Shadow and Bone is now a reality! As you already have two reviews, one from the point of view of a reader and another from that of a non-reader, I’m going to sit here to choose 5 scenes that you can’t miss from each episode, either because they are essential for the development of the episode or because they’re the ones I like the most because, after all, this is my list. It’s the turn of Shadow And Bone 1×03 “The Making at the Heart of the World”.
“Hope is dangerous …”
I always have to include Kanej in my list of 5 scenes you can’t miss for, you know, science … and because they kill me with feels and it’s only fair that I share some with you. As always, their scenes are tremendously revealing and a turning point for the characters, even if it doesn’t seem like something special in the grand scheme of things.
At this particular moment, Inej is desperately searching for the name of her parents in a tribute to the dead. She was kidnapped at age 14, as a child, from then on, she couldn’t leave Ketterdam, but she never forgot.
She didn’t forget her parents, nor her brother, nor her family. She loves them, she will always love them. That is why, as soon as she leaves Ketterdam, she takes the opportunity to look up the names of her family, just in case, just to know something about them, even if it’s absolutely sad and horrible news that would break her, but she prefers that not knowing anything.
That’s how Kaz finds her and he wants to comfort her … in his own way. He doesn’t know better. He doesn’t know how to do better. But he doesn’t want her to imagine her parents dead, he wants her to continue to see them alive, full of laughter and love. Kaz doesn’t want Inej’s last possible image of her parents to be an inert corpse. He wants her to, at least, have the comfort of remembering them just as they forced her to leave them.
But he doesn’t want hope to consume her either. That hope destroyed him and his brother. And he learned to eliminate it, to suppress that hope, to trample on it until there is nothing left because having hope means longing for what you cannot have … and longing means pain, it means breaking you from the inside out and Kaz doesn’t want Inej to suffer in that way, he doesn’t want her to go through it.
So he just tries … he tries to let her know. Let her know that hope can cause more pain and that he doesn’t want that for her. But he is not able to do better. His words sound harsh, sound cruel and insensitive but he only wants to protect her so that she doesn’t suffer.
It worked for Kaz to cover his heart with a layer of ice … an ice that only Inej can pass through and he only believes that the same will work for Inej. But Inej is not like that, she cannot cover her heart with layers of ice.
She’s a devoted woman, with a heart that doesn’t fit in her chest and that she always carries in her hand, giving everything for those she loves, it is part of who she is and it is one of the reasons why he fell in love with her. Just… he wants to protect her even from herself. Sometimes having a heart has a price. And Kaz doesn’t want Inej to pay for it.
“She’s the future”
Alina is the future. Period. And yes, Ben Barnes’s voice and his words still make our knees shake. He always will. And I love this Darklina moment because Alina is so nervous … she still feels like a fraud and she fears what might happen when everyone realizes that she is not who they think. But then Kirigan takes her hand, makes her calm down, makes her trust herself.
You know, Alina never had great confidence in herself and in her abilities, much less in some powers that she just discovered but Kirigan knows it. He knows what she feels. So he accompanies her every step of the way, he is not going to leave her alone. And she clings to his hand and trusts him again. It’s funny because Alina hardly trusts anyone other than Mal but Kirigan is by her side and is showing her that she can lean on him and she does.
I really love the way he understands her without the need for words and doesn’t hesitate to guide her in that new world, to put her under his protection until she is strong enough to protect herself.
Alina is confused, just entering a world that she doesn’t understand and Kirigan, the feared Darkling doesn’t behave as with everyone with her. With her he is sweeter, more patient and doesn’t hesitate to simply hold her hand and make her see that everything is going to be fine.
For once, with Alina, he begins to stop being General Kirigan or The Darkling and begins to be just Aleksander, although he doesn’t realize what is happening and how his voice and gestures soften when he speaks with Alina, when he guides her.
Kirigan tells the king that Alina is the future but it is something he is saying to her as well. She is the future and she must not fear her powers, she must not fear what she is, she must accept herself and be proud of being Grisha, of being a summoner. Alina should be proud of who she is and stop hiding. This fragile connection and trust that began in the previous episode between then, begins to grow more and more.
Jesper and his aim
We love Jesper so much… and our love for him only grows in this episode. I had been waiting for a long time to include him in this list of 5 scenes you can’t miss and here he is. The scene where he shoots Volcra one by one and saves the day is one of my favorites from Shadow And Bone.
Jesper was nervous and quite terrified – although he would never admit it – about the whole business of dying in the middle of Shadow Fold and on a train away from the Saints’ hand (bringing a goat was certainly a good idea). But if our Jesper has to die, he prefers to do it with his smoking pistols in hand.
So he did so, he took the pistols and started shooting. He is always tempting luck and betting big, this scene is proof of that. He knew that his idea could be an absolute success or a real disaster, but luck (and what is not luck) was on Jesper’s side this time and, when all seemed lost, he saved everyone’s lives by facing Volcra … and living to tell that adventure.
Yeah, baby! Leave Jesper and his aim to nail it – pun intended – in every moment and make the odds work in his favor.
History lesson
This scene is tremendously important. Alina learns the story from Ravka and Shadow Fold and is the basis for everything that follows.
We heard for the first time about Morozova’s amplifiers, mainly the deer and the power they contain, in addition to finding out that this power will only belong to the Grisha who manages to kill the deer.
Alina is already starting to figure out that the deer and her power is going to be vital to her because an amplifier of her power sounds like just what she needs at that moment when she can barely summon her power without Kirigan’s help. This scene is key to the rest of the story and it won’t be the last time we hear about Morozova, the deer and the amps.
“You’re my true north”
Malina also occupies a place in this list of 5 scenes you can’t miss. Throughout the entire episode, Alina has been sending letters to Mal that remain unanswered, but I think the last one is the most revealing. The memories of them help us a lot to connect with this couple and one of the most special is that little moment in which Mal told her how he felt about her … without telling her.
The two of them have never had a place to call home. The orphanage was … just where they slept, but it never felt like home. They dreamed of escaping from there and finding a place where they could feel safe and secure. Together. So when they studied the cardinal points, it was easy for Mal to teach Alina that north would always be where the heart was, where your home was.
They both thought the same thing at the time: “you’re my home”. But none of them dared to say anything for fear that that special connection they have would be spoiled, but now they are separated, they have no contact, everything has changed, life has taken a huge turn and … they no longer have anything to lose. Fear sounds so stupid now that Alina doesn’t know who she is and the only thing she’s sure of is Mal.
Now, she can recognize how she feels about him, even though she feels it’s too late because he doesn’t seem to want to know anything about her. But she … she misses him and, even if she is confessing it to the air, she needs to say it, she needs to tell him that he is her home, he is her refuge and with whom she can be herself. Anchor her when the ground seems to lift over her feet. And she just hopes … hopes that he reads her words and that means something.
Bonus: Zoya vs Alina
I had to put this fight in the 5 scenes you can’t miss list. I mean, it’s the first fight between Alina and Zoya! As Sujaya Dasgupta told us in our interview, for Zoya it’s a very personal matter. She and Kirigan had a kind of informal relationship and she was always someone special to him, the only one who could approach The Darkling in a more intimate way, he is the only one who makes her feel something real … until Alina arrived.
Zoya feels that she took something from her, something important, and she is not willing to leave things like that. When she sees an opportunity to hit Alina back she just takes it.
And I like how this scene is focused. In the book, it was about Zoya having the upper hand the whole time due to Alina’s lack of training but in the show, we can really see how Alina fights back … until Zoya does something forbidden and uses her power against her.
Zoya was always a fighter and she is not willing to let Alina take something she feels is important from her without a fight. And it’s one of the reasons we love her.
And these are the 5 scenes that you can’t miss from Shadow And Bone 1×03 “The Making at the Heart of the World”. Stay tuned for the 5 scenes you can’t miss from episode 4 that we will publish tomorrow.
Would you add any scenes? Do you like the ones we chosen? Feel free to share with us in the comments below!
Shadow And Bone is available to watch on Netflix.
