Shamaran season 1

The fun thing about Netflix is that at times you watch series you would never think about otherwise.

 

 

And one such series is Shamaran, a turkish romance fantasy series based on one of the tales from 1001 nights.

 

Based on a mythological prophecy that will turn out to be real, our heroine, Sashu, has travelled from Istanbul to Adana to seek out her estranged grandfather. He had left her mother when she was still at a young age, depressing her all her life.  Now that she has passed away, she brings him that news together with a rose seed her mother saved all her life.

She meets him, a man called Davut, as he shows her the letters her mother wrote, so she actually knew where he lived.  She also takes up a semester job as a teacher assistant at the local university for her stay.  She meet Maran, the son of davut's neighbour who lives there with his three sisters, and Cihan, an assistant at the school.

During a fire at the town festival, Sashu is saved by Maran, of whom we learn he is a Basilisk, half-man half-snake people that live hidden amongst the humans who worship Shahmaran.  His family thinks Sashu came to Adana to help fulfill a prophecy in which she and Maran must fall in love.  Cihan is also a basilisk, the son of one ot the believers, Lakmu, a good friend of Maran's father Ural.

A strange man in a black hoodie however stalks Sashu, and no-one can discover his identity.  He sets a trap for Sashu in the university basement, but the quick intervention of Diba (one of Maran's sisters) and Cihan save her.  But as she and Maran get better friends, Cihan gets more and more jealous of them, getting in league with the hooded man to kidnap her.  He is caught out however and beaten up by Maran, before being incarcerated by the family.

As more and more omens take place, including the fatal brithgiving of one of Davut's friends to a snake, it seems the prophecy is indeed going to be fullfilled at last.  Maran saves mr Davut from a heart attack, but in doing so he reveals his identity to Sashu and tells the story about who her grandfather really is: the immortal Camsap, human lover of Shahmaran who betrayed her trust for the benefit of helping someone out.  As a result Shahmaran was killed, but Camsap who received a portion of her can't die as a result, even though he keeps trying.  The prophecy also tells how Lilith, Shahmaran's sister, plots revenge from the vault she is locked away in.  

And as the season closes, she is awakening...

This definitly wasn't a bad discovery at all, and we will be watching season 2 over time as well, certainly worth checking out!