I love both the books and the video games. It's dark fantasy done right. The series... not so much. Cavill does an excellent job at portraying Geralt. His physical presence steals many scenes. And even though he's maybe a bit too good looking, he still captures the essence of Geralt well. The casting of Jaskier/Dandelion and Ciri is alright as well.

The problems start with Yennefer. Her actress is a beautiful lady, but she doesn't act like Yennefer. Yennefer is a demanding, forceful woman who doesn't ask questions. In the series, these character traits are still somewhat present, but they're overshadowed by a weird tendency to do or say dumb things. Triss... well, let's just say they missed the point here. I don't want to hate on the actress, because it's not her fault. But as a studio, you HAVE to know what people expect. You don't have to cast a red-haired barbie doll, but come on... This is not Triss.

Honestly, I don't care about the whole "woke" debate if a series is well written, but "The witcher" clearly isn't. They had no clue what to do with Sapkowski's source material. It shows when they randomly jump between plot points and change things from the books for no apparent reason but to "subvert expectations". So Fringilla being black doesn't bother me at all - Fringilla being stupid does. The same goes for the entire Brokilon desaster.

As other reviewers have said: The series misses the slavic undertone of the games and books. All these little details like the folk tales, the costumes, the superstitions... they're all gone or neutered. What we get is a messy fantasy story with some good actors and lots of boring dialogue.

They also miss the point when it comes to the world building. There's always a political undercurrent in Sapkowski's stories. In the series, Nilfgaard still is a serious threat, but the Northern Kingdoms are basically just generic medieval fantasy kingdoms.