Fans of The Witcher on Netflix are preparing to bid adieu to Henry Cavill as he takes up the twin blades and white wig of Geralt of Rivia one last time in the show’s third season. A fourth season is already greenlit, with Cavill being replaced by Liam Hemsworth in a highly publicised and controversial decision.
We found the second season to be a little long in the tooth, but were cognisant of the groundwork it was laying down for the benefit of the rest of the series.
Today Netflix released the latest season’s teaser trailer, giving us a first look at the biggest threat to be faced by the witcher and Friends. Namely, the ghostly riders of the wild hunt, led by the elven king Eredin Bréaac Glas.
They appear around 0:29 in the trailer, which can be seen below:
Eredin is the big bad of the whole Witcherdom, and he is searching for Ciri since she has magical elven blood powers that have slowly been manifesting throughout each of the last few seasons. The third season, which will be released in two volumes by Netflix – one on 29th June and the second on 27th July – will cover the Time of Contempt book.
This is chronologically the fourth book in the series by Poland’s biggest export Andrzej Sapkowski. The trailer doesn’t show off much in terms of storyline this season, but we can confer that Ciri is almost at the mercy of the wild hunt, perhaps in a dream, Dandelion has found himself in trouble again, and Yennefer and Ciri are teaming up to beat up some nondescript bandits.
The official synopsis sets the show with Ciri and Yennefer heading to the latter’s sorceress academy of Aretuza to continue Ciri’s training. The final seconds of the trailer has the three main characters looking for each in a maze before Ciri is confronted by some sort of monster.
Time of Contempt begins Ciri’s descent into the darker parts of her character, so it will be interesting to how much they take from the novel. There are three more mainline books, and then the Witcher’s story is continued via the videogame series which is not canon according to Sapkowski.
Reports indicate that Cavill decided to leave The Witcher after its writing staff began taking too many liberties and making too many changes to the plot of the books. Netflix had to make certain changes to the original plot in order to include more scenes with certain characters, especially Geralt and Yennefer.
Or maybe Netflix just needed more action and less drama and sullen conversations. Either way, while the internet is split on whether the changes are good or bad, Cavill is dead set on his future vision, somewhere in the grim darkness of the forty-first millennium.
[Image – Netflix]
