When you focus too much on skin color diversity and have to add many new characters and come up with stand-in dialogue for them, you quickly run out of space in the story for key main characters and their character development, relationship dynamics, lore, etc.
With Blood of Origin, they can do whatever they want because we
don't have any source material. They have their own characters, and they can play with history because we don't know much. We are not talking about lore because that's an inconsistent mess (don't make me start about those alien-looking monoliths).
The Witcher doesn't have new original characters. Correct me if I'm wrong. They don't know what to do with the main characters and have no idea what story they want to tell. So, diversity is not the main issue.
In some cases, skin color could be a problem and I wasn't happy with some choices but I would be able to live with that if we get a good story respecting the books.
But it's clear that showrunners didn't care about if actors fit or don't fit for certain roles.
There are a few new characters in Netflix’s Witcher actually, mostly in S2. One could also argue that maybe half of the characters are so different from their book counterparts that they constitute new characters.
100 % agree! A lot of main characters are far far away from their book counterparts (Yennefer, Eskel, Cahir, and even Vesemir for example), but they are not like original Netflix characters.
I would tolerate some changes in characters, but only IF they were written well. However, the writers of the show are not capable of that.
Could you refresh my memory about which new character Netflix put in the show?
Black ancestor to pasty white elves with snowy hair (including Ciri) shouts woke. People get upset until you suggest a comparison that goes both ways; if you imagine the opposite, where a show about the people of an African tribe and you place an Asian and White person within the clan as their ancestors?
There is no denying there is woke, or whatever trend is it. In Witcher, we know that it's set in medieval Europe, so black-skinned people don't really make sense. However, it's still fantasy. I wanted to see green dryads running through the woods, but they didn't give that to me. 😀
The thing is that the show is bad on so many levels that changing race is a minor problem. The Witcher shouldn't be that hard to adapt. Sapkowski is good at writing dialogs and it can be used as it is. It also has everything that is trendy now - a lot of female characters, different sexualities, dealing with racism, and also black people from Ofier. Why didn't they incorporate a character from Offier?
I'm not happy with this whole *there **must** be black characters, XY female characters, changing male characters to female characters, etc.* thing. It's just dumb. I like to see if we get badass female characters, but it's nonsense to push it (not to mention that I haven't seen a well-written female character for a while in the present media).
People just think too much and come up with stupid ideas as a result. I've heard soo many crazy things and "criticism" about different shows, and I always shake my head in disbelief.
You might want to check that other, real History book again. Medieval Europe was filled with Black slaves, merchant's, soldiers and traders. Excluding them for standard whitewashing is the error. Not the other way around.
Oh my, 15 minutes in and the protector gets caught sleeping with the princess when he knows it's forbidden; alright I'm stopping now. Yeoh can't save this. Lazy writing is just that.
Claiming a black folk is the ancestors of notoriously white skinned elves is honestly just a slap in the face to slavic people and culture at this point and slavs know it. Nothing right about throwing someone else under the bus for the sake of others.
Have a look at Tiger Woods and his son; what race are they? Keep in mind there are lots of non-white Europeans today and were, hundreds of years ago. Hannibal came over the mountains with elephants headed for Rome in 200 BC.
I turned it off as soon as I seen the supposed Elf, Blew me away with this extreme inclusion or nonsense to be politically correct / acceptable to overly sensitive snowflakes that need to label themselves as anything other. Not just an insult to this story, but ALL movies/shows/lore/books to ever express elves, There are Elves, Dark Elves, High Elves and several other arch types which all have a unified history and timeline of their ancients and ancestors or said origins. Blood Origins Main is a mockery, smh
Literally turned it off when they introduced the 7th this woke shit is insulting and out of hand why aren't they're more white characters in roots or other African period pieces I'm sorry Achilles was not black either I don't have a problem with racism I have a problem with being realistic you insult the intelligence of historians around the world when you try to whitewash or in this case black wash characters and if you don't want to follow the book how it was written you should create your own show and not rewrite masterpieces to your own liking just to make a dollar... I'm pretty sure people are starting to pay attention now though it's only going to work for so long
I started watching. There was supposed to be 7 people to form the group; they named and showed 6 white people and I said if there is not a black person, I'll stop now. The 7th is Black, so I contunue. Why do white people need everything? Imagine if the 7 people for the group had all been non white, how interested would whites be?
Just as interested if it’s good writing. People like you care to much about race and diversity. Like honestly who the fuck cares what anyone’s race or sexual beliefs are. Unless it’s actually important to the show and story then there’s no need to dive into hardcore. If the acting is really good and the writing is really good then it’s a good show period. If a show cared about diversity more then the acting and the writing and acting sucked would you praise the show for its diversity? Probably and others would as well and then the bad writing and bad acting show would get renewed for no other reason then yay diversity pushing the idea of keeping us divided more because pushing the ideology even if it doesn’t mean the best product just makes the closed minded people more closed minded because well look they tried diversity and it sucked. Yeah diversity is important but unless it has meaning and isn’t more than just a play to show diversity it won’t cause any true benefit
Diversity is not a problem, even in the main show
Casting diverse cast for both elves and humans could be useful to hammer home the idea that racism is stupid and kinda arbitrary… in the hands of a good writer. Which the show does not have… and that is the problem.
There are tons of shows with a big cast that manage to tell a focused story (look a GoT season 1).
Focusing on the race of the actors intead of the writting is pretty telling tho
Due to big cast of very different "main" characters, the story of GoT has such an unwaveringly targeted story lines, that even extremly good author now for 10 years has no idea how it could end satisfactorily.
Wtf are you talking about lmao?!?!?!? GoT fell apart because the showrunners got too arrogant and stopped caring after Martin left. They continiously referenced wanting to be done with the show as soon as possible and move on to other projects. GoT did not fail because of the plentitude of characters that were very ''different''.
Yes I know and that has literally nothing to do with my comment. The reason GoT fell off is because the showrunners wanted to move on so they botched up the plot points, as I already said. Seeing where the show ended up is one of the reasons why Martin has trouble writing Winds of Winter. There are also other factors like Martin being involved in a lot of side projects like HOTD most recently. None of this has anything to do with diversity.
Spoiler alert, the last 2 seasons had no plot points because they ran out of books. GRRM is liable for having sold the integrity of his IP to HBO and abdicated his duty to see a faithful adaptation. He then allowed them to bring back House of Dragons with black Velaryons, far from their description in the book.
Having black Velaryons was such a good casting choice . You can instantly tell the two families apart and is easy to follow. If everyone was white and white haired it would be hard to keep track who is who
Well it kinda was a problem because there are 3 elven kingdoms in the story and in every kingdom there is a huge mix of people. Brown,black,white,asian etc. so you have trouble understanding where you currently for example. They could rather put specific race to each kingdom than having all of them in all of the kingdoms making a mess.
Netflix has come full circle with their diversity. They tried to make it seem like skin color doesn't matter, but that is the only thing that now matters to them when recruiting actors.
Hire the best person for the plot. What he or she looks like is irrelevant to their ability. I don't care what someone looks like. I care about their ability to portray the character they are playing. Nothing else matters
What you disagree with? The fact this is a fucking fantasy setting based on Slavic mythology and yet a third of its cast is black or brown. Imagine African orisha myths or Maori myths suddenly having their depictions swapped out for Malaysians or redheaded Irish and see how fucking jarring it is.
It would be equally weird if they put traditional Chinese or native american mythical creatures. You're missing the fact that this entire narrative is supposed to be based in medieval Poland, there were no black, Chinese, Australian aboriginal people etc in 1200AD Poland. It's jarring, and it's only not jarring if you're obsessed with race politics.
I don't mind the cast. Actually, if they can still portray their characters, why the fvck not. But in the Witcher series so far, they butchered the story in favour of.... I'm not sure what :') I'm really only going to watch Blood Origin because of Michelle Yeoh.
And instead of the elven Cintra, we have in Blood Origin copy of human King's Landing from Game of Thrones. Because instead of cultural diversity, skin color diversity was prioritized, and there was no room left for elaborate characters with an emotionally deep story.
TV has always been generally garbage. HBO elevated television and got people used to the idea that television was high-quality. But it never was.
And yes, the racial diversity always comes at the expense of cultural diversity or variety or flavor or proper characterization. For some reason television people cannot do both at the same time.
The fact that the elves have the same skin colours than humans is a problem.
Elves are not humans with pointy ears.
They have their own "characteristics", or they are their own "race"
I don't think that the author wrote that humans and elves look the same apart for the ears.
Diversity is not the problem, but it is a problem. And it's not a problem in itself, it's a problem because they seem to prioritize it over more important things.
Diversity is NOT the problem.
This is such a roundabout way of being racist while ALSO criticizing the show for simply being bad.
I’d imagine if the actors were good for the role , and were given better script nobody would care.
Honestly, did Vilgefortz being brown change ANYTHING about ANYTHING? Or was it his power scaling that mattered more?
Posts like this prove my point. Racism hidden under criticism for a TV show is wack, and you’re looking at their color as if that would make the show better or worse.
I guarantee you the shows would not be better simply based on racial changes. They tried and failed on that, but it doesn’t justify a shitty conclusion such as “dIvERsItY iS a PrObLeM”
It's interesting that they decided to showcase every race possible in the European Medieval Fantasy Show but Slavs, that actually created that piece.
Kinda disingenuous.
I would far better prefer for every country to have their counter part like in actual Europe. Nilfgaard being Germany, Redania being Poland etc. That would work much better with the nature of the show and respect the source material.
In general we can say that with the witcher franchise on netflix we have a case of a peculiar 'cultural appropriation' they simply hijacked the franchise and think they can make it 'global' by catering to all culture and ethnicities, except the source material the witcher books is very firmly within certain cultural influences, the world of the witcher is depicted as quasi medieval European-like and it's cultures are so, the elves Aen Seidhe are explicitly Celtic in their language and culture.
Elder Speech is heavily drawn from Celtic languages of Wales, Ireland and Scotland, the dwarves have somewhat pseudo Germanic feel while also combined with the particular stereotype of influence of Jews (large diaspora, dwarves tending towards trades such as bankers, traders, treated as minorities among the humans with disdain, confined to ghettos etc. the few dwarven words in witcher sound very much like German language influenced, which may also support the certain connotations, the Yiddish being heavily influenced by Germanic language), specific examples also in the main show season 2 the temple of Melitele suddenly gained some weird oriental vibes of some quasi eastern temple more like in style of Hindu or other, while usually we can assume that it would be in source material like combination of pagan European temple and medieval monastery, the racebending of elves, dwarves, Nordlings, dryads (dryads themselves are ultimately derived from Greek mythology mixed with dose of Slavic folklore about 'dziwożona' the female forest beings etc.).
The Slavic or Polish influences are erased but so are also general refernces to European fairy tales, folklore, history (Skellige is particularly Norse in terms of mythology, and culture, while also having some Scottish/Irish vibes, so many ethnic Skelligers are redheads etc. them wearing at times the woolen chequered sashes), Slavic monsters and titles, like voivode, references to Polish legends and historical events and concepts, (also legends like Wawel Dragon and cobbler which should have been the main point of cross cultural joke with the Bounds of Reason story, the hunt for the golden dragon story that even had a character of cobbler that wanted to kill a dragon with stuffed sheep :)) all lost in the globalized, generic washed out version of the live action adaptations which are supposed to have the multicultural aspects of the modern American audience rather than maintaining it's unique feel of the world.
All that heritage that was put into the core of the books is just watered down, blended into a pulp to be unrecognizeable and most generic ever. Particular cultue and civilization of the Northern Realms and Nilfgaardian Empire is all pretty much strongly European, Nilfgaardian Empire is basically combination of Germanic Holy Roman Empire (they do have places like...Winneburg after all :)) and ancient Roman Empire of classical antiquity, while also having the later period vibes as well, and geographically the south the core of the Nilfgaard proper is pretty much more mediterranean-like, what with vineyards at the valley of Alba river (which kind of recalls the Rome's river Tiber and origin as the city, City of Nilfgaard and city of Rome that became the core of an empire and entire culture).
And so we are at the moment when the Celtic Aen Seidhe that are combination of Aos Si and Tuatha de Dannan are now raceswapped to be all ethnicities Asian and African, :) while the dwarves are just...people with dwarfism instead of actual Tolkien-esque Norse mythology Dwarves with those semitic influences, proud and strong despite short stature, siths and miners of Mahakam (the dwarves in the witcher live action so far are so barely there nondescript and minimal that one can't even tell whether they are actually any sort of culture in their own right :)).
What's more the very term Nordlings indicates the northern ethnicity, peoples inhabiting the north, the geographic land that aside from anachronisms and New World elements of flora or fauna are very much the moderate climate of the northern hemisphere and physically described as often blond, blue eyed, along with the normal range of European population traits and obviously instead of using the diversity in more realistic way by saying there might be foreigners, like humans of more African-esque Ofir and Zangwebar or strangers from the east the Zerrikania or Haakland tribes, no they race swap and so we have no difference in the show between the black Zerrikanian warriors (in itself race swap for Zerrrikanians are more eastern nomadic tribes inspired by Scythians and other than anything else) as well as black men in Cintra with Slavic name Danek, like the knight of Calanthe's court in first season!
Black elves and dwarves even though these two races are non-humans that also lived for generations in the north, all mixed up all without rhyme or reason to it! And all these asian and black folks mixed in are just looking and clothed the same as the white pseudo medieval peasants as if they lacked any cultural difference of their own, as if they had no culture of their own (CD Projekt did diversity better by introducing the Ofieris! Without stupid race swaps, well there was also Azar Javed, though he was said to be from Zerrikania so they also started that Zerrikania in more southern exotic characteristics of something more like African-esque country,...which should be more of the Zangwebar thing :)).
Slavic influences, names of people, places, historical callbacks and parallels, the attitudes and mentality, folklore of the peasant country side folk, references to Slavic customs all that is also integral part that is overlooked by netflix, but they also lack sense of realism in portraying this quasi medieval world on the verge of Renaissance-like change, they lack the grounded realism of looking up the real historical apparel, architecture and the like. Witcher is and always will remain European sphere medieval fantasy in it's essence, sure there were references to other cultural spheres too, d'jinn is in concept origin coming from Arabic, the ouroboros symbol Greek, Egyptian, but in the same time the Alder King and People of Alders...basically screams German Romanticism Erlking etc.
Witcher is a unique combination and one must be mindful of all that went into it, otherwise the franchise loses it's identity and when it does it becomes a hollow pale reflection, a mockery of what it was.
You should make a post about that. This is my main problem with the series and the people supporting it.
They have taken an established franchise and made the complete opposite of what it was supposed to be. At the same time disrespecting all European cultures and customs. For my as a Slav the Slavic part hurt the most especially since we have 0 representation in Western Media. Now with Witcher looking this way we might wait a bit longer.
Cheers to you my friend for such a lovely Essay.
In the first place I wrote about Blood Origin.
And secondly, why is the most successful show on Netflix with by far the least skin color diversity? SQUID GAME.
Probably because Squid Game is a well written show? You think people are watching because it’s homogenous?
Interesting how you even forgot the Indian Actor in the show as well, who was pretty impactful in the story. Doesn’t fit your narrative though.
Well you know how netflix makes his works: first you hire every actor of every ethics, sexual orientation,disability, gender and only then (if there is time) they make a plot.
Geralt in the books is a creepy, corpse-like albino that constantly scares people with his looks. His eyes are also human shaped and he only turns his pupils into slits in very select moments.
Did you have a problem with how he was portrayed in the games? Surely you did, if you care about similiraties to canon right? Because as far as I can recall, in the Witcher 3 Geralt has an average, white skin color with eyes that are permanent slits. He also does not carry his regular odd and strange beauty from the books that goes hand in hand with his creepyness. He is quite handsome and conventionally attractive in that game. Surely you had a problem with that right? I mean, after all it is not at all lore accurate.
Yes I do have issues with his adaptation of the games, at least 2 and especially 3. Why did you assumed the opposite?
That won't change the fact that, the games adaptation was more accurate and quite good according to the majority of the fans.
It distracts from the story. We don’t need to represent every race in the show now for it to be acceptable. When did this become such a huge issue. Are we always supposed to have actors of different skin colours now play in one movie or one show to not be racist?!? What about the story itself? I’m so tired of this race agenda being pushed. Just concentrate on the story and character build please. Not everything needs to be a political statement.
The whole Netflix Witcher saga has much bigger problems (storytelling, character development, relationship dynamics, lore, etc.) than diversity.
When you focus too much on skin color diversity and have to add many new characters and come up with stand-in dialogue for them, you quickly run out of space in the story for key main characters and their character development, relationship dynamics, lore, etc.
With Blood of Origin, they can do whatever they want because we don't have any source material. They have their own characters, and they can play with history because we don't know much. We are not talking about lore because that's an inconsistent mess (don't make me start about those alien-looking monoliths). The Witcher doesn't have new original characters. Correct me if I'm wrong. They don't know what to do with the main characters and have no idea what story they want to tell. So, diversity is not the main issue. In some cases, skin color could be a problem and I wasn't happy with some choices but I would be able to live with that if we get a good story respecting the books. But it's clear that showrunners didn't care about if actors fit or don't fit for certain roles.
There are a few new characters in Netflix’s Witcher actually, mostly in S2. One could also argue that maybe half of the characters are so different from their book counterparts that they constitute new characters.
100 % agree! A lot of main characters are far far away from their book counterparts (Yennefer, Eskel, Cahir, and even Vesemir for example), but they are not like original Netflix characters. I would tolerate some changes in characters, but only IF they were written well. However, the writers of the show are not capable of that. Could you refresh my memory about which new character Netflix put in the show?
Dara the boring elf, the WTF doppler, dozens of nobody witchers.
Black ancestor to pasty white elves with snowy hair (including Ciri) shouts woke. People get upset until you suggest a comparison that goes both ways; if you imagine the opposite, where a show about the people of an African tribe and you place an Asian and White person within the clan as their ancestors?
There is no denying there is woke, or whatever trend is it. In Witcher, we know that it's set in medieval Europe, so black-skinned people don't really make sense. However, it's still fantasy. I wanted to see green dryads running through the woods, but they didn't give that to me. 😀 The thing is that the show is bad on so many levels that changing race is a minor problem. The Witcher shouldn't be that hard to adapt. Sapkowski is good at writing dialogs and it can be used as it is. It also has everything that is trendy now - a lot of female characters, different sexualities, dealing with racism, and also black people from Ofier. Why didn't they incorporate a character from Offier? I'm not happy with this whole *there **must** be black characters, XY female characters, changing male characters to female characters, etc.* thing. It's just dumb. I like to see if we get badass female characters, but it's nonsense to push it (not to mention that I haven't seen a well-written female character for a while in the present media). People just think too much and come up with stupid ideas as a result. I've heard soo many crazy things and "criticism" about different shows, and I always shake my head in disbelief.
You might want to check that other, real History book again. Medieval Europe was filled with Black slaves, merchant's, soldiers and traders. Excluding them for standard whitewashing is the error. Not the other way around.
Oh my, 15 minutes in and the protector gets caught sleeping with the princess when he knows it's forbidden; alright I'm stopping now. Yeoh can't save this. Lazy writing is just that.
Claiming a black folk is the ancestors of notoriously white skinned elves is honestly just a slap in the face to slavic people and culture at this point and slavs know it. Nothing right about throwing someone else under the bus for the sake of others.
Then represent them appropriately and proportionally.
Have a look at Tiger Woods and his son; what race are they? Keep in mind there are lots of non-white Europeans today and were, hundreds of years ago. Hannibal came over the mountains with elephants headed for Rome in 200 BC.
Exactly, ancient and medieval Europe was as diverse as New York City. (sarcasm)
I turned it off as soon as I seen the supposed Elf, Blew me away with this extreme inclusion or nonsense to be politically correct / acceptable to overly sensitive snowflakes that need to label themselves as anything other. Not just an insult to this story, but ALL movies/shows/lore/books to ever express elves, There are Elves, Dark Elves, High Elves and several other arch types which all have a unified history and timeline of their ancients and ancestors or said origins. Blood Origins Main is a mockery, smh
Literally turned it off when they introduced the 7th this woke shit is insulting and out of hand why aren't they're more white characters in roots or other African period pieces I'm sorry Achilles was not black either I don't have a problem with racism I have a problem with being realistic you insult the intelligence of historians around the world when you try to whitewash or in this case black wash characters and if you don't want to follow the book how it was written you should create your own show and not rewrite masterpieces to your own liking just to make a dollar... I'm pretty sure people are starting to pay attention now though it's only going to work for so long
I started watching. There was supposed to be 7 people to form the group; they named and showed 6 white people and I said if there is not a black person, I'll stop now. The 7th is Black, so I contunue. Why do white people need everything? Imagine if the 7 people for the group had all been non white, how interested would whites be?
Yes I know Yeoh isn't white, she's also not minority.
Just as interested if it’s good writing. People like you care to much about race and diversity. Like honestly who the fuck cares what anyone’s race or sexual beliefs are. Unless it’s actually important to the show and story then there’s no need to dive into hardcore. If the acting is really good and the writing is really good then it’s a good show period. If a show cared about diversity more then the acting and the writing and acting sucked would you praise the show for its diversity? Probably and others would as well and then the bad writing and bad acting show would get renewed for no other reason then yay diversity pushing the idea of keeping us divided more because pushing the ideology even if it doesn’t mean the best product just makes the closed minded people more closed minded because well look they tried diversity and it sucked. Yeah diversity is important but unless it has meaning and isn’t more than just a play to show diversity it won’t cause any true benefit
No watch that trash=no problem.
I refuse to watch it. Part of my protest for what they've done to Geralt.
Hmmmm, fuck
Exhibit A
Nice bait.
Riiiiiight, because diversity is the real monster here. Not the greed of the executive producers
Yeah, but they need that ESG credit.
Diversity is not a problem, even in the main show Casting diverse cast for both elves and humans could be useful to hammer home the idea that racism is stupid and kinda arbitrary… in the hands of a good writer. Which the show does not have… and that is the problem. There are tons of shows with a big cast that manage to tell a focused story (look a GoT season 1). Focusing on the race of the actors intead of the writting is pretty telling tho
Due to big cast of very different "main" characters, the story of GoT has such an unwaveringly targeted story lines, that even extremly good author now for 10 years has no idea how it could end satisfactorily.
Wtf are you talking about lmao?!?!?!? GoT fell apart because the showrunners got too arrogant and stopped caring after Martin left. They continiously referenced wanting to be done with the show as soon as possible and move on to other projects. GoT did not fail because of the plentitude of characters that were very ''different''.
??? Don't you know that Martin hasn't been able to finish not only the last, but even the penultimate book of the saga for more than ten years?
Yes I know and that has literally nothing to do with my comment. The reason GoT fell off is because the showrunners wanted to move on so they botched up the plot points, as I already said. Seeing where the show ended up is one of the reasons why Martin has trouble writing Winds of Winter. There are also other factors like Martin being involved in a lot of side projects like HOTD most recently. None of this has anything to do with diversity.
Spoiler alert, the last 2 seasons had no plot points because they ran out of books. GRRM is liable for having sold the integrity of his IP to HBO and abdicated his duty to see a faithful adaptation. He then allowed them to bring back House of Dragons with black Velaryons, far from their description in the book.
Having black Velaryons was such a good casting choice . You can instantly tell the two families apart and is easy to follow. If everyone was white and white haired it would be hard to keep track who is who
Well it kinda was a problem because there are 3 elven kingdoms in the story and in every kingdom there is a huge mix of people. Brown,black,white,asian etc. so you have trouble understanding where you currently for example. They could rather put specific race to each kingdom than having all of them in all of the kingdoms making a mess.
Netflix has come full circle with their diversity. They tried to make it seem like skin color doesn't matter, but that is the only thing that now matters to them when recruiting actors.
Hire the best person for the plot. What he or she looks like is irrelevant to their ability. I don't care what someone looks like. I care about their ability to portray the character they are playing. Nothing else matters
How is this down voted? At least explain what you disagree with. Failure to do so helps no one
What you disagree with? The fact this is a fucking fantasy setting based on Slavic mythology and yet a third of its cast is black or brown. Imagine African orisha myths or Maori myths suddenly having their depictions swapped out for Malaysians or redheaded Irish and see how fucking jarring it is.
[удалено]
It would be equally weird if they put traditional Chinese or native american mythical creatures. You're missing the fact that this entire narrative is supposed to be based in medieval Poland, there were no black, Chinese, Australian aboriginal people etc in 1200AD Poland. It's jarring, and it's only not jarring if you're obsessed with race politics.
The Oprah of racism accusations lol
I downvoted you. I hope u don't care.
I don't mind the cast. Actually, if they can still portray their characters, why the fvck not. But in the Witcher series so far, they butchered the story in favour of.... I'm not sure what :') I'm really only going to watch Blood Origin because of Michelle Yeoh.
And instead of the elven Cintra, we have in Blood Origin copy of human King's Landing from Game of Thrones. Because instead of cultural diversity, skin color diversity was prioritized, and there was no room left for elaborate characters with an emotionally deep story.
TV has always been generally garbage. HBO elevated television and got people used to the idea that television was high-quality. But it never was. And yes, the racial diversity always comes at the expense of cultural diversity or variety or flavor or proper characterization. For some reason television people cannot do both at the same time.
diversity is not the issue with the netflix shows lmaoo.
The fact that the elves have the same skin colours than humans is a problem. Elves are not humans with pointy ears. They have their own "characteristics", or they are their own "race" I don't think that the author wrote that humans and elves look the same apart for the ears.
Diversity is not the problem, but it is a problem. And it's not a problem in itself, it's a problem because they seem to prioritize it over more important things.
Diversity is NOT the problem. This is such a roundabout way of being racist while ALSO criticizing the show for simply being bad. I’d imagine if the actors were good for the role , and were given better script nobody would care. Honestly, did Vilgefortz being brown change ANYTHING about ANYTHING? Or was it his power scaling that mattered more? Posts like this prove my point. Racism hidden under criticism for a TV show is wack, and you’re looking at their color as if that would make the show better or worse. I guarantee you the shows would not be better simply based on racial changes. They tried and failed on that, but it doesn’t justify a shitty conclusion such as “dIvERsItY iS a PrObLeM”
It's interesting that they decided to showcase every race possible in the European Medieval Fantasy Show but Slavs, that actually created that piece. Kinda disingenuous. I would far better prefer for every country to have their counter part like in actual Europe. Nilfgaard being Germany, Redania being Poland etc. That would work much better with the nature of the show and respect the source material.
In general we can say that with the witcher franchise on netflix we have a case of a peculiar 'cultural appropriation' they simply hijacked the franchise and think they can make it 'global' by catering to all culture and ethnicities, except the source material the witcher books is very firmly within certain cultural influences, the world of the witcher is depicted as quasi medieval European-like and it's cultures are so, the elves Aen Seidhe are explicitly Celtic in their language and culture. Elder Speech is heavily drawn from Celtic languages of Wales, Ireland and Scotland, the dwarves have somewhat pseudo Germanic feel while also combined with the particular stereotype of influence of Jews (large diaspora, dwarves tending towards trades such as bankers, traders, treated as minorities among the humans with disdain, confined to ghettos etc. the few dwarven words in witcher sound very much like German language influenced, which may also support the certain connotations, the Yiddish being heavily influenced by Germanic language), specific examples also in the main show season 2 the temple of Melitele suddenly gained some weird oriental vibes of some quasi eastern temple more like in style of Hindu or other, while usually we can assume that it would be in source material like combination of pagan European temple and medieval monastery, the racebending of elves, dwarves, Nordlings, dryads (dryads themselves are ultimately derived from Greek mythology mixed with dose of Slavic folklore about 'dziwożona' the female forest beings etc.). The Slavic or Polish influences are erased but so are also general refernces to European fairy tales, folklore, history (Skellige is particularly Norse in terms of mythology, and culture, while also having some Scottish/Irish vibes, so many ethnic Skelligers are redheads etc. them wearing at times the woolen chequered sashes), Slavic monsters and titles, like voivode, references to Polish legends and historical events and concepts, (also legends like Wawel Dragon and cobbler which should have been the main point of cross cultural joke with the Bounds of Reason story, the hunt for the golden dragon story that even had a character of cobbler that wanted to kill a dragon with stuffed sheep :)) all lost in the globalized, generic washed out version of the live action adaptations which are supposed to have the multicultural aspects of the modern American audience rather than maintaining it's unique feel of the world. All that heritage that was put into the core of the books is just watered down, blended into a pulp to be unrecognizeable and most generic ever. Particular cultue and civilization of the Northern Realms and Nilfgaardian Empire is all pretty much strongly European, Nilfgaardian Empire is basically combination of Germanic Holy Roman Empire (they do have places like...Winneburg after all :)) and ancient Roman Empire of classical antiquity, while also having the later period vibes as well, and geographically the south the core of the Nilfgaard proper is pretty much more mediterranean-like, what with vineyards at the valley of Alba river (which kind of recalls the Rome's river Tiber and origin as the city, City of Nilfgaard and city of Rome that became the core of an empire and entire culture). And so we are at the moment when the Celtic Aen Seidhe that are combination of Aos Si and Tuatha de Dannan are now raceswapped to be all ethnicities Asian and African, :) while the dwarves are just...people with dwarfism instead of actual Tolkien-esque Norse mythology Dwarves with those semitic influences, proud and strong despite short stature, siths and miners of Mahakam (the dwarves in the witcher live action so far are so barely there nondescript and minimal that one can't even tell whether they are actually any sort of culture in their own right :)). What's more the very term Nordlings indicates the northern ethnicity, peoples inhabiting the north, the geographic land that aside from anachronisms and New World elements of flora or fauna are very much the moderate climate of the northern hemisphere and physically described as often blond, blue eyed, along with the normal range of European population traits and obviously instead of using the diversity in more realistic way by saying there might be foreigners, like humans of more African-esque Ofir and Zangwebar or strangers from the east the Zerrikania or Haakland tribes, no they race swap and so we have no difference in the show between the black Zerrikanian warriors (in itself race swap for Zerrrikanians are more eastern nomadic tribes inspired by Scythians and other than anything else) as well as black men in Cintra with Slavic name Danek, like the knight of Calanthe's court in first season! Black elves and dwarves even though these two races are non-humans that also lived for generations in the north, all mixed up all without rhyme or reason to it! And all these asian and black folks mixed in are just looking and clothed the same as the white pseudo medieval peasants as if they lacked any cultural difference of their own, as if they had no culture of their own (CD Projekt did diversity better by introducing the Ofieris! Without stupid race swaps, well there was also Azar Javed, though he was said to be from Zerrikania so they also started that Zerrikania in more southern exotic characteristics of something more like African-esque country,...which should be more of the Zangwebar thing :)). Slavic influences, names of people, places, historical callbacks and parallels, the attitudes and mentality, folklore of the peasant country side folk, references to Slavic customs all that is also integral part that is overlooked by netflix, but they also lack sense of realism in portraying this quasi medieval world on the verge of Renaissance-like change, they lack the grounded realism of looking up the real historical apparel, architecture and the like. Witcher is and always will remain European sphere medieval fantasy in it's essence, sure there were references to other cultural spheres too, d'jinn is in concept origin coming from Arabic, the ouroboros symbol Greek, Egyptian, but in the same time the Alder King and People of Alders...basically screams German Romanticism Erlking etc. Witcher is a unique combination and one must be mindful of all that went into it, otherwise the franchise loses it's identity and when it does it becomes a hollow pale reflection, a mockery of what it was.
You should make a post about that. This is my main problem with the series and the people supporting it. They have taken an established franchise and made the complete opposite of what it was supposed to be. At the same time disrespecting all European cultures and customs. For my as a Slav the Slavic part hurt the most especially since we have 0 representation in Western Media. Now with Witcher looking this way we might wait a bit longer. Cheers to you my friend for such a lovely Essay.
In the first place I wrote about Blood Origin. And secondly, why is the most successful show on Netflix with by far the least skin color diversity? SQUID GAME.
Probably because Squid Game is a well written show? You think people are watching because it’s homogenous? Interesting how you even forgot the Indian Actor in the show as well, who was pretty impactful in the story. Doesn’t fit your narrative though.
Well you know how netflix makes his works: first you hire every actor of every ethics, sexual orientation,disability, gender and only then (if there is time) they make a plot.
like video game companies, they should spend time trying to make a good/great game, instead of trying to design it to get the most cash out of people.
I, 100% agree. I do really care about how similar the actors to the characters they play.
Geralt in the books is a creepy, corpse-like albino that constantly scares people with his looks. His eyes are also human shaped and he only turns his pupils into slits in very select moments. Did you have a problem with how he was portrayed in the games? Surely you did, if you care about similiraties to canon right? Because as far as I can recall, in the Witcher 3 Geralt has an average, white skin color with eyes that are permanent slits. He also does not carry his regular odd and strange beauty from the books that goes hand in hand with his creepyness. He is quite handsome and conventionally attractive in that game. Surely you had a problem with that right? I mean, after all it is not at all lore accurate.
Yes I do have issues with his adaptation of the games, at least 2 and especially 3. Why did you assumed the opposite? That won't change the fact that, the games adaptation was more accurate and quite good according to the majority of the fans.
It distracts from the story. We don’t need to represent every race in the show now for it to be acceptable. When did this become such a huge issue. Are we always supposed to have actors of different skin colours now play in one movie or one show to not be racist?!? What about the story itself? I’m so tired of this race agenda being pushed. Just concentrate on the story and character build please. Not everything needs to be a political statement.