No, "Diversity" Isn't The Only Thing That Made Netflix's 'The Witcher' A Flop

Let's face it, the show has much, much bigger problems

Netflix’s The Witcher - Left to right: Anya Chalotra as Yennifer, Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia, and Freya Allan as Ciri

Considering the richness of the source material, Netflix’s ‘The Witcher’ could - and should - have filled the television fantasy chasm left by HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’. It should have captured the zeitgeist. It should have swept up every award season. It should have made its stars household names.

Yet, despite being an ardent fan of both the books and the video games, the Netflix adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s masterwork has left me beyond bored. It brings me no joy to say that I am simply not enjoying the series. In fact, I cannot tell you just how badly I wanted this to be good.

I will admit that adapting ‘The Witcher’ posed a unique challenge. There are eight books in total, and three, soon to be four, video games. The sheer number of hours fans have already spent with the characters in this world is longer than most other adaptations. The first Witcher game alone takes around a hundred hours to complete.

This means, however, that the producers of the show did not have to start from scratch. What fans like and dislike about the series is already evident. CD Projekt Red has proved that a rich world can be built from the source material, and the characters are entertaining enough to engage a broad audience for hours.

It is therefore worth exploring why the Netflix adaptation sucks so so so badly.

Not Enough Witcher In ‘The Witcher’

Despite the show being called ‘The Witcher’ and Henry Cavill being the strongest casting choice in terms of star power, the showrunners have made the inexplicable decision to decenter Geralt from the story. Whilst I am aware the conflict of the story arguably involves Ciri more than Geralt, the entire narrative is driven by Geralt trying to find and protect Ciri, and is shown almost entirely from Geralt’s perspective. In the video games, the character you play is Geralt. Netflix’s decision to push Geralt to the margins rather than to the centre has left me baffled.

The Casting Is Worse Than Bad - It’s Wrong

No, diversity is not the reason the casting is bad. The reason the casting is bad, is because the casting is just straight up bad. The actors who play the characters in this show do not fit the descriptions nor the personalities of the characters as they are described in the books or manifested in the video games. As a result, the characters do not have the same dynamic that endears them to fans in the books. This is true of the white members of the cast as well as the PoC members of the cast.

It is obvious from who they chose to play the lead characters that the showrunners chose looks over chemistry and personality. When first I heard that dreamboat Henry Cavill would be playing the titular character, my first thought was that he was too young and too good-looking to play Geralt. I was expecting someone more along the lines of a younger Sean Bean circa his Sharpe days. Cavill won me over, however, as he appeared to put significant time and effort into embodying the Witcher, but even to this day, he still would not be my first choice.

Anya Chalotra was cast as Yennifer at the age of 22, and whilst she is one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen, she is far, far too young for this role. There is a weight, an authority, and a jadedness to Yennifer that simply isn’t present in anyone this young. Yennifer is a character who has seen a lot of life and been bloodied by disappointment and the weight of her choices finally catching up with her. Even though I know that sorceresses keep themselves young and beautiful with magic according to the source material, Chalotra’s casting still felt off.

In the books, Yennifer becomes a mother figure to Ciri, and Chalotra being only five/six years older than Freya Allen who plays (an aged up) Ciri made this casting choice even more farcical. Cavill was in his mid-30s at the start of the show (around 13 years older than Chalotra) and someone closer to him in age, making the actors who play both Geralt and Yennifer around twenty years older than the actor playing Ciri, would have made the whole shebang more believable.

On top of that, Chalotra and Cavill do not have a single drop of sexual chemistry. I simply don’t believe them as lovers. I don’t even believe that these two people would willingly be in the same room together if not for a prior working relationship. The only good reason to depart from how the characters are described in the source material is that the chemistry between the actors is so undeniably sizzling, smoking hot, the audience forgets what they’re supposed to look like.

The smouldering, unbridled chemistry between the Witcher, Geralt, and the sorceress, Yennifer, is a key emotional artery running through the entire saga. It is an unusually hot and compelling romance. Neither Geralt nor Yennifer are young, both have had plenty of lovers, and both seem ambivalent about love and sex until they meet each other. This is not a romance between two younglings. This is a mature romance of equals finally realising they have met their match and will never be satisfied with anyone else ever again. Until they met each other, they were content to wander the Continent alone, but their romance means their lives can never be the same. Cavill and Chalotra’s lack of on-screen compatibility shows, and weakens the show considerably.

In the book series, Ciri is eight years old. I do understand why they have chosen to age the character up. Whilst this was not the worst casting choice, it does, however, change the dynamic that Geralt, Yennifer, and Ciri have. It also prevents us from seeing Geralt and Yennifer as parental caregivers to a younger child. Yennifer is relegated to a big sisterly rather than motherly role, and we don’t see Geralt’s evolution into a father figure.

I was also disappointed in the casting of Joey Batey as Jaskier/Dandelion. He’s not too far off looks wise, though I think they should have given him a goatee, but I don’t get any sense of the suave, foppish, playboy tendencies I was expecting. In the books, Jaskier/Dandelion is slicker, wittier, better looking, and more colourful. Batey’s portrayal of the bard makes him come across as an underdog, and that’s simply not true to any description or depiction of Jaskier/Dandelion. Without Jaskier/Dandelion’s aristocratic arrogance and ‘do it for the plot’ attitude, one of the most charismatic characters of the show fell flat.

This in turn robs the story of one of its most beautiful relationships. Jaskier/Dandelion sees Geralt’s soul, when others only see his (monstrous) appearance. He sees Geralt’s morals, sense of justice, and inherent decency and overlooks his mutant status. Geralt is thus humanised through Jaskier/Dandelion’s eyes. Jaskier/Dandelion also acts as a foil for Geralt, being everything Geralt is not - handsome, witty, good with words rather than a sword. He represents intellect and artistry, where Geralt represents brute force. The chemistry and dynamic between the characters in the show is simply wrong.

Triss. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. With all respect to the actress, this is probably the worst casting of them all. Not only does Anna Shaffer not fit the physical description of Triss, she is, again, too young, too sweet, and too girl-next-doorsy to play the cunning and seductive enchantress. In many ways, Triss is a deeply unlikeable character. I feel none of her sultry edginess present in Shaffer’s depiction. She is meant to be a ruthless, powerful, scheming seductress. Just like Yennifer, they should have cast someone older. Someone you actually believe has had a wide range of life experience.

There appears to be an overriding insistence on casting their adult actresses significantly younger than appropriate. The actress playing Queen Meve, Rebecca Hanssen, is ten to fifteen years too young. We know from the books and the games, specifically the excellent ‘Thronebreaker’, that Queen Meve has a son in his late teens. Calanthe also looked too young. These women are meant to be in their forties and fifties.

It’s funny how diversity in Hollywood never seems to extend to older women…

The casting of MyAnna Burning as Tissaia de Vries and the extremely good-looking Mahesh Jadu as Vilgefortz were the only major casting choices I wouldn’t change. All the enchantresses should have had something of Tissaia’s sharp cleverness. Especially since so much of the plot revolves around the machinations of the sorceresses. Jadu embodied the subversive, you-never-quite-know-what-side-he’s-on Vilgefortz from the start. Other than these two hits, the cast was pretty weak overall.

I wouldn't say the showrunners just haven't read the books close enough because I think it's worse than that. There's a fundamental lack of love and respect for whom these characters are. There's an overfocus on what they look like at the expense of who they are, the role they play in the story, and what they are supposed to embody, and there's clearly a desire to move away from the video games if not the source material altogether.

I think the poor casting of the show shows a preoccupation with making morally grey characters likeable and sanitising their personalities, rather than embracing the parts of them that are unpleasant. Triss has had her sexiness and wickedness neutered entirely. She is meant to be a believable love interest for Geralt, yet there is no inkling of chemistry between her and Cavill nor rivalry between her and Yennifer. It's like the showrunners were aware the video games catered to the male gaze and overcorrected to the point the characters ended up sexless and bland. Considering how many women love the video games, myself included, this was an unnecessary own goal.

The weaknesses of The Witcher’s cast are not just about diversity because many of the white casting choices were bad too. Smoothing out the rough edges, robbing the characters of their edge, and incorrectly ageing the characters, helped to make the characters boring.

The Morality System Isn’t Evident

Those of you familiar with the games will know what makes them especially interesting is the morality system. This idea comes directly from the book, where Geralt is forced to choose the “lesser evil” of two or more morally ambiguous scenarios. This is touched upon in a single episode of the first series in a rather shallow way (that whole palaver with the wizard Stregobor), but then never discussed or examined again.

We never even see Geralt reflecting on his choices or discussing what could have happened had he chosen a different option. Considering the story is literally called ‘The Lesser Evil’ and this theme permeates both the books and the games, its absence was conspicuous. Whilst I appreciate ruminating on various choices may not make the most riveting of TV, it is an essential theme of the saga, and not paying a little more attention to this aspect of the source material was a missed opportunity to add depth and intrigue.

The Writing Isn’t Fun

Andrzej Sapkowski is a writer with a great sense of humour and irony. The Witcher saga is preceded by two volumes of short stories (‘The Last Wish’ and ‘The Sword of Destiny’) that are basically humorous or clever retellings of well-known fairy-tales. Some of the wordplay gets lost in translation, but I’ve read interviews with Sapkowski that made me laugh out loud. I can’t help but think that the series should be more fun, and a little more time dedicated to the fun antics of Geralt and Jaskier/Dandelion would have been welcome.

Ultimately, I fear a desire to advance the plot quickly trumped the inclusion of world and character-building hi jinks. You would never know from the series that the books and the video games are as comical as they are. The tone and pacing of the series has always felt like a race to cover the plot. Still, taking a little bit more time to revel in the characters and the unique world they inhabit would have grounded the series before launching straight into the action.

The World Lacks Colour And Variety

Other than very obvious changes to the world that don’t ring true to the books (Eskel bringing prostitutes back to Kaer Morhen?), the colour palette of the series is dull. Maybe my aesthetic preferences were influenced by the games too much, but, honestly, I tried to go into this series with a open mind. The colour palette of this world is significantly less colourful and flamboyant than I imagined from the books. The world is so colourful, Yennifer’s decision to wear only black and white distinguishes her from the other sorceresses.

Every peasant village looks and feels the same. Every palace looks and feels the same. All the clothes - except for Geralt’s, and occasionally Yennifer - look and feel the same. Geralt meanders from generic peasant village to generic peasant village and from generic town to generic town. Generic fantasy forest. Generic fantasy mountain. Generic fantasy tavern. If diversity was over-considered when casting, it was underconsidered when world-building.

I now realise why the iconic ‘Game of Thrones’ started with a map. It wasn’t just a nice way to do the opening credits, it communicated to the reader the world in which the story was grounded. The Witcher series would have also benefitted in having residents from different towns and courts wearing styles unique to that locale. The clothing of the elves should have been much more distinct as well. Only the characters from Nilfgaard were set apart by their black clothing.

Aesthetically, this is a boring show.

Stop Adapting Stuff You Don’t Like

The only reason a show like ‘The Witcher’ gets made is because its source material is already popular. If people like something, why change it if you want those very same people to continue consuming it? Whilst I’m aware that most people have never read the books nor played the games, keeping the stuff that actually endears a franchise to its fans seems to be obvious to all except Hollywood.

It’s also very obvious when someone is talking about something they love. I feel the same is true for adaptations. I don’t think that anyone who truly loved these books and games would have departed from the source material as drastically as the Netflix adaptation does. I don’t think anyone who truly loved the saga would have cast the show so poorly, or made the world so bland.

The most unforgivable part of the series, for me, came fairly early on. For some inexplicable reason, they changed Geralt’s last wish. In the very first book, called ‘The Last Wish’ because this wish is so important, Yennifer is battling a djinn but is unable to control it as Geralt, who released it from its bottle, has yet to make all three of his wishes. Knowing the djinn will attack Yennifer after he has made his final wish, Geralt selflessly uses his last wish to protect her and, in doing so, binds their fates together forever. The only person who hears Geralt’s last wish is Yennifer, and she is so moved by this sacrifice that her and Geralt proceed to make passionate love to each other there and then.

In the TV series, Geralt makes the last wish, but Yennifer doesn’t hear it. They smash, and then he rolls over and falls asleep. Okay, then.

Whilst it’s true that I was disappointed with the ending of ‘Game of Thrones’, I must admit that I was never bored.

Never mind.

I can only hope that someone who truly loves this franchise remakes it. Next time, maybe we should just ask CD Projekt Red to make an animated movie? I would trust them over Hollywood any day.