S2E06: Shadow and Bone with Julia Schifini
Julia Schifini joins me to talk about the worldbuilding in Netflix's adaptation series, Shadow and Bone. We talk about catholic sainthood, mythical deer, explaining your magic system, and much more!
HOSTED by Dr. Moiya McTier (@GoAstroMo), astrophysicist and folklorist
GUEST
Julia Schifini is a podcaster, voice actor, mythology buff, and fellow fantasy nerd <3 You can follow her on twitter at @JuliaSchifini and check out her website juliaschifini.com to learn about all of the very cool things she does. And look for her mythology podcast Spirits wherever you get your podcasts.
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TRANSCRIPT
Moiya 0:08
Hello there friends. Welcome to Exolore, the show that helps you imagine other worlds with facts and science. I am your host, Dr. Moiya McTier. I'm an astrophysicist who studied pretty much everything in space from planetary orbits to the radiation leftover from the Big Bang, to star formation and black holes and Galaxy evolution. But I am especially interested in the motion of stars and how that affects the habitability of exoplanets, which are planets outside of our solar system. I am also a folklorist who specializes in building and analyzing fictional worlds. And this podcast is my way of sharing those worlds and that knowledge with you. So let's get started. Hi, Julia, welcome back.
Julia 0:54
Hi, Dr. McTier. How are you today?
Moiya 0:58
I'm doing great today. I just had a meeting that went right up until this and I had to leave. And I didn't want to say, "I have to leave because I'm doing something much more exciting," but this is much more exciting! How are you today?
Julia 1:11
I'm good. I'm so excited to be recording with my favorite doctor. And as I've told you off the air, I love that you're a doctor now because it's always been my dream to have a friend who I can refer to as "Doc" like Doc Brown in "Back to the Future," but this time not a disgraced nuclear physicist. So that's good.
Moiya 1:27
Yes, I'll do my best not to disgrace myself, especially when it comes to nuclear physics.
Julia 1:33
Just don't accidentally sell secrets to like the Libyans or whatever I guess - it was the 80s. It was a weird time.
Moiya 1:40
Yeah, I think I can do that.
Julia 1:41
Don't tell them that you're gonna make them a bomb and then send them like pinball machine parts. I think that was what happened.
Moiya 1:47
I will never ever make anyone a bomb. If anyone ever asks, it's not gonna happen. Please don't approach me with your bomb making requests.
Julia 1:55
I won't send any like recommendations to you being like, "I can't make a bomb. But you know who can? My doc friend, Moiya."
Moiya 2:05
So Julia, this is your second time on the show for people who skipped season one. I don't know why they would have done that. But for people who did, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself who you are what you do?
Julia 2:16
Yeah, my name is Julia Schifini. I am a podcaster, a voice actor, a sound designer. I do a lot of things. I wear a lot of hats. I also am writer and sometimes I do wrestling. So that's fun.
Moiya 2:29
You're so cool.
Julia 2:30
I like to be. I also do a show on the Multitude network called "Spirits" which is a boozy dive into mythology, legends and folklore. Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world.
Moiya 2:41
Yes, I love Spirits, [it's] one of the first podcasts I ever started listening to, [it's] such a great show. Please check it out. I'm going to be of course putting links in the show notes. But um, check it out organically just like wander over to Spirits, and find some really cool mythology stuff.
Julia 2:56
And every couple months or so, we have a really cool guest on who helps us give advice from mythology and folklore named Dr. Moiya McTier. And you might like those episodes.
Moiya 3:06
You might. I love the advice from folklore episodes. So Julia, one thing that I asked all of my guests is what fictional worlds you've been inhabiting lately, excluding the fictional world we're going to be talking about on the show.
Julia 3:19
Ooh, right now I am in the middle of a book called "The Good Luck Girls," which my podcasting friend Lauren Shippen recommended on the internet and I was like, "ooh, I need to get that." It is a fantasy Western about several girls who are forced into prostitution and managed to escape after one of them kills one of the men that they are supposed to be sharing the night with. And it is very intense, but very good, and a lot of fun. And I'm thoroughly enjoying it right now. I like fantasy Westerns a lot. I want to read more of those.
Moiya 3:54
I had never heard those two words put together are there others? Can you recommend others?
Julia 3:58
Also in that genre, not fantasy, but like historical retelling is the "American Hippo" series by Sarah Gailey, which is kind of a what if, because, historically, the United States government considered bringing hippos into the United States to deal with certain like invasive species. And they were like, "we're gonna farm hippos. They're gonna eat a bunch of these invasive crops that are like growing down in these swampy areas near like Louisiana and stuff. And then we'll also like farm them for their meat and stuff." And there were like, articles run in the New York Times and stuff like that, about how it was gonna be this new version of pork and like beef and stuff like that. It was much more sustainable. Obviously it didn't happen. But the "American Hippo" series by Sarah Gailey kind of explores a world where it did, and also features a heist.
Moiya 4:50
I love the idea of bringing hippos in, but something similar happened in South America. The cocaine hippos that are now like an invasive species in their own right.
Julia 4:59
And slowly moving towards the United States, they keep tracking them and they're like slowly going North.
Moiya 5:02
I wonder if there's some like climate reason? I wonder what's driving that migration? Yeah, it's interesting. It is interesting. Should we talk about this show we're here to talk about?
Julia 5:18
Sure, why not?
Moiya 5:20
So today we're gonna be talking about "Shadow and Bone", the new Netflix show that just came out on April 23. It's based on a couple of series by Leigh Bardugo, the "Shadow and Bone" trilogy where the show gets its name, but it also incorporates characters from the "Six of Crows" duology, which I will admit I haven't read, but Julia has.
Julia 5:39
I have, I've read those five books. I know that there are additional books that have been released. But those are the five that I have read in preparation for that Netflix series coming out. And then also because I like the books.
Moiya 5:51
Yeah, I've heard a few of my friends who are very into fantasy say that the "Six of Crows" duology were some of the best books they had ever read - the best fantasy books they'd ever read. So definitely going to check that out.
Julia 6:03
And guess what Moiya? Those ones are about heists. Big heist energy.
Moiya 6:09
So the show is based on books by Leigh Bardugo, who actually executive produced this show, and Eric Heisserer who wrote the "Arrival" screenplay, the movie with all of those really cool arthropod like aliens. They work together on this show, and I love when authors actually work on the show adaptations of their books. I think it makes it so much richer and better and maybe minimizes the chance of the book fans going crazy because they don't like what happened in the show.
Julia 6:37
That is true. That always helps.
Moiya 6:40
The world in "Shadow and Bone" is inspired by 18 hundred's Czarist Russia, which I love as an inspiration for a world there are some strong Catholic musings, which I think we'll touch on later in the episode. And the story follows Alina Starkov, a young woman in Ravka. That's the main country here. Ravka's First Army, there are two armies there. We're going to talk about that. So Alina is in the first army and she finds out that she has the power to summon sunlight. And I think normally, that wouldn't be a big deal. We have a sun, it's fine, but in this world, it's very important because Ravka has been split in two by the Shadow Fold, or the Unsea. So Alina is ability makes her important to the Grisha who are people that have special powers or abilities in this world, because they have long been feared and persecuted and blamed for the Shadow Fold's existence. So if Alina can tear down the Shadow Fold, then maybe Grisha will be able to, you know, be regular parts of society again and not forced into serving in the Second Army, which is something that's really messed up. So Julia and I have thought of some cool world building things that we noticed while we were watching the show. And we're just gonna chat about them. And Julia as the guest today, would you like to go first?
Julia 7:57
Hey, Moiya, there's a lot of saints in this.
Moiya 8:02
So many saints, there's literally a book of saints.
Julia 8:05
The Lives of the Saints, which I think is so interesting, because there's really no talk of a higher deity or like what the uniform or like a structured religion of Ravka is. It's just like, "we worship saints." And we're like, cool, where do the saints get power from? Who are they saints of? Who were they worshiping to begin with? Who was the first saint worshiping? is my question.
Moiya 8:30
Great question.
Julia 8:31
And who decides who becomes a saint? That's my kind of big question here. And it's really interesting, because you mentioned like, there is a book of saints, which Leigh Bardugo actually released an illustrated in-universe copy of that, that you can buy. I think it came out like sometime in October of last year. So if that is something that interests you, and you want the expanded lore of this, you can buy it, but it's got like, I think 13 or something different saints that you can learn about in the book, and it looks really cool. I haven't read it, [but] it looks really cool.
Moiya 9:01
The link will that will definitely be in the show notes.
Julia 9:04
Yeah, but that kind of raises the question for me at least like, what is the religion here? Is it just the worship of saints, which is fine, like you could do that. But there's chapels mentioned in the books at least, and we see some forms of worship in the TV show. We see Inej also worships the saints. So it's not like strictly a -- I don't know how best to say this -- white Ravkin tradition, because we know that Inej is Suli, which I guess is like the show's version of Romani. It kind of makes it seem like, or at least the books kind of make it seem like this is a nomadic traveling people. There's a lot of like, I guess, stereotypes about Romani people during this time that sort of align themselves with what they are portraying the Suli as, so I'm so curious as to what the structure is like. Is there some sort of clergy system happening here? Because we see the Apparat, or however they pronounce it the show.
Moiya 10:11
That's how I would have said it.
Julia 10:13
But he's just like kind of assigned that by the Tsar. And it's very confusing.
Moiya 10:19
Yeah, the idea of having this whole canon of spiritual creatures without also having the hierarchy of godlike beings is interesting.
Julia 10:29
Yeah. Because the only like, major god figure that we see in any of the religions - there's two, there's the God of Bartering, who is featured heavily in the "Six of Crows." I'm not sure if they really mentioned it in the series.
Moiya 10:46
I don't remember that.
Julia 10:47
He's the Ketterdam god. He's like, "oh, everything is merchants and therefore we worship the god of bartering."
Moiya 10:53
Makes sense.
Julia 10:54
And, like, very briefly, the Fjerdans talk about Gel, who is the major tree god, I guess, in the Fjerdian northern religion. So yeah, there's no real like, God. There's no major deity, there's no like monotheism really happening here. It's just like, "we worship these people who kind of had unnatural abilities," which is weird given that Grisha who are people with unnatural abilities, exist in this world? So why are we worshiping some and not others? It's very confusing.
Moiya 11:25
It is very confusing, and one of the saints, the only saint that I know of is Saint Ilya, who was a Grisha, but it sounds like the other saints weren't, or not all of them were. So, it's just like regular humans doing presumably fantastical feats that get them sainthood.
Julia 11:44
Or in classic sainthood, being martyred, dying terribly. Doing like a good deed, and then dying terribly is usually how we go about getting saints.
Moiya 11:54
And that is referenced in the show, and probably also in the books. It's been a while since I've read the trilogy, but there's talk of Alina, you know, once you become a saint, then that's basically just a stepping stone on the way to martyrdom. Alina just got wrapped up in this world without really wanting to or meaning to, and then she became a saint and people just assumed that she might die.
Julia 12:18
Well, that's the weird part, too, is like Alina kind of does things out of order. Usually, if we're talking about like, Catholic saintdom, you have to die terribly first. And then the church like probably a couple 100 years later is like, "Yeah, that's a saint. We're cool with that." There's a whole process, [and] I know that there's like a complicated process in like becoming a saint like being canonized. But in this one, the Apparat is just like, "you're a saint now, because we've been expecting the Sun Summoner." I think it's because of her title that they kind of figure out like, "Oh, she must be a saint, because we knew that the sun summoner was going to come and happen." And so calling her "Saint Alina" before she is martyred, is kind of like, "well, we all know how it's going to go down, but you could die peacefully in your sleep and will still think that you're a saint."
Moiya 13:08
Absolutely. Did you notice any other very Catholic things that weren't necessarily directly related to the story of the saints in this world?
Julia 13:17
I mean, the saints are just so there and so obvious. I think it's really interesting that they kind of talked about like amplifiers, and these like artifacts that are supposed to imbue certain powers on to certain people because like in Catholicism, your church needs to have a relic in order to be like a church. So it has to be one sort of like holy relic of some kind within your church in order to like, have it count as a Catholic Church. It could be anything from like a piece of clothing that Jesus wore, or a saint wore or something like that. But I've seen churches in Rome, where it's just like, "here's the full skeleton of a saint. That guy is just here, and you can see it."
Moiya 14:01
That is very much a church. There's a lot of relics.
Julia 14:04
So that's really interesting. And in the books later on, especially in the duology, "Six of Crows," they talk a lot about saint relics. And it's really interesting, and I don't want to spoil like anything about the the book series or the TV series, because obviously, there's much to happen. But there's like, relics that you know, they can't possibly have. So they're like passing off these relics of people who haven't died yet. And you're like, "no, that's not right. That's not it," but it's just really interesting.
Moiya 14:35
Oh, that's great. A relic black market.
Julia 14:37
It's really interesting to see kind of like the I don't want to say fanaticism, but the way that people will take advantage of religious fervor and I think we see it a little bit in the TV series, especially once Alina has like, introduced yourself to the world as the Sun Summoner, and the people who like are religious start to be like, "this is my saint. This is a living saint in front of me."
Moiya 15:01
Yeah, I mean Inej believed in Alina even before she saw the demonstration of Alina's power, but afterwards it was much more intense and even other people like Kaz and Jesper started believing a little bit more.
Julia 15:11
Inej seeing Alina use her power in that ballroom scene literally brought me to tears. I'm like, that actress crushed that scene, just the look on her face. I was like, oh my god!
Moiya 15:21
Beautiful. So I have three things. One of them is something that I think they did really well.
Julia 15:29
Okay.
Moiya 15:29
One of them is something I think they could have done better. And the third is just like a cool connection to folklore. So I'm gonna start with what I think they did well. I want to start positive.
Julia 15:39
I also think that there were things that they could have done better. So I'm on boat with you.
Moiya 15:43
Great. So the thing that I think they actually did really well was bringing in more political insight into the world than I saw in the books. Or maybe it's just that I didn't notice it in the books and it was there. But this ties into Alina's sainthood and her potential martyrdom because Alina was used as like a political pawn in this world, for lack of a better term. So Ravka is a country fighting multiple wars. There's the Fjerdans to the north, the Shu Han to the south. Ravka is fighting a lot of people, but they're also divided by the Shadow Fold. It's separates Ravka into West Ravka and East Ravka, and the political ramifications of that were kind of lost on me when I read the books, you know, there are lots of consequences of being at war and having your country divided like this. It has to be really difficult. You know, you can't get supplies to the other side. You can't get information to the other side. This is based on an 1800s world. They don't have cell phones, the Tsar of Ravka can't just like call up the Darkling on the phone and be like, "hey, how's the war going over on that side?" So it's really difficult to lead a country like this. And in the show, they added a couple of things. So one thing that they added that's not in the book at all is a brewing Civil War. There's this general Zlatan who is riling up the first army, that's the army of regular humans. No Grisha. So General Zlatan is riling up the first army and the citizens of Ravka, and trying to get them to turn on East Ravka which is where the Tsar, King Pyotr is and also trying to get them to turn on the Second Army which is made up of Grisha, and declare West Ravka as a sovereign nation. So that is just way more political intrigue than I saw in the books. And then another way that they brought it into the show that I really appreciated was bringing in characters from the "Six of Crows" duology especially Nina and Matthias. So Nina is a Grisha. She has the ability to like control people's heart rate, she's a Heart Render, I love that.
Julia 17:51
We're gonna get to the, "if you had a Grisha power, which one would you want?"
Moiya 17:55
Yes. And Matthias is a Druskelle, which is a Fjerdan warrior essentially dedicated to killing Grisha, because they see them as abominations.
Julia 18:08
The direct translation I think they use is, "Witch Hunter." He's bascially a Witch Hunter because they think that Grisha are witches -
Moiya 18:14
And witches are bad.
Julia 18:16
Obviously.
Moiya 18:19
And because we don't learn much about Fjerda in the first book of the "Shadow and Bone" trilogy, I thought this was a really nice way of just infusing more worldbuilding and more background knowledge into the show. Because you get to see how Matthias and Nina actually interact because of where they come from. And I just really appreciated that, good job "Shadow and Bone."
Julia 18:40
I will say, they do touch on that in the duology. We learn a lot about Fjerda in the first book of the duology, "Six of Crows", and you get these like kind of flashbacks that we're seeing in the TV show right now. Like happening at present where Nina has been captured and is taken by Matthias.
Moiya 19:04
Some steamy scenes in there in case that's something you're interested in.
Julia 19:08
I just love how fully horny Nina is 90% of the time. She's just like, "my tits are out" - they're not actually out, but I wish they were just like, "I'm gonna keep you warm. You're gonna keep me alive. It's fine. I definitely didn't notice how friendly you got in the middle of the night. Okay." She's great. What a great character.
Moiya 19:32
Yes, I agree. 100%.
Julia 19:34
I do think though that they had to include a little bit more of that political intrigue into the "Shadow and Bone" stuff because you have the "Six of Crows" crew there you have the crows there. And Alina doesn't know about the Civil War stuff. She's on the other side of the Shadow Fold. She doesn't know what's going on. but these guys you know they are traveling through that and like a lot of what motivates the crew to come through, and capture Alina is knowing that this civil war is kind of brewing and that someone would pay big money to like not have East Ravka have the Shadow Summoner. So I think it makes perfect sense to kind of include these tensions because it is so important to see the other side with the crows kind of traveling through there like from Ketterdam to West Ravka, and then having to go to East Ravka.
Moiya 20:24
Yeah. And I love imagining the conversation that created this amalgam, this joining of the two series. I can't imagine which came first, like did they decide to bring in the "Six of Crows" characters first? Or did they decide that they wanted more political intrigue first. It probably was all happening at the same time. But I think that this is a really beautiful example of how choices that you make in your storytelling, can work in tandem with choices that you make in your worldbuilding to create something that's larger than the sum of their parts.
Julia 20:57
Yeah, if I had to take a wild guess, I think they were like, "We should include the 'Six of Crows' folks, like ASAP" because I think just like from observing fandom interactions, the "Six of Crows" crew are much more popular than the "Shadow and Bone" crew.
Moiya 21:10
That's because they're all so hot.
Julia 21:11
I know. They're all so hot and people love heists. God damn it.
Moiya 21:19
So what else do you have for me, Julia?
Julia 21:21
Small science.
Moiya 21:22
Yes.
Julia 21:23
I knew you're gonna want to talk about this. So we got to talk about it, and this is a great conversation for us to get our "what Grisha power would you want?" conversation. They kind of explained it in both the books and the TV series that Grisha don't really have superpowers, they just have the ability to manipulate the small sciences. So [they can] manipulate stuff on a scientific molecular level almost, [and] I'm not sure exactly how they go about doing this for certain things. I don't know how much like molecular chemistry and stuff like that, like the Etherealki, the people who can manipulate the elements. I really love this idea of a whole group of Grisha, the fabricators who just do like science stuff. So it's like, "we work with metal, we work with chemicals, we like make cool stuff." If you're a D&D fan, they are like the artificers of the Grisha, which I think is really cool.
Moiya 22:24
They are and they get so much shit for it.
Julia 22:27
They do. It's silly, but I get it. They don't have like the combat readiness, and so much of the Grisha's "worth" in Ravka is the fact that they can fight in the wars, but like also, they're making weaponry for the wars. They're out there, like, you know, making it possible to cross the Shadow Fold because of the light that they use and stuff like that. So I think the fabricators get a bad rap, but I think it's really cool. I just like the idea that they are studying the Heart Renders, and the Healers are studying biology together and stuff like that. It's very cool, I like it a whole lot. I think I can more realistically understand the idea of Heart Renders, Healers and Fabricators as opposed to [people] manipulating fire. Like, how? Explain. [There's] no source of heat. Where is it coming from?
Moiya 22:31
Yes. Okay.
Julia 22:32
You have thoughts? I'm sure.
Moiya 23:19
I have so many thoughts. This was my point that I thought they could have done better actually explaining - [and] I'm going to use the word "magic system," but they do not say that the Grisha use magic. It's the "small science," but I am going to call it a magic system because it's just easier. I think they could have explained it a lot better in the show, [especially] how it works. They do a pretty good job of explaining how it works in the books, and I understand that you're dealing with like limits on how much you can actually show on a screen when you're putting together a TV show, but just a few more details would have notched it up a little bit for me.
Julia 23:57
Yeah, and not just like a passing comment from Ben Barnes about the "small sciences" and you're like, "what, explain? I want more training montage for Alina." Tell me how she is in particular. [How is she] manipulating the sun? Is she calling certain types of energy to her that allow her to do that? I want more information. And I know the books do a better job explaining it, but I always want more.
Moiya 24:20
Yes. There's that scene when Ben Barnes playing Kirigan/The Darkling/Aleksander, whatever you want to call him. He explains the Small Science by saying, "we do not conjure from nothing. we manipulate that which already exists around us." That's in Episode Three of the show. And I understand this, slightly. I've looked into how it worked from the books and it is a type of molecular chemistry. Leigh Bardugo uses that phrase exactly. So good job, Julia. But the way it works is that there are molecules in the air around us, and for the Etherealki, for example, the people who can summon the elements like fire or wind or water, they have to conjure or manipulate the molecules that already exist. So for the fire ones - [the] Inferni, they have to gather combustible molecules in the atmosphere like you need oxygen for combustion to happen. You need other molecules that can catch on fire and you do need a catalyst so you can't just create a flame from nothing but you would need like a flintstone to make the spark, and then that can create the fire.
Julia 25:35
So they're going "The Last Airbender" M. Night Shyamalan style? And not, you know, the "Avatar The Last Airbender" - firebender style. Okay, I see, I got you.
Moiya 25:48
You got it.
Julia 25:48
They also talk about the, "like calls to like", as part of the Small Sciences, which I think is really interesting. Kind of this idea that like there's some sort of like affinity within a Grisha that calls out to the element that they are able to control. So that's why like an Inferni can't also manipulate wind like a squalor can, you know, and like, that's why there's also the division between the different types of Grisha - the elemental ones.
Moiya 26:16
The Etherealki, Corporealki, and Materialki.
Julia 26:21
The Fabricators and so I think that's interesting, because you kind of do have to explain like, yeah, sure, there's specialties. But why is this person in particular able to do that, but not the other things? So I think that is interesting, because it makes everyone a little bit unique, and very cool.
Moiya 26:37
Yeah, it's a really cool magic system. And I just wish that they had explained it a little more, not just because I'm a sucker for cool magical systems and I want all of that information readily available. But because I think that more information actually makes it easier to parse a new fictional world, especially for people who haven't read the books. When I build worlds, I think it's very important to establish the rules of your world first. Like, how does your world actually work? And to share those rules with your audience. And it doesn't have to be explicit, it doesn't have to be a big exposition dump, you can do it subtly. But if you don't share your rules with your audience, then they're going to be coming into the story with assumptions based on the rules that exist in our reality. And sometimes, when those rules aren't the same, it's going to create confusion. So understanding more about how the Small Science works would add some cool depth. Like, if you know how the small science works, then you understand, what are the limits of these powers? Does it exhaust them to use it? Like can they just use them forever? I didn't realize that Tailors could change a person's face so that they look like someone else. Like knowing more about how the Small Science works would have helped with that.
Julia 27:52
Yeah, I think that is kind of the exception to the rule with the Tailors because Genya is the only one as we know, that exists, and they say that kind of in the show.
Moiya 28:04
Yeah, she's like, "I'm almost as rare as you, the Sun Summoner."
Julia 28:06
She's so cool. I love her so much. I think that they would have benefited from doing more of that explanation during the kind of like training montages that Alina has with Baghra. Baghra is the one that kind of explains the like calls to like and stuff like that in the book, just throw in an explanation monologue as you see her like whacking her with the thing and Alina trying to call the sun. It would have been so much easier if that had been included.
Moiya 28:34
I'm sure Alina has questions. Why hasn't she asked him these questions?
Julia 28:37
The audience has questions too. Yeah. All right. This is my question time, though. And it is what kind of Grisha would you want to be?
Moiya 28:45
Yes. If I'm living in like our world, and I could choose a Grisha power, I wouldn't want either the Sun Summoner or the Darkling power.
Julia 28:54
Sure.
Moiya 28:55
I take issue with the Darkling power. The idea that you can summon shadow - [which] isn't a thing. shadow is the absence of light. So unless the Darkling is like controlling photons and sending them away and Alina can like bring photons towards her. If that's the difference between their powers then fine, but I don't think that's the case. So I think shadow summoning is stupid.
Julia 29:15
That's fair.
Moiya 29:16
From a Small Science perspective.
Julia 29:18
It also helps that he's like the only one that can do it.
Moiya 29:25
Okay. So if I had to choose, I've always wanted to control wind.
Julia 29:30
Nice, Squaller.
Moiya 29:31
Yeah, but it doesn't seem like it's as cool as being able to control wind in "Avatar The Last Airbender" where you can fly with it. So in this world, I'm thinking like, the Tidemaker. Yeah, the people who can control water.
Julia 29:46
I'm into it. I feel like we'll see more cool Squaller shit, once Zoya has more time in the sun, cuz she's cool as hell.
Moiya 29:55
I did like that they made her an important character earlier, and that they shortened the time where she's just a bitch.
Julia 30:04
Yes, that did help, I think. I [also] think I would want to go Heartrender myself because I just like the idea of being able to like calm people the fuck down. I forget if I can curse on this. Can we retake that? Okay, great.
Moiya 30:19
No, I like cursing and I like spoilers.
Julia 30:23
Great. So I really do like the whole Heartrender thing, we see a lot of really cool stuff that like Nina can do with it both in the season of the TV show and in the the duology the "Six of Crows" she does some real cool shit and I I am all about it.
Moiya 30:25
Yeah, the scene when - I don't want to give too many spoilers, but it is very cool. I got the impression that she was a particularly talented Heartrender.
Julia 30:48
Yes.
Moiya 30:48
Okay.
Julia 30:49
Yes, she is.