By Speculations about Jaskier’s potential romance with Prince Radovid in The Witcher Season 3 have been out there since we found that old audition video of the young royal where he flirts with the bard. We have been able to confirm the romance recently, and now, Joey Batey and Lauren Hissrich discuss it in a new interview with SFX Magazine.
Joey Batey on the “more modern interpretation of the books”
Speaking to SFX Magazine, Joey Batey discussed how the romance between Jaskier and Radovid came about, calling it a “more modern interpretation of the books”.
“Showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich came to me long before we even saw some scripts and said, ‘This is the direction we’d like to take Jaskier.’“
Batey adds that he thinks Jaskier “doesn’t really see gender” and goes on to tease his first meeting with the prince:
“We see Radovid arriving and for the first time in a while, Jaskier can’t work him out. That to him is the most intriguing prospect. You wear just as much of a mask as I do. I want to see who is going to lower their mask first.“
In an earlier interview with Tudum, Batey talked more on the subject of Jaskier having his hot girl summer:
“Jaskier is having his hot girl summer. It’s been really rewarding to see [his love life] told in a very visual way. [We] ensured that these romances are told truthfully — and sensitively and carefully, without resorting to stereotypes…
Hopefully we’ve created something that is special, a sapioromantic and sapiosexual [connection] that is as flawed as any other relationship in this show.”
Lauren Hissrich elaborates on Jaskier’s love life in The Witcher Season 3
In the same interview with SFX, showrunner Lauren Hissrich dives a bit deeper into this and reveals that Radovid is, in fact, not the only one for Jaskier, but we’ll see another familiar name: Vespula.
In The Witcher Season 3, Vespula is played by Beau Holland. Both readers and gamers will remember her as she appears briefly in both the books and the games.
“When we started in the writers’ room this season, we had a question about Jaskier that was really fun to explore: Who is Jaskier when he is on his own, away from Geralt, Yen and Ciri? What that brought us to is Jaskier’s first really serious relationship.
We introduced a character from the books, Vespula — Jaskier’s on-again-off-again lover, but then we used that dynamic to provide a contrast to what happens when Jaskier actually starts to have deeper feelings toward someone.“
In the aforementioned Tudum piece, Hissrich also mentioned Jaskier falling in love:
“Jaskier falls in love. And it’s with a character who fans will know [and] continues showing up in the books. So what happens this season between them will have ripple effects for a very long time.”
The Witcher Season 4 is in production for a 2025 release. Andrzej Sapkowski’s new Witcher book has a planned Winter 2024/2025 release with The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep anime set for a late 2024 release as well.
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Glad they dared to take this direction and am hoping for good things. Fingers crossed!