 I love Six of Crows. It was mostly the crows that got shafted. Hormatias had nothing to do because reasons, the iconic line, that they did not need to do. Shadow and Bone season two just dropped and I watched all of it immediately because of course I did. If you don't know this about me, I'm a huge huge fan of the Six of Crows duology. I like the Grisha trilogy which is what Shadow and Bone, the first book is called Shadow and Bone. I like those books fine. They're not like end all be all like super faves of mine. They're like they're decent. But Six of Crows, like if you I just recently posted a video that was like books that are worth the hype. Six of Crows was on there. A few years ago I posted my like top favorite books of all time. Six of Crows was on there. I love Six of Crows like that duology. Me coming into watching Shadow and Bone, I'm obviously most interested in, most invested in, and gonna be most concerned with choices made as regards to the characters that are from that duology that have been brought into the Shadow and Bone storyline. So I love the books and I still do love the show. I would still say Shadow and Bone is one of my all-time favorite, certainly fantasy adaptations, and probably one of my favorite shows of all time. And if I hadn't read the books, if I didn't know what they had changed, I would probably like the show even better. It's because I know what the books have and because I know what they've taken and what they've changed that I'm upset. But like the way this story is unfolding in the show, if I did not know better, I probably would be fine with it. But it's because I know what now is not possible anymore or what is gonna have to change because of what they've done that I'm upset. If you're watching this video, I figure you probably already know, but just in case you don't really quick, Shadow and Bone, the TV show, is based on not just the book Shadow and Bone and the trilogy, the Grisha trilogy. The Shadow and Bone books, the Grisha trilogy, are three books and they are the storyline of Alina and Mal and the Darkling and Ravka and all of that jazz. Those books were published first and their events chronologically take place first. And then after that, Leigh Bardugo published a duology called the Six of Crows duology, which is Six of Crows and Crick Kingdom, which take place in the same universe as the Grisha trilogy, the Shadow and Bone trilogy, but they follow different characters in a different area of the map and it pretty much has nothing to do with the events of the Grisha trilogy other than the fact that it's the same universe with the same magic system and like generally the political landscape of this world was affected by the events of the Grisha trilogy. So like it's taking place in a world that was influenced by those events, but otherwise like I read Six of Crows first. I frankly didn't even know how Grisha trilogy existed and you could absolutely read Six of Crows without ever having read of or heard of the Grisha trilogy and it would still make sense and be like makes sense in a contained way in and of itself. So yeah, the Six of Crows story like it does not originally have anything to do with the Shadow and Bone story. So for season one of Shadow and Bone, it was very clear from the from the get-go that they were combining these story lines and that Leigh Bardugo herself, the author was on hand to facilitate this. So okay. And season one did a fantastic job. In season one, we basically did the events of Shadow and Bone, the first book and the Grisha trilogy that was like the driving force of the narrative of the first season of the show. And then they basically invented like a fan fiction plot to create a reason for the crows to be there. So the characters from Six of Crows, this is now going to be taking place chronologically before the events of Six of Crows. You know, these characters, they existed, they were alive before we meet them at Six of Crows. So the idea is that well, before we meet them at Six of Crows, they did get up to other things. So what if they got up to some kind of a high story adventure that was near or connected to Ravka and the Shadow and Bone storyline? So they just invented an entire plot line that didn't exist before to give those characters a reason to show up and to be involved in the events of Shadow and Bone. And she did a fantastic job where they did a fantastic job creating a believable plotline for these characters without really messing with like who they are and who they will be in their own story in their own books. So like giving us those characters so that we don't have to wait until Shadow and Bone gets wrapped up, but not messing with them or ruining them or doing anything to really alter what's going to be true if we do then adapt the Six of Crows storyline. So season two, we figured we're going to get kind of the same thing again, right? We're going to do the second book in the Shadow and Bone trilogy in the Grisha trilogy. The second book is Season Storm. And then presumably we would once more like sort of fanfic a plot for the Crows to be involved again. And maybe like again, they did draw a little bit from the Six of Crows book. In season one, they took some things that are presented as flashbacks in Six of Crows. They took those events and showed them happening like currently, which makes sense. If something is a flashback, it happened in the past. This is the past. We can use it. So doing stuff like that again, pulling out flashbacks during something like that for the Crows to be involved again. At least again, that's what I and I think many other people assumed we would get in season two. So the good stuff. I did really like season two. I genuinely did. This is going to be an extremely negative video and it's going to sound like I hated it. It's because I do feel very strongly about the things that I did not like. But I did actually really, really enjoy the season of television. And I think they did a lot of things really, really well. The casting remains super. So the original casting we saw in season one, no notes, except I don't really like Ben Barnes, but he's the villain. So it's fine that I don't like him. But yeah, he would not have been my choice. But otherwise, the casting has been great. And so now we got to meet some more characters from the books that we hadn't seen yet in season one. So we got Weiland, we got Nikolai, we got Tolia and Tamar. Those are the main ones that I think I, most of the people were excited to see. And the casting was fantastic. The clips I'd already seen of Weiland made me fairly certain that Weiland would be fantastic. And he was. The clips I'd seen of Nikolai were promising, but not like convincing. But I was like, I think he's going to be good. And the guy that played Nikolai, fantastic. Absolutely ideal Nikolai. Wonderful casting. Tolia and Tamar, we didn't see that much of Tamar. So I don't really feel that strongly one way or the other about Tamar. But Tolia, who definitely got a lot to do in season two, I very, very much liked that performance. And I very much liked that casting. Once again, just like with season one, the costumes and the sets were amazing. I think again, the only costumes that like stood out to me a little bit as not that great were Tolia and Tamar's costumes, their costumes looked the most costumey, i.e. they don't look like clothing that people in this universe are wearing, it looks like a costume. So that was like, not like it wasn't horrible, but it looked a bit costumey to me. Like it didn't look lived in or practical or or rough enough to have been worn for a while. So like, not not perfect. But again, the crows, what they wear is great. I love the way they've done the Grisha keftas, which they did well in season one as well. Alina has some great outfits. The places that they've chosen as locations to film were great choices. I love all the sets that they've built, like the sort of like city areas, the way that all of the signage is like in universe language, it's not like in English that we can read. And the maps do that as well. Like it'll have like subtitles to tell us what this is. But like it'll be like written in Kirch or in Rovken, which I just think adds like that extra layer of immersion. And I love that they do that. The costuming also is good world building because aside from just the individual characters and their costumes, the show does a good job of showing different geographic locations, having a different style of dress. So you feel like you are in a geographically distinct to different cultural area where there is a different style and a different mode of thinking or dressing or behaving or whatever. So the way that people look and dress in Rovka is very different from how the people look and dress in Ketterdam is very different from the people look and dress in Novia's M is different from the people look and dress in Fjorda. I think they do a very good job with that as well. I think for the most part, the special effects look pretty good. I mean, it wasn't like a Hollywood movie, but like for a TV show, very, very good, I think. And just enough, not overused. I did really like the sort of Guy Ritchie-esque style in which they shot and cut the sort of like violent altercations particularly in Ketterdam. It definitely felt like something out of like one of the Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes movies or King Arthur. It's this kind of like snappy, well, if you've seen a Guy Ritchie movie, I think you know what I mean. It definitely had that feeling. And there were some shots to where Mal is fighting it also definitely felt very Guy Ritchie to me. And the on-screen chemistry of the entire cast is phenomenal. I think the performances are all great. The problems that I have with the show are with like the way they've written the story or the plot choices that they've made. I have zero issues. I mean, I don't like Ben Barnes, but like he's doing a fine job playing the darkling. Like I just wouldn't have picked him. But yeah, the chemistry between the actors and the way they're performing their roles, it seems to me they very much know their characters. And I think they have, for the most part, like definitely looked at the books and what the characters are supposed to be like. I definitely get the sense that they are embodying these characters very well. So that's the positives, which I promise I did enjoy the show. I really did, but I'm really, really mad. So I'm going to be talking about differences between the book and the show because feel free to tell me that I'm deluding myself, but it's not just that, you know, I'm a book purist. And if you change it from the book, then I don't like it because the first season changed a lot of things. But I think it did it really, really well. And I think it did it in a way where it didn't alter the sort of like DNA of the characters and the character arcs. If anything like it added to it, it never took away from it. So like I said, the plot line with the crows, it never did anything to harm what is going to be their character arcs and Six of Crows storylines. Alina and Mal actually like were even more fleshed out and their relationship wasn't really changed so much as it was expanded on and made even better in the show. The fact that they changed things is not necessarily a problem. But it's the way they went about making changes in this season and the way that they went around robbing the Six of Crows books of some of their best moments to no purpose is very, very upsetting and concerning to me both because I think it's a waste and two because of what, if they are going to adapt the next storylines from the Six of Crows books, those storylines are now hurt by having either had things that are supposed to happen later happen sooner or by having things happen now that never really happened, but that make it impossible for these future things to now happen. So I'm going to avoid as much as possible talking about spoilers as concerns of the future plot lines in the books, anything that I haven't actually shown us in the show. It's a little difficult to do that to explain why a future thing is now not possible. I would kind of have to tell you what that future thing is that I'm upset is now not possible. So I don't even know if that is a spoiler because if it's no longer possible, well then it can't be a spoiler because it's not going to happen. But if you haven't read the books and you want to or you're worried about that, you know, just warning you, I'm going to try my best to stick to things that already have passed in the show and like the opportunity to do them has come and gone. And I'll tell you what was supposed to happen or whatever, because it can't really be changed now. And then as to things that are going to happen or should have been in the future, I'll do my best to either only refer to them in terms of how the show has shown them to us so far and tell you where they were supposed to go before and be vague kind of about where that was supposed to go originally, as vague as I can be while still making it clear why I'm upset. But yeah, if you're very spoiler-averse, then you know, don't watch. But I kind of feel like anyone watching this video probably either doesn't care about spoilers or has already read the books. This show in general has followed the Grisha trilogy more than Six of Crows books. The feeling is that like they're doing first the one and then the other, but they wanted to involve the Crows, which is fine. But so they also, they haven't really changed as much about the Shadow and Bone storyline as they have about the Crows storyline. And this hurts me because I care a lot more about the Six of Crows storyline. I would much rather do the Six of Crows storyline and kind of like rob and bastardize and alter the Shadow and Bone storyline in service of the Six of Crows storyline than the other way around, but here we are. So the Shadow and Bone storyline, they did make changes. Some of them I also didn't like. It wasn't only the Crows that got shafted, it was mostly the Crows that got shafted. The Shadow and Bone storyline did not come away unscathed. So they made again fewer changes. The plot line pretty much unfolds the way it does in the books, but where season one gave us the first book, Shadow and Bone, season two, in a surprising turn of events, whipped us through the entirety of Xi Zhen's norm and Ruin and Rising. We have reached to the end of the Shadow and Bone, the Grisha trilogy. So that was fast. There are quite a few smaller changes, kind of just like in specific scenes, how a specific kind of like fight goes down, a specific conversation, things like that. But like what these characters are doing and what their plot arcs are and what their relationships are remains pretty much true to how they are in the books. But the endpoints for these characters are extremely different. So in the show, full spoilers for the end of season two, Alina is able to defeat the Darkling. She still has her powers and it's heavily implied that she resurrected Mal by using Merzost, which is the sort of like forbidden dark magic that the Darkling was using. That it wasn't natural, that it wasn't Nina's heart render abilities, that Mal shouldn't be alive, and that it's because of Alina that he is, and that she's still got her powers. The Darkling is gone, but she's now kind of this dark version of Alina possibly as we see her do the cut at the end, which looks very Darkling-esque. And then Mal, who is alive, is going to go off and be a pirate, and Nikolai is now going to be crowned king with Alina the Sun Summoner, I guess, as his consort. This is an extremely different situation from what we get at the end of the Grisha trilogy. At the end of Ruin and Rising, there's quite a lot that's different. Okay, so first of all, Alina and Mal. Alina does use Mal as an amplifier and she does kill him, but defeating the Darkling takes away all of her powers. She does not have the Sun Summoner powers anymore, and Mal, because of magic reasons that I'm not going to get into because they are kind of silly, but because of magic reasons that are not Alina doing anything bad or nefarious, Mal is able to be alive at the end of the book. Alina doesn't have powers anymore, Mal isn't like the Firebird anymore, they're just like two normal people now. And because of how much they've done, then Nikolai helps them to kind of like fake their deaths and escape and be able to live a normal life, kind of in secrecy. He just like puts it out that Alina died in saving Ravka, so sank to Alina, was a martyr for Ravka so that the real Alina can go live a normal life with Mal happily ever after. Yay. Nikolai, he in the course of Ruin and Rising, when he encounters the Darkling, the Darkling in the book infects him with Merzost and he becomes this like monstrous, winged, dark creature. And during the final battle with the Darkling, Nikolai, as this monster who retains some sense of being Nikolai still, is able to lead some of the Vulkra against the Darkling and kind of help Alina out. And then once Alina kills the Darkling, then Nikolai reverts back to being Nikolai, but he's still scarred from it. He has like marks on his hands from where he used to have talons. He can't really remember everything that he was doing or what he was when he was the monster, but so he's back to being Nikolai mostly. And he's said, okay, Alina, you know, you've done enough for us, go live your life with Mal and he's gonna now be king. So that's obviously, as I said, a really different end point. Mal and Alina are together and Nikolai is on the throne and that's where we end. Whereas in the show, for some reason, Mal, even though he's alive and Alina's alive and they could be together and she's very possibly done something very naughty to make him be alive, they're just like, nah, we should part ways because reasons, because this show can't have us have a happily ever after right now. If they want to continue to have a show, there has to be tension. So now, even though he clearly doesn't want to leave Alina, he's gonna leave Alina and go be Sturmund, which is obviously not a thing that happens in the books. So I don't know how I feel about Alina being this dark Alina, which is where I'm guessing this is going. I mean, I think that also is there because we killed the Darkling, but we need a villain. So we're gonna make Alina possibly the villain in the next season because she's done Merzost and so she's now darkened herself. Perhaps Mal's a pirate because it'll be easier to rope Mal into a Ketterdam Crows plotline if he's already a pirate available to help with some crimes. And Nikolai has this kind of poisoned dark wound that looks like it might develop into a thing, but he obviously never turned monster in this season and the opportunity to be turned monster by the Darkling has come and gone, the Darkling is dead. So we just didn't do that at all, which is interesting because I feel like the show is probably going to, if it goes long enough, it's gonna do the King of Scars plotline, which is the duology that comes after Six of Crows. And that plot, this plot of those books heavily relies on Nikolai having the baggage of having been this monster. So if he was never a monster, that really, that means that we can't even do the King of Scars plotline. So that's kind of a surprising choice to me. So that's Shadow and Bone or at least the Grisha trilogy. That's the main changes they made there. And in my opinion, the reasons that they made those changes. But then we come to the what really, really hurt what I really, really don't like in this season. And that's what they did to the Crows. They basically just robbed the Crows books, the Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom. They just went in and stole some of the best scenes, some of the best lines, stripped them of their context and shoved them into this fanfic plotline just so they could have them be around in season two and doing something. Now we can't have those lines. We can't have those scenes in their original much more weighty context because we already squandered them by just plucking them and using them here in second season. And not only that, but we did things to the character relationships and revelations about the characters that were either too soon or too much or not accurate, which really alters what is supposed to be the dynamic between them when we get to Six of Crows. So one by one, let's do it. Kaz, my favorite. So many things they did with Kaz that Freddie Carter, no blame there, absolutely fantastic casting. And he understood the assignment. He played Kaz so, so well. No issues with that. But what they did writing this character in this season, it is just, oh, it's so upsetting. Let's start with the fact that in the book, he is already the de facto leader of the Dregs. So the Dregs are a gang in Ketterdam. And as a young man, Kaz rose in the ranks of the Dregs. And by the time you meet him in Six of Crows, he is the de facto leader. The actual leader is Per Haskell. But he is delegated to Kaz basically all leadership duties because he's much savvier at the business end. He's much savvier at the violence. He's just savvier. So he retains like ownership and he's the head of Per Haskell. But the Kaz is in effect the head of the Dregs, the tattoo that the Dregs wear just has a crow on it. It's a crow like sipping the Dregs of a cup. So it makes sense that as the kind of a nickname for them would be crows because the Dregs wear this crow tattoo. And the crow club is an asset of the Dregs. So Kaz doesn't own it personally, but it's kind of his pet project as the de facto leader of the Dregs. So in the show, because they needed Kaz to have something to do, they stole a scene from Cricket Kingdom, which I'm not going to say the context for it, but the context is much, much weightier in Cricket Kingdom, where Kaz has to go to the Dregs headquarters and basically get beat to a pulp in order to reassert his dominance and reclaim leadership and reclaim to reclaim control of the Dregs. They just use this scene to have him have something to do and to have him take control of a gang that he was already supposed to be part of and in control of at this point in the story. So now I guess they could do that scene again when we get to the Cricket Kingdom plotline in the show if we get that far, but they've kind of wasted it because we already did it, but not for the same reasons and not in the same situation, and it is not as weighty here because it was just kind of a thing for him to do. In that same vein in the book, this plan they have where they wear the sort of masquerade masks and they spread this fake plague, that is something that they do do in Cricket Kingdom. But the reasons for it and the situation surrounding the need to do that is weightier, and it's the fact that they're doing this has much greater plot significance and character significance in Cricket Kingdom. But instead, they've plucked that little plotline or that little plan of theirs from Cricket Kingdom and stuck it in here so that it's just again like a little side quest, like a little activity to keep the crows busy so that they have something to do in season two of Shadow and Bone. Kaz's relationship or maybe relationship isn't the word, but Kaz's history with Pekka Rollins is something that haunts the books. When you read Six of Crows in Cricket Kingdom, it's this backstory and this baggage and this need for revenge that is haunting everything that's happening, haunting everything that Kaz is choosing to do, every choice he makes, every line he says, that's in the background of it, and his friends do not know, nobody knows. The reader slowly comes to learn this. As far as they know, Pekka Rollins is just a rival gang leader. Kaz has reason to hate him for the same reason that any other gang leader would, you know, it's a threat, it's competition. But having this personal history with him, perhaps his friends have noticed that he seems more than naturally usually driven towards harming Pekka Rollins, but they don't actually know why he would, and he obviously doesn't say. They also don't know about his brother and how his brother died. They don't know about the corpse barge. They don't know why he doesn't want to touch people. They don't know anything about Kaz. Kaz is an enigma and Kaz keeps everything like close to the vest. Is that close to the chest? Kaz doesn't share. There's even this moment, which I mean it can't be spoilery because they can't possibly do this moment anymore because they've ruined it. There's a moment in Cricket Kingdom when Kaz is exasperated and emotionally upset and he's angry with Jesper, but he calls Jesper Geordi in that moment of passion. And everyone who's present and witnesses that is like, who's Geordi? Because they don't know. They don't know about his brother, they don't even know that he has a dead brother, and it's the slip of the tongue which is rare for Kaz. That moment can't happen now because in the show, not only do the Crows, his buddies know his backstory with Pekka Rollins now, all of the dime lions, Pekka Rollins, everybody basically in Ketterdam got to hear this tragic backstory. He just spilled his whole backstory to everyone, which is one, something Kaz would never do, and two, means that this kind of like, what is his deal? What is it that's driving him? What is behind this hatred kind of question that's lurking in the minds of the Crows for all of the Six of Crows books until they find out is gone. They know exactly what's driving Kaz and then Kaz gets his revenge against Pekka Rollins. That's taken care of now. So in Crooked Kingdom, after we have slowly built this, this growing sense of the hatred and obsession that Kaz has with revenge, and you've slowly come to learn his backstory, and he's made a lot of choices that have been very questionable, and you've watched this building and this obsession and this need for revenge, then when we get to Crooked Kingdom and Kaz finally has his chance to have it out with Pekka Rollins, it's so much weightier this moment because we've been building towards it and we've been waiting for it and it's been haunting everything that's been happening. But now, Kaz has already confronted his arch nemesis, Pekka Rollins. He's already told everybody his tragic backstory. We're done with that. So this thing that gets built towards in Crooked Kingdom is our, it's done. We haven't even done Six of Crows yet and we're already done with exploring Kaz's past with Pekka Rollins. Then Kaz's relationship with Anezh in the book, like if you're in Kaz's head, yeah. When you're in his head, it's pretty clear that he's got feelings for Anezh and he struggles with that because he regards it as a weakness. Outwardly, like they kind of think that maybe he does, but he doesn't say anything and he does certainly doesn't show it. And in the show, I understand that they kind of, it's hard, you don't have the character internal monologue to tell you this, so you would have to show it a little bit more for the viewers to know. But in the book, Kaz, the only things that he does to outwardly show how much he cares about Anezh is that he just makes sure, he goes out of his way to make sure that she's safe to physically protect her. And when this is pointed out, he just says that he's protecting his investment, not that he cares about her. In the show, it makes it very clear how much Kaz is into Anezh. It's an open secret. So there's a lot less tension surrounding what exactly Kaz's priorities are, what is going on with him. No one else, like his, it's not just that we the reader or we the viewer know what Kaz's deal is. Everyone around him knows that his deal is. He wanted revenge against Pekka Rollins. He has PTSD over whatever happened with him and his brother and Pekka Rollins. He's into Anezh and can't handle it. And he likes to say that he doesn't have feelings, but everyone knows exactly what his feelings are, which is just that's not what Kaz is like. He's, these are things that he would never share and no one would ever know about him because he wouldn't tell anyone. And it also creates a lot more tension and uncertainty with the crew because when your crew is supposed to trust you and they don't even know what your deal is, this is a source of great tension in the Six of Crows books because when they're asking Kaz why they're doing something and they begin to see that they don't actually maybe know why Kaz is doing what he's doing, what is actually driving him, what is actually motivating him because they don't know his backstory with Pekka Rollins. They just trust that he's running their heist the way that it should be run until they realize that there is something else that he is prioritizing and it's not necessarily the heist and it's not even necessarily the safety of his crew. It begins to make that trust falter and that's a source of intense dramatic tension, but now everybody knows exactly what his deal is. There's no tension. Jesper, we don't know that he's a durast until much later in the books. So now before again we even start the Six of Crows plotline, we already know that he's a durast and that he was kind of hiding it and it's not again until like the end of Crooked Kingdom that Jesper is like you know what I actually probably should try to be a good durast. I should like try to actually you know foster this skill. But before we've even started Six of Crows he's already been like oh yeah I should probably actually foster this skill. Again it's a great source of tension that Jesper keeps hidden this big part of himself and it's a big reason for why he behaves the way that he does. Not just that it's a secret but the way that kind of like suppressing that magic in him has consequences and this is a huge part of his character and it's just been resolved. It's opened and resolved already before we even do Six of Crows. Likewise Jesper's relationship with Wylan. Jesper first meets Wylan in the book in Six of Crows. He's never met him before and over the course of the heist he gets to know him and there's a will-are-won't-they for the most of that duology until they finally do. But in the show not only have they met before they had a fling before, I mean Wylan is not certain in the book if Jesper even swings that way. There's a great line which I know the actors are aware of because they quoted it in an interview which made me hopeful that we would see that line but we did not and it would not make sense to have that line because by the time we see these characters in the show Wylan already knows Jesper and knows Jesper swings that way but he said in the book Jesper is like talking about flirting with girls and Wylan says something like just girls and Jesper is like no not just girls because Wylan isn't even sure that Jesper would have the potential to be interested in him. So all that's gone they're basically in a committed relationship ready to retire together by the end of season two of Shadow and Bone so there goes that tension. Then we come to Wylan and this is the part that I can't really say too much about because presumably they are still going to do this. I'll say that in the show there's this line where Jesper is like you know this other guy these other guys they would have been better choices for doing demolitions for this job or whatever and Kaz is like and yet Wylan is the one that I chose so presumably the audience would be like oh Kaz must have an ulterior motive he must have his reasons for why he would choose Wylan for this job and the thing is in Six of Crows Kaz does have a reason for choosing Wylan for the job a reason that does not become clear until much later but there is a reason and in the show there is no reason there can't be a reason because the reason for choosing Wylan is specific to the Six of Crows heist which we're not doing yet which we're only going to do in the next season we've been set up for that. Why Kaz would choose Wylan now before knowing anything about the circumstances of the heist that he's just learned about in the last episode Kaz is like oh I've haven't found out about this thing which means we're going to do the Six of Crows heist he didn't have that knowledge when he hired Wylan for the job in season two this line that seems to suggest that he chose him for a reason is just bullshit and now we don't have this in Six of Crows where everyone is like why did you choose Wylan who even is Wylan why is he part of our crew and Kaz is like don't worry about it I have my reasons and he does he doesn't have reasons in the show so it just makes Kaz's behavior sillier it doesn't he's a character that always has a reason you don't always know what it is his crew doesn't always know what it is and that makes them sometimes distrust him but he doesn't act just like irrationally well I guess he acts a little irrationally when he gets emotional about stuff he's very calculated and he might do things that you don't get why he's doing it but his crew consistently follows him because they're like I don't know why he's doing it but for as long as I've been with him he always has a reason for doing what he's doing so I won't question it in the show that's not really been the case so it just makes Kaz much less enigmatic imposing calculating intimidating and interesting then we come to Inej and for the most part Inej hasn't been messed with too much but the one of very particular thing they've messed with is her relationship with Kaz and one of the best lines in the book which they plucked and used in this season in a horrible way because the context for where this line is delivered is what makes the difference and I'm so mad about it so in the book the iconic line when she tells Kaz that she will have him without his armor or not at all is delivered in extremely different circumstances than it is in the show in the show she's basically saying so long see a good riddance when she delivers this line which is the complete opposite of the reasons for her delivering this line in Six of Crows in Six of Crows they are mid heist they are not about to part ways when she says this to him it's an extremely tense moment and her telling him this is not to say bye-bye she's still presumably she's at least going to be there for the remainder of the heist she's basically telling him look I I do have feelings for you but I'm not that's not enough so you're gonna have to meet me halfway and if you're not willing to do that well then I'm not willing to be to to do anything with you to do anything about the way that I feel about you she's setting her boundaries and making clear her position and the ball is in his court and it's an extremely vulnerable moment for both of them because they're kind of like saying out loud what neither of them has wanted to acknowledge and she's not shunning him Kaz Inej would never just abandon Kaz particularly when she can see how vulnerable he is and at this point in the book she does not know his full backstory in the show she already does know his backstory she knows his PTSD she knows how crippled he is by all this and she definitely knows he has feelings for her and for her to deliver this line so callously and then peace out I'm not saying she doesn't have a right to do it but it is a very different portrayal of this relationship and this character like it is a strong moment for her to lay down that boundary in the book but it's not cruel she's saying I do care about you but that is not enough so I'm giving you the chance I'm telling you I'm being open with you I'm telling you that if you do shape up then we can do something but if you don't well then we won't but it's up to you as opposed to saying I I'll have you without your armor not at all bye forever like do you see why that's so completely different and now she's said the line so we can't have that line in that moment in Six of Crows when we get to that part of that plot line which we presumably will be doing in season three or four editing me here obviously I forgot somehow to mention the scene where Kaz is helping or wanting to help Inej with her bandages this is also a scene that's from Cricut Kingdom and it's also a scene that is much more meaningful and significant in its original full later context the reason why she's injured is different like though their like relationship is at a different point when this is happening and crucially this bandaging scene happens after after Inej has told him she will have him without his armor or not at all this is him trying to like bear that in mind and meet her halfway and and try to shed his armor for her not doing a super great job with it but that's what that scene is so the fact that it's reversed that it's out of context that it's it's it's such a good scene from Cricut Kingdom it is an iconic scene from Cricut Kingdom and it was just squandered it's very upsetting anyway back to whatever I was talking about and then Nina and Matthias they remain the most unscathed predominantly because poor Matthias had nothing to do in the book Matthias is in Hellgate and in the show Matthias is in Hellgate he's just in prison got nothing to do until such time as they break him out of there they didn't like have the opportunity to mess with his character too much and then the same goes for Nina and his her relationship with him it's on hold until we get him out of there and it's true to her character that she is trying to get him out of there the way she's going about trying to get him out of there is different obviously in the books because she's been trying to do this for some time without Kaz's or Nicolai's help but that's basically what she has been up to is trying to get him out of there and then she joins the heist in Six of Crow so they haven't really been able to mess with that too much um Nina's been in Ketterdam for a while she does know Kaz in the books it's kind of strange that Kaz and Nina are strangers in the show but like that's not that big a deal so far so okay I mean because they just like they couldn't mess up that storyline if they tried because while while Matthias remains in Hellgate you can't do much with that they are doing something with Matthias and Pekka Rollins because obviously Pekka Rollins is not in Hellgate in the books because we have not yet had our revenge and comeuppance against Pekka Rollins before the events of Six of Crows unfold Matthias meeting Pekka Rollins in Hellgate is new but it doesn't really seem to have done much um either way so I don't know what they're trying to start with that but we'll see so why did they do this? I mean I don't understand but I also I do understand sort of so basically season one of Shadow and Bone ended with all of the Crows basically being in position to begin the Six of Crows storyline but season two they refused to do the Six of Crows storyline so all our characters are in position ready to go to start Six of Crows and we're not going to let them we need to halt we need to pump the brakes we need to stall so that we don't start that plot yet for whatever reason because they want to do it next they want to do it later they want to do it separately whatever so because they refuse to do the Six of Crows plot line they have to come up with something for the Crows to do they could have once again just fanficked some stuff for them that doesn't take away from their future plots that is basically like we got in season one of Shadow and Bone where it's some more stuff they could possibly have gotten up to before Six of Crows the quest they have to find the sword was a pretty good fanfic quest that's not anything from the books from either series that was like a perfectly fine usage of Crows yes you need a a McGuffin stolen have the Crows go into it because that's what they do their thieves so that's great that's fine that was a perfectly fine use of the Crows we could begin to show flashbacks that begin to tell the audience what the back stories are of these characters we the audience could learn Kaz's backstory we could learn about his childhood we could learn about why he hates Beccarolan so much but what we they did not need to do is rob the books of their most poignant moments the most epic moments the best lines and take them away from where they are the most dramatic and significant and just just sprinkle them into this season for some spice that's just such a waste and such a crime against these characters that they did not need to do they didn't so in season three we're starting the Six of Crows heist I don't see how we could not not just because like they really cannot stall anymore on this and two because at the end of season two they basically announced that they're going to be starting this because what begins the Six of Crows heist is Jurta Parem and we just saw Jurta Parem being used in that final scene in the coronation and Kaz announcing to his crew that like oh he's heard this new thing so off we go on the Six of Crows heist Mal is a pirate and Inej is with him inexplicably so presumably that's why Mal is a pirate and that's why Inej is with him because we're gonna need a pirate and Inej will already be there to help us with our Six of Crows heist so I'm guessing that's what they're doing with that or at least I'm hoping Kaz has already had his revenge against Beccarolans but they need to keep him brooding so presumably Beccarolans is gonna do some new heinous thing to make Kaz even more upset and to make him brood some more so that he can remain Kaz as an emesis because we already zipped through that plot line too early so we're just gonna have to create a new reason for them to be against each other Beccarolans will probably do something in Hellgate something to do with Matias something like that. Jesper and Weiland as I said they're already basically together so presumably to create tension something will have to come in to part them to create tension between them just like with Mal and Alina we couldn't have them have a happily ever after so something has to come between them to create tension so the show can keep going. Nina and Matias again are positioned the most like they are in Six of Crows they're pretty much set up to be exactly the plot line that they have in Six of Crows so that's something and then I'm guessing that Alina and Nikolai in season three will be engaged in some variation of the king of scars plot line like I said before Nikolai didn't go monster so he can't be exactly the king of scars but I'm still guessing that it's gonna be at least politically speaking a very similar plot line to king of scars and then maybe have him somehow go monster now because of Alina or something there but I'm guessing it's gonna be king of scars is what's going on with Alina and Nikolai in season three but of course this is all speculation I have no idea what they're gonna do in season three or even if they'll get a season three which brings me to my conclusion which is that I very much hope they get a season three because I do actually really like this show I know it sounds like I don't and I it's because I like it so much that it hurts me when it fails it wouldn't hurt if I didn't care I'm really mad about what they did to my crows but the writing and the acting have been consistently good the choices that they've made have been consistently pretty good so knowing that Lee Bardugo is so heavily involved in the show knowing that she would have had to sign off on these plot line decisions presumably I don't know for a fact but I'm guessing she had to be aware and had to sign off on these plot decisions I have some faith they've thought this through Lee Bardugo knows where what these characters are supposed to get up to in Six of Crows she knows what what scenes she ruined what lines she stole what tensions she erased I'm hoping and I have some faith that she and they and the crew and the team and the writers have a reason for this that they've thought this through they have a plan that accounts for this and that it will be a very different story from what we get in the Six of Crows books that doesn't mean it will be bad it could be a different kind of equally good so as a fan of the books I'm pretty devastated by season two but as a fan of the show I'm pretty hopeful let me know your thoughts in the comments down below have you read these books do you want to read these books did you watch the show did you not watch the show I'm hoping that you have both read the books and seen the show I don't know what you get out of this video if you haven't done either but let me know if you're just as mad as I am about what they did to the crows or if you don't care or whatever I post videos on Saturdays other random comments about only Saturdays so like and subscribe draw my patreon if you feel so inclined and I'll see you when I see you