In the inaugural season of Netflix's The Witcher, the Law of Surprise is the hinge upon which
the entire plot twists but for those coming to the series having no familiarity with the
property, it may seem a bit confusing.
What does the Law of Surprise mean to Geralt and his world?
The concept has taken many forms across a lot of cultures' folklore, but it basically
boils down to this: in exchange for an unpayable debt usually, saving someone's life the person
who invokes the law is demanding the benefit of the target's unexpected luck.
This can be anything, but the trick is that the item is bestowed by luck and fate, and
is unknown to the person giving the item away until they return home safely.
"Find Geralt of Rivia.
He is your destiny."
Many parables involve the trope of a nobleman traveling and having their life saved by someone
of lower birth.
Rather than accept the immediacy of gold or other form of material wealth, the peasant
will invoke the Law of Surprise, which leads to the nobleman having to give up something
far more precious.
When the nobleman grows selfish and attempts to thwart this invocation of fate by either
trying to pay the peasant off or attempting to kill them, terrible things befall them.
Tales using this trope are meant to highlight the virtues of selflessness and humility good
people and kings honor their bargains, even when the cost is exceedingly high, and the
universe should punish those who do not.
"The Law of Surprise has been called.
You kill them, you kill me."
Here's how the Law of Surprise comes into play in the first season of The Witcher.
Many years before the events of the series, Lord Urcheon, humble knight of the realm,
saves the king from death.
With extreme humility, Urcheon insists he needs no material benefit for doing so, but
upon the king's continued pressure, chooses the Law of Surprise as his repayment, never
once imagining it would mean Calanthe's unborn child.
Having been cursed to look like a hedgehog from a young age, he did his best to stave
off the fate the Law of Surprise demanded until his curse lifted hearing the twelfth
peal of a bell in the course of his life.
Fate, of course, intervenes, and Urcheon meets Princess Pavetta seemingly by chance, and
they fall in love.
Their secret betrothal is what drives him to interrupt the Feast of Cintra, demanding
what is his by ancient right.
"Lioness of Cintra!
I come to claim what is rightfully mine!
Pavetta.
By the Law of Surprise."
Queen Calanthe gets mad, there's that big fight, and Geralt steps in directly to save
Urcheon's life twice in succession.
When Calanthe finally relents, Urcheon insists just as the king had done years before to
repay Geralt for his intervention.
Geralt, believing all this to be traditionalist nonsense, chooses the Law of Surprise over
literally everyone else's interruption that maybe, Geralt buddy, you should think it through.
Alas, he does not, and the cheeky revelation of Pavetta vomiting immediately afterward
reveals her pregnancy.
Ciri is on the way, and Geralt refuses to recognize what he has wrought for himself.
He mocks the concept of destiny openly over his friend Mousesack's warnings, and leaves...
to his continued and countless future troubles.
It's only when he accepts his responsibility under the Law of Surprise that he is put at
ease.
Geralt is sympathetic; he is a man of forced circumstances, living a life he had no choice
in and basically waiting to die, though he strives to at least be effective in his profession.
His scintilla of hope for something better through Yennefer is lost precisely because
of the selfishness through which he employed the Law of Surprise thinking he'd cheated
someone out of a child he could never bear himself with no consequences, and when it
got tough, abandoning Ciri to a much uglier fate than necessary.
Both Geralt and Calanthe thought destiny was hogwash, tried to abuse others' belief in
it for their own ends, and ended up severely punished for it.
"But you can't outrun destiny just because you're terrified of it.
It's coming, Geralt.
Not believing won't change that."
The punishment is what engenders belief in fate but too late for Calanthe, and almost
so for Geralt.
Ciri is consequential both because of the potent magical bloodline she belongs to, as
well as her unknown attachment to Geralt through what amounts to his own selfish stupidity.
It's much more than a simple bit of moral instruction to the world of The Witcher: it's
magic making itself known in its world, and the mortals within it are merely shifting
among its tides.
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