By The second season of Netflix’s The Witcher has been criticized for many of its departures from the source material. Perhaps the most significant one in terms of having long-lasting effects was the entirety of Yennefer’s arc and alterations to her character and her relationship with Geralt and Ciri.
Instead of spending a good amount of time mentoring Ciri at the Temple of Melitele and building a mother-daughter relationship with her, Yennefer was written to be manipulated by the ancient entity Voleth Meir and to fully intend to trade Ciri’s life for getting her powers back, only to regret and revert that in the last moment.
Needless to say, Geralt, Ciri as well as many readers weren’t happy at the end of it all. And the big question is, how will Netflix mend the relationship between them? After all, our main trio don’t have much time left together and one of the biggest marketing angles for every season was the idea of the found family between Geralt, Yen and Ciri, and we haven’t seen much of that family so far.
Well, we do finally have an answer for that. Needless to say, spoilers below.
The “Dear Friend” letter will be used to mend the relationship
Geralt and Yennefer’s relationship status will be a mini-arc in the earliest episodes of The Witcher Season 3. As far as we know, it will start by Geralt entirely refusing to talk to Yennefer, which prompts her to pass written notes to him, calling him “friend”.
Throughout this mini-arc that spans either one or two first episodes, Geralt will be slowly warming up to Yennefer, with various little moments helping him trust the sorceress more and more. At one point he starts talking to Yen again.
We’ll also note that our trio attends the Belleteyn festival, so that should help things as well. The first episode is also called “Shaerrawaedd” and we can surely expect our trio visiting the ancient elven ruins.
READ MORE: Photos of The Witcher filming Belleteyn for Season 3
At the culmination of this mini-arc, Geralt gives a full letter to Yennefer, a reply to her “Dear Friend” notes. In it, he writes Yen that he can now entrust her with taking care of Ciri, without the fear of betrayal. After that they part ways, with Yennefer taking Ciri to Aretuza.
As noted above, all of this will take place in either one or two first episodes of Season 3, so the relationship between Geralt and Yennefer will be at least partly patched as early as possible.
In the subsequent episodes, Ciri will be with Yennefer so that will be their time to bond before the events of Thanedd in episode 6 of Season 3.
How will all of this relationship mending look in the end and will it be believable, earned and not rushed, that we’ll have to wait and see this summer.
Season 3 of The Witcher is in post-production for a Summer 2023 release. The Rats spin-off is currently in pre-production. Stay tuned to Redanian Intelligence and do pop into our Discord server to join in on The Witcher conversation.
