So I just watched the first episode of "The Witcher" which people have tentatively recommended to me, and I also saw a thing where someone on the internet made a video complaining about a woman wearing armor and leading an army in battle.

Now I'm generally first in line to call out female empowerment bullshit, but armor and swords are not that heavy, with certain caveats. I remember reading this essay by L. Sprague DeCamp railing about the unrealistic feats of arms in the genre, which I seem to recall is based on his experience in a medieval fantasy camp. And I sort of think guys who trained from childhood to wear armor and fight with weapons, in a society with no machinery or advanced technology for daily life, might have a slightly different perspective on the weight and difficulty than a middle-aged man from modern times with a sedentary profession. And that goes for women. A queen, who has been fighting since she was a girl (the only indication of the age at which she won her first battle is "my age" spoken by a character whose looks could be anywhere from 12 to 20, and whose education could be as advanced as fifth grade), and is now in her forties, could very well have the necessary experience and conditioning to wear armor and fight.

What I have an issue with is every other piece of stupidity connected with the queen character, Calanthe. She is introduced conducting what appears to be a general ceremony of fealty. Her husband and granddaughter are waiting behind her the dias, and both bored. The husband bearing it with rather less paitence and fortitude than the granddaughter, and they get a barbed aside from the queen about showing proper decorum. So the queen understands the importance of ceremony, but her heir, the only person in the whole episode who is related to her by blood, doesn't, despite being grown-up sized (played by an actress who was 17 at the time), nor does her husband who has been with her to some degree at least since her daughter's betrothal feast (presumably the mother of the granddaughter). So the queen can't seem to keep her relatives in line or educate them about the minimal expectations of royal family members.

Next, we see them at a banquet, sitting at the place of honor, while a dance goes on. Again, the queen's husband is bored and wants to leave. It turns out that Cirilla, the granddaughter knows exactly jack all about current events or geopolitics. The otherwise irresponsible consort, Eist, actually has to point out to Calanthe that Cirilla is going to have to step up and rule their kingdom, called Cintra, someday. Eist warns that war is coming because of a superstitious omen, and Calanthe blows his premonition off by pointing out that there is an ongoing war ever since "Nilfgaard took Ebbing." Eist points out that Nilfgaard's armies have been seen at a certain place and Calanthe thinks they'll go to Sodden if they are smart, and if they aren't & don't, a reinforcement fleet is on the way.

Some dignitary's son wants to dance with Cerilla, and Calanthe has to glare her into acceptance. Again, this is very basic, fundmental aristocratic stuff. We think these parties look like unappealing and frivolous affairs, but I'm sure they'd have opinions about our choosing leaders based on their ability to stand at a row of podiums and give non-answers to shallow questions posed by entertainment personalities. You throw parties as a symbol of your ability to provide. You follow the forms expected to show people you will adhere to the duties expected of your post. It's funny how people can't grasp this, but still get all torqued up about an elected official who doesn't follow the protocols and courtesies expected toward the media and other politicians.

So Cerilla can barely adhere to the basics of public relations, and neither she nor her step-grandfather understand the functions or principles behind it. And Calanthe can't be bothered to teach her nearly-grown heir anything important, not even brief her on a current military threat. People talk about Calanthe as a great or skilled ruler, but we don't see much of that, as her method of protecting her nation from invasion consists largely of wishful thinking. While Cerilla is reluctantly dancing, Calanthe is informed that, no, the enemy nation is not heading somewhere else, they are invading. She decides to let Cerilla keep dancing rather than trouble her with bad news. Prior to that, when Cerilla had pointed out that she's the same age Calanthe was when she won a battle, the queen deigns to give the lesson to "keep moving and keep your sword close." Which will probably end up being useful advice because of some Law of Narrative Conservation or other, but isn't particularly useful to a future ruler coming of age in a time of war. Especially because near the end of the episode, Calanthe tells her lesson number two is sometimes, forget lesson number one.

Anyway, Calanthe & Eist ride out with their knights to meet the oncoming Nilfgaard hordes, while Cerilla stays home, with a bodyguard and the court magician babysitting her, and she's kind of pissy about it, but still no one is giving her lessons or preparing her to do any sort of leadership. And Calanthe is in armor and charges at the head of her knights, sure, and later, during the battle, which has degenerated into a brawl, her husband screams to her at the top of his lungs "We're losing!" Because THAT'S how you conduct a battle in person! That's even worse than a tactical failing, since plans frequently go to shit. But there's nothing more likely to motivate all the enemies in hearing and demoralize all your troops in earshot than that particular phrase from their leaders. So Calanthe asks Eist about that fleet of reinforcements mentioned during the banquet, and is told that a storm delayed/prevented their arrival. There is no explanation how Eist comes by this knowledge in the midst of hand-to-hand combat, and the Queen does not, or how she knew he had learned of it. The only thing that makes sense is that he knew all along, and she never bothered to ask, just assuming that those reinforcements would dismebark from their ships and show up during the battle to make a difference! Coordination? Preparation? Asking a simple question about the location and ETA of a critical component of your army? What is this nonsense of which you speak?

Anyway, later on, Cerilla sees grandma staggering in, wounded, sans late husband (her reaction to see Eist take a fatal head wound is to remove her own helmet ), and it turns out the enemy troops are in the city. At first I thought we were seeing even MORE uselessness on the part of the leadership, since the queen asks how many citizens have made it to safety inside "our walls." She is told only a hundred or so, who were guests at the banquet. She sends her chief military dude to check if they have enough supplies. This is all stuff you should have prepared ahead of time! Calanthe tells Cerilla that right now their people are being tortured to death, because Nilfgaard doesn't take prisoners. The implication of this assertion is that this is a known practice of Nilfgaard. So, there is a polity with an established reputation for atrocity, that has been conducting a war of aggression for a considerable period of time, whose armies are known to be moving near her kingdom, and all Calanthe has done is send for reinforcements so late that a storm is enough to completely throw off the whole defensive strategy. The entire military defensive plan was to lead the army of knights out, to perform a frontal assault, with backup weapons (seriously, starting off a battle with armored knights charging with swords, is like modern soldiers going into action brandishing pistols), hope a fleet full of reinforcements disembarked and got to the right battlefield on time, despite an apparent lack of telecommunications (the only possibility in that regard is Eist, who might have some sort of telepathic faculties, which would explain why Calanthe asks him about the status of the reinforcements during the battle; but then, he's the one running around without a helmet on a battlefield, after charging in the front rank, so not exactly where you want your sole communications link to the other half of the army). And that's it. No contingency plan if they lose the battle, no evacuation organized, not even shout as you ride through the city ahead of a rampaging army "Get to the castle". Probably because they don't really have a castle. They have an ugly mansion. At least that's what I call a building with ground floor windows, and a fixed footbridge blocking the way to the "gate" which is actually just a double door at street level. Not super well-fortified. The closest thing they have to a defense plan is for the wizard to hold a forcefield over the door until they shoot enough fire-arrows at it to make it collapse. I suspect the enemy is just being drama queens. Since no one is manning walls or using the towers for anything other than waving hands to make a magic forcefield, nor does anyone in the army appear to own a bow and arrows, I don't see why the enemy couldn't walk up to the forcefield and hit it until it collapsed, or wave torches at it if fire was the essential counter.

Once it is clear that their defenses will not hold, like, five mintues into the siege, the head military guy starts passing out little bottles to everyone in the royal residential structure, and it becomes clear what Calanthe REALLY meant by 'check if we have enough supplies.' So if the cost of defeat is so bad that suicide is the thing they are thinking of as soon as they're back from the lost battle, why have they done nothing else? The queen's whole approach to the military threat was "hope it goes somewhere else", her plan was to fight a single battle and hope everything worked perfectly, and then, fuck it. Everyone dies, the common scum horribly, while we have mercy-poison for ourselves and our guests.

The sole mitigating factor in all of this is that it seems like there is something special or unique about Cerilla, so you could kind of see why they had to keep her in the dark, but they are also expecting her to be the great hope of the kingdom, that somehow she's going to reverse their fortunes and turn the tide (and the realm will bounce right back from "everyone got tortured to death or took poison" ). But what it really looks to me, is that the mystery of Cerilla's backstory is just one more reason why Calanthe should have expected the enemy to come for them. They certainly seem determined to capture her in particular. So why was she not fleeing with her bodyguard and the wizard before Calanthe & Eist even set out for the battle? Why were they not sending her to a bolthole when the possibility that the enemy army would come for them instead of Sodden became a subject of discussion? They tell her that her destiny or her only hope is the main character of the show, so why have they not been reaching out to him since the moment "Nilfgaard took Ebbing" and doing all they can to get him to Cintra to protect/train/whatever Cerilla?

Also, we are introduced to Cerilla playing dice on the street with a group of urchins, who are all gambling for the right to eat a roll one of them stole. Then the troops come to drag Cerilla back to court. Discussing the incident with Eist, it's strongly implied that he taught her to cheat at dice, and she was about to use his techniques to win the game. So the princess disguises herself as a commoner to slum with the street kids, and her plan was to swindle them out of the food they had to steal? None of this is presented in such a way as to suggest we are to view her as a wretched little shit, either.

Later on, while waiting for grandma & grandpa to royally cock up the battle on which Cintra's survival depends, Cerilla is still being a brat, complaining about her caretakers, trying to insult them by suggesting they'd rather be doing something else, and taking the book the wizard is reading away from him. But it seems like this stuff could be intended to convey strength of character on her part, and refusal to let people restrict her. And from what we have seen, she has been seriously deprived of the knowledge and training to make the best of her situation or to perform the duties of her station, so she might have a point. But they never come close to making that point. The wizard starts to tell her story and she interjects with "You know cautionary tales don’t work on me!” What does she mean by this, and more precisely, what do the writers mean? Did they MEAN 'cautionary tales' or did they mean allegories or fables or instructional parables? Because "cautionary tale" usually doesn't mean a literal story, but a bad example, an incident used as a warning of the consequences of a certain course of action. When someone says "cautionary tales don’t work on me" they are saying they are unable to learn from others' mistakes. That phrase should only ever be used ruefully, or as self-criticism. In the context in which the dialogue was spoken, Cerilla seems to be saying "You know I have trouble figuring out the moral of a story," which at best does not speak well of her analytical skills, or her ability to learn. One reason to teach by story instead of flat out stating a lesson or principle, is to induce the student to think and exercise their reasoning skills. So the implied picture is of a student so intractable that certain teaching methods are useless. And the delivery has more of a connotation of "you know that medium of entertainment does not amuse me" than any sort of attempt to engage with her teacher.

The rest of the episode, with the titular Witcher, isn't bad. But this setup for Cerilla was pretty bewildering. Is she spoiled, sheltered or stupid? Wouldn't it have been more effective to just have her meet up with The Witcher and be revealed to be a deposed refugee princess? Couldn't they have used some dialogue to explain the atrocities of Nilfgaard, or show a pile of mutilated corpses, rather than a bunch of stabbings that don't quite match Calanthe's lurid descriptions?