Battles Better Than in Game of Thrones: What You Need to Know About The Witcher Before Its Premiere

On December 20, one of the most anticipated series of the year will premiere on the streaming service Netflix.

The Witcher: Books, Comics and Games

The Witcher is a hugely popular fantasy saga worldwide, consisting of two story collections and six novels by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski. They tell of the adventures of the witcher Geralt. He is a professional monster hunter who protects people from the creatures threatening them.

Geralt is a monster hunter and a mercenary. Witchers are trained from childhood, taken from foundlings who end up in special schools. Besides a course of training, their preparation involves a specific mutation, so in a way, witchers are superheroes.

But Geralt does not only fight various monsters. He also helps Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon (Ciri), the young princess of a destroyed kingdom. Many leaders of other lands and kingdoms set their sights on her. Geralt, meanwhile, tries to protect and rescue Ciri. He also has his own companions: a troubadour who loves to wander, Jaskier, an archer named Milva, an ancient vampire, and other characters.

The fantastical plot and setting reflect real problems that we can also apply to real society. For example, it deals with the nature of power, xenophobia, misogyny, and so on. By the way, the author also used The Witcher to show her attitude toward war, which is depicted as horrific, with all its inhuman and repulsive details.

Comics were based on the books, and three parts of the popular video game were created. The Witcher 3 was recently included by The Guardian in the top five video games of this century.

When is the series coming out?

The series will appear on Netflix as early as December 20 — all 8 episodes at once. Moreover, even before the first season started, it was officially renewed for a second season.

Who plays the Witcher?

The lead role in the series is played by actor Henry Cavill (Man of Steel, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Justice League). Cavill recently appeared on The Jimmy Kimmel Show, where he presented viewers with a short clip from a scene in which the witcher fights alongside Jaskier.

Cavill said that in this scene there is a moment when he holds a real sword, and that during the filming of fights and other action scenes he did not use a stunt double.

"It is very important to me that during battles the character continues to exist, and that there is no division into separate scenes with actors and action," says Cavill.

Will the series differ much from the books?

Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, producer and screenwriter of The Witcher, says that one of her main tasks was to find an approach to this story, a way to transfer the plot of the books into another form.

She also talked about the changes that have to be made to the plot of the books to bring it to the screen. Overall, the screenwriters have tried to preserve the semantic and ideological foundation of the original novels. They can only add specific things or characters.

"The thing is, in a book, dialogue between characters is not necessary. You can describe what is happening or the characters' thoughts in a couple of pages, but on screen everything looks completely different. We cannot get inside the characters' heads and understand what they feel and think. For that, you need to introduce new characters to whom they would tell it. In particular, the novels have entire chapters in which Geralt ponders various things. We cannot just sit him in a room and tell him to read eight pages of text. That does not work on screen," says Hissrich.

Book author Andrzej Sapkowski is not worried if the series does not closely match what he wrote:

"Authors of adaptations of literary works for other formats have the right to independence and any creative freedom. In this particular case, their ideas may differ from mine. Even if that is so, what is wrong with that? My books are not a set of rules."

What do critics say about the series?

Netflix has already let several film critics watch some episodes. For the most part, they were pleased with what they saw. Here are some excerpts from their texts:

"Compared to the battle scenes in The Witcher, the fights in Game of Thrones are terrible."

"The first fight Geralt gets into is wonderfully wild. The combination of sword mastery and the signs of the witchers' guild that Geralt displays looks perfect. I have already rewatched this scene four times. You are in for a pleasant surprise."

Overall, critics noted the quality of the staging of the battle scenes and the thoughtfulness of the fight choreography. They also praised the development of the characters.

Aleksey Simonchuk