With its season 1 release the same year as Game of Thrones' disappointing final season, we all expected The Witcher to fill the fantasy television void.
For a second, it seemed to be the case, thanks to the IP's pre-existing popularity and Henry Cavill's casting. Fast-forward six years, and The Witcher is unanimously hated by book readers and non-book readers alike. Its biggest star, Cavill, left the show after clashes with showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich and the writers. And in an unprecedented move in the fantasy TV realm, the show recast its main lead, Cavill, with Liam Hemsworth, or, as some fans say, "Temu Witcher."
The Witcher's real tragedy is its unfulfilled potential. From rich source material, a lead Hollywood star, to even a budget bigger than Thrones, it had all the makings of a legendary medieval fantasy show. If only the showrunner and writers had learnt 10 key lessons from Game of Thrones.
1. Make your politics interesting instead of generic fantasy mumbo jumbo
As a non-book reader, whose first introduction to The Witcher was the Netflix show, I didn't care about the show's politics one bit. A few seasons in, I was still confused about basic things like "Why are the elves so hated?" And I wasn't the only one.
The main culprit of this is boring writing, which conveys key information about the kingdoms and politics through tedious exposition. What should've been gripping information is delivered through word salads between characters. Sometimes it's Geralt and Yennefer spouting the political mumbo jumbo, and other times it's the side characters. The show fails to set up the world and its major conflicts in an easy-to-understand way.
In contrast, Game of Thrones does a brilliant job of establishing its world and key political players in the first season itself. Although George R.R. Martin deserves most credit for Thrones' riveting politics, the showrunners do a great job of having you on a chokehold with conflicts like Starks vs Lannisters and more.
2. Make your characters follow logic rather than your whims and agendas
The thumb rule of storytelling is, "Dumb characters kill stories." The Witcher on Netflix ignores this, just as Cersei ignores the common folk in Game of Thrones. The show's version of Yennefer is one of the most annoying characters on TV. She's consistently selfish, entitled, and occasionally heroic.
Pointing out the thing, millions of fans already have - she voluntarily trades her fertility for beauty, then whines about not being able to bear a child. To top this nonsense, she attempts to sacrifice Ciri to gain her magic back in season 2. But in season 3, the show wants us to believe they have a mother-daughter relationship now. The series desperately tries to portray its characters as being emotionally deep and morally gray, but this often lands as being shallow.
In comparison, nearly every character's actions in Thrones' earlier seasons make sense. You wish they had acted differently, but their actions still align with what we know about them. Do you wish Jon had left the Night's Watch to save Ned and his family from getting butchered in the south? Yes, but you understand why he didn't.
You spend the whole season 1 wishing Ned would leave King's Landing and get away from the Lannisters. But he doesn't and gets beheaded for it. Yet, you get that his honor stopped him. The characters are clearly defined, and their actions align perfectly with their traits.
3. Don't butcher the best book moments: You can't do it better than the author
It's no secret that Netflix's The Witcher lacks respect for the source material. Hence, we have to address the show's fallacies in translating the best book moments to the screen - as pointed out by book readers. It has also failed to properly adapt the core dynamics between characters.
Nearly every relationship in the show, whether it's between Geralt and Ciri, Ciri and Yennefer, or Geralt and Yennefer, feels lacking. These relationships don't feel fully developed, or even earned. Geralt and Yen barely interact a handful of times in the show. Yet, we are to believe they are some star-crossed lovers.
Even heartfelt book moments like Ciri's first period at Kaer Morhen, to one where a kid Ciri asks Geralt to tell her a bedtime story, are butchered or entirely omitted.
On the other hand, Game of Thrones' early seasons did a great job of adapting the best book to TV moments. From Jamie and Brienne's bath talk in season 2 to Arya and Syrio's dance lessons, it's all beautifully done. Despite having so many different characters, you get the impression that the show truly cares about them.
4. You can't undo odd casting and bad characterization
Game of Thrones is a masterclass in perfect TV casting. From Emilia Clarke as Daenerys to Sean Bean as Ned Stark, and everyone in between is perfectly cast. Although Thrones too changed the age of its characters from the books, they work well in the show's setting.
Let's compare this with The Witcher. While in the book Geralt has a slim and athletic physique, Henry is in his Superman physique. Although Cavill-stans disagree, to several viewers, including myself, he did seem miscast as the beloved Geralt of Rivia.
His odd imitation of Doug Cockle's (Geralt voice actor in The Witcher games) voice further breaks immersion. Even to a non-book reader like myself, Cavill's stoic and "man of few words" characterization felt odd and out of place. Now with Liam Hemsworth looking like the fifth member of Metallica, my hopes for season 4 are truly down the gutter.
Geralt isn't the only one who seems off; Yennefer and Ciri seem more like sisters than a mother-daughter duo. This is mainly because actress Anya Chalotra seems too young to play the character. Yennefer's entitled and shallow girl boss persona doesn't help either. Book readers have also complained about Ciri looking too old since season 1.
The Witcher show's casting, though not the most ideal could have worked if it stayed faithful to the books.
5. How to make your geography make sense and look good
There's no mild way of putting it - The Witcher's continent and most locations in the show look bad. It's like the show creators sucked all the uniqueness or character out of Andrzej Sapkowski's vibrant world. Every place more or less looks the same with that godawful gray color grading applied to natural locations.
With no map explaining the continent to us non-book readers, the world doesn't feel grand enough. This is something the show could've adapted from The Witcher 3 game or Game of Thrones. In the latter, every location like Dorne, King's Landing, Winterfell had a diverse color palette and architectural structure. Hence, you can easily distinguish the locations.
Thrones also does a stellar job at establishing the scale of its world via it's CGI intro.
6. Stay true to the medieval setting
Both Game of Thrones and The Witcher worlds have racial diversity. However, the way Thrones presents this makes the world feel more realistic. The different ethnic and racial groups reside in different parts of the world, with Dorne, Braavos, and Essos in general featuring more dark-skinned people while Westeros is predominantly white.
On the contrary, The Witcher's attempts to make its world more diverse look misplaced. Fans have repeatedly pointed out how a random medieval village in the show looks like downtown LA and downtown NYC. The show also makes no efforts to honor Polish traditions the way the games did despite the IP's polish origins.
The Witcher takes on a lot of sensitive topics like these, but fails to represent them with any depth. The ethnic conflict between elves and humans is poorly done. They position the elves as clear victims rather than morally gray characters.
Instead of staying true to medieval times in some ways, The Witcher shows a clear and at times illogical bias towards female characters. We see them doing or attempting heinous acts, and are asked to feel sorry for them in the process.
7. How to make your CGI look better
The Witcher's three seasons reportedly cost Netflix $443.4 million to make. This does not include the whopping $221 million price tag of the upcoming The Witcher season 4. Despite all this cash being spent, the show's CGI looks terrible. The world looks dull, plastic, and unnatural most times.
Even the monster and creature CGI look hideous. Season 3's disembodied female heads and the subsequent flesh monster looked so awful, it still haunts me. From fight scenes, natural locations, to even castles and monsters look cheap and unrealistic. The special effects are an eye-sore most of the time. The scene of Wild Hunt arriving in The Witcher season 2 is just painful to watch. It's as though you are watching a cheap teenage fantasy show.
When it comes to characters, the costuming makes the show look like an expensive cosplay. The elves just look like humans but with weird ears.
To put this in perspective Thrones' most expensive season, aka season 8, which featured a lot of CGI dragons, white-walkers, and major battle sequences, cost a total of $90 million to make. Netflix poured more money into The Witcher's first season than Game of Thrones' most expensive one. Yet the latter's world feels real and lived in.
8. How to avoid bad dialogue and cheesy scenes
Good dialogue helps to create great acting moments and impactful scenes. However, The Witcher completely forgets this in season 3. You'll constantly hear modern lingo in dialogues that makes you forget the show's fantasy setting. For instance, one of the mages says to Yennefer, "Don't threaten with a good time" before the communal bath scene. Did they pluck the line right out of a Taylor Swift song? Perhaps!
Queen Hedwig's killer calls cutting her neck a "workout." The word for physical exercise wasn't part of popular lingo in medieval times, and was first used in the 19th century. A character is about to be killed by a soldier, but is saved by his friend. He then says, "Nice save," like it's in a video game.
The word "f**k" appears hundreds of times in nearly every episode. At times, characters say it even when it doesn't quite fit the situation. Even Jaskier's songs in season 3 seem like they are from a modern-day musical.
This awful writing makes Game of Thrones sound like Homer.
9. Not ruining your lead male characters
Despite how interesting Andrzej Sapkowski's lead hero is, the show rarely gives us non-book readers a glimpse into his mind or past in a meaningful way. We know he's been ill-treated and shunned by the entire continent for being a mutant based on a few comments Cavill's Geralt makes. But we don't see how it's affected him on a deeper level. How it's shaped him as a person and is shaping his relationships. Cavill's Geralt feels like a half-made 2D character to a non-book reader like me.
He's reduced to being the muscle of the show. He's just supposed to appear, disappear, and reappear to save some characters and slay some monsters while looking really cool. By season 3, he barely has any screen time.
The Witcher couldn't do justice to its titular lead, while Thrones shows the vulnerabilities and soft side of several of its male characters. From Jamie's bathtub scene with Brienne to Tyrion's conversation with Oberyn in his jail cell, we see male characters get candid about their past. The show does it for Jon, Theon, and even Tywin in his scenes with Arya.
10. Adapting different timelines
The Witcher season 1 was a total mess to understand. The show followed three different timelines and made little effort to make that clear to non-book readers. We follow Ciri, Geralt, and Yennefer in these three timelines.
Like The Witcher, GOT also jumps between a few timelines in its eight seasons. We see these timeline changes when they show us scenes of young Lyanna Stark at Winterfell, Lyanna and Rhaegar Targaryen's marriage, and the Night King's creation.
However, not for a second are we confused about whether this is happening in the current day. We mostly see the past through Bran's vision. He becomes our conduit to the past. The Witcher could've easily done something similar, rather than leaving fans to watch explainer videos.