Adaptation Displacement: A very weird example. Most are aware that the series is based on the original books, but people seem unaware that the show likely won't ever adapt the games (which are essentially a high-budget Fan Sequel to the books), at least according to the showrunner. This is because the rights to the games are separate from the books, and would likely require a separate deal to directly adapt, though the show has clearly been influenced by the games's visuals, leading to some familiar creative decisions for the show. For example, Geralt is wearing armor that is based on what Geralt wears by default in The Witcher 3 (just without silver trimmings, and it being all-black), while his voice is very clearly based on Doug Cockle's voice, the VA of Geralt in the games, with Henry Cavill being very baritone and retaining their vocal mannerisms, such as his "hrmms".
This also factors into some reactions towards casting, in regards to game appearances over the original books and their descriptions. For example, various fans have reacted to Philippa as being inaccurate to how she looks in the books — however, there she is only ever vaguely described as looking in her mid-30s and having black hair. Thus the so-called "accurate" appearance being referred to, is actually a game specific creation. It's also noteworthy that a lot of the backlash to the Race Lift seem to be due to changing the visual appearance of the characters from their game appearances (as book characters who had similar race changes like Vilgefortz have been far less controversial), but the books never specified character ethnicities outside of occasional vague descriptions about Witchers being unnervingly pale, and descriptions are mostly limited to describing hair colour and figure.
Likewise, the treatment of Eskel and the reaction to it is a good example of this. In the books, Eskel is The Generic Guy among the Witchers, only characterised by being more of a gentleman than the others, and barely a footnote in the story as he only appears briefly in two books, so killing him off is a relatively safe route to go in order to establish they're willing to kill characters, without derailing the story. In the games, though, Eskel got a significant boost of importance alongside Lambert, making his death come off as a much bigger deviation even to book fans.
This also seems to reflect some of the storytelling decisions, regarding how certain story threads are adapted. For instance, the show doesn't bother to draw out the true relationship between Emhyr and Ciri (they're father and daughter) because it was a major plot point of the third game (IE, the biggest instalment in the franchise prior to the Netflix series), so most viewers probably already knew it or had heard of it, or would likely learn of it before the series adapts the moment in the books where this reveal comes to light (which is the last book in the series). By contrast, the series decided to hide who Lydia and Rience's Man Behind the Man is (in the books, it's Vilgefortz), only showing them once from behind interacting with them so they can't be identified as the character who is otherwise presented in the series as a seemingly benevolent figure, despite the character in the books being introduced as Obviously Evil and the fact the character is theBig Bad of the series. Most fans aren't aware of the full details of the books, though, so this is information they can conceal as a twist.
Adorkable: The show has the most endearing version of Jaskier to date, with his dorky mannerisms and his corny, excellent songs.
Americans Hate Tingle: The series has a particularly contentious reception in Poland, of all places. There are at least three distinctive groups, each disliking it for different reasons. First there is the books fandom, who end up having all their worst predictions about the Broad Strokes aspect of the adaptations materialised, and who had completely abandoned the series by season 2. Then there is the video games fandom, which could roll with the ever-diverging nature of the adaptation, but just couldn't stand the increasingly alien to them visuals. Finally, there are also people who genuinely like the early 00s, Poland-madeThe Hexerbetter, since for them, for all its faults, it at least wasn't chasing after trends set by other series and was its own thing. Some of those groups can easily overlap, further piling reasons for the rather vocal dislike toward "the Netflix version".
And You Thought It Would Fail: Many people had little faith in this series when it was announced. Video game fans (considered to be the biggest chunk of the franchise's fandom) didn't really enjoy the idea of an adaptation focused on the books (as most of the Witcher fandom haven't read them, ironically). Even if the games were adapted — and the showrunner has said they won't be — there was a belief that the show had an Uncertain Audience, unclear whether it wanted to attract book fans, game fans, the general public, or even if it was aiming for the former Game of Thrones fans. When the show was actually released, it found massively positive reception across the board (except critics), with fans of every stripe feeling satisfied with the result, creating a Multiple Demographic Appeal and praises for the visuals and narrative of the show. The show has also been considered one of 2019's biggest hits, even though it released within weeks of the end of the year, and even managed to get a Netflix show back the spot of "Top Show in the US" which was stolen by The Mandalorian just a while earlier (dethroning Stranger Things), and become Netflix's highest rated show in IMDb.
The second season brings us Jaskier's new song "Burn, Butcher, Burn" a blistering Break Up Song which shows just how upset Jaskier was about Geralt ending their friendship the way he did.
Complete Monster (Season 2): The "Voleth Meir"—Deathless Mother—is an ancient being who was trapped by the first Witchers. Feeding off despair and misery, the Mother sows bargains that lead people to death, ruin, and pain while she gluts herself upon it to eventually escape. Bringing about the ambitions of Nilfgaard and also arranging events so the baby daughter of elven sorceress Francesca Findabair is murdered, the Mother also feeds on the pain when Francesca furiously murders every newborn in Redania in vengeance. Possessing Ciri, the Mother kills several Witchers before fleeing the sphere and taking her place with the monstrous Wild Hunt.
Critical Dissonance: Based on Rotten Tomatoes, the first season's critical reception was generally lukewarm, with a rating of 68% based on 91 critics, while viewers have rated it at 91% based on over 20,000 users. Similarly, it boasts the highest score for a Netflix series on imdb.com and has a similar gap in review scores on Rotten Tomatoes to Metacritic. Many fans believe that the discrepancy is due to the the show jumping between three different time periods. Critics, who were given only the first five episodes to screen, missed out on the eventual payoff. Furthermore, the time-jumping plots are easier to follow for people who are familiar with the franchise from either books, games, or both.
Crossover Ship: Unsurprisingly, the biggest ship outside the show is Geralt and Daenerys Targaryen. There were already shippers even before the Witcher had aired, but after, it gathered a decent amount of fans. The ship became popular for various reasons like the uncanny physical resemblance between Dany and Geralt, their affinity for magic, Geralt refusing to kill dragons, but the biggest reason is probably the fact that Henry Cavill himself apparently is a fan of Khaleesi, as he declared half-jokingly on the Jimmy Kimmel Live! show that he made people call him Khaleesi or Emilia on the set, and modeled his acting a little bit after her.
Die for Our Ship: Yennefer is often on the receiving end of this from Jaskier/Geralt supporters.
Yurga, the merchant who was burying the dead in the first season finale. He has a small role, to the point that most audience members wouldn't know his name, and he's fairly unanimously beloved thanks to his sardonic chemistry with "Butcher" and the fact that he's likely the single most unambiguously moral character in the first season of the show.
Sabrina is well-liked for being a badassHot Witch. It also helps that she is nowhere as nasty as her book or game counterparts. The scene where she attempts to seduce Geralt in Season 3 only elevated her popularity, partly due to her rather ...flattering wardrobe.
Fanfic Fuel: The Doylist explanation for why Jaskier doesn't age in the 20+ years he travels with Geralt is that the showrunners forgot that Jaskier isn't immortal like Geralt and Yennefer. The Watsonian explanation is the subject of multiple fanfics.
Fan-Preferred Couple: Despite Yennefer being cosmically linked to Geralt as his love interest in the books, the popularity of Geralt/Jaskier exploded as the show arrived on the scene. For reference, at the time of this writing, Geralt/Jaskier has 15,834 publicly available fanfics on AO3 to Geralt/Yennefer's 2,015.
Fan-Preferred Cut Content: Season 2 has a deleted scene of a conversation between Vilgefortz and Stregobor. Many viewers commented that the scene should have been kept in the final cut because it adds a lot of depth to Vilgefortz's character and his motivations, particularly his ambitions.
Fantasy Ghetto: Some speculate this is one of the reasons why the show had a lukewarm reception amongst professional critics. Darren Franich and Kristen Baldwin from Entertainment Weekly, in particular, are quick to lambast the show's first season for ripping off generic fantasy tropes despite them never having completed the whole season.
More than a few Game of Thrones communities welcomed this series, premiering roughly half a year after its controversial final season and both being highly anticipated television fantasy shows based on books while waiting for House of the Dragon. Also helps that there's some production overlap between the two; Vladimír Furdík, who played the Night King in Game of Thrones and worked as stunt supervisor, also participated in this show as sword choreographer.
And naturally, the Tolkien's Legendarium fandom has been very supportive of the show, while waiting for the upcoming The Rings of Power series, expressing excitement for the next seasons of The Witcher as well.
Throne of Glass fans showed interest in the show, mostly for Henry Cavill playing a white-haired morally ambiguous protagonist. Shortly, Tumblr exploded with posts and reblogs of Geralt being fan casted as Rowan Whitehorn.
Growing the Beard: While the series was a big hit with general audiences from the beginning, professional reviews for Season 1 were overall lukewarm, largely due to the non-linear storylines and the Mood Dissonance caused by the clash between the series' attempts to be a grand fantasy epic in the vein of Game of Thrones and the more campy, tongue-in-cheek elements taken over from its source material. Season 2, however, got much better reviews than the first and was generally seen by critics as the point where the series finally came into its own, with a much stronger main plot and a more consistent tone.
Harsher in Hindsight: After you've seen The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, rewatching this show is a bit of a different experience knowing that people's inherent distrust of witchers isn't quite as irrational as it seemed.
Mousesack's line in "Of Banquets, Bastards and Burials" — "Geralt of Rivia, the mighty witcher! I haven't seen you since the plague!" — took a darkly memetic status when, three months after the episode's release, there was, in fact, a worldwide plague that was still on-going at the time of the the second season's release.
Heartwarming in Hindsight: In first season, during a heated conversation with Yennefer, Geralt tells her he'd rather use his Child Surprise as bruxa bait than subject it to his witcher lifestyle. Come Season 2 what does he do? Tells Ciri to get away from the bruxa and not put herself in danger, and tries to protect her from the bruxa. Hilarious in Hindsight Though it's somewhat subverted when he later uses Ciri as Chernobog bait.
When it was revealed that Henry Cavill was a fan of the series, especially the games, people made jokes about how he'd be too busy doing side quests. Come the series' debut, it turns out it's based on the first two short story collections, which have Geralt effectively going on a series of side quests, before his timeline converges with Ciri's.
Jodhi May had previously appeared in Game of Thrones as Maggy the Frog, a witch that prophesied the fall from power to a young Cersei Lannister whose house motifs are golden lions. In the The Witcher (2019), she plays the role of an iron queen whose house motifs are also golden lions, hates magic and witnesses the fall of Cintra.
Ho Yay: The scene where Jaskier is just hanging around while Geralt has a post-monster-fight bath, and mentions that at some point he had to rub chamomile onto Geralt's "lovely bottom" (presumably because of said monster fight), has this in spades. And then there's the scene where he's just as devastated at Geralt's supposed death as the man who's explicitly in love with Yennefer is for hers.
The scene in the very next episode where Jaskier comforts the brooding Geralt after the apparent deaths of Borch, Tea, and Vea features Jaskier quietly suggesting the two of them head to the coast together to "get away for a while", because "life is too short, do what pleases you." When Geralt sarcastically asks if he's composing his next song, Jaskier replies that he's "just trying to work out what pleases me." Between the gentle tone of the scene and Jaskier and Yennefer's sniping at each other throughout the episode, it's hard not to read it as Jaskier struggling with asking Geralt to run away with him.
The second season reintroduces Jaskier singing what's obviously a bitter Break Up Song directed at Geralt titled "Burn, Butcher, Burn". He admits to Yennefer he wrote the song while heartbroken after Geralt ditched him. When Geralt rescues him from prison it only takes a few seconds of Puppy-Dog Eyes to get Jaskier to stop being mad and agree to come with him.
In Season 2, Ciri's immediate infatuation with Triss, to the point she dresses in a more feminine manner in an attempt to impress her and lights up when Triss compliments it. This was apparently intended to be a more explicit Precocious Crush on Ciri's part as a hint to her bisexuality, but due to Freya Allan's age they decided to go a different route, but even still it comes off as a young closeted queer kid developing their first same-sex crush and trying to impress their subject.
LGBT Fanbase: The Witcher has a strong queer following from Geralt x Jaskier shippers and those who watch the show because they find Yennefer sexy. Many trans people also find Yennefer's story (early rejection, having to go through major changes to be accepted, but having many leftover insecuritiesnote especially with regard to having children) very relatable, too. Adding to matters is the fact Ciri herself is bisexual in the source material (and confirmed as such by the showrunners), and her tomboyish mannerisms have led to comments from some queer women as being very reminiscent of their own experiences as a teenager.
Lost in Medias Res: The show has a bit of this for the first half of Season 1, more so for viewers who aren't too familiar with the books. It drops the viewer in the middle of not one but three separate stories and dishes out exposition sporadically. For example, the same episode we're introduced to the kingdom of Cintra and its royal family, it gets invaded by Nilfgaard and most of the characters are killed or Put on a Bus. The viewer may not even realize until three episodes in that Geralt, Ciri, and Yennefer's stories are taking place in different time periods, until they notice that some characters who are dead or older in some storylines show up younger, alive or not even born yet in others, and so forth. It gets easier to follow later in the season when the characters all start meeting up and their stories merge. There's a timeline on this very wiki (and others around the internet) to help clear up the confusion. Season 2 hangs a lampshade on this where a dockworker confronts Jaskier about one of his ballads which covered the events of Season 1 and notes that the first four verses had a confusing timeline, mirroring what many said about the show's first season.
"If I have to choose between one Evil and another ... then I'd prefer not to choose at all". explanation A line said by Geralt that compares two equally evil moral choices he has to make. Became memetic on this video specifically, which compares Henry Cavill's voice with that of Doug Cockle, the VA of Geralt in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, with most of the comments using the sentence to agree that the two are just as good at each other, and prefer not to choose at all.
Geralt saying "Fuck" has quickly become a meme due to the framing of the scene during Episode 1, or just the hilarity of Henry Cavill saying it.
"Hmm..."
"Toss a coin to your Witcher" has become the most well-known part of the series even for people who haven't actually watched it. Many variations of before-after meme have been made of it, "before" usually being doubts about the show's quality, and "after" being singing along the tune.
Since its airing, The Witcher spawned a few crossover memes with Game of Thrones. "Brace yourself, the Witcher memes are coming."
Who did the "king's landing" better: Queen Calanthe or King Tommen?
With Season 2 being one of the very first entertainment productions to start up again after the COVID-19 industry shutdown, quite a few jokes were made about how Henry Cavill's mask will be digitally removed just like his notorious mustache in Justice League (2017).
"Final season." explanation Said about Season 3 by many fans lamenting the departure of Henry Cavill. Liam Hemsworth is due to replace him in Season 4.
"I've lived through three supposed 'end of days'". explanation A slight misquote of a line Geralt says in "A Grain of Truth", which caught on fast during the pandemic with viewers getting tired of the chaos of it all
The show's depiction of Vilgefortz has become saddled with this due to his lackluster performance at The Battle of Sodden Hill, from Yennefer taking the crucial role in the battle that he had in the books, to his embarrassing defeat at the hands of Cahir. Only time will tell if he becomes the powerhouse that he was in the books. He fully claws out of this status with a vengeance in Season 3, showing the full extent of his powers by beating Geralt's ass into the curb.
Poor Eskel has become one following his infamous transformation into a Leshy and unceremonious death afterwards. For that matter, all the Witchers barring Geralt become this once most of them began dropping like flies, getting easily killed by monsters that Geralt had little trouble dealing with.
Moral Event Horizon: Francesca Findabair crosses it when she murders every baby in Redania in retribution for the murder of her child. A mother's grief? Certainly. But she took it out on infants who had absolutely nothing to do with it and caused other mothers to feel the same way she did without a shred of empathy. It’s quite telling that her brother, who hates humans, was disturbed and tried to make her stop. It becomes especially notable that it is Misplaced Retribution and it was Nilfgaard's Emperor all along who carried out. This is notably also Emhyr's Moral Event Horizon in the show.
Narm: The Kikimora that Geralt fights in Episode 1 sounds more like a screaming goat than a monster.
Critics have gotten a lot of mileage out of comparing (sometimes derisively) the series to Game of Thrones. The majority of the original Witcher books were published before any of the A Song of Ice and Fire books.
Some online commenters and reviewers have expressed annoyance that the second season put more focus on Ciri than Geralt, seemingly unaware that this is kind of the point of the books the show's based on, as Ciri's origin and destiny is pretty much the franchise's central Myth Arc, and so the show is only following the trajectory that the books they're based on went. This applies especially to this point in the story, which is adapting Blood of Elves, of which Ciri was The Heart of the book; in fact, the show actually downplayed the focus on her as it gave more focus to characters who had not yet appeared or were of much minor focus in the book itself.
The above-mentioned Fanfic Fuel about Jaskier not aging despite not being an immortal Witcher/Sorcerer and remaining youngish looking is actually a trait of the character in general, who remained unaging despite being in Geralt's company for somewhere between 20-30 years by the end of the video games, where he still looks like he could pass for his late 20s. There's never been an explanation, but rather a lot of in-universe commentary on the subject, with him sometimes being mistaken for being part-Elf.
One True Threesome: Season 2 has a big rise in popularity for the Geralt/Jaskier/Yennefer pairing. Geralt/Jaskier is the Fan-Preferred Couple, Yennefer is Geralt's One True Love, and Jaskier and Yennefer form an Odd Friendship in the second season. It helps that all three actors have great chemistry and it is also a good way to avoid Ship-to-Ship Combat.
Largely, while the series is adapting the books, it takes quite a bit of inspiration from the video games, which are vastly more popular than the books they're based on despite ostensibly being a Fan Sequel, and as a result most of the fanbase would be expecting to see this stuff. Geralt's Season 1 armour looks a lot like his default armour in Wild Hunt, Triss Merigold appears earlier than she did due to her video game counterpart being a much more prominent character than the book version (and in the second season, she gains redder hair, something that was mostly a thing in the games), and Ciri has a slight Age Lift so she's closer in age to her game counterpart by the second seasonnote though Dawson Casting is in play, Freya Allan was 20 by the time the second season released, putting her roughly a year younger than Ciri was in Wild Hunt, even if Ciri's character is meant to be 15 during this time in the series itself, and the design of her Witcher-in-training attire is clearly taking inspiration from her look in it. A number of other plot elements and characters also appear earlier, ostensibly because they know the video game fans will know about this stuff already and it makes sense to start building towards it sooner.
To a lesser extent, the second season was made with criticisms of the first season in mind, and so made changes to accommodate this. Nilfgaard's wrinkled, ugly armour is replaced with armour that's much more imposing and less Obviously Evil looking largely because of how memetic the criticisms were of how it looked in the first season, to name one example, though at least some of the other examples seem to be derived more as a natural result of adapting the actual novels instead of the short story collections.
Kaer Morhen is lovingly recreated as it appeared in the games, right down to the gaps in the walls.
Special Effect Failure: The contacts Henry Cavill wears for Geralt's orange eyes have a tendency to make him look cross-eyed. Mercifully, this did not happen very often.
Squick: To say Yen's surgery is disturbing would be an understatement, peaking at the removal of her uterus and ovaries, And yes, we do get to see the removed organs after they have been extracted.
Some reactions to the Race Lift given to various characters with reasons ranging from claiming it "impractical" for non-whites to appear in one of the only representations of Polish culture (albeit a fantasy one and there were canonically other non-white cultures/people too within the setting such as those from Zerrikania, although these were distinct ethnicities in far-off lands and not random Northern peasants and nobles in isolated settlements), to it "ruining the iconic appearances" of characters such as the redheaded Triss (although she was not actually red-headed in the books, but still auburn - close enough) and green-skinned dryads (who also did have "assimilated" members in the books with completely human (albeit white/Northern) skintones). There are also those with solely and overtly racist reactions as well, with their vitriol regarding the presence of non-white characters even in the background.
Some fans who were looking forward to Yennefer and Ciri meeting and bonding in Season 2 had this reaction to Yennefer almost sacrificing Ciri to the Deathless Mother to get her magic back after losing it at Sodden Hill, believing this taints any bonding that occurs between them in future seasons despite Yennefer's Heroic Sacrifice for Ciri in the season finale.
The show's depiction of Vilgefortz has also not been well-received by some of those familiar with the books. One egregious example was his performance at the Battle of Sodden Hill, which was what secured his political standing in the books. In the show, he's reduced to a bit-player soundly defeated by Cahir with Yennefer taking his role instead. To twist the knife even further, Season 2 reveals that Vilgefortz's political position was because he took the credit for Yennefer's role. Many pointed out that these changes would hurt the eventual payoff of Vilgefortz and his role in the future.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The season 2 climax, Francesca Findabair murders every newborn baby in Redania. This mammoth atrocity could have had massive consequences for elves throughout the North as well as a split among them about acceptable actions. Instead, because it is an addition by the show, it is never mentioned again.
Ugly Cute: Hunchback Yennefer is certainly deformed but there's something oddly endearing about her, mostly from how much of a Woobie she is.
Torque the Sylvan. The practical make-up is done very well, but there's something just so disturbingly...off about him, especially his widely-spaced eyes with rectangular pupils.
Vereena. Though her human form is a beautiful young woman, she's a supernatural creature who's introduced doing a bestial Wall Crawl on the ceiling's rafters, and there is no visible hole or gap that a normal human can use. Her strange and unblinking expression, and the stilted ways she speaks and moves, are deeply unsettling.
The first episode is supposed to be about how Geralt didn't have any good options between Stregobor and Renfri, even though he really liked Renfri, because even the lesser evil is still evil — but Stregobor comes off as such a terrible person even when he's trying to make himself out as a victim (plus the soft-porn illusion spell doesn't do him any favors) that it doesn't seem like killing him would have been evil at all. Later episodes confirm that Mousesack's version of the story is correct, and he did in fact murder a bunch of girls on top of what he did to Renfri. While admittedly he does seem to believe the prophecy was real and the world was in danger, nothing in the show has shown this to be true, plus Tissaia, one of the most intelligent and shrewd characters in the show, openly mocks him for it and sees this belief as a mark against him, suggesting whatever evidence there may be off-screen isn't very good. This crosses high into Unintentionally Sympathetic; while Renfri was intended to be empathised with (and Geralt certainly empathised), viewers might have brushed over the fact her going after Stregobor was going to put the town in danger and Geralt had to intervene to stop the potential for casualties in the crossfire (it doesn't help that it takes until the end of the episode for any of the villagers to actually be in imminent danger; until Renfri takes Marilka hostage, which is undeniably wrong of her, they seem just fine). However, because Stregobor was such a monster and Renfri's Revenge Before Reason came off as far more justified, it's easy for viewers to side with her.
Yennefer is meant to be a wildcard who, when she first meets Geralt, is the episode's Villain of the Week, only for him to pull a Save the Villain, which leads to their romance. However, because of her shitty backstory, it can come off as if we're meant to empathize with everything she does...which can in turn lead to this because of how villainous she is in that episode, being introduced putting a town under an orgy spell — which many have pointed out is not just Mind Rape but physical rape as well — for her amusement and trying to have Geralt and Jaskier killed so she can get a Djinn. The fact she's doing this so she can find a means to undo her sterile nature doesn't help, as the sympathetic nature of that goal can make it look like we're meant to excuse her actions. She's meant to be unsympathetic here (since again, she's the villain of the episode), but it's easy for people to see her actions as inexcusable or irredeemable, when she subsequently has a Heel–Face Turn.
Ciri is a sheltered princess who is forced to go on the run, and clearly meant to be The Woobie. However, she takes a lot of stupid and selfish actions, which can come off as Ciri not caring as much about others who are going through War Is Hell. To begin with, she sits and does nothing while a Rich Bitch forces her dwarven servant to give Ciri her shoes, and doesn't so much as apologize to the poor man for his trouble (or even thank him). Later on, she attempts to steal a pair of gloves, only to be caught and made to pay with a ring. It's supposed to be a sad moment, but she had the means to pay to begin with, and was attempting to avoid being seen taking the gloves — not to mention that a war is going on, which means that the person selling the gloves may not have been able to make another pair (and definitely needed the money from the sale). Her lowest point is arguably when she attempts to brow-beat Dara into cutting her enemy's throat. Understandably, this — combined with her ignoring Dara's advice to act with caution — causes him to leave. Not helping matters is the Age Lift due to casting an older actress and the changes made to her earlier behavior.
Francesca, leader of the elves, makes a deal with Fringilla and the Nilfgaardian Empire to add her men to their army, in return for shelter, training and safe passage, as well as the eventual turning over of Cintra to the elves. However, she changes her mind after the birth of her daughter. While Nilfgaard are The Empire and their secret response is Disproportionate Retribution, housing the elves has been a controversial move and massive drain on Nilfgaardian resources that has yet to see any return on their investment. They even housed, clothed, and provided medical aid to Francesca throughout her pregnancy and labour. The fact that the Nilfgaardians are pissed is pretty understandable.
Eskel's forced transformation into a Leshy and his subsequent death at Geralt's hands is meant to be presented as tragic and that not even beloved characters are safe from being killed off. But considering he spent most of his screentime being a Jerkass, casual audiences would find it hard to sympathize with a character they barely knew. Fans of the books and games, meanwhile, also have a hard time getting attached to an otherwise well-liked character because of how different he is from the source material, to the point that they consider this version to be a completely different character. It doesn't help that the possessed Ciri proceeds to kill off many of the other witchers, making Eskel's death lose even more of its weight in hindsight.
The mass-producedNilfgaardian armour of the regular infantry◊. They look utterly ridiculous; comparisons range from tree bark to even veiny scrotums. This was so bad that the showrunner confirmed they were having the armour redesigned for Season 2.
Cahir's own helmet has a large drooping plume and tiny wings, yet Ciri, in stark opposition, still mentions it looked like a terrible bird of prey when it looks anything but. This was likely done to make the helmet more practical, but it's hard to deny that they ended up with something that looks far less impressive than it was intended to be.
Jaskier somehow acquires a pair of brown baggy trouser pants for Geralt to wear at Pavetta's birthday feast. To clash with his shimmering turquoise doublet. Mousesack does make fun of this outfit, so it's possible it's meant to be this in-universe.
Many agreed that Yennefer has many beautiful clothes, but they look more like gowns for a Hollywood awards show than a medieval inspired high fantasy. Probably the worst offenders are the lacy Fifty Shades of Grey mask she wears in Episode 5 and the rope dress in Episode 8. On a similar note, many wondered who decided to put Yennefer in unflattering makeup (especially the eyeshadow), as it doesn't suit the actress.
This returns to some extent in Season 2, with Yennefer's dress while at Aretuza looking like something out of an alternative wedding boutique rather than a sorceress's robes.
Jaskier's fabulous red leather longcoat, while extremely nice and very flattering, has a modern cut that doesn't really look like something that was produced in a medieval fantasy world.
which was stolen by The Mandalorian just a while earlier (dethroning Stranger Things), and become Netflix's highest rated show in IMDb.
