Netflix’s The Witcher is a few short weeks away from dropping on Netflix, and the hype is real. Just the other day, the show was renewed for a second season. It’s all happening.
The show follows professional monster hunter Geralt of Rivia (Henry Cavill), the titular witcher, as he plies his trade in far corners of a medieval style fantasy-world created by author Andrzej Sapkowski. Other prominent characters include Yennefer (Anya Chalotra), Geralt’s on-again, off-again sorceress love interest, and Ciri, his eventual protégé in the way of the witcher.
We’ve seen plenty of these characters, plus others, in the many official images released by Netflix so far. Those who have read the books — or played the video games from CD Projekt Red — may be wondering about another character: the trouble-making bard Dandelion (known as Jaskier in the original, Polish-language versions of Sapkowski’s novels), a prominent figure in the books and one of the few people Geralt may consider a friend. To my knowledge, he hasn’t shown up in a single image. What gives? Is the show cutting him?
The short answer is no. Dandelion, who will be called Jaskier on the show, is played by Joey Batey. So he’s here, but I do find it odd that none of the official photos have featured him given how prominent he is in the books. Maybe his role is just reduced?
Based on a report of a set visit by Polish outlet RMF24, it doesn’t look like it. If anything, his part may be expanded. RMF24 was present during the filming of a wedding scene between Pavetta and the Urcheon of Erlenwald. Without getting too far into it, those two are crucial characters from the short story “A Question of Price” from The Last Wish, one of the two books adapted in this first season. It’s an important story that sets up a lot of big things involving Geralt and Ciri, but in the books, Jaskier/Dandelion isn’t in it at all. That Witcher showrunner Lauren Hissrich has written him in should reassure fans that the character isn’t being forgotten.
Image: The Witcher/Netflix
In fact, Hissrich talked a little about Jaskier when breaking down The Witcher trailer with executive producer Tomasz Baginski. “Jaskier thinks Geralt is his best friend in the world,” she said. “Geralt doesn’t necessarily feel the same about Jaskier.” So there you go. He isn’t forgotten.
Hissrich and Baginski also talked to teleshow.wp about their vision for the show, with Hissrich assuring fans that it wouldn’t be a “cheery, American spectacle,” whatever that means. “This world isn’t only one of great heroes, fighting monsters and casting spells, it’s also just normal people living day by day. It’s also their world.”
To that end, Hissrich and company have tried to stay grounded in the world of the novels, shooting some of the first season at Ogrodzieniec Castle in Sapkowski’s native Poland. Apparently, Sapkowski even had tears in his eyes when he visited the set, so impressed was he with everyone’s hard work. “We really wanted to shoot in Poland,” said Baginski, also a native. “And we managed to do so. But making something of this scale is hard. Any shooting on location is a big undertaking. This season we shot relatively little in Poland, but from the start we wanted Poland to show up in the show.”
A lot of the monsters in The Witcher are based on Polish folklore, so filming at least part of the first season there feels right. “In Poland, you don’t have studios and well-trained crews who can pull that off,” Baginski continued. “There are a lot of talented people, but they aren’t used to working on a scale like that. You don’t do productions like this in Poland.” Still, he’s hopeful for the future. “Earlier there were no tax benefits, but now, as far as I know, a few businesses think of setting up filming halls in Poland. So that we can compete with Czech Republic, Hungary or England.”
Speaking of the cast and crew working hard, it sounds like leading man Henry Cavill went the extra mile. “In Hungary, he spent weeks sleeping in a trailer right by the set,” Baginski said. “He didn’t go back to the hotel in Budapest which saved him an hour every day, but mostly it meant that during the whole time he was in the Witcher world. That doesn’t happen very often. Henry is a working actor, he knows what to do and he delivers fantastic scenes.”
Finally, Hissrich talked a little about how she’s adapting the first two books in Sapkowski’s series — The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny — even though they’re both more like short story collections; the proper Witcher saga doesn’t get underway until the third book, Blood of Elves, which we’ll likely see adapted in season 2. “I can’t tell some of the details, but it’s clear that the writers connected different storylines when necessary,” she said. Basically, Hissrich and her team are going to thread those short stories together so they feed into the bigger narrative, which I’m fine with.
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The Witcher drops on Netflix on December 20!
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