In the first season of Shadow and Bone, Ben Barnes played General Kirigan, a powerful Grisha magic user who could manipulate shadow. He used charm and deceit to try and achieve his megalomaniacal ambitions, at least until Alina Starkov (Jessie Mei Li) and the Crows left him for dead in the dangerous Shadow Fold at the end of season 1.
It ends up that Kirigan survives that brush with death, and emerges from the Shadow Fold having dropped all pretenses of being a nice guy. “Whilst he is the evil, toxic, nasty presence that is seething all over Season 2, he also feels betrayed and abandoned and rejected and alone — unloved at this point, even by his own mom,” Barnes told TVLine. “He’s justifying the way that he is being, even if it’s not possible for anybody else to. In the first season, he has all these different weapons in terms of his army, his charm, his skills in manipulation. In the second season, all that is out the window, and he’s just more full-on rage.”
Now going by the Darkling, Kirigan also has some shadow assistants — called nichevo’ya — to help him out now. “General Kirigan is without any of the friends’ status or manners that he was abusing in the first season, and he is wrestling with his new shadow demons,” Barnes told Entertainment Weekly. “He’s not a happy bunny.”
Ben Barnes wants to stop playing grim psychopaths, star in a romcom
By his own admission, Barnes tends to get cast as “these sorts of manipulative, rageful, venomous… or just kind of douchey characters.” The Darkling might be the apotheosis of this trend.
He’s found a niche for himself, although he wouldn’t mind breaking out once in a while. “I keep asking my agents, I just want to do a rom-com,” Barnes told Polygon. “And then they’re like, Haven’t got a rom-com, but found this psychopath who’s killing a lot of young people!”
Barnes qualified that he enjoys playing these darker character, “But it would be nice to play someone you’re rooting for next, to be honest.” Maybe next YA fantasy series.
Shadow and Bone season 2 is “very different” from the books
Turning to the new season more generally, Jessie Mei Li warned that there are some changes to the source material coming. “Going into season 2, we knew it was gonna be very different from the books,” she said. “For me, that was quite exciting because that’s what I like about adaptations, taking what’s really good in the books and changing it. So, yeah, I think there was a bit of pressure to please the fans but also show them something new, like a remixed version of all their favorite books.”
Shadow and Bone season 2 will be based on Leigh Bardugo’s book Siege and Storm, with some elements from Ruin and Rising brought in as well. The Crows — Kaz Brekker (Freddy Carter), Inej Ghafa (Amita Suman), Jesper Fahey (Kit Young), Nina Zenik (Danielle Galligan), Matthias Helvar (Calahan Skogman) and new member Wylan Hendricks (Jack Wolfe) — don’t feature in those books at all but will be part of season 2, so it would pretty much have to be different. “They’ve got their hackles up,” said Freddy Carter. “They’re ready for what’s going to come next, and plenty gets thrown their way.”
But there will be familiar elements for fans of the books. For instance, we’ll meet Nikolai Lantsov (Patrick Gibson), a prince who prefers to live under cover as a pirate privateer. He’ll become important to Alina’s story. “I think are almost equally matched in their wits and their tenacity and their vision for creating a better world,” Gibson told Gizmodo. “I think they’re perfectly matched. And she’s somebody who, from the first time that they meet, he just immediately sees that she’s the perfect person for him to be an accessory to her cause.”
The second season of Shadow and Bone premieres on Netflix tomorrow, March 16.
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