It’s racism. I am not going to sugarcoat it or say it’s because fans just “prefer” game Triss. They prefer her because of their implicit bias. There is a post about choosing to right in the Netflix Verse but keep Game Triss Here. If there is a fic that is set in the Netflix Verse and uses Jaskier instead of Dandelion, describes Geralt with no beard and as, well, Henry Cavill, and even sometimes, if you are lucky, uses Anya Chalotra as Yennefer but then uses Game Triss? That is making the specific choice to exclude a black character which if most of the fic is set in the Netflix verse, that is a very specific choice rooted in racism, whether on accident or on purpose.
While the game was popular, the fandom didn’t rise-up or become mainstream on Tumblr until the tv show came out. If you want evidence of that, just go look at Tumblr’s 2020 review. They had an entire section for The Witcher, it was #13 on the top 20 things tagged on Tumblr in 2020, Geraskier was the 4th most popular ship out of 100 (Yenralt didn’t even make the list), Jaskier was the 3rd most popular character, Geralt was the 5th, Yennefer was the 24th (yeah there’s a problem here too).
And if you want even MORE evidence of this, here’s tumblr’s year in review for 2019 JUST for video games, not even overall things or fandom. The Witcher isn’t even in the top 50. It also wasn’t on Tumblr year in review in 2018, 2017, or 2016. Before 2020, The Witcher never made it into these lists, the tv show made the fandom we see now.
As well let’s look at some of the fanfiction stats from AO3. 11,805 out of 21,208, aka 56% of Witcher fanfiction is explicitly tagged as the Netflix series. However, I know that many fans like to just use The Witcher - All Media Types tag and not the show one (I know I use that) so let’s look at timeline as well. 18,900 out of 21,208, aka 89% of ALL Witcher fanfiction was written after the show was released. Even if you have tried your gosh-darn best to avoid it, the trope and fandom from the Netflix series have seeped into most people’s perception of The Witcher. So again, re-stating my point, using all the Netflix characters in fanfiction BUT Triss, is anti-blackness, plain and simple.
And a lot of fans online have used the excuse, they aren’t racist, they just don’t think she looks like the character. They say things like “it’s the same thing people said when Daniel Craig was cast as James Bond”...but it’s not. When you say a Black woman doesn’t “look right” for a role you are saying black people have no place in your story. Re-evaluate yourself when you makes those comments and think about the company you are keeping. Because you are keeping company with literal racists who use the same phrases and have the same opinions as you.
A post about some of the backlash actor’s faced here:
Here’s an article about the harassment
Now a Reddit thread about Triss would look better with straight hair
But “Oh” you say, that’s just specific to Reddit, Tumblr would NEVER be racist.
Well here’s a fun collection of posts!
I just gave a few examples but look through the blogs of anyone whose been talking about fandom racism and you will see so many posts and examples.
The Witcher fandom has a racism problem. It’s not just Yennefer or shipping Yenralt. It extends to how the fandom treats Netflix Triss as I have talked about here, it extends to how there’s practically no content or more specifically, engagement for characters of color. It’s about how the fandom keeps pushing POC out to the point where people I love are leaving the fandom because they aren’t welcome here.
If you aren’t willing to listen to POC when they tell you something is racist, when they tell you something is wrong. Fuck off.
