[ESSAY] In Response to The Witcher

[Giant Spoiler Warning: Be Warned of Spoilers]

Mark Twain once said, “There is no such thing as a new idea… We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations… they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.” I think about this quite often because it’s said that there has only been one original story (or at least, one original family of stories) that we keep telling ourselves over the centuries and millennia, each telling a reconstruction of the old.

The most overt example of this phenomenon in film is with the superhero genre, taking old stories from Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and Jerry Siegel and giving them the Hollywood treatment. Beyond that, consider the plot of Disney’s The Lion King being lifted from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, or how the format of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire is directly informed by Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

Despite there being a lack of new stories, we still yearn for the new. To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with reinterpretation and reexamination; it’s an important cultural marker for individual and societal growth. It’s hard to say whether this change is brought about by the media we consume, or the change we undergo is reflected in the media, but this becomes a chicken-or-the-egg problem, which is a bit off topic for what I want to discuss.

What I want to discuss concerns Netflix’s new series, The Witcher, which is based on Andrzej Sapkowski’s book series of the same name. [Note: For the sake of clarity, I’ll be referring to Netflix’s show simply as “The Witcher”, while I’ll be referring to Sapkowski’s body of work as “The Anthology”.] The Witcher is a perfect representation of this phenomenon because it’s a story that hops mediums (from book to television), and because it’s a retelling of classic fairy tales and fantasy tropes.

I find that The Witcher comes at a strange time. There’s a lot of baggage that comes with creating the show, mostly for how it communicates with iterations of itself in other mediums, as well as how it communicates with other pop culture pieces, namely HBO's Game of Thrones. The Anthology has rightfully captivated the attention of mainstream media over the last several decades both due to its own merits, and as well as for the various media it inspired. So I understand why The Witcher came out when it did.

But many reviews paint The Witcher in a poor light, calling it a sort of unworthy successor to Game of Thrones. And there has been push back by fans who find the current reviews to be inaccurate, both in that it successfully stands on its own, and that to call it a successor to Game of Thrones is misguided. Sapkowski himself has lauded Henry Cavill as the true face of the main character - “Just as Viggo Mortensen gave his face to Aragorn [in The Lord of the Rings], so Henry gave his to Geralt — and it shall be forever so.” Obviously, he’s quite happy about it. It’s clear, then, that opinions are diverse on the issue, and it’s hard to give it any sort of “grade” in terms of it being “good” or “bad”. Of course, this sort of thing is purely subjective, but there are facets of the show that I feel don’t stand up to its source material.

Before I get into that subject, I would like to address the fact that I don't think that it is wholly misguided that The Witcher is seen as “the new Game of Thrones”, mostly due to their similarities in genre. Besides the point that George R. R. Martin, author of the A Song of Ice and Fire series, also drew heavy inspiration from J. R. Tolkien (I’d argue that Sapkowski took queues from Tolkien as well, judging by his own comparison), both stories are set in a fantasy medieval world that is balanced by a gritty sense of realism, aiming to both augment and reinterpret our romantic views of the fantasy genre with the darker aspects of our real world. In spite of their magic and fantasy, both have large and sweeping worlds populated by vivid and real characters who we would not find entirely out of place in the real world. Both book series, and therefore their offspring television series, are similar enough to be measured against each other. Granted, they are unique to each other in how they execute their respective theses in regards to genre tropes and overall plot. Where A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones are a mixture of various different plots from political drama to allegorical environmentalism, The Anthology and The Witcher’s examination of morality and the effects it has on a cynical world is a more specific thesis. But where The Witcher falls short is how it attempts to convey the themes in The Anthology. 

This isn’t to say that The Witcher doesn’t encapsulate those themes or make mention of them during the course of the show. What I mean to say is that the depth to which it examines those themes does not match The Anthology.

The Anthology is set in a fantasy medieval world that was touched by magic and invaded by monsters in an event known as “The Conjunction of the Spheres”, where our plane of existence mingled with a plane populated by magic and monsters, resulting in a mutual exchange. The mortal world came to be terrorized by magic and the various entities that cross over from the other side. Because of this, Witchers were created.

Witchers are a guild of genetically and magically enhanced people whose purpose is to cull the monster threat – werewolves, certain species of vampires, leshens, strigas, wraiths, and so forth. The process of making a Witcher is intensive, painful, and deadly; only three in ten boys survive the initial physical transformation known as the “Trial of the Grasses”. The results are reproductive sterility, faster reflexes, increased strength, yellow cat-like eyes, increased longevity, the ability to utilize rudimentary magic spells known as “signs”, and the ability to imbibe special potions and tonics to further enhance their already formidable physical prowess (any normal person who’d drink these concoctions would die). Due to the veil of secrecy surrounding the process of creating a Witcher, as well as general misinformation about Witchers themselves, the members of the guild are marginalized and discriminated against. Many people often believe that they lack all human emotion, are inherently greedy as they will only perform their duty for coin, and are deserving of hate due to being something other than human. Thus, they are relegated to the lower echelons of society, simultaneously feared, reviled, respected, and envied.

Sapkowski uses this premise as a way to navigate through the narrative structure of classic fairy tales. The earlier books are written as a series of short stories, where Sapkowski was able to reframe a variety of different fairy tales in a close third person perspective following the Witcher, Geralt of Rivia. For example, the story arc about how Geralt came to be known as The Butcher of Blaviken was a retelling of Snow White. Renfri, who was meant to be Snow White in this retelling, turns out to be the tragic villain. Another story retells Beauty and the Beast, in which Beauty turns out to be a species of vampire and Beast was a cursed man who managed to win her heart. Much of our current understanding of fairy tales, that they are children’s stories and therefore are idealized, simplistic, and cloyingly optimistic, is tested in this way; it becomes apparent very early on to the reader that the world is a cold and dangerous place. The contradiction is that Geralt, for all his cynical and gruff armor he fronts, is deep down a sensitive and good person. The resulting effect is a modernization, in spite of the medieval setting, of these stories in which Sapkowski twists them in ways that questions our notions of good and evil, as well as the tropes of the fantasy genre.

Sapkowski makes good use of this format, yet also thrives well when working with longer storylines; the later books would go on to establish a longer plot arc that involved the politics of the warring kingdoms and the fate of his ward, Ciri, who acts as a narrative focal point due to her importance in regards to her lineage, her relationships to her loved ones like Geralt, and her innate magical abilities. The move to this plot arc departs from Sapkowski’s more overt use of fairy tales, but still keeps with the theme of exploring what it means to be moral in an immoral world.

The Witcher, for the most part, attempts to keep with its source material as closely as possible. Many of the events that occur in The Witcher are indeed present in The Anthology, and there’s no denying that there are some things that the show does exceedingly well. Its fight scenes, its costume and set design, its casting, all these stand out to me as strong points of the show, even though there are exceptions in every category. It’s no coincidence that one of the best fight sequences in the entire series shows up at the end of the first episode, where Geralt dispatches a group of bandits in a highly stylized and brutal butcher-fest (the incident that would coin him the name “The Butcher of Blaviken”). By closing the first episode on such a strong note, I think the hope was that it would set the tone for the rest of the season. However, there are problems with the first episode that I feel are never resolved throughout the rest of the season. To my mind The Witcher ultimately falls short of doing The Anthology justice for great number of reasons, but mostly due to a jarring editing style that convolutes the narrative focus.

One of the things that is immediately noticeable in the show is it’s utilization the A-Story/B-Story format. This is an often utilized narrative technique in many television shows that follow two separate storylines in parallel. In general, the effect is so that the audience can see different characters deal with the same scenarios, or allow the two stories to induce character changes so that when the two separate characters (or group of characters) reconvene, their relationships might grow or change. In The Witcher, there are three primary storylines: Geralt’s, Yennefer’s, and Ciri’s. The show focuses on two or three of these plots in any given episode, sometimes mingling them as the characters come in contact with each other in their adventures.

I found that this structure was ineffectively and unnecessarily utilized. Not only is the transition between the A-Story and B-Story often stuttering and abrupt, the two stories will usually never inform each other or have any sort of thematic dialogue. All throughout my watching the show, I was constantly asking myself how the perspective switching was useful, and if the same story could not also be achieved by a linear timeline?

For example, the first episode alternates between Geralt’s perspective and Ciri’s perspective. Geralt’s story is about his code of ethics and morality. Specifically, it is about how his choice to adhere to his code results in the death of a tragic figure as well as the reinforcement of his isolation from society. Whereas Ciri’s story is about trauma and grief as she witnesses the destruction of her world. The comfort and security of occupying a privileged space in society is taken away, and she forced to leave behind everyone she loves. Ciri does not have a choice in anything – everything that happens to her is a result of the world shifting beneath her, rather than her own actions. Comparing the two, there is little to no thematic relationship between the two stories. Their respective journeys do not alter the way the audience interprets the other, nor is this tension of disjointedness ever fully resolved, even after the audience learns about how time is treated throughout the series.

Not only is this particular implementation of the A-Story/ B-Story structure superfluous, I feel like the show is working against itself because of it. To show you what I mean, let’s look at Geralt and Ciri’s primary motivation: they need to find each other. Geralt for his sense of responsibility to his adopted daughter and Ciri for the sense of duty to her grandmother’s dying wish and for her sense of safety. However, since they had never met over the course of the season, there is no emotional connection between the two characters.

They are essentially strangers to each other by the time they meet, which defeats the purpose of that scene where Ciri runs to Geralt in the forest. It’s clear that that moment is meant to be a cathartic counterpoint to the rest of the season, which had been a compilation of adversity and things continually going wrong for them. In the midst of all their troubles, they find refuge in each other. But that emotional note the show reached for was too high, with not enough of a relationship between them to foster anything more than the understanding that this was supposed to be a pivotal moment, and therefore we  should feel a particular way.

In The Anthology, Cintra had not yet fallen when Ciri managed to make her way to Brokilon forest, and it is at this point that Geralt meets Ciri for the first time. They meet without knowing who the other person is, and over the course of their time together, they bond and form a relationship. This sets the groundwork for when Ciri would meet Geralt again, when Cintra falls to Nilfgaard and Ciri is forced to run for her life. Instead of Ciri actively seeking Geralt out, she needs to find her own way in the world. Only when they meet in the forest does that pivotal scene occur. Their chance meeting, after having also met by chance in Brokilon, serves as a clearer delivery on the theme of destiny, and this destiny of theirs is further solidified by their emotional bond.

While I understand that the show is constrained by their budget and time, I feel that this build up of relationship was too important to omit as it was in the show. Something needs to give, and it’s unfortunate that they chose to give away a cornerstone of the narrative in exchange for clumsy time skips and unfocused storytelling. Their relationship would have been stronger and the general flow of the narrative much more coherent and cohesive as a result of a more linear structure. This omission of a foundation, of working to establish character and world to bring depth to a scene, is indicative of a more troubling trend that they have attempted to follow the books only cursorily and superficially.

Which makes it all the more frustrating that The Witcher loses many of the themes in The Anthology in translation. This will be another fun discussion in a follow up article on how we as audience members and creators deal with genre tropes over time. For now, I’ll wrap things up – The Witcher is a show that complicates its standing in my eyes, but mostly depends on tenuous and rushed similarities with its source material to work, but ultimately doesn’t quite live up to my expectations.