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mysterious-prophetess · 4 years

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Triple Cross Section

Recently, I played and beat the main plot of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. I also recently read (in this order mind you) The Blood of Elves, The Last Wish, and The Sword of Destiny.

I know. I screwed up the timeline there.

Finally, I just finished the 2019 Netflix Witcher show (and actually part of me reading The Sword of Destiny overlapped with the first half of the show).

So, despite not having played the prior two Witcher games (because 3 is semi-standalone) I feel comfortable enough to do a triple cross section of this multi-faceted set of adaptations.

I’ll start with the books because they came first.

My thoughts on The Blood of Elves is that it felt like a D&D campaign for a good chunk of the story. It also had a feeling to it that made it feel half-way between D&D, The Hobbit, and GoT in that there was a weight to the world--a magical one--that GoT just never had for me but there was enough of the mundane misery GoT was steeped in mixed into the fray. It was full of wonder and pain to sum it up.

Then I jumped back to the short story collections and it just felt like a bunch of edgy fairy tales. Side note: Sapkowski sort of did Beauty and the Beast twice with the actual outright Beauty and the Beast parody-”A Grain of Truth” and the story called “A Question of Price” AKA Ciri’s parents’ love story.

The stories I liked best from the short story collections were the ones that didn’t do that fractured fairy tale routine. Every time they referenced a fractured fairy tale within the Witcher-verse I rolled my eyes a little. We get it: your fantasy world is even edgier than the Brothers Grimm.

So, yeah. The times where Sapkowski was original were where he shone the brightest.

Now onto the Games which came next.

SIDE NOTE: Now, I know there was a Polish movie and a TV adaptation, but I never saw them and I don’t understand Polish (and I doubt the Hexer is available to me). So, they are going to be skipped despite proceeding the games into existence. I am also aware of the comic books’ existences too.

Now, I was sort of aware of Witcher 2 back when it came out, but for some reason or other I never played it. I was much more aware of Witcher 3: Wild Hunt whenever it was released because it was everywhere. Having now played it, I am very much aware of why. I enjoyed every last minute of the game. Ok not every last minute. There were times it’d kick my butt and I’d get mad (and I’d get extra ticked when the game crashed on me). However, I had a genuinely good time playing the game despite not fully knowing what’s going on but thanks to the book I’d read before playing -The Blood of Elves- I knew enough about the secondary characters to keep afloat.

it’s funny but because I played the game before reading The Last Wish or The Sword of Destiny, it turned out that while reading those books I was given clearer background context for certain things (like the incest joke that was made about Foltest on his Gwent card and Crach an Crait’s past with Geralt).

However, the game did ruin a few things I’m sure were plot-twists later in regards to Ciri’s backstory which I won’t write here.

Witcher 3 the game was enough of its own entity, from what I can gather, that it borrows a lot from the books to make its world but ultimately does its own thing.

Adaptation did have to yield to game mechanics in a few places. Especially since there were moments where choices affected what ending you got. I, personally, used a guide to make sure Ciri got a happy ending. Because even from only reading one book prior to playing this game, I wanted Ciri to be happy. Naturally, there were times where plot overruled player actions but in a story heavy game, that’s to be expected. Overall, it was a fun game and a really interesting interpretation of Sapkowski’s world.

Now last, but certainly not least is the Netflix series.

I know there are many camps of people and their feelings about the show. I’m sort of a mixed bag regarding it.

Season 1 is definitely most influenced by the two short story books, The Last Wish more so than The Sword of Destiny. I personally don’t know where all of the Yennefer backstory bits come from, but I assume they’re in the other books as some of the stuff I did recognize from The Last Wish, The Sword of Destiny and The Blood of Elves. On the other hand, I’m not a fan of how they would give the stories a sort of new twist.

I did not enjoy them granting what was (originally) a mostly one-and-done character like Renfri more staying power/screen time. Mostly because (as I already said) I was annoyed by the edgier fairy tale stuff and she’s edgy Snow White.

I was mixed on my feelings towards extra Jaskier/Dandelion being thrown into situations he wasn’t around for in either collection. I do actually like Dandelion/Jaskier, and his show counterpart is delightful. On the other hand, it just scrambled a lot of things around to have him there.

I really do not like how they handled Geralt’s last wish in this show at all. It took both parties knowing about the wish binding their fates together and made it almost look like Geralt did to Yennefer like what Triss had done to Geralt in the books: using magic to make someone love you.

Oh yeah, Triss Merigold. As I already didn’t like her for that bit of using magic to seduce a man and entice him to be her lover and then further being pissed at her game counterpart for pursuing a relationship with an amnesiac Geralt (and therefore taking advantage of the fact he’d forgotten all about Yennefer and his past with her), her inclusion earlier in the storyline annoyed me. So far, Show!Triss is the form of her I like the most but that’s not really saying much.

I’m sure she redeems herself in the next four Witcher books or something but please don’t tell me. I’d like to read them and see if my opinion of her improves from the books alone.

Back onto the show.

The Geralt of the show is a sort of half-way between the book and games Geralt in characterization. Which, for this show, works well enough. The more eloquent Geralt of the books and short stories makes sense for a written medium. A much less talkative Geralt works for games and in-between works best for a show (though he does admittedly make more mono-syllabic noises than speak).

What I did like without any caveats was the casting. Mostly because while they didn’t match book descriptions in some cases, the actors did a damn good job. Plus, being shallow, aesthetically speaking putting Henry Cavill in the various outfits(or lack there of) of Geralt was very nice. And....well....Superman is my favorite hero ever so Henry Cavill would have always gotten a pass from me.

The show’s timeline thing only threw me for an episode because I was very much aware of the fact that a bunch of the stories were in different parts of time in the short story collection and I recognized Yennefer as her past self. So, three timelines was something I was aware of very quickly. It wasn’t a bad way to deal with backstory and the various bouncing through time that Geralt’s stories were doing, on the other hand if someone didn’t have any knowledge of The Witcher going into the show, they would be so very confused.

Which brings me to how each adaptation dealt with magic.

The books reference it a lot and it’s much easier for them to do so since special effects aren’t an issue. The games being games also have less to worry about when concerning special effects.

The show, understandably, had to scale back the magic a lot.

With the constraints of dealing with VFX and budgets, I think the show did an adequate job.

I was sad to see my favorite sign snubbed by the show (Igni because I like to set stuff on fire, ok?) but I understood why it’d be hard to use in a live action show.

So, final thoughts.

The books by far have the most magical feeling to them, then the games, and the show being the least magical. Yet that’s all ok for each of these mediums.

The characters are sort of else worlds versions of themselves which is also ok because it’s an adaptation and things need to bend for an adaptation. Especially in the case of live action since there is almost no chance that people in the real world look like the characters from the books.

Some might come closer than others but in that adaptations can take license.

They all do different things, but in the end all three are very clearly The Witcher.

#the witcher #witcher 3 wild hunt #the witcher books

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