The Witcher - A Netflix Series

The Witcher producer blames Americans and impatient young people for the Netflix show's simplified plot

Well dang. Kind of a take to ought say you think your audience is stupid but uh..

Ah yes, the classical "People were too dumb to understand my genius writing!" defense.

Because it worked so well for the Secret Invasion director...

Okay, but if your audience complained about how dumb the show was then that should mean you underestimated their intelligence and shouldn't have bothered doing this.

On the other news, Sapkowski just admited he's cooking new The Witcher book.

(he randomly announced that during Ukrainian con earlier this day)

Sapkowski is feeling much better about his franchise now that CDPR, in a surprisingly smart move for a PR struggling video game company, opened its pockets and gave him a better deal than he used to have as well as a cash settlement.

So much so that he gave them permission to make more Witcher games and spinoffs with his stamp of approval.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 3rd 2023 at 8:37:24 AM

I'm fairly convinced that all the changes to the story of the TV show are because the writers are writing backwards from the end. They didn't like the end of the book series (fair, it's terrible) changed it, and have been furiously changing anything they think they need to to reach the ending they already decided on, i.e. the Go T method.

So tell me, how does season 3 ends compared to the original book ending?

Idk. I feel like Americans can get behind some surprisingly complicated storytelling sometimes.

It just matters that... well, kinda with out saying; the more complicated your storytelling, the messier your writing can be in telling it. The secret of why movies and modern media can often be overly simplistic; It's really hard to fuck up simple.

And even then modern Hollywood astounds us with fucking up basic film making on the regular, but that's a different rant.

Was it that Americans were too stupid? Was it that you happened to get a really bad pull of test audiences? Or... maybe your work didn't explain the situation very well?

Like, I could probably make a movie and sell it in Poland set during that event and all I need to say is "It's Warsaw, 1944" and that Polish audience will understand everything on who is who and need very little introduction. An audience isn't stupid because a work expects prior information before starting.

Contrastingly, I wouldn't expect a Polish audience to understand "Gettysberg 1863" as a title card and instantly know the who's who of the Civil War. I don't expect the rest of the world to understand American history.

Edited by InkDagger on Aug 28th 2023 at 3:56:08 AM

The show is just a trashfire when it comes to veering off of Sapkowski's books. For example, Season 2 has the leader of the elves commit a horrifying war crime that would go down in infamy across history and dwarfs the Red Wedding a hundred times over. Something outright Biblically evil.

And it is never mentioned again.

Because it is not in the books and thus utterly alters the nature of the storyline as well as relationship between oppressed and oppressor they're going for.

Wow. That's a new level of Adaptation Decay if I ever heard one. Like, a change of that nature would alter the course of the original story if it had happened. Why were these people so dead set on doing things like this and not ever having the will to keep using said plot point.

note it was killing every baby in Redania's capital city.

Which is especially...uh...problematic...given the elves are the analogs for Jews.

I mean, that wasn't "the elves". It was Francesca. She didn't exactly call for a quorum.

And I don't think Sapkowski has ever stated his elves are supposed to be an analog for the Jewish people of Europe. You could interpret it that way, but it's hardly supported by canon as a clear metaphor.

I thought Sapkowski said th R various groups are meant to be stand ins for eastern Europe as awohle.

Hence why they war with each other in a whole Cycle of Revenge thing. And why well their citizens can be pretty nice. Their leaders not so much..

Tbf though that and yennifrr trying to kill ciri Arndt brought up because they could not fit with what happens in later storylines.

No, the dwarves are the Jewish analogs in the books. Which you may think I'm reaching but they live in ghettos (called ghettos) and are subject to pogroms (called pogroms) and are the people who are constantly accused of horrible evils/treason they are never guilty of (nor would it matter).

The elves are a bunch of displaced peoples who were ruthless horrible emperors themselves, which would make them more like the various ethnic conquerors that used to be in charge of Poland that got displaced by the Romans who then got displaced themselves.

(But I don't think the show knows this—and I admit this plot leaves a sour taste in my mouth so I'm inclined to view it in the worst way)

They did bring it up and Yennefer went, "I'm really sorry."

:)

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 29th 2023 at 8:33:00 AM

I don't think elves are analogous with Jews in the books... but I do think the show kinda takes that angle. Or that's the impression I always had.

Personally, I've never liked when fantasy series take a fantastic culture and go "These are Fantasy!Jews/Romani/Black People!" and that's all you really need to know. I get it if they face similar societal problems, but I hate when it's a simple 1-1 thing.

It's also worth pointing out that even if they were meant to be a stand in for the Jewish people (which is a big 'if'), the idea that they cant then committ horrible acts or its 'problematic' is a little...patronizing.

Especially when "magic child death" is literally one of the most famous things that was visited on the oppressors of Jewish people in their mythic history.

Edited by ArthurEld on Aug 29th 2023 at 4:23:56 AM

It's also explicitly the basis of Blood Libel.

Literally the Qanon of its day and prone to causing massacres.

No one is saying oppressed minorities can't commit atrocities but maybe it's a good idea not to fall into one's that resemble historical racist slander.

But just my thoughts on the subject.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 29th 2023 at 4:26:14 AM

Sure, but that's just how history goes. It's a long line of nations committing horrible crimes against each other and then turning around and saying "what we did was an unpleasant necessity, when you guys did it, it's because you're soulless barbarians."

Especially when the showrunners themselves are definitely not drawing any deliberate parallels, I don't think it's any way a problem....aside from potentially being bad writing. But that's different.

That just means they didn't consider the Unfortunate Implications - which is, you know, also bad.

Eh, personally I don't see anything wrong with "Jewish analogue is horribly mistreated and then turns around and commits an awful crime themselves."

There are plenty of stories in the bible where pretty much exactly that happens.

Now if it was Harry Potter-style, "Jewish analogue are greedy, monstrous subhuman creatures with huge noses", then that's a problem.