Netflix's The Witcher

[Nazrel]

spoilers:

In the second collection of short stories she first met Geralt in that forest with the Druids several years before Nilfgard's attack on Cintra. The show reworked that story into being part of her flight from Nilfgard and took Geralt out of it. Also a lot of what is shown from Ciri's pov is told in flashback in the novels. A lot of it is made up as well, but much of what is shown about Yennefer is also made up. In the books Ciri knew she was Geralt's 'child of surprise' from a much younger age, like 5 or 6, and had met him years before Cintra fell.

end of spoilers

spoilers:

I have read the first collection, and read the novels up to halfway through Tower of Swallows before stalling. (Something I think distracted me, and Sapkowski's weird framing digressions were making it a strained read.) I may have forgotten a few things.

end of spoilers

[Wandering_Wand]

Can someone explain to me how the law of surprise works? I don't feel episode 4 did a good job of introducing the concept. From what I picked up on, it's a promise made between individuals where the person who makes the promise will have to pay back his debt with something he or she is unaware of and other will have to come back for eventually. If ether party don't follow through on their deal destiny will royally screw them over.

Honestly, you've already summarized it as simply as can probably be done. If someone else can elaborate, that'd be great. But from reading The Last Wish, that was exactly my understanding, more or less.

[CRaymond]

Can someone explain to me how the law of surprise works?

It's a multi-cultural tradition with weird magical properties, like the one that brought Aslan back to life in TLTW&TW. I try not to think too hard about it.

Basically this: In return for saving one's life, the savior can ask for a surprise. In this world, it can only be something the saved person owns --but doesn't know they own. An unborn child is the example provided in the story. A man can own his responsibilities to a child he doesn't know exists. The responsibilities for that child go to the savior, ie Geralt.

Geralt's denial of those responsibilities brings the threat of danger to the ruling house of Cintra. In paranoia, Calanthe fortifies the palace in order to protect Cirilla from destiny, but that only weakens Cintra against the actual external threat of Nilfgaard. The actions of Geralt in Cintra are only factor that brings ruin to the Continent. Yennefer's move to Aidern is suggested to be the original sin.

[CRaymond]

Denial of parental responsibilities and the outcome of neglect seems to be the overarching theme of The Witcher. Its extremes are presented by Geralt's mother, whose absence teaches him to not form relationships... and Calanthe, whos rabid overprotectiveness and ego blinds her to the bigger picture concerning her daughter and granddaughter.

Calanthe's was dealt with thoroughly, but Geralt's... not so much.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I came to know The Witcher stories through Witcher III: Wild Hunt (haven't played anything before) and its expansions. And I read The Last Wish which is the first collection of Witcher short stories.

So that was my lens for seeing the Netflix take.

On the whole, I enjoyed it a great deal.
- Unlike some people, I actually liked the narrative style of the show with different timelines cross-cut against one another. I loved the fact that it's not spelled out and that viewers are given casual bits of information to piece it together. That felt great. The penultimate episode with all those clips replaying slowly building up to offscreen bits of detail in the first episode was well done.
- The fight scenes were good.
- The fight with the Striga was awesome and great.
- The song with Jaskier/Dandelion was also great. Wish they called him Dandelion though Jaskier or Jask is growing on me.
- Creating a character arc out of a bunch of unconnected short stories is pretty impressive and the way the show used "The Lesser Evil" (which is along with The Last Wish the best of the short stories) as a lodestone for the entire season was pretty great, and Renfri is a great character.
- I liked seeing Yennefer's backstory and so on. From Witcher III you never got a clear sense of who she was and where she came from and I had to look up online, so seeing her evolution from a hunchback to prima donna diva sorceress is awesome.

For someone who played The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt, the Netflix series on the whole feels like a prequel to that game (which provided a conclusion and resolution to the overall stuff albeit one that's non-canon as far as Sapkowski is concerned).


Visually I think the show is very drab and dreary. It doesn't have the more vibrant color palette of the third game, so on that level it's weak. The effects work is serviceable but not exceptional. I have nothing against Yennefer's actress and her performance, but I just think she's a little too young to play an ageless sorceress. Yennefer in the short story and game felt like Geralt's equal and felt the same emotional age as him, whereas in the show Yen comes off as younger than Geralt. So maybe they could have cast someone who was older but that's a minor thing.

[Wandering_Wand]

^^ I thought the colors of Brokilon Forest were fairly vibrant. I know that's only one location, though.

Another fast fact, Henry Cavill did all the stunts himself and he even filmed close ups (such as hands) that are often not filmed by the actors themselves. He apparently was all in and wanted to film every aspect of Geralt he could. The guy was super passionate about the character.

[Midvillian1322]

I'm half way through and I'm enjoying it. Spent most of it being confused but I'm starting to see what's going on. The witcher 3 game is my only reference for the world. So most the characters I know arent even in the show. Can someone tell me if by the end of the season Vesmir or Zoltar make an appearance? I remember a rumor that Mark Hamil was playing Vesmir so just curious.

The casting of Ciri and ciris mom was perfect. That little girl is a unique looking kid and they found someone who looks like they could be her sister to play the mom.

Do kinda wish HBO or Amazon woulda made this. They arent afraid to spend money. And while as awhole the show looks good there are times where it can look a bit cheap.

[Wandering_Wand]

I'm half way through and I'm enjoying it. Spent most of it being confused but I'm starting to see what's going on. The witcher 3 game is my only reference for the world. So most the characters I know arent even in the show. Can someone tell me if by the end of the season Vesmir or Zoltar make an appearance? I remember a rumor that Mark Hamil was playing Vesmir so just curious.

The casting of Ciri and ciris mom was perfect. That little girl is a unique looking kid and they found someone who looks like they could be her sister to play the mom.

Do kinda wish HBO or Amazon woulda made this. They arent afraid to spend money. And while as awhole the show looks good there are times where it can look a bit cheap.

spoilers:

Geralt begins mentioning Vessimir in a feverish state after he's bitten by ghouls. He also hallucinates and sees his mother and talks a little bit about him. And IIRC, he also tells the merchant (context provided in the episode) that he needs to go to the Blue Mountains, I think, to see "him" and then he mumbles Vessimir. I'm pretty sure he'll be making an appearance in season two but I don't think he's been cast yet.

end of spoilers

And I know we talked about the overall quality in another thread, but I agree that there's been a few things that have looked a little "cheap." But all in all, it wasn't enough to pull me out of the world. I'm hoping Netflix provides the show everything it needs to really craft a big season two.

[CRaymond]

^^ I thought the colors of Brokilon Forest were fairly vibrant. I know that's only one location, though.

THAT entire sequence felt like Ciri wandered into another show entirely. Different color grading, different lighting, different setting, different language. And she was there and then not. Ciri's adventure got tiresome.

[ChrisIII]

I think Law of Surprise is a bit of reference to Rumplestilskin. The Witcher is full of twisted fairy tale kind of stuff. "Lesser Evil" is intended to be a take on Snow White.

[CRaymond]

ok

so does Renfri have magical powers? She seems to be able to either predict the future via dream-telepathy, or curse people similarly.

Is there ever an explanation or description of Cirilla/Pavetta's banshee scream telekinesis?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I think Law of Surprise is a bit of reference to Rumplestilskin.

You can say that, though it also has something of a sense of myth or folklore aspect to it. As well as the Oracles of Greece, "Give that which you have, but know not" which is almost always tempting stuff.

"Lesser Evil" is intended to be a take on Snow White.

Well some parts of Snow White. Deconstructive takes on that story usually focus on the older evil queen versus younger woman conflict. Here it's focused on the huntsman sent to kill her...and the dwarfs who take her in being bandits.

It's a great story.

ok

so does Renfri have magical powers?

She's immune to magic, so that means she has some powers. She is a mutant like Geralt.

She seems to be able to either predict the future via dream-telepathy, or curse people similarly.

Maybe, or that could simply be Geralt's own dream and dormant prophetic ability (probably from his sorceress mom).

Is there ever an explanation or description of Cirilla/Pavetta's banshee scream telekinesis?

There might be later.

The Witcher as a series in the books, from what I gather, doesn't have rigid magical rules outside of what Geralt can do. Geralt can cast signs, take potions and so on, but otherwise he can't do the big scale magic stuff. But there's nothing rigid about what the sorceresses can or can't do.

[Immortal Weapon]

I think Law of Surprise is a bit of reference to Rumplestilskin. The Witcher is full of twisted fairy tale kind of stuff. "Lesser Evil" is intended to be a take on Snow White.

From what I looked up, the law of surprise is based on Slavic and polish folklore.

[Wandering_Wand]

So I just responded on another forum on a thread discussing what some complaints were. I wanted to share them here because it seems to me (based on reading just about everything on the Internet since 12/20 about the show) that the three biggest flaws/issues/complaints for the show are as follows (in no particular order):

1. Story pacing
2. The timeline/flashbacks and how they were integrated
3. The CGI/effects


I can easily see why these complaints are so often brought up because the showrunner(s) and writers crammed essentially 1.5 books into eight hours. I've thought a lot about this recently and in an ideal world, I think season one should have been at least nine episodes (an additional hour provided to slow down the dialogue and integrate the stories better). By having at least 1-2 more episodes, they could have fixed many of the problems found in points 1 and 2 as it would have stretched the timeline out a bit more and made it easier to swallow.

As for point 3, overall, I didn't think the CGI/effects were that bad, although some things could have certainly been better. I'm not sure if budget was an issue or not, maybe it was. If so, Netflix needs to double down and pump a little bit more cash (as long as it makes sense for them financially) into season two to allow better CGI/effects to unfold. Assuming this series is a big enough hit for them, there's hope they will do that.

I'm planning on starting my re-watch by this weekend so I can pick up on things I didn't get the first time, then I'm probably going to wait until late 2021 to re-watch once more before the launch of season 2.

[CliffHanger2]

Witcher was pretty good. I did have some issues with the non-linear storytelling. There were no cues just boom 20 years ago figure it out. Ppl are making a big deal about the female nudity.Which is ridiculous considering how much male nudity we get in every genre show these days.