Unused Witcher costumes reveal lore-friendly Jaskier hat and Renfri flashbacks

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Anyone who has watched The Witcher on Netflix will attest that, right after Henry Cavill’s Geralt, Anya Chalotra’s Yennefer and Freya Allan’s Ciri, the next breakout performance of the season also belongs to Joey Batey and the bard Jaskier.

Though Batey managed to bring the novels’ character to life quite admirably, one important change sets him apart from the original: the hat, fashioned with an egret’s feather. These next few images shared on costume designer Tim Aslam‘s website reveal Batey’s original costume design, hat included.

“We built the hat,” said The Witcher showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich explained in her Reddit AMA. “We own it! But when on Joey’s head… we didn’t love it. We worked hard not to make the character just one-dimensional comic relief. Unfortunately, the hat made it that.”

When she was later asked whether they would consider redesigning the hat and including it in season two, this was her response: “Ah, yes, the hat! It was made, we tried it on Joey, and we couldn’t stop laughing. Will we try again? Sure. Nothing is impossible.”

This lore-friendly Jaskier look is just one of several surprises found in the costume directory of The Witcher on Aslam’s website. A series of new pictures gives us a glimpse at one of the show’s deleted scenes: a flashback to Renfri’s childhood.


The younger Renfri can be seen in the pictures above wearing a red cape reminiscent of the fairy tale of “red riding hood”, and Renfri’s iconic broach is fastened to it.

The actress behind this version of Renfri was Lila Prideaux, and she played a younger version of Millie Brady‘s version of Renfri (costume seen below). The role was later recast ahead of extensive pilot reshoots, with Emma Appleton becoming the exiled princess and wearing an entirely different costume.

On the left, Millie Brady’s stunt double wearing the original Renfri costume

Two important characters join Young Renfri in the cut flashback sequence, and we have both of them here as well. The first is the dubious mage Stregobor, played by Lars Mikkelsen.

As explained in the first episode, Stregobor played a role in Renfri’s exile, and also sent a huntsman to assassinate her once she escaped the castle (we see him here as well). Next is Queen Aridea, Renfri’s stepmother, as played by Inge Beckmann. This character was entirely cut from the show.

Another interesting image from a deleted scene shows Stregobor performing an autopsy on what appears to be a child. This must be a child born under the Curse of the Black Sun, and is very likely another flashback cut from the original pilot. As well, this catalogue reveals the original look of the girl Marilka (played by Rebecca Benson).

Next up, another scene cut from the show. This one is set in the town of Vengerberg and is likely part of Yennefer’s childhood. We can see a lot of extras wearing colorful clothes walking around the town set in Mafilm Studios.

For more on the show’s cut material, including a look at the original fight scene in the Blaviken market, check out the article linked below.


Aslam’s website also provides a wealth of behind the scenes images that showcase the show’s costume, including this next one of Visenna, Geralt’s mother (as portrayed by Frida Gustavsson). Visenna appears in Geralt’s fever dream in episode eight, so we didn’t get a very clear look at her or her costume until now.


The Witcher season one is available now on Netflix. Meanwhile, season two is set to enter production very soon. Recently, we were able to reveal that the crew is scouting the Scottish Isle of Skye as a possible filming location alongside a new director (linked below).

RELATED ARTICLE: The Witcher Season 2 is scouting Scotland with a new director

10 comments on “Unused Witcher costumes reveal lore-friendly Jaskier hat and Renfri flashbacks”

  1. ”We worked hard not to make the character just one-dimensional comic relief”

    Made me happy to hear, just like everytime Jaskier was used for something else other than comic relief 🙂

  2. Dandelion / Jaskier is definitely more than “a comedy character”.
    He constantly pressured Geralt to be more open to other people. Don’t be a lone wolf.
    And I remember that in the books. Hell, even games. I never saw that on the show. I just remember comic relief and catchy songs.
    Your friendship with Geralt is effective. He changes Geralt.

  3. I hate to sound like a broken record, but there are more than a few examples from TLW and SoD they could have used to accomplish this. The fact that when in mortal peril at the hands of the elves, and having endured a severe beating already, he’s only really brought to tears at the sight of his lute being smashed to bits, or how, when faced with his imminent execution, he’d rather stay with Geralt and face the elves than allow Geralt to plead for his life. And then, despite all that was done to him, he decides not to include the elves in his song, for fear they might be targeted (which “Toss A Coin To Your Witcher” goes completely against). Or the entire ending portion to “A Little Sacrifice” (which at the very least brought me to tears), to name just four.

    But all we got was cheap comic relief.

  4. It also irritates me that the relationship between Jaskier and Geralt has apparently been made homoerotic. This completely contradicts the literary template. Jaskier is a Casanova when it comes to women, or as Geralt once said, Jaskier tries to f**k every woman who doesn’t take refuge in a tree. He is not a joke. He is brave and self-sacrificing. He rides in the Brookilon for Geralt, in danger of being peppered with arrows. He can retreat in his vanity. He only exaggerates sometimes because he misjudges his options. And this leads to strange or tragic situations.

    It is the also case that Renfris Stori was not that of Little Red Riding Hood but that of Snow White!
    It even mentions the mirror and that a hunter should kill Renfri and later she meets the 7 gnomes. Renfri even speaks of how her white (!) Dress got more and more dirty and torn while fleeing. How can you confuse that? But only if you don’t care.
    But this includes knowing the short stories and not just putting the book under your pillow.

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