Where Our Heroes are Scattered to the Winds

You know, I actually have to feel bad for the production team that tried (and, really, failed) to adapt The Witcher into a NetflixOriginally started as a disc-by-mail service, Netflix has grown to be one of the largest media companies in the world (and one of the most valued internet companies as well). With a constant slate of new internet streaming-based programming that updates all the time, Netflix has redefined what it means to watch TV and films (as well as how to do it). television series. They had their first season, which was fairly easy to adapt as they could take a series of episodic short stories (from book one and book two) and turn them into a series of television episodes. That’s easy enough to handle. But from book three and onwards, these novels aren’t really telling a single, continuous story that would lend themselves well to any kind of episodic storytelling. It’s ungainly, it’s weird, and it’s certainly not something easy to turn into television.

Take book four, The Time of Contempt. It starts off with Ciri and Yennifer on the road, heading under disguise across the countryside so as to avoid those that had been looking for the young, magical girl. Meanwhile, Geralt was elsewhere, looking for them while having to deal with his own troubles. This then leads to an adventure in a city near the magical school of Aretuza, all before a reunion between Yennifer, Ciri, and Geralt, that culminates in a giant feast at Aretuza right on the cusp of a great war breaking out across the countryside.

That’s a lot of story, told is stitched together segments, written like long passages that start and end without fitting neatly into normal storytelling structure. We pick up part way into an adventure, we carry on for a time until the author has conveyed what he wants, and then the passage ends without, necessarily, us seeing the actual ending of that adventure. Many key scenes are implied off page, or told third hand. Big moments feel small because the characters have other concerns. Much of the story is implied or thought about after the fact because the story comes from specific perspectives of the characters and their limited scope during the adventures.

And the weirdest thing is that this whole story, leading to the war that breaks out across the continent, is only half the book. There’s then a time jump, with the heroes scattered once more across the world, and the characters then have to play catch up, learning what’s going on because so much of the world has passed them by. It works in the context of the book, even if it does feel a little weird, but for a television show? This would be all but impossible to adapt properly. It’d be better as a series of mini- and maxi-movies. For anyone wanting to make an adaptation of this, The The of Contempt would be all but impenetrable.

But the very reason why it wouldn’t (and doesn’t) work as a traditional television narrative is exactly why the book is so compelling. You have this story, told in segments from the perspective of different characters, and the narrative drags you along from one adventure to the next. It drops you in and often forces you to catch up, only sometimes having characters pause along a riverbank to discuss current events. More often than not you’re running after the heroes as they get caught up in some new mischief, and it gives the story a propulsive feel, forcing you to keep reading lest you get left behind.

The biggest knock I have against this fourth novel in the series is that the one character not really well served by the story is Geralt himself, the titular Witcher. While not completely passive in the story, Geralt’s line of the novel is really there to simply push the story along. He meets with people, has discussions, talks about Ciri (or tries to move the conversations away from her) and in general seems to have little more purpose in the story than to be a talking head. Heck, the one big battle he gets into this book he loses, and then is forced to spend the rest of the novel out of commission, recovering in the land of the dryads. Our Witcher is barely in The Witcher, and you feel the lack of his presence.

I suppose it does make sense, in a way, since Ciri, and not Geralt, is really becoming the main focus of the story. While the books are named for Geralt (his title, anyway), Ciri is the real locus of all the action. Everyone on the continent wants her (or wants to kill her), everyone is fighting to get to her, and so much of the grand evil villain’s plan (which we still don’t clearly know yet) hinges on Ciri and her power. She is our central character to the point that the books really could be called Cirilla and not The Witcher.

Tellingly, after the time jump, the one character that really gets things to do is Cirilla. Yennifer is missing, Geralt is laid up (getting news from his friend, Dandelion), and then the novel focuses on Ciri for the last big chapters. She gets dropped into the desert, forced to find her way out via magic (and the help of a young unicorn), only to then get captured by Nilfguardians for the bounty on her head. She’s dragged to a tavern, escapes with the help of the Rats (a band of nasty ruffians) and ends up joining their gang because, well, she doesn’t have anything better to do. Her story diverges from the main narrative and then takes over the book, while everyone we had been following for the last three novels is set aside. It’s… well, strange.

But it does also force us to realize that the series, going forward, will work to keep the various narrative threads even more diverse than they were before. Ciri splits off to have her own adventures away from Yennifer and Geralt. Each of them had been overseeing and protecting her, but now she has to take what they taught her and become her own person, forced to grow up into a young woman before anyone thought she was ready. It’s a solid storytelling shift for her character, and it speaks to the fact that she will become a major player in her own right going forward. Three-and-a-half books in (basically the halfway point of the original saga) and Ciri had to fight for herself.

Still, you do feel the lack of Yennifer and Geralt in the book, as it goes on. Geralt was our main character for the first two story collections, and he’s become our focus over time. We like him and we want to follow his adventures. Sidelining him for much of the narrative is a choice, and an odd one, and you wish he’d pick up his sword and do more this time around. The few times he does are great, but they aren’t here enough and I want more. I guess the novelist has done well in that regard, making us pine for more of the main character. It just feels like teasing right now until we get what comes next.

Yennifer, though… she feels very absent this time around. A few early scenes (and a whole lot of nudity in one sequence) doesn’t really give her much to do. She feels removed from the story, above it somehow, which is strange after she grew to be a major part of Ciri’s story and became a main player in the narrative. The times where Dandelion flits off and goes sight unseen is one thing; that’s how his character works. But Yenn should be doing more here, at least from a reader perspective, but like with Geralt she’s missing and you wish she wasn’t.

And yet this story does work while you’re reading it. It’s a transitional book, in more ways than one, showing us the end of what had become the status quo for our characters as they’re shoved out into a new normal that will define their adventures for the books to come. It’s weird, and messy, and not something you can adapt to the screen functionally at all, but I didn’t hate it. I enjoyed the journey and was shocked at some of the twists that happened. I just want more.

Thankfully there are three more books to go, so I don’t have to wait long. And credit to the author, even when these books were releasing one at a time back in the day readers didn’t have to wait more than a year between stories. Considering some sagas go years (even decades) between books, that’s a pace you can respect. So if the middle book is a little messy that’s not a big deal, just as long as what comes next really kicks everything into high gear.