The Witcher, a Netflix original series, launched to unparalleled popularity in late 2019, generating a cultural frenzy and effectively validating the financial potential of high fantasy for mainstream viewers. Despite the games’ and novels’ fame, the Netflix adaptation was many viewers’ first introduction to the brand, sparking newfound interest in both the games and the books that inspired them.

Those who felt obligated to catch up would find The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt to be tremendously enjoyable; sadly, the same cannot be said of the original book series. While long-time fans of the novels have been outspoken about their dissatisfaction with the Netflix show’s modifications, a critical examination of these adjustments indicates that they were really vital to the show’s success.

Over the span of the 1990s, Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski authored eight books about the eponymous Witcher, Geralt of Rivia (played in the show by Henry Cavill), with a ninth, solo adventure added to the narrative in 2013. While the novels have sold more than 15 million copies, they pale in contrast to genre stalwarts like The Lord of the Rings (150 million copies) and The Wheel of Time (90 million copies)—or, more importantly, A Song of Ice and Fire (90 million copies).

CD Projekt Red’s three games based on the novels were more popular, selling more than 50 million copies. Although the Netflix adaptation has contributed to some of The Witcher 3’s current popularity, it is worth mentioning that the series had already sold more than 25 million copies before the program was ever published. Of course, comparing these types of data across media is tricky, but the relative success of the Witcher games gives a useful guideline: the games succeeded because, like the Netflix program, they limited what was bad in the original material and highlighted what was excellent.

The novels, first and foremost, have an issue with women, especially Geralt’s ward and the show’s tertiary heroine, Princess Cirilla of Cintra (played in the show by Freya Allen). Much of Ciri’s tale has yet to be told, but she has already proven to be a more real, well-rounded main character than the novels’ uneven and agency-deprived youngster. Many fans were disappointed that the first meeting between Ciri and Geralt, in Brokilon Forest, was omitted, but that story does very little to characterize Ciri (aside from dialogue that is too young for her ostensible ten years), and it primarily serves to discuss Geralt’s discomfort with the dryads, with whom he has previously dealt. Ciri’s tale continues to be fraught with problems, but the most of them come later in the novels and cannot be detailed without revealing spoilers.

A similar injustice is done to Yennefer (played in the show by Anya Chalotra), who is raised to the role of protagonist yet is treated with little regard for her perspective as a woman. The Netflix program takes its time characterizing Yennefer, giving her a full narrative that included genuine growth, but the novels never stray far from her core character notes of spiteful and stubborn. The first meeting between Geralt and Yennefer, as portrayed in the story/episode “The Last Wish,” is an excellent illustration of this. Yennefer does not hear Geralt desire for them to be tied by fate in the show, and she finds this afterwards, when she responds with understandable sentiments of fury at having her agency taken away. In the text, she hears the desire and responds with slavish gratitude—a behavior that seems ridiculous to any viewer accustomed to villains’saving’ women by taking away their authority.

The stories’ issues with women are profoundly ingrained, even down to the smallest elements of monster tales. After revealing that he raped the priestess, Nivellen is still portrayed as a sympathetic beast in the book version of “A Grain of Truth”; when he admits the same in the show, Geralt and Ciri reject him, appalled. Many redditors have also expressed dissatisfaction with the portrayal of Foltest—in the novel, a young king in his prime, respectable in both appearance and action—despite the murky power dynamics represented by his incestuous connection with his sister. A reader of the novels, on the other hand, would be hard pressed to attribute any quality other than “thirsty” to game-favorite sorceress Triss (played in the show by Anna Shaffer), although the show, like the game, takes some attempt to give her internal reasons and exterior qualities.

Taken together, these little details highlight a problem with the books—but not their sole problem. The storyline and pacing of the novels also left a lot to be desired, flaws that forced considerably more drastic modifications in The Witcher season two. Any reader who opened the books expecting a story of rediscovered family or magical worldbuilding would be sorely disappointed: the books are about an aging father searching for his lost daughter (and his estranged lover, whose plot consists primarily of the constant threat of rape), attempting to navigate a world in which magic is fading—and he is fading, too. It’s a narrative about loss, sadness, and helplessness. At best, the tale is gripping; at worst, it drags on interminably via the political maneuverings of individuals unrelated to the three protagonists and who are constructing a world that is noticeably less magical than the one being wrecked.

Any relevance this political intrigue narrative may have is greatly diminished by the fact that it stays incomplete after the story concludes, with no obvious indicators pointing to its ultimate completion. The reader is given little incentive to care in the political actors (who, like the major characters, lack development beyond basic characterisation), as their tale frequently contributes very little to the stories of the primary characters. The games were successful in channeling these political subplots via Geralt, but the novels treat them as stand-alone stories…which they are not. Similarly, the program has not completely neglected this part of the plot, but it has also not foregrounded it thus far, which is a good move in a multi-focal ensemble drama, which has already shown to be a difficult format for television audiences. TV programs live or die depending on their characters, and spending too much time on Djikstra or Maeve (or Foltest) would cause the tale to drag—a flaw that would lose readers as well as viewers.

Season two saw possibly the most intriguing development, brought about by Istredd (who is not half as likable in the books as he is in the show). The discovery that Ciri can travel between worlds was not surprising to game players, but it was treated in the show as a possible area of worldbuilding (well, “worlds”-building) rather than a handy narrative device (in the novels, it is still unclear what role Ciri’s talent serves). The novels are about pain and loss, but the reader is not provided catharsis or a way to escape that loss because the entire magical world is being lost. Through the monolith narrative, Netflix’s The Witcher has given spectators something more: an opportunity for the universe to expand—to create new creatures, perhaps even to find a purpose for Ciri’s abilities. This isn’t a world of fading magic; it’s a world of evolving magic, which makes for a much more compelling plot with more potential to reward viewers.

At the 2019 London Comic-Con, showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich said that she originally intended to tell the plot from Ciri’s point of view—an concept that was eventually rejected since it did not contain enough of Geralt. Hissrich has been quite vocal about paying sincere and minute attention to previous iterations of The Witcher (careful viewers will notice that even the landscape at the end of the show’s second episode includes specific flora from the game), and there is no reason to believe that her changes to the story were made by mistake. Furthermore, given the show’s enormous success, such alterations do not appear to have offended mainstream audiences. Ciri’s narrative grows more convoluted, and it may be worth sacrificing book reader happiness to continue to do Ciri (and Yennefer—even Geralt) justice. If Hissrich sticks to his guns, The Witcher will undoubtedly attract a slew of new admirers prepared to throw a coin in their place.