26 shows similar to Game of Thrones to watch next
By Daniel Roman
3. Shadow and Bone
One of the largest fantasy television releases of 2021 was Netflix’s Shadow and Bone, a series set in a Russia-inspired nation called Ravka. Shadow and Bone is based off of author Leigh Bardugo‘s Grishaverse novels, specifically her original Grisha trilogy and follow-up Six of Crows duology. While these two series happen in chronological order in the novels, the show has done some truly remarkable work at combining the stories and characters into one larger, more epic, more exciting whole.
Shadow and Bone follows two groups of characters whose plotlines become ever more intertwined. The first is headed by Alina Starkov (Jessie Mei Li), a mapmaker in the royal Ravkan military who discovers she is a legendarily rare type of Grisha called a Sun Summoner. Grisha are magic users who have a variety of gifts, from manipulating fire and wind to creating magical objects to healing a person’s imperfections. Sun Summoners possess the ability to create light, and were long believed to be a myth, one that holds a particularly powerful place in Ravkan society’s collective imagination owing to the fact that the country is split in half by a miles-long trench of darkness called the Shadow Fold. It is believed that only a Sun Summoner can destroy the Fold and reunite both halves of the country. And so Alina is swept into a world of courtly intrigue and magical sleight of hand, one where she never quite knows who to trust.
On the flip side of things we have the Crows, a fan-favorite gang of thieves led by the enigmatic Kaz Brekker (Freddy Carter). The Crows live in a city called Ketterdam, capital of the island nation Kerch. Seeing how their seemingly unrelated plotline gradually intertwines with Alina’s is one of the best parts of Shadow and Bone.
All told, Shadow and Bone was one of the strongest new fantasy shows of 2021. Netflix has already confirmed it will be back for a second season, though we don’t have a release date as of yet.