The Witcher is adapting the books, not the video games

Among a great many fantasy and sci-fi series currently in the pipeline, Netflix’s take on The Witcher is one of the most promising. The production values are high, Henry “Superman” Cavill is in the lead role of Geralt of Rivia, and showrunner Lauren Hissrich seems dedicated to making a quality show worth watching.

It’s also got name recognition. The show is based on a series of popular fantasy novels by Andrzej Sapkowski, which were turned into an even more popular series of video games by CD Projekt Red. The show is kind of in a unique situation here. The video games are actually set after the book series, so a lot of people may be coming to it expecting one kind of story and getting another. It’s already caused some confusion, as for example when some fans wondered why Geralt only carries one sword in the trailer when he carries two in the games. The answer: he only has one in the books.

Speaking at at San Diego Comic-Con, Hissrich confirmed that the show is purely adapting the novels, at least for now. “Extreme long vision, no, we will not start adapting the games,” she said. “I can only adapt one season at a time, and I’m so excited for this one, and the rest kind of makes my mind explode right now. If someone said to me, ‘What happens in Season 7?’ Like, sure, I have thoughts, you know–fingers crossed we get there.”

"I’ve played the games, but really our stories are coming from the books. I think there’s a lot of concern, will the television show be for game fans as well? And I absolutely think so. I mean, if you think about how adaptations work, the games are adaptations of the same source material that we’re using. If you come to the games and love the characters and love the kinds of stories that you find there, I think you’re going to love the show too."

But even sticking with the books, this is still a strange series to adapt. There are seven Witcher books: five serialized novels and two short story collections set before the “Witcher saga” proper. The first season of the show will be based on The Last Wish, the first of the short story collections — those stories are set the earliest in the timeline. “When I first started talking to Netflix about the show, I think everyone assumed that we would start with the saga [the books that make up the main Witcher story], because that’s sort of the most serialized storytelling and would lend itself to bingeing,” Hissrich said. “And I said, ‘You can’t do that without setting up the world first.’ I guess that was a big challenge, too, was where to begin.”

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Starting with The Last Wish also gives Hissrich and company more license to explore characters other than Geralt, namely the sorceress Yennefer — Geralt’s on-again, off-again love interest — and Ciri — his eventual protégé in the ways of the witcher. “The thing that I think we have frankly changed the most is that anyone will tell you that The Witcher is about Geralt, the Monster Hunter,” Hissrich said. “And it is, but the thing that was really important to me was carving out Yennefer and Ciri in this story, especially bringing them to the forefront and providing them backstories, so that they weren’t introduced to the world only through Geralt.”

For example, in the books, we hear that Yennefer was born with a physical deformity, and was harassed by her family because. When we meet her, she’s used her magic to alter her appearance, but in the show, we’ll see that part of her life through flashback. “What’s been exciting is the backstory is new, that it’s not explored in the novels,” said Anya Chalotra, who plays Yennefer. “So I got the chance to explore all the complexities, all the layers that are underneath the Yennefer we know and love.” And there was a physical aspect to that part of the story, too. “I had a mouth guard, and I had prosthetics. I had a hunchback, and that was very exciting, three hours in makeup.”

As for Ciri, we’ll get a look at her before she ever met Geralt, when she was a princess in the land of Cintra. “It’s nice because she’s so young that she hasn’t yet gotten all those layers,” said star Freya Allan. “That is what I’m now creating. In this season, she’s going through all these traumatic things and all these things that are going to make her who she is… You’re not going to see straightaway the badass Ciri you expect. You can see hints of it.”

"Ciri’s had a very protected, sheltered upbringing, and so she doesn’t really know what the real world is. For her, it is just disguising herself as a boy and going out and playing on the streets. But she hasn’t seen the true brutality that the world can hold."

The Witcher premieres later this year. So far, everything is looking good and everyone is saying the right things. Color me optimistic.

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h/t Gamespot, Den of Geek