Shadow and Bone’s Sturmhond is a fan favorite — so why did Netflix change his story?

polygon.com:

[Ed. note: This article contains spoilers for Shadow and Bone season 2 and Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse books.]

From its very inception, Netflix’s Shadow and Bone adaptation took great liberties with its source material, combining characters and storylines from Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone trilogy and the Six of Crows duology. In its first season, the show improved upon the books in many ways, leaving fans optimistically curious about what Shadow and Bone would do with the source material next.

Fans were particularly eager about the introduction of one of the Grishaverse’s most beloved characters: Sturmhond, the privateer “don’t call him a pirate” persona of Nikolai Lantsov, the prince of Ravka. Much of Siege and Storm follows Alina and Mal’s journey on Sturmhond’s ship, as they track down the sea whip on the Darkling’s orders and later escape from his control in a mutiny led by Sturmhond. While fans love Nikolai — enough so that he got his own duology — they also loved this time with Sturmhond. However, the condensed timeline of Shadow and Bone season 2, which covers the entirety of Siege and Storm and Ruin and Rising, means that Nikolai reveals his true identity in episode 3, giving us only one episode of Sturmhond, Mal, and Alina’s sailing adventures.

It was a disappointing turn for fans of Sturmhond, who enjoy seeing the more rakish and carefree side of Nikolai that he gets to be under the privateer persona. Patrick Gibson, who plays Nikolai, said he also found it “hard to let go of Sturmhond” this season. “I had so much fun exploring the differences and the similarities between those two characters and finding that line where Nikolai starts and Sturmhond ends,” Gibson told reporters. But even after Nikolai sheds