So many unnecessary changes to make things worse.
To start, there's no baited ambush in the book. The problem of making such ambush out of the thin air is that such inserted event can't have consequences that moves the story. See... Rience cannot die because he still have large role to play in the story. So what happens? Geralt & Yen plan out the whole "bait" thing to get Rience and then Geralt only breaking his wrists when given opportunity to kill him because again, he can't die yet. That's like GoT season 8 level of plot armor which completely shutters suspension of disbelief.
Speaking of no point existing, what's the point of Francesca in the show? In the source material, she's one of the most powerful sorceress and play politics at the highest level. In the show, she's completely new characters leading Scoia'tael which I thought that it could be fine back then as long as writers have plans for her but alas nope. She's so far contributed nothing to the larger story by being an entirely different character. If anything, Francesca lost a critical role in the upcoming major event in Thanedd and overall became a much shallower character compared to the book.
Even larger character changes like Francesca aside, lots of minor details are changed for far worse results. For example, the show made it sounds like the reason elves are doomed is because Aelirenn fought against humans... like what? No, after The Conjunction, humans started to take previously elven land and it's natural for elves to fight back. In the source materials, there's been numerous conflicts between humans and elves already (of course) but after such conflicts, elf elders correctly predicted that the only way to win is to live among and outlive humans. Aelirenn, on the other had, was naive, hot headed, and wanted honorable "last stand" which end up dooming elven race not because she fought, but the way she ignored elders' words and rallying young elves who are needed to breed new generations of elves, resulting in a dramatic reduction in elven population for the next 200 years while human multiplied exponentially.
The point the source material wanted to make was that even justified, brave actions have unintended consequences. That's the moral of Aelirenn's story and it not only matches the overall dark theme, but the theme will be later repeated in Ciri's decisions. Whereas in the show, uhh... what is the moral of the story? You should never fight back? Like huh?
See the difference? The show replaces all the world building characters and fine details in the book with childish writing but they still have to follow overall story arc. The result? A fractured world and story that perplex both existing fans knowing the source materials and new audience alike.
To start, there's no baited ambush in the book. The problem of making such ambush out of the thin air is that such inserted event can't have consequences that moves the story. See... Rience cannot die because he still have large role to play in the story. So what happens? Geralt & Yen plan out the whole "bait" thing to get Rience and then Geralt only breaking his wrists when given opportunity to kill him because again, he can't die yet. That's like GoT season 8 level of plot armor which completely shutters suspension of disbelief.
Speaking of no point existing, what's the point of Francesca in the show? In the source material, she's one of the most powerful sorceress and play politics at the highest level. In the show, she's completely new characters leading Scoia'tael which I thought that it could be fine back then as long as writers have plans for her but alas nope. She's so far contributed nothing to the larger story by being an entirely different character. If anything, Francesca lost a critical role in the upcoming major event in Thanedd and overall became a much shallower character compared to the book.
Even larger character changes like Francesca aside, lots of minor details are changed for far worse results. For example, the show made it sounds like the reason elves are doomed is because Aelirenn fought against humans... like what? No, after The Conjunction, humans started to take previously elven land and it's natural for elves to fight back. In the source materials, there's been numerous conflicts between humans and elves already (of course) but after such conflicts, elf elders correctly predicted that the only way to win is to live among and outlive humans. Aelirenn, on the other had, was naive, hot headed, and wanted honorable "last stand" which end up dooming elven race not because she fought, but the way she ignored elders' words and rallying young elves who are needed to breed new generations of elves, resulting in a dramatic reduction in elven population for the next 200 years while human multiplied exponentially.
The point the source material wanted to make was that even justified, brave actions have unintended consequences. That's the moral of Aelirenn's story and it not only matches the overall dark theme, but the theme will be later repeated in Ciri's decisions. Whereas in the show, uhh... what is the moral of the story? You should never fight back? Like huh?
See the difference? The show replaces all the world building characters and fine details in the book with childish writing but they still have to follow overall story arc. The result? A fractured world and story that perplex both existing fans knowing the source materials and new audience alike.