The upcoming third season of The Witcher will be the last starring Henry Cavill in the lead role of Geralt of Rivia. After season 3, the role will be played by Liam Hemsworth, but for a lot of fans, Cavill will always be the one and only Geralt.
Or at least that’s how they feel now; I dunno, maybe Hemsworth will come along and win all of us over. But at the moment, fans do not want to see Cavill go. Just look at some of the comments on the trailer for season 3, which Netflix dropped the other week:
- “The final season of The Witcher. Thank you Henry Cavill for bringing this epic fantasy to light.”
- “Imagine having an actual Hollywood star playing his dream role, and you squander it because he brought too much passion and knowledge to the production.”
- “Henry is EVERYTHING. And the showrunners don’t give a damn. I’m so glad everyone is showing them what it means to treat like shit the one person that stands up for the whole fandom.”
- “Henry Cavil respected the series and the fans – his representation of Geralt was spectacular. Henry, kudos to you for putting so much passion into this role. You will be missed.”
- “Respect your actors, respect the source material, respect your audience. Thank you Henry, you spoke for us all.”
And then my personal favorite: “I think this season we will see some real character development from Geralt. He’ll be like a new person in season 4.”
The Witcher fans blame the showrunners for Henry Cavill leaving the series
You might notice that most of those comments have a certain narrative in mind: Henry Cavill cared about The Witcher, but the showrunners didn’t and it eventually drove him away. Now, while it’s true that the second season of the show strayed very far from The Witcher novels by Andrzej Sapkowski, we do not know why Cavill chose to leave; neither he nor the producers have talked about it in much detail. In the absence of firm information, a lot of rumors have popped up, but that’s basically all they are.
But clearly, they’ve taken hold. As of this writing, the trailer for The Witcher season 3 has 63 thousand likes on YouTube…and 317 thousand dislikes. That is a dire ratio. (YouTube now hides dislikes from sight, but you can see them again if you install a plugin; a simple Google search will do it if you’re interested.)
Does this ratio mean that no one will watch the third season of The Witcher, or is it just the internet blowing off steam? We’ll find out when The Witcher season 3 premieres on Netflix on June 29.
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