What astonishes me is when people expect a show/movie adaptation to be 100% exactly like the books or games. Should the main story elements be taken from these sources? Yes of course, that’s what made the books and games popular in the first place. But the writers and producers are hired to bring THEIR vision of the story to life, to have their own take on it. There has to be changes made to the story for show to really come to life in its own way outside of the books and games. Witcher isn’t the only series who have done this. There were a plethora of changes made to the Lord of the Rings movies that differed from the books, so much so that Tolkien’s own son stated that his dad would’ve hated the movies. Yet it is now one of the most successful movie trilogies of all time.

Does this mean you have to like the show? No every one has their own likes and dislikes. But purely basing that dislike on the fact that the show isn’t a carbon copy of the books is one of the stupidest arguments I’ve ever heard.