Henry Cavill: Geralt shows a “softer side” in The Witcher season 2

The Witcher season 2 is just around the corner. The first season of Netflix’s fantasy drama was a hit, although some fans had problems with the way it jumped around in time. The second season will be more straightforward, and introduce new characters into this world.

“Basically, we set the chessboard in season one,” showrunner Lauren Hissrich told Den of Geek. “In season two, the world is bigger. We are tracking a lot more groups of people this season. We have Geralt and Ciri and Yen, but we also have the elves and we’re sort of digging into their story.”

We’ll also meet beloved characters fans will know from The Witcher books by Andrzej Sapkowski or the video games by CD Projekt Red. “We meet Dijkstra and we get into Redania’s story and Philippa who everyone cannot wait to [finally] see,” Hissrich said. “You have mages. You have Nilfgaard. You have the rest of the Northern kingdoms. There are all these players on the board now.”

All that said, the main focus is still monster hunter Geralt of Rivia (Henry Cavill), his on-again-off-again sorceress girlfriend Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) and the wayward princess Ciri (Freya Allan), who Geralt will take under his wing. We never actually saw these three together in season 1, but it’ll finally happen in season 2. “So much of The Witcher is about the relationship between these three characters,” Hissrich said. “It’s the promise of the series: they’re going to come together as a family. It’s one of those moments that has such great [emotional] impact.”

Geralt and Ciri need to build trust

Geralt and Ciri finally met up at the very end of season 1, so we can assume that the new episodes will begin with Geralt taking her to Kaer Morhen, the witchers’ keep. “You really get to see their relationship change,” Allan said. “​​Ciri has a lot of secrets to keep from him. She has gone through a lot, and she has a lack of trust in people. So it takes a while.”

"Ultimately, they do become a real team because of what they go through together. And Ciri definitely gets to the point where Geralt is the person she trusts most in this world and they have a real love for each other. It’s beautiful."

But that might take a minute. As Allen said, Ciri has been traumatized by her experiences — her kingdom crumbled, her guardian died, and she spent a season wandering in the wilderness staying one step ahead of vicious forces who wanted to capture her. For his part, Geralt wants to give her the space she needs to heal. “It’s not that he doesn’t trust [her], it’s that he is watching and waiting for her to reveal herself to him,” Cavill explained. “She spent her last few months running from death–literally–and her home got burned to the ground and everyone she knew was killed. The last thing she needs is an inquisitor.”

We’ll finally see Yennefer and Ciri together in The Witcher season 2

And then there’s Yennefer, who is presumed dead after the climactic Battle of Sodden. Captured, Yennefer has some things to take care before she can reunite with Geralt, but she’ll get there.

“Their relationship is complicated,” Anya Chalotra said of Geralt and Yennefer’s dynamic. “They’re both very independent people. And they don’t want to need each other. But they do.”

We’ll also get to see Yennefer interact with Ciri, something we never got in season 1. “Their relationship is very exciting, and I’m really looking forward to seeing that dynamic play out,” Chalotra said. “From the books, we know how it ends up. But there’s a process to get there. And there are challenges they both face to get there.

Henry Cavill will show Geralt’s “intellectual side”

Finally, there’s Geralt himself, who will apparently show a “softer side” in season 2.

“I would say we get to see more of his intellectual side, which was something I was keen to introduce,” Cavill said. “Because season one was a particular choice–he was in the outside world and had a particular way of doing things. And [he] was without the luxury of opportunity for vast swathes of dialogue, which we often find in the books. I found it better to make him a listener and a watcher. Now that this second season has come around, he gets to be a bit more verbose.”

"That was a very important piece to me, that I represented that side of Geralt. At heart, he is a pure and good man who tries to do his best. I wanted to make sure that he came across as the wise man that he is. He’s not just a grunter."

Part of that is because Geralt will be back among his fellow witchers, where he can be a bit more vulnerable. “It can be very easy to slide down the road of just a trope-y, stereotypically male figure,” Cavill said. “But that’s not what Sapkowski wrote when it came to The Witcher. He wrote these intellectual, very caring, and, yes, very dangerous individuals. It’s not just ‘ugh, ugh, we kill stuff’ and ‘cold beer’ every time we talk.”

The Witcher season 2 drops on Netflix on December 17!

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