Very pretty outfits ! I might have to look into them

Thanks for the review Tracie, always enjoy your Witcher thoughts. I really struggle with the Eskel plot line as there was no real "reason" or "need" to have that character die. As you said yourself there are many extra mostly unnamed witchers hanging out for the Winter compared to the books and any of these could have filled that role. I fully understand that Eskel's role in the books is relatively minor and Lauren has said that they are creating an adaptation of the novels as well as telling their own unique story (in this season too unique imo but am sure you will have your own thoughts on later episodes.) But Lauren also said at Witchercon that the show team were committed to being faithful to the Witcher fan base and wanted to include some of those deeper lore elements from the video game universe that fans would identify with. The death of Eskel just doesn't track with this for me. As for painting his character as a jerk and having an orgy party at the secret witcher stronghold this all seemed a bit silly and detracted from the episode for me. Perhaps if you hadn't read the books or played the games it would gel better? It's hard for me to be objective. I quite enjoyed the plot line of Yen losing her powers. She tapped into an incredible amount of power at Sodden and it is a constant theme throughout the Witcher universe that everything with Chaos has a cost. Where the plot goes later in the season is disappointing but at this point Yen dealing with her anguish over losing her powers is my favourite part of the episode

I can't watch because I'm waiting on my reserve copy of Blood of Elves from the digital library, but please take my Like!

My only gripe with the eskel storyline is that Lauren said they chose him to be the catalyst for change in other characters because he is a fan favorite and it would be more impactful. The only issue with that is the eskel in the show is a completely different person than the eskel in the games and books. So it’s like they spat on a fan favorite character by making him a douchebag and then gave him a cheap death. From the moment he shows up in the show he doesn’t have any redeeming qualities. He’s made to be the asshole Witcher. Studios usually do this to increase the impact of a death, not in a sad way, but in a poetic justice sort of way which completely goes against what Lauren said and goes against the narrative that our other characters just miss him so much and are devastated by his loss. We don’t sympathize with that detestation because he was a dickhead. If they were really set on killing him they should have kept him a good guy and a caring Witcher, scrapped the lore inaccurate party and character development and made his death a truly devastating scene for first time viewers, fans and the characters. That way at least Lauren’s excuse would hold some water. Anyway thank you so much miss magitek for your efforts and I hope you have a good week.

On The Path link does not work for me

If Yen was blind, that would be a great storyline. It's just that the showrunner (not a fan!) thinks she writes better than the author of the books. Good for her 👍🏻

I read Lauren Hissrich's article and I don't think she is being totally truthful, and maybe for good reason. Since you follow this show so well some of what I say you may already know. They had only been filming season 2 for a short time when covid 1st broke out, they where forced to shut down for many months. As soon as they where able to film again the actor who was supposed to play Eskell left the show due to scheduling conflicts.. They had to rush to find the actor they replaced him with. After the season aired Lauren said in a interview with Geeked that they always planed to kill a witcher in that episode. She didn't say they always planned to kill Eskell. Anything I say from here would be pure speculation but I'm convinced they chose to kill off Eskell because of some logistics issue with the actor.

I love your reviews and I understand that as a content creator you have to be tame with your critizism. I as a viewer and book fan dont have to be ;) I really appreciate that you are really honest and point out things you did not like/agree with or find questionable, becuase I have some severe problems with Season 2 and I cant point out severe flaws in every single episode but the first. I would also love to talk to you directly about season 2, just because I think it would be more natural and less polished review ;) THe issue I have with the Eskel plot is, that it so completely unnecessary, this could have been every noname witcher in Kaer Morhen and it would not have a changed a thing for this show. Also in the books Ciris has very fond memories of her time in kaer morhen, so I dont think this story line fits in there. There is also a hole in the witcher mutations as witchers have been mutated they usually are imun to further mutations, lycanthropy, vmapirism etc, so this story breaks with his as well. Overall I think using eskel like this was completely pointless, it wasnt written really well, it kinda plays very lose with Geralt and Vesemir (and all other witchers) regarding the visitors, but as we know this character assassination will only continue. FOr me it was the first hint that the writers of the show started some self inserts (moleth veir being the most impactful insert this season) and thats where my problems come in, the writers were starting to think they are smarter than the writer of the books they are tasked to adapt, which is an outright fallacy in my opinion. For Yennefer i did not like the losing her power story line as it is basically just the same as in season 1 and to be honest, i wasnt the biggest fan of the extention of the yennefer backstory in season 1 and now during season 2 i was just not interessted in her character/story line at all, if there were no yennefer scenes in season 2, I would have been totally fine with it. I will not go into the voleth meir/baba yaga storyline, but this is basically the beginning of the end for this season. Oh yeah but there also things i liked, Geralt and Ciri have great chemistry when they are on screen, unfortunatly they arent enough on screen. Lambert is great and Vesemir is still great in ep 2. Fringila is also fine, the lets be friends with the elves thing is ok, I would have preferred for it be more naturally and not baba yaga-ed onto her, but its ok. Overall episode 2 was the point, when I saw to many moments and character changes, that I kinda new that this would be another Yennefer (lauren self insert) season and the flaws in writing would not be covered by different time lines and independant story lines like they were in season 1, so for me this epsidode established this season would go downhill from episode 1.

Didn't they say the original plan was to kill a different witcher but then realized they needed to switch it to Eskel to make it impactful? ...The problem being they established right from the visual appearance and then everything says and does afterword that Eskel is just a dumb ass and needs to die. It's sort of predicable and nobody would care unless factor in outside material like the games.