what killed the witcher?

The follow-up to 2019’s The Witcher was an inevitable one, having been renewed for another season before the first one had even made it to screens. And while the games were stellar, and I've ironically taken The Witcher story as a main source of inspiration for my own work, here I am about to tear this story apart.

I’d been sitting on the events of the season for a couple days now, trying to figure out if I enjoyed the season or not. And if I’m being honest... I don’t really know.

If you'd like a full story breakdown, my video below dives deeper into each episode. Breaking each one down for further context.

— THOUGHTS —

To describe the flaws in this narrative in one word is... meaningless. That’s the truth. This season of The Witcher is meaningless. Meaningless plotlines, meaningless choices, meaningless episodes. All of it, it’s all just so meaningless. If I were to jot note all the key events in this season, I would end up with something like this:

1 : Ciri screams, waking Voleth Meir in her prison (the main antagonist).

2 : Yennefer, Francesca, and Fringilla (all pointless side characters) meet Voleth Meir.

3 : Yennefer makes a deal to exchange Ciri (because of course she does).

4 : Yennefer kidnaps Ciri (because of course she does).

5 : Yennefer changes her mind (do I need to say it again?).

6 : Voleth Meir is freed from her prison (because we need a grand finale).

7 : Ciri is possessed (because of course she is).

8 : Ciri is not possessed (because sacrifices are a tad stale).

9 : They leave Kaer Morhen (because it's too safe).

Nine bullet points, that’s all it takes. And the best part, you're going to love this... The best part is that seven of these plot points happen within the last three episodes. In a season of eight episodes, that means that the first five served essentially no purpose at all other than act as a bridge from season one to the finale.

— FILLER CONTENT —

The first episode, despite serving as the best episode of the season, is a prime example of filling the gaps.

Outside of the first episode, Nivellen is never mentioned, nor are any of the events with Ciri and Geralt brought up again. The only moment in this episode that serves any sort of purpose is when Yennefer and Fringilla are captured at the end. And it’s not just this episode that’s to blame, the season is littered with small one-episode — sometimes two-episode long — plotlines that don’t add on to the central story.

Let’s take a closer inspection at Eskel's death. In the second episode we meet Eskel, then he turns into a tree, and then he dies. An episode later, Geralt and Vesemir feed him to wolves... and that’s it. Looking beyond these moments, the only purpose he serves is to introduce a monster that Geralt and Ciri end up stumbling across. Actually stumble across. Ciri is suddenly able to follow her "internal compass" to the creature that turned him, just in time for them to witness it’s death at the hands of another creature... a creature that was heading towards Ciri anyways.

But we can expand off that, because now Geralt wants to find out why this monster was chasing after Ciri. So Geralt goes to the monolith that Ciri opened up (created?), just in time for another monster to escape, and then they leave. The purpose here is so you understand Voleth Meir’s intentions with Ciri, which would normally be a good way to set it up. If it weren’t for the fact that when Voleth Meir eventually does possess Ciri, all she does is stare at Geralt for fifty minutes.

There are plenty more moments like this: the fire guy shows up, has a fight scene, then leaves; all of the scenes with the Brotherhood; Dijkstra’s storyline; the Nilfgaard storyline; hell, Yennefer's whole “selfish to selfless” character arc was the exact same as the last season.

At the end of the season, none of the characters are in much of a different place then where they started off.

— MEANINGLESS CHARACTER ARCS —

To elaborate, much of this season is spent with Ciri as she's actively learning about her powers with Triss, while she also trains with the other Witchers of Kaer Morhen. Of course, Ciri was never really shown using her magic until episode seven of the series. But surely all of her training went to good use? Except it didn’t. She spends most of the season running from any and all threats besides one moment in episode six when she was told to stand still. Let's not forget that scene in episode seven when she was hardly able to fend off a Nilfgaardian soldier. To think she spent however many episodes training with Witchers — precision monster-slayers that could carve their way through a crowd a humans before they even hit the ground — and retained absolutely nothing. Even if Ciri is only 14-years-old in the series, you don't give an audience countless minutes of training to have her be of no use when it could have a payoff. But I could be wrong. The purpose of these episodes spent training could've been trying to prove something entirely different.

It's clear from each of these scenes that Ciri is tough. She has grit. No matter how many times she hits the ground, she always gets back up. Think back to her training on the gauntlet, or minutes spent arguing with Geralt about how often she should be training. All of this sets the foundation for one stellar character arc - one that we never got to see. Because at the end of the season, when Voleth Meir has Ciri trapped in her fairytale land, after she spent a season fighting through the pain of losing everyone she’d ever known, after pushing herself despite everyone telling her not to, after she bled again and again, because she needed to fight, she desired to be a great fighter... she chooses not to fight. Despite Geralt and all the other Witchers pleading for her to fight off Voleth Meir, Ciri doesn’t. This exact choice not only destroyed the arc that Ciri had been building the entire season, but rendered several other episodes of growth utterly pointless.

But that’s okay, because Yennefer can just become Voleth Meir’s host anyway. Are you serious?

— WHAT DID IT REALLY ACCOMPLISH? —

At the start of the season, Geralt and Ciri were fleeing from Nilfgaard - and this is exactly where we end. What have our characters learned? That Ciri has powers that they cannot begin to comprehend, didn't we already know this from the first season? Or is it that the Wild Hunt wants Ciri (a detail brought along by one of the final scenes of the season)?

If the season were to have built up to a proper conclusion — if it really wanted to accomplish something that would’ve had an impact on the story itself — it would have to look no further than the episode that had no pull in the events of the season itself, the best episode of the season... the very first episode.

In this episode, there’s a scene where Nivellen tells Ciri a story about an Elven sorceress that falls in love with a human mage. These are Ciri’s ancestors, this is the answer that Ciri spends over half the season looking for. If the season really wanted to write a meaningful story, it should have shifted its main focus to searching for these answers. Interestingly, diving into this storyline would’ve answered so many of the season's questions without changing a thing, like why Ciri is being hunted, where she got her powers, why Voleth Meir wants her, it would’ve allowed Ciri to play a more proactive role in the season, and would’ve cut out all the other sub-plots that added nothing at all. But that’s not what we got. Instead, Vesemir picks a flower, and now we know her entire lineage, because she entered a dream.

But I'm not always negative about this show, to talk about some of the things I liked...

— THE FUTURE —

Despite all the flaws, The Witcher still remains as one of my most favourite stories. However, its lack of anything of importance happening within the plot, and creating a story that could’ve been solved in less than five hours is... questionable, to say the least. We’ll have to see where this story leads, much like the previous season, Season 3 was greenlit before the second one was released, being as much of a concern as concerns could possibly get.

Let me know what you think in the comments, if you think I’m right, or by chance if you think I’m wrong. I’m curious to what you guys have to say about the season two. What do you hope will come from season 3? 

All the best!