Small Details You Missed In The Shadow And Bone Trailer

The small-screen adaptation of Leigh Bardugo's "Grishaverse" series of fantasy novels inspired by real-life Imperial Russia, Shadow and Bone, is coming to Netflix on April 23, and the latest trailer that just dropped has viewers buzzing. 

It looks pretty amazing, and for fans of the Grishaverse books, it offers up plenty of clues as to how this rendition of the world of Ravka will look. The trailer starts with a peek at the ominous and threatening Shadow Fold, a region of darkness that contains many horrors and creates a blight on the land. The trailer also introduces viewers to Alina Starkov (Jessie Mei Li), the mapmaker who discovers during the course of the series that she has a special power that could change things in this war-torn land. Other major characters appear as well, including Alina's best friend Malyen Oretsev (Archie Renaux) and General Kirigan (Ben Barnes). 

You'll see that there's plenty of action, magic, and world-building (those sky ships!) packed into this trailer, which clocks in at under three minutes. Of course, if you aren't familiar with this world yet, there are some details you may have missed. Let's investigate some of those small, yet important pieces of information that'll help reveal what Shadow and Bone really has to offer.

This trailer focuses on Alina, Mal, and the Darkling's storyline from the Shadow of Bone trilogy, but the television series actually weaves two of Bardugo's books together. The non-titular source book is Six of Crows, set in the same world, but with a different set of characters in a separate location. It's about a gang led by Kaz Brekker (Freddy Carter) who attempt to pull off a major heist. His group, the Dregs, also includes sneaky Inej (Amita Suman) and sharpshooter Jesper (Kit Young).

Starting at the 1:38 mark, you can see the Dregs: Jesper's wink and coin toss, followed by Kaz's cane move, and then Inej, being lowered from the upper story of a building and revealing her face. If you blink, you might miss it, as they're on screen for less than five seconds, but the characters show off plenty of attitude in that tiny amount of time. It's a shame there's such short shrift given to these characters, because they're a lot of fun, and they reportedly make up as much of the story as Alina's journey — although you wouldn't know it from the way the trailer is structured.

Kit Young, in an IGN Fan Fest 2021 panel featuring the cast and its creators, said there's actually a good reason the Dregs barely appear in the trailer. "Everything we do is a potential spoiler," he said.

Potential spoilers from the book!

Fans of the books already know this, of course, but General Kirigan is actually a manipulative magic-user under a different name. Alina's power, shown in the trailer as bright rays and streams of fire, throws up radiant light and glows just beneath her skin when he causes her pain. At the end of the trailer, the Darkling uses his own magic, which seems to snuff out all the light in the room. Immediately after, viewers can see Alina generating a sphere of power in that same room, surrounding them both in filaments of light. This scene seems to imply, as savvy fans know, that his power somehow complements hers and that their destinies are intertwined.

"You and I are going to change the world," General Kirigan says, in a direct quote from the book. The brief scene suggests that Kirigan sees similarities in Alina and himself that might cause her to become an ally.

If you're the type of person who tends not to notice the audio much, except in the way that it supports the visuals, you'll want to pay attention to the epic feels you get as a direct result of the trailer's soundtrack. Plenty of people commenting on the video have pointed out how well the music helps to evoke a particular mood for Shadow and Bone, with the ominous notes leading into the ship's entrance into the Shadow Fold and the well-placed one-liners mostly from General Kirigan. When the monsters appear, there's horror-style music that amps up the suspense, and the first appearance of Alina's light power elicits glass-like jingles and sharp tones.

The orchestral score gets amped up in the second half of the trailer, which introduces supporting characters like Genja Safin (Daisy Head) very briefly and hints at the relationships between the characters with intimate looks and touches. The music also becomes more agitated as the Darkling uses his power in conjunction with Alina's. While it's understood that the trailer's tune isn't necessarily going to be used in the same way in the series, such well-designed audio bodes well for the potential emotional impact and storytelling sophistication of Shadow and Bone. No wonder people are hyped!