Wow, People Really Hate Liam Hemsworth’s Performance In ‘The Witcher’

Before I say anything else, I will say that Witcher fans are a demanding bunch. This is nothing new in the world of fantasy TV adaptations: Fans of The Wheel of Time, The Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, and even Shadow and Bone have written entire dissertations about why their respective TV adaptations deserved jail for having strayed from their source material. In many cases, these fans were also angered over powerful depictions of women and queer people that never appeared in their beloved novels. However, more often than not, they simply felt that their cherished memory of reading the original text had been brutally dismembered by whatever showrunner had personally and maliciously targeted them. 

Let me also say that I have had my own flirtations with originalism. When Hermione and her SPEW offensive were removed from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, I considered leading a nationwide rebellion. However, I’ve since mellowed out and spent years in entertainment journalism, and now understand the immense balancing act that is TV adaptation. Showrunners are not bound to their source material, and never should be; if they were to include every beloved detail from a book, or follow every storyline to the letter, they would wind up with a tedious nightmare. Storytelling on the screen is fundamentally different from storytelling on the page. Adaptations are respectable creations in their own right: they are sacred pacts between a showrunner and their source material, just as that source material was a sacred pact between an author and their imagination. 

But none of that has to do with the murderous tendencies that Witcher fans are currently feeling towards Liam Hemsworth after the Netflix series released its fourth season on October 30th. Hemsworth, of course, replaced Henry Cavill, who left after Season 3, and here’s a small sample of the mob that will soon swarm Liam Hemsworth’s house, brandishing PlayStation controllers filed down into shanks:

“Henry will always be my Geralt. Not whatever this abomination is.” – @LibertarianTrap, on Not Twitter.

“Please don’t ever give this showrunner another beloved book series.” – Steven W, on Rotten Tomatoes.

“As soon as Hemsworth opened his mouth and started talking too much, too fast, and too high-pitched… it was game over for me :-(((“ – A L, a person who gave Season 4 a half star on Rotten Tomatoes, presumably because it was impossible to give a zero.

And finally, from Michael L on the same site: “its like a temu geralt, voice isnt right and face is worse.” [sic]

The critics were not much kinder.

Wrote Sarah Dempster in The Guardian: “While his predecessor invested Geralt I with a gruff likability, Geralt II is less ‘valorous man-mountain grappling with responsibilities beyond our ken’ and more ‘bollard in a wig.’ 

(For those plebeians such as myself who forgot their bonus SAT vocab words from tenth grade, a “bollard” as Dempster uses it is “a short, thick post that boats can be tied to.” So, basically, she just called Liam Hemsworth a stick in a wig.)

In any case, the common folk are not happy. But to be fair, Hemsworth was set up for failure. The Witcher was already going off the rails a bit in its third season: it lost focus even as it remained headily entertaining. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing for the show’s more emotionally balanced viewers, but for Witcher originalists, it was a sign of the apocalypse. While the season scored with critics with a 79% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it tanked with audiences at 20%. Again, this was partly due to the season’s unexpected gay stuff, but it was mostly and almost entirely due to the fact that it … say it with me now … strayed from the source material.

That said, Liam Hemsworth is not exactly the most charismatic tool in the shed, either. He has never been heralded as a vibrant screen presence like his brother Chris or even that other one. Of course, that’s probably why he seemed like the perfect fit for Geralt of Rivia. The man is meant to be a gruff cipher. However, Henry Cavill, being a celebrated talent, still managed to imbue the character with a grim wit and dolorous charm. That’s missing from Hemsworth’s performance. In another set of grizzled hands, the character could have built upon Cavill’s legacy while bringing something ineffably new.

But what do I know? I’m just a stick in a wig.