4 Reasons Why “The Witcher” Is The Most Controversial Show Of Recent Times

Netflix’s new series “The Witcher” was considered the most anticipated of 2019: based on the book series of the same name by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski about the monster hunter Geralt of Rivia. The book has hundreds of copies and the video game series has over 30 million fans worldwide. Now fans could see a new version of their favorite characters on television screens, but for some reason the project didn’t please everyone.

we, from awesome.club, we have already watched the 1st season of the series about the wizard and decided to find out why the sensational television adaptation of the famous novel caused such polarized reactions. Check out!

The story of the Polish Andrzej Sapkowski’s series of novels takes place in a fictional world, largely reminiscent of medieval Europe, but with one significant difference: in this story there is magic, elves and monsters. To fight the monsters and protect the citizens, wizards are created who are mutants with supernatural abilities.

The wizard Geralt of Rivia roams the world and earns his living by destroying monsters. Geralt once helped the royal family by saving the princess’ fiancé, and in return he asked for “what they already had, but didn’t yet know”. It turns out that, in fact, the princess was pregnant, and her future daughter Cirilla (Ciri) would be with fate entwined with the wizard forever. Soon, young Ciri will find herself in big trouble, but now she will have the wizard as her protector.

Another separate narrative is Geralt’s relationship with the sorceress Yennefer: the arrogant witch secretly dreams of having a family and children, but this is not possible for her. However, she encounters Geralt, who will also find himself bonded to her, but for other reasons. All events unfold during a war between the realm of Nilfgaard and the rest of the world. The king is not only interested in winning battles, but is also looking for Ciri. But why?

A lot of time has passed since the first news about the filming of the series until the official casting announcement and fans shared on the internet their favorite choices, based on actors who already resembled the characters in some way. In the role of Geralt, for example, it was expected to see the charismatic Mads Mikkelsen, and in the role of Yennefer, many dreamed of seeing the talented Eva Green.

But the creators of the series had a different perspective. So it came as a total surprise to fans when Henry Cavill was chosen for the lead role: a muscular, somewhat “brute” actor known mainly for playing Superman in some productions. Cavill’s first scenes as the warlock caused a real stir online — fans immediately noticed the glaring difference between the character’s appearance depicted in the books and the actor in the series. The wizard in the books was supposed to be thin, slender and flexible, in addition to having completely white hair, “strange face” and “strange smile”.

The same goes for the role of the sorceress Yennefer of Vengerberg: Sapkowski describes her in the books as a woman of extraordinary beauty with a pale triangular face, violet eyes and narrow lips. However, the series’ Yennefer is played by Anya Chalotra, who has a very different appearance: thanks to her Indian roots, the actress has a darker skin color than the character in the books. Fans were disappointed with the choice of the actress and used the image of the character in video games as an example. One of the viewers even made a montage swapping the actress’s face with the face of the character in the games. See how it turned out!

But many were satisfied with the choice of the actress for the role of Princess Cirilla: the young Freya Allan has Nordic traits that almost perfectly reflect the character described in the books. The only observation is that the princess in the book is almost 10 years old, which we could hardly say about the actress in the series.

By the way, one of the Mikkelsen ended up appearing in the series: behind the thick eyebrows, mustache and beard of the wizard Stregobor, we can see Mads’ brother Lars Mikkelsen.

In “The Witcher” there is no simple linear plot. For example, in Chapter 1, the viewer witnesses the death of Queen Calanthe and the escape of her granddaughter, Princess Cirilla. But after a few episodes, we see the queen “alive” again and princess Cirilla wasn’t even born yet. That is, there is a back-and-forth in the chronological line of the plot, which can confuse certain people, especially those who are not familiar with the story, since this happens throughout the season. The creators opted for this way of telling the story, because this way it was possible to dedicate time to each isolated narrative of some characters, and then show the connection that one has with the other.

The explanation is logical, but the visual result left many viewers confused by the order of events. But the plot still has one big advantage: the directors decided to show viewers the most important stories in more detail, unlike how they were told in the books. In this way, we were able to see the dramatic story of the young hunchback Yennefer, the terrible defeat of the kingdom of Cintra and the great battle at Sodden Hill.

Despite the series’ drawbacks, Netflix managed to create a spectacular atmosphere to be enjoyed: filming took place in Hungary, Ukraine, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland. The spirit of the European Middle Ages can be observed at all times. Some scenes were filmed in real medieval buildings, such as the battle at Sodden Hill, which was filmed in the Polish castle of Ogrodzieniec. This is another reason why the series is acclaimed not only by devoted fans of the “mystical” and “witchcraft” universe, but also by fans of quality historical works.

In addition, another strong point of the series was the meticulous and careful work of lighting and colors, which can be exemplified when we see the golden beams of light in the forest of Brokilon. To do justice to the real beauty of nature, the creators of the project refused to record in the studio.

Many of the fans who were initially dissatisfied with the cast changed their minds as the episodes went by: Henry Cavill perfectly understood the characteristics of his character, and Ani Chalotra, who played Yennefer, turned out to be the “best” possible choice: she gave life to a character confident, strong, a little arrogant, but at the same time very sensitive. The cast of secondary characters also left nothing to be desired – exactly what added to the series a portion of lightness and humor, which practically does not exist in the main narratives.

Many fans loved the musical accompaniment: the series’ composer, Sonya Belousova, made use not only of violins and lutes, but also of rarer folk instruments such as the lyre, the psalter, and the dulcimer, in order to create a very popular soundtrack. authentic.

Particular attention was paid to the song sung by Jaskier, or Dandelion, about the witch and the “change”. The internet was soon flooded with jokes and parodies of the song. Some people covered the song, others just shared their impressions. Not even Elon Musk was left out.

Joey Batey himself, who played Jaskier, said the song was so addictive that he couldn’t stop singing it for 8 months after filming. Hard not to believe him.

The series really turned out to be controversial: on the one hand, the complex narrative structure makes it difficult to understand the story if seen for the first time, in addition to the cast cast that fell far short of fan expectations. On the other hand, however, the beautiful landscapes, atmosphere, acting and faithful historical reproduction manage to overcome the weaknesses of the work. The success of the series can be seen in the growth of sales of Andrzej Sapkowski’s books, as well as the thousands of new fans of the game “Witch-3: Wild Hunting” all over the world. The series “The Witch” became the highest rated series on Netflix, according to IMDb, just 4 days after its release.

And now, suddenly, it seems necessary to say “thank you” to another large-scale project — “Game of Thrones”. It was thanks to him that the public is more engaged and ready to warmly accept projects of the genre. fantasywhich used to be a much smaller and more isolated niche, which The Witcher series is also a part of.

Have you watched the new series about the story of Geralt of Rivia? Already a fan of Andrzej Sapkowski’s books? What did you think of the Netflix series? Comment!