The Witcher

[slog]

I'm halfway through the second season and they are definitely diverging from the books a bit.  I fear the ego of the writers might screw this up a bit.  They have made up big parts of Yen's story and it's just not working well.  I fear they are falling into the trope where the lead female character is super powerful and her only problem is that she doubts herself. I am liking Gerralt and Ciri's  story line though.

[Khaldun]

Yennefer is insanely powerful in the books. That's part of the character's burden to bear. It comes up again and again (and materializes in Witcher 3 to boot). If you've read Blood of Elves, once Triss grasps Ciri's situation, she says "well, there's not much I can do, but Yennefer? maybe"

[Morat20]

They seem to be grabbing the bits of the video games they like and flipping the bird to the books to do their own thing.

--Dave

Might as well. I've never been a purist for adaptations. What's the point? You'll never do it faithfully enough to please the fans, and if you did it'd probably make shit TV.

The book fans are going absolute apeshit over it (I've only read a few) and everyone else seems to be "a little unsteady but it's good enough TV" which is...good enough.

[MahrinSkel]

I mean, Ciri in the training grounds was 90% videogame. I could practically see the QTE prompts.

--Dave

[Setanta]

I'm halfway through the second season and they are definitely diverging from the books a bit.  I fear the ego of the writers might screw this up a bit.  

I'm getting strong Game of Thrones vibes. An excellent retelling of the books that is going steadily to shit, with a few good moments thrown in. The storytelling really was weak this season, compared to last season. I like the characters enough, but Yennifer and Dandelion (yeah, I prefer the book name) just felt added in to mark time, Tris really didn't serve much in terms of plot, leaving it to Geralt/Ciri to carry the interesting parts. It just feels like they are making it up as they go on this time.

[slog]

Yennefer is insanely powerful in the books. That's part of the character's burden to bear. It comes up again and again (and materializes in Witcher 3 to boot). If you've read Blood of Elves, once Triss grasps Ciri's situation, she says "well, there's not much I can do, but Yennefer? maybe"

Is there a part in the books where Yennefer loses her magic ability and must overcome her self doubt?  I've only read a few of them.

[Riggswolfe]

Yennefer is insanely powerful in the books. That's part of the character's burden to bear. It comes up again and again (and materializes in Witcher 3 to boot). If you've read Blood of Elves, once Triss grasps Ciri's situation, she says "well, there's not much I can do, but Yennefer? maybe"

Is there a part in the books where Yennefer loses her magic ability and must overcome her self doubt?  I've only read a few of them.

That's one of the divergences I mentioned.

[Abagadro]

Enjoyed it. More focused than Season 1.  I like how all of the boat guard's gripes about the Bard's songs were criticisms people had made about the first season.

[Cyrrex]

So now that there is a season 2 out, I have finally started watching it and am totally hooked.  Are the books worth getting into?

[slog]

So now that there is a season 2 out, I have finally started watching it and am totally hooked.  Are the books worth getting into?

Yes, but they were never really written as a series.  The internet says this is the order that makes the most sense

    The Last Wish
    Sword of Destiny
    Blood of Elves
    Time of Contempt
    Baptism of Fire
    The Tower of the Swallow
    The Lady of the Lake
    Season of Storms (optional; explained below)

[Hoax]

Spoilers all the way to ending

[Khaldun]

By Blood of Elves, the books definitely have *some* sense of sequence--characters are constantly referring to things that have happened. There's still episodic parts that don't tightly fit into an arc, sure.

[Salamok]

I liked it better than S1 but then again I read all the books after watching S1 and waiting for s2.

[lamaros]

I mean, Ciri in the training grounds was 90% videogame. I could practically see the QTE prompts.

This was the worst bit of the second season for me. Otherwise ok enough, though not really as much fun as the first and the overall plot is a bit hard for me care about as a non book or game viewer. Given they didn't do hardly any fun stadalonish episodes this was the main flaw of the season for me.

They could probably have done the overall plot movements with some better pacing and linking and made me care more.

[Teleku]

I mean, Ciri in the training grounds was 90% videogame. I could practically see the QTE prompts.

This was the worst bit of the second season for me. Otherwise ok enough, though not really as much fun as the first and the overall plot is a bit hard for me care about as a non book or game viewer. Given they didn't do hardly any fun stadalonish episodes this was the main flaw of the season for me.

They could probably have done the overall plot movements with some better pacing and linking and made me care more.

Just an FYI, almost all of this entire season was made up, and had nothing to do with the books.  It's kinda understandable I guess because they're past the stand alone short stories and into the main books.  Trying to do any more of the books would commit them to a story arc that would take several more seasons to tell.  But still, that means it was up the the writers to make up their own story, and the results were pretty meh.  Literally the only stuff from the books in this season was beast/vampire mansion story (which was a stand alone story just like all the season 1 stuff, that didn't involve Ciri originally), and the fact that Ciri went to that healing temple to study (and met an awkward young nerdy guy there).  But everything that happened at the temple is totally different than the books.

[Khaldun]

A lot of this season in actually in Blood of Elves, so I don't get saying that it has nothing to do with the books.

Ciri goes to Kaer Morhen after meeting Geralt, trains on the training grounds (which are described in the books very much as they appeared in this season), Triss goes there to help with Ciri (and realizes just how powerful Ciri might be), Triss worries that the witchers might be thinking of giving her the witcher treatment and also cusses them out because they haven't realized she's menstruating, the witchers tell Triss that they're also very aware that Ciri is powerful and dangerous.

Rience being sent to hunt Ciri happens in the books; he catches Dandilion in a brothel and tortures him for information. He's saved by Yennefer, but she hasn't been depowered, so she burns him with magic rather than booze and a torch. Rience escapes and becomes a consistent adversary through most of Blood of Elves.

The healing temple and the nerdy guy is in Blood of Elves.

The thing about the leshy doesn't happen in the books. Yennefer being depowered doesn't happen in Blood of Elves, and a lot of the time we don't know where she is or what she's doing (e.g., her story is not co-equal with Geralt's; if anybody else gets attention independently it tends to be Dandilion and Ciri). But a lot of this season comes from Blood of Elves.

[Abagadro]

The nature of elves confused me through the whole season. They are apparently super-powerful magical creatures, but also a marginalized, refugee population that also can't have children?

[Khaldun]

It actually is kind of both in the books (and in Witcher 3, where you learn some of this).

Elf facts that are important in the Witcher series:

Elves are also imperialists in the lands that the Witcher takes place in. They came before humans, but way after dwarves and gnomes, who've been there way way longer. (Gnomes are described as genuine autochthons who have been there forever and ever; dwarves acknowledge that they arrived after gnomes.)  Elves first came about a thousand years ago and took some of their lands from dwarves, whom they forced back into the mountains. The elves fought against humans when they arrived but also worked out some lasting truces or co-habitation arrangements in some cases, but those didn't tend to last, so they were pushed out of more and more of their former cities.

Elves live a really long time but only young elves can get pregnant. The last time elves rose up strongly to push out human invaders, all of the warriors were young elves of both genders who were inspired to rise up, and the humans slaughtered almost all of them. That amounted to genocide even though older elves stayed out of it and kept in their own distant lands because there were so few left to have children. Only recently have the elves began to rebuild their numbers--and whoops, a lot of the young ones got inspired again and are off to fight humans.

Elves think of themselves as magically created whereas they believe human beings evolved from animals, which they think is gross. They definitely think of themselves as entitled to rule over everybody else but they also know they're essentially completely done in terms of real power or military capacity compared to humans. Think of them a bit as highly educated WASPs from New England who remember the good old days when Muffy and Tad went to Harvard and got to run all the corporations and the government and now it's fucking NASCAR and Pentecostals handling rattlesnakes all the time, plus graduates of declasse places like Stanford, and a few Negroes and Hispanics as well. They think highly of themselves, but they know their real power is fading; they tend to live in the past and think of the old days, but sometimes the young ones get fired up and think they can take over a major oil company and buy a football team as well as continue to go out on the sailboats in Ogunquit.

There's an entirely different group of VERY POWERFUL elves who live in another dimension that's kind of connected to the Witcher dimension; these are the goobers who make up the Wild Hunt and they're the ones who want Ciri. But the Wild Hunt is about more than just catching Ciri--they're basically multidimensional slave raiders who are constantly stocking up. The elves living in the regular world of the Witcher sort of know about the extradimensional elves but they don't see themselves as one people or even very closely connected.

The Witcher world also just has a ton of random fantasy garbage strewn about because of the Conjunction, which they talked about in both seasons--basically a dimensional car crash. So for example there are some hobbits in the Witcher world but they're not from anywhere that anybody knows anything about, they don't live in their own communities, they're just leftover trash fantasy creatures from some other dimension.

[Abagadro]

Heh, sounds like a Tolkien Mad-Libs or something. Thanks for the explanation. I kept thinking they said Ciri had "Elder" blood since her being part elven didn't seem like much of a big deal. Makes more sense now.

[Khaldun]

The elves (both the freaky extra-dimensional ones and the usual invaders from somewhere ones) are "Elder Blood", and so are the Dwarves.

The elves have sex with humans a lot after humans show up in these parts but they're kind of embarrassed about it and don't talk about it that much. It's not like Elrond where there's 2 or 3 such and they're all a big deal, it's lots of humiliating meetings after dark in castles where nobody talks about it later.

Basically, it absolutely IS Tolkien Mad-Libs plus General Fairy Tale Mad-Libs. Take any given Grimm's and it might show up somewhere in the Witcher books only with the worst imaginable twist on it. (Like the Beauty and the Beast mini-story in this season where the reason he's cursed is that he raped the priestess who cursed him.) If there are elves and dwarves and gnomes and humans, they've all done fucking awful things to each other and been each other's victims in some way and most of them are trying to cover it up or retell the whole thing. It's one reason some people are sort of drawn to the Nilfgaardians--the Emperor is a strong, resolute and basically non-hypocritical leader--he is 100% exactly what he says he is, which is basically Napoleon--a conqueror who actually wants to sweep away all the little bullshit kingdoms in the North run by penny-ante motherfuckers and scumbags and who doesn't really scruple at much to do what he means to do, whereas in the North there's just about nobody with any sense of honor or root-level values and they're very prone to give in to their worst prejudices and fears.

[Khaldun]

Guess Cavill either really wants to be Superman again in the new regime, or he really didn't like the way The Witcher was going. Makes me feel worried about the third season, though it's almost a year away still.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/liam-hemsworth-henry-cavill-the-witcher-season-4-1235251562

[01101010]

I like Liam, but this won't work. I can't see replacing the star of this and just continuing like nothing happened.

[Riggswolfe]

Guess Cavill either really wants to be Superman again in the new regime, or he really didn't like the way The Witcher was going. Makes me feel worried about the third season, though it's almost a year away still.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/liam-hemsworth-henry-cavill-the-witcher-season-4-1235251562

I'm trying really hard to think about another situation with such a significant downgrade in actors as this one. I'm sure there's some TV show out there that did an even worse job than this of replacing a lead actor but I sure can't think of one.

[Trippy]

Guess Cavill either really wants to be Superman again in the new regime, or he really didn't like the way The Witcher was going. Makes me feel worried about the third season, though it's almost a year away still.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/liam-hemsworth-henry-cavill-the-witcher-season-4-1235251562

I think it was the later and then the Superman opportunity came along and he took it. It felt like going into it Geralt was his dream role but then got tired of fighting with the decision makers about the portrayal of Geralt and other aspects of the show and began looking for a way out.

[Khaldun]

Kind of tragic considering how pitch-perfect the first season was.

[Hoax]

Kind of tragic considering how pitch-perfect the first season was.

[Setanta]

Loved the first season, what they did with the books as source material was excellent. Season 2 you could see they were trying to improve on the books, and struggling to sell it. Who knows what
S3 will be like.

[carnifex27]

Guess Cavill either really wants to be Superman again in the new regime, or he really didn't like the way The Witcher was going. Makes me feel worried about the third season, though it's almost a year away still.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/liam-hemsworth-henry-cavill-the-witcher-season-4-1235251562

I'm trying really hard to think about another situation with such a significant downgrade in actors as this one. I'm sure there's some TV show out there that did an even worse job than this of replacing a lead actor but I sure can't think of one.

Spartacus, but that wasn't their fault for obvious reasons.

[Samwise]

Spartacus was also the example that came to mind for me, but I don't remember the new lead actor being that much of a downgrade (although it was obviously jarring).  Mostly it felt like the show was already done once the Batiati got killed off, since John Hannah and Lucy Lawless stole every scene they were in.

[Threash]

The Spartacus replacement did just fine, he just wasn't Andy Whitfield.

[WayAbvPar]

Liam Hemsworth confirmed worse than cancer, got it.

[Sky]

Liam Neeson would've been a better replacement, just jump the timeline ahead a few decades. Would be interesting to see Old Man Geralt stories, maybe use a King Conan vibe.

Is Netflix still a thing? 

[Khaldun]

That could honestly be another part of what's going on, actually--Netflix cheaping out on the fourth season and Cavill saying "welp, I like these books, but not that money, cya".

[Miguel]

There is a limited series called Blood Origin, which I think is supposed to be the origin story of the first Witcher.  Was 'fine'.

[Teleku]

Everybody, from fans to legit reviewers, seem to hate it.  It's been pretty universal.  I'm not going to bother watching.

But it's an entirely original story from anything that was in the books, so considering how uneven a lot of non book stuff they made up was in the main series, it's understandable they don't have the ability to write their own show.