The tears after Henry Cavill's goodbye have not yet dried, but fans need to keep their head held high: Liam Hemsworth is going to fill the Henry-shaped hole as best as he can, but the new Geralt is not the biggest problem Netflix has to face in The Witcher's season 4: it's the books.
The stage is set and there's no way around it: Henry Cavill's portrayal of Geralt is a thing of the past and fans will have to get used to seeing Liam Hemsworth instead. How the hell the showrunners will pull off the switch remains to be seen, but that's not the problem we're talking about today.
It's not only about clumsily recasting the main character, it's also about the source material. Netflix has been getting lots of sh*t from fans of the books because the adaptation has been questionable at best and deeply negligent of the source material at worst.
In season 4, showrunners face an even bigger problem with the books: how are they going to ignore their way out of that one?
- Enough of the show, but not of The Witcher? Maybe the books are something for you.
The Witcher Season 4: Are The Books Finally Too Much For The Show To Handle?
The fact that the switch from Henry Cavill to Liam Hemsworth may not be as smooth as the showrunners claimed it would be is no secret anymore (you can read up on that right here).
Fans had the slight hope that Geralt's new face could be explained with the source material, even though Netflix doesn't have the best track record of adapting the books. At this point, it doesn't seem that likely anymore.
The biggest problem isn't the recast, though: it's the plot itself. Season 2 and 3 of The Witcher covered the events of book 1 and 2 respectively, so following that logic book 3 would be next, right?
Welcome to the mess that might break The Witcher's neck. The Witcher lives and dies with the dynamic of the found family the White Wolf gathered around him with Yennefer and Ciri. Not only are they separated for now, they will be for quite some time.
- You might want to check out other shows until season 4 starts. Maybe on Amazon Prime with your new free-trial membership?
As if that isn't a hard enough pill to swallow, it gets even worse. The books aren't structured like other stories where the reader's are led from point A to point B to point C. It's a rather unusual approach with lots of connected stories that form the overall narrative.
This means that book 3, which is supposed to be adapted in season 4, is basically just Geralt wandering around looking for Ciri who's off having her own adventure that's not really part of that book. Neither is Yennifer in general.
And that's the problem: in the books, the beloved characters don't have a clear beginning and end of their respective arcs. Ciri's plot, for example, starts in book 2 but doesn't really get resolved until book 4.
All the while, Geralt's off doing whatever and never getting any closer to Ciri. And he now looks like Liam Hemsworth, possibly without explanation, and the showrunners need to basically cram 3 books in one season to move the plot forward.
Seems like lots of baggage for season 4 to deal with. It remains to be seen how Netflix is gonna fix this mess.
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