The Witcher author Andrzej Sapkowski has claimed that the controversial Netflix fantasy show will never top his novels. The show debuted on the streaming platform back in 2019, and was a big hit on its initial release. Starring Henry Cavill as the titular Witcher Geralt of Rivia, the show also sees Freya Allen and Anya Chalotra in supporting roles.
During its run, the show has been marked by controversy, allegedly concerning Cavill’s dissatisfaction at the direction the show was taking, culminating in Cavill’s acrimonious departure from the project. He was replaced by Liam Hemsworth in the role of Geralt for The Witcher season 4, and it is unclear how much the show will continue past this point.
Per Reddit, during an AMA session by publishers Orbit Books, Sapkowski answered a question about his opinions on TV and video game adaptations, and the direction they’re moving in. Sapkowski staunchly defended the written word and original source material, claiming that any adaptation loses something in the process. Check out his comments below:
I’ll put it this way: there’s the original and then there are adaptations. Regardless of the quality of these adaptations, there are no dependencies or points of convergence between the literary original and its adaptation. The original stands alone, and every adaptation stands alone; you can’t translate words into images without losing something, and there can’t be any connections here. Moreover, adaptations are mostly visualizations, which means transforming written words into images, and there is no need to prove the superiority of the written word over images, it is obvious. The written word always and decidedly triumphs over images, and no picture – animated or otherwise – can match the power of the written word.
What This Means For Netflix’s The Witcher
The Witcher has proven to be one of Netflix’s more divisive adaptations, and it’s clear to see why. Though early in the show’s run, it did a largely admirable job of adapting Sapkowski’s epic, sprawling novels, there is still so much that the show was unable to adapt effectively, and this is the limitations of visual adaptations versus written source material.
It’s true that The Witcher isn’t an exact adaptation of the books; this could never be the case because of the restrictions that come with making shows. Nevertheless, there has been a strong deviation from what made Sapkowski’s books work so well, and this backs up the author’s claims that nothing can match the written word.
Geralt swinging a sword in The Witcher
Of course, Sapkowski is bound to have a degree of bias on this topic, given that he is an author, but there is a truth to what he is saying. Written works contain the magic of imagination, and everyone who reads a novel imagines elements of it differently in their head. Watching an adaptation is experiencing a specific interpretation of that imagined experience.
This could also be Sapkowski having a slight dig at the direction Netflix has chosen to take The Witcher, but the essence of what he is saying does ring true. Adaptations can sometimes work really well, but it is never quite the same as experiencing the original written source material, because that is unique to everyone.
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