Before it was a Netflix series, Shadow and Bone was a book by author Leigh Bardugo. This season of Behind the Scenes takes a tour of the world she created, called The Grishaverse. We’ll hear from Shadow and Bone’s Executive Producer/Showrunner/Writer Eric Heisserer, the author and Executive Producer Leigh Bardugo, as well as writer Christina Strain and lead actor Jessie Mei Li. They share how they combined the Shadow and Bone series and storylines from Six of Crows to present an alternate and even more inclusive Grishaverse for the screen. Plus, we provide you with all the backstory and never-before-heard stories that you won’t want to miss.
Before it was a Netflix series, Shadow and Bone was a book by author Leigh Bardugo. This season of Behind the Scenes takes a tour of the world she created, called The Grishaverse. We’ll hear from Shadow and Bone’s Executive Producer/Showrunner/Writer Eric Heisserer, the author and Executive Producer Leigh Bardugo, as well as writer Christina Strain and lead actor Jessie Mei Li. They share how they combined the Shadow and Bone series and storylines from Six of Crows to present an alternate and even more inclusive Grishaverse for the screen. Plus, we provide you with all the backstory and never-before-heard stories that you won’t want to miss.
Ben Barnes:
Listen to this podcast at your peril because spoilers lie ahead. Make sure you've seen all the episodes of Shadow and Bone and welcome to The Grishaverse.
Jessie Mei-Li:
I grew up in the era of Lord of the Rings. You know, I spent most of my childhood running around with my cousins and my brother with sticks. I was always Gandalf for some reason.
Brandon Jenkins:
Three years ago, Jessie Mei-Li graduated from acting school and had a chance to go out for the role of a lifetime playing the lead in the new Netflix fantasy series called Shadow and Bone.
General Kirigan:
You were perfect.
Alina Starkov:
I just don't know where it came from.
General Kirigan:
Came from everywhere. Because you called upon it to come.
Jessie Mei-Li:
There was this one week where I had three different auditions to prepare for. And then, Shadow and Bone was kind of in the middle then and I remember reading it and thinking, okay, this is the only one that's specific to my casting. They're asking for a mixed race actor.
Brandon Jenkins:
Jessie Was excited about this role of Alina Starkov. She's an orphan who always felt like an outsider. Like she doesn't quite fit in. It was a dynamic that was all too familiar for Jessie.
Jessie Mei-Li:
To my white friends or non-Asian friends, I was super Chinese, but then to my Asian friends and family, I was very, very English and it's that sense of never really belonging anywhere. Everywhere you go, you're either feeling like you're being false and, or fake and playing up to something, or you're feeling like you're not included. You know, it's there in the script with Alina. It was there in the books. But I think having my own experience of just having to be like, "do you know what, okay, I don't fit in there. I don't fit in there, but I do fit in here with, with this friend. I fit in with me and the person I want to be."
Brandon Jenkins:
Where do I belong?
Brandon Jenkins:
Jessie's talking about race, casting, and growing up in the real world, but "Where do I Belong?" Is a recurring question and Shadow and Bone too, and an especially important question for the lead
character, Alina Starkov that Jessie was about to audition for the writers on the show use this question as part of what motivates Alina's quest.
Christina Strain:
I am a half Korean human being. So when anybody is able to clock me as anything other than straight up white, the question that I get is like, what are you?
Brandon Jenkins:
Christina Strain is a writer on the show.
Christina Strain:
And then I'm just constantly explaining what I am to people. And that's the thing that Alina, that's her entire arc this season, where she is being asked this question on multiple levels. On her racial level, on like, what is her role in this world.
Brandon Jenkins:
Alina's narrative is like a coming of age story on steroids. She was an orphan who becomes a lowly mapmaker, then discover she has hidden magical powers that make her the object of hope and envy across the land. Meanwhile, she still can't figure out who she is as a person, let alone as a savior to a country. It's an exciting role.
Christina Strain:
So with Alina, we got hundreds of tapes, and the second Jessie Mei-Li showed up, like she was just so good. Jessie brought this like sort of tough vulnerability to the role that we needed. Like it was just baked into her in a way that I believed it. And so like, seeing her on screen, I had this incredible wave of emotion where I just was like, "She's the one. If I look at my coworkers and they tell me they don't like her, I'm going to be very upset."
Brandon Jenkins:
Christina wasn't alone. Here's Leigh Bardugo, the author who dreamed up the story of Alina Starkov.
Leigh Bardugo:
They sent me their top five choices for Alina. So I started watching them, and I got to Jessie's and I stopped watching the rest of the tape, and I called one of the producers and I said, "it better be Jessie, cause I'm not watching anymore." As soon as I saw that recording, I knew she was our Alina.
Jessie Mei-Li:
I think I was cooking lunch or something like that. And my agents called and I just burst into tears. It felt so validating. It was just like, "no, this is who you are, and you've got this part and we see you in the way that you see you." And it was amazing. And I just, I think I... There are loads of expletives. I was excited, and then I ended up going to Ikea straight afterwards on a whim. I just didn't know what to do with myself.
Brandon Jenkins:
I've never thought about celebrating my life's personal wins by going to a furniture store. But you may have just started a new trend. We may... Something good happens? Slide over to Ikea.
Jessie Mei-Li:
Just do it. I'm very impulsive, quite like Alina.
Brandon Jenkins:
Welcome to Behind the Scenes, this season, we're going deep into the world, characters, and locations of Shadow and Bone, the new Netflix fantasy series based on the novels by Leigh Bardugo, we'll meet a lot of people who helped bring this magical world to the screen. From writers, directors, and actors, to a special effects artist with a pension for fire, and sound designers who found their key ingredients in a butcher shop. So, if you're just getting into this world that fans of the books call The Grishaverse, and you've got some questions.
Mal:
Where are they taking her?
Jesper:
Why me?
Kirigan:
What are you?
Brandon Jenkins:
Don't worry. We did too. And we're going to get into all of that. This is a big world with a lot of characters, and we're going to unpack it all, over four episodes. But first we're starting with Alina Starkov, the Sun Summoner. I'm your host, Brandon Jenkins, let's get started.
Brandon Jenkins:
I want to introduce you to Eric Heisserer, executive producer writer and showrunner of Shadow and Bone. Back in 2016, he was nominated for an Oscar for writing Arrival, the Amy Adams movie he adapted from a short story. Back then, Eric was a little burnt out.
Eric Heisserer:
I had made a resolution that I would do more pleasure reading. I discovered the last few years that all I was doing was reading potential adaptations to film. So I reached out to a friend of mine and said, "Give me a book that I probably haven't heard of before." And he said, "Would you like to read Ocean's Eleven in a Game of Thrones universe?" And I said, "Put that in my eyeballs right now."
Brandon Jenkins:
That book was Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows. It's a duology about teenage criminals set in the same universe as the Shadow and Bone trilogy, which tells a story of Alina Starkov.
Eric Heisserer:
The other resolution that I made that same year was whatever I consumed that year, be it music or movies or TV or poetry or comic books. If I loved it, then I wanted to reach out and thank the creators for it. Do you know, there's a lot of ways people use social media, but I wanted to make an effort to put some positivity into the world. And so I didn't know Leigh Bardugo, but I found her on Twitter and I sent her a tweet saying that I was having a great time with Six of Crows. And then I would enjoy her other books as soon as I was done with this one.
Brandon Jenkins:
And he did, but Eric is a serial adapter, and even if he started with Leigh's books just for fun, he couldn't help picturing it on screen. In the six years since publishing Shadow and Bone, Leigh had received a lot of offers to adapt her series to TV, and she'd always said "No." So there was no guarantee. She'd say yes to Eric, but still, she agreed to meet him.
Leigh Bardugo:
And I remember going to lunch with him, it was a little Italian cafe, to talk about it. Even before he went in to speak to Netflix.
Eric Heisserer:
I was a little nervous. I was a lot nervous actually. And I had a few, I would say, radical ideas about the adaptation. And I had thought all of these crazy ideas are going to scare her off, but if she likes them, then I know she likes the same show that I'm seeing in my head.
Brandon Jenkins:
Leigh did like the show the Eric was seeing in his head, but there were still conflicts. Mainly, Eric wanted to combine these two different books series into one show. And this is where they reached a creative impasse. I was determined to try and find a way to make it happen. And I was on a phone call with all of Netflix, and Leigh laid it out for me, how it was impossible.
Leigh Bardugo:
And I was sort of making the case for the fact that we can Frankenstein these characters, but we can't Frankenstein these plots, and there was this pause on the call.
Eric Heisserer:
There was a long pause, and I knew whatever I said, either I was going to get fired and that was it. We're going to part ways. Or I could come up with something that worked, and I offered up a scenario.
Leigh Bardugo:
Eric, all of a sudden said, well, what if the Crows were going to heist Alina Starkov? All of a sudden, everybody on the call was like, "hell yeah," like that is... All of a sudden, it was like the whole season unlocked.
Brandon Jenkins:
By giving the crew of criminals from Six of Crows, the mission of kidnapping Alina. Eric and his writing team set out to create an entirely new storyline for the Netflix series that didn't exist in any of these books.
Leigh Bardugo:
I really didn't want Eric or the writers to approach this fearfully. You know, scared artists make bad art and I wanted them to feel empowered, to make bold decisions with the plot.
Brandon Jenkins:
And that plot is what we're getting into today. Alina Starkov's quest to figure out who she is and where she belongs.
Brandon Jenkins:
So let's get started with where this whole story takes place. We meet Alina in the fictional country of Ravka. It's inspired by 19th century Russia. You can see this in the costumes, sets, and some of the language. It's isolated and poor, suffering from years of conflict.
Leigh Bardugo:
Ravka is a country that has failed to industrialize, that has been geographically isolated from the rest of the world. That is... Has really fallen behind.
Brandon Jenkins:
The biggest threat to life in Ravka is the Shadow Fold.
Leigh Bardugo:
The Fold is a swath of darkness that has quite literally cut this country into, and it is crawling with monsters that feast on human flesh.
Brandon Jenkins:
The Fold organizes the entire world. It's a massive obstacle for Ravka.
Leigh Bardugo:
If Ravka wants to trade with the west, if they want access to the coastline, to their ports and harbors, they have to cross the Fold, this impenetrable darkness. And the way that they do that is by sending these regimens of soldiers across, and they are young, and they're ill-equipped, and they are frequently food for these monsters. But in order for them to survive as a country, they have to keep doing this. They need supplies, they need weapons. They need to trade these raw resources that they have in abundance with the outside world. And it has left them very vulnerable to the enemies at their borders.
Brandon Jenkins:
Those enemies are the Shu Han to the south. And the Fjerda's to the north. Both of these countries are based on real regions, Shu Han being East Asia, and Scandinavia, the inspiration for Fjerda. The constant warfare means that Ravka is a very militarized society. So militarized in fact, that there are two armies. The First Army is made up of non-magical people, your muggle types, who fight with guns and sorts. The Second Army is made up of people known as the Grisha, the Grisha you're born with magical power to manipulate the physical world around them, fire, water, wind, and even metals. To find out if you're Grisha, you're tested as a child. And if you are a Grisha, you have to leave everyone you know, to join and serve the Second Army.
Kid at the orphanage:
And then you find out if you're Grisha, and you go and live in the Little Palace and eat sweet melon and Kerch candies, wear special coats.
Brandon Jenkins:
So you can hear there's a little resentment amongst non-Grisha, but who wouldn't want to be a Grisha and live in a Little Palace? Well, it turns out a lot of people. For most of Ravka's history, the Grisha were hated because... Well, because they were different. So they had to hide to survive, and there's still lingering mistrust.
Fyodor:
For years, being Grisha was a death sentence. At least now, thanks to General Kirigan, we're protected. Feared. And that's how we survive. Not by being overlooked, but by making them look.
Brandon Jenkins:
But in the time period that this story takes place, Grisha are begrudgingly accepted. Our main character, Alina never wanted to be Grisha. She grew up in an orphanage where most of the children's parents died in the Shadow Fold or in the war surrounding Ravka. But even here, the Second Army is looking for potential Grisha to add to its ranks. And when it came time for the Grisha aptitude test, Alina hid. She didn't want to be moved to the Little Palace. If it meant leaving the only person she ever really trusted, whoever really knew her, Mal Oretsev.
Malyen Oretsev:
Don't you want to know if you're Grisha?
Alina Starkov:
What if we can't die together?
Brandon Jenkins:
But by the end of episode two of Shadow and Bone Alina realizes that she's not only Grisha, she's the rarest of all Grisha, a Sun Summoner. Right after she finds out she's a Sun Summoner. She wants to stay where she's always been, in the Second Army, but she soon learns her life will never be the same. You want a very special girls. So
Fyodor:
How has no one looked twice at you before?
Alina Starkov:
Are you joking? Maybe it's nicer inside the walls of the Little Palace, but out here, when you're different, when you look different, everything's at risk of becoming a fine.
Brandon Jenkins:
Alina as played by Jessie Mei-Li, looks different because she's part Shu, that stand-in for East Asia, an intentional departure from the series where Alina is originally 100% Ravkan like everyone else around her. With the TV show, Eric and Leigh saw an opportunity to change things up.
Leigh Bardugo:
When I look back on Shadow and Bone, I can see things I would do differently. And one of the big things is it's a very white, very straight story. And my peer group has never been all white, and all straight. And I had to really ask myself why this is the way that I chose to tell this particular tale. And I think I was echoing a lot of what I'd read growing up. And I really believe firmly that adventure, and romance, and magic, and danger, and villainy, all of those things should not belong to one kind of person. Eric was on board with it from moment one, and not just in terms of colorblind casting. Race is an issue in this world.
Brandon Jenkins:
Eric's inspiration for Alina and the question of "Where do I belong?" Came from listening to people in his own world.
Eric Heisserer:
As a writer, as a storyteller, I end up holding on to and hoarding stories from friends and relatives and other associates. So I have like a little scrapbook somewhere in my head, and a good friend of mine shared with me what it was like for her being a half-Asian, and growing up mixed, and how for the longest time she felt she couldn't belong to either family and then of course it was my job to hire that friend to the room.
Brandon Jenkins:
That friend was Christina Strain. You heard from her earlier. She was the writer who liked Jessie's tough vulnerability and she was amped to get started.
Christina Strain:
My manager was like, "you two are nerds of a feather." So like he and I have very similar interests. I felt very much like, a lot of weight on my own shoulders, just because the number one on the call, she was a half-Asian woman and I was half-Asian and voice in that room, which was like a blessing for me because I was like, "I've never had this situation. I am so excited to be here. Let me tell you what it feels like."
Brandon Jenkins:
And Christina's voice came through when Jessie read the script.
Jessie Mei-Li:
I was just like, okay, this has been written by people who understand, and they have taken words... Leigh's words, Leigh's beautiful character, and they've managed to make it so that those words sound right coming out of my mouth as a mixed race person. The fact that they thought, "okay, in the books, Alina feels like an outsider and we hear that in her thoughts as a first person narrative, but when it comes to seeing Alina on screen, what can we do to show that she's an outsider and what can that do for her journey?"
Brandon Jenkins:
They show it by how people treat her. Like when she goes to the army cafeteria.
First Army Cook:
What's a Shu girl doing here?
Alina Starkov:
I'm Ravkan, on the cartography team.
Friend:
She's half Shu, an orphan.
First Army Cook:
Is that an answer? Back of the line. Your friends too.
Alina Starkov:
I don't know them.
First Army Cook:
Then you go. Come on!
Christina Strain:
In the first episode? There's that moment where she's in the line to get food and the guy serving, the lunch lady man was like, serving food and his comment to her is just like, "essentially none for you because you're Shu."
Brandon Jenkins:
I can't watch the way some characters treat Alina without thinking of how this resonates in the real world today. Anti-Asian hate crimes have risen 150% in the past year. So I wanted to bring on my producer, Melissa Slaughter, to talk about this collision between the real world and the fantasy world of Shadow and Bone.
Melissa Slaughter:
Hi Brandon.
Brandon Jenkins:
Hey Melissa, how are you?
Melissa Slaughter:
Good. How are you?
Brandon Jenkins:
I'm good. So you've been a producer on every season of this show, but this time around, this season, it's hitting you a little different.
Melissa Slaughter:
So two things listeners should know about me is one, I love fantasy. I love this show and I... Yes, I have been working on every season so far. The other thing is that, I am of Japanese descent. I'm mixed Japanese. And so, I was really excited for this show in particular, Shadow and Bone, because I knew that there was a mixed Asian lead and I knew that there were mixed cast members. And I also do a lot of interviews for this show. So I was very excited to talk to writer, Christina Strain. I knew she was mixed Korean and when I watched the show, I had that in my mind.
Brandon Jenkins:
So what was it like when you got the chance to sit down and speak with Christina?
Melissa Slaughter:
It was great. We immediately clicked. She's so joyful. We were just like... And we had that kind of moment. And it was also nice because during the interview, we bonded over a bunch of different moments, including how we were both big fantasy nerds when we were growing up.
Christina Strain:
I took this job because my younger self needed this show. Like I was a kid who grew up on fantasy, and it was like, "this is going to be a high fantasy with a half-Asian lead" 15 year old me would be dying.
Melissa Slaughter:
You're speaking to younger Melissa, you're speaking to younger me. I feel that way all the time. You and I also have a deep love of fantasy. We've talked a little bit about this offline. What is it about fantasy? Like, what attracts you to it?
Christina Strain:
It escapism of it all, right? And for me, fantasy was an outlet that gave me an opportunity to get out of my own head and like, read about characters who could take power and wield it in a way that, you know, saved them, and made their lives and the world better for them. The idea that like, there is a fantasy world where there is magic, and you can use magic to help solve your problems and make things better for yourself. And so for me, a lot of it is just like fantasy is the wish fulfillment that I want. If I could do real magic, I would, I would not be writing. I would be casting spells.
Melissa Slaughter:
Real quick, Do you have children in the background?
Christina Strain:
I do, I'm sorry.
Melissa Slaughter:
No, no, no, it's fine. It's fine.
Christina Strain:
They're my two kids and they're outside playing right now because it's 2:30 PM on a Friday and they need to burn some energy before five o'clock.
Melissa Slaughter:
So it was really nice to talk to Christina and to talk to someone who has very similar experiences and references to me, but not exactly the same. We are not a monolith. But they were close enough that we could recognize real-world connections, including me recognizing one from my family history.
Brandon Jenkins:
Is there a particular moment that stood out?
Melissa Slaughter:
Yes. The scene in episode six, where Alina has run away, she's in a different part of Ravka, she's on her own. No one knows who she is. So she doesn't have the same protection she did in the Little Palace. So she runs into this guard who only sees her as Shu. He only sees her as the enemy, and she gets away because she's the Sun Summoner and all those [grey 00:21:23] stuff.
Alina Starkov:
Sorry.
Ravkan :
So far from Shu Han, aren't you? Why don't you come inside?
Melissa Slaughter:
But for me, it really evoked a what in Japanese American culture, we call "looking like the enemy." It's a phrase that comes from World War II. And so, that particular moment, where just the act of being born Shu, places Alina in a more dangerous situation, it brought up really intense emotions for me, based on my own family history of discrimination and anti-Asian sentiment. But also for Christina, we got
emotional together and you can really hear that in our voices.
Christina Strain:
So, so like the approach we took to Alina is very specific to our particular experience is the Japanese American experience during World War II because Asian Americans, and Japanese Americans in particular throughout history have been put in positions where they've had to define who they are and prove that they may look like the enemy, but they're not. And I think the world we're living in right now, like we did not know this when we wrote, season one of the show... Yeah, I'm not going to, I'm not going to get emotional. Hold on. So... You take a second. This is terrible.
Christina Strain:
And I also think that like the, like the timing, of all of this is so much more stressful, you know? Because it's one thing to conceptualize that like the place we are coming from for Alina is that she is, you know, think about what Japanese Americans went through during World War II and how they had to continuously prove that they were American and deny their Asian-ness in order to survive. And at the time that we did that, it was a very real thing, but it was almost more conceptual than it is right now, because now we're living in a time where like racism against Asians is on the rise and we are once again, having to prove that we're American. Like being mixed race for her, isn't just that she's part, another race. It's very much that she looks like the enemy to them and she has to continuously prove that she's not. And the only way that she can do that is by continuously saying "I'm Ravkan," and hoping that people listen.
Brandon Jenkins:
Early on in Shadow and Bone, we see that Alina is not entirely alone. There is one person who knows what she's going through. Mal Oretsev, her safe harbor in this world. After that scene, when Alina is told to get to the back of the line and denied dinner, Mal brings her grapes.
Malyen Oretsev:
I have something for you.
Alina Starkov:
Where did you get these?
Malyen Oretsev:
I stole them.
Alina Starkov:
From a Grisha tent?
Brandon Jenkins:
It's maybe not the most filling meal during a military campaign, but it's the gesture that counts. Mal finds Alina hiding out after the confrontation in the food line. Here's Jessie. Again,
Jessie Mei-Li:
I wanted her to feel like... Almost that kind of, that, that alley cat that you find that's really frightened of humans and doesn't quite trust you. You know, there's sort of a little bit wild, but kind of absolutely desperate to be picked up and held at the same time. When she's with Mal, she's way more relaxed, and we see that she can, she smiles and she laughs, and she will look at him, and she's feels held and safe with Mal and I think it was really important to show that.
Brandon Jenkins:
This being a fantasy, he is, of course not only her childhood best friend, and fellow orphan and also a mixed race kid, but a love interest. The guy who gets her.
Malyen Oretsev:
Aha! I found you.
Alina Starkov:
You always do, somehow.
Malyen Oretsev:
Well, it's not hard, you always perch.
Alina Starkov:
I'm brooding.
Brandon Jenkins:
It's the fear of losing Mal that propels Alina to go into the Fold. Like Leigh said, to go into the fold is certain death.
Malyen Oretsev:
The hell are you doing here?
Alina Starkov:
We've been assigned with you.
Malyen Oretsev:
No. Turn around right now.
Alina Starkov:
Orders are orders.
Malyen Oretsev:
I could shoot you in the foot.
Alina Starkov:
I like my feet, thank you.
Malyen Oretsev:
Tell them you're too sick to go.
Alina Starkov:
I'm never that sick.
Malyen Oretsev:
Lie if you have to.
Alina Starkov:
And what's your lie? I'm with you.
Malyen Oretsev:
Get off this boat now, or I'll carry you off.
Man on Skiff:
Raise the gates!
Brandon Jenkins:
When their ship enters the Shadow Fold. It's not long before the Volcra, those flesh-eating monsters, begin to attack. Their only defense against the Volcra, is fire.
Inferni leader:
Inferni! Nice, nice. Good, good. Again.
Brandon Jenkins:
The Grisha who control fire are called Inferni, and there's a real, or close to real life Inferni behind those flames. Yves DeBono, who talked to our producer. Christine.
Yves DeBono:
Did I burn the carriage down?
Christine Driscoll:
Yeah, did you?
Yves DeBono:
Actually I used to play [inaudible 00:26:46] with fire. Yeah, I did. I had my model airplanes, and I used to try to set the wings alight and play around with them. And then the plastic would suddenly melt on my finger and I'll be rolling around in the grass.
Brandon Jenkins:
His actual title these days is a Practical Effects Supervisor, but from those beginnings with model airplanes, his first job in film was pretty legendary.
Yves DeBono:
My first film was Raiders of the Lost Ark. So from there, I never looked back.
Brandon Jenkins:
Remember the snake scene when Harrison Ford finally makes it into the Sphinx? Only to be confronted with his greatest fear, a pit of snakes.
Yves DeBono:
We had like, all these mechanical snakes. Mechanical snakes, mixed up with real snakes and then they would pour, I mean, literally trash cans full of these other snakes. There was thousands. I mean, it was unbelievable. So all the movement with the mechanical and the real, I mean, you'd think the whole floor was just covered in snakes. I mean, talk about real practical effects.
Brandon Jenkins:
He's right. To get that epic look on screen. You have to combine real snakes, with fake snakes, and Shadow and Bone has a lot of that real snake, fake snake energy. Most of the things you see are made. The flames are real, tents, the clothing, everything had to be fabricated. And there's some CGI too. Practical effects, working with visual effects to make everything big and grand and fantastical. But getting back to the fire and our Inferni, when Alina and the crew head into the Fold, their only protection when the Volcra arrive, is fire. The balls of flames, the Inferni are throwing at the Volcra are real.
Yves DeBono:
Basically, we like to start big and we can always bring it down. We don't want to go small and try to bring it up.
Christine Driscoll:
Can you compare the size of these balls of fire to something like a listener might be more familiar with?
Yves DeBono:
Probably like a, the size of a mini.
Brandon Jenkins:
That's a mini Cooper. Sometimes they're bigger.
Yves DeBono:
I would say two minis, how about that?
Brandon Jenkins:
But all of Yves' flames, even those that are the size of two minis, are not enough to stop the Volcra from trying to take them out.
Brandon Jenkins:
And that's when Alina's power is revealed.
Brandon Jenkins:
That burst of light means that Alina is along the way to Sun Summoner, a mythical type of Grisha who can bring light. Enough light to maybe even destroy the Fold. In Ravka, people tell stories about a Sun Summoner. Some people don't think one exists, and some people even see the Sun Summoner as a savior.
Fyodor:
You summon pure sunlight. Your kind of Etherealki has just been a theory, a picture in a storybook.Until now.
Town man:
And they want you to believe the Sun Summoner has been found to finally tear down the wall that divides us. How many times have we been fed a story like that? And how many times have we in the West...
Brandon Jenkins:
After being under the Volcra attack, after just a few miles, the crew turns around, and Alina is immediately yanked out of everything she's ever known and brought to the halls of power. Once again, she's confronted with that ever present question.
General Kirigan:
What are you?
Alina Starkov:
A mapmaker, sir.
Brandon Jenkins:
Alina is taken to the Little Palace where the Grisha live. It's the center of power in Ravka, and yet another place where she has to figure out how, or if she fits in.
Alina Starkov:
Stop, stop, stop. I am perfectly capable of washing myself. And yes, I smell like horse. I was on one for 200 miles. After nearly being killed. Twice. And I understand Old Ravkan, and that was really quite rude.
Brandon Jenkins:
Previously, Alina was anonymous, and other, but now she's a chosen one. She's under the view of General Kirigan, the mysterious Grisha in charge of the Second Army.
General Kirigan:
Once he sees what you can do and we have his blessing, you will remain here to train.
Alina Starkov:
His blessing? I thought you ruled the Grisha.
General Kirigan:
I may lead the Second Army, but the King is still the King.
Brandon Jenkins:
He presents her to the king and Queen as a Grisha who might be able to destroy the Fold and basically save their whole country, you know, no big deal. And so all the Grisha file up to check out the new girl, Alina. When shooting that scene at a grand estate in Hungary, there was another special person in the scene. Leigh Bardugo has a cameo. Leigh's role is small, but she gets to hug Alina/Jessie.
Leigh Bardugo:
And If you look at my face, I mean, I'm not an actor and everything is written on my face. Like I'm so thrilled and so proud. I'm just beaming so goofily, but it was so joyful that I got to be the person to welcome Alina into the Grisha and I'll tell you too, they were so... I have a disability, I have a degenerative bone disease and it means... For one thing, I couldn't wear the beautiful little shoes that they had for me to wear. I'm wearing my Crocs in the scene, with socks, it was very cold.
Brandon Jenkins:
This is a big scene in the story of Alina and it hits on the theme of "Where do I belong?" And how loaded that question is.
Queen:
I guess she's Shu enough. Tell her... Oh, I don't know... good morning.
Alina Starkov:
I don't actually speak Shu, your Highness.
Queen:
Then what are you?
Christina Strain:
The key touchstone for me was the question. You know, "what are you?" Because I think with Alina in particular... This is a girl who is... She started out otkazat'sya.
Brandon Jenkins:
Christina Strain, again, getting deep on the details. Otkazat'sya means someone who's not a Grisha. So me, basically. You're, you, probably? Anyways.
Christina Strain:
One of the lines that I said in the room that I think is the whole reason I took this job, and the queen asks her, like, "what are you?" And that's the thing that Alina that's her entire arc, this season where she is being asked this question on multiple levels, on her racial level, on what is her role in this world? Like is she a Grisha? Is she an Otkazat'sya? Like, what is she? What are you? And she has to learn. She has to stand her ground and say, "I know what I am. And this is who I am."
Brandon Jenkins:
And she doesn't answer all of their questions. She knows who she is as a citizen of Ravka, as a map maker in the First Army, as Mal's friend. There's so many ways to answer the question, "what are you?" Alina looks around at this place where she's ended up. Looking for an answer and then, someone else steps in and speaks for her.
General Kirigan:
She is Alina Starkov, the Sun Summoner, moya tsaritsa.
Brandon Jenkins:
General Kirigan.
Brandon Jenkins:
In this scene. He tells her that she belongs here in the Little Palace.
General Kirigan:
Welcome home. Miss Starkov.
Brandon Jenkins:
What soon enough, Alina will be answering the question of where she belongs for herself. Sometimes it'll be an opposition to the very man who just welcomed her home. And while Alina is endowed with this massive power, the way Leigh explains it, she's just like us.
Leigh Bardugo:
I think we all feel like we've been overlooked or mistreated. I think many people struggle to find a place they belong and people they belong with. And I think also, people struggle to find their purpose in the world, and to understand their own strength. And I think there's a desire in all of us at every stage in our life. You know, this desire to find our people, the people we connect with, and who are essentially our army, the people we want at our back and in difficult circumstances. And also to have our gifts recognized. I think we've all been there, and so this trope, this coming of age idea of having the secret power uncovered, I think is resonant for a lot of people because we want people to see that on a... "see what is unique in me, see what is special in me and give me a chance to do my best."
Brandon Jenkins:
We're going to watch Alina figure out where she belongs and how to make the best of her chance for the rest of the series. And we'll do fun behind the scenes stuff like learn about a celebrity goat, hear how the Shadow Fold was made real, and how dry ice, beef, and sugar make magic. On the next episode, we go to Ketterdam and meet the Crows, a second story in the world of Shadow and Bone.
Kit Young:
And then everyone gets out their iPhones and is watching me hold these hugely heavy weapons. And they're like "go on, do it!" And I'm like, "I don't think I can."
Leigh Bardugo:
And he says, when people see somebody coming down the street with a cane, what do they think? Oh, well, you know, there's a guy with a cane. When they see me coming, what do they think? They think they better get out of the way. And I mean, I like that. I would like to be both feared and loved, so I really love it.