To echo the prophet Michael Scott: “No God, Please No!”. This quote sums up my feelings after watching the second season of The Witcher. And the really absurd and even offensive thing is that this series somehow convinced quite a lot of people that it was good. It is difficult to say whether it is a matter of standards lowered to the limit, simple human stupidity or aggressive marketing. Or maybe a mixture of all three.

“The audience is changing. It all changes. I can see a very large acceleration of the processes that Jacek Dukaj wrote about in his book “After writing”, where breaking away from cause-and-effect sequences, breaking away from linear narrative, breaking away from a typically, purely book-like narrative. When you look at who is watching the series, the younger the viewers are, the less important the logic of the plot is. [They are important – ed. ed.] pure emotions. That is a bare emotional mix, because these are people raised on TikTok, on YouTube, who jump from one movie to another, to another. “

Tomas Bagiński

The series has flew so far away from the novel that there is black hole blowing between them. The answer to why this happened can be taken from the above quotation – and going deeper: laziness and stupidity are responsible for failure. First of all, showrunners treat The Witcher as a product, nothing more. A group of people responsible for the script consists of 5 people, which for me is an absurd number of people. I don’t understand how you can achieve consistency in a story with so many different people working on it. Imagine five different people writing a book. The result would not be delightful.

In addition, all the writers are young and have no more than superhero series on their account. Their best work is for the scripts for the TV series Supernatural by Jenny Klein. Below I have prepared a summary of all their impressive achievements. Needless to say, after closer look, I stopped being surprised by such a hopeless quality of the script.

It is not surprising that the creators of the series do not understand Sapkowski’s work. On the other hand, the author himself, I guess, was paid handsomely to be properly loose on what is being done with his work. And it’s hard to be surprised. If I was his age, I wouldn’t care either. Probably…

However, this does not change the fact that Sapkowski’s work has been diminished in a terrifying way. Writers and producers are lucky enough to have unbelievably good source material at their disposal, which could be turned into a TV show on the Game of Thrones scale. The way of this material is used is a joke. Neither of the creators understands what they touched, so they all try to flatten the world and heroes to their own flat sensitivity. There are many examples of such an interpretation of the scenario.

For example, Ciri in season 2 appears in Kaer Morhen as an almost adult woman. According to the novel, Ciri ended up in the Witcher’s stronghold as a child. Therefore, everything that happened in the stronghold had a certain charm in the book. A group of protectors raising a little girl has a lot of potential when it comes to humor. Ciri as a child mimicing witchers and discovering her femininity after Triss’s arrival is an excellent plot that develops her character in a book.

An adult Ciri, who joined training there and met the witchers – not necessarily. The series completely failed to make the viewer befriend Ciri, or to show the bond between witcher guardians and her. In the book, the witchers themselves wanted to teach the girl to use a sword, because that was the only thing they could do, and they cared for her.

In the series, Ciri had to ask for an education herself. Needless to say, even on paper, the latter option has no emotional charge. I will skip the thread with Leszy in silence, no matter from which part of the showrunners body was it pulled from. Unfortunately, I cannot remain silent about Vesemir trying to turn Ciri into a witcher. What a contemptuous treatment of such a wonderful character. The book’s Veremir would never do something like that. He saw what mutations do to young boys and he would not condemn Ciri to it, whom he treated like a granddaughter.

Yenefer losing her power, first being captive by the Nifgaardians, then by the elves is a total bullshit. Someone definitely wants to force this character wherever they can. Additionally, scriptwriters conveniently use her to explain the entire geopolitical situation on the continent. Wherever Yenefer goes, we always have a failed attempt to describe changes in a given part of the world. The alliance of the elves with Nilfgaard, the persecution of the older races, all events related to the wizarding council. The series does not try to introduce the world and new characters, it just plugs the holes in its childish plot. This nasty procedure makes each plot of an individual character shallow, tangled and void of emotions.

The only character who retains some of the charisma of his book counterpart, is Geralt. No wonder, since Cavill was probably the only one in the entire team, who read the book. None of the other characters convince me, whether the show shows their suffering or happiness. From the viewer’s perspective – everyone in this series is strangers to eachother. This clearly indicates that the actors’ lines were written by robots. Especially if the only moment when you could feel anything (apart from impatience) was the death of the horse …

By the way, this incarnation of Ciri is by far the most unpleasant imaginable. Her character has the same scowling expression on her face all the time. She doesn’t act naturally for even a moment. Which, with an adult appearance and pronounced makeup, gives such a cold impression that even Elsa hides in shame. It is sad that The Witcher 3 game, using animation, created a more sympathetic character than a living, breathing human being.

I secretly hoped that the creators would raise the level of the script after the first season. That we will get to know all the heroes (slowly and carefully). After which the season will end at the perfect timing – posting in Aretuza. If the writers made proper use of the source material, each character would have the time and chance to shine. Unfortunately, from the viewer’s point of view, all of them are still straw puppets.

All this absurd idea with a demon in the woods is idiocy in comparison to the events of the book. One could argue that we would not have action on the series if we’f follow the book exactly. But unfortunately that is not a good argument. In the first part, there was enough combat and important events to both introduce new heroes, develop the environment and show some good old sword swinging.

In addition, I have a big problem with the locations in the series. They all look the same to me. They are all equally boring and uninteresting. Additionally, someone insists on shooting in small rooms and narrow streets. But it doesn’t really matter because it’s dark and ugly everywhere. I don’t know who was doing this dark, bleached concept art for the show, but this person clearly needs wine, fun, and Passiflora.

All in all, the series are a huge disappointment. And you can see it in ratings on public websites like Rotten Tomatoes. Of course, I mean audience ratings – because these are not bought. The only good thing that came out of it was rereading the entire saga in an attempt to wash away disgust. It helped a little. And I would advise the creators of the series the same. Read – but really read – the book.