The Witcher’s Massive Book Change Is Actually Good For Season 3 | Pretty Reel

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• The Witcher’s Massive Book Change Is Actually Good For Season 3

One of The Witcher’s first major book changes will be paid off in The Witcher Season 3 thanks to the story of Yennefer and Ciri at Aretuza’s school.

One of Netflix’s biggest The Witcher book changes is actually good for The Witcher season 3’s story. After Henry Cavill’s exit from The Witcher ahead of Season 4, The Witcher Season 3 will face the expectations and pressure of continuing an already established Netflix franchise. Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf and The Witcher: Blood Origin both prove that The Witcher can sustain a franchise, but only if the main series continues to run in Season 3 and beyond.

The Witcher has made changes to the source material, which is usually necessary when it comes to book-to-screen adaptations. However, stories like Yennefer losing her magic or moments like Eskel’s death in The Witcher’s Season 2 premiere were controversial and risked taking The Witcher too far from the books. That said, one of The Witcher’s first major book changes will be paid off in The Witcher season 3 thanks to Yennefer and Ciri’s story.

The Witcher Made Mages More Important Than Early Witcher Books

Netflix’s The Witcher has made wizards an important part of the story since season 1. For example, exploring Yennefer’s backstory, which hasn’t really been revealed in the books other than a few tidbits, The Witcher season 1 focused a lot on Aretuza’s school of sorcery and how the relationship between the realms and their appointed wizards works. The Witcher also featured a lot of the Council, a gathering of wizards made up of characters like Tissaia, Stregobor, and Vilgefortz. However, when it comes to Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher books, mages only really became a major part of the plot in Time of Contempt.

For example, the Wizarding Council of the Brotherhood of Wizards, which has been a part of Netflix’s The Witcher since season 1, only first appeared in Time of Contemp, The Witcher’s second novel. The Wizarding Council had already been mentioned in Blood of Elves, The Witcher’s second short story collection. While mages and magic itself have been a part of Geralt of Rivia’s story since The Last Wish, which inspired The Witcher season 1 and part of season 2, it’s not until Time of Contempt that the inner workings of mages and wizards have been fleshed out.

Mages Change sets up Season 3’s version of Time Of Contemp

The Witcher season 3 synopsis reveals that Yennefer will take Ciri to Aretuza, where Yennefer was first trained to be a witch, to learn more about Ciri’s powers and continue training as the princess. Returning to the School of Aretuza, The Witcher season 3 confirms that it will adapt the events of Time of Contempt, whose main plot points begin on the Isle of Thanedd. However, where Aretuza only first appeared in the books in Time of Contempt after being mentioned in Blood of Elves, The Witcher season 1 already showed plenty of Aretuza and the Isle of Thanedd.

Thanedd’s coup, a kind of witches’ civil war from The Witcher, is one of the main events of Time of Contempt. Since The Witcher books hadn’t revealed much about mages and how they organized themselves up until then, The Witcher’s second novel spends a lot of time with the mages’ world-building. In that sense, The Witcher Season 3 has an edge over the books, as it has already introduced and fleshed out concepts such as the School of Aretuza and the Council of Wizards. Essentially, incorporating elements of Time of Contemp already into The Witcher season 1 turned out to be the right decision in the long run.