best tracker in the army and he starts off as a happy go lucky guy who turns into a bitter and jaded one tby the time we catch up with him in the mid point turn. When he catches Alina running away, he eventually realises that he has always loved her.
He gets a pretty simple, straight forward arc with some minor complexity.
DARKLING
So the darkling is one of the reasons YA audiences love this book. We get the sense of a powerl, dark man who’s reputation precedes him in the novel. He appears as an ominious mysterious figure, who’s ruthless but shows a gentle care towards our protagnist and we know that audiences love this type of character.
We’re left in a weird place with him at the end of the book, Alina starts to fall for him in the middle and then we have our twist and she dosen’t know what to believe about him anymore. He’s suddenly showing his true self, powerhungry and willing to comit minor genocide/ mass murder to get what he wants, so I’m not sure how we as an audience can put him in a favourable light after that. We definitley had a love triangle going which I’m assume will be continued in the next books.
The tertairy characters are well rounded, the most notable we have
Genya- who has the most developed back story and adds a brilliant a complexity
Baghra- who appears one way for half the novel then gives us our lovely twist in the middle
The other Grisha characters in the palace all have distinct persoanlities and relationships with the protagnists.
A brief word on themes.
Shadow and Bone is pretty thematically derivative, we have our classics:
Good verus Evil
Love & Friendship
Coming into your own Power
Because our tropes are pretty well known and loved by YA readers, we have pretty straightforward arcs and therefore, our themes are also tried and tested.
Nothing wrong with being simple, clearly these stories are well loved, and audiences have found it satisfying.
Alina has a classic orphan to saviour arc, so naturally this brings out the ‘choosing your own path’ and coming into your own power themes, which audiences love.
We love watching people go up against the system, underdogs elevating themselves and overturning dictatorships, there’s something of the rebel in all of us, that likes to see good people suceed against those who are greedy and want power for the sake of power.
Bardugo shows some real skill in storytelling in this novel.
Except the prologue and epilogue which is written in third person omnisient, It’s written in first person, so there’s deep immersion right from page 1 from out Protaganists POV
The Magic system is introduced in a really organic way. In fact, there is very little exposition or info dumping in general about anything. We discover our world really organically through the character’s eyes and conversation.
We slowly learn about our magic system as different types of Grisha appeared to us. It could have been really tempting as a writer to info dump all that in an explanation, but Bardugo never does, we uncover it all naturally, as a consequence of the plot, so kudos for that. Great example of organic, entertaining world buildling. I think that’s why people have fallen in love with this world, they felt like they discovered it all naturally.
Here’s an example from the beginning of Chapter 3
The soldier swung the rifle back around, jabbing it threateningly at me.
“Stay where you are,” he commanded.
I stared at him, stunned. “What’s wrong with you?”
“She’s awake!” he shouted over his shoulder. He was joined by two more armed soldiers, the captain of the skiff and a Corporalnik. With a thrum of panic, I saw that the cuffs of her red kefta were embroidered in black. What did a Heartrender want with me?
Bardugo, Leigh. Shadow and Bone (THE GRISHA) . Hachette Children's Group. Kindle Edition.
Bardugo also does characterisation organically here: right on the first page of chapter one:
A heavy shoulder slammed into me from behind. I stumbled and nearly pitched face-first into the muddy road.
“Hey!” shouted the soldier. “Watch yourself!”
“Why don’t you watch your fat feet?” I snapped, and took some satisfaction from the surprise that came over his broad face. People, particularly big men carrying big rifles, don’t expect lip from a scrawny thing like me. They always look a bit dazed when they get it.
Bardugo, Leigh. Shadow and Bone (THE GRISHA) . Hachette Children's Group. Kindle Edition.
Bardugo also forshadows the events of the rest of the book, rather nicely right in the first chapter. I noticed this on my second read though:
Mal pulls Alina aside before the Darkling’s coach runs her over.
This is rather poetic forshadowing of him saving her from the darkling’s reach when he rescues her during her flight through the forest.
Someone mentions their mistrust for the Darkling and we actually get the truth of things right there, hidden in conversation:
Alexei sniffed. “Please spare us your superstition, Eva.”
“It was a Darkling who made the Shadow Fold to begin with.”
“That was hundreds of years ago!” protested Alexei. “And that Darkling was completely mad.”
“This one is just as bad.”
Bardugo, Leigh. Shadow and Bone (THE GRISHA) . Hachette Children's Group. Kindle Edition.
Mal makes fun of one of their friends getting eaten by the Volcra, then one of Alina’s friends is eaten.
We also see a glimpse Zoya, who Alina immediatley dislikes and becomes her small time enemy.
Alina then says this:
I scowled. “Please tell me you didn’t just wake me up to inform me that you’re going to the Grisha tent. What do you want, advice?”
Bardugo, Leigh. Shadow and Bone (THE GRISHA) . Hachette Children's Group. Kindle Edition.
Then Just two chapters later she herself is going into the Grisha Tent.
All of this might seem minor, but it really helps in development of tone, and preparing us, subconciously for the coming shocking events and twists. It gives the reader the feeling of satisfaction at a good twist and avoids readers from feeling cheated or as if something just came out of nowhere. So Bardugo does this brilliantly all in the first chapter.
It’s not a cognitively complex novel by any means but it does have some intriguing elements, like the magic system and Alina’s character change right at the end. Her decision will have major consequenes for sure.
But it makes sense that they’ve chosen to incorporate Bardugo’s other famous work, Six of Crows into the Netflix show, they might have needed to flesh out the story line by adding the second book, I don’t think Shadow and Bone would have had enough depth for a TV show due to the lean subplots.
In an article on Den of Nerds dot com, they mention that Bardugo and the script writer developed backstories for the six of crow characters for season 1 of this show. From what I understand, six of crows happens AFTER shadow and bone so it makes sense they’d need some prequel events to lead up to the introduction of their story.
Now everyone went crazy over this trailer, you just have to look at the thousands of comments gushing over views of their favourite characters, quoting their favourite lines and swooning over ther actors.
Its every authors dream to inspire such passion from their readers and certainly the Netflix trailer was an epic one.
We know that Netflix does great fantasy adaptations, we’ve seen the Witcher, Cursed and non book adaptations like Stranger things have all been hits.
With this one, we know that the tv show will be quite different from the book, so it’ll be interesting to see how they tie the two series together.
The teaser looked pretty true to the book so far, Alina looks stubborn and proud, Ben barnes as the Darkling is sufficiently onimous, and the tone screams epic battle in a war torn country perfectly. The shadow fold looks brilliantly evil. The acting was slightly questionable at one moment but the other snippets looked good. So we’ll see on April 23 how it turns out!
And So concludes my analysis of Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardgo and I can truly say I’m lookng forward to the Netflix show.
Thank you for listening. You can find the notes and transcription of this episode as well a complete list of my published works on my website ektaabali.com that (spell it out).
Next episode, we’re going to be doing a deep dive in the world of J.K rowling, and dissecting my first and greatest love. Harry Potter. So I’ll see you next time with Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. See you then!
In news this week
My middle grade fantasy The Unicorn Princess won it’s second award, Not only did we win the silver medal in the Reader’s choice book awards, we also have won the Literary Titan’s Gold Award!
Two days ago, I released my first film analysis on my Youtube Channel. I explain Deadly Illusions a psychological mystery thriller that Netflix released last week. I’m pretty proud of that video so check it out if you’ve seen the movie and wonder what the hell happened on there.
And don’t forget you can watch this podcast on youtube as well. I do aim to post at least one podcast and one youtube video every week, in addition to writing book 3 of my middle grade fantasy.
If you’re interested in any of those, the quickest way to find them is on my website ektaabali.com
Alright, onto my superstar of the week!
Shadow and bone, Book 1 of the Grisha Triology renamed the Shadow and bone trilogy for the netflix show I’m assuming, is a debut fantasy adventure novel published in June 2012 by Macmillan Press.
American author Leigh Bardugo is also the author of the six of crows triology and the King of Scars Duology.
The netflix show comes out April 23 and is going to be a blend of both Shadow and Bone and six of crows, and we’ll going into the reasons why up ahead.
I’ll give you some background first, for those unfamiliar with it, and of course, in order for me to do a full analysis, I will be spoiling the entire novel.
The setting is inspired by Imperial Russia, a lot of our names, language, clothing is russian based.
We are in the country of Ravka and surrounded by enemy countries
Shu Han
Fjerd
So obviously thats Russia surrounded by a china like country and a nordic like country.
Separating Ravka is The Shadow Fold, a sea of darkness where vicious flying creatures called the Volcra live. The story centers around this location because it has caused a lot of problems for the last hundered years. To sail into it is basically asking for death so you can’t do it without a whole group of soldiers and magic using people.
The magic system has a cast influence. So the Grisha, those with magical ability form the upper class, and those who do not have ability are the lower class. Magical ability is specialised so each person has their own class of magic or speciality and corresponding ranking and Kefta colours. A Kefta is an elegant coat the Grisha wear everywhere so you know their order and designation.
Favoured Grisha have Amplifiers made ouot mythical creatures that elevates their power to make them more powerful.
I think one of reasons why this series is popular is because of this magic system, audiences tend to enjoy hierarchial structures and specific disciplines when it comes to magic. This society also labels their magic users using colour coded clothing which audiences also love because they can put out characters into boxes and then wonder about which box they themselves would fit in.
The magic users, the Grisha are divded into 3 categories which are then divided into 2-3 subgroups. Then there are outliers who have unique powers that no one else seems to have.
We have the Coporalnik the warriors, the Etheralki the summoners and the Fabrikators who are craftsmen.
So The highest ranking are the
Corporalnik- The Order of Warriors wear Red Kefta .
Heartrender- or blood letters, they basically kill people, Black Embroidery on their cuffs
Healer- Grey Embroidery on cuff
The Etheralki- The Order of Summoners wear a Blue Kafka
Squallers can raise and lower air pressure - Silver embroidery on their cuffs
Inferni- those can manipulate fire- red embroidery
Tidemakers- blue embroidery they shift water
The Darkling is a unique summoner of the dark, the only one of his kind, so he wears black.
The protaganist Alina is a summoner of the sun and the only one, so the darkling prefers her to wear black as well
The Lowest ranking are the
Fabrikator- Craftspeople who wear Purple
Materialki- works with cloth
So a short summary of the plot:
The story centers around orphan Alina Starkov and her childhood best friend slash crush Mal who work as a cartographer and tracker respectively, within the army.
As an orphan she is tested as a child and assumed powerless, but when Mal’s life is threatned on their trip over the Shadow Fold, her power is released and they realise she is a Sun Summoner, a rare kind of Grisha that has not existed before and the key to eliminating the darkness of the Fold and uniting the county.
The Darkling, a powerful Grisha leader of the county inferior only to the King elevates her to Grisha status and takes her to the palace where she is trained and has a minor romance with the Darkling
At our midpoint turn one of her teachers informs her that the Darkling is her son and he has been lying to her this whole time. He wants to give Alina an amplifier in the form of a mytical stag’s antlers and use her to control the world. He wants to overthrow the King and take control of the continent. Alina runs away. Mal finds her and they decide to go after the Amplifer together.
The Darkling Finds them just as they find the Amplifier Stag. The Darkling kills the Stag and enslaves Alina with her new collar made from the antlers.
He takes her to the Shadow fold where everyone thinks she is there to destroy the darkness with her light, except he uses her to threaten the envoys of the other countries and bring them under his control.
Alina realises that she is not enslaved by her collar and can control her own power. She traps the ship in darkness, leaving the Darkling and some of her old friends to be eaten by the Volcra and she and Mal escape.
We end with Mal and Alina sailing on the real sea, running away from the Darkling’s pursuit.
Okay our story is out classic chosen one story along the lines of harry potter, star wars etc.
Pretty straight forward, orphan elevated to powerful saviour.
So we have a pretty simple main plot that I can break down into 9 plot points.
1. Alina is an orphan and unknowingly hides her power
2. When she’s older her power explodes in a life or death situation on the Shadow Fold.
3. She’s taken for training
4. She discovers she has been lied to and a disastorous plot to enslave her is underfoot.
5. She runs away
6. She gets captured and enslaved
7. Her power is used against her will
8. She finds she has control over her power and uses it to kill everyone and escape.
9. Close with sailing into the sunset to a different land.
As for subplots, they are all romances, but quite small romances/brief.
1. Darkling romance
2. Mal romance
3. Rivalry between her and Zoya a Grisha at the palace.
Plot:
Now this is a pretty simple novel. When I say that, I mean that it has a simple primary plot and very little by way of subplot, making it feel to me, simpler than other novels in the same vein as this one.
In the Harry Potter episode we talked about how the subplots really make harry potter what it is, and that the actual plot in philosopher’s stone is quite simple.
In Shadow and Bone, I felt like I was looking for more depth and complexity and never quite got it, leaving me unsatified at the end.
I kind of went. Wait, What? That’s the end?
It felt a little simple, perhaps it was written for the younger YA audience, I’m not sure.
Now, for me as a reader that was a problem of my expectations,
Why did I have those expectations? Because of the promises I was made in the set up.
Shadow and Bone has all the trappings of something deep and complex like Hunger Games.
There’s a multicountry war going on, so the tone at the start of the novel set this large scale slightly more epic story than I got.
Stats
We are 90k words, making it 365 pages
There are 24 chapters total, made up by a prologue, 22 chapters and an epilogue.
Bardugo sets a good pace at the start, but I really felt it slow down in after she gets to the palace, I did get a bit bored from chapters 6-13 where the plot, the main thread dosen’t seem to be moving, we get a few minor, subplots and what feels like set up and context building to the scenes instead.
Then the pace starts back up again from chapter 16 to 22 where she leaves the palace we’re on the run and things are happening and there’s more narative drive.
Bardugo hits her milestones, a little pretty on point. She’s a bit looser with her midpoint turn as she has a sequence of 3 chapters that make up this.
We get two set up chapters the prologue and chapter 1
The inciting Incdient happens at 10%, in chapter 2
The first plot point at 14% Chapter 3
The first pinch point is at 18% Chapter 4
Chapter 6-13 are all her training in the castle.
At chapter 12 46% we do get a midpoint of sorts where she can use her power now.
But I think out real turn of events is Chapter 16, 60% where the context changes completly and she is on the run.
We get our climax at 87%
And the epilogue is a our resolution which is not really a resolution- more of a to be continued.
Which is clever, because it really made me want to reach for the next book.
To me if anything this story felt a little derivative and a little simple. So I needed to know why it was so popular, and in this analysis hopefully we can uncover those reasons.
We’ve already uncovered one, the magic system is quite enticing and I felt that the developement of the setting and the worldbuilding was really well done, I got a good sense of where we were and what kind of world we were in.
THe main characters are your straightforward main character, love interest, antagonist. There’s nothing too complex about the first two. The Darkling possibly has a deeper backstory, but the first book we don’t see that much of him really.
All well known tropes, borderline overused. There’s nothing really wrong about that, unless if you read a lot of YA, it comes across as derivative, and might not keep your attention.
I think audiences probably loved the clear straight forward nature of it all.
ALINA
She’s your classic chosen one character, starts off as a powerful lower class orphan and is then elevated to be all powerful saviour of the people. She comes into her own power, and at the end, we see her basically leave the people she once called friends and allies for dead. It’s pretty ruthless and appears out of character here, but we’re getting some much needed complexity from her, I just don’t know if the anti-hero route will pay off in a satisfying way here. Her actions at the end of the book kind of made me dislike her as the main character. So I’m interested to see where the next book goes with her arc.
MAL
Is a secondary character, Alina’s primary love interest and one arm of the love triangle. He’s shown as the type of guy all women swoon over, and men admire. He’s the best tracker in the army and he starts off as a happy go lucky guy who turns into a bitter and jaded one tby the time we catch up with him in the mid point turn. When he catches Alina running away, he eventually realises that he has always loved her.
He gets a pretty simple, straight forward arc with some minor complexity.
DARKLING
So the darkling is one of the reasons YA audiences love this book. We get the sense of a powerl, dark man who’s reputation precedes him in the novel. He appears as an ominious mysterious figure, who’s ruthless but shows a gentle care towards our protagnist and we know that audiences love this type of character.
We’re left in a weird place with him at the end of the book, Alina starts to fall for him in the middle and then we have our twist and she dosen’t know what to believe about him anymore. He’s suddenly showing his true self, powerhungry and willing to comit minor genocide/ mass murder to get what he wants, so I’m not sure how we as an audience can put him in a favourable light after that. We definitley had a love triangle going which I’m assume will be continued in the next books.
The tertairy characters are well rounded, the most notable we have
Genya- who has the most developed back story and adds a brilliant a complexity
Baghra- who appears one way for half the novel then gives us our lovely twist in the middle
The other Grisha characters in the palace all have distinct persoanlities and relationships with the protagnists.
A brief word on themes.
Shadow and Bone is pretty thematically derivative, we have our classics:
Good verus Evil
Love & Friendship
Coming into your own Power
Because our tropes are pretty well known and loved by YA readers, we have pretty straightforward arcs and therefore, our themes are also tried and tested.
Nothing wrong with being simple, clearly these stories are well loved, and audiences have found it satisfying.
Alina has a classic orphan to saviour arc, so naturally this brings out the ‘choosing your own path’ and coming into your own power themes, which audiences love.
We love watching people go up against the system, underdogs elevating themselves and overturning dictatorships, there’s something of the rebel in all of us, that likes to see good people suceed against those who are greedy and want power for the sake of power.
Bardugo shows some real skill in storytelling in this novel.
Except the prologue and epilogue which is written in third person omnisient, It’s written in first person, so there’s deep immersion right from page 1 from out Protaganists POV
The Magic system is introduced in a really organic way. In fact, there is very little exposition or info dumping in general about anything. We discover our world really organically through the character’s eyes and conversation.
We slowly learn about our magic system as different types of Grisha appeared to us. It could have been really tempting as a writer to info dump all that in an explanation, but Bardugo never does, we uncover it all naturally, as a consequence of the plot, so kudos for that. Great example of organic, entertaining world buildling. I think that’s why people have fallen in love with this world, they felt like they discovered it all naturally.
Here’s an example from the beginning of Chapter 3
The soldier swung the rifle back around, jabbing it threateningly at me.
“Stay where you are,” he commanded.
I stared at him, stunned. “What’s wrong with you?”
“She’s awake!” he shouted over his shoulder. He was joined by two more armed soldiers, the captain of the skiff and a Corporalnik. With a thrum of panic, I saw that the cuffs of her red kefta were embroidered in black. What did a Heartrender want with me?
Bardugo, Leigh. Shadow and Bone (THE GRISHA) . Hachette Children's Group. Kindle Edition.
Bardugo also does characterisation organically here: right on the first page of chapter one:
A heavy shoulder slammed into me from behind. I stumbled and nearly pitched face-first into the muddy road.
“Hey!” shouted the soldier. “Watch yourself!”
“Why don’t you watch your fat feet?” I snapped, and took some satisfaction from the surprise that came over his broad face. People, particularly big men carrying big rifles, don’t expect lip from a scrawny thing like me. They always look a bit dazed when they get it.
Bardugo, Leigh. Shadow and Bone (THE GRISHA) . Hachette Children's Group. Kindle Edition.
Bardugo also forshadows the events of the rest of the book, rather nicely right in the first chapter. I noticed this on my second read though:
Mal pulls Alina aside before the Darkling’s coach runs her over.
This is rather poetic forshadowing of him saving her from the darkling’s reach when he rescues her during her flight through the forest.
Someone mentions their mistrust for the Darkling and we actually get the truth of things right there, hidden in conversation:
Alexei sniffed. “Please spare us your superstition, Eva.”
“It was a Darkling who made the Shadow Fold to begin with.”
“That was hundreds of years ago!” protested Alexei. “And that Darkling was completely mad.”
“This one is just as bad.”
Bardugo, Leigh. Shadow and Bone (THE GRISHA) . Hachette Children's Group. Kindle Edition.
Mal makes fun of one of their friends getting eaten by the Volcra, then one of Alina’s friends is eaten.
We also see a glimpse Zoya, who Alina immediatley dislikes and becomes her small time enemy.
Alina then says this:
I scowled. “Please tell me you didn’t just wake me up to inform me that you’re going to the Grisha tent. What do you want, advice?”
Bardugo, Leigh. Shadow and Bone (THE GRISHA) . Hachette Children's Group. Kindle Edition.
Then Just two chapters later she herself is going into the Grisha Tent.
All of this might seem minor, but it really helps in development of tone, and preparing us, subconciously for the coming shocking events and twists. It gives the reader the feeling of satisfaction at a good twist and avoids readers from feeling cheated or as if something just came out of nowhere. So Bardugo does this brilliantly all in the first chapter.
It’s not a cognitively complex novel by any means but it does have some intriguing elements, like the magic system and Alina’s character change right at the end. Her decision will have major consequenes for sure.
But it makes sense that they’ve chosen to incorporate Bardugo’s other famous work, Six of Crows into the Netflix show, they might have needed to flesh out the story line by adding the second book, I don’t think Shadow and Bone would have had enough depth for a TV show due to the lean subplots.
In an article on Den of Nerds dot com, they mention that Bardugo and the script writer developed backstories for the six of crow characters for season 1 of this show. From what I understand, six of crows happens AFTER shadow and bone so it makes sense they’d need some prequel events to lead up to the introduction of their story.
Now everyone went crazy over this trailer, you just have to look at the thousands of comments gushing over views of their favourite characters, quoting their favourite lines and swooning over ther actors.
Its every authors dream to inspire such passion from their readers and certainly the Netflix trailer was an epic one.
We know that Netflix does great fantasy adaptations, we’ve seen the Witcher, Cursed and non book adaptations like Stranger things have all been hits.
With this one, we know that the tv show will be quite different from the book, so it’ll be interesting to see how they tie the two series together.
The teaser looked pretty true to the book so far, Alina looks stubborn and proud, Ben barnes as the Darkling is sufficiently onimous, and the tone screams epic battle in a war torn country perfectly. The shadow fold looks brilliantly evil. The acting was slightly questionable at one moment but the other snippets looked good. So we’ll see on April 23 how it turns out!
And So concludes my analysis of Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardgo and I can truly say I’m lookng forward to the Netflix show.
Thank you for listening. You can find the notes and transcription of this episode as well a complete list of my published works on my website ektaabali.com that (spell it out).
Next episode, we’re going to be doing a deep dive in the world of J.K rowling, and dissecting my first and greatest love. Harry Potter. So I’ll see you next time with Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. See you then!