Evening.
I recently finished The Witcher, based on Andrzej Sapkowski works, and here are my chaotic thoughts written as they come to mind. I hope to see your opinion on the show too! Feel free to disagree with me and murder me with facts and logic.
Beware of spoilers!
I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. I actually came close to loving it, and I did love some aspects of it, but I didn't love the entire show because of one episode. I'll get back to that at the end.
Yennefer, Jaskier, Tissaia de Vries, Mousesack, Yarpen Zigrin, Cahir, Ciri, Queen Calanthe Stregobor, Eyck, Vilgefortz, Fringilla and Eist were the stand-outs for me. Terrific casting! I loved all of their portrayals, even if I felt the writing for one of them (Vilgefortz) was a bit of a let-down in the last episode.
While I really enjoyed Henry Cavill, his voice was a little distracting sometimes, mostly because he's clearly forcing it to match the games, and it sounded out of place sometimes, like when he was laying in bed, falling asleep. But, nitpick aside, he can definitely play Geralt and does justice to the character.
While I also enjoyed Calanthe, she was... different in the books. To borrow from ASOIAF, she was more Stannis than Bobby B., she was more Sansa than Arya, she was more Doran than Oberyn. The change was unnecessary, it's like they chose to put a stereotypical male warrior-king in the body of a female just because.
The Yennefer/mages and Fall of Cintra/Calanthe/Duny storylines were the best parts of the season to me. Ciri's was a little boring, and Geralt's felt rushed and disconnected (understandable given the source material). Oh, and I hated, with all my fibers, the kiss that Geralt and Yennefer have during the fight to protect the dragons.
Yarpen Zigrin was only on one episode, but I already love him. Together with Henry Cavill, I think he was one of the actors who actively pursued his role, and like Henry, it shows.
Fringilla and Cahir managed to sell the threat and power that is Nilfgaard. I only worry that the show will turn Nilfgaard into "omg their evil religious zealots who are so evil", without giving them any nuance.
Speaking of Nilfgaard, I hope they get another actor to portray older Duny/Emhyr. My dreamcasting would be Alexander Siddig, since they wasted him as Doran Martell in Game of Thrones, give him another powerful, man-with-a-plan type of character. He can pull it off.
The soundtrack is amazing and quite unique. I'm still waiting for the official release, though!
Sadly, I fell short of loving the entire show because of the last episode. I feel that they didn't do justice for the Battle of Sodden Hill, and some of that was due to budgetary limitations, but a lot of it was due to writing:
They should have reserved an entire episode for the Battle of Sodden Hill. Every cut to Geralt and Ciri was followed by an eye roll, because... well, next to the freaking Battle of Sodden Hill, it just wasn't interesting!
While the casting for Vilgefortz was absolutely brilliant, the writing for him during the last episode fell flat. He was supposed to be the hero that leads the mages to victory in Sodden Hill, which is how he manages to get control over the Council/Brothergood of Sorcerers, and yet he does absolutely nothing, except being defeated by Cahir... People claim that he was faking because Yennefer was watching, but him rolling down a hill and knocking his head on a rock didn't feel like faking.
Triss Merigold. I like her voice, even if I'm still not 100% on board with her casting... but then, she was also supposed to be a hero of Sodden Hill. In the books, she is the one who conjures up a fire storm against the Nilfgaardians, as she is a "fire mage". In the show, she... conjures up some mushrooms and vines. Fuck.
Still on Triss, she is burned beyond recognition in the books and only barely makes it: she is so disfigured that only Yennefer could recognize her, but in the books Yennefer was blinded by Fringilla during the battle! In the show it's a torch to her neck for 5 seconds, and Yennefer is the one who conjures up the fire storm.
Coral, one of the sorceresses who dies during the battle, dies in a terrifying way in the books: her arms and legs are cut off and she's screaming, still alive, a "trunk", as Triss says it.
In general, the show cheapened out on the brutality and horror of Sodden Hill. We didn't even see a clash between the Northern armies and Nilfgaard.
Speaking of the North, while I grew fond of the actor, Foltest was supposed to be... younger and prettier. But I can look past that, since the actor is good, but they kind of wrote him as a buffoon! Foltest is supposed to be one of the good-ish kings, I hope they do him justice in the future.
While I can understand that introducing even more sorceresses would cloud the understanding of viewers even more, I feel like we should at least have also seen Phillipa Eilhart, as she is extremely pro-North, anti-Nilfgaard, pro-mages and most importantly pro-scheming! She also took part in Sodden Hill in the books. I don't see how they can explain her absence at the battle, but I can understand them waiting to introduce her on Season 2 (Blood of Elves), together with the rest of the Redanian cast.
This post was edited by Mr. Edd at January 4, 2020 12:56 PM EST
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