The Witcher is back so toss a like to your tuber oh spoilers of plenty as we breakdown
The Witcher Season 3 Part 1 which follows parts of the books Blood of Elves and Time
of Contempt
The first five episodes end on an admittedly underwhelming cliffhanger as Yennefer and
Geralt finally work out that Vilgefortz was the one behind the missing novices, experiments,
book stealing, Rience and wants Ciri to enact his plan.
This plan theorised by Istredd is to banish the elves for good.
This makes sense considering she is supposed to according to Francesca's discussion of
Ithlinne’s prophecy that The Child of the Elder Blood will take the elves to safety
so Vilgefortz may want to use it to simply take them out for good.
Originally thought to be Stregebor, but he’s just a plain old racist against elves with
the council like: https://youtu.be/vxPbpYR_RKY
For much of last season and this one, we have had the underlying mystery of just who Rience
is working for and here we get blue balled right up until the end of this two parter.
Someone has been corrupting and hijacking portals but Vilgefortz like most villains
just cannot stop giving themselves away with monologues.
While Season 2 and Season 3 largely moved away from the mixed up timeline scenes to
a linear story, the writers couldn’t help themselves as Episode 5 is a cycle of retelling
the party before the conclave bit by bit as Yennefer and Geralt slowly workout they accused
the wrong buy in between doing a bit of you know what.
Vilgefortz talks to Geralt about a painting which shows Jan Bekker and the First Landing.
This was the time that humans after the conjunction of the spheres when humans eventually landed
where the Northern Kingdoms are now and took over.
The site of the first landing was where Yennefer was taken and this combined with the fact
that Tissai’s necklace given to her by Vilgefortz is made of the same material as Lydia’s
necklace.
As we know, Lydia has been employing Rience all this time but the person behind it all
was indeed Vilgefortz but there’s much more to this season than simply the ending as Djistkra
has Geralt at knife point and we will discuss that in the spoilers section later.
This season will be the final one for Henry Cavill who is departing the show to head up
film and TV projects for Warhammer 40k which if you’ve seen interviews, you know he is
totally obsessed with.
https://youtu.be/g0Lrr2uS6t8?t=68 to maybe 1:58
The show and its prequel have been chastised by fans of the source material for not being
accurate and in my opinion Henry as Geralt in the monster of the week style episodes
are the best bits.
Liam Hemsworth will be taking over the role but why?
Why is Henry leaving a show that he tried to get the role of for so long and loves the
books and games of?
Henry has spoken about how he is a true guardian of lore and accuracy when it comes to the
roles of The Witcher and Superman:
https://youtu.be/LVm7eZf1i38?t=140
With this in mind, writer Beau DeMayo said:
“I’ve been on show – namely Witcher – where some of the writers were not [fans]
or actively disliked the books and games (even actively mocking the source material).
It’s a recipe for disaster and bad morale.
Fandom as a litmus test checks egos, and makes all the long nights worth it.
You have to respect the work before you’re allowed to add to its legacy.”
You can presume that Henry, who as a fan wants to ensure that the show is as accurate and
true as possible, clashed with writers who actively dislike the source material.
He was also accused of creating a toxic attitude on set and trying to overrule the showrunner
during Season 2 and 3 and creating an alliance with another writer who was also a gamer.
The producers have explained that there is a flawless plan to switch up Geralt's actors
and will supposedly get very meta.
Considering that the books go in very very wild places then it could actually turn out
to be pretty cool.
Season 3 like I mentioned focusses on Geralt and Yennefer keeping Ciri safe as they are
on the run.
After the events of Season 2 we learn that the emperor of Nilfgaard is Ciri’s father.
While the Emperor in the books was searching for Ciri to take control of Cintrilla, we
did not find out that he was indeed his daughter until right at the end.
Most factions are now searching for Ciri including Francesca and the Northern Kingdoms which
each want her for another reason.
Yennefer is aiming to keep her safe by taking her to a school to train her powers but eventually
ends up splintering as Ciri resents the rest of the mages before reconciling towards the
end.
It’s important to remember that some believe Ciri to be the subject of Ithlinne’s prophecy
that foretold the world ending in a blizzard and only the elves surviving saved by The
Child of Elder Blood.
We learned that she did indeed have elder blood as she is a descendent of Lara Dorren,
an elven sorceress that was part of an elven experiment to enhance magical power who fell
in love with a human mage but died in childbirth.
While the Northern kingdoms want her to control Cintrilla, Francesca wants her to guide the
elves to a new homeland, Vilgefortz as we will learn wants her so he can use her powerful
magic to gain even more power.
In the books, it is prophesied that the child Ciri has will be the most powerful magical
user in the world and Vilgefortz wants to erm make that child.
The final player who we probably won’t see for a while is The WIld Hunt who we saw last
season and here in episode 3 chase Ciri.
In Witcher Blood Origin we saw the well, origin of The Wild Hunt which formed such a big part
of the third witcher game which are unofficial sequels to the books.
I mean obviously, the games title is The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt.
We saw The Wild Hunt in Season 2 when they asked Ciri to join them.
The Wild Hunt or their leader Eredin wants to use Ciri’s immense power to invade other
worlds as they can only bring a small contingent across worlds.
Blood Origin showed The Conjunction Of The Spheres in very very simple terms which was
a colliding of realities and led to Humans arriving in the world we see in The Witcher
franchise a long with the monsters The Witchers are hired to kill.
That prequel show also showed Eredin and much of the time before The Conjunction of The
Spheres with him being a military leader who would become trapped on another world.
Yep, multiverse baby.
Ciri does eventually travel across these worlds, even to the world of Cyberpunk.
https://youtu.be/wQ6A3GvEVo0?t=161 til 3:06
The show took some very very big liberties as in the books, Eredin could travel across
the worlds and led the Red Riders and would steal people to use as slaves and discovered
the Main Witcher World.
However the Conjunction trapped them on another world and eventually used mages to travel
to worlds but could only bring the Red Riders.
The people who saw the Red Riders would call them the WIld Hunt as they appeared like spectral
ghostly beings.
Sort of like Ring Wraiths as they appeared in The Lord of Rings movies.
However the prequel show has The Conjunction as a result of the evil mage Baelor wanting
to take power from other worlds.
The monoliths which are only in the show acted as a conduit and when one was destroyed it
tore the fabric of worlds and brought humans and monsters to the main world.
It sent the character Eredin to another world and we see him put on a sort of mask which
is his prot WIld Hunt armour.
Baelor a new character for the Blood Origin show, is also banished to another world but
the snow and ice from the end of the world prophecy is shown here as sentient.
In the books and games this was an upcoming ice age as predicted by Ithlinne it’s later
thought someone of Elder Blood would open portals to take people to another world until
the ice has melted.
The White Frost consumed many many worlds but would eventually be stopped in The Witcher
3 The Wild Hunt.
Over time, Eredin will no doubt form the show's version of the Wild Hunt and eventually try
to take Ciri.
All the while, Avalach an ancient elf a character who appears later in the books hunted for
Ciri and tried to avert the crisis.
We saw him at the end of Blood Origin travel through time and watch Ciri from a door just
as Geralt did in the first season and like The Wild Hunt, he will appear more later down
the line as Vilgefortz plan to use the Book of Monoliths is expanded.
The Wild Hunt are mentioned briefly by the boat captain who alludes to their people stealing
ways but for now they are just teased as the endgame and prophets of doom.
Ok so we may have gotten a bit ahead of ourselves.
Can you tell that I recently replayed Witcher 3 next gen?
Season 3 focuses mainly on all of the major players eventually ending up at the conclave
requested by Yennefer to bring all of the mages together to unite against Nilfgaard
and its brutal expansionist empire.
At the end of last season, Tissai and the northern monarchs wanted to put a price on
Ciri’s head so that Djistkra couldn’t get her and marry her off to Vizimir so Redania
could control Cintra.
Redania plays a major role in these episodes as Djisktra and Phillipa aim to keep their
control on Vizimir and Djistkra wants to make a play for Cintra by taking Ciri.
He even goes as far as to kill the wife of King Vizimir after he brokered a deal with
Nilfgaard without him.
Sensing their power waning the pair have her offed and blame it on Nilfgaard so that their
plans are unaffected.
Enlisted in this plan is Radovid who in the books became king after Vizmier was killed
as he was his son and will no doubt be the most controversial book change with hardcore
fans.
Here here they are brothers and aged up considerably and starts a flirtationship with
jaskier dandelion partly out of attraction and also to use his connection to Geralt to
find Ciri as the pair kiss when he should be looking after Ciri.
He’s remarkably different from the source material and while in the source material
much of his later reign takes place in The Witcher games, the show seems to be changing
things up once again.
Throughout the season and final episode much is made of Geralts neutrality.
He does not play the political games as he simply wants to keep Ciri safe but is beset
at all sides much like the books to pick a side as they all ultimately want Ciri for
her Elder Blood powers or regal lineage.
Djistkra grabs Geralt while he is about to confront VIlgefortz.
Both Triss and Istredd managed to workout that something is going on as students with
elven blood are going missing and theorise that Vilgefortz is going to use the Book of
Monoliths to banish the elves for good and are left by season's end investigating the
rogue mage we know is vilgefortz.
The mage Vilgefortz has been conducting experiments to try and clone Ciri who is left
by Geralt after he learns of his mothers fate.
In the books
an imposter Ciri was used by the Emperor to later use to bring Cintra into the empire
via marriage.
Yeah, even The Witcher isn’t safe from the sorta kinda incest.
So what happened after Geralt was sorta kinda captured.
In the book Tower of Contempt where much of this season takes its story from and after
the cliffhanger, Djistkra and Philippa use this moment to wipe out any supporters of
Nilfgaard and the meeting will lead to an almighty showdown which is presumably what
is going to happen next.
We know in the books of course that he does confront Vilgefortz once more only for Geralt
to only be defeated with Ciri escaping and having the pair separated and Cahir and Geralt
eventually joining up to find the real Ciri.
However, a Scoi’atel would also attack along with Rience and Cahir due to an alliance with
Nilfgaard.
In the show we saw Cahir be sent to Francesca to give them an order as part of an alliance
and this will prove to be fruitful later in the story.
Cahir finally fell back into favour with the Emperor by bringing stability to Francesca’s
elves by removing Robbie Amell’s Gallatin who lead the Scoi’atel and telling her exactly
what she did and they should ally.
This leads presumably to no resistance to Nilfgaard using the Scoi’Atel to attack
the enclave and try to destroy the Brotherhood and attempt to grab Ciri.
Essentially the next few episodes will follow the second half of the book Time of Contempt
as as mentioned with war will break out once
more as each side has their own plans.
In the books Geralt stumbled across this coup set up by Phillippa and Djistkra and was later
defeated by Vilgefortz before the mage escaped and tried to portal away with Ciri before
Ciri disappeared heals a unicorn and joins up with refugee bandits and the Lodge of Sorceress
is created.
Geralt is saved by Triss but how much they cover next remains to be seen.
Now there are three more episodes left to come on July 27th which should wrap up this
story and set the stage for Liam Hemsworth to become The Witcher.
The first five episodes were rather serviceable.
The standouts where Geralt and Ciri working together with the investigation into Rience’s
master feeling rather drawn out leading to a lackluster cliffhanger.
Speak to The Verge the producer Steve Gaub said they were inspired by Stranger Things
and said
‘In a streaming world, cliffhangers don’t really exist because you’re hitting play
[right after an episode ends].
You don’t get that satisfaction of the anticipation and discussion and chatting online.
So we wanted to give that to the fans, and the story was there for us to do it.’
While I appreciate them trying as the binge watch model has been shown up heavily by the
weekly releases of shows like The Boys, it feels rather flat as well you can just read
what happens in the books unlike Stranger Things.
While I’m not too much of
a fan of Radovid’s changes, the Redania plot was admittedly gripping but overall the
show felt rather bloated.