The writers for Netflix’s Shadow and Bone series must have studied the source material religiously, because they included so many clever hints at future events.
“Fine. Let’s give them Easter eggs,” is a famous quote by Shadow and Bone creator and showrunner Eric Heisserer. Just kidding, it’s not, but judging by how well the show did at foreshadowing future events, it might as well be.
Netflix’s Shadow and Bone is a pretty faithful adaptation of its source material, the eponymous first book in the Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo, who also serves as executive producer of the show. Her creative input and the love that the writers’ room has for the books are very clear in every scene of the show. They did an amazing job at writing the Crows, the trio that the books introduce only later in Six of Crows. Rather than merging the timelines, the show wrote an original storyline for the Crows that acts as a prequel of sorts to their duology. This means we see the characters at an earlier stage of life than when we first meet them in the books.
The show took this opportunity to include many hints and references to things that will take place in the future. Many events and conversations in season 1 were clearly written to establish certain dynamics that will pay off in later seasons. Some are obvious, and some are more well-hidden Easter eggs that fans are having fun finding.
Inej’s Sankta Alina dagger
When we meet Inej in Six of Crows, she owns six daggers that she treasures dearly. Inej is deeply religious; she’s named each dagger after a Saint, the larger-than-life martyrs she believes in fervently.
The show includes an incredibly heartwarming moment in the season finale between Alina and Inej: since Alina used Inej’s dagger to stab General Kirigan, she gifts Inej with her own dagger. Upon receiving it, Inej smiles fondly and says, “I know just what to name it!” This is a nod to her dagger named Sankta Alina, after the Sun Summoner herself, although the two have never met in the books.
An Open Casket
Whether in print or on the small screen, Jesper’s sassy lines are iconic. We can always count on him to lighten a tense situation by cracking a joke.
Jesper is very confident in his physical appearance and will often remark on his beauty. Before they attack General Kirigan in Episode 8, he tells Kaz and Inej, “If I’m meant to die today and either of you survive, make sure I have open casket.” He also says it at the end of Six of Crows: “If any of you survive, make sure I have an open casket.”
We can assume the show is going to make it a recurring joke, and we are not complaining.
Brick by brick
Kaz’s voice drips with hatred every time he mentions Pekka Rollins. There’s clearly history there, and the show gives us a few hints that Kaz is nursing a personal grudge against the boss of the Dime Lions.
When Pekka threatens Kaz in Episode 2, Kaz asks him if they ever made deal before. Pekka says no, and that Kaz would be dead if they had.
Book fans know this seemingly innocuous exchange is very significant for Kaz. Without spoiling anything, in a certain way, Kaz did die after making a deal with Pekka, but it was in another life and it’s only fair that Pekka doesn’t remember him; Kaz emerged from that experience a changed person.
Interestingly enough, Jesper seems to know about this connection on the show, because he asks Kaz if Pekka remembers him. Knowing Kaz, he likely hasn’t told the truth, so it will be fun to discover what exactly he told Jesper.
In another parallel to Six of Crows, the beginning of the season sees Pekka and Kaz competing for a contract to undertake a huge heist, and Rollins tries to prevent Kaz from departing for the mission. Kaz, of course, wins.
“I can’t wait to introduce you to my true love.”
Nina’s storyline with Matthias in season 1 appears in flashback form in the first book, with their conversations being adapted nearly word for word. For the most part, there’s not much room for foreshadowing when their origin story is transposed so well, but there is one thing worth mentioning.
By her own admission, Nina Zenik’s true love is waffles. Matthias, being a Fjerdan and a druskelle in training, has never had them. He actually mentions in the book that young druskelle don’t eat dessert, because they should not indulge in pleasures of the flesh like gluttony (or sex, for that matter). Unfazed by this, Nina mentions multiple times she will have Matthias try waffles, but they never get to, at least not on the page. The (sadly brief) scene in the show where Nina introduces Matthias to waffles at the inn gives fans everything we ever wanted. We lived for Matthias’s confused question, “Is this supposed to be sweet or savory?” to which Nina replies with an enthusiastic “YES!”
That Nina and Matthias never get to eat waffles together isn’t the greatest tragedy, but we appreciated the inclusion of this scene. As Nina says in Six of Crows, “You’re better than waffles, Matthias Helvar.”
The smallest Wesper hint
When Jesper reminds Kaz in Episode 2 that they “need a demo man,” Kaz brushes it off and says Jesper can get the job done in a way that works better for the current mission. “Jesper, you ask for an explosive expert on every job!”
Well, show!Kaz, you can’t know this yet, but that’s a little meta moment. I could feel the writers winking to the book fans when watching this scene. We know that the next demolition expert Kaz hires is going to be Jesper’s love interest, Wylan Van Eck.
Dirtyhands and the Wraith
By the time Six of Crows starts, Kaz and Inej are some of the most infamous residents of the Barrel. Stories are told about their deeds and talents, gossip turning into exaggerated legends that build a dark aura of mystery around them. Among people in Kerch, Kaz is known as Dirtyhands, because there is nothing he won’t do, and rumor has it his hands are permanently stained with all the blood he’s spilled. Inej is the Wraith, because she moves silent as a ghost, appearing and disappearing whenever she wishes.
In the show, it looks like they are on their way to achieving that level of popularity, but we do hear Poppy address Kaz as “Dirtyhands” once in Episode 2. As for Inej, the Darkling’s Heartrender in the finale calls her a “Wraith” as they fight. We can assume she will adopt the name, which fits her quite well.
Jesper is a WHAT?
If you haven’t read the books and don’t want a major SPOILERS, skip this one.
In the books, Jesper has Grisha powers. Personally, I love how the show never gave us a big revelation about Jesper’s Grisha nature. A casual watcher probably will never be able to tell. And yet, multiple hints are there. In Episode 7, Inej casually tells Kaz that “Jesper fixed your cane,” which had been broken in two pieces. There was no explanation of how Jesper achieved the feat in an abandoned barn with no tools at hand.
Other hints include Ivan realizing, “You’re a —“ before Jesper silences him by knocking him down. And Kaz mentions the De Kappel heist would’ve needed a Fabrikator to get through the safe.
The reoccurring De Kappel mention
Speaking of, let’s talk about the De Kappel painting that we see in Kaz’s office in the series premiere, which Rotty reports is missing from a rich merchant’s house. Naturally, Kaz denies having a hand in stealing it.
In the books, this heist is referred to repeatedly. It’s the reason why Kaz and Inej know the layout of Van Eck’s house. It was lovely to see this detail added to the show, especially in an unexpectedly comedic context.
The Chapel
As most of the guests of the winter fete enjoy the party in Episode 5, Kaz and Inej fight the twin Inferni Polina and Pavel in the royal chapel at the Grand Palace. This could be written off as just another fight scene, but it’s a very emotionally-charged moment because it’s the first time Inej kills someone in the show. When we meet her in the books, Inej has no qualms about killing in a fight, but knowing her and her devotion, she must have hesitated at first. The show’s choice to make Inej’s first kill a desperate act to save Kaz is very poignant. It’s like Inej is sacrificing a part of herself.
This felt like foreshadowing for a much bigger fight that takes place at the Grand Palace at the end of Siege and Storm, the second book in the Shadow and Bone trilogy. The attack takes place during Prince Nikolai Lantsov’s birthday party and ends with the ultimate confrontation between Alina and the Darkling in the same chapel that we saw in the show. In that scene, our protagonist Alina is forced to sacrifice her innocence, a part of herself, to ensure that her companions can escape unscathed. The parallel is veiled, but it shows just with how much care the writers had while crafting the show.
Kaz and Inej parting
Get ready for lots of Kanej feelings in this one, and the next.
Inej spends almost the entirety of the books contemplating her freedom and what she’ll do when she finally walks away from Ketterdam. In the show, at one point it looks like her alternative would be to go back to the Menagerie, something she would rather die than do. When she tries to leave the Crows in Episode 7, Kaz isn’t quite ready to tell her goodbye, but he doesn’t offer any parting words either.
“That’s it? After everything, there’s nothing else you want to say to me?” Inej asks. “What else is there?” Kaz responds cynically. The pain and resignation on Amita Suman’s face as she turns away does the rest. He does stop her to tell her she was right about Alina’s powers, unable to truly let her go. Inej asks him what he believes in, if not Saints, and Kaz finally admits that the only thing he has faith in are them, because no one has ever watched over him like Inej has. He promises he won’t let her go back to the Menagerie, and Inej agrees to stay.
In the book, the two have known each other longer and they are more aware of each other’s limitations. Inej knows not to expect anything from Kaz, and when she tells him, in one of the book’s most beautiful scenes, “When we get back to Ketterdam, I’m taking my share, and I’m leaving the Dregs,” Kaz looks away and tells her she should, that she was always too good for that place. But he also reaches out and tries to tell her something: “Inej — if we don’t make it out, I want you to know…”
Only Kaz never finishes that sentence, and Inej knows not to be disappointed. The difference in the show is that Inej has decided to leave because she can, not because she has to. Her freedom is finally hers. “She had aim now, her heart had direction, and though it hurt knowing that path led away from him, she could endure it.”
About a hundred pages later, after the Ice Court heist is successfully concluded and the danger of death isn’t looming over them, the Dregs revisit the topic of Inej leaving. She speaks of her plan to hunt slavers, to find her family, and Kaz finally takes that impossible step and asks her to stay with him. This scene also feels like we’re coming full circle from the scene in Episode 7, but Inej refuses this time. She’s forging her own path, and she’s done being anyone’s spy. And yet, when they are saying goodbye at the end of Crooked Kingdom, she promises that one day, she will come back.
“Kaz,” she asked suddenly. “Why crows?”
In the aforementioned scene in Episode 7 around the fire, Kaz explains to Inej why he chose Crows as his symbol. This show reflects a conversation the two of them only have in the penultimate chapter of the duology, when they are saying farewell at the docks in Ketterdam and Inej realizes she’s never asked him the meaning behind the symbol of his cane and their name.
Kaz’s explanation stays nearly identical from page to screen: crows aren’t just animals of vengeance who “remember the faces of people who wronged them, they also remember those who are kind” (and the people who feed them, he adds in the book). Freddy Carter’s acting is phenomenal as he finally shows some of Kaz’s vulnerability. “They tell each other who to look after and who to watch out for,” he continues. Just like Inej and Kaz and Jesper have done for each other all this time.
Did you find any more Easter eggs? What was your favorite? Which one did you think was the most clever and best concealed?
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