*groan*

https://comicbook.com/gaming/amp/2018/09/07/the-witcher-netflix-series-ciri-white-changes/

Just ... Why?

FFS, I am fine with colorblind casting if the actor is right for the part, but to just go "Nope: can't be white" and then on top of it to go with a minor when the series is explicitly graphic on both sex and violence, & if you read the books: Ciri ain't celebant ... Or straight.

because they know it will annoy you lot.

Sigh... I would recommend to read Jeff Vogel's article:
http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-witcher-3-is-amazingly-written-and.html

Especially paragraphs "Putting on my Critic Hat" and "There's a Lot of Sorts of Diversity." They're perfectly explaining why criticising "too much white characters" is completely missed in case of Witcher's universe.

Sadly, Netflix is (probably) going there with american-ish template* of making movies/tv series, with some untouchable dogmas. Like "we MUST have racial diversity in cast". No matter if it's fitting to presented universe or not. This approach may be fine for some universes.

Like juvenile Star Wars universe, where fact of being black or white human is really not important due to:
- the fact that we've got here variety of species different than humans.
- it's not basing on some source (like book) which is presenting clear vision of introduced characters/people (so changing it is changing completely vision of universe)

For such universes like Witcher's - it's completely missed. But I'm guessing that it's general "illness" of whole movie industry, not only in US though.

*At least "american-ish" in terms of methods/beliefs popular amongst american leftist/liberal community

God I hate identity politics so much, you try to escape it but it just keeps getting shoved into your face.

And that would be fine if they were hiring am adult that knew what kind of racist shit storm they were getting themselves into by taking the part ... But netflix explicitly states "Must be younger than 18" and there is no way some 15 year old girl is gonna be able to deal with it.

That kid's life is so fucked: no matter how good they are at the job, they are going to get harassed for the rest of their life by racist psychopaths.

You know that Ciri wasn't even born for most of the short stories (which is what I thought the show would be adapting), and was 14 when Blood of Elves started.

If the series is supposed to be an adaptation or continuation of TW3 then yeah, Ciri should be an adult. But if they're doing the books, she's a kid.

At lest some folks will have another excuse to fight about nothing.

A kid who gets molested several times, becomes a murderer & a thief, develops a drinking problem, is forced to snort cocaine, gets kidnapped, beaten, and forced to kill people arena pit fights ... And I am not even done with the series yet.

Ciri's life is super fucked up!

If you are gonna be taking creative liberties with her race, than at least make up for it by ageing the character & casting someone 18+ who can dress down to look like they are in their late teens.

My problem with this decision, is that it pretty much makes it clear that Charles Dance won't be playing Emhyr.

whoa. disrespectful.

This is like Will Smith as Floyd Lawton again. I thought Smith didn't do too bad as Lawton, and it was a nice spin on him. I also think that Smith Lawton was the best thing about that entire train wreck ( hotpants and a brilliant smile don't get the #1 spot here ). I think the whole thing should be Asian. Let's do Batman Ninja Witcher. Actually, let's get Ciri played by an animal. A giraffe maybe. Or an aquatic mammal like a dolphin or platypus. Yes, a platypus.

And come to think of it. When Marvel does the X-Men, I think Wolverine should be female. In the next Spiderman movie, Black Cat should definitely be a guy and it should be like a progressive bi-sexual thing. This is all very interesting. Actually, Spiderman should come out of the closet as being a peanut-butter-sandwich-sexual.

Are you worried they might corrupt an innocent young actress with THE GAYNESS!? Yes, "make up" for taking liberties by taking even more liberties. That sounds logical.

It seems, for some people, they're taking the 'wrong' liberties

It is a very Mature role that intentionally tackles child abise head on ... While not impossible to find a young actress capable of handling it, finding an adult actress who can play a minor & then twerking Ciri's age a tap would hit a good middle ground of being able to present her character without the censorship they will have to embrace if they go with a real minor.

It they hire a minority/non-white actress to play Ciri because she is the most convincing / competent to play the part I understand. I mean good child actor are not exactly that common so if you have the choice between a good actress that doesn't look like the character and a passable/mediocre actress who does I can perfectly understand that they chose the former even if it means taking some artistic liberties with the original source material.

But specifically looking to cast a non-white actress to play Ciri is silly IMHO (IF this rumor is true), it really give the impression that they cares a lot more about how many extra marks they will be able to put on the virtue signaling checklist than respecting the original source material. The cynical part of me wonder if it's not just a way to artificially create controversy to gain free publicity.