I am not a fan of The Witcher, either the novels or the games, but that is entirely because I have never read the books or played the games. I’ve heard some good things about the series from my former colleagues over at the sadly defunct Reaxxion website, but I had never tried out anything related to it myself.
So when the Netflix production of The Witcher arrived yesterday on the platform, I had no particular expectations one way or another.
Thing is, I like Henry Cavill as an actor – no, seriously, I do. This is probably because I still, to this day, have not watched Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, or Justice League, and have instead watched his other work, such as his appearances in The Count of Monte Cristo – when he were but a wee lad – The Tudors and Mission: Impossible – Fallout.
I’m not saying he’s a great actor. I’m just saying that he’s got real charisma and talent about him.
But beyond that, I had no clue whether The Witcher would actually be any good. These days, especially when it comes to Netflix original specials and series, I really couldn’t give a crap about most of them, as Netflix is heavily SJW-converged and produces a LOT of utter trash.
For every series like The Ranch, which showcases good old-fashioned redneck country values and focuses on real human drama, you get shitpiles like Always Be My Maybe, or the literally anti-historical The Two Popes, which are just… awful.
So anyway, I decided to give The Witcher a go and see whether it was any good.
I’m sorry to report that even my mostly nonexistent expectations were far too high.
There are two huge problems with this show.
The first has to do with the world-building surrounding the series. Simply put, there isn’t any. You get dumped face-first – quite literally – into a dark world full of monsters and evil creatures, following the path of a certain Geralt of Rivia, but you have no idea who he is, where he comes from, what he does, or where he is going. All you are told is that he is a “witcher”, and this is a Badness Thing.
Now, if that were all there was to it, then that would be fine. As I said before, Henry Cavill has a lot of natural charisma and acting skill, and his physical training has clearly paid off. He’s a true beast in this series, and his monotone mumble-growl captures the spirit of an anti-hero outcast really rather well.
But that’s not all there is to it.
I am three episodes into the eight-part first season. I still have absolutely no idea about who does what, when, and where. The series jumps all over the map and the historical timeline, sometimes shifting into the present, sometimes going into the past – but never tells you what it is doing. You are left to fill in the pieces for yourself.
The show is an incoherent mess that probably only makes sense if you’re already steeped in the lore of the novels and/or the game.
That would be fine and all, if this show were designed just for hardcore fans of the previous works and canon. But that is where we run into the second huge problem.
This show is riddled with social justice bullshit – which is to say, diversity just for the sake of diversity.
Let’s start with one of the most important main characters – Yennefer of Vengerberg.
This is what she looks like in the games:
Beautiful woman. Black hair. Violet eyes. Pale white skin.
Perhaps the ideal actress to play that character would have been former Bond girl Eva Green, who fits the physical description absolutely perfectly – except for the eyes, which would have required contact lenses anyway. Or possibly Famke Janssen, or however it is you spell her name – if she were, oh, 30 years younger, anyway.
Point is, there are lots of white actresses that could play that role.
This is how Yennefer of Vengerberg – the great love of Geralt’s life, the woman who becomes a sort of surrogate mother to one of the other main characters in the series – is cast in the Netflix show:
That’s not the lighting playing tricks on you. The actress playing this role is named Anya Chalotra, and if you’re wondering why that name doesn’t sound exactly Anglo-Saxon, that’s because it isn’t. She is what is known as an Anglo-Indian. Her dad is Indian and her mum is English.
Now, I’m not picking on Ms. Chalotra for her skin colour. She is a radiantly beautiful young woman and her acting skills are pretty decent, from what I can see. Her skin is relatively light in tone, for an Indian girl anyway, and she does well with the material that she has been given. At no point do I claim that she is unworthy as an actress.
I do claim that there was no point in casting someone like that as Yennefer, when there were surely plenty of other white actresses with black hair, either natural or dyed, who could have done the job.
Now, if that were the last of it, then there wouldn’t be a problem. But it absolutely isn’t.
The show is full of very weird casting choices that make absolutely no sense whatsoever. There are black elves in the show, when as far as I know the original series stuck to the fantasy trope and convention that elves are the fairest of all races, both in terms of appearance and skin colour.
There are also black warriors and Middle Eastern wizards and mages cast in the series, serving kings and queens of very clearly Eastern European and Nordic analogues. Again, this makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and serves only to increase the sense of dislocation.
To put this into perspective, imagine watching Black Panther and seeing the Chief Todger or whatever of King T’Challah being a 6’5″ blonde Viking warrior, completely with winged helmet and battle-axe, in a city that is literally 100% African. It’s that ridiculous.
Or imagine watching a television adaptation of James Clavell’s Shogun, in which the major daimyo is portrayed by a Turkish guy, while his entire kingdom is Japanese.
I am not arguing for racial purity in casting choices. A certain degree of flexibility is to be expected given budget and time constraints.
I am arguing for making casting choices that actually make sense given the source material and the need for narrative and temporal continuity. I do not see the need for diversity qua diversity. It’s stupid and insulting to my intelligence and to that of every viewer who isn’t an SJW.
Simply put, this show isn’t merely bad. It’s IDIOTIC. It doesn’t make the slightest damned bit of sense.
I’ll continue watching it, at least for another episode or two. But if this is what Netflix considers “sensible content”, then I’m going to have to give further serious thought to just cancelling my subscription outright, and using Amazon Prime exclusively instead.
At least when Amazon Prime insults my intelligence, it does so while still offering The Grand Tour in the package deal. I’ll put up with an awful lot of MacGuffining stupidity just for the sake of watching three middle-aged blokes falling over and setting themselves on fire.
13 Comments
I really liked the new superman movies, but then I like Snyder. His two movies treat with fatherhood, and that is what causes Superman anguish in the movies, his struggle between his foster father's beliefs and his real father's beliefs, although I only picked up on that after I'd seen both movies twice. They are a part of the same story, so if you watch them you should watch them both within a short period of time, and watch the directors cut version of the 2nd.
The Witcher show is really pozzed isn't it. I'm on the third episode.
It's almost parody though, like how in the first episode the Queen has a black spymaster, and then she gets blitzkrieged by the Nazi standins. I mean, geez, what did you expect?
Netflix also turned Triss Merigold from a red head to mystery meat, which an even worse sin IMO. There is a blonde witch, I don't know if she will turn up in the show.
I'm mostly just watching it for the monster fights.
The thing about the Witcher though, and "caveat emptor" I only played through part of the 3rd game, is that the game developers really white knight in their games, so it was kinda already bad.
As in, say some girl you're talking to is rude to you. You might have an option to be rude back. But, if you choose that, the dialogue you speak will not actually be rude. Or, if it is, you will get your comeuppance. I quit when Yennefer was being a royal bitch, and after I made Geralt tell her that she was being a bitch, she teleported me into a lake, and then after I hiked my character back to her, Geralt just apologized. Which was the only option I was given. And that was just one of many instances where the game devs forced you to take a woman's side in order to progress the story. Basically, if there was ever a conflict between a man and a woman in the main story, you'd be forced to take the woman's side.
So, I'm just watching for the monster fights.
The Witcher show is really pozzed isn't it
Horrendously, but not quite terminally, so.
Netflix also turned Triss Merigold from a red head to mystery meat, which an even worse sin IMO
I didn't even realise this until you guys pointed it out, mostly because I don't know much about the canon. Then I went and looked it up, and… yikes.
I'm mostly just watching it for the monster fights.
Pretty much ditto. The actress playing Yennefer isn't nearly hot enough for the role. She does have nice boobs, though, I'll give her that much.
The thing about the Witcher though, and "caveat emptor" I only played through part of the 3rd game, is that the game developers really white knight in their games, so it was kinda already bad.
Could be. The developers were Polish, and they do have quite a bit of cultural baggage when it comes to women. Apparently there is a bit of a theme about how Polish men become hen-pecked Betas after they get married to Polish women, because then those women own their balls. So it wouldn't surprise me that this got into the game.
Cultural appropriation!
Review the original Conan the Barbarian movie for comparison.
Well that's the funny thing – I can understand perfectly well why there would be a wide range of races in a Conan film, because the original stories made it very clear that Conan's travels took him to cities across the Hyborian landscape that allowed him to interact with many different groups and tribes. So that aspect of the film never bothered me – not when I watched it 15 years ago, and not now looking back.
The Witcher, on the other hand, is very clearly set in an analogue for mediaeval Europe. And we're not talking mediaeval Byzantium either, we're talking roughly 15th Century Poland. So all of the mystery meat, the Dindu Nuffins, and the furriners make absolutely no sense.
Greetings, Didact! Haven't talked with you in a long while.
Cavill I enjoy immensely onscreen. 'Night Hunter' is a fun film with him as the prototypical burnt out detective. Though, yeah, the film has its own SJW type agenda. It's almost impossible to escape now, unless you watch films by directors like S. Craig Zahler.
I had wondered what 'The Witcher' was going to be turned into. Like you, haven't read the books or played the game, but when I saw Cavill as the lead, I become instantly interested. I'm not surprised at this review, however. I'll still likely watch it when I can just to see Cavill beat the tar out of some monsters and folk with his sword and fists, but now I know what to expect in terms of the 'social commentary' the series wants to shove into my face, so I appreciate this post.
I grew up in hyper-religious Christian schools, and these SJWs make the preachers I heard during my impressionable years seem like loose, party animals. They're Puritanical to the core and they never shut their yappers. Ever. Which, in a way, I'm glad they won't, because they more they preach, the less sane people care about what they say, and the sooner they'll just go away into the dustbin of bad ideologies.
Brother Carey!!! Welcome back, my old friend. I was just thinking about where you'd gone after looking back at an old post about the first Devil Mouse Wars film.
I do like Henry Cavill and I do wish him the best with this series. He has the charisma to drag it along with him, even though the material is – not to put too fine a point on it – shite. I'll keep watching it just to see him beat up monsters, which should be loads of fun. But the rest of it is just… weird.
Case in point: there was a sex scene right at the beginning of the third episode which showed two mystery-meat types doing the beast with two backs in public view. Except it's not in public, it's an illusion that the girl creates, then she gets on top.
If I were a gambling man, I'd be wiling to bet decent money that the screenwriters were making a very clear subversive point about how strong and great Yennefer is. But in reality it's just perverse and perverted. I couldn't watch it.
You're right about how the SJWs make puritanical Christians from the 80s look like complete hippies by comparison. They have no sense of humour whatsoever. They cannot take a joke, at all. They have no respect for tradition, morality, or even basic logic.
That is why it is a LOT of fun to destroy them.
"Case in point: there was a sex scene right at the beginning of the third episode which showed two mystery-meat types doing the beast with two backs in public view. Except it's not in public, it's an illusion that the girl creates, then she gets on top."
I don't even know what to say to that, save for color me not terribly surprised. Strange world we inhabit these days.
At some point, the pendulum swings. And when it does, there will be a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth. I look forward to that day. All this preaching has become old hat. BORING.
"I'll continue watching it, at least for another episode or two."
The real problem is that there's just too much TV on TV (and streaming, and the rest of it, of course).
I literally as well as figuratively have no time for nearly all of it.
That's why I wouldn't give this kind of production a chance, given that it's meant to be a showcase for some production company's SJWs to present their "arguments" for how they think existing stories in other media should be "revisioned".
Vigilant Citizen has a few bits on how Netflix in particular has created some truly "хорошо" productions (in the Anthony Burgess sense) that are full of Satanic imagery and other memetic diseases — you may find some of that interesting to read.
But as far as SJWs go, they're a present-day Temperance League for the mind.
Whenever I see the products of their fevered labours, I know that their ideas of "edgy" are merely meant to slide some pathetic pieces of propaganda under the door.
Dream sequences are of course the lazy writer's way of bulking up a story with often excessive inner character development which may be safely "retconned" out of the story, but they're very popular among these types of screenwriter "wizards".
This scriptwriting self-pleasuring is but one or two degrees of separation removed from the odd plots fantasy that with just the right type of "time machine", you could "go back" and "kill Hitler", with all of the absurd propaganda smuggling directly through the door that this implies.
One amusing variation of this that I particularly like is where an attempt on Hitler fails, but he realises that people in the future are making up negative and wildly inaccurate stories about him, at which point he decides to declare war on those people's ancestors in his day, enlisting the help of numerous allies, before going to war with anyone else.
We know this hasn't happened "yet" because the bad TV is still with us. 🙂
That's why I wouldn't give this kind of production a chance, given that it's meant to be a showcase for some production company's SJWs to present their "arguments" for how they think existing stories in other media should be "revisioned".
I agree. If you don't have the time to waste, don't watch the show. At the moment I DO have the time, but I do wonder if I shouldn't spend it watching The Grand Tour on Amazon instead.
Vigilant Citizen has a few bits on how Netflix in particular has created some truly "хорошо" productions (in the Anthony Burgess sense) that are full of Satanic imagery and other memetic diseases — you may find some of that interesting to read.
I do believe I will. Thanks. I'll go look that up.
One amusing variation of this that I particularly like is where an attempt on Hitler fails, but he realises that people in the future are making up negative and wildly inaccurate stories about him, at which point he decides to declare war on those people's ancestors in his day, enlisting the help of numerous allies, before going to war with anyone else.
We know this hasn't happened "yet" because the bad TV is still with us. 🙂
Y'know, as such plot devices go, that's a pretty good one.
Hail, Didact. Long time reader and fan. Just wanted to throw my $0.02 in as a fan of the books and games. FWIW, as someone who knows the lore, this show is better than most and does a better than average job adapting it. I agree that you're spot on with your observations about the way it's put together….if you don't know the books and such I can understand it taking, frankly, 2/3rds of the season before a normie would realize that it's told through multiple time jumps and in various time frames. I'd only suggest you try to make it thru to the end cause it all catches up, time-wise, at the finale.
Cavill was a big worry for me at first when the casting was announced but…holy SH!T does he capture Geralt well. And I'd be curious to know your thoughts on the young actress playing Ciri…IMO she does well but it'll be interesting to see if they stick with her moving forward as the main events of her story really happen when she's in her mid-20's, more or less, in the books. And the one thing I'll say in defense of Yennifer (ugh), is that the series kept that part of her story where she regrets giving up her ability to be a mother and nearly kills herself to regain that…I was surprised to see such a pro-mother attitude in an otherwise pozzed Netflix series. Although maybe they'll come back and ruin that later once she meets up with Ciri…
As for the rest…no defense from me. Yennifer is bearable, sort of, but the disrespect they showed to Triss Merigold is just intolerable. She's a friggin REDHEAD in the books and one part of the Geralt-Yen-Triss love triangle. So damned insulting and pathetic what they did to her. I could handle a variety of races and such (given the frequent references to 'the continent' as where they all live), but swapping out such iconic characters is just maddening. I hope it gets successful, as a fan of both the stories and (now) of Cavill in the lead, but it is just one more piece of the SJW attack on all that is good and beautiful.
Welcome, MagisterGreen. Thanks for adding your thoughts, they do help make sense of the whole thing.
I agree that you're spot on with your observations about the way it's put together….if you don't know the books and such I can understand it taking, frankly, 2/3rds of the season before a normie would realize that it's told through multiple time jumps and in various time frames.
Correct. This only became clear by about the 4th and 5th episodes.
I'd only suggest you try to make it thru to the end cause it all catches up, time-wise, at the finale.
Yeah, I probably will. It's not a BAD show, exactly – but it's definitely pozzed out.
Cavill was a big worry for me at first when the casting was announced but…holy SH!T does he capture Geralt well.
I like him. He does the man-of-action mumble-growl very well, and he has a certain grumpy charisma that does work with this role. I also rather like the way that he manages to show that Geralt does actually feel, quite deeply, and does have capacity for love, compassion, and honour.
And I'd be curious to know your thoughts on the young actress playing Ciri…IMO she does well but it'll be interesting to see if they stick with her moving forward as the main events of her story really happen when she's in her mid-20's, more or less, in the books.
I agree. She does well with what she's given to work with. Since I can only judge based on what I've seen, rather than on the basis of what I know about the books or games, I do think that Ciri's character is well done.
the disrespect they showed to Triss Merigold is just intolerable. She's a friggin REDHEAD in the books and one part of the Geralt-Yen-Triss love triangle. So damned insulting and pathetic what they did to her.
I didn't even realise the problem until you mentioned it, so I had to go and look it up. And you're right. It's RIDICULOUS, not to mention highly offensive. The woman playing Triss Merigold isn't even pretty. That is, indeed, infuriating.
Overall, I'd say Netflix has done worse – the "gay Jesus" special that they planned to release for Christmas is wildly offensive and deserves to be cancelled. At least they stuck to the important aspects of the canon here, even if they've also made it clear that they won't stop race-swapping, and possibly eventually gender-swapping, characters as well.
I tell you what, though – you know how there was that big enchanted orgy scene in the 5th episode? I fully expected there to be some sodomites in it, and I was fully prepared to shut down my browser and walk away from the whole series if they went that far. But it's a sign of how perilously converged Netflix is that we even have to worry about shit like that.
After 'Big Mouth" and season 2 of Shannara I sorta gave up any hope for netflix. Now I hope it crashes and burns.
Which they might just do anyway. Netflix is profitable, but it is burning through piles of cash every year – at least a billion dollars, last time I checked. They are betting massively on creating their own content and most of it loses money. They cannot sustain those kinds of losses indefinitely without either raising prices, cutting back on content, or getting rid of the more egregiously stupid bits of their library.