We have a trailer for The Witcher Season 3, and I could not be more excited. Although, I’m also a little nervous.
The trailer first does look amazing. Events are finally converging. The world knows the power Ciri wields, and they will stop at nothing to claim her. Geralt has come into his own as Ciri’s surrogate father, and he intends to butcher any foe foolish enough to make a play for Ciri.
Meanwhile, Yen must make amends for betraying Geralt while teaching Ciri to harness her power. My understanding of this world is limited. Yes, I played The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, but the show is based on the novels, and the video games are technically sequels to the books.
I know the Wild Hunt is coming for Ciri, and the wraiths are unlike anything Geralt has ever faced. I also know the novels end on a sour note, with our core crew essentially disbanding, which is a little disheartening. Nonetheless, I loved everything in this trailer.
That line from Ciri (We’re Witchers) sent a chill down my spine. I spent the second season waiting impatiently for Ciri to undergo the trial of the grasses. And I was sorely disappointed. I don’t care as much about her training with Yen. I want to see her embrace her witcher side.
That is the ending I got in the final game. Geralt and Ciri became traveling witchers, traversing Andrej Sapkowski’s grim setting, saving damsels, and slaying monsters wherever they found them while Yen enjoyed her pseudo retirement at a gorgeous villa in Toussaint.
This brings me to the controversy. Henry Cavill is done. This is his final season as Geralt of Rivia. Liam Hemsworth will replace him for seasons four and five, and naturally, fans are livid.
We got the news in 2022, and initially, people assumed that Cavill had abandoned The Witcher to play Superman. He fueled those rumours after revealing on October 24 that he was officially back as Superman, and proved as much when he made a brief cameo in the final seconds of Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam.
But these assumptions fell apart soon after. First, Black Adam was a box office failure, which created doubts about Dwayne Johnson’s plans to pit his character (Black Adam) against Cavill’s Superman in a future movie.
Then James Gunn became the new head of DC Studios and announced his decision to reboot the DCEU. This meant wiping the slate clean and starting afresh with new stories and actors. Cavill’s time as Superman ended mere months after he announced his return.
But even before the Superman/James Gunn debacle, some entertainment pundits had already speculated that Cavill left The Witcher because the showrunner decided to veer drastically from the source material.
That matters because Cavill is a massive nerd. You wouldn’t know it from his godlike physique. But he nearly lost the Superman role because he could not stop playing World of Warcraft. He made me a fan when he included Brandon Sanderson in his list of favourite fantasy authors.
More importantly, the man harbors an obsession with The Witcher. He knows the books and the games like the back of his hand. People had faith in the Netflix adaptation because they trusted Cavill to prevent Lauren Schmidt-Hissirch (showrunner) from bastardizing Sapkowski’s work.
So fans couldn’t help but speculate that Cavill departed because the showrunner was twisting the show to fit her social justice agenda. Their parting was amicable, but that has not stopped Witcher fans from writing season three off completely. Go to YouTube and read the comments.
Many viewers are more interested in explaining why they won’t watch the season than actually talking about the trailer. Will this hurt Cavill’s final season? Who knows? I loved the first two seasons enough to give season three a shot, but I don’t know where I stand with season four. I will wait and see.
