‘The Witcher’: Farewell of The White Wolf

Things have been brewing in the world of The Witcher for some time now. The first is developer CD PROJEKT RED’s announcement to remake the first game in the trilogy — The Witcher. The game will be done from scratch in Unreal Engine 5, giving a whole new generation a chance to quite literally step in Geralt’s shoes for the first time.

Speaking of stepping into Geralt’s shoes — Henry Cavill, who plays the witcher, Geralt of Rivia in Netflix’s Witcher series will not be reprising his role after the third season. Instead, we will have Liam Hemsworth donning the witcher medallion in season 4.

This comes as shocking news because Henry Cavill had been chasing the role of monster slayer Geralt even before the show was written. Cavill is an avid gamer and a fan of the hugely popular Witcher game trilogy. He had always hoped that this would one day find an adaptation on screen. 

In 2017 Netflix announced that it had hired Lauren Schmidt Hissrich as the showrunner for a series based on The Witcher fantasy novels by Andrzej Sapkowski.

“It was something I wasn’t going to let pass me by without giving it my best shot,” Cavill had said then. “I annoyed my agents all the time. They said, ‘They’re not ready.’” Despite his aggressive lobbying, he was not even considered for the role and rejected.

It was only through sheer persistence that he got a chance to audition for the part and prove himself to be the one to play the White Wolf. He’s on record saying that he is “incredibly fond of this character and I will fight tooth and nail for him, to do him justice.”

Cavill had said that he would be committed to portraying Geralt for the seven-season series as long as they respected the original source material. “I’m a huge fan of the books and staying loyal to them, and it’s about making sure that story happens without too much in the way of diversions or side things going on to muddy the waters,” he said in a previous interview.

But things didn’t go as planned since the show very much veered away from the books. With characters being manufactured for the show and others completely changing to be virtually unrecognizable from their novel counterparts, not to mention the confusing timelines of it all. The Netflix Witcher series is nothing like the books.

One of the former writers of the show, Beau DeMayo, had revealed how some of the writers involved openly disliked the books and the games. “You have to respect the work before you’re allowed to add to its legacy,” he had said.

It’s not as if Henry Cavill himself didn’t try to steer the Witcher back on the Path. In season one, we see Geralt as a strong silent type of witcher who doesn’t say much other than an occasional ‘Hmm’ or drop an F-bomb. Wanting to amend that in season two, Cavill said, “This season, I really wanted to make sure that we represented the book’s Geralt more accurately, and that we saw him speak more.”

He also personally rewrote Roach’s death scene himself in season two. (Roach is the beloved horse and companion of Geralt and this trusty steed meets his end in the season.) Unhappy with the comedic undertone initially written for the scene, he made it a somber moment. He bought to the table his own love for the book series.

Evidently, this was not going to last, what with writers and showrunners wanting to portray a completely different take on the lives of characters on The Continent.

Henry Cavill was not the only fan dissatisfied with this version of The Witcher. Fans worldwide had reacted with shock when the show premiered on Netflix. Season one did alright but season two really did take a turn for the worse, deviating too far from the source.

Here’s what the fans have to say to Rolling Stone when asked:

A lot of the fans were watching the show just for him. “Henry Cavill was pretty much carrying the show on his back. It was a passion project for him, so for him to leave the show means something must have gone really bad behind the scenes. Huge bummer that we will only see him play the role one last time in season three.” Says Velkarthik Anand, a huge fan of The Witcher games and a business analyst from Bengaluru, “I don’t even know if I’ll watch season three. Given how bland season two was, now I’m less likely to.”

Others like Martyna Spyra, a neurolinguist from Pszczyna, Poland who has grown up reading the books, said: “As much as I was one of the fans against casting Cavill in the first place, I think he played Geralt really in character. I only watched season one and I dropped season two after the first two episodes. I respect this [Henry Cavill’s] decision so much. The show writers’ promise was to adapt the novels with high fidelity. But even in season one, the changed order of presentation of events affected the reception negatively in my opinion. But what really put me off was Cirilla who was like an annoying teen with a TikTok account. It wasn’t like that in the books.”

Meanwhile, Methin Lokumannage, a political science student and an avid gamer from London remains cautiously optimistic about season three. He says, “I’ll give it a try and judge after, don’t want to jump straight to the execution. They might just continue with Liam Hemsworth as Geralt and just pick off from the last season, going forward with the show. But the bigger implications are how bad is the situation behind the scenes? Like Cavill f****ng loves The Witcher, this was one of his dream roles. Why would he give it up?” 

“Henry Cavill leaving will be a massive blow for both the show and the fans. He has always highlighted his love and personal support for the lore and the creation of a faithful adaptation Cavill brought that drive to do right by the work, and Geralt’s new actor will have some big shoes to fill,”  says a disheartened James Serieux, a history student from University College London.

Andrzej Sapkowski author of The Witcher books had also wholeheartedly endorsed Henry Cavill’s casting. “I was more than happy with Henry Cavill’s appearance as The Witcher. He’s a real professional. Just as Viggo Mortensen gave his face to Aragorn, so Henry gave his to Geralt and it shall be forever so.” But sadly, it was not to be.