By The Witcher starring Henry Cavill will release on Netflix in just a few weeks, and yet we’re still finding unrevealed cast members. This one has been a long time coming, as she has appeared in the show’s teaser trailer. After confirming our suspicion with Netflix, we’re glad to announce that Josette Simon has been cast as the Dryad Queen, Eithné!
In keeping with The Witcher‘s ensemble cast, the sixty year-old actress has rich theater experience, having played roles such as Cleopatra (in Antony and Cleopatra) and having acted beside the late Alan Rickman.
The role itself will be familiar to anyone who read the short story The Sword of Destiny in the collection of the same name. Eithné is the leader of a partisan group of dryads, who are a non-human and entirely female species. The Dryads protect their home of Brokilon Forest, and have been fighting a futile war against the ever-expanding humans of The Continent. Brokilon scenes were filmed in the beautiful forests of the Canary Islands’ La Palma.
In season one, we will meet Eithné through the eyes of Ciri, a princess on the run played by young actress Freya Allan. Another familiar Dryad from the books, Braenn, appears to have been removed from the show and replaced with other minor dryads such as the Dryad General played by Nora Trokan.
Brokilon Forest will appear in the show’s fourth episode, titled “Of Banquets, Bastards and Funerals”. The Witcher‘s entire first season, consisting of eight hour-long episodes, releases on December 20.
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I have only heard the books again, there is talk of “The silver-eyed Eithnee …” and “the little Dryad”. Dryads are not a bush people. They do not hunt with mammoth spears. They are archers. Since the Brookilon lies in the middle of the northern kingdoms and not in Serrikanien, dryads are not black either. They rob the girls from the neighborhood. Not from Ophir. That’s so sad.
– Dryads have bows in the show too
– Only Eithne’s actress is black. Check Nora Trokan (who plays Warrior Dryad) if you don’t believe me
– They are described with olive skin in the books
It depends. There are pure Dryads and there are young girls that are turned into a Dryad. The pure bred are much smaller in numbers and had the olive skin. The others were white because they came from captured girls in the Northern Realms.
What is sad is how people don’t see how much racial prejudice they have. What is funny though is that some of the comments could be straight from the bad guys’ mouths in Witcher.