Enter the Grishaverse…

 

“In a world cleaved in two by a massive barrier of perpetual darkness, where unnatural creatures feast on human flesh, a young soldier uncovers a power that might finally unite her country. But as she struggles to hone her power, dangerous forces plot against her. Thugs, thieves, assassins and saints are at war now, and it will take more than magic to survive.”

Last week, on a seemingly unassuming Thursday, (1/10),  a certain piece of news oozed into even the farthest corners of the booknerd internet: the Grishaverse was coming to Netflix. With Leigh Bardugo attached to the project as a producer, and a seemingly fine team of writers and directors and sh*t (I won’t list them all out here, since plenty of articles have already gone into great detail about all the white men working on the series)

“I’ve been sitting on this news a long time—a very, very, long time—and I’m so glad to finally get to share it with you.” – Leigh Bardugo in her newsletter:

The jist of everything I’ve read is: At some point in the (relatively) near future, there will be an eight episode series that combines the plots and characters of Shadow & Bone, Six of Crows, and Language of Thorns.

“I know some of you are worried about how this will play out, but we’re not just smashing together the timelines. This isn’t a perfect analog, but I’ve been thinking of Season 1 as getting Book One of Shadow and Bone and Book Zero of Six of Crows.” – Leigh Bardugo

And while this is worrying, my thoughts on this big Grisha-style Infinity War are that it  doesn’t sound so bad. Going off the official Netfix slogan for the show, “Thugs, thieves, assassins and saints are at war now, and it will take more than magic to survive.,” it sounds like “more than magic” could mean love or friendship or whatever, but also, possibly, hopefully, heists, thievery, and previously unwritten Dregs antics? Or maybe, the Six of Crows heist somehow inserted into the Shadow & Bone storyline?

“We also talked about how to bring more diversity into play early in the Shadow and Bone narrative… That means some of the characters aren’t going to look the way they were described on the page—and that’s the way it should be.” – Leigh Bardugo

And while I’m nervous Netflix could become the Darkling and leech everything wonderful out of this show, I’d be worried about that kind of thing for any show. A Grishaverse adaption is something I thought would only exists in my dreams, since there’s just so much book and lore and plot to cover, so that fact there is going to be an adaption at all is awesome. 

“If the risk was handing these books over to the wrong people, I decided I’d rather wait it out.” – Leigh Bardugo

Regardless of it all, I’m determined to think positive thoughts about this show. Leigh is connected to the series, she’s fairly certain she’s found the right people, and if there’s anything I’ve learned from reading about the Grishaverse: I should trust Leigh Bardugo. (But, if they killed off Mal within the first couple minutes, I wouldn’t be mad.)

“The Grishaverse is at the beginning of something new and extraordinary and we never would have gotten here without you. Some of you have been with me since Alina’s first trek across the Shadow Fold. Some of you found your way here on the crooked streets of Ketterdam or in the deep shadows of the thorn wood. I’m just glad you’re here. Thank you for talking about these books and recommending them. Thank you for welcoming new readers to this world. And thank you for being here with me as we start a brand new chapter.” – Leigh Bardugo

 

  • Article by Ivy!