A Few Crows Adaption Thoughts (Six of Crows / Shadow and Bone)

*Crows-related spoilers for Shadow and Bone.*

I’ve already written about the Crows as portrayed by Shadow and Bone, and once I started reading the books, my enjoyment of the Shadow and Bone trilogy didn’t stop me from anxiously anticipating the Six of Crows duology. I’ve now read the first of the Crows books, and it’s every bit as awesome as I want it to be – funny and action-packed and cool and angsty and devious. I’m glad that I still have another book of theirs to read, but now that I’ve been introduced to these characters in the series, I want to revisit their portrayals in the TV show.

When I first read Shadow and Bone, I was struck by how well season 1 of the show generally stuck to the plot of the book. There are definite changes, like Alina being mixed Ravkan/Shu, but on her side of the story, we cover pretty much all the major plot points as they occur in the book, with a little fleshing out with Mal to depict scenes he only tells her about in the novel and adding in some backstory for General Kirigan (who, in another change, goes by an actual name instead of just “the Darkling.”)

Then there are the later-book characters who don’t appear in the Shadow and Bone trilogy but were brought forward to make their Shadow and Bone TV appearances early: the Crows of Ketterdam (my beloved Jesper, Inej, and Kaz,) and Grisha prisoner Nina with her Fjerdan captor Matthias. When I finished the first three books and moved on to Six of Crows, I discovered that Nina and Matthias are actually Crows as well (along with a character we’ve not yet met on the show, making up the eponymous sixth member of the group,) and their storyline in season 1 is basically the backstory we get from them in the book.

So, Alina’s story with Mal, the Little Palace, and the Darkling, drawn extensively from the book. Nina and Matthias’s story, drawn extensively from the book. That leaves us with the Crows (again, I know there are six of them, but “Crows” is a moniker reserved in my mind for Kaz, Inej, and Jesper, so there.)

Unless there are a lot of familiar scenes to be found in the pages of the second book in their duology, the Crows’ storyline on the show is cut pretty much out of whole cloth. There are certain nods and touchstones that are critical to the book – their famous “no mourners, no funerals” mantra, snatches of Inej’s backstory, hints towards a secret about Jesper – but their actual plot is none of the things they get up to in Six of Crows. Both stories involving them pulling an elaborate (foolhardy?) heist, yes. But completely they’re different heists in different countries, under different circumstances, with different complications, for different payouts.

That means the show’s writers came up with all the Crows’ awesome scenes on their own. Jesper expertly shooting all the volcra attacking the train on their journey through the Fold. Inej making a deliberate choice to take a life in order to save Kaz’s. Kaz facing off against Kirigan and living to tell about it. Milo the goat! Given that I really enjoyed reading Shadow and Bone, just like I enjoyed reading Nina and Matthias’s backstory in Six of Crows, I’m not sure what it says about me that a lot of my favorite scenes in the show weren’t from any of the books.

But for all that, the show nails the characterizations for all three. There are some changes, like Inej’s code based on her faith, and some things that haven’t been revealed on the show yet, like Kaz’s backstory, but the writing and acting work together to bring these characters to life impeccably. Kaz is cold and ruthless, always calculating, but while he pretends to be an utter stranger to softer emotions, that isn’t true. Inej is a quiet, watchful survivor, an acrobatic spy who holds tight to her faith and isn’t easily ruffled. Jesper is brimming with life and energy, a crack shot and jittery gambler with a high opinion of himself. Each is very specific and very true to who they are in the book, and that’s managed while taking basically none of the things they do and hardly anything they say in the book. In a way, it’s high-quality fanfiction playing out on a TV show, and the show has all three of them down cold. It drops them in a new situation but captures the sorts of things each of them would say and do, how they’d react, and how various developments would shake up the group dynamic. That takes talent, and the show deserves props for it.