5 best (and worst) book changes in The Witcher season 3

Fourth best change from the books: More monsters!

The Witcher is about a mutant monster hunter, so obviously viewers expect a fair amount of monsters in any new season of the show. However, monsters are surprisingly scarce during this period of the book series, which focuses much more on the political currents on the Continent. The only monster sequences in the book are Ciri’s showdown with the baby basilisk and the various creatures she encounters during her time in the Korath desert. In fact, in Time of Contempt, Geralt of Rivia does not fight a single monster.

By contrast, the show gives Geralt and Ciri plenty of beasties to fight, from their tag-team match against the aquatic aeschna to Geralt’s showdown with the rolling jackapace. Season 3 features some of the show’s best creature work yet, and almost none of it is drawn directly from the source material.

Fourth worst change: The death of the Professor and his gang

The Witcher season 3 begins with a group of mercenaries hunting for Ciri, led by a bespectacled man named the Professor. These assassins are way out of their depth, as we discover when they find Geralt and he chops them to bloody bits.

This is the first thing we see Geralt do on both the show and in Time of Contempt, but it feels like a much bigger moment in the book. The Professor and his men are built up as a dangerous group, even more deadly than the Michelet Brothers, who Geralt killed in season 1. They track Geralt to an inn, but just like in the show, the witcher gets the jump on them. As they stand at the bar, he shouts from the outside courtyard that they can either leave peacefully, or die. They choose to fight and are quickly dispatched, while the Redanian messenger Apelgatt cowers inside the inn as a witness. Overall, it’s a much more memorable scene than the version we get in the show.