More Witcher: Blood Origin Details Revealed

Television

Netflix’s prequel series, The Witcher: Blood Origin, is just around the corner, with its marketing campaign in full swing. In a recent What to Know video posted to their YouTube channel, Netflix reveals some additional lore breaks and cliché tropes that will be at play in the upcoming four-episode event.

The video begins with a new prophecy delivered by the Oracle Ithlinne, who will be portrayed as a very young girl in this series. Ithlinne shouldn’t be a character in the story, as she is not an actual character, per se. What little is known of Ithlinne is from hundreds and hundreds of years after the time depicted in Blood Origin. She should not be giving prophecies about the Conjunction, as this video confirms, especially at this point in time. Ithlinne’s participation in this narrative is yet another example of Blood Origin taking every significant event from the thousands of years of Witcher history and condensing them into a single time. This video confirms that the series will take place over a single month, meaning that thousands of years of history will be depicted in just a few short weeks’ time. These events, including Ithlinne, cannot coexist in so short a span. Many of them play off the history of the other events.

This What to Know video contains countless references to lore breaks. Similar to how season 2 of the main Witcher show only took names from the source material, so too is Blood Origin only taking names of events for their story. The series will center around a non-canonical evil empire — the most basic of fantasy and sci-fi clichés — and will feature a group of scrappy rebels taking it on. All the references to an evil empire with three sub-kingdoms and three clans of elves that are sworn to protect the rulers of these kingdoms are fanciful and cheap creations by Netflix, which hold no inspiration from Witcher history.

Perhaps the most well-known villain in the Witcher universe is Eredin, the leader of the Wild Hunt. It was previously announced that Eredin would be taking part in both this series and the main Witcher show going forward, but we finally have a first look at this villain given to us by this What to Know video. This small and unassuming actor does not have the gravitas, build, or intimidation factor to bring this frightening character to life. This pathetic depiction of Eredin is not aided by the cheap and strangely designed armor that he is seen wearing.

Without Henry Cavill, talented writers, or any adaptation integrity, this franchise is falling apart. From every press announcement, trailer or image released, and behind-the-scenes videos, it is clear that Blood Origin will not be able to withstand the storm that has befallen Netflix’s Witcher.