Ooooo boy, time to talk about race and diversity!
So I finished season 2 of the Witcher, and I found it to be quite the generic Netflix show. I have noticed that a lot the complaints against the show blame the "SJWs", which essentially boils down to people not liking how female characters were given a larger role and a race swapping casting choices. I want to focus on the latter, because I feel like there is more to be said there.
First, the casting of the background characters. The season deals quite a lot with with racism (speciesism?) against the elves in the show. I found it really hard to take this seriously, because just like all the peoples of the Continent, the elves are played by a very diverse cast. Asian elves, black elves, middle eastern elves, white elves, etc. Besides their pointed ears, there's literally nothing they share in common. In the books, and in popular culture, it was made very clear what the elves look like. Sharp features, youthful, very attractive. In the show, we have old ass elves, chubby elves, unremarkable elves. In other words, they look exactly the same as the humans. So the whole race war thing just feels so silly. I guess you can say that racism is silly, and that discriminating against a being for the shape of their ears is no different from discriminating against them for the color of their skin. But I think that's a very shallow understanding of what racism is. The show completely failed at giving the elves any sense of culture or unity, and so we just have to believe that people are carrying out war crimes, against children even, purely because their ears are pointed. I think that's even an actual line in the show.
TLDR; The show fails to give any meaningful background to why humans hate elves so much, leaving us with "ear pointy bad" and nothing else. The decision to have a diverse cast doesn't help, but isn't at fault.
But I also want to talk about the casting of major characters. In season 1, I didn't even really notice or care about most of the non-white casting choices. But after season 2, we have Yennefer, Vilgefortz, Istredd, Triss, Fringilla, Coen, Nenneke, and Philippa being played by non-white actors. Of the eight, six are played by black actors. I have to admit, I found this really jarring. This has nothing to do with the quality of the show, most are decent actors, but as an Asian, I have to wonder if Netflix thinks that casting black actors is the end all be all of diversity.
Ultimately, I think the show's main problem is how it wants to present itself. Season 1 was just a fun collection of stories barely connected to each other. Season 2 wants to be taken seriously, a gritty and dramatic fantasy tale. The former allows for playing loose with the source material, the latter not so much. I think a lot more people would have been willing to overlook these casting choices if the show focused more on fantasy and less on political drama. And if, you know, the show itself was any good.
