‘Shadow and Bone’ stars Ben Barnes and Jessie Mei Li talk about change from the book regarding sexual consent
Later when having sex seemed impending, Kirigan instantly stops and asks, “Are you sure…?”
The audience who loves the book version of Shadow and Bone pointed a slight but important change in the Netflix adaptation of the show. The film was released on Friday. The change noticed was about the relationship between the heroic Alina Starkov and powerful General “The Darkling” Kirigan.
In the novel, Kirigan (Ben Barnes) amazes Alina (Jessie Mei Li) with an unforeseen first kiss. Later the book narrates them demonstrating Alina’s abilities to the king’s court. The duo vehemently makes out and they are about to have sex before there’s an obstruction.
On the other hand, in the film, the girl makes the first move to kiss Kirigan in episode five. Later when having sex seemed impending, Kirigan instantly stops and asks, “Are you sure…?”
“That was one of the things that was really important to everyone involved – the writers, directors, myself and Ben as well,” Li explained about the first kiss to The Hollywood Reporter. “Like we were really keen for that to be included because there are a lot of younger viewers watching this and I just think it’s a very important message. In the show, Alina has so much more agency and she’s independent and makes decisions based on her heart and her intuition rather than what she’s being told.”
Barnes was in total acceptance of this thought. He also that he’s still concerned about the scene. “There was definitely discussion about that – that if she kisses him, it gives Alina more agency,” the actor told The Hollywood Reporter. And I said, ‘But does it?‘ Because we’ve been paying attention the last couple of years and it gives her the semblance of agency, but she’s still an orphan who doesn’t really understand the rules with this man who is willing to burn things to the ground and is manipulating his power.”
Lastly, we arrived at the decision that “Alina kisses first” was the wiser play.
As for the “Are you sure?” line in the following scene, Barnes told that he asked to have that line, or something like it, to be a part of the script.
“My contribution was during the steamiest moment in the book and in the show where I throw Alina on the table,” he said. “I wanted to add something, which ended up being, ‘Are you sure?’ It doesn’t solve anything. He’s problematic character no matter which angle you look at him from. He’s unforgivable and uncondonable in his abuses of power. But I wanted to flag that as a theme worth exploring for them because it makes it relevant. It’s a catalyst for discussion about whether she does have agency in this moment and whether we’re making our own choices and whether there’s any room for understanding between them given that he might really have feeling for her. And it was very important to me to bring something of myself to the moment before it’s revealed that he’s as manipulative as he is. As an actor, I have to come up with ways to forgive him and motivate his choices. But we’re not pretending this man is any kind of anti-hero, really.”
In spite of The Darkling’s mass lethal ways, Barnes says the most horrible thing his character does is something somewhat subtle close to almost at the end of season one.
“The worst thing that he does in the whole story — to me — is to use the knowledge [gained from Mal] that Alina loves to blue irises, and then immediately presents her with blue irises,” Barnes said. “It makes me feel sick, at that moment, because it’s the most outward show that he is manipulating, and it’s just so outward that it makes me feel ill. When I saw that part in the show I was like, ‘I don’t want to play a bad guy, I want to play a good guy.”