Shadow and Bone doesn’t get Genya and Zoya right

Changes and time shifts can be managed as long as they do not affect the story or the character’s spirit. That’s been the creed that many fans of Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse books have carried into the Netflix adaptation Shadow and BoneThe showrunners proudly declare it. Yes, it is possible to make changes, provided that the core of the story remains intact.

The second season will be the most exciting. Shadow and Bone, it’s evident which characters the writers understand and which ones have been reconstructed to use as puzzle pieces in the larger framework. To include the ever-popular Six of Crows characters and to speedrun Alina’s quest to defeat the Darkling, two of the books’ most dynamic female characters, Genya Safin (Daisy Head) and Zoya Nazyalensky (Sujaya Dasgupta) became collateral damage, their storylines reduced to almost nothing. They both deconstruct what we expect of the Beautiful Cool Girl YA stock character. In the show, they’re the tropes, not the deconstruction, and any nuance that their arcs would have takes a backseat to the more traditionally exciting characters.

[Ed. note: This piece contains spoilers for Shadow and Bone season 2, as well as the Grishaverse books.]

Leigh Bardugo emphasizes their beauty as she introduces Genya and Zoya to the world in her first Shadow and Bone book. That isn’t a positive, however. Alina stresses her plain appearance in the first book. This makes it difficult for anyone who is beautiful to relate to Alina. Through Alina’s limited first-person perspective — not to mention Bardugo’s fledgling writing — Zoya in particular does suffer the most from reductive tropes initially. Her first appearance was in Shadow and BoneZoya comes across as beautiful and arrogant. Alina gets jealous because Zoya was kissing Mal. A lot of the Shadow and Bone series was bogged down by petty romantic jealousy arcs like this, and it leaves Zoya’s character holding the bag. She’s the epitome of the Beautiful Mean Girl trope, existing in opposition to our more relatable protagonist. This makes her final arc even more satisfying.

By the end of the first series, it’s clear that there’s more to Zoya than just being a Mean Girl. As Bardugo’s characterization improved, so did characters who came off as one-note initially. Zoya can be mean and gorgeous, as well as kissing the boys Alina loves, but she’s also smart, clever, skilled, a military leader and deeply committed to her country. Eventually, Zoya becomes Alina’s trusted ally, and Alina appoints her to a high leadership position in the last book. When she stars in the Nikolai duology, with her own POV chapters, she is smart, ambitious, and capable — but also never compromises her fierceness and caustic attitude. She’s never toned down and rarely villainized, even if she does learn to lean on other people and let them in. In the latest books, her destiny completely disintegrates the stereotypes that she was originally portrayed.

zoya kneeling in a chinese-style courtyard

But in the show, all of this is sanded down, because Zoya doesn’t even get to be around for most of the war. Alina is not allowed to interact with her, nor does she get to show the part of herself that will lead the military. She gets sent away to babysit the Crows in Shu Han, which is its own struggle, yes, but one that doesn’t show her capabilities as a leader, or show her and Alina’s complex relationship. Nina gives her a speech about how she opened up to the possibility of love. Alina puts her in charge at the finale of the series of Grisha training, but she doesn’t feel like she deserves it. Even if future seasons dive more into Zoya’s character, what’s set up so far doesn’t even posit her as a central character. She’s lost in the shuffle.

Unlike Zoya, who in the books is undoubtedly powerful, Genya’s skill of beautifying and changing appearances is dismissed as trivial in-universe — even if it is more precise and technical than most realize. Genya, if Zoya was set to become the Beautiful Mean Girl then Genya will be the Beautiful Fool. This is like Zoya’s story. Genya is one of the Grisha who shares her unique talent. She’s curious, educated, kind and a natural leader. She is also a tool that the Darkling makes use of to charm the royal family. He gives her talent to the queen and then allows her to access her body to the king who sexually assaults him. The other Grishas treat her as a servant and dismiss her often. Many of her choices in the book are rebellion against those who used to control her. All of these are reduced to beats in the show’s rushed romance arc.

genya, with red hair, scars, and an eyepatch, holds hands with david in front of a group of grisha

genya, disheveled and sitting on the floor of a dirty jail cell

Alina’s life is now saved and her resistance to the Darkling can save her love interest. Being brought before the king and queen to learn her fate as a traitor and fearlessly revealing the king’s sexual assault turns into a quick aside with the queen, the king not even alive to hear the accusations. David still gets to give Genya a romantic spiel from the books about how she is stronger than she thinks; Genya does not get her most famous line, where after the king tells her she is ruined, she whispers to him, “I am not ruined; I am ruination.” Her relationship with David builds up over the course of three books, and it is notable because David is one of the few people who doesn’t dismiss Genya because of her beauty. In the show, this gets massively rushed — going from brief glances in season 1 to a whole sacrifice in the third episode of season 2. Genya is not a person who can be resilient or regains her strength, but she becomes someone who must be saved.

Television show Shadow and BoneFaces the impossible task of adapting a screen story to the screen It is a pleasure to please fans. There are so many characters — especially if you take into account the sequel novels — that some of them do fall by the wayside. This means that some of the most popular Crows characters will get an entirely new storyline. However, it is not possible to tell the stories about the character arcs which dissect or dismantle stereotypes of young girls. With the Crows on their possible spinoff, Genya and Zoya may get their moments to shine. Or maybe they’ll exist as the one-note tropes they were supposed to defy.

Both the winter and summer Shadow and BoneNetflix is now available.

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