By The second season of Netflix’s The Witcher is a rather unique one with filming halting in the middle of a global pandemic and rewrites happening during a five-month hiatus. In this article we hope to shed some light as best a we can to some of the scenes and characters that have been changed or removed compared to what we saw in the final product.
The Geralt/Triss sex scene
Several months ago we reported on a sex scene happening between Geralt and Triss, sometime in the first half of Season 2. That didn’t happen, as we all saw, but here’s what we know about the original plan for that:
Geralt and Triss are in a room together, they seem friendly at first. They are playing some kind of weird game. Whoever wins a round, gets to ask a question. We’re not privy to the exact flow of the conversation, but it eventually leads to both of them ending up in bed.
We can only guess why this was cut, but perhaps it was thanks to Henry Cavill, who is a self-proclaimed advocate for book canon on set. Maybe it was Henry who refused to do the scene and saved the fandom from the second Team Yen/Team Triss war.
And that game they would be playing sounded too similar to the game Geralt and Nivellen play with the knives. Perhaps that’s something they reconsidered and put back into A Grain of Truth.
At The Witcher: Unlocked streaming event on December 20, we are promised one deleted scene between Geralt and Triss, but we seriously doubt this will be it.
Ciri had a girl crush on Triss
Ciri’s sexuality will undoubtedly be explored in future seasons when she meets a certain group of young people far far away. That could have been hinted at in Season 2 of The Witcher.
In the final cut, we see Ciri complimenting Triss’ dress and that’s about it. In some earlier intended versions, Triss was more openly flirty with Geralt, and you can see why in the above section. And to that, Ciri originally was supposed to have subtle, but jealous reactions because she liked Triss. Likely, just glances that mostly people who know would pick up on.
In another scene, Ciri was supposed to come out with a masculine shirt on similar to Geralt’s, to subtly impress Triss and had people tease her for that. In the final cut, that scene plays out similar to the books because Ciri comes out wearing something more similar to what Triss would wear.
Bisexual Lambert
This is another thing we never actually got to report as we started doubting the inclusion of this during filming.
Way back, before a certain pandemic hit the earth, we heard that sex workers would be invited to Kaer Morhen. In some early version of the story, while everyone else would be with a female sex worker, Lambert would be enjoying the company of two: a man and a woman.
When we started getting castings for the sex workers, we never found any male actors and assumed that idea didn’t make the cut, and as we saw in the episode, Lambert was indeed with two women, instead of a man and a woman.
Eskel’s character
Contrary to some belief we saw online, Eskel’s fate wasn’t changed with rewrites and the recasting. It was always going to end up the way it did. Evidence to that: Thue Rasmussen’s full body cast exactly for the Eskeleshy part.
READ MORE: The Witcher to have two major fights at Kaer Morhen in Season 2
What did change during rewrites, though, was Eskel’s character. Originally he was going to be even more prickly and a bit more of an asshole. It’s likely the flashback scene between him and Geralt in Episode 3 was only added during the rewrites to show the more “real” side of Eskel.
All in all, as far as we know, the Kaer Morhen storyline had quite a bit of rewrites and revisions.
Flashback: Young Vesemir, Young Geralt and Deglan
Young Geralt, Young Vesemir and Deglan, the characters that we saw in The Witcher: Nighmare of the Wolf, were supposed to appear in a flashback scene in Season 2.
The first two weren’t technically cut, indeed. We see a second of Young Geralt’s eyes and we hear Young Vesemir’s voice in an extremely brief flashback. It appears that Deglan, Vesemir’s mentor, didn’t make the cut, although he was mentioned in the second episode.
This was perhaps an editing choice. A full flashback scene could have been cut and edited into brief small flashes that Vesemir sees in the episode.
Young Geralt, Young Vesemir and Deglan were originally played by Alexander Squires, James Baxter and Tamer Hassan in The Witcher Season 2 respectively.
Countess de Stael
Next is the Countess de Stael. She is Jaskier’s very first muse, who inspired him to start writing songs and poetry. We reported about her being included in Season 2 during a pandemic break, but she also ended up cut during rewrites.
Having seen the entirety of the season, we can’t really guess where exactly she would originally appear, but most likely in some earlier version of the Yennefer/Jaskier arc in Oxenfurt. Maybe the countess will show up in Season 3?
Fenn may have originally been a man
Originally, Fenn was going to be played by a male actor. Back in 2020, we reported on a casting call where actor Kevin Davids was auditioning for the role of Fenn.
That being said, it’s entirely possible that the casting was open to everyone from the start and we only found an audition from only one male candidate.
Roach’s Revenge
In Season 2, Geralt’s last Roach met her end at the claws of Chernobog. In an earlier version, Geralt would take a bone from Roach’s corpse and use that to kill the monster in a scene dubbed by production as “Roach’s Revenge”.
In the final cut, Geralt used conventional weapons, of course.
Funnily enough, writer Declan de Barra teased that scene very vaguely in a November 2019 tweet:
The priestess Iola
Another character that was meant to appear was Iola, a priestess of Melitele. It wasn’t specified, though, which Iola was she, the first or the second, but given the timeline, we’d say perhaps the second since Iola the Second is there in the books when Ciri comes to the Temple of Melitele and stays for a few months to study there.
Kings Ethain and Demavend
Speaking of Season 3, this is someone whose real entrance may have been postponed: King Ethain of Cidaris is a non-speaking role in The Witcher Season 2 played by Luke Cy. It seems the role is being recast as we recently heard of a casting call for Season 3 involving a king, who is also an art connoisseur and flirts with Jaskier. That sounds very much like Ethain.
READ MORE: The Witcher Season 3 audition tape suggests more political intrigue involving Jaskier
That could be the same for King Demavend of Aedirn, who, like Ethain was a non-speaking role played by background actor Richard Tirado. They may be casting for Demavend in Season 3 as we speak.
Stregobor and Vilgefortz
Another deleted scene that will be shown at The Witcher: Unlocked on December 20 is one between Stregobor and Vilgefortz. Lauren explained that in an earlier interview:
“I think that in writing a series this big, where there is so much rich history, we really have to take care of when we’re introducing certain things. To me, the history of Vilgefortz, who he is in this world – he enters almost as a complete stranger and everyone’s kind of wondering what his history is, where he came from.
That comes into fruition in a huge way in season three, so that’s a scene that we wanted to hold back.”
The addition of Cassie Clare as Philippa Eilhart
As we all saw, Philippa was only present in her owl form for the majority of Season 2, except one scene,. We have reasons to believe that this was the pre-covid plan for the entire season.
We started hearing about the absence of Philippa before the pandemic and for the longest time, it indeed looked like we wouldn’t see her human form in Season 2. We even had a list of casting calles of most prominent Season 2 characters, including Aylne, who was Eskel’s sex worker, but no Philippa. Then a whole year later we found out that Philippa had indeed been cast.
It does appear that this could have been a late addition for Season 2. Still, a full addition would have been even more beneficial to the series as Philippa is an irreplaceable player in the politics of The Continent and letting her be an active player as early as Season 2 would make many upcoming things in Season 3 even better.
All in all, The Witcher Season 2 turned out the way it did, but it’s fun to know and think about what was and what could have been. Follow Redanian Intelligence for more news!
Well, a lot is different than in the books. Just to say, I have so far been watching 2×1 and it was better that I had expected. The placing of the Nivellen story at the beginning of Ciri’s arc with Geralt is not a bad choice. Acting is nice throughout, Freya Allan is growing into her role quite well and able to show nuance at a very appealing level. Cavill and Hivju deliver strong performances. The set design as well as cinematography, light and color grading and editing are very suitable and at a higher level than in the first season. Music score was also well-chosen. I was not so sure about the short interjected scenes with several mages, the pacing seemed a bit out of balance. Yet, altogether, 2×1 made a good impression, and I can only hope that the season continues at that level.
I want to give my honest (hopefully unbiased opinion) on season 2 and share it with RI readers.
First the good and great things about it:
1) production value is significantly better – I can see green screen, but camera work, shots, lightning, and most important the world looks much more believable, towns are full of people, Geralt is finally wondering around the continent and open locations
2) Ciri is much, much better both as character and as actress who visibly increased her range. From worst character to bright star near Henry who is Sun of this series
3) Henry was great – he expanded Geralt, made the character more dense, deep and juicy, now I cannot see the difference between actor and character
4) loved casting in this season – Djikstra and Rience excellent choices, it is a shame that they do have bigger exposure – they could be Foltest and Vilgefortz in my opinion, the steal each scene. Triple AAA actors
5) Grain of truth hard to admit but I do believe it was better than original, at least fresher, loved Cirilla’s presence here
6) CGI looks better, definitely
The bad:
1) episodes 7-8, what on earth was that? Incoherent mess, fanfiction not adaptation. Yen was strong woman in s1, here she is kylo ren disaster level. Baba yaga (who was outsmarted by 6 year old kids) here is Kaiser Soze and rules wild hunt. Like seriously? It was so stupid, naive, childish – like if I was a writer i would write 2 episodes claiming to be better than Stan Lee and in those episodes my father would be ruling Avengers. get the hell outta here
2) why do I have to see jurrasic world monsters in Witcher? why do I have to see monsters each episode? I really thought one looked like transformers, the other like velociraptors. i do not need this constant action. Sometimes good dialogue is much better than another action scene
3) I miss development of world and politics like in GOT – we are getting closer to Thanedd and I still do not understand gravity of politics on continent. Philippa was seen for 5 seconds!
4) I am worried when I read that actor had to force and mislead crew to put the dialogue from the books into series that is supposed to adapt those books. Something is very wrong. Books are written, they are great. Stop changing, stop deviating you are very poor with that it is clear as day which part were written by the Master himself and which ones by interns
The ugly:
1) there is something wrong with writing, there are effects, budget etc. But whenever this season I was not watching Geralt and Ciri I was bored with Yennefer sideplot. It was just boring, very very forced and inconsistent with previous season. Loved Djikstra, Loved Nilfgaard, even Daro the elf was bearable this season. But one scene with Sabrina? 5 seconds with Philippa? how am I supposed to attach to Mages before Thanedd? Sapkowski created enormous world, but netflix made it very small. i do not need to see yen every 10 minutes, that is not how her character operates. they are watering down the source material.
The game writing was much better than the original source material, it’s all a matter of opinion.
The games did not have the rights to book stories, and yet they ingeniously managed to copy book themes and create a faithful sequel.
Netflix has bought expensive rights to book stories, and is trying to improve them with a pile of manure.
Thanedd will be end of S3, according to the disclosure of one main plot at the end of S2, the screenwriters consider this to be the most important.
Thank You – But here is best ciri power explanation – Ciri’s Powers & Abilities Explained from The Witcher Series
One question: I thought at the beginning of the first Episode they make with Geralts Voice a reference to something More: „You dooged my every footstep…“
Did I missed it ?
Is it allowed to refer to other sites ?
There is an interesting Interview with L. Hissrich with the Main question why there are so much differences Form the Books:
https://www.filmstarts.de/amp/nachrichten/18538886.html
Of course will not answer all questions, but i found it interesting.
Thank you for posting this, had to google translate the German but it was quite readable. Her reasoning is quite sound.
And yes, I’m a full on Witcher fan who’s read all the books, played all the games and enjoy the heck out of the tv show.
I liked S2 a lot better than S1 for sure, but there are still a good deal of problems. I was disappointed to see Philippa mostly in her owl form. Not sure what the showrunners want to tell the audience that way. On the other hand (and this is mostly true to the books) I liked Triss’ speaking out about the conditions for women taking up hitherto dominantly male professions. But then, I do not know what to make of Yennefer’s storyline with her having lost her magical powers and so on. That is quite a deviation from the books and it also changes the character. There may be some issues in the books which make adaptation for a tv show difficult, but I wonder if the changes that have been made don’t actually add to the difficulties rather than smoothing them out. The books are not that complicated and the way the characters function in their literary world isn’t too difficult to understand. However, making too strong deviations alters the characters significantly and therefore the overarching story. That is, in my view, a problem. Another, related problem is the poor characterization of many figures which unfortunately persists beyond S2.