When people think about Geralt of Rivia from The Witcher series, they tend to imagine a bulky and highly skilled warrior whose sword has slain many a monster, both beast and man.
While that’s a fairly accurate description, Andrzej Sapkowski’s novels are about much more than just a swashbuckling hero who saves everyone and leaves only ruin in his wake. Perhaps that’s what makes the monster hunter such a compelling character in the first place; the fact that at the end of the day, he’s a human being, just like the rest of the people he comes in contact with, though some of them would find it difficult to admit that he’s not the freak of nature they make him out to be.
Geralt is a struggling protagonist, both physically and psychologically. As fans will tell you, the character will not be as nimble as he is now in the show when the story progresses towards one of its climactic acts. In fact, someone on Twitter recently made a thread explaining why it’s important to depict Geralt’s injuries and disability, which got the attention of showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich, who responded with the following statement:
“I haven’t stopped thinking about this thread. I’ve read these books a dozen times, these specific sections, and I’ve not thought of it further than: ‘Geralt has some pain, onto the next thing.’ I’ve been wrong. I’m excited to dig into this more. To add this layer to our hero,” she wrote.
This discussion obviously contains a lot of spoilers on upcoming seasons of The Witcher, but without revealing anything significant, fans have noted that Geralt’s physical inaptitude is an important element of the story, something that changes the life of the monster hunter and his ability to function like the killing machine everyone has come to know.
Now that the executive producer has acknowledged this, though, we’re wondering about how they’ll try to transform Henry Cavill’s performance as the Rivian Witcher, but we still have a long way to go narrative-wise before we have to speculate about that particular plot development.
