The final three episodes of The Witcher season 3 are here! After a winding road filled with political backstabbing, manipulative sorcerers and fearsome monsters, the curtain has fallen on the latest adventures of Geralt of Rivia (Henry Cavill), Princess Ciri (Freya Allan), and Yennefer of Vengerberg (Anya Chalotra). From the bloodbath at Thanedd to Ciri’s journey through the Korath desert, season 3 marks a high point for the series.
Of the three seasons Netflix has made so far, season 3 is the most faithful to the source material, The Witcher Saga book series by Andrzej Sapkowski. But it still featured plenty of changes. Which worked and which fell flat?
We’re going to go through five of the best and five of the worst changes the show made from The Witcher books. There will be SPOILERS for The Witcher season 3 below.
Fifth best change from the books: The search for Rience’s mysterious employer
A large chunk of The Witcher season 3 revolves around Geralt and Yennefer’s search for the mysterious employer of Rience, the fire mage who’s been hunting Ciri since season 2. Both Rience and his employer, who we eventually learn is Vilgefortz of Roggeveen, are in the books, but the show builds an even bigger mystery around them.
Season 3 is mostly based on Sapkowski’s book The Time of Contempt. There, we really only get one scene indicating that Geralt is trying to find Rience’s employer: his meeting with the information brokers Codringher and Fenn. From there, Geralt pretty much heads straight to Thanedd, where he gets wrapped up in the coup.
The show draws out the hunt for Vilgefortz and delivers some extremely memorable moments in the process, like Geralt’s terrifying encounter with the flesh monster in the abandoned castle of Vulipanne and the quiet moment where the witcher learns his mother passed away from the druid Anika. The fact that we see some of the atrocities Vilgefortz is capable of before he’s unmasked makes him far more threatening, and better sets up storylines like the Ciri imposter appearing in Nilfgaard at the end of the season.
Fifth worst change from the books: The death of Rience
While Rience has more screen time in season 3 than he gets in The Time of Contempt, he meets an early end. During the Thanedd coup, Rience corners Ciri and Yennefer, but a quick intervention by Geralt puts an end to the fire mage. He’s just one more corpse on a battlefield filled with them.
In the novels, Rience actually sticks around for quite a bit longer; he doesn’t die until the penultimate book in the series, Tower of Swallows, where he drowns in a frozen lake. There are some great nods to his book death in the show, such as the fact that Ciri cuts off several of Rience’s fingers, but overall it happens very differently.
Rience’s death in the books is much more memorable, and gives him more time to develop as a villain. But with more important villains like Leo Bonhart on the way, it’s understandable why the TV series might want to cut Rience’s story short.