The Witcher is an American-Polish fantasy adventure series that premiered on Netflix streaming service on December 20, 2019. The series is a film adaptation of the literary series of the same name by Polish fantasy writer Andrzej Sapkowski.
The events of the novel take place in the magical world of the Continent, where humans, dwarves, demons, rednecks, elves and other races roommate and fight monstrous monsters. In this world, the 3 key storylines – Geralt, Ciri, and Jennifair – develop in three different time periods, describing the events of the heroes’ past and present. The central character in the series is the witch Heralt of Rivia, an artificially created mutant who has undergone special training and herbal testing. Superhuman abilities make him a professional monster killer, which he actively does for a good fee. During his wanderings he meets the bard Buttercup, who asks Geralt to accompany him as a bodyguard to Cintra for the celebration of the heir to the throne Pavetta’s majority.
There Geralt and Buttercup witness a family drama: Pavette is to be married off against her will to an influential ally of the kingdom. The ceremony is interrupted by the princess’s lover, the knight Jozh, but her mother orders him to kill the foreigner. The knight is rescued by the witch, and the latter offers a reward to Geralt in gratitude. The witch refuses the reward, but reserves the right of surprise – an oath that the rescued will pay to his protector what he does not know and does not expect. This right of surprise turns out to be the future Princess Ciri: Yogi, unaware that Pavette is pregnant with a daughter, binds her by oath to the witch long before her birth.
Jennifair of Wengerberg was a pupil of the witch school in Arethusa. Her physical deformities were seen by her parents as a lack of prospect of finding a worthy match for marriage. Therefore, the girl was sent to study the magical sciences, where she was taken under the wing of Archimagister Tissaya and corrected the defects in her appearance, but forever deprived of the ability to have children. Jennifer meets Geralt, who is forced to turn to her due to Buttercup’s fatal injury. The bard received it from a genie that fulfills its owner’s every wish. The enchantress decides to help the wanderers, pursuing her own selfish ends: she requires the seal of the genie, which was left with them. With its help, she can obtain the long-awaited child and her dream of becoming a mother will come true. Geralt falls in love with the sorceress, but carefully conceals his feelings. After all, this contradicts the “code” of witches, who change women like gloves.
The fates of the heroes begin to be tightly intertwined from the moment when the Nilfgaard Empire invades Cintra with war and the desire to seize its territories. Ciri’s parents are presumed dead in a shipwreck, the girl is alone and has no one to rely on. Ciri escapes, and the witch doctor, succumbing to the destiny of the right of surprise, follows the girl to protect her. The princess discovers her magical powers, and to master their power, Geralt trains the girl in self-control and the art of combat, while Yennifer, who meets her again on their way, teaches her sorcerer skills. Even the Council of Kings is stunned by Ciri’s mighty powers: it realizes how powerful and dangerous the girl is. The hunt begins for her.
New episodes of the third season of the series will please their fans with action scenes with numerous monsters: the viewers will see a wyvern and a pancirog, a toadstool and a human centipede. The love line will not “sink in” either: Geralt and Yennifer become closer to each other, publicly demonstrating their feelings at the ball in Arethusa. The main storyline of the season is the persecution of Ciri by her many enemies. Emperor of Nilfgaard Emgyr var Emreis searches for her, as he turns out to be the Yogi, the princess’s biological father, who everyone thought was dead. Dangerous ghosts from another world seek her out: ancient elven blood flows in the girl’s blood, endowing her with powerful powers of magic. This magic helped to use ancient artifacts, thanks to which beings from other dimensions penetrated into the world of people. Elves led by the elven sorceress Francesca Findabair also dream of capturing the princess: they believe that with the help of Ciri their race can recapture its lands and stop hiding in the woods. The sorcerers, led by Vilgefortz of Roggeveen, are also interested in the princess, who want to use her magical powers to resolve their internal disagreements and strife. And spicing things up is the mysterious villainous antagonist of the season, who lures the heroes into clever traps and takes advantage of powerful allies like the Nilfgaard.
In season three, Geralt suffers a crushing defeat in a duel with Vilgefortz and is severely wounded. Ciri escapes through the malfunctioning portal in the Seagull Tower, with Jennyfer missing when it explodes, and temporarily loses her magical powers. The princess will be held captive by the Nilfgaard, which she will be freed from by a band of outlaws who call themselves the Rats of the Frontier – they will slaughter the Nilfgaard and take Cyril into their ranks.
The main dissatisfaction for viewers of The Witcher season 3 was the significant deviation of the plot from Sapkowski’s original cycle. But people who are not familiar with the writer’s work will find the series exciting and thrilling: the inability to predict the ending and look at the formation of Ciri as a witch, and Geralt and Jennyfer as her named father and mother, is the main point of the series.
