#dude changed the trajectory of s2

[linusbenjamin]

Lee Byung-hun as Hwang In-ho SQUID GAME Season 2 | Created by Hwang Dong-hyuk

[safflowerseason]

I think the Marissa debate is still so alive cos in the last few years a lot of ppl have revisited the show at an older age and developed an appreciation, which in itself is funny because conventional wisdom is only teenage girls like her (that’s another layer of sexism to unpick!) The Marissa discourse to me is a fascinating mirror about our wider culture discussion about women. It’s really a case study in our changing ideas about acceptable trauma and how to respond to it

Anon, such a fascinating point you’re making... “a mirror about our wider culture discussion”...wow, yes, this! The OC premiered almost twenty years ago..so much has changed since the mid 00’s for women in Hollywood (and in all professional spaces), and how we think about female trauma. We’ve been talking about this a little with the attempted rape storyline at the end of S2…just how little focus there was on the sexual violence committed against Marissa and its impact on her psyche. Marissa shooting a gun at a man? Yes, that’s the real source of drama for the season, and especially how Ryan feels about it all. (Does anyone have any data on The OC writer’s room? I would not be surprised if the writers were all dudes…) Even the way they talk about therapy in S1…Marissa’s reaction to it is almost dated now. She’s so horrified at the idea. The way her parents are like “oh yeah, therapy would be a good idea, maybe, if you want…” If the show were premiering on Freeform or Netflix now, everyone would be in therapy. The attempted rape storyline would have taken up a whole season. Marissa would probably have formally come out as bisexual, instead of the show framing the Alex storyline as a way for Marissa to rebel against her mom, and to reorient her back to Ryan. (I don’t want to discount how controversial the Alex storyline was in 2005 or whenever it aired, and how big a deal it was for Marissa to be in a relationship with another woman at the time, on a network show...but the relationship is very a much a one-and-done deal, never discussed again.)

I think your point about trauma also applies, poignantly, to Mischa Barton as well, and her trajectory as a television star. She was catapulted to fame at such a young age…still figuring out who she was as a person. And there was zero compassion for her in the public sphere, like there are for so many starlets who are deemed to have “transgressed” in whatever way. The trauma of having her entire life picked over by the press, of being simultaneously glorified and excoriated in the public eye…Because of the MeToo movement, we know so much more about how exposed and vulnerable women are on film sets, in dressing rooms, in interviews…I can only imagine what was said to her behind the scenes, what she had to put up with, and probably alone. Being on that show, becoming so famous so fast, clearly fucked her up a bit—how could it not? But it was not a trauma that she was “allowed” to experience publicly, or to even express any personal feelings about that weren’t gratitude. 

[improbablecarny]

Okay so here’s my Netflix Witcher Season 2 Predictions & Speculations

Don’t place any bets on these these. I’m rambling and asking questions more than answering them. But that’s the fun part, anyway.

Putting these behind a cut because of spoiler potential and because I don’t want to subject your eyes to my rambling any more than necessary

What we know:

Season 2 will have a more linear timeline

Eight episodes, again

It will cover content from Blood of Elves, Time of Contempt, The Last Wish and maybe Sword of Destiny?

There are four major threads to the plot of the books, here.

Who is Rience? Who is he working for?

What is going on with the Brotherhood?

What's Nilfgaard up to and how are the other kingdoms feeling about that whole thing?

What is Ciri’s deal and how does she fit into all of the above?

What the S2 opener will be, I’m not sure, but I have two ideas, with caveats:

Yen saves Jaskier from Rience. It’s a strong scene and sets up a lot of the season’s intrigue right away - the issue is that it skips over the aftermath of Sodden Hill, and I feel like we’re going to spend a bit more time with Yen before she gets back to the point where she’s stabbing dudes and saving bards.

Geralt visits Codringher and Fenn. I know, that scene is jumping WAY ahead, and by this point in the books Geralt has already encountered Rience -- however, I think it may work to establish C&F earlier, and have Geralt immediately employing them to spread misinfo about Ciri’s “death”. I think we could still set up Rience a little here -- ask if the name means anything to him, it doesn’t, they don’t know much either but they’ve Heard Rumours, etc. Also honestly I just REALLY love the atmosphere of that scene and think it would be a very eye-catching, moody opener.

In fact, both of these could conceivably happen in the same episode. The tricky part for me is not knowing how much of a timeskip they’ll add between seasons and how they’re going to handle Yen’s reappearance. Is she going to wake up in an infirmary somewhere and get an immediate exposition dump from Tissaia? Is she going to spend some time wandering through an interdimensional hell zone? Are we going to see that all in the present or will it be done through flashback?

How Season 2 will end, though, I have a much better sense of: all four major plotlines converge when it’s revealed that Vilgefortz is pulling the strings and Aretuza goes bananas in a strikingly obvious Season Finale sort of way. We get a lovely cliffhanger where Vilgefortz kicks Geralt’s ass before Triss saves him by shoving him through a portal, Ciri kicks Cahir’s ass and jumps through a shittier portal, Yen disappears again, and Jaskier is forced to leave on his own, again. I love pain and being in it! Of course the finer details there are all subject to change but the big picture climax is that Vilgefortz is naughty and oops, war.

So that’s the bread, where’s the rest of the sandwich?

With news that Nivellen and Vereena have been cast, we know we’re getting an adaptation A Grain of Truth from The Last Wish. I suspect Geralt and Ciri will be stumbling upon that spooky mansion on the way to Kaer Morhen, but that’s about as far as I can think on that one. But will any of the other shorts pop up? 

A Shard of Ice and Sword of Destiny have been essentially nullified by choices made by the show so far, so I think they’re safely out of the game (though A Shard of Ice sets up the Wild Hunt so presumably that will still need to be worked in somewhere)

I would LOVE to see Eternal Flame adapted because it is my exact sense of humour, and A Little Sacrifice has a great mood and freaky fish people. Both of them would be very interesting places to deal with Geralt and Jaskier’s spat -- a conflict not present in the books, but its presence in the show casts some of the events of the book in an interesting light. The primary issue I’m having is trying to figure out how to get them to fit into the timeline/trajectory of the ongoing plot (and my secondary issue is that the stuff with Essa was weird as hell, though I think it could be smoothed over).

Speaking of Jaskier, I’m quite interested in where they’re going to take his character, since the books (up to this point) didn’t really give him much of an arc, but Lauren Hissrich has noted that we’ll see more of his serious side and his struggle with what he really wants. To me, that sounds suggestive of giving him more of a role in the espionage story, and through that, better establishing his fear and guilt over his perceived inability to adequately help Geralt and Ciri without putting them in jeopardy, all while still dealing with their falling out. He’s loyal, but he’s hurt, and he’s in a precarious position that he doesn’t really know how to handle. 

The introduction of the falling out sets this storyline up into three nice beats. The first one was in the infamous episode 6, where Geralt tells him to hit the road, breaking hearts around the world. Jumping into the books, the second beat would be during the mage mash, where Geralt once again demands that Jaskier leaves -- this time, though, for his own safety. And then we get the third beat, in Brokilon forest (hopeful button for the end of S2 or moody opener to S3? Both work imo), when Geralt tries to get Jaskier to leave Brokilon, and Jaskier puts his foot down and says no. That seems like a place to aim for, and once again, make everyone cry.

The aforementioned shorts would be a great place to let that arc marinate, though the exact details are still something I’m mulling over. (Honestly I really just want big city shapeshifter shenanigans because LISTEN... listen. It’s good) More importantly, though... what kinda music is he gonna bring us next season?

Yen’s plotline is running through muddier waters for me on account of the books rarely dipping into her perspective, but she’ll no doubt be involved in trying to suss out what’s going on with the mages. She allegedly has a scene with Francesca somewhere, and Istredd and Stregobor are returning (despite being absent at this point in the books) so presumably they will also cause problems. There are a lot of different directions they can go with her here, as I touched on briefly earlier wrt the fallout from Sodden Hill, but a lot of it might have to be spun wholecloth in a way I’m not so sure I can make any truly educated assumptions about. How is Geralt going to find out she’s still alive? How is he going to re-initiate contact with her? We’ll surely get some ripe emotional conflict as her, Triss, Sabrina and Tissaia deal with the conspiracy in very different ways. Too many viable answers and none that I’m going to place any bets on but am still, of course, excited for.

Cahir is another complete wildcard for me. I haven’t seen enough of him in the books thus far to make super accurate predictions but “gets horsejacked and ass-kicked by Ciri and then yelled at by Geralt until he faints” is quite a ways away from “slaughters an entire tavern in a fit of paranoid rage” (I get the impression Show!Cahir is also much older than his book counterpart). I can’t imagine it’d make much sense in the long run for them to have actually combined he and Rience’s characters, but I almost wonder if that’s what’s going on. Presumably, Fringilla will play a part in whatever he’s up to.

The Temple is in an odd place. No mention or setup of it so far so I wonder if it’s been excised entirely for streamlining purposes. Ciri goes from studying the blade in Kaer Morhen to studying magic in Aretuza without the complication of a third location (also for magic study) in between?

Yarpen’s return more or less also confirms that the subplot with the dummy cargo from Blood of Elves will occur in some form or another, likely as a means of establishing the Squirrels.

And here’s some incomplete and assorted tentpole book scenes (that I haven’t already addressed) that we’ll likely get in some form:

Several Ciri training montages (insert Jaskier cover of Eye of the Tiger here)

Ciri parent trapping Geralt and Yennefer

Geralt vs the river monster vs Rience’s dudes

Geralt and Philippa vs Rience and more of his dudes

Basically any of the points where Ciri goes into a trance, plus the incident with the wyvern

Introductions for Emhyr, Dijkstra, and Philippa

It goes without saying but a lot of forethought has been put into the Netflix adaptation, despite some fanboy bellyaching. There were many points where, reading the books, I found myself reacting emotionally based on things that had only been set up in the show -- from Ciri and Yen’s relationship and their approach to magic, to Geralt and Jaskier’s reconciliation, to Vilgefortz’s turn, most of the changes made by the show are really there to further reinforce events from the books. And boy, are there events to be had.

In conclusion,