The Witcher is plagiarism - An hour-long rant from Awesome Arizona Metal Autist

[Meat Target]

Yes, I know Razorfist has his own lolcow thread, but this isn't about him. Here he finally releases his long-awaited spergout over how The Witcher franchise/Geralt of Rivia is a ripoff of Michael Moorcock's character, Elric of Melnibone:

The Witcher vs. Elric: Popular Plagiarism

Witcher fanboys in 2013: "No similarities" Razör in 2020: "So, here's over an HOUR of 'no similarities'..." Link to 'The Witcher and Plagiarism' video by The...

youtu.be

TL;DW
1. Same albino world-weary spellsword
2. Same nickname (the White Wolf) derived from a similar event
3. Same political machinations trying to manipulate him
4. Same raven-haired sorceress love interest
5. Same Order/Chaos dichotomy and cosmology, with the same symbols, with the same cosmological event known as the "Conjunction of the Spheres"
6. In the mid-80's, Andrzej Sapkowski worked at a publishing firm that was translating Elric into Polish- the same time the first drafts of the Witcher stories were written
7. Sapkowski will not even acknowledge even the superficial similarities between Elric and Geralt, while Moorcock acknowledges Elric's inspirations.

I personally don't have a horse in this race, as I'm of neither fandom. But Witcher fans annoy me, so it's lelzy for me to see their idol get skewered.

 

[DumbDude42]

But Witcher fans annoy me, so it's lelzy for me to see their idol get skewered.

i'd estimate that at least 95% of witcher fans never even read a single one of the books and only played the games, most probably dont know who sapkowski is in the first place lol, so i doubt they'll give any fucks about this

 

[Pargon]

Counterpoint:

"Geralt of Rivia" sounds a hell of a lot cooler than "Elric of Melnibone".

You can always pick out the fantasy authors who came up with their naming conventions by throwing darts at a wall and never once saying the names out loud.

ETA: anyone who spends this much time to stick it to fans of anything is a retard.

 

[DidYouJustSayThat]

i'd estimate that at least 95% of witcher fans never even read a single one of the books and only played the games, most probably dont know who sapkowski is in the first place lol, so i doubt they'll give any fucks about this

I've read several and everybody, whom I know to have played the game has told me that they've read at least some of the books, so not sure if people you hang out with are illiterate or you like to jump to conclusions with no sound reasoning behind.

 

[Robert James]

It's plagiarism, and it's fucking hilarious because it is the pride and joy of Poland. It be like if Australias best selling book series was about an orphaned boy with a square birthmark that discovered his parents were spell casters and he was whisked off to a magical school for spell casters by a giant on a moped. Though the catch is Harry Potter would just be popular to fantasy novel fans and wouldn't of been famous world wide.

Much like how Batman was a copy of The Shadow, Geralt was based off of a character that had huge popularity in a niche circle. Like Batman the whitcher has far surpassed what it was based off of and is now more well known to all but the most die hard fans.

The issue isn't so much that it's a ripoff but that they refuse to admit it hence Razor's tard rage, especially when the man you ripped off doesn't want to sue you.

 

[Discourteous Discourse]

I've read several and everybody, whom I know to have played the game has told me that they've read at least some of the books, so not sure if people you hang out with are illiterate or you like to jump to conclusions with no sound reasoning behind.

I guess @DumbDude42 and I hang out with the same people, because I've met very few Witcher fans who played the first two games, let alone knew that a well established book series existed prior to the release of the first game. People look at me like I'm either really boring or a freak when I tell them about the books, and they immediately assume that the books are based off the games. I tell them no, they've been around, it just took about 20 years before they were translated, and they were released in English along with The Witcher in 2007. It's a shame, really, because the books are wonderful. IMO The Last Wish is a good place to start.

 

[Chad Nasty]

I guess @DumbDude42 and I hang out with the same people, because I've met very few Witcher fans who played the first two games, let alone knew that a well established book series existed prior to the release of the first game. People look at me like I'm either really boring or a freak when I tell them about the books, and they immediately assume that the books are based off the games. I tell them no, they've been around, it just took about 20 years before they were translated, and they were released in English along with The Witcher in 2007. It's a shame, really, because the books are wonderful. IMO The Last Wish is a good place to start.

I never got around to reading the books, and the first game I got was the 2nd Witcher. It didn't really build interest to learn much more about it. It wasn't until I started #3 that I actually got more interested in looking through all the lore. I always knew the history of the series and always thought the Author was an idiot for selling it for less than 10k.

 

[Megaroad 2012]

I listened to the short story collection on audiobook but accidently set the speed to like, 1.5x faster without realizing it.

So for the whole time, I listened to maybe most of the stories with the reader sounding like Terrance or Phillip and couldn't figure out why they would hire someone to read a story like this lol

 

[Cyril Sneer]

Having extensively researched the Elric and Witcher books on Wikipedia and TVTropes, I think I can say with confidence that Geralt is the more appealing protagonist.

 

[dirtydeanna96]

How many Deep Purple songs have been written about Geralt?
And how many Blue Öyster Cult songs?
0 for 2.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

i'd estimate that at least 95% of witcher fans never even read a single one of the books and only played the games, most probably dont know who sapkowski is in the first place lol, so i doubt they'll give any fucks about this

One reason for this is the fact that not all the books had an official English translation until very recently. Back when Witcher 3 came out, you had to rely on fan translations to finish the series in English.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I'm basically reiterating what I and others said in the Razorfist thread: The only real argument in the plagiarism debate is about Geralt's similarity to Elric, which is an entire archetype of "mystique anti hero albino pretty boy with a dark past" that is extremely popular.
Besides the main character everything else is different - Elric is a tragedy where death is guaranteed if you interact with Elric, Witcher is an overall optimisic story with a large cast of side characters that help Geralt.

 

[Uranus Pink]

Much like how Batman was a copy of The Shadow, Geralt was based off of a character that had huge popularity in a niche circle. Like Batman the whitcher has far surpassed what it was based off of and is now more well known to all but the most die hard fans.

Batman kinda is a god and bad example as Bob Kane did ripoff The Shadow when co-creating Batman. U.S. comic companies were smart enough to differentiate their knockoffs enough to avoid the plagiarism charge.

The issue isn't so much that it's a ripoff but that they refuse to admit it hence Razor's tard rage, especially when the man you ripped off doesn't want to sue you.

Unless I am mistaken that little thing called the Cold War was going on when
Moorcock created Eric the White Wolf, making it rather difficult for Andrzej Sapkowski even hear of it nevermind getting copies of the books. Razorfist in his tardism either forgotten or ignored parallel developments does happened. Something which Moorcock and his lawyers surely would have noticed and let it rest after checking to be sure.

Will greatly appreciated it if the Euro kiwis could provide info on trade and such between both sides of the Cold War.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

The author of the books seems like a mean hard hearted miserable greedy individual tbh.
I don't understand why he doesn't get that fans got into his books because of the games (and the stupid show.)

Btw if I hear one more person obsess over fake!Dandelion and his stupid song.......

 

[Pokemonquistador2]

Didn't the Japanese rip Elric off to create their White haired Pretty Boy trope, or was there another source for that spergery? Wouldn't surprise me if Sephiroth were a rip off of Elric, down to the big fuck-off sword.

 

[capitalBBustard]

I always knew the history of the series and always thought the Author was an idiot for selling it for less than 10k.

If you knew the history, you wouldn't think he's an idiot. 1 dev went bankrupt trying to make a Witcher game for the PS1, then another ended up failing to make a game when they had the rights before CDP picked to bones for it. Considering CDP at that time was lowly eurotrash (soon to be) dev and publisher that never made a game before, and since all the Witcher projects that were going to get him royalties either flopped (TV show/movie) or died before they came out (PS1 game), Sap opted to get booze money instead at renegotiations. Not his fault that CDP turned out to be the only euro company that would make it big instead of dying or staying niche, poor and jank.

CDP almost died like 2-3 times before Witcher 2 came out, the first version of their Witcher game was a Dark Alliance reskin that was scrapped when they moved to the Neverwinter Nights engine, it took them like 10 years before they could make a single game, they had the license since before 2000, W1 came out '07.

The hindsight with CDP is so egregious, it's on the level of calling someone retarded for not playing the winning lottery numbers.

 

[Chad Nasty]

Sap opted to get booze money instead at renegotiations.

It was an interesting read, but I think this part really stood out.

 

[InsolentGaylord]

Didn't the Japanese rip Elric off to create their White haired Pretty Boy trope, or was there another source for that spergery? Wouldn't surprise me if Sephiroth were a rip off of Elric, down to the big fuck-off sword.

I don't get the rage over a similar character design to be honest.
Daniel Harris may be a good talker but he's clearly got autism in some form or another. It's unhealthy to become this angry over what may or may not be actual plagurism (and not just strong simularities in certain aspects). It's one thing to hate the Witcher author, it's another to have a grudge against CDPR for making games based on those books.

He also claimed that Cyberpunk 2077 was trying to rip off Deus Ex because he's buttmad Mankind Divided was a piece of shit that flopped.

 

[Dom Cruise]

The Witcher is simply a cooler take on the idea though.

And Michael Moorcock wrote a blasphemous book about Jesus.

So I'm team Witcher.

 

[FaramirG]

The author of the books seems like a mean hard hearted miserable greedy individual tbh.
I don't understand why he doesn't get that fans got into his books because of the games (and the stupid show.)

Btw if I hear one more person obsess over fake!Dandelion and his stupid song.......

Sapkowski hates the games because he negotiated for cash up front (think it was like $10000 in euros or whatever Poland was using at the time) instead of a % and the games made a shitload of money. I think anyone would be bitter in that situation. He loves the show because Netflix actually paid him.