Lol RIP to The Witcher Netflix. Despite my opinion that he was miscast as Geralt, Henry's passion for the character and his knowledge of the books and games was the only thing that kept me remotely interested in the goings-on of the show. And let's be honest his appeal and star power is what kept people watching in spite of how shitty this team of writers has portrayed Sapkowski's novels. No shade to Liam Hemsworth but the show should just be canceled.

I try not to post too much TWN negativity on this blog, because I know plenty of people enjoy the show just fine, and I hate being an asshole and raining on other people’s parades. But, god, the way that the show treats Yennefer - or rather, mistreats her - just upsets me and pisses me off so much. 

The book already puts her through the wringer - too much at times, honestly - but the show just takes it to a whole new level. The amount of suffering they put her through that wasn’t present in the books is so frustrating to me. Like adding in random torture scenes that weren’t present (the hysterectomy scene, being tortured by Stregebor), losing her magic powers, constantly being captured in S2, not even having a particularly good court standing - like in S1 when Fringilla mocks her for not helping advance Aedirn at all, and Yennefer doesn’t even have a good comeback to that. It’s as if the show is just obsessed with giving her constant Ls and never really letting her come out on top. Sidenote: I am fine with angst, in fact I enjoy it, and I am fine with a character going through hardships and suffering. You can do a lot of great character, story and theme exploration with angst, and sometimes it’s necessary for a character to suffer to develop that. If I wasn’t fine with angst, I wouldn’t be a fan of the witcher lmao. But when I see a character who already goes through a shit ton of misery in the books get forced into even more suffering in the show that never happened....I start to have a problem.

And then, of course, S2 committed the cardinal sin with that stupid ass Voleth Meir plotline. As if torturing her, having her be captured, making her lose her powers, wasn’t bad enough - they completely character assassinate her by making her almost sacrifice Ciri to a fucking demon. Something that is so bewilderingly OOC for Yennefer, something that never EVER happened in the books. When the show got bored with creating narrative suffering for her, they decided to take it to a meta level by character assassinating her in a really bizarre, stupid way. Because, why was this necessary? I know that they were concerned about the fact Yennefer doesn’t really show up much in Blood of Elves, I understand they wanted to create a plot line for her that got her more involved in the main plot. But - why this???!!! There were 101 different plot lines they could have given her that didn’t involve her trying to sacrifice Ciri to a fucking demon, in the process completely messing up her relationship with Geralt and Ciri!!

And this is the main reason I’m making this post - her relationship with Geralt and Ciri being messed up. I’ve seen a lot of articles recently about S3, all stating that Yennefer essentially has to grovel to Geralt, that he ignores her for potentially a full year, that at the beginning he doesn’t even let her enter the same abode as them - what the fuck!!! It upsets me so much. Because this was the biggest problem with the VM plotline - it completely upends Geralt and Yennefer’s dynamic. In the books, their relationship is way more equal - in fact, it honestly would be accurate to say that Yennefer is the more dominant one in the relationship, not Geralt. The show is now completely turning that on its head, and making Geralt the dominant one - but not personality wise, more in a moral highground type way. Because now, whatever stupid shit Geralt does, or has done in the past - e.g. tell Yennefer she’d be a terrible mother, which he never apologises for - none of that matters!! Because it will never be as bad as Yennefer trying to kill Ciri. Instead of a relationship where they both fuck up and both make mistakes, like in the books, in the show the emphasis will all be on Yennefer. Yennefer is the one fucking up, Yennefer is the one making absurdly stupid mistakes, Yennefer is the one who needs to apologise and grovel and beg for forgiveness. 

And this is what I mean by, the show is obsessed with giving her Ls. Not only do they make her suffer, they character assassinate her by forcing her character to do this cartoonishly evil thing, and then punish her for it!! They don’t just take away her powers, her court standing, they even strip her of her own relationships!!! And I ask again - why is this necessary?? Who decided that punishing her like this would be an extremely important plot line, an improvement, over the original source material? Like back when the show was first announced, I sure as shit wasn’t thinking “oh wow a netflix witcher show - I sure do hope they have a plot thread where Geralt refuses to talk to Yennefer, and doesn’t even let her into the same fucking house as him, because she tried to kill Ciri!!” who wanted this??? Who thought this was a good idea??? Honestly, it makes me feel as if someone on the writing team hates Yennefer and wants her to suffer, both in a narrative and meta level. And no, I’m not talking about that infamous Beau deMayo interview - something that caused a huge amount of online drama and should be taken with a big old pinch of salt, especially since the writer who made this claim was responsible for some pretty questionable decisions, namely the whole Treeskel thing. I’m not making a direct accusation here - it’s more a feeling. When I look at TWN, I cannot help but sense a level of contempt and spite towards the character of Yennefer. That doesn’t necessarily mean someone in the writing team genuinely has it out for her, but if that’s the impression that I get from the way they treat her in the show, then something has gone very wrong with the narrative decisions they made for her.

And this is why, not only can I not let myself be excited for S3, it’s why I’m genuinely feeling dread about it. Every time I read interviews about how Geralt and Yennefer have this really rocky start and he’s ignoring her or whatever, my stomach just sinks. And again - why was this decision made? Who thought this was a good idea? And yeah, the TWN team have already said they’re trying to fix the problem with their relationship caused in S2, but a) the way they are going about fixing it only serves to punish Yennefer’s character more and b) it should not have been something to fix in the first place. It’s also why I can’t bring myself to believe that S3 will suddenly be more faithful and better than S2, esp in regards to Yennefer (aside from the fact they’ve made this promise before and failed to deliver). Because the early plot points of a story are extremely important in setting the foundation of your later plot, especially in a series like the witcher. If your foundation is inherently flawed, it doesn’t matter how good your later seasons are; they are built on a faulty base, and will therefore lack a good structure. Case in point with Yennefer. Without going too much into book spoilers, let’s just say she has a really rough time of it post-Time of Contempt in the books. So in the show, either a) they will just put her through even more suffering and leave you thinking “wow did this entire show exist just to punish Yennefer?” or b) they will have to deviate away from the books. Neither of these options are particularly good. (this also is one of my problems with S2 as a whole - they were so desperate to put in all this insane blockbuster action and dramatic plot points, but sometimes in stories you need moments of calm to make later dramatic plot points more hard hitting. In the books, Blood of Elves was the moment of calm before Time of Contempt’s batshit, action packed drama. In the show, you never get that moment of calm. Why should I care about whatever happens in Thanedd if S2 had Ciri get possessed by a fucking demon and go on a killing spree? But anyway.)

And I think the reason why I’m particularly disappointed with the way that the show has treated Yennefer’s character so badly (aside from the numerous promises of “we’re a faithful book adaptation” being complete lies) is that Yennefer is a character who already receives a lot of unfair hate. Obviously there’s the annoying “Team Yen vs Team Triss” thing from the games, but even within the show there were a certain type of fans of a certain ship who hated a lot on Yennefer for daring to get in the way of their ship. Like, I’m so sick of seeing Yennefer getting hate for stupid, unfair reasons - and now even the show is treating her like shit??? Like, give me a break!! 

I’m just tired of it. And obviously, if you like TWN and you’re excited for S3, that’s fine. In fact, I’m honestly jealous, I wish I could feel the same. And who knows, maybe the show will improve its treatment of Yennefer, maybe they’ll finally give her some Ws. But that’s what I thought about S2, and was proven VERY wrong. Any confidence, trust or optimism I had left for the show was completely destroyed by the Voleth Meir plotline in S2, and the show will have to work very hard to rebuild that trust for me. And unfortunately, everything I’ve heard about S3 so far is only confirming that they’ll continue to treat her poorly.

Since when is killing off disable character a simplification?

Since when is getting rid of character intelligence simplification?

Since when is erasing author's culture from the story simplification?

Also they pretty much called americans stupid, like I'm begging this team to shut the fuck up already or admit they have no idea what they are doing

the reason why netflix ruined calanthe so deeply and fundementally, in my opinion, is that...

sapkowski's belief is that women shoudl rule the world. and she is a manifestation of that belief. she is being spread rumours about, there are disgusting things said about her by men, and yet at her very core, calanthe is and always will be the best ruler of the north we meet (she and meve).

and netflix has none of that reverence for femininity that sapkowksi had, and therefore they make calanthe... well, one of the worst rulers, really. like, yeah, she is a "girlboss" in the modern sense of the word. but she has none of the wisdom, none of the kindness, none of the reverence that she had in the books.

i will always come back to the fact sapkowski refers to calanthe in his writing SEVERAL times as "przesławna" calanthe, "illustrious" calanthe, "beyond-famed" calanthe. a word that is used in RELIGIOUS psalms is how he describes her.

and we lose all of that.

When Netflix continues to let you down and further destroy your favorite characters....

the time of contempt season 3 of netflix's the bitcher is approaching, so here is a silly little bingo card i made (as a coping mechanism and with a lot of help from @sorokmagpies — thank you, btw, my friend!) for all of us redania & redanians fans in these trying times

[p.s. feel free to use it however you want, but don't even try to defend twn and their stupid decisions on my dash, this show has already done irreparable damage to the fandom and a bunch of my favorite characters, tyvm]

i’m fucking screaming sophie holland showed her entire ass with this huh. 

Lauren and her methhead writers deserve all the hate for driving him away.

I hope the show drowns like a rat.

If The Witcher Netflix had to make a change then they should’ve fired the showrunner and the writers and kept Henry. Then at least there would’ve been someone on this project that actually cared about the source material. This abomination of a show is just openly mocking the novels at this point. It really could’ve really been something if the “creatives” in charge could’ve resisted their own selfish need to insert their ideas and agendas into a world they don’t belong and a story they didn’t create. 

What a shame. 

And Netflix has cancelled another show that was unfortunately not The Witcher

Lucinda you about to catch these fucking hands

I forgot to post this edit after s2, but it seems extra relevant now.

tbh im so fucking tired of lauren strawmanning the shit out of book and game fans to deflect any criticism. everything with her boils down to being misogynistic and racist, no matter how logical your points are. she gave a platform to that one youtuber guy whose only criticism of the show was "women have too much screen time" BECAUSE she wanted to send a message that "omg only people like this would ever criticise my work uwu" while she blatantly ignores everyone who criticizes her for bastardizing women and whitewashing her own actors.