Tun Kai Poh
Hero
BitD is a great way to look at the Crows - in fact, official BitD designer Pam Punzalan (team lead on the upcoming Dagger Isles supplement) wrote a BitD hack set in the Grishaverse - you can get it for PWYW on itch...
[Netflix] Shadow & Bones
Tonguez
A suffusion of yellow
That hack is amazingly well detailed (and a little spoilery!). I particularly liked the extensive “things overheard in town” tables. It makes for a compelling setting to play inBitD is a great way to look at the Crows - in fact, official BitD designer Pam Punzalan (team lead on the upcoming Dagger Isles supplement) wrote a BitD hack set in the Grishaverse - you can get it for PWYW on itch...
Ruin Explorer
Legend
There's a really good reason for that.
The first three books in the Grishaverse were a trilogy centered entirely around Alina, and the first book was basically initially a Twilight rip-off, with The Darkling mapping to Edward, and Mal to Jacob. But even by the end of the book, that was look looking questionable, and then over the other two books it turned into a well-developed sort of war-saga, but one that featured an awful lot of sitting around in caves, dealing with religious fanatics, and so on.
It also didn't feature the Crows at all. They're from the fourth and fifth Grishaverse books (Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom), which were a largely self-contained duology and probably the most fun and involving pieces Leigh Bardugo has ever written.
The first season maps pretty well to book one, but with the Twilight-ness dialled down, and the Crows inserted doing all sorts of crazy stuff.
The second season basically says "Screw it!" to books 2 & 3 of the first trilogy, cuts out easily 90% of what happens in them - basically anything that isn't absolutely essential to how the characters will be in future and particularly introducing Nikolai Lantsov and the Bataars - and puts in loads more Crow stuff, a bit borrowed from the Crow books, some entirely made up by the showrunner (albeit done well enough I was kind of confused as to whether I was just forgetting a bit), and essentially made it more of a Crows-centric show. Plus Nikolai and the Bataars feel more in-tune with the Crows stuff than the angsty romance stuff.
I will say that there are elements of the last episode of the show that are extremely different to the books. Spoilers for those who want them (don't read unless won't or have read the first three books). Note these also spoil the end the current season of the show, obviously.
Alina is the main change. In the books, to destroy the fold, she kills Mal, just as in the show. But it doesn't seem to work - she loses her powers. Then dozens (or more) of other people suddenly become sun summoners, gaining fractions of her amplified power, and they work together (instinctively) to destroy the fold. Mal is brought back by a heartrender in both (though it's the Bataars, not Nina, in the books). So book-Alina has no powers, and she, Mal, Nikolai and a few others claim she and Mal died in the battle and then she and Mal basically go live as normal people, neither with any powers anymore. Whereas in the show, she personally destroys the fold, and keeps pretending to be Nikolai's fiancée, and seemingly also gains shadow powers as well. This is a huge change from the books and I'm not sure what they'll do with it.
All books spoilers for other changes (don't read unless have read or won't read the later books):
David is already dead. This is kind of wild because he's sort of vital to the plot of book 6/7, and does die, but only towards the end of book 7. This potentially changes both the plot of those books Genya's entire character.
The religious fanatics aren't dealt with at all - this is maybe less significant because they can be repurposed for stuff from book 6/7.
Inej has her motivations/fears basically just deleted. Her fear of Tante Heleen is a huge character point which causes issues in books 4/5 - but Tante Heleen is murdered off-screen to frame Kaz in S2 of the show. So a ton of Inej's character moments are gone there. Inej's big motivation in book 4/5 is to get money to pay off her indenture and buy a ship to hunt slavers. But in season 2 her indenture is cancelled and she's given a ship to fight slavers and get her parents back (?!? - the latter is a change from the books - they weren't enslaved, just she was - she was just out-of-touch with them). So basically her big character stuff is entirely deleted, and we just have the romantic tension with Kaz, which is far less fraught if she no longer needs the money. Bizarre-seeming choices here.
Kaz and the Crows seem to be being sent on a mission to get the guy who made Jurda Parem, and Kaz sounds almost patriotic about it (?!?). This seems like a major change to the angle in the book where it really is mostly about the money for everyone but Nina/Matthias. It also seems like their new connections to Ravka mean it would only make sense for Ravka to be backing them, which means Crooked Kingdom basically couldn't happen in any recognisable form - unfortunate because it's at least the equal-best book, arguably even better than Six of Crows, even.
The religious fanatics aren't dealt with at all - this is maybe less significant because they can be repurposed for stuff from book 6/7.
Inej has her motivations/fears basically just deleted. Her fear of Tante Heleen is a huge character point which causes issues in books 4/5 - but Tante Heleen is murdered off-screen to frame Kaz in S2 of the show. So a ton of Inej's character moments are gone there. Inej's big motivation in book 4/5 is to get money to pay off her indenture and buy a ship to hunt slavers. But in season 2 her indenture is cancelled and she's given a ship to fight slavers and get her parents back (?!? - the latter is a change from the books - they weren't enslaved, just she was - she was just out-of-touch with them). So basically her big character stuff is entirely deleted, and we just have the romantic tension with Kaz, which is far less fraught if she no longer needs the money. Bizarre-seeming choices here.
Kaz and the Crows seem to be being sent on a mission to get the guy who made Jurda Parem, and Kaz sounds almost patriotic about it (?!?). This seems like a major change to the angle in the book where it really is mostly about the money for everyone but Nina/Matthias. It also seems like their new connections to Ravka mean it would only make sense for Ravka to be backing them, which means Crooked Kingdom basically couldn't happen in any recognisable form - unfortunate because it's at least the equal-best book, arguably even better than Six of Crows, even.
The books long predate Arcane, and indeed when Arcane came out a lot of book-readers were observing that it was quite similar in a lot of ways to Six of Crows/Crooked Kingdom - but it's really just the general mileux. The books are actually more similar because Kaz and the Crows are a lot rougher than they are in the TV show.
What did you consider stupid? I'm interested to see if it's stuff changed from the books.
Sending Mal away. Most royalty had lovers.
The leader of the Crows is now a patriot, but still can't love the woman he loves, nor her him. He's an ass.... And yet they follow him.
Sending a heart render with papers, not guards. She not just killing the bad guy, but yelling and getting their attention.
The battle featured awful tactics, but that's standards apparently for all shows.
The big bad drug. We don't need another world threatening event right now. Mistborn handled the, we won now what, bit much better.
Pretty much everything that was the setup was not my cup of tea.
The leader of the Crows is now a patriot, but still can't love the woman he loves, nor her him. He's an ass.... And yet they follow him.
Sending a heart render with papers, not guards. She not just killing the bad guy, but yelling and getting their attention.
The battle featured awful tactics, but that's standards apparently for all shows.
The big bad drug. We don't need another world threatening event right now. Mistborn handled the, we won now what, bit much better.
Pretty much everything that was the setup was not my cup of tea.
Ruin Explorer
Legend
Yeah none of that happens in the books. The drug does exist in the books but doesn't appear until later - I presume it was brought in earlier to give a teaser for S3, but it's a bit odd - especially the "Kaz the patriot" speech, which is like "James Bond becomes an angry forum poster" levels of "bizarre character directions".
I felt like few of the characters (main ones) actually grew over two seasons! Kaz did, but not enough, apparently. And the gun guy, I guess. But everyone else is stuck in neutral.
I really hated the "send the papers with the heart render" part so much. My wife, who likes the show, was utterly bored with the denemout (sp?) parts....like, really didn't like them at all.
wicked cool
Hero
Officially cancelled by Netflix
Wut?
