The Witcher has come under fire from fans of the novels of Andrzej Sapkowski for dumbing down the highly detailed plot, and this bone of contention played a big part in Henry Cavill’s decision to depart the show at the end of its third season. According to the Netflix series’ executive producer Tomek Baginski, the simple reason for the story coming up short against its source material is down to the need to cater to a large American audience.

In many adaptations of popular novels, there are plenty of small details, sub-plots and even entire characters that don’t make it to the screen version, and that is pretty much true of The Witcher. Speaking recently to a polish publication, and reported via Redanian Intelligence, Baginski explained:

"Sometimes the changes are the result of production chaos, because, for example, an actor fell ill and his plot needs to be edited and rewritten within a few hours so that it can be shot the next day, because this is not a plot for which the whole production machine will stop. There are a lot of understandable reasons why controversial decisions are made, but the viewer does not have this context, so sometimes it hurts because something was better in the book.

When a series is made for a huge mass of viewers, with different experiences, from different parts of the world, and a large part of them are Americans, these simplifications not only make sense, they are necessary. It's painful for us, and for me too, but the higher level of nuance and complexity will have a smaller range, it won't reach people. Sometimes it may go too far, but we have to make these decisions and accept them."

Related: The Witcher Star Reflects on Henry Cavill Departure and Liam Hemsworth's Arrival

The Witcher’s Third Season Has Been Hit With Bad Reviews.

If there is one thing true in the world of entertainment, it is that you never disgruntle your fan base. The news of Henry Cavill’s decision to leave the series after the current season, despite previously committing himself to at least five, was a moment when many fans of the show came to their own conclusions that they would not be sticking with the show beyond Cavill’s departure.

Similarly, the response to the new season, which premiered on Netflix last month in two parts, has been a little harsh, and purely comes down to people being angry at Netflix for allowing Cavill to become so unhappy on the show that he had to quit. Cavill’s main issues seem to stem from pretty much the simplifying and altering of the story of The Witcher from its source material; him being an avid fan of the books and video games that preceded the TV show.

Season 4 will see Liam Hemsworth taking over the title role, but there are a lot of fans who are going to be hard to please. As if joining a series after three seasons was not daunting enough, Hemsworth also has to deal with the army of Cavill fans who will not easily forgive Netflix for the loss of their perfect Geralt.