The Witcher Season 2 changes Yennefer and Ciri’s story for the worse

[Ed. note: Spoilers ahead for The Witcher Netflix series and the novel The Blood of Elves]

The witcher Season 1 spent a lot of time talking about the power of fate, with Geralt and Ciri, despite the odds, finding each other in the woods near Sodden, where neither should be. Whether or not you read the books, it seemed obvious that the show’s other main character, Yennefer, was destined to meet Ciri as well – and finally in the second season at the Temple of Melitele. Geralt brought Ciri there to allegedly receive training from Mother Nenneke on how to control her dangerous power. But this is where the similarities between the adaptation and the source material by the author Andrzej Sapkowski end.

The Netflix show immediately puts them in conflict, with Yennefer showing up there by chance but secretly intending to sacrifice Ciri Voleth Meir in hopes of regaining her lost magic. It’s a huge departure (both the subplot of Lost Magic and Voleth Meir were created exclusively for the show) and sacrifices a maternal relationship to an antagonistic one.

The blood of the elves, the third Witcher book (and the first novel, after the two short story collections, The last wish and The sword of fate) is mostly about Geralt’s struggles in parenting. After seeing Ciri in the short story “Something More” by. have found The sword of fate, he brings her to Kaer Morhen and trains her to be a witch. It’s not part of any big logistical plan – that’s all he knows how to do with a child. When it becomes clear that she needs more than swordsmanship, he invites the sorceress Triss Merigold to help with her magical abilities, but she too does not feel quite able to teach Ciri. Then it goes to the temple of Melitele and mother Nenneke, a priestess and herbalist. As the story progresses, Geralt realizes that Ciri cannot easily fit into the role he got as a kid and reaches out to any woman he can think of in hopes that one of them can figure out what to do .

Photo: Susan Allnutt / Netflix

On the show, most of these events still happen, but with a twist: Geralt’s motivations change, drawing him as a more capable father figure, where the books portray him a little ignorant and awkward, something he has to grow beyond.

Ultimately, this failure on the part of Geralt is what makes Yennefer’s first meeting with Ciri so significant Blood of the elves. While Yennefer is chasing Ciri on the Netflix show, in Blood of the elves Triss and Geralt invited them to the temple. And after so many failed attempts to lead Ciri one beaten path after another, it is Yennefer – a powerful and independent trailblazer – who finally connects with Ciri and helps her control her power. The book does not culminate in an epic battle, but in the fact that a child is seen and understood by an adult. Yen doesn’t talk down to Ciri and Ciri finally sees that there is a way for her to take control of who she is.

But in season 2, the moment they meet hardly belongs to them anymore. Instead, it’s more about the reunion of Geralt and Yennefer, with the two exes getting through their first reunion in years. While this season gave Geralt and Ciri their moment of connection, Yennefer has to share hers. If their defining moments are not shared with Geralt, they will be tied to the machinations of invisible villains or the influence of magic and fate.

It is frustrating to frame the long-awaited Ciri-Yennefer meeting around action scenes instead of silently connecting two women about their mutual difficulties in adapting to society. Despite the best efforts of actresses Anya Chalotra and Freya Allan to add depth to the set pieces they are inexplicably thrown into, they have so little work to do that it is hard to believe in their connection. Scenes like the one in which Ciri has to use her strength to get her across a river, feeling compelled and ultimately showing no bond between them. While Yennefer provides orientation, they are only transported to the other side when Ciri refuses to stop despite Yennefer’s protest. In terms of plot, Yen Ciris gets to see strength, but it does little for her characters who have exchanged next to nothing. The emphasis is on the problem of crossing a river and on Ciri’s powers, not what these two women might reflect in one another.

Image: Netflix

And so the changes leave the two of them a bit stubborn: They are already living with the trauma of a would-be kidnapper, can hardly sleep thanks to the nightmares when the Nilfgaardian general Cahir was kidnapped by Cintra, how can Ciri learn to trust Yennefer so easily when she reopened that wound? It’s not something that Ciri (or the audience) will really think long about; they get carried away by the plot and the motives change so easily when Geralt suddenly shows up to cut off something.

While there is always room for a new take on a character like Yen, it makes a powerful, independent woman desperate and asks for forgiveness without exuding the control or confidence we got from her in the books. When she explains to Geralt how Ciri got her to turn a new leaf and see that life is more than just amassing power, it’s mundane. Nothing we’ve seen gives much of that feeling; They barely had more than one episode together, and if the episode says it out loud, it won’t just be like that.

These changes feel like a misunderstanding of what the Yennefer books are for. Season one gave us some sort of tragic backstory that, while hinted at in the books, has been wisely left to implication. But I never had to watch Yennefer suffer to justify her behavior. Yennefer of the books was an unforgiving slut. She earned her independence in a world of men who wanted to exploit or ignore her. She refused to join the bosses’ sorceresses who only wanted to take the place of men in their society. When Ciri, guided in the paths set by these people, meets Yennefer who stands out from them, the sorceress feels like a chance for Ciri to give Ciri the guidance she would have wished for when she was a child .

While Yen’s characterization seems somewhat softened by these impulses in the first season, they have all but disappeared in the second – and without them her connection to Ciri is reduced to a slightly condescending maternal impulse. This Yennefer does not feel like a role model for the lion cub of Cintra and offers no encouragement to live by her own identity, which forms the basis of who Ciri will become in The Witcher universe.

In season 3, the show may bring more life to this drastic change, but with just two episodes and a plot desperate to move forward, that change is falling flat. If only there had been as many scenes as Geralt with his horse.