Warning! SPOILERS for Shadow and Bone season 2.
With amplifiers playing such a significant role in Shadow and Bone, it is important to know just how many there are in the fantasy series. Shadow and Bone’s fantastical world has a critical and well-organized magical system that neatly sorts the abilities of those able to use them, known as the Grisha. A common denominator between all of them is that every Grisha’s abilities can be enhanced with magical totems called amplifiers. While there are several different kinds of amplifiers, some are more potent than others, and all of them are rare and difficult to obtain.
Much like the Grisha themselves, amplifiers in Shadow and Bone can be sorted into three distinct categories. Firstly, there are minor amplifiers that Shadow and Bone Grisha can use by killing a powerful animal and then either wearing it or binding it to themselves, such as the Sherborn bear claw or a tiger tooth on the back of the wrist. Secondly, there are living amplifiers - humans who can amplify another Grisha’s abilities with their touch. Finally, there are Morozova’s amplifiers, which are powerful, mythical creatures made from the bones of the ancient Grisha Ilya Morozova.
There Are 5 Amplifiers In Shadow & Bone
Beyond the smaller amplifiers taken from creatures around the world, there are five critical amplifiers in Shadow and Bone. The first sect of these is Morozova’s creatures: the Morozovan Stag, the Sea Whip Rusalye, and the fabled Firebird. Each of these creatures is said to have been made from one of the powerful Grisha’s bones, and each can bequeath their power to one that they choose upon their death. The stag was a critical element of Shadow and Bone season 1, while the search for the Sea Whip Rusalye, a sea dragon, and the Firebird, which is an oft-repeated emblem in Ravka, dominates much of season 2.
However, beyond Morozova’s mythic creatures, humans can be living amplifiers as well. Throughout Shadow and Bone season 1, the only human amplifiers in the series were Ben Barnes' General Kirigan and his mother, Baghra, played by Zoë Wanamaker. Shadow and Bone season 2 reveals a critical twist that the third of Morozova’s amplifiers, the Firebird, was not a magical creature at all, but a person. Morozova apparently brought back his second daughter from the dead using one of his fingers, just as he created the Stag and the Sea Whip. This made her an amplifier too - a trait she passed down her family line, with her most recent descendant Mal Oretsev.
What Is The Most Powerful Amplifier In Shadow & Bone?
Among these five main amplifiers in Shadow and Bone, there is some debate about which is most powerful. However, they all ultimately come from the same source of Ilya Morozova, whether they are Morozova’s familial descendants in General Kirigan, Baghra, and Mal, or his magically-created creatures in the Stag and the Sea Whip. As such, each amplifier can grant incredible strength to the Grisha. The key message is not that any one of these amplifiers is stronger than the others, but that they can allow for incredible feats of magic when used in conjunction. This is what makes the search for the Sea Whip and the Firebird so critical in Shadow and Bone season 2.