The Witcher season 3 is kind of a confusing mess but I still have thoughts I want to share

So, I finished watching The Witcher season 3 on Netflix. This season had a lot of content from the books (which I read). We got to see the formation of the Scoia'tael, guerrilla warriors allied with Nilfgaard, who were helping to hunt the Cintran princess named Ciri (who is the main protagonist in "the Witcher" books). Although the elves were present in other seasons, this is the first time I remember seeing them inserting themselves into the messy network of alliances and the realm of human politics. We also got to see Vilgefortz's betrayal and how powerful he actually was. I knew from the books that he was the big bad, but you never got that impression with him being in the background for the past two seasons. But he spanked Geralt like it wasn't any effort at all, and that payoff (to see that on screen) was a lot of fun.

We also got to bid farewell to Tissaia de Vries who was arguably the most powerful of the magic using women in Aretuza. She underestimated Vilgefortz and cast Alzur's Thunder, "a spell only of last resort" that ends up really not doing all that much. I think she killed herself over the guilt of trusting Vilgefortz and basically failing the girls that she was there to teach and nurture. This then opens the door for Yennefer to become headmistress of Aretuza. And I know from the books that Yennefer is a badass so this is a good "passing of the torch" even if it is done somewhat clumsily via a suicide and a letter of explanation, "I would love to see you through the next leg of your journey. I know you will do great things, my daughter, but I'm afraid I cannot." And so it goes.

This was also Henry Cavill's last outing as "Geralt." From what I understand, he left the role because he was going to be reprising his Superman role in the DC extended universe due to promises that Dwayne Johnson had made. But then Black Adam crashed and burned in a spectacular fashion (it was a box office bomb), and the whole DC Universe (which was on life-support anyway) just imploded and all of the actors got fired for a complete reboot. But Cavill had already quit his role as Geralt and there was no going back because Netflix had already hired Liam Hemsworth. But we shouldn't feel sorry for Henry Cavill because he's got a movie coming out called Argyle that looks fun and he's been put in charge of a Warhammer 40K production, which is his true love.

But his exit did seem a bit awkward in The Witcher season 3. After the Vilgefortz battle where Geralt was almost killed, he needed time to recover. This is where Netflix made a strange choice. In the books, he was in a thing called convalescence for like a year since he basically got every bone in his body broken. This would have been a great opportunity to justify why he looks and moves different going forward: the man was in bed for a year and needed facial reconstruction magic. But instead they just had him get better and recover, and this was a bad choice. My thoughts on this were that they wanted to give Cavill's Geralt an action/compassion sequence to go out on, to give him a send-off worthy of what he put into the character, and a good wrap of the character development up to that point in his last scene. Anyway, I think that's what happened.

One of the problems I have in watching The Witcher is that it is difficult to remember the weirdish names of people and places. There's also a lot of conspiracies going on. The conspiracy of the mages, the conspiracy of the kingdom with the spymaster, the Nilfgaard conspiracy, and the conspiracy with the elves. It's difficult to keep track of them all, and I think it's just the way in which it is filmed. I had absolutely no issue keeping track of the various factions in Game of Thrones. But Netflix's The Witcher has so many characters I frequently ask myself, "okay...who is this and why are they saying stuff?" The monster fighting that showed up was a little worse than back in season 1. How the season ends with Ciri is kind of frustrating. At least what leads to it. Yes, the world she lives in is a shitty place. Everybody wants her for her powers or wants to kill her because of it. She has a right to feel jaded and cynical of the world. And yet, Geralt and Yennefer are always there for her. It's fun to watch the three of them. So Netflix breaks from this and Ciri ends up in a desert area far away from the only people who are her support group (Geralt and Yennefer). This kinda/sorta happens in the books too, and I remember not liking that part of the books. Also, the show is called The Witcher and yet he really has many moments where he feels irrelevant to the show that bears his name.

I will continue to watch this show. After three seasons, I feel like I'm invested. But I do wish it was easier for me to follow (or that my brain grabbed onto things a lot better).

On Monday, I'll be writing about Echo, which is a new series on Disney+ that I just finished watching. And on Wednesday, I want to talk about Percy Jackson which is also on Disney+.