What Shadow & Bone’s New Cast Reveals About Season 2’s Story

Warning: Spoilers for Shadow and Bone book 2, Siege and Storm. 

Netflix’s Shadow and Boneseason 2 added a handful of new cast members and their characters reveal quite a bit about season 2’s story. The additions to Shadow and Bone‘s cast were recently announced and included one name audiences should be familiar with and a few other up-and-coming talents. The new faces include Lewis Tan as Tolya Yul-Bataar, Anna Leong Brophy as Tamar Kir-Bataar, Patrick Gibson as Nikolai Lantsov, and Jack Wolfe as Wylan Hendriks, and each are set to have a significant impact on the story.

Shadow and Bone season 1 did an incredible job of weaving together multiple storylines. It skillfully modified Alina Starkov’s (Jessie Mei Li) story from the books to incorporate the addition of the Crows, who don’t actually show up in the books until their own duology that takes place after the Grisha trilogy. While the storyline with Nina Zenik (Danielle Galligan) and Matthias Helvar (Calahan Skogman) sometimes felt disconnected from everything else, the ending of Shadow and Bone season 1 finally found all the characters meeting up. Clearly, the pieces are all in place to tell a particular story.

However, what story Shadow and Bone season 2 will tell remains the question. Due to the necessity of changing the story to accommodate the Crows meeting Alina, quite a few liberties were taken with the books in the Netflix adaptation. It wouldn’t be surprising if the same happened to the second season’s story. Still, the new cast and the characters they play reveal a lot about what audiences might expect for Shadow and Bone season 2’s story. Here are the biggest takeaways.

Shadow & Bone Season 2 Will Be Closer To The Books Than Season 1

Though Shadow and Bone season 1 made some significant changes to the first book of the trilogy, by the end, Alina and Mal (Archie Renaux) ended up where they were at that point in the book. But now that the Crows appear set to do their own thing, it’s likely that Shadow and Bone season 2 will be more faithful to the second book. That’s especially the case if one considers three of the new characters: Tolya and Tamar Yul-Bataar and Nikolai Lantsov. The three first appear in book 2, Siege and Storm, and become integral characters moving forward and close allies to Alina in the fight against the Darkling (Ben Barnes).

Tolya and Tamar are Heartrender twins with ties to both Ravka and Shu Han. Their mother was a Grisha stationed near the border of Shu Han and their father was a Shu mercenary. After their mother’s death, they and their father left for Novyi Zem so they wouldn’t get drafted into Ravka’s Second Army. As a result, they’re somewhat different from other Grisha, equally as skilled with blades and weapons as they are with their Corporalki powers. Alina and Mal are likely to meet them in Shadow and Bone season 2 the same way the story unfolds in the books: while at sea searching for the second of Shadow and Bone‘s Grisha amplifier, the sea whip Rusalye, known as the Ice Dragon. Quite quickly, Tamar and Tolya swear themselves to Alina’s service, vowing to protect the Sun Summoner.

Meanwhile, Nikolai Lantsov takes on a role of enormous importance. As the youngest son of the Lantsov royal line, he’s determined to end the Darkling’s reign, banish the Shadow Fold, bring peace to Ravka, and be everything his father, the current king, isn’t. With Nikolai trying to subtly wrestle political influence and control away from his inept, indulgent family and Tolya and Tamar’s skills being necessary for the dirty work Alina will find herself facing in Shadow and Bone season 2, the story is sure to find the three of them becoming fast friends and important allies of Alina as they do in the books. Now that the show no longer has to worry about ensuring their stories line up with the Crows in Shadow and Bone season 2, it will be easier for it to stick more closely to the books.

The Soldat Sol Will Appear

It wasn’t touched upon much in Shadow and Bone season 1, but in the books, Alina becomes revered as a living saint. Hints of this were shown in Inej Ghafa’s (Amita Suman) reverence for the Sun Summoner, but for the most part, season 1 was an origin story for Alina. Now that all of Ravka knows the Sun Summoner is real and what she can do, however, the fanaticism is sure to grow in Shadow and Bone season 2. Tamar and Tolya all but ensure this as members of the Soldat Sol, holy warriors sworn to protect Alina.

This also means the Apparat, who spent most of season 1 being incredibly creepy but not influential on the narrative, will take his place as he does in the books as a secondary antagonist and sometime ally of Alina in Shadow and Bone season 2. The Soldat Sol, after all, were started by him. Ostensibly, they’re meant to support Alina, but really with the underlying goal of having his own private fighting force to control Alina should she start to usurp the Apparat’s own influence on Ravka’s faithful. This means Shadow and Bone season 2’s story should start to reveal just how manipulative and dangerous the Apparat is. While Tolya and Tamar are wholly loyal to Alina, there are many young and naive members of the Soldat Sol who are easily manipulated by the Apparat into believing they’re doing what’s best for the Sun Summoner when the reality is they’re undermining her goals.

The Crows Will Start Their Ice Court Heist

The Crows’ story for the first season was all prequel to what happened to them in the books. Shadow and Bone season 2, however, looks to finally get into their Ice Court heist story told in Six of Crows. Season 2’s new characters mostly have ties to Alina and her story, but Wylan Hendricks appears for the first time in the Crows’ books and is a key component of the impossible job given to them by a wealthy Kerch merchant: break a Shu Han scientist out of Fjerda’s Ice Court, their military and royal stronghold and home to an impenetrable prison. At the very end of Shadow and Bone season 1, Kaz Brekker (Freddy Carter) indicated he had a plan, and it could be the Ice Court heist from the books that he’s referring to.

However, a key component of the Crows’ books is largely missing in the Grisha trilogy. That’s the experimentation upon Grisha with jurda parem, a drug that increases a Grisha’s powers to a terrifying degree but also makes them immediately and hopelessly addicted to the substance. More, the way Kaz announced he had a plan, it seemed as though it was something he had come up with on his own rather than a job being given to them by someone else. So while Shadow and Bone season 2 might very well incorporate the Ice Court heist story, it seems the way the Crows are put on that path might change. It’s even possible that whoever they’re tasked with breaking out of Fjerda’s Ice Court–or whatever they’re told to steal–will in some way tie back to Alina’s story and her attempts to kill the Darkling and destroy the Shadow Fold. Whatever story Shadow and Bone season 2 tells, the new additions to the cast of characters are some of the most interesting, fan-favorite characters in the books. It will certainly be fun to see how showrunner Eric Heisserer and author Leigh Bardugo tell their stories.

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