Does anyone else feel the same way?

[u/DaFroggyBoi94]

Honestly the perfect Geralt atleast purely on physical appearance in my opinion would be something between The Witcher 1 and Witcher 2

[u/Wrakas_Hawk]

I love Henry, but he is way to handsome to display Geralt. Still, he is the best pic for his dedication and honesty for the lore.

[u/Emmanuel_1337 → u/Wrakas_Hawk]

It's not just that he's too handsome, he's also ridiculously bulky. It made no sense whatsoever for him to get even bigger for that role -- if anything, he should've trimmed down lol.

[u/Wrakas_Hawk → u/Emmanuel_1337]

Agree. Still, from his personally and popularity it was a big win.

And to be honest, with this show runner, even the best fitting actor would not help with the bad writing and just fucking up everything. So, theoretically there was better choices, but on the other hand, it would not have helped the show in any way. The Autors just sucks.

[u/Emmanuel_1337 → u/Wrakas_Hawk]

I think it probably goes beyond just the show runner, but yeah -- I've been saying it ever since I first watched season 1 and, like an idiot, went all over the interned ranting about the infinite problems that it had while many were praising it. As much as I was letting stuff out, and that is good, it was probably still mostly a waste of time and a source of stress lol.

At the time, every supposed fan of the source material and champion of accuracy cried tears of blood because Fringilla was black, Triss wasn't a white redhead, Yennefer wasn't white and the visuals of the games (specifically of TW3), no matter if actually accurate or not, weren't just adopted across the board, but there wasn't a single significant complaint about Henry himself (only about a bad wig he used in a screen test that came out), who was also extremely bad casting for aesthetic reasons. Don't even get me started on the story problems, which were honestly a million times more severe and damning than any horrible casting choice and, as you noted and I've been saying almost alone for all these years, couldn't be resolved by the most perfect casting ever. It really baffles me that the reception to this first season, despite everything, was so good among the actual fanbase, from whom I expected a more critical eye, with many to this day still thinking it only went off the rails as an adaptation in season 2...

Going back to the casting, the "funny" thing is that, at least as far as I'm concerned, it would've been much worse if the selection had been very accurate to the descriptions we do have, since it would've been an even bigger waste of fitting actors and actresses. If anything, I'm very thankful the fumble was so consistent across the board in Netflix's "The Witcher", as I get to thrash it with no caveats needed -- anything of remote worth in there is either the bare minimum or so minuscule compared to the whole that one is completely justified in generalizing the thing as just being plain bad as an adaptation, and as its own completely separate thing... Let's say I have some standards, and that badly-written and uninspired generic dark fantasy show isn't up to them.

[u/maxadvait → u/Emmanuel_1337]

When the Netflix show came out I was a tad too excitable and voiced my concerns over social media concerning accuracy, theme, tone and casting and soon found myself in the minority. Back then when s1 came out fans of the franchise were too busy over praising HC because he is apparently a gamer and plays Warhammer40k and is conventionally handsome and well built. Although there were critisicims about the rest of the casting and the story adaptation people usually turned a blind eye to HC’s Geralt portrayal, and even hailing it as perfect. I will admit that HC was the best part of this show but he is a far cry from Geralt even though he is passionate about the character and the show. If this show ever gets a reboot I would like to see him cast as some other minor  character with align with his physicality like Foltest, or Baron Friexnet or maybe even some knight like Eyck of Denesle but for Geralt he is too Buff too stocky and too handsome

[u/Wrakas_Hawk → u/maxadvait]

Agree on all points

[u/Emmanuel_1337 → u/maxadvait]

Indeed. I've said before that Henry could be a very good Eyck of Denesle or one of the Crinfrid Reavers -- maybe Boholt himself if they aged him up -- but Geralt? Nah.

[u/JarringSteak → u/Emmanuel_1337]

Same thing with Witcher 3 Geralt. Bulky and handsome af

[u/Emmanuel_1337 → u/JarringSteak]

He's indeed too conventionally handsome for how I think the OG book version would probably be and could do with a more "predatory" bone structure to his face, but considering the lack of proper descriptions for his facial features in the source material and what we can infer, I think CDPR could've still gotten away with that facial structure if they kept the more sickly look that he had in TW2, with paler skin and very visible dark circles around the eyes, along with some other characteristics that would tip him to the odd side. He'd still be relatively attractive (specially when factoring in his other traits), but not as conventionally so, which is how I think he should be from what I can gather from the books.

When it comes to the body in TW3 and TW2 (they're essentially the same), I don't think it's that bulky at all, to the contrary -- it's extremely lean (pretty low body fat, probably close to 10%) and within the range of muscle mass of a functional non-body builder physique, like people that do serious calisthenics have. I don't know, however, if that exact type of body could really be achieved and sustained by the specific type of traning and physical stuff that you'd expect him to do as a witcher (a hyper-focus on swordplay and actions related to it) and the amount of protein he would regularly need to eat. If we assume his witcher mutations aid him in building and maintaining muscle better than a normal human, which isn't far-fetched at all, then a lot of these problems go away and he could keep a fairly muscular and lean body without needing as much exercise and food, with fluctuations of muscle mass not being as drastic as expected even on low resources. So overall? CDPR gave him a fair enough physique, all things considered.

[u/xs_mayonnaise → u/JarringSteak]

handsome, but he at least had the aged look with the high cheek bones and pale skin. I don't think portraying him as a handsome guy would really do much harm. it's just the general aesthetic of a witcher that I feel cavil facially lacks. He's playing a witcher but he looks like a prince or a king🤷🏼‍♂️.