Shadow and Bone is available to watch
on Netflix UK and Ireland now.
If you've seen the show but still have questions,
this video should help.
And if you haven't, pop off, get that sorted before you watch.
Massive spoilers incoming.
Here are nine of the most commonly asked questions
about Season 1 of Shadow and Bone.
In any other fiction, you'd simply call them magicians,
but the Grisha are more than that.
They're capable of controlling the elements on a molecular level,
something that's known as the Small Science in the show's universe.
They come from Ravka, a war-torn country
inspired by 1800s tsarist Russia,
a place pinned in by their magic-hating neighbours,
which also has to contend with the Shadow Fold,
a vast monster-filled valley of perpetual darkness
that extends from north to south, dividing the country in two.
It is, but it's not as simple as you might think.
It's based on Leigh Bardugo's bestselling Grishaverse books
about a kingdom in turmoil and the magic users who defend it.
The bulk of the story in the Netflix adaptation
comes from 2012's Shadow and Bone,
Bardugo's debut novel
and the first book in the Grisha trilogy.
But it also incorporates characters from the Six of Crows duology,
even though that book technically takes place
after the events in Shadow and Bone.
Showrunner Eric Heisserer explains that
because the books are set chronological,
we technically don't get to events in the Six of Crows series
until after Shadow and Bone has ended.
To get around this, he and Leigh Bardugo created
fresh prequel stories for key Six of Crows characters,
such as Kaz, Inej and Jesper.
As Leigh Bardugo puts it,
"The team built something entirely new while still staying true
to the characters and the heart of the stories."
The cast is headed up by Jessie Mei Li
from Last Night in Soho and the West End's All About Eve.
She plays Alina, an orphan who discovers
she has the power to summon sunlight
and potentially change the fate of her kingdom.
Archie Renaux from Voyagers and Gold Digger
plays Mal Oretesev, Alina's best friend,
and Freddy Carter of Pennyworth plays Kaz Brekker,
an aspiring criminal with a talent for hatching elaborate schemes.
Amita Suman from The Outpost and Doctor Who
plays Inej Ghafa, a member of Kaz's gang
with a troubled past and a unique talent for knife-work,
and Kit Young from Endeavour is Jesper Fahey,
a gambler and sharpshooter who will never walk away from a wager.
General Kirigan, also known in the books as the Darkling,
is played by Ben Barnes,
previously seen in Westworld and The Punisher.
In fact, enough people have googled this exact question,
we could give it its own heading,
which leads us to our next question.
General Kirigan leads the Second Army of Ravka,
made up of his fellow Grisha.
He's the most powerful of them all, thanks to his ability
to manipulate the shadows.
Kirigan, also known as the Darkling,
claims to be descended from the Black Heretic,
a fellow Shadow Summoner,
who, in an act of jealousy against a rival,
inadvertently created the Fold 400 years ago,
Legends state that the creation of the Shadow Fold
killed the Black Heretic
and no Shadow Summoner since has been able to undo the damage.
But as we eventually discover, none of that is true.
Kirigan is the Black Heretic.
Creating the Shadow Fold was no accident and nor did it kill him.
Instead, he faked his own death and he returns
under a different guise every generation.
I made something.
The Shadow Fold, also known as the Unsea,
is filled with vicious flesh-eating monsters
known as the Volcra.
But what are they, really?
The Fold came into existence when the Darkling attempted to create
his own army using ancient magic.
When his spell went wrong,
the humans trapped in the Fold, actually soldiers in the king's army,
turned into the winged creatures known in the show as Volcra.
This is a valid question,
even if it is rather against the spirit of things.
But there's a particular reason the Grisha choose
to go through the Fold rather than around it.
Look at the map of the world
and you'll see that Rathke is hemmed in
by enemy nations:
Fjerda to the north, Shu Han to the south.
Fjerdans are Viking-like warriors who live in the mountains
and train holy soldiers to hunt Grisha.
And the Shu people,
famed for their scientific and technological advancements,
see the Grisha as little more than guinea pigs
to be experimented upon.
This last point is also the reason some people mistrust Alina
when they discover she's part-Shu.
-What's a Shu girl doing here? -Compared with running the gauntlet
through a shadowy Unsea full of feral monsters,
it's a rock-versus-hard place dilemma.
The Grisha wield a variety of impressive powers,
and thankfully you can tell what they do
from the colour and embroidery on their robes,
known among the Grisha as kefta.
Red kefta are worn by members of the Corporalki.
Like all Grisha,
the colour of the embroidery denotes their specialisation.
Heartrenders like Nina, who can control and stop heartbeats,
have black embroidery on their kefta, for example.
Blue robes are worn by the Etherealki,
the Order of Summoners, whose power lies
in the manipulation of different natural elements.
Alina, as a Sun Summoner,
belongs to this class and her embroidery is gold.
The Materialki wear purple with grey or red detailing.
These are Grisha whose power focuses on composite materials
such as metal, glass, textiles and chemicals.
As you might expect,
the Darkling, with his unique powers,
is the only one allowed to wear black.
Shadow and Bone was filmed in Hungary,
partly at Origo Studios in Budapest
and also on location in various places
in and around the city.
It's the perfect foundation on which to build Shadow and Bone's
distinct East-meets-West world.
One of the filming locations is Buda Castle,
a World Heritage site
and historical palace complex of Hungarian royalty,
which was built in the 13th century.
The complete history of the stag is probably a video all on its own,
but let's try to sum things up here.
Alina's powers in Shadow and Bone are regarded as miraculous.
She possesses abilities
that one day might destroy the Fold and reunite Ravka.
But even as she's being anointed as a saint,
there's growing concern her powers aren't enough,
and that's where the stag comes in.
It's one of three creatures
created by legendary Grisha, Ilya Morozova.
In the books, Morozova was obsessed with amplifiers,
objects such as bones, scales or teeth
that significantly boost a Grisha's power,
and the Darkling believes that the bones of the stag
would make one of the strongest amplifiers ever crafted,
which is why so much time is spent hunting it.
Alina and Mal try to track down the stag,
but Kirigan beats them there and kills it,
seizing its power and taking control of Alina's abilities.
But Alina soon realises that the stag never chose Kirigan,
it chose her.
While its power alone isn't enough to help her destroy the Fold,
it does hint at what she needs to do next,
since there are two more Morozova animals out there to find.
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