How do you express the sheer amount of raw glee I have for this particular series?
Here’s the truth: I own, but haven’t yet played, all three games. I do not yet own any of the books (but I will, you watch me.)
I have, however, watched my father play the game, watched a ton of AMVs, read a copious amount of fanfiction and harassed my sisters. A lot. Also Gwent. I love Gwent. Poor fucking infantry, indeed.
…I lie. I’ve played a tiny bit of Witcher 3. I think I’m still flailing around in a recent battlefield. I also scandalized my father by refusing to bow to a king. But mostly I play Gwent. Moving on.
I love what they’ve done with this series so far. Despite the dubious lack of Gwent, I find the casting to be very on-point with what I know of the series and character descriptions. The filmography is beautiful, and although I spent some time going ??? that’s really more my I don’t remember hearing about this from my father’s wordvomit glee about this game.
This series has so far answered several questions for me (how did Ciri become Geralt’s? When? Who was she before? Why are sorceresses sterile?), prompted me to ask several more (but if they aren’t Enchanted, couldn’t they have kids?), rekindled a desire to play the games other than Gwent, and had me gleeing wordlessly with everyone I knew who had watched it. My recommendations prompted my sisters to watch it.
My father adores the Witcher franchise as a whole. He saw the series before I had a chance and affirmed that it was done very well, even though we both agreed that while it was a shame Geralt did not look like Witcher 3’s Geralt, not only would it be hard to find someone with the right cut and face of Witcher 3’s Geralt but also it would be difficult to find someone who had those who would be able to pull off the act as well. Not to mention, that particular look is likely copyrighted at this point, because this is America and we copyright everything for ridiculous reasons sometimes.
One thing I thoroughly enjoyed was how nicely they played to the sources, while still explaining and depicting enough for me to follow through, with my limited comprehension of it all. The Witcher series is going to draw in not only old fans, but new ones as well. That’s important for any fandom, because it’s the new fans that breathe life into things. Sure, you’re always going to have the dedicated ones, who never leave. And you’re always going to have those who come back every time new material comes out. But without that fresh transfusion of new blood, even those might taper out.
Will Witcher have a lifelong dedicated fandom the likes of which Star Trek and Star Wars have? That’s doubtful; for whatever reason, those fandoms got massive. But I definitely think Witcher has a lot of rewatch potential for viewers, writing potential for authors, and conceptual potential for artists. For the fans, Witcher’s going to do a lot of good things, and the fans will in turn do a lot of good things for it.
They’re clearly already starting. Just look at the acting!
However, because I consider season one to be so well done, I worry for season two. I shouldn’t; I have faith it will be absolutely beautiful and well-written, because season one was. But it’s really hard to match or beat something as well done as season one turned out to be. Saying that, though, I’m still super eager for a season two.
I don’t know if they’ve greenlit it yet. I’ll certainly survive if they don’t, but I’ll be hungry for it for the rest of my life if we never get it.
–Natasha
Author Natasha York 