#kaz and inej especially. their actors fucking NAILED them

[piratespencil]

Finished watching Shadow & Bone s2 last night and my Six of Crows obsession has returned full force. Just catapulted me back to 2016-2017. I love those crows so much.

[zoomy-brain]

Y’all. I cannot explain how relieved I am Shadow and Bone turned out so good!!! I’m so happyyyyy!!! Thoughts and rambles under the cut!

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OKAY SO, short version: it’s really good, hot damn!!

Long version (spoilers btw): I was so worried mixing the six of crew with Alina’s story was gonna be weird and not work. But thank gods they have great writers on the team (and Leigh Bardugo), and it works very very well.

Alina’s story is, let us be honest, pretty dry and boring as a series. Most of the book goes into her inner struggle with her grisha powers and her self-image and her relationship with the Darkling, a lot of it is inner turmoil. Not so interesting for a series. So adding the Six of Crew before the plot of Six of Crows is a really good idea to fill up a lot of empty space, and introduce the much more complicated characters, as well as how they work with each other. And after all the build up, when all the mains meet in the end, it’s so satisfying. Six of Crows andthe trilogy have always felt like seperate entities, but they somehow made me WANT to cross each other and be buddies. (Also Inej feeling enlightened by meeting Alina had me soaring, it was something I didn’t know I wanted 💛💛💛)

Casting is freaking perfect. The Darkling couldn’t be anyone BUT Ben Barnes, fuckin nailed it. Everyone‘s acting was amazing, Jesper especially was spot-on, Mal and Alina really took what they got and made it charming and interesting, Nina and Matthias are perfect in every way. The characters aren’t 100% the same as in the book, which is dangerous but they didn’t take anything away. In fact, they added and made it work for a tv-series format. Kaz is intimidating but he’s not all-powerful from the start, which is very different from the book but it still works. Alina is half Shu now, which I didn’t think would be necessary until she ran away to a Ravkan village, where they immediately look at her with suspicion, making her struggle to stay out of the limelight (heh) harder, so it DOES add something. There’s a lot of little things like that in every character that wouldn’t have worked as well in the book, but it does here because it’s acted and framed very well 👏👏👏

I’m surprised how much I love the magic system in the series. Reading the book, you can only do so much with your imagination. In the series, the effects are well done but what makes the grisha powers work, is the actor’s mannerisms when they use them. The harsh arm movements and the sound effects added to it, really make it feel like it’s an effort they barely have to think twice about. Aka, what the last airbender movie SHOULD have done.

If I HAVE to complain about 1 thing, it’s just that I wish the world was a little more interesting. I blame this on my own imagination going wild when i was reading the books, but Ketterdam felt massive AS WELL as claustrophobic. The show has the claustrophobia down, but not the whole Capital-City-ness of Ketterdam. Maybe that’ll happen once the Six Of Crows arc starts? I also thought the Little Palace was wayyyyy underwhelming. Especially knowing the kind of architecture Russia can come up with when they built palaces, that shit should’ve had more domes, bruh. But then again, alternatively, the Fold was really well done. A problem a lot of films have these days is that none of them know how to film Dark Scenes. As in literal dark, lights out, scenes. See: any DC film ever, except Wonder Woman. The Fold wasn’t blindingly dark, you could still clearly see the characters and their expressions. What made the Fold work was the pressing dark mist that was always hovering over them and how people talked about the Fold. Kinda like how Voldemort became intimidating solely by how other people talked about him. As well as the Stag’s forest. Mmmm that’s some good snowy scenery 👌👌👌

Other notable moments that made me go “FUCK YES, GOOD SHIT”: Nina gets her waffles in season 1, Jesper meets the second love of his life Milo, 2 heists, Kaz announcing them as heists, mission impossible-esque filming of said heists, plottwists that weren’t in the books (which means the writers thought of us, the fans, and i love them for it), Alina’s Sarcasm, Ben Barnes, Inej gets to circus, Jesper gets frisky in the stables, Jesper gets to Show Off, Kaz gets to Go Off, Nina has Volumes, the Shag’s Majestic Antlers (tm)

Just- oof- so good. I need more people to talk with about Shadow and Bone, the adaptation that’s doing it Right. It’s sooo good, I finished yesterday and I wanna watch it again already.