Why I stopped believing in the Save Shadow and Bone Campaign and Grishaverse fandom
I think most people can now see the same thing: the campaign is practically dead. And in my opinion, this did not happen simply because time passed after the cancellation. The campaign failed to use either the potential of the fandom or the interest of casual viewers. And reaching those casual viewers was always the most important part.
It is natural for hype to fade over time after a cancellation. At that point, only the most dedicated fans remain, and that is exactly when a campaign should work the hardest to move outside the fandom bubble and maintain the interest of general audiences. The problem is that Save did the exact opposite. Instead of trying to keep Shadow and Bone alive in the minds of mainstream viewers, the campaign became increasingly closed off within the Grishaverse fandom itself.
And the Grishaverse fandom is exceptionally toxic.
I am not saying this because people have different ships or favorite characters. The problem is the toxic atmosphere that developed around parts of the fandom over the years. If you love Darklina or the Darkling, you quickly learn that you are not welcome. I saw it for months on the Save server through the users posting there and throughout fandom discussions across different social media platforms. Mocking people for their preferences, insulting fans publicly, trying to exclude them from the fandom entirely, and in extreme cases even death threats.
The most ironic part is that many of the same people constantly speak about acceptance, tolerance, and creating safe fandom spaces. Meanwhile, for many viewers this fandom became emotionally exhausting and psychologically draining. And once a fandom starts pushing away its own viewers, the campaign loses strength even faster. And this brings me to the most important point: fandom is not the majority of the audience.
The fandom creates hype on social media, but casual viewers are the ones who decide ratings and ultimately whether a show gets renewed. Netflix does not renew shows because the fandom is loud or because the cast was perfectly chosen. Netflix primarily looks at numbers, viewer retention, and whether further production is financially worth it. And the numbers for Shadow and Bone season two were not good.
Yes, the season had a strong start. In its first four days it reached 50.4 million viewing hours and debuted at number two on Netflix’s global chart. The problem is that it failed to maintain audience interest. The show spent only five weeks in Netflix’s English-language Top 10, and the following weeks showed major drops in viewership. It also never reached the number one spot.
The most important statistic, however, is the completion rate:
• after 7 days, 36% of viewers finished the season,
• after 28 days, 52%,
• after 90 days, around 56%.
And this is where the biggest problem appears. It means that almost half of the people who started season two never finished it. For streaming platforms, that is a major warning sign. People started the show, but a large percentage did not stay until the end. And viewer retention is one of the main things Netflix cares about.
Season two was not a complete flop. But it was not the kind of success that justified continuing to invest massive amounts of money into an expensive fantasy production.
And this is where I believe both the Grishaverse fandom and the Save campaign fundamentally misunderstood the situation. The fandom heavily promoted and still promotes its own preferences, mainly the Crows, Malina, and other fandom ships such as Zoyalai, assuming that this was automatically what the wider audience wanted as well. The problem is that the viewing data does not show overwhelming interest from the general public.
Within the fandom, people constantly claimed that Aleksander or Darklina were niche, marginal, or “toxic,” and therefore should not be promoted. Outside the fandom bubble, however, the situation looked completely different. Aleksander was one of the most recognizable characters in the show, and Darklina generated enormous interest even among viewers who had never touched the books. Yet the fandom constantly tried to marginalize or openly mock that reality.
Google Trends shows something very different. For people unfamiliar with it, Google Trends tracks how often specific terms are searched in Google over time. These are obviously not official Netflix statistics and they do not determine a show’s success on their own, but they are extremely useful in showing what people are genuinely interested in outside fandom spaces. And that matters because search interest often reflects character recognition, viral popularity, and overall cultural presence among casual audiences. The difference here is...brutal.
Google Trends comparisons from the last twelve months show that the term “Darkling” consistently maintains significantly higher interest than:
• Kaz Brekker
• Alina Starkov
• Zoya Nazyalensky
This is especially visible in comparisons between Darkling and Kaz, because Kaz is one of the most heavily promoted characters in the entire Grishaverse fandom. Yet interest in the Darkling remains much higher and, more importantly, far more stable. And this highlights something the fandom has refused to acknowledge for years: fandom preferences do not always reflect the interests of general viewers.
This does not mean Kaz or the Crows are unpopular. Of course they have an extremely loyal fanbase, probably the largest within the fandom itself. The problem is that fandom spaces constantly tried to present them as the unquestionable center of audience interest while simultaneously reducing Aleksander and Darklina to something “toxic,” “niche,” or unworthy of promotion. Meanwhile, even simple search engine data paints a very different picture. Because if a character maintains consistently stronger public interest for years, it becomes difficult to keep pretending they were marginal to the show’s popularity.
This same part of the fandom constantly claims to “love Ben,” while simultaneously diminishing his work as an actor. Interest in the Darkling is often reduced purely to physical appearance, while the enormous amount of work, charisma, and emotional complexity Ben brought to the character is ignored entirely. And yet it was precisely his interpretation that made Aleksander one of the most memorable and widely discussed characters in the entire series.
At the same time, GV fandom have spent years spreading slander and extremely aggressive narratives about both the character and the people who love him. The Darkling is regularly reduced to the worst possible interpretations only: a rapist, a pedophile, an emotionless monster, with no room for more nuanced discussions about the character whatsoever. And because Aleksander was and still is one of the emotional cores of the series for many viewers (let’s be honest, he and Alina are the two main characters of the show) this atmosphere quickly turned into openly attacking people simply for their preferences and interpretations.
And paradoxically, this toxicity severely damaged the Save campaign itself. Many people simply stopped wanting to support it. They did not leave because they suddenly stopped loving the show. They left because they no longer wanted to be part of an environment that constantly insulted them for their preferences. Others, especially many of the loudest Crows supporters at the beginning, simply drifted back toward the books and retreated further into their own fandom spaces.
There is also the issue of the Crows spin off, which gradually became the real focus of both parts of the fandom and the campaign itself, despite official denials. And once again, this is where realism becomes a problem.
Eric Heisserer openly stated during season two promotion that strong viewing numbers were necessary for the spin off to happen. But season two never achieved results strong enough to justify another expensive production. And the spin off itself would have cost even more: new locations, new costumes, new production demands. For streaming platforms, that represents a massive financial risk. And this is not my personal assumption. Eric himself confirmed it.
Despite this, parts of the fandom continue behaving as though the spin off’s success would have been absolutely guaranteed and would inevitably have led to season three being renewed afterward. Yet nothing in the actual viewership data ever supported that belief.
So, that is exactly why I stopped believing both in the Save campaign and in the Grishaverse fandom itself. I still love Aleksander, Darklina, and Ben deeply, and despite the toxicity within the fandom I always will. But I no longer want to be connected to such a hostile environment. And that is why it is difficult for me to watch the fandom slowly isolate itself inside its own bubble, disconnect from casual viewers, and confuse its personal preferences with the actual realities of the streaming market.
Today the campaign exists mostly symbolically. The engagement on their social media accounts across every platform is extremely low, interest continues to decline, and most people have simply moved on. And in my opinion, this can no longer be reversed, because the problem was never just the cancellation itself. The real problem was that for a very long time both the fandom and the Save campaign refused to accept reality.
