The Witcher Was Always WOKE

Was the series about protecting the bodily autonomy of a magic teenager always woke, or did the feminists and gays ruin everything? SPONSORED BY: CoPilot: Click my CoPilot link go.mycopilot.c... for a 14-day FREE trial with your personal trainer!
Edited by Joey & Princess
Yennefer's Dear Friend Letter Read by Maggie Mae Fish
Sources:
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[@Princess_Weekes]

It has been brought to my attention that Tamora Pierce has said some racist/ignorant stuff fairly recently and I am now very sad >.

[@saragustavsson3387]

Wait, what? What is it that she has said?

[@alyssagoss2299]

She has a bad habit of making comments when she shouldn't. She talked about how a show set in the 40's shouldn't be criticized for having no black characters because the only role a black person could have in the 40's was as a servant. Before that she's had a history of defending white lady authors who write regrettable white lady things and come in for criticism. I've avoided her internet presence for awhile so anything more recent than that is beyond me.@@saragustavsson3387

[@Mads_L_M]

She’s been my favorite author since I was 12, and my grandpa showed me her books, and I inherited his copies from him when he died, and I’ve been building a d&d campaign off Tortall, if that’s true I’m gonna cry, holy shit

[@christinesiluk739]

Noooo 😢

[@garydoq]

SHE WHAT NOO

[@BrigitteEmpire]

The idea that a story that is so loudly anti-colonialist can ‘go woke’ really betrays how people just use the word to mean ‘thing I don’t like’

[@Princess_Weekes]

Well we sadly have been learning that people aren't really as aware of anti-colonial ideology as they think they are.

[@billyalarie929]

@@Princess_Weekes but is it really that they’re “not as aware”, or is it more that they simply (VERY simply, like imo it’s not 4D chess of them at all) hope you fail to catch what I believe to be the truth, which is that they don’t care at all? I wonder if allowing that “they’re not aware” is giving the colonizers the credit that they absolutely hope you’ll give them.

[@Marrow29]

@@billyalarie929THIS. I firmly believe that it truly does not matter if they read any source material for anything that has inherent leftist thought or not. Even if they did, fascists and conservatives in general are so media illiterate that they will never get the point of anything while actively picking and choosing the parts that conveniently support their rhetoric. They, and I cannot stress this enough, do not give a flying fuck what actually makes fun of them and their beliefs because fascists love the illusion that they’re always right

[@PhoenicopterusR]

​@billyalarie929 I feel like assuming people are more likely feigning ignorance to disguise apathy as a grand conspiracy level "gotcha" moment is giving them more credit than just thinking that maybe some people don't know as much as they thought. Like, it's probably true for at least someone, but if you don't care about something then why are you putting effort into pretending you do?

[@MagickP00dle]

The same people that complain about that crap don't read.

[@BigmanDogs]

"Wokeism is when a woman does stuff, and the more stuff she does, the more woke it is. And if she's brown it's SUPER woke." - Karl Marx 1823

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

I feel like this apply to the whole situation of the Snow White remake disaster.

[@nont18411]

Karl Marx truly resonated with his modern audience

[@rockjianrock]

Yes, can confirm this isnt a random quote from the internet. This was written in crayon while Marx was 5 and preserved in the Karl Marx Museum

[@AliasSchmalias]

Because people who have to be constantly active and always have the urge to get things done have a masculine energy, Marx was basically right. Natural femininity is not about getting things done, but rather about being at peace and not feeling the need to "do" much. This doesn't mean that feminine women look at the wall all day, but they tend to be calmer and also more creative.

[@BurningMan-gc3uk]

I’m a trans male and an artist?!

[@katzy785]

I agree with your points but i just wanna add as a child of polish immigrants i'm kinda sad there was like. No polish actors casted. even as a side character. I watched it with my mom who is from poland cause it was one of the rare times we had polish media be popular and potentially have polish rep. Cause tbh slav culture is mostly ignored. Feels like most people think europe is just england, france, spain or germany and sometimes the nordic countries. I wish the show portrayed polish culture more it would have helped with the world cohension you mentioned. (I loved the people casted for the main cast but yeah i wish there was more polish culture in the actual show)

[@Princess_Weekes]

Yeah, I think even if they didn't hire Polish actor, they should have brought in some more people with that background to add things like specific food, clothing, slang, etc. It feels like they turned it into a generic Western Fantasy look, which just makes it look like anything else.

[@hawkins347]

​@@Princess_WeekesThey initially brought on a Polish director and animator Tomasz Baginski, who has made a number of cinematics for the games, to serve as a consultant/executive producer on the show but it seems like he had very little creative control or has been pushed out completely.

[@katzy785]

@@Princess_Weekes Honestly that was what i came in to the show hoping for hoping for. I don't think I saw a single Pierogi like they couldn't even do that?? Feels they did the bare minimum by keeping the monsters and names and just made everything generic.

[@katzy785]

@@hawkins347 really??? Man... that's such a shame

[@katherinealvarez9216]

I would have loved it if they went more into the lesser known fairy tales like Hans My Hedgehog.

[@stanislaww.piesio9879]

Fun(?) fact: for a long time, "The Witcher" had been the most progressive thing in polish fantasy; and it says less about the series (which has, I would say, genuinely progressive leaning) but more about the huge right-wing slant to polish fantasy in the past. It got better, tho.

[@PeggyKoneko]

It's funny you say that they should just adapt diverse works of media because I still remember the backlash to the Hunger Games when they cast Rue, a character who is canonically dark skinned with a black actor 😂 (white) fandoms gonna fandom, I guess

[@Princess_Weekes]

They were all Pikachu confused she was Black even though it was in the books.

[@animeotaku307]

Ugh, don’t remind me. I still remember someone saying that her death wasn’t sad anymore because of the casting. Reason why I can’t get enthusiastic about possible adaptations of Tamora Pierce or Ursula Le Guin’s work, much as I’d love to see some actual good ones.

[@Ashbrash1998]

I remember that too like it was really mind boggling and just shows that they don't care about "canon" they just wanna be upset.

[@KaiInMotion]

People also got mad when Godfrey Gao was cast as Magnus Bane in the City of Bones series because he wasn't white. Future books dived even further into his background and history and made it clear he's mixed and Asian. People throwing tantrums when non-white characters are accurately casted. 😢 I'm praying reading comprehension becomes sexy and stylish again.

[@joyc.e.7511]

@@KaiInMotion Also, just NOT being racist.

[@sz5001]

One extremely interesting thing about Witcher books is that they were created in Poland in 90s - and in that context they were EXTREMELY socially liberal, especially when it came down to the topics of body autonomy or the rising threat of f*scism. At the same time it meant that second-wavy feminism of sorceresses definitely can look pretty tame. They were also a direct rebuke to the trend of infusing polish SF/Fantasy with conservative undertones and nostalgia for slavic folklore - Sapkowski is known for his essay "Piróg albo Nie ma złota w Szarych Górach" (couldnt find english translation, sorry) where he ridicules this approach and speaks of difference in approach when compared to e.g. Le Guin' books (for which he also have some criticisms but is overall extremely positive about). So all in all, at worst he could be described as sensitive liberal, nowhere near alt- or far right.

[@glitch84-]

That's interesting to know. I've tried the first chapter of the first book (i think?), and the first scene was a woman (a sex worker??? Idk) going in the witcher's temporary bedroom and getting on top of him to have sex while he was still half asleep. Honestly, that put me off immediately; having watched the first season of the tv show, i felt bad in the book he wasnt even allowed to give clear signs of consent :/ To me, from outside, it looked like a classic male sexual fantasy, but it felt sad, knowing how witchers are seen in that world.

[@sz5001]

@@glitch84- Seems like you're talking about framing device of the first set of short stories, The Last Wish. IIRC it is later clarified that it was a consensual encounter, although I haven't reread that book in years (and not once in English so no idea about quality of translation - Saga, quoted in this essay, was decent). Would definitely encourage you to give books an another try, maybe even starting with different short story - likevEternal Flame or A Question of Price which are just a little bit more light-hearted

[@glitch84-]

@sz5001 thank you! The tv show made me really interested, but that put me out. I'm not terribly sensible to those themes, but after the show, I wanted him to just be happy and loved and cared for 🥹 Probably, a thing I shouldnt have expected from the first book, lol😅. I'll follow your suggestions! Have a nice day! Edit. Doesnt it matter the order i read the books? Arent the stories linked?

[@sz5001]

@@glitch84- The Last Wish sets up the setting & relationship with Yennefer and Jaskier; Sword of Destiny introduces layers to their story and starts Ciri and Nilfgaard plotline. There are a couple of short stories in those 2 sets that can be read independently but as a whole it is best to go with that order.

[@glitch84-]

@sz5001 you are being extremely helpful and kind! Thank you for taking the time to reply to me!

[@Princess_Weekes]

In honor of feminism, I will accept compliments on how nice my makeup looks. (jk) But seriously, thank you all for watching. This was a fun video to make. It has issues, but I really enjoy The Witcher books. It certainly has some YMMV content (and I'm still processing Cirri and Mistle). Still, it reminded me that fantasy belongs to everyone and that we shouldn't let anyone make us think we don't have space in it as readers, writers, watchers, players, etc. Bad adaptations come from all kinds of showrunners (D&D) x P

[@katherinealvarez9216]

The makeup is on point. I especially love the lipstick.

[@digitaljanus]

You're convincing me to give the books another try. I had issues with the shift from the short stories (that I loved) into the novels, and wasn't sure if the story wasn't working, or if it was the translation, or just how I was feeling at the time. But I think I'll give them another go. Great video! (Watched on Nebula, just here to feed the algo.)

[@YumLemmingKebabs]

Your makeup looks fucking nice! Also your hair looks cool, but I will admit that I'm so used to straight hair that curly hair usually looks cool to me.

[@bex8538]

Your makeup does look great but also thanks for making this, great vid!😊

[@Noah-lo9vb]

IT LOOKS SO GOOODD!!!! did you match the gold highlights to your septum ring???? i am DESTROYED

[@razieldumas]

I can literally hear Yennefer grinding her teeth as she writes that letter to Geralt. Like, every time she uses 'dear friend' you can tell that she started a new glass of wine.

[@moll8]

I read "dear friend" and actually cackled.

[@MrPiccoloku]

@@moll8MMF's voice acting definitely added a lot to it too

[@animeotaku307]

My favorite part is Gerralt seeing the first “dear friend” and wincing because he knows what’s coming and that he deserves it.

[@pristiq946]

There's such an eat your cake and have it too mentality with people of color being haphazardly thrown into works. I didn't even realize Yennefer's actress wasn't white until you said it. Calling characters "olive skinned" knowing half your audience thinks that means tan white people and the other half thinks American Indigenous people or Middle Eastern people is so annoying as a relatively dark skin person.

[@Princess_Weekes]

Yuppp!

[@1Lanavis1]

Truth!

[@slickandslaycious6579]

I always wondered “what olives are they referring to?” based on who they cast in those roles…. Or maybe I just haven’t tried enough diverse type of olives

[@kasairan8492]

@@slickandslaycious6579 olive skinned means having a general green undertone (basically, your wrist veins will show up green under your skin instead of blue or purple. it can range from very pale to pretty dark, and it's a skin tone often found among middle eastern people, desi people, persian, italians, greeks etc. So it's not really an indicator of race and unfortunately they just always cast the white olives lmao

[@slickandslaycious6579]

@@kasairan8492 ah! Thanks!

[@tana3875]

As a female fan of the Witcher and someone who didn’t like the direction of the show, I can’t wait to see your take on this especially due to a lot of people‘s discourse about the show adding diversity. I will say in general, I don’t care if they add diverse actors in the show. I’m Asian-American myself so I can’t really say it would make me personally change my opinion on the show with or without it. BUT I think the show would’ve been so much better if it showcased Slavic and Polish culture, mythology etc. because there’s a lot to showcase while still adding diversity.

[@fornamnefternamn1532]

I agree. There's a gaping hole that they filled with generic fantasy tropes; the hole is lack of Slavic cultural influence. That is something I love about the books. They aren't generic American fantasy books vaguely inspired by European medieval times. They are rooted in a culture, that I've come to understand is pretty different from the American one. It's closer to mine in some ways.

[@darko1295]

This is something that has always really annoyed me, the way the 'slavic-ness' of the source material gets lost in the process of adaptation, almost like Polish/slavic culture gets absorbed by this broader westernized concept of it. I'm not Polish but I am Bulgarian, another slavic culture, and I was huge into fantasy as a teen. Across the tons of series I was being exposed to at the time, The Witcher books were the only ones where the atmosphere, tone and the way characters were speaking REALLY resonated with me in ways other dark fantasy stuff like Game of Thrones really couldn't. It's kinda frustrating cause I can't even begin to explain why it felt like that without getting into absurdly long and (probably) incoherent ramblings about East-european history/culture, nationwide psychology and, like, actual linguistics, but it's a fact that I felt much more 'at home' reading about these characters than anything else. The games somewhat captured that feeling (Chapter 4 of Witcher 1 and wandering around the outskirts of Novigrad in W3, talking to and helping out random peasants, is still the closest it ever got), but the show never even came close. To flashy, too shiny, too pretty, too artificial. It feels like what I imagine almost any American remake of a foreign piece of media feels to the members of the culture where it originally came from

[@wireless_cow]

A lot of slavicness of the books comes from the way whole world and characters are miserable, which is hard to capture.

[@darko1295]

@@wireless_cow miserable but also weirdly hopeful and positive sometimes, even when it usually ends in tragedy or on some bittersweet note. The small moments where the dark fantasy gets taken over by a sense of melancholia and takes a short break to revel in the idylic simplicity of rural life, before it becomes necessary to snap back to the (usually) unpleasant reality. Stuff like showing scenes of incredible cruelty and bleakness only to follow it up with scenes of incredible humanity and solidarity. It's almost paradoxal, but it captures the highs and lows of human nature so well. Some kind of nihilistic optimism, if I had to give it a category. That's why I love the books so much

[@kristengregory7014]

It’s something I’ve come to dub “americanization” - the assimilation of European culture into just “white” culture when adapted by American productions. Sure they will add a diverse cast (a good thing) but they also just ignore the rich cultural tapestry of the various European countries and cultures that inform the stories they adapt. It’s the same phenomenon you see on social media where everyone English speaking and/or white/passing is expected to be up to date and take a position on American politics, while America (generally) doesn’t care that these people have their own politics (or what they are).

[@AlexHider]

It’s always funny to see critique of The Witcher show that is just…..completely harmless things (Yennefer being a lil brown), instead of multiple structural and narrative issues (the changes from the books, no worldbuilding) and poor and inconsistent art direction (clothes, wigs, makeup, everything), ie actual problems. lol.

[@MRuby-qb9bd]

For real. And I loved that actress. Just wished she was playing Madeline Miller's Circe instead, because it definitely felt like that's the work they actually wanted to adapt.

[@VentureHolly]

Too bad all the bad faith criticism poisoned the well from the beginning.

[@koshetz]

Yeah the costumes in later seasons are so ridiculously bad i legit mistook screenshot from show for being a screenshot from some amateur video on KZbin like DnD short sketches and even these had like more soul and fun to it

[@vera3147]

​@@MRuby-qb9bd I loved her too! I'd die on a hill that she's still a bad casting choice for Yennefer though. She looks so youthful and sounds so youthful, even her body language and expressions are very pronounced and out there. Book Yen is all about contrast, and I always had imagined her graceful and reserved against bursts of emotions when agitated, much more mature both in looks and in vibe. Netflix!Yen feels way to young, pair it with troublesome rewriting and she feels like she's a teenager going through puberty a lot.

[@Qba86]

If anything, I'd argue that the cast is one of the show's strong suits. Anya Chalotra and Mimî M. Khayisa are more than ok in their respective roles. Anna Shaffer is excellent as Triss -- perhaps not in her looks, but she gets the overall vibe of the character across in a way that's 100% faithful to the books. MyAnna Buring *is* Tissaia, period. Graham McTavish (Djikstra) and Lars Mikkelsen (Stregobor) are also great in their roles, even if underused. Sadly, good actors can't save the show from bad writers.

[@PineappleMD]

What's so great about Witcher humor is the combination of modern understanding and fantasy setting. My favorite example is Regis explaining to Dandelion how, by calculus if every vampire bite resulted in a transformation everyone would be a vampire. I'm glad you brought that humor up, Princess Weekes!

[@whyonthefall5373]

Regis is just a great character all around. An old, powerful vampire who happens to be a teetotaler with a regrettable past, who becomes best mates with a monster slayer, and ends up being one of the most humane characters we meet in the series

[@anitaremenarova6662]

@@whyonthefall5373 Yeah, I'm glad I dropped the show because I don't want to see my boy butchered like Nivelen.

[@devforfun5618]

even a good progresssive story with a woman of color as the main character would still result in a bad show if produced by the same studios, they will still remove all the depth of the story and reduce it to "aren't you happy we dont live in the middle ages anymore"

[@maybeyourbaby6486]

I just genuinely despise how the anti-woke crowd utterly destroy any chance of productive discussion before it's even born. -_- These shows have huge genuine issues, but we never get around to talking about them for way too long, because we're all trying to convince the Capital G Gamers that women and minorities aren't the antichrist. I was really hyped for The Witcher to become a show, but now I'm just totally burnt out on the whole franchise because I watched way too much of a show I barely even liked because the only critique I heard was "it's too woke", and I thought that if I failed to make myself like it, I'd be proving them right. It's like they're deliberately doing this to use women and minorities as a shield from actual critisism. And it's working.

[@ellencoleman4604]

It's true but it's definitely both extreme ends of the spectrum preventing productive discussion.

[@joyc.e.7511]

@@ellencoleman4604 Idk, I feel like refusing to watch something on the basis that there are women and minorities in it and hitting us with the "it's woke" criticism is what's really shutting that conversation down. At this point, most anti-woke sentiment has become just straight up discriminatory, imo.

[@restingsadface]

that’s exactly what they’re doing. imo the best thing to do is just ignore them and be honest. they’re trying to ensure we’ll only exist under the criticisms they literally just made up & don’t even believe. start a new narrative about how a show that wants to be progressive but fails at many steps.

[@restingsadface]

@@ellencoleman4604lol obvious centrist coping. we don’t want to be killed or harassed. alt-righters want us killed and harassed. they’re aggressive because they want us dead. we’re only aggressive because if we’re not they’ll walk all over us. we are not the same. take your “I’m smarter than everyone because ONLY I KNOW both sides are equally bad” ass arguments out of progressive comments. go attention seek elsewhere

[@itcouldbelupus2842]

@@ellencoleman4604 What's the other end of the spectrum doing to prevent productive conversation?

[@marieloa5119]

I really wish they had leaned into what makes Polish culture unique for the costumes and decors but they really went full 'bland european fantasy and yolo about the time period" u_u

[@LadyAhro]

THIS THIS THIS. It was a perfect way to make it stand out as much as Game of Thrones did. Hell, moreso even if ur was done well. Because they understood visual consistency and depicting cultures on screen.

[@vera3147]

But polish nobility would dress up a lot like other Central European countries, especially in earlier medieval periods (10th to 14th century). The unique vibe is always there, but many stuff that receives accusations for its blandness are not THAT inaccurate to Polish fashion history. I do agree though that Polish culture is beautiful, and I'd love to see more of it being interpreted for the design of the show. It's just... not like Poland isn't a part of Europe.

[@felipeuseche332]

Wokeness is getting blame for so much incompetence, bad writing and lack of sense that honestly it feels kind of like sabotage.

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

Man I hate this anti woke era we're in, it's like the anti sjw era of YT but 10x worse. I'm tired of hearing neckbeards and legbeards complain about how a woman having short or died hair will be the end of Western Civilization somehow.

[@natalhab]

Yes, is the same with blood origins. That show is weird but most of the times I try to talk what would improve someone is complaining it's a girlboss show and that's the only reason it's bad. Not pacing, not story, just someone freaking out because the lead is black and a woman

[@jonathanbelfire]

In my opinion woke is a vague term that encompasses a general trend in Hollywood to pander to diversity and female audiences by pushing basic messages or taking existing properties and changing races and genders. Hollywood wanted to to boost their sales by capturing wider markets than their traditional demographics. However, putting in effort with new characters or well written stories is difficult and doesn't guarantee profits. What does guarantee profits are major IPs. However, these major IPs already have characters in them that may not match the diversity Hollywood wants so they just change the race or gender of people then push out a hastily written script. There have been a torrent of low quality movies and shows. This makes it tougher for actual passion projects to shine because if a diversity message seems to be present, fans are now conditioned to assume this is low quality sludge. In addition, studios, trying to hold onto box office numbers have waged a war on angered fans which has lead to many people not trusting review sites or studios when they try and support quality films. Sony famously deleted most comments that criticized Ghostbusters 2016 except for sexist comments to give the impression that all negative comments came from sexist people. Star Wars The Last Jedi was criticized by fans but the narrative shifted to all the fans hated Rey and Rose and they were sexist and racist. This lead to anger from fans who had no problem with the characters existing but rather how bad the stories and writing was. However, the bridges have been burned and it's a problem they created and there's no easy way out of it. As these fans are pushed out by studios who paint all criticism as racism or sexism, they congregate online and start complaining on how this "woke" trend is just replacing all their characters. Then online conflict ensues.

[@jonathanbelfire]

@@blacksailsfan4life What??? These people always complain about male/white driven media. And about non white driven media. That's basically half of fandom. Any change made to a source material will lead to backlash from fans which is why change is dangerous for established IPs. The bigger the change the bigger the risk. The point of making a movie associated with a big IP is the built in fanbase guarantees recouping some or all of your money (everything on top is gravy). However, you now have far less flexibility on how you act. You have to respect the universe and established characters. Any change made must be for a specific reason and you must weigh the benefit of the change against the risk of losing a portion of the fans. When Heath Ledger was announced to be The Joker and early photos of his look came out, the fanbase was up in arms. They viewed him as a "pretty boy" who had only done romance and teen movies and wasn't a good fit for that character. They hated the new look of the costume as it didn't match the traditional Joker outfit in the cartoons and comics. DC was taking a big gamble and many were ready for it to fail.... until the movie came out. When people saw the movie, they recognized that it was a far more grounded take and that Heath Ledger nailed the performance. The acting was great, the writing was great, and the fans slowly started quieting down as they realized it was't the catastrophe they anticipated. The movie was lauded and the fanbase joined in on the support. Another example of fanbases revolting is Star Trek.... basically half way into every show or at the start of every new show. However, unfortunately for Star Trek, they have struggled to nail the landing. Every show has flawed writing or effects or world building. Each time Star Trek's owners attempt to reboot the franchise in the hope that this is the one that will unite the fans and bring it to the same level that Star Wars has achieved in the past. Each time, they fail to execute things properly and the fans are unhappy. So.... yeah, people are ranting about how Hollywood is pushing all this "woke" stuff but that's really because Hollywood has been turning out so much sludge and most of it has been a cheap attempt to do diversity. Hollywood doesn't care about real diversity, they want to quickly change someone's sex or race, then turn out the same movie as before and print more money. Fans of these properties, are not happy and not supporting the changes. But they also bash other things they don't like... you're just not paying attention to the other stuff because it's a topic you're not passionate about.

[@macrograms]

exactly. anti-woke is the most obvious sabotage since pro-colonialism statue protectors.

[@Mr-Rinn]

In the Witcher 3 (being vague to limit spoilers) there’s a City where mages are actively being hunted, and if you help most of them escape then the Witch Hunters don’t stop, they and their supporters just turn on non-humans instead, because as Geralt narrates: the witch hunts were never about witches, it was about having a scapegoat. If the TV series adapted THAT the alt-right would blow a fuse at their own weakness and cruelty being called out.

[@Mr-Rinn]

Search “Witcher 3 non-human witch hunt” for what I’m talking about.

[@GrandArchPriestOfTheAlgorithm]

Was it Andrzej Sapkowski. I think he was the one that made it woke.

[@golwenlothlindel]

You mean the communist author writing under a communist government? No, couldn't possibly be him. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@Palducks]

As someone having grown up with the books & games, even before the show, it was always sooo confusing to me, whenever right-winger thought they had something in witcher. Besides some of the Boomer-Man-Hornyness (in that regard he is weirdly similar to GRRM) Sapkowski's books are pretty modern & progressive, pro bodily autonomy & freedom for women specifically. Witcher is one, if not the, best modern examination of eastern european folklore & it shows itself disgusted on every page by men in power who subjugate & use those people who have less power. I guess the games are a bit less clear in that so the part of the fandom fundamentally misunderstanding Sapkowski's Vision mostly comes from that but it's still weird to think about those guy's reading the books & the point, that at some points even gets explicitly stated, just not penetrating their skull.

[@Princess_Weekes]

Sometimes I think people assume that the whiteness of older fantasy and the gender roles that are associated with the genre, mean that they all think those things should forever be the default.

[@joyc.e.7511]

@@Princess_Weekes Ok, but THIS. Finding fantasy set in those olden times that isn't at least a little racist or baselessly sexist is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. The world is literally fictional with magic, it doesn't have to have all the real world problems we have.

[@PiotrPavel]

@@Princess_Weekes Imagine switching gender and race of African folklore characters or form india "IITS ONLY FANTASY"!. They even aiming historic characters like Cleopatra.

[@LucasSantos-ss6ou]

​@@PiotrPavelThat's when you step into reality and realize that there's barely been authentic media inspired by African or Indian folklore, meanwhile the default western european folklore has been done and redone over and over and over again for decades

[@i.cs.z]

​@@LucasSantos-ss6ouHmm, that might have been because most creators in the western zeidgeist you reside in are le ghasp west europeans and west european descent amerucans... On a related note: Wizards of Earthsea books, Kirikuo and the sorceress (and related works) mivie, The famished road, so on. African authors do write african fantasy, indian authors do write indian fantasy. There are plenty of literature with the setting you want, if you are willing to step away from the mainsteam and consume something not presented to you by a known american source.....

[@lilamasand5425]

omfg the Tamora Pierce shout out 😭I teared up a little bit ngl, she's so underrated and barely mentioned in the fantasy world. her books are so great and I read them over and over as a kid/teen, I think because her protagonists always felt so real and human and they kicked ass while also being really hard-working and flawed people. her stories would absolutely thrive in any kind of show/movie adaptation if it was done right. the discussions of gender and sexuality were pretty ahead of their time in the fantasy genre at least, and it's so naturally incorporated into her books and character struggles. it's right there!! and I'm sure Tamora would sign on as a screenwriter!

[@Keltaryn]

Hell yeah! I was just about to comment that too. I have all the books and love to reread them, I wish more people knew and talked about them!

[@celestialmagpie3862]

I loved them too. Sometimes I think it's good they never made a series of them because then they get to exist in a nuanced way for each reader. And they don't have to be subjected to the whims of studios and focus groups and consumer metrics.

[@bluewilliams4911]

I actually find it really weird about the TV show that for the Elves, who are so obviously supposed to be a marginalized group of people, they did cast a mixed actress as Francesca Findabair, the leader of the elves. And then they did some truly weird makeup and lighting stuff to make this mixed actress that they hired look as white as possible. And like… she’s a fantastic actress, but it’s so fucking weird to hire an actress and then so drastically change her appearance by not just changing her hair and eyes, but her straight up skin tone. And they did that to Anya as well by quite literally making her so much paler.

[@gwencere9383]

the fact that they made poor Francesca wear blue contacts...... hate crime

[@funmilayotijani3119]

This comment just made me realised the actress who plays Francesca is mixed 😮 I had go google it and I'm completely shocked!

[@Zectifin]

holy crap I'm a white polish American guy and in the show she looks even whiter than me lol. I had no idea she was black.

[@amupng]

You literally just made me look up her actress and my jaw is on the floor, I would have noticed she wasn't white

[@LizzieHunterPaul]

26:42 That’s how I feel about the elves. It boggles my mind that every season of the Witcher tells you that the elves are discriminated against but makes little to no attempt at laying the foundation for their culture. There’s no identifiable clothing, food, practice, etc. that makes the elves feel different from anyone else aside from braids and pointy ears. You could take pointed ears, put them on ANY CHARACTER in the show and say they’re an elf and I’d believe it because the development of their people is so poor. What’s worse is that the show hinges on this issue: Ciri has elven heritage, Yennefer is part elf, Geralt got Ciri because of Calanthe’s poor treatment of the elves, Jaskier is helping elves escape, Fringilla is teaming up with the elven queen, etc. But because they feel so poorly rendered when it’s revealed that someone has elven ancestry it’s like, so what?

[@whyonthefall5373]

True. The books make the differences between the species very explicit. The cave scene between Geralt and Avallac'h for example

[@atropabelladonna]

@@whyonthefall5373 I also love how the books play on the idea of how racism and subjugation is not a unique and inherent feature of one or another race. While the elves are hunted and subjugated in Geralt's world, they are being genocidal slave-holding maniacs in another.

[@BigmanDogs]

Most media analysis on youtube that focus on political/social issues basically just devolve into feeling like team sports. And even if a video is "on my team" it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Your videos always just feel like you trying to analyze and understand, rather than "win". I always come out learning something 👍.

[@Princess_Weekes]

I appreciate that

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

You comment remind me of the title that I read on the critical drinker's (you know the dude who screams about brown people being on screen for 5 seconds) video about South Park's Pandaverse. Says something like "we're winning." Like winning against what? The woke football team 😂

[@BigmanDogs]

@@kittykittybangbang9367 I had no clue who that guy was but then I played one of his videos and I have 100% heard his voice before 🤣

[@NamelessDemonkitten]

The way Andrzej Sapkowski had like 2-3 whole ass pages in Season of Storms dedicated to a shitty repulsive old lord getting roasted by a hot sorceress talking about how cool and based abortion is while the only reason the repulsive old lord can give for outlawing abortion is because it upholds the status quo and as a result his power by oppressing women and stripping them of their freedom to keep them subservient to men. Anybody who complains about the Witcher "getting woke" never even read a page of the books. Not to mention how Ciri, THE most important character in the books, is queer.

[@annabeinglazy5580]

Or geralt repeatedly learning that staying "neutral" doesnt make him a good guy. It just makes him someone who steps aside. Like yh, there arent really any good choices to make in the books. But geralt pretends he can stay out of it and then repeatedly is shocked when people he could have stopped... Slaughter other people. Spoiler-ish content: He knows about a conspiracy. He can either join them or betray them. He does neither, he just watches it unfold in the name of neutrality. When chaos ensues and people get killed all over the place he acts like he couldnt have done sth to at least limit the death count. And people from both Sides laugh in his face because his allegiance absolutely could have saved their side.

[@SabiJD]

I've only played the games, and Ciri's 'queerness' in TW3 is pretty much non-existent. How is her apparent queerness in the books handled?

[@YumLemmingKebabs]

@@SabiJD Her sexuality is pretty much non-existent in TW3. it's not really relevant. You get one line where you can say you're into a guy or not, or prefer women, and that's it as far as I can remember. I keep getting distracted so I havne't even finished Blood of Elves though, so all I know about Ciri is as a little child unfortunately.

[@NamelessDemonkitten]

@@SabiJD Ciri has a very toxic and fucked up and abusive relationship with another girl(Mistle) in the books. It's a fairly important part of Ciri's story that very much had an effect on her. edit to clarify: the toxicity of the relationship has nothing to do with Ciri's queerness and more to do with how they were both traumatized and emotionally fucked up teens with a lot of unhealthy habits.

[@vera3147]

@@SabiJD She's tomboy-ish from an early age and struggles with her feminine side / sexuality while growing up, which is influenced by a trumatic encounter while fleeing Cintra. It gets shoved aside when she's put into real danger and is thrown into sexual relationshiop with another teenage girl, Mistle. It doesn't start pretty or all that consensual, but it's best she's had at that time. It looks like Ciri then tries exploring her sexuality with men and books end on a rather positive note with Ciri pondering if she'd like to examine it further or not. I doubt Sapko really planned on her being queer, but she's rightfully read like one.

[@meganinnes1417]

Finally some good Witcher shit! Also, can I just say, I love Mahesh Jadu as Vilgefortz but it really sucks to see that a character who would get the Loki treatment if he was white suddenly get so much hate. Mahesh was sooo good this season!

[@samirabdel-aziz478]

I admit that it wasn't until he dropped charade that I really began to enjoy his take on the character. His season 1 persona was so different I just couldn't get behind it. I'm glad he was able to flex a bit more

[@tatianaoliveira2191]

The problem with Vilgefortz, among the ''Witcher'' fanbase, isn't his skin tone... but how weak Netflix made him. In the books, he broke Geralt's bones and almost killed him, but in the show he's being tossed around like a ragdoll and even lost a fight to someone like Cahir (what a joke...)

[@whyonthefall5373]

​​@@tatianaoliveira2191completely agree. I'd like to be optimistic and say that the general outrage for the character was born out of how unbelievably weak they made him (even if in future seasons they reveal how truly powerful he is) and not the race change. The man who obliterated Geralt and literally melted a higher vampire loses to Cahir?

[@Mr-Rinn]

@@tatianaoliveira2191 He was deliberately holding back so people would underestimate him, and doing just enough in order to not die. He even admits to holding back being the hardest part while fighting Geralt.

[@Kinestezja]

By "Loki treatment" you mean people would like him? I doubt that. Vilgefortz in the books is absolutely disgusting character and it really doesn't matter who would portrait him. You just can't like a person who impregnates teenagers and then does vivisections on them while they are still alive just to practice before you do this on the "real" target to get great magical power. As much as Netflix show is terribly inaccurate to the books, at least they didn't make him more sympathetic. Loki was evil but had his emotional reasons. Vilgefortz is just evil.

[@XX-de8jp]

As a Polish person, I am thrilled that someone English speaking finally made that video. Thank you for that.

[@mibbles2371]

Can you recommend some nice (aka not racist/homophobic/transphobic) Polish reviews of the Witcher? Or just Polish KZbin channels in general? I can understand Polish but can't read or write it so struggle to find youtubers

[@phanton9983]

Yennefers letter is one of my favorite thing about the witcher and probably my second favorite joke, right after Gerald's first wish to the djinn being go f*** yourself because some girl played a prank on him.

[@piotrmroczkowski2324]

The TV show in Polnad was called Wiedźmin. Hexer is German translation (I'm not sure)? And yes, the Witcher was "woke" from the beginning. Sapkowski's prose was very ahead of it's time for sometnig written by a man. The first short story was published in 1986, and even more so for Polish writer, it was very different form anything you could read in Polnad at the time - hence the huge popularity. For today standards it can be seen as very soft (not progressive at all), but you have to read it thru the lense of culture and time.

[@britt6693]

I’m so glad I’m not the only one who thought it was absolutely hilarious that Geralt got caught in the dijkstra plot because he had to pee 😭

[@CosmicCake07]

If y'all want a show that implements diversity pretty well, watch the interview with the vampire tv show, the author herself said that the original was a queer story but she couldn't really publish that because the book came out in the mid 70's so there wasn't anything like a kiss and the gayness was left to subtext, then the show came out last year and they did a lot of changes, like the queer aspects went from subtext to the couple making out and having sex, they made the protagonist black and actually changed his story because just making your character black without changing anything else in a story that (in the show) takes place in 1940's america would not work (also because in the original he was a slave owner and took place in the late 1700's and obviously that wouldn't work in the 1940's and with a black protagonist) anyways go watch it it's cool

[@K.Arashi]

i was gonna mention interview with the vampire too! such a great show

[@silkwormchan]

Also like while having Jaskier/Dandelion being bi is totally time but to make him fall in love with the character who 1) was a literal child at that point in the book 2) grew up to be literal genocidal maniac who started ethnic cleansing of his kingdom?? Like fr ANY OTHER character will be better.

[@samirabdel-aziz478]

*thank you!* I've been screaming this for months

[@LadyAhro]

​@K.C-2049Yeah Radovid the Madovid. The fundamentalist Church of the Eternal Fire guy.

[@redlunatic2224]

I think the big problem is that it's very obvious that these adaptations aren't passion projects, they're just corporate bandwagons. If they were actually made from the ground up by people who cared, these shows could be much more progressive than they are without having to change the original material precisely because the books already had very strong messages in that regard and had obvious room for even more of it, if that's what is necessary. What we get, however, is cheap tokenism inserted in places where it makes little sense because the staff didn't have time to chew on the original material and build on it instead of on top of it.

[@kjh4496]

Shareholders don’t want to bank on anything new because the masses only want familiarity. It’s a constant struggle because when something new breaks through it then becomes the new “thing” and other studios jump on the bandwagon to capitalise on it .

[@samuelwebb2404]

Yes, this. The Witcher show is a great example of a show taking source material that already has worthwhile political themes, failing to adapt or even grasp them, and replacing them with something generic, tokenish, and often just plain incoherent.

[@YourWaywardDestiny]

"Who REALLY made the Witcher woke?" Andrzej Sapkowski when he wrote the books. This was an easy question to answer before even watching the video. It's so obviously already in the text. _So obvious._ The real problem here is some people never learned how to read properly. That's not a dig at gen Z and the failure to teach them to read in the first place, I'm talking about everyone. Some people just refuse to understand words when they're presented to them.

[@alexduraev]

True that. There is enough diversity in the original story as is. Strong female character? Bah, you got Yennefer, if you measure her book variant with a scale of “strong woman”, she is the scale. The show fails miserably here, as TV Yennefer lacks the main thing - dignity. You want more black people? C’mon, there is entire Zerrikania of them. Just bring them to the plot cohesively, just like it is done in the book with two Villetritenmert’s bodyguards

[@ExeErdna]

Being an American this is true they have kids "reading" before they understand HOW to read. They have us taking writing tests before we're taught to creaively write and think like a writer. That's why things feel "dumb" because it is

[@PrincessLioness]

Speaking to your point about capitalism. That’s why already diverse media doesn’t get adapted. Verily Bitchie talked about why it doesn’t work because often times these shows have to water themselves down to appeal to a wider demographic in order to be profitable or the work doesn’t get made. It’s why British shows being government funded was important because it allowed for more creative freedom, without profit being the end goal.

[@Princess_Weekes]

Yeah, that has been an issue for ages. I've talked about it in other places, but media is already afraid of diversity which is why they will race bend rather than adapt something made by BIPOC/marginalized creators because they can trade on the IP.

[@a.j.4644]

TY for noticing the hair. I kept turning to my white husband and declaring that there must be a black hairdresser/designer on set because there were so many different, immaculate fantasy-by-way-of-Crenshaw looks on the black women. Loved it.

[@mse90]

I'm so excited that this video is out!!! I love all of the points that are highlighted here - even the Tissaia quote is something that's always at the back of my mind, whenever I think about the sorceresses in The Witcher now. It really is so frustrating to see how rare it is to find people engaging with the actual nuances of the world and the adaptations, when that's a big part of the reason why I haven't stopped thinking about them since reading the books. (Learning that I can't just click on a random youtube videos to indulge my Witcher hyperfixation was a heartbreaking lesson tbh.) So thank you again so much for finally providing some excellent content and discussion! 💚 Listening to Maggie Mae Fish read the Dear Friend letter is also an absolute treat. 😹

[@Princess_Weekes]

Maggie nailed it so perfectly I kept the whole thing in.

[@SonjaPond]

I had the same experience trying to just find some more Witcher content on KZbin, and almost exclusively running into yucky, hateful people who only want to rant about why queers/women/people of color are ruining tv 😵‍💫

[@Noah-lo9vb]

Nothing feels shorter than a 50 minute long Princess Weekes video, this FLEW by I want more!!

[@Zectifin]

Saying casting Anya Chalotra is testing beauty standards is like casting Jessica Alba in a role and talking about how much you're pushing the beauty standards lol.

[@niamhfox9559]

I grew up watching the Mad Max movies and when Fury Road came out you could ABSOLUTELY TELL that most of the people complaining had not (ie: why is Max not the main character? He never was. He wants to opt out of the narrative entirely.). The 'argument' has never been about the purity of the source material, it has always been about keeping a now mobile spotlight solely on straight white dudes.

[@OneHatEllie]

I'm a huge fan of the Witcher novels (especially the first two short story ones), and when the show was in production I spent so much time arguing against people complaining about the "wokeness" of it. When the first season aired, I was pretty much gutted by how much it missed the mark. I didn't want past episode 6 and haven't gone back. But so much of the fandom continued to be focused on blaming the casting or "wokeness" for its failure, when there were so many legitimate points of failure they weren't willing to address. It makes it worse because these people WERE being incredibly sexist towards the show runner... but also the show runner did an incredibly bad job at adapting the Witcher. I threw my hands up, canceled my Netflix subscription, and haven't gone back.

[@m.k4447]

the 'dear friend' letter is killing me omg 😭 i know Geralt was SICK when he read it

[@WeiHaoLong]

Great vid! The comment about the removal of all subtlety from the show really struck with me because i have an entire needless rant about how the writers took Francesca calling the scoia'tel "our children" and talking about how her deal with Nilfgaard means she has to stand back and let them be murdered - and turning it into a plot about the literal murder of her literal baby, which is real "I've met writers who use subtext and they're the all cowards" energy

[@silkwormchan]

Netflix really just said "Let's take very interesting morally grey story based partially on Polish history and make a generic american fantasy". As much as I truly hate this adaptation the problem is only in the writing room. It's so bad at times I can fully believe the rumors about showrunners not reading the books at all and/or making fun of source material. Instead of having nuanced series we had typical american corporate garbage devoid of any originality. And the fact the representation they try to add is sometimes just insultingly bad in the context of the original it feels AI generated.

[@ExeErdna]

That's why I'm looking side eye at the Anime adaptions they're making. I liked One Piece and Yuyu; yet I can admit they skipped some cool moments. Yet Americanized adaptions are overall the worse now since they suck the fun out if it. Instead of leaning into the IP they run away from it.

[@brookb5890]

Hear me out: we get a new adaptation of Ella Enchanted. I don't know if Char is explicitly meant to be POC but he's described as having dark skin and dark curly hair... also I just think there's so much rich detail in the book that a good writer could easily expand it into a mini-series since nothing can just be a two hour movie anymore.

[@nont18411]

I think the main detractor of the franchise just doesn’t like how Henry Cavill was treated by the studio in general. However, the conversation just devolved into “Woman bad” instead of “Why did the studio treat Cavill this way?”

[@w1k0us]

Thank you for video, I was always disapointed with Witcher on Netflix because they are trying to make it same as all other series right now. They really removed most of romantic tension between characters. It really feels like they have this Ciri plot and they are removing anything which is not directly progressing it in every single episode. All the lore and motivations from books is lost to the point that many times I saw that situations in Netflix series doesn't make a sense. I read books after watching and I really wonder why they are putting so much nonsense which was not in books into series when there are much more interesting sub-plots in books completelly ignored or oversimplified to the point it is making many plot holes.

[@ohthatstea]

Me adjusting the playback speed so I can listen to that mini Game of Thrones rant 🧠

[@Princess_Weekes]

lol maybe I'll post it

[@HotDogTimeMachine385]

Creator: "Yennifer refuses to be a fantasy stereotype" Incel logic: "Yennifer is a bad character"

[@sethzarandona2325]

@@sparingharbor2600 They’re not calling “everything” incel. They’re saying incels are the ones who jump to “Yennefer = bad” simply because she’s not a sexist fantasy stereotype. They were very direct and to the point and straightforward with who they were dissing and not dissing. You are arguing in very bad faith.

[@amandabarrett7945]

You’re actually really selling the Witcher books for me! That letter was scathing

[@sethk5396]

Shame how the show turned out because I thought season 1 was so promising. I'm still glad the show brought new fans to the community. And err, yeah, the majority of the English fanbase are fans of the games, not the books. Similar feeling to seeing fans of the LotR movies suddenly attempt to lecture about The Silmarillion when RoP came out while getting major points wrong. The arguments about fandom purity get a bit ridiculous when the people gatekeeping haven't picked up the material they are trying to gatekeep.

[@ExeErdna]

Yet you're assuming they haven't a lot of these old school nerds are NERDS they had their heads in these books and want the best for the IPs they love.

[@Grizabeebles]

The entire concept of "anti-wokeness" feels like asking your room-mate existential questions at three a.m. only to have them tell you to leave them alone because they're sleeping.

[@SA-rn6qq]

This was such a great video!!! As a book fan who really doesn't like the show, I am SO sick of the amount of this "wah wah the show was ruined by wokeness and diversity" rhetoric from a certain audience. Like, yes, I don't like the show I think it's a bad adaptation, but having a diverse cast is absolutely NOT the reason why it's bad. I feel so terrible for Anya, Mimi and Anna who have received so much awful racist hate online, it's so unfair. Also, THANK YOU for the shade on Yennefer's S2 plotline. Yennefer is my favourite character of all time, and the chapter with her and Ciri training together in Blood of Elves is my favourite chapter in the books, so when S2 came out and I saw that they changed it to have Yennefer try to sacrifice Ciri to a DEMON???!!!! I was absolutely FUMING. Yes, Yennefer doesn't have much to do in S2 - but like you said, there were so many things they could've done with her character instead of character assassinating her in this terrible OOC baba yaga plotline!!! Like having Yennefer deal with a monster of the week scenario would've been so cool, why did we have to get "Dany kind of forgot about the iron fleet" levels of character assassination instead??! Also also, totally agreed about your point irt cohesion. That's something that really bothered me about the set design and the fashion, the randomness of the choices and the lack of cohesion really takes me out of the worldbuilding. I don't know if you watched the spin-off series Blood Origin, but I think that show illustrated perfectly how the set design and fashion doesn't have a good standalone identity, or have any sense of cohesion that can clue you into the smaller subtle details of world building This is a super long comment lmao but I just really enjoyed this video!!

[@CaptainPikeachu]

I think a lot of folks don’t grasp that the issues with the show in its writing and adaptation wouldn’t somehow be magically resolved even if everyone was a white dude, like bad writing and story structure is what it is, it’s not gonna suddenly be fixed just because the skin color or gender of a character changes

[@vera3147]

​@@CaptainPikeachu yep, even if you put book characters directly from readers' head onto a screen, with script that bad they'd still be reduced to a plain mockery of their original characteristics.

[@Blue_Grass_Girl]

At this point I am not sure if either the showrunners or the wokness critics actually read the books. The more I hear of either camp, the more I feel they just read the Wikipedia plot summaries.

[@Domon0310]

You know what's funny about this whole Yen's casting discourse? Everyone's talking about how she's not moon pale, but NO ONE, NOT A SINGLE SQUEEK, about how canon Yennefer has CURLY HAIR. It is mentioned more times than her skin colour that her hair is very curly. At least type 3. Only proves to show how this "wrong casting" debate is just racist and wants a white actress instead of actually accurate character if no one critic is speaking about the missing diverse element of her appearance.

[@bobbucker5891]

"We wanted to make a deep and diverse series, so we hired a bunch of white women to tell us all what diversity means." As a white man, I know that when I interact with my black friends, I am glad I have white women to tell me how I should act around them. Saves me the trouble of asking said friends and them being wrong.

[@kairaine]

I will say that as an ethnic minority growing up in Japan, Tamora Pierce is definitely not where I turn to for diverse fantasy... I was lucky enough to read the Daine series first, then the Alanna one, but when I hit the Protector of the Small series it made me very angry though I did not yet have the language to articulate why. I've reread the books all as an adult, bracing myself for the appropriation of Protector of the Small, and it's funnier than it is truly offensive, especially as all the friends I have IRL who read Pierce's works do not contest that that series is Problematique. I can see that a lot of fun can be had with assuming that Kel is not in fact as proficient at the language or martial arts as the people in Tortall assume she is, and that the princess's name roughly translates to Princess Pickle God, but still, for me, it's emotional labor to try to interact with that series so largely I just avoid it. Which is just to say--there are many good diverse fantasy series out there, but I do not count Pierce's world as one of them.

[@Princess_Weekes]

Oh protector of the small absolutely issues with how it handles its fictional Japanese society. So I don’t begrudge you there. I do think it can be improved in adaptation

[@morbid1.]

I'm Polish. 1st witcher story was published in 1986 in mag "fantastyka", and most books were written in 90s. People might think Witcher is a new thing... just because now it's popular in the west. Books are much more progressive and netflix show is very bad compared to original material... srsly Ciri in books is fucking awesome, her story is a huge part, often feels like she is the main character, her arc from washed princess to dimensional travelling bad ass is crazy. For me the worst parts of Netflix series are: - chaos, it's so messed up, if I didn't know the books I would be so confused wtf is happening - beside Geralt, every other character is bad and I'm not talking about skin colour or actors, but personalities - total disregard for Slavic culture... this is something that is probably impossible to translate, netflix did a cliche "english medieval theme"... Books are so ingrained is Slavic culture, I don't know how to even explain it in english.

[@kautabak2734]

The butchering of the whole "dear friend" bit annoyed me to no end. Thanks for bringing it up because it just showed that they didn't seem to get the point at all.

[@Lenitas]

First video I ever saw of yours, really great. As a huge fan of the witcher books and games I 100% agree with everything. And as a Dutch person I love that you pronounce Dijkstra correctly (it being a Dutch lastname)

[@Alsudani_]

Ngl wokeness is killing a lot of my favourite childhood characters e.g. doctor who , witcher

[@kasiura4]

Before watching. Andrew Sapkowski made Witcher "Woke". Its funny, becouse lots of Witchers fans in Poland are far rigths and have problem understading that books are progressive. The Games on the other hand are more in the middle. CDProjet Red are not very good with understading politcs (watch how in Cyberpunkt 2077 there is little of Punk)

[@undertakenheart]

I kind of disagree. I find the third game to be extremely progressive. Going from that to reading the books and it's very jarring seeing how Ciri and Yennefer are treated. The books are definitely woke for the times but some of the treatment of the female characters definitely hasn't aged well.

[@asura7915]

hard disagree

[@vera3147]

​@@undertakenheart uh.... I'd like to disagree with your take. Games are a sequel and so they must've pushed both Yen and Ciri somewhere as people for their plotlines to not feel stale, and they kinda failed with even understanding them as people in the books, and understanding their character arcs, too. On example of Ciri: Ciri's been a person of interest for almost everyone around her, including her bio father and even her caring grandmother to an extent. Everyone around her had an agenda to mold her into something instead of letting her live her own life, except for maybe Gerry who never had any motif besides just making sure she was relatively safe. So her book plotline ending with her leaving the world that'd scarred her and where she'd never had a chance to exist without prosecution, and roaming somewhere else, where she'd (hopefully) learned how to be her own person, was rather optimistic. Her adoptive parents dying also needed to happen for that to work btw. Her arc in the books was about experiencing, then coping, and finally overcoming the trauma and finding yourself in the world, literally. In games, you as a player can either turn her into a witcher-ess if you treat her "right", forcing her to risk her life daily for a minimal pay, or you can turn her into an "empress" if you're a "bad" dad, by sending her to the dude who'd wanted to focefully inseminate her before, to rule a country that'd destroyed her own. Or you can let her disappear and never hear from her again. In the meantime, Ciri, now being in her early twenties, acts much more childish than she ever did in her early teens. Her past is never explored, her wishes are never explored, even her relationship with Geralt is very superficial. She's got no real journey or growth as a person, because it's a game and CDPR wanted Gerry's decisions to have influence on hers. In turn it makes Ciri lose all her agency, and belittle all the conclusions we could draw from her books' journey.

[@OspreySoul]

I had to physically restrain myself from applauding at the mention of Tamora Pierce because I'm at work and that wouldn't go over well. But still!!!

[@Princess_Weekes]

She's the best. We need the circle of magic rn!!

[@theladywiththelegos9371]

I learned about the Witcher in high school as the game where my male peers "got to sleep with a lot of women" according to them. Later I read the books with my partner and was surprised that there was a father daughter story there that really moved me. Thank you for making the video! Great points about the female leads ❤

[@flamekiller32]

intresting to hear some of those other thing people have against the show. For me personally what i have against a lot of these show runners is the fact that they don't care about the source material. I'm not a witcher fan as i have not consumed most any of the media but from the people i have listened to that was there biggest pet peeve and i get it. The same thing happened to winx saga. And if left to their own devices these shows become everything but what they are named after.

[@Ashbrash1998]

Whenever you do an adaption, there are a couple rules to follow. 1. Read and respect the source material 2. If tou do change something, make it make sense for the adaption and make it good.

[@kaitefink2031]

Thanks for mentioning the costuming/language. It drove me nuts from the get go. I certainly noticed the other issues (I just started reading the books and am not a gamer, so that's more my source of comparison), but somehow this bothered me just as badly. And it got worse as the show went on. It felt like lazy world building. And that rips me out of a story fast.

[@socialist-strong]

As a somewhat radical feminist (and also traumatized human), I was personally put off by certain Yenefer scenes were it felt like her going through intense pain was sexualized and/or fetishized

[@hawkins347]

Worse: that scene is not even in the books, the show quite literally invented it

[@socialist-strong]

@@hawkins347that’s really unfortunate. I recall there was another scene were they did that, too, aside from the hysterectomy scene. For a woman to be sexualized for experiencing extreme non consensual pain (not talking about safe bdsm) is truly horrible.

[@CodiCro1]

Women sexualize themselves all the time. And they like it. Only women that dont like it, are the fat and ugly ones because they are unable to look sexy and they put blame on pretty looking people.

[@atropabelladonna]

@@socialist-strong the books do portray some sexualized violence (although not so explicitly) but it's always in a justifiable context. the series is dogshit

[@MyKeyMoonShine]

I think what bothers me about the Witcher the most is that it could have been a "game of thrones". The books focus mostly on Geralt and Ciri sure but there are multiple other storylines going on simultaneously. It's just they aren't usually told via POV characters and instead the POV characters learn about these events second hand. The show did what i wanted and expected it to do which was to focus more on these other plot theeads and characters. Unfortunately the writers felt the need to make massive changes to them. Sure adaptation always requires changes and i think a show like The Expanse displays how to do that more successfully for the most part. These changes usually aren't good though. Giving female characters like Yen, Fringilla and Francesca larger roles only to make them more villainous than in the books is so unnecessary. All those characters were already complex and already had positives and negatives to their characters. I'm glad you brought up how the show completely misses the pro choice/pro autonomy themes in the books and specifically Yen's arc. Unfortunately the fandom has always been toxic and many either haven't read the books or ignored many of the themes in them.

[@redroC171]

I love the framing of the title like, who made The Witcher woke? well, there's this guy called Andrzej Sapkowski....

[@piotrzagroba5301]

I read the books even before the first game was out. They were such a big part of my teenage years and every 2-3 years I come back to them. When Lauren Hissrich became the showrunner, I started following her on twitter and from what she wrote there I really trusted that woman with something really important to me. She broke that trust. Not because of diversity or "wokeness". I like the diversity. I really loved Yennefer's actress. I enjoyed the hell out of the first season. And the first few episodes of season two. I didn't mind the little changes. But starting from the middle of season two, it just went off the rails. And by the end of that season I was just heart-broken. I never even touched season three. I'll stick to the books.

[@corywilson532]

It's a great point that instead of calling The Witcher Series "Woke Garbage," it's "Missed The Several Points The Size Of A Barn." The biggest thing I couldn't stand was how Ceri came about in the show. Geralt, in the books, made a conscious decision to choose Law Of Surprise, based on Princess's point on Body Autonomy and Parenthood with Geralt and Yennifer. He says Witchers are a dying breed, and are born through fate. Then the show just has Geralt go, "Fuggin...Law of Surprise? Iunno..." Dude! What!?

[@katherinealvarez9216]

I only read the first book, but I was under the impression that Witcher was always woke, or socially conscious.

[@amyamell2006]

No woke media would ever portray a female-on-female r@pe scene involving an underaged child... They just wouldn't dare.

[@itzhen7032]

Yeah if i remember correctly in baptism of fire geralt defends abortion, pretty woke for a polish book series from the 90s

[@hawkins347]

​@@itzhen7032Pretty woke for a Polish book even now

[@Bokatisha1234]

​@@itzhen7032Geralt, Dandelion, AND a vampire have a discussion on a woman's right to choose and they all say abortion is cool and good and bring up different reasons. It's hilarious and super on the nose and I highly recommend.

[@itzhen7032]

@@Bokatisha1234 Yeee i know, i read them many years ago so i have forgotten some of it, but i remembered it was surprisingly lefty politics wise

[@Katrya-Kateryna]

I never hear anyone talking about the fact that Netflix removed anything related to Polish and Eastern European culture from the Witcher. One of the reasons Witcher feels so different from many other fantasy series is the fact that it takes a lot of inspiration from Polish and Eastern European culture and folklore. Netflix made a decision to turn it into some generic and bland pseudo-Western European fantasy instead. Honestly, I was baffled. All those talks about inclusivity while tossing aside the culture that gave birth to original series, the culture that isn't well known or well represented in western media. It's nothing but hypocrisy in my opinion.

[@muchachx8067]

i always get so excited when i see you published another video!!

[@NicoR-im2vs]

Damn I just know the title of this video is gonna ruin my recommended videos

[@Princess_Weekes]

Researching it ruined mine first XD

[@benedita167]

Wait, I want the Succession rant!!!

[@emmanuel1337]

Damn, didn't expect to agree almost completely with the video -- that's extremely rare. As a big fan of the books and the games and definitely what you could call a "hater" of the show, I often find myself embarassed by the fact that "my side" (people that like the source material and despise the show) is so filled with reactionary morons, completely brainrotten by the social media culture war, and that I probably get lumped together with them whenever I express my contempt for the show. It's good to know that some progressive people, which is the actual label I'd describe myself as being overall, understand that there's more to the criticism of the show besides anti-woke nonsensical talking points that float around, and that those idiots really just reframe anything that's wrong in any entertainment profuct as a result of "wokeness" and that the best way to combat that isn't to defend the shitty products, but to push for better ones and to shine a light on the often very flawed logic of the anti-woke crowd.

[@haski002]

It's such a shame the show went the way it did. Bland & generic & western, while also managing to somehow make it less feminist with its portrayal of women. And sure the books were progressive & feminist compared to their contemporaries, today some things just don't hold u well. But Yennefer going from someone who willingly became sterile over time because she was aware that it was a natural side effect of the magic & later regretted it, to someone forced to have a hysterectomy so she can be beautiful? Wild.

[@atropabelladonna]

the actual reasons for Yen's infertility are not explicitly explained in the books. we don't get to know if the sterilisation policy was implemented, if she was a victim of it, of she was aware that practicing magic can make her sterile etc. Sapkowski's world building is very fragmentary and it does not always give clear answers. Only that this whole uterus for being pretty is bullshit and seriously enraged me, as someone who has loved the books for their nuanced portrayal of women and feminism

[@megamancards]

I like your description of your point of view here. A lot of YTers don't do a great job explaining their point of view. It's just a big long essay. And I can definitely tell you're a fan of this subject.

[@wonderflumph]

I'm ashamed to say that for years I've believed all the people on the internet (and irl) saying that the books are about traditional Polish folklore and manly men and none of that feminism stuff, and that the 'wokeness' of the show was betraying Sapkowski's vision, because I'd never read them myself. I thought 'oh, well old school fans would know I guess, hmm that's disappointing' and left it at that. It just made discussions about the show even more messy. So thanks for challenging that belief! I think I'll go read them myself now. And try to remember that polarising info is inherently sus and I should check it myself more often :P

[@antoniofernandez3857]

I agree. the witcher was already woke in the positive sense. Women had they space, strenghts, flaws, depth and personality. No need whatsoever to ruin it the way netflix has done, making a ridiculous ultrafeminist comedy of the books. It will get cancelled, core fans don´t wanna see it, and the audience the producers want to attract is not going to see it anyways. Pity.

[@martinholt4939]

Just found your channel this morning (you know how KZbin loves hiding black content creators) and I can't get enough. I drive for work so I have had the luxury of really going through your library. You've made an instant fan for life!

[@MielleRose]

One day I want a tour of all the fandom stuff you have in the background! You could even shout out the artists! I want to see which fandoms/characters are important enough to be on the wall :)))

[@Jackie-gr5bw]

They called me crazy when I refused to watch game of thrones after the first few episodes. How the tables have turned. Am I bitter that the black sails fandom is still the same five people to this day? Yes. Am I glad that the show endet before game of thrones fans discovered it? Even more, yes

[@TheXiconhoca]

All of this. As a POC that is also a writer and absolutely Adores The Witcher series of books, i cannot agree more, with everything said in this essay.

[@Maerahn]

Wow... I've seen a lot of these Witcher discussions and video essays, but I feel like this is the one I've been looking for in terms of intelligent and measured analysis. I loved that you picked apart all the things that were *actually* wrong with the tv show, rather than just the buzz talking points all over the internet that, inevitably, included screaming the word 'woke' at some point. I did find it funny that so many of these commentators talked about Jaskier's bisexuality coming 'out of NOWHERE!' in Season 3 - like... were they not even picking up on the not-at-all-subtle clues that were *all over* Seasons 1 and 2? 🤣 (offhand I can't recall seeing any direct reference to his sexuality in the original works, but he was so horny a lot of the time being bi definitely wasn't beyond the realms of plausibility!) I agree with all the points you raised, and I'd also add in that a lot of the dialogue was asinine and jarring with the world - especially compared to the smart and deep dialogue in the books. I heard the actor Joey Batey say in one interview that they let him improvise a lot of his dialogue, and oh god does that show! Don't get me wrong, he's a very likeable actor and he does a pretty good job overall of portraying Jaskier... but yeah, they really need to NOT let him improvise so many of his lines, because they're more often 'struggling stand-up comic cringe' than genuinely Witcher-world sharp and witty.

[@cutegixie]

Just clip that bit of Tamora Pierce so I can send it to everyone ik. Thanks lol But fr I came into the show with little to know knowledge and thought it sounded very cool. Only to find that the books sounded way cooler and the show felt pretty mid. Which isn't to say that the show is worse than any other adaptation, but I wish it felt more like a story developed with tv in mind. Also, like a lot of things, there were times that felt either like they were selling me something (gorl bosses) or selling something to someone else (typical romance).

[@beerson9474]

Thank you for this. I didn't like the series much at all having read the books, yet all criticism I found previously seemed to come down to right wing derision.

[@iGotBulletproof-Insomnia]

No because Song of the Lioness? Protector of the Small? The Immortals and Trickster? As a TV series?! I'd watch. It's a series of great books, with casual diveristy of characters, backgrounds, and lifestyles and ughhh i have to pick up one of Tamora Pierce's books once a year to feel satisfied.

[@EdBurke37]

Going from the games there is actually a good commentary on what was done to the witcher's at the school of the wolf. In the later part of the third game there's a plot point where to try and save a character they put them through the same mutagenic processes that were done to Geralt and the other Witchers and all of them are horrified. They know what was done to them was monstrous and they are disgusted that they have to do the same to this person to try and save them from a curse that has been placed on them earlier. I'm being vague to not spoil anything but the reactions of Geralt and the others really hammers home how awful what they went through was.

[@klick37]

Clicked because I love seeing you in Magic content, stayed for the thoughtful analysis.

[@spookyghost6713]

Less than ten minutes in and we get a Repo! reference drop? 10/10 already

[@supernaturalawesome1]

In my opinion, feminism, diversity and inclusion are not what made the show bad. What made the show bad was the same thing that eventually made Game of Thrones bad. Diverting from the material in the books and replacing it with bad writing. The lore, character development and character journeys in the books are just better than the boring nonsensical stuff they wrote in the show.

[@joseaguilar3323]

And at least GoT had the excuse of running out of books

[@Zeldafan355]

Thanks for making this. It's so difficult to find nuanced discussion of the Witcher show that isn't reactionary rage bait.

[@brutusmagnuson315]

Conservatives didn’t read the book or understand progressive subtext of original source? You don’t say.

[@anarchistica]

Wow, kudos on pronouncing "Dijkstra" correctly, that really caught me off guard. Especially because in the games and series they (mis)pronounce it as "Diekstra", which is a different name.

[@starry_lis]

Tbh Sapkowski never bothered to give notes on how all these proper nouns should be pronounced. Listening to games, shows, and audiobooks, it sometimes changes depending on who's saying it, even within a single piece of media

[@anarchistica]

It would take very little effort to find a native or learned speaker to know how to pronounce "Dijkstra" or "Roche", CDPR/NF just didn't bother and especially in the latter case it's awful (Geralt's horse Roach did what?!).

[@starry_lis]

@@anarchistica And how is one supposed to know the native language a certain word has been taken from? Is Roche English? German? French? Italian? What about Ciri? They don't pronounce it in the Netflix show like Polish people have been pronouncing it for decades (also in the first adaptation). And I'm pretty sure no one pronounces Kaedwen as a Welsh speaker would.

[@anarchistica]

They can just google it.

[@starry_lis]

@@anarchistica no, they can't. That's my point. Those words are interlingual homographs.

[@fornamnefternamn1532]

Hey, I'm watching that KZbinr and agree to much what he says, but I haven't read all the books so I might have missed something. Anyways, shame that Siri Petersen (Norway) and Maria Turtschaninoff (Swedish speaking Finland) aren't bigger overseas. They focus a lot on feminism etc. On the other hand, their work would lose so much if it was adapted in English...

[@GreayWorks]

Hi! Someone with a bunch of Polish family, I do think there is a conversation had about how it was adapted with more English-speaking and Western audiences in mind, the thing is about Slavic culture when adapted a LOT of it is conflated with culture from Britain which can kind of get annoying with how a there is still notable Slavophobia in the UK, especially given how The Witcher is kind of one of the few fantasy series popular outsides of Poland but now it sucks we can't really talk about it without talking about people complaining about "Wokeism". Also, if you are interested in an LGBT Polish movie I'd recommend checking out Operation Hyacinth, it is a movie based on the real-life murders in the gay Warsaw community in the 80s, it's not the best Polish movie but it is a better insight into Polish history... Also, shows need to stop giving Slavic characters British accents.

[@Senefer]

What I find interesting is that there is always a lot of complains about adaptions being woke when it diverges from the original but when it diverges to the other political spectrum it is not mentioned. I mean, I haven’t read the books but I’m fairly sure Geralt didn’t collect cards of naked women after having sex with them (like in the first game), or that characters were dumbed down into sexualized stereotypes such as the lesbian dominatrix and Triss as the damsel in distress (did she have any other role other than having sex and then get kidnapped in the second game?). Or how about the castration of Dethmold, the only male gay character in the second game. No one complained about these additions which I find far more distasteful than Triss being black or Jaskier being bisexual. Maybe that is just me. People has also told me that the sex, which was all over the games, were not that prominent in the books. There was sex, but not to the point of exploitation like in the games and no one complained about that. Though to be fair, I have not played the third game and maybe there is a reason why people only mention it when talking about great adaptions. I liked the tv series but considering how much it seemed to have changed from the books I wouldn’t say it was a good adaption. A good fantasy series but not a good adaption. That said, I don’t think there is a good adaption of the witcher, neither the old show or the games were good adaptions. I am also not sure there truly is many that can be considered good adaptions as what is good adaptions seem to change depending on who you ask. I still hear arguments about the games being great adaptions despite all the things they add, including choices Geralt would never make in the books, but I have heard arguments that for example, The hobbit is bad adaptions because it were so childish. Which tells me that they haven’t read the original since that one was for children, while Lord of the Ring was for adults. Hence the difference in tone. What it all comes down to in the end is what people like will be considered good and if there is something they don’t like then that means it is bad.

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

It's just like whenever somebody complains about something being "too political," they just mean it has politics that they don't like.

[@asura7915]

games representations of these characters are more faithfull than the show version and they look better(armor,clothes etc),have better action are better written (just the bloody baron quest is better than anyrhing in the show) and you still hear about the games being great adaptions because the games are a better more high quality product overall

[@vera3147]

@@asura7915 oh cmon bloody baron quest literally ends with you either returning the woman to her abuser and it's a good thing (if Baron lives), or having him kill himself and you having to feel sorry for the asshole. That quest tried to be nuanced but it still made you spend most of your time with a literal villain of the story. befriend him, and feel bad for him instead of listening to his family whom he'd abused into the terrible situations they ended up in. 0/10 you can't even help his family without being best buddies with the Baron himself.

[@asura7915]

@@vera3147you really cant understand nuance, huh? But my point Stills stands even without this Quest the game is overall better writen than the show

[@vera3147]

@@asura7915 I see nuance when there is one, baron's quest is full of shit. Game has its writing highlights, baron's quests just not one of them. I never said I liked the show. It's even worse.

[@hubertrozalski7070]

When I first read "The Witcher Saga" in 2015, I was slightly shocked, since it was published in 90s, and half of the characters are gay, half of the secong half are bisexual, majority of caracters are women and they actually do something. The difference between Netflix series and books os that in books everything makes sense: for example we know that inhabitants of Zerrikania (inspired by African and Indian cultures) are actually pale and blonde, since they arrived in this Universe just about 2000 years ago and did not have time to adapt to the natural environment. Netflix's Witcher is just a mess.

[@joselarios6848]

I mean in the game isn’t Ciri technically the strongest? & she’s a what now… guys? 👀

[@SonGoku-ll5gf]

No geralt is not ciri she just has elder blood powers that makes her travel to different worlds