*NOTE: This blog contains spoilers, if you haven't finished "The Witcher," don't read this...or do deal with the consequences of my spoil filled review. Please also know I've never played the game or done any research on it so don't jump all over me because my knowledge is purely based on the series.
I finally finished watching Netflix's, "The Witcher," yesterday morning with Brett and I've never been so upset with a show's finale in my life. I'd been dreading watching it in the first place and not for my normal reasons.
Typically I loath the last couple of episodes of shows I love because I'm just not ready to say goodbye to the characters. No one is pumped up to wait a whole year to invest their very serious very real feelings into imaginary characters and storylines. We're all looking for an excuse procrastinate our serious adult lives to binge bomb ass content.
I mean who else is having Chilling Adventures of Sabrina withdrawals? My love for that show is rivaled with my love for Stranger Things. But my love for the Witcher is reserved for Geralt, Roach and Jasker, everyone else can be destroyed by Nilfgaard and the white flame for all I care and here's why:
I genuinely wanted to love the show because it's a genre I love, supernatural medieval full of witches, dwarves, elves, dragons and angst battles for country and religion. At it's basis it was set up for success ontop of the fact that it's based off a video game and most games are have ridiculously detailed storylines with characters just waiting to fleshed out on the cinematic screen.
But the show falls short in a lot of areas and incredibly confusing. I don't know about you but I don't want to be confused for a whole hour and then hop the next episode gives me clarity. Now I know you're thinking a little confusion is good, it pulls you into the story but I'm talking about the kind of confusion that pull you out of the story like:
+ No discrepancy between flash backs.
Okay this was super annoying and hella confusing. The amount of times that Brett and I had to pause the show and debate amongst ourselves if this was happening in present time (when Cirilla is looking Geralt and Geralt is looking for Cirilla) or if it was happening at some point in the past was well over 5 times an episode alone. In fact Brett and I didn't realize that flashbacks were even happening until the 3rd episode which meant we had to go back and put that previous information into the past tense. Complicated, I know. Who wants to do all this thinking when watching a show?
+ No identification of time periods until the end of the series
Now even in the end we had no idea how much time had passed between all these things, we could only guess based on Cirilla's age, Yennefer's constant drolling about living many lifetimes and references to previous politcal conflicts with Elves. But still there's never a number of years which makes it hard to be an awe of how old the mages are, how long their training is to become a court level mage, how old Geralt is even. This would put a lot of things in perspective, for example I would really be able to understand Yennefers loneliness and desire for a child. I would understand how long it took to become as powerful as Tissia or even how long it's been since Yennefer left Atuza, or since she stopped working for a court, or even the last time she saw Geralt before the Dragon Quest.
+ What is this sped up forced relationship between Yen and Geralt?
I'm not even going to front, I didn't even start to kind of like Yennefer until the end. And by "kind of like," I mean she became tolerable. I was basically siding Jasker the whole season.
Her motives and emotions just didn't click with me and it was impossible to empathize with her until she helped save the dragon egg and then sacrificed her chaos. But even the last one I didn't entirely understand her motivation. It seemed to me she would've lined up with Nilfgaard but I guess the gross ale really turned her off?
Okay, okay for the people out there who are thinking what? The girl was sold for four marks how could not be on her side? Because she then turned around and was a victim in every fashion, then turned around used to manipulate the boy who loved her? Yeah I don't appreciate the show trying to make me feel bad for her, maybe I should've but I couldn't find it in me.
SORRY NOT SORRY.
Regardless back to her relationship with Geralt. They don't even seem like they should like each other, and I guess it's more bothersome to think about Geralt's fascination with Yen when she's a lot of things he doesn't even like. Dishonorable, manipulative, selfish, power hungry and trouble follows her literally everywhere she goes. They only encounter eachother twice if you count when they met, the second time being on the Dragon Quest though it is implied that they keep running into eachother but it's not shown.
The choice to tell us rather than show us, ( called info-dropping) that they always run into eachother sincerelly stretches the viewers belief that they have this super connection because we never see it. Then they drop that Geralt's 3rd wish during their first encounter with each and the gjinn has to do with Yennefer. The best I could infer is that he wished to always see her? Or maybe to never lose her?
But they never clarify as the dialogue is vague and leaves a lot to guessing. That ontop of the incessant arguing makes me feel like the relationship is forced just so the show could showcase the mage aspect of the world.
+ How does the Magic work? What are the rules?
Okay this is by far my biggest issue with The Witcher. I HATE when shows are super lazy and they don't take the time to explain how magic works.
This is the Little I understand about magic in The Witcher:
The magic is called Chaos and very few people can access it. Usually there is a catlyst event that happens in which someone first summons their chaos which leads to the Brotherhood coming to get them and train them at Aretuza. Chaos users have to learn control their chaos or it'll overwhelm them and lead to madness. We also know that mages are sent to Aretuza and trained, when they show little to no talent they're turned into eels and become magical conduits for Aretuza. Those who are able to control and manipulate their chaos become full fledge mages, go through surgery to become beautiful and sterile and finally sent to an appointment at a Kingdom's court.
They never explain if certain mages have attributes, like in other magic shows such as the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, where witches can have a talent for a certain kind of magic, whether it's fire, water, whatever but it's unique to them while all witches can summon familiars and other witches, use attack magic, astral project, remove curses, and other common magic. This is not made clear in the Witcher but implied by the fact that in the big fight against Nilfgaard that you only see witches using specific kinds of magic. There is however forbidden magic, like necromancy, and demonology. But all together it's all a bit hazy and you can't tell whose powerful, whose weak, whose doing something unique or what, so it's hard to get excited about fight scenes because you're wondering are they doing something cool or are they doing something everyone can do. I just felt left out when I really wanted to feel hype like I do when Sabrina enters a battle.
We also know that witchers are made, Geralt is not the only witcher (as I first believed, that's the titles fault really) and in fact Geralt isn't even his original name but the name that Vessimer the man that made him, gave him. Geralt was abandoned by his mother who appeared to also be a mage.
Only 3 out of 10 boys survive the process to become witchers, though the process and why the number is so low is left unknown. While mages work for Kings, witchers are basically monster hunters for higher and posess magic as well though how it works, its properties and limits are never talked about either. Sorry not sorry I'm a nerd and I'd like to be properly invested.
And don't even get me started on Dragon's turning into people...like no addressed that at all but it can't be normal happeninings in this world. I mean no monsters or races are really explained they just pop up and you have to roll with it. Oh there's an elf! Now there's a dwarf...ooh a striga and so on and so forth.
+ There's a lot of OOC shit happenining
Who saw Cirilla's best friend and new found elf family Dara, leaving her high and dry? I certainly did not and after everything they'd been through it felt really out of character to me. I can't believe he just left her and I expected him to pop back up promptly and yet it never came.
But there are things I love about The Witcher
First off I LOVE Geralt. Not only do I appreciate Henry Cavill as an actor but he's playing a brooding monster killer type who proves to be endearing and moral despite how awful and prejudice people are to them. You just want him to win. The man's got honor and integrity and I'm down with that. Jasker is the perfect funny sidekick, much like Donkey to Shrek. The dialogue is hilarious and the relationship is so endearing and so likable. I love Geralt's relationship with his horse Roach and how he talks to him like a confidant. I also love the idea of the world, dragons, monster hunters, elves, dwarves, is super cool in theory.
Overall the truth is: the show seems to be written for people who have played the game or have read the books which is great but it's not for any one who hasn't. If you have no prior knowledge and aren't watching it with someone who does, you're guaranteed to be confused at some point(s) or another.
From a studio standpoint it's always smart to use a game or book with a strong fandom because you're guarenteed those viewers for the tv show or movie adaptation. But if you make it in such a way that you had to have read the book or played the game it isolates the audience that is interested but wasn't part of the fandom from the start. That's a big no-no for TV if you ask me, the shows that do the best like Riverdale, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, The Vampire Diaries, any MCU tv show all set up the world for the viewer in a way that you can follow even if you've never heard of that world before. Half the time people who've never played the game or liked the books end up being more loyal to the show than those who have.
Long story short, I'm leery about the next season but I'll give it a chance to get it's act together. If they work on being inclusive with storylines and the world logic such as magic, monsters, cultures ect, it'll be a much stronger show.
Brett and I give it a 3 out of 5 stars.
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