The Witcher

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Name: The Witcher, Wiedźmin
Abbreviation(s):
Creator: Andrzej Sapkowski (books)
CD Projekt Red (games)
Michał Szczerbic (2002 Polish TV series)
Lauren Schmidt Hissrich (2019 Netflix show)
Date(s): 1986 – 2013 (books)
2007 - 2022 (games)
2002 (Polish TV series)
December 20, 2019 – present (Netflix show)
Medium: short stories and novels, video games, TV shows
Country of Origin: Poland, USA
External Links: Wikipedia page for the novel series
Official site, IMDB site, Wikipedia page for the Netflix show
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

The Witcher is originally a series of six fantasy novels and 15 short stories written by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski.

Set in a medieval, vaguely-Eastern European fantasy universe, the series revolves around Geralt of Rivia, the eponymous Witcher. Witchers are mutated human fighters designed to battle monsters using superhuman physical abilities, augmented by potions and limited magical skills.

The books have been described as having a cult following in Poland, and Central and Eastern European countries in general.[1] As of Dec 2019, they had been translated into 37 languages and had sold over 15 million copies worldwide.[2]

Numerous adaptations of the books exist, including a Polish television series (2002), a series of video games (2007-2022), and a Netflix adaptation (2019-). The Netflix show expanded the universe's smaller fandom and turned it into a major media fandom, with Geralt/Jaskier becoming a slash juggernaut.

Original Canon: Books

The Witcher canon began with a titular 1986 short story that Sapkowski entered into a competition held by Fantastyka magazine, marking his debut as an author. Due to reader demand, Sapkowski wrote 14 more short stories before starting a series of novels in 1994. He wrote one novel a year until 1999. A standalone prequel novel, Season of Storms, was published in 2013.

Adaptations across Various Media

Novels

In order of chronological publishing in Poland:[note 1]

  • Short story collection:
    • The Witcher (Wiedźmin) -- 1990
    • Sword of Destiny -- 1992
    • The Last Wish -- 1993
  • Novels in The Witcher Saga
    1. Blood of Elves -- 1994
    2. Time of Contempt -- 1995
    3. Baptism of Fire -- 1996
    4. The Tower of the Swallow -- 1997
    5. The Lady of the Lake -- 1999
  • Standalone novels
    • Season of Storms -- 2013

Comics

  • A Polish series of six comic books was published from 1993 to 1995
  • A 2011 miniseries was published in by Polish publisher Egemont
  • A Dark Horse series started in 2014

The 2011 and 2014 series were based on the CD Projekt's[3] video game adaptation.

Video Games

  1. The Witcher (2007)
  2. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (2011)
  3. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015), including expansion packs Hearts of Stone (later in 2015) and Blood and Wine (2016). In 2022, CD Projekt Red updated the consoles, performance, and visuals, as well as adding some content inspired by the Netflix show.

Gwent: The Witcher Card Game (2018) is a video game derived from the card game in The Witcher novels and The Witcher 3 video game, as well as a standalone single-player Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales (2018) released at the same time, and the Gwent: Rogue Mage (2022) expansion.

TV Series

Wiedźmin was a 13-episode single season filmed and released in Poland, often called The Hexer in English, and Geralt was played by actor Michal Zebrowski. It received criticism from the media and Western fans, who complained about possible fan subs in the plot and the CGI used in the show. However, the show also received acclaim for closely following the books' plots, physical description of the characters, and music, as well as the acting.

Netflix

Years later in December 2019 the first season of the Netflix series was released. Henry Cavill was cast as Geralt, and other significant characters were Ciri, Jaskier, and Yennefer of Vengerberg.

It inspired a resurgence and growth of the fandom. In feel and genre, the show is more "old school fantasy", contrasting with the Game of Thrones type of fantasy becoming popular at the time of the show's release. This was largely a welcome change for viewers.[4][5][6]

okay but why must a tv show “make sense” or “have a coherent timeline”? is it not enough for henry cavill to fight monsters, sluttily?

@largishcat on tumblr[7]

Season 2 was released on Netflix December 2021, and Season 3 was released in summer 2023. This was Henry Cavill's last season as Geralt.

The success of the first season led to a number of spin-offs being put in production by Netflix:[8]

Showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich indicated that the universe of The Witcher could keep expanding, including a spin-off centered on Ciri and an untitled series for children, but these were cancelled when it was announced that Season 5 would be the final season of the main show.[9]

Fandom

Common Tropes

  • Modern AUs - the characters are set in a contemporary society, may or may not still be monster hunters
  • Non-human!Jaskier or otherwise immortal Jaskier - This is partially based on the Netflix show forgetting to age Jaskier despite the passage of time. However, it is also common because both Geralt and Yennefer are long-lived, and pairing Jaskier with one or both of them is popular; if Jaskier was human, he would die long before either of them.
  • BDSM
    • Geralt is a sub - mostly based on his allowing Jaskier and Yennefer to push him around in the Netflix series and fan speculation about his praise kink
    • Yennefer is a domme - mostly based on the fanon that Yennefer pegs Geralt, somewhat based on the throwaway line in the books about her owning a troll phallus
  • Geralt as emotionally-constipated or bad at communicating - This is based the Netflix show's portrayal of Geralt as stoic and taciturn, primarily using only the two words "Hmmm" or "Fuck", although this is not in line with his characterization in the novels or video games.
  • Animalistic behaviors and characteristics - the Witchers having traits from the animal their school is named after, such as the following:
    • Omegaverse - With alpha!Geralt/omega!Jaskier, or conversely omega!Geralt with alpha!Yennefer and/or alpha!Jaskier
    • Scent kink - Based on Witchers' enhanced senses
    • Cuteagens - Another fanon that the mutagens (substances given to boys to mutate them into Witchers) have cute side effects, such as purring
  • Families of Choice/found family - Whether referring to Geralt & Ciri (and/or Yennefer and/or Jaskier), or to Geralt's Witcher family (mostly the remaining Wolf Witchers Eskel, Lambert, and Vesemir, sometimes including other non-Wolf witchers)
  • Bed sharing - whether sharing a room at an inn to save coin, or sharing a bedroll while camping
  • Bathing - There is an iconic bathing scene in the Witcher 3 video game, and there are also well-loved bathing scenes in the Netflix show - one in which Jaskier convinces Geralt to accompany him to a party, and one in which Geralt and Yennefer bathe together.
  • Retirement at Corvo Bianco - some number of Witchers, perhaps including their partner(s), retire on a vineyard that Geralt is given as payment The Witcher 3 expansion Blood and Wine
  • Horse girl!Geralt - based on the Netflix show's portrayal that he talks to Roach more than to other humans
  • Goat dad!Eskel - based Eskel using a goat, Lil' Bleater, as forktail bait in The Witcher 3 game
  • Monster fucker!Eskel - based on Eskel mentioning he slept with a succubus and did fisstech in The Witcher 3 game

Recasting in Netflix show

roach pov where she just switches owners through the years and calls every one of them geralt
#i've cracked the code #the witcher

@cherryjuicegf on tumblr, referencing Geralt's canonical habit of naming all his horses Roach[10]

Shipping

In addition to romantic relationships, the gen relationship between Ciri and her adopted parents (Ciri & Geralt & Yennefer) is important to all adaptations/iterations of the Witcher fandom.

Pre-Netflix

On AO3, early Witcher fandom centered largely on game-based pairings. A little over 2000 works were posted before the release of the Netflix adaptation in December 2019. The most popular pairings were:

Given the canonical relationships or subtext between characters, Geralt/Jaskier (or "Dandelion," as Jaskier is usually referred to in the books/games) was rare, with only 34 works.

Post-Netflix

The Netflix show boosted the fandom enormously:

  • 26,700 works were posted to AO3 between the show's Season 1 release in December 2019 and S2 release in December 2021.
  • Over 14k works were posted between December 2021, and the S3 release in June 2023.

Many of the characters paired with Geralt pre-Netflix series, except for Yennefer and Triss, simply did not appear in the 1st season of the show, while Jaskier was given a prominent role, a cute actor, and a lot of barely-disguised subtext with Geralt. Therefore, the Geralt and Jaskier relationship overwhelms the Netflix fandom's fanworks: Geralt/Jaskier has over 20k works from the Netflix show's premiere through S3 release, and the platonic Geralt & Jaskier has 4k.

Smaller by far, through the Season 3 release the next most popular relationships were the following:

Smushnames

Pairing Name
Geralt/Jaskier Geraskier
Geralt/Yennefer Yenralt
Geralt/Jaskier/Yennefer Geraskefer
Jaskier/Yennefer Yenskier

Example Fanworks

The Witcher Game vs Netflix by Belzebulbe

Fanfiction

  • Misethere by astolat, 46k. (2017) Emhyr was looking at him for once, with a strange expression. “I have misjudged you,” he said, sounding irritated actually: how dare Geralt surprise him. “I get that a lot,” Geralt said. Rated Explicit. Podfic available. The most popular of astolat's works that popularized the Geralt/Emhyr pairing.
  • His Touch by Sevent, Geralt/Jaskier, 6k. (Jan 2020) Jaskier is an affectionate man. It drives Geralt mad, but in more ways than he knows how to put into words. An early example of Netflix-based fic, it was the most kudos-ed Witcher fic on AO3 as of Sept 2020 with 13k kudos for 85k hits, and as of June 2024, it is still in the top 3 of all Witcher fics by kudos (24,370).
  • New Monster Stories by kathkin, Geralt/Jaskier, 20k. (March 2020) Rated Explicit. Podfic available. A modern AU in which Geralt is still a monster hunter.
  • The god of scraped knees. by spqr, Geralt/Jaskier, 8k. (April 2020) Jaskier’s been pretending to be human for so long now that he hardly remembers what it feels like to be a sorcerer. He doesn’t want to remember what it feels like to be a sorcerer. But people still murmur his name with reverence in certain dim halls; Dandelion, Dandelion, destroyer of worlds. Podfic available. A very popular work with the immortal!Jaskier theme; as of June 2024, it was 7th most-kudos-ed Witcher fic with over 18,500 kudos.
  • The Accidental Warlord and His Pack series by inexplicifics, Geralt/Jaskier, later Geralt/Jaskier/Eskel, over 600k across many works. (2020-present) This AU series starts with Jaskier as a tribute to the warlord Geralt. As of June 2024, the first story in this series is the #1 by hits and #2 by kudos in Witcher fics on AO3, and the series has many side stories by inexplicifics and has inspired many fanworks by others.

Podfic

S2 Jaskier meme by gremble

Fan Art

Meta

Vids

Zines

Archives, Communities & Resources

Archives

Challenges

Resources

Notes

  1. ^ Many recommend a different reading order, such as gaming websites, and it's frequently asked on Reddit.

References

  1. ^ "How To Get Into The Witcher Novels by James Whitbrook for GIZMODO". 2015-05-21. Archived from the original on 2022-03-06.
  2. ^ "'The Witcher's Henry Cavill Says 'Tough' Geralt Has a 'Heart of Gold' by Damian Holbrook for TV Insider". 2019-12-10. Archived from the original on 2022-03-06.
  3. ^ "Gamedev glory: "The Witcher" and CD Projekt Red by Sarah Kutz for iMeshup". 2018-11-29. Archived from the original on 2022-03-06.
  4. ^ "likorys-shimenawa — prokopetz: Honestly, Henry Cavill is the perfect casting, because Geralt of Rivia's whole thing is hoping that if he glowers fiercely enough, people won't notice that he escaped from the cover illustration of a 1980s romance novel". 2020-01-26. Archived from the original on 2022-03-06.
  5. ^ "'The Witcher': Henry Cavill's Netflix fantasy is so bad, it's downright fantastic". Archived from the original on 2020-01-02.
  6. ^ Youtube, Dominic Noble, "Toss A Coin, Let's Talk About The Witcher"
  7. ^ "#geralt is living his best ho life okay lets support him". Archived from the original on Nov 18, 2021.
  8. ^ Netflix’s Expanded Witcher Universe Is Upon Us, Deadline article, Aug 24, 2021
  9. ^ . April 26, 2024 https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/news/two-the-witcher-spinoffs-dead-at-netflix/. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  10. ^ cherryjuicegf (2022-10-29). https://perma.cc/ESW3-Y3MD. Archived from the original on 2024-06-17. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  11. ^ The Witcher Big Bang Tumblr Blog
  12. ^ "What is a witcher? Everything you need to know before diving into 'The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt'". 2015-05-20. Archived from the original on 2022-03-06.
  13. ^ "Can someone please recap the main events of Geralt's life chronologically until the end of witcher 2 ??". 2015-05-23. Archived from the original on 2022-03-06.
  14. ^ "'The Witcher' Netflix Series Primer: What You Need To Know About Geralt Being Adapted (Again)". 2017-05-24. Archived from the original on 2022-03-06.
  15. ^ "bettsfic — if you like hot beefy men who are deeply misunderstood as being the bad guy but are actually good-aligned, you'll like the witcher." 2020-01-27. Archived from the original on 2020-09-01.


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