Adaption Thesis

  Thesis: Books and TV shows are more diverse in 2021 than they were in 2012. Shadow & Bone, a book written by Leigh Bardugo in 2012, is a YA fantasy about a girl who discovers that she has extraordinary powers that could be the key to setting her homeland free from a dark entity called The Fold filled with monstrous creatures. The book got adapted into a TV show that was released in April 2021. The adaption parallels the differences between diversity among people of colour in the span of time between 2012 and 2021. 

Differences: The first main difference is that in the book, the main character, Alina, is white whereas Alina in the TV show is Asian. In 2012, most main characters in books were assumed to be white unless the story tackled something that white people don’t experience, like racism, but nowadays, books are written to parallel modern day and have more people of colour as the main characters no matter what the subject of the story is. 

Another difference between the book and the TV show is the portrayal of a popular character named Zoya. Zoya in the books is shown to be jealous of Alina, because Alina is getting more attention than Zoya due to her extraordinary powers. However, in the TV show, Zoya is racist towards Alina and calls her a ‘half-breed,’ In the books, Alina was white so there was no need for Zoya to be racist towards her. This change in the TV show adaption is there to show how realistic racism is towards Asian-Americans in today’s day and age. 

Although these two differences may seem insignificant, they show a true change between a story that was previously about a white girl navigating her new extraordinary powers, and a story that is now about an Asian girl who is tackling racism whilst navigating her extraordinary powers. The TV show adaption is a parallel to how Asians may have the same experiences as their white counterparts, but have to deal with an extra load of racism that white people never experience.