IMO I think the biggest irony is that Geralt's quote about Jaskier's singing : "It's like ordering a pie and finding it has no filling" is an accurate description of the series.
Yeah it was so predictable and basic that it was borderline cringy to me, the show would have been just fine without it and with more actual character/story progression and growth.
@@esajaan Oh yeah, that'd be perfect. And it would introduce dopplers more successfully. The show's version was so inconsistent and he seemed really bad at being a doppler.
Well, stuff that really pissed me off: 1) Geralt nearly crying over Yen (wtf!) 2) That last scene with Geralt and Ciri, taking away the emotions from the original scene from books 3) Geralt and Jaskier’s whole dynamic (in books, the Witcher actually enjoyed the bard’s company and actually respected each other, whereas on series, Jaskier follows Geralt like a flea everywhere) 4) Yen’s backstory, she was supposed to be this complex, mysterious woman like in the books, but they’ve decided to give her a backstory
Vonatar i didn’t know, i didn’t reached there yet. All i know is that they’ve refferenced it with one line in the last wish, that she was a hunchback and that’s all
actually, Necrophages are just mentioned in books (it's not clear what actually Geralt fought when he protected Yurga), seems like they started to multiply like rabbits later, thanks to all those corpses left after the war. And I'm not sure if drowners are mentioned at all.
vang-tou Lee nah botchlings are made in immediate death after birth and especially if not having been embraced by their parents, not given a name & not given a proper burial. In the show, the baby was more than a few weeks old, had a name, was embraced and more or less “loved”, but the burial was shit
Downers aren't mentioned by name(at least up till book 2), but in the story about a Duke wanting to fuck/Mary a mermaid there are creatures that are 100% downers, by description (the one with little eye)
I watched the show first and then I read the books. I really changed my opinion about the show after that. They did so many characters dirty: Geralt: removing a lot of his dialogues. Ciri: too old and cutting parts where she bonded with Geralt (as you said). Cahir: too old and badass (and not good looking) Triss: Shallow and nothing like in the books and games. Fringilla: Evil and also way different. Yeneffer: I just don’t like her. Henry Cavill really carries the show on his shoulders.
If you want a TV series that respects the source material we need to wait for The Witcher anime series. Japanese anime sticks very close to the source material in 90% of the cases and very rarely introduces drastic changes like we see in Western TV and movies. The most anime do is just skipping scenes for time and pacing sake but what they put in the show is almost always 1:1 with the original material. I know there is a Witcher anime coming but iirc it will be directed by the west and only animated in Korea. Here's hoping that one day an amazing anime studio like ufotable or Kyoto Animation will pick up the license and do the source material justice.
Also I’m assuming you gentlemen have read the books already. Since they made Cahir here obviously very evil and portrayed as the big bad white guy ( he even killed eist ) I wonder how Netflix is gonna incorporate his redemption arc as part of Geralts company which IMO IS THE BEST PART of the books. Honestly Geralts Hanza was the most entertaining and compelling part of the saga and idk how they’re ever gonna bring this current Cahir into that setting or if they’re even gonna follow the books version about Big G’s Company.
@@xfatoushe-6908 you are assuming that they won't just scrap his redemption arc and turn him into the new big evil boss to be defeated. i enjoyed the netflix series but there were a lot of issues with it and i'm worried that they will not realise their mistakes and just make more of them.
The show feels a bit like a high-schooler attempting to summarise a book in an essay. They try hard, describe all the cool bits they liked but ultimately miss the more subtle but key aspects of the plot.
Completely agreed. U put brilliantly, they're trying to show some of the best short stories while trying to push the main narrative that is get geralt and ciri together. Having said that I understand why they did what they did, coz this is very early stuff in the Witcher story, so they might not be able to revisit stuff later also their aim was to make season 1 as big as they could to sell their universe to newer fans and basically get people interested in this world. I think the showrunner said she regrets the brokilon stuff and not ageing jaskier to make the timelines a lil clearer. It was messy but I think they know exactly what season 2 is about the second the first one was over. It's not that they're scratching their heads over what to do next, the first one is always a lil messy when ur starting off compare the first avenger to make the last one. So I'm excited for season 2 and I do feel that story vise it'll be way better
Because the writer is a total SJW. She even made a twitter post where she said that Europe should be as racially diverse as the USA. Then she linked a white girl getting f*cked by a black guy, I am not even joking or making this up (I really wish I was to be honest).
@Yash You must be from a country that has no racial integrity then (and race mixed). Seeing your race being destroyed by "refugees" makes you think twice on what 'diversity' is worth.
Especially Cahirs. Ciri has literally nightmares of a Helmet with the wings of a Raptor. What does the helmet Look like? Right..... loose straped feathers on top which looks like a carnival hat
Geralt and Ciri met at the end of season 1 for the first time. In the original, in the book it was a heartbreaking scene, showing the power of Destiny. Because in the original, Geralt did not believe in Destiny, tried to return Ciri to Cintra, but then got scared, thought that Ciri was killed like all the children in Cintra. And yet, he believed in Destiny and the law of surprise, and they met. Netflix disgustingly showed the meeting of Geralt and Ciri. Meeting without emotions. And Ciri's stupid question is “Who is Yennifer?” original: “You've finally found me! Oh, Geralt! I waited all this time! It took so long... We'll stay together now, won't we? Now we'll be together, right? Say it, Geralt! Forever! Say it!” “Forever, Ciri.” “It's just like they predicted, Geralt! Like they predicted... I'm your destiny? Say it! I'm your destiny?” “You're more than that, Ciri. Much more.”
People mostly find fault with the little things in this Series, such as how Triss looks like, for example. But here, after all, it is obvious that they ruined the main story.
And this Nilfgaard armor resembling skin on a scrotum. Apparently the feminists who made the design for this armor wanted to show the Nilfgaard army as an army of stupid men.
There was an interview with Sapkowski and he said "The process of transforming words into pictures cannot be done without some losses. But I’d rather keep the details to myself." That should answer the question whether he liked the changes or not
@Vgs Denkon He was just butthurt about money. He sold the licence without taking share of the games profit. I really doubt he would hate the games otherwise.
@@NautiCaization he really dont like them, a lot of gamers think everyone phraises and respect videogames as a medium, and thats not true, just in recent years people have been more open to it, and despise the fact that a lot of people loves the games (mainly the 3rd) dont see the games take a lot of licenses too and make changes the importance and personality of some characters, so its makes sense sapkowski its not fond to the games, the witcher its a rare case cause the majority of people outside poland knows his work cause the games, but mainly the 3rd and their view of the saga its heavily printed by this game standards, so its a weird mix of people watching this shows, fans of the books only, fans of the games only, fans of the 3rd game only, fans of the games and after discovered the books, and people who dont know anything of the source material and didnt played any game.
@@mordredvonumbra154 In agrrement here. His responses to the game, TV show etc can all be translated as "I got paid and thats I have to say" or even more detached than that. he wouldnt even show for the "Witchercon" that otherwise seemed very much a coming together of the Show and the games creatives and that was nice to see and the impact on the look of S2 accordingly.
My big problem with the show really is it shouldn’t be called “The Witcher” but instead “The Sorceress” because in all honestly Geralt takes a back seat to everyone this season.
Linsy Schopman lets be honest r they just gonna let the main character (Yen) only appear once next season, no They’ll keep showing her, taking time away from the important bits Edit: this shows ended in the wrong hands
Yup. The creator is a feminist with "smasher of the patriarchy!" In her Twitter bio then removed it before the show coming out. So she showed as much women as possible while the men , mostly white and especially the main Badass GERALT, were basically damn near side characters. This show pissed me off so much it was hard to watch
@@adaptivegamer9905 Hissrich or however you write her is just a racist to white people, it's the current societal trend where you mock whites for even existing. That's why this show is a generic American fantasy show. If they'd stick to the letter with the source material it would be better, unconventional but no, let's make this a fast paced action movie, where dialogues are less important.
I played the second and third games first. The Wild Hunt is absolutely amazing. No other game has been able to live up to it so far. Anyway, then I watched the show and several months later I'm reading the books. When I got to Brokilon, I really thought they had skipped it completely in the show. A few days later I told my husband, "Was there an enchanted forest in the show?" He goes, "Oh yeah I think there was, and Ciri was asked to stay but she didn't." Zero impression on either of us. Also, the time jumping made us very confused. We both were saying, "It looks as if you are watching a bunch of side quests." I did enjoy the show, but they definitely did the source material (and the games which popularised it) a disservice. I know Lauren is going for the book only, but here it does not seem like the show did it justice and you cannot completely overlook the games which popularised it so much. Oh well, at least we got the bathtub scene. EDIT: Also, if staying true to the source material meant introducing Ciri in season 2, so what? So much of Season 1 felt rushed. I don't care if key characters are introduced later. Look at GoT, a lot of key characters came in later and the show was (mostly) excellent (no, I won't talk about season 8). Why burn through such rich and beautiful source material? It's a shame, I hope they slow down by season 2. I still liked the show but I don't want to feel like they are burning through it so fast.
You'll notice even just five chapters into the first book that a lot was done away with, so the claim by the powers that be that they're following the books is a falsehood. They just want to do their own thing and source material be damned. Probably thought that if they claim they are going with the books and not the games, less would notice or more would be "Fair enough. Not read the books so I can't say anything." Not only have they badly/miss cast characters due to ideology over source, which will have bigger and longer impacts, I just don't feel they even cast Foltest right. Who even for a time is quite a big character (games at least and I feel books too, but not reached that far I won't lie). Why can't companies and directors etc. just stick to source material for a change?
@Godswill you shouldnt think of the show when playing/watching games. They did Witcher dirty and changed the most fundamental things. They are now different from books and thus games that come from books. Show is it's own, not that good, thing, doing it's own story while butchering more unique one. Sadly. But if you decide one day to give a shot to books, remember that The Last Wish is first, Sword of Destiny second, Blood of Elves third, etc. etc. and Season of Storms is very last. Dont listen to different weird reading order recomendations. This is how they came out and how they are supposed to be read.
Totally. Cahir at least did go through a “bad guy” spell but they definitely did Fringilla an injustice. “Whether they deserve it or not” like really? I wonder how they’re going to portray later Vilgefortz, Leo Bonhart etc lol.
But why? Cahir was also at first one of the villans in the books. We learned about Cahirs Intentions in the third or fourth book. But the character changes of Fringilla are questionable but they don‘t need to make one to one adaptation.
You know with the whole abandoning the personal plot of Ciri and Geralt infavor of the grand political plot, it seems they were trying to replicate GoT initial seasons but the fact that they kept moral ambiguity out of so many places means they were too afraid to delve into too mcuh complexity and instead largely stuck to a good vs bad setup
Yeah, the politics in the show sucked... I am really worried about how they are going to handle the Thanedd coup. Also, why are the Nilfgaridans some fanatical proto-nazis?
@@89Sawik yet he admitted that his portrayal of Geralt in the show does him injustice after some criticism from fans on reddit. It was Henry's idea of having Geralt reply with 'hmm' and 'fuck' so often, as a wink to the gamer fans - yet that is exactly the opposite of how Geralt behaves in the first two books. In the books even Dandelion says that Geralt talks too much, and other people too think the Witcher is acting too sofisticated (Istredd for example).
@@machheydt176 True. So only Jaskier vel Dandelion more or less fits the books :D The same problem was in the original polish series. Quite funny if you think about it :D
1# Casting of Triss. 2# Making Yennefer feel like the main character rather than Geralt 3# Too few displays of how witchers work. If they had made more episodes like the one with the Striga I would have liked it more.
What's the beef with Triss? she appears for 30 minutes in the whole season, what does it matter how she looks? I was real mad about Foltest, but my anger was short-lived because he wasn't that important to the show. I can understand people being mad in later seasons when she is more predominant.
I would have been fine with them not introducing Ciri until S2, given that Geralt and Yennefer's story starts 20 years or so before she's even born. Or only introduce her in episode 7 or 8. I agree that most of Ciri's story in the show was a whole lot of nothing and the decision to jump around decades *in the same freaking episode* is as baffling as the show's structure is to the uninitiated. The clips of the 10yr anniversary video really gave me the feels again. Gets me every time.
@@RavenfluxASMR The narrative was convoluted but I didn't hate the show. Still better than the last season of Game of Thrones! Nowhere near as good as GOT at its best however. They've done enough to keep me invested for season 2, but they need to make a bunch of improvements.
To be fair, they had no idea that there would be a season 2. The reception to the trailers and previews were generally poor and the best reactions were still skeptical. They also were only given 8 episodes which for most tv shows isn't even considered a full season so that shows how much faith there was in the success of the show. By all accounts it was a dice roll and they worked with what they had and simply hoped for the best.
I was mostly just pissed at how evil they made Nilfgaard. I mean even in the Witcher 3 (which is undoubtedly the most popular Witcher story) we see a lot of examples about good nilfgaardians (especially compared to Radovid). I personally didn't have that much of a problem with the Ciri parts but the elves are opressed thing was quite irritating... tbh I try to judge it without thinking about the original plot/world bc a Netflix will always have 'guidelines' they try to meet because of politics... sad rly it could have been great. Now it will only be good.
I felt the same way. My biggest issue was, that they made Cahir a complete different person. In my opinion he acted way too cruel in the show. In the books Cahir later told Geralt he did what he did, because he followed orders and a soldier doesn't question said orders. If this makes him evil then almost every soldier is a villian, including those of the northern kingdoms.
@@rebeccaspee7194 To the eyes of all folks that lives in the frontline of war (like Velen for example) every Nilfgaardian (or other army that invade said country) solider is a evil and crule human beign with no emotions.
The entire first season felt like a series of flashbacks instead of character development. As much as I thought Anya Chalotra did an AMAZING job as Yennifer, the writers shouldn't have given so much time to Yennifer's backstory. It was a disservice to the whole first season because the audience didn't get to really know Geralt and Ciri. Most importantly, it didn't give any time to explore why Ciri becomes so important to Geralt. They could have completely written the last episode and taken out Geralt's memories as well. They decided to try and be clever with their writing, instead of referring to the source material, which was good enough already! The writers tried to make the show "something more," instead it became "something else."
I didnt like Anya at all. Shes a great actress but she doesnt become Yen for me, she always feels more like someone who plays Yen rather than actually being her
I didnt like Anya at all. Shes a great actress but she doesnt become Yen for me, she always feels more like someone who plays Yen rather than actually being her
Yeah, exactly. I feel they made the show to fit people who care about story and people who just want to have fun while watching some action. Because the witcher games and books have pretty long scenes that are about feelings and building characters it can be hard for a season to explain all of that and have much action. It was either feelings or action, so they tried to hit a little bit of both. Instead of feelings it's more action, witty humor and funny back and forth dialogue. It would be so cool if they made a series almost exactly like the books, but the seasons would be as big as GOT episodes and seasons. And that might be dangerous for the show, because it does not fit everybody. I think of it this way: This is like a Marvel movie, much action and humor and a little bit of feels. A DC superhero movie often has more feeling or dialogue, making it feel more serious. It's like the Iron Man superhero movies vs The Dark Knight DC superhero movies. So they cut out a lot of the dialogue and feelings, character development and such for more action and humor. I like the show a lot and I think it reels in people who don't know much about or anything about The Witcher. The only thing I don't fully understand is how some actors seems off with their looks, not the actors fault at all they all did extremely well.
I DO hate it so much when American productions get all over the place with political BS in random TV shows (especially great in fantasy based ones, completely severed from the real world). BIG BAD EVIL Nilfgaard attack, EVIL humans vs INNOCENT elves, opressors vs the opressed...it is so cheap and boring and it's misleading as well. Political correctness (aka fear of showing the opressors as potentially right/innocent in some ways) ruined mainstream american TV/film products. Man, the games did this so much more justice...in my playthrough I had Ciri rule over Nilfgaard and Temeria being semi-free as a vasal state, but without the cruel/random/crazy bloodshed of Radovid's rule...I mean it brought so much more depth to the world, this diversity of points of view. Shame.
@@TheStraightestWhitest Lauren Schmidt Hissirch. I don't know, after what happened in the last century and what not, I would expect someone with such last name respect and care at least a little bit anything related to Poland.
@@geraltofrivia8529 well...I love WoT as well, hope they do it justice. I am however afraid it is inevitably going to be simmilar in this aspect to the new Witcher series, lets just hope they stick to the story as much as possible...but since the story itself has a great variety of nations (Saenchan as weird Asian guys, The sea folk as Afroamerican "ocean" tribe, The Aiel as sort of Arabic and most of the cities described have different fashion habits and very different cultures) I think they will want to keep that at least. But no way we gonna have all them characters as strictly hetero as they are in the books :D...too out of fashion
@@johanah.693 I have a sneaky suspicion some of the red sisters and their loathing of men gave a bit of "in" but I'd rather they just stuck to it as the author wrote it. I have no idea how they will tackle some of the aiel parts, it took a lot of rereading to understand culture and language references. Maybe they will get it right this time, maybe they will fail dreadfully and realise they need to try again one day. Fingers crossed 😊
That's why this series was so well received. Today, all you need is sex and violence. Most people are no longer interested in a good emotional story. I agree with the reviewers, even those who saw only one or two episodes. Scenario poverty, they did so quickly and piss off. Even Baginski suggested this in the pre-release statements. He explained that the showrunner had to change a few threads and make the story shorter because the Western recipient would not understand anything. As you can see, they were right. I am disappointed with the first season.
Since they didn't flesh out Geralt enough the scene with his mother loses its weight and they skipped him explainning that he wasn't from Rivia. That part in the book was so sad.
@@xLetalis I wanted to love it, but I felt like a lot of it was actually pretty bad. Great source material, but with poor scene/episode choice, often enough poor writing, and a great performance from Cavill, but not everyone. This is a great example, Geralt not being fleshed out. Ciri and Geralt? Relationship more than destiny? Yen felt wrong. So much was just sort of a "so close, yet so far" type of feeling.
Another thing someone tell that Feminist bitch lauren. When Geralt is in a middle of a fight (let's say with the striga) not to cut scenes between him & yennifer one of her most important scenes. It's like almost she forcing people to watch her big moment when I didn't want to! I came for geralt & depending on how future seasons go I'll stay for Geralt & Ciri storyline... Don't try force feeding me yennifer story line because honestly I could careless!!! She's the least important out of the big three in the books yet, this Woman showrunner made her the most important character in a show called The Witcher!@@
Everything about Visenna in the show is so weird. In the books it's pretty reasonable - she had a baby she didn't want so she gave him up when he was still an infant. Geralt understands it and respects her decision, but also feels some - very natural in that situation - resentment towards her. In the show we get some ridiculous Hansel and Gretel story, with her abandoning ten-year-old him in the woods. He should be seriously traumatized and hate her or something like that.
@@box1877 Your opinion is literally based on hate not anything reasonable. If you came for just geralt, you'll be deeply disappointed. The story itself is more than just geralt.
My biggest beef with the show is that they erased all the things that made Witcher - Witcher. It’s Slavic roots, which is heavily relied on whilst developing the book characters. Game is actually a good example how you keep the Slavic origins and traditions and make it Americanised. Plus, Sapkowski was involved only to 0.09%. There’s one interview he gave and you see he is not happy at all, he snickers and says, sorry my name is in the credits, I can’t share my feelings. That’s very telling ...
Witchers are Sapkowski made concept. Slavics had concept of warlocks (wiedźmak or wiedźmarz) and witches (wiedźma) but wiedźmaks weren't monster hunters. They was mages which was superior to few wiedźmas and do very similar things like cursing or lifting curses and such. In games, you can meet The Pellar who more or less fits to the concept. He talks to the dead and make amulets but doesn't fight with monsters. Sapkowski invented a concept of monster hunter called wiedźmin who is an enhanced monster hunter. They very different to wiedźmaks from slavic paganism and folklore. P.S. However, Russian localisators decided to translate "wiedźmin" as "ведьмак" (wiedmak) because wiedźmin sounds very odd in Russian and whole concept of warlocks isn't very popular in Russia. Russians mostly have Baba Yaga (in Witcher 3 game there are 3 cronies which behave very similar) who take their place.
@@ХузинТимур I think the big issue here, giving a nod to the culture and folklore that gave rise to Witcher, and not the fact wether they exist or not in Slavic culture. However, in certain Slavic tales, certain wiedmaks are there to protect the villages from monsters that might come in the night (like in Ukrainian and Northern Polish folklore), so it is not inherently removed from Slavic myth altogether, you pair it with monster that originate from oral stories of Slavic mythology and tada you have Sapkowski's Witcher. He was also inspired by actual historical places and events significant to Poland, that is why Yaruga appears in the books, it was an important strategy village for Poland during Polish-Soviet War. The real Yaruha village is divided by a river.
I dont see the problem with yen's speech about women. Especially in those times women were often thought as lesser than men and usually referenced as whores. We all played the games.
@@vincentpalermo3452 It's dumb. Why there is so many made up things? For example - Why do sorceresses need a source (such as a plant) when they want to conjure a spell? How is then possible for Geralt (who is much less experienced in magic) to cast Aard, Igni, etc. directly in combat ? And why they made up that nonsense there with the unsuccessful students at Aretuza turned into eels? When it is clearly stated in the books that these become office workers, lawyers etc. And why is Cahir (or Eyck of Denesle - knight from episode 6) a psychotic sociopath in the series? How will they deal with this when Cahir joins Geralt's team? There is so much made up bullshit by those woke retards, that anyone who reads those books just looks at that pile of nonsense in disbelief.
Right?! She doesn't need to use a sword, she's a sorceress. You can have her be strong and a good fighter using her magic, they didn't need to invent skills for her.
They not including the Brokilon scene is like they starting the first lord of the rings movie by Gandalf showing up, throwing the ring in Frodo's hand into the fire, and telling him to pack his bags with zero explanation. Not a word of who he is where he got the ring of power or what happened to it's last owner.
@Sarincrow I think this is the only opinion here I've really respected so far. I would challenge anybody to adapt this show better than what they've done for an audience as wide as this has reached. Literally every single person in my family has watched and thoroughly enjoyed this show, and that was a massive surprise for me, and something I doubt they would have watched if they'd dogmatically followed the books exactly word for word, scene for scene, and not had Anya and Freya onscreen for people to get to know right off of the bat. People don't realise you have to make things more accessible for a tv show, and the decision to slightly arrange the storyline to make things work in this new stories favour was a good one.
@Sarincrow I can understand that. But that story was arguably the second most important story in Sword of destiny. That story built up the most important scene in the book and gave it meaning. The whole embrace felt empty and meaningless without it. Ciri's character arc was the weakest in this season. And could have really benefited from this story. Just becaose something was good doesn't make it above criticism. Btw
my greatest problem with the series is the total lack of respect of everything foreign, when americans are involved. The books are very different to most other fantasy and have a strong eastern european touch. All of this is completely flattened and americanised, up to the black people quote which is absolutely ridiculous for an (fantastic) eastern european setting. Some of the actors are almost the opposite of how the are described just to fit american standards. In my eyes the timeline in the short stories is rather confusing and difficult, but the idea to make this ten times worse is something I can't understand. You have to take in respect, all the people watching this video and writing here know the books. Somebody just watching the series will never have a clue what it is all about.
I'm a Slavic person (Slovak to be precise) and I agree with you. This Witcher adaptation has zero slavic feel in it. It feels like a generic american fantasy show.
So it's good I did not watch, mainly because of Triss' actor and disrespect to foreign material, we don't have blacks, Poland literally has nothing to do with blacks, we didn't have colonies, slaves nor did we buy them. There's nothing's in our culture regarding black people. Let's be clear, it was political, same with women being strong of a sudden and being better than men (rise of feminism). The show was shot regarding to current US' politics and societal trends and it was awful. I agree about everything, I read the books a very long time ago, 10 years I think, but even from what he's saying I agree the book sounds better in regards to everything. I was saying this all along, this is The Witcher but it never will be Wiedźmin.
Another Slav, here tough I am a South Slav (Serb) we and the others all basicaly have the same mitology, I agree with this 100%. This show is just an American hogwash of the real thing. Therr isn't a thing that's Slavic in there. Best stick to the books and games.
i had a problem with that too, but that's the only thing that makes sense because it's the same in the books (i think. i just started reading the last wish this week and i noticed the chapters weren't in chronological order, just like in the show)
Fully agreed. I actually wanted to give up on the 4th episode, but I thought to myself it may be worth continuing to see if the first few weren't just hiccups. Bit of a waste of time, really. It's very chaotic.
haha yes! I was hoping somebody saw that too. G.O.D. is THE best villain...he gives me chills until now. And as said in video about the games/books, even he is not black or white, he is truly a mirror to those who bargain/meet with him.
6:47 Andrzej Spakowski was almost not involved at all. He’s the type of guy who says “ok you can do whatever but I want the most money”. he finds most adaptations bad but he’s all about he money and fame.
The final scene of season 1 kinda felt hollow, because there was no payoff from it. Even in the books, Geralt & Ciri don't get along right off the bat. He saves her from a monster, but she is annoyed with him, and he is annoyed with her. They bicker, they banter, and slowly, but surely over the course of "The Sword of the Destiny." chapter they begin to bond. Geralt rejecting his destiny & letting Ciri go is heartbreaking, but that scene further adds to the huge emotional payoff with their reunion in "Something More." (and Geralt & Ciri embracing felt much more sense, because in the books, they know well enough about each other through the previous chapter). In contrast, in the show, Ciri basically knows nothing about Geralt, except for his name & what he looks like (due to seeing him in her dreams), & that he keeps on yelling Yennefer. And I don't really think that was enough to justify their hug in the end (it's pretty much like 2 strangers were hugging). Following is what the showrunner teased about season 2: “As expected from the saga, Ciri really takes center stage in season two. The whole world is after her, and she has to find safety and respite with Geralt (and eventually, Yennefer). Problem is, they’re complete strangers. She doesn’t know Geralt, doesn’t see why she should automatically trust him, and really doesn’t love when he starts making big decisions in her life - especially when she’s still mourning the loss of her grandmother in Cintra. For his part, Geralt dutifully wants to protect Ciri, but also doesn’t know anything about being a dad, and certainly doesn’t know how to balance that with the need to continue doing his job. There’s some comedy in how these two come together and eventually bond, but that belies a deeper reflection on what it means to become a family.” Sounds like they're basically moving a lot of possible bonding moments to season 2 with what she's saying. It's a real shame they didn't make it happen in season 1 though. Their interaction scenes in "The Sword of Destiny" & the last scene at the end of "Something More" chapter are some of (if not) the best moments in the "Sword of Destiny" book.
You're right there are several errors in the show that ( I hope ) will be patched, but there are moments in the show that are great, of course, it's not better than the books, but they are trying to do something different, I mean, they want to tell the witcher story but with a different point of view. That's what I understanded when I saw the TV show
I really don't think the show runner gets the books. I mean, reading what she's said there just doesn't reflect how I understand the books. The feeling I got with Geralt and Ciri from the books is that they found a fulfilment in each other and they bounce off each other.. I just don't get this show runners decisions.
Well i couldn't catch the emotion from ciri that she is mourning her grandma. I think it was pretty stupid that they hugged beforehand. And i know that she saw him in her dreams (in the show) but she should've been more hesitant about if that man in the woods geralt or not. Removing sword of destiny made the scene look empty anyway :(
Another example of black and white coulb be Foltest. The best king on the northern realms in my opinion, Vizimir of Redania is only good as he makes what Djisktra and Philippa says. In the series Foltest looks like a drunken uncle
in the games (mupltipayer gwent too) he looks like a nice wine amateur... btw the temerian heraldry looks like the old french one - is that a coincidence ? (about wine, i mean)
@@rhotgarr625 I didn't notice but it makes perfect sense. Witcher's world takes inspiration from a lot of cultures, specially European. Troissant is the French countryside with some Spanish touches.
@@ivanrechefernandez1187 the names of Toussain's places (Like caroberta woods ) sounds more Italian than Spanish but the armors looks realy like 17th century in Spain. I suppose it's a great mix of those 3 cultures...
@@MattBG67 I could say Offir or Zarrakania but... What the problem if there were only european references, European culture is not a culture but a mix. Only in my country we got: greek, roman, phenician, arabic, celtic,... So if I made a book only based on my history I can say it inspired on differents cultures.
@@skat3r430 it may be only one season so far and the first season have potential if they Fix some Problems they have in the TV show. First of all they need To stop that black and white Portraing we all know that in the witcher universe No one is absolutely good or bad for example if you do the red baron quest in the game you can choose to safe orphan children I believe there 5? Or 1 family (that's only the obvious way) if you safe the Orphans other people have to suffer if you safe the Family well The orphans have to bath....
There isn't a tv show relationship, they literally just met. It is still prior to the start of the main storyline. The games take place much further down the line, years after the end of the books
One more problem I'd like to highlight is how they handled magic. The whole premise was that it's not an all powerful force that you can spam but one fist clench without any incantation and complex hand gestures can crush an entire squad of soldiers. Furthermore, you can make powerful fields and whatnot but conjure a few swords and you end up bleeding. I'm not quite sure how the magic works in the books but this just doesn't make any sense.
In books, of course, this is handled in a completely different way. It is explained in detail there. After all, if it worked so idiotically, how would Geralt be able to use his signs in battle? Also, sorceresses changing into eels is a total BS. In the books, Aretuza's unsuccessful graduates become office workers, lawyers etc.
@@subraxas dude, what? Eels are better? It's childish - if it was like the show, no one would put their kids in that school = boring and unimaginative, and actually, stupid. And everything is better in books than in that show - especially dialogues.
Sadly, they made this bs up for no reason. in the books they can use the elements to draw magical energy. ciri once used the energy of fire to cure a wounded unicorn in the Korath desert.
One of the issues I have found is that most of the time, the true message was lost, because they have changed and removed certain important things. You do not have to look further than the very first episode, where they have removed the real tension and the real fight that Geralt had in himself and replaced it with romance. Because in the books no one is certain of what would happen, there is no clarification that Renfri's men would attack the wizard, and we do not get true motives from either sides. So in the end Geralt only tries to make peace with what he did by calling it the lesser evil. AND THIS IS JUST ONE; there are many more! Also a big motive was removed from the striga hunt, because Geralt did it for the money to help Yen try out a method to cure herself out of infertility. Also a big issue I had was that characters died necessarily and they contradicted themselves, like Calanthe. She said A and then did B and then switched back to A to say C at the very end. They made the show more about Yen, and with this instead of flashing out her character, they have ruined her and basically just took away her real motives... Also what they had done with Eyck... I am just pure sad about this...
@@ayazofluoglu He was having a discussion with Nenneke in Ellander, but they have removed that part completely. I guess the doppler was more important. But if they wanted a doppler why not do the one already in the book? So many unnecessary changes... I cannot truly understand why was this needed? The story in the books were more morally gray and coherent, flashed out. Now it is just a mess... They are jumping timelines, making up things, and removing important ones. They took Geralt's screen time and dialouges, to give it to Yen. This is my only answer to these changes. They wanted Yen's story. I do not have a problem with exploring Yen's background. I have problem with how they made it. They have even made magic rubbish. That is not how magic works. The show is full of flaws.
@@Bigby-von-Wolfburg I am very sad that everything you said is true :( I don't care about timelines cuz there is so much to care about before that. More important things like they removed sword of destiny and made dryads look that cheap. Imagine Lord of the rings making dwarfs or hobbits look like that. AND nothing is subtle in this show. Nothing is grey. Everything is black or white. Removing those, and there you go now there is nothing special left about the Witcher. Meaningless changes reducing the importance of the plot. The main story replaced with unnecessary, stupid new written stories that doesn't even change anything if they were removed. It's really hard to understand these changes. How dare them remove so much, it's very disrespectfull to the source and they are not even good at writing. Giving to them being this horrible at writing new stories, I even say they should'veused the exact quotes from the books. I felt irritated that they changed the lesser evil quote. And the only moment I felt connected to that yennefer character they created is that quote ' I can not only guess the age and breed of your horse, but also it's color by the smell.' I really think they should use some of the quotes from the books
@@Bigby-von-Wolfburg Yeah I'm just tired of the whole "the adaptation shouldn't be 100% same excuse" by the fans of the show. This show doesn't have any personality, is too rushed with unnecessary changes that affect the plot and unnecessary arcs like Yennefer's back story (which I believe ruined her character).
Show!Geralt's relationship with Jaskier is the biggest mistake of the whole show. Book!Geralt loves his best friend and is impossibly fond of him. Show!Geralt WISHES.
Oh come on, it's definitely not ideal but it's probably the BEST part of the show overall (well, the other stuff is just so bad). The show messes with the Dandelion/Geralt timeline a lot so it's like they haven't known each other for that long. I think it ultimately does right with the duo dynamic. They care for each other but they also bicker and swear a lot.
@@zolikoff By the time the mountain breakup happens Jaskier and Geralt have known each other for 22 years in-show, so it's pretty bad. They have known each other for more than a half of Jaskier's life.
@@katierowan973 I'm taking it from the official Netflix timeline. Jaskier and Geralt meet in 1240. Pavetta's engagement happens in 1249 (so they've already known each other for almost a decade then!). The dragon hunt happens in 1262. Simple maths tells us that they've known each other for 22 years by then, according to Netflix itself.
I mean true, I thought that the show Geralt was so damn awful at Jaskier, he even said he isn’t his friend (??). That kinda finished me off, Geralt in games and books knows what an idiot Dandelion is but he still sees his as his best friend, no matter what.
I respect your opinion, you mentioned the really serious problems of this show. I hope that the creators of the series and the producers will take this into account. (Lauren Schmidt in the first place)
Lauren will not do it cos: a) she's a feminazi, so she will keep up overrepresenting female characters at the expense of everything; even input made-up stories to justify it (creating more inconsistencies) and b) Why would she? The show is "great success", great viewer reviews, meaning - job well done, keep it up! More of the stuff! That is what scares me about the future of the show...
You know that something is not right when the scene Geralt finds Ciri after the war is far better in the old Polish series than in the new Netflix one.
The perfect description for this show is this....'it's like ordering a decadent pie with toppings and a surface that looks delicious, but stick a fork in and there's nothing, no filling, nothing just past the surface."
Then hopefully your friends bigger pie that's cooking is ready soon (season 2) since there is more filling and is puff pastry. Dont know why I made a pie anecdote.
@@lukeskywalker8543 if the first pie was just "ok" do you really want another? it's sweet and I'll eat it, but it's not as good as it should be. if I'm told it's lemon custard, it better be lemon custard. not with lemonyish vanilla filling. looks fantastic in the pictures until its in your hand for real.
Hard to do a story about morally grey areas justice in a time when morality is largely accepted as black and white in the media. It's kind of sad that the politics of today dug their claws into The Witcher, but thank god Netflix had the sense to undo most of it before they let us see it, still sucks that you can see the remnants of the agenda in the show though.
No mate, it doesn't go like that. The characters fucked up the most by the screenwriters compared to the source material get to be non-white so no one dares to criticize these decisions. So they know perfectly what they did. Crazy ass fanatic Fringilla, the dryads, cocksucking Vilgeforz... what makes me wonder is why is Cahir white xD
4 года назад+13
Have you seen Batwoman? Be thankful... The Witcher could have been a whole lot worse.
@@berketugral8236 Some black people in the Nilfgaardian army could be great( even generals...) Like showing that Nilfgaard is a great empire that even reach the far south(like the Roman Empire wich very likely had some black soldier from North Africa.)
he clearly didn't really give much of a shit in the first place, and I can't blame him, as far as I've read he basically signed the rights to a small studio before it was acquired by netflix. Also apparently a fantasy show doesn't have to be good or even decent to rake in millions of viewers, almost like people needed a rebound after the shitshow that was got season 8
Am I the only one that is bothered by how Yen looks? Id imagined her quite a little bit more mature and fierce looking. This one looks like a Yennefer Cosplayer really
@@stilloslachen6519 there's that too, but at least being a yennefer cosplay means some resemblance to her... triss is just... not even close. Not even. Not one bit. That ain't triss, not even a Triss cosplay.
Does she actually look different to how she's described in the books? Because in the 3rd game she seems to have gone overboard with the old crimson hair dye. Which definitely was never referenced in the source material
Alex Fields In the books she is described as having ‘chestnut’ hair, which is like a brown with a slight reddish shine to it, however it’s polish translation used another word which means the same but more red. And she’s definitely not black.
@Kapitan Dupa it could actually be a decent plot if she appeared more times, but it was like, she lost her uterus, then the next scene (in cronological order) she is bored, then they try to kill the queen and the baby, then she is trying to kill a dragon to have a babie, it escalated to fast
I find that Geralt, Yennefer and Ciri have the same screen time and it's very good for a first season to introduce the three most important characters of the story :) Besides, I never had the impression that Geralt was in the background ^^
@@gdmw09051994 it actualy a poor decision- we have mixed stories, cut down to give everyone their 33% time and because of that many of them loos their meaning. You have created history which has many plotholes and Ciri`s story is just borring- she is running the wood with scared face and that`s all. They are important characters but the main heroe of tales and first three books is Geralt, last books are mainly about Ciri, Yen is important but she is in the backgroud- with their three heroes they are in trobule.
@@gdmw09051994 Its bad, just bad. You can give 1/1/1 screen time to key characters, because they dont play the same role in the story at this point. Geralt is by far the most important character early on, the catalyst and POV for audience. Yennefer is also important as grey eminence, pulling strings in the background, but Ciri? Just no. We are only given hints at her potential, vague references to legends etc., she doesnt become center piece until way later.
The biggest flaws imo: 1. They removed Geralt and Ciri’s relationship 2. They deformed Geralt and Yen’s relationship There’s more ofc but those are the biggest ones, if I’m adding more: The writing team have no idea what the Witcher is, they seem to have chose actors and actresses based on some sort of agenda rather than acting skill. The world is wrong, the timeline is wrong. They’ve made it 2D in every way, why are nilfgaard religious fanatics now? The list is probably infinate
I honestly was unaware of who that was, but even so, such slapstick and flat character shouldn't belong in a series full of grey areas. It'd be much more impactful if he was as portrayed as an intellectual, and his death would've affected the audiences much more.
@@aeroblaze4 In the books he is pretty much a classic "Prince charming " type of Knight, and the books make fun of it in several ocasions. The thing is, even if he is a silly and kinda hateable character, he is the only person in the Witcher world who is genuinly selfless and well intentioned,allways putting other peoples wellbeing above his own, plus he is the only being except for Witchers who can kill monster consistently, wich make him a fucking badass
What about geral being constantly angry and shouting at his friends ?! Something that geralt in games never does, never shows anger or much of any emotion really is it cavills choice or was he ill advised idk but if he played the games he should know geralt doesnt react this way
Yeah Geralt isn't quite accurate either. He does get angry at Dandelion in the books, and they have arguments, but I never got the impression that he was shouting at him the way it's shown here. Also, Geralt in the books was often times quite the eloquent philosopher, he didn't just go "hmm/fuck".
almost everyone was out of character, but yea, when Geralt punched Jaskier I had to take a break for a minute... also he doesnt even know Witcher stuff, he has to ask how to lift a curse, asking what sylvan is, he is making fun of destiny, sleeps with random whore and doesnt even have enough money to pay for a room, because he gave it all to her WTF Netflix? And on top of that he asked where Temeria is, the biggest Northern Kingdom.
I mean, I have tears in my eyes, every freaking time I read the end of "something more". And in the Netflix show: Nothing. There was no impact in this scene and it failed so hard. But to be honest I really dislike the show. Not a problem of Henry and the other actors it is just bad writing, bad pacing and the fact that it was so easy to make it better
The fact that it was so easy to make it better really hurts. But the author of the script seems to ignore criticism and instead thrives off of the fans hype
Too many mistakes, characters didnt get introduced, random ones did. That Vilgefortz and Cahir fight was ridiculous. Yennefer seems so OP in this series that how is Vilgefortz gonna kick her ass easily? They should turn more attention to character development and establishing timelines. Its mashed potatoes at the moment.
Nilfgaard ballsack armor was a trauma...actually the whole portraying of Nilfgaard needs to be corrected. Nilfgaard is an advanced civilized empire not a horde of fanatics. And magicians are not so common so sacrificing one for each fire ball was a true wtf moment. Talking about the magicians it was quite incoherent and felt that their powers only depend on the plot. Starts by saying every magic requires a sacrifice, ends up with Yennefer burning everything just because she's angry or when she paralyzes the dwarves easily but then proceeds to fight with a sword against the real bad guys (oh and what was that chicken dragon?). I honestly enjoyed the show but it was more Xena the warrior than game of thrones.
They ve made so many mistakes in the plot referring to books that counting them is pointless. On the other hand Its also hard to condemn the whole series because Henry and Jaskier did great for example. Im just afraid that Lauren Hissrich doesnt fit for this job. GoT directors also made major changes in first seasons comparing to George Martin's vision, but ultimately they managed to pass the essence of Game of Thrones to fans. After watching first season of the Witcher we can see everything except the essence of the Witcher. Few good moments(TOO FEW) of Henry Cavill and Jaskier, and tones of meaningless crap. Clearly the showrunner didnt know how to show the spirit of books, like games did in some extent.
They think everything is all about geralt-ciri-yennefer. Witcher has an enormous world behind it.They just show us the triplets and reduce or remove everything else. They even fail to portray main characters correct way. The foundations are very poor compared to GoT. Very small to none world building, no character introduction except overly done yennefer(unnecessary and still wrong), falsely done geralt and non-existent ciri.
She made the mistake of just rushing to the characters' story and paid less importance to the other short stories which were important for setting up the tone of the series.
"GoT directors also made major changes in first seasons comparing to George Martin's vision, but ultimately they managed to pass the essence of Game of Thrones to fans" Until Season 4 or 5 that is
Thats my main issue with the netflix adaptation. Poor depiction of all the characters. They take away the funny lines from them or strip away important character bondings from most of them and make them kind of dull background characters rather than an interesting new character in the story. Also they unnecesarily make some characters “evil” even though its on the person watching it to decide whether (lets say stegobor) is an evil character or not. Im just not satisfied with what netflix did. Witcher deserves better adaptation.
Fans: YOU BUTCHERED TRISS! Netflix: we are faithful to the books Fans: what about Geralt & Ciri’s history? Netflix: we aren’t faithful to the books *I feel like they’ve done a stupid*
The question is how Tris is faithful to the books? In the books it is said that her hair is red. Sapkowski said so himself. The color brown came from mistranslation. So yeah tris hair should have been red. Probably not as bright as in the game but red nevertheless. Also Tris is supposed to look young. She was the youngest or the sorcerers and least experienced one and we are constantly reminded of that in the books thanks to her looks and her personality. Is she a secondary character in the books - absolutely. But she is never a bland or boring character like she was made out to be Netflix series. weather it was her somewhat hidden unrequired love towards Geralt or other aspects of her character - it always kept an impression on you on the books. She was never a boring nobody as she is in the series. And she doesnt look youthful and energetic to me. If anything in the series Yen looks younger than her.
@@gediminaskucinskas6952 it’s just the writing dude, any time a book adaption tries to write its own subplots in usually fail horribly. Wait for blood of elves to judge Triss, she should get better because sapkowski will have mostly written it for them.
Hey guys, do you remember Dumb and Dumber from Game od Thrones? Now we found the Dumbest and her name is Lauren Schmidt Hissrich who thinks she is a better writer than Andrzej Sapkowski.
The last issue won't be adressed. Let's face it. It's Netflix. So yeah, "Men are bad - Women good."; "Nilfgaard Empire bad, Rebels good" and so on. The elves will be innocent heroes, who fight the evil male oppressor humans. That's it. It won't be fixed.
Then maybe we'll have to look to niche games in order to give us the nuanced, deep and memorable stories that we deserve and need. But Henry Cavill deserves more. This could be his portrayal of a life time, but for that the show's story needs to be top notch
@Aoife Good point and I would agree with you, but it's Netflix that we're talking about and they have the reputation of "shoving the message in the viewers' faces". I really like Netflix to be honest, but they always push some kind of narrative and it's very obvious. It probably won't be different this time around.
I can tell you right now that the reason they're going this route with Ciri is they want to get rid of the whole "Geralt as Ciri's protector" plotline all together. Think about it: they chose to replace all of Geralt's crucial scenes with her with these random scenes of Ciri meeting other "stunning & brave wahmen..." only to show those women lose their lives in brutal fashions... which seems to be hinting that Ciri is in grave danger and must learn to care for/fend for herself. Pair this with Yennefer's plot changes, and it would seem that Netflix is really trying to drive home this "men in this world are evil, wahmen are just vessels" plotline, which wouldn't really align well with this idea of Geralt being Ciri's grand protector. Is it stupid? Yes. Is it necessary? No. But welcome to modern progressivism. This wouldn't be the first show they've ruined with ideological pandering. Basically, every problem so far with the Witcher Season 1, every MAJOR problem anyway, has been the result of pseudomodern ideological undertones taking precedence over what things are _actually like_ in the Witcher World.
you are making it sound like it's a bad thing. It doesn't really matter what the authors of the show want to do and they can change the source material as they want. If you want the story of the books, then read the books
Agree. There is a good way to write believable strong female characters. Vikings did it right with their portrayal of Lagertha and the shield maidens. The series did well showing men and women working together for common goals. There were good and bad in all the characters, male and female. Both male and female characters suffer. The shield maidens weren't oppressed super humans that never needed help. It was far more realistic, and the show was better for it.
My biggest problem with the Netflix series is lack of inner fights that geralt had in the books. His fight between human and witcher site. Please mention that in next video. Sorry for bad english greetings from Poland
the writers of the story had the easiest job and they completely failed imo. So many crucial bits were left out you can clearly see the writers didnt understand the story or didnt give a F at all
Screen adaptations are never easy. Never. The source material is always too much, and deciding what to keep, what to cut and how to keep the thread running is tough. The finest parts of any book, to me, are the ones made of dialogues and of the characters' inner thoughts. Too many dialogues don't work well on screen. And inner thoughts cannot be shown in any way. The show will necessarily become shallower, less fulfilling, likely leaving the readers frustrated and considering it to be rushed. This said, there are various degrees of skill with which adaptations are performed. I've seen better, I've seen worse. I guess budget and time constraints, together with the hope of trying to interest and involve a vaster audience - wrt book readers and gamers - resulted in several clumsy choices. I did enjoy it, though. It's still better than nothing.
I’m glad they showed how Yennefer changed. The casting of the characters was a mistake except for Geralt and Jaskier (Dandelion). Triss looked more like Yennefer’s mother. But did those actors do a bad job? No. It was dreadfully insulting to those playing their roles that the producers felt it was necessary to go over the top with political correctness. I have to agree Geralt’s dialogue was slashed so badly his role was almost nonexistent. There is so much to do though in coming series so I hope they don’t continue in the same pattern or people will turn away from the show and the producers can be blamed for mocking what were and still are very successful books and games.
In relation to the last point, I found that the moral issues which were so crucial and well-developped in the book series (and the games but yes, yes, we're not adapting those) were all but eradicated in the Netflix adaptation. They could simply be boiled down to "Cintra gud, Nilfgaard bad," or as you pointed out, "Hoomans bad, elves gud." Any adaptation requires some alterations to be made to the source materials, but I fear that they may have gone a bit too far.
I honestly thought the Queen was a bitch...Before Nilfgaard is ever a threat in the slightest she's prejudiced and hateful towards them. She tries to murder someone over a cursed appearance...She has no clue who he really is or what he's planning so no moral higher ground there either. She refuses to follow a sacred law helded for generations. If she's the noble Queen of Cintra...It must be full of cunts and cowards. As for the Elves well yeah given the Scoia'tael aren't active yet I would in fact say yes Elves are better than Humans morally. Though there were Elves Geralt killed in Renfri's gang. Hopefully they'll get into detail the Elven Freedom-Fighters/Terrorists later on.
You thought Cintra was portrayed as unequivocally good? They went through a lot of dialogue talking about how much the people of the realm hated the queen, that she was a warmonger and sat in her ivory tower while her subjects starved.
@@chasx7062 When Ciri finds the Cintran refugee camp in the woods in Ep 2, she tries to cut in front of a woman in line to get food. The woman stops her and Ciri says Hey this was all provided by the queen. The woman responds to the effect that the Queen was selfish and never gave them anything. Later in the camp she meets the boy who had collected the ears of the elves he'd killed, he takes her to his family's tent. We meet his mother who explained his father had been killed in a war that the queen was responsible for, that she was always fighting wars and expending her subject's blood to suit her own purposes. There was at least one other place where Cintran subjects expressed contempt for the queen but I can't remember the episode.
What I did not understand is how the show got so popular. I mean, played the games and read the books, so I understood what was going on, but I watched the show with other peoole that didn't know anything about the witcher and they thought it was very nice. But again, I explained a lot of things that was shady to them, and they did not really care, they just enjoyed the show. And I can honnestly say that if I hadn't read the books, I wouldn't have understood anything that was going on. It feels so rushed and unexplained. Like the whole story at the end of the world : Books : amazing story, deep and makes you rethink what's good and bad and see all the things the elves have been through. Geralt and Jaskier are saved by a mythical sorceress that is the purest form the elves respect. Show : you're gonna die ! Please, no. Okay, you can go. Come one, you had such good source material, why did you rush the show, Netflix ?
the acting and ambience s good, decent action scenes, and henry cavil as the main character, the show is probably more appealing to people that dont know the witcher, i didnt read the books and only played a bit of the games and the show didnt feel so bad, until i saw some videos showing how much hey removed from the story and, and most of the would make the show better without taking so much time
It got so popular because of people who haven't read the books... They screwed over the Hardcore Fans, AGAIN. I knew from the beginning I couldn't trust Lauren, ESPECIALLY after that comment about, "I'm making the utmost effort to stay true to Polish Culture and the world of the Witcher" (or something to that effect.) All lies. I'm getting this close to being done with TV series and Movies honestly. Most adaptations are just pandering to the Identity Politics crowd and trying to tell the story better than the OG material.
I think the biggest tragedy of the Netflix show is, as you mentioned, how Manichean the Continent seems to be. It's black and white, clear cut good guys and bad guys, no in-between. It's the defining trait of the Witcher universe, the fact that nothing is black and white, everything is grey at best, most things and people aren't as they seem. It's what makes the books and the games stand out from most other Fantasy franchises. But Netflix couldn't even get that right. They had to dumb down the Universe like there's no tomorrow to fit their usual political agendas in the series.
Well she is not "ginger" her hair is "chestnut" but as far as I know that's still a lighter reddish-brown.. But somebody obviously misread the blue eyes and being younger than Yen...
@@i.cs.z the thing is that even Andrzej Sapkowski describe triss are red hair/ginger. maybe the english translation was not right but anyhow the color in the show is not ok. source juandahlmann.wordpress.com/2008/07/27/part-ii-of-the-june-2008-fantasymundo-interview-with-andrzej-sapkowski/
@@athaeus2667 I kinda disagree... Chestnut looks different. Almost redhead. Yen calls her redhead. But besides the colour... She is supposed to be young and her hair should be fucking signature attribute... And it's not. She looks old and very common. When I saw her I should be like oh thats Triss... But I was like... Wait a sec who is this?
@@Evija3000 Yeah, thats why i was WTF, what Yen always wanted is to be a mother, to carry a baby, a vessel if you will, that phrase was just stupid for the context of the show
@@K1NGSSTH And who are those men that keep taking from her or using her? Apart from her stepfather every other man we've seen her interact with is getting insulted and/or manipulated by her not the other way around.
@@Evija3000 yeah additionally considering in-universe social order, the mages and in particular female ones, sorceresses enjoy greater freedom in the society than other not only other women but most of the other classes in society, they are in the books quite liberated and often have enormous power and influence as a sorceress she transcends the normal social bounds (not to mention that in the witcher world there were powerful queens).
I finished the 2nd book a week ago and I have to say... pretty much every story in the first 2 books made me realise how bad the story of the series is. They made Geralt a nice guy. He's not. He's nuanced. He purposely asked for Duny and Pavetta's child, it wasn't an accident, it wasn't a joke. He sort of regretted it afterwards but he still did ask for it without hesitation. Btw, they made Duny a nice and pure dude who just wants to be with the woman he loves. He's not lmao he only used the law of surprise on Pavetta's father because he needed a surprise child to lift his curse, which kind of implies that it was not the first time that he used the law of surprise on the stranger. Then he probably fell in love with her but it wasn't his motive at first. They didn't even take 2 minutes to explain this. They made Yennefer a rather nice girl too in the end. She's not. She paralyzed Geralt with magic to try and kill the golden dragon herself to rip him appart while Geralt was trying to defend him. They reduced Geralt and Yennefer's love story to pretty much nothing. In the series she gets mad at him when she learns what was his last wish and then leaves him but in the book that's what made her fall in love with him for good. She heard him say his last wish to the Djinn and they even talk about it afterwards. She kept scewing Istredd while she was with Geralt, which brought a huge emotional and physical conflict between the three of them and also in them and that's what caused Yennefer and Geralt to drift apart, not a fucking child's querell over a wish ffs. And finally, like you said they pretty much removed the relationship between Geralt and Ciri. First by making it an accident she'd be bound to him in destiny and then by removing the time they spent together in Brokilone. Ciri was already attached to Geralt before Brokilone because she know she was his destiny (and kept repeating it) and she begged him to not leave her and to take her with him. Which makes their reunion at the end of SoD immensely more powerful that what they showed in the series, where Ciri only knows Geralt because her grandma told her "go find Geralt of Rivia" before she died without her having heard of him even once in her life... I didn't even realise what they did to Eyck because I had probably forgotten but your video made me remember. He's a knight who can be respected, even tho we might not agree with his view on things. Evn the dragon respects him and his choices by dueling him. They turned him into a meaningless buffoon who doesn't bring anything to the story. Also Jaskier looks like a very nice a jolly dude most of the time in the series but he's not that simple. He's also very arrogant and keeps leaving angry women in his trails that he doesn't really seem to care about. I'm not saying he's a bad guy, he has great emotional moments (A Little Sacrifice), but he's not simply a nice bard that everyone likes. Not mentioning the other "small" details in each of the stories because the most important things imo are the ones that truly define the characters' personalities and relationship with each other, which they pretty much ruined with every chance they had. One of those "small details" tho : In the first episode, who most consider as the best one, Geralt just murders Renfri's boys for... no reason? other than that they provoked him. He bravely said that he's not gonna choose between one evil and another and that the lesser evil doesn't exist. Then he decides to side against Renfri. And we never know why. Because they fkn scrapped this part of the story where Renfri basically tells Geralt that if he doesn't kill Stregobor and that he doesn't sorrender (which he won't), she and her group will murder the citizens of Blaviken one by one until Stregobor surrenders, which we know he won't. That's why when he realized it he rushed to Blaviken to stop them and when they refused, he killed them all to save the town. And this, for some reason, was never explained in the series. And this makes the decision of Geralt to side against Renfri quite stupid and all the talk about "the lesser evil" pointless. Even more so when Geralt then learns from Renfri that Stregobor didn't care if she murdered all of Blaviken and that he would never come out of his tower, which means that she would've changed her mind about murdering everyone and that Geralt choice of "the lesser evil" was, in the end, a bad decision. That's a life changing experience for him, one that he will never forget and that will help forge his personality. And they just removed it. This alone made me realize from the very beginning or the book how bad of an adaptation the series was. When I watched the series I hadn't read the books yet and I thought it was overall decent with some good moments, only lacking some cohesion and consistency sometimes (especially because of the mixed timelines). After reading the first 2 books I'm kind of disgusted by what they did to the story and the characters. I keep thinking that some of it is still okay or even good but they made so many stupid changes I don't even understand... It's like they thought in their arrogance they could write a better story than the one that already existed and was acclaimed by everyone.
Netflix bosses probably gave not much money for it. You know, it is a corporation which make dummy shows to make a money and as any corporation they prefer to cut costs.
#4 Should be how they changed magic. Magic is pulled from sources (e.g. from an underground spring) in the books. Ciri herself is supposed to be a source. None of this "pulling power from life in random ways" method. The whole eel thing was silly.
Yes, that's one of of my biggest gripes personally. They changed the way magic works quite significantly but they don't even follow their own rules. I much preferred the way it was explained in the books. I remember Yennefer explaining to Ciri how to pull magic, how cats like to lie on the ground over where the 'veins' are....
To be honest how they portrait how magic works seemed like a rip of from another Netflix series, the dragon prince, and even in that show, it was a certain type of magic that required a sacrifice which is generally in the form of a magical creature. (which isn't an original concept to begin with)
While I liked Emma Appleton as Renfri and her overall role, I felt like she would have made a much better Triss than the actress they went with. Emma's chemistry with Henry Cavill was pretty spot on and I just didn't feel it with the other actress.
Yeah but Emma Appleton isn't part black so that can't happen. You're asking, what does that have to do with anything? Welcome to the answer to your question. Netflix would ruin prom night by being on the rag.
One thing that I would have to criticize about the show is how they change how magic works. Drawing the lifeforce out of something that is living to power your magic would change the relationship between magic and the world in the Witcher netflix, which I feel that the show runners didn't expect.
For example why didn't the yen think to portal vigelfortz in a hidden spot near cahir and his men, so that vigelfortz can create a portal around cahir and his men using them as fuel for his magic. It would have killed them, and vigelfortz would not have to duel anybody.
I keep telling myself that I read this magic explanation somewhere. Probably in the very last book - The Season of Storms. But... the only thing certain is that show made me reread the books. Cause too many "waaait a minute" moments.
Creators normally go out of their way to make sure character look like who they are because they will make changes to the story to go into tv or movie but when you makes changes to the story and then don’t make characters look like their book counterparts just makes a mess
Well, there's a solution: less Yennefer fanfiction and more actual plot. I get, I guess, in a way, why they felt the need to show her past (because viewers are stupid and unable to sympathise with a character unless you drag out their freudian excuse over severeal episodes), but there really was no need for it to take up that much screen time at the expense of things that actually matter and create emotional connection between and to the characters. Shorten the Yennefer stuff to one episode max and remove the doppler plotline or shorten it and you suddenly have a whole lotta time to show Geralt and Ciri bonding in Brokilon.
The part where she interacted with the new students seemed completely pointless to me, she was just bitter, that's it. And there were even multiple details that I found hard to believe and take seriously.
yeah, at before yen’s transformation i thought her storyline was interesting. but after her transformation i felt that it became pointless. like many storylines in the show. i really got bored with it and it made me almost hate her.
The writers wanted her to feel as central as geralt as they did with Ciri.......the problem is in order to do so they had to force the three timelines nonsense.
The dialogue in the show is so poorly written but every so often you get a direct quote from the books and it’s jarring because it doesn’t fit in with the way the characters speak throughout the show.
I'll never understand the supposedly "success" of the show. It felt like a bad CW show with the same CW level lame writing. Totally wasted opportunity considering the material they had at disposal.
Cuz to non Witcher fans it was good since they don’t know anything about the show, once they read the books and play the games aka the good shit, they’ll love it even more
@@ReedBoi-tv2se That perfectly describes me. I thought it was good until I touched the game. And yes, I thought it's a video game adaptation. Then this channel completely changed my view on this show seeing how they forced diversity in and cutting important storylines
The fact geralt didn't spam quen whenever he had a fight
People keep saying this... I played through it twice on normal and hardest difficulty and never used Quen once.
Louis Ryan I only used it in a few occasions, like wolves and dogs for example lol
@@ThoseColoniesAreMine I must be awful. I use it as my main sign ability.
I just spam Freezing Aard :P
I'm sure Netflix is on "Just story" Mode...🤔
"The woman who can't pronounce 'Skellige'."
He's not going to let this go, is he?
HiIeric117 I still don’t hear an issue with how she pronounced it so every time he says it I’m confused.
Ske-lee-ga
Double L, not single
this woman was the one who would have been a better triss, if they could have gotten her 15 years ago, loved her work in Sg-1 and others
Smellegar?
IMO I think the biggest irony is that Geralt's quote about Jaskier's singing : "It's like ordering a pie and finding it has no filling" is an accurate description of the series.
It’s mindless content, I just try not to think about it when watching.
Honestly, The actress that plays Renfri should've played Triss.
Never thought of that but its as accurate as one could get lol
but i choose Yen :( no doubt Renfri in the show is much better than Triss
That's who I thought she was meant to be from the moment she appeared until I heard them calling her 'Renfri'.
Actress played Visenna, is perfect Triss.
they are stupid, yenefer is "fine" i like ciri too but triss is just awful
"Shorten the doppler plot" or just straight up remove it, cuz it made no sense.
With the time saved they could have added an episode between 4 and 7 that has geralt and ciri meeting in brokilon.
Yeah it was so predictable and basic that it was borderline cringy to me, the show would have been just fine without it and with more actual character/story progression and growth.
If they so desperately needed a doppler episode, they should have shown the Dudu story.
@@esajaan Oh yeah, that'd be perfect. And it would introduce dopplers more successfully. The show's version was so inconsistent and he seemed really bad at being a doppler.
and i'm not sure i remember correctly, remember geralt saying dopplers are kind hearted by the nature? So the show doppler makes even less sense?
Well, stuff that really pissed me off:
1) Geralt nearly crying over Yen (wtf!)
2) That last scene with Geralt and Ciri, taking away the emotions from the original scene from books
3) Geralt and Jaskier’s whole dynamic (in books, the Witcher actually enjoyed the bard’s company and actually respected each other, whereas on series, Jaskier follows Geralt like a flea everywhere)
4) Yen’s backstory, she was supposed to be this complex, mysterious woman like in the books, but they’ve decided to give her a backstory
yes, Geralt with raging emotions (wtf?) Witcher's don't play the fool
Yen’s backstory is covered in the books - The Tower of the Swallow and Lady of the Lake.
Vonatar i didn’t know, i didn’t reached there yet. All i know is that they’ve refferenced it with one line in the last wish, that she was a hunchback and that’s all
Given her a backstory is good
Mysterious characters are dumb hype if you know about writing
@Lo Deron elaborate then, how is it shit?
"Who buries a baby under a inch of sand on the shoreline" - Especially in a World knowing of Necrophages and Drowned!
Probably sets up the botchling episode?
actually, Necrophages are just mentioned in books (it's not clear what actually Geralt fought when he protected Yurga), seems like they started to multiply like rabbits later, thanks to all those corpses left after the war. And I'm not sure if drowners are mentioned at all.
vang-tou Lee nah botchlings are made in immediate death after birth and especially if not having been embraced by their parents, not given a name & not given a proper burial. In the show, the baby was more than a few weeks old, had a name, was embraced and more or less “loved”, but the burial was shit
@@Darkstormsun9865 My guess is that the script for the show will turn into a botchling, since they botched it.
Downers aren't mentioned by name(at least up till book 2), but in the story about a Duke wanting to fuck/Mary a mermaid there are creatures that are 100% downers, by description (the one with little eye)
the whole doppler and brokilon story in the show was completely pointless
yes
well yes but actually no
@@tenete7273 Why not??
@@magicalgirl7108 Why yes ??
it showed how Ciri made a friend with a black elf boy (:facepalm:)
so woke
I watched the show first and then I read the books. I really changed my opinion about the show after that. They did so many characters dirty:
Geralt: removing a lot of his dialogues.
Ciri: too old and cutting parts where she bonded with Geralt (as you said).
Cahir: too old and badass (and not good looking)
Triss: Shallow and nothing like in the books and games.
Fringilla: Evil and also way different.
Yeneffer: I just don’t like her.
Henry Cavill really carries the show on his shoulders.
well... yes :(
As Geralt would put it,
Fuck.
@@phoenixguild8375 hmmm...
Henry Cavill is just legit even tho he didn't completely maintain Geralt personality
If you want a TV series that respects the source material we need to wait for The Witcher anime series. Japanese anime sticks very close to the source material in 90% of the cases and very rarely introduces drastic changes like we see in Western TV and movies. The most anime do is just skipping scenes for time and pacing sake but what they put in the show is almost always 1:1 with the original material.
I know there is a Witcher anime coming but iirc it will be directed by the west and only animated in Korea.
Here's hoping that one day an amazing anime studio like ufotable or Kyoto Animation will pick up the license and do the source material justice.
My biggest problem with the show is cutting off some of the story lines, especially Brokilon.
So far, this storyline is the most useless in the show.
IT WAS THE DRYAD OF WAKANDA
I miss dara
Also I’m assuming you gentlemen have read the books already. Since they made Cahir here obviously very evil and portrayed as the big bad white guy ( he even killed eist ) I wonder how Netflix is gonna incorporate his redemption arc as part of Geralts company which IMO IS THE BEST PART of the books. Honestly Geralts Hanza was the most entertaining and compelling part of the saga and idk how they’re ever gonna bring this current Cahir into that setting or if they’re even gonna follow the books version about Big G’s Company.
@@xfatoushe-6908 you are assuming that they won't just scrap his redemption arc and turn him into the new big evil boss to be defeated. i enjoyed the netflix series but there were a lot of issues with it and i'm worried that they will not realise their mistakes and just make more of them.
Murtagh653 that would be a very bad scenario lol :(
The show feels a bit like a high-schooler attempting to summarise a book in an essay. They try hard, describe all the cool bits they liked but ultimately miss the more subtle but key aspects of the plot.
Completely agreed. U put brilliantly, they're trying to show some of the best short stories while trying to push the main narrative that is get geralt and ciri together. Having said that I understand why they did what they did, coz this is very early stuff in the Witcher story, so they might not be able to revisit stuff later also their aim was to make season 1 as big as they could to sell their universe to newer fans and basically get people interested in this world. I think the showrunner said she regrets the brokilon stuff and not ageing jaskier to make the timelines a lil clearer. It was messy but I think they know exactly what season 2 is about the second the first one was over. It's not that they're scratching their heads over what to do next, the first one is always a lil messy when ur starting off compare the first avenger to make the last one. So I'm excited for season 2 and I do feel that story vise it'll be way better
Cavill nailed it, he was Geralt to the max but the show is called THE WITCHER not the fucking THE YENEFFER!
Because the writer is a total SJW. She even made a twitter post where she said that Europe should be as racially diverse as the USA.
Then she linked a white girl getting f*cked by a black guy, I am not even joking or making this up (I really wish I was to be honest).
@@DutchGuyMike I have no problem with diversity.
@Yash You must be from a country that has no racial integrity then (and race mixed).
Seeing your race being destroyed by "refugees" makes you think twice on what 'diversity' is worth.
Biggest mistakes: The nilfgaardian armor
iirc they fixed that and even talked about it lol (there is a funny picutre of the staff holding up signs what they messed up)
see the season 2 trailer, they fixed it.
Biggest mistake not making triss a red hair
Especially Cahirs. Ciri has literally nightmares of a Helmet with the wings of a Raptor. What does the helmet Look like? Right..... loose straped feathers on top which looks like a carnival hat
Geralt and Ciri met at the end of season 1 for the first time. In the original, in the book it was a heartbreaking scene, showing the power of Destiny. Because in the original, Geralt did not believe in Destiny, tried to return Ciri to Cintra, but then got scared, thought that Ciri was killed like all the children in Cintra. And yet, he believed in Destiny and the law of surprise, and they met.
Netflix disgustingly showed the meeting of Geralt and Ciri. Meeting without emotions. And Ciri's stupid question is “Who is Yennifer?”
original:
“You've finally found me! Oh, Geralt! I waited all this time! It took so long... We'll stay together now, won't we? Now we'll be together, right? Say it, Geralt! Forever! Say it!”
“Forever, Ciri.”
“It's just like they predicted, Geralt! Like they predicted... I'm your destiny? Say it! I'm your destiny?”
“You're more than that, Ciri. Much more.”
People mostly find fault with the little things in this Series, such as how Triss looks like, for example. But here, after all, it is obvious that they ruined the main story.
And this Nilfgaard armor resembling skin on a scrotum. Apparently the feminists who made the design for this armor wanted to show the Nilfgaard army as an army of stupid men.
well said
@@xLetalis I like your channel, I hope when Cyberpunk 2077 comes out - will you make videos on it? :))
Niagara Falls, Frankie Angel
the woman who can't pronouce skellige is actually the main antagonist of the show
She kinda pops up following Ciri, curiouser
yes!
Goauld, must be.
I felt like something was off about her
Biggest mistake : The golden dragon story. It litteraly was a speedrun of the story, and I never thought it was possible to make a dragon that ugly...
@@justrandomguy5010 dwarves
One might argue that even the 2002 dragon was better
@@Fera-gr5mm even if so not very...
I don't even remember that from the show. They must have really messed it up
tbh the hexer one is also not great tho that one has more of an excuse since it was more low budget
There was an interview with Sapkowski and he said "The process of transforming words into pictures cannot be done without some losses. But I’d rather keep the details to myself." That should answer the question whether he liked the changes or not
@Vgs Denkon He was just butthurt about money. He sold the licence without taking share of the games profit. I really doubt he would hate the games otherwise.
@@NautiCaization he really dont like them, a lot of gamers think everyone phraises and respect videogames as a medium, and thats not true, just in recent years people have been more open to it, and despise the fact that a lot of people loves the games (mainly the 3rd) dont see the games take a lot of licenses too and make changes the importance and personality of some characters, so its makes sense sapkowski its not fond to the games, the witcher its a rare case cause the majority of people outside poland knows his work cause the games, but mainly the 3rd and their view of the saga its heavily printed by this game standards, so its a weird mix of people watching this shows, fans of the books only, fans of the games only, fans of the 3rd game only, fans of the games and after discovered the books, and people who dont know anything of the source material and didnt played any game.
@@diegosotomiranda4107 Dude i followed Sapkowskis perspective on it and let me be frank. Its just about fame and money. He is yellow from jealousy.
@@mordredvonumbra154 In agrrement here. His responses to the game, TV show etc can all be translated as "I got paid and thats I have to say" or even more detached than that. he wouldnt even show for the "Witchercon" that otherwise seemed very much a coming together of the Show and the games creatives and that was nice to see and the impact on the look of S2 accordingly.
Sapkowski will adore even the shit if he gets enough money and hate everything if he isn't.
My big problem with the show really is it shouldn’t be called “The Witcher” but instead “The Sorceress” because in all honestly Geralt takes a back seat to everyone this season.
I expect this balance to be much better now that Ciri is with Geralt and will start training at Kaer Morhen
Linsy Schopman lets be honest r they just gonna let the main character (Yen) only appear once next season, no
They’ll keep showing her, taking time away from the important bits
Edit: this shows ended in the wrong hands
Yup. The creator is a feminist with "smasher of the patriarchy!" In her Twitter bio then removed it before the show coming out. So she showed as much women as possible while the men , mostly white and especially the main Badass GERALT, were basically damn near side characters. This show pissed me off so much it was hard to watch
I do agree Yennefer overshadows Geralt.
@@adaptivegamer9905 Hissrich or however you write her is just a racist to white people, it's the current societal trend where you mock whites for even existing. That's why this show is a generic American fantasy show. If they'd stick to the letter with the source material it would be better, unconventional but no, let's make this a fast paced action movie, where dialogues are less important.
I played the second and third games first. The Wild Hunt is absolutely amazing. No other game has been able to live up to it so far. Anyway, then I watched the show and several months later I'm reading the books. When I got to Brokilon, I really thought they had skipped it completely in the show. A few days later I told my husband, "Was there an enchanted forest in the show?" He goes, "Oh yeah I think there was, and Ciri was asked to stay but she didn't." Zero impression on either of us. Also, the time jumping made us very confused. We both were saying, "It looks as if you are watching a bunch of side quests." I did enjoy the show, but they definitely did the source material (and the games which popularised it) a disservice. I know Lauren is going for the book only, but here it does not seem like the show did it justice and you cannot completely overlook the games which popularised it so much. Oh well, at least we got the bathtub scene.
EDIT: Also, if staying true to the source material meant introducing Ciri in season 2, so what? So much of Season 1 felt rushed. I don't care if key characters are introduced later. Look at GoT, a lot of key characters came in later and the show was (mostly) excellent (no, I won't talk about season 8). Why burn through such rich and beautiful source material? It's a shame, I hope they slow down by season 2. I still liked the show but I don't want to feel like they are burning through it so fast.
Well said
I recommend warmly to you also playing the first game, it is very atmospheric and gets better the more you're into it. Give it a try 😊
@@lg5211 I tried, I really did. It just felt too dated and clunky for me. I hope they remake it one day.
You'll notice even just five chapters into the first book that a lot was done away with, so the claim by the powers that be that they're following the books is a falsehood. They just want to do their own thing and source material be damned. Probably thought that if they claim they are going with the books and not the games, less would notice or more would be "Fair enough. Not read the books so I can't say anything."
Not only have they badly/miss cast characters due to ideology over source, which will have bigger and longer impacts, I just don't feel they even cast Foltest right. Who even for a time is quite a big character (games at least and I feel books too, but not reached that far I won't lie).
Why can't companies and directors etc. just stick to source material for a change?
@@forfunwee i played to 2nd game recently and it has aged good in my opinion and I found its story to be arguably the best in the whole trilogy
Damn I haven’t even read the books and I already feel robbed of their superior storytelling
Because you were.
Don't expect too much from the books. They're fine. But that's it.
because you are. That's also why book readers dislike the praise of the show, cause nonbook readers doesnt realize what they are being robbed of
The best thing is that of all people Sapkowski was the one licking this series' ass. But he's a greedy twat, so there's that.
@Godswill you shouldnt think of the show when playing/watching games. They did Witcher dirty and changed the most fundamental things. They are now different from books and thus games that come from books.
Show is it's own, not that good, thing, doing it's own story while butchering more unique one. Sadly.
But if you decide one day to give a shot to books, remember that The Last Wish is first, Sword of Destiny second, Blood of Elves third, etc. etc. and Season of Storms is very last. Dont listen to different weird reading order recomendations. This is how they came out and how they are supposed to be read.
Poor Fringilla and Cahir. I had to explain to my non Witcher people who thought they’d be the main bad guys of the story...
I know. Fringilla is actually an interesting character and an important one in Geralts life. I hate how they portrayed her in the show
I hated how they made them so overpowered and so... different.
There are the main bad guys now, no coming back from what they did to the characters.
Totally. Cahir at least did go through a “bad guy” spell but they definitely did Fringilla an injustice. “Whether they deserve it or not” like really? I wonder how they’re going to portray later Vilgefortz, Leo Bonhart etc lol.
But why? Cahir was also at first one of the villans in the books. We learned about Cahirs Intentions in the third or fourth book.
But the character changes of Fringilla are questionable but they don‘t need to make one to one adaptation.
You know with the whole abandoning the personal plot of Ciri and Geralt infavor of the grand political plot, it seems they were trying to replicate GoT initial seasons but the fact that they kept moral ambiguity out of so many places means they were too afraid to delve into too mcuh complexity and instead largely stuck to a good vs bad setup
Yeah, the politics in the show sucked... I am really worried about how they are going to handle the Thanedd coup. Also, why are the Nilfgaridans some fanatical proto-nazis?
@@teonedev4896 Because NOBODY involved in the show understood even one page of the books.
@@LeutnantJoker Henry does, I think. He is a nerd.
@@89Sawik yet he admitted that his portrayal of Geralt in the show does him injustice after some criticism from fans on reddit. It was Henry's idea of having Geralt reply with 'hmm' and 'fuck' so often, as a wink to the gamer fans - yet that is exactly the opposite of how Geralt behaves in the first two books. In the books even Dandelion says that Geralt talks too much, and other people too think the Witcher is acting too sofisticated (Istredd for example).
@@machheydt176 True. So only Jaskier vel Dandelion more or less fits the books :D
The same problem was in the original polish series. Quite funny if you think about it :D
1# Casting of Triss.
2# Making Yennefer feel like the main character rather than Geralt
3# Too few displays of how witchers work. If they had made more episodes like the one with the Striga I would have liked it more.
You sort of got 1 of the 3 :D
@@xLetalis I appologise if it seems like Im trying to summarize what you say in the video. These are my opinions
What's the beef with Triss? she appears for 30 minutes in the whole season, what does it matter how she looks? I was real mad about Foltest, but my anger was short-lived because he wasn't that important to the show. I can understand people being mad in later seasons when she is more predominant.
Why does geralt have to be the main character?
@@flimpeenflarmpoon1353 because its called the Witcher
I would have been fine with them not introducing Ciri until S2, given that Geralt and Yennefer's story starts 20 years or so before she's even born. Or only introduce her in episode 7 or 8. I agree that most of Ciri's story in the show was a whole lot of nothing and the decision to jump around decades *in the same freaking episode* is as baffling as the show's structure is to the uninitiated.
The clips of the 10yr anniversary video really gave me the feels again. Gets me every time.
The jumping between decades was actually so stupid and confusing. Hate the show ngl
@@RavenfluxASMR The narrative was convoluted but I didn't hate the show. Still better than the last season of Game of Thrones! Nowhere near as good as GOT at its best however. They've done enough to keep me invested for season 2, but they need to make a bunch of improvements.
Exactly!!! The show feels bloated and rushed especially since they also give Yen screen time
To be fair, they had no idea that there would be a season 2. The reception to the trailers and previews were generally poor and the best reactions were still skeptical. They also were only given 8 episodes which for most tv shows isn't even considered a full season so that shows how much faith there was in the success of the show. By all accounts it was a dice roll and they worked with what they had and simply hoped for the best.
I agree. But Geralt and Yennefer meet just before ciri is born not that long ago.
I was mostly just pissed at how evil they made Nilfgaard. I mean even in the Witcher 3 (which is undoubtedly the most popular Witcher story) we see a lot of examples about good nilfgaardians (especially compared to Radovid). I personally didn't have that much of a problem with the Ciri parts but the elves are opressed thing was quite irritating... tbh I try to judge it without thinking about the original plot/world bc a Netflix will always have 'guidelines' they try to meet because of politics... sad rly it could have been great. Now it will only be good.
Yeah that's true
I felt the same way. My biggest issue was, that they made Cahir a complete different person. In my opinion he acted way too cruel in the show. In the books Cahir later told Geralt he did what he did, because he followed orders and a soldier doesn't question said orders. If this makes him evil then almost every soldier is a villian, including those of the northern kingdoms.
@@rebeccaspee7194 To the eyes of all folks that lives in the frontline of war (like Velen for example) every Nilfgaardian (or other army that invade said country) solider is a evil and crule human beign with no emotions.
I mean the elves were oppressed, the thing abt ethnic slaughter and reprisal which is also wrong sorta is the theme
Nilfgaard = individual nilfgaardians?
well they bastardize how the soliders look like lol
The biggest problem in the show is that they have a caracter that can't pronounce skellige
yes
The audiobook version of the witcher books is horrific. He butchers the English language as well as some of the place names.
HaqqAttak agreed. Every time in the last wish when he said Dan-dill-e-on I cringed
@@HaqqAttak Nah, the performer is brilliant. It's the games that Americanized everything. Why the hell does Geralt have a General American accent?
The entire first season felt like a series of flashbacks instead of character development. As much as I thought Anya Chalotra did an AMAZING job as Yennifer, the writers shouldn't have given so much time to Yennifer's backstory. It was a disservice to the whole first season because the audience didn't get to really know Geralt and Ciri. Most importantly, it didn't give any time to explore why Ciri becomes so important to Geralt.
They could have completely written the last episode and taken out Geralt's memories as well. They decided to try and be clever with their writing, instead of referring to the source material, which was good enough already! The writers tried to make the show "something more," instead it became "something else."
:D I love the last sentence
I didnt like Anya at all. Shes a great actress but she doesnt become Yen for me, she always feels more like someone who plays Yen rather than actually being her
I didnt like Anya at all. Shes a great actress but she doesnt become Yen for me, she always feels more like someone who plays Yen rather than actually being her
well, you get to see yen naked, or half naked, or observing orgies like 75% of the time. which is... you know... important for Netflix.
Yeah, exactly. I feel they made the show to fit people who care about story and people who just want to have fun while watching some action. Because the witcher games and books have pretty long scenes that are about feelings and building characters it can be hard for a season to explain all of that and have much action. It was either feelings or action, so they tried to hit a little bit of both. Instead of feelings it's more action, witty humor and funny back and forth dialogue.
It would be so cool if they made a series almost exactly like the books, but the seasons would be as big as GOT episodes and seasons. And that might be dangerous for the show, because it does not fit everybody.
I think of it this way: This is like a Marvel movie, much action and humor and a little bit of feels.
A DC superhero movie often has more feeling or dialogue, making it feel more serious.
It's like the Iron Man superhero movies vs The Dark Knight DC superhero movies.
So they cut out a lot of the dialogue and feelings, character development and such for more action and humor. I like the show a lot and I think it reels in people who don't know much about or anything about The Witcher.
The only thing I don't fully understand is how some actors seems off with their looks, not the actors fault at all they all did extremely well.
I DO hate it so much when American productions get all over the place with political BS in random TV shows (especially great in fantasy based ones, completely severed from the real world). BIG BAD EVIL Nilfgaard attack, EVIL humans vs INNOCENT elves, opressors vs the opressed...it is so cheap and boring and it's misleading as well. Political correctness (aka fear of showing the opressors as potentially right/innocent in some ways) ruined mainstream american TV/film products. Man, the games did this so much more justice...in my playthrough I had Ciri rule over Nilfgaard and Temeria being semi-free as a vasal state, but without the cruel/random/crazy bloodshed of Radovid's rule...I mean it brought so much more depth to the world, this diversity of points of view. Shame.
@@TheStraightestWhitest Lauren Schmidt Hissirch. I don't know, after what happened in the last century and what not, I would expect someone with such last name respect and care at least a little bit anything related to Poland.
You have to hope they dont go anywhere near that sort of thing in the wheel of time.
I my mind, the greatest fantasy series ever written.
@@geraltofrivia8529 well...I love WoT as well, hope they do it justice. I am however afraid it is inevitably going to be simmilar in this aspect to the new Witcher series, lets just hope they stick to the story as much as possible...but since the story itself has a great variety of nations (Saenchan as weird Asian guys, The sea folk as Afroamerican "ocean" tribe, The Aiel as sort of Arabic and most of the cities described have different fashion habits and very different cultures) I think they will want to keep that at least. But no way we gonna have all them characters as strictly hetero as they are in the books :D...too out of fashion
@@johanah.693 I have a sneaky suspicion some of the red sisters and their loathing of men gave a bit of "in" but I'd rather they just stuck to it as the author wrote it.
I have no idea how they will tackle some of the aiel parts, it took a lot of rereading to understand culture and language references.
Maybe they will get it right this time, maybe they will fail dreadfully and realise they need to try again one day.
Fingers crossed 😊
@@TheStraightestWhitest Oh right, just say you're a racist next time.
The only major mistake is that they didn't include a godamn unicorn scene
Should've been a Top 4 list!
What scene do You have in mind?
@@szyna6022 the type of scene where a witcher & a sorceress get freaky!
Ow. You meant fake unicorn. I've got scared that I forgot some true unicorn scenes
That's why this series was so well received. Today, all you need is sex and violence. Most people are no longer interested in a good emotional story. I agree with the reviewers, even those who saw only one or two episodes. Scenario poverty, they did so quickly and piss off. Even Baginski suggested this in the pre-release statements. He explained that the showrunner had to change a few threads and make the story shorter because the Western recipient would not understand anything. As you can see, they were right. I am disappointed with the first season.
Since they didn't flesh out Geralt enough the scene with his mother loses its weight and they skipped him explainning that he wasn't from Rivia. That part in the book was so sad.
yeah... we can add that to my point about Geralt
@@xLetalis I wanted to love it, but I felt like a lot of it was actually pretty bad. Great source material, but with poor scene/episode choice, often enough poor writing, and a great performance from Cavill, but not everyone. This is a great example, Geralt not being fleshed out. Ciri and Geralt? Relationship more than destiny? Yen felt wrong. So much was just sort of a "so close, yet so far" type of feeling.
Another thing someone tell that Feminist bitch lauren. When Geralt is in a middle of a fight (let's say with the striga) not to cut scenes between him & yennifer one of her most important scenes. It's like almost she forcing people to watch her big moment when I didn't want to! I came for geralt & depending on how future seasons go I'll stay for Geralt & Ciri storyline... Don't try force feeding me yennifer story line because honestly I could careless!!! She's the least important out of the big three in the books yet, this Woman showrunner made her the most important character in a show called The Witcher!@@
Everything about Visenna in the show is so weird. In the books it's pretty reasonable - she had a baby she didn't want so she gave him up when he was still an infant. Geralt understands it and respects her decision, but also feels some - very natural in that situation - resentment towards her. In the show we get some ridiculous Hansel and Gretel story, with her abandoning ten-year-old him in the woods. He should be seriously traumatized and hate her or something like that.
@@box1877 Your opinion is literally based on hate not anything reasonable. If you came for just geralt, you'll be deeply disappointed. The story itself is more than just geralt.
My biggest beef with the show is that they erased all the things that made Witcher - Witcher. It’s Slavic roots, which is heavily relied on whilst developing the book characters. Game is actually a good example how you keep the Slavic origins and traditions and make it Americanised.
Plus, Sapkowski was involved only to 0.09%. There’s one interview he gave and you see he is not happy at all, he snickers and says, sorry my name is in the credits, I can’t share my feelings. That’s very telling ...
Witchers are Sapkowski made concept. Slavics had concept of warlocks (wiedźmak or wiedźmarz) and witches (wiedźma) but wiedźmaks weren't monster hunters. They was mages which was superior to few wiedźmas and do very similar things like cursing or lifting curses and such. In games, you can meet The Pellar who more or less fits to the concept. He talks to the dead and make amulets but doesn't fight with monsters.
Sapkowski invented a concept of monster hunter called wiedźmin who is an enhanced monster hunter. They very different to wiedźmaks from slavic paganism and folklore.
P.S. However, Russian localisators decided to translate "wiedźmin" as "ведьмак" (wiedmak) because wiedźmin sounds very odd in Russian and whole concept of warlocks isn't very popular in Russia. Russians mostly have Baba Yaga (in Witcher 3 game there are 3 cronies which behave very similar) who take their place.
@@ХузинТимур I think the big issue here, giving a nod to the culture and folklore that gave rise to Witcher, and not the fact wether they exist or not in Slavic culture. However, in certain Slavic tales, certain wiedmaks are there to protect the villages from monsters that might come in the night (like in Ukrainian and Northern Polish folklore), so it is not inherently removed from Slavic myth altogether, you pair it with monster that originate from oral stories of Slavic mythology and tada you have Sapkowski's Witcher. He was also inspired by actual historical places and events significant to Poland, that is why Yaruga appears in the books, it was an important strategy village for Poland during Polish-Soviet War. The real Yaruha village is divided by a river.
Looking at the woman who directed the show..pretty sure she wouldn't give shit about his opinions on his own books
He's just there
@@williamthekiller7219 True 😅
@@williamthekiller7219 Lauren is a narcissist I swear
Ironically, the third is the hardest to fix. The first two, you just need to change words on paper. The third, you have to change the producer's mind.
You could be right... we'll see
@vin 950 your expectation should have fallen as soon as it was announced under netflix lol
Lee Jung-Woo well said !
I dont see the problem with yen's speech about women. Especially in those times women were often thought as lesser than men and usually referenced as whores. We all played the games.
@@Darkstormsun9865 but that's still completely accurate today.
The show seemed decent. Until I started reading the books...
Same here, until I finished the series of games!
If you only read the short stories, the show isn't too bad... but overall still disappointing
I still enjoy the show. It's definitely not as good as the books, but I personally find it enjoyable
@@vincentpalermo3452 It's dumb. Why there is so many made up things? For example - Why do sorceresses need a source (such as a plant) when they want to conjure a spell? How is then possible for Geralt (who is much less experienced in magic) to cast Aard, Igni, etc.
directly in combat ?
And why they made up that nonsense there with the unsuccessful students at Aretuza turned into eels? When it is clearly stated in the books that these become office workers, lawyers etc.
And why is Cahir (or Eyck of Denesle - knight from episode 6) a psychotic sociopath in the series? How will they deal with this when Cahir joins Geralt's team?
There is so much made up bullshit by those woke retards, that anyone who reads those books just looks at that pile of nonsense in disbelief.
@@dacsus I don't care about your grievances LOL
The fact that Geralt didn‘t randomly ignite or snuff out candles that were in the vicinity was the most unrealistic dealbreaker imo
I agree. My Gerald did that all the time. Sometimes whole houses are in the dark after he came.
Yenn becoming a “master swordswomen” really wtf.
Right?! She doesn't need to use a sword, she's a sorceress. You can have her be strong and a good fighter using her magic, they didn't need to invent skills for her.
@@Fulgrim308 She used swords in the books?
@@kingsoren2010 been a while since I've read them, but I don't recall her being a master swordsman capable of taking down multiple opponents
Id like to see Yenn become a master lesbomancer
Tim Clarke Exactly, that’s Geralt's thing.
They not including the Brokilon scene is like they starting the first lord of the rings movie by Gandalf showing up, throwing the ring in Frodo's hand into the fire, and telling him to pack his bags with zero explanation. Not a word of who he is where he got the ring of power or what happened to it's last owner.
That was a freaking nice explanation
@Sarincrow I think this is the only opinion here I've really respected so far. I would challenge anybody to adapt this show better than what they've done for an audience as wide as this has reached. Literally every single person in my family has watched and thoroughly enjoyed this show, and that was a massive surprise for me, and something I doubt they would have watched if they'd dogmatically followed the books exactly word for word, scene for scene, and not had Anya and Freya onscreen for people to get to know right off of the bat. People don't realise you have to make things more accessible for a tv show, and the decision to slightly arrange the storyline to make things work in this new stories favour was a good one.
@Sarincrow I can understand that. But that story was arguably the second most important story in Sword of destiny. That story built up the most important scene in the book and gave it meaning.
The whole embrace felt empty and meaningless without it.
Ciri's character arc was the weakest in this season. And could have really benefited from this story.
Just becaose something was good doesn't make it above criticism. Btw
Absolutely!
Really Kenobi... You here?
my greatest problem with the series is the total lack of respect of everything foreign, when americans are involved. The books are very different to most other fantasy and have a strong eastern european touch. All of this is completely flattened and americanised, up to the black people quote which is absolutely ridiculous for an (fantastic) eastern european setting. Some of the actors are almost the opposite of how the are described just to fit american standards. In my eyes the timeline in the short stories is rather confusing and difficult, but the idea to make this ten times worse is something I can't understand. You have to take in respect, all the people watching this video and writing here know the books. Somebody just watching the series will never have a clue what it is all about.
I'm a Slavic person (Slovak to be precise) and I agree with you. This Witcher adaptation has zero slavic feel in it. It feels like a generic american fantasy show.
So it's good I did not watch, mainly because of Triss' actor and disrespect to foreign material, we don't have blacks, Poland literally has nothing to do with blacks, we didn't have colonies, slaves nor did we buy them. There's nothing's in our culture regarding black people. Let's be clear, it was political, same with women being strong of a sudden and being better than men (rise of feminism). The show was shot regarding to current US' politics and societal trends and it was awful. I agree about everything, I read the books a very long time ago, 10 years I think, but even from what he's saying I agree the book sounds better in regards to everything.
I was saying this all along, this is The Witcher but it never will be Wiedźmin.
Dude i Love you
i could not better say it :)
Another Slav, here tough I am a South Slav (Serb) we and the others all basicaly have the same mitology, I agree with this 100%. This show is just an American hogwash of the real thing. Therr isn't a thing that's Slavic in there. Best stick to the books and games.
The main problem most people had that I talked to was the sense of time. They didn't know if they were in the past or future in some scenes
i had a problem with that too, but that's the only thing that makes sense because it's the same in the books (i think. i just started reading the last wish this week and i noticed the chapters weren't in chronological order, just like in the show)
Fully agreed. I actually wanted to give up on the 4th episode, but I thought to myself it may be worth continuing to see if the first few weren't just hiccups. Bit of a waste of time, really. It's very chaotic.
4:45 Gaunter o' Dimm just casually sneaking himself into the books.
:D
I was looking for this comment if someone else sow that
The demon is always in the details. And dont forget, never make a bargain with a demon that you intend to keep.
haha yes! I was hoping somebody saw that too. G.O.D. is THE best villain...he gives me chills until now. And as said in video about the games/books, even he is not black or white, he is truly a mirror to those who bargain/meet with him.
Where
No. 1
geralt never said the line: "winds howling."
6:47 Andrzej Spakowski was almost not involved at all. He’s the type of guy who says
“ok you can do whatever but I want the most money”. he finds most adaptations bad but he’s all about he money and fame.
True polak xd
i was about comment the same
Toss a coin to your Andrzej!
Correct
I wish he was more passionate, and wouldn't let these clowns ruin his amazing work.
The final scene of season 1 kinda felt hollow, because there was no payoff from it.
Even in the books, Geralt & Ciri don't get along right off the bat. He saves her from a monster, but she is annoyed with him, and he is annoyed with her. They bicker, they banter, and slowly, but surely over the course of "The Sword of the Destiny." chapter they begin to bond.
Geralt rejecting his destiny & letting Ciri go is heartbreaking, but that scene further adds to the huge emotional payoff with their reunion in "Something More." (and Geralt & Ciri embracing felt much more sense, because in the books, they know well enough about each other through the previous chapter).
In contrast, in the show, Ciri basically knows nothing about Geralt, except for his name & what he looks like (due to seeing him in her dreams), & that he keeps on yelling Yennefer. And I don't really think that was enough to justify their hug in the end (it's pretty much like 2 strangers were hugging).
Following is what the showrunner teased about season 2:
“As expected from the saga, Ciri really takes center stage in season two. The whole world is after her, and she has to find safety and respite with Geralt (and eventually, Yennefer). Problem is, they’re complete strangers. She doesn’t know Geralt, doesn’t see why she should automatically trust him, and really doesn’t love when he starts making big decisions in her life - especially when she’s still mourning the loss of her grandmother in Cintra. For his part, Geralt dutifully wants to protect Ciri, but also doesn’t know anything about being a dad, and certainly doesn’t know how to balance that with the need to continue doing his job. There’s some comedy in how these two come together and eventually bond, but that belies a deeper reflection on what it means to become a family.”
Sounds like they're basically moving a lot of possible bonding moments to season 2 with what she's saying. It's a real shame they didn't make it happen in season 1 though. Their interaction scenes in "The Sword of Destiny" & the last scene at the end of "Something More" chapter are some of (if not) the best moments in the "Sword of Destiny" book.
You're right there are several errors in the show that ( I hope ) will be patched, but there are moments in the show that are great, of course, it's not better than the books, but they are trying to do something different, I mean, they want to tell the witcher story but with a different point of view. That's what I understanded when I saw the TV show
I really don't think the show runner gets the books. I mean, reading what she's said there just doesn't reflect how I understand the books. The feeling I got with Geralt and Ciri from the books is that they found a fulfilment in each other and they bounce off each other.. I just don't get this show runners decisions.
Disagree completely - it creates considerable anticipation, you just want more story but patience is required.
Well i couldn't catch the emotion from ciri that she is mourning her grandma. I think it was pretty stupid that they hugged beforehand. And i know that she saw him in her dreams (in the show) but she should've been more hesitant about if that man in the woods geralt or not. Removing sword of destiny made the scene look empty anyway :(
Another example of black and white coulb be Foltest. The best king on the northern realms in my opinion, Vizimir of Redania is only good as he makes what Djisktra and Philippa says. In the series Foltest looks like a drunken uncle
in the games (mupltipayer gwent too) he looks like a nice wine amateur... btw the temerian heraldry looks like the old french one - is that a coincidence ? (about wine, i mean)
@@rhotgarr625 I didn't notice but it makes perfect sense. Witcher's world takes inspiration from a lot of cultures, specially European. Troissant is the French countryside with some Spanish touches.
@@ivanrechefernandez1187 the names of Toussain's places (Like caroberta woods ) sounds more Italian than Spanish but the armors looks realy like 17th century in Spain. I suppose it's a great mix of those 3 cultures...
@@ivanrechefernandez1187 "from a lot of cultures"
Dude, are you high or in denial? It's especially and exclusively about european culture.
@@MattBG67 I could say Offir or Zarrakania but... What the problem if there were only european references, European culture is not a culture but a mix. Only in my country we got: greek, roman, phenician, arabic, celtic,... So if I made a book only based on my history I can say it inspired on differents cultures.
tbh, the witcher game relationship is WAAYYY better than the tv show.
It’s only been one season lol
@@skat3r430 he’s still not wrong though. Probably never will be.
@@skat3r430 it may be only one season so far and the first season have potential if they Fix some Problems they have in the TV show. First of all they need To stop that black and white Portraing we all know that in the witcher universe No one is absolutely good or bad for example if you do the red baron quest in the game you can choose to safe orphan children I believe there 5? Or 1 family (that's only the obvious way) if you safe the Orphans other people have to suffer if you safe the Family well The orphans have to bath....
There isn't a tv show relationship, they literally just met. It is still prior to the start of the main storyline.
The games take place much further down the line, years after the end of the books
No for real no!
Biggest mistake: geralt didn’t spam quen
One more problem I'd like to highlight is how they handled magic. The whole premise was that it's not an all powerful force that you can spam but one fist clench without any incantation and complex hand gestures can crush an entire squad of soldiers. Furthermore, you can make powerful fields and whatnot but conjure a few swords and you end up bleeding. I'm not quite sure how the magic works in the books but this just doesn't make any sense.
In books, of course, this is handled in a completely different way. It is explained in detail there. After all, if it worked so idiotically, how would Geralt be able to use his signs in battle?
Also, sorceresses changing into eels is a total BS. In the books, Aretuza's unsuccessful graduates become office workers, lawyers etc.
@@dacsus
"Aretuza's unsuccessful graduates become office workers, lawyers..."
= boring and unimaginative.
@@subraxas dude, what? Eels are better? It's childish - if it was like the show, no one would put their kids in that school = boring and unimaginative, and actually, stupid.
And everything is better in books than in that show - especially dialogues.
Sadly, they made this bs up for no reason. in the books they can use the elements to draw magical energy. ciri once used the energy of fire to cure a wounded unicorn in the Korath desert.
Well they did destroy a lore of the Witcher in season 2
My biggest issue with the show is not being able to use my witcher senses know what I can loot
One of the issues I have found is that most of the time, the true message was lost, because they have changed and removed certain important things. You do not have to look further than the very first episode, where they have removed the real tension and the real fight that Geralt had in himself and replaced it with romance. Because in the books no one is certain of what would happen, there is no clarification that Renfri's men would attack the wizard, and we do not get true motives from either sides. So in the end Geralt only tries to make peace with what he did by calling it the lesser evil. AND THIS IS JUST ONE; there are many more! Also a big motive was removed from the striga hunt, because Geralt did it for the money to help Yen try out a method to cure herself out of infertility. Also a big issue I had was that characters died necessarily and they contradicted themselves, like Calanthe. She said A and then did B and then switched back to A to say C at the very end. They made the show more about Yen, and with this instead of flashing out her character, they have ruined her and basically just took away her real motives... Also what they had done with Eyck... I am just pure sad about this...
I think the showrunner made up her own messages. Like the one about women being oppressed...
Very goof points. How you get the information about Geralt's motive to cure the striga?
@@ayazofluoglu He was having a discussion with Nenneke in Ellander, but they have removed that part completely. I guess the doppler was more important. But if they wanted a doppler why not do the one already in the book?
So many unnecessary changes... I cannot truly understand why was this needed? The story in the books were more morally gray and coherent, flashed out. Now it is just a mess... They are jumping timelines, making up things, and removing important ones.
They took Geralt's screen time and dialouges, to give it to Yen. This is my only answer to these changes. They wanted Yen's story. I do not have a problem with exploring Yen's background. I have problem with how they made it. They have even made magic rubbish. That is not how magic works. The show is full of flaws.
@@Bigby-von-Wolfburg I am very sad that everything you said is true :( I don't care about timelines cuz there is so much to care about before that. More important things like they removed sword of destiny and made dryads look that cheap. Imagine Lord of the rings making dwarfs or hobbits look like that. AND nothing is subtle in this show. Nothing is grey. Everything is black or white. Removing those, and there you go now there is nothing special left about the Witcher. Meaningless changes reducing the importance of the plot. The main story replaced with unnecessary, stupid new written stories that doesn't even change anything if they were removed. It's really hard to understand these changes.
How dare them remove so much, it's very disrespectfull to the source and they are not even good at writing. Giving to them being this horrible at writing new stories, I even say they should'veused the exact quotes from the books. I felt irritated that they changed the lesser evil quote. And the only moment I felt connected to that yennefer character they created is that quote ' I can not only guess the age and breed of your horse, but also it's color by the smell.' I really think they should use some of the quotes from the books
@@Bigby-von-Wolfburg Yeah I'm just tired of the whole "the adaptation shouldn't be 100% same excuse" by the fans of the show. This show doesn't have any personality, is too rushed with unnecessary changes that affect the plot and unnecessary arcs like Yennefer's back story (which I believe ruined her character).
Show!Geralt's relationship with Jaskier is the biggest mistake of the whole show. Book!Geralt loves his best friend and is impossibly fond of him. Show!Geralt WISHES.
Oh come on, it's definitely not ideal but it's probably the BEST part of the show overall (well, the other stuff is just so bad).
The show messes with the Dandelion/Geralt timeline a lot so it's like they haven't known each other for that long. I think it ultimately does right with the duo dynamic. They care for each other but they also bicker and swear a lot.
@@zolikoff By the time the mountain breakup happens Jaskier and Geralt have known each other for 22 years in-show, so it's pretty bad. They have known each other for more than a half of Jaskier's life.
@@katarzynaskop2488 Where are you getting 22 from? It's 15 at the very most, more like 13 - he met him not long at all before Pavetta's feast.
@@katierowan973 I'm taking it from the official Netflix timeline. Jaskier and Geralt meet in 1240. Pavetta's engagement happens in 1249 (so they've already known each other for almost a decade then!). The dragon hunt happens in 1262. Simple maths tells us that they've known each other for 22 years by then, according to Netflix itself.
I mean true, I thought that the show Geralt was so damn awful at Jaskier, he even said he isn’t his friend (??). That kinda finished me off, Geralt in games and books knows what an idiot Dandelion is but he still sees his as his best friend, no matter what.
I respect your opinion, you mentioned the really serious problems of this show.
I hope that the creators of the series and the producers will take this into account.
(Lauren Schmidt in the first place)
Спалился, Ламберт, теперь мы знаем кто ты на самом деле 'shoц'' xDD
Eskel is better than lambert
Lambert lambert what a prick
You play Gwent?
Lauren will not do it cos:
a) she's a feminazi, so she will keep up overrepresenting female characters at the expense of everything; even input made-up stories to justify it (creating more inconsistencies) and
b) Why would she? The show is "great success", great viewer reviews, meaning - job well done, keep it up! More of the stuff!
That is what scares me about the future of the show...
You know that something is not right when the scene Geralt finds Ciri after the war is far better in the old Polish series than in the new Netflix one.
yeah in a hindsight the old show was not so bad after all
Reading about Eyck in the books. - Good
Playing with Eyck in Thronebreaker.- Good
Watching Eyck in the show. - "Look how they massacred my boy."
Is there anybody they DIDN'T massacre? :D
@@LeutnantJoker Well, they didn't massacre Philippa Eilhart :)
@@Contact_Mike
Better "Well, they haven't massacred Philippa Eilhart yet :)"
The perfect description for this show is this....'it's like ordering a decadent pie with toppings and a surface that looks delicious, but stick a fork in and there's nothing, no filling, nothing just past the surface."
Then hopefully your friends bigger pie that's cooking is ready soon (season 2) since there is more filling and is puff pastry.
Dont know why I made a pie anecdote.
@@lukeskywalker8543 if the first pie was just "ok" do you really want another? it's sweet and I'll eat it, but it's not as good as it should be. if I'm told it's lemon custard, it better be lemon custard. not with lemonyish vanilla filling. looks fantastic in the pictures until its in your hand for real.
You really have a bone to pick with that woman who cant pronounce 'Skellige' lmao.
Hard to do a story about morally grey areas justice in a time when morality is largely accepted as black and white in the media. It's kind of sad that the politics of today dug their claws into The Witcher, but thank god Netflix had the sense to undo most of it before they let us see it, still sucks that you can see the remnants of the agenda in the show though.
"Whats a Dryad? Lets just make her black" - Netflix
No mate, it doesn't go like that. The characters fucked up the most by the screenwriters compared to the source material get to be non-white so no one dares to criticize these decisions. So they know perfectly what they did. Crazy ass fanatic Fringilla, the dryads, cocksucking Vilgeforz... what makes me wonder is why is Cahir white xD
Have you seen Batwoman? Be thankful... The Witcher could have been a whole lot worse.
To be honest I don’t mind the series having some characters black I think it somewhat made it better but Yennefer I cannot accept
J T G you shouldn’t put up with mediocrity just because there are worse things out there
@@berketugral8236 Some black people in the Nilfgaardian army could be great( even generals...) Like showing that Nilfgaard is a great empire that even reach the far south(like the Roman Empire wich very likely had some black soldier from North Africa.)
The author of the books wasnt involved that much. Maybe he answered questions from time to time, but I dont think he had a real influence.
@Robert Wojda Yeah, that's kinda also the Impression I had.
he clearly didn't really give much of a shit in the first place, and I can't blame him, as far as I've read he basically signed the rights to a small studio before it was acquired by netflix. Also apparently a fantasy show doesn't have to be good or even decent to rake in millions of viewers, almost like people needed a rebound after the shitshow that was got season 8
@Robert Wojda I love how they were inspired in the Striga battle from Baginski's Witcher 1 intro, but they couldn't even copy that properly :D
Unlike GoT.
The extent of his involvement was he showed up to watch the last day of shooting.
What annoys me the most, is that I can basically only recognize 2-3 characters in the show... That fucked my immersion.
"minor things"
"how triss looks"
oh no no no... that's MAJOR
Am I the only one that is bothered by how Yen looks? Id imagined her quite a little bit more mature and fierce looking. This one looks like a Yennefer Cosplayer really
@@stilloslachen6519 there's that too, but at least being a yennefer cosplay means some resemblance to her... triss is just... not even close. Not even. Not one bit. That ain't triss, not even a Triss cosplay.
@@stilloslachen6519 took the words right outta my mouth
Does she actually look different to how she's described in the books? Because in the 3rd game she seems to have gone overboard with the old crimson hair dye. Which definitely was never referenced in the source material
Alex Fields
In the books she is described as having ‘chestnut’ hair, which is like a brown with a slight reddish shine to it, however it’s polish translation used another word which means the same but more red. And she’s definitely not black.
first season should be called "the witch"
lol exactly
@Kapitan Dupa it could actually be a decent plot if she appeared more times, but it was like, she lost her uterus, then the next scene (in cronological order) she is bored, then they try to kill the queen and the baby, then she is trying to kill a dragon to have a babie, it escalated to fast
I find that Geralt, Yennefer and Ciri have the same screen time and it's very good for a first season to introduce the three most important characters of the story :)
Besides, I never had the impression that Geralt was in the background ^^
@@gdmw09051994 it actualy a poor decision- we have mixed stories, cut down to give everyone their 33% time and because of that many of them loos their meaning. You have created history which has many plotholes and Ciri`s story is just borring- she is running the wood with scared face and that`s all. They are important characters but the main heroe of tales and first three books is Geralt, last books are mainly about Ciri, Yen is important but she is in the backgroud- with their three heroes they are in trobule.
@@gdmw09051994 Its bad, just bad.
You can give 1/1/1 screen time to key characters, because they dont play the same role in the story at this point.
Geralt is by far the most important character early on, the catalyst and POV for audience. Yennefer is also important as grey eminence, pulling strings in the background, but Ciri? Just no. We are only given hints at her potential, vague references to legends etc., she doesnt become center piece until way later.
The biggest flaws imo:
1. They removed Geralt and Ciri’s relationship
2. They deformed Geralt and Yen’s relationship
There’s more ofc but those are the biggest ones, if I’m adding more:
The writing team have no idea what the Witcher is, they seem to have chose actors and actresses based on some sort of agenda rather than acting skill. The world is wrong, the timeline is wrong. They’ve made it 2D in every way, why are nilfgaard religious fanatics now?
The list is probably infinate
@Urn Turn yeah that's become increasingly obvious over the past year lol
Minor mistake my ass, what they did to best boy Eick was a borderline warcrime
I don't remember Eick lol
I honestly was unaware of who that was, but even so, such slapstick and flat character shouldn't belong in a series full of grey areas. It'd be much more impactful if he was as portrayed as an intellectual, and his death would've affected the audiences much more.
@@Grandmaster-Kush It's the guy who died while shitting * In the show.
@@aeroblaze4 In the books he is pretty much a classic "Prince charming " type of Knight, and the books make fun of it in several ocasions. The thing is, even if he is a silly and kinda hateable character, he is the only person in the Witcher world who is genuinly selfless and well intentioned,allways putting other peoples wellbeing above his own, plus he is the only being except for Witchers who can kill monster consistently, wich make him a fucking badass
@@felipeneves7260 yeah he's a badass in thronebreaker, and his card is great with manticore trophy especially against monsters.
The main issue for me is the number of episodes it had. 8 is way too short to tell a story this complex. Hopefully, they'll add more next season.
What about geral being constantly angry and shouting at his friends ?! Something that geralt in games never does, never shows anger or much of any emotion really is it cavills choice or was he ill advised idk but if he played the games he should know geralt doesnt react this way
Yeah Geralt isn't quite accurate either. He does get angry at Dandelion in the books, and they have arguments, but I never got the impression that he was shouting at him the way it's shown here. Also, Geralt in the books was often times quite the eloquent philosopher, he didn't just go "hmm/fuck".
almost everyone was out of character, but yea, when Geralt punched Jaskier I had to take a break for a minute... also he doesnt even know Witcher stuff, he has to ask how to lift a curse, asking what sylvan is, he is making fun of destiny, sleeps with random whore and doesnt even have enough money to pay for a room, because he gave it all to her WTF Netflix? And on top of that he asked where Temeria is, the biggest Northern Kingdom.
Forget the games smh
@@pipper4747 >And on top of that he asked where Temeria is, the biggest Northern Kingdom.
What? He was born there.
There should have been a season for each book for it to truly capture the books and do them justice
Sadly this is little Netflix NOT big boy HBO...
Got the right of that!
They didn't the high ground
I mean, I have tears in my eyes, every freaking time I read the end of "something more". And in the Netflix show: Nothing. There was no impact in this scene and it failed so hard.
But to be honest I really dislike the show. Not a problem of Henry and the other actors it is just bad writing, bad pacing and the fact that it was so easy to make it better
The fact that it was so easy to make it better really hurts. But the author of the script seems to ignore criticism and instead thrives off of the fans hype
"That's a poor choice, a very poor one." And that's the theme for the showrunner's professional philosophy regarding the entire series, apparently.
Too many mistakes, characters didnt get introduced, random ones did. That Vilgefortz and Cahir fight was ridiculous. Yennefer seems so OP in this series that how is Vilgefortz gonna kick her ass easily?
They should turn more attention to character development and establishing timelines. Its mashed potatoes at the moment.
To be fair, it's not like they are intentionally making vigelfortz seem weaker.
@@khalduras784 Actually i think they are, but that may only be so him destroying Geralt later can be a bigger surprise.
Shows touch of woke-ness and diversity peeked thru . Can't have a man look too strong and badazz.
@@paulzaborny6741 of all the things vigelfortz being pitrayed to be pretending to be weak is considered a "woke" culture scene? Oh fuck off
They're making an animated witcher series. Hopefully it will be better than the netflix show.
I heard yes
But is it true that it will be headed by the same people who made this show?
@@PaleFatalis Oh God please no!
They made a fan film and, even if it looks like low budget, at least it's a good try
Lauren hissren (or however it is written) is in that show too, so i have little hope...
Nilfgaard ballsack armor was a trauma...actually the whole portraying of Nilfgaard needs to be corrected. Nilfgaard is an advanced civilized empire not a horde of fanatics. And magicians are not so common so sacrificing one for each fire ball was a true wtf moment. Talking about the magicians it was quite incoherent and felt that their powers only depend on the plot. Starts by saying every magic requires a sacrifice, ends up with Yennefer burning everything just because she's angry or when she paralyzes the dwarves easily but then proceeds to fight with a sword against the real bad guys (oh and what was that chicken dragon?). I honestly enjoyed the show but it was more Xena the warrior than game of thrones.
They ve made so many mistakes in the plot referring to books that counting them is pointless. On the other hand Its also hard to condemn the whole series because Henry and Jaskier did great for example. Im just afraid that Lauren Hissrich doesnt fit for this job. GoT directors also made major changes in first seasons comparing to George Martin's vision, but ultimately they managed to pass the essence of Game of Thrones to fans. After watching first season of the Witcher we can see everything except the essence of the Witcher. Few good moments(TOO FEW) of Henry Cavill and Jaskier, and tones of meaningless crap. Clearly the showrunner didnt know how to show the spirit of books, like games did in some extent.
I really liked Season 1 of GoT ;]
They think everything is all about geralt-ciri-yennefer. Witcher has an enormous world behind it.They just show us the triplets and reduce or remove everything else. They even fail to portray main characters correct way. The foundations are very poor compared to GoT. Very small to none world building, no character introduction except overly done yennefer(unnecessary and still wrong), falsely done geralt and non-existent ciri.
She made the mistake of just rushing to the characters' story and paid less importance to the other short stories which were important for setting up the tone of the series.
"GoT directors also made major changes in first seasons comparing to George Martin's vision, but ultimately they managed to pass the essence of Game of Thrones to fans" Until Season 4 or 5 that is
Thats my main issue with the netflix adaptation. Poor depiction of all the characters. They take away the funny lines from them or strip away important character bondings from most of them and make them kind of dull background characters rather than an interesting new character in the story. Also they unnecesarily make some characters “evil” even though its on the person watching it to decide whether (lets say stegobor) is an evil character or not. Im just not satisfied with what netflix did. Witcher deserves better adaptation.
Fans: YOU BUTCHERED TRISS!
Netflix: we are faithful to the books
Fans: what about Geralt & Ciri’s history?
Netflix: we aren’t faithful to the books
*I feel like they’ve done a stupid*
The question is how Tris is faithful to the books? In the books it is said that her hair is red. Sapkowski said so himself. The color brown came from mistranslation. So yeah tris hair should have been red. Probably not as bright as in the game but red nevertheless. Also Tris is supposed to look young. She was the youngest or the sorcerers and least experienced one and we are constantly reminded of that in the books thanks to her looks and her personality.
Is she a secondary character in the books - absolutely. But she is never a bland or boring character like she was made out to be Netflix series. weather it was her somewhat hidden unrequired love towards Geralt or other aspects of her character - it always kept an impression on you on the books. She was never a boring nobody as she is in the series. And she doesnt look youthful and energetic to me. If anything in the series Yen looks younger than her.
@@gediminaskucinskas6952 it’s just the writing dude, any time a book adaption tries to write its own subplots in usually fail horribly. Wait for blood of elves to judge Triss, she should get better because sapkowski will have mostly written it for them.
Hey guys, do you remember Dumb and Dumber from Game od Thrones? Now we found the Dumbest and her name is Lauren Schmidt Hissrich who thinks she is a better writer than Andrzej Sapkowski.
Despite all of her added plotlines being absolute trash
@@gediminaskucinskas6952 Witcher 2 triss is perfect
The last issue won't be adressed. Let's face it. It's Netflix.
So yeah, "Men are bad - Women good."; "Nilfgaard Empire bad, Rebels good" and so on.
The elves will be innocent heroes, who fight the evil male oppressor humans. That's it. It won't be fixed.
Then maybe we'll have to look to niche games in order to give us the nuanced, deep and memorable stories that we deserve and need.
But Henry Cavill deserves more. This could be his portrayal of a life time, but for that the show's story needs to be top notch
Got woked and diversityed even before it aired.
@Aoife Good point and I would agree with you, but it's Netflix that we're talking about and they have the reputation of "shoving the message in the viewers' faces".
I really like Netflix to be honest, but they always push some kind of narrative and it's very obvious. It probably won't be different this time around.
I feel like they were trying to jam everything into one season, because they were expecting to only get a few seasons to do this.
I can tell you right now that the reason they're going this route with Ciri is they want to get rid of the whole "Geralt as Ciri's protector" plotline all together. Think about it: they chose to replace all of Geralt's crucial scenes with her with these random scenes of Ciri meeting other "stunning & brave wahmen..." only to show those women lose their lives in brutal fashions... which seems to be hinting that Ciri is in grave danger and must learn to care for/fend for herself. Pair this with Yennefer's plot changes, and it would seem that Netflix is really trying to drive home this "men in this world are evil, wahmen are just vessels" plotline, which wouldn't really align well with this idea of Geralt being Ciri's grand protector. Is it stupid? Yes. Is it necessary? No.
But welcome to modern progressivism. This wouldn't be the first show they've ruined with ideological pandering. Basically, every problem so far with the Witcher Season 1, every MAJOR problem anyway, has been the result of pseudomodern ideological undertones taking precedence over what things are _actually like_ in the Witcher World.
Yeah, I see it everywhere. It's boring. Poor star wars...
spot on..
you are making it sound like it's a bad thing. It doesn't really matter what the authors of the show want to do and they can change the source material as they want. If you want the story of the books, then read the books
Agree. There is a good way to write believable strong female characters. Vikings did it right with their portrayal of Lagertha and the shield maidens. The series did well showing men and women working together for common goals. There were good and bad in all the characters, male and female. Both male and female characters suffer. The shield maidens weren't oppressed super humans that never needed help. It was far more realistic, and the show was better for it.
@@wales2815 it is a bad thing,
My biggest problem with the Netflix series is lack of inner fights that geralt had in the books. His fight between human and witcher site. Please mention that in next video. Sorry for bad english greetings from Poland
the writers of the story had the easiest job and they completely failed imo. So many crucial bits were left out you can clearly see the writers didnt understand the story or didnt give a F at all
fail is a harsh word which you are not entitled to say after the succes of the show
Screen adaptations are never easy. Never. The source material is always too much, and deciding what to keep, what to cut and how to keep the thread running is tough. The finest parts of any book, to me, are the ones made of dialogues and of the characters' inner thoughts. Too many dialogues don't work well on screen. And inner thoughts cannot be shown in any way. The show will necessarily become shallower, less fulfilling, likely leaving the readers frustrated and considering it to be rushed.
This said, there are various degrees of skill with which adaptations are performed. I've seen better, I've seen worse. I guess budget and time constraints, together with the hope of trying to interest and involve a vaster audience - wrt book readers and gamers - resulted in several clumsy choices.
I did enjoy it, though. It's still better than nothing.
having a hard locked runtime of about 50 min. and leaving room for commercials & throwing in a touch of wokeness and diversity didn't help also.
@@fedra76it they didnt need to push ciri and yennefer in so early at all. That was their decision and it didnt help anything
@Nightmare couldnt agree more
I’m glad they showed how Yennefer changed. The casting of the characters was a mistake except for Geralt and Jaskier (Dandelion). Triss looked more like Yennefer’s mother. But did those actors do a bad job? No. It was dreadfully insulting to those playing their roles that the producers felt it was necessary to go over the top with political correctness. I have to agree Geralt’s dialogue was slashed so badly his role was almost nonexistent. There is so much to do though in coming series so I hope they don’t continue in the same pattern or people will turn away from the show and the producers can be blamed for mocking what were and still are very successful books and games.
6:34 I seriously concur. Fake Ciri looks so much better to be the real Ciri.
In relation to the last point, I found that the moral issues which were so crucial and well-developped in the book series (and the games but yes, yes, we're not adapting those) were all but eradicated in the Netflix adaptation. They could simply be boiled down to "Cintra gud, Nilfgaard bad," or as you pointed out, "Hoomans bad, elves gud." Any adaptation requires some alterations to be made to the source materials, but I fear that they may have gone a bit too far.
I honestly thought the Queen was a bitch...Before Nilfgaard is ever a threat in the slightest she's prejudiced and hateful towards them. She tries to murder someone over a cursed appearance...She has no clue who he really is or what he's planning so no moral higher ground there either. She refuses to follow a sacred law helded for generations.
If she's the noble Queen of Cintra...It must be full of cunts and cowards.
As for the Elves well yeah given the Scoia'tael aren't active yet I would in fact say yes Elves are better than Humans morally. Though there were Elves Geralt killed in Renfri's gang. Hopefully they'll get into detail the Elven Freedom-Fighters/Terrorists later on.
You thought Cintra was portrayed as unequivocally good? They went through a lot of dialogue talking about how much the people of the realm hated the queen, that she was a warmonger and sat in her ivory tower while her subjects starved.
@@glibsonoran when was this? We only heard from the black elf.
All we hear was how much she was a Mary Sue winning battles at 12yo
@@chasx7062 When Ciri finds the Cintran refugee camp in the woods in Ep 2, she tries to cut in front of a woman in line to get food. The woman stops her and Ciri says Hey this was all provided by the queen. The woman responds to the effect that the Queen was selfish and never gave them anything. Later in the camp she meets the boy who had collected the ears of the elves he'd killed, he takes her to his family's tent. We meet his mother who explained his father had been killed in a war that the queen was responsible for, that she was always fighting wars and expending her subject's blood to suit her own purposes. There was at least one other place where Cintran subjects expressed contempt for the queen but I can't remember the episode.
@@glibsonoran Fair play.
I totally agree with your issues.
I don't see a single reason, why they left out the entire "Sword of Destiny" story.
What I did not understand is how the show got so popular.
I mean, played the games and read the books, so I understood what was going on, but I watched the show with other peoole that didn't know anything about the witcher and they thought it was very nice.
But again, I explained a lot of things that was shady to them, and they did not really care, they just enjoyed the show.
And I can honnestly say that if I hadn't read the books, I wouldn't have understood anything that was going on. It feels so rushed and unexplained. Like the whole story at the end of the world :
Books : amazing story, deep and makes you rethink what's good and bad and see all the things the elves have been through. Geralt and Jaskier are saved by a mythical sorceress that is the purest form the elves respect.
Show : you're gonna die ! Please, no. Okay, you can go.
Come one, you had such good source material, why did you rush the show, Netflix ?
the acting and ambience s good, decent action scenes, and henry cavil as the main character, the show is probably more appealing to people that dont know the witcher, i didnt read the books and only played a bit of the games and the show didnt feel so bad, until i saw some videos showing how much hey removed from the story and, and most of the would make the show better without taking so much time
It got so popular because of people who haven't read the books...
They screwed over the Hardcore Fans, AGAIN. I knew from the beginning I couldn't trust Lauren, ESPECIALLY after that comment about, "I'm making the utmost effort to stay true to Polish Culture and the world of the Witcher" (or something to that effect.)
All lies.
I'm getting this close to being done with TV series and Movies honestly. Most adaptations are just pandering to the Identity Politics crowd and trying to tell the story better than the OG material.
@@connorbaz5980 I didn't even watch it after I saw the cast. Disaster.
Belladonna High hey! Henry Cavill was an awesome Geralt ok! He made the show bearable for me hahahaha but yes everyone else is subpar
Belladonna High hey! Henry Cavill was an awesome Geralt ok! He made the show bearable for me hahahaha but yes everyone else is subpar
the jumping of timeline is a bit confusing and I don't even feel like rewatching to make more sense of their choice to make it that way
I think the biggest tragedy of the Netflix show is, as you mentioned, how Manichean the Continent seems to be. It's black and white, clear cut good guys and bad guys, no in-between.
It's the defining trait of the Witcher universe, the fact that nothing is black and white, everything is grey at best, most things and people aren't as they seem.
It's what makes the books and the games stand out from most other Fantasy franchises. But Netflix couldn't even get that right.
They had to dumb down the Universe like there's no tomorrow to fit their usual political agendas in the series.
Books: Destiny alone is not enough, there needs to be something more.
Show: Naahh just Destiny is fine.
Every episode.
man the producer sucks she want to make it more like Game of thrones
Also andrzej: hmm.. ok you're right
Mistake number four: Someone in the casting crew misread the word "ginger."
Well she is not "ginger" her hair is "chestnut" but as far as I know that's still a lighter reddish-brown.. But somebody obviously misread the blue eyes and being younger than Yen...
Someone misread a LOT of things
Actually, they read the word "chestnut" very successfully.
@@i.cs.z the thing is that even Andrzej Sapkowski describe triss are red hair/ginger. maybe the english translation was not right but anyhow the color in the show is not ok. source juandahlmann.wordpress.com/2008/07/27/part-ii-of-the-june-2008-fantasymundo-interview-with-andrzej-sapkowski/
@@athaeus2667 I kinda disagree... Chestnut looks different. Almost redhead. Yen calls her redhead. But besides the colour... She is supposed to be young and her hair should be fucking signature attribute... And it's not. She looks old and very common. When I saw her I should be like oh thats Triss... But I was like... Wait a sec who is this?
"Look how they massacred my Triss" - Tony Montana
Vito Corleone? :)
Look how they massacred my Eyck!
If you’re going to reference something, get it right
@@mackenziebenedict8403 Ah yes, joke totally flew over your head.
@@SamfisherSam I can admit when I’ve been had
Feminist showrunner just focused on Yen and completely neglected Geralt-Ciri relation.
I thought the same thing, i was "WTF bruh" when Yen said that woman are just vessels
@@K1NGSSTH Lol, she wishes she could be a vessel and carry a child.
@@Evija3000 Yeah, thats why i was WTF, what Yen always wanted is to be a mother, to carry a baby, a vessel if you will, that phrase was just stupid for the context of the show
@@K1NGSSTH And who are those men that keep taking from her or using her? Apart from her stepfather every other man we've seen her interact with is getting insulted and/or manipulated by her not the other way around.
@@Evija3000 yeah additionally considering in-universe social order, the mages and in particular female ones, sorceresses enjoy greater freedom in the society than other not only other women but most of the other classes in society, they are in the books quite liberated and often have enormous power and influence as a sorceress she transcends the normal social bounds (not to mention that in the witcher world there were powerful queens).
I finished the 2nd book a week ago and I have to say... pretty much every story in the first 2 books made me realise how bad the story of the series is.
They made Geralt a nice guy. He's not. He's nuanced. He purposely asked for Duny and Pavetta's child, it wasn't an accident, it wasn't a joke. He sort of regretted it afterwards but he still did ask for it without hesitation.
Btw, they made Duny a nice and pure dude who just wants to be with the woman he loves. He's not lmao he only used the law of surprise on Pavetta's father because he needed a surprise child to lift his curse, which kind of implies that it was not the first time that he used the law of surprise on the stranger. Then he probably fell in love with her but it wasn't his motive at first. They didn't even take 2 minutes to explain this.
They made Yennefer a rather nice girl too in the end. She's not. She paralyzed Geralt with magic to try and kill the golden dragon herself to rip him appart while Geralt was trying to defend him.
They reduced Geralt and Yennefer's love story to pretty much nothing. In the series she gets mad at him when she learns what was his last wish and then leaves him but in the book that's what made her fall in love with him for good. She heard him say his last wish to the Djinn and they even talk about it afterwards. She kept scewing Istredd while she was with Geralt, which brought a huge emotional and physical conflict between the three of them and also in them and that's what caused Yennefer and Geralt to drift apart, not a fucking child's querell over a wish ffs.
And finally, like you said they pretty much removed the relationship between Geralt and Ciri. First by making it an accident she'd be bound to him in destiny and then by removing the time they spent together in Brokilone. Ciri was already attached to Geralt before Brokilone because she know she was his destiny (and kept repeating it) and she begged him to not leave her and to take her with him. Which makes their reunion at the end of SoD immensely more powerful that what they showed in the series, where Ciri only knows Geralt because her grandma told her "go find Geralt of Rivia" before she died without her having heard of him even once in her life...
I didn't even realise what they did to Eyck because I had probably forgotten but your video made me remember. He's a knight who can be respected, even tho we might not agree with his view on things. Evn the dragon respects him and his choices by dueling him. They turned him into a meaningless buffoon who doesn't bring anything to the story.
Also Jaskier looks like a very nice a jolly dude most of the time in the series but he's not that simple. He's also very arrogant and keeps leaving angry women in his trails that he doesn't really seem to care about. I'm not saying he's a bad guy, he has great emotional moments (A Little Sacrifice), but he's not simply a nice bard that everyone likes.
Not mentioning the other "small" details in each of the stories because the most important things imo are the ones that truly define the characters' personalities and relationship with each other, which they pretty much ruined with every chance they had.
One of those "small details" tho : In the first episode, who most consider as the best one, Geralt just murders Renfri's boys for... no reason? other than that they provoked him. He bravely said that he's not gonna choose between one evil and another and that the lesser evil doesn't exist. Then he decides to side against Renfri. And we never know why. Because they fkn scrapped this part of the story where Renfri basically tells Geralt that if he doesn't kill Stregobor and that he doesn't sorrender (which he won't), she and her group will murder the citizens of Blaviken one by one until Stregobor surrenders, which we know he won't. That's why when he realized it he rushed to Blaviken to stop them and when they refused, he killed them all to save the town.
And this, for some reason, was never explained in the series. And this makes the decision of Geralt to side against Renfri quite stupid and all the talk about "the lesser evil" pointless. Even more so when Geralt then learns from Renfri that Stregobor didn't care if she murdered all of Blaviken and that he would never come out of his tower, which means that she would've changed her mind about murdering everyone and that Geralt choice of "the lesser evil" was, in the end, a bad decision. That's a life changing experience for him, one that he will never forget and that will help forge his personality. And they just removed it.
This alone made me realize from the very beginning or the book how bad of an adaptation the series was.
When I watched the series I hadn't read the books yet and I thought it was overall decent with some good moments, only lacking some cohesion and consistency sometimes (especially because of the mixed timelines).
After reading the first 2 books I'm kind of disgusted by what they did to the story and the characters. I keep thinking that some of it is still okay or even good but they made so many stupid changes I don't even understand... It's like they thought in their arrogance they could write a better story than the one that already existed and was acclaimed by everyone.
You make some really good points, they did take away the shades and made many things more black and white than they were ;[
Here's a crazy thought, make the season as many episodes as it needs to be to tell the right story.
Netflix bosses probably gave not much money for it. You know, it is a corporation which make dummy shows to make a money and as any corporation they prefer to cut costs.
Netflix witcher is about money and not about quality.
#4 Should be how they changed magic. Magic is pulled from sources (e.g. from an underground spring) in the books. Ciri herself is supposed to be a source. None of this "pulling power from life in random ways" method. The whole eel thing was silly.
YES!!! Also the fundamental change from a relatively low risk, high reward system to a high risk, low reward system.
@@HIGHSTAROUTLAW budget xD.
@@HIGHSTAROUTLAW And let's not mention that they are completely inconsitent with their own made up magic rules.
Yes, that's one of of my biggest gripes personally. They changed the way magic works quite significantly but they don't even follow their own rules. I much preferred the way it was explained in the books. I remember Yennefer explaining to Ciri how to pull magic, how cats like to lie on the ground over where the 'veins' are....
To be honest how they portrait how magic works seemed like a rip of from another Netflix series, the dragon prince, and even in that show, it was a certain type of magic that required a sacrifice which is generally in the form of a magical creature. (which isn't an original concept to begin with)
The Sir Eyck comparison at the end was hilarious 😂🤣
:D oh I had forgotten about that
While I liked Emma Appleton as Renfri and her overall role, I felt like she would have made a much better Triss than the actress they went with. Emma's chemistry with Henry Cavill was pretty spot on and I just didn't feel it with the other actress.
yeah
Yeah but Emma Appleton isn't part black so that can't happen. You're asking, what does that have to do with anything? Welcome to the answer to your question. Netflix would ruin prom night by being on the rag.
Triss had barely any involvement in the show anyways, and she's a minor character in the books so it's not that big of a deal.
One thing that I would have to criticize about the show is how they change how magic works. Drawing the lifeforce out of something that is living to power your magic would change the relationship between magic and the world in the Witcher netflix, which I feel that the show runners didn't expect.
For example why didn't the yen think to portal vigelfortz in a hidden spot near cahir and his men, so that vigelfortz can create a portal around cahir and his men using them as fuel for his magic. It would have killed them, and vigelfortz would not have to duel anybody.
I keep telling myself that I read this magic explanation somewhere. Probably in the very last book - The Season of Storms. But... the only thing certain is that show made me reread the books. Cause too many "waaait a minute" moments.
@@Kat.Grinin I just finished Season of Storms, but I don't remember they explained magic in that book.
@@user-xx4ne5li1j I still think the fight between Vilgefortz and Cahir was some sort of stage fight.
Creators normally go out of their way to make sure character look like who they are because they will make changes to the story to go into tv or movie but when you makes changes to the story and then don’t make characters look like their book counterparts just makes a mess
Well, there's a solution: less Yennefer fanfiction and more actual plot. I get, I guess, in a way, why they felt the need to show her past (because viewers are stupid and unable to sympathise with a character unless you drag out their freudian excuse over severeal episodes), but there really was no need for it to take up that much screen time at the expense of things that actually matter and create emotional connection between and to the characters. Shorten the Yennefer stuff to one episode max and remove the doppler plotline or shorten it and you suddenly have a whole lotta time to show Geralt and Ciri bonding in Brokilon.
The part where she interacted with the new students seemed completely pointless to me, she was just bitter, that's it. And there were even multiple details that I found hard to believe and take seriously.
Becauae every series in Netflix must have a female lead, not a male lead
Hah! Yennefer fanfiction. That's totally right.
yeah, at before yen’s transformation i thought her storyline was interesting. but after her transformation i felt that it became pointless. like many storylines in the show. i really got bored with it and it made me almost hate her.
The writers wanted her to feel as central as geralt as they did with Ciri.......the problem is in order to do so they had to force the three timelines nonsense.
The dialogue in the show is so poorly written but every so often you get a direct quote from the books and it’s jarring because it doesn’t fit in with the way the characters speak throughout the show.
“Netflix did not ruin the series”
“That one didn’t age quite so well…”
I'll never understand the supposedly "success" of the show. It felt like a bad CW show with the same CW level lame writing. Totally wasted opportunity considering the material they had at disposal.
Cuz to non Witcher fans it was good since they don’t know anything about the show, once they read the books and play the games aka the good shit, they’ll love it even more
My opinion is EXACTLY the same, sir!
@@ReedBoi-tv2se That perfectly describes me. I thought it was good until I touched the game. And yes, I thought it's a video game adaptation. Then this channel completely changed my view on this show seeing how they forced diversity in and cutting important storylines