[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Tastes vary but I found the triple storylines a good reflection of the three characters' importance and the final twist aligning the timelines clever. A purely linear timeline would mean Geralt doesn't show up for at least two episodes (Yen is over a hundred years old) and Ciri (who is younger in the books) until the penultimate episode. The other alternative would've been to start near the end and run most of the series as flashbacks

You're actually proving my point for me. Everything you're mentioning is predicated on you already KNOWING ALL OF THAT BEFOREHAND!

Spoiler:

To many others (myself included), the fact that all of the different substories' were playing out on different timelines (though each were linear on their own) was not at all clear. And when it became clear in the final episode, it was too late to unmuddy the waters of what came before.

There's such a thing as trying to be too clever, and/or too intricate. I love non-linear story-telling, and I pride myself on being able to keep up with the most intricate plotting and time-line jumping an author/director can throw at me. I seek it out regularly. But that's usually equal parts me and the story-teller's abilities when it "works". In my opinion, they did a poor job of allowing me (and any utter newcomer, really) to ever get--and stay--with the program.

The bottom line is that it's not my fault the adaptation had its work cut out for it in combining the salient points from several different short stories (and multiple timelines spanning 90+ years) into one "coherent" presentation. As a complete newcomer to the Witcher ouvre, I shouldn't have to have it explained to me why the series it had to be the way it was. I should have been able to just "get it" from what I was given. And that's on them, not me.