Also. If they really wanted to make it... 'unique' or anything, at least they could use some other language swearing too, cause we all know that English is pretty bad at it actually (saying it as Hungarian-East European) edit: and i don't think it would be so out even for an english viewer, but it's just my WILD idea, maybe it's bad as f**k :D
@@minidreschi2 as a French person, I totally agree with you. We get extremely creative with just a few words, it can even sound pretty classy. I can only imagine what other languages such as Polish can do, and I'm sure it would be better than repeating F** over and over again. It really sounds like a lack of inspiration. Bad writing and underestimating the intelligence of the viewer?
yeah I even tell people, it's a good insight into Yennefer from the books, while the show basically turned her into a petulant teenager whose personality is boiled down to unnecessary cursing and temper tantrums
@@franciszaldivar337 Yennefer is a smart old woman with a lot of experience in the body of a beautiful young woman. She has seen and heard a lot, knows people and their nature. She always controls the situation. Netflix made her an emotionally unstable, stupid, egotist. Great job Netflix.
That part with the Trebuches you show in the background... it was the part where they truly showed how little they get Sapkowski and his work. Imagine raising a person for 20-200 years, investing in their training, imparting knowledge, ... and then you kill them for a single projectile, a single shot. Unless Nilfgaard is overflowing with mages (which it isn't) this is utter nonsense. Not even Sauron, called "the shadow" in the Professor's book, would do this. The Black Numenorians he had who could do sorcery were his lieutenants, generals, commanders. Imagine Sauron turning the Witch king of Angmar into a catapult projectile... stupid.
The changes they made to how magic works really annoys me. Its explained really well in the books and it makes sense. Ciri's magic lessons are some of my favorite chapters. The show just takes a random fact from the books (Drawing magic from the fire plane is implied to be dangerous) and twists it to hell and back to make Nilfgaard look like cartoon super villains.
It was genuinely one of the stupidest things in the show. Highly trained mages are even stated and shown in the show itself to be pretty rare. So wasting them on basically nothing is just wasteful
When they wrote Yens character "Choosing" to go through beautification process then proceeding to moan and tell everyone her ability to have children was taken from her i knew what kinda show it was gonna shape out to be.
The thing that hurt my brain the most was how they butchered the witchers. Their time at Khaer Morhen is my favourite maybe in all the books, and the witchers' kindness and personalities and how they bond w Ciri. I could not stomach them in the show.
Right? In the books you understand exactly why Ciri misses them and is fond of Khaer Morhen. It's home and family. That whole section of blood of elves made us understand the witchers have humanity and a lot of love to give. Netflix doesnt want to give the witchers that. After all, peasant says they are remorseless killers and what peasant says goes.
Thing is, when reading the books it is very much about geralt.. then I believe there is a lot of ciri toward the ending of the books.. but geralt is never forgotten during her time to shine. Lauren could had have a strong female character anyway so her pushing that was unnecessary
Add for note: they skipping out on not only ciris journey with geralt but also the great bonding between ciri and her with nenneke..and then the travels they both did together from there.. if Lauren would have only stuck to the books she would’ve everything she wanted!
The first two books, the short story collections, are entirely about Geralt. Not every chapter is written from his perspective but they all follow him. Book 3 is heavily focused on Ciri, and on introducing us to the wider world with a lot of short sections following various people around the world. We get dandelion chapters, triss chapters, a lot of Ciri chapters. Geralt is present in the triss chapters and the early Ciri chapters but only has a couple chapters that are really his. Same for the first part of book 4. Basically from the point where geralt finds Ciri at the homestead to the events at the mages conclave he is a side character. Only after he and Ciri are separated does he come back as an equal main character to Ciri. And Yen is literally never a main character, she has maybe 3 perspective chapters in the entire series.
Even better. If they would just stick to the books they would create an amazing strong female protagonist throughout the duration of the show. Ciri would have depth and would definitely become fan favourite. But they decided that's not worth they time, they need their mery sue NOW thus creating a bland non-interesting character noone wants to connect to. All they had to do to reach their initial goal would be adapting the goddamn books. But they are too fucking stupid to even comprehend that.
From an adaptation standpoint, the books were near perfect. The descriptions are vivid and really set the scene and atmosphere without dragging on. The dialogue is lean, mostly because Geralt is not someone who says more than he has to. The stories move at a fair pace. Information is relayed in a way that avoids exposition dumps, and holds back elements to keep the story engaging. None of the characters need changing since they are balanced. The good guys are not always good, the bad guys are not always bad. They just feel real. It's well documented that the writing team didn't like the books and just wanted to do their own story, and the result is a disaster.
You know which reveal was CRAZY early? Emyr being Ciris dad.. I started reading the books after finishing season 2, and throughout I was expecting more hints, more clues that Dunny was Emyr all along. But instead in the books it’s barely hinted at and the big reveal happens in the final book. Imagine the payoff if they had just waited and let Emyrs identity stay a secret for much longer.. Let it cook god damn it!!
Frankly, tbh, it was still not emphasized enough in the last book, how much of a creep Emhyr is. He saved Ciri's grandfather's (!!!) life when his wife was expecting Pavette (while Emhyr was already old enough to save someone's life... the generous estimations are that he was 15 at the time), then married Pavette at 15, then tried to marry a child he single-handedly (well, with Vilgefortz) orhaned and traumatised at the ripe age of what, 11? He was 15+15+around 15 = 45, and that only happened to be so low because Pavetta married very young and Ciri was still really young as well.
It felt like the writers had no overarching plans for the series at all. They messed up by changing things and not accounting for how it will effect the story down the line.
That's one of the biggest issues with the Witcher series, is that they tried way too hard to try and match the brilliance and scale of GoT, and failed at every turn. They should never have even tried to match it (it wasn't going to happen regardless), but with great writers and directors, we could have had one of the best series out there. Netflix ruin everything they adapt. HBO would have done this series almost perfectly.
Wait till you read the parts with the military convoy and Shaerrawedd. That might be my favourite part of this book and it's completely ruined in the show.
@@FolkWalkCZ yeah i just got past that part and the geralt sailing on the ship. Hugely different and i dont understand why they didnt adapt it like it in the book
@@KissaKassKot Because of gow great the writers are and they are so good, that they can invent a new story, forgetting to just write their own story and world instead, which would result in a lot of people less pissed about their 'great writing'.
I feel like most people that say that season was enjoyable didn't read the books. I'll admit that I was one of them. But after finally coming around to reading the books I realize just how much garbage was put into the series. In the end I even believe the series negatively affected my enjoyment of the books, as I was so often confused when my expectation (coming from the series) was completely wrong. I especially remember having to read the golden dragon story line twice because I simply couldn't follow it any more due to all the wrong assumptions in my head, put there by the show.
I really wish they'd done something different with this amazing source material. I started reading the Witcher books when playing Witcher 2 and I loved how W3 built on the stories I've read. Meeting Yen and Regis and Ciri was so special. Netflix' approach... Well, you've said it all already. I'm not even mad, just
I 100% agree with your point about changes when adapting source material, most of them were completely unnecessary. One of the few I liked, is Ciri's presence during Nivellen's story. I shows to Ciri what Geralt does as a Witcher and adds to the bond and familiarity between them, which is much needed, since they cut the scene in Brokilon. Seeing him fight might also serve as a motivation for her to train. In the books the witchers teach Ciri how to fight, because they don't know what else to show her. I feel there is some room for minor changes here. That doesn't mean however that they should add complete storylines out of nowhere, especially when they destroy characters from the books. Both Yennifer and Vesimir try to sacrifice Ciri for their own ambitions, despite Ciri seeing them both as family in the source material. Noone who read the books could think that Yennifer and Vesimir could act this way. You just can't have these massive contradictions in the show and call it a "faithful adaptation".
At this point I treat Netflix's version as a fanfic. A pretty bad one, written by someone who wants things there "just because" and treats characters as dolls in a dollhouse. It helps, 'cause I don't feel as disappointed as I did when the show came out (especially series 2).
Considering hollywood nowadays thrives on victim mentalities I'm baffled by the fact they did not understand that Nivellen was a victim of his circumstances rather than an aggressor. Sure, he did a bad thing and regrets it every day but that is the point, to show us the moral ambiguity of the world rather than the black and white morality of the netflix show
I know right? The point of the books was to show the world as not black and white, but different shades of grey and producers missed that idea completely
TL;DR post incoming. I find myself going back to a quote from Peter Jackson about making the LotR movies. He said that "we didn't want to put our politics into it." They wanted to tell the story in a way that was respectful to Tolkien's vision. Peter has massive respect for Tolkien's work and it shows. Yes, he changed some things that fans didn't agree with, but at least he paid attention to the books and adapted them as best he could. Some of the writers for The Witcher not only don't follow the source material, they outright HATE AND MOCK IT at times. I don't remember if it was Hissrich or the casting director chick, but someone on the production side said something about how because Sapkowski is Polish the characters look a certain way and they wanted to challenge that. F*cking what? If you want to make a fantasy series where people look and talk like they're from downtown LA then you probably shouldn't be using source material that takes place in MEDIEVAL. F*CKING. EUROPE. You cannot write better than Sapkowski or Tolkien. Stop trying to subvert source material that is better than anything you can come up with. Never forget that the writers wanted to have Geralt *MAKE A JOKE ABOUT ROACH'S DEATH* and Henry had to convince them to let him do his own thing for that scene instead. If you want to know what these writers are capable of when they have no source material to guide them just look at Blood Origins, if you can stomach it that is. Blood Origins is exactly what the show writers wanted to do with The Witcher but couldn't because Henry did whatever he could to keep them on track.
He did put it. If you read preview you will notice it. And if you are good at geography you will notice some allusions too. But at the same nobody would have guesses Jews were inspiration for Tolkien's hobbits. I would have never guessed it as Jews have been nomads for centuries and hate hard physical work. So I don't see them working in field themselves. In Rings of Power hobbits to make them more "realistic" are nomads with social darwinism strategy of survival which I don't think brought them many fans. The show makes no sense in general. Tolkien didn't wrote his characters flawless flakes who can do no wrong or must be always forgiven. No. Elves and humans are kinda hipocrites for although they burn Ring to rule them all they don't burn other rings that are also made to bind will of other beings. So no wonder orcs feel threatened. Bilbo Baggins isn't an ordinary hobbit. One has to have very strong will power not to bend to ring's power. Maybe he could have even learned magic but Gandalf for some reason doesn't let him. Idk it makes sense to me. But perhaps Tolkien didn't think it through. He always said even history records aren't flawless retellings and have their inconsistencies. Maybe he added some flaws to make his readers think. All in all I appreciate that he made his story rather coherent so it isn't boring and that most of his characters have some personal culture and hold values like honour and empathy
what amazes me about people who adapt books and speed story lines up is that they never learn. The best fantasy movies that we have seen have been the LOTR trilogy and series well unto a point GOT. Both of which were pretty faithful to the source material. in the case of GOT the earlier seasons were magnificent, they were patient, they built the world, the built the geography and people loved it. the withcer on the other hand I have no idea who anyone is, where they are from or why there are issues.
People willing to adapt the source material are extremely rare. Most of them have too much of an inflated ego and can't even imagine not putting their work first. Their work is almost always of inferior quality, but these people have no self awareness.
Yes exactly. Like the first thing you learn in writing school is the 3 act story structure. 1. Setup 2. Build up 3. Resolution. It feels like Hollywood writers don't even get these basics. They often times just skip 1 and 2 altogether.
They claim they didn't have enough time to adapt some events or had to cut them short, but at the same time they spent so much time on Yennefer and Ciri already in season 1, so I personally don't believe their claim, same with their multiple claims that "Next season will be extremely book accurate", because this hasn't been true once. Great video as usual, I hope you enjoyed your trip to Poland! :D
i just can't understand why showmakers take something that's beloved and special and then CHANGE EVERYTHING that made it so beloved and special to begin with with the argument that this way you could "attract a larger audience". How can you make more people love something by making it less loveable. I. don't. understand.
Nice analysis! I think there were 2 opportunities greatly squandered by the writers with the television adaption that I felt were key themes in the books: 1. Maintaining an heir of mystery! I feel the author keeps the reader interested and incentivized to follow characters and the story by not over explaining backstories or giving too much away. I liked Yennifer's character in the books because there is so much that you don't know about her. For example, you don't even know she was a hunchback other than a small observation by Geralt early in the books that her shoulders don't quite sit even. This mystery maintains this ellusive femme fatale that captivates the reader because you can imagine the depth she has that makes her so cold and severe. This approach also would have saved the writers a lot of grief trying to explain the mages and their politics. Aretuza is barely mentioned in the first few books until a chapter is dedicated to a secret meeting between some of the female mages about their motivations to find the child of Cintra and use her for their own agenda. This meeting and only a few others in the series eloquently reveal more about the role of mages in the world, but the reader learns just enough to want to know more. 2. Telling the story by rotating the point of view between characters. I think the show writers missed a huge opportunity to film series from multiple distinctive points of view rather than trying to explain different timelines and chronological events as a third person viewer. The author also provides a lot of stream-of-consciousness delivery where the reader learns the most about the main characters from these internal dialogues. I think it would have adapted beautifully for TV to show conversations between, say Yennifer and Geralt, if we get to hear what they think but don't say to eachother out of pride, fear, distrust or decorum. This would have created more tension between characters, provided room for the character relationships to adapt and change with the story, and given the audience the empowerment that they know something the characters don't. The storyline could then be told in several distinctive points of view, with some color filters or slightly different filming styles to vary it and cue to the audience whose view they are currently seeing. Maybe Geralt's POV focuses on non-verbals and threats in a narrower focus, Yennifer's focuses on verbal dialogue and magical presence in the space, Dandelion always has background music and sees everything in vivid color, etc.
The ones that defend the show ignore the fact that Lauren Hissrich openly stated on Twitter, " It'll be a 1 for 1 adaptation of the books, there's so much content there itd be criminal not to do so". Both her and Netflix, LIED TO YOU. My only exposure to the Witcher is Witcher 3 and i will never stop playing that game.
I liked the first season because it was about something that I really like. And maybe thanks to this I overlooked all the alterations and dumb things they made. But gradually with each new season, I grew distant from this show and found myself not paying attention and using it just for background noise when I worked on something. With the last season, I couldn't do even that, it was all just so absurd that I had to pay attention and complain about what the hell is going on. It felt out of place even from the series's perspective. Nevertheless, I think this show should just end while it can. Great lore video btw!
Season 2's biggest sin was what they did to the Witchers at Kaer Morhen. Lambert and Eskel are unrecognisable and barely get any screentime. Not to mention that they kill one off and show next to none of the bodning Ciri has with any of them in the books aside from Vesemir and Geralt
More like human tragedy because you can see some actors were cocaine addicts, Henry Cavill was a victim of mobbing and so was Jaskier's actor. And characters in the story do nothing constructive just escalate the conflict
They had the books, they had the games and a great series of comic books, they had Henry Cavill... and they flushed it all down the drain. And Baginsky was there to give it a nod of approval. Baginsky and his company Platige Image were involved in making video sequences for Witcher the game, he should have known better. And Netflix shouldn't give this project to somebody as clueless as the people who wrote the script and directed it. Witcher just deserves a better adaptation. There is a fan-made movie that's better than what we were served by Netflix. Maybe at least we will have another game.
As a slav (not polish though), who's read all of the books twice, and played the games more times than I'd consider normal (especially the first one) -- I could not get past the first season. Even the first season annoyed me greatly, yet most people considered it "good", for whatever reason. I appreciate the vids you have done, ofc, there is so much to be said that you could spend literal hours deconstructing the mess. But you do address some stuff that a lot of others tend to miss. I'm very curious about your next planned video, I care a lot about the lore and world building of any fantasy world I engage with. Be it the magic system they've destroyed, or the kings and kingdoms which got totally flanderized, or even the ethnic makeup of different kingdom/races having no cohesion (resembling modern california). Not to mention that geography is non-existent with everyone fast-travelling. Given that half the books is following Geralt and his hanza, who are travelling and tracking Ciri... frankly, I have no idea if there was any fore-thought from these writers. All in all, it's a travesty.
My problem with this show more than anything is that it's supposed to be for adults but it feels like it was written for children. Feels like one of them child fantasy shows I used watch on the CBBC when I was younger
It feels like something written on a knee by some narcisssistic autist. Don't get me wrong autists can write amazing Hans Christian Andersen was an autist and a great author. But to write stuff like that but they have to take time to collect thoughts
@@karolinakuc4783And good will. Hexer series from 2002 was also written by a a narcissistic autist but the person wanted to give some wisedom to the story he made some good historical references
The Nivellen story in the book is so much better that I was dumbfounded the reviews for the episode were so positive. They did not understand the story at all.
I only watched the Witcher for Henry Cavill. His acting and passion made me like the series. Even with the problems of bad writing. And yes I could see how bad it was.
I have no idea why people praised season 1 so much. It's a 6/10 at best. It was boring, poorly paced and pretentious. And I have never even read the books.
The atmosphere and worldbuilding was what broke it for me. I could not even get through the first season because it was so bad. Looking forward to your next episode.
Well done! Great critique, well thought out, clear, concise, and spot on. It's almost like the netflix writers didn't even read the books nor play the games and if they did rushed through them or read them without understanding the culture, genre, and or time period from which they were written and simply added their own moralist viewpoints without understanding the world of the witcher at all. The books and the games were each in their own rights masterpieces of storytelling and create beloved complex characters and netflix turned them into vile, vulgar, shallow, parodies that were completely unrecognizable and felt out of place.
I agree with you! I never understood when season one came out how there was some book fans saying it was a good or decent adaptation! Like how?!!! Just because they fell in love with Henry Cavill's acting as Geralt from Witcher 3 i suppose (To each their own, i guess)!... From the first trailer i saw of this show i thought that is NOT my Geralt nor the world and characters that i love from the books, but i wanted to be fair and watch the whole season to not judge it by the trailer alone, and unfortunately i was right! At that ending scene with Geralt and Ciri i literally facepalmed and said "What have you done to my beloved Witcher!". 🤦♀
Yeah, it was really annoying when people would pile on you just because you said that the show is not good few years back. I had to leave all online fan groups but I really needed to unload my frustrations and eventually I've found catharsis on r/wiedzmin subreddit which is focused mainly on the books and it was the only place where most people hated the show from the beginning. So that helped me a lot. And I found it funny how people now turned on the show after we've been saying it's shit for years. Almost makes you want to scream "Told you so!".
@@FolkWalkCZ Yeah, some people like to go with the flow, i guess! And some have the nerve to tell us "You are just biased towards the books" and that is just not true! As you mentioned when we get good adaptations one must give it praise, like The Lord of The Rings masterpiece film trilogy or the amazing BBC series of Pride and Prejudice (1995) and the recent great HBO The Last of Us adaptation, but one can NOT say the same about the Netflix's Witcher.
I never read the books and that eels scene just stuck out like a sore thumb to me. There's no reference to it before or after about being turned into an eel, it just comes out of no where. What even was the point of that? I have no idea... I hated it then, and I hate it even more now learning that it was never in the books.
Yeah that was a weird one..I cannot grasp why that as an add on would be a good idea. The source is with in the 4 elements and that’s where all the sorcerer draw their power from.. the whole sacrificing and stuff is bonkers I mean the special about ciri is that she herself is a source and that’s why everyone wants her.. I’m ranting I’m sorry 😭
Probably because they wanted to make Yennefer's whole story a "big fight against the regime" so they made Arethusa this weird fortress of evil. On the other hand, in the books, Yen likes school and somehow doesn't fight against it, so as a mixed result, even in the series she ends up just dissing it and... it's just weird and stupid
I was lost at the first season. I knew it was about to be everything but ‘The Witcher’. Absolutely nothing made sense. You mentioned the eel scene and I was so confused by that point 😂 I only watched for Henry, one of my favorite actors.
I hated the 1st season cause it's too fanfictiony yet ppl praise it like it's the best thing 🙄. Yennefer is my fave character and she's been ruined in the show.
As a fan of the books (and the well done fan fiction that is the Witcher III video game) I appreciate FolkWalkCZ keeping it 100% real in his assessment that the TV show was trash from day one with butchered “adaptation” of the source material and a whole lot of “made up bullshit”. I actually began recording a podcast covering Witcher Season 1 because I was so excited for it but quit in frustration after three episodes. The writing (or lack thereof) was already on the wall. The show runners, writers, and executives at Netflix never had any interest in doing the source material justice. They simply wanted an excuse to execute their “vision” of a typical bloated, nonsensical, out of touch but oh so “stylish” and “progressive” and “edgy” Hollywood fantasy that “subverts expectations”. Of course, they blame everyone but themselves for the shows ultimate failure, and most of all they blame the fans (such as myself) who actually wanted to see The Witcher series succeed.
damn, boi. i 110% agree with everything you said. i always find it so frustrating when all your friends say "that show is good". As a big fan, I was only able to watch the first season with great pain. After that I knew it couldn't get any better. So I skipped seasons 2 and 3. And I don't regret it in the least. I'm just tired of such good stories being dragged through the dirt by woke writers. all they care about is to send a message [Women - good and strong, Man - Bad, dumb and useless]. The only thing that makes me happy is that they all hit the wall with it
I just realized that Season 3 raises one massive inconsistency with the battle of Sodden hill as well and that is with Tissaia de Vries. If she is so damn powerful as shown in Season 3, why did Yennefer ever have to "unleash her chaos" (or whatever dumb stuff that was) to win the battle of Sodden? Why did she ever even have to sacrifice her powers when Tissaia was right there at Sodden next to Yennefer and could have done the same as Yennefer and way more and without sacrificing her powers? But it's nothing new that this show lacks consistency.
@@maggiiopgott8975 That too. They basically gave all of Vilgefortz's importance to Yen and meanwhile made him lose to Cahir in a swordfight and in a really dumb way too 🤣 The show constantly takes away from other characters to give Yen more screentime and importance than she needs, all while completely omitting the actual important Yen moments like her training and bonding with Ciri for example. Now that I think about it, the show chose to omit the most important bonding moment with Ciri for both Geralt and Yen. For Geralt it was totally omitting his first meeting with Ciri in Brokilon which was where the two became attached to each other.
@@KanohiVahi Yes. How can you fuck up so badly. I will not imagine how bad they will do Stefan Skellen and Bonhard. I bet Bonhard is gonna be portrayed as a total perv. And Skellen I bet they will make just slimey
To be honest, I usually complain at any changes in my beloved stories, but I have to admit they are sometimes necessary. If you can get across the messages, the themes, atmosphere and character dynamics, you can change almost anything you want and the story can take it. I haven't watch the show but seeing what they've done to poor Nivellen, I don't even want to.
Well done, good explanation! It was exactly the point in the books that you didn't know a lot that Geralt didn't know, including Yen's backstory, the battle of Sodden and the Fall of Cintra. This built a certain mystery and it made sense. Apparently Netflix also already revealed that Emhyr is Ciri's father, although concealing that might be hard in the show. The reader or the person watching the show will see Emhyr a lot, even though Geralt doesn't, so it's impossible to conceal this from the viewer unless Emhyr looked completely different now, and then it would make no sense for Geralt to find out that he's Ciri's father at the end. I think the reason why many people still like Season 1 or at least think it was ok is that for non-book readers it was an average show (so not too bad at least) that filled the void of fantasy shows after GoT, and they thought while the Season was only average, it at least gave a basis to build on and maybe improve in following Seasons, and it was only when that improvement didn't happen (quite the opposite apparently) that they got annoyed. And book readers had similar hopes for improvement and were just happy to get some more Witcher content, and most were happy with Henry Cavill. And they were probably always happy when they found a book reference in the show. I have heard however, that already in Season 1 (and following seasons), the moral ambiguity of the universe and characters was completely left out, and this is a large part of the books. General fans of the franchise were probably also happy that the Witcher got some more attention. And about the language they used in the show, wasn't there a guy in season 3 talking about a wheat intolerance or something like that? Great medieval impression! And accompanying the swear words, medieval towns are just gray and dirty in the show. I found it really great that the games were at least partly very colourful, and still showed the often depressing conditions the people lived in, especially Witcher 1 did a great job with this. Well, the whole dialogue thing is a real shame, it was the best part of the books for me. If we're lucky there will never be a Regis or Zoltan impression in the Netflix show, after unfortunately Milva was apparently already butchered in the short part she had in Season 3. Great reminder to never watch this show! And hearing about these Netflix inserted stories as a book fan who didn't watch the show, I'm just like 'What the hell?'
If they wanted to delve into yennefers backstory that would be fine... If it was GOOD it's just that Netflix put no care into this project and they are plagued by horrible writers Damn it could have been so good...😢😢
The worst part about Ciri's storyline is that it doesn't add anything to the story. Even if you feel like Yennifer's backstory was poorly written, you can still appreciate, that it has a purpose by introducing her. Ciri's on the other hand is just her running away, trying to escaping Cintra. You could cut everything in her storyline between Calanthe's death, where she tells Ciri to find Geralt and their actual meeting and the plot wouldn't change in any meaningful way. It's just a lot of wasted screentime in a season, that already feels to compressed and rushed. :/
Ciri's story in the books tells you so much more about her even though its literally a few lines long. She's a survivor, she goes from princess to nameless war refugee and somehow survives long enough to get adopted by a random villager. In the show shes just walking plot armor shambling from 1 disaster to the next.
@@FolkWalkCZ I'm not saying it was great, but it has some justification exist, by introducing Yennifer and Tessia and it tries to do some worldbuilding which the show has very little of. Yes it was badly done, but at the very least I understand the basic idea behind these scenes and why a writer might add them. Ciri's storyline is almost exclusively a waste of screentime. If you add up her scenes you probably have close to an hour you could skip without really missing ANYTHING. It's like they took an entire episode and just threw it out the window.
I've been a Witcher fan since 1991, when the first book came out. When I watched the series, especially the second season (I haven't started the third one yet), I wanted to swear more than the characters of the series. I think the writers hate the source material. Another explanation is that they're idiots, but then I don't think anyone would hire them.
Finally someone said it! The first season was shit as the others. All short stories were ruined, Dryads were butchered into bunch of black barbarians in the forest, battle of the Sodden Hill reduced to cheap and terrible cgi larp battle. Characters making no sense, being more diverse than average modern nation today, with terrible costumes and casting choices except Henry of course.
I definitely agree about there being way too much swearing, my guess as to why some writers add so much swearing in dialogue is they’re simply unable to separate what they themselves would say vs what the individual characters would say. They’re completely oblivious to the concept of characters having a different “voice” from the author and that “realistic” dialogue isn’t created from making a character simply say what YOU would say in their situation. This inability to separate themself from the character is infested in all aspects of the characterisation too. For some reason modern media if currently plagued with this awful approach to dialogue and characters, how do so many bad writers get into the industry? 😵💫
At 14:45, when you speak about dialog, that's literally what moves the history forward. What people mean when they say dialog is boring? What those people don't realize, is that it's not the dialog that's the problem. Most of the time, the culprit for a scene to be boring is the setting in which the story happens, uninteresting characters, a plot that seems to have no forward momentum, uninspired camera work, bad actor, and then comes the dialog. Sure, the dialog can still be at fault, but in a visual media, there's so many other things that come even before the actors say their first line.
The second, I hear from producers and directors that they’re going to add in certain groups of people because the source material doesn’t reflect enough diversity, I’m out.
Season 1 was so bad, it made me decide NOT to read the books. Luckily, my good friend convinced me to go for it. I did, and I really really enjoyed them.
Dude, you absolutely have to make a video about the hypocrisy of Witcher's fanbase. They want to have a faithful show and yet they cry about not having Geralt go on monster hunts like in the game.... Každopádně další úžasné video Martine!
I think at that point, the Witcher's fanbase is pretty wide. So which one you talking about? :D The gamers, the book readers, the fantasy lovers, the Henry Cavill fans, or maybe the (0,1%) netflix series fans? :D
@@FolkWalkCZ also true, i also can't tell which would be i am, as i came from The Witcher 1 game, as i played, I wanted to know more about the world and other Wticher schools, so after it, i got borrowed books from one of my friends (after the first 3, i also bought myself too, one by one the whole series), however, as time went by, my reading got slower and slower, i still not finished The Lady of the Lake (somewhear near the end, at spoiler: Cahir's last fight) and also not finished the Witcher 3 either, still found it good, yet while the Witcher 1 game, and some of the earlier books got me in the flow, the continues just felt different, for me at games, the first one feelt more natural, folk-folk talish, also the thing that the first game had Hungarian dub also (a bit poorly made at some points but overall got the feeling) gived a lot for me at the time, evenmore so cause i couldn't really speak English back than for the books, i think i just got less free time and also that i'm a bad reader :D
(3:36) YES! That's when you know the person doesn't really know/care about the book fidelity and is complaining for another reason (usually related to the games, in my estimation) and/or are using the worst of the show as the "measuring tape", which sets the bar ridiculously low and suddenly any shit that's thrown at the screen is "good". The entirety of the first season was trash, not one episode is salvageable, and there was no actual point where it was good and suddenly went downhill, even if you ignore the books and look at it as its own thing (at least not in a faithful and overall quality of writing sense, since "good" is, at the end of the day, contingent on a person's taste, critical sense and so on, and I'm personally too picky on those fronts...).
I think that what triggered most people was Eskel acting like a dick, then turning into a leshy and Geralt killing him. People say that it went downhill after S02E01 because the next episode is where all of those things happen. And they suddenly cared because the show started changing something they knew, something from the third game. I really think it's THAT simple and if they would knew the books before the first season was released the show would fail immediately because it would pissed off way more people. This way it took the bad reception of the second season, then Beau DeMayo coming out and saying that the writers actively dislike and mock the source material (which was obvious right after the first season just from the way they've butchered the first two books), then Cavill leaving and fans putting two and two together and finally the awful spin-off Blood Origin which showed everyone what the Netflix writers want The Witcher to really be like (generic epic high fantasy). I'm glad we got there eventually but man..it took way too long to some people.
@@FolkWalkCZ Yep. Even though a considerable amount of people now realize the show is bad overall, most don't quite understand the extent of how terrible it is and many still unfortunately keep the narrative that it was good and then went bad alive, that Cavill was the perfect Geralt, that Jaskier is mostly acceptable, etc. (just look at how well posts and comments that say those things go in r/witcher to this day). The critical eye of most of the fandom regarding faithfulness and overall quality is still very shallow and many are still moved by superficial knowledge, misguided priorities and herd mentality, which explains why, as you pointed out in the video, they're so hypocritical -- they just don't really know The Witcher -- and, to boot, have too low of a standard when judging stuff, and that's a nice recipe to accept trash (or, at the very best, mediocrity), which is what the show delivers. It really is a disservice that so much attention is turned only to Eskel's portrayal, Yen's clothes, the casting and potential political leaning push -- which are very valid objections, but still a bunch of contained low hanging fruit, painting the picture to the "normies" that there's not much wrong with the show and that the hate is not proportional, when basically everything can be said to be absolutely worse than the books and everybody, fans or not of the Sapkowski's work, could've easily gotten an infinitely better show if they just followed what was there in the source material...
@@emmanuel1337 Very well said. I want to talk about all of this in the future video I've mentioned. The way The Witcher fandom is split into different groups of book readers, gamers and show fans is really unfortunate.
@@FolkWalkCZ I know this is mostly seen as stupid gatekeeping and not worth sweating about too much, which I almost agree, but can't shake the following feeling: I just can't see show-only fans as part of The Witcher's fandom. They are fans of what is almost something else entirely and don't necessarily care about the identity of the IP -- what makes it itself, distinguishable from generic, uninspired shit that anyone can come up with. So yeah, I feel like considering them part of it dilutes the fanbase so much that makes it indistinguishable from more broad demarcations -- might as well only call it the "Dark Fantasy fandom" or something like that lol. Again, maybe it's a stupid way of seeing things and the focus should be on trying to convince these people to join the fun and experience actual The Witcher, but... I just have better stuff to do than convince others to give it a chance, but still don't want the fandom to be full of individuals who don't really care about it and that the industry will still try to appeal to anyway. That'll most likely result in really poor products, like the show itself, and maybe even creating a feedback loop where we'll get no proper TW content anymore (that happened to so many great franchises so far, which is scary)...
Love your Slavic folk lore videos, and you tearing this Netflix series a new one! I thought this show started out ok with season 1 😒, but it progressively has gotten worse to its current season 😠! To think the writers were planning 7 seasons of this! Well they shouldn’t have counted their chickens 🐔 before they hatched.
Yeah, I still recall at the release of the first season people crying out “‘Tis not like in da games! This is from les books you uncultured peasant! Thou shall like it! Even Superman is in it”. While I was thinking: what books are you talking about? May I see them? ‘Cause this garbage is not what I was reading. And now when the show finally spiralled into insanity, Henry got booted out and writers admitted hating on the Witcher story, only then people started saying “Oh no. The show is actually bad!” What a joke.
@@FolkWalkCZ This reminds me a lot of the SW sequels situation, but this is wholly different story xD Btw, are you planning to have a per episode breakdown of the Netflix show in the future? Or a detailed analysis of Wiedzmin series? I think it might be interesting to compare the adapted events to the books in order to see where they fail and where they succeed, and why. For example, you mentioned Renfri’s ultimatum is missing from the show, but there were other story beats that were removed. Like her attempt of killing Geralt after being mortally wounded, which would not help her to get Stregobor, but it would satisfy her bloodlust as Geralt wronged her. It was instead replaced by her blabbing smth about “Ciri is yo Destiny”. Even the Destiny itself being known to any peasant in the show, while in the books not even all the sorceresses would believe in it as Destiny is hard to prove or quantify.
@@anansi9291 I really want to start doing videos about folklore again but I need to finish this video series first. Normally I'm doing one video about The Witcher per month but I might make an exception to it sometimes when there will be something worthy of a whole video series. I wanted to make a video about The Hexer for years and I'm still planning to do that. I wasn't really gonna do a whole video series on it but now when you mention it, it sounds enticing. We'll see. There's also possibility that we will start doing podcast about The Witcher with one other youtuber from Germany who contacted me several weeks ago and we've been talking about it since. He loves the books as well and has really great points so I hope that it will work out but it really depends on how much free time I'll have for it. So yeah, if we start the podcast I'll let everyone on the channel know about it.
@@FolkWalkCZ Podcast would be interesting indeed. I haven’t seen anyone else talking about the books in detail, so a different prospective on the subject sounds intriguing. If you will find time that is. Personally, I am not picky and if the podcast is once a week, a month or semi-annually would not really bother me. Nor other people I hope. Meanwhile, will check out your folklore creatures and traditions videos. Smth like Strziga I haven’t ever heard of before aside of the Witcher series.
I think there might have been but I'm sure that there's not a word about Yennefer forcing people into it with a spell. That seems out of character for her.
Should just call the show The Witch instead of The Witcher because of hie little of the story is actually on Geralt. Netflix just butchered the franchise, even new characters such as Voleth Meir which is clearly inspired by Baba Yaga are done in a weird way.
I am grateful for the very accurate analysis and for drawing attention to the heritage of European culture (including Slavic culture in particular) contained in the books, which Netflix simply destroyed. By the way, Witcher is an original example of fantasy consciously challenging all the stereotypes of the genre - the main character is not the savior of the world, but is treated as an outcast; there is no simple division between good and evil, etc. etc. (by the way, this would be an interesting topic for a separate movie). Therefore, the attempt to make The Witcher a generic fantasy is not only a simple departure from the content of the books, but an undermining of a key foundation of the source material. And this attempt could only end in disaster. I'm afraid that this kind of nuance was unfortunately unfamiliar to the series' screenwriters. I'm looking forward to seeing a movie about the worldbuilding of The Witcher, because in fantasy movie consistent worldbuilding is very important and is the basis of immersion. By the way, from the photos of the LARP I see that you enlisted in the Nilfgaard army. As a Nordling, I accept this with pain and nevertheless wish you good luck on your path 🙂
Thanks 😃I actually did a video about the Netflix Witcher spin-off Blood Origin where I talk to some extent about how The Witcher is challenging fantasy tropes if you would be interested ( th-cam.com/video/48RLOF6_3dk/w-d-xo.html ). I'll also talk about how Netflix turned this unique fantasy into a generic one in the next video so stay tuned 😉 Btw I wasn't always member of the Nilfgaardian group I used to dress as a Skelligan warrior 😃 But I want to do a whole video where I'll explain my evolution as a fan of The Witcher 😁
There was a different version of Renfrys story originally. I've seen pictures of the cast and some of the episode. Far more faithfull to the book. Why they didn't stick with it is beyond me!
Anything has more spirit of Witcher. Even fan made parody like "Magnaci I Czarodzieje" or Wiedźmin Dziewki Goń by QT Studio or Egzorcysta by Bartosz Walszek. Just like Turkish Star Wars have more epirit of Star Wars than anything Disney made. They seem to compete who destroys source material more
Absolutely agree, yet still the first season was bearable and we could still be hopeful :) The second one was a tragedy I want to wipe out of my memory. The third was already a lost cause and one hell of a circus and a half
Well said. Totally agree. I often fantasize, how awesome an adaptation at quality level of the first seasons of GoT (and with 1:1 translation of the book as that b**ch promised us) would be. Just to see all the epic things from the books translated straight on the screen. Also I read the short stories in a chronological order with A Road with No Return as the first story. I thing it would be the perfect first episode.
I've read the short stories in the same order but I think that the pilot has to introduce the world of The Witcher and witchers as a faction first to hook people right from the get go and the short story with striga is best for that imho. A Road with No Return would be great as a prologue for the second season (if the first season would be just The Last Wish and the second The Sword of Destiny) because Visenna would appear at the end of the second season when she's healing Geralt after he saves Jurga so the short story about her and Korin at the beginning of the second season would be great introduction of her character and people would then understand who that is when she would appear again at the end of the second season.
@@FolkWalkCZ I know what you mean and this is how it is conventionally done. But to introduce first the world and then the hero (the striga story would be in this case the perfect second episode) would be something unusual and if done right, I think it could work very well. With the added bonus that Visenna would reappear unexpectedly after almost two seasons, when the viewer would almost forget her (in the first episode seemingly just some random witch) and now he would suddenly learn her real significance and the proverbial circle would close. Also the Child of surprise story could be somehow integrated into Visenna's reappearing. For example like some flashbacks when she starts to heal him. Something similar to the scene from GoT when we learn Jon Snow's true identity. The awesome culmination when the scene cut from the baby's face to grown Jon's face. I imagine here the same with the culmination of the flashback being Visenna's words: "Yes, his name is Geralt."
Your videos have convinced me to read the books; I liked the games, I thought the show was going to be good but man… I can tell it’s awful without even knowing the original material. It’s just lazy. Even if they called it “the stitcher” with “Gerald of Bivria” it would still be awful
Kudos to @FolkWalkCZ, I think this is the best gratification for his efforts. I wish everyone just cancelled their subscription and went for the books.
the books have a great point to them - namely that they start as short stories, so you aren't waiting 200 pages for the story to 'begin'. the first story is about the striga afaik, so you can quickly compare it with the show
Grain of truth was my favorite episode of the Witcher so far. That doesn’t mean it was good adaptation from the original story. It’s the best episode of Netlfix’s the Witcher, and a good bit of TV on its own. I haven’t read the books. I mostly just played a lot of Witcher 3 so for me it was simply a matter of the episode, representing the feel of the Witcher as I’d known it. There’s a monster. There’s a curse. The monster and the curse both have a complication. Each new layer of information complicates the last. Nivellan’s curse is a lose/lose for him, which perfectly captures the melancholy notes I’d learned to expect from playing the game. I had forgotten his backstory, and I didn’t even need him to be a sympathetic character. His curse fit the Witcher. I liked the Bruxa. I like that her nature as a Bruxa contradicts her personality. I liked when she told Ciri not to run because she wouldn’t be able to help herself. I also like that Geralt gets to do some investigation and combat and Ciri takes part in the exposition. The rest of the 2nd season was awful, which made this one stand out more.
Understandable but the original short story has everything you're talking about (even more so) and it's much better. And saying that the episode was good compared to the rest of the second season isn't great argument. It might be less shit than the worst shit there is but that doesn't change the fact that it's still shit.
@@FolkWalkCZ I believe the original story is better even though I haven’t read it. If someone can follow it badly and still make a good piece of Witcher TV, I think that shows how good the basic dramatic elements of the story really are.
Yeah I mean like I've told a lot of people, this "adaptation" just felt like it was catering to the whiny SJWs who complained about the "lack of representation" in the games, not to mention the article by one of the ex-writers revealed that a lot of the writers/showrunners hated the source material to the point of actively mocking it Hell, the casting director openly admitted she did the "diverse casting" because she thought the setting was "too white" and wanted to challenge "beauty standards" (in the case of Yennefer), which yeah I mean I've read the books (except for Season of Storms), and honestly what Netflix has done is just insulting to the fans and the people of Poland. I even had this one woke amoeba say that she liked the "diverse casting" in the show and that it was better than having "15 white women where you can't tell them apart", it's like "you clearly don't understand the source material at all", it was actually when I critiqued the show that got me kicked out of a Discord group for supposedly "promoting hate speech". I even said it's not that we don't want diversity in a show/film, just that the way it's done these days is to "reflect the modern world" than telling a good story.
To me it's always so hypocritical when they talk about the need for representation in light of this show. Polish people/Slavs have NONE in American pop culture (I cannot count the Russian mafia)! One time, just one! We manage to get our culture out there to the mainstream and they turn it to freaking California and ruin the story to top it off. Damn, this makes me hate Sapkowski for selling out. I never watched S2 after I heard the plot synopsis 🤮 Dropped this like a steaming pile of dung that this thing is.
@@agiksf.8998 yeah I already had a few morons on a Discord group I'm on (I run a Witcher TTRPG campaign and one of my players recommended this one Discord group to find new players) say that it's "not indicative of California, rather the U.K" and I responded with "it's more like the U.K in modern times" and that in history, Eastern Europe during the Middle Ages was pretty white, which this idiot said "it's just a fantasy series..." which is one of the stupidest arguments I've ever heard
"ruined the Atmosphere...","not the most important... part"....😵💫Sir, i shooked and appaled to hear that from you😅(But seriously, it is the reason why the First Witcher Game is still my favorite Game in the Series)
Well, I said that because people usually say that ruining the story and characters is much bigger problem which is true but for me atmosphere is almost on the same level.
@@FolkWalkCZ Without thinking to deep into it, id say, you can have good story and characters with a bad atmosphere, but you can not have good atmosphere with bad characters and story...So give me good atmosphere(and other holy grails while we at it ;-) )
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The part about Nivellen is actually much, much worse since he DOES confess to looting, arson and murder earlier in the episode and Gerald and Ciri forgave him no problem, Ciri even calling him a good person. But unrequited coitus? Nah, man. You're not immortal anymore so do the deed! Guess the first three were some kind of summer of love.
Peter Jackson's lord of the ring movies gives a basic idea of how the world of the series works, but books gives a complete picture. The harry potter movies gives a basic idea of how the world of the series works, but the books gives a complete picture. Witcher Videogames gives a basic idea of how the world of the series works, but the books gives a complete picture. Netflix Witcher series gives a some wat confused idea of how the world of the series works, but the books give a complete picture.
The real issue isn't Lauren's changes. The real problem is that she and her team are not qualified to adapt a story of this size and scope. She should be writing and directing superhero shows and teen dramas on the CW, not trying to adapt a layered story like The Witcher. The other problem is the author's lack of respect for his work. If I wrote The Witcher, I'd reach out to the best showrunners and writers to do an adaption. HBO would be my first stop. If I couldn't 't find the right team for the adaptation, I would not sell the IP. So the show isn't shit because Lauren didn't stick with the source material. It's shit because she's a shit writer with a surface-level understanding of the material she's attempting to adapt.
Honestly, people saying that they want a 100% literal adaptation is dumb for many obvious reasons. It reminds me of anime fans wanting a 100% literal translation of certain animes and manga even though most of them don't understand language barriers and how translating works. The most reasonable person would know that changes are going to happen but they can still criticize it while appreciating the medium, like your Harry Potter example. Anyway, I want to speak about the Castlevania anime because that show is an adaptation of a popular video game series but took many liberties. The Castlevania games in a timeline sense are pretty inconsistent and each game tends to contradict the lore. The people that made the anime admitted that they planned it as a loose adaptation and were honest about it, unlike the people that made the Witcher show. The first and second seasons of the anime develop the villains properly including the heroes like Trevor Belmont, Sypha, and Alucard including expanding them. For example, Dracula in the games was the basic dark lord that wanted to kill humanity because reasons. Despite being given a reason in some instances, it is still inconsistent but the anime expanded on his character and why he wanted to kill humanity. A more controversial change would be Isaac since he was white in one game with a different characterization. Despite changing him into a black man, they did an interesting change for his character from his background and his beliefs. Instead of a stereotypical crazy misanthrope that kinda behaves like an edge lord, Isaac has a full-blown arc with an understandable reason to hate humans but also having a self-revelation and redeeming himself. A change like this is good because you not only did a different interpretation for a character but affects the plot. Some shows that do this tend to do it for the sake of it with no impact on the plot. The Witcher show makes it worse not only do the changes don't work but they don't lead anywhere and have no effect on the plot whatsoever. After watching season 3, I started to agree that the casting choices is randomly selected and they had no consideration behind it. What you said about dialogues is kinda funny because that's one of the reasons why I finally decided to watch Game of Thrones. Like I watch a clip of Tyrion Lannister talking to his father about his birthright but Tywin completely destroys the conversation by belittling him. The Dialogue was so fluid and interesting to hear including the really cool armor that he wears in the show. I don't mind swearing as long it's not said constantly in almost every conversation unless it fits the character. Like Death for example from the Castlevania anime, the dude swears in several sentences but still comes off as a threat and menacing. But in the Witcher show, almost everyone swears even if it fits their characters or not it would become obnoxious to a certain point. Sorry if I come off as rambling, I wanted to make a point that an adaptation can stand on its own despite how different it can be. I feel a non-purist can understand this as much as any reasonable person. I will agree that Tomasz Bagiński is a sellout after I found out that he wanted to simplify the story (you know what article I'm referencing) and I'm really disappointed with him. Also I would like to see you make a video on the fandom hypocrisy cause like any fandom, you find some bad apples or more. I remember a youtuber that did an essay on the Witcher show mention that he feels alienated by the fandom because it just filled with people arguing with each other about the Witcher because of this show.
Yeah, whenever the Netflix Witcher tried to pull off one of those unnecessary large battles that aren't even in the books, it just reminded me of how small the show really is.
You know about the swearing they should not be swearing that much or least using swear words differently cause I saw a video on how medieval Europeans swore differently and certain words like shit were used literally. When they said shit they meant actual shit. Also certain words had different meaning back then. A certain F famously used to have a different meaning. If the writers were smart they would work this in logically but of course not cause that is too clever.
That Nilfgaardian squad at the first second looks really good. You're doing an excellent job at criticizing Witcher too. I really am disliking the Americanization of a lot of fantasy and, I know Witcher is the grounded folklore fantasy (I agree with your video, where you give your views on what makes Witcher different from high fantasy), but Americans are really unable to understand the real appeal of both fantasy and Sadpowski's (forgive my spelling) variation of Fantasy. I mean no insult to the average american who also loves Witcher, but they don't have a countryside, folklore or village life understanding like Europeans do which even in England is very relatable. Their folklore comes from England and europe, but it's far away, and most Americans probably are unfamiliar with slavic folklore. This is why they want it to be Game of Thrones, and yet, they don't understand that G.R.R Martin was using real history inspiration. What bothers me about american culture these days, and this is likely corporate culture, is they hate the source material, they change the worldbuilding "to reflect how the world is today" as Blood Origin is. No one is an elf, Dwarf, or other fantasy race with their own unique cultures. For example I don't see Nilfgaard, Temeria, Redania, Cintra or even Keadwen. It's place A and place B. I apologize for starting with a tangent, but I started with this to explain that I am starting to also dislike the Americanization of the dialogue. Dialogue in sci fi and fantasy in the west is becoming really terrible. as you said, it's Californian speak. Even english people don't swear this much when angry. “Well, we’re afeared. And what of it? Do we sit down and weep and tremble? Life must go on. And what will be, will be. What is destined can’t be avoided, in any case.” “Mistakes are also important to me. I don’t cross them out of my life, or memory. And I never blame others for them.” "Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling... Makes no difference. The degree is arbitrary. The definition's blurred. If I'm to choose between one evil and another... I'd rather not choose at all." Three brilliant quotes of Geralt that I apply to my own philosophy.
Yeah. If people would like to see world as it is today they would chose an everage TV series or urban fantasy. Btw I recommend Coffee Talk game (it is a bit like short motion book).
It's crazy how you can draw a direct correlation between how good the show is and how faithful it is to the source material. Don't get me wrong, it was never that good (the people working on it are just not that good), even season 1 has countless flaws. But the meer mirage of the story still managed to hook so many people. And what is the only ok episode in season 2? The only episode based on the books once again.
Was not netflix fault. They told that woman to adapt it as she wished. It is entirely the fault of the producer but i guess netflix for not stepping in or the book writer for not intervening more strongly like how the harry potter writer intervenes in everything
Well, hissrich was employed by Netflix and content she delivered is standard for Netflix. It is a platform of "progressive", cheap and badly written shows so I don't know how can you defend Netflix.
@@SparticulousIt's really hit-or-miss with Netflix. Some of the shows and movies they've done are amazing but a lot of them suck. They're often good when they'll just pay for the expenses but leave the production on a different team which isn't part of their company.
Here's a list of artists whose artworks I've used:
Artists
NastyaSkaya: www.deviantart.com/nastyaskaya
Nairiai: www.deviantart.com/nairiai
JunePage: www.deviantart.com/junepage
steamey: www.deviantart.com/steamey
Marina-Shads: www.deviantart.com/marina-shads
kuliszu: www.deviantart.com/kuliszu
Oleg Kapustin: www.artstation.com/olegkapustin
EGOR-URSUS: www.deviantart.com/egor-ursus
Tomas Duchek: www.artstation.com/dusint
Laexil: www.furaffinity.net/user/laexil/
Daryna Oheekolts: www.artstation.com/oheekolts
OlegTsoy: www.deviantart.com/olegtsoy
Shinobi2u: www.deviantart.com/shinobi2u
haykebyr: www.tumblr.com/haykebyr
Ghostcup: ghostcupdraws.tumblr.com/
Borja Pindado: www.artstation.com/borjap
Telperion-Studio: www.deviantart.com/telperion-studio
If there's anyone I forgot and you know them please let me know and I'll add them here.
at 2:18 and 8:52 are illustrations of Denis Gordeev 😊
Agreed. The swearing was one of the most over done thing in the series. It felt so unnatural.
I couldn't agree more. It felt so forced
Also. If they really wanted to make it... 'unique' or anything, at least they could use some other language swearing too, cause we all know that English is pretty bad at it actually (saying it as Hungarian-East European)
edit: and i don't think it would be so out even for an english viewer, but it's just my WILD idea, maybe it's bad as f**k :D
This is realy common in most contemporary shows and it always feels so lame and tryhard.
@@minidreschi2 as a French person, I totally agree with you. We get extremely creative with just a few words, it can even sound pretty classy. I can only imagine what other languages such as Polish can do, and I'm sure it would be better than repeating F** over and over again. It really sounds like a lack of inspiration. Bad writing and underestimating the intelligence of the viewer?
Geralt saying "kurva" would be funny 😃 My friends actually did that in this episode of The Witcher Stories 😁 th-cam.com/video/m8VBGEfBnMQ/w-d-xo.html
I also found funny how Netflix made Yennefer's "Dear friend" letter so much a big thing, where in the books it was clearly sassy
yeah I even tell people, it's a good insight into Yennefer from the books, while the show basically turned her into a petulant teenager whose personality is boiled down to unnecessary cursing and temper tantrums
@@franciszaldivar337 Yennefer is a smart old woman with a lot of experience in the body of a beautiful young woman. She has seen and heard a lot, knows people and their nature. She always controls the situation. Netflix made her an emotionally unstable, stupid, egotist. Great job Netflix.
@@justynadzt7728 Sounds like a writer insert.
@@scenemaker864 Hissrich said thar she sees herself in her
@@Keram-io8hv No surprise there
That part with the Trebuches you show in the background... it was the part where they truly showed how little they get Sapkowski and his work. Imagine raising a person for 20-200 years, investing in their training, imparting knowledge, ... and then you kill them for a single projectile, a single shot. Unless Nilfgaard is overflowing with mages (which it isn't) this is utter nonsense. Not even Sauron, called "the shadow" in the Professor's book, would do this. The Black Numenorians he had who could do sorcery were his lieutenants, generals, commanders. Imagine Sauron turning the Witch king of Angmar into a catapult projectile... stupid.
Exactly.
The changes they made to how magic works really annoys me. Its explained really well in the books and it makes sense.
Ciri's magic lessons are some of my favorite chapters.
The show just takes a random fact from the books (Drawing magic from the fire plane is implied to be dangerous) and twists it to hell and back to make Nilfgaard look like cartoon super villains.
Not to mention, a single fireball that was blocked by Yennifer alone? Like, it would have been more cost effective to use multiple boulders.
It was genuinely one of the stupidest things in the show. Highly trained mages are even stated and shown in the show itself to be pretty rare. So wasting them on basically nothing is just wasteful
Nice analogy
When they wrote Yens character "Choosing" to go through beautification process then proceeding to moan and tell everyone her ability to have children was taken from her i knew what kinda show it was gonna shape out to be.
The thing that hurt my brain the most was how they butchered the witchers. Their time at Khaer Morhen is my favourite maybe in all the books, and the witchers' kindness and personalities and how they bond w Ciri. I could not stomach them in the show.
How about Eskel being a fucking asshole ? Like the most polite witcher in books..
Right? In the books you understand exactly why Ciri misses them and is fond of Khaer Morhen. It's home and family. That whole section of blood of elves made us understand the witchers have humanity and a lot of love to give. Netflix doesnt want to give the witchers that. After all, peasant says they are remorseless killers and what peasant says goes.
Thing is, when reading the books it is very much about geralt.. then I believe there is a lot of ciri toward the ending of the books..
but geralt is never forgotten during her time to shine.
Lauren could had have a strong female character anyway so her pushing that was unnecessary
Add for note: they skipping out on not only ciris journey with geralt but also the great bonding between ciri and her with nenneke..and then the travels they both did together from there..
if Lauren would have only stuck to the books she would’ve everything she wanted!
I mean it's called "The Witcher" for a reason you'd think
The first two books, the short story collections, are entirely about Geralt. Not every chapter is written from his perspective but they all follow him.
Book 3 is heavily focused on Ciri, and on introducing us to the wider world with a lot of short sections following various people around the world. We get dandelion chapters, triss chapters, a lot of Ciri chapters. Geralt is present in the triss chapters and the early Ciri chapters but only has a couple chapters that are really his. Same for the first part of book 4.
Basically from the point where geralt finds Ciri at the homestead to the events at the mages conclave he is a side character. Only after he and Ciri are separated does he come back as an equal main character to Ciri. And Yen is literally never a main character, she has maybe 3 perspective chapters in the entire series.
Even better. If they would just stick to the books they would create an amazing strong female protagonist throughout the duration of the show. Ciri would have depth and would definitely become fan favourite. But they decided that's not worth they time, they need their mery sue NOW thus creating a bland non-interesting character noone wants to connect to. All they had to do to reach their initial goal would be adapting the goddamn books. But they are too fucking stupid to even comprehend that.
This. This right here is 🔥🔥🔥
From an adaptation standpoint, the books were near perfect. The descriptions are vivid and really set the scene and atmosphere without dragging on. The dialogue is lean, mostly because Geralt is not someone who says more than he has to. The stories move at a fair pace. Information is relayed in a way that avoids exposition dumps, and holds back elements to keep the story engaging. None of the characters need changing since they are balanced. The good guys are not always good, the bad guys are not always bad. They just feel real. It's well documented that the writing team didn't like the books and just wanted to do their own story, and the result is a disaster.
You know which reveal was CRAZY early? Emyr being Ciris dad.. I started reading the books after finishing season 2, and throughout I was expecting more hints, more clues that Dunny was Emyr all along. But instead in
the books it’s barely hinted at and the big reveal happens in the final book. Imagine the payoff if they had just waited and let Emyrs identity stay a secret for much longer.. Let it cook god damn it!!
Frankly, tbh, it was still not emphasized enough in the last book, how much of a creep Emhyr is. He saved Ciri's grandfather's (!!!) life when his wife was expecting Pavette (while Emhyr was already old enough to save someone's life... the generous estimations are that he was 15 at the time), then married Pavette at 15, then tried to marry a child he single-handedly (well, with Vilgefortz) orhaned and traumatised at the ripe age of what, 11? He was 15+15+around 15 = 45, and that only happened to be so low because Pavetta married very young and Ciri was still really young as well.
It felt like the writers had no overarching plans for the series at all. They messed up by changing things and not accounting for how it will effect the story down the line.
That's one of the biggest issues with the Witcher series, is that they tried way too hard to try and match the brilliance and scale of GoT, and failed at every turn. They should never have even tried to match it (it wasn't going to happen regardless), but with great writers and directors, we could have had one of the best series out there. Netflix ruin everything they adapt. HBO would have done this series almost perfectly.
Started reading blood of elves few days ago and it hurts how much of the kaer morhen chapter was changed in the netflix version
Wait till you read the parts with the military convoy and Shaerrawedd. That might be my favourite part of this book and it's completely ruined in the show.
@@FolkWalkCZ yeah i just got past that part and the geralt sailing on the ship. Hugely different and i dont understand why they didnt adapt it like it in the book
@@KissaKassKot Because of gow great the writers are and they are so good, that they can invent a new story, forgetting to just write their own story and world instead, which would result in a lot of people less pissed about their 'great writing'.
I feel like most people that say that season was enjoyable didn't read the books. I'll admit that I was one of them. But after finally coming around to reading the books I realize just how much garbage was put into the series. In the end I even believe the series negatively affected my enjoyment of the books, as I was so often confused when my expectation (coming from the series) was completely wrong. I especially remember having to read the golden dragon story line twice because I simply couldn't follow it any more due to all the wrong assumptions in my head, put there by the show.
You don't have to read the books to notice how bad the show is
I really wish they'd done something different with this amazing source material. I started reading the Witcher books when playing Witcher 2 and I loved how W3 built on the stories I've read. Meeting Yen and Regis and Ciri was so special.
Netflix' approach... Well, you've said it all already. I'm not even mad, just
I 100% agree with your point about changes when adapting source material, most of them were completely unnecessary. One of the few I liked, is Ciri's presence during Nivellen's story. I shows to Ciri what Geralt does as a Witcher and adds to the bond and familiarity between them, which is much needed, since they cut the scene in Brokilon.
Seeing him fight might also serve as a motivation for her to train. In the books the witchers teach Ciri how to fight, because they don't know what else to show her. I feel there is some room for minor changes here.
That doesn't mean however that they should add complete storylines out of nowhere, especially when they destroy characters from the books. Both Yennifer and Vesimir try to sacrifice Ciri for their own ambitions, despite Ciri seeing them both as family in the source material. Noone who read the books could think that Yennifer and Vesimir could act this way. You just can't have these massive contradictions in the show and call it a "faithful adaptation".
Yeah. In the books the whole point in training Ciri was "so she could get some exercise". Maybe some different motivation was needed.
The rule is. If you change something it's because you can't recreate it or if you change something it's because you can do something better
At this point I treat Netflix's version as a fanfic. A pretty bad one, written by someone who wants things there "just because" and treats characters as dolls in a dollhouse.
It helps, 'cause I don't feel as disappointed as I did when the show came out (especially series 2).
Considering hollywood nowadays thrives on victim mentalities I'm baffled by the fact they did not understand that Nivellen was a victim of his circumstances rather than an aggressor. Sure, he did a bad thing and regrets it every day but that is the point, to show us the moral ambiguity of the world rather than the black and white morality of the netflix show
Yeah, the show lacks any nuance from the books.
I know right? The point of the books was to show the world as not black and white, but different shades of grey and producers missed that idea completely
TL;DR post incoming.
I find myself going back to a quote from Peter Jackson about making the LotR movies. He said that "we didn't want to put our politics into it." They wanted to tell the story in a way that was respectful to Tolkien's vision. Peter has massive respect for Tolkien's work and it shows. Yes, he changed some things that fans didn't agree with, but at least he paid attention to the books and adapted them as best he could. Some of the writers for The Witcher not only don't follow the source material, they outright HATE AND MOCK IT at times. I don't remember if it was Hissrich or the casting director chick, but someone on the production side said something about how because Sapkowski is Polish the characters look a certain way and they wanted to challenge that. F*cking what? If you want to make a fantasy series where people look and talk like they're from downtown LA then you probably shouldn't be using source material that takes place in MEDIEVAL. F*CKING. EUROPE. You cannot write better than Sapkowski or Tolkien. Stop trying to subvert source material that is better than anything you can come up with. Never forget that the writers wanted to have Geralt *MAKE A JOKE ABOUT ROACH'S DEATH* and Henry had to convince them to let him do his own thing for that scene instead. If you want to know what these writers are capable of when they have no source material to guide them just look at Blood Origins, if you can stomach it that is. Blood Origins is exactly what the show writers wanted to do with The Witcher but couldn't because Henry did whatever he could to keep them on track.
Very well said 🙂
He did put it. If you read preview you will notice it. And if you are good at geography you will notice some allusions too. But at the same nobody would have guesses Jews were inspiration for Tolkien's hobbits. I would have never guessed it as Jews have been nomads for centuries and hate hard physical work. So I don't see them working in field themselves. In Rings of Power hobbits to make them more "realistic" are nomads with social darwinism strategy of survival which I don't think brought them many fans. The show makes no sense in general. Tolkien didn't wrote his characters flawless flakes who can do no wrong or must be always forgiven. No. Elves and humans are kinda hipocrites for although they burn Ring to rule them all they don't burn other rings that are also made to bind will of other beings. So no wonder orcs feel threatened. Bilbo Baggins isn't an ordinary hobbit. One has to have very strong will power not to bend to ring's power. Maybe he could have even learned magic but Gandalf for some reason doesn't let him. Idk it makes sense to me. But perhaps Tolkien didn't think it through. He always said even history records aren't flawless retellings and have their inconsistencies. Maybe he added some flaws to make his readers think. All in all I appreciate that he made his story rather coherent so it isn't boring and that most of his characters have some personal culture and hold values like honour and empathy
what amazes me about people who adapt books and speed story lines up is that they never learn. The best fantasy movies that we have seen have been the LOTR trilogy and series well unto a point GOT. Both of which were pretty faithful to the source material. in the case of GOT the earlier seasons were magnificent, they were patient, they built the world, the built the geography and people loved it. the withcer on the other hand I have no idea who anyone is, where they are from or why there are issues.
People willing to adapt the source material are extremely rare. Most of them have too much of an inflated ego and can't even imagine not putting their work first.
Their work is almost always of inferior quality, but these people have no self awareness.
Yes exactly. Like the first thing you learn in writing school is the 3 act story structure. 1. Setup 2. Build up 3. Resolution. It feels like Hollywood writers don't even get these basics. They often times just skip 1 and 2 altogether.
They claim they didn't have enough time to adapt some events or had to cut them short, but at the same time they spent so much time on Yennefer and Ciri already in season 1, so I personally don't believe their claim, same with their multiple claims that "Next season will be extremely book accurate", because this hasn't been true once.
Great video as usual, I hope you enjoyed your trip to Poland! :D
Well said. And yes, Poland was nice, thanks 🙂
i just can't understand why showmakers take something that's beloved and special and then CHANGE EVERYTHING that made it so beloved and special to begin with with the argument that this way you could "attract a larger audience". How can you make more people love something by making it less loveable. I. don't. understand.
Yeah, exactly. There's a reason why it got so popular in the first place so why change it? That seems so dumb to me.
They just hate The Whitcher books and are too weak writers to create their own world.
Nice analysis! I think there were 2 opportunities greatly squandered by the writers with the television adaption that I felt were key themes in the books:
1. Maintaining an heir of mystery! I feel the author keeps the reader interested and incentivized to follow characters and the story by not over explaining backstories or giving too much away. I liked Yennifer's character in the books because there is so much that you don't know about her. For example, you don't even know she was a hunchback other than a small observation by Geralt early in the books that her shoulders don't quite sit even. This mystery maintains this ellusive femme fatale that captivates the reader because you can imagine the depth she has that makes her so cold and severe. This approach also would have saved the writers a lot of grief trying to explain the mages and their politics. Aretuza is barely mentioned in the first few books until a chapter is dedicated to a secret meeting between some of the female mages about their motivations to find the child of Cintra and use her for their own agenda. This meeting and only a few others in the series eloquently reveal more about the role of mages in the world, but the reader learns just enough to want to know more.
2. Telling the story by rotating the point of view between characters. I think the show writers missed a huge opportunity to film series from multiple distinctive points of view rather than trying to explain different timelines and chronological events as a third person viewer. The author also provides a lot of stream-of-consciousness delivery where the reader learns the most about the main characters from these internal dialogues. I think it would have adapted beautifully for TV to show conversations between, say Yennifer and Geralt, if we get to hear what they think but don't say to eachother out of pride, fear, distrust or decorum. This would have created more tension between characters, provided room for the character relationships to adapt and change with the story, and given the audience the empowerment that they know something the characters don't. The storyline could then be told in several distinctive points of view, with some color filters or slightly different filming styles to vary it and cue to the audience whose view they are currently seeing. Maybe Geralt's POV focuses on non-verbals and threats in a narrower focus, Yennifer's focuses on verbal dialogue and magical presence in the space, Dandelion always has background music and sees everything in vivid color, etc.
Cuting brokilon out in the first season is a war crime also ruin perfectly good feamale characters like calanthe and eithne hurts, fuck netflix
The ones that defend the show ignore the fact that Lauren Hissrich openly stated on Twitter, " It'll be a 1 for 1 adaptation of the books, there's so much content there itd be criminal not to do so".
Both her and Netflix, LIED TO YOU.
My only exposure to the Witcher is Witcher 3 and i will never stop playing that game.
I liked the first season because it was about something that I really like. And maybe thanks to this I overlooked all the alterations and dumb things they made. But gradually with each new season, I grew distant from this show and found myself not paying attention and using it just for background noise when I worked on something. With the last season, I couldn't do even that, it was all just so absurd that I had to pay attention and complain about what the hell is going on. It felt out of place even from the series's perspective. Nevertheless, I think this show should just end while it can. Great lore video btw!
Thanks 🙂
Season 2's biggest sin was what they did to the Witchers at Kaer Morhen. Lambert and Eskel are unrecognisable and barely get any screentime. Not to mention that they kill one off and show next to none of the bodning Ciri has with any of them in the books aside from Vesemir and Geralt
Adaptations should always be assigned to fans of the source material! They always butcher adaptations, with very very few exceptions
The Nilfgaardian"ballsac" armor was when I first started to become worried.
Netflix did the same thing to “The Last Kingdom”
"Firefucker" has to be the worst example of modern swearing usage.
Agree 100%. Can only imagine Henry Cavill's frustration during production.
I read the book before watching the second season and I ended the season literally thinking I had read the wrong book.
Entire Netflix Witcher series can be summoned with one word: waste.
More like human tragedy because you can see some actors were cocaine addicts, Henry Cavill was a victim of mobbing and so was Jaskier's actor. And characters in the story do nothing constructive just escalate the conflict
Man i mean it's Netflix. That alone speaks volume. Sadly those people are more into pluging their agenda rather than adapt.
They had the books, they had the games and a great series of comic books, they had Henry Cavill... and they flushed it all down the drain. And Baginsky was there to give it a nod of approval. Baginsky and his company Platige Image were involved in making video sequences for Witcher the game, he should have known better. And Netflix shouldn't give this project to somebody as clueless as the people who wrote the script and directed it. Witcher just deserves a better adaptation. There is a fan-made movie that's better than what we were served by Netflix. Maybe at least we will have another game.
They had a gold mine for years to explore and they screwed it up.
As a slav (not polish though), who's read all of the books twice, and played the games more times than I'd consider normal (especially the first one) -- I could not get past the first season. Even the first season annoyed me greatly, yet most people considered it "good", for whatever reason.
I appreciate the vids you have done, ofc, there is so much to be said that you could spend literal hours deconstructing the mess. But you do address some stuff that a lot of others tend to miss. I'm very curious about your next planned video, I care a lot about the lore and world building of any fantasy world I engage with.
Be it the magic system they've destroyed, or the kings and kingdoms which got totally flanderized, or even the ethnic makeup of different kingdom/races having no cohesion (resembling modern california). Not to mention that geography is non-existent with everyone fast-travelling. Given that half the books is following Geralt and his hanza, who are travelling and tracking Ciri... frankly, I have no idea if there was any fore-thought from these writers. All in all, it's a travesty.
My problem with this show more than anything is that it's supposed to be for adults but it feels like it was written for children. Feels like one of them child fantasy shows I used watch on the CBBC when I was younger
It feels like something written on a knee by some narcisssistic autist. Don't get me wrong autists can write amazing Hans Christian Andersen was an autist and a great author. But to write stuff like that but they have to take time to collect thoughts
@@karolinakuc4783And good will. Hexer series from 2002 was also written by a a narcissistic autist but the person wanted to give some wisedom to the story he made some good historical references
The Nivellen story in the book is so much better that I was dumbfounded the reviews for the episode were so positive. They did not understand the story at all.
Get out of my mind!
Everything. EVERYTHING that I’ve been saying over and over and over YOUVE put it into this video.
I appreciate these videos.
I only watched the Witcher for Henry Cavill. His acting and passion made me like the series. Even with the problems of bad writing. And yes I could see how bad it was.
I have no idea why people praised season 1 so much. It's a 6/10 at best.
It was boring, poorly paced and pretentious. And I have never even read the books.
The dialogue between Geralt and Glorfindel in season 1 just might be the worst dialogue i've ever seen in cinema.
The atmosphere and worldbuilding was what broke it for me. I could not even get through the first season because it was so bad. Looking forward to your next episode.
Well done! Great critique, well thought out, clear, concise, and spot on. It's almost like the netflix writers didn't even read the books nor play the games and if they did rushed through them or read them without understanding the culture, genre, and or time period from which they were written and simply added their own moralist viewpoints without understanding the world of the witcher at all. The books and the games were each in their own rights masterpieces of storytelling and create beloved complex characters and netflix turned them into vile, vulgar, shallow, parodies that were completely unrecognizable and felt out of place.
Thank you and really well said 🙂
Mad respect to Cavill for leaving.
I agree with you! I never understood when season one came out how there was some book fans saying it was a good or decent adaptation! Like how?!!! Just because they fell in love with Henry Cavill's acting as Geralt from Witcher 3 i suppose (To each their own, i guess)!...
From the first trailer i saw of this show i thought that is NOT my Geralt nor the world and characters that i love from the books, but i wanted to be fair and watch the whole season to not judge it by the trailer alone, and unfortunately i was right! At that ending scene with Geralt and Ciri i literally facepalmed and said "What have you done to my beloved Witcher!". 🤦♀
Yeah, it was really annoying when people would pile on you just because you said that the show is not good few years back. I had to leave all online fan groups but I really needed to unload my frustrations and eventually I've found catharsis on r/wiedzmin subreddit which is focused mainly on the books and it was the only place where most people hated the show from the beginning. So that helped me a lot. And I found it funny how people now turned on the show after we've been saying it's shit for years. Almost makes you want to scream "Told you so!".
@@FolkWalkCZ Yeah, some people like to go with the flow, i guess! And some have the nerve to tell us "You are just biased towards the books" and that is just not true! As you mentioned when we get good adaptations one must give it praise, like The Lord of The Rings masterpiece film trilogy or the amazing BBC series of Pride and Prejudice (1995) and the recent great HBO The Last of Us adaptation, but one can NOT say the same about the Netflix's Witcher.
I never read the books and that eels scene just stuck out like a sore thumb to me. There's no reference to it before or after about being turned into an eel, it just comes out of no where. What even was the point of that? I have no idea... I hated it then, and I hate it even more now learning that it was never in the books.
Yeah that was a weird one..I cannot grasp why that as an add on would be a good idea.
The source is with in the 4 elements and that’s where all the sorcerer draw their power from.. the whole sacrificing and stuff is bonkers
I mean the special about ciri is that she herself is a source and that’s why everyone wants her..
I’m ranting I’m sorry 😭
Ciri referenced it in the third season but it was not a good idea reminding people of that 😃
Probably because they wanted to make Yennefer's whole story a "big fight against the regime" so they made Arethusa this weird fortress of evil. On the other hand, in the books, Yen likes school and somehow doesn't fight against it, so as a mixed result, even in the series she ends up just dissing it and... it's just weird and stupid
I was lost at the first season. I knew it was about to be everything but ‘The Witcher’. Absolutely nothing made sense. You mentioned the eel scene and I was so confused by that point 😂 I only watched for Henry, one of my favorite actors.
hearing someone say " What the f*ck?!" in a medieval setting sounds pretty cringe...
If you think that’s bad, wait till you watch Netflix’s other fantasy series Castlevania.
I hated the 1st season cause it's too fanfictiony yet ppl praise it like it's the best thing 🙄. Yennefer is my fave character and she's been ruined in the show.
As a fan of the books (and the well done fan fiction that is the Witcher III video game) I appreciate FolkWalkCZ keeping it 100% real in his assessment that the TV show was trash from day one with butchered “adaptation” of the source material and a whole lot of “made up bullshit”. I actually began recording a podcast covering Witcher Season 1 because I was so excited for it but quit in frustration after three episodes. The writing (or lack thereof) was already on the wall. The show runners, writers, and executives at Netflix never had any interest in doing the source material justice. They simply wanted an excuse to execute their “vision” of a typical bloated, nonsensical, out of touch but oh so “stylish” and “progressive” and “edgy” Hollywood fantasy that “subverts expectations”. Of course, they blame everyone but themselves for the shows ultimate failure, and most of all they blame the fans (such as myself) who actually wanted to see The Witcher series succeed.
damn, boi. i 110% agree with everything you said. i always find it so frustrating when all your friends say "that show is good". As a big fan, I was only able to watch the first season with great pain. After that I knew it couldn't get any better. So I skipped seasons 2 and 3. And I don't regret it in the least. I'm just tired of such good stories being dragged through the dirt by woke writers. all they care about is to send a message [Women - good and strong, Man - Bad, dumb and useless]. The only thing that makes me happy is that they all hit the wall with it
"Cramming in their made-up bullshit" - no truer words have been spoken.
I just realized that Season 3 raises one massive inconsistency with the battle of Sodden hill as well and that is with Tissaia de Vries. If she is so damn powerful as shown in Season 3, why did Yennefer ever have to "unleash her chaos" (or whatever dumb stuff that was) to win the battle of Sodden? Why did she ever even have to sacrifice her powers when Tissaia was right there at Sodden next to Yennefer and could have done the same as Yennefer and way more and without sacrificing her powers? But it's nothing new that this show lacks consistency.
More importantly why is Yen the hero of the battle and not Vilgefortz? Oh wait it's because he's a man.
And of course they forget that Vilgeforz was also very much RESPONSIBLE FOR the winn
@@maggiiopgott8975 That too. They basically gave all of Vilgefortz's importance to Yen and meanwhile made him lose to Cahir in a swordfight and in a really dumb way too 🤣
The show constantly takes away from other characters to give Yen more screentime and importance than she needs, all while completely omitting the actual important Yen moments like her training and bonding with Ciri for example.
Now that I think about it, the show chose to omit the most important bonding moment with Ciri for both Geralt and Yen. For Geralt it was totally omitting his first meeting with Ciri in Brokilon which was where the two became attached to each other.
@@KanohiVahi Yes. How can you fuck up so badly. I will not imagine how bad they will do Stefan Skellen and Bonhard. I bet Bonhard is gonna be portrayed as a total perv. And Skellen I bet they will make just slimey
To be honest, I usually complain at any changes in my beloved stories, but I have to admit they are sometimes necessary. If you can get across the messages, the themes, atmosphere and character dynamics, you can change almost anything you want and the story can take it. I haven't watch the show but seeing what they've done to poor Nivellen, I don't even want to.
Well done, good explanation! It was exactly the point in the books that you didn't know a lot that Geralt didn't know, including Yen's backstory, the battle of Sodden and the Fall of Cintra. This built a certain mystery and it made sense. Apparently Netflix also already revealed that Emhyr is Ciri's father, although concealing that might be hard in the show. The reader or the person watching the show will see Emhyr a lot, even though Geralt doesn't, so it's impossible to conceal this from the viewer unless Emhyr looked completely different now, and then it would make no sense for Geralt to find out that he's Ciri's father at the end.
I think the reason why many people still like Season 1 or at least think it was ok is that for non-book readers it was an average show (so not too bad at least) that filled the void of fantasy shows after GoT, and they thought while the Season was only average, it at least gave a basis to build on and maybe improve in following Seasons, and it was only when that improvement didn't happen (quite the opposite apparently) that they got annoyed.
And book readers had similar hopes for improvement and were just happy to get some more Witcher content, and most were happy with Henry Cavill. And they were probably always happy when they found a book reference in the show. I have heard however, that already in Season 1 (and following seasons), the moral ambiguity of the universe and characters was completely left out, and this is a large part of the books.
General fans of the franchise were probably also happy that the Witcher got some more attention.
And about the language they used in the show, wasn't there a guy in season 3 talking about a wheat intolerance or something like that? Great medieval impression! And accompanying the swear words, medieval towns are just gray and dirty in the show. I found it really great that the games were at least partly very colourful, and still showed the often depressing conditions the people lived in, especially Witcher 1 did a great job with this. Well, the whole dialogue thing is a real shame, it was the best part of the books for me. If we're lucky there will never be a Regis or Zoltan impression in the Netflix show, after unfortunately Milva was apparently already butchered in the short part she had in Season 3. Great reminder to never watch this show!
And hearing about these Netflix inserted stories as a book fan who didn't watch the show, I'm just like 'What the hell?'
If they wanted to delve into yennefers backstory that would be fine... If it was GOOD
it's just that Netflix put no care into this project and they are plagued by horrible writers
Damn it could have been so good...😢😢
Aż miło posłuchać. Miałam podobne odczucia wobec adaptacji opowiadań w sezonie 1, o pozostałych sezonach szkoda gadać...
The worst part about Ciri's storyline is that it doesn't add anything to the story. Even if you feel like Yennifer's backstory was poorly written, you can still appreciate, that it has a purpose by introducing her. Ciri's on the other hand is just her running away, trying to escaping Cintra. You could cut everything in her storyline between Calanthe's death, where she tells Ciri to find Geralt and their actual meeting and the plot wouldn't change in any meaningful way. It's just a lot of wasted screentime in a season, that already feels to compressed and rushed. :/
The problem with Yennefer's storyline is that it ruined her character and also mages, sorceresses, magic system, Thanedd and many other things.
Ciri's story in the books tells you so much more about her even though its literally a few lines long. She's a survivor, she goes from princess to nameless war refugee and somehow survives long enough to get adopted by a random villager.
In the show shes just walking plot armor shambling from 1 disaster to the next.
@@FolkWalkCZ I'm not saying it was great, but it has some justification exist, by introducing Yennifer and Tessia and it tries to do some worldbuilding which the show has very little of. Yes it was badly done, but at the very least I understand the basic idea behind these scenes and why a writer might add them.
Ciri's storyline is almost exclusively a waste of screentime. If you add up her scenes you probably have close to an hour you could skip without really missing ANYTHING. It's like they took an entire episode and just threw it out the window.
@@epsilonfallen5830 Fair enough 🙂
@@FolkWalkCZ 🙂
I've been a Witcher fan since 1991, when the first book came out. When I watched the series, especially the second season (I haven't started the third one yet), I wanted to swear more than the characters of the series. I think the writers hate the source material. Another explanation is that they're idiots, but then I don't think anyone would hire them.
Finally someone said it! The first season was shit as the others. All short stories were ruined, Dryads were butchered into bunch of black barbarians in the forest, battle of the Sodden Hill reduced to cheap and terrible cgi larp battle. Characters making no sense, being more diverse than average modern nation today, with terrible costumes and casting choices except Henry of course.
I definitely agree about there being way too much swearing, my guess as to why some writers add so much swearing in dialogue is they’re simply unable to separate what they themselves would say vs what the individual characters would say.
They’re completely oblivious to the concept of characters having a different “voice” from the author and that “realistic” dialogue isn’t created from making a character simply say what YOU would say in their situation. This inability to separate themself from the character is infested in all aspects of the characterisation too.
For some reason modern media if currently plagued with this awful approach to dialogue and characters, how do so many bad writers get into the industry? 😵💫
With their legs or connections.
At 14:45, when you speak about dialog, that's literally what moves the history forward. What people mean when they say dialog is boring?
What those people don't realize, is that it's not the dialog that's the problem. Most of the time, the culprit for a scene to be boring is the setting in which the story happens, uninteresting characters, a plot that seems to have no forward momentum, uninspired camera work, bad actor, and then comes the dialog.
Sure, the dialog can still be at fault, but in a visual media, there's so many other things that come even before the actors say their first line.
The second, I hear from producers and directors that they’re going to add in certain groups of people because the source material doesn’t reflect enough diversity, I’m out.
What a great cosplay you have!! The Netflix show's costumes don't even come close to yours. You guys done wonderful job!
Thanks 🙂
Season 1 was so bad, it made me decide NOT to read the books. Luckily, my good friend convinced me to go for it. I did, and I really really enjoyed them.
Dude, you absolutely have to make a video about the hypocrisy of Witcher's fanbase.
They want to have a faithful show and yet they cry about not having Geralt go on monster hunts like in the game....
Každopádně další úžasné video Martine!
Yep, it's annoying sometimes. Díky 🙂
I think at that point, the Witcher's fanbase is pretty wide. So which one you talking about? :D The gamers, the book readers, the fantasy lovers, the Henry Cavill fans, or maybe the (0,1%) netflix series fans? :D
@@minidreschi2 It's often hard to tell which is which.
@@FolkWalkCZ also true, i also can't tell which would be i am, as i came from The Witcher 1 game, as i played, I wanted to know more about the world and other Wticher schools, so after it, i got borrowed books from one of my friends (after the first 3, i also bought myself too, one by one the whole series), however, as time went by, my reading got slower and slower, i still not finished The Lady of the Lake (somewhear near the end, at spoiler: Cahir's last fight)
and also not finished the Witcher 3 either, still found it good, yet while the Witcher 1 game, and some of the earlier books got me in the flow, the continues just felt different, for me
at games, the first one feelt more natural, folk-folk talish, also the thing that the first game had Hungarian dub also (a bit poorly made at some points but overall got the feeling) gived a lot for me at the time, evenmore so cause i couldn't really speak English back than
for the books, i think i just got less free time and also that i'm a bad reader :D
@@minidreschi2 get the audiobook. It's really good when you bike or drive to work. That's what I did 😊
(3:36) YES! That's when you know the person doesn't really know/care about the book fidelity and is complaining for another reason (usually related to the games, in my estimation) and/or are using the worst of the show as the "measuring tape", which sets the bar ridiculously low and suddenly any shit that's thrown at the screen is "good".
The entirety of the first season was trash, not one episode is salvageable, and there was no actual point where it was good and suddenly went downhill, even if you ignore the books and look at it as its own thing (at least not in a faithful and overall quality of writing sense, since "good" is, at the end of the day, contingent on a person's taste, critical sense and so on, and I'm personally too picky on those fronts...).
I think that what triggered most people was Eskel acting like a dick, then turning into a leshy and Geralt killing him. People say that it went downhill after S02E01 because the next episode is where all of those things happen. And they suddenly cared because the show started changing something they knew, something from the third game. I really think it's THAT simple and if they would knew the books before the first season was released the show would fail immediately because it would pissed off way more people. This way it took the bad reception of the second season, then Beau DeMayo coming out and saying that the writers actively dislike and mock the source material (which was obvious right after the first season just from the way they've butchered the first two books), then Cavill leaving and fans putting two and two together and finally the awful spin-off Blood Origin which showed everyone what the Netflix writers want The Witcher to really be like (generic epic high fantasy). I'm glad we got there eventually but man..it took way too long to some people.
@@FolkWalkCZ Yep. Even though a considerable amount of people now realize the show is bad overall, most don't quite understand the extent of how terrible it is and many still unfortunately keep the narrative that it was good and then went bad alive, that Cavill was the perfect Geralt, that Jaskier is mostly acceptable, etc. (just look at how well posts and comments that say those things go in r/witcher to this day).
The critical eye of most of the fandom regarding faithfulness and overall quality is still very shallow and many are still moved by superficial knowledge, misguided priorities and herd mentality, which explains why, as you pointed out in the video, they're so hypocritical -- they just don't really know The Witcher -- and, to boot, have too low of a standard when judging stuff, and that's a nice recipe to accept trash (or, at the very best, mediocrity), which is what the show delivers.
It really is a disservice that so much attention is turned only to Eskel's portrayal, Yen's clothes, the casting and potential political leaning push -- which are very valid objections, but still a bunch of contained low hanging fruit, painting the picture to the "normies" that there's not much wrong with the show and that the hate is not proportional, when basically everything can be said to be absolutely worse than the books and everybody, fans or not of the Sapkowski's work, could've easily gotten an infinitely better show if they just followed what was there in the source material...
@@emmanuel1337 Very well said. I want to talk about all of this in the future video I've mentioned. The way The Witcher fandom is split into different groups of book readers, gamers and show fans is really unfortunate.
@@FolkWalkCZ I know this is mostly seen as stupid gatekeeping and not worth sweating about too much, which I almost agree, but can't shake the following feeling: I just can't see show-only fans as part of The Witcher's fandom. They are fans of what is almost something else entirely and don't necessarily care about the identity of the IP -- what makes it itself, distinguishable from generic, uninspired shit that anyone can come up with.
So yeah, I feel like considering them part of it dilutes the fanbase so much that makes it indistinguishable from more broad demarcations -- might as well only call it the "Dark Fantasy fandom" or something like that lol. Again, maybe it's a stupid way of seeing things and the focus should be on trying to convince these people to join the fun and experience actual The Witcher, but... I just have better stuff to do than convince others to give it a chance, but still don't want the fandom to be full of individuals who don't really care about it and that the industry will still try to appeal to anyway. That'll most likely result in really poor products, like the show itself, and maybe even creating a feedback loop where we'll get no proper TW content anymore (that happened to so many great franchises so far, which is scary)...
Love your Slavic folk lore videos, and you tearing this Netflix series a new one! I thought this show started out ok with season 1 😒, but it progressively has gotten worse to its current season 😠! To think the writers were planning 7 seasons of this! Well they shouldn’t have counted their chickens 🐔 before they hatched.
Thank you 🙂 Yeah, as we say in my country "Neříkej hop, dokud jsi nepřeskočil.".
I liked season 1 until I read the last wish
Yeah, I still recall at the release of the first season people crying out “‘Tis not like in da games! This is from les books you uncultured peasant! Thou shall like it! Even Superman is in it”. While I was thinking: what books are you talking about? May I see them? ‘Cause this garbage is not what I was reading.
And now when the show finally spiralled into insanity, Henry got booted out and writers admitted hating on the Witcher story, only then people started saying “Oh no. The show is actually bad!” What a joke.
Yeah, that's what I also want to mention in the video about the hypocrisy of The Witcher fandom.
@@FolkWalkCZ This reminds me a lot of the SW sequels situation, but this is wholly different story xD
Btw, are you planning to have a per episode breakdown of the Netflix show in the future? Or a detailed analysis of Wiedzmin series? I think it might be interesting to compare the adapted events to the books in order to see where they fail and where they succeed, and why.
For example, you mentioned Renfri’s ultimatum is missing from the show, but there were other story beats that were removed. Like her attempt of killing Geralt after being mortally wounded, which would not help her to get Stregobor, but it would satisfy her bloodlust as Geralt wronged her. It was instead replaced by her blabbing smth about “Ciri is yo Destiny”. Even the Destiny itself being known to any peasant in the show, while in the books not even all the sorceresses would believe in it as Destiny is hard to prove or quantify.
@@anansi9291 I really want to start doing videos about folklore again but I need to finish this video series first. Normally I'm doing one video about The Witcher per month but I might make an exception to it sometimes when there will be something worthy of a whole video series. I wanted to make a video about The Hexer for years and I'm still planning to do that. I wasn't really gonna do a whole video series on it but now when you mention it, it sounds enticing. We'll see.
There's also possibility that we will start doing podcast about The Witcher with one other youtuber from Germany who contacted me several weeks ago and we've been talking about it since. He loves the books as well and has really great points so I hope that it will work out but it really depends on how much free time I'll have for it. So yeah, if we start the podcast I'll let everyone on the channel know about it.
@@FolkWalkCZ Podcast would be interesting indeed. I haven’t seen anyone else talking about the books in detail, so a different prospective on the subject sounds intriguing. If you will find time that is. Personally, I am not picky and if the podcast is once a week, a month or semi-annually would not really bother me. Nor other people I hope.
Meanwhile, will check out your folklore creatures and traditions videos. Smth like Strziga I haven’t ever heard of before aside of the Witcher series.
Correct me if I'm wrong here. Wasn't there an orgy in The Last Wish when Geralt meets Yen to heal Dandelion? He gets her juice?
I think there might have been but I'm sure that there's not a word about Yennefer forcing people into it with a spell. That seems out of character for her.
Should just call the show The Witch instead of The Witcher because of hie little of the story is actually on Geralt.
Netflix just butchered the franchise, even new characters such as Voleth Meir which is clearly inspired by Baba Yaga are done in a weird way.
I am grateful for the very accurate analysis and for drawing attention to the heritage of European culture (including Slavic culture in particular) contained in the books, which Netflix simply destroyed. By the way, Witcher is an original example of fantasy consciously challenging all the stereotypes of the genre - the main character is not the savior of the world, but is treated as an outcast; there is no simple division between good and evil, etc. etc. (by the way, this would be an interesting topic for a separate movie). Therefore, the attempt to make The Witcher a generic fantasy is not only a simple departure from the content of the books, but an undermining of a key foundation of the source material. And this attempt could only end in disaster. I'm afraid that this kind of nuance was unfortunately unfamiliar to the series' screenwriters.
I'm looking forward to seeing a movie about the worldbuilding of The Witcher, because in fantasy movie consistent worldbuilding is very important and is the basis of immersion.
By the way, from the photos of the LARP I see that you enlisted in the Nilfgaard army. As a Nordling, I accept this with pain and nevertheless wish you good luck on your path 🙂
Thanks 😃I actually did a video about the Netflix Witcher spin-off Blood Origin where I talk to some extent about how The Witcher is challenging fantasy tropes if you would be interested ( th-cam.com/video/48RLOF6_3dk/w-d-xo.html ). I'll also talk about how Netflix turned this unique fantasy into a generic one in the next video so stay tuned 😉 Btw I wasn't always member of the Nilfgaardian group I used to dress as a Skelligan warrior 😃 But I want to do a whole video where I'll explain my evolution as a fan of The Witcher 😁
In Netflix's world "adaption=totally f*cked up"
There was a different version of Renfrys story originally. I've seen pictures of the cast and some of the episode. Far more faithfull to the book.
Why they didn't stick with it is beyond me!
Yeah, I've seen it too. Well, that's Netflix for you. They rarely get something right.
The episode that tells Nivellen's story is the only one that has coherent writting.
It's still a shit adaptation.
Anything has more spirit of Witcher. Even fan made parody like "Magnaci I Czarodzieje" or Wiedźmin Dziewki Goń by QT Studio or Egzorcysta by Bartosz Walszek. Just like Turkish Star Wars have more epirit of Star Wars than anything Disney made. They seem to compete who destroys source material more
Absolutely agree, yet still the first season was bearable and we could still be hopeful :) The second one was a tragedy I want to wipe out of my memory. The third was already a lost cause and one hell of a circus and a half
FINALLY SOMEONE SAYS SEASON ONE SUCKED! IT WAS TERRIBLE LIKE THE REST OF THE SHOW!! Also great video
Thanks 🙂
Well said. Totally agree. I often fantasize, how awesome an adaptation at quality level of the first seasons of GoT (and with 1:1 translation of the book as that b**ch promised us) would be. Just to see all the epic things from the books translated straight on the screen.
Also I read the short stories in a chronological order with A Road with No Return as the first story. I thing it would be the perfect first episode.
I've read the short stories in the same order but I think that the pilot has to introduce the world of The Witcher and witchers as a faction first to hook people right from the get go and the short story with striga is best for that imho. A Road with No Return would be great as a prologue for the second season (if the first season would be just The Last Wish and the second The Sword of Destiny) because Visenna would appear at the end of the second season when she's healing Geralt after he saves Jurga so the short story about her and Korin at the beginning of the second season would be great introduction of her character and people would then understand who that is when she would appear again at the end of the second season.
@@FolkWalkCZ I know what you mean and this is how it is conventionally done. But to introduce first the world and then the hero (the striga story would be in this case the perfect second episode) would be something unusual and if done right, I think it could work very well. With the added bonus that Visenna would reappear unexpectedly after almost two seasons, when the viewer would almost forget her (in the first episode seemingly just some random witch) and now he would suddenly learn her real significance and the proverbial circle would close.
Also the Child of surprise story could be somehow integrated into Visenna's reappearing. For example like some flashbacks when she starts to heal him. Something similar to the scene from GoT when we learn Jon Snow's true identity. The awesome culmination when the scene cut from the baby's face to grown Jon's face. I imagine here the same with the culmination of the flashback being Visenna's words: "Yes, his name is Geralt."
Your videos have convinced me to read the books; I liked the games, I thought the show was going to be good but man… I can tell it’s awful without even knowing the original material. It’s just lazy. Even if they called it “the stitcher” with “Gerald of Bivria” it would still be awful
That's nice to hear 🙂
Kudos to @FolkWalkCZ, I think this is the best gratification for his efforts. I wish everyone just cancelled their subscription and went for the books.
the books have a great point to them - namely that they start as short stories, so you aren't waiting 200 pages for the story to 'begin'. the first story is about the striga afaik, so you can quickly compare it with the show
Grain of truth was my favorite episode of the Witcher so far. That doesn’t mean it was good adaptation from the original story. It’s the best episode of Netlfix’s the Witcher, and a good bit of TV on its own.
I haven’t read the books. I mostly just played a lot of Witcher 3 so for me it was simply a matter of the episode, representing the feel of the Witcher as I’d known it.
There’s a monster. There’s a curse. The monster and the curse both have a complication. Each new layer of information complicates the last.
Nivellan’s curse is a lose/lose for him, which perfectly captures the melancholy notes I’d learned to expect from playing the game. I had forgotten his backstory, and I didn’t even need him to be a sympathetic character. His curse fit the Witcher.
I liked the Bruxa. I like that her nature as a Bruxa contradicts her personality. I liked when she told Ciri not to run because she wouldn’t be able to help herself.
I also like that Geralt gets to do some investigation and combat and Ciri takes part in the exposition.
The rest of the 2nd season was awful, which made this one stand out more.
Understandable but the original short story has everything you're talking about (even more so) and it's much better. And saying that the episode was good compared to the rest of the second season isn't great argument. It might be less shit than the worst shit there is but that doesn't change the fact that it's still shit.
@@FolkWalkCZ I believe the original story is better even though I haven’t read it.
If someone can follow it badly and still make a good piece of Witcher TV, I think that shows how good the basic dramatic elements of the story really are.
@@BloodyInitiate Fair enough.
Yeah I mean like I've told a lot of people, this "adaptation" just felt like it was catering to the whiny SJWs who complained about the "lack of representation" in the games, not to mention the article by one of the ex-writers revealed that a lot of the writers/showrunners hated the source material to the point of actively mocking it
Hell, the casting director openly admitted she did the "diverse casting" because she thought the setting was "too white" and wanted to challenge "beauty standards" (in the case of Yennefer), which yeah I mean I've read the books (except for Season of Storms), and honestly what Netflix has done is just insulting to the fans and the people of Poland.
I even had this one woke amoeba say that she liked the "diverse casting" in the show and that it was better than having "15 white women where you can't tell them apart", it's like "you clearly don't understand the source material at all", it was actually when I critiqued the show that got me kicked out of a Discord group for supposedly "promoting hate speech". I even said it's not that we don't want diversity in a show/film, just that the way it's done these days is to "reflect the modern world" than telling a good story.
To me it's always so hypocritical when they talk about the need for representation in light of this show. Polish people/Slavs have NONE in American pop culture (I cannot count the Russian mafia)! One time, just one! We manage to get our culture out there to the mainstream and they turn it to freaking California and ruin the story to top it off.
Damn, this makes me hate Sapkowski for selling out. I never watched S2 after I heard the plot synopsis 🤮 Dropped this like a steaming pile of dung that this thing is.
@@agiksf.8998 yeah I already had a few morons on a Discord group I'm on (I run a Witcher TTRPG campaign and one of my players recommended this one Discord group to find new players) say that it's "not indicative of California, rather the U.K" and I responded with "it's more like the U.K in modern times" and that in history, Eastern Europe during the Middle Ages was pretty white, which this idiot said "it's just a fantasy series..." which is one of the stupidest arguments I've ever heard
Welcome back from Poland! Hope you had a great trip 👍
Thank you 🙂 Yeah, it was fun 👍
"ruined the Atmosphere...","not the most important... part"....😵💫Sir, i shooked and appaled to hear that from you😅(But seriously, it is the reason why the First Witcher Game is still my favorite Game in the Series)
Well, I said that because people usually say that ruining the story and characters is much bigger problem which is true but for me atmosphere is almost on the same level.
@@FolkWalkCZ Without thinking to deep into it, id say, you can have good story and characters with a bad atmosphere, but you can not have good atmosphere with bad characters and story...So give me good atmosphere(and other holy grails while we at it ;-) )
@@Quasimodo-mq8tw Well said 🙂
Where can I see more of those LARP photos? That armor looks amazing, better than anything in the Netflix show.
Here's the whole album: facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.775453841247162&type=3
Here's another one: facebook.com/media/set?vanity=100078383793498&set=a.289784586977666
If you like our gear specifically you can follow Nazair Brigade either on Facebook: facebook.com/Nilfgaard.brigada.Nazair
or Instagram: instagram.com/nazairbrigade/
And thanks btw 🙂
Yeah your breakdown of your ideal season 1&2 sounds soooo much better
The part about Nivellen is actually much, much worse since he DOES confess to looting, arson and murder earlier in the episode and Gerald and Ciri forgave him no problem, Ciri even calling him a good person. But unrequited coitus? Nah, man. You're not immortal anymore so do the deed!
Guess the first three were some kind of summer of love.
Peter Jackson's lord of the ring movies gives a basic idea of how the world of the series works, but books gives a complete picture.
The harry potter movies gives a basic idea of how the world of the series works, but the books gives a complete picture.
Witcher Videogames gives a basic idea of how the world of the series works, but the books gives a complete picture.
Netflix Witcher series gives a some wat confused idea of how the world of the series works, but the books give a complete picture.
Netflix is just Sapkowski's books but deprived any meritorical value. Even writting couldn't be coherent
@@finezyjnafantazja2495 . yeah the netflix series is not an adaption, its a Bastardization of the books.
The real issue isn't Lauren's changes. The real problem is that she and her team are not qualified to adapt a story of this size and scope. She should be writing and directing superhero shows and teen dramas on the CW, not trying to adapt a layered story like The Witcher. The other problem is the author's lack of respect for his work. If I wrote The Witcher, I'd reach out to the best showrunners and writers to do an adaption. HBO would be my first stop. If I couldn't 't find the right team for the adaptation, I would not sell the IP. So the show isn't shit because Lauren didn't stick with the source material. It's shit because she's a shit writer with a surface-level understanding of the material she's attempting to adapt.
Great video, I can't agree more! I was done with Netflix version after seonen 1, they changed everything for the worse in my opinion. Fools
Honestly, people saying that they want a 100% literal adaptation is dumb for many obvious reasons. It reminds me of anime fans wanting a 100% literal translation of certain animes and manga even though most of them don't understand language barriers and how translating works. The most reasonable person would know that changes are going to happen but they can still criticize it while appreciating the medium, like your Harry Potter example.
Anyway, I want to speak about the Castlevania anime because that show is an adaptation of a popular video game series but took many liberties. The Castlevania games in a timeline sense are pretty inconsistent and each game tends to contradict the lore. The people that made the anime admitted that they planned it as a loose adaptation and were honest about it, unlike the people that made the Witcher show. The first and second seasons of the anime develop the villains properly including the heroes like Trevor Belmont, Sypha, and Alucard including expanding them. For example, Dracula in the games was the basic dark lord that wanted to kill humanity because reasons. Despite being given a reason in some instances, it is still inconsistent but the anime expanded on his character and why he wanted to kill humanity.
A more controversial change would be Isaac since he was white in one game with a different characterization. Despite changing him into a black man, they did an interesting change for his character from his background and his beliefs. Instead of a stereotypical crazy misanthrope that kinda behaves like an edge lord, Isaac has a full-blown arc with an understandable reason to hate humans but also having a self-revelation and redeeming himself. A change like this is good because you not only did a different interpretation for a character but affects the plot. Some shows that do this tend to do it for the sake of it with no impact on the plot. The Witcher show makes it worse not only do the changes don't work but they don't lead anywhere and have no effect on the plot whatsoever. After watching season 3, I started to agree that the casting choices is randomly selected and they had no consideration behind it.
What you said about dialogues is kinda funny because that's one of the reasons why I finally decided to watch Game of Thrones. Like I watch a clip of Tyrion Lannister talking to his father about his birthright but Tywin completely destroys the conversation by belittling him. The Dialogue was so fluid and interesting to hear including the really cool armor that he wears in the show. I don't mind swearing as long it's not said constantly in almost every conversation unless it fits the character. Like Death for example from the Castlevania anime, the dude swears in several sentences but still comes off as a threat and menacing. But in the Witcher show, almost everyone swears even if it fits their characters or not it would become obnoxious to a certain point.
Sorry if I come off as rambling, I wanted to make a point that an adaptation can stand on its own despite how different it can be. I feel a non-purist can understand this as much as any reasonable person. I will agree that Tomasz Bagiński is a sellout after I found out that he wanted to simplify the story (you know what article I'm referencing) and I'm really disappointed with him. Also I would like to see you make a video on the fandom hypocrisy cause like any fandom, you find some bad apples or more. I remember a youtuber that did an essay on the Witcher show mention that he feels alienated by the fandom because it just filled with people arguing with each other about the Witcher because of this show.
Yeah, whenever the Netflix Witcher tried to pull off one of those unnecessary large battles that aren't even in the books, it just reminded me of how small the show really is.
Don't need needles battles just what was in the books and don't even need to show them all
You know about the swearing they should not be swearing that much or least using swear words differently cause I saw a video on how medieval Europeans swore differently and certain words like shit were used literally.
When they said shit they meant actual shit. Also certain words had different meaning back then. A certain F famously used to have a different meaning. If the writers were smart they would work this in logically but of course not cause that is too clever.
That Nilfgaardian squad at the first second looks really good. You're doing an excellent job at criticizing Witcher too. I really am disliking the Americanization of a lot of fantasy and, I know Witcher is the grounded folklore fantasy (I agree with your video, where you give your views on what makes Witcher different from high fantasy), but Americans are really unable to understand the real appeal of both fantasy and Sadpowski's (forgive my spelling) variation of Fantasy. I mean no insult to the average american who also loves Witcher, but they don't have a countryside, folklore or village life understanding like Europeans do which even in England is very relatable.
Their folklore comes from England and europe, but it's far away, and most Americans probably are unfamiliar with slavic folklore.
This is why they want it to be Game of Thrones, and yet, they don't understand that G.R.R Martin was using real history inspiration. What bothers me about american culture these days, and this is likely corporate culture, is they hate the source material, they change the worldbuilding "to reflect how the world is today" as Blood Origin is. No one is an elf, Dwarf, or other fantasy race with their own unique cultures. For example I don't see Nilfgaard, Temeria, Redania, Cintra or even Keadwen. It's place A and place B.
I apologize for starting with a tangent, but I started with this to explain that I am starting to also dislike the Americanization of the dialogue. Dialogue in sci fi and fantasy in the west is becoming really terrible. as you said, it's Californian speak. Even english people don't swear this much when angry.
“Well, we’re afeared. And what of it? Do we sit down and weep and tremble? Life must go on. And what will be, will be. What is destined can’t be avoided, in any case.”
“Mistakes are also important to me. I don’t cross them out of my life, or memory. And I never blame others for them.”
"Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling... Makes no difference. The degree is arbitrary. The definition's blurred. If I'm to choose between one evil and another... I'd rather not choose at all."
Three brilliant quotes of Geralt that I apply to my own philosophy.
Yeah. If people would like to see world as it is today they would chose an everage TV series or urban fantasy. Btw I recommend Coffee Talk game (it is a bit like short motion book).
It's crazy how you can draw a direct correlation between how good the show is and how faithful it is to the source material.
Don't get me wrong, it was never that good (the people working on it are just not that good), even season 1 has countless flaws. But the meer mirage of the story still managed to hook so many people.
And what is the only ok episode in season 2? The only episode based on the books once again.
Was not netflix fault. They told that woman to adapt it as she wished. It is entirely the fault of the producer but i guess netflix for not stepping in or the book writer for not intervening more strongly like how the harry potter writer intervenes in everything
Well, hissrich was employed by Netflix and content she delivered is standard for Netflix. It is a platform of "progressive", cheap and badly written shows so I don't know how can you defend Netflix.
@@mrlucky9157 i mean i like sweet home, dark, and stranger things. They seem to be made to be enjoyable.
@@SparticulousIt's really hit-or-miss with Netflix. Some of the shows and movies they've done are amazing but a lot of them suck. They're often good when they'll just pay for the expenses but leave the production on a different team which isn't part of their company.
Slowly getting the feeling I only enjoyed S01 because I only played the game.
I need to read the books.
Yes, do that please. You won't be disappointed and you'll appreciate the games even more 😉