The Witcher set leaks hint at book storylines, new characters and more

New material for Jaskier! Geralt and [SPOILER] fighting for Yennefer’s hand! Triss Merigold at Kaer Morhen! Christmas Witcher!

We’re drowning in news about The Witcher today. Production on the second season of Netflix’s fantasy drama has been stop-and-start thanks to the coronavirus, but it’s in “start” mode right now, and there’s a quite a bit to talk about.

We’ll start with the funnest, least spoiler-tastic piece of news. The show just put out a Christmas-themed trailer, with footage from the first season (and maybe a snippet from the second), repurposed for the holiday season:

Is it deep? No. Is it fun seeing Geralt punch a dude wearing a Santa’s elf hat? Very much yes.

It’s hard to tell if there’s any new footage in there, but we think could be a thin split-second around the 0:46 mark, with a guy swinging a sword right at the camera. Maybe it’s a first-person perspective on the Battle of Sodden, which ended season 1? Let us know what you make of it.

Speaking of the Battle of Sodden, the third season will pick up right after it. Geralt assumes that Yennefer is dead (don’t worry, she’s just in trouble) and decides to take Ciri to Kaer Morhen, the witchers keep, and train her to follow in his footsteps as a professional monster hunter. This will sound familiar to anyone who’s read Blood of Elves, the next book in Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher series.

Those fans also won’t be surprised to hear that actress Anna Schaffer has been filming on the Kaer Morhen set. Schaffer plays the sorceress Triss Merigold, who in Blood of Elves is summoned to Kaer Morhen to help with Ciri’s training — female witchers are a rarity, and the older witchers — all of them male — are at a bit of a loss over how to handle certain aspects of Ciri’s education, so they bring in Triss to pitch-hit.

This comes from Redanian Intelligence, always a great source of Witcher news. The site also reports that the show is looking to cast the Countess De Stael. If you were paying very close attention, you may remember Jaskier the bard mentioning her a couple of times in season 1. Apparently she’s an old flame.

The Countess De Stael doesn’t play much of a part in the books, although as Geralt reveals in The Tower of the Swallow, she was important to Jaskier’s life:

"But as I well know, for you’ve often told me about it, you only began seriously rhyming and composing melodies when you were nineteen, inspired by your love for Countess de Stael."

Is the show gearing up for a love story with Jaskier, or at least a gag at his expense? Either way, we’re here for it.

Finally, there are images straight-up leaking from the set, the most interesting of which show Henry Cavill (Geralt) in costume alongside Royce Pierreson (Istredd). If you’re remember, Istredd is a sorcerer who has an on-again, off-again relationship with Yennefer (Anya Chalortra). In the Witcher anthology Sword of Destiny, there’s a short story called “A Shard of Ice,” where Geralt and Istredd fight over Yennefer’s hand, with her essentially rolling her eyes the whole time. It looks like we’ll get that episode come season 2.

Unfortunately, we won’t get it as soon as we’d like, but with filming well and truly underway, the clock is ticking.

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