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Comment by elithrar | Hacker News Reader

> due to the writers literally having disdain for the actual source material and we're just using the how's setting as a backdrop to push their own entirely disconnected stories.

Is this concretely true, or just disinformation to put blame on writers vs. producers?

I’m not saying it’s not plausible either way, but this is a common cop out.

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It's all entertainment industry gossip, but one of the writers for the Witcher show said the same thing:

> "I've been on shows — namely 'Witcher' — where some of the writers were not or actively disliked the books and games (even actively mocking the source material). It's a recipe for disaster and bad morale," wrote DeMayo.

https://www.looper.com/1128621/the-witcher-writer-casually-c...

Maybe he's being paid by the producers to lie about that, but that seems like a strange theory to me.

Yes it is true and confirmed.

Also, this characterinzaction of the Witcher series writing is 100% correct - especially in last season. Going by the comments writer made publicly, she did not even understood events or relationships between characters in books. It is as if she understood adolescents, but had real issue comprehend adults or write about them.

> It is as if she understood adolescents, but had real issue comprehend adults or write about them.

This seems like a very common problem in modern American entertainment. I think it's because they're hiring writers who are too young with too little life experience. Characters who should be mature adults seem like immature teenagers. Maybe the writers know how to write mature characters but think this is what audiences want... but I tend to think the writers are nepo hire hacks.

I think part of it is generating and stretching out drama to create more content. If situations were handled like sensible adults then much of the show wouldn't happen.

I don't think this is true. First, this is specifically not true about Witcher or Game of Thrones. Plenty of drama even if they all acted sensible.

Second, being fully grown adult does not have to imply perfection. Fully grown adults make bad insensible decisions all the time. They however do that differently then teenagers, for different more complex reasons.

And this is something that is super visible in Witcher. Original characters don't make sensible decisions all the time ... but they have adult psychology. Even when they are bad to each other, they still don't act like middle schoolers. They act like adults with issues. And show writing just completely stripped them off the adulthood.

That sound similar to the bad writing technique of "character X did action Y because the plot needed Y to happen somehow", which cheapens character X and makes them seem less like a real person and more like a puppet for the authors.

Like when characters don't explain a situation. It drives me crazy. So many Hollywood stories hinge on the fact that people can't/don't communicate.

One of my big concerns is that people will see the lack of communication as normal acceptable behavior and emulate it, the show will either not address it or will explicitly excuse it. They’ll see the negative outcomes as incidental and faults from the other characters.

If they need immature characters to generate drama, they're bad writers.

The most awesome, genius stories are where adults act like adults and wild drama still happens despite their best efforts.

To me Star Trek TNG is emblematic of this and intentionally so. The space exploration format allows for regular stream of external conflict.

Ironic, when for the longest time the issue was the opposite, adults trying to write adolescents and failing.

> I think it's because they're hiring writers who are too young with too little life experience.

That’s what you get when you hire writers willing to work in mini-rooms (and not go to production): inexperienced folks still sponging off their parents.

This is an unfair comment. First, people do have to get started somewhere and early career is rarely as glamorous as late career. It’s highly possible that the only jobs in that industry for new entrants are in mini-rooms. So the choice becomes not working in one’s chosen industry at all or starting out in mini rooms — I say starting out because you’re talking about inexperienced folks. So that part of the comment isn’t really fair.

The other part of the comment that isn’t fair is the “sponging” part. Generally this implies loafing or laziness, someone taking their parents resources and being lazy with them. But we’re talking about working people who are new to their career and putting in the sweat and willing to work in mini-rooms. I don’t think using parental resources is sponging when someone is early career and trying to work hard to get ahead.

I read labster's comment as a criticism of the industry, rather than the writers.

If the pay is so bad that the job's only available to kids with rich parents, whence comes the breadth of experience needed to portray the world as it really is?

And by offering such bad pay, hasn't the industry brought this on themselves?

Those things are exactly the problem. You don’t actually gain experience without going to production, and you don’t have steady enough income to support yourself. They can work hard but never actually get ahead.

Imagine a world where all junior developers are contractors hired for a month or two. They work with more experienced senior devs to write a program together. But junior devs contracts end before the code is ever compiled or run, so they never learn anything about bugfixing or adjusting to client changes or performance with real world data. This is what working hard to get ahead looks like in Hollywood today.

They don't pay enough so people who's moral code whould have them support themselves can't participate and instead you get people who are OK with mommy and daddy paying for everything, often well into their 30's, and it shows.

If this is someone’s “moral code” then it goes against basically all of human history’s actions with the elders helping out the children until they get on their feet, and then the children supporting their parents when the parents age. Not everyone has the privilege to align with this system, but certainly aligning instead with a contrived moral code comes across more as sour grapes than any principled stand against receiving some help from one’s elders.

Elders never provided for people in their late 20's and up, it was the other way around.

Majority of human history have kids being expected to contribute meaningfully much much sooner then we do know. And them being seriously mistreated if they don't. And them being expected to actively help elders by the time they are 30.

The older I get, the more I realize those supposedly "mature adults" do the exact same shit that immature teenagers do. They might be better at hiding it, but they still do it.

That is because you are interpreting "mature" and "immature" as terms for approval or disapproval. I am not arguing that mature adult characters should do all the supposedly rational correct decisions. I am arguing that their behavior is NOT the same as behavior of a teenager nor the behavior of 22 years old. The difference is not just in hiding something. It a lot of stuff like that for teenagers 2 months ago is long time ago while for mature adults it is yesterday. It is that mature adults form friendships differently then kids.

And good writing sees the difference. Take Breaking Bad - neither Walt nor Jessie make good decisions. But Walt is clearly mature man and Jesse is young and immature(and matures during the show). That is good writing involving mature adult, Walt, despite him making one bad and emotional decision after another. Same thing Game of Thrones in initial series - involves well written mature adults doing horrible things.

Then take writing in the Netflix Witcher (and everything that was said about it) or last Game of Thrones series. Long term friendship between mature imperfect adults is something the writer did not even understood. Complicated respectable mature women (who still have difficult personality) is changed into clingy teenager with crush. And judging from interviews, the writer just does not understand these aspects of humanity or of writing.

> They might be better at hiding it, but they still do it.

Then the character should hide it like adults do.

Just watch anything JJ Abrams has been involved in.

A classic case of hating or not caring about source material, whilst also being a complete writing hack.

But what if hating or not caring about source material is a mystery box?

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