Written by Otaku Apologist
The second season of ‘Shadow and Bone’ hit Neflix on March 16, 2023. The first season released in April 2021. I binge-watched both, here are my thoughts about this. But before the analysis, let’s go over the basics.
Shadow and Bone is a young adult fantasy adventure and debut novel written by Israeli-American author Leigh Bardugo. It was published by Macmillan Publishers on June 5, 2012. The novel is narrated by Alina Starkov, a teenage orphan who grows up in the Russia-inspired land of Ravka when, unexpectedly harnessing a power she never knew she had in order to save her childhood best friend, she becomes a target of intrigue and violence. It is the first book in the Shadow and Bone trilogy, followed by Siege and Storm and Ruin and Rising. It is also the basis for the Netflix adaptation, Shadow and Bone, which premiered in April 2021. – source
Please note, I will spoil much of this show in this writeup. Go watch it if you plan to, come back to this text later.
The entire series can be watched as a story of a bad breakup. You have a charismatic ultra nationalist, who is older and more experienced than his love interest. He represents the masculine paradigm of governance, as he is established to be an immortal leader who has lived numerous consecutive lifetimes. He represents continuity, tradition, tribalism, pragmatism. His one flaw is his fanaticism and inability to see any hope. While the series quite masterfully articulates his point of view, and you’d almost love to agree with him, his extreme actions often involve the killing of people he views as enemies. He says at one point in season two that he views hope as an illusion. Without it, you have “clarity”. His version of clarity is black-and-white thinking that motivates him to commit slaughter.
The central conflict in the show is that the Darkling, as they call him, created the “Shadow Fold”, a magical border between the nations. Wrapped in shadow, innumerable flying monsters roam the Fold. This demarcation line makes many things more difficult for the nations, but at least prevents them from waging war against each other.
At the end of season one, the Darkling tried to use Alina’s grisha abilities to turn the Shadow Fold into a weapon of mass destruction. He tried to start killing the populations of entire nations, expanding the Fold into their lands.
While the Darkling is the villain, he is also the main love interest of the female lead. After their breakup in season one, he now comes into her dreams and talks with her using a psychic link. Alina tries to sever this link in vain, until the Darkling’s mother cuts his hand off (the hand had runes that maintained the spell).
Basically, he is a stalker. Their emotional connection isn’t severed by their breakup, which was originally a confusing situation. It’s the usual story of an evasive woman and a determined man who believes their differences can be settled via conversation. He has ample reason to believe this, as Alina’s evasive behavior began not after an argument between them, but when she listened to the man’s mother, who shit-talked him. Alina naively accepted everything the mother said on face value and escaped his castle. Had she talked with him, would that have made a difference? Regardless, things got confusing between them. This often happens in relationships, you learn new information and have to reassess things.
The problem is, the Darkling employs extreme methods all the time, even coercing his woman instead of trying to persuade her to his views. This is because his views are so solid, he allows no room for refinement. No dialog, just enforcement. He has “clarity”, which could as well be called depression. This fuels his zealotry. He is an amazing man with incredible power and leadership skills, but… he is a zealot who thinks on black-and-white terms and has abandoned hope. This is why he ultimately fails to live up to his potential as a man and receives the ultimate rejection at the end.
Now, if that description didn’t already answer your question, here’s why the wokeness of this series isn’t an issue. Because it is very woke, with a racially diverse cast and hardcore girl power moments. But as the story features multiple nations, having multiple races makes perfect sense. Most importantly, there is no issue because it’s female fiction and original intellectual property. There is thus no disrespect to the source material. It’s not out of place to explore the female lived experience in female fiction. Duh.
Short mention about the technicals. Everything from the acting to the dialog, sets and clothes, are well done. Special effects are cool too, you’re rarely taken out of the moment by something looking cheap or weird. The final battle wasn’t as impressive as I would’ve hoped, but for a television series with a limited runtime per episode, it all wraps up nicely.
Back to analysis. When I watch or read female fiction, I don’t expect a balanced depiction of the sexes. I expect to see the other perspective. It’s valuable to see these biases and distortions, they’re often informative. Choosing a perspective to write your fiction from makes it more coherent. Your views should always be articulated in relation to the opposition, because good fiction is a debate, not a soap box. The writer was adequately able to explore the Darkling’s perspective, even showing how Alina’s naivety is her defining fault.
The very last moments of season two indicate strongly that Alina is still in way over her head, despite rallying an entire nation behind her. After the dramatic events of the final scene, you could even say, the Darkling was correct. He had several lifetimes to assess the complex situation of the nations of Ravka. As the body count keeps stacking, we can see his cynicism was well-informed.
I’ve been through a couple breakups like this. Age difference is a big problem in many relationships, because the woman is often a decade or two younger than the man. There’s simply no way she can physically have done enough reading and thinking, to have waivered her youthful naivety. And if she has strong convictions of her own, based on half-assed research, it’s very difficult to make it work. She’ll have ideas like, nations should not have borders, a nation should not have an army. All taxes should be abolished, women should get equal pay, all these naive feel-good notions that cannot ever become the social standard without losing things of far greater value in the process.
It’s a healthy exercise to test limits occasionally, to remember where they go. But ultimately, you respect them.
