But Li must also represent an Alina who endures racism on top of the literal darkness devouring her homeland. Li is half Chinese and her race immediately becomes a focal point: She mentions that she looks like her mother, “and she looked like the enemy.” This is an interesting change for Alina's character, given that one of the most frequent criticisms among Grishaverse fans is that Alina is a cookie-cutter Chosen One: the blonde from a bad background who’s revealed, in the end, to be beautiful and powerful and desired by all the boys. If you’ve read the Grishaverse novels from which Shadow and Bone is adapted, you’ll remember Alina is depicted as a plain, waif-like brunette (later blonde) with little to no meat on her bones. As she rolls by carriage through the land of East Ravka, she’s sketching the Shadow Fold, a line of pure darkness that cuts through her home country, stunting its opportunities for trade and travel. Might as well mark this with a big neon sign that reads, “Foreshadowing,” for what it’s worth.īut then we see the young woman’s face: And, of course, it’s our heroine, Alina Starkov ( Jessie Mei Lei). As the camera draws closer, it reveals an eagle etched into the cloth, as a young woman’s voice warns us that the darkness is full of monsters. We open with the ominous image of a broken ship, its sail flapping uselessly in the wind. Below, takes you through Episode 1, “A Searing Burst of Light,” and lays out what you need to understand by the time the credits roll. To understand the full breadth of the exposition Shadow and Bone packs in during its first few episodes, it’s helpful to get a breakdown, scene by scene.

There’s good and evil and magic-but not the sort of magic you’re thinking-plus heists and criminals, kings and saints, and why don’t we toss a little war in there for good measure? If you’ve started watching Netflix’s newest fantasy series, you’ll already know that the enormous universe built from Leigh Bardugo’s YA series is a complicated one to understand, especially if you've yet to read the source material. I hate to break it to you, but that’s part of the fun of Shadow and Bone-the show’s creators squeeze as much lore as possible into every second on camera. So you’ve officially taken your first step into the Grishaverse, and in mere moments, you’re lost.

Shadow and bone ruin and rising