Literary adaptations in the context of intermediality: The example of The Witcher series

During periods when communication tools were not yet invented and technology was not developed, people took on the task of providing communication as a form of media. At present, media has become a means of reflecting all fields of communication and occupations with the benefits of technology and humanity. Traditional media has evolved into digital media, and traditional arts have also begun to be performed in the digital environment. While inter-artistic relations before the Digital age were mostly experienced between rhetoric and literary/verbal arts, the concept of adaptation started to be discussed theoretically in the New Age, and adaptations became inevitable with the advent of cinema. While exchanges between arts are approached through concepts such as intertextuality and interartism, the inseparability of media and arts has given rise to the concept of intermediality. While literary exchanges are examined through intertextuality, artistic exchanges from verbal media to visual or auditory media have also started to be systematically evaluated under the umbrella of intermediality. This thesis study aims to identify problems arising from media transformation within the scope of examples and compare the relationships between two media using a comparative analysis method. Alongside "The Witcher" series, which is available on Netflix, a digital platform providing on-demand streaming service, Andrzej Sapkowski's adapted literary works, "The Last Wish", "Sword of Destiny", and "Blood of Elves", have been thoroughly examined in terms of characters and plot. Concurrently, the concepts of adaptation, intertextuality, inter-arts, and intermediality are examined, the problems arising from the adaptation process between literary works/source media and internet series, which can be considered as a new media/adaptive media, are explored through Irina O. Rajewsky's suggested threefold systematic framework of intermediality, encompassing "media transposition, intermedial references, and media combination", as well as through intertextuality/intra-media analysis. In the comparison made between the literary works of "Witcher" (source material) and "The Witcher" (the adapted work), it has been observed that the literary works were not adapted one-to-one, and that there were issues with the conversion to screenplay, reductions and additions in the plot and characters, a lack of character development, a lack of an overall adapted character, a disruption of the chronology, and the series moving increasingly independently from the literary works. In the comparative analysis conducted on characters and plot, the deficiencies and innovations resulting from the transition between literary/visual media, as well as medium-specific quality transfers and created media simulations in intermediality relationships, were identified, while within intertextuality, adopted methods and intra media exchanges were also determined.