The Witcher - Netflix **Spoilers**

Well, things were all going a bit too smoothly...

https://www.pcgamesn.com/the-witcher-netflix-cast-ciri

The casting for Crilla, the ‘The Lion Cub of Cintra’ reads “looking for a 16 or 15 year old BAME” – that’s ‘black, Asian, and minority ethnic’ if you’re not from the UK – “girl who can play down to 13/14. Must not be older than 18 years old.” Certain corners of the internet are preemptively upset about the possibility of Ciri not being white, though there’s little justifiable reason for it – unless you’re married to the idea that Polish fantasy requires Polish ethnicity across all its fictional nations.

Naturally, the internet has lost its ****.

If it's true, they really have shot themselves in the foot here.

They can probably get away with fiddling with the appearance of any secondary character, but Geralt, Yennefer and Ciri have pretty well defined looks at this point, and the core of the audience that will give it any staying power are probably going to be the ones already invested in them, either from the books or the games.

You can argue that none of it matters, but if you start making arbitrary changes to the story, at what point do you just have to ask, why not make your own story instead of changing this one to be what you want?

I've seen some suggest that BAME might include Eastern European, which doesn't really strike me as likely, but who knows. I'll assume it's all bollocks until they confirm otherwise because it sounds too daft and too lacking in self awareness to be likely.

Geralt and Ciri posted

Ciri and Yennefer have been cast

https://tvline.com/2018/10/10/the-witcher-series-casts-ciri-freya-allan/

The casting of the other sorceresses, but not Triss is a little puzzling. Other than Yennefer, she's the first to appear, and other than Yennefer, none appear until Blood of Elves.

I wonder does that mean they're going to do some extra background story for Yennefer, showing their time together under Tissaia at Aretuza. I think she speaks of it a bit in the books, but you never see it first hand.

If Ndiweni is Fringilla, then perhaps they'll build up a rivalry there.

Chalotra maybe looks a bit girlish for Yennefer, but she's supposed to look early 20s, so it's not a big deal.
I also wonder is Freya Allan a bit old? She's supposed be ten when she first turns up.
I suppose she's quite a young 17, and if they fudge it so that she's 15 to begin with or whatever, it's grand, really. The particulars of the timeline aren't that important for her.

Presumably we'll get Duny, Dandelion, Pavetta and so on at a later date.

I do wonder, will they include all the short stories, will they stick to the Yennefer and Ciri-centric ones, or are they writing mostly new material.

They're clearly including "A Lesser Evil" with Renfri being cast, as well as "A Question of Price" introducing Calanthe and Ciri's plotline, and presumably "The Last Wish". From the second collection, they're almost certainly including "The Sword of Destiny" and "Something More". I wonder will they throw in the battle of Sodden Hill or other battles with Nilfgaard for the climax of the first season.

I wonder how they're going to handle pronunciation in the show. It'd be nice if they got some Gaeilgeoirs in to handle some of the Elder speech on which it's based. It grated a bit to hear Clan Tuirseach pronounced "Tweersek".
Edit: Also, sometimes it's Welsh. Get some Cymrus in as well.

Some more casting.

I don't think I recognise any of them, but Lars is Mads brother and Anna Shaffer was Romilda Vane in one of the Harry Potter films. She doesn't look much like the pale ginger Triss, but that doesn't really matter terribly.

Cavill looks alright. Probably more tweaking and post production to go yet.

Don't see what's wrong with Triss. Cavill is wearing a wig, she can too.

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

I thought Josh Holloway (Lost) would be good too

I think he's just an awful actor.

The colour of "roasted chestnuts" it was, which can be anything from light brown to kinda how her hair looks in the game depending on the light

But yeah, id rather they went mildly accurate instead of altering a lot just to tick off the racial diversity box

https://twitter.com/seewhatsnext/status/1145693837676797952

Geralt doesn't have a beard in the books. They're quite explicit about that. He's probably in his 50's or 60's sort of thing early doors, before Ciri is born. He's pushing 100 in the W3, but it doesn't really matter because Witchers can be 300+ (as I think Vesemir is).

I'm sure Cavill will look better on screen than in a test wig for casting. Im more interested to see how they act than how they look in stills. I suppose it's good that they don't look totally ridiculous with pink hair and wings, but I wouldn't have expected to learn much from them at this point.

A clearer frontal pick from Cavill's instagram:



He does look the part alright.