The following article contains spoilers for The Witcher season two.
The Witcher’s second season continues the arduous task of adapting Andrzej Sapkowski’s novels, as well as CD Projekt Red’s video games, and the latter is something showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich definitely keeps in mind, especially when it comes to bringing over the Wild Hunt.
An often ignored fact about The Witcher lore for those who’ve never ventured outside of the video games is that the Wild Hunt isn’t nearly as relevant in literature as it is in Geralt’s most recent interactive adventure. Nevertheless, Hissrich wanted to give proper payoff to that particular part of The Witcher’s world in a way that wouldn’t interfere with the way they’re telling the franchise's story up to Book of Elves and Time of Contempt.
In one of Netflix’s special inside looks at the show, Hissrich explains they approached the Wild Hunt very slowly from the start of The Witcher’s first season when they are first referred to as the Wraiths of Mörhogg, a trick that’s again repeated in season two when Nivellen first mentions them to Geralt. As The Witcher’s story progresses and Ciri’s powers become more important and well known for each of the show’s characters, she wanted this mystical threat to also approach the plot’s forefront.
Hissrich does hint that the nature of the Wild Hunt to Ciri will be something that will be explored more extensively in the upcoming Blood Origin prequel, which on its own might already make it worth watching for many. Of course, the writer also wanted to make sure Geralt’s disbelief of the tales about the Wild Hunt left him dumbfounded when they finally show up in the season finale.
The Wild Hunt had been spotted with almost complete certainty when the show was still being filmed in the United Kingdom earlier this year, and The Witcher’s production team surely paid attention to Sapkowski’s description of the riders as a spectral entity. This resulted in the final look the Wild Hunt sports in the Netflix series where, just like in the games, great attention to detail has gone into making Eredin Bréacc Glas and the rest of its members truly unique characters.
This is just one of many questions Hissrich has been answering over the past week through every outlet that becomes available, going as far as willingly running a brief Witcher AMA on Twitter and justifying why Eskel’s fate turned out like that on Netflix, although the latter topic is still a bit of a touchy subject for many fans.
Source: @NetflixGeeked|Twitter