Netflix 'The Witcher' Slay-All

Henry Cavill's forearms are seriously distracting and impressive.

It's weird that you mention his forearms, as I was distracted by his large thighs in the tight pants while fighting

Spoiler:

Vereena, the Bruxa

in the first episode. Looks like his been hitting the squat rack, which is fantastic to help sell the sword swinging.

I am going to attempt to limit myself to one ep per day.

Spoiler:

It Was Duny All Along.

First episode of season 2 was great.

Any thoughts on who Fire f*cker was working for?

Book spoiler about fire-f*cker's boss:

Spoiler:

It's Vilgefortz, he wants Ciri's Elder Blood to try to gain her powers for himself. He also helped Emhyr fake his death as Duny and reclaim the Nilfgaardian throne.

Finished season 2, adored it.

There are some sets and locations that actually made me weirdly homesick for the game world.

There's a courtyard where Istredd goes to meet that couple for information that looked transplanted from Vizima in Witcher 1.

Was funny watching with my wife. Obviously thanks to the games I knew the big twist coming, but my wife is usually good at spotting foreshadowing but this one got her.

They're not basing the show on the games, but they're also not ignoring that they exist, at least as a source for visuals.

Heh, yeah I realised I got that wrong so came back to edit that.

It's true Hissrich has said the visual style is an inspiration, and it's sometimes a bit eerie.

In one of the scenes in which of the witcher medallions on the tree first start shaking, you can see the witcher medallion from the games.

Even Geralt himself is more the game version than the book version. Geralt was ugly enough in the books that people would double-take when they saw him and he wasn’t nearly as superhuman a fighter as the games and show make him out to be. He barely walks away from a lot of fights, even against humans, and pretty early in the series he’s already mostly scar tissue and has permanent disabilities.

It's been a long time since I read the books. I think I made it 3 deep, but I seem to remember them being mediocre as well as just generally depressing 'the world is dying and life sucks' in tone. Also, I remember at least one of them to be confusing in pacing.

Why is everyone one reddit all up in arms over the books? Just general internet BS? Or are they actually considered good works?

I mean I like the premise of witchers and monsters that don't always need to be killed... but man if I couldn't be bothered to finish the books back when I had time, why are they supposedly a great thing to follow today?

manta173 wrote:

I mean I like the premise of witchers and monsters that don't always need to be killed... but man if I couldn't be bothered to finish the books back when I had time, why are they supposedly a great thing to follow today?

Short answer - they're not.

Your assessment is correct, they're mediocre, perfectly serviceable but instantly forgettable pulp fantasy. They were barely known outside of Poland, where they were popular, until a little known Polish developer made a videogame version.

They are bleak, but it was an interesting take on the standard fantasy world. If it's on reddit though it's probably people arguing about Yen vs Triss.

I loved The Last Wish, but I've heard the novels aren't great and suffer less that great translations?

I do still want to check them out, but I'm pretty sure most of the complaints are the usual reactionary sh*t you get with anything that doesn't conform to a very specific... palette.

Done with season 2 and loved it. Watched a behind the scenes clip and learned the snow scenes were done in a hot London location backlot. I knew part of the set was cgi but I thought they were in a real snowy location.

I'm not sure If I understand the witch. Looked like she became one of the wild hunt riders after they planet hopped. I thought she needed a body but maybe that was just for when she is off her home planet.

Also not sure about the daddy. He was said to dead but is alive. He didn't break apart in the matrix. I guess we will learn what his deal is next season.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

I'm not sure If I understand the witch. Looked like she became one of the wild hunt riders after they planet hopped. I thought she needed a body but maybe that was just for when she is off her home planet.

She is one of the Wild Hunt, just one whose powers had waned after being trapped on the Continent. Being reunited with her fellow riders restored her.

Just wrapped S2. Am confused.

Before I get into my serious problems w/the show, let me praise all the good stuff which outweighs the bad:
- Henry Cavill, Workout Machine
- Pretty people looking pretty
- Great SFX
- Vesemir's School for Gifted Youngsters - seriously, all we needed was a Danger Room scene
- Yennifer story ATTEMPT was good (ultra-powerful character loses it all...now what?)
- Yennifer/Ciri stuff was more interesting that typical fantasy fare (Chosen One tropes, etc.)

But.

Spoiler:

The politics stuff is completely confusing. What countries are we referring to? Why should we care about Rodentia? How are they different from the other dozen countries in, "The North"? Why are we shown 2 seasons' worth of "Brotherhood" scenes that are all about mages (and only mages, no monarchs) and then in a final scene we get a single mage sitting w/a half dozen monarchs, two of whom have speaking roles which we haven't even seen before and the MAGE tells the monarch "Welcome to The Brotherhood"? No explanatory scenes showing how that mage made the switch to take her (abusive?) partners' position and now openly accept killing Ciri. And I'm sorry but I can do without killing babies, unless we're really wanting to put on the Old Testament Greatest Hits.

Seriously. This show's ability to handle politics is laughably bad. It's like watching Game of Thrones but taking out the scenes that feature a character from an opposing house. So, no Jaime-Robert scene, no Littlefinger-Ned scene, no Ned-Cersei scene, no Robert-Ned scene and then all of a sudden we get Ser Barristan reading the letter penned by Neddy and Cersei ripping it up and Littlefinger pulls a knife on Ned and we the viewer are left to fill-in-the-blanks.

I'll be mad if they kill off Vesemir's X-Men. That dynamic, of a bunch of equals to play off Geralt's Wolverine, is a really, really solid play. The second this show becomes Witcher Highlander where There Can Be Only One Grunter, I'm done. Way more interesting to see this world where a Witcher is powerful but needs allies to take down Thanos-level threats.

I'm not reading the books, I didn't play the games and I *might* check out the other media available on Netflix but for now, the non-action/non-CGI/non-monster-of-the-week stuff is amateurishly bad.

Best ep of the season was #2 with the wild boar (played by Kristofer Hivju who also played Tormund Giantsbane!). Great acting, good theme (beauty/beast stuff) and an outstanding self-contained episode a la X-Files or Supernatural. Show needs more monster-of-the-week stuff and less pretentious GoT junk.

I agree with you, Top_Shelf, about the way the political intrigue is handled in 'The Witcher'. I think the fundamental problem is that 'The Witcher' TV show is largely about action, and there's very little space to devote to the politics. And, as we can see from our own real world media, politics requires a lot of space.

(The early series of 'Game of Thrones', by contrast, were mostly about politics with a little bit of action sprinkled in. That's what made them so compelling. It was only when the balance between action/politics were reversed - when they ran out of books - that the TV show became much less interesting.)

I wonder also whether the pacing of show is also an issue here. To me, it feels like a show paced for an audience that encountered The Witcher from the video games. I haven't read any of the books. Are they as fast moving? None of the characters that we are following seems to spend any appreciable amount of time in any one location. As a result, it feels like we are seeing a series of events happen, rather watching processes unfold. GoT was much happier to have its characters mooch about somewhere for weeks or months, and the storytelling felt better for it.

But like you, I have only the vaguest understanding of who are different guilds, races and nations that exist within the Witcher universe, and what they each want and why they each want it. And increasingly, I am past caring. I suspect that this will hurt my viewing experience later on when (presumably) a new, more dangerous common enemy appears, and unstable alliances have to be formed, etc.

If anything the politics in the books is even more confusing and harder to follow. There are lots of time gaps, rapid location changes, and I think some flashbacks or other weird time ordering. I feel like I have a better grasp after watching the show (though maybe only because I also read the books).

I don't really struggle with the politics, but I think it's because I don't really sweat the specifics.

It's just a bunch of scheming assholes and whoever is doing the plotting doesn't really matter as it just provides an intermission from, and backdrop for, the story I'm actually there for.

ETA

It's probably a consequence of playing the games, especially Witcher 2, where there are always a lot of characters, countries and cities mentioned without context. Ultimately it doesn't matter except as world building.

We care about Redenia because its Brotherhood of Sorcerers advisor (the owl sorceress) is helping its king with plots the Brotherhood would oppose if they knew of them. Like Fringilla with Nilfgaard, she's put her assigned kingdom over the interests of the Brotherhood.

The scene with the rulers was Tissaia also "betraying" the Brotherhood by bringing the rulers up to speed on what was actually going on. It wasn't an actual induction, just a sarcastic way of telling them they know what's really happening and that she doesn't see them as pawns like the rest of the Brotherhood does. She's the only sorceress there because she's doing it in secret, without the approval of her partner, Vilgefortz, who doesn't want Ciri killed. Normally, the Brotherhood assigned advisors to manipulate the rulers as the Brotherhood saw fit. That's why they underwent the painful transformation, to make them beautiful so horny kings wouldn't object to their presence.

Both are signs that the Brotherhood is falling apart and no longer unified in its goals.

The "reddit complaints" seem to be about character misrepresentations. For example, apparently Heskel is somewhat important and has a different personality. Since I haven't read the books, this stuff went completely over my head.

Stengah wrote:

We care about Redenia because its Brotherhood of Sorcerers advisor (the owl sorceress) is helping its king with plots the Brotherhood would oppose if they knew of them. Like Fringilla with Nilfgaard, she's put her assigned kingdom over the interests of the Brotherhood.

The scene with the rulers was Tissaia also "betraying" the Brotherhood by bringing the rulers up to speed on what was actually going on. It wasn't an actual induction, just a sarcastic way of telling them they know what's really happening and that she doesn't see them as pawns like the rest of the Brotherhood does. She's the only sorceress there because she's doing it in secret, without the approval of her partner, Vilgefortz, who doesn't want Ciri killed. Normally, the Brotherhood assigned advisors to manipulate the rulers as the Brotherhood saw fit. That's why they underwent the painful transformation, to make them beautiful so horny kings wouldn't object to their presence.

Both are signs that the Brotherhood is falling apart and no longer unified in its goals.

Super helpful interpretation, thanks. I got NONE of that on watching.

slazev wrote:

The "reddit compaints" seem to be about character misrepresentations. For example, apparently Heskel is somewhat important and has a different personality. Since I haven't read the books, this stuff went completely over my head.

Eskel is central to the games, and apparently the books, so his death is pretty surprising. Personality seems pretty much the same as the games, he was always a dickhead.

Top_Shelf wrote:
Stengah wrote:

We care about Redenia because its Brotherhood of Sorcerers advisor (the owl sorceress) is helping its king with plots the Brotherhood would oppose if they knew of them. Like Fringilla with Nilfgaard, she's put her assigned kingdom over the interests of the Brotherhood.

The scene with the rulers was Tissaia also "betraying" the Brotherhood by bringing the rulers up to speed on what was actually going on. It wasn't an actual induction, just a sarcastic way of telling them they know what's really happening and that she doesn't see them as pawns like the rest of the Brotherhood does. She's the only sorceress there because she's doing it in secret, without the approval of her partner, Vilgefortz, who doesn't want Ciri killed. Normally, the Brotherhood assigned advisors to manipulate the rulers as the Brotherhood saw fit. That's why they underwent the painful transformation, to make them beautiful so horny kings wouldn't object to their presence.

Both are signs that the Brotherhood is falling apart and no longer unified in its goals.

Super helpful interpretation, thanks. I got NONE of that on watching.

For sure, as much as the lack of clarity isn't really a problem for me this is a great explanation.

I've just realised thanks to a YouTube thumbnail I got Eskel and Lambert in the games mixed up.

So yeah, Eskel's character is very different. In the game Lambert is the douche who never seems trustworthy.

Just finished season 2. I love the series and will look forward to season 3, but to be honest, I found a lot of this season dragged as they were dwelling on politics that were never really fleshed out. Anytime they mentioned Nilfgard, Cintra, or Redania, I just felt like they hadn't established any real distinction between them and why I should care about it. I've played all of the games & expansions, and still found that I was just waiting for the next fight scene (which were uniformly AWESOME); And I'm usually a sucker for a political drama. I missed the relatively mindless goofiness for season 1, but still really looking forward to season 3.

There's no good guys politically, they're all some flavor of horrible, so the distinction mostly comes from their motivations. The different motivations of the various political factions are only important because they provide the reason Geralt & Yen can't just settle down somewhere and give Ciri the training she needs undisturbed. But really, it's not that important unless you want to know why each group is after Ciri; you can probably get by just fine knowing that they all do want her, either to use her themselves or to kill her to prevent others from using her. The political drama comes entirely from them trying to keep her out of each others hands, and Geralt trying to navigate through all of them while keeping Ciri safe. About the only sympathetic group is the elves, but the baby killing makes it very hard to actually root for them.

Stengah needs to get put on the Witcher writer's team.

Stengah wrote:

About the only sympathetic group is the elves, but the baby killing makes it very hard to actually root for them.

It worked for Moses.