Since its release in December of 2019, Netflix’sThe Witcherhas received widespread praise among fans of theWitcherfranchise. Following the franchises' increase in popularity, the author of the original novel series has become rather vocal in terms of his response to the manyWitcheradaptations.
The Witcheris a Netflix Original series that premiered on December 20th, 2019 and is based on the popular Polish novel series of the same name. With the franchise being spread across so many different artistic mediums, an interview was conducted with the author of the originalWitchernovels, Andrzej Sapkowski.
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When asked about the video game adaptations, Sapkowski stated that he was the wrong person to ask about games of any kind, since he has only ever played bridge and poker. This point is rather interesting, considering that recently,Sapkowski renewed his partnership with CD Projekt Red, the developers behind theWitchervideo game series. In any case, he said that he personally finds written literature a much more engrossing form of entertainment.
Sapkowski was then asked to compare theNetflix seriesto the video game adaptations, a question he found rather difficult to answer considering that not only had he not played any video games, but also believes that both mediums require different approaches in terms of their creation. He went on to say that it would be like comparing “spaghetti carbonara to a bicycle.”
A rather humorous response, but in many ways aligns with Sapkowski’s philosophy in terms of art and its continued integrity. A point that has always come up in terms of Andrzej Sapkowski, is that he wants not just his story, but any story retold in another medium to be done as faithfully and respectfully as possible.When talking aboutGame of Thrones, he admonished the decision to cast popular musician Ed Sheeran as a throwaway character just to boost ratings.
Though, it begs to question then, if Sapkowski cares a lot about how faithful an adaptation is to the original source material, then how does he feel about all the changes thatThe Witchershowrunner Lauren S. Hissrich made during the production of the Netflix series? Admittedly, most of them are rather minute, butthe big change made to Ciri’s characterleft some fans particularly irked. Nevertheless, it’s interesting to hear what the original author had to say regarding the success of each respective adaptation.
