How ‘Six of Crows’ is Integrated into ‘Shadow & Bone’
The Shadow and Bone series on Netflix has pleased fans with the book series by Leigh Bardugo. However, there have been some changes and the spin-off series Six of Crows and its sequel Crooked Kingdom have both been integrated into season two of the series. For those of you who don’t know who the crows are, the team consists of six people; Kaz, Inej, Jesper, Wylan, Nina and Matthias.
About the Author
Leigh Bardugo is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Ninth House and the creator of the Grishaverse which spans the ‘Shadow and Bone’ trilogy, the ‘Six of Crows’ duology, the ‘King of Scars’ duology - and much more. She lives in Los Angeles and is an associate fellow of Pauli Murray College at Yale University.
What is season two of ‘Shadow and Bone’ about?
In season two, Alina and Mal are together and they believe that they have seen the end of The Darkling. However, Alina and General Kirigan are still linked to each other because of the stag, almost like a bridge between them. In the first episode, Alina has a premonition that the fold will expand and wipe everyone out. She brushes it off as a dream but then the fold does expand. Now people believe that Alina and The Darkling are working together to expand the fold and there is a bounty on both of their heads. While Alina and Mal are on the hunt for other amplifiers they meet some people from Shu and turns out they find Prince Nikolai along the way, determined to help them and bring Alina to safety.
Prince Nikolai has built a safe haven for Grisha and wants to create unity in Ravka, which is the opposite of what his brother, King of Ravka has been doing. On the other hand, the crows have been getting to know each other by helping Nina get to Matthias but that is quickly cut short because Alina needed their assistance. Somehow, they managed to get tangled up in looking for a sword that can kill extensions of shadow people from The Darkling. Everyone comes together to help Alina and Mal in the end, but not everything goes according to plan. People remain scarred after fighting The Darkling and some characters have been changed forever because of the events that transpire.
How is ‘Six of Crows’ Integrated?
Six of Crows is integrated solely with the character relationships and how they work after the first season. Inej and Kaz have gotten closer, Nina is now thrown into the mix with them as their heartrender, and Jesper meets Wylan. The book covers many threads but the main one that runs throughout is about the concoction of jurda parem. The six of them (without even trying) uncover the person who created it and they learn about what it does. This “potion” can alter Grisha's powers for a short time and it is used as a drug to control them. If the Grisha does not get more of the jurda parem, they can go into withdrawal and die if they don’t make it through the wave.
The jurda parem comes in at the end of season two when Alina is at the marriage ceremony with Nikolai. One Grisha takes the potion and goes after Alina, but then Alina attacks only her with a new set of powers. While that happens, the crows catch wind of what jurda parem is, which will eventually lead to their spin-off series searching for it. Six of Crows is an extension of what the crows do when they aren’t around Alina. This is why the seasons of Shadow and Bone come off as a bit jumbled because there are many characters in the mix. The main tie-in from the spin-off series by Leigh Bardugo explores the characters we have grown to love and their relationships. They go on a journey on behalf of Nina for Matthias but it takes longer in the book because it directly leads them to Van Eck and Pekka Rollins. The entire subplot of Kaz Brekker and Pekka Rollins is rushed in season two, while in the book there’s not as much depth with his older brother.
When will the ‘Six of Crows’ spin-off series come out?
When season two of Shadow and Bone was released, the producers put a heavy emphasis on what streaming numbers would mean for the series. On top of that, fans noticed throughout the season that they were dropping hints in the title cards with the crows which are vastly different than what they did with the first season. Shortly after the season premiere, on Sunday, the showrunner Eric Heisserer revealed to Entertainment Weekly that he had been secretly developing a Six of Crows spin-off to explore jurda parem in full without taking away from the next season of Shadow and Bone. The spin-off series would work off the finale of Shadow and Bone season two and will have eight episodes to give the six crows more character development.
There is no exact date as of right now, but the streaming numbers do matter and unfortunately, Shadow and Bone season 2 did not come out on top after their first weekend. It came in second to another popular Netflix series, You which is in its fourth season and was split into two parts to boot. The second part came out a week before and had an extra kick as people decided to wait for part two of the season to binge the entire thing in its second weekend. To compare, Shadow and Bone season 2 garnered 50.4 million hours viewed versus 64.1 million hours viewed for You season 4, as reported by Deadline. Even though Shadow and Bone season 2 placed second in the rankings, there is still a demand and audience for Six of Crows because those characters are now fan favourites.
If you’re a fan of Six of Crows and Shadow and Bone make your voices heard on social media to get that spin-off series. And of course, a season 3 of Shadow and Bone on Netflix. Which book by Leigh Bardugo is your favourite in the series?
