(no subject)

[shadowkat]

1. So, I've fallen in love with The Witcher series on NETFLIX. I think I may become fannish about something again. It's playing with my head. And it gets better and better the more I think about it.

Season 1 dropped with just 8 episodes -- and they are tightly plotted episodes, with great production, interesting metaphors, and some of the best drawn female characters that I've seen in a fantasy series. (I want more Netflix, please renew! If you can renew Stranger Things (which I think I've given up on) you can renew something I love.

I finished watching it on Sunday, and the more I think about it, the more it works and I love it to pieces. I may re-watch it -- which is something I rarely do. (I've only re-watched a handful of series in my lifetime. I'm not a re-watcher, too many shows, too little time. And I have insanely eclectic taste.)

It basically does everything that Game of Thrones did wrong, right. The Witcher washed the bitter taste that Game left in my mouth over the summer.

Here's a link to one of the meta's that I found online via Averil, I Love How the Witcher Proves How You Can Have A Sexist World Without Having a Sexist Story

Queen Calanthe – jfc, Queen Calanthe is how Daenerys Targaryen should have been handled. She’s a powerful woman, an unapologetically ambitious warrior woman, who falls and loses her throne and country – exactly the same way a King would have. Her flaws – her hubris, her selfishness, her unwillingness to let go of her granddaughter – lead to her downfall, but they do so rationally. She doesn’t go mad, or start making stupid irrational decisions, or have to be otherwise softened – she loses the battle. She was out-maneuvered, and her support was blocked, and she just failed. She just lost. Queens – any poweful woman, really – always go mad and have to be put down For The Greater Good, they never get to be a Tragic Hero in the classical sense – always Lady Macbeth, never Hamlet.

Exactly. We have a tragic story around a tragic Queen, whose story is told in reverse narrative order or not linerally.

That's another brilliant bit about this series -- it's not told in a linear or chronological manner. We are told it through flashbacks and out of sequence in places, and through various perspectives. And the focus is on the women here. The women are the central characters, with one male central character whose interactions with each of these women in some way or other change him and them, but not in a sexist manner.

I've never seen a fantasy series told in this way or done like this. Usually it's some guy's coming of age or hero's journey, but the Witcher kicks that to the curb early on. And I honestly thought Yennefer would be shown as a femme fatal or villain, but she's not and she could so easily have been shown in this manner.

There’s one single mention of rape, and that character does imply that this in part led to her not being a princess anymore – followed almost-immediately by the main character explicitly and pointedly calling her Princess, pointing out that it isn’t what was done to her that makes her monstrous, it’s what she herself does. Even so, it’s simply part of her backstory, she’s the one who brings it up, and there’s no gruesome flashback to “evoke sympathy” or whatever bullshit excuse to show women suffering.

It’s just. It’s so obvious that this showrunner is a woman. The comparisons to GoT are all over the place, and obviously – they’re both dark, gritty fantasies with a heavy political aspect – but the way this show treats its characters, and particularly its women, is just so refreshing. It’s not without its flaws, and while I’ll admit that there were a few moments where I was like, “did she really need to be naked here?” none of those moments were tasteless or predatory, and there was none of that gratuitous degradation of women that was such a hallmark (and turnoff) of Game of Thrones.

Exactly.

I need to find more meta or write it.

The female characters in this series blew me away. It's the first time that I've seen female characters drawn in this manner in a fantasy series. It was like my dream fantasy series come true. There's really only one central male figure, with a lot of powerful female characters, who are diverse, and powerful in various ways.

And the male character cares for women, he's not a misogynist.

Wow.

I've never seen anyone do a medieval fantasy series in this way. Usually it's well Game of Thrones. Most fantasy series are either Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings. It's got to the point that I'd given up on medieval fantasy series. After Game, I thought, eh, that's it. Not torturing myself with this crap any longer. And then I tried this -- and was blown away.

Go watch if you have netflix.

2. Ah, the New Mutants Movie actually has an sir date!

"> New Trailer for New Mutants Film It airs in April 2020 and has a horror undercurrent. Maisie Williams is almost perfect casting as Rahn.

Comments

[shadowkat]

I'm not sure how it can be completely reflective of the books -- mainly because the books are dated, and the story is scattered across short stories, novellas and novels. It's kind of hard to navigate actually, because the writer jumped about.

Netflix will most likely do three seasons. I'm hoping for more -- because I found out Ciri could be in training to become a Witcher, and I want to see that played out. Also the Yennefer/Geralt romance. And you sort of need more than three seasons to fully capture the nuances of that. Five would be ideal. But I don't trust Netflix, who is into shorter series, and more of them, because of its perceived audience of attention deficient dilettants. (ugh.)

[mefisto]

The good thing for me is that I have no expectations -- I'm a blank slate. I took the show on its own terms and liked it. I'm only sorry there's such a long delay before S2.

[leahandillyana]

The books are indeed dated, and also not as sensitive as the series. Sure, the female characters are varied and nuanced, but there's also a lot of gratituous sex and sexual violence, though fortunately in almost all cases remaining verbal threats. Also, book!Yen is a scholar, not a warrior, and needs Ger's protection, which somewhat diminishes the appeal of the couple. Speaking of Yen, it's amazing how much the actress resembles the character as portrayed in 90s illustrated edition.

[shadowkat]

Hmmm...I may skip the books then, since I really like how the series portrayed Yen, and the whole scholar who needs the guy's protection is over done. Also, I could do without the sexual violence. But that's an interesting comment on the books -- because GoT went in the opposite direction in regards to sexual violence and gratuitous sex -- there wasn't that much in the books, but the series had far too much of it. (HBO likes to do that for some reason.) This may have a lot to do with a female show-runner with a modern sensibility? I was admittedly wary of the series -- because it was based on a 1980s fantasy series -- and well, the 1980s was kind of known for bodice rippers and sexist/chauvinistic material across the board.

This may be a case of preferring the television adaptation over the source material.

[leahandillyana]

Uhhhh... Poland has been culturally isolated from all other countries except for Soviet Union between 1929 and 1989. All the cultural developement in First World were coming much later and in censored translation if at all. When the first collection of Witcher stories was published in 1990, a foreword by leading scifi writer Stanisław Lem talked about how there's no need to distinguish science fiction and fantasy because fantasy is so rare, and talked kinda protectionally about the stories. Like, it was not a big deal what you said, but just, be aware that when you are talking about period typical attitudes you are talking about the period in America. As for sexual violence, Witcher books have less moments than ASOIAF books, but it's here, and I thought people should be warned just in case.

[shadowkat]

Thanks for the explanation. Although I'm slightly confused. Are you saying that the books aren't as sexually explicit as say most of the American novels were during the same time period?

I know, from my own brief excursion into Soviet controlled Eastern Germany in 1981, that culturally speaking the Soviet Union and countries under its control were rather restricted. For example? West Berlin had posters of nude women in all sorts of explicit poses, and men walking in and out of saunas nude. France was equally explicit and unreserved in sexuality and nudity -- you could go on the beach in France topless. While the US was quite prudish in this respect and still is. We haven't changed that much.
But East Berlin -- did not show it at all. No nudity, no sexual explicit text, actually not much color at all. No advertising. Everything in East Berlin was very drab. Granted we went in Winter and during a bleak day, but still -- it felt colorless and somewhat restrictive. While West Berlin was awash in color.

American culture is a bit behind Western Europe in regards to sexuality and sexual depictions. But from what you stated above? This was not the case with Poland and Eastern Europe.

The ASOIAF Books aren't that explicit on the sex and rape, the series was, but the books? Not so much. (Granted mileage may vary on this -- but a lot of stuff in the books isn't shown so much as referred to.) Most of the sex scenes and rape, if it occurred, happened off the page and it's sort of mentioned off-hand that it happened. And there are a lot of implied rape scenes in the television series (one between Jamie and Cersei, and of course Sansa's rape) that did not happen in the books at all. It sort of did the opposite of what you are suggesting the Witcher series did.

[leahandillyana]

I have limited knowledge about 80s American literature. I wanted to point out that comparing the decades is pointless due to extremely different situation. 80s USA had much more in common with 80s Japan than 80s Poland.
Witcher books are sexually explicit. There's no onscreen sexual assault, but there are threats (at least three different scenes, one of them plot-significant) and a scene of sexual harrassment of an underage character. It's very different from the new tv series, notable for lack of such themes. I know people are bothered but such themes so I decided to warn.
The communist countries were first and foremost very poor. You cannot think about colourful clothes or topless sunbathing when your main problem is heating, water and electricity not working and literal starvation (early 80s were the time of worst starvation period in Poland since the 50s).

[shadowkat]

Apparently there really wasn't much difference in literary trends in Poland and the US then? The US had a strong censure board up until roughly the 1990s for Prime Time television. No nudity. HBO sort of changed some of it, but really it was the weakening of the regulations. In regards to literature? Depended on the genre -- you don't and still don't see much sexually explicit scenes in literature, but in the non-literary genres -- well, it depends. But no, we're not quite as different as you may think. The main differences may be in regards to poverty. But there is a lot of crushing poverty and starvation in the US, various shades of it-- it may not be as pervasive, but yes, what you are describing is in the US and on a larger scale than you realize. Millions in the US are starving, have no heating, no water, and are living homeless on the streets. There are tent cities in the Midwest. It is often what shocks a lot of immigrants fleeing this in their own countries. They believe the US's marketing and media exports -- which aren't well true. No one, for example, has the NYC apartments you see in US television and movies - we can't afford them. People immigrate here and think, oh, I'll be living in a fancy high-rise apartment building, and living the life (I have a Russian co-worker who thought that), no. And he's making a good salary. Or I can afford to buy a house -- not necessarily - property taxes in NY are very high. We may be colorful and look excessive, but we also have the poverty.

[shadowkat]

. 80s USA had much more in common with 80s Japan than 80s Poland.

Not really. I guess it depends on how you look at it? If you look at it from the idea of comparing the covers of a book -- which is flashy, maybe. But the Japanese culture is very rigid and has a heavy emphasis on work ethic. I immersed myself in a lot of Japanese anime and magna during a time, and spent a lot of time with Japanese in the work place -- it's a very different culture than Western culture. Philosophy is different, gender, how they view things. For one thing -- they have a lot of rules that we don't. I remember a blogger who was living in Japan during their earthquake/Tsuanami, and she explained in detail how prepared they were for everything, and had had drills constantly.

The Polish culture is more similar to the US, in part because the US was formed by immigrants from Poland and European cultures. The Asian cultures came in much later. A lot of NY is Polish - and that community dates back into the early 1800s if not before. I watched the Witcher, and unless the books vary greatly, I didn't see much that was that different from US culture or Western Europe. And I know a lot of people from Poland -- and they have similar practices with holidays etc. Japan does not. The Japanese often don't celebrate Christmas in the same way, if at all for example. Their architecture, social structure, and political structure is VERY different. For one, thing they have an Emperor still.

A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that economics is the main defining element of culture -- or capitalistic countries have more in common, vs. communist, but from my observations that isn't true. Also a capitalist country can have massive poverty (the US does) and it can have a dictatorship (see China).

[leahandillyana]

I was thinking about 80s specifically. From the snapshots I saw of American, British and Japanese popculture of the decade, I see plenty of crosspollination, ideas going from one culture to another. Therefore, you could talk about an 80s spirit when referring to all three cultures.
However, communist countries were cut from the developements of non-communist cultures from as soon as dictatorship was established, from 1917 in case of Soviet Russia to late 1940s in case of Westernmost and Easternmost states. Even the intellectuals had to work with pre-dictatorship ideas and second hand rumours of foreign developements. You simply cannot have expectations of 80s book written in communist regime by the standards of 80s American novels.
Speaking about Witcher specifically, the tv series adapts pragmatically elements from the first three books. Only three of the stories in the first book were published during the communist regime and had to undergo censorship. As for censorship, the aim was primarily political, as to not allow proliteration of text that may possibly be interpreted as antigovernmental, and all and any texts originating in the USA were forbidden outright. All of media had to follow marxist ideological purity as stated by the Party. Later stories of Witcher became extremely politically engaged as a backlash to previous censorship, even when the story suffered somewhat - twice the plot grinds to halt, once to say that same sex relationships are not different from heterosexual ones, and once to say that abortion is a woman's right.
Speaking of which, it occured to me that Sapkowski was one of very few speculative fiction writers from the communist era that continued publishing in the 90s and beyond. For most, having to catch up with 60 years of culture developement was too much of a future shock. Witcher foreword was the last literature-related thing Lem wrote, for example.

[shadowkat]

I wasn't talking or referring to 80s literature in the same way that you appear to be. I agree that from a political angle, yeah very different. I was discussing it purely from a ..."gender" and "race" angle. 80s television shows, books, etc across the board tended to be not as well...let's just say there were things people wrote about and showed back then that they couldn't today. Example? In the soap opera General Hospital, Luke married Laura a mere two years after he raped her on the floor of the Disco. This happened in 1978-1980. The Luke and Laura wedding was the most popular event world-wide that year.

When I spoke to averile who read the original Witcher novels, that had been published in the 1980s, she remarked that yes they are dated with 1980s sensibilities (she's former Russian and had read them, and recently re-read them in Russian). What she meant -- was that the Witcher books reflected the rape-culture that was highly prevalent in the 1980s. And the homophobia, equally prevalent back then.

From what you've stated above? It sounds like she was right -- that the rape-culture and attitudes regarding gender equality, sex, and race were reflected in Poland, regardless of its protection from the rest of the world?

[leahandillyana]

We seem to be talking through each other, not really communicating. The rape culture and gender inequality stuff you talk about originate in prehistorical human societies and thus are everpresent, and perception that they are not good is recent and honestly not commonly accepted even in the United States - recent mainstream, super popular American stories very horrifyingly regressive in terms of gender, sexuality, race and politics/morality. Game of Thrones had a storyline if not several very similar to what you describe about that soap opera. I came to a conclusion that nothing have changed. Indeed, some of the 80s media I know were more progressive than recent series.
I am honestly surprised about the homophobia comment, as the book go all over themselves to present queer people as people. There's one homophobic joke in totality, so I don't really understand what caused your friend to make such opinion.

[shadowkat]

The difficulty is that we have completely different frames of reference, and are operating on separate wavelengths. I have no knowledge of what it is like to be living under a communist regime. None. Outside of a few books that I read ages ago, and several movies I've seen. Nor do I really care to know or feel a need to.

I don't agree with what you state above, but since we aren't on the same wavelength to begin with, it's most likely impossible for agreement to be reached.

I mean, I guess I see it differently -- from my perspective and the wavelength I'm on, culture has changed. I found "The Witcher" series remarkably progressive in comparison to Game of Thrones. And I wasn't alone in that - various people on my flist (who aren't American) felt the same.
But hey, mileage varies, and I'm okay with that.