I Love The Witcher. I Hate The Witcher is
A review of the Netflix series
A reflection on the novels
An attempt at balanced media criticism
Previously: Geralt fought a striga, Triss entered the story, and Yennefer fought the patriarchy by following tradition. Oh, and Ciri walked out of the woods, and then back into the woods.
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Of Banquets, Bastards and Burials
We open where the last episode ended: Ciri in the woods. She is captured by mysterious amazonian-esque women, one of whom says, “if she runs, kill her.” They are in Brokilon Forest.
Then we cut to a CGI inn at the top of an empty, snow-covered hill. You know, like where all inns are: nowhere near people. The patrons are listening to the story of the witcher fighting a terrible lake monster. Jaskier is also there, taking notes, and glibly denying that Geralt might have died in the fight. Geralt enters, more monster offal than man, his body steaming in the cold air.
Jaskier and Geralt reconvene in their room, where Geralt attempts to bathe away the traces of his latest fight. Jaskier wants to go to the upcoming ball for the Princess Pavetta of Cintra, and he wheedles Geralt into joining him. Geralt will act as bodyguard, since many of the attending lords want Jaskier dead for seducing their wives.
At Cintra, we meet many important characters: Mousesack, the wizard (druid? in the books he’s a druid, but here he acts more like a mage), Crach an Craite, a high-ranking warrior from Skellig, and his guardian, Eist Tuirseach. Mindful audiences will recognize Mousesack and Tuirseach from the first episode.
Calanthe arrives late to her own party, wearing armor and covered in blood from head to toe. Her daughter blanches at the queen’s appearance and calls Calanthe a “cruel queen.”
In Brokilon, we find the dryads healing Dara—whom they shot in the last episode—with magical water. We learn that those who drink the water stay in Brokilon forever, forgetting their lives before the forest.
When Ciri tries to convince Dara not to drink the waters, he snaps at her. Calanthe’s army destroyed Dara’s family in a raid against the elves. Now, he wants to use the Water of Brokilon to forget his pain. Ciri is stunned, totally unaware of her grandmother’s past with the elves.
30 years after the ball at Aretuza, we join Yennefer, riding with her queen, Carlis. Her Majesty tells Yennefer she envies her. Yennefer has power, while Carlis feels her life has resulted in nothing more than being a walking womb for her husband’s future heir. Yennefer disagrees, saying she has no real power, she’s a “glorified royal arse-wiper.”
Suddenly, the carriage halts, and its guards are brutally attacked. The filmmakers went nuts with the blood effects, it’s everywhere. The enemy is a man wearing all black, followed by what I can only describe as a giant sword-bug, about the size of a small husky or large golden retriever.
Yennefer screams for everyone to run, and she opens a portal that drops them into the desert. It seems Carlis, the walking womb, has delivered one too many daughters for her husband. So, instead of slowly poisoning her or something subtle, he hired a rather flashy assassin to end their union.
Cornered, Yennefer teleports herself away, seemingly with no sense of direction, leaving Carlis to her fate. Carlis calls her a bitch, which…seems apocryphal but fair.
Back at the party, Calanthe begins moaning about having to follow male traditions. She’d rather let Pavetta choose her own husband, but the court would never allow it. After some of the suitors make their case, Urcheon of Erlenwald comes clattering into the room, wearing full armor.
Against his wishes, Urcheon is forced to remove his helmet, revealing himself to be a hedgehog man.1 He is there to claim Pavetta, invoking the Law of Surprise. When he saved Calanthe’s late husband in the woods, he asked the king for “something you own but do not know,” which turned out to be Pavetta. In tears, Calanthe begs Geralt to kill Urcheon, claiming that he is clearly a monster.
But the witcher refuses, and steps in to defend the creature from Calanthe’s guards. Tuirrsach joins him, after defending the Law of Surprise and insisting it must be obeyed.
We return to Queen Carlis, who offers her baby as a sacrifice in her place, saying she can still bear a son for the king. The assassin refuses her offer by killing her. Suddenly, Yennefer reappears, having thoroughly misunderstood her assignment, kills the monster, and escapes with the baby. As she portals away, the assassin strikes her with a flying knife in her back.
At the beginning of the episode, Yennefer was disgusted to hold the baby for five seconds. Now, not 20 minutes later, Yennefer mourns like she bore the baby herself. It’s a small thing, but it will be important later in the series.
Things are also getting worse in Cintra. In a brief lull, we learn that Urcheon is actually Duny, a man cursed to wander as a beast in the woods. Despite his prickly body, Pavetta loves him, and they request permission to marry under the Law of Surprise. Calanthe, enraged, says she bows “to no law made by man, who never bore a child.” Women from across history stand up and cheer.
Calanthe attacks Duny, and Pavetta’s terrified screams unleash a whirlwind within the ballroom, lifting her and Duny into the air. As detritus swirls around them, Pavetta begins speaking a foreign language, as if in a trance. Geralt and Mousesack work to knock the princess unconscious, returning the room to quiet.
In Brokilon, Ciri sleeps fitfully, dreaming of the Battle of Cintra. When she awakes, she comes across Dara, about to drink the Water of Brokilon. Saying he wants to forget his past, he drinks, and Ciri decides to follow his example. But the water has no effect, so Eithne says she must drink from the source.
We rejoin Yennefer on a remote beach. She sits in the sand, with the deceased princess lying, blue faced, beside her. Yenn waxes philosophical about the struggles of living, especially as a woman. She tells the dead child that in the end, she won the game without even playing. Women are just vessels to be left, “empty and alone.” Life sucks, and it sucks doubly if you’re a girl. In the end, you’re better off dead.
Back in Cintra, Duny returns to his proper human form, and he offers to repay Geralt, who declines payment. After several rounds of insistence, Geralt claims another Law of Surprise, only to discover that Pavetta is in the early stages of pregnancy. Mousesack wants to stay in Cintra, to train Pavetta in magic, and he asks Geralt to stay as well, for the sake of Pavetta’s unborn child. Geralt refuses both to stay and to accept destiny as anything more than a fairytale.
Suddenly, we cut to the first moments after the Battle of Cintra. We see Francesca, who has come into her own as a mage in Nilfgaard. When shown Calathe’s body, Francesca cuts a hunk of flesh from the dead queen’s forearm. Considering she fell from a tower that is many stories tall, Calathe’s body is in great condition.
Francesca hands the hunk of flesh to a strange man in her retinue. He eats the piece whole, and I throw up in the back of my mouth. Good job, prop department. As he finishes chewing, Francesca guts him with a knife. Like a swamp hag reading rabbit entrails, Francesca the Aretuza Sorceress examines his intestines to divine Princess Cirilla’s location. Cahir curses, knowing that they cannot enter Brokilon Forest.
As they depart, we discover Mousesack trailing behind them, hands bound and tied to a horse’s saddle. When he stumbles, he grabs Calanthe’s shawl from her corpse and carries it away with him.
We end in Brokilon, where Ciri arrives at the mother tree, the source of the Water. After drinking, she dreams of a dark, empty desert, where a tree standing tall and alone in the sands asks who she is.
Ehh…just gimme a Child Surprise
After freeing Duny from his curse and witnessing the marriages of Pavetta and Calanthe, Geralt is about to leave the royal palace. Duny stops him, saying he must repay the witcher, though he can’t think of anything that would be enough. Geralt half-shrugs and says, “give me something you own but do not know.” Everyone in the room stares at Geralt in horror, since that’s literally what the last 45 minutes of screen time have been spent fighting over.
With near-perfect comedic timing, Pavetta vomits onto the floor, and Geralt mutters “f*ck,” as the room realizes that she is pregnant with Duny’s baby.
It might go without saying that in the book, this scene is different. And what I want to explore is how the Netflix series takes the surface paraphernalia from the books but changes the tone and meaning underneath. Like scraping the vanilla frosting off of a cake and re-applying it to a meatloaf.
The Law of Surprise is a sacred bond, which the show does capture. There are those who embrace it, and those who reject it, but all fear it. The Law is often how new witchers are chosen. Like in the fairy tales, a witcher asks his debtor, who can’t afford to reward him, to bring “the first thing he sees at home” or “something you find at home but did not expect.” Could be a bowl of strawberries, could be a kid. If it’s a kid, then it’s fate: that Child Surprise was destined to be a witcher.
It’s an ancient ritual, as old as fate itself, and it is not something to be entered into lightly. So, why does Netflix Geralt say it off-handedly, over his shoulder as he leaves the room? Presumably it’s meant to be funny. “Haha Geralt didn’t learn his lesson, and Pavetta threw up on the floor! That’s a thing pregnant women do!”
This episode is largely based on the short story “A Question of Price.” On the last two pages, Duny insists on repaying Geralt, in addition to Calanthe’s reward, since the witcher saved his life in the fight against the other suitors. He says, “‘If there’s talk of a price, then I should be the one to pay. I assure you I can afford it. What do you ask, Geralt?’
‘Duny,’ said Geralt slowly, ‘a witcher who is asked such a question has to ask to have it repeated.’” Later, Geralt continues, “‘In order to become a witcher, you have to be born in the shadow of destiny, and very few are born like that. That’s why there are so few of us. We’re growing old, dying, without anyone to pass our knowledge, our gifts, on to. We lack successors. And this world is full of Evil which waits for the day none of us are left.’
‘Geralt,’ whispered Calanthe.
‘Yes, you’re not wrong, queen. Duny! You will give me that which you already have but do not know. I’ll return to Cintra in six years to see if destiny has been kind to me.’” Princess Pavetta blushes, and the story ends.
You see, the same surface features, but very different underlying meanings. In the show, Geralt is flippant with destiny. In the novels, he is deeply respectful, even fearful of it. He spends so much time fleeing his destiny that the world practically unravels, as fate tries to catch him.
Neither version is good nor bad, though I prefer the more serious tone of the novels. The problem arises in that the show has taken the core element of its story—Geralt, Ciri, and Yennefer’s bound fates—and written it down to a shrug and a “f*ck.”
Wherefore art thou Brokilon?
Brokilon is a big deal. If you haven’t read the books, I need to make that point very clear. It is vital to our protagonists’ stories, and its leader is a considerable impediment to the nations it borders. Brokilon is also home to rare creatures and humanoids, as well as ancient trees and magics. Only a fool would treat Brokilon lightly, and our show writers might be fools.
It took me longer to start drafting this post than I expected because the Brokilon story, “The Sword of Destiny,” is longer than I remembered. You could probably make two or three episodes just from that story, let alone if you interweave other plotlines. Allow me to surprise those of you who have only seen the show: Brokilon is where Geralt and Ciri meet, when Ciri is ten years old. The writers thought Brokilon would be cool to include in their show for the wrong reasons.
I could go on for ages just about the details lost in Brokilon, so I’m going to try and shorten them into a list:
Dryads are cool.
Except the writers left out their entire culture and history. Dryads are a race, like elves, that can intermingle with humans reproductively, but dryads only give birth to females. Men are not allowed in their forest. Now their bloodlines are so diluted, and so many have fallen in battle with encroaching humans, that there are hardly any pure dryads left.2 They steal young human girls to replenish their numbers.
But in the show, the dryads wound Dara and then welcome him into their numbers. Dryads were once known for giving two or three warning shots at men. Now, they give one. Brokilon would have been the perfect “girls get it done” setting, and instead, the writers have the all-female warrior tribe accept a man into their ranks without question.
Magic Waters
Like the Law of Surprise, the Water of Brokilon is connected to destiny. Girls drink it and forget their pasts, so they can stay in Brokilon as dryads. When Ciri drinks it, the Water has no effect because she already has a destiny. She is bound to Geralt forever, and the Water cannot change that.
The show Water seems to be about escaping pain, if we are to take the dryads at their word. And Ciri is keen to partake. I understand her desire, from Netflix Ciri’s point of view, but it is a slap in the face to the original character. At 10 years old, Ciri knows that Geralt is her destiny, and she is determined to follow him for the rest of their lives. She never shows fear, and she never gets lost. Geralt rejects her because he fears destiny, which kicks off the global turmoil seen in the rest of the series. Making Ciri ignorant and fearful is changing who she is at her core.
Magic woods and magic ladies
The design of Netflix Brokilon is frankly embarrassing. It takes days to cross from the border to the dryad’s home. But in the show, it takes at most several hours, if you’re being generous. Brokilon is home to the world’s oldest trees, so majestic, even the jaded witcher feels a need to bow in reverence. The show looks like it was filmed on a soundstage, where they replaced deep forests with smoke machines and some big yellow lights.
Same goes for the design of the dryads. Why do they all have spears? They’re archers. Many of the dryads, as I mentioned, are mostly human or fully human women, but some are not. Some are centuries old with eyes that see everything and express nothing. “The ruler of Brokilon was wearing a flowing, gauzy, light-green gown…. Her hair and eyes were the colour of molten silver.” But in the show, Lady Eithne is just…a woman. They couldn’t even be bothered to give her silver hair.
If you adapt Brokilon, but you don’t include Geralt saving Ciri from the monster, or Geralt drinking the Water after Ciri rejects the dryads, or Geralt refusing Ciri’s wish to journey with him, then you didn’t really adapt it. And you didn’t get it. You didn’t understand the story at all.
Thanks for reading! If you made it this far, hopefully you like what I’m doing! Don’t forget to like, comment, share, and subscribe <3
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PS: no patterns yet (re: how the production team impacts my viewing enjoyment)
1
Fun fact, urchin or urcheon is an old word for hedgehog!
2
Note that this is also the theme addressed in the short story featuring the elf Filavandrel. Humans are ever expanding their territories; nothing is ever enough. They cannot be stopped, but the ancient creatures of the pre-conjunction world will die trying.
