By The Witcher prequel Blood Origin lands on our screens on Christmas Day 2022. The Laurence O’Fuarain and Sophia Brown starring series, which also has acclaimed actors Michelle Yeoh, Minnie Driver, and Lenny Henry has been long in the making.
Of course, there will be many connections the the main Witcher series starring Henry Cavill, Anya Chalotra and Freya Allan, and showrunner Declan de Barra spoke to Tudum, teasing many of those connections in the upcoming limited series. We break all of that down and add some of the info that we knew ourselves.
Eredin Breacc Glas
De Barra says Blood Origin will include some fan-favorite characters and introduce some core characters who will play an important part in the future seasons of The Witcher. “Witcher creator Lauren Schmidt, the producers and I spent a lot of time seeding new Easter eggs and answering older Easter eggs from other episodes and series. We’re weaving a complex spider web of delicious story that stretches over thousands of years,” he claims.
One such character is Eredin Breacc Glas, currently the captain of king’s royal guard and future King of the Wild Hunt. Eredin will be played by Jacob Collins-Levy in The Witcher: Blood Origin. In the main series, he was played by Sam Hazeldine.
In Blood Origin, Eredin will be a prominent character presumably appearing in all four episodes. Initially we knew that he would appear in all six, but as you might have heard, now there are four.
READ MORE: Why The Witcher: Blood Origin Will Have Four Episodes Instead of Six
Ithlinne and her mother
Another such character de Barra teased when talking about prophecies: “We have a character who’s crucial in the books in terms of their prophecies. They mention a prophecy that becomes very important in the world of Sapkowski’s books.”
That must be none other than Ithlinne Aegli aep Aevenien. We don’t know who plays Ithlinne, but we do know that Claire Cooper plays Aevenien, her mother. Logically, Ithlinne would have to be either a child or a teenager in Blood Origin.
In The Witcher Season 2, we saw Ithlinne when she was at the twilight of her long life. She was played by Ann Firbank.
Voleth Meir
One other character in Blood Origin that will connect to the main series is Voleth Meir or the Deathless Mother, the main antagonist of The Witcher Season 2. At the end of Season 2, she was revealed to be one of the riders beside Eredin’s Wild Hunt.
In Season 2’s behind-the-scenes featurette (available now on Netflix), Lauren Hissrich explains: “What we end up doing at the end is that we learn that Voleth Meir is actually not just a demon, but she is a dark elf, she’s part of The Wild Hunt. And the entire season she’s wanted to go back home.”
Executive producer Tomek Baginski and the showrunner also discussed Voleth Meir and the Wild Hunt: “In Witcher lore, she’s an elven sorceress who was trapped between worlds. Almost 1500 years ago when the Conjunction of the Spheres happened other witchers trapped her in her hut with magic.”
So Voleth Meir is someone we will be seeing in Blood Origin, but most likely her younger version.
Jaskier and Seanchai
All the aforementioned characters are from the past that happened a millennia before Geralt and his story. In the present day we have two more character that weave this whole story together. We are talking about Jaskier and Seanchai, of course, played by Joey Batey and Minnie Driver respectively.
As we mentioned several times, as far as we can tell, Jaskier meets Seanchai when the shape-shifting lore collector corrects the humble bard’s not-so-humble tales of the past about the events of Blood Origin, presumably at a tavern, and she proceeds to tell the correct version of the tale.
When we reported this over a year ago, we thought Jaskier would be the narrator, but that role is Seanchai’s instead. Hopefully, by the end we’ll get to hear Jaskier’s revamped song about Blood Origin, inspired by Seanchai’s tales. And no, Jaskier isn’t immortal as some people keep asking. He’s somewhere between the seasons of The Witcher, while the main story happens 1200 years in the past.
Familiar locations
Declan de Barra also teases the inclusion of ancient Cintra in The Witcher: Blood Origin. “Xintrea plays a central character in this world. That’s our North Star, but we travel from the far Northern islands down south to Xintrea in this story.”
Princess Merwyn and Prince Alvitir played by Mirren Mack and Mark Rowley also happen to be the heirs to the Xintrean Kingdom. Lenny Henry‘s Chief Druid Balor is also the advisor of the king, millenia before Mousesack and Queen Calanthe.
Season 3 of The Witcher is in post-production for a Summer 2023 release. The live-action prequel The Witcher: Blood Origin has been set a Christmas 2022 release. Stay tuned to Redanian Intelligence and do pop into our Discord server to join in on The Witcher conversation.
