Orla the Witch

A summary of the issues with confusing a discussion of adaptation choices and a discussion of writing decisions in the new Shadow & Bones

I understand that some people are frustrated with season 2 of Shadow and Bone seeming quite rushed but I think there are several reasons behind it

As someone who has been in fandoms of shows which were too slow-paced and were discontinued before many much-awaited scenes (and slow-burn ships) could happen on-screen, I'm actually glad they did what they did lol

I don't disagree with any of the above points exactly, it's similar to mine that most of the changes were made because of the business model of streaming currently and perceived fan desires but those aren't good reasons to make writing decisions that can't be justified without those factors.

Just because I can understand why someone made a bad writing decision for market reasons doesn't make it a good writing decision.

Take a random example of a scene that was iconic in the books that got transposed to the show - Kaz fighting in the Slat.

(I preface this with Freddy acted his socks off and this was not on him)

In the books, this was his gang since he was a child, he'd protected this people, bled with them and made them respected. Then they betrayed him. Kaz's return to the Slat wasn't just about what a good fighter he is, it was theatre. It proved he had the spine to lead them and it brought them back to rally behind him. When he leaves, there's a very real chance this gamble could get him killed and it's told from Inej's POV so we see how afraid for him she is. It had emotional weight as well as a cool fight sequence.

In the show, Kaz goes to a random gang he isn't in and we've never seen before and beats up a bunch of strangers for some unstated reason and now they're going to do as he says...???? For some reason???

Shadow & Bone (the show) is an interesting case study in modern book to screen adaptations and the influence of assumed fan reactions.

I was pretty forgiving of the decision to splice together the first five grishverse books in the show since the showrunners weren't willing to gamble on making audiences wait potentially 2 seasons to see fan favourite characters the Crows. It was a marketing more than a narrative decision but we all know how easily series can get cancelled after 1 season on streaming services even if they end on a cliff-hanger (most recently shows like Willow on Disney plus or The Bastard Son & the Devil Himself on Netflix)

So if we allow that decision is what is needed to have the show happens, it could be done in a way that worked with the themes of the books. A huge reoccurring theme in grishverse is that things and people are more interconnected than they realize. Often the reader knows things about characters that are never spoken aloud that shows they have connections or commonalities they don't even realize. But the show goes about this with a hamfisted lack of grace. All the characters announce their secrets constantly, their connections are all overt, clumsy and acknowledged aloud.

Still you could probably shrug that off as just the challenge of adaptation is not for the strange ending of season 2, where the two main characters of the original trilogy had their character arcs and themes completely inverted. It's hard to imagine why that would have happened except because the fandom had never been as invested in them as other characters.

But given that a season 3 seems guaranteed, I have no idea how they write their way out of this strange corner? It reminds me a lot of the final two seasons of Game of Thrones.

I finished the latest two books of the series right before watching season 2 and that just added to the let down. The term fanservice is too often misused to be useful but I think there's definitely a term needed for when an adaptation has paid too much attention to fan works or conversations and it's weakened their ability to put their own coherent version together.

This kind of adaptation uses caricatures of the original characters because it doesn't trust the audience to be able to keep up and fans of the books will fill in the gaps in the shallow writing because they know what should be there.