Netflix’s Shadow and Bone is obviously based on the book of the same name, but it’s a bit more complicated an adaptation than that. The series also incorporates characters and story elements from Six of Crows, another book written by Leigh Bardugo. Both books are part of the “Grishaverse,” a larger setting created by Bardugo. Six of Crows is set two years after the events of Shadow and Bone, but the television adaptation takes the book’s gang of scrappy thieves and weaves them into the plot. This primarily includes the Crows Kaz, Inej and Jesper, but also the Grisha Nina Zenik and Drüskelle Matthias Helvar.
In Six of Crows Kaz, Inej and Jesper are tasked with the retrieval of a Shu Han scientist who’s discovered the secret of a chemical compound called jurda parem. The stimulant allows Grisha to overcome mental barriers of perception, resulting in strange and unusual powers. Shadow and Bone keeps the general premise of the trio being tasked with a retrieval, but instead sends them on a quest to kidnap Alina Starkov. Nina and Matthias join their fellowship on a quest to the Fjerdan Ice Court, but are put to a different purpose in Shadow and Bone, acting out a backstory only hinted at in Six of Crows.
