Netflix include many scenes and storylines non-existent in the book that are obviously feminist like how male society treats them so bad and women are just objects in one of the speeches the Yennifer makes in the scene when she had to guard the woman about to be assassinated for not bearing a son. There is also the armor design that is wanting.
I recently started playing the Witcher 3, and man am i having fun. I love the investigative aspect of it as much as i love the combat aspect. Also, i think it was stated that Cavil is a fan of the books and games. More then the showrunner is apparently
And it's totally "their" fault that she can't have babies anymore. "They took away my choice!" No, bitch, you had the opportunity to travel the land with a man who loved you, but that would be "slow suicide" according to you. You then begged a guy to do the transformation, dude told you the consequences but you didn't care. That she's blaming some ominous "them" and not herself is peak irony. Fvck that show and fvck netflix.
Acesahn he should have gone for a more natural voice but it’s still not bad. Him and dandelion are good. Yen is the next best. Everyone else is basically garbage.
Iron Tusk Yes in the first episodes when Yen is deformed I felt for her and I think the actress did some great work. But once she became uber-sorcerer-goddess she lost her appeal and got kind of annoying.
@@andreadebernardis4390 Well, as @xoddamCXVII said, not going to happen as in books in todays political scene. It is okay to treat Geralt as shit as he is a male character and white. Don't expect anyone else to be treated so.
“Can’t make up my mind about whether I like this guy, or absolutely hate him” In all fairness, this is pretty close to how the other characters in the book perceive Dandelion
Yeah I'm pretty sure that's the point of the character. He's an annoying prat who you still kind of like anyway even though most of the time you feel like you want to dunk his head in the toilet.
Yeah, they nailed him… Jaskier/Dandelion really is too much, but he is also too much for his world, and that is really his character. When is he not mentioned with an eye roll in the third game after all? ^^
What a great review. I found myself agreeing with almost everything you said. I don't have a problem with the different races here, because everyone came to this world through the conjunction (different dementions) so there is no real evolution here. Only the gnomes (not seen in the TV series) are actually from here. The elves call themselves the elder race, but they only preceded the dwarves and humans by a few thousand years.
Geralt: "I like Fringilla because she looks like Yenn and reminds me of her." Writers: "Better make sure she's inexplicably black with no similarities."
And of course Fringilla is Nilfgardian who never went to Aretuza. I think it's best to just consider them two separate characters: Real Fringilla, and Affirmative Action Fringilla.
@@danisalusha5739 It's much more racist to black wash characters than to criticize those methods and the same applies to gender swapping and sexism. Characters should match their templates!
There's no need to feel bad about praising the early seasons of GOT. They were legitimately great. Its only the later seasons that went down the toilet
@@corriblehunt4554 The red wedding is still one of the most impactful events of any film / tv / book ive ever seen.. At that point i hadn't read the books so it was such a shock. It also took me until half way through season 2 to accept that ned was really dead 😂
I'm brazilian, and i got offended by that, it's pretty fucking stupid cast a bunch of pardos (this is what the government calls mixed people here) to interpret characters in a EUROPEAN FOLKLORE based story... Imagine if these woke retards discover that the native Tupi-guarini mithology is full of gods that have white skin and white hair, granted that this white skin gods are usually evil ones like Anhangua (although they would probably mistake him for a good one), but imagine this stupid woke folks screaming to the sky because someone decide to make a series about this gods and cast actors properly? Or if they discover that the african based religions like candomblé and umbanda, all these african gods here in Brazil are white like Iemanja?
I feel that the opening of Game of Thrones with the map, and how it changed across seasons, did alot more world building than people give it credit for.
Having sense of a place and time is very important. I remember when I read Metro 2033-35 series having map inside the book helped immensely. So when I read Witcher books years ago, I had a massive map of the world in my phone to check where characters are and where they are going.
I think it changed at every episode, depending on what was going to happen during the episode. Not only between seasons. (But I'm not sure, as I don't remember if they show, for example, the wall every time, even when it did not appear in the show)
Henry Cavill lifted this average show on his shoulders when he killed that first monster in the first shot of the first episode, and proceeded to carry it all the way to the finish line like an absolute boss. This show's survival in the long run basically depends on him.
@Seaworth Why the fuck is it relevant what other roles he plays? He's neither plump nor groomed, he plays a mutant guy who kills monsters for a living, who is adequately ripped as he should be with that kind of job. He also understands and plays an established character extremely well and on point, if you see this as a miscast you should probably get those eyes checked.
The short stories are actually pretty good and are solid source material for a show. Problem is Netflix decided to ignore most of it and make 75% of the show Yennefer fan fiction, and the few short stories they used were abridged. And of course Henry gets the character of Geralt, he's a huge fan of the books and the games.
i dont think there is a single person who would be a better cast than henry. he is just the perfect witcher. from the body to the voice plus he is a witcher fanboy
The people from the forest were not elves, they were Dryads, but still, Dryads weren't black in the books, they have green skin, but their phenotype features are Northern European as well
yeah it's pretty obvious this is made by "progressives" Americans with a hard on for the SJW mindset. They couldn't give less of shit about doing books from Europe correct.
I understand it; it's rather hard to paint a whole group of people green on a TV budget and have it look believable. It takes a lot of work and money to get people to look like Gamora does in Guardians of the Galaxy. But they still needed the Dryads to blend in with their forest home, so they took the pragmatic option. I get it. Ideally, we would've seen the Dryads be green-skinned and green-haired, but that would've been too much on a show that also needs to save money for the costumes, CGI, etc.
Henry Cavill is great as Geralt and when he's, you know, doing Witcher stuff. The problem is thats like 5% of the show while the rest is Yenifer and and bunch of "diverse" characters that look extremely out of place. I don't know why Netflix is determined to ruin every great piece of writing they can.
What ruined Yennefer for you? I thought the actress did a decent job IMHO- definitely not a perfect 1:1 with the books and games, but there’s hardly an adaptation out there that does.
The characters aren’t out of place at all😂. Thats just a lazy critique of diversity in a fantasy realm. Its not like they blackwashed any main characters.
@@antibull4869 yeah, when I first read this comment I tried keeping an open mind, but the explicit complaining about the fact that Yennefer and nonwhite characters existed and had significant screen time was kind of a giveaway
The characters are very much out of place indeed. Not as much visually, but in the way they behave and their personalities. Especially a combo between a Soviet-era old crone that sells fish on the market - and a pig, yet dressed in armor and occupying the throne. Nothing in common with the descriptions in the book. The games do justice to the characters, even if they are not identical, - yet they are believable and well defined. The very term" diverse cast" is an insult to a production, - meaning that it ignores the absence of talent, and actors are being shoved into the roles based on zero merit, - only to tick the checkbox on some bureaucrat's list. The Denzels of this world will NEVER go into any production, being considered for anything but their amazing acting ability. That's why they will never have anything to do with shows like this. So i'll stick to watching a master actor, like Denzel Washington - and not this shit.
"If you've got scars, strip! And show them to me! I'll show you mine! There isn't a place on my body, the front at least that isn't scarred!" Julius called his men out on it too Edit: this quote is Alexander the great, not Julius wow lol
Even fucking Napoleon sometimes led his armies himself when the moral was low. Which it absolutely should be when your country is facing the fucking Nilfgaardine Empire
I thought they were gonna give Yennefer the Captain Marvel treatment. I was surprised she actually had to work for what she wanted and wasn't just instantly good at everything.
@@liampatrick3110 you mean where whenever she has any challenge she gets a power up and immediately wins. Or when she straight up gets power from an engine and is somehow more powerful than both Thor, hulk and base level thanos.
Yennefer was complex and done well, The Witcher I guess is who he is, Ciri though omg I just rolled my eyes every time she was on screen. She had no originality.
He did what he could with what he was given. Too young, too bulky and handsome but with butt nose, but damn, he showed he can portray Geralt. Mad respect for the guy nad trying to correct the course of the show. Too bad modern screen writing won.
I agree about most of this. Except that medieval kings, and princes often took enormous personal risks in the thick of battle. Ask blind king John of Bohemia about that. Or the Black Prince or his dad Edward III. Or Francis I of France. Or Richard I or Henry IV or Henry V, or Edward IV, or Robert Bruce, etc. Also, if you look at extant effigies the knights were not that beefy. The Black Prince, who was one of the most warlike men of his age (or any other) was tall but also pretty thin.
Like Tony Montana says in Scarface, balls give orders. Soldiers in medieval times respected their Kings and Lords a lot more when they saw them fight on the front line.
@@honkhonk5150 John of Bohemia was blind when he asked his companions to lead him to his last battle. In more recent times gen. Rommel was often up front with his troops. It is not a general rule but it did happen often enough and has an indicated problem of a leader being killed but advantage of him knowing what is going on and leading the troops. The way Crecy went (where John of Bohemia died) shows that having the leaders in front may be a sign of bad leadership just as Rommel in Africa was example on how to do it well. I suspect it all depends on a situation, disposition of the leader, his troops etc. I think this is the reason why this argument does not hold.
Plus, as I recall from the books, Calanthe is basically forced into fighting due to the fact that they are completely surrounded and need to break out of the encirclement.
I know the Persians, Greeks, and Romans used to sometimes lead from the front too, for example Alexander the Great, Leonidis, and maybe Julius Cesar (I don’t remember for sure but I think he lead from the front against the Celts)
@@Ar1AnX1x If this show was a more traditional network effort like X files that episode would make a pretty good case for 'monster-of-the-week' episodes fitting the Witcher really well.
@@benrig89 Holy crap that would've been way better. And the beginning of the first episode kind of fools you into thinking that's what the show is gonna be
@@benrig89 I would have worried that it would have become something like supernatural though. Spn was mostly that, with some plot in between, which then spiralled into fifteen seasons with shit like fighting Satan fifty times, killing death, constant "here is a big bad that's totally worse than the last one," ending with shit like god himself having a sister. It was shit, but brought in the money
As someone who's read the books, while watching the show, I consistently thought "Wow, this is confusing as fuck. Will people even be able to understand what's going on?"
I watched it and thought '"wow why did they make a series that only those who read the books could understand". Turns out I even underestimated the clusterfuckery.
Making Ciri interesting would have been a great challenge considering that she basically doesn't exist until the 3rd book, and spends that entire book in school in no danger whatsoever. This is also why the timelines are so screwy in season one, you would not have seen ciri until the last episode. The first two books are basically just geralt having random unconnected adventures, you get virtually no ciri, and little Yennifer. Great for world building but would not have done well on screen for new fans.
and the way the show did it makes someone who hasn´t read the books and knows the plot already take at least a quarter of the episode to make sense of WHEN this happens. and having 2 out of 3 POV characters not age doesn´t help that. some indication would´ve been helpful
Well, leading troops from the front lines is a double edged sword. At one side it is incredibly dangerous, as the ruler dying is damn close to an instant loss, on the other hand it may grant great morale. Also, Calanthe has the reputation of being a hardened and skilled warrior. Perhaps they should've casted an actual ripped/ buff woman in the role, that would've been more realistic.
@@bukkebruse2936 Actually there were many societies throughout history that had "warrior" women. Germanic tribes, Mongolians, and others had women who fought because they had to in order to survive. Yes, they wouldn't have looked like body builders but they would have definitely had more muscle and athletic ability than this actress.
The 2 bishes helping the dragons are the only use of “inclusion” that makes sense considering it explains they came from Zerekania which is Witcher Arabia/Africa
Eli Odum I thought exact the same thing, all the others felt out of place except them. I don’t remember if they say where they are from in the show but by their outfit you can guess it’s some African inspired country, so it works
Carlos Oliveira yea the giant deserts yen goes teleporting to is prolly close enough. The dudes who imprison you in the Witcher 3 dlc is from there as well it’s a hole thing that makes their seamless “diversity” even stranger
SD obviously not however its not “Arabia” at all but an analogue for the general “African eastern” vibe. Yen’s bastardy is between an essentially English peasant and an elfy boi she’s fine. If you wanna talk about unexpected appearance due to strange casting decisions look at triss.
Geralt i felt was done reasonable well...... The rest of the show was all over the place..... and time. Wizard fighting swordsman on top of hill/ cliff. Uses magic to keep summoning his sword, all i could think was Aard that bugger off the hill. Hell you are a wizard so your magic is stronger then a Witchers.
@@paulandclaudia3765 I know, I've been waiting for a proper translation into english. With that said I'd bet that CDPR did a better job adhering to the source material unlike the writers of the show openly admitting they pushed their leftist agenda.
@@paulandclaudia3765what are you saying "because the writers a woman" no because the writer is literally an SJW who brags avout using The Witcher as a saop box to push her ideology. Let's put it this way the writer literally commented on a scene they wrote in where a black and a white character have sex while a group of elite white scholars watch and applaud. She claimed this scene was to celebrate "diversity". I have no problem with interracial relations but WTF. On top of that even my friends who arent into politics love the game like the show but admit it focuses too much on Yennifer and the other female characters. Its literally called "The Witcher". Imagine if they made a remake of Cinderella that focused on the prince?
@@paulandclaudia3765 as far as that sex scene I'll take the writers word for what she meant. As far as The Witcher in general I'll continue to play the games and wait for the books. Lol 2020 and people still claim to not know what an SJW is, I'm guessing you never went to college or haven't been on Twitter.
@@paulandclaudia3765 then why are you here?you know that's kind of the "Critical drinkers" thing he calls out shitty writers of books movies tv and video games for putting social ideology over interesting characters and storytelling. That's why I like this channel. Do you think I care that you don't care your show far left propaganda? Enjoy it bro lap that shit up. Just don't waste my time like I give a shit about your opinion. Actually the last wish was the first to be translated to english in 2007 with the follwing 7 dropping every year or 2 until 2018 out order oddly enough as well. And I can tell you they weren't available in the U.S. last I checked probably 2016 or 2017 i couldn't find them but thanks for letting me know they're available I'd much rather read the books from the(a) real writer then waste my time with scrotum armor Nilfgaardians.
I absolutely detest what Netflix has done to the base material, they completely butchered the short stories to get to the saga as fast as possible. Out of the 14 tale-like short stories, which are connected and gradually introduce Geralt, his work, his skill, his character, his backstory, his personal phylosophy and problems, and later Dandelion, Yen and Ciri as side characters, Netflix chose to adapt about 7 of them, poorly, and inflated the rest of the show with Yennefers/Ciris backstories/fanfictions. You could compare Witcher to the Hobbit/LotR. You want to get to the juicy long story of LotR asap, so you trim down the Hobbit to only the most crucial parts: you introduce Gandalf and Bilbo, the ring and Gollum, and rush through the journey in about three episodes. Then you want to set-up the other places and characters important for LotR, so you fill the rest of your season with Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Saruman and Frodo-fanfiction. That is exactly what Netflix did with the first season of witcher, a major set-up for the real story of season two. To me, it shows an absolute lack of respect for the book material, and if the writers are not skilled enough to adapt the series without butchering the stories and characters in this way, they should never have been placed in charge of the project. I don't mind the acting, diverse casting decisions, cgi and other stuff, some of it is good, some not so much. But I hate how they carved up the story.
I am watching 1st ep of Season 2 and have to stop midway because I'm so mad how they butchered the short stories and characters almost entirely. S2E1 introduces us to Nivellen, from chapter A grain of truth. Netflix just had to make Niv know all about the north-south war AND the Wild hunts. Then, when Geralt was asked why he came to look after a young girl, Ciri, "what changed" him, he answered "who" - "Yennefer of Vengerberg". And I just became speechless. Netflix just threw the "Child of destiny" out the window and made it a story about child adoption for a rom-com couple. I get that they want to "merge" characters and plots into the main saga plot but holy cow this is all bad and rushed writing. It just destroys Geralt's character entirely and the relationship between him and Ciri. In S1 they alrd made Geralt x Yen a rom-com thing with no chemistry, no bittersweetness nor passion like in the books, just merely LOLs. Damn, even Tissaia is having way more chemistry with Yen than Geralt with her. This may be the only thing I'm liking about the series.
Agreed, and this all comes down to the fact that they are copying the GoT formula. Unlike The Witcher, GoT is written from the perspectives of multiple characters. This is why it worked when the TV show did the same - they could show what Jon Snow, Tyrion, Daenerys etc. were doing in different places and had plenty of source material to do so. However, Sapowski's short stories are solely from Geralt's perspective, so trying to copy GoT and give Yennefer and Ciri comparable screentime and back stories was inevitably going to be a failure due to the lack of source material.
Game of Thrones was also aided by a brilliant opening to each episode, highlighting where every scene will take place throughout. It was probably one of the best things it did.
Characters aren't there to be lied necessarily, they are there to create the conflict to drive the drama, or to demonstrate something about the protagonist. Jaskier serves as a comedic foil, without which it would get very dark. Dandelion fails to do that in the books, so they fall into a dreary and depressing mood. I prefer Jaskier too Dandelion. Dandelion can't make up his mind how old he is in the books, coming across as this really wise old man, then turns out he is only 40 and still banging chicks.
Josef Černý at one point she says she’s lived several lifetimes already or something to that effect right before the battle at the end so it seems like shes even older than that
@@noneyabusiness3253 At least in the books around this point she was around her early 80s. We do infact get told by her that she is currently 90 in the 5th or 6th book I think.
@@bcount1 Iam fairly certain about Yen's age, but Triss could well be anywere from her 40s to 60s. It was sadly never stated safe for the fact that she is younger than Yen.
Actually Calanthe died the same way in the books, she fought, was wounded and then she jumped out of a window so that she is not captured. Or was it Eist who died in the battle? I am not sure right now but Calanthe was a fierce warrior who stood beside their man. At least thats how I remember her from the books
No shit right? how is this hard to understand. They were going to be overrun so they had to fight... besides we're going to criticize a middle aged woman fighting on the battlefield but not the fact that women have strong magic in the story? humans with magic can rise to high places and are powerful in this, ehem (checks genre again) FANTASY story? jesus lol, giant monsters are ok but women fighting, that's just unrealistic
One thing that stood out after i read the short stories was that Geralt's relationship with Dandelion is portrayed as more strained in the tv shows, whereas in the books they are far far more chummy (this is going by the first two short story collections - last wish and sword of destiny) . For instance, theres a moment at the end of sword of destiny where Dandelion's trying to cross a river and says to Geralt 'Don't leave me behind or ill drown!' and Geralt replies along the lines of 'I would never let you drown, dear friend' The portrayal of Geralt in the shows is more along the lines of 'reserved dickhead', but in the books he's actually a lot more human/friendly in interactions with the people *that are close to him*. Also one thing off about this review, I would say is your point about Calanthe only being shown as strong even though she's just a wamen. That was still fairly accurate to the books i thought.
In the book she was firce warrior queen, that needed to be pushed down the city wall by a few of enemy soldiers to be finally killed, because she was not giving up. In series... she just jumps out the window by herself when the enemy is knocking on her door... They assasinated her character pretty badly - the made her a coward >:(
In the show every relationship of Geralt's has been butchered and I don't know which one was the saddest to miss. The way Jaskier/Dandelion was a good partner to Geralt, showing that even though he was a goofy troublemaker, he was also a very intelligent person with an ability to read people and a knowledge of the aristocratic world that a troubadour would possess over a witcher who mostly conducted business with villagers and townspeople. The way they haven't even thought of the relationship between Geralt and Ciri, stomping instead a big word of "destiny" over it, repeated pointlessly by every character who appeared on the screen. Or the way they completely changed the relationship between Geralt and Yennefer from their first meeting, where in the books she knows exactly what Geralt asked the Djinn for and in the show he apparently lies to her (?). I think the biggest character assassination has been performed on Yennefer, from being a sarcastic, intelligent, proud woman in the books to becoming a child in a dress who is supposed to be older than she looks, but acts younger in the show. People say the first season was good and that they kept close to the source material, but in my opinion these were the biggest signs of them actively hating the source material. None of the main characters were even similar to their book counterparts. Their relationships were completely changed and with them, the whole story changed.
I am still so very annoyed about this... why change a characters race/gender for woke politics!?!?... may as well have a white blade, a black batman and a male mary poppins... stop catering to these ****heads! Stick to the god damned script!
Schar i refuse to watch the show, due to the pointless race swaping, so i don’t know what they skipped or left out. I only meant that they at least left geralt and ciri’s race’s alone, they actually resemble their game and book portrayals. Idk if they added feminazi stuff or some other random modern cancer.
@@brianosterman456 They mixed The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny novels in 8 episodes. I imagine that's why they didn't show geralt abandoning Ciri. Time and budget.
Don't know if you'll see this, but having a general/king/queen/whatever in the frontline can be a HUGE advantage, seeing as it gives a great moral boost to the men. The risk to the commander is also fairly small, seeing as that person would have the best soldiers around for protection.
Even as a black guy myself i was asking my self how wtf the some of these black characters get into the position they have because yea it doesn't make much sense in the context of the world.
Personally, I really can't understand why they don't portray any location where practically everyone is white, or brown or black, or asian or native american. E.g. In Game of Thrones there were places in Essos where only Dany, Jorah and some minor henchmen of theirs were white. Variation (which equals diversity in real terms) doesn't harm at all.
There is a "Africa" in that world, its called Zerrikania, and its even more savage, wild and magical than the continent the story of the witcher takes place on.
Accessible magic and science. In GoT magic is hidden and unaccessible: dragons (dragons are magic because their lift/drag ratio sucks), mystic metals - all reserved to kings and so on. So all in all the rules are middle ages with some weirdness. In Witcher magic is so accessible a someone as powerful as Yennefer sees no problem selling magical boner pills to common folk. Magic and science lower the barriers to travel - hence people of obviously different race aren't as uncommon, yet still they seem to be limited. The worst part is really the whole "invasion" of Nilfgaard where a huge fortress is overtaken by .... army of footmen. Tell me, what's the point of a wizard defending a gate with a wall against ... arrows? Gates and stone walls require siege weapons - what's the point of magical barrier against arrows? Except for dumb drama? That's probably the biggest sin in the show - most battle scenes make zero sense.
I think that in the book that inspired this first session the only characters that were genualy ment to be black were the two woman serving the gold dragon in disguise. Portrayed as exotic and beautiful yet powerful warriors in ther own right.
I will pluck my eyes out when i have to see Henry Cavil choosing to bed to this Triss over Yen. And i choose Triss in the game but come on. I really hope they dye her hair fire red.
@@wojtekwieczorek6397 Not sure about the Lord of the Rings, but the Witcher universe definately has alot of Polish elements in it, so the original comment wasn't just a 'the writer is a Pole, so the universe is Polish' thing.
@@dgmetaxa having medieval Polish elements is still pretty fucking far from being set in medieval Poland. It also had a lot of Germanic, Celtic and even Asian influences, so it was a mixed bag. I'd say it resembled mostly medieval Europe, but even the historical periods from which the story drew its influences were mixed - for example, we didn't know shit about genes and genetics until the XIX century, but it's common knowledge in the Witcher's world. So yeah, despite elements of Slavic folklore and Sapkowki's upbringing, it has rather little to do with medieval Poland. Sapkowski deconstructed many European fairy tales in the short stories, most of them weren't even Polish. Too bad that aspect was omitted from the show. Especially the one that was mentioned in the story about the Dragon, because that was a typical Polish legend and Sapkowski basically did a parody of it, but I guess it wouldn't be interesting or funny to people unfamiliar with it, so I'm not surprised about this one. They could've left some of the others, though, especially that the story of Renfri was loosely based on Snow White and the seven dwarfs.
5:45 they mentioned Queen Calanthe nickname which is the Lion and they mentioned also how many successful battles she fought, so I think it's a prestige for her to fight in the middle of the battle, as many leaders did in medieval times... (Richard the Lionhearted also did this many times) generals fought in the rear only become a common thing after the renaissance era (so I think the show has many flaws but this one I do not count)
Fun Fact: The elves in this world actually came from an alternate reality world that basically "collided" with this one during a very rare phase shift event thousands of years prior to this story. That's also basically how all the "evil" creatures appeared. This would have been useful information that could have been included somewhere in the show's narrative.
Actually, the world of the Witcher was first inhabited by the Elves (the Aen Seidhe), some 2000 years before the arrival of humans at the time of the Conjunction of the Spheres. Humans, although late to arrive on the Continent, proved able to “out breed” the long lived elves, and so the Age of Elves would come to an end, and humans would become the dominant species on the Continent.
@@reimundkrohn8938 If memory serves, there is even a reference to humans originating from earth, and Ciri visiting a place with "humans with metal in their head", so some kinda cyberpunk world.
Hissrich: "The books are Polish and packed with Slavic spirit. It was important to keep that same tone in our show". SJW's: "Rheeeeeeeee!". Hissrich: "Slavs are Black".
@Anthony Roic Apart from DNA studies that show the frequency of gene related to the Horn of Africa/West Africa and the Middle East appear with a frequency of 18% (1 in 5 males). Another gene sequence shared amongst those of North African/Middle East/Southern European descent is found with a frequency of 30% (1 in 3 males). Not suprising given Sciliy was under muslim rule for 200 years from 860 A.D.
@Anthony Roic Actually, you are wrong, that's exactly how you apply that principle. It only works when you apply it to populations, and this has been done for all the races of man on earth, so we now have a fairly accurate picture of migration patterns in early human history, and this DNA data coressponds to historical migrations/invasions, in the case of Sciliy's recent history (~100,000 years) Africa, Greek, Goth, Roman, Muslim, Norman, Greek. In fact the data is so accurate you can work from the DNA frequencies alone to work out the patterns of migration if no historical data is present.
@Anthony Roic Geneaology is tracing of family trees or lineages through birth/marriage/death records, and it's entirely legitimate way of tracing your ancestry. However, it isn't as accurate as DNA profiling. As a matter of fact we are all descended from Africa, so to state we have no African DNA is incorrect. It may be true that one family lineage may have a low frquency of a gene that is highly represented in Afican/Middle Eastern populations, but all I am saying in population terms, that is all 5 million inhabitants of Sciliy taken together, on average more than>30% have DNA that links them to close African/Middle Eastern heritage (we are talking in the past 100,000 years by the way - obviouusly this goes way past written records). There is no such thing as the top 20 genes, there are only markers that can be used to predict our likely genetic makeup. The markers can be useful to distinguish local populations or different races. I think the ones you are describing may be markers that distinguish local populations or distinguish Caucasian populations from each other - but I'm guessing here. No disrepect meant.
Woke neo-liberal SJW fucks and the likes of Black Lives Matter racist anti-white movement dont care for the fact that if blacks were present in the north during the middle ages, theyd be killed on the spot or made slaves, not knights or anything. The woke culture sure likes to change historical aspects of everything. In 2075 they will say that blacks colonized America and had white slaves since 1600...hahaha but no, that is a real fine victim culture racism aspect they need to play the victim and demand shit from people of the 21st ct whom nobody of ever owned slaves. I demand justice from every black person in the US because of the white killed farmers in Africa by blacks who hate white people. Isnt it the same logic? Anyway, nice show, but intentionally turned woke for the SJW mind
Really? I think it was obvious after the third episode if you paid attention to dialogues. Don't binge watch the series or you miss a lot of details, short term memory has a limit.
This was the first show in a long time that I actually had to pay attention to while watching. Even then I was about halfway through before I realized there were multiple time periods, and almost to the end before I actually figured them out. All in all, I thought it was pretty good. The fights were well choreographed and I liked the flawed characters that showed growth/redemption. I didn't notice the forced diversity, as I generally assume fantasy settings are made up of whatever (unless they're based on real world places), and so, when there's someone who wouldn't have been in a climate (like the black general), I will just accept it, unless it becomes overly forced or their character is poorly written.
There is a difference between having to pay attention because the world is so right and detail and having to pay attention because the story is told in such a scattershot way that you couldn't possibly make sense of it unless you took notes. Especially in a fantasy series where everything has weird names and there is next to no chance you will remember a characters name after 1 scene.
@@dash4800 I was smashed out of my tree when it first came out and I didn't know what the fuck was going on when it all started to piece back into the original time period as one. Thankfully I was that blasted I couldn't remember half of what I watched and rewatched it recently sober. * honestly, I still haven't a clue what its about.
I was watching it as background noise while working on some other things and every time I would look up I would be confused as hell by the plot line. If you couldn't completely pay attention you'd easily miss a bunch of important things. I had no idea who important characters were and what the heck was going on so I thought it was weird, and all the time things completely flew over my head
I actually know why it's called Witcher. Talked to Sapkowski himself some 15 years ago, probably more. Apparently he was wondering why there is no male equivalent of the word witch (wizard is a bit different), and decided to create a world in which there is.
In the Polish language wiedźma (a feminine noun) is the word for "witch" in English. That's the problem with the Modern English language, compared to most other European languages, it has lost its grammatical gender for nouns. Some European languages even have one gender for the singular form and the opposite gender (yes, there are ONLY TWO genders) for the plural form.
@@secretname2670 I speak Russian (native), English (learned it since I was 5), German (learned at the University) and a bit of Spanish (same). I completely disagree. While English is a bit more limited in some aspects than other languages, it lends itself beautifully to a person who is capable (same as any other language). Like in woodworking, where same results can be obtained by different tools, if you know how to use them.
She isn't black. She is mixed heritage, I think. Quite liked that bit of casting, it was fairly close to the book? I think, been a while since I read it
One thing I enjoyed about how they did the timeline, is it made it enjoyable to watch multiple times. Ive probably seen it through 8 times now and each time I feel like it gets better, which is because there is more I understand and catch.. But admittedly the first go through felt pretty bad. As far as just throwing you into the story, I felt that way in the games also... They were extremely hard for me to force myself to play and get into. But once I did I understood why people liked them so much.
@@falkenphil557 I liked it, too. It felt good when I figured out about halfway through the story that they weren't telling the story chronologically. I really liked the first season. It was the 2nd season where it kind of lost me.
I recently bought Witcher 3 ....for the Switch (it actually runs pretty well) ... anywho, I was looking for a game that was basically Zelda set in the Darksouls world. A friend told me to get Witcher 3 and within an hour of playtime it became one of the greatest games I've ever played. If anyone hasn't played it yet, my god... go buy it now
I didn’t realize until you mentioned that there was very little worldbuilding that I don’t remember them bringing up the Conjunction of the Spheres at all which is a pretty big detail
She still wants children for the wrong reason in the show (and probably the books) in the show she wants a child because it will adore her. After everything she's done and all the admiration she's acquired it isn't enough, because without self love it will never be enough, and she thinks a child can fill that hole, I didn't watch the series long enough to see if the writers forced ciri to fit that role, but a child can't make up for the love you don't have for yourself and it's not fair to expect a child to support you emotionally.
It irritates me that this show is clearly made for Witcher fans, evident by its lack of real world building and explanations, and yet it cuts SO much important content, delivers it in such a broken, poor way, and just expects us to clap because its The Witcher.
While it could be frustrating indeed, but this is just follow the books, which are not one long story, but a bunch of short novels which happens in same world, mostly with the same characters.
@@otapi well i wouldn't say this is an adaptation of the book. It's more of an book inspired thing. like game of thrones were the show and book are 2 diffrent things
@@otapi Actually, the series does contain a long story, but it starts in the third book (,,Blood of Elves") and continues till the end of the series, but the writers decided that it'll be fine and they will try to adapt the first two books from the series, which are indeed, short stories
Thanks for another great review. I agree with almost all you said, however I did thoroughly enjoy it and was happy to not be sure what the world was about or what exactly was going on, trusting and hoping that it'll be revealed later. This was a strength of it I think. Really looking forward to your review of the next season.
I felt like I had the same problem with the geography of The Witcher when I read the book series. I felt like I was constantly saying "What is this place and what is it near by? Which Kingdom is this?"
It was good enough to keep me interested until Season 2, but none of the emotional beats landed at all for me. Henry Cavill carries the show almost entirely and he needs more screen time.
@@bokrugthewaterserpent3012 Yep and not focused on "feelings" This showrunner is so incompetent that she originally wanted to make the show all about Ciri Its very clear that women should not direct shows about alpha males killing monsters and being badass
@@PriestlyBlock67 I mean, Ciri does end up driving the narrative when the proper "main saga" starts. Geralt going around killing things is a fixture of the short stories and games, *not* the novels.
@@ri3121 whenever I watch something the drinker recommends, I almost always agree with all his talking points, and when I watch things he doesn't like I also find common ground with his remarks, thus I have built an understanding of his critique. This my only reply to your sheepish comment.
I've watched the season twice, with the second time of watching with a youtube recap after each episode. After that I fully understood which made it worthwhile.
I’m weird but I enjoyed the Anthology style of stories for an opening season to set the world before the real meat of the story hits. I agree though it was a gamble. Casting Cavill was smart though he brought big star power and enough interest to get a second season
Not to mention Harald Hadrada in the same year. Or Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden in 1643. Or Emperor Valerian in AD 260. Or Alexander the Great in every single battle.
I actually really liked the way they did it non-sequentially, however i completely agree with your second point in that i had no idea where they were in relation to where anyone else was at any given time, nor the rules or idiosyncrasies or even the social norms of the world they were trying to build.
06:23 "These people" are Zerrikanian women, guarding Villentretenmerth. That's actually in the books and them being black makes sense, because Zerrikania is supposed to be a country with huge deserts and savannahs where Zebras live. In fact, I guess these two are the only characters who were intended to be black at the time the books were written.
Yeah I know that. But even still, the Show should have explained that so new audiences will understand. A piece of material should be able to stand alone, something LoTR did to perfection.
@@moosejuice4231 i mean, if you played the games or read the books you would understand most of it lol. I hate the idea that every piece of media "needs" to be able to stand on it's own.
@@UwUOwl uh no. That's a bullshit argument. People are coming to this completely new to the series with no background knowledge people will be so fucking confused about what's going on. Just cos you are a Witcher nerd does not mean everyone else who watches it is.
Darnok Raerc well, you should be too. if you don’t like the canon, why are you watching to begin with? if you like it, you like it. if you don’t, sucks to be you. everything isn’t for everyone.
@@moosejuice4231 wow, you are really upset lol. Maybe you should get a therapist. The fact that you devolved from intelligent arguing to throwing insults proves that you have much to learn as an adult lol. Also, Game of Thrones is shit. It's not for me, so I didn't watch it. You seem to dislike the Witcher, so why are you even arguing?
But monarchs did actually sometimes fight beside their soldiers, leading from the front. Medieval battles weren't nearly as chaotic and bloody as portrayed in fiction - at least until one side is routed. Also, full plate armour would protect you against arrows and regular blows. You'd have a bunch of well trained guards watching your back too. As for the benefits, it was probably a giant morale boost to your troops, since they knew their leader is fighting with them. And the troops' spirit was important - battles were usually lost when your soldiers panicked, broke formation and ran away, not when they were all slaughtered.
Regarding Medieval battles. it is NOT the case that generals would stay off the field. A) the field would be small, so range of command is important and presence is required for command. B) It was HUGELY important that captains of whatever station be active in combat for the sake of prestige. the armies would be relatively small so the captain would be relatively personally known by the troops. Not just that, the captains prestige (their ability to recruit and lead their troops) was dependent upon their personal combat ability. Yes they'd be guarded by capable warriors and likely be armed and armoured with the best equipment, but they'd need to be seen to be involved. Large numbers of pre modern monarchs had reputations based upon their personal ability (from Alexander, through Caesar and Medieval European kings like Edward Longshanks and Robert the Bruce). The rest of the review is great XD
After having a slog of Mary Sue female characters (namely one Star Wars character) Yennefer was SUCH a breath of fresh air: learns from her failures, struggles/isn’t a prodigy and earns her success and power. Then as you say the complexity of her feeling everything she fought for wasn’t worth her current situation and she’s jaded and now motivated to amend what’s she done to herself. Nothings given, everything is earned and that’s why I love her
I agree with you, ill miss the fire red head, but who knows maybe in season 2 when she actually gets to do something the actress will prove to be amazing. Fingers crossed
“Set in your typical medieval fantasy world...” exactly where the problem lies. The setting from the books was unique af. Nothing like you’d see somewhere else.
@@Alecfisher01 I wouldn't say it's typical. The type of developmental stages in that universe vary. For example, the northern realms are visually dark ages Europe while Nilfgaard is in an Italian style Renaissance period.
I agree with most of your points, in particular the lack of world building. Yet, at least for me, the complexity and non-chronological order to the story, is a huge benefit. It got me really invested once I realized the non-linear nature of the episodes as I had to start the series again with full focus and my phone turned off.
I think it might have been better if they had left Ciri and Nilfgaard's whole thing off until season 2, because then they could have taken season one to do the world building and explain Ciri's connection to Geralt. Then we might have actually cared more about Nilfgaard trying to kill Ciri (well, cared about it more than you usually care about people trying to kill a girl). At the very least, they shoulda done SOMETHING to show what time each episode was in. With the two anthology books that this season pulled from, there is at least a sense of a cohesive timeline. I only read them once, but I don't think you meet Ciri until after you meet her parents.
@@Cj-xt6tv The games didn't get her TOO wrong, though. Yeah she didn't have blazing red hair, but she had chestnut with red. She also had blue eyes. That said the games were a HELL of a lot better than the damn show. But yeah, a minor character in the books because her role only got larger in the games when she started interacting with Geralt after he escaped the Wild Hunt when she used him like the cunt she is lol
Once again you nailed it drinker! I almost dropped it at the end of the first season because I was so confused about who is who, why armies fight, are the invaders good or bad, why they invade, etc. season 2 is better because we learn a little bit (not too much) but we also learn to ignore the geopolitics to focus on the Witcher and his quest. Good show overall!
Cavill was the best thing about the show, its a shame we didnt get to see more of him. The limited episodes didnt help the show to breath and expand more on the world building or the need for witchers. They took alot of liberties with this license and we didnt get to see who or what witchers are about, if you have a star like Cavill - use him! Yennefer was the writers main focus and it showed, the limited screen time of the other characters and lack of story was detrimental to the show for me. The diverse cast didnt really bother me to much but as you say it could have been handled alot better.
@@dagtheger8993 Nothing implies they started as a "melting pot". The northerners are always depicted as white while people in the east such as Zerrikanians are swarthy.
The two black chicks that protect the gold dragon guy are 100% accurate to the books, but considering that the series is inspired by germanic and Scandinavian folk lore they should have been the only dark skinned people in the show.
Polish. The monsters are based on Polish myths and the history is adapted from Polish history in much the same way that Song of Fire and Ice i8s adapted from the Wars of the Roses.
Maybe I need to reread that story in the books but I did not see the part where Zarrakanians were described as sub-Saharan Africans. If Netflix cast them as dark skinned because Z is a desert / steppe climate, they should have cast them as something like Afghans or Lybians, not people straight out of a jungle climate.
@@beanwithbaconmegarocket I read the books recently. All we know from the books about the appearance of Zerrikanians is that the two warriors who accompanied Three Jackdaws were BOTH blonde.
Ciri was sent to find Geralt because he had earlier been there to take her away for protection. The whole "law of surprise" thing. Knowing that Geralt is a travelling badass and Nilfgaard was closing in, she thought he could keep her safe. Not her ideal course of action, but she was about to die and her city was burning.
@@malberolall Witcher and Witch hunter are 2 completely different things in witcher world. Witch hunters are obsessed heretics serving to the chruch of inifinite fire by burning witches. Witcherd are witchers.
Lmao somehow im not surprised 40k fandom made it's way here, we all just love grimdark and the Witcher has it in spades (the games and novels). The show was decent i liked it bois !
I really think they should have done the Game of Thrones way and shown the world map in the opening or something like that. Also, I think they should have modified the Stregobor-Geralt dialogue and the Aretuza meetings to make some exposition of the politics in the world, explaining the big players. Also, for anyone wondering why Nilfgaard in obssessed with Cintra, it’s a big spoiler and it’s later revealed in the books (those who played Witcher 3 also already know): SPOILER: . . . . The emperor of Nilfgaard is Ciri’s father
"Let me fight racism by making everything about race but hide it as "minorities" for my main argument to sound more convincing!" How to overshoot the goal and becomes the one thing you were trying to fight...
Hollywood's new slogan: "Strive for mediocrity!" When you've set the bar so low that "The Flintstones" is high art by comparison, there's almost nowhere to go but up. (And if any producers, writers, or directors are reading this...no, that is NOT a challenge!)
