Henry Cavill’s 20 best moments as Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher

2. Curing the striga

The very first short story that Andrzej Sapkowski ever wrote about Geralt of Rivia was “The Witcher,” a brooding horror story in which a monster hunter tries to cure a cursed princess and suffers a terrible injury in the process. We saw that story come to the life in Episode 103, “Betrayer Moon.”

In the Kingdom of Temeria, Geralt discovers that a monster has been plaguing the locals. This beast is so dangerous that it’s already slain one witcher. Geralt vows to slay the beast in his fallen brother’s stead as a way to make things right with the Temerians, who believe the last witcher absconded with their money.

From there, “Betrayer Moon” unravels like a carefully plotted mystery, with Geralt uncovering the true nature of the striga. It turns out that it’s the incestuous child of King Foltest and his sister, who was cursed upon birth. Geralt resolves to cure it, but only finds out at the last minute that in order to do so he’ll have to keep it from returning to its coffin until after the cock crows three times.

As with the battle of Blaviken, Geralt’s battle with the striga stands the test of time. This is the first time we see Cavill’s witcher truly go toe-to-toe with a formidable monster which could tear him to shreds, and it’s exhilarating. The striga is terrifying.

This fight sees Cavill do plenty of stunt work, like being tossed around the room and using a variety of different weapons against the striga, such as a silver chain and brass knuckles. The difficult thing about the striga fight is that Geralt is only trying to incapacitate the beast long enough for the curse to lift, rather than kill it.

We see Geralt’s exhaustion through Cavill’s performance. The fight extends from the hallways of an abandoned castle down into the crypt before it finally ends in front of the striga’s coffin. Even then, things aren’t quite over. As Geralt stands over the newly cured princess, she leaps up and tears a chunk out of his throat with her teeth.

Not only do we see Cavill portray Geralt at his strongest, using witcher potions, signs and other tools of the trade to fight the striga, but we also see him laid low as this final wound renders him unconscious. It’s one of the standout sequences of his performance on The Witcher.