WARNING: This article contains spoilers for the Netflix show Shadow & Bone and Leigh Bardugo's Grishaverse novels.
The Netflix adaptation of Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone did a wonderful job bringing together the plots of the book trilogy and Six Crows duology. However, there's a key character missing. In the Grishaverse he appears in both series and became so popular that he even got two books set after the ending of Crooked Kingdom -- Nikolai Lantsov, the second son of the King of Ravka and a world-renowned privateer.
Nikolai Lantsov made his first appearance in the second volume of the Shadow and Bone trilogy when he helped Mal and Alina hunt down the Sea Whip, one of Morozova's legendary amplifiers. His charm, wit and openly flirtatious nature in a world where Jesper and Nina didn't exist yet brought much-needed levity to the heavy themes of Siege and Storm. While he didn't possess any Grisha powers himself, he made up for it with ingenuity and an uncanny ability for deception, being able to trick the Darkling under his own nose for months.
Nikolai's status at court had always been a delicate one because the King suspected that he wasn't his son, but the result of the Queen's tryst with a Fjerdan man. Nikolai resented this but quickly realized that the King, the Queen and his elder brother Vasily were not just terrible people but also terrible at their jobs. As such, he learned the skills that he needed for running a kingdom or a ship from actual experts. Nikolai joined the military incognito, quickly rising through the ranks on merit. Then, he focused his efforts on helping Ravka at sea, either by capturing vessels full of precious resources or by sinking those of his country's enemies.
Nikolai is as important to the events of the series as Mal or Kaz, with the chaos that surrounds him and the stakes tied to his person escalating with every book. Without spoiling too much, by the time of King of Scars, he's well on his way to becoming as terrifying as General Kirigan (although in an entirely different way), with Zoya Nazyalenski, the talented and short-tempered Squaller from Shadow and Bone, as his most reliable ally.
If the Netflix show remains faithful to the Shadow and Bone book series, it is likely that one of the first casting announcements in the lead-up to Season 2 will be that of Nikolai Lantsov, as he has many roles to play both in Ravka and in Ketterdam. In the books, he first pops up as Sturmhond, a privateer hired by the Darkling to capture Alina and Mal and hunt down a mythical sea dragon, so fans might expect him to be sailing the coast of Ravka and Novyi Zem, waiting to make his grand entrance.
A Netflix production from Shawn Levy's 21 Laps Entertainment, Eric Heisserer, Leigh Bardugo, Pouya Shahbazian and Lee Toland Krieger, Shadow and Bone stars Jessie Mei Li (Alina Starkov), Archie Renaux (Malyen Oretsev), Freddy Carter (Kaz Brekker), Amita Suman (Inej), Kit Young (Jesper Fahey), Ben Barnes (General Kirigan), Sujaya Dasgupta (Zoya Nazyalensky), Danielle Galligan (Nina Zenik), Daisy Head (Genya Safin), Simon Sears (Ivan), Calahan Skogman (Matthias Helvar), Zoë Wanamaker (Baghra), Kevin Eldon (The Apparat), Julian Kostov (Fedyor), Luke Pasqualino (David), Jasmine Blackborow (Marie) nad Gabrielle Brooks (Nadia). The series premiered April 23 on Netflix.