Fantasy is no longer considered as some second-rate or frivolous genre. And nobody would deny that the book series named 'The Witcher' by Andrzej Sapkowski represents a significant contribution of Poland to the world literary heritage. The novel talks about racial and sexual discrimination, as well as about social injustice taking place in Medieval Eastern Europe setting, which is so familiar to Polish readers.
Netflix has agreed to take the original book seriously and to bring this iconic story to the screen with all respect and responsibility. And what did we get instead? The world built on our country's history has been invaded by non-indigenous people. An African man serves as the head of the classical European Queen's guard, female mages show us the whole spectrum of racial diversity, weird black elves are roaming the forests and asians are living in little medieval villages. At the meantime Sapkowski gives us a very clear description of almost all his characters, and surprisingly there are no Blacks among them (for example we have the sorceress Triss Merigold who has chestnut hair and blue eyes or Fringilla Vigo with green eyes and white skin, although in the TV series both of them are dark-skinned), elves were described in the bestiary, and there are no Blacks among them as well. In short, if there were any Africans in 'The Witcher', they were viewed as a rare curiosity, just like it was in medieval times. In the West there is even a special term for such situations, whitewashing. It's when people with a different skin color are represented as whites or simply erased from history. And what should Europeans do if they are erased in this way?
The History of the Polish State covers more than a thousand years. Poland is one of the most significant countries in Europe; it is a stronghold of the Eastern European traditional culture. Is our culture less important than the culture of the peoples from Asia and Africa? We are speaking out on against this distortion of our common European heritage and asking the series' show runners and Netflix to make the cast changes before second season of The Witcher is released. We demand to bring the TV series in line with the original book!
Poles and The Witcher's fans deserve correct treatment of their heritage! Say no to the Blackwashing!