WARNING: The following contains potential spoilers for Season 1 of Shadow and Bone, now streaming on Netflix.

Season 1 of Netflix's Shadow and Bone cut a scene that exposed the religious hypocrisy of the series.

Showrunner Eric Heisserer spoke to Variety about adapting the hit book series and specifically dove into the choice to alter protagonist Alina Starkov's heritage. On the show, the character, played by Asian-British actor Jessie Mei Li, is half-Shu. In the Grishaverse, Shu-Han is the equivalent of China, and people of Shu descent face frequent discrimination. Alina herself experiences this multiple times across Season 1, despite being the fabled Sun Summoner.

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"What if your chosen one is not the chosen one that you have drawn in all of your books?" Heisserer said of what the change to the source material allowed the writers to explore. "What if she looks completely different from what you expect?"

Heisserer went on to describe a particular scene while Alina is on the run from the Darkling that didn't make the cut. "Everybody’s praying for [Sankta] Alina to come save them and get rid of the Fold, and the art on the walls is a blonde, blue-eyed saint," Heisserer said. "None of them have been to the Little Palace or seen any of that. As she’s trying to doze off in a pew, the priest comes over and is like, 'Girl, get out of here.' He shoves her out after regaling everybody with the saintliness of the Sun Summoner."

While the scene would have helped further highlight issues of racism and religion in the world of the series, the change to Alina allows the show plenty of opportunities for future exploration. "It [was] representative of a fantasy world that is populated by many people," Heisserer said of changing Alina's race for the show. "It felt like, OK we’re no longer a snapshot of [the predominantly white casts of] Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. You’ve got a very interesting spectrum just from the onset."

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Shadow and Bone stars Jessie Mei Li as Alina Starkov, Archie Renaux as Malyen Oretsev, Freddy Carter as Kaz Brekker, Amita Suman as Inej, Kit Young as Jesper Fahey, Ben Barnes as General Kirigan, Sujaya Dasgupta as Zoya Nazyalensky, Danielle Galligan as Nina Zenik, Daisy Head as Genya Safin, Simon Sears as Ivan, Calahan Skogman as Matthias Helvar, Zoë Wanamaker as Baghra, Kevin Eldon as The Apparat, Julian Kostov as Fedyor, Luke Pasqualino as David, Jasmine Blackborow as Marie and Gabrielle Brooks as Nadia. Season 1 is now streaming on Netflix.

Source: Variety