In Netflix They must be jumping for joy at how well ‘The Snow Girl’, the television adaptation of Javier Castillo’s novel, is working for them. In fact, it would be strange if the platform did not soon announce the launch of a second season, based on the book ‘The game of the soul’.
However, what interests us now are the six episodes that we have already seen, in which, as expected, there are a few differences from the original work. Next we will review The 11 most important changes in ‘The Snow Girl’ compared to Javier Castillo’s best seller.
Obviously, from here you will find spoilers for ‘The Snow Girl’
The place of the facts
Castillo’s novel takes place in the United States and the kidnapping occurs during the Thanksgiving parade, while the Netflix series takes the story to Spain, with the girl’s disappearance occurring during the Three Kings Parade. By the way, the girl is also a bit older in the series, where she is five years old instead of three.
The details of the kidnapping
In the Netflix series, Iris’s motivation for kidnapping Amaya is the impossibility of having children, pulling from there to link both characters to a certain point and being the one who commits the kidnapping. In the book it is the husband who has decided to kidnap a boy or a girl, without any pre-existing link.
when everything happens
The three key years in Castillo’s novel are 1998, 2003, and 2010, and this is not because the novel was published so long ago, but because it was released just three years ago. For its part, the Netflix series starts in 2010 and there are also important events that take place in 2011 and 2019.
The names of the characters (and the gender of one of them)
The protagonist is called Miren in both cases, but even there there is a change of last name as a result of the fact of moving the action to Spain. For example, the protagonist’s old teacher changes from being Jim Shmoer to Eduardo, the girl changes from Kiera to Amaya and her parents in the literary original are Aaron and Grace, while in the Netflix series they become Álvaro and Ana.
Of course, the most important change occurs in the case of Ben Miller, who is the inspector responsible for the investigation in the book, but who in his television adaptation becomes a woman: Inspector Millán.
mother’s pregnancy
In Castillo’s novel, the mother of the kidnapped girl is pregnant again when the events take place, a detail completely omitted in her television version.
Miren’s bond with the girl’s father
Miren makes a notable bond with the girl’s father in Castillo’s novel as the investigation takes place, something the Netflix series doesn’t address at all.
The first suspect in the kidnapping
One of the most important things that the Netflix series comes up with is the character of David Luque, played by Tristan Ulloa. A friend of the suffering parents, he plays an essential role in advancing one of the plots in this adaptation, but in the novel there is no trace of it.
Miren’s rape
In the Netflix series, it is preferred to approach such a controversial topic in a softer way, using small flashbacks that never focus more than necessary on such a terrible moment for the protagonist. Instead, Castillo does describe in depth the sexual assault suffered by Miren, leaving practically nothing to the reader’s imagination.
the awkward witness
In both the book and the series there is a character who discovers the kidnappers, but all the details around that change. In the novel it is a neighbor of hers who finds out and extorts her to sleep with him and in exchange for her keeping her secret, which leads to him being killed by her husband.
In the series it is the bank worker who comes to review the couple’s mortgage debt who discovers it, but here it becomes clear that the husband would be unable to get it out of the way, so it is Iris who ends his life to prevent it from happening. take away “his daughter”.
Miren’s gun and its involvement in the finale
A fundamental change associated with the fact of changing New York for Spain is that the Netflix series is forced to omit that in the novel, Miren buys a gun so as not to go around defenseless. That in Spain would not be possible, so it had to be eliminated. This detail ends up directly affecting the end of the story, because in the book, Miren sneaked into the kidnapper’s car at gunpoint when she tried to flee with the girl, confronting her. This leads the kidnapper to apologize to the already adolescent and cause an accident that ends with her death. In the series, this is solved with a chase in which the kidnapper also dies in an accident caused by herself.
The final reunion with the parents
In the novel it is clear that the parents are going to meet their daughter again in the hospital, but without going into details about it, while in the series we do see that emotional reunion, marked by the fact that she no longer responds to the name of Amaya , but yes to Julia’s, the one her kidnappers put on her.
In Espinof: The 22 best Netflix series in 2022