THE WITCHER (S:3): A Discreet and Symbolic Farewell

With the end of Season 3 of The Witcher, one part of the story about Geralt of Rivia came to a close, and another found a new beginning. The main credit for that goes to Henry Cavill, who departed with exceptional grace, leaving space for Liam Hemsworth. If an actor’s farewell is to be wise, it should be discreet and symbolic, as it was in the last episode The Cost of Chaos. The whole thing was not free from flaws, and the ending of the story should have been as energetic and full of twists as the excellent Episode 5 (The Art of Illusion), which concluded the first part of the season.

Nevertheless, I hope viewers will long be warmed by the question of where Ciri actually is — by Emhyr var Emreis’s side, or with the Rats gang of Mistle (Christelle Elwin) and Kayleigh (Fabian McCallum); no longer as Ciri, but as Falka. The answer is obvious, unless we treat the Lion Cub of Cintra as a sorceress capable of existing simultaneously across many time branches. Besides, for Ciri, a new erotic thread opens with Mistle, which, as in the case of Radovid and Jaskier’s relationship, will certainly drive some viewers’ thoughts to a boiling point — the only question being whether from excitement or disgust. Since it is lesbian sex, I assume the former.

Generally, the lingering sense of dissatisfaction was caused not by the visual side, but by the narrative style. There are a few logical gaps. Undoubtedly, one more episode before the climax of the story would have been useful — one that could have included all those quasi-slice-of-life fragments, where, for example, the remaining sorceresses of Aretuza remember the fallen, bury the murdered students, and decide what to do next, as well as the process of Geralt’s recovery after his confrontation with Vilgefortz.

For some reason, the witcher’s forest hospitalization drags on surprisingly long, until Yen’s arrival, who then surprisingly quickly gets Geralt back on his feet. These small missteps do not, however, change the overall picture – Season 3 of The Witcher was well balanced, and Henry Cavill’s performance left room for an actress just as interesting as he – Freya Allan, as Cirilla, wove for us a multi-threaded, deep, and surprising story until the very end. In the last three episodes, she practically dominated the season, especially with the storyline set in the Korath desert, accompanied by the unicorn Ihuarraquax, with a witty reference to the Witcher’s horse, affectionately called Roach.

It’s worth watching several times. It takes up almost the entire Episode 7, Out of the Frying Pan into the Fire. I expect that in Season 4, the unicorn thread will return. By no means do I mean the lewd things in which the stuffed unicorn participated with Yennefer and Geralt. It sounds a bit creepy, but for example, in The Witcher 3 game, the sex sequence on that creature is actually quite pleasant to watch. At least it doesn’t smell of monotony. If only the animation were better… Sapkowski truly had some fantastical ideas about eroticism in The Witcher. So we shouldn’t be surprised by the peculiar relationship between Philippa (Cassie Clare), Dijkstra (Graham McTavish), and Eva (Cal Watson). This trio will still shine in the following episodes. Perhaps the politically unstable Cahir (Eamon Farren) will join them.

In this chase after the unicorn — a symbolic, magical being capable of serving as a guide between dimensions through which Ciri painstakingly passes, discovering new facets of her character — what stands out is Henry Cavill’s farewell, executed with class and emotional power. To understand it, one must go back to the very first episode of the first season. There we meet a certain Renfri. Geralt receives a contract to kill her from Stregobor. She also foretells to him, just before her death, that he will always chase the girl from the forest who is his destiny. It is thanks to Renfri that Geralt publicly chooses a side — his own, contrary to human interests. For that, he earns the nickname the Butcher of Blaviken.

After Renfri’s death at his hands, he keeps her distinctive brooch as a memento — made of a long pin set with a green stone and a golden circle adorned with precious gems. Much later, in the last episode, it is this very brooch from Renfri — a piece of which was embedded in the sword shattered by Vilgefortz’s staff — that Geralt and Jaskier use to bribe a Nilfgaardian guard to let them pass through the blockade. But, as always, the Witcher returns and stands in defense of the people robbed by the soldiers. He kills them all except for the one he gave the brooch to. Viewers probably expected him to take it back, for Renfri to remain with him always — like his alter ego, the one everyone hates — but it turned out differently.

The brooch stayed behind, and the Witcher left, as the camera clearly showed. An era co-created by Henry Cavill ended, and a new one began. I cannot recall a farewell between an actor and his role that was so discreet yet so evocative, giving space to another — one whom far too many viewers have prematurely condemned to failure simply for being himself: Liam Hemsworth, as if he were somehow worse than Henry Cavill as a person, not just as an actor. Just as Renfri was supposedly worse than the deviant and murderer Stregobor, merely because she fought brutally for her right to live — against the system.

Still on the subject of fighting the system, the creators of The Witcher never hid that they adapt Andrzej Sapkowski’s stories freely for the screen, sometimes creating rather surprising storylines. They also never hid that this fantasy world would parallel our own. After all, even in the book version, it was so. There were refugees, pseudo-patriots, freedom fighters, homosexual sex, and many other problems that stirred online controversy.

I deliberately write online because such controversies carry far less weight than the real problems that suddenly strike us in life. They are an illusion — one that can, unfortunately, even kill someone — as deceptive as what Vilgefortz experienced, too trusting in his faith in his own abilities, and therefore eventually killed by Geralt’s hand at Stygga Castle. The game also dealt with ethical and sociological issues. It was not just mindless hacking and slashing in Diablo style.

In Season 3, the story, which had sometimes been too fragmented by the screenwriters, gained a coherent line that led the viewer not from monster to monster, but through truly intelligent and literarily crafted emotional experiences of the characters. After losing the fight to Vilgefortz, the Witcher finally stopped being a monumental superhero — a mask that had burdened him since the first season of the series. Ciri, too, matured, though not into a fantasy-style superhero — formulaic, level by level, from one spell to the next.

That might have happened if she had indeed accepted the power of fire uncritically. Yet she was guided by a symbol — profoundly anti-systemic and liberating — the unicorn that gives hope. But what about Cirilla, once she finally decided to call herself Falka? This is the thread that concludes the latest season of The Witcher. Falka the Bloody was a Redanian princess, daughter of King Vridank and the half-elf Beatrix. By descent, she could be described as a quarter-elf. She became famous as the ruthless leader of a rebellion against her father.

For her crimes, she was burned at the stake, and legend says that from her blood will be born someone akin to the Destroyer of Worlds. Ciri became a rebel — or perhaps one version of Ciri. Another became a princess, while yet another stayed with the Witcher all along. Ciri already encountered a mysterious hooded figure in the desert, who revealed to her the inevitability of the historical wheel of eternal returns. If one wants to overthrow the system, one must have the courage to reduce everything to ashes. No slow, partial reforms ever change anything.

The guilty must be punished radically, and their reality annihilated. We’ve heard that radical concept somewhere before, haven’t we? Over the following seasons, this concept evolved, and many characters carried it — including Geralt of Rivia. Yet by the end of this part of the story, he had grown humble. Vilgefortz painfully made him realize, on the Isle of Thanedd, that he had mistaken the sky for stars reflected on the surface of a pond. That he was weak, bound by one limited vision of the world — that he must reshape himself anew, both metaphorically and literally, through the hands of a new actor.

In Season 4, the story will begin anew in many respects, but how stylishly it was concluded this time — with Renfri’s brooch and a merciful, indeed gracious, encounter with the mad mage Vilgefortz. And Jaskier will surely be able to keep spinning his songs. Has anyone even noticed how well-written they are, and how perfectly matched with the scenes they accompany? How could Radovid not fall in love when he heard Extraordinary Things? How could Joey Batey not fight for just such a bisexual vision of the bard’s character? After all, that’s how he saw him from the very beginning of the series.