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I wish the Nilfgaardians all had dutch accents like the games. It was both novel and to English speakers it sounds extremely evil. (Because it's like a South African accent married a German accent.)
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Dec 31, 2019 05:10
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The Dutch accents were also a subtle hint that, yeah, evil empire aside they were also a much wealthier and more functional society than the north.
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Dec 31, 2019 05:17
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Holy poo poo, I just found something out: Queen Kalis (the chick who gets assassinated and Yen tries to save the baby) is Meve's mother. :O
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Dec 31, 2019 05:20
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Arglebargle III posted:I wish the Nilfgaardians all had dutch accents like the games. It was both novel and to English speakers it sounds extremely evil. (Because it's like a South African accent married a German accent.) Uh wouldn't a South African accent be a Dutch married to a English? But yea, giving them Dutch accents was a good choice in the games.
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Dec 31, 2019 05:23
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Netflix has English subtitles if you're struggling with mumbling/names.  steinrokkan posted:It's an excuse in the sense that it's much easier to refer to some made up guild bylaw prohibiting the killing of intelligent monsters than to argue with an angry village elder that you aren't going to kill the local godling because it would be wrong. Yeah, it would be easier to just present a code as a reason in that instance. Solice Kirsk posted:Geralt will kill sentient monsters if they attack first or if they are causing other kinds of damage to people. Trolls are a thing of the past in my Drunken Bomb Flinging rear end in a top hat playthrough. That one drunken contract was indeed extremely fun, but I can't see myself playing the entire game that way. Herostratus posted:https://wegotthiscovered.com/tv/netflix-reportedly-greenlit-season-3-witcher/  if trueEdit: Sirotan posted:Just when I finally got it out of my head He made a full version too (Soundcloud).  itry fucked around with this message at 06:29 on Dec 31, 2019 |
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Dec 31, 2019 06:24
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I was hoping being drunk would give different dialogue choices, but I didn't notice any.
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Dec 31, 2019 06:31
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Overheard some dudes ranting about how the milfgardian wizard should be white and not black. I'm assuming this is a book and source material thing?
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Dec 31, 2019 06:32
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MOVIE MAJICK posted:Overheard some dudes ranting about how the milfgardian wizard should be white and not black. I'm assuming this is a book and source material thing? Basically everyone is going to complain if it’s not exactly like the game. And of course by “the game” I mean gwent 
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Dec 31, 2019 07:52
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MOVIE MAJICK posted:Overheard some dudes ranting about how the milfgardian wizard should be white and not black. I'm assuming this is a book and source material thing? Yes there are basically no black people in the Witcher or, for that matter, Poland. Of course when it went mainstream in the popular games people who believed they were doing the right thing raised a big stink about it. It led to some pretty uncomfortable lectures from Americans to Poles about how these foreign people needed to modify their ideas about what minorities look like to better reflect North American cultural norms. In the name of cultural sensitivity, naturally. It would be culturally insensitive not to use American media dominance to force a foreign culture to respect American cultural norms... Before anyone dogpiles me for being such a huge racist that I think Americans don't have much business telling Poles what color video game characters ought to be, I do understand the perspective of people who thought it was righteous to drag CDPR for not having black people in the game. And I do get that some people just want video games to look like them, or want everyone to feel included etc. I just genuinely think it's chauvinism to tell Poles, of all people, what minorities look like. It's not really the Poles' problem that all the bitter ethnic conflicts in their region are between people who code as White in North America. And, well, the people who wanted a setting with a mix of skin tones like you might find in North America and not Poland got what they wanted anyway. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 08:20 on Dec 31, 2019 |
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Dec 31, 2019 08:08
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MOVIE MAJICK posted:Overheard some dudes ranting about how the milfgardian wizard should be white and not black. I'm assuming this is a book and source material thing? Its just racism.
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Dec 31, 2019 08:12
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Yeah, I've read the metacritic reviews. It's racism.
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Dec 31, 2019 08:13
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTJAc0COA3k I hope season 2 Geralt can be as catty with his Witcher bros.
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Dec 31, 2019 08:42
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The racial mix was one of the subtle selling points for me. I love fantasy, but the genre is prone to creating simplified societies, AKA Country A believes in Democracy and Country B believes in Slaves, which say more about the author's cultural biases than anything else. Combine that with the usual choice to assign one ethnicity per fantasy country and somehow we always seem to end up with fantasy Hook Nosed Money Grubber and Dark Skin Noble Savages running around. Here? I don't know, something called the Convergence of Spheres happened and suddenly humans appeared in the world. Maybe they were from multiple geographic points on Earth and realised they had more in common compared to Elves? Maybe they were from an ethnically diverse population, like a Roman port town or Silk Road trading post, and already had a common philosophy and shared second language? It doesn't need a bunch of thinking on and it's a nice reassurance that we're not suddenly going to go all Biotruths about Racial Predetermination.
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Dec 31, 2019 09:17
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Arglebargle III posted:Yes there are basically no black people in the Witcher or, for that matter, Poland. Of course when it went mainstream in the popular games people who believed they were doing the right thing raised a big stink about it. It led to some pretty uncomfortable lectures from Americans to Poles about how these foreign people needed to modify their ideas about what minorities look like to better reflect North American cultural norms. In the name of cultural sensitivity, naturally. It would be culturally insensitive not to use American media dominance to force a foreign culture to respect American cultural norms... I think CDPR just went with in-unverse geography. Witcher 1 had a black guy, who was zerrikanian which is a kind of Africa. 2 dragon bodyguards ladies from the show are also zerrikanians.
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Dec 31, 2019 09:48
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MOVIE MAJICK posted:Overheard some dudes ranting about how the milfgardian wizard should be white and not black. I'm assuming this is a book and source material thing? They'll try to refer to the fact that the books have her paler then Yennefer and add her being second cousins with a character that's not been cast for the show (and won't be for, like, three seasons if we even get that far). But yeah, it's racism. There are, however, legitimate criticisms of that character's portrayal - it's just that race is the very distant last thing on that list. codswallop posted:The racial mix Pretty much. Mild book spoilers regarding the world's background: Humans are an invasive species (as are Elves - they just came here earlier), quite likely from our world's future. The only thing "unrealistic" about the ethnic makeup (in the  meaning of the word) is that everyone isn't of mixed race yet
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Dec 31, 2019 09:55
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So you’re telling me it’s not really Poland at all and the made up really averagely written fantasy series from twenty years ago doesn’t have any bearing whatsoever on ‘Polish Heritage’ and all the people in it could be literally any colour at all and it wouldn’t matter?
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Dec 31, 2019 10:36
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This entire line of complaint was beaten to death in the Witcher 3 thread multiple times.
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Dec 31, 2019 10:41
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changing the race of multiple characters is no small thing. it will change the feeling of the story. I personally think it's interesting and i like Fringilla and Yen especially, but you can't handwave concerns like that especially in this type of series where people already have built up the characters in their minds. In any case it puts more focus on the actors to do a good job. also "milfgard" lol
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Dec 31, 2019 11:14
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If you are going to cast characters to speak English with American accents and if you are going to turn one of the factions into orcs, just cast whomever because any preconceived notions have gone out of the window anyway.
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Dec 31, 2019 11:20
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At first the Nilfgaard armor was seen mostly in really dark scenes at night and it looked like some kind of leathery deal and I thought "cool, these guys are invaders from a distant land and they're playing that up by having them suited in some kind of reptilian hide from a fantasy species instead of the traditional gambesons and plates". And then I saw it in better lighting and it was just like... hey, I was right! They just sourced it from a different part of the animal's anatomy.
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Dec 31, 2019 11:27
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Apparently the Nilfgaard armor was designed to be lovely by the showrunner because Nilfgaard is supposed to be a more primitive, ragged force (sic) than the Northern kingdoms. Lol, what a profoundly stupid decision, however did she get that idea.
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Dec 31, 2019 11:41
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It's also not very practical. Historical armor was typicallly smooth so that weapons will bounce and slide off of it. These kinds of protrusions could chanel blades into parts of your body.
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Dec 31, 2019 11:56
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Bobbin Threadbare posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uwbjC_8Nd0 Isn't that to be expected though, from a translation? It wouldn't have been called "witcher" in English, otherwise.
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Dec 31, 2019 12:52
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twistedmentat posted:Not to be a super pervazoid but god drat Yennifers boobs are perfect. Move over Bad Pussy, you no long have the best boobs in Fantasy TV. lmao why would you ever think this is something normal and good to post like jfc
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Dec 31, 2019 14:30
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steinrokkan posted:Apparently the Nilfgaard armor was designed to be lovely by the showrunner because Nilfgaard is supposed to be a more primitive, ragged force (sic) than the Northern kingdoms. Lol, what a profoundly stupid decision, however did she get that idea. haha what the gently caress. Literally backwards. I just finished the series and jesus christ I'm so confused at all the creative decisions. So many decisions actively diverge to make things worse for no reason. It's not about blind faith to the books for me - I think the Lord of the Rings films made very good choices in many of the departures from the book - but these decisions show a fundamental misunderstanding of the books as well as of universal good drama writing. The battle of Sodden Hill was very puzzling as well. They had budget, clearly, and they spent it. But... why did they spend it on being so goddamn pedestrian? Why not have a cool magic fight, with mages throwing immense power back and forth at each other and dying one by one? There are also so many decisions that are for the worse, sure, but even more puzzling, necessitate even more chances for the worse later down the line. Like, off the top of my head from just the last episode... book spoilers: -How the gently caress are you going to make Cahir a sympathetic and friendly character who is accepted into Geralt's Hansa? -You've destroyed the "oh poo poo" moment of Vilgefortz effortlessly wrecking Geralt in a non-magic fight -How are you going to reconcile Yennefer very happilly taking Ciri to Aretuza to study? I honestly can't believe the show's budget. It looks cheap. The costumes are mediocre, with some exceptions. Calanthe especially looks cheap, and her dresses don't even fit. The armies are tiny and shot in a way that highlights it rather than hiding it. The whole fall of Cintra looked so empty. Everywhere looks empty, actually. The CGI is unambitious (see - battle of Sodden Hill, the dragon doing gently caress all instead of wrecking dudes). The actors aren't big name draws except for Cavill. I can't figure out where the budget went other than Cavill and presumably Sapkowski. I mean, the budget is higher than loving Game of Thrones was! I didn't really like GoT for a lot of reasons, but one of the things that made me watch the first few seasons was the production values. They absolutely nailed the costumes and sets. And they had more actors, more famous ones, and more extras. I'm not angry at the show, I still enjoyed watching it though not in the way I should have. I'm just really puzzled. There is one thing I do find rather troubling, though. Maybe I'm overly sensitive to it, but the show really feels like it goes out of its way to remove the agency of female characters. A few examples: -When they did the dumb change to have a pretend Mousesack, they went out of their way to structure Ciri as the damsel in distress there. She is not the one who figures it out; some random loving kid who didn't even know Mousesack did. She begins to win, and then gives up. She gets tied up. Not only was the whole thing a strange extraneous departure from the books that accomplished nothing good, but it was also structured in a way that took away Ciri's agency and stripped a character trait - she's smart, inquisitive and suspicious. Except not in the show. -Yennefer in the books: strong, imperious, supremely self confident. Wanting to have children is a small insecurity kept private, not something she blabs and whines to everyone about. She dismisses other sorcerecess and mages because she thinks herself above them. It's arrogance, not a grievance. The whole hunchback thing in the book is a single line, meant to highlight Geralt's insight; that he is the only one who can tell she wasn't always beautiful. The show reveled in showing Yennefer as pathetic. Changed her past to make her moreso. She is also constantly pouty and extremely teenage about the whole thing. -The action sequence with the assassination is an excellent example of how the show wants to strip power from female characters. That whole sequence did not happen in the books. So, ok, you want to show some magic and some action. But then you depict her as only running, completely powerless to challenge the assailant. Who, by the way, is not a real character, is just some dude. So they run several times, every time barely making it until Yennefer fails and is injured herself. Then mopes about it. -Brokilon forest. Completely changed to be generic and misses the point. It's been stripped of meaning in the story and in the world, to the point where it doesn't make sense for it to be there. It's a militarised, feminine space that men cannot enter, not even with an army. Geralt is an exception because he's not human as far as the dryads are concerned. In the show they're perfectly happy to accept the elf boy, plus perfectly happy to let him leave and return. Same with Ciri and fake Mousesack. -Calanthe also has consierably less agency here. The feast episode is where it's most visible. When Duny says he can't show his face, some random man knocks his helmet off. In the books, Calanthe is well aware of him and the mechanics of his curse. She set everything up so that Geralt would kill him, even has his sword behind her throne. Duny looks like himself at some times, after some hour is struck. Calanthe makes a show of respecting the vow; however, she has instructed that the hour is struck early. When the time comes, Duny removes his helmet and but he's still a hedgehog. That is Calanthe's cunning, ruthlessness and agency. But in the show they take away all that and replace it with a man doing it and her being surprised by it. I can't unsee it, and the showrunner being a woman makes it all the stranger.
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Dec 31, 2019 15:52
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Zeppelin Insanity posted:There are also so many decisions that are for the worse, sure, but even more puzzling, necessitate even more chances for the worse later down the line. Like, off the top of my head from just the last episode... book spoilers: So for those three points: 1. Cahir making a sympathetic turn is still possible. So far what we've seen of him (aside from killing Mousesack) is stuff not in the books anyway. All he is is what's in Ciri's dreams. I doubt they'll make him good, but it's still possible. 2. If you follow the belief that Vilgafortz faked his rear end kicking (and even if he didn't) it'll still be a surprise when he beats the poo poo out of Geralt. In fact, even more so, since know one will see that coming. 3. By the end of episode 8 Yen and Tissiae have mostly patched things up and Yen is fighting alongside the other mages. At that point, why wouldn't she take Ciri to Aretuza? If nothing else, at least to satisfy her mage peers and hopefully prevent them from chasing them. Most complaints I've seen from the show are all valid, but many seem to lack an understanding of both what the show was going for and how the books actually worked.
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Dec 31, 2019 16:01
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Zeppelin Insanity posted:I honestly can't believe the show's budget. It looks cheap. The costumes are mediocre, with some exceptions. Calanthe especially looks cheap, and her dresses don't even fit. The armies are tiny and shot in a way that highlights it rather than hiding it. The whole fall of Cintra looked so empty. Everywhere looks empty, actually. The CGI is unambitious (see - battle of Sodden Hill, the dragon doing gently caress all instead of wrecking dudes). The actors aren't big name draws except for Cavill. I can't figure out where the budget went other than Cavill and presumably Sapkowski. Really? I thought most of the costumes looked great, with the exception of being Yen's when she hosted the weird orgy thing lol. The cool amazon women looked bad-fuckin-rear end. Jaskier's outfits look neat. Sonic the Hedgehog looked great. Borch's coat-thingy looked really cool.
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Dec 31, 2019 16:18
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I was surprised by the budget being so high after watching it as well. Costumes were fine other than Nilfgaard. CGI was mostly bad though. Duny was good but everything in that dragon episode was pretty weak. I thought the battle at sodden hill was pretty good but agreed it could have been better. Overall I loved the show and had fun with it. But yeah, I do agree with many of the criticisms. But they are pretty minor for me. The biggest thing was that the Ciri storylinw just drags on with no real changes to her motivation or character.
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Dec 31, 2019 17:17
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I wasn't pumped on the look of the dragon, especially after GoT just went off this year and for all its faults, the dragons looked loving amazing. I've also said this already, but I'd have traded out the Borch/Golden Dragon short story with the one where Istredd and Geralt almost duel. I forget the names, but the second one would've fit better (they already had Istredd!) and would've required much less in the way of special effects. But everything else: the kikimore, the ghouls, the mac-and-me creature that Eyck hacked apart like an 8 year old, they looked fine to me.
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Dec 31, 2019 17:35
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Can you please not come into a thread for the TV show and post a giant wall of untagged book spoilers so long that I couldn't help but read some in the twenty minutes it took to scroll past? Like what the hell. E: I'm sorry, the only bit that's really very spoilery is actually tagged, but I'm on mobile and must have touched it when I was scrolling. My bad.
Phenotype fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Dec 31, 2019 |
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Dec 31, 2019 17:40
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Wild Horses posted:changing the race of multiple characters is no small thing. it will change the feeling of the story. I personally think it's interesting and i like Fringilla and Yen especially, but you can't handwave concerns like that especially in this type of series where people already have built up the characters in their minds. How does it change the “feeling” of the story exactly? It makes more sense going by the lore that everyone is mixed race as other people have pointed out. The only reason any one has a problem with it is because they’re racist. Like this guy: Arglebargle III posted:Yes there are basically no black people in the Witcher or, for that matter, Poland. Of course when it went mainstream in the popular games people who believed they were doing the right thing raised a big stink about it. It led to some pretty uncomfortable lectures from Americans to Poles about how these foreign people needed to modify their ideas about what minorities look like to better reflect North American cultural norms. In the name of cultural sensitivity, naturally. It would be culturally insensitive not to use American media dominance to force a foreign culture to respect American cultural norms...
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Dec 31, 2019 17:42
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Wild Horses posted:changing the race of multiple characters is no small thing. it will change the feeling of the story. I personally think it's interesting and i like Fringilla and Yen especially, but you can't handwave concerns like that especially in this type of series where people already have built up the characters in their minds. No actually it's a completely insignificant thing and will not change the feeling of the story, and you absolutely can and should handwave concerns about it because the people concerned are racist shitbags.
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Dec 31, 2019 17:53
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Fantasy Africa is in the setting anyway so in character arguments don’t even make sense.
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Dec 31, 2019 17:54
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Starks posted:How does it change the “feeling” of the story exactly? It makes more sense going by the lore that everyone is mixed race as other people have pointed out. I think it's unfair to call him racist. He's just pointing out that the Poles have been treated like poo poo historically despite their white skin because in predominantly-white Europe, they had a version of racism more driven by country-of-origin than skin color (while also having a strong hate on for anyone who actually DID look different.) Of course, this is a fantasy world where it doesn't actually matter what color anyone is if their appearance means nothing to the story. I'm more concerned with the guy who's worried about it changing the "feel" of the story because this wizard is supposed to be white. Like, pretty sure any "feel" there is in your head.
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Dec 31, 2019 18:01
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I feel like arguments about the diversity thing hold water ... when you're talking about a Polish adaptation of this story. People complaining the games are too white? Silly to me. It's a different culture and doesn't need to reflect North America. This is a North American adaptation of the books tho and not a Polish one. So who cares.
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Dec 31, 2019 18:13
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Even beyond the race of the actress, show Fringilla is so different that she honestly could have been an original character. They just took any Nilfgaard related characters and made them evil.
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Dec 31, 2019 18:19
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Phenotype posted:I think it's unfair to call him racist. He's just pointing out that the Poles have been treated like poo poo historically despite their white skin because in predominantly-white Europe, they had a version of racism more driven by country-of-origin than skin color (while also having a strong hate on for anyone who actually DID look different.) The story is not set in Poland, the author went out of his way to not create a Poland-analogue in his pseudo-European setting (though you could argue Redania is a stand-in for Slavic cultures - funny how they have a racism problem) and Sapkowski himself said he supports the casting of POC and that he intentionally did not mention the skin colour of many characters. So the plight or whiteness of poles is completely irrelevant so why would someone write a long rear end post about “Polish Values”...hmm... The funniest thing is that however trashy the books and game are, they both clearly condemn racism and xenophobia which makes these racist idiots look even dumber.
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Dec 31, 2019 18:20
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Phenotype posted:I think it's unfair to call him racist. He's just pointing out that the Poles have been treated like poo poo historically despite their white skin because in predominantly-white Europe, they had a version of racism more driven by country-of-origin than skin color (while also having a strong hate on for anyone who actually DID look different.) Phenotype posted:Of course, this is a fantasy world where it doesn't actually matter what color anyone is if their appearance means nothing to the story. I'm more concerned with the guy who's worried about it changing the "feel" of the story because this wizard is supposed to be white. Like, pretty sure any "feel" there is in your head. esperterra posted:I feel like arguments about the diversity thing hold water ... when you're talking about a Polish adaptation of this story. People complaining the games are too white? Silly to me. It's a different culture and doesn't need to reflect North America. *Though obviously the question would then be what the point of that would be? A Buttery Pastry fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Dec 31, 2019 |
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Dec 31, 2019 18:21
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The Witcher 3 was a Polish adaptation of the material, which is when this whole argument started. Obviously the American adaptation does have black characters.
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Dec 31, 2019 18:40
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The Witcher was the top UK stream for a Netflix series. UK people are not so bothered by the racial make up of the cast it seems. #2 Worldwide behind Stranger Things, not bad considering it only came out 10 days before they released the rankings. Collateral fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Dec 31, 2019 |
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Dec 31, 2019 18:53
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