Why I fell in love with The Witcher

I’m writing this in tears, just hours after finishing the final episode of “The Witcher Season 1″ on Netflix.

My husband and I streamed the eight episodes over a couple weeks because he heard it was like “Game of Thrones” … and, well, let’s just say it’s been a helluva journey.

The journey starts with my dismissive mocking.

I had never heard of this Netflix series, or the bestselling books it is based on, nor the video games and its legions of fans. 

I was ready to be surprised.

Throughout the first episode, I was skeptical and indifferent. I was disoriented by the story and its weird timeline, and I remember giggling at the main character, brought to life by a beefcake I had never heard of before: Henry Cavill, the guy who played the latest Superman, my husband informed me. 

“Huh … I wonder if he’s embarrassed by this role. I think he took the coin and ran,” I cackled, impressed by my smug wit.

Well, the joke’s on me. By the end of the final episode, I was in tears. I was rageful.

I was … in love?

WTF?

Am I going to be cosplaying in a druid cloak at a Witcher comic con after this COVID pandemic? 

It’s quite possible. [ 2021 update: Now I make Yennefer necklaces LOL]

In an interview about the Netflix series, Andrzej Sapkowski, the author of the books, told People: “I shall be happy if the viewers — and readers — take anything away, anything that shall enrich them in some way. Also, I sincerely hope to leave the viewers — and readers — hot. In every sense. Not tepid, not lukewarm.”

Welp, mission accomplished, Mr. Sapkowski. You’ve blown my mind, and left me hot. In every sense.

If you haven’t watched the show yet, I urge you to binge and come back and obsess with me here … because I don’t want to ruin your own journey. Watching it without any foreknowledge was a gift.

So consider this your spoiler warning.

OK, so where to begin.

Let’s start with my first revelation.

Geralt of Rivia, aka the White Wolf, aka … The Witcher.

As I’ve said before, he didn’t impress me much at the beginning.

I’m not normally attracted to men who look like they were conjured from the cover of a romance novel. But alllll of the deep, psychological buttons have been pressed: 

This Witcher is a lone wolf … emotionally unavailable, yet tenderhearted. He’s a thoughtful, merciful outcast who can literally slay monsters. He also has a chiseled jaw and a cartoonish upper body that could swallow me with a hug. A sexy, monster-killing protector and reluctant hero … Henry Cavill has described him as a “white knight” in interviews. Add the self-depracating humor and his gruff, frustrated “Fuck!” when he knows he has to take care of business … and … well, it didn’t take long for my mocking giggles to turn into giddy ones. 

By the fifth episode, when he bathed in a castle hot-tub by candlelight, I had already ordered the books and started following Cavill on Instagram. I learned Mr. Cavill is from England, one of five brothers (damn), and a huge video gamer, which is hard to picture after seeing him wield actual swords (he did his own stunts).

Most importantly, I learned he was a chonky kid growing up, nicknamed “Fat Cavill.” Of course, I obviously know nothing about this man, but I get that pain … and I think it shines through his character, straight to my heart. And other places.

My new crush isn’t the only part of “The Witcher” that’s left me hot.

After finishing the series, I went back to watch the second episode — not to gaze upon that beautiful Geralt, but to better understand the metamorphosis of Yennefer of Vengerberg, played by Anya Chalotra.

Throughout the season, she’s called many things: A mage, a sorceress, an enchantress … and that “very sexy but insane witch.” (Life goals.)

Before Yennefer transforms into that witch, she’s a devastatingly shy, insecure hunchback, who wants nothing more than to be beautiful, to be desired, to be important.

I get that pain, too.

While I have many favorite quotes from the show, this one from Yennefer’s schooling at Aretuza is the best for the purposes of this blog. This is from Tissaia de Vries, the stone-cold rectoress of the school of magic, who delivers her wisdom as the camera slowly follows her as she circles her pupils (some powerful mise en scene I didn’t appreciate until the second viewing):

“Chaos is the most dangerous thing in this world .… Magic is organizing chaos … and while oceans of mystery remain, we have deduced that this requires two things: Balance and control. Without them, chaos will kill you.

Yennefer’s chaos — her rage — builds throughout the show, mostly around her desperate longing for a baby. Her fertility was the sacrifice she made for her magical transformation, and she refuses to accept it. She rejects and resents her mentor, Tissaia, for the tradeoff, and quite literally wants to burn the whole system to the ground.

Flash forward to the dramatic last minutes of the final episode, and Tissaia instructs her star pupil: 

“Let your chaos explode.”

Yennefer unleashes a firestorm to defend herself and to help save their world from encroaching evil.

I watched this episode the day after Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, a sorceress in her own right.

We read fantasy novels and watch shows like “The Witcher” to escape the boring routines of our lives, but my political reality has never seemed scarier.

“The Witcher” is full of fictional elves and sorcery, but it’s built around very human evils such as conquest and genocide, issues that have become very real as a twisted new fascism rises around the world. 

I roared like the T-Rex in Jurassic Park on the morning after Trump “won” the election in 2016. The screech — the rage — I felt was captured in those final moments when Yennefer could finally explode her chaos. 

Controlling women … our bodies, our coin, our voices … we know what’s at stake with the 2020 election.

In 2019, Sady Doyle wrote a book all about the patriarchal fear of women. In “Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers,” she introduced me to the ancient story of Tiamat, the primordial sea serpent and original mother: 

“We all meet Tiamat in our own way. This was mine. Jurassic Park was the first story that told me that girls could be dragons too; that somewhere inside me, somewhere so deep I might not even recognize it, was something very old and very strong. Something that did not take kindly to cages. …

Women, once unleashed by the social progress of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, can only keep going. We will take back the world, our bodies, all the possibilities that have been denied us. When we open our mouths, our oppressors will fall silent. Where we walk, the earth itself will tremble. I am Woman. You there, in the Jeep: hear me roar.”

I felt that roar in the final scene with Yennefer. All of the rage of the last four years, my professional frustrations, the tradeoffs, the fertility struggles, the complicated relationships with my own mother and mentors.

All of it came out in an ugly cry.

Now that I feel real danger — for ourselves and our children — what can I do with this chaos? What can I do with my own “magic” … how can I use my talents to defend our progress, to fight injustice, and keep marching forward?

I’m ready to let my chaos explode.