I didn't think it was possible for an adaptation to break my fandom heart, however

I just finished season 3 of the Witcher on Netflix

and I cannot yet put into words how disheartened I feel about it except to say 1) bigger in scale doesn't always mean better in quality and 2) I feel like 90% of the commentary in "the making of season 3" is hype.

In my opinion, a majority of the dialogue in this season is painful no matter how hard the actors try to deliver them sincerely and the people who are trying to upsell how faithful it is to the books are clearly omitting much context of the books. I do not feel like reliving the dialogue to site a litany of grievance, but "you'd be dead already" was beaten to death, as was "never lost, always found." The scripting pen was a lot more clever in the days of death and destiny circa season 1. Not just clever, but cutting, sassy even in the midst of purposeful crudeness, artful, and complex. It didn't need to spell things out for you and could let you stumble into unraveling meaning whereas this season clocked you over the head. And it wasn't just the actual lines on the page, but the timing of their delivery — for example the monologues in combat — that makes a bad situation go from rough to rags. Cahir ("my life is yours" speech) and Vilgefortz ("the hardest part was holding back") have some of the worst offending instances. That, and when they threw in a "he's having a heart attack" medical drama one liner in the midst of battle on the Isle of Thanedd, I wanted to 🤦 smack a skull.

The set dressing, when it's not overwhelming —the outlandishness of Redania, back to back with the bombastic excesses of mages on the Isle hardly gives you a moment to discern the differences, it seems homogeneously over the top — makes be sad (footnote: random bowls of apples in hallways of an academy where people can conjure magical meals at will is just sort of silly in a very 90s movie, castle interior stereotype way). I don't think that one set or scenic shot caught my eye in a memorable way, and considering we saw Shaerrawedd this season that's a shame. Yarpen's tiny house is one of my few exceptions of well designed spaces. We also could have used more contrast in design by seeing life/ stylistic choices within the empire — given that the story from here on goes into the war trenches —and so it is disappointing that the few shots we get of Nilfgaard center around an underwhelming Emyhr as opposed to culture, mentality, and actual sense of the opposition and the scale of them.

Also, there were a few props that made me want to shut off my television in terms of quality on camera. Example: the first time we see Milva draw her bow. That poor, ridiculous bow that is neither a good example from text or a nod to any archers.

The fights do not all have their own distinct style as the commentary suggests, and the ones that do have distinguishable flare are filled with artful camera work for the sake of itself; as opposed to adding to the fight it was often distracting. There were also excessive cuts at various camera angles that were superfluous, as evidenced in the walk up leading to Geralt vs Vilgefortz. Two fight sequences were a joy to watch: the Rats escape and one of the opening sequences where Geralt confronts the bounty hunters and we see him walk away through the eyes of the man that he just beheaded as the skull hits the ground. It was an interesting stylistic choice with memorable impact. Nothing that hits like Blaviken combat, but a highlight.

The monster design (the flesh monster and others) makes me miserable, the rendering of which take me out of the fights built around them. Gone are the days of the Stryga and the Bruxa.

Not concluding the the first or the second act of season 3 with the siege of Aretuza and the destruction of Tor Lara was a mistake of timing. Following the battle, the subsequent desert scenes (and Brokilon to some extent) dragged on. Even weird, trippy cameos couldn't save them. Freya/Ciri has some decent beats of progressive desperation descending into madness leading up to finding "little horse" and confronting the demons of her psyche, but the cutting and the placement of the desert sequence does it no favors.

Speaking further on Aretuza, the battle of mages and scoia'tal missed a lot of moments. If we were going to spend precious screen time dividing the familial core four (Yen/Jaskier/Geralt/Ciri) so that Yen can go back for Tissaia— knowing that very soon in the plot it will be divided again when Ciri is portalled and someone is captured by Vilgefortz — then the battle better be worth it. It wasn't entirely. The conflict opened with a very "for the stage" kind of choreography with the assembly of mages. The conflict ramped up with dimeritium arrows (kinda predictable) and elven guts, and then ended on a strange note with Alzur's Thunder, an interesting nod to game play with 50/50 execution on screen. Given that this season likes narrative voiceovers, there was a lot they could have done with Alzur's Thunder in terms of sound, flashbacks, interior cuts of Tor Lara, narration, or even spell work of Yennefer being able to enter Tissaia's mind, to nicely harken back to the themes of control and deepest fears, when Tissaia's spell casting and loss of control parallels Yennefer's early years (lightning in a bottle), and each character comes full circle in pulling chaos back from the edge. But those themes are overshadowed by flash and bang. The opportunity for a contrasting small / personal moment with Yennefer and Tissaia amidst the larger battle is lost.

I'm sorry, but when LSH says this season is very character driven, I don't know what final cut she's watching. It feels like we're racing through plot points A-Z while nearly none of the character relationships get time to breath and impart their emotional beats. Spoiler alert: I should feel devastated when Vilgefortz beats Geralt, literally breaks him, but I don't. I should feel bad when Tissaia dies, I don't. They're trying to rush feelings between Triss and Istredd, Fringilla and Francesa, that I really can't be bothered about because there are so many characters given side quests that no one really gets their due. Least among them in the supporting cast Phillipa, which has animosity with Tissaia that doesn't land, a relationship with Dijkstra that doesn't land, a sidepiece that doesn't land, and is (apart from some interesting wardrobe, hair and makeup choices) reduced to a presence that provides forewarning about Lydia and Vilgefortz. And least among the main cast Geralt, who spends a whole lot of screen time in passive action exuding quiet contempt for other characters. Which is a shame, because if this truly is the last time we see Henry as Geralt, they should have given this man free reign to burn the barn down.

One shining note: I truly appreciate that we bookend this season with narration from Yennefer and, to a lesser extent, Geralt. It is a nice, if slightly less eloquent, homage to the corresponding letters in the novels (pieced together from multiple books). I would have loved far more for each episode to make some use of narration, as a kind of through-thread for this season, in order to get equal turns from Ciri and Jaskier. Ciri has some great internal dialogue of things that she wishes she could say to Yennefer but doesn't before their family splits apart (unspoken moments of respect, adoration, and love that get quickly summarized by ice skating montages). Ans Jaskier is quite often the "unreliable" narrator in sections of the novels, which flashes backwards and forwards from his slightly mythologized autobiography as a world famous bard. Both of them really needed their turn in this season to be an overarching voice.

This season hurts. I'm glad if you are a Witcher / Sapkowski fan and you enjoyed yourself in season 3. But it really let me down, the creative direction and didn't seem to come together into a cohesive tone (it couldn't strike the balance between humor and gravitas), vision, or unfolding of the story.

I don't know if I can bring myself to rewatch this season a second time with fresh eyes and hope for the best. But I will miss Henry Cavill, and have much respect for cast and crew.

My local bookstore is so fed up and tbh I love that for them they should choose violence more

this came on my fyp on tiktok just now and i have been cackling. oh to have a dog like that

sound on*

repost from @/rorythefrenchie on tiktok

The Adventures of Fun Uncle Jaskier™ and his Pocket-Sized Princess™

from bard (derogatory) to bard (affectionate): worming his way into the hearts of three of the most powerful people on the continent

It's about! the found family!!

Swordsmanship class

Geralt teaching Sword fight to Jaskier.

Jaskier was pretty good student than Geralt thought, but he was a dirty player beyond that.

the first and last time Geralt suggested he sleep on the floor when there was only one bed at the inn

you know once Geralt finally got in bed and was almost asleep Jaskier whispered “so are you overcome with lust now that you’re touching my nubile young body” and he almost got up and bedded down with Roach in the stable lol

[ID Jaskier leans dramatically back on the bed as Geralt stands awkwardly next to the bed. Jaskier is laughing as he says “oh no! A scoundrel alone in a room with me? My precious virtue will be in danger sharing a bed with such a handsome rogue. Please good sir I am an innocent bard who has never known the touch of a man” End ID]

(inspo.)

I mean no offense to the people who enjoyed "The Witcher" Season 3: Vol 1 on Netflix. No judgement. And also no offense to the cast and crew who I am sure worked hard to bring this to the screen.

I love the Witcher, mostly from the books and some gameplay, so from my own personal perspective...

What in the actual hell did Netflix do?!

There's so much eloquent dialogue in the source material to draw upon and this steaming pile of ****e is what they came up with? It telegraphs so much without a whiff of subtlety or craft— not unlike Sabrina in 3x5— that I want to puke, the only exception being that Yarpen Zigrin is still no nonsense and true to form.

Emhyr, as is evidenced by his cringe, overlong speeches and dull drawl, is not written as cunning or menacing by any stretch of the imagination as he ought to be, and the lack of a strong villain does nothing to drive the pace of the season.

Why are we waxing on about Vissena to try and strum up audience feels? We don't need to revisit that unless it serves a purpose for the characters. It doesn't. If the audience has been watching any of the previous two seasons, we don't need Geralt's childhood memories of his mother to impress upon us that he takes newfound parenthood seriously and would spill blood and make sacrifices for his family.

If that weren't painful enough, Yennefer — who we know is cunning when she schemes— lacks all of her razor edged wit when "groveling" before the Brotherhood to form a conclave. The recycled dialogue with Tissaia about chaos and control has lost its potency, as lukewarm as the mages' council of armchair tapping, and even her speeches to Ciri like "my ugly one" have so much wasted potential because there's a speed run montage about how much Yen and Cirilla care for eachother in episode 1 rather than letting us growing into the emotions ourselves, so that by the time we get to Yennefer disclosing her past, the emotion is lost. Also, Cirilla is supposed to be in a little awe of Yen and her power of influence, which is what makes "ugly one" so endearing, because it's the ends way of saying that Cirilla is powerful but magic isn't all she is / she doesn't need to rely on it like the mages rest on prolonged youth. It's her way of saying I love you, and for all the exposition that season three uses to elaborate feelings, this most essential part is completely lost. It's like we're playing house with emotions that haven't been earned their screen moment. "Lilac and gooseberries, now that I can tolerate," but I cannot abide these trash conversations.

These were the action sequences, the fight choreography, and the monster concept visualization they came up with? Like, for example, a failing mass of conjoined limbs and disembodied heads! The idea of Ciri's doppelganger from the books has been so corrupted.

On top of that, the cuts from scene to scene are so rough it's like whiplash. Chase scene - recycled Geralt /Ciri hug - dark portal nonsense - crash through ceiling. No finesse.

The Belletyn festival, which is so meaningful and beautifully described in the books, was butchered in execution of costume (Yen's is a season 1 throwback but never underwhelming way), with ridiculous "masks" (it irks me so much that Yennefer tells Cirilla had to cover her eyes and hair for a low profile and then we speed cut to the next scene where neither occurs and the costume department decides that they aren't even going to attach Cirilla's mask to her face, she just carries it around in her hand because that makes sense), unnecessary mazes to separate our characters and engineer a sense of peril, the whole lot. They used Belletyn as a setup to engineer a subsequent bait scene, which was an appallingly insult to intelligence and fight choreography. PS: Yen can I do more than throw a knife, can we please utilize her a little better?

Speaking of choreography, Ciri descending from mid air to stab the CGI aeschna in 3x4 with the overlong shot pull of monster blood on her face was so poorly edited I wanted to fast forward the entire episode thereafter.

Lastly, this farce for humor is what they came up with?! They made layered source characters like Dijkstra into single line fodder, and they wasted so much time on sitcom rubbish like Queen Hedwig's Redanian funeral, and Phillipa's bedroom shenanigans, and Fringilla as a drunken poison tester. I want to slap someone. It's as if the whole of season 3 thus far is a live-action adaptation of Ciri and Jaskier's satire of Yen and Geralt. Except that no one left the audience in the joke.

Also, for a series called The Witcher there is surprisingly little in the way of meaningful dialogue and action for Geralt to do, and that's a shame

I'm angry.

Season 1 was fantastic, season 2 was good but with notable divergence to character integrity, and Season 3 so far is the refuse pile of Aedd Gynvael. The only highlight was Ciri telling Valdo Marx to shut up, like I wish I could do for the rest of the dialogue in the series. After "Sherrawedd" I kept thinking to myself, it will get better. Ironically Sherwood was probably the best episode so far because at least it kept the essence of idea in "dear friend" from the literature as a foundation. After which it kept sinking down into chaos.

But more than angry, I'm disappointed. I'm sad that the Yennefer/Jaskier frenemy dynamic ("Hello again witch) —a highlight of season 2— has been shirked; the only decent byproduct of which is the Ciri/Jaskier relationship. And I'm depressed that this is Henry Cavill's sendoff as Geralt.

Yennefer of Vengerberg & Jaskier | The Witcher (2019)

Joey Batey at the table reading for season 4 of Netflix's The Witcher.

they are so married

No matter where you go or where you hide, we will never be apart.