The Witcher Saga - Season 2 December 17, 2021

[Tyche]

Girlfriend and I going to start watching tonight. Haven't read books or.ayed the games. Is this gonna be a struggle to watch?

[chazzyphizzle]

im in the same boat, no game or book experience and i found the first 2 episodes really really bad. henry cavill is trying his best and the fight choreography is good but its still...eh

[Tyrath]

The show's timeline is all over the place without any hints about it.

Just know that each POV isn't necessarily happening at the same time.

[Cichy]

Ciri story line is the main time line. Geralt and Yen are both in the past

[Rulke]

It wasn't hard to follow the time jumps, just a bit jarring how abrupt they were. Tyrath and Cichy make excellent points to ground you on how to manage the time line.

[Byrd]

Girlfriend and I going to start watching tonight. Haven't read books or.ayed the games. Is this gonna be a struggle to watch?

I don't think the lore or lack of backstory will necessarily be a problem to follow; there's a lot of names and countries, but knowledge of said things doesn't seem important to the plot. I have only played The Witcher 3 (like, 4 years ago), and while I recognize a few place names, I don't have any sort in depth knowledge.

The show itself feels like a modern, R-rated version of the 1990s shows Xena and Hercules. To me, Game of Thrones isn't a good comparison, apart from the fact they are in the same genre.

[Tyche]

We watched the first two episodes, then I read the recaps that vulture put out and found out that the Ciri timeline is possibly decades in the future of the current yennefer and Geralt timelines. With that tied up, and reading the two recaps on vultures website to clear up some muddiness and parse the lore as it comes, I found it really entertaining. Kinda wanna pick up the books. I have a feeling this Yennifer girl is gonna be a BAMF antagonist. Not sure where Ciri fits into this yet.

[Cichy]

We watched the first two episodes, then I read the recaps that vulture put out and found out that the Ciri timeline is possibly decades in the future of the current yennefer and Geralt timelines. With that tied up, and reading the two recaps on vultures website to clear up some muddiness and parse the lore as it comes, I found it really entertaining. Kinda wanna pick up the books. I have a feeling this Yennifer girl is gonna be a BAMF antagonist. Not sure where Ciri fits into this yet.

I highly recommend The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny. LW is the first one. Easy read and fun, Geralt and Ciri have kind of Arya/Hound dynamic going on. Get the audiobook, the narrator on audible is great.

[Serra]

Just finished it, and definitely agree about the pacing complaints.

Spoiler: show

It almost feels like they started with the plan to end with Geralt and Ciri meeting for the season finale and worked backwards from there. And because it was only eight episodes, a lot of things that probably needed more time were flown past.

I think the most egregious was Geralt and Yen's relationship. Since Geralt and Ciri have met now, hopefully the next season is better with the pacing, but I'm also a little worried that the progression of Geralt and Yen's relationship is going to be, they meet, next episode(?) Yen wants a baby, and then Yen becomes a mother to Ciri the next time they meet..

[Byrd]

Finished it tonight. Thought there were 9 episodes, were only eight, so was caught off guard by it being over.

Not amazing, but definitely worth a watch. No idea how EW rated it an F, even if they skipped a bunch of episodes. Was still entertaining for the entire season.

[Andalusian girls]

halfway through now and it is ehhhh not so great. the fight choreography is dope, acting of the leads p good, Dandelion brings some desperately needed humor as did the murder dogs get bags girl, but the writing is basically bad. they're bastardizing more than one of the short stories in ways that fly in the face of Sapkowski's intent and aesthetics and world building to an extent it almost defies belief how someone could so misunderstand what he was going for.

to go pure fuckin book purist for a sec, big spoilers for first ep

Spoiler: show

the Blaviken story largely shakes down the same way but after the climactic fight with Renfri she dies gently in Geralt's arms and whispers about him needing Ciri destiny blahblah used as a vehicle to deliver generic prophecy mumbo jumbo while dying in a way we've seen a million people die before. alternatively in the short story Geralt mortally wounds her and stands above her watching as she calls out to him, crying for him to hold her one last time, and he simply stoically looks on as she dies, and when she does the dagger she was concealing tumbles to the ground. The Lesser Evil is widely seen as the defining story of the Witcher, a kind of early mission statement, and a Renfri that uses her last moments trying to prey on Geralt's emotions and feelings for her so she can murder him is a much more interesting character governed by a much more interesting writing philosophy than one that dies in stereotypical fashion while building another character's arc.

/end book purity rant

faithfulness aside the writing is just kinda bad, dialogue is verry heavy-handed and largely takes itself too seriously (Lord the elf race stuff was like group participation in an intro to Western Civ UC course), Calanthe and Foltest undergo p bad character assassination and become much more boring and routine in the process, and GOD YES THOSE DUTCH ANGLES, drivin me fucking mad what was the cinematographer thinking. the decision to drop two concurrent origin stories separated by decades but presented in parallel with Geralt's monster hunting was also quite questionable. feel a Yen origin story would have worked better in a self-contained ep after we meet her present haughty, beautiful, and ambitious self. worked for Jamie eh.

[Andalusian girls]

may sound too critical because there is a lot of pulpy delight. episode 3 had a great sequence cutting between screaming bloody glow up scene and screaming bloody Striga scene with a killer ost driving it, there are solid visceral thrills + high production values throughout, the three leads all got p good acting chops even if they are often asked to deliver rubbish, and Sapkowski's main narrative is darn good. iunno there's a lot of potential here but they either need new writers or to adhere more faithfully to the novels because most of the show's problems hitherto come to shit writing.

[Andalusian girls]

I might fuck around and check out these books

would strongly recommend. The Witcher 3 remains the best thing to ever come from the universe but some of the short stories are fuckin mint and the big 5-book main narrative has some of my favorite moments in all of fantasy literature.

[Salodin]

The show is more good than bad.

DEM TITTIES THO

And boy oh boy do they cg permanently hard nips cause I sure as hell ain't complaining

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[tyven]

The Lesser Evil is widely seen as the defining story of the Witcher, a kind of early mission statement

So I assume the lines about "evil is evil" is found in one of the books? I just remember watching episode 1 and thinking it was p dope how they used the exact dialogue from the Witcher 3 Killing Monsters trailer

[Cichy]

may sound too critical because there is a lot of pulpy delight. episode 3 had a great sequence cutting between screaming bloody glow up scene and screaming bloody Striga scene with a killer ost driving it, there are solid visceral thrills + high production values throughout, the three leads all got p good acting chops even if they are often asked to deliver rubbish, and Sapkowski's main narrative is darn good. iunno there's a lot of potential here but they either need new writers or to adhere more faithfully to the novels because most of the show's problems hitherto come to shit writing.

I watched the interview with the showrunner and she said she made changes because the first two books have no narrative thread running through the short stories. If that's so I'm still confused and mad why engage in more fuckery with the forest story and change it this much. Ciri going there without Geralt had no point and was complete waste of time.

[tyven]

does Eist get more of a story in the books? I really liked his character.

[Tyrath]

Finished it. It definitely has its flaws, especially with how some of the timelines and plot were handled. But I enjoyed it a lot and can't wait for season 2. Looking forward to see who they cast as Vesemir.

[Elcura]

While I can't comment on book stuff (or really game stuff, played 3 briefly with friends) I thought the show was decent. Maybe it's the promise of more interesting things but it's pretty engaging and generally fun to watch, it's beautiful at parts and the fight scenes are done well enough most of the time (the human stuff moreso than the monster). If they do more I'll check it out but it definitely can't I dunno...fuck up the pacing again?

The acting is all over the place and while the main cast is good the dialogue is stiff and doesn't flow well. Some episodes and parts are really fun (I think it's mostly the bard though) and some are really awkward to watch. The first episode was a mistake I think, since the timeline is pretty easy to follow if you don't have the first episode basically be one of the last things chronologically to happen. Start with Geralt and his MO, introduce Yennifer and then start with her backstory, then the show basically continues how it does. Ultimately the Ciri stuff comes off as confusing as it jumps between timelines, then they try to tie it back in the last 2 episodes but there has to have been a better way to do all this.

I think my ultimate take away is just to make more of an effort to either read the books or play the games. I dunno, where does it fall into for the books/games? I dunno if they tried to do too much but it definitely felt like some of these stories could have used an extra episode to flesh it out. It's not bad as an introduction, but it feels like there's so much cool shit and if you just show a little of each you'll get a broad idea but it won't stick.

[Cichy]

does Eist get more of a story in the books? I really liked his character.

Not really. The book covers the banquet and Geralt evoking the law of surprise but the Nilfgard attack is only later talked about.