Diversity in The Witcher

[diebartdie]

In this show? I mean....POC are represented. Not as central characters but they are there and at least one of them is important for an episode or two. Could be better but they are there, one has some importance, some are shown as powerful black women but overall, they could have a MUCH larger role. But....where am I? Where are the queer people? The lesbians, the gay dudes, the trans people? It really is NOT HARD to have us represented. Again and again, LGBT people left begging for crumbs. It gets really effing old having to just accept this complete lack of representation. And ONE stray insinuation that one "blink and you'll miss him" character MIGHT be "gay" is not representation. Eff the source material! Look at what the Watchmen did with Hooded Justice! Be bold and JUST DO IT. The bard could have and SHOULD have been gay. The Head Mistress of the Mage School should have been lesbian. The councilor that got taken over by the shape shifter could have been trans. But no, apparently here is yet another FANTASY WORLD where LGBT people DO. NOT. EXIST.

[Kasienka]

I don't wanna spoil anyone who hasn't read the books, so my answer is going to be hidden. I warn you there are hard spoilers !!

Spoiler

There are gay characters in the books and I'm sure they're going to show it in later seasons. Ciri herself is bisexual and her only relationship in whole saga is with a woman. Triss Merigold is desribed as having relationship with both sexes too. I'm fairly sure they are not going to skip that and show us those relationships. And they still didn't introduce Philippa Eilhart who is known also for having romances with men and women.  I don't think they are going to change sexuality of major characters like Geralt, Yen or Jaskier, but some  minor ones maybe? The blink and you'll miss it character definitely wasn't gay in the books, so fingers crossed they'll be braver in next season.  I can't imagine them skipping Ciri's romance plotline or changing it for a guy.

Sadly the books only show us bisexual women (shocker), but since they don't follow the source material to a T, maybe showrunner will change that.

 

Edited December 22, 2019 by Kasienka

[Kromm]

1 hour ago, diebartdie said:

In this show? I mean....POC are represented. Not as central characters but they are there and at least one of them is important for an episode or two. Could be better but they are there, one has some importance, some are shown as powerful black women but overall, they could have a MUCH larger role. But....where am I? Where are the queer people? The lesbians, the gay dudes, the trans people? It really is NOT HARD to have us represented. Again and again, LGBT people left begging for crumbs. It gets really effing old having to just accept this complete lack of representation. And ONE stray insinuation that one "blink and you'll miss him" character MIGHT be "gay" is not representation. Eff the source material! Look at what the Watchmen did with Hooded Justice! Be bold and JUST DO IT. The bard could have and SHOULD have been gay. The Head Mistress of the Mage School should have been lesbian. The councilor that got taken over by the shape shifter could have been trans. But no, apparently here is yet another FANTASY WORLD where LGBT people DO. NOT. EXIST.

I admit I'm only 2 episodes in so far, but is it possible you are putting the horse before the cart.  How do you know for sure the sexuality of these characters?  Are you saying that by the end of this run we've seen every character have sex (and concluded for sure the gender they sleep with is the only one they would?)

I could be wrong. From 2 episodes in we've only see two characters have sex, and one of them died. The other is probably heterosexual, but then again just because we saw him have sex with a woman doesn't necessarily say he wouldn't have sex with a man.

If there ARE characters who you don't see have sex, are you asking that a clear sign of their sexuality be artificially introduced into the dialogue?  I'm not even going to argue if that's right or wrong, I'm just interested if that's the expectation.

I think wide representation would be great.  But does the story fit it?  I guess I'll see in the other remaining episodes if this is as relentlessly sexual as lets say,.. Game of Thrones. But based on the small sample so far, it doesn't seem like it is.  Is no or little sexuality expressed just as bad as overt over-representation of heterosexuality, like in GoT?

[AnimeMania]

There were lots of same-sex couples in the orgy scenes. Yennefer when she walks into her old room at the Sorcerer Academy seemed to have interrupted the start of some girl on girl action. There really doesn't appear to be that many main characters having sex in the show.

[Kromm]

On 12/22/2019 at 3:53 PM, AnimeMania said:

There were lots of same-sex couples in the orgy scenes. Yennefer when she walks into her old room at the Sorcerer Academy seemed to have interrupted the start of some girl on girl action. There really doesn't appear to be that many main characters having sex in the show.

I hadn't seen the orgy scene yet when I posted. I suppose this does have a lot of sex. I suppose we will see if it eventually shows other kinds of it. 

 

Edited December 28, 2019 by Kromm

[Zuleikha]

 Not as central characters but they are there and at least one of them is important for an episode or two.

Anya Chelotra (Yennefer) is biracial. I'm not sure how much more central you're looking for!

What's been jarring to me is that while there was clear intentionality in casting Black actors, I've seen very few East Asians or darker-skinned South Asians. My understanding is the Continent is a mirror for Eastern Europe*, so I would have expected more East Asian/Central Asian/Turkish looking actors. It's one of my pet peeves that diversity is so often thought of in terms of black/white rather than in terms of the full rainbow of diversity. I would like for showrunners of fantasy world to really think about how the geography and trade routes of their fantasy worlds would map onto our racial perceptions and for there to be an underlying logic. 

* I may be wrong about this, though. I'm going off Internet articles. I haven't read the books yet.

[lorbeer]

On 12/22/2019 at 6:27 PM, diebartdie said:

In this show? I mean....POC are represented. Not as central characters but they are there and at least one of them is important for an episode or two. Could be better but they are there, one has some importance, some are shown as powerful black women but overall, they could have a MUCH larger role. But....where am I? Where are the queer people? The lesbians, the gay dudes, the trans people? It really is NOT HARD to have us represented. Again and again, LGBT people left begging for crumbs. It gets really effing old having to just accept this complete lack of representation. And ONE stray insinuation that one "blink and you'll miss him" character MIGHT be "gay" is not representation. Eff the source material! Look at what the Watchmen did with Hooded Justice! Be bold and JUST DO IT. The bard could have and SHOULD have been gay. The Head Mistress of the Mage School should have been lesbian. The councilor that got taken over by the shape shifter could have been trans. But no, apparently here is yet another FANTASY WORLD where LGBT people DO. NOT. EXIST.

If you knew the source materiał you would know that there ARE gay people in the books. So just be patient for the story to develope and stop complaining!