The Witcher
Will my resolution to use this journal more fail like 90% of all resolutions.
So, my initial reaction to The Witcher can really be summed up by this Noelle Stevenson tweet.
Me 5 minutes ago: eh ok we can try Witcher even though it seems like generic fantasy
Me 5 mins into Witcher: wait I forgot I love generic fantasy
- Noelle Stevenson (@Gingerhazing) January 2, 2020
Also, this is funny and true.
It’s a LARP if the main character was really mad that he was stuck in a LARP
- Noelle Stevenson (@Gingerhazing) January 2, 2020
I found The Witcher enjoyable enough, though it never truly grabbed me. That rush and fascination of early Game of Thrones? Absent. That said, I'm not sorry I watched it, and will absolutely watch the next season. (Even though getting invested in any Netflix TV series feels futile given the rate they're cancelled after the second season.)
A story lives and dies by its characters (usually), and the Witcher characters are... fine? Not of them are unlikable. You don't mind spending time with them. But, well, at first I was going to say that their motivations weren't coherent, but that's not. Geralt wants to be left alone. Jaskier wants to write songs and sleep with women. Yennefer wants power and control. Ciri wants people to stop trying to kill her. These motivations are all very coherent. They're just not deep or nuanced. Yennefer is probably the character with the most complex wants, and the character with the most significant arc. We see her change and become someone new. And in addition to wanting power and control, Yennefer is defined by her desire for independence. She doesn't want to succeed on anyone's terms but her own, and she doesn't want anyone or anything limiting her choices. Yennefer is also the only active/em> character, as opposed to reactive.
Ciri is pretty much nothing, but reactive. She doesn't take initiative on anything, she just reacts to one thing (usually a murder attempt) after another. It's not really bad character writing. One, she's a sheltered princess on the run, and has fewer way of expressing agency than the other characters, and two, she careens from one attempt to kidnap or kill her to the next so quickly, that the poor girl doesn't have time to catch her breath. But while I don't consider it bad writing, it doesn't make for the most compelling character. (Characters who do things have more room to stretch and grow than characters who just have things done to them.) But I think her character arc is going to kick into high gear in the next season.
Geralt is not as reactive as Ciri. He makes choices in his circumstances. There are lots of points in the series where Geralt has to be choose to do one thing or another. But he's not as active as Yennefer. Yennefer identifies what she goes after it. She's driven. Geralt doesn't really want anything except to be left along. Though note, he never really pursues that either. He could just give up and go live a swamp with Roach, but he's either too much of a genuine hero to abandon the world or too in a miserable rut to imagine changing his circumstances. Or both. (The mention of Geralt living in a swamp makes me think of the person on twitter who compared Geralt and Jaskier to Shrek and Donkey.) Note that this does shift later in the season, as he commits himself to taking responsibility for his child of surprise. That's when he decides he needs to do something, rather than just see what new frustration every day brings.
Two other things about Yennerfer. One is that I would love to see a disabled characters in SFF not be "cured." (Miles Vorkosigan stands out as an exception, but I'm only partially through the Vorkosigan Saga, so who know.) If your characters have physical limitations, then imagine how they factor those into their lives! Think about how to compellingly write a character that might not be able to do a bunch of exciting stunts.
But, of course, no way a boobs and blood fantasy show was going to have a disabled and disfigured main character over a sexy, sexy lady.
Second, while I do appreciate that Yennefer's rage and angst over her infertility was centrally about having her choices denied her, I do wish we could have infertile female characters who aren't driven to restore their previous baby making ability. Like, can their be female characters who can't have children who aren't miserable about it? Yes, many real life women who are infertile suffer great pain due to it. But other... don't. I would just like to see wombs downplayed as priority for female characters.
Geralt and Yennefer's epic love didn't really work for me. Too much, too fast. The "We are now in epic love" thing could be explained by Geralt's wish (thought that's not how he thinks about it), but even that wish scene felt like a lot to me. That said, I think I'd enjoy them as a darker version of Duncan and Amanda from Highlander. Two people who have epic love, but can't function as a stable couple. (The books may go kind of that direction? I haven't read them yet.) The show, however, may go a more conventional route.
While I expressed a few reservations with the gendered angle of Yennefer's plot above, one thing I really noticed about the show were all the women? Not just Yennerfer and Ciri, but all over the place. A lot of works will feature important, kickasss women in central roles, but then just default to masculinity in all the rest of the worldbuilding. Like when they're not actively thinking of it, they just create men. (Which is why I sometimes dream about GMing a world in which every singled named, speaking NPC is a woman.) But women are all over The Witcher.
Final thought is a shout out to my favorite character, Yurga, the old man in the last episode who is saved by and saves Geralt, and takes him to Ciri. I was genuinely moved his basic goodness, and I'm glad the series didn't decide to make a petty, cynical point by killing him. (Yet, I guess.)
To sum up, The Witcher is competently though not brilliantly told, with entertaining though not deep characters.
This entry was originally posted at https://veleda-k.dreamwidth.org/481422.html. Please consider commenting there.
So, my initial reaction to The Witcher can really be summed up by this Noelle Stevenson tweet.
Me 5 minutes ago: eh ok we can try Witcher even though it seems like generic fantasy
Me 5 mins into Witcher: wait I forgot I love generic fantasy
- Noelle Stevenson (@Gingerhazing) January 2, 2020
Also, this is funny and true.
It’s a LARP if the main character was really mad that he was stuck in a LARP
- Noelle Stevenson (@Gingerhazing) January 2, 2020
I found The Witcher enjoyable enough, though it never truly grabbed me. That rush and fascination of early Game of Thrones? Absent. That said, I'm not sorry I watched it, and will absolutely watch the next season. (Even though getting invested in any Netflix TV series feels futile given the rate they're cancelled after the second season.)
A story lives and dies by its characters (usually), and the Witcher characters are... fine? Not of them are unlikable. You don't mind spending time with them. But, well, at first I was going to say that their motivations weren't coherent, but that's not. Geralt wants to be left alone. Jaskier wants to write songs and sleep with women. Yennefer wants power and control. Ciri wants people to stop trying to kill her. These motivations are all very coherent. They're just not deep or nuanced. Yennefer is probably the character with the most complex wants, and the character with the most significant arc. We see her change and become someone new. And in addition to wanting power and control, Yennefer is defined by her desire for independence. She doesn't want to succeed on anyone's terms but her own, and she doesn't want anyone or anything limiting her choices. Yennefer is also the only active/em> character, as opposed to reactive.
Ciri is pretty much nothing, but reactive. She doesn't take initiative on anything, she just reacts to one thing (usually a murder attempt) after another. It's not really bad character writing. One, she's a sheltered princess on the run, and has fewer way of expressing agency than the other characters, and two, she careens from one attempt to kidnap or kill her to the next so quickly, that the poor girl doesn't have time to catch her breath. But while I don't consider it bad writing, it doesn't make for the most compelling character. (Characters who do things have more room to stretch and grow than characters who just have things done to them.) But I think her character arc is going to kick into high gear in the next season.
Geralt is not as reactive as Ciri. He makes choices in his circumstances. There are lots of points in the series where Geralt has to be choose to do one thing or another. But he's not as active as Yennefer. Yennefer identifies what she goes after it. She's driven. Geralt doesn't really want anything except to be left along. Though note, he never really pursues that either. He could just give up and go live a swamp with Roach, but he's either too much of a genuine hero to abandon the world or too in a miserable rut to imagine changing his circumstances. Or both. (The mention of Geralt living in a swamp makes me think of the person on twitter who compared Geralt and Jaskier to Shrek and Donkey.) Note that this does shift later in the season, as he commits himself to taking responsibility for his child of surprise. That's when he decides he needs to do something, rather than just see what new frustration every day brings.
Two other things about Yennerfer. One is that I would love to see a disabled characters in SFF not be "cured." (Miles Vorkosigan stands out as an exception, but I'm only partially through the Vorkosigan Saga, so who know.) If your characters have physical limitations, then imagine how they factor those into their lives! Think about how to compellingly write a character that might not be able to do a bunch of exciting stunts.
But, of course, no way a boobs and blood fantasy show was going to have a disabled and disfigured main character over a sexy, sexy lady.
Second, while I do appreciate that Yennefer's rage and angst over her infertility was centrally about having her choices denied her, I do wish we could have infertile female characters who aren't driven to restore their previous baby making ability. Like, can their be female characters who can't have children who aren't miserable about it? Yes, many real life women who are infertile suffer great pain due to it. But other... don't. I would just like to see wombs downplayed as priority for female characters.
Geralt and Yennefer's epic love didn't really work for me. Too much, too fast. The "We are now in epic love" thing could be explained by Geralt's wish (thought that's not how he thinks about it), but even that wish scene felt like a lot to me. That said, I think I'd enjoy them as a darker version of Duncan and Amanda from Highlander. Two people who have epic love, but can't function as a stable couple. (The books may go kind of that direction? I haven't read them yet.) The show, however, may go a more conventional route.
While I expressed a few reservations with the gendered angle of Yennefer's plot above, one thing I really noticed about the show were all the women? Not just Yennerfer and Ciri, but all over the place. A lot of works will feature important, kickasss women in central roles, but then just default to masculinity in all the rest of the worldbuilding. Like when they're not actively thinking of it, they just create men. (Which is why I sometimes dream about GMing a world in which every singled named, speaking NPC is a woman.) But women are all over The Witcher.
Final thought is a shout out to my favorite character, Yurga, the old man in the last episode who is saved by and saves Geralt, and takes him to Ciri. I was genuinely moved his basic goodness, and I'm glad the series didn't decide to make a petty, cynical point by killing him. (Yet, I guess.)
To sum up, The Witcher is competently though not brilliantly told, with entertaining though not deep characters.
This entry was originally posted at https://veleda-k.dreamwidth.org/481422.html. Please consider commenting there.